Shapes of Clay Part 14

He joyed in fighting with his eyes (his fist Prudently pendent from a peaceful wrist) And loved to loll on the Parna.s.sian mount, His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count,-- What poetry he'd written but for lack Of skill, when he had counted, to count back!

Alas, no more he'll climb the sacred steep To wake the lyre and put the world to sleep!

To his rapt lip his soul no longer springs And like a jaybird from a knot-hole sings.

No more the clubmen, pickled with his wine, Spread wide their ears and hiccough "That's divine!"

The genius of his purse no longer draws The pleasing thunders of a paid applause.

All silent now, nor sound nor sense remains, Though riddances of worms improve his brains.

All his no talents to the earth revert, And Fame concludes the record: "Dirt to dirt!"

THE POLITICIAN.

"Let Glory's sons manipulate The tiller of the s.h.i.+p of State.

Be mine the humble, useful toil To work the tiller of the soil."

AN INSCRIPTION

For a Proposed Monument in Was.h.i.+ngton to Him who Made it Beautiful.

Erected to "Boss" Shepherd by the dear Good folk he lived and moved among in peace-- Guarded on either hand by the police, With soldiers in his front and in his rear.

FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS.

The polecat, sovereign of its native wood, Dashes d.a.m.nation upon bad and good; The health of all the upas trees impairs By exhalations deadlier than theirs; Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad-- The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode!

She shakes o'er breathless hill and shrinking dale The horrid aspergillus of her tail!

From every saturated hair, till dry, The spargent fragrances divergent fly, Deafen the earth and scream along the sky!

Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife Of urban odors to ungladden life-- Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire The flesh to torture and the soul to fire-- Where all the "well defined and several stinks"

Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks-- Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense Of lost distinction, leveled eminence, She suddenly resigns her baleful trust, Nor ever lays again our mortal dust.

Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk, She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk.

A "MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON."

"O, I'm the Unaverage Man, But you never have heard of me, For my brother, the Average Man, outran My fame with rapiditee, And I'm sunk in Oblivion's sea, But my bully big brother the world can span With his wide notorietee.

I do everything that I can To make 'em attend to me, But the papers ignore the Unaverage Man With a weird uniformitee."

So sang with a dolorous note A voice that I heard from the beach; On the sable waters it seemed to float Like a mortal part of speech.

The sea was Oblivion's sea, And I cried as I plunged to swim: "The Unaverage Man shall reside with me."

But he didn't--I stayed with him!

THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT.

Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice And sh.e.l.ls and corals, brought for my inspection From the fair tropics--paid a Christian price And was content in my fool's paradise, Where never had been heard the word "Protection."

'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone-- No customs-house, collector nor collection, But a man came, who, in a pious tone Condoled with me that I had never known The manifest advantage of Protection.

So, when the trading-boat arrived one day, He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section.

The traders paddled for their lives away, Nor came again into that haunted bay, The blessed home thereafter of Protection.

Then down he sat, that philanthropic man, And spat upon some mud of his selection, And worked it, with his knuckles in a pan, To shapes of sh.e.l.ls and coral things, and span A thread of song in glory of Protection.

He baked them in the sun. His air devout Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion: "G.o.d help you, gentle sir," I said. "No doubt,"

He answered gravely, "I'll get on without a.s.sistance now that we have got Protection."

Thenceforth I bought his wares--at what a price For sh.e.l.ls and corals of such imperfection!

"Ah, now," said he, "your lot is truly nice."

But still in all that isle there was no spice To season to my taste that dish, Protection.

SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES.

I died. As meekly in the earth I lay, With shriveled fingers reverently folded, The worm--uncivil engineer!--my clay Tunneled industriously, and the mole did.

My body could not dodge them, but my soul did; For that had flown from this terrestrial ball And I was rid of it for good and all.

So there I lay, debating what to do-- What measures might most usefully be taken To circ.u.mvent the subterranean crew Of anthropophagi and save my bacon.

My fort.i.tude was all this while unshaken, But any gentleman, of course, protests Against receiving uninvited guests.

However proud he might be of his meats, Not even Apicius, nor, I think, Lucullus, Wasted on tramps his culinary sweets; "_Aut Caesar_," say judicious hosts, "_aut nullus_."

And though when Marcius came unbidden Tullus Aufidius feasted him because he starved, Marcius by Tullus afterward was carved.

We feed the hungry, as the book commands (For men might question else our orthodoxy) But do not care to see the outstretched hands, And so we minister to them by proxy.

When Want, in his improper person, knocks he Finds we're engaged. The graveworm's very fresh To think we like his presence in the flesh.

So, as I said, I lay in doubt; in all That underworld no judges could determine My rights. When Death approaches them they fall, And falling, naturally soil their ermine.

And still below ground, as above, the vermin That work by dark and silent methods win The case--the burial case that one is in.

Cases at law so slowly get ahead, Even when the right is visibly unclouded, That if all men are cla.s.sed as quick and dead, The judges all are dead, though some unshrouded.

Pray Jove that when they're actually crowded On Styx's brink, and Charon rows in sight, His bark prove worse than Cerberus's bite.