Black Beetles in Amber Part 6

Low and more low the royal eyelids creep, She gives the a.s.senting nod and falls asleep.

Straightway the Bonynges all invade the Court And telegraph the news to every port.

Beneath the seas, red-hot, the tidings fly, The cables crinkle and the fishes fry!

The world, awaking like a startled bat, Exclaims: "A Bonynge? What the devil's that?"

Mackay, meanwhile, to envy all attent, Untaught to spare, unable to relent, Walks in our town on needles and on pins, And in a mean, revengeful spirit--grins!

Sing, muse, what next to break the peace occurred-- What act uncivil, what unfriendly word?

The G.o.d of Bosh ascending from his pool, Where since creation he has played the fool, Clove the blue slush, as other G.o.ds the sky, And, waiting but a moment's s.p.a.ce to dry, Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. "O son,"

He said, "alike of nature and a gun, Knowest not Mackay's insufferable sin?

Hast thou not heard that he doth stand and grin?

Arise! a.s.sert thy manhood, and attest The uncommercial spirit in thy breast.

Avenge thine honor, for by Jove I swear Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care!"

He spake, and ere his wors.h.i.+per could kneel Had dived into his slush pool, head and heel.

Full of the G.o.d and to revenges nerved, And conscious of a will that never swerved, Bonynge set sail: the world beyond the wave As gladly took him as the other gave.

New York received him, but a shudder ran Through all the western coast, which knew the man; And science said that the seismic action Was owing to an asteroid's impaction.

O G.o.ddess, sing what Bonynge next essayed.

Did he unscabbard the avenging blade, The long spear brandish and porrect the s.h.i.+eld, Havoc the town and devastate the field?

His sacred thirst for blood did he allay By halving the unfortunate Mackay?

Small were the profit and the joy to him To hew a base-born person, limb from limb.

Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline, That of diviner spirits is divine.

Bonynge at noonday stood in public places And (with regard to the Mackays) made faces!

Before those formidable frowns and scowls The dogs fled, tail-tucked, with affrighted howls, And horses, terrified, with flying feet O'erthrew the apple-stands along the street, Involving the metropolis in vast Financial ruin! Man himself, aghast, Retreated east and west and north and south Before the menace of that twisted mouth, Till Jove, in answer to their prayers, sent Night To veil the dreadful visage from their sight!

Such were the causes of the horrid strife-- The mother-wrongs which nourished it to life.

O, for a quill from an archangel's wing!

O, for a voice that's adequate to sing The splendor and the terror of the fray, The scattered hair, the coat-tails all astray, The parted collars and the gouts of gore Reeking and smoking on the banker's floor, The interlocking limbs, embraces dire, Revolving bodies and deranged attire!

Vain, vain the trial: 'tis vouchsafed to none To sing two millionaires rolled into one!

My hand and pen their offices refuse, And hoa.r.s.e and hoa.r.s.er grows the weary muse.

Alone remains, to tell of the event, Abandoned, lost and variously rent, The Bonynge nethermost habiliment.

A SONG IN PRAISE

Hail, blessed Blunder! golden idol, hail!-- Clay-footed deity of all who fail.

Celestial image, let thy glory s.h.i.+ne, Thy feet concealing, but a lamp to mine.

Let me, at seasons opportune and fit, By turns adore thee and by turns commit.

In thy high service let me ever be (Yet never serve thee as my critics me) Happy and fallible, content to feel I blunder chiefly when to thee I kneel.

But best felicity is his thy praise Who utters unaware in works and ways-- Who _laborare est orare_ proves, And feels thy suasion wheresoe'er he moves, Serving thy purpose, not thine altar, still, And working, for he thinks it his, thy will.

If such a life with blessings be not fraught, I envy Peter Robertson for naught.

A POET'S FATHER

Welcker, I'm told, can boast a father great And honored in the service of the State.

Public Instruction all his mind employs-- He guides its methods and its wage enjoys.

Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand, He waves his ferule o'er a studious land Where humming youth, intent upon the page, Thirsting for knowledge with a n.o.ble rage, Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and ask To slake their fervor at his private flask.

Arrested by the terror of his frown, The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down; The fly impaled on the tormenting pin Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din; Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb; Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies To perch upon the brows of the unwise; The supple switch forsakes the parent wood To settle where 'twill do the greatest good, Puissant still, as when of old it strove With Solomon for spitting on the stove Learned Professor, variously great, Guide, guardian, instructor of the State-- Quick to discern and zealous to correct The faults which mar the public intellect From where of Siskiyou the northern bound Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground To where in San Diego's torrid clime The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime-- Beneath your stupid nose can you not see The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee?

O mighty master of a thousand schools, Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools.

A COWARD

When Pickering, distressed by an "attack,"

Has the strange insolence to answer back He hides behind a name that is a lie, And out of shadow falters his reply.

G.o.d knows him, though--identified alike By hardihood to rise and fear to strike, And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees, That, hide from others with what care he please, Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide That from himself himself can ever hide!

Hard fate indeed to feel at every breath His burden of ident.i.ty till death!-- No moment's respite from the immortal load, To think himself a serpent or a toad, Or dream, with a divine, ecstatic glow, He's long been dead and canonized a crow!

TO MY LIARS

Attend, mine enemies of all degrees, From sandlot orators and sandlot fleas To fallen gentlemen and rising louts Who babble slander at your drinking bouts, And, filled with unfamiliar wine, begin Lies drowned, ere born, in more congenial gin.

But most attend, ye persons of the press Who live (though why, yourselves alone can guess) In hope deferred, ambitious still to s.h.i.+ne By hating me at half a cent a line-- Like drones among the bees of brighter wing, Sunless to s.h.i.+ne and impotent to sting.

To estimate in easy verse I'll try The controversial value of a lie.

So lend your ears--G.o.d knows you have enough!-- I mean to teach, and if I can't I'll cuff.

A lie is wicked, so the priests declare; But that to us is neither here nor there.

'Tis worse than wicked, it is vulgar too; _N'importe_--with that we've nothing here to do.

If 'twere artistic I would lie till death, And shape a falsehood with my latest breath.

Parrhasius never more did pity lack, The while his model writhed upon the rack, Than I for my collaborator's pain, Who, stabbed with fibs again and yet again, Would vainly seek to move my stubborn heart If slander were, and wit were not, an art.

The ill-bred and illiterate can lie As fast as you, and faster far than I.

Shall I compete, then, in a strife accurst Where Allen Forman is an easy first, And where the second prize is rightly flung To Charley Shortridge or to Mike de Young?

In mental combat but a single end Inspires the formidable to contend.

Not by the raw recruit's ambition fired, By whom foul blows, though harmless, are admired; Not by the coward's zeal, who, on his knee Behind the bole of his protecting tree, So curves his musket that the bark it fits, And, firing, blows the weapon into bits; But with the n.o.ble aim of one whose heart Values his foeman for he loves his art The veteran debater moves afield, Untaught to libel as untaught to yield.

Dear foeman mine, I've but this end in view-- That to prevent which most you wish to do.

What, then, are you most eager to be at?

To hate me? Nay, I'll help you, sir, at that.

This only pa.s.sion does your soul inspire: You wish to scorn me. Well, you shall admire.

'Tis not enough my neighbors that you school In the belief that I'm a rogue or fool; That small advantage you would gladly trade For what one moment would _yourself_ persuade.

Write, then, your largest and your longest lie: _You_ sha'n't believe it, howsoe'er you try.

No falsehood you can tell, no evil do, Shall turn me from the truth to injure you.

So all your war is barren of effect; I find my victory in your respect.

What profit have you if the world you set Against me? For the world will soon forget It thought me this or that; but I'll retain A vivid picture of your moral stain, And cherish till my memory expire The sweet, soft consciousness that you're a liar Is it _your_ triumph, then, to prove that you Will do the thing that I would scorn to do?

G.o.d grant that I forever be exempt From such advantage as my foe's contempt.