Shapes of Clay

  When Liberverm resigned the chair
  Of This or That in college, where
  For two decades he'd gorged his brain
  With more than it could well contain,
  In order to relieve the stress
  He took to writing for the press.
  Then Pondronummus said, "I'll help
  This mine of talent to devel'p;"
  And straightway bought with coin and credit
  The Thundergust for him to edit.

  The great man seized the pen and ink
  And wrote so hard he couldn't think;
  Ideas grew beneath his fist
  And flew like falcons from his wrist.
  His pen shot sparks all kinds of ways
  Till all the rivers were ablaze,
  And where the coruscations fell
  Men uttered words I dare not spell.

  Eftsoons with corrugated brow,
  Wet towels bound about his pow,
  Locked legs and failing appetite,
  He thought so hard he couldn't write.
  His soaring fancies, chickenwise,
  Came home to roost and wouldn't rise.
  With dimmer light and milder heat
  His goose-quill staggered o'er the sheet,
  Then dragged, then stopped; the finish came—
  He couldn't even write his name.
  The Thundergust in three short weeks
  Had risen, roared, and split its cheeks.
  Said Pondronummus, "How unjust!
  The storm I raised has laid my dust!"

  When, Moneybagger, you have aught
  Invested in a vein of thought,
  Be sure you've purchased not, instead,
  That salted claim, a bookworm's head.

  O very remarkable mortal,
    What food is engaging your jaws
  And staining with amber their portal?
      "It's 'baccy I chaws."

  And why do you sway in your walking,
    To right and left many degrees,
  And hitch up your trousers when talking?
      "I follers the seas."

  Great indolent shark in the rollers,
    Is "'baccy," too, one of your faults?—
  You, too, display maculate molars.
      "I dines upon salts."

  Strange diet!—intestinal pain it
    Is commonly given to nip.
  And how can you ever obtain it?
      "I follers the ship."

  "I beg you to note," said a Man to a Goose,
  As he plucked from her bosom the plumage all loose,
  "That pillows and cushions of feathers and beds
  As warm as maids' hearts and as soft as their heads,
  Increase of life's comforts the general sum—
  Which raises the standard of living." "Come, come,"
  The Goose said, impatiently, "tell me or cease,
  How that is of any advantage to geese."
  "What, what!" said the man—"you are very obtuse!
  Consumption no profit to those who produce?
  No good to accrue to Supply from a grand
  Progressive expansion, all round, of Demand?
  Luxurious habits no benefit bring
  To those who purvey the luxurious thing?
  Consider, I pray you, my friend, how the growth
  Of luxury promises—" "Promises," quoth
  The sufferer, "what?—to what course is it pledged
  To pay me for being so often defledged?"
  "Accustomed"—this notion the plucker expressed
  As he ripped out a handful of down from her breast—
  "To one kind of luxury, people soon yearn
  For others and ever for others in turn;
  And the man who to-night on your feathers will rest,
  His mutton or bacon or beef to digest,
  His hunger to-morrow will wish to assuage
  By dining on goose with a dressing of sage."

  "I've found the secret of your charm," I said,
    Expounding with complacency my guess.
  Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled,
    For all its secret was unconsciousness.

  I reckon that ye never knew,
  That dandy slugger, Tom Carew,
  He had a touch as light an' free
  As that of any honey-bee;
  But where it lit there wasn't much
  To jestify another touch.
  O, what a Sunday-school it was
  To watch him puttin' up his paws
  An' roominate upon their heft—
  Particular his holy left!
  Tom was my style—that's all I say;
  Some others may be equal gay.
  What's come of him? Dunno, I'm sure—
  He's dead—which make his fate obscure.
  I only started in to clear
  One vital p'int in his career,
  Which is to say—afore he died
  He soiled his erming mighty snide.
  Ye see he took to politics
  And learnt them statesmen-fellers' tricks;
  Pulled wires, wore stovepipe hats, used scent,
  Just like he was the President;
  Went to the Legislator; spoke
  Right out agin the British yoke—
  But that was right. He let his hair
  Grow long to qualify for Mayor,
  An' once or twice he poked his snoot
  In Congress like a low galoot!
  It had to come—no gent can hope
  To wrastle God agin the rope.
  Tom went from bad to wuss. Being dead,
  I s'pose it oughtn't to be said,
  For sech inikities as flow
  From politics ain't fit to know;
  But, if you think it's actin' white
  To tell it—Thomas throwed a fight!

  As time rolled on the whole world came to be
    A desolation and a darksome curse;
  And some one said: "The changes that you see
    In the fair frame of things, from bad to worse,
  Are wrought by strikes. The sun withdrew his glimmer
  Because the moon assisted with her shimmer.

  "Then, when poor Luna, straining very hard,
    Doubled her light to serve a darkling world,
  He called her 'scab,' and meanly would retard
    Her rising: and at last the villain hurled
  A heavy beam which knocked her o'er the Lion
  Into the nebula of great O'Ryan.

  "The planets all had struck some time before,
    Demanding what they said were equal rights:
  Some pointing out that others had far more
    That a fair dividend of satellites.
  So all went out—though those the best provided,
  If they had dared, would rather have abided.

  "The stars struck too—I think it was because
    The comets had more liberty than they,
  And were not bound by any hampering laws,
    While they were fixed; and there are those who say
  The comets' tresses nettled poor Altair,
  An aged orb that hasn't any hair.

  "The earth's the only one that isn't in
    The movement—I suppose because she's watched
  With horror and disgust how her fair skin
    Her pranking parasites have fouled and blotched
  With blood and grease in every labor riot,
  When seeing any purse or throat to fly at."

  "The world is dull," I cried in my despair:
  "Its myths and fables are no longer fair.

  "Roll back thy centuries, O Father Time.
  To Greece transport me in her golden prime.

  "Give back the beautiful old Gods again—
  The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad's jocund train,

  "Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades,
  The Sirens singing by the sleepy seas.

  "Nay, show me but a Gorgon and I'll dare
  To lift mine eyes to her peculiar hair

  "(The fatal horrors of her snaky pate,
  That stiffen men into a stony state)

  "And die—erecting, as my soul goes hence,
  A statue of myself, without expense."

  Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of Fate:
  "Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters wait."

  Raising my eyes, I saw Medusa stand,
  Stheno, Euryale, on either hand.

  I gazed unpetrified and unappalled—
  The girls had aged and were entirely bald!

  Sleep fell upon my senses and I dreamed
    Long years had circled since my life had fled.
  The world was different, and all things seemed
    Remote and strange, like noises to the dead.
    And one great Voice there was; and something said:
  "Posterity is speaking—rightly deemed
  Infallible:" and so I gave attention,
  Hoping Posterity my name would mention.

  "Illustrious Spirit," said the Voice, "appear!
    While we confirm eternally thy fame,
  Before our dread tribunal answer, here,
    Why do no statues celebrate thy name,
    No monuments thy services proclaim?
  Why did not thy contemporaries rear
  To thee some schoolhouse or memorial college?
  It looks almighty queer, you must acknowledge."

  Up spake I hotly: "That is where you err!"
    But some one thundered in my ear: "You shan't
  Be interrupting these proceedings, sir;
    The question was addressed to General Grant."
    Some other things were spoken which I can't
  Distinctly now recall, but I infer,
  By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead,
  Posterity's environment is torrid.

  Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark)
    Another Voice, clear, comfortable, strong,
  As Grant's great shade, replying from the dark,
    Said in a tone that rang the earth along,
    And thrilled the senses of the Judges' throng:
  "I'd rather you would question why, in park
  And street, my monuments were not erected
  Than why they were." Then, waking, I reflected.

  Enoch Arden was an able
    Seaman; hear of his mishap—
  Not in wild mendacious fable,
   As 't was told by t' other chap;

  For I hold it is a youthful
    Indiscretion to tell lies,
  And the writer that is truthful
    Has the reader that is wise.

  Enoch Arden, able seaman,
    On an isle was cast away,
  And before he was a freeman
    Time had touched him up with gray.

  Long he searched the fair horizon,
    Seated on a mountain top;
  Vessel ne'er he set his eyes on
    That would undertake to stop.

  Seeing that his sight was growing
    Dim and dimmer, day by day,
  Enoch said he must be going.
    So he rose and went away—

  Went away and so continued
    Till he lost his lonely isle:
  Mr. Arden was so sinewed
    He could row for many a mile.

  Compass he had not, nor sextant,
    To direct him o'er the sea:
  Ere 't was known that he was extant,
    At his widow's home was he.

  When he saw the hills and hollows
    And the streets he could but know,
  He gave utterance as follows
    To the sentiments below:

  "Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver,
    Too, my timbers!) but, I say,
  W'at a larruk to diskiver,
    I have lost me blessid way!

  "W'at, alas, would be my bloomin'
    Fate if Philip now I see,
  Which I lammed?—or my old 'oman,
    Which has frequent basted me?"

  Scenes of childhood swam around him
    At the thought of such a lot:
  In a swoon his Annie found him
    And conveyed him to her cot.

  'T was the very house, the garden,
    Where their honeymoon was passed:
  'T was the place where Mrs. Arden
    Would have mourned him to the last.

  Ah, what grief she'd known without him!
    Now what tears of joy she shed!
  Enoch Arden looked about him:
    "Shanghaied!"—that was all he said.

  Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park,
  Grim and bloody and stiff and stark,
  And a Land League man with averted eye
  Crosses himself as he hurries by.
  And he says to his conscience under his breath:
  "I have had no hand in this deed of death!"

  A Fenian, making a circuit wide
  And passing them by on the other side,
  Shudders and crosses himself and cries:
  "Who says that I did it, he lies, he lies!"

  Gingerly stepping across the gore,
  Pat Satan comes after the two before,
  Makes, in a solemnly comical way,
  The sign of the cross and is heard to say:
  "O dear, what a terrible sight to see,
  For babes like them and a saint like me!"

  1882.

  I ne'er could be entirely fond
  Of any maiden who's a blonde,
  And no brunette that e'er I saw
  Had charms my heart's whole
     warmth to draw.

  Yet sure no girl was ever made
  Just half of light and half of shade.
  And so, this happy mean to get,
  I love a blonde and a brunette.

  Study good women and ignore the rest,
  For he best knows the sex who knows the best.

  From pride, joy, hate, greed, melancholy—
  From any kind of vice, or folly,
  Bias, propensity or passion
  That is in prevalence and fashion,
  Save one, the sufferer or lover
  May, by the grace of God, recover:
  Alone that spiritual tetter,
  The zeal to make creation better,
  Glows still immedicably warmer.
  Who knows of a reformed reformer?

  Hail, peerless Pun! thou last and best,
  Most rare and excellent bequest
  Of dying idiot to the wit
  He died of, rat-like, in a pit!

  Thyself disguised, in many a way
  Thou let'st thy sudden splendor play,
  Adorning all where'er it turns,
  As the revealing bull's-eye burns,
  Of the dim thief, and plays its trick
  Upon the lock he means to pick.

  Yet sometimes, too, thou dost appear
  As boldly as a brigadier
  Tricked out with marks and signs, all o'er,
  Of rank, brigade, division, corps,
  To show by every means he can
  An officer is not a man;
  Or naked, with a lordly swagger,
  Proud as a cur without a wagger,
  Who says: "See simple worth prevail—
  All dog, sir—not a bit of tail!"

  'T is then men give thee loudest welcome,
  As if thou wert a soul from Hell come.

  O obvious Pun! thou hast the grace
  Of skeleton clock without a case—
  With all its boweling displayed,
  And all its organs on parade.

  Dear Pun, you're common ground of bliss,
  Where Punch and I can meet and kiss;
  Than thee my wit can stoop no low'r—
  No higher his does ever soar.

  O statesmen, what would you be at,
    With torches, flags and bands?
  You make me first throw up my hat,
    And then my hands.

  Dear, if I never saw your face again;
    If all the music of your voice were mute
    As that of a forlorn and broken lute;
  If only in my dreams I might attain
  The benediction of your touch, how vain
    Were Faith to justify the old pursuit
    Of happiness, or Reason to confute
  The pessimist philosophy of pain.
  Yet Love not altogether is unwise,
    For still the wind would murmur in the corn,
      And still the sun would splendor all the mere;
      And I—I could not, dearest, choose but hear
  Your voice upon the breeze and see your eyes
    Shine in the glory of the summer morn.

  Down in the state of Maine, the story goes,
    A woman, to secure a lapsing pension,
  Married a soldier—though the good Lord knows
    That very common act scarce calls for mention.
  What makes it worthy to be writ and read—
  The man she married had been nine hours dead!

  Now, marrying a corpse is not an act
    Familiar to our daily observation,
  And so I crave her pardon if the fact
    Suggests this interesting speculation:
  Should some mischance restore the man to life
  Would she be then a widow, or a wife?

  Let casuists contest the point; I'm not
    Disposed to grapple with so great a matter.
  'T would tie my thinker in a double knot
    And drive me staring mad as any hatter—
  Though I submit that hatters are, in fact,
  Sane, and all other human beings cracked.

  Small thought have I of Destiny or Chance;
    Luck seems to me the same thing as Intention;
  In metaphysics I could ne'er advance,
    And think it of the Devil's own invention.
  Enough of joy to know though when I wed
  I must be married, yet I may be dead.

  "Resolved that we will post," the tradesmen say,
  "All names of debtors who do never pay."
  "Whose shall be first?" inquires the ready scribe—
  "Who are the chiefs of the marauding tribe?"
  Lo! high Parnassus, lifting from the plain,
  Upon his hoary peak, a noble fane!
  Within that temple all the names are scrolled
  Of village bards upon a slab of gold;
  To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire,
  And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire.
  Yet not to total shame those names devote,
  But add in mercy this explaining note:
  "These cheat because the law makes theft a crime,
  And they obey all laws but laws of rhyme."

  "Let music flourish!" So he said and died.
    Hark! ere he's gone the minstrelsy begins:
  The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide,
  Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide—
    The grand old lawyers, chinning on their chins!

  "Authority, authority!" they shout
  Whose minds, not large enough to hold a doubt,
  Some chance opinion ever entertain,
  By dogma billeted upon their brain.
  "Ha!" they exclaim with choreatic glee,
  "Here's Dabster if you won't give in to me—
  Dabster, sir, Dabster, to whom all men look
  With reverence!" The fellow wrote a book.
  It matters not that many another wight
  Has thought more deeply, could more wisely write
  On t' other side—that you yourself possess
  Knowledge where Dabster did but faintly guess.
  God help you if ambitious to persuade
  The fools who take opinion ready-made
  And "recognize authorities." Be sure
  No tittle of their folly they'll abjure
  For all that you can say. But write it down,
  Publish and die and get a great renown—
  Faith! how they'll snap it up, misread, misquote,
  Swear that they had a hand in all you wrote,
  And ride your fame like monkeys on a goat!

  The King of Scotland, years and years ago,
  Convened his courtiers in a gallant row
  And thus addressed them:

            "Gentle sirs, from you
  Abundant counsel I have had, and true:
  What laws to make to serve the public weal;
  What laws of Nature's making to repeal;
  What old religion is the only true one,
  And what the greater merit of some new one;
  What friends of yours my favor have forgot;
  Which of your enemies against me plot.
  In harvests ample to augment my treasures,
  Behold the fruits of your sagacious measures!
  The punctual planets, to their periods just,
  Attest your wisdom and approve my trust.
  Lo! the reward your shining virtues bring:
  The grateful placemen bless their useful king!
  But while you quaff the nectar of my favor
  I mean somewhat to modify its flavor
  By just infusing a peculiar dash
  Of tonic bitter in the calabash.
  And should you, too abstemious, disdain it,
  Egad! I'll hold your noses till you drain it!

  "You know, you dogs, your master long has felt
  A keen distemper in the royal pelt—
  A testy, superficial irritation,
  Brought home, I fancy, from some foreign nation.
  For this a thousand simples you've prescribed—
  Unguents external, draughts to be imbibed.
  You've plundered Scotland of its plants, the seas
  You've ravished, and despoiled the Hebrides,
  To brew me remedies which, in probation,
  Were sovereign only in their application.
  In vain, and eke in pain, have I applied
  Your flattering unctions to my soul and hide:
  Physic and hope have been my daily food—
  I've swallowed treacle by the holy rood!

  "Your wisdom, which sufficed to guide the year
  And tame the seasons in their mad career,
  When set to higher purposes has failed me
  And added anguish to the ills that ailed me.
  Nor that alone, but each ambitious leech
  His rivals' skill has labored to impeach
  By hints equivocal in secret speech.
  For years, to conquer our respective broils,
  We've plied each other with pacific oils.
  In vain: your turbulence is unallayed,
  My flame unquenched; your rioting unstayed;
  My life so wretched from your strife to save it
  That death were welcome did I dare to brave it.
  With zeal inspired by your intemperate pranks,
  My subjects muster in contending ranks.
  Those fling their banners to the startled breeze
  To champion some royal ointment; these
  The standard of some royal purge display
  And 'neath that ensign wage a wasteful fray!
  Brave tongues are thundering from sea to sea,
  Torrents of sweat roll reeking o'er the lea!
  My people perish in their martial fear,
  And rival bagpipes cleave the royal ear!

  "Now, caitiffs, tremble, for this very hour
  Your injured sovereign shall assert his power!
  Behold this lotion, carefully compound
  Of all the poisons you for me have found—
  Of biting washes such as tan the skin,
  And drastic drinks to vex the parts within.
  What aggravates an ailment will produce—
  I mean to rub you with this dreadful juice!
  Divided counsels you no more shall hatch—
  At last you shall unanimously scratch.
  Kneel, villains, kneel, and doff your shirts—God bless us!
  They'll seem, when you resume them, robes of Nessus!"

  The sovereign ceased, and, sealing what he spoke,
  From Arthur's Seat confirming thunders broke.
  The conscious culprits, to their fate resigned,
  Sank to their knees, all piously inclined.
  This act, from high Ben Lomond where she floats,
  The thrifty goddess, Caledonia, notes.
  Glibly as nimble sixpence, down she tilts
  Headlong, and ravishes away their kilts,
  Tears off each plaid and all their shirts discloses,
  Removes each shirt and their broad backs exposes.
  The king advanced—then cursing fled amain
  Dashing the phial to the stony plain
  (Where't straight became a fountain brimming o'er,
  Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store)
  For lo! already on each back sans stitch
  The red sign manual of the Rosy Witch!

  [Footnote 1: A famous height overlooking Edinburgh.]

  I fell asleep and dreamed that I
  Was flung, like Vulcan, from the sky;
  Like him was lamed—another part:
  His leg was crippled and my heart.
  I woke in time to see my love
  Conceal a letter in her glove.

  When lion and lamb have together lain down
    Spectators cry out, all in chorus;
  "The lamb doesn't shrink nor the lion frown—
    A miracle's working before us!"

  But 't is patent why Hot-head his wrath holds in,
    And Faint-heart her terror and loathing;
  For the one's but an ass in a lion's skin,
    The other a wolf in sheep's clothing.

  The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper.

  So you're unthankful—you'll not eat the bird?
  You sit about the place all day and gird.
  I understand you'll not attend the ball
  That's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall.

  Why, that is true, precisely as you've heard:
  I have no teeth and I will eat no bird.

  Ah! see how good is Providence. Because
  Of teeth He has denuded both your jaws
  The fowl's made tender; you can overcome it
  By suction; or at least—well, you can gum it,
  Attesting thus the dictum of the preachers
  That Providence is good to all His creatures—
  Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend,
  If our Thanksgiving dinner you'll attend
  You shall say grace—ask God to bless at least
  The soft and liquid portions of the feast.

  Without those teeth my speech is rather thick—
  He'll hardly understand Gum Arabic.
  No, I'll not dine to-day. As to the ball,
  'Tis known to you that I've no legs at all.
  I had the gout—hereditary; so,
  As it could not be cornered in my toe
  They cut my legs off in the fond belief
  That shortening me would make my anguish brief.
  Lacking my legs I could not prosecute
  With any good advantage a pursuit;
  And so, because my father chose to court
  Heaven's favor with his ortolans and Port
  (Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord supplied
  Saws for my legs, an almshouse for my pride
  And, once a year, a bird for my inside.
  No, I'll not dance—my light fantastic toe
  Took to its heels some twenty years ago.
  Some small repairs would be required for putting
  My feelings on a saltatory footing.

  (Sings)
  O the legless man's an unhappy chap—
    Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy.  The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap—
    Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum.  The plums of office avoid his plate
  No matter how much he may stump the State—
      Tum-hi, ho-heeee.  The grass grows never beneath his feet,
  But he cannot hope to make both ends meet—
      Tum-hi.  With a gleeless eye and a somber heart,
  He plays the role of his mortal part:
  Wholly himself he can never be.
  O, a soleless corporation is he!
      Tum.

  The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend,
  Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend.
  Some recognition cannot be denied
  To the great mercy that has turned aside
  The sword of death from us and let it fall
  Upon the people's necks in Montreal;
  That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome,
  And drowned the Texans out of house and home;
  Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood
  The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.
  Compared with blessings of so high degree,
  Your private woes look mighty small—to me.

  L'AUDACE.

  Daughter of God! Audacity divine—
  Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign—
  Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,
  Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:
  Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,
  Presumption, actuates the charging ass.
  Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings
  Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings;
  The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,
  For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,
  Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!
  Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,
  They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;
  The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs
  Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.
  Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand
  For stronger voices and a harder hand:
  Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,
  And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,
  The wisest and the best of men,
  Betook him to the place where sat
  With folded feet upon a mat
  Of precious stones beneath a palm,
  In sweet and everlasting calm,
  That ancient and immortal gent,
  The God of Rational Content.
  As tranquil and unmoved as Fate,
  The deity reposed in state,
  With palm to palm and sole to sole,
  And beaded breast and beetling jowl,
  And belly spread upon his thighs,
  And costly diamonds for eyes.
  As Chunder Sen approached and knelt
  To show the reverence he felt;
  Then beat his head upon the sod
  To prove his fealty to the god;
  And then by gestures signified
  The other sentiments inside;
  The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen,
  The wisest and the best of men,
  Half-fancied) grew by just a thought
  More narrow than it truly ought.
  Yet still that prince of devotees,
  Persistent upon bended knees
  And elbows bored into the earth,
  Declared the god's exceeding worth,
  And begged his favor. Then at last,
  Within that cavernous and vast
  Thoracic space was heard a sound
  Like that of water underground—
  A gurgling note that found a vent
  At mouth of that Immortal Gent
  In such a chuckle as no ear
  Had e'er been privileged to hear!

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,
  The wisest, greatest, best of men,
  Heard with a natural surprise
  That mighty midriff improvise.
  And greater yet the marvel was
  When from between those massive jaws
  Fell words to make the views more plain
  The god was pleased to entertain:
  "Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,"
  So ran the rede in speech of men—
  "Foremost of mortals in assent
  To creed of Rational Content,
  Why come you here to impetrate
  A blessing on your scurvy pate?
  Can you not rationally be
  Content without disturbing me?
  Can you not take a hint—a wink—
  Of what of all this rot I think?
  Is laughter lost upon you quite,
  To check you in your pious rite?
  What! know you not we gods protest
  That all religion is a jest?
  You take me seriously?—you
  About me make a great ado
  (When I but wish to be alone)
  With attitudes supine and prone,
  With genuflexions and with prayers,
  And putting on of solemn airs,
  To draw my mind from the survey
  Of Rational Content away!
  Learn once for all, if learn you can,
  This truth, significant to man:
  A pious person is by odds
  The one most hateful to the gods."
  Then stretching forth his great right hand,
  Which shadowed all that sunny land,
  That deity bestowed a touch
  Which Chunder Sen not overmuch
  Enjoyed—a touch divine that made
  The sufferer hear stars! They played
  And sang as on Creation's morn
  When spheric harmony was born.

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,
  The most astonished man of men,
  Fell straight asleep, and when he woke
  The deity nor moved nor spoke,
  But sat beneath that ancient palm
  In sweet and everlasting calm.

  The lily cranks, the lily cranks,
    The loppy, loony lasses!
  They multiply in rising ranks
  To execute their solemn pranks,
    They moon along in masses.
  Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,
  Sunflower decorate the dado!

  The maiden ass, the maiden ass,
    The tall and tailless jenny!
  In limp attire as green as grass,
  She stands, a monumental brass,
    The one of one too many.
  Blow, sweet lily, in the shade! O,
  Sunflower decorate the dado!

  God said: "Let there be noise." The dawning fire
  Of Independence gilded every spire.

  Time was the local poets sang their songs
  Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs
  I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke
  Bards, like the conies, are "a feeble folk,"
  Fearing all noises but the one they make
  Themselves—at which all other mortals quake.
  Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,
  Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes
  Pour forth to move, where'er the season serves,
  If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;
  As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all
  The sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.
  A year's exemption from the critic's curse
  Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.
  Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,
  Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight,
  Or by the sudden plashing of a stone
  From some adjacent cottage garden thrown,
  But straight renew the song with double din
  Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in.
  Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,
  My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)
  Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,
  Accomplishing my body all in brass,
  And arm in battle royal to oppose
  A village poet singing through the nose,
  Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strums
  With clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?
  No, let them rhyme; I fought them once before
  And stilled their songs—but, Satan! how they swore!—
  Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats
  They cleared for action with their sweetest notes;
  Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine)
  And damned them roundly all along the line;
  Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,
  A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!
  What gained I so? I feathered every curse
  Launched at the village bards with lilting verse.
  The town approved and christened me (to show its
  High admiration) Chief of Local Poets!

  Dull were the days and sober,
    The mountains were brown and bare,
  For the season was sad October
    And a dirge was in the air.

  The mated starlings flew over
    To the isles of the southern sea.
  She wept for her warrior lover—
    Wept and exclaimed: "Ah, me!

  "Long years have I mourned my darling
    In his battle-bed at rest;
  And it's O, to be a starling,
    With a mate to share my nest!"

  The angels pitied her sorrow,
    Restoring her warrior's life;
  And he came to her arms on the morrow
    To claim her and take her to wife.

  An aged lover—a portly,
    Bald lover, a trifle too stiff,
  With manners that would have been courtly,
    And would have been graceful, if—

  If the angels had only restored him
    Without the additional years
  That had passed since the enemy bored him
    To death with their long, sharp spears.

  As it was, he bored her, and she rambled
    Away with her father's young groom,
  And the old lover smiled as he ambled
    Contentedly back to the tomb.

  Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the land
  With difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand!
  Then dies the State!—and, in its carcass found,
  The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound.
  Alas! was it for this that Warren died,
  And Arnold sold himself to t' other side,
  Stark piled at Bennington his British dead,
  And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?—
  For this that Perry did the foeman fleece,
  And Hull surrender to preserve the peace?
  Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray,
  The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay
  And gallant trappings of this idle life,
  And be more fit for one another's wife.

  A bull imprisoned in a stall
  Broke boldly the confining wall,
  And found himself, when out of bounds,
  Within a washerwoman's grounds.
  Where, hanging on a line to dry,
  A crimson skirt inflamed his eye.
  With bellowings that woke the dead,
  He bent his formidable head,
  With pointed horns and gnarly forehead;
  Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid,
  Began, with rage made half insane,
  To paw the arid earth amain,
  Flinging the dust upon his flanks
  In desolating clouds and banks,
  The while his eyes' uneasy white
  Betrayed his doubt what foe the bright
  Red tent concealed, perchance, from sight.
  The garment, which, all undismayed,
  Had never paled a single shade,
  Now found a tongue—a dangling sock,
  Left carelessly inside the smock:
  "I must insist, my gracious liege,
  That you'll be pleased to raise the siege:
  My colors I will never strike.
  I know your sex—you're all alike.
  Some small experience I've had—
  You're not the first I've driven mad."