Shapes of Clay

  The showman (blessing in a thousand shapes!)
  Parades a "School of Educated Apes!"
  Small education's needed, I opine,
  Or native wit, to make a monkey shine;
  The brute exhibited has naught to do
  But ape the larger apes who come to view—
  The hoodlum with his horrible grimace,
  Long upper lip and furtive, shuffling pace,
  Significant reminders of the time
  When hunters, not policemen, made him climb;
  The lady loafer with her draggling "trail,"
  That free translation of an ancient tail;
  The sand-lot quadrumane in hairy suit,
  Whose heels are thumbs perverted by the boot;
  The painted actress throwing down the gage
  To elder artists of the sylvan stage,
  Proving that in the time of Noah's flood
  Two ape-skins held her whole profession's blood;
  The critic waiting, like a hungry pup,
  To write the school—perhaps to eat it—up,
  As chance or luck occasion may reveal
  To earn a dollar or maraud a meal.
  To view the school of apes these creatures go,
  Unconscious that themselves are half the show.
  These, if the simian his course but trim
  To copy them as they have copied him,
  Will call him "educated." Of a verity
  There's much to learn by study of posterity.

  'Twas a weary-looking mortal, and he wandered near the portal
    Of the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead.
  He was pale and worn exceeding and his manner was unheeding,
    As if it could not matter what he did nor what he said.

  "Sacred stranger"—I addressed him with a reverence befitting
    The austere, unintermitting, dread solemnity he wore;
  'Tis the custom, too, prevailing in that vicinage when hailing
    One who possibly may be a person lately "gone before"—

  "Sacred stranger, much I ponder on your evident dejection,
    But my carefulest reflection leaves the riddle still unread.
  How do you yourself explain your dismal tendency to wander
    By the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead?"

  Then that solemn person, pausing in the march that he was making,
    Roused himself as if awaking, fixed his dull and stony eye
  On my countenance and, slowly, like a priest devout and holy,
    Chanted in a mournful monotone the following reply:

  "O my brother, do not fear it; I'm no disembodied spirit—
    I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon my head.
  I am watching by this portal for some late lamented mortal
    To arise in his disquietude and leave his earthy bed.

  "Then I hope to take possession and pull in the earth above me
    And, renouncing my profession, ne'er be heard of any more.
  For there's not a soul to love me and no living thing respects me,
    Which so painfully affects me that I fain would 'go before.'"

  Then I felt a deep compassion for the gentleman's dejection,
    For privation of affection would refrigerate a frog.
  So I said: "If nothing human, and if neither man nor woman
    Can appreciate the fashion of your merit—buy a dog."

  When Man and Woman had been made,
    All but the disposition,
  The Devil to the workshop strayed,
    And somehow gained admission.

  The Master rested from his work,
    For this was on a Sunday,
  The man was snoring like a Turk,
    Content to wait till Monday.

  "Too bad!" the Woman cried; "Oh, why,
    Does slumber not benumb me?
  A disposition! Oh, I die
    To know if 'twill become me!"

  The Adversary said: "No doubt
    'Twill be extremely fine, ma'am,
  Though sure 'tis long to be without—
    I beg to lend you mine, ma'am."

  The Devil's disposition when
    She'd got, of course she wore it,
  For she'd no disposition then,
    Nor now has, to restore it.

  Dim, grim, and silent as a ghost,
  The sentry occupied his post,
  To all the stirrings of the night
  Alert of ear and sharp of sight.
  A sudden something—sight or sound,
  About, above, or underground,
  He knew not what, nor where—ensued,
  Thrilling the sleeping solitude.
  The soldier cried: "Halt! Who goes there?"
  The answer came: "Death—in the air."
  "Advance, Death—give the countersign,
  Or perish if you cross that line!"
  To change his tone Death thought it wise—
  Reminded him they 'd been allies
  Against the Russ, the Frank, the Turk,
  In many a bloody bit of work.
  "In short," said he, "in every weather
  We've soldiered, you and I, together."
  The sentry would not let him pass.
  "Go back," he growled, "you tiresome ass—
  Go back and rest till the next war,
  Nor kill by methods all abhor:
  Miasma, famine, filth and vice,
  With plagues of locusts, plagues of lice,
  Foul food, foul water, and foul gases,
  Rank exhalations from morasses.
  If you employ such low allies
  This business you will vulgarize.
  Renouncing then the field of fame
  To wallow in a waste of shame,
  I'll prostitute my strength and lurk
  About the country doing work—
  These hands to labor I'll devote,
  Nor cut, by Heaven, another throat!"

  So, Beecher's dead. His was a great soul, too—
    Great as a giant organ is, whose reeds
    Hold in them all the souls of all the creeds
  That man has ever taught and never knew.

  When on this mighty instrument He laid
    His hand Who fashioned it, our common moan
    Was suppliant in its thundering. The tone
  Grew more vivacious when the Devil played.

  No more those luring harmonies we hear,
    And lo! already men forget the sound.
    They turn, retracing all the dubious ground
  O'er which it led them, pigwise, by the ear.

  "I saw your charms in another's arms,"
    Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil;
  "And he kissed you fair as he held you there,
    A willing bird in a serpent's coil!"

  The maid looked up from the cinctured cup
    Wherein she was crushing the berries red,
  Pain and surprise in her honest eyes—
    "It was only one o' those gods," she said.

  With saintly grace and reverent tread,
    She walked among the graves with me;
    Her every foot-fall seemed to be
  A benediction on the dead.

  The guardian spirit of the place
    She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn
    Surprised in the untimely morn
  She made with her resplendent face.

  Moved by some waywardness of will,
    Three paces from the path apart
    She stepped and stood—my prescient heart
  Was stricken with a passing chill.

  The folk-lore of the years agone
    Remembering, I smiled and thought:
    "Who shudders suddenly at naught,
  His grave is being trod upon."

  But now I know that it was more
    Than idle fancy. O, my sweet,
    I did not think such little feet
  Could make a buried heart so sore!

  I step from the door with a shiver
    (This fog is uncommonly cold)
  And ask myself: What did I give her?—
    The maiden a trifle gone-old,
    With the head of gray hair that was gold.

  Ah, well, I suppose 'twas a dollar,
    And doubtless the change is correct,
  Though it's odd that it seems so much smaller
    Than what I'd a right to expect.
    But you pay when you dine, I reflect.

  So I walk up the street—'twas a saunter
    A score of years back, when I strolled
  From this door; and our talk was all banter
    Those days when her hair was of gold,
    And the sea-fog less searching and cold.

  I button my coat (for I'm shaken,
    And fevered a trifle, and flushed
  With the wine that I ought to have taken,)
    Time was, at this coat I'd have blushed,
    Though truly, 'tis cleverly brushed.

  A score? Why, that isn't so very
    Much time to have lost from a life.
  There's reason enough to be merry:
    I've not fallen down in the strife,
    But marched with the drum and the fife.

  If Hope, when she lured me and beckoned,
    Had pushed at my shoulders instead,
  And Fame, on whose favors I reckoned,
    Had laureled the worthiest head,
    I could garland the years that are dead.

  Believe me, I've held my own, mostly
    Through all of this wild masquerade;
  But somehow the fog is more ghostly
    To-night, and the skies are more grayed,
    Like the locks of the restaurant maid.

  If ever I'd fainted and faltered
    I'd fancy this did but appear;
  But the climate, I'm certain, has altered—
    Grown colder and more austere
    Than it was in that earlier year.

  The lights, too, are strangely unsteady,
    That lead from the street to the quay.
  I think they'll go out—and I'm ready
    To follow. Out there in the sea
    The fog-bell is calling to me.

  "If life were not worth having," said the preacher,
  "'T would have in suicide one pleasant feature."
  "An error," said the pessimist, "you're making:
  What's not worth having cannot be worth taking."

  To Parmentier Parisians raise
    A statue fine and large:
  He cooked potatoes fifty ways,
    Nor ever led a charge.

  "Palmam qui meruit"—the rest
    You knew as well as I;
  And best of all to him that best
    Of sayings will apply.

  Let meaner men the poet's bays
    Or warrior's medal wear;
  Who cooks potatoes fifty ways
    Shall bear the palm—de terre.

  What! photograph in colors? 'Tis a dream
    And he who dreams it is not overwise,
  If colors are vibration they but seem,
    And have no being. But if Tyndall lies,
    Why, come, then—photograph my lady's eyes.
  Nay, friend, you can't; the splendor of their blue,
    As on my own beclouded orbs they rest,
  To naught but vibratory motion's due,
    As heart, head, limbs and all I am attest.
  How could her eyes, at rest themselves, be making
  In me so uncontrollable a shaking?

  Over the man the street car ran,
    And the driver did never grin.
  "O killer of men, pray tell me when
    Your laughter means to begin.

  "Ten years to a day I've observed you slay,
    And I never have missed before
  Your jubilant peals as your crunching wheels
    Were spattered with human gore.

  "Why is it, my boy, that you smother your joy,
    And why do you make no sign
  Of the merry mind that is dancing behind
    A solemner face than mine?"

  The driver replied: "I would laugh till I cried
    If I had bisected you;
  But I'd like to explain, if I can for the pain,
    'T is myself that I've cut in two."

  Thy gift, if that it be of God,
    Thou hast no warrant to appraise,
    Nor say: "Here part, O Muse, our ways,
  The road too stony to be trod."

  Not thine to call the labor hard
    And the reward inadequate.
    Who haggles o'er his hire with Fate
  Is better bargainer than bard.

  What! count the effort labor lost
    When thy good angel holds the reed?
    It were a sorry thing indeed
  To stay him till thy palm be crossed.

  "The laborer is worthy"—nay,
    The sacred ministry of song
    Is rapture!—'t were a grievous wrong
  To fix a wages-rate for play.

  Says Anderson, Theosophist:
  "Among the many that exist
         In modern halls,
  Some lived in ancient Egypt's clime
  And in their childhood saw the prime
         Of Karnak's walls."

  Ah, Anderson, if that is true
  'T is my conviction, sir, that you
         Are one of those
  That once resided by the Nile,
  Peer to the sacred Crocodile,
         Heir to his woes.

  My judgment is, the holy Cat
  Mews through your larynx (and your hat)
         These many years.
  Through you the godlike Onion brings
  Its melancholy sense of things,
         And moves to tears.

  In you the Bull divine again
  Bellows and paws the dusty plain,
      To nature true.
  I challenge not his ancient hate
  But, lowering my knurly pate,
      Lock horns with you.

  And though Reincarnation prove
  A creed too stubborn to remove,
      And all your school
  Of Theosophs I cannot scare—
  All the more earnestly I swear
      That you're a fool.

  You'll say that this is mere abuse
  Without, in fraying you, a use.
      That's plain to see
  With only half an eye. Come, now,
  Be fair, be fair,—consider how
      It eases me!

  "What is that, mother?"
                           "The funny man, child.
  His hands are black, but his heart is mild."

  "May I touch him, mother?"
                           "'T were foolishly done:
  He is slightly touched already, my son."

  "O, why does he wear such a ghastly grin?"
  "That's the outward sign of a joke within."

  "Will he crack it, mother?"
                            "Not so, my saint;
  'T is meant for the Saturday Livercomplaint."
  "Does he suffer, mother?"
                          "God help him, yes!—
  A thousand and fifty kinds of distress."

  "What makes him sweat so?"
                           "The demons that lurk
  In the fear of having to go to work."

  "Why doesn't he end, then, his life with a rope?"
  "Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope."

  I saw—'twas in a dream, the other night—
  A man whose hair with age was thin and white:
    One hundred years had bettered by his birth,
  And still his step was firm, his eye was bright.

  Before him and about him pressed a crowd.
  Each head in reverence was bared and bowed,
    And Jews and Gentiles in a hundred tongues
  Extolled his deeds and spoke his fame aloud.

  I joined the throng and, pushing forward, cried,
  "Montefiore!" with the rest, and vied
    In efforts to caress the hand that ne'er
  To want and worth had charity denied.

  So closely round him swarmed our shouting clan
  He scarce could breathe, and taking from a pan
    A gleaming coin he tossed it o'er our heads,
  And in a moment was a lonely man!

  Cried Age to Youth: "Abate your speed!—
  The distance hither's brief indeed."
  But Youth pressed on without delay—
  The shout had reached but half the way.

  I'm told that men have sometimes got
    Too confidential, and
  Have said to one another what
    They—well, you understand.
  I hope I don't offend you, sweet,
  But are you sure that you're discreet?

  'Tis true, sometimes my friends in wine
    Their conquests do recall,
  But none can truly say that mine
    Are known to him at all.
  I never, never talk you o'er—
  In truth, I never get the floor.

  'Tis the census enumerator
    A-singing all forlorn:
  It's ho! for the tall potater,
    And ho! for the clustered corn.
  The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and the fine
  Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine.

  "Some there must be to till the soil
    And the widow's weeds keep down.
  I wasn't cut out for rural toil
    But they won't let me live in town!
  They 're not so many by two or three,
    As they think, but ah! they 're too many for me."

  Thus the census man, bowed down with care,
    Warbled his wood-note high.
  There was blood on his brow and blood in his hair,
    But he had no blood in his eye.

  Baffled he stands upon the track—
  The automatic switches clack.

  Where'er he turns his solemn eyes
  The interlocking signals rise.

  The trains, before his visage pale,
  Glide smoothly by, nor leave the rail.

  No splinter-spitted victim he
  Hears uttering the note high C.

  In sorrow deep he hangs his head,
  A-weary—would that he were dead.

  Now suddenly his spirits rise—
  A great thought kindles in his eyes.

  Hope, like a headlight's vivid glare,
  Splendors the path of his despair.

  His genius shines, the clouds roll back—
  "I'll place obstructions on the track!"

  Says Gerald Massey: "When I write, a band
  Of souls of the departed guides my hand."
  How strange that poems cumbering our shelves,
  Penned by immortal parts, have none themselves!

  Newman, in you two parasites combine:
  As tapeworm and as graveworm too you shine.
  When on the virtues of the quick you've dwelt,
  The pride of residence was all you felt
  (What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew
  To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?)
  And when the praises of the dead you've sung,
  'Twas appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue;
  As ill-bred men when warming to their wine
  Boast of its merit though it be but brine.
  Nor gratitude incites your song, nor should—
  Even charity would shun you if she could.
  You share, 'tis true, the rich man's daily dole,
  But what you get you take by way of toll.
  Vain to resist you—vermifuge alone
  Has power to push you from your robber throne.
  When to escape you he's compelled to die
  Hey! presto!—in the twinkling of an eye
  You vanish as a tapeworm, reappear
  As graveworm and resume your curst career.
  As host no more, to satisfy your need
  He serves as dinner your unaltered greed.
  O thrifty sycophant of wealth and fame,
  Son of servility and priest of shame,
  While naught your mad ambition can abate
  To lick the spittle of the rich and great;
  While still like smoke your eulogies arise
  To soot your heroes and inflame our eyes;
  While still with holy oil, like that which ran
  Down Aaron's beard, you smear each famous man,
  I cannot choose but think it very odd
  It ne'er occurs to you to fawn on God.

  O bear me, gods, to some enchanted isle
  Where woman's tears can antidote her smile.

  Despots effete upon tottering thrones
  Unsteadily poised upon dead men's bones,
  Walk up! walk up! the circus is free,
  And this wonderful spectacle you shall see:
  Millions of voters who mostly are fools—
  Demagogues' dupes and candidates' tools,
  Armies of uniformed mountebanks,
  And braying disciples of brainless cranks.
  Many a week they've bellowed like beeves,
  Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves,
  Libeling freely the quick and the dead
  And painting the New Jerusalem red.
  Tyrants monarchical—emperors, kings,
  Princes and nobles and all such things—
  Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way:
  There's nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay,
  And the freaks and curios here to be seen
  Are very uncommonly grand and serene.

  No more with vivacity they debate,
  Nor cheerfully crack the illogical pate;
  No longer, the dull understanding to aid,
  The stomach accepts the instructive blade,
  Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what
  From a revelation of rabbit-shot;
  And vilification's flames—behold!
  Burn with a bickering faint and cold.

  Magnificent spectacle!—every tongue
  Suddenly civil that yesterday rung
  (Like a clapper beating a brazen bell)
  Each fair reputation's eternal knell;
  Hands no longer delivering blows,
  And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows.

  Walk up, gentlemen—nothing to pay—
  The Devil goes back to Hell to-day.

  "O warrior with the burnished arms—
    With bullion cord and tassel—
  Pray tell me of the lurid charms
  Of service and the fierce alarms:
    The storming of the castle,
  The charge across the smoking field,
    The rifles' busy rattle—
  What thoughts inspire the men who wield
  The blade—their gallant souls how steeled
    And fortified in battle."

  "Nay, man of peace, seek not to know
    War's baleful fascination—
  The soldier's hunger for the foe,
  His dread of safety, joy to go
    To court annihilation.
  Though calling bugles blow not now,
    Nor drums begin to beat yet,
  One fear unmans me, I'll allow,
  And poisons all my pleasure: How
    If I should get my feet wet!"

  "A LITERARY METHOD."

  His poems Riley says that he indites
    Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers,
  Feed him throat-full: for what the beggar writes
    Upon his empty stomach empties ours!

  Because you call yourself Knights Templar, and
  There's neither Knight nor Temple in the land,—
    Because you thus by vain pretense degrade
  To paltry purposes traditions grand,—

  Because to cheat the ignorant you say
  The thing that's not, elated still to sway
    The crass credulity of gaping fools
  And women by fantastical display,—

  Because no sacred fires did ever warm
  Your hearts, high knightly service to perform—
    A woman's breast or coffer of a man
  The only citadel you dare to storm,—

  Because while railing still at lord and peer,
  At pomp and fuss-and-feathers while you jeer,
    Each member of your order tries to graft
  A peacock's tail upon his barren rear,—

  Because that all these things are thus and so,
  I bid you welcome to our city. Lo!
    You're free to come, and free to stay, and free
  As soon as it shall please you, sirs—to go.

  "Sas agapo sas agapo,"
    He sang beneath her lattice.
  "'Sas agapo'?" she murmured—"O,
    I wonder, now, what that is!"

  Was she less fair that she did bear
    So light a load of knowledge?
  Are loving looks got out of books,
    Or kisses taught in college?

  Of woman's lore give me no more
    Than how to love,—in many
  A tongue men brawl: she speaks them all
    Who says "I love," in any.

  "O father, I saw at the church as I passed
  The populace gathered in numbers so vast
  That they couldn't get in; and their voices were low,
  And they looked as if suffering terrible woe."

  "'Twas the funeral, child, of a gentleman dead
  For whom the great heart of humanity bled."

  "What made it bleed, father, for every day
  Somebody passes forever away?
  Do the newspaper men print a column or more
  Of every person whose troubles are o'er?"

  "O, no; they could never do that—and indeed,
  Though printers might print it, no reader would read.
  To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must be borne,
  But 'tis only the Wise and the Good that all mourn."

  "That's right, father dear, but how can our eyes
  Distinguish in dead men the Good and the Wise?"

  "That's easy enough to the stupidest mind:
  They're poor, and in dying leave nothing behind."

  "Seest thou in mine eye, father, anything green?
  And takest thy son for a gaping marine?
  Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and the Good
  Who are poor and lamented to babes in the wood."

  And that horrible youth as I hastened away
  Was building a wink that affronted the day.

  "'Tis a woeful yarn," said the sailor man bold
    Who had sailed the northern-lakes—
  "No woefuler one has ever been told
    Exceptin' them called 'fakes.'"

  "Go on, thou son of the wind and fog,
    For I burn to know the worst!"
  But his silent lip in a glass of grog
    Was dreamily immersed.

  Then he wiped it on his sleeve and said:
    "It's never like that I drinks
  But what of the gallant gent that's dead
    I truly mournful thinks.

  "He was a soldier chap—leastways
    As 'Colonel' he was knew;
  An' he hailed from some'rs where they raise
    A grass that's heavenly blue.

  "He sailed as a passenger aboard
    The schooner 'Henery Jo.'
  O wild the waves and galeses roared,
    Like taggers in a show!

  "But he sat at table that calm an' mild
    As if he never had let
  His sperit know that the waves was wild
    An' everlastin' wet!—

  "Jest set with a bottle afore his nose,
    As was labeled 'Total Eclipse'
  (The bottle was) an' he frequent rose
    A glass o' the same to his lips.

  "An' he says to me (for the steward slick
    Of the 'Henery Jo' was I):
  'This sailor life's the very old Nick—
    On the lakes it's powerful dry!'

  "I says: 'Aye, aye, sir, it beats the Dutch.
    I hopes you'll outlast the trip.'
  But if I'd been him—an' I said as much—
    I'd 'a' took a faster ship.

  "His laughture, loud an' long an' free,
    Rang out o'er the tempest's roar.
  'You're an elegant reasoner,' says he,
    'But it's powerful dry ashore!'"

  "O mariner man, why pause and don
    A look of so deep concern?
  Have another glass—go on, go on,
    For to know the worst I burn."

  "One day he was leanin' over the rail,
    When his footing some way slipped,
  An' (this is the woefulest part o' my tale),
    He was accidental unshipped!

  "The empty boats was overboard hove,
    As he swum in the 'Henery's wake';
  But 'fore we had 'bouted ship he had drove
    From sight on the ragin' lake!"

  "And so the poor gentleman was drowned—
    And now I'm apprised of the worst."
  "What! him? 'Twas an hour afore he was found—
  In the yawl—stone dead o' thirst!"

  O, heavenly powers! will wonders never cease?—
  Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese!
  The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire!
  The drinking water wet! the coal on fire!
  In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair,
  Forever running, yet forever there!
  A tail appended to the gray baboon!
  A person coming out of a saloon!
  Last, and of all most marvelous to see,
  A female Yahoo flinging filth at me!
  If 'twould but stick I'd bear upon my coat
  May Little's proof that she is fit to vote.

  Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men,
    For years I criticised their prose and verges:
  Pointed out all their blunders of the pen,
  Their shallowness of thought and feeling; then
    Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses!

  They said: "That's all that he can do—just sneer,
    And pull to pieces and be analytic.
  Why doesn't he himself, eschewing fear,
  Publish a book or two, and so appear
    As one who has the right to be a critic?

  "Let him who knows it all forbear to tell
    How little others know, but show his learning."
  The public added: "Who has written well
  May censure freely"—quoting Pope. I fell
    Into the trap and books began out-turning,—

  Books by the score—fine prose and poems fair,
    And not a book of them but was a terror,
  They were so great and perfect; though I swear
  I tried right hard to work in, here and there,
    (My nature still forbade) a fault or error.

  'Tis true, some wretches, whom I'd scratched, no doubt,
    Professed to find—but that's a trifling matter.
  Now, when the flood of noble books was out
  I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout,
    Till I was thought as mad as any hatter!

  (Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say.
    'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em,
  But truly, you'll confess 'tis very sad
  We wear the ugly things they make. Begad,
    They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!)

  "Consistency, thou art a"—well, you're paste!
    When next I felt my demon in possession,
  And made the field of authorship a waste,
  All said of me:  "What execrable taste,
    To rail at others of his own profession!"

  Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin
    Who has of literature some clear-cut notion,
  And hears a voice from Heaven say: "Pitch in"?
  He finds himself—alas, poor son of sin—
    Between the devil and the deep blue ocean!

  Once with Christ he entered Salem,
  Once in Moab bullied Balaam,
  Once by Apuleius staged
  He the pious much enraged.
  And, again, his head, as beaver,
  Topped the neck of Nick the Weaver.
  Omar saw him (minus tether—
  Free and wanton as the weather:
  Knowing naught of bit or spur)
  Stamping over Bahram-Gur.
  Now, as Altgeld, see him joy
  As Governor of Illinois!

    Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed
    The tools and terrors of his awful trade;
    The key, the frown as pitiless as night,
    That slays intending trespassers at sight,
    And, at his side in easy reach, the curled
  Interrogation points all ready to be hurled.

    Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced
    No others were about) a soul advanced—
    A fat, orbicular and jolly soul
    With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl—
    A monk so prepossessing that the saint
    Admired him, breathless, until weak and faint,
    Forgot his frown and all his questions too,
    Forgoing even the customary "Who?"—
    Threw wide the gate and, with a friendly grin,
  Said, "'Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in."

    The soul smiled pleasantly. "Excuse me, please—
    Who's in there?" By insensible degrees
    The impudence dispelled the saint's esteem,
    As growing snores annihilate a dream.
    The frown began to blacken on his brow,
    His hand to reach for "Whence?" and "Why?" and "How?"
    "O, no offense, I hope," the soul explained;
    "I'm rather—well, particular. I've strained
    A point in coming here at all; 'tis said
    That Susan Anthony (I hear she's dead
    At last) and all her followers are here.
  As company, they'd be—confess it—rather queer."

    The saint replied, his rising anger past:
    "What can I do?—the law is hard-and-fast,
    Albeit unwritten and on earth unknown—
    An oral order issued from the Throne.
    By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred
  God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would be absurd."

  That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile,
  Said, slowly turning on his heel the while:
  "Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar—
  I'm going, so please you, where the pretty women are."

  1895.

  The Widows of Ashur
    Are loud in their wailing:
  "No longer the 'masher'
  Sees Widows of Ashur!"
  So each is a lasher
    Of Man's smallest failing.
  The Widows of Ashur
    Are loud in their wailing.

  The Cave of Adullam,
    That home of reviling—
  No wooing can gull 'em
  In Cave of Adullam.
  No angel can lull 'em
    To cease their defiling
  The Cave of Adullam,
    That home of reviling.

  At men they are cursing—
    The Widows of Ashur;
  Themselves, too, for nursing
  The men they are cursing.
  The praise they're rehearsing
    Of every slasher
  At men. They are cursing
    The Widows of Ashur.

  Dudley, great placeman, man of mark and note,
    Worthy of honor from a feeble pen
    Blunted in service of all true, good men,
  You serve the Lord—in courses, table d'hôte:
  Au, naturel, as well as à la Nick—
    "Eat and be thankful, though it make you sick."

  O, truly pious caterer, forbear
    To push the Saviour and Him crucified
    (Brochette you'd call it) into their inside
  Who're all unused to such ambrosial fare.
  The stomach of the soul makes quick revulsion
  Of aught that it has taken on compulsion.

  I search the Scriptures, but I do not find
    That e'er the Spirit beats with angry wings
    For entrance to the heart, but sits and sings
  To charm away the scruples of the mind.
  It says: "Receive me, please; I'll not compel"—
  Though if you don't you will go straight to Hell!

  Well, that's compulsion, you will say. 'T is true:
    We cower timidly beneath the rod
    Lifted in menace by an angry God,
  But won't endure it from an ape like you.
  Detested simian with thumb prehensile,
  Switch me and I would brain you with my pencil!

  Face you the Throne, nor dare to turn your back
    On its transplendency to flog some wight
    Who gropes and stumbles in the infernal night
  Your ugly shadow lays along his track.
  O, Thou who from the Temple scourged the sin,
  Behold what rascals try to scourge it in!