Shapes of Clay

  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 damnation 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 shells 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 shells 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:
  'God help you, gentle sir,' I said. 'No doubt,'
  He answered gravely, 'I'll get on without