Shapes of Clay

    Assistance now that we have got Protection.'
  Thenceforth I bought his wares—at what a price
    For shells 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 circumvent the subterranean crew
   Of anthropophagi and save my bacon.
   My fortitude 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 classed 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.
  Ah! Cerberus, if you had but begot
    A race of three-mouthed dogs for man to nourish
  And woman to caress, the muse had not
    Lamented the decay of virtues currish,
    And triple-hydrophobia now would flourish,
  For barking, biting, kissing to employ
  Canine repeaters were indeed a joy.
  Lord! how we cling to this vile world! Here I,
    Whose dust was laid ere I began this carping,
  By moles and worms and such familiar fry
    Run through and through, am singing still and harping
    Of mundane matters—flatting, too, and sharping.
  I hate the Angel of the Sleeping Cup:
  So I'm for getting—and for shutting—up.

IN MEMORIAM

  Beauty (they called her) wasn't a maid
  Of many things in the world afraid.
  She wasn't a maid who turned and fled
  At sight of a mouse, alive or dead.
  She wasn't a maid a man could 'shoo'
  By shouting, however abruptly, 'Boo!'
  She wasn't a maid who'd run and hide
  If her face and figure you idly eyed.
  She was'nt a maid who'd blush and shake
  When asked what part of the fowl she'd take.
  (I blush myself to confess she preferred,
  And commonly got, the most of the bird.)
  She wasn't a maid to simper because
  She was asked to sing—if she ever was.
  In short, if the truth must be displayed
  In puris—Beauty wasn't a maid.
  Beauty, furry and fine and fat,
  Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that,
  Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat!