Shapes of Clay

OMNES VANITAS.

  Alas for ambition's possessor!
    Alas for the famous and proud!
  The Isle of Manhattan's best dresser
    Is wearing a hand-me-down shroud.
  The world has forgotten his glory;
    The wagoner sings on his wain,
  And Chauncey Depew tells a story,
    And jackasses laugh in the lane.

ASPIRATION.

  No man can truthfully say that he would not like to be President.

William C. Whitney.

  Lo! the wild rabbit, happy in the pride
  Of qualities to meaner beasts denied,
  Surveys the ass with reverence and fear,
  Adoring his superior length of ear,
  And says: 'No living creature, lean or fat,
  But wishes in his heart to be like That!'

DEMOCRACY.

  Let slaves and subjects with unvaried psalms
  Before their sovereign execute salaams;
  The freeman scorns one idol to adore—
  Tom, Dick and Harry and himself are four.

THE NEW 'ULALUME.'

  The skies they were ashen and sober,
    The leaves they were crisped and sere,—
    ' ' ' withering ' '
  It was night in the lonesome October
    Of my most immemorial year;
  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,—
  ' ' down ' ' dark tarn ' '
    In the misty mid region of Weir,—
    ' ' ghoul-haunted woodland ' '

CONSOLATION.

  Little's the good to sit and grieve
  Because the serpent tempted Eve.
  Better to wipe your eyes and take
  A club and go out and kill a snake.
  What do you gain by cursing Nick
  For playing her such a scurvy trick?
  Better go out and some villain find
  Who serves the devil, and beat him blind.
  But if you prefer, as I suspect,
  To philosophize, why, then, reflect:
  If the cunning rascal upon the limb
  Hadn't tempted her she'd have tempted him.

FATE.

  Alas, alas, for the tourist's guide!—
  He turned from the beaten trail aside,
  Wandered bewildered, lay down and died.
  O grim is the Irony of Fate:
  It switches the man of low estate
  And loosens the dogs upon the great.