Rose as one man—the very dead arose, Springing indignant from the riven tomb, And babes unborn leapt swearing from the womb! All to the Council Chamber clamoring went, By rage distracted and on vengeance bent. In that vast hall, in due disorder laid, The tools of legislation were displayed, And the wild populace, its wrath to sate, Seized them and heaved them at the Jester's pate. Mountains of writing paper; pools and seas Of ink, awaiting, to become decrees, Royal approval—and the same in stacks Lay ready for attachment, backed with wax; Pens to make laws, erasers to amend them; With mucilage convenient to extend them; Scissors for limiting their application, And acids to repeal all legislation— These, flung as missiles till the air was dense, Were most offensive weapons of offense, And by their aid the Fool was nigh destroyed. They ne'er had been so harmlessly employed. Whelmed underneath a load of legal cap, His mouth egurgitating ink on tap, His eyelids mucilaginously sealed, His fertile head by scissors made to yield Abundant harvestage of ears, his pelt, In every wrinkle and on every welt, Quickset with pencil-points from feet to gills And thickly studded with a pride of quills, The royal Jester in the dreadful strife Was made (in short) an editor for life! An idle tale, and yet a moral lurks In this as plainly as in greater works. I shall not give it birth: one moral here Would die of loneliness within a year.
A CAREER IN LETTERS.
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.
THE FOLLOWING PAIR.
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?—
