By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead, Posterity's environment is torrid. Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark) Another Voice, clear, comfortable, strong, As Grant's great shade, replying from the dark, Said in a tone that rang the earth along, And thrilled the senses of the Judges' throng: 'I'd rather you would question why, in park And street, my monuments were not erected Than why they were.' Then, waking, I reflected.
THE NEW ENOCH.
Enoch Arden was an able Seaman; hear of his mishap— Not in wild mendacious fable, As 't was told by t' other chap; For I hold it is a youthful Indiscretion to tell lies, And the writer that is truthful Has the reader that is wise. Enoch Arden, able seaman, On an isle was cast away, And before he was a freeman Time had touched him up with gray. Long he searched the fair horizon, Seated on a mountain top; Vessel ne'er he set his eyes on That would undertake to stop. Seeing that his sight was growing Dim and dimmer, day by day, Enoch said he must be going. So he rose and went away— Went away and so continued Till he lost his lonely isle: Mr. Arden was so sinewed He could row for many a mile. Compass he had not, nor sextant, To direct him o'er the sea: Ere 't was known that he was extant, At his widow's home was he. When he saw the hills and hollows And the streets he could but know, He gave utterance as follows To the sentiments below: 'Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver, Too, my timbers!) but, I say, W'at a larruk to diskiver, I have lost me blessid way! 'W'at, alas, would be my bloomin' Fate if Philip now I see, Which I lammed?—or my old 'oman, Which has frequent basted me?' Scenes of childhood swam around him At the thought of such a lot: In a swoon his Annie found him And conveyed him to her cot. 'T was the very house, the garden, Where their honeymoon was passed: 'T was the place where Mrs. Arden Would have mourned him to the last. Ah, what grief she'd known without him! Now what tears of joy she shed! Enoch Arden looked about him: 'Shanghaied!'—that was all he said.
DISAVOWAL.
Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park, Grim and bloody and stiff and stark, And a Land League man with averted eye Crosses himself as he hurries by. And he says to his conscience under his breath: 'I have had no hand in this deed of death!' A Fenian, making a circuit wide And passing them by on the other side, Shudders and crosses himself and cries: 'Who says that I did it, he lies, he lies!' Gingerly stepping across the gore, Pat Satan comes after the two before, Makes, in a solemnly comical way, The sign of the cross and is heard to say: 'O dear, what a terrible sight to see, For babes like them and a saint like me!'1882.
