Shapes of Clay

  Took to its heels some twenty years ago.
  Some small repairs would be required for putting
  My feelings on a saltatory footing.
(Sings)
  O the legless man's an unhappy chap—
    Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy.
  The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap—
    Tum-hi, tum-heedle-do hum.
  The plums of office avoid his plate
  No matter how much he may stump the State—
      Tum-hi, ho-heeee.
  The grass grows never beneath his feet,
  But he cannot hope to make both ends meet—
      Tum-hi.
  With a gleeless eye and a somber heart,
  He plays the role of his mortal part:
  Wholly himself he can never be.
  O, a soleless corporation is he!
      Tum.
SUPERINTENDENT:
  The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend,
  Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend.
  Some recognition cannot be denied
  To the great mercy that has turned aside
  The sword of death from us and let it fall
  Upon the people's necks in Montreal;
  That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome,
  And drowned the Texans out of house and home;
  Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood
  The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood.
  Compared with blessings of so high degree,
  Your private woes look mighty small—to me.

L'AUDACE.

  Daughter of God! Audacity divine—
  Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign—
  Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,
  Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:
  Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,
  Presumption, actuates the charging ass.
  Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings
  Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings;
  The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,
  For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,
  Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!
  Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,
  They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;
  The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs
  Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.
  Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand
  For stronger voices and a harder hand:
  Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,
  And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!

THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT.

  Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen,
  The wisest and the best of men,
  Betook him to the place where sat
  With folded feet upon a mat
  Of precious stones beneath a palm,
  In sweet and everlasting calm,
  That ancient and immortal gent,
  The God of Rational Content.
  As tranquil and unmoved as Fate,
  The deity reposed in state,
  With palm to palm and sole to sole,
  And beaded breast and beetling jowl,
  And belly spread upon his thighs,
  And costly diamonds for eyes.
  As Chunder Sen approached and knelt
  To show the reverence he felt;
  Then beat his head upon the sod
  To prove his fealty to the god;
  And then by gestures signified
  The other sentiments inside;
  The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen,
  The wisest and the best of men,
  Half-fancied) grew by just a thought
  More narrow than it truly ought.
  Yet still that prince of devotees,
  Persistent upon bended knees
  And elbows bored into the earth,
  Declared the god's exceeding worth,
  And begged his favor. Then at last,
  Within that cavernous and vast