To charm away the scruples of the mind. It says: 'Receive me, please; I'll not compel'— Though if you don't you will go straight to Hell! Well, that's compulsion, you will say. 'T is true: We cower timidly beneath the rod Lifted in menace by an angry God, But won't endure it from an ape like you. Detested simian with thumb prehensile, Switch me and I would brain you with my pencil! Face you the Throne, nor dare to turn your back On its transplendency to flog some wight Who gropes and stumbles in the infernal night Your ugly shadow lays along his track. O, Thou who from the Temple scourged the sin, Behold what rascals try to scourge it in!
JUDGMENT.
I drew aside the Future's veil And saw upon his bier The poet Whitman. Loud the wail And damp the falling tear. 'He's dead—he is no more!' one cried, With sobs of sorrow crammed; 'No more? He's this much more,' replied Another: 'he is damned!'1885.
THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN.
Hear me sing of Sally Larkin who, I'd have you understand, Played accordions as well as any lady in the land; And I've often heard it stated that her fingering was such That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with her touch; And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus rang That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously sang. This I know from testimony, though a critic, I opine, Needs an ear that is dissimilar in some respects to mine. She could sing, too, like a jaybird, and they say all eyes were wet When Sally and the ranch-dog were performing a duet— Which I take it is a song that has to be so loudly sung As to overtax the strength of any single human lung. That, at least, would seem to follow from the tale I have to tell, Which (I've told you how she flourished) is how Sally Larkin fell. One day there came to visit Sally's dad as sleek and smart A chap as ever wandered there from any foreign part. Though his gentle birth and breeding he did not at all obtrude It was somehow whispered round he was a simon-pure Dude. Howsoe'er that may have been, it was conspicuous to see That he was a real Gent of an uncommon high degree. That Sally cast her tender and affectionate regards On this exquisite creation was, of course, upon the cards; But he didn't seem to notice, and was variously blind To her many charms of person and the merits of her mind, And preferred, I grieve to say it, to play poker with her dad, And acted in a manner that in general was bad. One evening—'twas in summer—she was holding in her lap Her accordion, and near her stood that melancholy chap, Leaning up against a pillar with his lip in grog imbrued, Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land in which he was a Dude. Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began to hum And elongate the accordion with a preluding thumb. Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L. exhaled, And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed. 'In the gloaming, O my darling!' rose that wild impassioned strain, And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of pain, Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate came round, And going into session strove to magnify the sound. He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang! Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from other scenes, Where his fathers all were Dudes and his mothers all Dudines, From his lips removed the beaker and politely, o'er the grog, Said: 'Miss Larkin, please be quiet: you will interrupt the dog.'
IN HIGH LIFE.
Sir Impycu Lackland, from over the sea, Has led to the altar Miss Bloatie Bondee. The wedding took place at the Church of St. Blare; The fashion, the rank and the wealth were all there—
