Are played by sentimental cranks! First this one mounts his hinder hoofs And brays the chimneys off the roofs; Then that one, with exalted voice, Expounds the thesis of his choice, Our understandings to bombard, Till all the window panes are starred! A third augments the vocal shock Till steeples to their bases rock, Confessing, as they humbly nod, They hear and mark the will of God. A fourth in oral thunder vents His awful penury of sense Till dogs with sympathetic howls, And lowing cows, and cackling fowls, Hens, geese, and all domestic birds, Attest the wisdom of his words. Cranks thus their intellects deflate Of theories about the State. This one avers 'tis built on Truth, And that on Temperance. This youth Declares that Science bears the pile; That graybeard, with a holy smile, Says Faith is the supporting stone; While women swear that Love alone Could so unflinchingly endure The heavy load. And some are sure The solemn vow of Christian Wedlock Is the indubitable bedrock. Physicians once about the bed Of one whose life was nearly sped Blew up a disputatious breeze About the cause of his disease: This, that and t' other thing they blamed. 'Tut, tut!' the dying man exclaimed, 'What made me ill I do not care; You've not an ounce of it, I'll swear. And if you had the skill to make it I'd see you hanged before I'd take it!'
AN IMPOSTER.
Must you, Carnegie, evermore explain Your worth, and all the reasons give again Why black and red are similarly white, And you and God identically right? Still must our ears without redress submit To hear you play the solemn hypocrite Walking in spirit some high moral level, Raising at once his eye-balls and the devil? Great King of Cant! if Nature had but made Your mouth without a tongue I ne'er had prayed To have an earless head. Since she did not, Bear me, ye whirlwinds, to some favored spot— Some mountain pinnacle that sleeps in air So delicately, mercifully rare That when the fellow climbs that giddy hill, As, for my sins, I know at last he will, To utter twaddle in that void inane His soundless organ he will play in vain.
UNEXPOUNDED.
On Evidence, on Deeds, on Bills, On Copyhold, on Loans, on Wills, Lawyers great books indite; The creaking of their busy quills I've never heard on Right.
FRANCE.
Unhappy State! with horrors still to strive: Thy Hugo dead, thy Boulanger alive; A Prince who'd govern where he dares not dwell, And who for power would his birthright sell— Who, anxious o'er his enemies to reign, Grabs at the scepter and conceals the chain; While pugnant factions mutually strive By cutting throats to keep the land alive. Perverse in passion, as in pride perverse— To all a mistress, to thyself a curse;
