Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care!'He spake, and ere his worshiper could kneelHad dived into his slush pool, head and heel.Full of the god and to revenges nerved,And conscious of a will that never swerved,Bonynge set sail: the world beyond the waveAs gladly took him as the other gave.New York received him, but a shudder ranThrough all the western coast, which knew the man;And science said that the seismic actionWas owing to an asteroid's impaction.O goddess, sing what Bonynge next essayed.Did he unscabbard the avenging blade,The long spear brandish and porrect the shield,Havoc the town and devastate the field?His sacred thirst for blood did he allayBy halving the unfortunate Mackay?Small were the profit and the joy to himTo hew a base-born person, limb from limb.Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline,That of diviner spirits is divine.Bonynge at noonday stood in public placesAnd (with regard to the Mackays) made faces!Before those formidable frowns and scowlsThe dogs fled, tail-tucked, with affrighted howls,And horses, terrified, with flying feetO'erthrew the apple-stands along the street,Involving the metropolis in vastFinancial ruin! Man himself, aghast,Retreated east and west and north and southBefore the menace of that twisted mouth,Till Jove, in answer to their prayers, sent NightTo veil the dreadful visage from their sight!Such were the causes of the horrid strife—The mother-wrongs which nourished it to life.O, for a quill from an archangel's wing!O, for a voice that's adequate to singThe splendor and the terror of the fray,The scattered hair, the coat-tails all astray,The parted collars and the gouts of goreReeking and smoking on the banker's floor,The interlocking limbs, embraces dire,Revolving bodies and deranged attire!Vain, vain the trial: 'tis vouchsafed to noneTo sing two millionaires rolled into one!My hand and pen their offices refuse,And hoarse and hoarser grows the weary muse.Alone remains, to tell of the event,Abandoned, lost and variously rent,The Bonynge nethermost habiliment.
A SONG IN PRAISE
Hail, blessed Blunder! golden idol, hail!—Clay-footed deity of all who fail.Celestial image, let thy glory shine,Thy feet concealing, but a lamp to mine.Let me, at seasons opportune and fit,By turns adore thee and by turns commit.In thy high service let me ever be(Yet never serve thee as my critics me)Happy and fallible, content to feelI blunder chiefly when to thee I kneel.But best felicity is his thy praiseWho utters unaware in works and ways—Who laborare est orare proves,And feels thy suasion wheresoe'er he moves,Serving thy purpose, not thine altar, still,And working, for he thinks it his, thy will.If such a life with blessings be not fraught,I envy Peter Robertson for naught.
A POET'S FATHER
Welcker, I'm told, can boast a father greatAnd honored in the service of the State.Public Instruction all his mind employs—He guides its methods and its wage enjoys.Prime Pedagogue, imperious and grand,He waves his ferule o'er a studious landWhere humming youth, intent upon the page,Thirsting for knowledge with a noble rage,Drink dry the whole Pierian spring and askTo slake their fervor at his private flask.Arrested by the terror of his frown,The vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down;The fly impaled on the tormenting pin