Black Beetles in Amber

  Though how two such accomplishments can go,
Like sentimental schoolgirls, hand in hand
  Is more than ever I can hope to know.
  To have one talent good enough to show
Has always been sufficient to command
The veneration of the brilliant band
Of railroad scholars, who themselves, indeed,
Although they cannot write, can mostly read.
There's Towne and Fillmore, Goodman and Steve Gage,
  Ned Curtis of Napoleonic face,
Who used to dash his name on glory's page
  'A.M.' appended to denote his place
  Among the learned. Now the last faint trace
Of Nap. is all obliterate with age,
And Ned's degree less precious than his wage.
He says: 'I done it,' with his every breath.
'Thou canst not say I did it,' says Macbeth.
Good land! how I run on! I quite forgot
  Whom this was meant to be about; for when
I think upon that odd, unearthly lot—
  Not quite Creedhaymonds, yet not wholly men—
  I'm dominated by my rebel pen
That, like the stubborn bird from which 'twas got,
Goes waddling forward if I will or not.
To leave your comrades, Ben, I'm now content:
I'll meet them later if I don't repent.
You've writ a letter, I observe—nay, more,
  You've published it—to say how good you think
The coolies, and invite them to come o'er
  In thicker quantity. Perhaps you drink
No corporation's wine, but love its ink;
Or when you signed away your soul and swore
On railrogue battle-fields to shed your gore
You mentally reserved the right to shed
The raiment of your character instead.
You're naked, anyhow: unragged you stand
  In frank and stark simplicity of shame.
And here upon your flank, in letters grand,
  The iron has marked you with your owner's name.
  Needless, for none would steal and none reclaim.
  But '?eland $tanford' is a pretty brand,
Wrought by an artist with a cunning hand
But come—this naked unreserve is flat:
Don your habiliment—you're fat, you're fat!

THE LEGATEE

In fair San Francisco a good man did dwell,
And he wrote out a will, for he didn't feel well,
Said he: 'It is proper, when making a gift,
To stimulate virtue by comforting thrift.'
So he left all his property, legal and straight,
To 'the cursedest rascal in all of the State.'
But the name he refused to insert, for, said he;
'Let each man consider himself legatee.'
In due course of time that philanthropist died,
And all San Francisco, and Oakland beside—
Save only the lawyers—came each with his claim
The lawyers preferring to manage the same.
The cases were tried in Department Thirteen,
Judge Murphy presided, sedate and serene,
But couldn't quite specify, legal and straight,
The cursedest rascal in all of the State.
And so he remarked to them, little and big—
To claimants: 'You skip!' and to lawyers: 'You dig!'
They tumbled, tumultuous, out of his court
And left him victorious, holding the fort.
'Twas then that he said: 'It is plain to my mind
This property's ownerless—how can I find
The cursedest rascal in all of the State?'
So he took it himself, which was legal and straight.

'DIED OF A ROSE'

A reporter he was, and he wrote, wrote he:
  'The grave was covered as thick as could be
  With floral tributes'—which reading,
The editor man he said, he did so:
  'For 'floral tributes' he's got for to go,
  For I hold the same misleading.'
Then he called him in and he pointed sweet
To a blooming garden across the street,
  Inquiring: 'What's them a-growing?'
The reporter chap said: 'Why, where's your eyes?
Them's floral tributes!' 'Arise, arise,'
  The editor said, 'and be going.'