Black Beetles in Amber

  And join their modest train.
Await the work of William Stow
  And be surprised again.

THE SUBDUED EDITOR

Pope-choker Pixley sat in his den
    A-chewin' upon his quid.
He thought it was Leo Thirteen, and then
    He bit it intenser, he did.
The amber which overflew from the cud
    Like rivers which burst out of bounds—
'Twas peculiar grateful to think it blood
    A-gushin' from Papal wounds.
A knockin' was heard uponto the door
    Where some one a-waitin' was.
'Come in,' said the shedder of priestly gore,
    Arrestin' to once his jaws.
The person which entered was curly of hair
    And smilin' as ever you see;
His eyes was blue, and uncommon fair
    Was his physiognomee.
And yet there was some'at remarkable grand—
    And the editor says as he looks:
'Your Height' (it was Highness, you understand,
    That he meant, but he spoke like books)—
'Your Height, I am in. I'm the editor man
    Of this paper—which is to say,
I'm the owner, too, and it's alway ran
    In the independentest way!
'Not a damgaloot can interfere,
    A-shapin' my course for me:
This paper's (and nothing can make it veer)
    Pixleian in policee!'
'It's little to me,' said the sunny youth,
    'If journals is better or worse
Where I am to home they won't keep, in truth,
    The climate is that perverse.
'I've come, howsomever, your mind to light
    With a more superior fire:
You'll have naught hencefor'ard to do but write,
    While I sets by and inspire.
'We'll make it hot all round, bedad!'
    And his laughture was loud and free.
'The devil!' cried Pixley, surpassin' mad.
    'Exactly, my friend—that's me.'
So he took a chair and a feather fan,
    And he sets and sets and sets,
Inspirin' that humbled editor man,
    Which sweats and sweats and sweats!
All unavailin' his struggles be,
    And it's, O, a weepin' sight
To see a great editor bold and free
    Reducted to sech a plight!
'BLACK BART, Po8'
Welcome, good friend; as you have served your term,
  And found the joy of crime to be a fiction,
I hope you'll hold your present faith, stand firm
  And not again be open to conviction.
Your sins, though scarlet once, are now as wool:
  You've made atonement for all past offenses,
And conjugated—'twas an awful pull!—
  The verb 'to pay' in all its moods and tenses.
You were a dreadful criminal—by Heaven,
  I think there never was a man so sinful!
We've all a pinch or two of Satan's leaven,
  But you appeared to have an even skinful.
Earth shuddered with aversion at your name;
  Rivers fled backward, gravitation scorning;
The sea and sky, from thinking on your shame,
  Grew lobster-red at eve and in the morning.
But still red-handed at your horrid trade
  You wrought, to reason deaf, and to compassion.
But now with gods and men your peace is made
  I beg you to be good and in the fashion.
What's that?—you 'ne'er again will rob a stage'?
  What! did you do so? Faith, I didn't know it.
Was that what threw poor Themis in a rage?
  I thought you were convicted as a poet!
I own it was a comfort to my soul,
  And soothed it better than the deepest curses,
To think they'd got one poet in a hole
  Where, though he wrote, he could not print, his verses.
I thought that Welcker, Plunkett, Brooks, and all
  The ghastly crew who always are begriming
With villain couplets every page and wall,
  Might be arrested and 'run in' for rhyming.
And then Parnassus would be left to me,
  And Pegasus should bear me up it gaily,
Nor down a steep place run into the sea,
  As now he must be tempted to do daily.
Well, grab the lyre-strings, hearties, and begin:
  Bawl your harsh souls all out upon the gravel.