Black Beetles in Amber

Standing within the triple wall of Hell,
  And flattening his nose against a grate
Behind whose brazen bars he'd had to dwell
  A thousand million ages to that date,
  Stoneman bewailed his melancholy fate,
And his big tear-drops, boiling as they fell,
Had worn between his feet, the record mentions,
A deep depression in the 'good intentions.'
Imperfectly by memory taught how—
  For prayer in Hell is a lost art—he prayed,
Uplifting his incinerated brow
  And flaming hands in supplication's aid.
'O grant,' he cried, 'my torment may be stayed—
In mercy, some short breathing spell allow!
If one good deed I did before my ghosting,
Spare me and give Delmas a double roasting.'
Breathing a holy harmony in Hell,
  Down through the appalling clamors of the place,
Charming them all to willing concord, fell
  A Voice ineffable and full of grace:
'Because of all the law-defying race
One single malefactor of the cell
Thou didst not free from his incarceration,
Take thou ten thousand years of condonation.'
Back from their fastenings began to shoot
  The rusted bolts; with dreadful roar, the gate
Laboriously turned; and, black with soot,
  The extinguished spirit passed that awful strait,
  And as he legged it into space, elate,
Muttered: 'Yes, I remember that galoot—
I'd signed his pardon, ready to allot it,
But stuck it in my desk and quite forgot it.'

AN INTERPRETATION

Now Lonergan appears upon the boards,
And Truth and Error sheathe their lingual swords.
No more in wordy warfare to engage,
The commentators bow before the stage,
And bookworms, militant for ages past,
Confess their equal foolishness at last,
Reread their Shakspeare in the newer light
And swear the meaning's obvious to sight.
For centuries the question has been hot:
Was Hamlet crazy, or was Hamlet not?
Now, Lonergan's illuminating art
Reveals the truth of the disputed 'part,'
And shows to all the critics of the earth
That Hamlet was an idiot from birth!

A SOARING TOAD

So, Governor, you would not serve again
  Although we'd all agree to pay you double.
You find it all is vanity and pain—
  One clump of clover in a field of stubble—
  One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.
'Tis sad, at your age, having to complain
Of disillusion; but the fault is whose
When pigmies stumble, wearing giants' shoes?
I humbly told you many moons ago
  For high preferment you were all unfit.
A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show
  Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit
  With dignity at bottom of his pit,
And none his awkwardness will ever know.
Some beasts look better, and feel better, too,
Seen from above; and so, I think, would you.
Why, you were mad! Did you suppose because
  Our foolish system suffers foolish men
To climb to power, make, enforce the laws,
  And, it is whispered, break them now and then,
  We love the fellows and respect them when
We've stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs?
When folly blooms we trample it the more
For having fertilized it heretofore.
Behold yon laborer! His garb is mean,
  His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask
The measure of his brains? 'Tis only seen
  He's fitted for his honorable task,
  And so delights the mind. But let him bask
In droll prosperity, absurdly clean—
Is that the man whom we admired before?
Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore!
Better for you that thoughtless men had said
  (Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere):