Black Beetles in Amber

'Twas all about—I know not what
It was about, nor what 'twas not.
  'A Screw Loose' it was called.
Whatever, Parson Dick, you say,
The world will get each blessed day
  Still more and more askew,
And fall apart at last. Great snakes!
What skillful tinker ever takes
  His tongue to turn a screw?

BATS IN SUNSHINE

Well, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think,
  A great divine, and I'm a great profane.
You as a Congregationalist blink
  Some certain truths that I esteem a gain,
  And drop them in the coffers of my brain,
Pleased with the pretty music of their chink.
Perhaps your spiritual wealth is such
A golden truth or two don't count for much.
You say that you've no patience with such stuff
  As by Renan is writ, and when you read
(Why do you read?) have hardly strength enough
  To hold your hand from flinging the vile screed
  Into the fire. That were a wasteful deed
Which you'd repent in sackcloth extra rough;
For books cost money, and I'm told you care
To lay up treasures Here as well as There.
I fear, good, pious soul, that you mistake
  Your thrift for toleration. Never mind:
Renan in any case would hardly break
  His great, strong, charitable heart to find
  The bats and owls of your myopic kind
Pained by the light that his ideas make.
'Tis Truth's best purpose to shine in at holes
Where cower the Kembles, to confound their souls!

A WORD TO THE UNWISE

Charles Main, of the firm of Main & Winchester, has ordered a grand mausoleum for his plot in Mountain View Cemetery.

City Newspaper

Charles Main, of Main & Winchester, attend
With friendly ear the chit-chat of a friend
  Who knows you not, yet knows that you and he
Travel two roads that have a common end.
We journey forward through the time allowed,
I humbly bending, you erect and proud.
  Our heads alike will stable soon the worm—
The one that's lifted, and the one that's bowed.
You in your mausoleum shall repose,
I where it pleases Him who sleep bestows;
  What matter whether one so little worth
Shall stain the marble or shall feed the rose?
Charles Main, I had a friend who died one day.
A metal casket held his honored clay.
  Of cyclopean architecture stood
The splendid vault where he was laid away.
A dozen years, and lo! the roots of grass
Had burst asunder all the joints; the brass,
  The gilded ornaments, the carven stones
Lay tumbled all together in a mass.
A dozen years! That taxes your belief.
Make it a thousand if the time's too brief.
  'Twill be the same to you; when you are dead
You cannot even count your days of grief.
Suppose a pompous monument you raise
Till on its peak the solar splendor blaze
  While yet about its base the night is black;
But will it give your glory length of days?
Say, when beneath your rubbish has been thrown,
Some rogue to reputation all unknown—
  Men's backs being turned—should lift his thieving hand,
Efface your name and substitute his own.
Whose then would be the monument? To whom
Would be the fame? Forgotten in your gloom,
  Your very name forgotten—ah, my friend,
The name is all that's rescued by the tomb.
For memory of worth and work we go
To other records than a stone can show.
  These lacking, naught remains; with these
The stone is needless for the world will know.
Then build your mausoleum if you must,
And creep into it with a perfect trust;
  But in the twinkling of an eye the plow