Black Beetles in Amber

  His torch to kindle at your name,
Or have you blow his cooling coal.
Men prematurely left their beds
  And sought the gelid bath—so great
  The heat and splendor of your hate
Of Englishmen and 'Copperheads.'
King Liar of deceitful men,
  For imposition doubly armed!
  The patriots whom your speaking charmed
You stung to madness with your pen.
There was a certain journal here,
  Its English owner growing rich—
  Your hand the treason wrote for which
A mob cut short its curst career.
If, Pixley, you had not the brain
  To know the true from false, or you
  To Truth had courage to be true,
And loyal to her perfect reign;
If you had not your powers arrayed
  To serve the wrong by tricksy speech,
  Nor pushed yourself within the reach
Of retribution's accolade,
I had not had the will to go
  Outside the olive-bordered path
  Of peace to cut the birch of wrath,
And strip your body for the blow.
Behold how dark the war-clouds rise
  About the mother of our race!
  The lightnings gild her tranquil face
And glitter in her patient eyes.
Her children throng the hither flood
  And lean intent above the beach.
  Their beating hearts inhibit speech
With stifling tides of English blood.
'Their skies, but not their hearts, they change
  Who go in ships across the sea'—
  Through all centuries to be
The strange new land will still be strange.
The Island Mother holds in gage
  The souls of sons she never saw;
  Superior to law, the law
Of sympathetic heritage.
Forgotten now the foolish reign
  Of wrath which sundered trivial ties.
  A soldier's sabre vainly tries
To cleave a spiritual chain.
The iron in our blood affines,
  Though fratricidal hands may spill.
  Shall Hate be throned on Bunker Hill,
Yet Love abide at Seven Pines?

A CULINARY CANDIDATE

A cook adorned with paper cap,
  Or waiter with a tray,
May be a worthy kind of chap
      In his way,
But when we want one for Recorder,
Then, Mr. Walton, take our order.

THE OLEOMARGARINE MAN

Once—in the county of Marin,
Where milk is sold to purchase gin—
Renowned for butter and renowned
For fourteen ounces to the pound—
A bull stood watching every turn
Of Mr. Wilson with a churn,
As that deigning worthy stalked
About him, eying as he walked,
El Toro's sleek and silken hide,
His neck, his flank and all beside;
Thinking with secret joy: 'I'll spread
That mammal on a slice of bread!'
Soon Mr. Wilson's keen concern
To get the creature in his churn
Unhorsed his caution—made him blind
To the fell vigor of bullkind,
Till, filled with valor to the teeth,
He drew his dasher from its sheath
And bravely brandished it; the while
He smiled a dark, portentous smile;
A deep, sepulchral smile; a wide
And open smile, which, at his side,
The churn to copy vainly tried;
A smile so like the dawn of doom
That all the field was palled in gloom,