Black Beetles in Amber

But when you 'deal damnation round' 'twere sweet
To think hereafter that you did not cheat.
Deal, and let all accept what you allot 'em.
But, blast you! you are dealing from the bottom!

A CROCODILE

Nay, Peter Robertson, 'tis not for you
  To blubber o'er Max Taubles for he's dead.
By Heaven! my hearty, if you only knew
  How better is a grave-worm in the head
Than brains like yours—how far more decent, too,
  A tomb in far Corea than a bed
Where Peter lies with Peter, you would covet
His happier state and, dying, learn to love it.
In the recesses of the silent tomb
  No Maunderings of yours disturb the peace.
Your mental bag-pipe, droning like the gloom
  Of Hades audible, perforce must cease
From troubling further; and that crack o' doom,
  Your mouth, shaped like a long bow, shall release
In vain such shafts of wit as it can utter—
The ear of death can't even hear them flutter.

THE AMERICAN PARTY

Oh, Marcus D. Boruck, me hearty,
  I sympathize wid ye, poor lad!
A man that's shot out of his party
  Is mighty onlucky, bedad!
  An' the sowl o' that man is sad.
But, Marcus, gossoon, ye desarve it—
  Ye know for yerself that ye do,
For ye j'ined not intendin' to sarve it,
  But hopin' to make it sarve you,
  Though the roll of its members wuz two.
The other wuz Pixley, an' 'Surely,'
  Ye said, 'he's a kite that wall sail.'
An' so ye hung till him securely,
  Enactin' the role of a tail.
  But there wuzn't the ghost of a gale!
But the party to-day has behind it
  A powerful backin', I'm told;
For just enough Irish have j'ined it
  (An' I'm m'anin' to be enrolled)
  To kick ye out into the cold.
It's hard on ye, darlint, I'm thinkin'—
  So young—so American, too—
Wid bypassers grinnin' an' winkin',
  An' sayin', wid ref'rence to you:
'Get onto the murtherin' Joo!'
Republicans never will take ye—
  They had ye for many a year;
An' Dimocrats—angels forsake ye!—
  If ever ye come about here
  We'll brand ye and scollop yer ear!

UNCOLONELED

Though war-signs fail in time of peace, they say,
  Two awful portents gloom the public mind:
All Mexico is arming for the fray
  And Colonel Mark McDonald has resigned!
  We know not by what instinct he divined
The coming trouble—may be, like the steed
  Described by Job, he smelled the fight afar.
Howe'er it be, he left, and for that deed
  Is an aspirant to the G.A.R.
When cannon flame along the Rio Grande
A citizen's commission will be handy.

THE GATES AJAR

The Day of Judgment spread its glare
  O'er continents and seas.