Black Beetles in Amber

You like a rat have recently been shaken.
To wear a beard of artificial hue
  May be or this or that, I know not what;
But, faith, 'tis better to be black-and-blue
  In beard from dallying with brush and pot
Than to be so in body from the beating
That hardy rogues get when detected cheating.
You're whacked about the mazzard rather more
  Of late than any other man in town.
Certes your vulnerable back is sore
  And tender, too, your corrigible crown.
In truth your whole periphery discloses
More vivid colors than a bed of posies!
You call it glory! Put your tongue in sheath!—
  Scars got in battle, even if on the breast,
May be a shameful record if, beneath,
  A robber heart a lawless strife attest.
John Sullivan had wounds, and Paddy Ryan—
Nay, as to that, even Masten has, and Bryan.
'Tis willingly conceded you've a knack
  At holding the attention of the town;
The worse for you when you have on your back
  What did not grow there—prithee put it down!
For pride kills thrift, and you lack board and lodging,
Even while the brickbats of renown you're dodging.

A REAR ELEVATION

He can speak with his eyes, his hands, arms, legs, body—nay, with his very bones, for he turned the broad of his back upon us in 'Conrad,' the other night, and his shoulder-blades spoke to us a volume of hesitation, fear, submission, desperation—everything which could haunt a man at the moment of inevitable detection.

A 'Dramatic Critic.'

Once Moses (in Scripture the story is told)
Entreated the favor God's face to behold.
Compassion divine the petition denied
Lest vision be blasted and body be fried.
Yet this much, the Record informs us, took place:
Jehovah, concealing His terrible face,
Protruded His rear from behind a great rock,
And edification ensued without shock.
So godlike Salvini, lest worshipers die,
Averting the blaze of his withering eye,
Tempers his terrors and shows to the pack
Of feeble adorers the broad of his back.
The fires of their altars, which, paled and declined
Before him, burn all the more brightly behind.
O happy adorers, to care not at all
Where fawning may tickle or lip-service fall!

IN UPPER SAN FRANCISCO

I heard that Heaven was bright and fair,
And politicians dwelt not there.
'Twas said by knowing ones that they
Were in the Elsewhere—so to say.
So, waking from my last long sleep,
I took my place among the sheep.
I passed the gate—Saint Peter eyed
Me sharply as I stepped inside.
He thought, as afterward I learned,
That I was Chris, the Unreturned.
The new Jerusalem—ah me,
It was a sorry sight to see!
The mansions of the blest were there,
And mostly they were fine and fair;
But O, such streets!—so deep and wide,
And all unpaved, from side to side!
And in a public square there grew
A blighted tree, most sad to view.
From off its trunk the bark was ripped—
Its very branches all were stripped!
An angel perched upon the fence
With all the grace of indolence.
'Celestial bird,' I cried, in pain,
'What vandal wrought this wreck? Explain.'
He raised his eyelids as if tired:
'What is a Vandal?' he inquired.
'This is the Tree of Life. 'Twas stripped
By Durst and Siebe, who have shipped
'The bark across the Jordan—see?—
And sold it to a tannery.'
'Alas,' I sighed, 'their old-time tricks!
That pavement, too, of golden bricks—
'They've gobbled that?' But with a scowl,
'You greatly wrong them,' said the fowl: