Black Beetles in Amber

''Twas Gilleran did that, I fear—
Head of the Street Department here.'
'What! what!' cried I—'you let such chaps
Come here? You've Satan, too, perhaps.'
'We had him, yes, but off he went,
Yet showed some purpose to repent;
'But since your priests and parsons filled
The place with those their preaching killed'—
(Here Siebe passed along with Durst,
Psalming as if their lungs would burst)—
'He swears his foot no more shall press
('Tis cloven, anyhow, I guess)
'Our soil. In short, he's out on strike—
But devils are not all alike.'
Lo! Gilleran came down the street,
Pressing the soil with broad, flat feet!

NIMROD

There were brave men, some one has truly said,
Before Atrides (those were mostly dead
Behind him) and ere you could e'er occur
Actaeon lived, Nimrod and Bahram-Gur.
In strength and speed and daring they excelled:
The stag they overtook, the lion felled.
Ah, yes, great hunters flourished before you,
And—for Munchausen lived—great talkers too.
There'll be no more; there's much to kill, but—well,
You have left nothing in the world to tell!

CENSOR LITERARUM

So, Parson Stebbins, you've released your chin
  To say that here, and here, we press-folk ail.
'Tis a great thing an editor to skin
  And hang his faulty pelt upon a nail
  (If over-eared, it has, at least, no tail)
And, for an admonition against sin,
Point out its maculations with a rod,
And act, in short, the gentleman of God.
'Twere needless cruelty to spoil your sport
  By comment, critical or merely rude;
But you, too, have, according to report,
  Despite your posing as a holy dude,
  Imperfect spiritual pulchritude
For so severe a judge. May't please the court,
We shall appeal and take our case at once
Before that higher court, a taller dunce.
Sir, what were you without the press? What spreads
  The fame of your existence, once a week,
From the Pacific Mail dock to the Heads,
  Warning the people you're about to wreak
  Upon the human ear your Sunday freak?—
Whereat the most betake them to their bed
Though some prefer to slumber in the pews
And nod assent to your hypnotic views.
Unhappy man! can you not still your tongue
  When (like a luckless brat afflict with worms,
By cruel fleas intolerably stung,
  Or with a pang in its small lap) it squirms?
Still must it vulgarize your feats of lung?
No preaching better were, the sun beneath,
If you had nothing there behind your teeth.

BORROWED BRAINS

Writer folk across the bay
Take the pains to see and say—
All their upward palms in air:
'Joaquin Miller's cut his hair!'
Hasten, hasten, writer folk—
In the gutters rake and poke,
If by God's exceeding grace
You may hit upon the place
Where the barber threw at length
Samson's literary strength.
Find it, find it if you can;
Happy the successful man!
He has but to put one strand
In his beaver's inner band
And his intellect will soar