Black Beetles in Amber

RINGDIVVY:

But it's been the making of me!

NOZZLE:

I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs—
thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves—
That some malign and awful thing draws near.
(Enter Hayseed.)
Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
The grangers I have decently interred,
Rolled into one!

FEEGOBBLE:

Plead, phantom.

RINGDIVVY:

You've the floor.

HAYSEED:

      From the margin of the river
      (Bitter Creek, they sometimes call it)
      Where I cherished once the pumpkin,
      And the summer squash promoted,
      Harvested the sweet potato,
      Dallied with the fatal melon
      And subdued the fierce cucumber,
      I've been driven by the slickens,
      Driven by the slimes and tailings!
      All my family—my Polly
      Ann and all my sons and daughters,
      Dog and baby both included—
      All were swamped in seas of slickens,
      Buried fifty fathoms under,
      Where they lie, prepared to play their
      Gentle prank on geologic
      Gents that shall exhume them later,
      In the dim and distant future,
      Taking them for melancholy
      Relics antedating Adam.
      I alone got up and dusted.

NOZZLE:

Avaunt! you horrid and infernal cuss!
What dire distress have you prepared for us?

RINGDIVVY:

    Were I a buzzard stooping from the sky
      My craw with filth to fill,
    Into your honorable body I
      Would introduce a bill.

FEEGOBBLE:

Defendant, hence, or, by the gods, I'll brain thee!—
Unless you saved some turneps to retain me.

HAYSEED:

As I was saying, I got up and dusted,
My ranch a graveyard and my business busted!
But hearing that a fellow from the City,
Who calls himself a Citizens' Committee,
Was coming up to play the very dickens,
With those who cover up our farms with slickens,
And make himself—unless I am in error—
To all such miscreants a holy terror,
I thought if I would join the dialogue
I maybe might get payment for my dog.
ALL (Singing):
O the dog is the head of Creation,
  Prime work of the Master's hand;