Black Beetles in Amber

POSTERITY'S AWARD

I'd long been dead, but I returned to earth.
  Some small affairs posterity was making
A mess of, and I came to see that worth
  Received its dues. I'd hardly finished waking,
The grave-mould still upon me, when my eye
Perceived a statue standing straight and high.
'Twas a colossal figure—bronze and gold—
  Nobly designed, in attitude commanding.
A toga from its shoulders, fold on fold,
  Fell to the pedestal on which 'twas standing.
Nobility it had and splendid grace,
And all it should have had—except a face!
It showed no features: not a trace nor sign
  Of any eyes or nose could be detected—
On the smooth oval of its front no line
  Where sites for mouths are commonly selected.
All blank and blind its faulty head it reared.
Let this be said: 'twas generously eared.
Seeing these things, I straight began to guess
  For whom this mighty image was intended.
'The head,' I cried, 'is Upton's, and the dress
  Is Parson Bartlett's own.' True, his cloak ended
Flush with his lowest vertebra, but no
Sane sculptor ever made a toga so.
Then on the pedestal these words I read: 'Erected Eighteen Hundred Ninety- seven' (Saint Christofer! how fast the time had sped! Of course it naturally does in Heaven) 'To ——' (here a blank space for the name began) 'The Nineteenth Century's Great Foremost Man!'
'Completed' the inscription ended, 'in
  The Year Three Thousand'—which was just arriving.
By Jove! thought I, 'twould make the founders grin
  To learn whose fame so long has been surviving—
To read the name posterity will place
In that blank void, and view the finished face.
Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came,
  And then by acclamation all the people
Decreed whose was our century's best fame;
  Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple,
To make the likeness; and the name was sunk
Deep in the pedestal's metallic trunk.
Whose was it? Gentle reader, pray excuse
  The seeming rudeness, but I can't consent to
Be so forehanded with important news.
  'Twas neither yours nor mine—let that content you.
If not, the name I must surrender, which,
Upon a dead man's word, was George K. Fitch!

AN ART CRITIC

Ira P. Rankin, you've a nasal name—
I'll sound it through 'the speaking-trump of fame,'
And wondering nations, hearing from afar
The brazen twang of its resounding jar,
Shall say: 'These bards are an uncommon class—
They blow their noses with a tube of brass!'
Rankin! ye gods! if Influenza pick
Our names at christening, and such names stick,
Let's all be born when summer suns withstand
Her prevalence and chase her from the land,
And healing breezes generously help
To shield from death each ailing human whelp!
'What's in a name?' There's much at least in yours
That the pained ear unwillingly endures,
And much to make the suffering soul, I fear,
Envy the lesser anguish of the ear.
So you object to Cytherea! Do,
The picture was not painted, sir, for you!
Your mind to gratify and taste address,
The masking dove had been a dove the less.
Provincial censor! all untaught in art,
With mind indecent and indecent heart,
Do you not know—nay, why should I explain?
Instruction, argument alike were vain—
I'll show you reasons when you show me brain.

THE SPIRIT OF A SPONGE

I dreamed one night that Stephen Massett died,
And for admission up at Heaven applied.