view him where he lies.
Then, turning from the scene away
With a concerted shrug, will say:
“H’m, ‘Scarabaeus Sisyphus’—
What interest has that to us?
We can’t admire at all, at all,
A tumble-bug without its ball.”
And then a sage will rise and say:
“Good friends, you err—turn back, I pray:
This freak that you unwisely shun
Is bug and ball rolled into one.”
Charles and Peter
Ere Gabriel’s note to silence died
All graves of men were gaping wide.
Then Charles A. Dana, of The Sun
Rose slowly from the deepest one.
“The dead in Christ rise first, ’tis writ,”
Quoth he—“ick, bick, ban, doe—I’m It!”
(His headstone, footstone, counted slow,
Were “ick” and “bick,” he “ban” and “doe”:
Of beating Nick the subtle art
Was part of his immortal part.)
Then straight to Heaven he took his flight,
Arriving at the Gates of Light.
There Warden Peter, in the throes
Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose.
“Get up, you sluggard!” Dana cried—
“I’ve an engagement there inside.”
The Saint arose and scratched his head.
“I recollect your face,” he said.
“(And, pardon me, ’tis rather hard),
But—” Dana handed him a card.
“Ah, yes, I now remember—bless
My soul, how dull I am I—yes, yes,
“Walk in. But I must tell you this:
We’ve nothing better here than bliss.
“We’ve rest and comfort, though, and peace.”
“H’m—puddles,” Dana said, “for geese.
“Have you in Heaven no Hell?” “Why, no,”
Said Peter, “nor, in truth, below.
“ ’Tis not included in our scheme—
’Tis but a preacher’s idle dream.”
The great man slowly moved away.
“I’ll call,” he said, “another day.
“On earth I played it, o’er and o’er,
And Heaven without it were a bore.”
“O, stuff!—come in. You’ll make,” said Pete,
“A hell where’er you set your feet.”
Contemplation
I muse upon the distant town
In many a dreamy mood.
Above my head the sunbeams crown
The graveyard’s giant rood.
The lupin blooms among the tombs,
The quail recalls her brood.
Ah, good it is to sit and trace
The shadow of the cross;
It moves so still from place to place
O’er marble, bronze and moss;
With graves to mark upon its arc
Our time’s eternal loss.
And sweet it is to watch the bee
That revels in the roses,
And sense the fragrance floating free
On every breeze that dozes
Upon the mound, where, safe and sound,
Mine enemy reposes.
The Golden Age
Long ago the world was finer—
Why it failed I do not know:
All the virtues were diviner;
Robber, miser, and maligner
Had not been created. No,
Truth and honor flourished, though.
Long ago.
Sages in procession stalking
Moved majestic to and fro,
And each lowly mortal walking
In their shadow stilled his talking,
Heeding the sonorous flow
Of their wisdom, loud or low,
Long ago.
Angel Woman, younger, fairer
Far than she that now we know,
Gave men meeting with a rarer
Grace. No graybeard cried, “Beware her
Tongue and temper!” She was slow
To wrath. I tell you that was so,
Long ago.
Ah, the miracle of morning.
Setting all the world aglow
Like a smile of light adorning
God’s own face, held no forewarning
Of the tempest that would blow—
Sign and prophecy of woe,
Long ago.
Hope from every hilltop beckoned
To the happy throngs below;
And they confidently reckoned
On a hero every second.
Best of all that goodly show,
I was but a laddie—O,
So long ago!
A Prophet of Peace
“The world is young, perverse, and bad,
The virtues all are wanting;
The gods are dead and men are mad
And wickedness is haunting
The human heart, an honored guest,
As robbers of the night infest
A wayside inn in Camilhad.
“Hate walks the earth all unafraid,
And neighbor murders neighbor;
Greed draws on Greed the battle-blade,
And Labor strangles Labor.
The widow and the orphan cry
For bread while benefactors ply
Unlashed by law, their dreadful trade.
“King, president, and patriot
Serve their accurst ambition;
The soldier and the sans-culottes,
The priest and politician,
Are blowing with impested breath
The coals of war that sparkle death.
Peace, righteousness, and love are not.
“But I shall live to see the day
Whose golden dawn is breaking!
The reign of war no more shall lay
Our dust, nor hearts be aching.
Lo! all mankind in brotherhood
Shall study only to be good,
And fling the sword of self away!”
So chanted one inspired and fain
His message to deliver
To men who toiled upon the plain
And bled along the river,
And all the world was foul with crime!
This prophet lived about the time
That Lamech’s wife bare Tubal-cain.
An Unreformable Reformer
I know not how they come about—
These alterations in our spelling,
But sometimes am disposed to doubt
The efficacy of compelling
(As still is done to one in school
By threatening to whack or twist him)
Observance of an iron rule
Despite one’s better private system.
For when the sinner’s freed from fear
He spells, as formerly, by ear.
That’s what I have observed, but much
By that, I fear, is not decided
Against the iron hand (whose touch
May none experience, as I did)
For under this White House regime
Condemning every silent letter,
This is the motto, it would seem:
“Who spells by ear spells all the better.’
If that is what these pranks entail,
Executive Compulsion, hail!
God grant I know not envy nor,
When chatting over cup and saucer,
Betray my secret hunger for
The high renown of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Yet now at last I seem to see
My way to equal approbation:
When I’m as hard to read as he
Phonetes of that far generation
Will study me and say: “How grand!—
So difficult to understand!”
The President, the President!—
How enterprising in revision
Of Nature’s laws!—how diligent
In cutting out a court decision!—
How sedulous the stars to woo
And keep the seasons rightly going!
Ah, seldom we remember who
Establishes the time of sowing
And reaping, makes the harvest good,
And a great man of Leonard Wood.
This world is variously bad,
And mad as hares in January
(’Tis later that the hares are mad,
But similes and seasons vary)
And Presidents have much to do
To keep the March of Mind a-walking,
To level up the birth rate, to
Pain William Chandler—all by talking.
O Father Adam, how you must
Rejoice that both your ears are dust!
The Word-Way in Panama
I dreamed I sailed along a tropic shore,
The Line behind me and the Star before.
A savage
