in many a bog beslubbered quite,
Refuse to flay me with ecclesiastic soap.
You say ’tis a sad world, seeing I’m condemned,
With many a million others of my kidney.
Each continent’s Hammed, Japheted and Shemmed
With sinners—worldlings like Sir Philip Sidney
And scoffers like Voltaire, who thought it bliss
To simulate respect for Genesis—
Who bent the mental knee as if in prayer,
But mocked at Moses underneath his hair,
And like an angry gander bowed his head to hiss.
Seeing such as these, who die without contrition,
Must go to—beg your pardon, sir—perdition,
The sons of light, you tell me, can’t be gay,
But count it sin of the sort called omission
The groan to smother or the tear to stay
Or fail to—what is that they live by?—pray.
So down they kneel, and the whole serious race is
Put by divine compassion on a praying basis.
Well, if you take it so to heart, while yet
Our own hearts are so light with nature’s leaven,
You’ll weep indeed when we in Hades sweat,
And you look down upon us out of Heaven.
In fancy, lo! I see your wailing shades
Thronging the crystal battlements. Cascades
Of tears spring singing from each golden spout,
Run roaring from the verge with hoarser sound,
Dash downward through the glimmering profound,
Quench the tormenting flame and put the Devil out!
Presumptuous fool! to you no power belongs
To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs
Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter,
With less of ink than incoherence fraught,
Befits the folly that it tries to utter.
Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter:
You suffer from impediment of thought.
Save when considering your bread-and-butter.
When next you “point the way to Heaven,” take care:
Your fingers all being thumbs, point Heaven knows where!
Farewell, poor dunce! your letter though I blame,
Bears witness how my anger I can tame:
I’ve called you everything except your hateful name!
To Oscar Wilde
Because from Folly’s lips you got
Some babbled mandate to subdue
The realm of Common Sense, and you
Made promise and considered not—
Because you strike a random blow
At what you do not understand,
And beckon with a friendly hand
To something that you do not know,
I hold no speech of your desert,
Nor answer with porrected shield
The wooden weapon that you wield,
But meet you with a cast of dirt.
Dispute with such a thing as you—
Twin show to the two-headed calf?
Why, sir, if I repress my laugh,
’Tis more than half the world can do.
Born Leaders of Men
Tuckerton Tamerlane Morey Mahosh
Is a statesman of world-wide fame,
With a notable knack at rhetorical bosh
To glorify somebody’s name—
Somebody chosen by Tuckerton’s masters
To succor the country from divers disasters
Portentous to Mr. Mahosh.
Percy O’Halloran Tarpy Cabee
Is in the political swim.
He cares not a button for men, not he:
Great principles captivate him—
Principles cleverly cut out and fitted
To Percy’s capacity, duly admitted
And fought for by Mr. Cabee.
Drusus Tum Swinnerton Porfer Fitzurse
Holds office the most of his life.
For men nor for principles cares he a curse
But much for his neighbor’s wife.
The Ship of State leaks, but he doesn’t pump any—
Messrs. Mahosh, Cabee & Company
Pump for good Mr. Fitzurse.
The Crime of 1903
Time was, not very long ago,
As by historians time is reckoned,
When first of virtues here below
Was hatred of secession, though
Some swore it wasn’t even second;
But these (they mostly were down South)
Have all renounced their view with candor—
Some tardily by word of mouth,
Some, earlier, in a manner grander.
To stamp their error out, ’tis true,
We paid enough of blood (the treasure
Would pave with gold an avenue)
To float a battleship or two,
If so the cost we choose to measure.
’Twas worth it all, we say and say—
The President has often said it;
And so it was—to us; and they
Say nothing, as a rule, who shed it.
“Times change and we change with them,” men
Of old renown averred in Latin;
And that’s as true on tongue or pen
This blessed century as when
The seat of empire Caesar sat in.
For see how many play their parts
As ardent lovers of secession,
Promoting it with all their hearts—
In countries out of our possession.
O men of variable views,
How can you be so light and fickle?
Is it because you think the news
From Panama portends no bruise
To you, nor payment of a nickel?
Nay, is it that you scent a gain
In troubles of a neighbor nation,
And so appraise her loss and pain
As nothing worth a valuation?
Those ills ’tis easy to endure
That light upon and sting another—
That’s Christian fortitude; but sure
There’s somewhere an account of your
Least feeling toward a hapless brother.
Himself may show by deed and speech
Less racial sympathies than tribal,
But—well, this is no place to preach;
The sermon’s mostly in the Bible.
We’re false to trust and quick to spy
The fissure in a friendly armor,
Even Freedom can no more rely
Upon our promise not to harm her.
O Guardian of Continents,
My country! shall that evil dower,
The passion for preeminence,
Cry from thy seaward battlements
A soul already drunk with power?
For Expulsion
They say, Brig. Roberts, you have seven wives,
And every one a beauty! As to that
I’m not informed; in the domestic hives
Of Utah, where I’ve sometimes hung my hat,
Not all the dames were comely. Like a cat
That has nine lives and must support them all,
You have to hustle round a bit, I fancy.
Now don’t you really agree with Paul
That women are the devil?—even Nancy
And Mary Jane and Caroline and Ella
And Ruth and Adeline and Isabella!
If I had half as many wives as you
(That’s three wives and a half as I compute)
I hardly know what I’d be driven to.
I might in desperation play the flute,
Or Congress find in me a raw recruit.
Then, I suppose, the country would uprise
And say the things I least should care to hear:
And virtuous editors would damn my eyes,
And cartilaginous virgins pain my ear.
And now and then some pious person clamor,
Blessed
