kind!”
But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam,
And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind.
And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced
That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced!
Judge Not
To foreigners in San Francisco, greeting.
When you see a labor-leader fiercely beating
The air with all his fingers to betoken
His view of this or that ere yet ’tis spoken—
When you see him, as in dancing, foot it featly
To manifest dissent the more completely—
When you hear him in a tempest of emotion
Deflate himself of some unpeaceful notion,
Don’t prophesy a blazing revolution;
Don’t drag the guillotine from its seclusion;
Don’t whistle up a storm of blood and thunder,
To fill the world with horror, fear and wonder!
He’s dreadful in defining his position,
He’s terrible in threatening sedition—
And a Past Grand Master of Submission.
Desperation
My days all are wasted in vainly
Contesting the field against Fate;
My nights with remorses insanely
Are swarming, and spectres of hate.
“O for rest! O for peace!” I cry madly—
“Let me fall, for I faint in the strife.
To be dead, to be dead, I’d give gladly
All, all that I have, except life.”
To Dog
Pervading pest! Old Adam, when he saw
Thy prime progenitor, I doubt not, swore
And kicked the curst kioodle from the door,
Though now thy whelpage we protect by law.
In faith, thou must have been a beastly, raw,
Uncultivated monster many score
Immemorable centuries before
Thy rigor was by breeding made to thaw.
How racy of the soil thou must have been!—
Indigenous and close to nature’s heart!
How strong thy jaw-lock, habits how unclean,
And what a sink of infamy thy heart!
It may be, though, thou wert created upright.
If Man (the angels’ care) could fall, a pup might.
To a Grabber
If, Prentiss Maslin, you would kindly leave
A coin or two of what the State has hoarded
We’d think it generous of you; for we’ve
But just begun our fortunes to retrieve,
Having lost all our treasury afforded
To certain robbers, who, departing, left
Us you as a memorial of the theft.
Memorial? Bless you! you’re the very thing
Incarnate—and by no means any cleaner
For incarnation. Sir, you are the king
Of crimes, grown great and proud remembering
When you were young and but a misdemeanor.
Let lesser souls be ravenous of pelf,
He scorns the gains of greed who’s greed itself.
What! shall a firework covetously yearn
While splendoring the skies—a gorgeous rocket
Where golden constellations grandly burn—
To take the earth along? ’Tis sad to learn
That even the robe of glory has a pocket.
In you, alas! I’d fondly hoped to see
One man that loved himself unselfishly.
Memorial Day
The bands have played, the singers finished singing,
The flags done flapping and the bells done ringing.
Hereditary candidates have spoken;
Their tongues are silent and their hearts are broken—
Barnes, Shortridge, Salomon-in-all-his-glory,
With wounds (their mouths) no longer wide and gory—
Healed by the touch of time; for even orations
Must sometimes come to end if one have patience.
And still in spite of all the din infernal
Of every “General” and “Judge” and “Colonel,”
Our grand old heroes sleep in peace eternal!
A Dampened Ardor
The Chinatown at Bakersfield
Was blazing bright and high;
The flames to water would not yield,
Though torrents drenched the sky
And drowned the ground for miles around—
The houses were so dry.
Then rose an aged preacher man
Whom all did much admire,
Who said: “To force on you my plan
I truly don’t aspire,
But streams, it seems, might quench these beams
If turned upon the fire.”
The fireman said: “This hoary wight
His folly dares to thrust
On us! ’Twere well he felt our might—
Nay, he shall feel our must!”
With jet of wet and small regret
They laid that old man’s dust.
Adair Welcker, Poet
The Swan of Avon died—the Swan
Of Sacramento’ll soon be gone;
And when his death-song he shall coo,
Stand back, or it will kill you too.
To a Word-Warrior
Frank Pixley, you, who kiss the hand
That strove to cut the country’s throat,
Cannot forgive the hands that smote
Applauding in a distant land—
Applauding carelessly, as one
The weaker willing to befriend
Until the quarrel’s at an end,
Then learn by whom it was begun.
When North was pitted against South
Non-combatants on either side
In calculating fury vied,
And fought their foes by word of mouth.
That mad logomachy you led
With formidable feats of tongue.
Then on the battle’s rear you hung—
With Samson’s weapon slew the dead!
So hot the ardor of your soul
That every fierce civilian came
His torch to kindle at your flame,
Or have you blow his cooling coal.
Men prematurely left their beds
And sought the gelid bath—so great
The heat and splendor of your hate
Of Englishmen and “Copperheads.”
King Liar of deceitful men,
For imposition doubly armed!
The patriots whom your speaking charmed
You stung to madness with your pen.
There was a certain journal here,
Its English owner growing rich—
Your hand the treason wrote for which
A mob cut short its curst career.
If, Pixley, you had not the brain
To know the true from false, or you
To Truth had courage to be true,
And loyal to her perfect reign;
If you had not your powers arrayed
To serve the wrong by tricksy speech,
Nor pushed yourself within the reach
Of retribution’s accolade,
I had not had the will to go
Outside the olive-bordered path
Of peace to cut the birch of wrath,
And strip your body for the blow.
Behold how dark the war-clouds rise
About the mother of our race!
The lightnings gild her tranquil face
And glitter in her patient eyes.
Her children throng the hither flood
And lean intent above the beach.
Their beating hearts inhibit speech
With stifling tides of English blood.
“Their skies, but not their hearts, they change
Who go in ships across the sea”—
Through all centuries to be
The strange new land will still be strange.
The Island Mother holds in gage
The souls of sons she never saw;
Superior to law, the law
Of sympathetic heritage.
Forgotten now the foolish reign
Of wrath which sundered trivial ties.
A soldier’s sabre vainly tries
To cleave a spiritual chain.
The iron in our blood affines,
Though fratricidal hands may
