class="i1">From Siskiyou to San Diego known—
From the Sierra to the sea. The zone
Called semi-tropical I’ve pulled about
And placed it where it does most good, I trust.
I shake my never-failing bounty out
Alike upon the just and the unjust.”
“That’s very true,” said I, “but when ’tis shaken
My share by the unjust is ever taken.”
“Permit me,” it resumed, “now to present
My eldest son, the Champagne Atmosphere,
And others to rebuke your discontent—
The Mammoth Squash, Strawberry All the Year,
The fair No Lightning—flashing only here—
The Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky,
With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least,
The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try
To bring a better stomach to the feast:
When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper,
To be unhappy is to be a viper!”
“Why, yet,” said I, “with all your blessings fine
(And Heaven forbid that I should speak them ill)
I’m poor and ill and sorrowful. Ye shine
With more of splendor than of heat: for still,
Although my will is warm, my bones are chill.”
“Then warm you with enthusiasm’s blaze—
Fortune waits not on toil,” they cried; “O then,
Join the wild chorus clamoring our praise—
Throw up your beaver and throw down your pen!”
“Begone!” I shouted. They bewent, a-smirking,
And I, awakening, fell straight a-working.
A “Mass” Meeting
It was a solemn rite as e’er
Was seen by mortal man.
The celebrants, the people there,
Were all Republican.
There Estee bent his grizzled head,
And General Dimond, too,
And one—’twas Reddick, someone said,
Though no one clearly knew.
I saw the priest, white-robed and tall
(Assistant, Father Stow)—
He was the pious man men call
Dan Burns of Mexico.
Ah, ’twas a high and holy rite
As anyone could swear.
“What does it mean?” I asked a wight
Who knelt apart in prayer.
“A mass for the repose,” he said,
“Of Colonel Markham’s”—“What,
Is gallant Colonel Markham dead?
’Tis sad, ’tis sad, God wot!”
“A mass”—repeated he, and rose
To go and kneel among
The worshipers—“for the repose
Of Colonel Markham’s tongue.”
The New Dennis
Lo! Kearney, rising on his hinder legs,
For higher rates of freight and passage begs.
Time was when Dennis talked another way—
Because he drove an opposition dray.
Thus, soon or late, to override the laws
All common carriers make common cause,
Pool the foul issues of their dirty lungs,
Lick each other with fraternal tongues.
Crocker and Kearney, men of equal leather,
Arcades ambo—they are pigs together.
A Rational Anthem
My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of felony,
Of thee I sing—
Land where my fathers fried
Young witches and applied
Whips to the Quaker’s hide
And made him spring.
My knavish country, thee,
Land where the thief is free,
Thy laws I love;
I love thy thieving bills
That tap the people’s tills;
I love thy mob whose will’s
All laws above.
Let Federal employees
And rings rob all they please,
The whole year long.
Let office-holders make
Their piles and judges rake
Our coin. For Jesus’ sake,
Let’s all go wrong!
Incivism
“He’s no good citizen!” the crowd
Of politicians cries aloud.
“How so?” says one.
“Because—why, curse
The man! while we deplete his purse
Some air contentedly he hums,
Or twiddles his incivic thumbs.”
“What more could you desire?”
“The whelp!
We want him to stand in and help.”
“Two crowds contend, his purse to twist
Away—pray which should he assist?”
“It matters not whose hand unsacks
His shekels, for we all go snacks.”
Famine in Prosperity
Two monks upon a field of battle
Observed some lean and hungry cattle.
Said one: “But little feed is growing
Where Death so lately has been mowing.”
Replied the other, gravely eying
The piles of dead about them lying:
“All flesh is grass—I’m quite confounded
That cows should starve by hay surrounded.”
An Epigrammatist
Once Hector Stuart in his tersest mood
Took up his pencil. “By the holy rood!”
He cried, “I’ll write an epigram.” He did—
Nay, by the holy mile his pencil slid.
An artist’s trick by which the Nude’s
Protected from the eyes of prudes,
Which else with their peculiar flame
Might scorch the canvass in its frame,
Or melt the bronze, or burn to lime
The marble, in a minute’s time.
For sparks are sometimes seen to dance
Where falls a dame’s offended glance,
And little curls of smoke to rise
From fingers veiling virgin eyes.
O prudes I know you—once you made
Among us here a fool crusade
Against some casts from the antique,
Great, naked, natural and Greek,
Whereto you flocked, a prurient crush,
And diligently tried to blush,
Half strangled in the vain attempt
Till someone (may the wretch be hemped!)
Depressed his lordly length of ear
Your loud lubricity to hear,
Then took his chisel up and dealt
At Art a blow below the belt.
Insulted, crimson with the shame,
Her cheeks aglow, her eyes aflame,
The goddess spread her pinions bright,
Sprang, and the town was left in night!
Since then in vain the painter toils:
His canvass still repels the oils.
In vain with melancholy sighs
His burin the engraver plies;
Lines multiply beneath his hand—
Their meaning none can understand.
With stubborn clay and unsubdued.
The sculptor shapes his fancies crude,
Unable to refine the work,
And makes a god look like a Turk.
To marble grown, or metal, still
The monstrous image makes him ill,
Till, crazed with rage, the damaged lot
He breaks, or sells to Irving Scott.
For President, Leland Stanford
Mahomet Stanford, with covetous stare,
Gazed on a vision surpassingly fair:
Far on the desert’s remote extreme
A mountain of gold with a mellow gleam
Reared its high pinnacles into the sky,
The work of mirage to delude the eye.
Pixley Pasha, at the Prophet’s feet
Piously licking them, swearing them sweet,
Ventured, observing his master’s glance,
To beg that he order the mountain’s advance.
Mahomet Stanford exerted his will,
Commanding: “In Allah’s name, hither, hill!”
Never an inch the mountain came.
Mahomet Stanford, with face aflame,
Lifted his foot and kicked, alack!
Pixley Pasha on the end of the back.
Mollified thus and smiling free,
He said: “Since the mountain won’t come to me,
I’ll go to the mountain.” With infinite pains,
Camels in caravans, negroes in trains,
Warriors, workmen, women, and fools,
Food and water and mining tools
He gathered about him, a mighty array,
And the journey began at the close of day.
All night they traveled—at early dawn
Many a wearisome league had gone.
Morning broke fair with a golden sheen,
Mountain, alas, was nowhere seen!
Mahomet Stanford pounded his breast,
Pixley Pasha he thus addressed:
“Dog of mendacity, cheat and
