No doubt, McAllister, you can explain
How honorable ’tis to lie for gain,
Provided only that the jury’s made
To understand that lying is your trade.
A hundred thousand volumes, broad and flat,
(The Bible not included) proving that,
Have been put forth, though still the doubt remains
If God has read them with befitting pains.
No Morrow could get justice, you’ll declare,
If none who knew him foul affirmed him fair.
Ingenious man! how easy ’tis to raise
An argument to justify the course that pays!
I grant you, if you like, that men may need
The services performed for crime by greed—
Grant that the perfect welfare of the State
Requires the aid of those who in debate
As mercenaries lost in early youth
The fine distinction between lie and truth—
Who cheat in argument and set a snare
To take the feet of Justice unaware—
Who serve with livelier zeal when rogues assist
With perjury, embracery (the list
Is long to quote) than when an honest soul,
Scorning to plot, conspire, intrigue, cajole,
Reminds them (their astonishment how great!)
He’d rather suffer wrong than perpetrate.
I grant, in short, ’tis better all around
That ambidextrous consciences abound
In courts of law to do the dirty work
That self-respecting scavengers would shirk.
What then? Who serves however clean a plan
By doing dirty work, he is a dirty man!
Charles Shortridge once to St. Peter came.
“Down!” cried the saint with his face aflame;
“ ’Tis writ that every hardy liar
Shall dwell forever and ever in fire!”
“That’s what I said the night that I died,”
The sinner, turning away, replied.
“What! you said that?” cried the saint—“what! what!
You said ’twas so writ? Then, faith, ’tis not!
I’m a devil at quoting, but I begin
To fail in my memory. Pray walk in.”
I turned my eyes upon the Future’s scroll
And saw its pictured prophecies unroll.
I saw that magical life-laden train
Flash its long glories o’er Nebraska’s plain.
I saw it smoothly up the mountain glide.
“O happy, happy passengers!” I cried.
For Pleasure, singing, drowned the engine’s roar,
And Hope on joyous pinions flew before.
Then dived the train adown the sunset slope—
Pleasure was silent and unseen was Hope.
Crashes and shrieks attested the decay
That greed had wrought upon that iron way.
The rusted rails broke down the rotting ties,
And clouds of flying spikes obscured the skies.
My coward eyes I drew away, distressed,
And fixed them on the terminus to-West,
Where soon, its melancholy tale to tell,
One bloody car-wheel wabbled in and fell!
“Open wide, ye golden gates
That lead to the heavenly shore:
Our father suffered in passing through,
And mother weighs still more.”
“Our papa dear has gone to heaven
To make arrangements for eleven.”
“The winter’s snow
Congealed his form.
But now we know
Our uncle’s warm.”
“We can but mourn our loss,
Though wretched was his life.
Death took him from the cross—
Erected by his wife.”
“Weep not, mother: little Will
Is gone to Upper Louisville.”
O Lord, incline Thine ear unto our prayer
And preachers’ intercession:
This strange discrimination is unfair—
That’s our impression.
Our neighbors all about have copious rains
That fall on them like manna.
Send us the showers, Lord, and parch the plains
Of Indiana.
Upon the just and unjust, sayest Thou,
Thou’lt sprinkle without favor.
The sin of promise-breaking, all allow.
Could not be graver.
We’re just, and still our whistles are not wet,
And still ’tis growing hotter;
While every scamp in Michigan can get
His fill of water.
We ask but justice: treat us not with scorn;
Our comfort make less chilly;
And those who pray for an advance in corn—
O smite them silly!
Let corn be plentiful, and cheap: our hops
Look well without a shower;
We’ve sold our wheat: that profitable crop’s
Beyond Thy power.
Big Smith is an Oakland School Board man,
And he looks as good as ever he can;
And he’s such a cold and a chaste Big Smith
That snowflakes all are his kin and kith.
Wherever his eye he chances to throw
The crystals of ice begin to grow;
And the fruits and flowers he sees are lost
By the singeing touch of a sudden frost.
The women all shiver whenever he’s near,
And look upon us with a look austere—
Effect of the Smithian atmosphere.
Such, in a word, is the moral plan
Of the Big, Big Smith, the School Board man.
When told that Madame Ferrier had taught
Hernani in school, his fist he brought
Like a trip-hammer down on his bulbous knee,
And he roared: “Her Nanny? By gum, we’ll see
If the public’s time she dares devote
To the educatin’ of any dam goat!”
“You do not entirely comprehend—
Hernani’s a play,” said his learned friend,
“By Victor Hugo—immoral and bad.
What’s worse, it’s French!” “Well, well, my lad,”
Said Smith, “if he cuts a swath so wide
I’ll have him took re’glar up and tried!”
And he smiled so sweetly the other chap
Thought that himself was a Finn or Lapp
Caught in a storm of his native snows,
With a purple ear and an azure nose.
The Smith continued: “I never pursue
Immoral readin’.” And that is true:
He’s a saint of remarkably high degree,
With a mind as chaste as a mind can be;
But read!—the devil a word can he.
Dawn heralded the coming sun—
Fort Douglas was computing
The minute—and the sunrise gun
Was manned for his saluting.
The gunner at that firearm stood,
The which he slowly loaded,
When, bang!—I know not how it could,
But sure the charge
