exploded!
Yes, to that veteran’s surprise
The gun went off sublimely,
And both his busy arms likewise
Went off with it, untimely.
Then said that gunner to his mate
(He was from Ballyshannon):
“Bedad, the sun’s a minute late,
Accardin’ to this cannon!”
Substance or Shadow
So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt,
Not at the guilty, only at their guilt!—
Spare the offender and condemn Offense,
And make life miserable to Pretense!
“Whip Vice and Folly—that is satire’s use—
But be not personal, for that’s abuse;
Nor e’er forget what, ‘like a razor keen,
Wounds with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen.’ ”
Well, friends, I venture, destitute of awe,
To think that razor but an old, old saw,
A trifle rusty; and a wound, I’m sure,
That’s felt not, seen not, one can well endure.
Go to! go to!—you’re as unfitted quite
To give advice to writers as to write.
I find in Folly and in Vice a lack
Of head to strike, and for the lash no back,
Whilst Pixley has a pow that’s easy struck,
And though good Deacon Fitch (a Fitch for luck!)
Has none, yet, lest he go entirely free,
God gave to him a corn, a heel to me.
He, also, sets his face (so like a flint
The wonder grows that Pickering doesn’t skin’t)
With cold austerity, against these wars
On scamps—’tis Scampery that he abhors!
Behold advances in dignity and state—
Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great—
Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows
In alms what t’other one to justice owes.
Rascality attends him like a shade,
But closes, woundless, o’er my baffled blade,
Its limbs unsevered, spirit undismayed.
Faith! I’m for something can be made to feel,
If, like Pelides, only in the heel.
The fellow’s self invites assault; his crimes
Will each bear killing twenty thousand times!
Anon Creed Haymond—but the list is long
Of names to point the moral of my song.
Rogues, fools, impostors, sycophants, they rise;
They foul the earth and horrify the skies—
With Collis Huntington (sole honest man
In all the reek of that rapscallion clan)
Denouncing Theft as hard as e’er he can!
The Committee on Public Morals
The Senate met in Sacramento city;
On public morals it had no committee,
Though greatly these abounded. Soon the quiet
Was broken by the Senators in riot.
Now, at the end of their infectious quarrels,
There’s a committee but no public morals.
A Playwright
Saint Peter, sitting at the Gate of Gold,
Looked idly down the cloudway and, behold,
A soul ascending from this world of woe,
Head up, hands pocketed—serene and bold!
(To souls, such pockets are, I know, denied
As in the flesh we wear on either side,
But the dead rich—or else they wouldn’t play—
With souls of perished pockets are supplied.)
“Ah, Harrison,” the Saint said—“William Greer,
’Twill do you little good to come, I fear;
I’ve certain crows to pick with you—and, first,
You were a ‘patron of the ring,’ I hear.”
Nodding and smirking, said the soul: “That’s right;
Nothing so charmed me as to see a fight.
But pray observe that as a man of peace,
Meek under challenge, I was ‘out of sight’!”
To this the Saint made answer: “Although gay,
You were not reckless; but, my friend, they say
You—what the devil was it that you did?
Ah, once you wrote, I understand, a play.
“You had the right to do so, ’tis agreed;
The Ring and Stage are near akin, indeed,
With you to write and Sullivan to act.
But, sir, the play you wrote was Runnmymede!”
“Well?” “Worst I ever saw!” The pride alurk
In authorship flashed forth, and like a dirk
That seeks a heart the cutting answer came:
“I guess you haven’t seen my later work.”
“What? you impenitent, you’ve written since?”
The Warder thundered, making William wince.
“Only to lie about my critics, please.
Of liars—bar Sam Chamberlain—I’m Prince!”
The Saint drew back his great two-handed key
And, as the nude immortal turned to flee,
Swung the big engine of his holy wrath,
And smote him where the back forgets to be!
All Heaven resounded with the dreadful blow,
And Echo babbled of it down below!
To farthest reaches of the shoreless void
Raced the receding sound-waves of his “O!”
Rubbing the part with many a grimace,
He said while hurtling Sheolward through space:
“Poor old Saint Peter!” and with a blue grin
Added: “That Paradise is a jay place.”
The Leader of the Minority
He tolls them along through the wilderness dire,
Ever in sight—
A clod by day and a pillar of fire—
Water by night.
Why should he not have been allowed
To thread with peaceful feet the crowd
That filled that Christian street?
The Decalogue he had observed,
From Faith in Jesus had not swerved,
And scorning pious platitudes,
He saw in the Beatitudes
A lamp to guide his feet.
He knew that Jonah downed the whale
And made no bones of it. The tale
That Ananias told
He swore was true. He had no doubt
That Daniel laid the lions out.
In short, he had all holiness,
All meekness and all lowliness,
And was with saints enrolled.
’Tis true, some slight excess of zeal
A little to promote the weal
Of this most Christian state
Had moved him rudely to divide
The queue that was a pagan’s pride,
And in addition certify
The Faith by making fur to fly
From pelt as well as pate.
But, Heavenly Father, thou dost know
That in this town these actions go
For nothing worth a name.
Nay, every editorial ass,
To prove they never come to pass
Will damn his soul eternally,
Although in his own journal he
May read the printed shame.
From bloody hands the reins of pow’r
Fall slack; the high-decisive hour
Strikes not for liars’ ears.
Remove, O Father, the disgrace
That stains our California’s face,
And consecrate to human good
The strength of her young womanhood
And all her golden years!
George C. Perkins
Running for Senator with clumsy pace,
He stooped so low to win the foremost place
That Fortune, tempted by a mark so droll,
Sprang in and kicked him to the winning pole.
To Either
Back further than
I know, in San
Francisco dwelt a wealthy man.
So rich was he
That none could be
Wise, good and great in like degree.
’Tis true he wrought,
In deed or thought,
But few of all the things he ought;
But men said: “Who
Would
