Chapter 12

A bluff old farmer next he saw Sell produce in a village, And said: "What, what! is there no law To punish men for pillage?"

A dame, tall, fair and stately, passed, Who many charms united; He thanked his stars his lot was cast Where sepulchers were whited.

He saw a soldier stiff and stern, "Full of strange oaths" and toddy; But was unable to discern A wound upon his body.

Ten square leagues of rolling ground To one great man belonging, Looked like one little grassy mound With worms beneath it thronging.

A palace's well-carven stones, Where Dives dwelt contented, Seemed built throughout of human bones With human blood cemented.

He watched the yellow shining thread A silk-worm was a-spinning; "That creature's coining gold." he said, "To pay some girl for sinning."

His eyes were so untrained and dim All politics, religions, Arts, sciences, appeared to him But modes of plucking pigeons.

And so he drew his final breath, And thought he saw with sorrow Some persons weeping for his death Who'd be all smiles to-morrow.

A NIGHTMARE.

I dreamed that I was dead. The years went by: The world forgot that such a man as I Had ever lived and written: other names Were hailed with homage, in their turn to die.

Out of my grave a giant beech upgrew. Its roots transpierced my body, through and through, My substance fed its growth. From many lands Men came in troops that giant tree to view.

'T was sacred to my memory and fame-- My monument. But Allen Forman came, Filled with the fervor of a new untruth, And carved upon the trunk his odious name!

A WET SEASON.

Horas non numero nisi serenas.

The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth, And man's in danger. O that my mother at my birth Had borne a stranger! The flooded ground is all around. The depth uncommon. How blest I'd be if only she Had borne a salmon.

If still denied the solar glow 'T were bliss ecstatic To be amphibious--but O, To be aquatic! We're worms, men say, o' the dust, and they That faith are firm of. O, then, be just: show me some dust To be a worm of.

The pines are chanting overhead A psalm uncheering. It's O, to have been for ages dead And hard of hearing! Restore, ye Pow'rs, the last bright hours The dial reckoned; 'Twas in the time of Egypt's prime-- Rameses II.

THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS.

Tut-tut! give back the flags--how can you care You veterans and heroes? Why should you at a kind intention swear Like twenty Neroes?

Suppose the act was not so overwise-- Suppose it was illegal-- Is 't well on such a question to arise And pinch the Eagle?

Nay, let's economize his breath to scold And terrify the alien Who tackles him, as Hercules of old The bird Stymphalian.

Among the rebels when we made a breach Was it to get their banners? That was but incidental--'t was to teach Them better manners.

They know the lesson well enough to-day; Now, let us try to show them That we 're not only stronger far than they. (How we did mow them!)

But more magnanimous. You see, my lads, 'T was an uncommon riot; The warlike tribes of Europe fight for "fads," We fought for quiet.

If we were victors, then we all must live With the same flag above us; 'Twas all in vain unless we now forgive And make them love us.

Let kings keep trophies to display above Their doors like any savage; The freeman's trophy is the foeman's love, Despite war's ravage.

"Make treason odious?" My friends, you'll find You can't, in right and reason, While "Washington" and "treason" are combined-- "Hugo" and "treason."

All human governments must take the chance And hazard of sedition. O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance To blind submission.

It may be wrong, it may be right, to rise In warlike insurrection: The loyalty that fools so dearly prize May mean subjection.

Be loyal to your country, yes--but how If tyrants hold dominion? The South believed they did; can't you allow For that opinion?

He who will never rise though rulers plods His liberties despising How is he manlier than the _sans culottes_ Who's always rising?

Give back the foolish flags whose bearers fell Too valiant to forsake them. Is it presumptuous, this counsel? Well, I helped to take them.

HAEC FABULA DOCET.

A rat who'd gorged a box of bane And suffered an internal pain, Came from his hole to die (the label Required it if the rat were able) And found outside his habitat A limpid stream. Of bane and rat 'T was all unconscious; in the sun It ran and prattled just for fun. Keen to allay his inward throes, The beast immersed his filthy nose And drank--then, bloated by the stream, And filled with superheated steam, Exploded with a rascal smell, Remarking, as his fragments fell Astonished in the brook: "I'm thinking This water's damned unwholesome drinking!"

EXONERATION.

When men at candidacy don't connive, From that suspicion if their friends would free 'em, The teeth and nails with which they did not strive Should be exhibited in a museum.

AZRAEL.

The moon in the field of the keel-plowed main Was watching the growing tide: A luminous peasant was driving his wain, And he offered my soul a ride.

But I nourished a sorrow uncommonly tall, And I fixed him fast with mine eye. "O, peasant," I sang with a dying fall, "Go leave me to sing and die."

The water was weltering round my feet, As prone on the beach they lay. I chanted my death-song loud and sweet; "Kioodle, ioodle, iay!"

Then I heard the swish of erecting ears Which caught that enchanted strain. The ocean was swollen with storms of tears That fell from the shining swain.

"O, poet," leapt he to the soaken sand, "That ravishing song would make The devil a saint." He held out his hand And solemnly added: "Shake."

We shook. "I crave a victim, you see," He said--"you came hither to die." The Angel of Death, 't was he! 't was he! And the victim he crove was I!

'T was I, Fred Emerson Brooks, the bard; And he knocked me on the head. O Lord! I thought it exceedingly hard, For I didn't want to be dead.

"You'll sing no worser for that," said he, And he drove with my soul away, O, death-song singers, be warned by me, Kioodle, ioodle, iay!

AGAIN.

Well, I've met her again--at the Mission. She'd told me to see her no more; It was not a command--a petition; I'd granted it once before.

Yes, granted it, hoping she'd write me. Repenting her virtuous freak-- Subdued myself daily and nightly For the better part of a week.

And then ('twas my duty to spare her The shame of recalling me) I Just sought her again to prepare her For an everlasting good-bye.

O, that evening of bliss--shall I ever Forget it?--with Shakespeare and Poe! She said, when 'twas ended: "You're never To see me again. And now go."

As we parted with kisses 'twas human And natural for me to smile As I thought, "She's in love, and a woman: She'll send for me after a while."

But she didn't; and so--well, the Mission Is fine, picturesque and gray; It's an excellent place for contrition-- And sometimes she passes that way.

That's how it occurred that I met her, And that's ah there is to tell-- Except that I'd like to forget her Calm way of remarking: "I'm well."

It was hardly worth while, all this keying My soul to such tensions and stirs To learn that her food was agreeing With that little stomach of hers.

HOMO PODUNKENSIS.

As the poor ass that from his paddock strays Might sound abroad his field-companions' praise, Recounting volubly their well-bred leer, Their port impressive and their wealth of ear, Mistaking for the world's assent the clang Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue; So the dull clown, untraveled though at large, Visits the city on the ocean's marge, Expands his eyes and marvels to remark Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark; Prates of "all nations," wonders as he stares That native merchants sell imported wares, Nor comprehends how in his very view A foreign vessel has a foreign crew; Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth, Swears it superior to aught on earth, Sighs for the temples locally renowned-- The village school-house and the village pound-- And chalks upon the palaces of Rome The peasant sentiments of "Home, Sweet Home!"

A SOCIAL CALL.

Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you, With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue? Less redness in the nose--nay, even some blue Would not, I think, particularly hurt you. When seen close to, not mounted in your car, You look the drunkard and the pig you are.

No matter, sit you down, for I am not In a gray study, as you sometimes find me. Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot, But there's another year of pain behind me. That's something to be thankful for: the more There are behind, the fewer are before.

I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp, But Heaven endowed me at my soul's creation With an affinity to every tramp That walks the world and steals its admiration. For admiration is like linen left Upon the line--got easiest by theft.

Good God! old man, just think of it! I've stood, With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty Long years as champion of all that's good, And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty. Yet now whose praises do the people bawl? Those of the fellows whom I live to maul!

Why, this is odd!--the more I try to talk Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic To prattle of myself! I'll try to balk Its waywardness and be more altruistic. So let us speak of others--how they sin, And what a devil of a state they 're in!

That's all I have to say. Good-bye, old man. Next year you possibly may find me scolding-- Or miss me altogether: Nature's plan Includes, as I suppose, a final folding Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear To think they'll never box another ear.