Black Beetles in Amber Part 26

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 a.s.sist 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!

ACCEPTED

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."

A PROMISED FAST TRAIN

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 pa.s.sengers!" 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 b.l.o.o.d.y car-wheel wabbled in and fell!

ONE OF THE SAINTS

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!

A MILITARY INCIDENT

Dawn heralded the coming sun-- Fort Douglas was computing The minutes--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 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 VERSUS SHADOW

So, gentle critics, you would have me tilt, Not at the guilty, only just at 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 neither felt nor seen.'"

Well, friends, I venture, dest.i.tute 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 hit, 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, G.o.d 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 advance in dignity and state-- Grave, smug, serene, indubitably great-- Stanford, philanthropist! One hand bestows In alms what t'other one as 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 a.s.sault; 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 Mr. 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 contagious quarrels, There's a committee but no public morals.