“Let Glory’s sons manipulateThe tiller of the Ship of State.Be mine the humble, useful toilTo work the tiller of the soil.”

Here lies Greer Harrison, a well cracked louse–So small a tenant of so big a house!He joyed in fighting with his eyes (his fistPrudently pendent from a peaceful wrist)And loved to loll on the Parnassian mount,His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count,–What poetry he’d written but for lackOf skill, when he had […]

Liars for witnesses; for lawyers brutesWho lose their tempers to retrieve their suits;Cowards for jurors; and for judge a clownWho ne’er took up the law, yet lays it down;Justice denied, authority abused,And the one honest person the accused–Thy courts, my country, all these awful years,Move fools to laughter and the wise to tears.

“I never yet exactly could determineJust how it is that the judicial ermineIs kept so safely from predacious vermin.” “It is not so, my friend: though in a garret‘Tis kept in camphor, and you often air it,The vermin will get into it and wear it.”

Christmas, you tell me, comes but once a year.One place it never comes, and that is here.Here, in these pages no good wishes spring,No well-worn greetings tediously ring–For Christmas greetings are like pots of ore:The hollower they are they ring the more.Here shall no holly cast a spiny shade,Nor mistletoe my solitude invade,No trinket-laden vegetable […]

‘T was a maiden lady (the newspapers say)Pious and prim and a bit gone-gray.She slept like an angel, holy and white,Till ten o’ the clock in the shank o’ the night(When men and other wild animals prey)And then she cried in the viewless gloom:“There’s a man in the room, a man in the room!”And this […]

In that fair city, Ispahan,There dwelt a problematic man,Whose angel never was released,Who never once let out his beast,But kept, through all the seasons’ round,Silence unbroken and profound.No Prophecy, with ear appliedTo key-hole of the future, triedSuccessfully to catch a hintOf what he’d do nor when begin ‘t;As sternly did his past defyMild Retrospection’s backward […]

How blest the land that counts amongHer sons so many good and wise,To execute great feats of tongueWhen troubles rise. Behold them mounting every stumpOur liberty by speech to guard.Observe their courage:–see them jumpAnd come down hard! “Walk up, walk up!” each cries aloud,“And learn from me what you must doTo turn aside the thunder […]

I died. As meekly in the earth I lay,With shriveled fingers reverently folded,The worm–uncivil engineer!–my clayTunneled industriously, and the mole did.My body could not dodge them, but my soul did;For that had flown from this terrestrial ballAnd I was rid of it for good and all. So there I lay, debating what to do–What measures […]

Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spiceAnd shells and corals, brought for my inspectionFrom the fair tropics–paid a Christian priceAnd was content in my fool’s paradise,Where never had been heard the word “Protection.” ‘T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone–No customs-house, collector nor collection,But a man came, who, in a pious toneCondoled with […]

Alas for ambition’s possessor!Alas for the famous and proud!The Isle of Manhattan’s best dresserIs wearing a hand-me-down shroud. The world has forgotten his glory;The wagoner sings on his wain,And Chauncey Depew tells a story,And jackasses laugh in the lane.

One thousand years I slept beneath the sod,My sleep in 1901 beginning,Then, by the action of some scurvy godWho happened then to recollect my sinning,I was revived and given another inning.On breaking from my grave I saw a crowd–A formless multitude of men and women,Gathered about a ruin. Clamors loudI heard, and curses deep enough […]

Saponacea, wert thou not so fairI’d curse thee for thy multitude of sins–For sending home my clothes all full of pins–A shirt occasionally that’s a snareAnd a delusion, got, the Lord knows where,The Lord knows why–a sock whose outs and insNone know, nor where it ends nor where begins,And fewer cuffs than ought to be […]

Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leaveAn unusual adventure into narrative to weave–Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel,A public educator and an orator as well.Mr. Peters had a weakness which, ’tis painful to relate,Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate.He would foster disputation wheresoever he […]

I lay in silence, dead. A woman cameAnd laid a rose upon my breast and said:“May God be merciful.” She spoke my name,And added: “It is strange to think him dead. “He loved me well enough, but ‘t was his wayTo speak it lightly.” Then, beneath her breath:“Besides”–I knew what further she would say,But then […]

Come, gentlemen–your gold.Thanks: welcome to the show.To hear a story toldIn words you do not know. Now, great Salvini, riseAnd thunder through your tears,Aha! friends, let your eyesInterpret to your ears. Gods! ‘t is a goodly game.Observe his stride–how grand!When legs like his declaimWho can misunderstand? See how that arm goes round.It says, as plain […]

Beneath my window twilight madeFamiliar mysteries of shade.Faint voices from the darkening downWere calling vaguely to the town.Intent upon a low, far gleamThat burned upon the world’s extreme,I sat, with short reprieve from grief,And turned the volume, leaf by leaf,Wherein a hand, long dead, had wroughtA million miracles of thought.My fingers carelessly unclungThe lettered pages, […]

Republicans think Jonas BimmA Democrat gone mad,And Democrats consider himRepublican and bad. The Tough reviles him as a DudeAnd gives it him right hot;The Dude condemns his crassitudeAnd calls him sans culottes. Derided as an AnglophileBy Anglophobes, forsooth,As Anglophobe he feels, the while,The Anglophilic tooth. The Churchman calls him Atheist;The Atheists, rough-shod,Have ridden o’er him […]

The skies they were ashen and sober, The leaves they were crisped and sere,– ” ” ” withering ” ” It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year; It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,– ” ” down ” ” dark tarn ” ” In the misty mid region […]

God said: “Let there be Man,” and from the clayAdam came forth and, thoughtful, walked away.The matrix whence his body was obtained,An empty, man-shaped cavity, remainedAll unregarded from that early timeTill in a recent storm it filled with slime.Now Satan, envying the Master’s powerTo make the meat himself could but devour,Strolled to the place and, […]