vaulting spit-ball drops untimely down; The fly impaled on the tormenting pin Stills in his awful glance its dizzy din; Beneath that stern regard the chewing-gum Which writhed and squeaked between the teeth is dumb; Obedient to his will the dunce-cap flies To perch upon the brows of the unwise; The supple switch forsakes the parent wood To settle where 'twill do the greatest good, Puissant still, as when of old it strove With Solomon for spitting on the stove Learned Professor, variously great, Guide, guardian, instructor of the State—   Quick to discern and zealous to correct The faults which mar the public intellect From where of Siskiyou the northern bound Is frozen eternal to the sunless ground To where in San Diego's torrid clime The swarthy Greaser swelters in his grime—   Beneath your stupid nose can you not see The dunce whom once you dandled on your knee? O mighty master of a thousand schools, Stop teaching wisdom, or stop breeding fools. 

 

 A COWARD

   When Pickering, distressed by an "attack,"   Has the strange insolence to answer back He hides behind a name that is a lie, And out of shadow falters his reply. God knows him, though—identified alike By hardihood to rise and fear to strike, And fitly to rebuke his sins decrees, That, hide from others with what care he please, Night sha'n't be black enough nor earth so wide That from himself himself can ever hide! Hard fate indeed to feel at every breath His burden of identity till death!—   No moment's respite from the immortal load, To think himself a serpent or a toad, Or dream, with a divine, ecstatic glow, He's long been dead and canonized a crow! 

 

 TO MY LIARS

   Attend, mine enemies of all degrees, From sandlot orators and sandlot fleas To fallen gentlemen and rising louts Who babble slander at your drinking bouts, And, filled with unfamiliar wine, begin Lies drowned, ere born, in more congenial gin. But most attend, ye persons of the press Who live (though why, yourselves alone can guess)   In hope deferred, ambitious still to shine By hating me at half a cent a line—   Like drones among the bees of brighter wing, Sunless to shine and impotent to sting. To estimate in easy verse I'll try The controversial value of a lie. So lend your ears—God knows you have enough!—   I mean to teach, and if I can't I'll cuff. A lie is wicked, so the priests declare; But that to us is neither here nor there.   'Tis worse than 

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