silver brick If brains were trumps you'd never take a trick. 

 

 EXPOSITOR VERITATIS

   I Slept, and, waking in the years to be, Heard voices, and approaching whence they came, Listened indifferently where a key Had lately been removed. An ancient dame Said to her daughter: "Go to yonder caddy And get some emery to scour your daddy."    And then I knew—some intuition said—     That tombs were not and men had cleared their shelves Of urns; and the electro-plated dead Stood pedestaled as statues of themselves. With famous dead men all the public places Were thronged, and some in piles awaited bases. One mighty structure's high fagade alone Contained a single monumental niche, Where, central in that steep expanse of stone, Gleamed the familiar form of Thomas Fitch. A man cried: "Lo! Truth's temple and its founder!"   Then gravely added: "I'm her chief expounder." 

 

 TO "COLONEL" DAN. BURNS

   They say, my lord, that you're a Warwick. Well, The title's an absurd one, I believe:   You make no kings, you have no kings to sell, Though really 'twere easy to conceive You stuffing half-a-dozen up your sleeve. No, you're no Warwick, skillful from the shell To hatch out sovereigns. On a mare's nest, maybe, You'd incubate a little jackass baby. I fancy, too, that it is naught but stuff, This "power" that you're said to be "behind The throne." I'm sure 'twere accurate enough To represent you simply as inclined To push poor Markham (ailing in his mind And body, which were never very tough)   Round in an invalid's wheeled chair. Such menial Employment to low natures is congenial. No, Dan, you're an impostor every way:     A human bubble, for "the earth," you know,   "Hath bubbles, as the water hath." Some day Some careless hand will prick your film, and O, How utterly you'll vanish! Daniel, throw   (As fallen Woolsey might to Cromwell say)   Your curst ambition to the pigs—though truly   'Twould make them greater pigs, and more unruly. 

 

 GEORGE A. KNIGHT

   Attorney Knight, it happens so sometimes That lawyers, justifying cut-throats' crimes For hire—calumniating, too, for gold, The dead, dumb victims cruelly unsouled—   Speak, through the press, to a tribunal far More honorable than their Honors are,—   A court that sits not with assenting smile  

 Prev. P 35/110 next