red-handed, or at least red-tongued, Brandish the javelin which by others thrown Clove Sambo's heart to quiver in your own! Confess no more that when his blood was shed, And you so sympathetically bled, The bow that spanned the mutual cascade Was but the promise of a roaring trade In offices. Your fingering now the trigger Shows that you knew your Negro was a nigger! Ad hominem this argumentum runs:   Peace!—let us fire another kind of guns. I grant you, friend, that it is very true The Blacks are ignorant—and sable, too. What then? One way of two a fool must vote, And either way with gentlemen of note Whose villain feuds the fact attest too well That pedagogues nor vice nor error quell. The fiercest controversies ever rage When Miltons and Salmasii engage. No project wide attention ever drew But it disparted all the learned crew. As through their group the cleaving line's prolonged With fiery combatants each field is thronged. In battle-royal they engage at once For guidance of the hesitating dunce. The Titans on the heights contend full soon—   On this side Webster and on that Calhoun, The monstrous conflagration of their fight Startling the day and splendoring the night! Both are unconquerable—one is right. Will't keep the pigmy, if we make him strong, From siding with a giant in the wrong? When Genius strikes for error, who's afraid To arm poor Folly with a wooden blade? O Rabelais, you knew it all!—your good And honest judge (by men misunderstood)   Knew to be right there was but one device Less fallible than ignorance—the dice. The time must come—Heaven expedite the day!—   When all mankind shall their decrees obey, And nations prosper in their peaceful sway. 

 

 TINKER DICK

   Good Parson Dickson preached, I'm told, A sermon—ah, 'twas very old And very, very, bald!   'Twas all about—I know not what It was about, nor what 'twas not.     "A Screw Loose" it was called. Whatever, Parson Dick, you say, The world will get each blessed day Still more and more askew, And fall apart at last. Great snakes! What skillful tinker ever takes His tongue to turn a screw? 

 

 BATS IN SUNSHINE

   Well, Mr. Kemble, you are called, I think, A great divine, and I'm a great profane. You as a Congregationalist blink Some certain truths that I esteem a gain, And drop them in the coffers of my brain, Pleased with the pretty music of their chink. Perhaps your spiritual 

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