I do not say you utter falsehoods—I Would scorn to give to ministers the lie:   They cannot fight—their calling has estopped it. True, I did not persuade them to adopt it. But, Munhall, when you say the Devil dwells In all the breasts of all the infidels—   Making a lot of individual Hells In gentlemen instinctively who shrink From thinking anything that you could think, You talk as I should if some world I trod Where lying is acceptable to God. I don't at all object—forbid it Heaven!—   That your discourse you temperately leaven With airy reference to wicked souls Cursing impenitent on glowing coals, Nor quarrel with your fancy, blithe and fine, Which represents the wickedest as mine. Each ornament of style my spirit eases:   The subject saddens, but the manner pleases. But when you "deal damnation round" 'twere sweet To think hereafter that you did not cheat. Deal, and let all accept what you allot 'em. But, blast you! you are dealing from the bottom! 

 

 A CROCODILE

   Nay, Peter Robertson, 'tis not for you To blubber o'er Max Taubles for he's dead. By Heaven! my hearty, if you only knew How better is a grave-worm in the head Than brains like yours—how far more decent, too, A tomb in far Corea than a bed Where Peter lies with Peter, you would covet His happier state and, dying, learn to love it. In the recesses of the silent tomb No Maunderings of yours disturb the peace. Your mental bag-pipe, droning like the gloom Of Hades audible, perforce must cease From troubling further; and that crack o' doom, Your mouth, shaped like a long bow, shall release In vain such shafts of wit as it can utter—   The ear of death can't even hear them flutter. 

 

 THE AMERICAN PARTY

   Oh, Marcus D. Boruck, me hearty, I sympathize wid ye, poor lad! A man that's shot out of his party Is mighty onlucky, bedad! An' the sowl o' that man is sad. But, Marcus, gossoon, ye desarve it—     Ye know for yerself that ye do, For ye j'ined not intendin' to sarve it, But hopin' to make it sarve you, Though the roll of its members wuz two. The other wuz Pixley, an' "Surely,"     Ye said, "he's a kite that wall sail."   An' so ye hung till him securely, Enactin' the role of a tail. But there wuzn't the ghost of a gale! But the party to-day has behind it A powerful backin', I'm told; For just enough Irish have j'ined it     (An' I'm m'anin' to be enrolled)     To kick ye out into the 

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