Black Beetles in Amber | Page 9

or good manners.--The Argonaut.]
[Footnote B: Now, it just occurs to us that some of our temperance friends will take issue with us, and say that this is bad doctrine, and that it is ungentlemanly to get drunk under any circumstances or under any possible conditions. We do not think so.--_The same_.]
[Footnote C: The man or woman who, for the sake of benefiting others, protecting them in their lives, property, or reputation, sparing their feelings, contributing to their enjoyment, or increasing their pleasures, will tell a lie, deserves to be rewarded.--_The same_.]
AN ACTOR
Some one ('tis hardly new) has oddly said?The color of a trumpet's blare is red;?And Joseph Emmett thinks the crimson shame?On woman's cheek a trumpet-note of fame.?The more the red storm rises round her nose--?The more her eyes averted seek her toes,?He fancies all the louder he can hear?The tube resounding in his spacious ear,?And, all his varied talents to exert,?Darkens his dullness to display his dirt.?And when the gallery's indecent crowd,?And gentlemen below, with hisses loud,?In hot contention (these his art to crown,?And those his naked nastiness to drown)?Make such a din that cheeks erewhile aflame?Grow white and in their fear forget their shame,?With impudence imperial, sublime,?Unmoved, the patient actor bides his time,?Till storm and counter-storm are both allayed,?Like donkeys, each by t'other one outbrayed.?When all the place is silent as a mouse?One slow, suggestive gesture clears the house!
FAMINE'S REALM
To him in whom the love of Nature has?Imperfectly supplanted the desire?And dread necessity of food, your shore,?Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over all?Your sunny level, from Tamaletown?To where the Pestuary's fragrant slime,?With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet,?Broods the still menace of starvation. Bones?Of men and women bleach along the ways?And pampered vultures sleep upon the trees.?It is a land of death, and Famine there?Holds sovereignty; though some there be her sway?Who challenge, and intrenched in larders live,?Drawing their sustentation from abroad.?But woe to him, the stranger! He shall die?As die the early righteous in the bud?And promise of their prime. He, venturesome?To penetrate the wilds rectangular?Of grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms,?Frequented of the bee and of the blithe,?Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afar?From human habitation and is lost?In mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him,?And (careless man! deeming God's providence?Extends so far) he has not wherewithal?To bate its urgency. Then, lo! appears?A mealery--a restaurant--a place?Where poison battles famine, and the two,?Like fish-hawks warring in the upper sky?For that which one has taken from the deep,?Manage between them to dispatch the prey.?He enters and leaves hope behind. There ends?His history. Anon his bones, clean-picked?By buzzards (with the bones himself had picked,?Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends,?Of all felonious and deadlywise?Devices of the Enemy of Souls,?Planted along the ways of life to snare?Man's mortal and immortal part alike,?The Oakland restaurant is chief. It lives?That man may die. It flourishes that life?May wither. Its foundation stones repose?On human hearts and hopes. I've seen in it?Crabs stewed in milk and salad offered up?With dressing so unholily compound?That it included flour and sugar! Yea,?I've eaten dog there!--dog, as I'm a man,?Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more--?Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the pen?And scrawls a tortured "Finis" on the page.
THE MACKAIAD
Mackay's hot wrath to Bonynge, direful spring?Of blows unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing--?That wrath which hurled to Hellman's office floor?Two heroes, mutually smeared with gore,?Whose hair in handfuls marked the dire debate,?And riven coat-tails testified their hate.?Sing, muse, what first their indignation fired,?What words augmented it, by whom inspired.
First, the great Bonynge comes upon the scene?And asks the favor of the British Queen.?Suppliant he stands and urges all his claim:?His wealth, his portly person and his name,?His habitation in the setting sun,?As child of nature; and his suit he won.?No more the Sovereign, wearied with his plea,?From slumber's chain her faculties can free.?Low and more low the royal eyelids creep,?She gives the assenting nod and falls asleep.?Straightway the Bonynges all invade the Court?And telegraph the news to every port.?Beneath the seas, red-hot, the tidings fly,?The cables crinkle and the fishes fry!?The world, awaking like a startled bat,?Exclaims: "A Bonynge? What the devil's that?"?Mackay, meanwhile, to envy all attent,?Untaught to spare, unable to relent,?Walks in our town on needles and on pins,?And in a mean, revengeful spirit--grins!
Sing, muse, what next to break the peace occurred--?What act uncivil, what unfriendly word??The god of Bosh ascending from his pool,?Where since creation he has played the fool,?Clove the blue slush, as other gods the sky,?And, waiting but a moment's space to dry,?Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. "O son,"?He said, "alike of nature and a gun,?Knowest not Mackay's insufferable sin??Hast thou not heard that he doth stand and grin??Arise! assert thy manhood, and attest?The uncommercial spirit in thy breast.?Avenge thine honor, for by Jove I swear?Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care!"?He spake, and ere