Black Beetles in Amber | Page 3

crooks from the State prison, who again?Had robbed and ravaged the Pacific Coast?And (such the felon's predatory nature)?Even got themselves into the Legislature.
So Waterman and Boruck lay and roared?In Hades. It is true all other males?Felt the like flames and uttered equal wails,?But did not suffer them_; whereas _they bored?Each one the other. But indeed my tale's?Not getting on at all. They lay and browned?Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground?Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made?Stump speeches even in praying) looked around?And said to Bob's incinerated shade:?"Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on?The inventors of the unpardonable pardon."
The other soul--his right hand all aflame,?For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although?His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe?To the reserve of tallow in his frame--?Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow,?And with a gesture like a shaken torch:?"Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch.?Although this climate is not good for Hope,?Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the porch?Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope.?Last century I signified repentance?And asked for commutation of our sentence."
Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed?In sight, all crimson with reflections's fire,?Like some tall tower or cathedral spire?Touched by the dawn while all the earth is gloomed?In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire,"?Said Waterman, his agitable wick?Still sputtering, "what calls you back so quick??It scarcely was a century ago?You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick,?"St. Peter's answer (he is never slow?In correspondence) to your application?For pardon--pardon me!--for commutation.
"He says that he's instructed to reply?(And he has so instructed me) that sin?Like yours--and this poor gentleman's who's in?For bad advice to you--comes rather high;?But since, apparently, you both begin?To feel some pious promptings to the right,?And fain would turn your faces to the light,?Eternity seems all too long a term.?So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite?Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm?And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating,?He left them holding their protracted meeting.
A LIFTED FINGER
[The Chronicle did a great public service in whipping
? and his fellow-rascals out of office.--_M.H. de Young's Newspaper_.]
What! you_ whip rascals?--_you, whose gutter blood?Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood,?Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs?To serve a whole eternity of terms??You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove?Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove??You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave?Is phosphorescence from another's grave--?Till now unknown, by any chance or luck,?Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck??You_ whip a rascal out of office?--_you?Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew?Its smoke in six directions to assert?Your lack of appetite for others' dirt?
Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst,?Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first.?Or, if for action you're less free than bold--?Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold--?Entrust the castigation that you've planned,?As once before, to woman's idle hand.?So in your spirit shall two pleasures join?To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin.?Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath,?And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath.?Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills,?Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills,?A woman's blood, through roses ever red,?Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head.?Slandered to death to serve a sordid end,?She called you murderer and called me friend.
Now, mark you, libeler, this course if you?Dare to maintain, or rather to renew;?If one short year's immunity has made?You blink again the perils of your trade--?The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave,"?The hot encounter and the colder grave;?If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore?While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor,?And calmly march upon the fatal brink?With eyes averted to your trail of ink,?Counting unkind the services of those?Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose,?The day for you to die is not so far,?Or, at the least, to live the thing you are!
Pregnant with possibilities of crime,?And full of felons for all coming time,?Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt?In testimony to a venial guilt.?Live to get whelpage and preserve a name?No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame.?Live to fulfill the vision that I see?Down the dim vistas of the time to be:?A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes?Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies;?A dream of gleaming teeth and foetid breath?Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death;?A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues--?The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs!
1881.
TWO STATESMEN
In that fair city by the inland sea,?Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee,?Frank Pixley's meeting with George Gorham sing,?Celestial muse, and what events did spring?From the encounter of those mighty sons?Of thunder, and of slaughter, and of guns.?Great Gorham first, his yearning tooth to sate?And give him stomach for the day's debate,?Entering a restaurant, with eager mien,?Demands an ounce of bacon and a