But Allen Forman came,
    Filled with the fervor of a new untruth,
  And carved upon the trunk his odious name!

A WET SEASON.

Horas non numero nisi serenas.

  The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth,
    And man's in danger.
  O that my mother at my birth
    Had borne a stranger!
  The flooded ground is all around.
    The depth uncommon.
  How blest I'd be if only she
    Had borne a salmon.

  If still denied the solar glow
    'T were bliss ecstatic
  To be amphibious—but O,
    To be aquatic!
  We're worms, men say, o' the dust, and they
    That faith are firm of.
  O, then, be just: show me some dust
    To be a worm of.

  The pines are chanting overhead
    A psalm uncheering.
  It's O, to have been for ages dead
      And hard of hearing!
  Restore, ye Pow'rs, the last bright hours
      The dial reckoned;
  'Twas in the time of Egypt's prime—
      Rameses II.

THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS.

  Tut-tut! give back the flags—how can you care
    You veterans and heroes?
  Why should you at a kind intention swear
    Like twenty Neroes?

  Suppose the act was not so overwise—
    Suppose it was illegal—
  Is 't well on such a question to arise
    And pinch the Eagle?

  Nay, let's economize his breath to scold
    And terrify the alien
  Who tackles him, as Hercules of old
    The bird Stymphalian.

  Among the rebels when we made a breach
    Was it to get their banners?
  That was but incidental—'t was to teach
    Them better manners.

  They know the lesson well enough to-day;
    Now, let us try to show them
  That we 're not only stronger far than they.
    (How we did mow them!)

  But more magnanimous. You see, my lads,
      'T was an uncommon riot;
  The warlike tribes of Europe fight for "fads,"
      We fought for quiet.

  If we were victors, then we all must live
      With the same flag above us;
  'Twas all in vain unless we now forgive
      And make them love us.

  Let kings keep trophies to display above
      Their doors like any savage;
  The freeman's trophy is the foeman's love,
      Despite war's ravage.

  "Make treason odious?" My friends, you'll find
      You can't, in right and reason,
  While "Washington" and "treason" are combined—
      "Hugo" and "treason."

  All human governments must take the chance
      And hazard of sedition.
  O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance
      To blind submission.

  It may be wrong, it may be right, to rise
      In warlike insurrection:
  The loyalty that fools so dearly prize
      May mean subjection.

  Be loyal to your country, yes—but how
    If tyrants hold dominion?
  The South believed they did; can't you allow
    For that opinion?

  He who will never rise though rulers plods
    His liberties despising
  How is he manlier than the sans culottes
    Who's always rising?

  Give back the foolish flags whose bearers fell
    Too valiant to forsake them.
  Is it presumptuous, this counsel? Well,
    I helped to take them.

HAEC FABULA DOCET.

  A rat who'd gorged a box of bane
  And suffered an internal pain,
  Came from his hole to die (the label
  Required it if the rat were able)
  And found outside his habitat
  A limpid stream. Of bane and rat
  'T was all unconscious; in the sun
  It ran and prattled just for fun.
  Keen to allay his inward throes,
  The beast immersed his filthy nose
  And drank—then, bloated by the stream,
  And filled with superheated steam,
  Exploded with a rascal smell,
  Remarking, as his fragments fell
  Astonished in the brook: "I'm thinking
  This water's damned unwholesome drinking!"

EXONERATION.

  When men at candidacy don't connive,
    From that suspicion if their friends would free 'em,
  The teeth and nails with which they did not strive
    Should be exhibited in a museum.

AZRAEL.

  The moon in the field of the keel-plowed main
    Was watching the growing tide:
  A luminous peasant was driving his wain,
    And he offered my soul a ride.

  But I nourished a sorrow uncommonly tall,
    And I fixed him fast with mine eye.
  "O, peasant," I sang with a dying fall,
    "Go leave me to sing and die."

  The water was weltering round my feet,
    As prone on the beach they lay.
  I chanted my death-song loud and sweet;
    "Kioodle, ioodle, iay!"

  Then I heard the swish of erecting ears
    Which caught that enchanted strain.
  The ocean was swollen with storms of tears
    That fell from the shining swain.

  "O, poet," leapt he to the soaken sand,
    "That ravishing song would make
  The devil a saint." He held out his hand
    And solemnly added: "Shake."

  We shook. "I crave a victim, you see,"
    He said—"you came hither to die."
  The Angel of Death, 't was he! 't was he!
    And the victim he crove was I!

  'T was I, Fred Emerson Brooks, the bard;
    And he knocked me on the head.
  O Lord! I thought it exceedingly hard,
    For I didn't want to be dead.

  "You'll sing no worser for that," said he,
    And he drove with my soul away,
  O, death-song singers, be warned by me,
    Kioodle, ioodle, iay!

AGAIN.

  Well, I've met her again—at the Mission.
    She'd told me to see her no more;
  It was not a command—a petition;
    I'd granted it once before.

  Yes, granted it, hoping she'd write me.
    Repenting her virtuous freak—
  Subdued myself daily and nightly
    For the better part of a week.

  And then ('twas my duty to spare her
    The shame of recalling me) I
  Just sought her again to prepare her
    For an everlasting good-bye.

  O, that evening of bliss—shall I ever
    Forget it?—with Shakespeare and Poe!
  She said, when 'twas ended: "You're never
    To see me again. And now go."

  As we parted with kisses 'twas human
    And natural for me to smile
  As I thought, "She's in love, and a woman:
    She'll send for me after a while."

  But she didn't; and so—well, the Mission
    Is fine, picturesque and gray;
  It's an excellent place for contrition—
    And sometimes she passes that way.

  That's how it occurred that I met her,
    And that's ah there is to tell—
  Except that I'd like to forget her
    Calm way of remarking: "I'm well."

  It was hardly worth while, all this keying
    My soul to such tensions and stirs
  To learn that her food was agreeing
    With that little stomach of hers.

HOMO PODUNKENSIS.

  As the poor ass that from his paddock strays
  Might sound abroad his field-companions' praise,
  Recounting volubly their well-bred leer,
  Their port impressive and their wealth of ear,
  Mistaking for the world's assent the clang
  Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue;
  So the dull clown, untraveled though at large,
  Visits the city on the ocean's marge,
  Expands his eyes and marvels to remark
  Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark;
  Prates of "all nations," wonders as he stares
  That native merchants sell imported wares,
  Nor comprehends how in his very view
  A foreign vessel has a foreign crew;
  Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth,
  Swears it superior to aught on earth,
  Sighs for the temples locally renowned—
  The village school-house and the village pound—
  And chalks upon the palaces of Rome
  The peasant sentiments of "Home, Sweet Home!"

A SOCIAL CALL.

  Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you,
    With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue?
  Less redness in the nose—nay, even some blue
    Would not, I think, particularly hurt you.
  When seen close to, not mounted in your car,
    You look the drunkard and the pig you are.

  No matter, sit you down, for I am not
    In a gray study, as you sometimes find me.
  Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot,
    But there's another year of pain behind me.
  That's something to be thankful for: the more
  There are behind, the fewer are before.

  I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp,
    But Heaven endowed me at my soul's creation
  With an affinity to every tramp
    That walks the world and steals its admiration.
  For admiration is like linen left
  Upon the line—got easiest by theft.

  Good God! old man, just think of it! I've stood,
    With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty
  Long years as champion of all that's good,
    And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty.
  Yet now whose praises do the people bawl?
  Those of the fellows whom I live to maul!

  Why, this is odd!—the more I try to talk
    Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic
  To prattle of myself! I'll try to balk
    Its waywardness and be more altruistic.
  So let us speak of others—how they sin,
  And what a devil of a state they 're in!

  That's all I have to say. Good-bye, old man.
    Next year you possibly may find me scolding—
  Or miss me altogether: Nature's plan
    Includes, as I suppose, a final folding
  Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear
  To think they'll never box another ear.

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