Shapes of Clay Part 35

FROM THE MINUTES.

When, with the force of a ram that discharges its ponderous body Straight at the rear elevation of the luckless culler of simples, The foot of Herculean Kilgore--statesman of surname suggestive Or carnage unspeakable!--lit like a missile prodigious Upon the Congressional door with a monstrous and mighty momentum, Causing that vain ineffective bar to political freedom To fly from its hinges, effacing the nasal excrescence of Dingley, That luckless one, decently veiling the ruin with ready bandanna, Lamented the loss of his eminence, sadly with sobs as follows: "Ah, why was I ever elected to the halls of legislation, So soon to be shown the door with pitiless emphasis? Truly, I've leaned on a broken Reed, and the same has gone back on me meanly.

Where now is my prominence, erstwhile in council conspicuous, patent?

Alas, I did never before understand what I now see clearly, To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human distinctions!"

His fate so untoward and sad the Pine-tree statesman, bewailing, Stood in the corridor there while Democrats freed from confinement Came trooping forth from the chamber, dissembling all, as they pa.s.sed him, Hilarious sentiments painful indeed to observe, and remarking: "O friend and colleague of the Speaker, what ails the unjoyous proboscis?"

WOMAN IN POLITICS.

What, madam, run for School Director? You?

And want my vote and influence? Well, well, That beats me! Gad! where _are_ we drifting to?

In all my life I never have heard tell Of such sublime presumption, and I smell A n.i.g.g.e.r in the fence! Excuse me, madam; We statesmen sometimes speak like the old Adam.

But now you mention it--well, well, who knows?

We might, that's certain, give the s.e.x a show.

I have a cousin--teacher. I suppose If I stand in and you 're elected--no?

You'll make no bargains? That's a pretty go!

But understand that school administration Belongs to Politics, not Education.

We'll pa.s.s the teacher deal; but it were wise To understand each other at the start.

You know my business--books and school supplies; You'd hardly, if elected, have the heart Some small advantage to deny me--part Of all my profits to be yours. What? Stealing?

Please don't express yourself with so much feeling.

You pain me, truly. Now one question more.

Suppose a fair young man should ask a place As teacher--would you (pardon) shut the door Of the Department in his handsome face Until--I know not how to put the case-- Would you extort a kiss to pay your favor?

Good Lord! you laugh? I thought the matter graver.

Well, well, we can't do business, I suspect: A woman has no head for useful tricks.

My profitable offers you reject And will not promise anything to fix The opposition. That's not politics.

Good morning. Stay--I'm chaffing you, conceitedly.

Madam, I mean to vote for you--repeatedly.

TO AN ASPIRANT.

What! you a Senator--you, Mike de Young?

Still reeking of the gutter whence you sprung?

Sir, if all Senators were such as you, Their hands so crimson and so slender, too,-- (Shaped to the pocket for commercial work, For literary, fitted to the dirk)-- So black their hearts, so lily-white their livers, The toga's touch would give a man the s.h.i.+vers.

A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE.

Down in Southern Arizona where the Gila monster thrives, And the "Mescalero," gifted with a hundred thousand lives, Every hour renounces one of them by drinking liquid flame-- The a.s.sa.s.sinating wa.s.sail that has given him his name; Where the enterprising dealer in Caucasian hair is seen To hold his harvest festival upon his village-green, While the late lamented tenderfoot upon the plain is spread With a sanguinary circle on the summit of his head; Where the cactuses (or cacti) lift their lances in the sun, And incautious jacka.s.s-rabbits come to sorrow as they run, Lived a colony of settlers--old Missouri was the State Where they formerly resided at a prehistoric date.

Now, the spot that had been chosen for this colonizing scheme Was as waterless, believe me, as an Arizona stream.

The soil was naught but ashes, by the breezes driven free, And an acre and a quarter were required to sprout a pea.

So agriculture languished, for the land would not produce, And for lack of water, whisky was the beverage in use-- Costly whisky, hauled in wagons many a weary, weary day, Mostly needed by the drivers to sustain them on their way.

Wicked whisky! King of Evils! Why, O, why did G.o.d create Such a curse and thrust it on us in our inoffensive state?

Once a parson came among them, and a holy man was he; With his ailing stomach whisky wouldn't anywise agree; So he knelt upon the _mesa_ and he prayed with all his chin That the Lord would send them water or incline their hearts to gin.

Scarcely was the prayer concluded ere an earthquake shook the land, And with copious effusion springs burst out on every hand!

Merrily the waters gurgled, and the shock which gave them birth Fitly was by some declared a temperance movement of the earth.

Astounded by the miracle, the people met that night To celebrate it properly by some religious rite; And 'tis truthfully recorded that before the moon had sunk Every man and every woman was devotionally drunk.

A half a standard gallon (says history) per head Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed.

O, the glory of that country! O, the happy, happy folk.

By the might of prayer delivered from Nature's broken yoke!

Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with rye, And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the sky!

Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is grown to gra.s.s, Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime pa.s.s.

Pikeville (that's the name they've given, in their wild, romantic way, To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say, Something like a hundred gallons, out of each recurrent crop, To the head of population--and consumes it, every drop!

A BUILDER.

I saw the devil--he was working free: A customs-house he builded by the sea.

"Why do you this?" The devil raised his head; "Churches and courts I've built enough," he said.

AN AUGURY.

Upon my desk a single spray, With starry blossoms fraught.

I write in many an idle way, Thinking one serious thought.

"O flowers, a fine Greek name ye bear, And with a fine Greek grace."

Be still, O heart, that turns to share The suns.h.i.+ne of a face.

"Have ye no messages--no brief, Still sign: 'Despair', or 'Hope'?"

A sudden stir of stem and leaf-- A breath of heliotrope!