The Bee's Bayonet Part 15

Beware the pine-tree's fibrous heart!

But this gave Crook his fiscal start, And now a tall, pine shaft is seen Above Crook's grave; 'tis evergreen-- Excelsior!

HER AND HIM

HER

To-day's her birthday: I'll not say which one,-- But I have known her twenty years or more When courts.h.i.+p days were joyously begun, And she had reached her sixteenth year, before.

And so her age is no concern of mine: She may have dropped a birthday now and then, But surely she's improved with age like wine: I wouldn't wish her in her _teens_ again.

And she's my Pal! O, yes, we love, of course!

But feel, besides, the joy of comrades.h.i.+p That finds expression at Love's very source In language of the heart--not of the lip.

And so she is my everlasting pride: To Beauty's very pinnacle she's grown!

Thru life we'll seek our pleasures side by side; Her heart athrob with love for me alone.

HIM

O, yes! we're splendid friends, Old Jack and I: He's growing grave and wrinkles now appear Where once the smiles his cheeks were wont to ply.

He's losing all his energy, I fear.

I married him some twenty years ago When dancing was a chief delight of his; But now alone I trip the Terpsic toe, For poor, old Jack has got the rheumatiz.

He's aging fast: I see it every day!

He's fat and short of breath, yet how he snores!

His few remaining hairs are saffron-grey, For nicotine keeps oozing from his pores.

He seems so childish, but I humor him Altho my friends declare I'm such a dunce.

Wrinkled, rheumatic; bare of brains and vim-- Good-bye, Old Jack! You were a good one _once_!

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING

We bivouac here and barely get acquainted Until the furlough ends; then we are sainted, Whether our acts deserve rebuke or praise.

When we are _dead_ the recollection stays Of virtues only: vices are excused, But to the _living_ pardon is refused.

And yet, alive, I'd rather be unsung, Than any Saint the catacombs among.

Tho critics flay me and the censors sneer, 'Twere better so, than praises on my bier.

And so we walk life's slender rope till, bing!

We slip and fall or someone cuts the string.

Ambition lures us, but the pinkest peach Is always just beyond us, out of reach: And when, at last, we think we are in line To cross the threshold, lo! the Full House sign.

We never quite obtain the golden urn Tho rainbows beckon every way we turn.

Who ever found, I ask you, all he sought?

Our best endeavors ofttimes come to naught: And yet we trudge along, loath to confess We're only groping in a wilderness; Plodding the sands that burn our feet, and hurt; Seeking the Promised Land, our just desert.

Had Caesar reached the zenith of his life When Brutus cut his friends.h.i.+p with the knife?

The ladder broke and he was headlong flung While setting foot upon the topmost rung.

Thus picture Caesar giving up the ghost Just when he reached the pinnacle, almost!

Did Bonaparte receive his proper due?

He _got_ it, but too late, at Waterloo.

He played with fire, aroused the seething crater, And now, with Nick, inhabits the Equator.

So we conclude, delving the lines between, He might as well have clung to Josephine.

Tho Tell's renown illumes the Alpine sky Whose target was the Apple of his eye, As much distinction, and applause to boot, Should be bestowed on William's steady _shoot_: More praise to him, than the Toxopholite, Who held the apple but eschewed a bite!

The _worst_ of us hath goodness in his breast; The _best_ of us but fails, put to the test,-- So, in arrears, we strive to pay the price For Fortune's frowns or Fate's disastrous dice Until we're bankrupt or too spent to wrest Long hoped-for treasure from Mad Mammon's chest.

Tho life hath ups and downs, the weeping willow Our ends shapes better than the downy pillow.

It takes stern measures to incline the bantling, In right direction, without switch or scantling.

The optimist with farthings in his pouch, Gets more enjoyment than the wealthy Grouch; Thus cheerfulness, a product underrated, In every household should be cultivated.

Give me the man who, tho in direst straits, Will thumb his sharp proboscis at the Fates; Who'll take the flimsy fire escape, or dive Into the net, glad to get out alive; Who, tho the skies be unpropitious, crowds His way along, unmindful of the clouds; Who never quits, in life's unequal bout, But keeps on fighting till he's counted out.

THE SIXTH OF APRIL

Awake, Americans! Awake! Awake!

'Tis April Sixth! A _year_ of War and yet The Hun lines hold: Louvain is unavenged.

Be Thou our Guide, O G.o.d of Joshua!

Thru battles yet unstaged, and Comfort when, From War's Inferno comes the phantom file, The endless, ghastly file of martyred dead.

Daughters of Belgium, thy vestal tears Make _womanhood_ still more an honored name; And Germany, when Reason reappears, Must dearly pay for her revolting shame!

Awake, Americans! Our task is grim; For h.e.l.l and all the Imps of Sin deride The Code of Morals, spit upon the Cross, Drive torturing nails into the bleeding flesh Of all Mankind who follow Him thru paths Made plain and gladsome by the Golden Rule; And foist vile _kultur_ as Refinement's height.

And what of skulking Sharks, sc.u.m of the sea, That prey on Innocents, while o'er them fly Poised to inflict a further agony, The Vampire Bats that violate the sky?

Behold the ravaged homes of Serbia!

Where are her people? Ask the G.o.dless Goths Whose Car of Kultur crushed beneath its wheels This stalwart Race! Ask, too, the Bulgar hordes, The mountain wolves, who pounce upon and rend, In guise of Pacifiers of the Land, Those who escaped the onslaughts of the Huns.

Tho sapped by hunger and disease; tho crushed By overwhelming numbers of the foe, Thy Star, O, Serb, when battles' din be hushed, Shall rise again, suffused with Freedom's glow!

Now in the sacred name of G.o.d our guide, Home, Country, Honor, Love and Motherhood, Can we indifferent be to ravishment, Wanton destruction, murder steeped in hate-- This loathsome litter whelped by Junkerdom?

'Tis _ours_ to dare and crush this monstrous THING: Our Allies worn and bleeding, struggle on.

Armenian tears, a flood of pent-up grief, Flow on and on, a torrent of despair.

Rape! Murder! Pillage! Is there no relief For Niobe, deserted, weeping there?

Nation Invincible, unsheath thy blade!

G.o.d be thy leader: Justice be thy Sword!

Nor pause until the ruthless BEAST is flayed With sated steel--and Liberty restored!