Adair Welcker, Poet
The Swan of Avon died-the Swan
Of Sacramento'll soon be gone;
And when his death-song he shall coo,
Stand back, or it will kill you too.
To A Dejected Poet
Thy gift, if that it be of God,
Thou hast no warrant to appraise,
Nor say: 'Here part, O Muse, our ways,
The road too stony to be trod.'
Not thine to call the labor hard
And the reward inadequate.
Who haggles o'er his hire with Fate
Is better bargainer than bard.
What! count the effort labor lost
When thy good angel holds the reed?
It were a sorry thing indeed
To stay him till thy palm be crossed.
'The laborer is worthy'-nay,
The sacred ministry of song
Is rapture!-'t were a grievous wrong
To fix a wages-rate for play.
My Lord Poet
'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat;'
Who sings for nobles, he should noble be.
There's no _non sequitur_, I think, in that,
And this is logic plain as a, b, c.
Now, Hector Stuart, you're a Scottish prince,
If right you fathom your descent-that fall
From grace; and since you have no peers, and since
You have no kind of nobleness at all,
'Twere better to sing little, lest you wince
When made by heartless critics to sing small.
And yet, my liege, I bid you not despair
Ambition conquers but a realm at once:
For European bays arrange your hair
Two continents, in time, shall crown you Dunce!
To A Summer Poet
Yes, the Summer girl is flirting on the beach,
With a him.
And the damboy is a-climbing for the peach,
On the limb;
Yes, the bullfrog is a-croaking
And the dudelet is a-smoking
Cigarettes;
And the hackman is a-hacking
And the showman is a-cracking
Up his pets;
Yes, the Jersey 'skeeter flits along the shore
And the snapdog-we have heard it o'er and o'er;
Yes, my poet,
Well we know it-
Know the spooners how they spoon
In the bright
Dollar light
Of the country tavern moon;
Yes, the caterpillars fall
From the trees (we know it all),
And with beetles all the shelves
Are alive.
Please unbuttonhole us-O,
Have the grace to let us go,
For we know
How you Summer poets thrive,
By the recapitulation
And insistent iteration
Of the wondrous doings incident to Life Among
Ourselves!
So, I pray you stop the fervor and the fuss.
For you, poor human linnet,
There's a half a living in it,
But there's not a copper cent in it for us!
An Obituarian
Death-poet Pickering sat at his desk,
Wrapped in appropriate gloom;
His posture was pensive and picturesque,
Like a raven charming a tomb.
Enter a party a-drinking the cup
Of sorrow-and likewise of woe:
'Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up,
All wrote in the key of O.
'For the angels has called my old woman hence
From the strife (where she fit mighty free).
It's a nickel a line? Cond-n the expense!
For wealth is now little to me.'
The Bard of Mortality looked him through
In the piercingest sort of a way:
'It is much to me though it's little to you
I've _taken_ a wife to-day.'
So he twisted the tail of his mental cow
And made her give down her flow.
The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow-
There was reams and reamses of woe.
The widower man which had buried his wife
Grew lily-like round each gill,
For she turned in her grave and came back to life
Then he cruel ignored the bill!
Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide,
As likewise did also Woe,
And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside,
Is sang in the key of O.
Master Of Three Arts
Your various talents, Goldenson, command
Respect: you are a poet and can draw.
It is a pity that your gifted hand
Should ever have been raised against the law.
If you had drawn no pistol, but a picture,
You would have saved your throttle from a stricture.
About your poetry I'm not so sure:
'Tis certain we have much that's quite as bad,
Whose hardy writers have not to endure
The hangman's fondling. It is said they're mad:
Though lately Mr. Brooks (I mean the poet)
Looked well, and if demented didn't show it.
Well, Goldenson, I am a poet, too
Taught by the muses how to smite the harp
And lift the tuneful voice, although, like you
And Brooks, I sometimes flat and sometimes sharp.
But let me say, with no desire to taunt you,
I never murder even the girls I want to.
I hold it one of the poetic laws
To sing of life, not take. I've ever shown
A high regard for human life because
I have such trouble to support my own.
And you-well, you'll find trouble soon in blowing
Your private coal to keep it red and glowing.
I fancy now I see you at the Gate
Approach St. Peter, crawling on your belly,
You cry: 'Good sir, take pity on my state
Forgive the murderer of Mamie Kelly!'
And Peter says: 'O, that's all right-but, mister,
You scribbled rhymes. In Hell I'll make you blister!'
With Mine Own Petard
Time was the local poets sang their songs
Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs
I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke
Bards, like the conies, are 'a feeble folk,'
Fearing all noises but the one they make
Themselves-at which all other mortals quake.
Now from their cracked and disobedient throats,
Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes
Pour forth to move, where'er the season serves,
If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves;
As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all
The sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall.
A year's exemption from the critic's curse
Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse.
Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night,
Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight,
Or by the sudden plashing of a stone
From some adjacent cottage garden thrown,
But straight renew the song with double din
Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in.
Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched,
My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached)
Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass,
Accomplishing my body all in brass,
And arm in battle royal to oppose
A village poet singing through the nose,
Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strums
With clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs?
No, let them rhyme; I fought them once before
And stilled their songs-but, Satan! how they swore!
Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats
They cleared for action with their sweetest notes;
Twisted their ears (they'd oft tormented mine)
And damned them roundly all along the line;
Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian slopes,
A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes!
What gained I so? I feathered every curse
Launched at the village bards with lilting verse.
The town approved and christened me (to show its
High admiration) Chief of Local Poets!
