Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,
And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be--
Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth,
With a record of unreason seldome paralleled on earth.
While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incandescent youth,
From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth.
He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote
On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote--
For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow:
'Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow.'

To The Happy Hunting Grounds

Wide windy reaches of high stubble field;
A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines;
A wagon moving in a 'cloud by day.'
Two city sportsmen with a dove between,
Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep
A solitary dove, the only dove
In twenty counties, and it sick, or else
It were not there. Two guns that fire as one,
With thunder simultaneous and loud;
Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone!
And later, in the gloaming, comes a man
The worthy local coroner is he,
Renowned all thereabout, and popular
With many a remain. All tenderly
Compiling in a game-bag the debris,
He glides into the gloom and fades from sight.
The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock,
Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet,
To die of age in some far foreign land.

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 bean.
The trembling waiter, by the statesman's eye
Smitten with terror, hastens to comply;
Nor chairs nor tables can his speed retard,
For famine's fixed and horrible regard
He takes for menace. As he shaking flew,
Lo! the portentous Pixley heaved in view!
Before him yawned invisible the cell,
Unheard, behind, the warden's footsteps fell.
Thrice in convention rising to his feet,
He thrice had been thrust back into his seat;
Thrice had protested, been reminded thrice
The nation had no need of his advice.
Balked of his will to set the people right,
His soul was gloomy though his hat was white,
So fierce his mien, with provident accord
The waiters swarmed him, thinking him a lord.
He spurned them, roaring grandly to their chief:
'Give me (Fred. Crocker pays) a leg of beef!'
His wandering eye's deluminating flame
Fell upon Gorham and the crisis came!
For Pixley scowled and darkness filled the room
Till Gorham's flashing orbs dispelled the gloom.
The patrons of the place, by fear dismayed,
Sprang to the street and left their scores unpaid.
So, when Jove thunders and his lightnings gleam
To sour the milk and curdle, too, the cream,
And storm-clouds gather on the shadowed hill,
The ass forsakes his hay, the pig his swill.
Hotly the heroes now engaged-their breath
Came short and hard, as in the throes of death.
They clenched their hands, their weapons brandished high,
Cut, stabbed, and hewed, nor uttered any cry,
But gnashed their teeth and struggled on! In brief,
One ate his bacon, t'other one his beef.

The Weather Wight

The way was long, the hill was steep,
My footing scarcely I could keep.

The night enshrouded me in gloom,
I heard the ocean's distant boom

The trampling of the surges vast
Was borne upon the rising blast.

'God help the mariner,' I cried,
'Whose ship to-morrow braves the tide!'

Then from the impenetrable dark
A solemn voice made this remark:

'For this locality-warm, bright;
Barometer unchanged; breeze light.'

'Unseen consoler-man,' I cried,
'Whoe'er you are, where'er abide,

'Thanks-but my care is somewhat less
For Jack's, than for my own, distress.

'Could I but find a friendly roof,
Small odds what weather were aloof.

'For he whose comfort is secure
Another's woes can well endure.'

'The latch-string's out,' the voice replied,
'And so's the door-jes' step inside.'

Then through the darkness I discerned
A hovel, into which I turned.

Groping about beneath its thatch,
I struck my head and then a match.

A candle by that gleam betrayed
Soon lent paraffinaceous aid.

A pallid, bald and thin old man
I saw, who this complaint began:

'Through summer suns and winter snows
I sets observin' of my toes.

'I rambles with increasin' pain
The path of duty, but in vain.

'Rewards and honors pass me by
No Congress hears this raven cry!'

Filled with astonishment, I spoke:
'Thou ancient raven, why this croak?

'With observation of your toes
What Congress has to do, Heaven knows!

'And swallow me if e'er I knew
That one could sit and ramble too!'

To answer me that ancient swain
Took up his parable again:

'Through winter snows and summer suns
A Weather Bureau here I runs.

'I calls the turn, and can declare
Jes' when she'll storm and when she'll fair.

'Three times a day I sings out clear
The probs to all which wants to hear.

'Some weather stations run with light
Frivolity is seldom right.

'A scientist from times remote,
In Scienceville my birth is wrote.

'And when I h'ist the 'rainy' sign
Jes' take your clo'es in off the line.'

'Not mine, O marvelous old man,
The methods of your art to scan,

'Yet here no instruments there be-
Nor 'ometer nor 'scope I see.

'Did you (if questions you permit)
At the asylum leave your kit?'

That strange old man with motion rude
Grew to surprising altitude.

'Tools (and sarcazzems too) I scorns-
I tells the weather by my corns.

'No doors and windows here you see-
The wind and m'isture enters free.

'No fires nor lights, no wool nor fur
Here falsifies the tempercher.

'My corns unleathered I expose
To feel the rain's foretellin' throes.

'No stockin' from their ears keeps out
The comin' tempest's warnin' shout.

'Sich delicacy some has got
They know next summer's to be hot.

'This here one says (for that he's best):
'Storm center passin' to the west.'

'This feller's vitals is transfixed
With frost for Janawary sixt'.

'One chap jes' now is occy'pied
In fig'rin on next Fridy's tide.

'I've shaved this cuss so thin and true
He'll spot a fog in South Peru.

'Sech are my tools, which ne'er a swell
Observatory can excel.

'By long a-studyin' their throbs
I catches onto all the probs.'

Much more, no doubt, he would have said,
But suddenly he turned and fled;

For in mine eye's indignant green
Lay storms that he had not foreseen,

Till all at once, with silent squeals,
His toes 'caught on' and told his heels.

'Peaceable Expulsion'

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MOUNTWAVE _a Politician_
HARDHAND _a Workingman_
TOK BAK _a Chinaman_
SATAN _a Friend to Mountwave_

CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS.


MOUNTWAVE:

My friend, I beg that you will lend your ears
(I know 'tis asking a good deal of you)
While I for your instruction nominate
Some certain wrongs you suffer. Men like you
Imperfectly are sensible of all
The miseries they actually feel.
Hence, Providence has prudently raised up
Clear-sighted men like me to diagnose
Their cases and inform them where they're hurt.
The wounds of honest workingmen I've made
A specialty, and probing them's my trade.

HARDHAND:

Well, Mister, s'pose you let yer bossest eye
Camp on my mortal part awhile; then you
Jes' toot my sufferin's an' tell me what's
The fashionable caper now in writhes-
The very swellest wiggle.

MOUNTWAVE:

Well, my lad,
'Tis plain as is the long, conspicuous nose
Borne, ponderous and pendulous, between
The elephant's remarkable eye-teeth
(_Enter Tok Bak._)
That Chinese competition's what ails _you_.

BOTH (_Singing_):

O pig-tail Celestial,
O barbarous bestial,
Abominable Chinee!
Simian fellow man,
Primitive yellow man,
Joshian devotee!
Shoe-and-cigar machine,
Oleomargarine
You are, and butter are we-
Fat of the land are we,
Salt of the earth;
In God's image planned to be-
Noble in birth!
You, on the contrary,
Modeled upon very
Different lines indeed,
Show in conspicuous,
Base and ridiculous
Ways your inferior breed.
Wretched apology,
Shame of ethnology,
Monster unspeakably low!
Fit to be buckshotted-
Be you 'steboycotted.
Vanish-vamoose-mosy-Go!

TOK BAK:

You listen me! You beatee the big dlum
An' tell me go to Flowly Kingdom Come.
You all too muchee fool. You chinnee heap.
Such talkee like my washee-belly cheap!
(_Enter Satan._)
You dlive me outee clunty towns all way;
Why you no tackle me Safflisco, hay?

SATAN:

Methought I heard a murmuring of tongues
Sound through the ceiling of the hollow earth,
As if the anti-coolie ques--ha! friends,
Well met. You see I keep my ancient word:
Where two or three are gathered in my name,
There am I in their midst.

MOUNTWAVE:

O monstrous thief!
To quote the words of Shakespeare as your own.
I know his work.

HARDHAND:

Who's Shakespeare?-what's his trade?
I've heard about the work o' that galoot
Till I'm jest sick!

TOK BAK:

Go Sunny school-you'll know
Mo' Bible. Bime by pleach-hell-talkee. Tell
'Bout Abel-mebby so he live too cheap.
He mebby all time dig on lanch-no dlink,
No splee-no go plocession fo' make vote-
No sendee money out of clunty fo'
To helpee Ilishmen. Cain killum. Josh
He catchee at it, an' he belly mad-
Say: 'Allee Melicans boycottee Cain.'
Not muchee-you no pleachee that:
You all same lie.

MOUNTWAVE:

This cuss must be expelled.
(_Draws pistol_.)

MOUNTWAVE, HARDHAND, SATAN (_singing_):

For Chinese expulsion, hurrah!
To mobbing and murder, all hail!
Away with your justice and law-
We'll make every pagan turn tail.

CHORUS OF FOREIGN VOTERS:

Bedad! oof dot tief o'ze vorld-
Zat Ivan Tchanay vos got hurled
In Hella, da debil he say:
'Wor be yer return pairmit, hey?'
Und gry as 'e shaka da boot:
'Zis haythen haf nevaire been oot!'

HARDHAND:

Too many cooks are working at this broth-
I think, by thunder, t'will be mostly froth!
I'm cussed ef I can sarvy, up to date,
What good this dern fandango does the State.

MOUNTWAVE:

The State's advantage, sir, you may not see,
But think how good it is for me.

SATAN:

And me.

(_Curtain_.)

Ye Idyll Of Ye Hippopopotamus

With a Methodist hymn in his musical throat,
The Sun was emitting his ultimate note;
His quivering larynx enwrinkled the sea
Like an Ichthyosaurian blowing his tea;
When sweetly and pensively rattled and rang
This plaint which an Hippopopotamus sang:

'O, Camomile, Calabash, Cartilage-pie,
Spread for my spirit a peppermint fry;
Crown me with doughnuts, and drape me with cheese,
Settle my soul with a codliver sneeze.
Lo, how I stand on my head and repine-
Lollipop Lumpkin can never be mine!'

Down sank the Sun with a kick and a plunge,
Up from the wave rose the head of a Sponge;
Ropes in his ringlets, eggs in his eyes,
Tip-tilted nose in a way to surprise.
These the conundrums he flung to the breeze,
The answers that Echo returned to him these:


'Cobblestone, Cobblestone, why do you sigh-
Why do you turn on the tears?'
'My mother is crazy on strawberry jam,
And my father has petrified ears.'

'Liverwort, Liverwort, why do you droop-
Why do you snuffle and scowl?'

'My brother has cockle-burs into his eyes,
And my sister has married an owl.'

'Simia, Simia, why do you laugh-
Why do you cackle and quake?'

'My son has a pollywog stuck in his throat,
And my daughter has bitten a snake.'


Slow sank the head of the Sponge out of sight,
Soaken with sea-water-then it was night.
The Moon had now risen for dinner to dress,
When sweetly the Pachyderm sang from his nest;
He sang through a pestle of silvery shape,
Encrusted with custard-empurpled with crape;
And this was the burden he bore on his lips,
And blew to the listening Sturgeon that sips
From the fountain of opium under the lobes
Of the mountain whose summit in buffalo robes
The winter envelops, as Venus adorns
An elephant's trunk with a chaplet of thorns:

'Chasing mastodons through marshes upon stilts of light ratan,
Hunting spiders with a shotgun and mosquitoes with an axe,
Plucking peanuts ready roasted from the branches of the oak,
Waking echoes in the forest with our hymns of blessed bosh,
We roamed-my love and I.
By the margin of the fountain spouting thick with clabbered milk,
Under spreading boughs of bass-wood all alive with cooing toads,
Loafing listlessly on bowlders of octagonal design,
Standing gracefully inverted with our toes together knit,


We loved-my love and I.'
Hippopopotamus comforts his heart
Biting half-moons out of strawberry tart.
Epitaph on George Francis Train.
(Inscribed on a Pork-barrel.)
Beneath this casket rots unknown
A Thing that merits not a stone,
Save that by passing urchin cast;
Whose fame and virtues we express
By transient urn of emptiness,
With apt inscription (to its past
Relating-and to his): 'Prime Mess.'
No honour had this infidel,
That doth not appertain, as well,
To altered caitiff on the drop;
No wit that would not likewise pass
For wisdom in the famished ass
Who breaks his neck a weed to crop,
When tethered in the luscious grass.
And now, thank God, his hateful name
Shall never rescued be from shame,
Though seas of venal ink be shed;
No sophistry shall reconcile
With sympathy for Erin's Isle,
Or sorrow for her patriot dead,
The weeping of this crocodile.
Life's incongruity is past,
And dirt to dirt is seen at last,
The worm of worm afoul doth fall.
The sexton tolls his solemn bell
For scoundrel dead and gone to-well,
It matters not, it can't recall
This convict from his final cell.
Jerusalem, Old and New.
Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John
Is a parson of high degree;
He holds forth of Sundays to marvelling crowds
Who wonder how vice can still be
When smitten so stoutly by Didymus Don-
Disciple of Calvin is he.
But sinners still laugh at his talk of the New
Jerusalem-ha-ha, te-he!
And biting their thumbs at the doughty Don-John
This parson of high degree-
They think of the streets of a village they know,
Where horses still sink to the knee,
Contrasting its muck with the pavement of gold
That's laid in the other citee.
They think of the sign that still swings, uneffaced
By winds from the salt, salt sea,
Which tells where he trafficked in tipple, of yore-
Don Dunkleton Johnny, D. D.
Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John
Still plays on his fiddle-D. D.,
His lambkins still bleat in full psalmody sweet,
And the devil still pitches the key.
Communing with Nature.
One evening I sat on a heavenward hill,
The winds were asleep and all nature was still,
Wee children came round me to play at my knee,
As my mind floated rudderless over the sea.
I put out one hand to caress them, but held
With the other my nose, for these cherubim smelled.
I cast a few glances upon the old sun;
He was red in the face from the race he had run,
But he seemed to be doing, for aught I could see,
Quite well without any assistance from me.
And so I directed my wandering eye
Around to the opposite side of the sky,
And the rapture that ever with ecstasy thrills
Through the heart as the moon rises bright from the hills,
Would in this case have been most exceedingly rare,
Except for the fact that the moon was not there.
But the stars looked right lovingly down in the sea,
And, by Jupiter, Venus was winking at me!
The gas in the city was flaring up bright,
Montgomery Street was resplendent with light;
But I did not exactly appear to advance
A sentiment proper to that circumstance.
So it only remains to explain to the town
That a rainstorm came up before I could come down.
As the boots I had on were uncommonly thin
My fancy leaked out as the water leaked in.
Though dampened my ardour, though slackened my strain,
I'll 'strike the wild lyre' who sings the sweet rain!
Conservatism and Progress.
Old Zephyr, dawdling in the West,
Looked down upon the sea,
Which slept unfretted at his feet,
And balanced on its breast a fleet
That seemed almost to be
Suspended in the middle air,
As if a magnet held it there,
Eternally at rest.
Then, one by one, the ships released
Their folded sails, and strove
Against the empty calm to press
North, South, or West, or East,
In vain; the subtle nothingness
Was impotent to move.
Ten Zephyr laughed aloud to see:
'No vessel moves except by me,
And, heigh-ho! I shall sleep.'
But lo! from out the troubled North
A tempest strode impatient forth,
And trampled white the deep;
The sloping ships flew glad away,
Laving their heated sides in spray.
The West then turned him red with wrath,
And to the North he shouted:
'Hold there! How dare you cross my path,
As now you are about it?'
The North replied with laboured breath-
His speed no moment slowing:-
'My friend, you'll never have a path,
Unless you take to blowing.'
Inter Arma Silent Leges.
(An Election Incident.)
About the polls the freedmen drew,
To vote the freemen down;
And merrily their caps up-flew
As Grant rode through the town.
From votes to staves they next did turn,
And beat the freemen down;
Full bravely did their valour burn
As Grant rode through the town.
Then staves for muskets they forsook,
And shot the freemen down;
Right royally their banners shook
As Grant rode through the town.
Hail, final triumph of our cause!
Hail, chief of mute renown!
Grim Magistrate of Silent Laws,
A-riding freedom down!
Quintessence.

'To produce these spicy paragraphs, which have been unsuccessfully imitated by every newspaper in the State, requires the combined efforts of five able-bodied persons associated on the editorial staff of this journal.'-New York Herald.


Sir Muscle speaks, and nations bend the ear:

'Hark ye these Notes-our wit quintuple hear;
Five able-bodied editors combine
Their strength prodigious in each laboured line!'
O wondrous vintner! hopeless seemed the task
To bung these drainings in a single cask;
The riddle's read-five leathern skins contain
The working juice, and scarcely feel the strain.
Saviours of Rome! will wonders never cease?
A ballad cackled by five tuneful geese!
Upon one Rosinante five stout knights
Ride fiercely into visionary fights!
A cap and bells five sturdy fools adorn,
Five porkers battle for a grain of corn,
Five donkeys squeeze into a narrow stall,
Five tumble-bugs propel a single ball!
Resurgam.
Dawns dread and red the fateful morn
Lo, Resurrection's Day is born!
The striding sea no longer strides,
No longer knows the trick of tides;
The land is breathless, winds relent,
All nature waits the dread event.
From wassail rising rather late,
Awarding Jove arrives in state;
O'er yawning graves looks many a league,
Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue.
Lifting its finger to the sky,
A marble shaft arrests his eye
This epitaph, in pompous pride,
Engraven on its polished side:
'Perfection of Creation's plan,
Here resteth Universal Man,
Who virtues, segregated wide,
Collated, classed, and codified,
Reduced to practice, taught, explained,
And strict morality maintained.
Anticipating death, his pelf
He lavished on this monolith;
Because he leaves nor kin nor kith
He rears this tribute to himself,
That Virtue's fame may never cease.
Hic jacet-let him rest in peace!'
With sober eye Jove scanned the shaft,
Then turned away and lightly laughed
'Poor Man! since I have careless been
In keeping books to note thy sin,
And thou hast left upon the earth
This faithful record of thy worth,
Thy final prayer shall now be heard:
Of life I'll not renew thy lease,
But take thee at thy carven word,
And let thee rest in solemn peace!'