Disputing not of chance or fate,
    Nor questioning of cause or creed;
    For anything but duty’s deed
  Too simply wise, too humbly great.

  The cannon syllabled his name;
    His shadow shifted o’er the land,
    Portentous, as at his command
  Successive cities sprang to flame!

  He fringed the continent with fire,
    The rivers ran in lines of light! 
    Thy will be done on earth—­if right
  Or wrong he cared not to inquire.

  His was the heavy hand, and his
    The service of the despot blade;
    His the soft answer that allayed
  War’s giant animosities.

  Let us have peace:  our clouded eyes,
    Fill, Father, with another light,
    That we may see with clearer sight
  Thy servant’s soul in Paradise.

THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED.

  Of Hans Pietro Shanahan
  (Who was a most ingenious man)
  The Muse of History records
  That he’d get drunk as twenty lords.

  He’d get so truly drunk that men
  Stood by to marvel at him when
  His slow advance along the street
  Was but a vain cycloidal feat.

  And when ’twas fated that he fall
  With a wide geographical sprawl,
  They signified assent by sounds
  Heard (faintly) at its utmost bounds.

  And yet this Mr. Shanahan
  (Who was a most ingenious man)
  Cast not on wine his thirsty eyes
  When it was red or otherwise.

  All malt, or spirituous, tope
  He loathed as cats dissent from soap;
  And cider, if it touched his lip,
  Evoked a groan at every sip.

  But still, as heretofore explained,
  He not infrequently was grained. 
  (I’m not of those who call it “corned.” 
  Coarse speech I’ve always duly scorned.)

  Though truth to say, and that’s but right,
  Strong drink (it hath an adder’s bite!)
  Was what had put him in the mud,
  The only kind he used was blood!

  Alas, that an immortal soul
  Addicted to the flowing bowl,
  The emptied flagon should again
  Replenish from a neighbor’s vein.

  But, Mr. Shanahan was so
  Constructed, and his taste that low. 
  Nor more deplorable was he
  In kind of thirst than in degree;

  For sometimes fifty souls would pay
  The debt of nature in a day
  To free him from the shame and pain
  Of dread Sobriety’s misreign.

  His native land, proud of its sense
  Of his unique inabstinence,
  Abated something of its pride
  At thought of his unfilled inside.

  And some the boldness had to say
  ’Twere well if he were called away
  To slake his thirst forevermore
  In oceans of celestial gore.

  But Hans Pietro Shanahan
  (Who was a most ingenious man)
  Knew that his thirst was mortal; so
  Remained unsainted here below—­