1894

AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS.

  Christmas, you tell me, comes but once a year. 
  One place it never comes, and that is here. 
  Here, in these pages no good wishes spring,
  No well-worn greetings tediously ring—­
  For Christmas greetings are like pots of ore: 
  The hollower they are they ring the more. 
  Here shall no holly cast a spiny shade,
  Nor mistletoe my solitude invade,
  No trinket-laden vegetable come,
  No jorum steam with Sheolate of rum. 
  No shrilling children shall their voices rear. 
  Hurrah for Christmas without Christmas cheer!

  No presents, if you please—­I know too well
  What Herbert Spencer, if he didn’t tell
  (I know not if he did) yet might have told
  Of present-giving in the days of old,
  When Early Man with gifts propitiated
  The chiefs whom most he doubted, feared and hated,
  Or tendered them in hope to reap some rude
  Advantage from the taker’s gratitude. 
  Since thus the Gift its origin derives
  (How much of its first character survives
  You know as well as I) my stocking’s tied,
  My pocket buttoned—­with my soul inside. 
  I save my money and I save my pride.

  Dinner?  Yes; thank you—­just a human body
  Done to a nutty brown, and a tear toddy
  To give me appetite; and as for drink,
  About a half a jug of blood, I think,
  Will do; for still I love the red, red wine,
  Coagulating well, with wrinkles fine
  Fretting the satin surface of its flood. 
  O tope of kings—­divine Falernian—­blood!

  Duse take the shouting fowls upon the limb,
  The kneeling cattle and the rising hymn! 
  Has not a pagan rights to be regarded—­
  His heart assaulted and his ear bombarded
  With sentiments and sounds that good old Pan
  Even in his demonium would ban?

  No, friends—­no Christmas here, for I have sworn
  To keep my heart hard and my knees unworn. 
  Enough you have of jester, player, priest: 
  I as the skeleton attend your feast,
  In the mad revelry to make a lull
  With shaken finger and with bobbing skull. 
  However you my services may flout,
  Philosophy disdain and reason doubt,
  I mean to hold in customary state,
  My dismal revelry and celebrate
  My yearly rite until the crack o’ doom,
  Ignore the cheerful season’s warmth and bloom
  And cultivate an oasis of gloom.

BY A DEFEATED LITIGANT.

  Liars for witnesses; for lawyers brutes
  Who lose their tempers to retrieve their suits;
  Cowards for jurors; and for judge a clown
  Who ne’er took up the law, yet lays it down;
  Justice denied, authority abused,
  And the one honest person the accused—­
  Thy courts, my country, all these awful years,
  Move fools to laughter and the wise to tears.