AN EPITAPH.

  Here lies Greer Harrison, a well cracked louse—­
  So small a tenant of so big a house! 
  He joyed in fighting with his eyes (his fist
  Prudently pendent from a peaceful wrist)
  And loved to loll on the Parnassian mount,
  His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count,—­
  What poetry he’d written but for lack
  Of skill, when he had counted, to count back! 
  Alas, no more he’ll climb the sacred steep
  To wake the lyre and put the world to sleep! 
  To his rapt lip his soul no longer springs
  And like a jaybird from a knot-hole sings. 
  No more the clubmen, pickled with his wine,
  Spread wide their ears and hiccough “That’s divine!”
  The genius of his purse no longer draws
  The pleasing thunders of a paid applause. 
  All silent now, nor sound nor sense remains,
  Though riddances of worms improve his brains. 
  All his no talents to the earth revert,
  And Fame concludes the record:  “Dirt to dirt!”

THE POLITICIAN.

  “Let Glory’s sons manipulate
  The tiller of the Ship of State. 
  Be mine the humble, useful toil
  To work the tiller of the soil.”

AN INSCRIPTION

  For a Proposed Monument in Washington to Him who
  Made it Beautiful.

  Erected to “Boss” Shepherd by the dear
    Good folk he lived and moved among in peace—­
    Guarded on either hand by the police,
  With soldiers in his front and in his rear.

FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS.

  The polecat, sovereign of its native wood,
  Dashes damnation upon bad and good;
  The health of all the upas trees impairs
  By exhalations deadlier than theirs;
  Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad—­
  The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode! 
  She shakes o’er breathless hill and shrinking dale
  The horrid aspergillus of her tail! 
  From every saturated hair, till dry,
  The spargent fragrances divergent fly,
  Deafen the earth and scream along the sky!

  Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife
  Of urban odors to ungladden life—­
  Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire
  The flesh to torture and the soul to fire—­
  Where all the “well defined and several stinks”
  Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks—­
  Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense
  Of lost distinction, leveled eminence,
  She suddenly resigns her baleful trust,
  Nor ever lays again our mortal dust. 
  Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk,
  She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk.

A “MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON.”