However proud he might be of his meats,
Not even Apicius, nor, I think,
Lucullus,
Wasted on tramps his culinary sweets;
“Aut Caesar,”
say judicious hosts, “aut nullus.”
And though when Marcius came unbidden
Tullus
Aufidius feasted him because he starved,
Marcius by Tullus afterward was carved.
We feed the hungry, as the book commands
(For men might question else
our orthodoxy)
But do not care to see the outstretched
hands,
And so we minister to them
by proxy.
When Want, in his improper
person, knocks he
Finds we’re engaged. The graveworm’s
very fresh
To think we like his presence in the flesh.
So, as I said, I lay in doubt; in all
That underworld no judges
could determine
My rights. When Death approaches
them they fall,
And falling, naturally soil
their ermine.
And still below ground, as
above, the vermin
That work by dark and silent methods win
The case—the burial case that
one is in.
Cases at law so slowly get ahead,
Even when the right is visibly
unclouded,
That if all men are classed as quick and
dead,
The judges all are dead, though
some unshrouded.
Pray Jove that when they’re
actually crowded
On Styx’s brink, and Charon rows
in sight,
His bark prove worse than Cerberus’s
bite.
Ah! Cerberus, if you had but begot
A race of three-mouthed dogs
for man to nourish
And woman to caress, the muse had not
Lamented the decay of virtues
currish,
And triple-hydrophobia now
would flourish,
For barking, biting, kissing to employ
Canine repeaters were indeed a joy.
Lord! how we cling to this vile world!
Here I,
Whose dust was laid ere I
began this carping,
By moles and worms and such familiar fry
Run through and through, am
singing still and harping
Of mundane matters—flatting,
too, and sharping.
I hate the Angel of the Sleeping Cup:
So I’m for getting—and
for shutting—up.
IN MEMORIAM
Beauty (they called her) wasn’t
a maid
Of many things in the world afraid.
She wasn’t a maid who turned and
fled
At sight of a mouse, alive or dead.
She wasn’t a maid a man could “shoo”
By shouting, however abruptly, “Boo!”
She wasn’t a maid who’d run
and hide
If her face and figure you idly eyed.
She was’nt a maid who’d blush
and shake
When asked what part of the fowl she’d
take.
(I blush myself to confess she preferred,
And commonly got, the most of the bird.)
She wasn’t a maid to simper because
She was asked to sing—if she
ever was.