Why, you were mad!  Did you suppose because
  Our foolish system suffers foolish men
To climb to power, make, enforce the laws,
  And, it is whispered, break them now and then,
  We love the fellows and respect them when
We’ve stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs? 
When folly blooms we trample it the more
For having fertilized it heretofore.

Behold yon laborer!  His garb is mean,
  His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask
The measure of his brains?  ’Tis only seen
  He’s fitted for his honorable task,
  And so delights the mind.  But let him bask
In droll prosperity, absurdly clean—­
Is that the man whom we admired before? 
Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore!

Better for you that thoughtless men had said
  (Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere): 
“Why don’t they make him Governor?” instead
  Of, “Why the devil did they?” But I fear
  My words on your inhospitable ear
Are wasted like a sermon to the dead. 
Still, they may profit you if studied well: 
You can’t be taught to think, but may to spell.

AN UNDRESS UNIFORM

The apparel does not proclaim the man—­
Polonius lied like a partisan,
And Salomon still would a hero seem
If (Heaven dispel the impossible dream!)
He stood in a shroud on the hangman’s trap,
His eye burning holes in the black, black cap. 
And the crowd below would exclaim amain: 
“He’s ready to fall for his country again!”

THE PERVERTED VILLAGE

AFTER GOLDSMITH

Sweet Auburn! liveliest village of the plain,
Where Health and Slander welcome every train,
Whence smiling innocence, its tribute paid,
Retires in terror, wounded and dismayed—­
Dear lovely bowers of gossip and disease,
Whose climate cures us that thy dames may tease,
How often have I knelt upon thy green
And prayed for death, to mitigate their spleen! 
How often have I paused on every charm
With mingled admiration and alarm—­
The brook that runs by many a scandal-mill,
The church whose pastor groans upon the grill,
The cowthorn bush with seats beneath the shade,
Where hearts are struck and reputations flayed;
How often wished thine idle wives, some day,
Might more at whist, less at the devil, play.

Unblest retirement! ere my life’s decline
(Killed by detraction) may I witness thine. 
How happy she who, shunning shades like these,
Finds in a wolf-den greater peace and ease;
Who quits the place whence truth did earlier fly,
And rather than come back prefers to die! 
For her no jealous maids renounce their sleep,
Contriving malices to make her weep;
No iron-faced dames her character debate
And spurn imploring mercy from the gate;
But down she lies to a more peaceful end,
For wolves do not calumniate, but rend—­
Sinks piecemeal to their maws, a willing prey,
While resignation lubricates the way,
And all her prospects brighten at the last: 
To wolves, not women, an approved repast.