Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice
And shells and corals, brought
for my inspection
From the fair tropics—paid
a Christian price
And was content in my fool’s paradise,
Where never had been heard
the word “Protection.”
’T was my sole island; there I dwelt
alone—
No customs-house, collector
nor collection,
But a man came, who, in a pious tone
Condoled with me that I had never known
The manifest advantage of
Protection.
So, when the trading-boat arrived one
day,
He threw a stink-pot into
its mid-section.
The traders paddled for their lives away,
Nor came again into that haunted bay,
The blessed home thereafter
of Protection.
Then down he sat, that philanthropic man,
And spat upon some mud of
his selection,
And worked it, with his knuckles in a
pan,
To shapes of shells and coral things,
and span
A thread of song in glory
of Protection.
He baked them in the sun. His air
devout
Enchanted me. I made
a genuflexion:
“God help you, gentle sir,”
I said. “No doubt,”
He answered gravely, “I’ll
get on without
Assistance now that we have
got Protection.”
Thenceforth I bought his wares—at
what a price
For shells and corals of such
imperfection!
“Ah, now,” said he, “your
lot is truly nice.”
But still in all that isle there was no
spice
To season to my taste that
dish, Protection.
SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES.
I died. As meekly in the earth I
lay,
With shriveled fingers reverently
folded,
The worm—uncivil engineer!—my
clay
Tunneled industriously, and the
mole did.
My body could not dodge them, but
my soul did;
For that had flown from this terrestrial
ball
And I was rid of it for good and all.
So there I lay, debating what to do—
What measures might most usefully
be taken
To circumvent the subterranean crew
Of anthropophagi and save my bacon.
My fortitude was all this while
unshaken,
But any gentleman, of course, protests
Against receiving uninvited guests.
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.
