The Seraphs came to Christ, and said:
“Behold!
The man, presumptuous and overbold,
Who boasted that his mercy could excel
Thine own, is dead and on his way to Hell.”
Gravely the Saviour asked: “What
did he do
To make his impious assertion true?”
“He was a Governor, releasing all
The vilest felons ever held in thrall.
No other mortal, since the dawn of time,
Has ever pardoned such a mass of crime!”
Christ smiled benignly on the Seraphim:
“Yet I am victor, for I pardon him.”
THE SCURRIL PRESS.
TOM JONESMITH (loquitur):
I’ve slept right through The night—a
rather clever thing to do. How soundly women
sleep (looks at his wife.) They’re
all alike. The sweetest thing in life Is woman
when she lies with folded tongue, Its toil completed
and its day-song sung. (Thump) That’s
the morning paper. What a bore That it should
be delivered at the door. There ought to be
some expeditious way To get it to one.
By this long delay The fizz gets off the news (a
rap is heard). That’s Jane, the housemaid;
she’s an early bird; She’s brought it
to the bedroom door, good soul. (Gets up and
takes it in.) Upon the whole The system’s
not so bad a one. What’s here? Gad,
if they’ve not got after—listen dear
(To sleeping wife)—young Gastrotheos!
Well, If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell She’ll
shriek again—with laughter—seeing
how They treated Gast. with her. Yet I’ll
allow ’T is right if he goes dining at The
Pup With Mrs. Thing.
WIFE (briskly, waking up):
With her? The hussy! Yes, it
serves him right.
JONESMITH (continuing to “seek
the light”):
What’s this about old Impycu?
That’s good!
Grip—that’s the funny
man—says Impy should
Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps.
I knew old Impy when he had the “stamps”
To buy us all out, and he wasn’t
then
So bad a chap to have about. Grip’s
pen
Is just a tickler!—and the
world, no doubt,
Is better with it than it was without.
What? thirteen ladies—Jumping
Jove! we know
Them nearly all!—who gamble
at a low
And very shocking game of cards called
“draw”!
O cracky, how they’ll squirm! ha-ha!
haw-haw!
Let’s see what else (wife snores).
Well, I’ll be blest!
A woman doesn’t understand a jest.
Hello! What, what? the scurvy wretch
proceeds
To take a fling at me, condemn
him! (reads):
Tom Jonesmith—my name’s
Thomas, vulgar cad!—Of
the new Shavings Bank—the
man’s gone mad!
That’s libelous; I’ll have
him up for that—Has
had his corns cut. Devil take
the rat!
What business is ’t of his, I’d
like to know?
He didn’t have to cut them.
Gods! what low
And scurril things our papers have become!
You skim their contents and you get but
scum.
Here, Mary, (waking wife) I’ve
been attacked
In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is
a fact!
WIFE (reading it): How
wicked! Who do you
Suppose ’t was wrote it?
JONESMITH:
Who? why, who
But Grip, the so-called funny man—he
wrote
Me up because I’d not discount his
note.
(Blushes like sunset at the hideous
lie—
He’ll think of one that’s
better by and by—
Throws down the paper on the floor, and
treads
A lively measure on it—kicks
the shreds
And patches all about the room, and still
Performs his jig with unabated will.)
WIFE (warbling sweetly, like an
Elfland horn):
Dear, do be careful of that second corn.
STANLEY.
Noting some great man’s composition
vile:
A head of wisdom and a heart of guile,
A will to conquer and a soul to dare,
Joined to the manners of a dancing bear,
Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey
Of various Nature’s compensating
sway,
Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff,
To praise the one and at the other laugh,
Yearn all in vain and impotently seek
Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak
The sycophantic worship of the weak.
Not so the wise, from superstition free,
Who find small pleasure in the bended
knee;
Quick to discriminate ’twixt good
and bad,
And willing in the king to find the cad—
No reason seen why genius and conceit,
The power to dazzle and the will to cheat,
The love of daring and the love of gin,
Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single
skin.
To such, great Stanley, you’re a
hero still,
Despite your cradling in a tub for swill.
Your peasant manners can’t efface
the mark
Of light you drew across the Land of Dark.
In you the extremes of character are wed,
To serve the quick and villify the dead.
Hero and clown! O, man of many sides,
The Muse of Truth adores you and derides,
And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray
Upon your head of gold and feet of clay.
