. .Tj^v^V-y HKS-W&-W* ;iiS& #2 1 ^ ARY IP| THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES f-rJ'jTt; IpL i 'i*3*. ^S ^:^'* & $&* ^m^m^M '*$?!*&* t >33iB&? ^^t|*^^v ^j- *gj%. ; . 'rr-lf-^J?; ^^i '^^>,/: m lmS&f& : . *3sw&3: ** >'- - W^f.-^T; -r/ . : ,*^ >, ^.vT^C^- * Vi^^s?-^r^rY ; .*,* -* '-'- '' 3S?^: ; ^/;*^.- kwKjt/iifote^v^ PKICE $1.00, POSTPAID. ADDKEBS PUBLISHERS. SOME OF THE RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL (A BOOK OF MOODS.) /'// wear Arcturus for a bosom-pin" TENTH EDITION. TOPEKA, KANSAS, U S.A.: CRANE & COMPANY. 1900. Copyright 1900, by CKANE & Co. PREFACE. When back into the alphabet The critic's satires shall have crumbled, When into dust his hand is humbled, One verse of mine may linger yet. 645260 INDEX. PAGE. AD ASTRA 115 ADIKU 344 ADVICE 95 159 yKsor's FABLES 204 V AGREED STATEMKNT ' 227 AGRICOLA ET FILIUS 205 ALABAMA TO KANSAS : . . . 184 ALGOMAR 181 ALTRUISM 202 ANCHORS 51 ANGIUS ET ANGUISH 206 AXE-I-DKNT 209 AZTEC CITY 40 . BACCARAT 165 BANDIT, KANSAS 282 BIRD SONG 57 ELAINE 117 BUZZARD 126 ' BLUE-BIRD 142 BOOMER . 202 BROWN, JOIIN 81 CABIN 120 CADMUS 164 CANINE 211 CAPER 217 CARNIVAL QUEKN 70 CHAOS 56 CHILDHOOD 71 CHILD OF FATE 95 CHILDREN 112 (v) vi INDEX. CONVENTION 200 CORN POEM 237 COWCATCHER 215 CRANES AND GKKSK 45 CRUSADES 66 DECORATION DAY 89 DEFAULTER 93 DEWEY 64 DJKLXPRWBZ 161 DOCTOR 200 DREAM, QUININK 175 DUG-OUT 98 EL, MORAN 73 ELUSION 125 EMPEROR WILLIAM 168 EXPERIENCE 200 FABLES 204 FAILURE 42 FATE 95 FEAR YE HIM 87 FIRST WIFE 186 FISHER MAIDEN 21 FLOPPER 194 FORT SCOTT OWL 154 FRAUDS 48 FUNSTON AND HoBSON 184 GEESE AND CRANES 45 GLORY 47 GRANGER'S TEXT 155 GRIZZLY-GRU 139 HANNO 48 HE AND SHE . . . . 193 INDEX. vii HEARTS 110 HEKDEB 25 Hie JONES 227 HISTORY 124 HOBSON AND FUNSTON 184 HOLY WAR 65 HOMEOPATHY ... 200 IDYL 170 INGALI.S ANI> VOOHIIKES 200 INSURANCE AGENT 214 INVIDIOUS CANINE 211 lOLINE 75 ITALIAN SONNET 137 JACKPOT 172 JAIL 180 JOHN BROWN 81 KANSAS BANDIT 282 KANSAS DUG-OUT 98 KANSAS HERDEU 25 KANSAS IDYL 170 KANSAS JAIL 180 KANSAS OCTOBER 38 KANSAS QUIVERA 61 KANSAS TO ALABAMA 184 KANSAS VETERAN 151 KARMYL 146 KRITERION 19 LEAP- YEAR PARTY . ' 157 LEGOUSIN Ai 97 LEWIS vs. STATE 222 viii INDEX. LIFE INSURANCE AGENT 214 LIFE'S MOONKISE 84 LlGHTNING-BuG 207 LlMBURGER 212 LOVELY WOMAN 203 LOVIST... ..197 MARMATON 31 MEDICINE MAN 248 MELANCHOLY 200 MILESTONES 220 MILLIONS 1 34 MIND-READER 202 MINING SHARK 182 MINNESONG 23 MOONRISE 84 MULIER . . . . 203 NANKEEN 216 NETSIE 67 NEUTRALIA 305 NEW YEAR 177 NOVEMBER BLUE-BIRD 142 Now . . . 27 OCTOBER 38 ODE TO WATER 163 OLD CABIN 120 OLD GLORY 22 OLD PIONEER 79 OLD SOLDIER'S RELIGION Ill OLD VETERAN 151 ORGAN-GRINDER 129 OWL, FORT SCOTT 154 INDEX. ix PALINDROME 110 PARESIS 153 PASS 152 PAVO 208 PERSIMMONS 204 PHOTO-GRAPII-U-IST 190 PIONEER 79 POET 201 POLITICS : 150 POST AUGER 214 PRAIRIE CHILDREN 112 PRAIRIE STORM 101 PRE-EMPTOR 29 PRINTER'S INK 138 PRODIGAL, box 183 PROTEST 50 PYTHIAN 60 QUESTION 148 QUININE DREAM 175 QUIVERA KANSAS 61 REAL, THE 103 REASON 149 RETROSPECTIVE 178 REQUIEM 123 RHYME 202 RHYMES OF IRONCJUILT 72 RILEY, J. WHITCOMB 72 ROMANCE 272 SEA-RIOUS STORY 174 SERENADE 26 SHADOW 52 SHINING MARK . . . . 182 x INDEX. SHORT-HAIRED POET 259 SIEGE 161 SONNETS 135, 136, 137 STATE vs. LEWIS 222 STOKM, PRAIRIE 101 SUCKER AND SALAMANDER 218 SUNSET MARMATON 31 SUPERSTITION 136 SWELL, 213 TAKPEIA 35 TEFFT HOUSE 201 TEN-CENT CORN 201 TELEGRAPH WIRE 108 THAT.ATTA 106 THKB.E 162 THRENE 105 THREE STATES 49 TOBACCO STEMMERS 53 TO-DAY i '. . . . 88 TRIOLET 203 TYPE 24 UNSOCIABLE MILESTONES . . . . 220 VETERAN 151 VICTOR 86 VICTORIA 64 VIOLET STAR 68 VOOKHEES. ... . . 200 WAR-FARE 167 WASHERWOMAN 9 WATER, ODE TO 163 INDEX. xi WAY OF IT 201 WHISPERER 160 WHIST 114 WHITHKB 100 WIFE, FIRST 186 WILLIAM AND WHALE 168 WINTER 118 WORST AND BEST 135 ZEPHYR 219 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL THE WASHERWOMAN'S SONG. In a very humble cot, In a rather quiet spot, In the suds and in the soap, Worked a woman full of hope ; Working, singing, all alone, In a sort of undertone : " With the Savior for a friend, He will keep me to the end." Sometimes happening along, I had heard the semi-song, And I often used to smile, More in sympathy than guile ; But I never said a word In regard to what I heard, As she sang about her friend Who would keep her to the end. Not in sorrow nor in glee Working all day long was she, 10 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. As her children, three or four, Played around her on the floor ; But in monotones the song She was humming all day long: "With the Savior for a friend, He will keep me to the end." It 's a song I do not sing, For I scarce believe a thing Of the stories that are told Of the miracles of old ; But I know that her belief Is the anodyne of grief, And will always be a friend That will keep her to the end. Just a trifle lonesome she, Just as poor as poor could be ; But her spirits always rose, Like the bubbles in the clothes, And, though widowed and alone, Cheered her with the monotone, Of a Savior and a friend Who would keep her to the end. I have seen her rub and scrub, On the washboard in the tub, While the baby, sopped in suds, Rolled and tumbled in the duds; THE WASHERWOMAN'S SONG. Or was paddling in the pools, With old scissors stuck in spools ; She still humming of her friend Who would keep her to the end. Human hopes and human creeds Have their root in human needs; And I should not wish to strip From that'washerwoman's lip Any song that she can sing, Any hope that songs can bring; For the woman has a friend Who will keep her to the end. 12 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. AN OPEN LETTER TO IRONQUILL. DEAR SIR: I have read again and again, with indescribable pleasure and sadness, your "Washer- woman's Song" pleasure, because it is really beautiful, and voices correctly the joy of Christ's poor ones ; sadness, because you say you are shut out from a hope which, though not always so bright and cheerful, is worth more than all else this world affords. You will pardon me for ad- dressing you in this public manner, for I know that many men of intellect and culture occupy positions not dissimilar to your own, and I hope in this way to make some suggestions which will reach both you and them, and not be inappropriate to the subject, whether they shall prove valuable or useless. Reading between the lines, I think I can see a thorough interest, a sort of inquiry, a desire to possess a hope like, or at least equal to, that of the heroine of your song. If this were not so, I could scarcely interest myself sufficiently to write you, for I confess I have but little patience with that class of criticism that flippantly brushes aside the mysteries of God, Christ and immortality as fit only for the contemplation of " women and AN OPEN LETTER TO IRONQUILL. 13 children." To me these mysteries are the pro- foundest depths. I have no plummet heavy enough, nor line long enough, to reach the bottom. I may push them aside for a time, while other things en- gross me, but they come unbidden again and again across my path. It is so with you. What is God ? It may be sufficient for some to answer, "God is a spirit, infinite," etc.; but this answer gives but very little light to rne. And yet I know that I am amenable to laws definite and certain, with penalties positive and fixed, which I never made or agreed to have made, and which I can never change, even in the most minute partic- ular. Whence these laws ? Is nature, with its exactitude, a chance? Who believes that? I have doubted whether there is a God, but I never disbelieved it. Bringing all my reason to bear upon it, I find that the best I can do is to dismiss the doubt as far as I can, and accept the fact. Still but little is gained practically. The laws are known, and the consequences of disobedience are also known. What matters it whence the laws come? I have never seen God; I shall not see him with these eyes. I do not understand the methods of his government. They seem to be harsh and severe as often as they are kind and merciful. Death takes, all too soon, the gentle mother from her untrained child, as well as the 14 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. worthless vagabond of whom the world is well rid. You do not understand it any better than I, but the fact remains. To know, then, that there is a God, is nothing to us, unless it be a foundation upon which we can build something more. Who then was Christ of whom the washerwoman sung day after day? That such a man existed is not doubted. Think over all the best men you ever knew, and then se- lect the very best, and tell me if he does not fall too far short for comparison. There are as good men living now as ever lived men fully equal to Daniel, Isaiah, or John, and far better than Moses, David, or Peter. Among the best, Christ stands alone ; and yet he was the boldest impostor that ever appeared on the earth, if he was not divine. Christ was and is a fact. He comes across our way, and must be disposed of. He was either the exemplification of God to men, or a most trans- parent fraud and hypocrite. I have doubted whether he was "God manifest in the flesh," but I never disbelieved it. If he was divine, then " The stories that are told Of the miracles of old" are easy of belief. As to the proofs of immortality, you have doubt- less pondered them well. They rest partly on God and Christ, and partly on the unsatisfying nature AN OPEN LETTER TO IRONQUILL. 15 of this life. It is said that the average human life is thirty-four years. Who can say that it is worth living if this is all? Pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, light and darkness, are about as equally distributed as day and night. Who that has lived it would ask to live it again in just the same way, and without any benefit from the experience al- ready passed? Infancy prattles into childhood, childhood glides into youth, youth leaps into man- hood, and manhood goes grudgingly into old age; and in each succession the dreamer anticipates that the next will bring something more substantial and satisfactory, but the anticipation is never realized, and the substantial and satisfactory never come. Do you not find it so? I have doubted my im- mortality, but I never disbelieved it. If you ask me why the truth as to these mo- mentous matters is not more clearly revealed, or why we were not given reason and judgment to fathom and understand them, I answer, I do not know. But that does not dispose of them. If I were to ask you why you have not reason and judgment to decide at once, and wisely, the ten thousand questions of every-day life, your answer would be, "I do not know." But nevertheless you go on reasoning, doubting, deciding, and doubting after you decide, fortunate indeed if you are generally right, and certain indeed to be often wrong. 16 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. I have written thus far so as to be able to say that when you write "I scarce believe a thing," your true position is, that you doubt whether the woman has a real foundation upon which to build her song. And if I am right in this, then further to suggest that there is nothing unusual or unrea- sonable in such a doubt. Nay, more: when rea- son, judgment, and all other faculties and means for arriving at truth are imperfect, it seems to me that a perfect faitli is unattainable, and doubt be- comes a necessity. To questions like these, and many others, there is no absolute demonstration here and now. Did it ever occur to you that the woman did not always have that serene faith which you ascribe to her? Do you not know that she often won- dered, and wondering, doubted, not, perhaps, whether there is a God, but whether He is merci- ful, or even just ? Do yon not know that to her it is an unsolved problem why she was left alone to support four children at one dollar a day, when you could make twenty dollars a day at work less burdensome and exhaustive ? If she had called on you, when passing her door, to explain this problem to her poor understanding, what could you have said ? She probably knew it was as in- explicable to you as to her, and therefore did not ask. There is an answer, but neither you nor I AN OPEN LETTER TO IRONQUILL. 17 occupy a plane sufficiently exalted fully to com- prehend and speak it "Even so, Father, for so it seerneth good in thy sight." There are two classes of persons who never have doubts : the one, who see through these mysteries at a glance, or think they do ; and the other, " who never had a dozen thoughts in all their lives." The washerwoman sung away most of hers in her beautiful song ; and shall we, who cannot sing, linger about Doubting Castle until old Giant De- spair entices us into his gloomy prison-house? No ; for while we see that there is doubt in reason, we will hold that there must be reason in doubt, and it must itself be dragged into the light, sub- jected to the severest scrutiny, and made our help rather than our ruin. Galileo called doubt the "father of invention." "Who never doubted never half believed where doubt, there truth is. It is its shadow." One not given much to doubt, and never to de- spair, has said: "Now we see through a glass darkly." But there is a light that light is Christ as revealed in the Scriptures. Blot it out, and the darkness is to me impenetrable. I have said nothing of the unseen help that comes to the weak of faith. Though mysterious, I believe in it. Your heroine knew of it. The heathen seem to grasp it as if by instinct, and 18 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. have crystallized it into the maxim, "The gods help them that help themselves." Faith will grow if cultivated by good works, and the unseen help will be a friend that will keep us to the end. Yery truly yours, N. 0. McFARLAND. Washington, D. C. KRITERION. 19 KKITERIOK [ A reply to Judge McFarland.] I see the spire, I see the throng, I hear the choir, I hear the song; I listen to the anthem, while It pours its volume down the aisle ; I listen to the splendid rhyme That, with a melody sublime, Tells of some far-off, fadeless clime- Of man and his finality, Of hope, and immortality. Oh, theme of themes ! Are men mistaught? Are hopes like dreams, To come to naught? Is all the beautiful and good Delusive and misunderstood? And has the soul no forward reach? And do indeed the facts impeach The theories the teachers teach? And is this immortality Delusion, or reality? 20 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. What hope reveals Mind tries to clasp, But soon it reels With broken grasp. No chain yet forged on anvil's brink Was stronger than its weakest link; And are there not along this chain Imperfect links that snap in twain When caught in logic's tensile strain? And is not immortality The child of ideality 2 And yet at times We get advice That seems like chimes From paradise ; The soul doth sometimes seem to be In sunshine which it cannot see ; At times the spirit seems to roam Beyond the land, above the foam, Back to some half-forgotten home. Perhaps this immortality May be indeed reality. THE FISHER MAIDEN. 21 THE FISHER MAIDEN. Thou maiden with eyes so dreamy, Thou child of the waves and spray, Thy home is beside the ocean, Where wearisome breakers play. Come, sit thee down here beside me And list to the words I say. My heart is a stormy ocean, And out on its rocky slopes The turbulent waves are flinging The spars and the keels and ropes : - The wrecks of my aspirations, The wrecks of my stranded hopes. My heart is an angry ocean. The gales, as they corne and go, Bestrew it with wreck and ruin, But down in its waves below, The pearls and the rose-red corals Expectantly gleam and glow. 1 launch on this stormy ocean, Thou child of the waves and spray ; Thy boat will be borne securely, Until, at the close of day, The crimson of life's last twilight Shall fade in the west away. 22 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. OLD GLOKY. (A SONG.) Flag of a thousand battles, Beautiful flag of the free ; Waving from lake to ocean, Waving from sea to sea ; 'Outward and seaward ever, Daring the -restless wave ; Upward and skyward ever, Pride of the true and the brave. Old Glory, Old Glory, the world awaits thy story / Float on, float ever on o^er land and sea / Old Glory, Old Glory, the world awaits thy story / Float on, float on, thou emblem of the free. Flag of a thousand battles, Cresting the billows of fire ; Whelming established evils, Raising the lowly higher; Challenging ancient error, Silencing tyranny dumb, Gladdening and inspiring. Hope for the years to come ! Old Glory, Old Glory, the world awaits thy story / Float on, float ever on o^er land and seaj Old Glory, Old Glory, the world awaits thy story / Float on, float on, thou emblem of the free. THE MINNESONG. 23 THE MINNESONG. Once a falcon I possessed ; And full many a knight and vassal Watched him from my father's castle, As, in gaudy ribbon dressed, He would seek with fiery eye Battle in the roomy sky, And return to be caressed. Once a lover I possessed ; On the field of battle knighted, And at tournaments, delighted, Did I watch his fiery crest. Woven from the silken strands By my own unaided hands, Was the baldric on his. breast. But one day my bird did soar, When the sky was black and stormy ; And my knight, whose fondness for me Seemed as changeless as before, Rode away in the crusade ; And as years successive fade, They return to me no more. 84 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Ah I In every land and tongue Loved by emperor and vassal, Serf in hovel, knight in castle Ever old yet ever young, Sung until the hours grew late, Was the song of love and fate Which the minnesinger sung. TYPE. All night the sky was draped in darkness thick ; From rumbling clouds imprisoned lightnings swept ; Into the printer's stick, With energetic click, The ranks of type into battalions crept, Which formed brigades while dreaming labor slept ; And ere dawn's crimson pennons were unfurled, The night-formed columns charged the waking world. THE KANSAS HERDER. 25 THE KANSAS HERDER. He rode by starlight o'er the prairies dim, While melancholy, with an aimless whim, Through trackless grass was blindly leading him. And then he said: "Beneath the heavens' blue curve, There has been fate misfortune would not serve ; There has been love disaster could not swerve." But as he spake these words, it seemed that they Fell volatile, like autumn leaves, and lay Till zephyrs came and swept them all away. And then he said: "O words of love, alasl As light as feathers, frangible as glass, The last to come, and yet the first to pass." The prairie, ever echoless, could make No answer back. Impassible, opaque, The night air smothered what he wildly spake. The prairie larks sang at the break of day ; He heard them not, but as he lifeless lay He wore a smile, faint, thoughtful, far away. 26 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE SERENADE. Through waning light The angel of the night, With silver sickle, reaped the western stars; Across my sleep, Dreamless as well as deep, There came a ballad, whose remembered bars Brought back to me a day That long had passed away. An old, old song, Although forgotten long, Brings childhood back as songs alone can bring. We see bright eyes, Behold unclouded skies ; We re-inhale the fragrance of life's spring ; While, as of unseen bird, Hustle of wing is heavd. Shall our last sleep Eternal stillness keep? Shall pulseless dust enclose a dreamless soul? Or shall we hear Those songs so old and dear, As mid tempestuous melodies there roll Upon our sleeping ears The choruses of spheres? THE NOW. 27 THE NOW. The charm of a love is its telling, the telling that goes with the giving ; The charm of a deed is its doing ; the charm of a life is its living ; The soul of the thing is the thought ; the charm of the act is the actor ; The soul of the fact is its truth, and the NOW is its principal factor. The world loves the Now and the Nowist, and tests all assumptions with rigor; It looks not behind it to failing, but forward to ardor and vigor; It cares not for heroes who faltered, for martyrs who hushed and recanted, For pictures that never were painted, for harvests that never were planted. The world does not care for a fragrance that never is lost in perfuming, The world does not care for the blossoms that wither away before blooming ; The world does not care for the chimes remaining unrung by the ringer, 28 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. The world does not care for the songs unsnng in the soul of the singer. What use to mankind is a purpose that never shone forth in a doer ? What use has the world for a loving that never had winner nor woer? The motives, the hopes and the schemes that have ended in idle conclusions, Are buried along with the failures that come in a life of illusions. Away with the flimsy idea that life with a past is attended ; There's Now only Now, and no Past there's never a past ; it has ended. Away with its obsolete story, and all of its yester- day sorrow ; There 's only to-day, almost gone, and in front of to-day stands to-morrow. And hopes that are quenchless are sent us like loans from a generous lender, Enriching us all in our efforts, yet making no poorer the sender ; Lightening all of our labors, and thrilling us ever and ever With the ecstasy of success and the raptures of present endeavor. THE PRE-EMPTOR. THE PKE-EMPTOR While turning furrows on a Kansas prairie, Cares half imaginary Come trooping through my brain, then skip away Like antelopes at play. All day I watch the furrow-slices slide Along the mould-board steel ; But when night comes I feel Along my brain strange restful fancies glide. Although my home may be a humble shanty, With fittings rude and scanty, Each night a kind magician comes to see, And hand the world to me : I see a grand cathedral ; on a hill I note a Moorish tower, And orange trees in flower It is the graceful city of Seville. The evening lights upon the ripples twinkle, I hear the mule-bells tinkle, And organs peal, and twittering mandolins, As fragrant night begins. I see Giralda, in dissolving views, And purple shadows fade In glorious brocade ; I watch the twilight of the Andaluz. 30 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. I hand the world back to my necromancer, And make to him no answer. Next day I hear the rattle just the same Of clevis and of hame ; But when night comes, emerging from the dark I see the sunrise smile Upon the Campanile, And bronze the flying lion of St. Mark. I gaze on ducal palaces adorning The Grand Canal, at morning; I view the ancient trophies that have come Torn from Byzantium ; I see what colors Tintoretto's were ; Upon the mole I hear The gaudy gondolier, Then hand the world back to my sorcerer. The griefs that flock like rabbits in a warren To me are wholly foreign. No help, no cheer, no sympathy I ask ; I 'm equal to my task. Though small my holdings when the sun may shine, When evening comes my cares Steal from me unawares, And then the earth I love so much is mine. THE SUNSET MARMATON. 31 THE SUNSET MAKMATON. O Marmaton ! O Marmaton ! From out the rich autumnal west There creeps a misty, pearly rest, As through an atmosphere of dreams. Along thy course, O Marmaton, A rich September sunset streams. Thy purple sheen, Through prairies green, From out the burning west is seen. I watch thy fine, Approaching line, That seems to flow like blood-red wine Fresh from the vintage of the sun. The spokes of steel And blue reveal The outlines of a phantom wheel, While airy armies, one by one, March out on dress-parade. I see unrolled, In blue and gold, The guidons where the line is made, And, where the lazy zephyrs strolled Along thy verdant esplanade, 82 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. I see the crested, neighing herd Go plunging to the stream. I hear the flying, shrieking scream Of startled bird. The Kansas day is done. O Harm at on ! O Marmaton 1 Thou hast no story and no song ; Unto the vast And empty past, In which thy former life was cast, Thou dost not yet belong. No mountain cradle hast thou had ; Along thy line No summits shine, No cliffs, no gorges, stern and sad, Stand in the waning twilight, clad In melancholy pine. Thou art the even-tempered child Of prairies, on whose verdant wild Eternities have smiled. O Marmaton ! O Marmaton I Be patient, for thy day will come, And bring the bugle and the drum. Thy fame shall like thy ripples run ; Thou shalt be storied yet. THE SUNSET MARMATON. 83 Within this great And central State, The destiny of some proud day Upon thy banks is set. Artillery will sweep away The orchard and the prairie home, And while the wheat stacks redly burn, Armies of infantry will charge The lines of works along thy marge, While cavalry brigades will churn Thy frightened waters into foam. The spell of centuries will break, And thou shalt suddenly awake, And have a story that will make A nation's pulses thrill. And when again thy banks are still, No new admirer of the time Can say of thee in feeble rhyme : 1 Marmaton ! O Marmaton ! Thou hast no story and no song; Thou hast no history of wrong; Unto the vast And empty past In which thy former life was cast, Thou dost not yet belong." O Marmaton ! O Marmaton ! The centuries will pass along, And slowly, singly, one by one, Repeat thy story and thy song. 34 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Thy time abide, O Marmaton ; While side by side, O Marmaton, The shadows o'er thy prairies glide, Thy prairies wide, O Marmaton. For nations come and nations go, Whither and whence we cannot know. Great days, in stormy years though hid, Great years, dark centuries amid, Will ever and anon emerge, Like life-boats drifting through a surge Where billows sweep and mad winds urge. Of future heed, O Marmaton, Thou hast no need, O Marmaton. With quiet force, In quiet course, Still murmur on, O Marmaton. TARPEIA. 35 TARPEIA. Upon the massive walls The cloudless moonlight falls; It silver-plates the portico and fane ; The tawny Tiber drifts By castellated cliffs, And bears its sluggish wavelets to the main. Anon the silver fades From walls and colonnades; Clouds scarred with fire hurl down the vengeful rain ; Impelled by gusty waifs, The tawny Tiber chafes, And hurls its turbid foam age to the main. The Niobe of Night Has left her azure height ; No more she stares disconsolately down ; No more the angles sharp Of pinnacle and scarp, From filmy skies imperiously frown. 36 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Amid the black and damp, The Sabines leave their camp, Before the gate their solid columns go ; And there Tarpeia stands, With her unaided hands To open wide the portals to the foe. Then spake the king to her : "What gift shall I confer, O maid of Rome, so daring and so fair? " The Roman maiden spake: "Those jewels I will take, That on their arms your Sabine soldiers wear." The eager columns march Beneath the rugged arch ; They crush the maid with bracelets and with shields ; A pledge is kept, and broke, And in the din and smoke The lurid fire the doom of war reveals. Then comes the gloomy gray, The harbinger of day Hurled from the rock Tarpeia finds a grave ; And flaring like a flume, The Tiber through the gloom Transfers the tomb to ocean's cryptic wave. TARPEIA. 37 Hope's signal torches shine Upon life's Esquiline, Its Quirinal, its rocky Palatine ; From battlemented walls, Life's merry warder calls The hourly watches of the night's decline. O Fate, behind a mask You promise all we ask You promise wealth and happiness and fame ; And then you keep, yet break, The promises you make You take the substance and you leave the name. Some ask of you a crown, A scepter, or renown ; Some claim the jewels that your bright arm bears ; But when you give, you fling, With every given thing, The weight of troubles and the crush of cares. Perhaps 'twere best to wait Behind the rugged gate, And ask no favors from your ready hand ; To fight, and ask no charm From your bejeweled arm, And be not crushed with favors we demand. RHYMES OF IRONQUH.L. THE KANSAS OCTOBER. The cheeriness and charm Of forest and of farm Are merging into colors sad and sober ; The hectic frondage drapes The nut trees and the grapes September yields to opulent October. The cottonwoods that fringe The streamlets take the tinge ; Through opal haze the sumac bush is burning; The lazy zephyrs lisp, Through cornfields dry and crisp, Their fond regrets for days no more returning. The farm dog leaves the house To flush the timid grouse ; The languid steers on blue-stem lawns are feeding The e\ening twilight sees The rising Pleiades, While autumn suns are to the south receding. THE KANSAS OCTOBER. 39 To me there comes no thrill Of gloominess or chill, As leaflets fade from branches elm or oaken, As lifelessly they hang, To me there comes no pang ; To me no grief the falling leaves betoken. As summer's floral gems Bequeath us withered stems, And. autumn-shattered relics dry and umber; So do these lives of ours, Like summer leaves and flowers, Flourish apace, and in their ripeness slumber. 40 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. THE AZTEC CITY. There is a clouded city, gone to rest Beyond the crest Where Cordilleras mar the mystic west. There suns unheeded rise and re-arise; And in the skies The harvest moon unnoticed lives and dies. And yet this clouded city has no night Yolcanic light Compels eternal noon-tide, redly bright. A thousand wells, whence cooling waters came, No more the same, Now send aloft a th6usand jets of flame. This clouded city is enchanting fair, For rich and rare From sculptured frieze the gilded griffins stare. With level look with loving, hopeful face, Fixed upon space, Stand caryatides of unknown race, And colonnades of dark green serpentine, Of strange design, Carved on whose shafts queer alphabets combine. THE AZTEC CITY. 41 And there are lofty temples, rich and great, And at the gate, Carved in obsidian, the lions wait. And from triumphant arches, looking down Upon the town, In porphyry, sad, unknown statesmen frown. And there are palace homes, and stately walls, And open halls Where fountains are, with voiceless waterfalls. The ruddy fire incessantly illumes Temples and tombs, And in its blaze the stone-wrought cactus blooms. From clouds congealed the mercury distills, And forming rills, Adown the streets in double streamlet trills. As rains from clouds, that summer skies eclipse, From turret-tips And spire and porch the mobile metal drips. No one that visited this fiery hive Ever alive Came out but me I, I alone, survive. 42 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL, FAILURE. An old man sat upon the porch at evening; Down in the west the clouds were banked and sullen No one was near him, and in withered tone The old man spoke unto himself alone : "My life has been a vanity and failure; My wife, my health, my fortune taken from me ; While strange disaster, striking far and wide, Has scattered all my children from my side. "And here I am alone, without a dollar, The hopes of youth all shattered and abandoned; My life a failure failure from the first, A vanity, a failure, of the worst." Adown the west he looked with gloomy sorrow ; And as he spoke the sky grew more tenebral. From time to time the cloud-banks lit with flame, And fitful zephyrs came, and died, and came. Upon his staff his hands were clasped and trembling Upon his hands his brow in sorrow rested ; And the sad west seemed constantly to take A tinge more dark and dismally opaque. FAILURE. 43 Then all at once there seemed to stand beside him A being draped as if with phosphorescence A form of beauty, that might aptly seem To be the emanation of a dream. So beautiful and good she seemed, a mortal Need but behold her once to idolize her; While character and sympathy and grace Shone like an inspiration in her face. She placed her hand upon the old man's shoulder, And spoke in words of magic tone and feeling: "Why thus, my father, do you sadly brood O'er withered hopes with which all life is strewed? "Your life, though toilsome, has not been a failure. Old age may find you left without a dollar; But earth has blossomed where your hands have wrought, The world grown wiser where your lips have taught. "Those coming first build up for those who follow, Shaping the future though they know not of it; As on the slow-wrought ledges coralline The continents of future times begin. "Though in old age without a friend or dollar, He who has spent his days in honest labor Can say with certainty, when they are done, His life has been a most successful one. 44 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. "There is no place, except on earth, for dollars Your scattered children will be reunited. '\ And then she stooped and kissed the old man's cheek, And said, "My father"; but he did not speak. The vision vanished, but the old man moved not; The grief was over, and the failure ended ; While on the lifeless face, serene and fixed, There seemed a smile as if of peace unmixed. Down in the west the banks of cloud tenebral Lifted and scattered in the viewless ether ; And in their stead, with mild and gentle light, Shone forth again the jewels of the night. THE GEESE AND THE CRANES. 45 THE GEESE AND THE CKANE& It is sunrise. In the morn Stands a field of ripened corn; And the rich autumnal rays Of those sunny Kansas days Fill that field of ripened corn With an opalescent haze; Flocks of geese and flocks of cranes Pick the fallen, golden grains. It is noon-time ; and the rays Of the Indian summer blaze; Then the field of ripened corn, Much more shattered than at morn, Seems emerging from the haze. Fewer geese, but far more cranes, Pick the fallen, golden grains. It is evening; and the haze Of the short autumnal days, Like a mantle, seems to rest On the dark and leaden west. Shattered is the field of maize. Homeward fly the geese ; the cranes Linger, picking golden grains. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. It is midnight. Rains and sleet On the blackened landscape beat ; And there nothing now remains Of that field of standing corn. But through darkness, sleet, and rains Comes the crying of the cranes, As they search the field forlorn, Fighting for the final grains. Hours the grains, and life the field Where the golden grains are had ; Daily habits, good and bad, Represent the geese and cranes Eating up the golden grains. Few the habits that are best, And they early go to rest ; But through sleet and midnight rains Heard the cryings are of cranes Fighting for the final grains. GLORY. 47 GLORY. A rocket scaled the terraces of night, And yet It failed to reach the parapet. I told a noble-hearted friend of mine That he, Though great, far greater yet would be. He rose as did Acestes' arrow rise; He burned, And burning, into ashes turned. He rose, and rising blazed, and burned away, And yet He failed to reach the parapet. 48 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. FKAUDS. Ambitious, shrewd, Unprincipled, and ever fond of show, Hanno of Carthage, centuries ago, Determined to be great ; he bought a brood Of fledgling parrots, taught them at his nod To scream in chorus : "Hanno is a god 1 " When they were taught, He had a hireling place them on the street, As if for sale to those he chanced to meet ; But yet by no one could the birds be bought. Then Hanno passed in pomp, and gave a nod, Out shrieked the parrots : "Hanno is a god 1 " "Cunningly done." That night said Hanno, as he doffed his clothes Of silk embroidery, to seek repose : "Distinguished immortality is won; For heardst thon not that superstitious squad . Catch up the sentence, 'Hanno is a god'? " A galley slave, Condemned, went Hanno o'er the cloudy seas That hid the fabled Cassiterides ; THREE STATES, < Wealthy in grief, no home except the wave, Lashed to the oar, betimes urged by the rod, Not very much a man, much less a god. It could not win. It never did. Although the world applauds, It turns at last and punishes its frauds. Although it may not hasten to begin, True to itself, when once it has begun, It drives them to the galleys one by one. THEEE STATES. Of all the States, but three will live in story : Old Massachusetts with her Plymouth Rock, And old Virginia with her noble stock, And Sunny Kansas with her woes and glory ; These three will live in song and oratory, While all the others, with their idle claims, Will only be remembered as mere names. 50 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE PEOTEST. [Written while the Government was removing buried soldiers from the battle-fields of secession and organizing national cemeteries.'] Let them rest, let them rest where they fell. Every battle-field is sacred ; If you let them stay to guard it, They will veil those spots with valor Like a spell. All the soil will seem implanted With the germs of vital freedom ; Where they spent their lives so grandly Let them dwell ; Do not rank them up in fields, Under pallid marble shields ; Let them rest and be cherished Where they fell. Let them rest, let them rest where they fell : On the prairie, in the forest, Under cypress, under laurel, On the mountain, by the bayou, In the dell. ANCHORS. 51 Let the glories of the battle Shroud the heroes who are buried, Resting where they fought so bravely, Long, and well. Do not rank them up in fields, Under pallid marble shields; Let them rest, let them rest Where they fell. ANCHORS. The anchors are strong that hold the ships; The wire is strong that bridges the fall; But all of their strength must suffer eclipse Compared with the words of a woman's lips, For she binds the man that has made them all. 52 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. SHADOW. The day has been vague, and the sky has been bleak, Affairs have gone backward the whole day long ; My friends as I meet them will scarcely speak, And vainly the things I have lost I seek. I am weary and sad and the world is wrong. The morrow has come, and the sky has grown clear, The world appears righted, and rings with song; My friends as I meet them have words of cheer, The things that I thought I had lost reappear, And the work pushes forward the whole daylong. As the strings of a harp, standing side by side, Are the days of sadness and days of song; The sunshine and shadow are ever allied, But the shadows will fade, and the sunshine bide, Though to-day may be dim, and the world go wrong. THE TOBACCO STE AIMERS. 53 THE TOBACCO STEMMERS. Stemming tobacco in a reeking basement, At work, with little left of hopes or joys, Were silent groups of many shaded faces, Their blood the sewage of barbaric races, Women and girls, old men and sober boys. In the vast basement the reluctant ceilings Were propped by pillars weary with delay; The mid-day light shrank from the poisoned vapors, While feeble jets lit, as with ghostly tapers, The woeful scenes where life was worked away. Looking around, my angry heart protested. "How," I inquired, "are such conditions made? What human laws betray such soulless phases? Are these the victims of crime's stern ukases?" The foreman said : "No ; of the laws of trade." Then of myself my soul did ask the question : Would I work here and -earn my daily bread? Would I toil here to make an "honest living"; And, at the end of lock-stepped hours, forgiving, Go sleepfully and dreamlessly to bed? 54 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I 'm too discordant. I would hurl this handful Of clay I 've borrowed at the Great White Throne. Shrieking at fate I 'd die, like Csesar, standing, With torch and steel I 'd take my chances, landing Within the vortex of the great unknown. Noting my thoughts, the foreman gave a signal ; A silence fell at once on every tongue ! Then suddenly a low and rhythmic murmur Broke forth into a cadence strong and firmer, And in it joined the aged and the young. The rats peered from their holes. The oaken pil- lars, Smoky and stained, began to vibrate white ; And still the song rose up in wild derision Of present things, and claimed with strange de- cson There is a land of restful peace and right. The song transformed the walls to pallid onyx, The rafters changed to maze of antique oak, The sodden floor grew firm and tesselated, And in the stead of vapor, poison-freighted, An incense rose with faint and filmy smoke. My soul retains that song's redundant sorrow; There may be justice somewhere who can tell? THE TOBACCO STEMMERS. 55 Perhaps the captor he, who wears the fetter, Perhaps the torch and steel were not the better, To be the wronged, perhaps, were just as well. Perhaps these lives of ours, when sere and withered, May be picked over in some juster land, Torn from the earthly stem and there inspected By the aroma of good deeds selected Perhaps it's so. We do not understand. Work on, sing on, O toilers. May the future Restore the world to him "who works and sings. May justice come inflexibly decreeing The ample right of every human being To happiness and hope in present things. RHYMES OF IRON QUILL, CHAOS. I 've seen an ice-clad river leave its banks, And tear through hills of time-enduring rock; I 've seen grand squadrons charging ranks on ranks, And felt the planet tremble with the shock. I 've seen red navies with their ribs of oak Lashed into splinters by the frantic main ; I've watched proud cities wander off in smoke; I 've seen autumnal ruin sweep the plain. I 've stood at midnight on the rocky height That bars the purple meadows of the west ; I 've seen the silent empress of the night Sail slowly onward, splendoring crest on crest. But never have I seen, in earth or air, A method or a principle. I scan An unplanned chaos, shaping here and there The greatness and the littleness of man. THE BIRD SONG. 57 THE BIRD SONG. In the night air I heard the woodland ringing, I heard it ring with wild and thrilling song; Hidden the bird whose strange inspiring singing Seems yet to float in liquid waves along, Scciris yet to float with many a quirk and quaver, With quirks and quavers and exultant notes, As through the air, with sympathetic waver, Down through the songs the falling starlight floats. Speaking, I said: "O bird with songs sonorous, O bird with songs of such sonorous glee, Sing me a song of joy, and in the chorus, In the same chorus I will join with thee. "The songs that others sing seem but to sadden, Seem but to sadden, those which I have heard, Sing me a song whose gleesome notes will gladden Sing me a song of joy." Then sang the bird : 58 RHYMES OF 1RONQU1LL. "There is a land where blossoming exotic, The amaranths with fadeless colors glow ; Where notes of birds with melodies chaotic In tangled songs forever come and go. . "There skies serene and bland will bend above ns, And from them blessings like the rain will fall ; There those. fond friends that we have loved shall love us, In that bright land those friends shall love us all." The singer ceased, the rhapsody sonorous No more through starlit woodland sped along; And as it ceased, my heart refused the chorus, Refused to join the chorus of the song. V "Ah, no" I said, "thou bird in branches hidden, Hope's garlands bright grief's fingers slowly twine ; Grief slowly twines from blooms that spring un- bidden That spring unbidden as our lives decline. "Grief present now proves naught of the eternal ; Grief proves no future with good blessings rife With blessings rife and futures blandly vernal ; Facts show no logic in a future life," THE BIRD SONG. 59 And then I said: "False is thy song sonorous Thy song that floats from starlit woodland dim ; When we are gone and flowers are blooming o'er us When man has gone, there ends the all with him." Still sang the bird : "There skies shall bend above us, And sprinkle blessings like the rains that fall; And those we loved who loved us not shall love us, In that bright land shall love us most of all." Then came a song-burst of bewildering splendor, That rolled in waves through forest corridors; Up soared the bird, fain did my hopes attend her, . And hopes and songs were lost amid the stars. Now all day long, wpon my mind intruding, There comes the echo of that last night's song; Grief claims the wreck on which my mind is brooding, Hope claims the facts which logic claimed so long. 60 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. Who cares, O bird, for skies that bend above us? Who cares if blessings like the rain shall fall, If only those who loved us not shall love us In that bright future love us most of all? Let logic marshal ranks of facts well stated, It leads them on in vain though brave attacks ; For, looking down from bastions crenelated, Hope smiles derision at assaulting facts. THE PYTHIAN. I arn the sibyl of the right divine, Who spoke the sayings of the Delphic shrine; In after years this apothegm recall: "Marry the man who loves thee most of all;" And who he is thou needest never guess Who chatters more is he who loves the less. Q U1VERA KANSAS. 61 QUIYERA KANSAS. 1542-1892. In that half-forgotten era, With the avarice of old, Seeking cities he was told Had been paved with yellow gold, In the kingdom of Quivera Came the restless Coronado To the open Kansas plain, With his knights from sunny Spain ; In an effort that, though vain, Thrilled with boldness and bravado. League by league, in aimless marching, Knowing scarcely where or why, Crossed they uplands drear and dry, That an unprotected sky Had for centuries been parching. But their expectations, eager, Found, instead of fruitful lands, Shallow streams and shifting sands, Where the buffalo in bands Roamed o'er deserts dry and meager. 62 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Back to scenes more trite, yet tragic, Marched the knights with armor'd steeds ; Not for them the quiet deeds ; Not for them to sow the seeds From which empires grow like magic. Never land so hunger-stricken Could a Latin race re-mold ; They could conquer heat or cold Die for glory or for gold But not make a desert quicken. Thus Quivera was forsaken ; And the world forgot the place Through the lapse of time and space. Then the blue-eyed Saxon race Came and bade the desert waken. And it bade the climate vary ; And awaiting no reply From the elements on high, It with plows besieged the sky Vexed the heavens with the prairie. Then the vitreous sky relented, And the unacquainted rain Fell upon the thirsty plain, Whence had gone the knights of Spain, Disappointed, discontented. QUIVER A KANSAS. 63 Sturdy are the Saxon faces, As they move along in line ; Bright the rolling-cutters shine, Charging up the State's incline, As an array storms a glacis. Into loam the sand is melted, And the blue-grass takes the loam, Round about the prairie home ; And the locomotives roam Over landscapes iron-belted. Cities grow where stunted birches Hugged the shallow water-line ; And the deepening rivers twine Past the factory and mine, Orchard slopes and schools and churches. Deeper grows the soil and truer, More and more the prairie teems With a fruitage as of dreams ; Clearer, deeper, flow the streams, Blander grows the sky and bluer. We have made the State of Kansas, And to-day she stands complete First in freedom, first in wheat; And her future years will meet Ripened hopes and richer stanzas. 64 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. VICTORIA: A KANSAS GREETING. (Jubilee, June 22, 1897.) Live on, O Queen ; beyond the western seas A mighty kindred nation not thine own Views with delight the halo 'round thy throne. Live on, live ever on ; the centuries Like ships will come across a shoreless main, Laden with benedictions on thy reign. DEWEY. O, Dewey was the morning Upon the first of May, And Dewey was the Admiral Down in Manila Bay ; And Dewey were the Regent's eyes, "Them " orbs of royal blue ! And Dewey feel discouraged ? I Dew not think we Dew. Published Topeka Daily Capital, morning of May 3, 1898. A HOLY WAR. 65 A HOLY WAR [The Eusso -Turkish campaign.] On the south is seen an empire Mosque and minaret, in frenzy, To the ruler of the "faithful" Send their influence and riches ; And the holy shrine of Mecca Pours out gold and absolution, While it speeds the Prophet's children To the hospitals and ditches. On the north a Christian empire In the name of Christ is acting. Mobs, to gain a benediction, Rally round a bishop's miter; And they use the church's treasure, In the holy name of Jesus, While they march away His children To the vulture and the niter. We may hope to see an era That has fewer orphan children That objects to shrieking bugle And the sight of blazing village; When religion, in the future, Shall refuse to be the agent By which merciless ambition Furthers schemes of public pillage. 66 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. THE CRUSADES. The one I love so much sits by my side Sits by my side and listens as I read ; We little care how o'er the prairies wide The wintry, zero-loving tempests glide, As one by one the fire-lit hours recede. In one of mine I hold her little hands And read to her of wars in distant lands. I read to her of times long passed away, That shine like jewels in the wild Crusades ; That light up cities crumbling in decay; That out of darkness bring the glare of day A glare that soon to greater darkness fades. I read to her of princes and of seers, Of cruelties, of sufferings, of tears. I read to her of hermits and of kings, Of Conrad, Tailored, Baldwin and Behmond ; I read to her of bravery that springs From wild fanaticism, whose strong wings Take, in their sweep, this world and the beyond. And, as I read, the gusty tempests rage, As if in sympathy with every page. NETS IE. 67 NETSIE. Happiness or heartache? Either it may be, Blue-eyed little daughter Sitting on my knee. Happiness or heartache, Either it may be. Heartache or heartbreak If it sadly be, Blue-eyed little daughter Sitting on my knee, Though I may be buried I will grieve with thee. When the ache is ended, We can go and see Our old home in Lyra, Where the rainbows be ; You will have a world of fun When you go with me. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE VIOLET STAR "I have always lived, and I always must," The sergeant said when the fever came ; From his burning brow we washed the dust, And we held his hand, and we spoke his name. "Millions of ages have come and gone," The sergeant said as we held his hand "They have passed like the mist of the early dawn Since I left my home in that far-off land." We bade him hush, but he ga^e no heed "Millions of orbits I crossed from far, Drifted as drifts the cottonwood seed ; I came," said he,"" from the Yiolet Star. "Drifting in cycles from place to place I'm tired," said he, "and I'm going home To the Yiolet Star, in the realms of space Where I loved to live, and I will not roam. "For I've always lived, and I always must, And the soul in roaming may roam foo far; I have reached the verge that I dare not trust, And I 'm going back to the Violet Star." THE VIOLET STAR. 69 The sergeant was still, and we fanned his cheek ; There came no word from that soul so tired ; And the bugle rang from the distant peak, As the morning dawned and the pickets fired. The sergeant was buried as soldiers are; And we thought all day, as we marched through the dust : "His spirit has gone to the Violet Star He always has lived, and he always must." 70 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. TO THE CAENIVAL QUEEN. Not all the tints of the summer skies, Nor the blushes of alien flowers, Nor the sheen on the lakes of Paradise, Where the evening goes, and the sunset lies, Can equal this queen of ours. Not all of the lovers that yet have been In the ages so far apart, Are as loyal as we, who here begin In our welcome way, to enfold her in The corolla of our heart. And ever and ever a fairy prize, In a prison that has no bars, We will hold her while eternity dies Or as long as the glistening centuries Shall drip from the silent stars. CHILDHOOD. 71 CHILDHOOD. It passed rn beauty, Like the waves that reach Their jeweled fingers Up the sanded beach. It passed in beauty, Like the flowers that spring Behind the footsteps Of the winter king. It passed in beauty, Like the clouds on high, That drape the ceilings Of the su miner sky. 72 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THE RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I've allus held till jest of late that Poetry and me Got on best, not to 'sociate that is, most poetry ; But t'other day my Son-in-law, who 'd ben in town to mill. Fetched home a present, like, fer Ma : The Khymes of Ironquill. He used to teach ; and course his views rnnks over common sense ; That's biased me till I refuse 'most all he rickcommends : But Ma she read and read along, and cried, like women will, About " The Washerwoman's Song " in Rhymes of Ironquill. And then she made me read the thing, and found my specs and all ; And I jest leant back there, I jing I my cheer against the wall. And read and read, and read and read, all to myse'f, ontil I lit the lamp and went to bed with Khymes of Ironquill I I propped myse'f up there, and Dnrn I I never shet an eye Till daylight I hogged the whole concern, tee- total, mighty nigh I I 'd sigh sometimes, and cry sometimes, er laugh jest fit to kill Clean captured, like, with thein-air Rhymes of that-air Ironquill I Read that-un 'bout old " Marmaton" 'at hain 't ben ever sized In song before and yit 's rolled on jest same as 'postrophized ! Putt me in mind of our old crick at Freeport ; and the mill ; And Hinchman's Ford till jest home-sick ! them Rhymes of Iron- quill I Read that-nn too 'bout game o' whist and likenin' Life to fun Like that and playin' ontyer fist, however cards is run : And them " Tobacker-Stemmers' Song" they sung with sich a will, Down 'mongst the misery and wrong, O Rhymes of Ironquill t And old " John Brown," who broke the sod of Freedom's fallor field And sowed his heart there, thankin' God pore slaves 'ud git the yield !-- Rained his last tears for them, and us, to irrigate and till A crop of songs as glorious as Rhymes of Ironquill I And, sergeant, died there in the War, 'at talked, out of his head He went " back to the Violet Star," I '11 bet 1 jest like he said 1 Yer wars kin riddle bone and flesh, and blow out brains, and spill Life-blood but SOMKPIN' lives on, fresh as Rhymes of Ironquill I JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. EL MORAN. 73 EL MOKAN. Crossing the orbit of Aldebaran, And sixteen orbits to Taurus Kho, As dashes a boat through a chain of whirlpools Into a slumbering lake below ; Thence, through a chaos of constellations, I came at last to an open place, And saw in the distance the waves of ether Breaking in foam on the cliffs of space. Vacantly gazing, I felt a presence A viewless presence, without a word. A soul was beside me ; I felt a question ; Nevertheless not a sound I heard. "Whence are you coming, and whither going, And who," I thought, "can you really be? " An interval passed, as of hesitation ; This was the answer it thought at me : "Losing my life in a mine explosion A week ago, in the planet Mars, I thought I would look up a new location ; Are you acquainted among the stars?" 74 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. "No," I replied; "I was killed by lightning On yester morn, in Hindostan ; I visit our old and ancestral homestead, Back in the nebula El Moran." Both of us talked of the past and present ; We watched the asteroids weaving lace, And berylline billows of surging ether Pounding the limitless cliffs of space. IOLINE. 75 IOLINE. (The poet's muse an imitation!) One black evening in October All the world seemed sad and sober, And a doom Dark and dismal Shrouded all .life's colors prismal, And before me yawned abysmal Gulfs of gloom. Said I bitterly : I only Of the world am sad and lonely, I alone Drain the chalice; All the angels bear me malice, There is love in cot and palace None my own. That dark night I turned a traitor To myself and my Creator, And I said : Be it ended, Hope may make existence splendid, But without it, unattended Better dead. 76 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. Then a something seemed to chide mo From the darkness there beside me, In a tone Uttered clearly: "You have spoken insincerely; There are those who love you dearly, Though unknown." Who are you, and whence your visit? Turning gruffly, said I : Is it The unseen To awaken? Said the voice: "You're mistaken; It is loline forsaken loline," When I heard the sentence uttered, In bewilderment I stuttered A remark Somewhat grimly, As a form, freshly, primly, Grew and ripened in the dimly Lighted dark. IOLINE. 77 Yes, the artless little comer, Like a musk rose in the summer Seemed to bloom ; And her forehead Shook back tresses that seemed borrowed From the winter night, or quarried Out of gloom. With a smile so arch and airy, To my side came the fairy, Like a queen Blithe and bloomy. "Let us stroll," said she to me; Yes, said I, for I 'm gloomy, loline. Ah ! she told me gorgeous stories Of her home, and the glories Of the zone Where it stretches. And she hummed me little sketches Of immortal music, such as Sweeps the Throne. 78 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. All my gloominess was banished ; Then the moon rose, and she vanished Yes, my queen Had departed, But she kissed me ere she started ; And she left me sunny hearted And serene. To that land of sun and blossom She has built a bridge of gossamer And gold ; And I 've traveled It in dreaming, and unraveled Dismal doubts, whereon I caviled Days of old. Now no evening of October Finds me ever sad or sober ; All the world Seems a palace; There are none who bear me malice, And afar away the chalice I have hurled. JULY, 1875. THE OLD PIONEER. 79 THE OLD PIONEER. Where are they gone? Where are they- The faces of my childhood? I 've sought them by the mountains, By the rivers, by the canyons ; I have called upon the prairie, I have called upon the wildwood : "Oh, give me back! Oh, give me back The faces of my childhood The boys and girls, My playmates, my companions I" The days of early .childhood Have a strange, attractive glimmer, A lustrous, misty fadelessness, Half seen and yet half hidden, As of isles in distant oceans, Where the shattered moonbeams shimmer, Concealing half, disclosing half, With rapturing, fracturing glimmer, The realms to which Our visits are forbidden. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Now vainly am I calling On the mountains and the canyons ; And vainly from the forest, From the river or the wildwood, Do I ask the restoration Of my playmates, my companions. No voice returns from mountain-sides, From forest or from canyons ; Forever gone, The faces of my childhood. JOHN BROWN. 81 JOHN BKOWN. States are not great Except as men may make them ; Men are not great except they do and dare. But States, like men, Have destinies that take them That bear them on, not knowing why or where. The WHY repels The philosophic searcher The WHY and WHERE all questionings defy, Until we find, Far back in youthful nurture, Prophetic facts that constitute the WHY. All merit comes From braving the unequal; All glory comes from daring to begin. Fame loves the State That, reckless of the sequel, Fights long and well, whether it lose or win. 82 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Than in our State No illustration apter Is Been or found of faith and hope and will. Take up her story : Every leaf and chapter Contains a record that conveys a thrill. And there is one Whose faith, whose fight, whose failing, Fame shall placard upon the walls of time. He dared begin Despite the unavailing, He dared begin, when failure was a crime. When over Africa Some future cycle Shall sweep the lake-gemmed uplands with its surge ; When, as with trumpet Of Archangel Michael, Culture shall bid a colored race emerge ; When busy cities There, in constellations, Shall gleam with spires and palaces and domes, With marts wherein Is heard the noise of nations ; With summer groves surrounding stately homes JOHN BROWN. 83 There, future orators To cultured freemen Shall tell of valor, and recount with praise Stories of Kansas, And of Lacedsemon Cradles of freedom, then of ancient days. < From boulevards O'erlooking both Nyanzas, The statured bronze shall glitter in the sun, With rugged lettering: "JoHN BEOWN OF KANSAS: HE DARED BEGIN; HE LOST, BUT, LOSING, WON." 84 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. LIFE'S MOONRISE. No sunrise no noon no sunset; On the prairie, like a pall, All day hangs the storm, and from it Unhappiness seems to fall. At evening the sky grows cloudless, And the moon shines round and clear ; While pare as the smiles of angels The glittering stars appear. The red deer and the primrose And the prairie-larks are gay, Till night, with its moonlit beauty, Is merged in the broad, bright day. Some lives have a cloudy sunrise, With a noon-tide clear and bright ; And some have a day of sunshine, With rainy and cheerless night. My life had been sad and rainy Through its long and somber day ; At last came the placid moonrise And scattered the clouds away. LIFE'S MOONRISE. 85 I'm now in life's moonrise living; And although the sun has set, There come to me no suggestions Of sorrow or vain regret. I 'm seeing new worlds and planets In the open evening sky ; My soul feels a wild, new daring As whisper the night-winds by. I 'm giving no thought to troubles, Nor the past that flew away ; But hoping the moonlit present May merge in the broad, bright day. RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. VICTOR. He was a hero, fighting all alone ; A lonesome warrior never one more brave, Discreet, considerate, and grave. He fought some noble battles ; but he gave No voice to fame, and passed away unknown. So grandly to occasions did he rise, So splendid were the victories he planned, That all the world had asked him to command Could it his native valor understand : He fought himself, and, winning, gained the prize. "FEAR YE HIM." 87 "FEAR YE HIM." I fear Him not, nor yet do I defy. Much could He harm me, cared He but to try. Much could He frighten me, much do me ill, Much terrify me, but He never will. The soul of justice must itself be just; Who trembles most betrays the most distrust. So, plunging in life's current deep and broad, I take my chances, ignorant unawed. 88 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. TO-DAY. Work on, work on Work wears the world away ; Hope when to-morrow comes, But work to-day. Work on, work on Work brings its own relief ; He who most idle is Has most of grief. DECORATION DAY. DECORATION DAY. [Recited at Arlington] It is needless I should tell you Of the history of Sumter, How the chorus of the cannon shook its walls; How the scattered navies gathered, How the iron-ranked battalions Rose responsive to the country's urgent calls. It is needless that I tell you, For the time is still too recent, How was heard the first vindictive cannon's peal ; How two brothers stopped debating On a sad, unsettled question, And referred it to the arbitrating steel. It is needless that I tell you Of the somber days that followed Stormy days that in such slow succession ran; Of Antietam, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, and Murfreesboro', Or the rocky, cannon-shaken Rapidan. 90 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. It was not a war of conquest : It was fought to save the Union, It was waged for an idea of the right ; And the graves so widely scattered Show how fruitful an idea In peace, or war, may be in moral might. Brief indeed the war had lasted, Had it raged in hope of plunder ; Briefer still, had glory been its only aim. But its long and sad duration And the graves it has bequeathed us, Other motives, other principles proclaim. Need I mention this idea, The invincible idea, That so seemed to hold and save the Nation's life ; That, resistless and unblenching, Undisheartened by disaster, Seemed the soul and inspiration of the strife? This idea was of freedom Was that men should all stand equal, That the world was interested in the fight ; That the present and the future Were electors who had chosen Us to argue and decide the case aright, DECORATION DAY. 91 And the theories of freedom Those now silent bugles uttered Will reverberate with ever-growing tones ; They can never be forgotten, But will work among the nations Till they sweep the world of shackles and of thrones. It is meet that we do honor To the comrades who have fallen Meet that we the sadly woven garlands twine. Where they buried lie is sacred, Whether 'neath the Northern marble Or beneath the Southern cypress-tree or pine. Nations are the same as children Always living in the future, Living in their aspirations and their hopes ; Picturing some future greatness, Reaching forth for future prizes, With a wish for higher aims and grander scopes. It is better for the people That they reach for an ideal, That they give their future nations better lives; Though the standard be unreal, Though the hope meets no fulfillment, Though the fact in empty dreams alone survives. 92 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. If the people rest contented With the good they have accomplished, Then they retrograde and slowly sink away. Give a nation an ideal, Some grand, noble, central project; It, like adamant, refuses to decay. Tis the duty of the poet, 'Tis the duty of the statesman, To inspire a nation's life with nobler aims; And dishonor will o'ershadow Him who dares not, or who falsely His immortal-fruited mission misproclaims. THE DEFAULTER. 93 * THE DEFAULTER. CHICAGO. "I'll cross the sea," he said, "and the future will be sunny, The storms no more will rave ; I'll cross the sea," he said, "and with other peo- ple's money Be free and gay beyond the ocean wave." PARIS. "I '11 move again," he said, "to Naples, Rome, or Yenice. I will no more divide With arrogant detectives ; I'll live no more in menace : The Apennines shall separate us wide." ROME. "I '11 cross the sea," he said, in a tone of melan- choly ; "I can divide no more. I've failed of being happy have failed of being jolly, And justice waits me on a distant shore." 94 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. CHICAGO. "I J m here," he said, "for justice. Let the sentence be impartial; By it I will abide. For my wife is broken-hearted, and I can no longer marshal Any of my scattered children to my side." 4OLIET. "No one," he said, "in chasing after Happiness has found her: But if she comes at all, She comes uncalled, unbidden, with a sunny halo round her Visits alike the hovel and the hall." THE CHILD OF FA TE. 95 THE CHILD OF FATE. I am the child of fate. What need it matter me Where I shall buried be ! Death cometh soon or late, Whether on land or sea; What may it matter me! Of what hope hangs upon We can no insight get ; Blindly fate leads us on, Storming life's parapet. That which our course impels, Naught of the future tells. Whether upon the land, Whether upon the strand, What may it matter me Where I shall buried be ! Death cometh soon or late, All are the sport of fate. What should it matter me, Falling as others fell, Shattered by shot or shell ; 90 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. Either on land or sea, Wrecked on the foaming bar, Crashed in the shattered car. Whether by Arctic cliffs, Where the ice-current drifts, Where the bleak night-wind sobs, Where the black ice-tide throbs ; What though my bark may be Sunk in some sullen sea ! Each has his work and way, Each has his part and play, Each has his task to do, Both of the good and true. Though thou art grave or gay, Be thou yet brave and true. Work for the right and just, With an intrepid trust ; Then it need matter thee Naught, if thou buried be Either on land or strand, Either 'iieath soil or sea. LEG OU SIN AT. LEGOUSIN AI. [.From the Greek of Anacreon.~\ The women say : "Anacreon, you are old; For, taking up a mirror, you behold The locks of rosy youth how scattered they." But as a care It is not unto me How old am I, how few my locks may bo, So long as youth's young spirit still is there. 98 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THE KANSAS DUG-OUT. Peering from a Kansas hillside, far away, Is a cabin made of sod, and built to stay ; Through the window-like embrasure Pours the mingled gold and azure Of the morning of a gorgeous Kansas day. Round the cabin, clumps of roses here and there With a wild and welcome fragrance fill the air ; And the love of heaven settles On their open pink-lined petals, As the angels come and put them in their hair. Blue-eyed children round the cabin chase the day; They are learning life's best lesson how to stay, To be tireless and resistful ; And the antelope look wistful, And they want to join the children in their play. Fortune -wrecked, the parents sought the open West, Leaving happy homes and friends they loved the best; Homes in cities bright and busy That responded to the dizzy, To the whirling and tumultuous unrest. THE KANSAS DUG-OUT. 99 Oft it happens "unto families and men That they need must touch their mother earth again ; Rising, rugged and reliant, Like Antaeus, the old giant, Then they dare and do great things and not till then. As around his neck the arms of children twine, Says the father : " Courage, children, never pine ; Though the skies around you blacken, Do not yield the gules will slacken, Faith and fortitude will win, O children mine." Happy prairie children! Time with rapid wings Golden trophies to the earnest worker brings. As the Trojan said : "Durafo Vosmet rebus et servate"* [things." "Hold yourselves in hand for higher, nobler , I, 207. 100 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. WHITHER Beside a pool where curved a Kansas brook, A youthful fisherman stood, brown and tan ; A lump of lead held down a baited hook, And as I watched the eager little man, From thought to thought some strange sugges- tions ran. Perhaps the soul, as if imprisoned here, Is weighted down with lump of heavy clay, Beneath the ocean of the atmosphere ; Fain would it rise, and yet perforce must stay Deep in the night, yet which we think the day. At certain times a power seems to draw, And then we feel as if we rose, and light Appears to us ; and then some unknown law Is felt to pull us backward in our flight, And hold us to the bottom of the night. THE PRAIRIE STORM. THE PRAIRIE STORM. With the daylight came the storm ; And the clouds, like ragged veils, Trailed the prairie until noontide, Borne by vacillating gales ; And the red elms by the streamlets Dripped upon the wild-plum thickets, And the thickets, on the crickets And the quails. Wet and sodden Lay the prairie grass untrodden. Through the dismal afternoon Held the banks of cloud aloof, As the smoke in frontier cabins Hugs the rafters in the roof. Broke the clouds and ceased the dripping, And the red elms by the streamlets Caught the fading evening beamlets That, in proof, Gave the token That the summer storm was broken. 102 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. With a nimbus like a saint Rose the white moon in the east ; And the grass all rose together As the guests do at a feast ; And the prairie lark kept singing All the night long, and the stirring And the whizzing and the whirring Still increased ; Till all sorrow Yielded to the brilliant morrow. THE REAL. 103 THE EEAL. They say A certain flower that blooms forever In sunnier skies, [s called the amaranth. They say it never Withers away or dies, I never saw one. They say A bird of foreign lands, the condor, Never alights, But through the air unceasingly will wander, In long, aerial flights, I never saw one. They say That in Egyptian deserts, massive, Half buried in the sands, Swept by the hot sirocco, grand, impassive, The statue of colossal Memnon stands, I never saw it. 104 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. They say A land faultless, far off, and fairy, A summer land, with woods and glens and glades, Is seen where palms rise feathery and airy, And from whose lawns the sunlight never fades, I never saw it. They say The stars make melody sonorous While whirling on their poles; They say through space an interstellar chorus Magnificently rolls, I never heard it. Now what Care I for amaranth or condor, Colossal Mernnon, or the fairy land, Or for the songs of planets as they wander Through arcs superlatively grand? They are not real. Hope's idle Dreams the Heal vainly follows, Facts stay as fadeless as the Parthenon ; While fancies, like the smoky-tinted swallows, Flit gaily mid its arches and are gone. THRENE. 105 THKENE. I stood on the oxygen cliffs of the nebula El Tri- une, I saw in the distance below the triangular planet of Threne, The triclinate planet of Threne, The beautiful planet of Threne. It sang in a happy contralto a sort of a polka tune, And left in its three-cornered orbit a tracing of yellow sheen. O, marvelous planet of Threne, as you swing* in your triple arc, And whirl, and in whirling repeat at each node that contralto song, That happy contralto song, That strange and majestic song. It makes me regret to be living far off in the dis- tant dark, Where the dismal, diminutive earth is tardily creeping along. 100 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THALATTA. The gale blew from France, and a wasted moon Arose on the rim of a friendless sky. I stood by the mast while the midnight waves Invaded the deck with an angry cry. In tempest and swell as the steamer rolled, It tunneled its way through the foam and blast ; Like ravenous wolves were the hollow waves That hungered for me as they hurried past. There has come a new dream to me, It 's a dream it 's a dream of the sea A dream of the midnight sea. II. O horrible billows O horrible night ! The stoker, at home in the hell below, Was shoveling coal like a demon, stripped, While furnaces roared with a fervent glow. THALATTA. 107 When midnight is come, and my prairie home Is lit by the moon's unassuming glance, When ravenous waves and unsteady deck Are set in the past, with the gales of France, Every once in a while to me Comes a dream, a strange dream of the sea A dream of the midnight sea. III. I think that I may in a thousand years Remember the earth in its giddy course Still tunneling on through the cosmic waves, And breasting the storms of electric force. And" then I may think: O the dreadful time I rode on the earth through the stellar sea; O horrible night when the gales of fate And billows of force were a-whelming me ! Perhaps there may come to me Strange dreams of the stellar sea Of the interstellar sea. 108 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE TELEGRAPH WIRE. West from the boiling Missouri, turbid with pul- verized granite, West o'er the orchards and farms asleep in the hammock of autumn, West o'er the upland uprising, russet with wheat- land close shaven, West o'er the yellowish shales and scattering prairie-dog cities. Why in the moonlight, O wire, so sadly, so con- stantly moaning? Brightly in Argentine's smelters murmurous cruci- bles bubble ; Proudly uprears in Topeka the bronze of the dome and the tholus ; Gaily Pueblo appears with rolling-mills crowning the mesa. " Come, O my brother, come back ; our mother is grieving and dying." "Come, O my lover, come back, and I, if you come, will forgive you." THE TELEGRAPH WIRE. 109 "Come, O my daughter, come back; I wait, and must live till I see you." "Come, O my husband, come back; the past, if you come, is forgotten." Moan on, O wire ; you are bearing burdens of hearts that are breaking ; Kindly the zephyrs of Kansas absorb your seolian sorrow. Listening, listening long, the prairie dog goes to his burrow, Telling the owl and the snake the woes of the gods and their sadness. 110 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. THE PALINDROME. Sat a gray and thoughtful soldier By his summer Kansas home; Came and spoke his freckled nephew, "Uncle, what 's a palindrome? " Smoked the soldier then in silence, Wistfully he looked afar, Then at last he spoke and answered : "Raw was J ere I saw waR." Spoke the nephew: "War and armies Threaten not our Kansas home ; Do not fight those battles over Tell me, what 's a palindrome." Slow replied the grizzled soldier, "Raw was I ere I saw waR. Read it backward, read it forward, That is what the words are for." "Life 's a palindrome, my nephew You may run it either way ; Life, from either age or childhood, Couues and goes from clay to clay.' THE OLD SOLDIER'S RELIGION. Ill It is but a funny riddle With a simple thread of truth; We can read it up from childhood, Then can read it back to youth. Honest acts and honest thinking Pin your future faith upon ; Working with your best endeavor, Let "No evil deed live oN." THE OLD SOLDIER'S RELIGION. The Stars and Stripes have stood by me In hours of darkest peril ; I worship them as good enough For me in hours of need. I know that they will live beyond All present forms of creed, Because all present forms of creed Are sere and drear and sterile. 112 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. PRAIRIE CHILDREN. This is the duchess of Lullaby Land, Lying asleep on the velvety sward ; That is an indigo flower in her hand, Typical emblem of rank and command, Symbol heraldic of lady and lord. That is her brother asleep at her side; He is a duke ; and his little red hand Grapples the ragged old rope that is tied Into the collar of Rover, the guide Rover, the hero of Lullaby Land. Fishes come out of the water and walk, Chipmunks play marbles in Lullaby Land. Rabbits rise up on the prairies and talk, Goslings go forward and giggle and gawk Everything chatters and all understand. After awhile he will sail on the sea Little red duke on the prairie asleep; Daring the shot and the shell, he shall be Admiral, fighting for you and for me Flying the flag o'er the dangerous deep. PRAIRIE CHILDREN. 113 Down at the Lido, where billows are blue ; Back through the vineyards to Florence and Rome ; That is our duchess, whom both of us knew ; That is her husband, so tender and true, Taking her far from her babyhood home. Children at play on the prairies to-day, Bravely to-morrow will enter the race, Trusting the future whose promises say, "Courage and effort will work out a way, Fortune and fame are not matters of place." 1H RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. WHIST. Hour after hour the cards were fairly shuffled And fairly dealt, bnt still I got no hand ; The morning came, and with a mind unruffled I only said, "I do not understand." Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt; Blind are our efforts to control the forces That, though unseen, are no less strongly felt. I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, But yet I like the game and want to play ; And through the long, long night will I, unruffled, Play what I get until the break of day. AD ASTRA PER ASPERA. AD ASTRA PER ASPERA. A rnotto appears On the seal of a State Of a State that was born While the terror was brewing; A motto defying The edicts of fate ; A motto of daring, A legend of doing. A perilous past And a cavernous gloom Hud enshrouded the State In its humble beginning; But courage of soul, In repelling the doom, Of failure made hope, And of losing made winning. Through scars to the stars, Through the pall of the past, Through the gloom to the gleam Rose the State from the peril ; 116 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Then gleam became 'gloom, And the laurels at last Were .scattered in ashes Repugnant and sterile. But Kansas shall shine In the stories and songs That are told and are sung Of undaunted reliance. The gloom yet will gleam, And the evils and wrongs Will shrivel and crisp In the blaze of defiance. The future shall bury The now as the woe On the field of a battle By verdure is hidden ; And hope will return Like the harvests that grow Where cannon have plowed And the cavalry ridden. BLAINE OF MAINE. 117 ELAINE OF MAINE. (1884.) Lashed to his flagship's mast, Old Farragut, through iron-guarded bays, Through fleets of fire, through batteries ablaze, By shot and shell harassed, While wreck and ruin seemed to block his way, And splintered spars spread sprinkling on the spray, Guiding his fleet throughout the frightful fray, Into the harbor passed ; And sullon forts grew calm and still Beneath the victor's iron will, Subdued and crushed at last. O Elaine ! amid the glare Of party ruin, take the ship of state ; We bind thee to its mast, thou statesman great ; And thine must be the care To guide it on through rocks and reefs that vex The changing channel with a thousand wrecks. And though the surge shall sweep its sacred decks, We know thou wilt not spare Thy efforts to conduct it by The rocks and reefs that seem to lie Around it everywhere. 118 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. WINTER. The sleet Will beat, And the snow Will blow, And the rain Will drain From the plain So sadly ; And the night come down So bleak and brown, While the blast Shrieks past So fast And madly. HEARTS. 119 HEAKTS. As long as the meadows may bloom, and as long as the brooks may run, The brain will forever be winning, as brains have forever won, Commanding the battle of life till the battle of life is done. No, no, the idea is error ; the brain never wins the tight; Its contests are seldom decided, its reasonings rarely right ; The multitude watches its failures and ridicules with delight. But, long as the grass may be growing, and long as the waters run, The heart will forever be winning, as hearts have forever won, Commanding the battle of life till the battle of life is done. 120 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE OLD CABIN. Upon the prairie, as the sun is sinking, I see the cabin of a pioneer ; The clapboard roof is lagging to the rear, The walls reject their inartistic chinking. The broken porch hangs in unwilling bondage, The truant chimney never has returned, And in the fire-place, where the embers burned, Defiant sunflowers wave their thoughtless f rondage. The waning sunlight seems to flash and flicker, And through the empty, open-hearted door, And vacant windows, seems to run and pour Upon the prairie like a crimson liquor. With bloom of June the spongy air is swollen ; The pompous zephyrs slowly swagger by ; Then comes a purple tremor in the sky, And twilight's silence nature's semicolon. Here years ago, when civil war had ended, A soldier came, and with him came a bride; He once had charged up Lookout Mountain's side, And felled proud oaks when Nashville was de- fended. OLD CABIN. 121 So when he came to Kansas, strong and fearless, Fate had no terrors which he dare not face ; A soldier in the vanguard of the race, He did his share to make his country peerless. Here now is ruin ; yet, among the brambles, A melancholy rose peeps at the sky, And shudders at the footsteps, passing by, Of vagrant horses on their aimless rambles. Upon those pegs, above the chimney mantel, A sluggish muzzle-loading musket slept ; Within the porch, upon that hook, was kept An army saddle with a rawhide cantle. Among the groves, that by the streamlets nestle, No more is heard the noise of freighter's camp ; But in its stead the strange, gigantic tramp Of railway trains upon the rumbling trestle. No more are deer inquisitively peering Through brown November at the chimney's smoke ; No more the vicious stroke and counter-stroke Of warring buffalo arrest the hearing. No more the cyclone, nor the hungry locust, Imprint a shadow on the summer sky ; The drouth has gone and there have vanished by The ills that on the lovers once were focused. 122 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. 1 knew them well the wife and he now slumber Beside the ripples of the Marmaton ; Both gone away, where years roll on, and on, And ever on, and cares no more encumber. "Love lives again," observed the Hebrew rabbin "Love lives again in worlds succeeding worlds." And so it was. Six boys and four bright girls Bade Hope "Good morning" in that humble cabin. From cabins such as these come sturdy natures, Who give proud inspiration to a state, Who fight its battles and decide its fate, Who make its courts and shape its legislatures. Good-bye, old cabin ; time's relentless rigor May grind you up at last to shapeless dust ; But faithfully have you performed your trust, And sheltered manly worth and moral vigor. REQUIEM. 123 KEQUIEM. I am rambling with the rivers, I arn falling with the rain, I am waving in the woodland, Tarn growing in the grain. I am marching in the zephyr, I am rimpling in the rill, I am blooming on the prairie But I live in Kansas still. 124 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. HISTORY. Over the infinite prairie of level eternity, Flying as flies the deer, Time is pursued by a pitiless, cruel oblivion, Following fast and near. Ever and ever the famishing coyote is following Patiently in the rear ; Trifling the interval, yet we are calling it "His- tory " Distance from wolf to deer. ELUSION. 125 ELUSION. The prairie grasses whispered in my ear From year to year, Strange melodies whose burning verses stole Into my soul, Strange songs which ever and anon would come And sing themselves to me and hum and hum Beyond control. Yet when I tried to capture, word for word, The songs I heard, The written verses lost, it seemed to me, The pictured melody. I had not said that which I tried to say The music had in some uncertain way Eluded me. 126 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THE BLIZZARD. The fiddler was improvising; at times he would cease to play, Then shutting his eyes he sang and sang in a wild, ecstatic way ; Then ceasing -his song he whipped and whipped the strings with his frantic bow, Releasing impatient music alternately loud and low ; Then writhing and reeling he sang as if he were dreaming aloud, And wrapping the frenzied music around him like a shroud ; And this was the strange refrain, which he sang in a minor key, "No matter how long the river, the river will reach the sea." It was midnight on the Cimarron, not many a year ago, The blizzard was whirling pebbles and sand, and billows of frozen snow ; He sat on a bale of harness, in a dug-out roofed with clay, The wolves overhead bewailed, in a dismal, pro- tracted way, THE BLIZZARD. 127 They peeped down the 'dobe chimney, and quar- reled, and sniffed and clawed ; But the fiddler kept on with his music, as the blizzard stalked abroad, And time and again that strange refrain came forth in a minor key, "No matter how long the river, the river will reach the sea." Around him, on boxes and barrels, un charmed by the fiddler's rune, The herders were drinking, and betting their car- tridges on vantoon ; And once in a while a player, in spirit of reckless fun, Would join in the fiddler's music, and fire off the fiddler's gun. An old man sat on a sack of corn and stared with a vacant gaze ; He had lost his hopes in the Gypsum Hills, and he thought of the olden days. The tears fell fast when the strange refrain came forth in a minor key, "No matter how long the river, the river will reach the sea." At morning the tempest ended, and the sun came back once more : The old, old man of the Gypsum Hills had gone to the smoky shore. 128 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. They chopped him a grave, in the frozen ground where the morning sunlight fell, With a restful look he held in his hand an invisible asphodel ; They filled up the grave, and each herder said, "Good-bye, till the judgment day." But the fiddler stayed, and he sang and played as the herders walked away, A requiem in a lonesome land, in a mournful minor key "No matter how long the river, the river will reach the sea." THE ORGAN-GRINDER. 129 THE ORGAN-GRINDER I 'm ignorant of music, but still, in spite of that, I always drop a quarter in an organ-grinder's liat. I welcome on the pavement that old, familiar noise, Around which gaily gather all the little girls and boys; While solemn, sad and hungry stands, a-turning at the crank, A nobleman from Europe, of attenuated rank. The nobleman looks sad, but gives with organistic glee, A ballad of old Ireland, the jewel of the sea "The most distracted country that we have ever seen ; They 're hangin' men and women there for wearin' of the green For wearin' of the green, for wearin' of the green ; They 're hangin' men and women there for wearin' of the green." And then I think of those who went a-marching off with me, Who claimed a home in Ireland, the jewel of the 130 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. My comrades and my messmates, none braver or more true ; Holding aloft the stars and stripes, a-wearing of the blue. Alas ! far down in Dixie their many graves are seen ; Beneath the grassy hillocks they are wearing of the green. Immortal little island I No other land or clime Has placed more deathless heroes in the Pantheon of time. Anon the noble Roman brings his music to a halt ; There seems an indication of a neighboring revolt. He takes a change of venue of about a dozen feet, And enfilades the windows that are fronting on the street. Around him whirl the girls and boys, with ani- mated glee. Once more he grinds ; I recognize "Der Deutscher Companie." "Der Deutscher companie ish der beshtest com- panie " The music bears me backward to the year of '63. I saw a German regiment step out from our brigade; It marched across a meadow where a hundred can- non played ; THE ORGAN-GRINDER. 131 Its bugles hurled defiance as it skirmished up a slope Amid a fire that gave no man the promise of a hope. They fell like wheat ; they came not back ; at night no bugles played There was no German regiment attached to our brigade. The world has seen thy valor, O land of song and vine ! Since Hermann plucked the eagles from the ram- parts of the Ehine. Down valor's lustrous colonnade is seen the marble throng Thy warriors and thy scholars, O land of vine and song. About this time the nobleman is asked to take a rest ; The fires of indignation light his Romulistic breast. He stops the crank; he gazes up defiantly, yet mute, While from the second story there proceeds an ancient boot. With steady gaze he watches it, and, like a man of nerve, He accurately calculates its hyperbolic curve. 132 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. He dodges it ; he marches on ; but soon this man of Rome Begins again to turn the crank, "Johnny comes marching home." " When Johnny comes marching home again, hur- rah ! hurrah ! The women will sing, the men will shout, The boys arid girls will all turn out ; We '11 all be gay when Johnny comes march- ing home." And then I think of those again who went with me to war They knew where they were going, and what they went there for ; They felt that there was little left of present or of past, Of hope, of home, of future, if the die were wrongly cast. Fires smouldered at the firesides, when the Nation called, "To arms!" My comrades left the forests, the founderies, the farms ; They fought the Nation's battles, on the land and on the sea Alas ! alas ! no millionaire to war went off with me. THE ORGAN-GRINDER. 133 The merit of the country marched, and filled the Union ranks The money of the country marched, and filled the English banks. At last, when all was over, and Johnny ceased to roam He came with bugles playing ; the specie sneaked back home. O outcast organ-grinder, thy simple ballads start The frenzy of the cyclone through the highlands of my heart. Some sneer thy ragged music, because to them there comes No bawling of the bugles, no raving of the drums. They hear no "boots and saddles" sounding in the midnight chill ; They hear no angry cannon thunder up the rocky hill ; They hear no canteens rattle ; they see no muskets shine, As ranks sweep by in double-quick to brace the skirmish line. Go play thy simple music, O friendless sport of fate. The ballads of the people are the bulwarks of the State. 134 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. The bugles that hang dreaming now, like bats upon the wall, Remember well those choruses which rose above the call ; And in unconscious musings, those battered bugles see The glories of the future in the centuries to be. MILLIONS. Millions of bad men has the world called good, Millions of good the world called black and bad ; Millions of cowards, strangely understood, Have passed for heroes when they never should; Millions of heroes never praise have had ; And cravens will the name of honor rob Until the pulse of time shall cease to throb. WORST AND BEST. 135 WORST AND BEST. Cheer up, my soul ; thy worst days are thy best. From no estate of work or fate recoil, The future hath its corn, and wine and oil. Repel repinings witli unflinching zest ; Who seeks for pleasure hath a hopeless quest. The days of ease our better life despoil ; Immersed in the oblivion of toil, The hours of self-forgetfulness are blest. Our worst days are our best ; we seldom boast Of hours of pleasure, indolence and ease. On present grief we found our future mirth ; It is our sorrows which we cherish most. The soul can never hold, can scarcely seize The evanescent pleasure of the earth. 136 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. SUPERSTITION. Amid the verdure, on the prairies wide, There stretches o'er the undulating floor, As on the edges of an ocean-shore, From east to west, half buried, side by side, A chain of boulders, which the icy tide Of glacial epochs centuries before From arctic hills superfluously bore, And left in Southern summers to abide. So on the landscape of our times is seen The rough debris of error's old moraines. The superstitions of a thousand creeds, Half buried, peer above the waving green ; But kindly time will cover their remains Beneath a sod of noble thoughts and deeds. AN ITALIAN SONNET. 137 AN ITALIAN SONNET. A politician was Terhnne McCarty. He found that votes were captured with molasses. He frequented saloons ; he jingled glasses ; He talked about "our great and glorious party." In language insincere, and yet most hearty, He always eulogized the toiling masses; Deplored the brutal wealth of upper classes. At last, a councilman became McCarty. He then sang "Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," And wore a watch-chain bulky as a cable; But all at once he dropped his watermelon. They caught him lugging off a bag of boodle. They stripped him quickly of his party label, And jailed him as a self-convicted felon. 138 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. PRINTER'S INK. Once spoke a teacher to his pupils, " Name The metal that most honors men with fame." Then shout the pupils, in a chorus, " Steel ; Before the saber must the scepter reel." "Wrong," spoke the teacher ; "try again and name The metal that most honors men with fame." Then shout the pupils^ in a chorus, " Gold ; For it can buy, and honors all are sold." "Wrong," spoke the teacher; "try once more to name The metal that most honors men with fame." They all were silent; then spoke one, "I think That mighty metal must be printer' zinc." "Right," spoke the teacher; "for it does not fail To make the nations tremble and turn pale." Then shout the students, in a chorus, "Right The world most honors that which has most might." GRIZZLY-GRU. 139 GRIZZLY-GRU. thoughts of the past and present, O whither, and whence, and where, Demanded my soul, as I scaled the height Of the pine-clad peak in the somber night, In the terebinthine air. While pondering on the frailty Of happiness, hope and mirth, The ascending sun with derisive scoff Hurled its golden lances and smote me off From the bulge of the restless earth. Through the yellowish dawn of velvet, Where stars were so thickly strewn, That quietly chuckled as I passed through, 1 fell in the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, On the mad, mysterious moon. I fell on the turquoise ether, Low down in the wondrous west, And thence to the moon in whose yielding blue Were hidden the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, In the Monarchy of Unrest. 140 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. And there were the fairy gardens, Where beautiful cherubs grew In daintiest way and on separate stalks, In the listed rows by the jasper walks, Near the palace of Grizzly-Gru. While strolling around the garden I noticed the rows were full Of every conceivable size and type Some that were buds, and some nearly ripe, And some that were ready to pull. In gauzy and white corolla, Was one who had eyes of blue, A little excuse of a baby nose, Little pink ears, and ten little toes, And a mouth that kept saying ah-goo. Ah-gooing as I came near her, She raised up her arms in glee Her little fat arms and she seemed to say, "I'm ready to go with you right away; Don't hunt any more take me." I picked her off quick and kissed her, And, hugging her to my breast, I heard a loud yelling that pierced me through, 'Twas His Terrible Eminence, Grizzly-Gru, Of the Monarchy of Unrest. GRIZZLY-GRU, 141 He had on a blood-red turban, A picturesque lot of clothes, With big moustaches both fierce and black, And a ghastly saber to cut and hack, And shoes that turned up at the toes. Out of the gate of the garden The cherub and I took flight, And closely behind us the saber flew, And back of the saber came Grizzly-Gru, And he chased us all day till night. I ran down the lunar crescent, And out on the silver horn ; I kissed the baby and held her tight, And jumped down into the starry night, And I lit on the earth at morn. He fitfully threw his saber, It missed and went round the sun ; He followed no further, he was not rash, But the baby held on to my coarse moustache, And seemed to enjoy the fun. In saving that blue-eyed baby From the gardens of Grizzly-Gru, I suffered a terrible shock and fright ; But the doctor believes it will be all right, And he thinks he can pull me through. 142 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THE BLUE-BIRD OF NOVEMBER. The wind is howling wildly, like a drove of lean kiyutes ; The steel-clad, floating, freezing storm-cloud from the northwest comes. I 'm in my cheerful office, reading poems, and my boots Are stuck up at the stove, which with a blazing hodful hums. I'm reading of a blue-eyed, wandering, hopeful little princess looking for a home. I lay my book of poems upside down upon a chair I step up to the window, where a box of fine-cut stands; Says I, "By jings, these princesses are getting mighty rare, And always have such dreadful times with lovers and with plans; I'd like to see a useless, blue-eyed, wandering little princess looking for a home. THE BLUE-BIRD OF NOVEMBER. 143 "The world is full of sympathy, the world is full of homes ; The world is full of friendships, though hidden they may be ; When gone are friends and sympathy, perforce the creature roams, Invoking them, imploring them, at large, o'er land and sea." That 's what this sentimental poet writes about this blue-eyed little princess looking for a home. See here, you straggling blue-bird, hopping on the window sill ! You hop and flop and flutter, like a worn-out Greeley flag. Tou M better hunt your roosting-place ; it 's winter and it 's chill, And hoarse, bleak, evening ice-storms after one another tag. Says she, "Unhappy me; I'm nothing but a wan- dering, useless little blue-bird, hunting for a home." Says I, "Then skip for Texas, it isn't far away; Go down to where the gulf mists through the orange branches troop ; Fly off to where the sunshine dances on Aransas Bay, 144 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. The winter-blooming Brazos, the vine-lined Guad- eloupe. If I were an itinerant, useless, homeless blue-bird, with your wings, I 'd find a home." Says she, "Speak not of Guadeloupe, the Brazos, or the Bay The winter-blooming prairies of that sunny-hearted zone ; I have flown through orange branches, I have floated on the spray ; I discover no companions, and I find myself alone. I find myself a lonesome, sad, unsocial little blue- bird, longing for a home." Into the raging stove I then did hurl a hod of coal, And raising up the winter-crusted sash-bar from the sill, Says I, "Your lonesome feelings I to some extent condole. Hop in ; here 's food and firelight, be a tenant at your will ; And listen while I read a lovely, long-haired poem of a blue-eyed princess looking for a home. THE BLUE- BIRD OF NOVEMBER. 145 "The world is full of happiness, the world is full of homes, The world is full of sympathy, though hidden it may be ; When gone are friends and sympathy, perforce the creature roams, Princess or blue-bird, seeking them, over the land or sea." That's what this gifted, wild-eyed, transcendental poet says about his blue-eyed little princess looking for a home. The blue-bird entered gayly, then quicker than a wink She darted out and left me, ere the window could be closed. I said, you little blue-bird, you 'd better stop and think ; But, then, you 're like these princesses. It 's just as I supposed. You 'd be unhappy were you not a roaming, ram- bling, useless wanderer with no home. 146 RHYMES OF IRONQU1LL. KARMYL. On the eastern shore of Kansas, Half a million years or so Back among the jeweled eons, Did I love the Princess Kannyl, Long ago. Bluer were her eyes than autumn Mists of morning, and her hair Was as wavy and as yellow As the sunbeams of the languid August air. 'Mid the parks around the palace And the tree-ferns, did we stray, Laughing at the tame dinornis And the petted pterodactyls' Awkward play. 'Neath the palm trees by the ocean Did we watch the summer gales, Watch the ships from far Atlantis, And the Uxmal galleys with their Linen sails. KARMYL. 147 By the inland Kansas ocean, Half a million years or so Back among the silver cycles, Did I love the Princess Karmyl, Long ago. But the blue-eyed Princess Karmyl Grieved her saddened soul away When I lost my life jn battle, Fighting for her father's kingdom, With Cathay. Years have fled the sea grew shallow When the great Atlantis sank; Then a change of the equator Made the power of warlike Uxmal Lose its rank. Now the undulating prairie, With a wealth of verdant loam, Shows a sea of billows greener Than when galleys from Atlantis Plowed the foam. But the blue-eyed little Karmyl With her sunshine is not there ; And I fear she never will be, For they tell me she is living In Altair. 148 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. QUESTION. To his courtier spake the Czar, Looking o'er the fields afar : " Count the plowmen that you see, And their number tell to me." From the palace porch afar Looked and answered he the Czar : "In the distance there are two Two are all there are in view." "Rightly spoken," said the Czar, " Two the men that plowing are ; Tell their number, if you can, If we call that plow a man." Quickly answered he the Czar : " Two the men now plowing are ; Call that plow a man, and then Three the number of the men." Flashed -with anger then the Czar, And his eye gleamed like a star, As he looked the courtier through : "Wrong, sir, wrong! still, only two. THE REASON. 149 "Who shall stand beside a Czar, With an empire spreading far? Who shall give advice to kings, Knowing not that things are things? "By the edict of the Czar, To the Caucasus afar, Go ! until thou knowest when Things are things, and men are men." THE KEASON. Says John last night : " William, by grab ! I'm beat To know why stolen kisses Taste so sweet." Says William: "Sho! That 's easily explained It 's 'cause they 're syrup- titiously obtained." O cruel thought! O words of cruel might I The coroner He sat on John that night. 150 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. POLITICS. Many the childhood friends of mine That started ahead of me, Fearless in ignorance, buoyant in hope, To sail on the vitriol sea. Little they knew of the depth or the scope Of the treacherous vitriol sea. Some of them sailed in painted boats, Most beautiful things to see : Gossamer boats of ephemeral wood, As fragile as ever could be ; Soon to discover that wood was not good In the cankering vitriol sea. Many tried brass, and some tried glass, To sail on the vitriol sea; Mindless alike of corrosion or storms They sailed with hilarious glee, Happy to-day, but to-morrow in swarms To be sunk in the vitriol sea. " Where did they wish to go," you ask, "That sailed on the vitriol sea? " That is a something I never shall know, A mystery even to me. All that I know is, they wanted to go, And to sail on the vitriol sea. THE OLD KANSAS VETERAN. 151 THE OLD KANSAS VETERAN. An aged soldier, with his hair snow-white, Sat looking at the night. A busy shining angel came, with things Like chevrons on his wings, He said, "The evening detail has been made Report to your brigade." The soldier heard the message that was sent ; Then rose, and died, and went. 152 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. PASS. A father said unto his hopeful son, "Who was Leonidas, my cherished one? " The boy replied, with words of ardent nature, "He was a member of the legislature." " How ? " asked the parent ; then the youngster saith : "He got a pass, and held her like grim death." "Whose pass? what pass?" the anxious father cried ; " 'T was the'r monopoly," the boy replied. In deference to the public, we must state, That boy has been an orphan since that date. PARESIS. . 153 PARESIS. On the shores of Yellow Paint I have heard the tempest roar ; I have heard the falling crash Of the lightning-riven ash ; Seen the branches of the oak Like the world at large, half-broke ;- Seen the shattered sycamore. Men and trees are scarcely twain, And the rules alike obtain, For the highest of renown Are the surest stricken down ; But the stupid and the clown They remain. 154 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. THE FORT SCOTT OWL. [Newspaper.] As the lingering, langorous lunkhead Is wending his wandering way Over the Kansas prairies, In the dusk of declining day, He sees in the twinkling twilight The gleaming and jeweled germs Of that prophecy of the future Where the murmuring Marmaton mtirins. When the arc-lights prop the midnight, When gore from the pale moon drips ; When the red-headed comets are feeling Their way through the vast ellipse ; When the Charioteer is a-lashing His steeds through the globulous gloom, As nebulae spot their pale bine sides With fleckings of fiery spume, The OWL on the murmuring Marmaton Is waking the echoing bluff With the roar of advanced ideas And the gush of a gorgeous guff. THE GRANGER'S TEXT. 155 . THE GKANGER'S TEXT. Long the Topeka? convention wrangled, " Good men for office " got into a balk, Grange nominations were hopelessly tangled, Sargent got up and gave them a talk ; Said to the delegates quarreling so: "Smooth it over and let it go." Many a time I have thought of the quarrel That "good men for office" so often reach; Many a time I have thought that a moral Shone like a lantern in Sargent's speech, When he suggested to friend and foe, "Smooth it over and let it go." When a fierce editor, boiling with fury, Paints you with hot editorial tar, Don't start a libel suit, don't hire a jury, Don't seek redress from the bench or the bar; Lies sometimes vanish, facts always grow "Smooth it over and let it go." 156 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. When you consent to be placed on a ticket, When you have ntade up your mind to run, Speed it your best the political thicket Tears off your clothes, but makes lots of fun ; If yon are minus a vote or so, "Smooth it over and let it go." Efforts and hopes may be lighter or graver, Either in politics, business, or fame ; Things may go crooked, and friendships may waver, Nevertheless, the rule is the same ; Facts will be facts ; when you find it so, "Smooth it over and let it go." THE LEAP-YEAR PARTY. 157 THE LEAP-YEAR PARTY. Around the hall I see the fairies trooping, In merry promenade; Along the wall, Disconsolately drooping, Masculine wall-flowers fade. Those hands which once They sqnoze with solemn rapture, Days of old, Are now beyond All present power to capture Or to hold. And now the caller, Cum, volante grando, Shrieks down the hall; Anon the orchestra, "With harsh sforzando, Insists on " balance all." 158 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. O, tempora ! The present time and custom The atmospheric spirit of the age, Have made these women So we cannot trust 'em. Who knows what ills the present may presage ? Of that event The deepening shadows lengthen : While far away We see the fast Combining clouds, that strengthen Our terror of that day. ADVICE $j. 169 ADVICE $5. If the railroad kills your stock, And yon want to get even, And they will not fix it up, The way to do it Is to get a keg of soap, Of about forty gallons, And stick a little scrub-broom into it. Then sweep down the track For about a half a mile, Then return to the place Where you commence; Then smash your little keg And throw away your broom, And mount the nearest Stake-and-ridered fence. Then you'll bust yourself a-laughing At the engineer a-swearing, And the engine wheels a-turning Kound and round. And you '11 fall off from the rider, And you'll break your spinal column, And your folks will take and Plant you in the ground. 160 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. THE WHISPERER. He never tried to make a speech ; A speech was far beyond his reach. He didn't even dare to try ; He did his work upon the sly. He took the voter to the rear And gently whispered in his ear. He never wrote; he could not write; He never tried that style of fight. No argument of his was seen In daily press or magazine. He only tried to get up near And whisper in the voter's ear. It worked so well that he became A person of abundant fame. He couldn't write; he couldn't speak, But still pursued his course unique. He had a glorious career He whispered in the voter's ear. THE SIEGE OF DJKLXPRWBZ. 161 THE SIEGE OF D JKLXPKWBZ. Before a Turkish town The Russians came, And with huge cannon Did bombard the same. They got up close And rained fat bombshells down, And blew out every Yowel in the town. And then the Turks, Becoming somewhat sad, Surrendered every Consonant they had. 162 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THEBJE. Thirty or forty centuries or so, We can't be certain, it 's so long ago, A youth named Kadmus lived in ancient Tyre ; But much against the wishes of his sire He learned to be a dentist, and expressed A strong intention of removing West. One day he packed his teeth in a valise, And with his forceps sailed away for Greece; And Kadmus shook, so ancient legends state, His bi- and for-ceps in the teeth of fate. Ah ! those old times did certainly presage What Prentis calls: Our ripsnortiferous age. About the time the land of Greece became A proper subject of pre-emption claim, Young Kadmus viewed the most important spots, Selected one, and laid it out in lots ; Denied he was a dentist, and beneath The verdant sod he buried tools and teeth. He bought a charter, then walked up and down The Grecian coast a-shouting for his town. He called it Thebae, and in course of time The price of corner lots began to climb, And so it was young Kadmus here became A candidate for poverty and fame. AN ODE TO WATER. 163 AN ODE TO WATER. I never made a prohibition speech, Nor eulogized thee as a proper beverage ; But there is one conclusion which I reach : That there are spheres in which thou hast the leverage. And though I don't expect to use thee freely, I'll speak no more of thee with contumely. Although for food thou art not well designed, More due, perhaps, to thy extreme fluidity ; And though thou dost at times drown human kind, And wipe out towns with unforeseen rapidity ; And though thou lackest that fine beady flavor Which if thou hadst would give thee much more favor : Still, thou dost make the wheat and corn crops grow, While then the people seem content with amity, And no old played-out politicians go Around and sound the hew-gag of calamity : And all the people seem to have some reason ; And all the crops somehow arrive in season. 164 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I've almost made my mind up that I'll try And get accustomed to thy potability ; Since thou as rain descending from the sky Dost give us such political tranquility, For every time thou comest as a soaker Thou endest all there is of some old croaker. 1884. O'er sunny Kansas Some commercial Cadmus, In days unknown, The teeth of golden dragons must have sown ; For when the prairies Feel the breath of summer, The trowels ring, And from the soil the burnished cities spring. BACCARAT. 165 BACCAEAT. The Prince said, "I'll be banker," and then he wank a wink, And with old lady Wilson did an absinthe cock- tail drink ; He stroked his royal stomach, pulled down his princely vest ; "Oh, drop some guineas in the slot, and I will do the rest For I 'm a randy-dandy of the William Rufus line, Hoss- racing and gam -bo -ling I have got down very fine ; I only race and gambole with the loftiest of the loft; Oh, let us make it lively while we stay at Tranby Croft." The Prince he was the banker; and he gave the cards a flip. He said, "Now this is earnest it's bullion and not lip; The more you put up here, my friends, the less you will rake down ; I 'm bound to bust this party, if I have to spout the crown. 166 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. Oh, yellow is the water where the Yellow Paintu. Creek flows; Oh, yellow are the sovereigns that buy such chips as those. Those chips I carry with me, and I use them oft and oft, * For I 'in a handy-dandy, and the cream of Tranb} Croft." The Prince he was the banker, and he diligentlj dole, But Gordon Gumming won the cash, and not a smile he smole And then said Gordon Gumming, "Your luck ] do deplore ; If you stay with me here all night, you '11 owe eight millions more." Oh, always let His Highness win to beat hia game was rash ; It wasn't hoss-pitality to win the Prince's cash. You 've won the Prince's good hard stuff, and then you've gone and "coughed," And called the world's attention to the ways of Tranby Croft. Victoria! Victoria 1 May you be long on earth; America sends tribute to your greatness uud your worth. WAR-FARE. 167 Oh, make your will, Victoria, and will the English throne Back to the English people, and let young Wales alone. The people they can rule themselves, and then it will be fine To have a noble sovereign end off a royal line. And Wales will like it just as well the snap will be so soft, He won't have anything to do but stay at Tranby Croft. WARFARE. "Oh, what a horrid thing this warfare is! " Then Jim replied, "You 're very much mistaken ; I joined the home-guards when Price struck Fort Scott, And then our fare was hard-bread, coffee, bacon." u The fare of war, I am not talking of ! " Responded William, with an angry shout ; "Oh, yes, I see," says Jim ; "well, of the war, The fare 's all I know anything about." 168 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. EMPEROR WILLIAM AND THE WHALE. [1891.] Upon the sea the good ship Hohenzollern Pushed back the spumy brine, While close behind another ship was foller'n', Bearing a hotel sign. Behind the latter came another, loaded With sweitzer cheese, while near Another heavy merchantman foreboded A thousand kegs of beer ; And then, as if to ward off all disasters To those, there followed hard, A dozen burdened cumbersome three-masters, With pretzels to the guard. And all because his Highness did determine That he would northward sail, So that the monarch of the empire German, Could fish and catch a whale. His Highness plucked the north-pole from its socket An anchor then undid Pulled out a cable from his breeches pocket, Baited with royal squid : EMPEROR WILLIAM AND THE WHALE. 169 Then, sitting on the stern-board of his frigate, His mud-hooks to the rear, He fished and fished, while some one at the spigot Filled up his tank with beer. Within the circle of the Arctic Ocean, Amid the billows pale, His Royal Highness, with supreme devotion, Coaxed the distrustful whale. He banged his heels, and knocked off the enamel That graced the painted stern, But, still it was, no oceanic mammal His Highness could discern ; And then his hook, and pole, and line, he tumbled Into the maelstrom's swirl, And back again to home and throne went humbled, To rule another whirl. And when returned, there came to him a henchman, Who, speaking, turned most pale, "You '11 find a place," said an ambitious Frenchman, "Where you will get a WHALE." 170 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. A KANSAS IDYL. Into a frontier town of Kansas came An aborigine in moccasins and war paint ; And he bore the look wan look of the Untutored savage. And there also came A proud Caucasian, in boots and spurs and pistols Clad a rover, full of strange oaths, and Bearded, like his pard. He had a classic Brow. In youth, at Yale, a stroke-oar he Had been, and deemed a youth of power and Culture rare. They, each to each a stranger, Sought this Kansas village in pursuit Of ardent spirits. Prohibition held full sway. The unrelenting man of drugs and Merchandise refused to sell the article Demanded. Away in anger and disgust The proud Caucasian strode, and as His fervid language percolated through The filmy ether, spectators at a distance Thought that an aurora borealis was On exhibition. Back to his ranch returning, He to bed went sober. But the aborigine With more stoicism met refusal from The man of drugs, and purchasing of hair oil A quart bottle, to his wigwam went. A KANSAS IDYL. 171 Into that oil that aborigine some water poured, And by a process of disintegration the Alcohol, with which the oil was cut, United with the water, and the oil, Floating above, was gently skimmed away. And then the noble aborigine proceeded To become inebriated, and well did he Succeed, and went to bed in a condition Which the rover would have envied. 'Tis ever thus with the untutored savage, Who yearning after nature's means and meas- ures, With pure and child-like instinct seeks to ravage The dim arcana of its mystic#pleasures, And wrest from nature's vault its cryptic treas- ures. While by his side, clogged with redundant learning, The proud Caucasian swears, and gets left, yearning. 172 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE JACKPOT. I sauntered down through Europe, I wandered up the Nile, I sought the mausoleums where the mummied Pharaohs lay ; I found the sculptured tunnel Where quietly in style Imperial sarcophagi concealed the royal clay. Above the vault was graven deep the motto of the crown : "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." It 's strange what deep impressions Are made by little things. Within the granite tunneling I saw a dingy cleft; It was a cryptic chamber. I drew, and got four kings. But on a brief comparison I laid them down and left, Because upon the granite stood that sentence bold and brown : "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." THE JACKPOT. 173 I make this observation : A man with such a hand Has psychologic feelings that perhaps he should not feel, But I was somewhat rattled And in a foreign land, And had some dim suspicions, as I had not watched the deal. And there was that inscription, too, in words that seemed to frown : "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." These letters were not graven In Anglo-Saxon tongue ; Perhaps if you had seen them you had idly passed them by. I studied erudition When I was somewhat young; I recognized the language when it struck my classic eye; I saw a maxim suitable for monarch or for clown : "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." Detesting metaphysics, I cannot help but put A philosophic moral where I think it ought to hang; 174 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I've seen a "boom" for office Grow feeble at the root, Then change into a booinlet then to a boom- erang. In caucus or convention, in village or in town : "Who openeth a jackpot may not always rake it down." A SEA-KIOUS STOUT. From Panama to San Francisco bay, An overcrowded steamship sailed away. The third day out, a husky miner came Up to the clerk, and calling him by name, He said : "Your ship is crowded, sir, a heap Too much for me ; find me a place to sleep." The clerk responded, with a stately smile : " Sleep where you 've been a-sleeping all the while." "It kayn't be did," the miner answered quick. "I slept upon a deck-hand who was sick; "He 's convalessed, and now since he is stronger, He swears he won't endure it any longer." The clerk was pleased to hear the miner's mirth, And fixed him with a "snifter" and a berth. A QUININE DREAM. 175 A QUININE DREAM. [ While damming Paint Creek last weeTc, got the ague, took forty grains of quinine, attended a pro- hibition meeting, and was sick three days.] Eighty elephants in line Watched a turkey made of pine Hang a bag of roasted peanuts to a string of cot- ton twine. Then a boy whose name was Billy Fed a monkey with a lily While the monkey's younger brother looked unusu ally silly When Yum ! Yum ! Yum ! Went the girl with pepsin gum A man who uses metaphor Insisted he should pet her for Her wayward absent lover who would never, never come. Then the Public Square curled up And an epileptic pup Went to blinking and to drinking something yel- low from a cup. 176 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Then a deacon caught a tartar Tied him firmly with a garter To a patent ice-cream freezer where he perished like a martyr When Bang! Bang! Bang! Loud an old revolver rang A man whose name was Galloway Obstructing a dark alley-way Was scared so bad he ran and talked a quantity of slang. Then a huckleberry pie Bade its relatives good-bye As a spotted Norman dray horse wiped the moist- ure from its eye. Soon a gloomy man named Purdy Started up a hurdy-gurdy While a chap of nineteen winters called a freckled female "Birdie." When Boom ! Boom ! Boom ! Came a gloaming through the gloom A voice that seemed auxiliary To shot-gun and distillery And seemingly constructed of concussion and pei- fume. A QUININE DREAM. 177 Then a thousand pulleys whirr And the roofs begin to stir While a feline makes a bee-line to a fence to save her fur. Then a talented attorney Who had just arrived from Smyrna Tries to interest a lamp-post with the details of his journey When Whack! Whack! Whack! Forty peelers beat him black And then with language cursory They take him to a nursery And plant him sixteen inches down below the zodiac. O NEW YEAR, greet the old, And hide as it has hid The sights which we have saw, The deeds which we have did. 178 RHYMES OF 2RONQUILL. KETKOSPECTIVE. Through the days so mild and mellow While the leaves were growing yellow, We did bellow loudly bellow For a platform full of "isms"; Many others did as we did, But our efforts were unheeded, For the. people said they needed More of sense, and less of schisms. Female suffrage ! Prohibition 1 We are now in a position To demand a new edition A revision, as of yore ; And the late lamented martyr, He has got a little starter To the shades where many a smarter Smarter man has gone before. Let us relegate our preachers To their desks as moral teachers ; Governments were made for creatures That are living now on earth ; Not for angels that wear laurels, But for men with woes and quarrels Men of vice as well as morals, Men of grief as well as mirth. RETROSPECTIVE. 179 If a man is on an isthmus, Or is troubled with strabismus, You can talk from June till Christmas He is still as narrow-sighted ; Add to this a poor digestion, And the world must be refreshed on Some important moral question, And instanter must be righted. Yes ! that platform was a jewel ; It were cruel, very cruel, Now to use it up for fuel, But it must and will be done; And our short-haired female brother, And our long-haired other, t'other Brother he must find another, Go and get another one. When the party gets less antic Over "isms," and less frantic Over frauds that sycophantic Fools rehearse, Then the party will be victor, And will march why, bless your pictur ! Prouder than a Roman lictor; Now its lict or worse. 180 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE KANSAS JAIL. (1900.) I hear the lowing of the distant herd, . I hear the blackbirds carol at the morn. They sing and sing as if with joy deferred They brought good tidings telling word by word, "The jail is full of corn." The merry zephyrs now no longer see A broken-hearted landscape lean and lorn, But as they whirl they whisper in their glee, "Things are more halcyon than they used to be, The jail is full of corn." The horse-thief went. The cowboy joined the church, The justice of the peace is laughed to scorn, The constable has tumbled from his perch, The school has left the sheriff in the lurch, The jail is full of corn. ALGOMAR. 181 ALGOMAK. loline, my loline, Will you be no more my queen ; Must you always stay \ Is my waiting unavailing, Must all wishes end in failing, Must all hope decay? Must all happiness at last Fade into the past? It is longer than a year Since you came to see me here, Earnest loline ; Since you came in moonlight beamy, Came to cheer me and to see me, To be loved and seen ; Since you left that pearly star, Far-off Algomar. Come and sing to me once more, As you often have before, Songs of other zones. Come and hum those airy, sketchy Arias, so bright and catchy, Taken from the tones That, unheard by human ears, Thrill the radiant spheres. RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. A SHINING MARK. A man came here from Idaho With lots of mining stock. He brought along as specimens A lot of mining rock. The stock was worth a cent a pound If stacked up in a pile. The rock was worth a dollar and A half per cubic mile. We planted him at eventide, 'Mid shadows dim and dark ; We fixed him up an epitaph, "Death loves a mining shark." THE PRODIGAL SON. 183 THE PRODIGAL SON. He tramped from Tyre to Sidon With his sandals on his arm, And then he struck for Jordan And the big ancestral farm. His mantle it was full of burs, His noble brow was wet. The fatted calf it tugged upon A horse-hair lariat. His father ran to meet him : "Right glad," said he, "I am. Your trunk got home. Your ma m Is well. We got your telegram. 'To-morrow night the banquet is; Your auntie reads a pome, And you respond unto a toast, 'There 's nary place like home.' " The prodigal looked sad, and then With choking voice said he, 'Good-bye, good-bye, old home; Them husks is good enough for me." Then came a dull and sickening thud, That no one could forget That calf, in glee, had run and bust That horse-hair lariat 1 184 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. FUNSTON AND HOBSON. [About three weeks before the declaration of war by the United States against Spain, the piece entitled "Kansas to Alabama" was published in St. Louis. Four days after the publication an answer appeared, entitled "Alabama to Kansas." It is curious to note that the war did produce two national heroes and popular idols, Hobson in Cuba, on the part of Alabama, and Funston In the Philippines, on the part of Kansas. The authorship of the Alabama reply cannot be given, as inquiries were not answered.] KANSAS TO ALABAMA. Are you there, are you there, Alabam? There seems to be a lot of trouble coming. There 's music in the air, Alabara, The music of the fifing and the drumming. Be my pard, be my pard, And we '11 fight them mighty hard, Alabam. Our old war made it plain, Alabam, We neither one was lacking spunk or mettle. This little round with Spain, Alabam, Will have a question I would like to settle. Can you march day and night And outfight me in the fight, Alabam? If you should, if you should, Alabam, My sunflower on your bosom I'll be pinning; Might feel sore but I would, Alabam I'd honor both the hero and the winning. FUNS TON AND HOB SON. 185 Here 's to you, here 's to you, And to what we both can do, Alabarn. ALABAMA TO KANSAS. Bet your life, bet your life, Kansas boy, The Yankee and the Johnnie are for Cuba. Just hail me with your fife, Kansas boy ; I'll answer with my Alabama tuba. Count me in, count me in, I am eager to begin, Kansas boy. Here's my hand, here 's my hand, Kansas boy, The cotton-bloom to sunflower sends greeting ; On the ocean and the land, Kansas boy, Soon the grandees and the dons we '11 be meeting. North and South, heart to heart, Nevermore will fight apart, Kansas boy. Get your flag, get your flag, Kansas boy, If you fall I will anchor it in glory ; 'Tis not for me to brag, Kansas boy I fought it once but that 's another story. Light is come, wrong is past, Now I 'm Union to the last, Kansas boy. ISO RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. MY FIRST WIFE. O ! the poise of her head Down her queenly neck fell a brown cascade, With a tinge of red ; When she lifted her finger at me and said, "Young man," although I was not afraid, Yet there came a sort of hypnotic thrill ; And it made me reflect that soon or late I would have some questions to ask of Fate In regard to myself and a woman's will. I had heard in my youth, That around, the heart Of each wholesome man And I know it's the truth From the very start, By some unknown plan, There is knotted and tied A single lone hair, and the hair is red ; And when it unties The person dies, Or is broken-hearted the same as dead ; I know it V so, for I 've seen it tried. MY FIRST WIPE. 187 And I hold it trne that never a man Fought life and fought death, and fought friend and foe, For a woman's smile or a woman's fan, Whether to-day or long ago, Unless the tresses upon her head Showed red, or at least a shade of red. Now, what could I guess When in every tress Of my first wife's hair was that shade of red? And what could I know, or what express When around my heart I could feel the twine And the twist of a ligature firm and fine, And what could I say, or what could be said, When as clear as a note From her velvet throat, Came the words, "Young man," With the toss of her head. O ! the follies of life ! O ! the fatal mistakes ! O ! the strain and the strife And the sorrow that breaks And wrenches apart The trusting heart. But yet my first wife She was ever serene ; She never would cry and never would grieve. 188 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. No woman was ever like her, I ween ; And never was yet any daughter of Eve, As I used to repeat, and I now believe, More worthy than she to be christened a queen. She never eloped we did not part There was nothing outward of grief or woe ; No neighbors whispered, "I told you so," And the tight red band that was 'round my heart It never untied and let me go. And then, of course, There was no divorce. I gave her no cause, and she gave me none. Unless I could say That her haughty way Of saying, " Young man ! " though perhaps in fun, Was a ground for divorce, though the only one. Oh, the golden Now, so mute and so dumb, As, with hopes aglow And with hearts ablaze, We wait for the futures yet to come. Oh, the halcyon days Of the happy past That go so fast, And yet so- slow ! How little there is for us all to know ! MY FIRST WIFE. 189 And why must a man Love once for all ? Once only once; and tell, if you can, Why a woman whose hair has a tinge of red, Be she ever so small Or ever so tall, Will keep on a-loving until she's dead And a good deal longer, I've heard it said. So happiness seems To hang on a hinge, And to be the product of a tinge; And that is the reason why, in my dreams I see the floating, as of a fringe, A brown with a delicate shade of red ; And I feel the ligature 'round my heart. It Ifas n't untied or snapped apart, And she is alive not dead. Of course she's alive, And her children five Are up at the house, and so is she; For she is my first and my only wife My only wife upon my life For no second wife for me. 190 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE PHOTO-GRAPH-U-IST. Yes, very many pictures this photographist took; He glued them to a pasteboard, and stuck them in a book, So when yon wished to see them, all you had to do was look. To have their pictures taken, with joyousness and glee A flock of little maidens came, and one of them, oh, she [be. Was just as sweet and beautiful as beautiful could Alas ! our photo-graph-u-ist was captured from the start, For when she " struck her attitude " with such an artless art, She glued her blue-eyed picture to his pasteboard and his heart. She left the latter picture for her worshiper to keep. So well had it been taken, so accurate, so deep It robbed him of his happiness, and even of his THE PHOTO-GRAPH-U-IST. 191 Ah, yes ! that bine-eyed photograph did haunt him day and night ; , Although he closed his peepers, it floated on his sight. At last he says : "A note to her I will write out outright. "O blue-eyed little maiden, I never would invade The old time-honored usages that courtesy hath made, Unless I had an object which I could n't have de- layed. "Allow me, little maiden, now, to diffidently say, How ceaselessly a photograph doth haunt me night and day, How vainly mental effort tries to banish it away. "This picture in my memory unceasingly doth dwell, It follows like a shadow, and it haunts me like a spell; It 's YOUKS, O blue-eyed maiden, whom I love so wild and well. 192 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. "This picture from my memory can never be effaced. You 've left a mental 'negative,' and cruelly have laced My only heart with yours, within that crimson peasant waist. "It grieves me such a story so abruptly to relate; I only ask a syllable yonr answer is my fate, And happiness or sorrow I impatiently await." There is a stately mansion built with elegance and grace, Its present situation does not enter in the case : It may be Kansas City, or some other noisy place. There is a spacious parlor, but I will not tell you where, It 's lighted up with chandeliers into a perfect glare ; Two persons stand before a crowd that is assembled there. And one has eyes of violet, bright as an amethyst, And on her shoulders float her chestnut ringlets like a mist ; The other, he 's our hero, yes, our photo-graph-u-ist. THE PHOTO-GRAP1I-U-1ST. 193 A minister is saying something very neat and terse ; It sounds just like a poem, but it does n't come in verse ; It ends (if I remember) with, "for better or for worse." Right well, my photo-graph-u-ist, right well the choice you made ; The "negative" is now "preserved, "you need not be afraid ; You 've gone and got the substance, and the shadow will not fade. HE AND SHE. When I am dead you'll find it hard, Said he, To ever find another man Like me. What makes you think, as I suppose You do, I'd ever want another man Like you? 194 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE FLOPPEK. Bill Rye was saying in a store, one day at Baxter Springs, That in the future every man would be a-wearing wings. Of course I took the statement as a hard-shell Baptist might, And whacked him on the shoulder and observed, "You're mighty right." This happened Friday afternoon: on Saturday, a week, I met Bill prancing down the street, a-looking like a freak. He said : " I want to shake your hand, for you're the only man That ever said a kindly word to me about my plan. "You said that I was 'mighty right'; and I am here to say, I give an exhibition on the public square to-day. I 'm going for to take these wings and climb into the sky, For I have solved the problem, and my name is William Rye." THE FLOPPER. 195 Bill was a combination of despondency and hope ; At times he grew gregarious, at times he used to mope. There was n't any office that he thought he could n't fill; He looked at each new ism and embraced it with a will. He entered all new parties. He pioneered new creeds. He ran for sheriff, then he flopped to register of deeds. And then he tried for probate judge ; but none of it would work ; He tried to be a minister, then flopped to postal clerk. I liked Bill's multiplicity; I liked his gall, and hence I went down to the public square and sat upon the fence. And there was Bill upon a box, surrounded by a crowd, A-showing wings, and talking fast, and feeling very proud. I can't repeat the speech he made ; in substance it was this : " Oh, here is an occasion that a person should n't miss. 196 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I J ll show you something finer than yon ever yet beheld ; For I'm a flying lu-ln, and I've got this thing corralled." He spread his wings, he mounted up, mile after mile the same ; Then all at once he flopped and turned, and head first down he came. So great was his velocity that every one turned pale. He went through soil, eight feet of clay, and sixteen feet of shale. A dozen men who knew Bill well, said, when they saw him drop, That William always seemed to try to get a chance to flop. He flopped just once too often. The Baxter people went And filled the hole with cinders, and raised a monument. They carved a line: "Down in the shale reposes William Eye He did n't have the thing corralled, and hence he got too fly." And then the Daily Pioneer observed, with seeming scoff: "Soar disappointment was the cause that took the brother off." THE LOVIST. 197 THE LOVIST. [A TKUE STORY.] Look here, you gentle reader, A story I must tell, About an individual Who loved a maiden well. [He admired and adored her doted and gloated and floated; one of his favorite observations was, that her dear image was frescoed on the skylight of his soul.] He wrote one day a letter, And sealed it with a seal, To tell the girl how feelingly Towards her he did feel. [This letter partook of the character of a rhythmical com- munication ; it might have been called an ode, or an apostro- phe, or a sonnet, or a piece of versified vacuity, or iambic inanity but it wasn't poetry. J The young man said : "It idle is For me to ever start To paint in one short idyl The idol of my heart." [The adolescent young maniac called her his Ideal, Idol, doll, his fairy, seraph, nymph, grace, and showed other sur- face indications of having the old complaint in its most fright- ful form.] 198 RHYMES OP IRON QUILL A carpenter of teeth was he, A den-tist, and I 'm told That in his den he often said That teeth were his "best hold." [He exterminated molars and abolished incisors without pain or delay. His motto was, "Pro bono publico" for the public's bones.] But when the miss the miss-ive read, The maiden sentimental, She said, said she, "If he gets me, It will be acci-dental." [She told this, in confidence, to a young lady friend, who put on her hood and rushed right off and told the young man, so as to make him feel happy. He asked her to intercede for him. She did so, but the "charmer" simply responded:] "Who knows, before the orange blos- soms wither in my wreath, What irony and iron he May throw into my teeth ? " [The embassy was a failure. The mutual friend told him all she not only gave him the "text," but also an elaborate appendix, with notes, index, and glossary.] And when the young man heard of it, He then began to cry ; He stopped a-drawing of a tooth, And went and drew a sigh. ,""Why," said he, "this sarcasm, this scornful utterance, this taunt, this sneer, this gibe? 1 have," said he, "uary not no nothing to live for."] THE LOVIST. 199 He then took sick; he tried and tried To neutralize, in vain, The pain lie felt, by wrapping up Within a counter-pane. [ Ifc would n't work ; he tried to die by an effort of mind, but his miud was too weak his constitution was stronger than his will. Then he tried whisky, but it never affected him it never found his brain; it went skirmishing through his system and wore itself out trying to find some ganglionic nodule to operate on. He consequently recovered next day sufficiently to go down town.] And then lie bought a bowie-knife With which to end his woes; Then went and plunged it in his chest, [Which was half full of clothes;] Then went and bought a railroad pass-, Ajpd took the evening train For climes where golden fortunes are "Extracted without pain." 300 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. MELANCHOLY THOUGHTS. INGAL.LS vs. VOORHEES. Cyclone dense, Lurid air, Wabash hair, Hide on fence. THE HOMEOPATHIC DOCTOR. If like cures like, Explain to me, my brother, How is it doctors Cannot cure each other? EXPERIENCE. Billy kicked a bull-dog Through the picket fence ; William has less toes on, But still he has more sense. THE CONVENTION. In Kansas conventions, That man, as a rule, Who plays the "dark horse" Is a cream-colored mule. MELANCHOLY THOUGHTS. 201 IO-CENT COKN. The laws must be lame, Or some one to blame, When a bushel will buy But one drink of "the same." THE POET. There was a poet ; Through the midnight gloom Much oil, much midnight oil, Did he consume. The world beheld . No product of that toil Alas ! the oil consumed Was fusel oil. TEFFT HOUSE. Says Logroller Jim to Boodle'um Bill, "Will you run this fall for the Legislature?" Says Boodle'um Bill, "I don't think I will, " But I'll go and appeal to their hire nature." THE WAY OF IT. Says Chuck-a-luck Bill to his vagabond pard, 'They say that the way of transgressors is hard." Says Weary Watkins, "I Ve found it such It 's 'cause the way is traveled so much." 202 RHYMES OF JRONQUZLL. THE MIND-READER. * He could not tell a lie, George Washington of old ; Yet smarter far ana I, For I can tell a lie Soon as I hear it told. RHYME. A man who was wise and yet frisky Desired a 'new rhyme upon "whisky"; So he went where 't was made, And he stayed and he stayed, And he finally struck it Paris, Ky. AI/TRUISM. When a one-eyed chap living in Trego A-cheating at poker did try, A very bad man from Waraego Just swiped out his alter ego Or rather, his other eye. THE BOOMEB. There 's an unauthentic rumor That a Kansas City "boomer" Went a-diving after pearls; As he could n't hold his breath, Why, of course, he met his death ; Now he 's booming other worlds. MELANCHOLY THOUGHTS. A TBIOLET. Each second a sucker is born In the world outside of Kansas; We 've got to acknowledge the corn, Each second a sucker is born ; But we laugh the fact to scorn, And we don't care where it lands us- Each second a sucker is born. But he is not born in Kansas. LOVELY WOMAN. And as around our manly neck she throws Her dimpled arms with artless unconcern, And kisses us and asks us to be hern, And pats us on the jaw, do you suppose That we say " No," grow frightened on the spot, And faint away? Well, we should reckon not. Young man, como Westl you 've got a lot to learn. THE Romans had a joke That sounds peculiar: They spoke of lovely woman As a "mulier." 204 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. AESOP'S FABLES. The falsehoods of the immortal Msop bear such an appear- ance of innocence and truth that, as examples, they have been handed down from antiquity, undimmed by suspicion and un- shaken by criticism. To the young and rising youth, whbm tender years for future efforts are shaping, who are yet to go to the legislature, to edit newspapers, run for office, and hold positions of perquisites and emoluments more especially those who are to be the sole hope for candidates in the future a study of ^sop's success- ful efforts are invaluable. Having had to gain experience from conversations with candidates, campaign speeches and tele- grams, the translator can imagine how gladly HE would have hailed these models of successful ability, in former years. The misstatements and mendacity of 2Esop have never been surpassed ; as such they are here translated for the scholars of the Paint Creek school, and thrown like bread upon the angry billows of the Yellow Paint. TRANSLATOR. PERSIMMONS. [Fable No. 1.] Once a fox, upon the sly, Some persimmons did behold, So he got a pole and poled ; But he gave up with a sigh, And acknowledged his mistake The persimmons would n't rake. FABLES. 205 MORAL. Then in sorrow he did say, As he slowly walked away, Fruit of that kind will elude All our efforts, I am told, If the pole with which it 's poled Has n't got the longitude. AGRICOLA ET FILIUS. [Fable No. 2.] Brown he runs a farm and ranch By the billows of Lath Branch, And he had a son named Jim, Who had never learned to swim ; And one Sunday Jim was found Down in Lath Branch partly drowned. But old Brown knew what to do ; For he somewhere cut a limb, And he somehow stayed with Jim, And he somewhat brought him to. MORAL. Do not run a farm and ranch By the billows of Lath Branch. Men named Brown with boys named Jim, Ought to teach their boys to swim. Boys named Jim most always drown If their other name is Brown. 206 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. ANGUIS ET ANGUISH. [ Fable No. A] Old man Snyder found a snake, Frozen stiffer than a stake, And he tucked it in his breast, And he buttoned up his vest. When the saurian became thawed, Mr. Snyder became chawed, And in one unbroken stream He proceeded to blaspheme, And eradicate the plug From a little, old brown jug. Then he took a modest "snort," Of, perhaps, about a quart, And conversed as if he well Had profanity to sell. Year by year, with all his might, Snyder tried to cure that bite, But he did n't have the heft ; So one day, beside the jug, He, while heaving at the plug, Caught the jim-james and got left. MORAL. Frozen saurians are safer; And, it 's bitterer than borax To be gnawed about the thorax, One's humanity to pay for. M SOP'S FABLES. THE LIGHTNING-BUG AND THE SKEETER. [Fable No. ] Once a lightning-bug did fly With a skeeter down the street, One hot evening in July, And these words he did repeat : "See me shine I see me shine ! " But the skeeter gave no sign Of ambition or design, And these words he did repeat : "None in mine 1 none in mine I " Then an urchin, quick as scat, With an agitated face And an antiquated hat, To the lightning-bug gave chase, Then the skeeter joined the race ; Looked the ragged urchin o'er ; Picked an unprotected place, And he helped himself to gore. Life is somewhat Janus-faced : Look the situation o'er, Join the throng, and go for gore, Or be brilliant and get chased. RHYMES OF 1RONQU2LL. PAVO. [Fable No. 5.] Said a peacock unto Juno, "What's the reason I can't sing? See ! a tail I can unfold That is gorgeous .to behold. Tell me, tell me, if you do know, What 's the reason I can't sing, When I 'in such a gorgeous thing ? " Juno, answering the bird, Half in earnest, half in fun, Said " Injustice would be done If all favors were conferred, Of the many, upon one." Notwithstanding what we wish, In this world of fact and fate, Some must fish and some dig bait Just a few of us can fish. See that orphan boy at work, Working early, working late ? He is learning how to wait ; He is learning not to shirk. FABLES. 209 Then observe the rich man's son, Aping style and making bets Smoking idle cigarettes, Talking chaff and having fun. Years that orphan boy will wait ; Then he '11 take that rich man's son, And will terminate that fun, And will set him digging bait. Then the rich man's son will wish, As the iron days go by, And the tears come in his eye, That he had a chance to fish. But his wish will come too late ; For the orphan, who meanwhile Does the fishing, smiles a smile, And compels him to dig bait. THE AXE-I-DENT. [ Fable No. 6.} Day by day was Thomas seen On the head of Wolverine, And the old primeval rung As his five-pound axe he slung; 210 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. And he worked with smile and song, Making " wood-cuts " all day long. But the wood grew hard to chip, So he went to grind his axe ; But his care becoming lax, Something ran afoul the crank, And it gave the axe a yank, And the helve it gave a flip, And it reached him on the lip ; Then the unreflecting youth Swallowed, thoughtlessly, a tooth, And he sort of lost his grip. To the doctor Thomas goes, And discourses all his woes, Worldly, physical and mental ; But the doctor shook his head, And he very gravely said : " You have got a fell disease, For in axe-i-dents like these Pains are always inside-dental." SEQUEL. And he made a lot of pills Out of 3-x Graham flour, Saying, "Take one every hour: They will cure you of your ills." JESOP'S FABLES. 211 Any man will lose his grip If he does n't feel inclined, When he has an "axe to grind," To be careful of his "lip." THE INVIDIOUS CANINE. [Fable No. 7.] O'er the rough and rocky ridge, Leading downward with a path To the brittle little bridge That is hung across the Lath, Came a large, inclement bull-dog, full of wrath ; But the canine never tarried In his mouth he something carried : Like a miner, wide awake, He had been and raised a steak. Crossing on the bridge, his glance To the water thrown by chance, Saw another dog and meat In precipitate retreat ; Then his onward course he slants, And attempts to head them off And his corpus now conceals Half a barrelful of eels. 212 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. No one merchant yet was made Who could gobble all the trade. Painfully misfortune pelts Those who reach for some one else ; No one bull-dog yet could eat Every other bull-dog's meat. If you have a good-sized bone, Let the other dog alone. LIMBURGER. [Fable No. 8.] On a tree there sat a crow, In his bill a chunk of cheese; On the ground, a fox below Said, "Some music, if you please. You are beautiful of wing, And I bet that you can sing." Cheered by flattery, the crow Sang, and dropped the cheese below ; Then the cunning fox did freeze To that fallen chunk of cheese, And he calmly lugged it off, And he scoffed the song with scoff. JZSOP'S FABLES. 213 When they pat you on the back, When they say that you 're the one, When they say they 're on the track, And "have been obliged to run"; When their compliments denote They are going for your vote, You can do just as you please. But you 'd better watch your cheese. THE SWELL. [Fable No. 9.] On the walk a hat did lie, And a gall us chap sailed by, And he cut a lively swell He was clerk in a hotel ; So, he gave that hat a kick, And he came across a brick Now upon a crutch he goes, Minus half a pound of toes. When you see a person thrown By misfortune or by vice, Help him thrice or seven times thrice ; Help him up or let alone. 214 RHYMES OF IKONQUJLL. If you give the man a kick You may stumble on a brick, Or a stone. Fate is liable to frown, And the best of us go down ; And in just a little while She is liable to smile. And the bad luck and the vice Seem to scatter in a trice, And to hunt their holes like mice. And the man you tried to kick Now has changed into a brick. THE LIFE-INSURANCE AGENT AND THE POST AUGER. [Fable No. 10.] "Very skillfully and fast, Boring post-holes in the soil, Worked an honest son of toil ; An insurance agent passed, Saying, "Such a 'perfect bore* I have never seen before." Then he sort of caught his breath, And he talked that man to death. FABLES. 215 Strange it is, somehow or other We are bound to make a fuss, When we notice in another Vices that belong to us. THE COWCATCHER. {Fable No. 11.} Cast your eagle eye on me Leaders there must always be. I have such a massive brain, I can stand the tug and strain. See the engine and the train As they meekly follow me. Leaders there must always be. It 's a part of nature's plan That I occupy the van. Born to rule, and born to lead, Born to flourish and precede, The momentum and the speed Of the engine and the train Are the products of my brain. Those the world has pushed ahead Thought they pulled the world they led. 216 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. They were either fast or slow, As the world would have them go ; But they never seemed to know That behind them came the force That controlled their speed and course. NANKEEN. [Fable No. 12.] Through the light-long summer day Sam the game of "draw" did play; Through the summer Sammy laughed, Sang, and played the game of "draft." Gay and jolly and serene With his breeches of nankeen. Through the doleful winter days Still at poker Sammy plays ; Gone his songs, and smiles so bland ; He is waiting for a hand ; And the winter skies are chill And he wears that nankeen still. MORAL. Draft and nankeen go together Very well in summer weather, But when winter-time sets in Draft and nankeen get too thin. JSSOP'S FABLES. CAPERS ET CAPER. [Fable No. IS.} From a chimney on the roof Of the Wilder House hotel, Did a William goat espy An old army mule go by; Spied those vast and sail-like ears And he jeered the mule with jeers. Then the mule he made a tack, Brought his jib 'round to the wind, Main and mizzen ears a-back, And his starboard eye he skinned ; Then he reached that goat a hoof Which dismissed him from the roof. SOLILOQUY. Morals two this tale will teach : First, There is n't any rule That will cipher out the reach Of an ancient army mule ; Second, There are many dangers In mis-estimating strangers. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. SUCKER AND SALAMANDER. AN AQUARIUM STORY. [Fable No. 14.] In an ornamental jar, Filled with blazing, red-hot tar, Did a salamander swim ; In a thousand jolly ways He disported in the blaze It was fun alive for him. With a less display of rank, Swam a sucker in a tank, And unto himself he said : "Would that I were in his place, Swimming in that blazing vase, And that he were in my stead." An attendant heard the speech, And he changed them each with each. Then the salamander sank To the bottom of the tank, In inanimate repose; While the sucker curled and died, Looking just as peeled and fried As a Democratic nose. AESOP'S FABLES. 219 MORAL. Souls of fire may dare the fire, May aspire To rule the fire ; But the element consumes Any SUCKER who presumes. ZEPHYR. [Fable No. 15.} Once a Kansas zephyr strayed Where a brass-eyed bird pup played, And that foolish canine bayed At that zephyr, in a gay, Semi-idiotic way. Then that zephyr, in about Half a jiffy, took that pup, Tipped him over, wrong side up; Then it turned him wrong side out. And it calmly journeyed thence, With a barn and string of fence. MORAL. When communities turn loose Social forces that produce The disorders of a gale, Act upon the well-known law: Face the breeze, but close your jaw. It 's a rule that will not fail : RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. If you bay it, in a gay, Self-sufficient sort of way, It will land you, without doubt, Upside down and wrong side out. THE UNSOCIABLE MILESTONES. [Fable No. 16.] Strung along a highway stood Twenty milestones, made of wood, Undisturbed by storm or weather ; And the jokers said their say, As they passed along the way : "How unsociable are they Milestones never get together." But the milestones cared not whether It were worst or it were best Undisturbed by jeer or jest, Two were never seen together. Duty made them what they were, And they did not care to stir. Men there are whose work, whose place Is, like milestones, to mark out Both the distance and the route ; FABLES. 221 Both the destiny and way, In the progress of the race. If they mingle with the throng That moves thoughtlessly along, Then their duty they betray. Lonesome, very lonesome, they; But, unmoved by hope or fear, Undisturbed by jest or jeer, There their duty and they stay. 222 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. IN THE SUPREME COUET, STATE OF KANSAS. GEORGE LEWIS, Appellant, vs. STATE OF KANSAS, Appellee. Appeal from Atchison County. Law paw; guilt wilt. When upon thy frame the law places its majestic paw though in innocence or guilt thou art then required to wilt. STATEMENT OF CASE, BY REPORTER. This defendant, while at large, * Was arrested on a charge Of burglarious intent, And direct to jail he went. But he somehow felt misused, And through prison walls he oozed, And in some unheard-of shape He effected his escape. Mark you now ! again the law On defendant placed its paw, Like a hand of iron mail, And resocked him into jail ; LEWIS v. STATZ. 223 Which said jail, while so corralled, He by sock-age tenure held. Then the court met, and they tried Lewis up and down each side, On the good, old-fashioned plan ; But the jury cleared the man. Now, you think that this strange case Ends at just about this place. Nay, not so. Again the law On defendant placed its paw This time takes him round the cape For effecting an escape ; He, unable to give bail, Goes reluctantly to jail. Lewis, tried for this last act, Makes a special plea of fact : ''Wrongly did they me arrest, As my trial did attest ; And while rightfully at large, Taken on a wrongful charge, I took back from them what they From me wrongly took away." When this special plea was heard, Thereupon THE STATE demurred. 224 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. The defendant then was pained When the court was heard to say, In a cold, impassive way, "The demurrer is sustained." Back to jail did Lewis go ; But, as liberty is dear, He appeals, and now is here To reverse the court below. The opinion will contain All the statements that remain. ARGUMENT AND BEIEF OF APPELLANT. "As a matter, sir, of fact, Who was injured by our act Any property or man? Point it out, sir, if you can. Can you seize us, when at large, On a baseless, trumped-up charge; And, if we escape, then say It is crime to get away When we rightfully regained What was wrongfully obtained ? Please-the-court-sir, what is crime? What is right, and what is wrong ? Is our freedom but a song, Or the subject of a rhyme ? " LEWIS v. STATE. 225 ARGUMENT AND BRIEF OF THE ATTORNEY FOR THE STATE. " When THE STATE, that is to say, WE, takes liberty away When the padlock and the hasp Leave one helpless in our grasp, It's unlawful then that he Even dreams of liberty ; Wicked dreams that may in time Grow and ripen into crime Crime of dark and damning shape ; Then if he perchance escape, Evermore remorse will roll O'er his shattered, sin-sick soul. Please-the-court-sir, how can we Manage people who get free? " REPLY OF APPELLANT. "Please-the-court-sir, if it's sin, Where does turpitude begin ? " PER CURIAM. (OPINION OF THE COURT.) " We don't make law ; we are bound To interpret it as found. The defendant broke away; When arrested he should stay. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. This appeal can't be maintained, For the record does not show Error in the court below, And we nothing can infer. Let the judgment be sustained ; All the justices concur." [Note ly the Reporter^ Of the sheriff, rise and sing: ' Glory to our earthly king 1 " (19Kas. 266.) HIC JONES. 227 AN AGEEED STATEMENT OF FACTS AS TO THE ADMISSION OF MR. HIO JONES TO THE PAINT CKEEK BAB, KANSAS. Jones was young and unassuming, but the shrewd observer saw Something that appeared abnormal in the structure of his jaw. When the court convened, old Snipe- 'em, with a voice like a guitar, Offered Jones's application for admission to the bar. Then the court looked wise and owly, and in slow, judicial tones Ordered Snipe- 'em, Brown and Spot- 'em first to analyze young Jones ; Saying, " Gentlemen, be thorough ; at the opening of the court We will skip the motion docket, and consider your report." Sheriff Grabb then showed the party to the "ante"- rooin up-stairs, Where a table stacked with gun-wads had been checkmated with chairs. 228 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. It was four o'clock precisely; Spot-'em gently turned the key, Saying, "Frauds, I'll act as banker waltz your ducats up to me." The analysis proceeded up to twelve 01 thereabout, When the stock of ardent spirits unexpectedly gave out. Spot-'em wrote a note to Julius, saying, "Julius, if you please, Send us up a red-hot lunch for four; we 're raking down for threes." And an order for frumenti and cigars was sent by Brown, Drawn on Thomas, of the " Wilder," chief nose- artist of the town. The committee stopped for supper, readjusted all their loans, And continued with fresh vigor their researches for young Jones. Just about this time, " the district clerk of the afore- said court" By some unknown coincidence dropped in to see the sport Having hefted thefrumenti, he did cheerfully reply To their bland interrogations in regard to " chicken- pie." HIC JONES. 229 Unpaid fees in Spot-'em's cow case were discounted then by Brown, Which the clerk took out in gun-wads, most of which young Jones raked down. A.t the hour of three precisely, after four successful raids, Spot- 'em raked down Snipe- 'em's shirt studs on a hand composed of spades ; Snipe- 'em took a dose of tonic and reluctantly re- signed, While the clerk, with sad bravado, went a collar- button blind. Hour by hour the game continued ; Jones came in on every draw, But no syllable proceeded from that strange, ab- normal jaw. On a bench snoozed Snipe- 'em, sadly, in the corner of the room, While the smoked-up coal-oil chimney cast a deep, sepulchral gloom ; And at times his troubled slumbering evoked un- conscious moans, As if saying, "It is difficult this analyzing Jones." 230 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. At last the time at which the court should reas- semble came ; It did not seem to influence the progress of the game ; They had not yet made up their minds concerning their report. And here we leave them briefly while we look in on the court. A pro tern, judge was on the bench ; two members of the bar Assaulted twelve one-gallows men with words of legal war. The way was this : It seems that Smith, in open- ing his case, Had told the jury carelessly, as of some time or place, That he had seen a real, dead mule ; his language was not pat Of course nobody ever saw a mule as dead as that. But still Smith was excusable the heat of a debate May lead a man unconsciously to slightly overstate. Zeal for a client's lawsuit the more if it be weak May make a lawyer's language go impalpably ob- lique. But still, upon the other hand, an orator, forsooth, Should try and keep his statements within gunshot of the truth ; HIC JONES. 231 And Smith was very careless in observance of the rule To make so rash a statement in regard to any mule. Its absurdness never struck him, for he never stopped to think ; All at once he dropped upon it when he saw a juror wink. Now if Smith had been sagacious, he immediately then Would have modified that statement to those twelve one-gallows men x Would have intimated mildly that it might have been a horse, But he did n't ; conscience smote him, and he sank ' down with remorse Folded up as folds a primrose when the gates of day are shut ; Folded up as folds a jack-knife when a chaw of plug is cut. The greater our experience the more we surely find Kemarks should be adaptable unto the hearer's mind. Twelve preachers might have took it in, but Smith could never fool Twelve citizens of Turkey Creek with reference to the mule. 232 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Then up rose lawyer Soak- 'em ; his lips were close compressed, His left hand gripped his coat-tail, his right was on his breast ; He gazed on the "palladium"; his look was stern and high In thunder tones he emphasized Smith's statement as a lie ; And then, in terms that Soak-'em took occasion to adorn, He branded him denounced him held him up to public scorn, Pointed his finger at him, and, in allegoric sense, He peeled Smith's epidermis off and hung it on the fence. Then in a few pathetic words he made allusion to The immortality of mules, which every juror knew. The jury cheered the diction that in such profusion came, And Smith he writhed in agony of hopeless grief and shame. The jury then were eulogized appropriately neat Of course they found for Soak-'em without rising from their seat. But how they reached the merits of the case is not so clear, For the action they were trying was replevin for a steer. HIC JONES. 233 And then the restless, coatless, but appreciative crowd Gave Smith "the great, big horse-laugh," and he sat there cold and cowed. Hereupon came Brown and Spot- 'em, Jones and Snipe- 'em in the rear, Arm in arm, each with his necktie dangling down below his ear; Each one made a short, spasmodic pull upon his rumpled vest, And, fronting up before the judge, the whole pla- toon right-dressed. "Hie your honor," said old Snipe-'em with a voice diffused, yet sweet, "Hie we've ma' der 'zamination mor' n'er usual complete ; We 've jus' gone hie thro' er can'idate ; 's pro- ficiency is fair.' "Hie you bet," said Brown, who eyed the court with mild and fishy glare. "Went ri' through hie Jones," said Snipe'em ; "he z'all ri' hie on 'er law; He can draw 'er chattel mortgage or three aces ever' draw ; 234 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. 'Z got all Spot-'em's tex-books and reports ; mine, too hie haint he, Brown? Young hie Jones has got 'er principal law lib'ry now in town. "'Zgot 'er daisy moral character Jones squarer 'an a string ; Raised old Spot- 'em seventeen dollars, an' he did n't have a thing ; 'Z by all means admit hie Jones 'er bar; 'ose book urns' stay in town ; Hie old Spot's too full for utterance." "Zasso," responded Brown. "Clerk, swear Hie Jones," old pro tern, said in language gruff and quick. (The court supposed that Jones's antecedent name was "Hie.") Then the clerk said somewhat vaguely, " You do swear hie ffom 'is date, You will solem'ny support 'er conistution of 'er State ; Be 'er lawyer of 'er bar from 'is date hie forthly hence. [Hold up 'er han'] all ri' hie bob so help you fifty cents." HIC JONES. 235 Then the judge gave Jones a chromo ; Jones re- ceived it with delight, And the whole platoon meandered, with a right flank hie file right. So delighted was a juror that the shingle-nail was bust That did duty as a button where the juror's jeans were trussed ; But the cardiac formation of young Smith was turned to stone Ah ! how lurid Jones's future, and how dismal was. his own. Years have passed, and Smith and Spot- 'em have exuded from the State ; Brown and Soak-'em work for Findlay, in the coal bank, lifting slate; Snipe- 'em got in debt to everyone, but Snipe- 'em never frets They made him go to Congress so that he could pay his debts. Jones is everywhere considered as a bright, pe- culiar star ; He 's got one case they say will make his fortune at the bar: 236 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Ejectment for a dam-site on the shores of Yellow Paint On that boulder-drifted shore, Where the angry billows roar, And the women loudly snore, whether they're asleep or ain't. He has written and delivers an exceedingly fine lecture On "Proceedings in Tribunals of Penultimate Con- jecture"; And this very able thesis, though epitomized and short, Contains the law for all the courts of dernier last resort. Let us hope that Jones's future, so auspiciously begun, May, like Snipe- 'em's outlawed due-bills, have suf- ficient time to run. A CORN POEM. 237 A COKN POEM. [Delivered at Centennial J$h of July.] Our President and Governor have said, In proclamations which you all have read, That we the record of the hundred years, Its hopes, its histories, its pioneers, Should hear in public ; wishing to obey, We meet together on the present day. As local annals and such themes as those Are more attractive when addressed in prose, And as the dense statistics of the times Are somewhat irreducible to rhymes, We leave those subjects to their proper charge, And take the liberty to roam at large. There have been men who into verse complete Could rhyme a township map or tax receipt ; But no such man is here. Ourself to-day Must treat of subjects in a general way. While present prices rule on steers and grain, Divine, first-class emotion can't sustain. At such low figures, any Kansas muse All pyrotechnic efforts must refuse ; 238 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Dates, names, statistics and such themes as those Must go remanded to the realms of prose; So here a humble poem we commence, Equivalent to corn at twenty cents. Nate Price of Troy, at Leavenworth last June, Told of a backwoods Arkansaw saloon : Two gay "commercial tourists," somewhat dry, Stepped in for drinks as they were passing by. Says one: "Some lemon in my tumbler squeeze." The other says: "Some sugar, if you please." Each got a pistol pointed at his head "You '11 take her straight," the bar-keep gravely said. The gay commercial tourists bowed to fate, And quickly took their drinks and exits straight. The humble poem that we here begin Has got no lemon and no sugar in. It 's as it is, and we beg leave to state, On this " auspicious day " you '11 take it straight. My theme to-day is History not the shelf Whereon she sets her idols, but herself. If I examine History aright, I read of one long and unbroken fight One thrilling drama ; every scene and act Contains the record of a city sacked. A CORN POEM. 239 From time to time the curtain drops amain On cities blazing, with defenders slain; Yet, ere their ashes have had time to cool, They start again to opulence and rule. To what strange power, so vitalized and strong, Do these recurrent energies belong? Whence come the latent forces that re-rear, From ash and wave, the palace and the pier? No answer back the old historian brings ; His tale is but of battles and of kings. His prose and verse were written to proclaim Some useless battle, or some kingly name No honor given to the brains or toil That pluck the wealth from mountain, sea, and soil. They leave that out but throw distinguished light Upon the least minutiae of a fight. They name the leaders, and each word they said ; The hour, the spot, some phalanx charged, or fled ; The time and place some squadron came in view, And what it did, or what it failed to do ; And then because some something was not done, This king, or that, is whipped and has to run. Then come three cheers for the successful king, And bugles peel like slippery elms in spring. Since Cecrops landed on the Grecian shore, Brought on a stock started a country store 240 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Picked out a site by some prophetic guess, And boomed old Athens to a grand success, The human mind has always sought renown In founding States, or building up a town. Full four and thirty centuries have passed Since enterprising Cecrops breathed his last, And many cities since that early day Have grown up grandly, and have passed away ; Yet ancient chroniclers forget to state What built the cities, and what made them great. Of those of whom the olden stories sing, The greatest hero is the unknown king. Of him of whom old history gives no clew This Unknown King declare I unto you. Who framed the social structure? paid the bill? Who organized its labor and its skill ? Who built the ships and wharves? Who wove the sail? Who fed the armies ? and who forged their mail ? No answer ancient history gives back. These unknown kings no wealthy cities sack; And history, with proud, patrician frown, Ignores a power that never burned a town. Read of the growth of States, and you will find Their opulence to some great king assigned; And being king, by accident or force, He gets the credit, as a thing of course. A CORN POEM. 241 .Now, when the truth is told, it shows two things : First, States are rich and great in spite of kings ; And next, that nations opulent are made By neither kings nor battles, but by trade. Old Business is the monarch. He rules both The opulence of nations and their growth. He, whom we call endearingly "Old Biz," He does the work, the credit all is his. He builds their cities and he paves their streets, He feeds their armies and equips their fleets. Kings are his puppets, and his arm alone Contains the muscle that can prop a throne ; Soon would the gilded fabric tumble down Were Business not the regent of the crown. Old History, stand up. We wish to ask Why you so meanly have performed your task. Under your arm you have a showy book, In which we now insist that we may look ; We 'd like to see what 's in that gilt-edged tome. Say, did Old Business ever reign in Home? You say he didn't? Well, may we inquire If the aforesaid Business reigned at Tyre? "Don't b'lieve he did"? Well, look the index through, And see if he is mentioned once by you. "Can't find his name"? Well, that is somewhat queer. Say, of Old Business did you ever hear 2 242 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. You never did ? Well, I 'm inclined to think Pens full of pigs, and not pens full of ink, Should be the object of your future skill, And that your book should feed the paper mill. O History ! the language may be broad, But we must here impeach you as a fraud. There is a cheerful story that is told About a great Egyptian king of old ; He thought to build a lighthouse on an isle That fronted on the delta of the Nile. He thought to take the money of the State, Build something big, and be forever great. He called for architects, selected one, And turned him over treasure by the ton. Upon an isle, o'er which the breakers curled, Grew up the second wonder of the world ; Far o'er the land and distant ocean viewed, Five hundred feet in snow-white marble hewed ; And on its summit watch-fires, day and night, Directed shipping with a constant light The tower of Pharos, capped with massive ledge, Bearing the monarch's name upon the edge, And o'er the sea for many a league marine The royal name of Ptolemy was seen. The architect, unhonored and unknown, Died, leaving all the credit to the throne ; The man whose splendid genius planned and wrought Was not considered worthy of a thought A CORN POEM. 243 Then died the king, and people one by one Spoke of the tower as something he had done. There stands the lighthouse, but each new decade Beholds the king's inscription slowly fade. It dimmer grows, until it fades from sight, And then a new inscription comes to light ; The architect asserts his rightful claim Where stood the king's, now stands the builder's name. The king's name, wrought in stucco-work and paint, Each year beheld grow dimmer and more faint; Filled with cement, this sentence had been hid : "For mariners. By Sos-tra-tos, of Onid." The rugged, massive letters, carved in Greek, The builder and his residence bespeak, While in the dust, upon the sea and shore, The kingly name goes scattered evermore. Great States, whose splendid ruins scattered lie, Have stood like wonders in the days gone by ; And every State, before it met decay, Has ruled the world on some eventful day Has taken rule by virtue of its sons. Through every State the thread of empire runs ; The ancient nations and the ancient creeds Are strung on empire like a row of beads ; And on the ruins that in silence sleep The name of Business has been graven deep. 244 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. And he has made them be what they have been ; Has made them win because they need must win. And he the architect, who planned and wrought, Building no better than he knew and thought And over all, in stucco-work and paint, The names of kings are feebly seen and faint. The now aggressive spirit of the age Adds to old History an unwritten page ; Chips off the paint and plaster, and anew Kestores the name of Business to our view. Vain were the effort, in this modern age, To tell when Business came upon the stage ; First when and where he hung his shingle out, Is, like a jury trial, full of doubt. The first important European town, In point of time and subsequent renown, Was Athens ; and when founded, facts attest That zeal and enterprise were tending west. If, for a point of time to fix upon, We take the era of King Solomon, We find that restless movement of the race Toward the western world is taking place ; The emigration has become so vast, With buccaneers the seas are swarming fast ; Athens grows large, and public spirit calls For graded streets and more extensive walls ; A CORN POEM. 245 Then Greece fills up, until the moving host Is banked upon the Adriatic coast. The sea but for a moment stops the tide ; Brundusium springs from the Italian side. Then west by north, in undiminished size, The volume of the emigration plies ; Back o'er the line, to deep Brundusium 's bay, Rome builds and paves the world-wide Appian Way. Checked by the western sea, the restless tide Builds up a chain of cities, side by side. Then, seeking vent on scarce divergent lines, Boils through the foot-hills of the Apennines, Builds Florence, Milan, Genoa, Turin, Halts at the Alps, but halts to re-begin ; Then, like a pent-up torrent, the advance Pours through the Alps and floods the plains of France. The path of empire follows in its train ; The western world it gives to Charlemagne. Still on it goes, the straits of Dover crossed ; England opposes, but her cause is lost ; The island fills, no land is left then she Starts out to grasp the empires of the sea. Who planned this movement? What impelled the tide? Kings tried to stop it, but as vainly tried. How quickly is the frail conundrum guessed I It was Old Business he was going west. 246 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. This bright New World its wonderful career Is too well known to be examined here. Its hopes, its progress, rapid and diverse, Need greater inspiration to rehearse. To-day we turn the hour-glass, and anew The sands of a fresh century start through. On July Fourth we always float the flag And push the old bald-eagle from the crag; Fly him the length and breadth of this fair land, From the Penobscot to the Rio Grande ; Then, without rest, we quickly start him on A trip from Florida to Oregon ; Then bring him back, and boost him to the sky, And let him stay there till the next July. O, grand old bird, o'er many a weary mile They 've made you sail in oratorio style, While fledgeling speakers, in refulgent prose, Capped many a gorgeous climax as you rose. To-day our choicest colors are unfurled Soar up, proud bird, and circle round the world ; And we predict that nowhere will you find A place like Kansas that you left behind. He who has lived in Kansas, though he roam, Can find no other spot and call it "Home." As Ingalls says, a Kansas man may stray May leave perchance depart, or go away; In short, may roam ; but be it anywhere, He must return, if he can raise the fare. A CORN POEM. 24; No other State those wants so well subserve Of enterprise, of energy, of nerve ; No other State more thoroughly maintains A deep, firm hold on enterprise and brains ; No other State has held a greater power To meet the harsh requirements of the hour. Though border war her cities overrun, Though swarms of locusts shade the summer sun, No matter what misfortunes may occur, The State goes on as if they never were. Cities arise where towns were burned before, The prairies sparkle with the church and store, And painted harvesters, fleet after fleet, Like yachts, career through seas of waving wheat. We all believe in Kansas ; she 's our State, With all the elements to make her great Young men, high hopes, proud dreams 'tis ours to see The State attain to what a State should be. And when a hundred years have drifted by, When comes the next Centennial July ; When other orators, in other verse, Far better days in better ways rehearse ; When other crowds, composed of other men, Shall re-enact the present scene again ; May they be able then to say that she Is all that we have wished the State to be. 248 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE MEDICINE MAN. [A Story of a Kansas Pioneer.'] PREAMBLE. Stories often teem with sadness this is desolate and grim ; It is of a Kansas doctor, and the way we treated him. And the object of these verses is an eloquent ap- peal To those higher, nobler feelings that, of course, you know you feel. Any man who hears this story is obliged to shed a tear; When I read it to the editor that runs the Pioneer, Hopeless melancholy seized him, and for thirty days, or more, He was wading round in gum boots through the tears upon the floor. STOET. Out to Kansas came a doctor, wide awake and full of pluck ; Up in Atchison he settled, and he leaned up close to luck THE MEDICINE MAN. 249 There he hung out his diploma, and he 8tajed from spring to fall, But he never saw an invalid, and never got a call. Colonel Martin then advised him that more prac- tice could be got, If he only shipped his talent to suburban Wyan- dotte. Up in Wyandotte he lingered just about a year in all, And he talked about his college, but he never reached a call. Buchansaid: "Kaid Topeka"; but Taylor calmly said: " Try Leaven worth or Lawrence, 'hwich ' are better, in their stead." Lawrence, Leavenworth, Topeka yielded similar results, He felt much disappointment, but he did n't feel much pulse. One day he met with Murdock, who observed : " Come down below ; Try the Nile of sunny Kansas"; and the doctor said he 'd go. First he cashed a fat ancestral draft ; then, plung- ing in the dark, Gave to fortune and to Murdock the direction of his bark. 250 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. Down at Wichita he anchored, but his chance was jnst as slim ; His bark was all Peruvian they had no need of him. Shortly after he had "opened out " in busy Wichita, He absorbed by merest accident the rudiments of "draw." His office stayed unopened for a few eventful days ; He diagnosed that noble game in all its wondrous ways. One eve he found a bob-tailed flush of unimpor- tant size ; He stayed behind it and became a pauper in dis- guise. Said he: "This 'bleeding Kansas' is no place for me to dwell One 'call' in three years and a half, and the man that ' called ' was well ! " A very lonesome shirt or two into his trunk he stored, He left his watch in mortmain with his landlord for his board ; He straightened up, disgusted, and relieved his burdened mind With opinions of the country he was now to leave behind, THE MEDICINE MAN. 251 "There is something to this country which I do not understand : Working, scheming, trade, and business, lively lawsuits, labor, land ; There is not that noble yearning here for pills and cultured thought, All my classic erudition is both useless and un- sought ; And the people, as I find them, are as ignorant as geese Of the woes of Asia Minor and the Iliad of Greece. No one stops to read my sheepskin that has hung from week to week ; No one ever mentions Ajax, no one ever mentions Greek. People suffer in abundance from the most unheard- of health, And they keep acquiring lawsuits and accumulat- ing wealth. Day b} r day a man keeps working, just as happy as a clam, If he only has the cash to buy a lawsuit and a ham. Only yesterday I saw a man I thought would surely die ; He had got a compound, comminuted fracture of the thigh. 252 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Aching but a half an hour or so, the leg declined to swell ; He poured cold water on it, and the next day it was well. Then lie worked six hours that afternoon, and, ere the sun went down, He had got into a lawsuit with the fattest man in town. % Now and here I pack my little trunk. By vum ! I would n't stay In climates where a man gets old, dries up and blows away ; Would n't live in a community where fortunes every week Can be made by men without the slightest rudi- ments of Greek. Let me let me find some sickly, classic, senti- mental spot. Here, sir ! check my baggage eastward, via, Paint Creek and Fort Scott." Then he wiped the perspiration from his high and noble brow, And he filed some affidavits that I don't remember now. Shortly after this, a mule train, from the westward coming slow, Camped beside the raging Paint Creek, with the doctor on the go. THE MEDICINE MAN. . 253 An old army mule that evening, after supper, just for fun, Kicked and broke the doctor's arms and legs, and all his ribs but one. This old mule would make a hero for a romance or a song ; When the drums beat, and the bugles sounded battle loud and long, He enlisted in the army, and he helped to pull a train Up the mountains, down the valleys, through the sunshine and the rain ; And right well he served his country, for he knew where duty lay ; He could live for weeks on end-gates when they could n't give him hay. No complaining, no desertion ; through the gumbo to the hub, Week by week our long-eared hero jerked a wagon- load of grub. Lightning struck him, cannon shot him, but he never failed nor flunked ; Danger left him as it found him undiscouraged, undefunct. And in all my army service I have never seen a mule With a keener comprehension of the educated fool. 254 RHYMES OF 2RONQUILL. He would spot a man instanter, if he overheard him speak About Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Correlation, Force, or Greek ; He would work and watch in silence, and look sheepish day by day, One eye closed in meditation, till that man got in his way ; Then that person's friends were lucky if they did not have to make A collection of their comrade with a basket and a rake. Three long days and nights the doctor in my shanty did remain ; Oftentimes he 'd grow despondent, and have symp- toms of a pain ; Oftentimes he 'd seem discouraged, and would say in accents weak : "Oh! condemn a State where folks get rich with- out a word of Greek." Then his language would get flighty from the press- ure of his ills, Mixing Latin, Greek, and Ajax up with three jacks, checks, and pills. But I knew he would recover, or, at least, I thought I knew That the ozone in the climate was dead sure to bring him through. THE MEDICINE MAN. 255 On the fifth day, convalescent, rose this damaged guest of mine, And upon the sixth, all right, but sad, he crossed the Kansas line. Left behind him in his exit were ambition, hope and spunk ; Kansas retained his enmity Paint Creek retained his trunk. Now, a true poetic justice very rigidly asserts That I ought to add a sequel to our hero and his shirts ; And a thorough comprehension of the reason of the rule Says the sequel might embody something further of the mule. Well, our hapless, trunkless hero has regained his native State, He's aesthetic, he 's got wisdom, and is honored but sedate; He has found congenial country, rich and sickly, so to speak, Where the people live on coupons, and like medi- cine and Greek; And a very pleasant stipend he is able now to draw From the active perspiration of his large and manly jaw. 256 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. He has gotten out a volume, which a leading paper said Showed a vast amount of learning, and a very level head; And he lectures to the students in the colleges near by ; And he tells about ambition how a man should do or die; Talks of allegoric eagles flying upward to the sun ; Tells them all about success in life, and how the thing is done. And he lectures those poor students all about the roll of fame How a man should take a broad-axe, as it were, and hew a name ; Talks of noble, high endeavor, and refers in strains sublime To those antiquated footsteps left upon those sands of time. These same lectures have been printed they're the best I ever saw ; But they do not mention Kansas, and they don't refer to "draw." Now my heart would swell with pathos, and my language fill with gush, Just to think what nerve it takes to stay behind a bobtail flush; THE MEDICINE MAN. 257 But, of course, it is n't business for a lecturer to speak Of such subjects to a people who are so diseased with Greek. But if they will send these students to the shore of Yellow Paint To that boulder-drifted shore, where the 'angry bil- lows roar, And the women loudly snore, whether they 're asleep or ain't I could tell them in my lecture that there seems to be a law That applies as well, to greatness as we know it does to "draw." If you have some pairs to draw to, and have only got the sand, You may make the world a pauper on the first or second hand. If you have no pair to draw to, yon must " ante " and must wait : You are likely to be gobbled, but not likely to be great. Fame is something like the waiter that went roar- ing down the hall, Giving neither bread nor greatness to the man with one fish-ball. 258 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. When the summer moon is beaming on the prairie and the stream, When my silver-lighted shanty seems the palace of a dream, Then I sit out on my wood-pile, and I ponder very fast O'er the somewhat funny present, and the much more funny past ; Think of things that might have happened things forgotten long ago How the past had changed the present had it hap- pened so and so. Then I think about the future, and the turn that things may take ; And I say: Hopes are but dreamings of a per- son wide awake ; Then I add: "Good-bye, old Mundane," as to couch and dreams I go ; "I 'm the bachelor of Paint Creek, and my name is JOSEPH JOB." THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 259 THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. [Delivered to an editorial convention.] Poems and poets and poe*tic lays Have almost filled their missions and their days ; The times have passed when minstrels' lyric strings Depicted battles and applauded kings. The time is past of sovereigns and seers ; The time is past of paladins and peers; Once more again is coming on the stage The long-lost era of an iron age. The days of long-haired poets now are o'er; The short-haired poet seems to have the floor ; And now the world no more attends to rhymes That do not catch the spirit of the times. Who cares who stole the coupons of old Croesus? Who cares who stole the Thracian steeds of Rhe- sus? Who cares how Menelaus lost his wife? Who cares how Mr. Paris lost his life? What matters it how Alba Longa grew, Flourished, and plundered every one it knew? To long-haired poets themes like these belong The short-haired poet sings another song. 260 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. The short-haired poet has no muse nor chief; He sings of corn ; he eulogizes beef ; And in the springtime his aesthetic soul Bursts forth in vernal eulogies on coal. He thinks the sunflower nothing but a weed, And thinks far less of fancy than of feed. The power of kings, in his poetic dream, Can cut no figure with the power of steam. These long-haired themes abandoned in a lump, "He sings of Business "business from the jump " ; And in this verse we hope that you will find A modest poem of the brief -haired kind. Our theme is Business, and we gladly sing That which the world now honors as its king ; Although we hear of crowns and titled gold, Flour and pig-iron now the scepter hold. The time is precious, and the world's mad rush Stops not for moonshine, sentiment, nor gush. Untimely is the minstrel who essays The pomp or pride of royalty to praise. For, at the present, man's progressive scope Is due far less to royalty than soap ; Is due far more to workshops and to farms Briarean Business with its hundred arms. THE SHORT-HAIRED POE7\ 26 I '11 tell a story of those games of old Which all the nations gathered to behold ; Where arms and harpers struggled, and obtained The laurel prizes which the victors gained ; And where the vast assemblage shouted loud To praise a victor and to do him proud. And I will tell you how it happened here That two contesting harpers did appear. A golden harp one to the trial bore, A golden fillet on his forehead wore; And from his shoulder, with embroidered fold, Did hang a mantle of brocaded gold. The other harper to the contest brings An iron harp, with ripe, sonorous strings; His hair was brief, and there at times did fly That bilious glare of genius from his eye. The vast assemblage standing round about Received the harpers with a deafening shout, And when at last the tumult died away The judges motioned for the harps to play. Gilded Chloranthus now begins his song, Which jars in harsh, repugnant notes along; He sings of kings, and gold. Alasl it finds But little favor in the judges' minds. 262 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. The audience listen, and are not exempt From feelings both of anger and contempt. He sings how gold, not brains, controls the earth ; How gold makes rank, and then how rank makes worth ; That kings are heaven appointed, and maintains That gold can buy all bravery, and all brains. Chloranthus ceased, and through the crowd there went An unmistaken symptom of dissent. And now, with notes sonorous, clear and sharp, Begins Timesis of the iron harp. He sings how iron makes a nation proud ; He sings how gold to iron always bowed ; Sings of unwalled, yet iron-guarded towns; He sings of iron keels, and iron crowns ; How Klion's golden helmet failed to save Beneath the blow of Thraxis' iron glaive. He sang how Midas begged so long and much The gift Jove gave him of the golden touch, And how at last king Midas tried to shift The consequences of the fatal gift. And then he sang how princely Glaucns sold His dingy arms for arms of solid gold ; How, on the field, the wounded Glaucus lay, While victors bore the arms and sash away j THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 263 How, in the fight, his ardent course was checked, His golden shield unable to protect. Thus from the iron wire the music swept ; Thus through the song the classic phantoms stepped And ceasing, said: "Of kingly power and gold Too much already are the people told." And when the wire ceased trembling, long and loud Came up the approbation of the crowd. Gilded Chloranthus asks another trial, And meeting from the judges no denial, He starts again, but vainly he aspires To tempt the music from the gilded wires. Than kings and gold no other song he sings; No other notes will leave the golden strings ; And when he starts another lyric bold, It breaks and runs into "the power of gold." Then from the crowd a fitful murmur rose That brought his hapless efforts to a close ; And when at last the crowd was silent, then The iron harp and harper start again. He sings of hardships, and he sings of arts Twin themes responsive in all human hearts; He sings of mariners, he sings of mines ; He sings of viaducts, he sings of vines; 264 t RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. He sings how sturdy workmen tug upon The marble ledges of Pentelicon. He sings of piers built out in ocean foams ; Of " woven-winged, sea-wandering sailor-homes "; * Of daring pilots, guiding at the helm Commercial tri-remes to some distant realm. He sings of bridges, and he sings of roads ; Of Spartan manners and of iron codes; He sings of Marathon and of Platea, And how republics fight for an idea. He sings the future, and the First Great Cause ; The birth of morals and the growth of laws ; How nations owe far less to soldiers' drill Than to the forge, and iron-workers' skill; How private rights will slow and surely fail, As labor lowers in the social scale ; How Freedom grows ; how tyrannies decay, As arts evolve, and labor gets its pay. And as along Timesis pours his song, A frightful frenzy seizes on the throng ; They strip the golden harper of his crown, And in the race-course it is trampled down ; The golden mantle from his shoulders wrung, And in the sea harper and harp are flung. THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 265 And then Timesis sang a song of old : "Thus perish they who sing of kings and gold." Now do not burlesque what Timesis said, And, Twain-like, ask me if the man is dead. Your blank expressions, like a billiard cue, Carom me back to what I had in view Which was, to soar in rash, poetic notes; To sing t)f pigs, macadam, poultry, oats. I would not mix at this auspicious time Low, drawling verses on hydraulic lime; But in Icarian flight would "seek the skies On carpets, coal oil, cotton, railroad ties. Fain would I sing of prints, of coffee A; Of harness, harrows, hoop-poles, hymn-books, hay. Fain would I sing of rope whose twisted coil Holds new-washed shirts and horse-thieves from the soil; Of Kansas fire-brick that can stand "cremation"; Of blacksmiths' bellows that can stand "inflation"; Of arts and artisans both great and small But we must cease ; our verse won't hold them all. A long-haired bard a story once did spin ; I '11 clip its hair, and gently lead it in. It says that in Laomedon's employ Old Neptune built the battlements of Troy ; '266 RHYMES OF I RON QUILL. And when he asked the monarch for his pay, The monarch stood him back and answered, "Nay." Then Neptune struck his trident on the strand, And steel-clad squadrons issued from the sand ; He beat his trident on the ocean's banks Up sprang battalions with their iron ranks. The king was filled with terror and dismay ; He issued bonds and Neptune got his pay. O king-crowned Business ! from thy height sublime Thou overlookest every land and clime. Alike thou seest where thy Southern sails Plow up the billows and repulse the gales ; As where the Northern steamers from their track Beat both the wild winds and the wild waves back. No longer dost thou stretch thy feeble hands O'er inland seas, and river-bounded lands ; No longer on the ocean to and fro, Borne by the breezes, do thy galleys go : That time is over, and thou now dost bring The world to do thee homage as its king. More potently than Neptune art thou crowned ; Beat down thy iron trident on the ground, And ere the echo of the blow is done The brick-built cities sparkle in the sun ; THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 267 Beat down thy trident where the sea surf raves, And snow-white navies rise amid the waves ; And where thy iron trident strikes the strand The cities' maritime in clusters stand. But when thy energy is turned away The nations crumble, and the states decay; And blocks Cyclopean in the sands lie drifted, To show how empires fade, how realms are rifted, When from their soil thy trident has been lifted. The world is but an ocean of unrest Whose tidal billows wander to the West; For age on age the ancient East did hold Unnumbered people and uncounted gold. Most happy Kansas! prosperous and free, She rests upon the margin of the sea ; And day by day upon her shores are hurled The tidal billows of the olden world. And Business now, with unremitting toil Goes beating down his trident on the soil ; And, as he moves, the fields of yellow grain Rise waving on the prairie and the plain ; And scarce the soil his iron trident meets, Up springs a city with a hundred streets ; The streets are crowded, Business gives a smile, And moves on, pounding in Neptunian style. 268 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. O'er Western wilds the printing-press each year Becomes a braver, bolder pioneer. No dangers daunt it, and no toils o'ertax; It camps beside the rifle and the axe ; And while the night stars in the west decline, The types are clicking on the picket-line ; And where to-day unnumbered wild deer run, To-morrow's trade, like Memnon, greets the sun. Once Noble Prentis did a story tell About one mule, that tumbled in a well ; And how they threw down straw, until, all right, The mule just tramped his way up to^the light. The Kansas press has had that way to do To leave the bed-rock and to work up through. The well is filled the times have changed since then ; The mule is out and can't fall back again. The last year's wildernesses bloom to-day ; "Through scars to stars" the live State makes its way. In such progressive times as these we guess Most easily the duty of the Press. The duty of the Press is, day by day, To swindle old Oblivion of his prey. THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 269 It is its special duty to reveal The frightful hayoc of some foeman's steal / Like porcupines to fling a lively quill, Or hurl plumbago with destructive skill. The epic bard, the minstrel with his rhymes, Were once the sole historians of the times; Barbaric night has fled before the dawn: The harps lie stringless, and the bards are gone. The printing-press has now usurped their power And clanks Clionian music hour by hour ; While from the pen the ink-drops, day by day, Are drowning kings, and washing thrones away, The local Press should sedulously strive To build up business and to make it 'live. Business is what the people want to hear; The Press should echo it from far and near. No town can hope prosperity and trade, Unless the Press shall vigorously aid. The local Press must utter loud and long Commercial lyrics in unceasing song; Must sing, in notes sonorous, clear and sharp, Songs that re-echo like Timesis' harp. But if the Press, in irresponsive strains, Shall fail to sing of business and of brains ; Shall leave the people and the people's toil; Shall rise above the workshop and the soil ; 270 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. And if the people shall at last behold A press responsive to the power of gold, A change will come; and then the Press will be Thrown, like the gilded harper in the sea. With such high duties honored, we may guess What is the future mission of the Press. 'Tis theirs to be, as in some clock-tower high, Seeing and seen by all, both far and nigh ; 'Tis theirs to be the dial of the times, And mark the progress of all lands and climes. As useful arts come struggling up through trial, The Press records them on its iron dial ; And as its iron fingers slowly mark The forward movement on the iron arc, The world looks up with fervor from below, Watching the iron minutes come and go. What Kansas wants is pioneers, not partisans ; Wants poorer orators but better artisans. The politicians have become redundant, The moribund ones should be mori-bundant. We Ve gathered here from places far away ; Have brought our knitting and intend to stay ; And all of us the greater part, at least Like ancient wise men, came here from the East. THE SHORT-HAIRED POET. 271 We do not live so elegant and well As we 've been "used to" if yon heard us tell For some of us in marble halls lived grand ; And now our only hauls are, hauling sand. And those who nations' destinies might sway, Are out here breaking prairie by the day. Men who have led brigades with bugle sounding Are here police, nomadic pigs impounding. Men for whom senates would suspend their rules Are using oratory, here, to mules ; And he who watered Eastern stock, completes His education, here, in watering streets. But over this we must not feel depressed We 're building up the empire of the West. We have our ills, but these will soon be passed ; Sorrows, like boots, are n't always on the last. These trifling troubles soon will shrink away Like dew, and gamblers, at the break of day. Your honored names we gladly would applaud Who visit us this evening from abroad ; Although not well acquainted, we meanwhile Have read your papers and we like your style. We do not let your efforts go to waste ; We have applauded with the shears and paste; And, speaking metaphorically, thus We stuck to you, and hope you will to us. 272 RHYMES OF 2RONQUILL. A KOMANCE. PREFACE. When a person knows a story that he thinks he ought to teli, "If he doesn't get to tell it, why of course he don't feel well; And if no one stops to listen, why of course a man will feel All broke up and dislocated, and uneasy as an eel ; That 's the reason that I ask you, in a sad, implor- ing way : Here 's a little, bob-tailed gushlet, I will tell it if you stay. CHAPTER I. Well ! the heroes of my story are a maiden and a youth ; Sam was raised in Indiana, and the girl lived in Duluth. Where my subjects met each other, I presume I can't relate I am told it was Wisconsin, and suppose it is the State; A ROMANCE. 273 Sam was storing ardent spirits, and engaged in peddling stencils, While the girl was mangling hash with some old hotel utensils; And they met and loved each other, in that rash, erratic way That is told of in the novel, or is acted in the play. How a man can go distracted on a female, as her lover, Is a mystery to me that I never could discover ; And I wish I could discover why a woman likes a man With such horrible devotion, but I don't believe I can. On the shores of Yellow Paint, After winter,- cold and chill, When the spring-time strikes its focus, By what magic hocus-pocus Come the primrose and the crocus, On the meadow and the hill? Whyfore buds the hamamellis? Whyfore twining up the trellis? Whyfore, from the painted lattice, Does the columbine peep at us? If you '11 answer this, I '11 fill You with ardent spirits gratis. 274 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. In this world of mirth and music, pork, pomposity and pain, There is absolutely nothing human beings can ex- plain. Here I leave the realms of reason, disappointed as I am, And return unto my subject, the Wisconsin girl and Sam. Oh, the way they loved each other, it is vain to try to tell Why ! they sickened all the boarders of a second- class hotel ; This, of course, used up the landlord, who collapsed for want of custom He ran off and left the merchants he was owing, and it bust 'em ; Then the heavy business fortunes went a-tumbling into wrecks, And the banks began suspending and a-certifying checks. Oh, such frantic, furious loving, rabid, restless, reckless, rash ! No ! the people could n't stand it, and the city went to smash ; All the taxes went delinquent, and the subjects of our stanzas Fished their trunks out of the window, and en-routed it for Kansas. A ROMANCE. 275 (Pyrotechnic exhibitions of affection ought to grieve But they 've made the world a circus ever since the days of Eve. Should you call these words ironic, you will make a big mistake, For ferruginous remarks are just the kind I never make.) At this point I end my story ; by the way that you receive it, And the honest way I tell it, I believe that you be- lieve it. CHAPTER II. On the shores of Yellow Paint, where the billows loudly roar, Where the blue-eyed zephyrs faint, and the blue- eyed women snore, On a bluff beside the billows on a bold, project- ing bluff Stands a large and stately building, that is made of native stuff; And around it are the meadows, and the orchards and the fields; High-priced cattle lowing gently, while the modest Berkshire squeals; 276 RHYMES OF IRONQUILIJ And around it leaves of Autumn promenade with reckless rustle, And around it Kansas zephyrs play with custom- ary muscle. Do } 7 ou ask me who reside* here I must say in tearful tones, That said building is infested by a bachelor called "Jones." On the shores of Yellow Paint, where the billows sadly rave, And unhappy zephyrs wail o'er the graveyard and the grave, Where the cypress and the yew let the struggling sunbeams through, And the marble bids adieu to the beautiful and brave, Stands a splendid mausoleum, and the interesting annals Of the owner are presented in extenso on the panels ; And the tomb is minaretted with a white Carrara shaft, That is longer than the oar-pole of a Mississippi raft. Should you ask me what proud being underneath this marble lies, Should you ask whose loving fingers caused these souvenirs to rise, A ROMANCE. 277 Should you ask me whose loud virtues on the mar- ble are set down Having given a perusal, I should say his name was Brown. Brown, you see, was very wealthy, and they built this to attract The attention of the bugler, when the final doom was cracked. On the massive marble panels there are finely written down Many schedules of the virtues and nobilities of Brown Many virtues great and rare; but I cannot help from feeling They omitted Brown's best virtue legal, lawful, thrifty stealing. CHAPTER III. Now I think I hear you tell me, in the most em- phatic tones* "Tell your story blast your Paint Creek! we don't care for Brown or Jones." I repel the interruption, and besides, this slight di- gression Has been told by way of kindness, to correct a false impression. 278 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. It might happen in the future that you M visit Yel- low Paint, Where the billows wildly roar, where the saucy sea-gulls soar, And the women loudly snore, whether they're asleep or ain't ; And beholding Jones's "lay-out," you would in- stantly declare Our romantic hoop-pole lover was a-living over there. Then you 'd pass along in silence, and your heart grow cold and sad, And you 'd take a dose of "ruin," if the fluid could be had ; And you 'd talk of deathless loving, and devotion deep and true ; All at once you 'd see Brown's marble 'mid the cypress and the yew Tomb of him o'er whose bright virtues an inscrip- tion sadly grieves, While the column flings its Outline through the mesh-work of the leaves ; And you 'd say, "See there ! that column ; it must certainly belong To the wild Wisconsin maiden she who loved so deep and strong"; A ROMANCE. 279 And you 'd go and tell the story to the first one you would see Tell how wildly strong their love was; tell how Samuel and she Produced a first-class panic and demoralized a town. You'd say, "There sleeps her potash" you'd turn and point to Brown. But you would n't be correct, for some long-haired, frontier mammoth Wed the girl and started westward, and they 're living out at Klamath. Four large boys get daily flouncings from the tough, maternal withe, And a woman runs that outfit, by the novel name of Smith. Sam is keeping a saloon up in Canada, Toronto, And he drinks his ardent spirits, just like you do, when you want to ; Naught he careth for the maiden, whether she 's extant or not, For she long has been forgotten, just as Sam has been forgot. 280 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. CHAPTER IV. From the shores of Yellow Paint, Where the billows loudly roar, From that adamantine shore, Where the blue-eyed zephyrs faint, And the women loudly snore, Whether they 're asleep or ain't, Comes the burden of my song. When you love a girl, you ourght Not to make it sweet and short Love her light, but love her long. If you love her wild and strong, You will soon be better taught She will leave you without thought. Should you have a maiden's love Love her light, but love her long. I 'm opposed to moralizing, in a solemn spot like this, But in fact man ain't constructed for a heavy strain of bliss. Human beings aie like boilers, and the same rules, it would seem, Have an equal application to affection and to steam. Making love and putting steam on will entail the same mishaps When you get on too much pressure, all is lost by a collapse. A ROMANCE. 281 Now, I think I hear yon ask me, in the most im- ploring tones, "Do us full poetic justice tell us, what became of Jones ? " On the shores of Yellow Paint, break the angry billows still ; Still the marble column gleams, and the angry white gull screams, While the habitat of Jones still is seen upon the hill; There the able-bodied zephyrs, with their melan- choly moans, Rock my native-lumber shanty I'm the bachelor called JONES. RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. THE KANSAS BANDIT; OB, THE FALL OF INGALLS. [ALONZO, the Bandit, is seen walking up and down the HiattoUle road, near Yellow Paint Creek, Kansas.'} (He speaks :) "Here I parade the banks of classic Paint, while Poverty dotli like a setting hen upon me Fortunes brood. The times were once when from Gigantic war recovering, the currency was to the Wants of business equal. With scanty rites, Economy, the sickly child of poverty, was then in Graveyard buried. Apace the times have changed. Drawpoker for the last four years remuneration Hath not yielded. Me constitution doth the full Assimilation of me normal rum refuse. No longer Will the credulous 'bootlegger' accept me Promises. While upon the street women of Doubtful reputation snub me. The avenues of Honest labor all seem closed. The preachers on The roof do jeer at me down on the pavement. THE KANSAS BANDIT. 283 The times, the times are like a mule-kicked lantern Shattered : and all because the people do not rule." [ Walks up and down between Marmaton and Hiatt- ville. Harrison Kelley is seen plowing in the distance.'] (ALONZO speaks:) "Now on the banks of classic Paint I stand, With deathless nerve I clutch this trenchant brand, By fortune crowded to the latest ditch, War I. proclaim against both poor and rich. And now and here, importunate and rash I face the world exclusively for cash." [Music by the orchestra. ALONZO parades, wrapped in d linen duster and profound thought. A. stranger appears. ALONZO draws a sigh and a scythe.'] ALONZO. "Halt. Stand. Ducats or blood. Of which hast thon the mostest ? " [The stranger strikes an attitude and replies:] "My sir I am in occupation holy, I am a follower of the meek and lowly ; Do not detain me I have got a scheme To -get an office. Most of blood I seem To have at present. Ducats are a fiction ; I give thee all I have a benediction. Before I got in politics, dear Bandit, I had a pulpit, and right well I manned it. 284 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. I used to tell the story of the cross, But now I just talk politics and hoss. I 'm down on Ingalls now, for his position I do not think real sound on prohibition. And many things he says doth much displease us ; McGrath says In-galls wants another Jesus. Then Ingalls talks of 'iridescent dreams,' That government is force and so it seems That while so many others are against him, Us moralists have got to be ferninst him." ALONZO. " Give me thy cash I fight not Ingalls, But poverty." STRANGER. "I have not cash." ALONZO. "Pass on." [He goes to Wichita. ALONZO soliloquizes :] "Times be no more what they did use 'ter A Senatorial Toga that old rooster Would not refuse. The times are getting critical And need a change, when those of race Levitical Risk peace and poultry for a place political." [Enter tall stranger, with spectacles.'} ALONZO. "Bullion or blood, of which Art thou most scanty? I 'm the Kansas Bandit, Stand and ante." THE KANSAS BANDIT. 285 STRANGER. "Art thou the Paint Creek Bandit? " ALONZO. "I are." STRANGER. "Do you believe in the purification Of Kansas politics and in the decalogue? " ALONZO. "Distract me not with thy pale cast Of thought : what man art thou, And where thy cash?" STRANGER. "I am the Buck of Duke-ing-ham; I 'm fighting Ingalls every day, I 'm fighting Ingalls every way, I'll make him find out who I am. I get my cash all from the South, And for that cash I ope my mouth." ALONZO. "Art thou a farmer? " STRANGER. "No, I am an agriculturist." ALONZO. " What is the difference ? " STRANGER. " The farmer works the soil, The agriculturist works the farmer." ALONZO. "Oh, me prophetic soul, the tissue mus- cular Which I a feeble remnant in me bosom Have me cardiac formation yearns Now for thee, my long, my long-lost Brother, for thou the usual strawberry mark Hath got upon thy damaged reputation." STRANGER. "Down in thy bootleg now thy corn- knife sheath, While I of deep damnation tell to thee A tale of misery that far beneath 286 KHYMES OF IRONQUILL. That of thine own hath happened unto me. Perhaps you know me by my late bio graphy I am the author of that late Geography. I wanted to collect the revenue. I went to Atchison, and then and there I stayed with Ingalls for a week or two. He put in Leland, and it made me swear. Then Ingalls said, in words that seemed so real, Dear General, won't you proceed to sheol." ALONZO. Thy tale is short, and yet it doth unman me. Thou hast more poetry than picayunes, More spondees than spondtilics Pass on thy way pass on thou need'st not Ante, for in the game of life none But the dealers ante." [He walks off to Fort Scott. ALONZO speaks.} "O finance ! of which word our Senators do the last Syllable accentuate, in what tartarian gloom are All thy maxims shrouded. The People's Party, to Which me native instinct draws me because it Loves the rule of mediocrity, is now on top. I Love the rule of Ignorance. I love to see a granger THE KANSAS BANDIT. 287 Who doesn't know a pine refrigerator from a legal Maxim, discourse on finance, whittling on a store box." [Enter stranger.'] ALONZO. "What, hoe! Stand and deliver." STRANGER. " Who art thou ? Speak ! " ALONZO. "I am a Bandit. I am what Ed. Smith Doth call a 'sovereign squat.' Dis- gorge." STRANGER. "I also arn a kind of Bandit. I run An anti-Ingalls newspaper. I have no cash. I take up a collection as I go, to pay My operating expenses including my Fixed charges. I try to keep my operating Expenses within fifty-five per cent, of My gross receipts. I could do better did Not my pooling contract with Willetts Disturb my traffic." ALONZO. "Thou dost prevaricate. Thou art not an Editor of the People's Party. Thou hast On a clean shirt." STRANGER. "But a dirty undershirt an awful dirty one." ALONZO. "'Tis well but then I want no shirt. Wealth must I have disgorge." STRANGER. "I have no wealth." ALONZO. " What hast thou, then 2 " 288 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. STRANGER. " I have intellect lately discovered like The salt at Hntchinson, but still I 've got it." ALONZO. "That will I take; and with this ghastly steel, Which now in circles with violence centrif- ugal .1 brandish, all above thy ears will I dissever, And make thee like the headless hen of Wichita, fed through the gullet with a goose Quill. All that thou needest is thy Cere-bellum in these post-bellum days. A howler of calamity, He needs no brains, for damit 'e, Can work on cheek and vanity, Big whiskers and inanity." [Smites off all of his head above his ears. The editor walks off with his ears stick- ing up, saying:'] "I have foiled that rude ruffian's sagacity Though I 've lost my formation cerebral, There 's no darkness, however tenebral, That can't be lit up with mendacity. I '11 gather in all the appliances Of the usual Kansas hypocrisy, Charge Ingalls with sheer aristocracy And ram the charge through the Alliances. THE KANSAS BANDIT. 289 And I '11 talk with a random velocity Of his absolute want of ability, Of his world understood imbecility, Of his social and public atrocity. And then as a simple memorial Of what his career has so signified, I'll take up his toga most dignified And wrap it around my corporeal." [Exit stranger.} ALONZO. "Ha! I'll let him go. He 's traveling Upon his cerebellum. He must be careful Or Web. Wilder won't let him do business In the State. I love calamity. I love to howl it And to hear it howled. My poetry is Good although my luck is not. Here Are some verses which I wrote and Paraphrased from the Chicago Mail. I '11 send them to the Pioneer : THE DOLE OF THE KANSAS POP. Nothing to talk but language, Nothing to hear but sound, Nothing to whittle but boxes, Nothing to plow but ground. Nothing to hold but aces, Nothing to hate but hash, Nothing to cheese but racket, Nothing to earn but cash. 290 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Nowhere to rise but upward, Nowhere to drop but down, Nowhere to be but in it, Nowhere to stay but town. Nothing to seek but office. Nothing to drink but '"rye," Nothing to breathe but ozone, Nothing to eat but pie. Nothing to vote but ballots, Nothing to fear but naught, Nothing to howl but reform, Nothing to think but thought What is the use of working? What is the use of trying ? Life is no more worth living, Death is no more worth dying. [Enter stranger, with quick step.] ALONZO. "Pause ! Gold or gore." STRANGER. "I defy tliee." ALONZO. "Defy me not. Dost thou upon that Sand discern that object? " STRANGER. "I do. It is a geode." ALONZO. "It is not a geode." STRANGER. "Then a feldspar boulder." ALONZO. "No, no ! It is a skull." STRANGER. "Impossible ! It hath no cavity." ALONZO. "Gaze on this burnished weapon: Dost thou aught discover? " STRANGER. "I do not." ALONZO. "Gaze closer." THE KANSAS BANDIT. 291 STRANGER. "I see a fly speck." ALONZO. "That is his brain, his editorial brain by Ray of sunlight desiccated. Nay, do not shrink With horror, but come down. My motto : Coin or Carnage." STRANGER. " I am a lawyer, and I stand undaunted. Art thy name Alonzo ? " ALONZO. "It art, but thine the duty not to stand a Gasing, but aghast. Eliminate thy wealth. I cannot stand and dicker Now with thee, But with a snicker Draw my snickersnee." STRANGER. "Thou art of no more force than a last Year's chattel mortgage. Alonzo, dost remember erst- While before a Bourbon county jury when Jim, With Ciceronian voice and gesture, thee of mule Abduction did accuse, and proved it by some Dozen witnesses, although thou sworest thou wert In Ernporia? And reckest thou not how thou thy Grip didst lose, and how, with white lips, thou Saidst 'Save me from hard labor,' until I told Thee that I had Jim fonl ? And dost thou not Remember how that jury had been carefully Selected from sympathetic granger statesmen who Only read the " Union Labor " papers, and how 292 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. With brilliant panegyric I thy honest brow Applauded, and how I called thee a hard-fisted Yeoman victim, I said, of prostrate labor and Contraction, seeking for bread amid the ruins of Chaotic finance, victim, I said, of insufficient Circulation, buffeted by rent and sleepless usury. How with quixotic rhetoric I did fight the gilded^ Yampires in the ambient ether, and how that Granger jury was so polly-foxed that they did Find a verdict of 'not guilty'? Over thy past draw thou the dark Tarpaulin of oblivion, and let me pass, while round Myself I wrap the crusted mantle of forensic Glory. I 'Jl be Chief Justice YET." ALONZO. "-'Tis true pass on but stay. Hast Thou the due-bill that I gave thee for thy Effort?" STRANGER. " I have-est. Behold it ! " ALONZO. " I know thou hast no money. Lawyers Are but educated paupers. Still I can't Do business here for nothing. So far I 've Operated on too small a margin. I now Take hold and freeze onto this due-bill. In pigmy ways I hogmy earnings in. (Takes Ull.) Git ! " \Exit lawyer to Garden City. Tableaux."] THE KANSAS BANDIT. 293 ( ALONZO soliloquizes.) "He 's gone. Behold, the sun is slowly setting. Why did I take this note? It 's only 'fiat.' It is n't worth the trouble of the getting. I can't hypothecate the thing for diet. It 's payable to him, and I forgot To make the rnan endorse it on the spot. But it is good. The penmanship 's proficient It must be good the paper 's white and tough. 'Due n demand' that ought to be sufficient, And certainly the sum is large enough ; And why the thing won't buy a loaf of bread Is a conundrum that just knocks me dead. It seems to me that borrower and lender Have neither rights the other should respect That each man's note should be a legal tender, Abolishing all methods to collect. And then the circulation can be made Fully responsive to the wants of trade. The sum per capita in circulation Must be fixed up by Sherman, right away, Or revolution will surprise the nation. One thousand dollars to the head, some say, With more economy would pull us through, But I believe I 'd rather have it two. 294 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. Yet, 'mid all this calamity, there 's Ingalls What hath he done for Kansas? He doth flaunt His brains around, and with the nation mingles, But it is cash, not brains, the people want. Down, down witli Ingalls ! brains don't represent The people now in Kansas worth a cent. [Tears up the note and throws it away.~] The sun has set. The road no victim offers. I 'm catching cold. Business is awful dull. A hollow cough, combined with hollow coffers, Unless unto some museum this skull This Kansas editorial skull, I sell, My whole day's work won't pan out very well." [A barefooted person, with spectacles, is seen coming.'] ALONZO. "Halt! Who comes there ? Art thou a Mound-builder, or a Troubadour? " STRANGER. "I am a friend with the countersign." ALONZO. "Advance, friend, and give the Countersign." STRANGER. "Down with Ingalls." ALONZO. "The sentiment thou hast, but not the Words. The words are: Soc ET TUUM. As Elder says, l them words is Latten.'" STRANGER. "Sock me no socks. Did not I upon The field of battle meet Prince Hal. ? Where now is Hal. ? In those pathetic THE KANSAS BANDIT. 295 Words of poetess : 'The bark that held the Prince peeled off.' When the 7th Dist. Did my sockless fibula behold, they yelled For me, and it was good-bye Hal. I know These people. Brains they do not want, For if they did, I'd give it to them. Hal. did not know what beat him 'twas Lack of moisture in the atmosphere. He Was the victim of climatic scarcity. My District expects me to produce territorial Humidity, and divide the rain-belt with The sea-board States. Ingalls could not Accomplish it. He therefore failed to be a Statesman. What has he done for Kansas ? All she needs is rain. She having rain Has grain, and having grain had Ingalls. He could not make it rain, hence naught For Kansas had he done. Of course he Made some reputation for himself and State, and all the Union rang with Kansas And with Ingalls. And in the Senate, Leaning up against his own backbone, he Sat and ruled most royally, as to the Intellectual purple born. But still he Could n't make it rain, and now we 've got Him down ! As to the earth the royal ruin falls, We 11 jeer at In galls; accent on the 298 RHYMES OF JRONQUILL. [He passes on. ; drops paper from pocket ; ALONZO picJcs it up and reads aloud.'] "Will somebody please explain Why we do not get any rain ? We 've got prohibition, Behold our position : No whisky, no beer, no rain. Will somebody please explain Why we have n't got any grain ? It 's lack of humidity, Kansas aridity : Because of no rain, no grain. Will somebody please explain Why we have n't got any brain? Because all sterility Envies ability. No rain and no grain hence no brain." [ALONZO, frightened.] "Ha ! What is that coming up the road ? It has a most peculiar aspect. I '11 speak to it. What art thou ? An adverb?" THING. "No. A high moral plane." ALONZO. " Thou art a strange thing. Thy object ? " H. M. P. "The object of a high moral plane is to Get a reputation for being better than any THE KANSAS BANDIT. 297 Other thing. Not to le better, but to get the Reputation. Climb on ; our object is to purify Politics by running it ourselves. To banish 'Iridescent dreams.' To take up prohibition, Female suffrage and the so-called ' moral ' isms That we can handle. We stuck a man in Wichita for selling beer one afternoon Seventy years in jail, with 27,000 dollars fine. We're down on Ingalls for another reason He 's an agnostic and blasphemer. His Speeches show he don't believe that there's Another happy world where he can go and Live forever with us moralists. Then He is vain, and vanity is what high moral Planes abhor. He lacks that Element of Christian humility that should Say unto the nearest Presiding Elder thy Will in politics, not mine, be done. We Think morality requires a change, and that His vanity should be let down. We think That on the tombstone of his politics the Epitaph should be : Up was he stuck, And in the very upness Of his stucktitude He fell." [n, M. P. passes on."] 298 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. ALONZO. "I don't believe I want to climb Up on that thing. It holds a tough-looking But congenial crowd. Prohibition was Once the thing to win with, but it ain't so Any more. Calamity is what now goes. Prohibition is now the last hope which Weak minds have for getting into office. But where 's my cash upon this lonesome Road ? There 's no free silver. Ho 1 Who comes here, in the twilight gloom ? " STRANGER. "A 'noble granger,' who with lung Voluminous would fain be heard. My Name is Calamity Bill. I have a way of Beating^mortgages. " ALONZO. "Art tho.u armed ? " STRANGER. "Yes with campaign documents." ALONZO. "If thou hast any gold or silver, extract It from thy clothing. I am a hard-money Bandit. My demands are now payable in Coin 4rl2|- grains, 90 per cent, fine." STRANGER. "I have none." ALONZO. "Greenbacks or national-bank notes?" STRANGER. "None." ALONZO. " Bonds, coupons, or silver certificates ? " STRANGER. " None. " ALONZO. "Notes, mortgages, securities?" STRANGER. "None." THE KANSAS BANDIT. 299 ALONZO. "Checks, drafts, bills of lading, or Negotiable paper \ " STRANGER. "None." ALONZO. " Hast anything within thy pockets ? " STRANGER. "Only tobacco." ALONZO. " Fine-cut or plug ? " STRANGER. "Plug." ALONZO. "I chew not plug I 'm a dime-novel Bandit. I have no habits. I am a great And earnest soul in deep disguise. By Force of business necessity compelled To rob and steal because there is only Twenty dollars per capita in actual Circulation. All the rest is hoarded. Yictirn I am of Sherman and the Administration. Hast thou good clothes? It's dark I cannot see." STRANGER. "I have at home, not here. Intending to address the sturdy Yeomanry, and whoop them up from an Industrial standpoint, I this night did don A suit of jeans for the occasion, such As I husk corn in." ALONZO. "Art thy boots good ? " STRANGER. "Out at the toes and minus soles. I borrowed them." ALONZO. "Thy hat?" 300 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. STRANGER. "I punched a hole a few yards back, And through the crown a matted lock I pulled. It 's gayly waving through The orifice, although thou seest it not. I had to-night intended to explain Unto the bone and sinew of our country How Sherman and McKinley of a wealthy People made a nation full of paupers. How the Government should issue Money at one per cent, on farms, and Should build vast warehouses, wherein The products of the country can be stored And chattel-mortgaged to the Government. And how the way to make a dollar is To stamp a piece of paper and then Call it one. Language, not cash, Is all I have just now." ALONZO. "Condemn the luck! There is No scope for honest labor. Every avenue Is walled. The horrible contraction Of the currency has made less beef, Less pork, less everything. Around All business enterprises such barrier Is drawn that no one can an honest Living make. Behold the absolute Prostration from which the shores Of classic Paint are suf'ring. See The depression that me present business THE KANSAS BANDIT. 301 Now endures. Oh, desperation ! Sajl See here. I must make business lively. I cannot wait the slow and tedious Restoration of those days when no man Worked yet everything was had. Prepare for death ! I think that I can turn An honest penny by finding thee when A reward is offered. If all were idle, Business won't revive. Something Accomplished, something done, must earn A night's repose. I have within my heart Hot cells " STRANGER. "Shut up! Hear me, thou victim Of commercial chaos. Down at A school-house there expectant waits A Union Labor and Alliance caucus. The F. M. B.'s are coming in, and we Will talk of Ingalls and of money, Ocala, and the platform of St. Louis. I go to tell how laws must needs be Most unjust that will not let a Person beat a creditor. I have A money scheme, most noble Bandit, That beats two of yours. I can rob more Men in fifteen minutes than you can in years. With dangers yours is fraught, with mine Is none. Shall I reveal ?" ALONZO. "Go on." 302 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. STKANGER. "Thy style is antiquated. Men with Views like yours both schemes have tried, And the reflecting ligkt of his'try hath Taught that one can rob more people ten To one by the new process than the old. First. Ingalls must be beaten. In his stead A man of the Alliance must be placed, here And elsewhere a man of hair. We must Have Peffer or a mattress. Then we will Take the printing-presses, and make money, Loan to farmers at a nominal per cent, on Land by farmers valued. Make the money Legal tender, then we '11 scoop 'em in. When once we get the timid, invalid and Weak to lose their faith in a metallic Currency, we 've got 'em. They are left. We cannot reach the man who pins His faith to coin, except to blackguard him, And then he only laughs. But the great Masses with our doctrine stuffed, under Delusion give us property for paper. Of Honesty it hath a certain glamour. We Hold the truck the paper represents. They hold the paper, waiting its redeemer, Like Job of old did his, till time hath Worn them out and made them toss the Sponge. Thy name would give addition To our ranks. Come, go with me and THE KANSAS BANDIT. 303 Make thine opening exhortation. Be no Longer a Dime Novel Bandit, clad in plume And bootlegs. But shout "Calamity." [Tableaux. ALONZO seen struggling with his con- science ; at last he yields, and speaks.] "This recent scheme, I hardly understand it; There 's much more to it than I first surmised. It must commend itself to any bandit, Although, perhaps, it 's somewhat civilized. But it 's deficient in one thing I prize To wit : a healthy outdoor exercise. But still, I '11 go and see what there is in it, And try an exhortation. Though unknown, I '11 give them for about a half a minute What Prentis calls a 15-cent cyclone. Here in the raging Paint my blade I throw, And to the anti-Ingalls caucus go. Now I can shine as in a real dime novel, Although not dressed in bootlegs and red plume, Nor robbing hen-roosts near some settler's hovel, Tackling some drunken snoozer in the gloom. To be a statesman now to me belongs, Like faro checks, I '11 stack the people's wrongs. 304 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Let 's howl sub-treasury free cash and Peffer ; Let 's go back on our mortgages of course While through our statesman's whiskers the wild zephyr, The Kansas zephyr, skips with solemn force. We '11 down 'em, and we '11 keep 'em down, that 's plain ; We '11 keep 'em down as long as it don't rain. With flashing speed the pulse of evening tingles, Lo ! in the East comes the 'free-silver' moon ; Come on, come on we '11 whoop it up to Ingalls. We are all statesmen let us all reune; To this Alliance caucus let us go. Ha ! Ingalls, ha ! thou meet'st thy overthrow." NEUTRALIA. 305 NEUTRALIA; OR, LOVE, PHILOSOPHY, AND WAR. [My friend's story.] CHAPTER I. Well ! they fired upon Fort Sumter; I applied for a commission, And I got it through the efforts of a one-horse politician, And asssmed the fearful grandeur that befitted the position. Being young, I got a detail on the staff of General Skubobs ; Then I went and bought a quantity of military dubobs First, a lot of gilded buttons, feathers, shoulder- straps and sashes, Then a little gilt-edged sabre, made for cutting swells not gashes; Then I went and bought nay orderly a gorgeous coal-black charger, For myself I bought another that was just as black, and larger; Then with princely grace displayed them at the general's headquarters, And I signed "By order of," to the military orders. 306 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Now I pledge my sacred honor that there 's nothing that could charm me Like a detail at the office of a man who ran an army; And, I'll tell you confidentially, I honored the position, And I served with much eclat, (if you know its definition.) Very senseless is the public, very obstinate and mulish, In its reverence for trifles that are nothing else than foolish ; And it honors gilded buttons makes no odds where it may find them But it never sees the person who is standing up behind them. CHAPTER n. What the world at large calls " rank " is a most imposing building, An enormous pasteboard palace, decked with min- arets and gilding; Sages may pronounce it empty, and the preachers, transitory, But it is n't any difference as long as it is GLOKT. NEUTRALIA. 307 Go and galvanize a peddler, go and get the man a scepter : Won't he rule his little kingdom just as if he 'd always kept her? Go and stick a lot of tinsel and some gilded buttons on him : Don't the princely little notions settle suddenly upon him? Yes, before this piece of tinseling, the world's ver- tebral column, Ain't it bended in a manner that is comically sol- emn? Go and get a third-class drayman, stupid, awkward as a camel : I can wrap him up in purple, I can dope him with enamel ; Then I'll call the man a "monarch," and will put him in a palace, And I'll peg some courtiers round him, dressed conspicuously gallus ; Then I'll gamble off my raiment, that, as certain as I try it That as sure as I invest him with the potent, royal fiat, All the world will rush to honor him, in one con- vulsive riot. 308 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. As regards these sage reflections, it is very much essential That you keep them to yourself, for I got them confidential. Just as soon as I liad heard them, off I went and bought a sabre, And resolved to go for GLORY, on somebody else's labor ; And my dreamings of the future, with their hues kaleidoscoptic, Painted me a taurine youth with a very vitreous optic. Then unto myself I said : While these skies are so propitious, I will go and see the elephant, and be like old Fabricius. So I went and took a detail at the general's head- quarters, And I signed his name, and mine, to the military orders. CHAPTER III. Near the post where we were stationed was a city, large and growing, And its avenues and houses were with business overflowing ; NEUTRAL/A. 309 On the hills, beyond the echo of the fierce com- mercial scramble, Were the private houses builded, with magnifi- cence Alhambral. And the handsome, happy maidens, in unending swarms, were flocking Down the sidewalks, through the city, stopping, shopping, and a-blocking Up the pavements ; while the gay boys were con- tinually dashing Through the highways, with the lightning-legged horseflesh they were lashing. I had scarcely made an entrance to my military station Ere the city balls and parties sent me up an invi- tation. There was one thing very certain I was far from being handsome, But I am willing to affirm that I thought that I could dance some. And through all this vale of sorrow, I was never known to shirk a Chance to enter into the spirit of a waltz or a mazurka; And I find by computation that I 've worn out many millions Of this white Wisconsin flooring lumber, dancing square cotillions. 310 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Well ! the gilded soldier buttons I was wearing seemed to blind 'em ; While unseen, unknown and friendless, I was stand- ing up behind 'em ; But with many happy moments my official stay was flavored, And I found myself a guest, even more than honored, favored. CHAPTER IV. Well ! there came a grand old soiree, and the city all attended, And the hall was hung with flags and flowers, and decorations splendid ; And the chandeliers were shaded with a tissue gauze that sent a Sort of sifted light suffused with a delicate ma- genta. And the splendid jewels glistened, and the ribbons and the laces In the tinted light seemed floating, like the drapery of graces ; And the rich brocaded textures, with their rash, peculiar rustle, Roared a ceaseless, sullen bass, to the all-pervading bustle. NEUTRALIA. 311 Round the room the ladies floated, in their moire antique and satin, While the men, behind large smiles, bowed to this 'n and to that 'n, And the floor was full of waltzers, and the air was laughter-laden, While the orchestra it sobbed like a broken-hearted maiden. And it moaned, and shrieked, and sobbed, in a wail for human folly, While the fiddlers chewed tobacco and looked very solemncolly ; Then above the caller's calling, and the wild, tempestuous chatter, Rose the grand combined results of the aggregated clatter. It was just about this moment that I made a sud- den entry, That I added to the list of the dithyrambic gentry, And I hardly had the time to appreciate it fully, When a chap I did n't know said the thing was mighty bully. 312 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. I demanded then who HE was, and I frowned upon the creature; He confessed his name was Boggs, that his father was a preacher ; Then inquired of me who I was, and I said I was an aid-de- Camp upon the staff of Skubobs; then he said there was a lady That he 'd like to have me dance with ; I replied that I was willing, But I thought I really needed some preliminary drilling; But he said it was no matter, and he thought that I would answer, For the lady he would find me was a very charm- ing dancer. She would show me through the changes, if' I needed the instruction ; Then I told him to propel with his threatened in- troduction. Now, my backwardness was "stuff," for I had a certain notion That I simply was immense on the "poetry of motion." NEUTRALIA. 313 Well 1 of human nature's phases, it 's the funniest and oddest, When a man of frightful cheek makes an effort to be modest. CHAPTER v. Yes, I took the introduction ; Boggs alleged her name was Laura; So I made my finest bow, and I eyed the lady for a- Bout a half a dozen seconds; then I asked her to determine If she 'd have me for a partner in the next ensuing German. Then she smiled like the Madonna, and she told me "Yes" so neatly, That I drifted out to sea, and she captured me completely. I have heacd them talk of Guido, of Yandyke, and of Florello ; But I '11 take my deposition that there never was a fellow Who could plaster any pigment onto canvas, or on paper, Or could ever make a picture that could ever hold a taper, 314 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Or could ever be compared, as to happiness of fea- ture, Or to symmetry of form, with the sunny-hearted creature That was pointed out by Boggs, the descendant of the preacher. Let old Yirgil praise the naiads of the rapid, blue Eurotas, Spokeshave dance his airy fairies on the light leaves of the lotus If you set them down by Laura they would never get a notice ; She had such a calm, bland way, and her tongue was never running In an endless, eager effort to say something very cunning; And she looked you in the eye when she spoke or when she listened, And you always knew her feelings by the way her blue eyes glistened. There may be a woman fairer, with more elegant demeanor, With more useful information, calmer, lovelier, serener But, if there be such a woman, this deponent hath not seen her. NEUTRALIA. 315 CHAPTER VI. On her finger gleamed a diamond, with prismatic hues incessant, On her neck a string of pearls, solid moonlight, opalescent ; And upon her arms two bracelets, representing sprays of laurel, With their petioles of gold and their foliage of coral. Or, at least they say she wore them on the evening of the soiree ; If she did, I never saw them all I thought or saw was Laura; But I guess she must have worn them, for the pompous, ugly Madam Parvenoodle since informed me that " old Banger's daughter had 'em " ; But that all of Laura's jewels were much cheaper arid much duller, A.nd inferior to hers, both in brilliancy and color. Now, this Madam Parvenoodle, who disparaged everybody, Was the very beau ideal aristocracy of shoddy, And her husband made his money, if I am not much mistaken, On a recent army contract on some ancient army bacon ; 316 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. And, throughout her wide acquaintance, she divided up her slander As between Jier friends and enemies, with most impartial candor; And she had a way of talking so that folks could understand her. Well, that night has flown forever, with its floors so smoothly waxen ! Gone are all those chestnut ringlets gone those tresses brown and flaxen ; Gone those stand-up paper collars gone that faultless Anglo-Saxon ; But they glitter in my fancy like the distant multi- hedral Steeples, domes and sunlit turrets of some beauti- ful cathedral. CHAPTER VII. All the next day, and the next, that succeeded the grand soiree, I was crazy as a June-bug all I thought of was Miss Laura ; All the office work got tangled with the thoughts of "fields Elysian," And the ink was slung regardless of a requisite precision ; NEUTRALIA. 317 All the post returns got mixed, all the details and the orders, Till old Skubobs made remark that onr mind seemed on the borders Of insanity or tremens said he thought he could discover Sad cerebral indications of the drunkard or the lover. Here he tipped a knowing twinkle at the cavalry inspector, Colonel Skopendyke, and Chopemup, the medical director. That was well enough for Skubobs ; but the sutler chipped in boldly With an old azoic joke, and I told him, somewhat coldly, That if any individual should start a conversation That would make this girl the subject of the slight- est observation, I would jam his osfrontalis, (that 's a Latin name I borrowed For a bone a person carries, I believe it 's in his forehead.) If there 's any human being that can claim my deep aversion, It 's a sutler in the army. It may be a foul asper- sion; 318 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. But when moralists are satirizing avarice and mammon, Let the philanthropic skeptic who inclines to think it gammon, Watch a regimental sutler selling "bitters" and canned salmon. Skubobs was a nice old man, very courteous and pleasant, Brave as a Nemean lion, in a battle omni- present ; He appreciated fun, was a dignified old joker, Was a splendid judge of horseflesh, was an ever- lasting smoker, Punished ardent spirits mildly, was a perfect whale at poker ; And he knew his occupation, for he 'd had a life- time training In the theory of war, and the practice of cam- paigning. CHAPTER VIII. There is something in a flag, and a little burnished eagle, That is more than emblematic it is glorious, it 's regal. NEUTRALIA. 319 You may never live to feel it, you may never be in danger, You may never visit foreign lands, and play the role of stranger ; You may never in the army check the march of an invader, You may never on the ocean cheer the swarthy cannonader ; But if these should happen to you, then, when age is on you pressing, And your great big, booby boy comes to ask your final blessing, You will tell him : Son of mine, be your station proud or frugal, When your country calls her children, and you hear the .blare of bngle, Don't you stop to think of Kansas, or the quota of your county, Don't you go to asking questions, don't you stop for pay or bounty, But you volunteer at once; and you go where orders take you, And obey them to the letter if they make you or they break you ; Hunt that flag, and then stay with it, be you wealthy or plebeian ; Let the women sing the dirges, scrape the lint and chant the paean. 320 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Though the magazines and journals teem with anti-war persuasion, And the stay-at-homes and cowards gladly take the like occasion, Don't you ever dream of asking, "Is the war a right or wrong one?" You are in it, and your duty is to make the fight a strong one, And you stay till it is over, be the war a short 01 long one ; Make amends when war is over, then the power with you is lying, Then, if wrong, do ample justice but that flag, you keep it flying ; If that flag goes down to ruin, time will then, with- out a warning, Turn the dial back to midnight, and the world must wail till morning. CHAPTER IX. Well ! to shorten this narration, and prevent un- due expansion Of a melancholy story, I will merely say, the man- sion Of old Banger saw me often, in response to invita- tion, As the choice, acknowledged "brute" of the "fair- est of creation." NEUTRALIA. 321 And the fairest used to send me a diurnal little glyphic Of the hiero- variety that demoiselle lucific; And to parties, balls and concerts we did very often go forth, And we talked of love and romance, moonshine, poetry, and so forth. By the sacred muses nine, and the elves and fairies with 'em, You can just presume to reckon that I got to sling- ing rhythm ; Oh, the way I set 'em up this young lady of Caucasian Antecedents, from her lover got a stated daily ration Of consolidated "bosh "done up somewhat in this fashion : CHAPTER x. (Ahem ! ) Am I but the sport of fancy? Necromancy, Has she taken Me in charge? My ideas, are they shattered, So that scattered They forsaken Roam at large? 322 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. Oh, I 'm crazy as a loon ! For this very afternoon Down the street I saw her sailing like a barge. There 's a certain sort of feeling That comes stealing Over me When around her; Every one has an ideal. Is mine real? Can it be, Have I found her? Is it she, is it not? That 's the question I have got It's a question I am going to propound her. Never was a knight more eager To beleaguer Any town That was walled; Or to batter Castles flatter At the bidding of a crown When it called Than am I, and I would go Almost anywhere, you know, Why 1 I 'd lay the mountains low, NEUTRALIA. 3S3 Miss ray dinner, Catch a comet, scare an earthquake, drain the ocean ; Crack a planet like a nut, stop the motion Of the suu. and moon and stars, if I could win her. CHAPTER XI. It's a fact that's very certain, man is naturally stupid, And he somehow falls in love, and he lays it all to Cupid ; And he goes to rhapsodizing, and his comprehen- sion narrow Shields his idiotic folly with the allegoric arrow. And he throws away his time, and he throws away his talents That 's the way it was with me, and I guess I 'm like the balance ; And he loses just that moment all his judgment and discretion, When a female little woman gets him fairly in possession. When a man is "dead in love," the successful rumination Of the plainest kind of gum is a difficult vocation. 324 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. "Ah ! this thing they call affection is a thing that 's very shifting," Argued Skopendyke, the colonel, when he saw rny matters drifting; "I had better cut him out, better give the youth a lifting Yes, I'll break up these arrangements, for I know that he '11 be gladder In a dozen years from now, than he would be if he had her ; And I '11 get the girl myself, and the wedding vow will pass its Sort of warranty conveyance to old Banger's specie assets." Then he started in to do it, and he got an intro- duction, And before I knew my danger he was carrying destruction On the right flank and the left, through my hopes and my ambitions, And assaulting, one by one, all my salient posi- tions. This same colonel was a person very chatty, very fluent, Full of talky-talk and smiles, and a perfect social truant ; NEUTRALIA. 325 He had never been contented, he had always been a rambler, He was everywhere at home, an adventurer and gambler; He was just the style of person so successful in re- cruiting, And it got him a commission ; but when bugles got to tooting, He skipped back and "grabbed a root"; for he could n't stand the shooting; He had not the slightest symptom of a shadow of a fraction Of a principle of honor or integrity of action ; He had flown o'er land and sea, as a sort of human condor, Seeking for a girl and fortune he could pounce upon and squander. So, in dealing with a woman there was nothing to restrict him; One could never be his idol, one could always be his victim ; And there isn't a canal that has ever yet suc- ceeded In developing a mule having half the cheek that he did. 3-36 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. CHAPTER XII. When the status of affairs came before my obser- vation, I lit out for Laura's mansion, and embraced the first occasion To suggest how much I liked her ; when I had her mind refreshed on That to me important topic, I propounded her a question : Would she have me? would she not? She re- quested me to bother That outlandish old persimmon that she called her DEAR, KIND father. Well 1 I tipped back in my chair found the armholes of my "weskit," Stuck my thumbs in viewed the ceiling and concluded that I 'd "resk" it. Old man Banger was a crabbed, overbearing cross- grained banker, And he held onto his money as a ship does to its anchor. That a poor man could be honest was a fact he always scouted ; That the end of man was money was a postulate undoubted. NEUTRALIA. 327 And he worked, and tugged, and worked, with the grirn determination That he 'd gobble all the currency there was in cir- culation. Life for him had just two virtues, and these two he always noticed : They were "Never overdraw," and "Protect your note from protest." When I went to interview him Laura's dear, beloved "paternal" There I found him in his office, in the evening, with the colonel; And the colonel was a-bragging of the wealth that HE was wielding ; Of the real estate HE owned, and the rental it was yielding, And he went on telling Banger how his ardent love was centered On the blue-eyed little Laura, when I came, and knocked, and entered. Just as soon as I beheld them, I as quickly appre- hended That my goose had just been cooked, and my love affair was ended ; 328 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. But I could not stop my action, it was idle to re- trace it, And although I saw my danger, I determined I would face it. CHAPTER XIII. All I had to say I said ; but a glimmer of discredit Overcame old Banger's features just the moment that I said it ; And he rose upon his feet, and he paced the room a minute, And he kept his eye upon me with a world of sar- casm in it. "Want my daughter, little Laura! Well, I guess that I can answer, If you '11 give me just a little information in ad- vance, sir : How much ' coupons ' are you worth, how much 'ducats' can you put up? This 'collateral' 's the stuff. How much 'assets' do you foot up? Little Laura is expensive, and I don't want you to court her If you have n't got 'securities ' sufficient to support her." NEUTRALIA. 339 Here we opened out onr belfry, and replied : " Sev- erial dollars' Worth of recklessness and shape, and a box of paper collars." And we weighed him out a chunk, (on that bone that 's got that Latin Name we spoke of once before,) and of course he had to flatten. Then we turned upon the colonel, saying: "John, we 've brought your saddle Home and hung it on the floor." Here the colonel did skedaddle Through the door that we had opened for his egress, and he ran on Down the street, as if we 'd shot him from a twelve- inch rifled cannon. Then we took old Banger home in a 'bus that hap- pened handy, And we bade him an adieu on the steps of his veranda ; And for many days thereafter Banger toted a pro- boscis That was big enough to fit on the Khodian colossus. 330 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. On the next day came our grief hope showed nothing to abridge it Laura wore the colonel's ring on her left, engage- ment digit ; And we thought when we beheld her view us coldly like a stoic, That we 'd go and do a something most roman- tic'ly heroic. CHAPTER XIV. I can give you a prescription that will always make a hero ; Go and get a full-fledged lover and reduce his hopes to zero ; Get a man that loves a woman with devotion pure and steady, Let the woman "go back on him," and your hero is all ready ; Now just turn him loose and watch him : see, old Cerberus, he cringes 1 See ! the red-hot gates are beaten from their solid, brazen hinges, And HELL'S blue platinum standards he is sabring into fringes ; NEUTRAUA. 331 And he 's dealing harsh percussion, with a violence volcanic, On the hacked and battered helmet of his majesty satanic, Who calls wildly on his squadrons, that are crum- bling into panic. I was feeling very ugly at the present trying junc- ture, And I made my mind up fully that I really ought to puncture Colonel S.'s epidermis, as a moral obligation, When old Skubobs got an order for a sudden change of station, And in eighty hours thereafter we were trying hard to plant a Little striped piece of bunting on the bastions of Atlanta ; And the vibratory roaring of the Parrot and the mortar Gave me something else to think of in the place of Banger's daughter, Who a thousand miles in safety from the carnival infernal, Was a-dreaming of the danger of her rich and ab- sent colonel; 332 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. Who not fancying the danger, got a detail of em- ploy Buying horses for our army corps in southern Illinois. All communities are cannon intellect Is ammu- nition ; Man is simply a projectile, flung with more or less precision. And the more you jam him down, if he only has the powder, Why, the higher up he goes, and the gun it roars the louder. And the globe-sight of that cannon is a woman, and her station Is to give the rash projectile proper flight and ele- vation To the sky or to the mud it must go at her dicta- tion. CHAPTER xv. Well, we whacked 'em at Atlanta we whaled 'em, we flailed 'em, Then we raced 'em down through Georgia, till they did n't know what ailed 'em ; NEUTRALIA. 333 And we sang and marched a-fighting, and we fit and sang a-m arch ing, And we left a belt of charcoal through a country scathed and parching. But the grub gave out at last, GLORY could no more elate us, And we sighed for rice and mule-pie, and we for- aged sweet potatoes; Till at last old Sherman told us : " Boys, we 're just o-bleeged to reach a Little fleet of grub that 's floating at the mouth of the Ogeechee ; But a fort, my cherished bummers, lies between you and the water, And we 've got to live on yams till you thieves have gone and got her ; It 's a perfect little daisy, and will have to be scaladfd ; All the parapets are steep, scarp and glacis pali- saded. And the pathway of attack will be five-fold en- filaded." Then he turned and asked old Hazen if he thought his " boys " could make it. "Make it!" said old Hazen, "make it! ain't they just o-bleeged to take it? " 334 RHYMES OF IRON QUILL. Oh, the way that we went for itl and in just a holy minute We were through it, 'round it, under it, and over it and in it; Oh, the way we just went through 'em like a regiment of tunnels ! Till we struck our broad supply ships, with their fuming, fiery funnels, And with rations on their decks, piled six yards above the "gunnells." "See the bummers ! " said old Sherman, with most elegant emotion ; "Ain't their heads as horizontal as the boozom of the ocean ? " Old Tecumseh, then "sasha'd" in a manner very frantic, And lean Corse, of steep Altoona, he was equally as antic: They had finished the campaign from Atlanta to Atlantic. Then beside the tireless ocean did we cheer the spangled banner, And sing "Good-bye, 'Lizer Jane," in an incoher- ent manner. NEUTRALIA. 335 CHAPTER XVI. What was little Laura doing? She was reading hasty snatches, Here and there, of grand, old battles, in the rapid press dispatches ; She was looking through the papers for her rich, high-minded suitor He, the bravo of a parlor; he, the dashing, gay recruiter Who had gambled and kept bar from McGregor down to Natchez It was he that she was seeking in the rapid press dispatches. Then she said: "If I shall find him with the wounded, dead, or dying, It will be with FAME'S bay chaplet on his manly bosom lying. So intrepid and so fearless ah ! my colonel, my Apollo, Being led by such as thou art, who is he that dares not follow ? All the world shall be emblazoned with thy rash, magnetic valor" Here she stopped to read a moment, and her face it blanched with pallor, 336 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. For she read a little "local," how the colonel, up at Cairo, Went and gambled off his money at a little game called "faro." With about a hundred thousand he had wisely been intrusted, So he hunted up a "tiger," and he stayed with it till busted ; And he hadn't bought a horse so the colonel rose and "dusted." But they captured him at last, and they gave him an impartial Sort of trial down at Memphis, at a general court- martial ; And because he fed the tiger with some cash that wasn't his 'n, They contracted for his labor in a military prison. Little Laura reads the local ; not upon her taper finger Does the amethystine circlet of the colonel longer linger, But she throws it from her, shrieking and the blue-eyed little dreamer, Swooning on the Brussels carpet, lies without a single tremor. NEUTRALIA. 337 CHAPTER XVII. Many years have passed and ended Colonel Skopendyke is buried ; General Skubobs reached the Senate, his opponent being ferried Up a salt, salciferous streamlet in the kingdom of Kentucky, Just because his name wa' n't Skubobs, which was certainly unlucky. And old Skubobs he is honest, draws his mileage and per diem ; There are some who do not like him, but there 's no one that can buy him ; And he 's never absent-minded, and you never see him walking Off and leave his mouth behind him in the Senate chamber talking. Boggs, the preacher's son, has vanished; from reports, as far as we know, He is up in Kansas City, and a-canvassing for keno ; Years ago, in Cowley county, with a little twelve- inch breaker, He produced a crop of sod-corn, sixteen bushels to the acre; 338 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. And he platted out a city, but he could n't show a comer Any corners, for the grass had grown so fearfully that summer. Doctor Chopemup, the surgeon, he has lately gone to giving Good advice instead of pills, and he makes an honest living; He has quit inspecting pulses and regenerating eye-balls, And has gone to spreading tracts, and a-hammer- ing on Bibles. As he could n't save men's bodies, he assumed the useful task a- Saving all the balance of 'em, up in Omaha, Ne- braska ; His best hold is "immortality" he gives it to them monthly, And the deacons wake the snorers when he reaches " twenty-ouethly." NEUTRALIA. 339 CHAPTER Old man Banger is a pauper. When the banks began to crumble, And the price of gold was falling, he was ruined in the tumble. All his money and his courage simultaneously left him, And unceasingly he murmurs at the bad luck that bereft him. Since his money has departed he has nothing left but timor All that mercenary arrogance has gone without a glimmer; Money made him and unmade him, it was all that could sustain him ; Fortune, taking it away, irretrievably had slain him. Now a dreary monomania is slowly o'er him steal- ing A sort of "he-wlio-enters-here-leaves-hope-behind- him" feeling. Any man is BRAVE with money ; braver far is he without it Who dares always act uprightly, and not fret him- self about it 340 RHYMES OF 1RONQUILL. We should keep our faith and courage ; if calami- ties assail us, If misfortunes swoop down on us, like the vultures of Stymphalus, It will never do to weaken, it is cowardice to fly them ; Do like old Troilian Ajax strike an attitude, defy them. If we waver and fall back, Fate will ever then be urging Us like quarry slaves at nightfall, homeward to our dungeon scourging. Madam Parvenoodle's husband is a prominent civil- ian He has sweetened Uncle Samuel for over half a million ; Wherefore'Madam got religious, and she jined the church for morals, And she prates about her Bible, and her neighbors, and their quarrels ; And she says she 's got a Saviour, and a spanking span of sorrels. Every man and every woman, irrespective of posi- tion, Is a living, breathing romance, be they pauper or patrician. NEUTRALIA. 341 Each day's doings make a pamphlet, which we bind in gold and velvet, And beside preceding volumes in our memory we shelve it. When at evening, tired of labor at the counter, shop or forum, In our stocking feet we saunter into memory's sanctorum, We unshelve these treasured volumes, and we silently look o'er 'em ; Then we find, oh, fickle Hope I how you always hold back from us Just the very things we need, just the very things you promise. CHAPTER XIX. When the work of day has ended, and the evening shuts the skylight, When the Northern Crown and Hydra stand trans- figured in the twilight, When Orion's blazing girdle gleams with hues of gold and lilacs, And around the pole careening whirls the phantom Arcto-Phylax, Oft I go to read these pamphlets, in the alcove where I store thein.^ In the parlor of my memory, I one by /) J /,' er t ^ iem - / Warsare schoolings of the nations, and the records //I yf 7^1 ante-bell um ' fl Are, like palimpsests, o'erwr/tten in vermilion on ves I take them gently, with their and velvet covers; One by one I turn their pages, read of heroines and lovers ; Read of recklessness in man, read of constancy in woman, Read of marches and of sieges, and endurance superhuman, Which the intervening years with prismatic hues illumine. Then my fancies change to dreaming, and the chandelier burns dimmer, And its rays begin to waver, with a pale, unsteady glimmer ; And they wander o'er the ceiling, and the sofa, floor, and curtain, With irresolute demeanor, chilly, gloomily, uncer- tain ; NEUTRALIA. 343 And they quarrel with the shadows, which they vainly try to banish, Then they gather up their forces and mysteriously vanish. All at once come indications of a strange, odylic presence, And the atmosphere and room teem with magic phosphorescence ; Brighter grows the room and brighter, and each coming moment tripples, On the floor and walls the lustre of the live, electric ripples. And they stand in bold relief, every moment grow- ing bolder, Till I feel some unseen fingers rest their weight upon my shoulder ; Then I feel the thermal currents of some mild, mesmeric aura, And it whispers I awaken 'twas the bine-eyed little Laura. 344 RHYMES OF IRONQUILL. ADIEU. Oft the resonance of rhymes Future hearts and distant times May impress ; Shall humanity to me, Like my Kansas prairies, be Echoless? IBONQUILL. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. DEC 1 8 r Form L9-42m-8,'49(B5573)444 ' ^^^^^^^^^^7 4 ?'^^fM t*T^*'4<&*:>: %& \ }: -$t. : *$&&5J& ^^i* :''il%*$: Sfe ' ^-^^ 'iSfe^' **' lF# ' 'X? ; ^Jt!^>dtfc' ' ^**&^-'iffiFf*&r* ' *^- **' ' x2* : '* JKls^dtit *^**3ri^<*-.' ^^spS^&i^^^^^^^^M'^ ;,^*^^St y ^rf^:K^1^?^*v^#1^tW*fe lii^ 1 iffip* ; ^^1*^^^.^ i2iisay^tS? ?^S^i Str::* r '.*!/''$- *e*'- T j -r& ill m IB MB i m III III I III 1 1 Illlll Illl III MINIM IN 1 1| 3 1158 01301 5655 - - - W22s rhymes of Iron- PS 3145 W22s ^^&^^-'^^^^^^^^^^'^ m ^^m^^^^m^Km^ ^^^^^^^^.:^^^'^^^^ f