JACK HORNER.
"Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a Christmas Pie:
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a great boy am I!"
Ah, the world hath many a Horner,
Who, seated in his corner,
Finds a Christmas Pie provided for his
thumb:
And cries out with exultation,
"When successful exploration
Doth discover the predestinated plum!
Little Jack outgrows his tier,
And becometh John, Esquire;
And he finds a monstrous pasty ready made,
Stuffed with stocks and bonds and bales,
Gold, currencies and sales,
And all the mixed ingredients of Trade.
And again it is his luck
To be just in time to pluck,
By a clever "operation," from the pie
An unexpected." plum";
So he glorifies his thumb,
And says, proudly, "What a mighty man
am I!"
Or perchance, to Science turning,
And with weary labor learning
All the formulas and phrases that oppress
her,—
For the fruit of others' baking
So a fresh diploma taking,
Comes he forth, a full accredited Profes-
sor!
Or he's not too nice to mix
In the dish of politics;
And the dignity of office he puts on;
And he feels as big again
As a dozen nobler men,
While he writes himself the Honorable
John!
Ah, me, for the poor nation!
In her hour of desperation
Her worst foe is that unsparing Horner-
Thumb!
To which War, and Death, and Hate,
Right, Policy, and State,
Are but pies wherefrom his greed may
grasp a plum!
Oh, the work was fair and true,
But't is riddled through and through.
And plundered of its glories everywhere;
And before men's cheated eyes
Doth the robber triumph rise
And magnify itself in all the air.
"Why, if even a good man dies,
And is welcomed to the skies
In the glorious resurrection of the just,
They must ruffle it below
"With some vain and wretched show,
To make each his little mud-pie of the dust!
Shall we hint at Lady-Horners,
Who in their exclusive corners
Think the world is only made of upper-
crust?
Who in the queer mince-pie
That we call Society,
Do their dainty fingers delicately thrust;
Till, if it come to pass,
In the spiced and sugared mass,
One should compass,—do n't they call it
so?—a catch,
By the gratulation given
It would seem the very heaven
Had outdone itself in making such a
match!
Or the "Woman-Horner, now,
Who is raising such a row
To prove that Jack's no bigger boy than
Jill;
And that she wo n't sit by
With her little saucer pie,
While he from the Great Pasty picks his
fill.
Jealous-wild to be a sharer
In the fruit she thinks the fairer,
Flings by all for the swift gaining of her
wish;
Not discerning in her blindness,
How a tender Loving-Kindness
Hid the best things in her own rejected
dish!
O, the world keeps Christmas Day
In a queer, perpetual way;
Shouting always, w What a great big boy
am I!"
Yet how many of the crowd
Thus vociferating loud,
And their honors or pretensions lifting
high,
Have really, more than Jack,
With their boldness or their knack,
Had a finger in the making of the Pie?