When pat, to suit Godfather’s cue,
That pious child, the hungry League
Was christened snug and gospeled through,
Anoint with salve of high intrigue;
Nay, preached and bore the brainless gang,
Who gripped at throat the better hope
While Right, with due, past caution rang
How every neck was worth a rope.
And ’woke this cry with warning rouse—
“Since Neighbor Near seem Neighbor Pike,
’Twere time small fry made fast the house,
Girt fence and gate with double spike.”
* * * * * * * *
Since when, what other brood of kindred grace,
Which, true to stock, the devil yeans,
Joined trick and tooth and darksome ways
To work the bolts by subtler means!
While last—O, John, will ne’er thy friends be wise?
What balm, tho’ gross with clumsy tape,
What quacks’ set-up in surgeon’s guise
Came foisting, fuddling from the Cape!
What hangman’s cure and mad appeal,
What blind invoke past doubt of suit,
What sowings thrust with iron heel,
Whose yet no half has bore its fruit!
Oh, yes, thro’ stress and truce, and right along,
It still repeats the old-time game,
How brother Weak met brother Strong,
Who saw, and took, and felt no shame.
Whom so self-dread, that final awe,
Could graft on soul this chastening sense—
That endless widening circles Law,
Rules nations’ hopes as single mens’.
But strangled fierce his safer light,
Let smiling Nears hide frowning Fars,
Whose then approach twice ruthless write,
To hastening pace, fulfilling Stars.
Who pinned on back of brazen years
This shrift o’ theirs to coming times:
“He minded not the silent leers,
The steady sooth the Sybil rhymes.”
Whose burdened wreath may never bear
’Mong graven gems this baser stone,
Which, from low seat tho’ crude it flare,
Twice sorry dims the blazoned throne—