My Life as an Author

by Martin Farquhar Tupper

The Omnibus Hack.

"Worn, jaded, and faint, plodding on in the track,
I praise your great patience, poor omnibus hack;
In whose sad gentle eyes my spirit can trace
The gloom of despair in that passionless face,
While way-wearied muscles, strain'd out to the full
And cruelly check'd by the pitiless pull,
With little for food, but of lashes no lack,
Force me to pray for you, omnibus hack!

"Yes I—if I can pity you, omnibus hack,
For nerves all atremble and sinews awrack,
How should not his Maker, the Father above,
Be just to His creature, and grant him His love?
Why may not His mercy give somewhat of bliss
In some better world to compensate for this,
By animal pleasure for animal pain,
Receiving their lives but to give them again?

"And which of us isn't an omnibus hack,
With galls on his withers and sores on his back,—
Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate,
And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate—
Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slow
On the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go,
Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack,
Ah! who of us isn't that omnibus hack?

"Yet great is the comfort considering thus
That God doth take thought as for him so for us;
That we shall find rest, reward, and relief
Outweighing, outpaying all pain and all grief;
That all things are kindly remembered elsewhere,
The shame and the wrong and the press and the care,
The evils that keep all better aback,
And make one feel now but an omnibus hack.

"An omnibus hack?—and only a drudge?—
Is Duty no more in the eyes of the Judge?
He set thee this toil; His providence gave
These bounds to His freedman; yes, free—not a slave!
And if thou wilt serve Him, content with thy lot,
Cheerfully working and murmuring not,
Be sure, my poor brother—whose skies are so black—
Thou art His dear child, though an omnibus hack!"

My "Mercy to Animals," a simple handbill, has done great good, as it has prose instructions about loading, harnessing, &c. It also is to be had for a penny at Jermyn Street aforesaid: here is the first verse:—

"O boys and men of British mould,
With mother's milk within you!
A simple word for young and old,
A word to warn and win you;
You've each and all got human hearts,
As well as human features,
So hear me, while I take the parts
Of all the poor dumb creatures."

For my own part I have done it all my life. Those of my book-friends who have my Miscellaneous Poems may refer in this connection to verses therein on "A Dead Dog" and "A Dead Cat," and to those on "Cruelty." Also in "Proverbial Philosophy," especially as to the "Future of Animals," and their too shameful treatment in this world, one good reason for a compensative existence.

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