See where the bold imposter plies his trade,
And cheats of every kind are made;
Quack creeds, quack medicines, quack politics,
In wild confusion mix;
And lo; the scribbler who writes down
The wisest and the noblest men,
With his envenomed pen,
To please the long-eared rabble of the town,
The darkly hinted calumny,
The vulgar jeer,
The cynic sneer,
The bold unblushing lie,
He scatters round in heedless wrath,
Like firebrands upon a madman’s path,
So when the infernal crew had hunted down
The statesman who deserved a crown,
And shot the empoisoned dart
Deep in his quivering heart,
While, like a stag chased home, at bay he stood,
Facing the clamorous pack athirst for blood;
With awful grandeur beaming in his eye,
Promethean in its agony,
The hireling scribbler all unshamed
By the sad gaze of him he had defamed,
Exulted in his hellish work,
As the assassin when he plies his dirk,
And styled himself apostle sent to teach
Mankind the glories of free thought and speech.
The Sage upon Judea’s Mount
Unsealed the everlasting fount
Of Peace and Truth and Love,
And the Evangel Dove
Came from the skies and nestled to his breast,
And bright-eyed Hope,
From Heaven’s starry slope,
Under his gentle reign,
Beheld the Golden Age return again,
And Earth was blest.
But lo; lean wolves have seized the fold,
And brass supplants the Age of Gold.
Luxurious, profligate, and vile,
With lips of guile,
And Judas’ kiss and smile,
The modern Pharisee,
With broad phylactery,
Converts the temple of his God
Into a mart of crime and fraud.
Inspired by thee, oh, Impudence;
He holds the words of truth and speaks a lie,
Cloaks blackest sins with fair pretense
Of Apostolic piety,
And shears the starving sheep and flays the lambs,
’Mid groans and prayers and penitential psalms.
Oh, Impudence; thy triumph is complete;
Mankind lie prostrate at thy feet,
And every class,
Like bees in swarm,
Are spell-bound by the charm
Of “tinkling cymbals and of sounding brass,”
Genius and modest worth
Starve in the cradle of their birth.
They win the meed of fame
Whose deeds deserve the pillory of shame;
Upon the topmost waves of honor ride,
As scum and froth float on the swollen tide.
So coxcombs in the garden blow,
While fragrant myrtles nestle low;
So hollyhocks uplift their head
In scentless robes of flaunting red,
And gaudy peonies
Attract the passers’ eyes,
Yet from their leaves no fragrant dews
Their cheering influence diffuse
Like that ambrosia and sweet violets shed,
Or fragrant mignonette in its unnoticed bed.
MY BIRTHDAY.
Another milestone meets me, on Time’s weary road of woe,
And onward to the sea of Death, o’er rugged steeps I go;
Far in the West the setting sun in clouds is sinking fast,
And night o’ertakes me with its storms and madly howling blast.
Ah, there were days whose lapse was like the flow of summer waves
When June’s fresh roses stoop to kiss the murmuring stream that laves,
When gentle tones and loving eyes my boyish pastimes blest
And childhood’s every care was soothed upon a mother’s breast.
Sister, sweet sister, oh, could not the fearful spoiler spare
A heart so true and innocent, a form so young and fair!
I saw thy lily hands crossed on thy snowy winding sheet,
But thy soul was by the shining throne, upon the golden street.
But oh, thy gentle voice on earth can make no music now,
And in the tomb the funeral dust is gathered on thy brow.
What now is left to me? To muse upon the past with pain
While the quivering pulse is throbbing like a death knell on my brain.
I am like one shipwrecked upon some bleak and lonely shore,
With not a voice to greet his ear except the billows’ roar;
All that he loved are whelmed far down beneath the briny sea;
Even hope deserts him now—alas! all hope has fled from me!