A Pension for Walt Whitman.
A prosaic bill, drawn up in the tiresome form of such measures, was introduced into the United States Congress in 1887, to give Walt Whitman a pension. He was a hospital nurse in the war, and earned such a recognition.
When the bill reaches the Senate, however, says the Boston Record, Senator Blair or some other poet, ought to substitute a bill couched in Whitmanese, somewhat as follows:—
“Be it enacted, solidified, plastered, pasted, nailed, tied, hem-stitched, and generally made invulnerable,
That Walt Whitman, bard, slinger of pronouns, server of mixed drinks in the form of verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs,
Be granted, allowed, made to swallow, consume, and digest the sum of dollars, ducats, promises to pay hereinafter mentioned, said, sung, and cast up.”
St. Smith of Utah (A.D. 1844.)
A song of the Far West,
A song of the Great Salt Lake, of Utah, Nauvoo, Jackson County, and the new Jerusalem.