The High Prices
At the hash-works where I board, but one topic now prevails: "How the price of grub has soared!" Drearily the landlord wails. In his old, accustomed place, he is sitting, at each meal; sad and corpse-like is his face, as he carves his ancient veal. When I ask that solemn jay, if he'll pass the butter 'round, "butter costs," I hear him say, "almost half a bone a pound." When I want a slice of duck, his expression is a sin; "this thin drake cost me a buck, and the quacks were not thrown in." Through the muddy coffee's steam, I can hear him saying now: "I desired a pint of cream, and they charged me for a cow." "Let me have some beans," I cried—I was hungry as could be; "sure!" he wearily replied; "shall I give you two, or three? Beans," he said, "long years ago, of rank cheapness were the signs; now they cost three scads a throw—and you do not get the vines." Once, at morn, I wished an egg, and the landlord had a swoon; with his head soaked in a keg, he regained his mind by noon; "once," he moaned, "an egg was cheap; times have changed, alas! since then; now the price would make you weep—and they don't throw in the hen!"
Omar Khayyam
Omar, of the golden pen, come, O come to us again! 'Neath thy fig-tree and thy vine, with thy bread and jug of wine, seat thyself again, and write, in the caustic vein, or light. Thou who swatted many heads, tore so many fakes to shreds, made the ancient humbugs hump, kept the wise guys on the jump—come, great Omar, from the mists, come and swat thy parodists! Come and give the rhymesters fits—all the jingling, grass-fed wits, who profane thy noble verse; come and place them in the hearse! They who love the Khayyam strain, treasure from a master's brain, satire keen as tested steel—they who love old Omar feel that the imitative crew should receive the wages due, be rewarded for their toil with a bath in boiling oil. But the law is in the way; if the poets we should slay, we'd be pulled by the police for disturbance of the peace. Come, then, Omar, from the shade, where thou hast too long delayed, and with sundry skillful twists, wipe out all those parodists.