Poetry

I know not if it was a dream. I viewed A city where the restless multitude, Between the eastern and the western deep Had reared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude.

Colossal palaces crowned every height; Towers from valleys climbed into the light; O’er dwellings at their feet, great golden domes Hung in the blue, barbarically bright.

But now, new-glimmering to-east, the day Touched the black masses with a grace of gray, Dim spires of temples to the nation’s God Studding high spaces of the wide survey.

Well did the roofs their solemn secret keep Of life and death stayed by the truce of sleep, Yet whispered of an hour when sleepers wake, The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep.

The gardens greened upon the builded hills Above the tethered thunders of the mills With sleeping wheels unstirred to service yet By the tamed torrents and the quickened rills.

A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space, Looked on the builder’s blocks about his base And bared his wounded breast in sign to say: “Strike! ’tis my destiny to lodge your race.

“ ’Twas but a breath ago the mammoth browsed Upon my slopes, and in my caves I housed Your shaggy fathers in their nakedness, While on their foeman’s offal they caroused.”

Ships from afar afforested the bay. Within their huge and chambered bodies lay The wealth of continents; and merrily sailed The hardy argosies to far Cathay.

Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leave An unusual adventure into narrative to weave⁠— Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel, A public educator and an orator as well. Mr. Peters had a weakness which, ’tis painful to relate, Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate. He would foster disputation wheresoever he might be; In polygonal contention none so happy was as he. ’Twas observable, however, that the exercises ran Into monologue by Peters, that rhetorical young man. And the Muscatelian rustics who assisted at the show, By involuntary silence testified their overthrow⁠— Mr. Peters, all unheedful of their silence and their grief, Still effacing every vestige of erroneous belief. O, he was a sore affliction to all heretics so bold As to entertain opinions that he didn’t care to hold.

One day⁠—’twas in pursuance of a pedagogic plan For the mental elevation of Uncultivated Man⁠— Mr. Peters, to his pupils, in dismissing them, explained That the Friday evening following (unless, indeed, it rained) Would be signalized by holding in the schoolhouse a debate Free to all who their opinions might desire to ventilate On the question, “Which is better, as a serviceable gift, Speech or hearing, from barbarity the human mind to lift?” The pupils told their fathers, who, forehanded always, met At the barroom to discuss it every evening, dry or wet. They argued it and argued it and spat upon the stove, And the non-committal barman on their differences throve.

Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed The tools and terrors of his awful trade; The key, the frown as pitiless as night, That slays intending trespassers at sight, And, at his side in easy reach, the curled Interrogation points all ready to be hurled.

Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced No others were about) a soul advanced⁠— A fat, orbicular and jolly soul With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl⁠— A monk so prepossessing that the saint Admired him, breathless until weak and faint, Forgot his frown and all his questions too, Forgoing even the customary “Who?”⁠— Threw wide the gate and with a friendly grin Said, “ ’Tis a very humble home, but pray walk in.”

Saint Peter sat at the jasper gate, When Senator White arrived in state,

“Admit me.” “With pleasure,” Peter said, Pleased to observe that the man was dead;

“That’s what I’m here for. Kindly show Your ticket, my lord, and in you go.”

White stared in blank surprise. Said he: “I run this place⁠—just turn that key.”

“Yes?” said the Saint; the Senator heard With pain the inflection of that word.

But, mastering his emotion, he Remarked: “My friend, you’re too damned free;

“I’m Stephen M., by thunder, White!” And, “Yes?” the guardian said, with quite

The self-same irritating stress Distinguishing his former yes.

And still demurely as a mouse He twirled the key to that Upper House.

Then Stephen, seeing his bluster vain Admittance to those halls to gain,

Said, neighborly: “Pray tell me, Pete, Does anyone contest my seat?”

The Saint replied: “Nay, nay, not so; But you voted always wrong below:

“Whate’er the question, clear and high Your voice rang: ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ever ‘I.’ ”

Now indignation fired the heart Of that insulted immortal part.

“Die, wretch!” he cried, with blanching lip, And made a motion to his hip,

With purpose murderous and hearty, To draw the Democratic party!

He felt his fingers vainly slide Upon his unappareled hide

(The dead arise from their “silent tents” But not their late habiliments)

Then wailed⁠—the briefest of his speeches: “I’ve left it in my other breeches!”

The Devil one day, coming up from the Pit All grimy with perspiration, Applied to Saint Peter and begged he’d admit Him a moment for consultation.

The Saint showed him in where the Master reclined On the throne where petitioners sought him; Both bowed, and the Evil One opened his mind Concerning the business that brought him:

“For ten million years I’ve been kept in a stew Because you have thought me immoral; And though I have had my opinion of you, You’ve had the best end of the quarrel.

“But now⁠—well, I venture to hope that the past With its misunderstandings we’ll smother; And you, sir, and I, sir, be throned here at last As equals, the one to the other.”

“Indeed!” said the Master (I cannot convey A sense of his tone by mere letters) “What makes you presume you’ll be bidden to stay Up here on such terms with your betters?”

“Why, sure you can’t mean it!” said Satan. “I’ve seen How Stanford and Crocker you’ve nourished, And Huntington⁠—bless me! the three like a green Umbrageous great bay-tree have flourished.

They are fat, they are rolling in gold, they command All sources and well-springs of power; You’ve given them houses, you’ve given them land⁠— Before them the righteous all cower.”

“What of that?” “What of that?” cried the Father of Sin; “Why, I thought when I saw you were winking At crimes such as theirs that perhaps you had been Converted to my way of thinking.”