Buch lesen: «The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting)»

Dedicated to

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CIVILIZATION'S CRUSADER

 
To Thee, My Native Land, America!
My heart with pride is filled: my lips exult
Because Thou art my Home—my Fatherland.
Beneath the Constellation of the States,
Set in the firmament of fadeless blue,
I bare my head and hail the Stars and Stripes,
Proud Emblem of our Unity and Might.
My Country calls! I give what I possess,—
All! All I say! and giving thus, regret
That my poor contribution to thy needs,
In hours of peril when dark war-clouds loom,
Is such a paltry thing
When measured by the debt of gratitude
I owe for Liberty.
All that I am and have belongs to Thee.
Upon thy Altar Fires,
Where Freedom glows and glorifies Mankind,
I consecrate
My flood-tide strength, my substance—life itself!
And rate not this as sacrifice
That gives me pleasure to repay
In this small way
Thy boon and bounty, priceless Liberty.
 

PROEM

 
If you can find, within, a single line
To give you pleasure, then the pleasure's mine;
But if you fail and whine, or josh like Billings,
You might (I say you might!) get back your shillings.
But better yet! Bestow this Book of Verses
On some friend-foe you love with hate and curses,
And your revenge will be attained thereafter
For, when he reads it, he will die with laughter.
And, Cheerful Reader, if this work contains
A soporific for your bulging brains
So that you'll rave about it to your neighbors,
I'll feel repaid for all rebuffs and labors.
Though "Wisdom sometimes borrows, sometimes lends,"
You'll borrow trouble lending this to friends;
But earn my thanks if, when you've praised or shown it,
You'll sit upon the lid and never loan it:
For ev'ry copy sold, thru friends or slapbacks,
Just puts Mo'lasses on my buckwheat flapjacks.
And, Critic Friend, who halts Ambition's flight
And ties the can to Aspiration's kite,
Pray recollect that when you plied the pen
And had some stuff accepted now and then,
Your tales, O! Henry, did not prove inviting
Or else you'd be no Cynic but still writing.
 

BEHOLD A MAN!

 
There stands a Man! unyielding and defiant,
A master Leader, bold and self-reliant.
He seeks no conquest but his lance is set
Against the ruthless Despot's parapet.
Alert and conscious of his strength, his thrust
Is sure and timely, for his cause is just.
Invincible, he rallies to his cause
Those who love Justice and respect the laws.
To skulking traitors and to spying foes
He shows no mercy, but his heart o'erflows
For those oppressed, who live, nay! who exist
Where arrogance and tyranny persist:
But, tho distressed by all this human grief,
He weeps not idly, but compels relief:
And those he serves by act or speech or pen,
One Hundred Million freemen, shout, Amen!
"Safe for Democracy the world must be,
And all its bondaged peoples shall be free!"
So spake the Man: America thus voiced
Its ultimatum, and the Earth rejoiced!
Intensely human, cast from mortal clay
In Nature's mould, one epoch-making day,
Behold a Man! he seems a higher sort,
Refined with purest gold from God's Retort
And filled with skill and wisdom, Heaven-sent:
God bless and keep our peerless President!
 

THE JULOGY

 
To those who never heard my Songs before,
And those who have, and want to nevermore,
This Rhapsody, with all its pithy phrases,
Has passed the Censors with the highest praises.
Released by favor of the Board's caprice,
It takes its proper place—a masterpiece!
Soft pedal, please! The Knockers are outclassed,
And Genius finds its recompense at last!
Whene'er I read about this war-time pelf
It makes me sick: I can't contain myself!
The profits on the die-stuffs sent to France
Make Croesus' wealth a trifling circumstance;
And what the Farmers get for mules and wheat
Makes fortunes hitherto quite obsolete.
In by-gone days the Bards were praised and pensioned
Who now are at the Front—and rarely mentioned:
And all these hardships they endure while men
Who write big checks, thus scandalize the pen.
The Writers should throw off their yokes and collars
And drill their brains to cultivate the dollars.
The talents they possess are strictly mental
And can't be utilized for food and rental.
Their thoughts are capital, but who'll invest
In Sonnet Stock without some interest?
Or who'd take stock in Poem Plants? Alack!
He who invests expects the yellowback.
But here I'm talking money: what a joke
For one to thus discourse who's always broke!
Since "money talks" we'll suffer it to speak,—
"I am the thing that countless millions seek;
Greed's inspiration, Evil's very root,
The Nemesis of those in my pursuit.
Kings pay me homage, pawn their crowns to me
And, deathless, I enslave their progeny.
Men famed for noble deeds, who court my smile,
Ofttimes surrender probity to guile:
Who, needy, follows my uncertain path,
I may elude and favor him who hath,—
For I have wings, and lightning speeds my flight,—
Wealthy to-day, a pauper overnight!
The Ticker tells the tale from day to day:
Brings joy to some, to others dire dismay."
 
 
This Work is copyrighted just to show
To what low depths the Pirate Press will go.
They borrow thunder from the Vulcan forge,
Then draw the fire and put the smut on George.
Each song or verse, it seems to me, should be
Distinguished by originality
If nothing else (the matter may be sloppy,—
But that's no matter if there's ample copy)
So that the Author's face could be unmasked
And recognized without a question asked;
Or, so identify Calliope
By strident notes of high-toned quality;
Or thus detect some Poet's "fist" and style
By I. O. U.'s unhonored yet awhile.
The Pirates thus would cease perforce their trade,
And Bacon would not be confused with Ade.
In all my songs I do the work myself,
And draw no inspiration from the Shelf.
Perhaps my lines would be more read, if cribbed,
But George and I, you know, have never fibbed,
And what is more, I think my lines are sweeter
Than those of Dante, with infernal meter;
And more heroic, and not half so sad
As Homer's couplets in the Illiad;
And far more musical and much prettier
Than those by Tennyson or by Whittier.
Each bar is known to me, its licensee,
And ev'ry note has had my scrutiny:
I also watch my pauses, moods and tenses,
And have no words with fair amanuenses.
If you could see my workshop (do not ask it!)
You'd find more "carbons" in my paper-basket,
More rough, unpolished diamonds there immured
Than you, Dear Reader, ever have endured.
I have no Jewish blood, not e'en a strain:
That's what I lack! If ever born again
I'd requisition Hebrew sire and dam,
Something akin, methinks, to Abraham,
And take these "jewels," doomed unseen to flash,
Gloss o'er their flaws, and turn them into cash.
Here's where I doff my bonnet to the Jew!
Tho' sore oppressed they're still the Chosen Few:
A few in numbers but a mighty host
When reckoned by the things that count the most,—
I mean achievements, won by toilsome stages
In spite of persecutions thru the Ages.
 
 
I see these Davids watching o'er their flocks
In Palestine. (To-day they watch their stocks
And clip the coupons from their bonds, you see,
Just as they sheared the lambs in Galilee.)
There milk and honey in abundance vied
To keep the Simple Simons satisfied;
But here to luxuries the Josephs cling,
And milk the honey from most everything.
Time was when you were treated with disdain
But now the tune is quite a changed refrain,
And Gentiles everywhere take special pains
To pay respectful tribute to your brains!
Behold your ancient hills and rugged rocks;
Your fruitful valleys with their golden shocks
Of Grain that, grouped around the stately dates,
Seem to defy the threshing that awaits!
Here olives ripen 'neath the summer skies
And yield rich oil,—first Standard Oil supplies;
'Twas here the mighty Samson filled with awe
The Philistines and flayed them with his jaw;
(No man before, or since, thus courted fame,
For woman holds these records in her name.)
And here wise Solomon refused the vote
In statecraft matters to the Petticoat;
But when the Referendum was installed
The wise old King's objection was Recalled.
And then there's David caring for his sheep,
And big Goliath (rocking him to sleep).
There Japheth, Shem and Ham are; Ham tabooed
By Moses in his Treatises on Food;
And Jehu with his pair of chestnut colts
Trotting the highway down like thunderbolts.
If Jehu reined to-day he'd swap his stable
For high-power Auto, with a foreign label,
And hold the record for the Shore Road trip
From Tyre to Sidon at a lightning clip,—
And make his whiskers, driven by the breeze,
Look like a storm-tossed frigate on the seas.
There's Jacob dreaming, seeing more than Esau,
And giving him the double-cross and hee-haw;
Obtaining Esau's birthright (Silly Dupe!)
For three brass spheroids and a bowl of soup.
He traded for it—didn't have to buy it!
'Cause Brother Hairy, glutton, wouldn't diet.
But "chickens come back home to roost," forsooth,
And Jacob in his dotage learned this truth,
When Leah's sons, of ordinary clay,
Put Rachel's Joseph in the consommé.
 
 
As Financiers the palm has been bestowed,
In panegyric, melody and ode,
On Jacob's sons. The caravans, that passed
Thru burning sands, from cities far and vast,
Into their land that teemed with grain and gold,
Were richly laden. Thus they bought and sold,
Exchanging corn and cattle, hides and honey
For finest silks and linens, gems and money,—
Until, thru bargain-insight, skill and daring,
They cornered all the fabrics used for wearing,
And then proceeded, with discerning lust,
To hump themselves and form a Camel Trust.
The Traders who had plied this Cargo Route
Could never, in their deals, get cash to boot
From Jacob's sons. Sometimes a fleece or skin,
Of little size and worth, would be thrown in,
But shekels—No! And so the nomad Sheik
In quest of easy picking; Turk and Greek;
The wily Fellah from the distant Nile
Whose gaudy gewgaw "gems" reflect his guile;
The sleepy Peddlers from the Land of Nod,
Who still shekinah on ancestral sod;
And all the Wise Men from the Eastern marts
Who plan their ventures by the Astral charts,
Plotted and vowed, by Imps and Endor Witches,
To wrest from Jacobs Brothers all their riches.
So, working now with Bulls, anon with Bears;
Rigging the market to advance their wares
Or to depress the House of Jacobs' shares,
It looked as if the plotters might make good
Against the unsuspecting Brotherhood.
But patiently the Brethren stood their ground,
Unmindful of the rumors passed around,
Or baits to tempt Cupidity thrown out,
That throttle Judgment and put Sense to rout,—
Until the market, unsupported, broke:
Then, feigning sleep, they suddenly awoke
And took possession of the Stock Exchange.
Like beaten curs or mongrels with the mange
The Plotters cringed. The Shorts in wild dismay
To cover ran, but Zounds! they had to pay
Four prices to the Brethren who controlled
The entire issue of the short stock sold.
And thus the Brethren made a tidy sum,
Keeping their standing in Financialdom.
Keen businessmen, they sold or bought as well,
But never showed anxiety to sell.
 
 
So Jacob's Sons became, as was their bent,
The mighty Merchants of the Orient.
No goose that ever layed a golden egg
Would needs have come to one of them to beg
For life or respite. "Nay! Lay on, Good Goose!
We'll shield thee and thy gander from abuse!"
Long-headed and kind-hearted, in such cases
Their noses were not lopped to spite their faces.
Too wise they were: they had too good a teacher
To make the nose too prominent a feature!
While yet the goose was itching for the nest
They egged her on and Quack! she did the rest.
A goose she would appear to give so much
To those who had—but Life is ever such.
But Jacob's Sons like Isaac, sturdy Oak,
Made no complaint but bore their golden yolk,
And, thrifty men, in many baskets stored
The golden ovals and increased their hoard.
And so their nests were feathered, as we know,
But cautious men they were, who didn't crow.
And so we see them on the filmy screens,
Matching their talents 'gainst the Philistines:
And looking close, we notice that the Brothers
Have bigger stacks before them than the others.
 
 
And then there's Job, the Paradox, who toils
To show good humor when beset by boils;
And Jinxy Jonah, ducked and rudely whaled,
Because he had no passport when he sailed.
(Whene'er I see the Ocean Mammal spout
Methinks it's habit—spewing Jonah out.)
Delilah's "next"! Tonsorial Adept—
A cutting up while headstrong Samson slept.
Shear nonsense—that man's vigor could be sapped
Because he had a haircut when he napped,
Or lose his nerve, e'en at the yawning grave,
Tho' just escaping by the closest shave.
With Samson's case a multitude compare,
For men miss greatness ofttimes by a hair.
'Twas his conceit that made him lose his nerve,
As long-haired, whiskered men, bereft, deserve.
The facts are these: that Samson used to wear
A wig with ringlets, 'cause his head was bare.
One night, in playful mood, Delilah stole
Up to his cot and touched the poor old soul
For his toupee. He woke, chagrined, and fled
Because his capillary roots were dead.
What transformation! Thus the Man of Might
Became a pussyfooter overnight,
And went to writing verses from that minute
Finding his strength, not on his head, but in it.
 
 
Of all your rulers, Roman, Jew or Fezzer,
The first or most pronounced is Nebu'nezzar.
(Too long this monstrous name has been derided,
And so the chad, for rhythm, is elided.)
"Neb" is enough, for short, and apropos
Of Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego,
The King waxed wroth because these three live wires
Passed thru his melting pots and furnace fires
Without a burn: remarkable endurance!
Because protected by good Fire Insurance.
He paid the price for arson ere he died,
Was kept lit up and rightly classified
Among the beasts: and now that all is over
'Tis safe to say he did not live in clover,
But roamed the pastures, when he lost his pull,
And grazed himself to death: he was some bull.
 
 
Then next we come to Ruth, the Moabite:
Her husband Chilion (not her!) one night
Blew out the gas, and Ruth was thus bereft;
But Naomi, her Ma-in-Law, was left
To comfort her: and jolly well she did it!
For Ruth's great grief soon ceased or else she hid it.
Then to Naomi's Land the two repaired,
Their love enhanced by sorrows they had shared.
And so the elder of the widowed twain
Set out to find, for Ruth, another swain;
And all her schemes, 'tis said, succeeded so as
To marry Ruth to wealthy kinsman Boaz.
Unselfish? No! She was too old to wed,
So Ruth agreed to give her board and bed,
Trusting to Boaz not to spoil her plan
Who swallowed hook and line like any man.
The attic room, or one just off the hall,
Was where Naomi nightly had to crawl;
And all her meals, unleavened bread and 'taters,
Were eaten in the kitchen with the waiters,—
For Boaz, when the honeymoon was spent,
Tightened his purse-strings—wouldn't spend a cent!
And Naomi as welcome was, I think,
As hungry roaches in the kitchen sink.
This is the only case,—I know no other!
Where widowed wife abided husband's mother;
Or, where a woman, in such circumstance,
Would give her son's relict another chance.
 
 
There's Baal and those exalting Gods of brass;
And Balaam, Prophet: but we'll let him pass!
And John the Baptist, man who lost his head
To fair Salomé, tho she cut him dead.
There's Absalom the Vain, whose hair was long,
Who, in the final parting, got in wrong:
And Pharaoh, with chariots and fighters
Pursuing Moses and the Israeliters;
Who, half-seas over, when the King dropped in,
Punished the latter for his divers sin,
And rescued on the Red Sea bar his folk,
Athirst for freedom from the Ptolemy yoke.
 
 
While yet the rushes bent beneath the blast
Of Red Sea winds, a prodigy was cast.
(From common mold, perhaps, but 'tis enough
To know that he was made of proper stuff.)
And little did the Tempest wot his noise
Was silence likened to the bawling boy's.
The Earth breathed on the shape and gave it speech,
Or something vocally akin, a screech.
Thus Moses had his coming out—and lo!
He rushed into the arms of Fairy O
(Daughter of Pharaoh, the mighty King)
Who bore him to the Palace 'neath her wing.
Fed on the Milk of Kindness to begin,
With Medica Materia thrown in,
He grew until appointed, by decree,
To Little Egypt, Princess, the M.D.
Thus Doctor Moses hung his shingle out,
And soon his fame was heralded about.
To doctors since, no fame like his doth cling:
No Specialist: he doctored everything!
He analyzed and stopped the human leak;
(His patience was rewarded, so to speak)
He charged his people to eschew the swine,
And made the Ten Commandments seem benign.
Not only as Physician did he rate,
But as a Surgeon: he could amputate!
He cut off Pharaoh in his pursuit
And, by this operation, gained repute.
He set his people right and made no bones
Of driving lepers from the Safety Zones;
He gave them tablets for their moral healing,
Knowing their pulses without even feeling.
His praises now resound from every lip
Because he saved the Jews from Phar'oh's grippe.
Still 'long the Nile the pink-winged curlews flock
Where Moses took his henchmen out of hock;
The minions of Æolus hurtle on,
Leaving a trail of foam the waves upon,—
Stopping anon, where restless driftwood crushes
The lotus pads that hover near the rushes,
To chant a requiem and breathe a prayer
Over the spot that cradled Moses there.
If modern doctors would obey the rule
Of common sense prescribed by Moses' School;
If they would note our pulses and our looks
Instead of feeling of our pocket-books
And judging circulation by the latter,
We'd sometimes know, perhaps, just what's the matter.
What doctor now would diagnosis make
And call it simple, old-time belly-ache,
Charging a trifling fee to cure the pain?
Ah, no! those days will not return again!
No more, alas! will green-fruit cramps delight us,
For colic now is styled appendicitis.
By leaps and bounds have grown the "trifling fees";
"Five hundred!" now, succeeds "One Dollar, please!"
And germs, in league with doctors, have their station
At vital points to force inoculation,
So that our Systems pay a pretty price
For ev'ry nostrum, ev'ry fake device
Known to the School of Quacks: and so we suffer
Imposed upon by patentee and duffer.
O, for a Moses! That's our crying need—
To cure Physicians of unbridled greed
And probe, no matter where it hurts, the cause
Of Doctors' strange immunity from laws.
O! for an instrument—an act or sermon—
Of Moses' kind—to cut the germ from German!
And lead them from the Wilderness of Vice
Whose hearts were warm but now have turned to ice!
 
 
All these and many more increase the lustre
Distinguishing this brilliant Jewish cluster.
And Abraham? We save him for the last,
Tho first in line, renowned Iconoclast.
Of all the Israelites, the men of mark,
Who else compares with this grand Patriarch?
And who besides, of all the racial roots,
Developed half the lusty leaves and shoots,
Strong limbs and branches, virile seed? some trunk!
The Ark, with all this luggage, would have sunk!
And so 'twere well the Deluge didst o'erwhelm
The Earth, ere this, with Noah at the helm,
Else to preserve the chosen and elite
Of Israel's line would needs have taxed a fleet.
 
 
I love these ancient tribesmen who illumine
The Archives of the Past: they were so human!
Their frailties were but habits of the Race
Since Father Adam set the human pace
Hitched up with Eve who, chafing at the bit,
Did well her part or bit, in spite of it.
But all their mortal weaknesses were nil
Compared with virtues that their Records fill;
And good or bad, or medium or fair,
No Tribe excelled their morals anywhere.
They freely gave their tithes, but did it pay
To advertise their wealth? a give away!
And so their pockets have been worn and frayed
By frequent contributions they have made
To Charity and Church. I hope and pray
They've saved a little for a rainy day!
I think they have! for Money talked,—confessed
That Hebrews were the ones he liked the best,
Because they never slighted or abused him,
And always were so careful how they used him.
 
 
And so, O Sons of Abraham, I say
You've come into your own and come to stay!
The Promised Land is yours, but what is more,
The Earth and Seas and Skies with all their store.
You wandered from Judea, but why care?
Because your home is here as well as there;
And we would miss you just as much, I vum,
As those who wait you in Capernaum;
For Broadway would despair and sackcloth don
If you should leave New York for Ascalon.
 
 
No more, thank God! will Infidels profane
Jerusalem. For centuries the stain
Of Turkish rule has laid its unclean hand
Upon the Altars of the Holy Land.
But now the Prophet's promise is fulfilled,
And Jews and Gentiles are rejoiced and thrilled
As Men of Allenby, God's Sword, restore
The Holy City: yours forevermore.