Black Beetles in Amber

To flatter your way to the goad of your hope,

O plausible Mr. Perkins,

You'll need ten tons of the softest soap

And butter a thousand firkins.

The soap you could put to a better use

In washing your hands of ambition

Ere the butter's used for cooking your goose

To a beautiful brown condition.

"The Railroad can't run Stanford." That is so—

The tail can't curl the pig; but then, you know,

Inside the vegetable-garden's pale

The pig will eat more cabbage than the tail.

When Sargent struts by all the lawmakers say:

"Right—left!" It is fair to infer

The right will get left, nor polar the day

When he makes that thing to occur.

Not so, not so, 'tis a joke, that cry—

Foolish and dull and small:

He so bores them for votes that they mean to imply

He's a drill-Sargent, that is all.

Gods! what a sight! Astride McClure's broad back

Estee jogs round the Senatorial track,

The crowd all undecided, as they pass,

Whether to cheer the man or cheer the ass.

They stop: the man to lower his feet is seen

And the tired beast, withdrawing from between,

Mounts, as they start again, the biped's neck,

And scarce the crowd can say which one's on deck.