Black Beetles in Amber

O Reverend Ravlin, once with sounding lung

You shook the bloody banner of your tongue,

Urged all the fiery boycotters afield

And swore you'd rather follow them than yield,

Alas, how brief the time, how great the change!—

Your dogs of war are ailing all of mange;

The loose leash dangles from your finger-tips,

But the loud "havoc" dies upon your lips.

No spirit animates your feeble clay—

You'd rather yield than even run away.

In vain McGlashan labors to inspire

Your pallid nostril with his breath of fire:

The light of battle's faded from your face—

You keep the peace, John Chinaman his place.

O Ravlin, what cold water, thrown by whom

Upon the kindling Boycott's ruddy bloom,

Has slaked your parching blood-thirst and allayed

The flash and shimmer of your lingual blade?

Your salary—your salary's unpaid!

In the old days, when Christ with scourges drave

The Ravlins headlong from the Temple's nave,

Each bore upon his pelt the mark divine—

The Boycott's red authenticating sign.

Birth-marked forever in surviving hurts,

Glowing and smarting underneath their shirts,

Successive Ravlins have revenged their shame

By blowing every coal and flinging flame.

And you, the latest (may you be the last!)

Endorsed with that hereditary, vast

And monstrous rubric, would the feud prolong,

Save that cupidity forbids the wrong.

In strife you preferably pass your days—

But brawl no moment longer than it pays.

By shouting when no more you can incite

The dogs to put the timid sheep to flight

To load, for you, the brambles with their fleece,

You cackle concord to congenial geese,

Put pinches of goodwill upon their tails

And pluck them with a touch that never fails.