Black Beetles in Amber

So, Governor, you would not serve again

Although we'd all agree to pay you double.

You find it all is vanity and pain—

One clump of clover in a field of stubble—

One grain of pleasure in a peck of trouble.

'Tis sad, at your age, having to complain

Of disillusion; but the fault is whose

When pigmies stumble, wearing giants' shoes?

I humbly told you many moons ago

For high preferment you were all unfit.

A clumsy bear makes but a sorry show

Climbing a pole. Let him, judicious, sit

With dignity at bottom of his pit,

And none his awkwardness will ever know.

Some beasts look better, and feel better, too,

Seen from above; and so, I think, would you.

Why, you were mad! Did you suppose because

Our foolish system suffers foolish men

To climb to power, make, enforce the laws,

And, it is whispered, break them now and then,

We love the fellows and respect them when

We've stilled the volume of our loud hurrahs?

When folly blooms we trample it the more

For having fertilized it heretofore.

Behold yon laborer! His garb is mean,

His face is grimy, but who thinks to ask

The measure of his brains? 'Tis only seen

He's fitted for his honorable task,

And so delights the mind. But let him bask

In droll prosperity, absurdly clean—

Is that the man whom we admired before?

Good Lord, how ignorant, and what a bore!

Better for you that thoughtless men had said

(Noting your fitness in the humbler sphere):

"Why don't they make him Governor?" instead

Of, "Why the devil did they?" But I fear

My words on your inhospitable ear

Are wasted like a sermon to the dead.

Still, they may profit you if studied well:

You can't be taught to think, but may to spell.