Black Beetles in Amber

Ah, welcome, welcome! Sit you down, old friend;

Your pipe I'll serve, your bottle I'll attend.

'Tis many a year since you and I have known

Society more pleasant than our own

In our brief respites from excessive work—

I pointing out the hearts for you to dirk.

What have you done since lately at this board

We canvassed the deserts of all the horde

And chose what names would please the people best,

Engraved on coffin-plates—what bounding breast

Would give more satisfaction if at rest?

But never mind—the record cannot fail:

The loftiest monuments will tell the tale.

I trust ere next we meet you'll slay the chap

Who calls old Tyler "Judge" and Merry "Cap"—

Calls John P. Irish "Colonel" and John P.,

Whose surname Jack-son speaks his pedigree,

By the same title—men of equal rank

Though one is belly all, and one all shank,

Showing their several service in the fray:

One fought for food and one to get away.

I hope, I say, you'll kill the "title" man

Who saddles one on every back he can,

Then rides it from Beërsheba to Dan!

Another fool, I trust, you will perform

Your office on while my resentment's warm:

He shakes my hand a dozen times a day

If, luckless, I so often cross his way,

Though I've three senses besides that of touch,

To make me conscious of a fool too much.

Seek him, friend Killer, and your purpose make

Apparent as his guilty hand you take,

And set him trembling with a solemn: "Shake!"

But chief of all the addle-witted crew

Conceded by the Hangman's League to you,

The fool (his dam's acquainted with a knave)

Whose fluent pen, of his no-brain the slave,

Strews notes of introduction o'er the land

And calls it hospitality—his hand

May palsy seize ere he again consign

To me his friend, as I to Hades mine!

Pity the wretch, his faults howe'er you see,

Whom A accredits to his victim, B.

Like shuttlecock which battledores attack

(One speeds it forward, one would drive it back)

The trustful simpleton is twice unblest—

A rare good riddance, an unwelcome guest.

The glad consignor rubs his hands to think

How duty is commuted into ink;

The consignee (his hands he cannot rub—

He has the man upon them) mutters: "Cub!"

And straightway plans to lose him at the Club.

You know, good Killer, where this dunce abides—

The secret jungle where he writes and hides—

Though no exploring foot has e'er upstirred

His human elephant's exhaustless herd.

Go, bring his blood! We'll drink it—letting fall

A due libation to the gods of Gall.

On second thought, the gods may have it all.