Black Beetles in Amber. Ambrose BierceЧитать онлайн книгу.
Of sorrow—and likewise of woe:
"Some harrowing poetry, Mister, whack up,
All wrote in the key of O.
"For the angels has called my old woman hence
From the strife (where she fit mighty free).
It's a nickel a line? Cond—n the expense!
For wealth is now little to me."
The Bard of Mortality looked him through
In the piercingest sort of a way:
"It is much to me though it's little to you—
I've taken a wife to-day." So he twisted the tail of his mental cow And made her give down her flow. The grief of that bard was long-winded, somehow— There was reams and reamses of woe. The widower man which had buried his wife Grew lily-like round each gill, For she turned in her grave and came back to life— Then he cruel ignored the bill! Then Sorrow she opened her gates a-wide, As likewise did also Woe, And the death-poet's song, as is heard inside, Is sang in the key of O.
A COMMUTED SENTENCE
Boruck and Waterman upon their grills
In Hades lay, with many a sigh and groan,
Hotly disputing, for each swore his own
Were clearly keener than the other's ills.
And, truly, each had much to boast of—bone
And sinew, muscle, tallow, nerve and skin,
Blood in the vein and marrow in the shin,
Teeth, eyes and other organs (for the soul
Has all of these and even a wagging chin)
Blazing and coruscating like a coal!
For Lower Sacramento, you remember,
Has trying weather, even in mid-December.
Now this occurred in the far future. All
Mankind had been a million ages dead,
And each to her reward above had sped,
Each to his punishment below—I call
That quite a just arrangement. As I said,
Boruck and Waterman in warmest pain
Crackled and sizzed with all their might and main.
For, when on earth, they'd freed a scurvy host
Of crooks from the State prison, who again
Had robbed and ravaged the Pacific Coast
And (such the felon's predatory nature)
Even got themselves into the Legislature.
So Waterman and Boruck lay and roared
In Hades. It is true all other males
Felt the like flames and uttered equal wails,
But did not suffer them; whereas they bored Each one the other. But indeed my tale's Not getting on at all. They lay and browned Till Boruck (who long since his teeth had ground Away and spoke Gum Arabic and made Stump speeches even in praying) looked around And said to Bob's incinerated shade: "Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on The inventors of the unpardonable pardon." The other soul—his right hand all aflame, For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe To the reserve of tallow in his frame— Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow, And with a gesture like a shaken torch: "Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch. Although this climate is not good for Hope, Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the porch Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope. Last century I signified repentance And asked for commutation of our sentence." Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed In sight, all crimson with reflections's fire, Like some tall tower or cathedral spire Touched by the dawn while all the earth is gloomed In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire," Said Waterman, his agitable wick Still sputtering, "what calls you back so quick? It scarcely was a century ago You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick, "St. Peter's answer (he is never slow In correspondence) to your application For pardon—pardon me!—for commutation. "He says that he's instructed to reply (And he has so instructed me) that sin Like yours—and this poor gentleman's who's in For bad advice to you—comes rather high; But since, apparently, you both begin To feel some pious promptings to the right, And fain would turn your faces to the light, Eternity seems all too long a term. So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating, He left them holding their protracted meeting.
A LIFTED FINGER
[The Chronicle did a great public service in whipping —— and his fellow-rascals out of office.—M.H. de Young's Newspaper.]
What! you whip rascals?—you, whose gutter blood Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood, Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs To serve a whole eternity of terms? You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove? You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave Is phosphorescence from another's grave— Till now unknown, by any chance or luck, Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck? You whip a rascal out of office?—you Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew Its smoke in six directions to assert Your lack of appetite for others' dirt? Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst, Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first. Or, if for action you're less free than bold— Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold— Entrust the castigation that you've planned, As once before, to woman's idle hand. So in your spirit shall two pleasures join To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin. Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath, And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath. Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills, Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills, A woman's blood, through roses ever red, Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head. Slandered to death to serve a sordid end, She called you murderer and called me friend. Now, mark you, libeler, this course if you Dare to maintain, or rather to renew; If one short year's immunity has made You blink again the perils of your trade— The ghastly sequence of the maddened "knave," The hot encounter and the colder grave; If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor, And calmly march upon the fatal brink With eyes averted to your trail of ink, Counting unkind the services of those Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose, The day for you to die is not so far, Or, at the least, to live the thing you are! Pregnant with possibilities of crime, And full of felons for all coming time, Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt In testimony to a venial guilt. Live to get whelpage and preserve a name No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame. Live to fulfill the vision that I see Down the dim vistas of the time to be: A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies; A dream of gleaming teeth and foetid breath Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death; A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues— The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs! 1881.
TWO STATESMEN
In that fair city by the inland sea,
Where Blaine unhived his Presidential bee,
Frank Pixley's meeting with George Gorham sing,