Black Beetles in Amber. Ambrose BierceЧитать онлайн книгу.

       For disputatious statesmen when they roar

       Startle the ancient echoes of his snore,

       Which from their dusty nooks expostulate

       And close with stormy clamor the debate.

       To low melodious thunders then they fade;

       Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade;

       Peace takes the Chair; the portal Silence keeps;

       No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps—

       Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps.

      II

       Lo! the new Sharon with a new intent,

       Making no laws, but keen to circumvent

       The laws of Nature (since he can't repeal)

       That break his failing body on the wheel.

       As Tantalus again and yet again

       The elusive wave endeavors to restrain

       To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries

       To purchase happiness that age denies;

       Obtains the shadow, but the substance goes,

       And hugs the thorn, but cannot keep the rose;

       For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigally, eats,

       And then, with tardy reformation—cheats.

       Alert his faculties as three score years

       And four score vices will permit, he nears—

       Dicing with Death—the finish of the game,

       And curses still his candle's wasting flame,

       The narrow circle of whose feeble glow

       Dims and diminishes at every throw.

       Moments his losses, pleasures are his gains,

       Which even in his grasp revert to pains.

       The joy of grasping them alone remains.

      III

       Ring up the curtain and the play protract!

       Behold our Sharon in his last mad act.

       With man long warring, quarreling with God,

       He crouches now beneath a woman's rod

       Predestined for his back while yet it lay

       Closed in an acorn which, one luckless day,

       He stole, unconscious of its foetal twig,

       From the scant garner of a sightless pig.

       With bleeding shoulders pitilessly scored,

       He bawls more lustily than once he snored.

       The sympathetic Comstocks droop to hear,

       And Carson river sheds a viscous tear,

       Which sturdy tumble-bugs assail amain,

       With ready thrift, and urge along the plain.

       The jackass rabbit sorrows as he lopes;

       The sage-brush glooms along the mountain slopes;

       In rising clouds the poignant alkali,

       Tearless itself, makes everybody cry.

       Washoe canaries on the Geiger Grade

       Subdue the singing of their cavalcade,

       And, wiping with their ears the tears unshed,

       Grieve for their family's unlucky head.

       Virginia City intermits her trade

       And well-clad strangers walk her streets unflayed.

       Nay, all Nevada ceases work to weep

       And the recording angel goes to sleep.

       But in his dreams his goose-quill's creaking fount

       Augments the debits in the long account.

       And still the continents and oceans ring

       With royal torments of the Silver King!

       Incessant bellowings fill all the earth,

       Mingled with inextinguishable mirth.

       He roars, men laugh, Nevadans weep, beasts howl,

       Plash the affrighted fish, and shriek the fowl!

       With monstrous din their blended thunders rise,

       Peal upon peal, and brawl along the skies,

       Startle in hell the Sharons as they groan,

       And shake the splendors of the great white throne!

       Still roaring outward through the vast profound,

       The spreading circles of receding sound

       Pursue each other in a failing race

       To the cold confines of eternal space;

       There break and die along that awful shore

       Which God's own eyes have never dared explore—

       Dark, fearful, formless, nameless evermore!

       Look to the west! Against yon steely sky

       Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high.

       About its base the meek-faced dead are laid

       To share the benediction of its shade.

       With crossed white hands, shut eyes and formal feet,

       Their nights are innocent, their days discreet.

       Sharon, some years, perchance, remain of life—

       Of vice and greed, vulgarity and strife;

       And then—God speed the day if such His will—

       You'll lie among the dead you helped to kill,

       And be in good society at last,

       Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed.