YORICK.
Hard by an excavated street one sat
In solitary session on the sand;
And ever and anon he spake and spat
And spake again—a yellow skull
in hand,
To which that retrospective Pioneer
Addressed the few remarks that follow
here:
“Who are you? Did you come
‘der blains agross,’
Or ‘Horn aroundt’? In
days o’ ’49
Did them thar eye-holes see the Southern
Cross
From the Antarctic Sea git up an’
shine?
Or did you drive a bull team ’all
the way
From Pike,’ with Mr. Joseph Bowers?—say!
“Was you in Frisco when the water
came
Up to Montgum’ry street? and do
you mind
The time when Peters run the faro game—
Jim Peters from old Mississip—behind
Wells Fargo’s, where he subsequent
was bust
By Sandy, as regards both bank and crust?
“I wonder was you here when Casey
shot
James King o’ William? And
did you attend
The neck-tie dance ensuin’? I
did not,
But j’ined the rush to Go Creek
with my friend
Ed’ard McGowan; for we was resolved
In sech diversions not to be involved.
“Maybe I knowed you; seems to me
I’ve seed
Your face afore. I don’t
forget a face,
But names I disremember—I’m
that breed
Of owls. I’m talking
some’at into space
An’ maybe my remarks is too derned
free,
Seein’ yer name is unbeknown to
me.
“Ther’ was a time, I reckon,
when I knowed
Nigh onto every dern galoot
in town.
That was as late as ’50. Now
she’s growed
Surprisin’! Yes,
me an’ my pardner, Brown,
Was wide acquainted. If ther’
was a cuss
We didn’t know, the cause was—he
knowed us.
“Maybe you had that claim adjoinin’
mine
Up thar in Calaveras.
Was it you
To which Long Mary took a mighty shine,
An’ throwed squar’
off on Jake the Kangaroo?
I guess if she could see ye now she’d
take
Her chance o’ happiness along o’
Jake.
“You ain’t so purty now as
you was then:
Yer eyes is nothin’
but two prospect holes,
An’ women which are hitched to better
men
Would hardly for sech glances
damn their souls,
As Lengthie did. By G——!
I hope it’s you,
For” (kicks the skull) “I’m
Jake the Kangaroo.”
A VISION OF DOOM.
I stood upon a hill. The setting
sun
Was crimson with a curse and a portent,
And scarce his angry ray lit up the land
That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared
Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking
up
From dim tarns hateful with some horrid
ban,
Took shapes forbidden and without a name.
Gigantic night-birds, rising from the
reeds
With cries discordant, startled all the
air,
And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom—
The ghosts of blasphemies long ages stilled,