True, cocks, at all unheavenly hours,
Crew with excruciating powers,
Cats on the woodshed rang and roared,
Fat citizens and fog-horns snored.

But this was all too fine for ears
Accustomed, through the awful years,
To the nocturnal monologues
And day debates of Oakland dogs.

And so the world was silent.  Now
What else befell—­to whom and how?
Imprimis, then, there were no fleas,
And days of worth brought nights of ease.

Men walked about without the dread
Of being torn to many a shred,
Each fragment holding half a cruse
Of hydrophobia’s quickening juice.

They had not to propitiate
Some curst kioodle at each gate,
But entered one another’s grounds,
Unscared, and were not fed to hounds.

Women could drive and not a pup
Would lift the horse’s tendons up
And let them go—­to interject
A certain musical effect.

Even children’s ponies went about,
All grave and sober-paced, without
A bulldog hanging to each nose—­
Proud of his fragrance, I suppose.

Dog being dead, Man’s lawless flame
Burned out:  he granted Woman’s claim,
Children’s and those of country, art—­
all took lodgings in his heart.

When memories of his former shame
Crimsoned his cheeks with sudden flame
He said; “I know my fault too well—­
They fawned upon me and I fell.”

Ah! ’twas a lovely world!—­no more
I met that indisposing bore,
The unseraphic cynogogue—­
The man who’s proud to love a dog.

Thus in my dream the golden reign
Of Reason filled the world again,
And all mankind confessed her sway,
From Walnut Creek to San Jose.

THE UNFALLEN BRAVE

Not all in sorrow and in tears,
To pay of gratitude’s arrears
  The yearly sum—­
Not prompted, wholly by the pride
Of those for whom their friends have died,
  To-day we come.

Another aim we have in view
Than for the buried boys in blue
  To drop a tear: 
Memorial Day revives the chin
Of Barnes, and Salomon chimes in—­
  That’s why we’re here.

And when in after-ages they
Shall pass, like mortal men, away,
  Their war-song sung,
Then fame will tell the tale anew
Of how intrepidly they drew
  The deadly tongue.

Then cull white lilies for the graves
Of Liberty’s loquacious braves,
  And roses red. 
Those represent their livers, these
The blood that in unmeasured seas
  They did not shed.

A CELEBRATED CASE

Way down in the Boom Belt lived Mrs. Roselle;
A person named Petrie, he lived there as well;
But Mr. Roselle he resided away—­
Sing tooral iooral iooral iay.

Once Mrs. Roselle in her room was alone: 
The flesh of her flesh and the bone of her bone
Neglected the wife of his bosom to woo—­
Sing tooral iooral iooral ioo.