Wasting below as he decayed aloft,
His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft,
He left the hall he could not bring away,
And grateful millions blessed the happy day! 
Whate’er contention in that hall is heard,
His sovereign State has still the final word: 
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