cousin;
And, though our restless Jonathan have not your graver bent, sure he
Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, rapid nineteenth century;
This is the Age of Scramble; men move faster than they did 160
When they pried up the imperial Past’s deep-dusted coffin-lid,
Searching for scrolls of precedent; the wire-leashed lightning now
Replaces Delphos—­men don’t leave the steamer for the scow;
What public, were they new to-day, would ever stop to read
The Iliad, the Shanameh, or the Nibelungenlied?
Their public’s gone, the artist Greek, the lettered Shah,
  the hairy Graf—­
Folio and plesiosaur sleep well; we weary o’er a paragraph;
The mind moves planet-like no more, it fizzes, cracks, and bustles;
From end to end with journals dry the land o’ershadowed rustles,
As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, with their breath-roused
  jars 170
Amused, we care not if they hide the eternal skies and stars;
Down to the general level of the Board of Brokers sinking,
The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to say sooth unshrinking,
The newspapers take in the Age, and stocks do all the thinking.

AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE

  Somewhere in India, upon a time,
(Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,)
  There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublime
It was to sit and watch the world grow worse,
  Their only care (in that delicious clime)
At proper intervals to pray and curse;
  Pracrit the dialect each prudent brother
  Used for himself, Damnonian for the other.

  One half the time of each was spent in praying
For blessings on his own unworthy head, 10
  The other half in fearfully portraying
Where certain folks would go when they were dead;
  This system of exchanges—­there’s no saying
To what more solid barter ’twould have led,
  But that a river, vext with boils and swellings
  At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings.

  So they two played at wordy battledore
And kept a curse forever in the air,
  Flying this way or that from shore to shore;
Nor other labor did this holy pair, 20
  Clothed and supported from the lavish store
Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care;
  They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias
  Was tow’rd the harder task of being pious.

  Each from his hut rushed six score times a day,
Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed
  With cartridge theologic, (so to say,)
Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed
  His hovel’s door behind him in away
That to his foe said plainly,—­you’ll be damned; 30
  And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong
  The two D——­ D’d each other all day long.