 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
A LIFTED FINGER
[_]
[The Chronicle did a great public service in whipping --- and his fellow-rascals out of office.—M. H. de Young's Newspaper.]
What! you whip rascals?—you, whose gutter blood
Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood,
Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs
To serve a whole eternity of terms?
You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove
Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove?
You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave
Is phosphorescence from another's grave—
Till now unknown, by any chance or luck,
Even to the hearts at which you feebly struck?
You whip a rascal out of office?—you
Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew
Its smoke in six directions to assert
Your lack of appetite for other's dirt?
Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood,
Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs
To serve a whole eternity of terms?
You, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove
Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove?
You, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave
Is phosphorescence from another's grave—
Till now unknown, by any chance or luck,
Even to the hearts at which you feebly struck?
You whip a rascal out of office?—you
Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew
Its smoke in six directions to assert
Your lack of appetite for other's dirt?
28
Practice makes perfect: when for fame you thirst,
Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first.
Or, if for action you're less free than bold
(Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold)
Entrust the castigation that you've planned,
As once before, to woman's idle hand.
So in your spirit shall two pleasures join
To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin.
Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath,
And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath.
Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills,
Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills,
A woman's blood, through roses ever red,
Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head.
Slandered to death to serve a sordid end,
She called you murderer and called me friend.
Then whip a rascal. Whip a cripple first.
Or, if for action you're less free than bold
(Your palms both brimming with dishonest gold)
Entrust the castigation that you've planned,
As once before, to woman's idle hand.
So in your spirit shall two pleasures join
To slake the sacred thirst for blood and coin.
Blood? Souls have blood, even as the body hath,
And, spilled, 'twill fertilize the field of wrath.
Lo! in a purple gorge of yonder hills,
Where o'er a grave a bird its day-song stills,
A woman's blood, through roses ever red,
Mutely appeals for vengeance on your head.
Slandered to death to serve a sordid end,
She called you murderer and called me friend.
Now, mark you, libeler, this course if you
Dare to maintain, or rather to renew;
If one short year's immunity has made
You blink again the perils of your trade—
The ghastly sequence of the maddened “knave,”
The hot encounter and the colder grave;
If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore
While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor,
And calmly march upon the fatal brink
With eyes averted to your trail of ink,
Counting unkind the services of those
Who pull, to hold you back, your stupid nose,
The day for you to die is not so far,
Or, at the least, to live the thing you are!
Dare to maintain, or rather to renew;
If one short year's immunity has made
You blink again the perils of your trade—
The ghastly sequence of the maddened “knave,”
The hot encounter and the colder grave;
If the grim, dismal lesson you ignore
While yet the stains are fresh upon your floor,
And calmly march upon the fatal brink
With eyes averted to your trail of ink,
Counting unkind the services of those
29
The day for you to die is not so far,
Or, at the least, to live the thing you are!
Pregnant with possibilities of crime,
And full of felons for all coming time,
Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt
In testimony to a venial guilt.
Live to get whelpage and preserve a name
No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame.
Live to fulfill the vision that I see
Down the dim vistas of the time to be:
A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes
Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies;
A dream of gleaming teeth and fœtid breath
Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death;
A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues—
The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs!
And full of felons for all coming time,
Your blood's too precious to be lightly spilt
In testimony to a venial guilt.
Live to get whelpage and preserve a name
No praise can sweeten and no lie unshame.
Live to fulfill the vision that I see
Down the dim vistas of the time to be:
A dream of clattering beaks and burning eyes
Of hungry ravens glooming all the skies;
A dream of gleaming teeth and fœtid breath
Of jackals wrangling at the feast of death;
A dream of broken necks and swollen tongues—
The whole world's gibbets loaded with De Youngs!
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |