 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
161
IN DISSUASION
Dan Burns, you'd be a Senator, I hear,
And Senators are persons of much note.
I cannot choose but think it very queer
That you solicit for the place a vote.
Why, don't you know you'll have to ride the goat,
Be skyward from a shaken blanket hurled
And put in session on a heated chair
Till your immortal part is more than rare—
Your foretaste of another, warmer world?
'Tis said that all ambitious louts who dare
Aspire to Senatorial fame receive it
In some such fashion, though I don't believe it.
And Senators are persons of much note.
I cannot choose but think it very queer
That you solicit for the place a vote.
Why, don't you know you'll have to ride the goat,
Be skyward from a shaken blanket hurled
And put in session on a heated chair
Till your immortal part is more than rare—
Your foretaste of another, warmer world?
'Tis said that all ambitious louts who dare
Aspire to Senatorial fame receive it
In some such fashion, though I don't believe it.
Still, you'll suppose that this has all occurred.
If in that Upper House you e'er arise,
Trembly and hot, to speak your maiden word—
Walls, desks, floor, ceiling to your failing eyes
Seeming to blend, and Senators like flies
To spin about in space! Rash man, forbear
To cherish your accurst ambition! Sir,
Your breeding and your character confer
Small right to breathe in that expanded air.
For toads to perch with eagles is to err.
Pray Heaven to send contentment with your station
And bar you from the hauls of legislation.
If in that Upper House you e'er arise,
Trembly and hot, to speak your maiden word—
Walls, desks, floor, ceiling to your failing eyes
Seeming to blend, and Senators like flies
To spin about in space! Rash man, forbear
To cherish your accurst ambition! Sir,
Your breeding and your character confer
Small right to breathe in that expanded air.
For toads to perch with eagles is to err.
Pray Heaven to send contentment with your station
And bar you from the hauls of legislation.
162
The toga, if you win it, scarce will serve
To cover up the stripes (where are the stars?)
Which to a fertile fancy seem to curve
Round you like shadows of the prison bars.
Embezzlement, I'm told, exists in Mars,
Where sometimes an official will “convey”
And in “the shadow of the jail” abide
Till it seems photographed upon his hide
And shapes his gait, as if he dragged alway
A ball-and-chain. Upon the Moon's far side
Dwells such a man, who knows not (goes the story)
Which of the saints he is when out for glory.
To cover up the stripes (where are the stars?)
Which to a fertile fancy seem to curve
Round you like shadows of the prison bars.
Embezzlement, I'm told, exists in Mars,
Where sometimes an official will “convey”
And in “the shadow of the jail” abide
Till it seems photographed upon his hide
And shapes his gait, as if he dragged alway
A ball-and-chain. Upon the Moon's far side
Dwells such a man, who knows not (goes the story)
Which of the saints he is when out for glory.
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |