Rhymes with reason and without

Poor Pi, the printer, was woesome sick,
And he lay on his bed to die;
His eye was glazed, and his breath was thick,
And Death with his dart gave Pi a stick,
Life's frail bucket he over did kick,
And a senseless heap lay Pi.

'T was sad to see his form thus laid,
So ghastly and so stark;
Care on his brow deep lines had made,
And if ever the rays of joy there played,
'T was but for a moment, and then to fade,
Like meteors 'mid the dark.

His body was placed in a humble case,
And borne from his garret dim;
And sighs were heaved that in Death's embrace
Thus had determined his hard-run race;
Friends prayed for his soul as they looked on his face;
What were tears or prayers to him?

They left him to moulder beneath the sod,
And return to primal dust;
They knew he 'd long felt affliction's rod,—

Small comfort was there in the path he had trod,
And they felt that while he mixed with the clod
His spirit was with the just.

Now Time passed on,—long years rolled by,
And Memory 'waked the past;
Men sought the grave of the printer Pi,
A pillar to rear, both broad and high,
As if to atone for old ill to try,
And justice do at last.

'T was no marble column that upward rose
To tower amid the clouds;
Nor granite shaft to record his woes,
Of his hopes all crushed and his heart all froze;—
These were not what the builders chose,
To draw admiring crowds.

But they dragged from its nook the ancient press
That of yore had caused him pain—
The tongue of thought which, through his distress,
Had spoken in tones the world to bless—
The dust of years on its frame did rest,
And many a time-worn stain.

They made it their chiefest corner-stone,
Then piled the mass amain;
The cross-legged bank 'neath a heap did groan,
The ink-balls and the trough were thrown,
The ink-block, cobweb over-grown,
The mallet and the plane.

And hard old cases, in grim array,
And chases thick with rust,
And quoin-drawers long since thrown away,
And relics snatched from a doomed decay,
Were brought again to the light of day,
All clothed in ancient dust.

Then they gathered the toil and the mental pain
Which had marked his earthly race;
And they gathered the hours to him all vain,
Where others had reaped the accruing gain,
And the bitter thoughts which his soul did stain,
And the sweat of his care-worn face.

A crowning piece for the pile they sought,
And long they sought in vain;
Till a gleam of joy or two they brought,
And Saturday nights that with rest were fraught,
And moments of calm and pleasant thought,
When “fat” he 'd chanced to gain.

Then Wisdom's light was shed on the scene,
And a goodly sight was there;
The incongruous mass had changed its mien,
And, glowing bright in celestial sheen,
Its summit resting the stars between,
Rose the pile through the upper air.

And Earth grew glad amid the light
Diffusive in its ray;
And darkened spots came grandly bright,

With new-found radiance bedight,—
As sunshine followeth the night,—
And smiles upon the day.

Effulgently beamed its glories forth,
And then from far and nigh
Came sages, as erst when Truth had birth,
The wise and mighty children of earth,
And laid their tribute of mind to worth
On the urn of the printer Pi.

And then this riddle was plainly read:
That he lives not in vain
Who wrestles with woe to heart and head,
Till the breath is stilled and sense is dead,
And stretches his form on a martyr's bed:
For a darkened world shall gain.

University of Virginia Library

THE JOUR. PRINTER'S MONUMENT.

A MYSTERY.