The Rum Army.
In Two Pictures.
I.—The Devil’s Dress-Parade.
The wretch who sells a poisoned cup for gain,
That lodges demons in the maddened brain,
Blinds every hope that seeks a fairer goal,
Withers the heart, and burns the very soul
Out of its corse ere yet the putrid breath
Resigns its burden to less loathly death—
Stands darkly eminent in the evil host,
Whose rear-ranks cataract the infernal coast!
You see hum now within his gilded snare
A hundred mirrors dart the gas-light’s glare,
Weaving with fiery shuttles to-and-fro
The glittering web around his prey to throw.
Spider and soldier in the ranks of hell,
The double image suits his nature well!
His fatal battery, mounted en barbette,
Over his counter’s marble parapet,
Rains deadlier grape than ever battle shed
From ponderous Paixhan or Columbiad;
Silent and beautiful each glittering shell
Tempts to the doom its clumsier peers compel.
What village giants, Anakims of brain,
Too strong in pride, his simple sling has slain;
What silly fops, that over juleps draw,
Like Pan, their inspiration from a straw,
Find health and wealth and honor swamped within’t,
And beggared die through draughts upon his mint!
Here all is glittering elegance, to suit
Fastidious taste in Folly’s raw recruit;
No war-worn veterans, with uneasy pitch,
Reel from is doors to narrow “the last ditch;”
No bloated visage, whose volcanic nose
Burns like a beacon o’er the gulf that flows
With liquid fire—the sot’s unfathomed mouth—
Bloom here, to blight a tender budling’s growth:
For all is seemly; guilty hands are hid
In honest rat-skin, styled Parisian kid,
Though the unblushing face must wear, alas!
Its native calf of hard perennial brass.
If now his carpet feels the cloven hoof,
Ingenious Crispin hides the damning proof;
While glossy broadcloth lends an ample vail
To the coiled terrors of the barbed tail;
No sights unshapely have the fiend betrayed,
Here his fresh-levied troops are on their dress-parade!
II. The Old Veterans
Along the lines another sight behold—
Lambs more mature, but of the self-same fold.
Champagne, "Jungfrauen Milch," and " Temperance Schnapps,"
Sate not the longing of these deep-horned chaps.
Hot aqua-fortis, hissing in the jug,
Sweetens the draught, with many a biting drug;
Whereby the honest publican "extends "
His flood of fire-to that which never ends!
Unwonted tortures wrench the weary bones,
More subtle devils lash him to new groans,
As swifter madness fires the inebriate's brain;
Death to his pale horse flings the loosened rein,
Bit by the age, forsakes his dull old hack,
And drives a yelling engine down the track!
And mark the shepherd of this goodly flock,
To whom " sheep's clothing" were an idle mock;
Whose pleasant brooks and pastures dewy green,
Are drugged potations and a vile shebeen ;
Whose pastoral pipe, untwisted from his hat,
Sheds smoke for music—the more foul, more Pat;
A wry-necked bottle for his candlestick
Holds a "dip," weeping for a thief in the wick,
That sheds, across the mingled stench and gloom,
"Disastrous twilight over half the"—room.
The Great Unwashed seen dimly about the spot,
Just streak the darkness with a dirtier blot,
Or, round a barrel, with a villain " pack,"
Now "play the deuce," or, yelling, "turn up Jack!"
While Satan's Ganymedes at his post,
Plays the right knave, and wins whate'er is lost!
S
Unwholesome refuse, publishing, where found,
"Something in Denmark" not precisely sound, *
Indignant Virtue cries, with honest doubt,
" Where sleeps the law that has not wiped him out?"
Ah simple Virtue! know you not with him
A power that makes our bannered stars grow dim,
Lurks, like the genie in the Arabian tale,
In a green bottle for his narrow jail,
Unseen, innocuous, till evoked, he soars
Gigantic, stretching to our utmost shores,
Till reeling Premier drools inane consent
To guilty schemes of spewing President!
