Beneath this casket rots unknown
A Thing that merits not a stone,
Save that by passing urchin cast;
Whose fame and virtues we express
By transient urn of emptiness,
With apt inscription (to its past
Relating—and to his): “Prime Mess.”
No honour had this infidel,
That doth not appertain, as well,
To haltered caitiff on the drop;
No wit that would not likewise pass
For wisdom in the famished ass
Who breaks his neck a weed to crop,
When tethered in the luscious grass.
And now, thank God, his hateful name
Shall never rescued be from shame,
Though seas of venal ink be shed;
No sophistry shall reconcile
With sympathy for Erin’s Isle,
Or sorrow for her patriot dead,
The weeping of this crocodile.
Life’s incongruity is past,
And dirt to dirt is seen at last,
The worm of worm afoul doth fall.
The sexton tolls his solemn bell
For scoundrel dead and gone to—well,
It matters not, it can’t recall
This convict from his final cell.
II
A King of Craft
Here lies Sam Chamberlain; his fatal smile
Survives its wielder for a little while
In nightmares of the prudent few who fled
The Judas kisses that it heralded—
Those all are dreamless who stood still to view
The smile that stayed them for the stab that slew.
Against his God his warfare now is o’er:
His bloodless heart (no colder than before)
No longer with a mute ambition swells
To run a half-a-hundred little Hells.
With ever a polite, perfidious art—
A dove in manner and a snake in heart,
This titmouse Machiavelli ne’er again
Will feel the urge, the passion and the strain
To prove it true that one may smile and smile
And be a Chamberlain the blessed while.
Sharp at both ends, his secret soul
Was like a double-headed mole
Equipped with equal nose to prod
This way or that beneath the sod.
Conjecture fitted to confound
If seen a moment out of ground—
Its former, as its future, route
The matter of a vain dispute,
Save where a dunghill’s lure supplied
Its aid the riddle to decide.
When that occurred (his nearer nose
Pointing the way with happier throes)
He sought it as a bee the rose.
And as that robber daubs its thighs
With pollen till it cannot rise,
So he, with glutted mind, remained
Inert, and Christ arose and reigned.
We raise the stone, we carve the solemn word,
The sign of promise and the symbol grim;
His voice and vice are in the land unheard—
Yet all is doubtful that relates to him.
No more he twirls his smile to work us woe;
We saw him put a fathom under sod:
Flung down at last—but so was Aaron’s rod.
We hope he’s dead, but only this we know:
He does not smile. O glory be to God!
III
Stephen Dorsey
Flee, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst,
Where rests in Satan an offender first
In point of greatness, as in point of time,
Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime.
Skilled with a frank loquacity to blab
The dark arcana of each mighty grab,
And famed for lying from his early youth,
He sinned secure behind a veil of truth.
Some lock their lips upon their deeds; some write
A damning record and conceal from sight;
Some, with a lust of speaking, die to quell it.
His way to keep a secret was to tell it.
IV
Mr. Justice Field
Here sleeps one of the greatest students
Of jurisprudence.
Nature endowed him with the gift
Of the juristhrift.
All points of law alike he threw
The dice to settle.
Those honest cubes were loaded true
With railway metal.
V
General B. F. Butler
Thy flesh to earth, thy soul to God,
We gave, O gallant brother;
And o’er thy grave the awkward squad
Fired into one another!
VI
Reparation
Beneath this monument which rears its head,
A giant note of admiration—dead,
His life extinguished like a taper’s flame,
John Ericsson is lying in his fame.
Behold how massive is the lofty shaft;
How fine the product of the sculptor’s craft;
The gold how lavishly applied; the great
Man’s statue how impressive and sedate!
Think what the cost was! It would ill become
Our modesty to specify the sum;
Suffice it that a fair percent we’re giving
Of what we robbed him of when he was living.
VII
Disincorporated
Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk
Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk.
His legs in the South claim the patriot’s tear,
But, stranger, you needn’t be blubbering here.
VIII
A Kit
Here Ingalls, sorrowing, has laid
The tools of his infernal trade—
His pen and tongue. So sharp they grew,
An such destruction from them flew,
His hand was wounded when he wrote,
And when he spoke he cut his throat.
IX
Disjunctus
Within this humble mausoleum
Poor Guiteau’s flesh you’ll find.
His bones are kept in a museum,
And Tillman has his mind.
X
A Trencher-Knight
Stranger, uncover; here you have in view
The monument of Chauncey M. Depew,
Eater and orator, the whole world round
For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned.
Dining his way to eminence, he rowed
With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed
From lakes of favor—pulled with all his force
And found each river sweeter than the source.
Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor,
Gnawing and rising till obscure no more,
He ate his way to eminence, and Fame
Inscribes in gravy his immortal name.
A trencher-knight, he, mounted on his belly,
So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly.
Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him,
And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him.
XI
A Vice-President
Here the remains of Schuyler Colfax lie;
Born, all the world knows when, and God knows why.
In ’71 he filled the public eye,
In ’72 he bade the world good-bye;
In God’s good time, with a protesting sigh,
He came to life just long enough to die.
XII
A Wasted Life
Of Morgan here lies the unspirited clay,
Who secrets of Masonry swore to betray.
He joined the great Order and studied with zeal
The awful arcana he meant to reveal.
At last in chagrin by his own hand he fell—
There was nothing to learn, there was nothing to tell.
The Masons are said to have killed him. Not so—
Even a secret so foul, they’re compelled to forego.
Here rests a writer, great but not immense,
Born destitute of feeling and of sense.
No power he but o’er his brain desired—
How not to suffer it to be inspired.
Ideas unto him were all unknown,
Proud of the words which, only, were his own.
So unreflecting, so confused his mind,
Torpid in error, indolently blind,
A fever Heaven to quicken him applied,
But rather than revive, the sluggard died.
XIV
A Water-Pirate
Pause, stranger—whence you lightly tread
Bill Carr’s immoral part has fled.
For him no heart of woman burned,
But all the rivers’ heads he turned.
Alas! he now lifts up his eyes
In torment and for water cries,
Entreating that he may procure
One drop to cool his parched McClure!
XV
C. P. Berry
Here’s crowbait!—ravens, too, and daws
Flock hither to advance their caws,
And, with a sudden courage armed,
Devour the foe who once alarmed—
In life and death a fair deceit:
Nor strong to harm nor good to eat.
King bogey of the scarecrow host,
When known the least affrighting most,
Though light his hand (his mind was dark)
He left on earth a straw Berry mark.
XVI
The Rev. Joseph Hemphill
He preached that sickness he could floor
By prayer and by commanding;
When sick himself he sent for four
Physicians in good standing.
He was struck dead despite their care,
For, fearing their dissension,
He secretly put up a prayer,
Thus drawing God’s attention.
XVII
Jay Gould lies here. When he was newly dead
He looked so natural that round his bed
The people stood, in silence all, to weep.
They thought, poor souls! that he did only sleep.
XVIII
Cynic perforce from studying mankind
In the false volume of his single mind,
He damned his fellows for his own unworth,
And, bad himself, thought nothing good on earth.
Yet, still so judging and so erring still,
Observing well, but understanding ill,
His learning all was got by dint of sight,
And what he learned by day he lost by night.
When hired to flatter he would never cease
Till those who’d paid for praises paid for peace.
Not wholly miser and but half a knave,
He yearned to squander but he lived to save,
And did not, for he could not, cheat the grave.
Hic jacet Pixley, scribe and muleteer:
Step lightly, stranger, anywhere but here.
XIX
McAllister, of talents rich and rare,
Lies at this spot at finish of his race.
Alike to him if it is here or there:
The one spot that he cared for was the ace.
XX
Here lies Joseph Redding, who gave us the catfish.
He dined upon every fish except that fish.
’Twas touching to hear him expounding his fad
With a heart full of zeal and a mouth full of shad.
The catfish meowed with unspeakable woe
When Death, the lone fisherman, landed their Jo.
XXI
Judge Sawyer, whom in vain the people tried
To push from power, here is laid aside.
Death only from the bench could ever start
That clinging surface, his immortal part.
XXII
John Irish went, one luckless day,
To loaf and fish at San Jose.
He got no loaf, he got no fish:
They brained him with an empty dish!
They laid him in this place asleep—
O come, ye crocodiles, and weep.
XXIII
In Sacramento City here
This wooden monument we rear
In memory of Dr. May,
Whose smile even Death could not allay.
He’s buried, Heaven alone knows where,
And only the hyenas care;
This May-pole merely marks the spot
Where, ere the wretch began to rot,
Fame’s trumpet, with its brazen bray,
Bawled; “Who (and why) was Dr. May?”
XXIV
Dennis Spencer’s mortal coil
Here is laid away to spoil—
Great riparian, who said
Not a stream should leave its bed.
Now his soul would like a river
Turned upon its parching liver.
XXV
For those this mausoleum is erected
Who Stanford to the Upper House elected.
Their luck is less or their promotion slower,
For, dead, they were elected to the Lower.
XXVI
Beneath this stone sleeps Reuben Lloyd,
Of breath deprived, of sense devoid.
The Templars’ Captain-General, he
So formidable seemed to be,
That had he not been on his back
Death ne’er had ventured to attack.
XXVII
Here lies Greer Harrison, a well cracked louse—
So small a tenant of so big a house!
Who loved to loll on the Parnassian mount,
His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count.
What poetry he’d written but for lack
Of skill, when he had counted, to count back!
Alas, no more he’ll climb the sacred steep
To wake the lyre and put the world to sleep!
To his rapt lip his soul no longer springs
And like a jaybird from a knot-hole sings.
No more the clubmen, pickled with his wine,
Spread wide their ears and hiccough: “That’s divine!”
The genius of his purse no longer draws
The pleasing thunders of a paid applause.
All silent now, nor sound nor sense remains,
Though riddances of worms improve his brains.
All his no talents to the earth revert,
And Fame concludes the record: “Dirt to dirt!”
XXVIII
This grave holds Barnes in all his glory—
Master he of oratOry.
When he died the people, weeping
(For they thought him only sleeping)
Cried: “Although he now is quiet
And his tongue is not a riot,
Soon, the spell that binds him breaking,
He a motion will be making.
Then, alas, he’ll rise and speak
In support of it a week.”
XXIX
Rash mortal! stay thy feet and look around—
This vacant tomb as yet is holy ground;
But soon, alas! Jim Fair will occupy
These premises—then, holiness, good-bye!
XXX
Here Salomon’s body reposes;
Bring roses, ye rebels, bring roses.
Set all of your drumsticks a-moving,
Discretion and Valor approving;
Discretion—he always retreated—
And Valor—the dead he defeated.
Brings roses, ye loyal, bring roses:
As patriot here he re-poses.
XXXI
When Waterman ended his bright career
He left his wet name to history here.
To carry it with him he thought unfair:
’Twould tantalize spirits of statesmen There.
XXXII
Here lie the remains of Fred Emerson Brooks,
A poet, as everyone knew by his looks
Who hadn’t, unluckily, met with his books.
On civic occasions he sprang to the fore
With poems consisting of stanzas three score.
The men whom they deafened enjoyed them the more.
In this peaceful spot, so the grave-diggers say,
With pen, ink and paper they laid him away—
The Poet-elect of the Judgment Day.
XXXIII
George Perry here is stiff and stark,
With stone at foot and stone at head.
His heart was dark, his mind was dark—
“Ignorant ass!” the people said.
Not ignorant but skilled, alas,
In all the secrets of his trade:
He knew more ways to be an ass
Than any ass that ever brayed.
XXXIV
Here lies the last of Deacon Fitch,
Whose business was to melt the pitch.
Convenient to this sacred spot
Lies Sammy, who applied it, hot.
’Tis hard—so much alike they smell—
One’s grave from t’other’s grave to tell,
But when his tomb the Deacon’s burst
(Of two he’ll always be the first)
He’ll see by studying the stones
That he’s obtained his proper bones,
Then, seeking Sammy’s vault, unlock it,
And put that person in his pocket.
XXXV
Beneath this stone O’Donnell’s tongue’s at rest—
Our noses by his spirit still addressed.
Living or dead, he’s equally Satanic—
His noise a terror and his smell a panic.
XXXVI
Hangman’s hands laid in this tomb an
Imp of Satan’s getting, whom an
Ancient legend says that woman
Never bore—he owed his birth
To Sin herself. From Hell to Earth
She brought the brat in secret state
And laid him at the Golden Gate,
And they named him Henry Vrooman.
While with mortals here he stayed,
His father frequently he played.
Raised his birth-place and in other
Playful ways begot his mother.
XXXVII
When Gabriel blows a dreadful blast
And swears that Time’s forever past,
Days, weeks, months, years all one at last,
Then Asa Fiske, lying here unblest,
Will beat (and skin his hand) his breast:
There’ll be no rate of interest!
XXXVIII
Step lightly, stranger: here Jerome B. Cox
Is for the second time in a bad box.
He killed a man—the labor party rose
And showed him by its love how killing goes.
XXXIX
When Vrooman here lay down to sleep,
The other dead awoke to weep.
“Since he no longer lives,” they said
“Small honor comes of being dead.”
XL
Here Porter Ashe is in the ground
Green grows the grass upon his mound.
This patron of the turf, I vow,
Ne’er served it half so well as now.
XLI
Like a cold fish escaping from its tank,
Hence fled the soul of Joe Russel, crank.
He cried: “Cold water!” roaring like a beast.
’Twas thrown upon him and the music ceased.
XLII
Here Estee rests. He shook a basket,
When, like a jewel from its casket,
Fell Felton out. Said Estee, shouting
With mirth; “I’ve given you an outing.”
Then told him to go back. He wouldn’t.
Then tried to put him back. He couldn’t.
So Estee died (his blood congealing
In Felton’s growing shadow) squealing.
XLIII
Mourn here for one Bruner, called Elwood.
He doesn’t—he never did—smell good
To noses of critics and scholars.
If now he’d an office to sell could
He sell it? O, no—where (in Hell) could
He find a cool four hundred dollars?
XLIV
Here Stanford lies, who thought it odd
That he should go to meet his God.
He looked, until his eyes grew dim,
For God to hasten to meet him.