id="id00115" style="margin-top: 2em">I dreamed one night that Stephen Massett died,
And for admission up at Heaven applied.
"Who are you?" asked St. Peter. Massett said:
"Jeems Pipes, of Pipesville." Peter bowed his head,
Opened the gates and said: "I'm glad to know you,
And wish we'd something better, sir, to show you."
"Don't mention it," said Stephen, looking bland,
And was about to enter, hat in hand,
When from a cloud below such fumes arose
As tickled tenderly his conscious nose.
He paused, replaced his hat upon his head,
Turned back and to the saintly warden said,
O'er his already sprouting wings: "I swear
I smell some broiling going on down there!"
So Massett's paunch, attracted by the smell,
Followed his nose and found a place in Hell.

ORNITHANTHROPOS

"Let John P. Irish rise!" the edict rang
As when Creation into being sprang!
Nature, not clearly understanding, tried
To make a bird that on the air could ride.
But naught could baffle the creative plan—
Despite her efforts 'twas almost a man.
Yet he had risen—to the bird a twin—
Had she but fixed a wing upon his chin.

TO E.S. SALOMON

    Who in a Memorial Day oration protested bitterly against
    decorating the graves of Confederate dead.

What! Salomon! such words from you,
  Who call yourself a soldier? Well,
  The Southern brother where he fell
Slept all your base oration through.

Alike to him—he cannot know
  Your praise or blame: as little harm
  Your tongue can do him as your arm
A quarter-century ago.

The brave respect the brave. The brave
  Respect the dead; but you—you draw
  That ancient blade, the ass's jaw,
And shake it o'er a hero's grave.

Are you not he who makes to-day
  A merchandise of old renown
  Which he persuades this easy town
He won in battle far away?

Nay, those the fallen who revile
  Have ne'er before the living stood
  And stoutly made their battle good
And greeted danger with a smile.

What if the dead whom still you hate
  Were wrong? Are you so surely right?
  We know the issue of the fight—
The sword is but an advocate.

Men live and die, and other men
  Arise with knowledges diverse:
  What seemed a blessing seems a curse,
And Now is still at odds with Then.

The years go on, the old comes back
  To mock the new—beneath the sun.
  Is nothing new; ideas run
Recurrent in an endless track.

What most we censure, men as wise
  Have reverently practiced; nor
  Will future wisdom fail to war
On principles we dearly prize.

We do not know—we can but deem,
  And he is loyalest and best
  Who takes the light full on his breast
And follows it throughout the dream.

The broken light, the shadows wide—
  Behold the battle-field displayed!
  God save the vanquished from the blade,
The victor from the victor's pride!

If, Salomon, the blessed dew
  That falls upon the Blue and Gray
  Is powerless to wash away
The sin of differing from you.

Remember how the flood of years
  Has rolled across the erring slain;
  Remember, too, the cleansing rain
Of widows' and of orphans' tears.

The dead are dead—let that atone:
  And though with equal hand we strew
  The blooms on saint and sinner too,
Yet God will know to choose his own.

The wretch, whate'er his life and lot,
  Who does not love the harmless dead
  With all his heart and all his head—
May God forgive him—I shall not.

When, Salomon, you come to quaff
  The Darker Cup with meeker face,
  I, loving you at last, shall trace
Upon your tomb this epitaph:

"Draw near, ye generous and brave—
  Kneel round this monument and weep:
  It covers one who tried to keep
A flower from a dead man's grave."

DENNIS KEARNEY

Your influence, my friend, has gathered head—
To east and west its tides encroaching spread.
There'll be, on all God's foot-stool, when they meet,
No clean spot left for God to set His feet.

FINIS ÆTERNITATIS

Strolling at sunset in my native land,
With fruits and flowers thick on either hand,
    I crossed a Shadow flung athwart my way,
Emerging on a waste of rock and sand.

"The apples all are gone from here," I said,
"The roses perished and their spirits fled.
    I will go back." A voice cried out: "The man
Is risen who eternally was dead!"

I turned and saw an angel standing there,
Newly descended from the heights of air.
    Sweet-eyed compassion filled his face, his hands
A naked sword and golden trumpet bare.

"Nay, 'twas not death, the shadow that I crossed,"
I said. "Its chill was but a touch of frost.
    It made me gasp, but quickly I came through,
With breath recovered ere it scarce was lost."

'Twas the same land! Remembered mountains thrust
Grayed heads asky, and every dragging gust,
    In ashen valleys where my sons had reaped,
Stirred in familiar river-beds the dust.

Some heights, where once the traveler was shown
The youngest and the proudest city known,
    Lifted smooth ridges in the steely light—
Bleak, desolate acclivities of stone.

Where I had worshiped at my father's tomb,
Within a massive temple's awful gloom,
    A jackal slunk along the naked rock,
Affrighted by some prescience of doom.

Man's vestiges were nowhere to be found,
Save one brass mausoleum on a mound
    (I knew it well) spared by the artist Time
To emphasize the desolation round.

Into the stagnant sea the sullen sun
Sank behind bars of crimson, one by one.
    "Eternity's at hand!" I cried aloud.
"Eternity," the angel said, "is done.

For man is ages dead in every zone;
The angels all are dead but I alone;
    The devils, too, are cold enough at last,
And God lies dead before the great white throne!

'Tis foreordained that I bestride the shore
When all are gone (as Gabriel did before,
    When I had throttled the last man alive)
And swear Eternity shall be no more."

"O Azrael—O Prince of Death, declare
Why conquered I the grave?" I cried. "What rare,
    Conspicuous virtues won this boon for me?"
"You've been revived," he said, "to hear me swear."

"Then let me creep again beneath the grass,
And knock thou at yon pompous tomb of brass.
     If ears are what you want, Charles Crocker's there—
Betwixt the greatest ears, the greatest ass."

He rapped, and while the hollow