Product Description
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: O God, forgive them all, from Stoneman down, Thy smile who construe and expound Thy frown, And fall with saintly grace upon their knees To render thanks when Thou dost only sneeze. THREE KINDS OF A ROGUE Sharon, ambitious of immortal shame, Fame's dead-wall daubed with his illustrious name Served in the Senate, for our sins, his time, Each word a folly and each vote a crime; Law for our governance well skilled to make By knowledge gained in study how to break; Yet still by the presiding eye ignored, Which only sought him when too loud he snored. Auspicious thunder!—when he woke to vote He stilled his own, to cut his country's, throat; That rite performed, fell off again to sleep, While statesmen ages dead awoke to weep! For sedentary service all unfit, By lying long disqualified to sit, Wasting below as he decayed aloft, His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft, He left the hall he could not bring away, And grateful millions blessed the happy day! Whate'er contention in that hall is heard, His sovereign State has still the final word: For disputatious statesmen when they roar Startle the ancient echoes of his snore, Which from their dusty nooks expostulate And close with stormy clamor the debate. To low melodious thunders then they fade; Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade; Peace takes the Chair; the portal Silence keeps; No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps— Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps. Lo! the new Sharon with a new intent, Making no laws, but keen to circumvent The laws of Nature (since he can't repeal) That break his failing body on the wheel. As Tantalus again and yet again The elusive wave endeavors to restrain, To slake his awful thirst, so Sharon tries To purchase happiness that age den...
