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lecat, sovereign of its native wood, Dashes damnation upon bad and good; The health of all the upas trees impairs By exhalations deadlier than theirs; Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad-- The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode! She shakes o'er breathless hill and shrinking dale The horrid aspergillus of her tail! From every saturated hair, till dry, The spargent fragrances divergent fly, Deafen the earth and scream along the sky! Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife Of urban odors to ungladden life-- Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire The flesh to torture and the soul to fire-- Where all the "well defined and several stinks" Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks-- Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense Of lost distinction, leveled eminence, She suddenly resigns her baleful trust, Nor ever lays again our mortal dust. Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk, She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk. A "MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON." "O, I'm the Unaverage Man, But you never have heard of me, For my brother, the Average Man, outran My fame with rapiditee, And I'm sunk in Oblivion's sea, But my bully big brother the world can span With his wide notorietee. I do everything that I can To make 'em attend to me, But the papers ignore the Unaverage Man With a weird uniformitee." So sang with a dolorous note A voice that I heard from the beach; On the sable waters it seemed to float Like a mortal part of speech. The sea was Oblivion's sea, And I cried as I plunged to swim: "The Unaverage Man shall reside with me." But he didn't--I stayed with him! THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT. Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice And shells and corals, brought for my inspection From the fair tropics--paid a Christian price And was content in my fool's paradise, Where never had been heard the word "Protection." 'T was my sole island; there I dwelt alone-- No customs-house, collector nor collection, But a man came, who, in a pious tone Condoled with me that I had never known The manifest advantage of Protection. So, when the trading-boat arrived one day, He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section. The traders paddled for their lives away, Nor came again into that haunted bay, The blessed home thereafter of Protection. Then down
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