rs) which bind
That confraternity of crime, the Board.

The Half-Dome bows its riven face to weep,
But not, as formerly, because bereft:
Prophetic dreams afflict him when asleep
Of losing his remaining half by theft.

Ambitious knaves! has not the upper sod
Enough of room for every crime that crawls
But you must loot the Palaces of God
And daub your filthy names upon the walls?

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

Within my dark and narrow bed
I rested well, new-laid:
I heard above my fleshless head
The grinding of a spade.

A gruffer note ensued and grew
To harsh and harsher strains:
The poet Welcker then I knew
Was "snatching" my remains.

"O Welcker, let your hand be stayed
And leave me here in peace.
Of your revenge you should have made
An end with my decease."

"Hush, Mouldyshanks, and hear my moan:
I once, as you're aware,
Was eminent in letters--known
And honored everywhere.

"My splendor made all Berkeley bright
And Sacramento blind.
Men swore no writer e'er could write
Like me--if I'd a mind.

"With honors all insatiate,
With curst ambition smit,
Too far, alas! I tempted fate--
I _published_ what I'd writ!

"Good Heaven! with what a hunger wild
Oblivion swallows fame!
Men who have known me from a child
Forget my very name!

"Even creditors with searching looks
My face cannot recall;
My heaviest one--he prints my books--
Oblivious most of all.

"O I should feel a sweet content
If one poor dun his claim
Would bring to me for settlement,
And bully me by name.

"My dog is at my gate forlorn;
It howls through all the night,
And when I greet it in the morn
It answers with a bite!"

"O Poet, what in Satan's name
To me's all this ado?
Will snatching me restore the fame
That printing snatched from you?"

"Peace, dread Remains; I'm not about
To do a deed of sin.
I come not here to hale you out--
I'm trying to get in."

THE LAST MAN

I dreamed that Gabriel took his horn
On Resurrection's fateful morn,
And lighting upon Laurel Hill
Blew long, blew loud, blew high and shrill.
The houses compassing the ground
Rattled their windows at the sound.
But no one rose. "Alas!" said he,
"What lazy bones these mortals be!"
Again he plied the horn, again
Deflating both his lungs in vain;
Then stood astonished and chagrined
At raising nothing but the wind.
At last he caught the tranquil eye
Of an observer standing by--
La