Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 40

A RAILROAD LACKEY

Ben Truman, you're a genius and can write, Though one would not suspect it from your looks.You lack that certain spareness which is quite Distinctive of the persons who make books. You show the workmanship of Stanford's cooksAbout the region of the appetite,Where geniuses are singularly slight.Your friends the Chinamen are understood,Indeed, to speak of you as "belly good."Still, you can write—spell, too, I understand— Though how two such accomplishments can go,Like sentimental schoolgirls, hand in hand Is more than ever I can hope to know. To have one talent good enough to showHas always been sufficient to commandThe veneration of the brilliant bandOf railroad scholars, who themselves, indeed,Although they cannot write, can mostly read.There's Towne and Fillmore, Goodman and Steve Gage, Ned Curtis of Napoleonic face,Who used to dash his name on glory's page "A.M." appended to denote his place Among the learned. Now the last faint traceOf Nap. is all obliterate with age,And Ned's degree less precious than his wage.He says: "I done it," with his every breath."Thou canst not say I did it," says Macbeth.Good land! how I run on! I quite forgot Whom this was meant to be about; for whenI think upon that odd, unearthly lot— Not quite Creedhaymonds, yet not wholly men— I'm dominated by my rebel penThat, like the stubborn bird from which 'twas got,Goes waddling forward if I will or not.To leave your comrades, Ben, I'm now content:I'll meet them later if I don't repent.You've writ a letter, I observe—nay, more, You've published it—to say how good you thinkThe coolies, and invite them to come o'er In thicker quantity. Perhaps you drinkNo corporation's wine, but love its ink;Or when you signed away your soul and sworeOn railrogue battle-fields to shed your goreYou mentally reserved the right to shedThe raiment of your character instead.You're naked, anyhow: unragged you stand In frank and stark simplicity of shame.And here upon your flank, in letters grand, The iron has marked you with your owner's name. Needless, for none would steal and none reclaim. But "£eland $tanford" is a pretty brand,Wrought by an artist with a cunning handBut come—this naked unreserve is flat:Don your habiliment—you're fat, you're fat!