Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 48

THE OAKLAND DOG

I lay one happy night in bedAnd dreamed that all the dogs were dead.They'd all been taken out and shot—Their bodies strewed each vacant lot.O'er all the earth, from Berkeley downTo San Leandro's ancient town,And out in space as far as Niles—I saw their mortal parts in piles.One stack upreared its ridge so highAgainst the azure of the skyThat some good soul, with pious views,Put up a steeple and sold pews.No wagging tail the scene relieved:I never in my life conceived(I swear it on the Decalogue!)Such penury of living dog.The barking and the howling stilled,The snarling with the snarler killed,All nature seemed to hold its breath:The silence was as deep as death.True, candidates were all in roarOn every platform, as before;And villains, as before, felt freeTo finger the calliope.True, the Salvationist by night,And milkman in the early light,The lonely flutist and the millPerformed their functions with a will.True, church bells on a Sunday rangThe sick man's curtain down—the bangOf trains, contesting for the track,Out of the shadow called him back.True, cocks, at all unheavenly hours,Crew with excruciating powers,Cats on the woodshed rang and roared,Fat citizens and fog-horns snored.But this was all too fine for earsAccustomed, through the awful years,To the nocturnal monologuesAnd day debates of Oakland dogs.And so the world was silent. NowWhat else befell—to whom and how?Imprimis, then, there were no fleas,And days of worth brought nights of ease.Men walked about without the dreadOf being torn to many a shred,Each fragment holding half a cruseOf hydrophobia's quickening juice.They had not to propitiateSome curst kioodle at each gate,But entered one another's grounds,Unscared, and were not fed to hounds.Women could drive and not a pupWould lift the horse's tendons upAnd let them go—to interjectA certain musical effect.Even children's ponies went about,All grave and sober-paced, withoutA bulldog hanging to each nose—Proud of his fragrance, I suppose.Dog being dead, Man's lawless flameBurned out: he granted Woman's claim,Children's and those of country, art—all took lodgings in his heart.When memories of his former shameCrimsoned his cheeks with sudden flameHe said; "I know my fault too well—They fawned upon me and I fell."Ah! 'twas a lovely world!—no moreI met that indisposing bore,The unseraphic cynogogue—The man who's proud to love a dog.Thus in my dream the golden reignOf Reason filled the world again,And all mankind confessed her sway,From Walnut Creek to San Jose.