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Bierce, Ambrose, 1842-1914?

"Black Beetles in Amber"


ALL (_singing_):
Could slickens forever
Choke up the river,
And slime's endeavor
Be tried on grain,
How small the measure
Of granger's treasure,
How keen his pain!
RINGDIVVY:
"A consummation devoutly to be wished!"
These rascal grangers would long since have been
Submerged in slimes, to the last man of them,
But for the fact that all their wicked tribes
Affect our legislation with their bribes.
ALL (_singing_):
O bribery's great--
'Tis a pillar of State,
And the people they are free.
FEEGOBBLE:
It smashes my slate!
NOZZLE:
It is thievery straight!
RINGDIVVY:
But it's been the making of me!
NOZZLE:
I judge by certain shrewd sensations here
In these callosities I call my thumbs--
thrilling sense as of ten thousand pins,
Red-hot and penetrant, transpiercing all
The cuticle and tickling through the nerves--
That some malign and awful thing draws near.
(_Enter Hayseed._)
Good Lord! here are the ghosts and spooks of all
The grangers I have decently interred,
Rolled into one!
FEEGOBBLE:
Plead, phantom.
RINGDIVVY:
You've the floor.


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