"Permit me," it resumed, "now to present My eldest son, the Champagne Atmosphere, And others to rebuke your discontent-- The Mammoth Squash, Strawberry All the Year, The fair No Lightning--flashing only here-- The Wholesome Earthquake and Italian Sky, With its Unstriking Sun; and last, not least, The Compos Mentis Dog. Now, ingrate, try To bring a better stomach to the feast: When Nature makes a dance and pays the piper, To be unhappy is to be a viper!" "Why, yet," said I, "with all your blessings fine (And Heaven forbid that I should speak them ill) I yet am poor and sick and sad. Ye shine With more of splendor than of heat: for still, Although my will is warm, my bones are chill." "Then warm you with enthusiasm's blaze-- Fortune waits not on toil," they cried; "O then Join the wild chorus clamoring our praise-- Throw up your beaver and throw down you pen!" "Begone!" I shouted. They bewent, a-smirking, And I, awakening, fell straight a-working. A "MASS" MEETING It was a solemn rite as e'er Was seen by mortal man. The celebrants, the people there, Were all Republican. There Estee bent his grizzled head, And General Dimond, too, And one--'twas Reddick, some one said, Though no one clearly knew. I saw the priest, white-robed and tall (Assistant, Father Stow)-- He was the pious man men call Dan Burns of Mexico. Ah, 'twas a high and holy rite As any one could swear. "What does it mean?" I asked a wight Who knelt apart in prayer. "A mass for the repose," he said, "Of Colonel Markham's"----"What, Is gallant Colonel Markham dead? 'Tis sad, 'tis sad, God wot!" "A mass"--repeated he, and rose To go and kneel among The worshipers--"for the repose Of Colonel Markham's tongue." FOR PRESIDENT, LELAND STANFORD