The soil was naught but ashes, by the breezes driven free, And an acre and a quarter were required to sprout a pea. So agriculture languished, for the land would not produce, And for lack of water, whisky was the beverage in use-- Costly whisky, hauled in wagons many a weary, weary day, Mostly needed by the drivers to sustain them on their way. Wicked whisky! King of Evils! Why, O, why did God create Such a curse and thrust it on us in our inoffensive state? Once a parson came among them, and a holy man was he; With his ailing stomach whisky wouldn't anywise agree; So he knelt upon the _mesa_ and he prayed with all his chin That the Lord would send them water or incline their hearts to gin. Scarcely was the prayer concluded ere an earthquake shook the land, And with copious effusion springs burst out on every hand! Merrily the waters gurgled, and the shock which gave them birth Fitly was by some declared a temperance movement of the earth. Astounded by the miracle, the people met that night To celebrate it properly by some religious rite; And 'tis truthfully recorded that before the moon had sunk Every man and every woman was devotionally drunk. A half a standard gallon (says history) per head Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed. O, the glory of that country! O, the happy, happy folk. By the might of prayer delivered from Nature's broken yoke! Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with rye, And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the sky! Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is grown to grass, Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime pass. Pikeville (that's the name they've given, in their wild, romantic way, To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say, Something like a hundred gallons, out of each recurrent crop, To the head of population--and consumes it, every drop! A BUILDER. I saw the devil--he was working free: A customs-house he builded by the sea. "Why do you this?" The devil raised his head; "Churches and courts I've built enough," he said. AN AUGURY. Upon my desk a single spray, With starry blossoms fraught. I write in many an idle way, Thinking one serious thought. "O flowers, a fine Greek name ye bear, And with a fine Greek grace." Be still, O heart, that turns to share The sunshine of a face. "Have ye no messages--no brief, Still sign: 'Despair', or 'Hope'?" A sudden stir of stem and leaf-- A breath of heliotrope! LUSUS POLITICUS.