If you can find, within, a single line To give you pleasure, then the pleasure's mine; But if you fail and whine, or _josh_ like Billings, You might (I say you _might_!) get back your shillings. But better yet! Bestow this Book of Verses On some friend-foe you love with hate and curses, And your revenge will be attained thereafter For, when he reads it, he will die with laughter. And, Cheerful Reader, if this work contains A soporific for your bulging brains So that you'll _rave about it_ to your neighbors, I'll feel repaid for all rebuffs and labors. Though "Wisdom sometimes borrows, sometimes lends," You'll borrow trouble lending this to friends; But earn my thanks if, when you've praised or shown it, You'll sit upon the lid and never loan it: For ev'ry copy sold, thru friends or slapbacks, Just puts Mo'lasses on my buckwheat flapjacks. And, Critic Friend, who halts Ambition's flight And ties the can to Aspiration's kite, Pray recollect that when _you_ plied the pen And had some stuff accepted now and then, Your tales, O! Henry, did not prove inviting Or else you'd be no Cynic but still writing. THE BEE'S BAYONET BEHOLD A MAN! There stands a MAN! unyielding and defiant, A master LEADER, bold and self-reliant. He seeks no conquest but his lance is set Against the ruthless Despot's parapet. Alert and conscious of his strength, his thrust Is sure and timely, for his cause is just. Invincible, he rallies to his cause Those who love Justice and respect the laws. To skulking traitors and to spying foes He shows no mercy, but his heart o'erflows For those oppressed, who live, nay! who exist Where arrogance and tyranny persist: But, tho distressed by all this human grief, He weeps not idly, but _compels_ relief: And those he serves by act or speech or pen, One Hundred Million _freemen_, shout, AMEN! "Safe for Democracy the world must be, And all its bondaged peoples shall be free!" So spake the MAN: America thus voiced Its ultimatum, and the Earth rejoiced! Intensely human, cast from mortal clay In Nature's mould, one epoch-making day, Behold a MAN! he seems a higher sort, Refined with purest gold from God's Retort And filled with skill and wisdom, Heaven-sent: God bless and keep our peerless PRESIDENT! THE JULOGY