WELL-CHOSEN is the haunt wherein they hold
Their addle-pated hustings. Is this not
The shrine of Godhead Jobbery! I yawn,
Gazing upon the chamfered wainscot, and
The ceiling, that, concave and cherubimed,
Dangles a chandelier above the throne
Where loll our camarilla.
May the plagues
That goaded Egypt (and surpassingly,
The lice, the blains, the locusts) light upon
This junto of attorneys, hucksters, skunks,
Dressers of tripe, drysalters, hangers-on,
Crapulous numskulls, bottle-snouted hogs,
And doddering poltroons.
See how they suck
Their stubby meerschaums, or inflatedly
Belch blue Virginian rankness forth. They lounge,
And nod and ape acumen, purse their lips,
Rustle with papers, browbeat, snarl, perpend,
Dispense not righteousness, but with it.
I
Hark to their snuffling clack, and marvel how
Yon uppish dandyprat is learning not
To form squad on the left, but loiters here
Fumbling with vellum ledgers, and prepares
Targets for missiles; or aghast I stare
Upon the midmost dais where a hunk
Of scurviness is sprawling, Caliban
In spectacles, grown sleek and hoary with
Faking of balance-sheets and contracts — he,
Knavery’s altar-ministrant-in-chief,
Mouths out his liturgy of lies, the rest
Intoning their antiphonies thereto
With fitting counterpoint.
In fancy, I
Another Paul in the praetorium,
Frame an harangue, thus: —
‘Sirs, I warrant, ye
Know of me not, nor of my versicles,
Nor of my treatise on the genitive
In Umbrian. Ye have not dipped into
The prolegomena, wherein I shew
Zelena Hora’s manuscript is false,
Clumsily ante-dated … Pardon, Sirs, —
I tax your Worships’ tolerance. Turn we
To matters touching on this session.
Know,
I am not parcel of a self-formed sect
That shrinks from shoe-leather and the flesh of kine,
Or prates of Christ; and therefore ask me not
How I should quit me if, — aposiopesis
Shall veil the rest. Nor do I ward off dearth
From three bed-ridden aunts, five cousins, and
Two palsied grandams, — speak not then of doles
And stinted halfpence. Nor do I chaffer pants
And haggle over bird-seed (for the which
Ye erst gave gracious verdict unto one
Who likewise, strangely, something is akin
To yonder puffy quidnunc) I do not
Bake bread or whittle pellets on a lathe,
Neither indite among the scribes, who keep
The fiscal archives going. Wherefore, then,
Brazenly do I pester this august
And wise assemblage?
Sirs, I’ll tell ye, I
Hold not of great account my carcase, yet
I rate its worth beyond the likes of you,
Of you and all your counterparts, who hold
The same uncouth assize within the same
Several dens of thievishness and sloth,
Where monstrous pygmies up and down the land
Perform the self-same antics. Ye abet
Those Higher Few, like to the scum that floats
Above the hogwash; leprous peers who run
Leprous gazettes; garotters, pimps en gros,
Cambrian lickspittles, Yankee chandlers, dolts,
Lackeys and liars, in whose cancered grasp
The country festers. These, Sirs, to protect,
My body is too precious. What think ye?
Ha, speechless?
Pooh, what does it boot a man
To talk Chaldee to porcupines? A truce
To sycophantic animadversions. So
I 'll steal from hence and tarry till the day
When in a faded mustard livery,
Half-bravo and half-convict, I shall march
In file, incline, and lurch about, and form
Column of section (this, the jargon of
Bramarbas); I shall dally with a blunderbuss,
The while some simian-visaged corporal
Bloodily gibes at me …
Sirs, fare ye well!
