Page:Near nature's heart; a volume of verse (IA nearnaturesheart00jack).pdf/82

 The blackest buzzards often use Some others' victim or refuse. Bedbugs—Bah! Such creeping things Do basely vex; still we are kings.

Hyenas are caged or far away; The mice entrapped by night and day. But Slanderer's base and slimy word Is fouler far than beast or bird.

Infectious doubt injects he first, And defamation's not his worst; His victim says: "I'm stript of fame; If felon then, I'll play the game."

Thus some decide; and who may tell The dirty depths of this fiend of hell? And there he'll go, upwept, unsung— The vilest monster yet unhung!

THE WORLD'S GREATEST EGOTIST

He made his earth, and scaled his lofty sky; He spread abroad his universal sea; He climbed his visioned mountains, towering high, The cause and course of Wisdom he'd decree.

'Gainst man's accurst and weary, ill-formed world, All rent apart by fools and their divisions, His burning anathemas he ever hurled, His direst doom, and his divine decisions.

No other man, through years and cycles run, Was bold enough to say: "God is dead"; Of all great men, philosopher but one, Thyself, alone, and madness seized thy head!

O thou, most blatant babbler, Friedrick Nietzsche, How thou didst snuffle—how thou didst sneeze thee!