Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/109

 Hands off! don’t poach on our preserves!

Howe’er this be, the Irish cranium

Whose logic method’s somewhat flighty,

Translated thus the dictum weighty:

“If landlords raise your rent a mite, ye

Must pay th’ excess in lead or brain ’em.”

A simple truth—so very simple—

Like all great truths of true religion:

Lords and caretakers are all widgeon

Created for your shot to dimple—

That’s their sole end of being, to act as

The target of the meek and holy.

Then take your rifles and go practice,

Ye disinherited and lowly!

That it took root and quite invaded

That neural rudiment or plexus

Th’ Iberian brain and-slums pervaded

From Colorado’s swamps to Texas,

But such a gospel truth exacting

Much shot and powder guns and training

’Gainst its own preachers now. reacting

Drained off the dimes once Romeward raining.

Into the depths of Land-league pockets,

Who the same give and take game playing

With shot and daggers that with rockets

The firework preachers found so paying,

Took all the wind out of the lateen-

Rigged sails, and left the sharks who sat in

The Petrine Skiff, becalmed and hollow,

Upon the weltering brine to wallow,

A Nemesis not quite unmerited

For eating up the disinherited