Adeline Whitney - Mother Goose for Grown Folks

Some in patent penury;
Some, alas! in shame;
And some in fading velvet
Of hereditary fame;

But all in deep, appeaseless want,
As mendicants to live;
And go beseeching through the world,
For what the world may give.

Beggars, beggars, all of us!
Expectants from "our youth:
With hands outstretched, and asking alms
Of Hope and Love and Truth.

Nor, verily, doth he escape
Who, wrapt in cold contempt,
Denies alike to give or take,
And dreams himself exempt;

Who never, in appeal to man,
Nor in a prayer to Heaven,
Will own that aught he doth desire,
Or ask that aught be given.

Whose human heart a stoic pride
Folds as a velvet pall;
Yet hides an eagreness within,
Worse beggary than all!

Coming, coming always!
And the bluff Apostle waits
As the throng pours upward from the earth
To Heaven's eternal gates.

In shreds of torn affection,
In passion-rended rags;
While scarcely at the portal
The great procession flags;

For the pillared doors of glory
On their hinges hang awide;
Where each asking soul may enter,
And at last be satisfied!

But a cold, calm shade arriveth,
In self-complacent trim,—
And Peter riseth up to see
Especially to him.

"Good morrow, saint! I'm going in
To take a stroll, you know;
Not that I want for anything,—
But just to see the show!"

"Hold!" thunders out the warden,
"Be pleased to pause a bit!
For seats celestial, let me say,
You 're not apparelled fit:
Yonder 's the brazen door that leads
Spectators to the pit!

Whatever may be thought on earth,
We've other rules in heaven;
And only poverty confessed
Finds free admittance given!"

"Sing a song o' sixpence, a pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie:
When the pie was opened, they all began to sing,
And was n't this a dainty dish to set before the king?
The king was in his counting-house, counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,
And along came a blackbird, and nipt off her nose!"

It doesn't take a conjurer to see
The sort of curious pasty this might be;
A flock of flying rumors, caught alive,
And housed, like swarming bees within a
hive,—
Instead of what were far more wisely
done,
Having their worthless necks wrung, every
one;—
And so a dish of dainty gossip making,
Smooth covered with a show of secrecy,
That one but takes the pleasant pains of
breaking,
And out the wide-mouthed knaves pop,
eagerly.

Blackbirds, indeed! Each chattering on-
dit
Comes forth, full feathered, black as black
can be;
With quivering throats, all tremulous to
sing,
And please, forsooth, some little social
king;
Whose reign may last as long as he is able
To call his court around a dinner-table.