The Bee's Bayonet (a Little Honey and a Little Sting)

Peace? do you say? When my homestead is razed,
And Death stalks the fields where my cattle once grazed;
And the Dear One is dead
Whom I courted and wed,
The Joy of my Life when the hearthstone fires blazed.

Peace? What a travesty! Give back my wife
And the brave little son, who gave up his life
That she might escape
From the murder or rape
Of helmeted hordes in the unequal strife!

Peace? Where is my father? Cleaning your shoes!
Like a thousand old men you maim and abuse.
He was true to his Land,
So you cut off his hand
And left him but slav'ry or famine to choose.

Peace? My wounds cry aloud: Never! I say
Till your legions are killed or driven away
And my country is free:
But, stay! What's that to me,
Since all my own Loved Ones lie murdered to-day?

No!! Not Peace, but Revenge! Here is my gun—
Surrendered? O, No! for its work is not done:
When my bayonet's sting
Smites the heart of your King,
And your hell-hounds are flayed,—then Peace will be won!

HEREDITY

I see her creeping 'long the nursery floor,—
A dainty, blue-eyed Babe, scarce old enough
To realize 'tis she whom I adore,—
She is a priceless diamond in the rough.

Again I see her playing with a host
Of noisy, kindergarten girls and boys;
She seems to me the fairest and the most
Refined: a pure gold girl without alloys.

And thus from stage to stage I watch the maid
As she develops like the budding rose,
And then, Ah me! I'm jealously afraid
That she admires me less than other beaux.

And then, anon, I see her on the knee
Of Willie Jones: I think she shouldn't oughter!
But then my Courtship Days come back to me—
Just like her Ma! She is my only Daughter!

THE CALL OF THE HOMESTEAD

There's a dear, little spot, near my Hoosier hometown,
Where the mortgage runs up as the buildings run down,
That I love to return to, a restful retreat,
Just to slush around there with the mud on my feet.

There's the forked, wormy apple-tree, dead to the bark,
And the sickle and grindstone, brought out of the Ark;
And the Shed, where I fled, with my illicit pipe,
To assuage stomach-aches when green apples were "ripe."

There's the collar and churn, worn by Dash day by day,
And the chain that prevented his running away;
And the yoke for the oxen—Haw, Buck! and Gee, Bride!
And the Troth for the Squealers the hen-house beside.

There's the Dovecote, unroofed, and the sweep by the well,
And the ooze in the barnyard and natural-gas smell:
There's the hayrake and silo; the tin weathervane,
And the two, moss-grown graves where the Old Folks were lain.

And the milk-stools are there, and the cowpath and stile;
And a few hardy scarecrows remain yet awhile;
And the taxes, unpaid, still appear on the book
Of the County Collector, Nathaniel U. Crook.

So I keep coming back, to my old Hoosier shack,
To inhale the sweet mildew of hay in the stack,
And to drink from the spring where the bull-frogs abound
That protect the young cowslips that grow all around.

Now the mortgage is due and the int'rest unpaid,
And I can't get a cent for the place, I'm afraid;
But I love to return here, at vacation time,
Just to revel again in the mud and the slime.

DECIMAL POINTS

The Paleface undertook, with sword and gun,
To civilize the Redskins one by one;
And Lo attempted, with his bow and arrow,
To sap the Paleface of his very marrow.
As fast as one, on either side, was slain
Another took his place to fight again;
Thus both the warring tribes said—"What's the use?"
And straightway called a halt and signed a truce.