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Title: General B.F. Butler
Author: Ambrose Bierce [
More Titles by Bierce]
Thy flesh to earth, thy soul to God,
We gave, O gallant brother;
And o'er thy grave the awkward squad
Fired into one another!
Beneath this monument which rears its head.
A giant note of admiration--dead,
His life extinguished like a taper's flame.
John Ericsson is lying in his fame.
Behold how massive is the lofty shaft;
How fine the product of the sculptor's craft;
The gold how lavishly applied; the great
Man's statue how impressive and sedate!
Think what the cost-was! It would ill become
Our modesty to specify the sum;
Suffice it that a fair per cent, we're giving
Of what we robbed him of when he was living.
Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk
Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk.
His legs in the South claim the patriot's tear,
But, stranger, you needn't be blubbering here.
Jay Gould lies here. When he was newly dead
He looked so natural that round his bed
The people stood, in silence all, to weep.
They thought, poor souls! that he did only sleep.
Here Ingalls, sorrowing, has laid
The tools of his infernal trade--
His pen and tongue. So sharp and rude
They grew--so slack in gratitude,
His hand was wounded as he wrote,
And when he spoke he cut his throat.
Within this humble mausoleum
Poor Guiteau's flesh you'll find.
His bones are kept in a museum,
And Tillman has his mind.
Stranger, uncover; here you have in view
The monument of Chauncey M. Depew.
Eater and orator, the whole world round
For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned.
Pauper in thought but prodigal in speech,
Nothing he knew excepting how to teach.
But in default of something to impart
He multiplied his words with all his heart:
When least he had to say, instructive most--
A clam in wisdom and in wit a ghost.
Dining his way to eminence, he rowed
With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed
From lakes of favor--pulled with all his force
And found each river sweeter than the source.
Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor,
Gnawing and rising till obscure no more,
He ate his way to eminence, and Fame
Inscribes in gravy his immortal name.
A trencher-knight, he, mounted on his belly,
So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly.
Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him,
And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him.
Here the remains of Schuyler Colfax lie;
Born, all the world knows when, and Heaven knows why.
In '71 he filled the public eye,
In '72 he bade the world good-bye,
In God's good time, with a protesting sigh,
He came to life just long enough to die.
Of Morgan here lies the unspirited clay,
Who secrets of Masonry swore to betray.
He joined the great Order and studied with zeal
The awful arcana he meant to reveal.
At last in chagrin by his own hand he fell--
There was nothing to learn, there was nothing to tell.
[The end]
Ambrose Bierce's poem: General B.F. Butler
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