FAMINE'S REALMTo him in whom the love of Nature hasImperfectly supplanted the desireAnd dread necessity of food, your shore,Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over allYour sunny level, from TamaletownTo where the Pestuary's fragrant slime,With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet,Broods the still menace of starvation. BonesOf men and women bleach along the waysAnd pampered vultures sleep upon the trees.It is a land of death, and Famine thereHolds sovereignty; though some there be her swayWho challenge, and intrenched in larders live,Drawing their sustentation from abroad.But woe to him, the stranger! He shall dieAs die the early righteous in the budAnd promise of their prime. He, venturesomeTo penetrate the wilds rectangularOf grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms,Frequented of the bee and of the blithe,Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afarFrom human habitation and is lostIn mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him,And (careless man! deeming God's providenceExtends so far) he has not wherewithalTo bate its urgency. Then, lo! appearsA mealery—a restaurant—a placeWhere poison battles famine, and the two,Like fish-hawks warring in the upper skyFor that which one has taken from the deep,Manage between them to dispatch the prey.He enters and leaves hope behind. There endsHis history. Anon his bones, clean-pickedBy buzzards (with the bones himself had picked,Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends,Of all felonious and deadlywiseDevices of the Enemy of Souls,Planted along the ways of life to snareMan's mortal and immortal part alike,The Oakland restaurant is chief. It livesThat man may die. It flourishes that lifeMay wither. Its foundation stones reposeOn human hearts and hopes. I've seen in itCrabs stewed in milk and salad offered upWith dressing so unholily compoundThat it included flour and sugar! Yea,I've eaten dog there!—dog, as I'm a man,Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more—Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the penAnd scrawls a tortured "Finis" on the page.
To him in whom the love of Nature hasImperfectly supplanted the desireAnd dread necessity of food, your shore,Fair Oakland, is a terror. Over allYour sunny level, from TamaletownTo where the Pestuary's fragrant slime,With dead dogs studded, bears its ailing fleet,Broods the still menace of starvation. BonesOf men and women bleach along the waysAnd pampered vultures sleep upon the trees.It is a land of death, and Famine thereHolds sovereignty; though some there be her swayWho challenge, and intrenched in larders live,Drawing their sustentation from abroad.But woe to him, the stranger! He shall dieAs die the early righteous in the budAnd promise of their prime. He, venturesomeTo penetrate the wilds rectangularOf grass-grown ways luxuriant of blooms,Frequented of the bee and of the blithe,Bold squirrel, strays with heedless feet afarFrom human habitation and is lostIn mid-Broadway. There hunger seizes him,And (careless man! deeming God's providenceExtends so far) he has not wherewithalTo bate its urgency. Then, lo! appearsA mealery—a restaurant—a placeWhere poison battles famine, and the two,Like fish-hawks warring in the upper skyFor that which one has taken from the deep,Manage between them to dispatch the prey.He enters and leaves hope behind. There endsHis history. Anon his bones, clean-pickedBy buzzards (with the bones himself had picked,Incautious) line the highway. O, my friends,Of all felonious and deadlywiseDevices of the Enemy of Souls,Planted along the ways of life to snareMan's mortal and immortal part alike,The Oakland restaurant is chief. It livesThat man may die. It flourishes that lifeMay wither. Its foundation stones reposeOn human hearts and hopes. I've seen in itCrabs stewed in milk and salad offered upWith dressing so unholily compoundThat it included flour and sugar! Yea,I've eaten dog there!—dog, as I'm a man,Dog seethed in sewage of the town! No more—Thy hand, Dyspepsia, assumes the penAnd scrawls a tortured "Finis" on the page.