While The Billy BoilsSearchFrost flecked his hair with many a winter’s flight,And, etched with the sharp pencil of the years,His rugged features set in lines of stressMatch well his knotted hands and toil-thwart form.But time that set the silver in his hairSteeled his gaunt frame to an endurance grimOf which it gives no promise save the taleOf each day’s toil that wavers not, nor wanesIn tithe or tittle; but by the unwritten lawHe stands convicted of the deadly crime,The thrice accursed crime of being old.To-morrow, ten will quarrel for his place,Thumbs down — he has it! — let the grey-beard go!No more in the arena of to-dayHis place shall know him, nor his strong arms wrestFrom youth-accoutred foes the piteous prizeOf daily bread — and wherefore shall he turnTo learn new arts and wield new weapons, nowThat tower of manly strength, which stood the shockOf deadly combat, totters at its base,And reels before the dastard strategyThat binds his chained limbs to the conqueror’s wheel?For him no mercy stroke of swift, bright steel,No lightning-pang that brings oblivionWith cradling arms of peace to pillow him;Such barbarous modes, such rude arbitrament,Our modern school of ethics doth forbid!O Pharisees!O Christian code more black, more damnableThan heathen rage that spilt the futile blood!O whited sepulchre of dead men’s bonesNo holy spark shall quicken into life!Who wasted Sodom and yet spareth theeTo taint the Universe with blasphemy?
Thumbs down! his fight is fought, his fate is set!Quick! cast him forth to the lean things of prey,The stealthy, gaunt things snuffing at the barsOf strength and courage that the ruthless yearsHave slow corrupted, and which soon shall fallAnd leave him naked and defenceless.And, mirrored in the terror of his eyes,Dim shadowy shapes start up from lairs of fearAnd creep from point to point, now swift advance,Now ’mazed retreat, to whipped submission cowedBy some faint flicker of the man he was.The hunger-pack his steel thews kept at baySnuff tardy death and scent the carnival,And horrid carrion pinions beat the airIn loathsome expectation of his doom.Creep! — Creep! — the grisly circle closes in —The ring of death, long cheated, claims its own.
There is no blood upon their hands, good sirs! —See here the legal bill of his decease —And “Death from natural causes” thereon writBy our respected city Coroner,And lo! for those that read, ’tis countersignedAll in the grim sign manual of the threeDark sisters, Sorrow, Hunger, and Despair.Sic transit! — in the game upon the board’Tis dross kings count, a man is but a pawn!