"Little Jack Horner

Sat in a corner

Eating a Christmas Pie:

He put in his thumb,

And pulled out a plum,

And said, "What a great boy am I!"

Ah, the world hath many a Horner,

Who, seated in his corner,

Finds a Christmas Pie provided for his

thumb:

And cries out with exultation,

"When successful exploration

Doth discover the predestinated plum!

Little Jack outgrows his tier,

And becometh John, Esquire;

And he finds a monstrous pasty ready made,

Stuffed with stocks and bonds and bales,

Gold, currencies and sales,

And all the mixed ingredients of Trade.

And again it is his luck

To be just in time to pluck,

By a clever "operation," from the pie

An unexpected." plum";

So he glorifies his thumb,

And says, proudly, "What a mighty man

am I!"

Or perchance, to Science turning,

And with weary labor learning

All the formulas and phrases that oppress

her,—

For the fruit of others' baking

So a fresh diploma taking,

Comes he forth, a full accredited Profes-

sor!

Or he's not too nice to mix

In the dish of politics;

And the dignity of office he puts on;

And he feels as big again

As a dozen nobler men,

While he writes himself the Honorable

John!

Ah, me, for the poor nation!

In her hour of desperation

Her worst foe is that unsparing Horner-

Thumb!

To which War, and Death, and Hate,

Right, Policy, and State,

Are but pies wherefrom his greed may

grasp a plum!

Oh, the work was fair and true,

But't is riddled through and through.

And plundered of its glories everywhere;

And before men's cheated eyes

Doth the robber triumph rise

And magnify itself in all the air.

"Why, if even a good man dies,

And is welcomed to the skies

In the glorious resurrection of the just,

They must ruffle it below

"With some vain and wretched show,

To make each his little mud-pie of the dust!

Shall we hint at Lady-Horners,

Who in their exclusive corners

Think the world is only made of upper-

crust?

Who in the queer mince-pie

That we call Society,

Do their dainty fingers delicately thrust;

Till, if it come to pass,

In the spiced and sugared mass,

One should compass,—do n't they call it

so?—a catch,

By the gratulation given

It would seem the very heaven

Had outdone itself in making such a

match!

Or the "Woman-Horner, now,

Who is raising such a row

To prove that Jack's no bigger boy than

Jill;

And that she wo n't sit by

With her little saucer pie,

While he from the Great Pasty picks his

fill.

Jealous-wild to be a sharer

In the fruit she thinks the fairer,

Flings by all for the swift gaining of her

wish;

Not discerning in her blindness,

How a tender Loving-Kindness

Hid the best things in her own rejected

dish!

O, the world keeps Christmas Day

In a queer, perpetual way;

Shouting always, w What a great big boy

am I!"

Yet how many of the crowd

Thus vociferating loud,

And their honors or pretensions lifting

high,

Have really, more than Jack,

With their boldness or their knack,

Had a finger in the making of the Pie?