Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-08-10
The New Poem by the Author of
0NOthing TO Wear..3


1.-TWO millions" by WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER
is just out Its motto is "take heed and be-
ware of covetousness.' The hero is one Fir
kin, a gentleman worth 1.-TWO millions of dol
lars.r He is thus sketched:
ssYou read it in his eye dull, dark and stern
Which clutched the hight, but grudged kind return
In genial glances, through the open day,
And with shrewd suspicion turned away,
His hard, square feature, like an iron safe, a
locked in his thoughts; no chance uBnoted wan
OF fugitive feeling, unawares betrayed
The inner man, mental stock in trade.
The portly figure, with its solvent air.
Proclaimed 70 all the world the Millionaire,
His purse and person both at fullest length,
And even the higher law which he Obeyed,
With all his heart aud soul and mind and strength,
To love his maker, for he was sEIF-MADE!''
He had faith in himself and the Dollar. He
measured by the test show much''-he be-
lieved in ''the greatest happiness Of the great
est number" and the greatest number was
No. l. On Sunday might be seen:
"His visible coach outside the visible church,
With green and gold its sacred front adjoining,
A gorgeous coachman, somewhat flushed with
sherry,
A footman portIy with perpetual dinners,
Waited, while Frkin in the sanctuary,
With many other miserable Sinners
Cushioned the carnal man in drowsy pews,
DOzed over gilt-edged rubTic, prayer and psalter,
Rose with the music, looked with liberal views
On prma-donnas never known to falter
In chant or solo, hymn, or anthem splendid,
Aud still enchanting when the chant was ended;
Then sat or knelt, grave as the altar bronZes,
And went through all the usual responses.
Those solemn prayers and ltanies sublime,
The ancient Church first taug hit the lips Of Time.
Thenceforth to sound forever-as when first,
Flooded with light, the lips of Memnon burst
From their cold stiffness, and rejoicing, gave
Back to the food Of Day tide upborne
OF rarest harmony, wave answering wave,
Deep calling unto deep, Music TO Morn
These lofty chants, first echoed under domeS
OF starry midnight or in catIcombs
Where, by rude affairs and sepuchral tnmbs,
Deep in the rocky earth, the vestral choirs,
Rehearsed their music for the martyr fires,
Now swelled from lips Of people or of priest,
To fail on Firkin's without the least
Responsive utterance, or the fantest notion,
That they had any reference TO devotion.
He liked the service, but greve 10 state,
II it had been instead a service of plate,
He could have given a better estimate
or its real value for in truth our hero
AS to religious feeling stood at
And had it CHANGED the universal Church,
In solid phalanx, without break schsm,
Had, on a sudden, taken backward lurch,
Two thousand years more, 10 Judaism,
Or from the Christian plunged into the Pagan,
And on its affairs set up Jove or Dagon,
Firkin would still have wOrshpped with the crowd
And at the newest shrine deyOutly bowed,
still offered up his weekly stint of praise,
In heather darkness or the Gospels blaze,
With incense, or burnt offerings, or Hbations,
Alike unconscious of the innovations,
Save that he might, perhaps in Wall street phrase,
Have noticed slight change in the quotations.
His house was !:
Quilt the Avenue, in the fastest style
OF Merchant Princes, grand, grotesque and ford,
Out of the finest freestone ever quar- ried.
In its erection as he oft declared
To wondering visitors, no expense WAS spared,
And had he said, no order Of architecture,
'Twould have been truer still, as | conjecture,
The builders. with their taste so fine and funny,
Laid themselves out. as well as Firkn's money.
And in away that beggars all description,
Blended COrinthau, Gothic and Egyptian,
M al hpTf ms -fN los Z ella
In one grand tumble of brown stonc vulgartes."
1t was tasteless enough without; but with
in, with its heterogeneous mixtures of decora-
tons,
cit seemed as if bomb-shell, charged and loaded
With pant, and gilt and plaster, had exploded,
Without regard To any body s feelings,
On walls and columns, cornices, ami ceiling
The ambitious plasterers had eclipsed the builders,
And IL their turn were outdone by giiders;
The painters then-besde whose rich adjoining,
The brightest rainbow would have seem'd deep
mourning;
From the lowest basement up TO topmost attic
Ihe Whole was gorgeous. glarlng and prismatic:
Panneled an d kalsomined ana striped and starred ,
Paint by the bucket, lrescoes by the yard,
Lad ON IN the thickest layers by batJaons
or exiled Red Republican Italians
With pots and brushes, blues and green's and vel
lows,
They scaled the walls, the fold designing fellows,
And took the house by storm with their mythology
Fruits flowers, hamingoes, landscapes, and zoology
Long IN the Tlnglets, sCauty in the dresses,
Heroes and gous, and gOddesses and ogres,
Nymphs IN pink tunics, sages in red togas
Heals Of Old Masters, shaded somewhat duller,
And full length Venuscs, all in flesh color
Then following up the grand Two Million plan,
Where paint left of, upholstery began;
The fastest artist at fresh marvels aims,
Acres OF mirrors, in prodigiuus f. amcs,
Aud miles Of damask, spread ia ich expansion
on GIT and Crimson, through the costly mansion;
Incredible carpets, which outstared the ceiling,
With flaming hues that set the brain 10 reeling,
Ana with the walls IN one fierce blaze united
what a sight when all the gas lighted,
And Firkin, seated with some fellow snob,
Surveyed the beneath the brilliant streamers,
Declared the palors were splendid job,
Which went ahead Of all the Collins steamers;
IayIo saloon, when every jet is on
Or the new capitol at Washington =
Ana echoed back the truthful observation,
There s nothing like II in the whole creation l'''
Or course this bad old fellow died misera-
bic death. He was cut down suddenly one
night of RctributiOn.