The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1885-02-10
TBESONG OF A SWAN.

breaths Its life away In soft anC
plaintive melody. Comparisons may
be odious, but this thought is irresista
bly, brought to mind by reading the
following from the Jefferson City
Tribune. "When the fair and ILL
starred Jaqueline rocked the cradle
of liberty in the Netherlands, it was
consolation vouchsafed by divine
providence that she could not foresee
the full extent of the twaddie that
was destined to be permitted amid
the rights and privileges of free
government. Otherwise, the I'm.
fortunate girl would have accepted
with thanks her degradation from the
rank of sovereignty to that of lady
forester to her own court. Otherwise,
she would have gone out and hanged
herself like another Judas. Had the
bedeviled little woman only known
that away down the centuries her
ideas of popular government would
blossom out and grow fruitful enough
to permit frog pond town in Missouri
to annoy and disturb the commercial
relations of its proud state capital by
croakiDg always for removal"
1t was to have been expected any
thing eminating from that fossilized
village would bear the must and odor
of antiquity. But it is indeed a
revelation to find its generally coDced-
ed Rip Van Winkleism give place
to almost antedeluvian antiquity
when its dry bones really give forth
sound of returning life, and taking
up the thread of events where it last
dropped them, sing of Rome and its
seven hills the glory of Janiculum
and the force of Cesers "Julia lex"
Were it not that the topography of that
ancient cradle of the world is known
to be intact one would suspect that
by some strange CONFUSION of nature
Janiculum's sparesly settled precincts
and more populace eatacombs had
been transported to the rocky bluffs of
the muddy Missouri and that the good
Numa Pompilius after $500 years
of sleep was again resurrected and
issuing the soul breathing edicts
derived from fair Egeria's court,
and soon she would again be called
upon to melt away into tears over
his demise. Unfortunately however
for our laDguid neighborS, the $500
years which have elapsed since they
have taken cognizance of mum dane
affairs have wrought great changes
and in these practical times the
stories of the Siren, Loreleis and
"Jacquelines" are left to charm
only the young student of mythology,
their power having depart ed since
Ulysses wax-eared crew passed
SIRENS fatal breakers, the muses. van-
pushed Leucosia ParthenOpe and
Ligeia, the old German veterans
drove from the Rhine the fair but |
cruel Lorelei and Jacqueline fed |
with the Vandois from Balsi's rug
ged heights. Nor can such threats
as those of the christian widow"
Queen Dowager Mary of Hungary,
who wrote to her brother, the
emperor, Sin my opinion all heretics
should be prosecuted with such
severity as that error might be ex- +
tinguished, care being only taken
that the provinces are not entirely
depopulated. have any force with the
modern freeman whose symbol is the
proud Eagle. Sympathy no doubt our
neighbors can inspire by such
course but it is that sympathy
which looking down the vista of ages
for their abiding place recalls the long !
ago when Cleopatra sang,
"a show of liberty
, When we have lost the substance is best kept
BY seeming not to I'm 1erstand those faults
Which we want power to mend" -,
And it bids us deal gently with !
those harmless ancient cranks who
dwell
w here the geese and the swine
Roam hungrily round
And the stencil is so s-ror o.