The Princeton union., 1891-02-26
THE FALL OF THE STUFFED PROPHET
GROVER.
+. G. B. IN NEW YORK SUN (DEM),

Swayed the corn before the breezes,
Sang the birds among the branches,
! Shone the sun between the cloud riffs,
Swirled the brooklet through the meadows,
Scared the eagle DER the prairie,
When from out his painted wigwam
Slowly stepped the Great Stuffed Prophet,
Slowly stepping on the greensward.
Hushed the songs of birds and brooklet,
Still the eagle and the cornstalk,
Paused the bison in his running,
Fearing less the Great Stuffed Prophet
Miss step and fall upon them.
Idly gazed the Great Stuffed Prophet
On the birds and corn and brooklet
On the proudly soaring eagle.
what to him were Natures Beauties
When they had no market value,
Cast no votes for his election,
Would not let him eat or drink them?
Then he turned his massive body.
Like a turkey stuffed for killing
Stuffed till useless save for killing
Turned with many grunt and joint creak
10 the cradle of the sunbeams
Then he raised his fat hands slyward,
Raised them with mighty effort,
And invoked the God of fat men,
Obesidius, friend of fat men:
"Obesidius, ponderous patron,
Whose great grth exceeds all measure,
Whose great thigh would make an army
Of mere ordinary mortals,
Whose great neck requires collar
Large enough to grid the earth with!
Bend thy great and hamlike ear now
TO the voice of thy disciple?
"In the name of all thy fatness
Let me be now as 1 once was,
Ruler of these sixty millions,
With Private Secretary
Able to conduct the business,
And few small Mugwump organs
Lauding loud my every action
While the people stand and wonder
At the space within my waistband
Give me these, o Obesidius!
And accept my friends in PAYMENT
Answered then the God of fat men:
"Great Stuffed Prophet, faithful stuffed one,
Happy were the God of fat men
Could he grant thy meek petition.
But thy conduct whilst in office.
Whilst among the Nations statesmen,
Feastlng in the Nation s kitchen,
And thy cowardce in battle
When Democracy was threatened,
And thy cautious hesitation
On the present silver question.
And thy arrogance and tedium,
And thy hoggshnessin public, ..-
Kill all chance of reelection.
For the people, my Stuffed Prophet,
have grown tired Of tedius humbug, - 49,.
SICK OF bowing down to waist -girth,1 s'> =
Weary of thy porcine self-praise;
Now they long for unstuffed statesmen.
Even if their necks are smaller,
And they eatless at sitting"
Slowly gasped the Great Stuffed Prophet
AS the words of Obesidius
Sifted slowly through his brain-cells,
Then he threw his arms above him
And crashed downward on the greensward,
Crashed upon the shrinking greensward,
Fell as falls a stricken bullock
When the butchers knife has pierced him,
While the trees within the forest
Shook and laughed in exultation
Then the people of the Westland
Told long yarns about the earthquake;
And the people of the Southland
Wrote about the awful landslide;
And the people in the Northland
Wondered what shook all their cities.
But the birds and corn and brooklet.
And the eagle and the bison,
Laughed aloud in joyful concert
And they took piece of birchbark,
Took piece of silvery birchbark,
And the eagle wrote upon it
With his sharply pointed talon,
so that all the tribes might read it;
This was once the Great Stuffed Prophet!''
50 that all the tribes might read it,
And not take him for mountain