Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1882 — Apostrophe to the Statue of a Gladiator. [ARTICLE]

Apostrophe to the Statue of a Gladiator.

[Laramie Boomerang.] Cold, pulseless fragment of the long ago, who sittest calm and passionless through scooting years! Thy busted snoot, awry, amort, bemoiled with dust of passing feet, thy fractured bugle looming ’neath the twinkling stars, a gloomy wreck of former grandeur tells not of what hath thee betid. Across thy scarred, cold breast no trouble rolls* and o’er thy brow yet frozen in dumb agony bestraught, the swift and sable clouds of night do struggle like an aged, dying joke cast in the dust of ancient amphitheater. Little thou reckest, in thy broken state, that thou art clothed with nothing but the wailing wynd. Thy cold, hard cheek is still ungjothed with shame, tho’ in the chilly air anight thy marble fragments are exposed. Who gazing at thy busted brow and panic-stricken features now, would ere surmise thy prowess in the days agone! Who, looking o’er thy mansard intellect and cast-iron frame, knocked galley west by time’s effacing fingers, ere would give a passing thought ,to what thou’st been in previous years! I trow, not one of all mankind would pick thee up to be the once proud snoozer of the Roman ring. Misguided relic of an era long years past when men were muscled like an aged hen, and when brave men fought with cheese knives long and well, or gouged the lion’s liver out and mixed it with the sand, while beauteous ladies smiled and munched the Roman caramel, he who would grudge thee pity now in this thy hour of need, would rob a pauper’s grave to get the gold with which his teeth were filled. Proud fragment of heroic days, in dreams no doubt thou livest on, and in the amphitheater with quivering blade thou lightest still. Methinks I see thee in the dusty ring, straddling about and slashing right and left, filling the air with toe-nails and fresh gore. Again I hear thy new laid joke as up against the gallerieß the fragments of thy foe are hurled. Dream on, thou fractured warrior of ye olden time, and reck not one cold, careless clam that all thy limbs are knocked into a shapeless mass. Forget the present in thy glorious past. Live over still the days when in thy wondrous strength thou wast more deadly modem pie. Remember still the days of long ago, when he who banged thee midst the face and eyes got scattered o’er the dry and thirsty ground, and dusted off the quivering earth with his remains. Lose not thy grip, bold warrior of the fly-blown past. Brace up with memories of forgotten years, thou busted warrior of ye Roman time, for he who thus apostrophizes thee is busted, too.