["Mines are spottily good. Oils maintain a healthy
undertone."--_Stock Exchange Report_.]
O welcome message of the tape!
O words of comfortable cheer!
You bring us promise of escape
Into a balmier atmosphere;
Though Ireland with sedition boils
And shrieks aloud, "Ourselves Alone";
Still mines are good in spots, and oils
Maintain a healthy undertone.
Though dismal Jeremiahs wail
Of Bolshevists within our gates,
And, though the Master of _The M**l_
In sad seclusion vegetates,
The rising tide of gloom recoils
Once the inspiring news is known
That mines are good in spots, and oils
Maintain a healthy undertone.
An over-sanguine mood is wrong
And ought to be severely banned;
Yet spots, if good, cannot belong
To the pernicious leopard brand;
But no such reservation spoils
The sequel; doubt is overthrown
By the explicit statement, "Oils
Maintain a healthy undertone."
Not, you'll remark, the savage growl
Of the exasperated bear,
Nor the profound blood-curdling howl
Of the gorilla in its lair;
Nor yet the roar in civic broils
That surges round a tyrant's throne--
Oh, no, the organ voice of oils
Is healthy in its undertone.
O blessed jargon of the mart!
Though your commercial meaning's hid
From me, a layman, to my heart
You bring a soothing _nescio quid_;
Amid the flux of strikes and plots
Two things at present stand like stone:
In mines the goodness of their spots,
In oils their healthy undertone.
* * * * *