A Meeting

“Good morning,” said Garfield, extending his hand,
To Mr. Parnell in the Heavenly Land.
“Good morning, good morning,” said Mr. Parnell;
“I hope (though ’tis needless to ask) you are well.
How sweetly that chorus of cherubim sings!
Pray how do you manage these cumbersome wings?
This halo⁠—I dare say I’m terribly green,
But somehow I can’t make it hold my dudheen.
This harp is all right, but the shamrock I miss,
And⁠—O, by the way, in this region of bliss
I trust that the rascally schemer who wrote
The Morey epistle, which lost you the vote
Electoral, I am not likely to meet?”

Then Garfield, his eyes on the cloud at his feet,
Burned in the cheeks with a fervor divine
That conquered his halo’s inferior shine;
Then said, with a look that was level and far:
“I fear (to be honest and frank) that you are.
The person who wrote that mysterious, queer,
Bad letter is here⁠—ah, exceedingly here.”
And he smiled in an infantile sort of a way,
Like a man with a qualm, and went on to say:
“I’m happy to meet you. What news from below?
Did it look when you left there as if they would show
Who wrote, with a villainous purpose in view,
The peppery letters imputed to you?”

Said Mr. Parnell: “Yes, it did, I must say⁠—
In fact, that’s the reason I hastened away.”
Then they sang a psalm, and they sang so well
That Murchison heard it while sobbing in Hell.