A COMPARISON.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 55, 1 October 1881, Page 41

A COMPARISON.

DEDICATED TO THE EDITOR OF THE " OBSEEVER."

When a poor, mangy cur or mongrel whelp Assails a mastiff with audacious yelp, — Comes barking at his heels, and feigns to fight, But evermore retreats in sore affright, — The noble object of this rile attack Deigns not to pause, nor even to look back, But moving onward, dignified and slow, Disdains to notice such a puny foe, Whom well he knows his paw could silence at a blow. When a good citizen, who walks the path Of rectitude, incurs the swindler's wrath : When drunken drivellers traduce his name, And thieves and cut-throats try to blast his fame, Serene — unmoved — upon his way he goes, Nor seeks to answer such insulting foes. In conscious power, begot of conscious right, He brings his every action to the light, And, while good men applaud, he fears no foeman's spite. Thus, when the Observer hears the Lance's cur, With flaming eye and wildly ruffled fur, Snap at his heels, and with envenomed tooth Attempt to twist, distort, and tear the truth ; Challenge to fight, with courage all a sham, But meant to say, " Behold how brave I am !" The nobler brute deigns not to turn or pause, Nor seeks to argue or defend his cause, For such a cur's abuse is worth the best applanse. Move on, Observer, on your useful way — A " scavenger " to sweep all filth away ; Shrink not from touching vile and noxious things, Nor heed the jeers of him who "stinks and stings." Flee from his praise ; " 'tis as a bawd or whore Should praise a matron — what can hurt her more?" Let the old proverb, " Answer not a fool According to his folly," be your rule, Lest you be ranked with him in vulgar scandal's school. Prom such a mongrel offshoot of the Press One seeks no justice, asks for no redress ; Expects no growth, but lets it droop and fade — A Upas, poisoned by its own curst shade ; And even when dead it shall not be forgot, For still its festering mass will stink and rot. " Judas, though dead, though damned, we still detest " — Then on a dunghill lay the Lance to rest, Without the city gates, unshriven and unblest 1 The Black Knight. Auckland, September 21, 1881. £We had vowed not to admit the name of the Vulcan-lane Reprint and Tuppenny Tripe Wrap \ In these columns again, but the above lines are so ■clever and pungent, and withal so true, that it would be ungenerous to consign them to the waste paper basket. We beg to express our acknowledgments to The " Black Knight," and trust this may not be the last time we shall hear from him. — Ed Obs.]