The Snob
Curse of the Commonwealth, leech, parasite!
Whose back none other labor knows than that
Of rubbing smooth the chairs wheron you sat.
The leopard shall not lose his spots-his load
Of hump the camel- nor his warts the toad,-
Nor grows the snob and flunky unexempt
From physic marks of feature,- and contempt
Of honourable men. The smirked grimace,
The high falsetto titter and the face
With in-drawn lip, the up-screwed eyes and nose,
The parrot stock of speech, -the strut, the pose,-
Such are the signs that Nature sets to mock
The rank decadence of her basest stock.
So, done at last! The scornful muse refrains,
Washes her hands defiled in water clear,
And wipes her sandal-soles upon your rear.
Away! Since even snobs must have their due,
She plants a kick upon your greater you.
Herman George Scheffauer
[from 'Of Both Worlds Poems by Herman Scheffauer' (A. M. Robertson, San Francisco,
1903), pp. 111-2.]
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