I'd long been dead, but I returned to earth. Some small affairs posterity was making A mess of, and I came to see that worth Received its dues. I'd hardly finished waking,
The grave-mould still upon me, when my eye Perceived a statue standing straight and high. ‘ Twas a colossal figure — bronze and gold — Nobly designed, in attitude commanding.
A toga from its shoulders, fold on fold, Fell to the pedestal on which‘ twas standing. Nobility it had and splendid grace, And all it should have had — except a face!
It showed no features: not a trace nor sign Of any eyes or nose could be detected — On the smooth oval of its front no line Where sites for mouths are commonly selected.
All blank and blind its faulty head it reared. Let this be said:‘ twas generously eared. Seeing these things, I straight began to guess For whom this mighty image was intended.
“The head,” I cried, “is Upton's, and the dress Is Parson Bartlett's own.” True, his cloak ended Flush with his lowest vertebra, but no Sane sculptor ever made a toga so.
Then on the pedestal these words I read: “Erected Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven” ( Saint Christofer! how fast the time had sped! Of course it naturally does in Heaven )
“To ——” ( here a blank space for the name began ) “The Nineteenth Century's Great Foremost Man!” “Completed” the inscription ended, “in The Year Three Thousand” — which was just arriving.
By Jove! thought I,‘ twould make the founders grin To learn whose fame so long has been surviving — To read the name posterity will place In that blank void, and view the finished face.
Even as I gazed, the year Three Thousand came, And then by acclamation all the people Decreed whose was our century's best fame; Then scaffolded the statue like a steeple,
To make the likeness; and the name was sunk Deep in the pedestal's metallic trunk. Whose was it? Gentle reader, pray excuse The seeming rudeness, but I can n't consent to
Be so forehanded with important news. ‘ Twas neither yours nor mine — let that content you. If not, the name I must surrender, which, Upon a dead man's word, was George K. Fitch!
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