* * * * *
Old books declare,--in Plutus’ shade,
Whistling was once a roaring trade,--
Great was the call for nerve and gristle;
That Charon, with his Styx in view,
Pierced old Phlegethon through and through,
And whist-led in the ferry-whistle--
That Polyphemus whistled when
He p-layed the pipe r in a pen,
And sought Ulysses’ bark to launch;
That Troy, King Priam had not lost,
But for the whistlers that were horsed[109]
Within the horse’s wooden paunch.
Jupiter was a whist-ling wight,
And Juno heard him with delight;
And Boreas was a reedy swain,
Awak’ning Venus from the sea:
But of the Moderns?--Joe is he
That whistles in the streets for gain.
You wonder as you hear the tone
Sound like a herald in a zone
Distinctly clear, minutely sweet;
You list and Joe is dancing, now
You laugh, and Joe returns a bow
Returning in the crooked street.
He scrapes a stick across his arm
And knocks his knees, in need, to charm;[110]
Instead of tabor and a fiddle,
_Et omne solis_,--on his sole!
He, _solus omnis_, like a pole
Supports his body in the middle.
Thus, of the sprites that creep, or beg,
With wither’d arm, or wooden leg,
Uncatalogued in Bridewell’s missal;
Joe is the fittest for relief,
He whistles gladness in his grief,[111]
And _hardly_ earns it for his _whistle_.