Then quick as falling star he dropped,
He laid upon the ground and groaned,
Yet still in feeble accents moaned,
Excelsior!
MINNIE MUM.
――――――――
“Wheeling Annual” for 1885 contains many excellent parodies, relating
principally, of course, to the joys and troubles of bicyclists.
WHAT ROADS!
At a recent sessions of the Uxbridge Court a gentleman pleaded guilty
to riding on the footpath with a bi., and excused himself on the
ground that the roads were very muddy. P.C. X. 20. proved the case,
and a fine of 5s. was imposed.――_Uxbridge Gazette._
The shades of night were falling fast,
As thro’ a local village pass’d
A youth, who rode a Rudge, once bright,
He cried, as onward sped his flight,
“What roads!”
His brow was sad, the road beneath
Resembled much dull Hounslow Heath,
And in a voice, just tinged with ire,
Cried as he still rode through the mire,
“What roads!”
In happy “pubs.” he saw the light
Of _Argand_ burners very bright,
Said he, “I’ll stop and try a drink.”
Mine host replied with knowing wink,
“What roads!”
“Try on the path,” the landlord said,
“Our Robert’s ‘off,’ e’en gone to bed.”
“A good idea,” the youth replied,
“And one that shall be quickly tried,
“What roads!”
“Oh! stay,” the barmaid said, “and rest.”
The wheelman answered, “Pray don’t jest!”
_I’ll_ TRY the path, it _can’t_ be worse,
Which brings us to another verse.
What roads!
“Beware the stones that lie in heaps
“Beware the dog the farmer keeps.”
The wheelist mounted, sped away,
And hailed the light of breaking day.
What roads!
Just then, X 20, on his track,
Stopp’d short the youth’s career, alack!
In vain he pleads, “This isn’t fair!”
X 20 takes him _you know where_.
What roads!
There in the Court with face quite ruddy
He urges that, “The roads were muddy.”
Vain hope! The Chairman with a sob,
Murmur’d serenely, “_Fined Five Bob!_”
“What roads!”
W. F. FIELD.
――――――――
SLOPER.
The shades of night were falling fast,
As o’er a station platform passed
A youth, who bore, with step precise,
A paper with the strange device
Of SLOPER.
His coat was torn, his hair unkempt,
His face from water long exempt,
But quick his action, sharp his eye
As loud he shouted, “Who will buy
A SLOPER.”
“Stay!” said an old man, “stay, my boy,
Who ought to be your mother’s joy,
Linger a while, and give to me
(For I would wish amused to be)
A SLOPER.”
“Here!” said a maiden, sad yet “swell,”
In accents like a silver bell,
“Come here, my youth, and I will try
To drown my sorrow; _I_ will buy
A SLOPER.”
And soon from every side there came
The accents of that well-known name,
Until the little urchin stands,
And there’s not in his dirty hands
A SLOPER.
There in the gas-light, clearly seen,
The little boy stood “all serene;”
A smile lit up his bright blue eye,
He whistled loud, and ceased his cry
Of SLOPER.
[Illustration]
THE WAR BLACKSMITH.
Under its sulphurous canopy
Old Vulcan’s smithy stands,
And Vulcan, grown a man-of-war,
Has so much on his hands,
That stocks run low, and files but show
War-orders and demands.
His Cyclops when he needed most,
Off every Cyclops ran;
For why should not a Cyclop do
As another working-man,
And take the time when trade is brisk
To insist on all he can?
So every day, and all day long
Poor Vulcan’s sweat must flow,
Toiling for Europe’s sovereigns,
And still the orders grow
For breech-loaders, and armour-plates,
Steel-shot and chilled also.
With Chassepots for the EMPEROR
(O’er Dreyses they’ve the pull);
With Remingtons for Austria,
And Sniders for JOHN BULL,
Balls, Cochranes, Mountstorms, Henries,
His hands may well be full.
Meanwhile the EMPEROR writes to us,
And bids us be good boys:
It does one good to hear him preach,
And see how he enjoys
The shift of weights that trim the POWERS
For Europe’s equipoise.
How glad he is that Prussia comes
So strong out of the row,
That Italy Venetia gains――
_Viâ_ France, as all allow:
Proving “whatever is, is best”――
At all events, _just now_.
And when France sulks that East and South
Her neighbours’ power increases,
He hints, ’tis not from _every_ smash
She can “pick up the pieces,”
While Peace is Peace, although it brings
No Savoys, and no Nices.
Some say ’tis like the voice that once
Wiled Eve in Paradise:
But it preaches so delightfully,
And gives such good advice,
Bidding France arm, because she’s sure
Of peace at any price.
So Vulcan all his toil and stock
Must on War’s task bestow,
And iron, good for spade and share
For sword and gun must go:
For before this the Emperor’s word
Has been a word and blow.
Then let us thank the Emperor
For the lesson he has taught,
That it is in the forge of War
The arms of Peace are wrought,
And if we haven’t breech-loaders,
Breech-loaders must be bought.
_Punch_, September 29, 1866.
It will be remembered that the Austrians had been completely defeated
by the Prussians at Sadowa, on July 3, 1866, and that the Emperor
Francis Joseph had ceded Venetia to Napoleon III., requesting his
intervention with the King of Prussia to arrange the terms of peace.
From that period until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War,
Napoleon was looked upon as the arbiter of Peace or War in Europe.
――――――――
Although the following parody is taken from an old Christmas annual,
it is singularly _à propos_ at the present time, when disgust is
universally expressed at the costliness and uncertainty of our Legal
system. Recent scandals have also greatly detracted from the
confidence and respect which should be felt for the administrators of
Justice:――
THE LORD CHANCELLOR. (_Loq._)
“Were it once known that only right could win,
No villain then an action would begin;
Did rogues not know how equal was their chance
With honest men’s, false claims they’d not advance;
In short, were only simple justice done,
The special pleader’s course were well-nigh run.”
_Song_: The LORD CHANCELLOR.
_Tune_: “_The Village Blacksmith._”
Under a stunted black elm tree
The Q.C.’s chambers are;
Q.C., a leading silk is he,
With name known near and far;
And the practice he’s contrived to make
Is famous at the bar.
His wig is crisp, and soiled, and black――
That’s where the ink once ran――
His eye is bright, and apt to roll,
’Tis his most favourite plan;
And he looks a jury in the face
As very few men can.
Week in, week out, from ten till four,
You can hear his language flow;
You can see him hitch his gown and swing
His arm with motion slow,
Like a ranter beating the Holy Book
With a downright thumping blow!
And country people up in town
Look in at the Law-court’s door;
For they like to see the great Q.C.,
And hear his voice’s roar;
And ’tis thought a bit of luck to catch
Him standing on the floor.
He sits on Sundays in his rooms,
And “tots” up his week’s fees;
He thinks on those he hasn’t earned,
And had no right to seize:
And much it makes his heart rejoice
As he turns over these.
He thinks of verdicts he has won,
By torture and by lies;
Of verdicts lost through his default
Thoughts will unbidden rise:
Through one a widow lost her all,
He seems to hear her sighs.
Toiling――speechmaking――circuiting,
Onward through life he goes;
Each evening sees some briefs begun,
How many? goodness knows!
Something attempted, some one “done,”
He’s earned a night’s repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my legal friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
That fortune quickly comes to one
Who does what he “didn’t ought;”
And that taking fees for work not done
Is a very “happy thought.”
_Finis_ (Beeton’s Christmas Annual, 1877.)
In a recent trial for libel brought against the son of the Lord Chief
Justice, the plaintiff had to conduct his case in person, and was
subjected to continual interruptions, and hostile remarks from the
bench. This conduct on the part of the judge, Mr. Justice Manisty, was
even more noticeable than his contemptuous treatment of the verdict of
the jury, and the following parody of a Law Report (which appeared in
the _Pall Mall Gazette_, November 25, 1884)――is really but a mild
exaggeration of the actual proceedings:――
TRIAL BY JURY IN 1884.
The libel case of ―――― _versus_ ―――― was tried in the Court
of ――――, before Mr. Justice Manifest. The plaintiff
conducted his own case; the defendant was represented by his
counsel, a great legal luminary, and several of the most
prominent names at the bar. The defendant is the son of a
person high placed in the legal world, and is himself a
barrister. The plaintiff is, vernacularly speaking, “the
deuce knows who.” The alleged libel is contained in a letter
written by the defendant to a widow lady (his great aunt by
marriage), who wished to ally herself by marriage to the
plaintiff.
The plaintiff was proceeding to open his own case, when the
judge asked him why he was not properly represented by
professional counsel, after the manner of a gentleman, and
warned him that such an omission was likely to tell against
him in the gravest manner.
Plaintiff: May it please your lordship, I am a poor man, and
cannot well afford――
Mr. Justice Manifest: The question of your means is wholly
irrelevant. I must request you to keep strictly to the
matter in hand.
Plaintiff: My other reason was that I feared no member of
your respected profession would be quite whole-hearted in
conducting my case, in view of who the defendant is. (Groans
from the members of the Bar present.)
The great legal luminary: I protest against the plaintiff’s
speech as an insult to the entire profession, including your
lordship.
Mr. Justice Manifest condoled warmly with the outraged
feelings of the legal gentlemen present, but urged them to
allow the plaintiff to proceed; as by so doing he would best
reveal to the jury the manner of man he was.
Plaintiff: With the permission of the court, I will first
read the letter.
The great legal luminary objected to this, as unnecessarily
wounding to the feelings of the defendant’s eminent family.
Plaintiff humbly submitted to the court that unless he were
allowed to produce the letter it would be difficult for the
jury to decide whether it were a libel or not. Mr. Justice
Manifest begged the great legal luminary to allow the letter
to be read as a personal favour to himself. The great legal
luminary consenting, the plaintiff read the letter, which
was as follows:――“My dear Aunt,――It is with sincere regret
that I see myself forced to point out to you the true
character of the unprincipled scoundrel you are thinking of
marrying. Should you be surprised to hear that he is a
professed atheist? Should you be surprised to hear that he
has been three times married already, and that one of these
marriages took place while the former wife was still alive?
Should you be surprised to hear that many excellent people
suspect him of having made away with his last wife, though
the murder has never been brought home to him? Should you be
surprised to hear that he has on several occasions embezzled
large sums of money? Should you be surprised to hear that he
is a convicted felon? Should you be surprised to hear that
he has a daughter in the workhouse?”… At this point the
reading of the letter was interrupted by the great legal
luminary, who said that the remainder of it had no bearing
on the case.
The plaintiff said he thought he had read enough to give the
court some idea of the animus of the document. He would next
ask if the defendant denied having written it?
The great legal luminary said his client acknowledged having
written the letter.
Mr. Justice Manifest said this was one more instance of the
manly and straightforward manner in which the case for the
defendant was being carried on.
The plaintiff said he had given the defendant an opening to
withdraw his statements in presence of the defendant’s fa….
Mr. Justice Manifest (interrupting): “I must beg you not to
mention eminent people in no way connected with the case.”
The plaintiff apologised and continued: The defendant
refused either to withdraw or substantiate his charges.
Mr. Justice Manifest: Quite right too. (Loud cheering.)
The plaintiff next called witnesses to speak to his
character and disprove the charges contained in the letter
which the defendant acknowledged having written, and refused
to withdraw.
The Rev. Lord Bishop of ―――― was sworn, and in answer to
questions said he had known the plaintiff from a boy, and
that he had always borne the highest character.
Several other reverend gentlemen, of whose congregations the
plaintiff had at various times been a prominent member, were
called, and deposed to the same effect――namely, that he was
a man against whom there had never been a breath of even
ordinary scandal. Also that he was of a most edifying piety.
Plaintiff: Would it have been possible that such facts as my
having murdered my wife, embezzled money, been a convicted
felon, &c., could have remained unknown to you during the
time I was a member of your congregations?
The Reverend Gentlemen; “Quite impossible.” Plaintiff then
produced evidence that the period during which he had sat
under the various reverend gentlemen extended over his whole
life, from the age of eighteen to the present day.
Mr. Justice Manifest asked the great legal luminary if he
did not wish to cross-examine the witnesses.――Great legal
luminary: “No, my lord, I have no questions to ask.”
Mr. Justice Manifest thanked him for so considerately saving
the time of the court.
The plaintiff next called witnesses to prove that he had
only been once married, that he had lived in great peace and
harmony with his late wife, that she had died a natural
death, that he had sincerely mourned her, that he had always
supported his daughter honourably, and as well as his small
means would allow.
The great legal luminary scornfully refused to cross-examine
any of the witnesses.
The plaintiff then declared his case closed.
Mr. Justice Manifest: And high time too.
The great legal luminary then opened the case for the
defence: My lord I do not mean to waste the valuable time of
the court, already so mercilessly squandered by the
plaintiff. My client, acting on my advice, has considerately
refused to appear in the witness-box, or to call any
witnesses. I shall not soil myself by attempting to set
aside any of the evidence the plaintiff has thought fit so
tediously to inflict upon the patience of the court. The
fact that a man is obliged to call such evidence to his
personal character is, I should hope, sufficiently
significant to all right-thinking and unprejudiced minds.
The law of libel is happily clear and concise, and is known
to all. That the position occupied by the defendant’s family
could in any way influence the judgment of the court, which,
monstrous as it may seem, the plaintiff has not hesitated to
imply, is a supposition I need not even repudiate. My lord,
I have done.
Mr. Justice Manifest: I cannot sufficiently express my
admiration for the moderation with which the counsel for the
defence has expressed himself, or my regret that such a case
should have been brought into court at all. The jury must
now consider carefully whether such a letter, written
confidentially by one member of a family to another, can in
any sense of the word be rightly called a libel, or whether
the whole thing is not a base conspiracy to annoy a family
of high position, and degrade the law. For my own part my
mind is quite made up, and though I have the highest opinion
of juries and their decisions, I must warn the jury that in
the extremely improbable event of their disagreeing with me,
I shall reserve to myself the right of setting aside their
decision.
The jury, without retiring, consulted for a few moments,
when the foreman said, My lord, we are unanimously agreed.
Mr. Justice Manifest: I was sure you would be; and your
verdict is?
The Foreman: We find unhesitatingly for the plaintiff.
Mr. Justice Manifest (with withering sarcasm): Oh, do you?
Then may I ask at what you fix the damages?
The Foreman (after a brief consultation with the other
jurors): At £2,000, my lord.
Mr. Justice Manifest: I have no hesitation in overruling the
decision of the jury, and have much pleasure in deciding
that the court finds for the defendant with costs.
――――――――
THE VILLAGE PET.
Around their panting captain
The village clubmen stand;
A presentation “pot” he bears
In his large and sinewy hand;
For he just has won the mile “cham,”
To the music of the band!
His hair is gingery, coarse, and long;
His muscles none can span,
His brow is wet with honest sweat――
He’s “put in” all he can;
He ain’t much to look at in the face,
But he’ll ride ’gainst any man!
(In the village!)
Week after week, morn, noon, and night,
You could see him rushing round
The cricket-field the club had hired
For an impromptu training-ground;
You could hear his back wheel clump and clatter,
Although with wire bound!
The loafers and cadgers of the place:
Crowd round the open gate:
They love to watch him wheeling round
Like some pursuing Fate;
To count each gasp, to cheer each spurt,
And fill with pride his pate!
He goes on Sunday to the church;
And sits among his pals:
Receiving homage from each youth,
And winking at the gals!
Makes weak attempts to “mash” ’em, and
Criticises their “fal-lals!”
He sleeps――dreams――hears his trainer’s voice
Telling him when to “stick it on!”
Remembers that he’ll ride no more
When the cold earth lays his chest upon!
Waking, he checks a deep, loud snore,
And finds his “mashes” homeward gone!
Training――perspiring――grinding:
Onward through life he goes――
Each evening sees a mile begun,
2m. 50s. sees it close!
Something attempted, something done,
Has gained a broken nose!
Experience by thee, my friend:
Thy chums, they have been taught,
Hadst thou been doomèd _nées_ to ride
As reckless fellows ought
Then had thy Roman nose escaped
Much evil thou hast wrought!
R. C. BLOW.
_The Wheeling Annual_ for 1885.
[Illustration]
_Finis_ (Beeton’s Annual, 1877) contained a long parody on
“Evangeline,” from which the following lines may be quoted:――
MABEL, THE MADE-UP.
This is the Forest of St. John. The murmuring pines and the
hemlocks,
Bearded with moss and with lichens, have nothing to do with this
Forest.
Here ’stead of pines there are lamp-posts; and ’stead of the
hemlocks, post-pillars;
And as for the moss and the lichens, there’s dust and there’s slush
in their places.
This is the Forest of St. John――but here are no beasts save
cab-horses;
Birds, though――soiled doves as some call them――roost pretty thick
in its villas.
Sooth ’tis a forest, say some, where one may find lots of
“dears-talking.”
Certainly is it a tract for growing wild oats very famous!
Ye who believe in fair beauty, in beauty skin deep and enduring,
Ye who believe in the truth and the genuine charms of a woman,
List to my mournful experience gained not long since in the Forest;
List to the tale of Miss Mabel, a _belle_ of that north-western
quarter.
In the Ranunculus Road, near to the underground station;
In a small villa, detached, bounded on all sides by garden;
Lived on a competence easy, Mabel, the _belle_ I have mentioned.
Fair as to face and so slim; flawless, in sooth, was this damsel;
Rounded her bust in a manner approved of by painters and sculptors;
Golden her hair as the sunshine that, careless, got tangled amongst
it;
Blue though her eyes as the ocean, jet black her brows and her lashes;
Soft was the bloom on her cheeks as the delicate blush upon peaches;
Seeing her smile, teeth and lips seemed like pearls set in pinkest of
coral;
Snow in her bosom had melted, despairing to rival its whiteness;
Taper and lithe were her fingers, each with its pink pearl-shell
helmet;
Lightly had Time run the wheels of his chariot over her forehead,
Never a rut had they made, for the road was like white alabaster,
All this I saw and still more, though I am not a little
short-sighted,
When at a morning performance by chance I happened to meet her.
Known to the friend I was with, he in the _entr’acte_ introduced me;
And from that moment her box became the shrine of a goddess.
Little I saw of the play, now even its name I’ve forgotten;
Little I thought of my friend, but sheltered behind a box curtain,
Kept I my _lorgnette_ on Mabel, watching her moods and her glances.
Perfect was each of her poses as that of a painter’s lithe model;
E’en when she talked to her friends the shape of her lips seemed
like poetry;
Smiles rippled over her face like sunshine upon broken water.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
During the war between the Northern and Southern States of America
many humorous works were published which were intended to expose the
weaknesses, and abuses, in the policy and administrations of both
sides in the struggle. Amongst these, few were more amusing, or more
popular than the Orpheus C. Kerr (_i.e._, office-seeker) Papers, and
the following chapter is quoted, as it contains imitations of the
poets most popular in the States twenty odd years ago. Under the thin
veil of initials the names may be traced of H. W. Longfellow, Edward
Everett, J. G. Whittier, Dr. O. W. Holmes, R. W. Emerson, W. C.
Bryant, G. P. Morris, N. P. Willis, T. B. Aldwick, and R. H. Stoddart.
LETTER VIII.
THE REJECTED “NATIONAL HYMNS.”
Washington, D.C., June 30th, 1861.
Immediately after mailing my last to you, I secured a short
furlough, and proceeded to New York, to examine into the
affairs of that venerable committee which had offered a
prize of 500 dollars for the best National Hymn.
Astounding and distracting to relate, the committee
announces the reception of no less than eleven hundred and
fifty “anthems!”
And all these “anthems” are rejected by the venerable
committee! But must they _all_, therefore, be lost to the
world? I hope not, my boy,――I hope not. Having some
acquaintance with the discriminating rag-merchant to whom
they were turned over as rejected, I have procured some of
the best, from which to quote for your special edification.
Imprimis, my boy, observe this
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY H. W. L――――, OF CAMBRIDGE.
Back in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch
Over the sea-ribbed land of the fleet-footed Norsemen,
Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens――
Ursa, the noblest of all the Vikings and horsemen.
Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,
Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner,
Wildly he started――for there in the heavens before him
Fluttered and flew the original Star-Spangled Banner.
The committee have two objections to this: in the first
place, it is not an “anthem” at all; secondly, it is a gross
plagiarism from an old Scandinavian war-song of the primeval
ages.
Next, I present a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY THE HON. EDWARD E――――, OF BOSTON.
Ponderous projectiles, hurled by heavy hands,
Fell on our Liberty’s poor infant head,
Ere she a stadium had well advanced
On the great path that to her greatness led;
Her temple’s propylon was shattered;
Yet thanks to saving Grace and Washington,
Her incubus was from her bosom hurled;
And, rising like a cloud-dispelling sun,
She took the oil, with which her hair was curled,
To grease the “Hub” round which revolves the world.
This fine production is rather heavy for an “anthem,” and
contains too much of Boston to be considered strictly
national. To set such an “anthem” to music would require a
Wagner; and even were it really accommodated to a tune, it
could only be whistled by the populace.
We now come to a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY JOHN GREENLEAF W――――.
My native land, thy Puritanic stock
Still finds its roots firm-bound in Plymouth Rock,
And all thy sons unite in one grand wish――
To keep the virtues of Preserv-ed Fish.
Preserv-ed Fish, the Deacon stern and true,
Told our New England what her sons should do,
And should they swerve from loyalty and right,
Then the whole land were lost indeed in night.
The sectional bias of this “anthem” renders it unsuitable for
use in that small margin of the world situated outside of New
England. Hence the above must be rejected.
Here we have a very curious
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY DR. OLIVER WENDELL H――――.
A diagnosis of our hist’ry proves
Our native land a land its native loves;
Its birth a deed obstetric without peer,
Its growth a source of wonder far and near.
To love it more behold how foreign shores
Sink into nothingness beside its stores;
Hyde Park at best――though counted ultra-grand――
The “Boston Common” of Victoria’s land――
The committee must not be blamed for rejecting the above,
after reading thus far; for such an “anthem” could only be
sung by a college of surgeons, or a Beacon-street tea-party.
Turn we now to a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY RALPH WALDO E――――.
Source immaterial of material naught,
Focus of light infinitesimal,
Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought,
Of which abnormal man is decimal.
Refract, in prism immortal, from thy stars
To the stars blent incipient on our flag,
The beam translucent, neutrifying death;
And raise to immortality the rag.
This “anthem” was greatly praised by a celebrated German
scholar; but the committee felt obliged to reject it on
account of its too childish simplicity.
Here we have a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY WILLIAM CULLEN B――――.
The sun sinks softly to his evening post,
The sun swells grandly to his morning crown;
Yet not a star our flag of Heav’n has lost,
And not a sunset stripe with him goes down.
So thrones may fall; and from the dust of those,
New thrones may rise, to totter like the last;
But still our country’s nobler planet glows
While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.
Upon finding that this did not go well to the air of “Yankee
Doodle,” the committee felt justified in declining it; being
furthermore prejudiced against it by a suspicion that the
poet has crowded an advertisement of a paper which he edits
into the first line.
Next we quote from a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY GEN. GEORGE P. M――――.
In the days that tried our fathers
Many years ago,
Our fair land achieved her freedom,
Blood-bought, you know.
Shall we not defend her ever
As we’d defend
That fair maiden, kind and tender,
Calling us friend?
Yes! Let all the echoes answer,
From hill and vale;
Yes! Let other nations, hearing,
Joy in the tale.
Our Columbia is a lady,
High-born and fair;
We have sworn allegiance to her――
Touch her who dare.
The tone of this “anthem” not being devotional enough to
suit the committee, it should be printed on an edition of
linen-cambric handkerchiefs, for ladies especially.
Observe this
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY N. P. W――――.
One hue of our flag is taken
From the cheeks of my blushing Pet,
And its stars beat time and sparkle
Like the studs on her chemisette.
Its blue is the ocean shadow
That hides in her dreamy eyes;
It conquers all men, like her,
And still for a Union flies.
Several members of the committee being pious, it is not
strange that this “anthem” has too much of the Anacreon spice
to suit them.
We next peruse a
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY THOMAS BAILEY A――――.
The little brown squirrel hops in the corn,
The cricket quaintly sings;
The emerald pigeon nods his head,
And the shad in the river springs,
The dainty sunflower hangs its head
On the shore of the summer sea;
And better far that I were dead,
If Maud did not love me.
I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,
And the cricket that quaintly sings;
And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,
And the shad that gaily springs.
I love the dainty sunflower too,
And Maud with her snowy breast;
I love them all;――but I love――I love――
I love my country best.
This is certainly very beautiful, and sounds somewhat like
Tennyson. Though it was rejected by the committee, it can
never lose its value as a piece of excellent reading for
children. It is calculated to fill the youthful mind with
patriotism and natural history, besides touching the
youthful heart with an emotion palpitating for all.
Notice the following
NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY R. H. STOD――――
Behold the flag! Is it not a flag?
Deny it, man, if you dare;
And midway spread, ’twixt earth and sky,
It hangs like a written prayer.
Would impious hand of foe disturb
Its memories’ holy spell,
And blight it with a dew of blood?
Ha, tr-r-aitor!! * * * It is well.
And this is the last of the rejected anthems I can quote
from at present, my boy, though several hundred pounds yet
remain untouched.
Yours, questioningly,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
[Illustration]
Longfellow has borrowed the refrain of “The Old Clock on the Stairs”
from a phrase of Jacques Bridaine:――
“L’éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit
sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des
tombeaux: ‘Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!’”
“And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,――
‘For ever――never!
Never――for ever!’
“Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,――
‘For ever――never!
Never――for ever!’”
It is somewhat remarkable that such a poet as Charles Beaudelaire, the
tone of whose writings is generally far removed from that of
Longfellow, should so often have borrowed sentiments and ideas from
him. Thus in “L’Horloge” he has two verses distinctly reminiscent of
“The Old Clock”:――
“Horloge! dieu sinistre, effrayant, impassible,
Dont le doight nous menace, et nous dit: _Souviens-toi!_
Les vibrantes Douleurs dans ton cœur, plein d’effroi,
Se planteront bientôt comme dans une cible.
* * * * *
“Trois mille six cents fois par heure, la seconde
Chuchote “_Souviens-toi!_”――Rapide avec sa voix
D’insecte, maintenant dit: Je suis autrefois,
Et j’ai pompé ta vie avec ma trompe immonde!”
Another poem in “Les Fleurs du Mal” contains not only two verses
appropriated from “A Psalm of Life,” but curiously weaves in with them
a verse from Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Church-yard.” This piece of
patchwork is entitled――
LE GUIGNON.
Pour soulever un poids si lourd,
Sisyphe, il faudrait ton courage!
Bien qu’on ait du cœur à l’ouvrage,
L’Art est long, et le Temps est court.
Loin des sépultures célèbres,
Vers un cimetière isolé,
Mon cœur, comme un tambour voilé,
Va battant des marches funèbres.
―― Maint joyau dort enseveli
Dans les ténèbres et l’oubli,
Bien loin des pioches et des sondes;
―― Maint fleur épanche à regret
Son parfum doux comme un secret
Dans les solitudes profondes.[1]
Beaudelaire himself admits that “Le Calumet de Paix” is an imitation
of Longfellow, it is, in fact, a translation of _The Peace-Pipe_ in
“The Song of Hiawatha,” and opens thus:――
“Or Gitche Manito, le Maître de la Vie,
Le Puissant, descendit dans la verte prairie,
Dans l’immense prairie aux coteaux montueux;
Et là, sur les rochers de la Rouge Carrière,
Dominant tout l’espace et baigné de lumière,
Il se tenait debout, vaste et majestueux.”
The spirit of the original poem is fairly well rendered throughout,
but the exigencies of French rhyme do not admit the versification of
“Hiawatha.” Whilst on the topic of paraphrases, it might be asked
whether Longfellow did not borrow his line――
“Tell me not in mournful numbers,”
from
“Singet nicht in Trauertönen,”
in Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_?”
It should have been mentioned that the parody quoted on page 88, Part
VI., entitled “The Close of the Season,” originally appeared in
_Punch_, August 8, 1868, under the title, “Flight,” also, that a
political parody of “The Bridge” was contained in _Punch_, July 8,
1865.
[Illustration]
Edgar Allan Poe.
[Illustration: W]eird, thrilling, and mysterious as are the poems and
novels of this unfortunate man of genius, nothing that he ever wrote
could call up the emotions of pity and regret more powerfully than the
melancholy story of his own wayward career, and his sad and early
death.
Much has recently been written about Poe, and no difficulty can be
found in learning all that is known, with any certainty, of his
singular career; but an impenetrable veil of mystery still obscures
the record of several years of his life, in spite of all the research
of his numerous biographers.
The name of Mr. John H. Ingram has long been associated with these
investigations, and his pen has supplied biographical, and critical
essays, to all the best modern editions of his works. Many of the
following parodies are copied from the large collection formed by Mr.
Ingram, and especial mention must here be made of the curious
so-called “Spiritual Poems,” supposed to have been written by the
shade of Poe, which will be referred to later on.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, United States, on January 19,
1809. His parents, who were actors, died leaving him an orphan at an
early age; he was adopted by a wealthy childless couple, of the name
of Allan, by whom he was brought to England in 1816, and placed in a
school at Stoke Newington. In 1821 he returned to the United States,
and spent some years in desultory study and romantic rambles abroad,
of which very little, that is reliable, is known.
At length his friends obtained a nomination for him to the West Point
Military Academy, to which institution he was admitted as a cadet on
July 1, 1830. But Poe soon took a dislike to a military career, and
wilfully set the authorities at defiance, so that they had no option
but to expel him. Having thus cast away all chance of an honourable
career in the United States army, Poe returned to Richmond, to the
house of his only friend and protector, Mr. Allan. But that gentleman,
incensed at his conduct, would not receive him, and Poe was thus
thrown penniless on the world.
He had already published a few poems, and now adopted the precarious
profession of journalism, at which he laboured hard for several years,
and then, with no settled income, still almost unknown, and with few
prospects of an encouraging character, he was rash enough to marry his
cousin, a girl but a little over fourteen years of age. This was in
May, 1836; after a few years of struggling poverty and anxiety, his
young wife broke a blood-vessel, and although she lingered on several
years, it was as a doomed invalid, whose death was almost daily
expected.
Poe was much attached to his wife, and having a highly strung
sensitive nature, the grief and anxiety about her, unfitted him at
times for all mental labour. On such occasions Poe had recourse to
drink, thus adding new sorrow and fresh misery to his already darkened
home. Yet, during this melancholy period of his life, Poe produced
many of his wonderful tales of the imagination, and was maturing his
finest poems.
His wife died early in 1846, and Poe, for a time, led a retired and
solitary life; then he resumed his newspaper work, and his practice of
lecturing on poetry and kindred topics. He was now fast making his way
to a good position, his fame as a poet was rapidly spreading, his
lecture engagements were remunerative, and it was rumoured that he was
about to marry a wealthy widow.
With ordinary steadiness and application, a brilliant future awaited
him, but his craving for drink proved fatal, although he struggled
against it so far as to take the pledge of total abstinence. He
started to visit New York, on business, and reached Baltimore on
October 3, 1849, where it is supposed that he took some drugged
whiskey, as he was found helpless in the streets. He was conveyed to
the Washington University Hospital, where he died on the 7th of
October, 1849.
Of his Poems, those which are the best known, and the most generally
admired, are amongst the latest he produced. Thus, “The Raven,” which
obtained a great and immediate success, was not published until early
in 1845; “Eulalie,” in August, 1845; “Ulalume,” most musical, most
melancholy of poems, appropriately appeared soon after his wife’s
death.
“To my Mother” was addressed to his mother-in-law, and best friend,
Mrs. Clemm, in 1849; “Eldorado” and “For Annie” came out in the same
year; whilst the two very celebrated poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The
Bells” were not published until after their author’s death.
All his poems have a melancholy tinge, and, unlike most modern
American authors, Poe seems almost destitute of humour.
“The Raven” is at once the most characteristic and the most popular of
his poems; it is also that which is most frequently selected for
parody, or imitation. Many authors have also adopted the metre for
serious poems, such as “The Gazelle” and “The Dove.” Poe wrote an
ingenious and amusing account of the origin and growth of “The Raven.”
The article is much too long, and too discursive, to give in full; but
the following extracts contain its most important passages:――
THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION.
* * * * *
Holding in view these considerations, as well as that degree
of excitement which I deemed not above the popular, while
not below the critical taste, I reached at once what I
conceived the proper _length_ for my intended poem――a length
of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and
eight.
My next thought concerned the choice of an impression, or
effect, to be conveyed: and here I may as well observe that,
throughout the construction, I kept steadily in view the
design of rendering the work _universally_ appreciable. I
should be carried too far out of my immediate topic were I
to demonstrate a point upon which I have repeatedly
insisted, and which, with the poetical, stands not in the
slightest need of demonstration――the point, I mean that
Beauty is the sole legitimate province of the Poem.
Regarding, then, Beauty as my province, my next question
referred to the _tone_ of its highest manifestation――and all
experience has shown that this tone is one of _sadness_.
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development,
invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy
is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.
These points being settled, I next bethought me of the
_nature_ of my _refrain_. Since its application was to be
repeatedly varied, it was clear that the _refrain_ itself
must be brief, for there would have been an insurmountable
difficulty in frequent variations of application in any
sentence of length. In proportion to the brevity of the
sentence, would, of course, be the facility of the
variation. This led me at once to a single word as the best
_refrain_.
The question now arose as to the _character_ of the word.
Having made up my mind to a _refrain_, the division of the
poem into stanzas was, of course, a corollary; the _refrain_
forming the close to each stanza. That such a close, to have
force, must be sonorous and susceptible of protracted
emphasis, admitted no doubt; and these considerations
inevitably led me to the long _o_ as the most sonorous
vowel, in connection with _r_ as the most producible
consonant.
The sound of the _refrain_ being thus determined, it became
necessary to select a word embodying this sound, and at the
same time in the fullest possible keeping with that
melancholy which I had pre-determined as the tone of the
poem. In such a search it would have been absolutely
impossible to overlook the word “Nevermore.” In fact, it was
the very first which presented itself.
The next _desideratum_ was a pretext for the continuous use
of the one word “Nevermore.” In observing the difficulty
which I at once found in inventing a sufficiently plausible
reason for its continuous repetition, I did not fail to
perceive that this difficulty arose solely from the
pre-assumption that the word was to be so continuously or
monotonously spoken by _a human_ being――I did not fail to
perceive, in short, that the difficulty lay in the
reconciliation of this monotony with the exercise of reason
on the part of the creature repeating the word. Here, then,
immediately arose the idea of a _non_-reasoning creature
capable of speech; and, very naturally, a parrot, in the
first instance, suggested itself, but was superseded
forthwith by a Raven, as equally capable of speech, and
infinitely more in keeping with the intended _tone_.
I had now gone so far as the conception of a Raven――the bird
of ill omen――monotonously repeating the one word,
“Nevermore,” at the conclusion of each stanza, in a poem of
melancholy tone, and in length about one hundred lines. Now,
never losing sight of the object _supremeness_, or
perfection, at all points, I asked myself――“Of all
melancholy topics, what, according to the _universal_
understanding of mankind, is the _most_ melancholy?”
Death――was the obvious reply. “And when,” I said, “is this
most melancholy of topics most poetical?” From what I have
already explained at some length, the answer here also is
obvious――“When it most closely allies itself to _Beauty_:
the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably,
the most poetical topic in the world――and equally is it
beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are
those of a bereaved lover.”
I had now to combine the two ideas, of a lover lamenting his
deceased mistress and a Raven continuously repeating the
word, “Nevermore.” I had to combine these, bearing in mind
my design of varying, at every turn, the _application_ of
the word repeated; but the only intelligible mode of such
combination is that of imagining the Raven employing the
word in answer to the queries of the lover. And here it was
that I saw at once the opportunity afforded for the effect
on which I had been depending――that is to say, the effect of
the _variation of application_. I saw that I could make the
first query propounded by the lover――the first query to
which the Raven should reply “Nevermore” that I could make
this first query a commonplace one――the second less so――the
third still less, and so on――until at length the lover,
startled from his original _nonchalance_ by the melancholy
character of the word itself――by its frequent repetition――and
by a consideration of the ominous reputation of the fowl
that uttered it――is at length excited to superstition, and
wildly propounds queries of a far different character――queries
whose solution he has passionately at heart――propounds them
half in superstition, and half in that species of despair
which delights in self-torture――propounds them not
altogether because he believes in the prophetic or demoniac
character of the bird (which, reason assures him, is merely
repeating a lesson learned by rote) but because he
experiences a frenzied pleasure in so modelling his
questions as to receive from the _expected_ “Nevermore” the
most delicious because the most intolerable of sorrow.
Perceiving the opportunity thus afforded me――or, more
strictly, thus forced upon me in the progress of the
construction I first established in mind the climax, or
concluding query――that query to which “Nevermore” should be
in the last place an answer――that query in reply to which
this word “Nevermore” should involve the utmost conceivable
amount of sorrow and despair.
Here, then, the poem may be said to have its beginning――at
the end, where all works of art should begin――for it was
here, at this point of my preconsiderations, that I first
put pen to paper in the composition of the stanza:――
“Prophet,” said I, “thing of evil! prophet still if bird or
devil!
By that heaven that bends above us――by the God we both
adore,
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within the distant
Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name
Lenore――
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name
Lenore.”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore,”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
THE RAVEN.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,――
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door,――
Only this, and nothing more.”
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;――vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow,――sorrow for the lost Lenore,――
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,――
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me――filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,――
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is, and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer:
“Sir,” said I, “or, madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you,”――here I opened wide the door;
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,――
Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore;――
’Tis the wind, and nothing more.”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,――
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door,――
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no
craven,
Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wandering from the nightly shore.
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning, little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door,――
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,――
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered;
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before;
On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast, and followed faster, till his songs one burden bore,――
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never――nevermore.’”
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust, and
door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl, whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er
_She_ shall press, ah! nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch!” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee――by these angels he hath
sent thee
Respite――respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!――prophet still, if bird or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted――
On this home by Horror haunted――tell me truly, I implore,
Is there――_is_ there balm in Gilead?――tell me――tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!――prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that heaven that bends above us――by that God we both adore――
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore――
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore?”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked,
upstarting,
“Get thee back into the tempest and the night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted――nevermore!
――――――――
At the time when Poe produced “The Raven” he was editor of “The
Broadway Journal,” published in New York. The first number appeared on
January 4, 1845, and in the number for April 26, 1845, Poe inserted
the following editorial note, which shows that he was not averse to a
parody of even his own most grave and solemn poem:――
A GENTLE PUFF.
“If we copied into our Journal all the complimentary notices
that are bestowed upon us, it would contain hardly anything
besides; the following done into poetry is probably the only
one of the kind that we shall receive, and we extract it from
our neighbour, the New World, for the sake of its uniqueness.”
Then with step sedate and stately, as if thrones had borne
him lately,
Came a bold and daring warrior up the distant echoing floor;
As he passed the COURIER’S Colonel, then I saw THE BROADWAY
JOURNAL,
In a character supernal, on his gallant front he bore,
And with stately step and solemn marched he proudly through
the door,
As if he pondered, evermore.
With his keen sardonic smiling, every other care beguiling,
Right and left he bravely wielded a double-edged and broad
claymore,
And with gallant presence dashing, ’mid his confreres stoutly
clashing,
He unpityingly went slashing, as he keenly scanned them o’er,
And with eye and mien undaunted, such a gallant presence bore,
As might awe them, evermore.
Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him
bleeding,
Sternly, singly and alone, his course he kept upon that floor;
While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor valor
lacking,
On his goodly armor hacking, wrought no change his visage o’er,
As with high and honest aim, he still his falchion proudly bore,
Resisting error, evermore.
――――――――
C. C. Cooke, a young Virginian poet, who died at a very early age,
also wrote “The Gazelle,” a poem of which Poe said “Although
professedly an imitation, has a very great deal of original power.”
This was headed:――
“The following, from our new-found boy poet of fifteen years
of age, shows a most happy faculty of imitation”:――
THE GAZELLE.
(_After the manner of Poe’s “Raven.”_)
Far from friends and kindred wandering, in my sick and sad
soul pondering,
Of the changing chimes that float, from Old Time’s
ever-swinging bell,
While I lingered on the mountain, while I knelt me by the
fountain,
By the clear and crystal fountain, trickling through the quiet
dell;
Suddenly I heard a whisper, but from whence I could not tell,
Merely whispering, “Fare thee well.”
From my grassy seat uprising, dimly in my soul surmising,
Whence that voice so gently murmuring, like a faintly sounded
knell,
Nought I saw while gazing round me, while that voice so
spell-like bound me,
While that voice so spell-like bound me――searching in that
tranquil dell,
Like hushed hymn of holy hermit, heard from his dimly-lighted
cell,
Merely whispering, “Fare thee well!”
Then I stooped once more, and drinking, heard once more the
silvery tinkling,
Of that dim mysterious utterance, like some fairy harp of
shell――
Struck by hand of woodland fairy, from her shadowy home and
airy,
In the purple clouds and airy, floating o’er that mystic
dell,
And from my sick soul its music seemed all evil to expel,
Merely whispering, “Fare thee well!”
Then my book at once down flinging, from my reverie up
springing,
Searched I through the forest, striving my vain terror to
dispel,
All things to my search subjecting, not a bush or tree
neglecting,
When behind a rock projecting, saw I there a white gazelle,
And that soft and silvery murmur, in my ear so slowly fell,
Merely whispering, “Fare thee well!”
From its eye so mildly beaming, down its cheek a tear was
streaming,
As though in its gentle bosom dwelt some grief it could not
quell,
Still those words articulating, still that sentence ever
prating,
And my bosom agitating as upon my ear it fell,
That most strange, unearthly murmur, acting as a potent
spell,
Merely uttering, “Fare thee well!”
Then I turned, about departing, when she from her covert
starting,
Stood before me while her bosom seemed with agony to swell,
And her eye so mildly beaming, to my aching spirit seeming,
To my wildered spirit seeming, like the eye of Isabel.
But, oh! that which followed after――listen while the tale I
tell――
Of that snow-white, sweet gazelle.
With her dark eye backward turning, as if some mysterious
yearning
In her soul to me was moving, which she could not thence
expel,
Through the tangled thicket flying, while I followed panting,
sighing,
All my soul within me dying, faintly on my hearing fell,
Echoing mid the rocks and mountains rising round that fairy
dell,
Fare thee, fare thee, fare thee well!
Now at length she paused and laid her, underneath an ancient
cedar,
When the shadowy shades of silence, from the day departing
fell,
And I saw that she was lying, trembling, fainting, weeping,
_dying_,
And I could not keep from sighing, nor from my sick soul
expel
The memory that those dark eyes raised――of my long lost
Isabel.
_Why_, I could not, _could_ not tell.
Then I heard that silvery singing, still upon my ear ’tis
ringing,
And where once beneath that cedar, knelt my soft-eyed sweet
gazelle,
Saw I there a seraph glowing, with her golden tresses flowing,
On the perfumed zephyrs blowing, from Eolus’ mystic cell
Saw I in that seraph’s beauty, semblance of my Isabel,
Gently whispering, ‘Fare thee well!’”
“Glorious one,” I cried, upspringing, “art thou joyful tidings
bringing,
From the land of shadowy visions, spirit of my Isabel?
Shall thy coming leave no token? Shall there no sweet word be
spoken?
Shall thy silence be unbroken, in this ever blessed dell?
Whilst thou nothing, nothing utter, but that fatal, ‘Fare thee
well!’”
Still it answered, ‘Fare thee well!’”
“Speak! oh, speak to me bright being! I am blest thy form in
seeing,
But shall no sweet whisper tell, me,――tell me that thou lovest
still?
Shall I pass from earth to heaven, without sign or token given,
With no whispered token given――that thou still dost love me
well?
Give it, give it now, I pray thee――here within this blessed
dell,
Still that hated ‘Fare thee well.’”
Not another word expressing, but her lip in silence pressing,
With the vermeil-tinted finger seeming silence to compel,
And while yet in anguish gazing, and my weeping eyes
upraising,
To the shadowy, silent seraph, semblance of my Isabel,
Slow she faded, till there stood there, once again the white
gazelle,
_Faintly whispering_, “Fare thee well!”
C.
_Evening Mirror_, New York, April 29, 1845.
――――――――
THE WHIPPOORWILL.
* * * * *
In the wilderness benighted, lo! at last my guide alighted
On a lowly little cedar that o’erspread a running rill;
Still his cry of grief he uttered, and around me wildly fluttered,
Whilst unconsciously I muttered, filled with boundless wonder still;
“Wherefore dost thou so implore me, piteously implore me still?
Tell me, tell me, Whippoorwill!
Soon beneath him, as he hover’d, by the starlight I discovered
That his gentle mate was lying on the dead leaves, dead and still:――
“Then,” said I, “he _did_ implore me, in my chamber flitting o’er me,
Flitting to and fro before me, to avert some fearful ill;――
With prophetic instinct surely, he entreated human skill
To save the dying Whippoorwill.”
* * * * *
O’er the lifeless bird then kneeling, all his grief within me feeling,
And my soul within me moving all its longing to fulfil,
On her velvet wing I laid her, in a grave my hands had made her,
Underneath the little cedar, and beside the running rill:――
Odorous leaves her shroud and pillow, and her dirge the running rill――
Buried I the Whippoorwill.
* * * * *
_Evening Mirror_, New York, May 30, 1845.
This somewhat dull imitation consists of twenty-four verses in all,
the extracts sufficiently indicate its style. The numerous parodies to
be found in the American papers as early as 1845 attest how rapidly
“The Raven” had acquired popularity.
――――――――
The following clever parody appeared originally in “Cruikshank’s Comic
Almanac” for 1853, but it was reproduced in “The Piccadilly Annual,”
published in 1870 by John Camden Hotten. The parody was written by
Robert Brough, and was most humorously illustrated by H. G. Hine:――
THE VULTURE:
AN ORNITHOLOGICAL STUDY.
(_After the late Edgar A. Poe._)
The Vulture is the most cruel, deadly, and voracious of birds of prey.
He is remarkable for his keen scent, and for the tenacity with which
he invariably clings to the victim on whom he has fixed his gripe. He
is not to be shaken off whilst the humblest pickings remain. He is
usually to be found in an indifferent state of feather.――_New
Translation of Cuvier._
Once upon a midnight chilling, as I held my feet unwilling
O’er a tub of scalding water, at a heat of ninety-four;
Nervously a toe in dipping, dripping, slipping, then out-skipping,
Suddenly there came a ripping, whipping, at my chambers door.
“’Tis the second floor,” I mutter’d, “flipping at my chambers door――
Wants a light――and nothing more!”
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the chill November,
And each cuticle and member was with influenza sore;
Falt’ringly I stirr’d the gruel, steaming, creaming o’er the fuel,
And anon removed the jewel that each frosted nostril bore,
Wiped away the trembling jewel that each redden’d nostril bore――
Nameless here for evermore!
And I recollect a certain draught that fann’d the window curtain
Chill’d me, fill’d me with the horror of two steps across the floor,
And, besides, I’d got my feet in, and a most refreshing heat in,
To myself I sat repeating――“If I answer to the door――
Rise to let the ruffian in who seems to want to burst the door,
I’ll be ――――” that and something more.
Presently the row grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Really, Mister Johnson, blow it!――your forgiveness I implore,
Such an observation letting slip, but when a man’s just getting
Into bed, you come upsetting nerves and posts of chambers door,
Making such a row, forgetting”――Spoke a voice beyond the door:
“’Tisn’t Johnson”――nothing more!
Quick a perspiration clammy bathed me, and I uttered “Dammy!”
(Observation wrested from me, like the one I made before)
Back upon the cushions sinking, hopelessly my eyes, like winking,
On some stout for private drinking, ranged in rows upon the floor,
Fix’d――and on an oyster barrel (full) beside them on the floor,
Look’d and groan’d, and nothing more.
Open then was flung the portal, and in stepp’d a hated mortal,
By the moderns call’d a VULTURE (known as _Sponge_ in days of yore),
Well I knew his reputation! cause of all my agitation――
Scarce a nod of salutation changed, he pounced upon the floor;
Coolly lifted up the oysters and some stout from off the floor,
Help’d himself, and took some more!
Then this hungry beast untiring fix’d his gaze with fond admiring
On a piece of cold boil’d beef, I meant to last a week or more,
Quick he set to work devouring――plates, in quick succession, scouring――
Stout with every mouthful show’ring――made me ask, to see it pour,
If he quite enjoy’d his supper, as I watch’d the liquid pour;
Said the Vulture “Never more.”
Much disgusted at the spacious _vacuum_ by this brute voracious
Excavated in the beef――(he’d eaten quite enough for four)――
Still, I felt relief surprising when at length I saw him rising,
That he meant to go surmising, said I, glancing at the door――
“Going? well, I won’t detain you――mind the stairs and shut the door――――”
“Leave you, Tomkins!――never more.”
Startled by an answer dropping hints that he intended stopping
All his life――I knew him equal to it if he liked, or more――
Half in dismal earnest, half in joke, with an attempt at laughing,
I remarked that he was chaffing, and demanded of the bore,
Ask’d what this disgusting, nasty, greedy, vile, intrusive bore
Meant in croaking “Never more?”
But the Vulture not replying, took my bunch of keys, and trying
Sev’ral, found at length the one to fit my private cupboard door;
Took the gin out, fill’d the kettle; and with a _sang froid_ to nettle
Any saint, began to settle calmly down the grate before,
Really as he meant departing at the date I named before,
Of never, never more!
Then I sat engaged in guessing what this circumstance distressing
Would be likely to result in, for I knew that long before
Once (it served me right for drinking) I had told him that if sinking
In the world, my fortunes linking to his own, he’d find my door
Always open to receive him, and it struck me now that door
He would pass, p’raps never more!
Suddenly the air was clouded, all the furniture enshrouded
With the smoke of vile tobacco――this was worse than all before;
“Smith!” I cried (in not offensive tones, it might have been
expensive,
For he knew the art defensive, and could costermongers floor);
“Recollect it’s after midnight, _are_ you going?――mind the floor.”
Quoth the Vulture, “Never more!”
“Smith!” I cried (the gin was going, down his throat in rivers
flowing),
“If you want a bed, you know there’s quite a nice hotel next door,
Very cheap. I’m ill――and, joking set apart, your horrid smoking
Irritates my cough to choking. Having mentioned it before,
Really, you should not compel one――_Will_ you mizzle――as before?”
Quoth the Vulture, “Never more!”
“Smith!” I cried, “that joke repeating merits little better treating
For you than a condemnation as a nuisance and a bore.
Drop it, pray, it isn’t funny; I’ve to mix some rum and honey――
If you want a little money, take some and be off next door;
Run a bill up for me if you like, but _do_ be off next door.”
Quoth the Vulture, “Never more!”
“Smith!” I shriek’d――the accent humbler dropping, as another tumbler
I beheld him mix, “be off! you drive me mad――it’s striking four.
Leave the house and something in it; if you go on at the gin, it
Wont hold out another minute. Leave the house and shut the door――
_Take your beak from out my gin, and take your body through the door!_”
Quoth the Vulture, “Never more!”
And the Vulture never flitting――still is sitting, still is sitting,
Gulping down my stout by gallons, and my oysters by the score;
And the beast, with no more breeding than a heathen savage feeding,
The new carpet’s tints unheeding, throws his shells upon the floor.
And his smoke from out my curtains, and his stains from out my floor,
Shall be sifted never more!
――――――――
THE TANKARD.
Sitting in my lonely chamber, in this dreary, dark December,
Gazing on the whitening ashes of my fastly-fading fire,
Pond’ring o’er my misspent chances with that grief which time
enhances――
Misdirected application, wanting aims and objects higher,――
Aims to which I should aspire.
As I sat thus wond’ring, thinking, fancy unto fancy linking,
In the half-expiring embers many a scene and form I traced――
Many a by-gone scene of gladness, yielding now but care and
sadness,――
Many a form once fondly cherished, now by misery’s hand effaced,――
Forms which Venus’ self had graced.
Suddenly, my system shocking, at my door there came a knocking,
Loud and furious,――such a rat-tat never had I heard before;
Through the keyhole I stood peeping, heart into my mouth upleaping,
Till at length, my teeth unclenching, faintly said I “What a bore!”
Gently, calmly, teeth unclenching, faintly said I, “What a bore!”
Said the echo, “Pay your score!”
At this solemn warning trembling, some short time I stood
dissembling,
Till again the iron knocker beat its summons ’gainst the door,
Then, the oak wide open throwing, stood I on the threshold bowing――
Bows such as, save motley tumbler, mortal never bowed before,
Bows which even Mr. Flexmore never yet had tried before.
Said the echo, “Pay your score!”
Grasping then the light, upstanding, looked I round the dreary
landing,
Looked at every wall, the ceiling, looked upon the very floor;
Nought I saw there but a Tankard, from the which that night I’d
drank hard,――
Drank as drank our good forefathers in the merry days of yore.
In the corner stood the Tankard, where it oft had stood before,
Stood and muttered, “Pay your score!”
Much I marvelled at this pewter, surely ne’er in past or future
Has been, will be, such a wonder, such a Tankard learned in lore?
Gazing at it more intensely, stared I more and more immensely
When it added, “Come old boy, you’ve many a promise made before,
False they were as John O’Connell’s who would ‘die upon the floor.’
Now for once――come, pay your score!”
From my placid temper starting, and upon the Tankard darting
With one furious hurl I flung it down before the porter’s door;
But as I my oak was locking, heard I then the self-same knocking,
And on looking out I saw the Tankard sitting as before,――
Sitting, squatting in the self-same corner as it sat before,――
Sitting, crying, “Pay your score!”
And the Tankard, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
In the very self-same corner where it sat in days of yore:
And its pewter still is shining, and it bears the frothy lining,
Which the night when first I drained its cooling beverage it bore,
But my mouth that frothy lining never, never tasted more,
Since it muttered, “Pay your score!”
EDMUND H. YATES.
_Mirth and Metre_, 1855.
――――――――
THE PARROT.
_By Edgardo Pooh._
Once, as through the streets I wandered, and o’er many a fancy
pondered,
Many a fancy quaint and curious, which had filled my mind of yore,――
Suddenly my footsteps stumbled, and against a man I tumbled,
Who, beneath a sailor’s jacket, something large and heavy bore.
“Beg your pardon, sir!” I muttered, as I rose up, hurt and sore;
But the sailor only swore.
Vexed at this, my soul grew stronger: hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “now really, truly, your forgiveness I implore!
But, in fact, my sense was napping――――” then the sailor answered,
rapping
Out his dreadful oaths and awful imprecations by the score,――
Answered he, “Come, hold your jaw!
“May my timbers now be shivered――” oh, at this my poor heart
quivered,――
“If you don’t beat any parson that I ever met before!
You’ve not hurt me; stow your prosing”――then his huge peacoat
unclosing,
Straight he showed the heavy parcel, which beneath his arm he
bore,――
Showed a cage which held a parrot, such as Crusoe had of yore,
Which at once drew corks and swore.
Much I marvelled at this parrot, green as grass and red as carrot,
Which, with fluency and ease, was uttering sentences a score;
And it pleased me so immensely, and I liked it so intensely,
That I bid for it at once; and when I showed of gold my store,
Instantly the sailor sold it; mine it was, and his no more;
Mine it was for evermore.
Prouder was I of this bargain, e’en than patriotic Dargan,
When his Sovereign, Queen Victoria, crossed the threshold of his
door;――
Surely I had gone demented――surely I had sore repented,
Had I known the dreadful misery which for me Fate had in store,――
Known the fearful, awful misery which for me Fate had in store,
Then, and now, and evermore!
Scarcely to my friends I’d shown it, when (my mother’s dreadful
groan!――it
Haunts me even now!) the parrot from his perch began to pour
Forth the most tremendous speeches, such as Mr. Ainsworth teaches――
Us were uttered by highway men and rapparees of yore!――
By the wicked, furious, tearing, riding rapparees of yore;
But which now are heard no more.
And my father, straight uprising, spake his mind――It was surprising,
That this favourite son, who’d never, never so transgressed before,
Should have brought a horrid, screaming――nay, e’en worse than
that――blaspheming
Bird within that pure home circle――bird well learned in wicked lore!
While he spake, the parrot, doubtless thinking it a horrid bore,
Cried out “Cuckoo!” barked, and swore.
And since then what it has cost me,――all the wealth and friends it’s
lost me,
All the trouble, care, and sorrow, cankering my bosom’s core,
Can’t be mentioned in these verses; till, at length, my heartfelt
curses
Gave I to this cruel parrot, who quite coolly scanned me o’er――
Wicked, wretched, cruel parrot, who quite coolly scanned me o’er,
Laughed, drew several corks, and swore.
“Parrot!” said I, “bird of evil! parrot still, or bird or devil!
By the piper who the Israelitish leader played before,
I will stand this chaff no longer! We will see now which is stronger.
Come, now,――off! Thy cage is open――free thou art, and there’s the
door!
Off at once, and I’ll forgive thee;――take the hint, and leave my
door.”
But the parrot only swore.
And the parrot never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the very self-same perch where first he sat in days of yore;
And his only occupations seem acquiring imprecations
Of the last and freshest fashion, which he picks up by the score;
Picks them up, and, with the greatest _gusto_, bawls them by the
score,
And will swear for evermore.
_Our Miscellany_ (which ought to have come out, but didn’t), by E. H.
Yates and R. B. Brough, 1856.
――――――――
THE CAT-FIEND.
(_An Original Adaptation._)
On a bleak evening of December I sat alone in my gloomy chambers and
brooded over the past. I had sought in vain to turn the current of my
thoughts by plunging into metaphysical researches: _Watts on the Mind_
lay open, but unheeded, beside me. Never had the apartment worn so
ghostly an aspect. My lamp threw a fitful gleam upon the sumptuous but
sombre furniture; the fire was expiring, yet I lacked energy to put on
more coals. If I had been expiring myself I should have hated the man
who put coals upon me.
The chief object of my memories was a young person to whom I had
formerly been attached. I dwelt fondly, but bitterly, upon the day
when my LEONORA, accompanied by her vulgar and intrusive mother, had
brightened my dingy rooms in ――――’s Inn with her presence to tea,
previous to visiting Drury Lane Theatre. That was all over now;
LEONORA married into the city and left me desolate. I am not even
acquainted with her present name; but it fills me with despondency to
think that her graceful form will never again press the velvet lining
of my quaintly carved arm-chair.
While I sat buried in my sad reflections, it seemed as though there
came a soft rapping at my outer door. It was growing so late that I
made my mind up to disregard the summons. “It is only BRIGGS,” I
murmured; “if I admit him he will weary me with platitudes until the
dawn. Or it is POTTER, perchance, advanced in liquor, I will none of
him.”
At this point the rapping was renewed more loudly. My resolution
suddenly changed, and I resolved that I would explore the mystery.
Making my way to the door I flung it wide open. The landing was in
darkness; no voice gave answer to my challenge, and, feeling a little
nervous, I slammed the door and went back to my arm-chair by the fire.
Weird――ghastly――inscrutable――was the apparition that awaited me!
Stretched upon the hearth-rug at my feet lay a large cat of ebon
blackness, glaring at me with a pair of wild eyes in which anger was
mingled with an expression of diabolical sarcasm. The blood curdled in
my veins; I seized the poker and yelled, “Get out, beast! How dare you
come in here? Go away directly, or――――!”
The lips of the animal opened and pronounced slowly and solemnly the
words “_Never no more!_”
My hair stood on end, and the poker fell from my grasp.
“Horrible being!” I cried;――“fearful and ungrammatical being leave me,
and return to darkness and the Stygian shore.”
“_Never no more!_” said the brute: “I’ve come to stay for ever.”
“Nonsense, monster; you are insane,” I shouted.
“Fact, I assure you,” replied my tormentor;――“they hadn’t got no raven
handy, and so they sent _me_. It’s about the LEONORA business.”
“Ah, that name! Tell me, I implore you, tell me――is she a widow yet?
May I hope? Shall I again behold her?”
“_Never no more!_”
This was too much. I ran and threw the door open again――came
back――firmly grasped the poker, and――――
But the beast had sought refuge under the sofa. Thence it retreated
beneath my table, and thence under the arm-chair. Round and round the
apartment I chased it vainly. Its demoniac laugh thrilled me with rage
and horror.
* * * * *
The cat-fiend still inhabits my gloomy chambers. I have abandoned all
hope of expelling it. The creature exists without food, so that the
expedient of starvation is impracticable. At all hours of the day and
night I am haunted by the wild eyes of my hated persecutor: at all
hours of the day and night I hear the detested brute murmuring with a
chuckle that maddens me,
“_Never no more!_”
_Fun_, February 1, 1868.
――――――――
THE CRAVEN.
Once upon a midnight lately, might be seen a figure stately,
In the Tuileries sedately poring over Roman lore;
Annotating, scheming, mapping, Cæsar’s old positions sapping,
When there came a something rapping, spirit-rapping at the door.
“’Tis some minister,” he muttered, “come, as usual, me to bore.”
So to Cæsar turned once more.
Back to Caesar’s life returning, with a soul for ever yearning,
Towards the steps his promise-spurning prototype had trod before.
But the silence was soon broken; through the stillness came a token
Life had moved again, or spoken on the other side the door.
“Surely I’ve no trusty servant,” said he, “to deny my door
Now De Morny is no more.”
Rising, of some trespass certain, slow he draws the purple curtain,
On whose folds the bees uncertain look like wasps, and nothing more:
Open flings the chamber portal, with a chill which stamps him mortal.
Can his senses be the sport all of his eyes! For there before
He sees an eagle perching on a bust of Janus at the door:
A bleeding bird, and nothing more.
Deep into the darkness peering, not in fear, but only fearing
Adrien’s vulgar indiscretions, Marx[2] of eaves-dropping in store:
“Though thy wings are torn and bleeding,” said he, with a voice of
pleading:
“Thou’rt a bird of royal breeding: thou hast flown from foreign
shore.”
Quoth the Eagle, “Matamore.”
Started with the stillness broken, by reply so aptly spoken,
“Silence,” said he, “never utter memories of that field of gore,
Where your poor Imperial master, whom imperious disaster
Followed fast, was tortured faster, till his heart one burden bore:
Till the dirges of his hope, this melancholy burden bore――
Never see Carlotta more.”
Then upon the velvet sinking, he betook himself to thinking
How he’d forced the murdered Prince to leave his quiet home of yore;
How he’d made him wield a sceptre, which no erudite preceptor
Might have told would soon be wept or lost on that forbidding shore,
Where earth cries for retribution, where for justice stones implore.
Quoth the Eagle, “Matamore.”
“Wretch!” he cried, “some fiend hath sent thee, by that mocking voice
he lent thee
Conscience-driven accusations rising up at every pore――
Must my master-mind so vaunted, ever hence be spectre haunted――
Must I see that form undaunted, dying still at Matamore?”
Quoth the Eagle, “Evermore.”
“Prophet!” shrieked he, “thing of evil! Here we fear nor God nor
Devil!
Wing thee to the House of Hapsburg! Up to Austria’s heaven soar,
Leave no bloody plume as token, of the lies my soul has spoken,
Leave my iron will unbroken! Wipe the blood before my door!
Dost thou think to gnaw my entrails with thy beak for evermore?”
Quoth the Eagle, “Jusqu’à Mort.”
The above parody appeared in _The Tomahawk_ after the execution, on
June 19, 1867, of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. “The Craven” was
intended for Napoleon III., to whose Government _The Tomahawk_ was
bitterly opposed.
――――――――
THE TAILOR.
I.
Once upon a morning dismal, as I smoked in blues abysmal,
Gazing at the curious patterns on the dressing gown I wore,
While my cat her milk was lapping, suddenly there came a tapping,
Like a fellow’s knuckles rapping, rapping at my chamber door;
“It’s that nuisance Smith,” I muttered, rapping at my chamber door――
He may rap his fingers sore.”
II.
Ah! I do remember clearly small was then my income yearly,
And to pay my lodging nearly did my slight finances floor;
And my prospects, never sunny, fishy were as any tunny,
And I sadly wanted money, money to pay Baize and Blore,
Pay the fashionable tailors called in Oxford Baize and Blore,
Who will dun me evermore.
III.
But my cat, prophetic pussy, now got ominously fussy,
Clawed me, pawed me with her talons as she’d never done before;
So that now to stay her terror and convince her of her error,
“Tabby,” said I, “it is Smith entreating entrance at my door;
It’s that feeble Smith demanding entrance at my chamber door,
Only Smith and nothing more!”
IV.
Presently my chair removing, and most seriously reproving
My grimalkin, for the dreadful way in which she spat and swore,
From my writing-table’s kneehole stole I softly to the weehole
Which the people call the keyhole――keyhole of my chamber door,
Peeping through it saw another eye the other side the door,
Looking at me――nothing more.
V.
Straight to stop that sly eye’s prying, to the key my lips applying,
Blew I such a puff of smoke as no man ever puffed before;
Then I heard him backward starting, rub his eye as if ’twere
smarting,
And he seemed to be departing, so I whispered, “Is it sore?”
This I whispered through the keyhole; echo answered “It is sore.”
Answered thus, and nothing more.
VI.
Back I went and felt elated, and my blues had now abated,
When again I heard that rapping rather louder than before;
“Surely,” said I, rising, “surely, if he thinks I’ll sit demurely
While he makes that din securely, his mistake he shall deplore;
If I only catch him at it, his misdeed he shall deplore――
He shall not annoy me more.”
VII.
Open here I flung the portal, when there entered in a mortal,
Crooked legged, with clothes too short all――seedy garments that he
wore;
Never once “good morning” bade me――not a bow or scrape he made me,
But upon my table laid me down a bill from Baize and Blore,
Took his stand upon the oilcloth just within my chamber door,
Stood and hiccupped――nothing more.
VIII.
Then this festive creature winning all my sad soul into grinning,
Such a visage idiotic I had never seen of yore;
“Well, you have been drinking brandy,” said I, “and your legs are
bandy,
And you hardly look a dandy, though you come from Baize and Blore;
Tell me what on earth your name is in the firm of Baize and Blore?”
Quoth the tailor, “Tick-no-more!”
IX.
Scarce I wondered this unsightly dun had answered unpolitely,
And his answer little comfort, little consolation bore;
For you cannot help confessing that it’s surely not a blessing
When you find yourself addressing dun within your chamber door;
Man or dun upon the oilcloth just within your chamber-door,
With a name like Tick-no-more!
X.
But the tailor standing solus gave me like a bitter bolus
That one word, as if his vacant soul in that he did outpour;
Me with no fine words he buttered, this from time to time he
stuttered,
Till I very softly muttered, “other duns have been before;
They will give me further credit as my tradesmen have before;”
Then the dun said, “Tick-no-more!”
XI.
Startled that he spoke so flatly and replied so very patly,
“Limited,” I said, “it seems is his linguistic stock and store;
If of no more words he’s master, if he duns not harder, faster,
Verily he’ll bring disaster on the house of Baize and Blore,
And I shall remain indebted to the firm of Baize and Blore
For ever, evermore.”
XII.
Still his strange demeanour winning all my sad soul into grinning,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned couch in front of oilcloth, dun, and
door;
Then upon the cushions sinking I betook myself to drinking
Little sips of sherry, thinking what this plague from Baize and
Blore,
What this gloomy, greasy, groggy messenger from Baize and Blore
Meant by stuttering “Tick-no-more.”
XIII.
But my cat I soothed by stroking, and small bits of bread kept soaking
In the milk, and gave them to her, dropped them for her on the floor:
Long I sat, strange things divining, with my head at ease reclining
Near the sherry I was wining that the dun’s eye gloated o’er;
But the liquor I was wining with his green eyes gloating o’er
He shall taste, oh! nevermore.
XIV.
Cloud by cloud the air grew denser, perfumed from my meerschaum
censer,
I should think I must have smoked of pipes that morning half a score;
“Man,” I said, “I have no treasure, or I’d pay the bill with pleasure,
Only once more take my measure for a suit from Baize and Blore,
Take your tape and take my measure for a suit from Baize and Blore.”
Quoth the tailor, “Tick-no-more!”
XV.
“Dun!” I cried, “inhuman creature, human still in form and feature,
Much I’ve hoped you’d take my orders as you’ve always done before;
Tell me――for although you’re fuddled, you’re not utterly bemuddled――
Tell me if this hope I’ve cuddled is well-founded, I implore;
Will they, will they give me credit? tell me clearly, I implore?”
Quoth the tailor, “Tick-no-more!”
XVI.
“Dun!” I cried, “inhuman creature, human still in form and feature,
By the piper who performed for Moses in the days of yore,
Tell me won’t, oh! brainless brute, your firm supply to me in future
Raiment of unequalled suture――genuine make of Baize and Blore,
Clothes of rare and radiant suture――splendid make of Baize and Blore?”
Quoth the tailor, “Tick-no-more!”
XVII.
“Then be off, you sour curmudgeon!” cried I, starting up in dudgeon,
“Get you back to goose and scissors, get you back to Baize and Blore;
Leave no long account suggestive of reflections most unfestive,
Such as make me sleepless, restive――quit my chamber, quit my door;
Take your bill from off my table, take yourself from out my door!”
Quoth the tailor, “Tick-no-more!”
XVIII.
Thus the tailor dunned for payment for the raiment, for the raiment
Mentioned in the bill he did not take from out my chamber door;
Thus he left me grimly staring, and that long account up tearing,
Part went up the chimney flaring, part lay scattered on the floor;
But that bill whose shreds went flying, or lay scattered on the floor
Now is settled ever more.
_Odd Echoes from Oxford_, by A. Merion, B.A. (John Camden Hotten,
London, 1872.)
――――――――
THE SHAVIN’.
(A piece of ravin’ _à la_ Edgar A. Poe.)
One morning after sleeping I thought I heard a creeping,
As if some one were approaching close to my bedroom door:
Then a loud impatient tapping put an end unto my napping,
And I wondered who was rapping, rapping at my bedroom door,
So I timidly enquired who was at my bedroom door――
Only that, and nothing more.
When there came another knock, with, “Sir, ’tis eight o’clock,”
And, only half awakened, I leaped out upon the floor;
And by want of proper care hit my leg against a chair,
Which improperly stood there, as ’twas left the night before,
And I limped a very little as I crept towards the door――
Just a little, nothing more.
Then on asking, “What’s the matter?” said the servant, “Here’s your
water,”
And you’ve slept in rather later than you ever did before;
So as I was rather press’d I got very quickly drest
In my trousers and my vest; then I opened up the door,
And I muttered as I took it and shut to my bedroom door――
“Oh, that shavin’, what a bore!”
While inwardly I cursed――thus my feelings I disbursed――
I set about to rummage and to busily explore;
But I couldn’t find the strop, and someone had nailed the soap,
Which completely put a stop to my shavin’――horrid bore!
And my razor, too, was blunter than it ever was before――
Than it ever was before!
As I rushed about half raving, I bethought me of this shaving,
And I wondered that I hadn’t stopped the practice long before:
So I made an inward vow, that from this moment now,
My beard should, like my pow, grow at pleasure evermore,
And my resolution echoed as I ope’d my bedroom door――
“I shall shave, ah! nevermore!”
JOHN F. MILL.
The above Parody appeared, some years ago, in a Scotch magazine called
_The People’s Friend_.
――――――――
CHATEAUX D’ESPAGNE.
(_A Reminiscence of “David Garrick” and
“The Castle of Andalusia.”_)
Once upon an evening weary, shortly after Lord Dundreary
With his quaint and curious humour set the town in such a roar,
With my shilling I stood rapping――only very gently tapping――
For the man in charge was napping――at the money-taker’s door.
It was Mr. Buckstone’s playhouse, where I linger’d at the door;
Paid half-price and nothing more.
Most distinctly I remember, it was just about September――
Though it might have been in August, or it might have been before――
Dreadfully I fear’d the morrow. Vainly had I sought to borrow;
For (I own it to my sorrow) I was miserably poor,
And the heart is heavy laden when one’s miserably poor;
(I have been so once before.)
I was doubtful and uncertain, at the rising of the curtain,
If the piece would prove a novelty, or one I’d seen before;
For a band of robbers drinking in a gloomy cave, and clinking
With their glasses on the table, I had witness’d o’er and o’er;
Since the half-forgotten period of my innocence was o’er;
Twenty years ago or more.
Presently my doubt grew stronger. I could stand the thing no longer,
“Miss,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore.
Pardon my apparent rudeness. Would you kindly have the goodness
To inform me if this drama is from Gaul’s enlighten’d shore?”
For I know that plays are often brought us from the Gallic shore:
Adaptations――nothing more!
So I put the question lowly: and my neighbour answer’d slowly.
“It’s a British drama, wholly, written quite in days of yore.
’Tis an Andalusian story of a castle old and hoary,
And the music is delicious, though the dialogue be poor!”
(And I could not help agreeing that the dialogue _was_ poor;
Very flat, and nothing more.)
But at last a lady entered, and my interest grew center’d
In her figure, and her features, and the costume that she wore.
And the slightest sound she utter’d was like music; so I mutter’d
To my neighbour, “Glance a minute at your play-bill, I implore.
Who’s that rare and radiant maiden? Tell, oh, tell me! I implore.”
Quoth my neighbour, “Nelly Moore!”
Then I ask’d in quite a tremble――it was useless to dissemble――
“Miss, or Madam, do not trifle with my feelings any more;
Tell me who, then, was the maiden, that appear’d so sorrow laden
In the room of David Garrick, with a bust above the door?”
(With a bust of Julius Cæsar up above the study door.)
Quoth my neighbour, “Nelly Moore.”
* * * * *
I’ve her photograph from Lacy’s; that delicious little face is
Smiling on me as I’m sitting (in a draught from yonder door),
And often in the nightfalls, when a precious little light falls
From the wretched tallow candles on my gloomy second-floor,
(For I have not got the gaslight on my gloomy second floor,)
Comes an echo, “Nelly Moore!”
_Carols of Cockayne_, by Henry S. Leigh (John Camden Hotten, London,
1872.)
――――――――
A RAVIN’.
Once upon a midnight dreary, as I slumbered cross and weary,
Cross from several horrid boring books of theologic lore,
While they haunted me in napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some confounded rapping, rapping at my bedroom door.
“’Tis some rascal,” low I muttered, “who’s too screwed to find his
door,――
Only this and nothing more!”
Ah! I vividly remember, it was in a cold December,
And of fire I had no ember till the price of coals should low’r;
Eagerly I wished the morrow; being broke, again I’ll borrow,
Even although it end in sorrow, from an Uncle, loved of yore――
From a useful, prosp’rous Uncle, who to me is worth a score.
Surely this, if nothing more!
(_One verse omitted._)
* * * * *
Up I got, and ope’d the shutter, when without the slightest flutter,
Sat a dissipated Tom-cat coolly down upon the floor;
Though he looked exceeding shady, not a moment stopped or stayed he,
But with impudence unheard of walked right to the bedroom door,
Perched upon a corner cupboard just beside my bedroom door,
Whisked his tail, and nothing more!
(_Three verses omitted._)
* * * * *
“Prophet,” said I, “Thing of evil! prophet still, if cat or devil!
Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest toss’d thee here ashore;
Battered thou, and all undaunted, in this room they say is haunted,
If you are at all enchanted, tell me truly, I implore,
_Will_ the coals be ever cheaper? Tell me, tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Tom-Cat, “Never more!”
_The Figaro,_ August 27, 1873.
――――――――
DUNRAVEN.
[The Earl of Dunraven, in protesting against the short time allowed
for the consideration of the Irish Land Bill, said “he was not a
strict Sabbatarian, and had even advocated in that House the
desirability of enjoying reasonable recreation on the Sunday, but it
was impossible that racking one’s brains over the tangled intricacies
of that Bill could be considered wholesome recreation for anyone.”]
And Dunraven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
O’er that blessed Bill of Billy’s, puzzling at it o’er and o’er;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a child’s that hath been
screaming,
And the gaslight o’er him streaming shows them heavy, red, and sore;
And his voice from out its pages rises in a muffled roar:――
“Hang the Bill! it _is_ a bore!”
_Punch_, August 13, 1881.
――――――――
THE DOVE.
_A Sentimental Parody._
I.
Once upon a storm-night dreary, sat I pond’ring, restless, weary,
Over many a text of Scripture, helped by ancient-sages’ lore,
Anxious, nervous, far from napping; suddenly there came a tapping!
As of some one gently rapping――rapping at my chamber-door.
Night like this ’tis scarce a visitor, tapping at my chamber-door?
This, I thought, and nothing more.
II.
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember, glimmer’d ghostly on the floor:
Earnestly I wished the morrow; vainly had I sought to borrow
From my Bible ease of sorrow――sorrow for the lost Annore――
For a saintly, radiant matron, whom the angels name Annore
Lately wife, now wife no more.
III.
She had passed the gloomy portals, which forever hide from mortals
Spirit myst’ries, which the living are most eager to explore.
Poring o’er the sacred pages, guides to all the good for ages,
Sat I, helped by lore of sages, when the rapping at my door,
Startled me as if a spirit had come to my chamber-door,
Tapping thus, and meaning more.
IV.
And the plaintive, low, uncertain rustling of each window-curtain
Thrill’d me――filled my quaking heart with terrors never felt before.
_Is_ there, then, a life of glory, as we’re taught in sacred story?
Can this be some prophet hoary, standing at my chamber-door――
Prophet from the dead arisen, standing at my chamber-door――
Rapping thus, and meaning more?
V.
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Truly, friend, I treat you badly, your forgiveness I implore;
Surely I have not been napping, but so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping――tapping at my chamber-door,
That I scarce knew what the sound meant”――here I opened wide the door:
Darkness there, and nothing more.
VI.
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering,
fearing,
Awe-struck, thinking thoughts few mortals ever happ’d to think
before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken, was the whisper’d word, “Annore!”
This _I_ whisper’d, and an echo murmur’d back the word “Annore!”
Merely this, and nothing more.
VII.
Back into my chamber hasting, anguish deeper still now tasting,
Soon again I heard a rapping――something louder than before.
Surely, thought I, that is something at my window-lattice;
Let me see, then, what there at is, and this mystery explore;――
Oh! my heart, be still a moment, till this mystery I explore;――
Is’t the wind, and nothing more?
VIII.
Open here I flung the shutter, when with gentle nod and flutter,
In there came a gracious white dove of the saintly days of yore.
Then, as if obeisance made he, and no longer stopp’d or stay’d he,
But in innocence array’d, he perch’d above my chamber-door,――
Perch’d upon a bust of Paulus, just above my chamber-door――
Perch’d and sat, and nothing more.
IX.
Then this snowy bird surprising my sad heart into surmising,
Whether this was done at random, or some mystic meaning bore,――
“Surely,” said I, “thou art fairer than of ill to be the bearer,
Of such saintly guise the wearer, thou art from some heav’nly shore;
Wilt thou help me on my journey toward that bright celestial shore?”
Quoth the white dove, “Evermore!”
X.
Startled now as one from dreaming, suddenly awak’d and seeming
To have heard a voice mysterious thrilling to his heart’s deep core,――
Ev’ry thought and feeling reaching after light and further teaching.
In attitude of one beseeching, gazed I at my chamber-door,――
At the bird, which had so aptly――perch’d upon my chamber-door――
Spoken out that “Evermore!”
XI.
But the white dove’s aspect childly, and his soft eyes beaming mildly,
Loving looks, as if a full heart speedily he would outpour,
Led me to expect revealing, unto which my soul appealing,――
With a strange hope o’er me stealing, such as never came before,――
“May I look for peace and comfort such as I’ve ne’er felt before?”
And the bird said, “Evermore!”
XII.
So the bright bird thus beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheel’d a cushion’d chair in front of bird and bust and
door;
Then upon the soft seat sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this holy bird of yore――
What this lovely, sweet, angelic, quaint, prophetic bird of yore――
Meant by saying, “Evermore?”
XIII.
Thus I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing,
Till the calm light from those mild eyes seem’d to illume my bosom’s core;
Banishing all fear and sadness, bringing thither peace and gladness,
Driving out surmise of madness――lately coming o’er and o’er――
Madness casting dreadful shadow,――lately coming o’er and o’er――
Shadow deep’ning evermore!
XIV.
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer,
Swung by seraphim, whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Oh, my soul, thy God hath heard thee, by these angels and this bird He
Hath to sweetest hopes now stirr’d thee――hopes of finding thy Annore
In the far-off land of spirits――of reunion with Annore!”
Quoth the dove, “For evermore!”
XV.
“Prophet,” said I, “thing of glory! prophet, as in ancient story,
Whether sent from heaven directly, or by chance cast here ashore,
Blessings many on thee rest now! yea, thou surely shalt be blest now!
Come into my open’d breast now――tell me truly, I implore,
_Is_ there a heaven of rest and rapture? tell me, tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the white bird, “Evermore!”
XVI.
“Prophet,” said I, “thing of glory! prophet, as in ancient story,
By that Heav’n which bends above us――by the God the good adore,
Tell this soul with hope upspringing――faith undying to it bringing――
If that radiant matron singing midst the angels, named Annore,
Shall be mine again to love――the sainted matron, named Annore?”
And the dove said, “Evermore!”
XVII.
“Be that word thy sign of dwelling in my heart, of to it telling
Messages of love and mercy from the far-off shining shore;
Let thy white plumes be a token of the truth thy soul hath spoken;
Keep my faith and hope unbroken; always perch above my door;
Keep thy eyes’ light in my heart; and keep thy form above my door;”
Quoth the sweet bird, “Evermore!”
XVIII.
And the white dove, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the polish’d bust of Paulus, just above my chamber-door;
And his eyes with kindness beaming――holy spirit’s kindness seeming,――
And a soft light from him streaming, sheds its radiance on the floor;
And my glad soul in that radiance, that lies floating on the floor,
Shall be basking――EVERMORE!
This parody was written by the Rev. John W. Scott, D.D., Professor in
the West Virginia University, on the death of his wife, and was
published with some other poems by Claxton and Co., Philadelphia, in
1874.
――――――――
LINES BY SARAH J. BOLTON, OF RICHMOND, ON
THE DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE.
(_Written for the Memorial Committee; November_, 1875.)
They have laid thee down to slumber where the sorrows that encumber
Such a wild and wayward heart as thine can never reach thee more;
For the radiant light of gladness never alternates with sadness,
Stinging gifted souls to madness, on that bright and blessed shore;
Safely moored from sorrow’s tempest, on that distant Aidenn shore,
Rest thee, lost one, evermore.
Thou wert like a meteor glancing through a starry sky, entrancing,
Thrilling, awing, wrapt beholders with the wondrous light it wore;
But the meteor has descended, and the “nightly shadows blended,”
For the fever-dream is ended, and the fearful crisis o’er――
Yes, the wild unresting fever-dream of human life is o’er――
Thou art sleeping evermore.
Ocean, earth, and air could utter words that made thy spirit flutter――
Words that stirred the hidden fountain swelling in the bosom’s core;
Stirred it till its wavelets, sighing, wakened to a wild replying,
And in numbers never dying sung the heart’s unwritten lore――
Sung in wild, bewitching numbers, thy sad heart’s unwritten lore,
Now unwritten nevermore.
There was something sad and lonely in thy mystic songs that only
Could have trembled from a spirit weary of the life it bore;
Something like the plaintive toning of a hidden streamlet moaning
In its prismed darkness――moaning for the light it knew before.
For the fragrance and the sunlight that had gladdened it before――
Sighing, sighing, evermore.
To thy soul, for ever dreaming, came a strange effulgence, beaming,
Beaming, flashing from a region mortals never may explore;
Spirits lead thee in thy trances through a realm of gloomy fancies,
Giving spectres to thy glances man had never seen before――
Wondrous spectres such as human eye had never seen before
Were around thee evermore.
Thou did’st see the sunlight quiver over many a fabled river,
Thou did’st wander with the shadows of the mighty dead of yore,
And thy songs to us came ringing, like the wild, unearthly singing
Of the viewless spirits winging o’er the night’s Plutonian shore――
Of the weary spirits wandering by the gloomy Stygian shore――
Sighing dirges evermore.
Thou did’st seem like one benighted――one whose hopes were crushed
and blighted――
Mourning for the lost and lovely that the world could not restore;
But an endless rest is given to thy heart, so wrecked and riven――
Thou hast met again in heaven with the lost and loved Lenore――
With the “rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore;”
She will leave thee nevermore.
From the earth a star has faded, and the shrine of song has shaded,
And the Muses veil their faces, weeping sorrowful and sore;
But the harp, all rent and broken, left us many a thrilling token,
We shall hear its numbers spoken, and repeated o’er and o’er,
Till our hearts shall cease to tremble――we shall hear them sounding
o’er,
Sounding ever, evermore.
We shall hear them, like a fountain tinkling down a rugged mountain,
Like the wailing of the tempest mingling ’mid the ocean’s roar;
Like the winds of autumn sighing when the summer flowers are dying;
Like a spirit-voice replying from a dim and distant shore;
Like a wild, mysterious echo from a distant, shadowy shore,
We shall hear them evermore.
Nevermore wilt thou, undaunted, wander through the palace haunted,
Or the cypress vales Titanic, which thy spirit did explore;
Never hear the ghoul king, dwelling in the ancient steeple tolling,
With a slow and solemn knelling, losses human hearts deplore;
Telling in a sort of Runic rhyme the losses we deplore;
Tolling, tolling, evermore.
If a living human being ever had the gift of seeing
The grim and ghastly countenance its evil genius wore,
It was thou unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till thy song one burden bore――
Till the dirges of thy hope the melancholy burden bore――
Of never, nevermore.
――――――――
MY CHRISTMAS PUDDING;
OR
THE SCHOOLBOY’S DREAM.
(With the Author’s apologies to Edgar Allan Poe.)
(_By special request._)
Listen, all! I tell what happened on the night of Christmas Day,
After I’d been eating pudding in a very reckless way.
Just as Christmas Day was dying, as I on my bed was lying,
When to slumber I was trying, when I’d just begun to snore,
I became aware of something rolling on my chamber floor――
Of a most mysterious rumbling, rolling on my chamber floor,
Only this and nothing more!
Partly waking, partly sleeping, all my flesh with horror creeping,
I could hear it tumbling, leaping, rolling on my chamber floor;
Underneath the bedclothes sinking, I betook myself to thinking
If it might not be a kitten that had entered at the door;
“Yes,” said I, “it is a kitten, entered at the open door,
This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my heart grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Cat,” said I, “or kitten, kindly stop that rolling on the floor.”
But it was most irritating, for the sound was unabating,
On my nerves for ever grating was the rolling on the floor;
Till at last I cried in anguish, “Stop that rolling I implore;”
And a voice said, “Nevermore.”
This convinced me of my error, up I rose in greatest terror,
Certain that ’twas not a kitten that had spoken just before;
Then into the darkness peering, shivering, wondering, doubting, fearing,
I could dimly see a pudding rolling on my chamber floor;
I could see a big plum pudding rolling on my chamber floor;
May I see it nevermore!
From its mouth a vapour steaming, while its fiery eyes were gleaming,
Gleaming fiercely bright, and seeming fixedly to scan me o’er;
Soon it rolled and rumbled nearer, and its aim becoming clearer,
I could see that it intended jumping higher than the floor;
Yes, it jumped upon my chest, and when in pain I gave a roar,
All it said was, “Nevermore.”
Though my back was nearly broken, this reply so strangely spoken,
Seemed to me to be a token that it wished for something more;
So my thoughts in words expressing, I began my sins confessing,
Saying I had eaten pudding many a time in days of yore,
But although I’d eaten pudding many a time in days of yore,
I would eat it nevermore.
Still in spite of my confessing, that plum pudding kept on pressing,
Pressing with its weight tremendous ever on my bosom’s core,
Till I cried, “O, monster mighty, in my work I’m often flighty,
But, if you will now forgive me, I’ll work hard at classic lore!”
At the end of this vacation I’ll work hard at classic lore,
Quoth the pudding “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, pudding!” then I shrieked,
upstarting,
“Get thee back――get off my stomach, roll again upon the floor!”
Thus I struggled, loudly screaming, till I found I had been dreaming,
Dreaming like a famous poet once had dreamt in days of yore;
But although ’twas like the poet’s dream he dreamt in days of yore,
May I dream it nevermore!
_Detroit Free Press_ Christmas Number, 1884.
――――――――
The major of a Georgian regiment, writing to the United States
Treasurer, said, “I send to you for redemption a fragment of a five
dollar bill, the rest of which was destroyed under strangely curious
circumstances. I dropped it into my pocket in company with some loose
tobacco, and, after supper, taking a quid, I chewed money and tobacco,
leaving scraps of the bill and fragments of tobacco in my pocket. When
I discovered the _sad catastrophe_ I went for the masticated quid, but
all traces of the money had vanished, and, ‘like the baseless fabric
of a dream, left not a wreck behind.’”
“Vainly was I bending, crooking, and with both my eyes a-looking,
Looking for my lost spondulic, like the Pleiad lost of yore;
Looking for the well-chewn fragment which I lost the night before;
Only this, and nothing more.”
“Spuds,” quoth I, “for thee I pineth,
Gone to where the woodbine twineth;
Gone, departed, doomed, and fated,
Gone to fragments dessicated;
Gone, as I’ve already stated,
Where thy worth no longer shineth,
I follow――thou art gone before.”
――――――――
NOTHING MORE.
The ass stood by the stable door,
The sweepings of the stable floor――
Some scantled, musty, broken straw――
He munched, and munched, and――nothing more.
Yon politician struts the floor,
His speech is gemmed with pot-house lore,
His goose essays the eagles soar:
Words, only words, and――nothing more.
The preacher, dear, good, pious bore,
Proves all the prophets once foresaw,
Knows what the future has in store,
Knows what he――thinks, and――nothing more.
The lawyer quotes you score on score
Of great authorities in law
To prove your case without a flaw;
He gains his――fee, and nothing more.
The doctor knows you to the core,
Apt with each fibre, nerve and pore;
Can catch you from Death’s greedy maw,
He “bleeds” you well, and――nothing more.
The ass still stands beside the door,
And still is munching as before,
Gown, book, and pill, are broken straw;
He’s the same ass, and――nothing more.
ANONYMOUS.
――――――――
HER “PA’S” DOG.
Memories of the past steal o’er me, and remind me of a story,
That in all its doleful sadness I have never told before.
Well, I loved a girl named Mary, whose old daddy owned a dairy,
And a bull-dog, large and powerful, who a frightful visage wore,
And one night I went to court her as I’d often done before,
But I’ll court her nevermore.
Quite distinctly I remember, ’twas one warm night in September,
That I sat and held my Mary――held her till my arms were sore,
And upon her lips I kissed her till I almost raised a blister.
Since that night, oh, how I’ve missed her――missed the girl whom I
adore;
Oh, ye gods of Mount Olympus, lend your pity, I implore,
I shall kiss her nevermore.
“Seems to me the air grows hotter. How I love this old man’s
daughter!”
Were my musings as I held her――held the girl whom I adore.
While my Mary Ann was napping, suddenly I heard a rapping
Like a footfall softly tapping on the old man’s bedroom floor,
And I muttered, as I listened through the slightly opened door,
“I have heard that step before.”
I shook Mary Ann to wake her, and I said “May Old Nick take her!”
(But I’m sure I didn’t mean it), then she woke with one loud snore.
While she sat up widely gaping, barely wakened from her napping,
I informed her of the tapping I have spoken of before;
Then she laughed and said, “’twas nothing but the mice upon the
floor,
Little mice and nothing more.”
Then once more like some huge boulder fell her head upon my shoulder,
And I held her very tightly as she snored snore after snore;
Soon again I heard the falling of more footsteps, and the calling
Of her daddy, and I wished I was in Spain or Ecuador.
“Mary Ann!” the old man uttered, as he strode across the floor,
“Mary Ann,” and nothing more.
Suddenly, as if like magic, with a face that looked quite tragic,
Mary woke and saw her daddy standing in the parlour door,
Then with eyeballs wildly gleaming, and her hair about her streaming,
From the room the girl ran screaming as the clock was striking four,
Ran more swiftly, screamed more loudly than she ever had before,
Ran and screamed, and nothing more.
At the barn the cock was crowing, and I thought I would be going,
So I started very quickly to retreat across the floor,
But the old man quick did foller, then he took me by the collar,
And you oughter heard me holler as he pitched me through the door.
“Seek ’em, Bull!” he loudly uttered, in a sort of fiendish roar.
Merely that, and nothing more.
Quickly to my feet I scrambled, and across the yard I ambled.
As I heard that bull-dog coming, bent on tasting human gore.
Soon he seized me by the breeches, and I gave some awful screeches,
As the entire seat in fragments from my Sunday pants he tore.
With my right hand lifted skyward, “I will kill that dog!” I swore.
This I said, and nothing more.
Soon the dog his grip releases, and from chasing me he ceases
While he stopped to chew the pieces that he from my breeches tore.
Once across my shoulder glancing, with the moonlight o’er him dancing,
I espied the old man prancing like a madman in the door,
And I muttered, “Men like you should be slaughtered by the score,
And you’ll raise the count one more.”
While the broadcloth Bull was chewing, I my way was still pursuing,
And I soon, quite tired and panting, lay upon my cottage floor.
Then I cursed my Mary’s daddy, and I called him an old paddy,
And I swore I’d whip the laddy till my pardon he’d implore.
But she’s lost to me for ever, the dear girl whom I adore,
Ay, for ever――evermore.
ANONYMOUS.
――――――――
THE PHANTOM CAT.
On the ocean swiftly sailing, with the western daylight failing,
And a fair south-wester with us, scudding o’er the waters blue,
O’er the bulwarks I was leaning, and my eyes my hand was screening;
For I wish’d to learn the meaning of a strange sail now in view,
Of a vessel in the offing, coming slowly into view.
I had little else to do.
* * * * *
And all thought, with expectation, what the country, what the nation,
Might the stranger vessel hail from, sailing slowly through the night;
For a landsman has no notion of the sailor’s heart’s emotion
When he hears upon the ocean that a vessel heaves in sight,
Like an old friend coming to him, is a ship that heaves in sight,
With her sails so broad and white.
* * * * *
Scarcely had the sailor spoken, when the evening air was broken
By a blast from speaking-trumpet: “Ship ahoy! what cheer, what cheer?
We’ve been sailing, three years sailing, round about the Horn
a-whaling.
Food is scarce and water failing――stranger, spare a trifle here――
Biscuit, grog, and cask of water; just a trifle, stranger, here;
You’ll be paid back never fear.”
Skipper says, “We can afford, man, if you only come on board, man,
Two or three good casks of water, one of biscuit, one of ale.
Shove the boat off; I’m delighted, such a vessel to have sighted,
From the mighty States United; come and taste a glass of ale;
Come and chat for half an hour o’er the friendly glass of ale
I take nightly without fail.”
And our ladder was made ready by two seamen strong and steady,
And up came the whaler captain; on his shoulders stood a cat,
With her eyes both brightly gleaming, with her tail outstretched,
outstreaming.
Surely, thought I, I am dreaming, to see visitor like that,
See a captain come to see us in a way so strange as that!
What on earth can he be at?
Then the cabin did we enter, and before we could prevent her,
Came the cat with tail uplifted, straightway down the cuddy stair;
And the lamps were not yet lighted, and we sat down, half benighted,
We three; and the uninvited――the intruder, she was there,
On the shoulders of the captain, the intruder standing there,
With green eyes and ebon hair.
Still upon the captain’s shoulder, strange it seemed to the beholder,
In the twilight of the cabin, among strangers standing so;
And I fancied it would fright her when the cuddy lamps grew lighter.
And I mused upon the writer of “The Raven,” Edgar Poe,
On that weird and wondrous genius, wilful, wayward Edgar Poe,
Dead now eighteen years ago!
There she stood, with green eyes gleaming; there she stood, with tail
outstreaming,
A black line athwart the cuddy, rising somewhat high in air.
And the captain look’d behind him, as though puss in spell did bind
him,
And, without a sound, inclined him to keep looking o’er his chair,
To keep turning to the black cat, on his shoulder o’er the chair,
With a look that held despair!
(The Yankee skipper relates that he had formerly been a slave-dealer,
and that having bought a negro with his child, he was entreated not to
part them.)
“Deaf was I to all compassion; brutally I laid the lash on
His defenceless naked shoulders; yet I tortured him in vain
And my anger growing bigger, out with pistol, pull’d the trigger;
With a cry, dropp’d down the nigger, with a startling cry of pain,
With the spasm of the death-pang shooting o’er his face of pain,
Never more to move again!”
“Sitting in my parlour lonely, thinking on my day’s work only,
This black cat you see before you, sat herself upon the chair;
And in vain I tried to please her, all in vain I sought to tease her,
Oh, if I could but release her from her hold upon me there!
On my chair, or on my shoulder, ever will that cat be there,
With her eyes of constant glare!”
“Smile you may, and disbelieve me; that black cat can ne’er deceive
me;
She is sent me from the darkie, come to haunt me for my crime,
And will leave me never, never, and on earth will haunt me ever.
Oh, that I the tie could sever! Oh, the dismal, dismal time!
All the horrors of the past, and all the dreary present time,
Far too sad for prose or rhyme!”
* * * * *
“Why should I detain you longer? Every day the tie grows stronger,
Binding me to my familiar, who will never say farewell.
I am here to ask your aid, sir, and have somewhat you delay’d, sir,
With my story, I’m afraid, sir, with the sorry tale I tell;
Of this cursed weird grimalkin, this strange history to tell,
Of this visitor from hell.”
* * * * *
Soon the ship away was steering, and the whaler’s crew were cheering
Loudly the brave British vessel that had help’d them when afloat;
On the poop two eyes were beaming, green eyes through the darkness
gleaming,
And a tail outstretch’d, outstreaming, as it stream’d when in the
boat,
When the captain bade farewell, and sadly left us in the boat,
Fear in eye and husky throat.
* * * * *
Several verses of this very long parody have been omitted; it is
contained in _The Mocking-Bird and other Poems_, by Frederick Field
(J. Van Voorst) London, 1868.
――――――――
THE CROAKER.
Once in a dress-circle, weary with discussing many a query
Of the palmy days of acting, and of quaint dramatic lore――
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at a chamber-door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “outside the dress-circle door,
Wants a seat, and nothing more.”
Then the flapping――sad, uncertain, rustling of the painted curtain――
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic visions never felt before
Of the coming Macbeth’s greeting, wondering if his repeating
Would delight me; while the visitor kept tapping at the door,
And I said “Where is the box-keeper, to open yonder door?
For the tapping is a bore.”
And myself the door unlocking, just to end the tiresome knocking,
In there stepped a solemn Croaker of the palmy days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopped or stayed he,
Passed each fashionable lady with long skirts upon the floor,
Scanned his voucher through gold-mounted and green spectacles he wore,
Took his seat, and nothing more.
Then this Croaker grave, beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
By the grave and stem decorum of the countenance he wore.
Though his aspect was un_nerving_, I began to speak of Irving――
For I’ doubted not that he had seen of Macbeths many a score――
And I blandly then suggested a Shakespearian treat in store,
When he answered, “Nevermore.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly swell to hear discourse so plainly
In the midst of Irving advocates, who voted him a bore――
In an audience all agreeing that no living being
Ever yet was blest with seeing acting such as that in store,
Quoting _Hamlet_, _Richelieu_, and _The Bells_, and many pieces more,
For the laurels Irving wore.
But the Croaker, sitting lonely, in his cushioned chair spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered; I was net a little fluttered,
And at last I feebly muttered, “Other Macbeths played before――”
“Kemble, Kean, Macready, Young,” he cried, “I saw them all of yore――
Won’t be equalled any more!”
Startled at the stillness broken, by reply so aptly spoken――
“Doubtless,” said I, “what he utters is his sole dramatic lore,
Caught from some Shakespearian master, when unmerciful disaster
Followed faster still and faster, as the crowd his parts ignore,
Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore――
“Tragedian, play no more!”
Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from a Rimmel censer,
Swung by pretty girls, whose footfall tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch!” I cried; “pray who-hath sent thee? Hath some rival Macbeth
lent thee
His spare ticket to content thee with fond memories a store,
Of the Macbeths seen of yore?”
“Croaker,” said I, “pray be civil, and of Irving speak no evil.
Whether rivalry hath brought thee or stage memories of yore,
Are you really not enchanted by this new Macbeth undaunted
In this house by Hamlet haunted? Tell me truly, I implore,
Is there, _is_ there hope of _Macbeth_? Tell me, tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Croaker, “Say no more!”
“Croaker,” said I, “cease to level those stern glances at the revel.
By the bust of Shakespeare o’er us――by the bard we both adore――
Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if within thy distant Aidenn
Ever widow, wife, or maiden Lady Macbeth’s mantle wore
With a grace beyond Miss Bateman?” Still this croaking man of yore
Answered grimly, “Yes, a score.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, Croaker,” then I said, upstarting;
For the curtain now is rising, and I hear a deafening roar.
Not a word hath Macbeth spoken; he can only bow in token
Of the homage all unbroken. Then the Croaker spoke once more:
“Truly this Macbeth reminds me of a figure seen before
Over many a snuff-shop-door.”
And the Croaker, never flitting, still was sitting, his brows knitting,
Growling oft at Irving’s action, voice, and costume that he wore,
And his eyes had all the seeming of a croaker who was dreaming
Of Macready, Kemble, Kean, and Young, in palmy days of yore;
And the last words that he muttered, as he passed the circle-door,
Were――“I’m very glad ’tis o’er.”
_Funny Folks_, October 9, 1875.
――――――――
THE STOKER.
Once in February dreary, while the Commons, weak and weary,
Pondered many a quaint and curious Tory measure then in store,
While they nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the chamber-door;
“Some new member ’tis,” they muttered, “tapping at our chamber-door;
’Tis KENEALY――nothing more!”
But the house was in a flutter when, without a “Hem” or stutter,
In there walked a stately Counsel some of them had seen before;
Not the least obeisance made he――not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But with mien of ancient member took his place upon the floor,
Hitched his “gamp” upon the mace, and hung his hat behind the door――
Hitched and stood, and nothing more!
Stood the Counsel grim, beguiling their “gay wisdom” into smiling
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance he wore――
“None come here without proposer,” said the Speaker, as a poser;
“’Tis the Parliamentary custom for two hundred years and more;”
But outspoke the doughty Premier, “Truly all know how he came here;”
He’s KENEALY――nothing more!
Mr. Whalley, sitting lonely on his placid bench, spoke only
But one word, as if his soul on that one word he did outpour;
Nothing further then he uttered. He was just a little fluttered.
While a host of members muttered, “Other bores have flown before;
Some fine morning he will leave us as our bores have left before.”
WHALLEY whispered, “Nevermore!”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said they, “what he utters is his only stock and store,
Caught from Liberal disaster when that party had no master,
When mistakes came fast and faster, and their songs one burden bore,
When the dirges of their hopes that melancholy burden bore
Of never, nevermore.”
Members willing to be civil said, “Oh, quit the Tichborne drivel!
By the roof that bends above us――by the Commons we adore.
Tell our souls with sorrow laden that our Parliamentary Aidenn
Shall not echo with the name of “_Arthur Orton_” any more;
That the mystery unriddled who the name Sir Roger bore
Shall not vex us any more!”
But Kenealy, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
With his gingham hitched upon the mace, his hat behind the door,
And his eyes have all the seeming of a Counsel who is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor,
And the Commons, in that shadow that lies floating on the floor,
Have a pretty treat in store!
This amusing parody originally appeared in _Funny Folks_, March 6,
1875, accompanied by a portrait of Dr. E. V. Kenealy. This was
immediately after his election as member for Stoke, and the week after
it appeared the clever but eccentric advocate of the “unfortunate
nobleman” inserted the parody in his newspaper, _The Englishman_, with
a compliment to its author, and it was re-copied in many other
newspapers. The author, Mr. Joseph Verey, a well-known contributor to
dramatic and humorous periodicals, has written many other clever
parodies, amongst them being “Mariana at the Railway Station,”
inserted on page 4, Volume I.; and “The Night Policeman,” after
Longfellow, inserted on page 68, Volume I. of this collection.
――――――――
“THE RAVEN.”
(_After Edgar Allan Poe._)
Late at midnight I was seated, and my brain was overheated
With reflections quaint and curious as I thought my subject o’er;
While I pondered, almost napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of someone softly rapping, rapping at the parlour door,
And my heart it fairly fluttered, hearing at the parlour-door,
Just a tap, and nothing more.
Yes! distinctly I remember how I trembled in each member,
Thought I saw in every ember ghastly forms of one or more;
Goblins came before my vision, grinning wildly with derision,
There I sat as though in prison, prison closed by parlour-door,
Icy chill came creeping o’er me whilst I gazed upon the door,
Getting frightened more and more.
And the windy gusts uncertain through the window shook the curtain,
Thrilled me, filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.
Then methought perhaps the rapping might be but the servant tapping
That awoke me from my napping, she might then be at the door,
Bringing me the nightly candle, candlestick with broken handle,
As she’d often done before.
Then my soul grew strong in valour, and my cheeks lost all their
pallor,
“Maid,” said I, “or Mary, just you place the candle at the door,
Pond’ring was I, almost napping, when you came so gently tapping,
And you came so softly rapping, rapping at the parlour-door;
Mary, scarcely could I hear you,” then I went unto the door――
Darkness there, and nothing more!
Scarcely had I got me seated, feeling still all over-heated,
When again I heard the rapping louder than it was before,
“Bless me!” said I, “This again, something’s at the window-pane,
Now some knowledge I’ll obtain of this strange mysterious bore;
Courage, heart! a single moment, while this mystery I explore.
’Tis the wind, and nothing more!”
Scarce the words my tongue had spoken, scarce the silence I had
broken,
Thro’ the window stepped a raven like to Ingoldsby’s of yore,
Notice took he of me never, off he hopped and looked so clever,
Flight he took with bold endeavour, perching o’er my parlour door,
From his perch he eyed me closely, watched me from the parlour-door,
Sat and looked――did nothing more!
Cunning looked he, as though chaffing――funny bird! he set me laughing,
Perched aloft, and looking grave, with both his eyes upon the floor:――
“Ebony friend, with head all shaven, surely thou canst be no craven,
Out so late, you funny raven, tell me what misfortune bore
Thee unto my humble roof, and to sit above my door.”
Quoth the raven, “Say no more!”
“Tell me, raven, what has brought you, how it is that you’ve bethought
you
Here to fly in midnight darkness, coming hither to explore.
Hast thou good or evil omen to pronounce to men or _wo_men,
Which thou wilt reveal to no men――speak the message, I implore.”
Then he ruffled all his feathers, speaking from the parlour-door,
Said he, “Think the matter o’er.”
There he was with mien so stately, looking solemn and sedately.
Like a monk he was “complately,” thinking something deeply o’er,
All at once his wings he fluttered, and in tone sepulchral muttered
Something indistinctly uttered, as it came from o’er the door;
Most intently did I listen, listened as I ne’er before
To a raven o’er a door.
――At the Prince’s Pierhead, said he, there you’ll find a policeman
steady,
Strutting proudly ever ready to annoy the cabmen there,
With the Jehus roughly dealing, causing them a bitter feeling,
Vain it is the men appealing, one and all they now declare
Pierhead rank they’ll never stand in, never ply for landing “fare”
Whilst that “bobby’s” stationed there!
At the Town Hall banquet lately, was a Colonel bold and stately,
Full of pomp he was “complately,” sitting rigid in his chair.
When the Army’s health was toasted, up he rose and proudly boasted,
Whilst with with’ring tongue he “roasted” Captain Douglas sitting
there,
That the Naval forces never, whilst he sat upon that chair
With the Army must compare!
When the Colonel Yates, conceited, had his fulsome speech completed,
And upon his chair was seated,――Colonel Steble, gallant “Maire,”
Said with gracious tone and manly, how the noble House of Stanley
Oft in former times like him had sat upon the civic chair;
Then the noble Earl, replying, said with truth he might declare
“Such an honour now was rare!”
Chinamen out there in “_Pee_king,” Treaty obligations breaking,
Our Ambassador is seeking wily stubborn men to awe,
Telling them the British nation anger’d cannot brook evasion;
Better listen to persuasion, or he threatens he’ll withdraw;
So they wisely yield submission. Frightened of the Lion’s paw,
China says she’ll keep the law.
Sea is rough and weather breezy, still “Serapis,” steaming easy,
Slowly sails from out Brindisi, bearing son of Britain’s Queen,
Foaming billows nobly riding, Eastern seas her prow dividing,
Soon in sunny waters gliding Royal Standard will be seen;
Prince will have a royal welcome, Rajahs proud, of royal mien,
Greeting son of India’s Queen――
Thus he spake what he intended, and his croaking speech was ended,
Flapping wings he soon descended from his perch above the door.
Not another word was spoken, nor again the silence broken,
He had given me the token, and he hopp’d along the floor,
Thro’ the window into darkness――glancing at my parlour door,
Raven saw I nevermore!
_The Porcupine_ (Liverpool), October 30, 1875.
――――――――
A BLACK BIRD THAT COULD SING BUT WOULDN’T SING.
(_A Lyric of the American Southern States._)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
O’er the War of the Rebellion and the things that were before;
While I sat absorbed in thinking, brandy cocktails slowly drinking,
Suddenly I saw a blinking, one-eyed figure at my door――
Saw a nasty, stinking, blinking, one-eyed figure at my door,
Standing up as stiff as steel-yards, just across my chamber floor,
Peeping in, and――nothing more.
Ah! I never shall forget it, how in glancing round I met it,
And I ever shall regret it that I looked towards that door,
For I saw a monstrous figure――like a giant, only bigger,
And there stood a big buck nigger, with his back against the door,
Darting, with a hideous snigger, glances right across my floor,
A reeking, lantern-jaw’d buck nigger bolt upright against my door,
Glancing in, and――nothing more.
Quick instinctively espying where my ham and eggs were frying,
There I saw a poker lying near the hearth upon the floor,
And with most determined vigour seized and hurled it at the nigger,
But so quick was he on the trigger, as he jump’d it struck the door,
Struck beneath him, as he bounded just like lightning from the floor,
As like a tarr’d and feather’d Mercury, up he bounded from the floor,
Grazed his heel, and――nothing more.
Back toward my hearth-stone looking, where my ham and eggs were
cooking,
Shaking, quaking as no mortal ever shaked or quaked before,
Soon I heard the ugly sinner mutter forth these words, “_Some dinner_,”
Looking still more gaunt and thinner, even than he looked before,
These the words the heathen mutter’d――the sole and only sound then
uttered,
As down from his high jump he flutter’d ’lighting on his major toe,
“Dinner,” said he, nothing more.
Then his impudence beginning, he displayed his gums in grinning,
And with eyes aught else but winning, leer’d upon me from the door,
Speaking thusly: “’Tis your treat, man, I’ll never go into the street,
man,
Till I get some grub to eat, man, I shall _never_ leave your door,
Never quit them aigs and bacon, now just done, I’m very sure,
Never till I’ve cleaned the platter, though you beat me till I roar,
Treat me, or I’ll charge ’em sure.”
Then toward the fireplace marching, where my coffee too was parching,
Boldly stalked this sassy nigger right across my chamber-floor,
Never stopped to bend or bow, sir, then I knew there’d be a row, sir,
For I made a solemn vow, sir, he should soon recross that floor,
And I kicked him through the room, sir, back again toward the door,
Kick’d and cuffed him, in my anger, back against my chamber-door,
Then I kicked him yet once more.
But this midnight bird beguiling my stirr’d spirit into smiling,
By the wretched, rabid, ravenous look his hungry visage wore,
“Tho’,” I said, “thou art a freedman, thou hast gone so much to seed,
man,
So I’ll give you one good feed, man, as you seem to be so poor――
One good feed in your sore need, man, as you seem so very poor;
The eggs and meat _shall_ be my treat, if with light work you’ll pay
the score.”
Quoth the nigger――“Work no more.”
Much I marvelled this ungainly nigger should refuse so plainly
Just to do a little work, for food he craved and needed sore,
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Should decline to labour seeing that he was so deuced poor;
Should refuse to earn a dinner, which he hungered for I’m sure,
And would have damned his soul by stealing had he hoped to make the
door;
Escaping thence to――work no more.
Awhile I sat absorbed in musing, what meant he by this refusing,
Till, mad, I turned into abusing the odious, odorous blackamoor.
“Sure,” said I, “you must be crazy, to be so infernal lazy,
So cussedly, outrageous lazy, as to want to work no more;
You ugly, grim, ungainly, ghastly, heathen, savage blackamoor,
Will you even work for wages――food and clothes and payment sure?”
Quoth the nigger――“Work no more.”
“Nigger,” said I, “horrid demon! _Nigger still if slave or freeman_,
Pause and ponder ere you answer this one question, I implore:
Have you got no sense of feeling? do you mean to live by stealing?
Or by working and fair dealing; tell me truly, I implore,
On your honour as a nigger, will you ever labour more?
Plough in corn or hoe in cotton, as you did in days of yore?”
Quoth the Nigger――“Nevermore!”
Startled by the stillness broken by reply so flatly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “this big nigger once could eat enough for four,
When on some grand rice plantation, he could out-eat all creation,
Until his corporal situation warned him he could eat no more;
Scorning any calculation of how much cash it cost I’m sure,
For the master paid the piper in the good old days of yore,
Days he’ll revel in no more!”
“Nigger,” said I, “thing of evil! quit my sight! _go to the devil!_
Or even yet, pause, reconsider terms I’ll offer you no more,
Tell me truly, I implore you, for the last time I conjure you,
If good wages I ensure you, and clothes the best you ever wore,
Will you work three days in seven, at tasks far lighter than of yore?
Only three short days in seven――labour light and payment sure?”
Quoth the nigger――“Work no more.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, nigger man,” I said upstarting,
“Get you gone to where you came from, let me see your face no more.
Quick, vamose, cut dirt――skedaddle――seek some far-off, distant shore,
Haste, relieve me of that visage――_darken_ not again my door,
Join the army――go to Texas! Never come back here to vex us,
Take your gaze from off my victuals――take your carcase from my door”――
Quoth the nigger――“Nevermore.”
And the nigger, never working, still is shirking――still is shirking
Every kind of honest labour, in the house or out of door,
And his eye has all the seeming of a vulture’s starved and dreaming,
And my bacon, gently steaming tempts him still to cross my floor.
But I’ll gamble with that poker that I hurled at him before,
That I’ll maul his very lights out, if he dares to pass that door,
He _shall_ work or――eat no more!
_The Figaro_, February 16, 1876.
――――――――
COWGATE PHILANTHROPY.
Once, while in the Cowgate dirty, on an evening damp and murky,
Mournfully I gazed at objects swarming there from door to door,
From a whisky palace, swearing, a poor woman issued, bearing
A child upon her bosom bare, and that bosom stained with gore,
And she uttered dreadful threats against the man that kept the store――
Idle threats, and nothing more.
To myself I said, in terror, “Surely here there is some error;
This woman seems in deep distress――distress which pierces to the core;”
So I stepped into the palace, with the view of getting solace,
For that creature whose deep sorrow my soft heart with anguish tore,
That shadow of an angel bright, for her countenance yet bore
Trace of beauty, now no more.
But the jingling of the glasses, and the glare of many gases,
Made me feel so very squeamish that I was almost forced to roar,
When my tongue its wonted action ceased, as if by some attraction,
So I stood a perfect dummy at this dreadful gin-house door,
Pointing to that weeping woman, whom no one would now adore;
This I did, and nothing more.
To my speech at last succeeding, I asked gravely why the bleeding,
Helpless, ill-clad, ill-fed woman had been out-cast from the store?
And the answer from the monster who had been this woman’s wrongster
Was, she had not filthy lucre to pay off her whisky score;
He’d be blowed, or something stronger, if he’d give her any more;
And he thought her quite a bore.
Then I felt my fingers itching, and my muscles all a twitching,
To seize the rascal by the throat, and stretch him straight upon the
floor;
But he gave a loud hoarse chuckle, let me see his mighty knuckle,
And advised me for my safety that I’d better seek the door――
If I didn’t vanish quickly I might go upon all four:
So I vanished――nothing more.
_The Modern Athenian_ (Edinburgh), March 11, 1876.
――――――――
LINES
_Respectfully dedicated to the_
Right Honourable Henry Bouverie William Brand, M.P.,
Speaker of the House of Commons.
“Once upon a Wednesday dreary, while I listened somewhat weary,
To the dull and dismal business going on upon the floor,
On me, in my melancholy, broke the voice of Mr. Whalley,
Pouring forth of words a volley, and this, too, I meekly bore;
‘’Tis near five o’clock,’ I muttered, and my lot I meekly bore,
Hoping there was little more.
“For since noon I had been sitting, and the daylight now was flitting,
As M.P.’s, their places quitting, noiselessly pass’d through the door,
Motions, though, in such a number did the notice-book encumber,
That I’d vainly sought to slumber, though my eyes were tired and sore,
Dared not nap like those around me, though my eyes were red and sore;
But a watchful look I wore.
“Tired of talking, Whalley finished, and my list was thus diminished
By the Bill on ‘Open Spaces’――this it was his name that bore――
Next, I saw with heartfelt pleasure, came an agricultural measure;
For methought no member surely over this dry Bill will pore――
They will not discuss its details, they will never o’er it pore;
Merely pass it――nothing more.
“So I thought, until up-glancing, I beheld a form advancing
From the seats below the gangway, boldly out upon the floor,
‘Stay,’ mused I; ‘I know that figure. Yes, it is――it must be Biggar!’
Through the House there passed a snigger, but my heart was very sore;
For he caught my eye, confound him! and my heart was very sore;
Hope was left in it no more.
“Not the least obeisance made he, nor where he had risen stay’d he;
But he strode across the gangway, nearer to me than before.
All the time that he was walking, he was hoarsely at me talking,
Nothing stopping him nor baulking, not a moment he forebore,
Caring not for sneers nor laughter, not a moment he forebore,――
But talked on for evermore.
“Much it grieved me this ungainly man to hear discourse so plainly,
Though his phrases little meaning, little relevancy bore,
For I knew his stubborn nature, knew, too, in the Legislature,
That so obstinate a member it had never known before;
That a member so pig-headed never had been known before,
Never would be evermore.
‘‘Far too “narrer” is this measure,’ quoth he, slowly, at his leisure;
‘Yes, it’s very much too “narrer!”’ then he went its clauses o’er;
Turn’d it inside out, and twisted its provisions, as he listed;
While his friend Parnell assisted――helped this most portentous bore;
Backed him up, and often prompted this unmitigated bore;
Who kept speaking evermore!
“Presently my wrath grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
‘Sir!’ I said, ‘you’re not in order; keep in order, I implore!
This is but the second reading, yet you are in sooth proceeding
As though in Committee pleading; cease from this or leave the floor!
Mean you long to go on speaking, mean you long to keep the floor?’
Quoth J. Biggar, ‘Evermore!’
“Then methought his voice grew hoarser, and his manner rather coarser;
Till that he my eye had ever caught, I did at heart deplore;
Why, I thought, has Cavan sent thee? can no earthly power prevent thee?
None bring respite and nepenthe, from thy rudeness and thy roar?
Am I doomed to always listen to thy inharmonious roar?’
Quoth J. Biggar, ‘Evermore.’
“‘Biggar,’ said I, ‘Joseph Biggar, why thy most undoubted vigour,
Didst thou not devote to business on thy own Ulsterian shore?
Why not give to lard and bacon, all the energies mistaken,
Thou from night to night art wasting on this House of Commons floor?
Stick to lard! Drop legislating! This of thee I would implore!’
Quoth J. Biggar, ‘Nevermore.’
“‘Biggar,’ said I, ‘tell me truly, wilt thou always be unruly?
Is there nothing thy lost senses can to thee at last restore?
Wilt this chamber long be haunted by thy presence so undaunted?
Or would’st thou at home be wanted if pigs fetched much less per
score――
If lard fell a lot per bladder? Tell me――tell me, I implore?”
Quoth J. Biggar, ‘Nevermore!’
“‘Joseph,’ said I, ‘have a care, sir, lest thou shouldst me too much
dare, sir,
For I give thee warning, fair sir, that if thou art much a bore,
I will henceforth always try, sir, that thou mayst not catch my eye,
sir,
When in future thou mayst rise, sir, and stand out upon this floor!――
Stand in all thy blatant boldness on this desecrated floor;
Thou shalt catch it nevermore!
“But J. Biggar never stirring, went on stating and averring,
Naught him staying or deterring, still his speech did he outpour,
And back on my cushion sinking, I was filled with dread at thinking
That this grim and greasy member might for ever harshly roar――
That this grim, ungainly, lardy man might never cease to bore,――
But talk on for evermore!”
_Truth_, March 8, 1877.
――――――――
THE BABY.
Once upon a midnight dreary, whilst I waited, faint and weary,
On the landing till the doctor the expected tidings bore;
Whilst I nodded, nearly napping, dreaming of what then was happing――
Dreaming of what then was happing t’other side yon chamber door,
Stood the doctor there, and whispered, opening the chamber door,
“’Tis a boy!” and nothing more.
Ah, distinctly I remember, by my chilblains, ’twas December,
And I stamped each smarting member, stamped it smartly on the floor.
Eagerly I wished for slumber, as my feet and hands grew number;
Oh, could I some bed encumber, oh, how quickly I would snore!
Oh, how I would wake the echoes with my deep sonorous snore!
But my vigil was not o’er.
For as I thus thought of snoring, came a sound of liquid pouring――
’Twas a sound that oft, when thirsty, I had heard with joy before;
And when it I heard repeating, thro’ the darkness sent I greeting,
Saying, “Who is that that’s drinking something in behind my door?”――
For the sound came from a chamber, mine erstwhile, now mine no more――
“Who are you and what d’you pour?”
But no answer came, so rising with a rashness most surprising,
“Sir,” said I, “or madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, when I heard some liquid lapping,
Lapping, lapping, softly lapping, in behind this chamber-door.
Who are you in there, I pray you?”――here I opened wide the door――
Smell of spirits, nothing more!
Deeply that strong odour sniffing stood I “butting” there and
“if-ing;”
Guessing, wondering, surmising who it was that I’d heard pour.
Still the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token;
But a bottle brandy-soaken I remarked upon the floor.
This I noticed, black and empty, lying there upon the floor――
Merely that, and nothing more!
From the chamber I was turning, all my soul within me yearning
For a little cup of cognac: since my chilblains were so sore――
When I heard a sound of rustling, as of some stout woman bustling――
“Ah,” said I, “this chamber’s mystery I will linger and explore――
Stay will I another minute and its mystery explore――
Why I heard that brandy pour?”
Opened here a folding-door was; and in a few seconds more was
A full stout and snuffy matron coming towards me o’er the floor;
Not the least obeisance made she; not a minute stopped or stayed she,
But upon a chair down sitting, beckoned me to what she bore:
’Twas a tiny roll of flannel in her portly arms she bore――
Only that, and nothing more!
Then this flannel roll beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the strange and utter contrast that it to the matron bore,
Sought my thoughts another channel, and I spoke unto the flannel,
Saying, “What art thou and wherefore art thou brought here, I
implore?――
Tell me why thou art thus carried, why so gently, I implore?”
But it sobbed, and nothing more!
Much I marvelled at its sobbing, and my heart was quickly throbbing
As unto the ponderous matron said I, ‘Turn that flannel o’er!’
For you cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet beheld a bundle that could sob, and nothing more――
Ever yet a roll of flannel saw that sobbed and nothing more!”
Quoth the matron, “Shut the door.”
Then the flannel pink unfolding, soon was I with awe beholding
Something like to which my eyes had never gazed upon before.
Nothing further then it uttered――but I mouthed awhile and stuttered
Till I positively muttered, “Tell me all, I would implore!”
Said the matron, “There is little to inform you on that score:
’Tis your son, and nothing more!”
“Ah,” said I, no longer dreaming, with a sudden knowledge gleaming,
“You’ve a monthly nurse’s seeming, and ’twas you that I heard pour;
Tell me, then, when I may slumber, when this room you’ll cease to
cumber,
Since of chilblains such a number in the passage I deplore;
Tell me when I may turn in and cease their smarting to deplore.”
Quoth that woman, “Never more!”
“Woman!” said I, “nurse, how dare you? If you do not have a care, you
Soon will find that I can spare you, for I’ll show to you the door!”
But that woman, calmly sitting, and her brows engaged in knitting,
In a way most unbefitting took the bottle from the floor,
Took it up, although ’twas empty, took it up from off the floor;
Waved it and said, “Never more!”
“Nurse,” I shouted, “I won’t stand it; put it down, at once, unhand
it!
As your master, I demand it, and this room to me restore;
Take yon saucepan from my table; clear my bed, for you are able,
Of your wardrobe, and the baby take where it was heretofore;
For I long to sink in slumber: nurse, I’m dying for a snore!”
Quoth that woman, “Never more!”
“Be that word our sign of parting, monthly nurse,” said I, upstarting,
“Get thee gone, thou Gamp outrageous, to where’er thou wast before;
Leave that bottle as a token of the rest that thou hast broken――
Now be off――have I not spoken? Get thee gone, Gamp, there’s the door――
Take thy wardrobe from my bed, and take thyself out through that door!”
Quoth that woman, “Never more!”
And that monthly nurse is sitting, drinking in a way unfitting,
In an easy-chair luxurious just behind my chamber-door;
There for weeks she has been sleeping, me from my own chamber keeping;
Degradations on me heaping, till my heart of hearts is sore;
Fearing that her shadow never will be lifted from my floor,
And that, smelling strong of spirits, she through yonder open door
Shall be lifted――Never more!
_Finis_ (Beeton’s Christmas Annual, 1877.)
――――――――
THE MAIDEN.
Once upon a summer morning, whilst I watched the sun adorning
All the hilltops lying round me with an ever-golden hue,
Suddenly I saw a maiden with a basket heavy laden,
Yes, a basket heavy laden with some clothes which looked like new,
And I cried, “My pretty maiden, these look just as good as new;
Have they, pray, been washed by you?”
Ah! distinctly I remember how my soul burned like an ember,
As the maiden’s eyes grew brighter――eyes of such a lovely blue;
How her auburn tresses glistened in the sunlight while I listened,
Wondering how she had been christened; but her answering words
were few,
And somehow they didn’t please me, these her answering words so
few――
“Truly, sir, what’s that to you?”
Then I said, “O, lovely maiden, with this basket heavy laden,
Tell me truly, I implore thee, from what parent-stock you grew?
If your father is a humble, honest, labourer like the Bumble-
Bee that works, but does not grumble at the work he has to do?
Maiden did you ever grumble at the work you had to do?”
Quoth the maid, “What’s that to you?”
Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,
For I felt a little angry, and thus said what wasn’t true:
“Hark you, maid, my friend, Joe Simmen, says that all you washerwomen
Are as sour as any lemon, cross as any _ole clo’_ Jew;
Tell me maiden, is it not so, that you’re like some _ole clo’_ Jew?”
Quoth the maid “What’s that to you?”
Deep into that countenance peering, long I stood there wondering,
fearing,
Lest the girl should prove a vixen, and begin to hit me too;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only words there spoken were the whispered words, “Pooh!
pooh!”
These I whispered, for I feared her, whispered just the words,
“Pooh! pooh!”
And I knew not what to do.
Round about myself then turning, all my soul within me burning,
For I did not dare to face her, as she was I knew not who;
I began at once to wonder how on earth I could thus blunder,
And why I thus should cower under these her answering words so few,
And I could not find a reason why her words should be so few;
Still I knew not what to do.
Then I glanced across my shoulder, as it were some sheltering boulder,
And I saw the maiden laughing, laughing till her face was blue.
Then I thought “’Tis now or never,” so I said (and thought it clever),
“Pretty maiden, did you ever have a nice young sweetheart, who
Was, as I am, tall and handsome? If so, prithee tell me who?”
Quoth the maid “What’s that to you?”
And the maiden, thus beguiling all my angry soul to smiling,
Made me say, “Ah! lovely maiden, fairly I’m in love with you.”
Then began my heart to flutter, and began my tongue to stutter,
And began my lips to mutter, while around me objects flew.
Thus I muttered, while the objects round about me swiftly flew,
“Maiden, I’m in love with you.”
But the maiden, sitting lonely on the velvet sod, spoke only
These four words when I made of her some interrogation new;
So upon the green grass sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what on earth I now should do,
And I asked the washer maiden, what on earth I now should do?
Quoth the maid “What pleases you.”