THE SONG OF PAHTAHQUAHONG.
"The REV. HENRY PAHTAHQUAHONG CHASE, hereditary Chief of the Ojibway tribe, President of the Grand Council of Indians, and missionary of the Colonial and Continental Church Society at Muncey Town, Ontario, Canada, has just arrived in England, on a short visit."—The Standard.
STRAIGHT across the Big-Sea-Water,
From the Portals of the Sunset,
From the prairies of the Red Men,
Where Suggema, the mosquito.
Makes the aggravated hunter
Scratch himself with awful language;
From the land of Hiawatha,
Land of wigwams, and of wampum,
Land of tomahawks and scalping,
(See the works of J. F. COOPER),
Comes the mighty PAHTAHQUAHONG,
Comes the Chief of the Obijways.
Wot ye well, we'll give him welcome,
After manner of the Pale Face,
Show him all the old world's wonders,
Griffins in the public highways,
Gormandising corporations,
And the Market of Mud-Salad.
Show him, too, the dingy Palace,
And the House of Talkee-Talkee;
Where the Jossakeeds—the prophets—
And the Chieftains raise their voices.
Like Iagoo the great boaster,
With immeasurable gabble,
Talking much and doing little,
Till one wishes they could vanish
To the kingdom of Ponemah—
To the Land of the Hereafter!
We will show him all the glories
Of this land of shams and swindles,
Land of much adulteration,
Dusting tea and sanding sugar,
And of goods not up to sample;
Till disgusted PAHTAHQUAHONG,
Till the Chief of the Obijways,
President of Indian Council,
Missionary swell, and so forth,
Cries, "Oh, let me leave this England,
Land of Bumbledom and Beadles,
Of a thousand Boards and Vestries;
Let me cross the Big-Sea-Water,
With Keewaydin—with the Home Wind,
And go back to the Ojibways!"
Punch, March 12, 1881.
A jeu d'esprit somewhat in the nature of The Rejected Addresses has recently been published by Mr. George Dryden, of Lothian Street, Edinburgh. It is entitled "Rejected Tercentenary Songs, with the comments of the Committee appended." Edited by Rolus Ray.
It will be remembered that the Edinburgh University has just been celebrating its Tercentenary, and the contents of this amusing little sixpenny pamphlet consist of the Poems supposed to have been sent in, by matriculated students of the University, in competition for a prize of Ten Guineas, offered by the Tercentenary Committee for the best song in honour of the occasion.
It contains numerous Latin and Macaronic verses, a long parody of Walt Whitman, one of Gilbert, and two of Longfellow, which I venture to quote. The first is incomplete:—
"I stood in the quad at midnight,
As the bells were tolling the hour;
And the moon shone o'er the city,
Behind the Tron Kirk tower."
"Among the black stone gables
The ghostly shadows lay;
And the moonbeams from the rising moon,
Falling, made them creep away."
"With weary brain and mind opprest,
I stood in the quad and pondered—"
Here it breaks off abruptly; the other is a very fair parody of the Song of Hiawatha, although, of course, some of the allusions are only of local interest. The poem is entitled—