Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. II

by Unknown

Edgar Allan Poe.

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,”

*  *  *  *  *

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 unnerving, 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 women,

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 “Peeking,” 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.

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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.”

“Torment!” said I, “thing of evil! you, at least, might have been civil,

And not given such answers to the questions I have put to you.

When I told you that I loved you, surely then I think I moved you,

And I think it had behoved you to make answers straight and true,

’Stead of which you gave me answers which were anything but true.”

Quoth the maid, “What’s that to you.”

“Be these words our sign of parting, saucy maid!” I shrieked, upstarting.

“Get you back into the village, take these clothes along with you!

Leave no thread even as a token of these horrid words you’ve spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! Take these clothes which look like new,

And return to where you came from, with these clothes as clean as new!”

Quoth the maiden, “Not for you.”

So I left the washer maiden and her basket heavy laden,

And I hope that I may never, never more behold the two;

Yet my sleep is oft enchanted, and my dreams are often haunted

By her form when just not wanted, and the basket seems there too,

And she asks in tones of mockery, pointing at the basket, too,

“What is this, now, sir, to you?”

D. J. M.

Edinburgh Paper, November, 8, 1879.

---

The Promissory Note.

Zoïlus reads:

In the lonesome latter years,

(Fatal years!)

To the dropping of my tears

Danced the mad and mystic spheres

In a rounded, reeling rune,

’Neath the moon,

To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.

Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom,

(Ulalume!)

In a dim Titanic tomb,

For my gaunt and gloomy soul

Ponders o’er the penal scroll,

O’er the parchment (not a rhyme),

Out of place,—out of time,—

I am shredded, shorn, unshifty,

(O, the fifty!)

And the days have passed, the three,

Over me!

And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

’Twas the random runes I wrote

At the bottom of the note

(Wrote, and freely

Gave to Greeley),

In the middle of the night,

In the mellow, moonless night,

When the stars were out of sight,

When my pulses, like a knell,

(Israfel!)

Danced with dim and dying fays

O’er the ruins of my days,

O’er the dimeless, timeless days,

When the fifty, drawn at thirty,

Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty

Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it,

(Let him hold it!)

Devils held for me the inkstand and the pen;

Now the days of grace are o’er,

(Ah, Lenore!)

I am but as other men:

What is time, time, time,

To my rare and runic rhyme,

To my random, reeling rhyme,

By the sands along the shore,

Where the tempest whispers, “Pay him!” and I answer

“Nevermore!”

Galahad: What do you mean by the reference to Horace Greeley?

Zoïlus: I thought everybody had heard that Greeley’s only autograph of Poe was a signature to a promissory note for fifty dollars. He offers to sell it for half the money. Now, I don’t mean to be wicked, and to do nothing with the dead except bone ’em, but when such a cue pops into one’s mind, what is one to do?

The Ancient: O, I think you’re still within decent limits! There was a congenital twist about poor Poe. We can’t entirely condone his faults, yet we stretch our charity so as to cover as much as possible. His poetry has a hectic flush, a strange, fascinating, narcotic quality, which belongs to him alone. Baudelaire and Swinburne after him have been trying to surpass him by increasing the dose; but his Muse is the natural Pythia, inheriting her convulsions, while they eat all sorts of insane roots to produce theirs.

Galahad (eagerly): Did you ever know him?

The Ancient: I met him two or three times, heard him lecture once (his enunciation was exquisite), and saw him now and then in Broadway,—enough to satisfy me that there were two men in him: one, a refined gentleman, an aspiring soul, an artist among those who had little sense of literary art; the other—

Zoïlus: Go on!

The Ancient: “Built his nest with the birds of night.” No more of that!

Diversions of the Echo Club. By Bayard Taylor (John Camden Hotten, London.)

---

“The Ager.”

This clever parody, by Prof. J. P. Stelle, editor of the Progressive Farmer, and of the agricultural department of the Mobile Register, has been repeatedly published in United States newspapers, though generally in a mutilated form. The following is believed to be the correct version:—

Once upon an evening bleary,

While I sat me dreamy, dreary,

In the sunshine, thinking over

Things that passed in days of yore;

While I nodded, nearly sleeping,

Gently came a something creeping

Up my back, like water seeping—

Seeping upward from the floor.

“’Tis a cooling breeze,” I muttered,

From the regions ’neath the floor—

Only this, and nothing more.”

Ah! distinctly I remember

It was in that wet September,

When the earth and every member

Of creation that it bore

Had for days and weeks been soaking

In the meanest, most provoking

Foggy rains that, without joking,

We had ever seen before;

So I knew it must be very

Cold and damp beneath the floor—

Very cold beneath the floor.

So I sat me nearly napping,

In the sunshine, stretching, gaping,

Craving water, but delighted

With the breeze from ’neath the floor,

Till I found me waxing colder,

And the stretching growing bolder,

And myself a feeling older—

Older than I’d felt before;

Feeling that my joints were stiffer

Than they were in days of yore—

Stiffer than they’d been before.

All along my back the creeping

Soon gave place to rushing, leaping,

As if countless frozen demons

Had concluded to explore

All the cavities—the “varmints”—

’Twixt me and my nether garments,

Up into my hair and downward

Through my boots into the floor;

Then I found myself a shaking,

Gently first, but more and more—

Every moment more and more.

’Twas the “ager,” and it shook me

Into many clothes, and took me

Shaking to the kitchen—every

Place where there was warmth in store;

Shaking till the dishes clattered,

Shaking till the tea was spattered,

Shaking, and with all my warming

Feeling colder than before;

Shaking till it had exhausted

All its powers to shake me more—

Till it could not shake me more.

Then it rested till the morrow,

Then resumed with all the horror

That it had the face to borrow,

Shaking, shaking as before;

And from that day in September—

Day that I shall long remember—

It has made diurnal visits,

Shaking, shaking, oh so sore!

Shaking off my boots, and shaking

Me to bed, if nothing more—

Fully this, if nothing more.

And to-day the swallows flitting

Round my cottage see me sitting

Moodily within the sunshine

Just inside my silent door,

Waiting for the ages, seeming

Like a man forever dreaming,

And the sunlight on me streaming

Throws no shadows on the floor;

For I am too thin and sallow

To make shadows on the floor;

’Nary shadow—any more!

---

The Chancellor of the Exchequer
and the Surplus.

Lately on a midnight dreary, whilst I studied, though so weary,

Several sheets of close-writ figures I had gone through times before;

Whilst I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at the Treasury door.

“Is that Kempe?” I slowly mutter’d. “If it is, pray leave the door—

I shall want you here no more!”

Oh! distinctly I remember, for it happen’d this December

And each separate, dying ember seem’d a figure on the floor.

Nervously I wish’d the morrow; for so far I’d failed to borrow—

From the Bank of England borrow—at the same rate as before—

At the same low rate of interest I had borrow’d at before—

They would lend at Two no more.

And I had a sort of notion that this fact was known to Goschen,

Whilst the dread of Childers fill’d me with a fear not felt before,

So that now to still the beating of my heart I’d been repeating:

“P’rhaps some luck may yet befall you ere you stand upon the floor—

Stand next April with your Budget at the table on the floor—

And a Surplus yet restore!”

Presently the rap was stronger; hesitating then no longer,

“Kempe!” said I, “or Law, or Lingen, is that you outside my door?

If it be, pray cease your tapping; if you have no cause for rapping,

Cease, and let me strike my balance ere I sleep, I you implore.

Do come in if you are out there!” Here I open’d wide the door—

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Seeing ghosts of former Budgets—Gladstone’s Budgets—o’er me soar;

But the silence was unbroken, and of Kempe I saw no token;

He had gone with Law and Lingen shortly after half-past four.

So I “H-s-s-h’d”—perchance assuming there were cats about the floor—

Merely cats, and nothing more.

Back into my room returning, where two composites were burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before.

“’Tis too soon for chimney-sweeper; can it be the office-keeper?”

This I said, and once more rising, tried the mystery to explore.

“I will go and try the window, for there’s no one at the door”—

This I said, and nothing more.

Open then I flung the shutter, when with quite a fussy flutter,

In there stalk’d a handsome Surplus of the Liberal years of yore;

Not the least obeisance made it, not a minute stopp’d or stay’d it,

But—nor tried I to dissuade it—hopp’d on something on the floor;

Hopp’d upon my rough-drawn Budget, which I’d thrown upon the floor—

Hopp’d, then sat; and nothing more!

Then this welcome guest beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the cheery and contented cast of countenance it wore;

“Welcome,” said I, “Surplus comely! though you have arrived so ‘rumly,’

For ’tis some years since a Budget drawn by me a Surplus bore;

Let this be a happy omen—that they’ll come as heretofore!”

Quoth the Surplus—“Nevermore!”

Much I marvell’d that so plainly it should answer, and so sanely;

Though in sooth I hoped its answer little relevancy bore.

For ’t had fill’d my heart with pleasure, and with ecstacy past measure

Once again to see a Surplus come within the Treasury door,

To observe a real Surplus on my Budget on the floor,

Like the one in ’Seventy-four.

But the Surplus, sitting lonely on my Budget draft, spake only

That one word already mention’d—I refer to “Nevermore.”

And not for its answer caring, and by no means yet despairing,

I took heart and said: “Six millions was there left in ’Seventy-four;

When shall I next get a Surplus large as that in ’Seventy-four?”

Quoth my guest: “Why, nevermore!”

But this time ’twas not contented with the word I so resented,

But went on and said: “Oh, Northcote, ruin is for you in store!

Thanks to your mysterious master, dearth will follow on disaster,

Ills will follow fast and faster, trade will wholly leave your shore;

And the people, so impoverish’d, will your taxes pay no more.

Debt will haunt you more and more!

“Now your revenue is sinking—it’s no use the matter blinking,

Every day, you know, Sir Stafford, your big deficit grows more,

And you have to borrow, borrow (three more millions, eh, to-morrow?)

You have now a floating debt that’s ten times what it was of yore;

Think upon the splendid Budget Gladstone left in ’Seventy-four,

And your muddle now deplore!”

As the Surplus thus declaiming, me to blushes deep was shaming,

Straight I wheel’d my cushion’d seat in front the Budget on the floor,

Sat on the morocco padding, and betook myself to adding

Figure unto figure, madding though the look the total bore;

Whilst that grim, ungainly, ghastly Surplus still upon the floor

Went on croaking: “Nevermore!”

“Surplus!” said I, “by thy figure, which methinks I see grow bigger,

Whether Gladstone sent, or whether Fate has toss’d thee here to bore,

Tell me, desperate and daunted, by a score of failures haunted,

Soon by Childers to be taunted, tell me, tell me, I implore,

Is there—can I—shall I—ever get things straight—say, I implore?”

Quoth the Surplus: “Nevermore!”

“Surplus!” said I, “much I question, if I don’t to indigestion

Owe the vision of thy presence; still I’d ask thee this once more:

In the name of Ewart Gladstone, whose finance I did adore,

Tell me, here with debt so laden, if, before I go to Aidenn,

I shall ever make a Budget with a Surplus, as of yore?

Shall I e’er announce a Surplus from my place upon the floor?”

Quoth the Surplus: “Nevermore!”

“Be that word our sign of parting, cruel thing!” I cried, upstarting;

“Get thee back to Mr. Gladstone, who created thee of yore;

Go, and leave behind no token of the words that thou hast spoken;

Leave my vigil here unbroken, quit my Budget on the floor!

Take thy figure off my Budget, lying there upon the floor.”

Quoth the Surplus: “Nevermore!”

“No, I will not think of flitting, but still sitting, ever sitting,

On thy wretched, feeble Budgets, on the table or the floor,

Will remind thee of the figure, sometimes less and sometimes bigger,

Of the noble Gladstone’s Surplus, always left in years of yore

Yes, I’ll always stay and haunt you—always stay and ever taunt you—

As you draw up hopeless Budgets, and then throw them on the floor;

And my figure you shall ever see upon your study floor—

I will leave you nevermore!”

And it doubtless had been sitting still, nor shown a sign of flitting—

Had I not with sudden impulse started, falling by the door,

And discover’d, slowly rising—what is not at all surprising—

That my composites were out, whilst daylight stream’d across the floor,

Then I knew I had been dreaming, but my brain continued teeming

With the vision, and the Surplus that had come from years of yore,

And my thoughts on what that Surplus said whilst there upon my floor

Will be fixèd evermore!

Truth. Christmas Number, 1879.

---

The Raven.
(A Version, respectfully dedicated to the Duke of Somerset.)

Late, upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered, chill but cheery,

Over certain prosy volumes of Contemporary lore—

’Midst prophetic pages prowling, suddenly I heard a growling,

As of something faintly howling, howling at my chamber-door.

“’Tis some poor stray tyke,” I muttered, “howling at my chamber-door;

Only that, and nothing more.”

Eugh! distinctly I remember it was in the cold December,

And my fire to its last ember burned, while outer blasts did roar.

Fearfully I funked the morrow, vainly I had sought to borrow

From my friends, or, to my sorrow, add to my coal-merchant’s score—

To that swollen, heavy-laden thing poor devils call a “score”—

To be settled—nevermore.

And the windy, wild, uncertain flapping of my window curtain

Filled me, thrilled me with fantastic fancies never known before;

So that, now, to check the cheating of my mind I stood repeating,

“’Tis that Jones’s dog entreating entrance at my chamber-door—

Bibulous Jones’s pug entreating entrance at my chamber-door,—

Only that, and nothing more.”

Presently the sound grew stronger. Hesitating then no longer,

“Tyke,” said I, “low mongrel, truly this intrusion is a bore;

Where the deuce have you been prowling, that so late you come a howling,

Keeping up this nasty growling, growling at my chamber-door?

I was hardly sure I heard you.” Here I open flung the door,—

Darkness there, and nothing more!

Back into my chamber turning, where my lamp was dimly burning,

Soon again I heard a growling, something louder than before.

“Surely,” said I, “surely, that is something stirring at my lattice,

Let me see if ghost or cat ’tis, and this mystery explore.

Pooh! I have it, what a duffer, what a booby, to be sure!

’Tis the wind, and nothing more!”

Open here I flung the casement, when, to my extreme amazement,

In there stepped a rusty Raven of the “glorious days of yore.”

Not the least obeisance dropped he, not an instant stayed or stopped he,

But, like ghoul who hopped and flopped, he perched above my chamber door—

On a plaster bust of Dizzy standing o’er my chamber-door—

Perched and sat, and—nothing more!

Then this seedy bird beguiling my chilled features into smiling,

By the grave lugubrious grimness of the solemn phiz he wore,

“Thou art welcome to this haven,” said I, “foul, bedraggled, shaven,

Hopeless-looking ancient Raven, croaking as of days of yore.

Tell me what thy lordly name is, is or was, in days of yore.”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

Much I marvelled this most sickly fowl to hear respond so quickly,

Though the nomen was a rum one, it a certain aptness bore,

As to those dull dupes of folly and foreboding melancholy,

Hopeful seldom, never jolly, doting on those days of yore,—

Who esteem the present hopeless, utter failure or next door—

To be mended nevermore!

But the Raven, squatting lonely on the plaster bust spoke only

That one word, as though his soul in doldrums he would thus outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered, though his spirit seemed sore fluttered.

“Come!” I said, or rather muttered, “you’re dyspeptic—’tis a bore,

But to-morrow you’ll be better, sleep will your lost tone restore.”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

Struck to find the silence broken by reply so patly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “this one word, now, is his only stock and store,

Caught from pessimistic master, who in progress saw disaster,

Coming fast and coming faster, till his wails one burden bore,—

Till his sad vaticinations one unvarying burden bore,

This same Raven’s “Nevermore!”

But the Raven still beguiling my amused soul into smiling,

Straight I wheeled my easy-chair in front of bird, and bust, and door;

Then, upon the cushion sinking, thought to thought by fancy linking,

I employed my brains in thinking what this black and feathered bore,

Like all gaunt funereal vaunters of those precious days of yore,

Meant by croaking “Nevermore!”

Then methought the air grew denser, darkened as by cynic censor,

Some Cassandra whose forecastings are of evil days in store.

“Croak no more!” I cried. “Content thee with the gifts the gods have sent thee;

Give us respite and nepenthe from sad dreams of days of yore!

Let us quaff hope’s sweet nepenthe, and forget those days of yore!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

“Prophet,” said I, “of things evil! ‘Things are going to the devil,’

Is the formula of fogies, I have heard that bosh before;

Times look dark, but hearts undaunted find the future still enchanted,

With fair visions such as haunted valiant souls in days of yore.

Can’t you, can’t you look less glum? Keep up your pecker, I implore.”

Quoth the Raven—“Nevermore!”

“Prophet,” said I, “of things evil, I don’t wish to be uncivil,

But the heavens still bend above us, happy days are still in store;

All are not with megrims laden, still the future holds its Aidenn,

For brave youth and beauteous maiden; prophets have been wrong before,

Generally are, in fact; why can’t they learn, and cease to bore?”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

“Then, look here! we’d best be parting, croaking fowl!” I cried, upstarting,

“You had better find your way to some Fools’ Paradise’s shore!

Leave no feather as a token of the rubbish you have spoken,

Leave my lonely rest unbroken, quit that bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my sight, and take thy blackness from my door!”

Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore!”

And the Raven still is squatting, my æsthetic paper blotting,

On the plaster bust of Dizzy, just above my chamber-door,

With his wall-eyes dully gleaming ’neath the nightmare of his dreaming,

And the gaslight o’er him streaming, casts his shadow on the floor;

But my soul in that black shadow that lies heavy on the floor,

Shall be shrouded—Nevermore!

Punch, January 10, 1880.

---

The Gold Digger.

Once upon an evening dreary, a gold-digger, tired and weary,

Cogitated very sadly, brain and bone and heart were sore,

For no gold came by his toiling, unkind fate seemed ever foiling

All his toilsome, weary efforts, and the keeper of the store

Had pitilessly stopped his credit; quoth the keeper of the store,

“I can’t tucker you no more.”

Wild and gloomy thoughts were tumbling through his head and set him grumbling,

And his voice in accents mumbling ’gan the harsh fates to implore,

That they’d come to some decision, either make him some provision,

Or at once their utmost fury on his willing head outpour—

“Either make me some provision, or your deadliest vials pour”—

He kept crying o’er and o’er.

Swearing, snapping, musing, napping, presently there came a tapping,

Quite an unaccustomed tapping at this fate-tossed digger’s door,

And it roused him from his musing with expectancy confusing,

Made him listen to that tapping on the night’s Plutonian shore,

Wond’ring what could cause that tapping on the night’s Plutonian shore,

Wondering, guessing, more and more.

Softly then he seized a waddy, quietly he bore his body

To that space within his hut, immediately behind the door;

And with easiest, gentlest motion, like the wave of summer ocean,

He hove up the latch that barred all ingress to his shanty floor,

Hove it up, and grasped his waddy, scanned the night’s Plutonian shore,

Saw the light, and nothing more.

Then cried he, “What shicer is it pays me this mysterious visit?

Is’t a snake or is’t a wild dog? either sneak I do abhor,

Well! I don’t know about funking, but I’ll just lie down my bunk in,

And I’ll leave the door wide open, open to what may explore

The old hut, and while exploring, if the explorer don’t get sore,

Cooey on me, nevermore.”

From the darkness came a fluttering, and a sort of subdued muttering

That developed into stuttering, stuttering at the open door;

And a lovely Cochin China, impudent as any Dinah,

Strutted proudly o’er the threshold like as he’d been there before,

Just as though he had a right that came all other rights before,

A right that still demanded more.

But a different opinion reigned without that small dominion;

There a calm recumbent digger eyed the proud bird o’er and o’er,

And then stealthily arising, with a cunning most surprising,

Ere Chanticleer had perceived it, he had fastened to the door;

Had made the door so very fast that the chanticleer’s uproar

Might undo it, nevermore.

Then said he, “This bird celestial may I civilly request he’ll

Now disclose the cause of his nocturnal tapping at my door?

Say! hath my good angel sent thee? Flutter not, nay, nay, content thee,

Thou shalt have as warm a welcome as e’er cocky had before,

Have a regular hot old welcome, such as others had before;

I can offer nothing more.”

Ah! the bird was very wary, and of eloquence quite chary,

No clear answer did it make him as it dodged about the floor,

Never thanked him for his kindness, but with worse than colour blindness,

It refused to see the goodness of the digger o’er and o’er,

Really flew from his advances, as esteeming him a bore,

And desiring such no more.

Spare my muse a dire narration, take the simple intimation

That by fell decapitation, Cocky weltered in his gore.

His shrill clarion brought to silence by a digger’s ruthless violence,

Never more at dawn of morning, or at close of day might pour

Its clear notes upon the air; might no matin solo pour;

Silenced quite for evermore.

Quite soon a mouth-moistening aroma, such as a famous cook’s diploma

Might certify that famed cook’s skill could draw from viands in his store,

Filled the hut. The pot was bubbling, Cochin China’s toil and troubling

Were at an end, and he was yielding grateful broth from every pore,

Yielding broth fit for a warden, that should our digger’s strength restore,

And make him a good feed once more.

’Twas no ardour scientific of immense results prolific,

Nor a questioning of his fortunes by the ancient heathen lore,

Still our much depressed hero, whose luck surely was at zero,

Was examining quite closely Cocky’s crop upon the floor,

Was inspecting it minutely on his knees upon the floor,

Close and closer, more and more.

Then he rose in great elation, no swell owner of a station

Could wear a more triumphant air than now our miner wore,

For while he had been dissecting he’d been curiously prospecting,

And Cocky’s crop had yielded yellow grains of golden ore.

“No bad prospect,” quoth our miner, “a good show of golden ore,

And around there must be more.”

When the morrow’s sun had lighted up the heavens, our miner dighted

In his clay-stained looking raiment sought the ground the fowls pecked o’er,

And with them he went a picking, and by dint of closely sticking

To his feathered mates he picked up quite a lot of golden ore—

Picked up nuggets large as brickbats, glorious lumps of golden ore,

Made a pile, and nothing more.

Newcastle Paper, April, 1880.

---

Quart Pot Creek.
(Australasian.)

On an evening ramble lately, as I wandered on sedately,

Linking curious fancies, modern, mediæval, and antique,—

Suddenly the sun descended, and a radiance ruby-splendid,

With the gleam of water blended, thrilled my sensitive physique,—

Thrilled me, filled me with emotion to the tips of my physique,

Fired my eye, and flushed my cheek.

Heeding not where I was going, I had wandered, all unknowing,

Where a river gently flowing caught the radiant ruby-streak;

And this new-found stream beguiling my sedateness into smiling,

Set me classically styling it with Latin names and Greek.

Names Idalian and Castalian such as lovers of the Greek,

Roll like quids within their cheek.

On its marge was many a burrow, many a mound, and many a furrow,

Where the fossickers of fortune play at Nature’s hide-and-seek;

And instead of bridge to span it, there were stepping-stones of granite,—

And where’er the river ran, it seemed of hidden wealth to speak.

Presently my soul grew stronger, and I, too, was fain to speak:—

I assumed a pose plastique.

“Stream,” said I, “I’ll celebrate thee! Rhymes and Rhythms galore await thee!

In the weekly ‘poets corner’ I’ll a niche for thee bespeak:

But to aid my lucubration, thou must tell thine appellation,

Tell thy Naiad-designation—for the Journal of next week—

Give thy sweet Pactolian title to my poem of next week.

Whisper, whisper it—in Greek!”

But the river gave no token, and the name remained unspoken,

Though I kept apostrophising till my voice became a shriek;—

When there hove in sight the figure of a homeward-veering digger,

Looming big, and looming bigger, and ejecting clouds of reek—

In fuliginous advance emitting clouds of noisome reek

From a tube beneath his beak.

“Neighbour mine,” said I, “and miner,”—here I showed a silver shiner—

“For a moment, and for sixpence, take thy pipe from out thy cheek.

This the guerdon of thy fame is; very cheap, indeed, the same is;

Tell me only what the name is—(’tis the stream whereof I speak)—

Name the Naiad-name Pactolian! Digger, I adjure thee, speak!”

Quoth the digger, “Quart Pot Creek.”

Oh, Pol! Edepol! Mecastor! Oh, most luckless poetaster!

I went home a trifle faster, in a twitter of a pique;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living rhyming being

Ever yet was cursed with seeing, in his poem for the week,

Brook or river made immortal in his poem for the week,

With such a name as “Quart Pot Creek!”

*  *  *  *  *

But the river, never minding, still is winding, still is winding,

By the gardens where the Mongol tends the cabbage and the leek;

And the ruby radiance nightly touches it with farewell lightly,

But the name sticks to it tightly,—and this sensitive physique,

The already-mentioned (vide supra) sensitive physique,

Shudders still at “Quart Pot Creek!”

Miscellaneous Poems. By J. Brunton Stephens.
London (Macmillan and Co.) 1880.

---

In 1881 a charming little volume of Essays, entitled, “Waifs,” was published by Messrs. Maclehose, of Glasgow. Mr. William Tait Ross, the author of these papers is well known in the northern capitals for his writings, published under the nom de plume of Herbert Martyne. One of the most humorous chapters in “Waifs” is entitled A Séance with a Sequel, which recounts the author’s experiences at a spiritualistic meeting in Glasgow. He there interviews the ghost of one of the geese who saved Rome; the spirit of a duck who sailed in Noah’s Ark; the spirit of the late lamented Cock Robin; of the mouse turned over by Robbie Burns’s plough; and of the donkey celebrated by the Poet Coleridge.

There is a good deal of dry humour in their replies, but the séance comes to an untimely end, owing to a wild outburst of spiritual enthusiasm on the part of the table used for communicating with the spirits.

This excitable piece of furniture suddenly made for the door, and was with difficulty restrained by four strong men. One of the party then getting alarmed, turned on the gas; in a moment all the commotion ceased; and so the séance ended.

“I will add,” says the author, “nothing by way of comment, except this, that the answers obtained from the various spirits seem to me to be even more sensible and important than those obtained at any séance recorded in the annals of spirit rapping.”

The chapter concludes with the following verses in imitation of “The Raven,” entitled—

A SEQUEL.

The Spirits.

Lately on a midnight dreary,

Sitting by the fire so cheery,

Listening to the storm that beat and blew

With blustering gust and roar;

While I sat serenely smoking,

Suddenly there came a knocking

As of some one rudely poking,

Poking at my chamber-door—

“’Tis some dirty ill-bred spirit

Knocking at my chamber-door—

Only that, and nothing more.”

But to face the audacious knocker,

I seized the shining poker,

While my heart went jumping, thumping,

As I never felt before;

For through the storm’s loud shrieking

I heard high voices speaking—

’Tis some thief’s ghost that is sneaking

On the outside of the door—

Some vile spirit entrance seeking

By the keyhole of the door—

This, perhaps, and nothing more.

Hesitating then no longer,

Presently my legs grew stronger,

And, brandishing the poker,

I strode towards the door;

When, without one word of fable,

The ponderous parlour-table

Marched as fast as it was able

Right across the parlour floor;

Danced across the room, and then assumed

Its post beside the door—

Which is true, and something more.

Outside louder grew the knockings,

Till I shook within my stockings,

And then there came a thundering bang,

Far louder than before;

While the ponderous parlour table

Danced as fast as it was able

Kicking up a noise like Babel,

Which I could not well explore;

Let my legs be firm a moment,

And this mystery explore—

’Tis a drunken man, no more.

For now I well remember,

In the dark days of December,

Full many a drouthy crony

Proceeds from door to door—

Pouring forth the flowing whiskey,

And, thereby getting frisky,

Plays many a curious plisky,

And raises many a splore—

It may be spirit rappers

On t’other side the door—

Only that, and nothing more.

So pulling up my breeches,

With many tugs and hitches,

I turned the key within the lock

And opened wide the door,

When arose a mighty bawling,

And a sudden stick came mauling,

That sent me quickly sprawling,

Sprawling on the parlour floor;

And I said that spirit rapping

I very much deplore—

I think I rather swore.

And, shouting for a bobby,

Till my voice rang through the lobby,

I made efforts to collect myself

Lying spilt upon the floor;

But it is a fact outrageous

That no guardian beak courageous,

With whiskers so umbrageous,

Hears, however loud you roar;

So, assisted by the poker,

I crawled towards the door—

Darkness there, and nothing more.

Still the table it kept prancing,

And a private hornpipe dancing,

As if its soul rejoiced to see

The sufferings that I bore.

Wrathful at the wooden joker,

I smashed it with the poker,

When the loud tumultuous knocker

Fled from my chamber door,

Shouting out, to spirit rappers,

“Never open wide your door any more.”

And I murmured, “Nevermore!”

---

The Drama Despondent!
(A Poe-etical Parody.)

As one evening in my study, seated by the firelight ruddy,

I was busily absorbing portions of dramatic lore,

Suddenly I heard a creaking, as of some one slyly sneaking

(Setting both the hinges squeaking), sneaking through my study door.

And I murmured, sotto voce, “Who’s that fiddling with the door?

Doubtless some unwelcome bore!”

“Come in!” I sternly muttered, while my breast with anger fluttered,

When there sidled in a Figure, such as ne’er was seen before;

Like some stagey apparition, in a woe-begone condition—

And it took up its position just inside my chamber-door.

“What might be your name?” I asked it. And it answered from the door—

“I’m the Drama!”—nothing more!

“Oh, indeed!” I said, politely. “Take a chair!” but that unsightly,

Not to say dejected Figure, an unwilling manner bore.

I remarked, “You seem in sorrow,—still bear up, perhaps to-morrow

(Though some trouble has beset you, which at present you deplore)

You may meet with better fortune, and be brilliant as of yore.”

Quoth the Drama, “Nevermore!”

“Why this tone of bitter anguish?” I inquired; “you seem to languish

’Neath some very dreadful burden; state the reason, I implore!

Tell me plainly, now, what is it, that has caused this sudden visit—

Why the unexpected entrance of your figure through my door?

Why that stagey exclamation that you uttered just before,—

That expression, ‘Nevermore?’”

Still it groaned, and I retreated, as that sentence it repeated.

“What! again?” I said. “Pray, drop it; though your grief is doubtless sore,

You can’t help trash being written for the theatres of Britain

And ‘swells’ won’t be always waiting for their ‘pets’ at each stage-door,

And ere long the undressed syrens, may be swept away galore.”

Quoth the Drama, “Nevermore!”

Then the poor old Drama, sneering, took the cue for disappearing,—

And it pulled its mantle round it, and stalked slowly to the door—

And its groan was something fearful, as it said in accents tearful,

As it sadly bent its optics on the carpet-covered floor—

“Look here, old poetic party, I shall bet you ten to four,—

’Twill be better, Nevermore!—

That is, hardly evermore!”

H. C. N.

The Entr’acte, February 11, 1882.

---

A Voice.

In the dusk, within my chamber, I sat and sadly pondered—

Pondered o’er life’s problems with my hand upon my brow.

“When,” I asked, “will adverse fortune cease to torment and oppress me?”

A voice from out the window, shrill and piercing, answered, “Now!”

Thrilled and startled by the answer, coming from an unknown being,

I said again: “If blessing is in store, oh tell me how

Release will come, and joy and peace? Say, when, when will it be?”

And through the open casement promptly came the answer “N-n-now!”

Half in fear and half in frenzy, for methought the being mocked me,

I said: “Unlock the mystery of my fate, or else I vow

To curse thee for thy falseness. Tell me when I shall have blessing.”

The weird, shrill voice responded still, as ever, only “N-n-ow-w!”

To my feet I sprang in anger, flinging wide the casement shutter:

“Djinn!” I shrieked, “or devil, or angelic being thou

Shalt say when peace wilt come and joy to calm my troubled spirit!”

The cat upon the moonlit shed below responded “N‑a‑ow‑w‑w!”

Free Press Flashes, 1883.

---

Dunraven.

(A November Night’s Vision, after reading Edgar Poe and the Earl of Dunraven’s Address on “Fair Trade,” delivered by him, as President of the National Fair Trade League, at Sheffield, on November 12th, 1884.)

Once upon a midnight dreary, as I pondered weak and weary

Over many a dry and tedious tome of economic lore,

Whilst I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a snapping

As of some small terrier yapping, yapping at my study-door,

’Tis old Ponto there, I muttered, yapping at my study-door,—

Only that, and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was early in November

When to town the wearied Member came, and thought the thing a bore.

Eagerly I hoped the morrow Salisbury some sense might borrow,

And I thought with ceaseless sorrow of the streamside and the moor,

Of the rare and radiant raptures of the streamside and the moor.

Heather’s sweep and trout-stream’s roar.

Open then I flung the doorway, when, with blast as chill as Norway,

In there stepped “Fair Trade” Dunraven, solemn as a monk of yore;

Not the least apology made he, though I thought his manners “shady,”

But, as stiff as Tate and Brady, stood within my study-door,

Underneath a bust of Cobden just above my study-door,—

Stood, and scowled, and nothing more.

Then this sombre guest, beguiling my tired spirit into smiling

By the doctrinaire decorum of the countenance he wore,

“Smugly trimmed and deftly shaven, though I trust I’m not a craven,

You have startled me, Dunraven,” said I, “yapping at my door.

Tell me what your little game is, late at night at this my door?”

Quoth Dunraven, “Tax once more!”

Much I chuckled (though urbanely) him to hear talk so insanely,

For his answer little wisdom, little relevancy bore;

And one cannot help agreeing no sane living human being

In “Fair Trade” salvation seeing, could come yapping at one’s door,

Snapping, late at night in winter, at a fellow’s study-door,

Just to bid him, “Tax once more!”

But Dunraven, standing lonely under Cobden’s bust, spake only

Those same words as though his creed in those few words he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered; calm he looked, and quite unfluttered,

Then unto myself I muttered, “Other fads have flown before;

Very soon this fad will vanish, as Protection did before.”

Quoth Dunraven, “Tax once more!”

Startled at the silence broken by reply so patly spoken,

“Doubtless,” said I, “what he utters is his only stock and store,—

Caught from some bad fiscal master, whom trade-loss or farm-disaster

Followed fast and followed faster, till his talk one burden bore,—

Till the dirges of his craft one economic burden bore,—

Of ‘Tax—tax Corn once more!’

“Prophet,” said I, “of things evil, Trade is going to the devil,

Is the plea of you and Lowther, Chaplin, many another bore.

Sophists dull, yet all undaunted, do you think the thing that’s wanted

By our land, depression-haunted,—tell me truly, I implore,—

Is it, can it be Protection? Answer plainly, I implore!”

Quoth Dunraven, “Tax once more!”

“Prophet,” said I, “of things evil, I don’t wish to be uncivil,

But, by heaven! this Fair Trade figment is becoming a big bore.

Think you Corn with taxes laden means an economic Aidenn

For that somewhat ancient maiden who ‘protected’ was of yore,

For that very ancient maiden, Agriculture?” With a roar

Yelled Dunraven “Tax once more!”

“Then it’s time that we were parting, Parroteer!” I cried, upstarting,

“Get thee back to silly Sheffield, twaddle on St. Stephen’s floor,

I require no further token of the rot your League hath spoken,

Fair Trade phalanx to be broken by experience sad and sore.

Take thy Beakey’s words to heart, who said Protection’s day was o’er!”

Quoth Dunraven, “Tax once more!”

And Dunraven, dolefuller waxing, still stands croaking of Corn-taxing,

Underneath the bust of Cobden, just above my study-door,

And his talk has all the seeming of a monomaniac’s dreaming—

Here I woke, and day was streaming through the lattice on the floor,

And I hope that no such vision e’er again my ears will bore

With the burden “Tax once more!”

Punch, November 22, 1884.

---

The Ravenous Bull and the Bicycle.
(With Apologies.)

My name is William Rory, and I’m going to tell a story,

Tell the story of an accident I’ve never told before.

How when coming home from Dover I felt myself in clover,

And I will say, moreover, that my feet were rather sore;

The landlord said, “You’ll rue it,”

But I said, “I mean to do it.” But I’ll do it nevermore.

And right well do I remember, ’twas early in September,

When that landlord said, “I’d rue it,” as he stood against the door,

When my feet were sore with walking for that day I had been stalking

Up and down the streets of Dover, where I’d never been before,

And I squinted at that landlord, and his warning did ignore.

But I’ll do it nevermore.

So says I, “You’re only joking, and at me it’s fun you’re poking.”

But the landlord looked quite solemn, and spat upon the floor.

And says he, “You must be silly to attempt a road so hilly.

And see the time for starting, why it’s just now striking four!

Pray, sir, now do not do it, but stay over, I implore.”

This he oft had said before.

But then he looked more willing, as I threw to him a shilling

To drink my health in whisky, as oft I’d done before.

And then I took my spanner, and all the bolts did hammer,

And tightened up the nuts, an operation I abhor,

Then I jumped into my saddle, shouting to him “au revoir.”

Only this, and nothing more.

And as I felt aweary, the road to me seemed dreary

Drearier than ever it had seemed to me before,

But I was weary’s master, and round the wheel went faster,

And like a wingèd demon, along the road I tore,

In an hour and three-quarters I had done of miles a score.

This I’d done, and nothing more.

And every minute faster, dreaming of no disaster,

Along the road, ’mid dust and stones, my bike her master bore.

While I my way was winging, I betook myself to singing,

When all my nerves were palsied by a distant sullen roar;

And that roaring stopped my singing, and thinks I it is a boar.

This I thought, and something more.

Just then a corner turning, my blood went through me burning,

For there in front, with fiery eyes, a bull straight for me tore.

A moment he stood eyeing, then bike and me sent flying,

The perspiration trickled down my skin from every pore,

And I rather think that in my flight I must have somehow swore.

Merely swore, and nothing more.

After such a fearful riot, I laid there on the quiet,

For he treated me so lively, and I wished the joke was o’er.

He had pitched me in a gutter, and my nerves were in a flutter,

And into a thousand pieces my new uniform he tore,

And says I he must be waiting for a taste of human gore.

This I said, and nothing more.

While in the gutter lying, I saw that bull go flying

Along the road, at such a speed he’d never gone before.

So I let him go and curs’d him, and prayed the fates might burst him,

For my bicycle he’d humbugged, and he’d made me “awful” sore,

And I felt he’d quite undone me, but he’d never do so more.

And I muttered nevermore.

I collected up the ruins of that nasty mad bull’s doin’s,

And straightway did I take them unto my cottage-door.

And my wife, when she espied me, said I wasn’t looking tidy.

And I told the awful story to the wife whom I adore,

And she said, “My dear, stop riding; do give up for evermore.”

And I have, for evermore.

A. J. Freeland.

Wheeling Annual, 1885.

---

A Cat-as-Trophy.

The other night as I lay musing, and my weary brain confusing o’er the topics of the day, suddenly I heard the rattling, as of serious hosts a-battling, as they mingled in the fray. “What’s that?” I cried, upstarting, and into the darkness darting, slap! I ran against the door. “Oh, ’tis “naught,” young Hornet grumbled, as o’er a huge arm-chair, I stumbled,” ’tis a flea, and nothing more.” “Then,” said I, my anger rising, for I thought it so surprising that a flea should thus offend, “do you think a small insect, sir, thus would all the air infect, sir? No, ’tis not a flea, my friend.”

Now becoming sorely frightened, round my waist my pants I tightened, and put on my coat and hat, and into the darkness peering, I saw, with trembling and much fearing, the glaring eyes of Thomas Cat, Esq.

With astonishment and wonder I gazed upon this son of thunder, as he sat upon the floor, when resolution taking, a rapid movement making, lo! I opened wide the door. “Now clear out,” I hoarsely shouted, as o’er my head my boot I flouted; take your presence from my floor!” Then, with air and mien majestic, this creature, called domestic, made his exit through the door. Made his exit without growling, neither was his voice heard howling, not a single word he said.—And with feelings much elated, to escape a doom so fated, I went back to my bed.

The Hornsey Hornet, October, 1866.

---

The End of “The Raven.”

You’ll remember that a Raven in my study found a haven

On a plaster bust of Pallas, just above my chamber-door;

And that with no sign of flitting, he persisted there in sitting

Till, I’m not above admitting, that I found that bird a bore.

Found him, as he sat and watched me, an indubitable bore,

With his dreary “Never more.”

But it was, in fact, my liver caused me so to shake and shiver,

And to think a common Raven supernatural influence bore;

I in truth had, after dining, been engaged some hours in “wining”—

To a grand old port inclining—which its date was ’44!

And it was this crusted vintage, of the season ’44,

Which had muddled me so sore.

But next morn my “Eno” taking, for my head was sadly aching,

I descended to my study, and a wicker cage I bore.

There the Raven sat undaunted, but I now was disenchanted,

And the sable fowl I taunted as I “H-s-s-h-d!” him from my door,

As I took up books and shied them till he flew from off my door,

Hoarsely croaking, “Never more!”

“Now, you stupid bird!” I muttered, as about the floor it fluttered.

“Now you’re sorry p’raps you came here from where’er you lived before?”

Scarcely had I time to ask it, when, upsetting first a casket,

My large-size waste-paper basket he attempted to explore,

Tore the papers with his beak, and tried its mysteries to explore,

Whilst I ope’d the cage’s door.

Ever in my actions quicker, I brought up the cage of wicker,

Placed it on the paper basket, and gave one loud “H-s-s-h!” once more.

When, with quite a storm of croaking, as though Dis himself invoking,

And apparently half choking, in it rushed old “Never more!”—

Right into the cage of wicker quickly popped old “Never more!”

And I smartly shut the door.

Then without the least compunction, booking to St. John’s Wood Junction,

To the “Zoo” my cage of wicker and its sable bird I bore.

Saw the excellent Curator, showed him the persistent prater—

Now in manner much sedater—and said, “Take him, I implore!

He’s a nuisance in my study, take him, Bartlett, I implore!”

And he answered, “Hand him o’er.”

“Be those words our sign of parting!” cried I, suddenly upstarting,

“Get you in amongst your kindred, where you doubtless were before.

You last night, I own, alarmed me (perhaps the cucumber had harmed me!),

And you for the moment charmed me with your ceaseless ‘Never more!’—

Gave me quite a turn by croaking out your hollow ‘Never more!’

But ‘Good-bye!’ all that is o’er!”

*  *  *  *  *

Last Bank Holiday, whilst walking at the Zoo, and idly talking,

Suddenly I heard low accents that recalled the days of yore;

And up to the cages nearing, and upon the perches peering—

There, with steak his beak besmearing, draggle-tailed, sat “Never more!”

Mutual was our recognition, and, in his debased condition, he too thought of heretofore;

For anon he hoarsely muttered, shook his draggled tail and

fluttered, drew a cork at me and swore—

Yes, distinctly drew three corks, and most indubitably swore!

Only that, and nothing more!

Funny Folks Annual, 1884.

---

Sequel to the “Raven.”

The author of the following was R. Allston Lavender, Jr., a maniac in the lunatic asylum at Raleigh, N.C. He fancied that it was dictated by the spirit of Edgar A. Poe:

Fires within my brain were burning,

Scorning life, despairing, yearning;

Hopeless, blinded in my anguish;

Through my body’s open door

Came a Raven, foul and sable,

Like those evil birds of fable,

Downward swooping where the drooping

Spectres haunt the Stygian’s shore.

Ghosts of agonies departed,

Festering wounds that long had smarted,

Broken vows, returnless mornings,

Griefs and miseries of yore,

By some art revived, undaunted,

I gazed steadfast; the enchanted,

Black, infernal Raven uttered

A wild dirge—not Evermore.

Gazing steady, gazing madly

On the bird, I spoke, and sadly

Broke down, too deep for scorning,

Sought for mercy to implore.

Turning to the bird, I blessed it—

In my bosom I caressed it;

Still it pierced my heart, and revelled

In the palpitating gore.

I grew mad; the crowning fancies,

Black weeds they—not blooming pansies—

Made me think the bird a spirit.

Bird, I cried, be bird no more;

Take a shape—be man, be devil,

Be a snake; rise in thy revel!

From thy banquet rise—be human!

I have seen thee oft before;

Thou art a bird, but something more.

Tapping, tapping, striking deeper,

Rousing pain, my body’s keeper,

Thou hast oft ere while sought entrance

At the heart’s great palace door;

Leave me, leave me, gloomy demon,

Fiend or spirit, most inhuman;

Strike me through, but first unveiling,

Let me scan thee o’er and o’er—

Thou art a bird, but something more.

Still with sable pinions flapping,

The great Raven tapping, tapping,

Struck into my breast his talons.

Vast his wings outspread, and o’er

All my nature cast a pallor,

But I strove with dying valor,

With the poinard of repulsion,

Striking through the form it wore—

Of a bird, and something more.

Oh! thou huge, infernal Raven,

Image that Hell’s King hath graven,

Image growing more gigantic,

Nursed beyond the Stygian shore,

Leave me, leave me, I beseech thee,

I would not of wrong, impeach thee;

I cried madly, then earth opened,

With a brazen earthquake roar.

Downward, downward, circling, speeding,

Cries of anguish still unheeding,

Striking through me with his talons,

Still the Raven shape he bore;

Unto Erebus we drifted,

His huge wings by thunder lifted,

Beat ’gainst drifts of white-flamed lightning,

Sprinkled red with human gore—

’Twas a bird, but demon more.

I’m no bird, “an angel brother,”

A bright spirit and none other,

I have waited, blissful tended

Thee for thirty years and more.

In thy wild, illusive madness;

In thy blight, disease and sadness,

I have sounded, tapping, tapping

At thy spirit’s Eden door,

Not a bird, but angel more.

In my Palmyrenian splendor,

In Zenobian regnance tender,

More than Roman thought Aurelian,

Were the kingly name I bore;

I have left my angel-palace,

Dropping in thy sorrow’s chalice

Consolation; oh! ’twas blessed,

Sweet thy pillow to bend o’er,

Not a bird, love’s angel more.

Shining down with light Elysian

Through the pearly gate of vision,

On thy tranced soul lighted fancy,

When across thy chamber-floor,

Fell the spirit moonlight laden,

Laden with soft dews from Aidenn,

Shaken downward, still Nepenthe

Drunk by dreaming bards of yore.

Eden is life’s mocking fever,

Where through citron groves for ever

Blow the spice winds, and the love-birds

Tell their raptures o’er and o’er,

From earth’s hell by Afrits haunted,

From its evil disenchanted,

I have borne thee, gaze upon me,

Didst thou see me ne’er before?

Then I wakened, if to waken

Be to dwell by grief, forsaken,

With the God who dwelt with angels

In the shining age of yore.

And I stood sublime, victorious,

While below lay earth with glorious

Realms of angels shining,

Crown-like on her temples evermore,

Not on earth, an Eden more.

Earth, I cried, thy clouds are shadows

From the Asphodelian meadows

Of the sky-world floating downward,

Early rains that from them pour;

Love’s own heaven thy mother bore thee,

And the Father God bends o’er thee,

’Tis His hand that crowns thy forehead,

Thou shalt live for evermore,

Not on earth, an Eden more.

As a gem has many gleamings,

And a day hath many beamings,

And a garden many roses

Thrilled with sweetness to the core;

So the soul hath many ages,

And the life’s book many pages,

But the heart’s great gospel opens

Where the Seraphims adore,

Not on earth, an Eden more.

I will write a book hereafter,

Cheerful as a baby’s laughter

When its mother’s breast o’er leans it,

On the sainted spirit shore;

Like Apollo, the far data,

I, the poet and the martyr,

Will chant paeans of soul music

That shall live for evermore,

Not a friend, a brother more.

American Paper.

In many instances, authors have selected the curious metre of “The Raven,” with its double echoes, and sonorous refrain, for imitation in poems of too serious a character to be styled Parodies. One clever poem of this description appeared a few years ago in “Lloyd’s Poetical Magazine,” and has recently been republished by its author, Mr. Ernest S. T. Harris-Bickford, of Camborne. It is entitled, “A Vigil Vision,” and is a very musical though rather sad poem, in form and versification much resembling “The Raven,” but having no refrain.

Any extracts would do it injustice, and it is too long to quote in full; moreover, it scarcely comes within the compass of this collection.

Before quitting “The Raven” and the parodies it has given rise to, it must be mentioned that Mr. J. H. Ingram has clearly pointed out that it was not in itself a perfectly original poem. Indeed Poe, himself, in his half-serious, half-jesting “Philosophy of Composition” remarks, “Of course, I pretend to no originality in either the rhythm, or the metre of “The Raven;” adding, however, that nothing approaching the peculiar combination of the verses into stanzas had ever been previously attempted.

The first printed version of “The Raven” appeared in the Evening Mirror (New York) on the 29th of January, 1845; in 1843 Poe had been writing for the New Mirror, another New York paper, which in the number for Saturday, October 14th, 1843, contained a poem in twelve stanzas, entitled Isadore. This poem was written by Mr. Albert Pike, a well-known American littérateur, and was prefaced by an editorial note, stating that the poem was one of the imagination only, as the Poet’s wife was then alive and perfectly well.

Isadore.

“Thou art lost to me for ever, I have lost thee, Isadore,—

Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom more.

Thy tender eyes will never more gaze fondly into mine,

Nor thine arms around me lovingly and trustingly entwine:

Thou art lost to me for ever, Isadore!”

“My footsteps through the rooms resound all sadly and forlore;

The garish sun shines flauntingly upon the unswept floor;

The mocking-bird still sits and sings a melancholy strain,

For my heart is like a heavy cloud that overflows with rain.

Thou art lost to me for ever, Isadore.”

*  *  *  *  *

“Thou art gone from me for ever, I have lost thee, Isadore!

And desolate and lonely shall I be for evermore.

If it were not for our children’s sake, I would not wish to stay,

But would pray to God most earnestly to let me pass away,—

And be joined to thee in Heaven, Isadore.”

In “Isadore” the most distinctive—the only salient—feature is the refrain with which each stanza concludes; the metre and rhythm are much less dexterously managed than in “The Raven,” but it was evidently the author’s intention to produce an effect similar to that which Poe, with superior skill, did subsequently create.

Annabel Lee.

I.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

II.

I was a child, and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

III.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came,

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

IV.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me;

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

V.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we;

And neither the angels in Heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

VI.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life, and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe.

(First published after the author’s death.)

---

Samuel Brown.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a dwelling down in town,

That a fellow there lived whom you may know,

By the name of Samuel Brown;

And this fellow he lived with no other thought

Than to our house to come down.

I was a child, and he was a child,

In that dwelling down in town,

But we loved with a love that was more than love,

I and my Samuel Brown,—

With a love that the ladies coveted,

Me and Samuel Brown.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

To that dwelling down in town,

A girl came out of her carriage, courting

My beautiful Samuel Brown;

So that her high-bred kinsmen came,

And bore away Samuel Brown,

And shut him up in a dwelling-house,

In a street quite up in the town.

The ladies not half so happy up there,

Went envying me and Brown;

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this dwelling down in town),

That the girl came out of the carriage by night,

Coquetting and getting my Samuel Brown.

But our love is more artful by far than the love

Of those who are older than we,—

Of many far wiser than we,—

And neither the girls that are living above,

Nor the girls that are down in town,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Samuel Brown.

For the morn never shines, without bringing me lines

From my beautiful Samuel Brown;

And the night’s never dark, but I sit in the park

With my beautiful Samuel Brown.

And often by day, I walk down in Broadway,

With my darling, my darling, my life and my stay,

To our dwelling down in town,

To our house in the street down town.

Poems and Parodies. By Phœbe Carey
(Ticknor, Reed, and Fields), Boston, United States, 1854.

---

The Cannibal Flea.

I.

It was many and many a year ago,

In a District styled E.C.,

That a monster dwelt whom I came to know

By the name of Cannibal Flea;

And the brute was possessed with no other thought

Than to live,—and to live on me!

II.

I was in bed, and he was in bed,

In the District named E.C.,

When first in his thirst, so accursed he burst

Upon me the Cannibal Flea!

With a bite that felt as if some one had driven

A bayonet into me!

III.

And this is the reason why long ago,

In that District called E.C.,

I tumbled out of my bed, willing

To capture the Cannibal Flea,

Who all the night, until morning came,

Kept boring away at me!

It wore me down to a skeleton,

In the District hight, E.C.

IV.

From the hour that I sought my bed—eleven—

Till daylight he tortured me,—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In that District named E.C.),

I so often jumped out of my bed by night,

Willing the killing of Cannibal Flea.

V.

But his hops they were longer by far than the hops

Of creatures much larger than he,—

Of parties more long-legged than he;

And neither the powder nor turpentine drops,

Nor the persons engaged by me,

Were so clever as ever to stop me the hop

Of the terrible Cannibal Flea.

VI.

For at night with a scream I am waked from my dream,

By the terrible Cannibal Flea,

And at morn I ne’er rise without the bites,—of such size!—

From the terrible Cannibal Flea;

So I’m forced to decide I’ll no longer reside

In the District—the District—where he doth abide,

The locality known as E.C.—

That is postally known as E.C.!

Tom Hood, the younger.

---

[3]The L. C. D. and the L. S. D.

It was many and many a year ago—

How many boots little to me—

That a railway was made, which you may know

By the name of the L. C. D.

Crowns have tottered, and armies have fought,

And Empires have ceased to be,

Since that line from city to sea was brought—

Absorbing much L. S. D.

A friend of my youth, long under the turf,

In a cinque port by the sea,

Once walking beside the rolling surf

On the sands thus spoke to me:

“A dear old Nunky, who sleeps in peace

In a sepulchre here by the sea,

Was graciously pleased on his decease,

To leave me some L. S. D.

“In Bank Consols, which are safe and sound,

But yield only percentage three,

While seven at least, all the season round

Might be shared from the L. C. D.”

I was a child, and he was a child,

And precious noodles we,

Who might as well in the ocean wild

Have scattered our L. S. D.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of many far wiser than we,

Who declared the first dividend meeting would prove

The last from the L. C. D.

But when through the hills and valleys of Kent

Our railway reached the sea,

We hoped at length our capital spent

Would return us some L. S. D.

But neither the increase of traffic and fares,

Nor the strangers from over the sea,

Did ever dissever a coin from our shares

In the profitless L. C. D.

Yet the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of a dividend yet to be,

After centuries past, to gladden at last

Our descendants with L. S. D.

Joseph Verey.

Hornet, February 5, 1873.

---

St. Rose of Lima, Peru (A.D. 1617.)

It was many and many a year ago,

In a World they call the New,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

As the blessed St. Rose of Peru;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than the penances she could do.

She was a child, yet never a child

Did holiness so pursue,

By morning and night, and by candle-light

In wisdom and grace she grew,

And ever would strive to all earthly faults

And pleasures to say adieu.

An angel in beauty, she thought it was right

To spoil it to mortals’ view,

She scratch’d it with briars, and burnt it in fires,

Until she was known by few;

(O maidens whose charms you but live to adorn

This never would do for you!)

But her fear of the world was more than her fear

Of loveliness losing its due—

Of tortures that thrill’d her through:

And neither the sackcloth she wore to her skin,

Nor her spiky belt thereto,

Could ever elicit the faintest complaint

From the blessed St. Rose of Peru.

When Love drew near with its honey’d words,

And tenderly tried to woo,

The name of wife and the joys of life

She rigidly would eschew.

She prick’d, for her sins, her head with pins,

And the blood in streamlets drew,

And tears they were spilt for her fancied guilt,

By the blessed St. Rose of Peru.

And oft she would fast, but to eat at last

The bitterest herbs she knew,

And all that was pleasant and good to the taste

In horror away she threw;

She stripp’d her garden of all sweet flowers,

And sow’d it with thorns and rue.

And angels would come and make her one

(In dreams) of their seraph crew,

And often the Fiend, in his beauty screen’d,

Her spirit would fain subdue,

But evil could only fail to prevail

With the blessed St. Rose of Peru.

And these are the reasons her fame would grow

In the World they call the New,

But youth wasn’t past ere the wintry blast

The flame of her life out-blew;

There issued a breath from the mouth of Death

Chilling and killing the Rose of Peru.

And many and many a year flew by

In that World they call the New,

While marvels divine were wrought at the shrine

Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru.

(I should beat my breast and be much distress’d

If you call’d this part untrue.)

But my teeth never ache but I think, as I wake,

Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru;

And my corns never shoot, but the woes I compute

Of the blessed St. Rose of Peru;

And so I decide my pangs to abide

Like her who suffer’d—and braved—and died

In the capital of Peru,

The region they call Peru.

Lays of the Saintly. By Walter Parke
(Vizetelly and Co.), London, 1882.

---

Beautiful B.

It was many and many a year ago,

By a theatre known as P.

That a little boy stood, whom now we know

By the name of Wilson B.

Whose soul was filled with no other thought

Than to act the Prince of D.

He was a boy, and still like a boy,

In that theatre known as P.,

He plays in a play, that is not mere play,

And as Hamlet Prince of D.,

With many a clutch at his manly breast,

And a smile that is sweet to see.

For this is the reason some time ago,

At his theatre known as P.,

In “Lights of London” and “Romany Rye,”

And the “Silver King” did he

Lead up to the higher “Claudian” rôle

Of poetic tragedee,

Till he’d raised the taste of that theatre

To Hamlet, Prince of D.

For Irving, o’er sated with London’s praise

Went once more across the sea.

Yes! that was the reason, as all men know,

And not the mere L. S. D.

That the Lyceum company, touring, had left

The coast clear for Wilson B.

But his rôle was more youthful by far than the rôle

Of actors more thrilling than he

Of parties intenser than he;

And neither the posing, nor withering smile,

Of a smothered agonee,

Can ever confuse his rôle with the rôle

Of the actor now over the sea.

The play never plays, without crowding the ways

To that theatre we’ve named P.

And the lamps are not lit, ’ere the crowd at the pit

Are waiting for Wilson B.

And all the night long he is there with his stride

Of his youth, his beauty, in lime-light’s pride

In the theatre there you still may see

Beautiful B. as Prince of D.

J. W. G. W., November, 1884.

(Written expressly for this collection, during the run of Hamlet at the Princess’s Theatre, London, with Mr. Wilson Barrett as the Prince of Denmark. Mr. Henry Irving, who had recently been performing the same part at the Lyceum, being then on tour in the United States.)

---

Annabel Lee.

’Twas more than a million years ago,

Or so, it seems to me,

That I used to prance around and beau

The beautiful Annabel Lee.

There were other girls in the neighbourhood

But none was a patch to she.

And this was the reason that long ago,

My love fell out of a tree,

And busted herself on a cruel rock;

A solemn sight to see,

For it spoiled the hat and gown and looks

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

We loved with a love that was lovely love,

I and my Annabel Lee,

And we went one day to gather the nuts

That men call hickoree—

And I stayed below in the rosy glow

While she shinned up the tree.

But no sooner up than down kerslup

Came the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And the pallid moon and the hectic noon

Bring gleams of dreams for me,

Of the desolate and the desperate fate

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

And I often think as I sink on the brink

Of slumber’s sea, of the warm pink link

That bound my soul to Annabel Lee;

And it wasn’t just best for her interest

To climb that hickory tree.

For had she stayed below with me,

We’d had no hickory nuts, may be,

But I would have had my Annabel Lee.

Mr. and Mrs. Spoopendyke. By Stanley Huntley,
of the “Brooklyn Eagle.”

Ulalume.

I.

The skies they were ashen and sober;

The leaves they were crispèd and sere,—

The leaves they were withering and sere;

It was night in the lonesome October

Of my most immemorial year;

It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,

In the misty mid region of Weir,—

It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,

In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

II.

Here once, through an alley Titanic

Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul,—

Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.

These were days when my heart was volcanic

As the scoriac rivers that roll,—

As the lavas that restlessly roll

Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek

In the ultimate climes of the pole,—

That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek

In the realms of the boreal pole.

III.

Our talk had been serious and sober,

But our thoughts they were palsied and sere,—

Our memories were treacherous and sere;

For we knew not the month was October,

And we marked not the night of the year!

(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)

We noted not the dim lake of Auber

(Though once we had journeyed down here),

Remembered not the dark tarn of Auber,

Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

*  *  *  *  *

VIII.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,

And tempted her out of her gloom—

And conquered her scruples and gloom;

And we passed to the end of the vista,

But were stopped by the door of a tomb—

By the door of a legended tomb,

And I said, “What is written, sweet sister,

On the door of this legended tomb?”

She replied, “Ulalume—Ulalume—

’Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”

*  *  *  *  *

Edgar A. Poe.

---

Paralune.
(A Poe-tic Fragment).

[A new moonshade, called a Paralune, has been introduced to preserve Ladies’ complexions from the alleged injurious effects of moonlight.]

Then I looked round for Sukey, and missed her;

But back she came bounding right soon;

And I said, “What’s the matter, sweet Sister?”

She pointed at once to the moon,

To the silvery sheeny full moon.

“Hang it, Sukey,” I cried, “you’re a twister!

What’s that? To explain were a boon.”

She replied, “Paralune! Paralune!

’Tis the moonshade, the new Paralune.”

Then she said, “She’s a danger is Dian,

A Satellite Ladies mistrust,

To the skin she is terribly tryin’,

And makes one’s complexion like dust.

Red, freckled, or dingy as dust—

Nay, tanned like the tawny-maned Lion.”

“What nonsense!” cried I, in disgust.

Sukey sobbed, “You’re unjust, you’re unjust!

And carry a moonshade I must!”

Then I melted, and tried to look pleasant,

And tempted her out ’neath the moon!

Explained the full disc and the crescent,

Each scoriac rock and lagoon;

And her moonshade she dropped very soon;

But next morning her nose was rubescent,

Her temper was much out of tune;

And she wailed, “Paralune! Paralune!

’Tis the fault of my lost Paralune!”

Punch, September 10, 1881.

---

The Willows.

The skies they were ashen and sober,

The streets they were dirty and drear;

It was night in the month of October,

Of my most immemorial year;

Like the skies I was perfectly sober,

As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,—

At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober,

And the willowy woodland, down here.

Here, once in an alley Titanic

Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,—

Of Ten-pins,—with Mary, my soul;

They were days when my heart was volcanic,

And impelled me to frequently roll,

And made me resistlessly roll,

Till my ten-strikes created a panic

In the realms of the Boreal pole,

Till my ten-strikes created a panic

With the monkey atop of his pole.

I repeat, I was perfectly sober,

But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,—

My thoughts were decidedly queer;

For I knew not the month was October,

And I marked not the night of the year;

I forgot that sweet morceau of Auber

That the band oft performed down here,

And I mixed the sweet music of Auber

With the Nightingale’s music of Shear.

And now as the night was senescent,

And the star-dials pointed to morn,

And car-drivers hinted of morn.

At the end of the path a liquescent

And bibulous lustre was born;

’Twas made by the bar-keeper present,

Who mixéd a duplicate horn,—

His two hands describing a crescent

Distinct with a duplicate horn.

And I said: “This looks perfectly regal,

For its warm, and I know I feel dry,—

I am confident that I feel dry;

We have come past the emeu and eagle,

And watched the gay monkey on high;

Let us drink to the emeu and eagle,—

To the swan and the monkey on high,—

To the eagle and monkey on high;

For this bar-keeper will not enveigle,—

Bully boy with the vitreous eye;

He surely would never inveigle,—

Sweet youth with the crystalline eye.”

But Mary, uplifting her finger,

Said, “Sadly this bar I mistrust,—

I fear that this bar does not trust.

O hasten! O let us not linger!

O fly,—let us fly,—ere we must!”

In terror she cried, letting sink her

Parasol till it trailed in the dust,—

In agony sobbed, letting sink her

Parasol till it trailed in the dust,—

Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

Then I pacified Mary and kissed her,

And tempted her into the room,

And conquered her scruples and gloom;

And we passed to the end of the vista,

But were stopped by the warning of doom,—

By some words that were warning of doom,

And I said, “What is written, sweet sister,

At the opposite end of the room?”

She sobbed, as she answered, “All liquors

Must be paid for ere leaving the room.”

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober,

As the streets were deserted and drear,—

For my pockets were empty and drear;

And I cried, “It was surely October,

On this very night of last year,

That I journeyed—I journeyed down here,—

That I brought a fair maiden down here,

On this night of all nights in the year,

Ah! to me that inscription is clear;

Well I know now, I’m perfectly sober,

Why no longer they credit me here,—

Well I know now that music of Auber,

And this Nightingale, kept by one Shear.”

Bret Harte.

——:o:——

What is in a Name.
(From “Ravings,” by E. A. Poe—t.)

The autumn upon us was rushing,

The parks were deserted and lone—

The streets were unpeopled and lone;

My foot through the sere leaves was brushing,

That over the pathway were strown—

By the wind in its wanderings strown.

I sighed—for my feelings were gushing

Round Mnemosyne’s porphyry throne,

Like lava liquescent lay gushing,

And rose to the porphyry throne—

To the filigree footstool were gushing,

That stands on the steps of that throne—

On the solid stone steps of that throne.

I cried—“Shall the winter leaves fret us?”

Oh, turn—we must turn to the fruit,

To the freshness and force of the fruit!

To the gifts wherewith autumn has met us—

Her music that never grows mute

(That maunders but never grows mute),

The tendrils, the vine branches net us,

The lily, the lettuce, the lute—

The esculent, succulent lettuce,

And the languishing lily, and lute;—

Yes;—the lotos-like leaves of the lettuce;

Late lily and lingering lute.

“Then come—let us fly from the city!

Let us travel in orient isles—

In the purple of orient isles—

Oh, bear me—yes, bear me in pity

To climes where a sun ever smiles—

Ever smoothly and speciously smiles!

Where the swarth-browed Arabian’s wild ditty

Enhances pyramidal piles:

Where his wild, weird, and wonderful ditty

Awakens pyramidal piles—

Yes:—his pointless perpetual ditty

Perplexes pyramidal piles!”

Vere Vereker’s Vengeance, by Thomas Hood.

J. C. Hotten, London, 1865.

——:o:——

You’ll Resume!
Air (more or less) “Ulalume.”
Premier sings—

I had passed through a Session Satanic,

And Irish, with “Pussy,”[4] sleek Peer.

Those were the days of explosion volcanic,

The nights of delirium drear,

Long speeches, and labours Titanic,

Pat outrage, Egyptian panic,

Rude ruction, Obstruction, and fear,

French shirking, and shyness Germanic—

A most unforgettable year!

The Session, in fact, was a twister,

Had filled us with doubt and with gloom;

But we’d got to the end of its vista,[5]

For starry-eyed Hope there seemed room.

We could flee from Big Ben’s heavy boom.

Yet Forecast, Hope’s heavy-browed sister,

Kept whispering words of dark doom

In my ear, “You’ll resume! You’ll resume!

In two months from to-day, you’ll resume!”

“We are off!” Pussy cried. “This is pleasant!

How jolly! From Westminster far!”

“Ah, precisely,” said I, “for the present!”

Cried he, “What a croaker you are!

What a—well Grand old Croaker you are!

Let us think of the grouse and the pheasant,

And not of St. Stephen’s war,

Of popping at partridge and pheasant,

Not worry, and Warton, and war.”

Then I said, “My dear Pussy, be sober!

Remember we’re bound to be here

By the end of the month of October,

Of this unforgettable year—

By the twenty-fourth day of October.

This very identical year.

Ha! doesn’t that make you feel queer?”

“We shall yet have to work, Puss, like winking.

Tourists? Cloture-ists also I trust.

Obstruction to fight without shrinking

Will call us all back—come we must,

To St. Stephens’s shindy and dust.”

“Oh, hang it!” cried Puss, his face sinking;

“That bothering Cloture be—bust!”

Then I pacified Pussy, and chid him

For giving vulgarity room.

And he promised to do as I bid him,

But there passed o’er his features a gloom—

A settled and sable-hued gloom—

As black as the pall o’er a tomb.

And I said—of it hoping to rid him—

“Dear Puss, what’s the cause of this gloom?”

He replied, “You’ll resume! You’ll resume!

’Tis the thought of those words, You’ll resume!”

Punch, August 26, 1882.

——:o:——

Hope: An Allegory.

The metre of this Poem is adapted from Edgar A. Poe’s “Ulalume.”

King Phœbus came forth in his splendour

Bedight in his garments of gold,

And round the young treelings so tender,

His raiments of rays did enfold—

Round Hebe, the young and the slender,

His mantle of magic he roll’d,

To keep her from blight and defend her

From sorrow, temptation, or cold.

And while he with Hebe was walking—

Whose face in the flow’rs was seen—

In the rosebud with red in between—

Violet-veined Venus came talking—

Oh! talking with Love came his queen,—

With Cupid she talking was seen;

With Cupid for hearts she was hawking—

Was hawking o’er Hebe’s own green,

To snare the warm heart of the Sun-king

From Hebe, its self-chosen queen.

And while the young pair were still parting,

To Phœbus came blue-eyed Love;

To the Sun-king came Venus’s dove,

And then, from the bushes, upstarting,

Soared into a cloudlet above.

Then came from his bow swiftly darting

An arrow—the arrow of Love.

With the pain King Phœbus was sobbing,

When Venus came by with her balms,

And eased the Sun-king of his throbbing,

As he lay in her beautiful arms;

The wound of its pain quickly robbing;

She sooth’d him with nepenthè calms;

She sooth’d the Sun-king in his sobbing,

By the sound of her Letheian psalms.

Then King Phœbus with poppies she crown’d,

While Somnus o’erwhelm’d him with sleep;

And with slumber his senses they drown’d,

And they soundly his senses did steep;

And Venus her arms then unwound,

While out of his heart Love did leap,

And they left him alone on the ground—

They left him alone in deep sleep.

*  *  *  *  *

Fair Hebe was haunted with sorrow

While, alas! on the sad to-morrow,

Phœbus trod through the dreamy hours—

Sought alone the blighted bowers.

Not a glimpse of hope could he borrow—

Ever lost to this world of ours!

While Venus ne’er stayed to console him

But fled in the night and the gloom;

E’en Love never stayed to condole him,

But fled when young Hope lost her bloom;

E’en Somnus no more can control him—

Death’s darkness before him doth loom,

And pale death must soon be his doom;

And they’ll bury him deep in Hope’s tomb.

And fair Hebe no more can return,

Until the death of life is done,

Until the race of life is run,

And the future vanquish’d, yet won,

And the goal eternal won—

Till she’s drunk of the Letheian river,

And Phœbus and Hope have for ever

Mingled their beings in one.

This imitation of Ulalume, written by Mr. John H. Ingram, was published in 1863, when its author was in his teens. The little volume which contained it, entitled “Poems by Dalton Stone,” has been suppressed, and is now very scarce.

——:o:——

LENORE.

I.

Ah! broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown for ever!

Let the bell toll! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;

And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?—weep now, or nevermore!

See, on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love Lenore!

Come, let the burial rite be read, the funeral song be sung;

An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young,—

A dirge for her, the doubly dead, in that she died so young.

II.

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,

And when she fell in feeble health ye blessed her, that she died!

How shall the ritual, then, be read—the requiem how be sung,

By you—by yours, the evil eye—by yours, the slanderous tongue,

That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young.”

III.

Peccavimus; but rave not thus; and let a Sabbath song

Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong:

The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,

Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride;

For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,

The life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes,—

The life still there upon her hair, the death upon her eyes.

IV.

“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,

But waft the angel on her flight with a pæan of old days.

Let no bell toll; lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,

Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnèd earth.

To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven;

From hell unto a high estate far up within the heaven,

From grief and groan, to a golden throne beside the King of heaven.”

Edgar Allan Poe.

This poem was published in 1844, and it has been suggested that it was probably founded on the melancholy fate of Lady Flora Hastings. This lady, who was attached to the Royal Household, became the victim of rumours affecting her reputation, and was very severely treated by the Queen and the Duchess of Kent. Although the innocence of Lady Flora was subsequently clearly established, she was unable to survive the disgrace and injustice inflicted on her, and died in July, 1839. But Lenore although published in 1844 was merely a revision of a poem which had appeared in an early volume of Poe’s writings, before the Lady Flora Hastings scandal.

——:o:——

THE SUPPER OF THE FOUR.
Remiges quinque a Nunehamo reversi in Ricardi hospitis
cœnaculum intrant, ex quibus quidam sic loquitur:

“Ah! ’pon my word, you fellows, I’m as tired as I was ever!

For supper shout, and let the scout know we’re come from the river;

And a cushion quick! a cushion, Dick, give now or nevermore,

For on this bare cane-bottom chair I will not sit: I’m sore.

Come let the mackerel soused be brought, the pigeon-pie, the tongue,

The cider-cup and straws, and let the radishes be young;

Oh! William, bring the radishes, and William, bring them young.”

Cui Speculator.

“Commons for five, sir, pigeon-pie, I’m ordered to provide,

And beer as usual, I suppose, and cider-cup beside.

The mackerel soused, sir, shall be brought, and ham, and lamb, and tongue,

And potted meats, and salad too, and radishes, sir, young;

I’ll get them if I can, and, sir, I’ll try to get them young.”

Horrenda post cœnam voce cantantes cœteros sic excipit Ricardus hospes:

“Cœnavimus; but howl not thus: let our Noachian song

Float on the air so tunefully the dean may feel no wrong.”

Noachii Carminis epitome:

“St. James’s Park received the ark on its primeval tide,[6]

All creatures wild thereto beguiled were stabled safe inside;

By ones, by pairs, they mount the stairs, they mount by threes and fours,

Fowls came from perches, beasts from lairs, and thronged about the doors,

By five, by six, by seven, by eight, by nine, by ten, by scores.”

Tum solito hilarior factus hospes olim tristissimus exclamat:

“Hurrah! to-night my heart is light! no blues I’ll conjure up,

But drown the demons out of sight in a draught of cider-cup;

We’ll drain it dry, then let us try to soothe our temperate mirth,

The comfort of post-prandial pipe, ere each one seek his berth,

May health to all our friends and bane to all our foes be given!”

Propinant omnes.

Now for the pipe and then to sleep, like to the sleepers seven,

From toil and boose to snore and snooze sound as the sleepers seven.

Odd Echoes from Oxford, by A. Merion, B.A.

London, J. C. Hotten, 1872.

FOR ANNIE.

I.

Thank Heaven, the crisis,

The danger is past,

And the lingering illness

Is over at last;

And the fever called “living”

Is conquered at last.

II.

Sadly I know

I am shorn of my strength,

And no muscle I move

As I lie at full length;

But no matter; I feel

I am better at length.

*  *  *  *  *

VIII.

And, ah! let it never

Be foolishly said

That my room it is gloomy

And narrow my bed;

For man never slept

In a different bed—

And, to sleep, you must slumber

In just such a bed.

*  *  *  *  *

Edgar A. Poe.

——:o:——

Tristan and Isolde.
(By one who does not appreciate Wagner.)

Thank heaven the music

Is silent at last,

And the howling trombones

Have ended their blast;

And the opera called ‘Tristan’

Is finished at last.

Sadly I know

Of its “wonderful strength”

As I dared not to move

Through its wearisome length;

But no matter I feel

It is quiet—at length.

For I could not be dozing,

Nor yet nod my head,

Lest any stall holder

Should fancy me dead;

To the beauty of Wagner

(Alas! I was dead.)

The moaning and groaning,

The shrieking and sobbing,

All quieted now

With that horrible throbbing

Of fiddles,—that horrible

Horrible throbbing.

The noise and the bluster,

The leitmotif’s pain;

The pitiless torture

Of melody vain;

The “melody endless,”

That torturing strain.

For oh! of all tortures,

That motif was worst,

That creepingly crawling

Motif at first;

That writhed like a serpent

And did all its worst

To crush all one’s senses

Of tune, from the first.

The music roared on

An inferno of sound,

That’s heard by a few

Very far underground,—

In a place that’s not quoted

Far under the ground.

And oh! let it never

Be foolishly said,

That Wagner’s not gloomy,

Altho’ he be dead,—

And nothing but good

Should be said of the dead;

Yet that were too awful

A lie, tho’ he’s dead.

Tho’ my heart is a stout one

And feels passing bold, a

World full of perils

I’d dare, but for gold, a

Fortune past counting

I’d shrink to behold, a—

Again that mad opera

Tristan and Isolde.

J. W. G. W., 1884.

(Written expressly for this collection).

Covent Garden.
By a Lover of Poe-try.

A Garden of gardens it teaches

The bard, ever blatant, to bless

The pumpkins, the plums, and the peaches,

The salads not easy to dress;—

Pears, pumpkins, and pulpiest peaches,

Camelia, cabbage, and cress,

The pumpkins, the pippins, the peaches

Cut cabbage, and crisply curled cress!

Oh, of luscious luxurious lunches,

The poet loves one lunch, and that’s

Of bananas in bountiful bunches,

And melons as big as your hats,

Black currants, bananas in bunches,

And cocoa nuts, mothers of mats—

For of science if you are a lover

You’ll know they’re the mothers of mats,

That the cocoa nut’s cortical cover

Machinery makes into mats,

Into fuscous and fibre-fringed mats.

Fun, July 20, 1867.

——:o:——

Hygiea.

(A sanitary Lyric, imitated from Edgar Poe’s “Ligiea,”
and dedicated by Mr. Punch to Dr. Richardson.)

Hygiea! Hygiea!

Most exigent one!

I have an idea

Thou pokest thy fun.

Oh! is it thy will

To make noodles of us,

By urging us still

So to worry and fuss

Concerning our bodies,

What’s eaten, what’s drunk,

Until we’re mere noddies

In chronic blue funk?

Hygiea, thou’rt clever;

But, ’twixt you and me,

To fidget for ever

Is fiddle-de-dee.

We mustn’t eat this,

And we mustn’t drink that,

Lest sound health we should miss,

Grow too thin or too fat,

Must go in for analysis

Of all “grub” about

Lest we court cramp, paralysis,

Fever, or gout;

Mustn’t travel by rail,

Must shun riding in cabs;

Must,—but time would quite fail

To tell half of thy “fads.”

If a mortal (I think)

Could such vigilance keep,

He would ne’er eat or drink,

He would ne’er toil or sleep.

Sanitas sanitatum

Is all very fine;

But my ultimatum

Is this—I must dine!

And if I stop grubbing

Till all’s fair and clear,

I shall do nought but “tubbing”

For many a year.

Esculapius’ daughter,

With thee I agree,

Pure air and cold water,

Are needful to me;

But perpetual worry

’Bout stomachs and nerves,

And this, that, and ’tother,

No good purpose serves.

“Nine Systems,” Hygiea,

Perhaps I possess,

Though I’d an idea

The number was less.

But to square work and feast

By the rules thou art giving,

Would take nine lives at least,

And not one much worth living.

Punch, October 23, 1880.

——:o:——

A NEW POEM SAID TO BE BY POE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY GRAPHIC.

“So many spurious poems purporting to be by Poe are now brought forward for public approbation that I feel some hesitation in yielding to my inclination to send you the following, which first appeared in the Looking Glass some years ago, and which I have very slight reason to believe was written by Poe himself, as it is quite as characteristic as anything of the sort I have seen in a number of years.

Frantic Jerry Foodle.”

The Demon of the Doldrums.

One night I lay a-dreaming,

In the moonlight that was streaming

In a flood of liquid glory,

Pouring on my counterpane;

Up and down were goblins tumbling,

On the slanting beams, and crumbling

’Twixt their fingers all the moonlight

In a shower of golden rain.

And some a crimson liquor

Caught and poured it in a bicker

Crowned with crystal listel pistils

Of some rare and wondrous rose,

Whose penetrative fragrance,

In its sinuous mystic vagrance,

Filled my chamber with an odor

That none merely mortal knows.

Ah! that odor—who can tell it?

None but ghouls and angels smell it

Oinoglyphic, soporific,

Hedonific, and divine.

And it seemed as if a censer

Full of pastiles, but immenser

Than a tun of old Madeira

Had been emptied of its wine.

Then methought that with a wobblin’

Strode a lynx-eyed mouse-backed goblin

Down from off the ebon footboard

And along the silken quilt,

And within the moonlight glinting

Capered with a demon squinting,

And a winking and a drinking,

And a horrid, nasty lilt.

Ah! my lips were as dry as paper

When I saw the demon caper,

As with finger pointing ever

At the opalescent bowl

He kept laughing, he kept quaffing,

With his nose much more than half in

That liquor, which did flicker

Like a burning human soul.

Ah! I longed but once to taste it

(As I saw the demon waste it),

And my coppers, hot as stoppers

Of a bowl of molten lead,

Ached to quaff that golden liquor,

From the bicker quick and quicker,

And to roll it down my gullet,

As I tossed upon my bed.

Swift I stretched my hand to seize it,

When I heard a voice cry “Cheese it!”

And my head against the bed-post

Falling, crashing, came ca-bunk;

And the demons did evanish,

Like to spirits walking Spanish,

And I heard much lively chinning

’Bout a man who would get drunk.

Another Chapter
on
“The Raven.”

---

On page 217 of the second volume of the life of Edgar Allan Poe, Mr. J. H. Ingram quotes the following extract from one of his letters:—“Have you seen ‘The Moral for Authors’ a new Satire by J. E. Tuel? Who, in the name of Heaven, is J. E. Tuel? The book is miserably stupid! He has a long parody of the ‘Raven’—in fact, nearly the whole thing seems to be aimed at me. If you have not seen it and wish to see it I will send it.”

Poe was well within the mark when he stigmatised “The Moral for Authors” as a miserably stupid production. It was published in 1849 by Stringer and Townsend of New York, and consisted of forty-eight pages of rhyme almost entirely destitute of reason. On one page, it is true, the author vainly attempts a feeble parody of Lord Macaulay’s style, and there is, of course, the parody of the “Raven.” As Poe, himself, has alluded to this, students of his life and works may probably wish to refer to it, which they would have great difficulty in doing as copies of the pamphlet are now exceedingly scarce. I therefore reprint the parody in full, from a copy kindly lent me by Mr. J. H. Ingram.

It is dated from the—

PLUTONIAN SHORE,

Raven Creek, In the Year of Poetry

Before the Dismal Ages, A.D. 18——

“Once upon a midnight dreary, as I ponder’d weak and weary

Over many a weary volume of recent published lore—

While I nodded o’er ‘The Sleeper,[7]’ suddenly I heard a creeper,

As of some one peering deeper-deeper in my chamber door;

’Tis some author new, I mutter’d, or some other midnight bore;

Only this and nothing more!”

“Oh! distinctly I that volume do remember in its solemn

And sleepy double column as it fell upon the floor—

Eagerly I wished to borrow from ‘Cooper’s Last’ of sorrow,

Or my own dark books of horror—horror for having more!

A sure cure for the blues, which were darkly creeping o’er

My ‘Dream,’ and nothing more.”

“And the bleak and dread re-over turning of each volume cover

Chill’d me—filled me with fantastic poems, never penned before,

So that, to still the rushing of my thoughts towards the head-in,

I said, “tis an author sure, entreating entrance through the key-hole door;

A waylaid child of Poetry on a midnight ‘bust,’ or more,

Or else some other bore.’”

“Presently my pen grew fiery,—hesitating an inquiry,

‘Sir,’ said I (or Madman!), ‘truly your late visit I deplore;

For the fact is, I’m inditing a piece of murky writing,

And so unseeming you came lighting, lighting on my chamber door,

Which was never done before’—here he bolted in the door,

And sat down upon the floor.”

“Then this strange trick beguiling my phrenzy into smiling,

By the cool audacious impudence his brazen features wore—

Tho’ thy hat is old and napless, thou, I said, art sure not sapless,

Young and tender in thy hapless wand’rings from thy mother’s shore;

Tell me why thy business here is on this dark and dismal floor?”

Quoth the Author, ‘Read this o’er.’”

“Much I wonder’d this ambitious youth to see an act so vicious,

Tho’ its answer good deal meaning, I voted him a bore—

For we cannot help believing that no genius living grieving

Ever yet was blind in seeing a Manuscript read o’er

By the ‘Reader’ in a book-shop, or Book-boy in a store,

Yet he cried on, ‘Read it o’er!’”

“Startled at the stillness broken by reply so greenly spoken,

Said I, ‘Before like Poe you flutter you should like Bryant soar

Forc’d from some disaster—perhaps you think to master

Something in the Markette faster, faster than was ever sold before

Till the bird-en of your hopes is ‘Read it o’er—read it o’er.’

Quoth the Author, ‘Nothing more!’”

“But the Author still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I plac’d the faded Manuscript in front of Author, book and door,

Then into its beauties sinking, I betook myself to thinking

What this young aspiring Author with his Manuscript, and more;

What this bold, presumptuous Youth, with his head bor’d through a bore,

Meant in saying, ‘Read it o’er!’”

“Thus I sat, engaged in reading, but no syllable revealing,

To the Youth, whose fiery eyes roll’d a fiery phrenzy o’er,

And o’er its pages turning, with thoughts of mystic learning,

I began a critique burning on its Mathews style and more,

When coming to a chapter, which I heartily did deplore,

Cried the Author, ‘Read it o’er.’”

“Then methought the style grew duller, and the hero rather fuller

Of thoughts which even Blue-pard never gloated o’er.

‘Man!’ I cried, ‘thy brain has turn’d thee—by this chapter I have learn’d thee;

‘Re-write—re-write—and re-pen thee these pages blotted o’er—

‘Take-oh! take it, and re-pen-t thee—and correct these pages more:

Cried the author, ‘Read it o’er.’”

“‘Author!’ said I, ‘Imp of Evil—Author great, or Good or Devil,

Whether Putnam sent or Harper toss’d thee here ashore,

Dull and stupid, yet undaunted—on this sheet romantic wasted—

On this floor by volumes haunted—tell me plainly, I implore,

Is there—is there sense in this? tell me, tell me, I implore;

Quoth the author, ‘Read it o’er!’”

“‘Author!” said I, “thing of peril—of paper, ink and ferrel,

By that Public which looks over us—by that Fame we both adore,

Tell this head with furies laden if, within the distant trade-en

It shall find in man or maiden one to read its pages o’er,

And yet the chorus of your melody is ‘Read it o’er—read it o’er.’

Quoth the Author, ‘Nothing more!’”

“Be that word our sign of parting, Author, Fiend, ‘I shrieked upstarting,

Get thee back unto the Harpers on Cliff Street’s Plutonian shore,

Leave no blank page as a token of that word thy tongue has spoken,

Leave my murky thoughts unbroken—quit the threshold of my door,

Take thy Manuscript ‘out’ with thee and take thyself from out my door.’

Quoth the Author, ‘Read it o’er!’”

“And the Author never flitting still is sitting, still is sitting

On a bust of pallid Manuscripts just above my chamber door;

And his pen has all the seeming of an engine ever teeming,

And the smoke that’s from it streaming throws his shadow on the floor

And the only words this engine repeats is ‘Read it o’er, Read it o’er,’

And nothing more.”

——:o:——

THE GOBLIN GOOSE.
A Christmas Nightmare.

Once, it happened I’d been dining, on my couch I slept reclining,

And awoke with moonlight shining brightly on my bedroom floor;

It was in the bleak December, Christmas night as I remember,

But I had no dying ember, as Poe had; when near the door,

Like a gastronomic goblin just beside my chamber door,

Stood a bird,—and nothing more.

And I said, for I’m no craven, “Are you Edgar’s famous raven,

Seeking as with him a haven—were you mixed up with Lenore?”

Then the bird uprose and fluttered, and this sentence strange he uttered—

“Hang Lenore,” he mildly muttered; “you have seen me once before,

Seen me on this festive Christmas, seen me surely once before.

I’m the Goose,”—and nothing more.

Then he murmured, “Are you ready?” and with motion slow and steady,

Straight he leapt upon my bed. I simply gave a stifled roar;

And I cried, “As I’m a sinner, at a Goose Club I was winner,

’Tis a mem’ry of my dinner, which I ate at half-past four;

Goose well stuffed with sage and onions, which I ate at half-past four.”

Quoth he hoarsely, “Eat no more!”

Said I, “I’ve enjoyed your juices, breast and back; but tell me, Goose, is

This revenge, and what the use is of your being such a bore?

For goose-flesh I will no more ‘ax’ if you’ll not sit on my thorax.

Go, try honey mixed with borax, for I hear your throat is sore;

You speak gruffly though too plainly, and I’m sure your throat is sore.”

Quoth the nightmare, “Eat no more!”

“Goose!” I shrieked out, “Leave, oh, leave me! surely you don’t mean to grieve me?

You are heavy, pray reprieve me, now my penance must be o’er;

Though to-night you’ve brought me sorrow, comfort surely comes to-morrow.

Some relief from thee I’d borrow at my doctor’s ample store,

There are pills of purest azure in that doctor’s ample store.”

Quoth the goblin, “Eat no more!”

And that fat Goose, never flitting, like a nightmare still is sitting

With me all the night, emitting words that thrill my bosom’s core;

Now, throughout the Christmas season, while I lie and gasp and wheeze, on

Me he sits, until my reason nothing surely can restore,

I am driven mad, and reason nothing surely can restore;

While that Goose says, “Eat no more.”

Punch, January 1, 1881.

——:o:——

The College Craven.

Once when in the evening walking, with my darling softly talking,

Wandering by the shining river, as we’d often done before;

While the clear full moon was beaming, on the flowing waters gleaming,

And the little waves were streaming, streaming, rippling towards the shore

Like small bars of silver dancing, gliding in towards the shore,

Noiseless save for splash of oar.

Oh, distinctly I remember ’twas in bright and clear September

Soon after I had returned to this ancient seat of lore,

Vainly I had sought to borrow from my books surcease to sorrow,

Fearing, dreading that the harrow would pass over me once more,

Little hoped I for Testamur, dreading to be ploughed once more,

Ploughed perhaps for evermore.

So I pondered deeply thinking, fancy into fancy linking,

Balmy air of cool night drinking soothingly through every pore.

Whilst I wandered with my dearest, and the moon was at her clearest,

Earth to heaven seemed the nearest it had ever been before;

Life was sweeter at that moment than it had ever been before,

Than it will be evermore.

Thus while we were gently strolling, pleasant thoughts our minds enrolling,

Suddenly I heard a footstep that I had not heard before,

And I felt my blood run colder, and in fact was no way bolder,

As I felt upon my shoulder the “bulldog’s” hand I so abhor,

Then he said with gleeful malice those old words I so abhor

“The proctor wants you,” nothing more.

“Bulldog,” cried I, “thing of evil, how I wish you at the devil,”

But the “bulldog,” most ferocious, never let me from his paw,

But before the proctor hurried, who my wits completely flurried,

Since they were already worried, “Your name and college I implore,

And your presence in the morning I must earnestly implore,”

Quoth the proctor, nothing more.

In the morning by fears riven, though against them I had striven,

That the penalty was heavy I in no way could ignore.

But my case being duly stated, I was most severely rated,

And within the college gated, gated till the term was o’er,

Ne’er to wander forth at even till the weary term was o’er,

Only this, and nothing more.

P. G. S.

Wadham College, Oxford,

Nov., 1884.

——:o:——

The (C) raven Student.

Once upon a morning dreary, through my lodging window smeary,

Came the cold and blacks and street-cries making getting up a bore!

And I wished I still were napping: suddenly I heard a tapping,

As of some one pertly rapping, rapping at my chamber door!

“’Tis,” growled I, “that maid of all-work rapping at my chamber-door—

What on earth can it be for.”

But too well do I remember that hungriest, dreariest November;

Not a single blessèd ember cast its glow upon the floor,

Nor dared I hope that on the morrow I could venture more to borrow

On my books, which, to my sorrow, had been carried by the score

“To my uncle’s,” by the slattern whom the Missis called Lenore—

Why, I could not say, I’m sure.

And the shiv’ring, cold, uncertain rustling of each paper curtain

Told me of a bleaker draught than I had ever felt before;

So that, while to rise objecting, I turned again and lay reflecting,

Through the crazy rattling sashes as the rain now came by dashes,—

I began to think the knocking at the panel of my door

Was the wind, and nothing more.

Soon again it came, and stronger; hesitating then no longer,—

“Girl,” I cried, “had you but listened, you could well have heard me snore,

“For the fact is, I was napping when so rudely you came rapping;

And if you again come tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

I will give you such a slapping as you never had before!”

Shrieked the maiden:—“Never, sure!”

By the Author of “Flemish Interiors.”

——:o:——

“The Raven” has been repeatedly translated. A Latin version, by Lewis Gidley, was published in Exeter in 1863, and again in 1866 by Parker of Oxford and London. There are several German versions of it, also a French translation by William Hughes. But perhaps the most famous of all is the grand folio published in Paris in 1875, entitled “Le Corbeau, traduction française de Stéphane Mallarmé, avec Illustrations par Edouard Manet.” The translation is literal, and naturally loses much of the force and beauty of the original from the absence of rhyme. It lacks also much of the weird suggestiveness of “The Raven,” whilst the refrain “Jamais-plus” is but a poor substitute for the sonorous “Nevermore!” Manet, the late chief of the Impressionist School of Painters, has here given full vent to his powers, and his eccentricity. In some of his illustrations the effects of light and shade are marvellous, in others he has been less successful, whilst in one or two instances the illustrations appear absolutely meaningless.

Notes and Queries recently quoted an anecdote of a Raven which must have been an ancestor of Poe’s sinister bird. It is taken from a rare little book, to which it gives the subject of 166 pages of edifying preachment, and of course is firmly believed in by the author. The following is the title:—

“Vox Corvi; or the Voice of a Raven, that Thrice spoke these words distinctly: Look into Colossians the 3rd and 15th. The Text it self looked into, and opened, in a Sermon, Preached at Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, To which is added, Serious Addresses to the People of this Kingdom; shewing the use we ought to make of this Voice from Heaven. By Alex. Ologie, Minister of Wigmore, &c. Licensed according to order. Matth. 21, xviii. London, 1694.”

The details are thus circumstantially related:—

“On the 3d. of February, 1691, about Three in the Afternoon, this Reverend Divine, a person of the venerable Age of 80 years, and 40 of those a Laborious Teacher of God’s Word, in the Parish of Wigmore, in the County of Hereford, being in the Hall of his own house, being with the Pious Matron, his Wife, some Neighbours and Relations, together with two small Grand-Children of his, in all to the number of Eight Persons; Thomas Kinnersley, one of the said Grand-Children, of but Ten Years of Age, starting up from the Fireside, went out of the Hall-Door, and sate himself down upon a Block by a Wood-pile, before the Door, employing himself in no other Childlike Exercise than cutting of a Stick, when in less than half a quarter of an Hour, he returned into the Hall in great amazement, his Countenance pale, and affrighted, and said to his Grandfather and Grandmother, Look in the Third of the Colossians, and the Fifteenth, with infinite Passion and Earnestness, repeating the words no less than three Times, which Deportment and Speech much surprising the whole Company, they asked him what he meant by those words, who answered with great Ardency of Spirit, that a Raven had spoken them Three times from the Peak of the Steeple, and that it looked towards W. W.’s House, and shook its Head and Wings thitherwards, directing its Looks and Motions still towards that House. All which words he heard the Raven distinctly utter three times, and then saw it mount and fly out of sight. His Grandfather hereupon, taking the Bible, and turning to the said Text, found these words. ‘And let the Peace of God rule in your Hearts, to the which you are also called in one Body; and be ye thankful.’ Upon reading whereof, the Child was fully satisfied, and his countenance perfectly composed agen [sic].”

POE-TICAL FORGERIES.

Whilst recently turning over some odd volumes on a bookstall, in my never ending search for Parodies, a loose newspaper cutting fell out of one of them. It was headed “Edgar Allan Poe,” and the obliging proprietor of the bookshop, where this occurred, seeing the interest I took in the subject, kindly gave me the slip, which I reprint below. Although the letter is dated “August 31” no year is given, nor was there anything on the cutting to indicate from what paper it had been taken. However, after considerable searching amongst the newspaper files in the British Museum I was enabled to trace it to The Morning Star (London) of September 1, 1864.

Edgar Allan Poe.

Sir—I have noticed with interest and astonishment the remarks made in different issues of your paper respecting Edgar A. Poe’s “Raven,” and I think the following fantastic poem (a copy of which I enclose), written by the poet whilst experimenting towards the production of that wonderful and beautiful piece of mechanism, may possibly interest your numerous readers. “The Fire-Fiend” (the title of the poem I enclose) Mr. Poe considered incomplete and threw it aside in disgust. Some months afterwards, finding it amongst his papers, he sent it in a letter to a friend, labelled facetiously, “To be read by fire-light at midnight, after thirty drops of laudanum.” I was intimately acquainted with the mother-in-law of Poe, and have frequently conversed with her respecting “The Raven,” and she assured me that he had the idea in his mind for some years, and used frequently to repeat verses of it to her and ask her opinion of them, frequently making alterations and improvements, according to the mood he chanced to be in at the time, Mrs. Clemm, knowing the great study I had given to “The Raven,” and the reputation I had gained by its recital throughout America, took great interest in giving me all the information in her power, and the life and writings of Edgar A. Poe have been the topic of our conversation for hours.

Respectfully,

M. M.’Cready.”

London, August 31.

THE FIRE-FIEND.
A Nightmare.

I.

In the deepest depth of midnight, while the sad solemn swell

Still was floating, faintly echoed from the Forest Chapel Bell—

Faintly, falteringly floating o’er the sable waves of air

That were through the Midnight rolling, chafed and billowy with the tolling—

In my chamber I lay dreaming by the fire-light’s fitful gleaming,

And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart fore-doomed to Care!

II.

At the last long lingering echo of the midnight’s mystic chime—

Lifting through the sable billows to the Thither Shore of time—

Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace—

In a quivering sigh departed; from my couch in fear I started:

Started to my feet in terror, for my Dream’s phantasmal error

Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming face!

III.

On the red hearth’s reddest centre, from a blazing knot of oak,

Seemed to gibe and grin this Phantom when in terror I awoke,

And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to the floor,

Still in that dread Vision seeming, turned my eyes toward the gleaming

Hearth, and—there! oh, God! I saw it! and from out its flaming Jaw it

Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore!

IV.

Speechless; struck with stony silence; frozen to the floor I stood,

Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling, blood:—

Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lambent lips:—

Till the Demon seemed to name me; then a wondrous calm o’ercame me,

And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death-damp stiff and gluey,

And I fell back on my pillow in apparent soul-eclipse!

V.

Then, as in Death’s seeming shadow, in the icy Pall of Fear

I lay stricken, came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear:—

Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their sleep:—

Muttering, “Higher! Higher! Higher! I am Demon of the Fire!

I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire! and each blazing roof’s my pyre,

And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my victims weep!”

VI.

“How I revel on the Prairie! How I roar among the Pines!

How I laugh when from the village o’er the snow the red flame shines,

And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a Life in every breath!

How I scream with lambent laughter as I hurl each crackling rafter

Down the fell abyss of Fire, until higher! higher! higher!

Leap the High Priests of my Altar in their merry Dance of Death!”

VII.

“I am monarch of the Fire! I am Vassal-King of Death!

World-encircling, with the shadow of its Doom upon my breath!

With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from my fatal face!

I command the Eternal Fire! Higher! higher! higher! higher!

Leap my ministering Demons, like Phantasmagoric lemans

Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous embrace!”

VIII.

Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn shrouded sleep,

And I slumbered like an infant in the “Cradle of the Deep,”

Till the Belfry in the Forest quivered with the matin stroke,

And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidden ledges,

Shimmered through the russet arches where the Light in torn files marches,

Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak.

IX.

Through my ivy fretted casement filtered in a tremulous note

From the tall and stately linden where a Robin swelled his throat:—

Querulous, quaker breasted Robin, calling quaintly for his mate!

Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber nightmare ridden,

With the memory of that Dire Demon in my central Fire

On my eye’s interior mirror like the Shadow of a Fate!

X.

Ah! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap,

And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep;

But around its very centre, where the Demon Face had shone,

Forked shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with spectral finger

To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carved and olden—

And I bowed, and said, “All Power is of God, of God alone!”

On showing this poem to Mr. J. H. Ingram he at once pronounced it a forgery, and from his remarkable collection of books relating to E. A. Poe he produced a small volume of 104 pages clad in green and gold, entitled The Fire-Fiend and other Poems, by Charles D. Gardette. Published in New York by Messrs. Bunce and Hartington in 1866. The book contains “The Fire-Fiend” and “Golgotha,” both written in imitation of E. A. Poe, and some poems entitled “War Echoes” and “Vagaries” of no particular interest. The account given of the origin of the hoax perpetrated on the public by the author of “The Fire-Fiend” is contained in the

PRE-NOTE.

“A few—and but a few—words of explanation seem appropriate here, with reference to the poem which gives title to this volume.

The “Fire-Fiend” was written some six years ago, in consequence of a literary discussion wherein it was asserted, that the marked originality of style, both as to conception and expression, in the poems of the late Edgar Allen (sic) Poe, rendered a successful imitation difficult even to impossibility. The author was challenged to produce a poem, in the manner of “The Raven,” which should be accepted by the general critic as a genuine composition of Mr. Poe’s, and the “Fire-Fiend” was the result.

This poem was printed as “from an unpublished MS. of the late Edgar A. Poe,” and the hoax proved sufficiently successful to deceive a number of critics in this country, and also in England where it was afterwards republished (by Mr. Macready, the tragedian), in the London Star, as an undoubted production of its soi-disant author.

The comments upon it by the various critics, professional and others, who accepted it as Mr. Poe’s, were too flattering to be quoted here, the more especially since, had the poem appeared simply as the composition of its real author, these gentlemen would probably have been slow to discover in it the same merits. The true history of the poem, and its actual authorship, being thus succinctly given, there seems nothing further to be said, than to remain, very respectfully, the Reader’s humble servant,

The Author.”

The poem which follows “The Fire-Fiend” is nearly as clever an imitation of Poe’s verbal eccentricities, but is perhaps a trifle too ghastly to be pleasant reading:—

GOLGOTHA:
A Phantasm.

While the embers flare and flicker, gathering shadows thick and thicker—

While the slender shaded lamplight sheds a glimmer gray and dull—

On my mantle, smoke encrusted, o’er two war-knives hacked and rusted,

In my fascinated vision grins a dark and dented Skull!

Through the midnight Forest leaping—Death’s red harvest fresh from reaping—

Once this skull was steeped and drunken in a revelry of gore:

In his crimson orgie shrieking, mad with lust, and murder reeking—

Thus the Blood-Avenger found him—smote him!—and he raved no more!

In that forest, leaf-enfolded, many a nameless year he mouldered,

Withered, shrivelled, fell to utter dry and desolate decay;

Till of all his savage glory naught there was to tell the story

Save this dark uncouth and dented skull I found, and bore away!

With the coward thought to mock it, in each eyeball’s blackened socket

Once I set a globe of silver as a dread and dismal jest.

Oh! full often has the glitter of those pale orbs caused a bitter

Burst of sharp and sudden terror to a timid twilight guest!

But to-night their flashes daunt me, and their changing glances haunt me,

And their cold glare shivers through me like a scymitar of ice!

Well I know their threat is seeming—that no life is in their gleaming,

Yet my soul is strangely troubled by my own accurst device!

Ay! my soul is strangely troubled! and my heart-throbs fiercely doubled!

And I cannot wrench my gaze from off those silver demon balls!

To my brain their blaze seems burning—Ah! by Heaven! I saw them turning!

Yes! see—see them! there! they roll! O God! a red light from them falls!

*  *  *  *  *

How its white teeth glint and glisten! Listen! Am I mad! O, listen!

No! It speaks! I hear a whisper rattle through its hollow jaws!

“With this jest my front adorning, Pale-Face, you are blindly scorning—

Sadly, sorrowfully scorning all your Being’s Primal Laws!

“Count the dim descent of ages! Turn Life’s crisp and crumbling pages!

Is a single leaf forgotten in this Golgotha of Doom?

Fool! You bear a fragile carnal shroud around your ghastly charnel

But to add another atom to the Inevitable Doom!

“I have stripped my shroud before you: You, perchance, now wear it o’er you!

Every shred of Life is worn from the Dead Past o’er and o’er!

Through the years the Earth is heaving with this weird and wondrous weaving,

And your slender thread but waiteth till the Loom hath need for more!”

*  *  *  *  *

It hath ceased! There is no glimmer on the hearth! The lamp grows dimmer,

Dimmer, dimmer,—now it flickers, flashes, wildly flares— is fled!

Through the Darkness round me heaving, now I hear a sound of weaving,

As a mighty loom were working, viewless, with a viewless thread!

THE BELLS.

I.

Hear, the sledges with the bells—

Silver bells!

What a world of merriment their melody foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

In the icy air of night!

While the stars, that oversprinkle

All the Heavens, seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells

From the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II.

Hear the mellow wedding-bells—

Golden bells!

What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Through the balmy air of night

How they ring out their delight!

From the molten-golden notes,

And all in tune,

What a liquid ditty floats,

To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats

On the moon!

Oh, from out the sounding cells

What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!

How it swells!

How it dwells

On the future! how it tells

Of the rapture that impels

To the swinging and the ringing

Of the bells, bells, bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,—

To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells.

III.

Hear the loud alarum bells—

Brazen bells!

What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire.

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour

Now, now to sit or never,

By the side of the pale-faced moon.

Oh, the bells, bells, bells!

What a tale their terror tells

Of despair!

How they clang, and clash, and roar!

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating air!

Yet the ear it fully knows,

By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the dangers ebbs and flows;

Yet the ear distinctly tells,

In the jangling

And the wrangling,

How the danger sinks and swells,

By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—

Of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!

IV.

Hear the tolling of the bells—

Iron bells!

What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

For every sound that floats

From the rust within their throats

Is a groan.

And the people—ah, the people—

They that dwell up in the steeple,

All alone,

And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,

In that muffled monotone,

Feel a glory in so rolling

On the human heart a stone,

They are neither man nor woman—

They are neither brute nor human—

They are Ghouls;

And their King it is who tolls;

And he rolls, rolls, rolls,

Rolls

A paean from the bells;

And his merry bosom swells

With the paean of the bells;

And he dances and he yells;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the paean of the bells—

Of the bells:

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme

To the throbbing of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells—

To the sobbing of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time,

As he knells, knells, knells

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells,—

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—

Bells, bells, bells—

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Edgar Allan Poe.

(First Published after the Author’s death.)

——:o:——

The Swells.
By Edgardo Pooh.

See the Gardens with the swells—

Noble swells!

What power of foolery their presence here foretels!

How they chatter, chatter, chatter,

To each other left and right,

What to them is any matter?

Since their tailor and their hatter,

Are their sole delight.

Running tick, tick, tick,

And hastening to Old Nick,

By expending time and money on dancing, dicing, belles,

Are the swells, swells, swells, swells,

Swells, swells, swells!

Are the foolish and profligate young swells.

See the dressy little swells—

Snobby swells!

What a world of happiness that Moses’ paletot tells!

Through the murky air of night,

How they shout out their delight,

From their Cashmere-shawled throats,

And out of tune,

What a drunken ditty floats

To the gas-lamps shining on policemen’s coats,

On their shoon!

Oh, from out the Bow-street cells,

What a gush of harmony uproariously wells!

How it smells!

How it knells—

For the morrow! how it tells

Of the folly that impels

To the laughing and the quaffing

Of the swells, swells, swells,

Of the swells, swells, swells, swells,

Swells, swells, swells,

Of the dining and the fine-ing of the swells!

See the literary swells—

Writing swells!

What a tale of envy now their turbulency tells,

How they quarrel, snarl, and fight

With each other as they write!

Much too dignified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

With their pen,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the buyer,

In a mad expostulation with the dazed and doubting buyer!

And they leap high, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour

Now—now to sit or never—

On a throne above all other men.

See the venerable swells!

By-gone swells!

What a world of solemn thoughts their gaiety compels!

In their ancient fashioned coats,

In their stiff cravatted throats,

How we recognize the Regent and his corps!

There remains now not e’en one,

All, all the set are gone,

Ils sont morts!

Save the few men—ah! these few men!

Who are left among the new men

All alone!

And who toiling, toiling, toiling,

Through their days, mere skin and bone,

Feel a pleasure now in spoiling

Each hearty, healthy tone—

Do these swells, swells, swells,

These swells, swells, swells, swells,

Swells, swells, swells,

These worn-out used up, godless, ancient swells!

Our Miscellany.—By E. H. Yates and R. B. Brough, 1857.

——:o:——

The Ball-Room Belles.

See, the ball-room full of belles,

Merry belles,

What an evening of flirtation their merriment foretells.

How they chatter, chatter, chatter,

Through the mazy Mabel valse.

Mothers glancing, but what matter!

Pleasant partners how they flatter,

Never dreaming girls are false

When they sigh, sigh, sigh,

And pretend that they would die—

But they dream of expectations of the golden studded swells

Hear the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

Hear the laughing and the chaffing of the belles.

See the richly-dowered belles,

Golden belles,

How they cotton to the stupid-headed swells.

With what grace and matchless art

They can play their pretty part

For the quartered coats of arms!

Champerones

How they advertise the charms

Of their darlings,—with ever ready alarms

Undertones!

Oh! and then these high-born swells,

What a want of education their conversation tells.

How it sells,

How it dwells

Upon bathos! how it tells

Of the lesson that impels

All the sighing and the lying

Of the belles, belles, belles,

Of the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

All the glancing and the dancing of the belles.

Hear the loudly-talking belles,

Prancing belles,

How we sorrowfully gaze upon their costume, since it tells

Of the latest Paris fashion!

And the dark eyes how they flash on

Every simple-looking girl!

They can only whirl, whirl

To the tune,

With a noisy explanation of their doings in the Row,

With a careless declaration that the ball is very slow.

Dancing round, round, round,

To the merry music’s sound,

Never pausing for a breath,

Tho’ their partners pale as death,

Look and gasp as if they’d fall into a swoon.

Oh, you belles, belles, belles,

What a tale your muslin tells;

And your hair.

How you sneer and pick to pieces

Major Maberly’s six nieces,

How you flirt upon the fifty-seventh stair;

Yet the people guess at last,

By your laughing,

And your chaffing,

Your vocabulary’s fast.

And the ear distinctly tells

You are slangy,

And slap-bangy,

From your joking with the swells,

And their easy conversation with the loudly-talking belles,

With the belles,

With the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

From the grinning and the dinning of the bells!

Fun, December 30, 1865.

——:o:——

Pills.
An Edgar Poe(m).

See the doctors with their pills—

Silver-coated pills!

What a world of misery their calomel instils!

How they twingle, twingle in the icy-colden night.

You have taken two that mingle,

And you wish you’d had a single;

While your cheeks are ashy white.

And every time, time, time

You groan in pantomime

A tan-tan-tantalising yearn for rum your bosom fills

To lull the paean of pills, pills, pills,

The mountain An Edgar Poemisery of pills!

Take one of Morrison’s pills,

Or Parr’s life pills—

Warranted, or the money returned, to cure all ills;

To bring repose at night,

And occasion you delight,

When they’re fairly down your throat,

From noon to noon.

And eloquence promote

For your turtle dove who listens while you doat

Neath the moon.

Oh, read the flaming bills

And the extract from a letter that voluminously fills

The hand-bills,

And the tills

Of the vendor of the pills,

Whose physic never kills,

Money ringing,

Money flinging

In the tills, tills, tills,

From the pills, pills, pills, pills,

And what chiming, and what rhyming on the pills!

Beware of strychnine pills—

Brazen pills.

What a work of horror their treachery fulfils!

The false friend with a smile

Stands beside you for a while;

And you’re pleased to hear him speak

While you shriek, shriek,

And moan, moan.

Your heart and brain consuming in the fire, fire;

Your pulse and temples throbbing in the fire;

Beating higher, higher,

While you gaze and still admire

The murd’rer beside you,

Who knows what must betide you,

As he watches for the swoon.

Oh, the pills, pills, pills,

What a pang of terror thrills,

And despair,

Every heart that beats with love;

When the evidences prove

That the murderer for days and nights was there;

Tending gently as a nurse,

Always whining,

While designing

How to make you worse and worse.

See! The glass he quickly fills

With some new fangle,

Life to strangle,

While your fine old port he slyly swills,

And knows the hour is fast approaching by the number of the pills,

Of the pills;

By the number and the poison of the pills.

And you roll, roll, roll,

Roll—

With the paean of the pills;

And he a draught distils

To qualify the pills,

And he’s thinking of the wills

That Doctor’s Commons fills (!)

Keeping time, time, time,

In the subtlety of crime,

By the paean of the pills,

Of the pills:

Keeping time, time, time,

In the hardihood of crime,

By the throbbing from the pills,

From the pills, pills, pills,

By your sobbing from the pills,

Keeping time, time, time,

As he kneels, kneels, kneels.

In the blasphemy of crime,

By the pulse he feels, feels;

While the pills, pills, pills

Are perfecting all their ills.

Oh, the pills, pills, pills—

Pills, pills, pills!

So ends my rhyming and my chiming on the pills.

Damer Cape.

Vagrant Leaves, No. 2., Nov. 1, 1866.

——:o:——

The Hells.

Hear the echoes from the Hells—

German Hells!

What a tale of selfishness their recollection tells!

How fickle fortune battles

With the ball that rolls and rattles

On its devilish career!

While the coins that oversprinkle,

All the numbers seem to twinkle,

With a simper or a sneer.

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of ruined rhyme.

To the hum of speculation that annually swells

From the Hells, Hells, Hells—

From the Hunters and the Punters of the Hells.

Hear the merry laughing Hells,

Baden Hells!

Ringing out their call to happiness like wedding bells;

Blinding eyes with lust of gain,

Dead’ning hearts to others’ pain,

With the molten gold and notes.

Calling out,

“We are misery’s antidotes!!

Come and clutch us!” o’er their poison-beauty gloats

Longing Doubt—

How the air resounding fills

With the cries from out that Hall of Cure for Ills!

How the swells

At the wells,

Dream of health or of wealth, how each tells

Of the craving that impels

To the winning and the sinning

Of the Hells, Hells, Hells,

To the losing and abusing of the Hells.

Hear the losers at the Hells—

Homburg Hells!

What an end of dread despondency their mien foretells!

When fortune turns her back,

And the promised Red looks Black,

And the Black grows Red with shame,

As it hears its worshipped name;

All is lost

In a timorous appealing to the mercy of Leblanc:

In a sad expostulation with the croupiers of Leblanc:

Playing higher, higher, higher,

With a maddening desire

And a desperate endeavour

Now—now to win or never,

Though it love and honour cost.

Oh the Hells, Hells, Hells!

What tale their echo tells

Of despair!

How they cling to Black and Red!

What a tremor they outspread

On the loving hearts that wait in hope at home.

Yet the year it fully knows

By the curses

Or the purses

How the fortune ebbs and flows!

How the scandal stinks and smells

By the sinking or the swelling in the budget of the Hells!

Hear the groaning in the Hells—

German Hells!

Ev’ry coin in hope thrown down,

Be it florin, thaler, crown,

Is a groan.

And the croupiers dressed in sable,

Sitting down before the table,

And who dealing, dealing, dealing,

In that well-known monotone

Coldly glory in the feeling

That their human heart is stone!

Green cloth their only scenery,

They go by some machinery

Without souls;

And their master takes the tolls,

While the ball it rolls and rolls,

Rolls

And rattles in the Hells.

But his heart no longer swells

At the Pæan of the Hells;

For he hears above the echo of the Hells

The knells, knells, knells,

Of the Hells.

In the fast approaching time,

When ruin, lust, and crime

Will be driven from the wells,

In the downfall of the Hells—

Of the Hells, Hells, Hells,

To the moaning and the groaning of the Hells!

The Tomahawk, October 19, 1867.

——:o:——

Christmas Fancies.

Here is Christmas with its bills—Little Bills!

’Mid a world of merriment intruding with their ills.

What a tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

At the area bell all day,

They’re enough the brow to wrinkle

Of a placid periwinkle,

With their constant “Please to pay.”

Coming time after time,

Without reason, without rhyme,

Holding long confabulations on the lowness of their tills;

With their bills, bills, bills, bills!

Bills, bills, bills,

Oh, the worry and the scurry of the bills!

And the Host of other ills—Christmas ills!

Eatables in baronies and drinkables in rills,

All the day and all the night

Spent in over-eating quite,

And in pouring down your throat

Inopportune—

Floods of liquor that would float—

If not a merchant vessel—a big boat,

Pretty soon!

Oh, the gorges and the swills,

With no thought about the morrow, and the call for Dr. Squills,

And your wills,

Codocils,

That you write with shaky quills,

For ’tis indigestion kills!

Oh, the languish and the anguish

Of your ills, ills, ills, ills,

Ills, ills, ills,

Oh, the bother and the pother of your ills!

Then to-morrow and its pills—bitter pills!

Fever-heats succeeding on the heels of horrid chills,

All the livelong restless night—

What a cheerful Christmas plight!

Too much agonized to speak,

You can only squeak—squeak

Like a coon,

In a clamorous appealing from your indigestion’s pangs—

In a mad expostulation with the gnawing of its fangs,

And a sense of utter loathing for the pills,

For the pills, pills, pills, pills,

Pills, pills, pills—

And the comrades of the pills,

The pills, bills, ills!

Oh, the very name of Christmas all my soul with terror fills.

Fun, December 28, 1867.

——:o:——

The Bells.

Oh, those bells—oh, those bells!

Oh, those bells, bells, bells!

Oh, the weary, weary, worry that their ringing always tells!

How they jangle and they jangle

Through the troubled day and night!

How they clash, and clang, and mangle,

As if calling out in spite—

You must run, run, run!

Your work’s never done,

From the rising to the setting of the sun, sun, sun.

Oh, those never-ceasing bells—

Chamber-bells—

What a climbing and a fetching their music ever tells!

Now it’s number seven hundred—

Now it’s number twenty-five—

Now it’s forty more in chorus

Calling—Waiter, look alive!

Ting-a-ling, ling, ling,

Don’t you hear me ring, ring?

You, had better come a-running, or I’ll break a string, string!

Oh, those silver-sounding bells—

Parlour-bells—

What a coming and a running their melody compels!

How they jingle, jingle, jingle,

Till the horrid jingling seems

To multiply and mingle

Into harsh and mocking screams,

Crying—Fly, fly, fly!

We are paying very high,

We’ll get our money’s value, or we’ll know the reason why.

Oh, those cruel, clanging bells—

Front-door bells—

Oh, what cozy dreams of comfort their sounding forth dispels!

How their clanging and their banging

Keeps one trotting to and fro,

Till you seem a sort of nightmare,

Kept forever on the go

By the clang, clang, clang,

And the bang, bang, bang!

Till the ringers of those door-bells you could hang, hang, hang!

Oh, that best and blessed bell—

Dinner bell—

With what harmony and melody its brazen accents swell!

How its full and unctuous greeting

Seems to reach your inner man,

And you answer as a waiter,

And a hungry waiter, can

To its ding, dong, dong!

Come along, long, long!

So the blessed bell for dinner ends my song, song, song!

Anonymous.

——:o:——

The Bills.

See the members with their bills.

Private bills,

What a world of promises their bringing-in fulfils;

How they jostle one another,

And compete for vacant nights,

How they pant, and gasp, and smother,

Pushed aside by party fights,

While their movers, standing by,

Emit a doleful cry,

Apprehensive of the destiny that ultimately kills

Their bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

The dismal fate in keeping for their bills.

See the silly annual bills,

Foolish bills,

With what-deluded hopefulness their introduction fills

All their friends throughout the land,

Who can never understand,

That the House will throw them out

One by one;

That though the movers shout

At a speaker who is dozing while they spout,

When they’ve done,

With patience sorely tried,

But with a gush of thankfulness the members will divide,

And decide,

To deride

The foolish annual bills;

And the lesson each instils

Is, that clearly these are merely

Futile bills, bills, bills.

Bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

Never to be anything but bills.

See the Ministerial bills,

Burly bills,

With what prolonged expectancy their introduction thrills!

Through the country far and wide,

Their friends exult with pride;

Too much horrified to speak,

Their opponents only shriek

In affright,

In a clamourous appealing to the wisdom of the House—

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic House.

They declare the bills a chouse,

And affirm they will, by nous,

Rouse the country now or never,

By a resolute endeavour,

To resist the pale-faced premier,

With his bills, bills, bills,

While each party-leader drills

For the fight

His forces great or small

To enfranchise or enthral

The country on the great division night;

And the public hardly knows,

Mid the wrangling

And the jangling,

How the danger ebbs and flows,

But each newspaper instils

Into readers,

By its leaders,

All its own views of the bills,—

Its own views of the pestilent or patriotic bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

The stupendous and tremendous public bills.

See the sickly autumn bills,

Dying bills,

What a flood of penitence each moralist distils

From their slow but sure decay,

As the session wears away,

From the melancholy lesson that they teach;

For every dying scheme

Is in its turn the theme

Of a speech,

And is tediously debated

Until hopelessly belated,

Overthrown,

And its mover prosing, prosing,

In a muffled monotone,

Feels a glory in disclosing

All its merits little known.

In the spring he moves the bills,

And clears his voice and swills

From a tumbler set beside him,

While his enemies deride him,

And his friends cry out, “Hear, hear,”

And he wins a feeble cheer,

Now and then

Only, when

With brows knit in a frown,

His arm sways up and down,

Keeping time, time, time,

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the moving of the bills:

Of the bills,

To the solemn exposition of the bills,

Till at last the daylight lengthens,

And the summer sunshine strengthens,

And finally it grills

The members in their places,

So sadly, with long faces,

They consent to slay their bills,

To abandon all their bills;

All their bills, bills, bills,

To massacre their bills,

Though sorely ’gainst their wills.

And each bereaved one fills

The house with lamentations o’er his bills,

With sorrow at the slaughter of his bills:

Of his bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

With sorrow at the slaughter of his bills.

Fun, August 13, 1870.

——:o:——

The Flute.

Lo, the fluter, with his flute—

Grecian flute!

How long the world has waited

For its tantalising toot!

“Unheard melodies are sweetest,

Said the charming poet Keats;

But our pleasure is completest

When we hear them on the streets;

Or sounding loud and shrill

Through the homes of Murray-Hill—

On the heights of Murray-Hill

Loud and shrill,

Hear the flute, flute, flute, flute,

Flute, flute, flute.

That wicked Broadway Journal,

Whose Editor infernal,

Lets no trumpet but his own

Through the market place be blown—

Had the chief not been carousing,

Had the “Raven” not been drowsing,

The world had not been waiting,

Been waiting, all in vain,

For that melancholy strain

Of the flute flute—

In anxious expectation for the tintinnabulation

Of the flute.

American Paper.

——:o:——

The Chimes Done in Rhymes.
AFTER POE AND NEWMAN

Harken to the chimes

That in these Sunday times,

Ring out upon the air.

From the lofty spire,

Rising higher, higher,

In great waves of sound

Vibrating round and round,

Calling out to prayer,

And dropping iron blessings down,

In sweetest music on this wicked town.

We hear professor Pratt,

Keen and clear G flat,

And in each ring there seems to be,

A “horse” cry of agony—

The tortured tones

Of groans and moans—

A poor creature’s speechless agony,

They rise and swell,

Like cries from hell,

Calling the faithful forth to solemn prayer

Then came Schuyler—

Schuyler smiler, Schuyler smiler,

How it rings and sings and swings,

Vibrating on the ear,

As if the hollow smile were set to music here.

“Come ye Christians,” cryeth Schuyler,

The soft political beguiler,

“Come ye Christians, join with me

In praises of the powers that be,

For have we not a neat majority?”

Just such praise in troubled days

Of Our Savior; he would have cried,

“The law should take its course, let him be crucified.”

Schuyler smiler, Schuyler smiler,

From the spire, rising higher,

Rings and swings and sings

The bell,

That of a politician’s heaven seems to tell.

Of a deeper, coarser tone

Chimes the bass a lengthened groan,

For it tells alone,

Alone,

Of the punishment that’s sent

In the person of our President.

Dull and hollow, how it moans

In its heavy undertones!

As if it sought to tell—

That bell—

Of a burdened people doomed to toil

That rogues may fatten off a wasted soil;

Of want and degradation dire,

War, pestilence and fire;

Where rules no ballot but the bayonet,

And Liberty that was and is not yet;

Of Peace, sweet Peace and great content,

Ere the coarse soldier came to be our President

Of office sold for gifts;

Of a low greed that lifts

Mean men to power,

When cowards rule while good men cower.

How it rolls and roars,

And on us pours

Its flood of heavy sound

The vibrating air around,

As the iron tongue upon the iron rim

Clangs out its cry of sin:

Fasting and prayer for a people curs’d

Of all ills the evil far the worst—

A stupid tyranny that brings

No compensation on its blackened wings.

These are the Newman chimes,

And these our modern times.

Were Our Saviour, with weary feet,

Again to walk the dusty street,

And see that lofty steeple;

Hear its clangor calling in the people

See the saints with saintly faces;

In diamonds, silks, and costly laces

Thronging to their downy places—

Hear his apostle state

From marble stall to velvet-cushioned seats,

Not the words of peace, but those of deadly hate

While Mammon the scene completes—

Much would He marvel, and we fear,

Seizing the rod

Would drive old Newman out, and clear

Our goodly people from the house of God.

Ding, dong, bell,

Hear them swell—

Pratt, G flat, scat!

Schuyler smiler, Schuyler smiler;

While groans

And moans

In heavy undertones

The Presidential bell.

D. P.

The Capital, (U.S.A.) November 26, 1871.

——:o:——

The Bills.
By the late Edgar Allan Toe.

I.

Hear the duns with lots of bills—

Unpaid bills!

What a world of merriment their misery distils!

How they rattle, rattle, rattle,

On your sported outer door!

While within you drink and prattle.

For an oak is half the battle

With a dun—unchristian bore,

Keeping knock, knock, knock,

Like a sort of ticking clock,

To the bitter tribulation of your gyp whose hand he fills

With his bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

With a lumping and a thumping lot of bills,

II.

Hear the loud alarm of bills—

Tailors’ bills—

What a tale of trousers and of coats whose volume fills

Some dozen drawers. They might

Make one scream out with affright—

Too hard up to pay this week;

You can only speak, speak

Through the door,

In a pitiful appealing to the mercy of the dun,

In a mad expostulation with the deaf and dirty dun.

Bills get higher, higher, higher,

And the parent’s wrath is dire;

His son’s resolute endeavour

Not now to pay nor ever,

Making him scold and swear and roar.

Oh the bills, bills, bills,

Hardest far of human ills

To remove!

How they cram and crowd each drawer,

What a horror they outpour

On the bosom of the palpitating gov!

Yet the ear it fully knows

When one’s thinking,

Or a drinking,

When a dun comes up or goes;

Yet the hand it fully fills

Up a beaker,

Getting weaker,

And the beggar drinks and swills.

But that drinking and that swilling gets one off some of the bills;

Of the bills—

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

In the paying or delaying of the bills.

The Light Green, Cambridge, 1872.

——:o:——

The Bells.
By an Overworked Waiter

Hear the strangers pull the bells—

Tinkling bells!

What voracious appetites their clattering foretells!

How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

From morning until night,

And the dishes seem to twinkle,

As the gravies oversprinkle,

With a crystalline delight;

And they chime, chime, chime,

As a shout from time to time,

From “pottle-bodied” gourmands or animated swells,

Is mingled with the ever-ringing bells—

Bells, bells, bells—

The tintinnabulation of the bells.

Hear the early breakfast bells—

Tiresome bells!

Perhaps a Continental trip their harmony foretells,

With a guest awake all night,

And ringing, ere ’tis light,

For change of gold or note,

Hours too soon.

While the ship he wants to sail by does not float

Out of harbour until noon;

And in accents most unmusical he yells

For coffee to be taken,

With toast and eggs and bacon,

Up many flights of stairs, while he tells

Of twenty other wishes

Respecting drinks and dishes,

Which I strive to hear in vain,

For a train

A thousand country visitors propels

From Bath or Tunbridge Wells,

Who come ringing, ringing, ringing at the bells—

Bells, bells, bells—

And I march away to answer fifty bells.

Hear the hasty dinner-bells—

Frantic bells!

What a tale of hunger now their turbulency tells!

The fires are blazing bright,

The cooking is all right,

But I scarce can breathe or speak,

I’m so bothered all the week—

Don’t have a bit of rest—

Through the clamourous appealing of some gormandising guest,

And in mild expostulation to his deaf and frantic ire,

I say, “Yessir, yessir, yessir,”

To my hard-hearted oppressor,

’Mid the clatter

Of the platter,

And of dish and glass and spoon,

Or an organ,

With the owner like a Gorgon,

Grinding in the street some doleful tune;

Yet the ear it fully knows

By the twanging

And the clanging,

How the dining ebbs and flows,

To the jangling of the bells—

Bells, bells, bells—

To the clamour and the clangour of the bells.

Later still the supper bells—

Busy bells!

What a world of cheerful thought their melody compels,

Of pleasant airs that float

From operatic throat,

Of farce and pantomime;

But the bells begin to chime,

And, alas! unlucky wight,

Not for me is such delight,

The pleasure-seekers claim me as their own;

Be it man or be it woman,

They are all alike inhuman—

They are ghouls

Wanting soles,

Sausages and rolls,

Flowing bowls,

Pie or tart,

Souper a-la-carte,

Lobster salad, oyster,

Peppered grill, or something moister;

And they chat and laugh and joke,

Heedless of the yoke

Of the bells—

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

Which my presence through the weary night compels,

Till morning comes again with the bells—

The merciless and everlasting bells.

Funny Folks, April 3, 1875.

——:o:——

The Girls.

Hear the laughter of the girls—

Pretty girls.

What a fund of merriment each ruby lip unfurls!

How they chatter, chatter, chatter,

In the balmy air of night!

While the stars that over-spatter

All the heavens hear their clatter

In a soft and wild delight;

To the tintinnabulation that, increasing, ever purls

From the girls, girls, girls, girls.

Girls, girls, girls,

From the wild, capricious, saucy, jaunty girls.

See the flirting of the girls,

Radiant girls!

How the lover’s softened brain wildly whirls

Through the mazes of the ball,

Up and down the stately hall!

How he skips to and fro

And perspires!

Would that we could tell the idiot all we know

Of the fires

Into which the false ones hurl.

Each new whim—see the flame—how it swirls!

How it curls!

How it curls!

Better far that they were churls,

Than fall victims to the girls;

To the prattle and the rattle

Of the girls, girls, girls,

Of the girls, girls, girls, girls,

Girls, girls, girls—

To the sacking and heart racking of the girls!

Merry Folks.

——:o:——

The Bills.
After Poe, by a Mercantile Poet.

See the traders with their bills

Showy bills;

What a joyous feeling every speculator fills,

As his bills go crinkle, crinkle,

On the counters smooth and bright;

And the eyes of bankers twinkle

At their shareholders delight,

Who are dreaming all the time,

Of dividends sublime—

Of a very high percentage made from cashing doubtful bills,

Bills, bills, bills, bills,

Of gratifying profits from accommodation bills.

See the foreign merchants’ bills,

Flimsy bills!

For railways, ships and waterworks and tunnels through the hills,

Oh, we take them with delight,

And for “3 months, after sight”

Give them sovereigns and notes;

And very soon

The merry gambler floats

Far away from British shores, while he gloats

On the boon;

An operatic melody he trills,

And his mellow meerschaum fills,

And he swills

A bumper as he chuckles at the state of bankers’ tills;

When his bills

Falling due,

Not a Jew

Will give twopence for the batch of foreign bills.

Then the failure of the bills,

Brazen bills!

What a tale of terror now the crazy city fills!

Managers, directors, how it thrills!

When they see from morn till night,

Houses crashing left and right,

Fearing, ere a week,

A crowd may shriek, shriek,

With a clamorous appealing at the counters of the bank

Saying, gentlemen, we’ll thank

You very much without delay to empty all your tills;

Things are looking very black,

And we want our money back;

And the banker fully knows

By the banging

And the clanging

How the danger ebbs and flows.

But we trust these passing ills

Will clear the city air,

By inducing greater care

How good money is exchanged for worthless bills,

Bills, bills, bills, bills,

In discounting such accommodation bills.

Funny Folks, 14 August, 1875.

——:o:——

The Belles.

I.

Oh, the dancing of the belles,

Silver belles!

What a world of merriment that glancing group foretells.

How they dance, dance, dance,

In the white and heated light,

Till the berries that o’ersprinkle

Every picture seem to twinkle

With a crystalline delight.

Keeping time, time, time,

To the valse-exciting rhyme

Of Der Schönen Blauen Donau that so musically wells;

Oh, the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

Oh, the dancing and the glancing of the belles.

II.

Oh, the court-invited belles,

Golden belles!

What a world of plush and paint their dazzling grandeur tells.

Through the balmy air of night,

Through a vision of delight,

From the jarring city notes

Out of tune,

What a splendid vision floats

To the eyes of Miss Fitz-Neotes

Of Aroon!

Oh the crushing and the rout,

And the gathers that come out!

How the agony voluminously wells,

How it swells!

How it dwells!

On the temper how it tells!

To what anger it impels.

Oh, the rushing and the crushing of the belles!

Of the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

Oh, the tearing and despairing of the belles!

III.

Oh, the belles of the Mabille,

Brazen belles!

What a world of lying love their honied accent tells.

In the glare and in the light

How they dance out their delight,

Thinking of the future never,

Dancing on and dancing ever,

With a weary simulation of a love they cannot feel,

In the glare and in the glitter and the hell of the Mabille.

Leaping higher, higher, higher,

With a desperate desire,

And a resolute endeavour

Now—now to win or never,

Golden youth!

Oh, the belles, belles, belles,

What a tale their laughing tells

Of despair.

How they dance, dance, dance,

With a weary smile and glance,

In the glare and in the glitter that are there!

Yet the eye it fully knows

By the sighing

Lips and dying

How the hoping ebbs and flows.

Yet the eye distinctly tells

How the hoping sinks and swells,

By the dancing, and the glancing, and the prancing of the belles,

Of the belles—

Of the belles, belles, belles, belles,

Belles, belles, belles,

By the sighing lips and dying of the belles.

Benjamin D——. His Little Dinner, 1876.

——:o:——

The Bills.

Hear the doctor with his bills,

Horrid bills!

What a world of medicine, of powders and of pills,

How you sicken, sicken, sicken,

When they burst upon your sight,

While your very pulse will quicken,

And your blood will seem to thicken,

And throb in fearful fright,

Keeping time, time, time,

In an allopathic rhyme,

To the merry little “guinea” that so very neatly fills

Up the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

That adds a portly total to the bills.

Hear the tailor with his bills,

Heavy bills!

What a vast extravagance their money column fills,

In the merry summer’s light,

How they pall upon the sight,

From the hard up debtors’ throats,

In dismal tune,

What a grumbling ditty floats,

To the sanguine “Master Stitchem” as he gloats,

Grasping loon.

Oh, from out his sounding tills

What a rush of chinking satirically trills,

How it trills,

How it spills.

Hopes of Future! How it fills

Up the cranium to “dils.”

Oh, the adding and the padding,

Of the bills, bills, bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

Till we’re bilious at the summary of bills.

Hear the butcher with his bills,

Meaty bills!

What a hearty appetite their money column fills,

On the thoughtful mind at night,

How they grin with blue delight,

We’re too much annoyed to speak,

But we shriek a dismal shriek,

And out of tune,

In a senseless, vain appealing to the mercy of the man,

In a vain expostulation with the deaf and grasping man.

Screaming man, man, man,

Make them smaller if you can,

And our sensible endeavour

Shall be never, never, never,

To pay the greasy, red-faced loon.

Oh, the bills, bills, bills,

What a cup their total fills,

Of despair!

How they come in more and more,

Till the eye is nearly sore

As it contemplates the culminating store.

Yet the mind it fully knows

By the ringing,

They are bringing,

A further lot which we must add to those,

Yet the bosom quickly fills,

By the ringing,

By the ringing,

With a dark foreboding fills,

For it knows of many long outstanding unreceipted bills,

Heavy bills!

Oh, the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

Oh, the torture we are put to by the bills!

Hear the matron with her bills!

Many bills,

What a pleasant breakfast time their large addition kills.

From our happy dreams by night,

How we start with ghastly fright,

And quick relapse with melancholy groan,

Again to hear their notes

From their grim fantastic throats

In threatening tone.

And the devils! Ah! the devils,

And minutely he that revels

All alone

In the padding, padding, padding,

In that dismal monotone,

Feels delight as thus he’s adding

Round the debtor’s neck a stone.

He is neither man nor woman,

But a junior clerk inhuman,

Worst of lads.

And his chief it is who pads,

And he adds, adds, adds,

Adds

More figures to the bills,

And his demon mind it fills

With delight to view the bills,

And he capers and he trills,

Keeping time, time, time,

In a Basinghall street rhyme,

To the rustle of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills,

To the total of the bills,

Keeping time, time, time,

As he trills, trills, trills,

In a Basinghall street rhyme,

To the padding of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills,

To the adding of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

Oh, the trying care, undying, of the bills!

The Corkscrew Papers.

London: W. H. Guest, 1876.

——:o:——

The Swells.

Listen to the lisping of the swells—

Awful swells

Ennui in intensity each drawling accent tells,

As they saunter in the “Row,”

With entourage comme il faut,

Far too blasé e’en to speak,

Save in childish pipings weak,

Out of tune,—

In a mild expostulation at the want of something new,

In a clamorous appealing at the dearth of aught to do,—

Looking cool, cool, cool,

At all “get-ups” not by Poole,

As club scandal they retail

Of the last connubial sale

Of the day!

How they leer,

And peer, and sneer,

At Saint John’s Wood broughams queer,

In a charmingly debilitated way!

Next, we have another kind of swells—

Seedy swells!

Impecuniosity within their aspect dwells,

And their boots, and hats, and clothes,

Sadly foreign are to those

Which our former friends disclose

Every day!

And they dismally recur unto the days ere tick expired,

When they dined and wined ad lib., and were both fêted and admired—

Ere the Hebrew would refuse

To transmute their I O U’s,

And they only knew the blues

As a bore;

When the features of their creeds

Were feeds, and weeds,

And steeds,

And the thought of being poor

In the future they ne’er saw,

But would greet it with a roar,

To be sure!

Last, we have the naughtiest of swells—

Howling swells!

Each, in larks nocturnal, both our other friends excels,

Thinking nought of getting “tight,”

Screeching out in wild delight

In the “startled eve of night”

Tavern melodies, despite

The warning of the much-disgusted “p’lice,”

Making rows, rows, rows,

Imitating small bow-wows,

While the cats on all the tiles,

Whom this mad defiance riles,

Add their quota to the torment of the Peace!

Yes, these swells, swells, swells,

Bibulation deep impels

To wake the peaceful midnight with their yells, yells, yells,

With their yells, yells, yells, yells, yells, yells, yells,

Their sleep-destroying, horrifying yells!

Worthy a Crown?—1876.

——:o:——

The Bells.

Hear the tramcars with their bells,

Merry bells,

What a good threepennyworth their melody foretels,

As they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,

Through the day and through the night,

All the cars that oversprinkle

The lines fly in a twinkle,

From the red, or blue and white;

And from eight p.m. they chime,

Through the Corporation slime

(The proper term is mud, but then you see it wouldn’t rhyme—

It’s sometimes very difficult to hit upon a rhyme.)

Until the licensed-victualler his customers expels,

And their bacchanalian yells,

Join in chorus with the bells;

With the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells—

The racing and the chasing of the bells.

Hear the yellow dinner bells,

In hotels—

How pleasant to the tympanum of all the hungry swells,

How it conjures to the eye

Happy dreams of pigeon pie,

And gorgeous table d’hotes,

Coming soon;

And swimming butter boats,

And turtle soup that glistens as it floats

In the spoon:

Now rising from the dish

Comes the odour of the fish,

How it smells, and it tells

Why the eye so brightly glistens, and the ear so fondly listens

For the bells,

For the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

The rousing to carousing by the bells.

Hear those clanging iron bells,

Railway bells.

What a page of accidents their dissonance foretels,

As we thunder o’er the river

How the nervous ladies shiver,

How they groan.

And the stoker, ah, the stoker,

He who wields the mighty poker,

All alone.

And who, like a thing of evil,

Sits undaunted on his throne,

As if he knew the devil

Would be careful of his own

(It has often been remarked that he is careful of his own.)

The engine is a pyre,

The poker is his lyre,

And he joins in ghastly cadence with the demons of the fire

(Perhaps you’re not aware that there are demons in the fire)

They rush across the fells

Through the forests and the dells,

And echo goblin choruses in answer to the bells,

Ringing knells for the swells,

With the bells,

With the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

The rasping, and the grasping of the bells.

Zoz, October 26, 1878.

——:o:——

The Bills.

---

E. A. POE-TICS FOR THE SEASON.

---

Hear the postmen with the bills—

Christmas bills!

What a world of merriment their frequency instils!

How they gather, gather, gather,

On the file to such a height,

That one wishes—don’t one, rather!—

Them considerably farther—

Altogether out of sight;

With their “Time, time, time,

With the proceeds of your rhyme—

Time to meet the invitation which so chronically fills

All the bills, bills, bills, bills,”

Prompts our glaring and our swearing at the bills.

Dash that fellow with the bills!

Olden bills!

What a world of happiness their cursed coming kills!

And from morning until night

How they check a man’s delight

With demands for gold and notes:

Payment for shoon,

Meat and drink and coal and coats;

While they nearly all desire their pounds and groats

Very soon!

Oh, the girls’ astounding frills!

Oh, the rare old sherry which papa at moments swills!

And the pills for the ills.

Thence resulting! it all fills

Up the avalanche which chills

Us, the starters and the martyrs

Of the bills, bills, bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

Of the pining and the whining of the bills!

Hear the checking of the bills,

Bothering bills!

What a lot of bitter spite their tedious tale distils!

In the silence of the night

How we plot to “fly a kite,”

To avoid the moody menace of their tone!

For their only antidote

To the check in every note

Is a loan.

And the people—hang the people!—

They would call from every steeple

How your payments you postpone.

And in calling, calling, calling

Oft enough to make them blown,

Proves they glory in appalling

Men whose debts are all they own

Be they man or be they woman,

They are certainly less human

Than like ghouls;

And their king is he who rolls

Most people into holes,

Bowls

Men over with his bills!

And his merry bosom fills

With delight at leaving bills;

And he dances and he trills,

Saying, “Time, time, time,

To pay up your pound and dime—

Pay the figure of the bills,

Of the bills.”

Saying, “Time, time, time!

Owing money is a crime;

It is robbing to have bills,

To have bills, bills, bills;

It is shocking to have bills!”

Saying, “Time, time, time!”

As he trills, trills, trills,

To the growing of the bills—

Of the bills, bills, bills,

To the growing of the bills—

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

To our groaning and our moaning o’er the bills.

Funny Folks, January 25, 1879.

——:o:——

The Hose.

Hear the ballad of the hose—

Stripèd hose.

What a blissful wealth of plumpness they tenderly enclose!

Naught you’ll find in ancient story

Like those shapely symmetries.

Solomon, in all his glory,

Was not arrayed in one of these

Dainty hose, hose, hose.

Nothing can compare with those

Striped with the crimson color of the fragrant-scented rose.

Oh! those hose, hose, hose, hose,

Hose, hose, hose—

Those softly rounded, garter-bounded hose.

There’s a charm about those hose—

Silken hose—

Which, from an æsthetic standpoint, admiration will impose!

And whene’er we chance to spy them,

Then they seem our sole “Utopias,”

And we feel we’d like to buy them—

Buy them filled, like Cornucopias—

Saucy hose, hose, hose.

And the beauty they disclose—

How the eye of the beholder in entranced rapture glows

On those hose, hose, hose, hose,

Hose, hose, hose—

Those grace-enveloped, full-developed hose.

You, by chance, may see those hose—

Well-filled hose—

Peeping from the mystic meshes of a labyrinth of clothes.

Damsels dark and damsels fair,

Each, mayhaps, displays a pair

Of deftly-woven, parti-colored stockings, which more winsomely allure

By the floral garniture

Of their clockings.

But the people-ah! the people—

They that dwell up in the steeple,

Far from those:

’Mid the clanging and the rumble

Of the bells—they never “tumble”

To the hose.

At that lofty elevation,

They maintain their equipose,

Suffering not the excitation

Consequent on seeing those

Shapely hose, hose, hose—

White as winter’s snows,

Save the stripes, so richly tinted with the blushes of the rose,

Are the hose, hose, hose, hose—

Those hose, hose—

Are the fascinating, aggravating hose.

Lutin.

Puck, (New York), May 21, 1879.

——:o:——

The Bills.
(An apology for which Punch is proud to owe to Edgar Poe.)

I.

See the ever-swelling bills—

Heavy bills!

What a world of botherment Sir Stafford’s bosom fills!

How they tumble, tumble, tumble

In, to his extreme affright!

While the nation ’gins to grumble

At the wild financial jumble,

To the Liberals’ delight.

E’en the Times, Times, Times,

Hints at economic crimes

In the quick accumulation that the world with wonder fills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills,—

The growing and o’erflowing of the bills.

II.

See the Military bills—

Bouncing bills!

How their growth the Chancellor’s optimism chills!

For each little local fight,

Afghan, Zulu, what a sight

Of cash, in gold or notes,

Must come soon!

What triumphant mockery floats

From the Radical, who capers while he gloats

O’er the tune,

The pretty tune to which

The Nation, racked though rich,

Will have to pay the piper from its coffers and its tills,

For the bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills,

The ne’er ceasing increasing of the bills!

III.

See the long Imperial bills—

Bloated bills!

How their swoln proportions hint of choking bolus pills

For John Bull, who, at the sight,

Stares and stammers with affright!

Too much horrified to reckon

All the burdens piled his neck on

By the lune,

The mad hallucination which his fancy did inspire,

The wild and weak ambition, which his foolish brain did fire,

To soar higher, higher, higher,

With a lunatic desire,

And an imbecile endeavour

Now, now to swell, or never,

To Imperial plenilune!

Oh the bills, bills, bills!

What a tale their tottle fills!

Hard to bear!

How they mount to more and more!

What a cold, cold douche they pour

On the folly of the frantic Jingo scare!

Yet our pockets fully know,

By the waxing

Of the taxing,

How they flow, and flow, and flow;

Yet the ear that daily fills

With the wrangling,

And the jangling

Of the rival Party quills,

Knows how the Country chills,

At the swelling beyond telling in the number of the bills—

Of the bills—

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills, bills,

The mounting past all counting of the bills!

Punch, Oct. 25, 1879.

---

Bills.

(Scene.—Paterfamilias discovered in the act of looking through his morning’s letters.)

I.

Here’s the postman with his bills—

Christmas bills!

What a world of coming trouble their very sight instils!

How they worry, worry, worry,

In their envelopes of blue!

Whilst though I conceal my flurry,

I am really in a hurry,

To break open and review

The long lines, lines, lines,

Of fours and noughts, and nines,

And the terrifying total—which, as it is, my heart so thrills—

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

Oh, the flurry and the worry of the bills!

II.

Here are two most lengthy bills—

Bonnet bills!

What a world of foolish details, to be sure, their columns fills!

Here are bonnets for all weathers,

Trimm’d with birds, and flowers, and feathers’

Tulle diaphanous that floats—

Each new device!

Gold-tipp’d grasses, silver oats,

Birds have yielded up their plumage, beasts their coats,—

At a price,

Which is down in Madame’s bills.

(Three guineas! only fancy for a wreath of daffodils!)

Why it chills,

And it thrills,

And a lesson new instils,

Does the wicked waste that fills,

And makes bigger every figure

Of those shameful bonnet bills!

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

These increasing and ne’er ceasing

Bonnet bills!

III.

Here are more alarming bills—

Butcher’s bills!

What a tale their total tells of the worst of household ills!

How the figures seem to glare,

And to tell one everywhere

Of bones weighed out as meat,

Of triumphant plans to cheat

In their bills.

In their bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills—

Change the prices and devices of their bills.

IV.

Here are countless other bills—

Sundry bills!

Of which the reckoning up is like climbing up high hills!

Now I tremble with affright

On my lawyer’s to alight,

With its endless six and eightpences

All shown;

And the doctors, though one line,

To bad language doth incline,

Or a groan;

Whilst the tailor—oh, the tailor!

Was he ever found to fail, or

Ever known

Not to pile up useless details

In the manner to him prone;

“Fancy twill’d,” and “double mill’d,”

“Blue Elysian,” “braided,” “drill’d,”

Till each garment that he retails

Is described in terms high flown.

Then there are bills, of course,

Sent by tradesmen, who, perforce,—

(Without doubt);

Of American sirloins sold as Scotch beef superfine,

Of suet charged but never sent, of fat skewer’d on the chine;

Of rump steak at one-and-nine,

And of “rounds” so steep’d in brine,

That, spite resolute endeavour,

One could eat it never, never!

Nor anyhow the salt boil out.

Oh these bills, bills, bills,

Writ with skewers ’stead of quills—

They recall

Prices always going higher,

Though at Newgate ’twould transpire

Often meat had had a most decided fall.

Yes, there’s scarce a line that shows

Joints overweighted,

Price o’erstated,

As one by experience knows.

Yet the whole with hope one fills,

Co-operation

Through the nation

Soon will empty butchers’ tills;

Or at least bring down the prices they are charging in their bills—

With under-dash—

Must make up by Tuesday week

Such a sum; so from you seek

Cash!

To assist them with their bills,

And here, too, like bitter pills,

Come the long-forgotten bills—

Accounts one fancied settled,

Till by them, newly nettled,

All the air with cries one fills,

Making moan, moan, moan,

In a muffled monotone,

At the checking of the bills—

Of the bills!

Making moan, moan, moan,

In the same old monotone,

At the reckoning of the bills!

Of the bills, bills, bills,

At the checking, the reck’ning of the bills.

With a deep and final groan,

At the bother of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills,

At the pother of the bills,

Of the bills, bills, bills, bills,

Bills, bills, bills,

At the bother, and the pother of the bills.

Truth, January 8, 1880.

——:o:——

THE BELLS.[8]

Hear a voice announcing Irving in The Bells—sledge’s bells!

What a scene of wild excitement the advertisement foretells!

See the rush upon the pay-hole—

People stand a night and day whole

To secure a little corner for The Bells!

To look ghastly pale and shudder, every man and every “brudder”

Feels that nothing can be equal to The Bells!

Bells! Bells! Bells! Bells!

Too horrified to cheer,

Folk will testify by fear

How appalled they are by Irving in The Bells;

While great beads of perspiration will appear,

For in conscience-stricken terrors he excels!

Gloomy Bells!

Pit and gallery will glory in the weird and frightful story,

Which may even thrill the bosom of the swells,

For every Yankee “dude”

Unquestionably should

Have nightmare after witnessing The Bells!

Will our cousins all go frantic from Pacific to Atlantic, or condemn as childish antic

Irving’s dancing, and his gasping, and his yells!

There’s a certain admiration which the strange impersonation

Still compels,

E’en from those who can’t see beauty in The Bells—

In the play that Mr. Lewis calls The Bells!

Wondrous Bells!

You first made Henry famous, so the stage historian tells,

Will the scene be now repeated which in London always greeted

His performance of Mathias in The Bells?

Or will every sneering Yankee,

In his nasal tones, say “Thankee,

I guess this is just another of your mighty British ‘sells?’”

Let the thought for ever perish, that the actor whom we cherish

Could fail to lick creation in The Bells!

But if there are detractors

Of this foremost of our actors,

Of the gentlemanly Irving—friend of Toole’s—

“They are neither man nor woman, they are neither brute nor human,”

They are fools!

Judy, October 24, 1883.

——:o:——

The following verses, in imitation of Poe, are quoted from a little work entitled “Original Readings and Recitations,” by W. A. Eaton, published by H. Vickers, Strand. Mr. Eaton is a well-known Temperance Advocate, and the author of many pathetic poems admirably adapted for public Recitations:—

The Voice of the Bells.

I love the sound of bells

At evening, when the sun

To the tired labourer tells

His hard day’s work is done.

I love to hear,

So soft and clear,

Their notes go sailing o’er mount and mere.

Bells, softly chime

Your sweet, low rhyme,

Ring on, still ring.

While softly the shadows creep,

Over the folded sheep.

The day is done;

Down goes the sun,

And Silence opens the gates of Sleep.

I love the sound of bells

On a glorious summer morn,

When ev’ry note that swells

Tells of a joy new born.

The wedding note

Doth lightly float,

Gaily o’er hill and dale,

Merrily, cherrily,

Madly, gladly,

Telling of joys that will never fail.

Bells, bells, bells!

Hark how their music swells!

How it floats along,

Like a glorious song!

Bells, bells, bells, bells!

Oh, teach me the joy that your glad music tells.

I love to hear the bell

That is rung for a passing soul,

As, solemnly over the dell,

Its mournful boomings roll.

Toll, toll, toll,

For a passing soul;

While the mourners tramp

Through the graveyard damp.

Toll, toll, toll!

Boom, boom, boom!

Over an open tomb.

With a voice of terrible gloom,

(Toll, toll, toll,)

As long as the ages roll,

Thou wilt tell men of their doom.

But yet I love thee well,

Thou mournful, chiming bell;

For who shall say,

While thou dost toll,

What glorious chimes

And echoing rhymes

Will welcome to heaven the new born soul?

*  *  *  *  *

——:o:——

The Bills.
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED TO THE GENTLE READER.

Hark! the postman! he brings Bills!

Christmas Bills!!

What a world of torment now my bosom fills!

How they trouble, trouble, trouble,

All the merry Christmas time,

While a woe unfathomable

Seems to bubble, bubble, bubble

In my mind and mars the merry Christmas chime.

For they come, come, come,

In a multiplying sum,

Admitting no evasion of their ills;

Oh the Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills!!!!

Bills!!!!! Bills!!!!!! Bills!!!!!!!

Oh, the torment and the torture of the Bills!

Hang those Bills!

Christmas Bills!!

For their presence all our Christmas joy dispels;

In the silence of the night,

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!

And every note that floats

From our dry and dusty throats

Is a groan;

And we wish we were the people

Who dwell up in a steeple—

Happy people!

All alone!

And who, toiling, toiling, toiling

For their creditors’ despoiling,

Find it easy all cash payments to postpone,

And find pleasure in the spoiling,

In the spoiling and the moiling,

In the spoiling of a bailiff with a stone.

They are scarcely man and woman,

They are almost superhuman—

They are kings,

And like kings can sit and sing,

While they fling, fling, fling,

Fling rocks upon their duns;

While each dun gets up and runs

For his pistols and his guns,

And he dances and he groans,

Keeping time, time, time,

In a strange spasmodic rhyme,

To the volley of big stones,

Of big stones;

Keeping time, time, time,

In a ghastly sort of rhyme,

To the volleying of the stones,

Of the stones, stones, stones,

To the volley of the jolly big stones.

Keeping time, time, time,

While he yells, yells, yells,

In a wild galvanic rhyme,

For the payment of his bills,

Of his Bills! Bills!! Bills!!! Bills!!!!

Bills!!!!! Bills!!!!!! Bills!!!!!!!

For the instant liquidation of his Bills!

Free Press Flashes, 1883.

——:o:——

O! The Hammers.

O! the hammers, hammers, hammers,

Clanging hammers;

How they beat, how they chime,

With a joyous music time,

Soul-inspiring, never tiring

To the ear;

O’er the waters of the Tyne

Rolls the melody divine

Loud and clear;

And the toilers, strong and grim,

Glory in the sounding hymn,

For they know that each blow

Keeps the homely hearth aglow;

So they hammer, hammer, hammer,

And the far-resounding clamour

Gives them cheer.

O! the hammers, hammers, hammers,

Throbbing hammers,

How they leap, how they skip,

O’er the bosom of the ship,

Ever beating and repeating

Labour’s lay;

Hark! they tell of human might,

With an echoing delight,

All the day;

O! the battle must be won,

And the toiling must be done,

For the strife of each life

Is for children and for wife;

So they hammer, hammer, hammer,

And the wild, sonorous clamour

Is their stay.

From “Poems and Songs,” by William Allan.—Simpkin Marshall & Co., London, 1883.

——:o:——

Reminiscences of Summer.

See the frog, the slimy, green frog,

Dozing away on that old rotten log;

Seriously wondering

What caused the sundering

Of the tail that he wore when a wee pollywog.

See the boy, the freckled schoolboy,

Famed for cussedness, free from alloy;

Watching the frog

Perched on the log,

With feelings akin to tumultuous joy.

See the rock, the hard, flinty rock,

Which the freckled-faced boy at the frog doth sock;

Conscious he’s sinning,

Yet gleefully grinning

At the likely result of its terrific shock.

See the grass, the treacherous grass,

Slip from beneath his feet! Alas,

Into the mud

With a dull thud

He falls, and rises a slimy mass.

Now, see the frog, the hilarious frog,

Dancing a jig on his old rotten log;

Applying his toes

To his broad, blunt nose

As he laughs at the boy stuck fast in the bog.

*  *  *  *  *

Look at the switch, the hickory switch,

Waiting to make that schoolboy twitch;

When his mother knows

The state of his clothes

Won’t he raise his voice to its highest pitch.

Free Press Flashes, 1883.

——:o:——

That Amateur Flute.

Hear the fluter with his flute—

Silver flute!

Oh, what a world of wailing is awakened by its toot!

How it demi-semi quavers

On the maddened air of night!

And defieth all endeavours

To escape the sound or sight

Of the flute, flute, flute,

With its tootle, tootle, toot—

With reiterated tooteling of exasperating toots,

The long protracted tootelings of agonising toots,

Of the flute, flute, flute, flute,

Flute, flute, flute,

And the wheezings and the spittings of its toots.

Should he get that other flute—

Golden flute—

Oh, what a deeper anguish will its presence institoot!

How his eyes to heaven he’ll raise,

As he plays,

All the days!

How he’ll stop us on our ways

With its praise!

And the people—oh, the people,

That don’t live up in the steeple,

But inhabit Christian parlours

Where he visiteth and plays—

Where he plays, plays, plays—

In the cruellest of ways,

And thinks we ought to listen,

And expects us to be mute,

Who would rather have the earache

Than the music of his flute,

Of his flute, flute, flute,

And the tootings of his toot,

Of the toots wherewith he tooteleth its agonising toot,

Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,

Phlute, phlewt, phlewght,

And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.

American Paper.

——:o:——

The Office Boy’s Mother in America.

“Bells, bells, bells, bells, bells!”

How their clashing, and their clanging, all thought of peace dispels!

Oh, well might Edgar Allan Poe—or any other poet, born in American clime—

Adopt the bells, the ceaseless bells, as subject for his rhyme.

From early morn, till dewy eve, their clamour resounds loud and long,

The railway train as it puffs and clatters through the streets, proclaims its passage with “ding, dong! ding, dong!”

The matutinal milkman tinkle tinkles on his way,

And the vegetable vendor tintinabulates “ting-a-ring! ting-a-ring!”—enough to drive one mad, as a body may say.

The steamboat bell resounds, as if summoning the nation to its doom,

And from chapel, church, and schoolhouse—at all hours—echoes forth the solemn “boom, boom, boom!”

And at any time—day or night—just as it were—to fill up the blank,

The fire-engine rushes through the streets, with its quick, sharp, metallic, warning voice, “Clank—clank—clank—clank!”

It ain’t till you’ve lived in an American city that you learn how it was they came to dub

The oh-no-we-never-mention-him with the name of Bells-ebub!

*  *  *  *  *

Judy, January 14, 1885.

BISAKEL.

“Israfel,” By Poe, Recast for a new roll.

The angel Bisakel, whose wings are wheels, has the
fleetest pace of all God’s creatures.—Koran.

In heaven a spirit doth dwell

Whose great wing is a wheel.

None fly so wildly well

As the angel Bisakel,

And the giddy stars, so legends say,

Slowing their course, attend the play

Of his wondrous heel.

Maturing her age

In her highest noon,

The enamelled moon

Reddens with rage,

And to witness, with misgivin’,

(With the nautic Pleiads even,

More than seven.)

Pauses in heaven.

And they say (the starry choir

And the other gossiping things)

That Bisakeli’s fire

Is owing to that tire

O’er which he sits and slings

The trembling living wire

Of those unusual wings.

But surely that angel trod

Treadles amazing flighty;

And, for a grown-up god,

Their bicycling Houris’ are

His rivals—Aphrodite

Transports faster than a star!

The ecstasies he took

With such company to deal—

His leg and style, his pure caoutchouc,

With the fervour of his wheel—

Well may the stars go reel!

We say thou art not wrong,

Bisakeli, who despisest

Feathers and psalming song;

Bloom thou the laurels among,

Best angel and the wisest,—

Merrily live, and long!

Ah, heaven is his’n, indeed—

This world is sweets and sours;

Our powers are puny powers,

And the slowest of his perfect speed

Is the swiftest of ours.

If I could dwell

Where Bisakel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not spin so wildly well

Our mortal wheelery,

While a better song than now might swell

From my lyre within the sky—

But—how is this “for high”?

Lyra Bicyclica, By J. G. Dalton, Boston, 1880.

——:o:——

THE STEED OF FIRE.
From Poe’s “Eldorado”—Fabled Golden
made true steel.

Soberly dight,

A modern knight,

Upon a hack of hire

Had journeyed long

Singing a song

In search of a steed of fire.

But he grew old,

This knight, tho’ bold,

With o’er his heart a dire

Dump as he found

Nothing around

That looked like a steed of fire

And as his strength

Waned, he at length

Met a bicycling flyer:

“Flyer,” said he,

“What! can it be—

Can this be the steed of fire?”

“Upon this mount

We surely count,

’Tis all you can desire;

Ride, boldly ride,”

Cycler replied,

“If you seek for a steed of fire!”

He dried his tears,—

And shed his years,

All on the windy wire,

And sweeps along

Singing much song

In praise of the steed of fire.

Lyra Bicyclica, By J. G. Dalton, Boston,
Hodges & Co., 1880.

——:o:——

THE RAVEN.

Scene—Study in Chief Secretary’s Lodge, Phœnix Park.[9]G.O.T. loquitor—

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary

Over two delightful volumes rich in biographic lore.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“’Tis the footman with the tumblers, tapping at my chamber door—

Only that and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak November;

Wrought each separate dying ember, Gladstone’s nose upon the floor,

Terror-struck I feared the morrow; vainly had I sought to borrow

From those books surcease of sorrow; agony perhaps in store!

If those students, sons of Gladstone, failed to top Sir Stafford’s score!

Name it not for evermore.

Open then I flung the portal, when, with impudence immortal,

In there stepped a stately Raven of old Buckshot’s[10] days of yore.

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,

But as cool as Joseph Brady, perched upon my chamber door—

Perched upon a bust of Bradlaugh just above my chamber door—

Perched and spat, and nothing more.

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil, prophet still, Parnell, or devil,

Whether Gladstone or young Herbert sent or brought thee here ashore,

Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this island disenchanted,

In this home by horror haunted, tell me truly, I implore,

Shall I, shall I poll as many as did Roseberry before?”

Quoth the Raven, “Never more.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil, prophet still, Churchhill or devil,

By that bust that scowls beneath thee, by that God he don’t adore,

Tell this soul with terror haunted, tell this Secretary daunted,

Of the triumphs which we’ve vaunted, of the victory in store,

Shall the newsboys shout to-morrow how I’ve topped Sir Stafford’s score?”

Quoth the Raven, “Never more.”

Anonymous.

Received from Edinburgh, March 12, 1885.

——:o:——

The Raven.

The London correspondent of the Western Morning News, says:—“Speaking of poetry re-calls a very curious circumstance that has recently been talked about, and which is probably new to most readers. Everyone has read or heard that wonderful poem of Edgar Poe’s—‘The Raven’—and probably most of those who have read it know also of that very singular essay in which the poet explains the manner in which the poem was composed. He tells them how he came to make choice of the particular metre, how the burden suggested itself to his mind, how the last verse was written first and the others to lead gradually up to it, with a variety of minute and particular details, all tending to shew its originality. The whole of this essay turns out to be as ingenious a fiction as any of the ‘tales of mystery’ with which it is usually bound up. Poe’s sole accomplishment was a minute and accurate acquaintance with Oriental languages, and this he turned to account by translating almost literally the poem of ‘The Raven’ from the Persian. The translation is so minute and accurate that even the cadences are preserved throughout, while the curious repetition of rhymes by which it is distinguished is equally characteristic of the work of the Persian poet. As a singular specimen of a literary imposture such a matter as this deserves notice. The discovery is due to the well-known eastern traveller, Mr. Lang, formerly of the Bombay service, and has since been corroborated, I hear, by some of the most celebrated Orientalists in England.”—The Daily Review, Edinburgh, August 18, 1864.

SPIRITUAL POEMS.

A very curious feature of the modern American press has been the rapid growth of so-called Spiritual literature. Those who are incredulous in regard to these Spiritual manifestations simply assert that a poetical medium is one, who not having sufficient genius and originality to make a name and a place in literature for himself, falls back on the trick of imitating the style of some deceased popular author, and proclaims his (often stupid) Parody the veritable production of the spirit of the author imitated. Perhaps it is owing to the known partiality entertained by Edgar A. Poe for alcohol during his lifetime, or it may be due to the ease with which his style of versification may be imitated, that his spirit has been so often invoked, and his name so frequently used by the Spiritualists.

Without attempting to discuss the mode in which these poems have been given to the world, it will be quite sufficient to quote a few, and these of the very best, to show that Poe’s Spirit has not produced anything at all equal in quality to the poems written by Poe whilst he was still in the flesh. Power, freshness, and originality they seem to lack entirely, but the quantity is superabundant; the chief difficulty in making a selection that shall be at once illustrative and interesting, is to avoid making it too voluminous. Few, indeed, of these poems possess the attributes of Poe’s style,—his luxurious reiteration of thought in similar lines,—his musical alliteration—his exquisite sense of rhyme. Here and there occurs a slight assumption of the mystical, but it is mere obscurity without suggestiveness. It is asserted that most of these Spiritual Poems were taken down from the lips of persons whilst in a state of trance.

One of the earliest Spirit Poems was said to be dictated through the medium of Mrs. Lydia Tenney, of George Town, Mass., U.S.A., and was triumphantly claimed as a proof that Poe’s Spirit had written a poem. Mr. William Sawyer utterly demolished this poem in an article in the Brighton Herald, and as it does not possess any resemblance to Poe’s style, it would be out of place here.

The first Spirit poem to be quoted is a sequel to “The Raven,” by a certain R. Allston Lavender, who asserted that it was dictated to him by the spirit of E. A. Poe. When last heard of Mr. Lavender was an inmate of a lunatic asylum in the United States.

Sequel to the Raven.

Fires within my brain were burning,

Scorning life, despairing, yearning,

Hopeless, blinded in my anguish;

Through my body’s open door

Came a Raven, foul and sable,

Like those evil birds of fable,

Downward swooping where the drooping

Spectres haunt the Stygian shore.

Ghosts of agonies departed,

Festering wounds that long had smarted,

Broken vows, returnless mornings,

Griefs and miseries of yore;

By some art revived, undaunted,

I gazed steadfast: the enchanted,

Black, infernal Raven uttered

A wild dirge—not evermore.

Gazing steady, gazing madly

On the bird, I spoke, and sadly

Broke down, too deep for scorning,

Sought for mercy to implore.

Turning to the bird, I blessed it—

In my bosom I caressed it;

Still it pierced my heart, and revelled

In the palpitating gore.

I grew mad; the crowning fancies,

Black weeds they—not blooming pansies—

Made me think the bird a spirit.

Bird, I cried, be bird no more;

Take a shape—be man, be devil,

Be a snake; rise in thy revel!

From thy banquet rise—be human!

I have seen thee oft before;

Thou art a bird, but something more.”

*  *  *  *  *

Oh! thou huge, infernal Raven,

Image that Hell’s King hath graven,

Image growing more gigantic,

Nursed beyond the Stygian shore,

Leave me, leave me, I beseech thee,

I would not of wrong impeach thee;

I cried madly, then earth opened

With a brazen earthquake roar.

Downward, downward, circling, speeding,

Cries of anguish still unheeding,

Striking through me with his talons,

Still the Raven shape he bore;

Unto Erebus we drifted,

His huge wings by thunder lifted,

Beat ’gainst drifts of white-flamed lightning,

Sprinkled red with human gore—

’Twas a bird, but demon more.

*  *  *  *  *

Then I wakened, if to waken

Be to dwell by grief forsaken

With the God who dwelt with angels

In the shining age of yore.

And I stood sublime, victorious,

While below lay earth with glorious

Realms of angels shining,

Crown-like on her temples evermore,

Not an Earth, an Eden more.

Earth, I cried, thy clouds are shadows

From the Asphodelian meadows

Of the sky-world floating downward,

Early rains that from them pour;

Love’s own heaven thy mother bore thee,

And the Father God bends o’er thee,

’Tis His hand that crowns thy forehead;

Thou shalt live forever more,

Not on Earth, in Eden more.

As a gem hath many gleamings,

And a day hath many beamings,

And a garden many roses

Thrilled with sweetness to the core;

So the soul hath many ages,

And the life’s book many pages,

But the heart’s great gospel opens

Where the Seraphims adore,

Not on Earth, an Eden more.

There are in all sixteen verses in this imitation. The next example is one of the numerous poems delivered by Miss Lizzie Doten (a spiritual trance speaker) whilst supposed to be under the influence of the spirit of Edgar A. Poe.

A Grand Poem.

From the throne of life eternal,

From the home of love supernal,

Where the angels make music o’er the starry floor,

Mortals, I have come to meet you,

And with words of peace to greet you,

And to tell you of the glory that is mine forevermore.

Once before, I found a mortal

Waiting at the heavenly portal—

Waiting out to catch some echo from that ever-opening door;

Then I seized this quickened being,

And through all his inward seeing,

Caused my burning inspiration in a fiery flood to pour.

Now I come more meekly human,

And the weak lips of a woman,

Touched with fire from off the altar, not with burning, as of yore,

But in holy love descending,

With her chastened being blending,

I will fill your soul with music from the bright celestial shore.

As one heart yearns for another,

As a child turns to its mother,

From the golden gates of glory, turn I to the earth once more;

Where I drained the cup of sadness,

Where my soul was stung to madness,

And life’s bitter, burning billows swept my burdened being o’er.

Here the harpies and the ravens,

Human vampires, sordid cravens,

Preyed upon my soul and substance, till I writhed in anger sore;

Life and I then seemed mismated,

For I felt accursed and fated,

Like a restless, wrathful spirit, wandering the Stygian shore.

Tortured by a nameless yearning,

Like a fire-frost, freezing, burning,

Did the purple, pulsing life-tide through its feeble channels pour;

Till the golden bowl, life’s token,

Into shining shards was broken,

And my chained and chafing spirit let from out its prison door.

But, whilst living, stirring, dying,

Never did my spirit cease crying:

“Ye who guide the fates and furies, give, oh! give me, I implore—

From the myriad host of nations,

From the countless constellations,

One pure spirit that can love me—one that I, too, can adore.”

Through this fervent aspiration

Found my fainting soul salvation;

Far from out its blackened fire quick did my spirit soar,

And my beautiful ideal,

Not too saintly to be real,

Burst more brightly on my vision than the fancy formed Lenore.

’Mid the surging sea she found me,

With the billows breaking round me,

And my saddened, sinking spirit in her arms of love upbore;

Like a lone one, weak and weary,

Wandering in the mid-night dreary,

On her sinless, saintly bosom, brought me to the heavenly shore.

Like the breath of blossoms blending,

Like the prayers of saints ascending,

Like the rainbow’s seven-hued glory, blend on souls forevermore;

Earthly lust and lore enslaved me,

But divinest love hath saved me,

And I know now, first and only, how to live and how to adore.

O, my mortal friends and brothers!

We are each and all another’s,

And the soul which gives most freely from its treasures hath the more.

Would you lose life, you must find it,

And in giving love you bind it,

Like an amulet of safety to your heart for evermore.

Baltimore, August, 1872.

In a volume entitled Poems of the Inner Life written by the same lady, and published by Colby and Rich, of Boston, U.S.A., there is a long imitation of “Ulalume,” from which the following verses may be quoted:—

The Kingdom.

’Twas the ominous month of October—

How the memories rise in my soul!

How they swell like a sea in my soul!—

When a spirit, sad, silent, and sober,

Whose glance was a word of control,

Drew me down to the dark Lake Avernus,

In the desolate Kingdom of Death—

To the mist-covered Lake of Avernus,

In the ghoul-haunted Kingdom of Death.

And there, as I shivered and waited,

I talked with the souls of the dead—

With those whom the living call dead;

The lawless, the lone, and the hated,

Who broke from their bondage and fled—

From madness and misery fled.

Each word was a burning eruption

That leapt from a crater of flame,

A red, lava-tide of corruption,

That out of life’s sediment came,

From the scoriac natures God gave them,

Compounded of glory and shame.

“Aboard!” cries our pilot and leader;

Then wildly we rush to embark,

We recklessly rush to embark;

And forth in our ghostly Ellida[11]

We swept in the silence and dark—

Oh God! on that black Lake Avernus,

Where vampires drink even the breath

On that terrible Lake of Avernus,

Leading down to the whirlpool of Death!

It was there the Eumenides[12] found us

In sight of no shelter or shore—

No beacon or light from the shore.

They lashed up the white waves around us,

We sank in the waters’ wild roar;

But not to the regions infernal,

Through billows of sulphurous flame,

But unto the City Eternal,

The Home of the Blessed, we came.

To the gate of the Beautiful City,

All fainting and weary we pressed,

Impatient and hopeful we pressed.

“O, Heart of the Holy, take pity,

And welcome us home to our rest!

Pursued by the Fates and the Furies,

In darkness and danger we fled—

From the pitiless Fates and Furies,

Through the desolate realms of the Dead.”

*  *  *  *  *

Like the song of a bird that yet lingers.

When the wide-wandering warbler has flown;

Like the wind harp by Eolus blown,

As if touched by the lightest of fingers,

The portal wide open was thrown;

And we saw not the holy Saint Peter,

Not even an angel of light,

But a vision far dearer and sweeter,

Not as brilliant nor blindingly bright,

But marvellous unto the sight!

In the midst of the mystical splendour,

Stood a beautiful, beautiful child—

A golden-haired, azure-eyed child,

With a look that was touching and tender,

She stretched out her white hand and smiled:

“Ay, welcome, thrice welcome, poor mortals,

O, why do ye linger and wait?

Come fearlessly in at these portals—

No warder keeps watch at the gate!”

*  *  *  *  *

Then out from the mystical splendour,

The swift-changing, crystalline light,

The rainbow-hued, scintillant light,

Gleamed faces more touching and tender

Than ever had greeted our sight—

Our sin-blinded, death-darkened sight;

And they sang: “Welcome home to the Kingdom,

Ye earth-born and serpent-beguiled;

The Lord is the light of this Kingdom,

And His temple the heart of a child—

Of a trustful and teachable child.

Ye are born to the life of the Kingdom—

Receive, and believe, as a child.”

Another long poem, entitled “Farewell to Earth,” was delivered by Miss Lizzie Doten at the conclusion of a Lecture at Clinton Hall, New York; it purported to be E. A. Poe’s final “Farewell to this World.” It was printed in Number 2 of Inspirational Poems, and published by F. N. Broderick, 1, St. Thomas’s Square, Ryde, Isle of Wight, for the small price of one penny; alas! it was dear at that. But the culmination of absurdity is to be found in a book entitled Improvisations from the Spirit, published in London in 1857. This ridiculous work was the production of Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a rather well known character in St. John’s Wood about thirty years ago. If we are to credit this author, the 400 closely printed pages of this curious jumble of clerical cant terms, spiritualism, and Swedenborgianism, were written under a kind of inspiration. Since August 1857 the inspired volume had rested undisturbed on the library shelves of the British Museum, nor had any sacrilegious paperknife disturbed its uncut edges until the Editor of Parodies assailed them. And there he found an “Imitation of E. A. Poe,” a mad kind of poem, a dribbling in rhyme, of which, one verse will surely be sufficient for even the most spiritualistic reader:—

And that his feet were gaining

Strange features from below;

And that his toes were raining

Toe-nails upon his brow:

And that his heart and liver

Were shuffling in their seats;

And that he heard them quiver

And saw their anxious heats.

In the library of the British Museum there is a small octavo pamphlet of 24 pages, entitled “Pot-Pourri.” It was apparently printed for private circulation only. The author’s name is not given, but it bears the imprint, “Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Abel Reid, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.” “S. W. Green, Printer and Electrotyper, 16 & 18, Jacob St., New York.” The eleven poems it contains are all parodies of Poe’s writings, as the titles sufficiently indicate. Indeed many of the lines are taken bodily, and without the slightest acknowledgement, from Poe himself, whilst the stanzas, entitled, “Part of an Unfinished Ghoul-Poem,” in “Poetic Fragments,” were written by Poe, and intended by him to form the conclusion of “Ulalume.” He had, however, suppressed these lines at the request of Mrs. Whitman, the lady to whom he was engaged to be married, when his career was cut short by his miserable excesses. The author of “Pot-Pourri,” though evidently an admirer of the genius of Poe, utters a protest against the excessive hero-worship of some American critics; but it is a pity that he was not himself more candid and ingenuous in his treatment of the dead poet’s works. The following is an exact reprint of this scarce pamphlet; to facilitate comparison with the originals, a few stanzas from Poe’s poems are quoted at the foot of several of the parodies.

POT-POURRI.

• The Ruined Palace.
• Dream-Mere.
• Israfiddlestrings.
• The Ghouls in the Belfry.
• Hullaloo.
• To Any.
• Hannibal Leigh.
• Raving.
• The Monster Maggot.
• Poetic Fragments.
• Under-Lines.

——:o:——

[*] The Ruined Palace.

In a green depth, like a chalice,

By most sweet flowers tenanted,

Stood a fair and stately palace.

There a poet-soul—now dead—

Lived in days in vain lamented,—

Had lived to-day,

But was wayward—or demented,—

Weak, or worse,—who dares to say?

For his thought was streak’d with fancies,

To all simple truth untrue;

Bizarre, as the hues of pansies,—

The dark shades he knew;

And he wander’d from this Aidenn:

Wander’d, and was lost, alas!

Though his own beloved maiden

Track’d his footsteps through the grass.

He return’d not. Devastation

Housed in his disorder’d rooms;

On his couch lay Desolation;

Vampyres flitted through the glooms.

By the pure white Parian fountains

Lounged the ghouls, obscenely bare;

Never wind came from the mountains

To refresh the stagnant air.

O’er the garden walks neglected

Crawl’d the toad, the worm, the snail;

Droop’d the young buds unrespected:

Loving care could not avail.

For the poet-soul, the master,

Could alone that place

Make beautiful, and from disaster

Free—as Aidenn—by God’s grace.

When he the palace left, and garden,—

The moment that he would depart—

*  *  *  *  *

Speech is vain, and tears but harden

On the world’s ice heart.

[*] The Haunted Palace.

I.

In the greenest of our valleys

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace,

Radiant palace, reared its head.

In the Monarch Thought’s dominion,

It stood there;

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair!

II.

Banners—yellow, glorious, golden—

On its roof did float and flow

(This, all this, was in the olden

Time, long ago);

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingèd odour went away.

*  *  *  *  *

E. A. Poe.

——:o:——

Dream-Mere.

On a root, knobbed, gnarl’d, and lonely.

Overstruck with toadstools only,

Sits an Eidolon named Night,—

On a toadstool half upright.

I have seen this sprite but newly,

And I look’d at him quite throughly,

In his ultimate dim Thulè

As he sate there half upright.

In a wild, weird clime, and singing sublime,

Out of Tune—out of Time.

Bottomless hollows and roaring floods,

And caves and chasms and haunted woods,

Forms that no man can discover

For the dews that drip all over;

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Shoreless seas that still aspire,

Surging to hellish heavens of fire;

Boundless lakes all lone and dead,

Where sometimes Night lies outspread

In the waters still and chilly,

With his nose in a lolling lily.

By these shoreless lakes outspread,

These lone waters, lone and dead,

These lone waters, still and chilly

(Night’s nose in the lolling lily);

By these toppling crags,—no river

Murmurs near, no leaflets quiver—

All so dark and dead and chilly;

By these dank woods, by the swamp,

Where the toad and bull-frog romp;

By these dismal tarns, by the holes

Where dwell the Ghouls—

Poor damp souls!

By each corner most unjolly,

By each crevice melancholy,

By my own poetic folly—

Frenzy of poetic drift,

In an unexpected rift,

There, I swear, I met aghast

In a sheet the unmemoried Past,

In a shroud a Ghost, whose eye

Looking into vacancy

Made me shudder, start, and sigh,—

One forgotten, from thought outdriven,

I know not whether on Earth or in Heaven.

For the heart whose woes are legion

’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—

This same desert drear of Night,

Where the Eidolon sits upright

On his toadstool, or outspread,

Lies lolling on his lily-bed.—

For the spirit that likes a shadow

’Tis, O, ’tis an Eldorado,—

Though the traveller, travelling through it,

Ever fails to interview it

(No one ever openly knew it),

For its mysteries all are closed

By the darkness superposed

Of the Eidolon, who, I ween,

Wills not the formless should be seen:

And thus the sad soul that here passes

Is like a blind ass without glasses.

On his root, knobb’d, gnarl’d, and lonely,

Overstruck with toadstools only,

Squats the Eidolon named Night,

Squats in sad poetic plight.

Is there more, and would you know it?

Fix the headgear of the Poet,

Wandering God knows where, but newly

From this ultimate dim Thulè. [*]

---

* Dreamland.

I.

By a route obscure and lonely,

Haunted by ill angels only,

Where an Eidolon, namèd Night,

On a black throne reigns upright,

I have reached these lands but newly

From an ultimate dim Thule—

From a wild weird clime that lieth sublime

Out of Space—out of Time.

II.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,

And chasms and caves and Titan woods,

With forms that no man can discover

For the dews that drip all over;

Mountains toppling evermore

Into seas without a shore;

Seas that restlessly aspire,

Surging into skies of fire;

Lakes that endlessly outspread

Their lone waters, lone and dead,—

Their still waters, still and chilly

With the snows of the lolling lily.

*  *  *  *  *

E. A. Poe.

——:o:——

Israfiddlestrings.
The Angel Israfel, whose heart strings are a fiddle.

In heaven a Spirit doth dwell

Whose heart strings are a fiddle,

(The reason he sings so well—

This fiddler Israfel),

And the giddy stars (will anyone tell

Why giddy?) to attend his spell

Cease their hymns in the middle.

On the height of her go

Totters the Moon, and blushes

As the song of that fiddle rushes

Across her bow.

The red Lightning stands to listen,

And the eyes of the Pleiads glisten

As each of the seven puts its fist in

Its eyes, for the mist in.

And they say—it’s a riddle—

That all these listening things,

That stop in the middle

For the heart strung fiddle

With which the Spirit sings,

Are held as on a griddle

By these unusual strings.

Wherefore thou art not wrong,

Israfel! in that thou boastest

Fiddlestrings uncommon strong;

To thee the fiddle strings belong

With which thou toastest

Other hearts as on a prong.

Yes! heaven is thine, but this

Is a world of sours and sweets,—

Where cold meats are cold meats,

And the eater’s most perfect bliss

Is the shadow of him who treats.

If I could griddle

As Israfiddle

Has griddled—he fiddle as I,—

He might not fiddle so wild a riddle

As this mad melody,

While the Pleiads all would leave off in the middle

Hearing my griddle-cry. [*]

* Israfel.

“And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.”—Koran.

I.

In Heaven a spirit doth dwell,

“Whose heart-strings are a lute;”

None sing so wildly well

As the angel Israfel;

And the giddy stars (so legends tell),

Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell

Of his voice, all mute.

II.

Tottering above

In her highest noon

The enamoured Moon

Blushes with love;

While to listen, the red levin

(With the rapid Pleiades even,

Which were seven)

Pauses in heaven.

III.

And they say (the starry choir

And the other listening things)

That Israfeli’s fire

Is owing to that lyre

By which he sits and sings,—

The trembling living wire

Of those unusual strings.

*  *  *  *  *

VII.

Yes, heaven is thine; but this

Is a world of sweets and sours;

Our flowers are merely flowers,

And the shadow of thy perfect bliss

Is the sunshine of ours.

VIII.

If I could dwell

Where Israfel

Hath dwelt, and he where I,

He might not sing so wildly well

A mortal melody,

While a bolder note than this might swell

From my lyre within the sky.

E. A. Poe.

——:o:——

The Ghouls in the Belfry.[13]

Hear the story of the Ghouls!

Who will tell us of the Ghouls?

Who has been told?

Of the Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls,—

Who are neither man nor woman.

Who are neither beast nor human,

Who are neither fish nor cayman,—

Who will tell us, clerk or layman?

They are Ghouls;

Live in holes

Like moles

Under the boles, boles, boles

Of old trees, where the forest rolls

Of the mouldy days of old;

Or in tarns, tarns, tarns,

Dull and dismal as the yarns

Of morbific spools,—

Dank tarns and dismal pools,

There dwell the Ghouls,

With other tarn’d fowls,—

Not to say fools.

But the high tarn nation place is

The dank tarn of Auber

In the Ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.

There they sit, with their faces

Bow’d down to their knees,

At the feet of dead trees.

With the dew dropping down from their hair,

They sit there from the end of October,

To the end of the winter next year,

These are woodlandish Ghouls,

Damp, desolate souls

Who have nothing to do

But be haunting the dank tarn of Auber

Through the mildewest part of the year,

That begins at the end of October,

In the woodlandish Ghouldom of Weir.

Yes! these are the woodlandish Ghouls—

Ghouls—Ghouls—Ghouls—

With no business kind of controls—

Mere shoals.

But busier—ah! much busier polls

Have the Churchyard Ghouls,

Prowling there for the bodies of poor dead souls;

And who after supper

Take an upper

Climb to their goal in the steeple!

Where they sit, where they brood, where they heap ill

On the people undergone;

Sitting cheeks by jowls.

Now and then they roll a stone,

Having set the bells a-tolling

In a muffled monotone,

On the people undergone.

And their King it is who tolls,

As he lolls, lolls, lolls

On his throne all carved with scrolls

In his palace in the steeple.

Where he lolls among his people!

Ah! his people who roll stones,

In muffled monotones,

On the hearts of the underfolk,

In the dead of night awoke

By the melancholy yells,

By the miserable howls,

To say nothing of the growls,

Of these Ghouls,

Of these tollers of the bells,

As they toll, toll, toll

Toll;

Toll;

Toll

A pæan from the bells:

And the merry bosom swells

Of the Ghoul-King as he tolls,

As he dances and he yells

To the throbbing of the bells

As they toll,

Toll,

Toll.

It is so the poet tells

Who has heard these Ghoulish bells;

And whose rheumy running rhyme,

Bowl’d in time, time, time,

With the throbbing and the sobbing

And the bobbing and hobnobbing

And sense-robbing of the bells,

Could alone expound their yells

For the clamor each expels,

From the loud full-hammer’d tone,

Sometime hoarsening to a groan,

Sometime worsening to a moan,

Till one bell tolls out alone

In a muffled monotone

Between murmuring and moan,—

Till the King lolled there, as shown,

On his scroll-becarven throne,

Grown weary of the yells

And the bowling of the bells

(Well! well! to be so bold)

As they moan and groan and yell

Pell-mell,

Would be fain to be unthroned,

For the pain too wholly own’d,

Untold but wholly known,

(Toll de roll!)

Of the moans, groans, yells,

As they shake the steeple stone,

And awake the undergone

(Rest his soul!)

With the tolling of their knells,

Roll’d like blood-drops from heart wells,

Misereres out of cells,

Or weird witch-moulded spells

Under fells!

The bells, bells, bells,

Whose tolling ever tells

Of Ghouls, of hells, of knells,

Told by bells, bells, bells

Bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

The unholy yelling, knelling, wholly sense dispelling,

Moaning, groaning, all-atoning,

Rolling, tolling of the bells,

Bells,

Bells.

——:o:——

Hullaloo.[14]

The eves were as grey as grey embers,

The leaves dirty yellow and sere,—

They were yellow, but dusky and sere;

That eve was the worst of November’s,

And they are the worst of the year.

’Twas an eve that one surely remembers,

Being out in the dusk with my dear;

For the fire was gone out to weak embers;

So I went out too, with my dear.

Hear then! Through an alley Satanic—

Of hemlock, I roam’d with my love,—

Of hemlock with Sarah, my love.

O my passion was quite oceanic,

With waves like the wind in a grove,

When the wind maketh waves in a grove—

And the leaves with a sort of a panic

Seem taken; I thought of the stove,

And, shivering, as if with a panic

Was taken, at thought of the stove.

Our talk at the first had been jolly,

But our words soon were slow as our walk,—

Our young memories scarcely could walk;

Then we thought it was right melancholy

To be out in the dark without talk—

For we knew that we came out to talk

Still we felt in our hearts it was folly

The vast dream of silence to baulk,

Till, whispering at last, I said—Golly!

And Sarah back whisper’d me—Lawk!

And now as the night was senescent,

And some roosters were hinting of morn,—

Foolish roosters then hinting of morn!—

As the night grew more old and unpleasant,

We saw in the distance a horn,

Out of which a miraculous crescent

To the sides of the road was outborne;

’Twas Sal’s father’s horn lanthorn there present,

The crescent distinct from the horn.

And I said—He is better than Dian;

But I wish that his light had more size,—

And the light wasn’t much for its size;

He has guess’d—that’s a thing to rely on—

Has father, the way our walk lies,

And he has come out like Orion,

The fellow up there in the skies,—

Yes, Sally! those stars in the skies—

Come out like another Orion

To help me take care of my prize,

To take her safe home bye-and-bye on

The pathway that fatherward lies.

But Sarah, uplifting her finger,

Said—Surely that light I mistrust,—

That lanthorn I strangely mistrust;

O hasten! O let us not linger!

O fly! let us fly! for we must.

In terror she spoke, letting sink her

Voice,—O, he’ll make such a dust!

In anguish she sobbed, letting sink her

Sweet voice, as if fearing a bust,—

O but father’ll kick up such a dust!

I replied—This is nothing but dreaming;

We need but keep out of the light,—

But he kept dodging us with the light;

And Sarah would soon have been screaming—

She shook like a leaf with affright,

Like a leaf, or a bird in a fright;

So I lifted her out of the gleaming,

Through a gap in the hedge, out of sight:

And her father went on, never dreaming

He left us behind in the night.

Then to pacify Sarah I kiss’d her,

And soon took her out of the gloom,—

It was getting quite cold in the gloom,

And she cried; but I said—Dear! desist, or

I never shall get you safe home.

Then we ran, and in good time got home.

Father said—How on earth have I miss’d her?

She said—I was never from home.

No, Pa! I was never from home.

I have been all the night in my room.

Now my head is as grey as an ember;

And my heart is all crisped and sere,—

Like a crisp leaf that’s wither’d and sere;

And yet I am fain to remember

Above all the nights in the year—

Ah, Sally! if you were but here—

That night of all nights in the year—

Ah, Sally! if you were but here—

That cold dreamy night of November,

That night of all nights in the year,

That long ago night of November,—

The night we were out in, my dear!

——:o:——

To Any.

Thank heaven! the crisis

Of hunger is past;

And you can’t guess how nice is

This little breakfast,

Now the thing call’d good living

Is come to at last.

I eat what I love

And recover my strength;

And my jaws only move

As I lie at full length.

I might sit—but I feel

I am better at length.

And I lie so composedly,

Feeding and fed,

A careless beholder

Might fancy me dead.

Not seeing my jaws work

Might fancy me dead.

The grunting and groaning,

The writhing and raving,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible craving

At stomach—that horrible

Stomachic craving.

The sickness, the faintness,

The emptiness—pain

Have ceased; and my stomach’s

A stomach again,

And feels like a stomach

Not living in vain.

And oh! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated,—the terrible

Torture of Thirst,

For a napthaline river

Or fusil lake burst:

I’d have drunk dirty water,

For quenching that thirst.

Of a puddle that flows

With a smell, and no sound

From a hole but a very few

Feet underground,

Though I holded my nose

As I stoop’d to the ground.

And ah! let it never

Be foolishly said

That this my mahogany

Is not well spread!

With such victual before me

I call it a spread;

And such drink—my cosmogony

Knows nought instead.

My tantalized spirit

Here blandly reposes:

The upsetting or ever

’Twas wetting one’s nose is

All over. Sweet spirit!

Thy scent in my nose is.

And now while so pleasantly

Curl’d up it fancies,

A fragranter odour

Than rue has, or pansies,—

Or even than rosemary

Mingled with pansies,—

The beautiful bourbon,

The Puritan fancies.

And so I lie happily

Drinking a many

And eating a few,

It will cost a big penny;

I don’t mind the cost;

For I have not a penny. [*]

*  *  *  *  *

* For Annie.

I.

Thank heaven, the crisis,

The danger is past,

And the lingering illness

Is over at last;

And the fever called “living”

Is conquered at last.

*  *  *  *  *

IV.

The moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

At heart—Ah, that horrible,

Horrible throbbing!

V.

The sickness, the nausea,

The pitiless pain,

Have ceased, with the fever,

That maddened my brain—

With the fever called “living,”

That burned in my brain.

VI.

And, O! of all tortures

That torture the worst

Has abated—the terrible

Torture of thirst

For the napthaline river

Of Passion accurst.

I have drunk of a water

That quenches all thirst.

*  *  *  *  *

E. A. Poe.

——:o:——

Hannibal Leigh.[15]

It was many and many a year ago—

It seems so long to me,

That there lived in a city which you may know

A man named Hannibal Leigh;

And this man he seem’d to have nothing to do

But to drink and get drunk with me.

I was a fool and he was a fool,

In this city by the sea

For we drank and got drunk till we made it a rule

That neither should drunker be;

And we drank till we might have lesson’d a school

Of fishes, such drinkers were we.

And this was the reason that long ago

In this city by the sea

A fusilier spirit of ill distilling

Destroy’d my Hannibal Leigh.

’Twas a spirit of ill when my pal was willing

To drink for ever with me;

And some were saying it was fulfilling

A kind o’ warning to me.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying him and me—

Yes! that was the reason, whatever was given

In that city by the sea,

Why the fusilier spirit came out a-killing

My still-swilling Hannibal Leigh.

But I drink all the longer and drink it more strong,

For the two, for I drink like three,—

For myself once and twice for Leigh;

And no fusil here nor in heaven along,

Nor spirit down under the sea,

Shall ever dissever our drinks to do wrong

To the spirit of Hannibal Leigh.

For whenever I drink I endeavour to think,

I am drinking with Hannibal Leigh;

And my hand never raise but to drink to the praise

Of my drink-Kaiser Hannibal Leigh;

And in all the night tide I hold on to the side

Of the counter, the counter where Hannibal died;

And I think that I Hannibal see

And I’m Hannibal, Hannibal’s me.

——:o:——

Raving.[16]

Once upon a midnight, weary,

As I maundered, gin-and-beery,

O’er an oft-repeated story,

Till my friends thought me a bore—

Sitting weeping, and half sleeping,

Something set my flesh a-creeping,

And I saw a Raven peeping

Through my room’s unopen’d door.

“See that Raven,” said I to them,

“Trying to get through the door,—

A Black Raven—nothing more?”

Now, I was not drunk, but weary,

For my head was out-of-geary

With close study of quaint volumes,

Curious in forgotten lore;

(Though they said delirium tremens)

I’d been reading bits of Hemans,

And some leaves of Jacob Behmen’s,

Two or three—perhaps a score;

And I said—“It is a Raven

Rampant just outside the door—

Striding through,” I said—and swore.

I insisted, and I twisted,

And resisted and persisted

Though they held me and, close-fisted,

Saw no Raven at the door:

I forgot all I had read of,

For that ill bird took my head off,

Like a coffin lid of lead off

The dead brain of one no more.

Would I trust their words instead of

What I saw right through the door?

Through the door,—I said—and swore.

Yes! it is a Raven surely,

Though he does look so demurely

Like a doctor come to assure me

I am drunk: Not so,—I swore.

Drunk? I drunk? I’ve not been drinking;

I’m but overcome with thinking;

There I saw that Raven winking

In the middle of the floor.

Doctor! there’s the Raven rampant

In the middle of the floor;

He has hopp’d straight through the door.

Look! his curst wings brush the dust off

That fallen, broken, batter’d bust of

Psyche,—where it lies in the shadow,

Shatter’d flung down on the floor.

See! he spurns the broken pieces.

Catch him, Doctor! When he ceases

He will rend me. Past release is—

Nothing! Nothing on the floor?

Yes! The Psyche lies in the shadow,

Lieth shatter’d on the floor—

To be lifted nevermore.

*  *  *  *  *

——:o:——

The Monster Maggot.[17]

A Poet! With never a single theme

Of glory or delight;

He folds his wings for a gloomy dream

Of death, despair, bedight;

And, willing not that Beauty use

His wilderness of soul,

He chooseth, for his daintier muse

Raven or Ghoul.

And now a “Conqueror Worm” he sings,

A blood-red crawling shape,

Invisible woe from its condor wings

Out-flapping, all agape;

While angels bewing’d, bedight in veils,

Watch mumbling mimes, with tears,

In a play, where a maniac, Horror, wails

To the music of the spheres.

The play is the play of Human Woes,

Of Madness, Sin, and Death!

There is nothing else the Poet knows

God’s azure sky beneath,

But Madness, Horror, and Sin

Death and Sorrow, and Wrong:

Even so doth the singer begin,

So ends his song.

“It writhes”—the Worm—“with mortal pangs

“The mimes become its food;

“And the angels sob at vermin fangs

“In human gore imbued,”

This monster terrible, formless, huge,

Means—put in plainest terms:

Our Poet needs a vermifuge.

The child’s disease is worms.

POETIC FRAGMENTS.

Part of an Unfinished Ghoul—Poem—

Said we then—the two, then—Ah! can it

Have been that the woodlandish Ghouls—

The pitiful, the merciful Ghouls,

To bar up our way and to ban it

From the secret that lies in these wolds—

From the thing that lies hidden in these wolds—

Have drawn up the spectre of a planet,

From the limbo of lunary souls—

This sinfully scintillant planet

From the hell of the planetary souls?

——:o:——

Pot-Pourri.

“A Rosemary odour

“Commingled with pansies—

“With rue:”—

Your poet has fancies.

But methinks such an odour

Were odious to more than a few.

——:o:——

UNDER LINES.

On a Poet’s Tomb.

Tomb’d in dishonor! Not like thine own Ghoul

Have I thus dug thee out, Unhappy One!

For critical devouring; but some words

Writ heedlessly above thee call for words

Of answering rebuke. If Israfel

In heaven needs his own heart-strings for his lyre—

The only organ of harmonious worth—

Shall not earth’s poet? And if he be weak,

Rent by ill memories, harsh with sour desire,

Untunable, rejoicing not in good,

Can aught but discord issue? Speech absurd

Of “art for art’s sake!” when art is not art

Out of the circles of the universe,

Out of the song of the eternities,

Or unfit to attend the ear of God.

My mocking words aim at, not thee, but those

Who would strain praise for thee, disgracing Truth.

[Conclusion of Pot-Pourri.]

Many good and honest souls, neither prigs nor pedants, are disposed to look with suspicion on the parody. They are not incapable of appreciating its good points; they will even allow it, when it is so, to be very good fun of its kind; but it is the kind they cannot away with. Nor are they always of that sort—a numerous and flourishing sort in our day—which, being itself one monstrous parody, is naturally prone to look with dislike on all who are blessed—or cursed, as some would say—with a sense of the ridiculous. But they regard it as an abuse of the gifts both of nature and of art; as apt to degrade and vulgarize what should really elevate and refine; as itself intrinsically an injustice; and, indeed, the more unjust as it is the more skilful.

There is so much both of justice and reason in this dislike that one cannot but respect it, though seeing how unreasonably it may be pushed and how unjust it may become. It is based, primarily, of course, upon sentiment—but it is a sentiment, in its original shape, both honourable and true. The word sentiment has come in these days to have a ridiculous twang in our ears partly through the silly and perverted uses to which the thing itself is too often applied, and partly through a confusion between the two qualities, sentiment and sentimentality, which may best be distinguished perhaps by defining the latter as the abuse of the former. It is sentiment which leads us to mark the houses where great men have been born or lived; it is sentiment which leads us to gaze with reverent admiration on that place of honour in the British Museum wherein are enshrined the handwritings of so many of our illustrious dead; all the care we take to preserve the memorials of the past is inspired by sentiment. But it is a sentiment which every right-thinking man would be far more ashamed to miss than to share. It is a very different feeling, for example, from that which induced a young lady on the other side of the world to preserve under a glass case the cherry-stones which she had snatched from the plate of a Royal Duke; it is a very different feeling from that which induces so many pious souls to play such fantastic tricks at the knees of living men. This objection, then we are not disposed in the first instance to quarrel with, especially as most of the so-called parodies, burlesques, or “perversions” of to-day are certainly bad enough to cover even a greater intolerance. They are bad both in art and tactics. They deal too often with subjects which should be kept free even from the most good-natured ridicule, and they deal with them clumsily. There is a sort of mind to whom every success, however lawfully and honourably gained, is sufficient cause for mockery; the higher a great figure towers above their heads the more active are their monkeyish gambols at its feet. The living and the dead are alike the objects of their impish regard, and if they perhaps enjoy a livelier pleasure in the thought of the irritation they can cause to the living, they seem to share a peculiar satisfaction in showing themselves superior to any feeling of reverence for the dead—to say nothing of the fact that in the latter case the game is apt to be a little the safest. The most part of mankind will sooner laugh at their more successful fellows than try to imitate, or, at least, to respect them; it is easy, then, to understand why the most witless and illiberal parody will never want an audience.

Nevertheless, the parody in itself is not only capable of increasing the gaiety of nations by perfectly harmless and legitimate means, but can also, when properly handled and directed, be made to play the part of a chastener and instructor. It has been often said that to parody a writer is really to pay a compliment to his popularity; and this is so far true that no one would think it worth his while to parody any work which was not tolerably well known, for half the point of any imitation must always lie in the readiness with which its resemblance to the original is recognized; if the original be not known the imitation must necessarily fall flat. No really good writer was ever injured by a parody; few, we may suppose, have ever been annoyed by one. No one, for example, was more quick to recognize the cleverness and laugh at the fun of “A Tale of Drury Lane” in the Rejected Addresses than Scott himself; Crabbe, though he thought there was a little “undeserved ill-nature” in the prefatory address owned that in the versification of “The Theatre” he had been “done admirably.” On the other hand, we can fancy that Messieurs Fitzgerald and Spencer saw very little fun or wit, or anything but “undeserved ill-nature” in “The Loyal Effusion” and “The Beautiful Incendiary.” The paradoxical saying attributed to Shaftesbury, which so puzzled and irritated Carlyle, that ridicule is the test of truth, finds its true explanation in his real words, “A subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious.” Nothing good was ever destroyed by raillery; where it plays the part of iconoclast, the images it breaks are the images of false gods. Nay, and even to the true it may sometimes prove of service. It may gently admonish, for instance, the best and most established writer, when, from haste, from carelessness, from over-confidence, he is in danger of forfeiting his reputation; it may gently lead the tiro, while there is yet time, from the wrong into the right path. Nor on writers only may it be exercised with advantage. All men who have in any capacity become, as it were, the property of the public may by its means be warned that they are trespassing too far on their popularity, that they are in danger of becoming not only ridiculous themselves, but harmful to others; for every strong man who presumes upon his strength is capable of becoming a source of injury to his weaker brethren. We do not say that its lessons are always, or even often, taken to heart; but that does not detract from their possible virtue. If such a plea were allowed, what, in the name of humanity, would become of so many of us? What would become of our lawyers, our statesmen, our philosophers, our doctors, our policemen, our—appalling thought!—our critics, if the failure of their endeavours to set and to keep their erring brethren in the straight path were to be taken as a right reason for their abolition? Their resistance to error may seem hopeless, may be often ineffectual, but not for that should they abandon it; rather should they cry, with the author of Obermann, “Let us die resisting.”

But whatever may be the moral virtue of a parody, there can be no question that to show any reason for its existence at all it must be very good. There is nothing in the world so pitiful as poor fun, and a bad parody is perhaps the poorest kind of fun. In his review of the famous Addresses, Jeffrey discussed the various sorts of parody at some length, and with a good deal of acuteness, distinguishing between the mere imitation of externals, mere personal imitation, so to speak—and that higher and rarer art which brings before us the intellectual characteristics of the original. “A vulgar mimic,” he says, “repeats a man’s cant phrases and known stories, with an exact imitation of his voice, look, and gestures; but he is an artist of a far higher description who can make stories or reasonings in his manner, and represents the features and movements of his mind as well as the accidents of his body. It is a rare feat to be able to borrow the diction and manner of a celebrated writer to express sentiments like his own—to write as he would have written on the subject proposed to his imitator—to think his thoughts, in short, as well as to use his words—and to make the revival of his style appear a natural consequence of the strong conception of his peculiar ideas.” And he goes on, “The exact imitation of a good thing, it must be admitted, promises fair to be a pretty good thing in itself; but if the resemblance be very striking, it commonly has the additional advantage of letting us more completely into the secret of the original author, and enabling us to understand far more clearly in what the peculiarity of his manner consists, than most of us would ever have done without this assistance.” Jeffrey here carries the parody into the regions of very high art indeed, if he does not, as we are rather inclined to think he does, lay more upon its shoulders than it can bear. In a note to the same review, when reprinted in the collected edition of his essays, he remarks of these Addresses that “some few of them descend to the level of parodies, but by far the greater part are of a much higher description;” from which it would seem that he draws a distinction between a parody and something “of a much higher description,” which we must confess to being a little in the dark about, unless it be an imitation, and that we should be disposed to rank very much below a good parody. Many of our minor bards, for example, have produced extraordinarily close imitations of Mr. Swinburne’s style; but we should certainly rank these far below a clever parody, such a one, for instance, as that on Locksley Hall in the “Bon Gaultier Ballads,”[18] or as Mr. Calverley’s inimitable “The Cock and the Bull,” or “Lovers,” and “A Reflection.” No better imitations, both of style and substance, have ever been written in prose than Thackeray’s “Codlingsby” and “George de Barnwell;” but they are most unquestionably parodies. Indeed it is hard to see what virtue there can be in an imitation which is not also a parody—that is, as we take it, a consciously exaggerated imitation; an imitation which is not that, surely, instead of, as Jeffrey says, descending to the level of a parody, goes near to descend to the much lower level of a plagiarism.

If we wished to distinguish between the parody designed to ridicule and that designed only to amuse, we should be inclined to say that, while the latter contents itself with an imitation of the style, the former aims also at an imitation of the thought and substance. In the parodies we have noticed, for example, Thackeray unquestionably intended to ridicule the authors of Eugene Aram and Coningsby. Both their subjects and the manner of handling those subjects seemed to him such as deserved ridicule and he ridiculed them accordingly, as no one but Thackeray could. On the other hand, we do not for a moment suppose that the clever Oxford parodist who sang the labours and ultimate triumph of “Adolphus Smalls of Boniface” intended to ridicule Macaulay. He took The Lays of Ancient Rome as his model, because they were more familiar probably to his readers than any other form of verse, and because their external characteristics were most easy to reproduce. We read such lines as—

Now thickly and more thickly

To the Five Orders gates,

In cap and gown throng through the town

White-chokered candidates.

Stunner of Christ Church, ne’er before

In academics seen;

And Nobby of the collars high,

Girt with the scarf none else may tie;

Loud-trowsered Boozer, stripes and all;

And whiskered Tomkins from the hall

Of seedy Magdalene;

or as—

They gave him his testamur,

Which was a passman’s right;

He was more than three examiners

Could plough from morn to night,—

we read such lines, and laugh at them without feeling that any injustice is done to Macaulay. Again, when we read of another and less fortunate sufferer,—in the schools of Cambridge this time—how

In the crown of his cap

Were the Furies and Fates,

And a delicate map

Of the Dorian States;

And they found on his palms, which were dirty,

What is frequent on palms—that is dates—[19]

we entirely acquit the writer of any design to laugh at Mr. Bret Harte. In both these cases the parodies are really no more than proofs of the universal popularity of the writers parodied. But when we read in Rejected Addresses the parodies on Wordsworth and Coleridge, we feel that the writers were intentionally casting ridicule on certain trivialities, certain commonplaces both of diction and thought, to which these great men did occasionally sink.

It seems to us, also, that Jeffrey has rated the virtue of sound in a parody too low—which is, perhaps, only to say that he rates the whole art of parody higher than we do. Surely it is an essential of this sort of imitation that the words should strike the ear with the very echo of the original. For this reason the specimens we have quoted seem to us so particularly good; and for the same reason, with the exception of the “Lay of the Lovelorn,” the clever ballads of Bon Gaultier do not seem to us to really come under the definition of parodies at all. And it is this quality which gives the point to Mr. Bromley Davenport’s “Lowesby Hall.”[20] In such lines as these—though, indeed, the whole parody is so good that selection is difficult—it is the sound which does everything, but how inimitably it does it!—

Here at least I’ll stay no longer, let me seek for some abode,

Deep in some provincial country far from rail or turnpike road;

There to break all links of habit, and to find a secret charm

In the mysteries of manuring and the produce of a farm.

To deplore the fall of barley, to admire the rise of peas,

Over flagons of October, giant mounds of bread and cheese;

Never company to dinner, never visitors from town,

Just the Parson and the Doctor (Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown).

Droops the heavy conversation to an after-dinner snort,

And articulation dwindles with the second flask of port.

We are very far from saying that parody is a matter of sound only; to borrow a well-known line,

The sound must seem an echo to the sense.

But certainly it strikes us as being a very important point, and we doubt whether any really clever parody ever was written, or ever will be, in which it does not play a conspicuous part, if not the most conspicuous. And this, perhaps, is the reason why those greatest works of poetry, where the style strikes one as the natural and inevitable vehicle of the thought, are really above the reach of parody; why all attempts to parody them, however clever, lose their cleverness in the larger consciousness of bad taste. But to place all parodies under this ban is surely unreasonable. It is unreasonable, as depriving the world of a great deal of harmless amusement, and also, as we have said, of a method, often more truly efficacious than more serious castigation, of exposing incompetence and affectation.

The Saturday Review, February 14, 1885.