A CHAPTER OF PARODIES.
Parodies have been much in vogue in almost every age; among the Greeks, Latins, Germans, French, and English, it has been among the commonest of literary pleasantries to turn verses into ridicule by applying them to a purpose never dreamed of by their authors, or to burlesque serious pieces by affecting to observe the same rhymes, words, and cadences. The wicked arts of Charles the Second's time thus made fun of the hymns of the Roundheads, and pious people have since turned the tables by adapting to good uses the profane airs and sensual songs of the opera house. Of the class of puns, parodies have in the scale of art a much higher rank, and occasionally they furnish specimens of genuine poetry. Among the best we have ever seen are a considerable number attributed to Miss Phebe Carey, of Ohio; they are rich in quaint and natural humor, and as a London critic describes them, "wonderfully American." In its way, we have seen nothing better than this reflex of Bayard Taylor's poem of "Manuela."
MARTHA HOPKINS.
A BALLAD OF INDIANA.
From the kitchen, Martha Hopkins, as she stood there making pies,
Southward looks along the turnpike, with her hand above her eyes;
Where along the distant hill-side, her yearling heifer feeds,
And a little grass is growing in a mighty sight of weeds.
All the air is full of noises, for there isn't any school,
And boys, with turned-up pantaloons, are wading in the pool;
Blithely frisk, unnumbered chickens cackling for they cannot laugh,
Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the little calf.
Gentle eyes of Martha Hopkins! tell me wherefore do ye gaze
On the ground that's being furrowed for the planting of the maize?
Tell me wherefore down the valley, ye have traced the turnpike's way,
Far beyond the cattle pasture, and the brick-yard with its clay?
Ah! the dog-wood tree may blossom, and the door-yard grass may shine,
With the tears of amber dropping from the washing on the line;
And the morning's breath of balsam, lightly brush her freckled cheek,—
Little recketh Martha Hopkins of the tales of spring they speak.
When the summer's burning solstice on the scanty harvest glowed,
She had watched a man on horseback riding down the turnpike road;
Many times she saw him turning, looking backward quite forlorn,
Till amid her tears she lost him, in the shadow of the barn.
Ere supper-time was over, he had passed the kiln of brick,
Crossed the rushing Yellow River and had forded quite a creek,
And his flat-boat load was taken, at the time for pork and beans,
With the traders of the Wabash, to the wharf at New Orleans.