After Poe
What Troubled Poe’s Raven
COULD Poe walk again to-morrow, heavy with dyspeptic sorrow,
While the darkness seemed to borrow darkness from the night before,
From the hollow gloom abysmal, floating downward, grimly dismal,
Like a pagan curse baptismal from the bust above the door,
He would hear the Raven croaking from the dusk above the door,
“Never, never, nevermore!”
And, too angry to be civil, “Raven,” Poe would cry “or devil,
Tell me why you will persist in haunting Death’s Plutonian shore?”
Then would croak the Raven gladly, “I will tell you why so sadly,
I so mournfully and madly, haunt you, taunt you, o’er and o’er,
Why eternally I haunt you, daunt you, taunt you, o’er and o’er—
Only this, and nothing more.
“Forty-eight long years I’ve pondered, forty-eight long years I’ve wondered,
How a poet ever blundered into a mistake so sore.
How could lamp-light from your table ever in the world be able,
From below, to throw my sable shadow ‘streaming on the floor,’
When I perched up here on Pallas, high above your chamber-door?
Tell me that—if nothing more!”
Then, like some wan, weeping willow, Poe would bend above his pillow,
Seeking surcease in the billow where mad recollections drown,
And in tearful tones replying, he would groan “There’s no denying
Either I was blindly lying, or the world was upside down—
Say, by Joe!—it was just midnight—so the world was upside down—
Aye, the world was upside down!”
John Bennett.
The 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 endeavors
To escape the sound or sigh
Of the flute, flute, flute,
With its tootle, tootle, toot;
With reiterated tooteling of exasperating toots,
The long protracted tootelings of agonizing 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 his 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 parlors
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 agonizing toot,
Of the flute, flewt, fluit, floot,
Phlute, phlewt, phlewght,
And the tootle, tootle, tooting of its toot.
Anonymous.
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.
Phœbe Cary.
The Promissory Note
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,
(Oh, 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!”
Bayard Taylor.
The Cannibal Flea
IT was many and many a year ago
In a District called 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!
I was in bed, and he was in bed
In the District named E. C.,
When first in his thirst so accurst he burst
Upon me, the Cannibal Flea,
With a bite that felt as if some one had driven
A bayonet into me.
And this was the reason why long ago
In that District named E. C.
I tumbled out of my bed, willing
To capture the Cannibal Flea,
Who all the night until morning came
Kept boring into me!
It wore me down to a skeleton
In the District hight E. C.
From that hour 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.
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.
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 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, Jr.
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 neighborhood
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 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 maybe,
But I should have had my Annabel Lee.
Stanley Huntley.
The Bells
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.
The Goblin Goose
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; he simply gave a stifled roar;
And I cried, “As I’m a sinner, at a Goose-Club I was winner,
’Tis a memory 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 those I’d borrow at my 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,
While that Goose says, “Eat no more!”
Punch.