The Book of Humorous Verse Part 89

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 t.i.tanic 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 pa.s.sed, 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 sh.o.r.e, Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, "Nevermore!"

_Bayard Taylor._

CAMERADOS

Everywhere, everywhere, following me; Taking me by the b.u.t.tonhole, pulling off my boots, hustling me with the elbows; Sitting down with me to clams and the chowder-kettle; Plunging naked at my side into the sleek, irascible surges; Soothing me with the strain that I neither permit nor prohibit; Flocking this way and that, reverent, eager, orotund, irrepressible; Denser than sycamore leaves when the north-winds are scouring Paumanok; What can I do to restrain them? Nothing, verily nothing, Everywhere, everywhere, crying aloud for me; Crying, I hear; and I satisfy them out of my nature; And he that comes at the end of the feast shall find something over.

Whatever they want I give; though it be something else, they shall have it.

Drunkard, leper, Tammanyite, small-pox and cholera patient, shoddy and codfish millionnaire, And the beautiful young men, and the beautiful young women, all the same, Crowding, hundreds of thousands, cosmical mult.i.tudes, Buss me and hang on my hips and lean up to my shoulders, Everywhere listening to my yawp and glad whenever they hear it; Everywhere saying, say it, Walt, we believe it: Everywhere, everywhere.

_Bayard Taylor._

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

FROM HER POINT OF VIEW

When I had firmly answered "No,"

And he allowed that that was so, I really thought I should be free For good and all from Mr. B., And that he would soberly acquiesce.

I said that it would be discreet That for awhile we should not meet; I promised that I would always feel A kindly interest in his weal; I thanked him for his amorous zeal; In short, I said all I could but "yes."

I said what I'm accustomed to; I acted as I always do.

I promised he should find in me A friend,--a sister, if that might be; But he was still dissatisfied.

He certainly was most polite; He said exactly what was right, He acted very properly, Except indeed for this, that he Insisted on inviting me To come with him for "one more last ride."

A little while in doubt I stood: A ride, no doubt, would do me good; I had a habit and a hat Extremely well worth looking at; The weather was distinctly fine.

My horse, too, wanted exercise, And time, when one is riding, flies; Besides, it really seemed, you see, The only way of ridding me Of pertinacious Mr. B.; So my head I graciously incline.

I won't say much of what happened next; I own I was extremely vexed.

Indeed I should have been aghast If any one had seen what pa.s.sed; But n.o.body need ever know That, as I leaned forward to stir the fire, He advanced before I could well retire; And I suddenly felt, to my great alarm, The grasp of a warm, unlicensed arm, An embrace in which I found no charm; I was awfully glad when he let me go.

Then we began to ride; my steed Was rather fresh, too fresh indeed, And at first I thought of little, save The way to escape an early grave, As the dust rose up on either side.

My stern companion jogged along On a brown old cob both broad and strong.

He looked as he does when he's writing verse, Or endeavoring not to swear and curse, Or wondering Where he has left his purse; Indeed it was a sombre ride.

I spoke of the weather to Mr. B., But he neither listened nor spoke to me.

I praised his horse, and I smiled the smile Which was wont to move him once in a while.

I said I was wearing his favorite flowers, But I wasted my words on the desert air, For he rode with a fixed and gloomy stare.

I wonder what he was thinking about.

As I don't read verse, I shan't find out.

It was something subtle and deep, no doubt, A theme to detain a man for hours.

Ah! there was the corner where Mr. S.

So nearly induced me to whisper "yes"; And here it was that the next but one Proposed on horseback, or would have done, Had his horse not most opportunely shied; Which perhaps was due to the unseen flick He received from my whip; 'twas a scurvy trick, But I never could do with that young man,-- I hope his present young woman can.

Well, I must say, never, since time began, Did I go for a duller or longer ride.

He never smiles and he never speaks; He might go on like this for weeks; He rolls a slightly frenzied eye Towards the blue and burning sky, And the cob bounds on with tireless stride.

If we aren't home for lunch at two I don't know what papa will do; But I know full well he will say to me, "I never approved of Mr. B.; It's the very devil that you and he Ride, ride together, forever ride."

_James Kenneth Stephen._

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

Who am I?

I have been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or me he;-- Or otherwise!

Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara!

O, chaos and everlasting bosh!

I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a fool, an idiot!

Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too, perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close.

We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine canons of the future!

We live forever! The worms who criticise us (a.s.ses!) laugh, scoff, jeer, and babble--die!

Serve them right.

What is the difference between Judy, the pride of Fleet Street, the glory of Shoe Lane, and Walt Whitman?

Start not! 'Tis no end of a minstrel show who perpends this query; 'Tis no brain-racking puzzle from an inner page of the Family Herald, No charade, acrostic (double or single), conundrum, riddle, rebus, anagram, or other guess-work.

I answer thus: We both write truths--great, stern, solemn, unquenchable truths--couched in more or less ridiculous language.

I, as a rule use rhyme, he does not; therefore, I am his Superior (which is also a lake in his great and glorious country).

I scorn, with the unutterable scorn of the despiser of pettiness, to take a mean advantage of him.

He writes, he sells, he is read (more or less); why then should I rack my brains and my rhyming dictionary? I will see the public hanged first!

I sing of America, of the United States, of the stars and stripes of Oskhosh, of Kalamazoo, and of Salt Lake City.

I sing of the railroad cars, of the hotels, of the breakfasts, the lunches, the dinners, and the suppers; Of the soup, the fish, the entrees, the joints, the game, the puddings and the ice-cream.

I sing all--I eat all--I sing in turn of Dr. Bluffem's Anti-bilious Pills.

No subject is too small, too insignificant, for Nature's poet.

I sing of the c.o.c.ktail, a new song for every c.o.c.ktail, hundreds of songs, hundreds of c.o.c.ktails.

It is a great and a glorious land! The Mississippi, the Missouri, and a million other torrents roll their waters to the ocean.

It is a great and glorious land! The Alleghanies, the Catskills, the Rockies (see atlas for other mountain ranges too numerous to mention) pierce the clouds!

And the greatest and most glorious product of this great and glorious land is Walt Whitman; This must be so, for he says it himself.

There is but one greater than he between the rising and the setting sun.

There is but one before whom he meekly bows his humbled head.

Oh, great and glorious land, teeming producer of all things, creator of Niagara, and inventor of Walt Whitman, Erase your national advertis.e.m.e.nts of liver pads and cures for rheumatism from your public monuments, and inscribe thereon in letters of gold the name _Judy_.

_Unknown._