ENGLAND shall reign the whole world thro’!
The Poe-et’s Nightmare
A Fable
Luxus tumultus semper causa est.
Lucullus Languish, student of the skies,
And connoisseur of rarebits and mince pies,
A bard by choice, a grocer’s clerk by trade,
(Grown pessimist thro’ honours long delay’d),
A secret yearning bore, that he might shine
In breathing numbers, and in song divine.
Each day his fountain pen was wont to drop
An ode or dirge or two about the shop,
Yet naught could strike the chord within his heart
That throbb’d for poesy, and cry’d for art.
Each eve he sought his bashful Muse to wake
With overdoses of ice-cream and cake;
But thou’ th’ ambitious youth a dreamer grew,
Th’ Aonian Nymph declin’d to come to view.
Sometimes at dusk he scour’d the heav’ns afar,
Searching for raptures in the evening star;
One night he strove to catch a tale untold
In crystal deeps — but only caught a cold.
So pin’d Lucullus with his lofty woe,
Till one drear day he bought a set of Poe:
Charm’d with the cheerful horrors there display’d,
He vow’d with gloom to woo the Heav’nly Maid.
Of Auber’s tarn and Yaanek’s slope he dreams,
And weaves an hundred Ravens in his schemes.
Not far from our young hero’s peaceful home
Lies the fair grove wherein he loves to roam.
Tho’ but a stunted copse in vacant lot,
He dubs it Tempe, and adores the spot;
When shallow puddles dot the wooded plain,
And brim o’er muddy banks with muddy rain,
He calls them limpid lakes or poison pools
(Depending on which bard his fancy rules).
’Tis here he comes with Heliconian fire
On Sundays when he smites the Attic lyre;
And here one afternoon he brought his gloom,
Resolv’d to chant a poet’s lay of doom.
Roget’s Thesaurus, and a book of rhymes,
Provide the rungs whereon his spirit climbs:
With this grave retinue he trod the grove
And pray’d the Fauns he might a Poe-et prove.
But sad to tell, ere Pegasus flew high,
The not unrelish’d supper hour drew nigh;
Our tuneful swain th’ imperious call attends,
And soon above the groaning table bends.
Tho’ it were too prosaic to relate
Th’ exact particulars of what he ate
(Such long-drawn lists the hasty reader skips,
Like Homer’s well-known catalogue of ships),
This much we swear: that as adjournment near’d,
A monstrous lot of cake had disappear’d!
Soon to his chamber the young bard repairs,
And courts soft Somnus with sweet Lydian airs;
Thro’ open casement scans the star-strown deep,
And ‘neath Orion’s beams sinks off to sleep.
Now start from airy dell the elfin train
That dance each midnight o’er the sleeping plain,
To bless the just, or cast a warning spell
On those who dine not wisely, but too well.
First Deacon Smith they plague, whose nasal glow
Comes from what Holmes hath call’d “Elixir Pro”;
Group’d round the couch his visage they deride,
Whilst thro’ his dreams unnumber’d serpents glide.
Next troop the little folk into the room
Where snores our young Endymion, swath’d in gloom:
A smile lights up his boyish face, whilst he
Dreams of the moon — or what he ate at tea.
The chieftain elf th’ unconscious youth surveys,
And on his form a strange enchantment lays:
Those lips, that lately thrill’d with frosted cake,
Uneasy sounds in slumbrous fashion make;
At length their owner’s fancies they rehearse,
And lisp this awesome Poe-em in blank verse:
Aletheia Phrikodes
Omnia risus et omnia pulvis et omnia nihil.
Demoniac clouds, up-pil’d in chasmy reach
Of soundless heav’n, smother’d the brooding night;
Nor came the wonted whisp’rings of the swamp,
Nor voice of autumn wind along the moor,
Nor mutter’d noises of th’ insomnious grove
Whose black recesses never saw the sun.
Within that grove a hideous hollow lies,
Half bare of trees; a pool in centre lurks
That none dares sound; a tarn of murky face
(Tho’ naught can prove its hue, since light of day,
Affrighted, shuns the forest-shadow’d banks).
Hard by, a yawning hillside grotto breathes,
From deeps unvisited, a dull, dank air
That sears the leaves on certain stunted trees
Which stand about, clawing the spectral gloom
With evil boughs. To this accursed dell
Come woodland creatures, seldom to depart:
Once I behold, upon a crumbling stone
Set altar-like before the cave, a thing
I saw not clearly, yet from glimpsing, fled.
In this half-dusk I meditate alone
At many a weary noontide, when without
A world forgets me in its sun-blest mirth.