Chapter XIII: Letter VIII: The Rejected “national Hymns.” (7)

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.

POT-POURRI.

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.

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.]

The Art Of Parody.

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,――