Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

`Twas the lot of a cork in a bottle,
(Who, bound with wire, and wound with twine,
Was a prisoner himself, held fast by the throttle)
To imprison a generous wine.
And oh, pround, how proud of his lot was he,
The oppressor of the that strong spirit to be!
But alas for the chance of power,
And the ups and downs of a ruler's life!
For once, in a festal hour,
Somebody suddenly seizing a knife,
(This happen'd on board of a ship at sea)
Cut asunder the bonds which till then had held fast
That cork to his boasted place. Then at last
The fiery force in the flask, set free
And upshooting a foamy fountain, tost
The bung from the bottle, and overboard.

And thus was his proud supremacy lost,
When sustain'd no longer by steel and cord.

“Revolution!” that was the cork's first word,
As splash! he fell on his flimsy pate.
“Such another the universe never will see.
What a greatness there is in the fall of the great!
O what an uprising—and all against me!
And, ye gods! what a strength was mine, so long
To have held in subjection a spirit so strong!'
Whilst thus he was speaking, o'er him descended
(Taking him suddenly captive again)
A broken kettle, too bad to be mended,
Which the ship's cook happen'd to pitch just then
Out of the cabin-windown. It fell
Inclosing the cork like a diving-bell;
And souse, together both cork and can
Sunk to the bed of the ocean.
There, in the dismal abyss, through chasms
Of the scoriac crust of the dædal earth,
The central fire with volcanic spasms
Was hurling upward in monstrous mirth
Mighty masses of burning stone.
“Thou, too, O Earth,” cried the cork with a groan,
“Art overwhelm'd by rebellious powers
Jealous of majesty mighty as ours!
Well, such is the fate, as it seems of the great
In these bag times, my Royal Brother!
There is something wrong in the universe.
I myself, as thou seest, have suffer'd reverse.
One fallen grandeur can feel for another.”

Meanwhile, that irruption submarine
Was belching granite into the brine;
And the split stones, tumbling heavy and hot,
Buried beneath them cork and pot.
The former his inborn levity,
And natural disposition to keep
On the surface (being restrain'd thereby)
Made ill at ease in his dungeon deep.
And he said, with a self-compassionate sigh,
“The last of the Titan race am I,
Titanic suffere! Envious Fate,
Of how heavy a world of woes they hate,
Hath made me Atlas!” That dark Power
Whose unseen finger fashions the hour,
And guides blind Chance to her destined work,
Heard this complaint of the querulous cork;
And, smiling a secret smile of contempt,
Scatter'd the stones that imprison'd him:
Who, as soon as he found himself thus exempt
From external pressure, up thro' the dim
Vague and voluminous element
Wavering back to the surface went.

There did ht eligh-headed loiterer roll
From ripple to ripple, without a goal;
Vacant of power and purpose too;
Drifting, shifting, with nothing in view.
Hither and thither the waters drew him:
This way, that way, the breezes blew him:
Fishes snapp'd at him now and then,
Half-swallow'd and spat him out again:

Whilst, restored to his own inherent want
Of stability, ever he lightly glided
(As wave and wind were predominant)
On the course by his chance—not choice—decided.

O Atlas! what of thy Titan doom,
Thine ocean-shround, and thy mountain-tomb?
Flimsy fragment of fungus stuff,
Too flimsy to perish, drift on still!
For in thee is not even weight enough
To dive, and be drown'd, of thine own free will.

Me miserable Atlas!