University of Virginia Library

WAS IT A DREAM?

When Hum the Fourth (that woolpack of a man,
Dubb'd Whale of Victory,) had clos'd the feast
Of carnage, which his blood-burst sire began,
And his humm'd people from rejoicing ceas'd,
(As well they might, while reading in dismay
The bill for bloodshed which they had to pay,)
I dream'd a vision that had come to pass!
Lo! near a pool, whence thick black slime did glide,
Graz'd a huge, fat, blind, many-headed ass;
And while with plenty flow'd the champain wide,
The blind ass shook his ears, and prophesied
That winds would blow, streams run, and oceans roll!
Then, from the pool arose, with dogged stare,
A babbler, famed for minimum of soul,
His face like one half of a trencher square
Set corner-wise upon a barber's pole;
A wooden visage, that look'd somewhat droll
With its best corner, like a snout, before.
“Be still, ye troubled ears, and thou, Ass, peace!”
Exclaim'd the ligneous feature: “Why this roar?
Wage war on nature, and thy fears will cease:
Then, worst misrule will but encrease thy store,
And make each truss thou hast worth two or more.
War, War! wage War! and leave to me the Fates.”
Thereat long bray'd the mighty many-ear'd,
And shook the wood of ears on all his pates;
Wide gaped his plural gab; and stiff he rear'd
His fundamental plume! for much he fear'd
(And now detests,) all bums that are not tail'd.
“Let there be war!” he bray'd, and war there was.
But still the rivers ran, the winds prevail'd,
The seas roll'd, as before. What then? the ass
Thought he grew fatter. But it chanc'd, alas,
That men began to think it would be worse
For them, if war should bring down the old sky;
Some groan'd o'er emptied pouch, and some did curse;
Some ask'd how ducks would swim when ponds were dry?
But Ass in Wooden-Head's divinity
Firmly believ'd—and doth so to this day.
“Perish the future! let the present thrive!”
Said then th' omnific Word; and 'gan display,
While trembled every short-ear'd soul alive,
A cobweb flag! This wav'd he o'er the hive
Of workers, who deplor'd their riches gone.
They shudder'd, when they saw his fingers foul,
From which dropp'd hungry maggots, one by one,
Into their porridge, or potatoe-bowl.
But mighty Many-Ears, an ass of soul,
Though born stone-blind, and with a smelless nose,
Declar'd that grubs are manna from the sky.
Nor was this all. Though still the tides arose;
Though rivers did not leave their channels dry;
And though the golden words of God on high
Brightly denied th' Omnipotence of Ears;
Yet prov'd the cobweb-flag a magic wand,
That shook the boldest with resistless fears;
And while that wooden statesman's putrid hand
Fann'd it, in viewless wafture, o'er the land,
None smil'd, save Knaves; but loudly laugh'd the mad,
Ev'n at their prayers—and then they hang'd the sad!
Meantime, the Ass, kicking the sick and thin,
Through all his ever-gaping throats drank in
The venomous air, and swelling like a whale,
Bade the bright sun adore his rump and tail;
And eke the scroll which did his rump adorn,
Whereon a word of power was written black,
Appalling her who limp'd, with garments torn,
And famish'd baby dying on her back;
While she, afraid to beg, still sobb'd “Alack!”
This scene beheld a stern old wight, who chose
To wear odd legs, whereof the one was small,
And did not look like flesh and blood: Heav'n knows,
Right fond he was of wounds, and cannon ball,
And dev'lish loath to have a head at all!
Yet ill thought he of certain honour'd knobs;
For he had bled beyond the eastern foam,
Where people die with dollars in their fobs;
And now and then, your blockhead, forc'd to roam,
Grows wiser than your dunce who stays at home:
He was a war-worn and a woe-worn wight,
Whom some call'd “Glory!” and he tried to reach,
With hand thrown back, red rags (a sorry sight,)
That hung behind, and once conceal'd his breech.
His soul, too proud compassion to beseech,
Turn'd from his own, to weep for others' woe;
But he was one whom caution could not teach;
He stump'd, with strange short jerkings, to and fro,
And cried, with sudden gape, “May God confound
The thief, who sells ten shillings for a pound,
And thrives by seething blotted rags in gore!”
Next, lo, methought, around the monster's door,
A mob of asses broken-back'd and grey,
Bellow'd like billows on a rocky shore,
With harmless kick, and multitudinous bray,
“That they were cheated in their daily hay!”
But Many-Ears, to whom belong'd the land,
Call'd one truss three, and would for three be paid!
He curs'd the dolts who could not understand
That One was Three; and ask'd them why they bray'd?
Before them all a single truss he laid,
And “Lo, three trusses of sound hay!” said he:
“Three! that they are three, thus, I prove, with ease—
Your fathers toil'd from morn to eve for three,
And you shall toil from morn to eve for these!
And Rascals! straw is hay, and chaff is corn.”