 | The poetical writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck, with extracts from those of Joseph Rodman Drake |  |
255
TO ENNUI.
Avaunt! arch-enemy of fun,
Grim nightmare of the wind;
Which way, great Momus! shall I run,
A refuge safe to find?
My puppy's dead—Miss Rumor's breath
Is stopped for lack of news,
And Fitz is almost hypped to death,
And Lang has got the blues.
Grim nightmare of the wind;
Which way, great Momus! shall I run,
A refuge safe to find?
My puppy's dead—Miss Rumor's breath
Is stopped for lack of news,
And Fitz is almost hypped to death,
And Lang has got the blues.
I've read friend Noah's book quite through,
Appendix, notes, and all;
I've swallowed Lady Morgan's too,
And blundered through De Staël;
The Edinburgh Review—I've seen't
The last that has been shipped;
I've read, in short, all books in print,
And some in manuscript.
Appendix, notes, and all;
I've swallowed Lady Morgan's too,
And blundered through De Staël;
The Edinburgh Review—I've seen't
The last that has been shipped;
I've read, in short, all books in print,
And some in manuscript.
256
I'm sick of General Jackson's toast,
Canals are naught to me:
Nor do I care who rules the roast,
Clinton—or John Targee:
No stock in any Bank I own,
I fear no Lottery shark,
And if the Battery were gone,
I'd ramble in the Park.
Canals are naught to me:
Nor do I care who rules the roast,
Clinton—or John Targee:
No stock in any Bank I own,
I fear no Lottery shark,
And if the Battery were gone,
I'd ramble in the Park.
Let gilded Guardsmen
shake their toes,
Let Altorf
please the pit,
Let Mister Hawkins blow his nose
And Spooner
publish it:
Insolvent laws let Marshall break,
Let dying Baldwin cavil;
And let Tenth-Ward Electors shake
Committees to the devil.
Let Altorf
A drama founded on the tradition of William Tell, and unsuccessfully played at the Park Theatre. Its author, Miss Fanny Wright, a Scottish lady, was for a time a public lecturer on morals and religion, from a somewhat infidel point of view. Her chief theme was “just knowledge,” which she pronounced “joost nolidge.”
Let Mister Hawkins blow his nose
And Spooner
“Spooner and Baldwin,” editors of newspapers, the one in Brooklyn, the other in New York. The former had quoted in his columns the three words alluded to from the chorus to a song, to the tune of “Yankee Doodle,” gracing a comic and comical opera, entitled the “Saw-mill”—the work of Mr. Micah Hawkins, a merry and musical genius from Long Island—performed once, and, I believe, but once, at the Chatham Garden Theatre.
Insolvent laws let Marshall break,
Let dying Baldwin cavil;
And let Tenth-Ward Electors shake
Committees to the devil.
In vain—for like a cruel cat
That sucks a child to death,
Or like the Madagascar bat
Who poisons with his breath,
The fiend—the fiend is on me still;
Come, doctor, here's your pay—
What potion, lotion, plaster, pill,
Will drive the beast away?
That sucks a child to death,
Or like the Madagascar bat
Who poisons with his breath,
The fiend—the fiend is on me still;
Come, doctor, here's your pay—
What potion, lotion, plaster, pill,
Will drive the beast away?
D.
| The poetical writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck, with extracts from those of Joseph Rodman Drake | |