Fables in Song :: :: University of Virginia Library

Over a sea, whose severing azure kept
Two continents asunder, and unknown
Each to the other, for the first time swept
A lonely vessel, star-led, and wind-blown.

2.

Then, lured from the deeps of the under-world,
Shoals of fishes, with fins unfurl'd,
Came up to gaze upon that strange guest
Of Ocean's yet unburden'd breast;
Wallow'd after with staring eyes,
And gaping mouths, in a great surprise;
And, as 'tis the wont of the multitude,
Exchanged opinions quick and crude.

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3.

“The thing is, I think, a dead fish,” said
A floundering Dolphin. “Nay, not dead!
The creature is lively enough, I trow,”
A Sturgeon answer'd. “Round him skimming,
I mark'd the tail of him move just now,
And it changed the course that he was swimming.”
“Fools!” snarl'd the Shark, “ye are wide of the mark.
For, whatever it be, 'tis no fish at all.
Leagues on leagues thro' the glimmering dark,
Awake, and awatch, whate'er befall,
Ever behind, by day and night,
I have follow'd and kept the beast in sight.
And it does not dive. A fish? Absurd!
Pray, what of its wings, if it be not a bird?”

4.

“'Tis no more of a bird than you or I,”
A Mackerel pertly made reply.
“And I'll tell you, gossips, the reason why.
For, in spite of its wings, it cannot fly.
Nay, what you have taken for wings, indeed,
Are merely membranes; webs, it frees
And furls at pleasure, like those that speed
The nautilus catching the broad south breeze.
'Tis a nautilus, too. And, altho' no doubt
A most astonishing nautilus, yet
But a nautilus, and no more. Look out,

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And you'll see the shell of it, black as jet,
Not white, as a nautilus' shell should be,
But a shell no less, as it seems to me,
Under the sea-brim gliding fast.”

5.

Just then the wind dropp'd; and the ship
Threw out an anchor, and staid fast.
“There now!” with contumelious lip
An Oyster lisp'd, “it is clear at last!
I always said it, altho' I grant
I never said it out loud and bold
As I say it now. But the thing is a plant,
And the plant has just taken root, behold!
From the coral beds where I lived long
I have often watch'd, by small degrees,
(And I guess'd that my guess could not be wrong)
The birth and growth of the cocoa trees.
They send up a stem from sea to sky,
Like this one here; which appears to be
Born of the black nut yonder. Try,
With minds from preconception free,
Upon its top to fix your eye.
It will presently put forth leaves, you'll see.”

6.

And, in fact, as it chanced, that intelligent Oyster
Had scarcely relapsed into silence stately,

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Ere the Polyps and Sponges, that, thronging his cloister,
Had with deference heard his discourse, were greatly
Confirm'd in respect for the Oyster's sagacity,
And impress'd by the weight of the Oyster's word;
For, as tho' to establish its perfect veracity,
A flag now slowly mounted the cord,
And fix'd itself on the mizzen-mast.

7.

“Fiat lux!” they exclaim'd, aghast.
“Solved is the problem! Proud are we
Gracing our President's Chair to see
Such a pearl of an oyster!” Then
Each in turn they extoll'd again
Him and themselves, with a grateful mind.
Meanwhile, a Crab, who was ignorant
But enterprising, had design'd,
As touching this prodigious plant,
Ingenious means whereby to find
In what those savants told him of it
Occasion for his private profit
And own advantage. 'Tis the way
Of all industrial speculators
Who follow, in the hope of prey,
The march of truth's investigators;
As ever behind in an army's track
Follow marauding thieves,
Or as every lion a jackal hath,
Who lives upon what he leaves.

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8.

And already the mouth of this greedy Crab
Was watering at the thought delicious
Of the chance by Science made his, to grab
With a crafty claw, of all gain ambitious,
The fruit of the new-found cocoa tree;
Extracting from it the milk nutritious
With which it must needs abound, thought he.
So up he climb'd by the anchor cable,
Sideways and sly, as a crab is able.

9.

That Crab never came to himself again.
For a sailor, who happen'd to spy him plain
In the sternsheets seeking where next to settle,
Chuck'd him into the cook's soup-kettle.

10.

This strengthen'd the Oyster's reputation
By affording his theory confirmation;
Since the victim of it never could prove
That flaw in the whole hypothesis
Which had cost him so dear for his first false move.
But the best accredited doctrine is
Exposed to the rancour, soon or late,
Of those who happen'd the chance to miss
Of inventing it; and we needs must state
That it fared, in the end, no better with this.

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For a crowd of young Corals, red with rage,
Quitted their benches, and cried, “Old fogies!
That a plant? This enlighten'd age
Blushes for shame of such barefaced bogies.
We can all of us see 'tis a noble isle
Yet uncramp'd by this old world's wretched conditions.
Up! colonise boldly that virgin soil,
And away with your classical superstitions!”
Then those young colonists, Corals Romantic,
Attach'd themselves to that wandering strand,
Which, with them, away thro' the stormy Atlantic
Went till both it and the whole of the band
Were woefully shipwreckt one wild day.

11.

The old Corals lifted their arms to heaven
With desperate gestures, as who should say
“Can such madness be, and yet be forgiven?”
In this attitude fishers, in after ages,
Fish'd them up, poor old classical sages!
And men turn'd them—thus, with uplifted arms,
And fingers pointed in admonition,
Into dozens and dozens of tiny charms
Against a different superstition.

12.

A whole sea of opinions, as time went by,
Was floating about. And that sea's small fry

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Were sorely afraid lest the mighty main
By the monster's snout should be shorn in twain.
“For look!” said they, “how profound and strong,
“Is the furrow it cleaves in its woeful wake!”
But the fluent and fathomless deep, not long
Disjoin'd, closed over it while they spake.
And the waters were as the waters had been,
And that furrow, so fear'd, was no longer seen.

II. PART II.

1.

One day the whirlwind stripp'd the sails;
The fire devour'd both mast and deck:
And the ocean swallow'd what flames and gales
To the ocean gave—a wreck!

2.

“All's over, at last!” the fishes cried,
“That bewildering portent hath disappear'd.
It was only a dream.” But “Beware!” replied
An agèd Whale, by the rest revered.
“Still something is swimming.” The Whale was right.
'Twas a bottle that floated still intact.
The captain that bottle had cork'd up tight,
And in it a budget of papers pack'd.
On those papers patiently, year by year,
He had written his life's discoveries:

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And, seeing his life's last moment near,
Into the storm and the howling seas
This atom of intellect he flung;
As a brave knight-errant, no help at hand,
Might fling, ere they slew him, his glove among
A den of giants in some wild land.

3.

“Bah!” the fishes thought, bobbing and butting at it,
“What can this mean little monster avail
When the marvellous monster that, dying, begat it
Is dead now, and done with?” But “That,” quoth the Whale,
“Still remains to be seen. Be more cautious, I beg,
For I've a suspicion the thing is an egg,
And am fain to acknowledge I view with mistrust
Such eggs as are laid by no creature knows whom.”

4.

Quite unconscious, meanwhile, of its critics' disgust,
And careless, too, of its unknown doom,
With the documents into the mouth of it thrust
And comprest, like that Genius who crouch'd in the tomb
Where King Solomon pent him till some one fate sent him,
Who freed him, and was not a Solomon, still
The bottle was floating; and floated until

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By chance in a fisherman's net 'twas caught,
And thus at last into notice brought,
With a score or two of its critics small
Who perish'd with it in that day's haul.

5.

For out of his net on the pebbly beach
The fisherman flung it, and broke the glass.
But, after turning them over each
This way and that, without being, alas,
Able to read them, into his jacket
The papers he thrust; having wrapt in one,
For want of aught else wherein to pack it
Ready at hand, a white agate. This stone
He afterwards sold to a purchaser
Who noticed the wrappage, and read it thro';
Was startled by it; made haste to confer
With others, who read and were startled too.
The thing 'gan slowly to make a stir,
And round a re-ëchoing rumour flew,
Which first set many affirming, denying,
And, last of all, set one man trying;
Till the egg was hatch'd by the fervid heat
Of the spirit that o'er it hover'd,
And out of it came a full-fledged fleet
Which a whole new world discover'd.

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III. PART III.

1.

Who laid that egg? Man's Genius. And mankind
Around the path of Genius form and scatter
Opinions just as petulant and blind
As, when she cross'd the yet untraversed water,
The fishes form'd about that lonely bark.

2.

In either case, 'tis something floating high
O'er those who, from beneath, its course remark,
And, finding it unlike themselves, decry
Or fear it, as their humour urges. These
Affirm “It is a fish that cannot dive,”
And those “It is a bird that cannot fly.”
The truth each fool in his own judgment sees.
Mimics and mockers with its movement vie.
Opinions round it, and opponents strive.
Some swear 'tis dangerous. And others say
'Tis useless. Monstrous all agree to make it.
Philosophers explain it in their way,
And ignoramuses, in theirs, mistake it,
Which comes to the same thing.

3.

At last one day,
It founders upon sunken rocks that break it,

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Or in a whirlwind disappears. Then they
“All's safe at last! The portent is no more.
'Twas but a dream, and nothing rests of it.”
Such is Opinion.

4.

But there floats to shore
Perchance a fragment of it. Some poor bit
Of scribbled paper; which arrives at last
(Thanks to the rubbish it finds grace to wrap)
At the world's future notice. Of the past
'Tis all the future cares to keep, mayhap.
And then some souls, too restless for their own,
Swear by it there must be a world unknown.

5.

What next? To seek that unknown world: be lost,
And recommence the old story o'er again.
They who first 'light upon the sudden coast
Of that strange land, across the stormy main
Cry out Eureka! Then the rest arrive,
And with the new-world treasures nimbly pile
Their decks; sail home; and in the old world drive
A profitable trade a little while.
Till those who buy their brave new merchandise
Begin to find it tediously the same.
When plumage pluckt from birds of paradise,
Grown cheap as common feathers, gets no fame;
And, clove or pepper coarse, 'tis all as one;
Pure ivory fares no better than mere bone.