The Writings of Bret Harte | ||
V. PARODIES
BEFORE THE CURTAIN
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.
And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,
Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.
O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,—
No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—
A single fiddle in the overture!
TO THE PLIOCENE SKULL
This extraordinary fossil is in the possession of Prof. Josiah D. Whitney, of the State Geological Survey of California. The poem was based on the following paragraph from the daily press of 1866: “A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being. ... The skull was found in a shaft 150 feet deep, two miles from Angels in Calaveras County, by a miner named James Watson, who gave it to Mr. Scribner, a merchant, who gave it to Dr. Jones, who sent it to the State Geological Survey. ... The published volume of the State Survey of the Geology of California states that man existed here contemporaneously with the mastodon, but this fossil proves that he was here before the mastodon was known to exist.”
This extraordinary fossil is in the possession of Prof. Josiah D. Whitney, of the State Geological Survey of California. The poem was based on the following paragraph from the daily press of 1866: “A human skull has been found in California, in the pliocene formation. This skull is the remnant not only of the earliest pioneer of this State, but the oldest known human being. ... The skull was found in a shaft 150 feet deep, two miles from Angels in Calaveras County, by a miner named James Watson, who gave it to Mr. Scribner, a merchant, who gave it to Dr. Jones, who sent it to the State Geological Survey. ... The published volume of the State Survey of the Geology of California states that man existed here contemporaneously with the mastodon, but this fossil proves that he was here before the mastodon was known to exist.”
(A GEOLOGICAL ADDRESS)
Primal pioneer of pliocene formation,
Hid in lowest drifts below the earliest stratum
Of volcanic tufa!
Older than the trees, the oldest Cryptogami;
Older than the hills, those infantile eruptions
Of earth's epidermis!
That those vacant sockets filled with awe and wonder,—
Whether shores Devonian or Silurian beaches,—
Tell us thy strange story!
By some thousand years thy advent on this planet,
Giving thee an air that's somewhat better fitted
For cold-blooded creatures?
When above thy head the stately Sigillaria
Reared its columned trunks in that remote and distant
Carboniferous epoch?
Songless, silent, hushed, with never bird or insect,
Veiled with spreading fronds and screened with tall club mosses,
Lycopodiacea,—
And around thee crept the festive Ichthyosaurus,
While from time to time above thee flew and circled
Cheerful Pterodactyls.
Crinoids on the shell and Brachipods au naturel,—
Cuttlefish to which the pieuvre of Victor Hugo
Seems a periwinkle.
Solitary fragment of remains organic!
Tell the wondrous secret of thy past existence,—
Speak! thou oldest primate!”
And a lateral movement of the condyloid process,
With post-pliocene sounds of healthy mastication,
Ground the teeth together.
Stained with express juices of the weed nicotian,
Came these hollow accents, blent with softer murmurs
Of expectoration:
Falling down a shaft in Calaveras County;
But I'd take it kindly if you'd send the pieces
Home to old Missouri!”
THE BALLAD OF MR. COOKE
(A LEGEND OF THE CLIFF HOUSE, SAN FRANCISCO)
Drives the spray of roaring seas,
That the Cliff House balconies
Overlook:
There, in spite of rain that balked,
With his sandals duly chalked,
Once upon a tight-rope walked
Mr. Cooke.
And his spangles and his sheen,
All had vanished when the scene
He forsook.
Yet in some delusive hope,
In some vague desire to cope,
One still came to view the rope
Walked by Cooke.
On that strange eventful day,
Partly hidden from the spray,
In a nook,
Stood Florinda Vere de Vere;
Who, with wind-disheveled hair,
And a rapt, distracted air,
Gazed on Cooke.
To her lover at her side,
While her form with love and pride
Wildly shook:
“Clifford Snook! oh, hear me now!
Here I break each plighted vow;
There's but one to whom I bow,
And that's Cooke!”
“I descend from noble folk;
‘Seven Oaks,’ and then ‘Se'nnoak,’
Lastly ‘Snook,’
Is the way my name I trace.
Shall a youth of noble race
In affairs of love give place
To a Cooke?”
To that lineage and name,
And I think I've read the same
In Horne Tooke;
But I swear, by all divine,
Never, never, to be thine,
Till thou canst upon yon line
Walk like Cooke.”
He no closer might compete
Than to strike a balance-sheet
In a book;
Yet thenceforward from that day
He his figure would display
In some wild athletic way,
After Cooke.
On a clothes-line or a fence,
Over ditches, drains, and thence
O'er a brook,
He, by high ambition led,
Ever walked and balancèd,
Till the people, wondering, said,
“How like Cooke!”
Nerved by valor, not by greed,
And at last the crowning deed
Undertook.
Misty was the midnight air,
And the cliff was bleak and bare,
When he came to do and dare,
Just like Cooke.
Stretched the line where he should go,
Straight across as flies the crow
Or the rook.
One wild glance around he cast;
Then he faced the ocean blast,
And he strode the cable last
Touched by Cooke.
Vainly blew the ocean breeze;
But, alas! the walker's knees
Had a crook;
And before he reached the rock
Did they both together knock,
And he stumbled with a shock—
Unlike Cooke!
Like an arrow to its mark,
Or a fish-pole when a shark
Bites the hook,
Dropped the pole he could not save,
Dropped the walker, and the wave
Swift engulfed the rival brave
Of J. Cooke!
Of sea-lions in their glee,
In a tongue remarkably
Like Chinook;
And the maddened sea-gull seemed
Still to utter, as he screamed,
“Perish thus the wretch who deemed
Himself Cooke!”
Comes a skeleton in tights,
Walks once more the giddy heights
He mistook;
And unseen to mortal eyes,
Purged of grosser earthly ties,
Now at last in spirit guise
Outdoes Cooke.
Sweeps the spray of roaring seas,
Where the Cliff House balconies
Overlook;
And the maidens in their prime,
Reading of this mournful rhyme,
Weep where, in the olden time,
Walked J. Cooke.
THE BALLAD OF THE EMEU
So charming and rurally true—
A singular bird, with a manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian Emeu?
Have you
Ever seen this Australian Emeu?
Or erects it quite out of your view;
And the ladies all cry, when its figure they spy,
“Oh! what a sweet pretty Emeu!
Oh! do
Just look at that lovely Emeu!”
Came Matilda Hortense Fortescue;
And beside her there came a youth of high name,—
Augustus Florell Montague:
The two
Both loved that wild, foreign Emeu.
Of the flesh of the white Cockatoo,
Which once was its food in that wild neighborhood
Where ranges the sweet Kangaroo,
That too
Is game for the famous Emeu!
Like the world-famous bark of Peru;
And nothing its taste will eschew
That you
Can give that long-legged Emeu!
When up jumped the bold Montague:
“Where's that specimen pin that I gayly did win
In raffle, and gave unto you,
Fortescue?”
No word spoke the guilty Emeu!
Ere these hands in thy blood I imbrue!”
“Nay, dearest,” she cried, as she clung to his side,
“I'm innocent as that Emeu!”
“Adieu!”
He replied, “Miss M. H. Fortescue!”
As wildly he fled from her view;
He thought 't was her sin,—for he knew not the pin
Had been gobbled up by the Emeu;
All through
The voracity of that Emeu!
MRS. JUDGE JENKINS
(BEING THE ONLY GENUINE SEQUEL TO “MAUD MULLER”)
Raked the meadow sweet with hay;
She hoped the Judge would come again.
Maud only blushed, and stammered, “Ha-ow?”
He'd give consent they should wed together.
Begged that the Judge would lend him “ten;”
And the “craps,” this year, were somewhat slow.
Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.
Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;
Were very drunk at the Judge's hall
The young bride bore him babies twain;
That bearing children made such a change;
And the waist that his arm once clasped about
Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,
In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;
Looked less like the men who raked the hay
Of the day he wandered down the lane.
He half regretted that he came back;
Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
And the sentimental,—that's one-half “fudge;”
With all his learning and all his lore;
For more refinement and social grace.
The saddest are, “It might have been,”
“It is, but had n't ought to be.”
A GEOLOGICAL MADRIGAL
I know where the fossils abound,
Where the footprints of Aves declare
The birds that once walked on the ground.
Oh, come, and—in technical speech—
We'll walk this Devonian shore,
Or on some Silurian beach
We'll wander, my love, evermore.
By the slow-moving Annelid made,
Or the Trilobite that, farther back,
In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;
Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb,
The Plesiosaurus embalmed;
In his Oolitic prime and his bloom,
Iguanodon safe and unharmed.
And I loved you the more for that wish—
For a perfect cystedian shell
And a whole holocephalic fish.
And oh, if Earth's strata contains
In its lowest Silurian drift,
Or palæozoic remains
The same, 't is your lover's free gift!
But calm all your maidenly fears;
The record of millions of years;
And though the Darwinian plan
Your sensitive feelings may shock,
We'll find the beginning of man,
Our fossil ancestors, in rock!
AVITOR
(AN AERIAL RETROSPECT)
In place of Greek or Latin themes,
Or beauty's wild, bewildering beams?
Avitor!
I filled with aerial machines,
Montgolfier's and Mr. Green's!
Avitor!
The roc that brought Sindbad across,
The Calendar's own wingèd horse!
Avitor!
Icarus and his conduct lax,
And how he sealed his fate with wax!
Avitor!
Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail,
Or kites,—but thereby hangs a tail.
Avitor!
A kitten and a parasol,
And watch their bitter, frightful fall?
Avitor!
Bade me inflate the parson's gown,
That went not up, nor yet came down?
Avitor!
Enough to know that in that well
My first high aspirations fell.
Avitor!
The dire explosions, and, alas!
The friends I choked with noxious gas.
Avitor!
The vision of my boyish eyes,
The messenger of upper skies.
Avitor!
THE WILLOWS
(AFTER EDGAR ALLAN POE)
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year.
Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,
As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,—
At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober,
And the willowy woodland down here.
Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,—
Of Ten-pins, with Mary, my soul;
They were days when my heart was volcanic,
And impelled me to frequently roll,
And made me resistlessly roll,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
In the realms of the Boreal pole,—
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
With the monkey atop of his pole.
But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,—
My thoughts were decidedly queer;
For I knew not the month was October,
And I marked not the night of the year;
I forgot that sweet morceau of Auber
That the band oft performèd down here,
With the Nightingale's music by Shear.
And star-dials pointed to morn,
And car-drivers hinted of morn,
At the end of the path a liquescent
And bibulous lustre was born;
'T was made by the bar-keeper present,
Who mixèd a duplicate horn,—
His two hands describing a crescent
Distinct with a duplicate horn.
For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,—
I am confident that I feel dry.
We have come past the emeu and eagle,
And watched the gay monkey on high;
Let us drink to the emeu and eagle,
To the swan and the monkey on high,—
To the eagle and monkey on high;
For this bar-keeper will not inveigle,
Bully boy with the vitreous eye,—
He surely would never inveigle,
Sweet youth with the crystalline eye.”
Said: “Sadly this bar I mistrust,—
I fear that this bar does not trust.
Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly,—let us fly,—ere we must!”
In terror she cried, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust;
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust,—
Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
And tempted her into the room,
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the warning of doom,—
By some words that were warning of doom.
And I said, “What is written, sweet sister,
At the opposite end of the room?”
She sobbed, as she answered, “All liquors
Must be paid for ere leaving the room.”
As the streets were deserted and drear,
For my pockets were empty and drear;
And I cried: “It was surely October,
On this very night of last year,
That I journeyed, I journeyed down here,—
That I brought a fair maiden down here,
On this night of all nights in the year?
Ah! to me that inscription is clear;
Well I know now, I'm perfectly sober,
Why no longer they credit me here,—
Well I know now that music of Auber,
And this Nightingale, kept by one Shear.”
NORTH BEACH
(AFTER SPENSER)
Its sullen shadow on the rolling tide,—
No more the home where joy and wealth repose,
But now where wassailers in cells abide;
See yon long quay that stretches far and wide,
Well known to citizens as wharf of Meiggs:
There each sweet Sabbath walks in maiden pride
The pensive Margaret, and brave Pat, whose legs
Encased in broadcloth oft keep time with Peg's.
While in her ear her love his tale doth pour;
Meantime her infant doth her charge evade,
And rambleth sagely on the sandy shore,
Till the sly sea-crab, low in ambush laid,
Seizeth his leg and biteth him full sore.
Ah me! what sounds the shuddering echoes bore
When his small treble mixed with Ocean's roar!
And at its side a garden, where the bear,
The stealthy catamount, and coon agree
To work deceit on all who gather there;
And when Augusta—that unconscious fair—
With nuts and apples plieth Bruin free,
Lo! the green parrot claweth her back hair,
And the gray monkey grabbeth fruits that she
On her gay bonnet wears, and laugheth loud in glee!
THE LOST TAILS OF MILETUS
Thyme, and the asphodel blooms, and lulled by Pactolian streamlet,
She of Miletus lay, and beside her an aged satyr
Scratched his ear with his hoof, and playfully mumbled his chestnuts.
The free-eyed Bacchante sang, and Pan—the renowned, the accomplished—
Executed his difficult solo. In vain were their gambols and dances;
High o'er the Thracian hills rose the voice of the shepherdess, wailing:
Ai! for the tallow-scented, the straight-tailed, the high-stepping;
Ai! for the timid glance, which is that which the rustic, sagacious,
Applies to him who loves but may not declare his passion!”
Hapless tender of sheep, arise from thy long lamentation!
Since thou canst not trust fate, nor behave as becomes a Greek maiden,
Look and behold thy sheep.” And lo! they returned to her tailless!
THE RITUALIST
(BY A COMMUNICANT OF “ST. JAMES'S”)
A stole and snowy alb likewise,—I recollect it yet.
He called me “daughter,” as he raised his jeweled hand to bless;
And then, in thrilling undertones, he asked, “Would I confess?”
I dropped, and thought of Abelard, and also Eloise,
Or when, beside the altar high, he bowed before the pyx,
I envied that seraphic kiss he gave the crucifix.
And, speaking of that sainted man, may call his conduct “cheek;”
And, like that wicked barrister whom Cousin Harry quotes,
May term his mixèd chalice “grog,” his vestments “petticoats;”
On incense and on altar-lights, on chasuble and cope.
Let others prove, by precedent, the faith that they profess:
“His can't be wrong” that's symbolized by such becoming dress.
A MORAL VINDICATOR
Had one peculiar quality,
'T was his severe advocacy
Of conjugal fidelity.
His views of life were painfully
Ridiculous; but fervently
He dwelt on marriage sanctity.
But in his wildest revelry,
On this especial subject he
Betrayed no ambiguity.
Did lay his hands not lovingly
Upon his wife, the sanctity
Of wedlock was his guaranty.
Affairs in the same light as he,
And quietly got a decree
Divorcing her from that L. B.
With his known idiosyncrasy?
He smiled,—a bitter smile to see,—
And drew the weapon of Bowie.
What Cole on Hiscock wrought, did he;
In fact, on persons twenty-three
He proved the marriage sanctity.
The witnesses and referee,
The judge who granted the decree,
Died in that wholesale butchery.
Had wiped the weapon of Bowie,
Twelve jurymen did instantly
Acquit and set Lycurgus free.
CALIFORNIA MADRIGAL
(ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING)
From thy home on the Yuba, thy ranch overflowed;
For the waters have fallen, the winter has fled,
And the river once more has returned to its bed.
How the fences and tules once more reappear!
How soft lies the mud on the banks of yon slough
By the hole in the levee the waters broke through!
The glance of your eye and the tread of your feet;
For the trails are all open, the roads are all free,
And the highwayman's whistle is heard on the lea.
And the pipe of the packer is scenting the gale;
The oath and the jest ringing high o'er the plain,
Where the smut is not always confined to the grain.
Once more the red clay's pulverized by the hoof,
Once more the dust powders the “outsides” with red,
Once more at the station the whiskey is spread.
And the mercury mounts to one hundred and one;
Ere the grass now so green shall be withered and sear,
In the spring that obtains but one month in the year.
WHAT THE ENGINES SAID
(OPENING OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD)
Pilots touching,—head to head
Facing on the single track,
Half a world behind each back?
This is what the Engines said,
Unreported and unread.
In a florid Western speech,
Said the Engine from the West:
“I am from Sierra's crest;
And if altitude's a test,
Why, I reckon, it's confessed
That I've done my level best.”
“They who work best talk the least.
S'pose you whistle down your brakes,
What you've done is no great shakes,—
Pretty fair,—but let our meeting
Be a different kind of greeting.
Let these folks with champagne stuffing,
Not their Engines, do the puffing.
Shores of snow and summer heats;
Where the Indian autumn skies
Paint the woods with wampum dyes,—
Seeing all he looked upon,
Blessing all that he has blessed,
Nursing in my iron breast
All his vivifying heat,
All his clouds about my crest;
And before my flying feet
Every shadow must retreat.”
And a long, low whistle blew.
“Come, now, really that's the oddest
Talk for one so very modest.
You brag of your East! You do?
Why, I bring the East to you!
All the Orient, all Cathay,
Find through me the shortest way;
And the sun you follow here
Rises in my hemisphere.
Really,—if one must be rude,—
Length, my friend, ain't longitude.”
I'll run over some Director.”
Said the Central: “I'm Pacific;
But, when riled, I'm quite terrific.
Yet to-day we shall not quarrel,
Just to show these folks this moral,
How two Engines—in their vision—
Once have met without collision.”
Unreported and unread;
Spoken slightly through the nose,
With a whistle at the close.
THE LEGENDS OF THE RHINE
Frowning heights of mossy stone;
Turret, with its flaunting flag
Flung from battlemented crag;
Dungeon-keep and fortalice
Looking down a precipice
O'er the darkly glancing wave
By the Lurline-haunted cave;
Robber haunt and maiden bower,
Home of Love and Crime and Power,—
That's the scenery, in fine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
Bigamist and parricide,
And, as most the stories run,
Partner of the Evil One;
Injured innocence in white,
Fair but idiotic quite,
Wringing of her lily hands;
Valor fresh from Paynim lands,
Abbot ruddy, hermit pale,
Minstrel fraught with many a tale,—
Are the actors that combine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Suits of armor, shield, and sword;
Kerchief with its bloody stain;
Ghosts of the untimely slain;
Headsman's block and shining axe;
Thumb-screw, crucifixes, racks;
Midnight-tolling chapel bell,
Heard across the gloomy fell,—
These and other pleasant facts
Are the properties that shine
In the Legends of the Rhine.
Underneath the linden boughs;
Murder, bigamy, and theft;
Travelers of goods bereft;
Rapine, pillage, arson, spoil,—
Everything but honest toil,
Are the deeds that best define
Every Legend of the Rhine.
But quicker when it wears a sword;
That Providence has special care
Of gallant knight and lady fair;
That villains, as a thing of course,
Are always haunted by remorse,—
Is the moral, I opine,
Of the Legends of the Rhine.
SONGS WITHOUT SENSE FOR THE PARLOR AND PIANO
I. THE PERSONIFIED SENTIMENTAL
The idol of the shrine;
But cold Oblivion seeks to fill
Regret's ambrosial wine.
Though Friendship's offering buried lies
'Neath cold Aversion's snow,
Regard and Faith will ever bloom
Perpetually below.
In Pleasure's giddy train;
Remorse is never on that brow,
Nor Sorrow's mark of pain.
Deceit has marked thee for her own:
Inconstancy the same;
And Ruin wildly sheds its gleam
Athwart thy path of shame.
II. THE HOMELY PATHETIC
My breath comes hard and low;
Yet, mother dear, grant one request,
Before your boy must go.
Oh! lift me ere my spirit sinks,
And ere my senses fail,
Astride the old fence-rail.
How oft these youthful legs,
With Alice' and Ben Bolt's, were hung
Across those wooden pegs!
'T was there the nauseating smoke
Of my first pipe arose:
O mother dear, these agonies
Are far less keen than those.
Where simple Nellie sleeps;
I know the cot of Nettie Moore,
And where the willow weeps.
I know the brookside and the mill,
But all their pathos fails
Beside the days when once I sat
Astride the old fence-rails.
III. SWISS AIR
With my fal, lal, la, la,
And my bright—
And my light—
Tra, la, le.
And ring, ting, ling, ling,
And sing fal, la, la,
La, la, le.
The Writings of Bret Harte | ||