 | The collected works of Ambrose Bierce |  |
THE WORD-WAY IN PANAMA
I dreamed I sailed along a tropic shore,
The Line behind me and the Star before.
A savage coast, it was, of wood and fen,
And monkeys gabbled there, instead of men.
Once, as the blessed sun his head upraised,
On what a wondrous spectacle he gazed!
The Line behind me and the Star before.
A savage coast, it was, of wood and fen,
And monkeys gabbled there, instead of men.
96
On what a wondrous spectacle he gazed!
A mile away upon the starboard beam
Fell into ocean a deep sluggish stream,
Yet not a drop of water passed its mouth—
Thy way, Kentucky, glory of the South!
Words, words alone it “uttered to the day,”
As if from Kansas it had gone astray.
Yea, disemboguing grandly on the beach,
Flowed thickly, viscidly, the parts of speech!
Some, by their dead, incalculable weight
Held to the bottom of that turbid strait,
Slid seaward fathoms deep, nor saw the light
That shone above their everlasting night!
Some, such their levity, remained atop,
Frolicked and flashed—did everything but stop.
Others, too grave to float, too light to sink,
Forever rolled and tumbled on the brink—
Spread north and south along the cumbered strand,
And babbled ever between sea and land.
Fell into ocean a deep sluggish stream,
Yet not a drop of water passed its mouth—
Thy way, Kentucky, glory of the South!
Words, words alone it “uttered to the day,”
As if from Kansas it had gone astray.
Yea, disemboguing grandly on the beach,
Flowed thickly, viscidly, the parts of speech!
Some, by their dead, incalculable weight
Held to the bottom of that turbid strait,
Slid seaward fathoms deep, nor saw the light
That shone above their everlasting night!
Some, such their levity, remained atop,
Frolicked and flashed—did everything but stop.
Others, too grave to float, too light to sink,
Forever rolled and tumbled on the brink—
Spread north and south along the cumbered strand,
And babbled ever between sea and land.
Ah! 'twas a famous spectacle indeed,
This wordy welter!—verbs that disagreed
With nominatives; prepositions all
Too weak to hold the objective case in thrall;
Adverbs and adjectives disparted quite
From parent-words and in a woful plight
Of orphanage; conjunctions, interjections
With truly anarchistic predilections;
And pronouns which—a gutter-blooded swarm!—
Denied their antecedents in their form!
This wordy welter!—verbs that disagreed
With nominatives; prepositions all
Too weak to hold the objective case in thrall;
Adverbs and adjectives disparted quite
From parent-words and in a woful plight
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With truly anarchistic predilections;
And pronouns which—a gutter-blooded swarm!—
Denied their antecedents in their form!
Greatly I marveled whence this language came—
No “well of English” like it could I name,
Nor think how such a stream, however free
Its flow, could wear a channel to the sea!
No “well of English” like it could I name,
Nor think how such a stream, however free
Its flow, could wear a channel to the sea!
As Hudson bears his never-failing fleet
Of dead dogs, verdant, poddy and unsweet,
To pile themselves upon the Jersey shore,
Or in Sargasso's Sea rest evermore,
So poured this torrent through its delta's breaches,
And all these parts of speech were parts of speeches!—
All gushing from that word-way like a flood
Of swearing tomcats militant in mud!
They leapt, they smelled, they clamored, like a line
Of pagans faring to a sacred shrine!
“No more my heart the dismal din sustained”
(See Homer—Pope's translation) for it strained
My senses—this uncouth, infragrant, hoarse
“Fine flow of language” from its Northern source.
Cold drops of terror from my body broke!—
I 'bouted ship, and from my dream awoke.
Of dead dogs, verdant, poddy and unsweet,
To pile themselves upon the Jersey shore,
Or in Sargasso's Sea rest evermore,
So poured this torrent through its delta's breaches,
And all these parts of speech were parts of speeches!—
All gushing from that word-way like a flood
Of swearing tomcats militant in mud!
They leapt, they smelled, they clamored, like a line
Of pagans faring to a sacred shrine!
“No more my heart the dismal din sustained”
(See Homer—Pope's translation) for it strained
My senses—this uncouth, infragrant, hoarse
“Fine flow of language” from its Northern source.
Cold drops of terror from my body broke!—
I 'bouted ship, and from my dream awoke.
1902.
| The collected works of Ambrose Bierce | |