University of Virginia Library

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7

I.
ROME DURING CARNIVAL (1866).

(A FREE SKETCH BY A MAN FROM THE FREE STATES.)

And this is really Rome, as I've hearn tell of,
But little thought ever to see and smell of!
The place that all creation comes to visit,—
Is it?
This is old Rome,—great Rome, the 'tarnal city,
The more's the pity!
By golly!
I'm glad I didn't bring along our Polly!
And this is the great Carnival I've been to,
And somewhat into!
As my poor powdered hat, and hair, too,
Can testify and swear to!
Oh! I've been knocked about from post to pillar
Till I'm as white's a miller;

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8

And my old mop of hair, I vow, looks very
Much like a wax-berry bush in January.
This the great Carnival, I, ignoramus,
Once fancied must be funny, 'cause 'twas famous.
This really the Carnival,—
Where folks that used to be respectable,
Walking the streets at home,
Here, just because it's Rome,
And every man and every woman
Think they must be in Rome a Roman,
Stand up eight mortal arternoons,
Just like so many loons,
Or like so many owls
Filling the blessed air with hoots and howls,
And worse than that with stuff they call Confetti!
Tell that to our Betty!
She knows a confit from a pill, I reckon,
Or else I'm much mistaken:
I should admire
To have you try her!
You'd find a mess of fish grease in the fire!
Well, there they stand, each one before his trough,
Shooting the vile stuff off.

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(Some on 'em in their rigs
Look almost like great pigs.)
I've seen a countess stand there by the hour,
And shovel down armfuls of dirty flour—
A thing ridiculous, not to say inhuman—
On every little baby and old woman!
I looked down on't from the top o' the house,
Where a man looks no bigger than a mouse,
And there, I own (not merely for a rhyme),
The tout ensemble almost looked sublime.
And when the troopers clanked along the street
And made that lane, the thing was done so neat,
They cleared the track so handsome, and much more so
The little dog that yelped along the Corso;
And when the little horses flew like lightning,
And all the faster for a little frightening;
And then, when they'd shot by, to see the track
Turn instantaneously from brown to black,—
It seemed up there a somewhat clean conclusion
To such a day of dirt and of confusion.
But here, a hundred feet above the people,
Having for nearest neighbors roof and steeple,

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10

Did there not come to me that hour a feeling
Standing beneath my grand sky-parlor's ceiling,—
The blue Italian heaven looked never cleaner,
The green of Monte Pincio never greener!

Second Blast.

P. S.—Since writing the foregoing ditty
(Before the Carnival had ended quite),
I have experienced a transcendent night
In this eternal city:
I was about to call it—not eternal,
But by another word that ends in—fernal;
For, sure, this side the dismal regions
Where Satan marshals his discordant legions,—
Short of that dismal dwelling
Could scarce be matched the yelling,
The screaming, and the shrieking,
The howling and the squeaking,
That long past midnight sounded,
Confusion worse confounded.

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11

Noise and nonsense joined their powers
Just to spoil four precious hours.
I thought in fact that other place were preferable,
For there at least the outcries would be referable
Each to some definite emotion;
But here no creature seemed to have a notion
Of what he meant, except to make a racket,
Banging night's ear-drum hard enough to crack it.
Hogarth's enraged musician,
Compared with me, was in a mild condition.
Sometimes they'd all set up a general screaming,
And then apparently deeming
Monotonous noise might soothe some wretch's slumber,
A certain (or uncertain) number
Would start some quick, sharp cries, that, ever madder
Flew up the invisible atmospheric ladder,
Where each one seemed to labor
To overtop his neighbor;
And all the while that stony-hearted tambourine
Kept up its pound and jingle in between.
A hundred donkeys, each
Afflicted with a special influenza,

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And his peculiar hee-haw, groan, and screech,
I could have borne con summa patienza.
To sleep, I was too crazy;
To fling a water-pitcher out, too lazy:
I was half-furious,
And yet withal half-curious
To know—was there a goal to this mad power?
And should I live to see the final hour?
Was my brain, or those rascals' lungs the strongest?
And which of us, perhaps, would hold out longest?
Towards two o'clock I fancied I detected
Some giving out, and confidently expected
The thing was coming to an end: next minute
It seemed as they were just going to begin it.
And then would come a sudden thunderation,
Threatening to shake the house to its foundation.
At last the smaller fry did seem to scatter,
And only the big bulls keep up the clatter.
A ray of hope was through my misery gleaming.
The yelling thinned away to roaring, screaming;
Then some kind neighbors (how the street should thank 'em!)

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With flute and fiddle made a move to flank 'em.
Then the dirt-carts, like an artillery rattle,
Coming to clean the Corso, closed the battle;
And when the last vile sounds had died away,
How like a poultice on the senses lay
That blessed silence!—
More I cannot say!

P P. S.

Having recovered some from that night business,
Though still affected with a certain dizziness,
A kind of haziness,
And general laziness,—
I own that evening of the moccoletti
Was very pretty,
And that I should have liked to show to Betty,
(Only she's dreadful 'fraid of spermacetty!)
To look along a mile of glittering alley,
Straight up and down a sort of mountain valley,

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14

And see, as daylight, and the horse-race, closes,
Each slope burst out a blaze of fiery roses,
And down below a fiery stream that flashes,—
Or fiery snake, I'll say, with some black gashes
(That's when the lights went out, the fellows carried,
Squelched by some blow that couldn't well be parried,
Making a sort of parenthesis in the glory,
As I do, in the middle of my story)—
As I was saying, it was a handsome go-off,
Though not so handsome, quite, as some I know of;
For instance, when the glorious Yankee nation
Get up a 4th July illumination—
Still it was handsome, that there's no denying,
Although to get to it was rayther trying:
I had to rough it,
And tough it,
And oh! my poor cheek-bones got many a buffet
From nosegays, mostly stalks, of moderate thickness,
Jerked by bold urchins with spasmodic quickness.
But there's no rose without a thorn, I know it,
And well my late experience goes to show it.
He that plays jokes must not mind being joked at;
He that pokes fun, no wonder if he's poked at:

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This is a truth oft pressed on my conviction
During the recent Carnival affliction.
Didn't I wield my ten-foot cane-pole featly,
And douse the glim of many a chap full neatly?
And did I not, in an unlucky hour,
Bow to superior (say inferior) power,
When that bold man (whose name I have not learned yet,
Because the cane-pole has not been returned yet)
Caught at the rag below, (humiliation!)
And dragged my pole down, and my reputation!
Well, I am glad the Carnival is ended,
And carnal sports are for a while suspended.
Here for a while, too, I'll suspend my strictures,
And go to see the ruins and the pictures.