University of Virginia Library

IV.
STRECHED VERSES.

Whenever you see a fellow driving in a tremendous hurry
Through the streets of Rome, holding fast and fierce to his Murray,
Red Murray,—
Well-read Murray,—
You may be sure he is either a native of Britain,
Or a man from the States (he may be possibly) smitten
With that extraordinary passion some people have for doin'
Temple and tomb and church, and every sort of ruin.
Up through the Corso you hear his carriage-wheels rattle,
As if he were bound to be in at the death in some great battle.
Headlong he goes, as men go in the chase they call “steeple,”
At the imminent risk of running over modest people;
Turning suddenly sharp corners, where the lanes are so narrow,
You can hardly drive abreast one wheelbarrow,
And jamming you up so close against the houses,
You fear the hub of the wheel will scrape off your flesh or your trousers.
On through the swarm of degenerate moderns he dashes,
In his eagerness to get a view of the heroic dust and ashes.
Then, when he reaches the spot, he languidly raises
His gold-bowed glass to his eye and gazes,
Crying, “D'yr me! what an extrornary nation!”
But, hunger and fatigue having now overcome admiration,
He jumps into his carriage, feeling as if a boulder
Of pretty considerable size had been rolled off from his shoulder.
For, like Cæsar, when he sent that proud report to the Senate,
“Veni, vidi, vici” (I've been and gone and done it),
So when this man goes back to New York, the last hero,
And tells 'em he's seen the golden house of Nero;
And the Baths of Caracally and Titus and Domitian
(Or Diocletian), and the house once inhabited by Titian,
Or Trajan (or somebody else), and the tomb of Sicily Mettellar;
And the arch of—(plague take it, what's the name of that feller?)
Then, as when Dante walked the streets of Florence,
The old women cried with a mixture of admiration and abhorrence,
“There goes the man who's been down into Hades!”
So when he goes through his native town, young ladies
Will feel a similar reverence and rapture steal o'er 'em,
As they whisper, “There goes the man who's been in the Forum!”
The above lines may seem to some to have been written quite at random,
But in fact they're a regular specimen of the style that's called “tandem.”
Tandem means at length, when literally translated,
And I have finished at length the task I contemplated.