The poetical works of John Godfrey Saxe Household Edition : with illustrations |
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 | EXCERPTS FROM OCCASIONAL POEMS. |
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 | The poetical works of John Godfrey Saxe |  |
217
EXCERPTS FROM OCCASIONAL POEMS.
EL DORADO.
Let others, dazzled by the shining ore,
Delve in the dirt to gather golden store.
Let others, patient of the menial toil
And daily suffering, seek the precious spoil;
No hero I, in such a cause to brave
Hunger and pain, the robber and the grave.
I'll work, instead, exempt from hate and harm,
The fruitful “placers” of my mountain-farm,
Where the bright ploughshare opens richest veins,
From whence shall issue countless golden grains,
Which in the fullness of the year shall come,
In bounteous sheaves, to bless my harvest-home!
Delve in the dirt to gather golden store.
Let others, patient of the menial toil
And daily suffering, seek the precious spoil;
No hero I, in such a cause to brave
Hunger and pain, the robber and the grave.
I'll work, instead, exempt from hate and harm,
The fruitful “placers” of my mountain-farm,
Where the bright ploughshare opens richest veins,
From whence shall issue countless golden grains,
Which in the fullness of the year shall come,
In bounteous sheaves, to bless my harvest-home!
But, haply, good may come of mining yet:
'T will help to pay the nation's foreign debt;
'T will further liberal arts; plate rings and pins,
Gild books and coaches, mirrors, signs, and sins;
'T will cheapen pens and pencils, and perchance
May give us honest dealing for Finance!
(That magic art, unknown to darker times,
When fraud and falsehood were reputed crimes,
Whose curious laws with nice precision teach
How whole estates are made from parts of speech;
How lying rags for honest coin shall pass,
And foreign gold be paid in native brass!)
'T will save, perhaps, each deep-indebted State
From all temptation to “repudiate,”
Till Time restore our precious credit lost,
And hush the wail of Peter Plymley's ghost!
'T will help to pay the nation's foreign debt;
'T will further liberal arts; plate rings and pins,
Gild books and coaches, mirrors, signs, and sins;
'T will cheapen pens and pencils, and perchance
May give us honest dealing for Finance!
(That magic art, unknown to darker times,
When fraud and falsehood were reputed crimes,
Whose curious laws with nice precision teach
How whole estates are made from parts of speech;
How lying rags for honest coin shall pass,
And foreign gold be paid in native brass!)
'T will save, perhaps, each deep-indebted State
From all temptation to “repudiate,”
Till Time restore our precious credit lost,
And hush the wail of Peter Plymley's ghost!
THE GOOD TIME COMING.
While drones and dreaming optimists protest,
“The worst is well, and all is for the best;”
And sturdy croakers chant the counter song,
That “man grows worse, and everything is wrong;”
Truth, as of old, still loves a golden mean,
And shuns extremes to walk erect between!
The world improves; with slow, unequal pace,
“The Good Time 's coming” to our hapless race.
The general tide beneath the refluent surge
Rolls on, resistless, to its destined verge!
Unfriendly hills no longer interpose
As stubborn walls to geographic foes,
Nor envious streams run only to divide
The hearts of brethren ranged on either side.
Promethean Science, with untiring eye
Searching the mysteries of the earth and sky;
And cunning Art, with strong and plastic hand
To work the marvels Science may command;
And broad-winged Commerce, swift to carry o'er
Earth's countless blessings to her farthest shore,—
These, and no German nor Genevan sage,
These are the great reformers of the age!
“The worst is well, and all is for the best;”
And sturdy croakers chant the counter song,
That “man grows worse, and everything is wrong;”
Truth, as of old, still loves a golden mean,
And shuns extremes to walk erect between!
The world improves; with slow, unequal pace,
“The Good Time 's coming” to our hapless race.
The general tide beneath the refluent surge
Rolls on, resistless, to its destined verge!
Unfriendly hills no longer interpose
As stubborn walls to geographic foes,
Nor envious streams run only to divide
The hearts of brethren ranged on either side.
Promethean Science, with untiring eye
Searching the mysteries of the earth and sky;
And cunning Art, with strong and plastic hand
To work the marvels Science may command;
And broad-winged Commerce, swift to carry o'er
Earth's countless blessings to her farthest shore,—
218
These are the great reformers of the age!
See Art, exultant in her stately car,
On Nature's Titans wage triumphant war!
While e'en the Lightnings by her wondrous skill
Are tamed for heralds of her sovereign will!
Old Ocean's breast a new invader feels,
And heaves in vain to clog her iron wheels;
In vain the Forests marshal all their force,
And Mountains rise to stay her onward course:
From out her path each bold opposer hurled,
She throws her girdle round a captive world!
On Nature's Titans wage triumphant war!
While e'en the Lightnings by her wondrous skill
Are tamed for heralds of her sovereign will!
Old Ocean's breast a new invader feels,
And heaves in vain to clog her iron wheels;
In vain the Forests marshal all their force,
And Mountains rise to stay her onward course:
From out her path each bold opposer hurled,
She throws her girdle round a captive world!
THE POWER-PRESS.
Strange is the sound when first the notes beginWhere human voices blend with Vulcan's din;
The click, the clank, the clangor, and the sound
Of rattling rollers in their rapid round;
The whizzing belt, the sharp metallic jar,
Like clashing spears in fierce chivalric war;
The whispering birth of myriad flying leaves,
Gathered, anon, in countless motley sheaves,
Then scattered far, as on the wingéd wind,
The mortal nurture of th' immortal mind!
THE LIBRARY.
Here, e'en the sturdy democrat may find,Nor scorn their rank, the nobles of the mind;
While kings may learn, nor blush at being shown,
How Learning's patents abrogate their own.
A goodly company and fair to see:
Royal plebeians; earls of low degree;
Beggars whose wealth enriches every clime;
Princes who scarce can boast a mental dime,
Crowd here together, like the quaint array
Of jostling neighbors on a market day:
Homer and Milton,—can we call them blind?—
Of godlike sight, the vision of the mind;
Shakespeare, who calmly looked creation through,
“Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new;”
Plato the sage, so thoughtful and serene,
He seems a prophet by his heavenly mien;
Shrewd Socrates, whose philosophic power
Xantippe proved in many a trying hour;
And Aristophanes, whose humor run
In vain endeavor to be-“cloud” the sun;
Majestic Æschylus, whose glowing page
Holds half the grandeur of the Athenian stage;
Pindar, whose odes, replete with heavenly fire,
Proclaim the master of the Grecian lyre;
Anacreon, famed for many a luscious line
Devote to Venus and the god of wine.
I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt
If one be better with them or without,—
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read.
At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink,
But 't is a nobler privilege to think;
And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mind
May make the nectar which it cannot find.
'T is well to borrow from the good and great;
'T is wise to learn; 't is godlike to create!
219
THE NEWS.
The News, indeed!—pray do you call it newsWhen shallow noddles publish shallow views?
Pray, is it news that turnips should be bred
As large and hollow as the owner's head?
News, that a clerk should rob his master's hoard,
Whose meagre salary scarcely pays his board?
News, that two knaves, their spurious friendship o'er,
Should tell the truths which they concealed before?
News, that a maniac, weary of his life,
Should end his sorrows with a rope or knife?
News, that a wife should violate the vows
That bind her, loveless, to a tyrant spouse?
News, that a daughter cheats paternal rule,
And weds a scoundrel to escape a fool?—
The news, indeed!—Such matters are as old
As sin and folly, rust and must and mould!
THE EDITOR'S SANCTUM.
Scene,—a third story in a dismal court,
Where weary printers just at eight resort;
A dingy door that with a rattle shuts;
Heaps of “exchanges,” much adorned with “cuts;”
Pens, paste, and paper on the table strewed;
Books, to be read when they have been reviewed;
Pamphlets and tracts so very dull indeed
That only they who wrote them e'er will read;
Nine letters, touching themes of every sort,
And one with money,—just a shilling short,—
Lie scattered round upon a common level.
Persons,—the Editor; Enter, now, the Devil:—
“Please, Sir, since this 'ere article was wrote,
There's later news perhaps you'd like to quote:
The Rebels storming with prodigious force,
‘Sumter has fallen!’” “Set it up, of course.”
“And, Sir, that murder's done—there's only left
One larceny.” “Pray don't omit the theft.”
“And, Sir, about the mob—the matter's fat”—
“The mob?—that's wrong—pray just distribute that.”
Exit the imp of Faust, and enter now
A fierce subscriber with a scowling brow,
“Sir, curse your paper!—send the thing to”—Well,
The place he names were impolite to tell;
Enough to know the hero of the Press
Cries: “Thomas, change the gentleman's address!
We'll send the paper, if the post will let it,
Where the subscriber will be sure to get it!”
Where weary printers just at eight resort;
A dingy door that with a rattle shuts;
Heaps of “exchanges,” much adorned with “cuts;”
Pens, paste, and paper on the table strewed;
Books, to be read when they have been reviewed;
Pamphlets and tracts so very dull indeed
That only they who wrote them e'er will read;
Nine letters, touching themes of every sort,
And one with money,—just a shilling short,—
Lie scattered round upon a common level.
Persons,—the Editor; Enter, now, the Devil:—
“Please, Sir, since this 'ere article was wrote,
There's later news perhaps you'd like to quote:
The Rebels storming with prodigious force,
‘Sumter has fallen!’” “Set it up, of course.”
“And, Sir, that murder's done—there's only left
One larceny.” “Pray don't omit the theft.”
“And, Sir, about the mob—the matter's fat”—
“The mob?—that's wrong—pray just distribute that.”
Exit the imp of Faust, and enter now
A fierce subscriber with a scowling brow,
“Sir, curse your paper!—send the thing to”—Well,
The place he names were impolite to tell;
Enough to know the hero of the Press
Cries: “Thomas, change the gentleman's address!
We'll send the paper, if the post will let it,
Where the subscriber will be sure to get it!”
Who would not be an editor?—To write
The magic “we” of such enormous might;
To be so great beyond the common span
It takes the plural to express the man;
And yet, alas, it happens oftentimes
A unit serves to number all his dimes!
But don't despise him; there may chance to be
An earthquake lurking in his simple “we”!
In the close precints of a dusty room
That owes few losses to the lazy broom,
There sits the man; you do not know his name,
Brown, Jones, or Johnson,—it is all the same,—
Scribbling away at what perchance may seem
An idler's musing, or a dreamer's dream;
His pen runs rambling, like a straying steed;
The “we” he writes seems very “wee” indeed;
But mark the change; behold the wondrous power
Wrought by the Press in one eventful hour;
To-night, 't is harmless as a maiden's rhymes;
To-morrow, thunder in the “London Times!”
The ministry dissolves that held for years;
Her Grace, the Duchess, is dissolved in tears;
The Rothschilds quail; the church, the army, quakes;
The very kingdom to its centre shakes;
The Corn Laws fall; the price of bread comes down,—
Thanks to the “we” of Johnson, Jones, or Brown!
The magic “we” of such enormous might;
To be so great beyond the common span
It takes the plural to express the man;
And yet, alas, it happens oftentimes
A unit serves to number all his dimes!
But don't despise him; there may chance to be
An earthquake lurking in his simple “we”!
In the close precints of a dusty room
That owes few losses to the lazy broom,
There sits the man; you do not know his name,
Brown, Jones, or Johnson,—it is all the same,—
Scribbling away at what perchance may seem
An idler's musing, or a dreamer's dream;
220
The “we” he writes seems very “wee” indeed;
But mark the change; behold the wondrous power
Wrought by the Press in one eventful hour;
To-night, 't is harmless as a maiden's rhymes;
To-morrow, thunder in the “London Times!”
The ministry dissolves that held for years;
Her Grace, the Duchess, is dissolved in tears;
The Rothschilds quail; the church, the army, quakes;
The very kingdom to its centre shakes;
The Corn Laws fall; the price of bread comes down,—
Thanks to the “we” of Johnson, Jones, or Brown!
| The poetical works of John Godfrey Saxe | |