Miscellaneous writings of the late Dr. Maginn :: :: University of Virginia Library

And lo! between thee and the azure sky,
Dangling in negro blackness beautiful,
A kail pot hangs, upon an iron bar
Suspended, and by iron chains hung down.
Beneath it yawns a threshold, like the den
Of Cacus, giant old, or like the caves
Of sylvan satyrs in the forests green;—
There enter, and, amid his porter butts,
In conscious wisdom bold, sits Nathan Goose,
Worshipping the muses and a mug of ale!

Sweet are the songs of Nathan Goose, and strong
Yea! potent is the liquor that he sells;
On many a cold and icy winter night,
When stars were sparkling in the deep blue sky,
Have, circling round his board, a jovial throng,
Tippled until the drowsy chime of twelve.
Strange has it seem'd to me, that we, who breathe
Vapours, as watery as the cooling drops
Of Rydal Mere, should drink combustibles,
And perish not; yet, thereby, of the soul
The cogitations are disturb'd; its dreams
Are hollows by reality and time
Fulfill'd not, and the waking spirit mourns,
When shines the sun above the eastern sea,—
The ocean seen from Black Comb's summit high,
And throws his yellow light against the pane
Of chamber window,—window deep embower'd
With honey-suckle blossoms;—o'er the wrecks
Of such fantastical, and inane stuff,
Shadows, and dreams, and visions of the night.—
Then follow headaches dreadful, vomitings
Of undigested biscuit, mingled with
The sour and miserable commixture of
Hot aqua vitæ, with the mountain lymph,—
If city water haply be so call'd,—
The lymph of Fountain-well, hard by the shop
Where seeds and roots are sold, above whose door
The black-eyed eagle spreads his golden wings.

Hard is the lot of him, whom evil fates
Have destined to a way of life unmeet;
Whose genius and internal strength are clogg'd
By drudgery, and the rubs of common men.
But I have gazed upon thee, Nathan Goose,
Gazed on the workings of thy inward soul—
Hail'd with delight thy planet in the sky,
And mid the constellations planted thee! &c.