The Poetical Works of Horace Smith :: :: University of Virginia Library

Waking next morning, when I raised my head
After a slumber sweet beyond compare,
I found, as if by magic fingers spread,
A ready breakfast of substantial fare:
Fruits, milk, and honey, and a sort of bread
Resembling ours, but far more rich and rare,
Composed the meal, of which our approbation
Was shown by its immediate mastication.

232

By her own pure and pious heart deceived,
Luxora thought us a celestial crew,
Who, in their visit, ought to be received
With all the reverence to angels due;
And stating to the King what she believed,
His Majesty, who deem'd the story true,
Next morning sent a solemn deputation,
To offer us a royal habitation.

The gravest Quaker's gravest pug would bark
Had he but seen the pomp and the grimaces,
Of these dwarf'd spindle-shanks, without a spark
Of animation in their moony faces;
Yet proud as Lucifer, if any mark,
Or badge, or bearing, gave the smallest traces
That they might elevate their pigmy bodies
One jot above their brother hoddy-doddies.

233

Some had a maze of horse-hair, saturate
With grease and dust, entwisted round their polls,
Which dirty dignitaries walk'd in state,
As grave as judges. Bless their nasty souls!
Some strutted in fantastic robes, ornate
With filthy fur of polecats or of moles,
Seeming to think that it enhanced their rank,
The more the animals that wore them stank.

Others, deriving their distinction's germ
From baser sources still, displayed a dress
Spun from the bowels of a loathsome worm;
Others again, like earthly savages,
Wore toys and trinkets worthy of the term,
Such as sliced vegetables, to express
Their rank and honour; these their vests were put on,
Or dangled from a coat's conspicuous button.

234

Another class there was, in trappings gay,
Fine colours—laces—feathers—ribbons—wreaths,
Who let themselves for hire, to kill and slay,
For which they carried carving knives in sheaths;
Of shoulder-knots, and liveried array,
Prouder than any popinjay that breathes;
And what was strange, the women seemed to love
These men-destroyers other men above.

The leader of the party, robed and starr'd,
Made a long speech in the terrestrial fashion;
Sawing the air, he thumped his bosom hard,
With every sign of vehemence and passion,
Just to assure us of the king's regard,
And to convey the royal invitation,
That we should permanently be installed
At Phosphan (so their capital is call'd).

235

As in procession we began our march
Through groves and fields, and avenues romantic,
Green vented his vivacity most arch,
In every sort of foolery and antic,
Pulling the pig-tail of the leader starch,
Who, turning sharply round, with rage half frantic,
Cuffed more than once his own astonished folk,
Whom he suspected of this shameful joke.

But Green's great aim in pulling was to turn
Suspicion on the grave decorous Guy,
Whose deprecating look of blank concern,
(Not to say horror,) language must defy.
“You had rather lose,” he cried, in accents stern,
“Your friend than joke.” “Why that,” (was the reply,)
“Somewhat depends,”—(he sniggered as he spoke,)
“Upon the friend, but more upon the joke.”

236

If for a moment, Nokes, you recollect
The influence of the moon on people craz'd,
How, at its full, it has a marked effect
On lunatics, you will not be amazed
That here its power, more stringent and direct,
Should to a more morbific height be raised.
So that the people, to their planet fitted,
Are lunatics outright, or else half-witted.

Thus their whole architecture's scope and plan,
Opposes nature, who, in building trees,
Holds out a lesson to masonic man,
By suiting them to their localities.
Where we require a parasol or fan,
And there's no snow to break their canopies,
Her boughs she spreads as widely as she can,
As in the cedar, cypress, and banyan.

237

In northern climes, where shade we can forego,
Her verdant structures take the conic form,
As best adapted to shoot off the snow,
And bide the pelting of the frequent storm;
While the close branches, tapering from below,
Support, protect, and keep each other warm:
As we discover in the fir and plane,
Indigenous to every cold domain.

Winter, at Phosphan, is so long and drear,
That they've more need of flannel than o shades,
Yet they've imported from their southern sphere,
A taste for corridors and colonnades,
Flat roofs, wide balconies, (to lovers dear,)
Projecting porticoes, and cool arcades,
Which would appear less thoroughly misplaced,
Could they import the climate with the taste.

238

During eight days we led a life serene,
Pampered with feasts, and garlanded with roses,
But on the ninth a change came o'er the scene,
Which ended quickly our apotheosis;
The cause of which reverse was Harry Green,
Whose frantic course of lunar life discloses
Insults most gross—iniquities most daring—
And drunken outrages beyond all bearing.

Learning these black enormities, the king
And council met in secret, made decree
That as our crime was such an impious thing,
In having claimed a sham divinity,
We should, without a formal trial, swing
Early next morning on the gallows tree!
Which, I submit, was sacrificing us,
For their own notions superstitious.

239

How she obtained the secret none can tell,
But in the night, Luxora passed our gate,
And by her speaking looks and signs, full well
Gave us to understand our threatened fate;
To shun which doom most truculent and fell,
She urged our flight ere yet it was too late,
Offering to guide us to the spot where we
Left our balloon fast tackled to a tree.

In her right hand our fairy guide conceal'd
A turning lamp, whose light at times was dead,
At times, the glades and copses it reveal'd,
Through which in silent fearfulness we fled.
And thus we hurried on through wood and field,
Till to the moor'd balloon our way we sped,
When in we jumped—cut loose—and soar'd together
Up in a whirlwind like an eagle's feather.

240

How we should ever re-descend to earth,
We hadn't, one of us, the smallest notion;
But while our thoughts were struggling for a birth,
A moon volcano, in a fierce explosion,
Threw out an aerolite, which struck the girth
Of our silk globe, and caused a strange commotion—
Out went the gas, and down, down, down went we,
Shooting through space with dread velocity!

All thoughts of life I now resigned, well knowing
That if we reached the earth, (and what if not!)
At the tremendous rate that we were going,
We must be dashed to atoms on the spot.
While this sad prospect set my brains all glowing,
Whiz! dash! smash! crash! beneath the waves we shot,
And down we sank till rising breathless, scared,
I oped my peepers and around me stared.

241

A brig I saw upon our starboard bow,
The Jane of Boston, Captain Samuel Ford,
Who, when he saw us rising from below,
Lowered a boat and took us all on board.
Both Green and Guy at first were somewhat slow
In coming to, but were at length restored,
And quaff'd a glass of grog to cure the rum ache
Occasioned by the water in their stomach.

It seems that we had plunged in our descent
Into the Gulf of Mexico—a cast
Which saved our bones and lives; so now we bent
Our course for Boston, which we reach'd at last,
Thence by the diligence we homeward went,
Much talking of our strange adventures past,
Deeming ourselves all singularly lucky
Safely to reach our dwellings in Kentucky