The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell Part 34

Which are said to ill.u.s.trate, because, as I view it, Like _lucus a non_, they precisely don't do it; Let a man who can write what himself understands 1600 Keep clear, if he can, of designing men's hands, Who bury the sense, if there's any worth having, And then very honestly call it engraving, But, to quit _badinage_, which there isn't much wit in, Halleck's better, I doubt not, than all he has written; In his verse a clear glimpse you will frequently find, If not of a great, of a fortunate mind, Which contrives to be true to its natural loves In a world of back-offices, ledgers, and stoves.

When his heart breaks away from the brokers and banks, 1610 And kneels in his own private shrine to give thanks, There's a genial manliness in him that earns Our sincerest respect (read, for instance, his "Burns"), And we can't but regret (seek excuse where we may) That so much of a man has been peddled away.

'But what's that? a ma.s.s-meeting? No, there come in lots The American Bulwers, Disraelis, and Scotts, And in short the American everything elses, Each charging the others with envies and jealousies;-- By the way, 'tis a fact that displays what profusions 1620 Of all kinds of greatness bless free inst.i.tutions, That while the Old World has produced barely eight Of such poets as all men agree to call great, And of other great characters hardly a score (One might safely say less than that rather than more), With you every year a whole crop is begotten, They're as much of a staple as corn is, or cotton; Why, there's scarcely a huddle of log-huts and shanties That has not brought forth its own Miltons and Dantes; 1629 I myself know ten Byrons, one Coleridge, three Sh.e.l.leys, Two Raphaels, six t.i.tians (I think), one Apelles, Leonardos and Rubenses plenty as lichens, One (but that one is plenty) American d.i.c.kens, A whole flock of Lambs, any number of Tennysons,-- In short, if a man has the luck to have any sons, He may feel pretty certain that one out of twain Will be some very great person over again.

There is one inconvenience in all this, which lies In the fact that by contrast we estimate size,[5]

And, where there are none except t.i.tans, great stature 1640 Is only the normal proceeding of nature.

What puff the strained sails of your praise will you furl at, if The calmest degree that you know is superlative?

At Rome, all whom Charon took into his wherry must, As a matter of course, be well _issimust_ and _errimust_, A Greek, too, could feel, while in that famous boat he tost, That his friends would take care he was [Greek: istost] and [Greek: otatost], And formerly we, as through graveyards we past, Thought the world went from bad to worst fearfully fast; Let us glance for a moment, 'tis well worth the pains, 1650 And note what an average graveyard contains; There lie levellers levelled, duns done up themselves, There are booksellers finally laid on their shelves, Horizontally there lie upright politicians, Dose-a-dose with their patients sleep faultless physicians, There are slave-drivers quietly whipped under ground, There bookbinders, done up in boards, are fast bound, There card-players wait till the last trump be played, There all the choice spirits get finally laid, There the babe that's unborn is supplied with a berth, 1660 There men without legs get their six feet of earth, There lawyers repose, each wrapped up in his case, There seekers of office are sure of a place, There defendant and plaintiff get equally cast, There shoemakers quietly stick to the last, There brokers at length become silent as stocks, There stage-drivers sleep without quitting their box, And so forth and so forth and so forth and so on, With this kind of stuff one might endlessly go on; To come to the point, I may safely a.s.sert you 1670 Will find in each yard every cardinal virtue;[6]

Each has six truest patriots: four discoverers of ether, Who never had thought on 't nor mentioned it either; Ten poets, the greatest who ever wrote rhyme: Two hundred and forty first men of their time: One person whose portrait just gave the least hint Its original had a most horrible squint: One critic, most (what do they call it?) reflective, Who never had used the phrase ob-or subjective: Forty fathers of Freedom, of whom twenty bred 1680 Their sons for the rice-swamps, at so much a head, And their daughters for--faugh! thirty mothers of Gracchi: Non-resistants who gave many a spiritual blackeye: Eight true friends of their kind, one of whom was a jailer: Four captains almost as astounding as Taylor: Two dozen of Italy's exiles who shoot us his Kaisers.h.i.+p daily, stern pen-and-ink Brutuses, Who, in Yankee back-parlors, with crucified smile,[7]

Mount serenely their country's funereal pile: Ninety-nine Irish heroes, ferocious rebellers 1690 'Gainst the Saxon in cis-marine garrets and cellars, Who shake their dread fists o'er the sea and all that,-- As long as a copper drops into the hat: Nine hundred Teutonic republicans stark From Vaterland's battle just won--in the Park, Who the happy profession of martyrdom take Whenever it gives them a chance at a steak; Sixty-two second Was.h.i.+ngtons: two or three Jacksons: And so many everythings else that it racks one's Poor memory too much to continue the list, 1700 Especially now they no longer exist;-- I would merely observe that you've taken to giving The puffs that belong to the dead to the living, And that somehow your trump-of-contemporary-doom's tones Is tuned after old dedications and tombstones.'

Here the critic came in and a thistle presented--[8]

From a frown to a smile the G.o.d's features relented, As he stared at his envoy, who, swelling with pride, To the G.o.d's asking look, nothing daunted, replied,-- 'You're surprised, I suppose, I was absent so long, 1710 But your G.o.ds.h.i.+p respecting the lilies was wrong; I hunted the garden from one end to t'other, And got no reward but vexation and bother, Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner to wither, This one lily I found and made haste to bring hither.'

'Did he think I had given him a book to review?

I ought to have known what the fellow would do,'

Muttered Phoebus aside, 'for a thistle will pa.s.s Beyond doubt for the queen of all flowers with an a.s.s; He has chosen in just the same way as he'd choose 1720 His specimens out of the books he reviews; And now, as this offers an excellent text, I'll give 'em some brief hints on criticism next.'

So, musing a moment, he turned to the crowd, And, clearing his voice, spoke as follows aloud:--

'My friends, in the happier days of the muse, We were luckily free from such things as reviews; Then naught came between with its fog to make clearer The heart of the poet to that of his hearer; Then the poet brought heaven to the people, and they 1730 Felt that they, too, were poets in hearing his lay; Then the poet was prophet, the past in his soul Precreated the future, both parts of one whole; Then for him there was nothing too great or too small, For one natural deity sanctified all; Then the bard owned no clipper and meter of moods Save the spirit of silence that hovers and broods O'er the seas and the mountains, the rivers and woods; He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting the clods, His soul soared and sang to an audience of G.o.ds; 1740 'Twas for them that he measured the thought and the line, And shaped for their vision the perfect design, With as glorious a foresight, a balance as true, As swung out the worlds in the infinite blue; Then a glory and greatness invested man's heart, The universal, which now stands estranged and apart, In the free individual moulded, was Art; Then the forms of the Artist seemed thrilled with desire For something as yet unattained, fuller, higher, As once with her lips, lifted hands, and eyes listening, 1750 And her whole upward soul in her countenance glistening, Eurydice stood--like a beacon unfired, Which, once touched with flame, will leap heav'nward inspired-- And waited with answering kindle to mark The first gleam of Orpheus that pained the red Dark.

Then painting, song, sculpture did more than relieve The need that men feel to create and believe, And as, in all beauty, who listens with love Hears these words oft repeated--"beyond and above,"

So these seemed to be but the visible sign 1760 Of the grasp of the soul after things more divine; They were ladders the Artist erected to climb O'er the narrow horizon of s.p.a.ce and of time, And we see there the footsteps by which men had gained To the one rapturous glimpse of the never-attained, As shepherds could erst sometimes trace in the sod The last spurning print of a sky-cleaving G.o.d.

'But now, on the poet's dis-privacied moods With _do this_ and _do that_ the pert critic intrudes; While he thinks he's been barely fulfilling his duty 1770 To interpret 'twixt men and their own sense of beauty.

And has striven, while others sought honor or pelf, To make his kind happy as he was himself, He finds he's been guilty of horrid offences In all kinds of moods, numbers, genders, and tenses; He's been _ob_ and _sub_jective, what Kettle calls Pot, Precisely, at all events, what he ought not, _You have done this,_ says one judge; _done that,_ says another; _You should have done this,_ grumbles one; _that,_ says t'other; Never mind what he touches, one shrieks out _Taboo!_ 1780 And while he is wondering what he shall do, Since each suggests opposite topics for song, They all shout together _you're right!_ and _you're wrong!_

'Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write can surely review, Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of his teens, Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; Having read Johnson's lives of the poets half through, 1790 There's nothing on earth he's not competent to; He reviews with as much nonchalance as he whistles,-- He goes through a book and just picks out the thistles; It matters not whether he blame or commend, If he's bad as a foe, he's far worse as a friend: Let an author but write what's above his poor scope, He goes to work gravely and twists up a rope, And, inviting the world to see punishment done, Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind and the sun; 'Tis delightful to see, when a man comes along 1800 Who has anything in him peculiar and strong, Every c.o.c.kboat that swims clear its fierce (pop) gundeck at him, And make as he pa.s.ses its ludicrous Peck at him--'

Here Miranda came up and began, 'As to that--'

Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, and hat, And, seeing the place getting rapidly cleared, I too s.n.a.t.c.hed my notes and forthwith disappeared.

THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT

PART I

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE MOVED INTO IT

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, From business snug withdrawn, Was much contented with a lot That would contain a Tudor cot 'Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot, And twelve feet more of lawn.

He had laid business on the shelf To give his taste expansion, And, since no man, retired with pelf, The building mania can shun, 10 Knott, being middle-aged himself, Resolved to build (unhappy elf!) A mediaeval mansion.

He called an architect in counsel; 'I want,' said he, 'a--you know what, (You are a builder, I am Knott) A thing complete from chimney-pot Down to the very grounsel; Here's a half-acre of good land; Just have it nicely mapped and planned 20 And make your workmen drive on; Meadow there is, and upland too, And I should like a water-view, D'you think you could contrive one?

(Perhaps the pump and trough would do, If painted a judicious blue?) The woodland I've attended to;'

[He meant three pines stuck up askew, Two dead ones and a live one.]

'A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take 30 To build a house of freestone, But then it is not hard to make What nowadays is _the_ stone; The cunning painter in a trice Your house's outside petrifies, And people think it very gneiss Without inquiring deeper; _My_ money never shall be thrown Away on such a deal of stone, When stone of deal is cheaper.' 40

And so the greenest of antiques Was reared for Knott to dwell in: The architect worked hard for weeks In venting all his private peaks Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks Had satisfied Fluellen; Whatever anybody had Out of the common, good or bad, Knott had it all worked well in; A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry, 50 A porter's lodge that was a sty, A campanile slim and high, Too small to hang a bell in; All up and down and here and there, With Lord-knows-whats of round and square Stuck on at random everywhere,-- It was a house to make one stare, All corners and all gables; Like dogs let loose upon a bear, Ten emulous styles _staboyed_ with care, 60 The whole among them seemed to tear, And all the oddities to spare Were set upon the stables.

Knott was delighted with a pile Approved by fas.h.i.+on's leaders: (Only he made the builder smile, By asking every little while, Why that was called the Twodoor style, Which certainly had _three_ doors?) Yet better for this luckless man 70 If he had put a downright ban Upon the thing _in limine;_ For, though to quit affairs his plan, Ere many days, poor Knott began Perforce accepting draughts, that ran All ways--except up chimney; The house, though painted stone to mock, With nice white lines round every block, Some trepidation stood in, When tempests (with petrific shock, 80 So to speak,) made it really rock, Though not a whit less wooden; And painted stone, howe'er well done, Will not take in the prodigal sun Whose beams are never quite at one With our terrestrial lumber; So the wood shrank around the knots, And gaped in disconcerting spots, And there were lots of dots and rots And crannies without number, 90 Wherethrough, as you may well presume, The wind, like water through a flume, Came rus.h.i.+ng in ecstatic, Leaving, in all three floors, no room That was not a rheumatic; And, what with points and squares and rounds Grown shaky on their poises, The house at nights was full of pounds, Thumps, b.u.mps, creaks, scratchings, raps--till--'Zounds!'

Cried Knott, 'this goes beyond all bounds; 100 I do not deal in tongues and sounds, Nor have I let my house and grounds To a family of Noyeses!'

But, though Knott's house was full of airs, _He_ had but one,--a daughter; And, as he owned much stocks and shares, Many who wished to render theirs Such vain, unsatisfying cares, And needed wives to sew their tears, In matrimony sought her; 110 They vowed her gold they wanted not, Their faith would never falter, They longed to tie this single Knott In the Hymeneal halter; So daily at the door they rang, Cards for the belle delivering, Or in the choir at her they sang, Achieving such a rapturous tw.a.n.g As set her nerves as.h.i.+vering.

Now Knott had quite made up his mind 120 That Colonel Jones should have her; No beauty he, but oft we find Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind, So hoped his Jenny'd be resigned And make no more palaver; Glanced at the fact that love was blind, That girls were ratherish inclined To pet their little crosses, Then nosologically defined The rate at which the system pined 130 In those unfortunates who dined Upon that metaphoric kind Of dish--their own proboscis.

But she, with many tears and moans, Besought him not to mock her.

Said 'twas too much for flesh and bones To marry mortgages and loans, That fathers' hearts were stocks and stones.

And that she'd go, when Mrs. Jones, To Davy Jones's locker; 140 Then gave her head a little toss That said as plain as ever was, If men are always at a loss Mere womankind to bridle-- To try the thing on woman cross Were fifty times as idle; For she a strict resolve had made And registered in private, That either she would die a maid, Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 150 If a woman could contrive it; And, though the wedding-day was set, Jenny was more so, rather, Declaring, in a pretty pet, That, howsoe'er they spread their net, She would out-Jennyral them yet, The colonel and her father.

Just at this time the Public's eyes Were keenly on the watch, a stir Beginning slowly to arise 160 About those questions and replies.

Those raps that unwrapped mysteries So rapidly at Rochester, And Knott, already nervous grown By lying much awake alone.

And listening, sometimes to a moan, And sometimes to a clatter, Whene'er the wind at night would rouse The gingerbread-work on his house, Or when some, hasty-tempered mouse, 170 Behind the plastering, made a towse About a family matter, Began to wonder if his wife, A paralytic half her life.

Which made it more surprising, Might not, to rule him from her urn, Have taken a peripatetic turn For want of exorcising.

This thought, once nestled in his head, Erelong contagious grew, and spread 180 Infecting all his mind with dread, Until at last he lay in bed And heard his wife, with well-known tread, Entering the kitchen through the shed, (Or was't his fancy, mocking?) Opening the pantry, cutting bread, And then (she'd been some ten years dead) Closets and drawers unlocking; Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 189 He heard the long-familiar click Of slender needles flying quick, As if she knit a stocking; For whom?--he prayed that years might flit With pains rheumatic shooting, Before those ghostly things she knit Upon his unfleshed sole might fit, He did not fancy it a bit, To stand upon that footing: At other times, his frightened hairs 199 Above the bedclothes trusting, He heard her, full of household cares, (No dream entrapped in supper's snares, The foal of horrible nightmares, But broad awake, as he declares), Go bustling up and down the stairs, Or setting back last evening's chairs, Or with the poker thrusting The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust-- And--what! impossible! it must!

He knew she had returned to dust, 210 And yet could scarce his senses trust, Hearing her as she poked and fussed About the parlor, dusting!

Night after night he strove to sleep And take his ease in spite of it; But still his flesh would chill and creep, And, though two night-lamps he might keep, He could not so make light of it.

At last, quite desperate, he goes And tells his neighbors all his woes, 220 Which did but their amount enhance; They made such mockery of his fears That soon his days were of all jeers.

His nights of the rueful countenance; 'I thought most folks,' one neighbor said, 'Gave up the ghost when they were dead?'

Another gravely shook his head, Adding, 'From all we hear, it's Quite plain poor Knott is going mad-- For how can he at once be sad 230 And think he's full of spirits?'

A third declared he knew a knife Would cut this Knott much quicker, 'The surest way to end all strife, And lay the spirit of a wife, Is just to take and lick her!'

A temperance man caught up the word, 'Ah yes,' he groaned, 'I've always heard Our poor friend somewhat slanted 239 Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch; I fear these spirits may be Dutch, (A sort of gins, or something such,) With which his house is haunted; I see the thing as clear as light,-- If Knott would give up getting tight, Naught farther would be wanted:'

So all his neighbors stood aloof And, that the spirits 'neath his roof Were not entirely up to proof, Unanimously granted. 250

Knott knew that c.o.c.ks and sprites were foes, And so bought up, Heaven only knows How many, for he wanted crows To give ghosts caws, as I suppose, To think that day was breaking; Moreover what he called his park, He turned into a kind of ark For dogs, because a little bark Is a good tonic in the dark, If one is given to waking; 260 But things went on from bad to worse, His curs were nothing but a curse, And, what was still more shocking, Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff And would not think of going off In spite of all his c.o.c.king.

Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques, Malays (that didn't lay for weeks), Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, (Waiving the cost, no trifling ill, Since each brought in his little bill,) 271 By day or night were never still, But every thought of rest would kill With cacklings and with quorkings; Henry the Eighth of wives got free By a way he had of axing; But poor Knott's Tudor henery Was not so fortunate, and he Still found his trouble waxing; As for the dogs, the rows they made, 280 And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed, Beyond all human knowledge is; All night, as wide awake as gnats, The terriers rumpused after rats, Or, just for practice, taught their brats To worry cast-off shoes and hats, The bull-dogs settled private spats, All chased imaginary cats, Or raved behind the fence's slats At real ones, or, from their mats, With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats, 291 Or, like some folks in white cravats, Contemptuous of sharps and flats, Sat up and sang dogsologies.

Meanwhile the cats set up a squall, And, safe upon the garden-wall, All night kept cat-a-walling, As if the feline race were all.

In one wild cataleptic sprawl, Into love's tortures falling. 300

PART II

SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW OF SPIRITS

At first the ghosts were somewhat shy, Coming when none but Knott was nigh, And people said 'twas all their eye, (Or rather his) a flam, the sly Digestion's machination: Some recommended a wet sheet, Some a nice broth of pounded peat, Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, Some a southwesterly grain of wheat; 310 Meat was by some p.r.o.nounced unmeet, Others thought fish most indiscreet, And that 'twas worse than all to eat Of vegetables, sour or sweet, (Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) In such a concatenation: One quack his b.u.t.ton gently plucks And murmurs, 'Biliary ducks!'

Says Knott, 'I never ate one;'

But all, though br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of wrath, 320 h.o.m.oeo, Allo, Hydropath, Concurred in this--that t'other's path To death's door was the straight one.

Still, spite of medical advice, The ghosts came thicker, and a spice Of mischief grew apparent; Nor did they only come at night, But seemed to fancy broad daylight, Till Knott, in horror and affright, His unoffending hair rent; 330 Whene'er with handkerchief on lap, He made his elbow-chair a trap, To catch an after-dinner nap, The spirits, always on the tap, Would make a sudden _rap, rap, rap,_ The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, (And what is life without its nap But threadbareness and mere mishap?) 338 As 'twere with a percussion cap The trouble's climax capping; It seemed a party dried and grim Of mummies had come to visit him, Each getting off from every limb Its mult.i.tudinous wrapping; Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round, The merest penny-weights of sound; Sometimes 'twas only by the pound They carried on their dealing, A thumping 'neath the parlor floor, Thump-b.u.mp-thump-b.u.mping o'er and o'er, 350 As if the vegetables in store (Quiet and orderly before) Were all together peeling; You would have thought the thing was done By the spirit of some son of a gun, And that a forty-two-pounder, Or that the ghost which made such sounds Could be none other than John Pounds, Of Ragged Schools the founder.

Through three gradations of affright, 360 The awful noises reached their height; At first they knocked nocturnally, Then, for some reason, changing quite, (As mourners, after six months' flight, Turn suddenly from dark to light,) Began to knock diurnally, And last, combining all their stocks, (Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) _Nocte pluit_--they showered knocks, 370 And knocked, knocked, knocked, eternally; Ever upon the go, like buoys, (Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys, They turned to troubles and a noise That preyed on him internally.

Soon they grew wider in their scope; Whenever Knott a door would ope, It would ope not, or else elope And fly back (curbless as a trope Once started down a stanza's slope 380 By a bard that gave it too much rope--) Like a clap of thunder slamming: And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, (She always, when he walked, did that,) Just as upon his heart it sat, Submitting to his settling pat, Some unseen hand would jam it flat, Or give it such a furious bat That eyes and nose went cramming Up out of sight, and consequently, 390 As when in life it paddled free, His beaver caused much d.a.m.ning; If these things seem o'erstrained to be, Read the account of Doctor Dee, 'Tis in our college library: Read Wesley's circ.u.mstantial plea, And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee, Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee, And Stilling's Pneumatology; Consult Scot, Glanvil, grave Wie- 400 rus and both Mathers; further see, Webster, Casaubon, James First's trea- tise, a right royal Q.E.D.

Writ with the moon in perigee, Bodin de la Demonomanie-- (Accent that last line gingerly) All full of learning as the sea Of fishes, and all disagree, Save in _Sathanas apage!_ Or, what will surely put a flea 410 In unbelieving ears--with glee, Out of a paper (sent to me By some friend who forgot to P ...

A ... Y ...--I use cryptography Lest I his vengeful pen should dree-- His P ...O ...S ...T ...A ...G ...E ...) Things to the same effect I cut, About the tantrums of a ghost, Not more than three weeks since, at most, Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 420 Knott's Upas daily spread its roots, Sent up on all sides livelier shoots, And bore more pestilential fruits; The ghosts behaved like downright brutes, They snipped holes in his Sunday suits, Practised all night on octave flutes, Put peas (not peace) into his boots, Whereof grew corns in season, They scotched his sheets, and, what was worse, Stuck his silk nightcap full of burrs, 430 Till he, in language plain and terse, (But much unlike a Bible verse,) Swore he should lose his reason.

The tables took to spinning, too, Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew To prophets and apostles; One footstool vowed that only he Of law and gospel held the key, That teachers of whate'er degree To whom opinion bows the knee 440 Weren't fit to teach Truth's _a b c_, And were (the whole lot) to a T Mere fogies all and fossils; A teapoy, late the property Of Knox's Aunt Keziah, (Whom Jenny most irreverently Had nicknamed her aunt-tipathy) With tips emphatic claimed to be The prophet Jeremiah; The tins upon the kitchen-wall, 450 Turned tintinnabulators all, And things that used to come to call For simple household services Began to hop and whirl and prance, Fit to put out of countenance The _Commis_ and _Grisettes_ of France Or Turkey's dancing Dervises.