Atlantic Monthly, - [best ebook reader under 100 txt] 📗
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[Continued in the next Number.]
THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY
When wise Minerva still was young And just the least romantic, Soon after from Jove’s head she flung That preternatural antic, ‘Tis said to keep from idleness Or flirting,—those twin curses,— She spent her leisure, more or less, In writing po—, no, verses.
How nice they were! to rhyme wit far A kind star did not tarry; The metre, too, was regular As schoolboy’s dot and carry; And full they were of pious plums, So extra-super-moral,— For sucking Virtue’s tender gums Most tooth-enticing coral.
A clean, fair copy she prepares, Makes sure of moods and tenses, With her own hand,—for prudence spares A man-(or woman)-uensis; Complete, and tied with ribbons proud, She hinted soon how cosy a Treat it would be to read them loud After next day’s Ambrosia.
The Gods thought not it would amuse So much as Homer’s Odyssees, But could not very well refuse The properest of Goddesses; So all sat round in attitudes Of various dejection, As with a hem! the queen of prudes Began her grave prelection.
At the first pause Zeus said, “Well sung!— I mean—ask Phoebus,—_he_ knows.” Says Phoebus, “Zounds! a wolf’s among Admetus’s merinos! Fine! very fine! but I must go; They stand in need of me there; Excuse me!” snatched his stick, and so Plunged down the gladdened ether.
With the next gap, Mars said, “For me Don’t wait,—naught could be finer; But I’m engaged at half-past three,— A fight in Asia Minor!” Then Venus lisped, “How very thad! It rainth down there in torrinth; But I mutht go, becauthe they’ve had A thacrifithe in Corinth!”
Then Bacchus,—“With those slamming doors I lost the last half dist—(hic!) Mos’ bu’ful se’ments! what’s the Chor’s? My voice shall not be missed—(hic!)” His words woke Hermes; “Ah!” he said, “I so love moral theses!” Then winked at Hebe, who turned red, And smoothed her apron’s creases.
Just then Zeus snored,—the Eagle drew His head the wing from under; Zeus snored,—o’er startled Greece there flew The many-volumed thunder; Some augurs counted nine,—some, ten,— Some said, ‘twas war,—some, famine,— And all, that other-minded men Would get a precious –-.
Proud Pallas sighed, “It will not do; Against the Muse I’ve sinned, oh!” And her torn rhymes sent flying through Olympus’s back window. Then, packing up a peplus clean, She took the shortest path thence, And opened, with a mind serene, A Sunday-school in Athens.
The verses? Some, in ocean swilled, Killed every fish that bit to ‘em; Some Galen caught, and, when distilled, Found morphine the residuum; But some that rotted on the earth Sprang up again in copies, And gave two strong narcotics birth,— Didactic bards and poppies.
Years after, when a poet asked The Goddess’s opinion, As being one whose soul had basked In Art’s clear-aired dominion,— “Discriminate,” she said, “betimes; The Muse is unforgiving; Put all your beauty in your rhymes, Your morals in your living.”
THE FINANCIAL FLURRY.
“Break, break, break, On thy cold, gray crags, O Sea!”
“I remember a day,” said a friend not long since, “a day as sweet, calm, cool, and bright as that whose wedding and funeral song the poet sings in the same verse, when I stood upon the white sea-coast near Naples, and looked far away across the blue, silent waters, and up the gray, flowery steeps, to where the towering cone of Vesuvius cleaves the skies. It was in the spring-time; luxuriant nature seemed to have nothing to do but to grow and bloom, and the huge mountain itself was profoundly at peace,—smiling a welcome, apparently, to the delicate bean-plants and wild vines which clambered up its sides, and wearing a light curl of smoke, like a gay coronal, around its brow. The bay was alive with red-capped fishermen, each one intent on fishing up his inverted brother below him; the beach was thronged with women, who chattered cheerfully over their baskets; and along the road scampered soldiers in bright uniforms, as if they had no conceivable purpose in life but to bathe in that clear sunshine, and breathe that soft, delicious air.
“A few hours later,” continued he, “I stood not far from the same spot, and saw that mountain angrily belching forth pitch and flames; the earth beneath my feet groaned with sullen, suppressed rage, or as if it were in pain; vast volumes of lurid smoke rolled through the sky, and streams of melted brimstone coursed down the hillsides, burning up the pretty flowers, crushing the trees, and ruthlessly devouring the snug farms and cottages of the loving Philemons and Baucises who had incautiously built too near the fatal precinct. The poor contadini, who lately chaffered so vivaciously over their macaroni and chestnuts, were flying panic-smitten in all directions; some clasped their crucifixes, and called wildly upon the saints for protection; others leaped frantically into boats and rowed themselves dead, in the needless endeavor to escape death; while the general expression of the people was that of a multitude who, the next minute, expected to see the skies fall to crush them, or the earth open to swallow them up forever. But I was myself unmoved,” our friend concluded, in his usual vein of philosophy, “though, I trust, not unsympathizing; because I saw, through those dun clouds of smoke, the stars still shining serenely aloft, and because I felt that after that transient convulsion of nature the great sun would rise as majestically as ever on the morrow, to show us, here and there, no doubt, a beautiful tract now desolate, here and there a fruitful vale now filled with ashes,—but also, the same glorious bay breathing calmly in its bed, the same cloudless sky holding the green and peaceful earth in its complacent embrace.”
We could not, as we listened to the story of the traveller, help considering it an illustration of that great convulsion of finance which has visited us during the last month. We do not mean to call this an eruption, which would scarcely be appropriate,—inasmuch as the characteristic of it was not a preternatural activity, but rather a preternatural stagnation and paralysis; but there is certainly a striking similarity in the contrasts presented by the two pictures just painted, and the contrasts presented in the condition of the commercial world as it is now, and as it was only a few weeks since. Then all nature smiled, and we scarcely thought of the future in the happy consciousness of the present; whereas now all nature seems to frown, and we eagerly long for the future to escape the endless vexations and miseries of the present. Our trade, which lately bloomed like a Neapolitan spring-day, is now covered with clouds and sifted with ashes, as if some angry Vesuvius had exploded its consents over us and shot the hot lava-tides among our snug vineyards and cottages. May we not also, in this case, as in that, draw some consolation from the knowledge that the stars are still shining behind the smoke, and that the sun will assuredly come up to-morrow, as it has come up on so many morrows, for so many thousands of years? Convulsions, by the very fact of their violence, show that they are short-lived; and though we, who suffer by them directly, are apt to derive the slenderest solace from the philosophy which demonstrates their transientness, or their utility in certain aspects, it is nevertheless profitable, for various reasons, to make them a subject of remark.
In a season of great public calamity, moreover, everybody feels that he ought to participate in it in some way, if not as a sufferer, then as a sympathizer, and, in either capacity, as a speculator upon its causes and probable effects. The learned historian, Monsieur Alcofribas, who preserves for our instruction “the heroic deeds and prowesses” of the great king of the Dipsodes, tells us how that once, when Philip of Macedon threatened Corinth, the virtuous inhabitants of that city were thrown into mortal fear; but they were not too much paralyzed to forget the necessity of defence; and while some fortified the walls, others sharpened spears, and others again carried the baskets, the noble Diogenes, who was doubtless the chief literary man of the place, was observed to thwack and bang his tub with unmerciful vehemence. When he was asked why he did so, he replied, that it was for the purpose of showing that he was not a mere slug and lazy spectator, in a crowd so fervently exercised. In these times, therefore, when Philip of Macedon is not precisely thundering at our walls, but nibbling at every man’s cupboard and cheese-press, it behooves each Diogenes to rattle his tub at least, in order to prove, in the spirit of his prototype and master,
“Though he be rid of fear, He is not void of care.”
If the noise he makes only add to the general turbulence and confusion, the show of sympathy will at least go for something.
The same authority, whom we have just quoted, has a piece of advice with which we intend to set our tub in motion. “Whatsoever,” he says, “those blindfolded, blockheady fools, the astrologers of Louvain, Nuremberg, Tubingen, and Lyons, may tell you, don’t you feed yourselves up with whims and fancies, nor believe there is any Governor of the whole universe this year but God the Creator, who by his Word rules
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