Cobwebs from a Library Corner

A CONFESSION

 
My epic verse, my pet production, which I deemed
Sufficient to advance me to the highest peak
Of difficult Parnassus, goal of which I’ve dreamed
For many a weary year, came back to me last week.
The Editor I cursed, that he should stand between
My dear ambition and my scarcely dearer self;
Whose unappreciation forced to blush unseen
My one dear book, to gather dust upon my shelf.
That night in sleep an Angel fair came to my side,
And in her hand she held a scroll; in lines of flame
The name of him I’d cursed was writ; and when I cried,
“What portent this?” the rare celestial dame
Replied:
“Read here, O Ingrate base, the name of him thou’st cursed.
The very man of all men who should be the first
Thy love and lasting gratitude to know, since he
Still leaves the path Parnassian open unto thee —
A path which thou with halting rhyme, most ill composed,
Against thyself hast sought to keep forever closed.
Read thou thy lines again!”
Ah! bitter was the cup.
I read, withdrew the curse – and tore the epic up.
 

THE EDITION DE LOOKS

 
How very close to truth these bookish men
Can be when in their catalogues they pen
 
 
The words descriptive of the wares they hold
To tempt the book-man with his purse of gold!
 
 
For instance, they have Dryden – splendid set —
Which some poor wight would part with wealth to get.
 
 
’Tis richly bound, its edges gilded – but —
Hard fate – as Dryden well deserves —uncut!
 
 
For who these days would think to buy the screed
Of dull old dusty Dryden just to read?
 
 
In faith if his editions had been kept
Amongst the rarities he’d ne’er have crept!
 
 
And then those pompous, overwhelming tomes
You find so oft in overwhelming homes,
 
 
No substance on a Whatman surface placed,
In polished leather and in tooling cased,
 
 
The gilded edges dazzling to the eye
And flaunting all their charms so wantonly.
 
 
These book-men, when they catalogue their books,
Call them in truth édition de luxe.
 
 
That’s all they have, most of ’em, just plain shape,
With less pure wine than any unripe grape.
 
 
But tomes that travel on their “looks” indeed
Are only good for those who do not read;
 
 
And, like most people clad in garments grand,
Seem rather heavy for the average hand.
 

WISE AND OTHERWISE

NAPOLINI’S ERROR

 
Pietro Napolini di Vendetta Pasquarelle
Deserted balmy Italy, the land that loved him well,
And sailed for soft America, of wealth the very fount,
To earn sufficient dollars there to make himself a count.
Alas for poor Pietro! he arrived in winter-time,
And marvelled at the poet who observed in tripping rhyme
How this New World was genial, and a sunny sort of clime.
 
 
No chance had he for music that’s developed by a crank,
No chance had he at sculpture, nor a penny in the bank.
The pea-nut trade was languid, and for him too full of risk;
He thought the work on railways for his blood was rather brisk.
The sole profession left him to assuage his stomach’s woe,
It struck him in meandering the city to and fro,
Was surely that of shovelling away the rich man’s snow.
 
 
And then P. Napolini di Vendetta Pasquarelle
Sought out a city thoroughfare, the swellest of the swell.
He stole a shovel, and he found a broom he thought would do,
Then rang the massive front-door bell of Stuyvesant Depew.
“I wanta shov’ da snow,” he said, when there at last appeared
Fitzjohn Augustus Higgins, who in Birmingham was reared,
A man by all in low estate much hated and much feared.
 
 
“Go wi,” said Fitz, with gesture bold. “Yer cahn’t do nothink ere,
Yer bloomin’, hugly furriner!” he added, with a sneer.
“Hi thinks as ’ow you dagoes is the cuss o’ this ’ere land,
With wuthy citizens like me ’most starved on every ’and.
Hi vows hif I’d me wi at all hi’d order hout a troop,
Hand send the bloomin’ lot o’ yer ’ead over ’eels in soup.
Git hout, yer nahsty grabber yer; hewacuate the stoop.”
 
 
Then when the snow had melted off, Fitzjohn Augustus went
And humbly asked his master for two dollars that he’d spent
In paying Napolini di Vendetta Pasquarelle;
While Nap went back to Italy, the land that loved him well,
Convinced that when he sailed that time his country to forsake,
He must have got aboard the ship when he was half awake,
And got to London, not New York, by some most odd mistake.
 

MY COLOR

 
My best-loved color? Well, I think I like
A soft and tender dewy green – for grass.
Sometimes a pink my fancy too will strike —
In lobster purée or a Sauterne glass.
 
 
Blue is a color, too, I greatly love.
It’s sort of satisfying to my eyes.
’Tis their own color; and I’m quite fond of
This hue also for soft Italian skies.
 
 
For blushes, give me red, nor hesitate
To pile it on; I like it good and strong
Upon the cheeks of her I call my Fate,
The loveliest of all the lovely throng.
 
 
On golden-yellow oft my fancy dwells.
’Tis almost godlike, as it sparkles through
The effervescent fizz; and wondrous spells
It casts o’er me when coined in dollars, too.
 
 
Hence, friend, it is I cannot specify
What hues particular my joys enhance.
I like them all; their popularity
At special times depends on circumstance.
 

CONTENTMENT IN NATURE

 
I would not change my joys for those
Of Emperors and Kings.
What has my gentle friend the rose
Told them, if aught, do you suppose —
The rose that tells me things?
 
 
What secrets have they had with trees?
What romps with grassy spears?
What know they of the mysteries
Of butterflies and honey-bees,
Who whisper in my ears?
 
 
What says the sunbeam unto them?
What tales have brooklets told?
Is there within their diadem
A single rival to the gem
The dewy daisies hold?
 
 
What sympathy have they with birds
Whose songs are songs of mine?
Do they e’er hear, as though in words
’Twas lisped, the message of the herds
Of grazing, lowing kine?
 
 
Ah no! Give me no lofty throne,
But just what Nature yields.
Let me but wander on, alone
If need be, so that all my own
Are woods and dales and fields.