I drew aside the Future’s veil
And saw upon his bier
The poet Whitman. Loud the wail
And damp the falling tear.
“He’s dead—he is
no more!” one cried,
With sobs of sorrow crammed;
“No more? He’s this much
more,” replied
Another: “he is
damned!”
1885.
THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN.
Hear me sing of Sally Larkin who, I’d
have you understand,
Played accordions as well as any lady
in the land;
And I’ve often heard it stated that
her fingering was such
That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted
with her touch;
And that beasts were so affected when
her apparatus rang
That they dropped upon their haunches
and deliriously sang.
This I know from testimony, though a critic,
I opine,
Needs an ear that is dissimilar in some
respects to mine.
She could sing, too, like a jaybird, and
they say all eyes were wet
When Sally and the ranch-dog were performing
a duet—
Which I take it is a song that has to
be so loudly sung
As to overtax the strength of any single
human lung.
That, at least, would seem to follow from
the tale I have to tell,
Which (I’ve told you how she flourished)
is how Sally Larkin fell.
One day there came to visit Sally’s
dad as sleek and smart
A chap as ever wandered there from any
foreign part.
Though his gentle birth and breeding he
did not at all obtrude
It was somehow whispered round he was
a simon-pure Dude.
Howsoe’er that may have been, it
was conspicuous to see
That he was a real Gent of an uncommon
high degree.
That Sally cast her tender and affectionate
regards
On this exquisite creation was, of course,
upon the cards;
But he didn’t seem to notice, and
was variously blind
To her many charms of person and the merits
of her mind,
And preferred, I grieve to say it, to
play poker with her dad,
And acted in a manner that in general
was bad.
One evening—’twas in
summer—she was holding in her lap
Her accordion, and near her stood that
melancholy chap,
Leaning up against a pillar with his lip
in grog imbrued,
Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land
in which he was a Dude.
Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began
to hum
And elongate the accordion with a preluding
thumb.
Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L.
exhaled,
And her music apparatus sympathetically
wailed.
“In the gloaming, O my darling!”
rose that wild impassioned strain,
And her eyes were fixed on his with an
intensity of pain,
Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at
the postern gate came round,
And going into session strove to magnify
the sound.
He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming
rang and rang
With the song that to his darling
he impetuously sang!
Then that musing youth, recalling all
his soul from other scenes,
Where his fathers all were Dudes and his
mothers all Dudines,
From his lips removed the beaker and politely,
o’er the grog,
Said: “Miss Larkin, please
be quiet: you will interrupt the dog.”
