The Humorous Poetry of the English Language | Page 7

in its folds,?And part on the magistral table lights,?Part on the open book, soon blown away,?Full surely soon shall then the brow severe?Relax; and from vituperative lips?Words that of birch remind not, sounds of praise,?And jokes that MUST be laughed at shall proceed.
A FAREWELL TO TOBACCO.
CHARLES LAMB.
May the Babylonish curse?Straight confound my stammering verse,?If I can a passage see?In this word-perplexity,?Or a fit expression find,?Or a language to my mind,?(Still the phrase is wide or scant)?To take leave of thee, GREAT PLANT!?Or in any terms relate?Half my love, or half my hate:?For I hate, yet love thee, so,?That, whichever thing I show,?The plain truth will seem to be?A constrain'd hyperbole,?And the passion to proceed?More from a mistress than a weed.
Sooty retainer to the vine,?Bacchus' black servant, negro fine;?Sorcerer, that mak'st us dote upon?Thy begrimed complexion,?And, for thy pernicious sake,?More and greater oaths to break?Than reclaimed lovers take?'Gainst women: thou thy siege dost lay?Much too in the female way,?While thou suck'st the lab'ring breath?Faster than kisses or than death,
Thou in such a cloud dost bind us,?That our worst foes can not find us,?And ill fortune, that would thwart us?Shoots at rovers, shooting at us;?While each man, through thy height'ning steam,?Does like a smoking Etna seem,?And all about us does express?(Fancy and wit in richest dress)?A Sicilian fruitfulness.
Thou through such a mist dost show us,?That our best friends do not know us,?And, for those allowed features,?Due to reasonable creatures,?Liken'st us to fell Chimeras,?Monsters that, who see us, fear us;?Worse than Cerberus or Geryon,?Or, who first loved a cloud, Ixion.
Bacchus we know, and we allow?His tipsy rites. But what art thou?That but by reflex canst show?What his deity can do,?As the false Egyptian spell?Aped the true Hebrew miracle??Some few vapors thou may'st raise,?The weak brain may serve to amaze,?But to the reins and nobler heart?Canst nor life nor heat impart.?Brother of Bacchus, later born.?The old world was sure forlorn?Wanting thee, that aidest more?The god's victories than before?All his panthers, and the brawls?Of his piping Bacchanals.?These, as stale, we disallow,?Or judge of THEE meant only thou?His true Indian conquest art;?And, for ivy round his dart,?The reformed god now weaves?A finer thyrsus of thy leaves.
Scent to match thy rich perfume?Chemic art did ne'er presume?Through her quaint alembic strain,?None so sov'reign to the brain;?Nature, that did in thee excel,?Framed again no second smell.?Roses, violets, but toys?For the smaller sort of boys,?Or for greener damsels meant;?Thou art the only manly scent.
Stinking'st of the stinking land,?Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind,?Africa, that brags her foison,?Breeds no such prodigious poison?Henbane, nightshade, both together,?Hemlock, aconite---
Nay, rather,?Plant divine, of rarest virtue;?Blisters on the tongue would hurt you.?'Twas but in a sort I blamed thee;?None e'er prosper'd who defamed thee?Irony all, and feign'd abuse,?Such as perplex'd lovers use,?At a need, when, in despair?To paint forth their fairest fair,?Or in part but to express?That exceeding comeliness?Which their fancies doth so strike,?They borrow language of dislike;?And, instead of Dearest Miss,?Jewel, Honey, Sweetheart, Bliss,?And those forms of old admiring,?Call her Cockatrice and Siren,?Basilisk, and all that's evil,?Witch, Hyena, Mermaid, Devil,?Ethiop, Wench, and Blackamoor,?Monkey, Ape, and twenty more;?Friendly Trait'ress, loving Foe--?Not that she is truly so,?But no other way they know?A contentment to express,?Borders so upon excess,?That they do not rightly wot?Whether it be pain or not.
Or, as men, constrain'd to part?With what's nearest to their heart,?While their sorrow's at the height,?Lose discrimination quite,?And their hasty wrath let fall,?To appease their frantic gall,?On the darling thing whatever,?Whence they feel it death to sever?Though it be, as they, perforce,?Guiltless of the sad divorce.
For I must (nor let it grieve thee,?Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee.?For thy sake; TOBACCO, I?Would do any thing but die,?And but seek to extend my days?Long enough to sing thy praise.?But, as she, who once hath been?A king's consort, is a queen?Ever after, nor will bate?Any title of her state,?Though a widow, or divorced,?So I, from thy converse forced,?The old name and style retain,?A right Katherine of Spain;?And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys?Of the blest Tobacco Boys.?Where, though I, by sour physician,?Am debarr'd the full fruition?Of thy favors, I may catch?Some collateral sweets, and snatch?Sidelong odors, that give life?like glances from a neighbor's wife;?And still live in the by-places?And the suburbs of thy graces;?And in thy holders take delight,?An unconquer'd Canaanite.
WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.
BYRON.
If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont,?(What maid will not the tale remember?)
To cross thy stream broad Hellespont!
If, when the wint'ry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero nothing loth,?And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For ME, degenerate, modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,?My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.
But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,?To woo--and--Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love,