But oh! the scientific tone it lacked,
And was in fact
Only a forty-boatswain power of bawling!
'Twas said indeed for want of vocal nous,
The stage had banished him when he 'tempted it, For though his voice completely filled the house, It also emptied it. However, there he stood Vociferous-a ragged don! And with his iron pipes laid on, A row to all the neighborhood.
In vain were sashes closed,
And doors, against the persevering Stentor;
Though brick and glass and solid oak opposed,
The intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlor, study, and sanctorum;
Where clients and attorneys, rogues and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attend the schools,
Clerks, agents all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before 'em,—
How it did bore 'em!
Louder and louder still
The fellow sang with horrible good-will;
Curses, both loud and deep, his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewildered, making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities,
Stunned by that voice so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No invoice stood a chance, of course.
From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-four,
The nuisance bellowed; till, all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door:
Peace, monster, peace!
Where is the new police?
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do-there's a dear, good man-do go away."
Says he, "I won't!"
The spinster pulled her door to with a slam
That sounded like a wooden d―n;
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a door-post vent a banging oath;
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace,
Than in a given face
A very bad expression.
However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones's clerk at Number Ten,
Who, throwing up the sash,
Thus hailed the most vociferous of men: "Come, come, I say, old fellow, stop your chant; I cannot write a sentence--no one can't!
So pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps."
Says he, "I shan't!"
Down went the sash,
As if devoted to "eternal smash,"
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation,)
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roared out again the everlasting song,
"I have a silent sorrow here!"
The thing was hard to stand,
The music-master could not stand it,
But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand,
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tattered man,
And thus in broken sentences began:
But playing first a prelude of grimaces,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes, So that, to guess his subject from his faces, He meant to give a lecture upon apes,Com-com-I say!
Into two parts my head you split;
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
You have no business in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?"
Says he, "I will.”
"No-no-you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
You have no right, by rights, to beg,—
You have not one off leg;
You ought to work, you have not some complaint;—
You are not cripple in your back or bones,-
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones."
Says he, "It ain't."
"I say you ought to labor!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbor,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys!
Look what a street it is for quiet,-
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postillion:
If you will sing, I say, it is not just
To sing so loud."
Says he, "I must!
I'm singing for the million!"
KIT CARSON'S RIDE-JOAQUIN MILLER.
Run? Now you bet you; I rather guess so.
But he's blind as a badger. Whoa, Paché, boy, whoa.
No, you wouldn't think so to look at his eyes,
But he is badger blind, and it happened this wise:—
We lay low in the grass on the broad plain levels,
Old Revels and I, and my stolen brown bride.
"Forty full miles if a foot to ride,
Forty full miles if a foot, and the devils
Of red Camanches are hot on the track
When once they strike it. Let the sun go down
Soon, very soon," muttered bearded old Revels
As he peered at the sun, lying low on his back,
Holding fast to his lasso; then he jerked at his steed,
And sprang to his feet, and glanced swiftly around,
And then dropped, as if shot, with his ear to the ground,-
Then again to his feet and to me, to my bride,
While his eyes were like fire, his face like a shroud,
His form like a king, and his beard like a cloud,
And his voice loud and shrill, as if blown from a reed,—
Pull, pull in your lassos, and bridle to steed,
And speed, if ever for life you would speed ;
And ride for your lives, for your lives you must ride,
For the plain is aflame, the prairie on fire,
And feet of wild horses hard flying before
I hear like a sea breaking high on the shore;
While the buffalo come like the surge of the sea,
Driven far by the flame, driving fast on us three
As a hurricane comes, crushing palms in his ire."
We drew in the lassos, seized saddle and rein,
Threw them on, sinched them on, sinched them over again,
And again drew the girth, cast aside the macheer,
Cut away tapidaros, loosed the sash from its fold,
Cast aside the catenas red and spangled with gold,
And gold-mounted Colt's, true companions for years,
Cast the red silk serapes to the wind in a breath,
And so bared to the skin sprang all haste to the horse,
As bare as when born, as when new from the hand
Of God, without word, or one word of command,
Turned head to the Brazos in a red race with death,
Turned head to the Brazos with a breath in the hair
Blowing hot from a king leaving death in his course;
Turned head to the Brazos with a sound in the air
Like the rush of an army, and a flash in the eye
Of a red wall of fire reaching up to the sky,
Stretching fierce in pursuit of a black rolling sea,
Rushing fast upon us as the wind sweeping free
And afar from the desert, bearing death and despair.
Not a word, not a wail from a lip was let fall,
Not a kiss from my bride, not a look or low call
Of love-note or courage, but on o'er the plain
So steady and still, leaning low to the mane,
With the heel to the flank and the hand to the rein,
Rode we on, rode we three, rode we gray nose and nose,
Reaching long, breathing loud, like a creviced wind blows,
Yet we broke not a whisper, we breathed not a prayer,
There was work to be done, there was death in the air,
And the chance was as one to a thousand for all.
Gray nose to gray nose and each steady mustang
Stretched neck and stretched nerve till the hollow earth rang
And the foam from the flank and the croup and the neck
Flew around like the spray on a storm-driven deck.
Twenty miles! thirty miles!-a dim distant speck-
Then a long reaching line and the Brazos in sight,
And I rose in my seat with a shout of delight.
I stood in my stirrup and looked to my right,
But Revels was gone; I glanced by my shoulder
And saw his horse stagger; I saw his head drooping
Hard on his breast, and his naked breast stooping
Low down to the mane as so swifter and bolder
Rin reaching out for us the red-footed fire.
To right and to left the black buffalo came,
In miles and in millions, rolling on in despair,
With their beards to the dust, and black tails in the air.
As a terrible surf on a red sea of flame
Rushing on in the rear, reaching high, reaching higher,
And he rode neck to neck to a buffalo bull,
The monarch of millions, with shaggy mane full
Of smoke and of dust, and it shook with desire
Of battle, with rage and with bellowings loud
And unearthly, and up through its lowering cloud
Came the flash of his eyes like a half-hidden fire,
While his keen crooked horns through the storm of his mane
Like black lances lifted and lifted again;
And I looked but this once, for the fire licked through,
And he fell and was lost, as we role two and two.
I looked to my left then, and nose, neck, and shoulder
Sank slowly, sank surely, till back to my thighs;
And up through the black blowing veil of her hair
Did beam full in mine her two marvelous eyes
With a longing and love, yet a look of despair,
And a pity for me, as she felt the smoke fold her,
And flames reaching far for her glorious hair.
Her sinking steed faltered, his eager ears fell
To and fro and unsteady, and all the neck's swell
Did subside and recede, and the nerves fell as dead.
Then she saw that my own steed still lorded his head
With a look of delight, for this Paché, you see,
Was her father's, and once at the South Santafee
Had won a whole herd, sweeping everything down
In a race where the world came to run for the crown;
And so when I won the true heart of my bride,-
My neighbor's and deadliest enemy's child,
And child of the kingly war-chief of his tribe,-
She brought me this steed to the border the night
She met Revels and me in her perilous flight
From the lodge of the chief to the north Brazos side;
And said, so half guessing of ill as she smiled,
As if jesting, that I, and I only, should ride
The fleet-footed Paché, so if kin should pursue
I should surely escape without other ado
Than to ride, without blood, to the north Brazos side,
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