“Illustrious Spirit,” said
the Voice, “appear!
While we confirm eternally
thy fame,
Before our dread tribunal answer, here,
Why do no statues celebrate
thy name,
No monuments thy services
proclaim?
Why did not thy contemporaries rear
To thee some schoolhouse or memorial college?
It looks almighty queer, you must acknowledge.”
Up spake I hotly: “That is
where you err!”
But some one thundered in
my ear: “You shan’t
Be interrupting these proceedings, sir;
The question was addressed
to General Grant.”
Some other things were spoken
which I can’t
Distinctly now recall, but I infer,
By certain flushings of my cheeks and
forehead,
Posterity’s environment is torrid.
Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark)
Another Voice, clear, comfortable,
strong,
As Grant’s great shade, replying
from the dark,
Said in a tone that rang the
earth along,
And thrilled the senses of
the Judges’ throng:
“I’d rather you would question
why, in park
And street, my monuments were not erected
Than why they were.” Then,
waking, I reflected.
THE NEW ENOCH.
Enoch Arden was an able
Seaman; hear of his mishap—
Not in wild mendacious fable,
As ‘t was told by t’
other chap;
For I hold it is a youthful
Indiscretion to tell lies,
And the writer that is truthful
Has the reader that is wise.
Enoch Arden, able seaman,
On an isle was cast away,
And before he was a freeman
Time had touched him up with
gray.
Long he searched the fair horizon,
Seated on a mountain top;
Vessel ne’er he set his eyes on
That would undertake to stop.
Seeing that his sight was growing
Dim and dimmer, day by day,
Enoch said he must be going.
So he rose and went away—
Went away and so continued
Till he lost his lonely isle:
Mr. Arden was so sinewed
He could row for many a mile.
Compass he had not, nor sextant,
To direct him o’er the
sea:
Ere ’t was known that he was extant,
At his widow’s home
was he.
When he saw the hills and hollows
And the streets he could but
know,
He gave utterance as follows
To the sentiments below:
“Blast my tarry toplights! (shiver,
Too, my timbers!) but, I say,
W’at a larruk to diskiver,
I have lost me blessid way!
“W’at, alas, would be my bloomin’
Fate if Philip now I see,
Which I lammed?—or my old ’oman,
Which has frequent basted
me?”
Scenes of childhood swam around him
At the thought of such a lot:
In a swoon his Annie found him
And conveyed him to her cot.