By statesmen deemed a lord unruly.
Well now, in days the gods decree,
Toward which the levellers scything move
(The Sibyl’s page consult, and see),
Could this our Cid a hero prove?
What meet emprise? what plumed career?
No challenges from crimes flagitious
When all is uniform in cheer;
For Tarquins—none would be extant.
Or, if they were, would hardly daunt,
Ferruling brats, like Dionysius;
And Mulciber’s sultans, overawed,
In dumps and mumps, how far from menace,
Tippling some claret about deal board
Like Voltaire’s kings at inn in Venice.
In fine, the dragons penned or slain,
What for St. George would then remain!
A don of rich erratic tone,
By jaunty junior club-men known
As one, who buckram in demur,
Applies then the Johnsonian Sir;
’Twas he that rollicked thus of late
Filliped by turn of chance-debate.
Repeat he did, or vary more
The same conceit, in devious way
Of grandees with dyed whiskers hoar
Though virile yet: “Assume, and say
The Red Shirt Champion’s natal day
Is yet to fall in promised time,
Millennium of the busy bee;
How would he fare in such a Prime?
By Jove, Sir, not so bravely, see!
Never he’d quit his trading trips,
Perchance, would fag in trade at desk,
Or, slopped in slimy slippery sludge,
Life-long on Staten Island drudge,
Melting his tallow, Sir, dipping his dips,
Scarse savoring much of the Picturesque!”
“Pardon,” here purled a cultured wight
Opaque with transcendental light;
“Pardon, but tallow none nor trade
When, through this Iron Age’s reign
The Golden one comes in again;
That’s on the card.”
“She plays the spade!
Delving days, Sir, heave in sight—
Digging days, Sir; and, sweet youth,
They’ll set on edge each sugary tooth:
A treadmill-Paradise they plight.”
Let be, and curb this rhyming race:—
Angel o’ the Age! advance, God speed.
Harvest us all good grain in seed;
But sprinkle, do, some drops of grace
Nor polish us into commonplace.
To
Major John Gentian
Dean of the Burgundy Club
WITH THY RARE single-mindedness, so resented by the ambidextrous double-dealers, a virtue putting thee in a worldly sense almost as much at disadvantage with them as thy single arm (the other lost in the Wilderness under Grant) assuredly would in a personal encounter; the genial humor of thy club-chat—garnished, as not infrequently it is, even like to a holiday ham, with sprigs of classic parsley, (Horatian Latin), or inserted cloves of old English proverbs, or yet older Latin ones equally commonplace yet never losing the verity in them, their preservative spice; thy yellow-wrinkled parchment from Harvard hung up framed in thy bachelor quarters (so convenient to the Burgundy Club); thy cherished eagle of the Society of the Cincinnati a golden insignia thou polishest up and sportest on occasion; and—be it never omitted—thy high relish for the noble qualities of M. de Grandvin, through frequent communion with whom thou hast caught much of his generous spirit enhancing what is naturally thine own, yes, and something of his beaming aspect as well; insomuch that unto thee,—after him,—belong all the titles of good fellowship—Dean of the Burgundians but I love thee! Though some of the points just cited might of themselves avail to denote thee, Dean, two other characteristics there are which peradventure may serve to signalize. Though a soldier of the Civil War, and a gazetted one, thou at all times, even upon that legal holiday which has undesignedly become the annual commemoration of that War, refrainest from wearing on thy person any memorial thereof. And, ever since the peace, even as during the entire military contest, no superfluous syllable ever fell from thy lips touching the Southern half of thy country.
Now, as to the personal memorial, honorably worn by so many, if thou declinest to wear it, is this because that in sympathy with the spirit of thy deplored New England friend, Charles Sumner—whom, for what was sterling in him, thou didst so sincerely honor, though far from sharing in all his advocated measures—now that years ago Grant and Lee shook hands at Appomattox, thou art such an old-fashioned Roman in thy patriotism fain wouldst thou consign to oblivion the fact that thy countrymen, claiming the van of Adam’s alleged advance, were but yesterday plunged in fratricidal strife? And, for thy never being a partisan animadverter is that because for all the free thought that beats in thy brain, at heart thou art the captive of Christ, yea, even something of a Christian, and though but dimly conscious of it, perhaps, art not unmindful of the divine text which implies that if sinners abound they are not in mass demarked from the saints by any parallel of latitude. Or, rather, that there are no saints, but that all mankind, not excluding Americans, are sinners—miserable sinners, as even no few Bostonians themselves nowadays contritely respond in the liturgy.
But howsoever this be, both the omission and the abstention referred to are in significant contrast with thy wont relative to that Elder War wherein thy grandfather was one of the “rebels,” a contrast emphasized though involuntarily in thy social utterances upon every recurrence of our one national holiday.
On the fourth morning of each July, about the tenth hour by the club-clock, spruced up in thy goodly person and deckt at lapelle with the golden eagle suspended by the white-bordered blue ribbon,—an order which Washington and Lafayette and thy grandfather and father wore before thee, thou takest thy customary place at the club’s bay-window. There thou comfortably settlest thyself till lunch-time, discoursing at whiles with whomsoever may, fortunately for himself, happen to be at hand.
Now thy Fourth-of-July outgivings, though indeed yearly varying in expression, yet in spirit are much the same. Dost thou remember all that thou saidst on the last Fourth, Major? Hardly. But I do; and will try to refresh thy memory by reproducing it, with some accompanying circumstances, and as if all were to-day, even now.
After gazing out of the open window for a time noting the strange Sabbatarian quiet of the great Avenue, on other week-days so abounding with diversified life, thou mutterest to thyself a strange litany of lamentations touching the falling off in the old-time celebration. “Well, well” thou mutterest, “it is getting along now in its second century, this anniversary. And everything falls off with years. In Victoria’s reign is Guy Fawkes’ Day what it was in Elizabeth’s? I trow not—Sic transit, Sic transit!”
Here some swift return of thought to its every-day channel, causes thee suddenly to wheel in thy revolving chair and face inward. Thou remarkest the vacant lounges and sofas, thou absorbest the drear silence. Is it the tabernacle on a week-day? Evidently, thou bethinkest thee of the many absentees. Anon, with thy ample white handkerchief mopping the beads from thy brow thou exclaimest, “Shame upon them! Why, even the thermometer, though a creature metallic, is more sensitive than these runnegates to the momentous occasion. Sure, the mercury rises to it! But they—they run from it. Now degenerate, not only from their sires, but their own boyhood. Ah, my good Sir,” giving another impulsive turn to the revolving chair so as directly to face the one person present, a somewhat reserved gentleman of mature years and fine color, engaged in methodically refolding a letter just perused, “Ah, my good Sir, it is your boy who is your true patriot. He makes on the Third for Long Branch or elsewhere? Nay, Sir, on the
Third if not before, he lays in his ammunition, his powder-crackers; at early dawn on this blessed Fourth he crams his breeches-pockets with them, and though in his heedless enthusiasm, mixing them up there with his matches, they get ignited, and suddenly begin going off like minute-guns hurried up, making him a spluttering blunderbuss to himself and the crowd, what recks he if but luckily he come out of it unhurt? Another boy, a yet more devoted young acolyte of the Salii, should repeated discharges at last burst his toy-cannon, and he go to Hades for it, what then? Ducit amor patriæ!—That’s the inscription, Sir, on General Worth’s monument you and I pass every day. Ten to one you never noticed it—the inscription, I mean. Ah, but he was a paladin, a homespun paladin, General Worth. And happy in his surname, though indeed his worth was of another sort than that of the purse.”
“And did you personally know the General, Dean?” inquires the solitary auditor, his curiosity here doing away with a taciturnity seldom yielding but through the persuasive mediation of wine, “Did you personally know the General, Sir?” “Ay, indeed!” And, after losing thee in revery awhile, and reminiscently ejaculating something to thyself, “The last time I saw Will Worth was on the night-boat coming down from Albany—by Jove, it seems but a week or two ago—he then being bound for Mexico to pay his military respects to General Santa Anna in the field.—But he came back horizontal who went forth so erect!—Ay, but like the great Gustavus, Sir, from Lutzen field, if dirged yet laurelled. Pray, sir, can you repeat the battle-names on the monumental shaft? Churubusco, Buena Vista, Resaca de la Palma, San Antonio, Cerro Gordo.—There’s a volley for you of vowels and victories! Ay, and Monterey too, that superb dash of arms, one inspiring my chivalric friend, Charles Fenno Hoffman—remember Charlie, Sir? No, no; you do’nt go back so far—inspired his fine lyric.” Here, after a moment’s pause, to rally the memory belike, thou didst kindle and springing from thy revolving seat, leaving it spinning on its pivot, thy adorned chest expanded, sonorously thou didst declaim this stanza:
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swoopt his flanking batteries past,
And braving full their murderous blast
Stormed home the towers of Monterey!
Then reseating thee, a little panting, and pressing one hand to thy side “Ay, stirring deeds beget stirring rhymes. But stirring rhymes bestir overmuch the cardiac arteries in an old fellow like me.—Well, well,” in reaction lapsing into a muffled mutter, a sort of audible musing, “Well, well—they are gone, both gone, hero and bard—long gone. What matters?—Sic transit.—They sleep, sleep.—In pace, in pace—Requiescat!”
And, slowly removing thy gold-rimmed glasses and assiduously rubbing them with thy ample handkerchief, in tone a bit tremulous, thou addressest the mild gentleman thy hearer, “The heat of this unwonted season, Sir, would not be so inconvenient but for the confounded humidity dampening one’s spectacles so.—But where, where now was I? a’straying I’ve been: let me see” shutting thine eyes and clapping a hand to brow; “Ah, yes, yes—patriotism of boyhood. Well, such a spluttering blunderbuss, as I was speaking of awhile ago, or rather such a feu de joie in persona, our venerable friend, Judge Van Groot, inadvertently made himself, as a boy recruiting his fagged patriotism on doughnuts and cider in one of those booths which in auld lang syne belted about our City Hall Park every Fourth. I hear the sharp quick percussions even now—see the lad starting up, clapping his hands to his exploding powder-houses and yet more rapidly withdrawing them, till the booth-keeper put him out by dashing a handy bucket of cider on his trowsers. That was—bless my soul—nigh three-score years ago!—And now? Yesterday with one foot in prunella, His Honor limped off to Saratoga, and, I dare say, Sir, without so much as a single powder-cracker in his vest pocket; nay, and very likely never once recalling the circumstances that immortalized Saratoga as a great Revolutionary battle-field, or giving name to one that is signally associated with this blessed Day.—” Then after a few moments’ meditative silence; “Myndert Van Groot is—let me see—yes, about mine own age. His bay-tree, though planted by the rivers of Burgundy, w’ont flourish more than a hundred years.—Well, well—tempus does fugit—Memento Mori!—die we must—consign to dust—leave all!” Here, settling back in thy chair, thine eyes fixed upon vacancy, thou murmurest from thy Horace in quite other tones than those which late rolled forth the Monterey stanza,
The purple vineyard’s luscious stores,
Secured by trebly bolted doors,
Excite in vain your care;
Soon shall the rich and sparkling hoard
Flow largely o’er the festive board
Of your unsparing heir.
Silence again. Then, suddenly brisking up, “But apropos, as the Marquis says;” and, pulling out thy big watch, “Ay, the lunch-hour is at hand.—Tobias! hither, thou Rose of Sharon,” summoning a ruddy cheeked young servitor, “Go see if the Steward has ordered it as I directed, kept that Chambertin three leagues from his refrigerator, and the bottles in readiness to be gently immersed up to the neck—mind, up to the neck—in a water-cooler, the water raised just a little above its natural temperature at this season. Go, lad, it is important.” Then, turning to the quiet listener, “Sir, for myself I am not so particular about these matters, but the two friends I expect to dine with me—Jerry Bland and Captain Don Tempest of the Navy—you know them—are; and one must humor the peculiarities of one’s friends, you know.” Here, suddenly reminded that an immediate courtesy was due: “Of course, my good Sir, you will join us. Nay, I insist upon it. Not good for a man to be alone, especially on the immortal Fourth.—Tobias, come back. Tut, he’s gone. William! Go say we will dine at the round table in the South West corner, and let there be four covers—four, mind.”
Even so, Major, or much so, on the last Fourth, sitting in the club parlor didst thou by turns ruminate and expatiate and humorously rail and feelingly evoke the bye-gone and glow as in the poetic fervor of youth, and involuntarily sigh the sigh of old philosophy, till in end the home-sense of the eternal fugacity of all things did but result in awakening in thee but the more vividly thy relish for life and the Chambertin.
But on the forenoon of each Thirtieth of May, seated—minus thy aforesaid historic decoration—in thy reserved corner of the club-balcony, in graver sort thou lookest down on the floral march of the Grand Army. Then seemest thou even less intent on returning the greetings from some hale comrade in the ranks or less hearty hero borne along in open barouch; less dwelling too on the processional wains of nodding flowers, followed close by nodding plumes of the escort—to thee and the other veterans a new generation of Mars—less absorbed by all this, than musing on the many mounds those same flowers ere night-fall shall dress. Thy constitutional good spirits seem strangely overcast that day. Thou forgoest the banquet. Nevertheless it is observable that in the balcony thy empty sleeve is disposed more picturesquely, nay, somehow more conspicuously on that aforesaid Thirtieth of every May, than on any other morning of the year. It more catches the eye. Now and then, during pauses in the procession, the crowd on the sidewalk below, glance up at it, and expressively, and thou turnest not aside.
Ah, Major, I said I love thee. Yes, and it is as much for thy queer little human foibles as thy not-so-common virtues. Come now, for all thy annual megrims, prouder art thou of that empty sleeve of thine than even of thy grandfather’s Revolutionary insignia, for this thou didst but inherit, the other is all thine own, conferred on thee at first hand, and by the god of battles.
Not often dost thou discuss the tactics of thy Virginian campaigns; but what things hast thou told us of its bye-play—the scouting, the foraging, the riding up to lonely mansions garrisoned by a faithful old slave or two, servants to lovely damsels more terrible than Mars in their feminine indignation at the insolent invader; in other instances being coquettishl
y served at an improvised lunch on some broad old piazza by less implacable beauties reduced by the calamitous times to dispensing hospitality for the enemy’s greenbacks. In such and similar passages of the War thou aboundest, passages luckily not susceptible of being formalized into professed history.
But the better for the felicity of thy friends, thou hast more than one string to thy harp, Major. Did any listener ever tire of thy reminiscences of European travel? What signifies that they date so far back, before some of us were born? Even so do sundry inestimable vintages in the Club’s cellar. Pleasant when weary of the never-ending daily news, much the same sort of thing forever, how pleasant to be spirited back by a hale veteran’s living voice and eloquent gestures to a period that is no news at all, a time prior to those more pronounced changes which have come over no few portions of that ancient and manifold world across the Atlantic, a world to which we are bound by unsunderable ties of genealogy.
Highly, Major, didst thou relish that title whereby, as regards so many of us Americans, a rare son of New England with happiest simplicity designated that Elder England from which his progenitor came—Our Old Home. But if thy filial appreciation of the historic Past has something of Nathaniel Hawthorne in it, the medium, Dean, through which thou recallest, viewing it as through an irradiated vapor, this is not without a touch of our incomparable friend the Marquis. He, as well thou knowest, never is so happy, never so blissfully serene, as when wandering in a haze along that enchanted beach.
Among all thy over-sea reminiscences not the least entertaining to us juniors is thy liberal version of that famous Afternoon in Naples. In the wee hours, more especially if inspired by the beaming presence of M. De Grandvin, how affluent hast thou been on that theme; how vivid in description; and, for the rest, how frolic, pathetic, indignant, philosophic; and throughout how catholic and humane. But shall such a recital be confined to the small group of the convivially elect, good fellow brothers of The Burgundy? Savors not that a little of the exclusive? Have a care, Dean. With even more than is implied in that term, one not lightly to be applied in a democracy, thou hast, unbeknown to thee perhaps, been reproached.
Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 80