Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated)
Page 233
Snowy white little ducks with topknots on their heads
And merry little ducks are they.
And high up the hill stands fair Jaffray Hall
Where a mighty chief doth dwell
And this little Indian brook flows through his lands
And its own little rugged dell.
And the Laird of Jaffray arose in his might
And he said to his wife one day,
“This little Indian brook, is an idle little brook
And shall no longer have its way.
No longer shall it run down to Sunnyside pond
Nor eke to the Tappan Sea.
I’ll stop it, with a dam, and pump it up hill with a ram
And make it work for a living,” said he.
“It shall run in pipes about our garden and lawn
Making jets and fountains clear.
It shall run upstairs and downstairs of Jaffray Hall,
And into your bathroom, my dear.”
Then the Sunnyside ducks they quaked with fear
And dolefully they did cry,
“Oh Laird of Jaffray spare our little brook,
Or we shall be left high and dry!”
But soon it appeared that this brave little brook
Defied the Laird of Jaffray’s skill;
For though he dammed the little brook, and rammed the little brook
The little brook still ran down hill.
Then the Sunnyside ducks again plucked up heart,
And got over their quanda — ry,
And the little brook still runs on to Sunnyside pond
And the mighty Tappan Sea!
UNTITLED POEM III.
Published in Washington Irving, Esquire, by George S. Heilman, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1925, pages 45-46. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Tho england’s sons are kind
Their hearts burn warm & true
Yet english hearts you’ll find
Can beat in foreign bosoms too
The good remittance freely rides
And woos the favouring gale
That lightly curls the glassy tides
And fills the swelling sail.
Sigh not Eliza the you leave
England’s shores behind
For other shores may prove as fair
And other climes as kind.
Fair virtue’s plant is not confined
In english soil to keep
Kind heaven convey’d its radiant seed
Across the atlantic deep
Then may you find a happy home
Each stranger prove a friend
Peace be your lot where’er you go
& Joy your steps attend.
EXTRACTS FROM ABU HASSAN
A considerable proportion of Abu Hassan is in verse, including dialogue, soliloquies, and songs. Inasmuch as this material is extensive in its entirety and yet much consists merely of scattered lines or short dialogues, it is impracticable to reprint it in full. The longer versified portions only are included here. The page references are all to the 1924 edition published by the Bibliophile Society (the only edition which has appeared). The extracts are reprinted by the Society’s kind permission.
[From pages 32 and 33]
I’ll give a fête champêtre,
With song and dance first rate, Sir;
The foremost place shall my little wife have,
A chaplet gay her brow adorning,
And smiling like a bright May morning,
The empress of the feast appear.
Ho! Slaves there! — bring wine,
Then scatter roses in,
And with her purple lip (sweet)
Shall first Fatima sip (it).
So! Set the goblet here! —
Now dearest, to our welfare —
And that it long may tell fair,
Drink I this goblet clear.
Today’s the time for singing,
Therefore the guitars bring in, —
Quick! quick! and do not stay,
Though piping, singing, laughing,
And jolly goblets quaffing
We while dull life away.
Oh Fatima, my dearest,
Who to me so tender art,
Love devoting, joys delighting,
Care no more my bosom fills.
Around now my darling to light moving measure;
Come dancing with bright eyes all sparkling with pleasure.
Fine! Bravo! — Surpassing! She trips now more near
And shyly she gives a sweet kiss to her dear —
Though should our project founder —
Why, what cares she or I?
[From pages 48 and 49]
DUETTO
Abu Hassan
Never shalt thou sigh and languish,
Thou belov’d and faithful heart,
But this breast shall share thy anguish,
Seeking comfort to impart.
Fatima
Tears, love, are like dew from heaven
Under which affection blooms,
And the guardians of the flowers —
Faithfulness and constancy.
[From pages 50 and 51]
ARIA
The nightingale ne’er grieves her
When from her cage set free
Once more among the blossoms
She sports from tree to tree.
One glance towards the window
Where her late prison hangs,
Then loud she pours her rapture
And fills the grove with joy.
She flaps her little pinions
And far aloft doth soar
Through heav’n’s unclouded regions,
Glad to be free once more.
But, Abu Hassan, without thee
No pleasure have I ever;
Thou dearest, thou inspirest me;
From thee I’d never sever.
I feel myself most blest and free
When in thy gentle power,
And in this tender slavery
I’d spend my latest hour.
[From pages 54 and 55]
Omar
(Draws a pacquet of papers out of his bosom)
Mark this mighty mass of papers —
Bills of tailors, butchers, bakers,
Pastry cooks and mantau-makers, —
All these papers now are mine.
Fatima
Ah, thou givest me the vapours!
Will our fate then never brighten, —
Seek no more my soul to frighten,
Saying all these bills are thine.
[From pages 61, 62 and 63]
Fatima
I seek and seek the room all over.
Where, where is the provoking key?
Abu Hassan
Who knows but that some hidden lover
May here in snug concealment be!
Omar
(Appearing at the grated opening over the door)
Oh dear! now will he soon discover
That I am here, then woe to me!
Abu Hassan
Yes, were I e’er so cold of spirit
Yet would I feel suspicion here.
Fatima
Trust me, your doubts I do not merit.
I feel a conscience pure and clear.
Omar
Oh dear! — I’ve lost all heart and spirit;
My knees together knock through fear.
Fatima and Abu Hassan
The rogue is now with terror quaking
And sees of hope no flutt’ring ray.
He’ll never here again come raking
If he this once can get away.
Omar
My limbs are all with terror quaking;
I see of hope no flutt’ring ray;
Oh Allah! I give up all raking, —
Let me but this once get away.
Abu Hassan
In yonder closet
There is a rival.
From me concealed;
Give me the key then
That I may seize him,
That I may squeeze him
Soon as his cowardly
Face is revealed.
Fatima
( after a pause)
Sudden reflection
Is in my bosom
Just now awak’d.
You have the key, love,
From out the key hole
With you, I’ll wager,
Taken away.
Abu Hassan
If thou dost linger
I will break open
Bar, bolt and door.
Fatima
Every corner
Have I examin’d,
But the vile key, dear,
On word and honour
Can I —
SONG FROM THE WILD HUNTSMAN
The page reference is to the edition by the Bibliophile Society, 1924, the only edition that has been published up to this time. Reprinted here by the Society’s kind permission.
[From pages 25 and 26]
SONG
Andreas
Look at me and know your King, Sir,
I’m the lad a bird to wing, Sir.
Doff your hat, man, ’tis the law —
Tell me, will you? ha-ha-ha!
Star on breast and plume in bonnet,
I’m the lad that shot and won it,
Doff your hat then; ’tis the law —
What, have you won? ha-ha-ha!
Mighty Sir, excuse our joking,
Ne’er to hit is quite provoking,
You, who hit whate’er you saw,
Quite chapfallen — ha-ha-ha!
OR THIS
Mighty Sir, excuse our grinning;
You’re the lad were sure of winning.
Never missed whate’er you saw!
Never? tell me — ha-ha-ha!
The Non-Fiction
Sunnyside, Tarrytown — Irving’s beloved home from 1835 until his death.
The house in 1860
A contemporary view of the house
A TOUR ON THE PRARIES
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAPTER XXX.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
CHAPTER XXXV.
INTRODUCTION.
HAVING, since my return to the United States, made a wide and varied tour, for the gratification of my curiosity, it has been supposed that I did it for the purpose of writing a book; and it has more than once been intimated in the papers, that such a work was actually in the press, containing scenes and sketches of the Far West.
These announcements, gratuitously made for me, before I had put pen to paper, or even contemplated any thing of the kind, have embarrassed me exceedingly. I have been like a poor actor, who finds himself announced for a part he had no thought of playing, and his appearance expected on the stage before he has committed a line to memory.
I have always had a repugnance, amounting almost to disability, to write in the face of expectation; and, in the present instance, I was expected to write about a region fruitful of wonders and adventures, and which had already been made the theme of spirit-stirring narratives from able pens; yet about which I had nothing wonderful or adventurous to offer.
Since such, however, seems to be the desire of the public, and that they take sufficient interest in my wanderings to deem them worthy of recital, I have hastened, as promptly as possible, to meet, in some degree, the expectation which others have excited. For this purpose, I have, as it were, plucked a few leaves out of my memorandum book, containing a month’s foray beyond the outposts of human habitation, into the wilderness of the Far West. It forms, indeed, but a small portion of an extensive tour; but it is an episode, complete as far as it goes. As such, I offer it to the public, with great diffidence. It is a simple narrative of everyday occurrences; such as happen to every one who travels the prairies. I have no wonders to describe, nor any moving accidents by flood or field to narrate; and as to those who look for a marvelous or adventurous story at my hands, I can only reply, in the words of the weary knife-grinder: “Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir.”
CHAPTER I.
IN the often vaunted regions of the Far West, several hundred miles beyond the Mississippi, extends a vast tract of uninhabited country, where there is neither to be seen the log-house of the white man, nor the wigwam of the Indian. It consists of great grassy plains, interspersed with forests and groves, and clumps of trees, and watered by the Arkansas, the grand Canadian, the Red River, and their tributary streams. Over these fertile and verdant wastes still roam the elk, the buffalo, and the wild horse, in all their native freedom. These, in fact, are the hunting grounds of the various tribes of the Far West. Hither repair the Osage, the Creek, the Delaware and other tribes that have linked themselves with civilization, and live within the vicinity of the white settlements. Here resort also, the Pawnees, the Comanches, and other fierce, and as yet independent tribes, the nomads of the prairies, or the inhabitants of the skirts of the Rocky Mountains. The regions I have mentioned form a debatable ground of these warring and vindictive tribes; none of them presume to erect a permanent habitation within its borders. Their hunters and “Braves” repair thither in numerous bodies during the season of game, throw up their transient hunting camps, consisting of light bowers covered with bark and skins, commit sad havoc among the innumerable herds that graze the prairies, and having loaded themselves with venison and buffalo meat, warily retire from the dangerous neighborhood. These expeditions partake, always, of a warlike character: the hunters are all armed for action, offensive and defensive, and are bound to incessant vigilance. Should they, in their excursions, meet the hunters of an adverse tribe, savage conflicts take place. Their encampments, too, are always subject to be surprised by wandering war parties, and their hunters, when scattered in pursuit of game, to be captured or massacred by lurking foes. Moldering skulls and skeletons, bleaching in some dark ravine, or near the traces of a hunting camp, occasionally mark the scene of a foregone act of blood, and let the wanderer know the dangerous nature of the region he is traversing. It is the purport of the following pages to narrate a month’s excursion to these noted hunting grounds, through a tract of country which had not as yet been explored by white men.
It was early in October, 1832, that I arrived at Fort Gibson, a frontier post of the Far West, situated on the Neosho, or Grand River, near its confluence with the Arkansas. I had been travelling for a month past, with a small party from St. Louis, up the banks of the Missouri, and along the frontier line of agencies and missions that extends from the Missouri to the Arkansas. Our party was headed by one of the Commissioners appointed by the government of the United States, to superintend the settlement of the Indian tribes migrating from the east to the west of the Mississippi. In the discharge of his duties, he was thus visiting the various outposts of civilization.
And here let me bear testimony to the merits of this worthy leader of our little band. He was a native of one of the towns of Connecticut, a man in whom a course of legal practice and politica
l life had not been able to vitiate an innate simplicity and benevolence of heart. The greater part of his days had been passed in the bosom of his family and the society of deacons, elders, and selectmen, on the peaceful banks of the Connecticut; when suddenly he had been called to mount his steed, shoulder his rifle, and mingle among stark hunters, backwoodsmen, and naked savages, on the trackless wilds of the Far West.
Another of my fellow-travelers was Mr. L., an Englishman by birth, but descended from a foreign stock; and who had all the buoyancy and accommodating spirit of a native of the Continent. Having rambled over many countries, he had become, to a certain degree, a citizen of the world, easily adapting himself to any change. He was a man of a thousand occupations; a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher of no mean pretensions, in short, a complete virtuoso; added to which, he was a very indefatigable, if not always a very successful, sportsman. Never had a man more irons in the fire, and, consequently, never was man more busy nor more cheerful.
My third fellow-traveler was one who had accompanied the former from Europe, and travelled with him as his Telemachus; being apt, like his prototype, to give occasional perplexity and disquiet to his Mentor. He was a young Swiss Count, scarce twenty-one years of age, full of talent and spirit, but galliard in the extreme, and prone to every kind of wild adventure.
Having made this mention of my comrades, I must not pass over unnoticed, a personage of inferior rank, but of all-pervading and prevalent importance: the squire, the groom, the cook, the tent man, in a word, the factotum, and, I may add, the universal meddler and marplot of our party. This was a little swarthy, meager, French creole, named Antoine, but familiarly dubbed Tonish: a kind of Gil Blas of the frontier, who had passed a scrambling life, sometimes among white men, sometimes among Indians; sometimes in the employ of traders, missionaries, and Indian agents; sometimes mingling with the Osage hunters. We picked him up at St. Louis, near which he had a small farm, an Indian wife, and a brood of half-blood children. According to his own account, however, he had a wife in every tribe; in fact, if all this little vagabond said of himself were to be believed, he was without morals, without caste, without creed, without country, and even without language; for he spoke a jargon of mingled French, English, and Osage. He was, withal, a notorious braggart, and a liar of the first water. It was amusing to hear him vapor and gasconade about his terrible exploits and hairbreadth escapes in war and hunting. In the midst of his volubility, he was prone to be seized by a spasmodic gasping, as if the springs of his jaws were suddenly unhinged; but I am apt to think it was caused by some falsehood that stuck in his throat, for I generally remarked that immediately afterward there bolted forth a lie of the first magnitude.