East and West: Poems

Part II

Before the Curtain

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,

A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze

Of flaring gas, and curious eyes that gaze.

The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,

And hardly fit for royal Richard's stride,

Or Falstaff's bulk, or Denmark's youthful pride.

Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;

O'er it no king nor valiant Hector lords:

The simplest skill is all its space affords.

The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,

The local hit at follies of the day,

The trick to pass an idle hour away,—

For these, no trumpets that announce the Moor,

No blast that makes the hero's welcome sure,—

A single fiddle in the overture!

The Stage-Driver's Story

It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to the wheelers,

Quietly flecking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco;

While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the moonlight,

We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending.

"Danger! Sir, I believe you,—indeed, I may say on that subject,

You your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a wager.

I have seen danger? Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure you:

'Twas only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon.

It was the Geiger Grade, a mile and a half from the summit:

Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the heavens.

Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying

Over the precipice side,—a thousand feet plumb to the bottom.

Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking,

Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the cañon;

Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me,

The off hind wheel of the coach just loosed from its axle, and following.

One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons,

Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks of my cattle;

Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my frenzy,

While down the Geiger Grade, on

three

 wheels, the vehicle thundered.

Speed was our only chance, when again came the ominous rattle:

Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the darkness.

Two

 only now were left; yet such was our fearful momentum,

Upright, erect, and sustained on

two

 wheels, the vehicle thundered.

As some huge boulder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain,

Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far-leaping,

So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and before it

Leaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the danger impending.

But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the level,

Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,

A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,

We travelled upon

one

 wheel, until we drove up to the station.

Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,

I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distance

The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,

Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the station.

This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.

Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of all men, most lightly

Who swerves from the truth in his tale—No, thank you—Well, since you

are

 pressing,

Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,—no sugar."

Aspiring Miss de Laine

A Chemical Narrative

Certain facts which serve to explain

The physical charms of Miss Addie De Laine,

Who, as the common reports obtain,

Surpassed in complexion the lily and rose;

With a very sweet mouth and a

retroussé

 nose;

A figure like Hebe's, or that which revolves

In a milliner's window, and partially solves

That question which mentor and moralist pains,

If grace may exist

minus

 feeling or brains.

Of course the young lady had beaux by the score,

All that she wanted,—what girl could ask more?

Lovers that sighed, and lovers that swore,

Lovers that danced, and lovers that played,

Men of profession, of leisure, and trade;

But one, who was destined to take the high part

Of holding that mythical treasure, her heart,—

This lover—the wonder and envy of town—

Was a practising chemist,—a fellow called Brown.

I might here remark that 'twas doubted by many,

In regard to the heart, if Miss Addie had any;

But no one could look in that eloquent face,

With its exquisite outline, and features of grace,

And mark, through the transparent skin, how the tide

Ebbed and flowed at the impulse of passion or pride,—

None could look, who believed in the blood's circulation

As argued by Harvey, but saw confirmation,

That here, at least, Nature had triumphed o'er art,

And, as far as complexion went, she had a heart.

But this,

par parenthesis

. Brown was the man

Preferred of all others to carry her fan,

Hook her glove, drape her shawl, and do all that a belle

May demand of the lover she wants to treat well.

Folks wondered and stared that a fellow called Brown—

Abstracted and solemn, in manner a clown,

Ill dressed, with a lingering smell of the shop—

Should appear as her escort at party or hop.

Some swore he had cooked up some villanous charm,

Or love philter, not in the regular Pharm—

Acopea, and thus, from pure

malis prepense

,

Had bewitched and bamboozled the young lady's sense;

Others thought, with more reason, the secret to lie

In a magical wash or indelible dye;

While Society, with its censorious eye

And judgment impartial, stood ready to damn

What wasn't improper as being a sham.

For a fortnight the townfolk had all been agog

With a party, the finest the season had seen,

To be given in honor of Miss Pollywog,

Who was just coming out as a belle of sixteen.

The guests were invited: but one night before,

A carriage drew up at the modest back-door

Of Brown's lab'ratory; and, full in the glare

Of a big purple bottle, some closely-veiled fair

Alighted and entered: to make matters plain,

Spite of veils and disguises,—'twas Addie De Laine.

As a bower for true love, 'twas hardly the one

That a lady would choose to be wooed in or won:

No odor of rose or sweet jessamine's sigh

Breathed a fragrance to hallow their pledge of troth by,

Nor the balm that exhales from the odorous thyme;

But the gaseous effusions of chloride of lime,

And salts, which your chemist delights to explain

As the base of the smell of the rose and the drain.

Think of this, O ye lovers of sweetness! and know

What you smell, when you snuff up Lubin or Pinaud.

I pass by the greetings, the transports and bliss,

Which, of course, duly followed a meeting like this,

And come down to business;—for such the intent

Of the lady who now o'er the crucible leant,

In the glow of a furnace of carbon and lime,

Like a fairy called up in the new pantomime;—

And give but her words as she coyly looked down,

In reply to the questioning glances of Brown:

"I am taking the drops, and am using the paste,

And the little, white powders that had a sweet taste,

Which you told me would brighten the glance of my eye,

And the depilatory, and also the dye,

And I'm charmed with the trial; and now, my dear Brown,

I have one other favor,—now, ducky, don't frown,—

Only one, for a chemist and genius like you

But a trifle, and one you can easily do.

Now listen: tomorrow, you know, is the night

Of the birthday

soiree

 of that Pollywog fright;

And I'm to be there, and the dress I shall wear

Is

too

 lovely; but"—"But what then,

ma chere

?"

Said Brown, as the lady came to a full stop,

And glanced round the shelves of the little back shop.

"Well, I want—I want something to fill out the skirt

To the proper dimension, without being girt

In a stiff crinoline, or caged in a hoop

That shows through one's skirt like the bars of a coop;

Something light, that a lady may waltz in, or polk,

With a freedom that none but you masculine folk

Ever know. For, however poor woman aspires,

She's always bound down to the earth by these wires.

Are you listening? nonsense! don't stare like a spoon,

Idiotic; some light thing, and spacious, and soon—

Something like—well, in fact—something like a balloon!"

Here she paused; and here Brown, overcome by surprise,

Gave a doubting assent with still wondering eyes,

And the lady departed. But just at the door

Something happened,—'tis true, it had happened before

In this sanctum of science,—a sibilant sound,

Like some element just from its trammels unbound,

Or two substances that their affinities found.

The night of the anxiously looked-for

soirée

Had come, with its fair ones in gorgeous array;

With the rattle of wheels, and the tinkle of bells,

And the "How do ye dos," and the "Hope you are wells;"

And the crash in the passage, and last lingering look

You give as you hang your best hat on the hook;

The rush of hot air as the door opens wide;

And your entry,—that blending of self-possessed pride

And humility shown in your perfect-bred stare

At the folk, as if wondering how they got there;

With other tricks worthy of Vanity Fair.

Meanwhile that safe topic, the heat of the room,

Already was losing its freshness and bloom;

Young people were yawning, and wondering when

The dance would come off, and why didn't it then:

When a vague expectation was thrilling the crowd,

Lo, the door swung its hinges with utterance proud!

And Pompey announced, with a trumpet-like strain,

The entrance of Brown and Miss Addie De Laine.

She entered: but oh, how imperfect the verb

To express to the senses her movement superb!

To say that she "sailed in" more clearly might tell

Her grace in its buoyant and billowy swell.

Her robe was a vague circumambient space,

With shadowy boundaries made of point-lace.

The rest was but guess-work, and well might defy

The power of critical feminine eye

To define or describe: 'twere as futile to try

The gossamer web of the cirrus to trace,

Floating far in the blue of a warm summer sky.

'Midst the humming of praises and the glances of beaux,

That greet our fair maiden wherever she goes,

Brown slipped like a shadow, grim, silent, and black,

With a look of anxiety, close in her track.

Once he whispered aside in her delicate ear,

A sentence of warning,—it might be of fear:

"Don't stand in a draught, if you value your life."

(Nothing more,—such advice might b