Part 2

NOT I AND OTHER POEMS

I NOT I

Some like drink In a pint pot, Some like to think; Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese, Old Kentucky rye, Some like these; Not I.

Some like Poe, And others like Scott, Some like Mrs. Stowe; Some not.

Some like to laugh, Some like to cry, Some like chaff; Not I.

Here, perfect to a wish, We offer, not a dish, But just the platter: A book that’s not a book, A pamphlet in the look But not the matter.

I own in disarray: As to the flowers of May The frosts of Winter; To my poetic rage, The smallness of the page And of the printer.

III

As seamen on the seas With song and dance descry Adown the morning breeze An islet in the sky: In Araby the dry, As o’er the sandy plain The panting camels cry To smell the coming rain:

So all things over earth A common law obey, And rarity and worth Pass, arm in arm, away; And even so, to-day, The printer and the bard, In pressless Davos, pray Their sixpenny reward.

The pamphlet here presented Was planned and printed by A printer unindented, A bard whom all decry.

The author and the printer, With various kinds of skill, Concocted it in Winter At Davos on the Hill.

They burned the nightly taper; But now the work is ripe— Observe the costly paper, Remark the perfect type!

MORAL EMBLEMS I

See how the children in the print Bound on the book to see what’s in ’t! O, like these pretty babes, may you Seize and apply this volume too! And while your eye upon the cuts With harmless ardour opes and shuts, Reader, may your immortal mind To their sage lessons not be blind.

Reader, your soul upraise to see, In yon fair cut designed by me, The pauper by the highwayside Vainly soliciting from pride. Mark how the Beau with easy air Contemns the anxious rustic’s prayer, And, casting a disdainful eye, Goes gaily gallivanting by. He from the poor averts his head . . . He will regret it when he’s dead.

III A PEAK IN DARIEN

Broad-gazing on untrodden lands, See where adventurous Cortez stands; While in the heavens above his head The Eagle seeks its daily bread. How aptly fact to fact replies: Heroes and eagles, hills and skies. Ye who contemn the fatted slave Look on this emblem, and be brave.

See in the print how, moved by whim, Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, To noose that individual’s hat. The sacred Ibis in the distance Joys to observe his bold resistance.

Mark, printed on the opposing page, The unfortunate effects of rage. A man (who might be you or me) Hurls another into the sea. Poor soul, his unreflecting act His future joys will much contract, And he will spoil his evening toddy By dwelling on that mangled body.

MORAL EMBLEMS II

With storms a-weather, rocks a-lee, The dancing skiff puts forth to sea. The lone dissenter in the blast Recoils before the sight aghast. But she, although the heavens be black, Holds on upon the starboard tack, For why? although to-day she sink, Still safe she sails in printer’s ink, And though to-day the seamen drown, My cut shall hand their memory down.

The careful angler chose his nook At morning by the lilied brook, And all the noon his rod he plied By that romantic riverside. Soon as the evening hours decline Tranquilly he’ll return to dine, And, breathing forth a pious wish, Will cram his belly full of fish.

III

The Abbot for a walk went out, A wealthy cleric, very stout, And Robin has that Abbot stuck As the red hunter spears the buck. The djavel or the javelin Has, you observe, gone bravely in, And you may hear that weapon whack Bang through the middle of his back. Hence we may learn that Abbots should Never go walking in a wood.

The frozen peaks he once explored, But now he’s dead and by the board. How better far at home to have stayed Attended by the parlour maid, And warmed his knees before the fire Until the hour when folks retire! So, if you would be spared to friends, Do nothing but for business ends.

Industrious pirate! see him sweep The lonely bosom of the deep, And daily the horizon scan From Hatteras or Matapan. Be sure, before that pirate’s old, He will have made a pot of gold, And will retire from all his labours And be respected by his neighbours. You also scan your life’s horizon For all that you can clap your eyes on.