| |
THE NEWS
THE NEWS! our morning, noon, evening cry, | |
| Day unto day repeats it till we die. | |
| For this the cit, the critic, and the fop, | |
| Dally the hour away in Tonsor’s shop; | |
| For this the gossip takes her daily route, | 5 |
| And wears your threshold and your patience out; | |
| For this we leave the parson in the lurch, | |
| And pause to prattle on the way to church; | |
| Even when some coffined friend we gather round, | |
| We ask, “What news?” then lay him in the ground; | 10 |
| To this the breakfast owes its sweetest zest, | |
| For this the dinner cools, the bed remains unpressed. | |
| What gives each tale of scandal to the street, | |
| The kitchen’s wonder, and the parlor’s treat? | |
| See the pert housemaid to the keyhole fly, | 15 |
| When husband storms, wife frets, or lovers sigh; | |
| See Tom ransack your pockets for each note, | |
| And read your secrets while he cleans your coat; | |
| See, yes, to listen see even madam deign, | |
| When the smug seamstress pours her ready strain; | 20 |
| This wings the lie that malice breeds in fear,— | |
| No tongue so vile but finds a kindred ear; | |
| Swift flies each tale of laughter, shame, or folly, | |
| Caught by Paul Pry and carried home to Polly; | |
| On this each foul calumniator leans, | 25 |
| And nods and hints the villany he means: | |
| Full well he knows what latent wildfire lies | |
| In the close whisper and the dark surmise; | |
| A muffled word, a wordless wink has woke | |
| A warmer throb than if a Dexter spoke; | 30 |
| And he, o’er Everett’s periods who would nod, | |
| To track a secret, half the town has trod. | |
| O thou, from whose rank breath nor sex can save, | |
| Nor sacred virtue, nor the powerless grave,— | |
| Felon unwhipped! than whom in yonder cells | 35 |
| Full many a groaning wretch less guilty dwells, | |
| Blush—if of honest blood a drop remains | |
| To steal its lonely way along thy veins, | |
| Blush—if the bronze, long hardened on thy cheek, | |
| Has left a spot where that poor drop can speak; | 40 |
| Blush to be branded with the slanderer’s name, | |
| And, though thou dreadst not sin, at least dread shame. | |
| We hear, indeed, but shudder while we hear | |
| The insidious falsehood and the heartless jeer; | |
| For each dark libel that thou lickest to shape, | 45 |
| Thou mayest from law but not from scorn escape; | |
| The pointed finger, cold, averted eye, | |
| Insulted virtue’s hiss—thou canst not fly. | |
| |
FICTION
LOOK now, directed by yon candle’s blaze, | |
| Where the false shutter half its trust betrays— | 50 |
| Mark that fair girl reclining in her bed, | |
| Its curtain round her polished shoulders spread: | |
| Dark midnight reigns, the storm is up in power; | |
| What keeps her waking in that dreary hour? | |
| See where the volume on her pillow lies— | 55 |
| Claims Radcliffe or Chapone those frequent sighs? | |
| ’T is some wild legend—now her kind eye fills, | |
| And now cold terror every fibre chills; | |
| Still she reads on—in fiction’s labyrinth lost, | |
| Of tyrant fathers, and of true love crossed; | 60 |
| Of clanking fetters, low, mysterious groans, | |
| Blood-crusted daggers, and uncoffined bones, | |
| Pale, gliding ghosts, with fingers dropping gore, | |
| And blue flames dancing round a dungeon door;— | |
| Still she reads on—even though to read she fears, | 65 |
| And in each key-hole moan strange voices hears, | |
| While every shadow that withdraws her look | |
| Glares in her face, the goblin of her book; | |
| Still o’er the leaves her craving eye is cast, | |
| On all she feasts, yet hungers for the last; | 70 |
| Counts what remains, now sighs there are no more, | |
| And now even those half tempted to skip o’er; | |
| At length, the bad all killed, the good all pleased, | |
| Her thirsting Curiosity appeased, | |
| She shuts the dear, dear book, that made her weep, | 75 |
| Puts out her light, and turns away to sleep. | |
| |
