Pocahontas and Other Poems (New York)/To a Goose
TO A GOOSE.
I cannot bear to hear thee slander'd, Goose!
It irketh me to see the truant boys
Pause in their play, and cast a stone at thee,
And call thee foolish.
Do those worthies know
That when old Rome had let the ruffian Gauls
Tread on her threshold of vitality,
And all her sentinels were comatose,
Thy charion-call did save her? Mighty strange
To call thee fool!
I think thou'rt dignified
And portly in thy bearing, and in all
The duties and proprieties of life
Art quite a pattern. Yet the duck may quack,
The turkey gabble, and the guinea-hen
Keep up a piercing and perpetual scream,
And all is well; but if thou ope thy beak,
"Fie, silly creature!"
Yet I'm sure thou'st done
Many a clever and obliging deed;
And more than this, thou from thy wing dost spare
An outcast feather, which hath woke the world,
And made it wiser.
Yea, the modest quill
Doth take its quiet stand behind the press,
And, like a prompter, tell it what to say.
But yet we never praise the goose, who gave
This precious gift. Yet what can fill its place?
Think of the clumsy stylus, how absurd!
I know, indeed, that smart metallic pens
Have undertook to speculate at large,
But I eschew them all, and prophesy
Goose-quills will be immortal, as the art
To which they minister. 'Twere meet for me,
Though all beside were dumb, to fondly laud
The instrument that from my childhood up
Hath been my solace and my chosen friend
In hours of loneliness.
I'd fain propose
That, mid the poultry in the farmer's yard,
The goose should wear a ducal coronet.
But our republic would not authorize
Aught like an order of nobility;
And so I institute a simple claim
For justice long withheld. I ask my peers,
The erudite and learned in the law,
Why the recusant owl is singled out
As Wisdom's bird? If blind Mythology,
Who on her fingers scarcely knew to count
Her thirty thousand gods, should groping make
Such error, 'tis not strange. But we, who skill
To ride the steam, and have a goodly hope
To ride the lightning too, need we be ruled
By vacillating Delphos? or stand still
To sanction her mistakes?
The aforesaid owl,
With his dull, staring eyes, what hath he done
To benefit mankind? Moping all day
Amid some dodder'd oak, and then at night,
With hideous hooting and wild flapping wings,
Scaring the innocent child. What hath he done
To earn a penny, or to make the world
Richer in any way? I doubt if he
Even gets an honest living. Who can say
Whether such midnight rambles, none know where,
Are for his credit? Yet the priceless crown
Of wisdom he in symbol and in song
Unrighteously hath worn.
But times have changed,
Most reverend owl! Utility bears rule,
And the shrewd spirit of a busy age
Dotes not on things antique, nor pays respect
To hoary hairs, but counts it loss of time
To honour whatsoever fails to yield
A fat per centage. Yet thou'rt not ashamed
To live a gentleman, nor bronze thy claw
With manual labour, stupidly content
To be a burden on community.
—Meantime, the worthy and hard-working goose
Hath rear'd us goslings, fed us with her flesh,
Lull'd us to sleep upon her softest down,
And with her quills maintain'd the lover's lore,
And saved the tinsel of the poet's brain.
—Dear goose, thou'rt greatly wrong'd.
I move the owl
Be straightway taken from the usurper's seat,
And thou forthwith be voted for, to fill
Minerva's arms.
The flourish of a pen
Hath saved or lost a realm, hath sign'd the bond
That made the poor man rich—reft from the prince
His confiscated wealth, and sent him forth
A powerless exile—for the prisoner bade
The sunbeam tremble through his iron bars
The last, last time—or changed the cry of war
To blessed peace.
And yet we scorn the bird
Whose cast-off feather hath done this, and more.