The Poetical Writings of Fitz-Greene Halleck/An Epistle to * * * *
AN EPISTLE TO * * * *.
ear * * * *, I am writing not to you, but at you,
For the feet of you tourists have no resting-place;
But wherever with this the mail-pigeon may catch you,
May she find you with gayety’s smile on your face;
Whether chasing a snipe at the Falls of Cohoes,
Or chased by the snakes upon Anthony’s Nose;
Whether wandering, at Catskill, from Hotel to Clove,
Making sketches, or speeches, puns, poems, or love
Or in old Saratoga’s unknown fountain-land,
Threading groves of enchantment, half bushes, half sand;
Whether dancing on Sundays at Lebanon Springs,
With those Madame Hutins of Religion, the Shakers;
Or, on Tuesdays, with maidens who seek wedding-rings
At Ballston, as taught by mammas and matchmakers;
Whether sailing St. Lawrence, with unbroken neck,
From her thousand green isles to her castled Quebec;
Or sketching Niagara, pencil on knee
(The giant of waters, our country’s pet lion),
Or dipped at Long Branch, in the real salt sea,
With a cork for a dolphin, a Cockney Arion;
Whether roaming earth, ocean, or even the air,
Like Dan O’Rourke’s eagle—good luck to you there.
For myself, as you’ll see by the date of my letter,
I’m in town, but of that fact the least said the better;
For ’tis vain to deny (though the city o’erflows
With well-dressed men and women, whom nobody knows)
That one rarely sees persons whose nod is an honor,
A lady with fashion’s own impress upon her;
Or a gentleman blessed with the courage to say,
Like Morris (the Prince Regent’s friend, in his day),
“Let others in sweet shady solitudes dwell,
Oh! give me the sweet shady side of Pall Mall.”
Apropos—our friend A. chanced this morning to meet
The accomplished Miss B. as he passed Contoit’s Garden,12
Both in town in July!—he crossed over the street,
And she entered the rouge-shop of Mrs. St. Martin.13
Resolved not to look at another known face,
Through Leonard and Church Streets she walked to Park Place,
And he turned from Broadway into Catharine Lane,
And coursed, to avoid her, through alley and by-street,
Till they met, as the devil would have it, again,
Face to face, near the pump at the corner of Dey Street.
Yet, as most of “The Fashion” are journeying now,
With the brown hues of summer on cheek and on brow,
The few “gens comme il faut” who are lingering here,
Are, like fruits out of season, more welcome and dear,
Like “the last rose of summer, left blooming alone,”
Or the last snows of winter, pure ice of haut ton,
Unmelted, undimmed by the sun’s brightest ray,
And, like diamonds, making night’s darkness seem day.
One meets them in groups, that Canova might fancy,
At our new lounge at evening, the Opera Français,14
In nines like the Muses, in threes like the Graces,
Green spots in a desert of commonplace faces.
The Queen, Mrs. Adams, goes there sweetly dressed
In a beautiful bonnet, all golden and flowery;
While the King, Mr. Bonaparte, smiles on Celeste,
Heloise, and Hutin, from his box at the Bowery.
For news, Parry still the North Sea is exploring,
And the Grand Turk has taken, they say, the Acropolis,
And we, in Swamp Place,15 have discovered, in boring,
A mineral spring to refine the metropolis.
The day we discovered it was, by-the-way,
In the life of the Cockneys, a glorious day.
For we all had been taught, by tradition and reading,
That to gain what admits us to levees of kings,
The gentleness, courtesy, grace of high breeding,
The only sure way was to “visit the Springs.”
So the whole city visited Swamp Spring en masse,
From attorney to sweep, from physician to pavior,
To drink of cold water at sixpence a glass,
And learn true politeness and genteel behavior.
Though the crowd was immense till the hour of departure,
No gentleman’s feelings were hurt in the rush,
Save a grocer’s, who lost his proof-glass and bung-starter,
And a chimney-sweep’s, robbed of his scraper and brush.
They lingered till sunset and twilight had come,
When, wearied in limb, but much polished in manners,
The sovereign people moved gracefully home,
In the beauty and pride of “an army with banners.”
As to politics—Adams16 and Clinton yet live,
And reign, we presume, as we never have missed ’em,
And woollens and Webster continue to thrive
Under something they call the American System,
If you’re anxious to know what the country is doing,
Whether ruined already or going to ruin,
And who her next President will be, please Heaven,
Read the letters of Jackson, the speeches of Clay,
All the party newspapers, three columns a day,
And Blunt’s Annual Register,17 year ’twenty-seven.
