Selected Poems (147 page)

So that the very ghosts no longer walk’d

In comfort, at their own aerial ease,

But were all ramm’d, and jamm’d (but to be balk’d,

590

As we shall see), and jostled hands and knees,

Like wind compress’d and pent within a bladder,

Or like a human colic, which is sadder.

LXXV

The shadow came — a tall, thin, grey-hair’d figure,

That look’d as it had been a shade on earth;

595

Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour,

But nought to mark its breeding or its birth:

Now it wax’d little, then again grew bigger,

With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth;

But as you gazed upon its features, they

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Changed every instant – to
what
, none could say.

LXXVI

The more intently the ghosts gazed, the less

Could they distinguish whose the features were;

The Devil himself seem’d puzzled even to guess;

They varied like a dream – now here, now there;

605

And several people swore from out the press,

They knew him perfectly; and one could swear

He was his father: upon which another

Was sure he was his mother’s cousin’s brother:

LXXVII

Another, that he was a duke, or knight,

610

An orator, a lawyer, or a priest,

A nabob, a man-midwife; but the wight

Mysterious changed his countenance at least

As oft as they their minds: though in full sight

He stood, the puzzle only was increased;

615

The man was a phantasmagoria in

Himself – he was so volatile and thin.

LXXVIII

The moment that you had pronounced him
one
,

Presto! his face changed, and he was another,

And when that change was hardly well put on,

620

It varied, till I don’t think his own mother

(If that he had a mother) would her son

Have known, he shifted so from one to t’other;

Till guessing from a pleasure grew a task,

At this epistolary ‘Iron Mask.’

LXXIX

625

For sometimes he like Cerberus would seem –

‘Three gentlemen at once’ (as sagely says

Good Mrs Malaprop); then you might deem

That he was not even
one
; now many rays

Were flashing round him; and now a thick steam

630

Hid him from sight — like fogs on London days:

Now Burke, now Tooke, he grew to people’s fancies,

And certes often like Sir Philip Francis.

LXXX

I’ve an hypothesis – ’tis quite my own;

I never let it out till now, for fear

635

Of doing people harm about the throne,

And injuring some minister or peer,

On whom the stigma might perhaps be blown:

It is – my gentle public, lend thine ear!

’Tis, that what Junius we are wont to call

640

Was
really, truly
, nobody at all.

LXXXI

I don’t see wherefore letters should not be

Written without hands, since we daily view

Them written without heads; and books, we see,

Are fill’d as well without the latter too:

645

And really till we fix on somebody

For certain sure to claim them as his due,

Their author, like the Niger’s mouth, will bother

The world to say if
there
be mouth or author.

LXXXII

‘And who and what art thou?’ the Archangel said.

650

‘For
that
you may consult my title-page,’

Replied this mighty shadow of a shade:

‘If I have kept my secret half an age,

I scarce shall tell it now.’ – ‘Canst thou upbraid,’

Continued Michael, ‘George Rex, or allege

655

Aught further?’ Junius answer’d, ‘You had better

First ask him for
his
answer to my letter:

LXXXIII

‘My charges upon record will outlast

The brass of both his epitaph and tomb.’

‘Repent’st thou not,’ said Michael, ’of some past

660

Exaggeration? something which may doom

Thyself if false, as him if true? Thou wast

Too bitter – is it not so? – in thy gloom

Of passion?’ – ‘Passion!’ cried the phantom dim,

‘I loved my country, and I hated him.

LXXXIV

665

‘What I have written, I have written: let

The rest be on his head or mine!’ So spoke

Old ‘Nominis Umbra;’ and while speaking yet,

Away he melted in celestial smoke.

Then Satan said to Michael, ‘Don’t forget

670

To call George Washington, and John Horne Tooke,

And Franklin;’ – but at this time there was heard

A cry for room, though not a phantom stirr’d.

LXXXV

At length with jostling, elbowing, and the aid

Of cherubim appointed to that post,

675

The devil Asmodeus to the circle made

His way, and look’d as if his journey cost

Some trouble. When his burden down he laid,

‘What’s this?’ cried Michael; ‘why, ’tis not a ghost?’

‘I know it,’ quoth the incubus; ‘but he

680

Shall be one, if you leave the affair to me.

LXXXVI

‘Confound the renegado! I have sprain’d

My left wing, he’s so heavy; one would think

Some of his works about his neck were chain’d.

But to the point; while hovering o’er the brink

685

Of Skiddaw (where as usual it still rain’d),

I saw a taper, far below me, wink,

And stooping, caught this fellow at a libel –

No less on history than the Holy Bible.

LXXXVII

‘The former is the devil’s scripture, and

690

The latter yours, good Michael; so the affair

Belongs to all of us, you understand.

I snatch’d him up just as you see him there,

And brought him off for sentence out of hand:

I’ve scarcely been ten minutes in the air –

695

At least a quarter it can hardly be:

I dare say that his wife is still at tea.’

LXXXVIII

Here Satan said, ‘I know this man of old,

And have expected him for some time here;

A sillier fellow you will scarce behold,

700

Or more conceited in his petty sphere:

But surely it was not worth while to fold

Such trash below your wing, Asmodeus dear:

We had the poor wretch safe (without being bored

With carriage) coming of his own accord.

LXXXIX

705

‘But since he’s here, let’s see what he has done.’

‘Done!’ cried Asmodeus, ‘he anticipates

The very business you’re now upon,

And scribbles as if head clerk to the Fates.

Who knows to what his ribaldry may run,

710

When such an ass as this, like Balaam’s, prates?’

‘Let’s hear,’ quoth Michael, ‘what he has to say;

You know we’re bound to that in every way.’

XC

Now the bard, glad to get an audience, which

By no means often was his case below,

715

Began to cough, and hawk, and hem, and pitch

His voice into that awful note of woe

To all unhappy hearers within reach

Of poets when the tide of rhyme’s in flow;

But stuck fast with his first hexameter,

720

Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir.

XCI

But ere the spavin’d dactyls could be spurr’d

Into recitative, in great dismay

Both cherubim and seraphim were heard

To murmur loudly through their long array;

725

And Michael rose ere he could get a word

Of all his founder’d verses under way,

And cried, ‘For God’s sake stop, my friend! ’twere best –

Non Di, non homines
— you know the rest.’

XCII

A general bustle spread throughout the throng,

730

Which seem’d to hold all verse in detestation;

The angels had of course enough of song

When upon service; and the generation

Of ghosts had heard too much in life, not long