The Slender Poe Anthology (5 page)

The poet-doctor of Rutherford, William Carlos Williams, selected this as ‘the best poem' of Poe's in the final sentence of his chapter on Poe from
In The American Grain
. Williams is the only one of our major modernist poets to stand up for Poe, whom he called “a genius intimately shaped by his locality and time.”

The longing for paradise seems to be something everyone who wishes to escape an unhappy circumstance shares. Though Poe never really comes out and says that a poem should cast a spell, it often seems to be the effect he wants. The last stanza of this poem is one of my favorite spells of his, and what it means to me is never the same twice—and maybe that's intended as well.

TO ONE IN PARADISE

Thou wast all that to me, love,

For which my soul did pine—

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries,

“On! on!”—but o'er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of Life is o'er!

No more—no more—no more—

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams—

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.

In an 1835 letter to the man who would give him his first job as an editor, Thomas W. White, Poe explains that, though the subject of his tale,
Berenice
, is horrible, “The history of all Magazines show plainly that those which attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles “
similar in nature —to Berenice
.” Of what does this nature consist? “In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”

In 1840, two volumes of Poe's works were published in Philadelphia, each bearing the title,
Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
. There are more arabesques in this collection than grotesques, but this wonderful grotesque on the old folktale theme of revenge is one of his best; it was his last tale to be published, brought out in Boston by
The Flag of Our Union
in March of 1849.

The following year, the sixth edition of
The Children's and Household Tales
, by the Brothers Grimm, was published in Germany.

HOP-FROG

I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed
to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to
tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that
his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers.
They all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men,
as well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or
whether there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I
have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean
joker is a
rara avis in terris
.

About the refinements, or, as he called them, the ‘ghost' of wit, the
king troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for
breadth
in a jest, and would often put up with
length
, for the sake
of it. Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais'
‘Gargantua' to the ‘Zadig' of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical
jokes suited his taste far better than verbal ones.

At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone
out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental ‘powers' still
retain their ‘fools,' who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were
expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment's notice,
in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table.

Our
king, as a matter of course, retained his ‘fool.' The fact is, he
required
something in the way of folly
—
if only to counterbalance
the heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers
—
not to
mention himself.

His fool, or professional jester, was not
only
a fool, however. His
value was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also
a dwarf and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days,
as fools; and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through
their days (days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both
a jester to laugh
with
, and a dwarf to laugh
at
. But, as I have already
observed, your jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat,
round, and unwieldy
—
so that it was no small source of self-gratulation
with our king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool's name), he possessed
a triplicate treasure in one person.

I believe the name ‘Hop-Frog' was not that given to the dwarf by his
sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent
of the several ministers, on account of his inability to walk as
other men do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of
interjectional gait
—
something between a leap and a wriggle
—
a movement
that afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to
the king, for (notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a
constitutional swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was
accounted a capital figure.

But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could
move only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the
prodigious muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his
arms, by way of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled
him to perform many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes
were in question, or any thing else to climb. At such exercises he
certainly much more resembled a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a
frog.

I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog
originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that
no person ever heard of
—
a vast distance from the court of our king.
Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself
(although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been
forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces,
and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious
generals.

Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close
intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became
sworn friends. Hop-Frog, who, although he made a great deal of sport,
was by no means popular, had it not in his power to render Trippetta
many services; but she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty
(although a dwarf), was universally admired and petted; so she possessed
much influence; and never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the
benefit of Hop-Frog.

On some grand state occasion
—
I forgot what
—
the king determined to
have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or any thing of that kind,
occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta
were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so
inventive in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel
characters, and arranging costumes, for masked balls, that nothing could
be done, it seems, without his assistance.

The night appointed for the
f
ê
te
had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been
fitted up, under Trippetta's eye, with every kind of device which could
possibly give
é
cl
â
t
to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of
expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed
that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made
up their minds (as to what roles they should assume) a week, or even a
month, in advance; and, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision
anywhere
—
except in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why
they
hesitated I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke.
More probably, they found it difficult, on account of being so fat, to
make up their minds. At all events, time flew; and, as a last resort
they sent for Trippetta and Hop-Frog.

When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the king they found
him sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council;
but the monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor. He knew that
Hop-Frog was not fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to
madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his
practical jokes, and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as
the king called it) ‘to be merry.'

“Come here, Hop-Frog,” said he, as the jester and his friend entered the
room; “swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, [here
Hop-Frog sighed,] and then let us have the benefit of your invention.
We want characters
—
characters
, man
—
something novel
—
out of the way. We
are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the wine will
brighten your wits.”

Hop-Frog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these
advances from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to
be the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his ‘absent
friends' forced the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell
into the goblet as he took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.

“Ah! ha! ha!” roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the
beaker.
—
“See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are
shining already!”

Poor fellow! his large eyes
gleamed
, rather than shone; for the effect
of wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous.
He placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the
company with a half
—
insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the
success of the king's ‘
joke
.'

“And now to business,” said the prime minister, a
very
fat man.

“Yes,” said the King; “Come lend us your assistance. Characters, my fine
fellow; we stand in need of characters
—
all of us
—
ha! ha! ha!” and
as this was seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorused by the
seven.

Hop-Frog also laughed although feebly and somewhat vacantly.

“Come, come,” said the king, impatiently, “have you nothing to suggest?”

“I am endeavoring to think of something
novel,
” replied the dwarf,
abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.

“Endeavoring!” cried the tyrant, fiercely; “what do you mean by
that?
Ah, I perceive. You are Sulky, and want more wine. Here, drink this!”
and he poured out another goblet full and offered it to the cripple, who
merely gazed at it, gasping for breath.

“Drink, I say!” shouted the monster, “or by the fiends-”

The dwarf hesitated. The king grew purple with rage. The courtiers
smirked. Trippetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch's seat,
and, falling on her knees before him, implored him to spare her friend.

The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at
her audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say
—
how most
becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a
syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of
the brimming goblet in her face.

The poor girl got up the best she could, and, not daring even to sigh,
resumed her position at the foot of the table.

There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the
falling of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was
interrupted by a low, but harsh and protracted
grating
sound which
seemed to come at once from every corner of the room.

“What
—
what
—
what
are you making that noise for?” demanded the king,
turning furiously to the dwarf.

The latter seemed to have recovered, in great measure, from his
intoxication, and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant's face,
merely ejaculated:

“I
—
I? How could it have been me?”

“The sound appeared to come from without,” observed one of the
courtiers. “I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill
upon his cage-wires.”

“True,” replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion;
“but, on the honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was the
gritting of this vagabond's teeth.”

Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to object
to any one's laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very
repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow
as much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drained
another bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered at
once, and with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.

“I cannot tell what was the association of idea,” observed he, very
tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, “but
just after
your majesty, had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her
face
—
just after
your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was
making that odd noise outside the window, there came into my mind a
capital diversion
—
one of my own country frolics
—
often enacted
among us, at our masquerades: but here it will be new altogether.
Unfortunately, however, it requires a company of eight persons and-”

“Here we
are!
” cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the
coincidence; “eight to a fraction
—
I and my seven ministers. Come! what
is the diversion?”

“We call it,” replied the cripple, “the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs,
and it really is excellent sport if well enacted.”

“
We
will enact it,” remarked the king, drawing himself up, and lowering
his eyelids.

“The beauty of the game,” continued Hop-Frog, “lies in the fright it
occasions among the women.”

“Capital!” roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry.

“I will equip you as ourang-outangs,” proceeded the dwarf; “leave all
that to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of
masqueraders will take you for real beasts
—
and of course, they will be
as much terrified as astonished.”

“Oh, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop-Frog! I will make a
man of you.”

“The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their
jangling. You are supposed to have escaped,
en masse
, from your keepers.
Your majesty cannot conceive the
effect
produced, at a masquerade, by
eight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the
company; and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately
and gorgeously habited men and women. The
contrast
is inimitable!”

“It
must
be,” said the king: and the council arose hurriedly (as it was
growing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.

His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, but
effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the
epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized
world; and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently
beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to
nature was thus thought to be secured.

The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinet
shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage
of the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but the
suggestion was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the
eight, by ocular demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as the
ourang-outang was much more efficiently represented by
flax
. A thick
coating of the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar.
A long chain was now procured. First, it was passed about the waist of
the king,
and tied
, then about another of the party, and also tied;
then about all successively, in the same manner. When this chaining
arrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart from each
other as possible, they formed a circle; and to make all things appear
natural, Hop-Frog passed the residue of the chain in two diameters,
at right angles, across the circle, after the fashion adopted, at the
present day, by those who capture Chimpanzees, or other large apes, in
Borneo.