The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844

‘I thank you,’ said the latter, ‘the mare is decidedly better; that bleeding in the hoof did her business completely, and I don’t doubt that by autumn she will be as well as ever.’

‘I asked you,’ said the visitor, in a determined tone, and like a person who has something to say, ‘I asked you, whether you were fond of Fish?’—Alas! my masters! how many unnecessary, how many futile, how many absurd questions, among the idle words that are dignified with the title of conversation, are daily propounded in this grave world of ours! Fond of fish! Fond of Fish! and that fish, a Shad! and that shad, a Connecticut River Shad! and that Connecticut River Shad, a prime brace of shad! in the highest season, and the highest order, and the finest brace of shad in the entire haul of Enoch Smith, now yet quivering, without the loss of one radiant scale, upon the snow-white dresser of this man’s imagination! Ought I to call it, an imagination? Ought I to go on with the story, or abandon it as an impracticable thing? Fond of fish!

Oh commend me to a life of leisure in a small town upon the right bank of the River Connecticut, and let my lease begin at the beginning of the shad season! Give me Enoch Smith to draw the seine, a green lane to conduct me to the river shore, and a Claude Lorraine morning for my day of purchase! Fond of Fish! Why what an idea, to be conveyed upon the subject of this brace of shad, from one Christian Being to another Christian Being, who had both—as it is to be supposed—read and studied the lives of the apostles! Fond of Fish!!!

But the stout man, finding that he was not apprehended, reiterated the remarkable question; and in a still louder tone, exclaimed: I—asked—you—whether—you—are—fond—of—Fish?’ making a pause between each of these peculiar words, and shooting the last word of the singular interrogatory out of his mouth, by means of his fore-teeth and a most emphatic under-lip, as a boy does a marble with the bent fore-finger and thumb of the right hand.

‘I perceive,’ said the quiet person upon the couch, ‘that you are asking me a question; but really the rhumatis, (this is the way in which the quiet person upon the couch thought proper to pronounce it,) has, I think, quite got the better of my right ear. Would you do me the favour,’ continued he, turning the left side of his head toward his interlocutor with the suavity of a person already obliged, ‘would you do me the great favour to repeat your enquiry?’

‘I asked you,’ said the other, growing scarlet in the gills like the shad of his imagination, ‘I—merely—asked—you,’—for he began (I thought at the time) to grow vexed with the absurdity of his position in having given utterance to a conception at once so feeble and yet so eccentrick; and being a coarse man, could only get out by passionately going through what he had to say; ‘if—you—were—fond—of—Fish?’ And on this occasion each word seemed to me to have the force of a pistol-shot, and the last word that of a cannon ball; and he rose as he spoke like a man of might and purpose as he was, and clenched his hand, and quivered upon the stout bow legs that sustained him as he stood: ‘Fish,’ roared he! ‘Fish,’ shouted he! ‘I asked you if you were fond of FISH,’ thundered he!

‘I quite regret being so very deaf to-day, and yet I should be sorry,’ replied his imperturbable friend, fumbling in his pockets and looking about the couch, ‘to lose any observation of yours, and particularly one in which you seem so earnest; here is a piece of paper, and here is a pencil; be kind enough to write it down while I get on my glasses.’ By the time his eyes were reinforced the paper was ready, and glancing it over he answered at once, raising himself suddenly upward, as he exclaimed at the utmost reach of his voice and with deep and increasing energy, ‘Oh, Very!’ ‘Very!’ ‘Very!’

‘Good morning, Mr. Johnson,’ said his now blown and indignant visitor. ‘Are you off? Well, good morning, captain!’ replied the other; and as soon as the door was closed, ‘My neighbor Captain Tompkins, I am sorry to perceive, has grown quite as deaf as myself,’ said he in a musing manner. ‘If I had his legs—’tis there he has the advantage of me—if I had his legs, I could have collected all the news of the parish in the time that he has been prosing here about my mare! And I wanted too to know something this morning about shad. Here, Sally! tell Bob to run down the lane and find out whether Enoch Smith is going to draw soon; and if Bob meet any persons on the way with shad let him ask the price of the day before he says a word to Smith.’

Away flew the little flaxen-haired fairy with her eyes of sapphire, leaving her grandfather to relapse upon his couch in the posture in which we first saw him, and to moralize on the impatience with which his neighbour Captain Tompkins seemed to bear the approaching infirmities of age. And now, Dear Reader, do thou emulate the patience of the old Valetudinarian, while I relieve thee of my further presence; or, if thou wilt permit the thought to enter the charities of thine heart, vanish from thee like the blue-eyed girl.

    John Waters.

TO A CERTAIN BOUQUET

I

In chill December’s month, sweet flowers!
Your brilliant eyes first saw the light;
And you, instead of sun and showers,
Had watering-pots and anthracite.

II

Go ye to Mary then, and while
Ye cease to mourn for summer skies,
Bask in the sunbeam of her smile,
And the sweet heaven of her eyes.

    Horace.

APOSTROPHE TO TIME

Grave of the mighty past!
Ocean of time! whose surges breaking high,
Wash the dim shores of old Eternity,
Year after year has cast
Spoils of uncounted value unto thee,
And yet thou rollest on, unheeding, wild and free.

Within thy caverns wide,
The charnel-house of ages! gathered lie
Nations and empires, flung by destiny
Beneath thy flowing tide:
There rest alike the monarch and the slave;
There is no galling chain, no crown beneath thy wave.

The conqueror in his pride
Smiled a defiance, and the warrior stood
Firm as the rock that bides the raging flood;
The poet turned aside
And flung upon thy breast the wreath of Fame,
And thou hast swept away perchance his very name!

The craven and the brave,
The smile of blooming youth, and grey-haired age,
The ragged peasant and the learned sage,
Have found in thee a grave:
The vanquished land and despot on his ear,
Went down beneath thy wave, as falls the glancing star.

Thou hast the soaring thought,
The lofty visions of the daring soul;
The piercing eye, that bade the darkness roll
From Nature’s laws, and sought
For years to trace her mysteries divine:
Oh! who shall count the gems that glitter on thy shrine?

Yet more is thine, proud sea!
Thou hast the mighty spoils of human wo,
The bright hopes crushed, the dark and bitter flow
Of grief and agony;
Thou hast the burning tears of wild despair,
Thou the wrung spirit’s cry, the broken heart’s strong prayer.

Thou hast the deathless love,
That smiled upon the storm and warred with life,
And looked serene, unscathed by earthly strife,
To realms of light above:
Thy priceless gems! oh! dost thou treasure these,
The jewels of the heart, within thy trackless seas?

When the loud voice of God
Shall shake the earth, and like a gathered scroll
At His command the boundless skies shall roll;
When from the grassy sod
The living soul shall start to life sublime,
Wilt thou not render back thy spoils, insatiate Time?

    M. G.

REMINISCENCES OF A DARTMOOR PRISONER