DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16515#0251
PUNCH. OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
255
Eastward of Eden lies the land of Nod ;
There grew an old oak in the vale of Ely-
Old as the world, in lasting marble dure.
The threefold serpents animating clasp
The mundane egg, and wondrous trident coil'd,
The cataracts of everlasting heaven,
The fountains of the co-eternal deep,
Defined anon, and growing visible,
Undiruirj'd shone out clear as the hour of dawn
Harmonious symmetry, ptoportion bland !
Visions were thiue wherein the sculptile mind
Twin'd with the harmless serpent as in sport,
nead, and the faithful girl retired sobbing. Then he called upon Saniboo-
15eg for a song; but Samboo too failed, and left the royal presence howling,
after a vigorous bastinado. Then he told the slaves to bastinado each
other all round—which they did; and afterwards dared not come near
their august master, who sate in his divan alone. " By the beard of
Mahomet's grandmother," said he (and that oath no believer was ever
known to break), " if I do not hear a new poem to-day, I will levy an
income-tax to-morrow upon all Armenia."
Just as evening fell, the curtain of the sacred apartment was drawn
aside, and the head of the chief of the eunuchs appeared between the in-
terstices.
" Grinning hound of a black slave, what wilt thou ?" said the king—
flin^m^ tho sornB tiii*B oiic of Ins top boots in tlic i n Incl
1 Till grew his aspect spectral, and his eye
the smiling sycophant appeared. Flitting athwart a place of sepulchres,
<• Light of the world !" replied the faithful negro, "there 'a a poet come! Hung o'er his shoulders broad and on his breast.
a poet of fame: no other than the great Jawbrahim Heraudee." ***** *
"What! the shiekh of the Svncreteeks ?" cried the king, delighted ; _ . , . .
, • , , , , n j. j ° , r Consistency, eternity s sole law,
" bring sherbet and pipes—go, slaves, get a collation ready, set the loun- z, . ■? . •. '
tains plaving, bring flowers, perfumes, and the best of everything." And ' , m*»t«»w<> universe,
the delighted monarch himself rushed outside the court of the palace to Substance with attribute.
welcome the illustrious stranger. | Then entering into his theme, the poet after these preparatory consi-
There stood indeed the great Jawbrahim; he was not on the back of his derations gave utterance to his sublime epic, which is far too long to be
dromedary, but led the animal by the bridle: it seemed to bend under the noted here. He spoke of the vision of Noah, and the Book of Enoch ; lie
weight of two huge baskets, which hung on either side of his humps. spoke of the children of Cain, of Satan, Judael, Azazael; and when he
" Great bard," said the king, bending low before him, " welcome to the arrived at that splendid part of his work in which he cries—
court of Armenia; thy fame hath long since travelled hither, and Poof- Ob, Amazarah ! most majestical
Allee's heart yearns towards the sage of mount Caucasus." Of'women, wisest and most amorous!
Jawbrahim-Heraudee, who knew the fallacious nature of his majesty's , , , , , • j j a uj. a * 1
,■ . , , ' , ,-ff , . ,. • , . . * > , he looked up at the king and paused, expecting no doubt that applause
compliments and welcome, made a stiff salutation m reply to this oratorical ., 1 ° 1 ' 1 ° 1 r
flourish, and thus said : " The fame of Poof-Allee has reached to the sum- WO™ ^nsue- , , . „,aj__i„ „<.__t„j
•4 f _ . n u . tt .i . , r . , The king bounced up on his seat—the black eunuch suddenly started
mit of mount Caucasus ; the world cries that he is a lover of poetry, and : 7 s, J ., , , , , . t>„„i/„ r>__i„„
, , • .. n , • ,,, 1 •" and opened his great goggling black eyes—the lovely Koolee-roolee
a generous patron of bards—and is it so, O king V s , , ? . 8 °° f J rm_ n, u_j n
t u i- i »u i \ to ,. . a, t. i- stretched out her fair arms and gave a yawn. 1 lie tact is, they had all
Jawbrahim spoke these words in such a queer satiric way, that Poof- . =Llct^11L" ul" l ■ *
Ailee did not at first know whether he was complimenting him, or merely ' bee" asleep tor hours.
*i- u j « v> . t i » -j u « 6 t . .»t " Samboo—Roolee-Poolee' cried the -Monarch, " 1 was a little overtaken
laughing at his beard. "Poetry I love, said he; '• poets I respect, if I , , , . 7 r , , . , ' ... ,, ,,,
c ■P*i :„• l u * r» r> 1_ ■ i i i i \> ' and did not hear that awful bug poem, but vou can repeat it, can t ye 5
imd them original : but, O Caucasian sage ! many poets have come before £ , -,iT j .. 1 . i t- n. mi* K__v +„
me, who were but maguies with peacocks' plumes; who looked like lions, \ bambo° the lad? couldt,uot rfPeat °»e word of it They began to
but lo! when they opened their mouths, braved like donkevs : these 1 I sta™ ' the catechisms of everlasting Heaven, -' the mundane egg in
chastise as they deserve; but the real poet I honour with my "soul." wondrous trident boiled'-'the harmless spectral serpent with his eye
Am I a real poet, or a false poet V inquired Jawbrahim,
" That I cannot tell, except from reputation, and can only be sure of
when I have heard a specimen of your art. Be it original, I promise you
that, though your work be twenty cantos long, I will pay its weight in
j;old ; but be it a copy (as I shall know, for I know by heart every known
flitting athwart a pair of spectacles'—but as for repeating the whole of
the lines, that was impossible. The king was obliged fairly to give in, and
to confess for the first time in his life that the poem he had heard was
original.
0 sage," said he, (in quite a new compliment,) " your poem does equal
poem in the world), I shall exercise upon thy heels the wholesome c?edlt t0 ■vour, hea<! a'ld heart\ 1 cJaunot reward J'°U as.y0U f6^' T
rattan " that poor guerdon which my straitened circumstances permit me to oner to
the original poet is justly thine. Take thy poem to my treasurer, have
the book in which it is written weighed against the purest gold, and by
the beard of the prophet's relative, the gold shall be thine."
" Will it not please you to hear the rest of the poem, sire ?" said the
sage, "there are but forty thousand lines more, and having vouchsafed to
" May my heels be beaten into calf's-foot jelly," replied Jawbrahim,
*' it the poem I shall sing before your Majesty be not entirely unknown
to you. Only the moon has heard it as yet, as I lay upon the snowy peak
oi Caucasus—or, mayhap, an owl has listened to a stanza or two of it, as
he flapped by mv midnight couch upon his pinions white."
" Will you take a trifle of anything before you be^in ?" asked the king ■ Sive me a Patieut hearing since yesterday,
but the sage only waved his head in scorn, and, tying up his dromedary [ "Smce ^enV exclaimed Poof-Allee
to a post in the courtyard, said that he required no refreshment, but
would commence his poem at once. Accordingly the monarch and his
suite led the way, and seated themselves in the magnificent chamber of
the palace which was called the golden nightingale cage, or the hall
of song.
" I have, sir, a choice of works which I can recite to you. Will you
have a sonata to Swedenborg, an ode to Madame Krudner, or a little
didactic, enclytic, aesthetic—in a word, synthetic piece, on the harmony of
the sensible and moral worlds and the symbolical schools of religion 3"
The subjects, sir, do honour to your morality," replied the kino-,
* but strike us as rather tedious."
'■ My ode to my country \ —
O for dear Little Britain—for dear Little Britain—mv country.
Close to Goswell-street road,—closer to Simmary Axe,_
" Simmary, my lord, is not the real, and, so to say, organic pronunciation
of the term—but rather the synthetic and popular one.
O for dear Little Britain, that's near thy row Paternoster,
Near to the Post-office new, neai to the Bull and the Mouth.
O for Aldersgate pump!"—
'•Those jaw-breaking hexameters and pentameters, 0 sage!" here
interposed the monarch, who had already begun to yawn, "were never much
to my taste ; and if you will please to confine yourself to some metre more
■consonant to the Armenian language"—(in which dialect, it need scarcely
be stated that the poet and the monarch both spoke),—" if you will con-
descend to try rhyme, or at the worst, blank verse, I shall listen with
much greater pleasure."
" Sire, I will enunciate a poem in sixteen cantos, if you please, and
written in the Dantesque terza-rima." But the unconscionable Sovereign
3f Armenia, knowing the extreme difficulty of hunting up the rhymes in
that most puzzling of metres, begged Jawbrahim rather to confine himself
" Since yesterday at sunset, when I began ; and the stars came out, and
still my song continued j and the moon rose, and lo ! my voice never
faltered ; and the cock crew, but we were singing before him ; and the
skies were red, and I, like the rising sun, was unwearied ; and the noontide
came and Jawbrahim Heraudee still spake of Azazael and Samiasa."
" Mercy upon us, the man has been talking and we have been asleep
for four-and-twenty hours," cried lovely little Roolee-Poolee.
" Your Majesty paid me a compliment not to notice how the hours
flew," said Jawbrahim, " and I will now proceed, by your leave, with the
44th canto : beginning with an account of the birds"—
Then came the birds that fly, perch, walk, or swim,
On trees the Inoessorial station hold,
The Gallinaceous tribes must feed and walk ;
The Waders * * * *
" Hold your intolerable tongue, 0 poet with a burned father ! " roared
King Poof-Allee in a fury. " I can bear no more of thy cursed prate,
and will call my slaves with bamboo canes if thou utterest another word."
" Thou promisedst me gold and not a beating, 0 king ! " cried the sage,
scornfully. " Is it thus that the Armenian monarchs keep their word ? "
" Take thy gold in the name of the prophet! " replied the king—"go to
my treasurer and he shall pay it to thee."
" He will doubtless not pay without a draft from thy royal hand."
" I can't write ! " shouted the king ; and then recollecting himself, and
his reputation as a literary genius, blushed profusely, and said, "that is,
I can write, but 1 do not choose to have my signature in the hand of every
rogue who may take a fancy to forge it. Here, take my ring, and Samboo
go thou with Jawbrahim ; see his poem weighed by the treasurer, and its
weight in gold counted out to the poet (may dirt be flung on his mother's
grave). Go, Samboo, and execute my commission."
" On my eyes be it !" replied the faithful negro ; and, with Jawbrahim,
to blank verse : on which the Caucasian sage, taking his harp sun" as wlk0se face wore a look of exulting malignity, quitted the royal presence,
•"ollows :— ' 6 * * * , *
255
Eastward of Eden lies the land of Nod ;
There grew an old oak in the vale of Ely-
Old as the world, in lasting marble dure.
The threefold serpents animating clasp
The mundane egg, and wondrous trident coil'd,
The cataracts of everlasting heaven,
The fountains of the co-eternal deep,
Defined anon, and growing visible,
Undiruirj'd shone out clear as the hour of dawn
Harmonious symmetry, ptoportion bland !
Visions were thiue wherein the sculptile mind
Twin'd with the harmless serpent as in sport,
nead, and the faithful girl retired sobbing. Then he called upon Saniboo-
15eg for a song; but Samboo too failed, and left the royal presence howling,
after a vigorous bastinado. Then he told the slaves to bastinado each
other all round—which they did; and afterwards dared not come near
their august master, who sate in his divan alone. " By the beard of
Mahomet's grandmother," said he (and that oath no believer was ever
known to break), " if I do not hear a new poem to-day, I will levy an
income-tax to-morrow upon all Armenia."
Just as evening fell, the curtain of the sacred apartment was drawn
aside, and the head of the chief of the eunuchs appeared between the in-
terstices.
" Grinning hound of a black slave, what wilt thou ?" said the king—
flin^m^ tho sornB tiii*B oiic of Ins top boots in tlic i n Incl
1 Till grew his aspect spectral, and his eye
the smiling sycophant appeared. Flitting athwart a place of sepulchres,
<• Light of the world !" replied the faithful negro, "there 'a a poet come! Hung o'er his shoulders broad and on his breast.
a poet of fame: no other than the great Jawbrahim Heraudee." ***** *
"What! the shiekh of the Svncreteeks ?" cried the king, delighted ; _ . , . .
, • , , , , n j. j ° , r Consistency, eternity s sole law,
" bring sherbet and pipes—go, slaves, get a collation ready, set the loun- z, . ■? . •. '
tains plaving, bring flowers, perfumes, and the best of everything." And ' , m*»t«»w<> universe,
the delighted monarch himself rushed outside the court of the palace to Substance with attribute.
welcome the illustrious stranger. | Then entering into his theme, the poet after these preparatory consi-
There stood indeed the great Jawbrahim; he was not on the back of his derations gave utterance to his sublime epic, which is far too long to be
dromedary, but led the animal by the bridle: it seemed to bend under the noted here. He spoke of the vision of Noah, and the Book of Enoch ; lie
weight of two huge baskets, which hung on either side of his humps. spoke of the children of Cain, of Satan, Judael, Azazael; and when he
" Great bard," said the king, bending low before him, " welcome to the arrived at that splendid part of his work in which he cries—
court of Armenia; thy fame hath long since travelled hither, and Poof- Ob, Amazarah ! most majestical
Allee's heart yearns towards the sage of mount Caucasus." Of'women, wisest and most amorous!
Jawbrahim-Heraudee, who knew the fallacious nature of his majesty's , , , , , • j j a uj. a * 1
,■ . , , ' , ,-ff , . ,. • , . . * > , he looked up at the king and paused, expecting no doubt that applause
compliments and welcome, made a stiff salutation m reply to this oratorical ., 1 ° 1 ' 1 ° 1 r
flourish, and thus said : " The fame of Poof-Allee has reached to the sum- WO™ ^nsue- , , . „,aj__i„ „<.__t„j
•4 f _ . n u . tt .i . , r . , The king bounced up on his seat—the black eunuch suddenly started
mit of mount Caucasus ; the world cries that he is a lover of poetry, and : 7 s, J ., , , , , . t>„„i/„ r>__i„„
, , • .. n , • ,,, 1 •" and opened his great goggling black eyes—the lovely Koolee-roolee
a generous patron of bards—and is it so, O king V s , , ? . 8 °° f J rm_ n, u_j n
t u i- i »u i \ to ,. . a, t. i- stretched out her fair arms and gave a yawn. 1 lie tact is, they had all
Jawbrahim spoke these words in such a queer satiric way, that Poof- . =Llct^11L" ul" l ■ *
Ailee did not at first know whether he was complimenting him, or merely ' bee" asleep tor hours.
*i- u j « v> . t i » -j u « 6 t . .»t " Samboo—Roolee-Poolee' cried the -Monarch, " 1 was a little overtaken
laughing at his beard. "Poetry I love, said he; '• poets I respect, if I , , , . 7 r , , . , ' ... ,, ,,,
c ■P*i :„• l u * r» r> 1_ ■ i i i i \> ' and did not hear that awful bug poem, but vou can repeat it, can t ye 5
imd them original : but, O Caucasian sage ! many poets have come before £ , -,iT j .. 1 . i t- n. mi* K__v +„
me, who were but maguies with peacocks' plumes; who looked like lions, \ bambo° the lad? couldt,uot rfPeat °»e word of it They began to
but lo! when they opened their mouths, braved like donkevs : these 1 I sta™ ' the catechisms of everlasting Heaven, -' the mundane egg in
chastise as they deserve; but the real poet I honour with my "soul." wondrous trident boiled'-'the harmless spectral serpent with his eye
Am I a real poet, or a false poet V inquired Jawbrahim,
" That I cannot tell, except from reputation, and can only be sure of
when I have heard a specimen of your art. Be it original, I promise you
that, though your work be twenty cantos long, I will pay its weight in
j;old ; but be it a copy (as I shall know, for I know by heart every known
flitting athwart a pair of spectacles'—but as for repeating the whole of
the lines, that was impossible. The king was obliged fairly to give in, and
to confess for the first time in his life that the poem he had heard was
original.
0 sage," said he, (in quite a new compliment,) " your poem does equal
poem in the world), I shall exercise upon thy heels the wholesome c?edlt t0 ■vour, hea<! a'ld heart\ 1 cJaunot reward J'°U as.y0U f6^' T
rattan " that poor guerdon which my straitened circumstances permit me to oner to
the original poet is justly thine. Take thy poem to my treasurer, have
the book in which it is written weighed against the purest gold, and by
the beard of the prophet's relative, the gold shall be thine."
" Will it not please you to hear the rest of the poem, sire ?" said the
sage, "there are but forty thousand lines more, and having vouchsafed to
" May my heels be beaten into calf's-foot jelly," replied Jawbrahim,
*' it the poem I shall sing before your Majesty be not entirely unknown
to you. Only the moon has heard it as yet, as I lay upon the snowy peak
oi Caucasus—or, mayhap, an owl has listened to a stanza or two of it, as
he flapped by mv midnight couch upon his pinions white."
" Will you take a trifle of anything before you be^in ?" asked the king ■ Sive me a Patieut hearing since yesterday,
but the sage only waved his head in scorn, and, tying up his dromedary [ "Smce ^enV exclaimed Poof-Allee
to a post in the courtyard, said that he required no refreshment, but
would commence his poem at once. Accordingly the monarch and his
suite led the way, and seated themselves in the magnificent chamber of
the palace which was called the golden nightingale cage, or the hall
of song.
" I have, sir, a choice of works which I can recite to you. Will you
have a sonata to Swedenborg, an ode to Madame Krudner, or a little
didactic, enclytic, aesthetic—in a word, synthetic piece, on the harmony of
the sensible and moral worlds and the symbolical schools of religion 3"
The subjects, sir, do honour to your morality," replied the kino-,
* but strike us as rather tedious."
'■ My ode to my country \ —
O for dear Little Britain—for dear Little Britain—mv country.
Close to Goswell-street road,—closer to Simmary Axe,_
" Simmary, my lord, is not the real, and, so to say, organic pronunciation
of the term—but rather the synthetic and popular one.
O for dear Little Britain, that's near thy row Paternoster,
Near to the Post-office new, neai to the Bull and the Mouth.
O for Aldersgate pump!"—
'•Those jaw-breaking hexameters and pentameters, 0 sage!" here
interposed the monarch, who had already begun to yawn, "were never much
to my taste ; and if you will please to confine yourself to some metre more
■consonant to the Armenian language"—(in which dialect, it need scarcely
be stated that the poet and the monarch both spoke),—" if you will con-
descend to try rhyme, or at the worst, blank verse, I shall listen with
much greater pleasure."
" Sire, I will enunciate a poem in sixteen cantos, if you please, and
written in the Dantesque terza-rima." But the unconscionable Sovereign
3f Armenia, knowing the extreme difficulty of hunting up the rhymes in
that most puzzling of metres, begged Jawbrahim rather to confine himself
" Since yesterday at sunset, when I began ; and the stars came out, and
still my song continued j and the moon rose, and lo ! my voice never
faltered ; and the cock crew, but we were singing before him ; and the
skies were red, and I, like the rising sun, was unwearied ; and the noontide
came and Jawbrahim Heraudee still spake of Azazael and Samiasa."
" Mercy upon us, the man has been talking and we have been asleep
for four-and-twenty hours," cried lovely little Roolee-Poolee.
" Your Majesty paid me a compliment not to notice how the hours
flew," said Jawbrahim, " and I will now proceed, by your leave, with the
44th canto : beginning with an account of the birds"—
Then came the birds that fly, perch, walk, or swim,
On trees the Inoessorial station hold,
The Gallinaceous tribes must feed and walk ;
The Waders * * * *
" Hold your intolerable tongue, 0 poet with a burned father ! " roared
King Poof-Allee in a fury. " I can bear no more of thy cursed prate,
and will call my slaves with bamboo canes if thou utterest another word."
" Thou promisedst me gold and not a beating, 0 king ! " cried the sage,
scornfully. " Is it thus that the Armenian monarchs keep their word ? "
" Take thy gold in the name of the prophet! " replied the king—"go to
my treasurer and he shall pay it to thee."
" He will doubtless not pay without a draft from thy royal hand."
" I can't write ! " shouted the king ; and then recollecting himself, and
his reputation as a literary genius, blushed profusely, and said, "that is,
I can write, but 1 do not choose to have my signature in the hand of every
rogue who may take a fancy to forge it. Here, take my ring, and Samboo
go thou with Jawbrahim ; see his poem weighed by the treasurer, and its
weight in gold counted out to the poet (may dirt be flung on his mother's
grave). Go, Samboo, and execute my commission."
" On my eyes be it !" replied the faithful negro ; and, with Jawbrahim,
to blank verse : on which the Caucasian sage, taking his harp sun" as wlk0se face wore a look of exulting malignity, quitted the royal presence,
•"ollows :— ' 6 * * * , *