FIGURE me to yourself, I pray -- A man of my peculiar cut -- Apart from dancing and deray, Into an Alpine valley shut; Shut in a kind of damned Hotel, Discountenanced by God and man; The food? -- Sir, you would do as well To cram your belly full of bran. The company? Alas, the day That I should dwell with such a crew, With devil anything to say, Nor any one to say it to! The place? Although they call it Platz, I will be bold and state my view; It's not a place at all -- and that's The bottom verity, my Dew. There are, as I will not deny, Innumerable inns; a road; Several Alps indifferent high; The snow's inviolable abode; Eleven English parsons, all Entirely inoffensive; four True human beings -- what I call Human -- the deuce a cipher more; A climate of surprising worth; Innumerable dogs that bark; Some air, some weather, and some earth; A native race -- God save the mark! -- A race that works, yet cannot work, Yodels, but cannot yodel right, Such as, unhelp'd, with rusty dirk, I vow that I could wholly smite. A river that from morn to night Down all the valley plays the fool; Not once she pauses in her flight, Nor knows the comfort of a pool; But still keeps up, by straight or bend, The self-same pace she hath begun -- Still hurry, hurry, to the end -- Good God, is that the way to run? If I a river were, I hope That I should better realise The opportunities and scope Of that romantic enterprise. I should not ape the merely strange, But aim besides at the divine; And continuity and change I still should labour to combine. Here should I gallop down the race, Here charge the sterling like a bull; There, as a man might wipe his face, Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool. But what, my Dew, in idle mood, What prate I, minding not my debt? What do I talk of bad or good? The best is still a cigarette. Me whether evil fate assault, Or smiling providences crown -- Whether on high the eternal vault Be blue, or crash with thunder down -- I judge the best, whate'er befall, Is still to sit on one's behind, And, having duly moistened all, Smoke with an unperturbed mind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: JUDGE SELAH LIVELY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS FLEMING HELPHENSTINE by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT A THOUGHT by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES A SHORT SONG OF CONGRATULATION by SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM by THOMAS MOORE |