While, like a rapid, ghastly river, A hideous throng rush out forever, And laugh-but smile no more. Edgar A. Poe. FOR PREPARATION.-I. "The House of Usher" reappears here under the name of "The Haunted Palace," which fantastically reflects its lurid atmosphere, but with a clearer portraiture of the lineaments of a genius going to wreck through dissipation. "Porphyrogene "—" born in purple," or of “royal birth” (kings of the Eastern, Roman, Empire). It must be remembered that the nature of poetry, music, and all art, admits of much variety in interpreting it into definite thoughts. II. Vǎl'-leys, mon'-areh (-ark), sĕr'-aph, ĕeh'-oes (čk ́ōz), en-tombed (-toomd'), hid'-e-oŭs. III. Copy the 1st stanza, and mark the feet and accented syllables. Note the sixth line: "It - stood - there "-three feet, with one syllable each, which should be pronounced long. (See XCVIII., vi.) Note the lines which have alliteration: radiant, reared; seraph, spread; fabric fair; glorious, golden; float, flow; etc. IV. Tenanted, radiant, reared, dominion, pinion, fabric, dallied, ramparts, "plumed and pallid," luminous, lute. V. "Stately palace," "reared its head." Note the intrusion of the image of man into the description of a house. The figure of a noble human form rises constantly before the mind, and the broad and lofty brow of Poe suggests itself to the reader-that brow "plumed and pallid." Through two luminous windows saw spirits moving musically" (looking into the eyes saw poetic thoughts). "Pearl and ruby " (teeth and lips) of the "palacedoor" (mouth, which sang in rhymes, "echoes" of the "wit and wisdom" of the soul within). "Evil things" (misfortune, opium, and strong drink assailed). "Red-litten" (eyes bleared with dissipation); "discordant melody" (of the spectres of delirium tremens). LXXXV.-A RILL FROM THE TOWN PUMP. 1. Noon by the north clock! noon by the.east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a rough time of it! And among all the public characters chosen at the March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burden of such manifold duties as are imposed in perpetuity upon the Town Pump? 2. The title of "town treasurer" is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire-department, and one of the physicians of the board of health. 3. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town clerk, by promulgating public notices when they are pasted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. 4. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for all day long I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am and to keep people out of the gutters. 5. At this sultry noontide I am cup-bearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dram-seller on the mall, at muster-day I cry aloud to all and sundry in my plainest accents, and at the very tip-top of my voice, "Here it is, gentlemen! here is the good liquor! Walk up-walk up, gentlemen! walk up! walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of Father Adam -better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price. Here it is, by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen! walk up, and help yourselves!" 6. It were a pity if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come! A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice, cool sweat! You, my friend, will need another cupful, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see you have trudged half a score of miles to-day, and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burned to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish! Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations -which he drained from no cup of mine. 7. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers hitherto; nor, to express the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man! the water absolutely hisses down your red-hot gullet, and is converted quite to steam. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by, and whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply at the old stand. 8. Who next?-Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child! put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the stones that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. 9. What! he limps by without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir! no harm done, I hope! Go, draw the cork, tip the decanter; but when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind-legs and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again!—Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout? 10. Are you all satisfied? Then wipe your mouths, my good friends; and, while my spout has a moment's leisure, I will delight the town with a few historical reminiscences. In far antiquity, beneath a darksome shadow of venerable boughs, a spring bubbled out of the leafstrewn earth, in the very spot where you behold me on the sunny pavement. The water was as bright and clear, and deemed as precious, as liquid diamonds. The Indian Sagamores drank of it from time immemorial, till the fearful deluge of fire-water burst upon the red men, and swept the whole race away from the cold fountains. Endicott and his followers came next, and often knelt down to drink, dipping their long beards in the spring. The richest goblet then was of birch-bark. 11. Governor Winthrop drank here, out of the hollow of his hand. The elder Higginson here wet his palm and laid it on the brow of the first town-born child. For many years it was the watering-place, and, as it were, the washbowl of the vicinity, whither all decent folks resorted to purify their visages, and gaze at them afterward—at least the pretty maidens did-in the mirror which it made. On Sabbath-days, whenever a babe was to be baptized, the sexton filled his basin here, and placed it on the communion-table of the humble meeting-house which partly covered the site of yonder stately brick one. Thus one generation after another was consecrated to Heaven by its waters, and cast its waxing and waning shadows into its glassy bosom, and vanished from the earth as if mortal life were but a flitting image in a fountain. Finally, the fountain vanished also. Cellars were dug on all sides, and cart-loads of gravel flung upon its source, whence oozed a turbid stream, forming a mud-puddle at the corner of two streets. 12. In the hot months, when its refreshment was most needed, the dust flew in clouds over the forgotten birthplace of the waters, now their grave. But in the course of time a Town Pump was sunk into the source of the ancient spring; and when the first decayed, another took its place, and then another, and still another, till here stand I, gentlemen and ladies, to serve you, with my iron goblet. Drink, and be refreshed! The water is pure and cold as that which slaked the thirst of the red Sagamore beneath the aged boughs, though now the gem of the wilderness is treasured under these hot stones, where no shadow falls but from the brick buildings. |