To Ennui
To Ennui
Original Text
Drake, Joseph Rodman, and Fitz Greene Halleck ("Croaker"), The Croakers (New York:
The Bradford Club, 1860): 1-2.
1Avaunt! arch enemy of fun,
2 Grim nightmare of the mind;
4 A refuge safe to find?
5My puppy's dead -- Miss Rumor's breath
6 Is stopt for lack of news,
7And Fitz is almost hyp'd to death,
8 And Lang has got the blues.
10 Appendix, notes and all;
12 And blundered through De Stael:
13The Edinburg Review – I've seen't
14 The last that has been shipt;
15I've read -- in short -- all books in print,
16 And some in manuscript.
17I'm sick of General Jackson's toast,
18 Canals are nought to me :
19Nor do I care who rules the roast
20 Clinton -- or John Targee:
21No stock in any Bank I own,
22 I fear no Lottery shark
23And if the Battery were gone,
24 I'd ramble in the Park.
25Let gilded Guardsmen shake their toes,
29Insolvent laws let Marshall break,
31And let tenth ward electors shake
32 Committees to the devil.
33In vain -- for like a cruel cat
34 That sucks a child to death,
35Or like a Madagascar bat,
36 Who poisons with his breath,
37The fiend the fiend is on me still;
38 Come, doctor! – here's your pay --
39What lotion, potion, plaster, pill,
40 Will drive the beast away?
Notes
3] "Doctor LANGSTAFF, an Apothecary in this city, and by many reputed the discoverer of pure magnesium at Hoboken" (137). Back to Line
9] "MORDECAI MANNASSAH NOAH was born in Philadelphia in 1785, where he studied law, and mingled in politics and literature. In 1813, President Madison appointed him United States Consul to Morocco. He returned to America in 1819, and published a volume of his travels, and established himself at New York, where he edited the National Advocate. In 1820, he formed a project of collecting the Jews upon Grand Island in the Niagara river, but this, like all previous at tempts to gather this people, proved abortive. In his memorial to the Legislature for the purchase of the Island, he asked for a law giving sanction to the measure, to remove any doubts his coreligionists might have about removing from the old world with the certainty of finding an asylum in the new. A monument was erected on the Island to commemorate the attempt, and upon a marble tablet was inscribed the following inscription:
ARARAT. A CITY OF REFUGE FOR THE JEWS, Founded by MORDECAI M. NOAH, in the month of Tizri, 5586 (September, 1825), and in the 50th year of American Independence.
In 1821, he was appointed Sheriff of New York by the Council of Appointment. He was afterwards connected with the New York Enquirer and the Evening Star, and established the Sunday Times, with which paper he continued until his death on the 22d March, 1851. No man in the city was better known than Major Noah, and no man possessed a greater fund of anecdote, or acquaintance with public characters, with whom his newspaper undertakings had brought him in contact. -- Ency. of Am. Literature" (137-38). Back to Line
11] "Lady Morgan' s clever book on France had been recently published" (138). Back to Line
26] "Altorf, a tragedy, by Frances Wright, performed at the Park Theatre. It enjoyed but a brief existence, although it had the benefit of an excellent cast of characters, including Wallack, Pritchard, Mrs. Barnes and others. It was first performed on the 19th February, 1819. The play was published by Carey & Son of Philadelphia" (138). Back to Line
27] "MICAH HAWKINS wrote a play called The Sawmill, or a Yankee Trick, which was performed at Barriere's Chatham Theatre, in Chatham street, below Pearl street" (138). Back to Line
28] "ALDEN SPOONER was the publisher of the New York Columbian, and subsequently of the Long Island Star" (138). Back to Line
30] "CHARLES N. BALDWIN published the Republican Chronicle in this city, which was discontinued on the 6th March, 1819, and the subscription list transferred to the Columbian" (138). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire / Sharine Leung
RPO Edition
2012
Rhyme
Form