(Hub Journalist Club, March 10, 1923)

„O vos qui stomacho laboratis, accurrite, et ego vos restaurabo.”

—From the Sign of the First Eating-House in Paris, 1774.

„Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.”

—Virgil.

To WISECRACK SANDUSKY, Esq., B.I., M.B.O.

Bachelor of Intelligence, Massachusetts Brotherhood of Owls) Sir:—

In dedicating to you this ponderous epick, I am but repaying the evil you have committed in soliciting a contribution from so obsolete an old country-gentleman as myself. It additionally delights me, however, to render a tribute to one who hath so considerably enrich’d the lighter part of our tongue; a task neglected since Dean Swift’s essay on Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738), and by you perform’d with a zealous aptness which should be the model of every philologist and lexicographer.

I, Sir, am an old-fashion’d man still partial to the language of Dr. Johnson’s aera; you are a creator of that lively speech which will be classical a century hence. Such a common aversion to the tame diction of this age, ought to establish betwixt us a bond of scholarship supplementing that bond of friendship already so firm; and in this hope I inscribe to you these immortal lines.

Believe me, Sir, to be ever

   Your most humble, most obedient Servant,

      H.P.L.

Providence, March 1923.

Lud, Sir! What’s this you ask me to relate?

The Boston feast, and all I heard and ate?

Sure, that were hard, since Comus was so free

That sheer profusion clogs my memory!

Dazzled with art, and drugg’d with splendid fare,

My rustick pencil falters in despair,

And scarce commands the talent to set down

Such modish revels of a learned town!

Dark was the sky, when with expectant mind

I left my native rural shades behind;

A niveous mist oppress’d the leaden day,

As the fleet coach roll’d o’er the devious way,

Till close ahead in ancient pomp there rose

The spires and roofs that mark’d my journey’s close.

But now behold! where once the scene was dark,

A radiant Cole supplies th’ enlightening spark:

Dusk yields to light, and shades affrighted flit

Before the beams of Cantabridgian wit!

Now to the rout, where mirth and musick reign,

And Gaster vies with Jocus’ pleasing strain.

Sink me! What splendour strikes my aged sight,

Where ev’ry face, and ev’ry word, is bright!

Thro’ tavern halls the laugh decorous floats,

To join the lute’s and viol’s melting notes:

Swift flies the jest, whilst Priscian’s shade grows pale

As novel terms, and new-coin’d quips, prevail.

‘Zounds, what high syntax! what exalted speech!

Words that no Johnson’s soaring skill could reach!

Sanduskian genius hurls the rules in limbo,

And sings the “gink”, the “oil can”, and the “bimbo”;

“Lay off, old egg!” he cries, “your tank is leaking!”

(Piquant in metaphor, acute in speaking!)

“Nobody home there, bo—no use to knock on ye!

But bozo, can that line of low-grade Socony!”

Thus the glib tongue and nimble brain prolong

The gen’ral mirth, and season ev’ry song;

Lift the light step as all the crowd convene

Around the board, whilst cameras paint the scene.

Here eminence appears, austere and great,

The deathless Muses, and the Fourth Estate;

Here wit shines free from poverty’s rude pinch,

And weaves a halo round imperial Lynch!

Fare in abundance (scan the luscious list!),

With melody ne’er eager to desist;

The song, the dance, the rebeck’s golden chord;

The sprightly whisper pass’d along the board;

Then the grave pause, and as the meal is o’er,

The speakers reign—myself the only bore.

Demosthenes now lays aside The Crown,

And Cicero goes way back and sits down;

For Boston eloquence no peer hath known

Since the first founders kiss’d the Blarney Stone.

What wealths of wisdom win an exposition

From poet, pamphleteer, and politician!

Statesman and journalist with sense descant,

And the grave bard contests the wild gallant;

With senile voice my village jests I tell,

Whilst genius whelms me o’er with Machiavel:

Across our sight a thousand visions sail—

Florence and Fleet-Street, Helicon and gaol!

But hark! ‘Fore Heaven! how agile Time hath pass’d,

Tho’ each bright speech seems shorter than the last;

For peaks of thought, however high they tow’r,

Can’t overawe the clock or stay the hour.

Gad’s death!—’tis twelve, when honest toil reposes,

And in a brief half-hour the subway closes!

So on the scene the curtain’s folds descend,

And the gay feast draws pensive to its end;

Join’d to the ages, planted in the sky

To wake the songs of better bards than I.

Pozz—now I’m done! And you, Sir, I entreat

To hide my couplets well within your sheet;

That the kind folk who heard my speaking thro’

May have less cause to curse my name anew!