Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (25 page)

Sir, where’s the scrape you did not help me through,

You that are wise? And for the fools, the folk

Who came to see, – the guests, (observe that word!)

[350] Pray do you find guests criticize your wine,

Your furniture, your grammar, or your nose?

Then, why your ‘medium’? What’s the difference?

Prove your madeira red-ink and gamboge, –

Your Sludge, a cheat – then, somebody’s a goose

For vaunting both as genuine. ‘Guests!’ Don’t fear!

They’ll make a wry face, nor too much of that,

And leave you in your glory.

                                  ‘No, sometimes

They doubt and say as much!’ Ay, doubt they do!

And what’s the consequence? ‘Of course they doubt’ –

[360] (You triumph) ‘that explains the hitch at once!

Doubt posed our “medium,” puddled his pure mind;

He gave them back their rubbish: pitch chaff in,

Could flour come out o’ the honest mill?’ So, prompt

Applaud the faithful: cases flock in point,

‘How, when a mocker willed a “medium” once

Should name a spirit James whose name was George,

“James” cried the “medium,” –’twas the test of truth!’

In short, a hit proves much, a miss proves more.

Does this convince? The better: does it fail?

[370] Time for the double-shotted broadside, then –

The grand means, last resource. Look black and big!

‘You style us idiots, therefore – why stop short?

Accomplices in rascality: this we hear

In our own house, from our invited guest

Found brave enough to outrage a poor boy

Exposed by our good faith! Have you been heard?

Now, then, hear us; one man’s not quite worth twelve.

You see a cheat? Here’s some twelve see an ass:

Excuse me if I calculate: good day!’

[380] Out slinks the sceptic, all the laughs explode,

Sludge waves his hat in triumph!

                                  
Or – he don’t.

There’s something in real truth (explain who can!)

One casts a wistful eye at, like the horse

Who mopes beneath stuffed hay-racks and won’t munch

Because he spies a corn-bag: hang that truth,

It spoils all dainties proffered in its place!

I’ve felt at times when, cockered, cosseted

And coddled by the aforesaid company,

Bidden enjoy their bullying, – never fear,

[390] But o’er their shoulders spit at the flying man, –

I’ve felt a child; only, a fractious child

That, dandled soft by nurse, aunt, grandmother,

Who keep him from the kennel, sun and wind,

Good fun and wholesome mud, – enjoined be sweet,

And comely and superior, – eyes askance

The ragged sons o’ the gutter at their game,

Fain would be down with them i’ the thick o’ the filth,

Making dirt-pies, laughing free, speaking plain,

And calling granny the grey old cat she is.

[400] I’ve felt a spite, I say, at you, at them,

Huggings and humbug – gnashed my teeth to mark

A decent dog pass! It’s too bad, I say,

Ruining a soul so!

                But what’s ‘so,’ what’s fixed,

Where may one stop? Nowhere! The cheating’s nursed

Out of the lying, softly and surely spun

To just your length, sir! I’d stop soon enough:

But you’re for progress. ‘All old, nothing new?

Only the usual talking through the mouth,

Or writing by the hand? I own, I thought

[410] This would develop, grow demonstrable,

Make doubt absurd, give figures we might see,

Flowers we might touch. There’s no one doubts you, Sludge!

You dream the dreams, you see the spiritual sights,

The speeches come in your head, beyond dispute.

Still, for the sceptics’ sake, to stop all mouths,

We want some outward manifestation! – well,

The Pennsylvanians gained such; why not Sludge?

He may improve with time!’

                        Ay, that he may!

He sees his lot: there’s no avoiding fate.

[420] ’Tis a trifle at first. ‘Eh, David? Did you hear?

You jogged the table, your foot caused the squeak,

This time you’re … joking, are you not, my boy?’

‘N-n-no!’ – and I’m done for, bought and sold henceforth.

The old good easy jog-trot way, the … eh?

The … not so very false, as falsehood goes,

The spinning out and drawing fine, you know, –

Really mere novel-writing of a sort,

Acting, or improvising, make-believe,

Surely not downright cheatery, – any how,

[430] ’Tis done with and my lot cast; Cheat’s my name:

The fatal dash of brandy in your tea

Has settled what you’ll have the souchong’s smack:

The caddy gives way to the dram-bottle.

Then, it’s so cruel easy! Oh, those tricks

That can’t be tricks, those feats by sleight of hand,

Clearly no common conjurer’s! – no indeed!

A conjurer? Choose me any craft i’ the world

A man puts hand to; and with six months’ pains,

I’ll play you twenty tricks miraculous

[440] To people untaught the trade: have you seen glass blown,

Pipes pierced? Why, just this biscuit that I chip,

Did you ever watch a baker toss one flat

To the oven? Try and do it! Take my word,

Practise but half as much, while limbs are lithe,

To turn, shove, tilt a table, crack your joints,

Manage your feet, dispose your hands aright,

Work wires that twitch the curtains, play the glove

At end o’ your slipper, – then put out the lights

And … there, there, all you want you’ll get, I hope!

[450] I found it slip, easy as an old shoe.

Now, lights on table again! I’ve done my part,

You take my place while I give thanks and rest.

‘Well, Judge Humgruffin, what’s your verdict, sir?

You, hardest head in the United States, –

Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let’s see!

Just an experiment first, for candour’s sake!

I’ll try and cheat you, Judge! The table tilts:

Is it I that move it? Write! I’ll press your hand:

Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge!’

[460] Sludge still triumphant! ‘That a rap, indeed?

That, the real writing? Very like a whale!

Then, if, sir you – a most distinguished man,

And, were the Judge not here, I’d say, … no matter!

Well, sir, if you fail, you can’t take us in, –

There’s little fear that Sludge will!’

                               Won’t he, ma’am?

But what if our distinguished host, like Sludge,

Bade God bear witness that he played no trick,

While you believed that what produced the raps

Was just a certain child who died, you know,

[470] And whose last breath you thought your lips had felt?

Eh? That’s a capital point, ma’am: Sludge begins

At your entreaty with your dearest dead,

The little voice set lisping once again,

The tiny hand made feel for yours once more,

The poor lost image brought back, plain as dreams,

Which image, if a word had chanced recall,

The customary cloud would cross your eyes,

Your heart return the old tick, pay its pang!

A right mood for investigation, this!

[480] One’s at one’s ease with Saul and Jonathan,

Pompey and Caesar: but one’s own lost child …

I wonder, when you heard the first clod drop

From the spadeful at the grave-side, felt you free

To investigate who twitched your funeral scarf

Or brushed your flounces? Then, it came of course

You should be stunned and stupid; then, (how else?)

Your breath stopped with your blood, your brain struck work.

But now, such causes fail of such effects,

All’s changed, – the little voice begins afresh,

[490] Yet you, calm, consequent, can test and try

And touch the truth. ‘Tests? Didn’t the creature tell

Its nurse’s name, and say it lived six years,

And rode a rocking-horse? Enough of tests!

Sludge never could learn that!’

                           He could not, eh?

You compliment him. ‘Could not?’ Speak for yourself!

I’d like to know the man I ever saw

Once, – never mind where, how, why, when, – once saw,

Of whom I do not keep some matter in mind

He’d swear I ‘could not’ know, sagacious soul!

[500] What? Do you live in this world’s blow of blacks,

Palaver, gossipry, a single hour

Nor find one smut has settled on your nose,

Of a smut’s worth, no more, no less? – one fact

Out of the drift of facts, whereby you learn

What someone was, somewhere, somewhen, somewhy?

You don’t tell folk – ‘See what has stuck to me!

Judge Humgruffin, our most distinguished man,

Your uncle was a tailor, and your wife

Thought to have married Miggs, missed him, hit you!’ –

[510] Do you, sir, though, you see him twice a-week?

‘No,’ you reply, ‘what use retailing it?

Why should I?’ But, you see, one day you
should
,

Because one day there’s much use, – when this fact

Brings you the Judge upon both gouty knees

Before the supernatural; proves that Sludge

Knows, as you say, a thing he ‘could not’ know:

Will not Sludge thenceforth keep an outstretched face

The way the wind drives?

                      ‘Could not!’ Look you now,

I’ll tell you a story! There’s a whiskered chap,

[520] A foreigner, that teaches music here

And gets his bread, – knowing no better way:

He says, the fellow who informed of him

And made him fly his country and fall West

Was a hunchback cobbler, sat, stitched soles and sang,

In some outlandish place, the city Rome,

In a cellar by their Broadway, all day long;

Never asked questions, stopped to listen or look,

Nor lifted nose from lapstone; let the world

Roll round his three-legged stool, and news run in

[530] The ears he hardly seemed to keep pricked up.

Well, that man went on Sundays, touched his pay,

And took his praise from government, you see;

For something like two dollars every week,

He’d engage tell you some one little thing

Of some one man, which led to many more,

(Because one truth leads right to the world’s end)

And make you that man’s master – when he dined

And on what dish, where walked to keep his health

And to what street. His trade was, throwing thus

[540] His sense out, like an ant-eater’s long tongue,

Soft, innocent, warm, moist, impassible,

And when ’twas crusted o’er with creatures – slick,

Their juice enriched his palate. ‘Could not Sludge!’

I’ll go yet a step further, and maintain,

Once the imposture plunged its proper depth

I’ the rotten of your natures, all of you, –

(If one’s not mad nor drunk, and hardly then)

It’s impossible to cheat – that’s, be found out!

Go tell your brotherhood this first slip of mine,

[550] All today’s tale, how you detected Sludge,

Behaved unpleasantly, till he was fain confess,

And so has come to grief! You’ll find, I think,

Why Sludge still snaps his fingers in your face.

There now, you’ve told them! What’s their prompt reply?

‘Sir, did that youth confess he had cheated me,

I’d disbelieve him. He may cheat at times;

That’s in the “medium”-nature, thus they’re made,

Vain and vindictive, cowards, prone to scratch.

And so all cats are; still, a cat’s the beast

[560] You coax the strange electric sparks from out,

By rubbing back its fur; not so a dog,

Nor lion, nor lamb: ’tis the cat’s nature, sir!

Why not the dog’s? Ask God, who made them beasts!

D’ye think the sound, the nicely-balanced man

(‘Like me’ – aside) – ‘like you yourself,’ – (aloud)

‘– He’s stuff to make a “medium”? Bless your soul,

’Tis these hysteric, hybrid half-and-halfs,

Equivocal, worthless vermin yield the fire!

We take such as we find them, ’ware their tricks,

[570] Wanting their service. Sir, Sludge took in you –

How, I can’t say, not being there to watch:

He was tried, was tempted by your easiness, –

He did not take in me!’

                   Thank you for Sludge!

I’m to be grateful to such patrons, eh,

When what you hear’s my best word? ’Tis a challenge;

‘Snap at all strangers, half-tamed prairie-dog,

So you cower duly at your keeper’s beck!

Cat, show what claws were made for, muffling them

Only to me! Cheat others if you can,

[580] Me, if you dare!’ And, my wise sir, I dared –

Did cheat you first, made you cheat others next,

And had the help o’ your vaunted manliness

To bully the incredulous. You used me?

Have not I used you, taken full revenge,

Persuaded folk they knew not their own name,

And straight they’d own the error! Who was the fool

When, to an awe-struck wide-eyed open-mouthed

Circle of sages, Sludge would introduce

Milton composing baby-rhymes, and Locke

[590] Reasoning in gibberish, Homer writing Greek

In noughts and crosses, Asaph setting psalms

To crotchet and quaver? I’ve made a spirit squeak

In sham voice for a minute, then outbroke

Bold in my own, defying the imbeciles –

Have copied some ghost’s pothooks, half a page,

Then ended with my own scrawl undisguised.

‘All right! The ghost was merely using Sludge,