The Portland daily press., 1879-05-24
Yorick's Drawer.

thou5h IL pO, VI hHoWillS tudt lllere are Olli-
ers as ignorant of the best literature as he.
Here follows what the New Hampshire
correspondent has to say. Would the letter
were longer. After reading itone confident
ly disputes the propriety of the expression,
"unlettered Epping." The town certainly
has an acquaintance like that which Steele
thought to be a liberal education:
You will doubtless find many resp ondents to
your inquiries as to the authorship of the quo
tations in last Saturdays PRESS, but venture
to send answers to few of them as an excuse
for asking few question of my own.
Your fifth quotation
Through sorrows night and dangers path
the first line of hymn by Henry Kirke
white and can be found in about any of the
hymn books in general use. You will find it
in the Sabbath Hymn Book, edited by Profs.
Park and Phelps and Lowell Mason. Here
are the last stanzas:
These ashes to this little dust,j
Our Fathers care shall keep,
Till the last angel rise and break
The long and dreary sleep.
Then loves soft dew DER every eye,
Shall shed its mildest rays;
And the long silent voice awake
With shouts of endless praise.
Your tenth question finds its answer in Don
Juan, Canto Fifteenth stanza XIV. where
Byron is describing Aurora Raby:
Early in years, and yet more infantine
In figure she had something of sublime
In eyes, which sadly shone seraph's shine;
All youth-but with an aspect beyond time,
Radiant and grave-as pitying mans decline;
Mournful- but mournful of another's crime;
She looked as if she sat by Eden's door,
And grieved for those who could return no more.
The next "Thus hours shall pass" &C., am
almost sure is from charming lyric by Ken
yon called Champagne Rose". L have known
and admired the poem years ago, but it is so
long since / have thought Of it that / cannot
repeat it now to convince myself that your
quotation really belongs among the stanzas,
although 1 shall be disappointed if it does not
Next to the lines about the Coliseum, which
have seen but cannot place inst now come
those FROM Robert Browning from poem
called ''The Laboratory. (Ancien Regime "
1t is to be found among Dramatic Lyrics in
Ticknor & Fields's edition of Robert Brown
ing's Poems, vol. 2nd., 1868. They are a part
OF the soliloquy of court beauty as she watches
the alchemist preparing the subtle poison with
which she means to destroy her rival. Your
fourteenth fragment is from "The Marriage of
Sir Gawaine,' in Percys Reliques of Ancient
English Poetry, the twenty-sixth and twenty
seventh stanzas of Parte the Seconde.
You were right again as to yonr eighteenth
ly'', which certainly belongs to Robert Brown
ing in his Pippa Passes. The three lines which
you remembered are from Pippa's New Years
Hymn:
If now, as formerly He trod
PARADISE, his presence fills
Our earth; each only as God wills
Can work-God's puppets, best and worst
Are we; there is no last nor first.
Say not "a small event!" Why small?
Costs it more pain than this We call
A great event" should come to pass
Than that? Untwne me from the mass
OF deeds which make up life, one deed
Power shall fall short in or exceed
The poem closes with Pippa's repeating your
three lines varied little, as thus
All service is the same with God
win COD, whose puppets, best and worst
Are we-there is no last or first.
Ii l were in Portland, or some other place
less devoid of books than this pleasant but un-
lettered Epping Forest, think L could answer
nearly all of your other questions. But there
are many others more competent than L to give
you the desired information. If you should
happen to find the lyric of Kenyons "Cham-
pagne Rose" of which I speak, will you b, so
kind as to print it in the PRESS? 1t is so
graceful and charming a poem that am sure
your many readers, as well as yourself will be
glad to become acquainted with it,
And now will venture to bring forward my
queries. viii you tell me whose were the
swords renowned in fiction? What were they
named and where shall find out "all about
them; as my little children say, Mamma tell
us all about it." Then having done SO much
for me, will you enlighten me as to the forty
six horses known to old-world fable and tell
me all about them also. I know a few of the
swords and two or three of the steeds, but L
yearn to recognize them all. And then the
dogs-I must not forget them. Please tell me
OF the nine famous ones, for alas! L cannot call
them by their names although / know few
Ii you, gentle Yorick, will enlighten my ig-
norance on these points, you will do me favor
in addition to that which you confer upon me
every week by the wise, witty, pleasant and
as in last Saturdays MAY 15,] paper, poetic
contents of your Drawer.
a CONSTANT READER.
There is good authority for putting the
last first, and so we will begin with the dogs.
First there is Cerberus,-and last too. for
he is always in at the death. Then there is
Al Rakim, who took the longest dog-nap
on record; he was in the cave with the
Seven Sleepers, says the Mahometan form of
the legend, and is one of the five brutes ad-
mitfn1 IN Paro6ica. fl,a 9th |,
of Abraham's sacrifice, Balaam's ass, the ass
upon which Christ rode into Jerusalem, and
the mare that carried Mahomet to heaven.
Cerberus had two brothers, Orthos distin-
guished for having but two heads, and Gar
gittios, remembered, like some others, brute
and human, for belonging to a famous fami-
ly. Gargittios was very proud of his blood
which Hercules by the way, shed. These
dogs belonged to six-legged Geryon, the
champion pedestrian of his time, and who,
it may be remembered, carried away the
bean-pot in the great Hesperian walking
match. The fifth dog is Gelert, Llewellyn's
hound, who was killed by the Welsh Prince
in fit of emotional insanity: We all re-
member how the Prince came home and
found the babe dead and the dogs mouth
bloody. The sixth dog is Fingars Bran, of
whom Macpherson tells us in Ossian. Scott
says that in the Highlands the greatest COM
pliment that can be paid to dog is, eff it
is not Bran it is Bran's brother" The sew
enth dog is Luarth. He has double per-
sonality. In Ossian he is the famous hound
owned by Cuchullin; in Burns 'Twa Dogs"
he is the plebeian cur. The eighth is Lud-
lam's-"lazy as Ludlam's dog" the prov
erb runs, "who leaned his head against the
wall to bark" Ludlam was witch who,
Isss Is sss.s !, - ~,