Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1884-03-10
OLDEN FALLACIES.
DAVID HILL.

Have you heard of that marvellous pool
On the beautiful Bimini shore,
Whose bright waters translucent and cool,
All the magic of ' youth can restore?
Have you drank of that Fountain of Youth?
Have you searched South American lands
For that place-El Dorado by name.
Where Manoa, its capitol stands
Filled with wealth that no mortal can claim!
Does that fair Ell Dorado exist?
Have you wandered like Hercules down
To that land of the soft summer breeze,
For those apples of worldly renown
That were kept by the Hesperides?
Have you faith in those apples of gold?
Have you read of that wonderful theme,
How that Phrygian monarch of old
Took bath in a Lydian stream,
And converted its sands into gold?s
Have YOU searched for Pactolean sands?
Have you wondered how gods pass away,
Who once tasted ambrosa to live?
Can that Jove-born Helena to-day
Quote the joys that nepenthe can give?
Can YOU find that Almathean horn?
Have you faith in magical wand,
Or Alcests who rose from her grave?
Does Atlantis that mythical land
Like Lemuria, rest under the wave?
Are Charybdis and Seyalla extinct?
Does that huge Sakhral emerald hold
On its pivot that long mountain wall,
Which that Arabic legend has told
Winds around this terrestrial ball?
Have you seen those wierd mountains of CAT?
Was that ''black stone" ofMecca renown,
Sent to earth, as read, from above?
Was that oil filled ampulla sent down
Out of Heaven, to Rheims, by dove?
Is Aganippes fountain extint?
Are there angels, and goblins, and elves,
Long haired witches, and fairies, and ghosts,
Ghastly beings unlike to ourselves
Waiting round unseen, and in hosts?
Is that Prussian s'White Lady"* a myth?
Are there spirits and shadows, and lines,
Headless horses,t and Bunshees, and Fates,
To forewarn us with symbols and signs,
| Our approach to eternity's gates?
| Does Appollyon receive us at death?
And in fact, are there Stygian floods,
| Eldritch shadows, and Furies, and Ghouls,
Endless rivers, and seas, and dim woods,
Where fit legions of bodess souls?
| Have we friends on Plutonan shores?
| Oh! these wild superstitions of men,
| These wierd legions in prose, and in rhyme;
How we meet them again and again,
| As we drift down the channels of time,
How the ages have handed them down.
| We can find them in Persian and Greek,
And in ancient Rabbnical lore;
| We can find them wherever we seek
These traditions and legends of yore,
| We can find them at home and abroad.
| But we know, when we think, that they rise
Through the frenzy and fire of the brain;
And like mirages haunting the skies,
| Only taunt us and fill us with pain.
| They are phantasies wierd and unreal.
| *There are two white ladies of Prussia One
| Countess Agnes of Orlamnde, who was bur
alive in a vault of palace, and the other the P
cess Bertha Won Rosenberg, who lived in the fife
| tn century. They walk the eaIth '-as apparitior
| visiting different castles and palaces, which V
forbodes the death of some of the royal family.
lin England there was belief that when a per
saw black hearse drawn by headless horses,
driven by headless driver, there would be dc
in the family inside of year.