Potiphar Green was a Mowing Machine,
In the "good old days" that are never seen,
Till they get so old they are musty with mould,
And too far off for the eye to behold;
Before the age of McCormick and Manney,
Or Huzzey, or Kirby, or " Buckeye," or any
New-fangled rattle-traps startled your granny
With visions of war and the horrid " embargo,"
Seeing some one-wheeled Juggernaut car go
Doing the work of old Time in the Catechise,
Thing which no prophet had seen with his vatic eyes.
Potiphar Green, as a mowing machine,
Was oiled with the " oil " we often have seen
Sold slyly to Pat at the corner shebeen;
And his edge was kept keen
By a whet, or a wet, every time he set in,
From a little tin can, or a little canteen.
Potiphar got over land with a sort of a
Swinging and swaying, like surging of water ‘fore
Winds in a burry, and carried a swath
That ran like a snake at his side, or the wake
Of his big timbered hulk, rolled off from his path,
As a cart with two wheels, or a ship with two keels,
He, dragging his heels,
Made tracks in the stubble as straight as a lath,
And wide as the stride of Goliath of Gath!
His scythe and his snath
Were none of your " patent" truck, writhing and limber,
But of good stiff steel, and of good ash timber;
"Nateral crook," with a limb for thole,
And a heel ring big as a tryo pint bowl!
He stalked to the field with the tool he would wield,
If sober he stalked, if tipsy he reeled;
Hairy and bearded, a kind of a Sampson,
The picture and pattern of scythe-bearing Saturn,
Or old Father Lamson,*
Dyed in the wool and combed by a slattern.
Proud as Lars Porsena, (vide Macaulay,)
Sent he his challenges rudely and rawly,
Northward and eastward, with trumpety din,
From " Pumpkin Seed Hollow" to "City of Sin,"
Southward and west, for the smartest and best,
From " Rattlesnake Crick " to " Peak Misery's" crest,
To mow on a wager, a gallon of gin,
Three out of five rounds foremost in.
Of the East, of the West, of the South, of the North,
He vowed to cut every thing out of its swath.
Proud as Lars Porsena, swore like a worse sinner,
Not "by the nine gods" only, he'd toss in a
Legion of devils to put the more force in a
Vow that seemed bent to swear nothing else slimmer,
Than mowing old Time himself out of the Primer.
The trial day was a day to try
The lard from a Jew; a day in July,
That sweated you like a Botanic physician,
And blistered as scarce could a reg'lar wish one.
The People were there, the little and great,
Sovereign kings, in their robes of state.
Unwashed, unkempt, as if in contempt
Or urbanity, vanity, soap, and such things
Of the old world’s kings who wear whole breeches,
And oil their wigs with other men’s riches
All the loafers who snuff from far
The blood of the jug, not jugular,
As the vultures snuff that poured in war,
Came airing their linen,—Irish linen,
Of Merrimack cotton in days forgotten,
Through rents beginning to hint, at least,
Of the Fifth Plague "poured on the seat of the Beast."
And of "something in Denmark" decidedly "rotten."
Blue-nose, pug-nose, red-nose, jug-nose,
Blear-eyes, leer-eyes, any but clear eyes;
Hollow cheeks, tallow cheeks, purple and sallow cheeks,
Ape-jawed, ox-lipped, hare-lipped, wry-mouthed;
Rum-dyed, gummed hide, drooling and dry-mouthed;
Swaggering, staggering, blotches of mud,
Degenerations of baboon blood;
Slim shanks, bow-legs, brutes upon two legs,
Flat, fat, squat, hot, shrunk, drunk and what not,
All slump'd together, and sweltered in that lot.
Nothing could match it, in all their section,
But the annual hanging, goose-shoot, or 'lection.
These were their umpires; rather their rum-pyres,
Mouldering, smouldering, just like old stump-fires;
Kings and judges in one great dicker,
Who judged of the bicker, and which went quicker,
But chiefly they judged of the strength of the liquor;
And at every award to the winner, no matter
Which carried the day, the jugs would clatter,
And a drink all round was the fee of the Court,
Who, reared at the "Bar," were expert men,
And, there and then, like the Dutchman's hen,
They "sot stannin' up," till legs fell short,
And wouldn't go round for work or sport.
When some in the way like winrows lay—
If " flesh is grass," making very bad hay.
Some, like gentlemen shrewd in politics,
Hang on the fence, and some whose folly sticks
Out all over, like thistles or bristles,
Seem really to go for
The literal pig-ture of "pigs in the clover,"
Or Nebuchadnezzar the Babble-on grazer,
Or Balaam's Ass, or some of the class
Of speech-using animals gone to grass.
Peter, and Bob, Rob, Bill, and Joe,
And more of mowers came to mow;
He doubled the corners of Joe and Bob,
Cut round Peter a "leetle sight neater
Than a mice would nibble the corn from a cob,"
And left Bill "nowhar," looking for Rob.
Hyer and Heenan, and Patherick Sullivan,
Never knocked glory so quick from the skull of one;
Victory never went sulking so offy,
From foes of the Pauls — old Jones and young Morpby;
Nor painfulest preachers won spirits so quick as
Our Potiphar brought over spirit’us liquors.
Whereof he laid in five gallons in gin,
That fifth proof, or quintescence of sin,
Besides the raw brandy he took to begin,
Which makes our shag-headed Potiphar grin;
But he can't look winniug, however he win!
With grog in his noddle, and grog in his bottle,
He doubled his vaunting, descanting and ranting,
And panting, hart-like, for the spring of his canteen,
By transmigration, or some such fashion,
The spirit, once warm in the clay of his jug,
Would warm his clay, as with tender hug
He drew, in libations, irrational " rations,"
So making the mystic metempsychosis
Of Hindoo mythology, plain as your nose is,
Or e'en as their goddess Minerva's proboscis.§
His face was a blaze in the smoke of his hair,
His nose looming up like a soul in despair;
His mouth like a crater, volcanic and deep,
Where the "craytor" went in that the fire might keep,
And it uttered things which are not pretty to say
In our lay au fait, as be blated away,
Of the prey he would slay in the hay that day.
"Any thing, every thing mowable, gi' me the
Red-top, clover, furze, or timothy,
Wild grass, barn grass, " starve calf," burden,
Bog-land, up-land, set me the third in,
DEATH and the DEVIL may lead it!' said Potiphar,
"I'll mow their heels off like they were shot over!"
Do you see Two Mowers come over the field,
Without sign or word, or seen or heard,
And lead the ‘bout with our man for third?
Two grim mowers who never will yield,
Coine to the challenge of Potiphar Green,
With scythes and whetstones gritty and keen.
One pale and thin. like a vapor of gin,
When a “cocktail" gets too hot in the tin;
Mower and " reaper" in one machine,
Like Manney's, and many's the field I ween
He has reaped and mowed with hand unseen!
And one, a little dark wiry "rip,"
With nose cocked up like the beak of a ship,
All rigid with "grit," a forehead knit
In an everlasting angry fit,
And a black snake's eye deep under it!
The scythe he carries is short and sharp,
And whines in the air like the string of a harp;
Is bent like a sickle, and whetted to tickle
The grass, as it glides with a low shrill hum,
Along the path he is coming to come!
With a short quick snap, like the spring of a trap,
Was the step he took, as, clip on clip,
He rolled the waves of green, as a ship
Might swath the green sea's field; and yet
One could n't say that he never would let
The grass grow yellow under his feet;
For where they beat, there seemed such a heat,
From carbon internal, infernal, or other,
That a sweltering steam went up to smother
The panting air, and under his heels
Two pallid trails ran over the fields,
With a crispy wriggle, like two skinned eels!
Where the ghostly mower struck his steel,
Scarcely the grass lay bent by his heel,
Scarcely would feel one shiver, or reel
From the hungry edge, but, crisp and pale,
Withered to hay as it stood in his trail!
Never you saw the blade which smote,
Heard but a breath-like, moaning note;
Scarcely knew if he stepped, or slid,
On firm earth, as the dark one did,
Or in the air, like a Thing forbid!
The little black rip with a whisking clip,
Clip, clip, clip! right after came,
His lifted weapon flashed like flame,
Sousing down with a scooping stroke,
And up again in its own blue smoke,
And he grinned a fierce grin, such as they grin
Who are in for sin, and determined to win;
And he looked back to his lagging friend
With a glance that was "owly," cery, scowly,
Dreary, queery, as you may depend.
Noon was nigh, and the air was dead,
The sun boiled over its fiery froth
Like a red-hot dinner pot over his head,
Scalding our Potiphar there in his swath,
As he were a lobster, doing him red.
Potiphar thought over all of his brag,
And felt 's heart sag like a stone in a bag,
As he whet and wet, and yet would lag;
Vainly he buckled with might and main,
Sweated and swore, "heeled in" and "reached,"
Sweating and swearing alike were vain,
The rain of sin and the Devil's reign,
And heeling in healed not his pain,
Nor reaching reached to the faith he preached;
For in spite of all, and more again,
Come in as be would, it was getting plain
That he could n't "come in" in that special train!
The umpires lay round loose in the bay,
They could see little and less could say,
But, here and there, were so near the way
Of the pale scythe bearer, they felt the sway
Of his hook's steel back, and lower they sunk,
Not dead, precisely, but just dead drunk!
Was there one? were there two
Who were leading him through?
Hardly the mystified Potiphar knew;
For his eyes, when fixed long on one topic,
Got just the reverse of stereoscopic,
And, image or trouble, turned single to double,
Which had its advantages, too, for the stopple
He pulled from one bottle seemed pulled from a couple,
And cheered for a moment his heart misanthropic.
Clip! clip! clip! Like the merciless snip,
When tailor or Atropos cut “fit” or fate for us,
One ne’er too early, nor t’ other too late for us;
Heel to tip, and hip to hip,
The terrible mowers went and came,
Now far before him, a pallid flame,
And thick black smoke they seemed to him
Who struggled arear with vision dim,
And now so far ahead you’ll find
‘Tis a solemn fact, they are getting behind!
Snip! Snip! clip upon clip,
They turn the corners of Potiphar Green,
Shying him so, as we would a shebeen;
And a wisp of sweltered hay is seen
Tossed on his heel by the wiry rip,
Across the swath of the pallid mower,
A shame that Potiphar never had got over,
Never had suffered or dreamed before.
He claimed a whet; it was short, you may bet,
But he took the balance in "heavy wet;"
While the little sharp imp, with his rifle stick,
Touched his hook with a slide and click,
Looking up with a rub-a-dub and a grin,
Which meant " you are some, but you can't come in!"
And then our Potiphar felt a sort of a
Wilting terror he used n't to feel,
To see that curved edge of steel
Shed fiery flakes from point to heel,
As if it were held on an emery wheel!
The pale one, thinner, paler yet,
Leaned on his snath, and watched 'em whet;
Rifle or whetstone, grindstone, hone,
File or oil stone, ne'er was known
To touch that hungry edge of his,
Which struck but once, and never amiss!
Up and again! away they flew,
Pale one, dark one, leading the blue,
And so wild a chase they put him to,
As the oldest inhabitant never knew;
'T was just a streak of light and dark,
This side, that side, round to the mark!
Winding him in, like a bottle of gin,
Done up for " soap" with a chequered twine,
In the Maine Law days of striped swine!
Darker and darker the Dark One grew;
Paler and paler the Pale of hue,
And bluer and bluer the livid blue,
Once Green, done brown with a purple cast,
"To this complexion" he " comes at last;"
And long before the fifth "set in,"
He'd lost his spirits, he'd lost his gin,
His bottle, his battle, and all he'd win,
With his wit, his grit, and his boastful din.
And Potiphar Green
Seemed to be " nowhar," as Bill had been,
Only more so, very much more, I ween,
For seen just then in the midst of the scene,
An umpire roused by a stench as keen
As sulphur could be in a hot countrie,
A sulphury stench you could almost see,
Held to his nose, as a handle, I s'pose,
To steady himself in his lingering doze,
And looked, and looked, with both his eyes
Rubbed open wide, in a great surprise,
To see what were, and what were n't to be seen.
All over the field a crispy brown,
Running up and down,
With here and there a swath of green,
Marked where the mortal men had mown,
And the two strange mowers had been!
But the field was bare, as shorn fields are;
And barer, for of the rivals there,
Two had melted away in air!
And one was—where?
Echo answered, "I can’t say where,"
By answering nothing; which answers well
In a case where, really, there's nothing to tell.
One by one the loafers rose
Tweaked in the nose by a brimstone smell,
That carried in 't a significant hint
Of things that aren't to be said in print,
Or sung in a savory canticle!
In all the air, and in all the plain,
They looked in vain for the wonderful twain;
In field, and bush, and grass, and grain,
They looked in vain for the third of the train,
Till they chanced to peep at a smouldering heap.
Of cinders black, that seemed to weep
A pitchy ooze that mixed with the turf
Like a wave of Acharon's sooty surf!
Scorched and black, a heel-ring hot,
On a hot scythe's heel, lay near the spot,
And right in the midst of the tarry ooze,
Four or five spikes from his hob-nailed shoes,
Told the loafers that there were seen
The smouldering ashes of Potiphar Green!
The tale is sooth, and the case veracious;
But how it chanced, and whence it cume,
By sun-stroke or by lightning flame,
Or that combustion they call "spontenacious,"
Surpassed the wits of the rabble to tell;
But, judging well by looks and smell,
They thought it safe enough to say
There surely had been the devil to pay;
But they muttered down to their maws to think
There was somebody whipt, and nothing to drink.
MORAL.
Better not challenge the Devil or Death,
Nor face their fire with a rummy breath;
They bide no fooling, they run without goad,
And vapor of alcohol will explode;
While a mowing-match for gin, you may find,
Is a brimstone match of the Lucifer kind!
* “The author intends no disrespect to the memory of this venerable man, but simply to draw an apt illustration from his picturesque appearance.”
§ “The Minerva, or goddess of Wisdom, among the Hindoos, is an elephant-headed human figure, the elephant being their symbol of wisdom.”
