Portrait, A

"Once on a time" — 'twas ten years since, or more — 
I met a man who measured six feet four: 
Broad were his shoulders, ample was his chest, 
Compact his frame, his muscles of the best. 
No sallow hue invaded brow or cheek; 
No morbid fancies through his eyes did speak, — 
Those clear gray eyes, in which good sense and mirth 
Mingled their rays and shone benignly forth, — 
That rounded cheek, which looked so rosy fair, 
And said dyspepsia found no quarters there. 
Genial he was, and many a funny quip 
Dropped, though he scarcely knew it, from his lip: 
A scholar too, in erudition skilled, 
But not with learning's useless lumber filled; 
Withal a poet — not a jack-at-pinch, 
But a true son of Thalia every inch, 
And his rhymed lessons, draped in comic guise, 
Proved that a genuine joker may be wise. 
Ten years have passed since I beheld his face, 
But still, from week to week, I see the trace
Of that shrewd old-time humor from his pen, 
Dropped as a proof that still he walks with men; 
And still, I trust, with good thoughts manifold 
Keeps his big heart from ever growing old, 
And still with fancies quaint beguiles our pain, 
Makes a clean sweep of cobwebs from our brain. 
And lets the sunlight into nooks as dark 
As the sub-cellar of old Noah's ark, 
Till gloom itself is tinged with golden light, 
And duns and dolors are forgotten quite.

Bard, wit, philosopher is he, in one —
A pyrotechnic magazine of fun,
Whence jokes go whizzing, like those splendid lights 
That set ablaze our Fourth-o'-July nights; 
Yet, as the stars shine through that luminous haze,
So through his jests a keen-rayed wisdom plays, 
Whose beams are blent with wit's auroral glow 
To chasten mirth and check its overflow, 
But not too much ; if wisdom grow austere, 
Wit tempers all with flashes bright and clear; 
And so we laugh — reflect — then laugh — and then 
Resolve that henceforth we'll be wiser men.

Not by didactic dullness, dread to hear, 
Nor ghostly counsels droning on our ear —
Not by the manes of a mummied "Joe"
Long since discarded by the fools below,
Does he beguile us to forget the aches
That follow peccadilloes and mistakes,
But gently lures us, in a quiet way,
From crooked paths that lead our feet astray ;
And with a clever song or sprightly jest
Shows us that virtue's courses are the best.
Through fact and fable, epigram and pun,
His mirthful spirit overflows in fun,
And many a hoary humbug gets a hit
From the swift arrows of his trenchant wit —
A wit as keen as are the winds that blow
From old Katahdin, helmeted with snow,
Yet bright and sparkling as the living rills
That Spring sends sparkling from his native hills,
And genial as the light that morning throws
Across the earth to wake it from repose!

For atrabiliary fancies that afflict
At times both bachelor and Benedict,
And make the world look cheerless as a pew
In a cold church with not a lass in view —
For minor fiends that give an azure tint
To life, its prospects, earth, and all that's n't,
Till Job himself with honest faith might swear
Nature a cheat and all her works unfair —
In short, for every hypochondriac ill 
That tortures more than sicknesses which kill, 
Draws down the mouth still lower and more low, 
As, at each corner, tugged some imp of woe, 
And o'er the added longitude of phiz 
Throws the despair of fifty tragedies, — 
For these, and more, that multitudes endure, 
Our " Godfrey's Cordial " is a sovereign cure!

O, poet-teacher ! whose mellifluous rhymes
Make smooth our onward  Progress" through “The Times," 
Cheering our way with mirth-provoking tale 
In life's swift journey, " Riding on the Rail " — 
O, genial leader ! on whose banneret 
“Ridé si sapis” is the motto set, 
Waging exterminating war with shams 
Of every name, from flunkeys up to flams — 
O, mirthful moralist ! whose " Miss McBride," 
By thee commissioned, shames our foolish pride, 
While, were it even the marrow of our bones, 
Our vanity would go with “Captain Jones," 
The "luckless, wigless, loveless lover," who 
Lost his dear scalp, pur-sue-d by su-ig "Sue" — 
Long may thy mingled wit and wisdom flow 
Through the smooth verse that sets us all aglow; 
Long may the fates that rule this lower sphere 
Preserve thy spirits and defer thy bier.
And, should thy humor ever seem to halt, 
Bring new supplies — whole sacks — of Attic salt; 
And, gentle Parcæ! while your hands are in, 
Forget your scissors, and keep on to spin.