Quaint and Curious - Parodies and Pastiches of Poe's The Raven

Professor Le-Kaw-Hing

1845

Yankee Doodle

The Boston Post, 6 October 1845

Originating in the Boston Post, this poem was part of a satirical article about Professor Le-Kaw-Hing, who performed music for visitors to Boston’s Chinese Museum (which was opened in 1845, and closed in 1847). The piece “quotes” three poems to back up its satire, all of them pastiches of well-known poems. (As well as the verses below, there’s “The Tea! The Tea!” — a take-off of Barry Cornwall’s “The Sea” — and a parody of Tom Moore’s “Oft in the stilly night”.)

“Le-Kaw-Hing” was a real man, a Cantonese-speaking poet and music teacher. His likeness can be seen in daguerrotypes held by the Peabody Museum, where it’s stated that he was also known as “Soo-Chune”. “Soo-Chune” and his family are depicted in a lithograph advertising their arrival in New York in 1850, as part of P. T. Barnum’s staging of the “Living Chinese Family”.

Soon the cry began to languish, melting into plaintive anguish;

Like the lyre Aeolian, lulling to a tender, slender tone;

Then as if some brute were boiling, or on red hot gridirons boiling,

Or some fond mamas were spoiling (just because they were their own)

Half a hundred blubbering babies (just because they were their own)—

Such the sounds I heard alone.

Then there came a spitting, sputtering, stifled stammering and stuttering—

Then a shriek so shrill and piercing that it cut me to the bone,

Like the death cry of a lonely, lost and loveless being only—

Like that awful death cry only, sinking to a gasping groan;

Then the silence fell, as falleth floating feather downward prone,

And once more I seemed alone.

Return to the Quaint and Curious index for more pastiches and parodies of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.