A Political Idyll
1896
P A Booker
The Galveston Daily News, 29 March 1896, p. 1
Charles A Culberson (1855–1925) was elected Governor of Texas in 1894, and was up for re-election for a second term in 1896, with the gubernatorial election to be held in November of that year. The following poem in the Galveston Daily News was prefaced as follows:
Austin, Tex. March 26—To The News: At a spiritual seance in this city the other night the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe was announced by the medium. In a rather low but distinct voice the spirit asked if we desired a historical or a prophetic revelation. I suggested that if he could kindly render it in verse he might give us a little of both if he liked. To this he assented, saying that while the historic facts related would be readily recognized, the occasion predicted would transpire several months hence. He not only spoke plainly but at the same time caused his message or prophecy to be written between two slates which, at the request of the medium, I held firmly together with both hands. After listening to his effusion I then opened the slates and found the same words plainly written, which I then copied, as given below.
Culberson and the Reagan
Once upon a midday merry, while exulting glad and cheery,
O’er official place and prestige plucked from famed paternal lore
;
While I pondered, softly rocking back and forth, I heard a knocking—
Some one loudly, rudely knocking—knocking at the mansion door;
“’Tis some country dolt,” I muttered, “knocking thus upon the door—
There’s the bell upon the door.”
But to my surprise and pleasure, and confusion, in a measure,
Bent with age, with locks of silver, stood a seer without the door;
Ushered in the tidy parlor, seated I the welcome caller;
Nervously I then besought him what good motive kindly brought him
Hither to my anxious door, what glad news to me he bore—
What the future held in store.
Ah! Distinctly I remember, it was in the sad November—
On election day—remember—ere the closing of the polls:
“Seer of Palestine!
” I pleaded, “tell me quickly if the morrow
Promise joy or bringeth sorrow, from the dark Plutonian shore?
Shall I hope for re-election—just another ‘wise selection?’”
Quoth the Reagan
, “Nevermore!”
“What! Have all my schemes artistic, ’gainst the thug-mill pugilistic,
And in scaling state expenses, failed to build secure my fences?
Shall I face such consequences, on this queer terrestrial shore?
Stay, ye fates, ill fortune’s arrow, sheathed within the grim to-morrow!
Seer of Palestine, my prophet, brace this doubting spirit sore.”
Shrugged the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“Has my state press publication conjured direst tribulation?
Where’s the hearty approbation due me from the stupid mass?
Have the ingrates banished reason, take they statesmanship for treason?
Or do these waking Rip Van Winkles take me for a braying—assortment of deception?
Now, deer seery, there’s a prophet: cheer this drooping heart once more!”
Chirped the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“For the people’s rights I’ve pleaded—have the plutocrats succeeded?
This has been my quiet concern—that my loudest prayers galore.
Have our thimblerig conventions railed to smother rude dissensions,
Or has sleek manipulation served its purpose as of yore?”
Peering through the misty morrow, and through gleaming tears of sorrow,
Sobbed the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“Have the faithful hosts indorsed me, or the populists
unhorsed me?
Comes there grim disaster yet from out the stark Plutonian shore?
Do they brook my clumsy spraddle, as the sliver plank I straddle?
Holds not smooth dissimulation all its virtue as of yore?
Seer of evil—still a prophet—stay my sinking hope once more!”
Quoth the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“For the ticket presidential was my effort not essential,
And in state campaign potential both for silver and for gold?
How the people’s mouths to muffle, while I cut this double shuffle—
This has been my hardest scuffle, yet it was my only hold.
Seer, oh! seer, my doubtful prophet, is there balm for me in store?
Smiled the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“Seer of evil—still a prophet—hear my story, do not scoff it:
Saved we not from wise reduction of the force and pay of clerks,
In department service lowly, such a sum as equals fully
All the snug appropriations for the mansion decorations—
Shrubs and flowers, walks and bowers—many needful ‘public works?’
Grant me, seer, one cheering word from out the dread Plutonian shore!”
Laughed the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
“Still I trust the firm persistence, without waver or resistance,
Of a people trained to hearken to the potent party blast.
May the faithful tools and flunkeys, saints and sages, men and monkeys,
Relish ever skilled deceit with broken pledges thick and fast.
In affairs of state and nation, grant us, seer, forever more,
Fraud triumphant, still beguiling pliant victims as before.”
Yelled the Reagan, “Nevermore!”
Footnotes
Return to the Quaint and Curious index for more pastiches and parodies of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”.
