I '■: vi'i .., mm jpiBRARY OF CONGRESS. H :; S UNITED STATES OF AMER.CA.-M THE FIRE-FIEND, AND <&tl)tx $3* ems. BY CHARLES D. GARDETTE NEW YORK: BUNCE AND HUNTINGTON, PUBLISHERS. M.DCCC.LXVI. G1 f Entered according to Aft of Congress, in the year 1865, By BUNCE AND HUNTINGTON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern Distrift of New York.' 34293 ALVOUD, PRINTER. PRE-NOTE A FEW — and but a few — words of explanation seem appropriate here, with reference to the poem which gives title to this volume. The " Fire-Fiend" was written some six years ago, in consequence of a literary discussion wherein it was asserted, that the marked originality of style, both as to conception and expression, in the poems of the late Edgar Allen Poe, rendered a successful imitation difficult even to impossibility. The author was challenged to produce a poem, in the manner of " The Raven" which should be accepted by the general critic as a genuine composition of Mr. Poe's, and the " Fire-Fiend" was the result. This poem was printed as " from an unpublished MS. of the late Edgar A. Poe," and the hoax proved suffi- ciently successful to deceive a number of critics in this country, and also in England where it was afterward re- published (by Mr. Macready, the tragedian), in the London 6W, as an undoubted production of its soi-disa?it author. 4 PRE-NOTE. The comments upon it, by the various critics, profes- sional and other, who accepted it as Mr. Poe's, were too flattering to be quoted here, the more especially, since, had the poem appeared simply as the composition of its real author, these gentlemen would probably have been slow to discover in it the same merits. The true history of the poem and its actual authorship being thus succinctly given, there seems nothing further to be said, than to remain, very respectfully, the Reader's humble servant, THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS The Fire-Fiend: a Nightmare Golgotha : a Phantasm page 7 13 WAR ECHOES. Peace, the Victim . . 19 Lint ... . 21 "An Unclaimed Body" ■ • . • . 24 The Two Soldiers 27 The Cripple at the Gate . . 29 The Noonday Street . . • 33 The Broken Sword • 35 The Three Watchers . . . . 38 "Sisters of Mercy" . 40 At the Outpost , • 42 Only One . . • 44 Proto-Martyr Noster . . • . • • • 46 VAGARIES. How Winter cometh .How Spring cometh 49 5' CONTENTS. Storm and Sun Catalpa The Secret of the Aspen The Glove-Kiss Latakea Dogwood Leaves Ephemera Ephemera . From Alpha to Omega . The Feast-Night of the Two The Messenger-Years The Kite . The Two Shadows The Snow : a Fantasy The Lamp In the Pavilion Rest .... Au Revoir The Treasure-Ships : a Fragment Ma Mie : a Gasconade Sua Culpa Too Late ! Claire : a Spirit-Memory Umbra : a half-sung Song Never Again .... The Autumn Leaves . Gone : a New-Year's Monody Queens THE FIRE-FIEND A NIGHTMARE. I. IN the deepest dearth of Midnight, while the sad and solemn swell Still was floating, faintly echoed from the Forest Chapel Bell- Faintly, falteringly floating o'er the sable waves of air That were through the Midnight rolling, chafed and bil- lowy with the tolling— In my chamber I lay dreaming by the fire-light's fitful gleaming, And my dreams were dreams foreshadowed on a heart foredoomed to Care ! IX. As the last long lingering echo of the Midnight's mystic chime — Lifting through the sable billows to the Thither Shore of Time — 8 THE FIRE-FIEND. Leaving on the starless silence not a token nor a trace — In a quivering sigh departed ; from my couch in fear I started : Started to my feet in terror, for my Dream's phantasmal Error Painted in the fitful fire a frightful, fiendish, flaming face ! in. On the red hearth's reddest centre, from a blazing knot of oak, Seemed to gibe and grin this Phantom when in terror I awoke, And my slumberous eyelids straining as I staggered to the floor, Still in that dread Vision seeming, turned my gaze toward the gleaming I Hearth, and — there! — oh, God! I saw It! and from out Its flaming jaw It Spat a ceaseless, seething, hissing, bubbling, gurgling stream of gore ! IV. Speechless ; struck with stony silence ; frozen to the floor I stood, THE FIRE-FIEND. 9 Till methought my brain was hissing with that hissing, bubbling blood :■ — Till I felt my life-stream oozing, oozing from those lam- bent lips : — Till the Demon seemed to name me : — then a wondrous calm o'ercame me, And my brow grew cold and dewy, with a death-damp stiff and gluey, And I fell back on my pillow in apparent soul-eclipse ! Then, as in Death's seeming shadow, in the icy Pall of Fear I lay stricken^ came a hoarse and hideous murmur to my ear : — Came a murmur like the murmur of assassins in their sleep : — Muttering, " Higher ! higher ! higher ! I am Demon of the Fire ! I am Arch-Fiend of the Fire ! and each blazing roof's o my pyre, And my sweetest incense is the blood and tears my J J victims weep !" lO THE FIRE-FIEND. VI. u How I revel on the Prairie ! How I roar among the Pines ! How I laugh when from the village o'er the snow the red flame shines, And I hear the shrieks of terror, with a Life in every breath ! How I scream with lambent laughter as I hurl each crackling rafter Down the fell abyss of Fire, until higher ! higher ! higher ! Leap the High-Priests of my Altar in their merry Dance of Death !" VII. u I am Monarch of the Fire ! I am Vassal-King of Death ! World-encircling, with the shadow of its Doom upon my breath ! With the symbol of Hereafter flaming from my fatal face ! I command the Eternal Fire ! Higher ! higher ! higher ! higher ! Leap my ministering Demons, like Phantasmagoric lemans Hugging Universal Nature in their hideous embrace !" THE FIRE-FIEND. 11 VIII. Then a sombre silence shut me in a solemn, shrouded sleep, And I slumbered, like an infant in the " Cradle of the Deep," Till the Belfry in the Forest quivered with the matin stroke, And the martins, from the edges of its lichen-lidded ledges, Shimmered through the russet arches where the Light in torn files marches, Like a routed army struggling through the serried ranks of oak. IX. Through my ivy-fretted casement filtered in a tremulous note From the tall and stately linden where a Robin swelled his throat : — Querulous, quaker-breasted Robin, calling quaintly for his mate ! Then I started up, unbidden, from my slumber Night- mare ridden, With the memory of that Dire Demon in my central Fire On my eye's interior mirror like the shadow of a Fate ! 12 THE FIRE-FIEND. X. Ah ! the fiendish Fire had smouldered to a white and formless heap, And no knot of oak was flaming as it flamed upon my sleep ; But around its very centre, where the Demon Face had shone, Forked Shadows seemed to linger, pointing as with spec- tral finger To a Bible, massive, golden, on a table carved and olden — And I bowed, and said, " All Power is of God, of God alone !" GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. m GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. WHILE the embers flare and flicker, gathering shadows thick and thicker — While the slender, shaded lamplight sheds a glimmer gray and dull — On my mantel, smoke-incrusted, o'er two war-knives hacked and rusted, In my fascinated vision grins a dark and dented Skull ! Through the Midnight Forest leaping — Death's red har- vest fresh from reaping — Once this Skull was steeped and drunken in a revelry of gore : In his crimson orgie shrieking, mad with lust, and murder- reeking — Thus the Blood-Avenger found him — smote him ! — and he raved no more ! In that Forest, leaf-enfolded, many a nameless year he mouldered, H GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. Withered, shrivelled, fell to utter dry and desolate decay; Till of all his savage glory naught there was to tell the story Save this dark uncouth and dented Skull I found, and bore away ! With the coward thought to mock it, in each eyeball's blackened socket Once I set a globe of silver, as a dread and dismal jest. Oh ! full often has the glitter of those pale globes caused a bitter Burst of sharp and sudden terror to a timid twilight guest ! But, to-night, their flashes daunt me, and their changing glances haunt me, And their cold glare shivers through me like a scymitar of ice ! Well I know their threat is seeming — that no life is in their gleaming, Yet my soul is strangely troubled by my own accurst device ! Ay ! my soul is strangely troubled ! And my heart-throbs fiercely doubled ! GOLGOTHA: A PHANTASM. 15 And I cannot wrench my gaze from off those silver demon-balls ! To my brain their blaze seems burning — ah ! by Heaven ! I saw them turning ! Yes ! see — see them ! there ! they roll ! O God ! a red light from them falls ! %. >K if. $i How its white teeth glint and glisten ! Listen ! Am I mad ? O ! listen ! No ! It speaks ! I hear a whisper rattle through its hol- low jaws ! — " With this jest my front adorning, Pale-Face, you are blindly scorning, — Sadly, sorrowfully scorning all your Being's Primal Laws ! " Count the dim descent of Ages ! Turn Life's crisp