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 VERSES 
 
 BY 
 
 NICHOLAS BIDDLE. 
 
AN 
 
 ODE TO BOGLE 
 
 NICHOLAS BIDDLE. 
 
 JULY 16, 1829. 
 
 Robert Bogle, the subject of the foliowiDg Jeu d'esprit, was a well-known 
 character in his day, and resided in "Eighth near Sansom" Street, in the City 
 of Philadelphia. He united the vocations of public waiter and undertaker, fre- 
 quently officiating at a funeral in the afternoon and at a party on the evening 
 of the same day — presenting on all occasions the same gravity of demeanor. 
 The term "colorless colored man" was especially descriptive of Bogle, as he was 
 a very light mulatto. The " fantastic toe " was an allusion to his occasional 
 indulgence, toward the end of an entertainment, in some of the liquids which 
 he so decorously dispensed to the guests. " .Johnson " and " Shepard " were also 
 public waiters of only inferior fame. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 1889. 
 

 GMt 
 
 Mrs. GalllanI Hunt 
 March 31.1933 
 
AN ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 DEDICATED, WITH PERMISSION AND A PIECE OF MINT-STICK, TO 
 META CRAIG BIDDLE, AGED FOUR YEARS. 
 
 " Restituit rem cunctando." 
 
 Enn. ap Cicero. 
 
 " Of Brownis and of Bogilis, ful is this bulce." 
 
 Gawin Douglas. 
 
 Bogle ! not he whose shadow flies 
 Before a frighted Scotchman's eyes, 
 But thou of Eighth near Sansom, thou 
 Colorless colored man, whose brow, 
 Unmoved, the joys of life surveys, 
 Untouched the gloom of death displays, 
 Reckless if joy or grief prevail — 
 Stern, multifarious Bogle — hail ! 
 
 Hail may'st thou. Bogle, for thy reign 
 Extends o'er nature's wide domain, 
 
 ,3 
 
 9 
 
.l.V ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 Begins before our earliest breath, 
 Nor ceases witli the hour of death. 
 Scarce seems the blushing maiden wed 
 Unless thy care the supper spread ; 
 Half christened only were that boy, 
 Whose heathen squalls our ears annoy, 
 If, service finished, cakes and wine 
 Were given by any hand but thine ; 
 And Christian burial e'en were scant 
 Unless his aid the Bogle grant. 
 
 Lover of pomps ! the dead might rise 
 
 And feast — upon himself — his eyes, 
 
 When marshalling the black array 
 
 Thou rul'st the sadness of the day, 
 
 Teaching how grief may be genteel, 
 
 And legatees should seem to feel. 
 
 Death's seneschal ! 'tis thine to trace 
 
 For each his proper look and place, 
 
 How aunts should weep, where uncles stand. 
 
 With hostile cousins hand in hand ; 
 
AN ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 Give matchless gloves, and fitly shape 
 
 By length of face the length of crape. 
 
 See him erect, with lofty tread, 
 
 The dark scarf streaming from his head, 
 
 Lead forth his groups in order meet 
 
 And range them grief-wise in the street; 
 
 Presiding o'er the solemn show — 
 
 The very Chesterfield of woe. 
 
 Evil to him should bear the pall, 
 
 Yet comes too late or not at all ; 
 
 Wo to the mourner who shall stray 
 
 One inch beyond the trim array ; 
 
 Still worse the kinsman who shall move 
 
 Until thy signal voice approve. 
 
 Let widows anxious to fulfil 
 
 (For the first time) the dear man's will. 
 
 Lovers and lawyers ill at ease, 
 
 For bliss deferred, or loss of fees. 
 
 Or heirs impatient of delay. 
 
 Chafe inly at his formal stay ; 
 
 The Bogle heeds not — nobly true. 
 
 Resolved to give the dead his due; 
 
AX ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 No jot of hoDor will he bate, 
 Nor stir toward the church-yard gate, 
 Till the last parson is at hand 
 And every hat has got its band. 
 Before his stride the town gives way — 
 Beggars and belles confess his sway; 
 Drays, prudes, and sweeps, a startled mass, 
 Rein up to let his cortege pass ; 
 And Death himself, that ceaseless dun 
 Who waits on all, yet waits for none. 
 Now hears a greater waiter's tone. 
 And scarcelv deems his life his own. 
 
 Nor less, stupendous man ! thy power 
 In festal than in funeral hour, 
 When gas and beauty's blended rays 
 Set hearts and ball-rooms in a blaze. 
 Or spermaceti's light reveals 
 More " inward bruises " than it heals ; 
 In flames each belle her victim kills, 
 And " sparks fly upward " in quadrilles 
 
AN ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 Like iceberg in an Indian clime 
 Refreshing Bogle breathes sublime 
 Cool airs upon that sultry stream, 
 From Roman punch and frosted cream. 
 
 So — sadly social — when we flee 
 From milky talk and watery tea, 
 To dance by inches in that strait 
 Between a sideboard and a grate, 
 With rug uplift and blower tight 
 'Gainst tlie red Demon Anthracite ; 
 Then, Bogle o'er the weary hours 
 A world of sweets incessant showers, 
 Till, blest relief from noise and foam, 
 The farewell pound-cake warns us home. 
 Wide opes the crowd to let thee pass. 
 And hail the music of thy glass, 
 Drowning all other sounds — e'en those 
 From Bollman or Sigoigne that rose. 
 From Chapman's self some glance will stray. 
 To rival charms upon thy tray. 
 
AX ODE TO nOGLE. 
 
 Which thou dispensest with an air 
 
 As life or death depended there — 
 
 Wine for the luckless wretch, whose back 
 
 Has stood against a window's crack ; 
 
 And then, impartial, cooFst in turn 
 
 The youth, whom love and Lehigh burn. 
 
 On Johnson's smooth and placid mien 
 
 A quaint and fitful smile is seen ; 
 
 O'er Shepard's pale, romantic face, 
 
 A radiant simper we may trace; 
 
 But on the Bogle's steadfast cheek 
 
 Lugubrious thoughts their presence speak— 
 
 His very smile serenely stern 
 
 As lighted lachrymary urn. 
 
 In church or state, in bower or hall, 
 
 He gives, with equal face, to all 
 
 The wedding cake, the funeral crape. 
 
 The mourning glove, the festal grape ; 
 
 In the same tone, when crowds disperse, 
 
 Calls Powell's hack or Carter's hearse ; 
 
 As gently grave, as sadly grim. 
 
 At the quick waltz as funeral hymn. 
 
AN ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 Thou social Fabius ! since the day 
 When Rome was saved by wise delay, 
 None else has found the happy chance, 
 By always waiting, to advance. 
 Let time and tide, coquettes so rude, 
 Pass on, yet hope to be pursued. 
 Thy gentler nature waits on all ; 
 When parties rage, on thee they call 
 Who seek'st no office in the State, 
 Content, while others push — to wait. 
 Yet — (not till Providence bestowed 
 On Adam's sons, McAdam's road) — 
 Unstumbling foot was rarely given 
 To man or beast when quickly driven; 
 And they do say — but this I doubt. 
 For seldom he lets things leak out — 
 They do say — ere the dances close, 
 His, too, are " light fantastic toes." 
 Oh, if this be so, Bogle ! then, 
 How are we served by serving men ! 
 A waiter by his weight forsaken ! 
 An undertaker overtaken ! 
 
AN ODE TO BOGLE. 
 
 L'ENVOI. 
 
 Meta, thy riper years may know 
 More of this world's fantastic show ; 
 In thy time, as in mine, shall be 
 Burials and pound-cake, beaux and tea; 
 Rooms shall be hot, and ices cold, 
 And flirts be both, as 'twas of old ; 
 Love, too, and mint-stick shall be made, 
 Some dearly bought, some 'ightly weighed; 
 As true the hearts, the forms as fair. 
 And equal joy and beauty there; 
 The smile as bright, as soft the ogle. 
 But never — never such a Bos-le ! 
 
The following lines were written in 1823. To make them 
 intelligible, it should be said that on a former occasion the 
 author had addressed some verses to Miss Sarah Lukens Keene, 
 who had requested a contribution for her album. Mr. Biddle, 
 who had not long before removed from the country to the city, 
 returned the volume, with the following apology for not com- 
 plying with the request: 
 
 Time was when to see thee, fair lady, alone 
 Would wake into verse this cold bosom of stone; 
 But now thy command, all unchanged as thou art, 
 Cannot kindle the fancy nor soften the heart. 
 So unequal our fates, since that scythe-bearing Time, 
 Appeased by thy beauty, provoked by my rhyme. 
 Though he folded his wings and muffled his tread. 
 And passed without touching a hair of thy head, — 
 As he came by my farm, cut me down to a cit, 
 And dispersed my small stock of merinos and wit. 
 If you deem this some pretext made up for my wife. 
 Pray look at my dwelling and think of my life. 
 Not a mummy wrapt up in his pyramid hall. 
 Nor the toads that live on for whole years in a wall. 
 
Nor the famed Irou Mask, breathe more dulhiess and 
 
 gloom 
 Thau I, ^vhen enclosed in my vast marble tomb, 
 'Mid vaults of damp stone and huge chests of cold 
 
 iron, 
 That would quell all the fancy of Shakespeare or 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Alas ! had the ancients, who so much surpass us. 
 In their pure golden age, fixed a hank on Parnassus, 
 What a model of wisdom and pleasure to follow ! 
 Only think now — to sign one's bank-notes like Apollo ! 
 But that rake of Olympus — too happy to rove — 
 Would have scorned to make money and cease to 
 
 make lov^e ; 
 And the Muses whose sex condescends to protectors 
 Have a true female scorn for all sorts of directors. 
 'Tis fiercely avenged though, for Banks, where they 
 
 know it. 
 Feel a horror that warns them to shun every poet; 
 And since the first rhyme, the Muses' fond votary 
 If ever he's trusted soon goes to the notary. 
 
Even I, sainted ladies, who, fixed on my farm. 
 Though you never would visit me, wished you no 
 
 harm, 
 Even I would exchange — shall I dare to confess 
 
 t' ye all — 
 For one sheet of bank notes, the whole quire celes- 
 tial. 
 I prefer my last letter from Barings or Hope 
 To the finest epistles of Pliny or Pope; 
 My "much-esteemed favors" from Paris, to those 
 Which brought on poor Helen an Iliad of woes ; 
 One lot of good bills from Prime, Bell, or the 
 
 Biddies, 
 To whole volumes of epics or satires or Idyls; 
 Nay, two lines of plain prose with a good name 
 
 upon it, 
 To the tenderest fourteen ever squeezed in a sonnet. 
 Why I would not accept — not for Hebe's account — 
 The very best draft from Helicon's fount, 
 Kor give — this it grieves me to say to their faces — 
 More than three days of grace to all the three 
 Graces. 
 
 13 
 
Then tlieir music of spheres ! can it thrill through 
 
 the soul 
 I^ike kegs of new dollars as inward they roll? 
 And Cecilia herself, though her lyre was divine, 
 Never gave to the world notes equal to mine. 
 
 But we've parted in peace now, I never shall quarrel 
 If my branches like Daphne's won't sprout into 
 
 laurel ; 
 And renouncing illusions, find peace and content 
 In that simplest, sublimest of truths — six per cent. ; 
 AVhile the Bank is my goddess, its desks are my 
 
 altars. 
 And all my "fine phrenzy" is spent on defaulters. 
 tSo, unless — like the sculptor of old — in this stone 
 You cau breathe inspiration as pure as your own. 
 Be it mine, while no scribbling your tablets defaces, 
 To keep out of your book, but keep in your good 
 
 ir races. 
 

LiBRfiRY OF CONGRESS