The Myna
by Benjamin Arliss
Once upon a midnight dismal, while I studied,
weak, abysmal,
Paging many a quaint and quite unique volume
of neglected ken,
While I nodded--nothing shocking--suddenly,
out came a thocking,
As of someone gently knocking, knocking to
get in my den.
"'Tis some company," I mumbled, "knocking
to get in my den.
Only that, a citizen."
Ah, distinctly thoughts unfold of a month
so bleak and cold
And each single dying coal cast a ghost out
of its pen.
Anxiously I wished the daylight;--vainly
I sought to expidite
With my books an end to this plight--this
plight about the lost lass
Len--
The loving, luminous maiden whom the angels
nickname Len--
Named in life not once again.
And the silken sad and ghostly bustling of
the hangings mostly
Chilled me--filled me with fantastic shakes
I hadn't felt till then.
So that now, to still the beating in my chest,
I stood conceding
"'Tis some company who's pleading admission
to this my den--
Some late company who's pleading admission
to this my den;--
This it is, nothing else then."
In a bit my soul did toughen; hesitance I
then did snuffen,
"Man," said I, "else Madam, honest apologies
I do send,
But the fact is I was stopping, and so gently
you came knocking,
And so faintly you came thocking, thocking
just outside my den
That I almost didn't notice,"--then I opened
up my den;--
Dim of night; no sign of them.
Deep into that dimness gazing, long I stood
not moving, mazy,
Doubting, thinking thoughts no human had
thought to think till then;
But the silence stayed quite open, and the
stillness gave no token,
And the only sound then spoken was the quiet
nickname "Len?"
This I had said and an echo mumbled back
the nickname "Len"--
Only this, finis, amen.
Back into my small den going, all my soul
within me glowing.
Soon again out came a knocking with a pitch
of upswung bend.
"Factly," said I, "factly that is something
at my window lattice,
Let me see, then, what this tap is, and enigmas
thus examine--
Let my chest be calm a moment and enigmas
thus examine;--
'Tis the wind that makes that din."
Open then I flung the window, when, with absence
of adagio,
In then stepped a stately myna of the saintly
days of when;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute
stopped else stayed
he;
But, with mein of king and lady, landed just
inside my den--
Landed on a bust of Pallas just within that
place my den--
Landed, sat, just like a hen.
Then this ebony fowl beguiling my sad fancy
into smiling
By the weighty look and feel of its countenance
just then,
"Though thy head be bald like china, thou,"
I said, "ain't Aunt
Jemima,
Ghastly, gaunt, and ancient myna swooping
off the nightly glen--
Tell me what thy kingly name is on the Night's
Plutonian glen!"
Quoth the Myna, "Not again."
Much I fancied this ungainly fowl to see talk
back so plainly,
Though its feedback little meaning--little
insight gave to men;
'Cause we cannot help but seeing that no
living human being
until then was blest with seeing fowl within
his cozy den--
Fowl, not fawn, upon the well-made bust within
his cozy den,
With such a name as "Not again."
But the myna, sitting lonely on the placid
bust, spoke only
That one sound, as if his soul in that one
sound he did expend.
Nothing else did he then bespeak--no twitch,
no twinge of his cold
beak--
Till I little else than squeaked, "Bygone
folk have flown since
then--
On the daylight he will leave me, as my hopes
have flown since
then."
Then the fowl said "Not again."
Shaken at the stillness opened by comeback
so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it voices is its
only stock of ken,
Caught off some unhappy body whose good luck
got old and shoddy,
Flowing fastly down the potty, till his songs
one theme did send--
Till the hymnals of his hopes that melancholy
theme did send
Of "Oh, not--not again."
But the myna still beguiling all my fancy
into smiling,
So I wheeled a cushioned seat next to fowl
on bust in den;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself
to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous
fowl not hen--
What this cold, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt
and ominous fowl not hen
Meant in moaning "Not again."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable
confessing
To the fowl whose flaming eyes could blaze
away the souls of men;
This and like I sat divining, with my head
at ease inclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight
did illumen,
But whose velvet violet lining that the lamplight
does illumen,
She shall dent, ah, not again!
Then methought the sky gained thickness, scented
by a candle
wickless,
Swung by ancient ghosts whose footfalls tinkled
in the tufted den.
"Fiend," I called, "thy god hath lent thee--by
these angels he hath
sent thee
A lapse--a lapse and nepenthe of thy mementos
of my Len
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and dismiss
this lost lass Len!"
Quoth the Myna, "Not again."
"Sibyl," said I, "thing of evil!--sibyl still
if fowl as devil!--
If in tempting sent, and too if tempest-tossed
upon this fen
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this loveless
land enchanted--
On this home by demons haunted--tell me honest--I
depend--
Is a--is a balm in Gilead?--tell me, tell
me--I depend!"
Quoth the Myna, "Not again."
"Sibyl," said I, "thing of evil!--sibyl still
if fowl as devil!--
By that heaven that bends above us, on that
god we both depend
Tell this soul with sadness laden if, within
the distant aiden,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the
angels nickname Len.
Clasp a loving, luminous maiden whom the
angels nickname Len.
Quoth the Myna, "Not again."
Let that sound signal an exit, fowl and fiend,"
I yelled, not
hes'tant--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's
Plutonian glen!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie
thy soul hath spoken!
Let my loneliness stay oaken!--quit this
bust within my den!
Take thy beak off of my chest, and take thy
shape out of my den!
Quoth the Myna, "Not again."
And the Myna, without flitting, still is sitting,
still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just inside
of this, my den;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's
that is scheming,
And the lamplight above him gleaming casts
his shadow on my den;
And my soul out of that shadow that lies
floating on my den
Shall be lifted--not again!
-- © 1991, W.A. Seaver.