Classic Poem

" Symbie? " Symbie! comical name!
What comical thing can wear it?
A child of mirth, of the air or earth,
Or a diabolical spirit?
Not a fairy bright, not a ghost in white,
Not a demon, though very near it.
" Symbie! " whatever the tale be worth,
Listen, and you shall hear it.

In the lonely lands of the long-leaf pine,
Of the odorous balsam smelling,
Where the Tar-Heel gathers the turpentine
That he gathers a name by selling,
There are little fountains that dimple and shine,
And these are the Symbie's dwelling.
There are fishes that swim in the fount with him,
The perch, the roach, and the trout so trim,
The sucker sedate, and the goggled-eyed " brim, "
Can vouch for the story I'm telling.

A grizzled and tan old fisherman,
For a goblin so gay and so frisky,
His fishing line is a bolus vine, —
Bullace, you call it? or Muscadine, —
And his bait is a bottle of whisky.

And woe to the wight who comes by night
To the fount of the misty curtain,
For the Symbie, straight, lets down his bait,
And catches a gudgeon certain,
And the gudgeon sees strange mysteries
Under the misty curtain.

Glitter of silver and glimmer of gold
Gleam on his reeling vision,
Sparkle of gems and the manifold
Glory of lights Elysian:
Till there comes the touch of a hand so cold
And scatters the golden vision,
And only the hook of the fisher-spook
Abides with the fiend's derision.

And the serpents hiss and the lizards wink
To the frog and her little daughter,
And all together ascend the brink
Of the Symbie's enchanted water.
They wheeze, and whistle, and chatter, and chink,
" Symbie! Symbie! what do you think! "
" Symbie! Symbie! nibble and drink; "
" Drunk! and fell in the water! "

Never doubt that my story is true, —
Only too mild I draw it,
For I saw the freedman that said he knew
The " nigger " that said he saw it.