{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36135/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36135","id":"gutenberg_36135","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36135","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Poetry","Poetry"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Gerard Arthus, Diane Monico, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nSPAWN OF IXION;\n\n\nOR,\n\nThe 'Biter Bit.'\n\n\nAN\n\nALLEGORY.\n\n\nFORGE OF VULCAN.\n\n1846.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SPAWN OF IXION.\n\n\nWhen Ixion from heaven was hurl'd\nTo hell, to be for ever whirl'd\nIn a perpetual damning wheel,\nThe pit's eternal pains to feel;\n'Twas for a bestial, vulgar deed,\nWhereby that mortal did succeed\nIn sinking Juno to the sod--\nSeducing e'en that beaut'ous god!\nAbomination foul, was this,\nTo ruin lovely Juno's bliss!--\nTo raise in heaven domestic strife,\n'Twixt Jupiter and his lov'd wife!--\nWith sins that never were forgiven,\nTo scandalize the court of heaven!\nWhen Jupiter in pity took\nThis wretch to heaven, on earth forsook,\nHe was a vile contempt'ous thing,\nDespised by peasant, prince and king;\nA wand'ring vagrant, shun'd and curst,\nFor sending AEneus to the dust.\nThe aged father of his wife,\nBase Ixion deprived of life!\nInto a pit of burning fire\nHe cast poor AEneus to expire!--\nAnd, while this cruel, murd'rous knave,\nFor sending AEneus to his grave,\nFrom every circle under heaven\nWith scorn contemptuous, was driven,\nThis wretched outcast, here forsaken,\nBy Jupiter, was kindly taken\nInto the realms above the skies,\nAnd introduced to deities!\nE'en at the tables of the gods\nHe set this scoundrel of the clods!\nSuch heavenly condescension should\nInspire a mortal's gratitude:\nIn Ixion's base and blacken'd breast\nSome thankfulness should even rest.\nHis heart, though steep'd in every deed\nOf darkness, in the devil's creed--\nIn every sin that stains the earth,\nOr blackens hell, which gave it birth,\nShould now have felt a kindly glow\nFor what great Jupiter did do.\n  But Ixion did only feel\nA base desire at once to steal\nThe heart of Juno, and to tread\nOn Jupiter's celestial bed!\nHe had an intrigue with the cloud\nOf Juno, which the gods allow'd;\nAnd thus the monstrous Centaur came\nFrom Ixion's and Juno's shame.\nBut Jupiter with thunder hurl'd\nThe villain from the heavenly world,--\nSent him to hell fore'er to feel\nThe ceaseless torments of the wheel.\nBut his vile offspring stays behind,\nThe bane and curse of human kind,--\nPossessing still the bestial fire,\nWhich deep disgraced and damn'd the sire:\nThe same inglorious meanness strays\nIn the vile veins and verse and lays\nOf him, on crutches, devil half,\n(At whom his kindred centaurs laugh,)\nIn that deformity of hell.\nOn whom its attributes have fell,\nIn him, whose shameless, wicked life\nIs with abomination rife,\nWhose works, thrice damn'd and doubly dead,\nThe produce of conceit and lead,\nPossess no other aim nor end\nBut foul abuse of foe and friend.\nHis heart, polluted with the dung\nOf demons damn'd, from hell out flung,\nIs rotten to the core with lies,\nFrom which foul slanders thickly rise.\nHis soul, most pitiful and mean,\nInfected with hell-scorch'd gangrene,\nNo kind, redeeming trait contains,\nBut reeks with bestial blots and stains.\nHis mind, with vulgar vice imbued,\nLibidinous and low and lewd,\nDeep stained with malice, hate and spleen,\nWith sentiments supremely mean,\nIs bent on mischief, foul as hell,\nO'er which the hideous Centaurs yell.\nLow was his birth and low his name,\nLow is his life, and low his fame;\nBut lower still the depths of wo,\nWhere Park, when dead and damn'd, must go.\nFriends, foes or fiends, alike he fights,\nIn all he says, or sings, or writes.\nThis foul defamer, crawling round\nThe brink of hell, to catch its sound,\nExsudes it thence, in doleful rhyme,\nDebased and reeking rank with crime.\n  On this deformity of man,\nMore monstrous than the bastard Pan,\nPegasus turn'd his nimble feet,\nAs Park, on crutches, crawl'd the street;\nUrging that steed, against his will,\nTo bear him up Helicon's hill.\nBut Pegasus, a knowing horse,\nPerceived that Park's conceited verse\nWas only suited to the stews\nOf hell, whence emanates his muse.\nHe, therefore, with Bellerophon,\nLeft him behind, well trampled on,\nTo tune a pilfer'd, broken lyre,\nIn fields of mud, and muck, and mire;\nAnd there, his song most lowly set,\nWinding through marshes, undulcet,\nContending always with the fog,\nUnable e'er to flee the bog,\nDoes charm, perhaps, the frogs and snakes,\nAnd loathsome reptiles of the lakes.\nAlthough some demon's wand'ring sprite\nMay, haply, listen with delight,\nTo Park's low, grov'ling, growling song,\nAs, through the sloughs, it pours along;\nAnd though in marshes, fens and ditches,\nIt may, perhaps, amuse the witches;\nYet, should an unsuspecting team\nHear, unawares, the dismal scream\nOf his lugubr'ous, muck-born verse,\n'Twould sadly frighten every horse.\nAnd, had the Children in the Wood\nJust heard his strain, and understood\nIts wretched, wrangling, dismal din,\nHow frighten'd had those children been!--\nBelieving soon that doom would crack,\nOr that the de'il was on their track!\nHad Robert Kid, that pirate knave,\nHeard it come creaking o'er the wave,\nHe had supposed some demon's shell\nWas sounding from the gates of hell.\nThe red men, savage, wild and rude,\nDeep buried in their solitude,\nWould wake affrighted from their dreams,\nIf, haply, Park's poetic screams\nShould penetrate their secret lair;\nAnd they, forthwith, would kneel in prayer\nTo the great Spirit of the sun,\nBelieving that their days were done;\nThat hell's dark hole was open thrown,\nAnd that this strain was Satan's own,\nIn wrath, now prowling through the wood,\nDevouring Indians for his food.\n  Ev'n David Crockett would have run,\nAffrighted, from his game and gun,\nHad he but heard, in woods remote,\nPark's incongruous jangling note,\nWild screeching on the western gale,\nAn unpoetic dismal wail:\nNor stopp'd in his despairing flight,\nIn San Jacinto, e'en, to fight;\nBut, rushing wildly and forlorn,\nE'en to the billows, off Cape Horn,\nMost likely there, himself had drown'd,\nIn terror of the doleful sound.\nIn western wilds, had Daniel Boon\nBut heard, for once, the lecherous loon,\nHe would have dropp'd his axe and gun,\nAnd, to the eastward, rapid run;\nNor stay'd, in all his fearful flight,\nFor wind or storm, through day and night,\nTill he some civil spot could reach,\nUncursed by Park's dolorous screech.\nAnd had Columbus heard his roar,\nWhen first he landed on this shore,\nHe would have turn'd his bark amain,\nAnd never ventured here again;\nImpress'd that, in this western world,\nThere was, from Pandemonium hurl'd,\nSome spirit damn'd for e'er to bark\nThe hideous songs of hideous Park.--\nThe owls and bats that curse the land,\nCould they but hear and understand\nThe wretched rhymes and nauseous stuff\nOf this conceited, vile ruff-skuff,\nWould, surely, leave their secret haunts,\nAnd ever cease their nightly chants;\nConvinced that they have been, at last,\nIn frightful strains, by Park surpast;\nAnd that this vagrant of the muse,\nFoul caterer for sinks and stews,--\nThe Five-Points' poet, has outdone\nAll they have ever screech'd or sung.\nDespairing, thence, they would retire\nLong distance from his loathsome lyre,\nAnd let their lonely caves and rocks\nResound with his poetic shocks;\nTo be, perhaps, all rent in twain\nBy his unearthly, rumbling strain.\n  As I was musing on this theme,\nI fell asleep, and had a dream:\nI saw the fish that skim the deep,\nAnd o'er the billows nimbly leap,\nAll sink beneath the boiling wave,\nDown to the lowest depths, to lave:\nFor they had heard the dismal lay\nOf Park come booming down the bay,\nAnd, doubtless, thought some hungry shark\nWas chasing them with hellish bark;\nThat his sharp teeth, already nigh,\nWould them destroy, and they must die;\nThat there, alas, was no escape\nFrom his terrific gab and gape,\nAnd that their gamb'ling, watery run\nWas, now, alas, for ever done!\nAnd as they, deep in ocean's ink,\nDespairing, to the bottom sink,\nO'erwhelm'd by that infernal sound,\nThey cast a gloomy gaze around,\nAnd call'd on Neptune, sea-throned god,\nTo smite the rascal with his rod--\nTo pierce him with his trident spear,\nAnd pitch him into hell to sear,\nTo stew, and fry, in Satan's dish,\nFor frightening thus, poor harmless fish.\n  But Neptune, monarch of the main,\nWith scorn contempt'ous and disdain,\nLook'd down on Park's lugubrious rhyme,\nAnd hasten'd o'er the boiling brine;\nUnheedful of the fishes' cry--\nAnd left them, with Park's songs, to die!\nHis foaming horses now he lash'd,\nWhich, through the boisterous billows, dash'd;\nAffrighted at the dismal strain,\nNow wildly screeching o'er the main.\nThe god of ocean's angry wave,\nDesirous, only, now, to save\nHimself from that unearthly screech,\nFlew, swift, with might and main, to reach\nThe portals of the heavenly world,\nWhence Ixion, disgraced, was hurl'd;\nAnd there, to gods assembled, tell\nWhat lately, in the sea, befell\nThe finny tribes, that swim the deep,\nNow sunk, perhaps, in endless sleep!\n  The hosts of heaven, when Neptune came,\nWith foaming horses, from the main,\nRejoiced to see the briny king,\nThe golden gates, wide open, fling;\nAnd, anxiously, all beg to know\nThe tidings from the world below?\n  Great Neptune, their celestial guest,\nWith haste, thus answer'ed their request:\n\"O Jove, high heaven's majestic king,\nTo whom all gods due homage bring:\"\n(And now the monarch of the sea,\nWith awful reverence, bows the knee),\n\"I come in haste, and wish to tell\nHow an infernal fiend from hell,--\nAn Ixion spawn,--kick'd down from heaven,\nAnd through the earth, a vagrant, driven,\nA cast-off lyre, hath stol'n or begg'd,\nWhich he, with hempen strings, hath rigg'd;\nAnd now, the ocean, creeks, and bays,\nMakes, nightly, hideous, with his lays!\nLast night, as I was going to bed,\nThe villain struck the fish all dead!\nHis dismal strain, they can't abide,\nIt smote their ears, and lo, they died!\nMy noble steeds, affrighted, too,\nLike lightning, through the billows, flew;\nNor could, the hellish note, divine,\nThat creak'd, terrific, o'er the brine;\nAnd, even, I, myself, was shock'd,\nAnd from my chariot, nearly knock'd\nInto the boisterous, boiling sea,\nBy that astounding minstrelsy.\nAnd, now, by all the gods above,\nBy all that men or angels love,\nI call for thunderbolts or fire,\nTo dash this scoundrel and his lyre!\"\n  Great Jupiter, with horror struck,\nIn wrath, the heavenly mansion shook;\nAnd order'd Vulcan, quick, to forge\nA thunderbolt, tremendous large,\nWith which he smote the venal ghost,\nAnd cast him into hell, to roast!\n  Now, aught ---- ---- ever wrote,\nLet none but fiends incarnate, quote;\nFor, why should men or angels name\nWhat only sprites infernal claim;\nOr, why should men, to darkness, turn,\nA hell-curs'd villain's verse, to learn;\nOr, in poetic marshes, grope,\nTo save a scoundrel from the rope;--\nTo save from damn'd oblivion, Park,\nThe vilest hound of hell, to bark,\nTo howl, to scream, and vilify\nThe rich, the poor, the low, the high;\nWho pours on virtue's hallow'd leaf\nThe vile pollutions of a thief;\nWho age, nor youth, nor beauty spares;\nBut, vulture-like, voracious, tears\nThe guileless maid and spotless heart,\nAnd stabs them with his venom'd dart!\nLet Satan bind, with chains of fire,\nThis vain, conceited, bestial liar;\nWhom gods, and men, and angels spurn,\nAnd call on hell his soul to burn!\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\n\nPage 10: Changed aud to and\n    (He would have dropp'd his axe aud gun,)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Spawn of Ixion; Or, The 'Biter Bit.' An Allegory","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":1927}