Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM, by JOHN GODFREY SAXE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TOM BROWN'S DAY IN GOTHAM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I'll tell you a story of thomas brown
Last Line: At the old park-gate, the regular shilling!
Subject(s): New York City; Manhattan; New York, New York; The Big Apple


I'LL tell you a story of THOMAS BROWN, --
I don't mean the poet of Shropshire town;
Nor the Scotch Professor of wide renown;
But "Honest Tom Brown"; so called, no doubt,
Because with the same
Identical name,
A good many fellows were roving about
Of whom the sheriff might prudently swear
That "honest" with them was a non-est affair!

Now Tom was a Yankee of wealth and worth,
Who lived and throve by tilling the earth;
For Tom had wrought
As a farmer ought,
Who, doomed to toil by original sinning,
Began -- like Adam -- at the beginning.
He ploughed, he harrowed, and he sowed;
He drilled, he planted, and he hoed;
He dug and delved, and reaped and mowed.
(I wish I could -- but I can't -- tell now
Whether he used a subsoil-plough;
Or whether, in sooth, he had ever seen
A regular reaping and raking machine.)

He took most pains
With the nobler grains
Of higher value, and finer tissues,
Which, possibly, one
Inclined to a pun,
Would call -- like Harper -- his "cereal issues!"
With wheat his lands were all ablaze;
'T was amazing to look at his fields of maize;
And there were places
That showed rye-faces
As pleasant to see as so many Graces.
And as for hops,
His annual crops
(So very extensive that, on my soul,
They fairly reached from pole to pole!)
Would beat the guess of any old fogie,
Or -- the longest season at Saratoga!
Whatever seed did most abound,
In the grand result that Autumn found,
It was his plan,
Though a moderate man,
To be early running it into the ground;
That is to say,
In another way: --
Whether the seed was barley or hay,
Large or little, or green or gray, --
Provided only it promised to "pay," --
He never chose to labor in vain
By stupidly going against the grain,
But hastened away, without stay or stop,
And carefully put it into his crop.
And he raised tomatoes
And lots of potatoes,
More sorts, in sooth, than I could tell;
Turnips, that always turned up well;
Celery, all that he could sell;
Grapes by the bushel, sour and sweet;
Beets, that certainly could n't be beat;
Cabbage -- like some sartorial mound;
Vines, that fairly cu-cumbered the ground;
Some pumpkins -- more than he could house, and
Ten thousand pears; (that's twenty thousand!)
Fruit of all kinds and propagations,
Baldwins, Pippins, and Carnations.
And apples of other appellations.
To sum it all up in the briefest space,
As you may suppose, Brown flourished apace,
Just because he proceeded, I venture to say,
In the nulla-retrorsum vestigi-ous way;
That is -- if you're not University-bred --
He took Crocket's advice about going ahead.
At all the State Fairs he held a fair station,
Raised horses and cows and his own reputation;
Made butter and money; took a Justice's niche;
Grew wheat, wool, and hemp; corn, cattle, and -- rich!
But who would be always a country-clown?
And so Tom Brown
Sat himself down
And, knitting his brow in a studious frown,
He said, says he: --
It's plain to see,
And I think Mrs. B. will be apt to agree
(If she don't, it's much the same to me),
That I, TOM BROWN,
Should go to town!
But then, says he, what town shall it be?
Boston-town is consid'rably nearer,
And York is farther, and so will be dearer,
But then, of course, the sights will be queerer;
Besides, I'm told, you're surely a lost 'un,
If you once get astray in the streets of Boston.
York is right-angled;
And Boston, right-tangled;
And both, I've no doubt, are uncommon new-fangled.
Ah! -- the "SMITHS," I remember, belong to York
('T was ten years ago I sold them my pork),
Good, honest traders -- I'd like to know them --
And so -- 't is settled -- I'll go to Gotham!

And so Tom Brown
Sat himself down,
With many a smile and never a frown,
And rode, by rail, to that notable town
Which I really think well worthy of mention
As being America's greatest invention!
Indeed, I'll be bound that if Nature and Art
(Though the former, being older, has gotten the start),
In some new Crystal Palace of suitable size
Should show their chefs-d'oeuvre, and contend for the prize
The latter would prove, when it came to the scratch,
Whate'er you may think, no contemptible match;
For should old Mrs. Nature endeavor to stagger her
By presenting, at last, her majestic Niagara,
Miss Art would produce an equivalent work
In her great, overwhelming, unfinished NEW YORK!

And now Mr. Brown
Was fairly in town,
In that part of the city they used to call "down,"
Not far from the spot of ancient renown
As being the scene
Of the Bowling Green,
A fountain that looked like a huge tureen
Piled up with rocks, and a squirt between;
But the "Bowling" now has gone where they tally
"The Fall of the Ten," in a neighboring alley;
And as to the "Green" -- why, that you will find
Whenever you see the "invisible" kind! --
And he stopped at an Inn that's known very well,
"Delmonico's" once -- now "Steven's Hotel";
(And, to venture a pun which I think rather witty,
There's no better Inn in this Inn-famous city!)

And Mr. Brown
Strolled up town,
And I'm going to write his travels down;
But if you suppose Tom Brown will disclose
The usual sins and follies of those
Who leave rural regions to see city-shows, --
You could n't well make
A greater mistake;
For Brown was a man of excellent sense;
Could see very well through a hole in a fence,
And was honest and plain, without sham or pretence;
Of sharp city-learning he could n't have boasted,
But he was n't the chap to be easily roasted.
And here let me say,
In a very dogmatic, oracular way
(And I'll prove it, before I have done with my lay),
Not only that honesty's likely to "pay,"
But that one must be, as a general rule,
At least half a knave to be wholly a fool!

Of pocketbook-dropping Tom never had heard
(Or at least if he had, he'd forgotten the word),
And now when, at length, the occasion occurred,
For that sort of chaff he was n't the bird.
The gentleman argued with eloquent force,
And begged him to pocket the money, of course;
But Brown, without thinking at all what he said,
Popped out the first thing that entered his head
(Which chanced to be wondrously fitting and true),
"No, no, my dear Sir, I'll be burnt if I do!"
Two lively young fellows, of elegant mien,
Amused him awhile with a pretty machine, --
An ivory ball, which he never had seen.
But though the unsuspecting stranger
In the "patent safe" saw no patent danger,
He easily dodged the nefarious net,
Because "he was n't accustomed to bet."

Ah! here, I wot,
Is exactly the spot
To make a small fortune as easy as not!
That man with the watch -- what lungs he has got!
It's "Going -- the best of that elegant lot --
To close a concern, at a desperate rate,
The jeweler ruined as certain as fate!
A capital watch! -- you may see by the weight --
Worth one hundred dollars as easy as eight --
Or half of that sum to melt down into plate --
(Brown does n't know "Peter" from Peter the Great)
But then I can't dwell,
I'm ordered to sell,
And mus'n't stand weeping -- just look at the shell --
I warrant the ticker to operate well --
Nine dollars! -- it's hard to be selling it under
A couple of fifties -- it's cruel, by Thunder!
Ten dollars! -- I'm offered -- the man who secures
This splendid -- ten dollars! -- say twelve, and it's yours!"
"Don't want it" quoth Brown -- "I don't wish to buy;
Fifty dollars, I'm sure, one could n't call high --
But to see the man ruined! -- Dear Sir, I declare --
Between two or three bidders, it does n't seem fair;
To knock it off now were surely a sin;
Just wait, my dear Sir, till the people come in!
Allow me to say, you disgrace your position
As Sheriff -- consid'ring the debtor's condition --
To sell such a watch without more competition!"
And here Mr. Brown
Gave a very black frown,
Stepped leisurely out, and walked farther up town.
To see him stray along Broadway
In the afternoon of a summer's day,
And note what he chanced to see and say;
And what people he meets
In the narrower streets,
Were a pregnant theme for a longer lay.
How he marveled at those geological chaps
Who go poking about in crannies and gaps,
Those curious people in tattered breeches
The rag-wearing, rag-picking sons of -- ditches,
Who find in the very nastiest niches
A "decent living," and sometimes riches;
How he thought city prices exceedingly queer,
The 'busses too cheap, and the hacks too dear;
How he stuck in the mud, and got lost in the question --
A problem too hard for his mental digestion --
Why -- in cleaning the city, the city employs
Such a very small corps of such very small boys;
How he judges by dress, and accordingly makes,
By mixing up classes, the drollest mistakes.
How -- as if simple vanity ever were vicious,
Or women of merit could be meretricious, --
He imagines the dashing Fifth-Avenue dames
The same as the girls with unspeakable names!
An exceedingly natural blunder in sooth,
But, I'm happy to say, very far from the truth;
For e'en at the worst, whate'er you suppose,
The one sort of ladies can choose their beaux,
While, as to the other -- but every one knows
What -- if 't were a secret -- I would n't disclose.

And Mr. Brown
Returned from town,
With a bran new hat, and a muslin gown,
And he told the tale, when the sun was down,
How he spent his eagles, and saved his crown;
How he showed his pluck by resisting the claim
Of an impudent fellow who asked his name;
But paid -- as a gentleman ever is willing --
At the old Park-Gate, the regular shilling!





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