The Broomstick 1838

Aye, there it stood! —

An ancient broomstick, hacked and torn,

Crippled, soiled, and weather-worn,

In solitude!

‘Alas!’ thought I, ‘thou poor old stump,

How many a heartless scrub and thump,

Hast thou, in patient silence suffered!

It makes me puff hard!

Oh! what a tale of sweeping tone

Couldst thou recite,

Fragmental sprite,

Although thy “sweeping tail” is gone!’

—I started; could I believe my eyes—

From out the broomstick seemed to rise

A shadowy head, a pair of shoulders,

A body, and its two upholders,

Then feet:

And lo! in attitude commanding,

The ‘spirit of a broom’ was standing

Complete!

In accents dignified yet bland

‘Fear not,’ it said, and waved its hand,

‘But hearken calmly to my tale—

Alas! but one continued wail,’

‘In early life, I snuffed the breeze

Much the same as other trees:

How keen and fresh it floated through

My leaves, with music ever new!

While, from his topaz throne on high,

Our glorious Deity

Threw back his locks of gold, with love divine,

And beamed his own bright smile, majestic and benign!’

‘Oh!—

—He!

Forgive this pause of mute despair,

—Although I’m but a ghost, whene’er

Fond memory rushes

Upon my mind, my powers of utterance stop;

A heart flood gushes,

And then—I weep like any water-mop!’

‘Well, all our fates must be fulfilled:

T’was mine to be in childhood killed.

Lopt, and shaped, and neatly bundled,

Off to market I was trundled:

And lo! one morn I found myself a broom,

And skimming along a dining-room!’

‘At first I served a venerable dame,

Who ne’er had changed, or wished to change, her name:

In deeds of charity

Her peaceful lifestream glided sweetly by.

Years here I staid, but not in vain,

I always strove experience to gain,

Nor ever let my observation rust,

But swept up wisdom as I swept up dust.

Her memory I shall ever bless,

She used me with such tenderness!

Well, the old girl in “andro-phobia” lived,

Until her seventieth natal day arrived;

But “flesh is frail

As pot or pail,”

So the ancient psalmist saith;

And she, when seventy stoic years had past,

Stept from the path of rectitude at last,

And fell into the arms of—death!’

‘The next I lived with was a “ladies’-man”:

I little cared to scan

Each harmless, milk-and-water folly

Of this un-petticoated Molly.

Not withered, yet, by Fortune’s frown,

His days were spent in riding round the town,

And earning goodly reputation,

By harsh, affected cachinnation,

Among two-thirds of woman-kind—

The over-simple, and the over-kind.’

‘“Hallo!” cried I, “excuse my incivility

“Where have you learned such scandalous scurrility?”

—Pshaw! quoth the sneering sprite with stiff-necked gloom,

“Scurrility is innate in a Brougham.”’¹

‘When from this household I went forth, I

Next served a well-conditioned worthy,

Whose ruling passion stood confest

In the tightness of his sack-like vest,

And round luxuriance of limb:

He loved the cook, but ah! she loved not him.

One morn, a vision met my wakening eyes,

That made my hairs with bristling horror rise:’

‘“There he stood with open eye

Fixed on the broomstick, silently

Swiftly swinging round to smite,”

In breathless fright!

Up I went with a twist and a twirl,

Down I came with a whizz and a whirl—

Whack!

On his back!’

* * *

Suddenly the spirit stopped,

And farther uttrance [sic] cropped;

—O wonderful! —his stature seemed to grow

To something diabolic, and a glow

Scorching and withering, from his features shone—

I yelled and started up—my reverie was gone!

It seems that I, at first, had stood

In musing mood,

With skirts upraised, and back towards the fire,

The true position of an English squire—

And, quite unconscious of my threatened fate,

Stepped back at last, and sate upon the grate!

“Korah”