A Legend Of Communipaw - Prose Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B C D E F G F F B H I J K L M N B O P O Q E R S P E T B F B U V W V X Y WWZW A2 B2 F E| To the Editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine | A |
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| Sir I observed in your last month's periodical a communication from a Mr VANDERDONK giving some information concerning Communipaw I herewith send you Mr Editor a legend connected with that place and am much surprised it should have escaped the researches of your very authentic correspondent as it relates to an edifice scarcely less fated than the House of the Four Chimneys I give you the legend in its crude and simple state as I heard it related it is capable however of being dilated inflated and dressed up into very imposing shape and dimensions Should any of your ingenious contributors in this line feel inclined to take it in hand they will find ample materials collateral and illustrative among the papers of the late Reinier Skaats many years since crier of the court and keeper of the City Hall in the city of the Manhattoes or in the library of that important and utterly renowned functionary Mr Jacob Hays long time high constable who in the course of his extensive researches has amassed an amount of valuable facts to be rivalled only by that great historical collection The Newgate Calendar | B |
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| Your humble servant | C |
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| BARENT VAN SCHAICK | D |
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| Guests from Gibbet Island | E |
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| A Legend of Communipaw | F |
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| WHOEVER has visited the ancient and renowned village of Communipaw may have noticed an old stone building of most ruinous and sinister appearance The doors and window shutters are ready to drop from their hinges old clothes are stuffed in the broken panes of glass while legions of half starved dogs prowl about the premises and rush out and bark at every passer by for your beggarly house in a village is most apt to swarm with profligate and ill conditioned dogs What adds to the sinister appearance of this mansion is a tall frame in front not a little resembling a gallows and which looks as if waiting to accommodate some of the inhabitants with a well merited airing It is not a gallows however but an ancient sign post for this dwelling in the golden days of Communipaw was one of the most orderly and peaceful of village taverns where all the public affairs of Communipaw were talked and smoked over In fact it was in this very building that Oloffe the Dreamer and his companions concerted that great voyage of discovery and colonization in which they explored Buttermilk Channel were nearly shipwrecked in the strait of Hell gate and finally landed on the Island of Manhattan and founded the great city of New Amsterdam | G |
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| Even after the province had been cruelly wrested from the sway of their High Mightinesses by the combined forces of the British and Yankees this tavern continued its ancient loyalty It is true the head of the Prince of Orange disappeared from the sign a strange bird being painted over it with the explanatory legend of DIE WILDE GANS or The Wild Goose but this all the world knew to be a sly riddle of the landlord the worthy Teunis Van Gieson a knowing man in a small way who laid his finger beside his nose and winked when any one studied the signification of his sign and observed that his goose was hatching but would join the flock whenever they flew over the water an enigma which was the perpetual recreation and delight of the loyal but fat headed burghers of Communipaw | F |
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| Under the sway of this patriotic though discreet and quiet publican the tavern continued to flourish in primeval tranquillity and was the resort of all true hearted Nederlanders from all parts of Pavonia who met here quietly and secretly to smoke and drink the downfall of Briton and Yankee and success to Admiral Van Tromp | F |
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| The only drawback on the comfort of the establishment was a nephew of mine host a sister's son Yan Yost Vanderscamp by name and a real scamp by nature This unlucky whipster showed an early propensity to mischief which he gratified in a small way by playing tricks upon the frequenters of the Wild Goose putting gunpowder in their pipes or squibs in their pockets and astonishing them with an explosion while they sat nodding round the fire place in the bar room and if perchance a worthy burgher from some distant part of Pavonia had lingered until dark over his potation it was odds but that young Vanderscamp would slip a briar under his horse's tail as he mounted and send him clattering along the road in neck or nothing style to his infinite astonishment and discomfiture | B |
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| It may be wondered at that mine host of the Wild Goose did not turn such a graceless varlet out of doors but Teunis Van Gieson was an easy tempered man and having no child of his own looked upon his nephew with almost parental indulgence His patience and good nature were doomed to be tried by another inmate of his mansion This was a cross grained curmudgeon of a negro named Pluto who was a kind of enigma in Communipaw Where he came from nobody knew He was found one morning after a storm cast like a sea monster on the strand in front of the Wild Goose and lay there more dead than alive The neighbors gathered round and speculated on this production of the deep whether it were fish or flesh or a compound of both commonly yclept a merman The kind hearted Teunis Van Gieson seeing that he wore the human form took him into his house and warmed him into life By degrees he showed signs of intelligence and even uttered sounds very much like language but which no one in Communipaw could understand Some thought him a negro just from Guinea who had either fallen overboard or escaped from a slave ship Nothing however could ever draw from him any account of his origin When questioned on the subject he merely pointed to Gibbet Island a small rocky islet which lies in the open bay just opposite to Communipaw as if that were his native place though every body knew it had never been inhabited | H |
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| In the process of time he acquired something of the Dutch language that is to say he learnt all its vocabulary of oaths and maledictions with just words sufficient to string them together Donder en blicksen thunder and lightning was the gentlest of his ejaculations For years he kept about the Wild Goose more like one of those familiar spirits or household goblins that we read of than like a human being He acknowledged allegiance to no one but performed various domestic offices when it suited his humor waiting occasionally on the guests grooming the horses cutting wood drawing water and all this without being ordered Lay any command on him and the stubborn sea urchin was sure to rebel He was never so much at home however as when on the water plying about in skiff or canoe entirely alone fishing crabbing or grabbing for oysters and would bring home quantities for the larder of the Wild Goose which he would throw down at the kitchen door with a growl No wind nor weather deterred him from launching forth on his favorite element indeed the wilder the weather the more he seemed to enjoy it If a storm was brewing he was sure to put off from shore and would be seen far out in the bay his light skiff dancing like a feather on the waves when sea and sky were all in a turmoil and the stoutest ships were fain to lower their sails Sometimes on such occasions he would be absent for days together How he weathered the tempest and how and where he subsisted no one could divine nor did any one venture to ask for all had an almost superstitious awe of him Some of the Communipaw oystermen declared that they had more than once seen him suddenly disappear canoe and all as if they plunged beneath the waves and after a while come up again in quite a different part of the bay whence they concluded that he could live under water like that notable species of wild duck commonly called the Hell diver All began to consider him in the light of a foul weather bird like the Mother Carey's Chicken or Stormy Petrel and whenever they saw him putting far out in his skiff in cloudy weather made up their minds for a storm | I |
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| The only being for whom he seemed to have any liking was Yan Yost Vanderscamp and him he liked for his very wickedness He in a manner took the boy under his tutelage prompted him to all kinds of mischief aided him in every wild harum scarum freak until the lad became the complete scapegrace of the village a pest to his uncle and to every one else Nor were his pranks confined to the land he soon learned to accompany old Pluto on the water Together these worthies would cruise about the broad bay and all the neighboring straits and rivers poking around in skiffs and canoes robbing the set nets of the fishermen landing on remote coasts and laying waste orchards and water melon patches in short carrying on a complete system of piracy on a small scale Piloted by Pluto the youthful Vanderscamp soon became acquainted with all the bays rivers creeks and inlets of the watery world around him could navigate from the Hook to Spiting devil on the darkest night and learned to set even the terrors of Hell gate at defiance | J |
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| At length negro and boy suddenly disappeared and days and weeks elapsed but without tidings of them Some said they must have run away and gone to sea others jocosely hinted that old Pluto being no other than his namesake in disguise had spirited away the boy to the nether regions All however agreed in one thing that the village was well rid of them | K |
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| In the process of time the good Teunis Van Gieson slept with his fathers and the tavern remained shut up waiting for a claimant for the next heir was Yan Yost Vanderscamp and he had not been heard of for years At length one day a boat was seen pulling for the shore from a long black rakish looking schooner that lay at anchor in the bay The boat's crew seemed worthy of the craft from which they debarked Never had such a set of noisy roistering swaggering varlets landed in peaceful Communipaw They were outlandish in garb and demeanor and were headed by a rough burly bully ruffian with fiery whiskers a copper nose a scar across his face and a great Flaunderish beaver slouched on one side of his head in whom to their dismay the quiet inhabitants were made to recognize their early pest Yan Yost Vanderscamp The rear of this hopeful gang was brought up by old Pluto who had lost an eye grown grizzly headed and looked more like a devil than ever Vanderscamp renewed his acquaintance with the old burghers much against their will and in a manner not at all to their taste He slapped them familiarly on the back gave them an iron grip of the hand and was hail fellow well met According to his own account he had been all the world over had made money by bags full had ships in every sea and now meant to turn the Wild Goose into a country seat where he and his comrades all rich merchants from foreign parts might enjoy themselves in the interval of their voyages Sure enough in a little while there was a complete metamorphose of the Wild Goose From being a quiet peaceful Dutch public house it became a most riotous uproarious private dwelling a complete rendezvous for boisterous men of the seas who came here to have what they called a blow out on dry land and might be seen at all hours lounging about the door or lolling out of the windows swearing among themselves and cracking rough jokes on every passer by The house was fitted up too in so strange a manner hammocks slung to the walls instead of bedsteads odd kinds of furniture of foreign fashion bamboo couches Spanish chairs pistols cutlasses and blunderbusses suspended on every peg silver crucifixes on the mantel pieces silver candle sticks and porringers on the tables contrasting oddly with the pewter and Delf ware of the original establishment And then the strange amusements of these sea monsters Pitching Spanish dollars instead of quoits firing blunderbusses out of the window shooting at a mark or at any unhappy dog or cat or pig or barn door fowl that might happen to come within reach | L |
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| The only being who seemed to relish their rough waggery was old Pluto and yet he led but a dog's life of it for they practised all kinds of manual jokes upon him kicked him about like a foot ball shook him by his grizzly mop of wool and never spoke to him without coupling a curse by way of adjective to his name and consigning him to the infernal regions The old fellow however seemed to like them the better the more they cursed him though his utmost expression of pleasure never amounted to more than the growl of a petted bear when his ears are rubbed | M |
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| Old Pluto was the ministering spirit at the orgies of the Wild Goose and such orgies as took place there Such drinking singing whooping swearing with an occasional interlude of quarrelling and fighting The noisier grew the revel the more old Pluto plied the potations until the guests would become frantic in their merriment smashing every thing to pieces and throwing the house out of the windows Sometimes after a drinking bout they sallied forth and scoured the village to the dismay of the worthy burghers who gathered their women within doors and would have shut up the house Vanderscamp however was not to be rebuffed He insisted on renewing acquaintance with his old neighbors and on introducing his friends the merchants to their families swore he was on the look out for a wife and meant before he stopped to find husbands for all their daughters So will ye nil ye sociable he was swaggered about their best parlors with his hat on one side of his head sat on the good wife's nicely waxed mahogany table kicking his heels against the carved and polished legs kissed and tousled the young vrouws and if they frowned and pouted gave them a gold rosary or a sparkling cross to put them in good humor again | N |
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| Sometimes nothing would satisfy him but he must have some of his old neighbors to dinner at the Wild Goose There was no refusing him for he had got the complete upper hand of the community and the peaceful burghers all stood in awe of him But what a time would the quiet worthy men have among these rake hells who would delight to astound them with the most extravagant gunpowder tales embroidered with all kinds of foreign oaths clink the can with them pledge them in deep potations bawl drinking songs in their ears and occasionally fire pistols over their heads or under the table and then laugh in their faces and ask them how they liked the smell of gunpowder | B |
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| Thus was the little village of Communipaw for a time like the unfortunate wight possessed with devils until Vanderscamp and his brother merchants would sail on another trading voyage when the Wild Goose would be shut up and every thing relapse into quiet only to be disturbed by his next visitation | O |
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| The mystery of all these proceedings gradually dawned upon the tardy intellects of Communipaw These were the times of the notorious Captain Kidd when the American harbors were the resorts of piratical adventurers of all kinds who under pretext of mercantile voyages scoured the West Indies made plundering descents upon the Spanish Main visited even the remote Indian Seas and then came to dispose of their booty have their revels and fit out new expeditions in the English colonies | P |
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| Vanderscamp had served in this hopeful school and having risen to importance among the bucaniers had pitched upon his native village and early home as a quiet out of the way unsuspected place where he and his comrades while anchored at New York might have their feasts and concert their plans without molestation | O |
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| At length the attention of the British government was called to these piratical enterprises that were becoming so frequent and outrageous Vigorous measures were taken to check and punish them Several of the most noted freebooters were caught and executed and three of Vanderscamp's chosen comrades the most riotous swash bucklers of the Wild Goose were hanged in chains on Gibbet Island in full sight of their favorite resort As to Vanderscamp himself he and his man Pluto again disappeared and it was hoped by the people of Communipaw that he had fallen in some foreign brawl or been swung on some foreign gallows | Q |
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| For a time therefore the tranquillity of the village was restored the worthy Dutchmen once more smoked their pipes in peace eying with peculiar complacency their old pests and terrors the pirates dangling and drying in the sun on Gibbet Island | E |
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| This perfect calm was doomed at length to be ruffled The fiery persecution of the pirates gradually subsided Justice was satisfied with the examples that had been made and there was no more talk of Kidd and the other heroes of like kidney On a calm summer evening a boat somewhat heavily laden was seen pulling into Communipaw What was the surprise and disquiet of the inhabitants to see Yan Yost Vanderscamp seated at the helm and his man Pluto tugging at the oars Vanderscamp however was apparently an altered man He brought home with him a wife who seemed to be a shrew and to have the upper hand of him He no longer was the swaggering bully ruffian but affected the regular merchant and talked of retiring from business and settling down quietly to pass the rest of his days in his native place | R |
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| The Wild Goose mansion was again opened but with diminished splendor and no riot It is true Vanderscamp had frequent nautical visitors and the sound of revelry was occasionally overheard in his house but every thing seemed to be done under the rose and old Pluto was the only servant that officiated at these orgies The visitors indeed were by no means of the turbulent stamp of their predecessors but quiet mysterious traders full of nods and winks and hieroglyphic signs with whom to use their cant phrase every thing was smug Their ships came to anchor at night in the lower bay and on a private signal Vanderscamp would launch his boat and accompanied solely by his man Pluto would make them mysterious visits Sometimes boats pulled in at night in front of the Wild Goose and various articles of merchandise were landed in the dark and spirited away nobody knew whither One of the more curious of the inhabitants kept watch and caught a glimpse of the features of some of these night visitors by the casual glance of a lantern and declared that he recognized more than one of the freebooting frequenters of the Wild Goose in former times from whence he concluded that Vanderscamp was at his old game and that this mysterious merchandise was nothing more nor less than piratical plunder The more charitable opinion however was that Vanderscamp and his comrades having been driven from their old line of business by the oppressions of government had resorted to smuggling to make both ends meet | S |
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| Be that as it may I come now to the extraordinary fact which is the butt end of this story It happened late one night that Yan Yost Vanderscamp was returning across the broad bay in his light skiff rowed by his man Pluto He had been carousing on board of a vessel newly arrived and was somewhat obfuscated in intellect by the liquor he had imbibed It was a still sultry night a heavy mass of lurid clouds was rising in the west with the low muttering of distant thunder Vanderscamp called on Pluto to pull lustily that they might get home before the gathering storm The old negro made no reply but shaped his course so as to skirt the rocky shores of Gibbet Island A faint creaking overhead caused Vanderscamp to cast up his eyes when to his horror he beheld the bodies of his three pot companions and brothers in iniquity dangling in the moonlight their rags fluttering and their chains creaking as they were slowly swung backward and forward by the rising breeze | P |
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| What do you mean you blockhead cried Vanderscamp by pulling so close to the island | E |
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| I thought you'd be glad to see your old friends once more growled the negro you were never afraid of a living man what do you fear from the dead | T |
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| Who's afraid hiccupped Vanderscamp partly heated by liquor partly nettled by the jeer of the negro who's afraid Hang me but I would be glad to see them once more alive or dead at the Wild Goose Come my lads in the wind continued he taking a draught and flourishing the bottle above his head here's fair weather to you in the other world and if you should be walking the rounds to night odds fish but I'll be happy if you will drop in to supper | B |
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| A dismal creaking was the only reply The wind blew loud and shrill and as it whistled round the gallows and among the bones sounded as if there were laughing and gibbering in the air Old Pluto chuckled to himself and now pulled for home The storm burst over the voyagers while they were yet far from shore The rain fell in torrents the thunder crashed and pealed and the lightning kept up an incessant blaze It was stark midnight before they landed at Communipaw | F |
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| Dripping and shivering Vanderscamp crawled homeward He was completely sobered by the storm the water soaked from without having diluted and cooled the liquor within Arrived at the Wild Goose he knocked timidly and dubiously at the door for he dreaded the reception he was to experience from his wife He had reason to do so She met him at the threshold in a precious ill humor | B |
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| Is this a time said she to keep people out of their beds and to bring home company to turn the house upside down | U |
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| Company said Vanderscamp meekly I have brought no company with me wife | V |
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| No indeed they have got here before you but by your invitation and blessed looking company they are truly | W |
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| Vanderscamp's knees smote together For the love of heaven where are they wife | V |
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| Where why in the blue room up stairs making themselves as much at home as if the house were their own | X |
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| Vanderscamp made a desperate effort scrambled up to the room and threw open the door Sure enough there at a table on which burned a light as blue as brimstone sat the three guests from Gibbet Island with halters round their necks and bobbing their cups together as if they were hob or nobbing and trolling the old Dutch freebooter's glee since translated into English | Y |
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| For three merry lads be we | W |
| And three merry lads be we | W |
| I on the land and thou on the sand | Z |
| And Jack on the gallows tree | W |
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| Vanderscamp saw and heard no more Starting back with horror he missed his footing on the landing place and fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom He was taken up speechless and either from the fall or the fright was buried in the yard of the little Dutch church at Bergen on the following Sunday | A2 |
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| From that day forward the fate of the Wild Goose was sealed It was pronounced a haunted house and avoided accordingly No one inhabited it but Vanderscamp's shrew of a widow and old Pluto and they were considered but little better than its hobgoblin visitors Pluto grew more and more haggard and morose and looked more like an imp of darkness than a human being He spoke to no one but went about muttering to himself or as some hinted talking with the devil who though unseen was ever at his elbow Now and then he was seen pulling about the bay alone in his skiff in dark weather or at the approach of night fall nobody could tell why unless on an errand to invite more guests from the gallows Indeed it was affirmed that the Wild Goose still continued to be a house of entertainment for such guests and that on stormy nights the blue chamber was occasionally illuminated and sounds of diabolical merriment were overheard mingling with the howling of the tempest Some treated these as idle stories until on one such night it was about the time of the equinox there was a horrible uproar in the Wild Goose that could not be mistaken It was not so much the sound of revelry however as strife with two or three piercing shrieks that pervaded every part of the village Nevertheless no one thought of hastening to the spot On the contrary the honest burghers of Communipaw drew their night caps over their ears and buried their heads under the bed clothes at the thoughts of Vanderscamp and his gallows companions | B2 |
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| The next morning some of the bolder and more curious undertook to reconnoitre All was quiet and lifeless at the Wild Goose The door yawned wide open and had evidently been open all night for the storm had beaten into the house Gathering more courage from the silence and apparent desertion they gradually ventured over the threshold The house had indeed the air of having been possessed by devils Every thing was topsy turvy trunks had been broken open and chests of drawers and corner cupboards turned inside out as in a time of general sack and pillage but the most woful sight was the widow of Yan Yost Vanderscamp extended a corpse on the floor of the blue chamber with the marks of a deadly gripe on the wind pipe | F |
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| All now was conjecture and dismay at Communipaw and the disappearance of old Pluto who was no where to be found gave rise to all kinds of wild surmises Some suggested that the negro had betrayed the house to some of Vanderscamp's bucaniering associates and that they had decamped together with the booty others surmised that the negro was nothing more nor less than a devil incarnate who had now accomplished his ends and made off with his dues Events however vindicated the negro from this last imputation His skiff was picked up drifting about the bay bottom upward as if wrecked in a tempest and his body was found shortly afterward by some Communipaw fishermen stranded among the rocks of Gibbet Island near the foot of the pirates' gallows The fishermen shook their heads and observed that old Pluto had ventured once too often to invite Guests from Gibbet Island | E |
Washington Irving
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