The Dong with a Luminous Nose -- Edward Lear

Deftly merging two themes...

(Poem #628) The Dong with a Luminous Nose When awful darkness and silence reign Over the great Gromboolian plain, Through the long, long wintry nights; When the angry breakers roar, As they beat on the rocky shore; When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights Of the Hills on the Chankly Bore: Then, through the vast and gloomy dark, There moves what seems a fiery spark, A lonely spark with silvery rays Piercing the coal-black night, A meteor strange and bright: Hither and thither the vision strays, A single lurid light. Slowly it wanders - pauses - creeps - Anon it sparkles - flashes and leaps; And ever as onward it gleaming goes A light on the Bong-tree stem it throws. And those who watch at that midnight hour From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower, Cry, as the wild light passes along, "The Dong! - the Dong! The wandering Dong through the forest goes! The Dong! the Dong! The Dong with a luminous Nose!" Long years ago The Dong was happy and gay, Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl Who came to those shores one day. For the Jumblies came in a Sieve, they did - Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd Where the Oblong Oysters grow, And the rocks are smooth and gray. And all the woods and the valleys rang With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang - "Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve." Happily, happily passed those days! While the cheerful Jumblies staid; They danced in circlets all night long, To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong, In moonlight, shine, or shade. For day and night he was always there By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair, With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair. Till the morning came of that fateful day When the Jumblies sailed in their Sieve away, And the Dong was left on the cruel shore Gazing - gazing for evermore - Ever keeping his weary eyes on That pea-green sail on the far horizon - Singing the Jumbly Chorus still As he sat all day on the grass hill - "Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve." But when the sun was low in the West, The Dong arose and said, "What little sense I once possessed Has quite gone out of my head!" And since that day he wanders still By lake and forest, marsh and hill, Singing - "O somewhere, in valley or plain Might I find my Jumbly Girl again! For ever I'll seek by lake and shore Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!" Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks, Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks, And because by night he could not see, He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree On the flowery plain that grows. And he wove him a wondrous Nose, A Nose as strange as a Nose could be! Of vast proportions and painted red, And tied with cords to the back of his head. - In a hollow rounded space it ended With a luminous lamp within suspended, All fenced about With a bandage stout To prevent the wind from blowing it out; And with holes all round to send the light, In gleaming rays on the dismal night. And now each night, and all night long, Over those plains still roams the Dong! And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe You may hear the wail of his plaintive pipe, While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain, To meet with his Jumbly Girl again; Lonely and wild - all night he goes - The Dong with a luminous Nose! And all who watch at the midnight hour, From Hall or Terrace, or Lofty Tower, Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright, Moving along through the dreary night, "This is the hour when forth he goes, The Dong with the luminous Nose! Yonder - over the plain he goes; He goes; He goes! The Dong with a luminous Nose!" -- Edward Lear

Mysterious, surreal, deeply tinged with melancholy - "The Dong with a
Luminous Nose" embodies many of the themes that characterize Lear's longer
work. It's also more than a little reminiscent [1] of Yeats' magnificent
"Song of Wandering Aengus" [2] in its, errm, 'plot', and of the dream poems
that Martin has been running of late, in its twilit atmosphere.

Questions of theme apart, notice how "The Dong" shares with Hope's "Reverie
of Mahomed Akram" (yesterday's poem) a highly idiosyncratic use of rhyme and
metre: as is the case with the Hope poem, the irregularity contributes
greatly to the overall dreamy effect. Once again, it's a tribute to the
poet's prosodic skill that this difficult task is pulled off without a hint
of awkwardness or artificiality.

thomas.

[1] 'Reminiscent' is probably not the best choice of word, given that Lear's
poem predates Yeats' by at least 30 years (though I don't have the exact
dates to hand).

[2] poem #1 - yes, the very
first poem ever run on the Minstrels.

[Someone Else's Commentary]

[Lear's] songs are not as nonsensical as his limericks, and have often been
interpreted as the reductio ad absurdum of Romantic poetry. By Bowra (The
Romantic Imagination, 1950, p. 279), for example:

"He differs from his models not in his means but in his end. He wished to
write nonsense, and with the insight of genius saw that the romantic
technique was perfectly suited to it. With him the romantic indefiniteness
passes beautifully into absurdity, and his own inchoate sorrows vanish in
the divine light of nonsense."

Hugh Kenner (A Homemade World, 1975, p. 70) emphasizes the escapism implicit
in such a practice:

"Tennyson's friend Edward Lear at length perceived that the safest course
for poetry, since its ligatures with phenomena were causing it so much
trouble, was to shut itself up completely in its own cocoon of suggestion."

This is especially evident in poems such as The Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò, which
tells the story of an unrequited love, and The Dong with a Luminous Nose,
clearly about feelings of solitude; these are usually considered reflections
of Lear's personal condition.

        -- Marco Graziosi, [broken link] http://utenti.tripod.it/elear/learss.html

[Links]

Other Lear poems:

"The Owl and the Pussycat" is one of _the_ masterpieces of nonsense verse:
poem #165. (There's a Lear biography attached to the commentary
accompanying this poem).

Lear more or less invented the limerick as we know it; "There was an Old Man
with a Beard" is a good example of his pioneering work: poem #378

"The Pobble Who Has No Toes" cuts just as melancholy a figure as the
unfortunate Dong: poem #297

"The Akond of Swat" is hilarious in its progressively-increasing flights of
absurdity: poem #356

Previous poems in the Nose theme:

"The Sniffle", by Ogden Nash: poem #625

Cyrano's speech, "Twenty Ways to Insult a Nose", by Edmond Rostand: poem #626

Previous poems in the Dream theme:

"The Ice-Cart", by Wilfred Gibson: poem #622

"Reverie of Mahomed Akram at the Tamarind Tank", by Laurence Hope (Adela
Nicolson): poem #627

More about the wandering Jumblies (including a reference to their sojourn in
the Hills of the Chankly Bore) can be found in Lear's poem titled (you
guessed it) "The Jumblies", which you can read at
[broken link] http://www.engr.mun.ca/~john/jumblies.html

Incidentally, the stanza
 "Far and few, far and few,
 Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
 Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
 And they went to sea in a Sieve."
(within quotes in today's poem) appears as a refrain in "The Jumblies".

There Was an Old Man with a Beard -- Edward Lear

(Poem #378) There Was an Old Man with a Beard There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, "It is just as I feared! -- Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard. -- Edward Lear

Like most people, I have an ambivalent response to Lear's limericks. Sure,
they practically defined the genre - as the following piece puts it,

  Although at the Limericks of Lear,
  We may feel a temptation to sneer,
  We should never forget
  That we owe him a debt
  For his work as the first pioneer.
        -- Langford Reed

but nonetheless the temptation to sneer is undeniably there. And the reason
is not all that hard to see - despite all their redeeming qualities, Lear's
limericks are *boring*.

Also annoying is the fact that the first and last lines end with the same
word - two of the pleasures of modern limericks are the cleverness of the
rhymes and the (usually humourous) unexpectedness of the ending, both of
which are lost here.

Note:

No, the formatting is not messed up. Lear really did write his limericks in
four line form, with an internal rhyme in the third; the split into two
short lines came later.

On Limericks:

  limerick: a popular form of short, humorous verse that is often
  nonsensical and frequently ribald. It consists of five lines, rhyming
  aabba, and the dominant metre is anapestic, with two metrical feet in the
  third and fourth lines and three feet in the others. The origin of the
  limerick is unknown, but it has been suggested that the name derives from
  the chorus of an 18th-century Irish soldiers' song, "Will You Come Up to
  Limerick?" To this were added impromptu verses crowded with improbable
  incident and subtle innuendo.

  The first collections of limericks in English date from about 1820. Edward
  Lear, who composed and illustrated those in his Book of Nonsense (1846),
  claimed to have gotten the idea from a nursery rhyme beginning "There was
  an old man of Tobago." A typical example from Lear's collection is this
  verse:There was an Old Man who supposed/That the street door was partially
  closed;/But some very large rats Ate his coats and his hats,/While that
  futile Old Gentleman dozed.

  And later

  certain metric forms associated with heroic poetry, such as the hexameter
  or alexandrine, arouse expectations of pathos, of the exalted; to pour
  into these epic molds some homely, trivial content--"beautiful soup, so
  rich and green/ waiting in a hot tureen"--is an almost infallible comic
  device. the rolling rhythms of the first lines of a limerick that carry,
  instead of a mythical hero such as hector or achilles, a young lady from
  ohio for a ride make her ridiculous even before the expected calamities
  befall her.
        -- EB

Parody:

Parody? Of a limerick? Not the world's easiest task, one might have thought,
but Lear's somewhat laboured style leaves him wide open to attack, as taken
full advantage of in the following brilliant piece of verse

  There was an old man with a beard
  A funny old man with a beard
  He had a big beard
  A great big old beard
  That amusing old man with a beard

        -- John Clarke

Links:

Lear's nonsense verse was far better than his limericks. we've run a few
examples: poem #165 (with biography), poem #297, and poem #356.

And for a comprehensive webpage on limericks:
[broken link] http://bruichladdich.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/limericksdir/limericks.html

m.

The Akond of Swat -- Edward Lear

(Poem #356) The Akond of Swat Who, or why, or which, or what, Is the Akond of SWAT? Is he tall or short, or dark or fair? Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or a chair, or SQUAT, The Akond of Swat? Is he wise or foolish, young or old? Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold, or HOT, The Akond of Swat? Does he sing or whistle, jabber or talk, And when riding abroad does he gallop or walk or TROT, The Akond of Swat? Does he wear a turban, a fez, or a hat? Does he sleep on a mattress, a bed, or a mat, or COT, The Akond of Swat? When he writes a copy in round-hand size, Does he cross his T's and finish his I's with a DOT, The Akond of Swat? Can he write a letter concisely clear Without a speck or a smudge or smear or BLOT, The Akond of Swat? Do his people like him extremely well? Or do they, whenever they can, rebel, or PLOT, At the Akond of Swat? If he catches them then, either old or young, Does he have them chopped in pieces or hung, or SHOT, The Akond of Swat? Do his people prig in the lanes or park? Or even at times, when days are dark, GAROTTE, The Akond of Swat? Does he study the wants of his own dominion? Or doesn't he care for public opinion a JOT, The Akond of Swat? To amuse his mind do his people show him Pictures, or any one's last new poem, or WHAT, For the Akond of Swat? At night if he suddenly screams and wakes, Do they bring him only a few small cakes, or a LOT, For the Akond of Swat? Does he live on turnips, tea, or tripe? Does he like his shawl to be marked with a stripe, or a DOT, The Akond of Swat? Does he like to lie on his back in a boat Like the lady who lived in that isle remote, SHALLOTT, The Akond of Swat? Is he quiet, or always making a fuss? Is his steward a Swiss or a Swede or Russ, or a SCOT, The Akond of Swat? Does like to sit by the calm blue wave? Or to sleep and snore in a dark green cave, or a GROTT, The Akond of Swat? Does he drink small beer from a silver jug? Or a bowl? or a glass? or a cup? or a mug? or a POT, The Akond of Swat? Does he beat his wife with a gold-topped pipe, When she let the gooseberries grow too ripe, or ROT, The Akond of Swat? Does he wear a white tie when he dines with friends, And tie it neat in a bow with ends, or a KNOT. The Akond of Swat? Does he like new cream, and hate mince-pies? When he looks at the sun does he wink his eyes, or NOT, The Akond of Swat? Does he teach his subjects to roast and bake? Does he sail about on an inland lake in a YACHT, The Akond of Swat? Some one, or nobody, knows I wot Who or which or why or what Is the Akond of Swat? -- Edward Lear

[For the existence of this potentate see Indian newspapers, passim. The
proper way to read the verses is to make an immense emphasis on the
monosyllabic rhymes, which indeed ought to be shouted out by a chorus. -
E.L.]

What I like most about 'The Akond of Swat' is the way the images grow
progressively more surreal with each passing stanza...

Lear starts off innocently enough:
        'Is he wise or foolish, young or old?
        Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold,
                or HOT,
        The Akond of Swat?'

By mid-poem, he's stretching the limits of normalcy:
        'At night if he suddenly screams and wakes,
        Do they bring him only a few small cakes,
                or a LOT,
        For the Akond of Swat?'

And the final few stanzas are completely bizarre:
        'Does he beat his wife with a gold-topped pipe,
        When she let the gooseberries grow too ripe,
                or ROT,
        The Akond of Swat?'

In truth, though, the entire poem is pretty much nonsensical; it's only
Lear's delicate touch which keeps it from sounding utterly ludicrous.

thomas.

[Minstrels Links]

Lear's most famous work is the canonical 'The Owl and the Pussycat'. You
can read it at poem #165

'The Pobble who has no Toes' is an excellent example of the melancholy
that permeates Lear's work; itas archived at
(poem #297)

[Biography]

  b. May 12, 1812, Highgate, near London
  d. Jan. 29, 1888, San Remo, Italy

English landscape painter who is more widely known as the writer of an
original kind of nonsense verse and as the popularizer of the limerick.
His true genius is apparent in his nonsense poems, which portray a world
of fantastic creatures in nonsense words and show a Tennysonian feeling
for word colour, variety of rhythm, and often a deep underlying sense of
melancholy. Their quality is matched, especially in the limericks, by
that of his engaging pen-and-ink drawings.

The youngest of 21 children, he was brought up by his eldest sister,
Ann, and from the age of 15 earned his living by drawing. He
subsequently worked for the British Museum, made drawings of birds for
John Gould, a zoologist, and, during 1832-37, made illustrations of the
Earl of Derby's private menagerie at Knowsley, Lancashire. Lear had a
natural affinity for children, and it was for the earl's grandchildren
that he produced his first Book of Nonsense (1846, enlarged 1861, 1863).
In 1835 he decided to become a topographical landscape painter.

Lear, a homosexual, suffered all his life from epilepsy and melancholia.
After 1837 he lived mainly abroad. Though naturally timid, he was a
constant and intrepid traveler, exploring Italy, Greece, Albania,
Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and, later, India and Ceylon. An indefatigable
worker, he produced innumerable pen and watercolour sketches of great
topographical accuracy. He worked these up into the carefully finished
watercolours and large oil paintings, showing Pre-Raphaelite influence,
that were his financial mainstay. During his nomadic life he lived,
among other places, at Rome, Corfu, and, finally, with his celebrated
cat "Foss," at San Remo.

Lear published three volumes of bird and animal drawings; seven
llustrated travel books (notably Journal of a Landscape Painter in
Greece and Albania, 1851); and four books of nonsense--The Book of
Nonsense mentioned earlier, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and
Alphabets (1871), More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872),
and Laughable Lyrics (1877). A posthumous collection, Queery Leary
Nonsense (1911), was compiled by Lady Strachey.

        -- EB

The Pobble Who Has No Toes -- Edward Lear

(Poem #297) The Pobble Who Has No Toes The Pobble who has no toes Had once as many as we; When they said "Some day you may lose them all;" He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!" And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink Lavender water tinged with pink, For she said "The World in general knows There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!" The Pobble who has no toes Swam across the Bristol Channel; But before he set out he wrapped his nose In a piece of scarlet flannel. For his Aunt Jobiska said "No harm Can come to his toes if his nose is warm; And it's perfectly known that a Pobble's toes Are safe, -- provided he minds his nose!" The Pobble swam fast and well, And when boats or ships came near him, He tinkledy-blinkledy-winkled a bell, So that all the world could hear him. And all the Sailors and Admirals cried, When they saw him nearing the further side - "He has gone to fish for his Aunt Jobiska's Runcible Cat with crimson whiskers!" But before he touched the shore, The shore of the Bristol Channel, A sea-green porpoise carried away His wrapper of scarlet flannel. And when he came to observe his feet, Formerly garnished with toes so neat, His face at once became forlorn, On perceiving that all his toes were gone! And nobody ever knew, From that dark day to the present, Whoso had taken the Pobble's toes, In a manner so far from pleasant. Whether the shrimps, or crawfish grey, Or crafty Mermaids stole them away - Nobody knew: and nobody knows How the Pobble was robbed of his twice five toes! The Pobble who has no toes Was placed in a friendly Bark, And they rowed him back, and carried him up To his Aunt Jobiska's Park. And she made him a feast at his earnest wish Of eggs and buttercups fried with fish, - And she said "It's a fact the whole world knows, That Pobbles are happier without their toes!" -- Edward Lear

The Pobble's Aunt Jobiska is one of my favourite poetic personages, if only
because she seems to embody the many oh-so-familiar characteristics of aunts
everywhere [1].

The Pobble himself is a rather mysterious character. Like his soulmate, the Dong
with the Luminous Nose, he lives in a surreal, twilit world, populated with
Runcible Cats, Jumbly Girls and Oblong Oysters...

thomas.

PS. As an aside, I just love the effrontery with which Lear coins the name
'Jobiska', and then goes on to rhyme it with 'whiskers'...

[1] To any of my aunts who may happen to chance upon this email - this doesn't
apply to you, of course :-)

[Links]

Edward Lear's most celebrated poem is 'The Owl and the Pussycat', which you can
read at poem #165 - there's also a
brief biography of the poet at the same URL.

The other canonical example of nonsense verse is Samuel Foote's 'The Great
Panjandrum', at poem #208

[Connection with the theme]

Edward Lear spent most of his adult life traveling, mainly around the
Mediterranean (though he also spent long stretches in India and Ceylon). He
stayed in Rome, Corfu and San Remo at various times in his life; while there, he
produced a series of justly-celebrated watercolours. His favourite subjects were
songbirds and landscapes, both of which he drew with a delicate touch and a
painstaking attention to detail. The Ashmolean in Oxford has an extensive
selection of his work; it's well worth a visit, if you ever find yourself in
that part of the world.

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat -- Edward Lear

(Poem #165) The Owl and the Pussy-Cat The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound-note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, 'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are.' Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl, How charmingly sweet you sing. O let us be married, too long have we tarried, But what shall we do for a ring?' They sailed away for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows, And there in the wood a Piggy-wig stood, With a ring in the end of his nose, His nose, His nose! With a ring in the end of his nose. 'Dear Pig, are you willing, to sell for one shilling Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.' So they took it away, and were married next day, By the Turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon! They danced by the light of the moon. -- Edward Lear

The canonical example of the nonsense poem, and one that should be
instantly familiar.

Although other poets had attempted nonsense verse before Edward Lear,
his poetry really defined the genre. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect
of his work is the way the incongruity remains fresh no matter how many
times you read it... it's not that easy at all to write nonsense that
sticks in the mind :-)

I'm not really sure whether I should even bother commenting about the
today's poem as a poem - after all, it's not meant to have any meaning
or deeper significance [1]. But I will make one comment on structure:
note how utterly _simple_ the versification is; always engaging, always
musical, yet never complex enough to distract attention from the
'action', as it were. Again, this makes Lear's accomplishment all the
more remarkable - he has to create his nonsensical effect without
resorting to any sort of gobbledygook or jargon (T S Eliot, are you
listening?).

thomas.

[1] though that hasn't prevented countless analyses of Freudian
undertones, hallucinogenic overtones and the like.

Surprisingly enough, there aren't a whole lot of Lear sites out there;
this one's the best I could find:
[broken link] http://www2.pair.com/mgraz/Lear/index.html

[Trivia]

This poem is the source of that most lovely word, 'runcible':

Main Entry: runcible spoon
Pronunciation: 'r&n(t)-s&-b&l-
Function: noun
Etymology: coined with an obscure meaning by Edward Lear
Date: 1871
: a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs
        -- Merriam-Webster

Now there's immortality for you!

[Biography]

   b. May 12, 1812, Highgate, near London
   d. Jan. 29, 1888, San Remo, Italy

English landscape painter who is more widely known as the writer of an
original kind of nonsense verse and as the popularizer of the limerick.
His true genius is apparent in his nonsense poems, which portray a world
of fantastic creatures in nonsense words and show a Tennysonian feeling
for word colour, variety of rhythm, and often a deep underlying sense of
melancholy. Their quality is matched, especially in the limericks, by
that of his engaging pen-and-ink drawings.

The youngest of 21 children, he was brought up by his eldest sister,
Ann, and from the age of 15 earned his living by drawing. He
subsequently worked for the British Museum, made drawings of birds for
John Gould, a zoologist, and, during 1832-37, made illustrations of the
Earl of Derby's private menagerie at Knowsley, Lancashire. Lear had a
natural affinity for children, and it was for the earl's grandchildren
that he produced his first Book of Nonsense (1846, enlarged 1861, 1863).
In 1835 he decided to become a topographical landscape painter.

Lear, a homosexual, suffered all his life from epilepsy and melancholia.
After 1837 he lived mainly abroad. Though naturally timid, he was a
constant and intrepid traveler, exploring Italy, Greece, Albania,
Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and, later, India and Ceylon. An indefatigable
worker, he produced innumerable pen and watercolour sketches of great
topographical accuracy. He worked these up into the carefully finished
watercolours and large oil paintings, showing Pre-Raphaelite influence,
that were his financial mainstay. During his nomadic life he lived,
among other places, at Rome, Corfu, and, finally, with his celebrated
cat "Foss," at San Remo.

Lear published three volumes of bird and animal drawings; seven
illustrated travel books (notably Journal of a Landscape Painter in
Greece and Albania, 1851); and four books of nonsense--The Book of
Nonsense mentioned earlier, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and
Alphabets (1871), More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872),
and Laughable Lyrics (1877). A posthumous collection, Queery Leary
Nonsense (1911), was compiled by Lady Strachey.