Chapter XVI: Part II (1)

She sat, with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She gave up mending her father's breeks,
And let the cat roll in her new chemise.

She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks,
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep followed her, as their tails did them.
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And this song is considered a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it's what you please.

CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON ('LEWIS CARROLL')

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE CROCODILE

(ISAAC WATTS)

How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!

'TIS THE VOICE OF THE LOBSTER.

(ISAAC WATTS)

'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE BAT.

(JANE TAYLOR)

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM.

(SOUTHEY)

'You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
Allow me to sell you a couple.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old,' said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father; 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!'

HIAWATHA'S PHOTOGRAPHING.

(LONGFELLOW)

In an age of imitation, I can claim no sort of merit for this
slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Anyone
who knows what verse is, with the slightest ear for rhythm,
can throw off a composition in the easy running metre of 'The
Song of Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I
challenge no attention, in the following little poem, to its
merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader, to confine
his criticism to its treatment of the subject.

From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
This he perched upon a tripod,
And the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures.
Mystic, awful was the process.
First a piece of glass he coated
With Collodion, and plunged it
In a bath of Lunar Caustic
Carefully dissolved in water:
There he left it certain minutes.
Secondly, my Hiawatha
Made with cunning hand a mixture
Of the acid Pyro-gallic,
And of Glacial Acetic,
And of Alcohol and water:
This developed all the picture.
Finally, he fixed each picture
With a saturate solution
Of a certain salt of Soda--
Chemists call it Hyposulphite.
(Very difficult the name is
For a metre like the present,
But periphrasis has done it.)
All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures.
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His invaluable suggestions.
First the Governor, the Father:
He suggested velvet curtains
Looped about a massy pillar;
And the corner of a table,
Of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something,
Hold it firmly in his left-hand;
He would keep his right-hand buried
(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;
He would contemplate the distance
With a look of pensive meaning,
As of ducks that die in tempests.
Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.
Next, his better half took courage;
_She_ would have her picture taken:
She came dressed beyond description,
Dressed in jewels and in satin
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a nosegay
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was taking,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,
Like a monkey in the forest.
'Am I sitting still?' she asked him.
'Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the nosegay higher?
Will it come into the picture?'
And the picture failed completely.
Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,
Till they centred in the breast-pin,
Centred in the golden breast-pin.
He had learnt it all from Ruskin
(Author of 'The Stones of Venice,'
'Seven Lamps of Architecture,'
'Modern Painters,' and some others);
And perhaps he had not fully
Understood his author's meaning;
But, whatever was the reason,
All was fruitless, as the picture
Ended in an utter failure.
Next to him the eldest daughter:
She suggested very little;
Only asked if he would take her
With her look of 'passive beauty.'
Her idea of passive beauty
Was a squinting of the left-eye,
Was a drooping of the right-eye,
Was a smile that went up sideways
To the corner of the nostrils.
Hiawatha, when she asked him,
Took no notice of the question,
Looked as if he hadn't heard it;
But, when pointedly appealed to,
Smiled in his peculiar manner,
Coughed and said it 'didn't matter,'
Bit his lip and changed the subject.
Nor in this was he mistaken,
As the picture failed completely.
So in turn the other sisters.
Last, the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgetty his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy,'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Might be thought to have succeeded,
To have partially succeeded.
Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
'Grouped' is not the right expression,)
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.
Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As 'the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.
Giving one such strange expressions!
Sulkiness, conceit, and meanness!
Really any one would take us
(Any one that did not know us)
For the most unpleasant people!'
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely.)
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.
But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With that calm deliberation,
That intense deliberation
Which photographers aspire to:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Vowing that he would not stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes,
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes;
Hurriedly he took his ticket,
Hurriedly the train received him:
Thus departed Hiawatha.

THE THREE VOICES.

(TENNYSON)

_The First Voice._

With hands tight clenched through matted hair,
He crouched in trance of dumb despair:
There came a breeze from out the air.

It passed athwart the glooming flat--
It fanned his forehead as he sat--
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.

Awhile like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude,
In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,
And he was going out to dine.

With grave indifference to his speech,
Fixing her eyes upon the beach,
She said 'Each gives to more than each.'

He could not answer yea or nay:
He faltered 'Gifts may pass away.'
Yet knew not what he meant to say.

'If that be so,' she straight replied,
'Each heart with each doth coincide.
What boots it? For the world is wide.'

And he, not wishing to appear
Less wise, said 'This Material Sphere
Is but Attributive Idea.'

But when she asked him 'Wherefore so?'
He felt his very whiskers glow,
And frankly owned 'I do not know.'

While, like broad waves of golden grain.
Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,
His colour came and went again.

Pitying his obvious distress,
Yet with a tinge of bitterness,
She said 'The More exceeds the Less.'

'A truth of such undoubted weight,
He urged, 'and so extreme in date,
It were superfluous to state.'

Roused into sudden passion, she
In tone of cold malignity:
'To others, yes: but not to thee.'

But when she saw him quail and quake,
And when he urged 'For pity's sake!'
Once more in gentle tone she spake.

'Thought in the mind doth still abide;
That is by Intellect supplied,
And within that Idea doth hide.

'And he, that yearns the truth to know,
Still further inwardly may go,
And find Idea from Notion flow.

'And thus the chain, that sages sought,
Is to a glorious circle wrought,
For Notion hath its source in Thought.'

When he, with racked and whirling brain,
Feebly implored her to explain,
She simply said it all again.

Wrenched with an agony intense,
He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,
And careless of all consequence:

'Mind--I believe--is Essence--Ent--
Abstract--that is--an Accident--
Which we--that is to say--I meant--'

When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed,
At length his speech was somewhat hushed,
She looked at him, and he was crushed.

It needed not her calm reply:
She fixed him with a stony eye,
And he could neither fight nor fly,

While she dissected, word by word,
His speech, half guessed at and half heard,
As might a cat a little bird.

Then, having wholly overthrown
His views, and stripped them to the bone,
Proceeded to unfold her own.

So passed they on with even pace,
Yet gradually one might trace
A shadow growing on his face.

_The Second Voice._

They walked beside the wave-worn beach,
Her tongue was very apt to teach,
And now and then he did beseech

She would abate her dulcet tone,
Because the talk was all her own,
And he was dull as any drone.

She urged 'No cheese is made of chalk':
And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,
Tuned to the footfall of a walk.

Her voice was very full and rich,
And, when at length she asked him 'Which?'
It mounted to its highest pitch.

He a bewildered answer gave,
Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,
Lost in the echoes of the cave.

He answered her he knew not what:
Like shaft from bow at random shot:
He spoke, but she regarded not.

She waited not for his reply,
But with a downward leaden eye
Went on as if he were not by.

Sound argument and grave defence,
Strange questions raised on 'Why?' and 'Whence?'
And weighted down with common sense.

'Shall Man be Man? And shall he miss
Of other thoughts no thought but this,
Harmonious dews of sober bliss?

'What boots it? Shall his fevered eye
Through towering nothingness descry
The grisly phantom hurry by?

'And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;
See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare
And redden in the dusky glare?

'The meadows breathing amber light,
The darkness toppling from the height,
The feathery train of granite Night?

'Shall he, grown gray among his peers,
Through the thick curtain of his tears
Catch glimpses of his earlier years,

'And hear the sounds he knew of yore,
Old shufflings on the sanded floor,
Old knuckles tapping at the door?

'Yet still before him as he flies
One pallid form shall ever rise,
And, bodying forth in glassy eyes

'The vision of a vanished good,
Low peering through the tangled wood,
Shall freeze the current of his blood.'

Still from each fact, with skill uncouth
And savage rapture, like a tooth
She wrenched a slow reluctant truth.

Till, like some silent water-mill,
When summer suns have dried the rill,
She reached a full stop, and was still.

Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,
As when the loaded omnibus
Has reached the railway terminus:

When, for the tumult of the street,
Is heard the engine's stifled beat,
The velvet tread of porters' feet.

With glance that ever sought the ground,
She moved her lips without a sound,
And every now and then she frowned.

He gazed upon the sleeping sea,
And joyed in its tranquillity,
And in that silence dead, but she

To muse a little space did seem,
Then, like the echo of a dream,
Harped back upon her threadbare theme.

Still an attentive ear he lent,
But could not fathom what she meant:
She was not deep, nor eloquent.

He marked the ripple on the sand:
The even swaying of her hand
Was all that he could understand.

He left her, and he turned aside:
He sat and watched the coming tide
Across the shores so newly dried.

He wondered at the waters clear,
The breeze that whispered in his ear,
The billows heaving far and near;

And why he had so long preferred
To hang upon her every word;
'In truth,' he said, 'it was absurd.'

_The Third Voice._

Not long this transport held its place:
Within a little moment's space
Quick tears were raining down his face.

His heart stood still, aghast with fear;
A wordless voice, nor far nor near,
He seemed to hear and not to hear.

'Tears kindle not the doubtful spark:
If so, why not? Of this remark
The bearings are profoundly dark.'

'Her speech,' he said, 'hath caused this pain;
Easier I count it to explain
The jargon of the howling main,

'Or, stretched beside some sedgy brook,
To con, with inexpressive look,
An unintelligible book.'

Low spake the voice within his head,
In words imagined more than said,
Soundless as ghost's intended tread:

'If thou art duller than before,
Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?
Why not endure, expecting more?'

'Rather than that,' he groaned aghast,
'I'd writhe in depths of cavern vast,
Some loathly vampire's rich repast.'

''Twere hard,' it answered, 'themes immense
To coop within the narrow fence
That rings _thy_ scant intelligence.'

'Not so,' he urged, 'nor once alone:
But there was that within her tone
Which chilled me to the very bone.

'Her style was anything but clear,
And most unpleasantly severe;
Her epithets were very queer.

'And yet, so grand were her replies,
I could not choose but deem her wise;
I did not dare to criticise;

'Nor did I leave her, till she went
So deep in tangled argument
That all my powers of thought were spent,'

A little whisper inly slid;
'Yet truth is truth: you know you did--'
A little wink beneath the lid.

And, sickened with excess of dread,
Prone to the dust he bent his head,
And lay like one three-quarters dead.

Forth went the whisper like a breeze;
Left him amid the wondering trees,
Left him by no means at his ease.

Once more he weltered in despair,
With hands, through denser-matted hair,
More tightly clenched than then they were.

When, bathed in dawn of living red,
Majestic frowned the mountain head,
'Tell me my fault,' was all he said.

When, at high noon, the blazing sky
Scorched in his head each haggard eye,
Then keenest rose his weary cry.

And when at eve the unpitying sun
Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,
'Alack,' he sighed, 'what _have_ I done?'

But saddest, darkest was the sight,
When the cold grasp of leaden Night
Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.

Tortured, unaided, and alone,
Thunders were silence to his groan,
Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:

'What? Ever thus, in dismal round,
Shall Pain and Misery profound
Pursue me like a sleepless hound,

'With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,
Me, still in ignorance of the cause,
Unknowing what I brake of laws?'

The whisper to his ear did seem
Like echoed flow of silent stream,
Or shadow of forgotten dream;

The whisper trembling in the wind:
'Her fate with thine was intertwined,'
So spake it in his inner mind:

'Each orbed on each a baleful star,
Each proved the other's blight and bar,
Each unto each were best, most far:

'Yea, each to each was worse than foe,
Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,
And she, an avalanche of woe.'

BEAUTIFUL SOUP.

(UNCERTAIN)

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!

THOMAS HOOD THE YOUNGER.

RAVINGS.

(BY E., A POE-T)

The autumn upon us was rushing,
The Parks were deserted and lone--
The streets were unpeopled and lone;
My foot through the sere leaves was brushing,
That over the pathway were strown--
By the wind in its wanderings strown.
I sighed--for my feelings were gushing
Round Mnemosyne's porphyry throne,
Like lava liquescent lay gushing,
And rose to the porphyry throne--
To the filigree footstool were gushing,
That stands on the steps of that throne--
On the stolid stone steps of that throne!

I cried--'Shall the winter-leaves fret us?'
Oh, turn--we must turn to the fruit,
To the freshness and force of the fruit!
To the gifts wherewith Autumn has met us--
Her music that never grows mute
(That maunders but never grows mute),
The tendrils the vine branches net us,
The lily, the lettuce, the lute--
The esculent, succulent lettuce,
And the languishing lily, and lute;--
Yes;--the lotos-like leaves of the lettuce;
Late lily and lingering lute.

Then come--let us fly from the city!
Let us travel in orient isles--
In the purple of orient isles--
Oh, bear me--yes, bear me in pity
To climes where a sun ever smiles--
Ever smoothly and speciously smiles!
Where the swarth-browed Arabian's wild ditty
Enhances pyramidal piles:
Where his wild, weird, and wonderful ditty
Awakens pyramidal piles--
Yes:--his pointless perpetual ditty
Perplexes pyramidal piles!

IN MEMORIAM TECHNICAM.

(TENNYSON)

I count it true which sages teach--
That passion sways not with repose,
That love, confounding these with those,
Is ever welding each with each.

And so when time has ebbed away,
Like childish wreaths too lightly held,
The song of immemorial eld
Shall moan about the belted bay,

Where slant Orion slopes his star
To swelter in the rolling seas,
Till slowly widening by degrees,
The grey climbs upward from afar,

And golden youth and passion stray
Along the ridges of the strand--
Not far apart, but hand in hand--
With all the darkness danced away!

THE WEDDING.

('OWEN MEREDITH')

Lady Clara Vere de Vere!
I hardly know what I must say,
But I'm to be Queen of the May, mother
I'm to be Queen of the May!
I am half-crazed; I don't feel grave,
Let me rave!
Whole weeks and months, early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait.
Oh, the Earl was fair to see,
As fair as any man could be:--
The wind is howling in turret and tree!

We two shall be wed to-morrow morn,
And I shall be the Lady Clare,
And when my marriage morn shall fall
I hardly know what I shall wear.
But I shan't say 'my life is dreary,'
And sadly hang my head,
With the remark, 'I'm very weary,
And wish that I were dead.'

But on my husband's arm I'll lean,
And roundly waste his plenteous gold,
Passing the honeymoon serene
In that new world which is the old.
For down we'll go and take the boat
Beside St. Katherine's Docks afloat,
Which round about its prow has wrote--
'The Lady of Shalotter'
(Mondays and Thursdays--Captain Foat),
Bound for the Dam of Rotter.

(From _Ten Hours, or the Warbling Wag'ner_.
BY OWING MERRYTHIEF.)

POETS AND LINNETS.

(BROWNING)

Where'er there's a thistle to feed a linnet
And linnets are plenty, thistles rife--
Or an acorn-cup to catch dew-drops in it
There's ample promise of further life.
Now, mark how we begin it.

For linnets will follow, if linnets are minded,
As blows the white-feather parachute;
And ships will reel by the tempest blinded--
Aye, ships and shiploads of men to boot!
How deep whole fleets you'll find hid.

And we blow the thistle-down hither and thither
Forgetful of linnets, and men, and God.
The dew! for its want an oak will wither--
By the dull hoof into the dust is trod,
And then who strikes the cither?

But thistles were only for donkeys intended,
And that donkeys are common enough is clear,
And that drop! what a vessel it might have befriended,
Does it add any flavour to Glugabib's beer?
Well, there's my musing ended.

WALTER WILLIAM SKEAT.

A CLERK THER WAS OF CAUNTEBRIGGE ALSO.

(CHAUCER)

A Clerk ther was of Cauntebrigge also,
That unto rowing haddè long y-go.
Of thinnè shidès[112] wolde he shippès makè,
And he was nat right fat, I undertakè.
And whan his ship he wrought had attè fullè,
Right gladly by the river wolde he pullè,
And eek returne as blythly as he wentè.
Him rekkèd nevere that the sonne him brentè,[113]
Ne stinted he his cours for reyn ne snowè;
It was a joyè for to seen him rowè!
Yit was him lever, in his shelves newè,
Six oldè textès,[114] clad in greenish hewè,
Of Chaucer and his oldè poesyè
Than ale, or wyn of Lepe,[115] or Malvoisyè.
And therwithal he wex a philosofre;
And peyned him to gadren gold in cofre
Of sundry folk; and al that he mighte hentè[116]
On textès and emprinting he it spentè;
And busily gan bokès to purveyè
For hem that yeve him wherwith to scoleyè.[117]
Of glossaryès took he hede and curè[118];
And when he spyèd had, by aventurè,
A word that semèd him or strange or rarè,
To henten[119] it anon he noldè sparè,[120]
But wolde it on a shrede[121] of paper wrytè,
And in a cheste he dide his shredès whytè,
And preyèd every man to doon the samè;
Swich maner study was to him but gamè.
And on this wysè many a yeer he wroughté,
Ay storing every shreed that men him broughtè,
Til, attè lastè, from the noble pressè
Of Clarendoun, at Oxenforde, I gessè,
Cam stalking forth the Gretè Dictionárie
That no man wel may pinche at[122] ne contrárie.
But for to tellen alle his queintè gerès,[123]
They wolden occupye wel seven yerès;
Therefore I passe as lightly as I may;
Ne speke I of his hatte or his array,
Ne how his berd by every wind was shakè
When as, for hete, his hat he wolde of takè.
Souning in[124] Erly English was his spechè,
'And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly techè.'

HENRY SAMBROOKE LEIGH.

ONLY SEVEN.

(A PASTORAL STORY, AFTER WORDSWORTH)

I marvelled why a simple child
That lightly draws its breath
Should utter groans so very wild,
And look as pale as Death.

Adopting a parental tone,
I asked her why she cried;
The damsel answered, with a groan,
'I've got a pain inside.

'I thought it would have sent me mad
Last night about eleven;'
Said I, 'What is it makes you bad?
How many apples have you had?'
She answered, 'Only seven!'

'And are you sure you took no more,
My little maid?' quoth I.
'Oh! please, sir, mother gave me four,
But _they_ were in a pie!'

'If that's the case,' I stammered out,
'Of course you've had eleven;'
The maiden answered, with a pout,
'I ain't had more nor seven!'

I wondered hugely what she meant,
And said, 'I'm bad at riddles,
But I know where little girls are sent
For telling tarradiddles.

'Now, if you don't reform,' said I,
'You'll never go to heaven.'
But all in vain; each time I try,
That little idiot makes reply,
'I ain't had more nor seven!'

POSTSCRIPT.

To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong,
Or slightly misapplied;
And so I'd better call my song,
'Lines after _Ache-inside_.'

CHATEAUX D'ESPAGNE.

(A REMINISCENCE OF 'DAVID GARRICK' AND 'THE BATTLE
OF ANDALUSIA.')

(E. A. POE)

Once upon an evening weary, shortly after Lord Dundreary
With his quaint and curious humour set the town in such a roar,
With my shilling I stood rapping--only very gently tapping--

For the man in charge was napping--at the money-taker's door.
It was Mr. Buckstone's playhouse, where I lingered at the door;
Paid half price and nothing more.

Most distinctly I remember, it was just about September--
Though it might have been in August, or it might have been before--
Dreadfully I fear'd the morrow. Vainly had I sought to borrow;
For (I own it to my sorrow) I was miserably poor,
And the heart is heavy laden when one's miserably poor;
(I have been so once before.)

I was doubtful and uncertain, at the rising of the curtain,
If the piece would prove a novelty, or one I'd seen before;
For a band of robbers drinking in a gloomy cave, and clinking
With their glasses on the table, I had witness'd o'er and o'er;
Since the half-forgotten period of my innocence was o'er;
Twenty years ago or more.

Presently my doubt grew stronger. I could stand the thing no longer;
'Miss,' said I, 'or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore.
Pardon my apparent rudeness. Would you kindly have the goodness
To inform me if this drama is from Gaul's enlightened shore?'
For I know that plays are often brought us from the Gallic shore;
Adaptations--nothing more!

So I put the question lowly: and my neighbour answer'd slowly,
'It's a British drama wholly, written quite in days of yore.
'Tis an Andalusian story of a castle old and hoary,
And the music is delicious, though the dialogue be poor!'
(And I could not help agreeing that the dialogue _was_ poor;
Very flat, and nothing more.)

But at last a lady entered, and my interest grew centred
In her figure, and her features, and the costume that she wore.
And the slightest sound she utter'd was like music; so I mutter'd
To my neighbour, 'Glance a minute at your play-bill, I implore.
Who's that rare and radiant maiden? Tell, oh, tell me! I implore!'
Quoth my neighbour, 'Nelly Moore!'

Then I ask'd in quite a tremble--it was useless to dissemble--
'Miss, or Madam, do not trifle with my feelings any more;
Tell me who, then, was the maiden, that appear'd so sorrow laden
In the room of David Garrick, with a bust above the door?'
Quoth my neighbour, 'Nelly Moore.'

* * * * *

I've her photograph from Lacy's; that delicious little face is
Smiling on me as I'm sitting (in a draught from yonder door),
And often in the nightfalls, when a precious little light falls
From the wretched tallow candles on my gloomy second-floor,
(For I have not got the gaslight on my gloomy second-floor)
Comes an echo, 'Nelly Moore!'

ROBERT HENRY NEWELL.

('ORPHEUS C. KERR')

REJECTED NATIONAL ANTHEMS.

I.

(BRYANT)

The sun sinks softly to his evening post,
The sun swells grandly to his morning crown;
Yet not a star our flag of Heav'n has lost,
And not a sunset stripe with him goes down.

So thrones may fall; and from the dust of those,
New thrones may rise, to totter like the last;
But still our country's nobler planet glows
While the eternal stars of Heaven are fast.

II.

(EMERSON)

Source immaterial of material naught,
Focus of light infinitesimal,
Sum of all things by sleepless Nature wrought,
Of which the abnormal man is decimal.

Refract, in prism immortal, from thy stars
To the stars blent incipient on our flag,
The beam translucent, neutrifying death;
And raise to immortality the rag.

III.

(WILLIS)

One hue of our flag is taken
From the cheeks of my blushing Pet,
And its stars beat time and sparkle
Like the studs on her chemisette.
Its blue is the ocean shadow
That hides in her dreamy eyes,
It conquers all men, like her,
And still for a Union flies.

IV.

(LONGFELLOW)

Back in the years when Phlagstaff, the Dane, was monarch
Over the sea-ribb'd land of the fleet-footed Norsemen,
Once there went forth young Ursa to gaze at the heavens--
Ursa, the noblest of all the Vikings and horsemen.

Musing, he sat in his stirrups and viewed the horizon,
Where the Aurora lapt stars in a North-polar manner,
Wildly he started--for there in the heavens before him
Flutter'd and flew the original Star-Spangled Banner.

V.

(WHITTIER)

My native land, thy Puritanic stock
Stills finds its roots firm-bound in Plymouth Rock,
And all thy sons unite in one grand wish--
To keep the virtues of Preservéd Fish.

Preservéd Fish the Deacon stern and true
Told our New England what her sons should do,
And should they swerve from loyalty and right,
Then the whole land were lost indeed in night.

VI.

(HOLMES)

A diagnosis of our hist'ry proves
Our native land a land its native loves;
Its birth a deed obstetric without peer,
Its growth a source of wonder far and near.

To love it more behold, how foreign shores
Sink into nothingness beside its stores;
Hyde Park at best--though counted ultra-grand--
The 'Boston Common' of Victoria's land.

VII.

(STODDARD)

Behold the flag! Is it not a flag?
Deny it, man, if you dare;
And midway spread, 'twixt earth and sky,
It hangs like a written prayer.

Would impious hand of foe disturb
Its memories' holy spell,
And blight it with a dew of blood?
Ha, tr-r-aitor!!.... It is well.

VIII.

(ALDRICH)

The little brown squirrel hops in the corn
The cricket quaintly sings;
The emerald pigeon nods his head,
And the shad in the river springs,
The dainty sunflower hangs its head
On the shore of the summer sea;
And better far that I were dead,
If Maud did not love me.

I love the squirrel that hops in the corn,
And the cricket that quaintly sings;
And the emerald pigeon that nods his head,
And the shad that gaily springs.
I love the dainty sunflower, too,
And Maud with her snowy breast;
I love them all;--but I love--I love--
I love my country best.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

THE POET AND THE WOODLOUSE

(E. B. BROWNING)

Said a poet to a woodlouse--'Thou art certainly my brother;
I discern in thee the markings of the fingers of the Whole;
And I recognize, in spite of all the terrene smut and smother,
In the colours shaded off thee, the suggestions of a soul.

'Yea,' the poet said, 'I smell thee by some passive divination,
I am satisfied with insight of the measure of thine house;
What had happened I conjecture, in a blank and rhythmic passion,
Had the æons thought of making thee a man, and me a louse.

'The broad lives of upper planets, their absorption and digestion,
Food and famine, health and sickness, I can scrutinize and test;
Through a shiver of the senses comes a resonance of question,
And by proof of balanced answer I decide that I am best.

'Man, the fleshly marvel, alway feels a certain kind of awe stick
To the skirts of contemplation, cramped with nympholeptic weight:
Feels his faint sense charred and branded by the touch of solar
caustic,
On the forehead of his spirit feels the footprint of a Fate.'

'Notwithstanding which, O poet,' spake the woodlouse, very blandly,
'I am likewise the created,--I the equipoise of thee;
I the particle, the atom, I behold on either hand lie
The inane of measured ages that were embryos of me.

'I am fed with intimations, I am clothed with consequences,
And the air I breathe is coloured with apocalyptic blush:
Ripest-budded odours blossom out of dim chaotic stenches,
And the Soul plants spirit-lilies in sick leagues of human slush.

'I am thrilled half cosmically through by cryptophantic surgings,
Till the rhythmic hills roar silent through a spongious kind of
blee:
And earth's soul yawns disembowelled of her pancreatic organs,
Like a madrepore if mesmerized, in rapt catalepsy.

'And I sacrifice, a Levite--and I palpitate, a poet;--
Can I close dead ears against the rush and resonance of things?
Symbols in me breathe and flicker up the heights of the heroic;
Earth's worst spawn, you said, and cursèd me? look! approve me!
I have wings.

'Ah, men's poets! men's conventions crust you round and swathe you
mist-like,
And the world's wheels grind your spirits down the dust ye
overtrod:
We stand sinlessly stark-naked in effulgence of the Christlight,
And our polecat chokes not cherubs; and our skunk smells sweet to
God.

'For He grasps the pale Created by some thousand vital handles,
Till a Godshine, bluely winnowed through the sieve of
thunderstorms,
Shimmers up the non-existent round the churning feet of angels;
And the atoms of that glory may be seraphs, being worms.

'Friends, your nature underlies us and your pulses overplay us;
Ye, with social sores unbandaged, can ye sing right and steer
wrong?
For the transient cosmic, rooted in imperishable chaos,
Must be kneaded into drastics as material for a song.

'Eyes once purged from homebred vapours through humanitarian passion
See that monochrome a despot through a democratic prism;
Hands that rip the soul up, reeking from divine evisceration,
Not with priestlike oil anoint him, but a stronger-smelling
chrism.

'Pass, O poet, retransfigured! God, the psychometric rhapsode,
Fills with fiery rhythms the silence, stings the dark with stars
that blink;
All eternities hang round him like an old man's clothes collapsèd,
While he makes his mundane music--AND HE WILL NOT STOP, I THINK.'

THE PERSON OF THE HOUSE.

IDYL CCCLXVI. THE KID.

(PATMORE)

My spirit, in the doorway's pause,
Fluttered with fancies in my breast;
Obsequious to all decent laws,
I felt exceedingly distressed.
I knew it rude to enter there
With Mrs. V. in such a state;
And, 'neath a magisterial air,
Felt actually indelicate.
I knew the nurse began to grin;
I turned to greet my Love. Said she--
'Confound your modesty, come in!
--What shall we call the darling, V.?'
(There are so many charming names!
Girls'--Peg, Moll, Doll, Fan, Kate, Blanche, Bab:
Boys'--Mahershalal-hashbaz, James,
Luke, Nick, Dick, Mark, Aminadab.)

Lo, as the acorn to the oak,
As well-heads to the river's height,
As to the chicken the moist yolk,
As to high noon the day's first white--
Such is the baby to the man.
There, straddling one red arm and leg,
Lay my last work, in length a span,
Half hatched, and conscious of the egg.
A creditable child, I hoped;
And half a score of joys to be
Through sunny lengths of prospect sloped
Smooth to the bland futurity.
O, fate surpassing other dooms,
O, hope above all wrecks of time!
O, light that fills all vanquished glooms,
O, silent song o'ermastering rhyme!
I covered either little foot,
I drew the strings about its waist;
Pink as the unshell'd inner fruit,
But barely decent, hardly chaste,
Its nudity had startled me;
But when the petticoats were on,
'I know,' I said; 'its name shall be
Paul Cyril Athanasius John.'
'Why,' said my wife, 'the child's a girl.'
My brain swooned, sick with failing sense;
With all perception in a whirl,
How could I tell the difference?

'Nay,' smiled the nurse, 'the child's a boy.'
And all my soul was soothed to hear
That so it was: then startled Joy
Mocked Sorrow with a doubtful tear.
And I was glad as one who sees
For sensual optics things unmeet:
As purity makes passion freeze,
So faith warns science off her beat.
Blessed are they that have not seen,
And yet, not seeing, have believed:
To walk by faith, as preached the Dean,
And not by sight, have I achieved.
Let love, that does not look, believe;
Let knowledge, that believes not, look:
Truth pins her trust on falsehood's sleeve,
While reason blunders by the book.
Then Mrs. Prig addressed me thus:
'Sir, if you'll be advised by me,
You'll leave the blessed babe to us;
It's my belief he wants his tea.'

NEPHELIDIA.

(SWINBURNE)

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable
nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with
fear of the flies as they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of
mystic miraculous moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and
threaten with throbs through the throat?
Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's
appalled agitation,
Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the
promise of pride in the past;
Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with
radiance of rathe recreation,
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom
of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on
the temples of terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who
is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:
Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional
exquisite error,
Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by
beatitude's breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and
soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the
semblance and sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular
tenses--
'Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the
dawn of the day when we die.'
Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as
it may be,
While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of
men's rapiers, resigned to the rod;
Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the
bliss-bringing
bulk of a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the graveyard of creeds, under skies growing
green at a groan for the grimness of God.
Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is
blacker than bluer:
Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews
are the wine of the bloodshed of things;
Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is
freed from the fangs that pursue her,
Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the
hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.

FRANCIS BRET HARTE.

A GEOLOGICAL MADRIGAL.

(SHENSTONE)

I have found out a sift for my fair;
I know where the fossils abound,
Where the footprints of _Aves_ declare
The birds that once walked on the ground;
Oh, come, and--in technical speech--
We'll walk this Devonian shore,
Or on some Silurian beach
We'll wander, my love, evermore.

I will show thee the sinuous track
By the slow-moving annelid made,
Or the Trilobite that, farther back,
In the old Potsdam sandstone was laid;
Thou shalt see, in his Jurassic tomb,
The Plesiosaurus embalmed;
In his Oolitic prime and his bloom,
Iguanodon safe and unharmed!

You wished--I remember it well,
And I loved you the more for that wish--
For a perfect cystedian shell,
And a _whole_ holocephalic fish.
And oh, if Earth's strata contains
In its lowest Silurian drift,
Or palæozoic remains
The same,--'tis your lover's free gift!

Than come, love, and never say nay,
But calm all your maidenly fears;
We'll note, love, in one summer's day
The record of millions of years;
And though the Darwinian plan
Your sensitive feelings may shock,
We'll find the beginning of man,--
Our fossil ancestors, in rock!

MRS. JUDGE JENKINS.

[Being the only genuine sequel to 'Maud Muller.']

(WHITTIER)

Maud Muller all that summer day
Raked the meadows sweet with hay;

Yet, looking down the distant lane,
She hoped the judge would come again.

But when he came, with smile and bow,
Maud only blushed, and stammered, 'Ha-ow?'

And spoke of her 'pa,' and wondered whether
He'd give consent they should wed together.

Old Muller burst in tears, and then
Begged that the judge would lend him 'ten';

For trade was dull, and wages low,
And the 'craps' this year were somewhat slow.

And ere the languid summer died,
Sweet Maud became the judge's bride.

But on the day that they were mated
Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;

And Maud's relations, twelve in all,
Were very drunk at the judge's hall.

And when the summer came again,
The young bride bore him babies twain.

And the judge was blest, but thought it strange
That bearing children made such a change:

For Maud grew broad and red and stout:
And the waist that his arm once clasped about

Was more than he now could span; and he
Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,

How that which in Maud was native grace
In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;

And thought of the twins, and wished that they
Looked less like the man who raked the hay

On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain
Of the day he wandered down the lane,

And, looking down that dreary track,
He half regretted that he came back.

For, had he waited, he might have wed
Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;

For there be women fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.

Alas for maiden! alas for judge!
And the sentimental,--that's one-half 'fudge';

For Maud soon thought the judge a bore,
With all his learning and all his lore.

And the judge would have bartered Maud's fair face
For more refinement and social grace.

If, of all words of tongue and pen,
The saddest are, 'It might have been,'

More sad are these we daily see:
'It is, but hadn't ought to be.'

THE WILLOWS.

(POE)

The skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year;
Like the skies I was perfectly sober,
As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,--
At the Nightingale,--perfectly sober,
And the willowy woodland, down here.

Here, once in an alley Titanic
Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,--
Of Ten-pins,--with Mary, my soul;
They were days when my heart was volcanic,
And impelled me to frequently roll,
And make me resistlessly roll,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
In the realms of the Boreal pole,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
With the monkey atop of his pole.

I repeat, I was perfectly sober,
But my thoughts they were palsied and sere,--
My thoughts were decidedly queer;
For I knew not the month was October,
And I marked not the night of the year,
I forgot that sweet _morceau_ of Auber
That the band oft performed down here,
And I mixed the sweet music of Auber
With the Nightingale's music by Shear.

And now as the night was senescent,
And the star-dials pointed to morn,
And car-drivers hinted of morn,
At the end of the path a liquescent
And bibulous lustre was born;
'Twas made by the bar-keeper present,
Who mixéd a duplicate horn,--
His two hands describing a crescent
Distinct with a duplicate horn.

And I said: 'This looks perfectly regal,
For it's warm, and I know I feel dry,--
I am confident that I feel dry;
We have come past the emu and eagle,
And watched the gay monkey on high;
Let us drink to the emu and eagle,--
To the swan and the monkey on high,--
To the eagle and monkey on high;
For this bar-keeper will not inveigle,--
Bully boy with the vitreous eye;
He surely would never inveigle,--
Sweet youth with the crystalline eye.'

But Mary, uplifting her finger,
Said, 'Sadly this bar I mistrust,--
I fear that this bar does not trust.
O hasten! O let us not linger!
O fly,--let us fly,--ere we must!'
In terror she cried, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust,--
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Parasol till it trailed in the dust,--
Till it sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

Then I pacified Mary and kissed her,
And tempted her into the room,
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the warning of doom,--
By some words that were warning of doom;
And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister,
At the opposite end of the room?'
She sobbed, as she answered, 'All liquors
Must be paid for ere leaving the room.'

Then my heart it grew ashen and sober,
As the streets were deserted and drear,--
For my pockets were empty and drear;
And I cried, 'It was surely October,
On this very night of last year,
That I journeyed--I journeyed down here,--
That I brought a fair maiden down here,
On this night of all nights in the year.
Ah! to me that inscription is clear;
Well I know now, I'm perfectly sober,
Why no longer they credit me here,--
Well I know now that music of Auber,
And this Nightingale, kept by one Shear.'

HENRY DUFF TRAILL.

VERS DE SOCIÉTÉ.

(LOCKER-LAMPSON)

There, pay it, James! 'tis cheaply earned;
My conscience! how one's cabman charges!
But never mind, so I'm returned
Safe to my native street of Clarges.
I've just an hour for one cigar
(What style these Reinas have, and _what_ ash!)
One hour to watch the evening star
With just one Curaçao-and-potash.

Ah me! that face beneath the leaves
And blossoms of its piquant bonnet!
Who would have thought that forty thieves
Of years had laid their fingers on it!
Could you have managed to enchant
At Lord's to-day old lovers simple,
Had Robber Time not played gallant,
And spared you every youthful dimple!

That Robber bold, like courtier Claude,
Who danced the gay coranto jesting,
By your bright beauty charmed and awed,
Has bowed and passed you unmolesting.
No feet of many-wintered crows
Have traced about your eyes a wrinkle;
Your sunny hair has thawed the snows
That other heads with silver sprinkle.

I wonder if that pair of gloves
I won of you you'll ever pay me!
I wonder if our early loves
Were wise or foolish, cousin Amy?
I wonder if our childish tiff
Now seems to you, like me, a blunder!
I wonder if you wonder if
I ever wonder if you wonder.

I wonder if you'd think it bliss
Once more to be the fashion's leader!
I wonder if the trick of this
Escapes the unsuspecting reader!
And as for him who does or can
Delight in it, I wonder whether
He knows that almost any man
Could reel it off by yards together!

I wonder if-- What's that? a knock?
Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me!
How time has flown! It's eight o'clock,
And here's my fellow come to dress me.
Be quick, or I shall be the guest
Whom Lady Mary never pardons;
I trust you, James, to do your best
To save the soup at Grosvenor Gardens.

FROM 'THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS.'

(BROWNING)

Put case I circumvent and kill him: good.
Good riddance--wipes at least from book o' th' world
The ugly admiration-note-like blot--
Gives honesty more elbow-room by just
The three dimensions of one wicked knave.
But then slips in the plaguy After-voice.
'Wicked? Holloa! my friend, whither away
So fast? Who made you, Moses-like, a judge
And ruler over men to spare or slay?
A blot wiped off forsooth! Produce forthwith
Credentials of your mission to erase
The ink-spots of mankind--t' abolish ill
For being what it is, is bound to be,
Its nature being so--cut wizards off
In flower of their necromantic lives
For being wizards, when 'tis plain enough
That they have no more wrought their wizardship
Than cats their cathood.' Thus the plaguy Voice,
Puzzling withal not overmuch, for thus
I turn the enemy's flank: 'Meseems, my friend,
Your argument's a thought too fine of mesh,
And catches what you would not. Every mouse
Trapped i' the larder by the kitchen wench
Might reason so--but scarcely with effect.
Methinks 'twould little serve the captured thief
To plead, "The fault's Dame Nature's, guiltless I.
Am I to blame that in the parcelling-out
Of my ingredients the Great Chemist set
Just so much here, there so much, and no more
(Since 'tis but question, after all is said,
Of mere proportion 'twixt the part that feels
And that which guides), so much proclivity
To nightly cupboard-breaking, so much lust
Of bacon-scraps, such tendency to think
Old Stilton-rind the noblest thing on earth?
Then the _per contra_--so much power to choose
The right and shun the wrong; so much of force
Of uncorrupted will to stoutly bar
The sensory inlets of the murine soul,
And, when by night the floating rare-bit fume
Lures like a siren's song, stop nostrils fast
With more than Odusseian sailor-wax:
Lastly so much of wholesome fear of trap
To keep self-abnegation sweet. Then comes
The hour of trial, when lo! the suadent scale
Sinks instant, the deterrent kicks the beam,
The heavier falls, the lighter mounts (as much
A thing of law with motives as with plums),
And I, forsooth, must die simply because
Dame Nature, having chosen so to load
The dishes, did not choose suspend for me
The gravitation of the moral world."
How would the kitchen-wench reply? Why thus
(If given, as scullions use, to logic-fence
And keen retorsion of dilemmata
In speeches of a hundred lines or so):
"Grant your plea valid. Good. There's mine to hear.
'Twas Nature made you? well: and me, no less;
You she by forces past your own control
Made a cheese-stealer? Be it so: of me
By forces as resistless and her own
She made a mouse-killer. Thus, either plays
A rôle in no wise chosen of himself,
But takes what part the great Stage Manager
Cast him for, when, the play was set afoot.
Remains we act ours--without private spite,
But still with spirit and fidelity,
As fits good actors: you I blame no whit
For nibbling cheese--simply I throw you down
Unblamed--nay, even morally assoiled,
To pussy there: blame thou not me for that."
Or say perhaps the girl is slow of wit,
Something inapt at ethics--why, then thus.
"Enough of prating, little thief! This talk
Of 'fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,'
Is hugely out of place! What next indeed,
If all the casuistry of the schools
Be prayed in aid by every pilfering mouse
That's caught i' th' trap? See here, my thieving friend,
Thus I resolve the problem. We prefer
To keep our cheeses for our own behoof,
And eat them with our proper jaws; and so,
Having command of mouse-traps, we will catch
Whatever mice we can, and promptly kill
Whatever mice we catch. _Entendez vous?_
Aye, and we _will_, though all the mice on earth
Pass indignation votes, obtest the faith
Of gods and men, and make the welkin ring
With world-resounding dissonance of squeak!"'

But hist! here comes my wizard! Ready then
My nerves--and talons--for the trial of strength!
A stout heart, feline cunning, and--who knows?

AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI.

(ROSSETTI)

'Why do you wear your hair like a man,
Sister Helen?
This week is the third since you began.'
'I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can,
Little brother.
(_O Mother Carey, mother!_
_What chickens are these between sea and heaven?_)'