Chapter V: Part 5

WHO am I?
I have been reading Walt Whitman, and know not whether he be me, or
me he;—
Or otherwise!
Oh, blue skies! oh, rugged mountains! oh, mighty, rolling Niagara!
Oh, chaos and everlasting bosh!
I am a poet; I swear it! If you do not believe it you are a dolt, a
fool, an idiot!
Milton, Shakespere, Dante, Tommy Moore, Pope, never, but Byron, too,
perhaps, and last, not least, Me, and the Poet Close.
We send our resonance echoing down the adamantine cañons of the
future!
We live forever! The worms who criticise us (asses!) laugh, scoff,
jeer, and babble babble—die!
Serve them right.
What is the difference between Judy, the pride of Fleet Street, the
glory of Shoe Lane, and Walt Whitman?
Start not! ’Tis no end of a minstrel show who perpends this query;
’Tis no brain-racking puzzle from an inner page of the Family
Herald,
No charade, acrostic (double or single), conundrum, riddle, rebus,
anagram, or other guess-work.
I answer thus: We both write truths—great, stern, solemn,
unquenchable truths—couched in more or less ridiculous
language.
I, as a rule use rhyme, he does not; therefore, I am his Superior
(which is also a lake in his great and glorious country).
I scorn, with the unutterable scorn of the despiser of pettiness,
to take a mean advantage of him.
He writes, he sells, he is read (more or less); why then should I
rack my brains and my rhyming dictionary? I will see the
public hanged first!
I sing of America, of the United States, of the stars and stripes
of Oshkosh, of Kalamazoo, and of Salt Lake City.
I sing of the railroad cars, of the hotels, of the breakfasts, the
lunches, the dinners, and the suppers;
Of the soup, the fish, the entrées, the joints, the game, the
puddings and the ice-cream.
I sing all—I eat all—I sing in turn of Dr. Bluffem’s Antibilious
Pills.
No subject is too small, too insignificant, for Nature’s poet.
I sing of the cocktail, a new song for every cocktail, hundreds of
songs, hundreds of cocktails.
It is a great and a glorious land! The Mississippi, the Missouri,
and a million other torrents roll their waters to the
ocean.
It is a great and glorious land! The Alleghanies, the Catskills, the
Rockies (see atlas for other mountain ranges too numerous
to mention) pierce the clouds!
And the greatest and most glorious product of this great and glorious
land is Walt Whitman;
This must be so, for he says it himself.
There is but one greater than he between the rising and the setting
sun.
There is but one before whom he meekly bows his humbled head.
Oh, great and glorious land, teeming producer of all things, creator
of Niagara, and inventor of Walt Whitman,
Erase your national advertisements of liver pads and cures for
rheumatism from your public monuments, and inscribe thereon
in letters of gold the name _Judy_.
_Judy._

IMITATION OF WALT WHITMAN

THE clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate
nest-holder,
The whistle of the railway guard despatching the train to the
inevitable collision,
The maiden’s monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal,
The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D
natural;
All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea to let your ribs re-echo
with.
But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the
apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player.
_J. K. Stephen._

THE POET AND THE WOODLOUSE

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 colors 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 always 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 colored with apocalyptic blush;
Ripest-budded odors 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 her heroic;
Earth’s worst spawn, you said, and cursed 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
thunder-storms,
Shimmers up the non-existence 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 vapors 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.”
_Algernon Charles Swinburne._

AFTER CHARLES KINGSLEY

THREE LITTLE FISHERS

THREE little fishers trudged over the hill,
Over the hill in the sun’s broad glare,
With rods and crooked pins, to the brookby the mill,
While three fond mothers sought them everywhere.
For boys will go fishing, though mothers deny.
Watching their chance they sneak off on the sly
To come safely back in the gloaming.

Three mothers waited outside the gate.
Three little fishers, tired, sunburnt, and worn,
Came into sight as the evening grew late,
Their chubby feet bleeding, their clothing all torn,
For “boys will be boys”—have a keen eye for fun,
While mothers fret, fume, scold, and—succumb,
And welcome them home in the gloaming.

Three little fishers were called to explain—
Each stood condemned, with his thumb in his eye,
They promised never to do so again,
And were hung up in the pantry to dry.
Three mothers heaved great sighs of relief,
An end had been put to their magnified grief,
When the boys came home in the gloaming.
_Frank H. Stauffer._

THE THREE POETS

THREE poets went sailing down Boston Bay,
All into the East as the sun went down.
Each felt that the editors loved him best,
And would welcome spring poetry in Boston town.
For poets must dream, though the editors frown;
Their revel in visions will not be turned down,
Though the general reader is moaning!

Three editors climbed to the loftiest tower
That they could find in all Boston town.
And they planned to conceal themselves, hour after hour,
Till the Sun—and the poets—had both gone down.
For spring poets must write, though the editors rage.
The artistic nature must thus be engaged,
Though the publishers all are groaning!

Three corpses lay out on the Back Bay sand
Just after the first Spring Sun went down,
And the Press sat down to a banquet grand
In honor of poets no more in the town.
For poets will write while the editors sleep,
Though they’ve little to earn and nothing to keep,
And the populace all are moaning!
_Lilian Whiting._

AFTER MRS. R. H. STODDARD

THE NETTLE

IF days were nights, I could their weight endure,
This darkness cannot hide from me the plant
I seek; I know it by the rasping touch.
The moon is wrapped in bombazine of cloud;
The capes project like crooked lobster-shears
Into the bobbery of the waves; the marsh,
At ebb, has now a miserable smell.
I will not be delayed nor hustled back,
Though every wind should muss my outspread hair.
I snatch the plant that seems my coming fate;
I pass the crinkled satin of the rose,
The violets, frightened out of all their wits,
And other flowers, to me so commonplace,
And cursed with showy mediocrity,
To cull the foliage which repels and stings.
Weak hands may bleed; but mine are tough with pride,
And I but smile where others sob and screech.
The draggled flounces of the willow lash
My neck; I tread upon the bouncing rake,
Which bangs me sorely, but I hasten on,
With teeth firm-set as biting on a wire,
And feet and fingers clinched in bitter pain.
This, few would comprehend; but, if they did,
I should despise myself and merit scorn.
We all are riddles which we cannot guess;
Each has his gimcracks and his thingumbobs,
And mine are night and nettles, mud and mist,
Since others hate them, cowardly avoid.
Things are mysterious when you make them so,
And the slow-pacing days are mighty queer;
But Fate is at the bottom of it all,
And something somehow turns up in the end.
_Bayard Taylor._

AFTER BAYARD TAYLOR

HADRAMAUT

THE grand conglomerate hills of Araby,
That stand empanoplied in utmost thought,
With dazzling ramparts front the Indian sea,
Down there in Hadramaut.

The sunshine smashes in the doors of morn
And leaves them open; there the vibrant calm
Of life magniloquent pervades forlorn
The giant fronds of palm.

The cockatoo upon the upas screams;
The armadillo fluctuates o’er the hill;
And like a flag, incarnadined in dreams,
All crimsonly I thrill!

There have iconoclasts no power to harm,
So, folded grandly in translucent mist,
I let the lights stream down my jasper arm,
And o’er my opal fist.

An Adamite of old, primeval Earth,
I see the Sphinx upon the porphyry shore,
Deprived of utterance ages ere her birth,
As I am,—only more!

Who shall ensnare me with invested gold,
Or prayer symbols, backed like malachite?
Let gaunt reformers objurgate and scold,
I gorge me with delight.

I do not yearn for what I covet most;
I give the winds the passionate gifts I sought;
And slumber fiercely on the torrid coast,
Down there in Hadramaut!
_Bayard Taylor._

AFTER WILLIAM MORRIS

ESTUNT THE GRIFF

(_Argument: Showing how a man of England, hearing from
certain Easterlings of the glories of their land, set
sail to rule it_)

AND so unto the End of Graves came he,
Where nigh the staging, ready for the sea,
Oarless and sailless lay the galley’s bulk,
Albeit smoke did issue from the hulk
And fell away, across the marshes dun,
Into the visage of the wan-white sun.
And seaward ran the river, cold and gray,
Bearing the brown-sailed Eastland boats away
’Twixt the low shore and shallow sandy spit.
Yet he, being sad, took little heed of it,
But straightly fled toward the misty beach,
And hailed in choked and swiftly spoken speech
A shallop, that for men’s conveyance lay
Hard by the margin of that watery way.
Then many that were in like evil plight—
Sad folk, with drawn, dumb lips and faces white,
That writhed themselves into a hopeless smile—
Crowded the shallop, making feint the while
Of merriment and pleasure at that tide,
Though oft upon the laughers’ lips there died
The jest, and in its place there came a sigh,
So that men gat but little good thereby,
And, shivering, clad themselves about with furs.
Strange faces of the swarthy outlanders
Looked down upon the shallop as she threw
The sullen waters backward from her screw
And, running forward for some little space,
Stayed featly at the galley’s mounting-place,
Where slowly these sad-faced landsmen went
Crabwise and evil-mouthed with discontent,
Holding to sodden rope and rusty chain
And bulwark that was wetted with the rain:
For ’neath their feet the black bows rose and fell,
Nor might a man walk steadfastly or well
Who had not hand upon a rail or rope;
And Estunt turned him landward, and wan hope
Grew on his spirit as an evil mist,
Thinking of loving lips his lips had kissed
An hour since, and how those lips were sweet
An hour since, far off in Fenchurch Street.
Then, with a deep-drawn breath most like a sigh,
He watched the empty shallop shoreward hie;
Then turned him round the driving rain to face,
And saw men heave the anchor from its place;
Whereat, when by the river-mouth, the ship
Began, amid the waters’ strife to dip,
His soul was heaved between his jaws that day,
And to the East the good ship took her way.
_Rudyard Kipling._

AFTER ALFRED AUSTIN

AN ODE

I SING a song of sixpence, and of rye
A pocketful—recalling, sad to state,
The niggardly emoluments which I
Receive as Laureate!

Also I sing of blackbirds—in the mart
At four-a-penny. Thus, in other words,
The sixpence which I mentioned at the start
Purchased two dozen birds.

So four-and-twenty birds were deftly hid—
Or shall we say, were skilfully concealed?—
Within the pie-dish. When they raised the lid,
What melody forth pealed!

Now I like four-and-twenty blackbirds sing,
With all their sweetness, all their rapture keen;
And isn’t this a pretty little thing
To set before the Queen?

The money-counting monarch—sordid man!—
His wife, who robbed the little busy bees,
I disregard. In fact a poet can
But pity folks like these.

The maid was in the garden. Happy maid!
Her choice entitles her to rank above
Master and Mistress. Gladly she surveyed
The Garden That I Love!

—Where grow my daffodils, anemones,
Tulips, auriculas, chrysanthemums,
Cabbages, asparagus, sweet peas,
With apples, pears, and plums—

(That’s a parenthesis. The very name
Of garden really carries one astray!)
But suddenly a feathered ruffian came,
And stole her nose away.

Eight stanzas finished! So my Court costume
I lay aside: the Laureate, I suppose,
Has done his part; the man may now resume
His journalistic prose.
_Anthony C. Deane._

AFTER W. S. GILBERT

ODE TO A LONDON FOG

ROLL on, thick haze, roll on!
Through each familiar way
Roll on!
What though I must go out to-day?
What though my lungs are rather queer?
What though asthmatic ills I fear?
What though my wheeziness is clear?
Never you mind!
Roll on!

Roll on, thick haze, roll on!
Through street and square and lane
Roll on!
It’s true I cough and cough again;
It’s true I gasp and puff and blow;
It’s true my trip may lay me low—
But that’s not your affair, you know.
Never you mind!
Roll on!
_Anonymous._

PRESIDENT GARFIELD

WHEN he was a lad he served a term
On a big canal with a boatman’s firm;
With a heart so free and a will so strong,
On the towpath drove two mules along.
And he drove those mules so carefullee
He’s a candidate now for the Presidencee.

As a driver boy he made such a mark
He came to the deck of the inland barque
And all of the perils to boat and crew.
He stood at the helm and guided thro’.
He stood at the helm so manfullee
He’s a candidate now for the Presidencee.

He did so well with the helm and mules,
They made him a teacher of district schools;
And when from college in a bran new suit,
A Greek Professor at the Institute,
Where Greek and Latin he taught so free
He’s a candidate now for the Presidencee.

Now boys who cherish ambitious schemes,
Though now you may be but drivers of teams,
Look well to the work you may chance to do,
And do it with a hand that is kind and true.
Whatever you do, do it faithfullee,
And you may aspire to the Presidencee.
_Anonymous._

PROPINQUITY NEEDED

CELESTINE Silvousplait Justine de Mouton Rosalie,
A coryphée who lived and danced in naughty, gay Paree,
Was every bit as pretty as a French girl e’er can be
(Which isn’t saying much).

Maurice Boulanger (there’s a name that would adorn a king),
But Morris Baker was the name they called the man I sing.
He lived in New York City in the Street that’s labeled Spring
(Chosen because it rhymed).

Now Baker was a lonesome youth and wanted to be wed,
And for a wife, all over town he hunted, it is said;
And up and down Fifth Avenue he ofttimes wanderéd
(He was a peripatetic Baker, he was).

And had he met Celestine, not a doubt but Cupid’s darts
Would in a trice have wounded both of their fond, loving hearts;
But he has never left New York to stray in foreign parts
(Because he hasn’t the price).

And she has never left Paree and so, of course, you see
There’s not the slightest chance at all she’ll marry Morris B.
For love to get well started, really needs propinquity
(Hence my title).
_Charles Battell Loomis._

AFTER R. H. STODDARD

THE CANTELOPE

SIDE by side in the crowded streets,
Amid its ebb and flow,
We walked together one autumn morn;
(’Twas many years ago!)

The markets blushed with fruits and flowers;
(Both Memory and Hope!)
You stopped and bought me at the stall,
A spicy cantelope.

We drained together its honeyed wine,
We cast the seeds away;
I slipped and fell on the moony rinds,
And you took me home on a dray!

The honeyed wine of your love is drained;
I limp from the fall I had;
The snow-flakes muffle the empty stall,
And everything is sad.

The sky is an inkstand, upside down,
It splashes the world with gloom;
The earth is full of skeleton bones,
And the sea is a wobbling tomb!
_Bayard Taylor._

AFTER A. A. PROCTOR

THE LOST VOICE

SEATED at Church in the winter
I was frozen in every limb;
And the village choir shrieked wildly
Over a noisy hymn.

I do not know what they were singing,
For while I was watching them
Our Curate began his sermon
With the sound of a slight “Ahem!”

It frightened the female portion,
Like the storm which succeeds a calm,
Both maidens and matrons heard it
With a touch of inane alarm.

It told them of pain and sorrow,
Cold, cough, and neuralgic strife,
Bronchitis, and influenza
All aimed at our Curate’s life.

It linked all perplex’d diseases
Into one precious frame;
They trembled with rage if a sceptic
Attempted to ask its name.

They have wrapped him in mustard plasters,
Stuffed him with food and wine,
They have fondled, caressed, and nursed him,
With sympathy divine.

It may be that other Curates
Will preach in that Church to them,
Will there be every time, Good Heavens!
Such a fuss for a slight—Ahem!
_A. H. S._

THE LOST APE

SEATED one day on an organ,
A monkey was ill at ease,
When his fingers wandered idly,
In search of the busy fleas.
I knew not what he was slaying,
Or what he was dreaming then,
But a sound burst forth from that organ,
Not at all like a grand Amen.

It came through the evening twilight
Like the close of the feline psalm,
But the melody raised by their voices
Compared to this noise was balm!
It was worse than Salvation’s Sorrow,
With their band of drum and fife,
And cut, like an evening “Echo,”
The Tit-Bits out of “Life.”

I upset my table and tea things,
And left not one perfect piece;
I gazed at the wreck in silence,
Not loth, but unable to speak!
Then I sought him, alas! all vainly,
The source of that terrible whine,
With his cracked and tuneless organ,
And its melodies undivine.

Of course there was no policeman
To move him away,—and men
Who grind organs smile demurely
At your curses, and smile again.
It may be that I could choke him—
Could kill him—but organ men,
If you kill a dozen to-day,
To-morrow will come again!
_J. W. G. W._

THE LOST WORD

SEATED one day at the typewriter,
I was weary of a’s and e’s,
And my fingers wandered wildly
Over the consonant keys.

I know not what I was writing,
With that thing so like a pen;
But I struck one word astounding—
Unknown to the speech of men.

It flooded the sense of my verses,
Like the break of a tinker’s dam,
And I felt as one feels when the printer
Of your “infinite calm” makes clam.

It mixed up s’s and x’s
Like an alphabet coming to strife.
It seemed the discordant echo
Of a row between husband and wife.

It brought a perplexed meaning
Into my perfect piece,
And set the machinery creaking
As though it were scant of grease.

I have tried, but I try it vainly,
The one last word to divine
Which came from the keys of my typewriter
And so would pass as mine.

It may be some other typewriter
Will produce that word again,
It may be, but only for others—
_I_ shall write henceforth with a pen.
_C. H. Webb._

AFTER GEORGE MEREDITH

AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK

(FRENCH STYLE, 1898)

(_Being an Ode in further “Contribution to the Song
of French History,” dedicated, without malice or
permission, to Mr. George Meredith_)

I

ROOSTER her sign,
Rooster her pugnant note, she struts
Evocative, amazon spurs aprick at heel;
Nid-nod the authentic stump
Of the once ensanguined comb vermeil as wine;
With conspuent doodle-doo
Hails breach o’ the hectic dawn of yon New Year,
Last issue up to date
Of quiverful Fate
Evolved spontaneous; hails with tonant trump
The spiriting prime o’ the clashed carillon-peal;
Ruffling her caudal plumes derisive of scuts;
Inconscient how she stalks an immarcessibly absurd Bird.

II

Mark where her Equatorial Pioneer
Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise.
His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the dregs
The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-headpiece gift
Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover’s smirch.
Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift
On dubiously connivent legs,
The facile prey of predatory flies;
Panting for further; sworn to lurch
Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened blue,
Rhyming—see Cantique I.—with doodle-doo.

III

Infuriate she kicked against Imperial fact;
Vulnant she felt
What pin-stab should have stained Another’s pelt
Puncture her own Colonial lung-balloon,
Volant to nigh meridian. Whence rebuffed,
The perjured Scythian she lacked
At need’s pinch, sick with spleen of the rudely cuffed
Below her breath she cursed; she cursed the hour
When on her spring for him the young Tyrannical broke
Amid the unhallowed wedlock’s vodka-shower,
She passionate, he dispassionate; tricked
Her wits to eye-blind; borrowed the ready as for dower;
Till from the trance of that Hymettus-moon
She woke,
A nuptial-knotted derelict;
Pensioned with Rescripts other aid declined
By the plumped leech saturate urging Peace
In guise of heavy-armed Gospeller to men,
Tyrannical unto fraternal equal liberal, her. Not she;
Not till Alsace her consanguineous find
What red deteutonising artillery
Shall shatter her beer-reek alien police
The just-now pluripollent; not till then.

IV

More pungent yet the esoteric pain
Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud
Insanely grumous, grumously insane.
For lo!
Past common balmly on the Bordereau,
Churns she the skim o’ the gutter’s crust
With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole,
Whooped praise of the Anti-Just;
Her boulevard brood
Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad;
Theatrical of faith in the Belliform,
Her Og,
Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had
To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog
For the Preconcerted One,
The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole;
Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither volant swarm.

Bides she his coming; adumbrates the new
Expurgatorial Divine,
Her final effulgent Avatar,
Postured outside a trampling mastodon
Black as her Baker’s charger; towering; visibly gorged
With blood of traitors. Knee-grip stiff,
Spine straightened, on he rides;
Embossed the Patriot’s brow with hieroglyph
Of martial _dossiers_, nothing forged
About him save his armour. So she bides
Voicing his advent indeterminably far,
Rooster her sign,
Rooster her conspuent doodle-doo.

V

Behold her, pranked with spurs for bloody sport,
How she acclaims,
A crapulous chanticleer,
Breach of the hectic dawn of yon New Year.
Not yet her fill of rumours sucked;
Inebriate of honour; blushfully wroth;
Tireless to play her old primeval games;
Her plumage preened the yet unplucked
Like sails of a galleon, rudder hard amort
With crepitant mast
Fronting the hazard to dare of a dual blast
The intern and the extern, blizzards both.
_Owen Seaman._

AFTER DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

A CHRISTMAS WAIL

(_Not by Dante Gabriel Rossetti_)

ON Christmas day I dined with Brown.
(_Oh the dinner was fine to see!_)
I drove to his house, right merrily down,
To a western square of London town.
(_And I moan and I cry, Woe’s me!_)

We dined off turkey and Christmas beef:
(_Oh the dinner was fine to see!_)
My anguish is sore and my comfort’s brief,
And nought but blue pills can ease my grief,
(_As I moan and I cry, Woe’s me!_)

We gorged plum-pudding and hot mince pies,
(_Oh the dinner was fine to see!_)
And other nameless atrocities,
The weight of which on my—bosom lies.
(_And I moan and I cry, Woe’s me!_)

We drank dry Clicquot and rare old port,
(_Oh the dinner was fine to see!_)
And I pledged my host for a right good sort
In bumpers of both, for I never thought
(_I should moan and cry, Woe’s me!_)

But I woke next day with a fearful head,
(_Oh that dinner was fine to see!_)
And on my chest is a weight like lead,
And I frequently wish that I were dead,
(_And I moan and I cry, Woe’s me!_)

And as for Brown—why the truth to tell—
(_Oh that dinner was fine to see!_)
I hate him now with the hate of hell,
Though before I loved him passing well,
(_And I moan and I cry, Woe’s me!_)
_Anonymous._

BALLAD

THE auld wife sat at her ivied door
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),
A thing she had frequently done before,
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),
Till the cow said “I die,” and the goose ask’d “Why?”
And the dog said nothing, but search’d for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—
The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer’s daughter had frank blue eyes
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese);
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

PART II

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 follow’d him out o’er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese),
And this song is consider’d a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it’s what you please.
_Charles S. Calverley._

CIMABUELLA

FAIR-TINTED cheeks, clear eyelids drawn
In crescent curves above the light
Of eyes, whose dim, uncertain dawn
Becomes not day: a forehead white
Beneath long yellow heaps of hair:
She is so strange she must be fair.

Had she sharp, slant-wise wings outspread,
She were an angel; but she stands
With flat dead gold behind her head,
And lilies in her long thin hands:
Her folded mantle, gathered in,
Falls to her feet as it were tin.

Her nose is keen as pointed flame;
Her crimson lips no thing express;
And never dread of saintly blame
Held down her heavy eyelashes:
To guess what she were thinking of
Precludeth any meaner love.

An azure carpet, fringed with gold,
Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid
Before her straight, cool feet unrolled;
But she nor sound nor movement made
(Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile,
Printing her neck a moment’s while).

And I was shamed through all my mind
For that she spake not, neither kissed,
But stared right past me. Lo! behind
Me stood, in pink and amethyst,
Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted,
A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head.

Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes,
Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me!
I saw, with most forlorn surprise,
He was the Thirteenth Century,
I but the Nineteenth; then despair
Curdled beneath my curling hair.

O Love and Fate! How could she choose
My rounded outlines, broader brain,
And my resuscitated Muse?
Some tears she shed, but whether pain
Or joy in him unlocked their source,
I could not fathom which, of course.

But I from missals quaintly bound,
With cither and with clavichord,
Will sing her songs of sovran sound:
Belike her pity will afford
Such fain return as suits a saint
So sweetly done in verse and paint.
_Bayard Taylor._

THE POSTER GIRL

THE blessed Poster girl leaned out
From a pinky-purple heaven.
One eye was red and one was green;
Her bang was cut uneven;
She had three fingers on her hand,
And the hairs on her head were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No sunflowers did adorn,
But a heavy Turkish portière
Was very neatly worn;
And the hat that lay along her back
Was yellow, like canned corn.

It was a kind of wobbly wave
That she was standing on,
And high aloft she flung a scarf
That must have weighed a ton;
And she was rather tall—at least
She reached up to the sun.

She curved and writhed, and then she said
Less green of speech than blue:
“Perhaps I _am_ absurd—perhaps
I _don’t_ appeal to you;
But my artistic worth depends
Upon the point of view.”

I saw her smile, although her eyes
Were only smudgy smears;
And then she swished her swirling arms,
And wagged her gorgeous ears.
She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob,
And wept some purple tears.
_Carolyn Wells._

AFTER JEAN INGELOW

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION

IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter),
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats waver’d alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And oh, the sundazzle on bark and bight!

Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:

By rises that flush’d with their purple favors,
Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:

Songbirds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,
Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;
They need no parasols, no goloshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather)
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—
Our fingers at Fate and her goodness-glooms:

And Willie ’gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)—
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry:”

Bowers of flowers encounter’d showers
In William’s carol—(O love my Willie!)
Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow
I quite forget what—say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got “furled;”
Not with any design to conceal their “glories,”
But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”

* * * * *

O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted or carried on “wafts” away,
Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be!
_Charles S. Calverley._

THE SHRIMP-GATHERERS

SCARLET spaces of sand and ocean,
Gulls that circle and winds that blow;
Baskets and boats and men in motion,
Sailing and scattering to and fro.

Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning
With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood;
And down the beach the blush of the morning
Shines reflected from moisture and mud.

Broad from the yard the sail hangs limpy;
Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;
Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,
Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!

Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty!
Coffee is certain, and beer galore;
Coats are corduroy, minds are thrifty,
Won’t we go it on sea and shore!

See, behind, how the hills are freckled
With low white huts, where the lasses bide
See, before, how the sea is speckled
With sloops and schooners that wait the tide

Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,
Tyne-side boys may shout, “Give way!”
Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,
Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!

Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,
Such are the sea-fruits lasses love;
Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,
And the shutterless cottages gleam above!
_Bayard Taylor._

AFTER CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

REMEMBER

REMEMBER it, although you’re far away—
Too far away more fivers yet to land,
When you no more can proffer notes of hand,
Nor I half yearn to change my yea to nay.
Remember, when no more in airy way,
You tell me of repayment sagely planned:
Only remember it, you understand!
It’s rather late to counsel you to pay;
Yet if you should remember for awhile,
And then forget it wholly, I should grieve;
For, though your light procrastinations leave
Small remnants of the hope that once I had,
Than that you should forget your debt and smile,
I’d rather you’d remember and be sad.
_Judy._

AFTER LEWIS CARROLL

WAGGAWOCKY

’TWAS Maytime, and the lawyer coves
Did jibe and jabber in the wabe,
All menaced were the Tichborne groves,
And their true lord, the Babe.

“Beware the Waggawock, my son,
The eyelid twitch, the knees’ incline,
Beware the Baignet network, spun
For gallant Ballantine.”

He took his ton-weight brief in hand,
Long time the hidden clue he sought,
Then rested he by the Hawkins tree,
And sat awhile in thought.

And as in toughish thought he rocks,
The Waggawock, sans truth or shame,
Came lumbering to the witness box,
And perjured out his Claim.

“Untrue! untrue!” Then, through and through
The weary weeks he worked the rack;
But March had youth, ere with the Truth
He dealt the final whack.

“And hast thou slain the Waggawock
Come to my arms, my Beamish Boy!
O Coleridge, J.! Hoorah! hooray!”
Punch chortled in his joy.
_Shirley Brooks._

THE VULTURE AND THE HUSBANDMAN

(_By Louisa Caroline_)

THE rain was raining cheerfully
As if it had been May,
The Senate House appeared inside
Unusually gay;
And this was strange, because it was
A Viva-Voce day.

The men were sitting sulkily,
Their paper work was done,
They wanted much to go away
To ride or row or run;
“It’s very rude,” they said, “to keep
Us here and spoil our fun.”

The papers they had finished lay
In piles of blue and white,
They answered everything they could,
And wrote with all their might,
But though they wrote it all by rote,
They did not write it right.

The Vulture and the Husbandman
Besides these piles did stand;
They wept like anything to see
The work they had in hand:
“If this were only finished up,”
Said they, “it would be grand!”

“If seven D’s or seven C’s
We give to all the crowd,
Do you suppose,” the Vulture said,
“That we could get them ploughed?”
“I think so,” said the Husbandman,
“But pray don’t talk so loud.”

“O Undergraduates, come up,”
The Vulture did beseech,
“And let us see if you can learn
As well as we can teach;
We cannot do with more than two,
To have a word with each.”

Two Undergraduates came up,
And slowly took a seat;
They knit their brows and bit their thumbs,
As if they found them sweet;
And this is odd, because, you know,
Thumbs are not good to eat.

“The time has come,” the Vulture said,
“To talk of many things,
Of Accidence and Adjectives,
And names of Jewish kings;
How many notes a sackbut has,
And whether shawms have strings.”

“Please, Sir,” the Undergraduates said,
Turning a little blue,
“We did not know that was the sort
Of thing we had to do.”
“We thank you much,” the Vulture said;
“Send up another two.”

Two more came up, and then two more,
And more, and more, and more,
And some looked upwards at the roof,
And some down upon the floor,
But none were any wiser than
The pair that went before.

“I weep for you,” the Vulture said;
“I deeply sympathize!”
With sobs and tears he gave them all
D’s of the largest size,
While at the Husbandman he winked
One of his streaming eyes.

“I think,” observed the Husbandman,
“We’re getting on too quick;
Are we not putting down the D’s
A little bit too thick?”
The Vulture said with much disgust,
“Their answers make me sick.”

“Now, Undergraduates,” he cried,
“Our fun is nearly done;
Will anybody else come up?”
But answer came there none;
But this was scarcely odd, because
They’d ploughed them every one!
_A. C. Hilton._

AFTER A. C. SWINBURNE

GILLIAN

JACK and Jille
I have made me an end of the moods of maidens,
I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love;
From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens,
The woes that madden, the words that move.
In the dim last days of a spent September,
When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain;
Before you forget, and while I remember,
I cry as I shall cry never again.

Went up a hylle
Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels
Of misty meadows, and streams that stray;
We raised us at eve from our rosy revels,
With the faces aflame for the death of the day;
With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver,
Low lids that cling to the last of love:
We left the levels, we left the river,
And turned us and toiled to the air above.

To fetch a paile of water,
By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow,
The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips—
Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk not to-morrow—
The wells of Lethe for wearied lips.
With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter,
With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray,
We bowed us and bent to the white well-water,
We dipped and we drank it and bore away.

Jack felle downe
The low light trembled on languid lashes,
The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown,
Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes,
As night’s dim net on the day was thrown.
What was it meant for, or made for, that minute,
But that our lives in delight should be dipt?
Was it yours, or my fault, or fate’s, that in it
Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt.

And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after.
Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder,
Love from our limbs as a shift was shed,
But paused a moment, to watch with wonder
The pale pained body, the bursten head.
While our sad souls still with regrets are riven,
While the blood burns bright on our bruised brows,
I have set you free, and I stand forgiven—
And now I had better go call my cows.
_Anonymous._

ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN

Ay, ’twas here, on this spot,
In that summer of yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
Nor reply to my tenderest talk, “She had heard all that nonsense
before.”

She’d the brooch I had bought
And the necklace and sash on,
And her heart, as I thought,
Was alive to my passion;
And she’d done up her hair in the style that the Empress had brought
into fashion.

I had been to the play
With my pearl of a Peri—
But, for all I could say,
She declared she was weary,
That “the place was so crowded and hot, and she couldn’t abide that
Dundreary.”

Then I thought, “’Tis for me
That she whines and she whimpers!”
And it soothed me to see
Those sensational simpers,
And I said, “This is scrumptious,”—a phrase I had learned from the
Devonshire shrimpers.

And I vowed, “’Twill be said
I’m a fortunate fellow,
When the breakfast is spread,
When the topers are mellow,
When the foam of the bird-cake is white and the fierce
orange-blossoms are yellow!”

Oh, that languishing yawn!
Oh, those eloquent eyes!
I was drunk with the dawn
Of a splendid surmise surmise—
I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, by a tempest of sighs.

And I whispered, “’Tis time!
Is not Love at its deepest?
Shall we squander Life’s prime,
While thou waitest and weepest?
Let us settle it, License or Banns?—though undoubtedly Banns are the
cheapest.”

“Ah, my Hero!” said I,
“Let me be thy Leander!”
But I lost her reply—
Something ending with “gander”—
For the omnibus rattled so loud that no mortal could quite understand
her.
_Lewis Carroll._

THE MANLET

IN stature the Manlet was dwarfish—
No burly big Blunderbore he:
And he wearily gazed on the crawfish
His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.
“Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,
And hurl the old shoelet for luck;
Let me hie to the bank of the runlet
And shoot thee a Duck!”

She has reached him his minnikin gunlet:
She has hurled the old shoelet for luck;
She is busily baking a bunlet,
To welcome him home with his duck.
On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,
Though thoughtlets cling closely as wax,
To the spot where the beautiful birdlet
So quietly quacks.

Where the Lobsterlet lurks and the Crablet
So slowly and creepily crawls:
Where the Dolphin’s at home and the Dablet
Pays long ceremonious calls:
Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:
Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:
Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet—
So runs the world’s luck.

He has loaded with bullet and powder:
His footfall is noiseless as air:
But the Voices grow louder and louder
And bellow and bluster and blare.
They bristle before him and after,
They flutter above and below,
Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,
Weird wailings of woe!

They echo without him, within him:
They thrill through his whiskers and beard:
Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,
With sneers never hitherto sneered.
“Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet!
Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!
Let us drench him from toplet to toelet
With nursery songs!

“He shall muse upon Hey! Diddle! Diddle!
On the Cow that surmounted the Moon!
He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,
And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:
And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,
When Miss Muffett was sipping her whey,
That so tenderly sat down beside her,
And scared her away!

“The music of Midsummer-madness
Shall sting him with many a bite,
Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,
He shall groan with a gloomy delight;
He shall swathe him like mists of the morning,
In platitudes luscious and limp,
Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,
The Song of the Shrimp!

“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,
We will trundle him home in a trice:
And the banquet so plainly provided
Shall round into rosebuds and rice:
In a blaze of pragmatic invention
He shall wrestle with Fate and shall reign:
But he has not a friend fit to mention,
So hit him again!”

He has shot it, the delicate darling!
And the Voices have ceased from their strife:
Not a whisper of sneering or snarling,
As he carries it home to his wife:
Then, cheerily champing the bunlet
His spouse was so skilful to bake,
He hies him once more to the runlet,
To fetch her the Drake!
_Lewis Carroll._

IF!

IF life were never bitter,
And love were always sweet,
Then who would care to borrow
A moral from to-morrow—
If Thames would always glitter,
And joy would ne’er retreat,
If life were never bitter,
And love were always sweet!

If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow’s chair,
When easy-going sinners
Sit down to Richmond dinners,
And life’s swift stream flows straighter,
By Jove, it would be rare,
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow’s chair.

If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced,
And bores were kicked out straightway
Through a convenient gateway;
Then down the year’s long gradient
’Twere sad to be enticed,
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced.
_Mortimer Collins._

THE MAID OF THE MEERSCHAUM

NUDE nymph, when from Neuberg’s I led her
In velvet enshrined and encased,
When with rarest Virginia I fed her,
And pampered each maidenly taste
On “Old Judge” and “Lone Jack” and brown “Bird’s-eye,”
The best that a mortal might get—
Did she know how, from whiteness of curds, I
Should turn her to jet?

She was blonde and impassive and stately
When first our acquaintance began,
When she smiled from the pipe-bowl sedately
On the “Stunt” who was scarcely a man.
But _labuntur anni fugaces_,
And changed in due season were we,
For she wears the blackest of faces,
And I’m a D. C.

Unfailing the comfort she gave me
In the days when I owned to a heart,
When the charmers that used to enslave me
For Home or the Hills would depart.
She was Polly or Agnes or Kitty
(Whoever pro tem. was my flame),
And I found her most ready to pity,
And—always the same.

At dawn, when the pig broke from cover,
At noon, when the pleaders were met,
She clung to the lips of her lover
As never live maiden did yet;
At the Bund, when I waited the far light
That brought me my Mails o’er the main—
At night, when the tents, in the starlight,
Showed white on the plain.

And now, though each finely cut feature
Is flattened and polished away,
I hold her the loveliest creature
That ever was fashioned from clay.
Let an epitaph thus, then, be wrought for
Her tomb, when the smash shall arrive:
“_Hic jacet_ the life’s love I bought for
Rupees twenty-five.”
_Rudyard Kipling._

QUAERITUR

DAWN that disheartens the desolate dunes,
Dulness of day as it bursts on the beach,
Sea-wind that shrillest the thinnest of tunes,
What is the wisdom thy wailings would teach?
Far, far away, down the foam-frescoed reach,
Where ravening rocks cleave the crest of the seas,
Sigheth the sound of thy sonorous speech,
As gray gull and guillemot gather their fees;
Taking toll of the beasts that are bred in the seas.

Foam-flakes fly farther than faint eyes can follow—
Drop down the desolate dunes and are done;
Fleeter than foam-flowers flitteth the Swallow,
Sheer for the sweets of the South and the Sun.
What is thy tale? O thou treacherous Swallow!
Sing me thy secret, Beloved of the Skies,
That I may gather my garments and follow—
Flee on the path of thy pinions and rise
Where strong storms cease and the weary wind dies.

Lo! I am bound with the chains of my sorrow;
Swallow, swift Swallow, ah, wait for a while!
Stay but a moment—it may be to-morrow
Chains shall be severed and sad souls shall smile!
Only a moment—a mere minute’s measure—
How shall it hurt such a swift one as thou?
Pitiless Swallow, full flushed for thy pleasure,
Canst thou not even one instant allow
To weak-winged wanderers? Wait for me now.
_Rudyard Kipling._

A MELTON MOWBRAY PORK-PIE

STRANGE pie that is almost a passion,
O passion immoral for pie!
Unknown are the ways that they fashion,
Unknown and unseen of the eye.
The pie that is marbled and mottled,
The pie that digests with a sigh:
For all is not Bass that is bottled,
And all is not pork that is pie.
_Richard Le Gallienne._

FOAM AND FANGS

O NYMPH with the nicest of noses;
And finest and fairest of forms;
Lips ruddy and ripe as the roses
That sway and that surge in the storms;
O buoyant and blooming Bacchante,
Of fairer than feminine face,
Rush, raging as demon of Dante—
To this, my embrace!

The foam and the fangs and the flowers,
The raving and ravenous rage
Of a poet as pinion’d in powers
As condor confined in a cage!
My heart in a haystack I’ve hidden,
As loving and longing I lie,
Kiss open thine eyelids unbidden—
I gaze and I die!

I’ve wander’d the wild waste of slaughter,
I’ve sniffed up the sepulchre’s scent,
I’ve doated on devilry’s daughter,
And murmur’d much more than I meant;
I’ve paused at Penelope’s portal,
So strange are the sights that I’ve seen,
And mighty’s the mind of the mortal
Who knows what I mean.
_Walter Parke._

A SONG OF RENUNCIATION

IN the days of my season of salad,
When the down was as dew on my cheek,
And for French I was bred on the ballad,
For Greek on the writers of Greek,—
Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,
Of “pleasure that winces and stings,”
Of white women, and wine that is bloody,
And similar things.

Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,
And Desire that is dear as Delight;
Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,
Of the bruises of kisses that bite;
Of embraces that clasp and that sever,
Of blushes that flutter and flee
Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever
Dolores may be.

I sang of false faith that is fleeting
As froth of the swallowing seas,
Time’s curse that is fatal as Keating
Is fatal to amorous fleas;
Of the wanness of woe that is whelp of
The lust that is blind as a bat—
By the help of my Muse and the help of
The relative THAT.

Panatheist, bruiser and breaker
Of kings and the creatures of kings,
I shouted on Freedom to shake her
Feet loose of the fetter that clings;
Far rolling my ravenous red eye,
And lifting a mutinous lid,
To all monarchs and matrons I said I
Would shock them—and did.

Thee I sang, and thy loves, O Thalassian,
O “noble and nude and antique!”
Unashamed in the “fearless old fashion,”
Ere washing was done by the week;
When the “roses and rapture” that girt you
Were visions of delicate vice,
And the “lilies and languors of virtue”
Not nearly so nice.

O delights of the time of my teething,
Felise, Fragoletta, Yolande!
Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething
On blasted and blithering sand!
Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted
With blossoms that coil and decay,
Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted
Like ices in May.