Chapter I: DU believe in Freedom’s cause, (1)

Ez fur away ez Paris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Pharisees;
It’s wal enough agin a king
To dror resolves an’ triggers,
But libbaty’s a kind o’ thing
That don’t agree with niggers.

I du believe the people want
A tax on teas an’ coffees;
Thet nothin’ aint extravygunt,
Purvidin’ I’m in office;
Fer I hev loved my country sence
My eye-teeth fill’d their sockets,
An’ Uncle Sam I reverence,
Partic’larly his pockets.

I du believe in any plan
O’ levyin’ the taxes,
Ez long, ez, like a lumberman,
I get jest wut I axes:
I go free-trade thru thick an’ thin,
Because it kind o’ rouses
The folks to vote--an’ keeps us in
Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe it’s wise an’ good
To send out furrin missions,
Thet is, on sartin understood
An’ orthydox conditions--
I mean nine thousan’ dolls. per ann.,
Nine thousan’ more fer outfit,
An’ me to recommend a man
The place ’ould jest about fit.

I du believe in special ways
O’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;
The bread comes back in many days,
An’ butter’d, tu, fer sartin;
I mean in preyin’ till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An’ in convartin’ public trusts
To very privit uses.

I du believe hard coin’s the stuff
Fer ’lectioneers to spout on;
The people’s ollers soft enough
To make hard money out on;
Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,
An’ gives a good-sized junk to all,
I don’t care how hard money is,
Ez long ez mine’s paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul
In the great Press’s freedom,
To p’int the people to the goal,
An’ in the traces lead ’em.
Palsied the arm thet forges yokes
At my fat contracts squintin’,
An’ wither’d be the nose thet pokes
Inter the Gov’ment printin’!

I du believe that I should give
Wut’s his’n unto Cæsar,
For it’s by him I move an’ live,
Frum him my bread an’ cheese air;
I du believe thet all o’ me
Doth bear his souperscription--
Will, conscience, honour, honesty,
An’ things o’ thet description.

I du believe in prayer an’ praise
To him thet hez the grantin’
O’ jobs--in everythin’ thet pays,
But most of all in Cantin’;
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o’ sin to rest;
I don’t believe in princerple,
But, oh! I du in interest.

I du believe in bein’ this
Or thet, ez it may happen,
One way or t’other hendiest is
To ketch the people nappin’.
It aint by princerples nor men
My preudunt course is steadied;
I scent which pays the best, an’ then
Go into it bald-headed.

I du believe thet holdin’ slaves
Comes nat’ral tu a Presidunt,
Let ’lone the rowdedow it saves
To hev a well-broke precedunt;
Fer any office, small or gret,
I couldn’t ax with no face,
Without I’d ben, thru dry an’ wet,
Th’ unrizzest kind o’ doughface.

I du believe wutever trash
’Ill keep the people in blindness,
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash
Right inter brotherly kindness;
Thet bomb-shells, grape, an’ powder, ’n’ ball
Air good-will’s strongest magnets;
Thet peace, to make it stick at all,
Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it’s a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
In pasture sweet heth led me,
An’ this’ll keep the people green,
To feed ez they hev fed me.
_James Russell Lowell._

REVELRY IN INDIA

WE meet ’neath the sounding rafter,
And the walls around are bare;
As they echo the peals of laughter,
It seems that the dead are there;
But stand to your glasses steady,
We drink to our comrades’ eyes.
Quaff a cup to the dead already,
And hurrah for the next that dies!

Not here are the goblets flowing,
Not here is the vintage sweet;
’Tis cold, as our hearts are growing,
And dark as the doom we meet.
But stand to your glasses steady,
And soon shall our pulses rise.
A cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,
Not a tear for the friends that sink;
We’ll fall, ’midst the wine-cup’s sparkles,
As mute as the wine we drink.
So stand to your glasses steady,
’Tis in this that our respite lies.
One cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Time was when we frowned at others;
We thought we were wiser then;
Ha, ha! let those think of their mothers,
Who hope to see them again.
No! stand to your glasses steady;
The thoughtless are here the wise
A cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

There’s many a hand that’s shaking,
There’s many a cheek that’s sunk;
But soon, though our hearts are breaking,
They’ll burn with the wine we’ve drunk.
So stand to your glasses steady,
’Tis here the revival lies.
A cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

There’s a mist on the glass congealing,
’Tis the hurricane’s fiery breath;
And thus does the warmth of feeling
Turn ice in the grasp of death.
Ho! stand to your glasses steady;
For a moment the vapour flies.
A cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Who dreads to the dust returning?
Who shrinks from the sable shore,
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul shall sing no more?
Ho! stand to your glasses steady;
This world is a world of lies.
A cup to the dead already--
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the land we find,
Where the brightest have gone before us,
And the dullest remain behind--
Stand, stand to your glasses steady!
’Tis all we have left to prize.
A cup to the dead already--
And hurrah for the next that dies!
_Bartholomew Dowling._

A FRAGMENT

HOW hardly doth the cold and careless world
Requite the toil divine of genius-souls,
Their wasting cares and agonizing throes!
I had a friend, a sweet and precious friend,
One passing rich in all the strange and rare,
And fearful gifts of song.
On one great work,
A poem in twelve cantos, she had toiled
From early girlhood, e’en till she became
An olden maid.
Worn with intensest thought,
She sunk at last--just at the “finis” sunk!--
And closed her eyes for ever! The soul-gem
Had fretted through its casket!
As I stood
Beside her tomb, I made a solemn vow
To take in charge that poor, lone orphan work,
And edit it!
My publisher I sought,
A learned man and good. He took the work,
Read here and there a line, then laid it down,
And said, “It would not pay.” I slowly turned,
And went my way with troubled brow, “but more
In sorrow than in anger.”

_Grace Greenwood._

NOTHING TO WEAR

MISS Flora McFlimsey, of Madison Square,
Has made three separate journeys to Paris;
And her father assures me, each time she was there,
That she and her friend Mrs. Harris
(Not the lady whose name is so famous in history,
But plain Mrs. H., without romance or mystery)
Spent six consecutive weeks without stopping,
In one continuous round of shopping;
Shopping alone, and shopping together,
At all hours of the day and in all sorts of weather;
For all manner of things that a woman can put
On the crown of her head or the sole of her foot,
Or wrap round her shoulders, or fit round her waist,
Or that can be sewed on, or pinned on, or laced,
Or tied on with a string, or stitched on with a bow,
In front or behind, above or below;
For bonnets, mantillas, capes, collars, and shawls;
Dresses for breakfasts, and dinners, and balls;
Dresses to sit in, and stand in, and walk in,
Dresses to dance in, and flirt in, and talk in;
Dresses in which to do nothing at all;
Dresses for winter, spring, summer, and fall--
All of them different in colour and pattern,
Silk, muslin, and lace, crape, velvet, and satin,
Brocade, and broadcloth, and other material
Quite as expensive and much more ethereal:
In short, for all things that could ever be thought of,
Or milliner, modiste, or tradesman be bought of,
From ten-thousand-francs robes to twenty-sous frills;
In all quarters of Paris, and to every store,
While McFlimsey in vain stormed, scolded, and swore,
They footed the streets, and he footed the bills.

The last trip, their goods shipped by the steamer _Argo_,
Formed, McFlimsey declares, the bulk of her cargo,
Not to mention a quantity kept from the rest,
Sufficient to fill the largest-sized chest,
Which did not appear on the ship’s manifest,
But for which the ladies themselves manifested
Such particular interest that they invested
Their own proper persons in layers and rows
Of muslins, embroideries, worked underclothes,
Gloves, handkerchiefs, scarfs, and such trifles as those;
Then, wrapped in great shawls, like Circassian beauties,
Gave _good-by_ to the ship, and _go-by_ to the duties.
Her relations at home all marvelled, no doubt,
Miss Flora had grown so enormously stout
For an actual belle and a possible bride;
But the miracle ceased when she turned inside out,
And the truth came to light, and the dry-goods beside,
Which, in spite of collector and custom-house sentry,
Had entered the port without any entry.
And yet, though scarce three months have passed since the day
This merchandise went, on twelve carts, up Broadway,
This same Miss McFlimsey, of Madison Square,
The last time we met, was in utter despair,
Because she had nothing whatever to wear!

NOTHING TO WEAR! Now, as this is a true ditty,
I do not assert--this you know is between us--
That she’s in a state of absolute nudity,
Like Powers’s Greek Slave, or the Medici Venus,
But I do mean to say I have heard her declare,
When at the same moment she had on a dress
Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less,
And jewelry worth ten times more, I should guess,
That she had not a thing in the wide world to wear!
I should mention just here, that out of Miss Flora’s
Two hundred and fifty or sixty adorers,
I had just been selected as he who should throw all
The rest in the shade, by the gracious bestowal
On myself, after twenty or thirty rejections,
Of those fossil remains which she called her “affections,”
And that rather decayed but well-known work of art,
Which Miss Flora persisted in styling “her heart.”
So we were engaged. Our troth had been plighted
Not by moonbeam or starbeam, by fountain or grove,
But in a front parlour, most brilliantly lighted,
Beneath the gas-fixtures we whispered our love--
Without any romance, or raptures, or sighs,
Without any tears in Miss Flora’s blue eyes,
Or blushes, or transports, or such silly actions;
It was one of the quietest business transactions,
With a very small sprinkling of sentiment, if any,
And a very large diamond imported by Tiffany.
On her virginal lips while I printed a kiss,
She exclaimed, as a sort of parenthesis,
And by way of putting me quite at my ease,
“You know, I’m to polka as much as I please,
And flirt when I like--now stop--don’t you speak--
And you must not come here more than twice in the week,
Or talk to me either at party or ball,
But a’ways be ready to come when I call:
So don’t prose to me about duty and stuff--
If we don’t break this off, there will be time enough
For that sort of thing; but the bargain must be,
That as long as I choose I am perfectly free:
For this is a sort of engagement, you see,
Which is binding on you, but not binding on me.”

Well, having thus wooed Miss McFlimsey, and gained her,
With the silks, crinolines, and hoops that contained her,
I had, as I thought, a contingent remainder
At least in the property, and the best right
To appear as its escort by day and by night;
And it being the week of the Stuckups’ grand ball--
Their cards had been out for a fortnight or so,
And set all the Avenue on the tiptoe--
I considered it only my duty to call
And see if Miss Flora intended to go.
I found her--as ladies are apt to be found
When the time intervening between the first sound
Of the bell and the visitor’s entry is shorter
Than usual--I found--I won’t say I caught--her
Intent on the pier-glass, undoubtedly meaning
To see if perhaps it didn’t need cleaning.
She turned as I entered. “Why, Harry, you sinner,
I thought that you went to the Flashers’ to dinner!”
“So I did,” I replied; “but the dinner is swallowed,
And digested, I trust; for ’tis now nine or more:
So being relieved from that duty, I followed
Inclination, which led me, you see, to your door.
And now will your Ladyship so condescend
As just to inform me if you intend
Your beauty and graces and presence to lend
(Al’ of which, when I own, I hope no one will borrow)
To the Stuckups, whose party, you know, is to-morrow?”
The fair Flora looked up with a pitiful air,
And answered quite promptly, “Why, Harry, _mon cher_,
I should like above all things to go with you there;
But really and truly, I’ve nothing to wear.”

“Nothing to wear? Go just as you are:
Wear the dress you have on, and you’ll be by far,
I engage, the most bright and particular star
On the Stuckup horizon.” I stopped, for her eye,
Notwithstanding this delicate onset of flattery,
Opened on me at once a most terrible battery
Of scorn and amazement. She made no reply,
But gave a slight turn to the end of her nose
(That pure Grecian feature), as much as to say,
“How absurd that any sane man should suppose
That a lady would go to a ball in the clothes,
No matter how fine, that she wears every day!”
So I ventured again, “Wear your crimson brocade.”
(Second turn-up of nose). “That’s too dark by a shade.”
“Your blue silk.” “That’s too heavy.” “Your pink--” “That’s too
light.”
“Wear tulle over satin.” “I can’t endure white.”
“Your rose-coloured, then, the best of the batch.”
“I haven’t a thread of point lace to match.”
“Your brown moire-antique.” “Yes, and look like a Quaker.”
“The pearl-coloured--” “I would, but that plaguy dressmaker
Has had it a week.” “Then that exquisite lilac,
In which you would melt the heart of a Shylock.”
(Here the nose took again the same elevation):
“I wouldn’t wear that for the whole of creation.”
“Why not? It’s my fancy, there’s nothing could strike it
As more _comme il faut_.” “Yes, but, dear me, that lean
Sophronia Stuckup has got one just like it,
And I won’t appear dressed like a chit of sixteen.”
“Then that splendid purple, that sweet mazarine,
That superb _point d’aiguille_, that imperial green,
That zephyr-like tarlatan, that rich grenadine--”
“Not one of all which is fit to be seen,”
Said the lady, becoming excited and flushed.
“Then wear,” I exclaimed, in a tone which quite crushed
Opposition, “that gorgeous toilette which you sported
In Paris last spring, at the grand presentation,
When you quite turned the head of the head of the nation;
And by all the grand court were so very much courted.”
The end of the nose was portentously tipped up,
And both the bright eyes shot forth indignation,
As she burst upon me with the fierce exclamation,
“I have worn it three times at the least calculation,
And that and most of my dresses are ripped up!”
Here I _ripped out_ something, perhaps rather rash--
Quite innocent, though; but, to use an expression
More striking than classic, it “settled my hash,”
And proved very soon the last act of our session.
“Fiddlesticks, is it, sir? I wonder the ceiling
Doesn’t fall down and crush you! Oh, you men have no feeling.
You selfish, unnatural, illiberal creatures,
Who set yourselves up as patterns and preachers,
Your silly pretence--why, what a mere guess it is!
Pray, what do you know of a woman’s necessities?
I have told you and shown you I’ve nothing to wear,
And it’s perfectly plain you not only don’t care,
But you do not believe me” (here the nose went still higher):
“I suppose, if you dared, you would call me a liar.
Our engagement is ended, sir--yes, on the spot;
You’re a brute, and a monster, and--I don’t know what.”
I mildly suggested the words Hottentot,
Pickpocket, and cannibal, Tartar, and thief,
As gentle expletives which might give relief;
But this only proved as a spark to the powder,
And the storm I had raised came faster and louder;
It blew, and it rained, thundered, lightened, and hailed
Interjections, verbs, pronouns, till language quite failed
To express the abusive, and then its arrears
Were brought up all at once by a torrent of tears;
And my last faint, despairing attempt at an obs-
Ervation was lost in a tempest of sobs.

Well, I felt for the lady, and felt for my hat, too,
Improvised on the crown of the latter a tattoo,
In lieu of expressing the feelings which lay
Quite too deep for words, as Wordsworth would say;
Then, without going through the form of a bow,
Found myself in the entry--I hardly knew how--
On doorstep and sidewalk, past lamp-post and square,
At home and up-stairs, in my own easy chair;
Poked my feet into slippers, my fire into blaze,
And said to myself, as I lit my cigar:
Supposing a man had the wealth of the Czar
Of the Russias to boot, for the rest of his days,
On the whole, do you think he would have much to spare
If he married a woman with nothing to wear?

_William Allen Butler._

A REVIEW

THE INN ALBUM, BY ROBERT BROWNING.

WHAT’S this, a book? 16mo. Osgood’s page,
Fair, clear, Olympian-typed, and save a scant
O’ the margin, stiff i’ the hurried binding, good!
Intituled how?--“The Inn Album, Robert Browning, Author.”
Why should he not say, as well,
_The Hotel Register?_--cis-Atlantic term!
Nay, an he should, the action might purvey
To lower comprehensions: so not he!
Reflect, ’tis Browning! he neglects, prepense,
All forms of form: what _he_ gives must we take,
Sweet, bitter, sour, absinthean, adipose,
Conglomerate, jellied, potted, salt, or dried,
As the mood holds him; ours is not to choose!
Well (here huge sighs be heard), commending us
To Heaven’s high mercy, let us read.

Three hours:
The end is reached; but who begins review,
Forgetful o’ beginning, with the end?
Turn back!--why, here’s a line supplies us with
Curt comment on the whole, though travesty--
“Hail, calm obliquity, lugubrious plot!...”
Yea, since obliquity the straight path is,
And Passion worships as her patron saint
The Holy Vitus, and from Language fall
The rusty chains of rhythm and harmony,
Why not exclaim, “Hail, sham obliquity!”
“Too hard,” you murmur, sweet, submissive minds?
But take a bite o’ the original pie! Set teeth,
’Ware cherry-stones, and if a herring-spine
Stick crosswise i’ the throat, go gulp, shed tears,
But blame us not! So runs the opening:

* * * * *

This bard’s a Browning! there’s no doubt of that;
But, ah, ye gods, _the sense_! Are we so sure
If sense be sense unto our common-sense,
Low sense to higher, high to low, no sense
All sense to those, all sense no sense to these?
That’s where your poet tells! and you’ve no right
(Insensate sense with sensuous thought being mixed)
To ask analysis! How can else review,
Save in the dialect of his verse, be writ?
So write we: (would we might foresee the end!)
So has he taught us, i’ “The Ring and the Book,”
_De gustibus_, concerning taste, _non est_
There’s no--disputing, _disputandum_ (Ha!
’Tis not so difficult)--and we submit.

* * * * *

This Album-book--
“Hail, sham obliquity, lugubrious plot!”--
Is well-nigh read; you end the tangle, smash!
Here’s Browning’s recipe: take heaps o’ hate,
Take boundless love, hydraulic-pressed, in bales,
Distilments keen of baseness and of pride,
And innocence and cunning; mix ’em well,
And put a body round ’em! Add the more
O’ this, or that, you have another--stay!
The sex don’t count; make female of the male,
Male female, all the better; let them meet,
Talk, love, hate, cross, till satisfied; then, kill!
So here: lord, finding situation tough
(Between two fires, hate and a horsewhip-threat),
Writes i’ the Album, goes without and waits.
Superb One, having read, takes hand of snob,
Accepts his love till death; then lord comes back.
What did he write? “Refinement every inch,
From brow to boot-end”--’twas a threat to tell
The country curate of his wife’s disgrace--
_He_, the disgracer! Snob gets wild at that,
Screams, jumps, and clutches ...

All at once we see
One character dead, but how, we don’t quite know.
Then she, Superb One, writes in Album, dies
By force of will (no hint of instrument!),
Leaving the snob alone and much surprised.
Cousin is heard without; but ere the door
Opens, the story closes. Only this remains,
The last conundrum, hardly guessable
By the unbrowninged mind. Since what it means,
If aught the meaning, means some other thing,
And that thing something else, but this not that,
Nor that the other; we adopt the lines
As most expressing what we fail express,
Our solemn verdict, handkerchief and all,
Upon the book.

* * * * *

The meaning, ask you, O ingenuous soul?
Why, were there such for you, what then were left
To puzzle brain with, pump conjecture dry,
And prove you little where the poet’s great?
Great must he be, you therefore little. Go!
The curtain falls, the candles are snuffed out:
_End, damned obliquity, lugubrious plot!_
_Bayard Taylor._

THE POSITIVISTS

LIFE and the Universe show spontaneity:
Down with ridiculous notions of Deity!
Churches and creeds are all lost in the mists;
Truth must be sought with the Positivists.

Wise are their teachers beyond all comparison,
Comte, Huxley, Tyndall, Mill, Morley, and Harrison.
Who will adventure to enter the lists
With such a squadron of Positivists?

Social arrangements are awful miscarriages;
Cause of all crime is our system of marriages.
Poets with sonnets, and lovers with trysts,
Kindle the ire of the Positivists.

Husbands and wives should be all one community,
Exquisite freedom with absolute unity.
Wedding-rings worse are than manacled wrists--
Such is the creed of the Positivists.

There was an ape in the days that were earlier;
Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier;
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist--
Then he was Man, and a Positivist.

If you are pious (mild form of insanity),
Bow down and worship the mass of humanity.
Other religions are buried in mists;
We’re our own Gods, say the Positivists.

_Mortimer Collins._

SKY-MAKING

TO PROFESSOR TYNDALL

JUST take a trifling handful, O philosopher,
Of magic matter, give it a slight toss over
The ambient ether, and I don’t see why
You shouldn’t make a sky.

O hours Utopian which we may anticipate!
Thick London fog how easy ’tis to dissipate,
And make the most pea-soupy day as clear
As Bass’s brightest beer!

Poet-professor! now my brain thou kindlest;
I am become a most determined Tyndallist.
If it is known a fellow can make skies,
Why not make bright blue eyes?

This to deny, the folly of a dunce it is;
Surely a girl as easy as a sunset is.
If you can make a halo or eclipse,
Why not two laughing lips?

The creed of Archimedes, erst of Sicily,
And of D’Israeli ... _forti nil difficile_,
Is likewise mine. Pygmalion was a fool
Who should have gone to school.

Why should an author scribble rhymes or articles?
Bring me a dozen tiny Tyndall particles;
Therefrom I’ll coin a dinner, Nash’s wine,
And a nice girl to dine.
_Mortimer Collins._

MY LORD TOMNODDY

MY Lord Tomnoddy’s the son of an earl;
His hair is straight, but his whiskers curl;
His lordship’s forehead is far from wide,
But there’s plenty of room for the brains inside.
He writes his name with indifferent ease;
He’s rather uncertain about the “d’s”;
But what does it matter, if three or one,
To the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son?

My Lord Tomnoddy to college went;
Much time he lost, much money he spent;
Rules, and windows, and heads, he broke;
Authorities wink’d--young men will joke!
He never peep’d inside of a book;
In two years’ time a degree he took,
And the newspapers vaunted the honours won
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son.

My Lord Tomnoddy came out in the world;
Waists were tighten’d and ringlets curl’d;
Virgins languish’d, and matrons smil’d.
’Tis true, his lordship is rather wild;
In very queer places he spends his life;
There’s talk of some children by nobody’s wife;
But we mustn’t look close into what is done
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son.

My Lord Tomnoddy must settle down--
There’s a vacant seat in the family town!
(’Tis time he should sow his eccentric oats)--
He hasn’t the wit to apply for votes:
He cannot e’en learn his election speech;
Three phrases he speaks, a mistake in each,
And then breaks down; but the borough is won
For the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son.

My Lord Tomnoddy prefers the Guards
(The House is a bore), so, it’s on the cards!
My lord’s a lieutenant at twenty-three;
A captain at twenty-six is he;
He never drew sword, except on drill;
The tricks of parade he has learnt but ill;
A full-blown colonel at thirty-one
Is the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son!

My Lord Tomnoddy is thirty-four;
The earl can last but a few years more;
My Lord in the Peers will take his place;
Her Majesty’s councils his words will grace.
Office he’ll hold, and patronage sway;
Fortunes and lives he will vote away.
And what are his qualifications?--ONE!
He’s the Earl of Fitzdotterel’s eldest son.
_Robert Barnabas Brough._

HIDING THE SKELETON

AT dinner she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game;
HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here’s the greater wonder, in that we,
Enamour’d of our acting and our wits,
Admire each other like true hypocrites.
Warm-lighted glances, Love’s ephemeræ,
Shoot gayly o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fast, sweet, and golden shows our marriage knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine!
_George Meredith._

MIDGES

SHE is talking æsthetics, the dear, clever teacher!
Upon man, and his functions, she speaks with a smile;
Her ideas are divine upon art, upon nature,
The sublime, the heroic, and Mr. Carlyle.

I no more am found worthy to join in the talk, now,
So I follow with my surreptitious cigar;
While she leads our poetical friend up the walk, now,
Who quotes Wordsworth, and praises her “Thoughts on a Star.”

Meanwhile, there is dancing in yonder green bower
A swarm of young midges! They dance high and low;
’Tis a sweet little species that lives but one hour,
And the eldest was born half an hour ago.

One impulsive young midge I hear ardently pouring
In the ear of a shy little wanton in gauze,
His eternal devotion, his ceaseless adoring,
Which shall last till the universe breaks from its laws.

His passion is not, he declares, the mere fever
Of a rapturous moment: it knows no control;
It will burn in his breast through existence for ever,
Immutably fixed in the deeps of his soul!

She wavers, she flutters: male midges are fickle;
Dare she trust him her future? she asks with a sigh.
He implores, and a tear is beginning to trickle.
She is weak: they embrace, and ... the lovers pass by.

While they pass me, down here on a rose-leaf has lighted
A pale midge, his feelers all drooping and torn;
His existence is withered; its future is blighted;
His hopes are betrayed, and his breast is forlorn.

By the midge his heart trusted his heart is deceived; now
In the virtue of midges no more he believes;
From love in its falsehood, once wildly believed, now
He will bury his desolate life in the leaves.

His friends would console him--the noblest and sagest
Of midges have held that a midge lives again;
In eternity, say they, the strife thou now wagest
With sorrow, shall cease; but their words were in vain!

Can eternity bring back the seconds now wasted
In hopeless desire? or restore to his breast
The belief he has lost, with the bliss he once tasted,
Embracing the midge that his being held best?

His friends would console him: life yet is before him;
Many hundred long seconds he still has to live;
In the State yet a mighty career spreads before him;
Let him seek in the great world of action to strive!

There’s Fame! there’s Ambition! and, grander than either,
There is Freedom! the progress and march of the race!
But to Freedom his breast beats no longer, and neither
Ambition nor action her loss can replace.

If the time had been spent in acquiring æsthetics
I have squandered in learning this language of midges,
There might, for my friend in her peripatetics,
Have been now two asses to help o’er the bridges.

As it is, I’ll report her the whole conversation.
It would have been longer, but, somehow or other
(In the midst of that misanthrope’s long lamentation),
A midge in my right eye became a young mother.

Since my friend is so clever, I’ll ask her to tell me
Why the least living thing (a mere midge in the egg)
Can make a man’s tears flow, as now it befell me.
Oh, you dear, clever woman, explain it, I beg!
_Robert Bulwer Lytton._

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON

O WHAT harper could worthily harp it,
Mine Edward! this wide-stretching wold
(Look out wold) with its wonderful carpet
Of emerald, purple, and gold!
Look well at it--also look sharp, it
Is getting so cold.

The purple is heather (erica);
The yellow, gorse--call’d sometimes “whin.”
Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a
Green beetle as if on a pin.
You may roll in it, if you would like a
Few holes in your skin.

You wouldn’t? Then think of how kind you
Should be to the insects who crave
Your compassion--and then, look behind you
At yon barley-ears! Don’t they look brave
As they undulate (undulate, mind you,
From unda, a wave).

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it
Sounds here (on account of our height)!
And this hillock itself--who could paint it,
With its changes of shadow and light?
Is it not--(never, Eddy, say “Ain’t it”)--
A marvellous sight?

Then yon desolate, eerie morasses,
The haunts of the snipe and the hern--
(I shall question the two upper classes
On aquatiles, when we return)--
Why, I see on them absolute masses
Of filix or fern.

How it interests e’en a beginner
(Or tyro) like dear little Ned!
Is he listening? As I am a sinner,
He’s asleep--he is wagging his head.
Wake up! I’ll go home to my dinner,
And you to your bed.

The boundless, ineffable prairie;
The splendour of mountain and lake,
With their hues that seem ever to vary;
The mighty pine-forests which shake
In the wind, and in which the unwary
May tread on a snake;

And this wold with its heathery garment
Are themes undeniably great.
But--although there is not any harm in’t--
It’s perhaps little good to dilate
On their charms to a dull little varmint
Of seven or eight.
_Charles Stuart Calverley._

OF PROPRIETY

STUDY first Propriety, for she is indeed the pole-star
Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity
Fair;
Nay, she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society,
The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed her
Eros.
Verily, Truth is as Eve, which was ashamed, being naked;
Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of
artifice;
And when she is drest, behold, she knoweth not herself again!
I walked in the forest, and above me stood the yew--
Stood like a slumbering giant, shrouded in impenetrable shade;
Then I pass’d into the citizen’s garden, and marked a tree clipt
into shape
(The giant’s locks had been shorn by the Delilah-shears of
Decorum),
And I said, “Surely Nature is goodly; but how much goodlier is
Art!”
I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky,
And my foolish heart went after him, and, lo! I blessed him as he
rose.
Foolish! for far better is the trained boudoir bullfinch,
Which pipeth the semblance of a tune, and mechanically draweth up
the water;
And the reinless steed of the desert, though his neck be clothed
with thunder,
Must yield to him that danceth and “moveth in the circles” at
Astley’s.
For verily, O my daughter, the world is a masquerade,
And God made thee one thing, that thou mightest make thyself
another.
A maiden’s heart is as champagne, ever aspiring and struggling
upward,
And it needed that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of
Propriety;
He that can afford the price, his be the precious treasure;
Let him drink deeply of its sweetness, nor grumble if it tasteth
of the cork.
_Charles Stuart Calverley._

PEACE: _A Study_

HE stood, a worn-out City clerk--
Who’d toil’d, and seen no holiday,
For forty years from dawn to dark--
Alone beside Caermarthen Bay.

He felt the salt spray on his lips;
Heard children’s voices on the sands;
Up the sun’s path he saw the ships
Sail on and on to other lands;

And laugh’d aloud. Each sight and sound
To him was joy too deep for tears;
He sat him on the beach, and bound
A blue bandana round his ears;

And thought how, posted near his door,
His own green door on Camden Hill,
Two bands at least, most likely more,
Were mingling at their own sweet will

Verdi with Vance. And at the thought
He laugh’d again, and softly drew
That _Morning Herald_ that he’d bought
Forth from his breast, and read it through.
_Charles Stuart Calverley._

ALL-SAINTS

IN a church which is furnish’d with mullion and gable,
With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin,
The penitents’ dresses are sealskin and sable,
The odour of sanctity’s eau-de-Cologne.

But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades,
Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints,
He would say, as he look’d at the lords and the ladies,
“Oh, where is All-Sinners’, if this is All-Saints’?”
_Edmund Yates._

FAME’S PENNY TRUMPET

Affectionately dedicated to all “original researchers” who pant for “endowment.”

BLOW, blow your trumpets till they crack,
Ye little men of little souls!
And bid them huddle at your back,
Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!

Fill all the air with hungry wails--
“Reward us, ere we think or write!
Without your gold mere knowledge fails
To sate the swinish appetite!”

And, where great Plato paced serene,
Or Newton paused with wistful eye,
Rush to the chase with hoofs unclean,
And Babel-clamour of the sky!

Be yours the pay, be theirs the praise;
We will not rob them of their due,
Nor vex the ghosts of other days
By naming them along with you.

They sought and found undying fame;
They toiled not for reward nor thanks;
Their cheeks are hot with honest shame
For you, the modern mountebanks,

Who preach of justice, plead with tears
That love and mercy should abound,
While marking with complacent ears
The moaning of some tortured hound;

Who prate of wisdom--nay, forbear,
Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,
Trampling, with heel that will not spare,
The vermin that beset her path!

Go, throng each other’s drawing-rooms,
Ye idols of a petty clique;
Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,
And make your penny trumpets squeak;

Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds
Of learning from a nobler time,
And oil each other’s little heads
With mutual flattery’s golden slime;

And when the topmost height ye gain,
And stand in glory’s ether clear,
And grasp the prize of all your pain--
So many hundred pounds a year--

Then let Fame’s banner be unfurled!
Sing pæans for a victory won!
Ye tapers, that would light the world,
And cast a shadow on the Sun;

Who still shall pour his rays sublime,
One crystal flood, from east to west,
When ye have burned your little time,
And feebly flickered into rest!
_Lewis Carroll._

THE DIAMOND WEDDING

O LOVE! Love! Love! What times were those,
Long ere the age of belles and beaux,
And Brussels lace and silken hose,
When, in the green Arcadian close,
You married Psyche under the rose,
With only the grass for bedding!
Heart to heart, and hand to hand,
You followed Nature’s sweet command,
Roaming lovingly through the land,
Nor sighed for a Diamond Wedding.

So have we read, in classic Ovid,
How Hero watched for her belovéd,
Impassioned youth, Leander.
She was the fairest of the fair,
And wrapt him round with her golden hair,
Whenever he landed cold and bare,
With nothing to eat and nothing to wear,
And wetter than any gander;
For Love was Love, and better than money;
The slyer the theft, the sweeter the honey;
And kissing was clover, all the world over,
Wherever Cupid might wander.

So thousands of years have come and gone,
And still the moon is shining on,
Still Hymen’s torch is lighted;
And hitherto, in this land of the West,
Most couples in love have thought it best
To follow the ancient way of the rest,
And quietly get united.

But now, True Love, you’re growing old--
Bought and sold, with silver and gold,
Like a house, or a horse and carriage!
Midnight talks,
Moonlight walks,
The glance of the eye and sweetheart sigh,
The shadowy haunts, with no one by,
I do not wish to disparage,
But every kiss
Has a price for its bliss,
In the modern code of marriage;
And the compact sweet
Is not complete
Till the high contracting parties meet
Before the altar of Mammon;
And the bride must be led to a silver bower,
Where pearls and rubies fall in a shower
That would frighten Jupiter Ammon!

I need not tell
How it befell,
(Since Jenkins has told the story
Over and over and over again,
In a style I cannot hope to attain,
And covered himself with glory!)
How it befell, one summer’s day,
The king of the Cubans strolled this way--
King January’s his name, they say--
And fell in love with the Princess May,
The reigning belle of Manhattan;
Nor how he began to smirk and sue,
And dress as lovers who come to woo,
Or as Max Maretzek and Jullien do,
When they sit full-bloomed in the ladies’ view,
And flourish the wondrous baton.

He wasn’t one of your Polish nobles,
Whose presence their country somehow troubles,
And so our cities receive them;
Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees,
Who ply our daughters with lies and candies,
Until the poor girls believe them.
No, he was no such charlatan--
Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan,
Full of gasconade and bravado--
But a regular, rich Don Rataplan
Santa Claus de la Muscovado
Señor Grandissimo Bastinado.
His was the rental of half Havana,
And all Matanzas; and Santa Anna,
Rich as he was, could hardly hold
A candle to light the mines of gold
Our Cuban owned, choke-full of diggers;
And broad plantations, that, in round figures,
Were stocked with at least five thousand niggers!

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!”
The señor swore to carry the day,
To capture the beautiful Princess May,
With his battery of treasure;
Velvet and lace she should not lack;
Tiffany, Haughwout, Ball & Black,
Genin and Stewart his suit should back,
And come and go at her pleasure;
Jet and lava, silver and gold,
Garnets, emeralds rare to behold,
Diamonds, sapphires, wealth untold,
All were hers, to have and to hold--
Enough to fill a peck measure!

He didn’t bring all his forces on
At once, but, like a crafty old Don,
Who many a heart had fought and won,
Kept bidding a little higher;
And every time he made his bid,
And what she said, and all they did,
’Twas written down
For the good of the town,
By Jeems, of _The Daily Flyer_.

A coach and horses, you’d think, would buy
For the Don an easy victory;
But slowly our Princess yielded.
A diamond necklace caught her eye,
But a wreath of pearls first made her sigh.
She knew the worth of each maiden glance,
And, like young colts that curvet and prance,
She led the Don a deuce of a dance,
In spite of the wealth he wielded.
She stood such a fire of silks and laces,
Jewels and gold dressing-cases,
And ruby brooches, and jets and pearls,
That every one of her dainty curls
Brought the price of a hundred common girls;
Folks thought the lass demented!
But at last a wonderful diamond ring,
An infant Kohinoor, did the thing,
And, sighing with love, or something the same,
(What’s in a name?)
The Princess May consented.

Ring! ring the bells, and bring
The people to see the marrying!
Let the gaunt and hungry and ragged poor
Throng round the great cathedral door,
To wonder what all the hubbub’s for,
And sometimes stupidly wonder
At so much sunshine and brightness which
Fall from the church upon the rich,
While the poor get all the thunder.

Ring, ring, merry bells, ring!
O fortunate few,
With letters blue,
Good for a seat and a nearer view!
Fortunate few, whom I dare not name;
_Dilettanti!_ _Crême de la crême!_
We commoners stood by the street façade,
And caught a glimpse of the cavalcade.
We saw the bride
In diamond pride
With jewelled maidens to guard her side--
Six lustrous maidens in tarlatan.
She led the van of the caravan;
Close behind her, her mother
(Dressed in gorgeous _moire antique_
That told as plainly as words could speak,
She was more antique than the other)
Leaned on the arm of Don Rataplan
Santa Claus de la Muscovado
Señor Grandissimo Bastinado.
Happy mortal! fortunate man!
And Marquis of El Dorado!

In they swept, all riches and grace,
Silks and satins, jewels and lace;
In they swept from the dazzled sun,
And soon in the church the deed was done.
Three prelates stood on the chancel high:
A knot that gold and silver can buy,
Gold and silver may yet untie,
Unless it is tightly fastened;
What’s worth doing at all’s worth doing well,
And the sale of a young Manhattan belle
Is not to be pushed or hastened;
So two Very Reverends graced the scene,
And the tall Archbishop stood between,
By prayer and fasting chastened.
The Pope himself would have come from Rome,
But Garibaldi kept him at home.
Haply these robed prelates thought
Their words were the power that tied the knot;
But another power that love-knot tied,
And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride--
A glistening, priceless, marvellous chain,
Coiled with diamonds again and again,
As befits a diamond wedding;
Yet still ’twas a chain, and I thought she knew it,
And half-way longed for the will to undo it,
By the secret tears she was shedding.

But isn’t it odd to think, whenever
We all go through that terrible River,
Whose sluggish tide alone can sever
(The Archbishop says) the Church decree,
By floating one in to Eternity,
And leaving the other alive as ever,
As each wades through that ghastly stream,
The satins that rustle and gems that gleam,
Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away
To the noisome river’s bottom-clay!
Then the costly bride and her maidens six
Will shiver upon the bank of the Styx,
Quite as helpless as they were born--
Naked souls, and very forlorn.
The Princess, then, must shift for herself,
And lay her royalty on the shelf;
She, and the beautiful empress yonder,
Whose robes are now the wide world’s wonder
And even ourselves, and our dear little wives,
Who calico wear each morn of their lives,
And the sewing-girls, and _les chiffonniers_,
In rags and hunger--a gaunt array--
And all the grooms of the caravan--
Aye, even the great Don Rataplan
Santa Claus de la Muscovado
Señor Grandissimo Bastinado--
That gold-encrusted, fortunate man--
All will land in naked equality;
The lord of a ribboned principality
Will mourn the loss of his _cordon_.
Nothing to eat and nothing to wear
Will certainly be the fashion there!
Ten to one, and I’ll go it alone,
Those most used to a rag and bone,
Though here on earth they labour and groan,
Will stand it best, as they wade abreast
To the other side of Jordan.
_Edmund Clarence Stedman._

TRUE TO POLL

I’LL sing you a song, not very long,
But the story somewhat new
Of William Kidd, who, whatever he did,
To his Poll was always true.
He sailed away in a galliant ship
From the port of old Bris_tol_,
And the last words he uttered,
As his hankercher he fluttered,
Were, “My heart is true to Poll.”

His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do
If your heart be only true:
And his heart _was_ true to Poll.

’Twas a wreck. Willi_am_, on shore he swam,
And looked about for an inn;
When a noble savage lady, of a colour rather shady,
Came up with a kind of grin:
“Oh, marry _me_, and a king you’ll be,
And in a palace loll;
Or we’ll eat you willy-nilly.”
So he gave his _hand_, did Billy,
But his _heart_ was true to Poll.

Away a twelvemonth sped, and a happy life he led
As the King of the Kikeryboos;
His paint was red and yellar, and he used a big umbrella,
And he wore a pair of over-_shoes_;
He’d corals and knives, and twenty-six wives,
Whose beauties I cannot here extol;
One day they all revolted,
So he back to Bristol bolted,
For his _heart_ was true to Poll.

His heart was true to Poll,
His heart was true to Poll.
It’s no matter what you do,
If your heart be only true:
And his heart _was_ true to Poll.
_Frank C. Burnand._

SLEEP ON

FEAR no unlicensed entry,
Heed no bombastic talk,
While guards the British sentry
Pall Mall and Birdcage Walk.
Let European thunders
Occasion no alarms,
Though diplomatic blunders
May cause a cry, “To arms!”
Sleep on, ye pale civilians;
All thunder-clouds defy;
On Europe’s countless millions
The sentry keeps his eye!

Should foreign-born rapscallions
In London dare to show
Their overgrown battalions,
Be sure I’ll let you know.
Should Russians or Norwegians
Pollute our favoured clime
With rough barbaric legions,
I’ll mention it in time.
So sleep in peace, civilians,
The Continent defy;
While on its countless millions
The sentry keeps his eye!
_W. S. Gilbert._

TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE

BY A MISERABLE WRETCH

ROLL on, thou ball, roll on!
Through pathless realms of space
Roll on!
What though I’m in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills?
What though I suffer toothache’s ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!

Roll on, thou ball, roll on!
Through seas of inky air
Roll on!
It’s true I’ve got no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue;
But don’t let that unsettle you.
Never _you_ mind!
Roll on!
(_It rolls on._)
_W. S. Gilbert._

THE APE AND THE LADY

A LADY fair, of lineage high,
Was loved by an ape, in the days gone by;
The maid was radiant as the sun;
The ape was a most unsightly one.
So it would not do--
His scheme fell through;
For the maid, when his love took formal shape,
Expressed such terror
At his monstrous error,
That he stammered an apology and made his ’scape,
The picture of a disconcerted ape.

With a view to rise in the social scale,
He shaved his bristles and he docked his tail;
He grew mustachios, and he took his tub,
And he paid a guinea to a toilet club.
But it would not do--
The scheme fell through;
For the maid was Beauty’s fairest queen,
With golden tresses,
Like a real princess’s,
While the ape, despite his razor keen,
Was the apiest ape that ever was seen!

He bought white ties, and he bought dress suits;
He crammed his feet into bright, tight boots;
And to start his life on a brand-new plan,
He christened himself Darwinian man!
But it would not do--
The scheme fell through;
For the maiden fair, whom the monkey craved,
Was a radiant being,
With a brain far-seeing;
While a man, however well behaved,
At best is only a monkey shaved!
_W. S. Gilbert._

ANGLICISED UTOPIA

SOCIETY has quite forsaken all her wicked courses,
Which empties our police courts, and abolishes divorces.
(Divorce is nearly obsolete in England.)
No tolerance we show to undeserving rank and splendour,
For the higher his position is, the greater the offender.
(That’s a maxim that is prevalent in England.)
No peeress at our drawing-room before the Presence passes
Who wouldn’t be accepted by the lower-middle classes.
Each shady dame, whatever be her rank, is bowed out neatly;
In short, this happy country has been Anglicised completely!
It really is surprising
What a thorough Anglicising
We’ve brought about--Utopia’s quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England, with improvements,
Which we dutifully offer to our mother-land!

Our city we have beautified--we’ve done it willy-nilly--
And all that isn’t Belgrave Square is Strand and Piccadilly.
(They haven’t any slummeries in England.)
We have solved the labour question with discrimination polished,
So poverty is obsolete, and hunger is abolished.
(They are going to abolish it in England.)
The Chamberlain our native stage has purged, beyond a question,
Of “risky situation and indelicate suggestion”;
No piece is tolerated if it’s costumed indiscreetly--
In short, this happy country has been Anglicised completely!
It really is surprising
What a thorough Anglicising
We’ve brought about--Utopia’s quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England, with improvements,
Which we dutifully offer to our mother-land!

Our peerage we’ve remodelled on an intellectual basis,
Which certainly is rough on our hereditary races.
(They are going to remodel it in England.)
The brewers and the cotton lords no longer seek admission,
And literary merit meets with proper recognition--
(As literary merit does in England!)
Who knows but we may count among our intellectual chickens
Like them an Earl of Thackeray, and p’r’aps a Duke of Dickens--
Lord Fildes and Viscount Millais (when they come) we’ll welcome
sweetly,
And then this happy country will be Anglicised completely!
It really is surprising
What a thorough Anglicising
We’ve brought about--Utopia’s quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England, with improvements,
Which we dutifully offer to our mother-land!
_W. S. Gilbert._

ETIQUETTE

THE _Ballyshannon_ foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the owners--greedy men whom hope of gain allured:
Oh, dry the starting tear, for they were heavily insured.

Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew,
The passengers were also drowned excepting only two:
Young Peter Gray, who tasted teas for Baker, Croop, and Co.,
And Somers, who from Eastern shores imported indigo.
These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,
Upon a desert island were eventually cast.
They hunted for their meals, as Alexander Selkirk used,
But they couldn’t chat together--they had not been introduced.

For Peter Gray, and Somers, too, though certainly in trade,
Were properly particular about the friends they made;
And somehow thus they settled it, without a word of mouth,
That Gray should take the northern half, while Somers took the
south.

On Peter’s portion oysters grew--a delicacy rare,
But oysters were a delicacy Peter couldn’t bear.
On Somer’s side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which Somers couldn’t eat, because it always made him sick.

Gray gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store
Of turtle unmolested on his fellow-creature’s shore.
The oysters at his feet aside impatiently he shoved,
For turtle and his mother were the only things he loved.

And Somers sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south,
For the thought of Peter’s oysters brought the water to his mouth.
He longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff:
He had often eaten oysters, but had never had enough.

How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When on board the _Ballyshannon_! And it drove them nearly mad
To think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn’t for the arbitrary rule of etiquette!

One day, when out a-hunting for the _mus ridiculus_,
Gray overheard his fellow-man soliloquising thus:
“I wonder how the playmates of my youth are getting on,
M’Connell, S. B. Walters, Paddy Byles, and Robinson?”