Chapter I: GAED to spend a week in Fife;

An unco week it proved to be,
For there I met a waesome wife
Lamentin’ her viduity.
Her grief brak out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell;
And--I was sae left to mysel’--
I sell’t her an annuity.

The bargain lookit fair eneugh--
She just was turned o’ saxty-three.
I couldna guessed she’d prove sae teugh,
By human ingenuity.
But years have come, and years have gane,
And there she’s yet, as stieve as stane;
The limmer’s growin’ young again,
Since she got her annuity.

She’s crined awa’ to bane and skin,
But that, it seems, is naught to me;
She’s like to live, although she’s in
The last stage o’ tenuity.
She munches wi’ her wizen’d gums,
An’ stumps about on legs o’ thrums,
But comes, as sure as Christmas comes,
To ca’ for her annuity.

I read the tables drawn wi’ care
For an insurance company;
Her chance o’ life was stated there
Wi’ perfect perspicuity.
But tables here, or tables there,
She’s lived ten years beyond her share,
An’ ’s like to live a dozen mair,
To ca’ for her annuity.

Last Yule she had a fearfu’ host;
I thought a kink might set me free;
I led her out, ’mang snaw and frost,
Wi’ constant assiduity.
But deil ma’ care--the blast gaed by,
And miss’d the auld anatomy--
It just cost me a tooth, forbye
Discharging her annuity.

If there’s a sough o’ cholera,
Or typhus, wha sae gleg as she?
She buys up baths, an’ drugs, an’ a’,
In siccan superfluity,
She doesna need--she’s fever-proof;
The pest walked o’er her very roof--
She tauld me sae; an’ then her loof
Held out for her annuity.

Ae day she fell, her arm she brak--
A compound fracture as could be;
Nae leech the cure wad undertake,
Whate’er was the gratuity.
It’s cured! she handles ’t like a flail--
It does as weel in bits as hale;
But I’m a broken man mysel’,
Wi’ her and her annuity.

Her broozled flesh and broken banes
Are weel as flesh and banes can be;
She beats the toads that live in stanes
An’ fatten in vacuity!
They die when they’re exposed to air--
They canna thole the atmosphere;
But her! expose her onywhere,
She lives for her annuity.

If mortal means could nick her thread,
Sma’ crime it wad appear to me;
Ca’t murder--or ca’t homicide,
I’d justify ’t, an’ do it tae.
But how to fell a withered wife
That’s carved out o’ the tree of life,
The timmer limmer dares the knife
To settle her annuity.

I’d try a shot--but whar’s the mark?
Her vital parts are hid frae me;
Her backbone wanders through her sark
In an unkenn’d corkscrewity.
She’s palsified, an’ shakes her head
Sae fast about, ye scarce can see ’t;
It’s past the power o’ steel or lead
To settle her annuity.

She might be drowned, but go she’ll not
Within a mile o’ loch or sea;
Or hanged, if cord could grip a throat
O’ siccan exiguity.
It’s fitter far to hang the rope--
It draws out like a telescope;
’Twad tak’ a dreadfu’ length o’ drop
To settle her annuity.

Will poison do it? It has been tried,
But be ’t in hash or fricassee,
That’s just the dish she can’t abide,
Whatever kind o’ gout it hae.
It’s needless to assail her doubts;
She gangs by instinct, like the brutes,
An’ only eats an’ drinks what suits
Hersel’ and her annuity.

The Bible says the age o’ man
Threescore and ten, perchance, may be;
She’s ninety-four. Let them who can,
Explain the incongruity.
She should hae lived afore the flood;
She’s come o’ patriarchal blood;
She’s some auld Pagan mummified,
Alive for her annuity.

She’s been embalmed inside and oot;
She’s sauted to the last degree;
There’s pickle in her very snoot,
Sae caper-like an’ cruety.
Lot’s wife was fresh compared to her;
They’ve kyanized the useless knir;
She canna decompose--nae mair
Than her accurs’d annuity.

The water-drop wears out the rock,
As this eternal jaud wears me;
I could withstand the single shock,
But not the continuity.
It’s pay me here, an’ pay me there,
An’ pay me, pay me, evermair.
I’ll gang demented wi’ despair--
I’m charged for her annuity.
_George Outram._

MALBROUCK

MALBROUCK, the prince of commanders,
Is gone to the war in Flanders;
His fame is like Alexander’s;
But when will he come home?

Perhaps at Trinity Feast, or
Perhaps he may come at Easter.
Egad! he had better make haste, or
We fear he may never come.

For Trinity Feast is over,
And has brought no news from Dover;
And Easter is past, moreover,
And Malbrouck still delays.

Milady in her watch-tower
Spends many a pensive hour,
Not well knowing why or how her
Dear lord from England stays.

While sitting quite forlorn in
That tower, she spies returning
A page clad in deep mourning,
With fainting steps and slow.

“O page, prithee, come faster!
What news do you bring of your master?
I fear there is some disaster,
Your looks are so full of woe.”

“The news I bring, fair lady,”
With sorrowful accent said he,
“Is one you are not ready
So soon, alas! to hear.

“But since to speak I’m hurried,”
Added this page, quite flurried,
“Malbrouck is dead and buried!”
(And here he shed a tear.)

“He’s dead! he’s dead as a herring!
For I beheld his ‘berring,’
And four officers transferring
His corpse away from the field.

“One officer carried his sabre,
And he carried it not without labour,
Much envying his next neighbour,
Who only bore a shield.

“The third was helmet-bearer--
That helmet which on its wearer
Filled all who saw with terror,
And covered a hero’s brains.

“Now, having got so far, I
Find that (by the Lord Harry!)
The fourth is left nothing to carry;
So there the thing remains.”
Translated by Father Prout.

A MAN’S REQUIREMENTS

LOVE me, sweet, with all thou art,
Feeling, thinking, seeing;
Love me in the lightest part,
Love me in full being.

Love me with thine open youth
In its frank surrender;
With the vowing of thy mouth,
With its silence tender.

Love me with thine azure eyes,
Made for earnest granting;
Taking colour from the skies--
Can Heaven’s truth be wanting?

Love me with their lids, that fall
Snow-like at first meeting;
Love me with thine heart, that all
Neighbours then see beating.

Love me with thine hand, stretched out
Freely, open-minded:
Love me with thy loitering foot--
Hearing one behind it.

Love me with thy voice, that turns
Sudden faint above me;
Love me with thy blush, that burns
When I murmur, _Love me_!

Love me with thy thinking soul,
Break it to love-sighing;
Love me with thy thoughts, that roll
On through living, dying.

Love me in thy gorgeous airs,
When the world has crown’d thee;
Love me, kneeling at thy prayers,
With the angels round thee.

Love me pure, as musers do,
Up the woodlands shady;
Love me gayly, fast and true,
As a winsome lady.

Though all hopes that keep us brave,
Further off or nigher,
Love me for the house and grave,
And for something higher.

Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear,
Woman’s love no fable,
_I_ will love _thee_--half a year,
As a man is able.
_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

CRITICS

MY critic Hammond flatters prettily,
And wants another volume like the last.
My critic Belfair wants another book
Entirely different, which will sell (and live?)--
A striking book, yet not a startling book.
The public blames originalities
(You must not pump spring water unawares
Upon a gracious public, full of nerves),
Good things, not subtle, new, yet orthodox,
As easy reading as the dog-eared page
That’s fingered by said public fifty years,
Since first taught spelling by its grandmother,
And yet a revelation in some sort;
That’s hard, my critic Belfair! So, what next?
My critic Stokes objects to abstract thoughts;
“Call a man John, a woman, Joan,” says he,
“And do not prate so of humanities;”
Whereat I call my critic simply Stokes.
My critic Johnson recommends more mirth,
Because a cheerful genius suits the times,
And all true poets laugh unquenchably,
Like Shakespeare and the gods. That’s very hard.
The gods may laugh, and Shakespeare; Dante smiled
With such a needy heart on two pale lips,
We cry, “Weep, rather, Dante.” Poems are
Men, if true poems; and who dares exclaim
At any man’s door, “Here, ’tis understood
The thunder fell last week and killed a wife,
And scared a sickly husband--what of that?
Get up, be merry, shout, and clap your hands,
Because a cheerful genius suits the times?”
None says so to the man--and why, indeed,
Should any to the poem?

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning._

THE MISER

A FELLOW all his life lived hoarding gold,
And, dying, hoarded left it. And behold,
One night his son saw peering through the house
A man, with yet the semblance of a mouse,
Watching a crevice in the wall, and cried,
“My father?” “Yes,” the Mussulman replied,
“Thy father!” “But why watching thus?” “For fear
Lest any smell my treasure buried here.”
“But wherefore, sir, so metamousified?”
“Because, my son, such is the true outside
Of the inner soul by which I lived and died.”
_Edward Fitzgerald._

CACOËTHES SCRIBENDI

IF all the trees in all the woods were men,
And each and every blade of grass a pen;
If every leaf on every shrub and tree
Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea
Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes
Had nothing else to do but act as scribes,
And for ten thousand ages, day and night,
The human race should write, and write, and write,
Till all the pens and paper were used up,
And the huge inkstand was an empty cup,
Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink
Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink.
_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

A FAMILIAR LETTER TO SEVERAL CORRESPONDENTS

YES, write if you want to--there’s nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I’ll show you that rhyming’s as easy as lying,
If you’ll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here’s a book full of words: one can choose as he fancies,
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you want--not a copper they cost;
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
For an epic as clever as “Paradise Lost”?

Don’t mind if the index of sense is at zero;
Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean;
Leander and Lillian and Lillibullero
Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.

There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother
That boarding-school flavour of which we’re afraid;
There is “lush” is a good one, and “swirl” is another;
Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.

With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes
You can cheat us of smiles when you’ve nothing to tell;
You hand us a nosegay of milliner’s roses,
And we cry with delight, “Oh, how sweet they do smell!”

Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions
For winning the laurels to which you aspire,
By docking the tails of the two prepositions
I’ the style o’ the bards you so greatly admire.

As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty
For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;
A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty,
Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.

Let me show you a picture--’tis far from irrelevant--
By a famous old hand in the arts of design;
’Tis only a photographed sketch of an elephant;
The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.

How easy! no troublesome colours to lay on;
It can’t have fatigued him, no, not in the least;
A dash here and there with a haphazard crayon,
And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.

Just so with your verse--’tis as easy as sketching;
You can reel off a song without knitting your brow,
As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching;
It is nothing at all, if you only know how.

Well, imagine you’ve printed your volume of verses;
Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame;
Your poem the eloquent school-boy rehearses;
Her album the school-girl presents for your name.

Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;
You’ll answer them promptly--an hour isn’t much
For the honour of sharing a page with your betters,
With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.

Of course you’re delighted to serve the committees
That come with requests from the country all round;
You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties
When they’ve got a new school-house, or poor-house, or pound.

With a hymn for the saints, and a song for the sinners,
You go and are welcome wherever you please;
You’re a privileged guest at all manner of dinners;
You’ve a seat on the platform among the grandees.

At length your mere presence becomes a sensation;
Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim
With the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration,
As the whisper runs round of “That’s he!” or “That’s him!”

But, remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,
So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,
Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o’er us,
The ovum was human from which you were hatched.

No will of your own, with its puny compulsion,
Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre;
It comes, if at all, like the sibyl’s convulsion,
And touches the brain with a finger of fire.

So, perhaps, after all, it’s as well to be quiet,
If you’ve nothing you think is worth saying in prose,
As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet
To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.

But it’s all of no use, and I’m sorry I’ve written;
I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf;
For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten,
And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself.
_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

CONTENTMENT

“MAN WANTS BUT LITTLE HERE BELOW”

LITTLE I ask; my wants are few;
I only wish a hut of stone
(A very plain brown stone will do)
That I may call my own;
And close at hand is such a one,
In yonder street that fronts the sun.

Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank Heaven for three--Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice--
My choice would be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land;
Give me a mortgage here and there,
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share.
I only ask that Fortune send
A little more than I shall spend.

Honours are silly toys, I know,
And titles are but empty names;
I would, perhaps, be Plenipo--
But only near St. James;
I’m very sure I should not care
To fill our Gubernator’s chair.

Jewels are baubles; ’tis a sin
To care for such unfruitful things;
One good-sized diamond in a pin,
Some, not so large, in rings,
A ruby, and a pearl or so,
Will do for me; I laugh at show.

My dame should dress in cheap attire
(Good, heavy silks are never dear);
I own, perhaps, I might desire
Some shawls of true Cashmere--
Some marrowy crapes of China silk,
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk.

Wealth’s wasteful tricks I will not learn,
Nor ape the glitt’ring upstart fool;
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But _all_ must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double care--
I ask but _one_ recumbent chair.

Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas’ golden touch;
If Heaven more gen’rous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much--
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

HOW TO MAKE A MAN OF CONSEQUENCE

A BROW austere, a circumspective eye.
A frequent shrug of the _os humeri_;
A nod significant, a stately gait,
A blustering manner, and a tone of weight,
A smile sarcastic, an expressive stare:
Adopt all these, as time and place will bear;
Then rest assur’d that those of little sense
Will deem you sure a man of consequence.
_Mark Lemon._

THE WIDOW MALONE

DID ye hear of the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
Who lived in the town of Athlone,
Alone?
Oh, she melted the hearts
Of the swains in them parts,
So lovely the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
So lovely the Widow Malone.

Of lovers she had a full score,
Or more;
And fortunes they all had galore,
In store;
From the minister down
To the Clerk of the Crown,
All were courting the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
All were courting the Widow Malone.

But so modest was Mrs. Malone,
’Twas known
No one ever could see her alone,
Ohone!
Let them ogle and sigh,
They could ne’er catch her eye,
So bashful the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
So bashful the Widow Malone.

Till one Mister O’Brien from Clare--
How quare.
It’s little for blushing they care
Down there--
Put his arm round her waist,
Gave ten kisses at laste--
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone,
My own!”
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone!”
And the widow they all thought so shy,
My eye!
Ne’er thought of a simper or sigh--
For why?

“But, Lucius,” says she,
“Since you’ve now made so free,
You may marry your Molly Malone,
Ohone!
You may marry your Molly Malone.”

There’s a moral contained in my song,
Not wrong;
And, one comfort, it’s not very long,
But strong:
If for widows you die,
Learn to _kiss_, not to sigh,
For they’re all like sweet Mistress Malone,
Ohone!
Oh! they’re very like Mistress Malone!
_Charles Lever._

THE PAUPER’S DRIVE

THERE’S a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot;
To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the sad driver sings:
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.

Oh, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none;
He has left not a gap in the world, now he’s gone;
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.

What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!
The whip, how it cracks, and the wheels, how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o’er the hedges is hurled!
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he’s stretched in a coach;
He’s taking a drive in his carriage at last,
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.

You bumpkins, who stare at your brother conveyed,
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid!
And be joyful to think, when by death you’re laid low,
You’ve a chance to the grave like a gemman to go.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He’s only a pauper, whom nobody owns.

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend.
Bear soft his bones over the stones!
Though a pauper, he’s one whom his Maker yet owns.
_Thomas Noel._

ON LYTTON

WE know him, out of Shakespeare’s art,
And those fine curses which he spoke--
The Old Timon with his noble heart,
That strongly loathing, greatly broke.

So died the Old; here comes the New;
Regard him--a familiar face;
I thought we knew him. What! it’s you,
The padded man that wears the stays;

Who killed the girls, and thrilled the boys
With dandy pathos when you wrote:
O Lion, you that made a noise,
And shook a mane _en papillotes_....

What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt,
A dapper boot, a little hand,
If half the little soul is dirt?...

A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame!
It looks too arrogant a jest--
That fierce old man, to take his name,
You bandbox! Off, and let him rest!

_Alfred Tennyson._

SORROWS OF WERTHER

WERTHER had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
_William Makepeace Thackeray._

MR. MOLONY’S ACCOUNT OF THE BALL

GIVEN TO THE NEPAULESE AMBASSADOR BY THE PENINSULAR AND ORIENTAL COMPANY

OH, will ye choose to hear the news?
Bedad, I cannot pass it o’er;
I’ll tell you all about the Ball
To the Naypaulase Ambassador.
Begor! this _fête_ all balls does bate
At which I’ve worn a pump, and I
Must here relate the splendthor great
Of th’ Oriental Company.

These men of sinse dispoised expinse,
To _fête_ these black Achilleses.
“We’ll show the blacks,” says they, “Almack’s,
And take the rooms at Willis’s.”
With flags and shawls, for these Nepauls,
They hung the rooms of Willis up,
And decked the walls, and stairs, and halls,
With roses and with lilies up.

And Jullien’s band it tuck its stand
So sweetly in the middle there,
And soft bassoons played heavenly chunes,
And violins did fiddle there.
And when the Coort was tired of spoort,
I’d lave you, boys, to think there was
A nate buffet before them set,
Where lashins of good dhrink there was.

At ten, before the ballroom door
His moighty Excellincy was,
He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd,
So gorgeous and imminse he was.
His dusky shuit, sublime and mute
Into the doorway followed him;
And oh, the noise of the blackguard boys,
As they hurrood and hollowed him!

The noble Chair stud at the stair,
And bade the dhrums to thump; and he
Did thus evince to that Black Prince
The welcome of his Company.
Oh, fair the girls, and rich the curls,
And bright the oys you saw there, was;
And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi,
On Gineral Jung Behawther was!

This gineral great then tuck his sate,
With all the other ginerals
(Bedad his troat, his belt, his coat,
All bleezed with precious minerals);
And as he there, with princely air,
Recloinin’ on his cushion was,
All round about his royal chair
The squeezin’ and the pushin’ was.

O Pat, such girls, such jukes, and earls,
Such fashion and nobilitee!
Just think of Tim, and fancy him
Amidst the hoigh gentilitee!

There was Lord de L’Huys, and the Portygeese
Ministher and his lady there,
And I reckonized, with much surprise,
Our messmate, Bob O’Grady, there.

There was Baroness Brunow, that looked like Juno,
And Baroness Rehausen there,
And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiar
Well, in her robes of gauze in there.
There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first,
When only Misther Pips he was),
And Mick O’Toole, the great big fool,
That after supper tipsy was.

There was Lord Fingall, and his ladies all,
And Lords Killeen and Dufferin,
And Paddy Fife, with his fat wife:
I wondher how he could stuff her in.
There was Lord Belfast, that by me passed,
And seemed to ask how should _I_ go there?
And the Widow Macrae, and Lord A. Hay,
And the Marchioness of Sligo there.

Yes, jukes, and earls, and diamonds, and pearls,
And pretty girls, was sporting there;
And some beside (the rogues!) I spied,
Behind the windies, coorting there.
Oh, there’s one I know, bedad would show
As beautiful as any there,
And I’d like to hear the pipers blow,
And shake a fut with Fanny there!
_William Makepeace Thackeray._

DAMAGES, TWO HUNDRED POUNDS.

SPECIAL jurymen of England, who admire your country’s laws,
And proclaim a British jury worthy of the realm’s applause,
Gayly compliment each other at the issue of a cause
Which was tried at Guildford ’Sizes, this day week, as ever was.

Unto that august tribunal comes a gentleman in grief
(Special was the British jury, and the judge, the Baron Chief)--
Comes a British man and husband, asking of the law relief,
For his wife was stolen from him; he’d have vengeance on the thief.

Yes, his wife, the blessed treasure with the which his life was
crowned,
Wickedly was ravished from him by a hypocrite profound;
And he comes before twelve Britons, men for sense and truth
renowned,
To award him for his damage twenty hundred sterling pound.

He by counsel and attorney there at Guildford does appear,
Asking damage of the villain who seduced his lady dear;
But I can’t help asking, though the lady’s guilt was all too clear,
And though guilty the defendant, wasn’t the plaintiff rather queer?

First the lady’s mother spoke, and said she’d seen her daughter cry
But a fortnight after marriage--early times for piping eye;
Six months after, things were worse, and the piping eye was black,
And this gallant British husband caned his wife upon the back.

Three months after they were married, husband pushed her to the
door,
Told her to be off and leave him, for he wanted her no more.
As she would not go, why, he went: thrice he left his lady dear--
Left her, too, without a penny, for more than a quarter of a year.

Mrs. Frances Duncan knew the parties very well indeed;
She had seen him pull his lady’s nose, and make her lip to bleed;
If he chanced to sit at home, not a single word he said;
Once she saw him throw the cover of a dish at his lady’s head.

Sarah Green, another witness, clear did to the jury note
How she saw this honest fellow seize his lady by the throat;
How he cursed her and abused her, beating her into a fit,
Till the pitying next-door neighbours crossed the wall and
witnessed it.

Next door to this injured Briton Mr. Owers, a butcher, dwelt;
Mrs. Owers’s foolish heart toward this erring dame did melt
(Not that she had erred as yet--crime was not developed in her),
But, being left without a penny, Mrs. Owers supplied her dinner--
God be merciful to Mrs. Owers, who was merciful to this sinner!

Caroline Naylor was their servant, said they led a wretched life;
Saw this most distinguished Briton fling a teacup at his wife;
He went out to balls and pleasures, and never once, in ten months’
space,
Sat with his wife, or spoke her kindly. This was the defendant’s
case.

Pollock, C. B., charged the jury; said the woman’s guilt was clear:
That was not the point, however, which the jury came to hear;
But the damage to determine which, as it should true appear,
This most tender-hearted husband, who so used his lady dear--

Beat her, kicked her, caned her, cursed her, left her starving,
year by year.
Flung her from him, parted from her, wrung her neck, and boxed her
ear--
What the reasonable damage this afflicted man could claim
By the loss of the affections of this guilty, graceless dame?

Then the honest British twelve, to each other turning round,
Laid their clever heads together with a wisdom most profound:
And towards his lordship looking, spoke the foreman wise and sound:
“My Lord, we find for this here plaintiff, damages two hundred
pound.”

So, God bless the special jury! pride and joy of English ground,
And the happy land of England, where true justice does abound!
British jurymen and husbands, let us hail this verdict proper:
If a British wife offends you, Britons, you’ve a right to whop her.

Though you promised to protect her, though you promised to defend
her,
You are welcome to neglect her; to the devil you may send her;
You may strike her, curse, abuse her; so declares our law renowned;
And if after this you lose her, why, you’re paid two hundred pound.
_William Makepeace Thackeray._

THE LOST LEADER

I

JUST for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat--
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others, she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags--were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern, to live and to die?
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us--they watched from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II

We shall march prospering, not thro’ his presence;
Songs may inspirit us, not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done, while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire.
Blot out his name, then; record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod;
One more devils’ triumph, and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life’s night begins; let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain,
Forced praise on our part--the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad, confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him--strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we master his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge, and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

_Robert Browning._

THE POPE AND THE NET

WHAT! he on whom our voices unanimously ran,
Made Pope at our last Conclave? Full low his life began:
His father earned the daily bread as just a fisherman.

So much the more his boy minds book, gives proof of mother-wit,
Becomes first Deacon, and then Priest, then Bishop; see him sit
No less than Cardinal ere long, while no one cries “Unfit!”

But some one smirks, some other smiles, jogs elbow, and nods head;
Each winks at each: “I’ faith, a rise! Saint Peter’s net, instead
Of swords and keys, is come in vogue!” You think he blushes red?

Not he, of humble, holy heart! “Unworthy me,” he sighs;
“From fisher’s drudge to Church’s prince--it is indeed a rise!
So, here’s my way to keep the fact forever in my eyes!”

And straightway in his palace-hall, where commonly is set
Some coat-of-arms, some portraiture ancestral, lo, we met
His mean estate’s reminder in his fisher-father’s net!

Which step conciliates all and some, stops cavil in a trice:
“The humble, holy heart that holds of new-born pride no spice,
He’s just the saint to choose for Pope!” Each adds. “’Tis my
advice.”

So Pope he was; and when we flocked--its sacred slipper on--
To kiss his foot we lifted eyes, alack, the thing was gone--
That guarantee of lowlihead--eclipsed that star which shone!

Each eyed his fellow; one and all kept silence. I cried “Pish!
I’ll make me spokesman for the rest, express the common wish:
Why, Father, is the net removed?” “Son, it hath caught the fish.”
_Robert Browning._

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER

GR-R-R--there go, my heart’s abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God’s blood, would not mine kill you!
What! your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

At the meal we sit together:
_Salve tibi!_ I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year;
_Not a plenteous cork-crop; scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What’s the Latin name for “parsley”?_
What’s the Greek name for swine’s snout?

Whew! we’ll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf;
With a fire-new spoon we’re furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere ’tis fit to touch our chaps
Marked with L for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

_Saint_, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,
Steeping tresses in the tank,
Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,
Can’t I see his dead eye glow
Bright as ’t were a Barbary corsair’s?
(That is, if he’d let it show!)

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Crosswise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu’s praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,
Drinking watered orange pulp--
In three sips the Arian frustrate,
While he drains his at one gulp.

Oh, those melons! If he’s able,
We’re to have a feast, so nice!
One goes to the abbot’s table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers? None double?
Not one fruit-sort can you spy?
Strange! And I, too, at such trouble
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

There’s a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails.
If I trip him just a-dying,
Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper, with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial’s gripe.
If I double down its pages
At the woful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in’t?

Or, there’s Satan! One might venture
Pledge one’s soul to him, yet leave
Such a flaw in the indenture
As he’d miss till, past retrieve,
Blasted lay that rose-acacia
We’re so proud of! _Hy_, _Zy_, _Hine_....
’St, there’s Vespers! _Plena gratia_,
_Ave, Virgo!_ Gr-r-r--you swine!
_Robert Browning._

CYNICAL ODE TO AN ULTRA-CYNICAL PUBLIC

YOU prefer a buffoon to a scholar,
A harlequin to a teacher,
A jester to a statesman,
An anonyma flaring on horseback
To a modest and spotless woman--
Brute of a public!

You think that to sneer shows wisdom;
That a gibe outvalues a reason;
That slang, such as thieves delight in,
Is fit for the lips of the gentle,
And rather a grace than a blemish--
Thick-headed public!

You think that if merit’s exalted,
’Tis excellent sport to decry it,
And trail its good name in the gutter;
And that cynics, white-gloved and cravatted,
Are the cream and quintessence of all things--
Ass of a public!

You think that success must be merit;
That honour and virtue and courage
Are all very well in their places,
But that money’s a thousand times better--
Detestable, stupid, degraded
Pig of a public!
_Charles Mackay._

THE GREAT CRITICS

WHOM shall we praise?
Let’s praise the dead!
In no men’s ways
Their heads they raise,
Nor strive for bread
With you or me.
So, do you see,
We’ll praise the dead!
Let living men
Dare but to claim
From tongue or pen
Their meed of fame,
We’ll cry them down,
Spoil their renown,
Deny their sense,
Wit, eloquence,
Poetic fire,
All they desire.
Our say is said,
Long live the dead!
_Charles Mackay._

THE LAUREATE

WHO would not be
The Laureate bold,
With his butt of sherry
To keep him merry,
And nothing to do but to pocket his gold?

’Tis I would be the Laureate bold!
When the days are hot, and the sun is strong,
I’d lounge in the gateway all the day long,
With her Majesty’s footmen in crimson and gold.
I’d care not a pin for a waiting-lord;
But I’d lie on my back on the smooth greensward,
With a straw in my mouth, and an open vest,
And the cool wind blowing upon my breast,
And I’d vacantly stare at the clear blue sky,
And watch the clouds that are listless as I,
Lazily, lazily!
And I’d pick the moss and the daisies white,
And chew their stalks with a nibbling bite;
And I’d let my fancies roam abroad
In search of a hint for a birthday ode,
Crazily, crazily!

Oh, that would be the life for me,
With plenty to get and nothing to do,
But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,
And whistle all day to the Queen’s cockatoo,
Trance-somely, trance-somely!
Then the chambermaids, that clean the rooms,
Would come to the windows and rest on their brooms,
With their saucy caps and their crispéd hair,
And they’d toss their heads in the fragrant air,
And say to each other, “Just look down there,
At the nice young man, so tidy and small,
Who is paid for writing on nothing at all,
Handsomely, handsomely!”

They would pelt me with matches and sweet pastilles,
And crumpled-up balls of the royal bills,
Giggling and laughing, and screaming with fun,
As they’d see me start, with a leap and a run,
From the broad of my back to the points of my toes,
When a pellet of paper hit my nose,
Teasingly, sneezingly.
Then I’d fling them bunches of garden flowers,
And hyacinths plucked from the castle bowers;
And I’d challenge them all to come down to me,
And I’d kiss them all till they kisséd me,
Laughingly, laughingly.

Oh, would not that be a merry life,
Apart from care and apart from strife,
With the Laureate’s wine and the Laureate’s pay,
And no deductions at quarter-day?
Oh, that would be the post for me!
With plenty to get and nothing to do,
But to deck a pet poodle with ribbons of blue,
And whistle a tune to the Queen’s cockatoo,
And scribble of verses remarkably few,
And empty at evening a bottle or two,
Quaffingly, quaffingly!

’Tis I would be
The Laureate bold,
With my butt of sherry
To keep me merry,
And nothing to do but to pocket my gold!

_William E. Aytoun._

WOMAN’S WILL

MEN, dying, make their wills, but wives
Escape a work so sad;
Why should they make what all their lives
The gentle dames have had?
_John Godfrey Saxe._

THE MOURNER À LA MODE