Chapter III: Preface (3)

Stoop thou, what ails thee, child, to shudder? stoop and brush
Hair with tow-towzled hair, that for a space
I breathe my godhead through thy thirsting veins, and flush
The soft submalar hollows of thy face,
And thrill thee, crown to sole, till that in downward rush
Of eager ecstasy with fair flat feet thou crush
The beetle, Virtue, in the lowly place.

THE DAMOSEL.

Ah, master and lord, I feel it; the wind of thy fierce delight,
Hell-hot as the blast from the furnace, sea-cold as a gust of
the sea.
O deaf blind Love, that art deaf as a poker and blind as the night!
O my flushed faint cheeks and my chin! O mine eye and the elbow
of me!

I bow to thy might, O my lord, to the keen blown breath of thy lips,
With a loathing of love that longs, and a longing of love that
loathes,
With shiver of angular shoulders, and shake of invisible hips,
As boweth the light slight stake in the torture of wind-whirled
clothes!

Thou hast rent me enough, O Divine! … and behold, thou stayest thine
hand,
And leavest me crushed as a reed, that I wot not whether I tread
Upon Earth, our holy old mother, with feet down-pressing, or stand
Inverse, in a fearless new fashion, uplift on my passionate head!

_The Criticism._――“I have judged it good and helpful to prefix to my few words in appreciation of Mr. Bones’s noble picture this exquisite lyric of Mr. Sinburn’s. It may serve to a better understanding of the one master’s work to note in what wise it has inspired the other. The scene of Mr. Bones’s picture is a garden; the time, high noon. A damosel, tall and gracious, stands before us, clad, but ‘more expressed than hidden,’ in a robe of subtle tissue; which, loyal through three parts of its length to the lines of her sinuous figure, breaks loose round her finely-modelled knees into a riot of enchanting curves and folds; yet, withal, an orderly revolt, and obedient to its own higher law of rebellious grace. At her side stands the fatal Eros, the divine, the immortal, bow in hand, a glory of great light about his head. Behind him rise his outspread wings, which, by one of those eloquently significant touches whereof this painter possesses, one must think, the exclusive secret, are made to simulate the expanded tail of the bird of Heré. What he has here set down for us, in reporting of the lower limbs of this Immortal, he may well have noticed when he himself was last set down at his own house-door; since we see that for the knees of the young Eros of the ancients he has not disdained to study from the ancient Kab-os of the moderns. In the form of the maiden who bends towards him, quivering like a shot bird at the touch of his long lithe finger, we have another triumph of the master’s unique powers. The mere volume of her frame is, let us allow it, spare to the verge of the penurious; its curves are sudden to precipitancy, abrupt even to _brusquerie_; without being at all exaggerated, the charm of _morbidezza_ is certainly insisted upon to the full limits of the admissible; but the charm is there, victorious and exultant, a voluptuousness not of the flesh, nor appealing thereto, yet a voluptuousness the more subtle and penetrating, perhaps, for that very reason. One sees that the burden of the great mystery has passed upon this woman; one sees it in the heavy-lidded eyes, in the chastened, even ascetic, lines of the face, and above all, in the thin, almost fleshless, figure consumed by inner fires, a conception only capable, perhaps, of being realised in the sympathetic imagination of a Burnt Bones. To the colour-harmonies of the whole picture I despair of doing justice. It may be remembered that I likened Mr. Bones’s last work to a cantata; this one is an oratorio, full of exquisitely tuneful fancies, grand instrumental combinations, profound contrapuntal erudition.”

――――

DREAM POEM A LA SWINBURNE.
(_After a Supper of Pork Chops._)

Soft is the smell of it, sweet the sad sound of it,
Mournfully mingled on yon mountain’s top,
Grateful, and green, and caressing the ground of it,
Calm as a calyx, and deep as a drop.

Ah! the enlivenment, dark as the distance!
Ah! the allurements that lavish and lave!
Is there no sound but the sun’s sweet insistance,
Night in the forest, and noon on the wave?

Fierce as a festival, fragrant and fading――
Grim as the grandeur that dreams of a day――
Is there no balm in Love’s lavish unlading,
Born in the brightness, and grieving, and gray?

Lo! in the glimmering, sweet Aphrodite,
Ghastly and gracious, and groaning and grave,
Brilliant in banishment, mournful and mighty,
Soft as the samite that sinks in the wave!

Light are the longings that listen and linger:
Ah! the sick kingdoms that grapple and groan
Red as Republics that point the far finger,
Or hail the horizon, aghast and alone.

Sinks in the distance the Dream and the Dreaming,
Leaves the wide world to its pining and pain;
From the great Universe, lo! in the gleaming,
Blazes the bandersnatch, faithless and fain!

――――

PARODY ON A POEM IN MR. SWINBURNE’S TRAGEDY “ERECHTHEUS.”

I see the sad sorrow that hangs like a shadow
From ocean to ocean obscuring the light,
Till hamlet and farm upon mountain and meadow
Are blasted and bare with the blight.
O, Erin, to me as my mother,
O, Irishmen, each one a brother,
Whose wrongs are remembered to-day,
Whose tyrants their terrors betray;
O, Erin, the fairest outvying,
Quail not at their fearfullest frown;
Hear this that I breathe to thee dying,
O land of renown.
Though landlord and agent with breathings of slaughter
Unite to assail and oppress thee again,
Secure thou shalt stand in the midst of the water,
The hate of their hearts shall be vain.
For their power shall be past and made idle,
And their pride shall be checked with a bridle,
And the height of their heads bow down
At the loss of their rents and renown.
Be cherished and loved as I love thee,
Of all that to thee owe their breath;
Be thy life like the stars up above thee――
Now, come to me, death.

D. EVANS.

_The Weekly Dispatch._ June 25, 1882.

――――

LES POETES S’AMUSENT.

_Swinburne chez Hugo._

The Banquet of the two distinct demigods is over. The dinner, a two-franc Palais Royal feast fit for Parnassus, came off last night; and I was there ready to watch and to wink at the matchless mouthfuls of the two mighty Masters. As these disappeared amidst rich rhythm and rhapsody, I stood in a corner, note-book in hand, mutely worshipful.

There was a hungry hush, the Elder Master had a message to deliver, and catching the reporter’s eye, did not halt or hesitate.

“What,” he asked, addressing the lady presiding at the _bureau_ behind the little plated saucers of sugar, “what is Swinburne? Is he,” he proceeded, “a costermonger? No. What then. A sweep? You cannot be a sweep without singing a _Song before Sunrise_. But this Swinburne has written _Chastelard_. That sounds like Bacon. Is he then a philosopher? Yes, and No. Which? Never mind. But there is this remarkable thing about a philosopher: he produces fruits. Sometimes they are nuts to crack, and when Civilisation has a nut to crack it holds its jaw. This is a paradox, and suggests the question, ‘Am I Civilisation?’ To this there is an answer. It is again ‘No and Yes.’ Last time it was ‘Yes and No.’ Now it is ‘No and Yes.’ Why? Is there a reason for this? None. And when there is no reason for anything, it becomes a subject of reference. To whom? To the Marines: and you cannot refer a subject to the Marines without asking them a riddle. And this is the riddle that posterity will ask them: ‘What is Victor Hugo?’”

There was a pause; but in an instant the Younger Master had sprung on to a velvet _fauteuil_, and, thrumming the back of an _entrée_ dish as an impromptu lyre, with a high-piped treble cry of “I’ll tell you,” had soon sufficiently and signally silenced the Elder with the following unsung and understudied Ode:――

“You are he who,――ere upon my noisome nurses
Large limbèd lap
I coughed my first shrieked shrill-throated choke of curses,
In pulp of pap,――
Rose in reek made rich of decomposing matter
Round kinglets curled,
To greet with white-soul’d yell of ‘Yah!――who’s your hatter?’
An out-wash’d world:

“You who, with a wind of words in thuds of thunder,
Of sense made hash;
Blind, yet bleating in the blaze of your own blunder
Whole yards of trash;

By your posing――your back somersaults of error
That no one fire,――
By the frenzy and the cry of loud-tongued terror
Your jokes inspire;
By the promise of your early dawn reversèd
Clean upside down,
By your curst cloy of Pantomime, and thrice accursèd
Cat-call for Clown;

“By the pasteboard heads that, beaten in in places,
Smile on in pain,
By sightless eyes and worsted hair, by large, mild faces,――
By Drury Lane;
By all frolic, freak and fooling, food for laughter,
Nor said nor sung,
When next on spouting bent――pity your hereafter,
_And hold your tongue!_”

* * * * *

_Punch._ December 2, 1882.

――――:o:――――

In 1883, Messrs. Chatto and Windus published a small quarto volume, entitled “_A Century of Roundels_,” by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Very soon afterwards, there was a parody competition on these little poems in _The Weekly Dispatch_, which published the following imitations on July 1, 1883.

The prize of two guineas was awarded to Mr. Henry William Hancock for:――

FAR-FETCHED AND DEAR-BOUGHT!

Far-fetched and dear-bought, sure this volume of verse is,
Tho’ ever as clever in rhythm and thought;
And yet tho’ a master each roundel rehearses,
Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Tho’ perfect in beauty each ditty is wrought,
Monotony much admiration disperses;
Ye gods! a whole hundred! Is Swinburne distraught?

The appetite cloyed e’er with dainties far worse is
Than hunger that waits till one’s dinner is caught;
So this is my verdict condemning these verses――
Far-fetched and dear-bought!

_Highly commended._

ULYSSES.

What gain were mine if I should anchor cast
And soothe my senses with these songs divine
When I had wearied of the sweet repast,
What gain were mine?

Save for my skill, ye yet were Circe’s swine,
And barking Scylla safe I led you past――
And past Charybdis, ambushed in the brine.

Then faithful comrades bind, and bind me fast――
My lips are fain for kisses and for wine;
But so I fail of Ithaca at last,
What gain were mine?

GOSSAMER.

TO ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

Magician of song and of sound that enslaves the ear,
Subtle and sweet are the arts which to thee belong;
Varied thy chant as the lark’s which is heard so clear,
Magician of song.

Divine as the sound of billows that swell and throng
And crash with a music that gods might love to hear;
So gather thy waves of language rapid and strong,

Bursting in pæans of Love, and of Joy, and Fear,
Welcome thy strain as a bird’s the flowers among,
Welcome thy notes as blossoms that light the year,
Magician of song.

APSLEY ROBERTS.

――――:o:――――

A TRIO OF ROUNDELS.

I was born like other men,
And at last shall die.
Who will live for ever then?

Just a smile, a sigh,
Tears a few, a smile again,
Some endeavours high.
Who shines grander, truer, when
Placed in contrast by
Grunting swine or clucking hen?

Half-a-crown, that cannot last for ever,
Yet who is there takes it with a frown?
Who seeks not with passionate endeavour
Half-a-crown?

Who despises it, in all the town,
You shall find a human being never
From the tinselled monarch to the clown.

Let a man be dull of brain or clever,
Be his lot, or up in life or down,
Easily from him you shall not sever
Half-a-crown.

Around and about the singer his song disperses
He flings to the heavens a crashing mellifluous shout.
Vast harmonies mingled for ever of blessings and curses
Around and about.

In melody filling and thrilling his voice rings out
In strivings splendidly human. Better or worse is
The joy of the poor or the rich, of the lord or the lout;
What sirens ever sang sweeter? What wine of Circe’s,
More quickly dispelled the fumes of a priestly doubt,
Than this of the bay-crowned Man who is flinging his verses
Around and about?

_St. James’s Gazette._

――――:o:――――

THE NEW JACK HORNER.

The pigmy and portative Horner,
Whom all men denominate Jack,
Against an approximate corner
Had set his exiguous back.
On his knee, formed of paste that was puffy,
Was a pie they for Yule-tide had made;
Into which his fat fingers to stuff he
No palpable moment delayed.
And his voice told of raptures and roses,
As, plucking a plum from that pie,
He cried (as the legend discloses),
“What a plump pie-ous urchin am I!”

_Funny Folks Annual._ 1884.

――――

CHRISTMAS MOTTOES.
(_By Eminent Hands._)

OUR LADY CHAMPAGNE.
_By A.C.S._

A Maiden makes moan, “Oh my motto
Lies lost with its love-litten lay:
’Twas something on ‘green in a grotto,’
And ‘sad seas were sweeter than spray.’”
O theme for the scorn of the scoffer,
I hear my own verses again,
And she ogles me well as I offer
My Lady――Champagne.

THE BLOOMING DAMOZEL.
_By D.G.R._

The blooming damozel leaned o’er
The station bar at even,
And she was deeper than the depths
Of water at Lochleven;
She kept my change within her purse,
It came to one-and-seven.

THE VOLSUNG TALE.
_By W.M._

Oh, fain for the wine was Sigurd, and wild were the songs he sang,
Like the words from the Halls of Music, for glamour was on his
tongue,
And he dropped the sword of the Branstock, that trembled in his
clutch,
And said Gudrun, “Son of the Volsungs, methinks thou has ta’en too
much.”
Then up rose the King of Men-folk, and vowed he had drunk no ale;
And that was the story of Sigurd――lo!――that was the Volsung tale!

THE MOTTO.
_By R.B._

A Motto! Just a catch-word such as lies
Betwixt _Imprimis_ and the colophon;
French _mot_, Italian _motto_: for the rest
Latin _mutire_. Body o’ me――the Greek
Gives _muthos_. So this poem I write and leave
To Jansenists, to lie i’ the brains o’ men,
I sell you for a _lira_, eight pence just,
Then home to Casa Guidi, by the Church.
And, British Public, ye who like me not,
I think i’ faith I’ve got the best of it!

――――:o:――――

MARCH: AN ODE.

Ere frost-flower and snow blossom faded and fell, and the splendour
of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that
fulfil us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and
branches that glittered and swayed.
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that
outlightens all flowers till it fade.
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night
than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had
the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that
enkindle the season they smite.

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin
and spoil of the snow,
And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops
that only thy wrath could lay low,
How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year
that exults to be born.
So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness, whose laughter
puts winter and sorrow to scorn?
Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy
forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow
As a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and
tresses yet wasted and torn,
Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through
her spirit the sense of thee flow.

* * * * *

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

_The Nineteenth Century._ March, 1888.

――――

ANOTHER ODE TO MARCH.

(_Being a Counterblast to Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s rhythmical rhapsody
in the “Nineteenth Century.” By one who has certainly “learned
in suffering” what he endeavours to “teach in song.”_)

Ere frost-slush and snow-slopping dried up and went, and the horrors
of Winter had slid out of sight,
The ways of the wood pavement fouler were far than a clay-country lane
on a mucky March night.
The breath of the month of the winds had stabbed us through top-coats
and mufflers, and made us afraid.
Such bronchial bothers, such blossomy noses, such frostbitten fingers
for man and for maid!
The sea was not lovelier then than the land, each appeared in a dismal
and desolate plight;
But the Winter is not so much worse than the Spring-time; each plays
up the mischief with pleasure and trade.
March, master of winds, is a flatulent fraud, a marshal of banes and
a bringer of blight.

And now that the rage of your rhythmical rapture, your revel of
rhyming has finished its flow,
Oh, incontinent ALGERNON CHARLES, what the dickens you mean by such
rubbish I _should_ like to know.
How, how can you love and rejoice, you, leader and lord of the
lyrists of curses and scorn,
In a beast of a month that half drives one to madness, and makes a
man wish he had never been born?
_Have_ you shaken the snow from your shoes on a doormat, with frost
have your nose and your lips been aglow?
_Have_ you met a March wind coming sharp round a corner, your
mackintosh drenched and your gingham all torn,
And tried to take breath in the nip of North-Easters? No, ALGERNON
CHARLES, or you’d never talk _so_!

(_Four verses omitted._)

The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as
dry as starch.
Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its
gales that parch.
What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest
winds that blow?
Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for
blinding snow?
No, no, your lips are eloquent, ALGERNON, set in Apollo’s own genuine
arch;
But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that
setteth your figures aglow,
Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind
of March!

_Punch._ March 17, 1888.

――――

LINES A LA SWINBURNE.

I sing of the months of the whirligig years that are fading far out
of sight and of sound and of motionless mind;
Of the days without dreams and the dreams without days, and the days
and the dreams and the dreams and the days grown silent and blind;
Gone mad with the vigor of spring and the blush of the radish new
blown in the meadows far kissed by the lips of the Sound:
The maddest and gladdest and saddest and baddest and sweetest,
completest and fleetest and neatest of days ever found.

I sing of them often in words that are winding, in adjectives
blinding, in dactyles and trochees with cunning combined,
In lines that are long as a sentence of Evarts, in lines on the plan
of the Washington Monument deftly designed;
With wildering fancy of words and of musical syllables weighted with
little of thought and with much less of rhyme,
I cover ten pages a sitting with verse that has value in market, and
readily getteth there every time.

And when the idea is the thinnest, new burst from the void of the
infinite nothing, the zenith of space where the nebulous ether is
pregnant with cobwebs of fancy bestrewn with the dew-drops of
slush,
I build up long lines such as never a poet, who was not a crank on
the subject of versification, built up for the purpose of drowning
a suffering public with torrents of stupid and meaningless
gibbering gush.
If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had made of the past
and hereafter a single adorable season whose life was a rapture of
love and of laughter for all of the maidens and lads,
I’d write you a poem with lines like the city of Rome, and with rhymes
on beholders and shoulders; on measure and pleasure; on closes and
roses; on sterile, imperil; remember, September; and hither and
thither and whither; on slacken and bracken; on season and reason;
defrauded, applauded; on dwindled, rekindled; on giving and
living; on slumbers and numbers; beholden and golden; on glory and
story and Morey; on wizard and gizzard and blizzard; on Blaine and
on Maine; and each rhyme would be stuck on the end of a line just
like this one I’m writing; and oh, and heyday, and yea, marry,
they’d run about eight to the page, and they’d collar the scads.

TRICOTRIN.

_Harper’s Monthly Magazine_, June, 1888.

――――:o:――――

In _Pictures at Play_ (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1888), a picture by J. W. Waterhouse, A.R.A., is supposed to sing the following parody of the “Masque of Queen Bersabe”:――

I am the Lady of Shalott,
And if you say you love me not,
I shall reply, I wis,
That Bastien-Lepage has been
Much marked of Waterhouse, I ween,
And the result is――this!
The A.R.A. who painted me
Is young and popular, and free
To gratify his whim;
Where on a couch of pain I lay,
He came and called me up one day,
And bade me follow him.
In strange attire he vestured me,
Yea, in the silks of Liberty,
He set me thus afloat;
He bade me seem to have the shakes,
And ope my mouth as one that takes
A high and hopeless note.
And painting merely what he saw,
According to the last-found law
Of values and of tones,
He made me, much to my amaze,
A thing whereon the public gaze,
And mock me for the nones.

I am the Lady of Shalott
And if you tell me I am _not_,
I say but this one thing:
That here be “Values” rare and quaint,
A goodly “quality of paint,”
And “workmanlike hand-ling.”

I am the Lady of Shalott,
And, though you recognize me not,
Denied it may not be
That I am of the things right good,
Albeit scantly understood,
In this Acadamee.

――――:o:――――

STROPHES FROM A SONG AFTER MOONRISE.

_Strophe I._

I bowed my laurel’d head
Above my lyre and said:――
“What new song shall I sing across the strings?
Madden’d for whose new sake
What new noise shall I make?”
And I answered: “Lo, I will sing of no new things,
I will turn to her once more,
I have sung so oft before――
Freedom! and worship her, and curse some Kings.”

Set on her motherly knee,
Her nursing arms round me,
I will cling about her neck as a child clings,
Re-wounding with my kiss
Each scarce-healed cicatrice
Doing to her divers and disgusting things
Whilst in her ears my chaunt,
Re-risen and reboant,
Sounds as one sounds, who, being senseless, sings.

_Strophe II._

On one cant name of many names I have chosen――
Freedom――lo, once again I call to thee;
By the cold earth’s iron-bound ends and oceans frozen,
By the rivers that run billowing to the sea,
By the lisp and laughter of spring in leafy places,
By the storms that follow and the calms that flee,
By the pale light flung in men’s funeral faces
From holocausts of kings we burn to thee;
By the seas that link us and the lands that sever
By the foes upon our weather-side and lee――
By all these things and all other things whatever,
We call, and howl, and squeak, and shriek to thee,
Calling thee early and late,
Wild, inarticulate,
Calling and bawling that thou set something free.

_Strophe III._

But where is the something――a land
In the east or the uttermost west――
A land with a grievance, a curse?
I heed not her name or her place.
So shame on her brow be a brand,
So she have but a scourged white breast,
And a name that will scan in verse;
And I ask for the royal race,
For the land opprest.

But where shall I find her――where?
I mean the land with a wrong
Not already outworn
By those that have sung for her sake
For Byron and bards that were,
Were singing of Freedom long
Before I was thought of or born,
And they plucked all the plums from the cake
From the cake of song.

_Strophe IV._

Ah, but would that I
Had been the first of these!
I would have drained them dry,
These themes of war and peace,
Nor have left one song to sing of Italy,
Nor a poet’s picking on the bones of Greece.

Then with flowers and fire,
And bitter foam and wine,
And fangs and fierce desire,
And things I call divine,
would nauseate so the world that no man’s lyre
Should again be struck to a note I had once made mine.

* * * * *

_Epode._

I hung my laurel’d head,
Down on my lyre and said:
“What answer does my sovereign, Freedom, make?”
And in the air I heard
Not even a whisper’d word
From her for whom my very lungs do ache,
And as an addled egg is, is my brain:
Wherefore for her most royal and holy sake
I think I will behowl her once again.
“Hear me, O goddess! for it indeed is I
That call thee, at thy knees,
And don’t be frightened, please,
At the many things I shall adjure thee by.
Come to us, bright, in clear re-arisen ascendency,
Loosen o’er us all thine orient oriflamme!
By the power Mat Arnold calls: ‘A stream of tendency,’
By the Christianity we have proved a sham,
By the lowering name that darkened Hebrew story
We have turned to ‘Thou art not,’ that was once ‘I Am;’
We thy singers, we thy sons that work thee glory
With the unburnt offerings of our worthless verses
Heaped on thy shrine, adjure thee and adore thee:
I, the clamouring herd’s choragus, I implore thee:
By all the things that we bemire with curses――
That is, by all the holy things that are,
Rise and make manifest upon us thy mercies,
Rise o’er us all a large and lonely star.
For the night is now far spent: the air gives warning
With a dewy stir and chillness of the morning,
And the wan dark whitens on the eastern hill.
Burn through the east, grow large, and lighten, until
In the saffron of the sunrise we discern thee
Shining and trembling like a tear of gladness.
Draw near to us, we will love thee, we will learn thee――
Learn thee to the heart, and love thee even to madness,
If thou wilt only hear us in our crying
Across the night,
Conjuring thee by this our rhythmic sighing――
Our songs which might
Have many senses but which have not one sense
A man may see;
By the sounding and the fluent form of nonsense
We shower on thee;
By the shallow and the babbling things, our mothers,
From whom we spring;
By the barking and the braying things, our brothers
Like whom we sing;
By all the fatuous things, our near relations,
That chaunt and cheer us;
By Leeds, and Liberal associations
Oh, Freedom, hear us!”

_St. James’s Gazette._

――――:o:――――

PARODIES OF MR. SWINBURNE’S POLITICAL POEMS.

Numerous parodies have been written of Mr. Swinburne’s political poems, and of these some have already appeared in this collection.

Thus, in Volume III (p. 187), will be found Swinburne’s _The Commonweal_, which had originally appeared in _The Times_ of July 1, 1886, together with four parodies upon it. And, in Volume IV. (p. 147), Swinburne’s _The Question_, from _The Daily Telegraph_, April 29, 1887, was given, together with the caustic _Answer_, which appeared in _The Daily News_ of April 30, 1887.

The following parody is from _Truth_ May 5, 1887:――

MR. SWINBURNE’S “QUESTION” ANSWERED.

Come, frenzied poet, first, then, pray
Just tell us what those verses meant
Which to the _Telegraph_ you sent
Last Thursday; since we, sad to say,
Can’t fathom their intent,

That you were very wild, ’twas clear,
With some one; for you were profuse
In that alliterative abuse,
And in those epithets severe
You aptly can produce.

But who it was you wished to curse,
Or what it was had roused your ire,
Or why you wrote, with wroth so dire,
So much involved Swinburnian verse,
Why, that did _not_ transpire

Something, of course, had put you out,
Or, otherwise, why did you deem
It meet to wildly rave and scream,
And throw those adjectives about
With which your stanzas teem?

And as you always in past time
Have been a struggling nation’s friend,
And hastened Freedom to defend,
So doubtless now your angry rhyme
Has the same worthy end.

And, granting this, we then can find
Who are the men you would asperse,
And why you wrote such raving verse:――
Of course, it must have been designed
To Ireland’s tyrants curse!

“The clamorous crew” you write about;
The fierce “blood-mongers” you decry;
The men who “stand in shame so high”
These are the landlord-set, no doubt,
Who pity’s plea deny.

The men who “steal and skulk and flee”――
Why, it is plain you mean by these
Those heartless, greedy absentees,
Who, to live on in luxury,
Their cruel rack-rents seize.

These are the “shameless gang,” ’tis clear,
From whose “red hands” nor “dew nor rain”
Can ever “cleanse the blood again”;
And to whose hearts, so hard and sere,
Appealing is in vain.

Yes, ’tis these landlords, who disdain
To pity, though poor “children die
Starved”; and though helpless women lie
On the hill-side, ’neath sleet and rain,
Thrust from their homes hard by.

And ’tis their tenants, too, who fight
Vainly against the ruthless power
That leaves their lives “no joyful hour,”
Nor gives them e’en the “natural right
To claim life’s natural dower.”

Well may you ask, with stern surprise,
Why men, who thus their duty shirk,
And do, in sooth, “a murderous work,”
Do not seem “hideous in our eyes
As Austrian or as Turk?”

Well may you call the landlord crew,
“The cowardliest hounds that blood e’er lapp’d;”
And hint they should be “track’d and trapp’d,”
Whilst we that “woful past undo,”
Which chains on Erin clapp’d.

With reason you bid “England bow,
Lest worst befall her yet”; and swear
That nought, save pity, conscience, care,
Truth and mercy, should be now
Her sister Erin’s share.

But, frantic poet, none the less,
When next your angry feelings egg
You into verse like Silas Wegg,
Do try your meaning to express
More clearly, let us beg.

’Tis vain, in fact, for you to use
Such very gory epithets,
And terms involved, and sounding threats,
If all the time your shrieking Muse
Sense utterly forgets.

And truly, if you thus again
Should in the _Telegraph_ break out,
Its readers, there is little doubt,
When they have tried to find in vain
Whom ’tis you fain would flout.

Will bid you to the fact recall
That empty sound and fury blind,
And words ambitiously designed,
Must needs be worthless, one and all,
Unless with sense combined.

And you will be assailed with blame,
“The lips of all will laugh you dead,”
“And mockery shriek round your head,”
Whilst you live on to hear with shame
Your reputation’s fled!

――――:o:――――

CLEAR THE WAY!

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day.
Here you have your answer――England’s yea against your nay:
Long enough your House has held you: up, and clear the way!

Lust and falsehood, craft and traffic, precedent and gold,
Tongue of courtier, kiss of harlot, promise bought and sold,
Gave you heritage of empire over thralls of old.

Now that all these things are rotten, all their gold is rust,
Quenched the pride they lived by, dead the faith and cold the lust,
Shall their heritage not also turn again to dust?

By the grace of these they reigned, who left their sons their sway:
By the grace of these, what England says her lords unsay:
Till at last her cry go forth against them――Clear the way!

By the grace of trust in treason knaves have lived and lied!
By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride:
By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse,
Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse,
Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.

Where we stand, as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray;
But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay:
Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way!

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

_The Pall Mall Gazette._ August 19, 1884.

――――

RAIL AWAY!

(Written by an aspiring young poet of the Neo-Billingsgate School in humble imitation of the “Clear the Way!” contributed by Mr. Swinburne to a recent number of the _Pall Mall Gazette_.)

Rail away, my budding bardlets! This hysteric day
Shrieking lives so shrieking answers,――Journals say not nay;
Long enough has reason held you: up and rail away!

Slang and slate, revile and bludgeon with assurance bold!
Tongue of gentle, style of scholar, now are far too cold
Go it like an angry fishwife when upon the scold.

Now that chivalry’s forgotten, knightly steel all rust
Quenched the pride old poets lived by, dead their grace as dust,
Shall their mild example bind _us_? Not a whit, I trust!

_Blow_ the grace of Gentle Spenser, courtesy’s soft sway!
_Hang_ the grace of Wordsworth, leaving nothing to unsay!
Let the Poet’s shriek go forth _falsetto_――Rail away!

By the grace of trust in reason dolts have lived and died
By the fear of noisy folly tongues have oft been tied,
By the strength of rabid ranting reason’s now defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning, with good manners mar your verse
Halt and hearken lords of language, who would plump your purse
Be not tied by taste’s restrictions; learn to howl and curse!

Where we stand of slang to come, scarce falls a sprinkling spray
But the wave of Billingsgate that’s coming who shall stay?
Spread your sails my budding bardlets,――up and rail away!

_Punch_, August 30, 1884.

It was formerly a frequent theme of Mr. Swinburne’s political verse, this violent abuse of the House of Lords:――

“They are worthy to reign o’er their brothers,
To contemn them as clods and as carles,
Who are Graces by grace of such mothers
As brightened the bed of King Charles.”

Have the dukes of Buccleugh, Grafton, Richmond, and St. Albans forgotten and forgiven this humorous and playful allusion to their ancestresses, Lucy Waters, Lady Castlemaine, Louise de Querouaille, and Nell Gwynne, to whom they owe their dignities and estates?

――――

A WORD FOR THE POET.
(_The Rebuke Parodic._)

[Mr. Swinburne’s latest effusion, which has been eagerly quoted by Conservative journals, appears in “Sea Song and River Rhyme,” and is entitled “A Word for the Navy.”]

The lords of thy fate and thy keepers,
O Swinburne, should padlock thy lips;
It leaves us for genius weepers
To hear thy Macdermottish tips.
Such crowing and blowing,
Such blatant British “side,”
Will scatter and shatter
Full soon thy poet’s pride.

“Smooth France, as a serpent for rancour”――
Fie! fie! what an insolent style!
Pray slip the Conservative anchor,
And be thy old self for awhile.
Men deem thee, or dream thee,
Less living now than dead;
The news is, thy Muse is
A little off her head.

Do thou, though the Blues should misdoubt thee,
Resume thy first _role_ on our boards;
Bind on former armour about thee,
And tilt at the “lackeys and lords.”
Where you stood, the True stood,
It stands not where you stand;
Quit Jingo, and in go
For Lib’ralism grand.

_Funny Folks_, March 5, 1887.

――――:o:――――

_The Banquet_, a Political Satire, by Mr. George Cotterell, was published in 1885 by William Blackwood & Sons. Like most political squibs its interest was somewhat ephemeral, but it contained several amusing parodies of Tennyson, and of Swinburne. Some of those on Tennyson have already been quoted, the following extracts are taken from a parody of Swinburne’s “Dolores,” entitled

THE RADICAL PROGRAMME.
(_After the Franchise Bill._)

The days of the dunces are over,
The wiles of the Whigs are undone,
They shall lie nevermore in the clover,
And bask not again in the sun;
In hip and in thigh will we smite them,
Our rulers who ruled us of old,
And nothing shall raise them or right them,
Nor acres, nor gold.

They sought us with sweet condescension,
They pledged us, a hand for a hand――
We were snobs, it is needless to mention,
And they the best blood in the land:
They bartered for place and we gave it,
We staked for high game and we won,
But their place goes and nothing can save it――
Our day has begun.

When this beggarly bill they conceded
They thought we should ask for no more;
Poor fools! it was all that we needed
To make us more fierce than before:
Now the game is our own and we’ll make it,
Not a hand will we yield, not a trick;
Here’s a notice to all who will take it
To clear away quick.

To the Lords shall the mandate be spoken,
The people’s behest and decree;
For the bonds that have bound us are broken,
We are mighty at last, we are free!
Look, my lords, where the writing is written,
On the walls of your House, on the door,
You are weighed and found wanting, and smitten
Behind and before.

* * * * *

Then hurrah for the bill that we carried,
For the Caucus that carried the bill!
The Lords would have tampered and tarried,
But we swept them along with a will;
We swept them and sweep them before us,
The prize of our prowess to-day,
While we march to the lilt of the chorus
That bids us not stay.

It was time for another beginning,
So we started the world with a spin
And while it goes spinning and spinning
We will gather the spoils that we win;
For it spins out the Whigs and the Tories,
The Lords and the Church and the Crown
And it spins us this glory of glories――
To tread them all down.

――――:o:――――

HYMN TO GLADSTONIAN LIBERALS.

Is not this the First Lord of your choice?
Sure its time that you put him to bed,
For the kingdom is seared by his fires, O fools;
He was Lord, and is dead.
You will hear not again his fine speaking,
His sophistry now as before
And the tone of his wonderful lying will
Humbug your senses no more;
By the party he ruled as his slave, is he
Slain who was mighty to slay;
And the stigma that rests on his name
He can raise not, nor roll it away.
He is choked by his raiment of lies,
Now the wane of his power is come;
Truth hears he, and heeds not; and facts,
And he sees not; and taunts, and is dumb.

Power and will hath he none of it left him
Nor truth in his breath;
Till his name be struck out of the lists
Will ye know not the truth of his death!
Surely, ye say, he is strong, but the _Times_
Is ’gainst him and Parnell;
Wait a little, ye say――nay too long
He has made our fair island a hell;
Let him then die, as all must die, that
Use treason thus as a rod;
Let him fade from the ranks of his Party
Take his foot from the neck that he trod.

They cry out, his elect, his seekers for
Office, who cling to his shame,
They call him sweet light of his Party;
They call him their Lord, by his name;
The name that is written in Egypt,
And in Africa stained by retreat,
That name by our enemies loved, but
Scorned by our army and fleet.
He answers them not――he is fallen,
Political death his reward,
He is smitten! behold, he is smitten!
As though by the stroke of a sword.
The Conservative cause is triumphant,
And peace and prosperity brings
So glory to that in the highest,
The healer and mender of things.

F.A.C.

_The St. Stephen’s Review_, May 28, 1887.

――――:o:――――

In _Rhymes à la Mode_, by Mr. Andrew Lang (Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1883), there are also two good parodies of Swinburne. In one, the “Palace of Bric-à-Brac,” the exquisite diction and appropriate rhythm of the “Garden of Proserpine,” are most amusingly caricatured:――

“Here, where old Nankin glitters,
Here, where men’s tumult seems
As faint as feeble twitters
Of sparrows heard in dreams,
We watch Limoges enamel,
An old chased silver camel,
A shawl, the gift of Schamyl,
And manuscript in reams.

Here, where the hawthorn pattern
On flawless cup and plate
Need fear no housemaid slattern,
Fell minister of fate,
’Mid webs divinely woven,
And helms and hauberks cloven,
On music of Beethoven
We dream and meditate.”

* * * * *

But all lovers of dainty books and quaint old world _ballades_ will go to the fountain head to taste this stream.

――――

Several excellent imitations of Swinburne’s style remain to be quoted from _Punch_, one, which appeared January 7, 1882, entitled “_Clowning and Classicism_,” contains some skits on Burne Jones, Oscar Wilde, and John Ruskin; another, dated December 11, 1886, commences as follows:――

BABYDOM.

_A Contribution to the Poetry of Pap._

Baby, see the flowers!
――Baby sees
Other things than these.
Baby, our soft age’s first of powers.

Baby, hear the birds!
――Baby’s nose
Cocks at sounds like those.
Baby rules our deeds and thoughts and words.

Baby, want the moon?
――Baby’s eyes
Blink in blue surprise.
Baby is the boss of night and noon.

Baby, hear the sea!
――Baby’s face
Permeates all space,
Filled with noises of the nursery.

* * * * *

The next appeared on April 23, 1887:――

THE VULTURES; OR, WHAT OF THE FIGHT.
(_A Suggestion from Swinburne._)

England, what of the fight?――
The fight that may come again,
When the ridge of the battle-plain
By the last lurid sun-ray is lit,
And thou in thine armèd might
Hast fought the good fight, and thy men
Lie low where the night-birds flit,――
What then, oh land, what then?
Prophet, what of the fight?
What is the vision you see?
England the stubbornly free,
Erect, ’midst the whirl of her waves.
Harbours _she_ traitors and slaves,
Harpies, of gold-worship bred,
Who grope for their gain amongst graves
That hide the hosts of her dead?

(_Four verses omitted._)

Vultures, what of the fight?――
Ah! but ye crowd for gain.
Little care ye for the slain.
Only your maws to cram.
There they be in the night,
Sold for your sakes to death.
System? A scoundrel sham
That leaves ye with wings and breath!

England, what of that fight?――
Rouse you, and raise a hand.
These Vultures swarm in the land,
Incompetence, traitrous greed.
Scourge them to headlong flight,
Vermin of office and mart,
Ere the harpies batten indeed,
Their beaks in the nation’s heart.

――――

“According to a certain critic,” said the _Daily News_ in August, 1888, Mr. Swinburne “makes ‘services’ rhyme to ‘berries.’ How in the world does he manage that? Can it be in a poem on Lawn Tennis?”

‘Oh, thy swift, subtle, slanting, services
That skim the net, and ’scape the racket of me,
Oh, thy rich, red, ripe, ruby raspberries,
Oh, thy straw hat, and dainty body of thee!’

Nothing _exactly_ like this occurs in the English edition of Mr. Swinburne’s poems, but this, perhaps, shows how the thing could be done, if the poet were so inclined.”

――――

In the course of a singularly brilliant career it is not surprising that Mr. Swinburne should have been the subject of many fierce literary attacks. The history of these feuds must await the advent of another Isaac D’Israeli to add a Chapter to the “Calamities and Quarrels of Authors”; interesting as the topic most certainly is, it cannot be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that the principal grounds for adverse criticism have been the asserted voluptuousness and immoral tendency of his romantic poems, and the inconsistency of his political writings. As an instance of the latter failing _The Daily News_ of May 2, 1887, reprinted a poem Mr. Swinburne wrote for _The Morning Star_ (a Radical paper, now defunct) in November 1867 in favour of the Fenians then lying under sentence of death for the murder of Serjeant Brett. This poem Mr. Swinburne had also included in his volume, _Songs before Sunrise_, published in 1871, and it certainly presents a marked contrast to his recent utterances on the Irish question.

As to the alleged immoral tendency of his works much has been written, and by many pens, one of the bitterest of his assailants being Mr. Robert Williams Buchanan, whose own early writings were, most assuredly, open to adverse criticism on the same ground.

In his little work entitled, “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” published in 1872, Mr. Buchanan not only attacked Swinburne, but he was also most malignant in his criticisms of the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the kindest, gentlest, and purest of men. The controversy this aroused raged for some years, and the last word was only spoken when Mr. Edmund Yates published his article on “A Scrofulous Scotch Poet,” severely castigating Mr. Buchanan, in _The World_, September 26, 1877. Long prior to this, the following verses relating to Swinburne, had been attributed to Buchanan. It is doubtful whether in 1866 Mr. Swinburne’s name was sufficiently established to entitle him to a place in such distinguished company as is here mentioned.

THE SESSION OF THE POETS.

“_Di magni, salaputium disertum!_”――――CAT. LIB. LIII.

“At the Session of Poets held lately in London,
The Bard of Freshwater was voted the chair:
With his tresses unbrush’d, and his shirt-collar undone,
He loll’d at his ease like a good-humour’d Bear;
‘Come, boys!’ he exclaimed, ‘we’ll be merry together!’
And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek;
While with eye like a skipper’s cock’d up at the weather,
Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek.

“The company gather’d embraced great and small bards,
Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave,
Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards,
Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave.
Of books, men, and things, was the bards’ conversation――
Some praised _Ecce Homo_, some deemed it so-so――
And then there was talk of the state of the nation,
And when the unwash’d would devour Mr. Lowe.

“Right stately sat Arnold――his black gown adjusted
Genteely, his Rhine wine deliciously iced,――
With puddingish England serenely disgusted,
And looking in vain (in the mirror) for ‘Geist;’
He heark’d to the Chairman, with ‘Surely!’ and ‘Really?’
Aghast at both collar and cutty of clay,――
Then felt in his pocket, and breath’d again freely,
On touching the leaves of his own classic play.

“Close at hand lingered Lytton, whose Icarus-winglets
Had often betrayed him in regions of rhyme――
How glitter’d the eye underneath his gray ringlets,
A hunger within it unlessened by time!
Remoter sat Bailey――satirical, surly――
Who studied the language of Goethe too soon,
Who sang himself hoarse to the stars very early,
And crack’d a weak voice with too lofty a tune.

“How name all that wonderful company over?――
Prim Patmore, mild Alford――and Kingsley also?
Among the small sparks who was realler than Lover?
Among misses, who sweeter than Miss Ingelow?
There sat, looking moony, conceited, and narrow,
Buchanan,――who, finding when foolish and young,
Apollo asleep on a coster-girl’s barrow,
Straight dragged him away to see somebody hung.

“What was said? what was done? was there prosing or rhyming?
Was nothing noteworthy in deed or in word?
Why, just as the hour for the supper was chiming,
The only event of the evening occurred.
Up jumped, with his neck stretching out like a gander,
Master Swinburne, and squeal’d, glaring out through his hair,
‘All Virtue is bosh! Hallelujah for Lander!
I disbelieve wholly in everything!――there!’

“With language so awful he dared then to treat ’em,――
Miss Ingelow fainted in Tennyson’s arms,
Poor Arnold rush’d out, crying ‘Sœcl’inficetum!’
And great bards and small bards were full of alarms;
Till Tennyson, flaming and red as a gipsy,
Struck his fist on the table and uttered a shout:
‘To the door with the boy! Call a cab! He is tipsy!’
And they carried the naughty young gentleman out.

“After that, all the pleasanter talking was done there――
Whoever had known such an insult before?
The Chairman tried hard to re-kindle the fun there,
But the Muses were shocked, and the pleasure was o’er.
Then ‘Ah!’ cried the Chairman, ‘this teaches me knowledge,
The future shall find me more wise, by the powers!’
This comes of assigning to yonkers from college
Too early a place in such meetings as ours!”

CALIBAN.

_The Spectator._ September 15. 1886.

――――:o:――――

Although this collection is avowedly confined to Parodies which have previously appeared in print, it will be readily understood that numbers of _original_ parodies are sent in, of which but a very small proportion can be inserted.

Some amusing incidents occur, thus a short time ago a gentlemen sent from Scotland the M.S.S. of new and original burlesques on _Hamlet_ and _Othello_, the first containing about 850 lines, and the second about double that number. The author earnestly requested they should be inserted in _Parodies_, but whether he had succeeded in getting any “new and original” fun out of such fresh and lively topics as Hamlet and Othello, the world will never be able to judge through this medium.

Another, and almost equally humorous request was worded as follows:――“I enclose a parody on Mr. Algernon Swinburne’s _Dolores_ in the form of an encomium on ‘Someone’s Essence of Something’ which is absurdly close to some of the original verses. If you accept it please send proof and _remuneration_ to me at above address.”

It so happened that this parody was not devoid of literary merit, but the author was presuming a little too much in expecting to get a puff inserted gratis, and to be paid for it in the bargain.

A verse or two will suffice to indicate the author’s treatment of the topic:――

All pale from the past we draw nigh thee,
And satiate with rollicking hours;
And we know thee how none can deny thee,
And we purchase the gift of new pow’rs,
The draught that allays and recovers,
The boons and the blessings that rain
On the livers and lungs of thy lovers,
Exorcist of Pain!

What care though disease be a fixture
Which for ages has baffled all skill,
Thou art more than the famous blood mixture,
Superior to Cockle’s best pill;
Thou canst cast out disordered secretion,
Reduce the swelled kidney, revive
The victim of constant depletion,
And keep him alive!

Fruits fail, Autumn dies, and Time ranges,
* * * have perpetual breath,
The price of its bottles ne’er changes,
Two-and-ninepence can wrestle with Death
Our lives are rekindled and rallied,
Our systems made wholesome and clean,
Relieved of Dyspepsia, that pallid,
And poisonous Queen!

Sick-headache, and sudden affliction,
Carbuncles, and feverish skin,
Epidemics, severe mental friction,
Too much of a favourite bin;
For these panacea thou devisest,
For these, and for all other bane,
O wise among chemists, and wisest,
Exorcist of Pain!

* * * * *

The remainder of this Poem will be inserted with full details as to price, and number of cures effected, on receipt of the customary advertisement fee.

Another correspondent kindly sent in a lengthy rhymed criticism of Swinburne’s style, commencing as follows:――

PADDY BLAKE ON SWINBURNE.

Dear Bailey, I will not deny
That of Swinburne’s great merit I’m sensible,
But this one complaint I must cry――
“He’s exceedingly incomprehensible!”

He sings pretty songs about kisses,
He christens them “red,” also “white”;
I confess, in all lowliness, this is
Beyond my intelligence quite.

It may well be that I’m very silly,
But some of his songs seem to me
Like a mixture of very weak skilly
With ten times as much eau-de-vie.

His language is wrondrously charming,
And falls like a spell on the ear;
But there’s one thing that’s rather alarming――
Would it ever bring laughter or tear?

END OF PARODIES ON A. C. SWINBURNE.

VERNON AVICK.

_Dedicated without permission to the Author of “Father O’Flynn,” by the Author of “The Blarney Ballads.”_

Of all the gay “scions” and sprigs of nobility,
Far renowned for their grace and agility,
Faix i’d advance you for sheer volatility
Vernon avick! as the flower of them all.

Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick!
Long may you flounder through thin and through thick,
Merriest mummer,
And burliest “bummer,”
And loudest big-drummer in Westminster Hall.