diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/4hbov10.txt | 10882 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/4hbov10.zip | bin | 0 -> 139262 bytes |
2 files changed, 10882 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/4hbov10.txt b/old/4hbov10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dc74977 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4hbov10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10882 @@ +Project Gutenberg V4 The Home Book of Verse, by Burton Stevenson +#4 in our 8 volume Home Book of Verse series by Stevenson + +V4 and V5 correspond to the two halves of "Part IV" as they were +in two volume editions of over 3700 pages: half is in each Vol. + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +*It must legally be the first thing seen when opening the book.* +In fact, our legal advisors said we can't even change margins. + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Title: The Home Book of Verse, Volume 4 + +Author: Burton Egbert Stevenson + +May, 2001 [Etext #2622] + + +Project Gutenberg V4 The Home Book of Verse, by Burton Stevenson +******This file should be named 4hbov10.txt or 4hbov10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, 4hbov11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 4hbov10a.txt + +This etext was prepared by Dennis Schreiner, dcjjj@ix.netcom.com + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we usually do NOT keep any +of these books in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails. . .try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> +hart@pobox.com forwards to hart@prairienet.org and archive.org +if your mail bounces from archive.org, I will still see it, if +it bounces from prairienet.org, better resend later on. . . . + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp metalab.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 or etext00 through etext01, etc. +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +We are planning on making some changes in our donation structure +in 2000, so you might want to email me, hart@pobox.com beforehand. + + + + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Dennis Schreiner, dcjjj@ix.netcom.com + + + + + +The Home Book of Verse, Volume 4 + +by Burton Egbert Stevenson + + + + +Contents of Volume I of the two volume set are in our Volume 1 +This includes contents of Volumes 1 through 4 of our Etext editions. + + + + +PART IV + + + + + +FAMILIAR VERSE, AND POEMS +HUMOROUS AND SATIRIC + + + + + + +BALLADE OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST +"What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blonde +Aryan drove him into the corners of Europe?" - Brander Matthews + +I am an ancient Jest! +Palaeolithic man +In his arboreal nest +The sparks of fun would fan; +My outline did he plan, +And laughed like one possessed, +'Twas thus my course began, +I am a Merry Jest! + +I am an early Jest! +Man delved, and built, and span; +Then wandered South and West +The peoples Aryan, +I journeyed in their van; +The Semites, too, confessed, - +From Beersheba to Dan, - +I am a Merry Jest! + +I am an ancient Jest! +Through all the human clan, +Red, black, white, free, oppressed, +Hilarious I ran! +I'm found in Lucian, +In Poggio, and the rest, +I'm dear to Moll and Nan! +I am a Merry Jest! + +ENVOY +Prince, you may storm and ban - +Joe Millers are a pest, +Suppress me if you can! +I am a Merry Jest! + +Andrew Lang [1844-1912] + + + + + + + +THE KINDLY MUSE + + + +TIME TO BE WISE + +Yes; I write verses now and then, +But blunt and flaccid is my pen, +No longer talked of by young men +As rather clever: +In the last quarter are my eyes, +You see it by their form and size; +Is it not time then to be wise? +Or now or never. + +Fairest that ever sprang from Eve! +While Time allows the short reprieve, +Just look at me! would you believe +'Twas once a lover? +I cannot clear the five-bar gate; +But, trying first its timber's state, +Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait +To trundle over. + +Through gallopade I cannot swing +The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring: +I cannot say the tender thing, +Be't true or false, +And am beginning to opine +Those girls are only half-divine +Whose waists yon wicked boys entwine +In giddy waltz. + +I fear that arm above that shoulder; +I wish them wiser, graver, older, +Sedater, and no harm if colder, +And panting less. +Ah! people were not half so wild +In former days, when, starchly mild, +Upon her high-heeled Essex smiled +The brave Queen Bess. + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + + +UNDER THE LINDENS + +Under the lindens lately sat +A couple, and no more, in chat; +I wondered what they would be at +Under the lindens. + +I saw four eyes and four lips meet, +I heard the words, "How sweet! how sweet!" +Had then the Fairies given a treat +Under the lindens? + +I pondered long and could not tell +What dainty pleased them both so well: +Bees! bees! was it your hydromel +Under the lindens? + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + + +ADVICE + +To write as your sweet mother does +Is all you wish to do. +Play, sing, and smile for others, Rose! +Let others write for you. + +Or mount again your Dartmoor gray, +And I will walk beside, +Until we reach that quiet bay +Which only hears the tide. + +Then wave at me your pencil, then +At distance bid me stand, +Before the caverned cliff, again +The creature of your hand. + +And bid me then go past the nook +To sketch me less in size; +There are but few content to look +So little in your eyes. + +Delight us with the gifts you have, +And wish for none beyond: +To some be gay, to some be grave, +To one (blest youth!) be fond. + +Pleasures there are how close to Pain +And better unpossessed! +Let poetry's too throbbing vein +Lie quiet in your breast. + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + + +TO FANNY + +Never mind how the pedagogue proses, +You want not antiquity's stamp; +The lip, that such fragrance discloses, +Oh! never should smell of the lamp. + +Old Chloe, whose withering kisses +Have long set the Loves at defiance, +Now, done with the science of blisses, +May fly to the blisses of science! + +Young Sappho, for want of employments, +Alone o'er her Ovid may melt, +Condemned but to read of enjoyments, +Which wiser Corinna had felt. + +But for you to be buried in books - +Oh, Fanny! they're pitiful sages; +Who could not in one of your looks +Read more than in millions of pages! + +Astronomy finds in your eyes +Better light than she studies above, +And Music must borrow your sighs +As the melody fittest for Love. + +In Ethics - 'tis you that can check, +In a minute, their doubts and their quarrels; +Oh! show but that mole on your neck, +And 'twill soon put an end to their morals. + +Your Arithmetic only can trip +When to kiss and to count you endeavor; +But eloquence glows on your lip +When you swear that you'll love me for ever. + +Thus you see what a brilliant alliance +Of arts is assembled in you, - +A course of more exquisite science +Man never need wish to pursue. + +And, oh! - if a Fellow like me +May confer a diploma of hearts, +With my lip thus I seal your degree, +My divine little Mistress of Arts! + +Thomas Moore [1779-1852] + + +"I'D BE A BUTTERFLY" + +I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, +Where roses and lilies and violets meet; +Roving for ever from flower to flower, +And kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet! +I'd never languish for wealth, or for power, +I'd never sigh to see slaves at my feet: +I'd be a Butterfly born in a bower, +Kissing all buds that are pretty and sweet. + +O could I pilfer the wand of a fairy, +I'd have a pair of those beautiful wings; +Their summer days' ramble is sportive and airy, +They sleep in a rose when the nightingale sings. +Those who have wealth must be watchful and wary; +Power, alas! naught but misery brings! +I'd be a Butterfly, sportive and airy, +Rocked in a rose when the nightingale sings! + +What, though you tell me each gay little rover +Shrinks from the breath of the first autumn day: +Surely 'tis better when summer is over +To die when all fair things are fading away. +Some in life's winter may toil to discover +Means of procuring a weary delay - +I'd be a butterfly; living, a rover, +Dying when fair things are fading away! + +Thomas Haynes Bayly [1797-1839] + + +"I'M NOT A SINGLE MAN" +Lines Written In A Young Lady's Album + +A pretty task, Miss S---, to ask +A Benedictine pen, +That cannot quite at freedom write +Like those of other men. +No lover's plaint my Muse must paint +To fill this page's span, +But be correct and recollect +I'm not a single man. + +Pray only think, for pen and ink +How hard to get along, +That may not turn on words that burn, +Or Love, the life of song! +Nine Muses, if I chooses, I +May woo all in a clan; +But one Miss S--- I daren't address - +I'm not a single man. + +Scribblers unwed, with little head, +May eke it out with heart +And in their lays it often plays +A rare first-fiddle part. +They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss, +But if I so began, +I have my fears about my ears - +I'm not a single man. + +Upon your cheek I may not speak, +Nor on your lip be warm, +I must be wise about your eyes, +And formal with your form; +Of all that sort of thing, in short, +On T. H. Bayly's plan, +I must not twine a single line - +I'm not a single man. + +A watchman's part compels my heart +To keep you off its beat, +And I might dare as soon to swear +At you, as at your feet. +I can't expire in passion's fire +As other poets can - +My life (she's by) won't let me die - +I'm not a single man. + +Shut out from love, denied a dove, +Forbidden bow and dart; +Without a groan to call my own, +With neither hand nor heart; +To Hymen vowed, and not allowed +To flirt e'en with your fan, +Here end, as just a friend, I must - +I'm not a single man. + +Thomas Hood [1799-1845] + + +TO --- + +We met but in one giddy dance, +Good-night joined hands with greeting; +And twenty thousand things may chance +Before our second meeting; +For oh! I have been often told +That all the world grows older, +And hearts and hopes to-day so cold, +To-morrow must be colder. + +If I have never touched the string +Beneath your chamber, dear one, +And never said one civil thing +When you were by to hear one, - +If I have made no rhymes about +Those looks which conquer Stoics, +And heard those angel tones, without +One fit of fair heroics, - + +Yet do not, though the world's cold school +Some bitter truths has taught me, +Oh, do not deem me quite the fool +Which wiser friends have thought me! +There is one charm I still could feel, +If no one laughed at feeling; +One dream my lute could still reveal, - +If it were worth revealing. + +But Folly little cares what name +Of friend or foe she handles, +When merriment directs the game, +And midnight dims the candles; +I know that Folly's breath is weak +And would not stir a feather; +But yet I would not have her speak +Your name and mine together. + +Oh no! this life is dark and bright, +Half rapture and half sorrow; +My heart is very full to-night, +My cup shall be to-morrow! +But they shall never know from me, +On any one condition, +Whose health made bright my Burgundy, +Whose beauty was my vision! + +Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839] + + +THE VICAR + +Some years ago, ere Time and Taste +Had turned our parish topsy-turvy, +When Darnel Park was Darnel Waste, +And roads as little known as scurvy, +The man who lost his way between +St. Mary's Hill and Sandy Thicket, +Was always shown across the Green, +And guided to the Parson's wicket. + +Back flew the bolt of lissom lath; +Fair Margaret, in her tidy kirtle, +Led the lorn traveller up the path +Through clean-clipt rows of box and myrtle; +And Don and Sancho, Tramp and Tray, +Upon the parlor steps collected, +Wagged all their tails, and seemed to say, +"Our master knows you; you're expected!" + +Up rose the Reverend Doctor Brown, +Up rose the Doctor's "winsome marrow"; +The lady laid her knitting down, +Her husband clasped his ponderous Barrow; +Whate'er the stranger's caste or creed, +Pundit or papist, saint or sinner, +He found a stable for his steed, +And welcome for himself, and dinner. + +If, when he reached his journey's end, +And warmed himself in court or college, +He had not gained an honest friend, +And twenty curious scraps of knowledge; - +If he departed as he came, +With no new light on love or liquor, - +Good sooth, the traveller was to blame, +And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar. + +His talk was like a stream which runs +With rapid change from rocks to roses; +It slipped from politics to puns; +It passed from Mahomet to Moses; +Beginning with the laws which keep +The planets in their radiant courses, +And ending with some precept deep +For dressing eels or shoeing horses. + +He was a shrewd and sound divine, +Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; +And when, by dint of page and line, +He 'stablished Truth, or startled Error, +The Baptist found him far too deep, +The Deist sighed with saving sorrow, +And the lean Levite went to sleep +And dreamed of tasting pork to-morrow. + +His sermon never said or showed +That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, +Without refreshment on the road +From Jerome, or from Athanasius; +And sure a righteous zeal inspired +The hand and head that penned and planned them, +For all who understood, admired, +And some who did not understand them. + +He wrote, too, in a quiet way, +Small treatises, and smaller verses, +And sage remarks on chalk and clay, +And hints to noble lords and nurses; +True histories of last year's ghost; +Lines to a ringlet or a turban; +And trifles to the Morning Post, +And nothings for Sylvanus Urban. + +He did not think all mischief fair, +Although he had a knack of joking; +He did not make himself a bear, +Although he had a taste for smoking; +And when religious sects ran mad, +He held, in spite of all his learning, +That if a man's belief is bad, +It will not be improved by burning. + +And he was kind, and loved to sit +In the low hut or garnished cottage, +And praise the farmer's homely wit, +And share the widow's homelier pottage. +At his approach complaint grew mild, +And when his hand unbarred the shutter, +The clammy lips of Fever smiled +The welcome which they could not utter. + +He always had a tale for me +Of Julius Caesar or of Venus; +From him I learned the rule of three, +Cat's-cradle, leap-frog, and Quae genus. +I used to singe his powdered wig, +To steal the staff he put such trust in, +And make the puppy dance a jig +When he began to quote Augustine. + +Alack, the change! In vain I look +For haunts in which my boyhood trifled; +The level lawn, the trickling brook, +The trees I climbed, the beds I rifled. +The church is larger than before, +You reach it by a carriage entry: +It holds three hundred people more, +And pews are fitted up for gentry. + +Sit in the Vicar's seat; you'll hear +The doctrine of a gentle Johnian, +Whose hand is white, whose voice is clear, +Whose phrase is very Ciceronian. +Where is the old man laid? Look down, +And construe on the slab before you: +"Hic jacet Gulielmus Brown, +Vir nulla non donandus lauru." + +Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839] + + +THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM + +Years, years ago, ere yet my dreams +Had been of being wise or witty; +Ere I had done with writing themes, +Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty; - +Years, years ago, while all my joy +Were in my fowling-piece and filly; +In short, while I was yet a boy, +I fell in love with Laura Lilly. + +I saw her at the County Ball; +There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle +Gave signal sweet in that old hall +Of hands across and down the middle, +Hers was the subtlest spell by far +Of all that sets young hearts romancing: +She was our queen, our rose, our star; +And then she danced, - oh, heaven, her dancing! + +Dark was her hair, her hand was white; +Her voice was exquisitely tender; +Her eyes were full of liquid light; +I never saw a waist so slender; +Her every look, her every smile, +Shot right and left a score of arrows; +I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, +And wondered where she'd left her sparrows. + +She talked of politics or prayers, - +Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets, +Of danglers or of dancing bears, +Of battles, or the last new bonnets; +By candle-light, at twelve o'clock, +To me it mattered not a tittle, +If those bright lips had quoted Locke, +I might have thought they murmured Little. + +Through sunny May, through sultry June, +I loved her with a love eternal; +I spoke her praises to the moon, +I wrote them to the Sunday Journal. +My mother laughed; I soon found out +That ancient ladies have no feeling: +My father frowned; but how should gout +See any happiness in kneeling? + +She was the daughter of a dean, +Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic; +She had one brother just thirteen, +Whose color was extremely hectic; +Her grandmother, for many a year, +Had fed the parish with her bounty; +Her second cousin was a peer, +And lord-lieutenant of the county. + +But titles and the three-per-cents, +And mortgages, and great relations, +And India bonds, and tithes and rents, +Oh, what are they to love's sensations? +Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, - +Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses; +He cares as little for the stocks, +As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. + +She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, +Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading; +She botanized; I envied each +Young blossom in her boudoir fading: +She warbled Handel; it was grand, - +She made the Catilina jealous; +She touched the organ; I could stand +For hours and hours to blow the bellows. + +She kept an album, too, at home, +Well filled with all an album's glories; +Paintings of butterflies and Rome, +Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories, +Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo, +Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter, +And autographs of Prince Leboo, +And recipes for elder-water. + +And she was flattered, worshipped, bored; +Her steps were watched, her dress was noted; +Her poodle-dog was quite adored; +Her sayings were extremely quoted. +She laughed, and every heart was glad, +As if the taxes were abolished; +She frowned, and every took was sad, +As if the opera were demolished. + +She smiled on many just for fun, - +I knew that there was nothing in it; +I was the first, the only one +Her heart had thought of for a minute. +I knew it, for she told me so, +In phrase which was divinely moulded; +She wrote a charming hand, and oh, +How sweetly all her notes were folded! + +Our love was like most other loves, - +A little glow, a little shiver, +A rosebud and a pair of gloves, +And "Fly Not Yet," upon the river; +Some jealousy of some one's heir, +Some hopes of dying broken-hearted; +A miniature, a lock of hair, +The usual vows, - and then we parted. + +We parted: months and years rolled by; +We met again four summers after. +Our parting was all sob and sigh, - +Our meeting was all mirth and laughter; +For, in my heart's most secret cell, +There had been many other lodgers; +And she was not the ball-room's belle, +But only Mrs. - Something - Rogers. + +Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839] + + +THE FINE OLD ENGLISH GENTLEMAN + +I'll sing you a good old song, +Made by a good old pate, +Of a fine old English gentleman +Who had an old estate, +And who kept up his old mansion +At a bountiful old rate; +With a good old porter to relieve +The old poor at his gate, +Like a fine old English gentleman +All of the olden time. + +His hall so old was hung around +With pikes and guns and bows, +And swords, and good old bucklers, +That had stood some tough old blows; +'Twas there "his worship" held his state +In doublet and trunk hose, +And quaffed his cup of good old sack, +To warm his good old nose, +Like a fine old English gentleman +All of the olden time. + +When winter's cold brought frost and snow, +He opened house to all; +And though threescore and ten his years, +He featly led the ball; +Nor was the houseless wanderer +E'er driven from his hall; +For while he feasted all the great, +He ne'er forgot the small; +Like a fine old English gentleman +All of the olden time. + +But time, though old, is strong in flight, +And years rolled swiftly by; +And Autumn's falling leaves proclaimed +This good old man must die! +He laid him down right tranquilly, +Gave up life's latest sigh; +And mournful stillness reigned around, +And tears bedewed each eye, +For this fine old English gentleman +All of the olden time. + +Now surely this is better far +Than all the new parade +Of theaters and fancy balls, +"At home" and masquerade: +And much more economical, +For all his bills were paid, +Then leave your new vagaries quite, +And take up the old trade +Of a fine old English gentleman, +All of the olden time. + +Unknown + + +A TERNARIE OF LITTLES, UPON A PIPKIN OF JELLY SENT TO A LADY + +A Little Saint best fits a little Shrine, +A little Prop best fits a little Vine, +As my small Cruse best fits my little Wine. + +A little Seed best fits a little Soil, +A little Trade best fits a little Toil, +As my small Jar best fits my little Oil. + +A little Bin best fits a little Bread, +A little Garland fits a little Head, +As my small Stuff best fits my little Shed. + +A little Hearth best fits a little Fire, +A little Chapel fits a little Quire, +As my small Bell best fits my little Spire. + +A little Stream best fits a little Boat, +A little Lead best fits a little Float, +As my small Pipe best fits my little Note. + +A little Meat best fits a little Belly, +As sweetly, lady, give me leave to tell ye, +This little Pipkin fits this little Jelly. + +Robert Herrick [1591-1674] + + +CHIVALRY AT A DISCOUNT + +Fair cousin mine! the golden days +Of old romance are over; +And minstrels now care naught for bays, +Nor damsels for a lover; +And hearts are cold, and lips are mute +That kindled once with passion, +And now we've neither lance nor lute, +And tilting's out of fashion. + +Yet weeping Beauty mourns the time +When Love found words in flowers; +When softest test sighs were breathed in rhyme, +And sweetest songs in bowers; +Now wedlock is a sober thing - +No more of chains or forges! - +A plain young man - a plain gold ring - +The curate - and St. George's. + +Then every cross-bow had a string, +And every heart a fetter; +And making love was quite the thing, +And making verses better; +And maiden-aunts were never seen, +And gallant beaux were plenty; +And lasses married at sixteen, +And died at one-and-twenty. + +Then hawking was a noble sport, +And chess a pretty science; +And huntsmen learned to blow a morte, +And heralds a defiance; +And knights and spearmen showed their might, +And timid hinds took warning; +And hypocras was warmed at night, +And coursers in the morning. + +Then plumes and pennons were prepared, +And patron-saints were lauded; +And noble deeds were bravely dared, +And noble dames applauded; +And Beauty played the leech's part, +And wounds were healed with syrup; +And warriors sometimes lost a heart, +But never lost a stirrup. + +Then there was no such thing as Fear, +And no such word as Reason; +And Faith was like a pointed spear, +And Fickleness was treason; +And hearts were soft, though blows were hard; +But when the fight was over, +A brimming goblet cheered the board, +His Lady's smile the lover. + +Ay, those were golden days! The moon +Had then her true adorers; +And there were lyres and lutes in tune, +And no such thing as snorers; +And lovers swam, and held at naught +Streams broader than the Mersey; +And fifty thousand would have fought +For a smile from Lady Jersey. + +Then people wore an iron vest, +And bad no use for tailors; +And the artizans who lived the best +Were armorers and nailers; +And steel was measured by the ell +And trousers lined with leather; +And jesters wore a cap and bell, +And knights a cap and feather. + +Then single folks might live at ease, +And married ones might sever; +Uncommon doctors had their fees, +But Doctor's Commons never; +O! had we in those times been bred, +Fair cousin, for thy glances, +Instead of breaking Priscian's head, +I had been breaking lances! + +Edward Fitzgerald [1809-1883] + + +THE BALLAD OF BOUILLABAISSE + +A street there is in Paris famous, +For which no rhyme our language yields, +Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is - +The New Street of the Little Fields; +And there's an inn, not rich and splendid, +But still in comfortable case - +The which in youth I oft attended, +To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse. + +This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is - +A sort of soup, or broth, or brew, +Or hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes, +That Greenwich never could outdo; +Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffern, +Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace: +All these you eat at Terre's tavern, +In that one dish of Bouillabaisse. + +Indeed, a rich and savory stew 'tis; +And true philosophers, methinks, +Who love all sorts of natural beauties, +Should love good victuals and good drinks. +And Cordelier or Benedictine +Might gladly, sure, his lot embrace, +Nor find a fast-day too afflicting, +Which served him up a Bouillabaisse. + +I wonder if the house still there is? +Yes, here the lamp is as before; +The smiling, red-cheeked ecaillere is +Still opening oysters at the door. +Is Terre still alive and able? +I recollect his droll grimace; +He'd come and smile before your table +And hope you liked your Bouillabaisse. + +We enter; nothing's changed or older. +"How's Monsieur Terre, waiter, pray?" +The waiter stares and shrugs his shoulder; - +"Monsieur is dead this many a day." +"It is the lot of saint and sinner. +So honest Terre's run his race!" +"What will Monsieur require for dinner?" +"Say, do you still cook Bouillabaisse?" + +"Oh, oui, Monsieur," 's the waiter's answer; +"Quel vin Monsieur desire-t-il?" +"Tell me a good one." "That I can, Sir; +The Chambertin with yellow seal." +"So Terre's gone," I say, and sink in +My old accustomed corner-place; +"He's done with feasting and with drinking, +With Burgundy and Bouillabaisse." + +My old accustomed corner here is, - +The table still is in the nook; +Ah! vanished many a busy year is, +This well-known chair since last I took, +When first I saw ye, cari luoghi, +I'd scarce a beard upon my face, +And now a grizzled, grim old fogy, +I sit and wait for Bouillabaisse. + +Where are you, old companions trusty +Of early days here met to dine? +Come, waiter! quick, a flagon crusty - +I'll pledge them in the good old wine. +The kind old voices and old faces +My memory can quick retrace; +Around the board they take their places, +And share the wine and Bouillabaisse. + +There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage; +There's laughing Tom is laughing yet; +There's brave Augustus drives his carriage; +There's poor old Fred in the Gazette; +On James's head the grass is growing: +Good Lord! the world has wagged apace +Since here we set the Claret flowing, +And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse. + +Ah me! how quick the days are flitting! +I mind me of a time that's gone, +When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting, +In this same place - but not alone. +A fair young form was nestled near me, +A dear, dear face looked fondly up, +And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me. +- There's no one now to share my cup. . . . + +I drink it as the Fates ordain it. +Come, fill it, and have done with rhymes; +Fill up the lonely glass, and drain it +In memory of dear old times. +Welcome the wine, whate'er the seal is; +And sit you down and say your grace +With thankful heart, whate'er the meal is. +- Here comes the smoking Bouillabaisse! + +William Makepeace Thackeray [1811-1863] + + +TO MY GRANDMOTHER +Suggested By A Picture By Mr. Romney + +Under the elm a rustic seat +Was merriest Susan's pet retreat +To merry-make + +This Relative of mine +Was she seventy-and-nine +When she died? +By the canvas may be seen +How she looked at seventeen, +As a Bride. + +Beneath a summer tree +Her maiden reverie +Has a charm; +Her ringlets are in taste; +What an arm! and what a waist +For an arm! + +With her bridal-wreath, bouquet, +Lace farthingale, and gay +Falbala, - +If Romney's touch be true, +What a lucky dog were you, +Grandpapa! + +Her lips are sweet as love; +They are parting! Do they move? +Are they dumb? +Her eyes are blue, and beam +Beseechingly, and seem +To say, "Come!" + +What funny fancy slips +From atween these cherry lips? +Whisper me, +Fair Sorceress in paint, +What canon says I mayn't +Marry thee? + +That good-for-nothing Time +Has a confidence sublime! +When I first +Saw this Lady, in my youth, +Her winters had, forsooth, +Done their worst. + +Her locks, as white as snow, +Once shamed the swarthy crow; +By-and-by +That fowl's avenging sprite +Set his cruel foot for spite +Near her eye. + +Her rounded form was lean, +And her silk was bombazine: +Well I wot +With her needles would she sit, +And for hours would she knit. - +Would she not? + +Ah perishable clay! +Her charms had dropped away +One by one: +But if she heaved a sigh +With a burden, it was, "Thy +Will be done." + +In travail, as in tears, +With the fardel of her years +Overpressed, +In mercy she was borne +Where the weary and the worn +Are at rest. + +Oh, if you now are there, +And sweet as once you were, +Grandmamma, +This nether world agrees +You'll all the better please +Grandpapa. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +MY MISTRESS'S BOOTS + +She has dancing eyes and ruby lips, +Delightful boots - and away she skips + +They nearly strike me dumb, - +I tremble when they come +Pit-a-pat: +This palpitation means +These Boots are Geraldine's - +Think of that! + +O, where did hunter win +So delicate a skin +For her feet? +You lucky little kid, +You perished, so you did, +For my Sweet. + +The fairy stitching gleams +On the sides, and in the seams, +And reveals +That the Pixies were the wags +Who tipped these funny tags, +And these heels. + +What soles to charm an elf! - +Had Crusoe, sick of self, +Chanced to view +One printed near the tide, +O, how hard he would have tried +For the two! + +For Gerry's debonair, +And innocent and fair +As a rose; +She's an Angel in a frock, - +She's an Angel with a clock +To her hose! + +The simpletons who squeeze +Their pretty toes to please +Mandarins, +Would positively flinch +From venturing to pinch +Geraldine's. + +Cinderella's lefts and rights +To Geraldine's were frights: +And I trow +The Damsel, deftly shod, +Has dutifully trod +Until now. + +Come, Gerry, since it suits +Such a pretty Puss (in Boots) +These to don, +Set your dainty hand awhile +On my shoulder, Dear, and I'll +Put them on. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +A GARDEN LYRIC +Geraldine And I + +Dite, Damasippe, deaeque +Verum ob consilium donent tonsore. + +We have loitered and laughed in the flowery croft, +We have met under wintry skies; +Her voice is the dearest voice, and soft +Is the light in her wistful eyes; +It is bliss in the silent woods, among +Gay crowds, or in any place, +To mould her mind, to gaze in her young +Confiding face. + +For ever may roses divinely blow, +And wine-dark pansies charm +By that prim box path where I felt the glow +Of her dimpled, trusting arm, +And the sweep of her silk as she turned and smiled +A smile as pure as her pearls; +The breeze was in love with the darling Child, +And coaxed her curls. + +She showed me her ferns and woodbine sprays, +Foxglove and jasmine stars, +A mist of blue in the beds, a blaze +Of red in the celadon jars: +And velvety bees in convolvulus bells, +And roses of bountiful Spring. +But I said - "Though roses and bees have spells, +They have thorn, and sting." + +She showed me ripe peaches behind a net +As fine as her veil, and fat +Goldfish a-gape, who lazily met +For her crumbs - I grudged them that! +A squirrel, some rabbits with long lop ears, +And guinea-pigs, tortoise-shell - wee; +And I told her that eloquent truth inheres +In all we see. + +I lifted her doe by its lops, quoth I, +"Even here deep meaning lies, - +Why have squirrels these ample tails, and why +Have rabbits these prominent eyes?" +She smiled and said, as she twirled her veil, +"For some nice little cause, no doubt - +If you lift a guinea-pig up by the tail +His eyes drop out!" + +Frederick Locker Lampson [1821-1895] + + +MRS. SMITH + +Heigh-ho! they're wed. The cards are dealt, +Our frolic games are o'er; +I've laughed, and fooled, and loved. I've felt - +As I shall feel no more! +Yon little thatch is where she lives, +Yon spire is where she met me; - +I think that if she quite forgives, +She cannot quite forget me. + +Last year I trod these fields with Di, - +Fields fresh with clover and with rye; +They now seem arid: +Then Di was fair and single; how +Unfair it seems on me, for now +Di's fair, - and married! + +A blissful swain, - I scorned the song +Which tells us though young Love is strong, +The Fates are stronger: +Then breezes blew a boon to men, +Then buttercups were bright, and then +The grass was longer. + +That day I saw, and much esteemed, +Di's ankles, that the clover seemed +Inclined to smother: +It twitched, and soon untied (for fun) +The ribbons of her shoes, first one, +And then the other. + +I'm told that virgins augur some +Misfortune if their shoe-strings come +To grief on Friday: +And so did Di, - and then her pride +Decreed that shoe-strings so untied, +Are "so untidy!" + +Of course I knelt; with fingers deft +I tied the right, and tied the left: +Says Di, "This stubble +Is very stupid! - as I live +I'm quite ashamed! - I'm shocked to give +You so much trouble!" + +For answer I was fain to sink +To what we all would say and think +Were Beauty present: +"Don't mention such a simple act - +A trouble? not the least! In fact +It's rather pleasant!" + +I trust that Love will never tease +Poor little Di, or prove that he's +A graceless rover. +She's happy now as Mrs. Smith - +But less polite when walking with +Her chosen lover! + +Heigh-ho! Although no moral clings +To Di's blue eyes, and sandal strings, +We had our quarrels. +I think that Smith is thought an ass, - +I know that when they walk in grass +She wears balmorals. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD + +The characters of great and small +Come ready made, we can't bespeak one; +Their sides are many, too, and all +(Except ourselves) have got a weak one. +Some sanguine people love for life, +Some love their hobby till it flings them. +How many love a pretty wife +For love of the eclat she brings them! . . . + +A little to relieve my mind +I've thrown off this disjointed chatter, +But more because I'm disinclined +To enter on a painful matter: +Once I was bashful; I'll allow +I've blushed for words untimely spoken; +I still am rather shy, and now . . . +And now the ice is fairly broken. + +We all have secrets: you have one +Which may n't be quite your charming spouse's; +We all lock up a Skeleton +In some grim chamber of our houses; +Familiars who exhaust their days +And nights in probing where our smart is, +And who, for all their spiteful ways, +Are "silent, unassuming Parties." + +We hug this Phantom we detest, +Rarely we let it cross our portals: +It is a most exacting guest, +And we are much afflicted mortals. +Your neighbor Gay, that jovial wight, +As Dives rich, and brave as Hector, +Poor Gay steals twenty times a night, +On shaking knees, to see his Specter. + +Old Dives fears a pauper fate, +So hoarding is his ruling passion: - +Some gloomy souls anticipate +A waistcoat, straiter than the fashion! +She childless pines, that lonely wife, +And secret tears are bitter shedding; +Hector may tremble all his life, +And die, - but not of that he's dreading. . . . + +Ah me, the World! How fast it spins! +The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles; +They shriek, they stir it for our sins, +And we must drain it for our troubles. +We toil, we groan; the cry for love +Mounts up from this poor seething city, +And yet I know we have above +A Father, infinite in pity. + +When Beauty smiles, when Sorrow weeps, +Where sunbeams play, where shadows darken, +One inmate of our dwelling keeps +Its ghastly carnival; but hearken! +How dry the rattle of the bones! +That sound was not to make you start meant: +Stand by! Your humble servant owns +The Tenant of this Dark Apartment. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +A TERRIBLE INFANT + +I recollect a nurse called Ann, +Who carried me about the grass, +And one fine day a fine young man +Came up, and kissed the pretty lass: +She did not make the least objection! +Thinks I, "Aha! +When I can talk I'll tell Mamma" +- And that's my earliest recollection. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +COMPANIONS +A Tale Of A Grandfather + +I know not of what we pondered +Or made pretty pretence to talk, +As, her hand within mine, we wandered. +Toward the pool by the lime-tree walk, +While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers +And the blush-rose bent on her stalk. + +I cannot recall her figure: +Was it regal as Juno's own? +Or only a trifle bigger +Than the elves who surround the throne +Of the Fairy Queen, and are seen, I ween, +By mortals in dreams alone? + +What her eyes were like I know not: +Perhaps they were blurred with tears; +And perhaps in yon skies there glow not +(On the contrary) clearer spheres. +No! as to her eyes I am just as wise +As you or the cat, my dears. + +Her teeth, I presume, were "pearly": +But which was she, brunette or blonde? +Her hair, was it quaintly curly, +Or as straight as a beadle's wand? +That I failed to remark: it was rather dark +And shadowy round the pond. + +Then the hand that reposed so snugly +In mine, - was it plump or spare? +Was the countenance fair or ugly? +Nay, children, you have me there! +My eyes were p'haps blurred; and besides I'd heard +That it's horribly rude to stare. + +And I, - was I brusque and surly? +Or oppressively bland and fond? +Was I partial to rising early? +Or why did we twain abscond, +When nobody knew, from the public view +To prowl by a misty pond? + +What passed, what was felt or spoken, - +Whether anything passed at all, - +And whether the heart was broken +That beat under that sheltering shawl, - +(If shawl she had on, which I doubt), - has gone, +Yes, gone from me past recall. + +Was I haply the lady's suitor? +Or her uncle? I can't make out; +Ask your governess, dears, or tutor. +For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt +As to why we were there, who on earth we were, +And what this is all about. + +Charles Stuart Calverley [1831-1884] + + +DOROTHY Q +A Family Portrait + +Grandmother's mother: her age, I guess, +Thirteen summers, or something less: +Girlish bust, but womanly air; +Smooth, square forehead with uprolled hair; +Lips that lover has never kissed; +Taper fingers and slender wrist; +Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; +So they painted the little maid. + +On her hand a parrot green +Sits unmoving and broods serene. +Hold up the canvas full in view, - +Look! there's a rent the light shines through, +Dark with a century's fringe of dust, - +That was a Red-Coat's rapier-thrust! +Such is the tale the lady old, +Dorothy's daughter's daughter, told. + +Who the painter was none may tell, - +One whose best was not over well; +Hard and dry, it must be confessed, +Flat as a rose that has long been pressed; +Yet in her cheek the hues are bright, +Dainty colors of red and white, +And in her slender shape are seen +Hint and promise of stately mien. + +Look not on her with eyes of scorn, - +Dorothy Q. was a lady born! +Ay! since the galloping Normans came, +England's annals have known her name; +And still to the three-hilled rebel town +Dear is that ancient name's renown, +For many a civic wreath they won, +The youthful sire and the gray-haired son. + +O Damsel Dorothy! Dorothy Q.! +Strange is the gift that I owe to you; +Such a gift as never a king +Save to daughter or son might bring, - +All my tenure of heart and hand, +All my title to house and land; +Mother and sister and child and wife +And joy and sorrow and death and life! + +What if a hundred years ago +Those close-shut lips had answered No, +When forth the tremulous question came +That cost the maiden her Norman name, +And under the folds that look so still +The bodice swelled with the bosom's thrill? +Should I be I, or would it be +One tenth another, to nine tenths me? + +Soft is the breath of a maiden's YES: +Not the light gossamer stirs with less; +But never a cable that holds so fast +Through all the battles of wave and blast, +And never an echo of speech or song +That lives in the babbling air so long! +There were tones in the voice that whispered then +You may hear to-day in a hundred men. + +O lady and lover, how faint and far +Your images hover, - and here we are +Solid and stirring in flesh and bone, - +Edward's and Dorothy's - all their own, - +A goodly record for Time to show +Of a syllable spoken so long ago! - +Shall I bless you, Dorothy, or forgive +For the tender whisper that bade me live? + +It shall be a blessing, my little maid! +I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, +And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, +And gild with a rhyme your household name; +So you shall smile on us brave and bright +As first you greeted the morning's light, +And live untroubled by woes and fears +Through a second youth of a hundred years. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +MY AUNT + +My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! +Long years have o'er her flown; +Yet still she strains the aching clasp +That binds her virgin zone; +I know it hurts her, - though she looks +As cheerful as she can; +Her waist is ampler than her life, +For life is but a span. + +My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! +Her hair is almost gray; +Why will she train that winter curl +In such a spring-like way? +How can she lay her glasses down, +And say she reads as well, +When, through a double convex lens, +She just makes out to spell? + +Her father, - grandpapa! forgive +This erring lip its smiles, - +Vowed she should make the finest girl +Within a hundred miles; +He sent her to a stylish school; +'Twas in her thirteenth June; +And with her, as the rules required, +"Two towels and a spoon." + +They braced my aunt against a board, +To make her straight and tall; +They laced her up, they starved her down, +To make her light and small; +They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, +They screwed it up with pins; - +Oh, never mortal suffered more +In penance for her sins. + +So, when my precious aunt was done, +My grandsire brought her back; +(By daylight, lest some rabid youth +Might follow on the track;) +"Ah!" said my grandsire, as be shook +Some powder in his pan, +"What could this lovely creature do +Against a desperate man!" + +Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, +Nor bandit cavalcade, +Tore from the trembling father's arms +His all-accomplished maid. +For her how happy had it been! +And Heaven had spared to me +To see one sad, ungathered rose +On my ancestral tree. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +THE LAST LEAF + +I saw him once before, +As he passed by the door, +And again +The pavement stones resound, +As he totters o'er the ground +With his cane. + +They say that in his prime, +Ere the pruning-knife of Time +Cut him down, +Not a better man was found +By the Crier on his round +Through the town. + +But now he walks the streets, +And he looks at all he meets +Sad and wan, +And he shakes his feeble head, +That it seems as if he said, +"They are gone." + +The mossy marbles rest +On the lips that he has pressed +In their bloom, +And the names he loved to hear +Have been carved for many a year +On the tomb. + +My grandmamma has said, - +Poor old lady, she is dead +Long ago, - +That he had a Roman nose, +And his cheek was like a rose +In the snow: + +But now his nose is thin, +And it rests upon his chin +Like a staff, +And a crook is in his back, +And a melancholy crack +In his laugh. + +I know it is a sin +For me to sit and grin +At him here; +But the old three-cornered hat, +And the breeches, and all that, +Are so queer! + +And if I should live to be +The last leaf upon the tree +In the spring, +Let them smile, as I do now, +At the old forsaken bough +Where I cling. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +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. + +Honors 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. + +I would not have the horse I drive +So fast that folks must stop and stare; +An easy gait - two forty-five - +Suits me; I do not care; - +Perhaps, far just a single spurt, +Some seconds less would do no hurt. + +Of pictures, I should like to own +Titians and Raphaels three or four, - +I love so much their style and tone, - +One Turner, and no more, +(A landscape, - foreground golden dirt, - +The sunshine painted with a squirt.) + +Of books but few, - some fifty score +For daily use, and bound for wear; +The rest upon an upper floor; - +Some little luxury there +Of red morocco's gilded gleam, +And vellum rich as country cream. + +Busts, cameos, gems, - such things as these, +Which others often show for pride, +I value for their power to please, +And selfish churls deride; - +One Stradivarius, I confess, +Two meerschaums, I would fain possess. + +Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, +Nor ape the glittering upstart fool; - +Shall not carved tables serve my turn, +But all must be of buhl? +Give grasping pomp its double share, - +I ask but one recumbent chair. + +Thus humble let me live and die, +Nor long for Midas' golden touch; +If Heaven more generous gifts deny, +I shall not miss them much, - +Too grateful for the blessing lent +Of simple tastes and mind content! + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +THE BOYS + +Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys? +If there has, take him out, without making a noise. +Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite! +Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night! + +We're twenty! We're twenty! Who, says we are more? +He's tipsy, - young jackanapes! - show him the door! +"Gray temples at twenty?" - Yes! white if we please! +Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze! + +Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake! +Look close, - you will not see a sign of a flake! +We want some new garlands for those we have shed, - +And these are white roses in place of the red. + +We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told, +Of talking (in public) as if we were old: - +That boy we call "Doctor," and this we call "Judge;" +It's a neat little fiction, - of course it's all fudge. + +That fellow's the "Speaker," - the one on the right; +"Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night? +That's our "Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; +There's the "Reverend" What's his name? - don't make me laugh. + +That boy with the grave mathematical look +Made believe he had written a wonderful book, +And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true! +So they chose him right in; a good joke it was, too! + +There's a boy, we pretend, with a three-decker brain, +That could harness a team with a logical chain; +When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, +We called him "The Justice," but now he's "The Squire." + +And there's a nice youngster of excellent pith, - +Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith; +But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, - +Just read on his medal, "My country," "of thee!" + +You hear that boy laughing? - You think he's all fun; +But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; +The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, +And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all! + +Yes, we're boys, - always playing with tongue or with pen, - +And I sometimes have asked, - Shall we ever be men? +Shall we always be youthful, and laughing, and gay, +Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? + +Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray! +The stars of its winter, the dews of its May! +And when we have done with our life-lasting toys, +Dear Father, take care of thy children, The Boys! + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +THE JOLLY OLD PEDAGOGUE + +'Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago, +Tall and slender, and sallow and dry; +His form was bent, and his gait was slow, +His long, thin hair was as white as snow, +But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye; +And he sang every night as he went to bed, +"Let us be happy down here below: +The living should live, though the dead be dead," +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +He taught his scholars the rule of three, +Writing, and reading, and history, too; +He took the little ones up on his knee, +For a kind old heart in his breast had he, +And the wants of the littlest child he knew: +"Learn while you're young," he often said, +"There is much to enjoy, down here below; +Life for the living, and rest for the dead!" +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +With the stupidest boys he was kind and cool, +Speaking only in gentlest tones; +The rod was hardly known in his school . . . +Whipping, to him, was a barbarous rule, +And too hard work for his poor old bones; +Besides, it was painful, he sometimes said: +"We should make life pleasant, down here below, +The living need charity more than the dead," +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +He lived in the house by the hawthorn lane, +With roses and woodbine over the door; +His rooms were quiet, and neat, and plain, +But a spirit of comfort there held reign, +And made him forget he was old and poor; +"I need so little," he often said; +"And my friends and relatives here below +Won't litigate over me when I am dead," +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +But the pleasantest times that he had, of all, +Were the sociable hours he used to pass, +With his chair tipped back to a neighbor's wall, +Making an unceremonious call, +Over a pipe and a friendly glass: +This was the finest picture, he said, +Of the many he tasted, here below; +"Who has no cronies, had better be dead!" +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +Then the jolly old pedagogue's wrinkled face +Melted all over in sunshiny smiles; +He stirred his glass with an old-school grace, +Chuckled, and sipped, and prattled apace, +Till the house grew merry, from cellar to tiles: +"I'm a pretty old man," he gently said, +"I've lingered a long while, here below; +But my heart is fresh, if my youth is fled!" +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +He smoked his pipe in the balmy air, +Every night when the sun went down, +While the soft wind played in his silvery hair, +Leaving its tenderest kisses there, +On the jolly old pedagogue's jolly old crown: +And, feeling the kisses, he smiled and said, +'Twas a glorious world, down here below; +"Why wait for happiness till we are dead?" +Said the jolly old pedagogue, long ago. + +He sat at his door, one midsummer night, +After the sun had sunk in the west, +And the lingering beams of golden light +Made his kindly old face look warm and bright, +While the odorous night-wind whispered "Rest!" +Gently, gently, he bowed his head. . . . +There were angels waiting for him, I know; +He was sure of happiness, living or dead, +This jolly old pedagogue, long ago! + +George Arnold [1834-1865] + + +ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA + +Beneath the warrior's helm, behold +The flowing tresses of the woman! +Minerva, Pallas, what you will - +A winsome creature, Greek or Roman. + +Minerva? No! 'tis some sly minx +In cousin's helmet masquerading; +If not - then Wisdom was a dame +For sonnets and for serenading! + +I thought the goddess cold, austere, +Not made for love's despairs and blisses: +Did Pallas wear her hair like that? +Was Wisdom's mouth so shaped for kisses? + +The Nightingale should be her bird, +And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn: +How very fresh she looks, and yet +She's older far than Trajan's Column! + +The magic hand that carved this face, +And set this vine-work round it running, +Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought, +Had lost its subtle skill and cunning. + +Who was he? Was he glad or sad, +Who knew to carve in such a fashion? +Perchance he graved the dainty head +For some brown girl that scorned his passion. + +Perchance, in some still garden-place, +Where neither fount nor tree to-day is, +He flung the jewel at the feet +Of Phryne, or perhaps 'twas Lais. + +But he is dust; we may not know +His happy or unhappy story: +Nameless, and dead these centuries, +His work outlives him, - there's his glory! + +Both man and jewel lay in earth +Beneath a lava-buried city; +The countless summers came and went, +With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity. + +Years blotted out the man, but left +The jewel fresh as any blossom, +Till some Visconti dug it up, - +To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom! + +O nameless brother! see how Time +Your gracious handiwork has guarded: +See how your loving, patient art +Has come, at last, to be rewarded. + +Who would not suffer slights of men, +And pangs of hopeless passion also, +To have his carven agate-stone +On such a bosom rise and fall so! + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] + + +THALIA +A Middle-aged Lyrical Poet Is supposed To Be Taking +Final Leave Of The Muse Of Comedy. She Has Brought +Him His Hat And Gloves, And Is Abstractedly Picking +A Thread Of Gold Hair From His Coat Sleeve As He +Begins To Speak: + +I say it under the rose - + oh, thanks! - yes, under the laurel, +We part lovers, not foes; + we are not going to quarrel. + +We have too long been friends + on foot and in gilded coaches, +Now that the whole thing ends, + to spoil our kiss with reproaches. + +I leave you; my soul is wrung; + I pause, look back from the portal - +Ah, I no more am young, + and you, child, you are immortal! + +Mine is the glacier's way, + yours is the blossom's weather - +When were December and May + known to be happy together? + +Before my kisses grow tame, + before my moodiness grieve you, +While yet my heart is flame, + and I all lover, I leave you. + +So, in the coming time, + when you count the rich years over, +Think of me in my prime, + and not as a white-haired lover, + +Fretful, pierced with regret, + the wraith of a dead Desire +Thrumming a cracked spinet + by a slowly dying fire. + +When, at last, I am cold - + years hence, if the gods so will it - +Say, "He was true as gold," + and wear a rose in your fillet! + +Others, tender as I, + will come and sue for caresses, +Woo you, win you, and die - + mind you, a rose in your tresses! + +Some Melpomene woo, + some hold Clio the nearest; +You, sweet Comedy - you + were ever sweetest and dearest! + +Nay, it is time to go. + When writing your tragic sister +Say to that child of woe + how sorry I was I missed her. + +Really, I cannot stay, + though "parting is such sweet sorrow" . . . +Perhaps I will, on my way + down-town, look in to-morrow! + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] + + +PAN IN WALL STREET +A. D. 1867 + +Just where the Treasury's marble front +Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations; +Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont +To throng for trade and last quotations; +Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold +Outrival, in the ears of people, +The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled +From Trinity's undaunted steeple, - + +Even there I heard a strange, wild strain +Sound high above the modern clamor, +Above the cries of greed and gain, +The curbstone war, the auction's hammer; +And swift, on Music's misty ways, +It led, from all this strife for millions, +To ancient, sweet-to-nothing days +Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians. + +And as it stilled the multitude, +And yet more joyous rose, and shriller, +I saw the minstrel, where he stood +At ease against a Doric pillar: +One hand a droning organ played, +The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned +Like those of old) to lips that made +The reeds give out that strain impassioned. + +'Twas Pan himself had wandered here +A-strolling through this sordid city, +And piping to the civic ear +The prelude of some pastoral ditty! +The demigod had crossed the seas, - +From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, +And Syracusan times, - to these +Far shores and twenty centuries later. + +A ragged cap was on his head; +But - hidden thus - there was no doubting +That, all with crispy locks o'erspread, +His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting; +His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes, +Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them, +And trousers, patched of divers hues, +Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them. + +He filled the quivering reeds with sound, +And o'er his mouth their changes shifted, +And with his goat's-eyes looked around +Where'er the passing current drifted; +And soon, as on Trinacrian hills +The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him, +Even now the tradesmen from their tills, +With clerks and porters, crowded near him. + +The bulls and bears together drew +From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, +As erst, if pastorals be true, +Came beasts from every wooded valley; +The random passers stayed to list, - +A boxer Aegon, rough and merry, +A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst +With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry. + +A one-eyed Cyclops halted long +In tattered cloak of army pattern, +And Galatea joined the throng, - +A blowsy, apple-vending slattern; +While old Silenus staggered out +From some new-fangled lunch-house handy, +And bade the piper, with a shout, +To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy! + +A newsboy and a peanut-girl +Like little Fauns began to caper: +His hair was all in tangled curl, +Her tawny legs were bare and taper; +And still the gathering larger grew, +And gave its pence and crowded nigher, +While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew +His pipe, and struck the gamut higher. + +O heart of Nature, beating still +With throbs her vernal passion taught her, - +Even here, as on the vine-clad hill, +Or by the Arethusan water! +New forms may fold the speech, new lands +Arise within these ocean-portals, +But Music waves eternal wands, - +Enchantress of the souls of mortals! + +So thought I, - but among us trod +A man in blue, with legal baton, +And scoffed the vagrant demigod, +And pushed him from the step I sat on. +Doubting I mused upon the cry, +"Great Pan is dead!" - and all the people +Went on their ways: - and clear and high +The quarter sounded from the steeple. + +Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908] + + +UPON LESBIA - ARGUING + +My Lesbia, I will not deny, +Bewitches me completely; +She has the usual beaming eye, +And smiles upon me sweetly: +But she has an unseemly way +Of contradicting what I say. + +And, though I am her closest friend, +And find her fascinating, +I cannot cordially commend +Her method of debating: +Her logic, though she is divine, +Is singularly feminine. + +Her reasoning is full of tricks, +And butterfly suggestions, +I know no point to which she sticks, +She begs the simplest questions; +And, when her premises are strong, +She always draws her inference wrong. + +Broad, liberal views on men and things +She will not hear a word of; +To prove herself correct she brings +Some instance she has heard of; +The argument ad hominem +Appears her favorite strategem. + +Old Socrates, with sage replies +To questions put to suit him, +Would not, I think, have looked so wise +With Lesbia to confute him; +He would more probably have bade +Xantippe hasten to his aid. + +Ah! well, my fair philosopher, +With clear brown eyes that glisten +So sweetly, that I much prefer +To look at them than listen, +Preach me your sermon: have your way, +The voice is yours, whate'er you say. + +Alfred Cochrane [1865- + + +TO ANTHEA, WHO MAY COMMAND HIM ANYTHING +(New Style) + +Am I sincere? I say I dote +On everything that Browning wrote; +I know some bits by heart to quote: +But then She reads him. +I say - and is it strictly true? - +How I admire her cockatoo; +Well! in a way of course I do: +But then She feeds him. + +And I become, at her command, +The sternest Tory in the land; +The Grand Old Man is far from grand; +But then She states it. +Nay! worse than that, I am so tame, +I once admitted - to my shame - +That football was a brutal game: +Because She hates it. + +My taste in Art she hailed with groans, +And I, once charmed with bolder tones, +Now love the yellows of Burne-Jones: +But then She likes them. +My tuneful soul no longer hoards +Stray jewels from the Empire boards; +I revel now in Dvorak's chords: +But then She strikes them. + +Our age distinctly cramps a knight; +Yet, though debarred from tilt and fight, +I can admit that black is white, +If She asserts it. +Heroes of old were luckier men +Than I - I venture now and then +To hint - retracting meekly when +She controverts it. + +Alfred Cochrane [1865- + + +THE EIGHT-DAY CLOCK + +The days of Bute and Grafton's fame, +Of Chatham's waning prime, +First heard your sounding gong proclaim +Its chronicle of Time; +Old days when Dodd confessed his guilt, +When Goldsmith drave his quill, +And genial gossip Horace built +His house on Strawberry Hill. + +Now with a grave unmeaning face +You still repeat the tale, +High-towering in your somber case, +Designed by Chippendale; +Without regret for what is gone, +You bid old customs change, +As year by year you travel on +To scenes and voices strange. + +We might have mingled with the crowd +Of courtiers in this hall, +The fans that swayed, the wigs that bowed, +But you have spoiled it all; +We might have lingered in the train +Of nymphs that Reynolds drew, +Or stared spell-bound in Drury Lane +At Garrick - but for you. + +We might in Leicester Fields have swelled +The throng of beaux and cits, +Or listened to the concourse held +Among the Kitcat wits; +Have strolled with Selwyn in Pall Mall, +Arrayed in gorgeous silks, +Or in Great George Street raised a yell +For Liberty and Wilkes. + +This is the life which you have known, +Which you have ticked away, +In one unmoved unfaltering tone +That ceased not day by day, +While ever round your dial moved +Your hands from span to span, +Through drowsy hours and hours that proved +Big with the fate of man. + +A steady tick for fatal creeds, +For youth on folly bent, +A steady tick for worthy deeds, +And moments wisely spent; +No warning note of emphasis, +No whisper of advice, +To ruined rake or flippant miss, +For coquetry or dice. + +You might, I think, have hammered out +With meaning doubly dear, +The midnight of a Vauxhall rout +In Evelina's ear; +Or when the night was almost gone, +You might, the deals between, +Have startled those who looked upon +The cloth when it was green. + +But no, in all the vanished years +Down which your wheels have run, +Your message borne to heedless ears +Is one and only one - +No wit of men, no power of kings, +Can stem the overthrow +Wrought by this pendulum that swings +Sedately to and fro. + +Alfred Cochrane [1865- + + +A PORTRAIT + +In sunny girlhood's vernal life +She caused no small sensation, +But now the modest English wife +To others leaves flirtation. +She's young still, lovely, debonair, +Although sometimes her features +Are clouded by a thought of care +For those two tiny creatures. + +Each tiny, toddling, mottled mite +Asserts with voice emphatic, +In lisping accents, "Mite is right," +Their rule is autocratic: +The song becomes, that charmed mankind, +Their musical narcotic, +And baby lips than Love, she'll find, +Are even more despotic. + +Soft lullaby when singing there, +And castles ever building, +Their destiny she'll carve in air, +Bright with maternal gilding: +Young Guy, a clever advocate, +So eloquent and able! +A powdered wig upon his pate, +A coronet for Mabel! + +Joseph Ashby-Sterry [1838-1917] + + +"OLD BOOKS ARE BEST" + +Old Books are best! With what delight +Does "Faithorne fecit" greet our sight +On frontispiece or title-page +Of that old time, when on the stage +"Sweet Nell" set "Rowley's" heart alight! + +And you, O Friend, to whom I write, +Must not deny, e'en though you might, +Through fear of modern pirates' rage, +Old Books are best. + +What though the print be not so bright, +The paper dark, the binding slight? +Our author, be he dull or sage, +Returning from that distant age +So lives again, we say of right: +Old Books are best. + +Beverly Chew [1850-1924] + + +IMPRESSION + +In these restrained and careful times +Our knowledge petrifies our rhymes; +Ah! for that reckless fire men had +When it was witty to be mad; + +When wild conceits were piled in scores, +And lit by flaming metaphors, +When all was crazed and out of tune, - +Yet throbbed with music of the moon. + +If we could dare to write as ill +As some whose voices haunt us still, +Even we, perchance, might call our own +Their deep enchanting undertone. + +We are too diffident and nice, +Too learned and too over-wise, +Too much afraid of faults to be +The flutes of bold sincerity. + +For, as this sweet life passes by, +We blink and nod with critic eye; +We've no words rude enough to give +Its charm so frank and fugitive. + +The green and scarlet of the Park, +The undulating streets at dark, +The brown smoke blown across the blue, +This colored city we walk through; - + +The pallid faces full of pain, +The field-smell of the passing wain, +The laughter, longing, perfume, strife, +The daily spectacle of life; - + +Ah! how shall this be given to rhyme, +By rhymesters of a knowing time? +Ah! for the age when verse was clad, +Being godlike, to be bad and mad. + +Edmund Gosse [1849-1928] + + +"WITH STRAWBERRIES" + +With strawberries we filled a tray, +And then we drove away, away +Along the links beside the sea, +Where wave and wind were light and free, +And August felt as fresh as May, + +And where the springy turf was gay +With thyme and balm and many a spray +Of wild roses, you tempted me +With strawberries! + +A shadowy sail, silent and gray, +Stole like a ghost across the bay; +But none could hear me ask my fee, +And none could know what came to be. +Can sweethearts all their thirst allay +With strawberries? + +William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] + + +BALLADE OF LADIES' NAMES + +Brown's for Lalage, Jones for Lelia, +Robinson's bosom for Beatrice glows, +Smith is a Hamlet before Ophelia. +The glamor stays if the reason goes! +Every lover the years disclose +Is of a beautiful name made free. +One befriends, and all others are foes. +Anna's the name of names for me. + +Sentiment hallows the vowels of Delia; +Sweet simplicity breathes from Rose; +Courtly memories glitter in Celia; +Rosalind savors of quips and hose, +Araminta of wits and beaux, +Prue of puddings, and Coralie +All of sawdust and spangled shows; +Anna's the name of names for me. + +Fie upon Caroline, Madge, Amelia - +These I reckon the essence of prose! - +Cavalier Katherine, cold Cornelia, +Portia's masterful Roman nose, +Maud's magnificence, Totty's toes, +Poll and Bet with their twang of the sea, +Nell's impertinence, Pamela's woes! +Anna's the name of names for me. + +ENVOY +Ruth like a gillyflower smells and blows, +Sylvia prattles of Arcadee, +Sybil mystifies, Connie crows, +Anna's the name of names for me! + +William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] + + +TO A PAIR OF EGYPTIAN SLIPPERS + +Tiny slippers of gold and green, +Tied with a mouldering golden cord! +What pretty feet they must have been +When Caesar Augustus was Egypt's lord! +Somebody graceful and fair you were! +Not many girls could dance in these! +When did your shoemaker make you, dear, +Such a nice pair of Egyptian "threes"? + +Where were you measured? In Sais, or On, +Memphis, or Thebes, or Pelusium? +Fitting them neatly your brown toes upon, +Lacing them deftly with finger and thumb, +I seem to see you! - so long ago, +Twenty-one centuries, less or more! +And here are your sandals: yet none of us know +What name, or fortune, or face you bore. + +Your lips would have laughed, with a rosy scorn, +If the merchant, or slave-girl, had mockingly said, +"The feet will pass, but the shoes they have worn +Two thousand years onward Time's road shall tread, +And still be footgear as good as new!" +To think that calf-skin, gilded and stitched, +Should Rome and the Pharaohs outlive - and you +Be gone, like a dream, from the world you bewitched! + +Not that we mourn you! 'Twere too absurd! +You have been such a very long while away! +Your dry spiced dust would not value one word +Of the soft regrets that my verse could say. +Sorrow and Pleasure, and Love and Hate, +If you ever felt them, have vaporized hence +To this odor - so subtle and delicate - +Of myrrh, and cassia, and frankincense. + +Of course they embalmed you! Yet not so sweet +Were aloes and nard, as the youthful glow +Which Amenti stole when the small dark feet +Wearied of treading our world below. +Look! it was flood-time in valley of Nile, +Or a very wet day in the Delta, dear! +When your slippers tripped lightly their latest mile - +The mud on the soles renders that fact clear. + +You knew Cleopatra, no doubt! You saw +Antony's galleys from Actium come. +But there! if questions could answers draw +From lips so many a long age dumb, +I would not tease you with history, +Nor vex your heart for the men that were; +The one point to learn that would fascinate me +Is, where and what are you to-day, my dear! + +You died, believing in Horus and Pasht, +Isis, Osiris, and priestly lore; +And found, of course, such theories smashed +By actual fact on the heavenly shore. +What next did you do? Did you transmigrate? +Have we seen you since, all modern and fresh? +Your charming soul - so I calculate - +Mislaid its mummy, and sought new flesh. + +Were you she whom I met at dinner last week, +With eyes and hair of the Ptolemy black, +Who still of this find in Fayoum would speak, +And to Pharaohs and scarabs still carry us back? +A scent of lotus about her hung, +And she had such a far-away wistful air +As of somebody born when the Earth was young; +And she wore of gilt slippers a lovely pair. + +Perchance you were married? These might have been +Part of your trousseau - the wedding shoes; +And you laid them aside with the garments green, +And painted clay Gods which a bride would use; +And, may be, to-day, by Nile's bright waters +Damsels of Egypt in gowns of blue - +Great-great-great - very great - grand-daughters +Owe their shapely insteps to you! + +But vainly I beat at the bars of the Past, +Little green slippers with golden strings! +For all you can tell is that leather will last +When loves, and delightings, and beautiful things +Have vanished; forgotten - No! not quite that! +I catch some gleam of the grace you wore +When you finished with Life's daily pit-a-pat, +And left your shoes at Death's bedroom door. + +You were born in the Egypt which did not doubt; +You were never sad with our new-fashioned sorrows: +You were sure, when your play-days on Earth ran out, +Of play-times to come, as we of our morrows! +Oh, wise little Maid of the Delta! I lay +Your shoes in your mummy-chest back again, +And wish that one game we might merrily play +At "Hunt the Slippers" - to see it all plain. + +Edwin Arnold [1832-1904] + + +WITHOUT AND WITHIN + +My coachman, in the moonlight there, +Looks through the side-light of the door; +I hear him with his brethren swear, +As I could do, - but only more. + +Flattening his nose against the pane, +He envies me my brilliant lot, +Breathes on his aching fists in vain, +And dooms me to a place more hot. + +He sees me in to supper go, +A silken wonder by my side, +Bare arms, bare shoulders, and a row +Of flounces, for the door too wide. + +He thinks how happy is my arm +'Neath its white-gloved and jewelled load; +And wishes me some dreadful harm, +Hearing the merry corks explode. + +Meanwhile I inly curse the bore +Of hunting still the same old coon, +And envy him, outside the door, +In golden quiets of the moon. + +The winter wind is not so cold +As the bright smile he sees me win +Nor the host's oldest wine so old +As our poor gabble sour and thin. + +I envy him the ungyved prance +With which his freezing feet he warms, +And drag my lady's-chains and dance +The galley-slave of dreary forms. + +Oh, could, he have my share of din, +And I his quiet! - past a doubt +'Twould still be one man bored within, +And just another bored without. + +Nay, when, once paid my mortal fee, +Some idler on my headstone grim +Traces the moss-blurred name, will he +Think me the happier, or I him? + +James Russell Lowell [1819-1891] + + +"SHE WAS A BEAUTY" + +She was a beauty in the days +When Madison was President, +And quite coquettish in her ways, - +On conquests of the heart intent. + +Grandpapa, on his right knee bent, +Wooed her in stiff, old-fashioned phrase, - +She was a beauty in the days +When Madison was President. + +And when your roses where hers went +Shall go, my Rose, who date from Hayes, +I hope you'll wear her sweet content +Of whom tradition lightly says: +She was a beauty in the days +When Madison was President. + +Henry Cuyler Bunner [1855-1896] + + +NELL GWYNNE'S LOOKING-GLASS + +Glass antique, 'twixt thee and Nell +Draw we here a parallel. +She, like thee, was forced to bear +All reflections, foul or fair. +Thou art deep and bright within, +Depths as bright belonged to Gwynne; +Thou art very frail as well, +Frail as flesh is, - so was Nell. + +Thou, her glass, art silver-lined, +She too, had a silver mind: +Thine is fresh till this far day, +Hers till death ne'er wore away: +Thou dost to thy surface win +Wandering glances, so did Gwynne; +Eyes on thee love long to dwell, +So men's eyes would do on Nell. + +Life-like forms in thee are sought, +Such the forms the actress wrought; +Truth unfailing rests in you, +Nell, whate'er she was, was true. +Clear as virtue, dull as sin, +Thou art oft, as oft was Gwynne; +Breathe on thee, and drops will swell: +Bright tears dimmed the eyes of Nell. + +Thine's a frame to charm the sight, +Framed was she to give delight; +Waxen forms here truly show +Charles above and Nell below; +But between them, chin with chin, +Stuart stands as low as Gwynne, - +Paired, yet parted, - meant to tell +Charles was opposite to Nell. + +Round the glass wherein her face +Smiled so soft, her "arms" we trace; +Thou, her mirror, hast the pair, +Lion here, and leopard there. +She had part in these, - akin +To the lion-heart was Gwynne; +And the leopard's beauty fell +With its spots to bounding Nell. + +Oft inspected, ne'er seen through, +Thou art firm, if brittle too; +So her will, on good intent, +Might be broken, never bent. +What the glass was, when therein +Beamed the face of glad Nell Gwynne, +Was that face by beauty's spell +To the honest soul of Nell. + +Laman Blanchard [1804-1845] + + +MIMNERMUS IN CHURCH + +You promise heavens free from strife, +Pure truth, and perfect change of will; +But sweet, sweet is this human life, +So sweet, I fain would breathe it still: +Your chilly stars I can forego, +This warm kind world is all I know. + +You say there is no substance here, +One great reality above: +Back from that void I shrink in fear, +And child-like hide myself in love: +Show me what angels feel. Till then +I cling, a mere weak man, to men. + +You bid me lift my mean desires +From faltering lips and fitful veins +To sexless souls, ideal choirs, +Unwearied voices, wordless strains: +My mind with fonder welcome owns +One dear dead friend's remembered tones. + +Forsooth the present we must give +To that which cannot pass away; +All beauteous things for which we live +By laws of time and space decay. +But oh, the very reason why +I clasp them, is because they die. + +William Johnson-Cory [1823-1892] + + +CLAY + +"We are but clay," the preacher saith; +"The heart is clay, and clay the brain, +And soon or late there cometh death +To mingle us with earth again." + +Well, let the preacher have it so, +And clay we are, and clay shall be; - +Why iterate? - for this I know, +That clay does very well for me. + +When clay has such red mouths to kiss, +Firm hands to grasp, it is enough: +How can I take it aught amiss +We are not made of rarer stuff? + +And if one tempt you to believe +His choice would be immortal gold, +Question him, Can you then conceive +A warmer heart than clay can hold? + +Or richer joys than clay can feel? +And when perforce he falters nay, +Bid him renounce his wish and kneel +In thanks for this same kindly clay. + +Edward Verrall Lucas [1868- + + +AUCASSIN AND NICOLETE + +What magic halo rings thy head, +Dream-maiden of a minstrel dead? +What charm of faerie round thee hovers, +That all who listen are thy lovers? + +What power yet makes our pulses thrill +To see thee at thy window-sill, +And by that dangerous cord down-sliding, +And through the moonlit garden gliding? + +True maiden art thou in thy dread; +True maiden in thy hardihead; +True maiden when, thy fears half-over, +Thou lingerest to try thy lover. + +And ah! what heart of stone or steel +But doth some stir unwonted feel, +When to the day new brightness bringing +Thou standest at the stair-foot singing! + +Thy slender limbs in boyish dress, +Thy tones half glee, half tenderness, +Thou singest, 'neath the light tale's cover, +Of thy true love to thy true lover. + +O happy lover, happy maid, +Together in sweet story laid; +Forgive the hand that here is baring +Your old loves for new lovers' staring! + +Yet, Nicolete, why fear'st thou fame? +No slander now can touch thy name, +Nor Scandal's self a fault discovers, +Though each new year thou hast new lovers. + +Nor, Aucassin, need'st thou to fear +These lovers of too late a year, +Nor dread one jealous pang's revival; +No lover now can be thy rival. + +What flower considers if its blooms +Light, haunts of men, or forest glooms? +What care ye though the world discovers +Your flowers of love, O flower of lovers! + +Francis William Bourdillon [1852-1921] + + +PROVENCAL LOVERS +Aucassin And Nicolette + +Within the garden of Beaucaire +He met her by a secret stair, - +The night was centuries ago. +Said Aucassin, "My love, my pet, +These old confessors vex me so! +They threaten all the pains of hell +Unless I give you up, ma belle"; - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +"Now who should there in Heaven be +To fill your place, ma tres-douce mie? +To reach that spot I little care! +There all the droning priests are met; +All the old cripples, too, are there +That unto shrines and altars cling +To filch the Peter-pence we bring"; - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +"There are the barefoot monks and friars +With gowns well tattered by the briars, +The saints who lift their eyes and whine: +I like them not - a starveling set! +Who'd care with folk like these to dine? +The other road 'twere just as well +That you and I should take, ma belle!" - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +"To purgatory I would go +With pleasant comrades whom we know, +Fair scholars, minstrels, lusty knights +Whose deeds the land will not forget, +The captains of a hundred fights, +The men of valor and degree: +We'll join that gallant company," - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +"There, too, are jousts and joyance rare, +And beauteous ladies debonair, +The pretty dames, the merry brides, +Who with their wedded lords coquette +And have a friend or two besides, - +And all in gold and trappings gay, +With furs, and crests in vair and gray," - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +"Sweet players on the cithern strings, +And they who roam the world like kings, +Are gathered there, so blithe and free! +Pardie! I'd join them now, my pet, +If you went also, ma douce mie! +The joys of Heaven I'd forego +To have you with me there below," - +Said Aucassin to Nicolette. + +Edmund Clarence Stedman [1833-1908] + + +ON THE HURRY OF THIS TIME + +With slower pen men used to write, +Of old, when "letters" were "polite"; +In Anna's or in George's days, +They could afford to turn a phrase, +Or trim a struggling theme aright. + +They knew not steam; electric light +Not yet had dazed their calmer sight; - +They meted out both blame and praise +With slower pen. + +Too swiftly now the Hours take flight! +What's read at morn is dead at night: +Scant space have we for Art's delays, +Whose breathless thought so briefly stays, +We may not work - ah! would we might! - +With slower pen. + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE!" +Si vieillesse pouvait! - + +Scene. - A small neat Room. In a high Voltaire Chair + sits a white-haired old Gentleman. + +Monsieur Vieuxbois Babette + + M. Vieuxbois (turning querulously) +Day of my life! Where can she get! +Babette! I say! Babette! - Babette! + + Babette (entering hurriedly) +Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks +So loud, he won't be well for weeks! + + M. Vieuxbois +Where have you been? + + Babette +Why M'sieu' knows: - +April! . . . Ville d'Avray! . . . Ma'am'selle Rose! + + M. Vieuxbois +Ah! I am old, - and I forget. +Was the place growing green, Babette? + + Babette +But of a greenness! - yes, M'sieu'! +And then the sky so blue! - so blue! +And when I dropped my immortelle, +How the birds sang! +(Lifting her apron to her eyes) +This poor Ma'am'selle! + + M. Vieuxbois +You're a good girl, Babette, but she, - +She was an Angel, verily. +Sometimes I think I see her yet +Stand smiling by the cabinet; +And once, I know, she peeped and laughed +Betwixt the curtains . . . +Where's the draught? +(She gives him a cup) +Now I shall sleep, I think, Babette; - +Sing me your Norman chansonnette. + + Babette (sings) +"Once at the Angelus, +(Ere I was dead), +Angels all glorious +Came to my bed; +Angels in blue and white +Crowned on the Head." + + M. Vieuxbois (drowsily) +"She was an Angel" . . . "Once she laughed" . . . +What, was I dreaming? +Where's the draught? + + Babette (showing the empty cup) +The draught, M'sieu'? + + M. Vieuxbois +How I forget! +I am so old! But sing, Babette! + + Babette (sings) +"One was the Friend I left +Stark in the Snow; +One was the Wife that died +Long, - long ago; +One was the Love I lost . . . +How could she know?" + + M. Vieuxbois (murmuring) +Ah, Paul! . . . old Paul! . . . Eulalie too! +And Rose . . . And O! "the sky so blue!" + + Babette (sings) +"One had my Mother's eyes, +Wistful and mild; +One had my Father's face; +One was a Child: +All of them bent to me, - +Bent down and smiled!" +(He is asleep!) + + M. Vieuxbois (almost inaudibly) +"How I forget!" +"I am so old!" . . . "Good-night, Babette!" + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +A DIALOGUE FROM PLATO +Le tempo le mieux employe est celui qu'on perd. - Claude Tillier + +I'd "read" three hours. Both notes and text +Were fast a mist becoming; +In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed, +And filled the room with humming, + +Then out. The casement's leafage sways, +And, parted light, discloses +Miss Di., with hat and book, - a maze +Of muslin mixed with roses. + +"You're reading Greek?" "I am - and you?" +"O, mine's a mere romancer!" +"So Plato is." "Then read him - do; +And I'll read mine for answer." + +I read: "My Plato (Plato, too - +That wisdom thus should harden!) +Declares 'blue eyes look doubly blue +Beneath a Dolly Varden.'" + +She smiled. "My book in turn avers +(No author's name is stated) +That sometimes those Philosophers +Are sadly mistranslated." + +"But hear, - the next's in stronger style: +The Cynic School asserted +That two red lips which part and smile +May not be controverted!" + +She smiled once more. "My book, I find, +Observes some modern doctors +Would make the Cynics out a kind +Of album-verse concoctors." + +Then I: "Why not? 'Ephesian law, +No less than time's tradition, +Enjoined fair speech on all who saw +Diana's apparition." + +She blushed, - this time. "If Plato's page +No wiser precept teaches, +Then I'd renounce that doubtful sage, +And walk to Burnham Beeches." + +"Agreed," I said. "For Socrates +(I find he too is talking) +Thinks Learning can't remain at ease +When Beauty goes a-walking." + +She read no more. I leapt the sill: +The sequel's scarce essential - +Nay, more than this, I hold it still +Profoundly confidential. + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S +A Proper New Ballad Of The Country And The Town + +Phyllida amo ante alias. - Virgil + +The ladies of St. James's +Go swinging to the play; +Their footmen run before them, +With a "Stand by! Clear the way!" +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +She takes her buckled shoon, +When we go out a-courting +Beneath the harvest moon. + +The ladies of St. James's +Wear satin on their backs; +They sit all night at Ombre, +With candles all of wax: +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +She dons her russet gown, +And runs to gather May dew +Before the world is down. + +The ladies of St. James's! +They are so fine and fair, +You'd think a box of essences +Was broken in the air: +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +The breath of heath and furze +When breezes blow at morning, +Is not so fresh as hers. + +The ladies of St. James's! +They're painted to the eyes; +Their white it stays for ever, +Their red it never dies: +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +Her color comes and goes; +It trembles to a lily, - +It wavers to a rose. + +The ladies of St. James's! +You scarce can understand +The half of all their speeches, +Their phrases are so grand: +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +Her shy and simple words +Are clear as after rain-drops +The music of the birds. + +The ladies of St. James's! +They have their fits and freaks; +They smile on you - for seconds, +They frown on you - for weeks: +But Phyllida, my Phyllida! +Come either storm or shine, +From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide, +Is always true - and mine. + +My Phyllida! my Phyllida! +I care not though they heap +The hearts of all St. James's, +And give me all to keep; +I care not whose the beauties +Of all the world may be, +For Phyllida - for Phyllida +Is all the world to me! + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +THE CURE'S PROGRESS + +Monsieur the Cure down the street +Comes with his kind old face, - +With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, +And his green umbrella-case. + +You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place", +And the tiny "Hotel-de-Ville"; +He smiles, as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose, +And the pompier Theophile. + +He turns, as a rule, through the "Marche" cool, +Where the noisy fish-wives call; +And his compliment pays to the "Belle Therese", +As she knits in her dusky stall. + +There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop, +And Toto, the locksmith's niece, +Has jubilant hopes, for the Cure gropes +In his tails for a pain d'epice. + +There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit, +Who is said to be heterodox, +That will ended be with a "Ma foi, oui!" +And a pinch from the Cure's box. + +There is also a word that no one heard +To the furrier's daughter Lou.; +And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red, +And a "Ben Dieu garde M'sieu'!" + +But a grander way for the Sous-Prefet, +And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne; +And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat, +And a nod to the Sacristan: - + +For ever through life the Cure goes +With a smile on his kind old face - +With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair, +And his green umbrella-case. + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +A GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD SCHOOL + +He lived in that past Georgian day, +When men were less inclined to say +That "Time is Gold," and overlay +With toil their pleasure; +He held some land, and dwelt thereon, - +Where, I forget, - the house is gone; +His Christian name, I think, was John, - +His surname, Leisure. + +Reynolds has painted him, - a face +Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace, +Fresh-colored, frank, with ne'er a trace +Of trouble shaded; +The eyes are blue, the hair is dressed +In plainest way, - one hand is pressed +Deep in a flapped canary vest, +With buds brocaded. + +He wears a brown old Brunswick coat, +With silver buttons, - round his throat, +A soft cravat; - in all you note +An elder fashion, - +A strangeness, which, to us who shine +In shapely hats, - whose coats combine +All harmonies of hue and line, +Inspires compassion. + +He lived so long ago, you see! +Men were untravelled then, but we, +Like Ariel, post o'er land and sea +With careless parting; +He found it quite enough for him +To smoke his pipe in "garden trim," +And watch, about the fish tank's brim, +The swallows darting. + +He liked the well-wheel's creaking tongue, - +He liked the thrush that fed her young, - +He liked the drone of flies among +His netted peaches; +He liked to watch the sunlight fall +Athwart his ivied orchard wall; +Or pause to catch the cuckoo's call +Beyond the beeches. + +His were the times of Paint and Patch, +And yet no Ranelagh could match +The sober doves that round his thatch +Spread tails and sidled; +He liked their ruffling, puffed content; +For him their drowsy wheelings meant +More than a Mall of Beaux that bent, +Or Belles that bridled. + +Not that, in truth, when life began +He shunned the flutter of the fan; +He too had maybe "pinked his man" +In Beauty's quarrel; +But now his "fervent youth" had flown +Where lost things go; and he was grown +As staid and slow-paced as his own +Old hunter, Sorrel. + +Yet still he loved the chase, and held +That no composer's score excelled +The merry horn, when Sweetlip swelled +Its jovial riot; +But most his measured words of praise +Caressed the angler's easy ways, - +His idly meditative days, - +His rustic diet. + +Not that his "meditating" rose +Beyond a sunny summer doze; +He never troubled his repose +With fruitless prying; +But held, as law for high and low, +What God withholds no man can know, +And smiled away enquiry so, +Without replying. + +We read - alas, how much we read! - +The jumbled strifes of creed and creed +With endless controversies feed +Our groaning tables; +His books - and they sufficed him - were +Cotton's Montaigne, The Grave of Blair, +A "Walton" - much the worse for wear, +And Aesop's Fables. + +One more - The Bible. Not that he +Had searched its page as deep as we; +No sophistries could make him see +Its slender credit; +It may be that he could not count +The sires and sons to Jesse's fount, - +He liked the "Sermon on the Mount," - +And more, he read it. + +Once he had loved, but failed to wed, +A red-cheeked lass who long was dead; +His ways were far too slow, he said, +To quite forget her; +And still when time had turned him gray, +The earliest hawthorn buds in May +Would find his lingering feet astray, +Where first he met her. + +"In Coelo Quies" heads the stone +On Leisure's grave, - now little known, +A tangle of wild-rose has grown +So thick across it; +The "Benefactions" still declare +He left the clerk an elbow-chair, +And "12 Pence Yearly to Prepare +A Christmas Posset." + +Lie softly, Leisure! Doubtless you, +With too serene a conscience drew +Your easy breath, and slumbered through +The gravest issue; +But we, to whom our age allows +Scarce space to wipe our weary brows, +Look down upon your narrow house, +Old friend, and miss you! + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +ON A FAN +That Belonged To The Marquise De Pompadour + +Chicken-skin, delicate, white, +Painted by Carlo Vanloo, +Loves in a riot of light, +Roses and vaporous blue; +Hark to the dainty frou-frou! +Picture above, if you can, +Eyes that could melt as the dew, - +This was the Pompadour's fan! + +See how they rise at the sight, +Thronging the Ceil de Boeuf through, +Courtiers as butterflies bright, +Beauties that Fragonard drew, +Talon-rouge, falbala, queue, +Cardinal, Duke, - to a man, +Eager to sigh or to sue, - +This was the Pompadour's fan! + +Ah, but things more than polite +Hung on this toy, voyez-vous! +Matters of state and of might, +Things that great ministers do; +Things that, maybe, overthrew +Those in whose brains they began; +Here was the sign and the cue, - +This was the Pompadour's fan! + +ENVOY +Where are the secrets it knew? +Weavings of plot and of plan? +- But where is the Pompadour, too? +This was the Pompadour's Fan! + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +"WHEN I SAW YOU LAST, ROSE" + +When I saw you last, Rose, +You were only so high; - +How fast the time goes! + +Like a bud ere it blows, +You just peeped at the sky, +When I saw you last, Rose! + +Now your petals unclose, +Now your May-time is nigh; - +How fast the time goes! + +And a life, - how it grows! +You were scarcely so shy, +When I saw you last, Rose! + +In your bosom it shows +There's a guest on the sly; +(How fast the time goes!) + +Is it Cupid? Who knows! +Yet you used not to sigh, +When I saw you last, Rose; - +How fast the time goes! + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +URCEUS EXIT + +I intended an Ode, +And it turned to a Sonnet. +It began a la mode, +I intended an Ode; +But Rose crossed the road +In her latest new bonnet; +I intended an Ode; +And it turned to a Sonnet. + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +A CORSAGE BOUQUET + +Myrtilla, to-night, +Wears Jacqueminot roses. +She's the loveliest sight! +Myrtilla to-night: - +Correspondingly light +My pocket-book closes. +Myrtilla, to-night +Wears Jacqueminot roses. + +Charles Henry Luders [1858-1891] + + +TWO TRIOLETS + +What he said: - +This kiss upon your fan I press - +Ah! Sainte Nitouche, you don't refuse it! +And may it from its soft recess - +This kiss upon your fan I press - +Be blown to you, a shy caress, +By this white down, whene'er you use it. +This kiss upon your fan I press, - +Ah, Sainte Nitouche, you don't refuse it! + +What she thought: - +To kiss a fan! +What a poky poet! +The stupid man +To kiss a fan +When he knows - that - he - can - +Or ought to know it - +To kiss a fan! +What a poky poet! + +Harrison Robertson [1856- + + +THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES +From The French Of Francois Villon 1450 + +Tell me now in what hidden way is +Lady Flora the lovely Roman? +Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais, +Neither of them the fairer woman? +Where is Echo, beheld of no man, +Only heard on river and mere, - +She whose beauty was more than human? . . . +But where are the snows of yester-year? + +Where's Heloise, the learned nun, +For whose sake Abeilard, I ween, +Lost manhood and put priesthood on? +(From Love he won such dule and teen!) +And where, I pray you, is the Queen +Who willed that Buridan should steer +Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine? . . . +But where are the snows of yester-year? + +White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, +With a voice like any mermaiden, - +Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice, +And Ermengarde the lady of Maine, - +And that good Joan whom Englishmen +At Rouen doomed and burned her there, - +Mother of God, where are they then? . . . +But where are the snows of yester-year? + +Nay, never ask this week, fair lord, +Where they are gone, nor yet this year, +Except with this for an overword, - +But where are the snows of yester-year? + +Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882] + + +BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES +After Villon + +Nay, tell me now in what strange air +The Roman Flora dwells to-day, +Where Archippiada hides, and where +Beautiful Thais has passed away? +Whence answers Echo, afield, astray, +By mere or stream, - around, below? +Lovelier she than a woman of clay; +Nay, but where is the last year's snow? + +Where is wise Heloise, that care +Brought on Abeilard, and dismay? +All for her love he found a snare, +A maimed poor monk in orders gray; +And where's the Queen who willed to slay +Buridan, that in a sack must go +Afloat down Seine, - a perilous way - +Nay, but where is the last year's snow? + +Where's that White Queen, a lily rare, +With her sweet song, the Siren's lay? +Where's Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair? +Alys and Ermengarde, where are they? +Good Joan, whom English did betray +In Rouen town, and burned her? No, +Maiden and Queen, no man may say; +Nay, but where is the last year's snow? + +ENVOY +Prince, all this week thou needst not pray, +Nor yet this year the thing to know. +One burden answers, ever and aye, +"Nay, but where is the last year's snow?" + +Andrew Lang [1844-1912] + + +A BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES +After Villon +From "If I Were King" + +I wonder in what Isle of Bliss +Apollo's music fills the air; +In what green valley Artemis +For young Endymion spreads the snare: +Where Venus lingers debonair: +The Wind has blown them all away - +And Pan lies piping in his lair - +Where are the Gods of Yesterday? + +Say where the great Semiramis +Sleeps in a rose-red tomb; and where +The precious dust of Caesar is, +Or Cleopatra's yellow hair: +Where Alexander Do-and-Dare; +The Wind has blown them all away - +And Redbeard of the Iron Chair; +Where are the Dreams of Yesterday? + +Where is the Queen of Herod's kiss, +And Phryne in her beauty bare; +By what strange sea does Tomyris +With Dido and Cassandra share +Divine Proserpina's despair; +The Wind has blown them all away - +For what poor ghost does Helen care? +Where are the Girls of Yesterday? + +ENVOY +Alas for lovers! Pair by pair +The Wind has blown them all away: +The young and yare, the fond and fair: +Where are the Snows of Yesterday? + +Justin Huntly McCarthy [1860-1936] + + +IF I WERE KING +After Villon +From "If I Were King" + +All French folk, whereso'er ye be, +Who love your country, sail and sand, +From Paris to the Breton sea, +And back again to Norman strand, +Forsooth ye seem a silly band, +Sheep without shepherd, left to chance - +Far otherwise our Fatherland, +If Villon were the King of France! + +The figure on the throne you see +Is nothing but a puppet, planned +To wear the regal bravery +Of silken coat and gilded wand. +Not so we Frenchmen understand +The Lord of lion's heart and glance, +And such a one would take command +If Villon were the King of France! + +His counsellors are rogues, Perdie! +While men of honest mind are banned +To creak upon the Gallows Tree, +Or squeal in prisons over-manned +We want a chief to bear the brand, +And bid the damned Burgundians dance. +God! Where the Oriflamme should stand +If Villon were the King of France! + +ENVOY +Louis the Little, play the grand; +Buffet the foe with sword and lance; +'Tis what would happen, by this hand, +If Villon were the King of France! + +Justin Huntly McCarthy [1860-1936] + + +A BALLADE OF SUICIDE + +The gallows in my garden, people say, +Is new and neat and adequately tall. +I tie the noose on in a knowing way +As one that knots his necktie for a ball; +But just as all the neighbors - on the wall - +Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!" +The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all +I think I will not hang myself to-day. + +To-morrow is the time I get my pay - +My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall - +I see a little cloud all pink and gray - +Perhaps the rector's mother will not call - +I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall +That mushrooms could be cooked another way - +I never read the works of Juvenal - +I think I will not hang myself to-day. + +The world will have another washing day; +The decadents decay; the pedants pall; +And H. G. Wells has found that children play, +And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall; +Rationalists are growing rational - +And through thick woods one finds a stream astray, +So secret that the very sky seems small - +I think I will not hang myself to-day. + +ENVOI +Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal, +The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way; +Even to-day your royal head may fall - +I think I will not hang myself to-day. + +Gilbert Keith Chesterton [1874-1936] + + +CHIFFONS! + +Through this our city of delight, +This Paris of our joy and play, +This Paris perfumed, jeweled, bright, +Rouged, powdered, amorous, - ennuye: +Across our gilded Quartier, +So fair to see, so frail au fond, +Echoes - mon Dieu! - the Ragman's bray: +"Mar - chand d'ha - bits! Chif - fons!" + +Foul, hunched, a plague to dainty sight, +He limps infect by park and quai, +Voicing (for those that hear aright) +His hunger-world, the dark Marais. +Sexton of all we waste and fray, +He bags at last pour tout de bon +Our trappings rare, our braveries gay, +"Mar - chand d'ha - bits! Chif - fons!" + +Their lot is ours! A grislier wight, +The Ragman Time, takes day by day +Our beauty's bloom, our manly might, +Our joie de vivre, our gods of clay; +Till torn and worn and soiled and gray +Hot life rejects us - nom de nom! - +Rags! and our only requiem lay, +"Mar - chand d'ha - bits! Chif - fons!" + + +ENVOY +Princes take heed! - for where are they, +Valois, Navarre and Orleans? . . . +Death drones the answer, far away, +"Mar - chand d'ha - bits! Chif - fons!" + +William Samuel Johnson [1859- + + +THE COURT HISTORIAN +Lower Empire. Circa A. D. 700 + +The Monk Arnulphus uncorked his ink +That shone with a blood-red light +Just now as the sun began to sink; +His vellum was pumiced a silvery white; +"The Basileus" - for so he began - +"Is a royal sagacious Mars of a man, +Than the very lion bolder; +He has married the stately widow of Thrace -" +"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. + +His palette gleamed with a burnished green, +Bright as a dragon-fly's skin: +His gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen, +His azure glowed as a cloud worn thin, +Deep as the blue of the king-whale's lair: +"The Porphyrogenita Zoe the fair +Is about to wed with a Prince much older, +Of an unpropitious mien and look -" +"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. + +The red flowers trellised the parchment page, +The birds leaped up on the spray, +The yellow fruit swayed and drooped and swung, +It was Autumn mixed up with May. +(O, but his cheek was shrivelled and shrunk!) +"The child of the Basileus," wrote the Monk, +"Is golden-haired - tender the Queen's arms fold her. +Her step-mother Zoe doth love her so -" +"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. + +The Kings and Martyrs and Saints and Priests +All gathered to guard the text: +There was Daniel snug in the lions' den +Singing no whit perplexed - +Brazen Samson with spear and helm - +"The Queen," wrote the Monk, "rules firm this realm, +For the King gets older and older. +The Norseman Thorkill is brave and fair -" +"Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. + +Walter Thornbury [1828-1876] + + +MISS LOU + +When thin-strewn memory I look through, +I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, +Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, +Her nose, her hair - her muffled words, +And how she would open her green eyes, +As if in some immense surprise, +Whenever as we sat at tea, +She made some small remark to me. + +'Tis always drowsy summer when +From out the past she comes again; +The westering sunshine in a pool +Floats in her parlor still and cool; +While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, +As into piercing song it breaks; +Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar +Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar; +And I am sitting, dull and shy, +And she with gaze of vacancy, + +And large hands folded on the tray, +Musing the afternoon away; +Her satin bosom heaving slow +With sighs that softly ebb and flow, +And her plain face in such dismay, +It seems unkind to look her way; +Until all cheerful back will come +Her gentle gleaming spirit home: +And one would think that poor Miss Loo +Asked nothing else, if she had you. + +Walter De la Mare [1873- + + +THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE + +A portly Wood-louse, full of cares, +Transacted eminent affairs +Along a parapet where pears +Unripened fell +And vines embellished the sweet airs +With muscatel. + +Day after day beheld him run +His scales a-twinkle in the sun +About his business never done; +Night's slender span he +Spent in the home his wealth had won - +A red-brick cranny. + +Thus, as his Sense of Right directed, +He lived both honored and respected, +Cherished his children and protected +His duteous wife, +And naught of diffidence deflected +His useful life. + +One mid-day, hastening to his Club, +He spied beside a water-tub +The owner of each plant and shrub +A humble Bard - +Who turned upon the conscious grub +A mild regard. + +"Eh?" quoth the Wood-louse, "Can it be +A Higher Power looks down to see +My praiseworthy activity +And notes me plying +My Daily Task? - Nor strange, dear me, +But gratifying!" + +To whom the Bard: I still divest +My orchard of the Insect Pest, +That you are such is manifest, +Prepare to die. - +And yet, how sweetly does your crest +Reflect the sky! + +"Go then forgiven, (for what ails +Your naughty life this fact avails +Tu pardon) mirror in your scales +Celestial blue, +Till the sun sets and the light fails +The skies and you." + +. . . . . . . + +May all we proud and bustling parties +Whose lot in forum, street and mart is +Stand in conspectu Deitatis +And save our face, +Reflecting where our scaly heart is +Some skyey grace. + +Helen Parry Eden [18 + + +STUDENTS + +John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau - +'Twas Toussaint, just a year ago; +Crimson and copper was the glow +Of all the woods at Fontainebleau. +They peered into that ancient well, +And watched the slow torch as it fell. +John gave the keeper two whole sous, +And Jeanne that smile with which she woos +John Brown to folly. So they lose +The Paris train. But never mind! - +All-Saints are rustling in the wind, +And there's an inn, a crackling fire - +It's deux-cinquante, but Jeanne's desire); +There's dinner, candles, country wine, +Jeanne's lips - philosophy divine! +There was a bosquet at Saint Cloud +Wherein John's picture of her grew +To be a Salon masterpiece - +Till the rain fell that would not cease. +Through one long alley how they raced! - +'Twas gold and brown, and all a waste +Of matted leaves, moss-interlaced. +Shades of mad queens and hunter-kings +And thorn-sharp feet of dryad-things +Were company to their wanderings; +Then rain and darkness on them drew. +The rich folks' motors honked and flew. +They hailed an old cab, heaven for two; +The bright Champs-Elysees at last - +Though the cab crawled it sped too fast. + +Paris, upspringing white and gold: +Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled +War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic - +Fierce chargers, angels histrionic; +The royal sweep of gardened spaces, +The pomp and whirl of columned Places; +The Rive Gauche, age-old, gay and gray; +The impasse and the loved cafe; +The tempting tidy little shops; +The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops; +Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays; +Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways. + +May - Robinson's, the chestnut trees - +Were ever crowds as gay as these? +The quick pale waiters on a run, +The round green tables, one by one, +Hidden away in amorous bowers - +Lilac, laburnum's golden showers. +Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard, +And nightingales quite undeterred. +And then that last extravagance - +O Jeanne, a single amber glance +Will pay him! - "Let's play millionaire +For just two hours - on princely fare, +At some hotel where lovers dine +A deux and pledge across the wine." +They find a damask breakfast-room, +Where stiff silk roses range their bloom. +The garcon has a splendid way +Of bearing in grand dejeuner. +Then to be left alone, alone, +High up above Rue Castiglione; +Curtained away from all the rude +Rumors, in silken solitude; +And, John, her head upon your knees - +Time waits for moments such as these. + +Florence Wilkinson [18 + + +"ONE, TWO, THREE!" + +It was an old, old, old, old lady, +And a boy that was half-past three; +And the way that they played together +Was beautiful to see. + +She couldn't go running and jumping, +And the boy, no more could he; +For he was a thin little fellow, +With a thin little twisted knee. + +They sat in the yellow sunlight, +Out under the maple tree; +And the game that they played I'll tell you, +Just as it was told to me. + +It was Hide-and-Go-Seek they were playing, +Though you'd never have known it to be - +With an old, old, old, old lady, +And a boy with a twisted knee. + +The boy would bend his face down +On his one little sound right knee, +And he'd guess where she was hiding, +In guesses One, Two, Three! + +"You are in the china-closet!" +He would cry, and laugh with glee - +It wasn't the china closet, +But he still had Two and Three. + +"You are up in papa's big bedroom, +In the chest with the queer old key!" +And she said: "You are warm and warmer; +But you're not quite right," said she. + +"It can't be the little cupboard +Where mamma's things used to be - +So it must be the clothes-press, Gran'ma!" +And he found her with his Three. + +Then she covered her face with her fingers, +That were wrinkled and white and wee, +And she guessed where the boy was hiding, +With a One and a Two and a Three. + +And they never had stirred from their places, +Right under the maple tree - +This old, old, old, old lady +And the boy with the lame little knee - +This dear, dear, dear old lady, +And the boy who was half-past three. + +Henry Cuyler Bunner [1855-1896] + + +THE CHAPERON + +I take my chaperon to the play - +She thinks she's taking me. +And the gilded youth who owns the box, +A proud young man is he; +But how would his young heart be hurt +If he could only know +That not for his sweet sake I go +Nor yet to see the trifling show; +But to see my chaperon flirt. + +Her eyes beneath her snowy hair +They sparkle young as mine; +There's scarce a wrinkle in her hand +So delicate and fine. +And when my chaperon is seen, +They come from everywhere - +The dear old boys with silvery hair, +With old-time grace and old-time air, +To greet their old-time queen. + +They bow as my young Midas here +Will never learn to bow +(The dancing-masters do not teach +That gracious reverence now); +With voices quavering just a bit, +They play their old parts through, +They talk of folk who used to woo, +Of hearts that broke in 'fifty-two - +Now none the worse for it. + +And as those aged crickets chirp, +I watch my chaperon's face, +And see the dear old features take +A new and tender grace; +And in her happy eyes I see +Her youth awakening bright, +With all its hope, desire, delight - +Ah, me! I wish that I were quite +As young - as young as she! + +Henry Cuyler Bunner [1855-1896] + + +"A PITCHER OF MIGNONETTE" + +A pitcher of mignonette +In a tenement's highest casement, - +Queer sort of flower-pot - yet +That pitcher of mignonette +Is a garden in heaven set, +To the little sick child in the basement - +The pitcher of mignonette, +In the tenement's highest casement. + +Henry Cuyler Bunner [1855-1896] + + +OLD KING COLE + +In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole +A wise old age anticipate, +Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, +No Khan's extravagant estate. +No crown annoyed his honest head, +No fiddlers three were called or needed; +For two disastrous heirs instead +Made music more that ever three did. + +Bereft of her with whom his life +Was harmony without a flaw, +He took no other for a wife, +Nor sighed for any that he saw; +And if he doubted his two sons, +And heirs, Alexis and Evander, +He might have been as doubtful once +Of Robert Burns and Alexander. + +Alexis, in his early youth, +Began to steal - from old and young. +Likewise Evander, and the truth +Was like a bad taste on his tongue. +Born thieves and liars, their affair +Seemed only to be tarred with evil - +The most insufferable pair +Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. + +The world went on, their fame went on, +And they went on - from bad to worse; +Till, goaded hot with nothing done, +And each accoutered with a curse, +The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, +And fours, and sevens, and elevens, +Pronounced unalterable views +Of doings that were not of Heaven's. + +And having learned again whereby +Their baleful zeal had come about, +King Cole met many a wrathful eye +So kindly that its wrath went out - +Or partly out. Say what they would, +He seemed the more to court their candor, +But never told what kind of good +Was in Alexis and Evander. + +And Old King Cole, with many a puff +That haloed his urbanity, +Would smoke till he had smoked enough, +And listen most attentively. +He beamed as with an inward light +That had the Lord's assurance in it; +And once a man was there all night, +Expecting something every minute. + +But whether from too little thought, +Or too much fealty to the bowl, +A dim reward was all he got +For sitting up with Old King Cole. +"Though mine," the father mused aloud, +"Are not the sons I would have chosen, +Shall I, less evilly endowed, +By their infirmity be frozen? + +"They'll have a bad end, I'll agree, +But I was never born to groan; +For I can see what I can see, +And I'm accordingly alone. +With open heart and open door, +I love my friends, I like my neighbors; +But if I try to tell you more, +Your doubts will overmatch my labors. + +"This pipe would never make me calm, +This bowl my grief would never drown. +For grief like mine there is no balm +In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. +And if I see what I can see, +I know not any way to blind it; +Nor more if any way may be +For you to grope or fly to find it. + +"There may be room for ruin yet, +And ashes for a wasted love; +Or, like One whom you may forget, +I may have meat you know not of. +And if I'd rather live than weep +Meanwhile, do you find that surprising? +Why, bless my soul, the man's asleep! +That's good. The sun will soon be rising." + +Edwin Arlington Robinson [1869-1935] + + +THE MASTER MARINER + +My grandshire sailed three years from home, +And slew unmoved the sounding whale: +Here on the windless beach I roam +And watch far out the hardy sail. + +The lions of the surf that cry +Upon this lion-colored shore +On reefs of midnight met his eye: +He knew their fangs as I their roar. + +My grandsire sailed uncharted seas, +And toll of all their leagues he took: +I scan the shallow bays at ease, +And tell their colors in a book. + +The anchor-chains his music made +And wind in shrouds and running-gear: +The thrush at dawn beguiles my glade, +And once, 'tis said, I woke to hear. + +My grandsire in his ample fist +The long harpoon upheld to men: +Behold obedient to my wrist +A gray gull's-feather for my pen! + +Upon my grandsire's leathern cheek +Five zones their bitter bronze had set: +Some day their hazards I will seek, +I promise me at times. Not yet. + +I think my grandsire now would turn +A mild but speculative eye +On me, my pen and its concern, +Then gaze again to sea - and sigh. + +George Sterling [1869-1926] + + +A ROSE TO THE LIVING + +A rose to the living is more +Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead: +In filling love's infinite store, +A rose to the living is more, - +If graciously given before +The hungering spirit is fled, - +A rose to the living is more +Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead. + +Nixon Waterman [1859- + + +A KISS + +Rose kissed me to-day. +Will she kiss me to-morrow? +Let it be as it may, +Rose kissed me to-day +But the pleasure gives way +To a savor of sorrow; - +Rose kissed me to-day, - +Will she kiss me to-morrow? + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +BIFTEK AUX CHAMPIGNONS + +Mimi, do you remember - +Don't get behind your fan - +That morning in September +On the cliffs of Grand Manan, +Where to the shock of Fundy +The topmost harebells sway +(Campanula rotundi- +folia: cf. Gray)? + +On the pastures high and level, +That overlook the sea, +Where I wondered what the devil +Those little things could be +That Mimi stooped to gather, +As she strolled across the down, +And held her dress skirt rather - +Oh, now, you need n't frown. + +For you know the dew was heavy, +And your boots, I know, were thin; +So a little extra brevi- +ty in skirts was, sure, no sin. +Besides, who minds a cousin? +First, second, even third, - +I've kissed 'em by the dozen, +And they never once demurred. + +"If one's allowed to ask it," +Quoth I, " ma belle cousine, +What have you in your basket?" +(Those baskets white and green +The brave Passamaquoddies +Weave out of scented grass, +And sell to tourist bodies +Who through Mt. Desert pass.) + +You answered, slightly frowning, +"Put down your stupid book - +That everlasting Browning! - +And come and help me look. +Mushroom you spik him English, +I call him champignon: +I'll teach you to distinguish +The right kind from the wrong." + +There was no fog on Fundy +That blue September day; +The west wind, for that one day, +Had swept it all away. +The lighthouse glasses twinkled, +The white gulls screamed and flew, +The merry sheep-bells tinkled, +The merry breezes blew. + +The bayberry aromatic, +The papery immortelle, +(That give our grandma's attic +That sentimental smell, +Tied up in little brush-brooms) +Were sweet as new-mown hay, +While we went hunting mushrooms +That blue September day. + +Henry Augustin Beers [1847-1926] + + +EVOLUTION + +When you were a Tadpole and I was a Fish, +In the Paleozoic time, +And side by side on the ebbing tide, +We sprawled through the ooze and slime, +Or skittered with many a caudal flip +Through the depths of the Cambrian fen - +My heart was rife with the joy of life, +For I loved you even then. + +Mindless we lived, mindless we loved, +And mindless at last we died; +And deep in the rift of a Caradoc drift +We slumbered side by side. +The world turned on in the lathe of time, +The hot sands heaved amain, +Till we caught our breath from the womb of death, +And crept into life again. + +We were Amphibians, scaled and tailed, +And drab as a dead man's hand. +We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees +Or trailed through the mud and sand, +Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet, +Writing a language dumb, +With never a spark in the empty dark +To hint at a life to come. + +Yet happy we lived, and happy we loved, +And happy we died once more. +Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold +Of a Neocomian shore. +The aeons came and the aeons fled, +And the sleep that wrapped us fast +Was riven away in a newer day, +And the night of death was past. + +Then light and swift through the jungle trees +We swung in our airy flights, +Or breathed the balms of the fronded palms +In the hush of the moonless nights. +And oh, what beautiful years were these +When our hearts clung each to each; +When life was filled and our senses thrilled +In the first faint dawn of speech! + +Thus life by life, and love by love, +We passed through the cycles strange, +And breath by breath, and death by death, +We followed the chain of change. +Till there came a time in the law of life +When over the nursing sod +The shadows broke, and the soul awoke +In a strange, dim dream of God. + +I was thewed like an Aurocks bull +And tusked like the great Cave-Bear, +And you, my sweet, from head to feet, +Were gowned in your glorious hair. +Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave, +When the night fell o'er the plain, +And the moon hung red o'er the river bed, +We mumbled the bones of the slain. + +I flaked a flint to a cutting edge, +And shaped it with brutish craft; +I broke a shank from the woodland dank, +And fitted it, head to haft. +Then I hid me close in the reedy tarn, +Where the Mammoth came to drink - +Through brawn and bone I drave the stone, +And slew him upon the brink. + +Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes, +Loud answered our kith and kin; +From west and east to the crimson feast +The clan came trooping in. +O'er joint and gristle and padded hoof, +We fought and clawed and tore, +And cheek by jowl, with many a growl, +We talked the marvel o'er. + +I carved that fight on a reindeer bone +With rude and hairy hand; +I pictured his fall on the cavern wall +That men might understand. +For we lived by blood and the right of might, +Ere human laws were drawn, +And the Age of Sin did not begin +Till our brutal tusks were gone. + +And that was a million years ago, +In a time that no man knows; +Yet here to-night in the mellow light, +We sit at Delmonico's. +Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs, +Your hair is as dark as jet, +Your years are few, your life is new, +Your soul untried, and yet - + +Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay, +And the scarp of the Purbeck flags; +We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones, +And deep in the Coralline crags. +Our love is old, and our lives are old, +And death shall come amain. +Should it come to-day, what man may say +We shall not live again? + +God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds +And furnished them wings to fly; +He sowed our spawn in the world's dim dawn, +And I know that it shall not die; +Though cities have sprung above the graves +Where the crook-boned men made war, +And the ox-wain creaks o'er the buried caves +Where the mummied mammoths are. + +Then, as we linger at luncheon here, +O'er many a dainty dish, +Let us drink anew to the time when you +Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish. + +Langdon Smith [1858-1908] + + +A REASONABLE AFFLICTION + +On his death-bed poor Lubin lies: +His spouse is in despair; +With frequent cries, and mutual sighs, +They both express their care. + +"A different cause," says Parson Sly, +"The same effect may give: +Poor Lubin fears that he may die; +His wife, that he may live." + +Matthew Prior [1664-1721] + + +A MORAL IN SEVRES + +Upon my mantel-piece they stand, +While all its length between them lies; +He throws a kiss with graceful hand, +She glances back with bashful eyes. + +The china Shepherdess is fair, +The Shepherd's face denotes a heart +Burning with ardor and despair. +Alas, they stand so far apart! + +And yet, perhaps, if they were moved, +And stood together day by day, +Their love had not so constant proved, +Nor would they still have smiled so gay. + +His hand the Shepherd might have kissed +The match-box Angel's heart to win; +The Shepherdess, his love have missed, +And flirted with the Mandarin. + +But on my mantel-piece they stand, +While all its length between them lies; +He throws a kiss with graceful hand, +She glances back with bashful eyes. + +Mildred Howells [1872- + + +ON THE FLY-LEAF OF A BOOK OF OLD PLAYS + +At Cato's Head in Russell Street +These leaves she sat a-stitching; +I fancy she was trim and neat, +Blue-eyed and quite bewitching. + +Before her on the street below, +All powder, ruffs, and laces, +There strutted idle London beaux +To ogle pretty faces; + +While, filling many a Sedan chair +With monstrous hoop and feather, +In paint and powder London's fair +Went trooping past together. + +Swift, Addison, and Pope, mayhap +They sauntered slowly past her, +Or printer's boy, with gown and cap, +For Steele, went trotting faster. + +For beau nor wit had she a look; +Nor lord nor lady minding, +She bent her head above this book, +Attentive to her binding. + +And one stray thread of golden hair, +Caught on her nimble fingers, +Was stitched within this volume, where +Until to-day it lingers. + +Past and forgotten, beaux and fair, +Wigs, powder, all outdated; +A queer antique, the Sedan chair, +Pope, stiff and antiquated. + +Yet as I turn these odd, old plays, +This single stray lock finding, +I'm back in those forgotten days, +And watch her at her binding. + +Walter Learned [1847-1915] + + +THE TALENTED MAN +Letter From A Lady In London To A Lady At Lausanne + +Dear Alice! you'll laugh when you know it, - +Last week, at the Duchess's ball, +I danced with the clever new poet, - +You've heard of him, - Tully St. Paul. +Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic; +I wish you had seen Lady Anne! +It really was very romantic, +He is such a talented man! + +He came up from Brazen Nose College, +Just caught, as they call it, this spring; +And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge +Of every conceivable thing. +Of science and logic he chatters, +As fine and as fast as he can; +Though I am no judge of such matters, +I'm sure he's a talented man. + +His stories and jests are delightful; - +Not stories or jests, dear, for you; +The jests are exceedingly spiteful, +The stories not always quite true. +Perhaps to be kind and veracious +May do pretty well at Lausanne; +But it never would answer, - good gracious! +Chez nous - in a talented man. + +He sneers, - how my Alice would scold him! - +At the bliss of a sigh or a tear; +He laughed - only think! - when I told him +How we cried o'er Trevelyan last year; +I vow I was quite in a passion; +I broke all the sticks of my fan; +But sentiment's quite out of fashion, +It seems, in a talented man. + +Lady Bab, who is terribly moral, +Has told me that Tully is vain, +And apt - which is silly - to quarrel, +And fond - which is sad - of champagne. +I listened, and doubted, dear Alice, +For I saw, when my Lady began, +It was only the Dowager's malice; - +She does hate a talented man! + +He's hideous, I own it. But fame, love, +Is all that these eyes can adore; +He's lame, - but Lord Byron was lame, love, +And dumpy, - but so is Tom Moore. +Then his voice, - such a voice! my sweet creature, +It's like your Aunt Lucy's toucan: +But oh! what's a tone or a feature, +When once one's a talented man? + +My mother, you know, all the season, +Has talked of Sir Geoffrey's estate; +And truly, to do the fool reason, +He has been less horrid of late. +But to-day, when we drive in the carriage, +I'll tell her to lay down her plan; - +If ever I venture on marriage, +It must be a talented man! + +P.S. - I have found, on reflection, +One fault in my friend, - entre nous; +Without it, he'd just be perfection; - +Poor fellow, he has not a sou! +And so, when he comes in September +To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan, +I've promised mamma to remember +He's only a talented man! + +Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839] + + +A LETTER OF ADVICE +From Miss Medora Trevilian, At Padua, +To Miss Araminta Vavasour, In London + +"Enfin, Monsieur, homme aimable; +Voila pourquoi je ne saurais l'aimer." - Scribe + +You tell me you're promised a lover, +My own Araminta, next week; +Why cannot my fancy discover +The hue of his coat, and his cheek? +Alas! if he look like another, +A vicar, a banker, a beau, +Be deaf to your father and mother, +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +Miss Lane, at her Temple of Fashion, +Taught us both how to sing and to speak, +And we loved one another with passion, +Before we had been there a week: +You gave me a ring for a token; +I wear it wherever I go; +I gave you a chain, - it is broken? +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +O think of our favorite cottage, +And think of our dear Lalla Rookh! +How we shared with the milkmaids their pottage, +And drank of the stream from the brook; +How fondly our loving lips faltered, +"What further can grandeur bestow?" +My heart is the same; - is yours altered? +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +Remember the thrilling romances +We read on the bank in the glen; +Remember the suitors our fancies +Would picture for both of us then; +They wore the red cross on their shoulder, +They had vanquished and pardoned their foe - +Sweet friend, are you wiser or colder? +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +You know, when Lord Rigmarole's carriage, +Drove off with your cousin Justine, +You wept, dearest girl, at the marriage, +And whispered "How base she has been!" +You said you were sure it would kill you, +If ever your husband looked so; +And you will not apostatize, - will you? +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +When I heard I was going abroad, love, +I thought I was going to die; +We walked arm in arm to the road, love, +We looked arm in arm to the sky; +And I said, "When a foreign postilion +Has hurried me off to the Po, +Forget not Medora Trevilian: - +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +We parted! but sympathy's fetters +Reach far over valley and hill; +I muse o'er your exquisite letters, +And feel that your heart is mine still; +And he who would share it with me, love, - +The richest of treasures below, - +If he's not what Orlando should be, love, +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +If he wears a top-boot in his wooing, +If he comes to you riding a cob, +If he talks of his baking or brewing, +If he puts up his feet on the hob, +If he ever drinks port after dinner, +If his brow or his breeding is low, +If he calls himself "Thompson" or "Skinner," +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +If he studies the news in the papers +While you are preparing the tea, +If he talks of the damps or the vapors +While moonlight lies soft on the sea, +If he's sleepy while you are capricious, +If he has not a musical "Oh!" +If he does not call Werther delicious, - +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +If he ever Sets foot in the city +Among the stockbrokers and Jews, +If he has not a heart full of pity, +If he don't stand six feet in his shoes, +If his lips are not redder than roses, +If his hands are not whiter than snow, +If he has not the model of noses, - +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +If he speaks of a tax or a duty, +If he does not look grand on his knees, +If he's blind to a landscape of beauty, +Hills, valleys, rocks, waters, and trees, +If he dotes not on desolate towers, +If he likes not to hear the blast blow, +If he knows not the language of flowers, - +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +He must walk like a god of old story +Come down from the home of his rest; +He must smile like the sun in his glory +On the buds he loves ever the best; +And oh! from its ivory portal +Like music his soft speech must flow! - +If he speak, smile, or walk like a mortal, +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +Don't listen to tales of his bounty, +Don't hear what they say of his birth, +Don't look at his seat in the county, +Don't calculate what he is worth; +But give him a theme to write verse on, +And see if he turns out his toe; - +If he's only an excellent person, +My own Araminta, say "No!" + +Winthrop Mackworth Praed [1802-1839] + + +A NICE CORRESPONDENT + +"There are plenty of roses" (the patriarch speaks) +"Alas not for me, on your lips and your cheeks; +Fair maiden rose-laden enough and to spare, +Spare, spare me that rose that you wear in your hair." + +The glow and the glory are plighted +To darkness, for evening is come; +The lamp in Glebe Cottage is lighted, +The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb. +I'm alone, for the others have flitted +To dine with a neighbor at Kew: +Alone, but I'm not to be pitied - +I'm thinking of you! + +I wish you were here! Were I duller +Than dull, you'd be dearer than dear; +I am dressed in your favorite color - +Dear Fred, how I wish you were here! +I am wearing my lazuli necklace, +The necklace you fastened askew! +Was there ever so rude or so reckless +A Darling as you? + +I want you to come and pass sentence +On two or three books with a plot; +Of course you know "Janet's Repentance"? +I am reading Sir Waverley Scott. +That story of Edgar and Lucy, +How thrilling, romantic, and true! +The Master (his bride was a goosey!) +Reminds me of you. + +They tell me Cockaigne has been crowning +A Poet whose garland endures; - +It was you that first told me of Browning, - +That stupid old Browning of yours! +His vogue and his verve are alarming, +I'm anxious to give him his due; +But, Fred, he's not nearly so charming +A Poet as you! + +I heard how you shot at The Beeches, +I saw how you rode Chanticleer, +I have read the report of your speeches, +And echoed the echoing cheer. +There's a whisper of hearts you are breaking, +Dear Fred, I believe it, I do! +Small marvel that Folly is making +Her Idol of you! + +Alas for the World, and its dearly +Bought triumph, - its fugitive bliss; +Sometimes I half wish I were merely +A plain or a penniless Miss; +But, perhaps, one is blest with "a measure +Of pelf," and I'm not sorry, too, +That I'm pretty, because it's a pleasure, +My Darling, to you! + +Your whim is for frolic and fashion, +Your taste is for letters and art; - +This rhyme is the commonplace passion +That glows in a fond woman's heart: +Lay it by in some sacred deposit +For relics - we all have a few! +Love, some day they'll print it, because it +Was written to You. + +Frederick Locker-Lampson [1821-1895] + + +HER LETTER + +I'm sitting alone by the fire, +Dressed just as I came from the dance, +In a robe even you would admire, - +It cost a cool thousand in France; +I'm be-diamonded out of all reason, +My hair is done up in a cue: +In short, sir, "the belle of the season" +Is wasting an hour upon you. + +A dozen engagements I've broken; +I left in the midst of a set; +Likewise a proposal, half spoken, +That waits - on the stairs - for me yet. +They say he'll be rich, - when he grows up, - +And then he adores me indeed; +And you, sir, are turning your nose up, +Three thousand miles off, as you read. + +"And how do I like my position?" +"And what do I think of New York?" +"And now, in my higher ambition, +With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?" +"And isn't it nice to have riches, +And diamonds and silks, and all that?" +"And aren't they a change to the ditches +And tunnels of Poverty Flat?" + +Well, yes, - if you saw us out driving +Each day in the Park, four-in-hand, +If you saw poor dear mamma contriving +To look supernaturally grand, - +If you saw papa's picture, as taken +By Brady, and tinted at that, - +You'd never suspect he sold bacon +And flour at Poverty Flat. + +And yet, just this moment, when sitting +In the glare of the grand chandelier, - +In the bustle and glitter befitting +The "finest soiree of the year," - +In the mists of a gaze de Chambery, +And the hum of the smallest of talk, - +Somehow, Joe, I thought of the "Ferry," +And the dance that we had on "The Fork;" + +Of Harrison's bar, with its muster +Of flags festooned over the wall; +Of the candles that shed their soft lustre +And tallow on head-dress and shawl; +Of the steps that we took to one fiddle, +Of the dress of my queer vis-a-vis; +And how I once went down the middle +With the man that shot Sandy McGee. + +Of the moon that was quietly sleeping +On the hill, when the time came to go; +Of the few baby peaks that were peeping +From under their bedclothes of snow; +Of that ride, - that to me was the rarest, +Of - the something you said at the gate. +Ah! Joe, then I wasn't an heiress +To "the best-paying lead in the State." + +Well, well, it's all past; yet it's funny +To think, as I stood in the glare +Of fashion and beauty and money, +That I should be thinking, right there, +Of some one who breasted high water, +And swam the North Fork, and all that, +Just to dance with old Folinsbee's daughter, +The Lily of Poverty Flat. + +But goodness! what nonsense I'm writing! +(Mamma says my taste still is low), +Instead of my triumphs reciting, - +I'm spooning on Joseph, - heigh-ho! +And I'm to be "finished" by travel, - +Whatever's the meaning of that. +Oh, why did papa strike pay gravel +In drifting on Poverty Flat? + +Good-night! - here's the end of my paper; +Good-night! - if the longitude please, - +For maybe, while wasting my taper, +Your sun's climbing over the trees. +But know, if you haven't got riches, +And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, +That my heart's somewhere there in the ditches, +And you've struck it, - on Poverty Flat + +Bret Harte [1830-1902] + + +A DEAD LETTER +A coeur blesse - l'ombre et le silence. - Balzac + +I +I drew it from its china tomb; - +It came out feebly scented +With some thin ghost of past perfume +That dust and days had lent it. + +An old, old letter, - folded still! +To read with due composure, +I sought the sun-lit window-sill, +Above the gray enclosure, + +That, glimmering in the sultry haze, +Faint-flowered, dimly shaded, +Slumbered like Goldsmith's Madam Blaize, +Bedizened and brocaded. + +A queer old place! You'd surely say +Some tea-board garden-maker +Had planned it in Dutch William's day +To please some florist Quaker, + +So trim it was. The yew-trees still, +With pious care perverted, +Grew in the same grim shapes; and still +The lipless dolphin spurted; + +Still in his wonted state abode +The broken-nosed Apollo; +And still the cypress-arbor showed +The same umbrageous hollow. + +Only, - as fresh young Beauty gleams +From coffee-colored laces, +So peeped from its old-fashioned dreams +The fresher modern traces; + +For idle mallet, hoop, and ball +Upon the lawn were lying; +A magazine, a tumbled shawl, +Round which the swifts were flying; + +And, tossed beside the Guelder rose, +A heap of rainbow knitting, +Where, blinking in her pleased repose, +A Persian cat was sitting. + +"A place to love in, - live, - for aye, +If we too, like Tithonus, +Could find some God to stretch the gray +Scant life the Fates have thrown us; + +"But now by steam we run our race, +With buttoned heart and pocket, +Our Love's a gilded, surplus grace, - +Just like an empty locket! + +"'The time is out of joint.' Who will, +May strive to make it better; +For me, this warm old window-sill, +And this old dusty letter." + +II +"Dear John (the letter ran), it can't, can't be, +For Father's gone to Chorley Fair with Sam, +And Mother's storing Apples, - Prue and Me +Up to our Elbows making Damson Jam: +But we shall meet before a Week is gone, - +''Tis a long Lane that has no Turning,' John! + +"Only till Sunday next, and then you'll wait +Behind the White-Thorn, by the broken Stile - +We can go round and catch them at the Gate, +All to Ourselves, for nearly one long Mile; +Dear Prue won't look, and Father he'll go on, +And Sam's two Eyes are all for Cissy, John! + +"John, she's so smart, - with every Ribbon new, +Flame-colored Sack, and Crimson Padesoy: +As proud as proud; and has the Vapors too, +Just like My Lady; - calls poor Sam a Boy, +And vows no Sweet-heart's worth the Thinking-on +Till he's past Thirty . . . I know better, John! + +"My Dear, I don't think that I thought of much +Before we knew each other, I and you; +And now, why, John, your least, least Finger-touch, +Gives me enough to think a Summer through. +See, for I send you Something! There, 'tis gone! +Look in this corner, - mind you find it, John! + +III +This was the matter of the note, - +A long-forgot deposit, +Dropped in an Indian dragon's throat +Deep in a fragrant closet, + +Piled with a dapper Dresden world, - +Beaux, beauties, prayers, and poses, - +Bonzes with squat legs undercurled, +And great jars filled with roses. + +Ah, heart that wrote! Ah, lips that kissed! +You had no thought or presage +Into what keeping you dismissed +Your simple old-world message! + +A reverent one. Though we to-day +Distrust beliefs and powers, +The artless, ageless things you say +Are fresh as May's own flowers. . . . + +I need not search too much to find +Whose lot it was to send it, +That feel upon me yet the kind, +Soft hand of her who penned it; + +And see, through two-score years of smoke, +In by-gone, quaint apparel, +Shine from yon time-black Norway oak +The face of Patience Caryl, - + +The pale, smooth forehead, silver-tressed; +The gray gown, primly flowered; +The spotless, stately coif whose crest +Like Hector's horse-plume towered; + +And still the sweet half-solemn look +Where some past thought was clinging, +As when one shuts a serious book +To hear the thrushes singing. + +I kneel to you! Of those you were, +Whose kind old hearts grow mellow, - +Whose fair old faces grow more fair, +As Point and Flanders yellow; + +Whom some old store of garnered grief, +Their placid temples shading, +Crowns like a wreath of autumn leaf +With tender tints of fading. + +Peace to your soul! You died unwed - +Despite this loving letter. +And what of John? The less that's said +Of John, I think, the better. + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOR THE DEATH OF HER FAWN + +The wanton troopers riding by +Have shot my fawn, and it will die. +Ungentle men! They cannot thrive +Who killed thee. Thou ne'er didst, alive, +Them any harm; alas! nor could +Thy death to them do any good. +I'm sure I never wished them ill, +Nor do I for all this; nor will: +But, if my simple prayers may yet +Prevail with Heaven to forget +Thy murder, I will join my tears +Rather than fail. But O my fears! +It cannot die so. Heaven's King +Keeps register of everything, +And nothing may we use in vain; +Even beasts must be with justice slain; +Else men are made their deodands. +Though they should wash their guilty hands +In this warm life-blood, which doth part +From thine, and wound me to the heart, +Yet could they not be clean; their stain +Is dyed in such a purple grain, +There is not such another in +The world to offer for their sin. + +Inconstant Sylvio, when yet +I had not found him counterfeit, +One morning, I remember well, +Tied in this silver chain and bell, +Gave it to me: nay, and I know +What he said then - I'm sure I do. +Said he, "Look how your huntsman here +Hath taught a fawn to hunt his deer!" +But Sylvio soon had me beguiled: +This waxed tame, while he grew wild, +And, quite regardless of my smart, +Left me his fawn, but took his heart. + +Thenceforth I set myself to play +My solitary time away +With this; and very well content +Could so mine idle life have spent; +For it was full of sport, and light +Of foot and heart, and did invite +Me to its game: it seemed to bless +Itself in me. How could I less +Than love it? Oh, I cannot be +Unkind to a beast that loveth me! + +Had it lived long, I do not know +Whether it, too, might have done so +As Sylvio did; his gifts might be +Perhaps as false, or more, than he. +But I am sure, for aught that I +Could in so short a time espy, +Thy love was far more better than +The love of false and cruel man. + +With sweetest milk and sugar first +I it at mine own fingers nursed; +And as it grew, so every day, +It waxed more white and sweet than they. +It had so sweet a breath! and oft +I blushed to see its foot more soft, +And white, shall I say? than my hand - +Nay, any lady's of the land! + +It was a wondrous thing how fleet +'Twas on those little silver feet. +With what a pretty skipping grace +It oft would challenge me the race; +And when't had left me far away, +'Twould stay, and run again, and stay; +For it was nimbler much than hinds, +And trod as if on the four winds. + +I have a garden of my own, +But so with roses overgrown, +And lilies, that you would it guess +To be a little wilderness; +And all the spring-time of the year +It loved only to be there. +Among the beds of lilies I +Have sought it oft, where it should lie, +Yet could not, till itself would rise, +Find it, although before mine eyes; +For in the flaxen lilies' shade, +It like a bank of lilies laid. +Upon the roses it would feed, +Until its lips e'en seemed to bleed; +And then to me 'twould boldly trip, +And print those roses on my lip. +But all its chief delight was still +On roses thus itself to fill; +And its pure virgin lips to fold +In whitest sheets of lilies cold. +Had it lived long, it would have been +Lilies without, roses within. + +O help! O help! I see it faint +And die as calmly as a saint! +See how it weeps! the tears do come +Sad, slowly, dropping like a gum. +So weeps the wounded balsam; so +The holy frankincense doth flow; +The brotherless Heliades +Melt in such amber tears as these. + +I in a golden vial will +Keep these two crystal tears, and fill +It, till it doth overflow, with mine, +Then place it in Diana's shrine. + +Now my sweet fawn is vanished to +Whither the swans and turtles go; +In fair Elysium to endure +With milk-white lambs and ermines pure. +O, do not run too fast, for I +Will but bespeak thy grave, and die. + +First my unhappy statue shall +Be cut in marble; and withal +Let it be weeping too; but there +The engraver sure his art may spare; +For I so truly thee bemoan +That I shall weep though I be stone, +Until my tears, still dropping, wear +My breast, themselves engraving there; +Then at my feet shalt thou be laid, +Of purest alabaster made; +For I would have thine image be +White as I can, though not as thee. + +Andrew Marvell [1621-1678] + + +ON THE DEATH OF A FAVORITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLD FISHES + +'Twas on a lofty vase's side, +Where China's gayest art had dyed +The azure flowers that blow; +Demurest of the tabby kind, +The pensive Selima, reclined, +Gazed on the lake below. + +Her conscious tail her joy declared; +The fair round face, the snowy beard, +The velvet of her paws, +Her coat, that with the tortoise vies, +Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes, +She saw; and purred applause. + +Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide +Two angel forms were seen to glide, +The Genii of the stream: +Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue +Through richest purple to the view +Betrayed a golden gleam. + +The hapless Nymph with wonder saw: +A whisker first and then a claw, +With many an ardent wish, +She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize. +What female heart can gold despise? +What Cat's averse to fish? + +Presumptous Maid! with looks intent +Again she stretched, again she bent, +Nor knew the gulf between. +(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.) +The slippery verge her feet beguiled, +She tumbled headlong in. + +Eight times emerging from the flood +She mewed to every watery god, +Some speedy aid to send. +No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred: +Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard, - +A Favorite has no friend! + +From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived, +Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved, +And be with caution bold. +Not all that tempts your wandering eyes +And heedless hearts, is lawful prize; +Nor all that glisters, gold. + +Thomas Gray [1716-1771] + + +VERSES ON A CAT + +Clubby! thou surely art, I ween, +A Puss of most majestic mien, +So stately all thy paces! +With such a philosophic air +Thou seek'st thy professorial chair, +And so demure thy face is! + +And as thou sit'st, thine eye seems fraught +With such intensity of thought +That could we read it, knowledge +Would seem to breathe in every mew, +And learning yet undreamt by you +Who dwell in Hall or College. + +Oh! when in solemn taciturnity +Thy brain seems wandering through eternity, +What happiness were mine +Could I then catch the thoughts that flow, +Thoughts such as ne'er were hatched below, +But in a head like thine. + +Oh then, throughout the livelong day, +With thee I'd sit and purr away +In ecstasy sublime; +And in thy face, as from a book, +I'd drink in science at each look, +Nor fear the lapse of time. + +Charles Daubeny [1745-1827] + + +EPITAPH ON A HARE + +Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue, +Nor swifter greyhound follow, +Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew, +Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo; + +Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, +Who, nursed with tender care, +And to domestic bounds confined, +Was still a wild Jack-hare. + +Though duly from my hand he took +His pittance every night, +He did it with a jealous look, +And, when he could, would bite. + +His diet was of wheaten bread, +And milk, and oats, and straw; +Thistles, or lettuces instead, +With sand to scour his maw. + +On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, +On pippins' russet peel; +And, when his juicy salads failed, +Sliced carrot pleased him well. + +A Turkey carpet was his lawn, +Whereon he loved to bound, +To skip and gambol like a fawn, +And swing his rump around. + +His frisking was at evening hours, +For then he lost his fear; +But most before approaching showers, +Or when a storm drew near. + +Eight years and five round-rolling moons +He thus saw steal away, +Dozing out all his idle noons, +And every night at play. + +I kept him for his humor's sake, +For he would oft beguile +My heart of thoughts that made it ache, +And force me to a smile. + +But now, beneath this walnut-shade +He finds his long, last home, +And waits, in snug concealment laid, +Till gentler Puss shall come. + +He, still more aged, feels the shocks +From which no care can save, +And, partner once of Tiney's box, +Must soon partake his grave. + +William Cowper [1731-1800] + + +ON THE DEATH OF MRS. THROCKMORTON'S BULLFINCH + +Ye Nymphs! if e'er your eyes were red +With tears o'er hapless favorites shed, +O share Maria's grief! +Her favorite, even in his cage, +(What will not hunger's cruel rage?) +Assassined by a thief. + +Where Rhenus strays his vines among, +The egg was laid from which he sprung, +And though by nature mute, +Or only with a whistle blessed, +Well-taught, he all the sounds expressed +Of flageolet or flute. + +The honors of his ebon poll +Were brighter than the sleekest mole; +His bosom of the hue +With which Aurora decks the skies, +When piping winds shall soon arise +To sweep away the dew. + +Above, below, in all the house, +Dire foe alike of bird and mouse, +No cat had leave to dwell; +And Bully's cage supported stood, +On props of smoothest-shaven wood, +Large-built and latticed well. + +Well-latticed, - but the grate, alas! +Not rough with wire of steel or brass, +For Bully's plumage sake, +But smooth with wands from Ouse's side, +With which, when neatly peeled and dried, +The swains their baskets make. + +Night veiled the pole - all seemed secure - +When, led by instinct sharp and sure, +Subsistence to provide, +A beast forth sallied on the scout, +Long-backed, long-tailed, with whiskered snout, +And badger-colored hide. + +He, entering at the study-door, +Its ample area 'gan explore; +And something in the wind +Conjectured, sniffing round and round, +Better than all the books he found, +Food, chiefly, for the mind. + +Just then, by adverse fate impressed +A dream disturbed poor Bully's rest; +In sleep he seemed to view +A rat, fast-clinging to the cage, +And, screaming at the sad presage, +Awoke and found it true. + +For, aided both by ear and scent, +Right to his mark the monster went - +Ah, Muse! forbear to speak +Minute the horror that ensued; +His teeth were strong, the cage was wood - +He left poor Bully's beak. + +O had he made that too his prey! +That beak, whence issued many a lay +Of such mellifluous tone, +Might have repaid him well, I wote, +For silencing so sweet a throat, +Fast stuck within his own. + +Maria weeps, - the Muses mourn; - +So, when by Bacchanalians torn, +On Thracian Hebrus' side +The tree-enchanter Orpheus fell, +His head alone remained to tell +The cruel death he died. + +William Cowper [1731-1800] + + +AN ELEGY ON A LAP-DOG + +Shock's fate I mourn; poor Shock is now no more: +Ye Muses! mourn; ye Chambermaids! deplore. +Unhappy Shock! Yet more unhappy fair, +Doomed to survive thy joy and only care. +Thy wretched fingers now no more shall deck, +And tie the favorite ribbon round his neck; +No more thy hand shall smooth his glossy hair, +And comb the wavings of his pendent ear. +Let cease thy flowing grief, forsaken maid! +All mortal pleasures in a moment fade: +Our surest hope is in an hour destroyed, +And love, best gift of Heaven, not long enjoyed. +Methinks I see her frantic with despair, +Her streaming eyes, wrung hands, and flowing hair; +Her Mechlin pinners, rent, the floor bestrow, +And her torn fan gives real signs of woe. +Hence, Superstition! that tormenting guest, +That haunts with fancied fears the coward breast; +No dread events upon this fate attend, +Stream eyes no more, no more thy tresses rend. +Though certain omens oft forewarn a state, +And dying lions show the monarch's fate, +Why should such fears bid Celia's sorrow rise? +For, when a lap-dog falls, no lover dies. +Cease, Celia, cease; restrain thy flowing tears. +Some warmer passion will dispel thy cares. +In man you'll find a more substantial bliss, +More grateful toying and a sweeter kiss. +He's dead. Oh! lay him gently in the ground! +And may his tomb be by this verse renowned: +Here Shock, the pride of all his kind, is laid, +Who fawned like man, but ne'er like man betrayed. + +John Gay [1685-1732] + + +MY LAST TERRIER + +I mourn "Patroclus," whilst I praise +Young "Peter" sleek before the fire, +A proper dog, whose decent ways +Renew the virtues of his sire; +"Patroclus" rests in grassy tomb, +And "Peter" grows into his room. + +For though, when Time or Fates consign +The terrier to his latest earth, +Vowing no wastrel of the line +Shall dim the memory of his worth, +I meditate the silkier breeds, +Yet still an Amurath succeeds: + +Succeeds to bind the heart again +To watchful eye and strenuous paw, +To tail that gratulates amain +Or deprecates offended Law; +To bind, and break, when failing eye +And palsied paw must say good-bye. + +Ah, had the dog's appointed day +But tallied with his master's span, +Nor one swift decade turned to gray +The busy muzzle's black and tan, +To reprobate in idle men +Their threescore empty years and ten! + +Sure, somewhere o'er the Stygian strait +"Panurge" and "Bito," "Tramp" and "Mike," +In couchant conclave watch the gate, +Till comes the last successive tyke, +Acknowledged with the countersign: +"Your master was a friend of mine." + +In dreams I see them spring to greet, +With rapture more than tail can tell, +Their master of the silent feet +Who whistles o'er the asphodel, +And through the dim Elysian bounds +Leads all his cry of little hounds. + +John Halsham [18 - + + +GEIST'S GRAVE + +Four years! - and didst thou stay above +The ground, which hides thee now, but four? +And all that life, and all that love, +Were crowded, Geist! into no more? + +Only four years those winning ways, +Which make me for thy presence yearn, +Called us to pet thee or to praise, +Dear little friend! at every turn? + +That loving heart, that patient soul, +Had they indeed no longer span, +To run their course, and reach their goal +And read their homily to man? + +That liquid, melancholy eye, +From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs +Seemed surging the Virgilian cry, +The sense of tears in mortal things - + +That steadfast, mournful strain, consoled +By spirits gloriously gay, +And temper of heroic mould - +What, was four years their whole short day? + +Yes, only four! - and not the course +Of all the centuries yet to come, +And not the infinite resource +Of Nature, with her countless sum + +Of figures, with her fulness vast +Of new creation evermore, +Can ever quite repeat the past, +Or just thy little self restore. + +Stern law of every mortal lot! +Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear, +And builds himself I know not what +Of second life I know not where. + +But thou, when struck thine hour to go, +On us, who stood despondent by, +A meek last glance of love didst throw, +And humbly lay thee down to die. + +Yet would we keep thee in our heart - +Would fix our favorite on the scene, +Nor let thee utterly depart +And be as if thou ne'er hadst been. + +And so there rise these lines of verse +On lips that rarely form them now; +While to each other we rehearse: +Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou! + +We stroke thy broad brown paws again, +We bid thee to thy vacant chair, +We greet thee by the window-pane, +We hear thy scuffle on the stair; + +We see the flaps of thy large ears +Quick raised to ask which way we go; +Crossing the frozen lake, appears +Thy small black figure on the snow! + +Nor to us only art thou dear, +Who mourn thee in thine English home; +Thou hast thine absent master's tear, +Dropped by the far Australian foam. + +Thy memory lasts both here and there, +And thou shalt live as long as we. +And after that - thou dost not care! +In us was all the world to thee. + +Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame, +Even to a date beyond our own, +We strive to carry down thy name +By mounded turf and graven stone. + +We lay thee, close within our reach, +Here, where the grass is smooth and warm, +Between the holly and the beech, +Where oft we watched thy couchant form, + +Asleep, yet lending half an ear +To travelers on the Portsmouth road; - +There choose we thee, O guardian dear, +Marked with a stone, thy last abode! + +Then some, who through this garden pass, +When we too, like thyself, are clay, +Shall see thy grave upon the grass, +And stop before the stone, and say: + +People who lived here long ago +Did by this stone, it seems, intend +To name for future times to know +The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend. + +Matthew Arnold [1822-1888] + + +"HOLD" + +I know, where Hampshire fronts the Wight, +A little church, where "after strife" +Reposes Guy de Blanquely, Knight, +By Alison his wife: +I know their features' graven lines +In time-stained marble monotone, +While crouched before their feet reclines +Their little dog of stone! + +I look where Blanquely Castle still +Frowns o'er the oak wood's summer state, +(The maker of a patent pill +Has purchased it of late), +And then through Fancy's open door +I backward turn to days of old, +And see Sir Guy - a bachelor +Who owns a dog called "Hold"! + +I see him take the tourney's chance, +And urge his coal-black charger on +To an arbitrament by lance +For lovely Alison; +I mark the onset, see him hurl +From broidered saddle to the dirt +His rival, that ignoble Earl - +Black-hearted Massingbert! + +Then Alison, with down-dropped eyes, +Where happy tears bedim the blue, +Bestows a valuable prize +And adds her hand thereto; +My lord, his surcoat streaked with sand, +Remounts, low muttering curses hot, +And with a base-born, hireling band +He plans a dastard plot! + +. . . . . . . + +'Tis night - Sir Guy has sunk to sleep, +The castle keep is hushed and still - +See, up the spiral stairway creep, +To work his wicked will, +Lord Massingbert of odious fame, +Soft followed by his cut-throat staff; +Ah, "Hold" has justified his name +And pinned his lordship's calf! + +A growl, an oath, then torches flare; +Out rings a sentry's startled shout; +The guard are racing for the stair, +Half-dressed, Sir Guy runs out; +On high his glittering blade he waves, +He gives foul Massingbert the point, +He carves the hired assassin knaves +Joint from plebeian joint! + +. . . . . . . + +The Knight is dead - his sword is rust, +But in his day I'm certain "Hold" +Wore, as his master's badge of trust, +A collarette of gold: +And still I like to fancy that, +Somewhere beyond the Styx's bound, +Sir Guy's tall phantom stoops to pat +His little phantom hound! + +Patrick R. Chalmers [18- + + + + + + +THE BARB OF SATIRE + + + + + + +THE VICAR OF BRAY + +In good King Charles's golden days, +When loyalty no harm meant, +A zealous high-churchman was I, +And so I got preferment. +To teach my flock I never missed: +Kings were by God appointed, +And lost are those that dare resist +Or touch the Lord's anointed. +And this is law that I'll maintain +Until my dying day, sir, +That whatsoever king shall reign, +Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. + +When royal James possessed the crown, +And popery grew in fashion, +The penal laws I hooted down, +And read the Declaration; +The Church of Rome I found would fit +Full well my constitution; +And I had been a Jesuit +But for the Revolution. + +When William was our king declared, +To ease the nation's grievance, +With this new wind about I steered, +And swore to him allegiance; +Old principles I did revoke, +Set conscience at a distance; +Passive obedience was a joke, +A jest was non-resistance. + +When royal Anne became our queen, +The Church of England's glory, +Another face of things was seen, +And I became a Tory; +Occasional conformists base, +I blamed their moderation, +And thought the Church in danger was, +By such prevarication. + +When George in pudding-time came o'er, +And moderate men looked big, sir, +My principles I changed once more, +And so became a Whig, sir; +And thus preferment I procured +From our new Faith's defender, +And almost every day abjured +The Pope and the Pretender. + +The illustrious house of Hanover, +And Protestant succession, +To these I do allegiance swear - +While they can keep possession: +For in my faith and loyalty +I nevermore will falter, +And George my lawful king shall be - +Until the times do alter. +And this is law that I'll maintain +Until my dying day, sir, +That whatsoever king shall reign, +Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir. + +Unknown + + +THE LOST LEADER +[William Wordsworth] + +Just for a handful of silver he left us, +Just for a ribbon 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, honored 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 watch from their graves! +He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, +- He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! +We shall march prospering, - not through 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 devil's-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 [1812-1889] + + +ICHABOD +[Daniel Webster] + +So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn +Which once he wore! +The glory from his gray hairs gone +Forevermore! + +Revile him not, the Tempter hath +A snare for all; +And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, +Befit his fall! + +Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, +When he who might +Have lighted up and led his age, +Falls back in night. + +Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark +A bright soul driven, +Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, +From hope and heaven! + +Let not the land once proud of him +Insult him now, +Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, +Dishonored brow. + +But let its humbled sons, instead, +From sea to lake, +A long lament, as for the dead, +In sadness make. + +Of all we loved and honored, naught +Save power remains; +A fallen angel's pride of thought, +Still strong in chains. + +All else is gone; from those great eyes +The soul has fled: +When faith is lost, when honor dies, +The man is dead! + +Then, pay the reverence of old days +To his dead fame; +Walk backward, with averted gaze, +And hide the shame! + +John Greenleaf Whittier [1807-1892] + + +WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS + +Guvener B. is a sensible man; +He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks; +He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, +An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes; +But John P. +Robinson he +Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + +My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du? +We can't never choose him o' course, - thet's flat; +Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?) +An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that; +Fer John P. +Robinson he +Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B. + +Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man: +He's ben on all sides that give places or pelf; +But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, - +He's ben true to one party, - an' thet is himself; - +So John P. +Robinson he +Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + +Gineral C. he goes in fer the war; +He don't vally princerple more'n an old cud; +Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, +But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood? +So John P. +Robinson he +Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. + +We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, +With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint, +We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, +An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint; +But John P. +Robinson he +Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee. + +The side of our country must ollers be took, +An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country, +An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book +Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry; +An' John P. +Robinson he +Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. + +Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies; +Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest fee, faw, fum; +An' thet all this big talk of our destinies +Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum; +But John P. +Robinson he +Sez it aint no sech thing; an', of course, so must we. + +Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life +That th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, +An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, +To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; +But John P. +Robinson he +Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee. + +Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us +The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow, - +God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, +To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough; +Fer John P. +Robinson he +Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee! + +James Russell Lowell [1819-1891] + + +THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT +Sot To A Nursery Rhyme + +"Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder! +It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs; +Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder, +Ef't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?" +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; +"Human rights haint no more +Right to come on this floor, +No more'n the man in the moon," sez he. + +"The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin', +An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; +We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin', +We're used to layin' the string on our slaves," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +Sez Mister Foote, +"I should like to shoot +The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon!" sez he. + +"Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on, +It's sutthin' thet's - wha'd'ye call it? - divine, - +An' the slaves thet we ollers make the most out on +Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Fer all thet," sez Mangum, +"'T would be better to hang 'em +An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he. + +"The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies, +Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree; +It puts all the cunninest on us in office, +An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Thet's ez plain," sez Cass, +"Ez thet some one's an ass, +It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," sez he. + +"Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression, +But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth, +Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression) +To make cussed free with the rights o' the North," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Yes," sez Davis o' Miss., +"The perfection o' bliss +Is in skinnin' that same old coon," sez he. + +"Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion, +It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe; +Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!) +Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?" +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +Sez Mister Hannegan, +Afore he began agin, +"Thet exception is quite oppertoon," sez he. + +"Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar, +Your merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees; +At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color: +You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +Sez Mister Jarnagin, +"They wun't hev to larn agin, +They all on 'em know the old toon," sez he. + +"The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin', +North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance, +No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin, +But they du sell themselves, ef they git a good chance," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +Sez Atherton here, +"This is gittin' severe, +I wish I could dive like a loon," sez he. + +"It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom, +An' your fact'ry gals (soon ex we split) 'll make head, +An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em, +'ll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, +"Ef we Southeners all quit, +Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he. + +"Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin' +In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine, +All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin, +An' the sankylot's drorin' an' drinkin' their wine," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Yes," sez Johnson, "in France +They're beginnin' to dance +Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he. + +"The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery, +Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest +Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery +Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Oh," sez Westcott o' Florida, +"Wut treason is horrider +Than our priv'leges tryin' to proon?" sez he. + +"It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints +Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; +We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints, +Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled," +Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he; - +"Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis, +"It perfectly true is +Thet slavery's airth's grettest boon," sez he. + +James Russell Lowell [1819-1891] + + +THE MARQUIS OF CARABAS +A Song With A Stolen Burden + +Off with your hat! along the street +His Lordship's carriage rolls; +Respect to greatness - when it shines +To cheer our darkened souls. +Get off the step, you ragged boys! +Policeman, where's your staff? +This is a sight to check with awe +The most irreverent laugh. +Chapeau bas! +Chapeau bas! +Gloire au Marquis de Carabas! + +Stand further back! we'll see him well; +Wait till they lift him out: +It takes some time; his Lordship's old, +And suffers from the gout. +Now look! he owns a castled park +For every finger thin; +He has more sterling pounds a day +Than wrinkles in his skin. + +The founder of his race was son +To a king's cousin, rich; +(The mother was an oyster wench - +She perished in a ditch). +His patriot worth embalmed has been +In poets' loud applause: +He made twelve thousand pounds a year +By aiding France's cause. + +The second marquis, of the stole +Was groom to the second James; +He all but caught that recreant king +When flying o'er the Thames. +Devotion rare! by Orange Will +With a Scotch county paid; +He gained one more - in Ireland - when +Charles Edward he betrayed. + +He lived to see his son grow up +A general famed and bold, +Who fought his country's fights - and one, +For half a million, sold. +His son (alas! the house's shame) +Frittered the name away: +Diced, wenched and drank - at last got shot, +Through cheating in his play! + +Now, see, where, focused on one head, +The race's glories shine: +The head gets narrow at the top, +But mark the jaw - how fine! +Don't call it satyr-like; you'd wound +Some scores, whose honest pates +The self-same type present, upon +The Carabas estates! + +Look at his skin - at four-score years +How fresh it gleams and fair: +He never tasted ill-dressed food, +Or breathed in tainted air. +The noble blood glows through his veins +Still, with a healthful pink; +His brow scarce wrinkled! - Brows keep so +That have not got to think. + +His hand 's ungloved! - it shakes, 'tis true, +But mark its tiny size, +(High birth's true sign) and shape, as on +The lackey's arm it lies. +That hand ne'er penned a useful line, +Ne'er worked a deed of fame, +Save slaying one, whose sister he - +Its owner - brought to shame. + +They ye got him in - he's gone to vote +Your rights and mine away; +Perchance our lives, should men be scarce, +To fight his cause for pay. +We are his slaves! he owns our lands, +Our woods, our seas, and skies; +He'd have us shot like vicious dogs, +Should we in murmuring rise! +Chapeau bas! +Chapeau bas! +Gloire au Marquis de Carabas! + +Robert Brough [1828-1860] + + +A MODEST WIT + +A supercilious nabob of the East - +Haughty, being great - purse-proud, being rich - +A governor, or general, at the least, +I have forgotten which - + +Had in his family a humble youth, +Who went from England in his patron's suit, +An unassuming boy, in truth +A lad of decent parts, and good repute. + +This youth had sense and spirit; +But yet with all his sense, +Excessive diffidence +Obscured his merit. + +One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine, +His Honor, proudly free, severely merry, +Conceived it would be vastly fine +To crack a joke upon his secretary. + +"Young man," he said, "by what art, craft, or trade, +Did your good father gain a livelihood?" - +"He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said, +"And in his time was reckoned good." + +"A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek, +Instead of teaching you to sew! +Pray, why did not your father make +A saddler, sir, of you?" + +Each parasite, then, as in duty bound, +The joke applauded, and the laugh went round. +At length Modestus, bowing low, +Said (craving pardon, if too free he made), +"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know +Your father's trade!" + +"My father's trade! by heaven, that's too bad! +My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad? +My father, sir, did never stoop so low - +He was a gentleman, I'd have you know." + +"Excuse the liberty I take," +Modestus said, with archness on his brow, +"Pray, why did not your father make +A gentleman of you?" + +Selleck Osborn [1783-1826] + + +JOLLY JACK + +When fierce political debate +Throughout the isle was storming, +And Rads attacked the throne and state, +And Tories the reforming, +To calm the furious rage of each, +And right the land demented, +Heaven sent us Jolly Jack, to teach +The way to be contented. + +Jack's bed was straw, 'twas warm and soft, +His chair, a three-legged stool; +His broken jug was emptied oft, +Yet, somehow, always full. +His mistress' portrait decked the wall, +His mirror had a crack, +Yet, gay and glad, though this was all +His wealth, lived Jolly Jack. + +To give advice to avarice, +Teach pride its mean condition, +And preach good sense to dull pretence, +Was honest Jack's high mission. +Our simple statesman found his rule +Of moral in the flagon, +And held his philosophic school +Beneath the "George and Dragon" + +When village Solons cursed the Lords, +And called the malt-tax sinful, +Jack heeded not their angry words, +But smiled and drank his skinful. +And when men wasted health and life, +In search of rank and riches, +Jack marched aloof the paltry strife, +And wore his threadbare breeches. + +"I enter not the Church," he said, +"But I'll not seek to rob it;" +So worthy Jack Joe Miller read, +While others studied Cobbett. +His talk it was of feast and fun; +His guide the Almanack; +From youth to age thus gaily run +The life of Jolly Jack. + +And when Jack prayed, as oft he would, +He humbly thanked his Maker; +"I am," said he, "O Father good! +Nor Catholic nor Quaker: +Give each his creed, let each proclaim +His catalogue of curses; +I trust in Thee, and not in them, +In Thee, and in Thy mercies! + +"Forgive me if, midst all Thy works, +No hint I see of damning; +And think there's faith among the Turks, +And hope for e'en the Brahmin. +Harmless my mind is, and my mirth, +And kindly is my laughter; +I cannot see the smiling earth, +And think there's hell hereafter." + +Jack died; he left no legacy, +Save that his story teaches: - +Content to peevish poverty; +Humility to riches. +Ye scornful great, ye envious small, +Come fellow in his track; +We all were happier, if we all +Would copy Jolly Jack. + +William Makepeace Thackeray [1811-1863] + + +THE KING OF BRENTFORD +After Beranger + +There was a King in Brentford, - of whom no legends tell, +But who, without his glory, - could eat and sleep right well. +His Polly's cotton nightcap - it was his crown of state, +He slept of evenings early, - and rose of mornings late. + +All in a fine mud palace, - each day he took four meals, +And for a guard of honor, - a dog ran at his heels. +Sometimes to view his kingdoms, - rode forth this monarch good, +And then a prancing jackass - he royally bestrode. + +There were no costly habits - with which this King was cursed, +Except (and where's the harm on't) - a somewhat lively thirst; +But people must pay taxes, - and Kings must have their sport; +So out of every gallon - His Grace he took a quart. + +He pleased the ladies round him, - with manners soft and bland; +With reason good, they named him, - the father of his land. +Each year his mighty armies - marched forth in gallant show; +Their enemies were targets, - their bullets they were tow. + +He vexed no quiet neighbor, - no useless conquest made, +But by the laws of pleasure, - his peaceful realm he swayed. +And in the years he reigned, - through all this country wide, +There was no cause for weeping, - save when the good man died. + +The faithful men of Brentford, - do still their King deplore, +His portrait yet is swinging, - beside an alehouse door. +And topers, tender-hearted, - regard his honest phiz, +And envy times departed, - that knew a reign like his. + +William Makepeace Thackeray [1811-1863] + + +KAISER & CO + +Der Kaiser auf der Vaterland +Und Gott on high, all dings gommand; +Ve two, ach don'd you understandt? +Meinself - und Gott. + +He reigns in heafen, und always shall, +Und mein own embire don'd vas shmall; +Ein noble bair, I dink you call +Meinself - und Gott. + +Vile some mens sing der power divine, +Mein soldiers sing der "Wacht am Rhein," +Und drink der healt in Rhenish wein +Auf me - und Gott. + +Dere's France dot swaggers all aroundt, +She's ausgespieldt - she's no aggoundt; +To mooch ve dinks she don'd amoundt, +Meinself - und Gott. + +She vill not dare to fight again, +But if she shouldt, I'll show her blain +Dot Elsass und (in French) Lorraine +Are mein - und Gott's. + +Dere's grandma dinks she's nicht shmall beer, +Mit Boers und dings she interfere; +She'll learn none runs dis hemisphere +But me - und Gott. + +She dinks, goot frau, some ships she's got, +Und soldiers mit der sgarlet goat; +Ach! ve could knock dem - pouf! like dot, +Meinself - und Gott. + +In dimes auf peace, brebared for wars, +I bear der helm und sbear auf Mars, +Und care nicht for den dousant czars, +Meinself - und Gott. + +In short, I humor efery whim, +Mit aspect dark und visage grim, +Gott pulls mit me und I mit Him - +Meinself - und Gott. + +Alexander Macgregor Rose [1846-1898] + + +NONGTONGPAW + +John Bull for pastime took a prance, +Some time ago, to peep at France; +To talk of sciences and arts, +And knowledge gained in foreign parts. +Monsieur, obsequious, heard him speak, +And answered John in heathen Greek; +To all he asked, 'bout all he saw, +'Twas, "Monsieur, je vous n'entends pas." + +John, to the Palais-Royal come, +Its splendor almost struck him dumb. +"I say, whose house is that there here?" +"House! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." +"What, Nongtongpaw again!" cries John; +"This fellow is some mighty Don: +No doubt he's plenty for the maw, - +I'll breakfast with this Nongtongpaw." + +John saw Versailles from Marli's height, +And cried, astonished at the sight, +"Whose fine estate is that there here?" +"State! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." +"His? what, the land and houses too? +The fellow's richer than a Jew: +On everything he lays his claw! +I should like to dine with Nongtongpaw." + +Next tripping came a courtly fair, +John cried, enchanted with her air, +"What lovely wench is that there here?" +"Ventch! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." +"What, he again? Upon my life! +A palace, lands, and then a wife +Sir Joshua might delight to draw: +I should like to sup with Nongtongpaw. + +"But hold! whose funeral's that?" cries John. +"Je vous n'entends pas." - "What, is he gone? +Wealth, fame, and beauty could not save +Poor Nongtongpaw, then, from the grave! +His race is run, his game is up, - +I'd with him breakfast, dine, and sup; +But since he chooses to withdraw, +Good night t' ye, Mounseer Nongtongpaw!" + +Charles Dibdin [1745-1814] + + +THE LION AND THE CUB + +How fond are men of rule and place, +Who court it from the mean and base! +These cannot bear an equal nigh, +But from superior merit fly. +They love the cellar's vulgar joke, +And lose their hours in ale and smoke. +There o'er some petty club preside; +So poor, so paltry, is their pride! +Nay, even with fools whole nights will sit, +In hopes to be supreme in wit. +If these can read, to these I write, +To set their worth in truest light. + +A Lion-cub of sordid mind, +Avoided all the lion kind; +Fond of applause, he sought the feasts +Of vulgar and ignoble beasts; +With asses all his time he spent, +Their club's perpetual president. +He caught their manners, looks, and airs; +An ass in everything but ears! +If e'er his Highness meant a joke, +They grinned applause before he spoke; +But at each word what shouts of praise! +"Good gods! how natural he brays!" +Elate with flattery and conceit, +He seeks his royal sire's retreat; +Forward, and fond to show his parts, +His Highness brays; the Lion starts. +"Puppy! that cursed vociferation +Betrays thy life and conversation: +Coxcombs, an ever-noisy race, +Are trumpets of their own disgrace." +"Why so severe?" the Cub replies; +"Our senate always held me wise!" +"How weak is pride," returns the sire: +"All fools are vain when fools admire! +But know, what stupid asses prize, +Lions and noble beasts despise." + +John Gay [1685-1732] + + +THE HARE WITH MANY FRIENDS + +Friendship, like love, is but a name, +Unless to one you stint the flame. +The child, whom many fathers share, +Hath seldom known a father's care. +'Tis thus in friendship; who depend +On many, rarely find a friend. +A Hare, who, in a civil way, +Complied with everything, like Gay, +Was known by all the bestial train, +Who haunt the wood, or graze the plain; +Her care was never to offend, +And every creature was her friend. +As forth she went at early dawn, +To taste the dew-besprinkled lawn, +Behind she hears the hunter's cries, +And from the deep-mouthed thunder flies: +She starts, she stops, she pants for breath; +She hears the near advance of death; +She doubles, to mislead the hound, +And measures back her mazy round: +Till, fainting in the public way, +Half dead with fear she gasping lay. +What transport in her bosom grew, +When first the Horse appeared in view! +"Let me," says she, "your back ascend, +And owe my safety to a friend. +You know my feet betray my flight: +To friendship every burden's light." +The Horse replied: "Poor honest Puss, +It grieves my heart to see thee thus; +Be comforted; relief is near, +For all your friends are in the rear." +She next the stately Bull implored; +And thus replied the mighty lord: +"Since every beast alive can tell +That I sincerely wish you well, +I may, without offence, pretend, +To take the freedom of a friend. +Love calls me hence; a favorite cow +Expects me near yon barley-mow; +And when a lady's in the case, +You know, all other things give place. +To leave you thus might seem unkind; +But see, the Goat is just behind." +The Goat remarked her pulse was high, +Her languid head, her heavy eye; +"My back," says he, "may do you harm; +The Sheep's at hand, and wool is warm." +The Sheep was feeble, and complained +His sides a load of wool sustained: +Said he was slow, confessed his fears, +For hounds eat sheep as well as Hares. +She now the trotting Calf addressed, +To save from death a friend distressed. +"Shall I," says he, "of tender age, +In this important care engage? +Older and abler passed you by; +How strong are those, how weak am I! +Should I presume to bear you hence, +Those friends of mine may take offence. +Excuse me, then. You know my heart; +But dearest friends, alas! must part. +How shall we all lament! Adieu! +For see, the hounds are just in view." + +John Gay [1685-1732] + + +THE SYCOPHANTIC FOX AND THE GULLIBLE RAVEN + +A raven sat upon a tree, +And not a word he spoke, for +His beak contained a piece of Brie, +Or, maybe, it was Roquefort? +We'll make it any kind you please - +At all events, it was a cheese. + +Beneath the tree's umbrageous limb +A hungry fox sat smiling; +He saw the raven watching him, +And spoke in words beguiling: +"J'admire," said he, "ton beau plumage," +(The which was simply persiflage). + +Two things there are, no doubt you know, +To which a fox is used, - +A rooster that is bound to crow, +A crow that's bound to roost, +And whichsoever he espies +He tells the most unblushing lies. + +"Sweet fowl," he said, "I understand +You're more than merely natty: +I hear you sing to beat the band +And Adelina Patti. +Pray render with your liquid tongue +A bit from 'Gotterdammerung.'" + +This subtle speech was aimed to please +The crow, and it succeeded: +He thought no bird in all the trees +Could sing as well as he did. +In flattery completely doused, +He gave the "Jewel Song" from "Faust." + +But gravitation's law, of course, +As Isaac Newton showed it, +Exerted on the cheese its force, +And elsewhere soon bestowed it. +In fact, there is no need to tell +What happened when to earth it fell. + +I blush to add that when the bird +Took in the situation, +He said one brief, emphatic word, +Unfit for publication. +The fox was greatly startled, but +He only sighed and answered "Tut!" + +The moral is: A fox is bound +To be a shameless sinner. +And also: When the cheese comes round +You know it's after dinner. +But (what is only known to few) +The fox is after dinner, too. + +Guy Wetmore Carryl [1873-1904] + + +THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER +Friend Of Humanity + +Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going? +Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order. - +Bleak blows the blast; - your hat has got a hole in't. +So have your breeches! + +Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones +Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- +Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, +"Knives and +Scissors to grind O!" + +Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives? +Did some rich man tyrannically use you? +Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? +Or the attorney? + +Was it the squire for killing of his game? or +Covetous parson, for his tithes destraining? +Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little +All in a lawsuit? + +(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) +Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, +Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your +Pitiful story. + +KNIFE-GRINDER +Story? God bless you! I have none to tell, sir; +Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, +This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were +Torn in a scuffle + +Constables came up for to take me into +Custody; they took me before the justice; +Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish +Stocks for a vagrant. + +I should be glad to drink your honor's health in +A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; +But for my part, I never love to meddle +With politics, sir. + +FRIEND OF HUMANITY +I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first, - +Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance! - +Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, +Spiritless outcast! + +(Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.) + +George Canning [1770-1827] + + +VILLON'S STRAIGHT TIP TO ALL CROSS COVES +"Tout aux tavernes et aux fiells." + +Suppose you screeve? or go cheap-jack? +Or fake the broads? or fig a nag? +Or thimble-rig? or knap a yack? +Or pitch a snide? or smash a rag? +Suppose you duff? or nose and lag? +Or get the straight, and land your pot? +How do you melt the multy swag? +Booze and the blowens cop the lot. + +Fiddle, or fence, or mace, or mack; +Or moskeneer, or flash the drag; +Dead-lurk a crib, or do a crack; +Pad with a slang, or chuck a fag; +Bonnet, or tout, or mump and gag; +Rattle the tats, or mark the spot; +You can not bag a single stag; +Booze and the blowens cop the lot. + +Suppose you try a different tack, +And on the square you flash your flag? +At penny-a-lining make your whack, +Or with the mummers mug and gag? +For nix, for nix the dibbs you bag! +At any graft, no matter what, +Your merry goblins soon stravag: +Booze and the blowens cop the lot. + +THE MORAL +It's up the spout and Charley Wag +With wipes and tickers and what not, +Until the squeezer nips your scrag, +Booze and the blowens cop the lot. + +William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] + + +VILLON'S BALLADE +Of Good Counsel, To His Friends Of Evil Life + +Nay, be you pardoner or cheat, +Or cogger keen, or mumper shy, +You'll burn your fingers at the feat, +And howl like other folks that fry. +All evil folks that love a lie! +And where goes gain that greed amasses, +By wile, and guile, and thievery? +'Tis all to taverns and to lasses! + +Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet, +With game, and shame, and jollity, +Go jigging through the field and street, +With myst'ry and morality; +Win gold at gleek, - and that will fly, +Where all your gain at passage passes, - +And that's? You know as well as I, +'Tis all to taverns and to lasses! + +Nay, forth from all such filth retreat, +Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry, +Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat, +If you've no clerkly skill to ply; +You'll gain enough, with husbandry, +But - sow hempseed and such wild grasses, +And where goes all you take thereby? - +'Tis all to taverns and to lasses! + +ENVOY +Your clothes, your hose, your broidery, +Your linen that the snow surpasses, +Or ere they're worn, off, off they fly, +'Tis all to taverns and to lasses! + +Andrew Lang [1844-1912] + + +A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH + +To put new shingles on old roofs; +To give old women wadded skirts; +To treat premonitory coughs +With seasonable flannel shirts; +To soothe the stings of poverty +And keep the jackal from the door, - +These are the works that occupy +The Little Sister of the Poor. + +She carries, everywhere she goes, +Kind words and chickens, jams and coals; +Poultices for corporeal woes, +And sympathy for downcast souls: +Her currant jelly, her quinine, +The lips of fever move to bless; +She makes the humble sick-room shine +With unaccustomed tidiness. + +A heart of hers the instant twin +And vivid counterpart is mine; +I also serve my fellow-men, +Though in a somewhat different line. +The Poor, and their concerns, she has +Monopolized, because of which +It falls to me to labor as +A Little Brother of the Rich. + +For their sake at no sacrifice +Does my devoted spirit quail; +I give their horses exercise; +As ballast on their yachts I sail. +Upon their tallyhos I ride +And brave the chances of a storm; +I even use my own inside +To keep their wines and victuals warm. + +Those whom we strive to benefit +Dear to our hearts soon grow to be; +I love my Rich, and I admit +That they are very good to me. +Succor the Poor, my sisters, - I, +While heaven shall still vouchsafe me health, +Will strive to share and mollify +The trials of abounding wealth. + +Edward Sandford Martin [1856- + + +THE WORLD'S WAY + +At Haroun's court it chanced, upon a time, +An Arab poet made this pleasant rhyme: + +"The new moon is a horseshoe, wrought of God, +Wherewith the Sultan's stallion shall be shod." + +On hearing this, the Sultan smiled, and gave +The man a gold-piece. Sing again, O slave! + +Above his lute the happy singer bent, +And turned another gracious compliment. + +And, as before, the smiling Sultan gave +The man a sekkah. Sing again, O slave! + +Again the verse came, fluent as a rill +That wanders, silver-footed, down a hill. + +The Sultan, listening, nodded as before, +Still gave the gold, and still demanded more. + +The nimble fancy that had climbed so high +Grew weary with its climbing by and by: + +Strange discords rose; the sense went quite amiss; +The singer's rhymes refused to meet and kiss: + +Invention flagged, the lute had got unstrung, +And twice he sang the song already sung. + +The Sultan, furious, called a mute, and said, +O Musta, straightway whip me off his head! + +Poets! not in Arabia alone +You get beheaded when your skill is gone. + +Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] + + +FOR MY OWN MONUMENT + +As doctors give physic by way of prevention, +Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care; +For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention +May haply be never fulfilled by his heir. + +Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid; +That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye; +Yet credit but lightly what more may be said, +For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie. + +Yet counting as far as to fifty his years, +His virtues and vices were as other men's are; +High hopes he conceived, and he smothered great fears, +In a life parti-colored, half pleasure, half care. + +Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave, +He strove to make interest and freedom agree; +In public employments industrious and grave, +And alone with his friends, lord! how merry was he! + +Now in equipage stately, now humbly on foot, +Both fortunes be tried, but to neither would trust; +And whirled in the round, as the wheel turned about, +He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust. + +This verse, little polished, though mighty sincere, +Sets neither his titles nor merit to view; +It says that his relics collected lie here, +And no mortal yet knows too if this may be true. + +Fierce robbers there are that infest the highway, +So Mat may be killed, and his bones never found; +False witness at court, and fierce tempests at sea, +So Mat may yet chance to be hanged or be drowned. + +If his bones lie in earth, roll in sea, fly in air, +To Fate we must yield, and the thing is the same; +And if passing thou giv'st him a smile or a tear, +He cares not - yet, prithee, be kind to his fame. + +Matthew Prior [1664-1721] + + +THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT PRAXED'S CHURCH + +Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! +Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back? +Nephews - sons mine . . ah God, I know not! Well - +She, men would have to be your mother once, +Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! +What's done is done, and she is dead beside, +Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, +And as she died so must we die ourselves, +And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. +Life, how and what is it? As here I lie +In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, +Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask +"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. +Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; +And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought +With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: +- Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; +Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South +He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! +Yet still my niche is not so cramped, but thence +One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, +And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, +And up into the aery dome where live +The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: +And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, +And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest, +With those nine columns round me, two and two, +The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: +Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe +As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. +- Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, +Put me where I may look at him! True peach, +Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! +Draw close: that conflagration of my church +- What then? So much was saved if aught were missed! +My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig +The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, +Drop water gently till the surface sink, +And if ye-find. . . Ah God, I know not, I! . . . +Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft, +And corded up in a tight olive-frail, +Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli, +Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, +Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast. . . +Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all, +That brave Frascati villa with its bath, +So, let the blue lump poise between my knees, +Like God the Father's globe on both his hands +Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay, +For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! +Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: +Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? +Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black - +'T was ever antique-black I meant! How else +Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath? - +The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me, +Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance +Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so, +The Saviour at his sermon on the mount, +Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan +Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off, +And Moses with the tables . . . but I know +Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, +Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope +To revel down my villas while I gasp +Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine +Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! +Nay, boys, ye love me - all of jasper, then! +'T is jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve +My bath must needs be left behind, alas! +One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut, +There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world - +And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray +Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, +And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs? +- That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, +Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word, +No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line - +Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! +And then how I shall lie through centuries, +And hear the blessed mutter of the mass, +And see God made and eaten all day long, +And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste +Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! +For as I lie here, hours of the dead night, +Dying in state and by such slow degrees, +I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, +And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, +And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop +Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work: +And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts +Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, +About the life before I lived this life, +And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, +Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount, +Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes, +And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, +And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet, +- Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend? - +No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! +Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. +All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope +My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart? +Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick, +They glitter like your mother's for my soul, +Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze, +Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase +With grapes, and add a visor and a Term, +And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx +That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down, +To comfort me on my entablature +Whereon I am to lie till I must ask +"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! +For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude +To death - ye wish it - God, ye wish it! Stone - +Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat +As if the corpse they keep were oozing through - +And no more lapis to delight the world! +Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, +But in a row: and, going, turn your backs +- Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, +And leave me in my church, the church for peace, +That I may watch at leisure if he leers - +Old Gandolf - at me, from his onion-stone, +As still he envied me, so fair she was! + +Robert Browning [1812-1889] + + +UP AT A VILLA - DOWN IN THE CITY +As Distinguished By An Italian Person Of Quality + +Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, +The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square. +Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there! +Something to see, by Bacchus, something to hear, at least! +There, the whole day long, one's life is a perfect feast; +While up at a villa one lives, I maintain it, no more than a beast. + +Well now, look at our villa! stuck like the horn of a bull +Just on a mountain-edge as bare as the creature's skull, +Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull! +- I scratch my own, sometimes, to see if the hair's turned wool. + +But the city, oh the city - the square with the houses! Why? +They are stone-faced, white as a curd, there's something to take the eye! +Houses in four straight lines, not a single front awry! +You watch who crosses and gossips, who saunters, who hurries by; +Green blinds, as a matter of course, to draw when the sun gets high; +And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly. + +What of a villa? Though winter be over in March by rights, +'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights: +You've the brown ploughed land before, where the oxen steam and wheeze, +And the hills over-smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees. + +Is it better in May, I ask you? You've summer all at once; +In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns. +'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat, scarce risen three fingers well, +The wild tulip, at end of its tube, blows out its great red bell, +Like a thin clear bubble of blood, for the children to pick and sell. + +Is it ever hot in the square? There's a fountain to spout and splash! +In the shade it sings and springs; in the shine such foam-bows flash +On the horses with curling fish-tails, that prance and paddle and pash +Round the lady atop in the conch - fifty gazers do not abash, +Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash. + +All the year round at the villa, nothing's to see though you linger, +Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted fore finger. +Some think fireflies pretty, when they mix in the corn and mingle, +Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a-tingle. +Late August or early September, the stunning cicala is shrill +And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs + on the hill. +Enough of the seasons, - I spare you the months of the fever and chill. + +Ere you open your eyes in the city, the blessed church-bells begin: +No sooner the bells leave off, than the diligence rattles in: +You get the pick of the news, and it costs you never a pin. +By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills, lets blood, + draws teeth; +Or the Pulcinello-trumpet breaks up the market beneath. +At the post-office such a scene-picture - the new play, piping hot! +And a notice how, only this morning, three liberal thieves were shot. +Above it, behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes, +And beneath, with his crown and his lion, some little new law + of the Duke's! +Or a sonnet with flowery marge, to the Reverend Don So-and-so, +Who is Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca, St. Jerome, and Cicero, +"And moreover," (the sonnet goes rhyming), "the skirts of + St. Paul has reached, +Having preached us those six Lent-lectures more unctuous than + ever he preached." +Noon strikes, - here sweeps the procession! our Lady borne + smiling and smart +With a pink gauze gown all spangles, and seven swords stuck in her heart! +Bang-whang-whang, goes the drum, tootle-k-tootle the fife; +No keeping one's haunches still: it's the greatest pleasure in life. + +But bless you, it's dear - it's dear! fowls, wine, at double the rate. +They have clapped a new tax upon salt, and what oil pays passing the gate +It's a horror to think of. And so, the villa for me, not the city! +Beggars can scarcely be choosers: but still - ah, the pity, the pity! +Look, two and two go the priests, then the monks with cowls and sandals, +And the penitents dressed in white skirts, a-holding the yellow candles; +One, he carries a flag up straight, and another a cross with handles, +And the Duke's guard brings up the rear, for the better prevention + of scandals. +Bang-whang-whang, goes the drum, tootle-te-tootle the fife. +Oh, a day in the city-square, there is no such pleasure in life! + +Robert Browning [1812-1889] + + +ALL SAINTS' + +In a church which is furnished with mullion and gable, +With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, +The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable, +The odor of sanctity's eau-de-cologne. + +But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades, +Gaze down on this crowd with its paniers and paints, +He would say, as he looked at the lords and the ladies, +"Oh, where is All Sinners' if this is All Saints'?" + +Edmund Yates [1831-1894] + + +AN ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID, OR THE RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS + +My son, these maxims make a rule, +And lump them aye thegither: +The Rigid Righteous is a fool +The Rigid Wise anither: +The cleanest corn that e'er was dight +May hae some pyles o' caff in; +Sae ne'er a fellow-creature slight +For random fits o' daffin. + Solomon - Eccles. vii. 16. + +Oh ye wha are sae guid yoursel', +Sae pious and sae holy, +Ye've naught to do but mark and tell +Your neebor's fauts and folly: - +Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, +Supplied wi' store o' water, +The heaped happer's ebbing still, +And still the clap plays clatter. + +Hear me, ye venerable core, +As counsel for poor mortals +That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door, +For glaikit Folly's portals! +I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, +Would here propone defences, +Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, +Their failings and mischances. + +Ye see your state wi' theirs compared, +And shudder at the niffer; +But cast a moment's fair regard, +What maks the mighty differ? +Discount what scant occasion gave +That purity ye pride in, +And (what's aft mair than a' the lave) +Your better art o' hidin'. + +Think, when your castigated pulse +Gies now and then a wallop, +What ragings must his veins convulse, +That still eternal gallop: +Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, +Right on ye scud your sea-way; - +But in the teeth o' baith to sail, +It makes an unco lee-way. + +See Social Life and Glee sit down, +All joyous and unthinking, +Till, quite transmugrified, they've grown +Debauchery and Drinking: +Oh, would they stay to calculate +The eternal consequences; +Or your more dreaded hell to state, +Damnation of expenses! + +Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames, +Tied up in godly laces, +Before ye gie poor Frailty names, +Suppose a change o' cases; +A dear-loved lad, convenience snug, +A treacherous inclination, - +But, let me whisper i' your lug, +Ye're aiblins nae temptation. + +Then gently scan your brother man, +Still gentler sister woman; +Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, +To step aside is human: +One point must still be greatly dark, +The moving why they do it; +And just as lamely can ye mark +How far perhaps they rue it. + +Who made the heart, 'tis He alone +Decidedly can try us; +He knows each chord, - its various tone, +Each spring, - its various bias: +Then at the balance let's be mute; +We never can adjust it; +What's done we partly may compute, +But know not what's resisted. + +Robert Burns [1759-1796] + + +THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE, OR THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY" +A Logical Story + +Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, +That was built in such a logical way +It ran a hundred years to a day, +And then, of a sudden, it - ah, but stay, +I'll tell you what happened without delay, +Scaring the parson into fits, +Frightening people out of their wits, - +Have you ever heard of that, I say? + +Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. +Georgius Secundus was then alive, - +Snuffy old drone from the German hive. +That was the year when Lisbon-town +Saw the earth open and gulp her down, +And Braddock's army was done so brown, +Left without a scalp to its crown. +It was on the terrible Earthquake-day +That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. + +Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, +There is always somewhere a weakest spot, - +In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, +In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, +In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, - lurking still, +Find it somewhere you must and will, - +Above or below, or within or without, - +And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, +That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out. + +But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do, +With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,") +He would build one shay to beat the taown +'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun'; +It should be so built that it couldn' break daown: +"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain +Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain; +'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, +Is only jest +T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." + +So the Deacon inquired of the village folk +Where he could find the strongest oak, +That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, - +That was for spokes and floor and sills; +He sent for lancewood to make the thills; +The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees, +The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, +But lasts like iron for things like these; +The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," - +Last of its timber, - they couldn't sell 'em, +Never an axe had seen their chips, +And the wedges flew from between their lips, +Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; +Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, +Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, +Steel of the finest, bright and blue; +Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; +Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide +Found in the pit when the tanner died. +That was the way he "put her through." +There! said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!" + +Do! I tell you, I rather guess +She was a wonder, and nothing less! +Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, +Deacon and deaconess dropped away, +Children and grandchildren - where were they? +But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay +As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day! + +EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; - it came and found +The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. +Eighteen hundred increased by ten; +"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then. +Eighteen hundred and twenty came; - +Running as usual; much the same. +Thirty and Forty at last arrive, +And then come Fifty, and Fifty-Five. + +Little of all we value here +Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year +Without both feeling and looking queer. +In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, +So far as I know, but a tree and truth. +(This is a moral that runs at large; +Take it. - You're welcome. - No extra charge.) + +FIRST OF November, - the Earthquake-day, - +There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay. +A general flavor of mild decay, +But nothing local, as one may say. +There couldn't be, - for the Deacon's art +Had made it so like in every part +That there wasn't a chance for one to start. +For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, +And the floor was just as strong as the sills, +And the panels just as strong as the floor, +And the whipple-tree neither less nor more, +And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, +And spring and axle and hub encore. +And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt +In another hour it will be worn out! + +First of November, Fifty-five! +This morning the parson takes a drive. +Now, small boys, get out of the way! +Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, +Drawn by a rat-railed, ewe-necked bay. +"Huddup!" said the parson. - Off went they. + +The parson was working his Sunday's text,- +Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed +At what the - Moses - was coming next. +All at once the horse stood still, +Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. +First a shiver, and then a thrill, +Then something decidedly like a spill, - +And the parson was sitting upon a rock, +At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock, - +Just the hour of the Earthquake shock! +What do you think the parson found, +When he got up and stared around? +The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, +As if it had been to the mill and ground! +You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, +How it went to pieces all at once, - +All at once, and nothing first, - +Just as bubbles do when they burst. + +End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. +Logic is logic. That's all I say. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes [1809-1894] + + +BALLADE OF A FRIAR +After Clement Marot + +Some ten or twenty times a day, +To bustle to the town with speed, +To dabble in what dirt he may, - +Le Frere Lubin's the man you need! +But any sober life to lead +Upon an exemplary plan, +Requires a Christian indeed, - +Le Frere Lubin is not the man! + +Another's wealth on his to lay, +With all the craft of guile and greed, +To leave you bare of pence or pay, - +Le Frere Lubin's the man you need! +But watch him with the closest heed, +And dun him with what force you can, - +He'll not refund, howe'er you plead, - +Le Frere Lubin is not the man - + +An honest girl to lead astray, +With subtle saw and promised meed, +Requires no cunning crone and gray, - +Le Frere Lubin's the man you need! +He preaches an ascetic creed, +But, - try him with the water can - +A dog will drink, whate'er his breed, - +Le Frere Lubin is not the man! + +ENVOY +In good to fail, in ill succeed, +Le Frere Lubin's the man you need! +In honest works to lead the van, +Le Frere Lubin is not the man! + +Andrew Lang [1844-1912] + + +THE CHAMELEON + +Oft has it been my lot to mark +A proud, conceited, talking spark, +With eyes, that hardly served at most +To guard their master 'gainst a post, +Yet round the world the blade has been +To see whatever could be seen, +Returning from his finished tour, +Grown ten times perter than before; +Whatever word you chance to drop, +The traveled fool your mouth will stop; +"Sir, if my judgment you'll allow, +I've seen - and sure I ought to know," +So begs you'd pay a due submission, +And acquiesce in his decision. + +Two travelers of such a cast, +As o'er Arabia's wilds they passed, +And on their way in friendly chat, +Now talked of this, and then of that, +Discoursed awhile, 'mongst other matter, +Of the chameleon's form and nature. +"A stranger animal," cries one, +"Sure never lived beneath the sun. +A lizard's body, lean and long, +A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, +Its foot with triple claw disjoined; +And what a length of tail behind! +How slow its pace; and then its hue - +Who ever saw so fine a blue?" + +"Hold, there," the other quick replies, +"'Tis green, - I saw it with these eyes, +As late with open mouth it lay, +And warmed it in the sunny ray: +Stretched at its ease, the beast I viewed +And saw it eat the air for food." +"I've seen it, sir, as well as you, +And must again affirm it blue; +At leisure I the beast surveyed, +Extended in the cooling shade." +"'Tis green, 'tis green, sir, I assure ye!" +"Green!" cries the other in a fury - +"Why, sir! - d'ye think I've lost my eyes?" +"'Twere no great loss," the friend replies, +"For, if they always serve you thus, +You'll find them of but little use." + +So high at last the contest rose, +From words they almost came to blows: +When luckily came by a third - +To him the question they referred, +And begged he'd tell 'em, if he knew, +Whether the thing was green or blue. +"Sirs," cries the umpire, "cease your pother! +The creature's neither one or t'other. +I caught the animal last night, +And viewed it o'er by candlelight: +I marked it well - 't was black as jet - +You stare - but, sirs, I've got it yet, +And can produce it." "Pray, sir, do; +I'll lay my life the thing is blue." +"And I'll be sworn, that when you've seen +The reptile, you'll pronounce him green." + +"Well, then, at once to ease the doubt," +Replies the man, "I'll turn him out: +And when before your eyes I've set him, +If you don't find him black, I'll eat him." +He said: then full before their sight +Produced the beast, and lo! - 'twas white. + +Both stared, the man looked wondrous wise - +"My children," the chameleon cries, +(Then first the creature found a tongue), +"You all are right, and all are wrong: +When next you talk of what you view, +Think others see as well as you: +Nor wonder, if you find that none +Prefers your eyesight to his own." + +After De La Motte, by James Merrick [1720-1769] + + +THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT +A Hindoo Fable + +It was six men of Indostan +To learning much inclined, +Who went to see the Elephant +(Though all of them were blind), +That each by observation +Might satisfy his mind. + +The First approached the Elephant, +And happening to fall +Against his broad and sturdy side, +At once began to bawl: +"God bless me! but the Elephant +Is very like a wall!" + +The Second, feeling of the tusk, +Cried, "Ho! what have we here +So very round and smooth and sharp? +To me 'tis mighty clear +This wonder of an Elephant +Is very like a spear!" + +The Third approached the animal, +And happening to take +The squirming trunk within his hands, +Thus boldly up and spake: +"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant +Is very like a snake!" + +The Fourth reached out an eager hand, +And felt about the knee. +"What most this wondrous beast is like +Is mighty plain," quoth he; +"'Tis clear enough the Elephant +Is very like a tree!" + +The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear, +Said: "E'en the blindest man +Can tell what this resembles most; +Deny the fact who can, +This marvel of an Elephant +Is very like a fan!" + +The Sixth no sooner had begun +About the beast to grope, +Than, seizing on the swinging tail +That fell within his scope, +"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant +Is very like a rope!" + +And so these men of Indostan +Disputed loud and long, +Each in his own opinion +Exceeding stiff and strong, +Though each was partly in the right, +And all were in the wrong! + +MORAL +So oft in theologic wars, +The disputants, I ween, +Rail on in utter ignorance +Of what each other mean, +And prate about an Elephant +Not one of them has seen! + +John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887] + + +THE PHILOSOPHER'S SCALES + +A monk, when his rites sacerdotal were o'er, +In the depths of his cell with its stone-covered floor, +Resigning to thought his chimerical brain, +Once formed the contrivance we now shall explain; +But whether by magic's or alchemy's powers +We know not; indeed, 'tis no business of ours. + +Perhaps it was only by patience and care, +At last, that he brought his invention to bear. +In youth 'twas projected, but years stole away, +And ere 'twas complete he was wrinkled and gray; +But success is secure, unless energy fails; +And at length he produced the Philosopher's Scales. + +"What were they?" you ask. You shall presently see; +These scales were not made to weigh sugar and tea. +Oh no; for such properties wondrous had they, +That qualities, feelings, and thoughts they could weigh, +Together with articles small or immense, +From mountains or planets to atoms of sense. + +Naught was there so bulky but there it would lay, +And naught so ethereal but there it would stay, +And naught so reluctant but in it must go: +All which some examples more clearly will show. + +The first thing he weighed was the head of Voltaire, +Which retained all the wit that had ever been there; +As a weight, he threw in the torn scrap of a leaf +Containing the prayer of the penitent thief; +When the skull rose aloft with so sudden a spell +That it bounced like a ball on the roof of the cell. + +One time he put in Alexander the Great, +With the garment that Dorcas had made, for a weight; +And though clad in armor from sandals to crown, +The hero rose up and the garment went down. + +A long row of almshouses, amply endowed +By a well-esteemed Pharisee, busy and proud, +Next loaded one scale; while the other was pressed +By those mites the poor widow dropped into the chest: +Up flew the endowment, not weighing an ounce, +And down, down the farthing-worth came with a bounce. + +By further experiments (no matter how) +He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plough; +A sword with gilt trappings rose up in the scale, +Though balanced by only a ten-penny nail; +A shield and a helmet, a buckler and spear, +Weighed less than a widow's uncrystallized tear. + +A lord and a lady went up at full sail, +When a bee chanced to light on the opposite scale; +Ten doctors, ten lawyers, two courtiers, one earl, +Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl, +All heaped in one balance and swinging from thence, +Weighed less than a few grains of candor and sense; +A first-water diamond, with brilliants begirt, +Than one good potato just washed from the dirt; +Yet not mountains of silver and gold could suffice +One pearl to outweigh, - 'twas the Pearl of Great Price. + +Last of all, the whole world was bowled in at the grate, +With the soul of a beggar to serve for a weight, +When the former sprang up with so strong a rebuff +That it made a vast rent and escaped at the roof! +When balanced in air, it ascended on high, +And sailed up aloft, a balloon in the sky; +While the scale with the soul in't so mightily fell +That it jerked the philosopher out of his cell. + +Jane Taylor [1783-1824] + + +THE MAIDEN AND THE LILY + +A lily in my garden grew, +Amid the thyme and clover; +No fairer lily ever blew, +Search all the wide world over. +Its beauty passed into my heart: +I know 'twas very silly, +But I was then a foolish maid, +And it - a perfect lily. + +One day a learned man came by, +With years of knowledge laden, +And him I questioned with a sigh, +Like any foolish maiden: - +"Wise sir, please tell me wherein lies - +I know the question's silly - +The something that my art defies, +And makes a perfect lily." + +He smiled, then bending plucked the flower, +Then tore it, leaf and petal, +And talked to me for full an hour, +And thought the point to settle: - +"Therein it lies," at length he cries; +And I - I know 'twas silly - +Could only weep and say, "But where - +O doctor, where's my lily?" + +John Fraser [1750-1811] + + +THE OWL-CRITIC + +"Who stuffed that white owl? No one spoke in the shop: +The barber was busy, and he couldn't stop; +The customers, waiting their turns, were all reading +The Daily, the Herald, the Post, little heeding +The young man who blurted out such a blunt question; +Not one raised a head, or even made a suggestion; +And the barber kept on shaving. + +"Don't you see, Mister Brown," +Cried the youth with a frown, +"How wrong the whole thing is, +How preposterous each wing is, +How flattened the head is, how jammed down the neck is - +In short, the whole owl, what an ignorant wreck 'tis! +I make no apology; +I've learned owl-eology. +I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections, +And cannot be blinded to any deflections +Arising from unskilful fingers that fail +To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail. +Mister Brown! Mister Brown! +Do take that bird down, +Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!" +And the barber kept on shaving. + +"I've studied owls +And other night fowls, +And I tell you +What I know to be true: +An owl cannot roost +With his limbs so unloosed; +No owl in this world +Ever had his claws curled, +Ever had his legs slanted, +Ever had his bill canted, +Ever had his neck screwed +Into that attitude. +He can't do it, because +'Tis against all bird-laws. +Anatomy teaches, +Ornithology preaches +An owl has a toe +That can't turn out so! +I've made the white owl my study for years, +And to see such a job almost moves me to tears! +Mister Brown, I'm amazed +You should be so gone crazed +As to put up a bird +In that posture absurd! +To look at that owl really brings on a dizziness; +The man who stuffed him don't half know his business!" +And the barber kept on shaving. + +"Examine those eyes. +I'm filled with surprise +Taxidermists should pass +Off on you such poor glass; +So unnatural they seem +They'd make Audubon scream, +And John Burroughs laugh +To encounter such chaff. +Do take that bird down; +Have him stuffed again, Brown!" +And the barber kept on shaving. + +"With some sawdust and bark +I could stuff in the dark +An owl better than that. +I could make an old hat +Look more like an owl +Than that horrid fowl, +Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather. +In fact, about him there's not one natural feather." + +Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, +The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, +Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic +(Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic +And then fairly hooted, as if he would say: +"Your learning's at fault this time, any way; +Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. +I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good-day!" +And the barber kept on shaving. + +James Thomas Fields [1816-1881] + + +THE BALLAD OF IMITATION +C'est imiter quelqu'un que de planter des choux. - Alfred De Musset + +If they hint, O Musician, the piece that you played +Is naught but a copy of Chopin or Spohr; +That the ballad you sing is but merely "conveyed" +From the stock of the Ames and the Purcells of yore; +That there's nothing, in short, in the words or the score, +That is not as out-worn as the "Wandering Jew"; +Make answer - Beethoven could scarcely do more - +That the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! + +If they tell you, Sir Artist, your light and your shade +Are simply "adapted" from other men's lore; +That - plainly to speak of a "spade" as a "spade" - +You've "stolen" your grouping from three or from four; +That (however the writer the truth may deplore), +'Twas Gainsborough painted your "Little Boy Blue"; +Smile only serenely - though cut to the core - +For the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! + +And you too, my Poet, be never dismayed +If they whisper your Epic - "Sir Eperon d'Or" - +Is nothing but Tennyson thinly arrayed +In a tissue that's taken from Morris's store; +That no one, in fact, but a child could ignore +That you "lift" or "accommodate" all that you do; +Take heart - though your Pegasus' withers be sore - +For the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! + +POSTCRIPTUM. - And you, whom we all so adore, +Dear Critics, whose verdicts are always so new! - +One word in your ear. There were Critics before. . . . +And the man who plants cabbages imitates, too! + +Austin Dobson [1840-1921] + + +THE CONUNDRUM OF THE WORKSHOPS + +When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, +Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in + the mould; +And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to + his mighty heart, +Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?" + +Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew - +The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review; +And he left his lore to the use of his sons - and that was a glorious gain +When the Devil chuckled: "Is it Art?" in the ear of the branded Cain. + +They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart, +Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: "It's striking, but is it Art?" +The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung, +While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue. + +They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked + and they fought in the West, +Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest - +Had rest till that dank, blank-canvas dawn when the dove was + preened to start, +And the Devil bubbled below the keel: "It's human, but is it Art?" + +The tale is as old as the Eden Tree - and new as the new-cut tooth - +For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master + of Art and Truth; +And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart, +The Devil drum on the darkened pane: "You did it, but was it Art?" + +We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, +We have learned to bottle our-parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg, +We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn + by the cart; +But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: "It's clever, but is it Art?" + +When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the clubroom's + green and gold, +The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould - +They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, + and the ink and the anguish start, +For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: "It's pretty, but is it Art?" + +Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow, +And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago, +And if we could come when the sentry slept, and softly scurry through, +By the favor of God we might know as much - as our father Adam knew. + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +THE V-A-S-E + +From the madding crowd they stand apart, +The maidens four and the Work of Art; + +And none might tell from sight alone +In which had Culture ripest grown, - + +The Gotham Million fair to see, +The Philadelphia Pedigree, + +The Boston Mind of azure hue, +Or the soulful Soul from Kalamazoo, - + +For all loved Art in a seemly way, +With an earnest soul and a capital A. + +. . . . . . + +Long they worshipped; but no one broke +The sacred stillness, until up spoke + +The Western one from the nameless place, +Who blushing said: "What a lovely vace!" + +Over three faces a sad smile flew, +And they edged away from Kalamazoo. + +But Gotham's haughty soul was stirred +To crush the stranger with one small word. + +Deftly hiding reproof in praise, +She cries: "'Tis, indeed, a lovely vaze!" + +But brief her unworthy triumph when +The lofty one from the home of Penn, + +With the consciousness of two grandpapas, +Exclaims: "It is quite a lovely vahs!" + +And glances round with an anxious thrill, +Awaiting the word of Beacon Hill. + +But the Boston maid smiles courteouslee, +And gently murmurs: "Oh pardon me! + +"I did not catch your remark, because +I was so entranced with that charming vaws!" + +Dies erit praegelida +Sinistra quum Bostonia. + +James Jeffrey Roche [1847-1908] + + +HEM AND HAW + +Hem and Haw were the sons of sin, +Created to shally and shirk; +Hem lay 'round and Haw looked on +While God did all the work. + +Hem was a fogy, and Haw was a prig, +For both had the dull, dull mind; +And whenever they found a thing to do, +They yammered and went it blind. + +Hem was the father of bigots and bores; +As the sands of the sea were they. +And Haw was the father of all the tribe +Who criticise to-day. + +But God was an artist from the first, +And knew what he was about; +While over his shoulder sneered these two, +And advised him to rub it out. + +They prophesied ruin ere man was made: +"Such folly must surely fail!" +And when he was done, "Do you think, my Lord, +He's better without a tail?" + +And still in the honest working world, +With posture and hint and smirk, +These sons of the devil are standing by +While Man does all the work. + +They balk endeavor and baffle reform, +In the sacred name of law; +And over the quavering voice of Hem, +Is the droning voice of Haw. + +Bliss Carman [1861-1929] + + +MINIVER CHEEVY + +Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn, +Grew lean while he assailed the seasons; +He wept that he was ever born, +And he had reasons. + +Miniver loved the days of old +When swords were bright and steeds were prancing; +The vision of a warrior bold +Would set him dancing. + +Miniver sighed for what was not, +And dreamed, and rested from his labors; +He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot, +And Priam's neighbors. + +Miniver mourned the ripe renown +That made so many a name so fragrant; +He mourned Romance, now on the town, +And Art, a vagrant. + +Miniver loved the Medici, +Albeit he had never seen one; +He would have sinned incessantly +Could he have been one. + +Miniver cursed the commonplace, +And eyed a khaki suit with loathing; +He missed the medieval grace +Of iron clothing. + +Miniver scorned the gold he sought, +But sore annoyed was he without it; +Miniver thought, and thought, and thought, +And thought about it. + +Miniver Cheevy, born too late, +Scratched his head and kept on thinking; +Miniver coughed, and called it fate, +And kept on drinking. + +Edwin Arlington Robinson [1869-1935] + + +THEN AG'IN + +Jim Bowker, he said, ef he'd had a fair show, +And a big enough town for his talents to grow, +And the least bit assistance in hoein' his row, +Jim Bowker, he said, +He'd filled the world full of the sound of his name, +An' clumb the top round in the ladder of fame; +It may have been so; +I dunno; +Jest so it might been, +Then ag'in - + +But he had tarnal luck - everythin' went ag'in him, +The arrers er fortune they allus 'ud pin him; +So he didn't get no chance to show off what was in him. +Jim Bowker, he said, +Ef he'd had a fair show, you couldn't tell where he'd come, +An' the feats he'd a-done, an' the heights he'd a-clumb - +It may have been so; +I dunno; +Jest so it might been, +Then ag'in - + +But we're all like Jim Bowker, thinks I, more or less - +Charge fate for our bad luck, ourselves for success, +An' give fortune the blame for all our distress, +As Jim Bowker, he said. +Ef it hadn' been for luck an' misfortune an' sich, +We might a-been famous, an' might a-been rich. +It might be jest so; +I dunno; +Jest so it might been, +Then ag'in - + +Sam Walter Foss [1858-1911] + + +A CONSERVATIVE + +The garden beds I wandered by +One bright and cheerful morn, +When I found a new-fledged butterfly, +A-sitting on a thorn, +A black and crimson butterfly, +All doleful and forlorn. + +I thought that life could have no sting +To infant butterflies, +So I gazed on this unhappy thing +With wonder and surprise, +While sadly with his waving wing +He wiped his weeping eyes. + +Said I, "What can the matter be? +Why weepest thou so sore? +With garden fair and sunlight free +And flowers in goodly store:" - +But he only turned away from me +And burst into a roar. + +Cried he, "My legs are thin and few +Where once I had a swarm! +Soft fuzzy fur - a joy to view - +Once kept my body warm, +Before these flapping wing-things grew, +To hamper and deform!" + +At that outrageous bug I shot +The fury of mine eye; +Said I, in scorn all burning hot, +In rage and anger high, +"You ignominious idiot! +Those wings are made to fly! + +'I do not want to fly," said he, +"I only want to squirm!" +And he drooped his wings dejectedly, +But still his voice was firm: +"I do not want to be a fly! +I want to be a worm!" + +O yesterday of unknown lack! +To-day of unknown bliss! +I left my fool in red and black, +The last I saw was this, - +The creature madly climbing back +Into his chrysalis. + +Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman [1860-1935] + + +SIMILAR CASES + +There was once a little animal, +No bigger than a fox, +And on five toes he scampered +Over Tertiary rocks. +They called him Eohippus, +And they called him very small, +And they thought him of no value - +When they thought of him at all; +For the lumpish old Dinoceras +And Coryphodon so slow +Were the heavy aristocracy +In days of long ago. + +Said the little Eohippus, +"I am going to be a horse! +And on my middle finger-nails +To run my earthly course! +I'm going to have a flowing tail! +I'm going to have a mane! +I'm going to stand fourteen hands high +On the psychozoic plain!" + +The Coryphodon was horrified, +The Dinoceras was shocked; +And they chased young Eohippus, +But he skipped away and mocked. +And they laughed enormous laughter, +And they groaned enormous groans, +And they bade young Eohippus +Go view his father's bones. +Said they, "You always were as small +And mean as now we see, +And that's conclusive evidence +That you're always going to be. +What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast, +With hoofs to gallop on? +Why! You'd have to change your nature!" +Said the Loxolophodon. +They considered him disposed of, +And retired with gait serene; +That was the way they argued +In "the early Eocene." + +There was once an Anthropoidal Ape, +Far smarter than the rest, +And everything that they could do +He always did the best; +So they naturally disliked him, +And they gave him shoulders cool, +And when they had to mention him +They said he was a fool. + +Cried this pretentious Ape one day, +"I'm going to be a Man! +And stand upright, and hunt, and fight, +And conquer all I can! +I'm going to cut down forest trees, +To make my houses higher! +I'm going to kill the Mastodon! +I'm going to make a fire!" + +Loud screamed the Anthropoidal Apes +With laughter wild and gay; +They tried to catch that boastful one, +But he always got away. +So they yelled at him in chorus, +Which he minded not a whit; +And they pelted him with cocoanuts, +Which didn't seem to hit. +And then they gave him reasons +Which they thought of much avail, +To prove how his preposterous +Attempt was sure to fail. +Said the sages, "In the first place, +The thing cannot be done! +And, second, if it could be, +It would not be any fun! +And, third, and most conclusive, +And admitting no reply, +You would have to change your nature! +We should like to see you try!" +They chuckled then triumphantly, +These lean and hairy shapes, +For these things passed as arguments +With the Anthropoidal Apes. + +There was once a Neolithic Man, +An enterprising wight, +Who made his chopping implements +Unusually bright. +Unusually clever he, +Unusually brave, +And he drew delightful Mammoths +On the borders of his cave. +To his Neolithic neighbors, +Who were startled and surprised, +Said he, "My friends, in course of time, +We shall be civilized! +We are going to live in cities! +We are going to fight in wars! +We are going to eat three times a day +Without the natural cause! +We are going to turn life upside down +About a thing called gold! +We are going to want the earth, and take +As much as we can hold! +We are going to wear great piles of stuff +Outside our proper skins! +We are going to have diseases! +And Accomplishments!! And Sins!!!" + +Then they all rose up in fury +Against their boastful friend, +For prehistoric patience +Cometh quickly to an end. +Said one, "This is chimerical! +Utopian! Absurd!" +Said another, "What a stupid life! +Too dull, upon my word!" +Cried all, "Before such things can come, +You idiotic child, +You must alter Human Nature!" +And they all sat back and smiled. +Thought they, "An answer to that last +It will be hard to find!" +It was a clinching argument +To the Neolithic Mind! + +Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman [1860-1935] + + +MAN AND THE ASCIDIAN +A Morality + +"The Ancestor remote of Man," +Says Darwin, "is the Ascidian," +A scanty sort of water-beast +That, ninety million years at least +Before Gorillas came to be, +Went swimming up and down the sea. + +Their ancestors the pious praise, +And like to imitate their ways; +How, then, does our first parent live, +What lesson has his life to give? + +The Ascidian tadpole, young and gay, +Doth Life with one bright eye survey, +His consciousness has easy play. +He's sensitive to grief and pain, +Has tail, a spine, and bears a brain, +And everything that fits the state +Of creatures we call vertebrate. +But age comes on; with sudden shock +He sticks his head against a rock! +His tail drops off, his eye drops in, +His brain's absorbed into his skin; +He does not move, nor feel, nor know +The tidal water's ebb and flow, +But still abides, unstirred, alone, +A sucker sticking to a stone. + +And we, his children, truly we +In youth are, like the Tadpole, free. +And where we would we blithely go, +Have brains and hearts, and feel and know. +Then Age comes on! To Habit we +Affix ourselves and are not free; +The Ascidian's rooted to a rock, +And we are bond-slaves of the clock; +Our rocks are Medicine - Letters - Law, +From these our heads we cannot draw: +Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in, +And daily thicker grows our skin. + +Ah, scarce we live, we scarcely know +The wide world's moving ebb and flow, +The clanging currents ring and shock, +But we are rooted to the rock. +And thus at ending of his span, +Blind, deaf, and indolent, does Man +Revert to the Ascidian. + +Andrew Lang [1844-1912] + + +THE CALF-PATH + +One day, through the primeval wood, +A calf walked home, as good calves should; +But made a trail all bent askew, +A crooked trail as all calves do. + +Since then two hundred years have fled, +And, I infer, the calf is dead. +But still he left behind his trail, +And thereby hangs my moral tale. + +The trail was taken up next day +By a lone dog that passed that way; +And then a wise bell-wether sheep +Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep, +And drew the flock behind him, too, +As good bell-wethers always do. + +And from that day, o'er hill and glade, +Through those old woods a path was made; +And many men wound in and out, +And dodged, and turned, and bent about +And uttered words of righteous wrath +Because 'twas such a crooked path. + +But still they followed - do not laugh - +The first migrations of that calf, +And through this winding wood-way stalked, +Because he wobbled when he walked. + +This forest path became a lane, +That bent, and turned, and turned again; +This crooked lane became a road, +Where many a poor horse with his load +Toiled on beneath the burning sun, +And traveled some three miles in one. +And thus a century and a half +They trod the footsteps of that calf. + +The years passed on in swiftness fleet, +The road became a village street; +And this, before men were aware, +A city's crowded thoroughfare; +And soon the central street was this +Of a renowned metropolis; +And men two centuries and a half +Trod in the footsteps of that calf. + +Each day a hundred thousand rout +Followed the zigzag calf about; +And o'er his crooked journey went +The traffic of a continent. +A hundred thousand men were led +By one calf near three centuries dead. +They followed still his crooked way, +And lost one hundred years a day; +For thus such reverence is lent +To well-established precedent. + +A moral lesson this might teach, +Were I ordained and called to preach; +For men are prone to go it blind +Along the calf-paths of the mind, +And work away from sun to sun +To do what other men have done. +They follow in the beaten track, +And out and in, and forth and back, +And still their devious course pursue, +To keep the path that others do. + +But how the wise old wood-gods laugh, +Who saw the first primeval calf! +Ah! many things this tale might teach, - +But I am not ordained to preach. + +Sam Walter Foss [1858-1911] + + +WEDDED BLISS + +"O come and be my mate!" said the Eagle to the Hen; +"I love to soar, but then +I want my mate to rest +Forever in the nest!" +Said the Hen, I cannot fly, +I have no wish to try, +But I joy to see my mate careering through the sky!" +They wed, and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!" +And the Hen sat, and the Eagle soared, alone. + +"O come and be my mate!" said the Lion to the Sheep; +"My love for you is deep! +I slay, - a Lion should, - +But you are mild and good!" +Said the Sheep, "I do no ill - +Could not, had I the will - +But I joy to see my mate pursue, devour and kill." +They wed, and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!" +And the Sheep browsed, the Lion prowled, alone. + +"O come and be my mate!" said the Salmon to the Clam; +"You are not wise, but I am. +I know the sea and stream as well; +You know nothing but your shell." +Said the Clam, "I'm slow of motion, +But my love is all devotion, +And I joy to have my mate traverse lake and stream and ocean!" +They wed, and cried, "Ah, this is Love, my own!" +And the Clam sucked, the Salmon swam, alone. + +Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman [1860-1935} + + +PARADISE: A HINDOO LEGEND + +A Hindoo died; a happy thing to do, +When fifty years united to a shrew. +Released, he hopefully for entrance cries +Before the gates of Brahma's paradise. +"Hast been through purgatory?" Brahma said. +"I have been married!" and he hung his head. +"Come in! come in! and welcome, too, my son! +Marriage and purgatory are as one." +In bliss extreme he entered heaven's door, +And knew the peace he ne'er had known before. + +He scarce had entered in the gardens fair, +Another Hindoo asked admission there. +The self-same question Brahma asked again: +"Hast been through purgatory?" "No; what then?" +"Thou canst not enter!" did the god reply. +"He who went in was there no more than I." +"All that is true, but he has married been, +And so on earth has suffered for all his sin." +"Married? Tis well, for I've been married twice." +"Begone! We'll have no fools, in paradise!" + +George Birdseye [1844-1919] + + +AD CHLOEN, M. A. +(Fresh From Her Cambridge Examination) + +Lady, very fair are you, +And your eyes are very blue, +And your hose; +And your brow is like the snow, +And the various things you know +Goodness knows. + +And the rose-flush on your cheek, +And your algebra and Greek +Perfect are; +And that loving lustrous eye +Recognizes in the sky +Every star. + +You have pouting piquant lips, +You can doubtless an eclipse +Calculate; +But for your cerulean hue, +I had certainly from you +Met my fate. + +If by an arrangement dual +I were Adams mixed with Whewell, +Then some day +I, as wooer, perhaps might come +To so sweet an Artium +Magistra. + +Mortimer Collins [1827-1876] + + +"AS LIKE THE WOMAN AS YOU CAN" + +"As like the Woman as you can" - +(Thus the New Adam was beguiled) - +"So shall you touch the Perfect Man" - +(God in the Garden heard and smiled). +"Your father perished with his day: +A clot of passions fierce and blind, +He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way: +Your muscles, Child, must be of mind. + +"The Brute that lurks and irks within, +How, till you have him gagged and bound, +Escape the foulest form of Sin?" +(God in the Garden laughed and frowned). +"So vile, so rank, the bestial mood +In which the race is bid to be, +It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood: +Live, therefore, you, for Purity! + +"Take for your mate no gallant croup, +No girl all grace and natural will: +To work her mission were to stoop, +Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill. +Choose one of whom your grosser make" - +(God in the Garden laughed outright) - +"The true refining touch may take, +Till both attain to Life's last height. + +"There, equal, purged of soul and sense, +Beneficent, high-thinking, just, +Beyond the appeal of Violence, +Incapable of common Lust, +In mental Marriage still prevail" - +(God in the Garden hid His face) - +"Till you achieve that Female-Male +In which shall culminate the race." + +William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] + + +"NO FAULT IN WOMEN" + +No fault in women to refuse +The offer which they most would choose: +No fault in women to confess +How tedious they are in their dress: +No fault in women to lay on +The tincture of vermilion, +And there to give the cheek a dye +Of white, where Nature doth deny: +No fault in women to make show +Of largeness, when they're nothing so; +When, true it is, the outside swells +With inward buckram, little else: +No fault in women, though they be +But seldom from suspicion free: +No fault in womankind at all, +If they but slip, and never fall. + +Robert Herrick [1591-1674] + + +"ARE WOMEN FAIR?" + +"Are women fair?" Ay! wondrous fair to see too. +"Are women sweet?" Yea, passing sweet they be too; +Most fair and sweet to them that only love them; +Chaste and discreet to all save those that prove them. + +"Are women wise?" Not wise, but they be witty. +"Are women witty?" Yea, the more the pity; +They are so witty, and in wit so wily, +That be you ne'er so wise, they will beguile ye. + +"Are women fools?" Not fools, but fondlings many. +"Can women found be faithful unto any?" +When snow-white swans do turn to color sable, +Then women fond will be both firm and stable. + +"Are women saints?" No saints, nor yet no devils. +"Are women good?" Not good, but needful evils; +So Angel-like, that devils I do not doubt them; +So needful evils, that few can live without them. + +"Are women proud?" Ay! passing proud, and praise them. +"Are women kind?" Ay! wondrous kind and please them, +Or so imperious, no man can endure them, +Or so kind-hearted, any may procure them. + +Francis Davison (?) [fl. 1602] + + +A STRONG HAND + +Tender-handed stroke a nettle, +And it stings you for your pains; +Grasp it like a lad of mettle, +And it soft as silk remains: + +So it is with these fair creatures, +Use them kindly, they rebel; +But be rough as nutmeg graters, +And the rogues obey you well. + +Aaron Hill [1685-1750] + + +WOMEN'S LONGING +From "Women Pleased" + +Tell me what is that only thing +For which all women long; +Yet, having what they most desire, +To have it does them wrong? + +'Tis not to be chaste, nor fair, +(Such gifts malice may impair), +Richly trimmed, to walk or ride, +Or to wanton unespied, +To preserve an honest name +And so to give it up to fame - +These are toys. In good or ill +They desire to have their will: +Yet, when they have it, they abuse it, +For they know not how to use it. + +John Fletcher [1579-1625] + + +TRIOLET + +All women born are so perverse +No man need boast their love possessing. +If naught seem better, nothing's worse: +All women born are so perverse. +From Adam's wife, that proved a curse, +Though God had made her for a blessing, +All women born are so perverse +No man need boast their love possessing. + +Robert Bridges [1844-1930] + + +THE FAIR CIRCASSIAN + +Forty Viziers saw I go +Up to the Seraglio, +Burning, each and every man, +For the fair Circassian. + +Ere the morn had disappeared, +Every Vizier wore a beard; +Ere the afternoon was born, +Every Vizier came back shorn. + +"Let the man that woos to win +Woo with an unhairy chin;" +Thus she said, and as she bid +Each devoted Vizier did. + +From the beards a cord she made, +Looped it to the balustrade, +Glided down and went away +To her own Circassia. + +When the Sultan heard, waxed he +Somewhat wroth, and presently +In the noose themselves did lend +Every Vizier did suspend. + +Sages all, this rhyme who read, +Guard your beards with prudent heed, +And beware the wily plans +Of the fair Circassians. + +Richard Garnett [1835-1906] + + +THE FEMALE PHAETON + +Thus Kitty, beautiful and young, +And wild as colt untamed, +Bespoke the fair from whence she sprung, +With little rage inflamed: + +Inflamed with rage at sad restraint, +Which wise mamma ordained; +And sorely vexed to play the saint, +Whilst wit and beauty reigned: + +"Shall I thumb holy books, confined +With Abigails, forsaken? +Kitty's for other things designed, +Or I am much mistaken. + +"Must Lady Jenny frisk about, +And visit with her cousins? +At balls must she make all the rout, +And bring home hearts by dozens? + +"What has she better, pray, than I, +What hidden charms to boast, +That all mankind for her should die, +Whilst I am scarce a toast? + +"Dearest mamma! for once let me, +Unchained, my fortune try; +I'll have my earl as well as she, +Or know the reason why. + +"I'll soon with Jenny's pride quit score, +Make all her lovers fall: +They'll grieve I was not loosed before; +She, I was loosed at all." + +Fondness prevailed, mamma gave way; +Kitty, at heart's desire, +Obtained the chariot for a day, +And set the world on fire. + +Matthew Prior [1664-1721] + + +THE LURE + +"What bait do you use," said a Saint to the Devil, +"When you fish where the souls of men abound?" +"Well, for special tastes," said the King of Evil, +"Gold and Fame are the best I've found." + +"But for general use?" asked the Saint. "Ah, then," +Said the Demon, "I angle for Man, not men, +And a thing I hate +Is to change my bait, +So I fish with a woman the whole year round." + +John Boyle O'Reilly [1844-1890] + + +THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES + +When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, +He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside; +But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail, +For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. + +When Nag, the wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man, +He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can; +But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail, +For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. + +When the early Jesuit fathers preached to Hurons and Choctaws, +They prayed to be delivered from the vengeance of the squaws. +'Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale, +For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. + +Man's timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say, +For the Woman that God gave him isn't his to give away; +But when hunter meets with husband, each confirms the other's tale - +The female of the species is more deadly than the male. + +Man, a bear in most relations - worm and savage otherwise, - +Man propounds negotiations, Man accepts the compromise. +Very rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact +To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. + +Fear, or foolishness, impels him, ere he lay the wicked low, +To concede some form of trial even to his fiercest foe. +Mirth obscene diverts his anger - Doubt and Pity oft perplex +Him in dealing with an issue - to the scandal of The Sex! + +But the Woman that God gave him, every fibre of her frame +Proves her launched for one sole issue, armed and engined for the same; +And to serve that single issue, lest the generations fail, +The female of the species must be deadlier than the male. + +She who faces Death by torture for each life beneath her breast +May not deal in doubt or pity - must not swerve for fact or jest. +These be purely male diversions - not in these her honor dwells. +She, the Other Law we live by, is that Law and nothing else. + +She can bring no more to living than the powers that make her great +As the Mother of the Infant and the Mistress of the Mate; +And when Babe and Man are lacking and she strides unclaimed to claim +Her right as femme (and baron), her equipment is the same. + +She is wedded to convictions - in default of grosser ties; +Her contentions are her children, Heaven help him who denies! - +He will meet no cool discussion, but the instant, white-hot, wild, +Wakened female of the species warring as for spouse and child. + +Unprovoked and awful charges - even so the she-bear fights; +Speech that drips, corrodes, and poisons - even so the cobra bites; +Scientific vivisection of one nerve till it is raw +And the victim writhes in anguish - like the Jesuit with the squaw! + +So it comes that Man, the coward, when he gathers to confer +With his fellow-braves in council, dare not leave a place for her +Where, at war with Life and Conscience, he uplifts his erring hands +To some God of Abstract Justice - which no woman understands. + +And Man knows it! Knows, moreover, that the Woman that God gave him +Must command but may not govern - shall enthral but not enslave him. +And She knows, because She warns him, and Her instincts never fail, +That the Female of Her Species is more deadly than the Male. + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +THE WOMAN WITH THE SERPENT'S TONGUE + +She is not old, she is not young, +The woman with the Serpent's Tongue, +The haggard cheek, the hungering eye, +The poisoned words that wildly fly, +The famished face, the fevered hand, - +Who slights the worthiest in the land, +Sneers at the just, contemns the brave, +And blackens goodness in its grave. + +In truthful numbers be she sung, +The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue; +Concerning whom, Fame hints at things +Told but in shrugs and whisperings: +Ambitious from her natal hour, +And scheming all her life for power; +With little left of seemly pride; +With venomed fangs she cannot hide; +Who half makes love to you to-day, + +To-morrow gives her guest away. +Burnt up within by that strange soul +She cannot slake, or yet control: +Malignant-lipped, unkind, unsweet; +Past all example indiscreet; +Hectic, and always overstrung, - +The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. + +To think that such as she can mar +Names that among the noblest are! +That hands like hers can touch the springs +That move who knows what men and things? +That on her will their fates have hung! - +The Woman with the Serpent's Tongue. + +William Watson [1858-1935] + + +SUPPOSE + +How sad if, by some strange new law, +All kisses scarred! +For she who is most beautiful +Would be most marred. + +And we might be surprised to see +Some lovely wife +Smooth-visaged, while a seeming prude +Was marked for life. + +Anne Reeve Aldrich [1866-1892] + + +TOO CANDID BY HALF + +As Tom and his wife were discoursing one day +Of their several faults in a bantering way, +Said she, "Though my wit you disparage, +I'm sure, my dear husband, our friends will attest +This much, at the least, that my judgment is best." +Quoth Tom, "So they said at our marriage." + +John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887] + + +FABLE + +The mountain and the squirrel +Had a quarrel, +And the former called the latter "Little Prig;" +Bun replied, +"You are doubtless very big; +But all sorts of things and weather +Must be taken in together, +To make up a year +And a sphere. +And I think it no disgrace +To occupy my place. +If I'm not so large as you, +You are not so small as I, +And not half so spry. + +I'll not deny you make +A very pretty squirrel track; +Talents differ; all is well and wisely put; +If I cannot carry forests on thy back, +Neither can you crack a nut. + +Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] + + +WOMAN'S WILL + +That man's a fool who tries by art and skill +To stem the torrent of a woman's will: +For if she will, she will; you may depend on't - +And if she won't, she won't - and there's an end on't. + +Unknown + + +WOMAN'S WILL + +Men, dying, make their wills, but wives +Escape a task so sad; +Why should they make what all their lives +The gentle dames have had? + +John Godfrey Saxe [1816-1887] + + +PLAYS + +Alas, how soon the hours are over +Counted us out to play the lover! +And how much narrower is the stage +Allotted us to play the sage! + +But when we play the fool, how wide +The theatre expands! beside, +How long the audience sits before us! +How many prompters! what a chorus! + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + + +THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE + +I sent for Ratcliffe; was so ill, +That other doctors gave me over: +He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, +And I was likely to recover. + +But, when the wit began to wheeze, +And wine had warmed the politician, +Cured yesterday of my disease, +I died last night of my physician. + +Matthew Prior [1664-1721] + + +THE NET OF LAW + +The net of law is spread so wide, +No sinner from its sweep may hide. + +Its meshes are so fine and strong, +They take in every child of wrong. + +O wondrous web of mystery! +Big fish alone escape from thee! + +James Jeffrey Roche [1847-1908] + + +COLOGNE + +In Koln, a town of monks and bones, +And pavements fanged with murderous stones, +And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; +I counted two and seventy stenches, +All well defined, and several stinks! +Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, +The river Rhine, it is well known, +Doth wash your city of Cologne; +But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine +Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine? + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] + + +EPITAPH ON CHARLES II + +Here lies our Sovereign Lord the King, +Whose word no man relies on, +Who never said a foolish thing, +Nor ever did a wise one. + +John Wilmot [1647-1680] + + +CERTAIN MAXIMS OF HAFIZ + +I +If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai, +Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy? +If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say? +"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me today!" + +II +Yea, though a Kaffir die, to him is remitted Jehannum +If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent per annum. + +III +Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed, +The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next. + +IV +The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune - +Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June? + +V +Who are the rulers of Ind - to whom shall we bow the knee? +Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G. + +VI +Does the woodpecker flit round the young ferash? +Does the grass clothe a new-built wall? +Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall? + +VI +If She grow suddenly gracious - reflect. Is it all for thee? +The black-buck is stalked through the bullock, and Man through jealousy. + +VIII +Seek not for favor of women. So shall you find it indeed. +Does not the boar break cover just when you're lighting a weed? + +IX +If He play, being young and unskilful, for shekels of silver and gold, +Take His money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold. + +X +With a "weed" among men or horses verily this is the best, +That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly - but give him no rest. + +XI +Pleasant the snaffle of Courtship, improving the manners and carriage; +But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thornbit + of Marriage. + +XII +As the thriftless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend +On a Derby Sweep, or our neighbor's wife, or the horse that we buy + from a friend. + +XIII +The ways of a man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame +To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same. + +XIV +In public Her face turneth to thee, and pleasant Her smile when ye meet. +It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves at + their feet. +In public Her face is averted, with anger She nameth thy name. +It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game? + +XV +If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed, +And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed. +If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it. +Tear it in pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it! +If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear, +Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear. + +XVI +My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er, +Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward - get out! +She has been there before. +They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose + who are lacking in lore. + +XVII +If we fall in the race, though we win, the hoof-slide is scarred + on the course. +Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse. + +XVIII +"By all I am misunderstood!" if the Matron shall say, or the Maid: - +"Alas! I do not understand," my son, be thou nowise afraid. +In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed. + +XIX +My Son, if I, Hafiz, thy father, take hold of thy knees in my pain, +Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour - refrain. +Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest + another man's chain? + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +A BAKER'S DUZZEN UV WIZE SAWZ + +Them ez wants, must choose. +Them ez hez, must lose. +Them ez knows, won't blab. +Them ez guesses, will gab. +Them ez borrows, sorrows. +Them ez lends, spends. +Them ez gives, lives. +Them ez keeps dark, is deep. +Them ez kin earn; kin keep. +Them ez aims, hits. +Them ez hez, gits. +Them ez waits, win. +Them ez will, kin. + +Edward Rowland Sill [1841-1887] + + +EPIGRAMS + +What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole, +Its body brevity, and wit its soul. + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] + +--------------- + +As in smooth oil the razor best is whet, +So wit is by politeness sharpest set; +Their want of edge from their offence is seen, +Both pain the heart when exquisitely keen. + +Unknown + +--------------- + +"I hardly ever ope my lips," one cries; +"Simonides, what think you of my rule?" +"If you're a fool, I think you're very wise; +If you are wise, I think you are a fool." + +Richard Garnett [1835-1906] + +--------------- + +Philosopher, whom dost thou most affect, +Stoics austere, or Epicurus' sect? +Friend, 'tis my grave infrangible design +With those to study, and with these to dine. + +Richard Garnett [1835-1906] + +--------------- + +Joy is the blossom, sorrow is the fruit, +Of human life; and worms are at the root. + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + +--------------- + +No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken, +Than that the largest heart is soonest broken. + +Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] + +--------------- + +This house, where once a lawyer dwelt, +Is now a smith's. Alas! +How rapidly the iron age +Succeeds the age of brass! + +William Erskine [1769-1822] + +--------------- + +"I would," says Fox, "a tax devise +That shall not fall on me." +"Then tax receipts," Lord North replies, +"For those you never see." + +Richard Brinsley Sheridan [1751-1816] + +--------------- + +You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come. +Knock as you please, - there's nobody at home. + +Alexander Pope [1688-1744] + +--------------- + +If a man who turnips cries +Cry not when his father dies, +'Tis a proof that he would rather +Have a turnip than a father. + +Samuel Johnson [1709-1784] + +--------------- + +Life is a jest, and all things show it; +I said so once, and now I know it. + +John Gay [1685-1732] + +--------------- + +I am his Highness' dog at Kew. +Pray, sir, tell me, - whose dog are you? + +Alexander Pope [1688-1744] + +--------------- + +Sir, I admit your general rule, +That every poet is a fool, +But you yourself may serve to show it, +That every fool is not a poet. + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] + +--------------- + +Damis, an author cold and weak, +Thinks as a critic he's divine; +Likely enough; we often make +Good vinegar of sorry wine. + +Unknown + +--------------- + +Swans sing before they die - 'twere no bad thing +Did certain persons die before they sing. + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] + +--------------- + +He who in his pocket hath no money +Should, in his mouth, be never without honey. + +Unknown + +--------------- + +Nobles and heralds, by your leave, +Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, +The son of Adam and of Eve; +Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher? + +Matthew Prior [1664-1721] + +--------------- + +Here lie I, Martin Elginbrodde; +Hae mercy o' my soul, Lord God, +As I wad do were I Lord God, +And ye were Martin Elginbrodde. + +George Macdonald [1824-1905] + +--------------- + +Who killed Kildare? Who dared Kildare to kill? +Death killed Kildare - who dare kill whom he will. + +Jonathan Swift [1667-1745] + +--------------- + +With death doomed to grapple, +Beneath the cold slab he +Who lied in the chapel +Now lies in the abbey. + +Byron's epitaph for Pitt + +--------------- + +When doctrines meet with general approbation, +It is not heresy, but reformation. + +David Garrick [1717-1779] + +--------------- + +Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? +Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason. + +John Harington [1561-1612] + +--------------- + +God bless the King - I mean the faith's defender! +God bless (no harm in blessing!) the Pretender! +But who pretender is, or who is King - +God bless us all! - that's quite another thing. + +John Byrom [1692-1763] + +--------------- + +'Tis highly rational, we can't dispute, +The Love, being naked, should promote a suit: +But doth not oddity to him attach +Whose fire's so oft extinguished by a match? + +Richard Garnett [1835-1906] + +--------------- + +"Come, come," said Tom's father, "at your time of life, +There's no longer excuse for thus playing the rake. - +It is time you should think, boy, of taking a wife." - +Why, so it is, father, - whose wife shall I take?" + +Thomas Moore [1779-1852] + +--------------- + +When Eve upon the first of men +The apple pressed with specious cant, +O, what a thousand pities then +That Adam was not Adam-ant! + +Thomas Moore [1779-1852] + +--------------- + +Whilst Adam slept, Eve from his side arose: +Strange! his first sleep should be his last repose! + +Unknown + +--------------- + +"What? rise again with all one's bones," +Quoth Giles, "I hope you fib: +I trusted, when I went to Heaven, +To go without my rib. + +Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] + +--------------- + +Here lies my wife: here let her lie! +Now she's at rest, and so am I. + +John Dryden [1631-1700] + +--------------- + +After such years of dissension and strife, +Some wonder that Peter should weep for his wife; +But his tears on her grave are nothing surprising, - +He's laying her dust, for fear of its rising. + +Thomas Hood [1799-1845] + + +WRITTEN ON A LOOKING-GLASS + +I change, and so do women too; +But I reflect, which women never do. + +Unknown + + +AN EPITAPH + +A lovely young lady I mourn in my rhymes: +She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes. +Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes, +And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise. +Her adorers were many, and one of them said, +"She waltzed rather well! It's a pity she's dead!" + +George John Cayley [ ? ] + + +ON THE ARISTOCRACY OF HARVARD + +And this is good old Boston, +The home of the bean and the cod, +Where the Lowells talk to the Cabots +And the Cabots talk only to God. + +John Collins Bossidy [1860-1928] + + +ON THE DEMOCRACY OF YALE + +Here's to the town of New Haven, +The home of the Truth and the Light, +Where God talks to Jones in the very same tones +That He uses with Hadley and Dwight! + +Frederick Scheetz Jones [1862- + + +A GENERAL SUMMARY + +We are very slightly changed +From the semi-apes who ranged +India's prehistoric clay; +Whoso drew the longest bow, +Ran his brother down, you know, +As we run men down to-day. +"Dowb," the first of all his race, +Met the Mammoth face to face +On the lake or in the cave, +Stole the steadiest canoe, +Ate the quarry others slew, +Died - and took the finest grave. + +When they scratched the reindeer-bone, +Someone made the sketch his own, +Filched it from the artist - then, +Even in those early days, +Won a simple Viceroy's praise +Through the toil of other men. +Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage, +Favoritism governed kissage, +Even as it does in this age. + +Who shall doubt "the secret hid +Under Cheops' pyramid" +Was that the contractor did +Cheops out of several millions? +Or that Joseph's sudden rise +To Comptroller of Supplies +Was a fraud of monstrous size +On King Pharaoh's swart Civilians? + +Thus, the artless songs I sing +Do not deal with anything +New or never said before. +As it was in the beginning, +Is to-day official sinning, +And shall be for evermore! + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + + + + + + +THE MIMICS + + + + + + +AN OMAR FOR LADIES + +I +One for her Club and her own Latch-key fights, +Another wastes in Study her good Nights. +Ah, take the Clothes and let the Culture go, +Nor heed the grumble of the Women's Rights! + +Look at the Shop-girl all about us - "Lo, +The Wages of a month," she says, "I blow +Into a Hat, and when my hair is waved, +Doubtless my Friend will take me to the Show." + +And she who saved her coin for Flannels red, +And she who caught Pneumonia instead, +Will both be Underground in Fifty Years, +And Prudence pays no Premium to the dead. + +Th' exclusive Style you set your heart upon +Gets to the Bargain counters - and anon, +Like monograms on a Saleslady's tie, +Cheers but a moment - soon for you 'tis gone. + +Think, in the sad Four Hundred's gilded halls, +Whose endless Leisure ev'n themselves appalls, +How Ping-pong raged so high - then faded out +To those far Suburbs that still chase its Balls. + +They say Sixth Avenue and the Bowery keep +The dernier cri that once was far from cheap; +Green veils, one season chic - Department stores +Mark down in vain - no profit shall they reap. + +II +I sometimes think that never lasts so long +The Style as when it starts a bit too strong; +That all the Pompadours the parterre boasts +Some Chorus-girl began, with Dance and Song. + +And this Revival of the Chignon low +That fills the most of us with helpless Woe, +Ah, criticise it Softly! for who knows +What long-necked Peeress had to wear it so! + +Ah, my beloved, try each Style you meet; +To-day brooks no loose ends, you must be neat. +Tomorrow! why tomorrow you may be +Wearing it down your back like Marguerite! + +For some we once admired, the Very Best +That ever a French hand-boned Corset prest, +Wore what they used to call Prunella Boots, +And put on Nightcaps ere they went to rest. + +And we that now make fun of Waterfalls +They wore, and whom their Crinoline appalls, +Ourselves shall from old dusty Fashion plates +Assist our Children in their Costume balls. + +Ah, make the most of what we yet may wear, +Before we grow so old that we don't care! +Before we have our Hats made all alike, +Sans Plumes, sans Wings, sans Chiffon, and - sans Hair! + +III +Alike to her who Dines both Loud and Long, +Or her who Banting shuns the Dinner-gong, +Some Doctor from his Office chair will shout, +"It makes no Difference - both of you are Wrong!" + +Why, all the Health-Reformers who discussed +High Heels and Corsets learnedly are thrust +Square-toed and Waistless forth; their Duds are scorned, +And Venus might as well have been a Bust. + +Myself when slim did eagerly frequent +Delsarte and Ling, and heard great Argument +Of muscles trained to Hold me up, but still +Spent on my Modiste what I'd always spent! + +With walking Clubs I did the best I could; +With my own Feet I tramped my Ten Miles, good; +And this was All that I got out of it - +I ate much more for Dinner than I should. + + . . . . . . + +And fear not lest your Rheumatism seize +The Joy of Life from other people's Sprees; +The Art will not have Perished - au contraire, +Posterity will practise it with Ease! + +When you and I have ceased Champagne to Sup, +Be sure there will be More to Keep it Up; +And while we pat Old Tabby by the fire, +Full many a Girl will lead her Brindled Pup. + +Josephine Daskam Bacon [1876- + + +"WHEN LOVELY WOMAN" +After Goldsmith + +When lovely woman wants a favor, +And finds, too late, that man won't bend, +What earthly circumstance can save her +From disappointment in the end? + +The only way to bring him over, +The last experiment to try, +Whether a husband or a lover, +If he have feeling is - to cry. + +Phoebe Cary [1824-1871] + + +FRAGMENT IN IMITATION OF WORDSWORTH + +There is a river clear and fair, +'Tis neither broad nor narrow; +It winds a little here and there - +It winds about like any hare; +And then it holds as straight a course +As, on the turnpike road, a horse, +Or, through the air, an arrow. + +The trees that grow upon the shore +Have grown a hundred years or more; +So long there is no knowing: +Old Daniel Dobson does not know +When first those trees began to grow; +But still they grew, and grew, and grew, +As if they'd nothing else to do, +But ever must be growing. + +The impulses of air and sky +Have reared their stately heads so high, +And clothed their boughs with green; +Their leaves the dews of evening quaff, - +And when the wind blows loud and keen, +I've seen the jolly timbers laugh, +And shake their sides with merry glee - +Wagging their heads in mockery. + +Fixed are their feet in solid earth +Where winds can never blow; +But visitings of deeper birth +Have reached their roots below. +For they have gained the river's brink +And of the living waters drink. + +There's little Will, a five years' child - +He is my youngest boy; +To look on eyes so fair and wild, +It is a very joy. +He hath conversed with sun and shower, +And dwelt with every idle flower, +As fresh and gay as them. +He loiters with the briar-rose, - +The blue-bells are his playfellows, +That dance upon their slender stem. + +And I have said, my little Will, +Why should he not continue still +A thing of Nature's rearing? +A thing beyond the world's control - +A living vegetable soul, - +No human sorrow fearing. + +It were a blessed sight to see +That child become a willow-tree, +His brother trees among. +He'd be four times as tall as me, +And live three times as long. + +Catherine M. Fanshawe [1765-1834] + + +ONLY SEVEN +After Wordsworth + +I marvelled why a simple child, +That lightly draws its breath, +Should utter groans so very wild, +And look as pale as death. + +Adopting a parental tone, +I asked her why she cried; +The damsel answered with a groan, +"I've got a pain inside! + +"I thought it would have sent me mad +Last night about eleven." +Said I, "What is it makes you bad? +How many apples have you had?" +She answered, "Only seven!" + +"And are you sure you took no more, +My little maid?" quoth I; +"Oh, please, sir, mother gave me four, +But they were in a pie!" + +"If that's the case," I stammered out, +"Of course you've had eleven." +The maiden answered with a pout, +"I ain't had more nor seven!" + +I wondered hugely what she meant, +And said, "I'm bad at riddles; +But I know where little girls are sent +For telling taradiddles. + +"Now, if you don't reform," said I, +"You'll never go to heaven." +But all in vain; each time I try, +That little idiot makes reply, +"I ain't had more nor seven!" + +POSTSCRIPT: +To borrow Wordsworth's name was wrong, +Or slightly misapplied; +And so I'd better call my song +"Lines after Ache-inside." + +Henry Sambrooke Leigh [1837-1883] + + +LUCY LAKE +After Wordsworth + +Poor Lucy Lake was overgrown, +But somewhat underbrained. +She did not know enough, I own, +To go in when it rained. + +Yet Lucy was constrained to go; +Green bedding, - you infer. +Few people knew she died, but oh, +The difference to her! + +Newton Mackintosh [1858- + + +JANE SMITH +After Wordsworth + +I journeyed, on a winter's day, +Across the lonely wold; +No bird did sing upon the spray, +And it was very cold. + +I had a coach with horses four, +Three white (though one was black), +And on they went the common o'er, +Nor swiftness did they lack. + +A little girl ran by my side, +And she was pinched and thin. +"Oh, please, sir, do give me a ride! +I'm fetching mother's gin." + +"Enter my coach, sweet child," said I, +"For you shall ride with me; +And I will get you your supply +Of mother's eau-de-vie." + +The publican was stern and cold, +And said: "Her mother's score +Is writ, as you shall soon behold, +Behind the bar-room door!" + +I blotted out the score with tears, +And paid the money down; +And took the maid of thirteen years +Back to her mother's town. + +And though the past with surges wild +Fond memories may sever, +The vision of that happy child +Will leave my spirits never! + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +FATHER WILLIAM +From "Alice in Wonderland" +After Southey + +"You are old, Father William," the young man said, +"And your hair has become very white; +And yet you incessantly stand on your head - +Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + +"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, +"I feared it might injure the brain; +But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, +Why, I do it again and again." + +"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before, +And have grown most uncommonly fat; +Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door - +Pray, what is the reason of that?" + +"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, +"I kept all my limbs very supple +By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box - +Allow me to sell you a couple?" + +"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak +For anything tougher than suet; +Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak - +Pray, how did you manage to do it?" + +"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, +And argued each case with my wife; +And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw, +Has lasted the rest of my life." + +"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose +That your eye was as steady as ever; +Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose - +What made you so awfully clever?" + +"I have answered three questions and that is enough," +Said his father; "don't give yourself airs! +Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? +Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!" + +Lewis Carroll [1832-1898] + + +THE NEW ARRIVAL +After Campbell + +There came to port last Sunday night +The queerest little craft, +Without an inch of rigging on; +I looked and looked - and laughed! +It seemed so curious that she +Should cross the Unknown water, +And moor herself within my room - +My daughter! O, my daughter! + +Yet by these presents witness all +She's welcome fifty times, +And comes consigned in hope and love - +And common-metre rhymes. +She has no manifest but this; +No flag floats o'er the water; +She's too new for the British Lloyds - +My daughter! O, my daughter! + +Ring out, wild bells - and tame ones too; +Ring out the lover's moon. +Ring in the little worsted socks, +Ring in the bib and spoon. +Ring out the muse, ring in the nurse, +Ring in the milk and water. +Away with paper, pen, and ink - +My daughter! O, my daughter! + +George Washington Cable [1844-1925] + + +DISASTER +After Moore + +'Twas ever thus from childhood's hour +My fondest hopes would not decay: +I never loved a tree or flower +Which was the first to fade away! +The garden, where I used to delve +Short-frocked, still yields me pinks in plenty; +The pear-tree that I climbed at twelve, +I see still blossoming, at twenty. + +I never nursed a dear gazelle. +But I was given a paroquet - +How I did nurse him if unwell! +He's imbecile, but lingers yet. +He's green, with an enchanting tuft; +He melts me with his small black eye: +He'd look inimitable stuffed, +And knows it - but he will not die! + +I had a kitten - I was rich +In pets - but all too soon my kitten +Became a full-sized cat, by which +I've more than once been scratched and bitten; +And when for sleep her limbs she curled +One day beside her untouched plateful, +And glided calmly from the world, +I freely own that I was grateful. + +And then I bought a dog - a queen! +Ah, Tiny, dear departing pug! +She lives, but she is past sixteen, +And scarce can crawl across the rug. +I loved her beautiful and kind; +Delighted in her pert Bow-wow: +But now she snaps if you don't mind; +'Twere lunacy to love her now. + +I used to think, should e'er mishap +Betide my crumple-visaged Ti, +In shape of prowling thief, or trap, +Or coarse bull-terrier - I should die. +But ah! disasters have their use; +And life might e'en be too sunshiny: +Nor would I make myself a goose, +If some big dog should swallow Tiny. + +Charles Stuart Calverley [1831-1884] + + +'TWAS EVER THUS +After Moore + +I never reared a young gazelle, +(Because, you see, I never tried); +But had it known and loved me well, +No doubt the creature would have died. +My rich and aged Uncle John +Has known me long and loves me well +But still persists in living on - +I would he were a young gazelle. + +I never loved a tree or flower; +But, if I had, I beg to say +The blight, the wind, the sun, or shower +Would soon have withered it away. +I've dearly loved my Uncle John, +From childhood to the present hour, +And yet he will go living on - +I would he were a tree or flower! + +Henry Sambrooke Leigh [1837-1883] + + +A GRIEVANCE +After Byron + +Dear Mr. Editor: I wish to say - +If you will not be angry at my, writing it - +But I've been used, since childhood's happy day, +When I have thought of something, to inditing it; +I seldom think of things; and, by the way, +Although this meter may not be exciting, it +Enables one to be extremely terse, +Which is not what one always is in verse. + +I used to know a man, - such things befall +The observant wayfarer through Fate's domain - +He was a man, take him for all in all, +We shall not look upon his like again; +I know that statement's not original; +What statement is, since Shakespeare? or, since Cain, +What murder? I believe 'twas Shakespeare said it, or +Perhaps it may have been your Fighting Editor. + +Though why an Editor should fight, or why +A Fighter should abase himself to edit, +Are problems far too difficult and high +For me to solve with any sort of credit. +Some greatly more accomplished man than I +Must tackle them: let's say then Shakespeare said it; +And, if he did not, Lewis Morris may +(Or even if he did). Some other day, + +When I have nothing pressing to impart, +I should not mind dilating on this matter. +I feel its import both in head and heart, +And always did, - especially the latter. +I could discuss it in the busy mart +Or on the lonely housetop; hold! this chatter +Diverts me from my purpose. To the point: +The time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint, + +And perhaps I was born to set it right, - +A fact I greet with perfect equanimity. +I do not put it down to "cursed spite," +I don't see any cause for cursing in it. I +Have always taken very great delight +In such pursuits since first I read divinity. +Whoever will may write a nation's songs +As long as I'm allowed to right its wrongs. + +What's Eton but a nursery of wrong-righters, +A mighty mother of effective men; +A training ground for amateur reciters, +A sharpener of the sword as of the pen; +A factory of orators and fighters, +A forcing-house of genius? Now and then +The world at large shrinks back, abashed and beaten, +Unable to endure the glare of Eton. + +I think I said I knew a man: what then? +I don't suppose such knowledge is forbid. +We nearly all do, more or less, know men, - +Or think we do; nor will a man get rid +Of that delusion while he wields a pen. +But who this man was, what, if aught, he did, +Nor why I mentioned him, I do not know, +Nor what I "wished to say" a while ago. + +James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892] + + +"NOT A SOU HAD HE GOT" +After Charles Wolfe + +Not a sou had he got - not a guinea or note - +And he looked confoundedly flurried, +As he bolted away without paying his shot, +And the landlady after him hurried. + +We saw him again at dead of night, +When home from the club returning; +We twigged the doctor beneath the light +Of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning. + +All bare and exposed to the midnight dews, +Reclined in a gutter we found him; +And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze +With his Marshall cloak around him. + +"The doctor's as drunk as the devil," we said, +And we managed a shutter to borrow; +We raised him; and sighed at the thought that his head +Would consumedly ache on the morrow. + +We bore him home, and we put him to bed, +And we told his wife and his daughter +To give him next morning a couple of red- +Herrings, with soda-water. + +Loudly they talked of his money that's gone, +And his lady began to upbraid him; +But little he recked, so they let him snore on +'Neath the counterpane, just as we laid him. + +We tucked him in, and had hardly done, +When, beneath the window calling, +We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun +Of a watchman "One o'clock!" bawling. + +Slowly and sadly we all walked down +From his room on the uppermost story; +A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone, +And we left him alone in his glory. + +Richard Harris Barham [1788-1845] + + +THE WHITING AND THE SNAIL +From "Alice in Wonderland" +After Mary Howitt + +"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, +"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail, +See bow eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! +They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance? +Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? + +"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be +When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" +But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance - +Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. +Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. + +"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied. +"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. +The further off from England the nearer is to France - +Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. +Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? +Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?" + +Lewis Carroll [1832-1898] + + +THE RECOGNITION +After Tennyson + +Home they brought her sailor son, +Grown a man across the sea, +Tall and broad and black of beard, +And hoarse of voice as man may be. + +Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, +Both he offered ere he spoke; +But she said, "What man is this +Comes to play a sorry joke?" + +Then they praised him - called him "smart," +"Tightest lad that ever stept;" +But her son she did not know, +And she neither smiled nor wept. + +Rose, a nurse of ninety years, +Set a pigeon-pie in sight; +She saw him eat: - "'Tis he! 'tis he!" +She knew him - by his appetite! + +Frederick William Sawyer [1810-1875] + + +THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL +After Tennyson + +One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is; +Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. + +What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under; +If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder. + +Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; +We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without? + +Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover; +Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over. + +Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight; +Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate. + +Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels; +God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels. + +Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which; +The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch. + +One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two; +Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true. + +Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks; +Then the mammoth was God; now is He a prize ox. + +Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew. +You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you. + +Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock; +Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock. + +God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see; +Fiddle, we know, is diddle; and diddle, we take it, is dee. + +Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] + + +THE WILLOW-TREE +After Hood + +Long by the willow-trees +Vainly they sought her, +Wild rang the mother's screams +O'er the gray water: +"Where is my lovely one? +Where is my daughter? + +"Rouse thee, Sir Constable - +Rouse thee and look; +Fisherman, bring your net, +Boatman, your hook. +Beat in the lily-beds, +Dive in the brook!" + +Vainly the constable +Shouted and called her; +Vainly the fisherman +Beat the green alder; +Vainly he flung the net, +Never it hauled her! + +Mother beside the fire +Sat, her nightcap in; +Father, in easy chair, +Gloomily napping, +When at the window-sill +Came a light tapping! + +And a pale countenance +Looked through the casement. +Loud beat the mother's heart, +Sick with amazement, +And at the vision which +Came to surprise her, +Shrieked in an agony - +"Lor'! it's Elizar!" + +Yes, 'twas Elizabeth - +Yes, 'twas their girl; +Pale was her cheek, and her +Hair out of curl. +"Mother," the loving one, +Blushing exclaimed, +"Let not your innocent +Lizzy be blamed. + +"Yesterday, going to Aunt +Jones's to tea, +Mother, dear mother, I +Forgot the door-key! +And as the night was cold +And the way steep, +Mrs. Jones kept me to +Breakfast and sleep." + +Whether her Pa and Ma +Fully believed her, +That we shall never know, +Stern they received her; +And for the work of that +Cruel, though short, night +Sent her to bed without +Tea for a fortnight. + +MORAL +Hey diddle diddlety, +Cat and the fiddlety, +Maidens of England, take caution by she! +Let love and suicide +Never tempt you aside, +And always remember to take the door-key. + +William Makepeace Thackeray [1811-1863] + + +POETS AND LINNETS +After Robert Browning + +Where'er there's a thistle to feed a linnet +And linnets are plenty, thistles rife - +Or an acorn-cup to catch dew-drops in it +There's ample promise of further life. +Now, mark how we begin it. + +For linnets will follow, if linnets are minded, +As blows the white-feather parachute; +And ships will reel by the tempest blinded - +Aye, ships and shiploads of men to boot! +How deep whole fleets you'll find hid. + +And we blow the thistle-down hither and thither +Forgetful of linnets, and men, and God. +The dew! for its want an oak will wither - +By the dull hoof into the dust is trod, +And then who strikes the cither? + +But thistles were only for donkeys intended, +And that donkeys are common enough is clear, +And that drop! what a vessel it might have befriended, +Does it add any flavor to Glugabib's beer? +Well, there's my musing ended. + +Tom Hood [1835-1874] + + +THE JAM-POT + +The Jam-pot - tender thought! +I grabbed it - so did you. +"What wonder while we fought +Together that it flew +In shivers?" you retort. + +You should have loosed your hold +One moment - checked your fist. +But, as it was, too bold +You grappled and you missed. +More plainly - you were sold. + +"Well, neither of us shared + The dainty." That your plea? +"Well, neither of us cared," +I answer. . . . "Let me see. +How have your trousers fared?" + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +BALLAD +After William Morris + +Part I +The auld wife sat at her ivied door, +(Butler and eggs and a pound of cheese) +A thing she had frequently done before; +And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees. + +The piper he piped on the hill-top high, +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +Till the cow said "I die," and the goose asked "Why?" +And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas. + +The farmer he strode through the square farmyard; +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +His last brew of ale was a trifle hard - +The connection of which with the plot one sees. + +The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes; +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, +As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. + +The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +If you try to approach her, away she skips +Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. + +The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, +Which wholly consisted of lines like these. + +Part II +She sat, with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks, +(Butler and eggs and a pound of cheese) +And spake not a word. While a lady speaks +There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze. + +She sat, with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks, +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +She gave up mending her father's breeks, +And let the cat roll in her new chemise. + +She sat, with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks, +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks; +Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas. + +Her sheep followed her, as their tails did them. +(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) +And this song is considered a perfect gem, +And as to the meaning, it's what you please. + +Charles Stuart Calverley [1831-1884] + + +THE POSTER-GIRL +After Dante Gabriel Rossetti + +The blessed Poster-girl leaned out +From a pinky-purple heaven; +One eye was red and one was green; +Her bang was cut uneven; +She had three fingers on her hand, +And the hairs on her head were seven. + +Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, +No sunflowers did adorn, +But a heavy Turkish portiere +Was very neatly worn; +And the hat that lay along her back +Was yellow like canned corn. + +It was a kind of wobbly wave +That she was standing on, +And high aloft she flung a scarf +That must have weighed a ton; +And she was rather tall - at least +She reached up to the sun. + +She curved and writhed, and then she said, +Less green of speech than blue: +"Perhaps I am absurd - perhaps +I don't appeal to you; +But my artistic worth depends +Upon the point of view." + +I saw her smile, although her eyes +Were only smudgy smears; +And then she swished her swirling arms, +And wagged her gorgeous ears, +She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob, +And wept some purple tears. + +Carolyn Wells [186? - + + +AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI +After Dante Gabriel Rossetti + +"Why do you wear your hair like a man, +Sister Helen? +This week is the third since you began." +"I'm writing a ballad; be still if you can, +Little brother. +(O Mother Carey, mother! +What chickens are these between sea and heaven?)" + +"But why does your figure appear so lean, +Sister Helen? +And why do you dress in sage, sage green?" +"Children should never be heard, if seen, +Little brother! +(O Mother Carey, mother! +What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!)" + +"But why is your face so yellowy white, +Sister Helen? +And why are your skirts so funnily tight?" +"Be quiet, you torment, or how can I write, +Little brother? +(O Mother Carey, mother! +How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven!)" + +"And who's Mother Carey, and what is her train, +Sister Helen? +And why do you call her again and again?" +"You troublesome boy, why that's the refrain, +Little brother. +(O Mother Carey, mother! +What work is toward in the startled heaven?)" + +"And what's a refrain? What a curious word, +Sister Helen! +Is the ballad you're writing about a sea-bird?" +"Not at all; why should it be? Don't be absurd, +Little brother. +(O Mother Carey, mother! +Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)" + +(A big brother speaketh:) + +"The refrain you've studied a meaning had, +Sister Helen! +It gave strange force to a weird ballad. +But refrains have become a ridiculous 'fad', +Little brother. +And Mother Carey, mother, +Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven. + +"But the finical fashion has had its day, +Sister Helen. +And let's try in the style of a different lay +To bid it adieu in poetical way, +Little brother. +So, Mother Carey, mother! +Collect your chickens and go to - heaven." + +(A pause. Then the big brother singeth, accompanying himself + in a plaintive wise on the triangle:) + +"Look in my face. My name is Used-to-was, +I am also called Played-out and Done-to-death, +And It-will-wash-no-more. Awakeneth +Slowly, but sure awakening it has, +The common-sense of man; and I, alas! +The ballad-burden trick, now known too well, +Am turned to scorn, and grown contemptible - +A too transparent artifice to pass. + +"What a cheap dodge I am! The cats who dart +Tin-kettled through the streets in wild surprise +Assail judicious ears not otherwise; +And yet no critics praise the urchin's 'art', +Who to the wretched creature's caudal part +Its foolish empty-jingling 'burden' ties." + +Henry Duff Traill [1842-1900] + + +IF +After Swinburne + +If life were never bitter, +And love were always sweet, +Then who would care to borrow +A moral from to-morrow - +If Thames would always glitter, +And joy would ne'er retreat, +If life were never bitter, +And love were always sweet! + +If care were not the waiter +Behind a fellow's chair, +When easy-going sinners +Sit down to Richmond dinners, +And life's swift stream flows straighter, +By Jove, it would be rare, +If care were not the waiter +Behind a fellow's chair. + +If wit were always radiant, +And wine were always iced, +And bores were kicked out straightway +Through a convenient gateway; +Then down the year's long gradient +'Twere sad to be enticed, +If wit were always radiant, +And wine were always iced. + +Mortimer Collins [1827-1876] + + +NEPHELIDIA +After Swinburne + +From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through + a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, +Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers + with fear of the flies as they float, +Are the looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of + mystic, miraculous moonshine, +These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and + threaten with throbs through the throat? +Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's + appalled agitation, +Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the + promise of pride in the past; +Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with + radiance of rathe recreation, +Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom + of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? + +Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on + the temples of terror, +Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who + is dumb as the dust-heaps of death; +Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic, emotional, + exquisite error, +Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by + beatitude's breath. +Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit + and soul of our senses +Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the + semblance and sound of a sigh; +Only this oracle opens Olympian in mystical moods and triangular tenses, - +"Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn + of the day when we die." + +Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute + as it may be, +While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of + men's rapiers, resigned to the rod; +Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing + bulk of a balm-breathing baby, +As they grope through the graveyard of creeds under skies growing + green at a groan for the grimness of God. +Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding + is blacker than bluer: +Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews + are the wine of the blood-shed of things; +Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that + is freed from the fangs that pursue her, +Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the + hunt that has harried the kennel of kings. + +Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] + + +COMMONPLACES +After Heine + +Rain on the face of the sea, +Rain on the sodden land, +And the window-pane is blurred with rain +As I watch it, pen in hand. + +Mist on the face of the sea, +Mist on the sodden land, +Filling the vales as daylight fails, +And blotting the desolate sand. + +Voices from out of the mist, +Calling to one another: +"Hath love an end, thou more than friend, +Thou dearer than ever brother?" + +Voices from out of the mist, +Calling and passing away; +But I cannot speak, for my voice is weak, +And. . . . this is the end of my lay. + +Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936] + + +THE PROMISSORY NOTE +After Poe + +In the lonesome latter years +(Fatal years!) +To the dropping of my tears +Danced the mad and mystic spheres +In a rounded, reeling rune, +'Neath the moon, +To the dripping and the dropping of my tears. +Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom, +(Ulalume!) +In a dim Titanic tomb, +For my gaunt and gloomy soul +Ponders o'er the penal scroll, +O'er the parchment (not a rhyme), +Out of place, - out of time, - +I am shredded, shorn, unshifty, +(Oh, the fifty!) +And the days have passed, the three, +Over me! +And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me! + +'Twas the random runes I wrote +At the bottom of the note, +(Wrote and freely +Gave to Greeley) +In the middle of the night, +In the mellow, moonless night, +When the stars were out of sight, +When my pulses, like a knell, +(Israfel!) +Danced with dim and dying fays, +O'er the ruins of my days, +O'er the dimeless, timeless days, +When the fifty, drawn at thirty, +Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty +Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise! + +Fiends controlled it, +(Let him hold it!) +Devils held me for the inkstand and the pen; +Now the days of grace are o'er, +(Ah, Lenore!) +I am but as other men; +What is time, time, time, +To my rare and runic rhyme, +To my random, reeling rhyme, +By the sands along the shore, +Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, +"Nevermore!" + +Bayard Taylor [1825-1878] + + +MRS. JUDGE JENKINS +Being The Only Genuine Sequel To "Maud Muller" +After Whittier + +Maud Muller all that summer day +Raked the meadow sweet with hay; + +Yet, looking down the distant lane, +She hoped the Judge would come again. + +But when he came, with smile and bow, +Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?" + +And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether +He'd give consent they should wed together. + +Old Muller burst in tears, and then +Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten"; + +For trade was dull and wages low, +And the "craps," this year, were somewhat slow. + +And ere the languid summer died, +Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride. + +But on the day that they were mated, +Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated; + +And Maud's relations, twelve in all, +Were very drunk at the Judge's hall; + +And when the summer came again, +The young bride bore him babies twain; + +And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange +That bearing children made such a change. + +For Maud grew broad, and red, and stout, +And the waist that his arm once clasped about + +Was more than he now could span; and he +Sighed as he pondered, ruefully, + +How that which in Maud was native grace +In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place; + +And thought of the twins, and wished that they +Looked less like the men who raked the hay + +On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain +Of the day he wandered down the lane. + +And, looking down that dreary track, +He half regretted that he came back. + +For, had he waited, he might have wed +Some maiden fair and thoroughbred; + +For there be women as fair as she, +Whose verbs and nouns do more agree. + +Alas for maiden! alas for judge! +And the sentimental, - that's one-half "fudge"; + +For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, +With all his learning and all his lore; + +And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face +For more refinement and social grace. + +If, of all words of tongue and pen, +The saddest are, "It might have been," + +More sad are these we daily see: +"It is, but hadn't ought to be." + +Bret Harte [1839-1902] + + +THE MODERN HIAWATHA +From "The Song of Milkanwatha" + +He killed the noble Mudjokivis, +With the skin he made him mittens, +Made them with the fur side inside, +Made them with the skin side outside, +He, to get the warm side inside, +Put the inside skin side outside: +He, to get the cold side outside, +Put the warm side fur side inside: +That's why he put the fur side inside, +Why he put the skin side outside, +Why he turned them inside outside. + +George A. Strong [1832-1912] + + +HOW OFTEN +After Longfellow + +They stood on the bridge at midnight, +In a park not far from the town; +They stood on the bridge at midnight, +Because they didn't sit down. + +The moon rose o'er the city, +Behind the dark church spire; +The moon rose o'er the city, +And kept on rising higher. + +How often, oh! how often +They whispered words so soft; +How often, oh! how often, +How often, oh! how oft. + +Ben King [1857-1894] + + +"IF I SHOULD DIE TO-NIGHT" +After Arabella Eugenia Smith + +If I should die to-night +And you should come to my cold corpse and say, +Weeping and heartsick o'er my lifeless clay - +If I should die to-night, +And you should come in deepest grief and woe - +And say: "Here's that ten dollars that I owe," +I might arise in my large white cravat +And say, "What's that?" + +If I should die to-night +And you should come to my cold corpse and, kneel, +Clasping my bier to show the grief you feel, +I say, if I should die to-night +And you should come to me, and there and then +Just even hint at paying me that ten, +I might arise the while, +But I'd drop dead again. + +Ben King [1857-1894] + + +SINCERE FLATTERY +Of W. W. (Americanus) + +The clear cool note of the cuckoo which has ousted the legitimate + nest-holder, +The whistle of the railway guard dispatching the train to the + inevitable collision, +The maiden's monosyllabic reply to a polysyllabic proposal, +The fundamental note of the last trump, which is presumably D natural; +All of these are sounds to rejoice in, yea, to let your very ribs + re-echo with: +But better than all of them is the absolutely last chord of the + apparently inexhaustible pianoforte player. + +James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892] + + +CULTURE IN THE SLUMS +Inscribed To An Intense Poet + +I. RONDEAU +"O crikey, Bill!" she ses to me, she ses. +"Look sharp," ses she, "with them there sossiges. +Yea! sharp with them there bags of mysteree! +For lo!" she ses, "for lo! old pal," ses she, +"I'm blooming peckish, neither more nor less." +Was it not prime - I leave you all to guess +How prime! - to have a Jude in love's distress +Come spooning round, and murmuring balmilee, +"O crikey, Bill!" + +For in such rorty wise doth Love express +His blooming views, and asks for your address, +And makes it right, and does the gay and free. +I kissed her - I did so! And her and me +Was pals. And if that ain't good business, +"O crikey, Bill!" + +II. VILLANELLE + +Now ain't they utterly too-too +(She ses, my Missus mine, ses she), +Them flymy little bits of Blue. + +Joe, just you kool 'em - nice and skew +Upon our old meogginee, +Now ain't they utterly too-too? + +They're better than a pot'n' a screw, +They're equal to a Sunday spree, +Them flymy little bits of Blue! + +Suppose I put 'em up the flue, +And booze the profits, Joe? Not me. +Now ain't they utterly too-too? + +I do the 'Igh Art fake, I do. +Joe, I'm consummate; and I see +Them flymy little bits of Blue. + +Which, Joe, is why I ses ter you - +Aesthetic-like, and limp, and free - +Now ain't they utterly too-too, +Them flymy little bits of Blue? + +William Ernest Henley [1849-1903] + + +THE POETS AT TEA + +I. - (Macaulay) +Pour, varlet, pour the water, +The water steaming hot! +A spoonful for each man of us, +Another for the pot! +We shall not drink from amber, +No Capuan slave shall mix +For us the snows of Athos +With port at thirty-six; +Whiter than snow the crystals +Grown sweet 'neath tropic fires, +More rich the herb of China's field, +The pasture-lands more fragrance yield; +Forever let Britannia wield +The teapot of her sires! + +II. - (Tennyson) +I think that I am drawing to an end: +For on a sudden came a gasp for breath, +And stretching of the hands, and blinded eyes, +And a, great darkness falling on my soul. +O Hallelujah! . . . Kindly pass the milk. + +III. - (Swinburne) +As the sin that was sweet in the sinning +Is foul in the ending thereof, +As the heat of the summer's beginning +Is past in the winter of love: +O purity, painful and pleading! +O coldness, ineffably gray! +O hear us, our handmaid unheeding, +And take it away! + +IV. - (Cowper) +The cosy fire is bright and gay, +The merry kettle boils away +And hums a cheerful song. +I sing the saucer and the cup; +Pray, Mary, fill the teapot up, +And do not make it strong. + +V. - (Browning) +Tut! Bah! We take as another case - +Pass the pills on the window-sill; notice the capsule +(A sick man's fancy, no doubt, but I place +Reliance on trade-marks, Sir) - so perhaps you'll +Excuse the digression - this cup which I hold +Light-poised - Bah, it's spilt in the bed - well, let's on go - +Hold Bohea and sugar, Sir; if you were told +The sugar was salt, would the Bohea be Congo? + +VI. - (Wordsworth) +"Come, little cottage girl, you seem +To want my cup of tea; +And will you take a little cream? +Now tell the truth to me." + +She had a rustic, woodland grin, +Her cheek was soft as silk, +And she replied, "Sir, please put in +A little drop of milk." + +"Why, what put milk into your head? +'Tis cream my cows supply;" +And five times to the child I said, +"Why, pig-head, tell me, why?" + +"You call me pig-head," she replied; +"My proper name is Ruth. +I called that milk" - she blushed with pride - +"You bade me speak the truth." + +VII. - (Poe) +Here's a mellow cup of tea - golden tea! +What a world of rapturous thought its fragrance brings to me! +Oh, from out the silver cells +How it wells! +How it smells! +Keeping tune, tune, tune, +To the tintinnabulation of the spoon. +And the kettle on the fire +Boils its spout off with desire, +With a desperate desire +And a crystalline endeavor +Now, now to sit, or never, +On the top of the pale-faced moon, +But he always came home to tea, tea, tea, tea, tea, +Tea to the n-th. + +VIII. - (Rossetti) +The lilies lie in my lady's bower, +(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost), +They faintly droop for a little hour; +My lady's head droops like a flower. + +She took the porcelain in her hand +(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost); +She poured; I drank at her command; +Drank deep, and now - you understand! +(O weary mother, drive the cows to roost). + +IX. - (Burns) +Weel, gin ye speir, I'm no inclined, +Whusky or tay - to state my mind +Fore ane or ither; +For, gin I tak the first, I'm fou, +And gin the next, I'm dull as you: +Mix a' thegither. + +X. - (Walt Whitman) +One cup for my self-hood, +Many for you. Allons, camerados, we will drink together, +O hand-in-hand! That tea-spoon, please, when you've done with it. +What butter-colored hair you've got. I don't want to be personal. +All right, then, you needn't. You're a stale-cadaver. +Eighteen-pence if the bottles are returned. +Allons, from all bat-eyed formulas. + +Barry Pain [1864-1928] + + +WORDSWORTH + +Two voices are there: one is of the deep; +It learns the storm cloud's thunderous melody, +Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea, +Now birdlike pipes, now closes soft in sleep; +And one is of an old half-witted sheep +Which bleats articulate monotony, +And indicates that two and one are three, +That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: +And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times, +Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes +The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst; +At other times-good Lord! I'd rather be +Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C, +Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst. + +James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg V4 The Home Book of Verse, by Burton Stevenson +This ends Volume I of the two volume paper edition. + diff --git a/old/4hbov10.zip b/old/4hbov10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..facb931 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4hbov10.zip |