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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Ballads in Blue China, by Andrew Lang
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+Title: Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations
+
+Author: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: March, 2002  [Etext #3138]
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+[The actual date this file first posted = 12/19/00]
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of Ballads in Blue China, by Andrew Lang
+******This file should be named 3138.txt or 3138.zip******
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+
+Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations
+
+by Andrew Lang
+
+
+
+
+Introduction
+BALLADES IN BLUE CHINA.
+   Ballade of Theocritus
+   Ballade of Cleopatra's Needle
+   Ballade of Roulette
+   Ballade of Sleep
+   Ballade of the Midnight Forest
+   Ballade of the Tweed
+   Ballade of the Book-hunter
+   Ballade of the Voyage to Cythera
+   Ballade of the Summer Term
+   Ballade of the Muse
+   Ballade against the Jesuits
+   Ballade of Dead Cities
+   Ballade of the Royal Game of Golf
+   Double Ballade of Primitive Man
+   Ballade of Autumn
+   Ballade of True Wisdom
+   Ballade of Worldly Wealth
+   Ballade of Life
+   Ballade of Blue China
+   Ballade of Dead Ladies
+   Villon's Ballade of Good Counsel
+   Ballade of the Bookworm
+   Valentine in form of Ballade
+   Ballade of Old Plays
+   Ballade of his Books
+   Ballade of the Dream
+   Ballade of the Southern Cross
+   Ballade of Aucassin
+   Ballade Amoureuse
+   Ballade of Queen Anne
+   Ballade of Blind Love
+   Ballade of his Choice of a Sepulchre
+   Dizain
+VERSES AND TRANSLATIONS.
+   A Portrait of 1783
+   The Moon's Minion
+   In Ithaca
+   Homer
+   The Burial of Moliere
+   Bion
+   Spring
+   Before the Snow
+   Villanelle
+   Natural Theology
+   The Odyssey
+   Ideal
+   The Fairy's Gift
+   Benedetta Ramus
+   Partant pour la Scribie
+   St. Andrews Bay
+   Woman and the Weed
+
+
+
+
+"Rondeaux, BALLADES,
+Chansons dizains, propos menus,
+Compte moy qu'ils sont devenuz:
+Se faict il plus rien de nouveau?"
+CLEMENT MAROT, Dialogue de deux
+Amoureux.
+
+"I love a ballad but even too well; if it be doleful matter, merrily
+set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed, and sung lamentably."
+A Winter's Tale, Act iv. sc. 3.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+Thirty years have passed, like a watch in the night, since the
+earlier of the two sets of verses here reprinted, Ballades in Blue
+China, was published.  At first there were but twenty-two Ballades;
+ten more were added later.  They appeared in a little white vellum
+wrapper, with a little blue Chinese singer copied from a porcelain
+jar; and the frontispiece was a little design by an etcher now
+famous.
+
+Thirty years ago blue china was a kind of fetish in some circles,
+aesthetic circles, of which the balladist was not a member.
+
+The ballade was an old French form of verse, in France revived by
+Theodore de Banville, and restored to an England which had long
+forgotten the Middle Ages, by my friends Mr. Austin Dobson and Mr.
+Edmund Gosse.  They, so far as I can trust my memory, were the first
+to reintroduce these pleasant old French nugae, while an anonymous
+author let loose upon the town a whole winged flock of ballades of
+amazing dexterity.  This unknown balladist was Mr. Henley; perhaps
+he was the first Englishman who ever burst into a double ballade,
+and his translations of two of Villon's ballades into modern
+thieves' slang were marvels of dexterity.  Mr. Swinburne wrote a
+serious ballade, but the form, I venture to think, is not 'wholly
+serious,' of its nature, in modern days; and he did not persevere.
+Nor did the taste for these trifles long endure.  A good ballade is
+almost as rare as a good sonnet, but a middling ballade is almost as
+easily written as the majority of sonnets.  Either form readily
+becomes mechanical, cheap and facile.  I have heard Mr. George
+Meredith improvise a sonnet, a Petrarchian sonnet, obedient to the
+rules, without pen and paper.  He spoke 'and the numbers came'; he
+sonneted as easily as a living poet, in his Eton days, improvised
+Latin elegiacs and Greek hexameters.
+
+The sonnet endures.  Mr. Horace Hutchinson wrote somewhere:  "When
+you have read a sonnet, you feel that though there does not seem to
+be much of it, you have done a good deal, as when you have eaten a
+cold hard-boiled egg."  Still people keep on writing sonnets,
+because the sonnet is wholly serious.  In an English sonnet you
+cannot easily be flippant of pen.  A few great poets have written
+immortal sonnets--among them are Milton, Wordsworth, and Keats.
+Thus the sonnet is a thing which every poet thinks it worth while to
+try at; like Felix Arvers, he may be made immortal by a single
+sonnet.  Even I have written one too many!  Every anthologist wants
+to anthologise it (The Odyssey); it never was a favourite of my own,
+though it had the honour to be kindly spoken of by Mr. Matthew
+Arnold.
+
+On the other hand, no man since Francois Villon has been
+immortalised by a single ballade--Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan?
+
+To speak in any detail about these poor ballades would be to indite
+a part of an autobiography.  Looking back at the little book, 'what
+memories it stirs' in one to whom
+
+
+'Fate has done this wrong,
+That I should write too much and live too long.'
+
+
+The Ballade of the Tweed, and the Rhymes a la Mode, were dedicated
+to the dearest of kinsmen, a cricketer and angler.  The Ballade of
+Roulette was inscribed to R. R., a gallant veteran of the Indian
+Mutiny, a leader of Light Horse, whose father was a friend of Sir
+Walter Scott.  He was himself a Borderer, in whose defeats on the
+green field of Roulette I often shared, long, long ago.
+
+So many have gone 'into the world of light' that it is a happiness
+to think of him to whom The Ballade of Golf was dedicated, and to
+remember that he is still capable of scoring his double century at
+cricket, and of lifting the ball high over the trees beyond the
+boundaries of a great cricket-field.  Perhaps Mr. Leslie Balfour-
+Melville will pardon me for mentioning his name, linked as it is
+with so many common memories.  'One is taken and another left.'
+
+A different sort of memory attaches itself to A Ballade of Dead
+Cities.  It was written in a Theocritean amoebean way, in
+competition with Mr. Edmund Gosse; he need not be ashamed of the
+circumstance, for another shepherd, who was umpire, awarded the
+prize (two kids just severed from their dams) to his victorious
+muse.
+
+The Ballade of the Midnight Forest, the Ballade of the Huntress
+Artemis, was translated from Theodore de Banville, whose beautiful
+poem came so near the Greek, that when the late Provost of Oriel
+translated a part of its English shadow into Greek hexameters, you
+might suppose, as you read, that they were part of a lost Homeric
+Hymn.
+
+I never wrote a double ballade, and stanzas four and five of the
+Double Ballade of Primitive Man were contributed by the learned
+doyen of Anthropology, Mr. E. B. Tylor, author of Primitive Culture.
+
+A tout seigneur tout honneur!
+
+In Ballade of his Choice of a Sepulchre, the Windburg is a hill in
+Teviotdale.  A Portrait of 1783 was written on a French engraving
+after Morland, and Benedetta Ramus was addressed to a mezzotint (an
+artist's proof, 'very rare').  It is after Romney and is 'My
+Beauty,' as Charles Lamb said (once, unluckily, to a Scot) of an
+engraving, after Lionardo, of some fair dead lady.
+
+The sonnet, Natural Theology, is the germ of what the author has
+since written, in The Making of Religion, on the long neglected fact
+that many of the lowest savages known share the belief in a
+benevolent All Father and Judge of men.
+
+Concerning verses in Rhymes a la Mode, visitors to St. Andrews may
+be warned not to visit St. Leonard's Chapel, described in the second
+stanza of Almae Matres.  In the writer's youth, and even in middle
+age,
+
+
+He loitered idly where the tall
+Fresh-budded mountain-ashes blow
+Within its desecrated wall.
+
+
+The once beautiful ruins carpeted with grass and wild flowers have
+been doubly desecrated by persons, academic persons, having
+authority and a plentiful lack of taste.  The slim mountain-ashes,
+fair as the young palm-tree that Odysseus saw beside the shrine of
+Apollo in Delos, have been cut down by the academic persons to whom
+power is given.  The grass and flowers have been rooted up.  Hideous
+little wooden fences enclose the grave slabs:  a roof of a massive
+kind has been dumped down on the old walls, and the windows, once so
+graceful in their airy lines, have been glazed in a horrible manner,
+while the ugly iron gate precludes entrance to a shrine which is now
+a black and dismal dungeon.
+
+
+"Oh, be that roof as lead to lead
+Above the dull Restorer's head,
+A Minstrel's malison is said!"
+
+
+Notes explanatory are added to the Rhymes, and their information,
+however valuable, need not here be repeated.
+
+
+
+A BALLADE OF XXXII BALLADES.
+
+
+
+Friend, when you bear a care-dulled eye,
+And brow perplexed with things of weight,
+And fain would bid some charm untie
+The bonds that hold you all too strait,
+Behold a solace to your fate,
+Wrapped in this cover's china blue;
+These ballades fresh and delicate,
+This dainty troop of Thirty-two!
+
+The mind, unwearied, longs to fly
+And commune with the wise and great;
+But that same ether, rare and high,
+Which glorifies its worthy mate,
+To breath forspent is disparate:
+Laughing and light and airy-new
+These come to tickle the dull pate,
+This dainty troop of Thirty-two.
+
+Most welcome then, when you and I,
+Forestalling days for mirth too late,
+To quips and cranks and fantasy
+Some choice half-hour dedicate,
+They weave their dance with measured rate
+Of rhymes enlinked in order due,
+Till frowns relax and cares abate,
+This dainty troop of Thirty-two.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Princes, of toys that please your state
+Quainter are surely none to view
+Than these which pass with tripping gait,
+This dainty troop of Thirty-two.
+
+F. P.
+
+
+
+TO
+AUSTIN DOBSON.
+Un Livre est un ami qui change--quelquefois.
+1880.
+1888
+
+
+
+BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER.
+[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
+Id. viii. 56.
+
+
+
+Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar
+Of London, and the bustling street,
+For still, by the Sicilian shore,
+The murmur of the Muse is sweet.
+Still, still, the suns of summer greet
+The mountain-grave of Helike,
+And shepherds still their songs repeat
+Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
+
+What though they worship Pan no more,
+That guarded once the shepherd's seat,
+They chatter of their rustic lore,
+They watch the wind among the wheat:
+Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,
+Where whispers pine to cypress tree;
+They count the waves that idly beat
+Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.
+
+Theocritus! thou canst restore
+The pleasant years, and over-fleet;
+With thee we live as men of yore,
+We rest where running waters meet:
+And then we turn unwilling feet
+And seek the world--so must it be -
+WE may not linger in the heat
+Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Master,--when rain, and snow, and sleet
+And northern winds are wild, to thee
+We come, we rest in thy retreat,
+Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.
+
+
+
+Ye giant shades of RA and TUM,
+Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian,
+If murmurs of our planet come
+To exiles in the precincts wan
+Where, fetish or Olympian,
+To help or harm no more ye list,
+Look down, if look ye may, and scan
+This monument in London mist!
+
+Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb
+That once were read of him that ran
+When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum
+Wild music of the Bull began;
+When through the chanting priestly clan
+Walk'd Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd
+This stone, with blessing scored and ban -
+This monument in London mist.
+
+The stone endures though gods be numb;
+Though human effort, plot, and plan
+Be sifted, drifted, like the sum
+Of sands in wastes Arabian.
+What king may deem him more than man,
+What priest says Faith can Time resist
+While THIS endures to mark their span -
+This monument in London mist?
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, the stone's shade on your divan
+Falls; it is longer than ye wist:
+It preaches, as Time's gnomon can,
+This monument in London mist!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF ROULETTE.
+TO R. R.
+
+
+
+This life--one was thinking to-day,
+In the midst of a medley of fancies -
+Is a game, and the board where we play
+Green earth with her poppies and pansies.
+Let manque be faded romances,
+Be passe remorse and regret;
+Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances -
+The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
+
+The lover will stake as he may
+His heart on his Peggies and Nancies;
+The girl has her beauty to lay;
+The saint has his prayers and his trances;
+The poet bets endless expanses
+In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:
+How they gaze at the wheel as it glances -
+The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette!
+
+The Kaiser will stake his array
+Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances;
+An Englishman punts with his pay,
+And glory the jeton of France is;
+Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances,
+Have voices or colours to bet;
+Will you moan that its motion askance is -
+The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette?
+
+ENVOY.
+
+The prize that the pleasure enhances?
+The prize is--at last to forget
+The changes, the chops, and the chances -
+The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF SLEEP.
+
+
+
+The hours are passing slow,
+I hear their weary tread
+Clang from the tower, and go
+Back to their kinsfolk dead.
+Sleep! death's twin brother dread!
+Why dost thou scorn me so?
+The wind's voice overhead
+Long wakeful here I know,
+And music from the steep
+Where waters fall and flow.
+Wilt thou not hear sue, Sleep?
+
+All sounds that might bestow
+Rest on the fever'd bed,
+All slumb'rous sounds and low
+Are mingled here and wed,
+And bring no drowsihed.
+Shy dreams flit to and fro
+With shadowy hair dispread;
+With wistful eyes that glow,
+And silent robes that sweep.
+Thou wilt not hear me; no?
+Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
+
+What cause hast thou to show
+Of sacrifice unsped?
+Of all thy slaves below
+I most have laboured
+With service sung and said;
+Have cull'd such buds as blow,
+Soft poppies white and red,
+Where thy still gardens grow,
+And Lethe's waters weep.
+Why, then, art thou my foe?
+Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, ere the dark be shred
+By golden shafts, ere now
+And long the shadows creep:
+Lord of the wand of lead,
+Soft-footed as the snow,
+Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST.
+AFTER THEODORE DE BANVILLE.
+
+
+
+Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,
+Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;
+The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,
+And wolves still dread Diana roaming free
+In secret woodland with her company.
+'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite
+When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,
+And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,
+Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,
+And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
+
+With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold
+The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,
+Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
+Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
+The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy;
+Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
+The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,
+With one long sigh for summers pass'd away;
+The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright
+And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
+
+She gleans her silvan trophies; down the wold
+She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee
+Mixed with the music of the hunting roll'd,
+But her delight is all in archery,
+And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she
+More than her hounds that follow on the flight;
+The goddess draws a golden bow of might
+And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay.
+She tosses loose her locks upon the night,
+And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,
+The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight:
+Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray
+There is the mystic home of our delight,
+And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE TWEED.
+(LOWLAND SCOTCH.)
+TO T. W. LANG.
+
+
+
+The ferox rins in rough Loch Awe,
+A weary cry frae ony toun;
+The Spey, that loups o'er linn and fa',
+They praise a' ither streams aboon;
+They boast their braes o' bonny Doon:
+Gie ME to hear the ringing reel,
+Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon
+By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!
+
+There's Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and a',
+Where trout swim thick in May and June;
+Ye'll see them take in showers o' snaw
+Some blinking, cauldrife April noon:
+Rax ower the palmer and march-broun,
+And syne we'll show a bonny creel,
+In spring or simmer, late or soon,
+By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!
+
+There's mony a water, great or sma',
+Gaes singing in his siller tune,
+Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw,
+Beneath the sun-licht or the moon:
+But set us in our fishing-shoon
+Between the Caddon-burn and Peel,
+And syne we'll cross the heather broun
+By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Deil take the dirty, trading loon
+Wad gar the water ca' his wheel,
+And drift his dyes and poisons doun
+By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.
+
+
+
+In torrid heats of late July,
+In March, beneath the bitter bise,
+He book-hunts while the loungers fly, -
+He book-hunts, though December freeze;
+In breeches baggy at the knees,
+And heedless of the public jeers,
+For these, for these, he hoards his fees, -
+Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+No dismal stall escapes his eye,
+He turns o'er tomes of low degrees,
+There soiled romanticists may lie,
+Or Restoration comedies;
+Each tract that flutters in the breeze
+For him is charged with hopes and fears,
+In mouldy novels fancy sees
+Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.
+
+With restless eyes that peer and spy,
+Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,
+In dismal nooks he loves to pry,
+Whose motto evermore is Spes!
+But ah! the fabled treasure flees;
+Grown rarer with the fleeting years,
+In rich men's shelves they take their ease, -
+Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, all the things that tease and please, -
+Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears,
+What are they but such toys as these -
+Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA.
+AFTER THEODORE DE BANVILLE.
+
+
+
+I know Cythera long is desolate;
+I know the winds have stripp'd the gardens green.
+Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight
+A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
+Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!
+So be it, but we seek a fabled shore,
+To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,
+To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile;
+There let us land, there dream for evermore:
+"It may be we shall touch the happy isle."
+
+The sea may be our sepulchre.  If Fate,
+If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene
+We watch the bolt of heaven, and scorn the hate
+Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.
+Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen
+That veils the fairy coast we would explore.
+Come, though the sea be vex'd, and breakers roar,
+Come, for the air of this old world is vile,
+Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;
+"It may be we shall touch the happy isle."
+
+Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate
+Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,
+And ruined is the palace of our state;
+But happy Loves flit round the mast, and keen
+The shrill wind sings the silken cords between.
+Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,
+Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar,
+Yet haste, light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile;
+Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore:
+"It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.
+Ah, singing birds your happy music pour!
+Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;
+Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:
+"It may be we shall touch the happy isle!"
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE SUMMER TERM.
+(Being a Petition, in the form of a Ballade, praying the University
+Commissioners to spare the Summer Term.)
+
+
+
+When Lent and Responsions are ended,
+When May with fritillaries waits,
+When the flower of the chestnut is splendid,
+When drags are at all of the gates
+(Those drags the philosopher "slates"
+With a scorn that is truly sublime), {1}
+Life wins from the grasp of the Fates
+Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
+
+When wickets are bowl'd and defended,
+When Isis is glad with "the Eights,"
+When music and sunset are blended,
+When Youth and the summer are mates,
+When Freshmen are heedless of "Greats,"
+And when note-books are cover'd with rhyme,
+Ah, these are the hours that one rates -
+Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
+
+When the brow of the Dean is unbended
+At luncheons and mild tete-a-tetes,
+When the Tutor's in love, nor offended
+By blunders in tenses or dates;
+When bouquets are purchased of Bates,
+When the bells in their melody chime,
+When unheeded the Lecturer prates -
+Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Reformers of Schools and of States,
+Is mirth so tremendous a crime?
+Ah! spare what grim pedantry hates -
+Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE MUSE
+Quem tu, Melpomene, semel.
+
+
+
+The man whom once, Melpomene,
+Thou look'st on with benignant sight,
+Shall never at the Isthmus be
+A boxer eminent in fight,
+Nor fares he foremost in the flight
+Of Grecian cars to victory,
+Nor goes with Delian laurels dight,
+The man thou lov'st, Melpomene!
+
+Not him the Capitol shall see,
+As who hath crush'd the threats and might
+Of monarchs, march triumphantly;
+But Fame shall crown him, in his right
+Of all the Roman lyre that smite
+The first; so woods of Tivoli
+Proclaim him, so her waters bright,
+The man thou lov'st, Melpomene!
+
+The sons of queenly Rome count ME,
+Me too, with them whose chants delight, -
+The poets' kindly company;
+Now broken is the tooth of spite,
+But thou, that temperest aright
+The golden lyre, all, all to thee
+He owes--life, fame, and fortune's height -
+The man thou lov'st, Melpomene!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Queen, that to mute lips could'st unite
+The wild swan's dying melody!
+Thy gifts, ah! how shall he requite -
+The man thou lov'st, Melpomene?
+
+
+
+BALLADE AGAINST THE JESUITS.
+AFTER LA FONTAINE.
+
+
+
+Rome does right well to censure all the vain
+Talk of Jansenius, and of them who preach
+That earthly joys are damnable!  'Tis plain
+We need not charge at Heaven as at a breach;
+No, amble on!  We'll gain it, one and all;
+The narrow path's a dream fantastical,
+And Arnauld's quite superfluously driven
+Mirth from the world.  We'll scale the heavenly wall,
+Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!
+
+He does not hold a man may well be slain
+Who vexes with unseasonable speech,
+You MAY do murder for five ducats gain,
+NOT for a pin, a ribbon, or a peach;
+He ventures (most consistently) to teach
+That there are certain cases that befall
+When perjury need no good man appal,
+And life of love (he says) may keep a leaven.
+Sure, hearing this, a grateful world will bawl,
+"Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!"
+
+"For God's sake read me somewhat in the strain
+Of his most cheering volumes, I beseech!"
+Why should I name them all? a mighty train -
+So many, none may know the name of each.
+Make these your compass to the heavenly beach,
+These only in your library instal:
+Burn Pascal and his fellows, great and small,
+Dolts that in vain with Escobar have striven;
+I tell you, and the common voice doth call,
+Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+SATAN, that pride did hurry to thy fall,
+Thou porter of the grim infernal hall -
+Thou keeper of the courts of souls unshriven!
+To shun thy shafts, to 'scape thy hellish thrall,
+Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES.
+TO E. W. GOSSE.
+
+
+
+The dust of Carthage and the dust
+Of Babel on the desert wold,
+The loves of Corinth, and the lust,
+Orchomenos increased with gold;
+The town of Jason, over-bold,
+And Cherson, smitten in her prime -
+What are they but a dream half-told?
+Where are the cities of old time?
+
+In towns that were a kingdom's trust,
+In dim Atlantic forests' fold,
+The marble wasteth to a crust,
+The granite crumbles into mould;
+O'er these--left nameless from of old -
+As over Shinar's brick and slime,
+One vast forgetfulness is roll'd -
+Where are the cities of old time?
+
+The lapse of ages, and the rust,
+The fire, the frost, the waters cold,
+Efface the evil and the just;
+From Thebes, that Eriphyle sold,
+To drown'd Caer-Is, whose sweet bells toll'd
+Beneath the wave a dreamy chime
+That echo'd from the mountain-hold, -
+"Where are the cities of old time?"
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, all thy towns and cities must
+Decay as these, till all their crime,
+And mirth, and wealth, and toil are thrust
+Where are the cities of old time.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE ROYAL GAME OF GOLF.
+(EAST FIFESHIRE.)
+
+
+
+There are laddies will drive ye a ba'
+To the burn frae the farthermost tee,
+But ye mauna think driving is a',
+Ye may heel her, and send her ajee,
+Ye may land in the sand or the sea;
+And ye're dune, sir, ye're no worth a preen,
+Tak' the word that an auld man'll gie,
+Tak' aye tent to be up on the green!
+
+The auld folk are crouse, and they craw
+That their putting is pawky and slee;
+In a bunker they're nae gude ava',
+But to girn, and to gar the sand flee.
+And a lassie can putt--ony she, -
+Be she Maggy, or Bessie, or Jean,
+But a cleek-shot's the billy for me,
+Tak' aye tent to be up on the green!
+
+I hae play'd in the frost and the thaw,
+I hae play'd since the year thirty-three,
+I hae play'd in the rain and the snaw,
+And I trust I may play till I dee;
+And I tell ye the truth and nae lee,
+For I speak o' the thing I hae seen -
+Tom Morris, I ken, will agree -
+Tak' aye tent to be up on the green!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, faith you're improving a wee,
+And, Lord, man, they tell me you're keen;
+Tak' the best o' advice that can be,
+Tak' aye tent to be up on the green!
+
+
+
+DOUBLE BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.
+TO J. A. FARRER.
+
+
+
+He lived in a cave by the seas,
+He lived upon oysters and foes,
+But his list of forbidden degrees,
+An extensive morality shows;
+Geological evidence goes
+To prove he had never a pan,
+But he shaved with a shell when he chose, -
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
+
+He worshipp'd the rain and the breeze,
+He worshipp'd the river that flows,
+And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,
+And bogies, and serpents, and crows;
+He buried his dead with their toes
+Tucked-up, an original plan,
+Till their knees came right under their nose, -
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
+
+His communal wives, at his ease,
+He would curb with occasional blows;
+Or his State had a queen, like the bees
+(As another philosopher trows):
+When he spoke, it was never in prose,
+But he sang in a strain that would scan,
+For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
+
+On the coasts that incessantly freeze,
+With his stones, and his bones, and his bows;
+On luxuriant tropical leas,
+Where the summer eternally glows,
+He is found, and his habits disclose
+(Let theology say what she can)
+That he lived in the long, long agos,
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
+
+From a status like that of the Crees,
+Our society's fabric arose, -
+Develop'd, evolved, if you please,
+But deluded chronologists chose,
+In a fancied accordance with Mos
+es, 4000 B. C. for the span
+When he rushed on the world and its woes, -
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man!
+
+But the mild anthropologist,--HE'S
+Not RECENT inclined to suppose
+Flints Palaeolithic like these,
+Quaternary bones such as those!
+In Rhinoceros, Mammoth and Co.'s,
+First epoch, the Human began,
+Theologians all to expose, -
+'Tis the MISSION of Primitive Man.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+MAX, proudly your Aryans pose,
+But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,
+For, as every Darwinian knows,
+'Twas the manner of Primitive Man! {2}
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF AUTUMN.
+
+
+
+We built a castle in the air,
+In summer weather, you and I,
+The wind and sun were in your hair, -
+Gold hair against a sapphire sky:
+When Autumn came, with leaves that fly
+Before the storm, across the plain,
+You fled from me, with scarce a sigh -
+My Love returns no more again!
+
+The windy lights of Autumn flare:
+I watch the moonlit sails go by;
+I marvel how men toil and fare,
+The weary business that they ply!
+Their voyaging is vanity,
+And fairy gold is all their gain,
+And all the winds of winter cry,
+"My Love returns no more again!"
+
+Here, in my castle of Despair,
+I sit alone with memory;
+The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,
+To keep the outcast company.
+The brooding owl he hoots hard by,
+The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane,
+The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,--{3}
+My Love returns no more again!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Lady, my home until I die
+Is here, where youth and hope were slain:
+They flit, the ghosts of our July,
+My Love returns no more again!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.
+
+
+
+While others are asking for beauty or fame,
+Or praying to know that for which they should pray,
+Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,
+Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,
+The sage has found out a more excellent way -
+To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,
+And his humble petition puts up day by day,
+For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,
+And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;
+Philosophers kneel to the God without name,
+Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;
+The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,
+The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;
+But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
+For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame
+(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
+With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)!
+O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
+Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
+With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
+And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
+For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Gods, grant or withhold it; your "yea" and your "nay"
+Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:
+But life IS worth living, and here we would stay
+For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF WORLDLY WEALTH.
+(OLD FRENCH.)
+
+
+
+Money taketh town and wall,
+Fort and ramp without a blow;
+Money moves the merchants all,
+While the tides shall ebb and flow;
+Money maketh Evil show
+Like the Good, and Truth like lies:
+These alone can ne'er bestow
+Youth, and health, and Paradise.
+
+Money maketh festival,
+Wine she buys, and beds can strow;
+Round the necks of captains tall,
+Money wins them chains to throw,
+Marches soldiers to and fro,
+Gaineth ladies with sweet eyes:
+These alone can ne'er bestow
+Youth, and health, and Paradise.
+
+Money wins the priest his stall;
+Money mitres buys, I trow,
+Red hats for the Cardinal,
+Abbeys for the novice low;
+Money maketh sin as snow,
+Place of penitence supplies:
+These alone can ne'er bestow
+Youth, and health, and Paradise.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF LIFE.
+"'Dead and gone,'--a sorry burden of the Ballad of Life."
+Death's Jest Book.
+
+
+
+Say, fair maids, maying
+In gardens green,
+In deep dells straying,
+What end hath been
+Two Mays between
+Of the flowers that shone
+And your own sweet queen -
+"They are dead and gone!"
+
+Say, grave priests, praying
+In dule and teen,
+From cells decaying
+What have ye seen
+Of the proud and mean,
+Of Judas and John,
+Of the foul and clean? -
+"They are dead and gone!"
+
+Say, kings, arraying
+Loud wars to win,
+Of your manslaying
+What gain ye glean?
+"They are fierce and keen,
+But they fall anon,
+On the sword that lean, -
+They are dead and gone!"
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Through the mad world's scene,
+We are drifting on,
+To this tune, I ween,
+"They are dead and gone!"
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA.
+
+
+
+There's a joy without canker or cark,
+There's a pleasure eternally new,
+'Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark
+Of china that's ancient and blue;
+Unchipp'd all the centuries through
+It has pass'd, since the chime of it rang,
+And they fashion'd it, figure and hue,
+In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
+
+These dragons (their tails, you remark,
+Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), -
+When Noah came out of the ark,
+Did these lie in wait for his crew?
+They snorted, they snapp'd, and they slew,
+They were mighty of fin and of fang,
+And their portraits Celestials drew
+In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
+
+Here's a pot with a cot in a park,
+In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,
+Where the lovers eloped in the dark,
+Lived, died, and were changed into two
+Bright birds that eternally flew
+Through the boughs of the may, as they sang:
+'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true
+In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,
+Kind critic, your "tongue has a tang"
+But--a sage never heeded a shrew
+In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
+
+
+
+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 grey;
+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 need'st 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?"
+
+
+
+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 trick, 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 you 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!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM.
+
+
+
+Far in the Past I peer, and see
+A Child upon the Nursery floor,
+A Child with books upon his knee,
+Who asks, like Oliver, for more!
+The number of his years is IV,
+And yet in Letters hath he skill,
+How deep he dives in Fairy-lore!
+The Books I loved, I love them still!
+
+One gift the Fairies gave me:  (Three
+They commonly bestowed of yore)
+The Love of Books, the Golden Key
+That opens the Enchanted Door;
+Behind it BLUEBEARD lurks, and o'er
+And o'er doth JACK his Giants kill,
+And there is all ALADDIN'S store, -
+The Books I loved, I love them still!
+
+Take all, but leave my Books to me!
+These heavy creels of old we bore
+We fill not now, nor wander free,
+Nor wear the heart that once we wore;
+Not now each River seems to pour
+His waters from the Muses' hill;
+Though something's gone from stream and shore,
+The Books I loved, I love them still!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Fate, that art Queen by shore and sea,
+We bow submissive to thy will,
+Ah grant, by some benign decree,
+The Books I loved--to love them still.
+
+
+
+VALENTINE IN FORM OF BALLADE.
+
+
+
+The soft wind from the south land sped,
+He set his strength to blow,
+From forests where Adonis bled,
+And lily flowers a-row:
+He crossed the straits like streams that flow,
+The ocean dark as wine,
+To my true love to whisper low,
+To be your Valentine.
+
+The Spring half-raised her drowsy head,
+Besprent with drifted snow,
+"I'll send an April day," she said,
+"To lands of wintry woe."
+He came,--the winter's overthrow
+With showers that sing and shine,
+Pied daisies round your path to strow,
+To be your Valentine.
+
+Where sands of Egypt, swart and red,
+'Neath suns Egyptian glow,
+In places of the princely dead,
+By the Nile's overflow,
+The swallow preened her wings to go,
+And for the North did pine,
+And fain would brave the frost her foe,
+To be your Valentine.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so,
+Their various voice combine;
+But that they crave on ME bestow,
+To be your Valentine.
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS.
+(Les OEuvres de Monsieur Moliere.  A Paris, chez Louys Billaine, a
+la Palme.  M.D.C. LXVI.)
+
+
+
+LA COUR.
+
+When these Old Plays were new, the King,
+Beside the Cardinal's chair,
+Applauded, 'mid the courtly ring,
+The verses of Moliere;
+Point-lace was then the only wear,
+Old Corneille came to woo,
+And bright Du Parc was young and fair,
+When these Old Plays were new!
+
+LA COMEDIE.
+
+How shrill the butcher's cat-calls ring,
+How loud the lackeys swear!
+Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling,
+At Brecourt, fuming there!
+The Porter's stabbed! a Mousquetaire
+Breaks in with noisy crew -
+'Twas all a commonplace affair
+When these Old Plays were new!
+
+LA VILLE.
+
+When these Old Plays were new!  They bring
+A host of phantoms rare:
+Old jests that float, old jibes that sting,
+Old faces peaked with care:
+Menage's smirk, de Vise's stare,
+The thefts of Jean Ribou,--{4}
+Ah, publishers were hard to bear
+When these Old Plays were new.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Ghosts, at your Poet's word ye dare
+To break Death's dungeons through,
+And frisk, as in that golden air,
+When these Old Plays were new!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF HIS BOOKS.
+
+
+
+Here stand my books, line upon line
+They reach the roof, and row by row,
+They speak of faded tastes of mine,
+And things I did, but do not, know:
+Old school books, useless long ago,
+Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in,
+Could scarcely answer "yes" or "no" -
+The many things I've tried and failed in!
+
+Here's Villon, in morocco fine,
+(The Poet starved, in mud and snow,)
+Glatigny does not crave to dine,
+And Rene's tears forget to flow.
+And here's a work by Mrs. Crowe,
+With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in;
+Ah, all my ghosts have gone below -
+The many things I've tried and failed in!
+
+He's touched, this mouldy Greek divine,
+The Princess D'Este's hand of snow;
+And here the arms of D'Hoym shine,
+And there's a tear-bestained Rousseau:
+Here's Carlyle shrieking "woe on woe"
+(The first edition, this, he wailed in);
+I once believed in him--but oh,
+The many things I've tried and failed in!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, tastes may differ; mine and thine
+Quite other balances are scaled in;
+May you succeed, though I repine -
+"The many things I've tried and failed in!"
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE DREAM.
+
+
+
+Swift as sound of music fled
+When no more the organ sighs,
+Sped as all old days are sped,
+So your lips, love, and your eyes,
+So your gentle-voiced replies
+Mine one hour in sleep that seem,
+Rise and flit when slumber flies,
+Following darkness like a dream!
+
+Like the scent from roses red,
+Like the dawn from golden skies,
+Like the semblance of the dead
+From the living love that hies,
+Like the shifting shade that lies
+On the moonlight-silvered stream,
+So you rise when dreams arise,
+Following darkness like a dream!
+
+Could some spell, or sung or said,
+Could some kindly witch and wise,
+Lull for aye this dreaming head
+In a mist of memories,
+I would lie like him who lies
+Where the lights on Latmos gleam, -
+Wake not, find not Paradise
+Following darkness like a dream!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Sleep, that giv'st what Life denies,
+Shadowy bounties and supreme,
+Bring the dearest face that flies
+Following darkness like a dream!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS.
+
+
+
+Fair islands of the silver fleece,
+Hoards of unsunned, uncounted gold,
+Whose havens are the haunts of Peace,
+Whose boys are in our quarrel bold;
+OUR bolt is shot, our tale is told,
+Our ship of state in storms may toss,
+But ye are young if we are old,
+Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!
+
+Ay, WE must dwindle and decrease,
+Such fates the ruthless years unfold;
+And yet we shall not wholly cease,
+We shall not perish unconsoled;
+Nay, still shall Freedom keep her hold
+Within the sea's inviolate fosse,
+And boast her sons of English mould,
+Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!
+
+All empires tumble--Rome and Greece -
+Their swords are rust, their altars cold!
+For us, the Children of the Seas,
+Who ruled where'er the waves have rolled,
+For us, in Fortune's books enscrolled,
+I read no runes of hopeless loss;
+Nor--while YE last--our knell is tolled,
+Ye Islands of the Southern Cross!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Britannia, when thy hearth's a-cold,
+When o'er thy grave has grown the moss,
+Still Rule Australia shall be trolled
+In Islands of the Southern Cross!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF AUCASSIN
+
+
+
+Where smooth the southern waters run
+By rustling leagues of poplars grey,
+Beneath a veiled soft southern sun,
+We wandered out of yesterday,
+Went maying through that ancient May
+Whose fallen flowers are fragrant yet,
+And loitered by the fountain spray
+With Aucassin and Nicolette.
+
+The grass-grown paths are trod of none
+Where through the woods they went astray.
+The spider's traceries are spun
+Across the darkling forest way.
+There come no knights that ride to slay,
+No pilgrims through the grasses wet,
+No shepherd lads that sang their say
+With Aucassin and Nicolette!
+
+'Twas here by Nicolette begun
+Her bower of boughs and grasses gay;
+'Scaped from the cell of marble dun
+'Twas here the lover found the fay,
+Ah, lovers fond! ah, foolish play!
+How hard we find it to forget
+Who fain would dwell with them as they,
+With Aucassin and Nicolette.
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Prince, 'tis a melancholy lay!
+For youth, for love we both regret.
+How fair they seem, how far away,
+With Aucassin and Nicolette!
+
+
+
+BALLADE AMOUREUSE.
+AFTER FROISSART.
+
+
+
+Not Jason nor Medea wise,
+I crave to see, nor win much lore,
+Nor list to Orpheus' minstrelsies;
+Nor Her'cles would I see, that o'er
+The wide world roamed from shore to shore;
+Nor, by St. James, Penelope, -
+Nor pure Lucrece, such wrong that bore:
+To see my Love suffices me!
+
+Virgil and Cato, no man vies
+With them in wealth of clerkly store;
+I would not see them with mine eyes;
+Nor him that sailed, sans sail nor oar,
+Across the barren sea and hoar,
+And all for love of his ladye;
+Nor pearl nor sapphire takes me more:
+To see my Love suffices me!
+
+I heed not Pegasus, that flies
+As swift as shafts the bowmen pour;
+Nor famed Pygmalion's artifice,
+Whereof the like was ne'er before;
+Nor Oleus, that drank of yore
+The salt wave of the whole great sea:
+Why? dost thou ask?  'Tis as I swore -
+To see my Love suffices me!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+
+
+The modish Airs,
+The Tansey Brew,
+The SWAINS and FAIRS
+In curtained Pew;
+Nymphs KNELLER drew,
+Books BENTLEY read, -
+Who knows them, who?
+QUEEN ANNE is dead!
+
+We buy her Chairs,
+Her China blue,
+Her red-brick Squares
+We build anew;
+But ah! we rue,
+When all is said,
+The tale o'er-true,
+QUEEN ANNE is dead!
+
+Now BULLS and BEARS,
+A ruffling Crew,
+With Stocks and Shares,
+With Turk and Jew,
+Go bubbling through
+The Town ill-bred:
+The World's askew,
+QUEEN ANNE is dead!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Friend, praise the new;
+The old is fled:
+Vivat FROU-FROU!
+QUEEN ANNE is dead!
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF BLIND LOVE.
+(AFTER LYONNET DE COISMES.)
+
+
+
+Who have loved and ceased to love, forget
+That ever they loved in their lives, they say;
+Only remember the fever and fret,
+And the pain of Love, that was all his pay;
+All the delight of him passes away
+From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met -
+Too late did I love you, my love, and yet
+I shall never forget till my dying day.
+
+Too late were we 'ware of the secret net
+That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray;
+There were we taken and snared, Lisette,
+In the dungeon of La Fausse Amistie;
+Help was there none in the wide world's fray,
+Joy was there none in the gift and the debt;
+Too late we knew it, too long regret -
+I shall never forget till my dying day!
+
+We must live our lives, though the sun be set,
+Must meet in the masque where parts we play,
+Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet;
+Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay:
+But while snows of winter or flowers of May
+Are the sad year's shroud or coronet,
+In the season of rose or of violet,
+I shall never forget till my dying day!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Queen, when the clay is my coverlet,
+When I am dead, and when you are grey,
+Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet,
+"I shall never forget till my dying day!"
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE.
+
+
+
+Here I'd come when weariest!
+   Here the breast
+Of the Windburg's tufted over
+Deep with bracken; here his crest
+   Takes the west,
+Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.
+
+Silent here are lark and plover;
+   In the cover
+Deep below the cushat best
+Loves his mate, and croons above her
+   O'er their nest,
+Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.
+
+Bring me here, Life's tired-out guest,
+   To the blest
+Bed that waits the weary rover,
+Here should failure be confessed;
+   Ends my quest,
+Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!
+
+ENVOY.
+
+Friend, or stranger kind, or lover,
+Ah, fulfil a last behest,
+   Let me rest
+Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!
+
+
+
+DIZAIN.
+
+
+
+As, to the pipe, with rhythmic feet
+In windings of some old-world dance,
+The smiling couples cross and meet,
+Join hands, and then in line advance,
+So, to these fair old tunes of France,
+Through all their maze of to-and-fro,
+The light-heeled numbers laughing go,
+Retreat, return, and ere they flee,
+One moment pause in panting row,
+And seem to say--Vos plaudite!
+
+A.D.
+
+
+
+ORONTE--Ce ne sont point de ces grands vers pompeux,
+Mais de petits vers!
+"Le Misanthrope," Acte i., Sc. 2.
+
+
+
+A PORTRAIT OF 1783.
+
+
+
+Your hair and chin are like the hair
+And chin Burne-Jones's ladies wear;
+You were unfashionably fair
+   In '83;
+And sad you were when girls are gay,
+You read a book about Le vrai
+Merite de l'homme, alone in May.
+What CAN it be,
+Le vrai merite de l'homme?  Not gold,
+Not titles that are bought and sold,
+Not wit that flashes and is cold,
+   But Virtue merely!
+Instructed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
+(And Jean-Jacques, surely, ought to know),
+You bade the crowd of foplings go,
+   You glanced severely,
+Dreaming beneath the spreading shade
+Of 'that vast hat the Graces made;' {5}
+So Rouget sang--while yet he played
+   With courtly rhyme,
+And hymned great Doisi's red perruque,
+And Nice's eyes, and Zulme's look,
+And dead canaries, ere he shook
+   The sultry time
+With strains like thunder.  Loud and low
+Methinks I hear the murmur grow,
+The tramp of men that come and go
+   With fire and sword.
+They war against the quick and dead,
+Their flying feet are dashed with red,
+As theirs the vintaging that tread
+   Before the Lord.
+O head unfashionably fair,
+What end was thine, for all thy care?
+We only see thee dreaming there:
+   We cannot see
+The breaking of thy vision, when
+The Rights of Man were lords of men,
+When virtue won her own again
+   In '93.
+
+
+
+THE MOON'S MINION.
+(FROM THE PROSE OF C. BAUDELAIRE.)
+
+
+
+Thine eyes are like the sea, my dear,
+   The wand'ring waters, green and grey;
+Thine eyes are wonderful and clear,
+   And deep, and deadly, even as they;
+The spirit of the changeful sea
+   Informs thine eyes at night and noon,
+She sways the tides, and the heart of thee,
+   The mystic, sad, capricious Moon!
+
+The Moon came down the shining stair
+   Of clouds that fleck the summer sky,
+She kissed thee, saying, "Child, be fair,
+   And madden men's hearts, even as I;
+Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet,
+   That know me and are known of me;
+The lover thou shalt never meet,
+   The land where thou shalt never be!"
+
+She held thee in her chill embrace,
+   She kissed thee with cold lips divine,
+She left her pallor on thy face,
+   That mystic ivory face of thine;
+And now I sit beside thy feet,
+   And all my heart is far from thee,
+Dreaming of her I shall not meet,
+   And of the land I shall not see!
+
+
+
+IN ITHACA.
+
+
+
+"And now am I greatly repenting that ever I left my life with thee,
+and the immortality thou didst promise me."--Letter of Odysseus to
+Calypso.  Luciani Vera Historia.
+
+'Tis thought Odysseus when the strife was o'er
+   With all the waves and wars, a weary while,
+   Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,
+And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,
+Go down the ways of gold, and evermore
+   His sad heart followed after, mile on mile,
+   Back to the Goddess of the magic wile,
+Calypso, and the love that was of yore.
+
+Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee yet
+   To look across the sad and stormy space,
+   Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,
+Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet,
+   Because, within a fair forsaken place
+   The life that might have been is lost to thee.
+
+
+
+HOMER.
+
+
+
+Homer, thy song men liken to the sea
+   With all the notes of music in its tone,
+   With tides that wash the dim dominion
+Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee
+Around the isles enchanted; nay, to me
+   Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown
+   That glasses Egypt's temples overthrown
+In his sky-nurtured stream, eternally.
+
+No wiser we than men of heretofore
+   To find thy sacred fountains guarded fast;
+Enough, thy flood makes green our human shore,
+   As Nilus Egypt, rolling down his vast
+His fertile flood, that murmurs evermore
+   Of gods dethroned, and empires in the past.
+
+
+
+THE BURIAL OF MOLIERE.
+(AFTER J. TRUFFIER.)
+
+
+
+Dead--he is dead!  The rouge has left a trace
+   On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear,
+   Even while the people laughed that held him dear
+But yesterday.  He died,--and not in grace,
+And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace
+   To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear,
+   And gold must win a passage for his bier,
+And bribe the crowd that guards his resting-place.
+
+Ah, Moliere, for that last time of all,
+   Man's hatred broke upon thee, and went by,
+And did but make more fair thy funeral.
+   Though in the dark they hid thee stealthily,
+Thy coffin had the cope of night for pall,
+   For torch, the stars along the windy sky!
+
+
+
+BION.
+
+
+
+The wail of Moschus on the mountains crying
+   The Muses heard, and loved it long ago;
+They heard the hollows of the hills replying,
+   They heard the weeping water's overflow;
+They winged the sacred strain--the song undying,
+   The song that all about the world must go, -
+When poets for a poet dead are sighing,
+   The minstrels for a minstrel friend laid low.
+
+And dirge to dirge that answers, and the weeping
+   For Adonais by the summer sea,
+The plaints for Lycidas, and Thyrsis (sleeping
+   Far from 'the forest ground called Thessaly'),
+These hold thy memory, Bion, in their keeping,
+   And are but echoes of the moan for thee.
+
+
+
+SPRING.
+(AFTER MELEAGER.)
+
+
+
+Now the bright crocus flames, and now
+   The slim narcissus takes the rain,
+And, straying o'er the mountain's brow,
+   The daffodilies bud again.
+   The thousand blossoms wax and wane
+On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough,
+But fairer than the flowers art thou,
+   Than any growth of hill or plain.
+
+Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown,
+That my Love's feet may tread it down,
+   Like lilies on the lilies set:
+My Love, whose lips are softer far
+Than drowsy poppy petals are,
+   And sweeter than the violet!
+
+
+
+BEFORE THE SNOW.
+(AFTER ALBERT GLATIGNY.)
+
+
+
+The winter is upon us, not the snow,
+   The hills are etched on the horizon bare,
+   The skies are iron grey, a bitter air,
+The meagre cloudlets shudder to and fro.
+One yellow leaf the listless wind doth blow,
+   Like some strange butterfly, unclassed and rare.
+   Your footsteps ring in frozen alleys, where
+The black trees seem to shiver as you go.
+
+Beyond lie church and steeple, with their old
+   And rusty vanes that rattle as they veer,
+A sharper gust would shake them from their hold,
+   Yet up that path, in summer of the year,
+And past that melancholy pile we strolled
+   To pluck wild strawberries, with merry cheer.
+
+
+
+VILLANELLE.
+TO LUCIA.
+
+
+
+Apollo left the golden Muse
+   And shepherded a mortal's sheep,
+Theocritus of Syracuse!
+
+To mock the giant swain that woo's
+   The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,
+Apollo left the golden Muse.
+
+Afield he drove his lambs and ewes,
+   Where Milon and where Battus reap,
+Theocritus of Syracuse!
+
+To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise
+   Below the dim Sicilian steep
+Apollo left the golden Muse.
+
+Ye twain did loiter in the dews,
+   Ye slept the swain's unfever'd sleep,
+Theocritus of Syracuse!
+
+That Time might half with HIS confuse
+   Thy songs,--like his, that laugh and leap, -
+Theocritus of Syracuse,
+   Apollo left the golden Muse!
+
+
+
+NATURAL THEOLOGY.
+[Greek text which cannot be reproduced] OD. III. 47.
+
+
+
+"Once CAGN was like a father, kind and good,
+   But He was spoiled by fighting many things;
+He wars upon the lions in the wood,
+   And breaks the Thunder-bird's tremendous wings;
+But still we cry to Him,--'We are thy brood -
+   O Cagn, be merciful!' and us He brings
+To herds of elands, and great store of food,
+   And in the desert opens water-springs."
+
+So Qing, King Nqsha's Bushman hunter, spoke,
+   Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,
+When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke
+   Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:
+And suddenly in each man's heart there woke
+   A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.
+
+
+
+THE ODYSSEY.
+
+
+
+As one that for a weary space has lain
+   Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine
+   In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
+Where that AEaean isle forgets the main,
+And only the low lutes of love complain,
+   And only shadows of wan lovers pine,
+   As such an one were glad to know the brine
+Salt on his lips, and the large air again, -
+So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
+   Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
+      Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
+      And through the music of the languid hours,
+They hear like ocean on a western beach
+   The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
+
+
+
+IDEAL.
+
+
+
+Suggested by a female head in wax, of unknown date, but supposed to
+be either of the best Greek age, or a work of Raphael or Leonardo.
+It is now in the Lille Museum.
+
+Ah, mystic child of Beauty, nameless maid,
+   Dateless and fatherless, how long ago,
+A Greek, with some rare sadness overweighed,
+   Shaped thee, perchance, and quite forgot his woe!
+   Or Raphael thy sweetness did bestow,
+While magical his fingers o'er thee strayed,
+   Or that great pupil taught of Verrocchio
+Redeemed thy still perfection from the shade
+
+That hides all fair things lost, and things unborn,
+   Where one has fled from me, that wore thy grace,
+   And that grave tenderness of thine awhile;
+Nay, still in dreams I see her, but her face
+   Is pale, is wasted with a touch of scorn,
+   And only on thy lips I find her smile.
+
+
+
+THE FAIRY'S GIFT.
+"Take short views."--SYDNEY SMITH.
+
+
+
+The Fays that to my christ'ning came
+   (For come they did, my nurses taught me),
+They did not bring me wealth or fame,
+   'Tis very little that they brought me.
+But one, the crossest of the crew,
+   The ugly old one, uninvited,
+Said, "I shall be avenged on YOU,
+   My child; you shall grow up short-sighted!"
+With magic juices did she lave
+   Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
+Well, of all gifts the Fairies gave,
+   HERS is the present that I treasure!
+
+The bore whom others fear and flee,
+   I do not fear, I do not flee him;
+I pass him calm as calm can be;
+   I do not cut--I do not see him!
+And with my feeble eyes and dim,
+   Where YOU see patchy fields and fences,
+For me the mists of Turner swim -
+   MY "azure distance" soon commences!
+Nay, as I blink about the streets
+   Of this befogged and miry city,
+Why, almost every girl one meets
+   Seems preternaturally pretty!
+"Try spectacles," one's friends intone;
+   "You'll see the world correctly through them."
+But I have visions of my own,
+   And not for worlds would I undo them.
+
+
+
+BENEDETTA RAMUS.
+AFTER ROMNEY.
+
+
+
+Mysterious Benedetta! who
+That Reynolds or that Romney drew
+Was ever half so fair as you,
+   Or is so well forgot?
+These eyes of melancholy brown,
+These woven locks, a shadowy crown,
+Must surely have bewitched the town;
+   Yet you're remembered not.
+
+Through all that prattle of your age,
+Through lore of fribble and of sage
+I've read, and chiefly Walpole's page,
+   Wherein are beauties famous;
+I've haunted ball, and rout, and sale;
+I've heard of Devonshire and Thrale,
+And all the Gunnings' wondrous tale,
+   But nothing of Miss Ramus.
+
+And yet on many a lattice pane
+'Fair Benedetta,' scrawled in vain
+By lovers' diamonds, must remain
+   To tell us you were cruel. {6}
+But who, of all that sighed and swore -
+Wits, poets, courtiers by the score -
+Did win and on his bosom wore
+   This hard and lovely jewel?
+
+Why, dilettante records say
+An Alderman, who came that way,
+Woo'd you and made you Lady Day;
+   You crowned his civic flame.
+It suits a melancholy song
+To think your heart had suffered wrong,
+And that you lived not very long
+   To be a City dame!
+
+Perchance you were a Mourning Bride,
+And conscious of a heart that died
+With one who fell by Rodney's side
+   In blood-stained Spanish bays.
+Perchance 'twas no such thing, and you
+Dwelt happy with your knight and true,
+And, like Aurora, watched a crew
+   Of rosy little Days!
+
+Oh, lovely face and innocent!
+Whatever way your fortunes went,
+And if to earth your life was lent
+   For little space or long,
+In your kind eyes we seem to see
+What Woman at her best may be,
+And offer to your memory
+   An unavailing song!
+
+
+
+PARTANT POUR LA SCRIBIE.
+[Scribie, on the north-east littoral of Bohemia, is the land of
+stage conventions.  It is named after the discoverer, M. Scribe.]
+
+
+
+A pleasant land is Scribie, where
+   The light comes mostly from below,
+And seems a sort of symbol rare
+   Of things at large, and how they go,
+In rooms where doors are everywhere
+   And cupboards shelter friend or foe.
+
+This is a realm where people tell
+   Each other, when they chance to meet,
+Of things that long ago befell -
+   And do most solemnly repeat
+Secrets they both know very well,
+   Aloud, and in the public street!
+
+A land where lovers go in fours,
+   Master and mistress, man and maid;
+Where people listen at the doors
+   Or 'neath a table's friendly shade,
+And comic Irishmen in scores
+   Roam o'er the scenes all undismayed:
+
+A land where Virtue in distress
+   Owes much to uncles in disguise;
+Where British sailors frankly bless
+   Their limbs, their timbers, and their eyes;
+And where the villain doth confess,
+   Conveniently, before he dies!
+
+A land of lovers false and gay;
+   A land where people dread a "curse;"
+A land of letters gone astray,
+   Or intercepted, which is worse;
+Where weddings false fond maids betray,
+   And all the babes are changed at nurse.
+
+Oh, happy land, where things come right!
+   We of the world where things go ill;
+Where lovers love, but don't unite;
+   Where no one finds the Missing Will -
+Dominion of the heart's delight,
+   Scribie, we've loved, and love thee still!
+
+
+
+ST. ANDREW'S BAY.
+
+
+
+NIGHT.
+
+Ah, listen through the music, from the shore,
+The "melancholy long-withdrawing roar";
+Beneath the Minster, and the windy caves,
+The wide North Ocean, marshalling his waves
+Even so forlorn--in worlds beyond our ken -
+May sigh the seas that are not heard of men;
+Even so forlorn, prophetic of man's fate,
+Sounded the cold sea-wave disconsolate,
+When none but God might hear the boding tone,
+As God shall hear the long lament alone,
+When all is done, when all the tale is told,
+And the gray sea-wave echoes as of old!
+
+MORNING.
+
+This was the burden of the Night,
+   The saying of the sea,
+But lo! the hours have brought the light,
+The laughter of the waves, the flight
+Of dipping sea-birds, foamy white,
+   That are so glad to be!
+"Forget!" the happy creatures cry,
+   "Forget Night's monotone,
+With us be glad in sea and sky,
+The days are thine, the days that fly,
+The days God gives to know him by,
+   And not the Night alone!"
+
+
+
+WOMAN AND THE WEED.
+(FOUNDED ON A NEW ZEALAND MYTH.)
+
+
+
+In the Morning of Time, when his fortunes began,
+How bleak, how un-Greek, was the Nature of Man!
+From his wigwam, if ever he ventured to roam,
+There was nobody waiting to welcome him home;
+For the Man had been made, but the woman had NOT,
+And Earth was a highly detestable spot.
+Man hated his neighbours; they met and they scowled,
+They did not converse but they struggled and howled,
+For Man had no tact--he would ne'er take a hint,
+And his notions he backed with a hatchet of flint.
+
+So Man was alone, and he wished he could see
+On the Earth some one like him, but fairer than he,
+With locks like the red gold, a smile like the sun,
+To welcome him back when his hunting was done.
+And he sighed for a voice that should answer him still,
+Like the affable Echo he heard on the hill:
+That should answer him softly and always agree,
+AND OH, Man reflected, HOW NICE IT WOULD BE!
+
+So he prayed to the Gods, and they stooped to his prayer,
+And they spoke to the Sun on his way through the air,
+And he married the Echo one fortunate morn,
+And Woman, their beautiful daughter, was born!
+The daughter of Sunshine and Echo she came
+With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame;
+With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song,
+And happy was Man, but it was not for long!
+
+For weather's a painfully changeable thing,
+Not always the child of the Echo would sing;
+And the face of the Sun may be hidden with mist,
+And his child can be terribly cross if she list.
+And unfortunate Man had to learn with surprise
+That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes;
+That the sweetest of voices can scold and can sneer,
+And cannot be answered--like men--with a spear.
+
+So Man went and called to the Gods in his woe,
+And they answered him--"Sir, you would needs have it so:
+And the thing must go on as the thing has begun,
+She's immortal--your child of the Echo and Sun.
+But we'll send you another, and fairer is she,
+This maiden with locks that are flowing and free.
+This maiden so gentle, so kind, and so fair,
+With a flower like a star in the night of her hair.
+With her eyes like the smoke that is misty and blue,
+With her heart that is heavenly, and tender, and true.
+She will die in the night, but no need you should mourn,
+You shall bury her body and thence shall be born
+A weed that is green, that is fragrant and fair,
+With a flower like the star in the night of her hair.
+And the leaves must ye burn till they offer to you
+Soft smoke, like her eyes that are misty and blue.
+
+"And the smoke shall ye breathe and no more shall ye fret,
+But the child of the Echo and Sun shall forget:
+Shall forget all the trouble and torment she brings,
+Shall bethink ye of none but delectable things;
+And the sound of the wars with your brethren shall cease,
+While ye smoke by the camp-fire the great pipe of peace."
+So the last state of Man was by no means the worst,
+The second gift softened the sting of the first.
+
+Nor the child of the Echo and Sun doth he heed
+When he dreams with the Maid that was changed to the weed;
+Though the Echo be silent, the Sun in a mist,
+The Maid is the fairest that ever was kissed.
+And when tempests are over and ended the rain,
+And the child of the Sunshine is sunny again,
+He comes back, glad at heart, and again is at one
+With the changeable child of the Echo and Sun.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Cf. "Suggestions for Academic Reorganization."
+
+{2}  The last three stanzas are by an eminent Anthropologist.
+
+{3}  Thomas of Ercildoune.
+
+{4}  A knavish publisher.
+
+{5}  Vous y verrez, belle Julie,
+Que ce chapeau tout maltraite
+Fut, dans un instant de folie,
+Par les Graces meme invente.
+
+'A Julie.'  Essais en Prose et en Vers, par Joseph Lisle; Paris.
+An. V. de la Republique.
+
+{6}  "I have broken many a pane of glass marked Cruel Parthenissa,"
+says the aunt of Sophia Western in Tom Jones.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Ballads in Blue China, by Andrew Lang
+
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