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diff --git a/old/fntsm10h.htm b/old/fntsm10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04c7aa4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/fntsm10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3032 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Phantasmagoria and Other Poems</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, by Lewis Carroll</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Phantasmagoria and Other Poems, by Lewis Carroll +(#5 in our series by Lewis Carroll) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Phantasmagoria and Other Poems + +Author: Lewis Carroll + +Release Date: September, 1996 [EBook #651] +[This file was first posted on September 17, 1996] +[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1911 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +PHANTASMAGORIA<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO I - The Trystyng<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +One winter night, at half-past nine,<br> +Cold, tired, and cross, and muddy,<br> +I had come home, too late to dine,<br> +And supper, with cigars and wine,<br> +Was waiting in the study.<br> +<br> +There was a strangeness in the room,<br> +And Something white and wavy<br> +Was standing near me in the gloom -<br> +<i>I</i> took it for the carpet-broom<br> +Left by that careless slavey.<br> +<br> +But presently the Thing began<br> +To shiver and to sneeze:<br> +On which I said “Come, come, my man!<br> +That’s a most inconsiderate plan.<br> +Less noise there, if you please!”<br> +<br> +“I’ve caught a cold,” the Thing replies,<br> +“Out there upon the landing.”<br> +I turned to look in some surprise,<br> +And there, before my very eyes,<br> +A little Ghost was standing!<br> +<br> +He trembled when he caught my eye,<br> +And got behind a chair.<br> +“How came you here,” I said, “and why?<br> +I never saw a thing so shy.<br> +Come out! Don’t shiver there!”<br> +<br> +He said “I’d gladly tell you how,<br> +And also tell you why;<br> +But” (here he gave a little bow)<br> +“You’re in so bad a temper now,<br> +You’d think it all a lie.<br> +<br> +“And as to being in a fright,<br> +Allow me to remark<br> +That Ghosts have just as good a right<br> +In every way, to fear the light,<br> +As Men to fear the dark.”<br> +<br> +“No plea,” said I, “can well excuse<br> +Such cowardice in you:<br> +For Ghosts can visit when they choose,<br> +Whereas we Humans ca’n’t refuse<br> +To grant the interview.”<br> +<br> +He said “A flutter of alarm<br> +Is not unnatural, is it?<br> +I really feared you meant some harm:<br> +But, now I see that you are calm,<br> +Let me explain my visit.<br> +<br> +“Houses are classed, I beg to state,<br> +According to the number<br> +Of Ghosts that they accommodate:<br> +(The Tenant merely counts as <i>weight,<br> +</i>With Coals and other lumber).<br> +<br> +“This is a ‘one-ghost’ house, and you<br> +When you arrived last summer,<br> +May have remarked a Spectre who<br> +Was doing all that Ghosts can do<br> +To welcome the new-comer.<br> +<br> +“In Villas this is always done -<br> +However cheaply rented:<br> +For, though of course there’s less of fun<br> +When there is only room for one,<br> +Ghosts have to be contented.<br> +<br> +“That Spectre left you on the Third -<br> +Since then you’ve not been haunted:<br> +For, as he never sent us word,<br> +’Twas quite by accident we heard<br> +That any one was wanted.<br> +<br> +“A Spectre has first choice, by right,<br> +In filling up a vacancy;<br> +Then Phantom, Goblin, Elf, and Sprite -<br> +If all these fail them, they invite<br> +The nicest Ghoul that they can see.<br> +<br> +“The Spectres said the place was low,<br> +And that you kept bad wine:<br> +So, as a Phantom had to go,<br> +And I was first, of course, you know,<br> +I couldn’t well decline.”<br> +<br> +“No doubt,” said I, “they settled who<br> +Was fittest to be sent<br> +Yet still to choose a brat like you,<br> +To haunt a man of forty-two,<br> +Was no great compliment!”<br> +<br> +“I’m not so young, Sir,” he replied,<br> +“As you might think. The fact is,<br> +In caverns by the water-side,<br> +And other places that I’ve tried,<br> +I’ve had a lot of practice:<br> +<br> +“But I have never taken yet<br> +A strict domestic part,<br> +And in my flurry I forget<br> +The Five Good Rules of Etiquette<br> +We have to know by heart.”<br> +<br> +My sympathies were warming fast<br> +Towards the little fellow:<br> +He was so utterly aghast<br> +At having found a Man at last,<br> +And looked so scared and yellow.<br> +<br> +“At least,” I said, “I’m glad to find<br> +A Ghost is not a <i>dumb</i> thing!<br> +But pray sit down: you’ll feel inclined<br> +(If, like myself, you have not dined)<br> +To take a snack of something:<br> +<br> +“Though, certainly, you don’t appear<br> +A thing to offer <i>food</i> to!<br> +And then I shall be glad to hear -<br> +If you will say them loud and clear -<br> +The Rules that you allude to.”<br> +<br> +“Thanks! You shall hear them by and by.<br> +This <i>is</i> a piece of luck!”<br> +“What may I offer you?” said I.<br> +“Well, since you <i>are</i> so kind, I’ll try<br> +A little bit of duck.<br> +<br> +“<i>One</i> slice! And may I ask you for<br> +Another drop of gravy?”<br> +I sat and looked at him in awe,<br> +For certainly I never saw<br> +A thing so white and wavy.<br> +<br> +And still he seemed to grow more white,<br> +More vapoury, and wavier -<br> +Seen in the dim and flickering light,<br> +As he proceeded to recite<br> +His “Maxims of Behaviour.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO II - Hys Fyve Rules<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“My First - but don’t suppose,” he said,<br> +“I’m setting you a riddle -<br> +Is - if your Victim be in bed,<br> +Don’t touch the curtains at his head,<br> +But take them in the middle,<br> +<br> +“And wave them slowly in and out,<br> +While drawing them asunder;<br> +And in a minute’s time, no doubt,<br> +He’ll raise his head and look about<br> +With eyes of wrath and wonder.<br> +<br> +“And here you must on no pretence<br> +Make the first observation.<br> +Wait for the Victim to commence:<br> +No Ghost of any common sense<br> +Begins a conversation.<br> +<br> +“If he should say ‘<i>How came you here</i>?’<br> +(The way that <i>you</i> began, Sir,)<br> +In such a case your course is clear -<br> +‘<i>On the bat’s back, my little dear</i>!’<br> +Is the appropriate answer.<br> +<br> +“If after this he says no more,<br> +You’d best perhaps curtail your<br> +Exertions - go and shake the door,<br> +And then, if he begins to snore,<br> +You’ll know the thing’s a failure.<br> +<br> +“By day, if he should be alone -<br> +At home or on a walk -<br> +You merely give a hollow groan,<br> +To indicate the kind of tone<br> +In which you mean to talk.<br> +<br> +“But if you find him with his friends,<br> +The thing is rather harder.<br> +In such a case success depends<br> +On picking up some candle-ends,<br> +Or butter, in the larder.<br> +<br> +“With this you make a kind of slide<br> +(It answers best with suet),<br> +On which you must contrive to glide,<br> +And swing yourself from side to side -<br> +One soon learns how to do it.<br> +<br> +“The Second tells us what is right<br> +In ceremonious calls:-<br> +‘<i>First burn a blue or crimson light</i>’<br> +(A thing I quite forgot to-night),<br> +‘<i>Then scratch the door or walls</i>.’”<br> +<br> +I said “You’ll visit <i>here</i> no more,<br> +If you attempt the Guy.<br> +I’ll have no bonfires on <i>my</i> floor -<br> +And, as for scratching at the door,<br> +I’d like to see you try!”<br> +<br> +“The Third was written to protect<br> +The interests of the Victim,<br> +And tells us, as I recollect,<br> +<i>To treat him with a grave respect,<br> +And not to contradict him</i>.”<br> +<br> +“That’s plain,” said I, “as Tare and Tret,<br> +To any comprehension:<br> +I only wish <i>some</i> Ghosts I’ve met<br> +Would not so <i>constantly</i> forget<br> +The maxim that you mention!”<br> +<br> +“Perhaps,” he said, “<i>you</i> first transgressed<br> +The laws of hospitality:<br> +All Ghosts instinctively detest<br> +The Man that fails to treat his guest<br> +With proper cordiality.<br> +<br> +“If you address a Ghost as ‘Thing!’<br> +Or strike him with a hatchet,<br> +He is permitted by the King<br> +To drop all <i>formal</i> parleying -<br> +And then you’re <i>sure</i> to catch it!<br> +<br> +“The Fourth prohibits trespassing<br> +Where other Ghosts are quartered:<br> +And those convicted of the thing<br> +(Unless when pardoned by the King)<br> +Must instantly be slaughtered.<br> +<br> +“That simply means ‘be cut up small’:<br> +Ghosts soon unite anew.<br> +The process scarcely hurts at all -<br> +Not more than when <i>you</i>’re what you call<br> +‘Cut up’ by a Review.<br> +<br> +“The Fifth is one you may prefer<br> +That I should quote entire:-<br> +<i>The King must be addressed as</i> ‘<i>Sir</i>.’<br> +<i>This, from a simple courtier,<br> +Is all the Laws require:<br> +<br> +</i>“<i>But, should you wish to do the thing<br> +With out-and-out politeness,<br> +Accost him as</i> ‘<i>My Goblin King</i>!<br> +<i>And always use, in answering,<br> +The phrase</i> ‘<i>Your Royal Whiteness</i>!’<br> +<br> +“I’m getting rather hoarse, I fear,<br> +After so much reciting :<br> +So, if you don’t object, my dear,<br> +We’ll try a glass of bitter beer -<br> +I think it looks inviting.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO III - Scarmoges<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“And did you really walk,” said I,<br> +“On such a wretched night?<br> +I always fancied Ghosts could fly -<br> +If not exactly in the sky,<br> +Yet at a fairish height.”<br> +<br> +“It’s very well,” said he, “for Kings<br> +To soar above the earth:<br> +But Phantoms often find that wings -<br> +Like many other pleasant things -<br> +Cost more than they are worth.<br> +<br> +“Spectres of course are rich, and so<br> +Can buy them from the Elves:<br> +But <i>we</i> prefer to keep below -<br> +They’re stupid company, you know,<br> +For any but themselves:<br> +<br> +“For, though they claim to be exempt<br> +From pride, they treat a Phantom<br> +As something quite beneath contempt -<br> +Just as no Turkey ever dreamt<br> +Of noticing a Bantam.”<br> +<br> +“They seem too proud,” said I, “to go<br> +To houses such as mine.<br> +Pray, how did they contrive to know<br> +So quickly that ‘the place was low,’<br> +And that I ‘kept bad wine’?”<br> +<br> +“Inspector Kobold came to you - ”<br> +The little Ghost began.<br> +Here I broke in - “Inspector who?<br> +Inspecting Ghosts is something new!<br> +Explain yourself, my man!”<br> +<br> +“His name is Kobold,” said my guest:<br> +“One of the Spectre order:<br> +You’ll very often see him dressed<br> +In a yellow gown, a crimson vest,<br> +And a night-cap with a border.<br> +<br> +“He tried the Brocken business first,<br> +But caught a sort of chill ;<br> +So came to England to be nursed,<br> +And here it took the form of <i>thirst</i>,<br> +Which he complains of still.<br> +<br> +“Port-wine, he says, when rich and sound,<br> +Warms his old bones like nectar:<br> +And as the inns, where it is found,<br> +Are his especial hunting-ground,<br> +We call him the <i>Inn-Spectre</i>.”<br> +<br> +I bore it - bore it like a man -<br> +This agonizing witticism!<br> +And nothing could be sweeter than<br> +My temper, till the Ghost began<br> +Some most provoking criticism.<br> +<br> +“Cooks need not be indulged in waste;<br> +Yet still you’d better teach them<br> +Dishes should have <i>some sort</i> of taste.<br> +Pray, why are all the cruets placed<br> +Where nobody can reach them?<br> +<br> +“That man of yours will never earn<br> +His living as a waiter!<br> +Is that queer <i>thing</i> supposed to burn?<br> +(It’s far too dismal a concern<br> +To call a Moderator).<br> +<br> +“The duck was tender, but the peas<br> +Were very much too old:<br> +And just remember, if you please,<br> +The <i>next</i> time you have toasted cheese,<br> +Don’t let them send it cold.<br> +<br> +“You’d find the bread improved, I think,<br> +By getting better flour:<br> +And have you anything to drink<br> +That looks a <i>little</i> less like ink,<br> +And isn’t <i>quite</i> so sour?”<br> +<br> +Then, peering round with curious eyes,<br> +He muttered “Goodness gracious!”<br> +And so went on to criticise -<br> +“Your room’s an inconvenient size:<br> +It’s neither snug nor spacious.<br> +<br> +“That narrow window, I expect,<br> +Serves but to let the dusk in - ”<br> +“But please,” said I, “to recollect<br> +’Twas fashioned by an architect<br> +Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!”<br> +<br> +“I don’t care who he was, Sir, or<br> +On whom he pinned his faith!<br> +Constructed by whatever law,<br> +So poor a job I never saw,<br> +As I’m a living Wraith!<br> +<br> +“What a re-markable cigar!<br> +How much are they a dozen?”<br> +I growled “No matter what they are!<br> +You’re getting as familiar<br> +As if you were my cousin!<br> +<br> +“Now that’s a thing <i>I will not stand,<br> +</i>And so I tell you flat.”<br> +“Aha,” said he, “we’re getting grand!”<br> +(Taking a bottle in his hand)<br> +“I’ll soon arrange for <i>that</i>!”<br> +<br> +And here he took a careful aim,<br> +And gaily cried “Here goes!”<br> +I tried to dodge it as it came,<br> +But somehow caught it, all the same,<br> +Exactly on my nose.<br> +<br> +And I remember nothing more<br> +That I can clearly fix,<br> +Till I was sitting on the floor,<br> +Repeating “Two and five are four,<br> +But <i>five and two</i> are six.”<br> +<br> +What really passed I never learned,<br> +Nor guessed: I only know<br> +That, when at last my sense returned,<br> +The lamp, neglected, dimly burned -<br> +The fire was getting low -<br> +<br> +Through driving mists I seemed to see<br> +A Thing that smirked and smiled:<br> +And found that he was giving me<br> +A lesson in Biography,<br> +As if I were a child.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO IV - Hys Nouryture<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“Oh, when I was a little Ghost,<br> +A merry time had we!<br> +Each seated on his favourite post,<br> +We chumped and chawed the buttered toast<br> +They gave us for our tea.”<br> +<br> +“That story is in print!” I cried.<br> +“Don’t say it’s not, because<br> +It’s known as well as Bradshaw’s Guide!”<br> +(The Ghost uneasily replied<br> +He hardly thought it was).<br> +<br> +“It’s not in Nursery Rhymes? And yet<br> +I almost think it is -<br> +‘Three little Ghosteses’ were set<br> +‘On posteses,’ you know, and ate<br> +Their ‘buttered toasteses.’<br> +<br> +“I have the book; so if you doubt it - ”<br> +I turned to search the shelf.<br> +“Don’t stir!” he cried. “We’ll do +without it:<br> +I now remember all about it;<br> +I wrote the thing myself.<br> +<br> +“It came out in a ‘Monthly,’ or<br> +At least my agent said it did:<br> +Some literary swell, who saw<br> +It, thought it seemed adapted for<br> +The Magazine he edited.<br> +<br> +“My father was a Brownie, Sir;<br> +My mother was a Fairy.<br> +The notion had occurred to her,<br> +The children would be happier,<br> +If they were taught to vary.<br> +<br> +“The notion soon became a craze;<br> +And, when it once began, she<br> +Brought us all out in different ways -<br> +One was a Pixy, two were Fays,<br> +Another was a Banshee;<br> +<br> +“The Fetch and Kelpie went to school<br> +And gave a lot of trouble;<br> +Next came a Poltergeist and Ghoul,<br> +And then two Trolls (which broke the rule),<br> +A Goblin, and a Double -<br> +<br> +“(If that’s a snuff-box on the shelf,”<br> +He added with a yawn,<br> +“I’ll take a pinch) - next came an Elf,<br> +And then a Phantom (that’s myself),<br> +And last, a Leprechaun.<br> +<br> +“One day, some Spectres chanced to call,<br> +Dressed in the usual white:<br> +I stood and watched them in the hall,<br> +And couldn’t make them out at all,<br> +They seemed so strange a sight.<br> +<br> +“I wondered what on earth they were,<br> +That looked all head and sack;<br> +But Mother told me not to stare,<br> +And then she twitched me by the hair,<br> +And punched me in the back.<br> +<br> +“Since then I’ve often wished that I<br> +Had been a Spectre born.<br> +But what’s the use?” (He heaved a sigh.)<br> +“<i>They</i> are the ghost-nobility,<br> +And look on <i>us</i> with scorn.<br> +<br> +“My phantom-life was soon begun:<br> +When I was barely six,<br> +I went out with an older one -<br> +And just at first I thought it fun,<br> +And learned a lot of tricks.<br> +<br> +“I’ve haunted dungeons, castles, towers -<br> +Wherever I was sent:<br> +I’ve often sat and howled for hours,<br> +Drenched to the skin with driving showers,<br> +Upon a battlement.<br> +<br> +“It’s quite old-fashioned now to groan<br> +When you begin to speak:<br> +This is the newest thing in tone - ”<br> +And here (it chilled me to the bone)<br> +He gave an <i>awful</i> squeak.<br> +<br> +“Perhaps,” he added, “to <i>your</i> ear<br> +That sounds an easy thing?<br> +Try it yourself, my little dear!<br> +It took <i>me</i> something like a year,<br> +With constant practising.<br> +<br> +“And when you’ve learned to squeak, my man,<br> +And caught the double sob,<br> +You’re pretty much where you began:<br> +Just try and gibber if you can!<br> +That’s something <i>like</i> a job!<br> +<br> +“<i>I’ve</i> tried it, and can only say<br> +I’m sure you couldn’t do it, e-<br> +ven if you practised night and day,<br> +Unless you have a turn that way,<br> +And natural ingenuity.<br> +<br> +“Shakspeare I think it is who treats<br> +Of Ghosts, in days of old,<br> +Who ‘gibbered in the Roman streets,’<br> +Dressed, if you recollect, in sheets -<br> +They must have found it cold.<br> +<br> +“I’ve often spent ten pounds on stuff,<br> +In dressing as a Double;<br> +But, though it answers as a puff,<br> +It never has effect enough<br> +To make it worth the trouble.<br> +<br> +“Long bills soon quenched the little thirst<br> +I had for being funny.<br> +The setting-up is always worst:<br> +Such heaps of things you want at first,<br> +One must be made of money!<br> +<br> +“For instance, take a Haunted Tower,<br> +With skull, cross-bones, and sheet;<br> +Blue lights to burn (say) two an hour,<br> +Condensing lens of extra power,<br> +And set of chains complete:<br> +<br> +“What with the things you have to hire -<br> +The fitting on the robe -<br> +And testing all the coloured fire -<br> +The outfit of itself would tire<br> +The patience of a Job!<br> +<br> +“And then they’re so fastidious,<br> +The Haunted-House Committee:<br> +I’ve often known them make a fuss<br> +Because a Ghost was French, or Russ,<br> +Or even from the City!<br> +<br> +“Some dialects are objected to -<br> +For one, the <i>Irish</i> brogue is:<br> +And then, for all you have to do,<br> +One pound a week they offer you,<br> +And find yourself in Bogies!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO V - Byckerment<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“Don’t they consult the ‘Victims,’ though?”<br> +I said. “They should, by rights,<br> +Give them a chance - because, you know,<br> +The tastes of people differ so,<br> +Especially in Sprites.”<br> +<br> +The Phantom shook his head and smiled.<br> +“Consult them? Not a bit!<br> +‘Twould be a job to drive one wild,<br> +To satisfy one single child -<br> +There’d be no end to it!”<br> +<br> +“Of course you can’t leave <i>children</i> free,”<br> +Said I, “to pick and choose:<br> +But, in the case of men like me,<br> +I think ‘Mine Host’ might fairly be<br> +Allowed to state his views.”<br> +<br> +He said “It really wouldn’t pay -<br> +Folk are so full of fancies.<br> +We visit for a single day,<br> +And whether then we go, or stay,<br> +Depends on circumstances.<br> +<br> +“And, though we don’t consult ‘Mine Host’<br> +Before the thing’s arranged,<br> +Still, if he often quits his post,<br> +Or is not a well-mannered Ghost,<br> +Then you can have him changed.<br> +<br> +“But if the host’s a man like you -<br> +I mean a man of sense;<br> +And if the house is not too new - ”<br> +“Why, what has <i>that</i>,” said I, “to do<br> +With Ghost’s convenience?”<br> +<br> +“A new house does not suit, you know -<br> +It’s such a job to trim it:<br> +But, after twenty years or so,<br> +The wainscotings begin to go,<br> +So twenty is the limit.”<br> +<br> +“To trim” was not a phrase I could<br> +Remember having heard:<br> +“Perhaps,” I said, “you’ll be so good<br> +As tell me what is understood<br> +Exactly by that word?”<br> +<br> +“It means the loosening all the doors,”<br> +The Ghost replied, and laughed:<br> +“It means the drilling holes by scores<br> +In all the skirting-boards and floors,<br> +To make a thorough draught.<br> +<br> +“You’ll sometimes find that one or two<br> +Are all you really need<br> +To let the wind come whistling through -<br> +But <i>here</i> there’ll be a lot to do!”<br> +I faintly gasped “Indeed!<br> +<br> +“If I’d been rather later, I’ll<br> +Be bound,” I added, trying<br> +(Most unsuccessfully) to smile,<br> +“You’d have been busy all this while,<br> +Trimming and beautifying?”<br> +<br> +“Why, no,” said he; “perhaps I should<br> +Have stayed another minute -<br> +But still no Ghost, that’s any good,<br> +Without an introduction would<br> +Have ventured to begin it.<br> +<br> +“The proper thing, as you were late,<br> +Was certainly to go:<br> +But, with the roads in such a state,<br> +I got the Knight-Mayor’s leave to wait<br> +For half an hour or so.”<br> +<br> +“Who’s the Knight-Mayor?” I cried. Instead<br> +Of answering my question,<br> +“Well, if you don’t know <i>that</i>,” he said,<br> +“Either you never go to bed,<br> +Or you’ve a grand digestion!<br> +<br> +“He goes about and sits on folk<br> +That eat too much at night:<br> +His duties are to pinch, and poke,<br> +And squeeze them till they nearly choke.”<br> +(I said “It serves them right!”)<br> +<br> +“And folk who sup on things like these - ”<br> +He muttered, “eggs and bacon -<br> +Lobster - and duck - and toasted cheese -<br> +If they don’t get an awful squeeze,<br> +I’m very much mistaken!<br> +<br> +“He is immensely fat, and so<br> +Well suits the occupation:<br> +In point of fact, if you must know,<br> +We used to call him years ago,<br> +<i>The Mayor and Corporation!<br> +<br> +</i>“The day he was elected Mayor<br> +I <i>know</i> that every Sprite meant<br> +To vote for <i>me</i>, but did not dare -<br> +He was so frantic with despair<br> +And furious with excitement.<br> +<br> +“When it was over, for a whim,<br> +He ran to tell the King;<br> +And being the reverse of slim,<br> +A two-mile trot was not for him<br> +A very easy thing.<br> +<br> +“So, to reward him for his run<br> +(As it was baking hot,<br> +And he was over twenty stone),<br> +The King proceeded, half in fun,<br> +To knight him on the spot.”<br> +<br> +“’Twas a great liberty to take!”<br> +(I fired up like a rocket).<br> +“He did it just for punning’s sake:<br> +‘The man,’ says Johnson, ‘that would make<br> +A pun, would pick a pocket!’”<br> +<br> +“A man,” said he, “is not a King.”<br> +I argued for a while,<br> +And did my best to prove the thing -<br> +The Phantom merely listening<br> +With a contemptuous smile.<br> +<br> +At last, when, breath and patience spent,<br> +I had recourse to smoking -<br> +“Your <i>aim</i>,” he said, “is excellent:<br> +But - when you call it <i>argument</i> -<br> +Of course you’re only joking?”<br> +<br> +Stung by his cold and snaky eye,<br> +I roused myself at length<br> +To say “At least I do defy<br> +The veriest sceptic to deny<br> +That union is strength!”<br> +<br> +“That’s true enough,” said he, “yet stay - ”<br> +I listened in all meekness -<br> +“<i>Union</i> is strength, I’m bound to say;<br> +In fact, the thing’s as clear as day;<br> +But <i>onions</i> are a weakness.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO VI - Dyscomfyture<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +As one who strives a hill to climb,<br> +Who never climbed before:<br> +Who finds it, in a little time,<br> +Grow every moment less sublime,<br> +And votes the thing a bore:<br> +<br> +Yet, having once begun to try,<br> +Dares not desert his quest,<br> +But, climbing, ever keeps his eye<br> +On one small hut against the sky<br> +Wherein he hopes to rest:<br> +<br> +Who climbs till nerve and force are spent,<br> +With many a puff and pant:<br> +Who still, as rises the ascent,<br> +In language grows more violent,<br> +Although in breath more scant:<br> +<br> +Who, climbing, gains at length the place<br> +That crowns the upward track.<br> +And, entering with unsteady pace,<br> +Receives a buffet in the face<br> +That lands him on his back:<br> +<br> +And feels himself, like one in sleep,<br> +Glide swiftly down again,<br> +A helpless weight, from steep to steep,<br> +Till, with a headlong giddy sweep,<br> +He drops upon the plain -<br> +<br> +So I, that had resolved to bring<br> +Conviction to a ghost,<br> +And found it quite a different thing<br> +From any human arguing,<br> +Yet dared not quit my post<br> +<br> +But, keeping still the end in view<br> +To which I hoped to come,<br> +I strove to prove the matter true<br> +By putting everything I knew<br> +Into an axiom:<br> +<br> +Commencing every single phrase<br> +With ‘therefore’ or ‘because,’<br> +I blindly reeled, a hundred ways,<br> +About the syllogistic maze,<br> +Unconscious where I was.<br> +<br> +Quoth he “That’s regular clap-trap:<br> +Don’t bluster any more.<br> +Now <i>do</i> be cool and take a nap!<br> +Such a ridiculous old chap<br> +Was never seen before!<br> +<br> +“You’re like a man I used to meet,<br> +Who got one day so furious<br> +In arguing, the simple heat<br> +Scorched both his slippers off his feet!”<br> +I said “<i>That’s very curious</i>!”<br> +<br> +“Well, it <i>is</i> curious, I agree,<br> +And sounds perhaps like fibs:<br> +But still it’s true as true can be -<br> +As sure as your name’s Tibbs,” said he.<br> +I said “My name’s <i>not</i> Tibbs.”<br> +<br> +“<i>Not</i> Tibbs!” he cried - his tone became<br> +A shade or two less hearty -<br> +“Why, no,” said I. “My proper name<br> +Is Tibbets - ” “Tibbets?” “Aye, +the same.”<br> +“Why, then YOU’RE NOT THE PARTY!”<br> +<br> +With that he struck the board a blow<br> +That shivered half the glasses.<br> +“Why couldn’t you have told me so<br> +Three quarters of an hour ago,<br> +You prince of all the asses?<br> +<br> +“To walk four miles through mud and rain,<br> +To spend the night in smoking,<br> +And then to find that it’s in vain -<br> +And I’ve to do it all again -<br> +It’s really <i>too</i> provoking!<br> +<br> +“Don’t talk!” he cried, as I began<br> +To mutter some excuse.<br> +“Who can have patience with a man<br> +That’s got no more discretion than<br> +An idiotic goose?<br> +<br> +“To keep me waiting here, instead<br> +Of telling me at once<br> +That this was not the house!” he said.<br> +“There, that’ll do - be off to bed!<br> +Don’t gape like that, you dunce!”<br> +<br> +“It’s very fine to throw the blame<br> +On <i>me</i> in such a fashion!<br> +Why didn’t you enquire my name<br> +The very minute that you came?”<br> +I answered in a passion.<br> +<br> +“Of course it worries you a bit<br> +To come so far on foot -<br> +But how was <i>I</i> to blame for it?”<br> +“Well, well!” said he. “I must admit<br> +That isn’t badly put.<br> +<br> +“And certainly you’ve given me<br> +The best of wine and victual -<br> +Excuse my violence,” said he,<br> +“But accidents like this, you see,<br> +They put one out a little.<br> +<br> +“’Twas <i>my</i> fault after all, I find -<br> +Shake hands, old Turnip-top!”<br> +The name was hardly to my mind,<br> +But, as no doubt he meant it kind,<br> +I let the matter drop.<br> +<br> +“Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!<br> +When I am gone, perhaps<br> +They’ll send you some inferior Sprite,<br> +Who’ll keep you in a constant fright<br> +And spoil your soundest naps.<br> +<br> +“Tell him you’ll stand no sort of trick;<br> +Then, if he leers and chuckles,<br> +You just be handy with a stick<br> +(Mind that it’s pretty hard and thick)<br> +And rap him on the knuckles!<br> +<br> +“Then carelessly remark ‘Old coon!<br> +Perhaps you’re not aware<br> +That, if you don’t behave, you’ll soon<br> +Be chuckling to another tune -<br> +And so you’d best take care!’<br> +<br> +“That’s the right way to cure a Sprite<br> +Of such like goings-on -<br> +But gracious me! It’s getting light!<br> +Good-night, old Turnip-top, good-night!”<br> +A nod, and he was gone.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CANTO VII - Sad Souvenaunce<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“What’s this?” I pondered. “Have I slept?<br> +Or can I have been drinking?”<br> +But soon a gentler feeling crept<br> +Upon me, and I sat and wept<br> +An hour or so, like winking.<br> +<br> +“No need for Bones to hurry so!”<br> +I sobbed. “In fact, I doubt<br> +If it was worth his while to go -<br> +And who is Tibbs, I’d like to know,<br> +To make such work about?<br> +<br> +“If Tibbs is anything like me,<br> +It’s <i>possible</i>,” I said,<br> +“He won’t be over-pleased to be<br> +Dropped in upon at half-past three,<br> +After he’s snug in bed.<br> +<br> +“And if Bones plagues him anyhow -<br> +Squeaking and all the rest of it,<br> +As he was doing here just now -<br> +<i>I</i> prophesy there’ll be a row,<br> +And Tibbs will have the best of it!”<br> +<br> +Then, as my tears could never bring<br> +The friendly Phantom back,<br> +It seemed to me the proper thing<br> +To mix another glass, and sing<br> +The following Coronach.<br> +<br> +‘<i>And art thou gone, beloved Ghost</i>?<br> +<i>Best of Familiars!<br> +Nay then, farewell, my duckling roast,<br> +Farewell, farewell, my tea and toast,<br> +My meerschaum and cigars</i>!<br> +<br> +<i>The hues of life are dull and gray,<br> +The sweets of life insipid,<br> +When</i> thou, <i>my charmer, art away</i> -<br> +<i>Old Brick, or rather, let me say,<br> +Old Parallelepiped</i>!’<br> +<br> +Instead of singing Verse the Third,<br> +I ceased - abruptly, rather:<br> +But, after such a splendid word<br> +I felt that it would be absurd<br> +To try it any farther.<br> +<br> +So with a yawn I went my way<br> +To seek the welcome downy,<br> +And slept, and dreamed till break of day<br> +Of Poltergeist and Fetch and Fay<br> +And Leprechaun and Brownie!<br> +<br> +For year I’ve not been visited<br> +By any kind of Sprite;<br> +Yet still they echo in my head,<br> +Those parting words, so kindly said,<br> +“Old Turnip-top, good-night!”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ECHOES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere<br> +Was eight years old, she said:<br> +Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.<br> +<br> +She took her little porringer:<br> +Of me she shall not win renown:<br> +For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.<br> +<br> +“Sisters and brothers, little Maid?<br> +There stands the Inspector at thy door:<br> +Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four.”<br> +<br> +“Kind words are more than coronets,”<br> +She said, and wondering looked at me:<br> +“It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A SEA DIRGE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +There are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost,<br> +The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three -<br> +That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most<br> +Is a thing they call the Sea.<br> +<br> +Pour some salt water over the floor -<br> +Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be:<br> +Suppose it extended a mile or more,<br> +<i>That’s</i> very like the Sea.<br> +<br> +Beat a dog till it howls outright -<br> +Cruel, but all very well for a spree:<br> +Suppose that he did so day and night,<br> +<i>That</i> would be like the Sea.<br> +<br> +I had a vision of nursery-maids;<br> +Tens of thousands passed by me -<br> +All leading children with wooden spades,<br> +And this was by the Sea.<br> +<br> +Who invented those spades of wood?<br> +Who was it cut them out of the tree?<br> +None, I think, but an idiot could -<br> +Or one that loved the Sea.<br> +<br> +It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float<br> +With ‘thoughts as boundless, and souls as free’:<br> +But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,<br> +How do you like the Sea?<br> +<br> +There is an insect that people avoid<br> +(Whence is derived the verb ‘to flee’).<br> +Where have you been by it most annoyed?<br> +In lodgings by the Sea.<br> +<br> +If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,<br> +A decided hint of salt in your tea,<br> +And a fishy taste in the very eggs -<br> +By all means choose the Sea.<br> +<br> +And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,<br> +You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,<br> +And a chronic state of wet in your feet,<br> +Then - I recommend the Sea.<br> +<br> +For <i>I</i> have friends who dwell by the coast -<br> +Pleasant friends they are to me!<br> +It is when I am with them I wonder most<br> +That anyone likes the Sea.<br> +<br> +They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,<br> +To climb the heights I madly agree;<br> +And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,<br> +They kindly suggest the Sea.<br> +<br> +I try the rocks, and I think it cool<br> +That they laugh with such an excess of glee,<br> +As I heavily slip into every pool<br> +That skirts the cold cold Sea.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Ye Carpette Knyghte<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I have a horse - a ryghte good horse -<br> +Ne doe Y envye those<br> +Who scoure ye playne yn headye course<br> +Tyll soddayne on theyre nose<br> +They lyghte wyth unexpected force<br> +Yt ys - a horse of clothes.<br> +<br> +I have a saddel - “Say’st thou soe?<br> +Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?”<br> +I sayde not that - I answere “Noe” -<br> +Yt lacketh such, I woote:<br> +Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!<br> +Parte of ye fleecye brute.<br> +<br> +I have a bytte - a ryghte good bytte -<br> +As shall bee seene yn tyme.<br> +Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte;<br> +Yts use ys more sublyme.<br> +Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?<br> +Yt ys - thys bytte of rhyme.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +[In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight +attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised +writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours +together, in the easy running metre of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’ +Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the +following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid +reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.]<br> +<br> +<br> +From his shoulder Hiawatha<br> +Took the camera of rosewood,<br> +Made of sliding, folding rosewood;<br> +Neatly put it all together.<br> +In its case it lay compactly,<br> +Folded into nearly nothing;<br> +<br> +But he opened out the hinges,<br> +Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,<br> +Till it looked all squares and oblongs,<br> +Like a complicated figure<br> +In the Second Book of Euclid.<br> +<br> +This he perched upon a tripod -<br> +Crouched beneath its dusky cover -<br> +Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -<br> +Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”<br> +Mystic, awful was the process.<br> +<br> +All the family in order<br> +Sat before him for their pictures:<br> +Each in turn, as he was taken,<br> +Volunteered his own suggestions,<br> +His ingenious suggestions.<br> +<br> +First the Governor, the Father:<br> +He suggested velvet curtains<br> +Looped about a massy pillar;<br> +And the corner of a table,<br> +Of a rosewood dining-table.<br> +He would hold a scroll of something,<br> +Hold it firmly in his left-hand;<br> +He would keep his right-hand buried<br> +(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;<br> +He would contemplate the distance<br> +With a look of pensive meaning,<br> +As of ducks that die ill tempests.<br> +<br> +Grand, heroic was the notion:<br> +Yet the picture failed entirely:<br> +Failed, because he moved a little,<br> +Moved, because he couldn’t help it.<br> +<br> +Next, his better half took courage;<br> +<i>She</i> would have her picture taken.<br> +She came dressed beyond description,<br> +Dressed in jewels and in satin<br> +Far too gorgeous for an empress.<br> +Gracefully she sat down sideways,<br> +With a simper scarcely human,<br> +Holding in her hand a bouquet<br> +Rather larger than a cabbage.<br> +All the while that she was sitting,<br> +Still the lady chattered, chattered,<br> +Like a monkey in the forest.<br> +“Am I sitting still?” she asked him.<br> +“Is my face enough in profile?<br> +Shall I hold the bouquet higher?<br> +Will it came into the picture?”<br> +And the picture failed completely.<br> +<br> +Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:<br> +He suggested curves of beauty,<br> +Curves pervading all his figure,<br> +Which the eye might follow onward,<br> +Till they centered in the breast-pin,<br> +Centered in the golden breast-pin.<br> +He had learnt it all from Ruskin<br> +(Author of ‘The Stones of Venice,’<br> +‘Seven Lamps of Architecture,’<br> +‘Modern Painters,’ and some others);<br> +And perhaps he had not fully<br> +Understood his author’s meaning;<br> +But, whatever was the reason,<br> +All was fruitless, as the picture<br> +Ended in an utter failure.<br> +<br> +Next to him the eldest daughter:<br> +She suggested very little,<br> +Only asked if he would take her<br> +With her look of ‘passive beauty.’<br> +<br> +Her idea of passive beauty<br> +Was a squinting of the left-eye,<br> +Was a drooping of the right-eye,<br> +Was a smile that went up sideways<br> +To the corner of the nostrils.<br> +<br> +Hiawatha, when she asked him,<br> +Took no notice of the question,<br> +Looked as if he hadn’t heard it;<br> +But, when pointedly appealed to,<br> +Smiled in his peculiar manner,<br> +Coughed and said it ‘didn’t matter,’<br> +Bit his lip and changed the subject.<br> +<br> +Nor in this was he mistaken,<br> +As the picture failed completely.<br> +<br> +So in turn the other sisters.<br> +<br> +Last, the youngest son was taken:<br> +Very rough and thick his hair was,<br> +Very round and red his face was,<br> +Very dusty was his jacket,<br> +Very fidgety his manner.<br> +And his overbearing sisters<br> +Called him names he disapproved of:<br> +Called him Johnny, ‘Daddy’s Darling,’<br> +Called him Jacky, ‘Scrubby School-boy.’<br> +And, so awful was the picture,<br> +In comparison the others<br> +Seemed, to one’s bewildered fancy,<br> +To have partially succeeded.<br> +<br> +Finally my Hiawatha<br> +Tumbled all the tribe together,<br> +(‘Grouped’ is not the right expression),<br> +And, as happy chance would have it<br> +Did at last obtain a picture<br> +Where the faces all succeeded:<br> +Each came out a perfect likeness.<br> +<br> +Then they joined and all abused it,<br> +Unrestrainedly abused it,<br> +As the worst and ugliest picture<br> +They could possibly have dreamed of.<br> +‘Giving one such strange expressions -<br> +Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.<br> +Really any one would take us<br> +(Any one that did not know us)<br> +For the most unpleasant people!’<br> +(Hiawatha seemed to think so,<br> +Seemed to think it not unlikely).<br> +All together rang their voices,<br> +Angry, loud, discordant voices,<br> +As of dogs that howl in concert,<br> +As of cats that wail in chorus.<br> +<br> +But my Hiawatha’s patience,<br> +His politeness and his patience,<br> +Unaccountably had vanished,<br> +And he left that happy party.<br> +Neither did he leave them slowly,<br> +With the calm deliberation,<br> +The intense deliberation<br> +Of a photographic artist:<br> +But he left them in a hurry,<br> +Left them in a mighty hurry,<br> +Stating that he would not stand it,<br> +Stating in emphatic language<br> +What he’d be before he’d stand it.<br> +Hurriedly he packed his boxes:<br> +Hurriedly the porter trundled<br> +On a barrow all his boxes:<br> +Hurriedly he took his ticket:<br> +Hurriedly the train received him:<br> +Thus departed Hiawatha.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +MELANCHOLETTA<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +With saddest music all day long<br> +She soothed her secret sorrow:<br> +At night she sighed “I fear ’twas wrong<br> +Such cheerful words to borrow.<br> +Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song<br> +I’ll sing to thee to-morrow.”<br> +<br> +I thanked her, but I could not say<br> +That I was glad to hear it:<br> +I left the house at break of day,<br> +And did not venture near it<br> +Till time, I hoped, had worn away<br> +Her grief, for nought could cheer it!<br> +<br> +My dismal sister! Couldst thou know<br> +The wretched home thou keepest!<br> +Thy brother, drowned in daily woe,<br> +Is thankful when thou sleepest;<br> +For if I laugh, however low,<br> +When thou’rt awake, thou weepest!<br> +<br> +I took my sister t’other day<br> +(Excuse the slang expression)<br> +To Sadler’s Wells to see the play<br> +In hopes the new impression<br> +Might in her thoughts, from grave to gay<br> +Effect some slight digression.<br> +<br> +I asked three gay young dogs from town<br> +To join us in our folly,<br> +Whose mirth, I thought, might serve to drown<br> +My sister’s melancholy:<br> +The lively Jones, the sportive Brown,<br> +And Robinson the jolly.<br> +<br> +The maid announced the meal in tones<br> +That I myself had taught her,<br> +Meant to allay my sister’s moans<br> +Like oil on troubled water:<br> +I rushed to Jones, the lively Jones,<br> +And begged him to escort her.<br> +<br> +Vainly he strove, with ready wit,<br> +To joke about the weather -<br> +To ventilate the last ‘<i>on dit</i>’ -<br> +To quote the price of leather -<br> +She groaned “Here I and Sorrow sit:<br> +Let us lament together!”<br> +<br> +I urged “You’re wasting time, you know:<br> +Delay will spoil the venison.”<br> +“My heart is wasted with my woe!<br> +There is no rest - in Venice, on<br> +The Bridge of Sighs!” she quoted low<br> +From Byron and from Tennyson.<br> +<br> +I need not tell of soup and fish<br> +In solemn silence swallowed,<br> +The sobs that ushered in each dish,<br> +And its departure followed,<br> +Nor yet my suicidal wish<br> +To <i>be</i> the cheese I hollowed.<br> +<br> +Some desperate attempts were made<br> +To start a conversation;<br> +“Madam,” the sportive Brown essayed,<br> +“Which kind of recreation,<br> +Hunting or fishing, have you made<br> +Your special occupation?”<br> +<br> +Her lips curved downwards instantly,<br> +As if of india-rubber.<br> +“Hounds <i>in full cry</i> I like,” said she:<br> +(Oh how I longed to snub her!)<br> +“Of fish, a whale’s the one for me,<br> +<i>It is so full of blubber</i>!”<br> +<br> +The night’s performance was “King John.”<br> +“It’s dull,” she wept, “and so-so!”<br> +Awhile I let her tears flow on,<br> +She said they soothed her woe so!<br> +At length the curtain rose upon<br> +‘Bombastes Furioso.’<br> +<br> +In vain we roared; in vain we tried<br> +To rouse her into laughter:<br> +Her pensive glances wandered wide<br> +From orchestra to rafter -<br> +“<i>Tier upon tier</i>!” she said, and sighed;<br> +And silence followed after.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A VALENTINE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +[Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see him +when he came, but didn’t seem to miss him if he stayed away.]<br> +<br> +<br> +And cannot pleasures, while they last,<br> +Be actual unless, when past,<br> +They leave us shuddering and aghast,<br> +With anguish smarting?<br> +And cannot friends be firm and fast,<br> +And yet bear parting?<br> +<br> +And must I then, at Friendship’s call,<br> +Calmly resign the little all<br> +(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)<br> +I have of gladness,<br> +And lend my being to the thrall<br> +Of gloom and sadness?<br> +<br> +And think you that I should be dumb,<br> +And full <i>dolorum omnium,<br> +</i>Excepting when <i>you</i> choose to come<br> +And share my dinner?<br> +At other times be sour and glum<br> +And daily thinner?<br> +<br> +Must he then only live to weep,<br> +Who’d prove his friendship true and deep<br> +By day a lonely shadow creep,<br> +At night-time languish,<br> +Oft raising in his broken sleep<br> +The moan of anguish?<br> +<br> +The lover, if for certain days<br> +His fair one be denied his gaze,<br> +Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,<br> +But, wiser wooer,<br> +He spends the time in writing lays,<br> +And posts them to her.<br> +<br> +And if the verse flow free and fast,<br> +Till even the poet is aghast,<br> +A touching Valentine at last<br> +The post shall carry,<br> +When thirteen days are gone and past<br> +Of February.<br> +<br> +Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,<br> +In desert waste or crowded street,<br> +Perhaps before this week shall fleet,<br> +Perhaps to-morrow.<br> +I trust to find <i>your</i> heart the seat<br> +Of wasting sorrow.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE THREE VOICES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The First Voice<br> +<br> +<br> +He trilled a carol fresh and free,<br> +He laughed aloud for very glee:<br> +There came a breeze from off the sea:<br> +<br> +It passed athwart the glooming flat -<br> +It fanned his forehead as he sat -<br> +It lightly bore away his hat,<br> +<br> +All to the feet of one who stood<br> +Like maid enchanted in a wood,<br> +Frowning as darkly as she could.<br> +<br> +With huge umbrella, lank and brown,<br> +Unerringly she pinned it down,<br> +Right through the centre of the crown.<br> +<br> +Then, with an aspect cold and grim,<br> +Regardless of its battered rim,<br> +She took it up and gave it him.<br> +<br> +A while like one in dreams he stood,<br> +Then faltered forth his gratitude<br> +In words just short of being rude:<br> +<br> +For it had lost its shape and shine,<br> +And it had cost him four-and-nine,<br> +And he was going out to dine.<br> +<br> +“To dine!” she sneered in acid tone.<br> +“To bend thy being to a bone<br> +Clothed in a radiance not its own!”<br> +<br> +The tear-drop trickled to his chin:<br> +There was a meaning in her grin<br> +That made him feel on fire within.<br> +<br> +“Term it not ‘radiance,’” said he:<br> +“’Tis solid nutriment to me.<br> +Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.”<br> +<br> +And she “Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?<br> +Let thy scant knowledge find increase.<br> +Say ‘Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.’”<br> +<br> +He moaned: he knew not what to say.<br> +The thought “That I could get away!”<br> +Strove with the thought “But I must stay.<br> +<br> +“To dine!” she shrieked in dragon-wrath.<br> +“To swallow wines all foam and froth!<br> +To simper at a table-cloth!<br> +<br> +“Say, can thy noble spirit stoop<br> +To join the gormandising troup<br> +Who find a solace in the soup?<br> +<br> +“Canst thou desire or pie or puff?<br> +Thy well-bred manners were enough,<br> +Without such gross material stuff.”<br> +<br> +“Yet well-bred men,” he faintly said,<br> +“Are not willing to be fed:<br> +Nor are they well without the bread.”<br> +<br> +Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:<br> +“There are,” she said, “a kind of folk<br> +Who have no horror of a joke.<br> +<br> +“Such wretches live: they take their share<br> +Of common earth and common air:<br> +We come across them here and there:<br> +<br> +“We grant them - there is no escape -<br> +A sort of semi-human shape<br> +Suggestive of the man-like Ape.”<br> +<br> +“In all such theories,” said he,<br> +“One fixed exception there must be.<br> +That is, the Present Company.”<br> +<br> +Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:<br> +He, aiming blindly in the dark,<br> +With random shaft had pierced the mark.<br> +<br> +She felt that her defeat was plain,<br> +Yet madly strove with might and main<br> +To get the upper hand again.<br> +<br> +Fixing her eyes upon the beach,<br> +As though unconscious of his speech,<br> +She said “Each gives to more than each.”<br> +<br> +He could not answer yea or nay:<br> +He faltered “Gifts may pass away.”<br> +Yet knew not what he meant to say.<br> +<br> +“If that be so,” she straight replied,<br> +“Each heart with each doth coincide.<br> +What boots it? For the world is wide.”<br> +<br> +“The world is but a Thought,” said he:<br> +“The vast unfathomable sea<br> +Is but a Notion - unto me.”<br> +<br> +And darkly fell her answer dread<br> +Upon his unresisting head,<br> +Like half a hundredweight of lead.<br> +<br> +“The Good and Great must ever shun<br> +That reckless and abandoned one<br> +Who stoops to perpetrate a pun.<br> +<br> +“The man that smokes - that reads the <i>Times</i> -<br> +That goes to Christmas Pantomimes -<br> +Is capable of <i>any</i> crimes!”<br> +<br> +He felt it was his turn to speak,<br> +And, with a shamed and crimson cheek,<br> +Moaned “This is harder than Bezique!”<br> +<br> +But when she asked him “Wherefore so?”<br> +He felt his very whiskers glow,<br> +And frankly owned “I do not know.”<br> +<br> +While, like broad waves of golden grain,<br> +Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,<br> +His colour came and went again.<br> +<br> +Pitying his obvious distress,<br> +Yet with a tinge of bitterness,<br> +She said “The More exceeds the Less.”<br> +<br> +“A truth of such undoubted weight,”<br> +He urged, “and so extreme in date,<br> +It were superfluous to state.”<br> +<br> +Roused into sudden passion, she<br> +In tone of cold malignity:<br> +“To others, yea: but not to thee.”<br> +<br> +But when she saw him quail and quake,<br> +And when he urged “For pity’s sake!”<br> +Once more in gentle tones she spake.<br> +<br> +“Thought in the mind doth still abide<br> +That is by Intellect supplied,<br> +And within that Idea doth hide:<br> +<br> +“And he, that yearns the truth to know,<br> +Still further inwardly may go,<br> +And find Idea from Notion flow:<br> +<br> +“And thus the chain, that sages sought,<br> +Is to a glorious circle wrought,<br> +For Notion hath its source in Thought.”<br> +<br> +So passed they on with even pace:<br> +Yet gradually one might trace<br> +A shadow growing on his face.<br> +<br> +<br> +The Second Voice<br> +<br> +<br> +They walked beside the wave-worn beach;<br> +Her tongue was very apt to teach,<br> +And now and then he did beseech<br> +<br> +She would abate her dulcet tone,<br> +Because the talk was all her own,<br> +And he was dull as any drone.<br> +<br> +She urged “No cheese is made of chalk”:<br> +And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,<br> +Tuned to the footfall of a walk.<br> +<br> +Her voice was very full and rich,<br> +And, when at length she asked him “Which?”<br> +It mounted to its highest pitch.<br> +<br> +He a bewildered answer gave,<br> +Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,<br> +Lost in the echoes of the cave.<br> +<br> +He answered her he knew not what:<br> +Like shaft from bow at random shot,<br> +He spoke, but she regarded not.<br> +<br> +She waited not for his reply,<br> +But with a downward leaden eye<br> +Went on as if he were not by<br> +<br> +Sound argument and grave defence,<br> +Strange questions raised on “Why?” and “Whence?”<br> +And wildly tangled evidence.<br> +<br> +When he, with racked and whirling brain,<br> +Feebly implored her to explain,<br> +She simply said it all again.<br> +<br> +Wrenched with an agony intense,<br> +He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,<br> +And careless of all consequence:<br> +<br> +“Mind - I believe - is Essence - Ent -<br> +Abstract - that is - an Accident -<br> +Which we - that is to say - I meant - ”<br> +<br> +When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed,<br> +At length his speech was somewhat hushed,<br> +She looked at him, and he was crushed.<br> +<br> +It needed not her calm reply:<br> +She fixed him with a stony eye,<br> +And he could neither fight nor fly.<br> +<br> +While she dissected, word by word,<br> +His speech, half guessed at and half heard,<br> +As might a cat a little bird.<br> +<br> +Then, having wholly overthrown<br> +His views, and stripped them to the bone,<br> +Proceeded to unfold her own.<br> +<br> +“Shall Man be Man? And shall he miss<br> +Of other thoughts no thought but this,<br> +Harmonious dews of sober bliss?<br> +<br> +“What boots it? Shall his fevered eye<br> +Through towering nothingness descry<br> +The grisly phantom hurry by?<br> +<br> +“And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;<br> +See mouths that gape, and eyes that stare<br> +And redden in the dusky glare?<br> +<br> +“The meadows breathing amber light,<br> +The darkness toppling from the height,<br> +The feathery train of granite Night?<br> +<br> +“Shall he, grown gray among his peers,<br> +Through the thick curtain of his tears<br> +Catch glimpses of his earlier years,<br> +<br> +“And hear the sounds he knew of yore,<br> +Old shufflings on the sanded floor,<br> +Old knuckles tapping at the door?<br> +<br> +“Yet still before him as he flies<br> +One pallid form shall ever rise,<br> +And, bodying forth in glassy eyes<br> +<br> +“The vision of a vanished good,<br> +Low peering through the tangled wood,<br> +Shall freeze the current of his blood.”<br> +<br> +Still from each fact, with skill uncouth<br> +And savage rapture, like a tooth<br> +She wrenched some slow reluctant truth.<br> +<br> +Till, like a silent water-mill,<br> +When summer suns have dried the rill,<br> +She reached a full stop, and was still.<br> +<br> +Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,<br> +As when the loaded omnibus<br> +Has reached the railway terminus:<br> +<br> +When, for the tumult of the street,<br> +Is heard the engine’s stifled beat,<br> +The velvet tread of porters’ feet.<br> +<br> +With glance that ever sought the ground,<br> +She moved her lips without a sound,<br> +And every now and then she frowned.<br> +<br> +He gazed upon the sleeping sea,<br> +And joyed in its tranquillity,<br> +And in that silence dead, but she<br> +<br> +To muse a little space did seem,<br> +Then, like the echo of a dream,<br> +Harked back upon her threadbare theme.<br> +<br> +Still an attentive ear he lent<br> +But could not fathom what she meant:<br> +She was not deep, nor eloquent.<br> +<br> +He marked the ripple on the sand:<br> +The even swaying of her hand<br> +Was all that he could understand.<br> +<br> +He saw in dreams a drawing-room,<br> +Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom,<br> +Waiting - he thought he knew for whom:<br> +<br> +He saw them drooping here and there,<br> +Each feebly huddled on a chair,<br> +In attitudes of blank despair:<br> +<br> +Oysters were not more mute than they,<br> +For all their brains were pumped away,<br> +And they had nothing more to say -<br> +<br> +Save one, who groaned “Three hours are gone!”<br> +Who shrieked “We’ll wait no longer, John!<br> +Tell them to set the dinner on!”<br> +<br> +The vision passed: the ghosts were fled:<br> +He saw once more that woman dread:<br> +He heard once more the words she said.<br> +<br> +He left her, and he turned aside:<br> +He sat and watched the coming tide<br> +Across the shores so newly dried.<br> +<br> +He wondered at the waters clear,<br> +The breeze that whispered in his ear,<br> +The billows heaving far and near,<br> +<br> +And why he had so long preferred<br> +To hang upon her every word:<br> +“In truth,” he said, “it was absurd.”<br> +<br> +<br> +The Third Voice<br> +<br> +<br> +Not long this transport held its place:<br> +Within a little moment’s space<br> +Quick tears were raining down his face<br> +<br> +His heart stood still, aghast with fear;<br> +A wordless voice, nor far nor near,<br> +He seemed to hear and not to hear.<br> +<br> +“Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.<br> +If so, why not? Of this remark<br> +The bearings are profoundly dark.”<br> +<br> +“Her speech,” he said, “hath caused this pain.<br> +Easier I count it to explain<br> +The jargon of the howling main,<br> +<br> +“Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,<br> +To con, with inexpressive look,<br> +An unintelligible book.”<br> +<br> +Low spake the voice within his head,<br> +In words imagined more than said,<br> +Soundless as ghost’s intended tread:<br> +<br> +“If thou art duller than before,<br> +Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?<br> +Why not endure, expecting more?”<br> +<br> +“Rather than that,” he groaned aghast,<br> +“I’d writhe in depths of cavern vast,<br> +Some loathly vampire’s rich repast.”<br> +<br> +“‘Twere hard,” it answered, “themes immense<br> +To coop within the narrow fence<br> +That rings <i>thy</i> scant intelligence.”<br> +<br> +“Not so,” he urged, “nor once alone:<br> +But there was something in her tone<br> +That chilled me to the very bone.<br> +<br> +“Her style was anything but clear,<br> +And most unpleasantly severe;<br> +Her epithets were very queer.<br> +<br> +“And yet, so grand were her replies,<br> +I could not choose but deem her wise;<br> +I did not dare to criticise;<br> +<br> +“Nor did I leave her, till she went<br> +So deep in tangled argument<br> +That all my powers of thought were spent.”<br> +<br> +A little whisper inly slid,<br> +“Yet truth is truth: you know you did.”<br> +A little wink beneath the lid.<br> +<br> +And, sickened with excess of dread,<br> +Prone to the dust he bent his head,<br> +And lay like one three-quarters dead<br> +<br> +The whisper left him - like a breeze<br> +Lost in the depths of leafy trees -<br> +Left him by no means at his ease.<br> +<br> +Once more he weltered in despair,<br> +With hands, through denser-matted hair,<br> +More tightly clenched than then they were.<br> +<br> +When, bathed in Dawn of living red,<br> +Majestic frowned the mountain head,<br> +“Tell me my fault,” was all he said.<br> +<br> +When, at high Noon, the blazing sky<br> +Scorched in his head each haggard eye,<br> +Then keenest rose his weary cry.<br> +<br> +And when at Eve the unpitying sun<br> +Smiled grimly on the solemn fun,<br> +“Alack,” he sighed, “what <i>have</i> I done?”<br> +<br> +But saddest, darkest was the sight,<br> +When the cold grasp of leaden Night<br> +Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.<br> +<br> +Tortured, unaided, and alone,<br> +Thunders were silence to his groan,<br> +Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:<br> +<br> +“What? Ever thus, in dismal round,<br> +Shall Pain and Mystery profound<br> +Pursue me like a sleepless hound,<br> +<br> +“With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,<br> +Me, still in ignorance of the cause,<br> +Unknowing what I broke of laws?”<br> +<br> +The whisper to his ear did seem<br> +Like echoed flow of silent stream,<br> +Or shadow of forgotten dream,<br> +<br> +The whisper trembling in the wind:<br> +“Her fate with thine was intertwined,”<br> +So spake it in his inner mind:<br> +<br> +“Each orbed on each a baleful star:<br> +Each proved the other’s blight and bar:<br> +Each unto each were best, most far:<br> +<br> +“Yea, each to each was worse than foe:<br> +Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,<br> +AND SHE, AN AVALANCHE OF WOE!”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TÈMA CON VARIAZIÒNI<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +[Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process +of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art Music? +The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known Air, then +a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the Air, and so on +alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from all risk of recognising +the melody at all, at least from the too-exciting transports which it +might produce in a more concentrated form. The process is termed +“setting” by Composers, and any one, that has ever experienced +the emotion of being unexpectedly set down in a heap of mortar, will +recognise the truthfulness of this happy phrase.<br> +<br> +For truly, just as the genuine Epicure lingers lovingly over a morsel +of supreme Venison - whose every fibre seems to murmur “Excelsior!” +- yet swallows, ere returning to the toothsome dainty, great mouthfuls +of oatmeal-porridge and winkles: and just as the perfect Connoisseur +in Claret permits himself but one delicate sip, and then tosses off +a pint or more of boarding-school beer: so also -<br> +<br> +<br> +I never loved a dear Gazelle -<br> +<i>Nor anything that cost me much:<br> +High prices profit those who sell,<br> +But why should I be fond of such?<br> +<br> +</i>To glad me with his soft black eye<br> +<i>My son comes trotting home from school;<br> +He’s had a fight but can’t tell why -<br> +He always was a little fool!<br> +<br> +</i>But, when he came to know me well,<br> +<i>He kicked me out, her testy Sire:<br> +And when I stained my hair, that Belle<br> +Might note the change, and thus admire<br> +<br> +</i>And love me, it was sure to dye<br> +<i>A muddy green or staring blue:<br> +Whilst one might trace, with half an eye,<br> +The still triumphant carrot through.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>A GAME OF FIVES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:<br> +Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.<br> +<br> +Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:<br> +Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.<br> +<br> +Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:<br> +Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!<br> +<br> +Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:<br> +Each young man that calls, I say “Now tell me which you <i>mean</i>!”<br> +<br> +Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:<br> +But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?<br> +<br> +Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age<br> +When girls may be <i>engaging</i>, but they somehow don’t <i>engage.<br> +<br> +</i>Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:<br> +So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!<br> +<br> +* * * *<br> +<br> +Five<i> passé</i> girls - Their age? Well, never mind!<br> +We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:<br> +But the quondam “careless bachelor” begins to think he knows<br> +The answer to that ancient problem “how the money goes”!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +“How shall I be a poet?<br> +How shall I write in rhyme?<br> +You told me once ‘the very wish<br> +Partook of the sublime.’<br> +Then tell me how! Don’t put me off<br> +With your ‘another time’!”<br> +<br> +The old man smiled to see him,<br> +To hear his sudden sally;<br> +He liked the lad to speak his mind<br> +Enthusiastically;<br> +And thought “There’s no hum-drum in him,<br> +Nor any shilly-shally.”<br> +<br> +“And would you be a poet<br> +Before you’ve been to school?<br> +Ah, well! I hardly thought you<br> +So absolute a fool.<br> +First learn to be spasmodic -<br> +A very simple rule.<br> +<br> +“For first you write a sentence,<br> +And then you chop it small;<br> +Then mix the bits, and sort them out<br> +Just as they chance to fall:<br> +The order of the phrases makes<br> +No difference at all.<br> +<br> +‘Then, if you’d be impressive,<br> +Remember what I say,<br> +That abstract qualities begin<br> +With capitals alway:<br> +The True, the Good, the Beautiful -<br> +Those are the things that pay!<br> +<br> +“Next, when you are describing<br> +A shape, or sound, or tint;<br> +Don’t state the matter plainly,<br> +But put it in a hint;<br> +And learn to look at all things<br> +With a sort of mental squint.”<br> +<br> +“For instance, if I wished, Sir,<br> +Of mutton-pies to tell,<br> +Should I say ‘dreams of fleecy flocks<br> +Pent in a wheaten cell’?”<br> +“Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase<br> +Would answer very well.<br> +<br> +“Then fourthly, there are epithets<br> +That suit with any word -<br> +As well as Harvey’s Reading Sauce<br> +With fish, or flesh, or bird -<br> +Of these, ‘wild,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘weary,’ +‘strange,’<br> +Are much to be preferred.”<br> +<br> +“And will it do, O will it do<br> +To take them in a lump -<br> +As ‘the wild man went his weary way<br> +To a strange and lonely pump’?”<br> +“Nay, nay! You must not hastily<br> +To such conclusions jump.<br> +<br> +“Such epithets, like pepper,<br> +Give zest to what you write;<br> +And, if you strew them sparely,<br> +They whet the appetite:<br> +But if you lay them on too thick,<br> +You spoil the matter quite!<br> +<br> +“Last, as to the arrangement:<br> +Your reader, you should show him,<br> +Must take what information he<br> +Can get, and look for no im-<br> +mature disclosure of the drift<br> +And purpose of your poem.<br> +<br> +“Therefore, to test his patience -<br> +How much he can endure -<br> +Mention no places, names, or dates,<br> +And evermore be sure<br> +Throughout the poem to be found<br> +Consistently obscure.<br> +<br> +“First fix upon the limit<br> +To which it shall extend:<br> +Then fill it up with ‘Padding’<br> +(Beg some of any friend):<br> +Your great SENSATION-STANZA<br> +You place towards the end.”<br> +<br> +“And what is a Sensation,<br> +Grandfather, tell me, pray?<br> +I think I never heard the word<br> +So used before to-day:<br> +Be kind enough to mention one<br> +‘<i>Exempli gratiâ</i>.’”<br> +<br> +And the old man, looking sadly<br> +Across the garden-lawn,<br> +Where here and there a dew-drop<br> +Yet glittered in the dawn,<br> +Said “Go to the Adelphi,<br> +And see the ‘Colleen Bawn.’<br> +<br> +‘The word is due to Boucicault -<br> +The theory is his,<br> +Where Life becomes a Spasm,<br> +And History a Whiz:<br> +If that is not Sensation,<br> +I don’t know what it is.<br> +<br> +“Now try your hand, ere Fancy<br> +Have lost its present glow - ”<br> +“And then,” his grandson added,<br> +“We’ll publish it, you know:<br> +Green cloth - gold-lettered at the back -<br> +In duodecimo!”<br> +<br> +Then proudly smiled that old man<br> +To see the eager lad<br> +Rush madly for his pen and ink<br> +And for his blotting-pad -<br> +But, when he thought of <i>publishing,<br> +</i>His face grew stern and sad.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +SIZE AND TEARS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +When on the sandy shore I sit,<br> +Beside the salt sea-wave,<br> +And fall into a weeping fit<br> +Because I dare not shave -<br> +A little whisper at my ear<br> +Enquires the reason of my fear.<br> +<br> +I answer “If that ruffian Jones<br> +Should recognise me here,<br> +He’d bellow out my name in tones<br> +Offensive to the ear:<br> +He chaffs me so on being stout<br> +(A thing that always puts me out).”<br> +<br> +Ah me! I see him on the cliff!<br> +Farewell, farewell to hope,<br> +If he should look this way, and if<br> +He’s got his telescope!<br> +To whatsoever place I flee,<br> +My odious rival follows me!<br> +<br> +For every night, and everywhere,<br> +I meet him out at dinner;<br> +And when I’ve found some charming fair,<br> +And vowed to die or win her,<br> +The wretch (he’s thin and I am stout)<br> +Is sure to come and cut me out!<br> +<br> +The girls (just like them!) all agree<br> +To praise J. Jones, Esquire:<br> +I ask them what on earth they see<br> +About him to admire?<br> +They cry “He is so sleek and slim,<br> +It’s quite a treat to look at him!”<br> +<br> +They vanish in tobacco smoke,<br> +Those visionary maids -<br> +I feel a sharp and sudden poke<br> +Between the shoulder-blades -<br> +“Why, Brown, my boy! Your growing stout!”<br> +(I told you he would find me out!)<br> +<br> +“My growth is not <i>your</i> business, Sir!”<br> +“No more it is, my boy!<br> +But if it’s <i>yours</i>, as I infer,<br> +Why, Brown, I give you joy!<br> +A man, whose business prospers so,<br> +Is just the sort of man to know!<br> +<br> +“It’s hardly safe, though, talking here -<br> +I’d best get out of reach:<br> +For such a weight as yours, I fear,<br> +Must shortly sink the beach!” -<br> +Insult me thus because I’m stout!<br> +I vow I’ll go and call him out!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Ay, ’twas here, on this spot,<br> +In that summer of yore,<br> +Atalanta did not<br> +Vote my presence a bore,<br> +Nor reply to my tenderest talk “She had<br> +heard all that nonsense before.”<br> +<br> +She’d the brooch I had bought<br> +And the necklace and sash on,<br> +And her heart, as I thought,<br> +Was alive to my passion;<br> +And she’d done up her hair in the style that<br> +the Empress had brought into fashion.<br> +<br> +I had been to the play<br> +With my pearl of a Peri -<br> +But, for all I could say,<br> +She declared she was weary,<br> +That “the place was so crowded and hot, and<br> +she couldn’t abide that Dundreary.”<br> +<br> +Then I thought “Lucky boy!<br> +’Tis for <i>you</i> that she whimpers!”<br> +And I noted with joy<br> +Those sensational simpers:<br> +And I said “This is scrumptious!” - a<br> +phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers.<br> +<br> +And I vowed “’Twill be said<br> +I’m a fortunate fellow,<br> +When the breakfast is spread,<br> +When the topers are mellow,<br> +When the foam of the bride-cake is white,<br> +and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!”<br> +<br> +O that languishing yawn!<br> +O those eloquent eyes!<br> +I was drunk with the dawn<br> +Of a splendid surmise -<br> +I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear,<br> +by a tempest of sighs.<br> +<br> +Then I whispered “I see<br> +The sweet secret thou keepest.<br> +And the yearning for <i>ME<br> +</i>That thou wistfully weepest!<br> +And the question is ‘License or Banns?’,<br> +though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest.”<br> +<br> +“Be my Hero,” said I,<br> +“And let <i>me</i> be Leander!”<br> +But I lost her reply -<br> +Something ending with “gander” -<br> +For the omnibus rattled so loud that no<br> +mortal could quite understand her.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE LANG COORTIN’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The ladye she stood at her lattice high,<br> +Wi’ her doggie at her feet;<br> +Thorough the lattice she can spy<br> +The passers in the street,<br> +<br> +“There’s one that standeth at the door,<br> +And tirleth at the pin:<br> +Now speak and say, my popinjay,<br> +If I sall let him in.”<br> +<br> +Then up and spake the popinjay<br> +That flew abune her head:<br> +“Gae let him in that tirls the pin:<br> +He cometh thee to wed.”<br> +<br> +O when he cam’ the parlour in,<br> +A woeful man was he!<br> +“And dinna ye ken your lover agen,<br> +Sae well that loveth thee?”<br> +<br> +“And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir,<br> +That have been sae lang away?<br> +And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir?<br> +Ye never telled me sae.”<br> +<br> +Said - “Ladye dear,” and the salt, salt tear<br> +Cam’ rinnin’ doon his cheek,<br> +“I have sent the tokens of my love<br> +This many and many a week.<br> +<br> +“O didna ye get the rings, Ladye,<br> +The rings o’ the gowd sae fine?<br> +I wot that I have sent to thee<br> +Four score, four score and nine.”<br> +<br> +“They cam’ to me,” said that fair ladye.<br> +“Wow, they were flimsie things!”<br> +Said - “that chain o’ gowd, my doggie to howd,<br> +It is made o’ thae self-same rings.”<br> +<br> +“And didna ye get the locks, the locks,<br> +The locks o’ my ain black hair,<br> +Whilk I sent by post, whilk I sent by box,<br> +Whilk I sent by the carrier?”<br> +<br> +“They cam’ to me,” said that fair ladye;<br> +“And I prithee send nae mair!”<br> +Said - “that cushion sae red, for my doggie’s head,<br> +It is stuffed wi’ thae locks o’ hair.”<br> +<br> +“And didna ye get the letter, Ladye,<br> +Tied wi’ a silken string,<br> +Whilk I sent to thee frae the far countrie,<br> +A message of love to bring?”<br> +<br> +“It cam’ to me frae the far countrie<br> +Wi’ its silken string and a’;<br> +But it wasna prepaid,” said that high-born maid,<br> +“Sae I gar’d them tak’ it awa’.”<br> +<br> +“O ever alack that ye sent it back,<br> +It was written sae clerkly and well!<br> +Now the message it brought, and the boon that it sought,<br> +I must even say it mysel’.”<br> +<br> +Then up and spake the popinjay,<br> +Sae wisely counselled he.<br> +“Now say it in the proper way:<br> +Gae doon upon thy knee!”<br> +<br> +The lover he turned baith red and pale,<br> +Went doon upon his knee:<br> +“O Ladye, hear the waesome tale<br> +That must be told to thee!<br> +<br> +“For five lang years, and five lang years,<br> +I coorted thee by looks;<br> +By nods and winks, by smiles and tears,<br> +As I had read in books.<br> +<br> +“For ten lang years, O weary hours!<br> +I coorted thee by signs;<br> +By sending game, by sending flowers,<br> +By sending Valentines.<br> +<br> +“For five lang years, and five lang years,<br> +I have dwelt in the far countrie,<br> +Till that thy mind should be inclined<br> +Mair tenderly to me.<br> +<br> +“Now thirty years are gane and past,<br> +I am come frae a foreign land:<br> +I am come to tell thee my love at last -<br> +O Ladye, gie me thy hand!”<br> +<br> +The ladye she turned not pale nor red,<br> +But she smiled a pitiful smile:<br> +“Sic’ a coortin’ as yours, my man,” she said<br> +“Takes a lang and a weary while!”<br> +<br> +And out and laughed the popinjay,<br> +A laugh of bitter scorn:<br> +“A coortin’ done in sic’ a way,<br> +It ought not to be borne!”<br> +<br> +Wi’ that the doggie barked aloud,<br> +And up and doon he ran,<br> +And tugged and strained his chain o’ gowd,<br> +All for to bite the man.<br> +<br> +“O hush thee, gentle popinjay!<br> +O hush thee, doggie dear!<br> +There is a word I fain wad say,<br> +It needeth he should hear!”<br> +<br> +Aye louder screamed that ladye fair<br> +To drown her doggie’s bark:<br> +Ever the lover shouted mair<br> +To make that ladye hark:<br> +<br> +Shrill and more shrill the popinjay<br> +Upraised his angry squall:<br> +I trow the doggie’s voice that day<br> +Was louder than them all!<br> +<br> +The serving-men and serving-maids<br> +Sat by the kitchen fire:<br> +They heard sic’ a din the parlour within<br> +As made them much admire.<br> +<br> +Out spake the boy in buttons<br> +(I ween he wasna thin),<br> +“Now wha will tae the parlour gae,<br> +And stay this deadlie din?”<br> +<br> +And they have taen a kerchief,<br> +Casted their kevils in,<br> +For wha will tae the parlour gae,<br> +And stay that deadlie din.<br> +<br> +When on that boy the kevil fell<br> +To stay the fearsome noise,<br> +“Gae in,” they cried, “whate’er betide,<br> +Thou prince of button-boys!”<br> +<br> +Syne, he has taen a supple cane<br> +To swinge that dog sae fat:<br> +The doggie yowled, the doggie howled<br> +The louder aye for that.<br> +<br> +Syne, he has taen a mutton-bane -<br> +The doggie ceased his noise,<br> +And followed doon the kitchen stair<br> +That prince of button-boys!<br> +<br> +Then sadly spake that ladye fair,<br> +Wi’ a frown upon her brow:<br> +“O dearer to me is my sma’ doggie<br> +Than a dozen sic’ as thou!<br> +<br> +“Nae use, nae use for sighs and tears:<br> +Nae use at all to fret:<br> +Sin’ ye’ve bided sae well for thirty years,<br> +Ye may bide a wee langer yet!”<br> +<br> +Sadly, sadly he crossed the floor<br> +And tirlëd at the pin:<br> +Sadly went he through the door<br> +Where sadly he cam’ in.<br> +<br> +“O gin I had a popinjay<br> +To fly abune my head,<br> +To tell me what I ought to say,<br> +I had by this been wed.<br> +<br> +“O gin I find anither ladye,”<br> +He said wi’ sighs and tears,<br> +“I wot my coortin’ sall not be<br> +Anither thirty years<br> +<br> +“For gin I find a ladye gay,<br> +Exactly to my taste,<br> +I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,<br> +In twenty years at maist.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +FOUR RIDDLES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +[These consist of two Double Acrostics and two Charades.<br> +<br> +No. I. was written at the request of some young friends, who had gone +to a ball at an Oxford Commemoration - and also as a specimen of what +might be done by making the Double Acrostic <i>a connected</i> <i>poem</i> +instead of what it has hitherto been, a string of disjointed stanzas, +on every conceivable subject, and about as interesting to read straight +through as a page of a Cyclopaedia. The first two stanzas describe +the two main words, and each subsequent stanza one of the cross “lights.”<br> +<br> +No. II. was written after seeing Miss Ellen Terry perform in the play +of “Hamlet.” In this case the first stanza describes +the two main words.<br> +<br> +No. III. was written after seeing Miss Marion Terry perform in Mr. Gilbert’s +play of “Pygmalion and Galatea.” The three stanzas +respectively describe “My First,” “My Second,” +and “My Whole.”]<br> +<br> +<br> +I<br> +<br> +There was an ancient City, stricken down<br> +With a strange frenzy, and for many a day<br> +They paced from morn to eve the crowded town,<br> +And danced the night away.<br> +<br> +I asked the cause: the aged man grew sad:<br> +They pointed to a building gray and tall,<br> +And hoarsely answered “Step inside, my lad,<br> +And then you’ll see it all.”<br> +<br> +* * * *<br> +<br> +Yet what are all such gaieties to me<br> +Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?<br> +<br> +x*x + 7x <i>+</i> 53 = 11/3<br> +<br> +But something whispered “It will soon be done:<br> +Bands cannot always play, nor ladies smile:<br> +Endure with patience the distasteful fun<br> +For just a little while!”<br> +<br> +A change came o’er my Vision - it was night:<br> +We clove a pathway through a frantic throng:<br> +The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright:<br> +The chariots whirled along.<br> +<br> +Within a marble hall a river ran -<br> +A living tide, half muslin and half cloth:<br> +And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan,<br> +Yet swallowed down her wrath;<br> +<br> +And here one offered to a thirsty fair<br> +(His words half-drowned amid those thunders tuneful)<br> +Some frozen viand (there were many there),<br> +A tooth-ache in each spoonful.<br> +<br> +There comes a happy pause, for human strength<br> +Will not endure to dance without cessation;<br> +And every one must reach the point at length<br> +Of absolute prostration.<br> +<br> +At such a moment ladies learn to give,<br> +To partners who would urge them over-much,<br> +A flat and yet decided negative -<br> +Photographers love such.<br> +<br> +There comes a welcome summons - hope revives,<br> +And fading eyes grow bright, and pulses quicken:<br> +Incessant pop the corks, and busy knives<br> +Dispense the tongue and chicken.<br> +<br> +Flushed with new life, the crowd flows back again:<br> +And all is tangled talk and mazy motion -<br> +Much like a waving field of golden grain,<br> +Or a tempestuous ocean.<br> +<br> +And thus they give the time, that Nature meant<br> +For peaceful sleep and meditative snores,<br> +To ceaseless din and mindless merriment<br> +And waste of shoes and floors.<br> +<br> +And One (we name him not) that flies the flowers,<br> +That dreads the dances, and that shuns the salads,<br> +They doom to pass in solitude the hours,<br> +Writing acrostic-ballads.<br> +<br> +How late it grows! The hour is surely past<br> +That should have warned us with its double knock?<br> +The twilight wanes, and morning comes at last -<br> +“Oh, Uncle, what’s o’clock?”<br> +<br> +The Uncle gravely nods, and wisely winks.<br> +It <i>may</i> mean much, but how is one to know?<br> +He opens his mouth - yet out of it, methinks,<br> +No words of wisdom flow.<br> +<br> +<br> +II<br> +<br> +<br> +Empress of Art, for thee I twine<br> +This wreath with all too slender skill.<br> +Forgive my Muse each halting line,<br> +And for the deed accept the will!<br> +<br> +* * * *<br> +<br> +O day of tears! Whence comes this spectre grim,<br> +Parting, like Death’s cold river, souls that love?<br> +Is not he bound to thee, as thou to him,<br> +By vows, unwhispered here, yet heard above?<br> +<br> +And still it lives, that keen and heavenward flame,<br> +Lives in his eye, and trembles in his tone:<br> +And these wild words of fury but proclaim<br> +A heart that beats for thee, for thee alone!<br> +<br> +But all is lost: that mighty mind o’erthrown,<br> +Like sweet bells jangled, piteous sight to see!<br> +“Doubt that the stars are fire,” so runs his moan,<br> +“Doubt Truth herself, but not my love for thee!”<br> +<br> +A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire<br> +Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!<br> +And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?<br> +And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?<br> +<br> +Nay, get thee hence! Leave all thy winsome ways<br> +And the faint fragrance of thy scattered flowers:<br> +In holy silence wait the appointed days,<br> +And weep away the leaden-footed hours.<br> +<br> +<br> +III.<br> +<br> +<br> +The air is bright with hues of light<br> +And rich with laughter and with singing:<br> +Young hearts beat high in ecstasy,<br> +And banners wave, and bells are ringing:<br> +But silence falls with fading day,<br> +And there’s an end to mirth and play.<br> +Ah, well-a-day<br> +<br> +Rest your old bones, ye wrinkled crones!<br> +The kettle sings, the firelight dances.<br> +Deep be it quaffed, the magic draught<br> +That fills the soul with golden fancies!<br> +For Youth and Pleasance will not stay,<br> +And ye are withered, worn, and gray.<br> +Ah, well-a-day!<br> +<br> +O fair cold face! O form of grace,<br> +For human passion madly yearning!<br> +O weary air of dumb despair,<br> +From marble won, to marble turning!<br> +“Leave us not thus!” we fondly pray.<br> +“We cannot let thee pass away!”<br> +Ah, well-a-day!<br> +<br> +<br> +IV.<br> +<br> +<br> +My First is singular at best:<br> +More plural is my Second:<br> +My Third is far the pluralest -<br> +So plural-plural, I protest<br> +It scarcely can be reckoned!<br> +<br> +My First is followed by a bird:<br> +My Second by believers<br> +In magic art: my simple Third<br> +Follows, too often, hopes absurd<br> +And plausible deceivers.<br> +<br> +My First to get at wisdom tries -<br> +A failure melancholy!<br> +My Second men revered as wise:<br> +My Third from heights of wisdom flies<br> +To depths of frantic folly.<br> +<br> +My First is ageing day by day:<br> +My Second’s age is ended:<br> +My Third enjoys an age, they say,<br> +That never seems to fade away,<br> +Through centuries extended.<br> +<br> +My Whole? I need a poet’s pen<br> +To paint her myriad phases:<br> +The monarch, and the slave, of men -<br> +A mountain-summit, and a den<br> +Of dark and deadly mazes -<br> +<br> +A flashing light - a fleeting shade -<br> +Beginning, end, and middle<br> +Of all that human art hath made<br> +Or wit devised! Go, seek <i>her</i> aid,<br> +If you would read my riddle!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +FAME’S PENNY-TRUMPET<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +[Affectionately dedicated to all “original researchers” +who pant for “endowment.”]<br> +<br> +<br> +Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack,<br> +Ye little men of little souls!<br> +And bid them huddle at your back -<br> +Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!<br> +<br> +Fill all the air with hungry wails -<br> +“Reward us, ere we think or write!<br> +Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails<br> +To sate the swinish appetite!”<br> +<br> +And, where great Plato paced serene,<br> +Or Newton paused with wistful eye,<br> +Rush to the chace with hoofs unclean<br> +And Babel-clamour of the sty<br> +<br> +Be yours the pay: be theirs the praise:<br> +We will not rob them of their due,<br> +Nor vex the ghosts of other days<br> +By naming them along with you.<br> +<br> +They sought and found undying fame:<br> +They toiled not for reward nor thanks:<br> +Their cheeks are hot with honest shame<br> +For you, the modern mountebanks!<br> +<br> +Who preach of Justice - plead with tears<br> +That Love and Mercy should abound -<br> +While marking with complacent ears<br> +The moaning of some tortured hound:<br> +<br> +Who prate of Wisdom - nay, forbear,<br> +Lest Wisdom turn on you in wrath,<br> +Trampling, with heel that will not spare,<br> +The vermin that beset her path!<br> +<br> +Go, throng each other’s drawing-rooms,<br> +Ye idols of a petty clique:<br> +Strut your brief hour in borrowed plumes,<br> +And make your penny-trumpets squeak.<br> +<br> +Deck your dull talk with pilfered shreds<br> +Of learning from a nobler time,<br> +And oil each other’s little heads<br> +With mutual Flattery’s golden slime:<br> +<br> +And when the topmost height ye gain,<br> +And stand in Glory’s ether clear,<br> +And grasp the prize of all your pain -<br> +So many hundred pounds a year -<br> +<br> +Then let Fame’s banner be unfurled!<br> +Sing Paeans for a victory won!<br> +Ye tapers, that would light the world,<br> +And cast a shadow on the Sun -<br> +<br> +Who still shall pour His rays sublime,<br> +One crystal flood, from East to West,<br> +When <i>ye</i> have burned your little time<br> +And feebly flickered into rest!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PHANTASMAGORIA AND OTHER POEMS ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named fntsm10h.htm or fntsm10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, fntsm11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, fntsm10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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