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93

RESCUED FROM THE WASTE PAPER BASKET.

95

Parker's Piece, May 19, 1891.

To see good Tennis! what diviner joy
Can fill our leisure, or our minds employ?
Not Sylvia's self is more supremely fair,
Than balls that hurtle through the conscious air.
Not Stella's form instinct with truer grace
Than Lambert's racket poised to win the chase.
Not Chloe's harp more native to the ear,
Than the tense strings which smite the flying sphere.
When Lambert boasts the superhuman force,
Or splits the echoing grille without remorse:
When Harradine, as graceful as of yore,
Wins better than a yard, upon the floor;
When Alfred's ringing cheer proclaims success,
Or Saunders volleys in resistlessness;
When Heathcote's service makes the dedans ring
With just applause, and own its honoured king;
When Pettitt's prowess all our zeal awoke
Till high Olympus shuddered at the stroke;
Or, when, receiving thirty and the floor,
The novice serves a dozen faults or more;
96

Or some plump don, perspiring and profane,
Assails the roof and breaks the exalted pane;
When vantage, five games all, the door is called,
And Europe pauses, breathless and appalled,
Till lo! the ball by cunning hand caressed
Finds in the winning gallery a nest;
These are the moments, this the bliss supreme,
Which makes the artist's joy, the poet's dream.
Let cricketers await the tardy sun,
Break one another's shins and call it fun;
Let Scotia's golfers through the affrighted land
With crooked knee and glaring eye-ball stand;
Let football rowdies show their straining thews,
And tell their triumphs to a mud-stained Muse;
Let india-rubber pellets dance on grass
Where female arts the ruder sex surpass;
Let other people play at other things;
The king of games is still the game of kings.
Cambridge Review, May, 1891.
97

The Street Organs Bill, 1891.

Grinder, who serenely grindest,
As thou groundest ages back,
Till thou ultimately findest
Legislators on thy track:
Grinder, there is one Jacoby,
There is Lubbock, prince of Barts,
Sternest of Professors: oh be-
Ware of his infernal arts.
Guyer Hunter backed it bravely,
Backed the Bart's oppressive bill:
So did he whose name is Staveley,
And whose other name is Hill.
If they pass their cruel measure,
If the House is true to them,
You must never give us pleasure,
Grinder, after 8 p.m.
98

When the dawn with rosy finger,
Dissipates the eastern gloom,
You and your machine must linger
Silent in your silent room.
Grinder, if you are not willing,
When invited, to desist,
You must pay your fortieth shilling,
Wretched instrumentalist!
Failing that,—a fate unkinder—
You must languish in a gaol
One laborious fortnight: grinder,
Pray, oh pray that they may fail.
Pall Mall Gazette, April, 1891.
99

Ode on the 450th Anniversary Celebration at Eton.

Think of a number: double it
(If that does not surpass thy wit);
Subtract a dozen: add a score:
Divide by twenty: multiply
By twice the cube of x & y,
And half again as many more:
Then take the twenty-seventh root
And logarithmic sine to boot,
And if the answer does not show
Just nine times fifty, make it so.
There's something more than half divine
In fifty multiplied by nine:
And never integer has been
So grand as thirty times fifteen:
The total I could doubtless praise
In many other striking ways:
But this at least is very plain,—
The same will never come again.
100

Then make an exhibition please
And summon guests from far and wide:
And marry mystic melodies
To odes instinct with proper pride.
Invoke the Founder's mighty name,
And boast of Gray's and Shelley's fame:
For this is very sure: that we
Who missed the latest jubilee
Shall not improbably be vexed
By missing equally the next.
Then let us resolutely strive
This mighty fact to keep alive
That 5 times 9 is 45;
And furthermore the truth to fix
(In their behoof whose course will run
In June of 1981)
That 54 is 9 times 6.
Granta, June, 1891.
101

Steam-Launches on the Thames.

Henley, June 7, 1891.

Shall we, to whom the stream by right belongs,
Who travel silent, save, perchance, for songs;
Whose track's a ripple,—leaves the Thames a lake,
Nor frights the swan—scarce makes the rushes shake;
Who harmonize, exemplify, complete
And vivify a scene already sweet:
Who travel careless on, from lock to lock,
Oblivious that the world contains a clock,
With pace commensurate to our desires,
Propelled by other force than Stygian fire's;
Shall we be driven hence to leave a place
For these, who bring upon our stream disgrace:
The rush, the roar, the stench, the smoke, the steam,
The nightmare striking through our heavenly dream;
The scream as shrill and hateful to the ear
As when a peacock vents his rage and fear;
Which churn to fury all a glassy reach,
And heave rude breakers on a pebbly beach:
Which half o'erwhelm with waves our frailer craft,
While graceless shop-boys chuckle fore and aft:
Foul water-toadstools, noisome filth-stained shapes,
Fit only to be manned by dogs and apes:
Blots upon nature: scars that mar her smile:
Obscene, obtrusive, execrable, vile?
Pall Mall Gazette, June, 1891.
102

To B. H. H.

(On his travels).

And will thy travels never end?
And wilt thou not return, my friend?
Shall Piccadilly never more,
Amid the busses' daily roar,
Where prowls the Baron's stately goat,
Thy philosophic footfall note?
Nor ever will the Savile's board
The dainties of the hour afford
To one grave form amid the Babel
Which girds that lofty-minded table?
Come: for we miss thee. That slow smile
Has failed us now too long a while:
That network of ingenious phrase
Suggesting more than what it says:
The literary epigram
Which gracefully unmasks a sham,
Or else awards judicious praise
To one who earns but wears not bays,
Are lacking in our midst, and we
Drift, rudderless, about a sea
Of conversation unadorned
By him whose absence long we've mourned.
103

Come: for I need you: more or less
Because I love to play at chess;
Partly because I want to know
Your views about a book or so,
Which I have published, or intend
To publish: most of all, my friend,
Because I found thy converse sweet,
Thy fellowship a joy complete,
And life is short and art is long,
And still the absent suffer wrong.
I know not where thy footsteps stray,
Nor what the ordering of thy day:
If now thy graceful shallop slips
Amid the gorgeous Eastern ships,
Where some vast river makes a lane
Across the forest-hidden plain:
If, stretched upon a soft divan,
You lounge, as orientals can,
And trace the rings of fragrant smoke
One graceful moment soar unbroke;
While, lo, the wordless Kitmagar
Presents the welcome waterjar,
And swart Chuprassis stand at ease,
Beneath umbrageous banyan trees:
If now perchance the crescent moon
Hangs high, at night's reposeful noon,
Against a gloomy purple sky,
Star-studded in its majesty,
While slow you walk alone, and deep
In thoughts that bring more rest than sleep.
104

Come, anyhow: if not to find
An occupation to thy mind,
Nor yet a Fortunatus' purse,
Nor any cure for any curse:
Come, talk, live, marry, work, write, sing;
Be eloquent on anything:
Be active in whatever line:
And if a sun less splendid shine,
And vegetation less profuse,
And persons worthier of abuse,
Are found with us than now with you;
Still, though our merits may be few,
We are at least thy friends of youth,
Thy fellow-seekers after truth,
Thy fellow-talkers, fellow-bards,
Thy fellows still in all regards;
So turn again towards the West,
And grasp their hands who love you best.
Trident, June, 1891.
105

A Parodist's Apology.

If I've dared to laugh at you, Robert Browning,
'Tis with eyes that with you have often wept:
You have oftener left me smiling or frowning,
Than any beside, one bard except.
But once you spoke to me, storm-tongued poet,
A trivial word in an idle hour;
But thrice I looked on your face and the glow it
Bore from the flame of the inward power.
But you'd many a friend you never knew of,
Your words lie hid in a hundred hearts,
And thousands of hands that you've grasped but few of
Would be raised to shield you from slander's darts.
For you lived in the sight of the land that owned you,
You faced the trial, and stood the test:
They have piled you a cairn that would fain have stoned you:
You have spoken your message and earned your rest.
Pall Mall Gazette, June, 1891.
106

A Sonnet.

Two voices are there: one is of the deep;
It learns the storm-cloud's thunderous melody,
Now roars, now murmurs with the changing sea,
Now bird-like pipes, now closes soft in sleep:
And one is of an old half-witted sheep
Which bleats articulate monotony,
And indicates that two and one are three,
That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep:
And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times
Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes,
The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst:
At other times—good Lord! I'd rather be
Quite unacquainted with the A. B. C.
Than write such hopeless rubbish as thy worst.
Granta, June, 1891.
107

To a Lady.

A pipe's a merry madrigal,
A stately sonnet a cigar,
The homely clay at close of day
A stanza to the evening star,
The cigarette a canzonette
Both amorous and musical.
But as the song requires an air,
A madrigal must aptly rhyme,
A sonnet shines in measured lines,
Each foot must walk in proper time,
And music's aid is best displayed
When duly matched with verses fair:
So sweetest meerschaum needs a case,
Cigars are clipped with dainty blade,
The seasoned briar will still aspire
To lights in silvern casket laid,
The cigarette is duly set
In holder rich with every grace.
And every cigarette consumed
Is fragrant homage offered thee;
The mellow streak, from week to week,
Embrowns thy gift bestowed on me:—
So every hour proclaims the power
Of her whose gift the smoke perfumed.
June 27, 1891.
108

Regrets.

A Roundel.

You would not hear me speak; you never knew,
Will never know, the eloquence unique
It was my purpose to bestow on you;
You would not hear me speak.
Dear! it was no caprice, or idle freak:
Perhaps I did not even mean to woo:
My meaning was not very far to seek:
I might have gained the end I had in view;
I might have failed, since words are often weak;
It never can be settled now: adieu!
You would not hear me speak.
Granta, June, 1891.
109

June 19, 1891.

All in a peaceful garden fair,
One night in leafy June,
There sat a wondrous lovely pair,
And waited for the Moon,
In silence, save where rustled by
A little creeping breeze,
Which swept the cobwebs from the sky,
And scarcely stirred the trees.
The one displayed in form and face
To all and sundry comers
The sweet accumulated grace
Of twenty happy summers.
The other, matronly and calm,
Was most divinely fair,
And each was stately as a palm,
And each had pale gold hair.
Between them, where a trailing bough
Obscured the moonlight pale,
Lounged a vast form with classic brow,
Unquestionably male.
There rose a mighty yellow Moon,
Across the tree-tops peering
Along the fleecy sky of June,
Through which she'll soon be steering.
110

And when she saw each lovely maid
She clapped her silver hands;
“Such wondrous charms are rare” she said
“In all sublunar lands.
“But which is fairest?” long and loud
She shouted to the stars,
Which glittered in a golden crowd,
Like newly lit cigars.
Then from the zenith Vega slid,
And red Aldebaran
Rushed up the sky, as he was bid,
To meet the stately Swan;
And many dozen more appeared,
Till all the sky was bare,
And round the Satellite careered,
And vowed the scene was fair.
Then spake the Moon: “I'm sore distressed:
“Two beauteous forms I see:
“I can't say which I like the best:
“Decide the point for me.
“Such foolish puzzles, I declare,
“I hold in much abhorrence:
“Say if the lovelier of the pair
“Be A--- or F---.”
Then peeping o'er each other's head,
The striking scene to scan,
The Stars unanimously said:—
“We much prefer the Man.”
111

To A. H. C.

(In recollection of certain debates on the futility of Metaphysics.)

You taunt me as a shallow man:
You mock my prosy middle age:
Would demonstrate me, if you can,
Devoid of youth's exalted rage
Bound on a dusty pilgrimage.
Because I do not much peruse
The words that Schopenhauer penned;
Locke's, Kant's and Hegel's lofty views
I don't aspire to comprehend;
Because, in short, my worthy friend,
I'm, like yourself, a man of prose:
A man of commonplace belief,
Who doubts, and disbelieves, and knows,
And aims at joy, and flies from grief,
And has a taste for beer and beef.
You do us wrong: for you and I
Are just as good as other men:
A hand to write, a seeing eye,
An ear which catches, now and then,
The sounds that haunt a poet's pen:
112

I offer (you withhold them) thanks
For these, and other common things:
And not in vain on Cam's green banks
We lived at Trinity and King's,
And loved to try our sprouting wings.
A many-windowed house is life,
And out of every window we,
In intervals of daily strife,
Look forth upon infinity:
And that's the good of you and me.
The joys of metaphysic trance,
The midnight bliss of keen debate,
The insight of a mystic's glance,
Which charm the undergraduate,
Are matched in our maturer state.
The deeds and passions of our prime,
Our studies of acknowledged truth,
Our business—though it's not sublime,—
Are just as excellent in sooth,
As all the fervour lost with youth.
The ruddy warmth of arduous toil,
The spasm of triumphant strife,
A friend to serve, a foe to foil,
A cause with noble purpose rife,
The love of her that gave thee life:
The smile that shines through misty tears,
The soft “delight of low replies,”
113

The after-glow of vanished fears,
And all the excellent surprise
That trembles in a woman's eyes:
Men, women, children: speech and song:
The artist's touch, the poet's thought:
The pulses of a busy throng,
The rest of spirits over-wrought:
Are these—is all beside them, naught?
Here, everywhere, and every day,
The seeker finds right human stuff:
To laugh, to weep, to work, to play;
Are joy and sorrow not enough?
And cannot these content thee, Clough?
June, 1891.
114

To My Readers.

I do not boast a poet's bays,
Nor claim to wield a poet's pen,
Nor do I hope for many days
To buzz about the mouths of men.
I claim to be the sort of man
Who studies metrical effect:
Whose verses generally scan:
Whose rhymes are commonly correct;
And when I chance upon a thought
Which seems to shape itself in rhyme,
I like to treat it as I ought,
Unless the theme be too sublime.
It may be pleasure to rehearse,
When twilight deepens out of day,
The tinkle of a tiny verse
Which wiled the noon-tide hours away.
It may be pleasure to recall
The friends of yesterday to-morrow
But that's a pleasure—if at all—
Which borders very near on sorrow.
115

So, if I try to make you laugh,
Or if I chance to make you weep,
Your comrade when you crunch and quaff,
Your solace when you cannot sleep;
It's merely as a common man
Who says what other people say,
And hopes to end as he began,
A treader of the beaten way.
June, 1891.
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