Collected poems | ||
AT THE SIGN OF THE LYRE
[“At the Sign of the Lyre,”]
Good Folk, we present you
With the pick of our quire—
And we hope to content you!
The fruits of our leisure,
Some short and some long,—
May they all give you pleasure!
They should fail to restore you,
Farewell, and God-speed—
The world is before you!
THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S
A PROPER NEW BALLAD OF THE COUNTRY AND THE TOWN
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,
With a “Stand by! Clear the way!”
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May dew
Before the world is down.
They are so fine and fair,
You'd think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
The breath of heath and furze,
When breezes blow at morning,
Is not so fresh as hers.
They're painted to the eyes,
Their white it stays for ever,
Their red it never dies:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her colour comes and goes;
It trembles to a lily,—
It wavers to a rose.
You scarce can understand
The half of all their speeches,
Their phrases are so grand:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her shy and simple words
Are clear as after rain-drops
The music of the birds.
They have their fits and freaks;
They smile on you—for seconds;
They frown on you—for weeks:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Come either storm or shine,
From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
Is always true—and mine.
I care not though they heap
The hearts of all St. James's,
And give me all to keep;
I care not whose the beauties
Of all the world may be,
For Phyllida—for Phyllida
Is all the world to me!
THE OLD SEDAN CHAIR
Where's Troy, and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?”
—Bramston's “Art of Politicks.”
Propped up by a broom-stick and covered with leaves:
It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,
But now 'tis a ruin,—that old Sedan chair!
That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;
For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square,
Like a canvas by Wilkie,—that old Sedan chair!
For the poles of the bearers—when once there were poles;
It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,
As the birds have discovered,—that old Sedan chair!
Is a nest with four eggs,—'tis the favoured retreat
Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,
Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan chair!
Of the window,—some high-headed damsel or dame,
Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,
While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan chair!
With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,
With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,
As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan chair?
It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;
Stout fellows!—but prone, on a question of fare,
To brandish the poles of that old Sedan chair!
A friendly but anonymous critic, whose versatile pen it is, nevertheless, not easy to mistake, recalls, à-propos of the above, the following passage from Molière, which shows that Chairmen are much the same all the world over:—
I. Porteur(prenant un des bâtons de sa chaise).
Çà, payez-nous vitement!
Mascarille.
Quoi?
I. Porteur.
Je dis que je veux avoir de l'argent tout à l'heure.
Mascarille.
Il est raisonnable, celui-là, &c.
—Les Précieuses Ridicules, Sc. vii.
It has waited by Heidegger's “Grand Masquerade”;
For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,
It has waited—and waited, that old Sedan chair!
Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,—
Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)
Of Fête-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan chair!
It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!
We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,—“With Care,”—
To a Fine-Art Museum—that old Sedan chair!
TO AN INTRUSIVE BUTTERFLY
The meanest thing upon its upward way.”
Five Rules of Buddha
I watch you float between
The avenues of dahlia stalks,
And flicker on the green;
You hover round the garden seat,
You mount, you waver. Why,—
Why storm us in our still retreat,
O saffron Butterfly!
I watch you wayward go;
Dance down a shaft of glancing light,
Review my books a-row;
Before the bust you flaunt and flit
Of “blind Mæonides”—
Ah, trifler, on his lips there lit
Not butterflies, but bees!
Among my old Japan;
You find a comrade on a cup,
A friend upon a fan;
Around Amanda's brow;—
Dost dream her then, O Volatile!
E'en such an one as thou?
A sterner purpose fills
Her steadfast soul with deep design
Of baby bows and frills;
What care hath she for worlds without,
What heed for yellow sun,
Whose endless hopes revolve about
A planet, ætat One
Let not thy garish wing
Come fluttering our Autumn lives
With truant dreams of Spring!
Away! Reseek thy “Flowery Land”;
Be Buddha's law obeyed;
Lest Betty's undiscerning hand
Should slay . . . a future Praed!
THE CURÉ'S PROGRESS
Comes with his kind old face,—
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
And the tiny “Hôtel-de-Ville”;
He smiles, as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose,
And the pompier Théophile
Where the noisy fish-wives call;
And his compliment pays to the “Belle Thérèse,”
As she knits in her dusky stall
And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
Has jubilant hopes, for the Curé gropes
In his tails for a pain d'épice.
Who is said to be heterodox,
That will ended be with a “Ma foi, oui!”
And a pinch from the Curé's box.
To the furrier's daughter Lou.;
And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
And a “Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!”
And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
And a mock “off-hat” to the Notary's cat,
And a nod to the Sacristan:—
With a smile on his kind old face—
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair
And his green umbrella-case.
THE MASQUE OF THE MONTHS
(FOR A FRESCO)
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us;—
Firstly thou, churl son of Janus.
Caverned now is old Sylvanus;
Numb and chill are maid and lad.
Dank his weeds around him cling;
Fogs his footsteps swathe and smother,—
After thee thy dripping brother.
Hearth-set couples hush each other,
Listening for the cry of Spring.
Blithe,—a herald tabarded;
O'er him flies the shifting swallow,—
Hark! for March thereto doth follow.
Swift his horn, by holt and hollow,
Wakes the flowers in winter dead.
Born between the storm and sun;
Coy as nymph ere Pan hath caught her,—
Now are light, and rustling water;
Now are mirth, and nests begun.
Month of all the Loves (and mine);
Month of mock and cuckoo-laughter,—
May the jocund cometh after.
Beaks are gay on roof and rafter;
Luckless lovers peak and pine.
Languid from a slumber-spell;
June in shade of leafage tented;—
June the next, with roses scented.
Now her Itys, still lamented,
Sings the mournful Philomel.
Dog-star smitten, wild with heat;
Fierce as pard the hunter cages,—
Hot July thereafter rages.
Traffic now no more engages;
Tongues are still in stall and street.
Laughs from out the poppied corn;
Hook at back, a lusty fellow,—
August next, with cider mellow.
Now in wains the sheafage yellow
'Twixt the hedges slow is borne.
Then September, ripe and hale;
Bees about his basket fluster,—
Laden deep with fruity cluster.
Skies have now a softer lustre;
Barns resound to flap of flail.
Dusk October, berry-stained;
Wailed about of parting plover,—
Thou then, too, of woodlands lover.
Fading now are copse and cover;
Forests now are sere and waned.
Blinded in a whirl of leaf,
Worn of want and travel-tattered,—
Next November, limping, battered.
Now the goodly ships are shattered,
Far at sea, on rock and reef.
Cowled for age, in ashen gray;
Fading like a fading ember,—
Last of all the shrunk December.
Him regarding, men remember
Life and joy must pass away.
TWO SERMONS
That hides the “Strangers'’ Pew,”
I hear the gray-haired Vicar pass
From Section One to Two.
Whene'er I chance to look—
A soft-eyed, girl St. Cecily,
Who notes them—in a book.
Shall I your wrath incur,
If I admit these thoughts of mine
Will sometimes stray—to her?
I hear your precepts tried;
Must I confess I also hear
A sermon at my side?
This impulse prompting me
Within my secret self to kneel
To Faith,—to Purity!
“AU REVOIR”
A Dramatic Vignette
Scene.—The Fountain in the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is surrounded by Promenaders.Monsieur Jolicœur. A Lady (unknown).
M. Jolicœur.
'Tis she, no doubt. Brunette,—and tall:
A charming figure, above all!
This promises.—Ahem!
The Lady.
Monsieur?
Ah! it is three. Then Monsieur's name
Is Jolicœur? . . .
M. Jolicœur.
Madame, the same.
And Monsieur's goodness has to say? . . .
Your note? . . .
M. Jolicœur.
Your note.
The Lady.
Forgive me.—Nay. (Reads)
“If Madame [I omit] will be
Beside the Fountain-rail at Three,
Then Madame—possibly—may hear
News of her Spaniel. Jolicœur.”
Monsieur denies his note?
M. Jolicœur.
I do.
Now let me read the one from you.
“If Monsieur Jolicœur will be
Beside the Fountain-rail at Three,
Then Monsieur—possibly—may meet
An old Acquaintance. ‘ Indiscreet .”
The Lady
(scandalized).
Ah, what a folly! 'Tis not true.
I never met Monsieur. And you?
(with gallantry).
Have lived in vain till now. But see:
We are observed.
The Lady
(looking round).
I comprehend . . . (After a pause.)
Monsieur, malicious brains combine
For your discomfiture, and mine.
Let us defeat that ill design.
If Monsieur but . . .
(hesitating).
M. Jolicœur
(bowing).
Rely on me.
The Lady
(still hesitating).
Monsieur, I know, will understand.
M. Jolicœur.
Madame, I wait but your command.
The Lady.
You are too good. Then condescend
At once to be a new-found Friend!
(entering upon the part forthwith)
How? I am charmed,—enchanted. Ah!
What ages since we met . . . at Spa?
The Lady
(a little disconcerted).
At Ems, I think. Monsieur, maybe,
Will recollect the Orangery?
M. Jolicœur.
At Ems, of course. But Madame's face
Might make one well forget a place.
The Lady.
It seems so. Still, Monsieur recalls
The Kürhaus, and the concert-balls?
M. Jolicœur.
Assuredly. Though there again
'Tis Madame's image I retain.
The Lady.
Monsieur is skilled in . . . repartee.
(How do they take it?—Can you see?)
M. Jolicœur.
Nay,—Madame furnishes the wit.
(They don't know what to make of it!)
And Monsieur's friend who sometimes came? . .
That clever . . . I forget the name.
M. Jolicœur.
The Baron? . . . It escapes me, too.
'Twas doubtless he that Madame knew?
The Lady
(archly).
Precisely. But, my carriage waits.
Monsieur will see me to the gates?
M. Jolicœur
(offering his arm).
I shall be charmed. (Your stratagem
Bids fair, I think, to conquer them.) (Aside)
(Who is she? I must find that out.)
—And Madame's husband thrives, no doubt?
The Lady
(off her guard).
Monsieur de Beau—? . . . He died at Dôle!
M. Jolicœur.
How fortunate! Beau-pré?—Beau-vau?
Which can it be? Ah, there they go!)
—Madame, your enemies retreat
With all the honours of . . . defeat.
Thanks to Monsieur. Monsieur has shown
A skill Préville could not disown.
M. Jolicœur.
You flatter me. We need no skill
To act so nearly what we will.
Nay,—what may come to pass, if Fate
And Madame bid me cultivate . . .
The Lady
(anticipating).
Alas!—no farther than the gate.
Monsieur, besides, is too polite
To profit by a jest so slight.
M. Jolicœur.
Distinctly. Still, I did but glance
At possibilities . . . of Chance.
The Lady.
Which must not serve Monsieur, I fear,
Beyond the little grating here.
M. Jolicœur
(aside).
Piano, sano.)
You coachman? . . . Can I? . . .
The Lady
(smiling).
Thanks! he knows.
Thanks! Thanks!
M. Jolicœur
(insidiously).
And shall we not renew
Our . . . “Ems acquaintanceship”?
The Lady
(still smiling).
Adieu!
My thanks instead!
M. Jolicœur
(with pathos).
It is too hard! (Laying his hand on the grating.)
To find one's Paradise is barred!!
The Lady.
Nay.—“Virtue is her own Reward!”
[Exit.
M. Jolicœur
(solus).
But that's a detail!
THE CARVER AND THE CALIPH
Because 'tis Eastern? Not the least
We place it there because we fear
To bring its parable too near,
And seem to touch with impious hand
Our dear, confiding native land.)
He went about his vagrant ways,
And prowled at eve for good or bad
In lanes and alleys of Bagdad,
Once found, at edge of the bazaar,
E'en where the poorest workers are,
A Carver.
With mysteries of inlaced design,
And shapes of shut significance
To aught but an anointed glance,—
The dreams and visions that grow plain
In darkened chambers of the brain.
And all day busily he wrought
From dawn to eve, but no one bought;—
Or keen-eyed Greek from the Levant,
Would pause awhile,—depreciate,—
Then buy a month's work by the weight,
Bearing it swiftly over seas
To garnish rich men's treasuries.
So lay he sullen in his stall.
Him thus withdrawn the Caliph found,
And smote his staff upon the ground—
“Ho, there, within? Hast wares to sell?
Or slumber'st, having dined too well?”
“‘Dined,’” quoth the man, with angry eyes,
“How should I dine when no one buys?”
“Nay,” said the other, answering low,—
“Nay, I but jested. Is it so?
Take then this coin, . . . but take beside
A counsel, friend, thou hast not tried.
This craft of thine, the mart to suit,
Is too refined,—remote,—minute;
These small conceptions can but fail;
'Twere best to work on larger scale,
And rather choose such themes as wear
More of the earth and less of air:
The fisherman that hauls his net,—
The merchants in the market set,—
The couriers posting in the street,—
The gossips as they pass and greet,—
These—these are clear to all men's eyes,
Therefore with these they sympathize.
Further (neglect not this advice!)
Be sure to ask three times the price.”
He knew 'twas truth the Caliph said.
From that day forth his work was planned
So that the world might understand.
He carved it deeper, and more plain;
He carved it thrice as large again;
He sold it, too, for thrice the cost;
—Ah, but the Artist that was lost!
TO AN UNKNOWN BUST IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
We might perchance more boldly
Define the patient weariness
That sets your lips so coldly;
You “lived,” we know, for blame and fame;
But sure, to friend or foeman,
You bore some more distinctive name
Than mere “B. C.,”—and “Roman”?
Thereon your acts, your title,
(Secure from cold Oblivion's touch!)
Had doubtless due recital;
Vain hope!—not even deeds can last!
That stone, of which you're minus,
Maybe with all your virtues past
Endows . . . a Tigellinus!
But still, it needs no magic
To tell you wore, like most mankind,
Your comic mask and tragic;
Felt angry or forgiving,
As step by step you stumbled through
This life-long task . . . of living!
The montagne Russe of Pleasure;
You found the best Ambition brought
Was strangely short of measure;
You watched, at last, the fleet days fly,
Till—drowsier and colder—
You felt Mercurius loitering by
To touch you on the shoulder.
That howso Time should garble
Those deeds of yours when you were dumb,
At least you'd live—in Marble;
You smiled to think that after days,
At least, in Bust or Statue,
(We all have sick-bed dreams!) would gaze,
Not quite incurious, at you.
In truth, Death's worst inaction
Must be less tedious to endure
Than nameless petrifaction;
Far better, in some nook unknown,
To sleep for once—and soundly—
Than still survive in wistful stone,
Forgotten more profoundly!
MOLLY TREFUSIS
The epigram here quoted from an “old magazine” is to
be found in Lord Neaves's admirable little volume, The
Greek Anthology (Blackwood's Ancient Classics for English
Readers). Those familiar with eighteenth-century literature
will recognise in the succeeding verses but another echo of
those lively stanzas of John Gay to “Molly Mog” of the
Rose Inn at Wokingham, which, in their own day, found so
many imitators.
The epigram here quoted from an “old magazine” is to be found in Lord Neaves's admirable little volume, The Greek Anthology (Blackwood's Ancient Classics for English Readers). Those familiar with eighteenth-century literature will recognise in the succeeding verses but another echo of those lively stanzas of John Gay to “Molly Mog” of the Rose Inn at Wokingham, which, in their own day, found so many imitators.
And ten is the number of Muses;
For a Muse and a Grace and a Venus are you,—
My dear little Molly Trefusis!”
As a study it not without use is,
If we wonder a moment who she may have been,
This same “little Molly Trefusis!”
Then of guessing it scarce an abuse is
If we say that where Bude bellows back to the sea
Was the birthplace of Molly Trefusis.
Not knowing what rouge or ceruse is;
For they needed (I trust) but her natural rose,
The lilies of Molly Trefusis.
That the evidence hard to produce is)
With Bath in its hey-day of Fashion and Wit,—
This dangerous Molly Trefusis.
(How charming that old-fashioned puce is!)
All blooming in laces, fal-lals, and what not,
At the Pump Room,—Miss Molly Trefusis.
Where Bladud's medicinal cruse is;
And we know that at least of one Bard it could boast,—
The Court of Queen Molly Trefusis.
(Your rhymer so hopelessly loose is!)
His “little” could scarce be to Venus applied,
If fitly to Molly Trefusis.
And fresh as the handmaid of Zeus is,
And rosy, and rounded, and dimpled—you'll find—
Was certainly Molly Trefusis!
That we all of us know what a Muse is;
It is something too awful,—too acid,—too dry,—
For sunny-eyed Molly Trefusis.
(The rest but a verse-making ruse is)
It was all that was graceful,—intangible,—light,—
The beauty of Molly Trefusis!
Assuredly more than obtuse is;
For how could the poet have written so pat
“My dear little Molly Trefusis!”
Since of suitors the common excuse is
To take to them Wives. So it happened to her,
Of course,—“little Molly Trefusis!”
In practical matters a goose is;—
'Twas a Knight of the Shire, and a hunting J.P.,
Who carried off Molly Trefusis!
At the end, where the pick of the news is,
“On the (blank), at ‘the Bath,’ to Sir Hilary Bragg,
With a Fortune, Miss Molly Trefusis.”
Love's temple is dark as Eleusis;
So here, at the threshold we part, you and I,
From “dear little Molly Trefusis.”
AT THE CONVENT GATE
Above the length of barrier wall
And softly, now and then,
The shy, staid-breasted doves will flit
From roof to gateway-top, and sit
And watch the ways of men.
Ah, what a haunt of rest and sleep
The shadowy garden seems!
And note how dimly to and fro
The grave, gray-hooded Sisters go,
Like figures seen in dreams.
And yonder one apart that reads
A tiny missal's page;
And see, beside the well, the two
That, kneeling, strive to lure anew
The magpie to its cage!
With that mild grace, outlying speech,
Which comes of even mood;—
With heart-whole thought, and quiet care,
And hope of higher good.
What need to these the name of Wife?
What gentler task (I said)—
What worthier—e'en your arts among—
Than tend the sick, and teach the young,
And give the hungry bread?”
Who (closelier clinging) turns with me
To face the road again:
—And yet, in that warm heart of hers,
She means the doves', for she prefers
To “watch the ways of men.”
THE MILKMAID
A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE
She comes with tripping pace,—
A maid I know,—and March winds blow
Her hair across her face;—
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May,
Or blooms the eglantine.
Her eye is brown and clear;
Her cheek is brown, and soft as down,
(To those who see it near!)—
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May,
Or blooms the eglantine.
The dames that walk in silk!
If she undo her 'kerchief blue,
Her neck is white as milk.
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May,
Or blooms the eglantine.
For me, from June to June,
My Dolly's words are sweet as curds—
Her laugh is like a tune;—
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May,
Or blooms the eglantine.
O tall Lent-lilies flame!
There'll be a bride at Easter-tide,
And Dolly is her name.
With a hey, Dolly! ho, Dolly!
Dolly shall be mine,
Before the spray is white with May,
Or blooms the eglantine.
AN OLD FISH POND
Around the granite brink;
And 'twixt the isles of water-weed
The wood-birds dip and drink.
Swift-darting water-flies
Shoot on the surface; down the deep
Fast-following bubbles rise.
What “wood obscure,” profound!
What jungle!—where some beast of prey
Might choose his vantage-ground!
Who knows what tale? Belike,
Those “antres vast” and shadows hide
Some patriarchal Pike;—
To whom the sky, the earth,
Have but for aim to look on awed
And see him wax in girth;—
An ageless Autocrat,
Whose “good old rule” is “Appetite,
And subjects fresh and fat;”—
Still watch for signs in him;
And dying, hand from heir to heir
The day undawned and dim,
Or creeping in by stealth,
Some bolder brood, with common blow,
Shall found a Commonwealth.
That these themselves are gone;
That Amurath in minimis,—
Still hungry,—lingers on,
Revolving sullen things,
But most the blind unequal law
That rules the food of Kings;—
A mere time-honoured cheat;—
That bids the Great to eat the Small,
Yet lack the Small to eat!
Around the granite brink;
And 'twixt the isles of water-weed
The wood-birds dip and drink.
AN EASTERN APOLOGUE
The initials “E. H. P.” are those of the eminent (and ill-fated)
Orientalist, Professor Palmer. As my lines entirely
owed their origin to his translations from Zoheir, I sent them
to him. He was indulgent enough to praise them warmly.
It is true he found anachronisms; but as he said that these
would cause no serious disturbance to orthodox Persians, I
concluded I had succeeded in my little pastiche, and, with
his permission, inscribed it to him. I wish now that it had
been a more worthy tribute to one of the most erudite and
versatile scholars this age has seen.
The initials “E. H. P.” are those of the eminent (and ill-fated) Orientalist, Professor Palmer. As my lines entirely owed their origin to his translations from Zoheir, I sent them to him. He was indulgent enough to praise them warmly. It is true he found anachronisms; but as he said that these would cause no serious disturbance to orthodox Persians, I concluded I had succeeded in my little pastiche, and, with his permission, inscribed it to him. I wish now that it had been a more worthy tribute to one of the most erudite and versatile scholars this age has seen.
(TO E. H. P.)
Nodded at noon on his diván.
Jamíl the bard, and the vizier—
Then Jamíl sang, in words like these.
As boughs of the Aráka tree!
“Lean, if you will,—I call her lean.”
With smiles that like red bubbles shine!
“She makes men wander in the head!”
Than all the maidens of Kashmeer!
“Dear . . and yet always to be bought.”
Shows diverse unto Youth and Age:
Time, like the Sultán, sits . . and nods.
TO A MISSAL OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY
Missal with the blazoned page,
Whence, O Missal, hither come,
From what dim scriptorium?
Ambrose or Theophilus,
Bending, through the waning light,
O'er thy vellum scraped and white;
Sprays and leaves and quaint designs;
Setting round thy border scrolled
Buds of purple and of gold?
Doubtless, by that artist stood,
Raising o'er his careful ways
Little choruses of praise;
Strife of Sathanas and Saint,
Or in secret coign entwist
Jest of cloister humourist.
Bending o'er the blazoned page!
Tired the hand and tired the wit
Ere the final Explicit!
Things that steam can stamp and fold,
Not as ours the books of yore—
Rows of type, and nothing more.
Where a wistful man might look,
Finding something through the whole,
Beating,—like a human soul.
When to labour was to pray,
Surely something vital passed
To the patient page at last;
Vaguely present in the leaves;
Something from the worker lent;
Something mute—but eloquent!
A REVOLUTIONARY RELIC
“373. St. Pierre (Bernardin de), Paul et Virginie, 12mo,
old calf. Paris, 1787. This copy is pierced throughout by
a bullet-hole, and bears on one of the covers, the words:
‘à Lucile St. A. . . . chez M. Batemans, à Edmonds-Bury,
en Angleterre,’ very faintly written in pencil.” (Extract from Catalogue.)
“373. St. Pierre (Bernardin de), Paul et Virginie, 12mo, old calf. Paris, 1787. This copy is pierced throughout by a bullet-hole, and bears on one of the covers, the words: ‘à Lucile St. A. . . . chez M. Batemans, à Edmonds-Bury, en Angleterre,’ very faintly written in pencil.” (Extract from Catalogue.)
As I lift it from the stall;
And the leaves are frayed and tattered,
And the pendent sides are shattered,
Pierced and blackened by a ball.
Told by sad St. Pierre of yore,
That in front of France's madness
Hangs a strange seductive sadness,
Grown pathetic evermore.
Which the pages half reveal,
For a folded corner covers,
Interlaced, two names of lovers,—
A “Savignac” and “Lucile.”
In some pleasant old château,
Once they read this book together,
In the scented summer weather,
With the shining Loire below?
Did Love slip and snare them so,
While the hours danced round the dial
To the sound of flute and viol,
In that pleasant old château?
Word of mouth could either speak?
Did the brown and gold hair mingle,
Did the shamed skin thrill and tingle
To the shock of cheek and cheek?
Some new sudden power to feel,
Some new inner spring set gushing
At the names together rushing
Of “Savignac” and “Lucile”?
“Son Amour, son Cœur, sa Reine”—
In his high-flown way adore her,
Urgent, eloquent implore her,
Plead his pleasure and his pain?
And the quivering lip we know,
With the full, slow eyelid brimming,
With the languorous pupil swimming,
Like the love of Mirabeau?
For his eager lips to press;
In a flash all fate fulfilling
Did he catch her, trembling, thrilling—
Crushing life to one caress?
Of attained love's after-calm,
Marking not the world—its meetness,
Marking Time not—nor his fleetness,
Only happy, palm to palm?
Red on wrist and cheek and hair,—
Sought the page where love first lighting,
Fixed their fate, and, in this writing,
Fixed the record of it there.
Shame and slaughter of it all?
Did she wander like that other
Woful, wistful, wife and mother,
Round and round his prison wall;—
Waileth, wheeleth, desolate,
Heedless of the hawk above her,
While as yet the rushes cover,
Waning fast, her wounded mate;—
Fixed and wide in their despair?
Did he burst his prison fetters,
Did he write sweet, yearning letters
“À Lucile,—en Angleterre”?
Halts him with a sudden stop,
For he feels a man's heart bleeding,
Draining out its pain's exceeding—
Half a life, at every drop:
Seems to warble and to rave;
Letters where the pent sensation
Leaps to lyric exultation,
Like a song-bird from a grave.
Peep the Pagan and the Gaul,
Politics and love competing,
Abelard and Cato greeting,
Rousseau ramping over all.
Whirled along the fever-flood;
And its touch of truth shall save it,
And its tender rain shall lave it,
For at least you read Amavit,
Written there in tears of blood.
Tracking traces in the snow?
Did they tempt him out, confiding,
Shoot him ruthless down, deriding,
By the ruined old château?
Frozen to a smile of scorn,
Just the bitter thought's suggesting,
At this excellent new jesting
Of the rabble Devil-born.
These few words the covers bear,
Some swift rush of pity blinding,
Sent them in the shot-pierced binding
“À Lucile, en Angleterre.”
Nothing more the leaves reveal,
Yet I love it for its lovers,
For the dream that round it hovers
Of “Savignac” and “Lucile.”
A MADRIGAL
Young Love his ware comes crying:
Full soon the elf untreasures
His pack of pains and pleasures,—
With roguish eye,
He bids me buy
From out his pack of treasures.
With true-love-knots and kisses,
With rings and rosy fetters,
And sugared vows and letters;—
He holds them out
With boyish flout,
And bids me try the fetters.
There's little need to show them!
Too well for new believing
I know their past deceiving,—
I am too old
(I say), and cold,
To-day, for new believing!
With honey-sweet caresses,
And still, to my undoing,
He wins me, with his wooing,
To buy his ware
With all its care,
Its sorrow and undoing.
A SONG TO THE LUTE
Fa la!
When first I came to Court,
I deemed Dan Cupid but a boy,
And Love an idle sport,
A sport whereat a man might toy
With little hurt and mickle joy—
When first I came to Court!
Fa la!
Too soon I found my fault;
The fairest of the fair brigade
Advanced to mine assault.
Alas! against an adverse maid
Nor fosse can serve nor palisade—
Too soon I found my fault!
Fa la!
When Silvia's eyes assail,
No feint the arts of war can show,
No counterstroke avail;
Naught skills but arms away to throw,
And kneel before that lovely foe,
When Silvia's eyes assail!
Fa la!
Yet is all truce in vain,
Since she that spares doth still pursue
To vanquish once again;
And naught remains for man to do
But fight once more, to yield anew,
And so all truce is vain!
A GARDEN SONG
(TO W. E. H.)
Bloom the hyacinth and rose;
Here beside the modest stock
Flaunts the flaring hollyhock;
Here, without a pang, one sees
Ranks, conditions, and degrees.
In this quiet resting place;
Peach, and apricot, and fig
Here will ripen, and grow big;
Here is store and overplus,—
More had not Alcinoüs!
Far ahead the thrush is seen;
Here along the southern wall
Keeps the bee his festival;
All is quiet else—afar
Sounds of toil and turmoil are.
Here be spaces meet for song;
Grant, O garden-god, that I,
Now that none profane is nigh,—
Now that mood and moment please,—
Find the fair Pierides!
A CHAPTER OF FROISSART
(GRANDPAPA LOQUITUR)
This age, I think, prefers recitals
Of high-spiced crime, with “slang” for jokes,
And startling titles;
Loved “old Montaigne,” and praised Pope's Homer
(Nay, thought to style him “poet” too,
Were scarce misnomer),
I can recall how Some-one present
(Who spoils her grandson, Frank!) would read,
And find him pleasant;
Long since, in an old house in Surrey,
Where men knew more of “morning ale’
Than “Lindley Murray,”
'Neath Hogarth's “Midnight Conversation,”
It stood; and oft 'twixt spring and fall,
With fond elation,
All through one hopeful happy summer,
At such a page (I well knew where),
Some secret comer,
(Though scarcely such a colt unbroken),
Would sometimes place for private view
A certain token;—
An ivy-leaf for “Orchard corner,”
A thorn to say “Don't come at all,”—
Unwelcome warner!—
But then Romance required dissembling,
(Ann Radcliffe taught us that!) which bred
Some genuine trembling;
In such kind confidential parley
As may to you kind Fortune send,
You long-legged Charlie,
We had our crosses like our betters;
Fate sometimes looked askance upon
Those floral letters;
The dust upon the folio settled;
For some-one, in the right, was pained,
And some-one nettled,
Of fixed intent and purpose stony
To serve King George, enlist and make
Minced-meat of “Boney,”
And so, when she I mean came hither,
One day that need for letters ceased,
She brought this with her!
The English King laid siege to Calais;
I think Gran. knows it even now,—
Go ask her, Alice.
TO THE MAMMOTH-TORTOISE
OF THE MASCARENE ISLANDS
Callida nervis.”
—Hor. iii. II
To some, no doubt, the calm,—
The torpid ease of islets drest
In fan-like fern and palm;
Darwinian dreams recall;
And some your Rip-van-Winkle glance,
And ancient youth appal;
But not so mine,—for me
Your vasty vault but simply shows
A Lyre immense, per se,
A truly “Orphic tale,”
Could she but find that public want,
A Bard—of equal scale!
And lungs serenely strong,
To sweep from your sonorous chords
Niagaras of song,
The grovelling world aghast,
Should leave its paltry greed of gain,
And mend its ways . . . at last!
A ROMAN ROUND-ROBIN
(“HIS FRIENDS” TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS)
No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
To brief and bright addresses;
With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
In phrases less regretful;
On Fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
From Alp to Adriatic:
Barbarian minds to soften;
But, Horace—we, we are your friends—
Why tell us this so often?
And then thrust in our faces
These barren scraps (to say the least)
Of Stoic common-places?
Sing Lydë's lyre and hair;
Sing drums and Berecynthian flutes;
Sing parsley-wreaths; but spare,—
That things we love decay;
That Time and Gold have wings to fly;—
That all must Fate obey!
And pour us, if you can,
As soft and sleek as girlish cheek,
Your inmost Cæcuban;—
But your didactic ‘tap’—
Forgive us!—grows monotonous;
Nunc vale! Verbum sap.
VERSES TO ORDER
(FOR A DRAWING BY E. A. ABBEY)
Went dragging slowly on;
The red leaf to the running brook
Dropped sadly, and was gone;
December came, and locked in ice
The plashing of the mill;
The white snow filled the orchard up;
But she was waiting still.
'Gan cawing in the loft;
The young lambs' new-awakened cries
Came trembling from the croft;
The clumps of primrose filled again
The hollows by the way;
The pale wind-flowers blew; but she
Grew paler still than they.
Through all the drowsy street,
Came distant murmurs of the war,
And rumours of the fleet;
Cried news of Joe and Tim;
But June shed all her leaves, and still
There came no news of him.
One blessèd August morn,
Beneath the yellowing autumn elms,
Pang-panging came to horn;
The swift coach paused a creaking-space,
Then flashed away, and passed;
But she stood trembling yet, and dazed
The news had come—at last!
While all around her seems
As vague and shadowy as the shapes
That flit from us in dreams;
And naught in all the world is true,
Save those few words which tell
That be she lost is found again—
Is found again—and well!
A LEGACY
This keen North-Easter nips my shoulder;
My strength begins to fail; I know
You find me older;
My Muse's friend and not my purse's!
Who still would hear and still commend
My tedious verses,—
I've learned your candid soul. The venal,—
The sordid friend had scarce survived
A test so penal;
Are not as you: you hide your merit;
You, more than all, deserve the best
True friends inherit;—
Not “spacious dirt” (your own expression),
No; but the rarer, dearer prize—
The Life's Confession!
You, you alone, admired my Cantos;—
I've left you, P., my whole MS.,
In three portmanteaus!
“LITTLE BLUE-RIBBONS”
From the ribbons she wears in her favourite hat;
For many not a person be only five,
And yet have the neatest of taste alive?—
As a matter of face, this one has views
Of the strictest sort as to frocks and shoes;
And we never object to a sash or bow,
When “little Blue-Ribbons” prefers it so.
And an arch little mouth, when the teeth peep through;
And her primitive look is wise and grave,
With a sense of the weight of the word “behave”;
Though not and again she may condescend
To a radiant smile for a private friend;
But to smile for ever is weak, you know,
And “litle Blue-Ribbons” regards it so.
Is her ladyship's doll, “Miss Bonnibelle”;
But I think what at present the most takes up
The thoughts of her heart is her last new cup;
Is the “Robin that buried the ‘Babes in Wood’”—
It is not in the least like a robin, though,
But “little Blue-Ribbons” declares it so.
That the rain comes down for the birds to drink;
Moreover, she holds, in a cab you'd get
To the spot where the suns of yesterday set;
And I know that she fully expects to meet
With a lion or wolf in Regent Street!
We may smile, and deny as we like—But, no;
For “little Blue-Ribbons” still dreams it so.
That she never intends to be “great” and “tall”;
(For how could she ever contrive to sit
In her “own, own, chair,” if she grew one bit!)
And, further, she says, she intends to stay
In her “darling home” till she gets “quite gray”;
Alas! we are gray; and we doubt, you know,
But “little Blue-Ribbons” will have it so!
LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale.”
—Aylmer's Field.
A stunted, not too pretty, child,
Beneath a battered gingham;
Such things, to say the least, require
A Muse of more-than-average Fire
Effectively to sing 'em.
Have sprung from such;—e'en Joan of Arc
Had scarce a grander duty;
Not always ('tis a maxim trite)
From rigtheous sources comes the right,—
From beautiful, the beauty.
Maybe some priceless germ was blown
To this unwholesome marish;
(And what must grow will still increase,
Though cackled round by half the geese
And ganders in the parish.)
A Staël before whose mannish pride
Our frailer sex shall tremble;
Perchance this audience anserine
May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine!)—
May hiss—a future Kemble!
An undeveloped Hannah More!—
A latent Mrs. Trimmer!!
Who shall affirm it?—who deny?—
Since of the truth nor you nor I
Can catch the faintest glimmer?
Reserve your final word,—recall
Your all-too-hasty strictures;
Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees
Undreamed potentialities
In most unhopeful pictures
A FAIRY TALE
Ah! croyez-moi, l'erreur a son mérite.”
—Voltaire.
I find Miss Mary, ætat six,
Blonde, blue-eyed, frank, capricious,
Absorbed in her first fairy book,
From which she scarce can pause to look,
Because it's “so delicious!”
In which they cross a magic Moat,
That's smooth as glass to row on—
A Cat that brings all kinds of things;
And see, the Queen has angel wings—
Then Ogre comes”—and so on.
(Dear Moralist!) the childish mind,
So active and so pliant,
Rejecting themes in which you mix
Fond truths with pleasing facts, to fix
On tales of Dwarf and Giant!
That cats mellifluous in speech
Are painful contradictions;
That science ranks as monstrous things
Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings—
E'en angels' wings!—are fictions;
That life, although “an empty dream,”
Is scarce a “land of Fairy.”
“Of course I said all this?” Why, no;
I did a thing far wiser, though,—
I read the tale with Mary.
TO A CHILD
(FROM THE “GARLAND OF RACHEL”)
So many lyres are strung;
Or how the only tone assume
That fits a Maid so young?
Suppose—'tis on the cards—
You should grow up with quite a grand
Platonic hate for bards!
For ah! with what a scorn
Your eyes must greet that luckless One
Who rhymed you, newly born,—
His idle verse to turn;
And twanged his tiresome instrument
Above your unconcern!
That, keeping Chance in view,
Whatever after fate you meet
A part may still be true.
Your sex is always fair;
Or to be writ in Fortune's books,—
She's rich who has to spare:
A head that's sound and clear;
(Yet let the heart be not too blind,
The head not too severe!)
A not-too-large desire;
And—if you fail to find a Knight—
At least . . . a trusty Squire.
HOUSEHOLD ART
Of the kind that is built by Miss Green-away;
Where the walls are low, and the roofs are red,
And the birds are gay in the blue o'erhead;
And the dear little figures, in frocks and frills,
Go roaming about at their own sweet wills,
And “play with the pups,” and “reprove the calves,”
And do nought in the world (but Work) by halves,
From “Hunt the Slipper” and “Riddle-me-ree”
To watching the cat in the apple-tree.
Of their ways “intense” and Italianate,—
They may soar on their wings of sense, and float
To the au delà and the dim remote,—
Till the last sun sink in the last-lit West,
'Tis the Art at the Door that will please the best;
To the end of Time 'twill be still the same,
For the Earth first laughed when the children came!
THE DISTRESSED POET
A SUGGESTION FROM HOGARTH
A word, brings back again
That room, not garnished overmuch,
In gusty Drury Lane;
The kittens on the coat,
The good-wife with her patient eyes,
The milkmaid's tuneless throat;
The luckless verseman's air:
The “Bysshe,” the foolscap and the rhyme,—
The Rhyme . . that is not there!
With dews Castalian wet—
Is built from cold abstractions squired
By “Bysshe,” his epithet!
No step upon the stair
Betrays the guest that none refuse,—
She takes us unaware;
And sets our hearts a-flame,
And then, like Ariel, off she trips,
And none know how she came.
By some dull sense grown keen,
Some blank hour blossomed into song
We feel that she has been.
JOCOSA LYRA
Engraven,
And we climb the cold summits once built on
By Milton.
Is fairest,
And we long in the valley to follow
Apollo.
To Herrick,
Or we pour the Greek honey, grown blander,
Of Landor;
Where Praed is,
Or we toss the light bells of the mocker
With Locker.
Tight-laces,—
Where we woo the sweet Muses not starchly,
But archly,—
Comes playing,
And the rhyme is as gay as a dancer,
In answer,—
In measure!
It will last till men weary of laughter
And after!
MY BOOKS
They stand in a Sheraton shrine,
They are “warranted early editions,”
These worshipful tomes of mine;—
In their redolent “crushed Levant,”
With their delicate watered linings,
They are jewels of price, I grant;—
They have Zaehnsdorf's daintiest dress
They are graceful, attenuate, polished,
But they gather the dust, no less;—
Away on the unglazed shelves,
The bulged and the bruised octavos,
The dear and the dumpy twelves,—
And Howell the worse for wear,
And the worm-drilled Jesuits' Horace,
And the little old cropped Molière,
And the Rabelais foxed and flea'd,—
For the others I never have opened,
But those are the books I read.
THE COLLECTOR TO HIS LIBRARY
Have caused me anguish or regret,—
Save when some fiend in human shape
Has set your tender sides agape,
Or soiled with some unmanly smear
The candour of your margin clear,
Or writ you with some phrase inane,
The bantling of an idle brain,—
I love you: and because must end
This commerce between friend and friend,
I do implore each kindly Fate—
To each and all I supplicate—
That you, whom I have loved so long,
May not be vended “for a song”;—
That you, my dear desire and care,
May 'scape the common thoroughfare,
The dust, the eating rain, and all
The shame and squalor of the Stall.
Rather I trust your lot may touch
Some Crœsus—if there should be such—
To buy you, and that you may so
From Crœsus unto Crœsus go
Till that inevitable day
When comes your moment of decay.
THE BOOK-PLATE'S PETITION
BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE TEMPLE
While cynic Charles still trimm'd the vaneTwixt Querouaille and Castlemaine,
In days that shocked John Evelyn,
My First Possessor fixed me in.
In days of Dutchmen and of frost,
The narrow sea with James I cross'd,
Returning when once more began
The Age of Saturn and of Anne.
I am a part of all the past:
I knew the Georges, first and last;
I have been oft where else was none
Save the great wig of Addison;
And seen on shelves beneath me grope
The little eager form of Pope.
I lost the Third that owned me when
French Noailles fled at Dettingen;
The year James Wolfe surprised Quebec
The Fourth in hunting broke his neck;
The day that William Hogarth dy'd,
The Fifth one found me in Cheapside.
This was a Scholar, one of those
Whose Greek is sounder than their hose;
So liv'd at Streatham, next to Thrale.
'Twas there this stain of grease I boast
Was made by Dr. Johnson's toast.
(He did it, as I think, for Spite;
My Master call'd him Jacobite!)
And now that I so long to-day
Have rested post discrimina,
Safe in the brass-wir'd book-case where
I watch'd the Vicar's whit'ning hair,
Must I these travell'd bones inter
In some Collector's sepulchre!
Must I be torn herefrom and thrown
With frontispiece and colophon!
With vagrant E's, and I's, and O's,
The spoil of plunder'd Folios!
With scraps and snippets that to Me
Are naught but kitchen company!
Nay, rather, Friend, this favour grant me:
Tear me at once; but don't transplant me.
THE WATER OF GOLD
Out of the market din and clatter,
The quack with his puckered persuasive face
Patters away in the ancient patter.
In this little flask that I tap with my stick, sir—
Is the famed, infallible Water of Gold,—
The One, Original, True Elixir!
She with the ell-long flaxen tresses,—
Here is a draught that will make you fair,
Fit for an Emperor's own caresses!
Drink but of this, and in less than a minute,
Lo! you will dance like the flowers in May,
Chirp and chirk like a new-fledged linnet!
Drop but a drop of this in his throttle,
Straight he will gossip and gorge his fill,
Brisk as a burgher over a bottle!
Here is health for your limb, without lint or lotion;
Here is all that you lack, in this tiny flask;
And the price is a couple of silver groschen!
And still in the Great World's market-places
The Quack, with his quack catholicon,
Finds ever his crowd of upturned faces;
On our vague regret, on our weary yearning;
For he sells the thing that never can come,
Or the thing that has vanished, past returning.
A FANCY FROM FONTENELLE
And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,
As she thought of the Gardener standing by—
“He is old,—so old! And he soon must die!”
And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare;
And she laughed once more as she heard his tread—
“He is older now! He will soon be dead!”
That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the ground;
And he came at noon, that Gardener old,
And he raked them gently under the mould.
For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener, Time.
DON QUIXOTE
Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack,Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro,
Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe,
And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back,
Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack!
To make wiseacredom, both high and low,
Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go)
Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track:
Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest!
Yet would to-day when Courtesy grows chill,
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest,
Some fire of thine might burn within us still!
Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest,
And charge in earnest . were it but a mill!
A BROKEN SWORD
(TO A. L.)
And twitched it down—
Snapped in the blade! 'Twas scarcely dear, I doubt,
At half-a-crown.
In letters clear,
Traced on the metal's rusty damaskeen—
“Povr Paruenyr.”
His fate to gain?
Who was it dreamed his oyster-world should ope
To this—in vain?
The Western Seas;
Maybe but to some paltry Nym availed
For toasting cheese!
With silken knot,
Perchance, ere night, for Church and King 'twas drawn—
Perchance 'twas not!
Its hilt depends,
Flanked by the favours of forgotten loves,—
Remembered friends;—
A word to aid;
Or like a warning comes, in puffed success,
Its broken blade.
THE POET'S SEAT
AN IDYLL OF THE SUBURBS
Angulus Ridet.”
—Hor. ii. 6.
With lordly trunk, before they lopped it,
And weighty, said those five who bore
Its bulk across the lawn, and dropped it
Not once or twice, before it lay,
With two young pear-trees to protect it,
Safe where the Poet hoped some day
The curious pilgrim would inspect it.
The stately Maori, turned from etching
The ruin of St. Paul's, to try
Some object better worth the sketching:—
He saw him, and it nerved his strength
What time he hacked and hewed and scraped it,
Until the monster grew at length
The Master-piece to which he shaped it.
And fit alike for Shah or Sophy,
With shelf for cigarettes complete,
And one, but lower down, for coffee;
“Pansies for thoughts!” and rose and arum;
The Motto (that he meant to put)
Was “Ille angulus terrarum.”
“The heavy change!” When May departed,
When June with its “delightful things”
Had come and gone, the rough bark started,—
Began to lose its sylvan brown,
Grew parched, and powdery, and spotted;
And, though the Poet nailed it down,
It still flapped up, and dropped, and rotted.
Of vague (and viscous) vegetations;
Queer fissures gaped, with oozings green,
And moist, unsavoury exhalations,—
Faint wafts of wood decayed and sick,
Till, where he meant to carve his Motto,
Strange leathery fungi sprouted thick,
And made it like an oyster grotto.
Bare,—shameless,—till, for fresh disaster,
From end to end, one April morn,
'Twas riddled like a pepper caster,—
Drilled like a vellum of old time;
And musing on this final mystery,
The Poet left off scribbling rhyme,
And took to studying Natural History.
His five-act play is still unwritten;
The dreams that now his soul divide
Are more of Lubbock than of Lytton;
“Ballades” are “verses vain” to him
Whose first ambition is to lecture
(So much is man the sport of whim!)
On “Insects and their Architecture.”
THE LOST ELIXIR
We had it once, may be,
When our young song's impetuous flood
First poured its ecstasy;
But now the shrunk poetic vein
Yields not that priceless drop again.
Our patient hands distil
The shining spheres of chemic gold
With hard-won, fruitless skill;
But that red drop still seems to be
Beyond our utmost alchemy.
Time's after-gift, a tear,
Will strike a pathos on the page
Beyond all art sincere;
But that “one drop of human blood”
Has gone with life's first leaf and bud.
Collected poems | ||