 | Songs of two centuries |  |
86
TO THE SAME.
From Clara's Big Brother's Mind.
Weary old face on the precipice glowering,
What is there in you so vastly o'erpowering?
Why, as men gaze, is their fancy a slave of you—
Why do the women so frequently rave of you?
Why with the lens do they render absurder you—
Why upon plaques do they maltreat and murder you?
Though you've no visible means of restraining it,
Still, you might venture some mode of explaining it!
What is there in you so vastly o'erpowering?
Why, as men gaze, is their fancy a slave of you—
Why do the women so frequently rave of you?
Why with the lens do they render absurder you—
Why upon plaques do they maltreat and murder you?
Though you've no visible means of restraining it,
Still, you might venture some mode of explaining it!
Many a novelist eagerly wrote of you—
Poets have made much prosodical note of you—
Orators oft have had somewhat to say of you—
Artists have offered no end of display of you;
How do you do it?—while, fatly or meagerly,
Real men are striving for notice so eagerly?
Savage old face on the precipice slumbering,
When the night hours their black minutes are numbering,
Say! are the sprites with sweet visions e'er storing you,
Made up of ladies perversely adoring you?
How would you look, if effusively facing them?
How would they act if you spoke of embracing them?
How would you cold kisses prove indigestible,
Nature's own Frankenstein, crude and detestable!
Poets have made much prosodical note of you—
Orators oft have had somewhat to say of you—
Artists have offered no end of display of you;
How do you do it?—while, fatly or meagerly,
Real men are striving for notice so eagerly?
Savage old face on the precipice slumbering,
When the night hours their black minutes are numbering,
Say! are the sprites with sweet visions e'er storing you,
Made up of ladies perversely adoring you?
How would you look, if effusively facing them?
How would they act if you spoke of embracing them?
How would you cold kisses prove indigestible,
Nature's own Frankenstein, crude and detestable!
You must have met with some startling calamities:
You have no body, no arms, no extremities.
Or they are, if we persist in presuming them,
Buried in rock, with no hope of exhuming them.
Even your face—one may see, with facility,
Stands off in parts that prevent sociability
(Unlike those maidens who nourish the pride of you);
When one goes round to a different side of you,
Then you appear, to the veriest slow body,
Merely a wink and a blink and a nobody!
You have no body, no arms, no extremities.
Or they are, if we persist in presuming them,
Buried in rock, with no hope of exhuming them.
87
Stands off in parts that prevent sociability
(Unlike those maidens who nourish the pride of you);
When one goes round to a different side of you,
Then you appear, to the veriest slow body,
Merely a wink and a blink and a nobody!
Still keep your head 'mid the mountains' rough comeliness—
Answer no questions, grim fragment of homeliness:
Many a boor, from mere lack of loquacity,
Builds up a good name for mental capacity:
Many a fool is a wise man instead to us,
Just from the things that he never has said to us.
Answer no questions, grim fragment of homeliness:
Many a boor, from mere lack of loquacity,
Builds up a good name for mental capacity:
Many a fool is a wise man instead to us,
Just from the things that he never has said to us.
Long as the roads are their passengers numbering,
Long as the stage through the forest is lumbering,
Long as the summer-girl washes her freckles in,
Long as the inn-keeper gathers his shekels in,
Long as good folk in vacuity sorrowing
Are from the past exclamation-points borrowing,
Stay where you are, neatly shelved curiosity—
Known as the mountain's most monstrous monstrosity!
Long as the stage through the forest is lumbering,
Long as the summer-girl washes her freckles in,
Long as the inn-keeper gathers his shekels in,
Long as good folk in vacuity sorrowing
Are from the past exclamation-points borrowing,
Stay where you are, neatly shelved curiosity—
Known as the mountain's most monstrous monstrosity!
| Songs of two centuries | |