 | Uncollected Poems of James Russell Lowell |  |
65
KING RETRO
I
There lived once, and perhaps lives still,A monarch brave and mighty,
A prince of energy and will
Compact as lignum vitæ,
Who, among other treasures great,
Whereof he had profusion,
(As well beseemed his birth and state),
Possessed an Institution.
II
A King's whole outfit was, years back,A people and a saddle;
Enough if he could spur and whack,
Although his brains were addle;
But now these good old times are gone,
And kings, grown wisely heedful,
Find that, to keep their saddles on,
A bridle too is needful.
III
Just now 'tis kingcraft's highest artItself to bit and bridle,
Yet kings will sometimes set their heart
Upon a whimsy idle;
One for a brimstone match stakes all,
For a frail woman's kiss one,
One won't let last year's dead leaves fall,
And so it was with this one.
IV
Although his hobby asked no goodTo give it expedition,
But bare him straight along the road
To double-distilled perdition,
Although his revenues incurred
An hourly diminution,
His Trojan horse he whipped and spurred,
And blessed his institution.
66
V
Riches have been but flighty things,From our day up to Adam,
But, if a treasure e'er had wings,
This institution had 'em;
Or rather, what was just as good
As wings, however supple,
It had ('tis true by holy rood!)
Of legs three million couple.
VI
Whereof each being stout and toughAs those of Bishop Burnet,
Its share of body would take off
Forgetting to return it,
And, what was worse, both clothes and shoes
Went off with every biped,
For whose evasive, larcenous use,
The monarch (with a sigh) paid.
VII
Our king, but that his eyes were dim,Had thought it quite a blessing
To see his ruin leaving him
And cheap reform progressing,
To lose this rust which nothing did
But eat into his riches,
And of this hobby-horse get rid
Which wore out all his breeches.
VIII
But some his title to the thingDenied, or picked a hole in it,
Nay, even hinted that the king
His grandfather had stolen it,
And when the wandering pieces got
Beyond his kingdom's borders,
The neighbor Powers said, “Go to pot!”
To all his threats and orders.
IX
This made his kingship very wroth,He growled like baited Bruin,
67
That he would have his Ruin;
And, when his Council next time sate,
His fist he struck the board on
And bade them to prepare him straight
A sanitary cordon.
X
“Liege friends,” (they all hummed vivat rex!)“I wish your calm solution
Of what disease infects the legs
Of this my institution;
It must and shall be put to rout,
And all of you I'll gibbet if—
That is—I'll thank you to make out
Some penal law prohibitive.
XI
“Although my honoured sire and thoseWho lived and reigned before him,
Have been a tariff's deadly foes,
Both fixed and ad valorem,
Yet, rather than these insults bear,
I will impose a tariff,
Which whoso breaks shall straightway wear
A neckcloth à la sheriff!”
XII
Then rose the Minister of LawAnd begged he might disclose his—
“Well,” growled the king, “why hem and haw?
Let's have your diagnosis!”
“This epidemic so malign,
I think, if I might venture I
Should say bore every mark and sign
Of chronic Nineteenth Century.”
XIII
“That's the disease beyond a doubt,”Broke in the king, “that's firstly,
But secondly's how keep it out?
And that does pose me curstly;”
68
And drowns all earth in troubles,
Thrones that since Noah's time have stood
It trifles with like bubbles;
XIV
“Nay, that huge image of men's fears,That spiritual domination
Clamped down with sixteen hundred years
Of iron association,
It has torn up (unless, indeed,
There's taken place of late a
Recoil) and tossed it like a weed
To crumble at Gaëta.”
XV
“First,” said the minister, “we oughtTo fix our scale of duties;
Old forms, while Speech is free and Thought,
Are not worth my cast shoe-ties;”—
“Well, tax 'em, then,” the king replied,
“If taxing will prevent 'em;
Say, ad valorem (you decide)
Fifty or so per centum.”
XVI
“May't please you, as those articlesAre quoted now, a higher
Rate will be needed, for all else
Is squirting on hell-fire;
For now-a-days they're both so poor,
So in the making blundered,
That our percent to make all sure,
Must be some fifty hundred.
XVII
“Then there's a book which now-a-daysIs turned into a libel,”—
“Its name? Who wrote it?” “Please your grace,
I mean—a—a—the Bible.”
“The what? O, atheistic wound!
O, stab in part most vital!
Why, on that Book, you know, we found
Our Institution's title.”
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XVIII
“Yes, but 'tis made a nuisance nowBy Fourierites and fanatics,
Creatures who live, one knows not how,
On bran bread up in attics.”
“Well, then, if fiends in human shape
Their vile eyes have intruded
Upon the text, there's no escape,
The Book must be excluded!
XIX
“And yet it harrows my soul's coreTo lose this Widow Cruise's
Pitcher, this never-emptied store
Of precedent for abuses;
Used prudently, it does no harm,
And, given in cautious doses,
It is a safe and sovereign charm
To lead men by their noses.”
XX
“There's yet one more new-fangled thingThat's always mischief hatching,
And, what is worse (God save the King!)
'Tis desperately catching;
They call it Light,”—“By all that's good,
Keep that out, Mister Minister,
Of all the new-loosed Satan's brood
Not one is half so sinister.”
XXI
Here rose an ancient CounsellorWith all men's reverence valanced,
A soul 'twixt After and Before,
In perfect quiet balanced;
When Memory, over ninety years
Can make her retrogressions,
Experience, manifold appears
But backward-looking Prescience.
XXII
He, rising, stood there, hoar and blind,'Mid much applausive murmur,
70
Might safelier tread and firmer,
Then straightening, seemed to lay one hand
Upon the Future's shoulder,
One on the Past's, and so to stand
Majestically bolder.
XXIII
“What must that be, O King, think yet,Which thou are thus protecting,
With every fence around it set
Its weakness more detecting?
All good things strike firm roots below,
The whirlwind with them wages
A fruitless war, and can but blow
Their seeds along the Ages.
XXIV
“What shall thy safeguard be againstThose forces ever living
Whose ordered march thou marr'st and pain'st
Thus vainly with them striving?
Can'st thou shut Love out? Can'st thou bar
Those endless aspirations
Which, upward from the things that are
Lead poets first, then nations?
XXV
“Thou may'st exclude the written WordAnd muzzle dead Apostles,
But can'st thou gag the mocking bird,
The robins and the throstles?
These by the lonely rice swamp sing
Or 'mid the bursting cotton,
And tidings of the Father bring
To those by Man forgotten.
XXVI
“The Letter's narrow grave no moreConfines the heart of Jesus;
From whip-scarred flesh the soul can soar
To him who made and sees us;
71
Prompts wanderings and departures,
Filled with the spirit and the heart
Of prophets, saints and martyrs.
XXVII
“Your tariff may be strong and tight,But, if you keep out Heaven, you
Must have men swifter than the light
For officers of revenue;
It floods, it bursts, and eddies in,
Or, on the wings of silence,
Floats down o'er walls of want and sin,
In spite of watchful violence.
XXVIII
“Call back, thou may'st, the martyr age,Heap faggots for the firing,
Yet think against your futile rage
What traitors are conspiring;
Still shines the sun, still roves the wind,
And, since the earth had motion,
The stars to human hearts have shined
Hope, courage, and devotion.
XXIX
“Against the bestial and the false,The Kingdom of Unreason,
All Nature gathers force and falls
At once to plotting treason;
Hush every voice you start at now,
Bring Slavery to perfection,
And every leaf upon the bough
Would whisper insurrection.
XXX
“Put trust, my Liege, while yet you can,In the soul's inborn beauties;
Write first your debt to brother-man,
Upon your scale of duties,
Or keep all dark and close, to work
Brewing explosive vapour,
And woe betide, who in that murk
First lights Hope's farthing taper!”
72
XXXI
He ceased, and straight the King broke out,Amid much tongue-confusion,
“What! one of us with sneer and doubt
Blaspheme my Institution!
Thou crazy Fawkes, I'll find out soon
A bedlam to clap you in;
Things must be sadly out of tune
If I can't have my Ruin!”
| Uncollected Poems of James Russell Lowell | |