The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

“The silver cord is loosed,” he said,
“The golden bowl is broken;
A few more prayers having been prayed,
A few more love-words spoken,
I shall turn my face unto the wall,
And sleeping, not be woken.”

“Is it a better place, my child,
That thou art gone unto?
Upon this earth that thou hast left
Hadst thou not much to do?
Would not thy joys have been a crowd
And thy troubles small and few?

“Beauty and rank and friends and wealth,
Genius and excellence,—
Could not all these, thy heritage,
Win thee from hastening hence?
Was the soul so much more unto thee
Than joys of mind and sense?

“And, bending with an English grace,
The ladies of our isle,
With their soft curls and their virgin eyes
Which look so sweet the while,
Had given thee for thy nobleness
A precious golden smile.

“These will not now be thine: thy life's
Appointed period
Being past o'er, thou liest on
The folded pinions broad
Of the Seraph who is bearing thee
Up through the sun to God.

260

“It has a solemn sound—‘to God’;
And strange high thoughts it weaves
Of a garden where the Tree of Life
Its mystic shadow gives,
And the music of the rapid worlds
Is the wind that stirs the leaves.

“Surely, it is a better place:
Wealth shuts not there his ken
From woes his heart yearns to assuage;
Nor noble origin
Wounds him by lessening trust betwixt
Him and his fellow-men.

“Nor friends die from him, but instead
Come to him where he is;
Nor Passion, rank with evil joys
And worse satieties,
Pouting her crimson lips at him
Layeth her cheek to his.

“Nor priests be there, like a bad dream
That at your bed's foot stands
All night (and yet it goes at last);
Nor moans of king-curst lands
Make his breast heave and his pale brow
To drop into his hands.

“But Love walks always with him now;
And Faith, not chained but free;
And Hope, bent forward, and with hair
Held back continually
To hear the distant chariot-wheels;
And wise calm Charity.”

AN EPITAPH FOR KEATS

Through one, years since hanged and forgot
Who stabbed backs by the Quarter,
Here lieth one who—while Time's stream
Runneth, as God hath taught her,
Bearing man's fame to men,—will have
His great name writ in water.

TO MARY IN SUMMER

Lay your head here, Mary,
Lay your head here,
While the blown grass, Mary,
With timid voice and wary,
Sings in your ear:—

The grass which round us, Mary,
Shuts like a nest;
By your dear limbs, dear Mary,
Lighter than limbs of Faery,
Daintily press'd.

261

Back with it all though, Mary,
Back and aside;
The wind comes this way, Mary,
And here the trees are airy
And the skies are wide.

What do your eyes fear, Mary,
So grave and soft?
I love to see them, Mary,
In whimsical vagary
Lifted aloft.

Mary, Mary, Mary,
Laugh in my face:
You know now, my own Mary,
No eyes can laugh so rarely
Or grant such grace.

Your cheek is pale now, Mary,
And red, by turns.
Why should the hand be chary
Of that to give which, Mary,
The heart so yearns?

Give me your hand, ah Mary,
Give me your hand:
In city or in prairie
There is none kinder, Mary,
From land to land.

Your lips to my lips, Mary,
Your lips to mine:
High up in Hebe's dairy
No milk so sweet, my Mary,
On earth no wine.

Lay your head here, Mary,
Lay your head here;
While my heart now, Mary,
The pleasant tune to vary,
Beats in your ear.

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OF 1848

(No connection with over the way)

“Some unprincipled persons endeavour to impose upon the public by such phrases as ‘It's all one,’ ‘It's the same concern,’ etc.” —Moses & Son.

Ho ye that nothing have to lose! ho rouse ye, one and all!
Come from the sinks of the New Cut, the purlieus of Vauxhall!
Did ye not hear the mighty sound boom by ye as it went—
The Seven Dials strike the hour of man's enfranchisement?

Ho cock your eyes, my gallant pals, and swing your heavy staves:
Remember—Kings and Queens being out, the great cards will be Knaves.
And when the pack is ours—oh then at what a slapping pace
Shall the tens be trodden down to five, and the fives kicked down to ace!

262

It was but yesterday the Times and Post and Telegraph
Told how from France King Louy-Phil. was shaken out like chaff;
To-morrow, boys, the National, the Siècle, and the Débats,
Shall have to tell the self-same tale of “La Reine Victoria.”

What! shall our incomes we've not got be taxed by puny John?
Shall the policeman keep Time back by bidding us move on?
Shall we too follow in the steps of that poor sneak Cochrane?
Shall it be said, “They came, they saw,—and bolted back again”?

Not so! albeit great men have been among us, and are floor'd—
(Frost, Williams, Jones, and other ones who now reside abroad)—
Among the master-spirits of the age there still are those
Who'll pick up fame—even though, when smelt, it makes men hold the nose.

What ho there! clear the way! make room for him, the “fly” and wise,
Who wrote in mystic grammar about London's “Mysteries,”—
For him who takes a proud delight to wallow in our kennels,—
For Mr. A. B. C. D. E. F. G. M. W. Reynolds!

Come, hoist him up! his pockets will afford convenient hold
To grab him by; and, if inside there silver is or gold,
And should it be found sticking to our hands when they're drawn out,
Why, 'twere a chance not fair to say ill-natured things about.

Silence! Hear, hear! He says that we're the sovereign people, we!
And now? And now he states the fact that one and one make three!
Now he makes casual mention of a certain Miscellany!
He says that he's the editor! He says it costs a penny!

O thou great Spirit of the World! shall not the lofty things
He saith be borne unto all time for noble lessonings?
Shall not our sons tell to their sons what we could do and dare
In this the great year Forty-eight and in Trafalgar Square?

Swathed in foul wood, yon column stood 'mid London's thousand marts;
And at their wine Committeemen grinned as they drank “The Arts”:
But our good flint-stones have bowled down each poster-hidden board,
And from their hoarded malice our strong hands have stript the hoard.

Yon column is a prouder thing than Cæsar's triumph-arch!
It shall be called “The Column of the Glorious Days of March!”
And stonemasons' apprentices shall grow rich men therewith,
By contract-chiselling the names of Jones and Brown and Smith.

Upon what point of London, say, shall our next vengeance burst?
Shall the Exchange, or Parliament, be immolated first?
Which of the Squares shall we burn down?—which of the Palaces? (The speaker is nailed by a policeman)

Oh please sir, don't! It isn't me. It's him. Oh don't, sir, please!

263

THE SIN OF DETECTION

She bowed her face among them all, as one
By one they rose and went. A little scorn
They showed—a very little. More forlorn
She seemed because of that: she might have grown
Proud else in her turn, and have so made known
What she well knew—that the free-hearted corn,
Kissed by the hot air freely all the morn,
Is better than the weed which has its own
Foul glut in secret. Both her white breasts heaved
Like heaving water with their weight of lace;
And her long tresses, full of musk and myrrh,
Were shaken from the braids her fingers weaved,
So that they hid the shame in her pale face.
Then I stept forth, and bowed addressing her.

AFTERWARDS

She opened her moist crimson lips to sing;
And from her throat that is so white and full
The notes leaped like a fountain. A smooth lull
Was o'er my heart: as when—a viol-string
Having been broken—the first musical ring
Once over, all the rest is but a dull
Crude dissonance, howe'er thou twist and pull
The sundered fragments. A most weary thing
It is within the perished heart to seek
Pain, and not find it, but a clinging pall
Like sleep upon the mind. The mere set plan
Of life then comes, and grief that is not weak
Because it has no tears. Life's all-in-all
Was certainly at end when this began.

ONE OF TIME'S RIDDLES

In her deep bosom the pride settled down—
That pride which is a brackish thing like salt;
And the life in her pulses seemed to halt.
About her temples for an iron crown
She set stern patience. She did never frown,
But her long gaze was gentle to a fault;
And, looking deep into her eyes, you had call'd
Their lustre nothing but a mild clear brown.
She lives and moves and is a mystery.
That which she hath been the thought cannot touch;
Only, beholding what she is, it hath
Glimpses of something she is yet to be;
And at the least it knows of her thus much:—
She bides her season with a solemn faith.

264

ANOTHER LOVE

Of her I thought who now is gone so far:
And, the thought passing over, to fall thence
Was like a fall from spirit into sense
Or from the heaven of heavens to sun and star.
None other than Love's self ordained the bar
'Twixt her and me; so that if, going hence,
I met her, it could only seem a dense
Film of the brain,—just nought, as phantoms are.

Now when I passed your threshold and came in,
And glanced where you were sitting, and did see
Your tresses in these braids and your hands thus,—
I knew that other figure, grieved and thin,
That seemed there, yea that was there, could not be,
Though like God's wrath it stood dividing us.

THE WORLD'S DOING

One scarce would think that we can be the same
Who used, in those first childish Junes, to creep
With held breath through the underwood, and leap
Outside into the sun. Since this mine aim
Took me unto itself, the joy which came
Into my eyes at once sits hushed and deep;
Nor even the sorrow moans, but falls asleep
And has ill dreams. For you—your very name
Seems altered in mine ears, and cannot send
Heat through my heart, as in those days afar
Wherein we lived indeed with the real life.
Yet why should we feel shame, my dear sweet friend?
Are they most honoured who without a scar
Pace forth, all trim and fresh, from the splashed strife?

ALMOST OVER

You say I should not think upon her now:
But then I have stood beside her listening,
And watched her rose-breathed lips when she would sing:
And I can scarcely yet imagine how
I ever should despise that stately brow
And flowering breast that is so pure a thing.
Alas for all the weary blood-running
When from the heart love strives to tear a vow!

And yet perchance—even as you tell me—soon
Her spirit of my spirit will leave hold,
And, when I hear her tread, I shall not blush
Doubly, for love and shame. But then the moon
Assuredly will rise, and Sleep shall fold
Her hair round me, and Death will whisper Hush!

265

HIDDEN HARMONY

The thoughts in me are very calm and high
That think upon your love: yet by your leave
You shall not greatly marvel that this eve
Or nightfall—yet scarce nightfall—the strong sky
Leaves me thus sad. Now if you ask me why,
I cannot teach you, dear; but I believe
It is that man will always interweave
Life with fresh want, with wish or fear to die.

It may be therefore,—though the matter touch
Nowise our love,—that I so often look
Sad in your presence, often feeling so.
And of the reason I can tell thus much:—
Man's soul is like the music in a book
Which were not music but for high and low.

AN ALTAR-FLAME

Even as when utter summer makes the grain
Bow heavily along through the whole land
It seems to me whatever while I stand
Where thou art standing; and upon my brain
Thy presence weighs like a most awful strain
Of music, heard in some cathedral fanned
With the deep breath of prayer, while the priest's hand
Uplifts the solemn sign which shall remain
After the world. Thy beauty perfecteth
A noble calmness in me; it doth send
Through my weak heart to my strong mind a rule
Of life that they shall keep till shut of death:
Death—an arched path too long to see the end,
But which hath shadows that seem pure and cool.

HEIGHT IN DEPTH

He turned his face apart, and gave a sigh
And a strange whimper—such a pitiful thing
As haunts the heart for days. “Yes, Love can bring
Unto a pass so low that it seems high:
And, when we see a brave and strong man cry
With a poor infant's feeble sorrowing,
It is a nobler passion than to wing
Shafts of small angers and small prides,” thought I.

There is a love so deaf that it can hear
Not even its own voice which bids it seek
A name for its own meanness: it would find
The outlet else. But thus it is a sheer
Humility—an earnestness so meek
That your knees bow and sharp tears make you blind.

266

AT ISSUE

That voice I hear,—how heard I cannot tell,—
Although my home is this, seems from my home:
There ... still it trails along and murmurs “Come”;
Like the slow death of sound within a bell,
Or like the humming whine in some pink shell
Wet with the brittle beadage of the foam
Which bird-eyed damsels stoop for when they roam
By the old sea. Were't not exceeding well
To shake my soul out of this tiresome life
For a call any-whence and any-whither?
That voice knows all the life I have or had,
And mocks me not,—it's whisper is too sad.
Even to attain calm sorrow lures me thither,
Since here this search for joy wearies like strife.

PRAISE AND PRAYER

Doubt spake no word in me as there I kneeled.
Loathing, I could not praise: I could not thank
God for the cup of evil that I drank:
I dared not cry upon His strength to shield
My soul from weapons it was bent to wield
Itself against itself. And so I sank
Into the furnished phrases smooth and blank
Which we all learn in childhood,—and did yield
A barren prayer for life. My voice might mix
With hers, but mingled not. Hers was a full
Grand burst of music, which the crownèd Seven
Must have leaned sideways from their seats to fix
In their calm minds. The seraph-songs fell dull
Doubtless, when heard again, throughout all heaven.

THE TURNING-POINT

At length I sickened, standing in the sun
Truthful and for the Truth, whose only fees
Are madness and sharp death. I bowed my knees
And said: “As long as the world's years have run,
These accents have been said and these things done:
That which is mine abasement is their ease:
They say, ‘Go to—all this is as we please:
Shall we, being many, step aside for one?’

“And thus it is that though the air be new,
And my brow finds the coolness it hath sought
Through the slow-stricken night,—the daily curse
Weighs on my soul of what I waken to:
For though I loathe the price, this must be bought.”
... Thou fool! Would'st buy from man what God confers?

267

A FORETASTE

At length the then of my long hope was now;
Yet had my spirit an extreme unrest:
I knew the good from better was grown best
At length, but could not just as yet tell how.
So I lay straight along, and thrust my brow
Under the heights of grass. Hours struck. The West,
I knew, must be at change; but gazed not, lest
The heat against my naked face (no bough
For shade) should tease me mad, like poisoned spice.
I lay along, letting my whole self think,
Pressing my brow down that the thoughts might fix:
Just as a dicer who holds loaded dice,
Sure of his cast, keeps trifling with his drink
Ere he will throw, and still must taste and mix.

IDLE BLESSEDNESS

I know not how it is, I have the knack,
In lazy moods, of seeking no excuse;
But holding that man's ease must be the juice
Of man's philosophy, I give the sack
To thought, and lounge at shuffle on the track
Of what employment seems of the least use:
And in such ways I find a constant sluice
For drowzy humours. Be thou loth to rack
And hack thy brain for thought, which may lurk there
Or may not. Without pain of thought, the eyes
Can see, the ears can hear, the sultry mouth
Can taste the summer's favour. Towards the South
Let earth sway round, while this my body lies
In warmth, and has the sun on face and hair.

“'TWAS THUS”

“'Twas thus, thus is, and thus shall be:
The Beautiful—the Good—
Still mirror to the Human Soul
Its own intensitude!”

A PRAYER

Lady, in thy proud eyes
There is a weary look,
As if the spirit we know through them
Were daunted with rebuke
To think that the heart of man henceforth
Is read like a read book.

Lady, in thy lifted face
The solitude is sore;
The true solitude follows the crowd.
Will it be less or more
When the words have been spoken to thee
Which my heart is seeking for?

268

Lady, canst thou not guess
The words which my thoughts seek?
Perhaps thou deem'st them well to spurn
And better not to speak.
Oh thou must know my love is strong,
Hearing my voice so weak.

Lady, ah go not thus:
Lady, give ear again:
Lady, oh learn from me that yet
There may one thing remain
Which stands not in the knowledge thou hast
And in thy lore of men.

Lady, the darkness lasteth long
Ere the dawn touch the skies;
Many are the leagues of wilderness
Till ye come where the green lies;
Nay often betwixt doubt and doubt
Death whispers and makes wise.

Lady, has not my thought
Dared much? For I would be
The ending of darkness and the dawn
Of a new day to thee,
And thine oasis, and thy place of rest,
And thy time of peace, lady.

ON BROWNING'S SORDELLO

“Sordello's story,” the Sphinx yawned and said,
“Who would has heard.” Is that enough? Who could,
'Twere not amiss to add, has understood:
Who understood perhaps has profited.
For my part I could tell a tale instead
Of one who, dreaming of no likelihood
Even that the “Book” was going to end for good,
Turned the last page, and lo the book was read. [OMITTED]

THE CAN-CAN AT VALENTINO'S

[_]

(N.B.—The numerical characteristics refer to the danseuses.)

The first, a mare; the second, 'twixt bow-wow
And pussy-cat, a cross; the third, a beast
To baffle Buffon; the fourth, not the least
In hideousness, nor last; the fifth, a cow;
The sixth, Chimera; the seventh, Sphinx; ... Come now,
One woman, France, ere this frog-hop have ceased,
And it shall be enough. A toothsome feast
Of blackguardism ... and bald row,
No doubt for such as love those same. For me,
I confess, William, and avow to thee,
(Soft in thine ear) that such sweet female whims [OMITTED]
Are not a passion of mine naturally. [OMITTED]

269

AT THE STATION OF THE VERSAILLES RAILWAY

I waited for the train unto Versailles.
I hung with bonnes and gamins on the bridge
Watching the gravelled road where, ridge with ridge,
Under black arches gleam the iron rails
Clear in the darkness, till the darkness fails
And they press on to light again—again
To reach the dark. I waited for the train
Unto Versailles; I leaned over the bridge,
And wondered, cold and drowsy, why the knave
Claude is in worship; and why (sense apart)
Rubens preferred a mustard vehicle.
The wind veered short. I turned upon my heel
Saying, “Correggio was a toad”; then gave
Three dizzy yawns, and knew not of the Art.

L'ENVOI: BRUSSELS, HÔTEL DU MIDI

18 October

It's copied out at last: very poor stuff
Writ in the cold, with pauses of the cramp.
Direct, dear William, to the Poste Restante
At Ghent—here written Gand—Gong, Hunticè.
We go to Antwerp first, but shall not stay;
After, to Ghent and Bruges; and after that
To Ostend, and thence home. To Waterloo
Was yesterday. Thither, and there, and back,
I managed to scrawl something,—most of it
Bad, and the sonnet at the close mere slosh.
'Twas only made because I was knocked up,
And it helped yawning. Take it, and the rest.

SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS (Antwerp)

“Messieurs, le Dieu des peintres”: We felt odd:
'Twas Rubens, sculptured. A mean florid church
Was the next thing we saw,—from vane to porch
His drivel. The museum: as we trod
Its steps, his bust held us at bay. The clod
Has slosh by miles along the wall within.
(“I say, I somehow feel my gorge begin
To rise.”)—His chair in a glass case, by God!
... To the Cathedral. Here too the vile snob
Has fouled in every corner. (“Wherefore brave
Our fate? Let's go.”) There is a monument
We pass. “Messieurs, you tread upon the grave
Of the great Rubens.” “Well, that's one good job!
What time this evening is the train for Ghent?”

270

BETWEEN GHENT AND BRUGES

(Wednesday night, 24 October)

Ah yes, exactly so; but when a man
Has trundled out of England into France
And half through Belgium, always in this prance
Of steam, and still has stuck to his first plan—
Blank verse or sonnets; and as he began
Would end;—why, even the blankest verse may chance
To falter in default of circumstance,
And even the sonnet miss its mystic span.
Trees will be trees, grass grass, pools merely pools,
Unto the end of time and Belgium—points
Of fact which Poets (very abject fools)
Get scent of—once their epithets grown tame
And scarce. Even to these foreign rails—my joints
Begin to find their jolting much the same.

VERSES TO JOHN TUPPER

Dear Jack
Alack!
A few days back
I bound myself by oath to smack
My lips o'er sloshy tea, and attack
White, brown, or black
Bread, and vile jokes to crack,
This night with brutes whose knack
Would squeeze a pun in Syriac.
And for to-morrow, alack!
I have a model on my track,
So that I may not pack.
Of course I writhe upon the rack:
Though as to Nature, Jack,
(Poor dear old hack!)
Touching sky, sun, stone, stick, and stack,
I guess I'm half a quack;
For whom ten lines of Browning whack
The whole of the Zodiac.
Nevertheless, alack!
Seeing this time I must send back
To Prince and Baron, Stephens and Jack
(Spec-cadav Rex, hic hæc hoc hac),
And to the Maniac,
The sack.
This much from D.G.R. (in black,
I.e., with coal-ash cloth-of-sack.)

271

ST. WAGNES' EVE

The hop-shop is shut up: the night doth wear.
Here, early, Collinson this evening fell
“Into the gulfs of sleep”; and Deverell
Has turned upon the pivot of his chair
The whole of this night long; and Hancock there
Has laboured to repeat, in accents screechy,
“Guardami ben, ben son, ben son Beatrice”;
And Bernhard Smith still beamed, serene and square.
By eight, the coffee was all drunk. At nine
We gave the cat some milk. Our talk did shelve,
Ere ten, to gasps and stupor. Helpless grief
Made, towards eleven, my inmost spirit pine,
Knowing North's hour. And Hancock, hard on twelve,
Showed an engraving of his bas-relief.

PARODY ON “UNCLE NED”

Dere was an old nigger, and him name was Uncle Tom,
And him tale was rather slow;
Me try to read de whole, but me only read some,
Because me found it no go.
Den hang up de auther Mrs. Stowe,
And kick de volume wid your toe—
And dere's no more public for poor Uncle Tom,
He am gone whar de trunk-lining go.

Him tale dribbles on and on widout a break,
Till you hab no eyes for to see;
When I reached Chapter 4 I had got a headache,
So I had to let Chapter 4 be.
Den hang up, etc.

De demand one fine morning for Uncle Tom died,
De tears down Mrs. Stowe's face ran like rain;
For she knew berry well, now dey'd laid him on de shelf,
Dat she'd neber get a publisher again.
Den hang up, etc.

DUNS SCOTUS

Here lies Duns Scotus
Who died of lotus.

272

MacCracken

[_]

(Parody on Tennyson's “Kraken”)

Getting his pictures, like his supper, cheap,
Far, far away in Belfast by the sea,
His watchful one-eyed uninvaded sleep
MacCracken sleepeth. While the P.R.B.
Must keep the shady side, he walks a swell
Through spungings of perennial growth and height:
And far away in Belfast out of sight,
By many an open do and secret sell,
Fresh daubers he makes shift to scarify,
And fleece with pliant shears the slumbering “green.”
There he has lied, though aged, and will lie,
Fattening on ill-got pictures in his sleep,
Till some Præraphael prove for him too deep.
Then, once by Hunt and Ruskin to be seen,
Insolvent he will turn, and in the Queen's Bench die.

VALENTINE—TO LIZZIE SIDDAL

Yesterday was St. Valentine.
Thought you at all, dear dove divine,
Upon the beard in sorry trim
And rueful countenance of him,
That Orson who's your Valentine?

He daubed, you know, as usual.
The stick would slip, the brush would fall:
Yet daubed he till the lamplighter
Set those two seedy flames astir;
But growled all day at slow St. Paul.

The bore was heard ere noon; the dun
Was at the door by half-past one:
At least 'tis thought so, but the clock—
No Lizzy there to help its stroke—
Struck work before the day begun.

At length he saw St. Paul's bright orb
Flash back—the serried tide absorb
That burning West which it sucked up,
Like wine poured in a water cup;—
And one more twilight toned his daub.

Some time over the fire he sat,
So lonely that he missed his cat;
Then wildly rushed to dine on tick,—
Nine minutes swearing for his stick,
And thirteen minutes for his hat.

273

And now another day is gone:
Once more that intellectual one
Desists from high-minded pursuits,
And hungry, staring at his boots,
Has not the strength to pull them on.

Come back, dear Liz, and looking wise
In that arm-chair which suits your size
Through some fresh drawing scrape a hole.
Your Valentine & Orson's soul
Is sad for those two friendly eyes.

ADDRESS TO THE DALZIEL BROTHERS

“O Woodman, spare that block,
Oh gash not anyhow!
It took ten days by clock,
I'd fain protect it now.”

Chorus

—Wild Laughter from Dalziel's Workshop.

THE WOMBAT

Oh how the family affections combat
Within this heart, and each hour flings a bomb at
My burning soul! Neither from owl nor from bat
Can peace be gained until I clasp my wombat.

LIMERICKS

There is a big artist named Val,
The roughs' and the prize-fighters' pal:
The mind of a groom
And the head of a broom
Were Nature's endowments to Val.

There is a Creator named God
Whose creations are sometimes quite odd:
I maintain—and I shall—
The creation of Val
Reflects little credit on God.

There is a dull Painter named Wells
Who is duller than any one else:
With the face of a horse
He sits by you and snorts—
Which is very offensive in Wells.

There's an infantine Artist named Hughes—
Him and his the R.A.'s did refuse:
At length, though, among
The lot, one was hung—
But it was himself in a noose.

274

There's a babyish party named Burges
Who from infancy hardly emerges:
If you had not been told
He's disgracefully old,
You would offer a bull's-eye to Burges.

There is a young person named Georgie
Who indulges each night in an orgy:
Soda-water and brandy
Are always kept handy
To efface the effects of that orgy.

There is a young Artist named Jones
Whose conduct no genius atones:
His behaviour in life
Is a pang to the wife
And a plague to the neighbours of Jones.

There is a young Painter called Jones
(A cheer here, and hisses, and groans):
The state of his mind
Is a shame to mankind,
But a matter of triumph to Jones.

There's a Painter of Portraits named Chapman
Who in vain would catch woman or trap man
To be painted life-size
More preposterous guys
Than they care to be painted by Chapman.

There's a combative Artist named Whistler
Who is, like his own hog-hairs, a bristler:
A tube of white lead
And a punch on the head
Offer varied attractions to Whistler.

There's a publishing party named Ellis
Who's addicted to poets with bellies:
He has at least two—
One in fact, one in view—
And God knows what will happen to Ellis.

There's a Portuguese person named Howell
Who lays-on his lies with a trowel:
Should he give-over lying,
'Twill be when he's dying,
For living is lying with Howell.

There is a mad Artist named Inchbold
With whom you must be at a pinch bold:
Or else you may score
The brass plate on your door
With the name of J. W. Inchbold.

A Historical Painter named Brown
Was in manners and language a clown:
At epochs of victual
Both pudden and kittle
Were expressions familiar to Brown

275

There was a young rascal called Nolly
Whose habits though dirty were jolly;
And when this book comes
To be marked with his thumbs
You may know that its owner is Nolly.

There are dealers in pictures named Agnew
Whose soft soap would make an old rag new:
The Father of Lies
With his tail to his eyes
Cries—“Go it, Tom Agnew, Bill Agnew!”

There's a solid fat German called Huffer
A hypochondriacal buffer:
To declaim Schopenhauer
From the top of a tower
Is the highest ambition of Huffer.

There's a Scotch correspondent named Scott
Thinks a penny for postage a lot:
Books, verses, and letters,
Too good for his betters,
Cannot screw out an answer from Scott.

There's a foolish old Scotchman called Scotus,
Most justly a Pictor Ignotus:
For what he best knew
He never would do,
This stubborn [old] donkey called Scotus.

There once was a painter named Scott
Who seemed to have hair, but had not.
He seemed too to have sense:
'Twas an equal pretence
On the part of the painter named Scott.

There's the Irishman Arthur O'Shaughnessy—
On the chessboard of poets a pawn is he:
Though a bishop or king
Would be rather the thing
To the fancy of Arthur O'Shaughnessy.

There is a young Artist named Knewstub,
Who for personal cleaning will use tub:
But in matters of paint
Not the holiest Saint
Was ever so dirty as Knewstub.

There is a poor sneak called Rossetti:
As a painter with many kicks met he—
With more as a man—
But sometimes he ran,
And that saved the rear of Rossetti.

As a critic, the Poet Buchanan
Thinks Pseudo much safer than Anon.
Into Maitland he shrunk,
But the smell of the skunk
Guides the shuddering nose to Buchanan.

276

ON WILLIAM MORRIS

Enter Skald, moored in a punt,
And jacks and tenches exeunt.

THE BROTHERS:

BY A SCOTCH BARD AND ENGLISH REVIEWER

I am two brothers with one face,
So which is the real man who can trace?
(My wrongs are raging inside of me.)
Here are some poets and they sell,
Therefore revenge becomes me well.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

Of course you know it's a burning shame,
But of my last books the press makes game!
(My wrongs are boiling inside of me.)
So at least all other bards I'll slate
Till no one sells but the Laureate.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

I took a beast of a poet's tome
And nailed a cheque, and brought them home;
(My wrongs were howling inside of me.)
And after supper, in lieu of bed,
I wound wet towels round my head.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

Of eyelids kissed and all the rest,
And rosy cheeks that lie on one's breast,
(My wrongs were yelling inside of me)
I told the worst that pen can tell,—
And Strahan and Company loved me well.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

I crowed out loud in the silent night,
I made my digs so sharp and bright:
(My wrongs were gnashing inside of me.)
In our Contemptible Review
I struck the beggar through and through.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

I tanned his hide and combed his head,
And that bard, for one, I left for dead.
(My wrongs are hooting inside of me.)
And now he's wrapped in a printer's sheet,
Let's fling him at our Public's feet.
(Oh Robert-Thomas is dread to see.)

277

SMITHEREENS

Uncertain-Aged Miss Thereabouts,
Tough fossil of her teens,
Has lifted up with saving hand
The ruined Smithereens.

Down the dark steps of debt that hand
Sped like an angel's wing,
Deep-dowered with gold, and for itself
Brought back a golden ring.

Ah lovely Lucy Lovandove,
That ring's a snake, and means
Woe without end: therein lies crushed
Thy heart—to smithereens.

ON CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

There's a female bard, grim as a fakier,
Who daily grows shakier and shakier.