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301

VII. PART VII
EXTRAVAGANZAS

303

TO THE INGLEEZE KHAFIR CALLING HIMSELF DJAUN BOOL DJENKINZUN.

(Thus Writeth Meer Djafrit.)
I hate thee, Djaun Bool,
Worse than Marid or Afrit,
Or corpse-eating Ghoul!
I hate thee like sin,
For thy mop-head of hair,
Thy snub nose and bald chin,
And thy turkey-cock air;
Thou vile Ferindjee!
That thou thus shouldst disturb an
Old Moslem like me
With my Khizzilbash turban,
Old fogy like me
With my Khizzilbash turban!
I spit on thy clothing,
That garb for baboons,
I eye with deep loathing
Thy tight pantaloons!
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I curse the cravat
Which encircles thy throat,
And thy cooking-pot hat,
And thy swallowed-tail coat!
Go hide thy thick sconce
In some hovel suburban!
Or else don at once
The red Khizzilbash turban—
Thou dog, don at once
The red Khizzilbash turban!
Thou vagabond varlet!
Thou swiller of sack!
If our heads be all scarlet,
Thy heart is all black!
Go on to revile
Iran's nation and race
In thy fish-foggish style!
He who knows with what face
Thou canst curse and traduce
Thine own mufti Pope Urban,
May scorn thine abuse
Of the Khizzilbash turban—
Scorn all thine abuse
Of the Khizzilbash turban!
305

THE DOMICILIARY VISIT.

(A Scene in the Faubourg St. Antoine, Paris.)

Dramatis Personæ—An officer of the Gendarmerie and a Citizen.
Off.
De par le Roi. You are Pierre Coulisse!

Cit.
I am.

Off.
I thought so. Scan date,
Address, and signature of this!

(Gives him a paper.)
Cit.
(reads)
“Arrest—by Royal mandate . . .”
Why, what's my crime? J'ignore—

Off.
Poh! Poh!
Of course, young man, you ignore it—
Your name is in the Black Book, though,
With two red marks before it!
Whence came you by those four cane-swords?

Cit.
Cane-swords? Which?

Off.
Yonder sham-rods!

Cit.
They are mere tobacco-pipes.

Off.
No words!— (Writes—

“Two poniards and two ramrods”!)

Cit.
Heavens! You don't mean—

Off.
A Frenchman means
The thing he does. Your press-keys! (Opens a drawer.)

What make you with those tools?

Cit.
Machines.

Off.
Ay, such machines as Fieschi's!
306

Pray, what's that carbine-like affair
Behind the window-shutter?

Cit.
A walking stick.

(Il en a l'air.)
Off.
Speak up, sir! What d'ye mutter?

Cit.
A stick!

Off.
Don't shout! A lie's no truth
Because 'tis bellowed louder.
A gun you mean. A stick, forsooth!
Why, one can smell the powder! (Takes up a book.)

Ha! “Treatise on the Poles”!

Cit.
The South
And North Poles only.

Off.
Rebel!
How dare you ope your gamin mouth?
Your explanations treble
Your guilt. South Pole and North? To what
Owes Earth its revolutions
If not to these, you leveller-flat
Of thrones and institutions?
Give up that letter! Ha! what's here! (Reads.)

“Dear Claude, I could not borrow
One hour to-day; but never fear,
I'll do the job to-morrow.”
So-ho! The job? Oh, yes!—we hit
The meaning of such letters.
You'll do the King's job—eh? That's it!
Come, Jean, put on his fetters!

A FAST KEEPER.

My friend, Tom Bentley, borrowed from me lately
A score of yellow shiners. Subsequently
I met the cove, and dunned him rather gently;
Immediately he stood extremely stately,
307

And swore, 'pon honour, that he wondered greatly.
We parted coolly. Well! (exclaimed I ment'lly)
I calculate this isn't acting straightly;
You're what slangwhangers call a scamp, Tom Bentley.
In sooth, I thought his impudence prodigious,
And so I told Jack Spratt a few days after;
But Jack burst into such a fit of laughter.
“Fact is,” said he, “poor Tom has turned religious.”
I stared, and asked him what he meant—
“Why, don't you see,” quoth Jack, “he keeps the Lent.”

A THOUGHT.

Though Laughter seems, it never is, the antithesis to Tears;
The gayest births of Circumstance or Fancy
But minister in masquerade to Sovereign Grief, who rears
Her temple by that moral necromancy
Which fuses down to one dark mass all passions of Life's years;
And, as from even adverse facts Vallancey
Proved us mere Irish to be Orientals,
Nature makes Grinning Schools turn men out Sentimentals.
308

THE WAYFARING TREE.

We
Old bachelor bards, having none to mind us,
Are seized at seasons with such a heart-aching
That, leaving home and its wants behind us,
We hie elsewhither, the spirit's car taking
Us east and west, and aloft and nether,
And thus I, also, both night and day faring
From Hartz to Hellas, pass weeks together
(In vision) under mine old Wayfaring
Tree,
My childhood's dearly belovèd Wayfaring
Tree!
Free
Of pinion then, like the lonely pewit,
I watch through Autumn its golden leaves dropping,
And list the sighs of the winds that woo it—
A somewhat silly but sinless eavesdropping!—
And sadly ponder those rosy dream-hours
When Boyhood's fancies went first a-May-Fairing.
Ah! we may smile, but the joys that seem ours
Soon leave us mourners beneath our Wayfaring
Tree,
Insolvent mourners beneath our Wayfaring
Tree!
Me
No Muse amuses or flatters longer,
No couplet cozens, no trashy trope bubbles,
Yet, though my judgment grows daily stronger,
I love this blowing of psychic soap-bubbles.
309

The soul tends always in one direction,
Its course is homeward: and, like a fay faring
Through airy space, even each deflection
But brings it nearer its destined Wayfaring
Tree.
Its way is short to its final Wayfaring
Tree.
See,
Oh, see to your ways then, my mad young masters,
Blind pleasure-chasers and headstrong high-fliers,
Nor tempt your fate for those dark disasters
Which make, alas! the best hopes of Life liars.
And you, ye grubbers of dirt and dollars,
Whose dungeoned hearts fear a fresh and safe airing,
Think how Experience plants all her scholars
Alone at last under Age's Wayfaring
Tree!
Alone at Night under Age's Wayfaring
Tree!

TO BAKKI.

O Bakki, Bakki! Necromancer! Sun and Soul of Poetry!
What bosom not of granite but is melted at thy song?
Even as the Storm with equal ease will waft a leaf or blow a tree
From North to South, thy spell can move the weak heart and the strong.
310

I know of nothing vast enough to liken thy bold verses to,
Except Iskander's mighty hosts, and those of Artaxerxes too,
Or some enormous river, spouting now colossal columns,
Now thundering over jaggèd rocks, now holding a calm course
Between two banks of golden sands (the margins of thy volumes),
But everywhere and ever the same Giant in its force.
O Bakki, Bakki! in my days of joy and juvenility,
Armed with my silver-bowled tchibook and all I had of thee,
My glory was to revel in the wonderful fertility
Of thy luxuriant genius underneath a citron-tree:
But now that years have conquered me, and sicknesses have shaken me,
And Fancy hath forsaken me, and Age hath overtaken me,
I find some stiffer harness indispensable for yoking
My spirit to the Plough of Life—in short I must resign
My silver bowls for china cups, my Poetry and Smoking,
My snaky pipes and bakki-leaves for fiery Madjar wine.

GENUINE ETHEREALITY.

[_]

(From the Ottoman.)

Mine eyes, of old the beamiest of the beamy,
Are now, alas! the filmiest of the filmy:
So meagre am I, too, no lath is like me;
Death, for my shadowy thinness, cannot see me,
And when he enters my sad cell to kill me,
His lance will not know how or when to strike me!
311

THE DYING FATHER.

[_]

(From the German.)

A father had two children, Will and Christy—
The last a bright young lad, the first a dull humdrum.
One day, perceiving that his hour was come,
Stretched on the bed of death he glanced with misty
Eye around the room in search of Christy—
“My son,” he said, “sad thoughts begin to darken
My mind. You are a genius. What a task it
Will be for you to face the world! But hearken!
Inside my desk there lies a little casket
Of jewels. Take them all, my son,
And lock them up, and give your brother none.”
The youth was wonder-struck. He thought this droll,
And looking in his father's face, he said—
“But, bless me, father! if I take the whole,
What is poor Will to do? I greatly dread—”
“Dread nothing, Christy,” interrupted t'other;
“There's not the slightest ground for this timidity;
I'll warrant you your booby of a brother
Will make his way through life by sheer stupidity!”

WHERE'S MY MONEY?

[_]

(Franz Gaudy.)

Ay! where's my money? That's a puzzling query.
It vanishes. Yet neither in my purse
Nor pocket are there any holes. 'Tis very
Incomprehensible. I don't disburse
312

For superfluities. I wear plain clothes.
I seldom buy jam tarts, preserves, or honey;
And no one overlooks what debts he owes
More steadily than I. Where is my money?
I never tipple. Folks don't see me staggering,
Sans cane and castor, in the public street.
I sport no ornaments—not even a bague (ring).
I have a notion that my own two feet
Are much superior to a horse's four,
So never call a jarvey. It is funny.
The longer I investigate, the more
Astoundedly I ask, Where is my money?
My money, mind you! Other people's dollars
Cohere together nobly. Only mine
Cut one another. There's that pink of scholars
Von Doppeldronk, he spends as much on wine
As I on—every thing. Yet he seems rich,
He laughs, and waxes plumper than a bunny,
While I grow slim as a divining-switch,
And search for gold as vainly. Where's my money?
I can't complain that editors don't pay me;
I get for every sheet One Pound Sixteen;
And well I may! My articles are flamy
Enough to blow up any Magazine.
What's queerest in the affair though is, that at
The same time I miss nothing but the one. He
That watches me will find I don't lose hat,
Gloves, fogle, stick, or cloak. 'Tis always money!
Were I a rake I'd say so. Where one roysters
Beyond the rules, of course his cash must go.
'Tis true I regularly sup on oysters,
Cheese, brandy, and all that. But even so?
313

What signifies a ducat of a night?
“The barmaids,” you may fancy. No. The sunny
Loadstar that draws my tin is not the light
From their eyes anyhow. Where then's my money?
However, àpropos of eyes and maidens,
I own I do make presents to the Sex—
Books, watches, trinkets, music, too (not Haydn's),
Combs, shawls, veils, bonnets—things that might perplex
A man to count. But still I gain by what
I lose in this way. 'Tis experience won—eh?
I think so. My acquaintances think not.
No matter. I grow tedious. Where's my money?

THE METEMPSYCHOSIS.

[_]

(Castelli.)

I've studied sundry treatises by spectacled old sages
Anent the capabilities and nature of the soul, and
Its vagabond propensities from even the earliest ages,
As harped on by Spinosa, Plato, Leibnitz, Chubb and Toland;
But of all systems I've yet met, or p'rhaps shall ever meet with,
Not one can hold a candle to (videlicet, compete with)
The theory of theories Pythagoras proposes,
And called by that profound old snudge (in Greek) Metempsychosis.
314

It seems to me a pos'tive truth, admitting of no modi-
Fication, that the human soul, accustomed to a lodging
Inside a carnal tenement, must, when it quits one body,
Instead of sailing to and fro, and profitlessly dodging
About from post to pillar without either pause or purpose,
Seek out a habitation in some other cozy corpus,
And when, by luck, it pops on one with which its habits match, box
Itself therein instanter, like a sentry in a watch-box.
This may be snapped at, sneered at, sneezed at. Deuce may care for cavils.
Reason is reason. Credit me, I've met at least one myriad
Of instances to prop me up. I've seen (upon my travels)
Foxes who had been lawyers at (no doubt) some former period.
Innumerable apes, who, though they'd lost their patronymics,
I recognised immediately as mountebanks and mimics,
And asses, calves, etcet'ra, whose rough bodies gave asylum
To certain souls, the property of learn'd professors whilome.
To go on with my catalogue: what will you bet I've seen a
Goose, that was reckoned in her day a pretty-faced young woman?
315

But more than that, I knew at once a bloody-lipped hyena
To've been a Russian Marshal, or an ancient Emperor (Roman)
All snakes and vipers, toads and reptiles, crocodiles and crawlers
I set down as court sycophants or hypocritic bawlers,
And there I may've been right or wrong—but nothing can be truer
Than this, that in a scorpion I beheld a vile reviewer.
So far we've had no stumbling-block. But now a puzzling question
Arises: all the afore-named souls were souls of stunted stature,
Contemptible or cubbish—but Pythag. has no suggestion
Concerning whither transmigrate souls noble in their nature,
As Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Schiller—these now, for example,
What temple can be found for such appropriately ample?
Where lodge they now? Not, certes, in our present ninnyhammers,
Who mumble rhymes that seem to've been concocted by their Gammers.
Well, then, you see, it comes to this—and after huge reflection
Here's what I say: A soul that gains, by many transmigrations,
The summit, apex, pinnacle, or acmé of perfection,
There ends, concludes and terminates its earthly per'grinations.
Then, like an air-balloon, it mounts through high Olympus' portals,
316

And cuts its old connections with Mortality and mortals;
And evidence to back me here I don't know any stronger
Than that the truly Great and Good are found on Earth no longer.

THE KING OF THE FRANKS.

All night and day lie the gates unbarred,
The King of the Franks gives a dinner and ball;
The henchmen and vassals bask in the yard,
The knights and the nobles dine in the hall.
The lamps shed a light
Indescribably bright
From the arabesque roof to the floor of the palace,
And, to-and-fro wending, go menials, attending
The gobblers and bibbers with platter and chalice.
Gay dancing follows the dinner and wine—
His Majesty's daughter, an awful beauty,
Has waltzed with a Duke from the banks of the Rhine,
And she leans on the arm he proffers in duty.
So courtly is she,
So portly is he,
That they gaze on each other astounded together,
And now the Grand Duke leads the lass to a nook
Where they talk in low tones on the broiling hot weather.
Sir Hildebrand foots it with maid and dame,
Now this, now that, as a partner he takes;
And all who inspect him, charmed, exclaim—
“The darling! Such nice pirouettes as he makes!”
317

Said the King, “By the powers
But this long Pole of ours
Takes the rag off the bush as the pink of a Ritter!”
But the Nymph of the Nook never deigns him a look
And praise from all others is barren or bitter.
At last she sails out, and he begs the favour
Of whirling in turn with the fairest of all;
'Tis granted, and he and his dear enslaver
Exhibit their paces and shapes through the hall.
So grand and so soft
Mounts the music aloft
That anon the brain of Sir Hildebrand reels,
And he dares to begin a confession to Minna,
In catalogue form, of the pangs that he feels.
But woe is my soul for your triste young lispers
Of love into ears that disdain to listen!
Despite of his glances, his groaning whispers,
His eyes that half tearfully wink and glisten,
And gesture emphatic,
Her looks grow erratic
And turn from her suitor with ill-suppressed loathing
To where the Grand Duke, boxed up in his nook,
Sits plunged in profound meditation on nothing.
That one brief glance, full of love for another,
Sped daggers and death to the heart of the Pole;
In vain his philosophy strove to smother
The serpents that jealousy bred in his soul;
As backward he staggered,
With countenance haggard,
And feelings as acid as beer after thunder,
'Twas plain that the dart that had entered his heart
Was rending his physical system asunder.
318

THE DEVIL AND THE WIND.

(From the Rheinsagen.)

A LEGEND.

I

Before the Jesuits' House at Bonn the Wind pipes high and shrill,
It pipes all day, it wails all night—'tis never, never still:
It shrieketh like a woman who hath not—or hath—her will.

II

And why thus pipes, and why thus wails it, wails it night and day?
The cause is told in many an old and wizard monkish lay.
For ancient is that holy House, now falling to decay.

III

The Devil, sadly tired of Hell, went once a-pleasuring forth,
And with him went his chosen chum, the wild Wind of the North—
When thus he spake—I give ye his words for what ye deem them worth:

IV

“Good friend and faithful crony mine!—you mark that high House yon—
That is the Jesuits' Cloister-house, the far-famed House of Bonn;
And well and dearly love I, Wind, its dwellers every one!
319

V

“So, you, my trump, just tarry here before the gate a space,
Just wait while I step in a bit, and glance about the place;
I want to see the Father Prior anent a conscience-case.”

VI

“Ha!” laughed the Wind, “that must be a Case of real Distress, no doubt!
However, you yourself know best—so, in with you, old Trout!
I'm safe to wait and whistle here until you again come out.”

VII

So said, so done: the Wind began its whistling there and then,
And in the Arch-Deceiver stole, to tempt the holy men—
Filled with all wiles and subtleties was he that hour, ye ken!

VIII

“Hail, pious friends!” quoth he—“I've got a conscience-case to moot.
Pray, can I see your Prior's face?”—“Ay! and much more to boot,”
A monk replied, “if he, in turn, may only see thy foot.

IX

“Avaunt, foul fiend! I know thee well! I guess thy crafty plot!
Begone!—But no!—thou shalt not hence: I chain thee to this spot!
Here shalt thou, till this House be dust, dree thine avenging lot!”
320

X

The monk then chained Old Clootie down, despite his yells and cries,
And from that day—the Bonnsmen say—in thraldom thus he lies,
Because, from dread of direr dole, he dares not try to rise.

XI

Meanwhile the Wind still waits without, and pipes in woful strain—
It whistles now—it howls anon—it storms, but all in vain.
Three hundred years have rolled, but Satan comes not forth again!

XII

And Time and Hell go on to swell the victories both have won,
And many a generation since of monks has come and gone,
But still before that Cloister wails the wonder-wind of Bonn!

PATHETIC HYPATHETICS.

[_]

(Schubart.)

Were Hope all my eye,
'Tis a fact I should die—
Her light is much brighter than ten tallow candles;
When crotchets and cares are consuming
Some fanciful spooney, she takes him
Where cowslips and daisies are blooming,
And never entirely forsakes him,
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Till Death lays him down in the box without handles.
Handles, handles,
The box without handles,
Till Death lays him down in the box without handles.
Were Friendship a hum
I could weep o'er my rum,
For I hate to be mixing companionless tumblers,
Even mules, quoth Buffon, are gregarious,
And cats when they turn caterwaulers;
Et moi, I like various contrarious
Assemblies—both punch-drinking bawlers
And sighers of sighs—both your grinners and grumblers.
Grumblers, grumblers,
Your grinners and grumblers,
I have grins for your grinners and growls for your grumblers.
Were Love all a hoax,
So that no one could coax
A rich widow to wed, what could well be forlorner?
To be wheedling some innocent charmer,
Who reckons her thousands by thirties,
And hasn't the heart to wear armour
Against Cupid's arrows is, certes,
Far better than moping alone in a corner.
Corner, corner,
Alone in a corner,
More pleasant than kicking your heels in a corner!
Were Music a bam
I might chatter and cram,
But a seal would be clapped on my Fountains of Feeling.
Oh! nothing melts bosoms at all like
The exquisite tones of a fiddle!
I hop round the room at a ball, like
A hen on a scorching hot griddle!
322

Good lack! I could bound from the floor to the ceiling.
Ceiling, ceiling,
The floor to the ceiling,
Next night, faith, I'll bob my big head through the ceiling.
Were Wine all a quiz,
I should wear a long phiz
As I mounted each night to my ninth-story garret.
Though Friendship, the traitress, deceives me,
Though Hope may have long ceased to flatter,
Though Music, sweet infidel, leaves me,
Though Love is my torment, what matter!
I've still such a thing as a rummer of claret.
Claret, claret,
A rummer of claret,
I laugh and grow fat on my rummer of claret.

A COUPLET.

My heart is a monk, and thy bosom its cloister—
So sleeps the bright pearl in the shell of the oyster!

HAROUN AL-RASHID AND THE DUST.

[_]

(From the Ottoman.)

I am but dust, said Hassan, as he bowed
His face to earth abashéd;
And in my Khalif's glance I flourish or I wither!
Since you are only dust, replied aloud
The great Haroun Al-Rashid,
Be good enough to say what wind has blown you hither!
323

LOVE AND MADNESS.

[_]

(From the Ottoman.)

Il babeeb! thy heart's a rock;
I must put my helm a-lee,
Or my bark will soon be wrecked, if
Love refuse to stay the shock.
Ah, relent! for thee and me
Life's but a brief perspective!
Think how soon on Death's dark shore
She who plagues and they who pine,
Both Despoiler and Despoiled meet!
Why must Medjnims evermore
Drink their tears as wormwood wine,
And devour their hearts as broiled meat?
Thy fair face, whose light might guide
Ships by night, is as a book
Which Love's hand has writ at large in;
And thy locks on either side,
In their ink-black lustre look
Like the glosses down its margin!
Such a face, with such a heart!—
Oh, 'tis ghastly! We men may
Mourn our nature when we scan it;
But let none take woman's part!
Man at most is made of clay—
Woman seems a block of granite!
All day long I sulk and sculk
To and fro till night, and then
Slumber flies mine eye and eyelid.
324

I must hire some cobbler's bulk,
Watchman's box, or jackal's den,
Where I may remain a while hid!
I, once plump as Shiraz grape,
Am, like Thalbh of thin renown,
Grown most chasmy, most phantasmy,
Yea, most razor-sharp in shape!—
Fact! And if I'm—blown through town,
I'll—cut all the sumphs who pass me!
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