 | Pleasant Odes |  |
11
To Her Majesty the Queen.
I.
Madam,—
My acquaintance among Queens is limited:
I am fairly familiar
With the late Laureate's
Queen o' the May, mother;
Also, I have heard
Of the Queen of Sheba,
And Queen Elizabeth,
And Queen Anne,
And Queen cakes:
But these are about all,
Unless,
For the sake of furnishing forth
Another sparkling line
Or two,
We mention
The Queen of hearts,
And the Queen
Of watering-places.
12
II.
Nevertheless,Having been born in your Majesty's most excellent reign,
Having been brought up in it,
Having been married in it,
Having spent a lot of money in it,
Having done my best to render it a little more famous than I found it,
And having, at sundry times and on divers occasions, nearly died in consequence,
I feel that I may be excused
If I indulge in an outburst
Of unpremeditated, metrical loyalty.
All the other poets have had a turn:
Why not the present deponent?
13
III.
Do not be alarmed,O my liege Lady!
I am not going to attempt
Uncouth rhymes for “Victoria,”
I am not going to bid you “hail”
In seventeen badly-constructed stanzas,
Neither do I propose to dilate
Upon your exceptional qualities of heart and mind,
Nor upon the exceedingly able manner in which you have wielded the sceptre
During the past sixty-three years.
14
IV.
Mine, Madam, is loyalty,The loyalty of the common subject;
It runs neither to protestation nor to slobber;
It bares its head when the Queen goes by;
It bares its head when the band plays a certain tune;
It stands up at dinners,
In Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australasia,
And says, “The Queen!” and lifts its glass;
It stands up in less festive circumstances
And says nothing, and takes whatever gruel may be stirring;
It expands its breast for a ball,
Like the tenor in the opera;
And though they keep on shooting it down
For two hundred and odd consecutive days,
It is still there, and as ardent as ever:
In fine, Madam, it is the loyalty
Of the Briton.
15
V.
It occurs to meThat, after perusing this ode,
You will probably command me
Into your august presence
(Monday is my slack day).
Were such a thing to happen,
I should come, as in duty bound,
Make my very best bow,
And offer you my sincerest apologies.
And if you were graciously to ask me
What you could do for me,
I should respectfully request
To be sent back
To the place from whence I came.
19
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
I.
My dear Sir H. C.-B.,—
When I behold you
Trailing clouds of glory
And fumbling for the next sentence,
Or reading epigrams off a piece of paper,
Or keeping up the Front-bench tradition
With the assistance of a little Latin,
Th' unbidden tear
Shines softly in both mine eyes—
It does, really!
20
II.
To be a leader of menIs (as you will admit, my dear Sir Henry)
To be more or less great:
On the other hand,
To be the leader of a party,
Especially when there is no particular party to lead,
Is (as you will admit, my dear Sir Henry)
To be more or less distinguished—
It is, really!
21
III.
But speaking for myself,If I were leading a party
(Even if it were only an excursion party),
And it contained so many inharmonious elements
As does your party,
I'm hanged if I would lead it—
I am, really!
22
IV.
That you should persist,That you should sit assiduously in your place,
Patient, pathetic, uncomplaining,
What time your nearest and dearest friends and supporters
Give your position away to a winking Ministry,
Speaks volumes for your sense of duty,
Your sense of patriotism,
Your sense of the sacrifices demanded from a successor of Gladstone, Palmerston, Peel, and the rest,
Your extraordinary capacity for balancing yourself on the boniest of fences:
(And your fence is a bony one, if ever a fence was bony—
It is, really!)
23
V.
O, my dear Sir Henry,Nobody has greater respect for you than I have,
Nobody sympathises with you more than I do,
Nobody wishes you better wishes!
Will you be advised?
Will you let me counsel you?—
I will do it free of charge;
And if you ever get a set of hints finer than the following,
I should be much obliged if you would communicate with me—
I should, really!
24
VI.
Here you are:Hint No. 1. Come off that fence!
Hint No. 2. If the party don't like it, never mind!
Hint No. 3. — . . .
On second thoughts, you had better send me the usual penny stamp, on receipt of which, I will forward you the balance of my superior hints by parcel post,
I will, really!
27
Lord Roberts.
29
I.
My dear Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of
Kandahar and Waterford, V.C.,—
“There's a little red-faced man,
Which is Bobs,
Rides the tallest horse—” eh?
Well, I won't if you had rather I wouldn't:
As a matter of fact, I forget the rest,
And I can quite understand
That Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs,
Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs,
Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs, Bobs all the time as it were
Does become a bit trying;
I also agree with you in the view
That Kipling is a confounded—
But then, he is a poet,
And so am I,
So that we mustn't be too hard on him.
30
II.
Besides being a poet, my dear Field-Marshal,I am a judge of most things,
From cheap cigars to shorthorns,
From pretty faces to gunpowder tea,
And from infants' socks to generals,
And on the whole, sir,
I am inclined to think
That there is a certain amount of truth in the oft-repeated statement
That you
Are
A general.
31
III.
Of course we have others—To be precise, one other—
His name is Kitchener.
Of him you know as much
As I do:
He appears to be a sort of contractor
Who does things to time;
And as I never do things to time myself,
I feel—if I may say so, dear Field-Marshal—
That I like you
More'n I like him.
32
IV.
HowsomeverIt is not my intention,
On this occasion,
To draw invidious comparisons:
My immediate business
Is with you,
And, by your kind leave,
I will endeavour to get through with it
Right away.
33
V.
There can be no doubtThat this South African row
Is giving you an amount of pull in military affairs,
Such as has not been enjoyed
By any fighting person
Since Wellington.
The great British public
Looks towards you
Confidently;
It is you upon whom it depends
For the prosecution
Of the war to a successful issue
(Or words to that effect).
Not only so,
But—unless I am hugely mistaken—
It is on you
That the great British public
Will ultimately have to depend
For the cleaning out
Of certain of our army stables.
34
VI.
On this workYou will probably be employed
In the near future:
That is to say,
As soon as you have settled with Uncle Paul:
Kitchener, of course, will help you,
And I am writing to express the hope
That, between you,
You will do the job
Once and for all,
And with absolute
Thoroughness.
35
VII.
Don't forget what I have said.36
VIII.
Good-bye and good-luck!39
Mr. Timothy M. Healy.
41
I.
My dear Timothy,—
To you, greeting!
Behold, I approach you with an ode!
Odes are not always the choicest of reading, acushla,
But I can guarantee this one,
Because 'tis myself that wrote it.
42
II.
Dear Timothy,What a man you are to be sure!
That hawk's eye,
That irate nostril,
That implacable sneering lip,
Those sarcastic teeth,
That hiss,
That look of tired bitterness!—
Who, becoming acquainted with these things, could forget them?
Who, understanding them, will not be moved?
(Sing, Muse, sing! if ever you sang in your life!)
The words in parentheses, Mr. Healy,
Are not addressed to yourself, but to my Muse,
Who, I am sorry to say,
Has to be continually prodded
To prevent her from stopping.
43
III.
I sometimes think, O Timothy,That Erin must love you better than she loves, anybody else in the House of Commons,
Unless, mayhap, it be the Balfours;
For you have loved Erin
With a love passing the love of woman,
And you have hated—
Jove, how you have hated!
I will back you to hate
Against any man who fancies himself in the hating way
On this sublunary planet:
You hate, indeed, almost as hard as a woman.
(Sing up, Muse, for Heaven's sake!)
44
IV.
Singularly enough, O Timothy Michael mine,I have little to say to you:
I might as well talk to the Hyrcanian lion,
Or the crocodile of the Nile,
Or a mad dog,
Or Paulus Kruger, Rex. . . .
There you are, with your love and your hate—
More power to both of 'em, say I;
May your shadow never grow less,
And may you live to a green and contentious old age!
45
V.
All of which goes to show, Mr. Healy,That I am in the mood of the man who met with Napper Tandy
And took him by the hand,
Thereby setting a beautiful example
For all Irish statesmen,
Not to mention some English ones:
For is it not kinder, pleasanter,
And in every way more satisfactory
To take a person by the hand
Than by the throat?
I trow that it is, Timothy,
And you trow, too, Timothy,
In fact, we both trow, so to speak.
(O, jade Muse, why this stumbling?)
46
VI.
In conclusion, Mr. Healy,The Lady of whom we wot
Has still a smile on her lip and a tear in her eye:
Be it yours to consolidate that smile
And to wipe away as much of that tear as possible:
The nasty things you say at times
Don't appear, to me, to help much;
But—well, every man to his trade, you know!
(Muse, old girl, we are through!)
49
Sir Redvers Buller.
51
I.
My dear General Sir Redvers Henry
Buller, P.C., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., V.C.,—
When you see these touching lines
You will probably ejaculate:
“Et Tu(gela), Brute!”
Yet be not perturbed,
For there is precious little Brutus about me:
In other words, I am neither an orator nor an assassin,
But merely a poet
Of 4.7 calibre,
Like our mutual friend
Mr. Gosse.
52
II.
Oftentimes during the present war, dear General,Have I thought that there must be a sort of affinity between your destiny and my destiny,
And this chiefly because
Retirement has always been a salient feature of my career.
Before I made myself master of Fleet Street
I was something in Surrey:
To establish myself on the hither side of the Thames
(Where most of the truly great newspapers are published)
Became a passion with me:
I tried all the drifts,
Including Blackfriars, Waterloo, Hungerford, and Westminster,
And every time (save the last time)
I found myself compelled to fall back upon my base,
Which I did in good order
And without the loss of a pound of stores.
Your last time of crossing the Tugela, dear General,
Came in due time,
Even as came my last time of crossing the Thames.
53
III.
And as for kopjes,You are more or less done with them:
Albeit, there is no kopje in all South Africa
Which is more acclivitous or fearfully fortified
Than a kopje known to myself and our mutual friend Mr. Gosse
As Parnassus;
Mr. Gosse and I
Have been storming Parnassus
Quite ten years—
And we are only half-way up, even now.
54
IV.
Well, my dear General,Drake, he was a Devon man,
And so are you:
I feel that I ought to have been a Devon man, too,
And then there would have been three of us.
As it is, let me tell you frankly
That I have ever had faith in you;
I believed all along that you would relieve Lady-smith
In a thoroughly neat, able, and satisfactory manner;
I believed you had keys enough to fit any amount of locks,
And I believed you would put the right key into the right lock sooner or later:
Love laughs at locksmiths,
So in the end did Buller—
Whereupon we made a new proverb,
To wit:—
Buller laughs at Ladysmiths—
Which was, I frankly admit, rather clumsy of us.
55
V.
And nowAll that remains to be done
Is to create a new lord:
“Lord Buller who banged 'em”
Would sound very pretty,
Wouldn't it, now?
Ah, my dear General,
Al sal recht komen;
Be of good heart!
57
Mr. Arthur James Balfour.
59
I.
Dear Mr. Arthur James Balfour,
I have been thinking about you;
And, between ourselves,
I begin to incline to the opinion
That you are
Rather
A notable
Person.
60
II.
Golf, people tell me,Is a great game:
When I ask them why,
They say: “Well—er—well—
You see—
Mr. Balfour
Plays it.”
And then I say:
“Mr. Balfour, of course,
Is not the only sensible man
Who plays golf?”
And they say:
“Oh, no.”
61
III.
Now, Sir,Mr. Pinero
Has lately demonstrated
That a little logic goes a long way,
And I, for one,
Am prepared to argue
That if golf be a great game
Because Mr. Balfour plays it,
Politics must also be a great game
For precisely the same reason:
Do you take me, Sir?
Or
Do you not?
62
IV.
FortunatelyI have never myself
Observed you
In the act
And process
Of playing golf.
I was once at North Berwick
When you were doing it,
But I declined to go and watch you,
Because I felt
That the spectacle
Of a Minister of the Crown
And a philosopher
Knocking a little ball about
With the end of a stick
Would not materially
Edify me.
63
V.
On the other hand,The pleasure of beholding you
In the House of Commons
Has been mine
Many a time
And oft.
In that chamber
Of oratorical horrors, Sir,
You are, in a manner of speaking,
One of the few objects
Worth beholding
And worth considering:
You satisfy the eye
With gracility
(Gracility is one better than Rossetti's “gracile”)
And a talent for sitting on your shoulder-blades;
You satisfy the ear
With an unobtrusive
And slightly careless eloquence;
You satisfy what nowadays passes for the intellect,
With a sort of affable reasonableness;
And you satisfy what may be termed the Parliamentary sense
Because you play “the game” skilfully and like a sportsman.
64
VI.
Sir, I have a high opinion of you.65
VII.
I used to be a Radical.66
VIII.
I am a Radical still:But if Arthur James Balfour
Ever put up for the constituency in which I have the honour to reside,
I should vote for Arthur James Balfour,
And subscribe towards the Liberal or Radical candidate's election expenses.
67
IX.
Also,I am delighted to see you
In the House
O' nights,
And to note
That you are looking
Well and fit;
And as your wellness and fitness
Are no doubt due
To your golf-playing,
I forgive you
Your predilection
In that direction
(Who says I can't rhyme?).
68
X.
And now, my dear Mr. Balfour,In the parlance of the game that you love,
We have “holed the round.”
71
Mr. Rudyard Kipling.
73
I.
O Mr. Kipling,
Mr. Rudyard Kipling,
Dear Mr. Kipling,
Hearken ere I die.
For now the midday bustle
Holds the street:
The 'bus horse jibs
The hansoms jingle past;
The p'liceman,
With his shadow on the stone,
Stands like a shadow
Telling folks the time;
And there are many printers
Out for
Lunch.
74
II.
O Mr. Kipling,Mr. Rudyard Kipling,
Dear Mr. Kipling,
Hearken ere I die.
Framed in a magic casement
I can see
A certain public-house;
Before it now
('Tis so, as I live!)
A Roman matron turns
The handle
Of a patent
Pianette—
Which instrument,
Set on a decent car
And fenced with felt
To keep the weather off,
Looks very nice
And very trim
Indeed.
75
III.
O Mr. Kipling,Mr. Rudyard Kipling,
Dear Mr. Kipling,
Hearken ere I die.
What air is that
The Roman woman flings
Out of her instrument
Into that public-house
Over and over again,
As if she liked it?
Ah, bad man, you know—
You do you know—
You know you know you do—
It is the air Sir Arthur Sullivan made
To fit those lovely verses
About—ssh!
We are observed!
'Twere better not said out.
So let us say
Those verses that you writ
On—well—
I mean
The £90,000 worth.
76
IV.
O Kipling, hear me yet before I die,Hear me, R. K.,
Hear me, for I will speak
And fill five pages if I burst for it.
What have you done?
What have you brought on us?
What yawp is this, of cooks and dukes and belted earls, that several happy months agone
Came wailing up
From reedy
Rottingdean?
And now is chained to all the pianettes,
And all the bands,
And all the musical
Evenings at home?
77
V.
O Kipling, hear me yet before I die,Hear me, R. K.,
And do not laugh at me;
I will arise and go
Unto my house,
And, ere the stars come out,
Talk with my wild young Missus; for she says
She never heard of Kipling,
And is not
Ashamed of the fact.
Whether this be true
I know not,
But I know
That wheresoe'er I am,
By night and day,
I'm pretty tired
Of Kipling.
79
Dr. Leyds.
81
I.
Sir,—
That is to say, your Excellency,—
Of what are you a doctor? and why are you excellent?
Really, truly, candidly, and without prejudice,
And to provide a plain answer to a pair of plain questions,
I do not know.
82
II.
On referring, however,To that Valhalla of undeparted greatness,
Who's Who,
I find you set forth pretty much as follows:—
83
III.
Leyds, Willem Johannes,Minister Plenipotentiary
Of the South African Republic
Since 1898:
Born at Magelang, Java, 1859,
Educated at Amsterdam University,
Doctor of Law (cum laude)
(Thanks, very much!)
Attorney-General, South African Republic, 1884,
Elected State Secretary, 1888,
Justice of the Peace for the whole Republic, 1889,
(Just fancy!),
Re-elected State Secretary, 1893 and 1897;
Has written a book
Called
De rechtsgrond der schadevergoeding voor preventieve hechtenis
(I beg that the printers will excuse me for quoting that title in full);
Is the possessor of sundry recreations,
Such, for example,
As gymnastics, music, and art
(Which hurt nobody).
84
IV.
The Editor of Who's Who,Who no doubt understands all about poets,
Will, I am sure, pardon my attempt
To infuse a little Attic grace
Into his bald statement of facts;
And, that being taken for granted,
I will proceed.
85
V.
Dr. Leyds,I am not going to abuse you,
I am not going to throw mud at you,
I am not even going to trouble you with words of wisdom,
I (these capital I's are getting rather thick!)
I merely wish to point out,
I merely wish to assure you
(I think it desirable to assure you)
That, on the whole, you are a thorough Javanese gentleman,
And that one way and another—
One way and another, mark me—
You have been the saviour of the South African Republics.
86
VI.
For contact with you—Affording as it has done
Opportunity for sizing you up,
Opportunity for observing the integrity and straightforwardness of your methods—
Appears to have convinced the diplomacy of Europe
(Which Heaven bless!)
That the South African Republics—
Or at any rate the Governments thereof—
Are not by any means so white, so innocent, and so lamblike
As the genial Anglophobe would have us believe.
87
VII.
So that the diplomacy of Europe(Which Heaven bless, once more!)
Finds that it can fight shy of intervention
Without serious inconvenience to its conscience,
And this, if I may say so,
Is really charming of it.
88
VIII.
Go on, my dear Dr. Leyds,Keep on going on, as it were:
I love you,
I love you better than I love my brother
(I haven't got a brother,
But never mind!)—
89
IX.
If you would kindly visit the United StatesAnd play your excellent, plenipotential, extraordinary Javanese game there,
I should feel tremendously obliged,
And you would be doing a distinct service
To the Anglo-American Alliance
(If there be such a thing).
91
Sir Edward Grey.
93
I.
My dear Sir Edward,—
The copy-books beautifully remark:
“'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good,”
And I think Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's cold,
Which we all deplored,
Has, on the whole,
Been rather a good thing for you.
94
II.
“Chance,” say the wise,“Is a fine horse;”
Some men can ride her,
Some men can't:
You, Sir Edward,
Are evidently an equestrian;
Your seat in the saddle
At Nottingham
Some months back
Excited the admiration
Of all beholders,
Including the Daily News
And Dr. Spence Watson—
“Nay, do not blush, pretty one!”
95
III.
That last line, by the way—A really striking line, don't you think?—
May be original,
Or it may be “lifted”:
I have a sort of recollection
Of having seen it in print before,
Hence its appearance between quotation marks:
I am poor, but honest.
96
IV.
To return, however, to the matter in hand:On the strength of your Nottingham speech
The Daily News proclaimed you to be a youth of rare “character”
(How kind, eh?),
And Dr. Spence Watson
Set you down in his tablets
For “a brave, true, and honest man”—
Pretty one, I adjure you, once again, not to blush!
97
V.
In fine,The Daily News
And Dr. Spence Watson
Discovered you—
Thanks, of course, to Sir H. C.-B.s cold!
98
VI.
For my own part,I knew you for a piece of budding greatness
(It hurts me to keep you on the blush,
But duty must be done)—
I knew you for a piece of budding greatness, I say,
The very first time I clapped eyes on you,
And that was neither yesterday nor last week.
Ever since, I have kept saying to myself:
“I wonder when he will blossom?
When will people find out what a wonderfully sane little statesman it is?
When will the flo'ing tide take him to its broad bosom
And cast him triumphantly, and with one fell cast,
Right onto the golden sands of popularity?”
99
VII.
And at length the thing came to pass!A band, hired by the National Liberal Federation,
Played “See the Conquering Hero Comes” in front of you
(Believe me, there is absolutely no reason to blush);
There were rejoicings, and cheerings, and scenes of wild enthusiasm,
And whereas of old you sat cheek by jowl with the ruck,
To-day you are as “up” as Delagoa Bay stock—
Thanks to your own merit—
And the cold
Of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.
100
VIII.
I am of opinion, Sir Edward,That you are going to do considerable things for the Liberal party;
You have given it hope and inspiration already;
Give it more:
It needs it.
Continue in the good path,
Nail your colours to the mast,
Go in bald-headed and for all you are worth,
And, perhaps—
One can never tell, you know—
The Liberal party may succeed in extracting
A backbone
Out of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's
Cold.
103
Mr. W. B. Yeats.
105
I.
To “some of us”The Celtic Muse
Is a real and portentous personage:
She hath a palace of her own
Wherein abide
The loveliest of her sons
And daughters.
106
II.
The basement of that palaceIs, no doubt, occupied
By Mr. Dooley;
On the ground floor,
With his finger on the pulse of poesy
(Vide Sunday papers),
Sits Mr. W. P. Ryan;
Upstairs are Mrs. Shorter—
Chieftainess of the ballad department—
And Miss Fiona Macleod,
Who sets the fashion in pseudonymous oracularity,
And is said to be
The most beautiful woman
Mr. George Meredith
Ever saw.
107
III.
The remote attics(I am still dealing with the palace)
Have become the possession
Of “A. E.,”
Seer and philosopher.
Still higher up,
On the glittering roof in fact,
Dreams Mr. Yeats,
Hidden in the light of song,
And bawsking in the sweetest smiles
Of
The
Celtic
Muse.
108
IV.
Such, at any rate,Would seem to be the view
Of “some of us.”
109
V.
And on the whole, perhaps,“Some of us”
Are more or less right:
In any case,
I am prepared
To concede the palace,
I am prepared to concede Mr. Dooley his basement,
Mr. Ryan his ground floor,
Mrs. Shorter and Miss Macleod their upper floor,
“A. E.” his attics,
And Mr. Yeats his roof.
But, when it comes
To
The
Celtic
Muse,
I sneeze:
There is no such person—
That is to say,
The Muse of Mr. Yeats and his following
Is not Celtic at all,
But merely the late William Blake
Done up
In green petticoats,—
And William Blake
Was
A Cockney.
110
VII.
I have not the smallest desireTo discount
Your great gifts, Mr. Yeats;
I hold
That you have given us
A considerable body
Of decent poetry,
And I forgive you
Many things in consequence.
111
VIII.
At the same time,Until you expunge “Celtic”
From among the epithets
Of your Muse,
Some of us
Will never feel ourselves
Really able
To swallow you.
113
President Kruger.
[March 2nd, 1900.]
115
I.
Dear Mr. Kruger,—
You would not hearken to my counsel,
You turned a deaf ear to my epistles,
You continued in the path of frowardness,
You were fain to stagger humanity,
And, on the whole, you have got yourself into a pretty mess.
116
II.
Deem not that I chide, dear Paul,Deem not that I consider the war to be over,
Least of all deem that I desire to twit you with my country's victories;
For, when everything is said,
My country's victories
Are extremely recent,
And they have been purchased
Very, very dearly;
Wherefore I am not on the twit.
117
III.
Far from it, my dear President,Far from it, far from it!
(Oh, how I love a fine phrase!)
I am writing to you now, as heretofore,
In a pure spirit of friendliness:
Were it not so,
I should be inditing odes to “Bobs” and “Buller” and “Britannia Triumphans,”
Which are really popular subjects just now.
As it is, I lay my numbers
At the feet of one who is neither a subject nor popular,
Who is practically played out,
Whose stoep no longer counts among the seats of the mighty,
And from whom I am not fool enough to expect either fee or thanks.
118
IV.
It is now, my dear Kruger,Two o'clock in the morning:
The patriot homeward plods his weary way,
Flown with Ladysmith and free beer,
For eight solid hours hath he marched and countermarched,
And cheered and yelled, and indulged in harmony, and thrown up his hat, and waved the red, white and blue
Unremittingly,
And to the material interruption
Of my poetical labours.
119
V.
Nathless,I like that patriot.
If you could see him as I have seen him, dear President,
You would most assuredly say with the psalmist:
“It is time for me to bend my back and bow my head;
Most assuredly, I will try a little unconditional surrender.”
You would call home your varlets from the Courts of Europe,
You would cut off Leyds with £100 a year,
And cease to recline in the broad bosoms
Of Messrs. Courtney, Bryn Roberts, Clark, Stead and Company,
You would apply for the Chiltern Hundreds, so to speak,
And get away to German Damaraland, or Russian Pongoland, or Araby the blest, or wherever it is you propose to seek refuge,
Forthwith.
120
VI.
I tell you, that patriot means business;You have really roused him.
He has found out that certain things require to be done;
He is going to have them done.
In the words of the Zingari maiden of the fictionists,
“Be-ware!!!”
123
Mr. W. W. Astor.
125
I.
O, thou art fairerThan the evening air
Clad in the beauty
Of a thousand stars!
Which, if I remember rightly,
Is Kit Marlow.
Also, shake!
Which is Bret Harte,
Or any other respectable American author
You care to examine.
126
II.
Do you know,I think there is nothing in nature
So really and interestingly beautiful
As a person possessed of unlimited means—
A person who reckons up his money with a shovel, as it were,
Who is all chips and cheque-book,
Who is smiled upon fatly at banks,
And whose Income regards his Expenditure
With pity, scorn, and contempt.
127
III.
You, I am given to understand,Are a person of this type:
Hence it comes to pass
That you have my entire approval,
And that I desire to hand you down to posterity
As a fit subject for odes.
128
IV.
When you emigrated to this countryYou did a wise thing:
We have vacancies for any number of plutocrats
Over here.
You purchased a newspaper
And a magazine:
These are now edited
By the nobility and gentry,
To the immense advantage and satisfaction
Of the proletariat.
You own a place called Cliveden, Bucks,
Formerly the property of the Duke of Westminster.
You did not give a certain dinner
At which innumerable reporters were privileged to be present;
But you have made up for it
By taking out a certificate
Of naturalisation.
129
V.
Which last likes me particularly:It is the thin end of the wedge,
And, being a seer as well as a poet,
I discover great meanings in it.
Prophecy seldom brings a man credit,
Yet it is safe to hint
That if President McKinley,
And Admiral Dewey,
And Colonel Rooseveldt,
And Mr. Croker,
Were to follow your example,
All good Americans might do likewise;
In which case
The Anglo-Saxon Alliance
Would come off with a vengeance.
130
VI.
Further, don't you agree with me when I sayThat the best thing that can happen to a man
Is to have a father?
133
Commandant Cronje.
135
I.
Dear Commandant Cronje,—
You are an unpleasant little person
And scarcely the person to whom to indite immortal verse:
Indeed, when I mentioned your name to my Muse,
Who, unlike Mr. Watson's Muse, has a sort of tenderness for the British,
She wept bitterly, and observed:
“If you write to—to—him
I shall go home—to Mamma,
So there!”
That you are great, however,
Cannot be denied;
And, after all,
Women's tears,
Be they shed over matters of metre or matters of murder,
Should never be allowed to keep a real man from his duty—
Should they, Commandant Cronje?
136
II.
Dear Commandant(I call you “dear,” of course,
In an entirely perfunctory
And non-committal sense),
When I read on the placards some months back:
CRONJE IN FULL FLIGHT,
KITCHENER IN HOT PURSUIT,
I rejoiced
And was exceeding glad,
And went merrily to lunch
(Which is a very good thing to do).
137
III.
Merrily, merrily over the snowI hied me to a place where everything that is eminent in Fleet Street lunches,
And where the waiters wear an unaccountable look of dejection;
I sat down opposite a gentleman who was smoking the end of a cigar off the end of a fork.
For twenty minutes he said nothing;
At the end of that period, however, fixing me with lack-lustre eye,
He trotted out the old, old, ancient and fishlike query:
“What
Do you think
Of the situation
In South Africa?”
I answered him civilly and truthfully (it is my engaging habit to answer people thus).
I said, in the midst of a rather large mouthful of rum omelette,
“Sir, I am incapable of thought.”
138
IV.
Here occurred one of the most fearful pauses in history.139
V.
Then my friend with the fork demanded fiercely:“Do you mean to tell me, sir,
That you really believe, sir,
That a general of Cronje's parts, sir,
A general of Cronje's stamina (he said “staminer”) and military genius, sir,
Would fly, sir,
Before Kitchener, sir,
Unless he had something up his sleeve, sir?
Mark my words, sir,
Within the next few days, sir,
Cronje will turn round and make a stand, sir,
And then—why then, sir,
The British will get crumpled up, sir,
As per usual, sir!”
140
VI.
Clearly it was time to pay and go:I did both.
141
VII.
The Cronjectures of the gentleman with the forkHaunted me all that week.
Partially, at any rate, they were realised;
You, my dear Commandant,
Did make a stand,
And a very fine stand it was.
142
VIII.
And yet, and yet, and yet—143
IX.
I wonder what the gentleman with the forkIs thinking now?
145
The Clerk of the Weather.
[Maundy-Thursday, 1900.]
147
I.
My dear Clerk of the Weather,—
Next week, as you know, will be a holiday week:
We are all going to the spas,
Or to Paris,
Or to Wembley,
Each man according to his taste—
Which is to say,
Each man according to his wife's taste
And the numerical extent of his family.
148
II.
Wherefore, sweet coz(Excuse this little term of endearment—
It is well meant)—
Wherefore, sweet coz,
I venture to approach you
With a pleasant ode,
Hoping by this means to propitiate you,
To put you in a good humour with yourself and mankind, as it were,
And to extract from you sundry favours.
149
III.
I think I may venture to remark, dear sir,That, taking you in the lump,
You are a person of infinite variety,
An out-and-out enemy of that unholy thing, monotony,
A sort of meteorological quick-change artist:
Indeed, it has been asserted
By a certain jocose American
That from your British office
You never issue any real weather at all,
Contenting yourself rather
With the brisk dissemination of samples—
But that is neither here nor there.
150
IV.
Sir, an' it please you,What we want for next week
Is sunshine in solid chunks,
Sunshine beneath which
Old and young may disport themselves
Merrily and as new-yeaned lambs,
And without fear of spoiling their gay apparel;
We also want specially fine mornings
(For it is an awful job getting the twins to the station when it rains);
We also want mild and fairly starlight evenings,
In order that the adolescent among us
May do a little useful Spring courting
Without suffering thereafter from cold in the head;
And lastly, we do not want anything in the way of rain, hail, snow, fog, mugginess, blackness, frowning, obnoxious winds, thunder, lightning, or kindred phenomena.
151
V.
Of course, I am well awareThat the Worshipful Company
Of Umbrella Makers and Mackintosh Manufacturers
Are, even at this present hour,
Busily importuning you
To make it rain like Billy-oh;
But my good, dear, kind, honest Clerk of the Weather,
You may take it from me
That the Company referred to
Do not in any way represent
Public feeling in this country—
Far from it, sir,
On the contrary, sir,
Quite otherwise!
152
VI.
And lest you should run away with an ideaThat in imploring you to do your best for my excellent friends the British public,
I am merely thinking about myself,
Let me assure you, dear sir,
That, next week, I do not propose
To leave the precincts of my own leasehold messuage,
On the third floor of which
I have a snug four-poster bed,
Also a large supply of improving literature,
And several pounds of tobacco;
With these and an occasional biscuit,
And a little wine for the stomach's sake,
I shall be quite happy
Even though it rain pitchforks
And thunder to the tune of “Green Sleeves.”
153
VII.
For all that,Please do be kind to the British public.
| Pleasant Odes | |