A Legend of Camelot :: :: University of Virginia Library

A Legend of Camelot

Pictures and Poems, &c., By George du Maurier

Du Maurier, George (1834-1896)

Verses and Sketches.

POOR PUSSY'S NIGHTMARE.

A Ballad of Blunders.

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Verses and Sketches.

FLIRTS IN HADES.

Ye maids, that practise wicked arts,
And eke young widows with light hearts;
Gay Guardsmen, and pet parsons dear,
And all such heartbreakers, see here!
I charge you all, and every one,
To waste no love ye may have won,
For fear of this grey limbo, where
All you fine flirts that ever were
Of either sex, shall bud and blow
As grafts on rooted stems, and grow,
For many a round of days and years,
Self-watered with your own salt tears;
And wipe your eyes on your own leaves,
For lack of pocket-handkerchieves!
And wet your lips at your own cost,
To whistle for the loves you lost;
That these may cast their eyes, and see
Fit cause to kiss, and set you free;
For if by dint of tears, or trace
Of some old unforgotten grace,
You chance to charm a stray kiss out
Of lips you once were fain to flout,
Then may you pluck yourselves, and use
Your leaves for pinions, if you choose,
To soar upon, and seek for peace;
Thus, only thus, the spell shall cease.
And trust me, you shall not, I trow,
Be beautiful and bright, as now;
Your features shall be modelled then
By Mr. Punch's smart young men!
And here your victims, great and small,
Shall whisk about you, one and all;
With banded wings like butterflies,
And, oh! such beautiful big eyes!
And eyelashes an inch at least,
And all their wealth of locks increast!
And faces brighter than of old,
And beautified a billion-fold,
And little else but face to show,
For having buried long ago
Their bodies, and the broken hearts
That plagued them so, in foreign parts;
In fact, such faces as you see
In keepsakes gilded gorgeously!
And they shall have sweet kisses too,
But none to waste on such as you!
No! they shall either cut you dead,
Or take to teasing you instead,
And point at you, and poke their fun,
And try your tempers, one by one,
And raise false hopes and lay them low,
And pout their lips to kiss, and go!
So shall they nip you in the bud,
Or leave you sticking in the mud,
That you may rue your fickle days
Of dancing, and your jilting ways!
Till haply you shall culminate
In quite a vegetable state,
And even run to waste, I wis,
And all for want of one poor kiss!

POOR PUSSY'S NIGHTMARE.

All on a bare and bleak hillside,
One night this merry Christmas-tide,
A shivering, hunted hare did hide—
Poor Pussy!

Though we had hunted Puss all day,
The wind had blown her scent away,
And baulked the dogs—so there she lay,
Did Pussy!

There to the earth she humbly crept—
There, brooding o'er her lot, she wept—
There, on her empty stomach, slept
Poor Pussy!

And there, whilst fell the frozen dew,
She dreamt an ugly dream or two,
As starved wet folk are apt to do,
Did Pussy.

Loud hungry hounds of subtle ken,
And thundering steeds, and hard-eyed men,
Are fast on Pussy's trail again—
Poor Pussy!

Onward she strains—on, on they tear!
Foremost amongst the foremost there
Are ruthless women's faces fair!
Poor Pussy!

One moment's check! To left—to right—
In vain she spends her little might!
Some yokel's eye has marked her flight—
Poor Pussy!

What use her five small wits to rack?
Closer and faster on her track
Hurries the hydra-headed pack!
Lost Pussy!

“For pity's sake, kind huntsman, stop!
Call off the dogs, before I drop,
And kill me with your heavy crop!”
Shrieks Pussy!

With shuddering start and stifled scream,
She wakes—she finds it all a dream!
How kind the cold, cold earth doth seem
To Pussy!

In harrying Puss we had great fun,
And trust that ere this year be done
She'll give us yet one other run,
Will Pussy!

A softer wind, a cloudier sky,
A nice damp turf for the scent to lie,
Are all we ask! Till then, good-bye,
Dear Pussy!

THE CONTRAST.

At a Sale of Antique Furniture.

When the mirror politely stood still for a space,
And she viewed herself there in that reeking old place,
While the tribes clustered, grinning, all round her sweet face,
Such a picture was framed as one don't often see;

On our Catalogue's margin we sketched her, pro tem.,
And just added those lively descendants of Shem
For a background—the brighter and fairer the gem,
The darker and plainer the setting should be!

The Fools' Paradise,

Or Love and Life.

“Take up your chain together.”

I

In and about the Honeymoon,
Young Love in his fever gloweth;
He waxeth fast, he waneth soon,
He cometh, and he goeth.
Young Love hath wings that flout his legs,
And soareth, Life unheeding;
Young Love is the goose with the golden Eggs!
And soon he lies a-bleeding!

II

The road is red with roses sweet,
That leads you to his Dwelling
With shoes of swiftness on your feet,
And Joy there is no telling!
And each a cap about the brow,
But ne'er the Cap of Knowledge:
The Cap of many Bells I trow,
Fits best in Young Love's College!

III

He weaves his bandage round your eyes,
He casts his blindness o'er you,
That you may dream all Paradise
Doth stretch away before you!
And dreaming each the other blest
With Love's own wings behind you,
You dare the Parson do his best
For aye and a day to bind you!

IV

For all a month He bids you fain
Go feed among the Posies;
And hides the Padlock and the Chain
For all a Month of Roses;
And gives you nought to care about
But Love, till Truth be minded
That you should find each other out,
And be no longer blinded!

V

O Love! that all the best of you
Be over with the wooing!
O Wedlock! All the worst of you
That there be no undoing!
It's Hey! Ho! and Welladay
For Youth and Love, and Honey!
It's Heigho! and Workaday
For Bread and Cheese, and Money!

VI

Weep not, poor Fools, nor hold aloof!
Take up your chain together,
And earthwards pad the wandering hoof
That brought you fooling hither!
O Help each other, and share the load,
For steep the pass and thorny,
That leads you thorough from Love's Abode
To Life, and rough the Journey!

VII

“—O Dream of Dreams! O was it worth
The pain of this our waking?
O what is there of balm on earth
Can heal us of our aching?
O Love is he dead before the Prime,
Love that was born so newly?” . . .
—Poor Fools, go pin your faith on Time,
And Time shall tell you duly.

VIII

For Time that scorned Love's earlier ways,
His mellower secrets holdeth;
These, living out our length of Days,
We learn as Truth unfoldeth.
Who knows but in a year or two
That Love may have the kindness
To come without his wings to you,
And holpen of his blindness?

A LOST ILLUSION.

I

There was a young woman, and what do you think?
She lived upon nothing but paper and ink!
For ink and for paper she only did care,
Though they wrinkle the forehead and rumple the hair.

II

And she bought a gold pen, and she plied it so fast
That she brought forth her three-volume novel at last;
And she called it “The Ghoul of Mayfair,” by “Sirène”;
And I read it, re-read it, and read it again.

III

'Twas about a young girl, whom the gods, in their grace,
Had endowed with a balefully beautiful face;
While her lithe, supple body and limbs were as those
Of a pantheress (minus the spots, I suppose).

IV

And oh! reader, her eyes! and oh! reader, her hair!
They were red, green, blue, lustreless, lava-like. . . . There!
I can't screw my muse to the exquisite pitch
For adjusting exactly the whichness of which!

V

I may mention at once that she'd dabbled in vice
From her cradle—and found it exceedingly nice:
That she doated on sin—that her only delight
Was in breaking commandments from morning till night.

VI

And moreover, to deepen her wonderful spell,
She was not only vicious, but artful as well;
For she managed three husbands at once—to begin—
(Just by way of a trifle to keep her hand in).

VII

The first, a bold indigo-broker was he;
Not young, but as wealthy as wealthy could be—
The next a fond burglar—and last, but not least,
The third was a strapping young Catholic priest!

VIII

Now, three doating husbands to start with in life
Seems a decent allowance for any young wife;
But legitimate trigamy very soon palled
Upon Barbara Blackshepe (for so she was called).

IX

And it took but a very few pages to tell
How by means of a rope, and a knife, a well,
And some charcoal, and poison, and powder and shot,
She effectually widowed herself of the lot.

X

Then she suddenly found that she couldn't control
The yearning for love of her ardent young soul,
So—(this is the cream of the story—prepare)
She took a large house in the midst of Mayfair:

XI

Where she started a kind of a sort of a—eh?
Well, a sort of a kind of a—what shall I say?
Like Turkey, you know—only just the reverse;
Which, if possible, makes it a little bit worse!

XII

There were tenors, priests, poets, and parsons—a host!
And Horseguards, and Coldstreams regardless of cost;
While a Leicester-square agent provided a tale
Of select refugees on a liberal scale.

XIII

The nobility, gentry, and public all round
Her immediate vicinity threatened and frowned;
Some went even so far as to call and complain;
But they never went back to their spouses again!

XIV

Nay, the very policemen that knocked at the door
To remonstrate were collared, and never seen more;
And 'tis rumoured that bishops deserted their lambs
To enrol among “Barbara's Rollicking Rams.”

XV

And their dowdy, respectable, commonplace wives,
And ridiculous daughters all fled for their lives,
And all died with disgusting decorum elsewhere,
To the scorn of “Sirène” and her “Ghoul of Mayfair”!

XVI

(This light—I might even add frivolous—tone
Isn't that of the author, 'tis fair I should own;
Passion hallows each page—guilt ennobles each line;
All this flippant facetiousness, reader, is mine.)

XVII

To our muttons. Who dances, the piper must pay,
And we can't eat our cake and yet have it, they say;
So we learn with regret that this duck of a pet
Of a dear little widow, she ran into debt.

XVIII

And the Hebrew came down like the wolf on the fold
(With his waistcoat all gleaming in purple and gold),
And the auctioneer's hammer rang loud in the hall,
And they sold her up—harem and scar'em and all!

XIX

Then, says she: “There are no more commandments to break;
I have lived—I have loved—I have eaten my cake!”
(Which she had, with a vengeance); so what does she do?
Why, she takes a revolver, and stabs herself through!

XX

Now, this naughty but nice little Barbara B.
Had, I own, amongst others, demoralised me—
And the tale of her loves had excited me so
That I longed its fair passionate author to know.

XXI

For, oh! what's more seductive than vice, when you find
It with youth, beauty, genius, and culture combined!
Sweet “Sirène!” How I yearned—how I burned for her! nay,
I went secretly, silently wasting away!

XXII

Well, at last I beheld her—it did thus befall:
I was wasting away at the Tomkins's ball,
Half inclined to be sick, in my loathing profound
For the mild goody-goody flirtations all round—

XXIII

When my hostess said suddenly: “So glad you came,
Tho' you may find us somewhat insipid and tame!
I've a great treat in store for you—turn, and look there!
That's ‘Sirène,’ who indited ‘The Ghoul of Mayfair.’”

XXIV

Oh! the wild thrill that shot thro' this passionate heart!
There—before me—alone in her glory—apart
From that milksoppy, maudlin, contemptible throng,
Sat the being I'd yearned for and burned for so long!

XXV

I respectfully gazed one brief moment—but stop!
For particulars, vide design at the top:
She's that sweet, scornful pet in black velvet you see
Near the nice little man in blue goggles. That's me.

See picture on preceding page.

TWO THRONES.

Oh, Beauty, peerless as thou art,
And wide thy range, and keen thy dart.
And meek the captives of thy bow,
Inconstant beats the manly heart—
The present Bard's extremely so!

Wit, Wisdom, Strength, and Valour meet
(The Bard amongst them), at thy feet
To kneel in homage, as of old;
Yet turn a rival Queen to greet,
Whose crown is of a purer gold!

Preen as thou wilt thy feathers fine,
A gift is hers, by grace divine,
Even more potent to enthral,
O Bird of Paradise, than thine,
The hearts and souls of one and all!

And what avail thy gilded crest,
The silver shimmer of thy breast,
The glories of thy painted wing,
If, yielding to the Bard's behest,
The Nightingale vouchsafe to sing!

A LOVE-AGONY.

So an thou be, that faintest in such wise,
With love-wan eyelids on love-wanton eyes,
Fain of thyself! I faint, adoring thee,
Fain of thy kisses, fainer of thy sighs,
Yet fainest, love! an thou wert fain of me,
So an thou be!

Yea, lo! for veriest fainness faint I, Sweet,
Of thy spare bosom, where no shadows meet,
And small strait hip, and weak delicious knee!
For joy thereof I swoon, and my pulse-beat
Is as of one that wasteth amorously,
So an thou be!

Shepherd art thou, or nymph, that ailest there?
Lily of Love, or Rose? Search they, who care,
Thy likeness for a sign! For, verily,
Naught reck I, Fairest, so an thou be but Fair!
E'en as he recks not, that hath limnèd thee,
So an thou Be!

A Simple Story.

I

There lived a youth (he liveth yet),
And Richard was he christened;
And well he played the flageolet,
And all the ladies listened;
And some were even heard to say
His brow was handsome (in its way).

II

But Richard met Ben Ball, a man
All chest, and cheek, and shoulder,
And ever so much bigger than
Himself, though little older;
Whose biceps Richard felt and found
It measured fifteen inches round!

III

Now this demoralised him quite;
And then he took to reading
The naughty books that ladies write
And found there, with exceeding
Dismay, that ladies' heroes are
Wild, wicked men, and muscular!

IV

Then in high dudgeon did he use
To feel himself all over;
But little sinew, and no thews
Could Richard's thumbs discover;
And wickedness is rarely met
In men that play the flageolet.

V

But 'twas not yet too late to mend;
He got dumb-bells, and shyly
He took the counsel of a friend
(“Experimentum vili”)
And tried them first on his left arm,
And found they acted like a charm!

VI

Much bigger waxed his biceps, but
When this left arm was finished,
The left lobe of his occiput
Had sensibly diminished;
So then he went it, right and all,
To make his nut symmetrical!

VII

His nut soon got so hardened that
It hurt you when you hit it;
Nor could his hatter find a hat
(Already made) to fit it,
So marvellously small it grew,
As all may judge from this back view.

VIII

At length a happy day came round
(Which I was there, and drew it)
When Richard lifted from the ground
A paving-stone, and threw it
Almost one foot three-quarters high!
And that with ladies standing by!!

IX

Not only that; he, on his head
So dexterously caught it,
That all the ladies present said
They never should have thought it!
And even I could not but own
'Twas hard lines for the paving-stone!

X

Next day he caught a cold, alack!
And all his muscles vanished,
But none of his old brains came back
Which is dumb-bells had banished;
And not a rack was left behind
Of what he chose to call his mind!

XI

Poor Richard now (O have you met
Him lately) has grown bitter;
For when he plays the flageolet
The ladies talk and titter;
And no one ever thinks his brow
In any way good-looking now!

XII

O little men, who wish to please,
Be wiser than poor Dick! shun
Big friends with brawny bicipes,
And female works of fiction;
But stick to music all your might,
Or be cut out. And serve you right!

A Ballad of Blunders.

[_]

(AFTER SWINBURNE'S BALLAD OF BURDENS.)

The Blunder of Short Garments. Thou shalt wear
Thy supple thighs in sheaths of splendid fit,
Much use whereof shall surely render bare
The mystery, yea, the very threads of it;
And cold shall seize thee standing; should'st thou sit,
Thy skin shall vex thee with its tenderness;
Or stoop, thy perilous underseam shall split;
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Gay Seasons. Strange delight;
Thy seething garb shall cleave to thee, and cling;
Thy red wet palm shall reek beneath the white;
And fierce black shining leather bite and sting,
A future of sore troubles gathering;
The dawn shall send thee, cold and comfortless,
Creeping along the kerb, an abject thing.
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Much Music. Sit thee down,
Nay, stop thine ears, and sleep. For verily,
She that is playing heedeth not thy frown,
And she that singeth takes no thought for thee;
And song shall follow song till thou shalt be
Smitten and bitten with fierce restlessness
To bite and smite in turn, or turn to flee;
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Great Banquets. Out of sight,
Beyond the reach of hands that heal for gain,
The dish of thy desire and thy delight
Shall vex thy sleep. Thou shalt behold again
The Lord Knight Mayor, thy host, as King of Pain;
And lo, the worthy lady Mayoress
As Queen of Pleasure in thy fond heart shall reign;
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Long Speeches. Thou shalt burn
To see men whisper, and thy voice grow thick,
And shame shall stain thee red and white by turn,
And all thy wine shall rise and make thee sick;
And short swift sobs shall take thy breath betw-hic!
And in thy skull shall be much emptiness,
And in thy stead, the likeness of a stick.
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Late Hours. Leave thy sad bed;
See what strange things shall grieve thy straining sight:
Stray broken glass to greet the dawn; grey dead
Strewn ashes of the weeds of thy delight;
Sick sterile leavings of the hot fierce night;
Yet must thou bend thee to thy business
Thy brain to brood; thy tremulous hand to write;
This is the end of every man's excess.

Blunder of Strong Spirits; warm and sweet,
Or cold without, and pale; whereof to tread
The wild wet ways is perilous to thy feet,
And in thine eyes, where green was, lo, the red;
And where thy sinew, soft weak fat instead;
Burning of heart, and much uneasiness
About thy girdle, and aching in thine head;
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Much Rhyming. If thou write
That once again that should be once for all,
These market-men will buy thy black and white
Till thy keen swift full fervent ways shall fall
On sated ears; thy stinging sweetness pall;
And barren memories of thy bright success
Shall burst in thee the bladder of thy gall;
This is the end of every man's excess.

The Blunder of Long Ballads. Bide in peace;
For when the night is near, the day shall die,
And when the day shall dawn the night shall cease,
And all things have an end of all; and I
An end of this, for that my lips are dry,
And the eleventh hour's exceeding heaviness
Doth overweigh mine eyelid on mine eye . . .
This is the end of every man's excess.

MORAL.

Poets, who tread the fast and flowerful way,
Heed well the burden these sad rhymes impress;
Pleasure is first, and then the time to pay;
This is the end of every man's excess.

Chatouillard.