Part 12
Her nose is keen as pointed flame; Her crimson lips no thing express; And never dread of saintly blame Held down her heavy eyelashes: To guess what she were thinking of Precludeth any meaner love.
An azure carpet, fringed with gold, Sprinkled with scarlet spots, I laid Before her straight, cool feet unrolled; But she nor sound nor movement made (Albeit I heard a soft, shy smile, Printing her neck a moment’s while).
And I was shamed through all my mind For that she spake not, neither kissed, But stared right past me. Lo! behind Me stood, in pink and amethyst, Sword-girt and velvet-doubleted, A tall, gaunt youth, with frowzy head.
Wide nostrils in the air, dull eyes, Thick lips that simpered, but, ah me! I saw, with most forlorn surprise, He was the Thirteenth Century, I but the Nineteenth; then despair Curdled beneath my curling hair.
O Love and Fate! How could she choose My rounded outlines, broader brain, And my resuscitated Muse? Some tears she shed, but whether pain Or joy in him unlocked their source, I could not fathom which, of course.
But I from missals quaintly bound, With cither and with clavichord, Will sing her songs of sovran sound: Belike her pity will afford Such fain return as suits a saint So sweetly done in verse and paint. _Bayard Taylor._
THE POSTER GIRL
THE blessed Poster girl leaned out From a pinky-purple heaven. One eye was red and one was green; Her bang was cut uneven; She had three fingers on her hand, And the hairs on her head were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, No sunflowers did adorn, But a heavy Turkish portière Was very neatly worn; And the hat that lay along her back Was yellow, like canned corn.
It was a kind of wobbly wave That she was standing on, And high aloft she flung a scarf That must have weighed a ton; And she was rather tall—at least She reached up to the sun.
She curved and writhed, and then she said Less green of speech than blue: “Perhaps I _am_ absurd—perhaps I _don’t_ appeal to you; But my artistic worth depends Upon the point of view.”
I saw her smile, although her eyes Were only smudgy smears; And then she swished her swirling arms, And wagged her gorgeous ears. She sobbed a blue-and-green-checked sob, And wept some purple tears. _Carolyn Wells._
AFTER JEAN INGELOW
LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION
IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter), Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waver’d alow, above:
Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing, (Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And oh, the sundazzle on bark and bight!
Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together, (O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers: I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:
By rises that flush’d with their purple favors, Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen, We walked and waded, we two young shavers, Thanking our stars we were both so green.
We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, In fortunate parallels! Butterflies, Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:
Songbirds darted about, some inky As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds; Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky— They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!
But they skim over bents which the millstream washes, Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem; They need no parasols, no goloshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.
Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather) That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms; And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)— Our fingers at Fate and her goodness-glooms:
And Willie ’gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty; Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)— Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty, Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry:”
Bowers of flowers encounter’d showers In William’s carol—(O love my Willie!) Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow I quite forget what—say a daffodilly:
A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,” I think occurred next in his nimble strain; And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden— A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:
Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories, And all least furlable things got “furled;” Not with any design to conceal their “glories,” But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”
* * * * *
O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, Could be furled together, this genial weather, And carted or carried on “wafts” away, Nor ever again trotted out—ah me! How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be! _Charles S. Calverley._
THE SHRIMP-GATHERERS
SCARLET spaces of sand and ocean, Gulls that circle and winds that blow; Baskets and boats and men in motion, Sailing and scattering to and fro.
Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood; And down the beach the blush of the morning Shines reflected from moisture and mud.
Broad from the yard the sail hangs limpy; Lightly the steersman whistles a lay; Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy, Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!
Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty! Coffee is certain, and beer galore; Coats are corduroy, minds are thrifty, Won’t we go it on sea and shore!
See, behind, how the hills are freckled With low white huts, where the lasses bide See, before, how the sea is speckled With sloops and schooners that wait the tide
Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister, Tyne-side boys may shout, “Give way!” Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster, Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!
Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle, Such are the sea-fruits lasses love; Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle, And the shutterless cottages gleam above! _Bayard Taylor._
AFTER CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
REMEMBER
REMEMBER it, although you’re far away— Too far away more fivers yet to land, When you no more can proffer notes of hand, Nor I half yearn to change my yea to nay. Remember, when no more in airy way, You tell me of repayment sagely planned: Only remember it, you understand! It’s rather late to counsel you to pay; Yet if you should remember for awhile, And then forget it wholly, I should grieve; For, though your light procrastinations leave Small remnants of the hope that once I had, Than that you should forget your debt and smile, I’d rather you’d remember and be sad. _Judy._
AFTER LEWIS CARROLL
WAGGAWOCKY
’TWAS Maytime, and the lawyer coves Did jibe and jabber in the wabe, All menaced were the Tichborne groves, And their true lord, the Babe.
“Beware the Waggawock, my son, The eyelid twitch, the knees’ incline, Beware the Baignet network, spun For gallant Ballantine.”
He took his ton-weight brief in hand, Long time the hidden clue he sought, Then rested he by the Hawkins tree, And sat awhile in thought.
And as in toughish thought he rocks, The Waggawock, sans truth or shame, Came lumbering to the witness box, And perjured out his Claim.
“Untrue! untrue!” Then, through and through The weary weeks he worked the rack; But March had youth, ere with the Truth He dealt the final whack.
“And hast thou slain the Waggawock Come to my arms, my Beamish Boy! O Coleridge, J.! Hoorah! hooray!” Punch chortled in his joy. _Shirley Brooks._
THE VULTURE AND THE HUSBANDMAN
(_By Louisa Caroline_)
THE rain was raining cheerfully As if it had been May, The Senate House appeared inside Unusually gay; And this was strange, because it was A Viva-Voce day.
The men were sitting sulkily, Their paper work was done, They wanted much to go away To ride or row or run; “It’s very rude,” they said, “to keep Us here and spoil our fun.”
The papers they had finished lay In piles of blue and white, They answered everything they could, And wrote with all their might, But though they wrote it all by rote, They did not write it right.
The Vulture and the Husbandman Besides these piles did stand; They wept like anything to see The work they had in hand: “If this were only finished up,” Said they, “it would be grand!”
“If seven D’s or seven C’s We give to all the crowd, Do you suppose,” the Vulture said, “That we could get them ploughed?” “I think so,” said the Husbandman, “But pray don’t talk so loud.”
“O Undergraduates, come up,” The Vulture did beseech, “And let us see if you can learn As well as we can teach; We cannot do with more than two, To have a word with each.”
Two Undergraduates came up, And slowly took a seat; They knit their brows and bit their thumbs, As if they found them sweet; And this is odd, because, you know, Thumbs are not good to eat.
“The time has come,” the Vulture said, “To talk of many things, Of Accidence and Adjectives, And names of Jewish kings; How many notes a sackbut has, And whether shawms have strings.”
“Please, Sir,” the Undergraduates said, Turning a little blue, “We did not know that was the sort Of thing we had to do.” “We thank you much,” the Vulture said; “Send up another two.”
Two more came up, and then two more, And more, and more, and more, And some looked upwards at the roof, And some down upon the floor, But none were any wiser than The pair that went before.
“I weep for you,” the Vulture said; “I deeply sympathize!” With sobs and tears he gave them all D’s of the largest size, While at the Husbandman he winked One of his streaming eyes.
“I think,” observed the Husbandman, “We’re getting on too quick; Are we not putting down the D’s A little bit too thick?” The Vulture said with much disgust, “Their answers make me sick.”
“Now, Undergraduates,” he cried, “Our fun is nearly done; Will anybody else come up?” But answer came there none; But this was scarcely odd, because They’d ploughed them every one! _A. C. Hilton._
AFTER A. C. SWINBURNE
GILLIAN
JACK and Jille I have made me an end of the moods of maidens, I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love; From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens, The woes that madden, the words that move. In the dim last days of a spent September, When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain; Before you forget, and while I remember, I cry as I shall cry never again.
Went up a hylle Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels Of misty meadows, and streams that stray; We raised us at eve from our rosy revels, With the faces aflame for the death of the day; With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver, Low lids that cling to the last of love: We left the levels, we left the river, And turned us and toiled to the air above.
To fetch a paile of water, By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow, The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips— Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk not to-morrow— The wells of Lethe for wearied lips. With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter, With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray, We bowed us and bent to the white well-water, We dipped and we drank it and bore away.
Jack felle downe The low light trembled on languid lashes, The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown, Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes, As night’s dim net on the day was thrown. What was it meant for, or made for, that minute, But that our lives in delight should be dipt? Was it yours, or my fault, or fate’s, that in it Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt.
And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after. Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder, Love from our limbs as a shift was shed, But paused a moment, to watch with wonder The pale pained body, the bursten head. While our sad souls still with regrets are riven, While the blood burns bright on our bruised brows, I have set you free, and I stand forgiven— And now I had better go call my cows. _Anonymous._
ATALANTA IN CAMDEN-TOWN
Ay, ’twas here, on this spot, In that summer of yore, Atalanta did not Vote my presence a bore, Nor reply to my tenderest talk, “She had heard all that nonsense before.”
She’d the brooch I had bought And the necklace and sash on, And her heart, as I thought, Was alive to my passion; And she’d done up her hair in the style that the Empress had brought into fashion.
I had been to the play With my pearl of a Peri— But, for all I could say, She declared she was weary, That “the place was so crowded and hot, and she couldn’t abide that Dundreary.”
Then I thought, “’Tis for me That she whines and she whimpers!” And it soothed me to see Those sensational simpers, And I said, “This is scrumptious,”—a phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers.
And I vowed, “’Twill be said I’m a fortunate fellow, When the breakfast is spread, When the topers are mellow, When the foam of the bird-cake is white and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!”
Oh, that languishing yawn! Oh, those eloquent eyes! I was drunk with the dawn Of a splendid surmise surmise— I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear, by a tempest of sighs.
And I whispered, “’Tis time! Is not Love at its deepest? Shall we squander Life’s prime, While thou waitest and weepest? Let us settle it, License or Banns?—though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest.”
“Ah, my Hero!” said I, “Let me be thy Leander!” But I lost her reply— Something ending with “gander”— For the omnibus rattled so loud that no mortal could quite understand her. _Lewis Carroll._
THE MANLET
IN stature the Manlet was dwarfish— No burly big Blunderbore he: And he wearily gazed on the crawfish His Wifelet had dressed for his tea. “Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet, And hurl the old shoelet for luck; Let me hie to the bank of the runlet And shoot thee a Duck!”
She has reached him his minnikin gunlet: She has hurled the old shoelet for luck; She is busily baking a bunlet, To welcome him home with his duck. On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet, Though thoughtlets cling closely as wax, To the spot where the beautiful birdlet So quietly quacks.
Where the Lobsterlet lurks and the Crablet So slowly and creepily crawls: Where the Dolphin’s at home and the Dablet Pays long ceremonious calls: Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet: Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck: Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet— So runs the world’s luck.
He has loaded with bullet and powder: His footfall is noiseless as air: But the Voices grow louder and louder And bellow and bluster and blare. They bristle before him and after, They flutter above and below, Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter, Weird wailings of woe!
They echo without him, within him: They thrill through his whiskers and beard: Like a teetotum seeming to spin him, With sneers never hitherto sneered. “Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet! Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs! Let us drench him from toplet to toelet With nursery songs!
“He shall muse upon Hey! Diddle! Diddle! On the Cow that surmounted the Moon! He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle, And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon: And his soul shall be sad for the Spider, When Miss Muffett was sipping her whey, That so tenderly sat down beside her, And scared her away!
“The music of Midsummer-madness Shall sting him with many a bite, Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness, He shall groan with a gloomy delight; He shall swathe him like mists of the morning, In platitudes luscious and limp, Such as deck, with a deathless adorning, The Song of the Shrimp!
“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided, We will trundle him home in a trice: And the banquet so plainly provided Shall round into rosebuds and rice: In a blaze of pragmatic invention He shall wrestle with Fate and shall reign: But he has not a friend fit to mention, So hit him again!”
He has shot it, the delicate darling! And the Voices have ceased from their strife: Not a whisper of sneering or snarling, As he carries it home to his wife: Then, cheerily champing the bunlet His spouse was so skilful to bake, He hies him once more to the runlet, To fetch her the Drake! _Lewis Carroll._
IF!
IF life were never bitter, And love were always sweet, Then who would care to borrow A moral from to-morrow— If Thames would always glitter, And joy would ne’er retreat, If life were never bitter, And love were always sweet!
If care were not the waiter Behind a fellow’s chair, When easy-going sinners Sit down to Richmond dinners, And life’s swift stream flows straighter, By Jove, it would be rare, If care were not the waiter Behind a fellow’s chair.
If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced, And bores were kicked out straightway Through a convenient gateway; Then down the year’s long gradient ’Twere sad to be enticed, If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced. _Mortimer Collins._
THE MAID OF THE MEERSCHAUM
NUDE nymph, when from Neuberg’s I led her In velvet enshrined and encased, When with rarest Virginia I fed her, And pampered each maidenly taste On “Old Judge” and “Lone Jack” and brown “Bird’s-eye,” The best that a mortal might get— Did she know how, from whiteness of curds, I Should turn her to jet?
She was blonde and impassive and stately When first our acquaintance began, When she smiled from the pipe-bowl sedately On the “Stunt” who was scarcely a man. But _labuntur anni fugaces_, And changed in due season were we, For she wears the blackest of faces, And I’m a D. C.
Unfailing the comfort she gave me In the days when I owned to a heart, When the charmers that used to enslave me For Home or the Hills would depart. She was Polly or Agnes or Kitty (Whoever pro tem. was my flame), And I found her most ready to pity, And—always the same.
At dawn, when the pig broke from cover, At noon, when the pleaders were met, She clung to the lips of her lover As never live maiden did yet; At the Bund, when I waited the far light That brought me my Mails o’er the main— At night, when the tents, in the starlight, Showed white on the plain.
And now, though each finely cut feature Is flattened and polished away, I hold her the loveliest creature That ever was fashioned from clay. Let an epitaph thus, then, be wrought for Her tomb, when the smash shall arrive: “_Hic jacet_ the life’s love I bought for Rupees twenty-five.” _Rudyard Kipling._
QUAERITUR
DAWN that disheartens the desolate dunes, Dulness of day as it bursts on the beach, Sea-wind that shrillest the thinnest of tunes, What is the wisdom thy wailings would teach? Far, far away, down the foam-frescoed reach, Where ravening rocks cleave the crest of the seas, Sigheth the sound of thy sonorous speech, As gray gull and guillemot gather their fees; Taking toll of the beasts that are bred in the seas.
Foam-flakes fly farther than faint eyes can follow— Drop down the desolate dunes and are done; Fleeter than foam-flowers flitteth the Swallow, Sheer for the sweets of the South and the Sun. What is thy tale? O thou treacherous Swallow! Sing me thy secret, Beloved of the Skies, That I may gather my garments and follow— Flee on the path of thy pinions and rise Where strong storms cease and the weary wind dies.
Lo! I am bound with the chains of my sorrow; Swallow, swift Swallow, ah, wait for a while! Stay but a moment—it may be to-morrow Chains shall be severed and sad souls shall smile! Only a moment—a mere minute’s measure— How shall it hurt such a swift one as thou? Pitiless Swallow, full flushed for thy pleasure, Canst thou not even one instant allow To weak-winged wanderers? Wait for me now. _Rudyard Kipling._
A MELTON MOWBRAY PORK-PIE
STRANGE pie that is almost a passion, O passion immoral for pie! Unknown are the ways that they fashion, Unknown and unseen of the eye. The pie that is marbled and mottled, The pie that digests with a sigh: For all is not Bass that is bottled, And all is not pork that is pie. _Richard Le Gallienne._
FOAM AND FANGS
O NYMPH with the nicest of noses; And finest and fairest of forms; Lips ruddy and ripe as the roses That sway and that surge in the storms; O buoyant and blooming Bacchante, Of fairer than feminine face, Rush, raging as demon of Dante— To this, my embrace!
The foam and the fangs and the flowers, The raving and ravenous rage Of a poet as pinion’d in powers As condor confined in a cage! My heart in a haystack I’ve hidden, As loving and longing I lie, Kiss open thine eyelids unbidden— I gaze and I die!