Part 20

Stinkingest of the stinking kind! Filth of the mouth and fog of the mind! Africa, that brags her foison, Breeds no such prodigious poison! Henbane, nightshade, both together, Hemlock, aconite-- Nay rather, Plant divine, of rarest virtue; Blisters on the tongue would hurt you! 'T was but in a sort I blamed thee; None e'er prospered who defamed thee; Irony all, and feigned abuse, Such as perplexèd lovers use At a need, when, in despair To paint forth their fairest fair, Or in part but to express That exceeding comeliness Which their fancies doth so strike, They borrow language of dislike; And, instead of dearest Miss, Jewel, honey, sweetheart, bliss, And those forms of old admiring, Call her cockatrice and siren, Basilisk, and all that 's evil, Witch, hyena, mermaid, devil, Ethiop, wench, and blackamoor, Monkey, ape, and twenty more; Friendly trait'ress, loving foe,-- Not that she is truly so, But no other way they know, A contentment to express Borders so upon excess That they do not rightly wot Whether it be from pain or not.

Or, as men, constrained to part With what 's nearest to their heart, While their sorrow 's at the height Lose discrimination quite, And their hasty wrath let fall, To appease their frantic gall, On the darling thing, whatever, Whence they feel it death to sever, Though it be, as they, perforce, Guiltless of the sad divorce.

For I must (nor let it grieve thee, Friendliest of plants, that I must) leave thee. Would do anything but die, And but seek to extend my days Long enough to sing thy praise. But, as she who once hath been A king's consort is a queen Ever after, nor will bate Any tittle of her state Though a widow, or divorced, So I, from thy converse forced, The old name and style retain, A right Katherine of Spain; And a seat, too, 'mongst the joys Of the blest Tobacco Boys; Where, though I, by sour physician, Am debarred the full fruition Of thy favors, I may catch Some collateral sweets, and snatch Sidelong odors, that give life Like glances from a neighbor's wife; And still live in the by-places And the suburbs of thy graces; And in thy borders take delight, An unconquered Canaanite.

CHARLES LAMB.

TOO GREAT A SACRIFICE.

The maid, as by the papers doth appear, Whom fifty thousand dollars made so dear, To test Lothario's passion, simply said: "Forego the weed before we go to wed. For smoke take flame; I 'll be that flame's bright fanner: To have your Anna, give up your Havana." But he, when thus she brought him to the scratch, Lit his cigar and threw away his match.

ANONYMOUS.

FROM "LOVE SONNETS OF A HOODLUM."

PROLOGUE.

Wouldn't it jar you, wouldn't it make you sore To see the poet, when the goods play out, Crawl off of poor old Pegasus and tout His skate to two-step sonnets off galore? Then, when the plug, a dead one, can no more Shake rag-time than a biscuit, right about The poem-butcher turns with gleeful shout And sends a batch of sonnets to the store.

The sonnet is a very easy mark, A James P. Dandy as a carry-all For brain-fag wrecks who want to keep it dark Just why their crop of thinks is running small. On the low down, dear Mame, my looty loo, That's why I've cooked this batch of rhymes for you.

EPILOGUE.

To just one girl I've turned my sad bazoo, Stringing my pipe-dream off as it occurred, And as I've tipped the straight talk every word, If you don't like it you know what to do. Perhaps you think I've handed out to you An idle jest, a touch-me-not, absurd As any sky-blue-pink canary bird, Billed for a record season at the Zoo.

If that's your guess you'll have to guess again, For thus I fizzled in a burst of glory, And this rhythmatic side-show doth contain The sum and substance of my hard-luck story, Showing how Vanity is still on deck And Humble Virtue gets it in the neck.

WALLACE IRWIN.

A SADDENED TRAMP.

"Now unto yonder wood-pile go, Where toil till I return; And feel how proud a thing it is A livelihood to earn." A saddened look came o'er the tramp; He seemed like one bereft. He stowed away the victuals cold, He--saw the wood, and left.

ANONYMOUS.

III.

PARODIES: IMITATIONS.

THE MODERN HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack.

See the malt, stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac.

Mark how the rat's felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John's pavilion laid.

Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides, Subtle grimalkin to his quarry glides,-- Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent.

Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault, That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt; Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

Here stalks the impetuous cow, with the crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast, that slew The rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibres that involved the grain That lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

Here walks forlorn the damsel crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew, Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn, The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of puss, that with verminicidal claw Struck the weird rat, in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan's courts we saw.

Robed in senescent garb, that seemed, in sooth, Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth, Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with young Eros' osculative sign, To the lorn maiden, whose lac-albic hands Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn, Distort, to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexer of that sly Ulysses quadrupedal who made die The old mordacious rat, that dared devour Antecedaneous ale in John's domestic bower.

Lo! here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous locks, the priest who linked In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with the implicated horn, Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied, That dared to vex the insidious muricide, Who let auroral effluence through the pelt Of the sly rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last, Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament To him who, robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose, The emulgator of that hornèd brute morose That tossed the dog that worried the cat that kilt The rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.

ANONYMOUS.

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND

THE KNIFE-GRINDER.[8]

FRIEND OF HUMANITY.

Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going? Rough is the road; your wheel is out of order. Bleak blows the blast;--your hat has got a hole in't; So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones, Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- Road, what hard work 't is crying all day, "Knives and Scissors to grind O!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives? Did some rich man tyrannically use you? Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or Covetous parson for his tithes distraining? Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, Ready to fall as soon as you have told your Pitiful story.

KNIFE-GRINDER.

Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir; Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into Custody; they took me before the justice; Justice Oldmixon put me into the parish Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence; But for my part, I never love to meddle With politics, sir.

FRIEND OF HUMANITY.

I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first,-- Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance,-- Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, Spiritless outcast!

(_Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._)

GEORGE CANNING.

[8] A burlesque upon the humanitarian sentiments of Southey in his younger days, as well as of the Sapphic stanzas in which he sometimes embodied them.

DEBORAH LEE[9]

'T is a dozen or so of years ago, Somewhere in the West countree, That a nice girl lived, as ye Hoosiers know By the name of Deborah Lee; Her sister was loved by Edgar Poe, But Deborah by me.

Now I was green, and she was green, As a summer's squash might be; And we loved as warmly as other folks,-- I and my Deborah Lee,-- With a love that the lasses of Hoosierdom Coveted her and me.

But somehow it happened a long time ago, In the aguish West countree, That chill March morning gave the _shakes_ To my beautiful Deborah Lee; And the grim steam-doctor (drat him!) came, And bore her away from me,-- The doctor and death, old partners they,-- In the aguish West countree.

The angels wanted her in heaven (But they never asked for me), And that is the reason, I rather guess, In the aguish West countree, That the cold March wind, and the doctor, and death, Took off my Deborah Lee-- My beautiful Deborah Lee-- From the warm sunshine and the opening flowers, And bore her away from me.

Our love was as strong as a six-horse team, Or the love of folks older than we, Or possibly wiser than we; But death, with the aid of doctor and steam, Was rather too many for me: He closed the peepers and silenced the breath Of my sweetheart Deborah Lee, And her form lies cold in the prairie mold, Silent and cold,--ah me!

The foot of the hunter shall press her grave, And the prairie's sweet wild flowers In their odorous beauty around it wave Through all the sunny hours,-- The still, bright summer hours; And the birds shall sing in the tufted grass And the nectar-laden bee, With his dreamy hum, on his gauze wings pass,-- She wakes no more to me; Ah, nevermore to me! Though the wild birds sing and the wild flowers spring, She wakes no more to me.

Yet oft in the hush of the dim, still night, A vision of beauty I see Gliding soft to my bedside,--a phantom of light, Dear, beautiful Deborah Lee,-- My bride that was to be; And I wake to mourn that the doctor, and death, And the cold March wind, should stop the breath Of my darling Deborah Lee,-- Adorable Deborah Lee,-- That angels should want her up in heaven Before they wanted me.

WILLIAM H. BURLEIGH.

[9] See Poe's "Annabel Lee," Volume III. p. 312.

THE COCK AND THE BULL.[10]

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day-- I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur (You catch the paronomasia, play o' words?)-- Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, And clapt it i' my poke, and gave for same By way, to-wit, of barter or exchange-- "Chop" was my snickering dandiprat's own term-- One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four Pence, one and fourpence--you are with me, sir?-- What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock, One day (and what a roaring day it was!) In February, eighteen sixty-nine, Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei Hm--hm--how runs the jargon?--being on throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum--what you will-- Of the impending eighty thousand lines. "Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge. But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.

Mark first the rationale of the thing: Hear logic rival and levigate the deed. That shilling--and for matter o' that, the pence-- I had o' course upo' me--wi' me, say-- (_Mecum_ 's the Latin, make a note o' that) When I popped pen i' stand, blew snout, scratched ear, Sniffed--tch!--at snuff-box; tumbled up, he-heed, Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that's another guess thing:) Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat; And _in vestibulo_, i' the entrance-hall, Donned galligaskins, antigropelos, And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves, One on and one a-dangle i' my hand. And ombrifuge, (Lord love you!) case o' rain, I flopped forth, 's buddikins! on my own ten toes, (I do assure you there be ten of them.) And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D. That's proven without aid from mumping Pope, Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. (Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You 're in Euclid now.) So, having the shilling--having i' fact a lot-- And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, I purchased, as I think I said before, The pebble (lapis, lapidis,--di,--dem.--de,-- What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?) O' the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, For one and fourpence. Here we are again. Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed; Investigates and re-investigates. Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. But now (by virtue of the said exchange And barter) _vice versa_ all the coin, _Per juris operationem_, vests I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom; (_In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum_; I think I hear the Abbate mouth out that.) To have and hold the same to him and them ... _Confer_ some idiot on Conveyancing, Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, And all that appertaineth thereunto, Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should, (_Subandi cætera_--clap me to the close-- For what's the good of law in a case o' the kind?) Is mine to all intents and purposes. This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him, (This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand)-- And paid for 't, _like_ a gen'lman, on the nail. "Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit. Fiddlestick's end! Get out, you blazing ass! Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby _me_! Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?" --There's the transaction viewed, i' the vendor's light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, With her three frowsy-browsy brats o' babes, The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap--Faugh? Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek: otototototoi], ('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now)-- And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack and Gill, Bleared Goody this and queasy Gaffer that. Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad A stone, and pay for it _rite_, on the square, And carry it off _per saltum_, jauntily, _Propria quæ maribus_, gentleman's property now (Agreeable to the law explained above), _In proprium usum_, for his private ends. The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit I' the face the shilling: heaved a thumping-stone At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, (And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) Then _abiit_--what's the Ciceronian phrase?-- _Excessit, evasit, erupit,_--off slogs boy; Off in three flea-skips. _Hactenus_, so far, So good, _tam bene_. _Bene, satis, male_,-- Where was I? who said what of one in a quag? I did once hitch the syntax into verse: _Verbum personale_, a verb personal, _Concordat_,--ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps--_cum_ _Nominativo_, with its nominative, Genere, i' point o' gender, _numero_, O' number, _et persona_, and person. _Ut_, Instance: _Sol ruit_, down flops sun, _et_, and, _Montes umbrantur_, snuffs out mountains. Pah! Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad. You see the trick on 't though, and can yourself Continue the discourse _ad libitum_. It takes up about eighty thousand lines, A thing imagination boggles at: And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands, Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

[10] In imitation of Robert Browning--"The Ring and the Book."

THE AULD WIFE.[11]

The auld wife sat at her ivied door, (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) A thing she had frequently done before; And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high, (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) Till the cow said "I die" and the goose asked "Why;" And the dog said nothing but searched for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard; (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) His last brew of ale was a trifle hard, The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes, (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, Which wholly consists of lines like these.

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks, (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) And spake not a word. While a lady speaks There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) She gave up mending her father's breeks, And let the cat roll in her best chemise.

She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks; Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep followed her as their tails did them (_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) And this song is considered a perfect gem, And as to the meaning, it's what you please.

CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

[11] Imitation of Rossetti.

LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION.[12]

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;

Through God's own heather we wonned together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitterbats waved alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing (Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced together, (O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers: I must mention again it was glorious weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:--

By rises that flushed with their purple favors, Through becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, We walked or 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's eyes:

Song-birds 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 mill-stream washes, Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem; They need no parasols, no galoshes; And good Mrs. Trimmer[13] 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 goddess glooms:

And Willie 'gan sing--(O, 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 encountered showers In William's carol (O love my Willie!) When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe Tomorrow 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--ay me! How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!

CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY.

[12] See Jean Ingelow's "Divided," Volume III. p. 64.

[13] Mrs. Trimmer was the author of a famous little book for children, "The History of the Robins." It has been republished in America.

NEPHELIDIA.