Part 3

“My God, you old vagabone,” he cried, “If only I....” No voice replied; Only the tall flames higher sprang, Amid the spars, and soared and sang, Only along the rigging came God’s great unfolding flower of flame, And Love’s divine dim planet shed Her radiance on the many dead; And past the battling fleets the sea Stretched to the world’s edge tranquilly, Breathing with slow, contented breath As though it were in love with Death, As it has breathed since first began Man’s inhumanity to man, As it will do when like a scroll All the heavens together roll. There’s that purple passage done And I have one less lap to run.

Dogs barked, owls hooted, cockerels crew, As in my works they often do When, flagging with my main design, I pad with a descriptive line. Young Cassy cried again: “Oh, damn! What an unhappy put I am! Will nobody go out and search For dad, who’s left me in the lurch? For dad, who’s left me on the poop, For dad, who’s left me in the soup, For dad, who’s left me on the deck. Perhaps it’s what I should expeck Considerin’ ’ow he treated me Before I came away to sea.”

“Often at home he used to beat My head for talking in the street, Often for things I didden do, He brushed my breeches with a shoe. O! but I wish that I was home now, Treading the soft old Breton loam now, In that old Breton country where Mellows the golden autumn air, And all the tender champaign fills With hyacinths and daffodils, And on God’s azure uplands now They plough the ploughed fields with a plough, And earth-worms feel averse from laughter, With hungry white birds following after. And maids at evening walk with men Through the meadows and up the glen To hear the old sweet tale again.”

The deck was getting hot and hotter, “Father!” he screamed, “you ---- rotter!” The deck was getting red and redder, And now he thought he’d take a header, Now he advanced and now he funked it.... It had been better had he bunked it, For as he wavered thus, and swore, There came a slow tremendous roar.

Lord Nelson suddenly woke up. “Where is Old Cassy and his pup? ‘Don’t know,’ you say? Why, strike me blind, I s’pose I’d better ask the wind.” He asked the wind; the brooding sky At once gave back the wind’s reply: “Wotto, Nelson!” “Wotto, sonny?” “Do you think you’re being funny? Can’t you look around, confound you, At all these fragments that surround you, Thick as thieves upon the sea, Instead of coming bothering me?”

_Or, alternatively, if you prefer his other method, it would run like this_:

And the flames rose, and leaping flames of fire Leapt round the masts and made the spars a crown, A golden crown as ravenous as desire. “Father!” he cried, “my feet are getting brown.” “Father!” he cried. The quiet stars looked down, The flames rose up like flowers overhead. He was alone and all the crew were dead.

No. 4. IF ALMOST ANY ELIZABETHAN HAD WRITTEN “SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN WAYS”

Ask me not for the semblance of my loue. Amidst the fountains of the christal Doue Like to that fayre Aurora did she runne, Who treads the beanies of the sweete morning sunne. Forth from her head her hayres like golden wyre Did spring; her amorous eyes were lampes of fire, Bright as that torch their heauenly raies did mount Wherewith fayre Hero lit the Hellespont, Or as that flame which on the desert lies When new-borne Phenix soareth to the skies. Like wanton darts her eye-beames she did throw From out her noble forehead’s iuorie bow Whose Beauties great perfection would withstand The skill of the most cunning painter’s hand. Her virgin nose like Dians self did raigne Amidst her vermell cheekes’ ambrosiall plaine; Her busie lips twinne Rubies did appeare From which her Voyce did come as Diamonds cleare; Venus’ owne sonne would sigh to look beneath At the straight pearlie pleasaunce of her teethe. Like to fayre starres, or rather, like the sunne Was her smooth Marble chinne’s pavilion, Wherefrom her slender necke the eye did lead To shoulders like twinne Lilies on a mead, Whiter than Ledaes fethers or white milke, As sweete as nectar and as softe as silke. O, and her tender brests, they were as white As snowie hills which Phebus’ beames doe smite Engirt with azure and with Saphire veines....

(_Cetera desunt_)

No. 5. IF POPE HAD WRITTEN “BREAK, BREAK, BREAK”

Fly, Muse, thy wonted themes, nor longer seek The consolations of a powder’d cheek; Forsake the busy purlieus of the Court For calmer meads where finny tribes resort. So may th’ Almighty’s natural antidote Abate the worldly tenour of thy note, The various beauties of the liquid main Refine thy reed and elevate thy strain.

See how the labour of the urgent oar Propels the barks and draws them to the shore. Hark! from the margin of the azure bay The joyful cries of infants at their play. (The offspring of a piscatorial swain, His home the sands, his pasturage the main.) Yet none of these may soothe the mourning heart, Nor fond alleviation’s sweets impart; Nor may the pow’rs of infants that rejoice Restore the accents of a former voice, Nor the bright smiles of ocean’s nymphs command The pleasing contact of a vanished hand. So let me still in meditation move, Muse in the vale and ponder in the grove, And scan the skies where sinking Phœbus glows With hues more rubicund than Cibber’s nose....

(_After which the poet gets into his proper stride_)

No. 6. IF GRAY HAD HAD TO WRITE HIS ELEGY IN THE CEMETERY OF SPOON RIVER INSTEAD OF IN THAT OF STOKE POGES

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The whippoorwill salutes the rising moon, And wanly glimmer in her gentle ray, The sinuous windings of the turbid Spoon.

Here where the flattering and mendacious swarm Of lying epitaphs their secrets keep, At last incapable of further harm The lewd forefathers of the village sleep.

The earliest drug of half-awakened morn, Cocaine or hashish, strychnine, poppy-seeds Or fiery produce of fermented corn No more shall start them on the day’s misdeeds.

For them no more the whetstone’s cheerful noise, No more the sun upon his daily course Shall watch them savouring the genial joys, Of murder, bigamy, arson and divorce.

Here they all lie; and, as the hour is late, O stranger, o’er their tombstones cease to stoop, But bow thine ear to me and contemplate The unexpurgated annals of the group.

There are two hundred only: yet of these Some thirty died of drowning in the river, Sixteen went mad, ten others had D.T.’s And twenty-eight cirrhosis of the liver.

Several by absent-minded friends were shot, Still more blew out their own exhausted brains, One died of a mysterious inward rot, Three fell off roofs, and five were hit by trains.

One was harpooned, one gored by a bull-moose, Four on the Fourth fell victims to lock-jaw, Ten in electric chair or hempen noose Suffered the last exaction of the law.

Stranger, you quail, and seem inclined to run; But, timid stranger, do not be unnerved; I can assure you that there was not one Who got a tithe of what he had deserved.

Full many a vice is born to thrive unseen, Full many a crime the world does not discuss, Full many a pervert lives to reach a green Replete old age, and so it was with us.

Here lies a parson who would often make Clandestine rendezvous with Claflin’s Moll, And ’neath the druggist’s counter creep to take A sip of surreptitious alcohol.

And here a doctor, who had seven wives, And, fearing this _ménage_ might seem grotesque, Persuaded six of them to spend their lives Locked in a drawer of his private desk.

And others here there sleep who, given scope, Had writ their names large on the Scrolls of Crime, Men who, with half a chance, might haply cope, With the first miscreants of recorded time.

Doubtless in this neglected spot is laid Some village Nero who has missed his due, Some Bluebeard who dissected many a maid, And all for naught, since no one ever knew.

Some poor bucolic Borgia here may rest Whose poisons sent whole families to their doom, Some hayseed Herod who, within his breast, Concealed the sites of many an infant’s tomb.

Types that the Muse of Masefield might have stirred, Or waked to ecstasy Gaboriau, Each in his narrow cell at last interred, All, all are sleeping peacefully below.

* * * * *

Enough, enough! But, stranger, ere we part, Glancing farewell to each nefarious bier, This warning I would beg you take to heart, “There is an end to even the worst career.”

No. 7. IF A VERY NEW POET HAD WRITTEN “THE LOTUS-EATERS”

I

Ah! Ough! Umph! It _was_ a sweat! Thank God, that’s over! No more navigating for me I am on to Something Softer.... Conductor Give us a tune!

II

Work! Did I used to work? I seem to remember it Out there. Millions of fools are still at It, Jumping about All over the place.... And what’s the good of it all?... Buzz, Hustle, Pop, And then.... Dump In the grave.

III

Bring me six cushions A yellow one, a green one, a purple one, an orange one, an ultramarine one, and a vermilion one, Colours of which the combination Pleases my eye. Bring me Also Six lemon squashes And A straw....

IV

I have taken off my coat. I shall now Loosen My braces.

V

Now I am All right.... My God ... I do feel lazy!

No. 8. IF HENRY JAMES HAD WRITTEN THE CHURCH CATECHISM

_Q._ What is your name?

_A._ It may possibly be conceived as standing in a relation of contiguity to a certain--shall we say?--somewhat complicatedly rectilinear design--to put it colloquially, a symbol--employed by such of the races of mankind as follow the Roman usage to denote a sort of suppressed explosion, or, rather, a confused hum “produced” when the upper and the nether lip are brought with some firmness--or even, as one might phrase it, “snap”--together, and a continuous sound is compelled for egress to flow through a less harmonious though undeniably more prominent organ. Or, on the other hand, its relation to that so interesting figure may be something even closer than one of mere contiguity, however proximate, something in the nature of coincidence, of body and soul identity even: in a word, it may be, or, more exactly, may be represented by, that symbol itself.

_Q._ Who gave you that name?

_A._ Which?

_Q._ Oh no, _not_ the other one, the quite inevitably discursive family “label.”

_A._ You mean my....

_Q._ Well yes, not that all so shared, and as it were almost--if one may forgivably say it--may one?--“vulgarized”--your, as they call it, “surname.”

_A._ Oh, _not_ that one?

_Q._ No....

_A._ The other?

_Q._ Yes--that other--that more exquisitely personal, the more (dare one?) _appropriated_, the one of which, I had thought, we touched, even grasped, the skirts when our interlocution, or to put it quite brutally, when we began our conversation.

_A._ You refer....

_Q._ I am, dear lady, all ears.

_A._ To, in fact, my--since we are both to be so frank--Christian name?

_Q._ Oh, but you are great!

_A._ Not _great_, not, I mean, really, in the sense that you mean....

_Q._ _I_ mean?

_A._ The other sense, you know.

_Q._ Yes, I apprehend you, but it wasn’t that one I meant.

_A._ Then what in the world was it?

_Q._ Take it from another point of view, wasn’t frankness to be, always, our splendid object?

_A._ Explicitly,

_Q._ Wasn’t it?

_A._ Oh no, I wouldn’t doubt it; I wouldn’t, really wouldn’t, let you down.

_Q._ Not even gently?

_A._ The other way, I meant.

_Q._ Divine clarity! And who gave it you?

_A._ The Deluge!

_Q._ He was it, or she?

_A._ Oh, never he, as he would himself say, never on your life.

_Q._ And she?

_A._ She would, as she always will, bet her boots not!

_Q._ Not, surely it wasn’t, they?

_A._ They!

_Q._ They!

_A._ Oh, certainly they! Who could have stopped them. Not miserable I, so pitifully, so hopelessly, so microscopically, futilely small! They were all there, and there was I. And they did it, oh, quite finally did it.

_Q._ Who?

_Etc._

No. 9. IF LORD BYRON HAD WRITTEN “THE PASSING OF ARTHUR”

So all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the western sea, Till, when the bell for evening service tolled, Each side had swiped the other utterly; And, looking round, Sir Bedivere the bold Said, “Sire, there’s no one left but you and me; I’m game to lay a million to a fiver That, save for us, there is not one survivor.”

“Quite likely,” answered Arthur, “and I’m sure That I have been so hammered by these swine To-morrow’s sun will find us yet one fewer. I prithee take me to yon lonely shrine Where I may rest and die. There is no cure For men with sixty-seven wounds like mine.” So Bedivere did very firmly grapple His arm, and led him to the Baptist Chapel.

There he lay down, and by him burned like flame His sword Excalibur: its massy hilt Crusted with blazing gems that never came From mortal mines; its blade, inlaid and gilt And graved with many a necromantic name, Still dabbled with the blood the king had spilt. Which touching, Arthur said, “Sir Bedivere, Please take this brand and throw him in the mere.”

Bold Bedivere sprang back like one distraught, Or like a snail when tapped upon the shell, Was _this_ the peerless prince for whom he’d fought, A man who’d drop his cheque-book down a well? Surely he must have dreamt the words, he thought. Had the king spoken? Was it possible To give so lunatic a proposal credit?... And yet the king undoubtedly had said it.

He said it again in accents full serene: “Go to the lake and throw this weapon in it, And then come back and tell me what you’ve seen. The business should not take you half a minute. Off now. I say precisely what I mean.” “Right, sire!” But, _sotto voce_, “What a sin it Would be, what criminal improvidence To waste an _arme blanche_ of such excellence!”

But Arthur’s voice broke through his meditation, “Why this delay? I thought I said at once?” “Yes, sire,” said he, and, with a salutation Walked off reflecting, “How this fighting blunts One’s wits. In any other situation I should have guessed--’twere obvious to a dunce That this all comes from Merlin’s precious offices, Why could he not confine himself to prophecies?”

Bearing the brand, across the rocks he went And now and then a hot impatient word Witnessed the stress of inner argument. “Curse it,” he mused, “a really sumptuous sword Is just the very one accoutrement I never have been able to afford; This beautiful, this incomparable Excalibur Would nicely suit a warrior of my calibre.”

“Could anything be madder than to hurl in This stupid lake a sword as good as new, Merely because that hoary humbug Merlin Suggested that would be the thing to do? A bigger liar never came from Berlin, I _won’t_ be baulked by guff and bugaboo; The old impostor’s lake may call in vain for it, I’ll stick it in a hole and come again for it.”

So, having safely stowed away the sword And marked the place with several large stones, Sir Bedivere returned to his liege lord And, with a studious frankness in his tones, Stated that he had dropped it overboard; But Arthur only greeted him with groans: “My Bedivere,” he said, “I may be dying, But even dead I’d spot such barefaced lying.”

“It’s rather rough upon a dying man That his last dying orders should be flouted. Time was when if you’d thus deranged my plan I should have said, ‘Regard yourself as outed, I’ll find some other gentleman who can.’ Now I must take what comes, that’s all about it.... My strength is failing fast, its very cold here. Come, pull yourself together, be a soldier.”

“Once more I must insist you are to lift Excalibur and hurl him in the mere. Don’t hang about now. You had better shift For all you’re worth, or when you come back here The chances are you’ll find your master stiffed.” Whereat the agonized Sir Bedivere, His “Yes, Sire,” broken by a noisy sob, Went off once more on his distasteful job.

But as he walked the inner voice did say: “I quite agree with ‘Render unto Cæsar,’ But nothing’s said of throwing things away When a man’s king’s an old delirious geezer, You don’t meet swords like this one every day. Jewels and filigree as fine as these are Should surely be preserved in a museum That our posterity may come and see ’em.”

“A work of Art’s a thing one holds in trust, One has no right to throw it in a lake, Such Vandalism would arouse disgust In every Englishman who claims to take An interest in Art. Oh no, I must Delude my monarch for my country’s sake; Obedience in such a case, in fact, Were patently an anti-social act.”

“It is not pleasant to deceive my king, I had much rather humour his caprice But, if I tell him I have thrown the thing, And, thinking that the truth, he dies in peace, Surely the poets of our race will sing (Unless they are the most pedantic geese) The praises of the knight who lied to save This precious weapon from a watery grave.”

He reached the margin of the lake and there Until a decent interval had passed Lingered, the sword once more safe in its lair. Then to his anxious monarch hurried fast, And, putting on a still more candid air, Assured the king the brand had gone at last. But Arthur, not deceived by any means, Icily said: “Tell that to the marines.”

“Sir Bedivere, this conduct won’t enhance Your reputation as a man of honour. If you had dared to lead me such a dance A week ago, you would have been a goner, Listen to me! I give you one more chance; And, if you fail again, I swear upon our Old oath of fealty to the Table Round I shall jump up and fell you to the ground.”

So that sad soul went off alone once more. Rebellion frowned no longer on his face; His spirit was broken; when he reached the shore He wormed the sword out of its hiding-place, Excalibur, that man’s eye should see no more, And, fearing still a further lapse from grace, Shut his eyes tight against that matchless jewel And, desperately hissing, “This is cruel,”

Swung it far back; and then, with mighty sweep, Hove it to southward as he had been bade. And, as it fell, an arm did suddenly leap Out of the moonlit wave, in samite clad, And grasped the sword and drew it to the deep. And all was still; and Bedivere, who had No nerve at all left now, exclaimed, “My Hat! I’ll never want another job like that!”

Thus Bedivere at last performed his vow. And Arthur, when the warrior bore in sight, Read his success upon his gloomy brow. “Done it at last,” he murmured, “_that’s_ all right. Well, Bedivere, and what has happened now?” Demanded he; and the disconsolate knight In a harsh bitter voice replied, “Oh, damn it all, I saw a mystic arm, clothed in white samite all.”

“Quite right,” said Arthur, “better late than never. Now, if you please, you’ll take me for a ride. Put me upon your back and then endeavour To run top-speed unto the waterside. Come, stir your stumps, you must be pretty clever, Or otherwise I fear I shall have died Before you’ve landed me upon the jetty, And then the programme’s spoilt: which were a pity.”

What followed after this (although my trade is Romantic verse) is quite beyond my lay. For automobile barges, full of ladies Singing and weeping, never came my way. Though, for that matter, I was once in Cadiz-- --But never mind. It will suffice to say That in his final act our old friend Malory Was obviously playing to the gallery.

No. 10. IF SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE HAD WRITTEN “LITTLE DROPS OF WATER”

Child, I am wondering. Last night I was watching the silver moon rising over the sea, And in her light the colour of the sea was pale, and the colour of the grasses was dark and sweet as the champak. I heard the ducks crying over the waters by the shore. I heard from the khitmatgar, threading like pearls on the darkness, the soft notes of the cummerbund. Child, I am wondering.

Child, I smelt the flowers, The golden flowers ... hiding in crowds like fairies at my feet, And as I smelt them the endless smile of the infinite broke over me, and I knew that they and you and I were one.

They and you and I, the cowherds and the cows, the jewels and the potter’s wheel, the mothers and the light in baby’s eyes. For the sempstress when she takes one stitch may make nine unnecessary; And the smooth and shining stone that rolls and rolls like the great river may gain no moss, And it is extraordinary what a lot you can do with a platitude when you dress it up in Blank Prose. Child, I smelt the flowers.

PRINTED AT KNIGHT’S, WEST NORWOOD

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Possible mention of Tarquin.

[2] Conceivably Horatius.

[3] Our mother, inviolate ever since, save for one only occasion.

[4] Lars Porsena in poet’s mind.