Familiar Faces

Graham Harry

Familiar Faces

THE CRY OF THE PUBLISHER

O my Author, do you hear the Autumn calling?Does its message fail to reach you in your den,Where the ink that once so sluggishly was crawlingCourses swiftly through your stylographic pen?'Tis the season when the editor grows active,When the office-boy looks longingly to you.Won't you give him something novel and attractiveTo review?Never mind if you are frivolous or solemn,If you only can be striking and unique,The reviewers will concede you half a columnIn their literary journals, any week.And 'twill always be your publisher's ambitionTo provide for the demand that you create,And dispose of a gigantic first edition,While you wait.O my Author, can't you pull yourself together,Try to expiate the failures of the past,And just ask yourself dispassionately whetherYou can't give us something better than your last?If you really – if you truly – are a poet,As you fancy – pray forgive my being terse —Don't you think you might occasionally show itIn your verse?

THE CRY OF THE AUTHOR

O my Publisher, how dreadfully you bore me!Of your censure I am frankly growing tired.With your diatribes eternally before me,How on earth can I expect to feel inspired?You are orderly, no doubt, and systematic,In that office where recumbent you recline;You would modify your methods in an atticSuch as mine.If you lived a sort of hand-to-mouth existence(Where the mouth found less employment than the hand);If your rhymes would lend your humour no assistance,And your wit assumed a form that never scann'd;If you sat and waited vainly at your tableWhile Calliope declined to give her cues,You would realise how very far from stableWas the Mews!You would find it quite impossible to labourWith the patient perseverance of a drone,While some tactless but enthusiastic neighbourPlayed a cake walk on a wheezy gramophone,While your peace was so disturbed by constant clatter,That at length you grew accustomed – nay, resigned,To the never-ending victory of MatterOver Mind.While you batten upon plovers' eggs and claret,In the shelter of some fashionable club,I am starving, very likely, in a garret,Off the street so incorrectly labelled Grub,Where the vintage smacks distinctly of the ink-butt,And the atmosphere is redolent of toil,And there's nothing for the journalist to drink butMidnight oil!It is useless to solicit inspirationWhen one isn't in the true poetic mood,When one contemplates the prospect of starvation,And one's little ones are clamouring for food.When one's tongue remains ingloriously tacit,One is forced with some reluctance to admitThat, alas! (as Virgil said) Poeta nascit--Ur, non fit!Then, my Publisher, be gentle with your poet;Do not treat him with the harshness he deserves,For, in fact, altho' you little seem to know it,You are gradually getting on his nerves.Kindly dam the foaming torrent of your curses,While I ask you, – yes, and pause for a reply, —Are you writing this immortal book of verses,Or am I?

I

THE FUMBLER

Gentle Reader, charge your tumblerWith anæmic lemonade!Let us toast our fellow-fumbler,Who was surely born, not made.None of all our friends is "dearer"(Costs us more – to be jocose – );No relation could be nearer,More intensely "close"!Hear him indistinctly mumbling"Oh, I say, do let me pay!"Watch him in his pocket fumbling,In a dilatory way;Plumbing the unmeasured deeps there,With some muttered vague excuse,For the coinage that he keeps there,But will not produce.If he joins you in a hansom,You alone provide the fare;Not for all a monarch's ransomWould he pay his modest share.He may fumble with his collar,He may turn his pockets out,He can never find that dollarWhich he spoke about!Cigarettes he sometimes offers,With a sort of old-world grace,But, when you accept them, proffersWith surprise, an empty case.Your cigars, instead, he'll snatch, and,With the cunning of the fox,Ask you firmly for a match, andPocket half your box!If with him a meal you share, too,You'll discover, when you've dined,That your friend has taken care toLeave his frugal purse behind."We must sup together later,"He remarks, with right good-will,"Pass the Heidsieck, please; and, waiter,Bring my friend the bill!"At some crowded railway stationHe comes running up to you,And exclaims with agitation,"Take my ticket, will you, too?"Though his pow'rs of conversationIn the train require no spur,To this trifling obligationHe will not refer!When at Bridge you win his money,Do not think it odd or strangeIf he says, "It's very funny,But I find I've got no change!Do remind me what I owe you,When you see me in the street."Mr. Fumbler, if I know you,We shall never meet!Fumbler, so serenely fumblingIn a pocket with thy thumb,Never by good fortune stumblingOn the necessary sum,Cease to make polite pretences,Suited to thy niggard ends,Of dividing the expensesWith confiding friends!Here, we crown thee, fumbling brother,With the fumbler's well-earned wreath,Who would'st rob thine aged motherOf her artificial teeth!We at length are slowly learningThat some friendships cost too dear."Longest worms must have a turning,"And our turn is near!Henceforth, when a cab thou takest,Thou a lonely way must wend;Henceforth, when for food thou achest,Thou must dine without a friend.Thine excuses thou shalt mumbleDown some public telephone,And if thou perforce must fumble,Fumble all alone!

II

THE BARITONE

In many a boudoir nowadaysThe baritone's decolleté throatProduces weird unearthly lays,Like some dyspeptic goatDeprived but lately of her young(But not, alas! of either lung).His low-necked collar fails to showThe contours of his manly chest,Since that has fallen far belowHis "fancy evening vest."Here, too, in picturesque relief,Nestles his crimson handkerchief.Will no one tell me why he singsSuch doleful melancholy lays,Of withered summers, ruined springs,Of happier bygone days,And kindred topics, more or lessDesigned to harass or depress?That ballad in his bloated handIs of the old familiar blend: —A faded flow'r, a maiden, andA "brave kiss" at the end!(The kind of kiss that, for a bet,A man might give a Suffragette.)(THE BARITONE'S BOUDOIR BALLAD)Eyes that looked down into mine,With a longing that seemed to sayIs it too late, dear heart, to waitFor the dawn of a brighter day?Is it too late to laugh at fate?See how the teardrops start!Can we not weather the tempest together,Dear Heart, Dear Heart?Lips that I pressed to my own,As I gazed at her yielding form, —Turned with a groan, and then hastened aloneInto the teeth of the Storm!Long, long ago! Still the winds blow!Far have we drifted apart!You live with Mother, and I love – another!Dear Heart, Dear Heart!At times some drinking-song inspiresOur hero to a vocal burst,Until his audience, too, acquiresThe most prodigious thirst.And nobody would ever thinkThat milk was his peculiar drink!What spacious days his song recalls,When each monastic brotherhoodCould brew, within its private walls,A vintage just as goodAs that which restaurants purveyAs "rare old Tawny Port" to-day!(THE BARITONE'S DRINKING SONG)The Abbot he sits, as his rank befits,With a bottle at either knee,And he smacks his lips as he slowly sipsAt his beaker of Malvoisie.Sing Ho! Ho! Ho!Let the red wine flow!Let the sack flow fast and free!His heart it grows merry on negus and sherry,And never a care has he!Ho! Ho!(Ora pro nobis!)Sing Ho! for the Malvoisie!In cellar cool, on a highbacked stool,The Friar he sits him down,With the door tight shut, and an unbroached buttWhere the ale flows clear and brown.Sing Ha! Sing Hi!Till the cask runs dry,His spirits shall never fail!For no one is dryer than Francis the Friar,When getting "outside the pail!"Ho! Ho!(Benedicimus!)Sing Ho! for the nutbrown ale!The Monk sits there, in his cell so bare,And he lowers his tonsured head,As he lifts the lid of the tankard hid'Neath the straw of his trestle bed.Sing Ho! Sink Hey!From the break of dayTill the vesper-bell rings clear,Of grave he makes merry and hastens to buryHis cares in the butt'rybier!Ho! Ho!(Pax Omnibuscum!)Sing Ho! for the buttery beer!Oh, find me some secure retreat,Some Paradise for stricken souls,Where amateurs no longer bleatTheir feeble baracoles,From lungs that are so oddly placedWhere other people keep their waist;Where public taste has quite outgrownThe faculty for being boredBy each anæmic baritoneWho murders "The Lost Chord,"And singers, as a body, areCursed with a permanent catarrh!

III

THE ACTOR MANAGER

Long ago, our English actorsRanked with rogues and vagabonds;They were jailed as malefactors,They were ducked in village ponds.In the stocks the beadle shut them,While the friends they chanced to meetWould invariably cut themIn the street.With suspicion people eyed them,Ev'ry country-squire would feelThat his fallow-deer supplied themWith the makings of a meal.They annexed the parson's rabbits,Poached the pheasants of the peer,And had other little habitsJust as queer!Even Will, the Bard of Avon,As a poacher stands confest,And altho', of course, cleanshaven,Was as barefaced as the rest.He, a player by vocation,Practised, like his buckskin'd pals,Indiscriminate flirtationWith the gals!Now, the am'rous actor's cravingsFor romance are orthodox;Nowadays he puts his savings,Not his ankles, into "stocks."Nobody to-day is doubtingThat a halo round him clings;One can see his shoulders sproutingInto wings.Watch the mummer managerial,Centre of a rev'rent group;Note with what an air imperialHe controls his timid troupe.Deadheads scrape and bow before him,To his doors the public flocks;Even duchesses implore himFor a box.Enemies, no doubt, will tell us(What we should not ever guess)That he is absurdly jealousOf subordinates' success.Minor mimes who score a hit orThreaten to advance too fast,Are advised to curb their wit orLeave the cast!Foes declare that, at rehearsal,Managers are free of speech,And unduly prone to curse allThose who come within their reach.With some tiny dams (or damlets)They exhort each "walking gent – "Language that potential HamletsMuch resent.Do not autocrats, dictators,All who lead successful lives,Swear repeatedly at waiters,Curse consistently at wives?Shall the heads of the Profession,Histrionic argonauts,Be denied the frank expressionOf their thoughts?Will not we who so applaud themExecrate with righteous ragePlayer knaves who would defraud themOf their centre of the stage?Do we grudge these godlike creaturesPicture-cards that advertise —Calcium lights that flood their featuresFrom the flies?No, for ev'ry leading actorWho produces problem plays,Is a most important factorIn the world of modern days.Kings occasionally knight him,Titled ladies take him up;Even millionaires invite himOut to sup.Proudly he advances, trailingClouds of limelight from afar,(Diffidence is not the failingOf the true dramatic "star").What cares he for rank or fashion,Politics or place or pelf?He whose one prevailing passionIs himself?All the world's a stage, we know it;Managers, whose heads are twirled,Think (to paraphrase the poet)That the stage is all the world.Other men discuss the summer,Or the poor potato crop,Nothing can prevent the mummerTalking "shop."With his Art as the objectiveOf his intellectual pow'rs,He (as usual, introspective)Talks about himself for hours.While his friends, who never dream ofInterrupting, stand agog,He decants a ceaseless stream ofMonologue.He is great. He has become itBy a long and arduous climbTo the crest, the crown, the summitOf the Thespian tree – a lime!There he chatters like a starling,There, like Jove, he sometimes nods;But he still remains the "darlingOf the gods!"

IV

THE GILDED YOUTH

A monocle he always wears,Safe screwed within his dexter eye;His mouth stands open wide, and snaresThe too intrusive fly.Were he to close his jaws, no doubt,The eyeglass would at once fall out.His choice of clothes is truly weird;His jacket, short, and negligée,Is slit behind, as tho' he fearedA tail might sprout some day.One's eye must be inured to shocksTo stand the tartan of his socks.The chessboard pattern of his checkBetrays its owner's florid taste;

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