Rhymes a la Mode

TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS

Αίαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μέν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾱπον ὄλωνταιὕστερον άυ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντιάμμες δ’ οι μεγάλοι καὶ χαρτερί οι σοφοὶ ἄνδρεςὁππότε πρᾱτα θάνωμες άνάχοοι ἔν χθονὶ χοίλα‘εύδομες ἔυ μάλα μαχρὸν ἀπέμονα νήγρετον ‘ύπνον.Alas, for us no second spring,   Like mallows in the garden-bed,For these the grave has lost his sting,   Alas, for us no second spring,   Who sleep without awakening,And, dead, for ever more are dead,   Alas, for us no second spring,      Like mallows in the garden-bed!Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave   That boast themselves the sons of men!Once they go down into the grave —   Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave, —   They perish and have none to save,   They are sown, and are not raised again;Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,   That boast themselves the sons of men!

BALLADE OF CRICKET

TO T. W. LANGThe burden of hard hitting: slog away!Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say,That thou art in for an uncommon score.Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,And thou to rival Thornton shalt aspire,When lo, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,” —“This is the end of every man’s desire!”The burden of much bowling, when the stayOf all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,And “yorkers” come not off as here-to-fore,When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,When all deliveries lose their former fire,When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door, —“This is the end of every man’s desire!”The burden of long fielding, when the clayClings to thy shoon in sudden shower’s downpour,And running still thou stumblest, or the rayOf blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer,”And lose a match the Fates cannot restore, —“This is the end of every man’s desire!”EnvoyAlas, yet liefer on Youth’s hither shoreWould I be some poor Player on scant hire,Than King among the old, who play no more, —“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

THE LAST MAYING

“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in the forest, before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, that they beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the very Venus herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might, for’ said she, ‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall ye endure to see another May time.’” – Edmund Gorliot, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p. 149. (1573.)

“Whence do ye come, with the dew on your hair?From what far land are the boughs ye bear,   The blossoms and buds upon breasts and tresses,The light burned white in your faces fair?”“In a falling fane have we built our house,With the dying Gods we have held carouse,   And our lips are wan from their wild caresses,Our hands are filled with their holy boughs.As we crossed the lawn in the dying dayNo fairy led us to meet the May,   But the very Goddess loved by lovers,In mourning raiment of green and grey.She was not decked as for glee and game,She was not veiled with the veil of flame,   The saffron veil of the Bride that coversThe face that is flushed with her joy and shame.On the laden branches the scent and dewMingled and met, and as snow to strew   The woodland rides and the fragrant grasses,White flowers fell as the night wind blew.Tears and kisses on lips and eyesMingled and met amid laughter and sighs   For grief that abides, and joy that passes,For pain that tarries and mirth that flies.It chanced as the dawning grew to greyPale and sad on our homeward way,   With weary lips, and palled with pleasureThe Goddess met us, farewell to say.“Ye have made your choice, and the better part,Ye chose” she said, “and the wiser art;   In the wild May night drank all the measure,The perfect pleasure of heart and heart.“Ye shall walk no more with the May,” she said,“Shall your love endure though the Gods be dead?   Shall the flitting flocks, mine own, my chosen,Sing as of old, and be happy and wed?“Yea, they are glad as of old; but you,Fair and fleet as the dawn or the dew,   Abide no more, for the springs are frozen,And fled the Gods that ye loved and knew.Ye shall never know Summer again like this;Ye shall play no more with the Fauns, I wis,   No more in the nymphs’ and dryads’ playtimeShall echo and answer kiss and kiss.“Though the flowers in your golden hair be bright,Your golden hair shall be waste and whiteOn faded brows ere another May time   Bring the spring, but no more delight.”

HOMERIC UNITY

The sacred keep of Ilion is rentBy shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slowThrough plains where Simois and Scamander went   To war with Gods and heroes long ago.   Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying lowIn rich Mycenæ, do the Fates relent:   The bones of Agamemnon are a show,And ruined is his royal monument.The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,   Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,   And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to seeThe crown that burns on thine immortal head   Of indivisible supremacy!

IN TINTAGEL

LUIAh lady, lady, leave the creeping mist,   And leave the iron castle by the sea!ELLENay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissed   My lips, and so I cannot come to thee!LUIAh lady, leave the cruel landward wind   That crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam!ELLENay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind,   And I must dwell with him and make my home!LUICome, for the Spring is fair in Joyous Guard   And down deep alleys sweet birds sing again.ELLEBut I must tarry with the winter hard,   And with the bitter memory of pain,Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,   And in the gardens glad birds sing again!

PISIDICÊ

The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.

The daughter of the Lesbian king   Within her bower she watched the war,Far off she heard the arrows ring,   The smitten harness ring afar;And, fighting from the foremost car,   Saw one that smote where all must flee;More fair than the Immortals are   He seemed to fair Pisidicê!She saw, she loved him, and her heart   Before Achilles, Peleus’ son,Threw all its guarded gates apart,   A maiden fortress lightly won!And, ere that day of fight was done,   No more of land or faith recked she,But joyed in her new life begun, —   Her life of love, Pisidicê!She took a gift into her hand,   As one that had a boon to crave;She stole across the ruined land   Where lay the dead without a grave,And to Achilles’ hand she gave   Her gift, the secret postern’s key.“To-morrow let me be thy slave!”   Moaned to her love Pisidicê.Ere dawn the Argives’ clarion call   Rang down Methymna’s burning street;They slew the sleeping warriors all,   They drove the women to the fleet,Save one, that to Achilles’ feet   Clung, but, in sudden wrath, cried he:“For her no doom but death is meet,”   And there men stoned Pisidicê.In havens of that haunted coast,   Amid the myrtles of the shore,The moon sees many a maiden ghost   Love’s outcast now and evermore.The silence hears the shades deplore   Their hour of dear-bought love; but theeThe waves lull, ’neath thine olives hoar,   To dreamless rest, Pisidicê!

FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST

Returning from what other seas   Dost thou renew thy murmuring,Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of these   To tell, the shores where float and clingMy love, my hope, my memories?Say does my lady wake to note   The gold light into silver die?Or do thy waves make lullaby,   While dreams of hers, like angels, floatThrough star-sown spaces of the sky?Ah, would such angels came to me   That dreams of mine might speak with hers,Nor wake the slumber of the seaWith words as low as winds that be   Awake among the gossamers!

LOVE THE VAMPIRE

Ο ΕΡΩΤΑΣ ’Σ ΤΟΝ ΤΑΦΟ   The level sands and grey,   Stretch leagues and leagues away,Down to the border line of sky and foam,   A spark of sunset burns,   The grey tide-water turns,Back, like a ghost from her forbidden home!   Here, without pyre or bier,   Light Love was buried here,Alas, his grave was wide and deep enough,   Thrice, with averted head,   We cast dust on the dead,And left him to his rest.  An end of Love.   “No stone to roll away,   No seal of snow or clay,Only soft dust above his wearied eyes,   But though the sudden sound   Of Doom should shake the ground,And graves give up their ghosts, he will not rise!”   So each to each we said!   Ah, but to either bedSet far apart in lands of North and South,   Love as a Vampire came   With haggard eyes aflame,And kissed us with the kisses of his mouth!   Thenceforth in dreams must we   Each other’s shadow seeWand’ring unsatisfied in empty lands,   Still the desirèd face   Fleets from the vain embrace,And still the shape evades the longing hands.

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN’S PARADISE

There is a Heaven, or here, or there, —A Heaven there is, for me and you,Where bargains meet for purses spare,Like ours, are not so far and few.Thuanus’ bees go humming throughThe learned groves, ’neath rainless skies,O’er volumes old and volumes new,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!There treasures bound for LongepierreKeep brilliant their morocco blue,There Hookes’ Amanda is not rare,Nor early tracts upon Peru!Racine is common as Rotrou,No Shakespeare Quarto search defies,And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!There’s Eve, – not our first mother fair, —But Clovis Eve, a binder true;Thither does Bauzonnet repair,Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!But never come the cropping crewThat dock a volume’s honest size,Nor they that “letter” backs askew,Within that Book-man’s Paradise!EnvoyFriend, do not Heber and De Thou,And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,La chasse au bouquin still pursueWithin that Book-man’s Paradise?

BALLADE OF A FRIAR

(Clement Marot’s Frère Lubin, though translated by Longfellow and others, has not hitherto been rendered into the original measure, of ballade à double refrain.)

Some ten or twenty times a day,To bustle to the town with speed,To dabble in what dirt he may, —Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!But any sober life to leadUpon an exemplary plan,Requires a Christian indeed, —Le Frère Lubin is not the man!Another’s wealth on his to lay,With all the craft of guile and greed,To leave you bare of pence or pay, —Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!But watch him with the closest heed,And dun him with what force you can, —He’ll not refund, howe’er you plead, —Le Frère Lubin is not the man!An honest girl to lead astray,With subtle saw and promised meed,Requires no cunning crone and grey, —Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!He preaches an ascetic creed,But, – try him with the water can —A dog will drink, whate’er his breed, —Le Frère Lubin is not the man!EnvoyIn good to fail, in ill succeed,Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!In honest works to lead the van,Le Frère Lubin is not the man!

BALLADE OF NEGLECTED MERIT. 1

I have scribbled in verse and in prose,I have painted “arrangements in greens,”And my name is familiar to thoseWho take in the high class magazines;I compose; I’ve invented machines;I have written an “Essay on Rhyme”;For my county I played, in my teens,But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”I have lived, as a chief, with the Crows;I have “interviewed” Princes and Queens;I have climbed the Caucasian snows;I abstain, like the ancients, from beans, —I’ve a guess what Pythagoras means,When he says that to eat them’s a crime, —I have lectured upon the Essenes,But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”I’ve a fancy as morbid as Poe’s,I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens,”I have breasted the river that flowsThrough the land of the wild Gadarenes;I can gossip with Burton on skenes,I can imitate Irving (the Mime),And my sketches are quainter than Keene’s,But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”EnvoySo the tower of mine eminence leansLike the Pisan, and mud is its lime;I’m acquainted with Dukes and with Deans,But – I am not in “Men of the Time!”

BALLADE OF RAILWAY NOVELS

Let others praise analysis   And revel in a “cultured” style,And follow the subjective Miss 2   From Boston to the banks of Nile,Rejoice in anti-British bile,   And weep for fickle hero’s woe,These twain have shortened many a mile,   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.These damsels of “Democracy’s,”   How long they stop at every stile!They smile, and we are told, I wis,   Ten subtle reasons why they smile.Give me your villains deeply vile,   Give me Lecoq, Jottrat, and Co.,Great artists of the ruse and wile,   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!Oh, novel readers, tell me this,   Can prose that’s polished by the file,Like great Boisgobey’s mysteries,   Wet days and weary ways beguile,And man to living reconcile,   Like these whose every trick we know?The agony how high they pile,   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!EnvoyAh, friend, how many and many a while   They’ve made the slow time fleetly flow,And solaced pain and charmed exile,   Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

THE CLOUD CHORUS

(FROM ARISTOPHANES.)Socrates speaksHither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves here;Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear,Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile’s overflow,Or whether you dwell by Mæotis mereOr the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.The Clouds singImmortal Clouds from the echoing shoreOf the father of streams, from the sounding sea,Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar.Dewy and gleaming, and fleet are we!Let us look on the tree-clad mountain crest,   On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,On the waters that murmur east and west   On the tumbling sea with his moaning voice,For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air,   And the bright rays gleam;Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fareIn our deathless shapes to glance everywhere   From the height of the heaven, on the land and air,      And the Ocean stream.Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain,   Let us gaze on Pallas’ citadel,      In the country of Cecrops, fair and dear      The mystic land of the holy cell,   Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,      And the gifts of the Gods that know not stainAnd a people of mortals that know not fear.For the temples tall, and the statues fair,And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there,The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers   And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,And the musical voices that fill the hours,   And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!

BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME

“All these for Fourpence.”Oh, where are the endless RomancesOur grandmothers used to adore?The Knights with their helms and their lances,Their shields and the favours they wore?And the Monks with their magical lore?They have passed to Oblivion and Nox,They have fled to the shadowy shore, —They are all in the Fourpenny Box!And where the poetical fanciesOur fathers rejoiced in, of yore?The lyric’s melodious expanses,The Epics in cantos a score?They have been and are not: no moreShall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,Nor the ladies their languors deplore, —They are all in the Fourpenny Box!And the Music!  The songs and the dances?The tunes that Time may not restore?And the tomes where Divinity prances?And the pamphlets where Heretics roar?They have ceased to be even a bore, —The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks, —They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core, —They are all in the Fourpenny Box!EnvoySuns beat on them; tempests downpour,On the chest without cover or locks,Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door, —They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

Νήνεμος ’Αἰών

I would my days had been in other times,A moment in the long unnumbered yearsThat knew the sway of Horus and of hawk,In peaceful lands that border on the Nile.I would my days had been in other times,Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymnBetween the Five great Rivers, or in shadeAnd shelter of the cool Himâlayan hills.I would my days had been in other times,That I in some old abbey of TouraineHad watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life,Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais!I would my days had been in other times,When quiet life to death not terribleDrifted, as ashes of the Santhal deadDrift down the sacred Rivers to the Sea!

ART

A VERY WOFUL BALLADE OF THE ART CRITIC

(TO E. A. ABBEY.)A spirit came to my sad bed,And weary sad that night was I,Who’d tottered, since the dawn was red,Through miles of Grosvenor Gallery,Yea, leagues of long AcademyAwaited me when morn grew white,’Twas then the Spirit whispered nigh,“Take up the pen, my friend, and write!“Of many a portrait grey as lead,Of many a mustard-coloured sky,Say much, where little should be said,Lay on thy censure dexterously,With microscopic glances pryAt textures, Tadema’s delight,Praise foreign swells they always sky,Take up the pen, my friend, and write!”I answered, “’Tis for daily bread,A sorry crust, I ween, and dry,That still, with aching feet and head,I push this lawful industry,’Mid pictures hung or low, or high,But, touching that which I indite,Do artists hold me lovingly?Take up the pen, my friend, and write.”The Spirit writeth in form ofEnvoy“They fain would black thy dexter eye,They hate thee with a bitter spite,But scribble since thou must, or die,Take tip the pen, my friend, and write!”

ART’S MARTYR

Telleth of a young man that fain would be fairly tattooed on his flesh, after the heathen manner, in devices of blue, and that, falling among the Dyacks, a folk of Borneo, was by them tattooed in modern fashion and device, and of his misery that fell upon him, and his outlawry.

Hesaid, The China on the shelf   Is very fair to view,And wherefore should mine outer self,   Not correspond thereto?         In blue   My frame I must tattoo.Where may tattooing men abound,   And ah, where might they be?Nay, well I wot they are not found   In lands of Christentie,         (Quoth he)   But I must cross the sea!So forth he sailed to Borneo,   (A land that culture lacks,)And there his money did bestow   To purchase pricks and hacks,         (Dyacks   Are famed tattooing blacks.)But European commerce had   Debased the savage kind,And they this most unhappy lad   Before (and eke behind)         Designed   In colours to their mind!Such awful colours as are blent   On terrible placardsWhere flames the fierce advertisement   Yea, or on Christmas cards         (Not Ward’s,   But common Christmas cards!)Thus never more to Chelsea might   The luckless boy return,He knew himself too dreadful, quite,   A thing his friends would spurn,         And turn   To praise some Grecian urn!But still he dwells in Borneo,   A land that culture lacks,And there they all admire him so,   They bring him heads in sacks,         Dyacks   Are not æsthetic blacks!

THE PALACE OF BRIC-À-BRAC

Here, where old Nankin glitters,   Here, where men’s tumult seemsAs faint as feeble twitters   Of sparrows heard in dreams,      We watch Limoges enamel,      An old chased silver camel,      A shawl, the gift of Schamyl,   And manuscripts in reams.Here, where the hawthorn pattern   On flawless cup and plateNeed fear no housemaid slattern,   Fell minister of fate,      ’Mid webs divinely woven,      And helms and hauberks cloven,      On music of Beethoven   We dream and meditate.We know not, and we need not   To know how mortals fare,Of Bills that pass, or speed not,   Time finds us unaware,      Yea, creeds and codes may crumble,      And Dilke and Gladstone stumble,      And eat the pie that’s humble,   We neither know nor care!Can kings or clergies alter   The crackle on one plate?Can creeds or systems palter   With what is truly great?      With Corots and with Millets,      With April daffodillies,      Or make the maiden lilies   Bloom early or bloom late?Nay, here ’midst Rhodian roses,   ’Midst tissues of Cashmere,The Soul sublime reposes,   And knows not hope nor fear;      Here all she sees her own is,      And musical her moan is,      O’er Caxtons and Bodonis,   Aldine and Elzevir!

RONDEAUX OF THE GALLERIES

CamelotIn Camelot how grey and greenThe Damsels dwell, how sad their teen,In Camelot how green and greyThe melancholy poplars sway.I wis I wot not what they meanOr wherefore, passionate and lean,The maidens mope their loves between,Not seeming to have much to say,                           In Camelot.Yet there hath armour goodly sheenThe blossoms in the apple treen,(To spell the Camelotian way)Show fragrant through the doubtful day,And Master’s work is often seen                           In Camelot!PhilistiaPhilistia!  Maids in muslin whiteWith flannelled oarsmen oft delightTo drift upon thy streams, and floatIn Salter’s most luxurious boat;In buff and boots the cheery knightReturns (quite safe) from Naseby fight;Thy humblest folk are clean and bright,Thou still must win the public vote,                           Philistia!Observe the High Church curate’s coat,The realistic hansom note!Ah, happy land untouched of blight,Smirks, Bishops, Babies, left and right,We know thine every charm by rote,                           Philistia!

SCIENCE

THE BARBAROUS BIRD-GODS: A SAVAGE PARABASIS

In the Aves of Aristophanes, the Bird Chorus declare that they are older than the Gods, and greater benefactors of men. This idea recurs in almost all savage mythologies, and I have made the savage Bird-gods state their own case.

The Birds sing:We would have you to wit, that on eggs though we sit, and are spiked on the spit, and are baked in the pan,Birds are older by far than your ancestors are, and made love and made war ere the making of Man!For when all things were dark, not a glimmer nor spark, and the world like a barque without rudder or sailFloated on through the night, ’twas a Bird struck a light, ’twas a flash from the bright feather’d Tonatiu’s 3 tail!Then the Hawk 4 with some dry wood flew up in the sky, and afar, safe and high, the Hawk lit Sun and Moon,And the Birds of the air they rejoiced everywhere, and they recked not of care that should come on them soon.For the Hawk, so they tell, was then known as Pundjel, 5 and a-musing he fell at the close of the day;Then he went on the quest, as we thought, of a nest, with some bark of the best, and a clawful of clay. 6And with these did he frame two birds lacking a name, without feathers (his game was a puzzle to all);Next around them he fluttered a-dancing, and muttered; and, lastly, he uttered a magical call:Then the figures of clay, as they featherless lay, they leaped up, who but they, and embracing they fell,And this was the baking of Man, and his making; but now he’s forsaking his Father, Pundjel!Now these creatures of mire, they kept whining for fire, and to crown their desire who was found but the Wren?To the high heaven he came, from the Sun stole he flame, and for this has a name in the memory of men! 7And in India who for the Soma juice flew, and to men brought it through without falter or fail?Why the Hawk ’twas again, and great Indra to men would appear, now and then, in the shape of a Quail,While the Thlinkeet’s delight is the Bird of the Night, the beak and the bright ebon plumage of Yehl.8And who for man’s need brought the famed Suttung’s mead? why ’tis told in the creed of the Sagamen strong,’Twas the Eagle god who brought the drink from the blue, and gave mortals the brew that’s the fountain of song. 9Next, who gave men their laws? and what reason or cause the young brave overawes when in need of a squaw,Till he thinks it a shame to wed one of his name, and his conduct you blame if he thus breaks the law?For you still hold it wrong if a lubra 10 belong to the self-same kobong 11 that is Father of you,To take her as a bride to your ebony side; nay, you give her a wide berth; quite right of you, too.For her father, you know, is your father, the Crow, and no blessing but woe from the wedding would spring.Well, these rules they were made in the wattle-gum shade, and were strictly obeyed, when the Crow was the King. 12Thus on Earth’s little ball to the Birds you owe all, yet your gratitude’s small for the favours they’ve done,And their feathers you pill, and you eat them at will, yes, you plunder and kill the bright birds one by one;There’s a price on their head, and the Dodo is dead, and the Moa has fled from the sight of the sun!