Rhymes a la Mode

MAN AND THE ASCIDIAN

A MORALITY“The Ancestor remote of Man,”Says Darwin, “is th’ Ascidian,”A scanty sort of water-beastThat, ninety million years at leastBefore Gorillas came to be,Went swimming up and down the sea.Their ancestors the pious praise,And like to imitate their ways;How, then, does our first parent live,What lesson has his life to give?Th’ Ascidian tadpole, young and gay,Doth Life with one bright eye survey,His consciousness has easy play.He’s sensitive to grief and pain,Has tail, and spine, and bears a brain,And everything that fits the stateOf creatures we call vertebrate.But age comes on; with sudden shockHe sticks his head against a rock!His tail drops off, his eye drops in,His brain’s absorbed into his skin;He does not move, nor feel, nor knowThe tidal water’s ebb and flow,But still abides, unstirred, alone,A sucker sticking to a stone.And we, his children, truly weIn youth are, like the Tadpole, free.And where we would we blithely go,Have brains and hearts, and feel and know.Then Age comes on!  To Habit weAffix ourselves and are not free;Th’ Ascidian’s rooted to a rock,And we are bond-slaves of the clock;Our rocks are Medicine – Letters – Law,From these our heads we cannot draw:Our loves drop off, our hearts drop in,And daily thicker grows our skin.Ah, scarce we live, we scarcely knowThe wide world’s moving ebb and flow,The clanging currents ring and shock,But we are rooted to the rock.And thus at ending of his span,Blind, deaf, and indolent, does ManRevert to the Ascidian.

BALLADE OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST

“What did the dark-haired Iberian laugh at before the tall blonde Aryan drove him into the corners of Europe?” —Brander Matthews.

I am an ancient Jest!Palæolithic manIn his arboreal nestThe sparks of fun would fan;My outline did he plan,And laughed like one possessed,’Twas thus my course began,I am a Merry Jest!I am an early Jest!Man delved, and built, and span;Then wandered South and WestThe peoples Aryan,I journeyed in their van;The Semites, too, confessed, —From Beersheba to Dan, —I am a Merry Jest!I am an ancient Jest,Through all the human clan,Red, black, white, free, oppressed,Hilarious I ran!I’m found in Lucian,In Poggio, and the rest,I’m dear to Moll and Nan!I am a Merry Jest!EnvoyPrince, you may storm and ban —Joe Millers are a pest,Suppress me if you can!I am a Merry Jest!

CAMEOS

SONNETS FROM THE ANTIQUE

These versions from classical passages are pretty close to the original, except where compression was needed, as in the sonnets from Pausanias and Apuleius, or where, as in the case of fragments of Æschylus and Sophocles, a little expansion was required.

CAMEOS

The graver by Apollo’s shrine,   Before the Gods had fled, would stand,   A shell or onyx in his hand,To copy there the face divine,Till earnest touches, line by line,   Had wrought the wonder of the land   Within a beryl’s golden band,Or on some fiery opal fine.Ah! would that as some ancient ringTo us, on shell or stone, doth bring,   Art’s marvels perished long ago,So I, within the sonnet’s space,The large Hellenic lines might trace,   The statue in the cameo!

HELEN ON THE WALLS

(Iliad, iii. 146.)Fair Helen to the Scæan portals came,Where sat the elders, peers of Priamus,Thymoetas, Hiketaon, Panthöus,And many another of a noble name,Famed warriors, now in council more of fame.Always above the gates, in converse thusThey chattered like cicalas garrulous;Who marking Helen, swore “it is no shameThat armed Achæan knights, and Ilian menFor such a woman’s sake should suffer long.Fair as a deathless goddess seemeth she.Nay, but aboard the red-prowed ships againHome let her pass in peace, not working wrongTo us, and children’s children yet to be.”

THE ISLES OF THE BLESSED

Pindar, Fr., 106, 107 (95): B. 4, 129–130, 109 (97): B. 4, 132Now the light of the sun, in the night of the Earth, on the souls of the True   Shines, and their city is girt with the meadow where reigneth the rose;And deep is the shade of the woods, and the wind that flits o’er them and through   Sings of the sea, and is sweet from the isles where the frankincense blows:Green is their garden and orchard, with rare fruits golden it glows,   And the souls of the Blessed are glad in the pleasures on Earth that they knew,And in chariots these have delight, and in dice and in minstrelsy those,   And the savour of sacrifice clings to the altars and rises anew.But the Souls that Persephone cleanses from ancient pollution and stain,   These at the end of the age be they prince, be they singer, or seer;These to the world, shall be born as of old, shall be sages again;   These of their hands shall be hardy, shall live, and shall die, and shall hearThanks of the people, and songs of the minstrels that praise them amain,   And their glory shall dwell in the land where they dwelt, while year calls unto year!

DEATH

(Æsch., Fr., 156.)Of all Gods Death alone   Disdaineth sacrifice:No man hath found or shown   The gift that Death would prize.   In vain are songs or sighs,Pæan, or praise, or moan,   Alone beneath the skiesHath Death no altar-stone!There is no head so dear   That men would grudge to Death;Let Death but ask, we giveAll gifts that we may live;But though Death dwells so near,   We know not what he saith.

NYSA

(Soph., Fr., 235; Æsch., Fr., 56.)On these Nysæan shores divine   The clusters ripen in a day.   At dawn the blossom shreds away;The berried grapes are green and fineAnd full by noon; in day’s decline   They’re purple with a bloom of grey,   And e’er the twilight plucked are they,And crushed, by nightfall, into wine.But through the night with torch in hand   Down the dusk hills the Mænads fare;   The bull-voiced mummers roar and blare,The muffled timbrels swell and sound,   And drown the clamour of the bandLike thunder moaning underground.

COLONUS

(Œd. Col., 667–705.)IHere be the fairest homes the land can show,The silvery-cliffed Colonus; always hereThe nightingale doth haunt and singeth clear,For well the deep green gardens doth she know.Groves of the God, where winds may never blow,   Nor men may tread, nor noontide sun may peer   Among the myriad-berried ivy dear,Where Dionysus wanders to and fro.For here he loves to dwell, and here resortThese Nymphs that are his nurses and his court,And golden eyed beneath the dewy boughs   The crocus burns, and the narcissus fair   Clusters his blooms to crown thy clustered hair,Demeter, and to wreathe the Maiden’s brows!IIYea, here the dew of Heaven upon the grain   Fails never, nor the ceaseless water-spring,   Near neighbour of Cephisus wandering,That day by day revisiteth the plain.Nor do the Goddesses the grove disdain,   But chiefly here the Muses quire and sing,   And here they love to weave their dancing ring,With Aphrodite of the golden rein.And here there springs a plant that knoweth not   The Asian mead, nor that great Dorian isle,Unsown, untilled, within our garden plot   It dwells, the grey-leaved olive; ne’er shall guileNor force of foemen root it from the spot:   Zeus and Athene guarding it the while!

THE PASSING OF ŒDIPOUS

(Œd. Col., 1655–1666.)How Œdipous departed, who may tell   Save Theseus only? for there neither came   The burning bolt of thunder, and the flameTo blast him into nothing, nor the swellOf sea-tide spurred by tempest on him fell.   But some diviner herald none may name   Called him, or inmost Earth’s abyss becameThe painless place where such a soul might dwell.Howe’er it chanced, untouched of malady,   Unharmed by fear, unfollowed by lament,With comfort on the twilight way he went,   Passing, if ever man did, wondrously;From this world’s death to life divinely rent,   Unschooled in Time’s last lesson, how we die.

THE TAMING OF TYRO

(Soph., Fr., 587.)

(Sidero, the stepmother of Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus, cruelly entreated her in all things, and chiefly in this, that she let sheer her beautiful hair.)

At fierce Sidero’s word the thralls drew near,   And shore the locks of Tyro, – like ripe corn   They fell in golden harvest, – but forlornThe maiden shuddered in her pain and fear,   Like some wild mare that cruel grooms in scornHunt in the meadows, and her mane they sheer,And drive her where, within the waters clear,   She spies her shadow, and her shame doth mourn.Ah! hard were he and pitiless of heart   Who marking that wild thing made weak and tame,      Broken, and grieving for her glory gone,Could mock her grief; but scornfully apart   Sidero stood, and watched a wind that cameAnd tossed the curls like fire that flew and shone!

TO ARTEMIS

(Hippol., Eurip., 73–87.)For thee soft crowns in thine untrampled mead   I wove, my lady, and to thee I bear;Thither no shepherd drives his flocks to feed,   Nor scythe of steel has ever laboured there;   Nay, through the spring among the blossoms fairThe brown bee comes and goes, and with good heedThy maiden, Reverence, sweet streams doth lead   About the grassy close that is her care!Souls only that are gracious and serene   By gift of God, in human lore unread,May pluck these holy blooms and grasses green   That now I wreathe for thine immortal head,I that may walk with thee, thyself unseen,   And by thy whispered voice am comforted.

CRITICISM OF LIFE

(Hippol., Eurip., 252–266.)Long life hath taught me many things, and shown   That lukewarm loves for men who die are best,   Weak wine of liking let them mix alone,Not Love, that stings the soul within the breast;Happy, who wears his love-bonds lightliest,   Now cherished, now away at random thrown!   Grievous it is for other’s grief to moan,Hard that my soul for thine should lose her rest!Wise ruling this of life: but yet again   Perchance too rigid diet is not well;He lives not best who dreads the coming pain   And shunneth each delight desirable:Flee thou extremes, this word alone is plain,   Of all that God hath given to Man to spell!

AMARYLLIS

(Theocritus, Idyll, iii.)Fair Amaryllis, wilt thou never peep   From forth the cave, and call me, and be mine?Lo, apples ten I bear thee from the steep,   These didst thou long for, and all these are thine.Ah, would I were a honey-bee to sweep   Through ivy, and the bracken, and woodbine;To watch thee waken, Love, and watch thee sleep,   Within thy grot below the shadowy pine.Now know I Love, a cruel god is he,   The wild beast bare him in the wild wood drear;And truly to the bone he burneth me.   But, black-browed Amaryllis, ne’er a tear,Nor sigh, nor blush, nor aught have I from thee;   Nay, nor a kiss, a little gift and dear.

THE CANNIBAL ZEUS

A.D. 160

Καὶ ἔθυσε τὸ βρέφος, καὶ ἔσπεισεν ἐπὶ τοῦ βωμοῦ τὸ ‘αῖμχ – έπὶ τούτου βωμοῦ τῷ Δὺ θύουσιν ἐν ἀποῤῥήτῳ. —Paus. viii. 38

None elder city doth the Sun behold   Than ancient Lycosura; ’twas begun   Ere Zeus the meat of mortals learned to shun,And here hath he a grove whose haunted foldThe driven deer seek and huntsmen dread: ’tis told   That whoso fares within that forest dun   Thenceforth shall cast no shadow in the Sun,Ay, and within the year his life is cold!Hard by dwelt he 13 who, while the Gods deigned eatAt good men’s tables, gave them dreadful meat,   A child he slew: – his mountain altar greenHere still hath Zeus, with rites untold of me,Piteous, but as they are let these things be,   And as from the beginning they have been!

INVOCATION OF ISIS

(Apuleius, Metamorph. XI.)Thou that art sandalled on immortal feet   With leaves of palm, the prize of Victory;Thou that art crowned with snakes and blossoms sweet,   Queen of the silver dews and shadowy sky,   I pray thee by all names men name thee by!Demeter, come, and leave the yellow wheat!   Or Aphrodite, let thy lovers sigh!Or Dian, from thine Asian temple fleet!Or, yet more dread, divine Persephone   From worlds of wailing spectres, ah, draw near;Approach, Selene, from thy subject sea;   Come, Artemis, and this night spare the deer:By all thy names and rites I summon thee;   By all thy rites and names, Our Lady, hear!

THE COMING OF ISIS

So Lucius prayed, and sudden, from afar,   Floated the locks of Isis, shone the brightCrown that is tressed with berry, snake, and star;   She came in deep blue raiment of the night,Above her robes that now were snowy white,Now golden as the moons of harvest are,Now red, now flecked with many a cloudy bay,   Now stained with all the lustre of the light.Then he who saw her knew her, and he knew   The awful symbols borne in either hand;The golden urn that laves Demeter’s dew,   The handles wreathed with asps, the mystic wand;The shaken seistron’s music, tinkling through   The temples of that old Osirian land.

THE SPINET

My heart an old Spinet with strings   To laughter chiefly turned, but some   That Fate has practised hard on, dumb,They answer not whoever sings.The ghosts of half-forgotten things   Will touch the keys with fingers numb,   The little mocking spirits comeAnd thrill it with their fairy wings.A jingling harmony it makes   My heart, my lyre, my old Spinet,And now a memory it wakes,   And now the music means “forget,”And little heed the player takes   Howe’er the thoughtful critic fret.

NOTES

Page 3. The Fortunate Islands. This piece is a rhymed loose version of a passage in the Vera Historia of Lucian. The humorist was unable to resist the temptation to introduce passages of mockery, which are here omitted. Part of his description of the Isles of the Blest has a close and singular resemblance to the New Jerusalem of the Apocalypse. The clear River of Life and the prodigality of gold and of precious stones may especially be noticed.

Whoso doth taste the Dead Men’s bread, &.c. This belief that the living may visit, on occasion, the dwellings of the dead, but can never return to earth if they taste the food of the departed, is expressed in myths of worldwide distribution. Because she ate the pomegranate seed, Persephone became subject to the spell of Hades. In Apuleius, Psyche, when she visits the place of souls, is advised to abstain from food. Kohl found the myth among the Ojibbeways, Mr. Codrington among the Solomon Islanders; it occurs in Samoa, in the Finnish Kalewala (where Wainamoinen, in Pohjola, refrains from touching meat or drink), and the belief has left its mark on the mediæval ballad of Thomas of Ercildoune. When he is in Fairy Land, the Fairy Queen supplies him with the bread and wine of earth, and will not suffer him to touch the fruits which grow “in this countrie.” See also “Wandering Willie” in Redgauntlet.

Page 20. As now the hutted Eskimo. The Eskimo and the miserable Fuegians are almost the only Socialists who practise what European Anarchists preach. The Fuegians go so far as to tear up any piece of cloth which one of the tribe may receive, so that each member may have a rag. The Eskimo are scarcely such consistent walkers, and canoes show a tendency to accumulate in the hands of proprietors. Formerly no Eskimo was allowed to possess more than one canoe. Such was the wild justice of the Polar philosophers.

Page 36. The latest minstrel. “The sound of all others dearest to his ear, the gentle ripple of Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.” – Lockhart’s Life of Scott, vii., 394.

Page 45. Ronsard’s Grave. This version ventures to condense the original which, like most of the works of the Pleiad, is unnecessarily long.

Page 46. The snow, and wind, and hail. Ronsard’s rendering of the famous passage in Odyssey, vi., about the dwellings of the Olympians. The vision of a Paradise of learned lovers and poets constantly recurs in the poetry of Joachim du Bellay, and of Ronsard.

Page 50. Romance. Suggested by a passage in La Faustin, by M. E. de Goncourt, a curious moment of poetry in a repulsive piece of naturalisme.

Page 55. M. Boulmier, author of Les Villanelles, died shortly after this villanelle was written; he had not published a larger collection on which he had been at work.

Page 61. Edmund Gorliot. The bibliophile will not easily procure Gorliot’s book, which is not in the catalogues. Throughout The Last Maying there is reference to the Pervigilium Veneris.

Page 105. Bird-Gods. Apparently Aristophanes preserved, in a burlesque form, the remnants of a genuine myth. Almost all savage religions have their bird-gods, and it is probable that Aristophanes did not invent, but only used a surviving myth of which there are scarcely any other traces in Greek literature.

Page 134. Spinet. The accent is on the last foot, even when the word is written spinnet. Compare the remarkable Liberty which Pamela took with the 137th Psalm.

My Joys and Hopes all overthrown,My Heartstrings almost broke,Unfit my Mind for Melody,Much more to bear a Joke.But yet, if from my InnocenceI, even in Thought, should slide,Then, let my fingers quite forgetThe sweet Spinnet to guide! Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, vol. i., p. 184., 1785.

1

N.B. There is only one veracious statement in this ballade, which must not be accepted as autobiographical.

2

These lines do not apply to Miss Annie P. (or Daisy) Miller, and her delightful sisters, Gades adituræ mecum, in the pocket edition of Mr. James’s novels, if ever I go to Gades.

3

Tonatiu, the Thunder Bird; well known to the Dacotahs and Zulus.

4

The Hawk, in the myth of the Galinameros of Central California, lit up the Sun.

5

Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, is the demiurge and “culture-hero” of several Australian tribes.

6

The Creation of Man is thus described by the Australians.

7

In Andaman, Thlinkeet, Melanesian, and other myths, a Bird is the Prometheus Purphoros; in Normandy this part is played by the Wren.

8

Yehl: the Raven God of the Thlinkeets.

9

Indra stole Soma as a Hawk and as a Quail. For Odin’s feat as a Bird, see Bragi’s Telling in the Younger Edda.

10

Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, gave Australians their marriage laws.

11

Lubra, a woman; kobong, “totem;” or, to please Mr. Max Müller, “otem.”

12

The Crow was the Hawk’s rival.

13

Lycaon, the first werewolf.