XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

Andrew Lang

XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

A BALLADE OF XXXII BALLADES

Friend, when you bear a care-dulled eye,And brow perplexed with things of weight,And fain would bid some charm untieThe bonds that hold you all too strait,Behold a solace to your fate,Wrapped in this cover’s china blue;These ballades fresh and delicate,This dainty troop of Thirty-two!The mind, unwearied, longs to flyAnd commune with the wise and great;But that same ether, rare and high,Which glorifies its worthy mate,To breath forspent is disparate:Laughing and light and airy-newThese come to tickle the dull pate,This dainty troop of Thirty-two.Most welcome then, when you and I,Forestalling days for mirth too late,To quips and cranks and fantasySome choice half-hour dedicate,They weave their dance with measured rateOf rhymes enlinked in order due,Till frowns relax and cares abate,This dainty troop of Thirty-two.EnvoyPrinces, of toys that please your stateQuainter are surely none to viewThan these which pass with tripping gait,This dainty troop of Thirty-two.F. P.

BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER

ἐσορῶν τὰν Σικελὰν ἐς ἅλαId. viii. 56.Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roarOf London, and the bustling street,For still, by the Sicilian shore,The murmur of the Muse is sweet.Still, still, the suns of summer greetThe mountain-grave of Helikê,And shepherds still their songs repeatWhere breaks the blue Sicilian sea.What though they worship Pan no more,That guarded once the shepherd’s seat,They chatter of their rustic lore,They watch the wind among the wheat:Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,Where whispers pine to cypress tree;They count the waves that idly beatWhere breaks the blue Sicilian sea.Theocritus! thou canst restoreThe pleasant years, and over-fleet;With thee we live as men of yore,We rest where running waters meet:And then we turn unwilling feetAnd seek the world – so must it be —We may not linger in the heatWhere breaks the blue Sicilian sea!ENVOYMaster, – when rain, and snow, and sleetAnd northern winds are wild, to theeWe come, we rest in thy retreat,Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE

Ye giant shades of Ra and Tum,Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian,If murmurs of our planet comeTo exiles in the precincts wanWhere, fetish or Olympian,To help or harm no more ye list,Look down, if look ye may, and scanThis monument in London mist!Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumbThat once were read of him that ranWhen seistron, cymbal, trump, and drumWild music of the Bull began;When through the chanting priestly clanWalk’d Ramses, and the high sun kiss’dThis stone, with blessing scored and ban —This monument in London mist.The stone endures though gods be numb;Though human effort, plot, and planBe sifted, drifted, like the sumOf sands in wastes Arabian.What king may deem him more than man,What priest says Faith can Time resistWhile this endures to mark their span —This monument in London mist?ENVOYPrince, the stone’s shade on your divanFalls; it is longer than ye wist:It preaches, as Time’s gnomon can,This monument in London mist!

BALLADE OF ROULETTE

TO R. RThis life – one was thinking to-day,In the midst of a medley of fancies —Is a game, and the board where we playGreen earth with her poppies and pansies.Let manque be faded romances,Be passe remorse and regret;Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances —The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.The lover will stake as he mayHis heart on his Peggies and Nancies;The girl has her beauty to lay;The saint has his prayers and his trances;The poet bets endless expansesIn Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:How they gaze at the wheel as it glances —The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette!The Kaiser will stake his arrayOf sabres, of Krupps, and of lances;An Englishman punts with his pay,And glory the jeton of France is;Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances,Have voices or colours to bet;Will you moan that its motion askance is —The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette?ENVOYThe prize that the pleasure enhances?The prize is – at last to forgetThe changes, the chops, and the chances —The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.

BALLADE OF SLEEP

The hours are passing slow,I hear their weary treadClang from the tower, and goBack to their kinsfolk dead.Sleep! death’s twin brother dread!Why dost thou scorn me so?The wind’s voice overheadLong wakeful here I know,And music from the steepWhere waters fall and flow.Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?All sounds that might bestowRest on the fever’d bed,All slumb’rous sounds and lowAre mingled here and wed,And bring no drowsihed.Shy dreams flit to and froWith shadowy hair dispread;With wistful eyes that glow,And silent robes that sweep.Thou wilt not hear me; no?Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?What cause hast thou to showOf sacrifice unsped?Of all thy slaves belowI most have labourèdWith service sung and said;Have cull’d such buds as blow,Soft poppies white and red,Where thy still gardens grow,And Lethe’s waters weep.Why, then, art thou my foe?Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?ENVOYPrince, ere the dark be shredBy golden shafts, ere lowAnd long the shadows creep:Lord of the wand of lead,Soft-footed as the snow,Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!

BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST

AFTER THÉODORE DE BANVILLEStill sing the mocking fairies, as of old,Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,And wolves still dread Diana roaming freeIn secret woodland with her company.’Tis thought the peasants’ hovels know her riteWhen now the wolds are bathed in silver light,And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.With water-weeds twined in their locks of goldThe strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,Sylphs over-timorous and over-boldHaunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,The wild red dwarf, the nixies’ enemy;Then ’mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,With one long sigh for summers pass’d away;The swift feet tear the ivy nets outrightAnd through the dim wood Dian threads her way.She gleans her silvan trophies; down the woldShe hears the sobbing of the stags that fleeMixed with the music of the hunting roll’d,But her delight is all in archery,And naught of ruth and pity wotteth sheMore than her hounds that follow on the flight;The goddess draws a golden bow of mightAnd thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay.She tosses loose her locks upon the night,And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.ENVOYPrince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite,The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight:Amid the forest leaves and fountain sprayThere is the mystic home of our delight,And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.

BALLADE OF THE TWEED

(LOWLAND SCOTCH.)TO T. W. LANGThe ferox rins in rough Loch Awe,A weary cry frae ony toun;The Spey, that loups o’er linn and fa’,They praise a’ ither streams aboon;They boast their braes o’ bonny Doon:Gie me to hear the ringing reel,Where shilfas sing, and cushats croonBy fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!There’s Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and a’,Where trout swim thick in May and June;Ye’ll see them take in showers o’ snawSome blinking, cauldrife April noon:Rax ower the palmer and march-broun,And syne we’ll show a bonny creel,In spring or simmer, late or soon,By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!There’s mony a water, great or sma’,Gaes singing in his siller tune,Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw,Beneath the sun-licht or the moon:But set us in our fishing-shoonBetween the Caddon-burn and Peel,And syne we’ll cross the heather brounBy fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!ENVOYDeil take the dirty, trading loonWad gar the water ca’ his wheel,And drift his dyes and poisons dounBy fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER

In torrid heats of late July,In March, beneath the bitter bise,He book-hunts while the loungers fly, —He book-hunts, though December freeze;In breeches baggy at the knees,And heedless of the public jeers,For these, for these, he hoards his fees, —Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.No dismal stall escapes his eye,He turns o’er tomes of low degrees,There soiled romanticists may lie,Or Restoration comedies;Each tract that flutters in the breezeFor him is charged with hopes and fears,In mouldy novels fancy seesAldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.With restless eyes that peer and spy,Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,In dismal nooks he loves to pry,Whose motto evermore is Spes!But ah! the fabled treasure flees;Grown rarer with the fleeting years,In rich men’s shelves they take their ease, —Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!ENVOYPrince, all the things that tease and please, —Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears,What are they but such toys as these —Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?

BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA

AFTER THÉODORE DE BANVILLEI know Cythera long is desolate;I know the winds have stripp’d the gardens green.Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun’s weightA barren reef lies where Love’s flowers have been,Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!So be it, but we seek a fabled shore,To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,To wander where Love’s labyrinths beguile;There let us land, there dream for evermore:“It may be we shall touch the happy isle.”The sea may be our sepulchre.  If Fate,If tempests wreak their wrath on us, sereneWe watch the bolt of heaven, and scorn the hateOf angry gods that smite us in their spleen.Perchance the jealous mists are but the screenThat veils the fairy coast we would explore.Come, though the sea be vex’d, and breakers roar,Come, for the air of this old world is vile,Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;“It may be we shall touch the happy isle.”Grey serpents trail in temples desecrateWhere Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,And ruined is the palace of our state;But happy Loves flit round the mast, and keenThe shrill wind sings the silken cords between.Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar,Yet haste, light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile;Love’s panthers sleep ’mid roses, as of yore:“It may be we shall touch the happy isle!”ENVOYSad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore.Ah, singing birds your happy music pour!Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:“It may be we shall touch the happy isle!”

BALLADE OF THE SUMMER TERM

(Being a Petition, in the form of a Ballade, praying the University Commissioners to spare the Summer Term.)When Lent and Responsions are ended,When May with fritillaries waits,When the flower of the chestnut is splendid,When drags are at all of the gates(Those drags the philosopher “ slates”With a scorn that is truly sublime), 1Life wins from the grasp of the FatesSweet hours and the fleetest of time!When wickets are bowl’d and defended,When Isis is glad with “the Eights,”When music and sunset are blended,When Youth and the summer are mates,When Freshmen are heedless of “Greats,”And when note-books are cover’d with rhyme,Ah, these are the hours that one rates —Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!When the brow of the Dean is unbendedAt luncheons and mild tête-à-têtes,When the Tutor’s in love, nor offendedBy blunders in tenses or dates;When bouquets are purchased of Bates,When the bells in their melody chime,When unheeded the Lecturer prates —Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!ENVOYReformers of Schools and of States,Is mirth so tremendous a crime?Ah! spare what grim pedantry hates —Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!

BALLADE OF THE MUSE

Quem tu, Melpomene, semelThe man whom once, Melpomene,Thou look’st on with benignant sight,Shall never at the Isthmus beA boxer eminent in fight,Nor fares he foremost in the flightOf Grecian cars to victory,Nor goes with Delian laurels dight,The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!Not him the Capitol shall see,As who hath crush’d the threats and mightOf monarchs, march triumphantly;But Fame shall crown him, in his rightOf all the Roman lyre that smiteThe first; so woods of TivoliProclaim him, so her waters bright,The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!The sons of queenly Rome count me,Me too, with them whose chants delight, —The poets’ kindly company;Now broken is the tooth of spite,But thou, that temperest arightThe golden lyre, all, all to theeHe owes – life, fame, and fortune’s height —The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!ENVOYQueen, that to mute lips could’st uniteThe wild swan’s dying melody!Thy gifts, ah! how shall he requite —The man thou lov’st, Melpomene?

BALLADE AGAINST THE JESUITS

AFTER LA FONTAINERome does right well to censure all the vainTalk of Jansenius, and of them who preachThat earthly joys are damnable!  ’Tis plainWe need not charge at Heaven as at a breach;No, amble on!  We’ll gain it, one and all;The narrow path’s a dream fantastical,And Arnauld’s quite superfluously drivenMirth from the world.  We’ll scale the heavenly wall,Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!He does not hold a man may well be slainWho vexes with unseasonable speech,You may do murder for five ducats gain,Not for a pin, a ribbon, or a peach;He ventures (most consistently) to teachThat there are certain cases that befallWhen perjury need no good man appal,And life of love (he says) may keep a leaven.Sure, hearing this, a grateful world will bawl,“Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!”“For God’s sake read me somewhat in the strainOf his most cheering volumes, I beseech!”Why should I name them all? a mighty train —So many, none may know the name of each.Make these your compass to the heavenly beach,These only in your library instal:Burn Pascal and his fellows, great and small,Dolts that in vain with Escobar have striven;I tell you, and the common voice doth call,Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!ENVOYSatan, that pride did hurry to thy fall,Thou porter of the grim infernal hall —Thou keeper of the courts of souls unshriven!To shun thy shafts, to ‘scape thy hellish thrall,Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!

BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES

TO E. W. GOSSEThe dust of Carthage and the dustOf Babel on the desert wold,The loves of Corinth, and the lust,Orchomenos increased with gold;The town of Jason, over-bold,And Cherson, smitten in her prime —What are they but a dream half-told?Where are the cities of old time?In towns that were a kingdom’s trust,In dim Atlantic forests’ fold,The marble wasteth to a crust,The granite crumbles into mould;O’er these – left nameless from of old —As over Shinar’s brick and slime,One vast forgetfulness is roll’d —Where are the cities of old time?The lapse of ages, and the rust,The fire, the frost, the waters cold,Efface the evil and the just;From Thebes, that Eriphyle sold,To drown’d Caer-Is, whose sweet bells toll’dBeneath the wave a dreamy chimeThat echo’d from the mountain-hold, —“Where are the cities of old time?”ENVOYPrince, all thy towns and cities mustDecay as these, till all their crime,And mirth, and wealth, and toil are thrustWhere are the cities of old time.

BALLADE OF THE ROYAL GAME OF GOLF

(EAST FIFESHIRE.)There are laddies will drive ye a ba’To the burn frae the farthermost tee,But ye mauna think driving is a’,Ye may heel her, and send her ajee,Ye may land in the sand or the sea;And ye’re dune, sir, ye’re no worth a preen,Tak’ the word that an auld man ’ll gie,Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!The auld folk are crouse, and they crawThat their putting is pawky and slee;In a bunker they’re nae gude ava’,But to girn, and to gar the sand flee.And a lassie can putt – ony she, —Be she Maggy, or Bessie, or Jean,But a cleek-shot’s the billy for me,Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!I hae play’d in the frost and the thaw,I hae play’d since the year thirty-three,I hae play’d in the rain and the snaw,And I trust I may play till I dee;And I tell ye the truth and nae lee,For I speak o’ the thing I hae seen —Tom Morris, I ken, will agree —Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!ENVOYPrince, faith you’re improving a wee,And, Lord, man, they tell me you’re keen;Tak’ the best o’ advice that can be,Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!

DOUBLE BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN

TO J. A. FARRERHe lived in a cave by the seas,He lived upon oysters and foes,But his list of forbidden degrees,An extensive morality shows;Geological evidence goesTo prove he had never a pan,But he shaved with a shell when he chose, —’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.He worshipp’d the rain and the breeze,He worshipp’d the river that flows,And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,And bogies, and serpents, and crows;He buried his dead with their toesTucked-up, an original plan,Till their knees came right under their nose, —’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.His communal wives, at his ease,He would curb with occasional blows;Or his State had a queen, like the bees(As another philosopher trows):When he spoke, it was never in prose,But he sang in a strain that would scan,For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!On the coasts that incessantly freeze,With his stones, and his bones, and his bows;On luxuriant tropical leas,Where the summer eternally glows,He is found, and his habits disclose(Let theology say what she can)That he lived in the long, long agos,’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!From a status like that of the Crees,Our society’s fabric arose, —Develop’d, evolved, if you please,But deluded chronologists chose,In a fancied accordance with Moses, 4000 B.C. for the spanWhen he rushed on the world and its woes, —’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!But the mild anthropologist, —he’sNot recent inclined to supposeFlints Palæolithic like these,Quaternary bones such as those!In Rhinoceros, Mammoth and Co.’s,First epoch, the Human began,Theologians all to expose, —’Tis the mission of Primitive Man.ENVOYMax, proudly your Aryans pose,But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,For, as every Darwinian knows,’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

BALLADE OF AUTUMN

We built a castle in the air,In summer weather, you and I,The wind and sun were in your hair, —Gold hair against a sapphire sky:When Autumn came, with leaves that flyBefore the storm, across the plain,You fled from me, with scarce a sigh —My Love returns no more again!The windy lights of Autumn flare:I watch the moonlit sails go by;I marvel how men toil and fare,The weary business that they ply!Their voyaging is vanity,And fairy gold is all their gain,And all the winds of winter cry,“My Love returns no more again!”Here, in my castle of Despair,I sit alone with memory;The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,To keep the outcast company.The brooding owl he hoots hard by,The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane,The Rhymer’s soothest prophecy, —2My Love returns no more again!ENVOYLady, my home until I dieIs here, where youth and hope were slain;They flit, the ghosts of our July,My Love returns no more again!

BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM

While others are asking for beauty or fame,Or praying to know that for which they should pray,Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,The sage has found out a more excellent way —To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,And his humble petition puts up day by day,For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;Philosophers kneel to the God without name,Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their dayWith a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)!O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,Where the waves can be surly in winter, and playWith the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!And I’d leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.ENVOYGods, grant or withhold it; your “yea” and your “nay”Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:But life is worth living, and here we would stayFor a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

BALLADE OF WORLDLY WEALTH

(OLD FRENCH.)Money taketh town and wall,Fort and ramp without a blow;Money moves the merchants all,While the tides shall ebb and flow;Money maketh Evil showLike the Good, and Truth like lies:These alone can ne’er bestowYouth, and health, and Paradise.Money maketh festival,Wine she buys, and beds can strow;Round the necks of captains tall,Money wins them chains to throw,Marches soldiers to and fro,Gaineth ladies with sweet eyes:These alone can ne’er bestowYouth, and health, and Paradise.Money wins the priest his stall;Money mitres buys, I trow,Red hats for the Cardinal,Abbeys for the novice low;Money maketh sin as snow,Place of penitence supplies:These alone can ne’er bestowYouth, and health, and Paradise.

BALLADE OF LIFE

“‘Dead and gone,’ – a sorry burden of the Ballad of Life.”

Death’s Jest Book.Say, fair maids, mayingIn gardens green,In deep dells straying,What end hath beenTwo Mays betweenOf the flowers that shoneAnd your own sweet queen —“They are dead and gone!”Say, grave priests, prayingIn dule and teen,From cells decayingWhat have ye seenOf the proud and mean,Of Judas and John,Of the foul and clean? —“They are dead and gone!”Say, kings, arrayingLoud wars to win,Of your manslayingWhat gain ye glean?“They are fierce and keen,But they fall anon,On the sword that lean, —They are dead and gone!”ENVOYThrough the mad world’s scene,We are drifting on,To this tune, I ween,“They are dead and gone!”

BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA

There’s a joy without canker or cark,There’s a pleasure eternally new,’Tis to gloat on the glaze and the markOf china that’s ancient and blue;Unchipp’d all the centuries throughIt has pass’d, since the chime of it rang,And they fashion’d it, figure and hue,In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.These dragons (their tails, you remark,Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), —When Noah came out of the ark,Did these lie in wait for his crew?They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew,They were mighty of fin and of fang,And their portraits Celestials drewIn the reign of the Emperor Hwang.Here’s a pot with a cot in a park,In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,Where the lovers eloped in the dark,Lived, died, and were changed into twoBright birds that eternally flewThrough the boughs of the may, as they sang;’Tis a tale was undoubtedly trueIn the reign of the Emperor Hwang.ENVOYCome, snarl at my ecstasies, do,Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang”But – a sage never heeded a shrewIn the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

(AFTER VILLON.)Nay, tell me now in what strange airThe Roman Flora dwells to-day.Where Archippiada hides, and whereBeautiful Thais has passed away?Whence answers Echo, afield, astray,By mere or stream, – around, below?Lovelier she than a woman of clay;Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?   Where is wise Héloïse, that careBrought on Abeilard, and dismay?All for her love he found a snare,A maimed poor monk in orders grey;And where’s the Queen who willed to slayBuridan, that in a sack must goAfloat down Seine, – a perilous way —Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare,With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay?Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?Good Joan, whom English did betrayIn Rouen town, and burned her?  No,Maiden and Queen, no man may say;Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?ENVOYPrince, all this week thou need’st not pray,Nor yet this year the thing to know.One burden answers, ever and aye,“Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”

VILLON’S BALLADE

OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL LIFENay, be you pardoner or cheat,Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,You’ll burn your fingers at the feat,And howl like other folks that fry.All evil folks that love a lie!And where goes gain that greed amasses,By wile, and trick, and thievery?’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,With game, and shame, and jollity,Go jigging through the field and street,With myst’ry and morality;Win gold at gleek, – and that will fly,Where all you gain at passage passes, —And that’s?  You know as well as I,’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,If you’ve no clerkly skill to ply;You’ll gain enough, with husbandry,But – sow hempseed and such wild grasses,And where goes all you take thereby? —’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!ENVOYYour clothes, your hose, your broidery,Your linen that the snow surpasses,Or ere they’re worn, off, off they fly,’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!