The Humors of Versification.

THE LOVERS.

IN DIFFERENT MOODS AND TENSES.

Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught,

And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher, who praught!

Though his enemies called him a screecher, who scraught.

His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk;

And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk;

While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk.

He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed,

For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed,

And what he was longing to do, then he doed.

In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke,

To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke;

So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.

He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode,

They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode,

And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode.

Then homeward he said let us drive, and they drove,

And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove;

For whatever he couldn’t contrive, she controve.

The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole;

At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole;

And he said, “I feel better than ever I fole.”

So they to each other kept clinging, and clung,

While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung;

And this was the thing he was bringing and brung:

The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught—

That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught—

Was the one she now liked to scratch, and she scraught.

And Charley’s warm love began freezing and froze,

While he took to teasing, and cruelly toze

The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze.

“Wretch!” he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left,

“How could you deceive, as you have deceft?”

And she answered, “I promised to cleave, and I’ve cleft.”

231

A STAMMERING WIFE.

When deeply in love with Miss Emily Pryne,

I vowed if the lady would only be mine,

I would always be ready to please her;

She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass

Said never a word except “You’re an ass—

An ass—an ass—iduous teazer!”

But when we were married, I found to my ruth

The stammering lady had spoken the truth;

For often, in obvious dudgeon,

She’d say—if I ventured to give her a jog

In the way of reproof—“You’re a dog—dog—dog—

A dog—a dog—matic curmudgeon!”

And once, when I said, “We can hardly afford

This immoderate style with our moderate board,”

And hinted we ought to be wiser,

She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue,

And fretfully cried, “You’re a Jew—Jew—Jew—

A very ju-dicious adviser!”

Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk

Some rather unpleasant and arduous work,

I begged her to go to a neighbor,

She wanted to know why I made such a fuss,

And saucily said, “You’re a cuss—cuss—cuss—

You were always ac—cus—tomed to labor!”

Out of temper at last with the insolent dame,

And feeling the woman was greatly to blame,

To scold me instead of caressing,

I mimicked her speech, like a churl as I am,

And angrily said, “You’re a dam—dam—dam—

A dam-age instead of a blessing.”

A SONG WITH VARIATIONS.

[Scene.—Wife at the piano; brute of a husband, who has no more soul for music than his boot, in an adjoining apartment, making his toilet.]

Oh! do not chide me if I weep!—

Come, wife, and sew this button on.

Such pain as mine can never sleep!—

Zounds! as I live, another’s gone!

For unrequited love brings grief,—

A needle, wife, and bring your scissors.

232And Pity’s voice gives no relief—

The child! good Lord! he’s at my razors!

No balm to case the troubled heart,—

Who starched this bosom? I declare

That writhes from hate’s envenomed dart!—

It’s enough to make a parson swear!

When faith in man is given up—

How plaguey shiftless are some women!

Then sorrow fills her bitter cup—

I’ll have to get my other linen.

And to its lees the white lips quaff—

Smith says he’s coming in to-night,

While Malice yields her mocking laugh!—

With Mrs. S., and Jones and Wright.

Oh! could I stifle in my breast—

And Jones will bring some prime old sherry.

This aching heart, and give it rest,—

We’ll want some eggs for Tom-and-Jerry

Could Lethe’s waters o’er me roll,—

These stockings would look better mended!

And bring oblivion to my soul,—

When-will-you-have-that-ditty-ended?

Then haply I, in other skies,—

We’d better have the oysters fried.

Might find the love that earth denies!

There! now at last my dickey’s tied!

THOUGHTS WHILE SHE ROCKS THE CRADLE.

What is the little one thinking about?

Very wonderful thing, no doubt,

Unwritten history!

Unfathomable mystery!

But he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,

And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,

As if his head were as full of kinks,

And curious riddles, as any sphinx!

Warped by colic and wet by tears,

Punctured by pins, and tortured by fears,

Our little nephew will lose two years;

And he’ll never know

Where the summers go:

He need not laugh, for he’ll find it so!

Who can tell what the baby thinks?

Who can follow the gossamer links

233By which the manikin feels his way

Out from the shores of the great unknown,

Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?

Out from the shores of the unknown sea,

Tossing in pitiful agony!

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls,

Specked with the barks of little souls—

Barks that were launched on the other side,

And slipped from heaven on an ebbing tide!

And what does he think of his mother’s eyes?

What does he think of his mother’s hair?

What of the cradle roof that flies

Forward and backward through the air?

What does he think of his mother’s breast—

Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,

Seeking it ever with fresh delight—

Cup of his joy and couch of his rest?

What does he think when her quick embrace

Presses his hand and buries his face

Deep where the heart-throbs sink and swell

With a tenderness she can never tell,

Though she murmur the words

Of all the birds—

Words she has learned to murmur well?

Now he thinks he’ll go to sleep!

I can see the shadow creep

Over his eyes, in soft eclipse,

Over his brow, and over his lips,

Out to his little finger tips,

Softly sinking, down he goes!

Down he goes! down he goes!

[Rising and carefully retreating to her seat.]

See! he is hushed in sweet repose!

A SERIO-COMIC ELEGY.

WHATELY ON BUCKLAND.

In his “Common-Place Book,” the late Archbishop Whately records the following Elegy on the late geologist, Dr. Buckland:

Where shall we our great professor inter,

That in peace may rest his bones?

If we hew him a rocky sepulchre

He’ll rise and break the stones,

And examine each stratum which lies around,

For he’s quite in his element underground.

234If with mattock and spade his body we lay

In the common alluvial soil,

He’ll start up and snatch these tools away

Of his own geological toil;

In a stratum so young the professor disdains

That embedded should lie his organic remains.

Then exposed to the drip of some case-hardening spring,

His carcase let stalactite cover,

And to Oxford the petrified sage let us bring,

When he is encrusted all over;

There, ’mid mammoths and crocodiles, high on a shelf,

Let him stand as a monument raised to himself.

A REMINISCENCE OF TROY.

FROM THE SCHOLIAST.

It was the ninth year of the Trojan war—

A tedious pull at best:

A lot of us were sitting by the shore—

Tydides, Phocas, Castor, and the rest—

Some whittling shingles and some stringing bows,

And cutting up our friends, and cutting up our foes.

Down from the tents above there came a man,

Who took a camp-stool by Tydides’ side,

He joined our talk, and, pointing to the pan

Upon the embers where our pork was fried,

Said he would eat the onions and the leeks,

But that fried pork was food not fit for Greeks.

“Look at the men of Thebes,” he said, “and then

Look at those cowards in the plains below:

You see how ox-like are the ox-fed men;

You see how sheepish mutton-eaters grow.

Stick to this vegetable food of mine:

Men who eat pork grunt, root and sleep like swine.”

Some laughed, and some grew mad, and some grew red:

The pork was hissing; but his point was clear.

Still no one answered him, till Nestor said,

“One inference that I would draw is here:

You vegetarians, who thus educate us,

Thus far have turned out very small potatoes.”

235

THE POET BRYANT AS A HUMORIST.

Those who are familiar with Mr. Lowell’s Fable for Critics, will remember the lines:—

There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified,

As a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is ignified,

Save when by reflection ’tis kindled ’o nights

With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights.

He may rank (Griswold says so) first bard of your nation;

(There’s no doubt he stands in supreme ice-olation,)

Your topmost Parnassus he may set his heel on,

But no warm applauses come, peal following peal on—

He’s too smooth and too polished to hang any zeal on;

Unqualified merits, I’ll grant, if you choose, he has ’em,

But he lacks the one merit of kindling enthusiasm;

If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul,

Like being stirred up by the very North Pole.

The Cambridge wit has either misjudged the character of Bryant’s genius, or he has sacrificed a man to an epigram, and subordinated fact to a jeu d’esprit. Though “quiet and dignified,” Mr. Bryant possesses a rare vein of humor, but its bubbling fancies are not generally known or suspected for the reason that he unbends anonymously. Only one of the diversions of his muse appears in his published works—and that is his invocation “To a Mosquito,” which begins thus:—

Fair insect! that with thread-like legs spread out,

And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,

Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about,

In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing,

And tell how little our large veins would bleed,

Would we but yield them to thy bitter need.

One day, when Mr. Bryant discovered in a fresh number of the Atlantic Monthly a so-called poem, which struck him as uncommonly absurd, he sat down and produced a travesty of it, which was much more effective in its ridicule than any sharper criticism could have been made. Here are the two in conjunction:—

236

THE “ATLANTIC” POEM.

Bellying earth no anchor throws

Stouter than the breath that blows;

Night and sorrow cling in vain;

It must toss in day again.

Hospital and battle-field,

Myriad spots where fate is sealed,

Brinks that crumble, sins that urge,

Plunge again into the surge.

How the purple breakers throw

Round me their insatiate glow.

Sweep my deck of hideous freight,

Pour through fastening and grate.

BRYANT’S TRAVESTY.

Squint-eyed bacchanals at play,

Keep a Lybian holiday,

Leading trains of solemn apes,

Tipsy with the blood of grapes.

Forty furies—thirty more

Than old Milton had before—

Scattering sparkles from their hair,

Swing their censers in the air.

Toss the flaming goblet off,

Heed not ocean’s windy scoff;

Let him dash against the shore,

Gape and grin, and sweat and roar.

Since which time nothing has been heard of the Atlantic poet! Only those who were “behind the scenes,” in the office of the Evening Post, in the year 1863, knew the authorship of the burlesque—and the burlesque itself will never appear in the poet’s “collected works.”

ON RECEIPT OF A RARE PIPE.

I lifted off the lid with anxious care,

Removed the wrappages, stripe after stripe,

And when the hidden contents were laid bare,

My first remark was: “Mercy, what a pipe!”

237A pipe of symmetry that matched its size,

Mounted with metal bright—a sight to see—

With the rich umber hue that smokers prize,

Attesting both its age and pedigree.

A pipe to make the Royal Friedrich jealous,

Or the great Teufelsdröck with envy gripe!

A man should hold some rank above his fellows

To justify his smoking such a Pipe!

What country gave it birth? What blest of cities

Saw it first kindle at the glowing coal?

What happy artist murmured, “Nunc dimittis,”

When he had fashioned this transcendent bowl?

Has it been hoarded in a monarch’s treasures?

Was it a gift of peace, or prize of war?

Did the great Khalif in his “House of Pleasures”

Wager, and lose it to the good Zaafar?

It may have soothed mild Spenser’s melancholy,

While musing o’er traditions of the past,

Or graced the lips of brave Sir Walter Raleigh

Ere sage King Jamie blew his Counterblast.

Did it, safe hidden in some secret cavern,

Escape that monarch’s pipoclastic ken?

Has Shakespeare smoked it at the Mermaid Tavern,

Quaffing a cup of sack with rare old Ben?

Ay, Shakespeare might have watched his vast creations

Loom through its smoke—the spectre-haunted Thane,

The Sisters at their ghastly invocations,

The jealous Moor and melancholy Dane.

’Round its orbed haze and through its mazy ringlets

Titania may have led her elfin rout,

Or Ariel fanned it with his gauzy winglets,

Or Puck danced in the bowl to put it out.

Vain are all fancies—questions bring no answer;

The smokers vanish, but the pipe remains;

He were indeed a subtle necromancer

Could read their records in its cloudy stains.

Nor this alone: its destiny may doom it

To outlive e’en its use and history—

Some plowman of the future may exhume it

From soil now deep beneath the Eastern sea—

238And, treasured by some antiquarian Stultus,

It may to gaping visitors be shown,

Labeled, “The symbol of some ancient Cultus,

Conjecturally Phallic, but unknown.”

Why do I thus recall the ancient quarrel

’Twixt Man and Time, that marks all earthly things?

Why labor to re-word the hackneyed moral,

ὥς ψύλλων γενεή, as Homer sings?

For this: Some links we forge are never broken;

Some feelings claim exemption from decay;

And Love, of which this pipe was but the token,

Shall last, though pipes and smokers pass away.

THE HUMAN EAR.

A sound came booming through the air—

“What is that sound?” quoth I.

My blue-eyed pet, with golden hair,

Made answer presently,

“Papa, you know it very well—

That sound—it was Saint Pancras Bell.”

My own Louise, put down the cat,

And come and stand by me;

I’m sad to hear you talk like that,

Where’s your philosophy?

That sound—attend to what I tell—

That sound was not Saint Pancras Bell.

“Sound is the name the sage selects

For the concluding term

Of a long series of effects,

Of which that blow’s the germ.

The following brief analysis

Shows the interpolations, Miss.

“The blow which, when the clapper slips,

Falls on your friend the Bell,

Changes its circle to ellipse,

(A word you’d better spell),

And then comes elasticity,

Restoring what it used to be.

“Nay, making it a little more,

The circle shifts about.

239As much as it shrunk in before

The Bell, you see, swells out;

And so a new ellipse is made,

(You’re not attending, I’m afraid).

“This change of form disturbs the air,

Which in its turn behaves

In like elastic fashion there,

Creating waves on waves;

Which press each other onward, dear,

Until the outmost finds your ear.

“Within that ear the surgeons find

A tympanum, or drum,

Which has a little bone behind,—

Malleus, it’s called by some;

But those not proud of Latin Grammar

Humbly translate it as the hammer.

“The wave’s vibrations this transmits

On to the incus bone,

(Incus means anvil, which it hits),

And this transfers the tone

To the small os orbiculure,

The tiniest bone that people carry.

“The stapes next—the name recalls

A stirrup’s form, my daughter—

Joins three half-circular canals,

Each filled with limpid water;

Their curious lining, you’ll observe,

Made of the auditory nerve.

“This vibrates next—and then we find

The mystic work is crowned;

For then my daughter’s gentle Mind

First recognizes sound.

See what a host of causes swell

To make up what you call ‘the Bell.’”

Awhile she paused, my bright Louise,

And pondered on the case;

Then, settling that he meant to teaze,

She slapped her father’s face.

“You bad old man, to sit and tell

Such gibberygosh about a Bell!’”

240

SIR TRAY: AN ARTHURIAN IDYL.

The widowed Dame of Hubbard’s ancient line

Turned to her cupboard, cornered anglewise

Betwixt this wall and that, in quest of aught

To satisfy the craving of Sir Tray,

Prick-eared companion of her solitude,

Red-spotted, dirty white, and bare of rib,

Who followed at her high and pattering heels,

Prayer in his eye, prayer in his slinking gait,

Prayer in his pendulous pulsating tail.

Wide on its creaking jaws revolved the door,

The cupboard yawned, deep-throated, thinly set

For teeth, with bottles, ancient canisters,

And plates of various pattern, blue or white;

Deep in the void she thrust her hooked nose

Peering near-sighted for the wished-for bone,

Whiles her short robe of samite, tilted high,

The thrifty darnings of her hose revealed;—

The pointed feature travelled o’er the delf

Greasing its tip, but bone or bread found none

Wherefore Sir Tray abode still dinnerless,

Licking his paws beneath the spinning-wheel,

And meditating much on savoury meats.

Meanwhile the Dame in high-backed chair reposed

Revolving many memories, for she gazed

Down from her lattice on the self-same path

Whereby Sir Lancelot ’mid the reapers rode

When Arthur held his court in Camelot,

And she was called the Lady of Shalott

And, later, where Sir Hubbard, meekest knight

Of all the Table Round, was wont to pass,

And to her casement glint the glance of love.

(For all the tale of how she floated dead

Between the city walls, and how the Court

Gazed on her corpse, was of illusion framed,

And shadows raised by Merlin’s magic art,

Ere Vivien shut him up within the oak.)

There stood the wheel whereat she spun her thread;

But of the magic mirror nought remained

Save one small fragment on the mantelpiece,

Reflecting her changed features night and morn.

But now the inward yearnings of Sir Tray

Grew pressing, and in hollow rumblings spake,

241As in tempestuous nights the Northern seas

Within their cavern cliffs reverberate.

This touched her: “I have marked of yore,” she said,

“When on my palfry I have paced along

The streets of Camelot, while many a knight

Ranged at my rein and thronged upon my steps,

Wending in pride towards the tournament,

A wight who many kinds of bread purveyed—

Muffins, and crumpets, matutinal rolls,

And buns which buttered, soothe at evensong;

To him I’ll hie me ere my purpose cool,

And swift returning, bear a loaf with me,

And (for my teeth be tender grown, and like

Celestial visits, few and far between)

The crust shall be for Tray, the crumb for me.”

This spake she; from their peg reached straightway down

Her cloak of sanguine hue, and pointed hat

From the flat brim upreared like pyramid

On sands Egyptian where the Pharaohs sleep,

Her ebon-handled staff (sole palfry now)

Grasped firmly, and so issued swiftly forth;

Yet ere she closed the latch her cat Elaine,

The lily kitten reared at Astolat,

Slipped through and mewing passed to greet Sir Tray.

Returning ere the shadows eastward fell,

She placed a porringer upon the board,

And shred the crackling crusts with liberal hand,

Nor noted how Elaine did seem to wail,

Rubbing against her hose, and mourning round

Sir Tray, who lay all prone upon the hearth.

Then on the bread she poured the mellow milk—

“Sleep’st thou?” she said, and touched him with her staff;

“What, ho! thy dinner waits thee!” But Sir Tray

Stirred not nor breathed: thereat, alarmed, she seized

And drew the hinder leg: the carcase moved

All over wooden like a piece of wood—

“Dead?” said the Dame, while louder wailed Elaine;

“I see,” she said, “thy fasts were all too long,

Thy commons all too short, which shortened thus

Thy days, tho’ thou mightst still have cheered mine age

Had I but timelier to the city wonned.

Thither I must again, and that right soon,

For now ’tis meet we lap thee in a shroud,

242And lay thee in the vault by Astolat,

Where faithful Tray shall by Sir Hubbard lie.”

Up a by-lane the Undertaker dwelt;

There day by day he plied his merry trade,

And all his undertakings undertook:

Erst knight of Arthur’s Court, Sir Waldgrave hight,

A gruesome carle who hid his jests in gloom,

And schooled his lid to counterfeit a tear.

With cheerful hammer he a coffin tapt,

While hollow, hollow, hollow, rang the wood,

And, as he sawed and hammered, thus he sang:—

Wood, hammer, nails, ye build a house for him,

Nails, hammer, wood, ye build a house for me,

Paying the rent, the taxes, and the rates.

I plant a human acorn in the ground,

And therefrom straightway springs a goodly tree,

Budding for me in bread and beer and beef.

O Life, dost thou bring Death or Death bring thee?

Which of the twain is bringer, which the brought?

Since men must die that other men may live.

O Death, for me thou plump’st thine hollow cheeks,

Mak’st of thine antic grin a pleasant smile,

And prank’st full gaily in thy winding sheet.

This ditty sang he to a doleful tune

To outer ears it sounded like a dirge,

Or wind that wails across the fields of death.

’Ware of a visitor, he ceased his strain,

But still did ply his saw industrious.

With withered hand on ear, Dame Hubbard stood;

“Vex not mine ears,” she grated, “with thine old

And creaking saw!” “I deemed,” he said, and sighed,

“Old saws might please thee, as they should the wise.”

“Know,” said the Dame, “Sir Tray that with me dwelt

Lies on my lonely hearthstone stark and stiff;

Wagless the tail that waved to welcome me.”—

Here Waldgrave interposed sepulchral tones,

“Oft have I noted, when the jest went round,

Sad ’twas to see the wag forget his tale—

Sadder to see the tail forget its wag.”

“Wherefore,” resumed she, “take of fitting stuff,

And make therewith a narrow house for him.”

Quoth he, “From yonder deal I’ll plane the bark,

243So ’twill of Tray be emblematical;

For thou, ’tis plain, must lose a deal of bark,

Since he nor bark nor bite shall practice more.”

“And take thou, too,” she said, “a coffin-plate,

And be his birth and years inscribed thereon

With letters twain ‘S. T.’ to mark Sir Tray,

So shall the tomb be known in after time.”

“This, too,” quoth Waldgrave, “shall be deftly done;

Oft hath the plate been freighted with his bones,

But now his bones must lie beneath the plate.”

“Jest’st thou?” Dame Hubbard said, and clutched her crutch,

For ill she brooked light parlance of the dead;

But when she saw Sir Waldgrave, how his face

Was all drawn downward, till the curving mouth

Seemed a horseshoe, while o’er the furrowed cheek

A wandering tear stole on, like rivulet

In dry ravine down mother Ida’s side,

She changed her purpose, smote not, lowered the staff;—

So parted, faring homeward with her grief.

Nearing her bower, it seemed a sepulchre

Sacred to memory, and almost she thought

A dolorous cry arose, as if Elaine

Did sound a caterwauling requiem.

With hesitating hand she raised the latch,

And on the threshold with reluctant foot

Lingered, as loath to face the scene of woe,

When lo! the body lay not on the hearth,

For there Elaine her flying tail pursued,—

In the Dame’s chair Sir Tray alive did sit,

A world of merry meaning in his eye,

And all his face agrin from ear to ear.

Like one who late hath lost his dearest friend,

And in his sleep doth see that friend again,

And marvels scarce to see him, putting forth

A clasping hand, and feels him warm with life,

And so takes up his friendship’s broken thread—

Thus stood the Dame, thus ran she, pattering o’er

The sanded tiles, and clasped she thus Sir Tray,

Unheeding of the grief his jest had wrought

For joy he was not numbered with the dead.

Anon the Dame, her primal transports o’er,

Bethought her of the wisdom of Sir Tray,

And his fine wit, and then it shameful seemed

That he bareheaded ’neath the sky should go

244While empty skulls of fools went thatched and roofed;

“A hat,” she cried, “would better fit those brows

Than many a courtier’s that I’ve wotted of;

And thou shalt have one, an’ my tender toes

On which the corns do shoot, and these my knees

Wherethro’ rheumatic twinges swiftly dart,

Will bear me to the city yet again,

And thou shalt wear the hat as Arthur wore

The Dragon of the great Pendragonship.”

Whereat Sir Tray did seem to smile, and smote

Upon the chair-back with approving tail.

Then up she rose, and to the Hatter’s went,—

“Hat me,” quoth she, “your very newest hat;”

And so they hatted her, and she returned

Home through the darksome wold, and raised the latch,

And marked, full lighted by the ingle-glow,

Sir Tray, with spoon in hand, and cat on knee,

Spattering the mess about the chaps of Puss.

THE OLOGIES.

We’re going to begin with an ample Apology;

You’ll end, we are sure, by a hearty Doxology,

If, all undeterred by our strange Phraseology,

You chose to sit down to a dish of Tautology.

* * * * *

One’s pestered in these days by so many ’ologies,

We thought we would fain see the tale of our foes;

A niche of your own in the new Martyrologies

You’d earn if you’d only go halves in our woes.

We’v counted some forty! but how many more there are,

We’re even now wholly unable to say;

We fear that at least the same number in store there are,

You’ll say we have found quite enough for one day.

* * * * *

“So now for our Catalogue: first comes Anthology—

A bouquet of flowers, a budget of rhymes;

That’s pleasant—not so the next, called Anthropology,

The science of man in all ages and climes.

245“Then comes a most useful pursuit, Arachnology;

They’re bipeds, the spiders who weave the worst webs;

But when one is asked to go in for Astrology,

And Zadkiel! one’s courage most rapidly ebbs.

“The next on our roster is old Archæology,

A science that’s lately been much in repute;

One can’t say as much for Electro-biology,

Which now-o’-days no one seems ever to bruit.

“But none can afford to make light of Chronology,

Tho’ ladies are apt to be dark upon dates;

We most of us make rather light of Conchology

Except when the oyster-shell gapes on our plates.

“The Devil’s deposed they say, and Demonology

Would certainly seem to have gone to the De’il;

Some savants, like Hooker, still swallow Dendrology,

But tree-names are somewhat too tough for my meal.

“The parsons are great upon Ecclesiology,

And prate about proper pyramidal piles;

Few travelers care to neglect Entomology,

Their wakefulness often its study beguiles.

“’Twould take you a life-time to learn Etymology,

And dabblers get into most marvellous scrapes;

And Huxley would tell you as much of Ethnology,—

Who really believes we are cousins of apes?

“Dean Buckland it was who first started Geology,

And traced the rock pedigrees, fixing their ranks;

And Frank has of late taken up Ichthyology,

The salmon already have voted him thanks.

“Von Humboldt had fairly exhausted Kosmology,

But Nature’s a quite inexhaustible mine;

Napoleon has fulfilled a new Martyrology,

Imbrued with the purest blue-blood of the Rhine.

“We all of us thought we were deep in Mythology,

Till Cox and Max Müller both deepened its well;

Our sons may learn something of Meteorology—

The weather our prophets all fail to foretell.

“The study of life is bound up with Necrology,

And we shall have one day to enter its lists,—

And furnish some specimens for Osteology,

The science of bones, on which Owen exists.

246“At breakfast we’re seldom averse to Oology,

Or lunch, when the plovers are pleased to lay eggs;

But then one would bar embryonic Ontology,

Preferring fowls full-grown with breast, wings, and legs!

“For oh! we decidedly like Ornithology

And chiefly the study of grouse on the wing;

We’d leave it to doctors to study Pathology;

The study of pain is a troublesome thing.

“We all of us need a small dose of Philology,

If caring to make the best use of our tongues;

A careful attention to strict Phraseology

Involves a most notable saving of lungs.

“The study of heads has been christened Phrenology,

Professors would call it the study of brain;

But take my advice, and avoid Pneumatology,

For spirits are apt to treat brains with disdain.

“For much the same reason, we’d banish Psychology,—

What savant can give an account of his soul?

And if we could only abolish Theology,

The parsons alone would be hard to console!

“If ever you happened to study Splanchnology,

You’d know what it is theologians lack,—

Inquisitors never complain of Tautology,

So long as rank heretics roar on the rack.

“And now is the time to strike up your Doxology,

For we would no longer detain you, my friend;—

On Sunday we all have a turn for Zoology,

So here is our Catalogue come to an end.”

THE VARIATION HUMBUG.

The London Charivari thinks that there is more humbug talked, printed, and practiced in reference to music than to anything else in the world, except politics. And of all the musical humbugs extant it occurs to Mr. Punch that the variation humbug is the greatest. This party has not even the sense to invent a tune for himself, but takes someone else’s, and starting therefrom, as an acrobat leaps from a spring-board, 247jumps himself into a musical reputation on the strength of the other party’s ideas. Mr. Punch wonders what would be thought of a poet who should try to make himself renown by this kind of thing—taking a well-known poem of a predecessor and doing variations on it after this fashion:—

BUGGINS’ VARIATIONS ON THE BUSY BEE.

How doth the Little Busy Bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower,

From every opening flower, flower, flower,

That sparkles in a breezy bower,

And gives its sweetness to the shower,

Exhaling scent of gentle power,

That lasts on kerchief many an hour,

And is a lady’s graceful dower,

Endeared alike to cot and tower,

Round which the Little Busy Bee

Improves each shining hour,

And gathers honey all the day

From every opening flower,

From every opening flower, flower, flower,

From every opening flower.

How skillfully she builds her cell,

How neat she spreads her wax,

And labors hard to store it well,

With the sweet food she makes,

With the sweet food she makes,

With the sweet food she makes, makes, makes,

When rising just as morning breaks,

The dewdrop from the leaf she shakes,

And oft the sleeping moth she wakes,

And diving through the flower she takes,

The honey with her fairy rakes,

And in her cell the same she cakes,

Or sports across the silver lakes,

Beside her children, for whose sakes

How skillfully she builds her cell,

How neat she spreads her wax,

And labors hard to store it well,

With the sweet food she makes.

248In works of labor or of skill,

I would be busy too,

For Satan finds some mischief still

For idle hands to do,

For idle hands to do,

For idle hands to do, do, do.

Things which thereafter they will rue,

When Justice fiercely doth pursue,

Or conscience raises cry and hue,

And evil-doers look quite blue,

When Peelers run with loud halloo,

And magistrates put on the screw,

And then the wretch exclaims, Boo-hoo,

In works of labor or of skill

I wish I’d busied too,

For Satan’s found much mischief still,

For my two hands to do.

There! Would a poet get much reputation for these variations, which are much better in their way than most of those built upon tunes? Would the poetical critics come out, as the musical critics do, with “Upon Watts’ marble foundation Buggins has raised a sparkling alabaster palace;” or, “The old-fashioned Watts has been brought into new honor by the étincellant Buggins;” or “We love the old tune, but we have room in our hearts for the fairy-like fountains of bird-song which Buggins has bid start from it?” Mr. Punch has an idea that Buggins would have no such luck; the moral to be deduced from which fact is, that a musical prig is luckier than a poetical prig.

REITERATIVE VOCAL MUSIC.

A well-known reviewer, in an article on Hymnology, says:—

Who could endure to hear and sing hymns, the meaning and force of which he really felt—set, as they frequently have been, to melodies from the Opera, and even worse, or massacred by the repetition of the end of each stanza, no matter whether or not the grammar and sense were consistent with it. Take such memorable cases of incongruity as:—

“My poor pol—

My pool pol—

My poor polluted heart.”

249To which he might have added from Dr. Watts:—

“And see Sal—see Sal—see Salvation nigh.”

Or this to the same common metre tune, “Miles’s Lane”:—

“Where my Sal—my Sal—my Salvation stands.”

Or this when sung to “Job”:—

“And love thee Bet—

And love thee better than before.”

Or—

“Stir up this stu—

Stir up this stupid heart to pray.”

Or this crowning absurdity:—

“And more eggs—more eggs—more exalts our joys.”

This to the tune of “Aaron” 7’s:—

“With thy Benny—

With thy benediction seal.”

This has recently been added in a fashionable metropolitan church:—

“And take thy pil—

And take thy pilgrim home.”

And further havoc is made with language and sense thus:—

“Before his throne we bow—wow—wow—ow—wow.”

And—

“I love to steal

I love to steal—awhile away.”

And—

“O, for a man—

O, for a mansion in the skies.”

To which we may add:—

“And we’ll catch the flea—

And we’ll catch the flee—ee—eeting hour.”

Two trebles sing, “And learn to kiss”; two trebles and alto, “And learn to kiss”; two trebles, alto, and tenor, “And learn to kiss”; the bass, solus, “the rod.”

This is sung to a tune called “Boyce”:—

“Thou art my bull—

Thou art my bulwark and defence.”

250

THE CURSE OF O’KELLY.

Carmac O’Kelly, the celebrated Irish harper, went to Doneraile, in the county of Cork, where his watch was pilfered from his fob. This so roused his ire that he celebrated the people in the following unexampled “string of curses:”—

Alas! how dismal is my tale,

I lost my watch in Doneraile,

My Dublin watch, my chain and seal,

Pilfered at once in Doneraile.

May fire and brimstone never fail

To fall in showers on Doneraile;

May all the leading fiends assail

The thieving town of Doneraile.

As lightnings flash across the vale,

So down to hell with Doneraile;

The fate of Pompey at Pharsale,

Be that the curse of Doneraile.

May beef or mutton, lamb or veal,

Be never found in Doneraile,

But garlic soup and scurvy kale,

Be still the food for Doneraile,

And forward as the creeping snail,

Industry be at Doneraile.

May Heaven a chosen curse entail,

On ragged, rotten Doneraile.

May sun and moon forever fail

To beam their lights on Doneraile;

May every pestilential gale

Blast that cursed spot called Doneraile;

May no sweet cuckoo, thrush or quail

Be ever heard in Doneraile;

May patriots, kings, and commonweal

Despise and harass Doneraile;

May every post, gazette and mail,

Sad tidings bring of Doneraile;

May vengeance fall on head and tail,

From north to south of Doneraile

May profit small, and tardy sale,

Still damp the trade of Doneraile:

May fame resound a dismal tale,

Whene’er she lights on Doneraile;

251May Egypt’s plagues at once prevail,

To thin the knaves at Doneraile;

May frost and snow, and sleet and hail,

Benumb each joint in Doneraile;

May wolves and bloodhounds race and trail

The cursed crew of Doneraile;

May Oscar with his fiery flail

To atoms thrash all Doneraile;

May every mischief, fresh and stale,

May all from Belfast to Kinsale,

Scoff, curse and damn you, Doneraile.

May neither flour nor oatmeal,

Be found or known in Doneraile;

May want and woe each joy curtail,

That e’er was known in Doneraile;

May no one coffin want a nail,

That wraps a rogue in Doneraile;

May all the thieves who rob and steal,

The gallows meet in Doneraile;

May all the sons of Gramaweal,

Blush at the thieves of Doneraile;

May mischief big as Norway whale,

O’erwhelm the knaves of Doneraile;

May curses whole and by retail,

Pour with full force on Doneraile;

May every transport wont to sail,

A convict bring from Doneraile;

May every churn and milking-pail

Fall dry to staves in Doneraile;

May cold and hunger still congeal,

The stagnant blood of Doneraile;

May every hour new woes reveal,

That hell reserves for Doneraile;

May every chosen ill prevail

O’er all the imps of Doneraile;

May th’ inquisition straight impale,

The Rapparees of Doneraile;

May curse of Sodom now prevail,

And sink to ashes Doneraile;

May Charon’s boat triumphant sail,

Completely manned from Doneraile;

Oh! may my couplet never fail

To find new curse for Doneraile;

And may grim Pluto’s inner jail

Forever groan with Doneraile.

252