PUCK.

Ask not my master, Oberon, why still He keeps among his train this freakish sprite: For sooth to say, the elf intends no ill; He never changed a word with Goblin Spite, Else Oberon had banished him outright. Not his to flee at cock-crow; he was born Of blameless Mirth, and looks upon the morn. “Good-fellow, and sweet Puck,” some folk do name him; I pray you of your kindness not to blame him! —Lo, while I would bespeak you, here he rides! A columbine he bears upon his head For jester’s cap, and for a steed he guides A mocking catbird with a spider’s thread.

PAUMANOKIDES. NARCISSUS. Paumanokides. Who may this be? This young man clad unusually, with loose locks, languorous, glidingly toward me advancing, Toward the ceiling of my chamber his orbic and expressive eye-balls uprolling, As I have seen the green-necked wild-fowl the mallard in the thundering of the storm, By the weedy shore of Paumanok my fish-shaped island. Sit down, young man! I do not know you, but I love you with burning intensity, I am he that loves the young men, whosoever and wheresoever they are or may be hereafter, or may have been any time in the past, Loves the eye-glassed literat, loves also and probably more the vender of clams, raucous-throated, monotonous-chanting, Loves the Elevated Railroad employee of Mannahatta, my city; I suppress the rest of the list of the persons I love, solely because I love you, Sit down élève, I receive you! Narcissus. O clarion, from whose brazen throat Strange sounds across the seas are blown, Where England, girt as with a moat, A strong sea-lion, sits alone! A pilgrim from that white-cliffed shore, What joy, large flower of Western land, To seek thy democratic door, With eager hand to clasp thy hand! Paumanokides. Right you are! Take then the electric pressure of these fingers, O my Comrade! I do not doubt you are the one I was waiting for, as I loaf’d here enjoying my soul, Let us two under all and any circumstances stick together from this out! Narcissus. Seeing that isle of which I spake but late By ignorant demagogues is held in fee, The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy Beckoned me thence to this ideal State, Where maiden fields of life Hellenic wait For one who in clear culture walks apart (Avoiding all rude clamors of the mart That mar his calm) to sow the seeds of great Growths yet to be—the love of sacred Art, And Beauty, of this breast queen consecrate, Whose throne mean Science seeks to violate; The flawless artist’s lunacy serene, His purely passionate and perfect hate And noble scorn of all things Philistine. Paumanokides. Hold up there, Camerado! Beauty is all very good as far as it goes, and Art the perpetuator of Beauty is all very good as far as it goes, but you can tell your folks, Your folks in London, or in Dublin, or in Rome, or where the Arno flows, or where Seine flows, Your folks in the picture-galleries, admiring the Raphaels, the Tintorettos, the Rubenses, Vandykes, Correggios, Murillos, Angelicos of the world, (I know them all, they have effused to me, I have wrung them out, I have abandoned them, I have got beyond them,)— Narcissus (aside, with tenderness). Ah, Burne-Jones! Paumanokides. Tell them that I am considerably more than Beauty! I, representing the bone and muscle and cartilage and adipose tissue and pluck of the Sierras, of California, of the double Carolinas, of the Granite State, and the Narragansett Bay State, and the Wooden Nutmeg State! I, screaming with the scream of the bald-headed bird the eagle in the primitive woods of America my country, in the hundred and sixth year of these States! Dear son, I have learned the secret of the Universe, I learned it from my original bonne, the white-capped ocean, I learned it from the Ninth-month Equinoctial, from the redwood tree, and the Civil War, and the hermit-thrush, and the telephone, and the Corliss engine, The secret of the Universe is not Beauty, dear son, nor is it Art the perpetuator of Beauty, The secret of the Universe is to admire one’s self. Camerado, you hear me! Narcissus. Ah, I too loitering on an eve of June Where one wan Narciss leaned above a pool, While overhead Queen Dian rose too soon, And through the Tyrian clematis the cool Night airs came wandering wearily, I too, Beholding that pale flower, beheld Life’s key at last, and knew That love of one’s fair self were but indeed Just worship of pure Beauty; and I gave One sweet, sad sigh, then bade my fond eyes feed Upon the mirrored treasure of the wave, Like that lithe beauteous boy in Tempe’s vale, Whom hapless Echo loved—thou know’st the Heliconian tale! And while heaven’s harmony in lake and gold Changed to a faint nocturne of silvern-gray, Like rising sea-mists from my spirit rolled The grievous vapors of this Age of Clay, Beholding Beauty’s re-arisen shrine, And the white glory of this precious loveliness of mine! Paumanokides. I catch on, my Comrade! —You allow that your aim is similar to mine, after all is said and done. Well, there is not much similarity of style, and I recommend my style to you. Go gaze upon the native rock-piles of Mannahatta, my city, Formless, reckless, Marked with the emerald miracle of moss, tufted with the unutterable wonder of the exquisite green grass, Giving pasture to the spry and fearless-footed quadruped the goat, Also patched by the heaven-ambitious citizens with the yellow handbill, the advertisement of patent soaps, the glaring and vari-colored circus poster: Mine, too, for reasons, such arrays; Such my unfettered verse, scorning the delicatesse of dilettantes. Try it, I’ll stake you my ultimate dollar you’ll like it. Narcissus (gracefully waiving the point). Haply in the far, the orient future, in the dawn we herald like the birds, Men shall read the legend of our meeting, linger o’er the music of our words; Haply coming poets shall compare me then to Milton in his lovely youth, Sitting in the cell of Galileo, learning at his elder’s lips the truth. Haply they shall liken these dear moments, safely held in History’s amber clear, Unto Dante’s converse bland with Virgil, on the margin of that gloomy mere! Paumanokides. Do not be deceived, dear son; Amid the choruses of the morn of progress, roaring, hilarious, those names will be heard no longer. Galileo was admirable once, Milton was admirable, Dante the I-talian was a cute man in his way, But he was not the maker of poems, the Answerer! I Paumanokides am the maker of poems, the Answerer, And I calculate to chant as long as the earth revolves, To an interminable audience of haughty, effusive, copious, gritty, and chipper Americanos! Narcissus. What more is left to say or do? Our minds have met; our hands must part. I go to plant in pastures new The love of Beauty and of Art. I’ll shortly start. One town is rather small for two Like me and you! Paumanokides. So long!

“Came Palamede, upon a secret quest, To high Tintagel, and abode as guest In likeness of a minstrel with the king. Nor was there man could sound so sweet a string. ... To that strange minstrel strongly swore King Mark, By all that makes a knight’s faith firm and strong, That he, as guerdon of his harp and song, Might crave and have his liking. ...’O King, I crave No gift of man that king may give to slave, But this thy crowned queen only, this thy wife.’” Swinburne. Tristram of Lyonesse.

With flow exhaustless of alliterate words, And rhymes that mate in music glad as birds That feel the spring’s sweet life among light leaves That ardent breath of amorous May upheaves And kindles fluctuant to an emerald fire Bright as the imperious seas that all men’s souls desire: With long strong swell of alexandrine lines, And with passion of anapæsts, like winds in pines That moan and mutter in great gusts suddenly, With whirl of wild wet wings of storms set free: In mirth of might and very joy to sing, Uplifting voice untired, I sound one sole sweet string. Love, that is ever bitter as salt blown spray, Yet sweet, yea sweet as wrath or wine alway, As red warm mouths of Mænads subtly sweet; Love, that is fleeter than the wind’s fleet feet Soft-shod with snowflakes; love, that hath the name And fury and force of swift bright shuddering flame: Fate, that is foe to love and lovely life, Yea foe implacable, and hath death to wife; Fate, that is bitterer than the salt spray blown And colder than soft snow yet hard as stone; Fate, that makes daily fare of heart’s desire, Being found thereunto a devouring fire: Death, that is friend to fate and fair love’s foe; Death, that makes waste the wolds of life with snow; Death, harsh as spray of seas that wild winds blow: Life, that is strangely one of all these three, Being bitter as is the sharp salt spray of sea, And thereto colder than the blown white rose And soft brief blossom of unmothered snows, And fiercer than the forceful feathered fire, Fed as a flame with hope of heart and high desire: All these I sing, and sound the same sweet string. And as fresh-gathered leaves of bay I bring Green praises to all dear dead lute-players, Whom Pluto’s passionate queen holds fast as hers, Yea all sad souls that have smiled and sinned and sung, With whose gold-colored hairs and hoar this harp is strung. And blame of the high great gods that do amiss, Being cruel and crowned and bathed complete in bliss, And careless if this world be out of tune, And deaf to dithyrambs of bards that bay the moon: And all perfections of all those I love, Each bettering still the best and still above The last this violent voice proclaimed the best, And blown by stormy breath still starward o’er the rest; And all large loathsomeness of all I hate, Whose poisonous presence doth Caïna wait, And better it were that they had ne’er been born, I being dowered with hate of hate and scorn of scorn, And shrinking not to name them newts and snakes, Lepers and toads and frogs and hooting owls and crakes: All these with ease of measureless might I sing, And sound, though sheer stark mad, the same sweet string. And many a theme I choose in wayfaring, As one who passing plucks the sunflower And ponders on her looks for love of her. Yea, her flower-named whose fate was like a flower, Being bright and brief and broken in an hour And whirled of winds: and her whose lawless hand Held flickering flame to fawn against the brand, Till Meleager splendid as the sun Shrank to a star and set, and all her day was done: And her who lent her slight white virgin light For death to dim, that Athens’ mastering might Above all seas should shine, supernal sphere of night: And her who kept the high knight amorous Pent in her hollow hill-house marvelous, And flame of flowers brake beauteous where she trod, Her who hath wine and honey and a rod, And crowneth man a king, and maketh man a slave Her who rose rose-red from the rose-white wave: And her who ruled with sword-blue blade-bright eyes The helpless hearts of men in queenly wise, And all were bowed and broken as on a wheel, Yet no soft love-cloud long could sheath that stainless steel, Her tiger-hearted and false and glorious, With flower-sweet throat and float of warm hair odorous; These sing I, and whatso else that burns and glows, And is as fire and foam-flowers and the rose And sun and stars and wan warm moon and snows. Who hath said that I have not made my song to shine With such bright words as seal a song to be divine? Who hath said that I have not sweetness thereon spread As gold of peerless honey is poured on bread? Who hath said that I make not all men’s brains to ring, And swim with imminent madness while I sing, And fall as feeble dykes before strong tides of spring? And now as guerdon of my great song I claim The swan-white pearl of singers, yea Queen Fame, Who shall be wed no more to languid lips and tame, But clasp me and kiss and call me by my name, And be all my days about me as a flame, Though sane vain lame tame cranes sans shame make game and blame!

Miss Pallas Eudora Van Blurky, She didn’t know chicken from turkey; High-Spanish and Greek she could fluently speak, But her knowledge of poultry was murky! She could tell the great-uncle of Moses, And the dates of the Wars of the Roses, And the reasons of things—why the Indians wore rings In their red aboriginal noses; Why Shakspere was wrong in his grammar, And the meaning of Emerson’s Brahma, And she went chipping rocks with a little black box And a small geological hammer. She had views upon co-education, And the principal needs of the nation, And her glasses were blue, and the number she knew Of the stars in each bright constellation. And she wrote with a handwriting clerky, And she talked with an emphasis jerky, And she painted on tiles in the sweetest of styles, But she didn’t know chicken from turkey!

There was once a young man of the medium size, Who, by keeping a ledger, himself kept likewise. In the matter of lunch he’d a leaning to pies, And his chronic dyspepsia will hence not surprise; And his friends often told him, with tears in their eyes, Which they did not disguise, that a person who tries To live without exercise generally dies, And declared, for the sake of his family ties, He should enter the Hercules Club. Tom Box and Dick Dumbell would suasively say, If they met him by chance in the roar of Broadway, “It’s bad for a fellow, all work and no play; Come, let us propose you! You’ll find it will pay To belong to the Hercules Club!” And he yielded at last, and they put up his name, Which was found without blame; and they put down the same In a roll-book tremendous; and straight he became A Samson, regarding his tame past with shame; Called for “Beef, lean and rare!” and cut off all his hair, Had his shoulders constructed abnormally square, And walked out with an air that made people declare, “He belongs to the Hercules Club!” And he often remarked, in original way: “It’s bad for a fellow, all work and no play; Without recreation, sir, life doesn’t pay! And I for my part am most happy to say I belong to the Hercules Club.” And frequently during a very hot “spell,” In thick woolen garments clad closely and well, “Reducing,”—for he was resolved to excel,— rowed in the sun at full speed, in a shell That belonged to the Hercules Club. And for weeks, while the dew on the racing-track lay, He ran before breakfast a half mile a day, Improving his style and increasing his “stay”; And was first at the finish, and fainted away, At the games of the Hercules Club. Six nights in succession he sat up to pore “The Laws of Athletics” devotedly o’er (Which number ten thousand and seventy-four), With a view to proposing a very few more In a speech to the Hercules Club. And his coat upon festal occasions was gay With medals on medals, marked “H. A. A. A.,”[1] With a motto in Greek (which, my lore to display, Means “Pleasure is business”), a splendid array Of the spoils of the Hercules Club. But acquaintances not of the muscular kind Began to observe that his brow was deep-lined, Too brilliant his eye, and to wander inclined; He appeared, in a word (early English), “fore-pined”; And one morning his ledger and desk he resigned, Explaining, “I can’t have my health undermined By this ‘demnition grind’; and I’m getting behind In my duties as Captain” (an office defined, Page hundred and two, in the by-laws that bind With red tape the great Hercules Club). And he further remarked, in most serious way: “Give it up, did you say? ’Twill be frigid, that day![2] Why, without relaxation, sir, life wouldn’t pay! And I, for my part, will remain till I’m gray On the roll of the Hercules Club!” You perceive, gentle reader, the rub. Is it nobler to suffer those arrows and slings Lack of exercise brings—or take clubs, and let things Unconnected with matters athletic take wings; Till all interests beside, like the Arabs, shall glide From the landscape of life, once a plain free and wide, But now fenced for the “Games” which we lightly began, Grown our serious aims and the chief end of Man? There’s an aureate mean these two courses between, But I humbly submit that it seldom is seen, With all proper respect for that organization, Of benevolent purpose and high reputation, The excellent Hercules Club!

Though I met her in the summer, when one’s heart lies round at ease, As it were in tennis costume, and a man’s not hard to please, Yet I think at any season to have met her was to love, While her tones, unspoiled, unstudied, had the softness of the dove. At request she read us poems in a nook among the pines, And her artless voice lent music to the least melodious lines; Though she lowered her shadowing lashes, in an earnest reader’s wise, Yet we caught blue gracious glimpses of the heavens that were her eyes. As in paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand, Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall, When she said that she should study Elocution in the fall! I admit her earliest efforts were not in the Ercles vein; She began with, “Lit-tle Maaybel, with her faayce against the paayne, And the beacon-light a-trrremble,”—which although it made me wince, Is a thing of cheerful nature to the things she’s rendered since. Having learned the Soulful Quiver, she acquired the Melting Mo-o-an, And the way she gave “Young Grayhead,” would have liquefied a stone. Then the Sanguinary Tragic did her energies employ, And she tore my taste to tatters when she slew “The Polish Boy.” It’s not pleasant for a fellow when the jewel of his soul Wades through slaughter on the carpet, while her orbs in frenzy roll; What was I that I should murmur? Yet it gave me grievous pain That she rose in social gatherings and Searched among the Slain. I was forced to look upon her, in my desperation dumb, Knowing well that when her awful opportunity was come She would give us battle, murder, sudden death at very least, As a skeleton of warning, and a blight upon the feast. Once, ah! once I fell a-dreaming; some one played a polonaise I associated strongly with those happier August days; And I mused, “I’ll speak this evening,” recent pangs forgotten quite. Sudden shrilled a scream of anguish: “Curfew shall not ring to-night!” Ah, that sound was as a curfew, quenching rosy warm romance: Were it safe to wed a woman one so oft would wish in France? Oh, as she “cull-imbed” that ladder, swift my mounting hope came down. I am still a single cynic; she is still Cassandra Brown! —Coroebus Green.