WALTER HAMILTON, (continued 2)

April Showers. Oh, April showers Are good for flowers, And fill the bowers With perfumes rare; But twinge erratic, And pang rheumatic And not ecstatic Do they prepare! And though the leanness And arid meanness Of lawns with greenness They hide and clothe; They, past disputing, Set corns a-shooting, Which makes your booting A thing to loathe! And of the Future Although they suit your Bright dreams, compute you’re The Past’s sad prey; The while you yell a Vain ritornello For that umbrella That’s stolen away!

Nephelidia. From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine, 22 These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat? Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast? Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death: Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude’s breath. Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses— ‘Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die.’

The Toper’s Lament. Oh, my memory lovingly lingers Around the sweet sound of thy name, And the spell of those magical fingers That kindled my heart into flame; But the joy that I think on no more is, And my throat feels an ominous lump, As I muse o’er the wreck of thy glories, Thou Magpie and Stump! For day after day have I sought thee, As flowers are sought by the gale; And night after night have I brought thee A lip for thine exquisite ale. Thy portals have welcomed me ever, Mine hostess was pleasant and plump, And her handmaids attentive and clever, O Magpie and Stump! Did I rage with the thirst of a Hector (A thirst that she nimbly foresaw) For a cup of thy ravishing nectar, Who drew it as Nancy could draw? While for grilling a steak that was juicy, Or a chop that was chopped from the chump, Had’st thou ever an equal to Lucy, My Magpie and Stump? Ah! thy votaries flocked beyond number, And worshipped full oft at thy shrine; And we poured forth libations to slumber, And we censed with tobacco divine; And then haply some bibulous fellow Would fall to the floor with a bump— For thy potions were potently mellow, Our Magpie and Stump. But I rave—for the past of my pleasure Has left me a little intense, And the lolloping lilt of my measure Is stronger in sound than in sense. Yet an ecstasy must have its morrow, And an ace may succumb to a trump; So my spirit is sunken in sorrow, Dear Magpie and Stump. Farewell! nevermore shall thy chalice Of barleycorn bubble for me; They have altered thee into a palace Devoted to coffee and tea. Thy courts are now trod by the teacher, Thy fountains the cow and the pump, And thy priest is a temperance preacher, Poor Magpie and Stump! Farewell! But if e’er in the distance Of time that we cannot foresee, Thou return to thy pristine existence— For I cannot, alas! come to thee! As the prodigal found from his father Forgiveness, again shalt thou jump To the height of my patronage—rather! Rare Magpie and Stump! A. C. S. St. James’s Gazette. March 19, 1881.

Song of the Springtide. O Season supposed of all free flowers, Made lovely by light of the sun, Of garden, of field, and of tree-flowers, Thy singers are surely in fun! Or what is it wholly unsettles Thy sequence of shower and shine, And maketh thy pushings and petals To shrivel and pine? Why is it that o’er the wild waters That beastly North-Easter still blows, Dust-dimming the eyes of our daughters, Blue-nipping each nice little nose? Why is it these sea-skirted islands Are plagued with perpetual chills, Driving men to Italian or Nile-lands From Albion’s ills? Happy he, O Springtide, who hath found thee, All sunlit, in luckier lands, With thy garment of greenery round thee, And belted with blossomy bands. From us by the blast thou art drifted. All brag of thy beauties is bosh; When the songs of thy singers are sifted, They simply won’t wash. * * * * * 23 What lunatic lune, what vain vision, Thy laureate, Springtide, may move To sing thee—oh, bitter derision!— As season of laughter and love? You make a man mad beyond measure, O Spring, and thy lauders like thee: Thy flowers, thy pastimes and pleasures, Are fiddlededee! Punch. May 22, 1880.

Swinburnism. I trow, wild friends, God’s soul wots well by rote My sweet soft strains and lovely lays of love, And all the white ways of her sweet sharp throat, Which, not right yet, I have waxed weary of. * * * * * I never left off kissing her, I well think, But wrapped in rich red raiment of her hair, Kissed her all day, till her lips parch’d for drink As the parch’d often lips of a flute-player. No maid of a king’s blood, but held right high In God’s sharp sight, from whom no things are hid. “You must not tell,” she sighed and turned to cry. “That I should tell your mother, God forbid!” Said so I kept my word, I never told her You drink pure water? I, sir, I drink wine! Your cool clear brain must needs yield verse-water, But, sweet strong drunken maniac music, mine. S. K. Cowan. From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

A Valentine. Ah, Love! if love lie still betwixt us twain, Through all these years—yea, love, before love wane Lift up thine eyes and slay me; the desire Of death consumes me, like the sun-god’s fire. Slay me, and kill me, dearest, deal me death. Lo! I will murmur with my latest breath, Laying this lily at thy gracious feet, How precious, nay, how utter art thou, sweet. J. M. Lowry.

Swinburnese. Also thine eyes were mild as a lowlit flame of fire, When thou wovest the web whereof wiles were the woof and the warp was my heart. Why left’st thou the fertile field whence thou reapedst the fruit of desire? For the change of the face of thy colour I know thee not whence thou art! Alas for the going of swiftness, for the feet of the running of thee, When thou wentest among the swords, and the shoutings of Captain’s made shrill! Woe is me for the pleasant places! yea, one shall say of thy glee, “It is not,” and as for delight the feet of thy dancing are still. Translation. Where are those eyes that were so mild When of my heart you me beguiled? Why did you skedaddle from me and the child? O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you. Where are those legs with which you run When first you went to shoulder the gun? Indeed, your dancing days are done— O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you. R. Y. Tyrrell. From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

The God and the Damosel. By A. C. Sinburn. THE GOD. Look in my face, and know me who I am. I smite and save; I bless, and, lo, I damn. Incline thine head, thy browless brow incline; I touch thee, and I tap thee, and proclaim, For ever and for ever thou art mine! O long as grief, and leaner than desire! O sweet retreating breasts and amorous-kissing knees! O grace and goodliness of strait attire! A robe of them who sport in summer seas. By these, and by the eyelids of thine eyes, Ringed round with darkness, swollen weeper-wise, By these I know thee; these are for a sign, Surer, yea, even than thy most splendid size Of spreaden hands: I know thee, thou art mine. THE DAMOSEL. Master and lord, I know thee who thou art; Lo, and with homage of the stricken heart, I hail thee, I adore thee, and obtest: I am thine own, I know no better part; Do with me, master, as thee seemeth best. O loose as thought and bodiless as dream! O globular grand eyes, a bane of maidenhood! O miracle of tunic-folds, that seem Self-balanced, firm, a glory of carven wood! By these, and by the crown thy temples wear, Holy, a cauline flower of wondrous hair; By thy red mouth, a bow without a chord, And shaftless, yea, but deadly, O most fair, I knew thee, and I know thee for my lord! THE GOD. Ay, now the flicker of a nauseate smile Bestirs thy cheek and wan lips imbecile; Thy pale plucked blossom droops; its day is done. 24 THE DAMOSEL. Nay, let me deck my bosom therewithal, It were ill-ominous to let it fall, The faithful mistress of Hyperion Sun. THE GOD. Stoop thou, what ails thee, child, to shudder? stoop and brush Hair with tow-towzled hair, that for a space I breathe my godhead through thy thirsting veins, and flush The soft submalar hollows of thy face, And thrill thee, crown to sole, till that in downward rush Of eager ecstasy with fair flat feet thou crush The beetle, Virtue, in the lowly place. THE DAMOSEL. Ah, master and lord, I feel it; the wind of thy fierce delight, Hell-hot as the blast from the furnace, sea-cold as a gust of the sea. O deaf blind Love, that art deaf as a poker and blind as the night! O my flushed faint cheeks and my chin! O mine eye and the elbow of me! I bow to thy might, O my lord, to the keen blown breath of thy lips, With a loathing of love that longs, and a longing of love that loathes, With shiver of angular shoulders, and shake of invisible hips, As boweth the light slight stake in the torture of wind-whirled clothes! Thou hast rent me enough, O Divine! … and behold, thou stayest thine hand, And leavest me crushed as a reed, that I wot not whether I tread Upon Earth, our holy old mother, with feet down-pressing, or stand Inverse, in a fearless new fashion, uplift on my passionate head!

Dream Poem a la Swinburne. (After a Supper of Pork Chops.) Soft is the smell of it, sweet the sad sound of it, Mournfully mingled on yon mountain’s top, Grateful, and green, and caressing the ground of it, Calm as a calyx, and deep as a drop. Ah! the enlivenment, dark as the distance! Ah! the allurements that lavish and lave! Is there no sound but the sun’s sweet insistance, Night in the forest, and noon on the wave? Fierce as a festival, fragrant and fading— Grim as the grandeur that dreams of a day— Is there no balm in Love’s lavish unlading, Born in the brightness, and grieving, and gray? Lo! in the glimmering, sweet Aphrodite, Ghastly and gracious, and groaning and grave, Brilliant in banishment, mournful and mighty, Soft as the samite that sinks in the wave! Light are the longings that listen and linger: Ah! the sick kingdoms that grapple and groan Red as Republics that point the far finger, Or hail the horizon, aghast and alone. Sinks in the distance the Dream and the Dreaming, Leaves the wide world to its pining and pain; From the great Universe, lo! in the gleaming, Blazes the bandersnatch, faithless and fain!

Parody on a Poem in Mr. Swinburne’s Tragedy “Erechtheus.” I see the sad sorrow that hangs like a shadow From ocean to ocean obscuring the light, Till hamlet and farm upon mountain and meadow Are blasted and bare with the blight. O, Erin, to me as my mother, O, Irishmen, each one a brother, Whose wrongs are remembered to-day, Whose tyrants their terrors betray; O, Erin, the fairest outvying, Quail not at their fearfullest frown; Hear this that I breathe to thee dying, O land of renown. 25 Though landlord and agent with breathings of slaughter Unite to assail and oppress thee again, Secure thou shalt stand in the midst of the water, The hate of their hearts shall be vain. For their power shall be past and made idle, And their pride shall be checked with a bridle, And the height of their heads bow down At the loss of their rents and renown. Be cherished and loved as I love thee, Of all that to thee owe their breath; Be thy life like the stars up above thee— Now, come to me, death. D. Evans. The Weekly Dispatch. June 25, 1882.

“You are he who,—ere upon my noisome nurses Large limbèd lap I coughed my first shrieked shrill-throated choke of curses, In pulp of pap,— Rose in reek made rich of decomposing matter Round kinglets curled, To greet with white-soul’d yell of ‘Yah!—who’s your hatter?’ An out-wash’d world: “You who, with a wind of words in thuds of thunder, Of sense made hash; Blind, yet bleating in the blaze of your own blunder Whole yards of trash; By your posing—your back somersaults of error That no one fire,— By the frenzy and the cry of loud-tongued terror Your jokes inspire; By the promise of your early dawn reversèd Clean upside down, By your curst cloy of Pantomime, and thrice accursèd Cat-call for Clown; “By the pasteboard heads that, beaten in in places, Smile on in pain, By sightless eyes and worsted hair, by large, mild faces,— By Drury Lane; By all frolic, freak and fooling, food for laughter, Nor said nor sung, When next on spouting bent—pity your hereafter, And hold your tongue!” * * * * * Punch. December 2, 1882.

Far-fetched and Dear-bought! Far-fetched and dear-bought, sure this volume of verse is, Tho’ ever as clever in rhythm and thought; And yet tho’ a master each roundel rehearses, Far-fetched and dear-bought! Tho’ perfect in beauty each ditty is wrought, Monotony much admiration disperses; Ye gods! a whole hundred! Is Swinburne distraught? The appetite cloyed e’er with dainties far worse is Than hunger that waits till one’s dinner is caught; So this is my verdict condemning these verses— Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Ulysses. What gain were mine if I should anchor cast And soothe my senses with these songs divine When I had wearied of the sweet repast, What gain were mine? Save for my skill, ye yet were Circe’s swine, And barking Scylla safe I led you past— And past Charybdis, ambushed in the brine. Then faithful comrades bind, and bind me fast— My lips are fain for kisses and for wine; But so I fail of Ithaca at last, What gain were mine? Gossamer.

To Algernon Charles Swinburne. Magician of song and of sound that enslaves the ear, Subtle and sweet are the arts which to thee belong; Varied thy chant as the lark’s which is heard so clear, Magician of song. 26 Divine as the sound of billows that swell and throng And crash with a music that gods might love to hear; So gather thy waves of language rapid and strong, Bursting in pæans of Love, and of Joy, and Fear, Welcome thy strain as a bird’s the flowers among, Welcome thy notes as blossoms that light the year, Magician of song. Apsley Roberts.

A Trio of Roundels. I was born like other men, And at last shall die. Who will live for ever then? Just a smile, a sigh, Tears a few, a smile again, Some endeavours high. Who shines grander, truer, when Placed in contrast by Grunting swine or clucking hen? Half-a-crown, that cannot last for ever, Yet who is there takes it with a frown? Who seeks not with passionate endeavour Half-a-crown? Who despises it, in all the town, You shall find a human being never From the tinselled monarch to the clown. Let a man be dull of brain or clever, Be his lot, or up in life or down, Easily from him you shall not sever Half-a-crown. Around and about the singer his song disperses He flings to the heavens a crashing mellifluous shout. Vast harmonies mingled for ever of blessings and curses Around and about. In melody filling and thrilling his voice rings out In strivings splendidly human. Better or worse is The joy of the poor or the rich, of the lord or the lout; What sirens ever sang sweeter? What wine of Circe’s, More quickly dispelled the fumes of a priestly doubt, Than this of the bay-crowned Man who is flinging his verses Around and about? St. James’s Gazette.

The New Jack Horner. The pigmy and portative Horner, Whom all men denominate Jack, Against an approximate corner Had set his exiguous back. On his knee, formed of paste that was puffy, Was a pie they for Yule-tide had made; Into which his fat fingers to stuff he No palpable moment delayed. And his voice told of raptures and roses, As, plucking a plum from that pie, He cried (as the legend discloses), “What a plump pie-ous urchin am I!” Funny Folks Annual. 1884.

Our Lady Champagne. By A.C.S. A Maiden makes moan, “Oh my motto Lies lost with its love-litten lay: ’Twas something on ‘green in a grotto,’ And ‘sad seas were sweeter than spray.’” O theme for the scorn of the scoffer, I hear my own verses again, And she ogles me well as I offer My Lady—Champagne.

The Blooming Damozel. By D.G.R. The blooming damozel leaned o’er The station bar at even, And she was deeper than the depths Of water at Lochleven; She kept my change within her purse, It came to one-and-seven.

The Volsung Tale. By W.M. Oh, fain for the wine was Sigurd, and wild were the songs he sang, Like the words from the Halls of Music, for glamour was on his tongue, And he dropped the sword of the Branstock, that trembled in his clutch, And said Gudrun, “Son of the Volsungs, methinks thou has ta’en too much.” Then up rose the King of Men-folk, and vowed he had drunk no ale; And that was the story of Sigurd—lo!—that was the Volsung tale!

The Motto. By R.B. A Motto! Just a catch-word such as lies Betwixt Imprimis and the colophon; French mot, Italian motto: for the rest Latin mutire. Body o’ me—the Greek Gives muthos. So this poem I write and leave To Jansenists, to lie i’ the brains o’ men, I sell you for a lira, eight pence just, Then home to Casa Guidi, by the Church. And, British Public, ye who like me not, I think i’ faith I’ve got the best of it!

Ere frost-flower and snow blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight; The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed. Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade. That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night, Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made, 27 March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite. And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow, And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low, How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born. So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness, whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn? Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow As a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn, Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow. * * * * * Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Nineteenth Century. March, 1888.

Ere frost-slush and snow-slopping dried up and went, and the horrors of Winter had slid out of sight, The ways of the wood pavement fouler were far than a clay-country lane on a mucky March night. The breath of the month of the winds had stabbed us through top-coats and mufflers, and made us afraid. Such bronchial bothers, such blossomy noses, such frostbitten fingers for man and for maid! The sea was not lovelier then than the land, each appeared in a dismal and desolate plight; But the Winter is not so much worse than the Spring-time; each plays up the mischief with pleasure and trade. March, master of winds, is a flatulent fraud, a marshal of banes and a bringer of blight. And now that the rage of your rhythmical rapture, your revel of rhyming has finished its flow, Oh, incontinent Algernon Charles, what the dickens you mean by such rubbish I should like to know. How, how can you love and rejoice, you, leader and lord of the lyrists of curses and scorn, In a beast of a month that half drives one to madness, and makes a man wish he had never been born? Have you shaken the snow from your shoes on a doormat, with frost have your nose and your lips been aglow? Have you met a March wind coming sharp round a corner, your mackintosh drenched and your gingham all torn, And tried to take breath in the nip of North-Easters? No, Algernon Charles, or you’d never talk so! (Four verses omitted.) The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as dry as starch. Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its gales that parch. What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest winds that blow? Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for blinding snow? No, no, your lips are eloquent, Algernon, set in Apollo’s own genuine arch; But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that setteth your figures aglow, Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind of March! Punch. March 17, 1888.

Lines a la Swinburne. I sing of the months of the whirligig years that are fading far out of sight and of sound and of motionless mind; Of the days without dreams and the dreams without days, and the days and the dreams and the dreams and the days grown silent and blind; Gone mad with the vigor of spring and the blush of the radish new blown in the meadows far kissed by the lips of the Sound: The maddest and gladdest and saddest and baddest and sweetest, completest and fleetest and neatest of days ever found. I sing of them often in words that are winding, in adjectives blinding, in dactyles and trochees with cunning combined, In lines that are long as a sentence of Evarts, in lines on the plan of the Washington Monument deftly designed; With wildering fancy of words and of musical syllables weighted with little of thought and with much less of rhyme, I cover ten pages a sitting with verse that has value in market, and readily getteth there every time. And when the idea is the thinnest, new burst from the void of the infinite nothing, the zenith of space where the nebulous ether is pregnant with cobwebs of fancy bestrewn with the dew-drops of slush, I build up long lines such as never a poet, who was not a crank on the subject of versification, built up for the purpose of drowning a suffering public with torrents of stupid and meaningless gibbering gush. If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had made of the past and hereafter a single adorable season whose life was a rapture of love and of laughter for all of the maidens and lads, I’d write you a poem with lines like the city of Rome, and with rhymes on beholders and shoulders; on measure and pleasure; on closes and roses; on sterile, imperil; remember, September; and hither and thither and whither; on slacken and bracken; on season and reason; defrauded, applauded; on dwindled, rekindled; on giving and living; on slumbers and numbers; beholden and golden; on glory and story and Morey; on wizard and gizzard and blizzard; on Blaine and on Maine; and each rhyme would be stuck on the end of a line just like this one I’m writing; and oh, and heyday, and yea, marry, they’d run about eight to the page, and they’d collar the scads. Tricotrin. Harper’s Monthly Magazine, June, 1888.

I am the Lady of Shalott, And if you say you love me not, 28 I shall reply, I wis, That Bastien-Lepage has been Much marked of Waterhouse, I ween, And the result is—this! The A.R.A. who painted me Is young and popular, and free To gratify his whim; Where on a couch of pain I lay, He came and called me up one day, And bade me follow him. In strange attire he vestured me, Yea, in the silks of Liberty, He set me thus afloat; He bade me seem to have the shakes, And ope my mouth as one that takes A high and hopeless note. And painting merely what he saw, According to the last-found law Of values and of tones, He made me, much to my amaze, A thing whereon the public gaze, And mock me for the nones. I am the Lady of Shalott And if you tell me I am not, I say but this one thing: That here be “Values” rare and quaint, A goodly “quality of paint,” And “workmanlike hand-ling.” I am the Lady of Shalott, And, though you recognize me not, Denied it may not be That I am of the things right good, Albeit scantly understood, In this Acadamee.

Strophes from a Song after Moonrise. Strophe I. I bowed my laurel’d head Above my lyre and said:— “What new song shall I sing across the strings? Madden’d for whose new sake What new noise shall I make?” And I answered: “Lo, I will sing of no new things, I will turn to her once more, I have sung so oft before— Freedom! and worship her, and curse some Kings.” Set on her motherly knee, Her nursing arms round me, I will cling about her neck as a child clings, Re-wounding with my kiss Each scarce-healed cicatrice Doing to her divers and disgusting things Whilst in her ears my chaunt, Re-risen and reboant, Sounds as one sounds, who, being senseless, sings. Strophe II. On one cant name of many names I have chosen— Freedom—lo, once again I call to thee; By the cold earth’s iron-bound ends and oceans frozen, By the rivers that run billowing to the sea, By the lisp and laughter of spring in leafy places, By the storms that follow and the calms that flee, By the pale light flung in men’s funeral faces From holocausts of kings we burn to thee; By the seas that link us and the lands that sever By the foes upon our weather-side and lee— By all these things and all other things whatever, We call, and howl, and squeak, and shriek to thee, Calling thee early and late, Wild, inarticulate, Calling and bawling that thou set something free. Strophe III. But where is the something—a land In the east or the uttermost west— A land with a grievance, a curse? I heed not her name or her place. So shame on her brow be a brand, So she have but a scourged white breast, And a name that will scan in verse; And I ask for the royal race, For the land opprest. But where shall I find her—where? I mean the land with a wrong Not already outworn By those that have sung for her sake For Byron and bards that were, Were singing of Freedom long Before I was thought of or born, And they plucked all the plums from the cake From the cake of song. Strophe IV. Ah, but would that I Had been the first of these! I would have drained them dry, These themes of war and peace, Nor have left one song to sing of Italy, Nor a poet’s picking on the bones of Greece. Then with flowers and fire, And bitter foam and wine, And fangs and fierce desire, And things I call divine, would nauseate so the world that no man’s lyre Should again be struck to a note I had once made mine. * * * * * Epode. I hung my laurel’d head, Down on my lyre and said: “What answer does my sovereign, Freedom, make?” And in the air I heard Not even a whisper’d word From her for whom my very lungs do ache, And as an addled egg is, is my brain: Wherefore for her most royal and holy sake I think I will behowl her once again. “Hear me, O goddess! for it indeed is I That call thee, at thy knees, And don’t be frightened, please, At the many things I shall adjure thee by. Come to us, bright, in clear re-arisen ascendency, Loosen o’er us all thine orient oriflamme! By the power Mat Arnold calls: ‘A stream of tendency,’ By the Christianity we have proved a sham, By the lowering name that darkened Hebrew story We have turned to ‘Thou art not,’ that was once ‘I Am;’ 29 We thy singers, we thy sons that work thee glory With the unburnt offerings of our worthless verses Heaped on thy shrine, adjure thee and adore thee: I, the clamouring herd’s choragus, I implore thee: By all the things that we bemire with curses— That is, by all the holy things that are, Rise and make manifest upon us thy mercies, Rise o’er us all a large and lonely star. For the night is now far spent: the air gives warning With a dewy stir and chillness of the morning, And the wan dark whitens on the eastern hill. Burn through the east, grow large, and lighten, until In the saffron of the sunrise we discern thee Shining and trembling like a tear of gladness. Draw near to us, we will love thee, we will learn thee— Learn thee to the heart, and love thee even to madness, If thou wilt only hear us in our crying Across the night, Conjuring thee by this our rhythmic sighing— Our songs which might Have many senses but which have not one sense A man may see; By the sounding and the fluent form of nonsense We shower on thee; By the shallow and the babbling things, our mothers, From whom we spring; By the barking and the braying things, our brothers Like whom we sing; By all the fatuous things, our near relations, That chaunt and cheer us; By Leeds, and Liberal associations Oh, Freedom, hear us!” St. James’s Gazette.

Mr. Swinburne’s “Question” Answered. Come, frenzied poet, first, then, pray Just tell us what those verses meant Which to the Telegraph you sent Last Thursday; since we, sad to say, Can’t fathom their intent, That you were very wild, ’twas clear, With some one; for you were profuse In that alliterative abuse, And in those epithets severe You aptly can produce. But who it was you wished to curse, Or what it was had roused your ire, Or why you wrote, with wroth so dire, So much involved Swinburnian verse, Why, that did not transpire Something, of course, had put you out, Or, otherwise, why did you deem It meet to wildly rave and scream, And throw those adjectives about With which your stanzas teem? And as you always in past time Have been a struggling nation’s friend, And hastened Freedom to defend, So doubtless now your angry rhyme Has the same worthy end. And, granting this, we then can find Who are the men you would asperse, And why you wrote such raving verse:— Of course, it must have been designed To Ireland’s tyrants curse! “The clamorous crew” you write about; The fierce “blood-mongers” you decry; The men who “stand in shame so high” These are the landlord-set, no doubt, Who pity’s plea deny. The men who “steal and skulk and flee”— Why, it is plain you mean by these Those heartless, greedy absentees, Who, to live on in luxury, Their cruel rack-rents seize. These are the “shameless gang,” ’tis clear, From whose “red hands” nor “dew nor rain” Can ever “cleanse the blood again”; And to whose hearts, so hard and sere, Appealing is in vain. Yes, ’tis these landlords, who disdain To pity, though poor “children die Starved”; and though helpless women lie On the hill-side, ’neath sleet and rain, Thrust from their homes hard by. And ’tis their tenants, too, who fight Vainly against the ruthless power That leaves their lives “no joyful hour,” Nor gives them e’en the “natural right To claim life’s natural dower.” Well may you ask, with stern surprise, Why men, who thus their duty shirk, And do, in sooth, “a murderous work,” Do not seem “hideous in our eyes As Austrian or as Turk?” Well may you call the landlord crew, “The cowardliest hounds that blood e’er lapp’d;” And hint they should be “track’d and trapp’d,” Whilst we that “woful past undo,” Which chains on Erin clapp’d. With reason you bid “England bow, Lest worst befall her yet”; and swear That nought, save pity, conscience, care, Truth and mercy, should be now Her sister Erin’s share. 30 But, frantic poet, none the less, When next your angry feelings egg You into verse like Silas Wegg, Do try your meaning to express More clearly, let us beg. ’Tis vain, in fact, for you to use Such very gory epithets, And terms involved, and sounding threats, If all the time your shrieking Muse Sense utterly forgets. And truly, if you thus again Should in the Telegraph break out, Its readers, there is little doubt, When they have tried to find in vain Whom ’tis you fain would flout. Will bid you to the fact recall That empty sound and fury blind, And words ambitiously designed, Must needs be worthless, one and all, Unless with sense combined. And you will be assailed with blame, “The lips of all will laugh you dead,” “And mockery shriek round your head,” Whilst you live on to hear with shame Your reputation’s fled!

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day. Here you have your answer—England’s yea against your nay: Long enough your House has held you: up, and clear the way! Lust and falsehood, craft and traffic, precedent and gold, Tongue of courtier, kiss of harlot, promise bought and sold, Gave you heritage of empire over thralls of old. Now that all these things are rotten, all their gold is rust, Quenched the pride they lived by, dead the faith and cold the lust, Shall their heritage not also turn again to dust? By the grace of these they reigned, who left their sons their sway: By the grace of these, what England says her lords unsay: Till at last her cry go forth against them—Clear the way! By the grace of trust in treason knaves have lived and lied! By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride: By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied. Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse, Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse, Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse. Where we stand, as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray; But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay: Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way! Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Pall Mall Gazette. August 19, 1884.

Rail away, my budding bardlets! This hysteric day Shrieking lives so shrieking answers,—Journals say not nay; Long enough has reason held you: up and rail away! Slang and slate, revile and bludgeon with assurance bold! Tongue of gentle, style of scholar, now are far too cold Go it like an angry fishwife when upon the scold. Now that chivalry’s forgotten, knightly steel all rust Quenched the pride old poets lived by, dead their grace as dust, Shall their mild example bind us? Not a whit, I trust! Blow the grace of Gentle Spenser, courtesy’s soft sway! Hang the grace of Wordsworth, leaving nothing to unsay! Let the Poet’s shriek go forth falsetto—Rail away! By the grace of trust in reason dolts have lived and died By the fear of noisy folly tongues have oft been tied, By the strength of rabid ranting reason’s now defied. Lest perchance your reckoning, with good manners mar your verse Halt and hearken lords of language, who would plump your purse Be not tied by taste’s restrictions; learn to howl and curse! Where we stand of slang to come, scarce falls a sprinkling spray But the wave of Billingsgate that’s coming who shall stay? Spread your sails my budding bardlets,—up and rail away! Punch, August 30, 1884.

“They are worthy to reign o’er their brothers, To contemn them as clods and as carles, Who are Graces by grace of such mothers As brightened the bed of King Charles.”

The lords of thy fate and thy keepers, O Swinburne, should padlock thy lips; It leaves us for genius weepers To hear thy Macdermottish tips. Such crowing and blowing, Such blatant British “side,” Will scatter and shatter Full soon thy poet’s pride. 31 “Smooth France, as a serpent for rancour”— Fie! fie! what an insolent style! Pray slip the Conservative anchor, And be thy old self for awhile. Men deem thee, or dream thee, Less living now than dead; The news is, thy Muse is A little off her head. Do thou, though the Blues should misdoubt thee, Resume thy first role on our boards; Hind on former armour about thee, And tilt at the “lackeys and lords.” Where you stood, the True stood, It stands not where you stand; Quit Jingo, and in go For Lib’ralism grand. Funny Folks, March 5, 1887.

The Radical Programme. (After the Franchise Bill.) The days of the dunces are over, The wiles of the Whigs are undone, They shall lie nevermore in the clover, And bask not again in the sun; In hip and in thigh will we smite them, Our rulers who ruled us of old, And nothing shall raise them or right them, Nor acres, nor gold. They sought us with sweet condescension, They pledged us, a hand for a hand— We were snobs, it is needless to mention, And they the best blood in the land: They bartered for place and we gave it, We staked for high game and we won, But their place goes and nothing can save it— Our day has begun. When this beggarly bill they conceded They thought we should ask for no more; Poor fools! it was all that we needed To make us more fierce than before: Now the game is our own and we’ll make it, Not a hand will we yield, not a trick; Here’s a notice to all who will take it To clear away quick. To the Lords shall the mandate be spoken, The people’s behest and decree; For the bonds that have bound us are broken, We are mighty at last, we are free! Look, my lords, where the writing is written, On the walls of your House, on the door, You are weighed and found wanting, and smitten Behind and before. * * * * * Then hurrah for the bill that we carried, For the Caucus that carried the bill! The Lords would have tampered and tarried, But we swept them along with a will; We swept them and sweep them before us, The prize of our prowess to-day, While we march to the lilt of the chorus That bids us not stay. It was time for another beginning, So we started the world with a spin And while it goes spinning and spinning We will gather the spoils that we win; For it spins out the Whigs and the Tories, The Lords and the Church and the Crown And it spins us this glory of glories— To tread them all down.

Hymn to Gladstonian Liberals. Is not this the First Lord of your choice? Sure its time that you put him to bed, For the kingdom is seared by his fires, O fools; He was Lord, and is dead. You will hear not again his fine speaking, His sophistry now as before And the tone of his wonderful lying will Humbug your senses no more; By the party he ruled as his slave, is he Slain who was mighty to slay; And the stigma that rests on his name He can raise not, nor roll it away. He is choked by his raiment of lies, Now the wane of his power is come; Truth hears he, and heeds not; and facts, And he sees not; and taunts, and is dumb. Power and will hath he none of it left him Nor truth in his breath; Till his name be struck out of the lists Will ye know not the truth of his death! Surely, ye say, he is strong, but the Times Is ’gainst him and Parnell; Wait a little, ye say—nay too long He has made our fair island a hell; Let him then die, as all must die, that Use treason thus as a rod; Let him fade from the ranks of his Party Take his foot from the neck that he trod. They cry out, his elect, his seekers for Office, who cling to his shame, They call him sweet light of his Party; They call him their Lord, by his name; The name that is written in Egypt, And in Africa stained by retreat, That name by our enemies loved, but Scorned by our army and fleet. He answers them not—he is fallen, Political death his reward, He is smitten! behold, he is smitten! As though by the stroke of a sword. The Conservative cause is triumphant, And peace and prosperity brings So glory to that in the highest, The healer and mender of things. F.A.C. The St. Stephen’s Review, May 28, 1887.

“Here, where old Nankin glitters, Here, where men’s tumult seems As faint as feeble twitters Of sparrows heard in dreams, We watch Limoges enamel, An old chased silver camel, A shawl, the gift of Schamyl, And manuscript in reams. Here, where the hawthorn pattern On flawless cup and plate Need fear no housemaid slattern, Fell minister of fate, ’Mid webs divinely woven, And helms and hauberks cloven, On music of Beethoven We dream and meditate.” * * * * *

Babydom. A Contribution to the Poetry of Pap. Baby, see the flowers! —Baby sees Other things than these. Baby, our soft age’s first of powers. Baby, hear the birds! —Baby’s nose Cocks at sounds like those. Baby rules our deeds and thoughts and words. Baby, want the moon? —Baby’s eyes Blink in blue surprise. Baby is the boss of night and noon. Baby, hear the sea! —Baby’s face Yermeates all space, Filled with noises of the nursery. * * * * *

The Vultures; or, What of the Fight. (A Suggestion from Swinburne.) England, what of the fight?— The fight that may come again, When the ridge of the battle-plain By the last lurid sun-ray is lit, And thou in thine armèd might Hast fought the good fight, and thy men Lie low where the night-birds flit,— What then, oh land, what then? Prophet, what of the fight? What is the vision you see? England the stubbornly free, Erect, ’midst the whirl of her waves. Harbours she traitors and slaves, Harpies, of gold-worship bred, Who grope for their gain amongst graves That hide the hosts of her dead? (Four verses omitted.) Vultures, what of the fight?— Ah! but ye crowd for gain. Little care ye for the slain. Only your maws to cram. There they be in the night, Sold for your sakes to death. System? A scoundrel sham That leaves ye with wings and breath! England, what of that fight?— Rouse you, and raise a hand. These Vultures swarm in the land, Incompetence, traitrous greed. Scourge them to headlong flight, Vermin of office and mart, Ere the harpies batten indeed, Their beaks in the nation’s heart.

‘Oh, thy swift, subtle, slanting, services That skim the net, and ’scape the racket of me, Oh, thy rich, red, ripe, ruby raspberries, Oh, thy straw hat, and dainty body of thee!’

“Di magni, salaputium disertum!”——Cat. Lib. Liii. “At the Session of Poets held lately in London, The Bard of Freshwater was voted the chair: With his tresses unbrush’d, and his shirt-collar undone, He loll’d at his ease like a good-humour’d Bear; ‘Come, boys!’ he exclaimed, ‘we’ll be merry together!’ And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek; While with eye like a skipper’s cock’d up at the weather, Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek. “The company gather’d embraced great and small bards, Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave, Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards, Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave. Of books, men, and things, was the bards’ conversation— Some praised Ecce Homo, some deemed it so-so— And then there was talk of the state of the nation, And when the unwash’d would devour Mr. Lowe. “Right stately sat Arnold—his black gown adjusted Genteely, his Rhine wine deliciously iced,— With puddingish England serenely disgusted, And looking in vain (in the mirror) for ‘Geist;’ He heark’d to the Chairman, with ‘Surely!’ and ‘Really?’ Aghast at both collar and cutty of clay,— Then felt in his pocket, and breath’d again freely, On touching the leaves of his own classic play. “Close at hand lingered Lytton, whose Icarus-winglets Had often betrayed him in regions of rhyme— How glitter’d the eye underneath his gray ringlets, A hunger within it unlessened by time! Remoter sat Bailey—satirical, surly— Who studied the language of Goethe too soon, Who sang himself hoarse to the stars very early, And crack’d a weak voice with too lofty a tune. “How name all that wonderful company over?— Prim Patmore, mild Alford—and Kingsley also? Among the small sparks who was realler than Lover? Among misses, who sweeter than Miss Ingelow? There sat, looking moony, conceited, and narrow, Buchanan,—who, finding when foolish and young, Apollo asleep on a coster-girl’s barrow, Straight dragged him away to see somebody hung. “What was said? what was done? was there prosing or rhyming? Was nothing noteworthy in deed or in word? Why, just as the hour for the supper was chiming, The only event of the evening occurred. Up jumped, with his neck stretching out like a gander, Master Swinburne, and squeal’d, glaring out through his hair, ‘All Virtue is bosh! Hallelujah for Lander! I disbelieve wholly in everything!—there!’ “With language so awful he dared then to treat ’em,— Miss Ingelow fainted in Tennyson’s arms, Poor Arnold rush’d out, crying ‘Sœcl’inficetum!’ And great bards and small bards were full of alarms; Till Tennyson, flaming and red as a gipsy, Struck his fist on the table and uttered a shout: ‘To the door with the boy! Call a cab! He is tipsy!’ And they carried the naughty young gentleman out. “After that, all the pleasanter talking was done there— Whoever had known such an insult before? The Chairman tried hard to re-kindle the fun there, But the Muses were shocked, and the pleasure was o’er. Then ‘Ah!’ cried the Chairman, ‘this teaches me knowledge, The future shall find me more wise, by the powers!’ This comes of assigning to yonkers from college Too early a place in such meetings as ours!” Caliban. The Spectator. September 15. 1886.

All pale from the past we draw nigh thee, And satiate with rollicking hours; And we know thee how none can deny thee, And we purchase the gift of new pow’rs, The draught that allays and recovers, The boons and the blessings that rain On the livers and lungs of thy lovers, Exorcist of Pain! What care though disease be a fixture Which for ages has baffled all skill, Thou art more than the famous blood mixture, Superior to Cockle’s best pill; Thou canst cast out disordered secretion, Reduce the swelled kidney, revive The victim of constant depletion, And keep him alive! 34 Fruits fail, Autumn dies, and Time ranges, * * * have perpetual breath, The price of its bottles ne’er changes, Two-and-ninepence can wrestle with Death Our lives are rekindled and rallied, Our systems made wholesome and clean, Relieved of Dyspepsia, that pallid, And poisonous Queen! Sick-headache, and sudden affliction, Carbuncles, and feverish skin, Epidemics, severe mental friction, Too much of a favourite bin; For these panacea thou devisest, For these, and for all other bane, O wise among chemists, and wisest, Exorcist of Pain! * * * * *

Paddy Blake on Swinburne. Dear Bailey, I will not deny That of Swinburne’s great merit I’m sensible, But this one complaint I must cry— “He’s exceedingly incomprehensible!” He sings pretty songs about kisses, He christens them “red,” also “white”; I confess, in all lowliness, this is Beyond my intelligence quite. It may well be that I’m very silly, But some of his songs seem to me Like a mixture of very weak skilly With ten times as much eau-de-vie. His language is wrondrously charming, And falls like a spell on the ear; But there’s one thing that’s rather alarming— Would it ever bring laughter or tear?

Of all the gay “scions” and sprigs of nobility, Far renowned for their grace and agility, Faix i’d advance you for sheer volatility Vernon avick! as the flower of them all. Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick! Long may you flounder through thin and through thick, Merriest mummer, And burliest “bummer,” And loudest big-drummer in Westminster Hall. Don’t talk of your sages and seers of antiquity, Famous for rectitude—or for obliquity, Faix an’ the divils at mental ubiquity, Vernon avick! would make hay of them all. Come, I’ll wager that nobody quite Aiquals his elegant blatherumskite, Down from urbanity, Into inanity, Troth! and profanity—if he’d the call. Arrah, Vernon machree! what were Bottom or Puck to you? Falstaff himself was a harmless ould buck to you; Look how you gather the Radical ruck to you; Whisha, bad luck to you, Vernon avick! Still, for all, you’re the prince of buffoons, Gad! you’ve the dash of a troop of dragoons, Firing the flagging ones, Bolstering the bragging ones, Leathering the lagging ones on wid the stick. And though never crossing the confines of charity, Still, in your moments of mammoth hilarity, Who, without showing the widest disparity Vies in vulgarity, Vernon with you? Once Sir Ughtred was minded to frown, Till this remark broke his prudery down— “Is it lave jollity All to the ‘quality,’ Cannot we masses be mountebanks too?” Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick! Long may you flounder, through thin and through thick, Merriest mummer, And burliest “bummer,” And loudest big drummer in Westminster Hall. The Globe. December 11, 1888.

I stood at eve, as the sun went down, by a grave where a woman lies, Who lured men’s souls to the shores of sin with the light of her wanton eyes, Who sang the song that the Siren sung on the treacherous Lurley height, Whose face was as fair as a summer day, and whose heart was as black as night. Yet a blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust; Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust; But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot. * * * * * In the summer, when the meadows were aglow with blue and red, Joe, the ostler of the Magpie, and fair Annie Smith were wed. Plump was Annie, plump and pretty, with a cheek as white as snow; He was anything but handsome was the Magpie’s ostler, Joe. But he won the winsome lassie. They’d a cottage and a cow, And her matronhood sat lightly on the village beauty’s brow. Sped the months and came a baby—such a blue-eyed baby boy! Joe was working in the stables when they told him of his joy. He was rubbing down the horses, and he gave them then and there All a special feed of clover, just in honour of the heir: It had been his great ambition, and he told the horses so, That the Fates would send a baby who might bear the name of Joe. Little Joe the child was christened, and, like babies, grew apace; He’d his mother’s eyes of azure and his father’s honest face. Swift the happy years went over, years of blue and cloudless sky; Love was lord of that small cottage, and the tempests passed them by. Passed them by for years, then swiftly burst in fury o’er their home. Down the lane by Annie’s cottage chanced a gentleman to roam; Thrice he came and saw her sitting by the window with her child, And he nodded to the baby, and the baby laughed and smiled. So at last it grew to know him—little Joe was nearly four; 36 He would call the “pretty gemplun” as he passed the open door; And one day he ran and caught him, and in child’s play pulled him in, And the baby Joe had prayed for brought about the mother’s sin. ’Twas the same old wretched story that for ages bards have sung: ’Twas a woman weak and wanton and a villain’s tempting tongue; ’Twas a picture deftly painted for a silly creature’s eyes Of the Babylonian wonders and the joy that in them lies. Annie listened and was tempted; she was tempted and she fell, As the angels fell from heaven to the blackest depths of hell; She was promised wealth and splendour and a life of guilty sloth, Yellow gold for child and husband,—and the woman left them both. Home one eve came Joe the Ostler with a cheery cry of “Wife!” Finding that which blurred for ever all the story of his life She had left a silly letter,—through the cruel scrawl he spelt; Then he sought the lonely bed-room, joined his horny hands and knelt. “Now, O Lord, O God, forgive her, for she ain’t to blame!” he cried; “For I owt t’a seen her trouble, and ’a gone away and died. Why, a wench like her—God bless her!—’twasn’t likely as her’d rest With that bonny head for ever on a ostler’s ragged vest. “It was kind o’ her to bear me all this long and happy time, So for my sake please to bless her, though you count her deed a crime; If so be I don’t pray proper, Lord, forgive me; for you see I can talk all right to ’osses, but I’m nervous like with Thee.” Ne’er a line came to the cottage from the woman who had flown; Joe the baby died that winter, and the man was left alone. Ne’er a bitter word he uttered, but in silence kissed the rod, Saving what he told his horses, saving what he told his God. Far away in mighty London rose the woman into fame, For her beauty won men’s homage, and she prospered in her shame; Quick from lord to lord she flitted, higher still each prize she won, And her rivals paled beside her, as the stars beside the sun. Next she made the stage her market, and she dragged Art’s temple down To the level of a show place for the outcasts of the town. And the kisses she had given to poor Ostler Joe for nought With their gold and costly jewels rich and titled lovers bought. Went the years with flying footsteps while her star was at its height; Then the darkness came on swiftly, and the gloaming turned to night. Shattered strength and faded beauty tore the laurels from her brow; Of the thousands who had worshipped never one came near her now. Broken down in health and fortune, men forgot her very name, Till the news that she was dying woke the echoes of her fame; And the papers in their gossip mentioned how an “actress” lay Sick to death in humble lodgings, growing weaker every day. One there was who read the story in a far-off country place, And that night the dying woman woke and looked upon his face. Once again the strong arms clasped her that had clasped her long ago, And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast of Ostler Joe. All the past had he forgotten, all the sorrow and the shame; He had found her sick and lonely, and his wife he now could claim. Since the grand folks who had known her one and all had slunk away, He could clasp his long-lost darling, and no man would say him nay. In his arms death found her lying, in his arms her spirit fled; And his tears came down in torrents, as he knelt beside her dead. Never once his love had faltered through her base unhallowed life; And the stone above her ashes bears the honoured name of wife. * * * * * That’s the blossom I fain would pluck to-day from the garden above her dust; Not the languorous lily of soulless sin nor the blood-red rose of lust; But a sweet white blossom of holy love that grew in the one green spot In the arid desert of Phryne’s life, where all was parched and hot.

Teamster Jim. It ain’t jest the story, Parson, to tell in a crowd like this, With the virtuous maiden a-frownin’ an’ chidin’ the giggling miss, An’ the good old deacon a-noddin’, in time with his patient snores, An’ the shocked elect of the Capital, stalkin’ away through the doors. But then, it’s a story that happened, an’ every word of it’s true, An’ sometimes we can’t help talkin’ of the things that we sometimes do. An’ though good society coldly shuts its door on to Teamster Jim, I’m thinkin’ ther’s lots worse people, that’s better known than him. I mind the day he was married, an’ I danced at the weddin’ too; An’ I kissed the bride, sweet Maggie, daughter of Ben McGrew. I mind how they set up housekeepin’ two young, poor, happy fools, When Jim’s only stock was a heavy truck an’ four Kaintucky mules. Well, they lived along contented, with their little joys an’ cares, An’ every year a baby came, an’ twice they came in pairs; Till the house was full of children, with their shoutin’ and playin’ and squalls, An’ their singin’ an’ laughin’ an’ cryin’ made Bedlam within its walls. An’ Jim, he seemed to like it, an’ he spent all his evenin’s at home, He said it was full of music, an’ light, an’ peace from pit to dome. He joined the church, an’ he used to pray that his heart might be kept from sin— The stumblin’est prayin’—but heads and hearts used to bow when he’d begin. So, they lived along in that way, the same from day to day, With plenty of time for drivin’ work, an’ a little time for play. An’ growin’ around ’em the sweetest girls and the liveliest, manliest boys, Till the old gray heads of the two old folks was crowned with the homeliest joys. Eh? Come to my story? Well, that’s all. They’re livin’ just like I said, Only two of the girls is married, an’ one of the boys is dead, An’ they’re honest, an’ decent, an’ happy, an’ the very best Christians I know, Though I reckon in brilliant comp’ny they’d be voted a leetle slow. Oh! you’re pressed for time—excuse you? Sure, I’m sorry I kept you so long; Good-bye! Now he looked kind o’ bored like, an’ I reckon that I was wrong To tell such a commonplace story, of two such commonplace lives, But we can’t all git drunk, an’ gamble, an’ fight, an’ run off with other men’s wives. Robert T. Burdette.

“Ostler Joe” in the hands of a “Potter.” She went into a soirée, Where was many a spotter, And she read of Ostler Joe, —Naughty Mrs. Potter. Ladies there “undressed by Worth,” Scowled at the simple cotter And his fickle wife, ha, ha! —Wicked Mrs. Potter. They might go to see Odette, Or some play that’s hotter, But Ostler Joe they wouldn’t stand, —Horrid Mrs. Potter Boston Courier.

Hustler Jim. There warn’t nothin’ so blamed angelic Nor saintish-like about him; But, pard,—ef ever yer needed a friend— Yer could “tie” to “Hustler Jim.” Perhaps, if ther ’casion required it— He would “cuss” a bit, now and then; But a tenderer, kinder heart nor Jim’s Haint frequently found in men. There warn’t one parsimonious hair In that grizzled old mop o’his, There warn’t one deceitful line In his wizened and humbly phiz. His sympathies at a dog-fight Allers backed up the smallest pup, And his last chaw of plug terbacker With er stranger he’d “divey” up. Ef I wuz ter live fer er hundred years, I shell never fergit the night When he cleaned out “Plug” Kimberley’s bar room, A mile or so west of Fort White. Ef I wuz ter live fer er thousand years, I kin never fergit the fun The two of us had when we broke up Smith’s Place Jest this side of Poverty Run. If I wuz ter live fer er million years— (Who was it remarked: “Git out.” Was it you? Bartender? all right—I’ll “skip”—Dont shove please, I’ll travel without!) * * * * * 38 Out in the dark, damp, dreary night, They ruthlessly “hustled” him,— Ere he had a chance his sad tale to recite, Ioncerning “Hustler Jim.” Washington Hatchet, 1886.

(Inserted by Mr. Sims’s permission.) Billy’s dead, and gone to glory, so is Billy’s sister Nell: There’s a tale I know about them, were I poet I would tell; Soft it comes, with perfume laden, like a breath of country air Wafted down the filthy alley, bringing fragrant odours there. In that vile and filthy alley, long ago, one winter’s day, Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient Billy lay, While beside him sat his sister, in the garret’s dismal gloom, Cheering with her gentle presence Billy’s pathway to the tomb. Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child, Till his eyes lost half their anguish, and his worn, wan features smiled: Tales herself had heard hap-hazard, caught amid the Babel roar, Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mother’s door. Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold, Where, when all the pain was over—where, when all the tears were shed— He would be a white-frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head. Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Saviour’s love, How He’d built for little children great big playgrounds up above, Where they sang and played at hop-scotch, and at horses all the day, And where beadles and policemen never frightened them away. This was Nell’s idea of Heaven—just a bit of what she’d heard, With a little bit invented and a little bit inferred. But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand, For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land. “Yes,” he whispered, “I can see it—I can see it, sister Nell; Oh, the children look so happy, and they’re all so strong and well; I can see them there with Jesus—He is playing with them, too! Let us run away and join them, if there’s room for me and you.” She was eight, this little maiden, and her life had all been spent In the garret and the alley, where they starved to pay the rent; Where a drunken father’s curses and a drunken mother’s blows Drove her forth into the gutter from the day’s dawn to its close. But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy, “You must die before you’re able all these blessings to enjoy. You must die,” she whispered, “Billy, and I am not even ill; But I’ll come to you, dear brother—yes, I promise that I will. “You are dying, little brother,—you are dying, oh, so fast; I heard father say to mother that he knew you could’nt last. They will put you in a coffin, then you’ll wake and be up there, While I’m left alone to suffer in this garret bleak and bare.” “Yes, I know it,” answered Billy. “Ah, but, sister, I don’t mind, Gentle Jesus will not beat me; He’s not cruel or unkind. But I can’t help thinking, Nelly, I should like to take away Something, sister, that you gave me, I might look at every day. “In the summer you remember how the mission took us out To a great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about, And the van that took us halted by a sweet bright patch of land, Where the fine red blossoms grew, dear, half as big as mother’s hand. “Nell, I asked the good kind teacher what they called such flowers as those, And he told me, I remember, that the pretty name was rose. I have never seen them since, dear—how I wish that I had one! Just to keep and think of you, Nell, when I’m up beyond the sun.” Not a word said little Nelly; but at night when Billy slept, On she flung her scanty garments, and then down the stairs she crept. Through the silent streets of London she ran nimbly as a fawn, Running on and running ever till the night had changed to dawn. 39 When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away, All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay. She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet, But there came no flowery gardens her poor tearful eyes to greet. She had traced the road by asking—she had learnt the way to go; She had found the famous meadow—it was wrapt in cruel snow; Not a buttercup or daisy, not a single verdant blade Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed. With her eyes upcast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground, And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found. Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim; And a sudden, awful tremor seemed to seize her every limb. “Oh, a rose!” she moaned, “good Jesus—just a rose to take to Bill!” And as she prayed a chariot came thundering down the hill; And a lady sat there, toying with a red rose, rare and sweet; As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly’s feet. Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret, And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet; But the poor, half-blinded Nelly, thought it fallen from the skies, And she murmured, “Thank you, Jesus!” as she clasped the dainty prize. * * * * * Lo that night from out the alley did a child’s soul pass away, From dirt and sin and misery to where God’s children play. Lo that night a wild, fierce snowstorm burst in fury o’er the land, And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand. Billy’s dead, and gone to glory, so is Billy’s sister Nell; I’m bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell:— That the children met in heaven, after all their earthly woes, And that Nelly kissed her brother, and said, “Billy here’s your rose.” G. R. Sims.

Billy’s Nose. Listen to a striking story. Billy and his sister Nell Were a pair of gutter youngsters, in an alley had to dwell (I am not a noted poet, but to tell you I shall try, Since it “comes with perfume laden”—as a moral—that is why.) Simple toys had made them happy through a sultry summer day (Two old boots and one dead kitten), then they quarrelled in their play, ’Mid the grime on Billy’s visage shone in streaks the angry red, And he seized a handy brickbat, which he threw at Nellie’s head. Little boys should love their sisters—here I might have had to paint How the pretty, hapless maiden suddenly grew pale and faint; How anon she drooped and faded, looking dove-like all the while, Rending Billy’s little bosom with the sweetness of her smile! But she didn’t. Nellie started—darted up each creaking stair Till she reached their dismal garret, for she knew a stick was there; This she held behind her slyly, meaning to avenge her woes, Sought the unsuspecting Billy, and she hit him on the nose. Billy’s missile missed its object, Nellie’s stick descended hard, And the boy from all his pleasures was for three whole weeks debarred; Could he hop-scotch in the alley—in the gutter take his place, With that lattice work of plaster—very dirty—on his face? Little boys should love their sisters—that’s the moral that I meant, Seeing Billy’s nasal feature now, alas! is sadly bent; And he has a secret sorrow, for whene’er his temper glows, Nellie stands with lean arms folded, saying “Billy, how’s your nose?” Fred Rawkins (Harold Wynn.) The Weekly Dispatch, 25 June, 1882.

“The Tricycle.” A Parody upon “The Lifeboat,” by G. P. Sims. Been out on the Tricycle often? Yes, sir, I ride a lot. When it’s hotter than this? Lor’, bless you, this ain’t what we call hot. It’s when the sun is a-shining with a heat like a furnace strong, When the air is close and stifling, and when for a breeze you long, When a drink seems life’s sole object, and parched and dry is the breath, 40 When the leader’s cry, “Spurt! Forward” sounds like a sentence of death. That’s when we call it hot, sir; but if we can manage a day, There is always enough crack riders ready to pedal away. You’ve heard of Tunbridge Wells, sir, down in the valley of Kent? Here are the fellows who rode there—gone is the money we spent. The day that we went was reckoned the hottest this summer has seen, And this was a year when summer was hot as Egypt, I ween. The trip was planned by the others, and two of them volunteered— I only heard of it after, and then I was well-nigh skeered— For roasting that day seemed certain, and I thought of the skin on my nose; I thought of the Bank in the City, the books I had to close. We pedalled away in the heat, sir; the “Wells” was the goal in view, And never a one but doubted if the riders could live it through. Our Tricycles stood it bravely, and thirsty and hot and weak, We drew in sight of the hopfields we had dared so much to seek; And then we rested and turned, and homeward again we faced, When one machine collapsed, sir, as down a hill we raced! That was an awful moment, and the stoutest held his breath, And watched the wreck on the road, sir, as if he looked on death. The road was strewn with pieces, and, to tell you the truth, sir, then I thought of the Bank in London I never might see again. I thought of the manager’s look, sir, if vacant my seat were seen On the morrow when I was due there—and all through a friend’s machine! However, I thought I’d risk it; I couldn’t desert a friend, So we set to work with a will, sir, the broken wheel to mend, And after some skilful hammering our joy can well be guessed When we saw the wheel go round again, though shaky at the best. Well, we stopped at a neighbouring “public”—of the rest I know no more; But I spent next day at the Bank, sir, with limbs both tired and sore, And as I sat calm and quiet my memory clouded grew As I thought of that awful journey, that ride I had just gone through. Cassell’s Saturday Journal. May 1, 1886.

The Terror of Tadger’s Rents. A “Dagonet Ballad” Gone Wrong. Ain’t heard of Tadger’s Rents? My eye! where was you bred and born? Such ignorance it do excite a feller-creature’s scorn. The Rents is down the Dials way—a proper kind o’ lair, Where happy dossers come each night, and doss upon the stair. I’ve done it many times and oft;—but never mind ’bout me, It’s of Bill Basher I would jaw this arternoon, d’ye see? The “Terror o’ the Rents” he was, and well deserved the name, And yet, I hold, his heart was soft and tender all the same. He couldn’t bear no cant, poor Bill, and humbug driv him wild, They made a savage of a chap as was by nature mild; And so it came to pass as he would always have his knife Into a cove as paid his way and lived a decent life. Joe Tomkins, he was one o’ these—a mean and sneaking cuss, Who for no sort o’ boose that’s brewed had ever been the wuss. “Let’s have a wet,” said Bill one day. Said Joseph, “Not for Joe!” No wonder Bill was riled at that—he would be, don’t you know. So later on, when he’d got screwed, he made for Joseph’s room, As sat at tea, all unprepared to meet his orful doom. Bill landed him upon the nose a wunner, so he did, And then perceeded for to kick Joe’s missis and his kid. He jumped upon the three of them, and then he come away— You can’t see where his heart was soft, I think I heard you say. Hold on; don’t take a feller up so precious sharp as that— Bill came away and didn’t hurt the Tomkins’ tabby cat. I see that animile last week, a-looking sleek and well, But Bill he’s picking of his hemp inside a prison cell. A martyr’s crown? I guess you’re right, for his deserts is plain, As does his best, when on the bust, to study the humane. Funny Folks’ Annual.

Another “Bagonet” Ballad. Told by the One-armed Man. What? A “queer place” to look for a hero? A Seven Dials pothouse? No fear! I’ll find heroes, I’ll bet, just as good as you’ll get, Though perhaps they may owe to their beer A grain—just a grain—of the courage That stamps them the bulldogs of war. “But, lor, where’s the hurt in a pint or a quart? And, blow you! whoever you are— “If you rob a pore man of his lotion, And go turning him out of his pubs, Whilst, half Sunday, he sits on the kerbstone, and spits, You’re a guzzlin’ champagne in your clubs. 41 “Go and ’ang yerself—d’yer—did ye ’ear me? Why you ain’t fit to live with my moke! Mr. Stead says the toffs is all cut-throats and toffs, Go and bust yerself—go an’ eat coke!” A hero has spoken, as valiant A fellow as ever broke bread— As fly as a cop. He could hammer a slop, And then do his “month’s hard” on his head. He’s a thorough-blown hero, I tell you (Though I fear I’m not much at portraiture), P’raps he’s rough in a tiff, but, good gracious me—if There’s a “Mr. Hyde” side to his nature, Sure it’s not to be wondered at greatly; For Seven Dials air’s hardly otto Of roses. And more—as he’s told you before— You don’t uphold “Fair Play” as your motto. But let him run loose. Over there, sir, You see a man sit on the bench; Not that one with the pot—he’s a terrible sot; Nor that one that is kissing the wench; But that grey-haired old chap, whose right sleeve, sir, Is empty, and pinned to his breast; And I’ll bet you he says that he’s seen better days. I can see it. That fine manly chest I’ll warrant has heaved ’neath the scarlet, Those grey eyes, so earnest and grave, That look full of scorn, ne’er in plebeian born; He’s a soldier—or has been—and brave. I wonder if, speaking politely, I’m able to somewhat unmask him, To learn ’bout his arm. He seems passive and calm, There’s nothing like cheek—no—I’ll ask him. * * * * * “How did I lose my arm, sir?” (The grey-headed veteran rose), “Well, come, fill up my pot, I’d as lief tell as not,” (And he fell in a “Bagonet” pose— You know—stand at ease—right leg forward The right arm—or sleeve—on the breast-ee’s, The left hanging dead by the side. And the head Thrown well back to give play to the chest-ee’s.) “How did I lose my arm, sir? Ah, that’s too long a story, I fear, Though I don’t wish to brag, it was lost for the flag Of the Queen—and for England so dear. “It was lost, sir, upholding the honour That means to an Englishman life. In the thick of the battle, midst guns’ deathly rattle, One last thought of home and of wife—” Then he strikes. Hark, now “Up guards, and at ’em, Bang! Victory! On Stanley, on! Send a volley in there—on the point of the square, So—another like that, and we’ve won.” See your foemen and comrades all lying On the blood-stained heath, gory and red, Hear the groans and the prayers of the dying And the agonised shrieks of the dead. Poor Jack! What, a drink from my flask, son, And leave you to die? Save myself? You and I, who’ve been cronies together, Have a pull at the brandy. A Guelph Isn’t dearer to me at this moment— My charger’s been shot in both flanks, But we can both straddle somehow in the saddle, And I’ll get you back to the ranks. What’s this dark hull that looms up against us? This great rush of steam, and this dash? For the ones that we love all things earthly above Great heavens! she’s on us! A crash— Yes, we’re struck by the Bywell Castle. She has cut us in two with her prow, And our boat, The Princess, in five minutes, or less, Will suck three hundred creatures below! “Let the women get into the boats there, Stand back-let the critters get in!” But some great hulking tramps crowd the boat, and she swamps, And loud o’er the engines dim, From the waves of the murky Thames, sir, Come the wails of the souls in the stream. “Keep afloat for God’s sake—sure some effort she’ll make, No—one last shriek—one horrible scream;” As our vessel she takes a plunge, sir, Ah! it sickens my heart with fears; The life-belts are thrown, as the vessel goes down, And the old man sits in tears! He looks at the glowing embers, He watches the straggling flame; But never a word from his lips is heard As he thinks of his daughter’s shame. How her sunny face, in the village, As a ray of sunshine was shown; Beloved by them all, both great and small, Till—till the gay young squire came down. Ah, me, ’twas the same old story, Of the trusting girl and the scamp, The careless miner—the unlit pipe— And the unclosed Davy Lamp! A flash and a terrible rumbling, As loud of smoke from the shaft, Of wailing dread at the grim pit’s head, But along the wires was waft A word from the junction signals, “The Flying Scotchman’s through! Clear the line; she’s late.” And the 12.48 Is ten minutes overdue! I’ve hardly a second for thought, sir, The 12.48’s in sight. “Put steam, on, men, run her through, and then We may still pull ye through all right.” They hear my shout on the engine, And they run her through at a rate That the company never had dreamed about, But alas! for it’s all too late. But one more second and they’d have gained The siding. But down she swept, And few in that fated house afire That knew—for most sound they slept. 42 The firemen hammered the door down. Is there life to be saved, and where? They plunge in the haze of the house ablaze; Their helmets lit up with the glare. A window opens above us, That’s on the second floor. And a maiden we sight—in the raiment of night— And she calls midst the flaming roar— “Will nobody save my Father?” We are turned near to stone at the shock. We are glued to the street. I can hear my heart beat Like a five-bob American clock. A ladder is put to the window, A young fellow pulls off his hat, He springs up that ladder as lithe as an adder, And climbs with the skill of a cat. We sweep like a wave past the Red Post! It’s now that the battle begins. Ev’ry eye’s on the blue. In a second or two They’ll be shouting out “Kissing Cup wins!” We’ve got ’em all settled, I think, sir, No! Here comes the Captain’s colt, He’s us at five seven! He’ll beat us—Oh, heaven! But no—he has shot his bolt. I can see the face of a girl, sir, A standing there in the ring, She’s a maiden to meet—(out of Winchester Street), And she’s “backed us like everyding.” I must win this race For Her, sir, For hereon there rests a name. Her virgin caresses—her “Empire” dresses, And Victoria Station’s shame. The Aeronaut clings to the cord, sir, And owns with too well shown fright That he’s surely come to a chosen tomb In the Channel’s billows so bright. When we sailed from the Crystal Palace, There was scarce a breath of air, And the glitt’ring sun on our huge balloon Made a picture divinely fair. She looked like a golden ball, sir, As she mounted into the skies. Sailed from the crowds and sought the clouds The cynosure of all eyes. But two short hours have passed us, And here we hang o’er the sea, In a terrible plight—not a sail in sight, And descending rapid-lee, A few feet below us—The Ocean! We are fully ten miles from the land. Good God! see—she dies—not an inch can we rise For we’ve thrown out the last bag of sand! To recourse—ah, I had but an instant. I leapt—with a cry—to the ground. And, Heaven be praised for its mercy! I stood with the girl safe and sound. * * * * * “And that’s how I lost my arm, sir. If the thing don’t strike you as clear, Put it down to a few o’ the trials I’ve gone through, Or—perhaps it’s along o’ this beer.” The Sporting Times. October 20, 1888.