Cornell University Library 
 PR 5671.T4R2 
 
 Recaptured rhymes; being a batch of polit 
 3 1924 013 564 483 
 
v*i Cornell University 
 S Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013564483 
 
KECAPTURED EHTMES 
 
KECAPTUKED EHYMES 
 
 BEING 
 
 A BATCH OF POLITICAL AND 
 OTHER FUGITIVES 
 
 AEEESTED AND BROUGHT TO BOOK 
 
 -A ( BY 
 
 H. D. TEAILL 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBUKGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXII 
 

 \as-l\*\£ 
 
NOTE. 
 
 Of the pieces of verse collected into this volume, the 
 greater number are reprinted from the 'St James's 
 Gazette.' Of the remainder, four were contributed 
 to the 'Pall Mall Gazette' before the change which 
 took place in its proprietary and direction on the 3d 
 of May 1880; two appeared in the 'World;' six in 
 'Time;' and one, "The Ant's Nest," in the 'Fort- 
 nightly Eeview.' 
 
 The Author takes this opportunity of thanking the 
 proprietors of these periodicals for the permission to 
 republish. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 POLITICAL VEESE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LAPUTA OUTDONE, 3 
 
 THE BARON DE WIGG, 7 
 
 BALLAD OF BALOONATIC8 OEANIOCEACS, . . . .13 
 
 AN ENFANT TERRIBLE, 18 
 
 THE REGION OF DREAM, 29 
 
 OCCASIONAL RHYMES. 
 
 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE, 35 
 
 FROM AN IRISH LETTER-BAG, 43 
 
 THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN, 50 
 
 "OUR GLYCERINE BAROMETER," : .... 56 
 
 THE FUN OF IT, 62 
 
 "DOWN TO DESSERT," 66 
 
 THE PATRIARCH'S HOME-COMING, 70 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 THE MODEST POSTULATES, 74 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF THE KURDS? ... 77 
 
 A CONGRATULATORY ODE, 81 
 
 A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE," 83 
 
 MIMICRIES. 
 
 THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL, 95 
 
 PROM "THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS," .... 100 
 
 THE MODERN POET'S SONG, 105 
 
 AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI, 109 
 
 A DRAWING-ROOM BALLAD, 113 
 
 VERS DE SOCIETE, . . 116 
 
 POST LUSUS, SERIA. 
 
 TO A FAMOUS PARLIAMENT, 123 
 
 ON A FAMOUS BILL : THE LAWYER'S SOLILOQUY, . .126 
 
 AVE CESAR ! MORTUI TE SALUTANT, .... 131 
 
 THE AGE OF DESPAIR, 134 
 
 THE ANTS' NEST, 141 
 
POLITICAL VEESE 
 
LAPUTA OUTDONE. 
 
 Oh, Philosopher crazed from the Island of Crazes, 
 Explored and depicted by Jonathan Swift, 
 
 Let us hear what your judgments on us and our ways 
 is — 
 Permit us your mental impressions to sift. 
 
 For we have our follies of wisdom fantastic, 
 Some high-philosophic, political some, 
 
 And would fain ascertain, in no spirit sarcastic, 
 If you, my dear pundit, can match them at home. 
 
 When a man in Laputa falls sick unto danger, 
 Then is it the rule in that singular place 
 
 To throw up the window and ask the first stranger 
 To kindly come in and prescribe on the case ? 
 
■A LAPTJTA OUTDONE. 
 
 When in legal perplexities, slighter or deeper, 
 
 For counsel in law a Laputan applies, 
 Does he seek the next crossing and beg of its sweeper, 
 
 When business is done, to step round and advise ? 
 
 Are your pilots' certificates commonly given 
 To men who have not even looked on the seas ? 
 
 Are your coachmen selected for not having driven ? 
 Say, have you Laputans got customs like these ? 
 
 You haven't ? Then off with your bee-bearing bonnet, 
 Illustrious guest from Luggnaggian shores ! 
 
 And down on your knee and do homage upon it 
 Profound to a State that is madder than yours ! 
 
 For though we select not attorney, physician, 
 Or pilot who steers us, or coachman who drives, 
 
 From the ignorant crowd, who would gain erudition 
 At risk of our fortunes, our limbs, or our lives ; 
 
LAPUTA OUTDONE. 5 
 
 Yet this Ignorance dense that we do not let lead us 
 In private concerns, lest disaster befall, 
 
 This, that may not make wills for us, dose us, or bleed 
 us 
 May rule us — the business that's hardest of all ! 
 
 We say to It " Courage ! Nay, go not so shyly ! 
 
 In time you will master the work you are at ; 
 Your country presents you her own corpus vile, 
 
 See, here is the commonweal, practise on that ! 
 
 " Away with the notion (we echo in chorus) 
 Of power withheld until knowledge be gained," 
 
 (Too long, cry the carts, have the horses before us 
 Unjust and unworthy precedence obtained !) 
 
 " The use of the scalpel in surgical functions 
 Will give you the skill of a surgeon professed, 
 
 And by much engine-driving at intricate junctions 
 One learns to drive engines along with the best." 
 
6 LAPUTA OUTDONE. 
 
 For is it not thus our political preachers 
 Discourse to us daily, in bidding us note 
 
 That " the franchise itself is the truest of teachers," 
 That " voting instructs in the use of the vote " ? 
 
 So, off with it ! Off with your bee-bearing bonnet, 
 Illustrious guest from Luggnaggian shores ! 
 
 And down on your knee, and do homage upon it 
 Profound to a State that is madder than yours ! 
 
THE BARON DE WIGG. 
 
 All ye who sit waiting in moody array, 
 Oppositionists eager to welcome a day 
 
 With the fate of the Ministry big, 
 Chastise your passion for power and place 
 By recalling the sad but instructive case 
 
 Of the fine old Baron de Wigg. 
 
 Old Baron de Wigg from his earliest years 
 Had moved in the highest official spheres, 
 
 Until he had learnt to dream 
 That "placemen" and "Wiggs" were convertible terms, 
 And belonged to a system of which the germs 
 
 Formed part of the cosmic scheme. 
 
8 THE BARON DE WIGG. 
 
 He considered the ends of creation gained 
 
 On the whole, while De "Wiggs high office retained, 
 
 Fulfilment complete being won 
 When the head of the house was the realm's chief guide, 
 And each of the other De Wiggs supplied 
 
 With a post for a younger son. 
 
 Now imagine the Baron de Wigg's disgust 
 At finding the family suddenly thrust 
 
 From their natural place in the State 
 By men who from '32 down to that hour 
 Had never enjoyed a spell of power 
 
 Of more than the briefest date. 
 
 But as year after year kept slipping away, 
 To disgust there began a profound dismay 
 
 In the Baron's breast to succeed ; 
 For, if longer excluded from place, he saw 
 That the uniform order of physical law 
 
 Could hardly be guaranteed. 
 
THE £ARON DE WIGG. 
 
 This gloomy conviction inclined him to lend 
 Too willing an ear to a dubious friend 
 
 (Mr Latterday Eadd was his name), 
 Who offered the Baron his counsel and aid 
 To regain what was worthy the prize to he made 
 
 Of a slightly unscrupulous game. 
 
 But Latterday Eadd two acquaintances had, 
 
 Who rejoiced in the names of Crotchett and Fadd- 
 
 A quite unpresentable pair ; 
 And the Baron, who could not afford to contemn 
 An alliance with Eadd, thought mixing with them 
 
 To be — well, quite another affair. 
 
 So when in pure zeal for De Wigg and his ends, 
 Eadd promised to drop his unsavoury friends 
 
 (To " sink " was the word he employed), 
 The Baron was touched by the simple young man 
 Who such loyalty showed to himself and his clan, 
 
 And accepted his aid overjoyed. 
 
10 THE BABON DE WIGG. 
 
 And all the De Wiggs were effusive in praise 
 Of the truly high-minded magnanimous ways 
 
 Of good Mr Latterday Eadd, 
 And the disinterested effacement of self 
 With which their consent to be laid on the shelf 
 
 Had credited Crotchett and ladd. 
 
 By the help of the friend enlisted so 
 (The while his associates shy " lay low," 
 
 According to pledge and resolve) 
 The De Wiggs regained their official berth, 
 And the planets returned to their paths, and the earth 
 
 Began once more to revolve. 
 
 But his conquest of place was no sooner achieved 
 Than the Baron next day to his horror perceived — 
 
 Arm-linked with Latterday Badd — 
 That obtrusive old Crotchett pervading the place, 
 And behind them the pert and self-satisfied face 
 
 Of the still more odious Fadd. 
 
THE BARON DB WIGG. 11 
 
 De Wigg would have cut them and hurried away, 
 But Eadd was before him, and hastened to say 
 
 In a coldly imperious tone : 
 " Permit me, dear Baron — (don't try to look big) : 
 Mr Fadd, Mr Crotchett— the Baron de Wigg, 
 
 The friends of your friend are your own." 
 
 > 
 
 On the Baron expressing in manner constrained 
 Surprise at their presence, his friend explained 
 
 That his pledge had been misunderstood ; 
 For a time — and a purpose — he said, 'twas true, 
 He had promised to " sink " the obnoxious two, 
 
 But never to sink them for good. 
 
 De Wigg having risen they too must rise, 
 And he, as a friend, would the Baron advise 
 
 To be civil to Crotchett and Fadd ; 
 So the Baron shook hands with a ghastly smile, 
 For he fully admitted the need, for a while, 
 
 Of, at least, being civil to Eadd. 
 
12 THE BAEON DE WIGG. 
 
 Thus lancds and thus influentially backed, 
 The pair to this wretched old party are tacked, 
 
 And declare, on advancement intent, 
 That he must introduce them without more ado 
 In both the great Houses he's access unto ; 
 
 And the Baron will have to consent. 
 
 All ye, then, who sit in impatient array, 
 Oppositionists eager to welcome a day 
 
 With the fate of the Ministry big, 
 Chastise your passion for power and place 
 By recalling the sad but instructive case 
 
 Of the fine old Baron de Wigg. 
 
13 
 
 BALLAD OF BALOONATICS CEANIOCEACS. 
 
 Of all the accomplished Professors who ever 
 
 From learning contrived common-sense to dissever — 
 
 Of all who delight, on a question of tongue, 
 
 To foment agitation the peoples among — 
 
 None goes with such thoroughness into the thing 
 
 As the erudite Slav whose proceedings I sing ; 
 
 And whose name — if your jaws I may venture to tax — 
 
 Is Professor Baloonatics Craniocracs. 
 
 International law has his sovereign contempt ; 
 Prom restraints of political prudence exempt, 
 He holds that when races for union clamour, 
 The question's but one of comparative grammar. 
 
14 BALLAD OP BALOONATICS CRANIOCRACS. 
 
 No " national movement," whatever its fruits, 
 That starts from a real relation of roots, 
 The strenuous aid and encouragement lacks 
 Of the famous philologist, Craniocracs. 
 
 To many a cause of the " national " sort 
 The Professor has lent his enlightened support ; 
 But of all his distinctions, his pride was to be a 
 High priest of the Pan-Macaronic Idea, 
 And first to haVe raised the Spaghettian claim 
 To inherit the true Macaronian name : 
 A position sustained against many attacks 
 By Professor Baloonatics Craniocracs. 
 
 The Spaghetts had heen living in decent content, a 
 Eace subject for centuries past to Polenta, 
 With liberties local and customs respected, 
 And lenient taxes with justice collected, 
 
BALLAD OF BALOONATICS CRANIOCRACS. 15 
 
 And ample permission their children to teach 
 That poetic and grandly cacophonous speech 
 Which first to their true nationality's tracks 
 Had directed Baloonatics Craniocracs. 
 
 But they, when he set their ethnology right, 
 With' the free Macaronians burned to unite : 
 And the worthy Professor went round through their 
 
 cities 
 Establishing Pan-Macaronic Committees, 
 Until they rebelled in a war to the knife, 
 And after two years of the bloodiest strife, 
 Forced haughty Polenta her grasp to relax, 
 To the joy of their champion Craniocracs. 
 
 From this struggle the rise of the Union dates 
 Of the Pan-Macaronic Confederate States, 
 Which, besides the Spaghetts, of a kindred as true 
 Eaviolians counts and Lasagnians too. 
 
16 BALLAD OF BALOONATICS CBANIOCBACS. 
 
 But above them the Pateditalians claim 
 
 A supremacy, due to generical name ; 
 
 And their claim the Professor unswervingly backs, 
 
 For philologist always is Craniocracs. 
 
 Are the freed populations content with their lot ? 
 
 Well, candour compels me to say they are not. 
 
 Already the Union is deeply in debt 
 
 And taxed to the skin is the wretched Spaghett. 
 
 And the Pateditalians forbid him to teach 
 
 His poetic and grandly cacophonous speech, 
 
 On the ground that of modern corruption it smacks- 
 
 As is even admitted by Craniocracs. 
 
 But the worst of it is (if the murder must out), 
 The Professor's researches have led him to doubt 
 If his first ethnologic conclusions were sound, 
 Since he, as it seems, a new " factor " has found, 
 
BALLAD OF BALOONATICS CBANIOCBACS. 17 
 
 The " Vermicellenic," so named from a race 
 Whose affinities throw a new light on the case ; 
 Transforming, indeed, into whites all its blacks 
 To the mind of Baloonatics Craniocracs. 
 
 Through the Vermicellenes the Spaghett and his 
 
 ■ brother, 
 Are clearly of kin to Polenta and other 
 Great nations ; and though they could only unite 
 By involving the world in a general fight, 
 The Professor, intrepid of logic as ever, 
 Will work day and night at that noble endeavour. 
 All hobbies are wild, but the wildest of hacks 
 Is bestrid by Baloonatics Craniocracs. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 AN ENFANT TEEEIBLE. 
 
 The baby was born on a lowering morn 
 
 In Seventeen Eighty-and-Nine, 
 And poets and sages enacted the Mages 
 
 Who hailed the event divine. 
 
 Their " star in the west" had, it must be confessed, 
 
 A slightly sulphureous gleam ; 
 But it faithfully led to the tumble-down shed, 
 
 At the sign of " The Old Eegime." 
 
 The adorers brought of the gold of Thought, 
 And the myrrh and frankincense of Song ; 
 
 And they worshipped the birth that redeemed the earth 
 From the Old Dispensation of wrong. 
 
AN ENFANT TERJBIBLE. 19 
 
 With each other they vied for the pleasure and pride 
 
 Of preparing the Prince's crown, 
 And every one smiled on the infant mild 
 
 Till he kicked — and the house fell down. 
 
 II. 
 
 Then the poets and sages who acted as Mages 
 
 Went home to consider the scene, 
 And with serious looks sat them down to their books 
 
 To resolve what this portent should mean. 
 
 And when they had found upon reasoning sound 
 
 What the strange new thing must be, 
 They compared their notes, and collected the votes, 
 
 And it seemed that they couldn't agree. 
 
 Some courageously said a mistake had been made, 
 That the good they had worshipped was evil, 
 
 Their Saviour supposed, by his conduct disclosed 
 For an obvious limb of the Devil. 
 
20 AN ENFANT TBEEIBLB. 
 
 But others demurred to this view, and preferred 
 A conclusion less humbling to pride, 
 
 And admitting the child to be wayward and wild, 
 His Satanic extraction denied. 
 
 'Twas (they said) premature to affect to be sure 
 
 How a babe later on will behave, 
 And for all that the boy had begun to destroy, 
 
 It might well be his mission to save. 
 
 in. 
 
 But to common surprise, while disputed the wise, 
 
 Was the infant inspired or mad, 
 To boyhood 'twas reared, and it shortly appeared 
 
 That the world was too small for the lad. 
 
 He had got him a blade at Ajaccio made, 
 And had picked up a song at Marseilles, 
 
 And had rigged up a flag from a three-coloured rag 
 He had fixed to its staff— with nails. 
 
AN ENFANT TEREIBLE. 21 
 
 A bonnet of red he had cocked on his head, 
 
 Steel-hright were his eyes, and wild ; 
 Unkempt was his hair, and his legs were bare — 
 
 A truly unusual child ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 So sallied he forth, East, South, and North, 
 
 To the barren lands and the fair ; 
 To the South in its glows, to the North in its snows, 
 
 To the East in its desert-glare. 
 
 To the Elbe, to the Khine, through the plumed Apen- 
 nine, 
 
 Over Italy's plains he hastes ; 
 Then Eastward far — till his conquering star 
 
 Grew dim on the Syrian wastes : 
 
 To the shores of the Nile ; to the Knights' old isle ; 
 
 Then again by the pierced Pyrenees, 
 South, south, ever south, to the Mid-sea's mouth, 
 
 At the Pillars of Hercules. 
 
22 AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 
 
 East, North, and South, as a flood to its mouth 
 
 Bears trees of the forest uptorn, 
 On the towering crest of the wave in his breast 
 
 Was the terrible urchin borne. 
 
 With the spilth of his hands he slaked the sands 
 
 Athirst of Egyptian suns ; 
 He scarred the scalp of the frozen Alp 
 
 With the wheels of his clambering guns. ] 
 
 Sank hearts of kings when rustled the wings 
 
 Of his eagles about their ears ; 
 At his cannon-knell old empires fell, 
 
 And thrones of a thousand years. 
 
 All wisdom of time, all strength of prime, 
 At the foot of this stripling crude, 
 
 With his head in a blaze of its single craze, 
 Lay stupefied, spent, subdued ! 
 
AN ENFANT TERKIBLE. 23 
 
 V. 
 And the doctors ? Well, if the truth be to tell, 
 
 Even some in opinion stout, 
 Who had clung to the creed that the child was indeed 
 
 A Messiah, began to doubt. 
 
 But the sturdiest ones still stuck to their guns, 
 
 And maintained his legation divine ; 
 " Not peace, but a sword," was the scriptural word, 
 
 From which he had taken his line. 
 
 Then the kings he o'erthrew had had only their due, 
 
 And might even a punishment worse 
 Have deservedly got for a certain vile plot, 
 
 To strangle the baby at nurse. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Thus the doctors cried ; but the world outside, 
 
 That life, not books, understands — 
 The Great Commonplace — had already the case 
 
 Withdrawn from the doctors' hands. 
 
24 AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 
 
 To the men of the field and the mart was revealed, 
 
 Through a mist of conceptions vague, 
 One truth, clear as light, that, cost what it might, 
 
 They must promptly abate this plague. 
 
 So the nations clubbed, that the boy might be drubbed ; 
 
 While he, with unwavering mind, 
 Stood, a new Athanase — would the whole world face 
 
 For a creed — of a different kind. 
 
 He fought hard and hot, and with varying lot, 
 
 And with hopes now high, now low, 
 Till a certain forenoon, in the month of June, 
 
 When he closed with his strongest foe. 
 
 They closed, and the shock made Europe to rock, 
 
 And the pulse of her heart to stay, 
 While the wrestlers gasped, in their death-grip clasped, 
 
 For all one breathless day. 
 
AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 25 
 
 But his glass was run ; sank, sank with the sun 
 
 The line of its lessening sand, 
 And as night came down he was prostrate thrown, 
 
 And the great sword torn from his hand. 
 
 This, safe under lock, on a sea-girt rock 
 
 They hid ; and it six years lay 
 Condemned to rust in the island dust, 
 
 Till it rusted its heart away. 
 
 While as for the boy who had wrought such annoy 
 
 To the world in his youthful fling, 
 Of his ways to repent, straight home he was sent 
 
 In charge of a Christian King. 
 
 They tore down his rag of a tricolor flag, 
 And they gave him a banner instead, 
 
 Of a beautiful white, with lilies bedight, 
 And gold for the blue and the red. 
 
26 AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 
 
 They put him to school of the good priests' rule, 
 
 To atone by penance and praise 
 And prostration of soul for his Carmagnole, 
 
 And mass for his Marseillaise. 
 
 VII. 
 
 In this excellent way (so the doctors say) 
 
 Was the scapegrace led to reform ; 
 And a grave middle age, respected and sage, 
 
 Has succeeded his youth of storm. 
 
 And (excepting, perhaps, one unlucky relapse 
 
 Prom his later regenerate state, 
 /Into juvenile ways on the great Three Days, 
 And another in 'forty-eight, 
 
 And a third — worst far — at the end of the War) 
 
 He has yearly become more staid ; 
 More and more like that other, his English brother, 
 
 Who's fat, and has taken to trade. 
 
AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 27 
 
 And though, here and there, some devil-may-care 
 
 Of a Russ or a Bursch by the Spree 
 May claim him as kin, they will shortly begin 
 
 Oats sown, to reform, just as he. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thus the doctors declare with their confident air ; 
 
 But many there be who avow 
 That, for all they have seen of thy altered mien, 
 
 Democracy, dread art thou ! 
 
 If their fancy essay thy form to portray, 
 
 In the vision that faces them then, 
 No shape they behold of the stature and mould 
 
 Of a man among mortal men. 
 
 But rather in thought is thy emblem wrought 
 
 Mysterious, formless, vast ; 
 A giant of stone on a giant throne, 
 
 Like the gods of the long-buried past. 
 
28 AN ENFANT TERRIBLE. 
 
 Yet about thy feet light chatterers meet, 
 
 Politician and pamphleteer, 
 And they learnedly prose on the form of thy toes 
 
 Or the toe which may chance to be near. 
 
 Not caring to raise their complacent gaze 
 
 So high that a glance may fall 
 On the hands laid at ease o'er the monstrous knees — 
 
 Those hands which could cover us all ! 
 
 Not caring to trace on the stone-hewn face, 
 
 With its distance-questioning eyes, 
 That inscrutable smile of the Head by the Nile 
 
 That is dumb till the sun shall rise. 
 
 When its first rays smite, what chord of affright 
 Will it sound for the world's new song ? 
 
 What ground-tone of fear ? — Who lives, he shall hear : 
 May Tie not have lived too long ! 
 
29 
 
 THE EEGION OF DEEAM. 
 
 In a legend of old 'tis recorded for us 
 
 That the air and the sea and the land 
 To the children of man were distributed thus. 
 
 By Zeus his apportioning hand : 
 
 He appointed the land for the Workers to share, 
 
 And the sea for the Poet to roam, 
 Bat assigned in his wisdom the vacuous air 
 
 For the Higher Philosopher's home. 
 
 " Go wander," said Zeus to this last (we were taught), 
 " Where alone there is room for your schemes, 
 
 In a region as wide as the reach of your thought, 
 And as lofty — and void — as your dreams. 
 
30 THE REGION OF DREAM. 
 
 " Here is food for your mind, for your body a feast 
 
 Of the which never dearth can befall, 
 Ay, a plenty of nourishing wind from the East 
 
 To fill you your belly withal. 
 
 " From the clouds you may gather your theory-stuff, 
 
 Definitions from tracks of the birds, 
 Here are mists in abundance and more than enough 
 
 For becomingly clothing your words. 
 
 " Here perform at your leisure the feats that you love 
 
 Unrestrained by conditions of place, 
 And leap from the plane where your premisses move 
 
 To conclusions in Infinite Space. 
 
 " I will give you, to deck your magnificent views, 
 
 The run of the rainbow-span, 
 And allow you the pick of the sunset hues 
 
 To adorn your ' Future-of-Man/ " 
 
THE REGION OE DREAM. 31 
 
 Thus Zeus, in the legend, ordained it, and hence 
 
 Mankind have been wont to declare 
 Of all Theory freed from the trammels of sense, 
 
 That its natural home is the air. 
 
 But now would you know the Chimera's abode, 
 And the kingdom of Folly Supreme ? 
 
 Would you seek, in these days, to discover the road 
 To the genuine region of dream ? 
 
 It is not in the vacuous air, it is not 
 In the wandering clouds, wind-blown. 
 
 The region of dream is the three-acre plot 
 Where an Irishman's " praties " are sown. 
 
 It is here where the eye philosophic detects 
 
 The suspension of natural laws ; 
 Where causes omit to engender effects 
 
 And effects can dispense with a cause. 
 
32 THE REGION OF DREAM. 
 
 It is here where the marvels of magical spell 
 
 Medieval find credit once more, 
 And " peasant-proprietor " conjures as well 
 
 As an " Abracadabra " of yore. 
 
 It is here, it is here, on the Irishman's farm 
 
 Where alchemic economists hold 
 That to utter the " peasant-proprietor " charm 
 
 Transmutes the base metals to gold, 
 
 That by force of this sorcery "Waste becomes Thrift 
 
 And energy springs out of Sloth, 
 That the burden of Need reappears as a gift 
 
 And exhaustion of soil as a growth. 
 
 Ah ! bodiless, limitless regions of space ! 
 
 "What dream have you brought to the birth 
 So fantastic as this whose nativity-place 
 
 Is the solid, dull, definite earth \ 
 
OCCASIONAL RHYMES 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 
 (Brighton. 1881.) 
 
 Scene. — A Railway Platform. Policemen assembled. 
 To them an Inspector : they exchange greetings. 
 He sings, accompanying himself softly on tJie Rattle. 
 
 Inspector 
 
 Heed not, comrades, though they taunt us 
 With the Frenchman's subtler art ; 
 
 Tis a prouder boast to vaunt us 
 In the wisdom of the heart. 
 
 Be it ours — we much prefer it — 
 To survey men's works and ways 
 
 In a nobler, kindlier spirit, 
 With a franker, freer gaze. 
 
36 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 
 
 Higher heights of moral stature 
 
 Presuppose a wider glance ; 
 Let us trust in human nature, 
 
 " Honi soit qui mal y pense." 
 
 Doubt, we know, is from the devil, 
 
 Let us thrust its lures aside ; 
 Constables who think no evil 
 
 Ever, have been England's pride. 
 
 All (enthusiastically). 
 
 Ay ! away with base suspicion, 
 
 And with thoughts that wrong mankind ! 
 
 Ill it were in our position 
 To indulge a cynic mind. 
 
 (A train enters the station. They approach it.) 
 
 Inspectok. 
 
 See from yonder railway carriage 
 Who is this emerging, pray, 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 37 
 
 In a plight 'twould scarce disparage 
 To describe as disarray ? 
 
 Why ! his face and hands are gory, 
 
 And exhausted he appears ! 
 Stranger, pour your moving story 
 
 In our sympathetic ears. 
 
 {He pours it) 
 
 All. 
 
 Ah, most startling ! Ah, most thrilling ! 
 
 Of romance 'tis strangely full ! 
 Aged merchant — missing villain — 
 
 Countryman — and cock-and-bull ! 
 
 Inspectok {after a pause). 
 
 Yet I fain would ask you, stranger, 
 
 How— but, no, this will not do ; 
 Mutual trust it might endanger — 
 
 Who am I to question you ? 
 
38 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PBNSE. 
 
 All {approvingly). 
 
 Who, indeed ? Avaunt, suspicion ! 
 
 Down, ye thoughts that wrong mankind ! 
 Ill befits it our position 
 
 To indulge a cynic mind. 
 
 {Another pause, during which they eye 
 the stranger closely.) 
 
 Inspector {after a struggle with himself). 
 
 Pardon, Sir, the strong desire I 
 
 Vainly labour to restrain ; 
 But th' old Adam of inquiry 
 
 Eises in my breast again. 
 
 Tell me (thus a weakness lingers !) 
 How and when you tore your coat ; 
 
 And are those not marks of fingers 
 That I see upon your throat ? 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 39 
 
 Where's your collar ? where your necktie ? 
 
 Where — but why the question press ? 
 If your mens be conscia recti 
 
 What's a collar more or less ? 
 
 All. 
 
 What, indeed ? Away, suspicion ! 
 
 Get thee, Satan's child, behind ! 
 Let us each in his position 
 
 Shun that curse — a cynic mind. 
 
 ( Yet another pause. They still continue 
 eyeing the stranger) 
 
 Inspectoe {diffidently). 
 
 I despise the art of angling 
 
 For disclosures — mean pursuit !- 
 But .... I notice something dangling 
 
 (Not a bootlace) from your boot. 
 
40 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 
 
 Ha ! a watch-chain ! I declare, it 
 Seems a funny place to — eh ? 
 
 What'! " The way you always wear it ? " 
 Say no more ! forgive me, pray ! 
 
 True-born Britons never heed 'em, 
 
 Casual trifles such as these ; 
 Heirs to centuries of freedom 
 
 Wear their watch-chains how they please. 
 
 All (proudly). 
 True ! Away then, vile suspicion ! 
 
 Spurn we thoughts that wrong mankind ! 
 Base it were in our position 
 
 To indulge a cynic mind. 
 
 Inspector. 
 Now farewell ! the word may grieve hs 
 
 Yet: at last we must dismiss 
 Dearest friends ; but ere you leave us 
 
 Gentle stranger, tell me this : 
 
HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE. 41 
 
 Since we may your kind assistance 
 Need to trace this dreadful crime — 
 
 Are you going any distance 1 
 Or for any length of time ? 
 
 " Just, a week of foreign travel ? " 
 Thanks ! Then we may count on you 
 
 After that to help unravel 
 This dark mystery ! Adieu ! 
 
 {Stranger embraces the police, beginning 
 with the Inspector ; then enters a Con- 
 tinental train. They watch it moving 
 from the station until it is lost to view.) 
 
 Inspector and Chorus. 
 Speed thee, speed thee, o'er the billow ! 
 
 1 \ 
 
 We ) 
 
 : will not believe thee vile. 
 
 We 
 
 Smooth, smooth is strewn the pillow 
 Under heads that know no guile. 
 
42 HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE 
 
 ''We ) 
 
 } 
 
 I 
 
 Doubt, J. feel, is from the devil : 
 
 I will 
 
 .'thrust its lures aside. 
 Let us 
 
 Constables that think no evil 
 Ever have been England's pride. 
 
43 
 
 FEOM AN IEISH LETTEE-BAG. 
 (1880.) 
 
 Deak Fkank, 
 
 I have read with profound admiration 
 
 The eloquent speeches you lately have made, 
 And applaud in especial that noble oration 
 
 Directed at landlords who wish to be paid. 
 
 You denounce with the force of invincible reason 
 Those merciless men who their tenantry press, 
 
 And who thus in the present deplorable season 
 Attempt to make capital out of distress. 
 
 Of the part that I took at the recent election 
 
 To aid your return I have cause to be proud ; 
 
 So believe me, dear Frank, with the truest affection, 
 
 Yours ever admiringly, 
 
 Dicky O'Dowd. 
 
44 from an irish letter-bag. 
 
 Dear Dick, 
 
 For the friendly and cousinly spirit 
 
 Displayed in your letter its writer I thank ; 
 Of landlords like you the approval to merit 
 Is more than enough for yours heartily, 
 
 Frank. 
 
 Dear Frank, 
 
 I have no hesitation in tasking 
 
 The kindness of one so large-hearted as you, 
 And I therefore address you with confidence, asking 
 
 Your leave for delaying a payment that's due. 
 
 As from now till a year from the coming December 
 The rent of my farms I must -wholly abate, 
 
 You will hardly expect me till then to remember 
 Your charge on the Ballymahoony estate. 
 
PROM AN IRISH LETTER- BAG. 45 
 
 Hard pressed, as I am, it would greatly relieve me, 
 This eighteen months' grace if I might be allowed ; 
 
 So, assuming your friendly forbearance, believe me, 
 Your cousin affectionate, 
 
 Dicky O'Dowd. 
 
 Deak Dick, 
 I assure you it pains me intensely 
 
 Your modest request to be forced to refuse ; 
 But though to assent would rejoice me immensely, 
 
 I'm really in no situation to choose. 
 
 To postpone to one's children relations more distant 
 Is surely a maxim you wouldn't condemn ; 
 
 And my family, Dick ! 'twould be scarcely consistent 
 With what I regard as my duty to them. 
 
 Then forgive me, old boy, that the claims of my wife 
 and 
 My brats before yours — even yours — I must rank ; 
 
46 PROM AN IRISH LETTER-BAG. 
 
 So heartily wishing you health and long life and 
 A humper next harvest, yours lovingly, 
 
 Frank. 
 
 Dear Frank, 
 I'm aware of my " once removed " cousins, 
 
 But I, recollect, am a " father of five," 
 While my tenants, alas ! can display them in dozens, 
 
 A-swarm in their cabins like bees in a hive. 
 
 Tim Dbolan, with eight, hasn't found it convenient 
 To pay me a farthing for two years and more ; 
 
 And, in spite of my five, I'm obliged to be lenient, 
 So, you, too, might manage it, Frank, with your four. 
 
 I think we should help one another to bear it — 
 This burden by which the whole country is bowed ; 
 
 And I cannot but think you are ready to share it 
 With yours very faithfully, 
 
 Dicky O'Dowd. 
 
from an irish letter-bag. 47 
 
 Dear Dick, 
 You behaved with a wise moderation, 
 
 I own, when your claim on Tim Doolan you sank ; 
 But I cannot perceive that a like obligation 
 
 Devolves upon yours very faithfully, 
 
 Frank. 
 
 Dear Frank, 
 Can't you really ? 'Tis I then who labour 
 
 Beneath moral-optic illusions alone. 
 But I know that the judge of the case of a neighbour 
 
 Is mighty astute to " distinguish " his own. 
 
 Yet allow me to say, your humanity-preachings 
 Might well be a little less eager and loud 
 
 While you throw the expense of applying its teachings 
 On yours unassistedly, 
 
 Dicky O'Dowd. 
 
48 from an irish letter-bag, 
 
 Sir, 
 I beg to acknowledge your insolent letter, 
 
 But care not its sophistries cheap to expose ; 
 I'm content to remark that I think it is better 
 
 That this correspondence" between us should close. 
 
 If you cannot perceive the disparity glaring 
 Between the two cases you seek to confuse, 
 
 I must leave you alone with your blunder, despairing 
 Of bringing you round to more sensible views. 
 
 But though I shan't waste my own labour in writing, 
 To try and point out the mistake you have made, 
 
 I may, by a letter my lawyer's inditing, 
 
 Convince you, perhaps, that I mean to be paid. 
 
 I want but my money, and do not intend it 
 Grabbed up by a covetous landlord to be, 
 
 So a cheque if you please, and the sooner you send it 
 The better you'll satisfy 
 
 F. H. O'D. 
 
FROM AN IRISH LETTER-BAG. 49 
 
 SlE, 
 
 Take and be — happy, the sum that I owe you, 
 
 The slice from your debtor, you Shy lock avowed ! 
 It is something at least and at last that I know you. 
 
 Your luckless Antonio, 
 
 Richard O'Dowd. 
 
 Post scriptum. — I erred, and I own it with candour, 
 
 In thinking, misled by analogy loose, 
 To apply to the humanitarian gander 
 
 Your sauce for the landed-proprietor goose. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 THE PUZZLED HISTOEIAK 
 
 (1880.> 
 
 " What is the drift of it ? Where is the key to it ? 
 
 Eog and perplexity ! What does it mean ? 
 Search as I may, no solution I see to it, 
 
 Nowhere the trace of a clue to be seen." 
 
 Such is the cry the South African mystery, 
 Wrapt as 'twill seem in obscurity dense, 
 
 Surely will draw from the writer of history, 
 Sifting the matter a century hence. 
 
 " Come now, together once more let me pull myself," 
 Thus will he mutter with resolute frown ; 
 
 " Else I shall think I am growing as dull myself, 
 Dull as the Blue-books I have to boil down. 
 
THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN. 51 
 
 " Yes ! it is clear that a certain Commissioner 
 Occupied (let me be sure of the year — 
 
 Seventy-nine) at the Cape the position or 
 Office of ruler— that's perfectly clear. 
 
 " Clear it is too (for a scrutiny rigorous 
 Settles the point) that Commissioner Frere 
 
 Does, for proceedings imprudently vigorous, 
 Get himself wigged by the Government here. 
 
 " Wigged with asperity, wigged with severity 
 (Whigs cannot wig as Conservatives can) ; 
 
 So that one thinks he'll resign with celerity 
 Such as becomes a high-spirited man. 
 
 " Ah ! but he doesn't ; that's quite incontestable ; 
 
 Clearly, yes clearly, he doesn't resign : 
 Swallows his wigging and finds it digestible, 
 
 Sticks to his office through Seventy-nine. 
 
52 THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN. 
 
 " What have we then ? Why, a furious clamour and 
 Angry demands for Sir Bartle's recall ; 
 
 Gladstone— the Gladstone — attacking him hammer and 
 Tongs, and protesting the loudest of all ! 
 
 " Levity, rashness, inordinate vanity, 
 Chauvinist arrogance, stubborn self-will, 
 
 Callous contempt for the claims of humanity — 
 Such were the terms of which Frere had his fill. 
 
 " Faults intellectual, moral obliquities, 
 Shared, it was said, the Commissioner's mind ; 
 
 ' Wildest of follies ' or 'worst of iniquities ' 
 Equally truly his action defined. 
 
 " Thus we go on until changes political 
 Bring to a close the Conservative reign, 
 
 Placing this Gladstone — the closest of critical 
 Study assures me — in office again. 
 
THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN. 53 
 
 " Now then, I thought, 'twill all up with Sir Bartle be, 
 Gladstone will have him back home pretty soon ; 
 
 Or he may think his more dignified part'U be 
 That of the Colonel's intelligent 'coon. 
 
 " No, not a bit of it ! quite the reverse of it ; 
 
 Colonel and 'coon get on capital terms ; 
 Federal scheme is revived, and, as nurse of it, 
 
 Frere in his office the Premier confirms. 
 
 " Frere, the atrocious, the quite indefensible ; 
 
 Maker of barbarous wars has become 
 Frere, the sagacious, the quite indispensable 
 
 Man of the policy favoured at home. 
 
 " Wonders on wonders ! but by this addition or 
 Eather completion the summit is topped ; 
 
 Frere, the forgiven and trusted Commissioner, 
 Shortly discovers his salary stopped ! 
 
5-i THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN. 
 
 " Surely a body of fables incredible 
 
 Gathering round this Commissioner Frere ! 
 
 One I could swallow, or two might be edible, 
 Hardly the whole — in a single career. 
 
 " Wigged by Conservative chiefs who appointed him, 
 Cursed — and conserved by the Whigs who attacked ! 
 
 Feathered and tarred by the priests who anointed him, 
 Whitewashed by those at whose hands he was 
 blacked ! 
 
 " Sternly rebuked — and with signal humility 
 Bowing his head and consenting to stay ! 
 
 Fiercely reviled — and retained for ability ! 
 Highly commended — and docked of his pay ! 
 
 " Have I as one two Commissioners reckoned, or 
 Is there a brace of Prime Ministers here ? 
 
 Are there two Gladstones, a first and a second, or 
 Is there, perchance, an alternative Frere ? 
 
THE PUZZLED HISTORIAN. 55 
 
 " Vainly, ah vainly, I strive with the mystery ; 
 
 Vainly I hunt for the clue that I miss ; 
 Fog and perplexity ! Who would the history 
 
 Wish to compose of a people like this? " 
 
56 
 
 "OUR GLYCERINE BAROMETER." 
 
 (1880.) 
 
 The violent storm which is still raging around us has come op- 
 portunely to illustrate the significance of the records which we 
 commenced publishing on Monday of the readings of the Jordan 
 Glycerine Barometer recently established at this office. — The Times, 
 Oct. 29. 
 
 Scene. — Editorial Room, in Printing -House Square. 
 The Editor of the ' Times ' discovered seated at a 
 table. A storm is raging. To him enters a Sub- 
 Editor. 
 
 Recitative. 
 Sub-Editob. 
 
 How fiercely chides the storm without, 
 How howl the winds in devil's din ! 
 
"OTJR GLYCERINE BAROMETER." 57 
 
 And see with news of rack and rout 
 
 What telegrams come pouring in ! 
 From Falmouth to the Firth of Tay 
 
 Our sea-lashed coasts with wrecks are strewn, 
 Wind-hunted ships crowd every bay. 
 
 Ed. 
 
 God bless my soul ! how opportune ! 
 
 Sub-E. 
 From east to west, from north to south, 
 
 The floods are out for miles and miles ; 
 From watershed to river-mouth 
 
 The banks lie hidden (strange ! he smiles) 
 At Bath a house . . . but how is this ? 
 
 You hear with fortitude sublime 
 These shocking — 
 
 Ed. Well, the secret is 
 
 They happen in the nick of time. 
 
58 "OUR glycerine barometer." 
 
 Air. 
 The Editor. 
 
 Let tempests work their wildest will, 
 
 Let torrent-rain our meadows flood, 
 111 were the wind, and worse than ill, 
 
 That blew to no man aught of good. 
 This hurricane that sweeps the skies, 
 
 One really almost might aver 
 'Twas sent express to advertise 
 
 Our Glyce/ine Barometer. 
 
 For marked ye not, on Tuesday last, 
 
 When Gordon Bennett flashed " Beware ! 
 A dangerous gale is speeding fast 
 
 Towards your fated shores. Prepare ! " 
 How in its tube the fluid fell, 
 
 And how the storm which would occur 
 It did to all the world foretell — 
 
 Our Glycerine Barometer. 
 
"our glycerine barometer." 59 
 
 So was it published to mankind 
 
 What precious food the ' Times ' supplies 
 To those who seek its page to find 
 
 The wisdom of the weather-wise. 
 To all the journals of the day 
 
 Such persons should our print prefer, 
 Since in its office hangs alway 
 
 A Glycerine Barometer. 
 
 One column of instructive stuff 
 
 They're sure to find — that one I mean 
 Which we must now with vigour puff, 
 
 And which consists of Glycerine. 
 For though our news be somewhat stale, 
 
 And though our views may sometimes err, 
 Nor novelty nor truth can fail 
 
 Our Glycerine Barometer. 
 
 What if a daily hash we make 
 Of names, dates, titles, and degrees, 
 
60 "OUR GLYCERINE BAROMETER." 
 
 If rank as Colonels Captains take 
 And " Barts." descend to KC.B.'s ? 
 
 What if our " reader " takes no heed 
 And printers' errors oft recur ? 
 
 At least we acurately read 
 Our Glycerine Barometer. 
 
 What if of news on every lip , 
 
 No notice in the ' Times ' appears, 
 And frightful gas explosions slip 
 
 Unheeded past our dreaming ears ? 
 At least our vigilance is good 
 
 For signs of atmospheric stir : 
 No surreptitious storms elude 
 
 Our Glycerine Barometer. 
 
 (A pause. Then somewhat sadly :) 
 
 Yet in my joy — 'tis always so — 
 
 A seed of bitterness is hid : 
 " Leporum fonte medio 
 
 Amari surgit aliquid." 
 
cc 
 
 OUR GLYCERIN? BAROMETER." 61 
 
 I see, and not without a shock, 
 New triumphs older glories blur, 
 
 And mourn our famous Weathercock 
 Outshone by our Barometer. 
 
62 
 
 THE FUN OF IT. 
 (1880.) 
 
 " No one gives ns any fun." . . . . — Spectator, Dec. 11. 
 
 'Tis very true, thou thoughtful Print; 
 
 Of that same fun thou hankerest after 
 There seems just now a certain stint 
 
 In manufactories of laughter. 
 
 Yet deem not, good Spectator, pray, 
 That we poor melancholy creatures 
 
 Find not in politics to-day 
 Abundance of amusing features. 
 
 'Tis funny — every one must own, 
 Without distinction, Whig and Tory — 
 
 This Ireland paralysed and prone, 
 Her neck beneath the foot of Eory. 
 
THE FTJH OF IT. 63 
 
 Droll in themselves her troubles are ; 
 
 And judges note at each assizes 
 Their wealth of incidents bizarre, 
 
 Their fruitfulness in quaint surprises. 
 
 We all enjoy — as who would not ? — 
 The " points " in the agrarian battle : 
 
 The tenants tortured, landlords shot ; 
 The tail-docked sheep, the hamstrung cattle ; 
 
 The rude art- work of Eory's pen, 
 
 Symbolical of threatened lives ; 
 The graves of yet unmurdered men 
 
 Absurdly dug in carriage-drives. 
 
 We mark the comic element 
 
 That visible in Boycott's fate is, 
 The forty score of troopers sent 
 
 To help get in the Captain's " praties." 
 
64 THE FUN OP IT. 
 
 We see the joke when pale police 
 
 Entreat a man to curb his anger 
 And take his cudgelling in peace, 
 
 Or " all their lives" would be in danger. 
 
 We feel the humour of reports 
 
 That, where the Queen's writ runs no longer, 
 There the Land-Leaguers' mimic courts 
 
 (Less learned than "the Four" — but stronger) 
 
 Make orders instantly obeyed ; 
 
 Give judgments, unreviewed for error ; 
 And wield, in short, that playful blade, 
 
 The dagger of the Irish Terror. 
 
 These things divert ; but underneath 
 There lies this piece of broader humour, 
 
 That while the patient bleeds to death 
 The doctors' strife engrosses Rumour. 
 
THE PUN OF IT. 65 
 
 Law, Order, Life kept waiting on 
 The wrangling, fumbling legislator ! 
 
 That joke's too plain for mother's son 
 To miss, I take it, dear Spectator. 
 
 So if to laugh we are not quick, 
 Although we own the jest so gladly, 
 
 Ascribe it to our English trick 
 Of taking all our pleasures sadly. 
 
 Just so should we, I dare to say, 
 
 In Eome's most famous conflagration, 
 
 Have viewed in the same stolid way 
 The humours of the situation ; 
 
 Nor, as we watched the city burn, 
 
 Should we (for man's so strange a riddle) 
 
 Have yearned, as you appear to yearn, 
 For the brisk notes of Nero's fiddle. 
 E 
 
66 
 
 "DOWN TO DESSEKT." 
 
 (1881.) 
 
 Non nobis ! The dinner is over, 
 
 Speed waiters the table to clear ; 
 Disappears through the door the last cover — 
 
 But stay ! what new guests have we here ? 
 Who are these who come wearily trooping — 
 
 A strange unpresentable crowd, 
 With shoulders ungracefully stooping, 
 
 And knees somewhat awkwardly bowed ; 
 In whose faces, though lacking in fulness, 
 
 The careful observer descries, 
 To redeem them from absolute dulness. 
 
 The wolf's most expressive of eyes ? 
 
"down to dessert." 67 
 
 The remains of the feast they examine 
 
 With hunger's keen glances alert : 
 Can it be that these children of Famine 
 
 Are only asked in to dessert ? 
 
 Can it he ? Yes, it certainly can he : 
 
 The host, with magnificent air, 
 Bids welcome each want-stricken man be, 
 
 And leads him in state to a chair. 
 " My friends \ " he exclaims with emotion, 
 
 " Your dinner, I fear will be small ; 
 But, believe me, I hadn't a notion 
 
 You cared about dinners at all. 
 To forget that extreme inanition 
 
 Disposes a man to a meal 
 Was — was .... well, of course, an omission, 
 
 As now I regretfully feel. 
 But the moment I. heard you'd expected 
 
 Your 'cards' would be sent, and were hurt 
 
68 "DOWN to dessert. 
 
 At the thought that your claims were neglected 
 I asked you at once to dessert. 
 
 " But should I keep talking for ever 
 
 The past I should fail to undo ; 
 So, late heing better than never, 
 
 I beg you at once to fall to. 
 The prime haunch of venison is finished, 
 
 The saddle of mutton all gone, 
 The baron of beef is diminished 
 
 To yon undesirable bone. 
 But we've gooseberries crimson and yellow, 
 
 And strawberries (best without cream) ; 
 Those plums are delightfully mellow, 
 
 Those nuts — though I say it — supreme. 
 On those olives — best French, I assure you — 
 
 Your powers of consumption exert ; 
 No pains have been spared to procure you 
 
 A truly recherchd dessert." 
 
it 
 
 DOWN TO DESSERT." 69 
 
 Oh, Gladstone ! look well at that table ! 
 
 Look well at it, Forster and Bright ! 
 Be vobis narratur my fable : 
 
 Can none of you read it aright ? 
 When the strong meats of land-confiscation 
 
 Were dressed for the peasant's repast, 
 Was it really humane legislation 
 
 To think of the hungriest last ? 
 It is not very pleasant perceiving 
 
 That you who that banquet have spread 
 Could so quietly contemplate leaving 
 
 These poor squalid wretches unfed ; 
 That the fruits of your cutting and carving 
 
 To tenants alone should revert, 
 And the labourer, landless and starving, 
 
 Be only " brought down to dessert." 
 
70 
 
 THE PATEIARCH'S HOME-COMING. 
 
 (1881.) 
 
 Beyond the Vaal, in those wild lands, 
 The " simple scriptural people's " seat, 
 
 A farmstead in the gloaming stands 
 Alert its lord's return to greet. 
 
 The clean- swept floor, the dusted shelf; 
 
 The new-lit lamp's expectant look ; 
 The trim array of shining delf ; 
 
 The arm-chair in the ingle-nook ; 
 
 The cosy curtains close drawn in ; 
 
 The housewife listening at the door 
 "With hand upraised to hush the din 
 
 Of younker-gambols on the floor ; 
 
THE PATRIARCH'S HOME-COMING. 71 
 
 All tell a tale of anxious love ; 
 
 While, open on the window-seat, 
 A Bible's well-thumbed pages prove 
 
 Where fears and faith's assurance meet. 
 
 But hark ! that sound ! a horse's neigh, 
 
 The lowing of a startled steer, 
 The tramp of hoofs upon the way ; 
 
 " It is ! it is ! my Piet is here ! " 
 
 sanctity of wife-embrace ! 
 
 Let none with supercilious shrug 
 Deride a simple scriptural race 
 
 Who thus can conjugally hug. 
 
 And now when kissed were wife and child 
 " Say, Piet, 'tis not bad luck again ? " 
 
 Cried anxious wife : the husband smiled 
 And pointed proudly at his train. 
 
72 THE PATEIABCH's HOME-COMING. 
 
 " Look, Vrow ! " he said : and at the view 
 She turned, her tears of joy to hide. 
 
 " I knew it would be so ! I knew 
 The Lord," she murmured, " would provide ! 
 
 " I prayed ; and waited free from fear 
 Till he should bring you back once more 
 
 Victorious of your bow and spear, 
 Blest in your basket and your store. 
 
 " And lo ! He puts some dozen head 
 Of noble beasts within your reach, 
 
 With many a fine large Kaffir maid 
 Well worth at least ten shillings each ! 
 
 " So now, my Piet, with heartfelt thanks 
 Break we the Christian's humble bread : 
 
 Tether the cattle in their ranks, 
 And put the hussies in the shed ! " 
 
THE PATRIARCH'S HOME-COMING. 73 
 
 Then they two, with no formal grace, 
 But asking, as from hearts that feel, 
 
 A benediction, took their place 
 Before their frugal evening meal. 
 
 And many a sympathetic prayer 
 
 From Eadicals beyond the sea 
 "Was breathed above the worthy pair 
 
 And blessed their simple scriptural tea. 
 
74 
 
 THE MODEST POSTULATES. 
 (1880.) 
 
 Let it be granted that mankind 
 Put off all passions sinister, 
 
 And got a new and virtuous mind 
 When we got our new Minister ; 
 
 Let it be granted we have found 
 That Gladstone's mere arising 
 
 The long-divided world has bound 
 In brotherhood surprising ; 
 
 That Eussians from their plots desist, 
 
 And find a solace sweeter 
 In working out the will of Christ 
 
 Than any Will of Peter ; 
 
THE MODEST POSTULATES. 75 
 
 That Italy now no longer dreams 
 
 A new Trentine Magenta ; 
 That Austria cares not who redeems 
 
 Italia Irredenta ; 
 
 That Germany suspects not France, 
 That France forgives her neighbour ; 
 
 And both lead off the Arcadian dance 
 With pastoral pipe and tabor ; 
 
 That men are dragged from plough and desk 
 And armed and drilled by millions 
 
 Merely to make more picturesque 
 Millennial cotillons ; 
 
 That all the nations, in a word, 
 Our Gladstone's visions now share, 
 
 And yearn to turn the spear and sword 
 To pruning-hook and ploughshare ; 
 
76 THE MODEST POSTULATES. 
 
 That envy, restlessness, and dread, 
 And sleepless-eyed suspicion, 
 
 And hope, and hate, and greed are dead 
 And buried — with ambition ; 
 
 That no one fears to lose his own, 
 Or other's goods has wanted : 
 
 Be these our postulates alone ; 
 Let only these be granted, 
 
 And we may sing our Q.E.D. 
 
 With lawful jubilation ; 
 For " Europe's Concert " proved will be 
 
 By force of " demonstration." 
 
77 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF THE KUEDS ? 
 
 (1880.) 
 
 Woeshipful patrons of " young nationalities," 
 
 Ardent promoters of " movements of race," 
 Learned in Destinies, Forces, Fatalities, 
 Help us to settle a troublesome case. 
 
 For proper bestowing 
 
 Of sympathies glowing 
 We feel a solicitude stronger than words ; 
 
 So, please, a suggestion 
 
 For solving the question 
 Of what should be thought of the Kurds. 
 
 How should it act on our moral economy 
 Tidings to get of Abdullah the Sheikh 
 
78 WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF THE KUEDS ? 
 
 Boldly proclaiming a Kurdish autonomy, 
 Just as it might be Slavonic or Greek ? 
 
 This being read of him, 
 
 What's to be said of him — 
 He who this national movement has stirred ? 
 
 How should we meet it, 
 
 How properly treat it — 
 The raid of this vigorous Kurd ? 
 
 Turkey we all of us know is " unspeakable ; " 
 
 Persia is " cruel, corrupt, and effete ; " 
 Should we, then, hope that Abdullah's a Sheikh able 
 Sultan and Shah and their armies to beat ? 
 
 Does he, like Hofer, 
 
 A tyrant to " go for," 
 A sword of deliverance valiantly gird ? 
 
 Ought we to pray for him ? 
 
 Ought we to say for him 
 Go it, my patriot Kurd ? 
 
WHAT SHALL WE THINK OP THE KUKDS ? 79 
 
 Or shall we check sentimental intensities 
 While we recall the repute of the tribe, 
 Persons to whom certain ugly propensities 
 Common report has been wont to ascribe — 
 
 A proneness unpleasant 
 
 To harry the peasant, 
 His homestead to wreck and to seize on his herds, 
 
 To ravish and slaughter 
 
 Wife, grandam, and daughter — 
 For that is the way of the Kurds ? 
 
 Say, shall we then to an infamous State or to 
 
 Infamous subjects our favour refuse ? 
 Answer us, sweet casuistic Spectator, do ! 
 Prithee enlighten us, good Daily News ! 
 Let us know whether, 
 Comparing by feather 
 These most disagreeably similar birds, 
 Morality's letter 
 And spirit go better 
 With blessing or banning the Kurds. 
 
80 WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF THE KURDS ? 
 
 Can we wish well to the cause of autocracy, 
 
 Knowing the sins of the Sultan and Shah ? 
 Can we for triumph of Kurdish democracy — 
 Triumph of murderous hrigands — hurrah? 
 
 Or would it be moral, 
 
 In view of this quarrel, 
 Impartial dislike to distribute in thirds : 
 
 Two parts of aversion 
 
 For Turk and for Persian, 
 Eemainder reserved for the Kurds ? 
 
81 
 
 A CONGKATULATOKY ODE. 
 
 (1878.) 
 
 [The true version of the congratulatory Latin ode addressed to 
 the Berlin Congress by "the well-known German poet Gustave 
 Schwetschke," and "distributed by Prince Bismarck's request 
 among the Plenipotentiaries" — none other being genuine.] 
 
 Rideamus igitur, 
 
 Socii Congressus ; 
 Post dolores bellicosos, 
 Post labores bumptiosos, 
 
 Pit mirandus messus. 
 
 Ubi sunt qui apud nos 
 Lites litig&re, 
 
82 A CONGRATULATORY ODE. 
 
 Moldo-Wallachae frementes, 
 Grseculi esurientes ? 
 Heu ! absquatul&re. 
 
 Ubi sunt provincise 
 
 Quas est laus pac&sse ? 
 Totse, totse sunt partite : 
 Has tulerunt Muscovite, 
 Illas Count Andrassy. 
 
 Et quid est quod Anglise 
 Dedit hie Congressus ? 
 Jus pro aliis pugnandi, 
 Mortuum vivificandi — 
 Splendidi successus ! 
 
 Vult Joannes decipi 
 Et bamboosulatur. 
 
 Io Beacche ! Quse majestas ! 
 
 Ostreae reportans testas 
 Domum gloriatur ! 
 
83 
 
 A LITEEAEY "CAUSE CELEBEE. 
 (1876.) 
 
 [Samtoel Pekkins eocpormdeth the moral thereof to his 
 son, Dudley James Perkins.] 
 
 Here he comes ! The paper, Mary. Ah, good morn- 
 ing, Dudley James. 
 
 Ave you read this libel haction — this 'ere case of — 
 what's their names ? 
 
 Oh, Buchanan vussus Taylor — there's a lesson, lad, 
 for you 
 
 In them singerlar proceedins; take and read 'em, 
 Dudley, do. 
 
 You who've caused so much disquiet both to me and 
 to your ma, 
 
 Not to say your aunt' Jemima, where your expecta- 
 tions are. 
 
84 A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE." 
 
 Yes, you know you 'ave, my boy ; it's gettin' on for 
 
 nigh a year 
 Since you took to dress in velvet and knocked off 
 
 your dinner-beer, 
 Took to wear your collars lower and asoomed a moody 
 
 stare ; 
 'Ad a row with Snipp's assistant when he come to cut 
 
 your 'air ; 
 Took to mopnin' round the counter, muttrin' "lines 
 
 to " doose knows what, 
 Hodes and sonnicks, songs and ballids — and the other 
 
 rhymin' rot; 
 Changed your, short black cutty for a dangling 
 
 German chaney pipe 
 And refused to join the fam'ly at the evenin' meal 
 
 of tripe ; 
 Wouldn't take your ma o' Sundays to the "Welsh 
 
 Harp" in the shay, 
 But remained at home to finish your "Eomaunt of 
 
 Pegwell Bay." 
 
A LITERARY " CAUSE CELEBRE." 85 
 
 Yes, my laddie, I have watched you — I have seen 
 
 your little game, 
 I've observed your haspirations after a poetic 
 
 fame — 
 "Fame himmortal," if you please — for nothing short 
 
 of that will do. 
 Trade is low and butter vulgar — poetry's the line 
 
 for you ! 
 Now, my boy, just read that haction — that'll tell 
 
 you what they are, 
 These 'ere poets that are soarin' o'er our 'eads so 
 
 jolly far. 
 Parts of it I 'ardly follered, but its English seems 
 
 to be, 
 Messrs Swinbun and Buchanan can't agree to dis- 
 agree. 
 Mr B. he wrote a satter, — droppin' down on 
 
 MrS., 
 And complainin' as his werses were a little too 
 
 " undress." 
 
86 A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE." 
 
 Well, this put, you may imagine, Mr S. upon his 
 
 mettle. 
 " What ! you call my werse indecent ? Gammon ! it's 
 
 the pot and kettle." 
 So he ups and slates Buchanan, calls him all the 
 
 'orrid names 
 He can take and lay his tongue to — which is plenty, 
 
 Dudley James — 
 Treats the hother as a hinsect, looked at thro' the 
 
 microscope 
 By a far superior being — which is funny, let us 
 
 'ope. 
 That, of course, annoys Buchanan, and he " counters " 
 
 with a will, 
 Calling Mr S. a "monkey'' — which, let's 'ope, is 
 
 funnier still. 
 Then they drops it for a season (this occurred in 
 
 71). 
 But you don't know much of poets if you think the 
 
 war was done. 
 
A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE." 87 
 
 Last year comes out "Jonas Fisher," pokin' up the 
 
 "Fleshly School" 
 Once again : " Oho ! " says Swinhun, keepin' very calm 
 
 and cool, 
 "Here's that hodious Buchanan at his dirty game 
 
 again 
 Sure as death. There can't he no one else among 
 
 the race of men 
 Who could think my werse indecent." So he lets 
 
 him 'ave it 'ot ; ■, 
 Shied the mud he'd shied before, and shied some more 
 
 that he had not. 
 When Buchanan's all bespattered, then — most 'orrible 
 
 of sells — 
 Lo be'old yer ! " Jonas Fisher " proves to be by 
 
 summun else. 
 'Ence the haction which that plucky Mr Peter Taylor 
 
 fights. 
 That you see's what comes of printin' what a hangry 
 
 poet writes. 
 
88 A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE." 
 
 Lor! what larks to see them lawyers overaul Buch- 
 anan's lines, 
 Dippin' in their scoops to try 'em like my cheeses, 
 
 through the rines ! 
 Tastin' this and smellin' t'other. " Isn't this a little 
 
 strong ? " 
 " Call that pure ? " " Well, what of this now, for a 
 
 hammatory song ? " 
 Yes, by George, I never laughed so 'earty, nor I never 
 
 shall, 
 As at earin' Mr 'Awkins read about that Injin 
 
 gal, 
 And the cuddlin' in the forest! Well, per'aps it 
 
 meant no harm, 
 Still the author owned hisself the scene was just a 
 
 trifle warm. 
 Then, of course, Buchanan's counsel — he was not a- 
 
 goin' to fail ; 
 So he dropped upon the " fleshlies " right and left and 
 
 tooth and nail ! 
 
A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE. 89 
 
 " Grossly senshal," " most indecent," " hanimal pas- 
 sion consecrated." 
 
 Says the judge, "A style of poitry 'ighly to be de- 
 precated ! " 
 
 Well, the upshot was Buchanan gets his verdict safe 
 and sound, 
 
 And he comes on Mr Taylor for a hundern- fifty 
 pound. 
 
 But, Lord love you, my dear Dudley, what a foolish 
 price to pay ! 
 
 What a terrible exposy for the poets of the 
 day! 
 
 I dun know about their poems, which is dirty, which 
 is clean ; 
 
 As to Mr Swinbun's " Ballids "— blowed if I know 
 what they mean ! 
 
 So I gev my Jane a copy on her birthday last 
 July 
 
 Bound as natty as you please in blue morocker — 
 for, says I, 
 
90 A LITERARY "CAUSE CELEBRE." 
 
 If my gal finds them corruptin', as some people says 
 
 they are, 
 She's a doosed sight more 'andy guessin' riddles than 
 
 her Pa ! 
 But to think of them two poets showin' up each 
 
 other's lines 
 For the benefit of us the — what d'you call it? — 
 
 Philistines. 
 Passion, fancy, light and sweetness — well, maybe 
 
 they've got 'em all; 
 But they've one thing undeweloped — gumption : 
 
 that's uncommon small ! 
 Why, when Briggs in hopen westry cheeked me- — 
 
 you remember, Dud, 
 Makin' insolent allusions to my butter as Thames 
 
 mud — 
 Did I go to lawr about it — hugly -tempered as I 
 
 am? 
 Did I sue old Briggs for libel, defamation ? Not for 
 
 Sam! 
 
A LITERARY "CAUSE C^LEBRE." 91 
 
 No, I knew old Briggs's counsel — he'd contrive to 
 
 'ave his fling, 
 And my butter — well mud's 'umbug, but — 'taint 
 
 always quite the thing ! 
 And although T know a thing or two about old 
 
 Briggs's tea, 
 " Boshy butter " don't get nicer by denouncin' " dirt- 
 
 Bohea." 
 What's the good of each exposin' t'other's tricks of 
 
 trade on hoath? 
 Plaintiff wins, or p'raps defendant, but the neighbours 
 
 laugh at both ; 
 Yet you find the "'igher intlek" blind to facs as 
 
 plain as this — 
 Facs which any common tradesman's too much com- 
 mon-sense to miss. 
 Yes, my boy, this ought to cure you — reverations such 
 
 as these. 
 You will stick to butter, Dudley — butter, bacon, heggs, 
 
 and cheese, 
 
92 A LITERARY " CAUSE CELEBRE." 
 
 Rather than become a poet like them two as lately 
 
 fought, 
 Bringin' out their little wash-tubs, stupid-like, in 
 
 hopen court ; 
 And — to dab each other's faces with the soapy froth 
 
 and foam — 
 Washed their dirty clothes in public, which they 
 
 might have washed at 'ome ! 
 
MIMICKIES 
 
THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL. 
 
 [Suggested by the immortal picture, under this title, of 
 Mr Symphony Priggins.] 
 
 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 ! 
 
 long as grief, and leaner than desire ! 
 
 sweet retreating breasts and amorous - kissing 
 knees! 
 grace and goodliness of strait attire ! • 
 
 A robe of them who sport in summer seas. 
 
96 THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL. 
 
 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. 
 
 loose as thought and bodiless as a dream ! 
 
 globular grand eyes, a bane of maidenhood ! 
 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, 
 
THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL. 97 
 
 And shaftless, yea, but deadly, 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. 
 
 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, 
 G 
 
98 THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL. 
 
 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. 
 
 deaf blind Love, that art deaf as a poker and blind 
 
 as the night I 
 my flushed faint cheeks and my chin ! mine 
 eye and the elbow of me ! 
 
 1 bow to thy might, my lord, to the keen-blown 
 
 breath of thy lips, 
 With a loathing of love that longs, and a longing of 
 love that loathes, 
 
THE GOD AND THE DAMOSEL. 99 
 
 With shiver of angular shoulders, and shake of invisi- 
 ble hips, 
 As boweth the light slight stake in the torture of 
 wind-whirled clothes ! 
 
 Thou hast rent me enough, 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 ! 
 
100 
 
 FEOM "THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS." 
 
 Put case I circumvent and kill him : good. 
 
 Good riddance — wipes at least from book o' th' world 
 
 One ugly admiration-note-like blot — 
 
 Gives honesty more elbow-room by just 
 
 The three dimensions of one wicked knave. 
 
 But then slips in the plaguy After- voice. 
 
 " Wicked ? Holloa ! my friend, whither away 
 
 So fast ? Who made you, Moses-like, a judge 
 
 And ruler over men to spare or slay ? 
 
 A blot wiped off forsooth ! Produce forthwith 
 
 Credentials of your mission to erase 
 
 The ink-spots of mankind — t' abolish ill 
 
 For being what it is, is bound to be, 
 
 Its nature being so — cut wizards off 
 
101 
 
 In flower of their necromantic lives 
 For being wizards, when 'tis plain enough 
 That they have no more wrought their wizardship 
 Than cats their cathood." Thus the plaguy Voice, 
 Puzzling withal not overmuch, for thus 
 I turn the enemy's flank : " Meseems, my friend, 
 Your argument's a thought too fine of mesh, 
 And catches what you would not. Every mouse 
 Trapped i' the larder by the kitchen wench 
 Might reason so — but scarcely with effect. 
 Methinks 'twould little serve the captured thief 
 To plead, ' The fault's Dame Nature's, guiltless I. 
 Am I to blame that in the parcelling-out 
 Of my ingredients the Great Chemist set 
 Just so much here, there so much, and no more 
 (Since 'tis but question, after all is said, 
 Of mere proportion 'twixt the part that feels 
 And that which guides), so much proclivity 
 To nightly cupboard-breaking, so much lust 
 Of bacon-scraps, such tendency to think 
 
102 FROM "THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS." 
 
 Old Stilton-rind the noblest thing on earth ? 
 Then the per contra — so much power to choose 
 The right and shun the wrong ; so much of force 
 Of uncorrupted will to stoutly bar 
 The sensory inlets of the murine soul, 
 And, when by night the floating rare-bit fume 
 Lures like a siren's song, stop nostrils fast 
 With more than Odusseian sailor-wax : 
 Lastly so much of wholesome fear of trap 
 To keep self-abnegation sweet. Then comes 
 The hour of trial, when lo ! the suadent scale 
 Sinks instant, the deterrent kicks the beam, 
 The heavier falls, the lighter mounts (as much 
 A thing of law with motives as with plums), 
 And I, forsooth, must die simply because 
 Dame Nature, having chosen so to load 
 The dishes, did not choose suspend for me 
 The gravitation of the moral world.' 
 How would the kitchen-wench reply ? Why thus 
 (If given, as scullions use, to logic-fence 
 
FROM "THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS." 103 
 
 And keen retorsion of dilemmata 
 
 In speeches of a hundred lines or so) : 
 
 ' Grant your plea valid. Good. There's mine to hear. 
 
 'Twas Nature made you ? well : and me, no less ; 
 
 You she by forces past your own control 
 
 Made a cheese-stealer ? Be it so : of me 
 
 By forces as resistless and her own 
 
 She made a mouse-killer. Thus, either plays 
 
 * 
 
 A rdle in no wise chosen of himself, 
 
 But takes what part the great Stage Manager 
 
 Cast him for, when the play was set afoot. 
 
 Eemains we act ours — without private spite, 
 
 But still with spirit and fidelity, 
 
 As fits good actors : you I blame no whit 
 
 For nibbling cheese — simply I throw you down 
 
 Unblamed — nay, even morally assoiled, 
 
 To pussy there : blame thou not me for that.' 
 
 Or say perhaps the girl is slow of wit, 
 
 Something inapt at ethics — why, then thus : 
 
 ' Enough of prating, little thief ! This talk 
 
104 FROM "THE PUSS AND THE BOOTS." 
 
 Of " fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute," 
 
 Is hugely out of place ! What next indeed, 
 
 If all the casuistry of the schools 
 
 Be prayed in aid by every pilfering mouse 
 
 That's caught i' th' trap ? See here, my thieving friend, 
 
 Thus I resolve the problem. We prefer 
 
 To keep our cheeses for our own behoof, 
 
 And eat them With our proper jaws ; and so, 
 
 Having command of mouse-traps, we will catch 
 
 Whatever mice we can, and promptly kill 
 
 Whatever mice we catch. Entendez-vous ? 
 
 Ay, and we will, though all the mice on earth 
 
 Pass indignation votes, obtest the faith 
 
 Of gods and men, and make the welkin ring 
 
 With world-resounding dissonance of squeak ! ' " 
 
 But hist ! here comes my wizard ! Eeady then 
 My nerves — and talons — for the trial of strength ! 
 A stout heart, feline cunning, and — who knows ? 
 
105 
 
 THE MODERN POET'S SONG. 
 
 Where hast thou been since battlemented Troy 
 
 Rose like a dream to thy loud-stricken lyre ? 
 Why dost thou walk the common earth no more ? 
 
 Nor lead on high Parnass the Muses' choir, 
 As when thy Hellas rang from shore to shore 
 With harpings loud, and hymns of holy joy ? 
 Well may we for thy gracious presence long : 
 
 The fashion of the day is classic myth, 
 
 And he must liberally deal therewith 
 Who fain would sing the modern poet's song. 
 
 Shake from thy brow the hyacinthine locks 
 That hide its ivory splendours ! Let thine eyes 
 Flash forth as blue-white lightnings lubricate, 
 
106 THE MODERN POET'S SONG. 
 
 Spread sudden day through purple midnight skies, 
 Or scarlet shafts of dawn illuminate 
 The grey and umber of the sleeping rocks ! 
 colours and shades of every hue, 
 
 Plain or in comhination, faint or strong, 
 Eed, green, and yellow, black and white and blue, 
 
 How ye assist the modern poet's song ! 
 
 Tar-darting Phoibos, lofty Loxias 
 
 (Since thou the glad Greek greeting well mayst 
 hear 
 That hailed thee erst in Delos the divine), 
 If our late lays have leave to reach thine ear, 
 Meek, myrtle-bearing, give us grace to pass 
 
 Through the white worshippers towards thy shrine. 
 apt alliteration ! how a throng 
 
 Of self-repeating vowels and consonants, 
 How lines of labials, strings of sibilants, 
 Make music in the modern poet's song ! 
 
THE MODERN POET'S SONG. 107 
 
 I will compare thee to a fowler wight,. 
 
 Snaring the soul with magic-woven words 
 Of wondrous music and divinest art ; 
 Or haply I may liken, heard aright, 
 
 Thy winged strains themselves to captured birds, 
 Fast in the meshes of the human heart. 
 For men and things resemble what we please, 
 
 Such arbitrary powers to bards belong ; 
 And, in default of genuine similes, 
 
 Conceits will serve the modern poet's song. 
 
 Come thou, our lord ; the heart within us dies, 
 
 And, faint as in a breathless land and bare, 
 We take no profit of our piteous day. 
 
 Give us to look upon thee, most fair ; 
 Appear, sweet desire of all men's eyes, 
 
 Ere this dread cup of life shall pass away ! 
 For vague appeals which we interpret not, 
 
 And moody murmurs at unstated wrong, 
 And aspirations for we say not what, 
 
 Largely compose the modern poet's song. 
 
108 THE MODEKN POET'S SONG. 
 
 Come thou, and I my stanzas will illume 
 
 With all the hues that in the rainbow .meet, 
 Alliterate all letters that there are ; 
 Outdo all rivals in mysterious gloom, 
 
 Fetch metaphors like magi from afar, 
 
 Lit by no star of meaning, to thy feet. 
 For these and similar poetic tricks 
 
 Are highly prized our master's school among. 
 Swinburne ! and water ! how ye mix, 
 
 To constitute the modern poet's song ! 
 
109 
 
 AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI. 
 
 " Why do you wear your hair like a man, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 This week is the third since you began." 
 " I'm writing a ballad ; be still if you can, 
 
 Little brother. 
 (0 Mother Carey, mother! 
 What chickens are these between sea and heaven ?)" 
 
 " But why does your figure appear so lean, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 
 And why do you dress in sage, sage green ? " 
 
 " Children should never be heard, if seen, 
 
 Little brother? 
 (0 Mother Carey, mother ! 
 
 What fowls are a-wing in the stormy heaven!)" 
 
110 AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI. 
 
 " But why is your face so yellowy white, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 
 Aud why are your skirts so funnily tight ? " 
 
 " Be quiet, you torment, or how can I write, 
 
 Little brother ? 
 (0 Mother Carey, mother ! 
 
 How gathers thy train to the sea from the heaven !)" 
 
 " And who's Mother Carey, and what is her train, 
 
 Sister Helen ? 
 And why do you call her again and again ? " 
 " You troublesome boy, why that's the refrain, 
 
 Little brother. 
 (0 Mother Carey, mother ! 
 What work is toward in the startled heaven ?)" 
 
 " And what's a refrain ? What a curious word, 
 
 Sister Helen ! 
 Is the ballad you're writing about a sea-bird 1 " 
 " Not at all ; why should it be ? Don't be absurd, 
 
AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI. "Ill 
 
 Little brother. 
 (0 Mother Carey, mother I 
 Thy brood flies lower as lowers the heaven.)" 
 
 (A big brother speaheth .-) 
 " The refrain you've studied a meaning had, 
 
 Sister Helen ! 
 It gave strange force to a weird ballad. 
 But refrains have become a ridiculous ' fad ' 
 
 Little brother. 
 And Mother Carey, mother, 
 Has a bearing on nothing in earth or heaven. 
 
 " But the finical fashion has had its day, 
 
 Sister Helen. 
 
 And let's try in the style of a different lay 
 
 To bid it adieu in poetical way, 
 
 Little brother. 
 So, Mother Carey, mother ! 
 
 Collect your chickens and go to — heaven." 
 
112 AFTER DILETTANTE CONCETTI. 
 
 {A pause. Then the big brother sing- 
 . eth, accompanying himself in a plain- 
 tive wise on the triangle :) 
 " Look in my face. My name is TJsed-to-was ; 
 I am also called Played-out and Done-to-death, 
 And It-will-wash-no-more. Awakeneth 
 Slowly, but sure awakening it has, 
 The common-sense of man ; and I, alas ! 
 
 The ballad-burden trick, now known too well, 
 Am turned to scorn, and grown contemptible — 
 A too transparent artifice to pass. 
 
 " What a cheap dodge I am ! The cats who dart 
 Tin-kettled through the streets in wild surprise 
 Assail judicious ears not otherwise ; 
 And yet no critics praise the urchin's ' art,' 
 Who to the wretched creature's caudal part 
 Its foolish empty-jingling ' burden ' ties." 
 
113 
 
 A DBAWING-ROOM BALLAD. 
 
 Can you recall an ode to June 
 
 Or lines to any river 
 In which you do not meet the " moon," 
 
 And see " the moonbeams quiver " ? 
 I've heard such songs to many a tune, 
 
 But never yet — no mver — 
 Have I escaped that rhyme to " June " 
 
 Or missed that rhyme to " river." 
 
 At times the bard from his refrain 
 
 A moment's respite snatches, 
 
 The while his over-cudgelled brain 
 
 At some new jingle catches ; 
 H 
 
114 A DRAWING-ROOM BALLAD. 
 
 Yet long from the unlucky moon 
 
 Himself he cannot sever, 
 But grasps once more that rhyme to " June," 
 
 And seeks a rhyme to " river." 
 
 Then let not indolence he Warned 
 
 On him whose verses show it 
 By shunning " burdens " (rightly named 
 
 For reader and for poet) ; 
 Tor rhymes must fail him late or soon, 
 
 Nor can he deal for ever 
 In words whose sound resembles " June," 
 
 And assonants of " river." 
 
 When " loon " 's been used, and " shoon " and 
 " spoon," 
 
 And " stiver " sounded " stiver," 
 Think of a bard reduced to " 'coon," 
 
 And left alone with " liver " ! 
 
A DRAWING-ROOM BALLAD. 115 
 
 Ah, then, how blessed were the boon ! 
 
 How doubly blest the giver, 
 Who gave him one rhyme more for " June," 
 
 And one more rhyme for " river " ! 
 
llfi 
 
 VEES DE SOCIETE. 
 
 There, pay it, James ! 'tis cheaply earned ; 
 
 My conscience ! how one's cabman charges"! 
 But never mind, so I'm returned 
 
 Safe to my native street of Clarges. 
 I've just an hour for one cigar 
 
 (What style these Eeinas have, and what ash !) 
 One hour to watch the evening star 
 
 With just one Curacao-and-potash. 
 
 Ah me ! that face beneath the leaves 
 And blossoms of its piquant bonnet ! 
 
 Who would have thought that forty thieves 
 Of years had laid their fingers on it ! 
 
VERS DE SOCIETY. 117 
 
 Could you have managed to enchant 
 At Lord's to-day old lovers simple, 
 
 Had Eobber Time not played gallant, 
 And spared you every youthful dimple ! 
 
 That Eobber bold, like courtier Claude, 
 
 Who danced the gay coranto jesting, 
 By your bright beauty charmed and awed, 
 
 Has bowed and passed you unmolesting. 
 No feet of many-wintered crows 
 
 Have traced about your eyes a wrinkle ; 
 Your sunny hair has thawed the snows 
 
 That other heads with silver sprinkle. 
 
 I wonder if that pair of gloves 
 I won of you you'll ever pay me 1 
 
 I wonder if our early loves 
 Were wise or foolish, cousin Amy ? 
 
118 VERS DE SOCIETY. 
 
 I wonder if our childish tiff 
 
 Now seems to you, like me, a blunder ! 
 I wonder if you wonder if 
 
 I ever wonder if you wonder 
 
 I wonder if you'd think it bliss 
 
 Once more to be the fashion's leader ! 
 I wonder if the trick of this 
 
 Escapes the unsuspecting reader ! 
 And as for him who does or can 
 
 Delight in it, I wonder whether 
 He knows that almost any man 
 
 Could reel it off by yards together ! 
 
 I wonder if What's that ? A knock ? 
 
 Is that you, James ? Eh ? What ? God bless 
 me! 
 How time has flown ! It's eight o'clock, 
 
 And here's my fellow come to dress me. 
 
VERS DE SOCIETY. 119 
 
 Be quick, or I shall be the guest 
 Whom Lady Mary never pardons ; 
 
 I trust you, James, to do your best 
 To save the soup at Grosvenor Gardens. 
 
POST LUSUS SEEIA 
 
TO A FAMOUS PAELIAMENT. 
 
 Hunc neque dira venena nee hostieus auferet ensis 
 Nee laterum dolor aut tussis nee tarda podagra ; 
 Garrulus hunc quando consumet eumque ; loquace 
 Si sapiat, vitet, sinral atque adoleverit Betas. 
 
 As one who from the glacier past the vine 
 Follows the slow debasement of the Ehine 
 To where its foiled and sluggish waters creep 
 Through sand-obstructed channels to the deep — 
 As such an one may in fantastic mood 
 Muse on the checkered fortunes of the flood, 
 The source majestic whence its streams descend, 
 Its proud career and its ignoble end, — 
 Thus — but in sober earnestness — are we, 
 English Parliament, to think of thee ? 
 
124 TO A FAMOUS PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Of thee on flats of dull Obstruction found 
 
 The long-descended and the high-renowned ! 
 
 thou whose shame or glory is our own, 
 
 Born with our birth, and with our growth upgrown ! 
 
 Was it for this the wasting hand of time, 
 
 Perils of youth, and maladies of prime, 
 
 Spared thee so long 1 thou who first didst draw 
 
 In a rude age the infant breath of law, 
 
 And, storing silent increments of life 
 
 Through our long era of dynastic strife, 
 
 Take gradual heart of grace thy voice to raise 
 
 From whispering humbleness of Tudor days ; 
 
 Wrest the high sceptre from thy Stuart lords ; 
 
 Bend only for an hour to Cromwell's swords ; 
 
 Live faction down, break through corruption's chains, 
 
 And of the Walpole-poison purge thy veins ; 
 
 Wax stronger and still stronger, till the land 
 
 Saw all its forces gathered to thine hand — 
 
 Didst thou thus triumph that thou thus shouldst fall ? 
 
 Is that proud head that towers over all 
 
TO A FAMOUS PARLIAMENT. 125 
 
 Destined to bow before unworthy foes ? 
 Had ever splendid life so mean a close 
 As thine will show, if thou, for all thy past, 
 Must die of talk and Irishmen at last ? 
 
126 
 
 ON A FAMOUS BILL: THE LAWYER'S 
 SOLILOQUY. 
 
 I hold it clear, as one who sings 
 The party song in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 
 Of brazen speech to higher things. 
 
 And, holding this as maxim chief, 
 111 were my part of lawyer played 
 Did I not welcome undismayed 
 
 The burden of this desperate brief. 
 
 For well his trade he understood, 
 And wise that statesman was, I wot, 
 Who valued their assistance not 
 
 That helped him when his case was good : 
 
ON A FAMOUS BILL. 127 
 
 Who knew how cheaply could he had 
 The summer-weather partisan, 
 And used to say, " Give me the man 
 
 That hacks me when my case is bad t " 
 
 I am that man. Behold in me 
 
 A faithful yeoman of debate, 
 
 Ever at hand the case to state 
 For Land Bill Number Twenty-three. 
 
 Bill, unfriended of the wise, 
 Poor derelict of truth and sense, 
 Thy blackest blot and worst offence 
 
 Is light and virtue in my eyes. 
 
 They say thy purpose is concealed, 
 And that the coy design which strays 
 Nymph-like, through tangled woods of phrase 
 
 Might blush to find itself revealed. 
 
128 ON A FAMOUS BILL : 
 
 The more the need that I should spare 
 No pains to lead the chase awry, 
 The while I vigorously cry, 
 
 " The nymph, although unseen, is fair ! " 
 
 The dull Economist fulfils 
 
 His mission to denounce thy scheme 
 As flattery of the peasant's dream 
 
 And worsening of his wakirjg ills. 
 
 The greater the demand on me 
 For cheaply manufactured sneers 
 At imbeciles who feed their fears 
 
 On bugbears of Economy. 
 
 Of contracts' broken faith they prate, 
 Of justice made a Lesbian rule, 
 And law degraded to the tool 
 
 Of mean expediencies of State. 
 
THE LAWYER'S SOLILOQUY. 129 
 
 And here they touch me nearly — here 
 They press me home : yet only so 
 Can all the party zeal I show- 
 Clothed in its full deserts appear. 
 
 So much the greater shall my feat 
 Of bold apostasy be found, 
 So louder shall my praises sound 
 
 Where Tadpoles and where Tapers meet, 
 
 In that I falter not nor swerve 
 From Ministerial paths, nor err 
 Through foolish reverence for Her 
 
 Whose bread I eat, whose shrine I serve : 
 
 That, holding Justice not in awe, 
 I find no filial wrath upflame 
 Though bastard legislation shame 
 
 The household of her priestess, Law ; 
 
130 ON A FAMOUS BILL. 
 
 But bear to see her bed defiled — 
 Nay, dare, unnaturally brave, 
 To strike my mother dead to save 
 
 Blind Faction's misbegotten child ! 
 
131 
 
 AVE C^SAR! MOETUI TE SALTJTANT. 
 {Jwm 1879.) 
 
 " Yes, it is well to mourn him," foes 
 
 Alike with friends can say ; 
 That bright young life's pathetie close 
 
 Disarms all hates to-day. 
 
 None needs to grudge that there be flung 
 
 On that untimely grave 
 All flowers of pity for the young, 
 
 The innocent, the brave. 
 
 Not his the sins that marred his land, 
 Though they were sinned for him ; 
 
 No war was kindled by his hand 
 Because his star grew dim. 
 
132 ave c^esar! moetui tb salutant. 
 
 And therefore it is well that now 
 
 The willing tear be shed 
 For the poor stripling Prince laid low 
 
 Among inglorious dead. 
 
 But also well that we should mark 
 
 Hovering above the gate 
 Of death, the levelled hand, the dark 
 
 And awful brows of Fate ; 
 
 And hear what ghostly murmurs swell 
 
 Around the fatal spot, 
 From countless shades of those who fell 
 
 At Worth and Gravelotte. 
 
 " What robe of empire now clothes on 
 This body pierced and bare ? 
 
 Where is the purple, Caesar's son, 
 We died that you might wear ? 
 
ave c^bsar! mortui te salutant. 133 
 
 Was it for this we shed our blood, 
 
 For this poor naked prey 
 Of savage wile, this fated food 
 
 For Zulu assegai ? 
 
 Left we for this our children dear, 
 
 Sweet faces of our wives ? 
 Caesar — if Death the dead can hear — 
 
 Give back to us our lives ! " 
 
134 
 
 THE AGE OF DESPAIE. 
 
 '' Deink deep of life ere death's unending calm 
 Enfold thee round." So runs the dreary psalm, 
 
 Miscalled a song of joy, by poets sung, 
 From jesting Horace down to grave Khayyam. 
 
 We sing it now ; but who that sings achieves 
 One hour's pure triumph over him who grieves ? 
 
 Who can rejoice in summer, if his heart 
 Fore-hear the rustle of the falling leaves ? 
 
 Vainly the farce of gaiety is played ; 
 Death smiles sardonic on the poor parade ; 
 
 Nor can our hollow laughters exorcise 
 That spectre whom the old-world revellers laid. 
 
THE AGE OP DESPAIR. 135 
 
 The rose they wreathed around the careless head, 
 The wine they poured, the perfumes that they shed, 
 
 The eyes that smiled on them, the lips they pressed, 
 For its what are they ? Faded, vapid, dead ! 
 
 Dead is for us the rose we know must die ; 
 Long ere we drain the goblet it is dry ; 
 
 And, even as we kiss, the distant grave 
 Chills the warm lip and dims the lustrous eye ! 
 
 Too far. our race has journeyed from its birth ; 
 Too far Death casts his shadow o'er the earth. 
 
 Ah ! what remains to strengthen and support 
 Our hearts, since they have lost the trick of mirth, 
 
 The stay of fortitude ? The lofty pride " ' 
 Wherewith the sages of. the Porch denied 
 
 That pain and death are evils, and proclaimed 
 Lawful the. exit of the suicide ? .; 
 
136 THE AGE OF DESPAIR. 
 
 Alas, not so ! No Stoic calm is ours ; 
 We dread the thorns who joy not in the flowers. 
 We dare not breathe the mountain-air of Pain, 
 Droop as we may in Pleasure's stifling bowers. 
 
 What profits it, if here and there we see 
 A spirit nerved by trust in God's decree, 
 
 Who fronts the grave in firmness of the faith 
 Taught by the Carpenter of Galilee? 
 
 Who needs not wine nor roses, lute nor lyre, 
 Scorns life, or quits it by the gate of fire, 
 Erect and fearless — what is that to us 
 Who hold him for the dupe of vain desire ? 
 
 Can we who wake enjoy the dreamer's dream ? 
 Will the parched treeless waste less hideous seem 
 
 Because there shines before some foolish eyes 
 Mirage of waving wood and silver stream ? 
 
THE AGE OF DESPAIR. 137 
 
 Ah, miserable race ! Too weak to bear, 
 Too sad for mirth, too sceptical for prayer ! 
 
 Surely on you the Scripture is fulfilled, 
 To bid the mountains cover your despair ! 
 
THE ANTS' NEST 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 I've an ants' nest in my garden, and on sleepy summer 
 
 days 
 I delight to sit beside it, and to watch the works and 
 
 ways 
 Of the busy little people (watched of late too closely 
 
 these 
 By a far less kindly Virgil than who sang the civic 
 
 bees), 
 While I muse upon the impulse, silent, hidden — full 
 
 of awe, 
 Whether it be force of Godhead or of self-fulfilling 
 
 law, — 
 That, by every year's mid-season, crowds the air with 
 
 humming wings, 
 Covers earth's abounding bosom with the toil of tiny 
 
 things. 
 
142 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Thus engaged the other evening, lounged me by my 
 
 gardener's boy, 
 Futile lout and turnip-headed, whom I foolishly 
 
 employ 
 At a certain weekly stipend to do nothing with a 
 
 hoe, 
 And to train the climbing roses where I want them 
 
 not to grow: 
 Lounged me by, I say, this booby, and, in passing — 
 
 Master Sam 
 Being of the age when mischief has the zest of 
 
 epigram — 
 Poised a heavy hob-nailed Blucher o'er the hapless 
 
 little state, 
 And with one strong kick of ruin spurned it flat and 
 
 desolate ! 
 Thus he did. Then I, indignant at the blockhead's 
 
 brutal jest, 
 Seized him by the nape, and straightway to his ample 
 
 ears addressed, 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 143 
 
 In the only way to make them take a message to his 
 
 brain, 
 Strong advice against indulging in such pleasantries 
 
 again. 
 Off he sneaked, demissd caudd, and I turned me, full 
 
 of ruth, 
 To the commonwealth subverted by the too facetious 
 
 youth, 
 Seeking if, among the ruins of their city thus laid 
 
 low, 
 Haply might be found a suburb still inhabitable. 
 
 No! 
 Thread-like street and atom gateway, where awhile 
 
 ago had trod 
 Tiny feet of thronging thousands, all was formless 
 
 mould and clod ; 
 Only here and there were hurrying houseless burghers 
 
 two or three, 
 Dazed, bewildered, void of counsel, o'er the hideous 
 
 debris, 
 
144 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Waiting doubtless his appearing, calm amid their 
 shattered haunts, 
 
 His, the shepherd of the people, his, the "leader 
 born of ants," 
 
 The creative, the constructive, " still, strong " ant, 
 with purpose high 
 
 Order to educe from chaos, law evoke from anarchy ; 
 
 Who shall nerve his helpless fellows with their ad- 
 verse fates to cope, 
 
 Fortify them with his patience, animate them with his 
 hope; 
 
 So that, howsoever slowly, with whatever toil and pain, 
 
 From its ruins may the devastated city rise again, 
 
 And resume its peaceful labours and renew its pros- 
 perous day 
 
 Unmolested — till some other booby chance to pass 
 that way. 
 
 Moralising o'er my claret in my library that night, 
 
 " Ah ! " thought I, " how much more hopeful, arduous 
 though it be, the fight 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 145 
 
 Fought by man with hostile Nature's handed forces, 
 
 age by age, 
 Than is waged by lower races, or than they can ever 
 
 wage! 
 Yonder ants repair their ruins : well, a city straight 
 
 appears 
 Built as ants have built their cities any time these 
 
 myriad years ; 
 Just as fragile and defenceless, nowise safer in the 
 
 least, 
 From the boot of playful boyhood, or the hoof of 
 
 straying beast. 
 Weak they stand, and fall through weakness, and in 
 
 weakness rise again, 
 Death instructs not, and disaster brings not wisdom 
 
 in its train. 
 But mankind ? We stand confronting calm our over- 
 shadowing foe, 
 Lightnings strike us, tempests whelm us, plague and 
 
 famine lay us low ; 
 
 K 
 
146 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Yet with every blow he levels weaker grows the giant 
 blind, 
 
 Stronger Polypheme's Odysseus foreordained — the 
 human mind; 
 
 Stronger grows man's strength of cunning his world- 
 enemies to brave, 
 
 Some to baffle, some to conquer,' some to capture and 
 enslave. 
 
 Fire he tames, and water serves him, earth her treas- 
 ure-hiding robe 
 
 Eaises at his bidding, lightning speeds his message 
 round the globe. 
 
 These once foes he makes his vassals; other foes more 
 hostile still, 
 
 Irreclaimable to service, forces only strong for 
 ill, 
 
 These he cheats or neutralises, circumvents or turns 
 
 Ever setting back their limits as sea-walls set back 
 the tide. 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 147 
 
 Each succeeding generation breathes a stronger health- 
 ier breath ; 
 
 Every decade sees new tillage conquered from the 
 wastes of death ; 
 
 Nature yearly makes submissions ; soon the philo- 
 sophic dream 
 
 Will become the workday waking, and mankind will 
 reign supreme, 
 
 Master of the world around him, king of his environ- 
 ment 
 
 Absolute, and waiting only that deliverance latest- 
 sent, 
 
 Man's redemption from his passions, from that scourge 
 self-wielded, crime, 
 
 From the brutal lust of battle (blunted even now by 
 time), 
 
 And from competition, blindest ■ of the conflicts that 
 divide 
 
 And dividing weaken workers who should labour side 
 by side — 
 
148 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Which deliverance once accomplished, dawns for him 
 
 a brighter day 
 Than the golden age of fable, never more to pass 
 
 away! 
 Shall we then," I cried elated (reaching down from off 
 
 its shelf 
 ' Comte,' in Martineau's translation), " shall we only 
 
 live for self ? 
 We of the unbounded future shall we in the present 
 
 rest, 
 Narrowing ant-like aspirations to the limits of our 
 
 nest; 
 Striving through life's summer only as the ant labori- 
 ous strives 
 To provide what may suffice us for the winter of our 
 
 lives ? 
 And not rather learn to look beyond our own day's 
 
 little span, 
 So to live that we may help to hasten on the Eeign of 
 
 Man. 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 149 
 
 Forasmuch as surely knowing, while we labour and 
 
 abstain, 
 That our labour in our Lord, Humanity, is not in 
 
 vain." 
 
 How it chanced I do not know — 
 That my claret served me so, 
 Sound as is that modest drink, 
 I am loath indeed to think ; 
 But howbeit, truth to tell, 
 Musing thus asleep I fell, 
 And I heard a Voice whose tones 
 Froze the marrow in my bones, 
 Crying, " Labour and abstain ! 
 Labour spent will not be vain 
 If it harden thee to bear 
 The full weight of man's despair : 
 And to practise abstinence 
 From the pleasant things of sense, 
 
150 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Easier makes of abnegation 
 Pleasures of imagination." 
 Here a pause ; then once again : 
 " Labour, labour, and abstain, 
 Ye who will — or ye who can, 
 But ere thou, dreamer Man, 
 Take the altruistic vow, 
 Pledge thy comfortable Now 
 To insure a glorious Then 
 To the common race of men, 
 Open eyes of sleep and see 
 What the womb of time is bearing, 
 What millennium is preparing 
 For 'your Lord' Humanity." 
 
 The voice surceased : and in a hush of awe 
 The walls of dark were riven, and the night 
 
 Became as day around me, and I saw, 
 As from a tower, a strange and fearful sight. 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 151 
 
 Earth, kindly Earth, our blithe and blossoming home, 
 Ear as to where her limits seemed to meet 
 
 A sky spread o'er her like an iron dome, 
 Lay dead beneath my feet ! 
 
 Dead — or her only life, the life-in-death 
 Of moss and lichen ; mute, with such repose 
 
 As stirs but when the iceberg sundereth, 
 Or sounds the distant grinding of the floes. 
 
 This earth of springs and harvests, flocks and herds, 
 Of toiling, laughing, loving, human throngs ; 
 
 Warmed by the sun, and glad with flight of birds, 
 And rained on by their songs, 
 
 Lay fruitless, soundless, dead : from zone to zone 
 
 Spread over her the terrible control 
 Of Arctic frost — the idle gloom, the lone 
 
 And everlasting leisure of the Pole ! 
 
152 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Spake again the Voice abhorred : 
 " Lo, the kingdom of your Lord ! 
 Lo, his dazzling palace-walls, 
 And the silence in his halls, 
 Marking in its depth intense 
 A profound er reverence 
 Than abates the courtier's tones 
 At the foot of lower thrones. — 
 Idle dreamer ! vain and blind ! 
 Had thy vision-ridden mind 
 In its scheme of earthly bliss 
 And dominion room for this ? 
 Didst thou think that taming these, 
 Lightning, famine, fire, disease — 
 Powers that take thy yoke, or flee 
 Prom thy face — was conquering Me ? 
 Fool of foolish boastings ! They 
 Are my children at their play ! 
 "What so wastes the face of earth 
 Is but malice of their mirth ; 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 153 
 
 All your famous victories gained 
 Mean but infants' sports restrained. 
 Deeper for your real foe 
 Search ye — I abide below, 
 Storing for your ' age of gold ' 
 Treasure of eternal cold, 
 Weaving for man's ' majesty ' — 
 Him, whose expectations high 
 All your toils and hopes absorb 
 On this slowly-freezing orb — 
 Such a robe as may be meet 
 For — a monarch's winding-sheet." 
 
 " Then is He the Creator of things ? or is It their voli- 
 tionless cause, 
 Is it Spirit or Force," I cried, in a passion of won- 
 der and woe, 
 
 " That breathes free life out of freedom, or, binding, 
 is bound by laws ? 
 
154 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Was it choice or chance — was it Demon or Demi- 
 urge ordered it so ? 
 
 "Is our master a sightless Strength, unwilled — our 
 oppressor in chains 
 Of the iron he lays on ourselves ? it is well : we can 
 learn to bear 
 As the slaves of a slave endure, for whom in their 
 cruellest pains 
 No longings of unwreaked hate disturb the content 
 of despair. 
 
 "But a Person? A Cause Uncaused? Can it be 
 that deliberate Will, 
 At a point in the vast Before whereunto no mind 
 can climb, 
 Appointed such end and prepared it, selecting such 
 means to fulfil, 
 Or e'er from Eternity's ocean arose the island of 
 Time? 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 155 
 
 " Can it be that the planets obeyed a commanding 
 Voice? Can it be 
 That no aimless impulse arrayed them around the 
 solar fire, 
 But that floatings of nebular masses were changed by 
 conscious decree 
 To the rhythmical music and march of a solid and 
 orderly choir ? 
 
 " That the first faint thrills of the germ and the blind 
 beginnings of life 
 Were marked by a sentient Mind that, of fixed pre- 
 determinate plan, 
 Had willed the fierce struggle of living, the pitiless 
 secular strife, 
 And thereout in the fulness of untold years the 
 emergence of Man ; 
 
 " Had willed him emerge and survive, and that slowly, 
 through age upon age, 
 
156 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 From the jungle and swamp to the city the painful 
 
 ascent should be made, 
 From the first rude stammer of tongues to the speech 
 
 of the poet and sage, 
 From the first rough knottings of barter to infinite 
 
 network of trade ; 
 
 " From isolate weakness to fagoted strength in the 
 communal band, 
 To the peace and justice of States from the clashings 
 of wilderness- wars ; 
 From the fingers that fashioned the flint to the fingers 
 of Eaphael's hand ; 
 From the skulls that bleach in the caves to the 
 heads that have measured the stars ; 
 
 " To the end that at last — that at last the whole into 
 night should go down 
 Into night and the void, when the long-sought sum- 
 mit of things has been won, 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 157 
 
 And the glorious God-planned scheme attain consum- 
 mation and crown 
 In the idiot whirl'of a lifeless globe round a useless 
 sun ? " 
 
 Yet once more the Voice whose tones 
 Froze the marrow in my bones : — 
 " Can it be, O can it be, 
 (Cry the ants in agony,) 
 That the power whose prescient mind 
 Our illustrious race designed, 
 Placed us here with cunning blest 
 To construct our mighty nest, 
 And to store our yearly fruit, 
 Also foreordained the Boot 
 
 That with catastrophic -" 
 
 "Nay, 
 Spare your sneers. Far happier they, 
 In that only fancy sees 
 Power in them for thoughts like these : 
 
158 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 In that whatsover fate 
 
 Their frail race annihilate 
 
 To despair it will condemn 
 
 No immortal hopes in them. 
 
 But for us! God of truth, 
 
 God of justice and of ruth ! 
 
 Does our everlasting wrong 
 
 To thy equity belong ? 
 
 Did thy truth decree on high 
 
 That we should believe a lie ? 
 
 And is thy compassion shown 
 
 In a truth too late made known ? 
 
 Why to man alone this lot ? " 
 
 Cried the Voice : " And know'st thou not ? " 
 
 Then, in words of bitter gibe — 
 
 " Claims not man's complacent tribe 
 
 O'er the beasts pre-eminence, 
 
 Chief in this — his laughter-sense ? 
 
 So the fate contrived for him 
 
 Should appeal, in humour grim, 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 159 
 
 To that faculty acute 
 Which, discerns him from the brute : 
 Wherefore hopes and longings blind 
 Were enkindled in his mind, 
 And to fire's devouring strength 
 Fanned and fostered — that at length 
 Their evanishment in smoke 
 Might produce the effect of joke ! " 
 
 " Ah, scoffer accursed ! " I cried, " we know and too 
 well we know 
 How cruel a humour indulges the Power who 
 breathed in us breath, 
 How he bred in us love of our children and wives 
 and rooted it so 
 That our hearts are transfixed by the point of the 
 terrible jest of death ! 
 
 "We know" (and my voice sank lower) "he even 
 refines upon this, 
 
160 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 And deludes us with shadowy hopes of meetings 
 
 beyond the grave, 
 Though as yet he has spared undeceiving the weak 
 
 and prolongs them the bliss 
 Of the faith that he slowly tears from the tortured 
 
 breasts of the brave ! 
 
 " But must we believe at your bidding that ' life-in- 
 the-future of earth ' 
 Is the nothing of life-in-the-heavens ? that that last 
 pitiful gleam 
 Is to fade from the sky of the soul, till the great World 
 Jester his mirth 
 Shall have sated on anguish of man in dispersing 
 the Humanist dream ? " 
 
 No answer came. I cried again ; 
 
 No voice the silence broke 
 Till silence seemed to burst my brain, 
 
 And, sweating cold, I woke. 
 
THE ANTS' NEST. 161 
 
 I woke : long hours had fled, and lo ! 
 
 Dim-seen through curtains drawn, 
 The moon's pale corpse is sinking slow 
 
 In the grey pools of dawn. 
 Night is departing terror-thronged, 
 
 But unreleased I seem, 
 For waking life awhile prolonged 
 
 The questionings of dream, 
 And break of day the hour had brought 
 
 That bows the soul to earth 
 In idle travail of a thought 
 
 Which comes not to the birth ; 
 So to the voice that answered not 
 
 Still cried I " Answer Thou ! 
 The dumb enigma of our lot 
 
 Lies heaviest on us now.'' 
 But now ! . . . The brooding East was riven, 
 
 The morning-wind took wing, 
 Above in the fast-brightening heaven 
 
 The lark began to sing ; 
 
162 THE ANTS' NEST. 
 
 Sweet through the. lattice breathed the bine, 
 
 The mower clinked his scythe ; 
 Eang out from 'mid the gathered kine 
 
 The milkmaid's laughter blithe. 
 Ah ! blessed sounds of wiser life, 
 
 Contented with its day, 
 How ye rebuke the inward strife 
 
 That wears the soul away ! 
 And blessed life itself! that holds, 
 
 So we not shun its grasp, 
 The troubled spirits it enfolds 
 
 In soothing mother-clasp ; 
 Whose commonplaces merciful 
 
 The brain from madness keep, 
 And lull — so we but let them lull — 
 
 Until we fall asleep. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
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