Part 21

These damsels of “Democracy’s,” How long they stop at every stile! They smile, and we are told, I wis, Ten subtle reasons why they smile. Give me your villains deeply vile, Give me Lecoq, Jottrat, and Co., Great artists of the ruse and wile, Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!

Oh, novel readers, tell me this, Can prose that’s polished by the file, Like great Boisgobey’s mysteries, Wet days and weary ways beguile, And man to living reconcile, Like these whose every trick we know? The agony how high they pile, Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!

ENVOY.

Ah, friend, how many and many a while They’ve made the slow time fleetly flow, And solaced pain and charmed exile, Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

THE CLOUD CHORUS.

(FROM ARISTOPHANES.)

Socrates speaks.

HITHER, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves here; Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow, Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear, Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile’s overflow, Or whether you dwell by Mæotis mere Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear! And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.

The Clouds sing.

Immortal Clouds from the echoing shore Of the father of streams, from the sounding sea, Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar. Dewy and gleaming, and fleet are we! Let us look on the tree-clad mountain crest, On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice, On the waters that murmur east and west On the tumbling sea with his moaning voice, For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air, And the bright rays gleam; Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fare In our deathless shapes to glance everywhere From the height of the heaven, on the land and air, And the Ocean stream.

Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain, Let us gaze on Pallas’ citadel, In the country of Cecrops, fair and dear The mystic land of the holy cell, Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell, And the gifts of the Gods that know not stain And a people of mortals that know not fear. For the temples tall, and the statues fair, And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there, The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring, And the musical voices that fill the hours, And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!

BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME.

“All these for Fourpence.”

OH, where are the endless Romances Our grandmothers used to adore? The Knights with their helms and their lances, Their shields and the favours they wore? And the Monks with their magical lore? They have passed to Oblivion and Nox, They have fled to the shadowy shore,— They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And where the poetical fancies Our fathers rejoiced in, of yore? The lyric’s melodious expanses, The Epics in cantos a score? They have been and are not: no more Shall the shepherds drive silvery flocks, Nor the ladies their languors deplore,— They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And the Music! The songs and the dances? The tunes that Time may not restore? And the tomes where Divinity prances? And the pamphlets where Heretics roar? They have ceased to be even a bore,— The Divine, and the Sceptic who mocks,— They are “cropped,” they are “foxed” to the core,— They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

ENVOY.

Suns beat on them; tempests downpour, On the chest without cover or locks, Where they lie by the Bookseller’s door,— They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

Νήνεμος Αἰών.

I WOULD my days had been in other times, A moment in the long unnumbered years That knew the sway of Horus and of hawk, In peaceful lands that border on the Nile.

I would my days had been in other times, Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymn Between the Five great Rivers, or in shade And shelter of the cool Himâlayan hills.

I would my days had been in other times, That I in some old abbey of Touraine Had watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life, Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais!

I would my days had been in other times, When quiet life to death not terrible Drifted, as ashes of the Santhal dead Drift down the sacred Rivers to the Sea!

SCIENCE.

THE BARBAROUS BIRD-GODS: A SAVAGE PARABASIS.

In the Aves of Aristophanes, the Bird Chorus declare that they are older than the Gods, and greater benefactors of men. This idea recurs in almost all savage mythologies, and I have made the savage Bird-gods state their own case.

The Birds sing:

WE would have you to wit, that on eggs though we sit, and are spiked on the spit, and are baked in the pan, Birds are older by far than your ancestors are, and made love and made war ere the making of Man! For when all things were dark, not a glimmer nor spark, and the world like a barque without rudder or sail Floated on through the night, ’twas a Bird struck a light, ’twas a flash from the bright feather’d Tonatiu’s {207} tail! Then the Hawk {208a} with some dry wood flew up in the sky, and afar, safe and high, the Hawk lit Sun and Moon, And the Birds of the air they rejoiced everywhere, and they recked not of care that should come on them soon. For the Hawk, so they tell, was then known as Pundjel, {208b} and a-musing he fell at the close of the day; Then he went on the quest, as we thought, of a nest, with some bark of the best, and a clawful of clay. {208c} And with these did he frame two birds lacking a name, without feathers (his game was a puzzle to all); Next around them he fluttered a-dancing, and muttered; and, lastly, he uttered a magical call: Then the figures of clay, as they featherless lay, they leaped up, who but they, and embracing they fell, And this was the baking of Man, and his making; but now he’s forsaking his Father, Pundjel! Now these creatures of mire, they kept whining for fire, and to crown their desire who was found but the Wren? To the high heaven he came, from the Sun stole he flame, and for this has a name in the memory of men! {209a} And in India who for the Soma juice flew, and to men brought it through without falter or fail? Why the Hawk ’twas again, and great Indra to men would appear, now and then, in the shape of a Quail, While the Thlinkeet’s delight is the Bird of the Night, the beak and the bright ebon plumage of Yehl. {209b} And who for man’s need brought the famed Suttung’s mead? why ’tis told in the creed of the Sagamen strong, ’Twas the Eagle god who brought the drink from the blue, and gave mortals the brew that’s the fountain of song. {210a} Next, who gave men their laws? and what reason or cause the young brave overawes when in need of a squaw, Till he thinks it a shame to wed one of his name, and his conduct you blame if he thus breaks the law? For you still hold it wrong if a lubra {210b} belong to the self-same kobong {210c} that is Father of you, To take her as a bride to your ebony side; nay, you give her a wide berth; quite right of you, too. For her father, you know, is your father, the Crow, and no blessing but woe from the wedding would spring. Well, these rules they were made in the wattle-gum shade, and were strictly obeyed, when the Crow was the King. {210d} Thus on Earth’s little ball to the Birds you owe all, yet your gratitude’s small for the favours they’ve done, And their feathers you pill, and you eat them at will, yes, you plunder and kill the bright birds one by one; There’s a price on their head, and the Dodo is dead, and the Moa has fled from the sight of the sun!