Part 9

I HAVE scribbled in verse and in prose, I have painted “arrangements in greens,” And my name is familiar to those Who take in the high class magazines; I compose; I’ve invented machines; I have written an “Essay on Rhyme”; For my county I played, in my teens, But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

I have lived, as a chief, with the Crows; I have “interviewed” Princes and Queens; I have climbed the Caucasian snows; I abstain, like the ancients, from beans,— I’ve a guess what Pythagoras means, When he says that to eat them’s a crime,— I have lectured upon the Essenes, But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

I’ve a fancy as morbid as Poe’s, I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens,” I have breasted the river that flows Through the land of the wild Gadarenes; I can gossip with Burton on skenes, I can imitate Irving (the Mime), And my sketches are quainter than Keene’s, But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

ENVOY.

So the tower of mine eminence leans Like the Pisan, and mud is its lime; I’m acquainted with Dukes and with Deans, But—I am not in “Men of the Time!”

BALLADE OF RAILWAY NOVELS.

LET others praise analysis And revel in a “cultured” style, And follow the subjective Miss {80} From Boston to the banks of Nile, Rejoice in anti-British bile, And weep for fickle hero’s woe, These twain have shortened many a mile, Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

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.