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CopyRIGHT, 1899, BY
JOHN LANE
Press §: J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
A.
Author’s Note
The greater number of these verses appeared recently in
Punch ; those reproduced from The World belong to an earlier
date, 1897; the imitation of Mr. George Meredith was printed
in The Morning Post within the last year. To the Proprietors
of Punch and the Editors of The World and Z'he Morning Post,
I give my best thanks for their kindness in permitting me to
re-publish my work.
I need not, perhaps, apologize for the motley character of
this collection; nor for having, towards the end of it, made use
of the Fool's privilege of being serious on occasion.
O. S.
, , , , ; , º, Tº ~.
. ... ". 4; , ; ; , . . " ..
. . . . . . . . X_i.
CONTENTS.
TO MR. ALFRED AUSTIN . & º *
AMONG THE ROARING FORTIES . g tº
AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK * (e *
COMIN' THRO’ THE ROMANY RYE . tº
THE WOMAN WITH THE DEAD CERT wº
THE FIGHTING GEFION * tº * e
A SONG OF INACTION o tº tº e
ALFRED's ALFRED º ty º gº e
LINEs WRITTEN (“By REQUEST")
F
OF THE OMAR KHAYYA M CLUB . *
THE PLAINT OF DYING HuMOUR ſº ©
RESIGNATION º {} & e © tº
THE BOOK OF OOM . sº º {} &
To JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY . ©
THE DOMESTIC BALLAD . & º
ALFRED ON CAEDMON . & & te ſº
THE BITTER CRY OF THE GREAT UNPAID
e
OR A DINNER
PAGE
II
I5
2I
25
30
35
38
45
49
53
6O
66
68
71
76
viii Contents.
PAGE
To THE AUTHOR of “THE CHRISTIAN" e . 80
TO AN OLD FOGEY . tº & tº e tº . 84
THE PENALTIES OF BALDNESS . e º & . 87
THE TEUTONIC PLAGUE . te e e e • 9I
OF THE LORD OF POTSDAM e e e wº • 94
THE SCHOLAR-FARMER * º tº º ſº • IO2
THE WARRIOR's LAMENT . e g & * • IO5
OF THE STALKING OF THE STAG © © & . IO8
OF BIG GAME . * Ç e e G tº • II4
“THE HURT THAT HONOUR FEELS ’’ • © • II9
“THOSE WHO LIVE IN GLASS HOUSES-" gº • I23
LE MONDE Ot, L’ON S'AFFICHE . g tº tº • I27
WILHELMINA e tº tº g & ſº * • I34
IN MEMORIAM . ſº * º {º tº º • I37
“SCOTS WHA. HAE’” . o tº wº e e • I4O
To THE CREw of THE MARGATE SURF-BoAT," FRIEND
TO ALL NATIONS ’’ * tº * tº tº • I4I
* FROM THE PROVENGAL OF SORDELLO, TROUBADour . I43
IN CAP AND BELLS.
TO MR. ALFRED AUSTIN.
[In polite imitation of his Jubilee Ode.]
I.
THE early bird got up and whet” his beak;
The early worm awoke, an easy prey;
This happened any morning in the week,
Much as to-day.
II.
The moke uplift * for joy his hinder hoof;
Shivered the fancy-poodle, freshly shorn;
The prodigal upon the attic-roof
Mewed to the morn.
* Poetical license.
2 In Cap and Bells.
III.
His virile note the cock profusely blew;
The beetle trotted down the kitchen tong;
The early bird above alluded to
Was going strong.
IV.
All this of course refers to England’s isle,
But things were going on across the deep;
In Egypt—take a case—the crocodile
Was sound asleep.
V.
Buzzed the Hymettian bee; sat up in bed
The foreign oyster sipping local drains;
The impious cassowary lay like dead
On Afric's plains.
VI.
A-nutting went the nimble chimpanzee;—
And what, you ask me, am I driving at 2
Wait on; in less than twenty minutes we
Shall come to that.
In Cap and Bells.
VII.
The bulbous crowfoot drained his dewy cup;
The saxifrage enjoyed a morning crawl;
The ampelopsis slowly sidled up
The garden wall.
VIII.
Her petals wide the periwinkle flung;
Blue gentian winked upon unweaned lambs;
And there was quite a pleasant stir among
The cryptogams.
IX.
May was the month alike in croft and wild,
When—here, in fact, begins the actual tale—
When forth withal there came an infant child,
A healthy male.
X.
Marred was his ruby countenance, as when
A blushing peony is moist with rain;
And first he strenuously kicked, and then
He kicked again.
4. In Cap and Bells.
XI.
They put the bays upon his barren crest,
Laid on his lap a lexicon of rhyme,
Saying—“You shall with luck attain the quest
In course of time.’’
XII.
Stolid he gazed, as one that may not know
The meaning of a presage—or is bored;
But when he loosed his lips it was as though
The sea that * roared.
XIII.
That dreadful summons to a higher place
He would not, if he could, have spurned away;
But, being a babe, he had, in any case,
Nothing to say.
XIV.
So they continued:—“Yes, on you shall fall
The laurels; you shall clamber by-and-by
Where Southey sits, where lately sat withal
The poet Pye.
* Poetical license.
In Cap and Bells. 5
XV,
As yet you are not equal to the task;
A sense of euphony you still must lack;
Nor could you do your duty by the cask
Of yearly sack.
XVI.
Just now, withal (that's twice we’ve said “withal’),
The place is filled by some one sitting there;
Yet poets pass; he, too, will leave his stall
And go elsewhere.
XVII.
Meanwhile, to trust you with a pointed pen,
Dear babe, would manifestly be absurd;
Besides, all well-conducted little men
Are seen, not heard.
XVIII.
First, how to tutor your prehensile mind
Shall be the object of our deep concern;
We'll teach you grammar; grammar, you wil/find,
Takes years to learn.
6 In Cap and Belis.
XIX.
'Twixt—mark the pretty word—'twixt boy and man
You shall collate from every source that's
known
A blended style; which may be better than
One of your own.
XX.
Your classic mould shall be completely mixed
Of Rome’s robustness and the grace of Greece;
And you shall be a Tory, planted 'twixt
Plenty and peace.
XXI.
And lo! we call you ALFRED ! Kinglihood
Lies in the name of Him, the Good and Great!
You may not rise to greatness; O be good
At any rate ’’
XXII.
Eight happy summers passed and Southey too,
And one that had the pull in point of age
Walked in; for Alfred still was struggling through
The grammar-stage.
In Cap and Bells. 7
XXIII.
When William followed out in Robert’s wake,
An alien Alfred filled the vacant spot,
Possibly by some clerical mistake,
Possibly not.
XXIV.
Our friend had then achieved but fifteen years,
Nor yet against him was there aught to quote;
For he had uttered in the nation’s ears
Not half a note.
YXV.
Adult, no more he dreamed the laurel-wreath,”
But wandered, being credentialled * to the Bar,
There where the Northern Circuit wheels beneath
The Polar star.
XXVI.
One day, asleep in Court, Apollo's crown
All in a briefless moment his he saw;
Then cast his interloping wig adown
And dropped the Law.
* Poetical license.
8 In Cap and Bells.
XXVII.
Henceforth with loyal pen he laboured for
His England (situated on the main);
Wrote in the tragic, or satiric, or
Some other vein.
XXVIII.
At forty-one he let his feelings go:—
“If he, that other Alfred, ever die,
And I am not appointed, I will know
The reason why ''
XXIX.
Some sixteen further autumns bound their
sheaves;
With hope deferred wild battle he had waged,
And written books. At last the laurel-leaves
Were disengaged.
XXX.
Felicitators, bursting through his bowers,
Came on him hoeing roots. With mild surprise,
“Leave me alone,” he said, “among my flowers
To botanise.”
In Cap and Bells. 9
XXXI.
The Prime Elector, Man of Many Days,
Though Allan’s Muse adorned the Liberal side,
Seizing the swift occasion, left the bays
Unoccupied.
XXXII.
The Peer that followed, having some regard
For humor, hitherto accounted sin,
Produced a knighthood for the blameless bard
Of proud Penbryn.
XXXIII.
At length a callous Tory chief arose,
Master of caustic jest and cynic gibe,
Looked round the Carlton Club and lightly chose
Its leading scribe.
XXXIV.
And so with heaving heart and happy tears
Our patient Alfred took the tardy spoil,
Though spent with sixty venerable years
Of virtuous toil.
IO In Cap and Bells.
XXXV.
And ever when marsh-marigolds are cheap
And new potatoes crown the death of May,
If memory serve us, we propose to keep
His natal day.
In Cap and Bells. II
AMONG THE ROARING FORTIES;
OR, THE NEW MéNAGERIE OF LETTERS.
[Mr. Algernon Charles Swinburne, in a letter to the Zimes,
complained bitterly that when, “in this decadent month,” the
demise of the sea-serpent and the giant gooseberry is followed
by the resurgence of “that ridiculous monster,” an English
Academy of Letters, his name should receive the unsolicited
honor of association with so “unimaginable a gathering”;
what, indeed, he might call a “col/advies literarum.” He
strongly resented the “adulation of such insult.”]
WHEN the fiends of fog are on Autumn’s traces,
The herald of Yule and the year's decay
Smears the lungs and smothers the faces
With slime that slithers and germs that slay;
And the amorous microbe leaves his lair,
And walks abroad with a wicked air,
And unabashed the wanton chases
By nebulous noon his palsied prey.
For the Silly Season is past and over,
Gone with the equinoctial gales;
That sinuous hoax, the hoar sea-rover,
Curbs the pride of his prancing scales;
I 2 In Cap and Bells.
And the giant gooseberry misbegotten
Lies in the limbo of all things rotten,
The savour that clings to last year's clover,
The loves that follow the light that fails.
Where shall they find what next they shall say
to us,
Give to our need what new-sent boon P
What fresh air shall the pressman play to us,
Worn to a thread with the jaunts of June 2
For to set the jaded limbs astir
Is as food and drink to the pipe-player,
And it means the deuce if, piping for pay to us,
Never a heart shall heed his tune.
But see! for a ballet is set before us,
Figures that limp on feet of lead,
Two score puppets and all sonorous,
Crowned with paper upon the head!
Past the thymele each one wobbles
Baiting the British public’s Obols—
And who fares fifth in the footling chorus 2
ALGERNoN CHARLEs! as I live by bread!
In Cap and Bells. I3
Shall Z make virtuous sport for Vandals,
I that mixed in the Maenads’ maze,
Shod in the sheen of my winged sandals,
Fellow of Fauns by woodland ways 2
Shall / parade in a vulgar buskin
With ruminant Stubbs and stolid Ruskin,
Not fit to hold two half-penny candles
To A. C. S. in his palmy days 2
For I sang of the garb and gait unstudied
Of Bacchanal routs that raged and ran;
Of the cheek of Dryad and Nymph full-blooded
That warmed at touch of the warming Pan;
Who then dares marry my Muse with these,
This literarum coſ/wzyzes 2
On him and his print and his staff that budded
I lay the curse of my lips that ban.
Have I not said, O Złmes, and sworn it,
By all oaths valid on earth and sea,
That while one blast is left to my cornet
Not, if I know it, shall these things be 2
I4 In Cap and Bells.
Not till the lion shear his locks
And share his crib with the craven ox,
Not till the fiery unyoked hornet
Mate with the mere performing flea'
In Cap and Bells. I5
AT THE SIGN OF THE COCK.
(FRENCH STYLE, I898.)
[Being an Ode in further “Contribution to the Song of
French History,” dedicated, without malice or permission, to
Mr. George Meredith.]
RoostER her sign,
Rooster her pugnant note, she struts
Evocative, amazon spurs aprick at heel;
Nid-nod the authentic stump
Of the once ensanguined comb vermeil as wine;
with conspuent doodle-doo
Hails breach o' the hectic dawn of yon New Year
Last issue up to date
Of quiverful Fate
Evolved spontaneous; hails with tonant trump
The spiriting prime o’ the clashed carillon-peal;
Ruffling her caudal plumes derisive of scuts;
Inconscient how she stalks an immarcessibly ab-
surd
Bird.
I6 In Cap and Bells.
II.
Mark where her Equatorial Pioneer
Delirant on the tramp goes littoralwise,
His Flag at furl, portmanteaued; drains to the
dregs
The penultimate brandy-bottle, coal-on-the-head-
piece gift
Of who avenged the Old Sea-Rover's smirch.
Marchant he treads the all-along of inarable drift
On dubiously connivent legs,
The facile prey of predatory flies;
Panting for further; sworn to lurch
Empirical on to the Menelik-buffered, enhavened
blue,
Rhyming—see Cantique I.-with doodle-doo.
III.
Infuriate she kicked against Imperial fact;
Vulnant she felt
What pin-stab should have stained Another's pelt
Puncture her own Colonial lung-balloon,
In Cap and Bells. I7
Volant to nigh meridian. Whence rebuffed,
The perjured Scythian she lacked
At need’s pinch, sick with spleen of the rudely
cuffed
Below her breath she cursed; she cursed the hour
When on her spring for him the young Tyrannical
broke
Amid the unhallowed wedlock’s vodka-shower,
She passionate, he dispassionate; tricked
Her wits to eye-blind; borrowed the ready as for
dower;
Till from the trance of that Hymettus-moon
She woke,
A nuptial-knotted derelict;
Pensioned with Rescripts other aid declined
By the plumped leech saturate urging Peace
In guise of heavy-armed Gospeller to mén,
Tyrannical unto fraternal equal liberal, her. Not
she;
Not till Alsace her consanguineous find
What red deteutonising artillery
Shall shatter her beer-reek alien police
The just-now pluripollent; not till then.
2
I8 In Cap and Bells.
IV.
More pungent yet the esoteric pain
Squeezing her pliable vitals nourishes feud
Insanely grumous, grumously insane.
For lo!
Past common balmy on the Bordereau,
Churns she the skim o' the gutter’s crust
With Anti-Judaic various carmagnole,
Whooped praise of the Anti-Just;
Her boulevard brood
Gyratory in convolvements militant-mad;
Theatrical of faith in the Belliform,
Her Og,
Her Monstrous. Fled what force she had
To buckle the jaw-gape, wide agog
For the Preconcerted One,
The Anticipated, ripe to clinch the whole;
Queen-bee to hive the hither and thither volant
SW21” IIl.
Bides she his coming; adumbrates the new
Expurgatorial Divine,
In Cap and Bells. I9
Her final effulgent Avatar,
Postured outside a trampling mastodon
Black as her Baker's charger; towering; visibly
gorged
With blood of traitors. Knee-grip stiff,
Spine straightened, on he rides;
Embossed the Patriot’s brow with hieroglyph
Of martial dossiers, nothing forged
About him save his armour. So she bides
Voicing his advent indeterminably far,
Booster her sign,
Rooster her conspuent doodle-doo.
V.
Behold her, pranked with spurs for bloody sport,
How she acclaims,
A crapulous chanticleer,
Breach of the hectic dawn of yon New Year.
Not yet her fill of rumours sucked;
Inebriate of honour; blushfully wroth;
Tireless to play her old primaeval games;
Her plumage preened the yet unplucked
2O In Cap and Bells.
Like sails of a galleon, rudder hard amort
With crepitant mast
Fronting the hazard to dare of a dual blast
The intern and the extern, blizzards both.
In Cap and Bells. 2 I
COMIN’ THRO’ THE ROMANY RYE.
[The Daily Chronicle, reviewing Mr. Theodore Watts-
Dunton's poem, ZThe Coming of Love, remarked : “The
Romany idiom possesses an immense advantage over our
poor, every-day English, in offering at least two new rhymes
for “love'—“tuv' (smoke) and ‘puv' (a field). These are
priceless additions to the meagre Saxon stock—" dove,’ ‘glove,’
‘above,’ and the impossible ‘shove.’” The reviewer scarcely
did justice to Mr. Watts-Dunton's liberal ear, which allows
him, in this volume, to employ “cove,” “move,” “grove,”
“approve,” and “rove,” to rhyme with this same sound of
“love.”]
} } { {
IT is the massive gipsy-maid!
I think I recognize my Luv;
Hither she walks; I see her wade
Across the Sodden turnip-puv ; Field.
O Luv, my Luv'
The lark is tootling in the sky,
Coos in his cot the wedded duv;
Then wherefore should not you and I
Gambol like rabbits in the gruv P
O Luv, my Luv'
22
In Cap and Bells.
Come, let us fly the wicked world,
And all the simpler pleasures pruv,
For life’s a vapor thinly curled,
And human glory ends in tuv, Smoke.
O Luv, my Luv'
By stilly ponds and stagnant meres
In solemn silence we will muv,
Or whisper down each other’s ears
The trifles we are thinking uv,
O Luv, my Luv'
Or let us from the ocean’s marge
Out in an open wherry shuv,
And when the moon is fairly large
Perambulate a sandy cuv,
O Luv, my Luv'
Or, where the sheathèd filbert shoots,
Your dusky hands that scorn a gluv
Shall pluck and pass me fairer fruits
Than tooth of ADAM ever cluv,
O Luv, my Luv'
In Cap and Bells. 23
And if, in case of cold or rain,
We cannot comfortably ruv,
We'll twine our noses on the pane,
Or stew beside the peety stuv,
O Luv, my Luv'
Such dreams, so roseate and warm
My free, erotic fancy wuv,
When first your fine and ample form
TJpon my swooning vision huv,
O Luv, my Luv'
You're not, I grant you, free from fault;
Your grammar one might well impruv;
Your brow is tanned a rich cobalt;
But still you are a treasure-truv'
O Luv, my Luv'
And with a creature like my Own,
As tentatively sketched abuv,
Oft have I heard (though never known)
Of poets who serenely thruv,
O Luv, my Luv'
24 In Cap and Bells.
Then let us fly the wicked world,
And take our chance alone with luv;
For life's a vapor thinly curled,
And all ambitions end in tuv, Smoke.
Mere tuv, my Luv' Smoke.
In Cap and Bells. 25
THE WOMAN WITH THE DEAD CERT.
[An exercise in accentuation, with the author's admiring
regards to his friend, Mr. Stephen Phillips, Academy Coronee.]
ENTRANCED by the soul-captivating light,
Red, green and sapphirine, piercing the night,
From bulbous bottles in a mooned row,
Through the chemist’s and druggist’s shop-door,
lo!
I passed. Without, a terrier, a dumb thing,
Draws his blind master attached by a string,
Straining. He was so strong almost I wept,
Wondering how the patient beggar kept
Up. Thinly from a far Teutonic band
Soldiers of the Queen floated down the Strand.
And lo! along the ardent street,
The usual average of feet,
Braving the clotted traffic’s tides
In buttons or elastic sides!
And I was 'ware how one in haste
Went by with both his boots unlaced!
26 In Cap and Bells.
Across the road, outside a bar,
A dull mechanic motor-car
Stood uncomplaining while within
Its driver slowly swallowed gin.
With shame my human fibres shook
At this significant rebuke;
Right in my heart I felt the stab
Dealt by the mute electric cab.
So to the counter warily I drew
And hailed the chemist: “I will trouble you
For some Miltonian trochees, if you please,
Which to the voice give comfortable ease,
When mellifluously it would rehearse
Blank, or, in other phrase, iambic verse.’
And even as I spake, oh, lo! I saw
A woman sipping sal volatile, raw,
Out of a test-tube. Her sinister eye,
That shone like a bay-window dreadfully,
Was furnished with an infelicitous cast
Such as I deemed should indicate a past
Disillusioned. A nice, funereal plume
Lent to her hat a quiet touch of gloom.
In Cap and Bells. 27
Partly for ruth no word I found to say,
And partly since a truant trochee lay
Athwart my throat. At length the silence stirred,
As when in the green dark an early bird
Twitters. Her tale she told without reserve;
Keenly I remember her placid nerve.
She had, when life was full of tranquil hay,
A beloved husband, by profession a
Dynamiter. Most proud indeed was she
Of his infernal ingenuity.
It chanced a public edifice was blown
To bits, with people in it. Cause was shewn
None; but a paltry furlong thence they came
TJpon the artist’s collar, with his name
And blood thereon. But of the rest of him
Not so much as a fragmentary limb
Anywhere found they. The Coroner said
That the deceased had merely saved his head
By an alibi. So in weeds she went,
Doubtful at first, but growing confident
As one that hath a dead cert. By-and-by
After a lustre of celibacy
She married with a publican and drew
28 In Cap and Bells.
Beer at his bar; nor even so much as knew
Who Mrs. Arden was.
But on a day,
She serving liquors, lo! there chanced that way
A lurid reveller of familiar mould,
Dight in a massive chain of Yukon gold;
And on her first husband, before she wist,
Swooned heavily the conscious bigamist /
Anon the police held their man in thrall;
And, ere the second moon’s full coronal
Came round, from the scaffold, clean-shaved and
Cropped,
Weighted, arranged, deliberate, he dropped,
Leaving a sullied widow; yea, and lone,
That should be; for they whispered he had gone,
Her second mate, that morning, being wed
With the barmaid. This also was a dead
Cert. Here her welling tears that might not dry
Fell in the test-tube very bitterly.
Therewith the chemist, having overheard,
Sobbed like a babe. The motor-cab, referred
To in a previous passage, moved about
Involuntarily; and lo! the shout
In Cap and Bells. 29
Raucous-insistent of the Specials broke
The stilly mud-blue nocturne; and I spoke.
Pitiful words I spoke that filtered through
Her arid feelings as the divine dew
Freshens Sahara. In the mirror she
Ordered her gear. The sal volatile
I paid for, with the trochees, nett; and so
NIoving with rhythmic step, composed and slow,
Into the large, elusive night I glide
With that strange woman, my affianced /ride /
3O In Cap and Bells.
THE FIGHTING GEFION.
[After Mr. Newbolt. Suggested by the voyage of Prince
Henry of Prussia to China.]
IT was nine bells ringing,
As they swaggered out O' Kiel,
For the watch was busy singing,
And they’d overdone the peel;
It was nine bells ringing,
For the watch was busy singing,
And the pilot's wife was clinging
To the pilot at the wheel.
Oh / to hear the fisſons founding,
Aaiser/and / A aiser/and/
And ſhe osculations sounding,
A aſser/and// A aſser/and A
Oh / ſo hear the pistoms founding
And the osculations sounding,
And Our Only Broſher bounding
On the boom ſo Kaiser/and//
In Cap and Bells. 3I
It was trombones trumping
In the military band,
And the tide was slowly slumping
As he waved his mailèd hand;
It was trombones trumping,
And the tide was slowly slumping,
And the KAISER’s heart was bumping
As they shoved Him off to land.
Oh / they're bound for blood and glory,
A aiserland / Kaiser/and/
But their head's zwil/a/ be hoary,
Aaiser/and// A aiser/and/
Oh / they're àound for blood and glory,
But their heads will all be hoary
Bre they fell the “gospel-story”
On the shores of Áaiserland/
It was fog-horns blowing,
Where the forts o' Spithead frown,
And the tide belike was flowing,
And belike was running down;
32
In Cap and Bells.
It was fog-horns blowing,
And the tide belike was flowing,
When Henricus started rowing
On the loose for London town.
There’ll be many another stopping,
Aaiser/and / A aiser/and/
When the engine-fires are dropping,
A aiserland / Kaiser/and/
There’ll be many another stopping,
When ſhe engine-fires are dropping,
And the good fuð goes a-flopping
Aitch-an’-toss for Áaiser/and/
It was cracked mugs clinking,
As they sighted Singapore,
And the bleary eyes were blinking
At the hope o' touching shore;
It was cracked mugs clinking,
And the bleary eyes were blinking,
But the cabin-boy was sinking
With his eighty years or more!
In Cap and Bells. 33
Oh / the crumpled masts were creaking,
A aiser/and / A aiser/and/
And the bilge was frankly leaking,
Aaiser/and / A aiser/and//
Oh / the crumpled masts were creaking,
And the bilge was frankly leaking,
And their throats were dry wi' speaking
Mosz profane o' A'aiserland/
It was dumb bells tolling
As they reeled at half a knot,
For they’d done a deal o' coaling,
But the pace was never hot;
It was dumb bells tolling,
And they’d done a deal o' coaling,
When the wherry came a-rolling
On to WILLIAM's little plot.
Mine-and-ninety years zwere over /
A aſser/and / A aiser/and/
Since they cleared the Straits o' Dover/
A aiser/and// A aiserland Z
3
34 In Cap and Bells.
Mine-and-ninety years from Dover,
And the lengthy lease was over,
And the heathem sat in clover
On the pews o' Kaiser/and/
In Cap and Bells. 35
A SONG OF INACTION.
[Being a comment on the first chapter of the Cuban War,
after one of Dr. A. Conan Doyle's “Songs of Action.”]
THERE was a sanguinary war out West—
(Wake 'em up, shake 'em up, try 'em on the trans-
ports)
There was a sanguinary war out West,
And the troops lay low on the cocktail quest;
Ho, the jolly fighting braves
Playing poker by the waves,
All beside the Cuban Seal
The leaguer it lolled by Tampa Bay—
(Prog 'em up, jog 'em up, put 'em on the war-
path)
The leaguer it lolled by Tampa Bay
Nipping by night and napping by day;
Ho, the gunners so slack
They can barely lynch a black,
All beside the Cuban Sea!
36 In Cap and Bells.
The regulars danced to the military band—
(Screw her round, slue her round, every stitch
a-straining)
The regulars danced to the military band,
Steel on the heel and kid on the hand;
Ho, the men of warlike arts
Working havoc with the hearts,
All beside the Cuban Seal
The Tailoring Boss sat tight at home—
(Rake 'em up, fake 'em up, worry on the war-
paint)
The Tailoring Boss sat tight at home—
And Sampson he sat tight on the foam;
Ho, the gallant volunteers
With their tunics in arrears,
All beside the Cuban Seal
General Miles he has come on tour—
(March 'em out, starch 'em out, put 'em through
their facings)
General Miles he has come on tour,
And General Miles he is slow and sure;
In Cap and Bells. 37
Ho, the marshal man of blood,
See him chew the careful cud
All beside the Cuban Seal
There are sad salt tears on the best girls' cheeks—
(Row 'em out, tow 'em out, stuff’em in the steerage)
There are sad salt tears on the best girls'
cheeks,
For the heroes have sailed after eight short
weeks;
Ho, the shouting throats are thick
For the warriors will be sick,
Sick upon the Cuban Sea!
They have gallantly weathered the glassy
main—
(Row 'em in, tow 'em in, beach 'em through the
breakers)
They have gallantly weathered the glassy main,
And they’re safe on terra cotta again;
And before the year is through
We may hear of something new
Somewhere by the Cuban Sea!
38 In Cap and Bells.
ALFRED’S ALFRED.
[Being a supposed report of the Witenagemote (or meeting
of Wise Men) convened to discuss a fitting form for the com-
memoration of the millenary of Alfred the Great's demise ;
the Lord Mayor of London presiding, supported by Mr. Alfred
Austin, etc.]
The Chairman. I call on Mr. Austin for a speech.
Zhe Poet Laureate (rising). My Lord and Athelings,
Ealdormen and Thanes!
This is withal an unexpected pleasure!
Yet, when I think on it, you could not well
Have made a better choice, since I am he
Who did you England's Darling in a book.
I see before me certain men of mark
(And others) habited in decent black,
Mourning the disappearance of the late
Alfred deceased, who, I regret to say,
Became a section of the dreadful past
Nine hundred seven and ninety years ago
Precisely. Add another three withal,
And lo! it makes four figures—does it not ?
[Pause.
In Cap and Bells. 39
A Voice. It does.
The A2. I. I see you follow me; ’tis well.
Now note, I freely grant that there are some
Who claim attention as belonging to
Even remoter ages than our friend's;
As, for example, Alcibiades,
Confucius, Pompey, Euclid, Obadiah,
Adam and Bede. But none of all the lot
(And I could name with ease a dozen more)
Has been so intimately mixed as he
With the incipient aspirations of
Our British Navy!
It is not my wish,
Nay, God forbid that I should underrate
The gifts of Mr. Goschen, when I say
That, if Britannia rules the present waves,
To Alfred is the primal credit due.
Zord Charles Beresford. Hear! hear!
The AE’. Z. I was, in fact, about to add,
Before his lordship made the above remark,
That it was Alfred who designed the ships,
The long-oared wherries which at Swanage
clave
4O
In Cap and Bells.
The Danish esks. The esk, you ought to
know,
Is not a quadruped with antlers, but
A boat. You have it in Act IV., Scene II.,
Of England's Darling. Yea! or rather, Aye!
(The Press will kindly spell it with an e,
Although, of course, it really hasn’t one.)
Aye! more than that: he was an all-round
man,
A scholar: knew a power of botany
(I taught him pages of it in the book,
Act III., Scene IV.), and trained the young idea
In reading, writing and arithmetic,
Being, as one may say, the prototype
Of London’s School Board.
Sir John Gorst. Heavens !
The AE’. W. Aye, ’tis sooth !
Withal he rendered into Saxon jargon
The Conso/aſions of Boethius!
You may have read 'em 2 No 2
Sir John Zubbock. A glorious work!
One of the Hundred Pleasures of my Life;
God bless him!
In Cap and Bells. 4 I
ZThe P. Z. Eke the same to you, Sir John.
Likewise he started on his own account
The eight-hours movement.
Mr. J. Burns. Good Old Alfred
The P. Z. And
Contributed in leisure moments to
The Chronicle, before the Norman came
And managed our affairs. He too it was
Welded the bond of Church and State.
A ord Cranborne. Bravo!
Z%é F. Z. And, though a fighting patriot—
Mr. Boze/es. Hear! Oh, hear!
7%e P. Z. He granted territory to the Danes,
A graceful and polite concession.
Sir E//is Ashmead-Barfleft. Shame!
The P. Z. Yon Thane will be so good as to with-
draw
His coarse ejaculation.
Sir E. A.-B. Never!
The P. Z. Well,
Let us continue just the same withal.
And to the point, how best to advertise
The sense of our irreparable loss!
42 In Cap and Bells.
Having regard to his (our Darling's) tact
In naval architecture, there are some
Would have us, at the nation's own expense,
Build an unparalleled torpedo-boat,
And call it Alfred.
First Zord of the Admiralty. Ripping!
Mr. Zabouchere. Not at all !
The P. Z. Some, mindful of the monarch's ready
skill
In pure vernacular, would like to found
Professorships of Saxon in the more
Congested parts of Ireland.
Mr. Zecky. Very good.
The P. Z. Myself in this connection had a thought,
A passing thought, of some addition to
The Laureate’s endowment.
Mr. Bernard Shazey. Tut! and pooh!
The P. Z. I will ignore that callous observa-
tion.
Others, again, on insufficient grounds,
Would institute an Alfred Handicap
At Kempton Park.
Zord Rosebery. I wholly disapprove!
In Cap and Bells. 43
The P. Z. And some, untutored in orthography,
Or wanting to be funny, which is worse,
Would have the London County Council ope
An Alfred Millinery Depôt in
The Works Department.
A ord Onslow. Oh!
7%e P. Z. And, last, the people,
Lovers of all things beautiful, desire
Some adamant (or plaster) effigy—
A hearth, with toasted cakes, and in the midst
Alfred, in pensive mood, belaboured by
A British Matron: fit to be erected
Upon a refuge in the narrowest
Portion of Piccadilly.
Iord Roberts (of Kandahar and the Cabmen's
Onion). I object.
The P. Z. I cite no more proposals, though there
be
More to be had; but merely make remark
That fortune favors us in point of date.
We do not menace France; nor mean to mar
The genial status quo by clashing with
Our neighbors’ Universal Exposition.
44
In Cap and Bells.
Nor need we hastily decide withal,
Having three years in which to do the thing.
Two we might spend in tentative debate,
And— [Zeft speaking.
In Cap and Bells. 45
LINES WRITTEN (“By REQUEST’’)
FOR A DINNER OF THE OMAR
KHAYYAM CLUB.
MASTER, in memory of that Verse of Thine,
And of Thy rather pretty taste in Wine,
We gather at this jaded Century’s end,
Our Cheeks, if so we may, to incarnadine.
Thou hast the kind of Halo which outstays
Most other Genii’s. Though a Laureate’s bays
Should slowly crumple up, Thou livest on,
Having survived a certain Paraphrase.
The Lion and the Alligator squat
In Dervish Courts—the Weather being hot—
TJnder Umbrellas. Where is Mahmūd now P
Plucked by the Kitchener and gone to Pot!”
* Written just after the battle of the Atbara.
46 In Cap and Bells.
Not so with Thee; but in Thy place of Rest,
Where East is East and never can be West,
Thou art the enduring Theme of dining Bards;
O make Allowances; they do their Best.
Our health—Thy Prophet's health—is but so-so;
Much marred by men of Abstinence who know
Of Thee and all Thy lovely Tavern-lore
Nothing, nor care for it one paltry Blow.
Yea, we ourselves, who beam around Thy Bowl,
Somewhat to dull Convention bow the Soul,
We sit in sable Trouserings and Boots,
Nor do the Vine-leaves deck a single Poll.
How could they bloom in uncongenial air P
Nor, though they bloomed profusely, should we
Wear
|Upon our Heads—so tight is Habit’s hold—
Aught else beside our own unaided Hair.
In Cap and Bells. 47
The Epoch curbs our Fancy. What is more,
TO BE, in any case, is now a Bore.
Even in Humour there is nothing new;
There is no Joke that was not made before.
But Thou! with what a fresh and poignant sting
Thy Muse remarked that Time was on the Wing!
Ah, Golden Age, when virgin was the Soil,
And Decadence was deemed a newish Thing.
These picturesque departures now are stale;
The noblest Vices have their vogue and fail;
Through some inherent Taint or lack of Nerve
We cease to sin upon a generous scale.
This hour, though drinking at my Host's ex-
pense,
I fear to use a fine Incontinence,
For terror of the Law and him that waits
Outside, the unknown X, to hale us hence.
48 In Cap and Bells.
For, should he make of us an ill Report
As pipkins of the more loquacious Sort,
We might be lodged, the Lord alone knows
Where,
Save Peace were purchased with a pewter Quart.
And yet, O Lover of the purple Vine,
Haply Thy Ghost is watching how we dine;
Ah, let the Whither go; we'll take our chance
Of fourteen days with option of a Fine.
MASTER, if we, Thy Vessels, staunch and stout,
Should stagger, half-seas-over, blind with Doubt,
In sound of that dread moaning of the Bar,
Be near, be very near, to bail us out!
In Cap and Bells. 49
THE PLAINT OF DYING HUMOUR.
(AFTER C. S. C.)
[“It is reported that Sir Lewis Morris” (M. A., Author of
“The Epic of Hades,” “Songs Unsung,” “Songs without
Notes,” etc., retired candidate for Carmarthen Boroughs, and
J. P.) “has complained that laughter is dying out.”—Daily
Paper.]
I KNow not what the cause should be
That Humour melts my heart no more;
That nothing now induces me
To roar.
In days of old my waistcoat heaved
Conjointly with my heaving chest
As soon as ever I perceived
A jest.
The simple pun, the patent wheeze,
Would take me in the diaphragm;
But now I hardly care for these
A cent.
5O In Cap and Bells.
I almost fear—I know not why—
That Laughter’s fount has been mislaid;
I could not giggle, not if I
Was paid.
And yet my health is very fair;
I harbour no religious doubts;
And am but sixty-four or there-
-abouts.
Time was when I and others laughed;
When many an apoplectic fit
Was traced directly to a shaft
Of wit;
For such would find the harness-joint,
And pierce the vulnerable spot,
Whether they chanced to have a point
Or not.
You know the “Welsh Harp,” Hendon way ?
Well, I had one—it came from Wales;
On this it was my pride to play
The scales.
In Cap and Bells. 5 I
Occasionally I would strike
Such notes as never yet were heard;
Or even sing without them, like
A bird.
I sang for joy with either lung;
I drew applause from youngish maids;
And had a small success among
The shades.
And once, when I was straitly pressed
To go and stand for Parliament,
I ceased my singing (by request)
And went.
I went and canvassed. Celtic fire
Flamed in my eye and scorched the lid;
And when they asked me to retire,
I did.
I settled down again and played
The same old harp with all my might;
And subsequently I was made
A knight.
52
In Cap and Bells.
But when the ever-verdant bays
Alighted on another’s head,
Somehow I deemed that Humour's days
Were dead.
And yet, who knows? If I myself,
Constrained to be no longer dumb,
Should lift my harp from off its shelf
And strum
The Spirit of Laughter (if I’m right),
Though sadly worn, is still alive;
And, under these conditions, might
Revive!
In Cap and Bells. 53
RESIGNATION.
[Being two versions of the same theme, attempted in the
manner (I) of Tennyson, (2) of Browning.]
I.
MORTE D'HARCOURT ;
OR, THE BALLON D'ESSAI.
º º e tº º º º © e
THEN murmured Harcourt: “Place me in the
car.”
So to the great balloon they strolled along.
And those three knights, the doleful Jean 1'Hon-
nète,
Sir Bel-champ Porte-drapeau, Sir Cop-la-poule,
Over the side heavily hoisting him,
Took out their handkerchiefs, and wept therein.
But he that had the sternest eye of all
And wettest, he the penman, Jean l’Honnète,
Arranged the Chieftain's head upon his lap,
54 In Cap and Bells.
And loosed his morion and chafed his chin
Duplex, and ran his fingers through the locks
That like a lion's or the rising sun
High o'er the field would flame with ardent fringe.
Then he unlaced the cuirass, letting out
The breath in grievous pants; and dropped a hint,
Darkling, of foul play, mentioning no names.
So like an extinct mammoth lay the Chief;
Not like that Harcourt who, from head to heel
Plantagenet through all his azure blood,
Let off his Budget underneath the eyes
Of gracious ladies beaming through the grille.
Then loudly called the doleful Jean l’Honnéte
For ink and plume, and took his scroll and wrote:
“O my dear Harcourt, what are we to do P
For lo! the former times are now defunct,
When every day produced some gallant scheme
For riding out to tilt at human wrongs—
The Union, or the Church, or else the Drink—
And every scheme some gallant lance to run it.
Such times have not been since our errant knights
Took shame of wearing shamrock in their hair.
And now the whole ROUND TABLE breaketh up,
In Cap and Bells. 55
And on its legs the heathen hack their names,
And I, the last of all thy true Elect,
As in a dim-brown study I am left
To write the record of the days that were.”
He ceased, and made a copy for the Press,
And on the fallen warrior’s failing heart
Pinned the original; and so with pain
Over the side, fearfully clinging, dropped.
Then slowly murmured Harcourt from the car:
“The good old order changeth; ay, perchance
It was too large an order—who shall say ”
For men may have too much of one good thing.
Therefore I go; I have done my work, and feel
My conscience all serene. Yet let thy voice
Roll like an organ for me in the Press,
That men may learn the worth of what they lose.
And now farewell! I am addressed to go
A strange excursion—if indeed Zgo,
For I myself have had my doubts of this—
To some far-off ačrial Lotus-isle,
A land where it is evermore P. M.;
Where falls not any noise of party-strife,
Nor horrid hum of rival leaderships,
56 In Cap and Bells.
But all is inward calm, with ample space
For writing reams of letters to the 7%mes.”
He ended, having finished. Then the twain,
Sir Bel-champ Porte-drapeau, Sir Cop-la-poule,
Planted on earth securely, cut the rope,
And looking each on other slowly winked.
But the balloon, unwitting how it bore
The weightiest remnant of the TABLE ROUND,
Made for the Ezwigkeit. Then Jean l’Honnéte
Deep-pondering stood at gaze, until the car
Shewed as a flea athwart the vast inane;
Then, turning through the Forest, wearily drew
To Lyndhurst Road, and took the train for town,
Here ceased the speaker's tale. So I to bed;
And dreaming far into the Christmas dawn,
Beheld a parachute, and therewithal
Pendent a personage of stateliest port,
That earthward shot; and all the people cried:
“Harcourt is come again! We knew he would ”
And Cymric voices echoed: “Come again!
He never meant to die!” Whereat I woke,
Rose, dressed, and told my dreaming to the wise,
But there was none that could expound the thing.
In Cap and Bells. 57
II.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
SIR w. v. HARCOURT (writing).
MR. JOHN MORLEY (not there).
AND you are back among your books again,
Who never should have left that first employ!
So George Trevelyan thinks; and he should know.
Too giddy-fickle was the life of State
For one who walks i' th' world with single eye
And scorns to wink the other. Good old John
I, too, the frequent butt of Fortune's spite,
And deafened with the windy war of words
(Your captious -Bannerman, your talking -Beach),
Fall back upon my earliest delight,
Humaner Letters—written to the Złmes.
The year declines: in yonder Malwood glades
The last leaf drops reluctant, leaving bare
The last cock-pheasant. I could hit the thing
From this same window, if he did not move!
I was a fighter once; but that is past,
Except on paper. You recall the time
When, under that great Captain's eagle glance,
58 In Cap and Bells.
I in the golden prime of Derby days,
You at Newcastle (somewhere in the North),
We fought like Kitcheners for Irish Rule—
Or was it Local Veto One forgets!
How like a dream the youthful splendour fades!
For we were relatively young, and took
Time by the forelock, which is not the same
As Celtic fringes. Life had colour then,
And where the shadows crossed it, you and I,
Did we not let our sunbeam-play of wit
Fall like a glad surprise 2 I fancy so.
But even Autumn's after-glow is off;
And now a common blueness, winter’s wear,
Obscures the prospect—which is also blue.
John, have you ever been a Leader P No.
That’s where the difference comes in. I have!
And still the glory clings to me in name
Though not in substance. May you never know
How exquisite a pain it is for one
Built as I am, opaque and something more,
To be regarded as a pervious ghost,
A wraith, a sort of thing through which you walk
And notice no obstruction' This is bad.
In Cap and Bells. 59
But all night long to labour at the nets,
The weary night and never lift a fish,
And then, at 9 A.M., to hear report
About Another breakfasting in bed
On bloated herring—this is even worse!
You take my allegory There’s a Man
Affects the City functions, moves at large
On Sundry platforms up and down the land,
Making remarks on books and Grand Old Men
And foreign complications; signs himself
Patriot first and politician next,
And has a curious way of winning hearts!
That is the Man whose blood I wish to have
I thank my Natal Star that never yet
Was I accused of being popular !
My simpler aim has been to know my place,
And Žeep it. In the former I succeed,
But sometimes fail to bring the latter off.
Still there are compensations. I shall read
Your biograph, though you, I fear, have missed
My letters on the Church. I often wish
That you could feel yourself more closely drawn
To Cleric matters! Good-bye, Honest John.
6o In Cap and Bells.
THE BOOK OF OOM.
HYMN I.
(Common metre.)
[To be sung on the anniversary of Jameson's Raid.]
LIKE goodly cedars, fresh and green,
On Lebanon that climb,
So may the righteous man be seen
To flourish all the time. *
When foolish enemies arise
Against him to prevail,
The same are taken by surprise
And ludicrously fail.
No trust he puts in man or horse
Lest pride should be undone,
But of his foes he counts the force
And meets them, four to one.
In Cap and Bells. 6 I
And when is wrought his righteous plan,
He bears not any grudge,
Nor judgeth he his fellow-man,
Lest others him should judge.
His ear he opes to their appeal,
Nor can his ruth withhold;
For who shall mercy wisely deal
Is dealt an hundredfold.
Yet, should his foes go straightly free,
Then were the lesson vain,
Eor so they might encouraged be
To do the same again.
How may their sins be purged that cry
“We do indeed repent!”
Save as a blain is proběd by
A prickly instrument 2
Though shrinketh mercy from the act,
And though the heathen rage,
The righteous surely shall extract
Of sin the seemly wage.
62
In Cap and Bells.
Nor will he loose one little cord
Till stony they be broke;
Then hath the righteous his reward,
And puts it in his poke.
And so, like cedars, fresh and green,
On Lebanon that climb,
The pious Dopper may be seen
To flourish all the time.
I still would be a Dopper and
The Dopper’s prize receive,
And have a hymnal in my hand
And something up my sleeve!
HYMN II.
(Same metre.)
Lo! as is laid the fowler's gin
For conies and for hares,
So do the pleasant paths of sin
Abound in deadly snares.
In Cap and Bells. 63
Of such as oft offend his foot
Who wanders from the fold,
Of these the tap-, or primal, root
Is giddy lust of gold.
In pastures green the righteous graze
Like unto fatted kine,
Nor with the wicked choose the ways
Of darkness down a mine.
With godly rage and grief renewed,
Their fervid breast is smit
To mark the naughty multitude
Descend into the Pit.
And, as of wine th' enticing red
They shun within the cup,
So at the ore they shake their head
When it is scooped up.
Yea, for the foolish heathen’s sake
They labour long and sore
The pleasant paths of sin to make
Less pleasant than before.
64
In Cap and Bells.
And whoso will not turn away
Nor, timely wise, repent,
Upon his lifted oof they lay
A tax of five per cent.
So from the sinful yellow crop,
As with a whetted scythe,
The faithful ones delight to lop
Their wage of half a tithe.
Though pious men of single eye
Not paid can be with pelf,
Who helpeth Heaven may thereby
Be found to help himself.
Thus for an holy end they take
The spoil of them that spin,
And from their filthy lucre rake
The goodly shekels in.
No fear of dearth or grievous debt
Their hearts shall e'er appal
Who, like the hungry ravens, get
By faith their wherewithal.
In Cap and Bells. 65
Look not to princes! These at need
Turn right (or left) about;
The ways of Kaisers are indeed
Past hope of finding out!
Blind in their ignorance or youth
By crooked paths they go,
Nor yet have learned the blessed truth
Which runneth as below:
Who ſends the righteous of his store
May build this hope upon,
To reaft an hundredfold, or more,
AVož now, but laſer on M
5
66 In Cap and Bells.
TO JULIA UNDER LOCK AND KEY.
[A form of betrothal gift in America is an anklet secured
by a padlock, of which the other party keeps the key.]
WHEN like a bud my JULIA blows
In lattice-work of silken hose,
Pleasant I deem it is to note
How, 'neath the nimble petticoat,
Above her fairy shoe is set
The circumvolving zonulet.
And soothly for the lover’s ear
A perfect bliss it is to hear
About her limb so lithe and lank
My Julia’s ankle-bangle clank.
Not rudely tight, for 'twere a sin
To corrugate her dainty skin;
Nor yet so large that it might fare
Over her foot at unaware;
But fashioned nicely with a view
To let her airy stocking through:
So as, when Julia goes to bed,
Of all her gear disburdenèd,
In Cap and Bells. 67
This ring at least she shall not doff
Because she cannot take it off.
And since thereof I hold the key,
She may not taste of liberty,
Not though she suffer from the gout,
Unless I choose to let her out.
* © Q
e
g & tº
sº *
68 In Cap and Bells.
THE DOMESTIC BALLAD;
oR, THE SONG THAT TOUCHES THE SPOT.
[“It is all very well saying that sentiment is cheap, but
that is said as a rule by your asinine critic, who doesn't
understand human nature, a wretched being who doesn't
realize that it means getting to people's hearts.”—“A Zºalk
with Mr. F. E. Weatherly” in Great ZThoughts.]
OH say not “Sentiment is cheap to-day!”
How can the song that makes a man to weep
Or else (conversely) wipes his tears away
Be cheap 2
Nor say that sea-girt England's heart is dumb,
Her feeling for the briny lapsed or lost;
That sailors on the foam have now become
A frost;
That that unique creation, Mancy Zee,
No more can stir the bosom as she stands
Waving upon an eligible quay
Her hands;
:
In Cap and Bells. 69
That he who ploughed the deep with such aplomb,
Whose heart was ever open, brave and true,
Whose yarns derived a racy flavour from
The blue;—
For whom the total female neighbourhood,
All free to use the Christian name of Jack,
Prayed that the list of wrecks might not include
His smack;-
That he, the British type, whose breast achieved
Ever new miracles of grit and pluck,
Has now, to put it vulgarly, received
The Chuck |
No, never! Nor shall changing taste depose
The simple serio-pathetic song
Of love elated, or the sort that goes
All wrong.
Under the stress of music's low appeal
Oft have I noticed men about the Town,
Strong men, encumbered by a heavy meal,
Break down,
7o In Cap and Bells.
Hearing the tale of Darby and his Joan,
Or that of those who whispered lovers' lore
In the dear days of what is widely known
As “yore ”;
Who, mad with memory of the morning dew
That pearled the poppied meads where once
they met,
Are recommended by the writer to
Forget.
Ah! yes; for at the after-dinner hour,
When even hearts of stone incline to melt,
'Tis then the homely ballad-monger’s power
Is felt.
For then the mind with meat is overlaid;
From finer fancies men politely shrink;
I trow they would not willingly be made
To think.
Such, nightly, are the needs which still the old
Old Songs shall serve, and so can never pass;
Thus differing from the Critic. Him I hold
An ass!
In Cap and Bells. 7 I
ALFRED ON CAEDMON.
[“The Poet Laureate unveiled the memorial. . . . He
(Caedmon) was the half-inarticulate father of English poets
yet to be, and it was not only to the lisping ancestor but to
all his full-voiced descendants that this cross was erected.
To be wise rather than erudite being the supreme
mark and mission of the poet, very little learning equipped
the greatest of English poets for universal apprehension.”—
Daily Chronicle.
ANGLES and Saxons! We are here
To rectify an old omission,
And do our primal chanticleer
A tardy act of recognition;
Whether his C is soft as soap,
Or hard as nails like that in coffin,
With this conundrum we would cope
Had we the time to work it off in.
Twelve teeming centuries have gone
Since that acknowledged master filled a
Lowly but useful office on
The promontory of St. Hilda;
In Cap and Bells.
Immersed in feeding local swine
He had a sudden inspiration,
And launching on another line
Evolved an epic on Creation.
The hour has come, long waited for,
Here where his herd was wont to wallow,
To boom our lisping ancestor
And likewise all the bards that follow;
He failed, of course, where we succeed;
His art was young—don’t let us scorn it;
JHe whistled down a shaking reed,
We blow, full-mouthed, a mighty cornet!
Now I, who broadly represent
In poetry the last achievement—
My voice, as Laureate, is lent
To mourn the nation’s rude bereavement;
But Canon Rawnsley too shall get
Full credit for his work upon it
(I never knew a subject yet
On which he didn’t do a sonnet).
In Cap and Bells. 73
As one who has the vested right,
I want to weigh our Whitby hero;
I own he wasn’t erudite,
His knowledge, as a fact, was zero;
What then He chose the better part;
He did not need, like us, to cumber
His open mind with rules of art
And other literary lumber.
Here from this headland so sublime
(The view could hardly be completer)
He watched the waves that seldom rhyme
Yet do suggest some sort of metre;
He spoke with Nature face to face
In pious terms, like Mr. Keble;
And melts us with his artless grace,
Despite the spelling, which is feeble.
IHere still we have the moorland view
Where furrowing becks debouch in ocean;
The sea-mews wail, the sea-whales mew,
The billows still retain their motion;
74
In Cap and Bells.
Yonder the same old eagles screech,
Nothing disturbs the ancient feeling,
Save where you sniff from Whitby beach
The fume of bloaters faintly stealing.
You’ll note the cross which I propose
To offer our lamented brother;
One side presents an English rose,
An apple-tree relieves the other;
Zhis, emblematically done,
Means Eden lost through lack of morals;
That stands for Paradise re-won
By him and us who wear his laurels.
These facts, which you are free to share,
I owe to curious skill in botany,
Claiming a great advantage there
Over deceased, who hadn't got any;
More points like this might be rehearsed
In proof of my contention that your
Last poet overlooks the first,
However slight the modern’s stature.
In Cap and Bells. 75
Conclusion. Let me then unveil
Our rather pleasing crucial beacon
For educated tars to hail
And thoughtful kine to rub their cheek on;
Kaedmon! (or Saedmon 7) please to take
This stone—I now remove its jacket;
And oh! for Alfred’s honour’s sake
I trust the tripper may not hack it!
76 In Cap and Bells.
THE BITTER CRY OF THE GREAT
TJNPAID.
[Mr. Le Gallienne's proposal that millionaires should endow
genuine poets and so obtain immortality, seems, as yet, to
have elicited no adequate response.]
WHENE’ER I walk the public ways,
How many poor that lack ablution
Do probe my heart with pensive gaze,
And beg a trivial contribution'
When they accost me as “My Lord,”
And pray that Heaven may guard my going,
It cuts my vitals like a sword
To check my charity from flowing;
To pass them by as though my ear
Had missed their genial observations,
And subsequently in the rear
To catch a stream of imprecations.
In Cap and Bells. 77
Perchance originally born
Above the need of vulgar copper,
They were not ever thus forlorn,
But came a paralyzing cropper.
Haply beneath those rude outsides,
In substance scant, in texture scaly,
Some mute inglorious Barnum hides,
Or else an undeveloped Bailey.
But sadder still it is to see,
Advancing down the gutter's hollow,
Some sandwichman that used to be
Closely connected with Apollo!
Where now from shoulders slightly wrung
You note the blatant boards suspended,
In front—the living lyre was slung,
Behind—the lustrous mane descended!
Within that mane the birds of song
Would build their nests and lightly carol,
What time the owner moved along
In beauteous velveteen apparel.
78 In Cap and Bells.
Long since he sold his sounding lyre,
Pruned all his locks and pawned his raiment;
He works for mere ignoble hire
Because it offers ampler payment.
The speaking eye, the godlike brow,
That lips should lave and bosoms cherish—
We trample on them, we allow
These priceless things to go and perish'
The nations' hides are very hard;
You ask a trifle down—they grudge it;
You scarcely ever hear a Bard
So much as mentioned in a Budget.
Sweet millionaires! your chance is come;
Yours is the duty and you know it;
Surely your hearts within you hum
To reconstruct the starving Poet!
O Thomas Lipton, gallant Knight!
(Your health in fragrant tea and fruity!)
How can you sin against the light
Who paid the champion cheque for Duty 2
In Cap and Bells. 79
Sell your preserves, I say, and let
Big syndicates of Song be floated;
And, by a touch of humour, get
The Stock Exchange to have them quoted!
8o In Cap and Bells.
TO THE AUTHOR OF “THE CHRIS-
TIAN.”
RECLUSE of Keswick, connoisseur of Man
(Day services from Fleetwood or from Barrow),
Whose eye is intimately skilled to scan
The secret of the Manxman's very marrow;-
Whose art can conjure with creative wand
The types of any mortal creed or station,
Christian and Scapegoat, Ishmaelite and Bond,
Without fastidious discrimination;–
To you the maiden-song of Israel soars
In jubilees of which the general drift is—
“Our Crocketts, our Corellis, sell by scores,
But he, the People's only Caine, by fifties.”
The feet of fame forerun you while as yet
About the plot your fiery fancy lingers,
In Cap and Bells. 8I
While still the opening dialogue is wet,
Still warm beneath your palpitating fingers.
As when the tempest-cloud looms like a hand,
Waking, at most, the weather-prophet's wonder,
But, swelling visibly, involves the land
In nicely graduated blasts of thunder;
Louder they roll and louder, like the sound
Of logs across the floor of Heaven flying,
Till, long before the rain is on the ground,
The noise is positively petrifying;-
So when we hear the threat (Lord knows through
whom)
Of yet another of your masterpieces,
Far off a low premonitory boom
Thrills through the Press, and steadily increases;
Till, by the time the actual Book appears,
Your worshippers (including many clerics),
Stunned by its virtues vaunted in their ears,
Have reached the hopeless stage of mere hys-
terics.
6
82 In Cap and Bells.
If, as an anticlimax, falling flat,
The Book itself was bound to suffer strictures,
What then P You are larger than your work, as
that
Is sizes larger than the life it pictures.
Yet, like the speaking cinematograph,
You sought to render Nature’s nude realities;
Experts, you say, some thirty on your staff,
Assisted you in social technicalities.
Not all unaided could you answer for
What happens in a baby-farmers’ alley;
Nor “on your own '' portray a Premier, or
A lightish lady dressing for the ballet.
Could mere imagination tell aright
The rules that regulate a nursing-sister,
Or when and where a Civil Servant might
Under the stress of circumstances have kissed
her P
Or show at once how holy Brothers pray
Who cease for worldly things to care a button,
In Cap and Bells. 83
And how your fate is told on Derby Day
By gipsies opposite Zhe Cock at Sutton 2
But one there was who bore beyond mistake
The right Hall-mark of Caine tattooed upon
her,
Whose early period of Sturm-und-Drake,
Did her and her creator equal honour.
How goes the sequel ? Did the widow fall
A victim to the cloth, or turn to laymen P
Surely it goes: I, GLORY, take thee, HALL,
To be my husband in a halo. AMEN
84 In Cap and Bells.
TO AN OLD FOGEY,
WHO CONTENIDS THAT CHRISTMAS IS PLAYED OUT.
O FRANKLY bald and obviously stout!
And so you find that Christmas, as a fête
Dispassionately viewed, is getting out
Of date.
The studied festal air is overdone;
The humour of it grows a little thin;
You fail, in fact, to gather where the fun
Comes in.
Visions of very heavy meals arise
That tend to make your organism shiver;
Roast beef that irks, and pies that agonise
The liver;
Those pies at which you annually wince,
Hearing the tale how happy months will follow
Proportioned to the total mass of mince
You swallow.
In Cap and Bells. 85
Visions of youth whose reverence is scant,
Who with the brutal ze, we of boyhood's prime
Insist on being taken to the pant-
-omime.
Of infants, sitting up extremely late,
Who run you on toboggans down the stair;
Or make you fetch a rug and simulate
A bear.
This takes your faultless trousers at the knees,
The other hurts them rather more behind;
And both effect a fracture in your ease
Of mind.
My good dyspeptic, this will never do;
Your weary withers must be sadly wrung!
Yet once I well believe that even you
Were young.
Time was when you devoured, like other boys,
Plum-pudding sequent on a turkey-hen;
With cracker-mottos hinting of the joys
Of men.
86 In Cap and Bells.
Time was when 'mid the maidens you would pull
The fiery raisin with profound delight;
When sprigs of mistletoe seemed beautiful
And right.
Old Christmas changes not! Long, long ago
He won the treasure of eternal youth;
Yours is the dotage—if you want to know
The truth.
Come, now, I’ll cure your case, and ask no fee:—
Make others’ happiness this once your own;
All else may pass: that joy can never be
Outgrown!
In Cap and Bells. 87
THE PEN ALTIES OF BALDNESS.
[A case recently came before the Courts in which a gentle-
man sought damages from his landlady for ejecting him on
discovery of his baldness; her contention being that this
physical defect would be offensive to the taste of her younger
lodgers.]
'Tis not that both my eyes are black,
My legs arrayed in odd extensions;
Not that I wear, like Bezgerac,
A nose of rather rude dimensions;–
Not that my chin is cheaply shorn,
INot that my face is frankly soapless, -
Not, therefore, with unfeeling scorn,
Woman, you treat my case as hopeless!
But just because above my brow,
That still preserves a certain lustre,
The locks of youth no longer now
Promiscuously cling (or cluster);—
38
In Cap and Bells.
Because, in fact, I chance by some
Design of Providence, it may be,
To have my pericranium
Bald as the surface of a baby;-
For this, although my state is due
To no specific sin or error,
Woman, I understand you view
My form with unaffected terror.
I that was pleasing in your sight,
When first you saw me with my hat on,--
Soon as my top is bathed in light,
Am, metaphorically, spat on 1
My presence, so you say, would jar
Upon your younger lodgers' joyance;
To such the hairless ever are
A source, you think, of deep annoyance.
O Woman! in my hairy prime,
When I resembled young Apollo,
I seldom fancied—at the time—
How swift a falling-off would follow.
In Cap and Bells. 89
I deemed my hair should doubtless be
A permanently rooted fixture;
No man should ever hint to me
“You want a little of our mixture!”
Then came the decadence; my poll,
Round as a Dutchman's ruddy cheese is,
Loomed freely upward till the whole
Stood bare to all the wanton breezes.
Long with insidious lotions drenched,
My barren scalp was seared or scalded
Until the vital spark was quenched
And children cried, “Go up, thou baldhead!”
But still I argued, “Youth may well
Be tickled by a mere external;
Grown men ignore the outer shell
In favour of the precious kernel.
“And Woman—surely Woman must,
If rightly painted by the poet,
Neglect the crude material crust
And love the soul that lurks below it.”
90 In Cap and Bells.
But you, who should have probed beneath
The rusty rind, the faded gilding—
You threw my baldness in my teeth,
And me myself outside the building!
And yet, believe me, there have been
Heroes and gallants, saints and Caesars,
Whose sculptured heads are just as clean
As though the thing were done with tweezers!
Nay, there are those in whom you see
Rough Nature's task anticipated;
They took a vow of chastity,
And had their summits depilated!
Virtue may live in lack of hair;
And, Woman, you shall live to rue it
Who oped your gate, and unaware
Sent forth an angel flying through it.
In Cap and Bells. 9I
THE TEUTONIC PLAGUE.
[The German Beetle, who thrives on cheaper fare than his
British equivalent, and reproduces himself with astonishing
rapidity, is gradually supplanting the native in our very midst.
—Zaily Paper.]
NOT to the sound of Royal lips colliding,
Not to the crusted smack of Kingly toasts,
The latest Teuton terror, darkly gliding,
Descends on Britain’s coasts!
Not as the Chow-chow squadron takes the ocean,
With cressets’ flare and roll of throbbing drums;
In silent armaments with stealthy motion
The German Beetle comes.
A cause of madness in our kitchen Maries,
Their vestal hearth he rudely violates;
He sidles in among our ancient Zares,
And settles on Our grates.
92 In Cap and Bells.
The witching hour that wakes the wanton weevil
Beholds him doing that which is not right;
He loves the dark because his deeds are evil,
He loathes the blessed light.
Untempted by the larder's toothsome foison,
For which your pampered British Beetles go,
He battens with success upon the poison
Designed to lay him low.
A shrewd ascetic, he derives an ample
Inflation from the coarsest kind of food;
He is a precious type, a proud example
Of Teuton hardihood.
Colonial—less by taste than by instruction
Drawn indirectly from his cosmic Chief—
His facile gift of rapid reproduction
Simply transcends belief!
The Native who, secure in his position,
Waxed fat and kicked upon the Scullery floor,
Now feels the deadly strain of competition
He never felt before!
In Cap and Bells. 93
Less gaily from behind the heated boiler
He sallies out on sinful plunder bent;
The presence of a strange imported spoiler
Mars all his sweet content.
More warily he quits his wainscot-hollow
To drink the oven's enervating airs,
For fear the foreigner may go and swallow
His wife at unawares.
The solemn facts are proved beyond rebutting,
Vainly we clutch at any straw of doubt;
The German article is slowly cutting
Our local talent out!
England! my country! is there no renewing
Our lost pre-eminence of other years 2
What is the bellicose bug-shooter doing 2
Where are the Volunteers ?
94 In Cap and Bells.
OF THE LORD OF POTSDAM.
I. THE AUTHOR’s APOLOGY.
As to the sportsman grateful is the first
Appearance of September (or October),
As to the man that has an ardent thirst
Sweet is the sense of ceasing to be sober,
So dear to me
The object I shall mention presently.
As toothsome meadows to the vernal lamb,
As par, the perfect par, to those below it,
So is the Lord of Donnerblitz-Potsdam
To me, his puny, but laborious poet.
I do not deem
That one could light upon a lovelier theme.
Not less in summer’s heat than winter’s frost,
In fact at any time of year whatever,
Returning to this topic I exhaust
My readers and myself, my subject never;
I try and try,
But cannot drain this welling fountain dry.
In Cap and Bells. 95
II. THE HUMOURIST AND THE HOHENzoLLERN.
[“Guillaume II. recherche surtout comme convives des
‘rieurs’ . . . comme il a coutume de dire.”—Maurice
Leudet.]
WILLIAM, though You would like to live unknown
In that peculiar sphere where fate has set You,
The Röntgen rays “which beat upon a throne”
Won’t let You.
Shrink as You may from every sort of show,
The shameless scribe, well knowing how to
push, 'll
Refuse to have You hide Your light below
A bushel.
There was a stalwart Teuton once who braved
The risk of durance in a dungeon's dry vat,
And told us openly how You behaved
In private!
How many miles of uniforms You kept,
How lark-like from Your bed You loved to sally,
With facts that no one ought to know except
Your za/ef.
96 In Cap and Bells.
Importunate! whom no rebuke could snub,
Yearning to fathom secrets yet unsounded,
Into the chamber where You take Your tub
He bounded !
And here’s another book about You now,
A Gaulish work—an enemy hath done it!
He paints Your regal kitchen, shows us how
You run it.
Plucking aside the kingly veil divine
Things sacred (or profane) the man exposes;
Your meals he numbers ; yea, Your food and wine
He noses.
And what a picture here to haunt the brain'
Those little luncheon-parties at the palace;
The quips and moſs that circle as You drain
The chalice.
Speaking as one apprenticed to the trade,
I own to feeling some respectful wonder;
We must, we other mountebanks, have made
A blunder!
In Cap and Bells. 97
We thought you did not care for funny men;
That special gaols were built to overawe them;
That jokes were not congenial even when
You saw them.
That was our fixed opinion ever since
We heard of You; but now we know our error;
You are the jester's Patron, not his Prince
Of Terror.
You stroke us royally upon the back;
“My good buffoons,” You very kindly term us;
You are not after all so very pach-
-ydermous.
For me, who in some foolish doggrel fitte
On Your supposed opaqueness once reflected,
Hot coals of fire possess my head; I sit
Corrected
Verãaſim I recant my old offence,
Who wrongly wrote—“There never was a
TU11110 U11'
Of asking Hohenzollerns for a sense
Of humour.’’
98 In Cap and Bells.
III. PARTANT POUR LA CHINE ; OR, THE NEw
EVANGELIST.
My precious Henry, hear my parting speech,
Ere yet you sail beyond my vocal reach!
Oft have I sauntered round by way of Kiel
And stopped, like this, to take a transient meal;
But never have I sucked the local breeze
In circumstances so unique as these.
To see you launched upon your First Crusade
Sends up my blood to 60 (Centigrade).
Bemember, Henry, it’s a Holy War
That you are on the point of starting for;
Or, bearing still in mind our trade's increase,
Perhaps I ought to say a Holy Peace.
You will remark among my sketchy plans a
Design for re-establishing a Hansa!
What is a Hansa P Any one who looks
Will find about it in the history books;
It was a Syndicate in ancient times
For planting German goods in various climes;
It swept from pole to pole the ambient blue
As we, my Henry, contemplate to do;
In Cap and Bells. 99
Working the Ocean on our own account
As soon as we can raise the right amount.
Meanwhile I send you on to clear the way;
Ach, Himme// what a sacrifice to pay!
Think of me sometimes, Henry, all alone
With thorns distributed about my throne!
You know your brother's wish; lay hands, my
pet,
On any mortal thing that you can get.
Employ, if feasible, your native charms,
But, failing this, resort at once to arms.
If people in the neighbourhood resist,
Let out upon them with your mailèd fist;
It saves the knuckles; do be sure to take
This small precaution for your brother's sake.
For longer range you carry shot and shell,
In case you see a running infidel;
I also hand you here St. Michael's Shield,
You’ll stick it somewhere on the coaling field.
Observe the blazon—our Imperial Bird,
Of which, no doubt, the dragons will have heard;
*
• * * * o
9 @ 9 °
i
*
I OO In Cap and Bells.
Call their attention to it; let them see
The Fowl is emblematical of Me.
One dragon you will notice, should he come,
Because he wears a large chrysanthemum;
Henry, between us two, as man to man,
Be careful how you jump upon Japan!
And now before you make a final clearance
(This is your positively last appearance),
Before, in fact, we tear ourselves apart,
Recite that little thing you have by heart;
And tell these gentlemen how you propose
To visit countries where the heathen grows,
And preach abroad in each distinct locality
The Gospel of my hallowed Personality.
Henry, my boy, I cannot lightly smother
The sacred feelings of an only brother!
Pray Heaven, though we cannot go together,
You may enjoy a decent turn of weather;
And when your task, your glorious task, is o'er
(I trust, without expenditure of gore),
iº © M. *
l, a tº a
• * * *
* * { a
º
&
In Cap and Bells. IOT
Omit not to return that I may spread
The laurels on your slightly youthful head.
Charge glasses! Ere he climbs the deadly poop,
I give His Royal Highness—Whoop! WHoop!!
WHOOP ( " '
If O2 In Cap and Bells.
THE SCHOLAR-FARMER.
[The petition for a School of Honours in Agriculture at
Oxford has been rejected.—Daily Paper.]
OxFORD ! of whom the poet said
That one of your unwritten laws is
To back the weaker side and wed
Your gallant heart to wobbling causes;
It is with mute surprise and pain
I mark a breach of old tradition;
I hear you will not entertain
The Ploughman’s plea for recognitionſ
You, on whose nicely watered plains
Where'er the rural student trips, he
Is sure to notice some remains
Suggestive of the Scholar-Gipsy;
In Cap and Bells. IO3
Ford of the Ox whose ancient name
Is full of fine bucolic feeling,
How could you thus ignore his claim,
The learned farmer's, lowly kneeling 2
He spoke of ensilage and germs,
Of fallow land and pigs in clover;
You answered in derisive terms,
And lightly passed his Georgics over.
He proffered butter-churns; he knew
The patent cream-extractor’s odd use;
He tested milk; but you, you threw
Cold water on his dairy produce.
He wove for you a Cereal crown,
And craved in turn an Honours title;
You knocked his cornucopia down,
And gave him beans for cold requital!
Oh, Oxford! in your hours of ease
Content to spurn the newer knowledge!
What if the foot-and-mouth disease
Should hit you hard in court and college 2
IO4 In Cap and Bells.
What if, through pestilence or drought,
You failed for very lack of victuals,
And all your prophets, driven out,
Made Cambridge flow with beer and skittles 2
In Cap and Bells. IO5
THE WARRIOR'S LAMENT.
[“The ruler of a certain small European principality, who
is an officer in the Spanish navy, addressed a letter to the
Queen Regent, expressing in warm terms his regret that his
private duties prevented him from discharging his naval
duties.”—Daily Paper.]
OH, a sailor's life is the life for me,
Lashed by the bounding, sounding sea,
With the blue above and the bilge below,
And a general sense of Yo-heave-ho!
But how can I ride on the wrathful deep
With private fields of my own to reap 2
I would love to lather the open main
Under the yellow and red of Spain;
To sniff the tootle of war's alarms,
Where the young Canaries are up in arms;
But something tells me to shun the foam,
For piety best begins at home.
Ioé In Cap and Bells.
Think what a Monte-Carlist feels
When Aragon calls and the two Castiles!
For the ban is out and the arrière-ban,
And Spain must fight to her last true man;
But practical duties have to be done,
So Spain must fight to her last-but-one.
My heart is away with my own brave tars,
Possibly handling ropes and spars;
And it would, if it could, be beating warm
Beneath its nautical uniform;
But personal claims are apt to clog
The passionate pulse of this old sea-dog.
Here from my singular sea-girt rock,
In a manner of speaking, I feed my flock;
Under my rigid sovereign rod
I rule an army of six-score odd;
What, if I went, would be their fate P
I haven’t the heart to calculate.
So it’s oh! (once more) for the spanking main
Under the yellow and red of Spain!
In Cap and Bells. IoW
My thoughts go out to the old flotilla,
Steadily anchored off Manila;
But Duty First is the rule and plan
Of a Prince who is also a family man.
IO8 In Cap and Bells.
OF THE STALKING OF THE STAG.
[From “The Jubilee Guide for Young Sportsmen.”]
INTRODUCTION.
IN Scotland, where the porridge grows,
And jokes demand a deal of care,
The stag, who has a nimble nose,
Imbibes the pleasant mountain air ;
He roams the forest at his ease,
And never knocks against the trees.
The colour of the beast is red,
More sombre than the carrot's tone;
A most engaging quadruped
When fairly hit, or left alone;
He really wouldn’t hurt a child,
But crooked shooting drives him wild.
In Cap and Bells. Io9
So eager is his sense of smell
He knows you half a league away;
He also travels very well,
How fast I hardly care to say;
But, though you take the train or drive,
You cannot catch the brute alive.
Your rifle's pace must be superb,
And bullets built of common stuff
Are insufficient to disturb
A frame incorrigibly tough;
It’s best to penetrate his hide
With missiles made to burst inside.
OF THE PROCESS.
Rules of the game as recognised:—
Your stalker comes the night before
To say that he has just surprised
A herd of thirty head or more,
And in their midst a noble beast
With twelve or thirteen points at least.
I IO In Cap and Bells.
This is a lie; but well I know
You will believe it, every word,
And in your dreaming you will go
And slay the whole astonished herd;
Then rise with blood upon the brain
And sally in a driving rain.
For miles and miles, soaked through and through,
By barren braes you stoutly pound,
Your ardent body bent in two,
An awful silence hovering round;
And so to lunch, with bated breath,
To drink the stag’s ensuing death.
Your stalker, having had his fill
Of undiluted mountain-dew,
Asserts that on a distant hill
A ruddy patch arrests his view;
This representing, says the wag,
A portion of a splendid stag.
What seems to you the obvious track
Is not the one by any means;
In Cap and Bells. III
You have to turn about and tack
Round three precipitous ravines;
Mere crows may steer an even flight,
Man stalks by faith and not by sight.
Emerging as the shadows fall,
You find the reddish object there!
Your next manoeuvre is to crawl
Face downwards—wentre, in fact, & terre;
Or bury your excrescent head
Within a torrent’s foaming bed.
OF THE DEATH.
The gloaming deepens; all is dim!
Now let the fatal bullet hum;
You fix your prey, your eye is grim,
Your heart is going like a drum;-
Crash! how the echoes rend the air!
The object doesn’t turn a hair.
“Just over him!” your man observes;
His duty is to seem to know;
In Cap and Bells.
At this you brace your shattered nerves
And let the second barrel go;
Your stag is steady as a fence;
These beasts are really very dense.
With wary steps you now advance,
Reloading swiftly on your way,
In case the stricken deer should chance,
Being annoyed, to turn at bay;
And finally you come full-cock
Upon a ruddy patch of rock!
Well in its centre you derive
Some Solace from a splash of lead,
Which, had the target been alive,
Would certainly have killed it dead;
Your stalker, meaning not to miss
His honorarium, tells you this.
He further says that what he spied
Six miles away against the crag
(Speaking as one who never lied)
Indubitably was a stag;
In Cap and Bells. II.3
But in the darkness, while you stalked,
The stupid beast had been and walked.
OF THE HOME-COMING.
Your pony waits you down below,
Grazing at large with slackened girth;
At sight of you his features glow
With pity, not untouched by mirth;
And where the quarry should have been
You mount and quit the painful scene.
“How many ?” all the ladies cry;
“One paltry Royal!” you remark;
“Sore wounded, he escaped to die
Elsewhere in private after dark.”
This is your statement, terse but clear,
Describing how you killed the deer.
8
In Cap and Bells.
OF BIG GAME.
[From “The Jubilee Guide for Young Sportsmen.”]
OF THE RESPECT DUE TO THIS CLASS.
AMONG the bards that make for mirth
There is a young and reckless school
That treats the nobler beasts of earth
With unbecoming ridicule;
That mocks the Lion’s love of gore,
And chaffs the sainted Dinosaur.
This literary vogue is due
To courage born of false conceit;
It comes of going to the Zoo
To see the savage creatures eat,
Or watch them impotently rage
Within a stout, impervious cage.
But when you come across the same
Lounging at large with empty maw,
It is a very different game,
And stirs a stronger sense of awe
In Cap and Bells. II5
Than even when in Richmond Park
You meet a rabbit after dark.
OF THE PRIMAEVAL CHASE.
Yet have we weapons far from rude,
And sport is more developed than
In days when, altogether nude,
Your hardy prehistoric man
Would make his pointless flint to drum
Upon the Megatherium.
And though the mammal’s early size
Approximated to a church,
He wasn’t sensitive to flies,
Nor lightly tickled with a birch;
Viewed as a target he was great,
But passing thick to perforate.
Now cased in rock, as I have heard,
Lies the lamented Mastodon;
I understand the Dodo-bird
Is also permanently gone;
II6
In Cap and Bells.
And in the place of these, deceased,
The Lion is the leading beast.
Though in his way a little god,
And gifted with peculiar powers,
As Homer’s self was known to nod,
He has his after-dinner hours;
In conscious moments he can leap,
But grows inactive when asleep.
OF BAITING THE LION.
Remembering his taste for blood,
You’d better bait him with a cow;
Persuade the brute to chew the cud,
Her tail suspended from a bough;
It thrills the lion through and through
To hear the milky creature moo.
Having arranged this simple ruse,
Yourself you climb a neighbouring tree;
See to it that the spot you choose
Commands the coming tragedy;
In Cap and Bells. 117
Take up a smallish Maxim gun,
A search-light, whisky, and a bun.
It's safer, too, to have your bike
Standing immediately below,
In case your piece should fail to strike,
Or deal an ineffective blow;
The Lion moves with perfect grace,
But cannot go the scorcher’s pace.
Reep open ear for subtle signs;
Thus, when the cow profusely moans,
That means to say, the Lion dines;
The crunching sound, of course, is bones;
Silence resumes her ancient reign—
This shows the cow is out of pain.
But when a fat and torpid hum
Escapes the eater’s unctuous nose,
Turn up the light and let it come
Full on his innocent repose;
Then, pour your shot between his eyes,
And go on pouring till he dies.
II.8 In Cap and Bells.
Play, even so, discretion’s part:
Descend with stealth; bring on your gun;
Then lay your hand above his heart
To see if he is really done;
Don’t skin him till you know he’s dead,
Or you may perish in his stead!
Years hence, at home, when talk is tall,
You’ll set the gun-room wide agape,
Describing how, with just a small
Pea-rifle, going after ape,
You met a Lion unaware,
And felled him flying through the air.
CONCLUSION.
Time fails me to pursue the track
Of further monsters not a few;
I must omit the hairy Yak,
I must ignore the brindled Gnu;
I may not even—this is hard—
Discuss the coy Camélopard.
In Cap and Bells. II 9
‘‘THE HURT THAT HONOUR FEELS.”
[Suggested by the attitude of the French Press on the
Fashoda question.]
THAT man is surely in the wrong
And lets his angry passions blind him
Who, when a person comes along
Behind him,
And hits him hard upon the cheek
(One whom he took to be his brother),
Declines to turn and let him tweak
The Other.
It should be his immediate care
By delicate and tactful dealings
To ease the striker's pain and spare
His feelings;
Nor should he, for his private ends,
Make any personal allusion
Tending to aggravate his friend's
Confusion.
I 2 O In Cap and Bells.
For there are people built this way:—
They may have scratched your face or bent it,
Yet, if you reason with them, they
Resent it!
Their honour, quickly rendered sore,
Demands that you should suffer mutely,
Lest they should feel it even more
Acutely.
I knew a man of perfect tact,
He caught a burglar once, my man did,
He took him in the very act
Red-handed;
What kind of language then occurred P
How did he comment on the jemmy
Did he employ some brutal word
Like ‘‘ demme '’ ”
Or kick the stranger then and there,
Or challenge him to formal battle P
Or spring upon the midnight air
His rattle P
In Cap and Bells. I 2 I
Certainly not! He knew too much;
He knew that as a bud is blighted
Your burglar's honour, at a touch,
Feels slighted.
He saw, as men of taste would see,
That others’ pride should be respected;
Some people cannot bear to be
Detected.
Therefore his rising wrath he curbed,
Gave him a smile as warm as may be,
Thanked him because he’d not disturbed
The baby;
Apologised for fear his guest
Might deem him casual or surly
For having rudely gone to bed
So early.
The night was still not very old
And, short as was the invitation,
Would he not stay and share a cold
Collation ?
I 2.2 In Cap and Bells.
So was his tact not found at fault,
So was he spared by tasteful flattery
What might have ended in assault
Or battery.
Soft language is the best—how true!
This doctrine, which I here rehearse, 'll
Apply to nations: it is u-
-niversal
Thus England should not take offence
When, from behind, they jump upon her;
She must not hurt their lively sense
Of honour.
For plain opinions, put in speech,
Might lead to blows, which might be bloody,
A lesson which the Press should teach
And study!
In Cap and Bells. I23
“THOSE WHO LIVE IN GLASS
HOUSES- "
[En souhaitant le bonjour à M. le Rédacteur-en-chef du
Petit Journal.]
DEAR SIR,--I wish to point a moral.
Last week I showed in lightish vein
How gentle words may square a quarrel
And save a lot of needless pain;
I rather hoped for some reply
Saying that this had caught your eye.
I hinted—here I’m roughly quoting—
That France was touchy in the skin,
That she possessed an outer coating
So soft, so sensitively thin,
That, when a homely truth is stated,
She finds her honour perforated.
But those whose native habits lead 'em
To live in structures built of glass
Should not indulge with any freedom
In heaving stones when people pass,
I 24
In Cap and Bells.
Because, when people heave them back,
Conservatories often crack.
Now note with what unique urbanity
Your journals judge our conduct here;
Not such as make for mere insanity—
The gamin’s rage, the rag pour rire,
But prints like yours, whose pride it is
To educate the provinces.
Voyons, mon ami, we have gathered
Erom that enlightened organ's page
That we it was who lately lathered
Your rabble into frenzied rage;
The same old story, O so old,
Of virtue bribed by British gold!
Concealed behind our sombre climate,
With every means for lying low,
It seems that zwe were all the time at
The bottom of the bordereau,
Our object being, in a word,
To make your army look absurd!
In Cap and Bells. I25
And when the English missionary
Was missed among the pagan blacks,
Pray, who suborned the cassowary
That fell upon his pious tracks 2
We did! It happened through our nation
Being so keen on compensation.
And who for some ulterior reason
Made full arrangements for the Turk
To vegetate in bloated ease on
Armenia’s grave, his gruesome work 2
If one may credit your suggestion
We were the horrid brutes in question.
All that is cunning, base, perfidious,
In beery Albion has its birth;
She still must be the blot, the hideous
Blister that blights the crust of Earth,
TJntil her race retires to bed on
The gory field of Armageddon.
Such is your day-by-day consignment
Of eye-awakeners for the blind;
I 26
In Cap and Bells.
Such is the tone of true refinement
To which you raise the rustic mind;
While we are straining to abolish
All speech that lacks the pure French polish.
Mon Diew / you used to send us over
Manners to fit your fashion's code,
What time the Empire lived in clover
And Paris set the social mode!
At all the graces once so deft,
You surely have some humour left P
In Cap and Bells. 127
LE MONDE OU L’ON S'AFFICHE.
I. THE GLASS OF FASHION.
I HARDLY doubt, what journalists confess,
That England's Greatness issues from the Press;
Indeed it tells you for a cent or two
Much that is strange and often even true.
Here he that runs (though some prefer to sit)
May make him cheaply wise on others’ wit;
Here side by side, to suit his taste in diet, he
Has meats of preternatural variety:—
May read the ribald jests of Men-at-law;
Or “phossy '' and the other kinds of jaw;
How margarine is slightly on the slump,
But frozen pig continuing to jump;
Great wars and warlike rumours greater still,
And whether any Noblemen are ill;
Yesterday’s crimes, to-day’s menu for dinner,
The ordination list and “all the winner.”
I 28 In Cap and Bells.
Of such-like fare you pay and take your choice,
But there are themes in which we a/Z rejoice;
On which, when other memories need correction,
The fancy lingers with profound affection;
TJnversed in which, to ignorantly go
(Excuse the burst infinitive) below,
Would cause us to our resurrection-day
More real regret than I should care to say:—
How Mrs. X., for instance, in the Park,
(For once without her husband) caused remark,
Being observed of all the smartest folk
By reason of her captivating fogue;
How Lady THIS, who graced a moiré gown,
Is on the very eve of leaving town;
While, en revamche, the Honourable THAT
Has just secured an eligible flat;
How SOMEONE gave a dinner, quite select,
To meet the Prince of HoHEN-BUMMELPFLECHT;
And SOMEONE ELSE her last of small-and-earlies,
To hear the Coster-King complete in pearlies.
Are these ephemeral trifles P Mo such ſhing /
They have an almost elemental ring !
Out of the realm of petty Sordid care
In Cap and Bells. I29
They lift us (loosely speaking) by the hair;
And must remain in this our fleeting Show
The only solid truths we need to know.
And if you ask me how they are supplied
To correspondents of the Zoady's Guide,
Or what the medium through which they get
Reported in the Cºffer Crus: Gazette,_
I know of persons, men of evil bent,
Who put it down to self-advertisement!
Wrongly, I need not say; for who would choose
To have her ménage made a piece of news 2
I trow a woman’s heart would have the vapours
To find her frock exploited in the papers,
Did not the modesty that veils her beauty
Surrender to a sense of public Duty,
Because it ranks among the noblest deeds
To minister to common people's needs.
Take an extreme example:—we derive a
Pure joy in reading all about GODIVA;
And doubtless there are women of to-day
Not less divinely open in their way;
Who yearn, on ordering their wedding frousseau,
To share their secret with the crowd—and do so;
Q
I30 In Cap and Bells.
And even pay a tariff (dare we hint it 2)
So much a line, to get the Press to print it.
II. THE AUTHOR-LECTURER.
THERE is a way that none may hope to tread
But whoso has a halo round his head;
Who, whether Nature leaves his apex bare
Or nicely coated with a wealth of hair,
Arranges, like the milking-maid, to base
The nucleus of fortune on his face.
Expressly chartered at a lordly wage,
He stands in beauty's strength upon the stage,
Perusing to a mixed but cultured crowd
His own selected efforts out aloud,
Or lecturing the literary Press
Upon the methods which command success—
Maidens that dote and women that adore
All drinking in his charms at every pore.
Dight in a dress that suits the brilliant scene,
Rich knickerbockers wrought of velveteen,
Or else in evening-wear whose very hem
Scarce would the London Tailor dare condemn,
In Cap and Bells. I 3
I
Awhile he poses in a weary trance
To give the wonder-stricken pit a chance;
Then, if he boasts the kind of hairy crown
Which means an extra forty dollars down,
Just runs his fingers through the wavy crop
While in the hush you hear his hair-pins drop;
Till with a studied smile of high disdain
He breaks at last the agonising strain,
Lifts up his tawny voice and lets it go,
And in a burst of passion blent with woe,
Where all the notes of nightingales occur,
Becomes (like Heaven) his own Interpreter.
There is to prophets, so I understand,
A certain charm in some one else’s land;
For when our native products cross the sea
They are devoured with more avidity.
The Author’s figure being vaguely known,
They very kindly take him at his own;
Which estimate is entered in the bond
And backed by Barnum’s or by Major Pond.
Whereas, at home, it is another case,
For there we see the prophet's frequent face;
Perchance we have that best of annual treats
I 32 In Cap and Bells.
When the Society of Authors eats;
Or find him feeding in a friendly way
At houses where you haven’t got to pay.
And if from oversight, or other reason,
Patrons omit to ask him in the season,
We still may hope—most happily for us—
To brush against him in an omnibus;
Or sometimes even see him in the street
Fanning the pavement with his wingéd feet;
Where anybody has a perfect right
To watch him till he trickles out of sight.
But over there, where people read his books,
But know not, save in pictures, how he looks;
Where still the hero draws a fancy price
For sniffing up the fumes of sacrifice;
There men will freely fling the careless dollar
Simply to see a section of his collar,
Girding the sacred column which sustains
The beetling bulk of those abnormal brains—
A sight that well repays the entrance-pelf,
Being an education in itself;-
Will sit on wooden planks, in mortal anguish,
To watch the poet’s lovely glances languish;
In Cap and Bells. I33
Will cross a continent's complete expanse,
To scan the brow that schemed the brave romance;
And die of suffocation just to wring
The veritable hand that wrote the thing.
Thus may be worked, with small expense of wit,
The Man-and-Author’s Mutual Benefit;
For such as read the latter's verse or prose
Will take a stall to view the former’s nose;
While those that pay to see the Man's complexion
Will go and buy the Author’s whole collection.
What wonder, then, if there across the main,
Richard Le Narcisse was himself again,
And tonsured Anthony, our only Hope,
With this supreme temptation could not cope P
I34 In Cap and Bells.
WILHELMINA,
QUEEN OF THE NETHERLANDs.
SEPTEMBER 6, 1898.
MAIDEN, on whose gentle brow,
With the weight of woman's years,
Lies another burden now,
Rest a nation’s hopes and fears,
See, we send across the foam,
Yours and ours that laughs between,
Greetings in your Lowland home,
Maiden-Queen!
Over half the world to-day
Deep in every loyal heart
Brayer is made that you may play
Like a queen your queenly part;
And, not least we love your throne,
We, who trusted once to trace
From your princely line our own
Royal race.
In Cap and Bells. I35
Yet we claim to be your kin
Bound by other bonds than these;
By the courage wise to win
Fame and fortune from the seas;
By the strength that taught the world
What a fearless faith should be;
By the banner never furled
Of the Free.
Many a wave rolls o'er the dead
Since the conqueror of Spain,
With a broom at his mast-head,
Swore to sweep us from the main;
And, as now our seamen go
Rival comrades down the deep,
Memories of that gallant foe
Still we keep.
Such the splendid warrior-breed,
Lady, from whose blood you spring;
Such their sons that shall at need
All you ask of service bring:
I36
In Cap and Bells.
So you stand as once she stood,
England's Queen, a simple maid,
In her dawn of womanhood,
Unafraid.
And this hour, when hearts are sent
Up to God in prayer for you,
Doubt not where her thoughts are bent
As remembrance lives anew ;
How she smiles through happy tears,
Thinking what her life has been
Since her land at eighteen years
Crowned her Queen.
And she prays that yours may be
Such a heritage as hers,
Peace that only loyalty
Yielded by the heart confers;
With that other love, apart;
Ah! for what could well atone,
If you missed to have one heart
All your own 2
In Cap and Bells. I37
IN MEMORIAM.
“LEWIS CARROLL.”
LovER of children | Fellow-heir with those
Of whom the imperishable kingdom is!
No longer dreaming, now your spirit knows
The unimagined mysteries.
Darkly as in a glass our faces look
To read ourselves, if so we may, aright;
You, like the maiden in your faërie book,
You step beyond and see the light!
The heart you wore beneath your pedant’s cloak
Only to children's hearts you gave away;
Yet unaware in half the world you woke
The slumbering charm of childhood’s day.
We older children, too, our loss lament,
We of the “Table Round,” remembering well
How he, our comrade, with his pencil lent
Your fancy’s speech a firmer spell.
138 In Cap and Bells.
Master of rare woodcraft, by sympathy's
Sure touch he caught your visionary gleams,
And made your fame, the dreamer's, one with his,
The wise interpreter of dreams.
Farewell! But near our hearts we have you yet,
Holding our heritage with loving hand,
Who may not follow where your feet are set
Upon the ways of Wonderland.
SIR CHARLEs EDWARD POLLOCK.
“LAST of the Barons!” lo! the sudden call
Summons you hence across the silent land
To where at His Assize, the Judge of all,
Themselves, the judges of the earth must stand.
Not much shall then avail that legal art
Splendid, that set you other men above;
But much the record how with perfect heart
You learned and practised all the law of Love.
In Cap and Bells. I39
SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD.
FRANK LOCKWOOD dead 2 Then we have lost
A life we counted more than dear;
What darker shadow could have crossed
Our Christmas cheer 2
Gone now his laughter’s lusty note
That malice never once could mar;
The genial wit that gently smote
And left no scar.
Small mirth enough beguiles our way;
By sombre paths at best we tread;
And duller seems the world to-day
With Lockwood dead!
I4O In Cap and Bells.
“SCOTS WHA HAE.”
[To Colonel Mathias and his Gordon Highlanders. Chagru
Rotal, October 20, 1897.]
BRAvo, the Gordons! Proved again
The men that never fail!
Though gallant comrades, true and tried,
India's flower and England’s pride,
Bushing to storm that bare hill-side,
Reeled in the raking hail.
Then skirled the pipes, and up you leapt;
Out rang your Highland yell;
And there with boyish step and light,
Running the gauntlet up the height,
Shouting for battle's sheer delight,
Young Alec Lamont fell!
Fell as the Gordons choose to fall
On a well-won field afar;
Fell for the flag whose storied stains
Call back the fight by Delhi's fanes,
Teaguer of Lucknow, Egypt's plains,
Kabul and Kandahar!
In Cap and Bells. I4 I
TO THE CREW OF THE MARGATE
SURF-BOAT, “FRIEND TO ALL
NATIONS.”
ALL night the pitiless blast had swept
Out of the North-East blind as hell;
Ere dawn, the sudden signal leapt,
Death's meteor-signal leapt and fell.
Then, as the cry for rescue rang,
With quick farewell to child and wife
Into the roaring surf they sprang
To yield their lives for the stranger life.
Æriend ſo a/AWaſions / Friend at need,
Where danger sets the task to do!
Not ill they chose a name to speed
The gallant craft of a gallant crew.
Stout hearts of Kent, that heard the call
Of man to man in the face of death !
Is this, is this the end of all—
These bodies dank with the salt sea’s breath 2
I42 In Cap and Bells.
Nay, but their names shall stand in gold
When the opened books of God are read,
With deeds remembered and deeds untold
That wait till the sea gives up its dead!
In Cap and Bells. I43
FROM THE PROVENCAL OF SORDELLO,
TROUBADOTUR.”
ALAs! these eyes, how little serves their sight,
That look no longer on my heart's delight.
The breath of spring about the fields is blown,
The earth with bud and bloom is glad again;
Therefore that I no longer should make moan
My Lady, queen of Graces, is full fain,
Praying that song for sighing should atone;
Then will I sing, though deadly be my pain,
So much I have of love for her alone,
So much of longing for her lips in vain.
Alas! these eyes, how little serves their sight
That look no longer on my heart’s delight.
Though Love be cruel even unto death,
I make not plaint therefore in any wise;
To think upon my Lady comforteth,
For I have never looked on gentler eyes;
* Raynouard, “Choix des Poésies des Troubadours,” Vol.
III., pp. 441–443.
I44 In Cap and Bells.
Let her but promise, “If Love tarrieth,
Thou yet shall find him wearing pity’s guise,”
So shall my grief be silent, so no breath
Shall mar her merry days with sad surmise.
Alas! these eyes, how little serves their sight,
That look no longer on my heart’s delight.
TJnto my Lady Pitiful I sing
That life may yet be left me, of her grace,
For, were I dead, the ruth thereof would wring
Sorrow for wrong, and for my cruel case;
Nay, surely, but it were a better thing
To die, than, living still, to lack solace;
For death, I know, has not so sharp a sting
As thus to love and miss my Lady’s face.
Alas! these eyes, how little serves their sight
That look no longer on my heart’s delight.
1 z-
#AY 6 1919
A V THE SAME A UTHOR.
Horace at Cambridge
A. D. INNES, Bedford Street, London.
“To every university man . . . this book will be a rare treat. But in
virtue of its humour, its extreme and felicitous dexterity of workmanship
both in rhyme and metre . . . it will appeal to a far wider public.”
—Pazzech.
“We very cordially recommend Mr. Seaman’s book . . . to all who
are likely to care for verse which is not unworthy to be ranked with the
efforts of Calverley the immortal.”— The World.
“Mr. Seaman manages his ingenious metres with unfailing skill.”
— The Athenaeumt.
“A genial cynic with a genuine smack of Bon Gaultier.”
—St. James's Gazette.
“The humour is bright and spontaneous.”—The Times.
“Mr. Seaman's book is never slipshod; it has the neatness, the preci-
sion, the sparkle of its Latin namesake.”—The Séectator.
Tillers of the Sand
SMITH, ELDER & Co., London.
“In the political sphere Mr. Seaman is at present without a rival.”
— The Globe.
“Taken as a whole, we are much mistaken if any better volume of
political verse has made its appearance since the days of the Rolliad and
the Anti-Jacobin.”— The World.
“The best of the satirists on the other side is Mr. Owen Seaman, who
has touched off some of the weaknesses of the late government with very
happy and caustic humour.”—The Séectator.
“Mr. Seaman is own brother to Calverley, and in modern times there
has been nothing so good of its sort as ‘Tillers of the Sand. . . . Mr.
Seaman proves himself so brilliant a jester that it needs must be he takes
the jester's privilege of offending no one.”— The Søeaker.
“One of the most accomplished of writers of occasional verse to-day.”
—Book?ftanz.
“It is all so good that passages are hard to choose.”—Scotsmart.
“The author’s rare quality—a capacity ſor satirizing one’s political
opponents with a wit that leaves no wound.”
—Mr. JAMES PAYN in The WZ/ustrated Londore News.
“Brilliant and inimitable.”—Chicago Daily AVews.
As Y THE SAME A UTA/OA’.
The Battle of the Bays
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“Now that Calverley is no more, Mr. Owen Seaman is his own most
dangerous rival. He has excelled himself in The Battle of the Bays. . .
In this little volume the master hand is visible in every line.”—Punch.
“The new "Rejected Addresses' of Mr. Owen Seaman are quite
worthy to be ranked with the classic volumes of Horace and James. . . . . .
The thing is done as well as it could be. . . . This little volume is
2nterzº me sal.”— The Søectator. .
“Mr. Kipling has never been so nimbly caught before, for Mr. Seaman
has the art to reproduce his flute-notes as well as his big drum. . . .
Several of the miscellaneous pieces are among the very best humourous
poetry of this generation. We have laughed at nothing lately more than
at “Ars Postera,’ at ‘A New Blue Book," at ‘To a Boy-Poet of the Deca-
dence,’ and at ‘To Julia in Shooting Togs.” But, after all, Mr. Seaman's
masterpiece up to date is certainly ‘To the Lord of Potsdam.' . . .
This will live, or we are greatly mistaken, among the most effective exam-
ples of historical satire-lyric.”— The Saturday Rezyżew.
“It is certainly remarkable, in our dearth of great poetry, how good of
its sort the satiric verse of our day is — so good, in fact, that Ilothing but
the best will serve, and even the best, like Mr. Seaman's, which in the day
when Sir George Trevelyan was a wit would have taken people's breath
away, is apt to be treated as mere journalism. . . . But really it is the
most characteristic expression of our time, using the accustomed forms of
verse to point the neatest criticisms and the slyest of epigrams. . . .
Mr. Seaman's humourous imitation of Mr. Swinburne, Sir Edwin Arnold,
Sir Lewis Morris, Mr. Kipling, and the rest, is in every case very funny.”
—St. James's Gazette.
“The book abounds in excellent fooling and really wholesome satire,
the ingenuity and felicity of verse and expression giving it likewise a high
artistic value. . . . Quips and cranks of audacious wit, strokes of a
humour always sane and healthy, waylay the reader incessantly, and leave
him no peace for laughter.”—The Westminster Gazette.
“Mr. Seaman must be tired of being compared to Calverley and J. K. S.,
but he is of their company, and, what is more, on their level. “The Battle
of the Bays' . . . bristles with points; it is brilliant, . . . and it
has that easy conversational flow which is the one absolutely necessary
characteristic of good humourous poetry. . . . One charm of writing
such as Mr. Seaman's is that it makes us feel quite obliged to poets whom
we have never admired for being so good to parody. '—Pall Mall Gazette.
“Mr. Owen Seaman has a very neat talent for parody. . . . The
* Ballad of a Bun,’ is exceedingly ſunny, and ought to make even Mr. John
Davidson laugh. . . . All the imitations are good.”— The Times.
“In point of technique . . . extraordinarily clever.”
— The IZZzestrated! Londone Wews.
JOHN LANE : The Bodley Head, London & New York.

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