THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES / ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES . . . BY WILLIAM ANDREW MACKENZIE AUTHOR OF 'POEMS,' 'ROSEMARY,' ETC. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMXI All Rights reserved PR TO CAROLINE PLANT IN NEW YORK AND CHARLES Z. GRAVES IN LONDON THESE ROUGH RHYMES AND REMEMBRANCE. APOLOGIA PRO SUIS CARMINIBUS. O WHAT a royal thing is Reticence ! And Silence, O how god-like splendid ! Yet, We that are singers, and have need of pence To buy our babies bread, why should we let Aught of the god or king our tongues up-tie If men will toss us coppers for the song, And Goldilocks and Dimplechin to die Forbear? Sure, Silence, then, were hellish wrong. So to the market-place ! If the crowd pay, Bread's won, and Bread's an honourable cause. And what care I if some sad critic say : " Another heart for pecking of the daws ! " Let the daws peck ! But let them pay sesterce, Sovereign, or cent ! All that is grist is good . . . Shall I be less to mine than is to hers The pelican that gives her breast for food ? To the Editors of ' Blackwood's Magazine,' the ' Spectator,' the ' Nation,' and the ' Graphic,' I offer my thanks for permission to reprint the Rhymes they honoured with their hos- pitality. CONTENTS. FIRST IMPRESSIONS . . ... I LONDON STREETS ..... 5 THE BEATEN WILL ..... 7 BALLADE DE LA BELLE FlTOILE ... 9 PENNY PLAIN . . . . . . II BALLADE DE NUITS BLANCHES . . . 12 GHOSTS . . . . . .14 ALCOHOL . . . . .20 HOURS BEFORE DAWN. . . . .23 ON THE EMBANKMENT . . . ,27 PANTOUM FOR EVERYBODY . . . .29 MAN AND DOG ...... 31 A BLESSED DAMOZEL ..... 37 AN EMPTY PURSERY RHYME . . . .40 LA PROSCRITE ...... 41 IN THE READING-ROOM . . . .43 AUGUST. ...... 45 PANIS ET CIRCENSES . . . . .47 xii CONTENTS. BAGSTER, FRENCH-POLISHER, DESCANTS . . 48 SESTINA OF THE SHUFFLING FEET . . -51 BY THE DOCKS ..... 53 COMRADES ...... 54 MY FRIEND MR SPUNGE . . . .56 THE LETTER-SCRAPPER . . . .62 THE CHUCKER-OUT ..... 64 FUNERAL ORATION ON JAMES * * * . . . 65 THE VETERAN ...... 67 'OME, SWEET 'OME . . . . .69 LA BOUTIQUE D*EN FACE . . . .72 A FEW THUMBNAILS MAX . . . . . -75 MY PAL, THE SNOB . . . -75 A GOOD OLD SPORT . . . .76 THE AUTHOR ..... 76 FIVE THOU. PER CENT . . . -77 A CHILD OF ITALY . . .77 DADDIE BROWN . . . . -78 MISTER B ..... 78 THE MANAGER ..... 79 AFTER LONG DAYS 80 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. FIRST IMPRESSIONS. WHEN you've just a single shot left in your locker, And your soul of all but death is bare and barren, Be you priest or poet, don or drunken docker, Here's your haven, here's the wounded rabbit's warren. If you dread the smoky sunrise of the morrow, Bringing torments, old ones, new ones, without number, Enter here and hide your fear, your sin, your sorrow Buy a bed : perhaps you may be buying slumber. When you feel you're a bewildered bit of lumber You, the hero, just a zero, just a cipher Pay your seven pennies down, and be a number Is it good to still be human as a ' lifer ' ? . . . A 2 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. Tisn't much. Yet when you learn you're "One-eleven, And you're placed in proud possession of your ticket You've the right to walk the "House," and prove the heaven That awaits you once you pass the porter's wicket. How you throw your load of sorrow off, and kick it Down the corridor a-shine with snowy tiling ! (What a magic thing, that sevenpenny ticket !) All the black impending future's almost smiling. You may hold your head up, here, among your brothers: Yes, you feel the slack Serratus Magnus stiffen ; You have grown ; you are a being ; they are others ; They are gutter-sparrows, you are still the Griffin. There's a kitchen where they feed you, so you tiffin- Sloppy tea, and sodden bread, and cruel butter ! Ah ! it's now the mental back begins to stiffen : When the belly's full, God leaps from every gutter, And there's hope and cheer in London's roar and rumble, And there's promise in the rain's persistent batter, And there's order plain in Life's gigantic jumble, And to-morrow Lord, to-morrow doesn't matter ! FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 3 For like stomach-warmth there's none knows how to flatter O it's Paradise you purchase for a pittance ! With the largess of a rumpsteak, you would batter Down the Door of Life should Fate deny admittance ! Fate ? Oh shoot at Fate the tongue-tip of derision ! Pass these iron gates, and mount this stony ladder Leads to Dreamland and the Pisgah - heights of Vision, Piercing sunset skies of saffron and rose-madder. Here the soul finds poppy-juice to ease and glad her, And the radiant lotus-flower of royal slumber ! Surely this cemented stair's a golden ladder Angel-cohorts, bearing lilies, climb and cumber. . . . 93 and 99 and i-n That your cubicle ? Ah ! no, it is your splendid Joyous Gard and very anteroom of Heaven Your Friedenheim with all your troubles ended ! Half, already, of the "ravelled sleeve" is mended Ere you've squirmed below the blanket brown and narrow. (Blessed blanket ! Is it not a buckler splendid Nobly warding off Insomnia's poisoned arrow ?) 4 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. So you open wide your eager arms, and clasping Close the only worthy mistress, Sleep ; forgetting, In her soft embrace, your groping and your grasping After food and farthings, all your fear and fretting Your wearinesses, multiform, besetting, Slip from you in the rosy flood of Dreaming : The Sun shall rise for you, and know no setting, And Fortune's hands with gold and gems be teem- ing. . . . But midway in your dream, you hear a sighing, A dolorous complaint, that breaks your sleeping : " Ah ! God," you say, " it is a man that's crying ! " And lo ! your cheeks are wet. Tis you are weeping. LONDON STREETS. Streets of London, Here's a poor undone Son of misfortune Your asphalt beats ! Down ! He goes under! Was't then a blunder You to importune, O London Streets? 1 hear the thunder, I see the wonder, Here, where the City The gold Strand meets- Money in millions, Bullion in billions But where's your pity, O London Streets? Fortune the strumpet, Fame and her trumpet, Lovely and living Youth here entreats ; ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. But to the worn one, Weary forlorn one, What gifts for giving, O London Streets ? Care and confusion, Dust, disillusion, Thistles for reaping (Thistles who eats ?), Dark and the night-time, Fear and the flight-time, Loneliness, weeping O London Streets! Could I but wander Home, away yonder, Far from your fretting Noises and heats, Sweeter than olden April dreams golden Would be forgetting You, London Streets ! THE BEATEN WILL. How I despise these leaky boots, This seedy hat, this ink-seamed coat, These trousers where the knees rub through, And this frayed clout about my throat ; These duds of drab desuetude, These "signals of distress" I loathe; But, more than these, far more, I hate The thing they clothe. I hate the members impotent, The poltroon hand that drops the tool, The eyes that drown in futile tears, The limp, lax tongue still rasps me " Fool ! " All this where never a shadow or hint Of God's resplendent image hovers ; But, more, far more, I hate the thing The body covers The beaten Will that quakes and quails, And, mouse-like, scuttles, scant of breath, From all that's life, to nose and sniff The " Great Peace "-baited trap of death. ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. This thing to marshal all my powers, And captain them against the world When " Boot and Saddle " rings, and Fate's Blind bolts are hurled ! This fearful feeble craven thing, My Ganymede pours wine of fight ! This blinking broken crippled thing, My scout and comrade in the night ! This takes the insult and the blow, As water takes and keeps the rain This, bugle courage ! this, sing hope ! This, mock at pain ! Here, Will, my master, if Life fills You so with fear Life, finite, small How shall you face Immensity, Where you are nothing, God's will all ? What shall you show for trophy won, What banner greatly wrenched from Fate ? A shred or two of my contempt ? A rag of hate ? BALLADE DE LA BELLE liTOILE. I WAS young, I was wise, and on dreams was I fed ; To the chime of a rhyme I would dance for a day ; There was green underfoot, there was blue overhead, And my year had one month and that month it was May ; And a bird or a bard there was lilted a lay Of gallant refrain, ringing near, ringing far (O the light-hearted lift ! O the rapturous sway !) " I lodge at the Sign of the Beautiful Star." Not so young, not so wise, and my heart dull as lead, All my dreams turned to hosts of ghosts that affray, I am fallen on a dolorous doldrum of dread Where the year has one month and its name is Dismay ; And I find I'm the Ass with no windle of hay To munch or to lie on for hay's over par, And the vendors of vyvours expect one to pay ! So I lodge at the Sign of the Beautiful Star. IO ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. O the streets, the long streets ! Fate's spider-web spread ! O the mud that is slab, and the sky that is grey ! O the turbid brown Thames hang him, he's got a bed ! the rain, raining on, for ever and aye ! O the heavenly hotels, where the orchestras play, All the windows aflame, all the portals ajar ! Here's a bench by the Bridge and the peeler's away : 1 lodge at the Sign of the Beautiful Star. CHUMMY, here is a hint that will never betray : When you slouch as a slave behind Misery's car, It's mighty small comfort to sing or to say, " I lodge at the Sign of the Beautiful Star." II PENNY PLAIN. A PENNY SHORT ! A greasy brown That might as well be England's crown, Since seven pence is Slumber's price, And you've but six ! Here's sage advice : "Outside Shanks' mare and pad the Town !" The streets are cheap, though peelers frown And will not let you drowse or drown. Aye, count your wealth again once twice : A Penny short ? What matter ? Hoof it up and down ! See London in her midnight gown ! View Virtue, Vanity, and Vice ! And hear, like Whittington, ring thrice The bells of Fortune and Renown, " A Penny short ! " 12 BALLADE DE NU1TS BLANCHES. WHEN the night is white, and flirting Sleep Flutters her wings and flies away, And over the fence go a million sheep O for the light and the life of day ! In the flaming hours we work and play, Fret and fume, and bark and bite : Sick of it all, ah ! God, how we pray O for the dark and the stars of night 1 Wounded and weary, to rest we creep, And by the doom of doing we lay ; But eyes that would slumber only weep O for the light and the life of day / Our feet are torn by the flinty way That leads to the Land of Heart's Delight ; The sky is brass, and ever we say O for the dark and the stars of night ! We are, alas ! the watchers that keep Vigil vain till the morn breaks grey, The door-creak noting, the mouse's cheep O for the light and the life of day / BALLADE DE NUITS BLANCHES. 13 We are the feeble the strong Fates bray Fine as dust in the mortar of fright, Or, stark and quivering, stab and slay O for tlu dark and the stars of night / After the dreams that daunt and dismay O for the light and the life of day I But after the horror of futile fight O for the dark and the stars of night ! GHOSTS. THIS is no blasted Moated Grange, yet here's a multitude of ghosts Grimmer than Dante ever knew, or any Dickens Christmas boasts ; For when I've shut my two-foot door, and shot the bolt, and sighed for sleep, Round crowd they, one by lean-ribb'd one, and are not dumb, but creak and cheep Like the cicadas long ago, when high above Las Palmas town, Amid the gold of cactus-bloom, and runnel-song, I laid me down, For they are frail and famished things, these shadows of the dreams that were My acolytes when I was God, and Fortune was my thurifer. GHOSTS. 1 5 Prone is the altar in the dust, and well, ah ! well that it is so For my Olympus, after all, was but a mole-hill, now I know; Yet these old dreams that waked with me, singing me songs of high romance, That made my royal retinue, fluted to feast and piped to dance, And spoke the Sun fair for my sake that not too rudely should he burn, Cajoled the wind, and coaxed the rain, and back the hurrying hours did turn, And gave me roses for my bed, and fanned me with their wings' caress They will not let me be, and O, I loathe them for their faithfulness. . . . I am a king whose realm is gone, whose crown is pawned, whose robes are rags, And yet whose nerveless ministers show faultless fealty never flags, Perfervid constancy that frets, and haste to serve that has no sense, Since where's the sceptre, where the crown, and where the old magnificence? 1 6 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. Here's one Ambition these long years my bosom's friend, my counsellor, That ever had the spurring word, the bugle-word of " Conqueror." 'Tis he was wont to show me worlds like clustered globes of gold and all Easy to pluck as peaches are that ripen on a southern wall ; And Himalayan summits I, alone, might tread of Power and Fame, Heaped treasures Song had kept for me, and laurelled glories without name ; And wondrous women kings might crave, with breasts of snow, and eyes of fire, And hair of night. "All these are thine," he'd trumpet, " King, my King, aspire ! " And now what swinging sphere, what toppling pin- nacle, what matchless queen, Is it he flings upon imagination's hunger-tautened screen ? (Pity for me that see the thing ! Pity for him shall look and jeer ! I'd laugh if I had laughter left, and I would weep had I a tear.) GHOSTS. I/ He shows me plain a heaped -up plate a meal to glut the animal Easy to pluck as is a peach that ripens on a southern wall! And is't Ambition, or the gas-jet whimpering in the corridor, That creaks "To-morrow's dinner! King, aspire! Aspire, Conquistador ! " And here comes Hope, Ambition's bride if any cheer is to be said, She'll surely say it. What says she? "Hope for the seven pence pays your bed ! " And here is Faith, her samite dun, and mildewed all her asphodel, Who creaks, " Believe, believe, believe you must, you must believe in Hell ! " And Truth, whom I denied, will now take no denial I must hark : " You've twopence, and you're starving, and both Life and Death are hidden dark ! " And here is one I used to call with high-falutin foolishness But how much pride, and how much love the Muse ! And O ! the blank distress B 1 8 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. That ashes o'er her faded face, like powder on a harlot's cheek ! I know what she will say, I know 'twill be the same damned cruel creak : " I cannot find you rhymes for Faith, or Love, or Hope, or Trust, or Truth ; But here's a thousand good to mate with Hunger, Death, and Wasted Youth." . . . So, one by one, they creak and cheep then, all together all night long ! . . . . . . The church-bells sound the passing hour ; the Parcels porter bangs his gong ; E.R.I.'s vans with flaring lights and thunderous wheels go rocking by ; The sweat-drenched air is loud with snores O God ! how sweet, how sweet to die ! I fling me from the narrow bed that's just a roomy coffin's size ; I fling me down the stairs, and past where Chawles is rubbing sleep-sore eyes ; I flee with flying feet, I spurn the red-brick hygienic hell, I bless the streets, the morn, the out-all-night white London morn ! All's well GHOSTS. 19 For Joe is shutting up his stall ; the scaffie leans upon his broom ; The bobbie watches from the kerb, a drowsy bulk of sulky gloom ; A shameless spent grey cat slinks home ; the sparrows hunt their morning meal ; Mount Pleasant flickers out, and up from Phoenix Place the organs wheel ; The Union's brass-bound door's flung wide a waiting soaker scuttles in, The horrors shuddering in his rags, to lay his ghosts with three of gin. And my ghosts, my ghosts ? Are they gone ? I cannot see them now. But, no Forever at my ear they creak ! Howe'er I fly, where'er I go, Ever, forever, night and day, toil I for bread or sigh for sleep, They're with me, and they are not dumb they are not dumb they creak, they cheep, Like the cicadas long ago, when high above Las Palmas town, Amid the gold of cactus-bloom, and runnel-song, I laid me down. 2O ALCOHOL. FOR mistress you had Fortune ; I, Fame with her lure and loosely-knotted zone ; And you, the wing-foot nymph whose name is Art. We gave them youth, we gave them hope and heart, For them we pledged our harvests yet unsown And they deceived us traitorously. Drink's now the bawd of us that weep Our cheated past, our future spent ere won. Her kiss is lowly priced. Forgetfulness We have of her ; and when her paid arms press, We are clutched into the brute oblivion Of stertorous unhaunted sleep. We do not bring her song or flowers ; We do not tremble when she deigns to smile, Nor catch our breath should she decide to frown : She is the common woman of the town : Foul, faithful, free of smirk or painted wile, She takes our silver, and is ours. ALCOHOL. 21 Sleep one night's sleep profound, unstirred : Nirvana after aeons of despair ; Nepenthe after fever-rave and -rack ; A paradise where all (thank God !) is black ; A silence deep as Tophet ; and an air Unbroken of any mocking bird : Such boons we beg on bended knees From Heaven high as we are hell-deep low ; And what is Heaven's answer to our prayer ? Another blinding billow of despair, Another clanging dawn of hot-brained woe, Another plague of memories. Alcohol's kinder. So to red Rum and to gin, the Circe virgin-white, We turn to all the brands of stoppered hell Man brews to kill his ache intolerable, Numb the raw rankle of the world's barbed slight, And drown yon drumming in the head. There's poison in her kiss ? We know. There's death within her cup ? And do you think Death frights us, us ? No Life is what we fear, Life, the long journey, bitter and empty and drear. But in the fierce foul comradeship of Drink We can, at least, in blindness go 22 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. Down the lone leagues and the sad slopes, And over the interminable plain, And, witting nothing, slide into the abyss Where long have lain snake-Conscience with her hiss, And bludgeoned Faith, Love gashed and slashed and slain, And our dead youth, and our dead hopes. HOURS BEFORE DAWN. WHERE would I be ? ... Between the heather and the sea, Beside a lozenge-windowed Kirk, That, in this hour of morning mirk, Looks greyly to the storm-grey Manse, Whereround tall rhododendrons dance, There is a belt of greenest grass Where white-plumed dandelions pass Their time in tossing on the air Wing'd seed on seed light care on care. Between the heather and the sea, It's there I'd be ! There, Summer's scourge doth not prevail, Nor icy Winter's tempest-flail ; And Spring and Autumn shimmer and pass Like shadowy breath upon a glass. Shine high the sun, brood low the dark, Sing soft the wind, sing loud the lark, 24 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. The sowers sow, the reapers reap Naught touches them that lie and sleep Between the heather and the sea, Where I would be. Nor dreams are theirs, nor hopes, nor fears ; Nor laughter's light, nor noise of tears ; Nor vain-breath struggle to be first ; Nor any soul- or body-thirst ; Nor any hunger, fanged and fierce, The flesh to slay, the spirit to pierce ; Nor any memory, sad or sweet. But Sleep is theirs, full, round, complete Between the heather and the sea, Where I would be. Love rules not there : she owns no thrall Within these bounds : yon lichened wall (O wisest, grimmest, best of friends !) The frontier of her kingdom ends, As who says " Free ! Till death not after ! " Nor rings there ever children's laughter, That cruellest of darling chains Bind weary men to living's pains. Between the heather and the sea It's there I'd be ! Below the dappled nor'land sky, My father and my mother lie HOURS BEFORE DAWN. 25 Deep in the garth of Tired Man's Lease ; And, crowned with plenitude of peace As they these thirty years have lain, From Life's delight and Life's disdain Securely shut share unjarred slumber No jealous dreams of waking cumber, Between the heather and the sea, Where I would be. Thither, O thither, let me wend This goodly morn of harvest-end, Forsaking all the doing and din, To lie and sleep beside my kin. . . . But first I know my dead shall wake, And open wide their arms, and take Close, not the man grown, but the child They knew, by Life yet undefiled Between the heather and the sea, Where I would be. And we shall talk a little while. My father with a grave wise smile, My mother with a wistful tear, Holding my hands, will listen and hear My tale the telling takes not long : Love, loss ; fight, flight ; an hour of song. Then she : " O baby, do not weep ! " And he : " It's over, boy. To sleep ! " . . . Between the heather and the sea It's there I'd be ! 26 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. To sleep, to sleep ! . . . Hark ! there's the knell Relentless of the rousing bell ! Up for another day of doing, Of fortune-wooing, success-suing ! Up with what hope is left, and out ! Out for assault, rebuff, and rout ! . . . Won I the world, the world I'd pay For sleep six hundred miles away, Between the heather and the sea Where I would be ! ON THE EMBANKMENT. To Thames, or soon or late, we come, All we who after Misery's drum Through London's glorious mire have wandered The Awkward Squad, whose ensigns are A serpent and a fallen star ; The legion of the living dead, With all Life's coin, of gold or lead (Yea, even, Charon's obol), squandered : To London's Lethe, dark and dumb, Seeking oblivion, all we come. I came, one night of wind and wet, And leaned upon the parapet, Beside the smiling sister-sphynges ; I scanned the heavens black with snow, I scanned the sullen snaky flow, I sought a sign (how man is vain, Even at the hour when choice is plain !). Lo ! Heaven answered. From the fringes Tattered and tenebrous of Night Peeped, peered, and palpitated bright 28 ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. A tiny star, a point of fire, That globed and swelled out wider, higher, And grew, before my eyes enraptured, A rush and flush of gold eclipse, A herald of apocalypse, A pharos flashing hope and awe Across a drowning world. ... I saw The Almighty's lightning, lured and captured, Splash on the dark with brush of flame A worthy whisky-nabob's name ! . . . God ! I was poor, and I would die, Believing Death held dignity And peace that Life could give me never ; Believing I had won the right, Unvexed, to woo and wed the Night Believing I might drain my dole Of hemlock from a seemly bowl My last belief drowned in the river ! . . . And so I cling to rags and breath, And spurn such trivial, vulgar death. PANTOUM FOR EVERYBODY. ART is the game of an hour, or a minute ; Love is the jest of a night, or a day ; Life is a top, and Death doth spin it : Hunger and Thirst are the things that stay. Love is the jest of a night, or a day. Hearken, O Man, and hear, O Woman ! Hunger and Thirst are the things that stay : Do not all serve them, brute and human ? Hearken, O Man, and hear, O Woman ! Answer, O Saint, and reply, O Sinner ! Do not all serve them, brute and human ? Where is a god like Almighty Dinner ? Answer, O Saint, and reply, O Sinner ! Who maketh Heaven and who fashions Hell ? Where is a god like Almighty Dinner ? Hark to the sound of his sacrament bell ! 3O ROWTON HOUSE RHYMES. Who maketh Heaven and who fashions Hell, "Beeton" his Bible, and "Marshall" his psalter? Hark to the sound of his sacrament bell ! Fall, fall down at his snowy altar ! " Beeton " his Bible, and " Marshall " his psalter Dynasties crumble, but Dinner remains. Fall, fall down at his snowy altar, Sure of reward for our plentiful pains ! Dynasties crumble, but Dinner remains. Laud him with clatter of knife and of fork ! Sure of reward for our plentiful pains, Laud him with teeth in \.\\&jambon