THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 RHYMES AND REFLECTIONS.
 
 OCCASIONAL 
 
 Rhymes & Reflections 
 
 UPON SUBJECTS 
 
 SOCIAL, LITERARY, AND POLITICAL. 
 
 BY 
 
 G. H. POWELL, 
 
 OK THE INNKR TEMl'LIC. 
 
 Ki-i'isi-/> AND coRKhcrnn. iriTn notks. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LAWRENCE & BULLEN, 
 
 i6, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 
 
 MDCCCXCII.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 HBNDERSON & SHAI.DINf; (i.IMITED), GENERAL PRINTERS, 
 
 3 & S. MARYLEBONF. LANE, OXFORD ^TRFET, W.
 
 TO THE READER. /S^^y^ 
 
 Thk following verses are, for the most part, selected from 
 a larger number contributed to various journals (the 
 St. Jatness Gazette in particular) during the past three or 
 four years. A good many, however, are here printed 
 for the first time. Those dealing with political subjects 
 represent (as it appears to the author) only such Reflec- 
 tions upon political incidents, views, and characters of the 
 day as must commonly have suggested themselves to the 
 average Englishman of moderately Liberal principles. 
 
 Of the " Rhymes" as a whole, it may be added that, 
 
 though mainly of a would-be amusing nature, the serious 
 
 has not been excluded, nor such variety both of manner 
 
 and matter-as, it is hoped, may succeed in satisfying some 
 
 section of the indulgent public. 
 
 G. H. P. 
 
 2, Tjianet Place, 
 
 Temple Bar, 
 
 May 4, 1892. 

 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Our River 
 
 To J. Russell Lowell ... 
 
 The "Friend of Humanity ' ... 
 
 A Counsel of Perfection 
 
 A Dream of the Armed Continent 
 
 To Walt Whitman 
 
 A Song of Storms 
 
 A Spring Madrigal 
 
 The Goal oi—Jacobinisin ^ ... 
 
 An Incident of the Agrarian Campaign 
 
 The Passionate Female .Suffragist to his Love 
 
 The Legislative " Organ " 
 
 A Conundrum ... 
 
 Lines Attributed to W. E. A. S. 
 
 Contentment — An Ode 
 
 A Nursery Rhyme 
 
 A Wail from " New Tipperary " 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 5 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 15 
 17 
 19 
 
 22 
 24 
 27 
 
 30 
 32 
 
 34 
 36 
 39 
 41 
 
 42
 
 vni 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 A Dramatic Idyll 
 
 My Love's Hat 
 
 Lines to a Young Law Student 
 
 A Ballad of the Thames 
 
 The Laureate at Bay . . . 
 
 After Bret Harte 
 
 The •' Leading Magazine" 
 
 The Lay of the Advertiser 
 
 A Ballade of Ballade-mongers 
 
 The Modern Armourer's Carol 
 
 In the Zoo.— By a "Minor " Poet 
 
 To an Eminent Litthateur 
 
 A Song of Self-defence 
 
 Horatian Ode ... 
 
 At a Post Office.— By G. M. 
 
 To a Thoughtful Editor 
 
 Ode to the Electric Light 
 
 Conversational Ditties : — 
 
 1. The Flat Joke 
 
 2. The Man who Knows.. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 •• 44 
 
 •• 50 
 
 •• S3 
 
 ■■ 56 
 
 .. 61 
 
 .. 65 
 
 .. 67 
 
 .. 70 
 
 .. 72 
 
 ■ 75 
 
 ... 77 
 
 ... 80 
 
 ... 83 
 
 ... 86 
 
 ... 89 
 
 ... 92 
 
 ... 94 
 
 .. 96 
 
 ... 96
 
 RHYMES AND REFLECTIONS.
 
 OCCASIONAL 
 RHYMES AND REFLECTIONS. 
 
 OUR RIVER. 
 
 ^~\ RIVER, our river ! 
 
 Full thirty years ago 
 All through the golden summers 
 
 I watched your peaceful flow. 
 How many a gleam across your face, 
 
 How many a cloud, would pass, 
 Till the white mists rolled up to hide 
 
 Its darkling magic glass. 
 
 How quiet, how eerie. 
 
 The oily waters grey, 
 
 Where once an hour the sombre pike 
 
 Burst upward on his prey ; 
 
 B
 
 Or shoals of darting minnows 
 Left laggards in the lurch, 
 
 When bristling through the shallows 
 Flamed in the splendid perch. 
 
 O'er the broad waters rarely 
 
 Came sound of human speech, 
 What time the sleepy barges 
 
 Drooped down the basking reach. 
 Perchance a Don from Oxford 
 
 In flannels and white tie, 
 Or pair of Ancient Mariners 
 
 Would swing severely by. 
 
 The tripper, the tripper. 
 Theirs is our river now, 
 
 Furrowed from mom to even 
 By many a vagrant prow.
 
 Launch after launch unceasing 
 Wash fry and banks away, 
 
 And thrice a thousand Cockneys 
 Splash through the Sabbath day. 
 
 But yet in mild October 
 
 And after heavy showers, 
 When cautious cheap excursionists 
 
 Fear Pluvius's powers ; 
 When many a noisy oarsman 
 
 Hard at his desk is set, 
 The river, dear river, 
 
 It is our river yet. 
 
 Once more they glide before me, 
 
 The oily waters grey, 
 
 Scarce ruffled save when perch or pike 
 
 Strike sudden on the prey. 
 
 B 2
 
 The quiet brings a glamour, 
 Wild nature's ancient grace, 
 
 And the white mist rolls up to hide 
 Our river's silent face.
 
 TO J. RUSSELL LOWELL.* 
 {August, 1 891.) 
 
 "PAREWELL, good friend, from that strange land, 
 
 The heir of Europe's hopes and fears, 
 In thine we grasped thy country's hand : 
 
 — How strange her wrinkled youth appears, 
 Though wrought into a manlier mould 
 
 By that fierce furnace of the war. 
 Yet worshipping dull calves of gold. 
 
 And trusting blindly to her star. 
 
 Outrage that plucks the beard of law, 
 
 Fierce factions waging soulless strife, 
 Coarse wiles old England never saw. 
 
 And heartless Fraud that plays with life : 
 
 * Whose death, it will be remembered, occurred not very long 
 after certain disgraceful disturbances in Philadelphia.
 
 6 
 
 — What wild tare-harvest rank and drear 
 Yet hides the swelling seed of Fate, 
 
 Soul of the race these lands must rear, 
 To make and keep their mighty State. 
 
 Farewell, true scion of the stock, 
 
 Once fainting England's moral salt ; 
 Brave leader, steadfast as the rock 
 
 'Gainst idiot anarchy's assault. 
 Bright scorn that never made a foe, 
 
 True laugh that woke man's better part, 
 With wholesome passion's trenchant flow, 
 
 Warm-blooded from the homely heart. 
 
 Farewell, yet not the last is gone 
 Of those who trusted that the day 
 
 Of true Democracy should dawn 
 With somewhat of a fuller ray :
 
 Who, proudest of a land to be, 
 
 Still taught the young world from the old 
 And hoped and strove for what his free 
 
 New pure Republic shall unfold.
 
 THE "FRIEND OF HUMANITY" IN THE 
 PROVINCES* 
 
 C1891.) 
 
 pOOR rural voter ! which way are you voting? 
 
 Sombre and dark the pohtical horizon, 
 Blank is the outlook, and I fancy you are 
 Scarcely contented ? 
 
 Downtrodden peasant ! do you think the landlords, 
 Who in their coaches drive you to the poll-booth, 
 Know what hard work 'tis digging all the day in 
 Cottage allotments ? 
 
 * Vide the reports of the "Special Commissioner" despatched 
 by a leading Radical organ during the dead season of last year to 
 inquire into the state of the rural districts. This gentleman was 
 instructed to discover that the depopulation of " our villages" was
 
 Tell me, poor voter, how you came to be poor. 
 Was it some rich man robbed you of your birthright ? 
 Ignorant rustic ! know you the whole earth be- 
 longs to the " People " ? 
 
 How do your children get their education ? 
 Under the hateful " voluntary" system ? 
 Must they, when bid by some sectarian teacher, 
 Learn the commandments ? 
 
 Need you, when Parson or the Curate passes. 
 Doff your worn hat to proud ecclesiastics ? 
 Do the Squire's blankets gall your manly spirit ? 
 What is your grievance ? 
 
 owing to local tyranny and bigotry. He unfortunately discovered as 
 well that the rustic voter wanted "allotments," which a Conserva- 
 tive Government were already giving him. This mistake was 
 quickly and adroitly rectified by the substitution of "Village Parlia- 
 ments," &c., &c., as the essentials of rural felicity.
 
 lO 
 
 The Rural Voter. 
 
 Grievance ? Lor" bless you ! — why, the ciisted 
 
 weather ! 
 — Parson a' bin 'ere more na foorty year, sir : 
 Main poor he be ; and what he has he mostly 
 Spends on the parish. 
 
 It ain't the Squire, whatever you may think, sir. 
 But Mister Byles, the Nonconformist grocer, 
 Has the bad cottage just below the green there. 
 Worse nor a pigsty. 
 
 'Taint the poor landlords drives the folk to Lunnun ; 
 All the young chaps goes theer to seek a fortin. 
 Varmin' doant pay : and there's the long and short of 
 Depopulation.
 
 II 
 
 Friend of Humanity {aside). 
 
 Slave of the soil, unworthy to be rescued 
 From the base bondage of the Feudal system ! 
 
 {Musing, as he returns to town, and arranges notes for 
 the forthcoming " report.") 
 
 — Doesn't this show the scandalous extent of 
 Tory corruption ?
 
 12 
 
 A COUxNSEL OF PERFECTION. 
 
 Addressed to an Official Bungler at the Admiralty, 
 Treasury, or elsewhere, by ajt Opposition Idealist. 
 
 "^ AY, nay, no more. Though years may roll, 
 
 Our feelings are not changed by time. 
 Yours is perchance a kindly soul 
 
 As yet unsteeped in blackest crime ; 
 But yet you are (we've told you so) 
 A base, designing, dangerous foe. 
 
 Your latest fond and foolish scheme 
 
 Of Tax, Reform, or Armament 
 May be — (yet all too wild the dream) 
 
 No, no ; it cannot be — well meant. 
 But if it were, we all agree 
 'Tis just as bad as it can be.
 
 13 
 
 The chronic scare, the wild alarm 
 
 With sober prudence to abjure 
 The while from every risk of harm 
 
 Betimes to make the land secure — 
 We cherished once that grand design : 
 What yours may mean we can't divine. 
 
 We know you for a hireling crew 
 Consumed by vulgar selfish greed. 
 
 How can we bear that such as you 
 
 Should bungle where we might succeed ? 
 
 We wonder that you should not see 
 
 How base your every act must be. 
 
 'Tis true — of knowledge, strength, and skill 
 Some crumbs have fallen to your share ; . 
 
 Your names to pufif, your purse to fill, 
 
 'Twould seem you've neither need nor care. 
 
 It may be so, — a specious blind 
 
 That covers something worse behind.
 
 14 
 
 We weep that you should be so vile, 
 Your virtue such a tinsel gaud, 
 
 Your prudence fraught of fear and guile, 
 Your candour mask for glaring fraud ; 
 
 But fate's decree has ordered thus, 
 
 That wisdom lives, and dies, with us.
 
 15 
 
 A DREAM OF THE ARMED CONTINENT.* 
 
 T T was a monster armament, 
 
 So mighty and bright and keen : 
 A spear in rest, and a bow full bent, 
 
 A murderous man-machine : 
 And it hung and swayed like a Damocles' blade 
 O'er the anxious-peaceful scene. 
 
 And the Ruler waked in the night 
 For thought of the Balance of Power. 
 
 " Though no deadly ball on my ramparts fall, 
 Can I wait one fateful hour ? 
 
 Can I trust to the foe the first dread blow 
 When threatening storm-clouds lower ? " 
 
 * " It is estimated that Germany could in a week set 750,000 men 
 
 in French territory Over twenty millions of Europeans 
 
 are liable to expose their lives in the next great war. Would they 
 do it? That is a question which must sometimes puzzle the brains 
 of the statesmen who believe that they pull the wires of this vast 
 and murderous apparatus. " — Daily Paper, Oct. 1889.
 
 i6 
 
 Then he thrilled the electric line 
 To the armament marshalled there— 
 
 " Ho ! fall on the foe, great engine of mine, 
 And scatter their pride to air " 
 
 (And add one wrong more to the perilous store 
 Of vengeance and fierce despair). 
 
 But the mighty machine, unmoved, 
 
 Alade answer with passionate crie?, 
 " Shall a man pay toll of the life of his soul 
 
 For the conqueror's bloodstained prize ?" 
 And the man-machine grew wise, 
 
 And the death-bearing bow unbent ; 
 For the nation's heart would no more be part 
 
 Of a " monster armament."
 
 17 
 
 TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 IN HEAVEN. 
 
 AITHEN first across the Atlantic's roll 
 
 We caught your carols so fresh and strong, 
 What souls sprang upward to greet your soul, 
 The bard whose coming we waited long 1 
 
 " 'Twas a dream"— they tell us—" the years that pass 
 Bring no more prophets with old-world powers : 
 
 — And what is a leaflet of prairie grass 
 
 To the glowing garden of Europe's flowers ? " 
 
 — Not ours to praise you, the earthborn Man, 
 
 Serenely mighty, superbly sweet, 
 — To defend your page from the blatant ban 
 
 Of a pigmy peering about your feet :
 
 i8 
 
 — Ah ! never. Not if I grasped your hand 
 With the love of a comrade, proud and free, 
 
 It is no strange bard from a far-off land, 
 But the new world-spirit that speaks to me ; 
 
 — But a quick suggestion, a glance of fire, 
 
 A sign, a miracle, a delight ; 
 Just shown to us here as we strive and tire. 
 
 Then folded into the folds of night. 
 
 O soft sweet singers of golden lays, 
 Ye gave us freely of all your store : 
 
 But I treasure above your brightest bays 
 This pebble from '' blue Ontario's shore."
 
 '9 
 
 A SONG OF STORMS. 
 
 {Nov. 9, 1890.)* 
 
 TIJ'IERCE the northern winter, 
 
 Dark the western sky, 
 Hark ! across the low'ring tempest 
 
 Peals a seaward cry. 
 'Gainst the hurricane's fierce onset, 
 
 Serried breakers jar ; 
 Peasants, miners turn to wage 
 
 Elemental war. 
 
 * The reader may remember that on this day (a Sunday) a terrific 
 gale swept over the west coast, involving in destruction all kinds of 
 sea-going craft, from the nobleman's yacht (dragging her anchors 
 all night and cast away in the morning) to the collier-brig dashed 
 helplessly on the rocks, and going down with all hands. The 
 newspapers of the next morning were crowded with descriptions 
 of "Terrible Loss of Life," "Heroic Rescues," and "Attempts at 
 Rescue." The latter, on the part of persons, artisans and quarry- 
 men, leaving their ordinary inland vocations to take part in these 
 perilous enterprises, were sufficiently remarkable to deserve some 
 more durable memorial. 
 
 C 2
 
 20 
 
 England's soul makes answer 
 
 To that dying call ! 
 Poor and wealthy, gentle, simple — 
 
 Victims each and all, 
 Snared to-night by storm and darkness 
 
 In one dreadful net, 
 To those sleepless billows 
 
 Pay our mighty debt. 
 
 So, when fiercely sundered 
 
 From the lands at rest, 
 Sea-bred mother, clasp thy children 
 
 Closer to thy breast. 
 Joys and fears of unknown heroes, 
 
 Manhood's pride and pain. 
 Weld the might of ocean 
 
 To thy soul again.
 
 21 
 
 Howl, oh storm and tempest ; 
 
 Let thy stress prolong 
 Nature's one supreme alliance, 
 
 Britain, true and strong. 
 Round her rocky coasts re-echo, 
 
 Shake the cloudy dome ; 
 On this island-anvil 
 
 Beat our one-ness home.
 
 22 
 
 A SPRING MADRIGAL.* 
 
 "Y'OUNG May went forth, with bud and flower. 
 
 To meet the sun at trysting due ; 
 " He hath not now his ancient power, 
 Let others fail, yet I am true." 
 
 Ah me ! none gave a warning cry 
 
 As she stepped forth so blithe and gay ; 
 
 A gang of villain winds came by : 
 
 With bitter stabs they murdered May. 
 
 With bitter stabs they murdered May, 
 
 And lapped her in a chilly sheet, 
 And cast her in the whirling way 
 
 Of flooded waters, fast and fleet. 
 
 * Suggested by the singular weather tragedy concluded May 30, 
 1891.
 
 Fierce Summer flashed :x fiery eye 
 
 Of angry light that Ht her shroud. 
 And, as dead May went whirling by, 
 
 He frowned, and wept, and groaned aloud. 
 
 The wroth Sun caught the villain crew, 
 And struggling, turned a dusky red : 
 
 " Who killed my May ? 'Twas you, 'twas you ! " 
 And, fainting, sank upon his bed. 
 
 Then woke aflush with glad surprise 
 — 'Twas but a dream of winter drear. 
 
 It is no wraith that mocks our eyes, 
 But late the longed-for May is here. 
 
 Is here ? Is fled. Nay, let her fly ; 
 
 (Ring in the new) for we behold 
 The full year's pageant sweeping by 
 
 With glories of the days of old.
 
 24 
 
 THE GOAL OF— JACOBINISM ? 
 
 [ ' ' True Liberalism " — sed qticrre if the above be not a preferable 
 reading — "is never satisfied." — Daily News^l 
 
 ■\7'0U ask me why, so ill at ease, 
 In this dull region I persist 
 
 (With spirits damper than the mist), 
 In projects \vilder than the breeze. 
 It is because, through good or ill, 
 
 One principle is still my guide. 
 That whatsoe'er the people's will. 
 
 It never shall be " satisfied." 
 
 Though power should make from land to land 
 The name of Britain trebly great, 
 I care not for Imperial State, 
 
 And oh, still less for " golden sand."
 
 25 
 
 To smooth the waves of discontent 
 May fill a humbler heart with pride ; 
 
 'Tis mine to give all passions vent, 
 And keep them never satisfied. 
 
 Each evil to its ghastly root 
 
 I trace with all unclouded ken ; 
 
 See women hung'ring to be men, 
 And ploughboys for a village-moot. 
 And naught my energies shall daunt 
 
 (Ratepaying matters not to me) 
 Till everything they do not want 
 
 Is furnished to the " masses "—^r^^. 
 
 Or else, on changeful prospects bent 
 I'd seek some bracing Celtic shore, 
 Where, torn by factions evermore, 
 
 Meets the bi-weekly Parliament ;
 
 26 
 
 While rotted by a sneering blight, 
 All true and tried tradition lies, 
 
 And full grown in a single night 
 The legislative fungi rise. 
 
 List, list, the oft-repeated strain 
 
 Of barren craving, senseless hunger ! 
 
 Keep, only keep the grievance-monger. 
 The grievance follows in his train. 
 A patriot fire within him burns, 
 
 His hand the helm of State must guide, 
 Or, though the golden age returns. 
 
 He never will be satisfied.
 
 27 
 
 AN INCIDENT IN THE AGRARIAN 
 CAMPAIGN. 
 
 T^HE peasant and the demagogue * 
 
 Were walking hand in hand ; 
 They wept like anything to see 
 
 The property in land. 
 " If this were only cleared away," 
 
 They said, " it would be grand." 
 
 " If seven courts on seven scales 
 Reduced the rents each year, 
 
 Do you suppose," the peasant said, 
 " We'd pay them ? Never fear ! " 
 
 * An amateur agitator, who was quite surprised at being " taken " 
 seriously by the pohce. He had only acted from the most philan- 
 thropic motives in " assisting the distressed tenants."
 
 28 
 
 — " The Plan," observed the demagogue, 
 "Is most successful here." 
 
 The peasant and the demagogue 
 
 Walked on a mile or so, 
 And rested in a hut from which 
 
 The tenant wouldn't go, 
 Till all the bailiffs and police 
 
 Came up with bar and crow. 
 
 "A loaf of bread," the statesman said, 
 
 "Is what we chiefly need. 
 Then let the tyrant foe advance, 
 
 We never will recede. 
 For we are ready, tenants dear, 
 
 Our ' garrison ' to feed." 
 
 " The time is come " — the tenant sighed— 
 
 " To talk of many things : 
 Of brickbats, and of constables, 
 
 And laws of (uncrowned) kings ;
 
 29 
 
 And whether boiHng oil is hot, * 
 Or capital has wings." 
 ***** 
 ( The tenement is taken by storm, and the 
 demagogue arrested^ 
 
 " You don't want me ! " the hero whined, 
 
 Turning a little blue. 
 " All Radicals will think my ' case' 
 
 Too shocking to be true." 
 — " We thank you much," the public said ; 
 
 " Three months you'll kindly do." 
 
 St. J. G., 1889. 
 
 "If he had spoken to them of getting ready the boiling oil, it 
 was only in a jocose manner." — Evidence of an Irish Priest before 
 the Parnell Commission.
 
 THE PASSIONATE FEMALE-SUFFRAGIST 
 TO HIS LOVE. 
 
 t~^ OME vote with me, and be mj' peer, 
 
 Electress and electioneer, 
 And taste the joys the hustings yield 
 To all who England's franchise wield. 
 
 Then shalt thou sit on local boards. 
 And rule creation's upstart lords ; 
 Chair-woman of some Council be, 
 And p'r'aps — who knows ? — at last, M.P. 
 
 Each privilege thou'lt practise then 
 That marks the British citizen ; 
 If hooting roughs thou dost not fear, 
 Come vote with me, and be my peer.
 
 31 
 
 Her Answer. 
 If all the powers of men should rust, 
 And leave them worthless of our trust, 
 I should be bound— it follows clear, 
 To vote against thee as thy peer. 
 
 But sith I know nor care a groat 
 For half the things on which ye vote ; 
 And all the better half, I see 
 Men understand as well as we. 
 
 And as the heats of party passion 
 Inflame already half the nation. 
 And private peace, not public strife, 
 Is meet for woman and for wife ; 
 
 Why, still, in spite of theories sound, 
 I've no enthusiasm profound — 
 All things considered, Damon dear — 
 To vote with thee, and be thy peer.
 
 32 
 
 THE LEGISLATIVE "ORGAN."* 
 
 CEATED long since at the "organ," 
 
 I strummed in a weary way, 
 And my fingers wandered widely 
 
 For a popular air to play. 
 I know not of what I was dreaming, 
 
 Though I strive to explain it still. 
 But I struck one chord of faction 
 
 Like the sound of a Home Rule Bill. 
 
 It flooded the House and the Empire, 
 Like a fantasy wild and new, 
 
 And it shattered my peerless party. 
 Like a thunderbolt from the blue. 
 
 * "The capacity of our legislative organ is limited, and its 
 
 strength overtaxed The Irish problem necessarily occupies 
 
 the immediate future." — Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladslo7te.
 
 33 
 
 And I strove to "re-model" the discord 
 
 Of passions I could not cool, 
 Till I gave up my seat at the organ 
 
 Where I might not play Home Rule. 
 
 And yet on that worn-out organ 
 
 I shall strike that chord once more, 
 And sing in life's sunlit gloaming 
 
 The song that I learnt of yore. 
 And the law of the land shall quaver 
 
 In tune to a plundering plan, 
 When the grand old English organ 
 
 Throbs again to the Grand Old Man. 
 
 Sf. y. G., Jan., J 889.
 
 34 
 
 A CONUNDRUM.* 
 
 "\^OULD you see a monster? 
 
 Step into my house. 
 Here's a "loathly reptile" 
 
 And a " creeping louse." 
 Mind the " rav'ning vulture," 
 
 " Vampire " dread beware, 
 And the " Bengal tiger" 
 
 In the easy-chair. 
 At your side's " the foulest 
 
 Of all beasts of prey. " 
 Tell me if you'd rather 
 
 Call another day. 
 
 * The epithets and synonyms made use of in this poem are care- 
 fully selected from the much larger stock which form the glossary of 
 the agrarian agitator. — Vide Reports of Evidence before the Parnell 
 Commission, and Nationalist Journals, passim.
 
 35 
 
 Read my little fable 
 
 (He who runs may read), 
 Tin the beast, the vampire, 
 
 All the monstrous breed. 
 Ha ! you start and shudder? 
 
 Now, you understand ? 
 
 — Yes, I own an acre 
 Of Hibernian land. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 
 
 LINES ATTRIBUTED TO 
 WILLIAM EWART ALEXANDER SELL-KIRK. * 
 
 /^NCE monarch — each v.ord that I said 
 
 Was hailed an infalHble bull ;t 
 But alas ! I am basely betrayed 
 
 By the party that bowed to my rule. 
 Popularity, where are the charms 
 
 Politicians have seen in thy face ? 
 Come, " civilized world," to my amis ; J 
 
 I abandon this barbarous race. 
 
 * Mr. Gl-dst-ne's promises of Disestablishment were a mere bribe 
 to the Scotch voters in return for their support on the Home Rule 
 question.— 5/ee<:A of Lord Hartington. 
 
 + " The idea of Mr. Gl-dst-ne as a political Pope is a ridiculous 
 invention of the Tory party."— Da zVj Nevjs. 
 
 X "The civilized world is on our side." — W. E. G.
 
 2>1 
 
 I am out of all argument's reach, 
 
 I must finish my journey alone ; 
 Never read a " dissentient " speech, 
 
 But silently pore o'er my own. 
 How Harting-ton, Chamberlain rant 
 
 And swear we shall never agree ! 
 They are so unaffected by cant, 
 
 Their frankness is shocking to me. 
 
 How swift are the changes of mind ! 
 
 Compared to my principles' flight 
 Little Randolph himself lags behind, 
 
 And what can I think of John Bright ? 
 My friends — if I still have a friend. 
 
 So far from what once was my home — 
 Yes, the Daily N'ews, true to the end, 
 
 Still follows wherever I roam.
 
 38 
 
 Constitutions, Religion, and Law, 
 
 Divinely bestowed upon man : 
 — I can find in the Charter a flaw, 
 
 And defend an agrarian " plan." 
 So I smile in a reverend way 
 
 ^Vhile reading the lessons in church, 
 Could the Baptists my favours repay. 
 
 Poor St-ph-n* I'd leave in the lurch. 
 
 But Herbert has gone to his nest, 
 
 The reporter is snorin<^, I vow : 
 I must soon be retiring to rest. 
 
 As I've said once or twice before now. 
 There are factions in every place, 
 
 Hibernian, Cymric, and Scot ; 
 And the wrongs of religion and race 
 
 Must reconcile me to my lot. 
 
 (1886.) 
 
 Presumaljly the Rev. St-ph-n Gl-dst-ne, Rector of H-vv-rd-n.
 
 39 
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 Aji Ode by an \5xv-enfranchised Lease-holder. 
 
 l\/r INE be a cot in some fair vill 
 
 (Built by a duke when rents were high), 
 Or house, or mansion, what you will, 
 That I should like., but cannot buy. 
 
 There would I sign a contract plain, 
 That seemed a tenancy for years. 
 
 Though to the deep "progressist" brain 
 It is not quite what it appears. 
 
 Then, while paid agitators sum 
 The wrongs of all by leases bound, 
 
 Mine ear shall catch the soothing hum 
 Of councils legislating round.
 
 40 
 
 No rent-collector's foul attacks 
 
 Shall break my rest on quarter-day ; 
 
 But swelling " unearned "-Income Tax 
 Fright the land-tyrant from his prey. 
 
 There, all unsummoned, let me live, 
 
 All unevicted let me die, 
 Steal from the world, and calmly give 
 
 Sense, Fact, and Law the lie.
 
 41 
 
 A NURSERY RHYME. 
 {Attributed to the Earl of Caernarvon.)* 
 
 "D AR, bar black sheep, 
 
 Sending out the writs, 
 Be our legislators 
 Statesmen, scholars, wits. 
 
 One for the Tory peer, 
 And one for the " Rad.," 
 
 But none for the noble lord 
 That's gone to the bad. 
 
 'On the occasion of a proposed reform in the House of Lords, 1889.
 
 A WAIL FROM "NEW TIPPERARY."* 
 
 A Y me ! for the " New Tipperary," 
 
 And its glories that are not but seem, 
 Great edifice, golden and airy, 
 
 That vanishes now like a dream. 
 Where trade should have grown grows the thistle, 
 
 These huts, like our hopes, are decayed ; 
 '"Tis quite doleful to hear the wind whistle 
 Down the " William O'Brien Arcade." 
 
 * A collection of wooden buildings erected at the instigation of 
 political agitators, by the misguided tenants of Mr. Smith Barry, 
 notoriously, and by their own admission, one of the best and most 
 considerate of landlords. For a glowing description of the founda- 
 tions and construction of the New Jerusalem of thievery and 
 tyranny described by this bombastic title, the reader is respectfully 
 invited to refer to the back files of the Daily Neivs, from which the 
 dishonesty of the whole proceeding will be abundantly apparent. 
 In May, 1891, this ruinously expensive enterprise had, from its own 
 inherent and gratuitous folly, already collapsed, having cost the 
 Irish people ^50,000. ' ' Money was sunk in the William O'Brien 
 Arcade " wrote Mr. James Carew, a former tenant of the estate, in 
 a pathetic letter to the Times, " which is now untenanted."
 
 43 
 
 Was our rod of oppression like iron 
 
 When peacefully paying our rent, 
 Ere ye came, Honest John, and O'Brien, 
 
 And stirred this divine discontent ? 
 And we heeded your bribes and your ravings 
 
 Half beheving, and oh ! half afraid, 
 And invested our hardly-earned savings 
 
 In your " William O'Brien Arcade.'" 
 
 Ah ! fools of " agrarian feeling " * 
 Not to see that, in spite of your cant, 
 
 The end of all lying and stealing- 
 Is remorse, destitution, and want ; 
 
 That while flourishing Anarchy's flambeau 
 Your promises, easily made, 
 
 Were as empty, O arcades anibo^ 
 As is " William O'Brien's Arcade." 
 
 * " An ' agrarian feeling ' seems to mean a desire to get possession 
 of some one else's property for nothing. I will undertake to find 
 you an agrarian feeling anywhere in the streets of London." — 
 The Marquis of Salisbitty.
 
 44 
 
 BURCHIELLO TO JANE TOMPKINS. 
 
 A DRAMATIC IDYLL.* 
 
 By the author of " My Fright of a Duchess," "Adventures and 
 Exhaustion" (a transcript of Apollonius Rhodius), "Read Got-on- 
 nightcap Country," " De Gustibus ; or, Drams and Scruples," 
 " Glove among the Bruins," " Waring away," "Two Loves and a 
 Wife," " Fortii — were.71' t there," Soliloquy by a Spanish Oyster, 
 "Shop," "Impenetrability," "Rabbi's Tales and Jews d'Esprit," 
 "Tribonian on Asbestos," "Riddle to an Old Lady of Tripoli," 
 " Three in a Coracle," " Two in a Bath-chair," "Gardening Fancies 
 on Bi-furcation, " " My Stars ! " and many others. 
 
 TDUZZWUZZ ! . . . Shall he swing on — a murderous 
 
 spider 
 Scotching the muse on my leaf-hedged -window-sill ? 
 
 * Both the metre and the rhymes of this poem have been patented. 
 In regard to a less important point — the meaning — any reader who 
 positively cannot discern it for himself, is respectfully referred to a 
 brochure entitled " Plaviime with a Pen" (MacMillan & Bowes, 
 Cambridge), recently published by the author, in which the above 
 lines appear, with a commentary, under the \S.\\q o'i 7\. " Dramatic 
 Idyll Reviewed," and also to some observations of the late Dean
 
 45 
 
 What if Love grew shorter (as he grows wider) 
 Curdling a temper once sweet, now indocile. 
 (No, not yours, Bildad.) Heart heart defied ? (Ugh !) 
 
 Had she denied her 
 Moth-kisses — pho ! when yon whiskered corsair 
 Could drag her downstairs by a three-plait horsehair ? 
 
 "Varmint !" I call him, '' Virginian (ha !) creeper T^ 
 (And if Pussycats sniffed at their own valerian 
 
 Down on my hearthrug, how long would she purr ?) 
 — But you think silence the true criterion ? 
 
 Well, rather than shut up the lovely ^^^w-peeper 
 (Long may her sheep err .') 
 
 You can fancy my watching that mincing minx stand 
 
 Just within range of my brass-bound inkstand I 
 
 Church (see his essays), apropos, if we recollect right, of Sordello. 
 Before condemning any poem as hopelessly unintelligible the reader 
 must be careful to give it a fair chance. Let him read the above 
 lines aloud with an intelligent and sympathetic inflexion, and a proper 
 attention to punctuation and grammar, and watch the effect. 
 If each hearer will make a short note of his or her idea of the signifi- 
 cance of the poem, and compare this with the "Key" aforesaid (price 
 eighteen pence), the author will be directly benefited.
 
 46 
 
 For last year, when we rode by, you vowed — " It t's 
 hard" 
 — Thro' the ripe June Hlies we heard the brat tick- 
 That I could not pluck you that grey-winged lizard 
 
 That croaks in the grass of the damp Camatic. 
 So you fancied a tale spun, as I'm no wizard, 
 
 Out of one's gizzard. 
 As if tantrums (Go' bless us!) that tweaked one soul awiy 
 Could smooth out the past like this long-cramped scrollery. 
 
 So I peered from my palace {/n'c ipse boss siitn) 
 Till in earth-attire she came prancing there, 
 
 While the gold sun-torrents flashed flix- and floss-some 
 Down nebulous fugues of her dappled hair. 
 
 Hers ? Was it his ? But a fringe — non possum — 
 Cut straight across ? Htan. 
 
 " Christian! est." — Whafs that ? G-r-r-r-r ! Ignosco. 
 
 Huic but not hic^ though perhaps at Moscow.
 
 47 
 
 How Nature snores in our hot moat-garden ! 
 
 To the thorough-bass chorus the brown bee-folk hums 
 I could thrum in a ninth like some cloaked guitar-Don, 
 
 Singing — Si / by the limes her green parasol comes — 
 But for souls in hammocks that hang and harden, 
 
 Fixed in some far den, 
 (He's one of those) would it all seem quicker work 
 Than Schireddin's doll toys, feathers and wickerwox'k ? 
 
 Hola ! Ptpa di Bacco ! A caique gliding 
 
 Under our prow — (the eleven must know it) 
 From San Pozzi's duomo you caught the sly Ding- 
 Dong d the 711716 / A last tryst ! Be no whit 
 Blunter, good stile, (Ben Cellini's tried in 
 
 Necknape dividing) 
 Than the — Skwu/npsh ! (He liked eels.)— For her false 
 
 swan-throttle. 
 Well— rage, unlike love, grows stronger in bottle
 
 48 
 
 — Bursting at last. On those mufifled kisses ! 
 
 (Cold ? Yes, for August— you've tried merino ?) 
 Through the land-lark's carol one voice I miss is 
 
 Caught in rosc-iiieslies no more to flee ? No, 
 Home up the hill-side (in love's last pthises 
 
 Cropped up Ulysses!) 
 Flower o' the turnip ! So deep I've sunk " ohs " 
 I could dance out the moon in my grandsire's trunkhose. 
 
 Foul fiends ha' yowx firedogs ! (catch that paraffin, 
 
 'Ere Vulcan and Vishnu o'er Turkey triumph) 
 No matter — I'd pitchfork the globe's West half in 
 
 For a kink of those curls once ere you dye (umph !) 
 Then alone I roaming Bantry to Baffin 
 
 (You nectar quaffing) 
 Can't hope by my losses to re-arrange his ? 
 No; not on this side of our blue chalk-ranges.)
 
 49 
 
 Marrted—yoM gander ! What cards for calling ? 
 
 Adela Tompkins (;//^ Jane) Plantagenet (? !) 
 A cricket in tears to a cockroach squalling 
 
 Were passion and pain with more true presage in it. 
 The sea hath prawns, and the dull red shore ling, 
 
 (Darkness is falling) 
 But love to a life that has loved its fill owes 
 A something perchance to be borne o'er the billows. 
 
 St. J. G., 1889.
 
 MY LOVE'S HAT. 
 The Song of a Season. 
 
 IWr Y love she hath a summer hat : 
 
 'Tis like a little boat, 
 A fairy shallop, broad and flat, 
 
 That on her head doth float. 
 Upon the billows of her hair 
 
 It resteth r 'tis so wide, 
 That I must tell you of the fare 
 
 It carrieth inside. 
 
 For first sits in the corner, 
 
 'Mid many a grassy tuft, 
 A swallow,* like Jack Horner 
 
 (He's dead, of course, and stuffed). 
 
 * "A bird in the hat is worth two in the bush."— J/ew?. for 
 milliners.
 
 51 
 
 Three fuchsias and an ivy-bush 
 
 (A cargo, you'll allow), 
 And something else, I think a thrush, 
 
 That carols in the bow. 
 
 A beetle, and a butterfly, 
 
 In gold and silver trim. 
 Swarm up the blue convolvuli 
 
 That dangle on the brim. 
 There's velvet, lace — but I should sing 
 
 A week — nay, more than that, 
 'Ere I could tell you everything 
 
 My love hath in her hat. 
 
 My love she carries on her head 
 
 This little fairy boat ; 
 
 But you must judge, from what I've said. 
 
 If it would really float. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 'Tis on her head ; I've mentioned that> 
 
 But yet I must declare, 
 You would not know it was a hat 
 
 Unless vou saw it there.
 
 DO 
 
 LINES 
 
 Suggested by the sight of a young Law Student 
 in Fleet Street. 
 
 TLJAIL ! smiling youth, with downy cheek 
 
 And cloudless brow serene, 
 Why hither tend thy steps ? Dost seek 
 
 A second College-green ? 
 Or com'st thou townwards to acquire 
 
 (At Custom's stern command) 
 A grace, a name, and then retire 
 
 To ornament the land ? 
 
 The Benchers bid thee to their board — 
 
 Go, take thy lower seat ; 
 Nor grudge to swell their hostel's hoard. 
 
 But meekly pay and eat.
 
 54 
 
 The world will know (and this redounds 
 Much to your young renown) 
 
 That once you had a hundred pounds, 
 And sometimes dined in town. 
 
 Ambitious art thou ? Thee we urge 
 
 Go study day and night, 
 From toil's grim furnace to emerge 
 
 A trenchant blade of might ; 
 That, discontent with wordy play, 
 
 And sick of mimic strife. 
 Shall carve through all this crowded fray 
 
 A way to larger life. 
 
 Say — holds thy soul the quenchless fire 
 To cheer thee in that fight, 
 
 Immortal Faith, supreme Desire 
 That smiles in Fate's despite }
 
 55 
 
 Canst bear thy own — a rival's — fame, 
 Nor bum with pride or gall, 
 
 Play everj' hazard of the game, 
 And triumph over all ? 
 
 Bold Templar of the downy chin, 
 
 We love thy blooming cheek ; 
 May many a knight from this old Inn 
 
 Ride forth such prize to seek, 
 Nor conquering fail the purpose high 
 
 That striving he foresaw ; 
 — Nor swell the whit'ning bones that lie 
 
 About the ways of Law.
 
 56 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE THAMES. 
 
 "LJ ERE under the ash-tree — beneath the wall, 
 
 My boat lies moored, and I dream at will ; 
 And shadows wrought with reflections fall 
 In a quivering maze on the waters still. 
 
 And I muse and dream, as the shadows fall 
 In a shimmering maze on the waters green, 
 
 And I wonder where on the earth's wide ball 
 I could sit and gaze on a lovelier scene 
 
 Than the broadening stream, where no rush stirs, 
 And the white kine dotting the level leas ; 
 
 And the far hedge broken by dusky firs, 
 And the faint Ijlue tufts of the willow-trees.
 
 57 
 
 Ho, Mississippi, and Rhine, and Po, 
 
 And Don, and Dnieper, and Guadalquivir, 
 
 And all brave waters that seawards flow, 
 Can one of you rival our royal river? 
 
 Oh never — when lusty Autumn's horn 
 The laughing valley's rich lap doth fill. 
 
 And purple clover and golden corn 
 
 Stream down the hollow and crown the hill. 
 
 And Sport joins Labour — a merry rout, 
 And the peasant halts by his laden wain, 
 
 At the whistle shrill, and the far faint shout, 
 And the dull shots breaking across the plain, 
 
 — In Winter I'll grant you that fierce and black 
 The South winds storming in squadrons go, 
 
 And strewing our fields with ruinous wrack, 
 Burst open the stores of the hoarded snow.
 
 58 
 
 Till a mighty lagoon spread waste and wide 
 To the feet of the brown hills far withdrawn, 
 
 And in tawny furrows the swinging tide 
 
 Lashed round the elm on the flooded lawn ; 
 
 Then seawards and earthwards delved and died, 
 And left a wilderness dank and drear ; 
 
 Where Nature deep in her breast might hide 
 The unbought wealth of the coming year. 
 
 But in Spring— oh, who should paint the gleam 
 — ('Neath the rampart of woodlands fleck'd and pale) 
 
 Of the steel-blue scimitar of the stream 
 That cuts the pure sward of the virgin vale. 
 
 When fruit-blossoms smile through the sunny showers, 
 Or strew the wet grass with a crimson pall, 
 
 And a thousand towers of its milk-white flowers 
 Built up the bright mosque of the chestnut tall.
 
 59 
 
 And in Summer, - at dawn — when cool mists grey 
 That veiled the broad Thames with a fairy grace, 
 
 By the full fierce sunbeams are purged away 
 From the burnished brass of his breathless face. 
 
 And in one still mirror the Abbey sleeps, 
 
 And the branching limes, and the poplars tall. 
 
 And the dark high roof where the ivy creeps, 
 And the sunburnt streaks on the glowing wall. 
 
 And towering elms hide all the park, 
 
 But below (where the fretting horses feed) 
 
 Their thick stems serry like columns dark 
 The sunlit squares of the golden mead. 
 
 Breast-deep the cattle stand still and stare 
 At the cooling wave, in the burning time, 
 
 And the sheep lie crouched in their dusty lair 
 'Neath the broad arcade of the humming lime ;
 
 6o 
 
 And shadows mixt with reflections fall 
 
 (Where my boat lies moored) on the waters green, 
 And I wonder where on the earth's round ball 
 
 You could sit and gaze on a lovelier scene 
 
 Than the broadening stream, where no rush stirs, 
 And the white kine dotting the level leas ; 
 
 And the far hedge broken by dusky firs, 
 And the faint blue tufts of the willow-trees. 
 
 So — Mississippi, and Rhine, and Rhone, 
 And Po, and Dnieper, and Guadalquivir, 
 
 I take your silence to freely own 
 That none of you rival our royal river. 
 
 Bt'sham, May 15, 1892.
 
 6i 
 
 THE LAUREATE AT BAY.* 
 
 "V/^OU are treating me severely, most severely, Collins 
 dear, 
 
 Your book will be the greatest " boom " of all the dying 
 
 year ; 
 Of all the crowded year, Collins, the maddest, merriest 
 
 say, 
 For I'm to be shorn of the bay, Collins, I'm to be shorn 
 
 of the bay. 
 
 * In his "Illustrations of Tennyson," Mr. John Churton Collins 
 has collected a number of the original sources from which Lord 
 
 Tennyson has enriched his poetry Mr. Collins proves rather 
 
 too much It is to be feared that, in spite of his protests, the 
 
 general public will be impressed with the belief that the Laureate is 
 a plagiarist. — Daily Paper.
 
 62 
 
 There'll be many a black, black name, Collins, but none 
 
 so black as mine, 
 
 There's Mr. L s M s, and all the scribbling line ; 
 
 But of all the imitative bards, I'm worst by a long, long 
 
 way, 
 I take it that's what you say, Collins, that's what you 
 
 mean to say. 
 
 I never thought a single soul could be so wide awake ; 
 You might have " called me earlier " to such a grave 
 
 mistake ; 
 I must really look up something^ original some day. 
 Or I shall be shorn of my bay, Collins, shorn of the 
 
 Laureate's bay. 
 
 There's Homer and Theocritus, and many, many more, 
 I never thought to pilfer, adapting from their store — 
 Adapting, mark you, Collins, in a Tennysonian way ; 
 But there — I'm shorn of the bay, Collins, I'm to be shorn 
 of the bay.
 
 63 
 
 Of course you won't believe it, you'll do just as you 
 
 please, 
 But I never stole a single word from Aristophanes. 
 And don't you think, my Collins— it seems to me so 
 
 clear — 
 That two great minds might hit for once upon the same 
 
 idea? 
 
 Within my Sophocles, Collins, you'll find the marker left, 
 But of my " fiery crocus," oh, 'tis hard to be bereft ! 
 And I may have read the line, Collins (it isn't quite the 
 
 same), 
 Or thought of Wordsworth's " flowrets that set the hills 
 
 aflam.e." 
 
 Ill-fated " Oriana " — I dreamed she was my own, 
 Tho'" Helen of Kirkconnell Lea" was not to me unknown. 
 But as to flowers and grasses, and cloudlets in the sun, 
 I know their looks as well as you, or Peele, or any one.
 
 64 
 
 My time, I think, is over. Perhaps, and yet I know 
 The simple hearts of England I've thrilled with many a 
 
 glow. 
 You'll comfort them, my Collins, as I could not do alo7ie 
 (Suppose you write them something that's every bit your 
 
 own). 
 
 I have been wild and wayward in the " sources " whence 
 
 I've "drawn " 
 (I never prigged from Spencer, nor yet from Henry 
 
 Vaughan) ; 
 But if I write again, Collins, I'll think of what you say, 
 Or I shall be shorn of the bay, Collins, I shall be shorn 
 
 of the bay. 
 
 Globe, Nov. 30, 1891.
 
 65 
 
 AFTER BRET HARTE. 
 
 " T WRITE for Punch," the young man said 
 
 Quoth the Editor, " Nay, no more, 
 You are doubtless the high-class humourist 
 That for years we've been looking for." 
 
 " I write for Punch" the young man sighed : 
 
 — " But which is your line of all ? 
 The paragraph pun, or the comical notes, 
 Or the songs for the music hall ? " 
 
 " I write for Pimch^' that young man said : 
 Quoth the Editor, " Yes, quite so, 
 
 But it hardly can occupy all your time, 
 And we don't want much, you know :
 
 66 
 
 " If you've got the talent, the happy knack 
 
 That have made that Journal's fame, 
 For a 'skit' or a parody now and then, 
 
 We will thank you all the same." 
 
 " I write for Punch — and for ten long years 
 
 I have sent them joke and pun 
 (Here his tone grew sad), but I ought to add, 
 
 1 hat they've never inserted one." 
 
 The Editor spake him never a word, 
 
 But plied his whistle-call ; 
 " Show out that young man who writes jokes for 
 Piatch 
 
 That never appear at all."
 
 67 
 
 THE "LEADING MAGAZINE." 
 
 Lines of Advice to a Literary Aspirant, by G. A. (author of 
 
 " The Girl of the Few-cheer," " Poverty and Periwinkles," "The 
 
 Mythical Celt," and numerous other contributions to the Extempore 
 
 Review and the late Youneversell Magazine. ) 
 
 "r\0 you want to print an article 
 
 No mortal can defend, 
 Where not of sense one particle 
 
 Is found from end to end, 
 Which once the world has read it o'er 
 
 You'll wish had never been ? 
 Then hasten to the Editor 
 Of a " Leading Magazine." 
 
 I'll assume your appellation's 
 
 Known to journalistic fame 
 
 (Singular excogitations 
 
 Suit a striking double name). 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 Though you bore us to satiety 
 
 By asserting what is not ; 
 Yet of needful notoriety, 
 
 Rubbish serves to boil the pot. 
 
 Go, then, frantically twaddle, 
 
 Or illogically gush. 
 Or evolve from out your noddle 
 
 What wull make the printer blush. 
 Though your wife will long to hide it 
 
 Where it never can be seen, — 
 Never mind — you have supplied it 
 
 To a " Leading Magazine.'" 
 
 Would you like to show how marriage 
 Is the source of all our ills, 
 
 Every faith and creed disparage. 
 Prove one needn't pay one's bills ?
 
 69 
 
 Do but shock dull minds respectable 
 
 By some bolt from sky serene, 
 And you'll just be thought delectable 
 
 In a " Leading Magazine." 
 
 Take the worst and most surprising 
 
 Of the things you don't believe ; 
 Then your cynic sneers disguising, 
 Some fantastic theory weave ; 
 hough of fact it boasts no basis, 
 And you don't know what you mean, 
 You'll be welcomed with embraces 
 In a " Leading Magazine."* 
 
 Globe ^ 1891. 
 
 * " Such a contribution," observed the Standard, of an astonish- 
 ingly ignorant and silly effusion hight "The Nationalization of 
 Cathedrals " (not by G. A., this time) "could hardly have obtained 
 admission to a Leading Magazine except in the dead season." 
 We hope so. The cases here referred to are doubtless discreditable 
 exceptions to editorial rules.
 
 70 
 
 THE LAY OF THE ADVERTISER. 
 
 Air: '' I shall be there." 
 
 T SHALL be there :— 'mid the hubbub and cry 
 
 Of the thronged thoroughfare 
 Blatant I blare. At my hoarding on high 
 Artists may glare. 
 Little reck I, with my Soap, and my Pill, and my Wash 
 for the Hair, 
 I shall be there ! I shall be there ! 
 
 I shall be there — in each sandwich-clad guy, 
 
 Shape foul or fair, 
 Vehicle rare — (causing horses to shy, 
 Rustics to stare, 
 Babies to cry)— in my car upon wheels or balloon in the 
 air, 
 Touting some ware, I shall be there 1
 
 71 
 
 Forth when ye fare, by the road or the rail, 
 
 Lo ! I am there. 
 On each wall bare Mustard and Ale 
 Racing in pair. 
 Passengers pale for each station's name shriek, whimper- 
 ing, " Where ? " 
 What do I care, so / am there ? 
 
 I shall be there, in the hearth and the home, 
 
 Everywhere ! 
 Spring from my lair at the close of each tome — 
 Cut me who dare ! 
 Vainly ye roam ; in each journal or print, if an inch be to 
 spare 
 (So much the square), I shall be there !
 
 72 
 
 " BALLADE."* 
 
 OEEK not through all my gilded ream 
 Or sober sense, or thought sincere ; 
 Of fancy not one living gleam 
 
 Doth light my verse from far or near. 
 
 Wit, passion, purpose never fear. 
 In my serenely soulless lay : 
 
 Yet must I sing, and you must hear 
 The Ballade-monger of the Day. 
 
 Some faded flower of Classicism, 
 
 Some literary trifle viewed 
 Through "shoppy" microscopic prism, 
 
 Some antique plaything, bad or good. 
 
 * Composed after reading a dainty volume of verse, on lan^e, 
 hand-made paper, only Jifty copies printed (zxid quite enough too), 
 royal octavo, half vellum, gWi and gevfg3i\^ed ad libit um, &c. , &c. , 
 &c.
 
 1Z 
 
 Great Heaven ! we mean not to be rude, 
 But— Booklet, Ballade, Triolet !— 
 
 Not bards, bookmakers shallow-shrewd. 
 Thus pour the artificial lay. 
 
 Scarce did they prattle in such form, 
 
 Scarce of such nothings did they sing ; 
 The silly Courtier-poet swarm 
 
 About the Great (but little) King. 
 
 Our life is grown a sterner thing : 
 We rhyme and smile, and are not gay. 
 
 In truth, it has a shallow ring, 
 The modern Ballade-monger's Lay. 
 
 And do these echoes false and vain 
 Express our jaded world's desire .'' 
 
 Perhaps. Yet is not this the strain 
 That throbbed to Villon's tears of fire.
 
 74 
 
 The thought provokes a quenchless ire, 
 Go, rhymers, rhyme another \va)' ; 
 
 In silence tune a fuller lyre, 
 And strike a lusty English Lay. 
 
 O blase reader, thoughtless buyer. 
 Shake off this Lang-uor of a day ; 
 
 With ballade-booklets light your fire, 
 And call a hearty English Lay. 
 
 Cainb. Rev.
 
 75 
 
 THE MODERN ARMOURER'S CAROL. 
 By the Author of " Ye Carpctte KnighteP 
 
 T HAVE a gonne, a ryghte bigge gonne, 
 
 I wis 'twould you surprise ; 
 It shooteth balles of half a tonne 
 
 Amonge ye enemies ! 
 (But yette, I sweare, you're safer there 
 
 When into byttes it flies.) 
 
 I have a sworde, a German sworde ; 
 
 Nay, feare not for your life, 
 It splinters like ye dealy boarde 
 
 In tyme of bloudie stryfe ; 
 But it will make without mistake 
 
 A rattlynge paper-knife.
 
 76 
 
 A bayonctte, too, I have ryghte uewe 
 
 (A riche contractor's worke), 
 To thrust and poke it will not doe 
 
 More than ye hemlocke stalk ; 
 But it will bend (my lay to ende) 
 
 Into a toasting-forke ! 
 
 St./. G.. 1889.
 
 n 
 
 IN THE ZOO. 
 By a '■'■Minor''' Poet. 
 
 T TELL you in a rhyming way 
 
 Of how we went the other day 
 To call on creatures at the Zoo, 
 As country children cannot do. 
 
 The frisky little antelope 
 Has curlywurly horns that slope ; 
 It lives on buns, they quite agree, 
 And Mabel gave it one for me. 
 
 Nurse lets her ride (she says I can't) 
 Upon the toppling efifelaunt, 
 With skin so very thick and stout. 
 It quackles when he walks about.
 
 78 
 
 The lioness stands up to roar, 
 You hear it far outside the door, 
 She seems to strain her very chest * 
 To show how deeply she's distressed. 
 
 The jaguar — oh, do you see ? 
 
 Is fast asleep up on his tree ; t 
 
 His eyes are closed with solemn frown. 
 
 They'll open if he tumbles down. 
 
 The yellow tiger licks his jaws, 
 And winks at me across his paws ; 
 The little pumas jump and play, 
 Their hearts are very light and gay. 
 
 * The contralto notes of the lion are never formed in the head or 
 throat, but are all "chest notes," thus invol\dng a great and un- 
 necessary strain on the system. 
 
 f March 22, 1890. The animal will certainly break its neck 
 some day.
 
 79 
 
 The lion cats with hearty will, 
 But ca?tnot keep his mutton still; 
 He really doesn't seem to know 
 That baby wouldn't hold it so. 
 
 The seal has caught such lots of fish, 
 He does exactly what you wish ; 
 To tumble never frightens him, 
 He is so sure that he can swim. 
 
 The monkeys and the screeching bird, 
 .And other reptiles most absurd, 
 We talk about them in the 'bus — 
 ( I hope they'll keep some tea for us). 
 
 Caiiib. Rev. 
 
 * The creature's attempts to do so are quite ridiculous ; the 
 keepers should give it a fork.
 
 8o 
 
 TO AN EMINENT LITTERATEUR: 
 
 On trading Ins own account of his early education contri- 
 buted to " Scribmr's Magazine^ 
 
 AND were the famed " Arabian Nights 
 Your childhood's earliest heaven ? 
 And could you try Shakespearean flights 
 
 When you were barely seven ? 
 And did you find when older grown 
 
 You loved " Sir Walter '' so, 
 Though " better boys " (as yet unknov>n 
 To us) pronounced him " slow " ? 
 
 The Minstrel's Lay you mastered soon ? 
 
 Nor found your fancy cloyed 
 By " Stag at eve " and " dancing moon " 
 
 You read, and quite enjoyed
 
 8i 
 
 The Tournament (I'm glad you told 
 
 Us that), nor turned away 
 From " Ivanhoe" and Oucntin bold. 
 
 And Front-de-Boeuf at bay ? 
 
 And next you tasted Thackeray, 
 
 And loved the " Rose and Ring " ? 
 [You will excuse me if I say 
 
 That was a funny thing !] 
 The " Christmas Carol," what ! as well, 
 
 You found a perfect treat ? 
 And Hiawatha wove a spell ? 
 
 And Tennyson was sweet ? 
 
 But I must add, if this was so 
 
 (Such vanity you'll blame), 
 Like other persons that I know, 
 
 / used to do the same.
 
 82 
 
 Yet if the tale I should indite, 
 
 The world would cry " Go hang! " 
 
 But then I'm not a famous wight, 
 And you are — A * =■= -■= ■■'• ■■' L -'■ '•' ''\ 
 
 P. M. C, Sept. 12, 1 89 1.
 
 83 
 
 A SONG OF SELF-DEFENCE. 
 
 By a Conscientious Householder* 
 
 "pURGLAR, burgling in my hall- 
 
 Ere I launch this fatal ball, 
 Is my worst suspicion true? 
 Or, if not, then tvJio are you? 
 
 By this dim and flickering lamp 
 Say you're not a tipsy tramp. 
 
 Even during the hours of night, as legally defined in the case 
 of burglary (9 p.m. to 6 a.m.), the householder will do well not to 
 take the initiative until he is sure that his nightly visitant has 
 felonious intentions and is not a mere accidental trespasser. His 
 legal position will be still more unimpeachable if, instead of perhaps 
 taking some harmless individual by surprise, he waits or "retires" 
 until he is attacked or driven to bay in some place where further 
 retreat is impossible, or put positively "in terror of his life," before 
 shooting at the supposed burglar. — Vide Correspondence in 
 " Standard" during burglary season 1889-90. 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 If we join the wild assault, 
 Mine — or yotirs the legal fault ? 
 
 Burglar with the ugly mask, 
 Tell me true — 'tis all I ask 
 (I'm not sure my watch is right), 
 Is it " day," or is it " night " ? 
 
 With this Blackstone in my hand, 
 Here, "at bay," I'll take my stand. 
 With the law I'd fain comply, 
 Put your Colt's revolver by. 
 
 Burglar, burglar on the stairs, 
 I won't take you uruwares. 
 Now three times I've spoken plain. 
 Answer ere you fire again.
 
 85 
 
 Burglar, that was rather near : 
 —Say, my heart, can this be fear? 
 Yes, my nerves with horror thrill ! 
 Now I'll shoot at Burglar Bill.
 
 86 
 
 HORATIAN ODE. 
 
 "T^EAR Fuscus, though the thought may jar, 
 Deep-lying truths we must not blink them 
 
 Our ills we feel not as they are, 
 But as we think them. 
 
 Dull trade the merchant doth deplore, 
 
 But, while for countless gold he itches, 
 Not Poverty doth make him poor, 
 But Rothschild's riches. 
 
 With cold I sniff : ah ! gruesome lot ! 
 Yet Fortune kind in mercy sends a 
 Consoling sorrow — Jones has got 
 The Influenza !
 
 87 
 
 We're ne'er alone — in griefs or chills 
 
 (To human sufferers that is the pill)— 
 So let us "grin and bear" the ills 
 — Of other people. 
 
 'Tis not unkindness -.—friends, perverse 
 
 Your healthful joys who'd spurn unheeded, 
 Quite pleased, will stay up nights to nurse 
 You invalided. 
 
 Lo ! warmer climes the wealthy seek 
 
 (By voyaging man can't escape ills) ; 
 I read with scarce a pang, last week, 
 Of snow in Naples. 
 
 Oh ! there's a subtle joy that steals, 
 
 And some un-altruistic chord tunes 
 In every heart that rightly feels 
 A friend's misfortunes.
 
 88 
 
 Blest fellow-beings ! o'er whose pain 
 The sympathetic tear we yet shed : 
 We suffer less since you, 'tis plain, 
 May be more wretched. 
 
 Then think of others : human kind 
 
 Nor great nor small misfortunes may shun ; 
 The remedy is — undesigned 
 Co-operation.
 
 89 
 
 AT A POST-OFFICE. 
 
 Inadvertently omitted from " Ballads and Lyrics " 
 by Mr. G—rge M—r—d—th. 
 
 T HEARD that morn from Mr. Cox, 
 
 Then, like a bursting clam, 
 I cantered round the square to box 
 
 My sprawling cr>'ptogram. 
 
 Unmarked I " hammered striding legs " 
 Against the swinging door, 
 
 It hurt. (This phrase attention begs,) 
 My snorting temper swore.
 
 90 
 
 Miss knitted on, beatified 
 
 In Post-official calm ; 
 The Psalmist could not more have tried 
 
 To break her head with balm. 
 
 I listened to her Sunday-frock 
 
 And tales of other men — 
 Now Hurry is a fighting-cock, 
 
 But " Patience is a hen." 
 
 A vandal vile had worse abhorred 
 
 Her merry mood to damp ; 
 I shrieked across the shuddering board, 
 
 " / want a penny stamp ! " 
 
 Appeased by pinky lips that pout, 
 I let my " laughter neigh "— 
 
 (For which expression I took out 
 A Patent t'other day).
 
 91 
 
 It struck me sharply once or twice 
 (This figure's rich and rude), 
 
 That gnarled Slang I'd like to splice 
 With tinkling Platitude. 
 
 Prose-poems plough the puny pate ; 
 
 But, give a fellow time, 
 I'm hoping shortly to translate 
 
 My novels into rhyme.
 
 92 
 
 TO A THOUGHTFUL EDITOR.* 
 
 /^F all your literary store, 
 
 The " leader," friend, I most abhor ; 
 In pointed "pars." oh, kindly chip it, 
 And let me revel in my " snippet." 
 
 Though sagely grave and brightly gay 
 The gist and style of w^hat you say, 
 In sugared spoonfuls let me sip it. 
 The jaded sense prefers the " snippet." 
 
 * ' ' Though the general public are not aware of it, they lake to the 
 ' snippet ' because it keeps them from thinking, and stick to it 
 because it has made them unable to think. They will by-and-bye insist 
 upon all parliamentary reports, all leading articles being put into 
 paragraphs, and the thoughtful proprietor will yield to their 
 demands." — Scois Observer.
 
 93 
 
 Then bid me not o'er columns pore 
 
 Of news or diplomatic lore ; 
 
 Each startling fact you'll kindly flip it 
 
 Straight down my throat in form of "snippet." 
 
 To read, to weigh, to judge, decide, 
 Too often have we vainly tried ; 
 Fond effort ! in the bud oh, nip it 
 With one condensed exhaustive " snippet." 
 
 Kind friend, how few can spare the time 
 With facts or thoughts their minds to prime ! 
 In truth's deep well your pen pray dip it, 
 Give us all wisdom in a " snippet."
 
 94 
 
 ODE TO THE ELECTRIC LIGHT AT THE 
 GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY TERMINUS. 
 
 'pWINKLE, twinkle little Arc, 
 
 Sickly, blue, uncertain spark ; 
 Up above my head you swing, 
 Ugly, strange, expensive thing ! 
 
 Now the flaring gas is gone 
 From the realms of Paddington, 
 You must show your quivering light, 
 Twinkle, blinkle left and right. 
 
 When across the foggy air 
 Streams the lightning's purple glare ; 
 Does the traveller in the dark 
 Bless your radiance, little Arc?
 
 95 
 
 When you fade with modest blush, 
 Scarce more bright than farthing rush, 
 Would he know which way to go 
 If you always twinkled so ? 
 
 Cold, unlovely, blinding star, 
 
 I've no notion what you are. 
 
 How your wondrous " system" works. 
 
 Who controls its jumps and jerks. 
 
 Yours a lustre Hke the day ! 
 Ghastly, green, inconstant ray ! 
 No ; where'er they worship you. 
 All the world is black or blue. 
 
 Though your light perchance surpass 
 Homely oil or vulgar gas, 
 Still (I close with this remark) 
 I detest you, little Arc !
 
 96 
 
 CONVERSATIONAL DITTIES. 
 
 I.— The Flat Joke. 
 
 "DLANK silence falls, 
 Its weight appals 
 
 The contciir in his fleeting glory. 
 No hearer takes 
 The point, or wakes 
 
 To greet the crisis of the story. 
 Laugh, prithee, laugh ; set the kind echoes flying ; 
 Will no one break the silence, trying, trying, trying? 
 
 II.— The Man Who Knows. 
 
 He grasps the facts, with waving hand. 
 And, sphynx-like, putteth questions bland, 
 That no one else can understand. 
 
 The twaddling crew beneath him sprawls, 
 The fallacy he swift forestalls, 
 Then, like a thunderbolt, he falls. 
 
 THK END. 
 
 ijiy
 
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