PROVERBS IN PORCELAIN. 
 
Some Notices of the First Edition. 
 
 " Another volume of ' golden apples.' . . . He (the author) sings in 
 triolets and rondels and rondeaus with the ease that a bird warbles its 
 own wood-notes, and shows us what Pythagoras meant by ' MovVa? 
 2eipj)vtoi> rjSiovs.' " Westminster Review. 
 
 "One of the most exquisitely delightful of books. If Mr. Austin 
 Dobson writes nothing but the two volumes he has already given to 
 the world, he will have an enduring place of his own in poetic litera- 
 ture." Contemporary Review. 
 
 " His verses do exactly what they aim at doing, and many of them 
 can hardly be excelled, for gaiety, music, mastery of rhyme, and happy 
 balance of sense and sentiment." Pall Mall Gazette. , 
 
 " Mr. Dobson is a skilful metricist undoubtedly." AtJienceum. 
 "Good verses, good humour, and good manners." Academy. 
 
 "The author has amply fulfilled the promise he gave a long while 
 ago of extraordinary excellence in the field he has chosen." Illus- 
 trated London News. 
 
PROVERBS IN PORCELAIN 
 
 AND OTHER VERSES. 
 
 BY 
 
 AUSTIN DOBSON. 
 
 lt Majorcs majora sonent." 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., i PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 1878. 
 
The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are reserved. 
 
P7 
 
 TO 
 
 FREDERICK LOCKER. 
 
 IS IT TO KINDEST FRIEND I SEND 
 THIS NOSEGAY GATHERED NEW? 
 
 OR IS IT MORE TO CRITIC SURE, 
 TO SINGER CLEAR AND TRUE? 
 
 I KNOW NOT WHICH, INDEED, NOR NEED 
 ALL THREE I FOUND IN YOU. 
 
( Too hard it is to sing 
 
 In these untuneful times. 
 When only coin can ring, 
 And no one cares for rhymes! 
 
 Alas! for him who climbs 
 To Aganippe's spring: 
 Too hard it is to sing 
 
 In these untuneful times ! 
 
 His kindred clip his wing; 
 
 His feet the critic limes; 
 If Fame her laurel bring 
 
 Old Age his forehead rimes : 
 Too hard it is to sing 
 
 In these untuneful times!} 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROVERBS IN PORCELAIN i 
 
 The Ballad a-la-mode 3 
 
 The Metamorphosis 8 
 
 The Song out of Season . . . . .13 
 
 The Cap that Fits 18 
 
 The Secrets of the Heart 23 
 
 "Good Night, Babette !" 29 
 
 The Ballad of " Beau Brocade " . -35 
 
 The Child-Musician ...... 50 
 
 A Case of Cameos 52 
 
 Cupid's Alley ........ 59 
 
 Rose-Leaves . . . . . . . -65 
 
 The Prodigals ........ 70 
 
 A Chapter of Froissart 73 
 
 The Cradle 78 
 
 Rondels and Rondeaus . . . . 79 
 
 The Idyll of the Carp 87 
 
 The Forgotten Grave 95 
 
 The Misogynist 97 
 
 The Prayer of the Swine to Circe . . . .102 
 
 A Roman " Round-Robin " 108 
 
 To a Greek Girl in 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " Poor Miss Tox " 114 
 
 Daisy's Valentines . . . . : . .119 
 A Nightingale in Kensington Gardens . . .123 
 
 The Paradox of Time 125 
 
 A Song of the Four Seasons . . . . .128 
 The Mosque of the Caliph . . . . -131 
 " Premiers Amours " . . . . . 137 
 
 Love's Farewell . . . . . . .141 
 
 Emblems 142 
 
 " When I saw you last, Rose " .... 144 
 
 Andre le Chapelain 147 
 
 A Tale of Polypheme 153 
 
 Lines to a Stupid Picture 167 
 
 In the Belfry ........ 170 
 
 Before the Curtain 172 
 
 The Last Despatch 175 
 
 Dora versus Rose . . . . . . . 1 79 
 
 In Town . . . . . . . . .183 
 
 Ars Victrix . . . . . . . .186 
 
 A Loyall Ballade of the Armada . . . .189 
 
 A Quartet from Horace . . . . . .192 
 
 The Ballad of Prose and Rhyme .... 198 
 
 A Love Song, A. D., 1700 201 
 
 The Lost Elixir . . . . . . 203 
 
 NOTES 205 
 
PROVERBS IN PORCELAIN 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 ASSUME that we are friends. Assume 
 A common taste for old costume, 
 
 Old pictures, books. Then dream us sitting,- 
 Us two, in some soft-lighted room. 
 
 Outside, the wind; the " ways are mire" 
 We, with our faces towards the fire, 
 
 Finished the feast not full but fitting, 
 Watch the light-leaping flames aspire. 
 
Prologue. 
 
 Silent at first, in time we glow ; 
 Discuss " eclectics" high and low ; 
 
 Inspect engravings, 'twixt us passing 
 The fancies of DETROY, MOREAU ; 
 
 " Reveils " and " Couriers," " Balls " and " Fetes ;" 
 Anon we glide to " crocks " and plates, 
 Grow eloquent on glaze and classing, 
 And half -pathetic over " states" 
 
 Then I produce my Prize, in truth ; 
 Six groups in SEVRES, fresh as Youth, 
 
 And rare as Love. You pause, you wonder, 
 {Pretend to doubt the marks, forsooth /) 
 
 And so we fall to why and how 
 The fragile figures smile and bow ; 
 
 Divine, at length, the fable under .... 
 Thus grew the " Scenes " that follow now. 
 
THE BALLAD A-LA-MODE. 
 
 " Tout vient a point a qui pe^lt attendre. " 
 
 SCENE. A Boudoir Louis- Qiiinze, painted with 
 Cupids shooting at Butterflies. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. THE BARON (her cousin and sttttor). 
 
 THE COUNTESS (looking up from her work}. 
 Baron, you doze. 
 
 THE BARON (closing his book). 
 
 I, Madame ? No. 
 I wait your order Stay or Go. 
 
The Ballad a- la- Mode. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Which means, I think, that Go or Stay 
 Affects you nothing, either way. 
 
 THE BARON. 
 
 Excuse me, By your favour graced 
 My inclinations are effaced. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Or much the same. How keen you grow ! 
 You must be reading MARIVAUX. 
 
 THE BARON. 
 
 Nay, 'twas a song of SAINTE-AULAIRE. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Then read me one. We Ve time to spare : 
 If I can catch the clock-face there, 
 'Tis barely eight. 
 
The Ballad a-la-Mode. 
 
 THE BARON. 
 
 What shall it be, 
 A tale of woe, or perfidy ? 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Not woes, I beg. I doubt your woes : 
 But perfidy, of course, one knows. 
 
 THE BARON (reads). 
 " < Ah, Phillis ! cruel Phillis ! 
 
 (I heard a Shepherd say,) 
 You hold me with your Eyes, and yet 
 
 You bid me Go my way /' 
 
 "'Ah, Colin! foolish Colin! 
 
 .(Tfye Maiden answered so,) 
 
 If that be All, the III is small, 
 
 I close them You may go /' 
 
The Ballad a-la-Mode. 
 
 " But when her Eyes she opened, 
 
 (Although the Sun it shone?) 
 She found the Shepherd had not stirred 
 
 ' Because the Light was gone /' 
 
 "Ah, Cupid ! wanton Cupid! 
 
 'Twos. ever thus your Way : 
 When Maids would bid you ply your Wings, 
 
 You find Excuse to stay /" 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Famous ! He earned whate'er he got : 
 But there 's some sequel, is there not ? 
 
 THE BARON (turning the page). 
 I think not. No. Unless 'tis this : 
 My fate is far more hard than his ; 
 In fact, your Eyes 
 
The Ballad a-la-Mode. 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 Now, that 's a breach ! 
 Your bond is not to make a speech. 
 And we must start so call JUSTINE. 
 I know exactly what you mean ! 
 Give me your arm 
 
 THE BARON. 
 
 If, in return, 
 Countess, I could your hand but earn ! 
 
 THE COUNTESS. 
 
 I thought as much. This comes, you see, 
 Of sentiment, and Arcady, 
 Where vows are hung on every tree . . . 
 
 THE BARON (offering his arm, with a 
 low bow). 
 
 And no one dreams of PERFIDY. 
 
THE METAMORPHOSIS. 
 
 " On s'enrichit quand on dort." 
 
 SCENE. A high stone Seat in an Alley of 
 dipped Lime-trees. 
 
 THE ABBE TIRILI. MONSIEUR L'ETOILE. 
 
 THE ABBE (writing}. 
 " This shepherdess Dorine adored" 
 What rhyme is next ? Implored '? ignored? 
 Poured? soared? afford? That facile Dunce, 
 L'ETOILE, would cap the line at once. 
 'T will come in time. Meanwhile, suppose 
 We take a meditative doze. 
 
 (Sleeps. By and by his paper falls.} 
 
The Metamorphosis. 
 
 M. L'lj/roiLE (approaching from the back). 
 Some one before me. What ! 'tis you, 
 Monsieur the Scholar ? Sleeping too ! 
 (Picks up the fluttering paper .} 
 More " Tales" of course. One can't refuse 
 To chase so fugitive a Muse ! 
 Verses are public, too, that fly 
 " Cum privilegio " Zephyr i ! 
 (Reads.) 
 
 " CLITANDER AND DORINE." Insane ! 
 He fancies he 's a LA FONTAINE ! 
 " In early days, the Gods, we find, 
 Paid frequent Visits to Mankind ; 
 At least, authentic Records say so 
 In Publius Ovidius Naso. 
 (Three names for one. This passes all. 
 'Tis " furiously " classical !) 
 " No doubt their Purpose oft would be 
 Some ' Nodus dignus Vindice ' ; 
 
io The Metamorphosis. 
 
 ' On dit]- not /ess, these earthly Tours 
 
 Were mostly matters of Amours. 
 
 And woe to him whose luckless Flame 
 
 Impeded that Olympic Game; 
 
 Ere he could say an ' Ave ' o'er, 
 
 They changed him like a Louis-d'or. 
 
 (" Aves" and current coinage ! O ! 
 
 O shade of NICHOLAS BOILEAU !) 
 
 " Bird, Beast, or River he became: 
 
 With Women it was much the same. 
 
 In Ovid Case to Case succeeds ; 
 
 But Names the Reader never reads. 
 
 (That is, Monsieur the Abbe feels 
 
 His quantities are out at heels !) 
 
 " Suffices that, for this our Tale, 
 
 There dwelt in a Thessalian Vale, 
 
 Of Tales like this the constant Scene, 
 
 A -Shepherdess, by name Dorine. 
 
 Trim Waist, ripe Lips, bright Eyes, had she 
 
The Metamorphosis. 1 1 
 
 In short, the whole Artillery. 
 Her Beauty made some local Stir ; 
 Men marked it. So did Jupiter. 
 This Shepherdess Donne adored ..." 
 Implored, ignored, and soared, and poured 
 (He 's scrawled them here !) We '11 sum in brief 
 His fable on his second leaf. 
 ( Writes.} 
 
 There, they shall know who 'twas that wrote : 
 " L'ETOILE'S is but a mock-bird's note." [Exit. 
 
 THE ABB (waking). 
 
 Implored'* the word, I think. But where, 
 Where is my paper? Ah ! 'tis there ! 
 
 Eh ! what ? 
 
 (Reads.) 
 
 THE METAMORPHOSIS. 
 
 (not in Ovid} 
 
 " The Shepherdess Dorine adored 
 The Shepherd-Boy Clitander ; 
 
1 2 The Metamorphosis. 
 
 But. Jove himself, Olympus' Lord, 
 The Shepherdess Dorine adored. 
 Our Abbe's Aid the Pair implored ; 
 And changed to Goose and Gander, 
 The Shepherdess Dorine adored 
 
 TJie Shepherd-Boy Clitander T 
 L'ETOILE, by all the Muses ! 
 
 Peste! 
 
 He 's off, post-haste, to tell the rest. 
 No matter. Laugh, Sir Dunce, to-day ; 
 Next time 'twill be my turn to play. 
 
THE SONG OUT OF SEASON. 
 
 " Point de ciilte sans mysUre." 
 
 SCENE. A Corridor in a Chateau^ with Busts ana 
 Venice chandeliers. 
 
 MONSIEUR L'^TOILE. Two VOICES. 
 
 M. L'EroiLE (carrying a Rose). 
 This is the place. MUTINE said here. 
 " Through the Mancini room, and near 
 Trie fifth Venetian chandelier . . ." 
 The fifth ? She knew there were but four ; 
 Still, here 's the busto of the Moor. 
 
1 4 The Song out of Season. 
 
 (Humming.} 
 
 Tra-la, tra-la ! If BIJOU wake, 
 She'll bark, no doubt, and spoil my shake ! 
 I '11 tap, I think. One can't mistake ; 
 This surely is the door. 
 
 (Sings softly} 
 " When Jove, the Skies' Director, 
 
 First saw you sleep of yore, 
 He cried aloud for Nectar, 
 ' The Nectar quickly pour, 
 The Nectar, Hebe, pour ! ' 
 
 (No sound. I'll tap once more.) 
 
 (Sings again.} 
 " Then came the Sire Apollo, 
 
 He past you where you lay ; 
 ' Come, Dian, rise and follow 
 
The Song out of Season. 1 5 
 
 The dappled Hart to slay, 
 The rapid Hart to slay: " 
 
 (A rustling within.} 
 (Coquette ! She heard before.) 
 
 (Sings again.) 
 
 "And urchin Cupid after 
 Beside the Pillow curled, 
 
 He whispered you with Latighter, 
 ' Awake and witch the World, 
 O Venus, witch the World!'" 
 
 (Now comes the last. Tis scarcely worse, 
 I think, than Monsieur F ABBE'S verse.) 
 
 " So waken, waken, waken, 
 O You, whom we adore ! 
 Where Gods can be mistaken, 
 
1 6 The Song out of Season. 
 
 Mere Mortals must be more, 
 Poor Mortals must be more ! " 
 
 (That merits an encore /) 
 " So waken, waken, waken ! 
 O YOU whom we adore f" 
 
 (An energetic VOICE.) 
 Tis thou, ANTOINE ? Ah, Addle-pate ! 
 Ah, Thief of Valet, always late ! 
 Have I not told thee half-past-eight 
 A thousand times ! 
 
 (Great agitation?) 
 
 But wait, but wait, 
 
 M. L'^TOILE (stupefied}. 
 Just Skies ! What hideous roar ! 
 What lungs ! The infamous Soubrette ! 
 This is a turn I shan't forget : 
 
The Song out of Season. 1 7 
 
 To make me sing my ckansonnette 
 
 Before old JOURDAIN'S door ! 
 
 {Retiring slowly?) 
 
 And yet, and yet, it can't be she. 
 They prompted her. Who can it be ? 
 
 (A second VOICE.) 
 IT WAS THE ABBE Ti RI LI ! 
 
 (//z a mocking falsetto .) 
 " Where Gods can be mistaken , 
 Mere Poets must be more, 
 BAD POETS must be more ! " 
 
THE CAP THAT FITS. 
 
 " Qui seme fyines n'aille dechaux." 
 
 SCENE. A Salon with blue and white Panels. 
 Outside, Persons pass and re-pass upon 
 a Terrace. 
 
 HORTENSE. ARMANDE. MONSIEUR LOYAL. 
 
 HORTENSE (behind her fan}. 
 Not young, I think. 
 
 ARMANDE (raising her eye-glass}. 
 
 And faded, too ! 
 Quite faded ! Monsieur, what say you ? 
 
The Cap that Fits. 19 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 Nay, I defer to you. In truth, 
 To me she seems all grace and youth. 
 
 HORTENSE. 
 
 Graceful ? You think it ? What, with hands 
 That hang like this (with a gesture). 
 
 ARMANDE. 
 
 And how she stands ! 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 Nay, 1 am wrong again. I thought 
 Her air delightfully untaught ! 
 
 HORTENSE. 
 
 But you amuse me 
 
 > 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 Still her dress, 
 Her dress at least, you must confess 
 
20 The Cap that Fits. 
 
 ARMANDE. 
 
 Is odious simply ! JACOTOT 
 Did not supply that tace, I know ; 
 And where, I ask, has mortal seen 
 A hat unfeathered ! 
 
 HORTENSE. 
 
 Edged with green ! 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 The words remind me. Let me say _ 
 A Fable that I heard to-day. 
 Have I permission ? 
 
 BOTH (with enthusiasm} 
 
 Monsieur, pray. 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 Myrtilla (lest a Scandal rise, 
 The Lady's Name I tlius disguise}, 
 Dying of Ennui, once decided, 
 
The Cap that Fits. 2 1 
 
 Much on Resource herself she prided, 
 To choose a Hat. Forthwith she flies 
 On that momentous Enterprise. 
 Whether to Petit or Legros, 
 
 I know not : only this I know ; 
 Head-dresses then, of any Fashion, 
 Bore Names of Quality or Passion. 
 Myrtilla tried them, almost all : 
 "Prudence," she felt, was somewhat small; 
 
 II Retirement" stemed the Eyes to hide ; 
 " Content" at once, she cast aside. 
 
 " Simplicity," 'twas out of place ; 
 
 " Devotion" for an older face : 
 
 Briefly, Selection smaller grew, 
 
 " Vexatious ! odious /" none would do ! 
 
 Then, on a sudden, she espied 
 
 One that she thought she had not tried ; 
 
 Becoming, rather, " edged with green," 
 
 Roses in yellow, Thorns between. 
 
22 The Cap that Fits. 
 
 ' ' Quick ! Bring me that!" ' Tis brought. " Complete, 
 Divine, Enchanting, Tasteful, Neat," 
 In all the Tones. "And this you call?" 
 " ' ILL-NATURE,' Madame. It fits all." 
 
 HORTENSE. 
 
 A thousand thanks ! So naively turned ! 
 
 ARMANDE. 
 
 So useful too. to those concerned ! 
 'Tis yours ? 
 
 M. LOYAL. 
 
 Ah no, some cynic wit's ; 
 And called (I think) 
 
 (Placing his hat upon his breast,) 
 " The Cap that Fits." 
 
THE SECRETS OF THE HEART. 
 
 " Le cceur mine ou il va." 
 
 SCENE. A Chalet covered with Honeysuckle. 
 NINETTE. NINON. 
 
 NINETTE. 
 This way 
 
 NINON. 
 No, this way 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 This way, then. 
 (They enter the Chalet.} 
 You are as changing, Child, as Men. 
 
24 The Secrets of the Heart. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 But are they ? Is it true, I mean ? 
 Who said it ? 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 SISTER SERAPHINE. 
 She was so pious and so good, 
 With such sad eyes beneath her hood, 
 And such poor little feet, all bare ! 
 Her name was EUGENIE LA FERE. 
 She used to tell us, moonlight nights, - 
 When I was at the Carmelites. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 Ah, then it must be right. And yet, 
 Suppose for once suppose, NINETTE- 
 NINETTE. 
 But what ? 
 
The Secrets of the Heart. 2 5 
 
 NINON. 
 
 Suppose it were not so ? 
 Suppose there were true men, you know ! 
 
 NINETTE. 
 And then ? 
 
 NINON. 
 
 Why, if that could occur, 
 What kind of man should you prefer? 
 
 NINETTE. 
 What looks, you mean ? 
 
 NINON. 
 
 Looks, voice and all. 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 Well, as to that, he must be tall, 
 Or say, not " tall," of middle size ; 
 And next, he must have laughing eyes, 
 
26 The Secrets of the Heart. 
 
 And a hook-nose, with, underneath, 
 
 ! what a row of sparkling teeth ! 
 NINON (touching her cheek suspiciously). 
 
 Has he a scar on this side ? 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 Hush ! 
 Some one is coming. No ; a thrush : 
 
 1 see it swinging there. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 Go on. 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 Then he must fence (ah, look, 'tis gone !) 
 And dance like Monseigneur, and sing 
 " Love was a Shepherd" : everything 
 That men do. Tell me yours, NINON. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 v 
 Shall I ? Then mine has black, black hair,- 
 
The Secrets of the Heart. 2 7 
 
 I mean he should have ; then an air 
 
 Half-sad, half noble; features thin; 
 
 A little royale on the chin ; 
 
 And such a pale, high brow. And then, 
 
 He is a prince of gentlemen ; 
 
 He, too, can ride and fence, and write 
 
 Sonnets and madrigals, yet fight 
 
 No worse for that 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 I know your man. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 And I know yours. But you '11 not tell, 
 Swear it ! 
 
 NINETTE. 
 
 I swear upon this fan, 
 Mv Grandmother's ! 
 
2 8 The Secrets of the Heart. 
 
 NINON. 
 
 And I, I swear 
 
 On this old turquoise reliquaire, 
 My great, great Grandmother's ! 
 (After a pause ^ 
 
 NINETTE ! 
 I feel so sad. 
 
 NINETTE. 
 I too. But why ? 
 
 NINON. 
 Alas, I know not ! 
 
 ^NINETTE (with a sigh). 
 Nor do I. 
 
"GOOD NIGHT, BABETTE!" 
 
 ' Si vieillesse pouvait ! ' 
 
 SCENE. A small neat Room. In a high Voltaire 
 Chair sits a white-haired old Gentleman. 
 
 MONSIEUR VIEUXBOIS. BABETTE. 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS (hirning querulously]. 
 Day of my life ! Where can she get ? 
 BABETTE ! I say ! BABETTE ! BABETTE ! ! 
 
 BABETTE (entering hurriedly]. 
 Coming, M'sieu' ! If M'sieu' speaks 
 So loud, he won't be well for weeks ! 
 
30 Good Night, Babette. 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS. 
 Where have you been ? 
 
 BABETTE. 
 
 Why M'sieu' knows : 
 April ! . . . Ville-d'Avray ! . . . Ma'amselle ROSE ! 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS. 
 
 Ah ! I am old, and I forget. 
 Was the place growing green, BABETTE ? 
 
 BABETTE. 
 
 But of a greenness ! yes, M'sieu' ! 
 And then the sky so blue ! so blue ! 
 And when I dropped my immortelle, 
 How the birds sang ! 
 
 (Lifting her apron to her eyes.} 
 
 This poor Ma'am'selle ! 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS. 
 You 're a good girl, BABETTE, but she, 
 
Good Night, Babette. 3 1 
 
 She was an Angel, verily. 
 
 Sometimes I think I see her yet 
 
 Stand smiling by the cabinet ; 
 
 And once, I know, she peeped and laughed 
 
 Betwixt the curtains . . . 
 
 Where 's the draught ? 
 (She gives him a cup.} 
 Now I shall sleep, I think, BABETTE ; 
 Sing me your Norman chansonnette. 
 
 BABETTE (sings). 
 " Once at the Angelus 
 
 (Ere I was dead), 
 Angels all glorious 
 
 Came to my Bed ; 
 Angels in blue and white 
 
 Crowned on the Head." 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS (drowsily). 
 "She was an Angel,"... "Once she laughed"... 
 
32 Good Nig Jit, Babette. 
 
 What, was I dreaming ! 
 
 Where's the draught? 
 
 BABETTE (showing the empty cup). 
 The draught, M'sieu' ? 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS. 
 
 How I forget ! 
 I am so old ! But sing, BABETTE ! 
 
 BABETTE (sings). 
 " One was the Friend I left 
 
 Stark in the Snow ; 
 One was the Wife that died 
 
 Long, long ago ; 
 One was the Love I lost . . . 
 
 How could she know ? " 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS (murmuring). 
 Ah, PAUL !...old PAUL I...EULALIE too ! 
 And ROSE !.. .And O ! " the sky so blue !". 
 
Good Night, Babette. 33 
 
 BABETTE (sings], 
 " One had my Mother's eyes, 
 
 Wistful and mild ; 
 One had my Father 's face ; 
 
 One was a Child: 
 All of them bent to me, 
 
 Bent down and smiled f" 
 (He is asleep !) 
 
 M. VIEUXBOIS (almost inaudibly). 
 
 "How I forget !" 
 "I am so old "..."Good night, BABETTE!" 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 Heigho ! how chill the evenings get ! 
 Good night, NINON ! good night, NINETTE ! 
 Your little Play is played and finished ; 
 Go back, then, to your Cabinet ! 
 
 LOYAL, L'ETOILE ! no more to-day f 
 Alas ! they heed not what we say : 
 
 They smile with ardour undiminished ; 
 But we, we are not always gay / 
 
THE BALLAD OF " BEAU BROCADE." 
 
 1 ' Hark ! I hear the sound of coaches I " 
 
 BEGGAR'S OPERA. 
 
 i. 
 
 SEVENTEEN hundred and thirty nine : 
 That was the date of this tale of mine. 
 
 First great GEORGE was buried and gone ; 
 GEORGE the Second was plodding on. 
 
 LONDON, then, as the "Guides" aver, 
 Shared its glories with Westminster ; 
 
36 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade " 
 
 And people Of rank, to correct their " tone, 
 Went out of town to Marybone. 
 
 I Those were the days of the War with Spain, 
 I PORTO- BELLO would soon be ta'en ; 
 
 WHITEFIELD preached to the colliers grim, 
 Bishops in lawn sleeves preached at him ; 
 
 WALPOLE talked of "a man and his price ;" 
 Nobody's virtue was over-nice : 
 
 Those, in fine, were the brave days when 
 Coaches were stopped by ... Highwaymen ! 
 
 And of all the knights of the gentle trade, 
 Nobody bolder than " BEAU BROCADE." 
 
 This they knew on the whole way down ; 
 Best, maybe, at the " Oak and Crown" 
 
The Ballad of "Beau Brocade!' 3 7 
 
 (For timorous cits on their pilgrimage 
 
 Would " club " for a " Guard " to ride the stage ; 
 
 And the Guard that rode on more than one 
 Was the Host of this hostel's sister's son.) 
 
 Open we here on a March-day fine, 
 Under the oak with the hanging sign. 
 
 There was Barber DICK with his basin by ; 
 Cobbler JOE with the patch on his eye ; 
 
 Portly product of Beef and Beer, 
 JOHN the host, he was standing near. 
 
 Straining and creaking, with wheels awry, 
 Lumbering came the '''Plymouth Fly ;" 
 
 Lumbering up from Bagshot Heath, 
 Guard in the basket armed to the teeth ; 
 
38 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade!' 
 
 Passengers heavily armed inside ; 
 
 Not the less surely the coach had been tried ! 
 
 Tried ! but a couple of miles away, 
 
 By a well-dressed man ! in the open day ! 
 
 Tried successfully, -never a doubt, 
 Pockets of passengers all turned out ! 
 
 Cloak-bags rifled, and cushions ripped, 
 Even an Ensign's wallet stripped ! 
 
 Even a Methodist hosier's wife 
 
 Offered the choice of her Money or Life ! 
 
 Highwayman's manners no less polite, 
 Hoped that their coppers (returned) were right ;- 
 
 Sorry to find the company poor, 
 
 Hoped next time they 'd travel with more ; 
 
The Ballad of ''Beau Brocade" 39 
 
 Plucked them all at his ease, in short : 
 Stich was the " Plymouth Fly's" report. 
 
 Sympathy ! horror ! and wonderment ! 
 
 " Catch the Villain ! " (But Nobody went.) 
 
 Hosier's wife led into the Bar ; 
 
 (That 's where the best strong waters are !) 
 
 Followed the tale of the hundred-and-one 
 Things that Somebody ought to have done. 
 
 Ensign (of BRAGG'S) made a terrible clangour : 
 But for the Ladies had drawn his hanger ! 
 
 Robber, of course, was " BEAU BROCADE ; " 
 Out-spoke DOLLY the Chambermaid. 
 
 Devonshire DOLLY, plump and red, 
 Spoke from the gallery overhead ; 
 
4O The Ballad of ''Beau Brocade" 
 
 Spoke it out boldly, staring hard : 
 
 "Why didn't you shoot then, GEORGE the Guard?" 
 
 Spoke it out bolder, seeing him mute : 
 
 " GEORGE the Guard, why didn't you shoot ? " 
 
 Portly JOHN grew pale and red, 
 (JOHN was afraid of her, people said ;) 
 
 Gasped that " DOLLY was surely cracked," 
 (JOHN was afraid of her that 's a fact !) 
 
 GEORGE the Guard grew red and pale, 
 Slowly finished his quart of ale : 
 
 " Shoot ? Why Rabbit him ! didn't he shoot ? " 
 Muttered " The Baggage was far too 'cute ! " 
 
 " Shoot ? " Why he 'd flashed the pan in his eye ! " 
 Muttered" She 'd pay for it by and by !" 
 Further than this made no reply. 
 
The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 41 
 
 Nor could a further reply be made, 
 
 For GEORGE was in league with " BEAU 
 BROCADE ! " 
 
 And JOHN the Host, in his wakefullest state, 
 Was not on the whole immaculate. 
 
 But nobody's virtue was over-nice, 
 
 When WALPOLE talked of "a man and his price;' 5 
 
 And wherever Purity found abode, 
 'T was certainly not on a posting road. 
 
 IT. 
 
 "Forty" followed to "Thirty-nine." 
 Glorious days of the Hanover line ! 
 
 Princes were born, and drums were banged ; 
 Now and then batches of Highwaymen hanged. 
 
42 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 
 
 " Glorious news ! " from the Spanish Main ; 
 PORTO-BELLO at last was ta'en. 
 
 " Glorious news ! " for the liquor trade ; 
 Nobody dreamed of " BEAU BROCADE." 
 
 People were thinking of Spanish Crowns ; 
 Money was coming from seaport towns ! 
 
 Nobody dreamed of " BEAU BROCADE," 
 (Only DOLLY the Chambermaid !) 
 
 Blessings on VERNON ! Fill up the cans ; 
 Money was coming in " Flys " and " Vans." 
 
 Possibly, JOHN the Host had heard ; 
 Also, certainly, GEORGE the Guard. 
 
 And DOLLY had possibly tidings, too, 
 That made her rise from her bed anew, 
 
The Ballad of "Beait, Brocade" 43 
 
 Plump as ever, but stern of eye, 
 
 With a fixed intention to warn the "/7y." 
 
 Lingering only at JOHN his door, 
 Just to make sure of a jerky snore ; 
 
 Saddling the grey mare, Dumpling Star; 
 Fetching the pistol out of the bar ; 
 
 (The old horse-pistol that, they say, 
 Came from the battle of Malplaquet /) 
 
 Loading with powder that maids would use, 
 Even in " Forty," to clear the flues ; 
 
 And a couple of silver buttons, the Squire 
 Gave her, away in Devonshire. 
 
 These she wadded for want of better 
 With the B SH p of L ND N'S " Pastoral 
 
 Letter;" 
 
44 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 
 
 Looked to the flint, and hung the whole, 
 Ready to use, at her pocket-hole. 
 
 Thus equipped and accoutred, DOLLY 
 Clattered away to " Exciseman's Folly;" 
 
 Such was the name of a ruined abode, 
 Just on the edge of the London road. 
 
 Thence she thought she might safely try 
 As soon as she saw it to warn the " Fly" 
 
 But, as chance fell out, her rein she drew 
 As the BEAU came cantering into the view. 
 
 By the light of the moon she could see him drest 
 In his famous gold-sprigged tambour vest ; 
 
 And under his silver-gray surtout, 
 The laced, historical coat of blue, 
 
The Ballad of "J3ea^l, Brocade" 45 
 
 That he wore when he went to London-Spaw, 
 And robbed Sir MUNGO MUCKLETHRAW. 
 
 Out-spoke DOLLY the Chambermaid, 
 
 (Trembling a little, but not afraid,) 
 
 "Stand and Deliver, O 'BEAU BROCADE !'" ^ 
 
 But the BEAU rode nearer, and would not speak, 
 For he saw by the moonlight a rosy cheek ; 
 
 And a spavined mare that was worth a " cole ;" 
 And a girl with her hand at her pocket-hole. 
 
 So never a word he spoke as yet, 
 
 For he thought 'twas a freak of MEG or BET ; 
 
 A freak of the "Rose" or the "Rummer" set. 
 
 Out-spoke DOLLY the Chambermaid, 
 
 (Tremulous now, and sore afraid,) 
 
 " Stand and Deliver, O ' BEAU BROCADE !' " 
 
46 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 
 
 Firing then, out of sheer alarm, 
 Hit the BEAU in the bridle-arm. 
 
 Button the first went none knows where, 
 But it carried away his solitaire; 
 
 Button the second a circuit made, 
 Glanced in under the shoulder-blade ; 
 Down from the saddle fell " BEAU BROCADE !" 
 
 Down from the saddle and never stirred ! 
 DOLLY grew white as a Windsor curd. 
 
 Slipped not less from the mare, and bound 
 Strips of her kirtle about his wound. 
 
 Then, lest his Worship should rise and flee, 
 Fettered his ankles tenderly. 
 
 Jumped on his chestnut, BET the fleet, 
 (Called after BET oi Portugal Street;} 
 
The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 47 
 
 Came like the wind to the old Inn-door ; 
 Roused fat JOHN from a three-fold snore ; 
 
 Vowed she 'd 'peach if he misbehaved . . . 
 
 Briefly, the "Plymouth Fly" was saved ! 
 * 
 
 Staines and Windsor were all on fire : 
 DOLLY was wed to a Yorkshire squire ; 
 Went to Town at the K G'S desire ! 
 
 But whether His M j STY saw her or not, 
 HOGARTH jotted her down on the spot ; 
 
 And something of DOLLY one still may trace 
 In the fresh contours of his " Milkmaid's " face. 
 
 GEORGE the Guard fled over the sea : 
 JOHN- had a fit, of perplexity ; 
 
 
 Turned King's evidence, sad to state ; 
 
 But JOHN was never immaculate. 
 
48 The Ballad of "Beau Brocade." 
 
 As for the BEAU, he was duly tried, 
 
 When his wound was healed, at Whitsuntide; 
 
 Served for a day as the last of " sights," 
 
 To the world of St. James 's- Street and " White's;" 
 
 Went on his way to TYBURN TREE, 
 With a pomp befitting his high degree. 
 
 Every privilege rank confers : 
 Bouquet of pinks at St. Sepulchre's ; 
 
 Flagon of ale at Holborn Bar; 
 
 Friends (in mourning) to follow his Car 
 
 ( u t" is omitted where HEROES are !) 
 
 Every one knows the speech he made ; 
 Swore that he "rather admired the Jade !" 
 
 Waved to the crowd with his gold-laced hat ; 
 Talked to the Chaplain after that; 
 
The Ballad of "Beau Brocade" 49 
 
 Turned to the Topsman undismayed . . . 
 This was the finish of " BEAU BROCADE ! " 
 
 And this is the Ballad that seemed to hide 
 
 In the leaves of a dusty " LONDONER'S GUIDE ; " 
 
 " Humbly Inscribed' 1 '' (with curls and tails] 
 
 By the Author to FREDERICK, Prince of WALES: 
 
 " Published by FRANCIS and OLIVER PINE ; 
 Ludgate-Hill) at the Blackmoor Sign. 
 Seventeen-Hundred-and-Thirty-Nine" 
 
THE CHILD-MUSICIAN. 
 
 HE had played for his lordship's levee, 
 He had played for her ladyship's whim, 
 
 Till the poor little head was heavy, 
 And the poor little brain would swim. 
 
 And the face grew peaked and eerie, 
 And the large eyes strange and bright, 
 
 And they said too late " He is weary ! 
 He shall rest for, at least, To-night ! " 
 
The Child -Musician. 5 1 
 
 But at dawn, when the birds were waking, 
 As they watched in the silent room, 
 
 With the sound of a strained cord breaking, 
 A something snapped in the gloom. 
 
 'Twas a string of his violoncello, 
 
 And they heard him stir in his bed : 
 ''Make room for a tired little fellow, 
 Kind God ! " was the last that he said. 
 
A CASE OF CAMEOS. 
 
 AGATE. 
 
 (The Power of 'Love '.) 
 
 FIRST, in an Agate-vein, a Centaur strong, 
 With square man-breasts and hide of dapple dun, 
 His brown arms bound behind him with a thong, 
 On strained croup strove to free himself from one, 
 A bolder rider than Bellerophon. 
 For, on his back, by some strange power of art, 
 There sat a laughing Boy with bow and dart, 
 Who drove him where he would, and driving him, 
 
 With that barbed toy would make him rear and 
 start. 
 
 To this was writ " World- victor " on the rim. 
 
A Case of Cameos. 53 
 
 CORNELIAN. 
 
 (The Fall of the Giants^ 
 
 NEXT was a Cornaline, in strange wise riven, 
 As when the sun comes leaping through a cloud. 
 From the mid space, Jove thundered out of heaven, 
 With full-hand sheaf, upon the headlong crowd 
 Of huge and wild-limbed Titans, levin-cowed. 
 For lo, distort amid the crash of pine 
 Porphyrion lay ; as tangled wrestlers twine, 
 Typhoeus, Rhcetus, rolled ambiguous ; 
 Mimas was blinded of the bolt divine ; 
 And, like-a mountain, fell Enceladus. 
 
54 A Case of Cameos. 
 
 JASPER. 
 (The Box of Pandora.} 
 
 To this there followed a green Jasper stone, 
 Writ, in a snake-ring, with the name of her 
 Whom Vulcan fashioned out of earth alone, 
 Not less, to Earth, of woes the harbinger. 
 But now, a moment-space, did Jove defer 
 His fateful boon ; for, curious as a child, 
 By shifting light or shaken toy beguiled, 
 Pandora knelt where all those ills were hid ; 
 Yet, ere she loosed them, looking upward, smiled, 
 E'en with a finger, tremulous, at the lid. 
 
A Case of Cameos. 5 5 
 
 CHALCEDONY. 
 
 (The Thefts of Mercury^ 
 
 THE next in legend bade " Beware of show !" 
 
 'Twas graven this on pale Chalcedony. 
 
 Here great Apollo, with unbended bow, 
 
 His quiver, hard by on a laurel tree, 
 
 For some new theft was rating Mercury. 
 
 Who stood with downcast eyes, and feigned distress, 
 
 As daring not, for utter guiltiness, 
 
 To meet that angry voice and aspect joined. 
 
 His very heel-wings drooped ; but yet, not less, 
 
 His backward hand the Sun-God's shafts purloined. 
 
56 A Case of Cameos. 
 
 SARDONYX. 
 (The Song of Orpheus.) 
 
 THEN, on a Sardonyx, the man of Thrace, 
 The voice supreme that through Hell's portals stole,- 
 With carved white lyre and head of god-like grace, 
 (Too soon, alas ! on Hebrus' wave to roll !) 
 Played to the beasts, from a great elm-tree bole. 
 And lo ! with half-shut eyes the leopard spread 
 His lissome length ; and deer with gentle tread 
 Came through the trees ; and, from a nearer spring, 
 The prick-eared rabbit paused ; while overhead 
 The stock-dove drifted downward, fluttering. 
 
A Case of Cameos. 5 7 
 
 AMETHYST. 
 
 (The Crowning of Silenus.) 
 
 NEXT came an Amethyst, the grape in hue. 
 On a mock throne, by fresh excess disgraced, 
 With heavy head, and thyrsus held askew, 
 The Youths, in scorn, had dull Silenus placed, 
 And o'er him " King of Topers " they had traced. 
 Yet but a King of Sleep he seemed at best, 
 With wine-bag cheeks that bulged upon his breast, 
 And vat-like paunch distent from his carouse. 
 Meanwhile, his ass, by no respect represt, 
 Munched at the wreath upon her Master's brows. 
 
58 A Case of Cameos. 
 
 BERYL. 
 
 (The Sirens.} 
 
 LASTLY, with " Pleasure " was a Beryl graven, 
 Clear-hued, divine. Thereon the Sirens sung. 
 What time, beneath, by rough rock-bases caven, 
 And jaw-like rifts where many a green bone clung, 
 The strong flood-tide, in-rushing, coiled and swung. 
 Then, in the offing, on the lift of the sea, 
 A tall ship drawing shoreward, helplessly. 
 For, from the prow, e'en now the rowers leap 
 Headlong, nor seek from that sweet fate to flee. . . 
 Ah me, those Women-witches of the Deep ! 
 
CUPID'S ALLEY. 
 
 A MORALITY. 
 
 ^ 
 
 O, -Love 's but a dance, 
 
 Where Time plays the fiddle ! 
 
 See the couples advance, 
 
 0, Love 's but a dance! 
 
 A whisper, a glance, 
 
 " Shall we twirl down the middle ?" 
 
 O, Love 's but a dance, 
 
 Where Time plays the fiddle I , 
 
 IT runs (so saith my Chronicler) 
 
 Across a smoky City ; 
 A Babel filled with buzz and whirr, 
 
 Huge, gloomy, black and gritty ; 
 
6o Cupid? s Alley. 
 
 Dark-louring looks the hill-side near, 
 Dark-yawning looks the valley, 
 
 But here 'tis always fresh and clear, 
 For here is " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 And, from an Arbour cool and green, 
 
 With aspect down the middle, 
 An ancient Fiddler, gray and lean, 
 
 Scrapes on an ancient fiddle ; 
 Alert he seems, but aged enow 
 
 To punt the Stygian galley ; 
 With wisp of forelock on his brow, 
 
 He plays in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 All day he plays, a single tune ! 
 But, by the oddest chances, 
 
 Gavotte, or Brawl, or Rigadoon, 
 It suits all kinds of dances ; 
 
Cupid's Alley. 61 
 
 My Lord may walk a, pas de Cour 
 
 To Jenny 'spas de Chalet ; 
 The folks who ne'er have danced before, 
 
 Can dance in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 And here, for ages yet untold, 
 
 Long, long before my ditty, 
 Came high and low, and young and old, 
 
 From out the crowded City ; 
 And still to-day they come, they go, 
 
 And just as fancies tally, 
 They foot it quick, they foot it slow, 
 
 All day in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 Strange dance ! 'Tis free to Rank and Rags ; 
 
 Here no distinction flatters, 
 Here Riches shakes its money-bags 
 
 And Poverty its tatters ; 
 
62 Cupid's Alley. 
 
 Church, Army, Navy, Physic, Law ; 
 Maid, Mistress, Master, Valet ; 
 
 Long locks, gray hairs, bald heads, and a',- 
 They bob in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 Strange pairs ! To laughing, fresh Fifteen 
 
 Here capers Prudence thrifty ; 
 Here Prodigal leads down the green 
 
 A blushing Maid .of fifty ; 
 Some treat it as a serious thing, 
 
 And some but shilly-shally ; 
 And some have danced without the ring 
 
 (Ah me !) in " Cupid's Alley." / 
 
 And sometimes one to one will dance, 
 And think of one behind her ; 
 
 And one by one will stand, perchance, 
 Yet look all ways to find her ; 
 
Citpid's Alley. 63 
 
 Some seek a partner with a sigh, 
 
 Some win him with a sally ; 
 And some, they know not how nor why, 
 
 Strange fate ! of " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 And some will dance an age or so 
 
 Who came for half a minute ; 
 And some, who like the game, will go 
 
 Before they well begin it ; 
 And some will vow they 're "danced to death," 
 
 Who (somehow) always rally ; 
 Strange cures are wrought (mine author saith), 
 
 Strange cures ! in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 It may be one will dance to-day, 
 
 'And dance no more to-morrow ; 
 It may be one will steal away 
 
 And nurse a life-long sorrow ; 
 
64 Cupid's Alley. 
 
 What then ? The rest advance, evade, 
 
 Unite, dispart, and dally, 
 Re-set, coquet, and gallopade, 
 
 Not less in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
 For till that City's wheel-work vast 
 
 And shuddering beams shall crumble ;- 
 And till that Fiddler lean at last 
 
 From off his seat shall tumble ; 
 Till then (the Civic records say) 
 
 This quaint, fantastic ballet 
 Of Go and Stay, of Yea and Nay, 
 
 Must last in " Cupid's Alley." 
 
ROSE-LEAVES. 
 
 (TRIOLETS.) 
 
 ' ' Sans peser. Sans rester. 
 
 These are leaves of my rose, 
 Pink petals I treasure : 
 
 There is more than one knows 
 
 In these leaves of my rose ; 
 
 O the joys ! O the woes / 
 
 They are quite beyond measure. 
 
 These are leaves of my rose, 
 Pink petals I treasure. 
 
66 Rose- Leaves. 
 
 A KISS. 
 
 ROSE kissed me to-day. 
 
 Will she kiss me to-morrow ? 
 Let it be as it may, 
 Rose kissed me to-day. 
 But the pleasure gives way 
 
 To a savour of sorrow ; 
 Rose kissed me to-day, 
 
 Will she kiss me to-morrow ? 
 
 CIRCE. 
 
 IN the School of Coquettes 
 Madam Rose is a scholar ; 
 
 O, they fish with all nets 
 
 In the School of Coquettes ! 
 
 When her brooch she forgets 
 'Tis to show her new collar ; 
 
 In the School of Coquettes 
 Madam Rose is a scholar ! 
 
Rose- Leaves. 67 
 
 A TEAR. 
 
 THERE 's a tear in her eye, 
 
 Such a clear little jewel ! 
 What can make her cry ? 
 There 's a tear in her eye. 
 " Puck has killed a big fly, 
 
 And it 's hoiribly cruel ;" 
 There 's a tear in her eye, 
 
 Such a clear little jewel ! 
 
 "AMARI ALIQUID." 
 
 " WILL you hear All Alone ' ? " 
 " No, I think I quite know it." 
 
 " But you liked it, my Own ?" 
 
 " When I was < all alone ' ! 
 
 Now that season has flown ; 
 
 And besides /'#<? the Poet / " 
 
 " Will you hear * All Alone '? " 
 " No, I think I quite know it." 
 
68 Rose- Leaves. 
 
 A GREEK G I F T. 
 
 HERE 's a present for Rose, 
 How pleased she is looking ! 
 
 Is it verse ? is it prose ? 
 
 Here 's a present for Rose ! 
 
 " Plats? "Entrees? and " Rots? 
 Why, it's " Gouffe on Cooking ! " 
 
 Here's a present for Rose, 
 T&QW pleased she is looking ! 
 
 OLD LOVES. 
 
 " THEN, you liked little Bowes "- 
 "And you liked Jane Raby !" 
 " But you like me now, Rose ? " 
 "' As I liked ' little Bowes ! ' " 
 " Am I then to suppose ? " 
 
 " Hush! you mustn't wake Baby! " 
 " Did you like little Bowes ? " 
 " If you liked Jane Raby !" 
 
Rose-Leaves. 
 
 " u R c E u s EXIT. 
 
 I INTENDED an Ode, 
 
 And it turned to a Sonnet. 
 It began a la mode, 
 I intended an Ode ; 
 But Rose crossed the road 
 
 In her latest new bonnet ; 
 I intended an Ode, 
 
 And it turned to a Sonnet. 
 
THE PRODIGALS. 
 
 (BALLADE.) 
 
 " PRINCES ! and you, most valorous, 
 
 Nobles and Barons of all degrees ! 
 Hearken awhile to the prayer of us, 
 
 Beggars that come from the over-seas ! 
 
 Nothing we ask or of gold or fees ; 
 Harry us not with the hounds we pray ; 
 
 Lo, for the surcote's hem we seize, 
 Give us ah ! give us but Yesterday ! " 
 
The Prodigals. 7 1 
 
 " Dames most delicate, amorous ! 
 
 Damosels blithe as the belted bees ! 
 Hearken awhile to the prayer of us, 
 
 Beggars that come from the over-seas ! 
 
 Nothing we ask of the things that please ; 
 Weary are we, and worn, and gray ; 
 
 Lo, for we clutch and we clasp your knees, 
 Give us ah ! give us but Yesterday ! " 
 
 "Damosels Dames, be piteous !" 
 
 (But the dames rode fast by the roadway trees.) 
 " Hear us, O Knights magnanimous ! " 
 
 (But the knights pricked on in their panoplies.) 
 
 Nothing they gat or of hope or ease, 
 But only to beat on the breast and say : 
 
 " lyife we drank to the dregs and lees ; 
 Give us ah ! give us but Yesterday ! " 
 
72 The Prodigals. 
 
 Envoy. 
 
 \ 
 YOUTH, take heed to the prayer of these ! 
 
 Many there be by the dusty way, 
 
 Many that cry to the rocks and seas 
 " Give us ah ! give us but Yesterday ! " / 
 
A CHAPTER OF FROISSART. 
 
 (GRANDPAPA LOQUITUR.) 
 
 You don't know Froissart now, young folks. 
 
 This age, I think, prefers recitals 
 Of high-spiced crime, with "slang" for jokes, 
 And startling titles ; 
 
 But, in my time, when still some few 
 
 Loved "old Montaigne," and praised Pope's Homer 
 (Nay, thought to style him " poet " too, 
 
 Were scarce misnomer), 
 
74 A Chapter of Froissart. 
 
 Sir John was less ignored. Indeed, 
 
 I can re-call how Some-one present 
 (Who spoils her grand-son, Frank !) would read, 
 And find him pleasant ; 
 
 For, by this copy, hangs a Tale. 
 
 Long since, in an old house in Surrey, 
 Where men knew more of " morning ale * 
 
 Than " Lindley Murray/ 1 
 
 t 
 
 In a dim-lighted, whip-hung hall, 
 
 'Neath Hogarth's " Midnight Conversation," 
 It stood ; and oft 'twixt spring and fall, 
 With fond elation, 
 
 I turned the brown old leaves. For there 
 All through one hopeful happy summer, 
 
A Chapter of Froissart. 75 
 
 At such a page (I well knew where), 
 Some secret comer, 
 
 Whom I can picture, Trix, like you, 
 
 (Though scarcely such a colt unbroken,) 
 Would sometimes place for private view 
 A certain token ; 
 
 A rose-leaf meaning " Garden Wall," 
 An ivy-leaf for " Orchard Corner," 
 A thorn to say " Don't come at all,"- 
 
 Unwelcome warner ! 
 
 Not that, in truth, our friends gainsaid ; 
 
 But then Romance required dissembling, 
 (Ann Radcliffe taught us that !) which bred 
 Some genuine trembling ;- 
 
76 A Chapter of Froissart. 
 
 Though, as a rule, all used to end 
 
 In such kind confidential parley 
 
 As may to you kind Fortune send, 
 
 You long-legged Charlie, 
 
 When your time comes. How years slip on ! 
 
 We had our crosses like our betters ; 
 Fate sometimes looked askance upon 
 Those floral letters ; 
 
 And once, for three long days disdained, 
 
 The dust upon the folio settled ; 
 For some-one, in the right, was pained, 
 
 And some-one nettled, 
 
 That sure was in the wrong, but spake 
 Of fixed intent and purpose stony 
 
A Chapter of Froissart. 77 
 
 To serve King George, enlist and make 
 
 Minced-meat of " Boney," 
 
 Who yet survived ten years at least. 
 
 And so, when she I mean came hither, 
 One day that need for letters ceased, 
 
 She brought this with her ! 
 
 Here is the leaf-stained Chapter : How 
 The English King laid Siege to Calais ; 
 I think Gran, knows it even now, 
 Go ask her, Alice. 
 
THE CRADLE. 
 
 How steadfastly she 'd worked at it ! 
 
 How lovingly had drest 
 With all her would-be-mother's wit 
 
 That little rosy nest ! 
 
 How longingly she 'd hung on it ! 
 
 It sometimes seemed, she said, 
 There lay beneath its coverlet 
 
 A little sleeping head. 
 
 He came at last, the tiny guest, 
 Ere bleak December fled j 
 
 That rosy nest he never prest . . . 
 Her coffin was his bed. 
 
RONDELS AN D RONDEAU S. 
 
 "CHANG E." 
 
 FREEZE, freeze, O icy wind ! 
 
 Lucilla's cap 's awry ; 
 No signal undesigned 
 
 To those that read the sky. 
 
 Dull drags the breakfast by : 
 
 She 's something on her mind ; 
 Freeze, freeze, O icy wind ! 
 
 Lucilla's cap 's awry ! 
 
 "You're tired " "And you're unkind !" 
 "You're cross " "That I deny !" 
 
 " Perhaps you're both combined." 
 "'I 'm tired of You. Good-bye !" 
 
 Freeze, freeze, O icy wind ! 
 Lucilla's cap 's awry ! 
 
8o Rondels and Rondeaus. 
 
 "FAIR." 
 
 BLOW, blow, Etesian gale ! 
 
 Lucilla's cap is straight ; 
 Fill fast the flowing sail 
 
 Of happy man and mate. 
 
 "What is it, Dear? A plate? 
 Do taste this potted quail?" 
 Blow, blow Etesian gale ! 
 
 Lucilla's cap is straight. 
 
 " More sugar ? No ? You 're pale. 
 
 My Own, you work too late ! 
 Ah me, if you should fail ! 
 
 I '11 see you to the gate." 
 Blow, blow, Etesian gale ! 
 
 Lucilla's cap is straight. 
 
Rondels and Rondeaus. 8 1 
 
 "ON LONDON STONES." 
 
 (TO C. J. R.) 
 
 ON London stones I sometimes sigh 
 For wider green and bluer sky ; 
 
 Too oft the trembling note is drowned 
 In this huge city's varied sound ; 
 " Pure song is country-born " I cry. 
 
 Then comes the spring, the months go by, 
 The last stray swallows seaward fly ; 
 And I I too ! no more am found 
 On London stones ! 
 
 In vain ! the woods, the fields deny 
 That clearer strain I fain would try ; 
 Mine is an urban Muse, and bound 
 By some strange law to paven ground ; 
 Abroad she pouts ; she is not shy 
 On London stones ! 
 F 
 
82 Rondels and Rondeaus. 
 
 "FAREWELL, RENOWN!" 
 
 (TO w. c. M.) 
 
 FAREWELL, Renown ! Too fleeting flower, 
 That grows a year to last an hour ; 
 Prize of the race's dust and heat, 
 Too often trodden under feet, 
 Why should I court your "barren dower"? 
 
 Nay ; had I Dryden's angry power, 
 The thews of Ben, the wind of Gower, 
 Not less my voice should still repeat 
 "Farewell, Renown!" 
 
 Farewell ! Because the Muses' bower 
 Is filled with rival brows that lower ; 
 Because, howe'er his pipe be sweet, 
 The Bard, that "pays," must please the street ;- 
 But most . . because the grapes are sour, 
 Farewell, Renown ! 
 
Rondels and Rondeaus. 83 
 
 (TO E. K.) 
 
 To you I sing, whom towns immure, 
 And bonds of toil hold fast and sure ; 
 To you across whose aching sight 
 Come woodlands bathed in April light, 
 And dreams of pastime premature. 
 
 And you, O Sad, who still endure 
 Some wound that only Time can cure, 
 To you, in watches of the night, 
 To you I sing ! 
 
 But most to you with eyelids pure, 
 Scarce witting yet of love or lure ; 
 To you, with bird-like glances bright, 
 Half-paused to speak, half-poised in flight ;- 
 O English Girl, divine, demure, 
 To YOU I sing ! 
 
84 Rondels and Rondeaus. 
 
 "MORE POETS YET!" 
 
 (TO j. L. w.) 
 
 " MORE Poets yet !" I hear him say, 
 Arming his heavy hand to slay ; 
 
 " Despite my skill and ' swashing blow/ 
 They seem to sprout where'er I go ; 
 I killed a host but yesterday !" 
 
 Slash on, O Hercules ! You may. 
 Your task 's, at best, a Hydra-fray ; 
 And though you cut, not less will grow 
 More Poets yet ! 
 
 Too arrogant ! For who shall stay 
 The first blind motions of the May ? 
 
 Who shall out-blot the morning glow ? 
 Or stem the full heart's overflow ? 
 Who ? There will rise, till Time decay, 
 More Poets yet ! 
 
Rondels a nd Ro ndea us. 85 
 
 "WITH PIPE AND FLUTE." 
 (TO E. W. G.) 
 
 WITH pipe and flute the rustic Pan 
 
 Of old made music sweet for man ; 
 And wonder hushed the warbling bird, 
 And closer drew the calm-eyed herd, 
 
 The rolling river slowlier ran. 
 
 Ah ! would, ah ! would, a little span, 
 Some air of Arcady could fan 
 
 This age of ours, too seldom stirred 
 With pipe and flute ! 
 
 But now for gold we plot and plan ; 
 
 And from Beersheba unto Dan, 
 
 An Orpheus' self might pass unheard, 
 Or find the night-jar's note preferred . . 
 
 Not so it fared, when time began, 
 
 With pipe and flute ! 
 
86 Rondels and Rondeaus. 
 
 "WHEN FINIS COMES." 
 
 (TO A. K.) 
 
 WHEN Finis comes, the Book we close, 
 And somewhat sadly, Fancy goes, 
 
 With backward step, from stage to stage 
 Of that accomplished pilgrimage . . . 
 The thorn lies thicker than the rose ! 
 
 There is so much that no one knows, 
 So much un-reached that none suppose ; 
 What flaws ! what faults ! on every page, 
 When Finis comes. 
 
 Still, they must pass ! The swift Tide flows. 
 
 Though not for all the laurel grows, 
 Perchance, in this be-slandered age, 
 The worker, mainly, wins his wage ; 
 
 And Time will sweep both friends and foes 
 When FINIS comes ! 
 
THE IDYLL OF THE CARP. 
 
 (THE SCENE is in a garden, where you please, 
 So that it lie in France, and have withal 
 
 Its gray-stoned pond beneath the arching trees, 
 And Triton huge, with moss for coronal. 
 
 A PRINCESS, -feeding Fish. To her DENISE.) 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 These, DENISE, are my Suitors ! 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 Where ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 These fish. 
 I feed them daily here at morn and night 
 
88 The Idyll of the Carp. 
 
 With crumbs of favour, scraps of graciousness, 
 Not meant, indeed, to mean the thing they wish, 
 But serving just to edge an appetite. 
 
 ( Throwing bread. ) 
 Make haste, Messieurs ! Make haste, then ! Hurry. 
 
 See, 
 
 See how they swim ! Would you not say, confess, 
 Some crowd of Courtiers in the audience hall, 
 When the King comes ? 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 You 're jesting ! 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 Not at all. 
 
 Watch but the great one yonder ! There's the Duke ; 
 Those gill-marks mean his Order of St. Luke ; 
 Those old skin-stains his boasted quarterings. 
 Look what a swirl and roll of tide he brings ; 
 Have you not marked him thus, with crest in air. 
 
The Idyll of the Carp. 89 
 
 Breathing disdain, descend the palace-stair ? 
 You surely have, DENISE. 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 I think I have. 
 
 But there 's another, older and more grave, 
 The one that wears the round patch on the throat, 
 And swims with such slow fins. Is he of note ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 Why that 's my good chambellan with his seal. 
 A kind old man ! he carves me orange-peel 
 In quaint devices at refection-hours, 
 Equips my sweet-pouch, brings me morning flowers, 
 Or chirrups madrigals with old, sweet words, 
 Such as men loved when people wooed like birds 
 And spoke the true note first. No suitor he, 
 Yet loves me too, though in a graybeard's key. 
 
 DENISE. 
 Look, Madam, look ! a fish without a stain ! 
 
go The Idyll of the Carp. 
 
 O speckless, fleckless fish ! Who is it, pray, 
 That bears him so discreetly ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 FONTENAY. 
 
 You know him not ? My prince of shining locks ! 
 My pearl ! my Phoenix ! my pomander-box ! 
 He loves not Me, alas ! The man's too vain ! 
 He loves his doublet better than my suit, 
 His graces than my favours. Still his sash 
 Sits not amiss, and he can touch the lute 
 Not wholly out of tune 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 Ai ! what a splash ! 
 
 Who is it comes with such a sudden dash 
 Plump in the midst, and leaps the others clear ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 Ho ! for a trumpet ! Let the bells be rung ! 
 
The Idyll of the Carp. 9 1 
 
 Baron of Sans-terre, Lord of Pres-en-Cieux, 
 Vidame of Vol-au- Vent " et aultres lieux ! " 
 Bah ! How I hate his Gasconading tongue ! 
 Why, that 's my bragging, Bravo-Musketeer 
 My carpet cut-throat, valiant by a scar 
 Got in a brawl that stands for Spanish war : 
 His very life 's a splash ! 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 I 'd rather wear 
 
 E'en such a patched and melancholy air, 
 As his, that motley one, who keeps the wall, 
 And hugs his own lean thoughts for carnival. 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 My frankest wooer ! Thus his love he tells 
 To mournful moving of his cap and bells. 
 He loves me (so he saith) as Slaves the Free, 
 As Cowards War, as young Maids Constancy. 
 
92 The Idyll of the Carp. 
 
 Item, he loves me as the Hawk the Dove ; 
 He loves me as the Inquisition Thought ; 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 " He loves ? he loves?" Why all this loving's naught ! 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 And " Naught (quoth JACQUOT) makes the sum of 
 Love!" 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 The cynic knave ! How call you this one here ? 
 This small shy-looking fish, that hovers near, 
 And circles, like a cat around a cage, 
 To snatch the surplus. 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 CHERUBIN, the page. 
 
 Tis but a child, yet with that roguish smile, 
 And those sly looks, the child will make hearts ache 
 Not five years hence, I prophesy. Meanwhile 
 
The Idyll of the Carp. 93 
 
 He lives to plague the swans upon the lake, 
 To steal my comfits, and the monkey's cake. 
 
 DENISE. 
 And these that swim aside who may these be ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 Those are two gentlemen of Picardy, 
 Equal in blood, of equal bravery : 
 D'AURELLES and MAUFRIGNAC. They hunt in pair ; 
 I mete them morsels with an equal care, 
 Lest they should eat each other, or eat Me. 
 
 DENISE. 
 And that and that and that ? 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 I name them not. 
 
 Those are the crowd who merely think their lot 
 The lighter by my land. 
 
94 The Idyll of the Carp. 
 
 DENISE. 
 
 And is there none 
 
 More prized than most ? There surely must be one, 
 A Carp of carps ! 
 
 THE PRINCESS. 
 
 Ah me ! he will not come ! 
 He swims at large, looks shyly on, is dumb. 
 Sometimes, indeed, I think he fain would nibble, 
 But while he stays with doubts and fears to quibble, 
 Some gilded fop, or mincing courtier-fribble, 
 Slips smartly in, and gets the proffered crumb. 
 He should have all my crumbs if he 'd but ask ; 
 Nay, if he would, it were no hopeless task 
 To gain a something more. But though he 's brave, 
 He 's far too proud to be a dangling slave ; 
 And then he 's modest ! So . .he will not come ! 
 
THE FORGOTTEN GRAVE. 
 
 A SKETCH IN A CEMETERY. 
 
 OUT from the City's dust and roar, 
 You wandered through the open door ; 
 Paused at a plaything pail and spade 
 Across a tiny hillock laid ; 
 Then noted on your dexter side 
 Some moneyed mourner's "love or pride ; 
 And so, beyond a hawthorn-tree, 
 Scattering its rain of rosy bloom 
 
g6 The Forgotten Grave. 
 
 Alike on low and lofty tomb, 
 You came upon it suddenly. 
 
 How strange ! The very grasses' growth 
 
 Around it seemed forlorn and loath ; 
 
 The very ivy seemed to turn 
 
 Askance that wreathed the neighbour um. 
 
 The slab had sunk ; the head declined, 
 
 And left the rails a wreck behind 
 
 No name ; you traced a " 6," a " 7," 
 
 Part of " affliction " and of " Heaven "; 
 
 And then, in letters sharp and clear, 
 
 You read O Irony austere ! 
 
 ' LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEM'RY DEAR." 
 
THE MISOGYNIST. 
 
 ' ' // ttait un jeune homme d'un bien beau passt. " 
 
 WHEN first he sought our haunts, he wore 
 
 His locks in Hamlet-style ; 
 His brow with thought was " sicklied o'er,"- 
 
 We rarely saw him smile ; 
 And, e'en when none were looking on, 
 
 His air was always woe-begone. 
 G 
 
98 The Misogynist. 
 
 He kept, I think, his bosom bare 
 
 To imitate Jean Paul ; 
 His solitary topics were 
 
 Esthetics, Fate, and Soul ; 
 Although at times, but not for long, 
 He bowed his Intellect to song. 
 
 He served, he said, a Muse of Tears : 
 
 I know his verses breathed 
 A fine funereal air of biers, 
 
 And objects cypress- wreathed ; 
 Indeed, his tried acquaintance fled 
 An ode he named "The Sheeted Dead." 
 
 In these light moods, I call to mind, 
 
 He darkly would allude 
 To some dread sorrow undefined, 
 
 Some passion unsubdued ; 
 Then break into a ghastly laugh, 
 And talk of Keats his epitaph. 
 
The Misogynist. 99 
 
 He railed at women's faith as Cant ; 
 
 We thought him grandest when 
 He named them Siren-shapes that " chant 
 
 On blanching bones of Men ;" 
 Alas, not e'en the great go free 
 From that insidious minstrelsy ! 
 
 His lot, he oft would gravely urge, 
 
 Lay on a lone Rock where 
 Around Time-beaten bases surge 
 
 The Billows of Despair. 
 We dreamed it true. We never knew 
 What gentler ears he told it to. 
 
 We, bound with him in common care, 
 
 One-minded, celibate, 
 Resolved to Thought and Diet spare 
 
 Our lives to dedicate ; 
 We, truly, in no common sense 
 Deserved his closest confidence ! 
 
ioo The Misogynist. 
 
 But soon, and yet, though soon, too late, 
 We, sorrowing, sighed to find 
 
 A gradual softness enervate 
 That all superior mind, 
 
 Until, in full assembly met, 
 
 He dared to speak of Etiquette. 
 
 The verse that we severe had known, 
 
 Assumed a wanton air, 
 A fond effeminate monotone 
 
 Of eyebrows, lips, and hair ; 
 Not rj6o<s stirred him now or vovs, 
 He read "The Angel in the House !" 
 
 Nay worse. He, once sublime to chaff, 
 
 Grew whimsically sore 
 If we but named a photograph 
 
 We found him simpering o'er ; 
 Or told how in his chambers lurked 
 A watch-guard intricately worked. 
 
The Misogynist. 101 
 
 Then worse again. He tried to dress ; 
 
 He trimmed his tragic mane ; 
 Announced at length (to our distress) 
 
 He had not "lived in vain;" 
 Thenceforth his one prevailing mood 
 Became a base beatitude. 
 
 And O Jean Paul, and Fate, and Soul ! 
 
 We met him last, grown stout, 
 His throat with wedlock's triple roll, 
 
 " All wool," enwound about ; 
 His very hat had changed its brim ; 
 Our course was clear, WE BANISHED HIM ! 
 
THE PRAYER OF THE SWINE 
 TO CIRCE. 
 
 HUDDLING they came, with shag sides caked of 
 
 mire, 
 With hoofs fresh sullied from the troughs o'er- 
 
 turned, 
 
 With wrinkling snouts, yet eyes in which desire 
 Of some strange thing unutterably burned, 
 Unquenchable ; and still where'er She turned 
 They rose about her, striving each o'er each, 
 With restless, fierce importuning that yearned 
 Through those brute masks some piteous tale to 
 
 teach, 
 
 Yet lacked the words thereto, denied the power of 
 speech. 
 
The Prayer of the Swine to Circe. 103 
 
 For these Eurylochus alone escaping 
 In truth, that small exploring band had been, 
 Whom wise Odysseus, dim precaution shaping, 
 Ever at heart, of peril unforeseen, 
 Had sent inland ; whom then the islet-Queen, 
 The fair disastrous daughter of the Sun, 
 Had turned to likeness of the beast unclean, 
 With evil wand transforming one by one 
 To shapes of loathly swine, imbruted and undone. 
 
 But " the men's minds remained," and these for ever 
 Made hungry suppliance through the fire-red eyes ; 
 Still searching aye, with impotent endeavour, 
 To find, if yet, in any look, there lies 
 A saving hope, or if they might surprise 
 In that cold face soft pity's spark concealed, 
 Which she, still scorning, evermore denies ; 
 Nor was there in her any ruth revealed 
 To whom with such mute speech and dumb words they 
 appealed. 
 
IO4 The Prayer of the Swine to Circe. 
 
 What hope is ours what hope! To find no mercy 
 After much war, and many travails done ? 
 Ah, kinder far than thy fell philtres, Circe, 
 The ravening Cyclops and the Lcestrigon / 
 And O, thrice cursed be Laertes' son, 
 By whom, at last, we watch the days decline 
 With no fair ending of the quest begun, 
 Condemned in styes to weary and to pine 
 And with mens hearts to beat through this foul front 
 of swine! 
 
 For us not now, for us, alas ! no more 
 
 "N 
 
 The old green glamour of the glancing sea ; 
 For us not now the laughter of the oar, 
 The strong-ribbed keel wherein our comrades be ; 
 Not now, at even, any more shall we, 
 By low-browed banks and reedy river places, 
 Watch the beast hurry and the wild-fowl flee ; 
 Or steering shoreward, in the upland spaces 
 Have sight of curling smoke and fair-skinned foreign faces. 
 
The Prayer of the Swine to Circe. 105 
 
 Alas for tts !for whom the columned houses 
 We left afore-time, cheerless must abide ; 
 Cheerless the hearth where now no guest carouses, 
 No minstrel raises song at eventide ; 
 And O, more cheerless than aught else beside, 
 The wistful hearts with heavy longing f ull ; 
 The wife that watched us on the waning tide, 
 The sire whose eyes with weariness are dull, 
 The mother whose slow tears fall on the carded wool. 
 
 If swine we be, if we indeed be swine, 
 Daughter of Perse, make us swine indeed, 
 Well-pleased on litter-straw to lie supine, 
 Well-pleased on mast and acorn- shales to feed, 
 Stirred by all instincts of the bestial breed ; 
 But O Unmerciful! O Pitiless! 
 Leave us not thus with sick men's hearts to bleed ! 
 To waste long days in yearning, dumb distress 
 And memory of things gone, and utter hopelessness ! 
 
io6 The Prayer of the Swine to Circe. 
 
 Leave us at least, if not the things we were, 
 At least consentient to the thing we be ; 
 Not hapless doomed to loathe the forms we bear, 
 And senseful roll in senseless savagery ; 
 For surely cursed above all cursed are we, 
 And surely this the bitterest of ill ; 
 To feel the old aspirings fair and free 
 Become blind motions of a powerless will 
 Through swine-like frames dispersed to swine-like issues 
 still. 
 
 But make us men again, for that thou may'st ! 
 Yea, make us men, Enchantress, and restore 
 These grovelling shapes, degraded and debased, 
 To fair embodiments of men once more ; 
 Yea, by all men that ever woman bore ; 
 Yea, e'en by him hereafter born in pain 
 Shall draw sustainment from thy bosom's core, 
 O'er whom thy face yet kindly shall remain, 
 And find its like thei'ein, make thou us men again ! 
 
The Prayer of the Swine to Circe. 107 
 
 Make thou us men again, if men but groping 
 That dark Hereafter which tti Olympians keep; 
 Make thou us men again, if men but hoping 
 Behind deatti s doors security of sleep ; 
 For yet to laugh is somewhat, and to weep ; 
 To feel delight of living, and to plough 
 The salt-blown acres of the shoreless deep; 
 Better, yea better far all these than bow 
 Foul faces to foul earth, and yearn as we do now ! 
 
 So they in speech unsyllabled. But She, 
 The fair-tressed Goddess, born to be their bane, 
 Uplifting straight her wand of ivory, 
 Compelled them groaning to the styes again ; 
 Where they in hopeless bitterness were fain 
 To rend the oaken woodwork as before, 
 And tear the troughs in impotence of pain, 
 Not knowing, they, that even at the door 
 Divine Odysseus stood, as Hermes told of yore. 
 
A ROMAN "ROUND-ROBIN." 
 ("HIS FRIENDS" TO QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS.) 
 
 " Haec decies repetita [non~\placebit" ARS POETICA. 
 
 FLACCUS, you write us charming songs : 
 
 No bard we know possesses 
 In such perfection what belongs 
 
 To brief and bright addresses ; 
 
 No man can say that Life is short 
 
 With mien so little fretful ; 
 No man to Virtue's paths exhort 
 
 In phrases less regretful ; 
 
A Roman "Round- Robin" 109 
 
 Or touch, with more serene distress, 
 
 On Fortune's ways erratic ; 
 And then delightfully digress 
 
 From Alp to Adriatic : 
 
 All this is well, no doubt, and tends 
 
 Barbarian minds to soften ; 
 But, Horace we, we are your friends 
 
 Why tell us this so often ? 
 
 Why feign to spread a cheerful feast, 
 
 And then thrust in our faces 
 These barren scraps (to say the least) 
 
 Of Stoic common-places ? 
 
 Recount, and welcome, your pursuits : 
 
 Sing Lyde's lyre and hair ; 
 Sing drums and Berecynthian flutes ; 
 
 Sing parsley-wreaths ; but spare, 
 
no A Roman "Round- Robin" 
 
 O, spare to sing, what none deny, 
 That things we love decay ; 
 
 That Time and Gold have wings to fly ;- 
 That all must Fate obey ! 
 
 Or bid us dine on this day week 
 
 And pour us, if you can, 
 As soft and sleek as girlish cheek, 
 
 Your inmost Csecuban ; 
 
 Of that we fear not overplus ; 
 
 But your didactic ' tap ' 
 Forgive us ! grows monotonous ; 
 
 Nunc vale ! Verbum sap. 
 
TO A GREEK GIRL. 
 
 (AFTER A WEEK OF LANDOR'S "HELLENICS.") 
 
 WITH breath of thyme and bees that hum, 
 Across the years you seem to come, 
 Across the years with nymph-like head, 
 And wind-blown brows unfilleted ; 
 A girlish shape that slips the bud 
 
 In lines of unspoiled symmetry ; 
 A girlish shape that stirs the blood 
 
 With pulse of Spring, Autonoe ! 
 
ii2 To a Greek Girl. 
 
 Where'er you pass, where'er you go, 
 I hear the pebbly rillet flow ; 
 Where'er you go, where'er you pass, 
 There comes a gladness on the grass ; 
 You bring blithe airs where'er you tread, 
 
 Blithe airs that blow from down and sea ; 
 You wake in me a Pan not dead, 
 
 Not wholly dead ! Autonoe ! 
 
 How sweet with you on some green sod 
 To wreathe the rustic garden-god ; 
 How sweet beneath the chestnut's shade 
 With you to weave a basket-braid ; 
 To watch across the stricken chords 
 
 Your rosy-twinkling fingers flee ; 
 To woo you in soft woodland words, 
 
 With woodland pipe, Autonoe ! 
 
To a Greek Girl. 113 
 
 In vain, in vain ! The years divide : 
 Where Thamis rolls a murky tide, 
 I sit and fill my painful reams, 
 And see you only in my dreams \ 
 A vision, like Alcestis, brought 
 
 From under-lands of Memory, 
 A dream of Form in days of Thought, 
 
 A dream, a dream, Autonoe ! 
 
"POOR MISS TOX.' 
 
 // was an ancient Shepherdess, 
 Forlorn amid the flocks ; 
 
 The tears she shed for loneliness 
 Would melt the hardest rocks. 
 
 IN Dickens 'twas " Princess's Place," 
 
 But here 'tis " Maiden Row," 
 And yet 'tis still the self-same face, 
 
 The self-same air I know : 
 'Tis true the name is plainly " Brown/ 
 
 Tis true the flowers are " stocks," 
 Aud yet I'd wager half-a-crown 
 
 That you are "poor Miss Tox !" 
 
Poor Miss Tox. 1 1 5 
 
 There can't, of course, be more than one ; 
 
 The cases must be rare 
 
 /^P^ 
 Of maidens left to nurse alone ( i 
 
 Dyspepsia and Despair ; 
 Ah no j that gown of youthful make, 
 
 Those tresses dark as Nox, \ 
 Those arching brows, I can't mistake, 
 
 You must be "poor Miss Tox !" 
 
 And then your daily ways : I know 
 
 Exactly when you dust 
 The two old candlesticks of Bow 
 
 And good John Wesley's bust 
 Exactly as your tea is spread 
 
 I set my pair of clocks ; 
 (You take your morning meal in bed, 
 
 I fear my "poor Miss Tox !") 
 
1 1 6 Poor Miss Tox. 
 
 1 see you knit, I see you hem, 
 
 I see you painting flowers, 
 I see you read " Affection's Gem," 
 
 Exhaustively, for hours. 
 And once I own 'twas somewhat late 
 
 I saw you . . comb your locks ; 
 Why was not mine Actaeon's fate, 
 
 O Artemis and Tox ! 
 
 But still I look and still I see 
 
 That still the days evoke 
 No youth of artless modesty 
 
 Impatient for the yoke : 
 For "men may come, and men may go," 
 
 But ne'er a suitor knocks 
 At that green door in " Maiden Row," 
 
 To ask for "poor Miss Tox !" 
 
Poor Miss Tox. 1 1 7 
 
 I wish one would, I do indeed. 
 
 Without some careful guide 
 To curb his playful ways at need, 
 
 And o'er his purse preside ; 
 To square his days to rule and plan, 
 
 To mend his gloves and socks, 
 Ah what, alas ! were helpless man, 
 
 Ah what ! my " poor Miss Tox !" 
 
 And there must still be some, one feels, 
 
 Whom no such sway controls ; 
 Who tread this vale with undarned heels, 
 
 And voids within their souls ; 
 And I can't see why you should fail 
 
 To shield from Fortune's shocks 
 ,Some ardent if not youthful male, 
 
 I can't, my "poor Miss Tox !" 
 
1 1 8 Poor Miss Tox. 
 
 I think it hard that Fate has laid 
 
 Your lot "upon the shelf;" 
 It cramps one's nature so to fade 
 
 In that tight pot of Self; 
 Who knows but you might bud and bloom 
 
 Had Wedlock's wider box 
 But lent you " verge enough," and " room," 
 
 Who knows my "poor Miss Tox !" 
 
DAISY'S VALENTINES. 
 
 ALL night through Daisy's sleep, it seems, 
 
 Have ceaseless " rat-tats " thundered ; 
 All night through Daisy's rosy dreams 
 
 Have devious Postmen blundered, 
 Delivering letters round her bed, 
 Mysterious missives, sealed with red, 
 And franked of course with due Queen's-head,- 
 While Daisy lay and wondered. 
 
I2O Daisy's Valentines. 
 
 But now, when chirping birds begin, 
 
 And Day puts off the Quaker, 
 When Cook renews her morning din, 
 
 And rates the cheerful baker, 
 She dreams her dream no dream at all, 
 For, just as pigeons come at call, 
 Winged letters flutter down, and fall 
 Around her head, and wake her. 
 
 Yes, there they are ! With quirk and twist, 
 
 And fraudful arts directed ; 
 (Save Grandpapa's dear stiff old " fist," 
 
 Through all disguise detected ;) 
 But which is his, her young Lothair's, 
 Who wooed her on the school-room stairs 
 With three sweet cakes, and two ripe pears, 
 
 In one neat pile collected ? 
 
Daisy s Valentines. 
 
 Tis there, be sure. Though truth to speak, 
 
 (If truth may be permitted,) 
 I doubt that young " gift-bearing Greek " 
 
 Is scarce for fealty fitted ; 
 For has he not (I grieve to say), 
 To two loves more, on this same day, 
 In just this same emblazoned way, 
 
 His transient vows transmitted ? 
 
 He may be true. Yet, Daisy dear, 
 
 That even youth grows colder 
 You '11 find is no new thing, I fear ; 
 
 And when you 're somewhat older, 
 You '11 read of one Dardanian boy 
 Who " wooed with gifts " a maiden coy, 
 Then took the morning train to Troy, 
 In spite of all he 'd told her. 
 
 121 
 
122 Daisys Valentines. 
 
 But wait. Your time will come. And then, 
 
 Obliging Fates, please send her 
 The nicest thing you have in men, 
 
 Sound-hearted, strong, and tender ; 
 The kind of man, dear Fates, you know, 
 That feels how shyly Daisies grow, 
 And what soft things they are, and so 
 Will spare to spoil or mend her. 
 
A NIGHTINGALE IN KENSINGTON 
 GARDENS. 
 
 THEY paused, the cripple in the chair 
 
 More bent with pain than age ; 
 The mother with her lines of care ; 
 
 The many-buttoned page ; 
 
 The noisy, red-cheeked nursery-maid, 
 
 With straggling train of three ; 
 The Frenchman with his frogs and braid ; 
 
 All, curious, paused to see, 
 
1 24 A Nightingale in Kensington Gardens. 
 
 If possible, the small, dusk bird 
 
 That from the almond bough 
 Had poured the joyous chant they heard. 
 
 So suddenly, but now. 
 
 And one poor POET stopped and thought 
 
 How many a lonely lay 
 That bird had sung ere fortune brought 
 
 It near the common way, 
 
 Where the crowd hears the note. And then 
 
 What birds must sing the song, 
 To whom that hour of listening men 
 
 Could ne'er in life belong ! 
 
 But "Art for Art !" the Poet said, 
 
 " 'Tis still the Nightingale, 
 That sings where no men's feet will tread, 
 
 And praise and audience fail." 
 
THE PARADOX OF TIME. 
 
 (A VARIATION ON RONSARD.) 
 
 " Le temps sen va, le temps s'en va, ma dame. 
 Las I non le temps : mais nous nous en allons !- 
 
 TIME goes, you say ? Ah no ! 
 Alas, Time stays, we go ; 
 
 Or else, were this not so, 
 
 .What need to chain the hours, 
 
 For Youth were always ours ? 
 
 Time goes, you say ? ah no ! 
 
126 The Paradox of Time. 
 
 Ours is the eyes' deceit 
 Of men whose flying feet 
 
 Lead through some landscape low ; 
 We pass, and think we see 
 The earth's fixed surface flee : 
 
 Alas, Time stays, we go ! 
 
 Once in the days of old, 
 Your locks were curling gold, 
 
 And mine had shamed the crow ; 
 Now, in the self-same stage, 
 We've reached the silver age ; 
 
 Time goes, you say ? ah no ! 
 
 Once when my voice was strong, 
 I filled the woods with song 
 
 To praise your "rose" and "snow;" 
 
The Paradox of Time. 1 27 
 
 My bird that sang is dead ; 
 Where are your roses fled ? 
 Alas, Time stays, we go ! 
 
 See, in what traversed ways, 
 What backward Fate delays 
 
 The hopes we used to know ; 
 Where are our old desires ? 
 Ah, where those vanished fires ? 
 
 Time goes, you say ? ah no ! 
 
 How far, how far, O Sweet, 
 The past behind our feet 
 
 Lies in the even-glow ! 
 Now on the forward way, 
 Let us fold hands and pray j 
 
 Alas, Time stays, we go ! 
 
A SONG OF THE FOUR 
 SEASONS. 
 
 WHEN Spring comes laughing 
 
 By vale and hill, 
 By wind-flower walking 
 
 And daffodil, 
 Sing stars of morning, 
 
 Sing morning skies, 
 Sing blue of speedwell, 
 
 And my Love's eyes. 
 
A Song of the Fo^tr Seasons. 129 
 
 When comes the Summer, 
 
 Full-leaved and strong, 
 And gay birds gossip 
 
 The orchard long, 
 Sing hid, sweet honey 
 
 That no bee sips ; 
 Sing red, red roses, 
 
 And my Love's lips. 
 
 When Autumn scatters 
 
 The leaves again, 
 And piled sheaves bury 
 
 The broad-wheeled wain, 
 Sing flutes of harvest 
 
 Where men rejoice ; 
 Sing rounds of reapers, 
 
 And my Love's voice. 
 
130 A Song of the Four Seasons. 
 
 But when comes Winter 
 
 With hail and storm, 
 And red fire roaring, 
 
 And ingle warm, 
 Sing first sad going 
 
 Of friends that part ; 
 Then sing glad meeting, 
 
 And my Love's heart 
 
THE MOSQUE OF THE CALIPH. 
 
 UNTO Seyd the vizier spake the Caliph Abdallah ; 
 " Now hearken and hear, I am weary, by Allah ! 
 I am faint with the mere over-running of leisure : 
 I will rouse me and rear up a palace to Pleasure !" 
 
 To Abdallah the Caliph spake Seyd the vizier : 
 " All faces grow pale if my Lord draweth near ; 
 And the breath of his mouth not a mortal shall scoff 
 
 it; 
 They must bend and obey, by the beard of the 
 
 Prophet !" 
 
132 The Mosque of the Caliph. 
 
 Then the Caliph that heard, with becoming sedate- 
 ness, 
 
 Drew his hand down his beard as he thought of his 
 greatness ; 
 
 Drained out the last bead of the wine in the chalice : 
 
 " I have spoken, O Seyd ; I will build it, my palace ! 
 
 " As a drop from the wine where the wine-cup hath 
 
 spilled it, 
 
 As a gem from the mine, O my Seyd, I will build it ; 
 Without price, without flaw, it shall stand for a token 
 That the word is a law which the Caliph hath 
 
 spoken !" 
 
 Yet again to the Caliph bent Seyd the vizier : 
 
 " Who shall reason or rail if my Lord speaketh clear ? 
 
 Who shall strive with his might ? Let my Lord live 
 
 for ever ! 
 He shall choose him a site by the side of the river." 
 
The Mosque of the Caliph. 133 
 
 Then the Caliph sent forth unto Kiir, unto Yemen, 
 To the South, to the North, for the skilfullest free- 
 men; 
 
 And soon, in a close, where the river breeze fanned it, 
 The basement uprose, as the Caliph had planned it. 
 
 Now the courses were laid and the corner-piece fitted; 
 And the butments and set-stones were shapen and 
 
 knitted, 
 
 When lo ! on a sudden the Caliph heard frowning, 
 That the river had swelled, and the workmen were 
 
 drowning. 
 
 Then the Caliph was stirred and he flushed in his ire 
 
 as 
 
 He sent forth his word from Teheran to Shiraz ; 
 And the workmen came new, and the palace, built 
 
 faster, 
 From the bases up-grew unto arch and pilaster. 
 
134 The Mosque of the Caliph. 
 
 And the groinings were traced, and the arch-heads 
 
 were chasen, 
 
 When lo ! in hot haste there came flying a mason, 
 For a cupola fallen had whelmed half the workmen ; 
 And Hamet the chief had been slain by the Turc'men. 
 
 Then the Caliph's beard curled, and he foamed in his 
 
 rage as 
 Once more his scouts whirled from the Tell to the 
 
 Hedjaz ; 
 "Is my word not my word?" cried the Caliph 
 
 Abdallah ; 
 " I will build it up yet ... by the aiding of Allah /" 
 
 Though he spoke in his haste, like King David before 
 
 him, 
 
 Yet he felt as he spoke that a something stole o'er him ; 
 And his soul grew as glass, and his anger passed from it 
 As the vapours that pass from the Pool of Mahomet. 
 
The Mosque of the Caliph. 135 
 
 And the doom seemed to hang on the palace no 
 
 longer, 
 Like a fountain it sprang when the sources feed 
 
 stronger ; 
 
 Shaft, turret and spire leaped upward, diminished 
 Like the flames of a fire, till the palace was finished ! 
 
 Without price, without flaw. And it lay on the 
 
 azure 
 
 Like a diadem dropped from an emperor's treasure ; 
 And the dome of pearl white, . and the pinnacles 
 
 fleckless, 
 Flashed back to the light, like the gems in a neck 
 
 lace. 
 
 So the Caliph looked forth on the turret-tops gilded ; 
 And he said in his pride, " Is my palace not builded ? 
 Who is more great than I that his word can avail if 
 My will is my will," said Abdallah the Caliph. 
 
136 The Mosque of the Caliph. 
 
 But lo ! with the light he repented his scorning, 
 For an earthquake had shattered the whole ere the 
 
 morning ; 
 
 Of the pearl-coloured dome there was left but a ruin, 
 But an arch as a home for the ring-dove to coo in. 
 
 Shaft, turret and spire all were tumbled and crumbled; 
 And the soul of the Caliph within him was humbled ; 
 And he bowed in the dust : " There is none great 
 
 but Allah ! 
 I will build Him a Mosque" said the Caliph 
 
 Abdallah. 
 
 And the Caliph has gone to his fathers for ever, 
 But the Mosque that he builded shines still by the 
 
 river ; 
 
 And the pilgrims up-stream to this day slacken sail if 
 They catch the far gleam of the " Mosque of the 
 
 Caliph." 
 
PREMIERS AMOUR S." 
 
 Old Loves and old dreams, 
 ' ' Requiescant in pace? ' 
 
 How strange now it seems, 
 
 ' ' Old " Loves and " old " dreams ! 
 
 Yet we once wrote you reams, 
 Maude, Alice, and Grade! 
 
 Old Loves and old dreams, 
 ' ' Requiescant in pace, " 
 
 WHEN I called at the " Hollies" to-day, 
 In the room with the cedar-wood presses, 
 
 Aunt Deb. was just folding away 
 What she calls her " memorial dresses." 
 
 She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen, 
 Short-waisted, of course my abhorrence ; 
 
 She'd "the loveliest" something in "e'en" 
 That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence ; 
 
138 Premiers Amours. 
 
 She'd the "jelick" she used "as a Greek," (!) 
 She'd the habit she got her bad fall in ; 
 
 She had e'en the blue moire antique 
 
 That she opened Squire Lavender's ball in : 
 
 New and old they were all of them there : 
 Sleek velvet and bombazine stately, 
 
 She had hung them each over a chair 
 To the "paniers" she's taken to lately 
 
 (Which she showed me, I think, by mistake). 
 
 And I conned o'er the forms and the fashions, 
 Till the faded old shapes seemed to wake 
 
 All the ghosts of my passed away " passions ;"- 
 
 From the days of love's youthfullest dream, 
 When the height of my shooting idea 
 
 Was to burn, like a young Polypheme, 
 For a somewhat mature Galatea. 
 
Premiers Amo^crs. 139 
 
 There was Lucy, who " tiffed " with her first, 
 
 And who threw me as soon as her third came ; 
 There was Norah, whose cut was the worst, 
 
 For she told me to wait till my "herd" came; 
 
 Pale Blanche, who subsisted on salts ; 
 
 Blonde Bertha, who doted on Schiller ; 
 Poor Amy, who taught me to waltz ; 
 
 Plain Ann, that I wooed for the " siller;" 
 
 All danced round my head in a ring, 
 
 Like "The Zephyrs" that somebody painted, 
 
 All shapes of the sweet " she-thing" 
 Shy, scornful, seductive, and sainted, 
 
 To my Wife, in the days she was young . . . 
 
 " How, Sir," says that lady, disgusted, 
 " Do you dare to include ME among 
 
 Your loves that have faded and rusted?" 
 
140 Premiers Amours. 
 
 " Not at all ! "I benignly retort. 
 
 (I was just the least bit in a temper !) 
 " Those, alas ! were the fugitive sort, 
 
 But you are my eadem semper /" 
 
 Full stop, and a Sermon. Yet think, 
 There was surely good ground for a quarrel, - 
 
 She had checked me when just on the brink 
 Of I feel a remarkable MORAL. 
 
LOVE'S FAREWELL. 
 (HUITAIN.) 
 
 " No MORE 1" I said to Love. " No more ! 
 
 I scorn your baby-arts to know ! 
 Not now am I as once of yore ; 
 
 My brow the Sage's line can show ! " 
 " Farewell !" he laughed. " Farewell ! I go ! 
 
 And clove the air with fluttering track. 
 " Farewell !" he cried far off ; but lo ! 
 
 He sent a Parthian arrow back ! 
 
EMBLEMS (I). 
 
 THE DEATH OF LOVE. 
 
 En Mors Amoris ! ran the text ; and lo ! 
 I saw that One, on ground of shoot and stem, 
 Had woven Love, who like a youth did go 
 In marriage robes, all broidered over them 
 With crocus-buds and stars-of-Bethlehem. 
 Thereto (the Worker gone), comes Time in shape 
 And envious semblance of a whiskered ape, 
 That mars the fair design with many a thread ; 
 And for the flowers, puts serpent-heads that gape, 
 And where Love looked, the features of the dead. 
 
EMBLEMS (II). 
 
 THE LOVE OF DEATH. 
 
 YET one more thing of Love the limner wrought. 
 How that a brood of baby-shapes with wings 
 Lit among laughing girls, who, half-distraught, 
 Ran here and there to catch those winsome things, 
 And kiss their eyes, and still their flutterings. 
 One only one sat silent as the dead, 
 In mourner's weed, and o'er her ashes spread, 
 Who saw that sight, yet had no joy of it, 
 But closelier drew her garment to her head. 
 Above thjs one was Mortis Amor writ. 
 
"WHEN I SAW YOU LAST, 
 R O S E." 
 
 (VILLANELLE.) 
 
 WHEN I saw you last, Rose, 
 You were only so high ; 
 How fast the time goes ! 
 
 Like a bud ere it blows, 
 You just peeped at the sky 
 When I saw you last, Rose ! 
 
"When I saw you last, Rose!' 145 
 
 Now your petals unclose. 
 Now your May-time is nigh ; 
 How fast the time goes ! 
 
 You would prattle your woes, 
 All the wherefore and why, 
 When I saw you last, Rose ! 
 
 Now you leave me to prose, 
 And you seldom reply ; 
 How fast the time goes ! 
 
 And a life, how it grows ! 
 You were scarcely so shy 
 When I saw you last, Rose ! 
 
 In your bosom it shows 
 There's a guest on the sly ; , 
 (How fast the time goes !) 
 
146 "When I saw you last, Rose." 
 
 Is it Cupid ? Who knows ! 
 Yet you used not to sigh 
 When I saw you last, Rose ! 
 How fast the time goes ! 
 
ANDR.6 LE CHAPELAIN. 
 
 (CLERK OF LOVE, 1170.) 
 HIS PLAINT TO VENUS OF THE COMING YEARS. 
 
 f< Plus ne suis ce que fay estl 
 Et ne le scaurois jamais estre ; 
 Mon beau printemps et mon est 
 Ontfait le saut par lafeneslre." 
 
 CLEMENT MAROT, 1537. 
 
 QUEEN VENUS, round whose feet, 
 To tend thy sacred fire, 
 
 With service bitter-sweet 
 
 Nor youths nor maidens tire ; 
 
 Goddess, whose bounties be 
 
 Large as the un-oared sea ; 
 
148 Andrd le Chapelain. 
 
 Mother, whose eldest born 
 
 First stirred his stammering tongue, 
 In the world's youngest morn, 
 
 When the first daisies sprung ; 
 Whose last, when Time shall die, 
 In the same grave shall lie : 
 
 Hear thou one suppliant more ! 
 
 Must I, thy Bard, grow old, 
 Bent, with the temples frore, 
 
 Not jocund be nor bold 
 To tune for folk in May 
 Ballad and virelay ? 
 
 Shall the youths jeer and jape, 
 " Behold his verse doth dote ! 
 
 Leave thou Love's lute to scrape, 
 And tune thy wrinkled throat 
 
 To songs of ' Flesh is Grass,' " 
 
 Shall they cry thus and pass ? 
 
Andrd le Chape lain. 149 
 
 And the sweet girls go by ? 
 
 " Beshrew the grey-beard's tune ! 
 What ails his minstrelsy 
 
 To sing us snow in June ! " 
 Shall they too laugh, and fleet 
 Far in the sun-warmed street ? 
 
 But Thou, whose beauty bright, 
 
 Upon thy wooded hill, 
 With ineffectual light 
 
 The wan sun seeketh still ; 
 Woman, whose tears are dried, 
 Hardly, for Aden's side, 
 
 Have pity, Erycine ! 
 
 Withhold not all thy sweets ; 
 Must I thy gifts resign 
 
 For Love's mere broken meats ; 
 And suit for alms prefer 
 That was thine Almoner ? 
 
50 Andrd le Chape lain. 
 
 Must I, as bondsman, kneel, 
 That, in full many a cause, 
 
 Have scrolled thy just appeal ? 
 Have I not writ thy Laws ? 
 
 That none from Love shall take 
 
 Save but for Love's sweet sake ; 
 
 That none shall aught refuse 
 To Love of Love's fair dues ; 
 That none dear Love shall scoff 
 Or deem foid shame thereof ; . 
 That none shall traitor be 
 To Love's own secrecy ; 
 
 Avert, avert it, Queen ! 
 
 Debarred thy listed sports, 
 Let me at least be seen 
 
 An usher in thy courts, 
 Outworn, but still indued 
 With badge of servitude. 
 
Andr le Chapelain. 151 
 
 When I no more may go, 
 
 As one who treads on air, 
 To string-notes soft and slow, 
 
 By maids found sweet and fair ; 
 When I no more may be 
 Of Love's blithe company ; 
 
 When I no more may sit 
 
 Within thine own pleasance, 
 To weave, in sentence fit, 
 
 Thy golden dalliance j 
 When other hands than these 
 Record thy soft decrees ; 
 
 Leave me at least to sing 
 
 About thine outer wall, 
 To tell thy pleasuring, 
 
 Thy mirth, thy festival ; 
 Yea, let my swan-song be 
 Thy grace, thy sanctity. 
 
152 Andrd le Chapelain. 
 
 [Here ended Andre's words : 
 But One, that writeth, saith 
 
 Betwixt his stricken chords 
 He heard the wheels of Death ; 
 
 Attd knew the fruits Love bare 
 
 But Dead- Sea apples wereJ] 
 
A TALE OF POLYPHEME. 
 
 " THERE'S nothing new " not that I go so far 
 As he who also said " There's nothing true," 
 
 Since, on the contrary, I hold there are 
 Surviving still a verity or two ; 
 
 But, as to novelty, in my conviction, 
 
 There's nothing new, especially in fiction. 
 
 Hence, at the outset, I make no apology, 
 
 If this my story is as old as Time, 
 Being, indeed, that idyll of mythology, 
 
 The Cyclops' love, which, somewhat varied, I'm 
 To tell once more, the adverse Muse permitting, 
 In easy rhyme, and phrases neatly fitting. 
 
154 A Tale of Polypheme. 
 
 " Once on a time " there's nothing new, I said 
 
 It may be fifty years ago or more, 
 Beside a lonely posting road that led 
 
 Seaward from town, there used to stand of yore, 
 With low-built bar and old bow-window shady, 
 An ancient Inn, " The Dragon and the Lady." 
 
 Say that by chance, wayfaring Reader mine, 
 You cast a shoe, and at this dusty " Dragon," 
 
 Where beast and man were equal on the sign, 
 Inquired at once for Blacksmith and for flagon : 
 
 The landlord showed you, while you drank your hops, 
 
 A road-side break beyond the straggling shops. 
 
 And so directed, thereupon you led 
 Your halting roadster to a kind of pass ; 
 
 This you descended with a crumbling tread, 
 And found the sea beneath you like a glass ; 
 
 And soon, beside a building partly walled 
 
 Half hut, half cave you raised your voice and called. 
 
A Tale of Polypheme. 1 5 5 
 
 Then a dog growled ; and straightway there began 
 Tumult within for, bleating with affright, 
 
 A goat burst out, escaping from the can ; 
 And, following close, rose slowly into sight 
 
 Blind of one eye, and black with toil and tan 
 
 An uncouth, limping, heavy-shouldered man. 
 
 Part smith, part seaman, and part shepherd too : 
 You scarce knew which, as, pausing with the pail 
 
 Half filled with goat's milk, silently he drew 
 An anvil forth, and reaching shoe and nail, 
 
 Bared a red forearm, bringing into view 
 
 Anchors and hearts in shadowy tattoo. 
 
 And then he lit his fire .... But I dispense 
 
 Henceforth with you, my Reader, and your horse, 
 
 As being but a colourable pretence 
 
 To bring an awkward hero in perforce ; 
 
 Since this our smith, for reasons never known, 
 
 To most society preferred his own. 
 
156 A Tale of Polypheme. 
 
 Women declared that he 'd an " evil eye," 
 This in a sense was true he had but one ; 
 
 Men, on the other hand, alleged him shy : 
 We sometimes say so of the friends we shun ; 
 
 But, wrong or right, suffices to affirm it 
 
 The Cyclops lived a veritable hermit, 
 
 Dwelling below the cliff, beside the sea, 
 Caved like an ancient British Troglodyte, 
 
 Milking his goat at eve, and it may be, 
 Spearing the fish along the flats at night, 
 
 Until, at last, one April evening mild, 
 
 Came to the Inn a Lady and a Child. 
 
 The Lady was a nullity ; the Child 
 
 One of those bright bewitching little creatures, 
 Who, if she once but shyly looked and smiled, 
 
 Would soften out the rugged est of features ; 
 Fragile and slight, a very fay for size, 
 With pale town-cheeks, and "clear germander eyes." 
 
A Tale of Polypheme. 1 5 7 
 
 Nurses, no doubt, might name her " somewhat wild; " 
 And pedants, possibly, pronounce her " slow ;" 
 
 Or corset-makers add, that for a child, 
 She needed "cultivation;" all I know 
 
 Is that whene'er she spoke, or laughed, or romped, you 
 
 Felt in each act the beauty of impromptu. 
 
 The Lady was a nullity a pale 
 
 Nerveless and pulseless quasi-invalid, 
 Who, lest the ozone should in aught avail, 
 
 Remained religiously in-doors to read ; 
 So that, in wandering at her will, the Child 
 Did, in reality, run "somewhat wild." 
 
 At first but peering at the sanded floor 
 And great shark jaw-bone in the cosy bar ; 
 
 Then watching idly from the dusky door 
 The noisy advent of a coach or car ; 
 
 Then stealing out to wonder at the fate 
 
 Of blistered Ajax by the garden gate, 
 
158 A Tale of Polypheme. 
 
 Some old ship's figure-head, until at last, 
 Straying with each excursion more and more. 
 
 She reached the limits of the road, and passed, 
 Plucking the pansies, downward to the shore ; 
 
 And so, as you, respected Reader, showed, 
 
 Came to the smith's " desirable abode." 
 
 There by the cave the occupant she found, 
 Weaving a crate ; and, with a gladsome cry, 
 
 The dog frisked out, although the Cyclops frowned 
 With all the terrors of his single eye ; 
 
 Then from a mound came running, too, the goat, 
 
 Uttering her plaintive, desultory note. 
 
 The Child stood wondering at the silent man, 
 Doubtful to go or stay, when presently 
 
 She felt a plucking, for the goat began 
 To crop the trail of twining bryony 
 
 She held behind her ; so that, laughing, she 
 
 Turned her light steps, retreating, to the sea. 
 
A Tale of Polyp kerne. 159 
 
 But the goat followed her on eager feet, 
 And therewithal an air so grave and mild, 
 
 Coupled with such a deprecatory bleat 
 Of injured confidence, that soon the Child 
 
 Filled the lone shore with louder merriment, 
 
 And e'en the Cyclops' heavy brow unbent. 
 
 Thus grew acquaintanceship between the pair, 
 The girl and goat ; for thenceforth, day by day 
 
 The Child would bring her four-foot friend such fare 
 As might be gathered on the downward way : 
 
 Foxglove, or broom, and " yellow cytisus," 
 
 Dear to all goats since Greek Theocritus. 
 
 But, for the Cyclops, that misogynist 
 
 Having, by stress of circumstances, smiled, 
 
 Felt it at least incumbent to resist 
 
 Further encroachment ; and, as one beguiled 
 
 By adverse fortune, with the half-door shut, 
 
 Dwelt in the dim seclusion of his hut. 
 
160 A Tale of Polypheme. 
 
 And yet not less from thence he still must see 
 That daily coming, and must hear the goat 
 
 Bleating her welcome ; then, towards the sea, 
 The happy voices of the playmates float ; 
 
 Until, at last, enduring it no more, 
 
 He took his wonted station by the door. 
 
 Here was, of course, a pitiful surrender ; 
 
 For soon the Child, on whom the " evil eye " 
 Seemed to exert an influence but slender, 
 
 Would run to question him, till, by and by, 
 His moody humour like a cloud dispersing, 
 He found himself uneasily conversing. 
 
 That was a sowVear, that an egg of skate, 
 And this an agate rounded by the wave. 
 
 Then came inquiries still more intimate 
 About himself, the anvil, and the cave ; 
 
 And then, at last, the Child, without alarm 
 
 Would even spell the letters on his arm. 
 
A Tale of Polypheme. \ 6 1 
 
 " G A L Galatea'' So there grew 
 
 On his part, like some half-remembered tale, 
 
 The new-found memory of an ice-bound crew, 
 And vague garrulities of spouting whale, 
 
 Of sea-cow basking upon berg and floe, 
 
 And Polar light, and stunted Eskimo. 
 
 Till, in his heart, which hitherto had been 
 Locked as those frozen barriers of the North, 
 
 There came once more the season of the green, 
 The tender bud-time and the putting forth, 
 
 So that the man, before the new sensation, 
 
 Felt for the child a kind of adoration ; 
 
 Rising by night, to search for shell and flower, 
 To lay in places where she found them first ; 
 
 Hoarding, his cherished goat's milk for the hour 
 When those young lips might feel the summer's thirst; 
 
 Holding himself for all devotion paid 
 
 By that clear laughter of the little maid. 
 
1 62 A Tale of Poly pheme. 
 
 Dwelling, alas ! in that fond Paradise 
 
 Where no to-morrow quivers in suspense, 
 
 Where scarce the changes of the sky suffice 
 To break the soft forgetfulness of sense, 
 
 Where dreams become realities ; and where 
 
 I willingly would leave him did I dare. 
 
 Yet for a little space it still endured, 
 Until, upon a day when least of all 
 
 The softened Cyclops, by his hopes assured, 
 Dreamed the inevitable blow could fall, 
 
 Came the stern moment that should all destroy, 
 
 Bringing a pert young cockerel of a Boy. 
 
 Middy, I think, he 'd " Ads " on his box ; 
 A black-eyed, sun-burnt, mischief-making imp, 
 
 Pet of the mess, a Puck with curling locks, 
 Who straightway travestied the Cyclops' limp, 
 
 And marvelled how his cousin so could care 
 
 For such a " one-eyed, melancholy BEAR." 
 
A Tale of Poly pheme. 163 
 
 So there was war at once ; not overt yet, 
 
 For still the Child, unwilling, would not break 
 
 The new acquaintanceship, nor quite forget 
 
 The pleasant past ; while, for his treasure's sake, 
 
 The boding smith with clumsy efforts tried 
 
 To win the laughing scorner to his side. 
 
 There are some sights pathetic ; none I know 
 
 More sad than this : to watch a slow-wrought mind 
 
 Humbling itself, for love, to come and go 
 Before some petty tyrant of its kind ; 
 
 Saddest, ah ! saddest far, when it can do 
 
 Nought to advance the end it has in view. 
 
 This was at least the Cyclops' case, until, 
 Whether the boy beguiled the Child away, 
 
 Or whether that limp Matron on the Hill 
 Woke from her novel-reading trance, one day 
 
 He waited long and wearily in vain, 
 
 But, from that hour, they never came again. 
 
1 64 A Tale of Polyphemc. 
 
 Yet still he' waited, hoping wondering if 
 
 They still might come, or dreaming that he heard 
 
 The sound of far-off voices on the cliff, 
 
 Or starting strangely when the she-goat stirred ; 
 
 But nothing broke the silence of the shore, 
 
 And from that hour, the Child returned no more. 
 
 Therefore our Cyclops sorrowed, not as one 
 Who can command the gamut of despair ; 
 
 But as a man who feels his days are done, 
 So dead they seem, so desolately bare ; 
 
 For, though he 'd lived a hermit, 'twas but only 
 
 Now he discovered that his life was lonely. 
 
 The very sea seemed altered, and the shore ; 
 
 The very voices of the air were dumb ; 
 Time was an emptiness that o'er and o'er 
 
 Ticked with the dull pulsation "Will she come?" 
 So that he sat " consuming in a dream," 
 Much like his old forerunner, Polypheme. 
 
A Tale of Poly pheme. 165 
 
 Until there came the question, " Is she gone ? " 
 With such sad sick persistence that at last, 
 
 Urged by the hungry thought that drove him on, 
 Along the steep declivity he passed, 
 
 And by the summit panting stood and still, 
 
 Just as the horn was sounding on the hill. 
 
 Then, in a dream, beside the " Dragon " door, 
 The smith saw travellers standing in the sun ; 
 
 Then came the horn again, and three or four 
 Looked idly at him from the roof, but One, 
 
 A Child within, suffused with sudden shame, 
 
 Thrust forth a hand, and called to him by name. 
 
 Thus the coach vanished from his sight, but he 
 Limped back with bitter pleasure in his pain ; 
 
 He was not all forgotten could it be ? 
 
 And yet the knowledge made the memory vain ; 
 
 And then he felt a pressure in his throat, 
 
 So, for that night, forgot to milk his goat. 
 
1 66 A Tale of Polypheme. 
 
 What then might come of silent misery, 
 What new resolvings then might intervene, 
 
 I know not. Only, with the morning sky, 
 
 The goat stood tethered on the " Dragon " green, 
 
 And those who, wondering, questioned thereupon, 
 
 Found the hut empty, for the Man was gone. 
 
LINES TO A STUPID PICTURE. 
 
 " the tmisic of the moon 
 Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale." 
 
 AYLMER'S FIELD. 
 
 FIVE geese, a landscape damp and wild, 
 A stunted, not too pretty, child, 
 
 Beneath a battered gingham ; 
 Such things, to say the least, require 
 A Muse of more-than-average Fire 
 
 To adequately sing 'em. 
 
1 68 Lines to a Stupid Picture. 
 
 And yet Why should they ? Souls of mark 
 Have sprung from such ; e'en Joan of Arc 
 
 Had scarce a grander duty ; 
 Not always ('tis a maxim trite) 
 From righteous sources comes the right, 
 
 From beautiful the beauty. 
 
 Who shall decide where seed is sown ? 
 Maybe some priceless germ was blown 
 
 To this unwholesome marish 
 (And what must grow will still increase, 
 Though cackled round by half the geese 
 
 And ganders in the parish.) 
 
 Maybe this homely face may hide 
 A Stael before whose mannish pride 
 
 Our frailer sex may tremble ; 
 Perchance this audience anserine 
 May hiss (O fluttering Muse of mine !) 
 
 May hiss a future Kemble ! 
 
Lines to a Stupid Picture. 169 
 
 Or say the gingham shadows o'er 
 An undeveloped Hannah More ! 
 
 A latent Mrs. Trimmer ! ! 
 Who shall affirm it ? who deny ? 
 Since of the truth nor you nor I 
 
 Discern the faintest glimmer ! 
 
 So then Caps off, my Masters all ; 
 Reserve your final word, recall 
 
 Your all-too-hasty strictures ; 
 Caps off, I say, for Wisdom sees 
 Potential possibilities 
 
 In most unhopeful pictures. 
 
IN THE BELFRY. 
 (WRITTEN UNDER RETHEL'S "DEATH THE FRIEND.") 
 
 TOLL ! Is it night, or daylight yet ? 
 Somewhere the birds seem singing still, 
 Though surely now the sun has set. 
 
 Toll ! But who tolls the Bell once more ? 
 He must have climbed the parapet. 
 Did I not bar the belfry door ? 
 
In the Belfry. 171 
 
 Who can it be ? the Bernardine 
 That used to pray with me of yore ? 
 No, for the monk was not so lean. 
 
 This must be He who, legend saith, 
 Comes sometimes with a kindlier mien 
 And tolls a knell. This shape is Death. 
 
 Good-bye, old Bell ! So let it be. 
 How strangely now I draw my breath ! 
 What is this haze of light I see ? . . . 
 
 IN MANUS TUAS, DOMINE ! 
 
BEFORE THE CURTAIN. 
 
 " Miss PEACOCK 's called." And who demurs ? 
 
 Not I who write, for certain ; 
 If praise be due. one sure prefers 
 That some such face as fresh as hers 
 
 Should come before the curtain. 
 
 And yet, most strange to say, I find 
 (E 'en bards are sometimes prosy) 
 
 Her presence here but brings to mind 
 
 That undistinguished crowd behind 
 For whom life 's not so rosy. 
 
Before the Curtain. 
 
 The pleased young premier led her on, 
 But where are all the others ? 
 
 Where is that nimble servant John? 
 
 And where 's the comic Uncle gone ? 
 And where that best of Mothers 
 
 Where is " Sir Lumley Leycester, Bart." ? 
 
 And where the crafty Cousin ? 
 That man may have a kindly heart, 
 And yet each night ('tis in the part) 
 
 Must poison half-a-dozen ! 
 
 173 
 
 Where is the cool Detective, he 
 Should surely be applauded ? 
 The Lawyer, who refused the fee ? 
 The Wedding Guests (in number three) ? 
 Why are they all defrauded ? 
 
i 74 Before the Curtain. 
 
 The men who worked the cataract ? 
 
 The plush-clad carpet lifters ? 
 Where is the countless host, in fact, 
 Whose cue is not to speak, but act, 
 
 The " supers " and the shifters ? 
 
 Think what a crowd whom none recall, 
 Unsung, unpraised, unpitied ; 
 Women for whom no bouquets fall, 
 And men whose names no galleries bawl,- 
 The Great un-Benefit-ed ! 
 
 Ah, Reader, ere you turn the page, 
 I leave you this for Moral : 
 Remember those who tread Life's stage 
 With weary feet and scantest wage, 
 And ne'er a leaf for laurel ! 
 
THE LAST DESPATCH. 
 
 HURRAH ! the Season 's past at last ; 
 
 At length we've ' done ' our pleasure. 
 Dear ' Pater/ if you only knew 
 How much I Ve longed for home and you,- 
 
 Our own green lawn and leisure ! 
 
 And then the pets ! One half forgets 
 
 The dear dumb friends in Babel. 
 I hope my special fish is fed ; 
 I long to see poor Nigra's head 
 Pushed at me from the stable ! 
 
1 76 The Last Despatch. 
 
 I long to see the cob and ' Rob,' 
 Old Bevis and the Collie ; 
 
 And worit we read in ' Traveller's Rest ' ! 
 
 Home readings after all are best ; 
 None else seem half so " jolly " ! 
 
 One misses your dear kindly store 
 Of fancies quaint and funny ; 
 One misses, too, your kind bon-mot ; 
 The Mayfair wit I mostly know 
 Has more of gall than honey ! 
 
 How tired one grows of " calls and balls " ! 
 
 This " touj ours per drix" wearies; 
 I 'm longing, quite, for ' Notes on Knox ' ; 
 (A-propoS) I 've the loveliest box 
 
 For holding Notes and Queries /) 
 
The Last Despatch. 1 77 
 
 A change of place would suit my case. 
 
 You '11 take me ? on probation ? 
 As ' Lady-help/ then, let it be ; 
 I feel'(as Lavender shall see), 
 
 That Jams are my vocation ! 
 
 How's Lavender? My love to her. 
 
 Does Briggs still flirt with Flowers ? 
 Has Hawthorn stubbed the common clear ? 
 You '11 let me give some picnics, Dear, 
 
 And ask the Vanes and Towers ? 
 
 I met Belle Vane. " HE 's " still in Spain ! 
 
 Sir John won't let them marry. 
 Aunt drove the boys to Brompton Rink ; 
 And Charlie, changing Charlie, think, 
 
 Is now au mieux with Carry ! 
 M 
 
78 The Last Despatch. 
 
 And NO. You know what ' No' I mean- 
 
 There 's no one yet at present : 
 The Benedick I have in view 
 Must be a something wholly new, 
 One's father 'sfar too pleasant. 
 
 So hey, I say, for home and you ! 
 
 Good-bye to Piccadilly ; 
 Balls, beaux, and Bolton-row, adieu ! 
 Expect me, Dear, at half-past two ; 
 
 Till then, your Own Fond MILLY. 
 
DORA VERSUS ROSE. 
 
 " The case is proceeding." 
 
 FROM the tragic-est novels at Mudie's 
 
 At least, on a practical plan 
 To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys, 
 
 One love is enough for a man. 
 But no case that I ever yet met is 
 
 Like mine : I am equally fond 
 Of Rose, who a charming brunette is, 
 
 And Dora, a blonde. 
 
1 80 Dora versiis Rose. 
 
 Each rivals the other in powers 
 
 Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints- 
 Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers ; 
 
 Miss Do., perpendicular saints. 
 In short, to distinguish is folly ; 
 
 'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass 
 
 Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly 
 
 Or Buridan's ass. 
 
 If it happens that Rosa I Ve singled 
 
 For a soft celebration in rhyme, 
 Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled 
 
 Somehow with the tune and the time ; 
 Or I painfully pen me a sonnet 
 
 To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s, 
 And behold I am writing upon it 
 
 The legend, " To Rose." 
 
Dora versiis Rose. 1 8 1 
 
 Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter 
 
 Is all overscrawled with her head), 
 If I fancy at last that I Ve got her, 
 
 It turns to her rival instead ; 
 Or I find myself placidly adding 
 
 To the rapturous tresses of Rose 
 Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding, 
 Ineffable nose. 
 
 Was there ever so sad a dilemma ? 
 
 For Rose I would perish (pro tern.) 
 For Dora I 'd willingly stem a 
 
 (Whatever might offer to stem) ; 
 But to make the invidious election, 
 
 To declare that on either one's side 
 I Ve a scruple, a grain, more affection, 
 I cannot decide. 
 
1 82 Dora versus Rose. 
 
 And, as. either so hopelessly nice is, 
 My soul and my final resource 
 
 Is to wait some indefinite crisis, 
 Some feat of molecular force, 
 
 To solve me this riddle conducive 
 By no means to peace or repose, 
 
 Since the issue can scarce be inclusive 
 
 Of Dora and Rose. 
 
 (Afterthought.} 
 But, perhaps, if a third (say a Norah), 
 
 Not quite so delightful as Rose, 
 Not wholly so charming as Dora, 
 
 Should appear, is it wrong to suppose, 
 As the claims of the others are equal, 
 
 And flight in the main is the best, 
 That I might . . . But no matter, the sequel 
 Is easily guessed. 
 
IN TOWN. 
 
 (PANTOUM.) 
 
 " The blue fly sung in the pane" TENNYSON. 
 
 TOILING in Town now is " horrid," 
 (There is that woman again !) 
 
 June in the zenith is torrid, 
 Thought gets dry in the brain. 
 
 There is that woman again : 
 
 " Strawberries ! fourpence a pottle ! : 
 Thought gets dry in the brain ; 
 
 Ink gets dry in the bottle, y^ 
 
184 In Town. 
 
 "Strawberries ! fourpence a pottle !" 
 
 for the green of a lane ! 
 Ink gets dry in the bottle ; 
 
 " Buzz " goes a fly in the pane ! 
 
 O for the green of a lane, 
 
 Where one might lie and be lazy ! 
 " Buzz " goes a fly in the pane ; 
 
 Bluebottles drive me crazy ! 
 
 Where one might lie and be lazy, 
 
 Careless of town and all in it ! 
 Bluebottles drive me crazy : 
 
 1 shall go mad in a minute ! 
 
 Careless of town and all in it, 
 
 With some one to soothe and to still you ;- 
 I shall go mad in a minute ; 
 
 Bluebottle, then I shall kill you ! 
 
In Town. 185 
 
 With some one to soothe and to still you, 
 As only one's feminine kin do ; 
 
 Bluebottle, then I shall kill you : 
 There now ! I 've broken the window ! 
 
 As only one's feminine kin do, 
 Some muslin-clad Mabel or May ! 
 
 There now ! I 've broken the window ! 
 Bluebottle 's off and away ! 
 
 Some muslin-clad Mabel or May, 
 
 To dash one with eau de Cologne ; 
 
 Bluebottle 's off and away ; 
 And why should I stay here alone ! 
 
 To dash one with eau de Cologne, 
 All over one's talented forehead ; 
 
 And why should I stay here alone ! 
 Toiling in Town now is "horrid." 
 
ARS VICTRIX. 
 
 Oui, r&uvre sort plus belle 
 D'une forme au travail 
 
 Rebelle, 
 Vers, marbre, onyx, tmail." 
 
 THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 
 
 YES ; when the ways oppose 
 When the hard means rebel, 
 
 Fairer the work out-grows, 
 More potent far the spell. 
 
 O Poet, then, forbear 
 
 The loosely-sandalled verse, 
 Choose rather thou to wear 
 
 The buskin strait and terse ; 
 
Ars Victrix. 
 
 Leave to the tiro's hand 
 
 The limp and shapeless style ; 
 See that thy form demand 
 
 The labour of the file. 
 
 Sculptor, do thou discard 
 The yielding clay, consign 
 
 To Paros marble hard 
 The beauty of thy line ; 
 
 Model thy Satyr's face 
 In bronze of Syracuse ; 
 
 In the veined agate trace 
 The profile of thy Muse. 
 
 Painter, that still must mix 
 But transient tints anew, 
 
 Thou in the furnace fix 
 The firm enamel's hue ; 
 
1 88 Ars Victrix. 
 
 Let the smooth tile receive 
 Thy dove-drawn Erycine ; 
 
 Thy Sirens blue at eve 
 Coiled in a wash of wine. 
 
 All passes. ART alone 
 Enduring stays to us ; 
 
 The Bust out-lasts the throne,- 
 The Coin, Tiberius ; 
 
 Even the gods must go ; 
 
 Only the lofty Rhyme 
 Not countless years o'erthrow,- 
 
 Not long array of time. 
 
 Paint, chisel, then, or write ; 
 
 But, that the work surpass, 
 With the hard fashion fight, 
 
 With the resisting mass. 
 
A LOYALL BALLADE OF THE 
 ARMADA. 
 
 TO THE MOST HIGH, MIGHTIE AND MAGNIFICENT 
 EMPERESSE, ELIZABETH 
 
 by the grace of God Queene of England, Fraunce and 
 
 Ireland, and of Virginia, Defender of the 
 
 Faith, etc. 
 
 KING PHILLIP had vaunted his claimes ; 
 
 He had sworne for a yeere he would sacke us ; 
 With an Armie of heathenishe names 
 
 He was coming to faggot and stacke us ; 
 
190 A Loy all Ballade of the Armada. 
 
 Like the theeves of the sea he would tracke us, 
 And shatter our Shippes on the maine ; 
 
 But wee had bolde Neptune to backe us, 
 And where are the Gallions of Spayne ? 
 
 His Carackes were christned of Dames 
 
 To the kirtles whereof he would tacke us ; 
 With his Saints and his gilded Sterne-frames, 
 
 He had thought like an eggeshell to cracke us ; 
 
 Now Howard may get to his Flaccus, 
 And Drake to his Devon againe, 
 
 And Hawkins bowle rubbers to Bacchus, 
 For where are the Gallions of Spayne ? 
 
 Let his Maiestie hang to St. James 
 The axe that he whetted to hacke us ; 
 
 He must playe at some lustier games 
 
 Or at sea he can hope to out-thwacke us ; 
 
A Loyall Ballade of the Armada. 191 
 
 To his mines of Peru he would packe us 
 To tugge at his bullet and chaine ; 
 
 Alas ! that his Greatness should lacke us ! 
 But where are the Gallions of Spayne ? 
 
 Envoy. 
 
 GLORIANA ! the Don may attacke us 
 Whenever his stomacke be faine ; 
 
 He must reache us before he can racke us, . . 
 And where are the Gallions of Spayne ? 
 
A QUARTET FROM HORACE. 
 
 Monsieur Isaac de Benserade, in the Hotel de Rambouillet days, 
 translated the entire " Metamorphoses " of Ovid into Rondeaus. 
 The following are paraphrases from another author in that and 
 kindred forms. But the present writer has not carried his enter- 
 prise to the same lengths as Benserade.] 
 
 "o FONS BANDUSI^E!" 
 (Rondeau.) 
 
 O BABBLING spring, than glass more clear, 
 Worthy of wreath and cup sincere, 
 
 To-morrow shall a kid be thine 
 
 With swelled and sprouting brows for sign,- 
 Sure sign ! of loves and battles near. 
 
A Quartet from Horace. 193 
 
 Child of the race that butt and rear ! 
 Not less, alas ! his life-blood dear 
 
 Shall tinge thy cold wave crystalline, 
 O babbling spring ! 
 
 Thee Sirius knows not. Thou dost cheer 
 With pleasant cool the plough-worn steer, 
 The wandering flock. This verse of mine 
 Shall rank thee one with founts divine ; 
 Men shall thy rock and tree revere, 
 O babbling spring ! 
 
 (Rondel.} 
 
 You shun me, Chloe, wild and shy 
 
 As some stray fawn that seeks its mother, 
 
 Through trackless woods. If spring-winds sigh 
 It vainly strives its fears to smother ; 
 
194 A Quartet from Horace. 
 
 Its trembling knees assail each other, 
 When lizards stir the bramble dry ; 
 You shun me, Chloe, wild and shy 
 
 As some stray fawn that seeks its mother. 
 
 And yet no Libyan lion I, 
 No ravening thing to rend another ; 
 
 Lay by your tears, your tremors by, 
 A Husband 's better than a brother ; 
 
 Nor shun me, Chloe, wild and shy 
 
 As some stray fawn that seeks its mother. 
 
 "PERSICTOS ODI." 
 
 (Triolets.} 
 
 DAVUS, I detest 
 
 Orient display ; 
 Wreaths on linden drest, 
 Davus, I detest. 
 
A Quartet from Horace. 195 
 
 Let the late rose rest 
 
 Where it fades away : 
 Davus, I detest 
 
 Orient display. 
 
 Naught but myrtle twine 
 
 Therefore, Boy, for me 
 Sitting 'neath the vine, 
 Naught but myrtle twine ; 
 Fitting to the wine, 
 
 Not unfitting thee ; 
 Naught but myrtle twine 
 
 Therefore, Boy, for me. 
 
 THE SAME. 
 
 {Pocket Version.} 
 
 DAVUS, I detest 
 Persian decoration ; 
 
196 A Quartet from Horace. 
 
 Roses and the rest, 
 Davus, I detest. 
 Simple myrtle best 
 
 Suits our modest station ;- 
 Davus, I detest 
 
 Persian decoration. 
 
 "TU NE QUAESIERIS." 
 
 ( ViUanelle.) 
 
 SEEK not, O Maid, to know, 
 (Alas ! unblest the trying !) 
 When thou and I must go. 
 
 No lore of stars can show. 
 What shall be, vainly prying, 
 Seek not, O Maid, to know. 
 
A Quartet from Horace. 197 
 
 Will Jove long years bestow ? 
 Or is 't with this -that's dying, 
 That thou and I must go ; 
 
 , when the great winds blow, 
 And waves the reef are plying ? . . 
 Seek not, O Maid, to know. 
 
 Rather, let clear wine flow, 
 On no vain hope relying ; 
 When thou and I must go 
 
 Lies dark ; then be it so. 
 Now, now, churl Time is flying ; 
 Seek not, O Maid, to know 
 When thou and I must go. 
 
THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND 
 RHYME. 
 
 (DOUBLE REFRAIN.) 
 
 WHEN the ways are heavy with mire and rut, 
 
 In November fogs, in December snows, 
 
 When the North Wind howls, and the doors are 
 
 *. 
 
 shut, 
 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose ; 
 But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows, 
 And the jasmine-stars to the lattice climb, 
 And a Rosalind-face at the casement shows, 
 Then hey ! for the ripple of laughing rhyme ! 
 
The Ballad of Prose and Rhyme. 1 99 
 
 When the brain gets dry as an empty nut, 
 When the reason stands on its squarest toes, 
 When the mind (like a beard) has a " formal cut,"- 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose ; 
 But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows, 
 And the young year draws to the <; golden prime," 
 And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose, 
 Then hey ! for the ripple of laughing rhyme ! 
 
 In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut, 
 In a changing quarrel of " Ayes " and " Noes," 
 In a starched procession of " If" and " But," 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose ; 
 But whenever a soft glance softer grows, 
 And the light hours dance to the trysting-time, 
 And the secret is told " that no one knows,"- 
 Then hey ! for the ripple of laughing rhyme ! 
 
2oo The Ballad of Prose and Rhyme. 
 
 Envoy. 
 
 In the work-a-day world, for its needs and woes, 
 There is place and enough for the pains of prose ; 
 But whenever the May-bells clash and chime, 
 Then hey ! for the ripple of laughing rhyme ! " 
 
A LOVE-SONG. 
 
 (A.D. 1700.) 
 
 WHEN first in CELIA'S ear I poured 
 
 A yet unpractised pray'r, 
 My trembling tongue sincere ignored 
 
 The aids of < sweet ' and ' fair.' 
 I only said, as in me lay, 
 
 I'd strive her ' worth ' to reach ; 
 She frowned, and turned her eyes away,- 
 
 So much for truth in speech. 
 
202 A Love- Song. 
 
 Then DELIA came. I changed my plan ; 
 
 I praised her to her face ; 
 I praised her features, praised her fan, 
 
 Her lap-dog and her lace 
 I swore that not till Time were dead 
 
 My passion should decay ; 
 She, smiling, gave her hand, and said 
 
 Twill last then for a DAY. 
 
THE LOST ELIXIR. 
 
 One drop of ruddy human blood puts more life into the veins 
 of a poem than all delusive ' aurum potabile ' that can be 
 distilled out of the choicest library" LOWELL. 
 
 AH, yes, that " drop of human blood ! " 
 
 We had it once, may be, 
 When our young song's impetuous flood 
 
 First poured its ecstasy ; 
 But now the shrunk poetic vein 
 Yields not that priceless drop again. 
 
204 The Lost Elixir. 
 
 We toil, as toiled we not of old ; 
 
 Our patient hands distil 
 The shining spheres of chemic gold 
 
 With hard-won, fruitless skill ; 
 But that red drop still seems to be 
 Beyond our utmost alchemy. 
 
 Perchance, but most in later age, 
 
 Time's after-gift, a tear, 
 Will strike a pathos on the page 
 
 Beyond all art sincere ; 
 But that " one drop of human blood ; ' 
 Has gone with life's first leaf and bud. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 NOTE i, PAGE 4. 
 
 Nay, 'twas a song of Sainte-Aulaire. 
 
 It is but just to the octogenarian Marquis, whom the Duchess of 
 Maine surnamedher ' vieux lerger,' to say that he is guiltless of 
 the song here ascribed to him. For it, and the similar pieces in 
 these Proverbs, the author is alone responsible. In the Secrets 
 of the Heart, however, he has, without attempting to revive the 
 persons, borrowed the names of the charming heroines of A quoi 
 revent les Jeunes Filles. 
 
 NOTE 2, PAGE 39. 
 Ensign (of Bragg' s] made a terrible clangour, 
 
 Despite its suspicious appropriateness in this case, ' Bragg's ' regi- 
 ment of Foot-Guards really existed ; and was ordered to Flanders 
 in April, 1742, with, among others, that very ' Handasyd's ' in 
 which Sterne's father had been a poor Lieutenant. (See Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, 1742, i. 217.) 
 
206 Notes. 
 
 NOTE 3, PAGE 42. 
 
 Porto Bella at last was ta'en. 
 
 Porto Bello was taken in November, 1739. But Vice-Admiral 
 Vernon's despatches did not reach England until the following 
 March. (See Gentleman's Magazine for 1740, pp. 124, et seq.} 
 
 NOTE 4, PAGE 45. 
 A nd a spavined mare that was worth a ' ' cole. ' ' 
 
 ' ' I told you first, and all along, 
 I'll lay this cole you 're in the wrong." 
 
 These lines are from A Poetical Description of Mr. Hogarth's 
 Election Prints, in four Cantoes , 1759. The speaker, the Cobbler 
 of the Canvassing for Votes (Plate ii.) is discussing the taking of 
 Porto Bello with the Barber. 
 
 NOTE 5, PAGE 47. 
 
 In the fresh contours of his " Milkmaid's "face. 
 See the Enraged Musician, an engraving of which was pub- 
 lished in November of the following year (1741). To annotate 
 this Ballad more fully would be easy ; but the reader will per- 
 haps take the details for granted. It may however be stated 
 that there is no foundation in fact for the story. 
 
 NOTE 6, PAGE 50. 
 
 The Child Musician. 
 
 These verses, which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for August, 
 1876, originated in an "American story " told verbally by a friend 
 
Notes. 207 
 
 who had found it copied into some English paper. The author 
 "romanced" it more suo. Since the issue of the ist Edition of 
 this Book, he has been furnished, by the courtesy of one of the 
 most graceful of Trans-Atlantic poets, with a more accurate 
 version of the facts. Those who wish to read the " true story " of 
 poor little James Speaight must do so in the pathetic setting of 
 THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 
 
 NOTE 7, PAGE 65. 
 
 These are leaves of my rose. 
 
 Six of these Triolets appeared in the Graphic for May 23, 1874. 
 The Rondel at p. vi. was printed in Evening Hours for April, 1876 ; 
 the Ballade at p. 70, and the Rondeau at p. 81, in Evening Hours 
 for May, 1876. The Villanelle at p. 144 has not hitherto been 
 published. 
 
 r"" 
 
 NOTE 8, PAGE 79. 
 
 Rondels and Rondeaus. 
 
 The old French forms which M. THEODORE DE BANVILLE has 
 turned to such good use in his Odes Funambiilesques and Occi- 
 dentales are rather better known at this moment than when, in 
 the course of 1876, most of these attempts were published. The 
 Rondeau (not the first in English by a century or so) is here 
 written upon the model of VOITURE ; the Rondel upon that of 
 CHARLES OF ORLEANS, but with a (symmetric) deviation in the 
 arrangement of the rhymes. The last line of the Rondel has 
 been retained as optional, not only because the practice of the 
 ' Roi des Rimes ' in the Occidentales is at variance with his pre- 
 
208 Notes. 
 
 cept elsewhere expressed, but because, in some of the Orleans 
 MSS., the couplet is given. Finally, it seems required by the 
 present arrangement. No doubt, when MR. EDMUND GOSSE 
 produces his promised book on Poetic Forms, we shall be pre- 
 cisely enlightened on this and other particulars. Meanwhile, the 
 Rondeau, which, as M. de Banville says happily, succeeds to the 
 Rondel ' comme le roi Louis succede a Pharamond,' looks the more 
 promising of the pair. Something is to be made of this form, ' If 
 only ' to use the words of the Authors of Lays from Latin Lyres 
 
 ' If only some superior poet 
 Would lend his mighty genius to it. ' 
 
 One of these writers, by the way, has gracefully rhymed a lyric 
 of Catullus ' en Rondeau.' 
 
 NOTE 9, PAGE 81. 
 On London Stones. 
 Here is a Rondeau of Voiture's, on Rondeau-making 
 
 ' Mafoy ; cestfait de moy. Car habeau 
 M'a conjure" de luy fair e un Rondeau. 
 Cela me met en une peine extreme. 
 Quoy treize vers huit en eau, cinq en erne ! 
 Je luy ferois aussi-tot un batteau. 
 
 En voila cinq poiirtant en un monceau : 
 Faisons-en huict, en in-voquant Brodeau, 
 Et puis mettons, par quelque stratag&me^ 
 Mafoy, cest fait. 
 
Notes. 209 
 
 Si iepouvois encore de man cerveau 
 Tirer cinq vers, I'ouvrage seroit beau. 
 Mais cependant, je suis dedans I'onzitme, 
 Et si je croy que je fais le douzitme, 
 En voila treize of us fez au niveau. 
 Mafoy, c'estfait!' 
 
 Of which the following may serve as an adaptation :- 
 
 You bid me try, Blue-Eyes, to write 
 A Rondeau. What ! forthwith ? To-night ? 
 Reflect. Some skill I have, 'tis true ; 
 But thirteen lines ! and rhymed on two ! 
 " I must," you say. Ah, hapless plight ! 
 Still, there are five lines, ranged aright. 
 These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright 
 My easy Muse. They did till you 
 You bid me try ! 
 
 That makes them nine. The port's in sight 
 'Tis all because your eyes are bright ! 
 Now just a pair to end with " oo," 
 When maids command, what can't we do ! 
 Behold ! the Rondeau, tasteful, light, 
 You bid me Try ! 
 
 NOTE 10, PAGE 95. 
 
 Some moneyed mourner's " love or pride." 
 
 ' Thus much alone we know Metella died, 
 The wealthiest Roman's wife : Behold his love or pride ! ' 
 
 Childe Harold, iv. 103. 
 
210 Notes. 
 
 NOTE ii, PAGE 183. 
 In Town. 
 
 The Pantoum^ a native song of the Malays, was first called 
 attention to by M. Victor Hugo in the ' Notes ' to the Orientales, 
 p. 189 in Hachette's edn., 1865. Here are three stanzas of his 
 translation : 
 
 1 Les papillons jouent a lentour sur leurs ailes ; 
 Us volent vers la mer, pres de la chaine des rockers. 
 Man cceur s'est senti malade dans ma poitrine, 
 Depuis mes premiers jours jusqu a F heure prfcente. 
 
 Us volent vers la mer, pres de la chatne des rochers . . 
 Le vautour dirige son essor vers Bandam. 
 Depuis mes premiers jours jusqu & I'lieure prtsente, 
 J'ai admirtbien de jeunes gens. 
 
 Le vautour dirige son essor vers Bandam . . 
 
 Et laisse tomber de ses plumes a Patani. 
 
 J'ai admire" bien de jeunes gens ; 
 
 Mais nul nest a comparer a I'objet de man choix.' 
 
 But perhaps it may not be necessary to go so far afield as the 
 Malay Archipelago. In Mttusine, for November, 1877, there is 
 something very like a primitive Pantoum an old French Chanson 
 of Sainte Catherine : 
 
 ' Cdtait sainte Catherine 
 Lafille dun grand roi ; (bis] 
 Sonpere etait paien, 
 Sa mere ne I'ttait pas. 
 
 Ave Maria, 
 
 Santa Catharina. 
 
Notes. 2 1 1 
 
 Son pere ttait paien, 
 Sa mere ne V tta.it pas. (bis) 
 Unjour, a la priere 
 Son per e la trouva. 
 Ave, ..." 
 
 And so on, for seventeen verses. M. de Banville, in the Odes Fun- 
 ambulesques, the late Louisa Siefert in Rayons Perdus, and others, 
 have written Pantoums serious and familiar. In Town (printed in 
 Good Words for June, 1876) is an experiment in the latter vein, 
 which any one may excel who will. 
 
 NOTE 12, PAGE 189. 
 A Loyall Ballade of the Armada. 
 
 Assuming that the Ballade of Fra^ois Villon had reached this 
 country in 1588, such an English adaptation of the form is here 
 attempted as some minor Elizabethan say, for example, GERVASE 
 MARKHAM might in a moment of enthusiasm have addressed to 
 " greatest Gloriana." For the orthography this writer's Tragedy of 
 Sir Richard Grinuile has been followed. 
 
JHntberstttj 
 
 T. AND A. CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY. 
 
VIGNETTES IN RHYME 
 
 AND 
 
 VERS DE SOCIETE, 
 
 Third Edition. Foolscap 8vo, Cloth, Price $s. 
 
 Some Opinions of the Press on " Vignettes 
 in Rhyme" 
 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW. 
 
 " His (Mr. Dobson's) recent volume of collected poems 
 is one of unusual promise . . . The general impression 
 produced by these ' Vignettes ' is very favourable to the 
 writer's mental attitude. Their keen and sprightly criti- 
 cism of men and manners is unspoilt by flippancy, Jheir 
 healfny appreciation of life^sjmrest rjleasuresjstempered 
 by kindly concern for the lot of those who miss them." 
 
 EDINBURGH REVIEW. 
 
 " The most promising of the younger writers of minor 
 verse is Mr. Austin Dobson, whose ' Vignettes in Rhyme' 
 betoken considerable poetic fancy." 
 
 WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 " If there is any taste left in us for subtle wit, delicate 
 humour, happy rhymes, and well-turned expressions, 
 
2 1 4 Notices of the Press. 
 
 1 Vignettes in Rhyme' ought to be the most popular book 
 of the day . . . There is not a piece in the book which is 
 not graceful. We would gladly linger over such a de- 
 lightful volume." 
 
 SATURDAY REVIEW. 
 
 " Even if his ' Vignettes in Rhyme ' had come by itself 
 we should have given it a kindly welcome. But we picked 
 it up out of a pile of the most worthless among the Minor 
 Poets, and we felt as grateful as ever feels a man who 
 in the pocket of some garment among a heap of cast-away 
 clothes finds a bright new shilling. . . . Mr. Dobson, 
 however, is more than a mere versifier. In two or three of 
 his Poems he shows a skill in painting with his pen that 
 might raise the envy of many of his rival artists with the 
 brush." 
 
 SPECTATOR. 
 
 " Mr. Dobson gives us something more than the tone 
 and manner of cultivated social life, with its vivid ripple 
 of thought and feeling. . . . We were hardly prepared for 
 the touches of genuine beauty which adorn so many of 
 these little poems, and set the verses of ' society ' in a 
 framework of softer and more imaginative loveliness than 
 the refined give-and-take of social intellect and sentiment 
 usually suggest. What lovely bits of poetic feeling, for 
 instance, gleam through the beautiful little poem on ' The 
 Sick Man and the Birds.' . . . Tenderness when it is 
 playful and playfulness when it is tender are both per- 
 fectly given in this charming little book, which contains 
 also an exquisite sense of natural beauty." 
 
Notices of the Press. 2 1 5 
 
 ATHENAEUM. 
 
 " Of the books before us, that by Mr. Dobson takes 
 quite the highest place. His ' Vignettes ' are really clever, 
 clear-cut, and careful. . . . The best poem in the book 
 and some three or four lines of it are strikingly fine and 
 original is ' The Dying of Tanneguy du Bois.' . . . Any 
 man who could write the lines we have italicised may do 
 still better things." 
 
 EXAMINER. 
 
 "As a writer of vers de societe it is not too much to say 
 that Mr. Dobson is almost, if not quite, unrivalled. . . . 
 There is keener wit in the satire addressed ' To Q. H. F.' 
 Of this poem, on which Mr. Dobson can well afford to 
 build his fame, we quote a few exquisite stanzas." 
 [Stanzas IV. V. VI. quoted.] 
 
 ACADEMY. 
 
 " His own words explain the limits of the excellence 
 which may still be attained by writers of Vers de Societe, 
 of whom Mr. Dobson is among the best. . . . l Lydia 
 Languish ' is a not unworthy pendant to Praed's ' My own 
 Araminta say No.' . . . ' The Virtuoso ' is a neatly turned 
 portrait of a sub-humorous egoist ; 'An Autumn Idyll' is 
 a really sprightly burlesque of the Eclogues, and there are 
 a couple of Odes of Horace pleasantly diluted." 
 
 MORNING POST. 
 
 " Airily conceived, and with their graceful fancies and 
 elegant expression in admirable harmony, these attrac- 
 tive little poems recall the fascinating verses of Praed, 
 and all but match the matchless lines of Hood . . He 
 
! ->\ 
 
 2 1 6 T Y . Notices of the Press. 
 
 (Mr. Dobson) is master of musical words, and his subjects 
 are full of poetic suggestions. ... He has very few, if any, 
 equals, and certainly no superior in the elegant form of 
 poetic power wherein his joyous muse moves in so light- 
 some a manner. ... A more attractive volume of verse 
 than ' Vignettes in Rhyme ' is seldom published." 
 
 VICTORIAN POETS. 
 
 (ByE. C. Stedman.) 
 
 " Dobson's Vignettes in Rhyme has one or two lyrics, 
 besides lighter pieces equal to the best of Calverley's, 
 which show their author to be not only a gentleman and 
 a scholar, but a most graceful poet, titles that used to 
 be associated in the thought of courtly and debonair wits. 
 Such a poet, to hold the hearts he has won, not only must 
 maintain his quality, but strive to vary his style ; because, 
 while there is no work, brightly and originally done, which 
 secures a welcome so instant as that accorded to his 
 charming verse, there is none to which the public ear be- 
 comes so quickly wonted, and none from which the world 
 so lightly turns upon the arrival of a new favourite with 
 a different note." 
 
 CHAMBERS'S CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 " Another writer of light airy vers de societe is a young 
 poet, Austin Dobson. He has a graceful fancy, with 
 humour, and a happy art of giving a new colour to old 
 phrases . . . Some serious verses (Before Sedan, &c.) 
 evince higher powers, which Mr. Dobson should culti- 
 vate." 
 
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