Gentle Reader, who so patiently have waited
For such viands as your poet can provide,
(Which, as critics have occasionally stated,
Must be trying to a delicate inside,)
Once again are opportunities afforded
Of a banquet, or a déjeuner at least,
Once again your toleration is rewarded
By a literary feast!
[Pg 8]
You may think that Rudyard Kipling’s work is stronger,
Or that Chaucer’s may be rather more mature;
Byron’s lyrics are indubitably longer,
Robert Browning’s just a trifle more obscure;
But ’tis certain that no poems are politer,
Or more fitted for perusal in the home,
Than the verses of the unassuming writer
Of this memorable tome!
[Pg 9]
Austin Dobson is a daintier performer,
Andrew Lang is far more scholarly and wise,
Mr. Swinburne can, of course, be somewhat warmer,
Alfred Austin more amusing, if he tries;
But there’s no one in the world (and well you know it!)
Who can emulate the bard of whom we speak,
For the literary methods of our poet
Are admittedly unique!
[Pg 10]
Tho’ he shows no sort of penitence at breaking
Ev’ry rule of English grammar and of style,
(Not a rhyme is too atrocious for his making,
Not a metre for his purpose is too vile!)
Tho’ his treatment is essentially destructive,
And his taste a thing that no one can admire,
There is something incontestably seductive
In the music of his lyre!
Gentle Reader, some apologies are needed
For depositing this volume on your desk,
Since the author has undoubtedly exceeded
All the limits of legitimate burlesque,
And we look with very genuine affection
To a Public who, for better or for worse,
Will relieve us of this villainous collection
Of abominable verse!
[Pg 11]
[Pg 12]
[Pg 13]
I always love to picture Eve,
Whatever captious critics say,
As one who was, as I believe,
The nicest woman of her day;
Attractive to the outward view,
And such a perfect lady too!
[Pg 14]
Unselfish,—that one can’t dispute,
Recalling her intense delight,
When she acquired some novel fruit,
In giving all her friends a bite;
Her very troubles she would share
With those who happened to be there.
Her wardrobe, though extremely small,
Sufficed a somewhat simple need;
She was, if anything at all,
A trifle underdressed, indeed,
And never visited a play
In headgear known as “matinée.”
Possessing but a single beau,
With only one affaire de cœur,
She promptly married, as we know,
The man who first proposed to her;
Not for his title or his pelf,
But simply for his own sweet self.
He loved her madly, at first sight;
His callow heart was quite upset;
He thought her nearly, if not quite,
The sweetest soul he’d ever met;
She found him charming—for a man,
And so their young romance began.
[Pg 15]
[Pg 16]
Their wedding was a trifle tame—
A purely family affair—
No guests were asked, no pressmen came
To interview the happy pair;
No crowds of curious strangers bored them,
The “Eden Journal” quite ignored them.
They had the failings of their class,
The faults and foibles of the youthful;
She was inquisitive, alas!
And he was—not exactly truthful;
But never was there man or woman
So truly, so intensely human!
[Pg 17]
And, hand in hand, from day to day,
They lived and labored, man and wife;
Together hewed their common way
Along the rugged path of Life;
Remaining, though the seasons pass’d,
Friends, lovers, to the very last.
So, side by side, they shared, these two,
The sorrow and the joys of living;
The Man, devoted, tender, true,
The Woman, patient and forgiving;
Their common toil, their common weather,
But drew them closelier still together.
[Pg 18]
And if they ever chanced to grieve,
Enduring loss, or suff’ring pain,
You may be certain it was Eve
Brought comfort to their hearts again;
If they were happy, well I know,
It was the Woman made them so.
······
And though the anthropologist
May mention, in his tactless way,
That Adam’s weaknesses exist
Among our modern Men to-day,
In Women we may still perceive
The virtues of their Mother Eve!
[Pg 19]
In the old town of Coventry, so people say,
Dwelt a Peer who was utterly lacking in pity;
Universally loathed for the rigorous way
That he burdened the rates of the City.
By his merciless methods of petty taxation,
The poor were reduced to the verge of starvation.
[Pg 20]
But the Earl had a wife, whom the people adored,
For her kindness of heart even more than her beauty,
And her pitiless lord she besought and implored
To remit this extortionate “duty”;
But he answered: “My dear, pray reflect at your leisure,
What you deem a ‘duty,’ to me is a pleasure!”
At the heart of her spouse she continued to storm,
[Pg 21]And she closed her entreaties, one day, by exclaiming:—
“If you take off the tax, I will gladly perform
Any task that you like to be naming!”
“Well, if that be the case,” said the nobleman, “I’ve a
Good mind just to test you, my Lady Godiva!
“To your wishes, my dear, I will straight acquiesce,
On the single condition—I give you fair warning—
That you ride through the City, at noon, in the dress
[Pg 22]That you wear in your bath of a morning!”
“Very well!” she replied. “Be it so! Though you drive a
Hard bargain, my lord,” said the Lady Godiva.
So she slipped off her gown, and her shoulders lay bare,
Gleaming white like the moon on Aonian fountains;
When about them she loosened her curtain of hair,
[Pg 23]’Twas like Night coming over the mountains!
And she blushed, ’neath the veil of her wonderful tresses,
As blushes the Morn ’neath the Sun’s first caresses!
Then she went to the stable and saddled her steed,
Who erected his ears, till he looked like a rabbit,
He was somewhat surprised, as he might be, indeed,
At the lady’s unusual “habit”;
[Pg 24]But allowed her to mount in the masculine way,
For he couldn’t say “No,” and he wouldn’t say “Neigh!”
So she rode through the town, in the heat of the sun,
For the weather was (luckily) warm as the Tropics,
And the people all drew down their blinds—except one,
On the staff of the local “Town Topics.”
(Such misconduct produced in the eyes of this vile one
[Pg 25]A cataract nearly as large as the Nile one!)
Then Godiva returned, and the Earl had to yield,
(And the paralyzed pressman dictated his cable;)
The tax was remitted, the bells were repealed,
And the horse was returned to the stable;
While banners were waved from each possible quarter,
Except from the flat of the stricken reporter.
[Pg 26]
Now the Moral is this—if I’ve fathomed the tale
(Though it needs a more delicate pen to explain it):—
You can get whatsoever you want, without fail,
If you’ll sacrifice all to obtain it.
You should try to avoid unconventional capers,
And be sure you don’t write for Society papers.
[Pg 27]
A very Woman among Men!
Her pæans, sung in ev’ry quarter,
Almost persuade Le Gallienne
To go and get his hair cut shorter;
When Kipling hears her trumpet-note
He longs to don a petticoat.
Her praise is sung by old or young,
From Happy Hampstead to Hoboken,
Where’er old England’s mother-tongue
Is (ungrammatically) spoken:
In that supremely simple set
Which loves the penny novelette.
When Anglo-Saxon peoples kneel
Before their literary idol,
It makes all rival authors feel
Depressed and almost suicidal;
They cannot reach within a mile
Of her sublime suburban style.
[Pg 28]
[Pg 29]
Her modest, unobtrusive ways,
In sunny Stratford’s guide-books graven,
Her brilliance, lighting with its rays
The birthplace of the Swan of Avon,
Must cause the Bard as deep a pain
As his resemblance to Hall Caine.
Mere ordinary mortals ask,
With no desire for picking quarrels,
Who gave her the congenial task
Of judging other people’s morals?
Who bade her flay her fellow-men
With such a frankly feline pen?
[Pg 30]
And one may seek, and seek in vain.
The social set she loves to mention,
Those offspring of her fertile brain,
Those creatures of her fond invention.
(She is, or so it would appear,
Unlucky in her friends, poor dear!)
For tho’, like her, they feel the sway
Of claptrap sentimental glamour,
And frequently, like her, give way
To lapses from our English grammar,
The victims of her diatribes
Are not the least as she describes.
[Pg 31]
To restaurants they seldom go,
Just for the sake of over-eating;
While ladies don’t play bridge, you know,
Entirely for the sake of cheating;
And husbands can be quite nice men,
And wives are faithful, now and then.
Were she to mingle with her ink
A little milk of human kindness,
She would not join, I dare to think,
To chronic social color-blindness
An outlook bigoted and narrow
As that of some provincial sparrow.
[Pg 32]
But still, perhaps, it might affect
Her literary circulation,
If she were tempted to neglect
Her talent for vituperation;
Since work of this peculiar kind
Delights the groundling’s curious mind.
For while, of course, from day to day,
Her popularity increases,
As, in an artless sort of way,
She tears Society to pieces,
Her sense of humor, so they tell us,
Makes even Alfred Austin jealous!
[Pg 33]
Yet even bumpkins, by and by,
(Such is the spread of education)
May view with cold, phlegmatic eye
The fruits of her imagination,
And learn to temper their devotion
With slight, if adequate, emotion.
·····
Dear Miss Corelli:—Should your eyes
Peruse this page (’tis my ambition!),
Be sure that I apologize
In any suitable position
For having weakly imitated
The style that you yourself created.
[Pg 34]
I cannot fancy to attain
To heights of personal invective
Which you, with subtler pen and brain,
Have learnt to render so effective;
I follow dimly in your trail;
Forgive me, therefore, if I fail!
[Pg 35]
Have you a pain all down your back?
A feeling of intense prostration?
Are you anæmic, for the lack
Of proper circulation?
With bloodshot eye and hand unsteady?
Pray send at once for Mrs. Eddy.
[Pg 36]
The Saint and Prophetess is she
Of what is known as Christian Science;
And you can lean on Mrs. E.
With absolute reliance;
For she will shortly make it plain
That there is no such thing as pain.
The varied ailments on your list
Which cause you such extreme vexation
Are nothing more, she will insist,
Than mere imagination.
’Tis so with illness or disease;
Nothing exists ... except her fees!
[Pg 37]
A friend of mine had not been taught
This doctrine, I regret to say.
He fell downstairs, or so he thought,
And broke his neck, one day.
Had Mrs. Eddy come along,
She could have shown him he was wrong.
She could have told him (or his wraith)
That stairs and necks have no existence,
That persons with sufficient faith
Can fall from any distance,
And that he wasn’t in the least
What local papers called “deceased.”
[Pg 38]
Of ills to which the flesh is heir
She is decidedly disdainful;
But once, or so her friends declare,
Her teeth became so painful
That, tho’ she knew they couldn’t be,
She had them taken out, to see.
Afflictions of the lame or halt,
Which other people view with terror,
To her denote some moral fault,
Some form of mental error.
While doctors probe or amputate,
She simply heals you while you wait.
[Pg 39]
My brother, whom you may have seen,
Possessed a limp, a very slight one;
His leg, the left, had always been
Much shorter than the right one;
But Mrs. Eddy came his way,
And ... well, just look at him to-day!
At healing she had grown so deft
That when she finished with my brother,
His crippled leg, I mean the left,
Was longer than the other!
And now he’s praying, day and night,
For faith to lengthen out the right.
[Pg 40]
So let it be our chief concern
To set diseases at defiance,
Contriving, as the truths we learn
Of so-called Christian Science,
To live from illnesses exempt,—
Or else to die in the attempt!
When lovely Woman stoops to smoke
(A vice in which she often glories),
Or sees the somewhat doubtful joke
In after-dinner stories,
Who is it to her bedroom rushes
To hide the fervor of her blushes?
[Pg 42]
When Susan’s skirt’s a trifle short,
Or Mary’s manner rather skittish,
Who is it, with a fretful snort
(So typically British),
Emits prolonged and startled cries,
Suggestive of a pained surprise?
Who is it, tell me, in effect,
Who loves to centre her attentions
On all who wilfully neglect
Society’s conventions,
And seems eternally imbued
With saponaceous rectitude?
[Pg 43]
’Tis Mrs. Grundy, deaf and blind
To anything the least romantic,
Combining with a narrow mind
A point of view pedantic,
Since no one in the world can stop her
From thinking ev’rything improper.
The picture or the marble bust
At any public exhibition
Evokes her unconcealed disgust
And rouses her suspicion,
If human forms are shown to us
In puris naturalibus.
[Pg 44]
The bare, in any sense or shape.
She looks upon as wrong or faulty;
Piano-legs she likes to drape,
If they are too décoll’té;
For long with horror she has viewed
The naked Truth, for being nude.
On modern manners that efface
The formal modes of introduction
She is at once prepared to place
The very worst construction,—
And frowns, suspicious and sardonic,
On friendships that are termed Platonic.
[Pg 45]
The English restaurants must close
At twelve o’clock at night on Sunday,
To suit (or so we may suppose)
The taste of Mrs. Grundy;
On week-days, thirty minutes later,
Ejected guests revile the waiter.
A sense of humor she would vote
The sign of mental dissipations;
She scorns whatever might promote
The gaiety of nations;
Of lawful fun she seems no fonder
Than of the noxious dooblontonder!
[Pg 46]
And if you wish to make her blench
And snap her teeth together tightly,
Say something in Parisian French,
And close one optic slightly.
“Rien ne va plus! Enfin, alors!”
She leaves the room and slams the door!
O Mrs. Grundy, do, I beg,
To false conclusions cease from rushing,
And learn to name the human leg
Without profusely blushing!
No longer be (don’t think me rude)
That unalluring thing, the prude!
[Pg 47]
No more patrol the world, I pray,
In search of trifling social errors,
Let “What will Mrs. Grundy say?”
No longer have its terrors;
Leave diatribe and objurgation
To Mrs. Chant and Carrie Nation!
The bride grows pale beneath her veil,
The matron, for the nonce, is dumb,
Who listens to the tragic tale
Of Mrs. Christopher Columb:
Who lived and died (so says report)
A widow of the herbal sort.
[Pg 50]
Her husband upon canvas wings
Would brave the Ocean, tempest-tost;
He had a cult for finding things
Which nobody had ever lost,
And Mrs. C. grew almost frantic
When he discovered the Atlantic.
But nothing she could do or say
Would keep her Christopher at home;
Without delay he sailed away
Across what poets call “the foam,”
While neighbors murmured, “What a shame!”
And wished their husbands did the same.
He ventured on the highest C’s
That reared their heads above the bar,
Knowing the compass and the quays
Like any operatic star;
And funny friends who watched him do so
Would call him “Robinson Caruso.”
But Mrs. C. remained indoors,
And poked the fire and wound the clocks,
Amused the children, scrubbed the floors,
Or darned her absent husband’s socks.
(For she was far too sweet and wise
To darn the great explorer’s eyes.)
[Pg 51]
[Pg 52]
And when she chanced to look around
At all the couples she had known,
And realized how few had found
A home as peaceful as her own,
She saw how pleasant it may be
To wed a chronic absentee.
Her husband’s absence she enjoyed,
Nor ever asked him where he went,
Thinking him harmlessly employed
Discovering some Continent.
Had he been always in, no doubt,
Some day she would have found him out.
[Pg 53]
And so he daily left her side
To travel o’er the ocean far,
And she who, like the bard, had tried
To “hitch her wagon to a star,”
Though she was harnessed to a comet,
Got lots of satisfaction from it.
To him returning from the West
She proved a perfect anti-dote,
Who loosed his Armour (beef compress’d)
And sprayed his “automobile throat”;
His health she kept a jealous eye on,
And played PerUna to his lion!
[Pg 54]
And when she got him home again,
And so could wear the jewels rare
Which Isabella, Queen of Spain,
Entrusted to her husband’s care,
Her monetary wealth was “far
Beyond the dreams of caviar!”
·····
A melancholy thing it is
How few have known or understood
The manifold advantages
Of such herbaceous widowhood!
(What is it ruins married lives
But husbands ... not to mention wives?)
[Pg 55]
O wedded couples of to-day,
Pray take these principles to heart,
And copy the Columbian way
Of living happily apart.
And so, to you, at any rate,
Shall marriage be a “blessèd state.”
[Pg 56]
[Pg 57]
I should like to remark that Dame Rumor
Is the most unalluring of jades.
She has little or no sense of humor,
And her fables are worse than George Ade’s.
(Or rather, I mean, if the reader prefers,
[Pg 58]
That the fables of Ade are much better than hers!)
Her appearance imbues one with loathing,
From her jaundiced, malevolent eyes
To the tinsel she cares to call clothing,
Which is merely a patchwork of lies.
For her garments are such that a child could see through,
And her blouse (need I add?) is the famed Peek-a-boo!
She is wholly devoid of discretion,
She is utterly wanting in tact,
She’s a gossip by trade and profession,
And she much prefers fiction to fact.
She is seldom veracious, and always unkind,
And she moves to and fro with the speed of the wind.
She resembles the men who (’tis fabled)
Tumble into the Packingtown vats,
Who are boiled there, and bottled, and labelled
For the tables of true democrats:
Pickled souls who are canned for the public to buy,
And (like her) have a finger in every pie!
[Pg 59]
[Pg 60]
With a step that is silent and stealthy,
Or an earsplitting clamor and noise,
She disturbs the repose of the wealthy,
Or the peace which the pauper enjoys.
And, however securely the doors may be shut,
She can always gain access to palace or hut.
Where the spinsters at tea are collected,
Her arrival is hailed with delight;
She is welcomed, adored, and respected
In each newspaper office at night;
For her presence imprints an original seal
[Pg 61]On an otherwise commonplace journal or meal.
She has nothing in common with Virtue,
And with Truth she was never allied;
If she hasn’t yet managed to hurt you,
It can’t be from not having tried!
For the poison of adders is under her tongue,
And you’re lucky indeed, if you’ve never been stung.
Are you statesman, or author, or artist,
With a perfectly blameless career?
[Pg 62]Are your talents and wits of the smartest,
And your conscience abnormally clear?
“He’s a saint!” says Dame Rumor, and smiles like the Sphinx.
“He’s a hero!” (She adds:) “What a pity he drinks!”
Gentle Reader, keep clear of her clutches!
O beware of her voice, I entreat!
Be you journalist, dowager duchess,
Or just merely the Man in the Street.
And I beg of you not to encourage a jade
Who, if once she is started, can never be stayed.
[Pg 63]
O my Brothers, do you hear the children weeping?
Do you note the teardrops tumbling from their eyes?
To the school-house they reluctantly are creeping,
[Pg 64]
Discontented with the teaching it supplies.
At the quality of modern education
Little urchins may with justice look askance,
Since it panders to a child’s imagination,
And encourages romance.
Do you see that toddling baby with a bib on,
How his eyes with silent misery are dim?
He is yearning for the chance of reading Gibbon;
But his teachers give him nothing else but Grimm!
What a handicap to infantile ambition!
’Tis enough to make the brightest bantling fume,
To be gammoned with an Andrew Lang edition,
When he longs for Hume, sweet Hume!
See that tiny one, what boredom he expresses!
What intolerance his frequent yawns evince
Of the fairy-tales where beautiful princesses
[Pg 65]
[Pg 66]Are delivered from a dragon by a prince!
How he curses the pedantic institution
Where he can’t obtain such volumes as “Le Cid,”
Or that masterpiece on “Social Evolution”
By another kind of Kidd!
Do you hear the children weeping, O my Brothers?
They are crying for Max Müller and Carlyle.
Tho’ Hans Andersen may satisfy their mothers,
[Pg 67]They are weary of so immature a style.
And their time is far too brief to be expended
On such nonsense as their “rude forefathers” read;
For they know the days of sentiment are ended,
And that Chivalry is dead!
Oh remember that the pillars of the nation
Are the children that we discipline to-day;
That to give them a becoming education
You must rear them in a reasonable way!
[Pg 68]Let us guard them from the glamour of the mystics,
Who would throw a ray of sunshine on their lives!
Let us feed each helpless atom on statistics,
And pray Heaven he survives!
Let us cast away the out-of-date traditions,
Which our poets and romanticists have sung!
Let us sacrifice the senseless superstitions
That illuminate the fancies of the young!
If we limit our instruction to the “reals,”
[Pg 69]We may prove to ev’ry baby from the start,
The futility of cherishing ideals
In his golden little heart!
[Pg 70]
[Pg 71]
O my Children, do you hear your elders sighing?
Do you wonder that senility should find
Your encyclopædic knowledge somewhat trying
[Pg 72]To the ordinary mind?
In the heyday of a former generation,
Some respect for our intelligence was shown;
And it’s hard for us to cotton
To the fact that you’ve forgotten
More than we have ever known!
O my Children, do you hear your elders snoring,
When the “chassis” of your motors you discuss?
Do you wonder that your “shop” is rather boring
[Pg 73]To such simple souls as us?
[1]Do you marvel that your dreary conversation
Should evoke the yawns that “lie too deep for tears,”
When you lecture to your betters
About “tanks” and “carburettors,”
About “sparking-plugs” and “gears”?
O my Children, in the season of your nonage,
(Which delightful days no longer now exist!)
[Pg 74]We could join with other fogeys of our own age
In a quiet game of whist.
Now, at bridge, our very experts are defeated
By some beardless but impertinent young cub,
Who converts our silent table
To a very Tow’r of Babel,
At the Knickerbocker Club!
O my Children, we no longer are respected!
’Tis a fact we older fellows must deplore,
[Pg 75]Whose opinions and whose judgments are neglected,
As they never were before.
We may tender good advice to our descendants;
We may offer them our money, if we will;
Lo, the one shall be forsaken,
And the other shall be taken
(Like the women at the mill!).
O my Children, note the moral (like a kernel)
[Pg 76]I have hidden in the centre of my song!
Do not contradict a relative maternal,
If she happens to be wrong!
Be indulgent to the author of your being;
Never show him the contempt that you must feel;
Treat him tolerantly, rather,
Since a man who is your father
Can’t be wholly imbecile!
O my Children, we, the older generation,
At whose feet you ought (in theory) to sit,
[Pg 77]Are bewildered by your mental penetration,
We are dazzled by your wit!
But we hopefully anticipate a future
When the airship shall replace the motor-’bus,
And your children, when they meet you,
Shall inevitably treat you
Just as you are treating us!
[Pg 78]
[Pg 79]
Hail, bride and bridegroom of the West!
Your troth irrevocably plighted!
Your act of Union doubly blest,
Your single States United,
With full approval and assent
Of populace and President!
[Pg 80]
Let Spangled Banners wave on high,
To greet the maiden as she passes!
See how the proud Proconsul’s eye
Grows dim behind his glasses!
How fond the heart that beats beneath
Those pleated Presidential teeth!
The bishop has received his cheque,
The final slipper has been thrown;
With rice down each respective neck,
The couple stand alone.
To them, at last, the fates provide
A privacy so long denied.
Letters and wires, from near and far,
Lie thickly piled on ev’ry table;
The peaceful message from the Czar,
The Kaiser’s kindly cable;
The well-expressed congratulations
From Heads of all the Sister Nations.
Rich gifts, as countless as the sand
That cloaks the desert of Sahara,
From fish-slice to piano (grand),
From toast-rack to tiara,
Still overwhelm the lucky maid
(With heavy duties to be paid!).
[Pg 81]
[Pg 82]
See, hand-in-hand, the couple stand!
(The guests their homeward journey take,
Concealing their emotion—and
Some lumps of wedding cake!)
How glad the happy pair must be
That Hymen’s bonds have set them free!
Free of the curious Yellow Press,
Free of the public’s prying gaze,
Of all the troubles that obsess
The path of fiancés!
Alone at last, and safely screen’d
From onslaughts of the kodak-fiend!
[Pg 83]
The Bride, who bore without demur
The wiles of artists photographic,
Of vulgar crowds that gaped at her,
Congesting all the traffic,
Can shop, once more, in perfect peace,
Without the help of the police.
Arrayed in stylish trav’lling dress,
Behold, with blushes she departs!
The free Republican Princess
A captive Queen of Hearts!
(Captive to Cupid, need I say?
But Queen in ev’ry other way!)
[Pg 84]
And this must surely be the hour
For Anglo-Saxons, ev’rywhere,
With cousinly regard, to show’r
Good wishes on the pair;
Borne on the bosom of the breeze,
Our blessings speed across the seas!
Hail, Bride and Bridegroom of the West!
(Pray pardon my redundant lyre)
May your united lives be blest
With all your hearts’ desire!
Accept the warm felicitations
Of fond, if distant, blood-relations!
[Pg 85]
My Offspring:—Ere you raise the glass,
To irrigate your ardent throttle;
Ere once again you gladly pass
The bottle;
Take heed that your prevailing passion
Be not completely out of fashion.
[Pg 86]
No longer does the Prodigal
Expend his nights in drunken frolic;
Or pass his days in revels al-Coholic;
For, nowadays, a glass de trop
Is not considered comme il faut.
No longer do the youthful fall,
Like leaf or partridge in October;
For they, if anything at all,
Are sober.
(I mean the boys,—don’t be absurd!
And not the foliage or the bird.)
[Pg 87]
No longer arm-in-arm they roam,
Despite constabulary warning,
Declaring that they won’t go home
Till morning!
With bursts of bacchanalian song,
And jokes as broad as they are long.
No more they wander to-and-fro,
Exchanging incoherent greetings—
The kind in vogue at Caledo-
-Nian Meetings
(Behavior that we all condemn,
Especially at 3 a. m.).
[Pg 88]
Yes; fashions change—and well they may!
No longer, at the dinner-table,
Do persons drink as much as they
Are able;
And seek the hospitable floor,
When they have drunk a trifle more.
My nasal hue, incarnadine,
Shall not, perhaps, be wholly wasted,
If sons of mine but leave their wine
Untasted;
And vanquish, with deserving merit,
The varied vices they inherit.
[Pg 89]
Yes, Offspring, I rejoice to think
That, shunning my example truly,
You never may be led to drink
Unduly.
It is indeed a blessèd thought!
Now, will you kindly pass the port?
Dear Lady,—When you bade me come
To grace your crowded “Kettledrum,”
And mingle in the best society;
When Melba sang, and Elman played,
[Pg 92]
And waiters handed lemonade
(Tempering music with sobriety),
I never had the least suspicion
Of my precarious position.
But now, with opened eyes, I leap
To this conclusion, shrewd and deep,
(What cerebral agility!):
Your compliments were insincere,
Your hospitality was mere
“Insistent affability!”
And I, a foolish man of letters,
Who thought to mingle with his betters!
Ah me! How pride precedes a fall!
That one who haunted “rout” or ball,
When invitations were acquirable,
Should see himself as others see,
Becoming suddenly, like me,
A social “undesirable”;
Invading the selectest clique
With truly adamantine cheek!
How proud an air I used to wear!
When titled persons turned to stare,
I blushed like a geranium.
When lovely ladies softly said:
[Pg 93]
[Pg 94]
“Oh, Duchess, did you see his head?”
“What a capacious cranium!”
“Yes; isn’t that the man who writes?”
“I wonder why they look such frights!”
I used to bridle coyly when
Some schoolmate, of the Upper Ten
(They were not over-numerous!),
Would slap my back, and shout “By Jove!
“Ain’t you a literary cove?”
(As tho’ ’twere something humorous!)
“Those books of yours are grand, you bet!
What? No, I haven’t read them yet.”
[Pg 95]
But now I realize my fate;
A stranger at the social gate
(Tho’ treated with civility);
The choicest circles I frequent
Must be the ones my brains invent,
With fictional futility;
The only Royalties I know
Are those my publisher can show!
The garden-party, and the tea,
Are surely not for men like me
(O Vanity of Vanities!);
Such entertainments are taboo,
[Pg 96]
And might debase my talents to
Additional inanities.
The Poet has no business there:
Que ferait-il dans cette galère?
Ah, lonely is the Author’s lot!
Assuming, if he hath it not,
A suitable humility.
For when his daily work is done,
He must inevitably shun
The homes of the Nobility,
As, with dejected steps, he passes
To supper with the middle classes!
[Pg 97]
O youth uncouth, who slouchest by,
Along the crowded public street,
An eyeglass in thy languid eye,
Brown boots upon thy feet,
A loose umbrella in thy grip,
A toothpick pendent from thy lip.
[Pg 98]
Much I deplore thy clumsy gait,
Thy drab sartorial display,
So wholly inappropriate
To this august highway;
How can a man in such attire
Set any spinster’s heart on fire?
Thou art in dress no epicure,
By weight of fashions overladen;
Thy tawdry togs do not allure
The soul of every maiden;
They sound no echoing color-note
To her tempestuous petticoat.
Her stylish skirt, her dainty blouse,
Are crêpe-de-chine, or bombazine
[2];
Compare the texture of thy trous:
With their chromatic sheen;
To what abysm of taste we reach
By the Observance of thy Breech!
Think what she pays her modiste for
Those hats of questionable shapes,
Surmounted by a seagull or
Some imitation grapes!
[Pg 99]
[Pg 100]Small wonder she receives a shock
Each time she views thy “billycock”!
Observe how like an autumn leaf
The colors of the male canary,
The garb of each New Zealand chief
Who woos his Little Maori;
The savage mind has thus designed
A dress to please its womankind.
And tho’ I would not have thee go
As far as primal man or beast,
To lovely woman thou should’st show
Some deference at least,
[Pg 101]And give a thought of what to wear
Upon the public thoroughfare.
And should’st thou wish to walk aright,
Let Mr. Beerbohm be thy mould;
Sedate yet courtly, and polite
As any beau of old;
Yea, plant thy footsteps in the tracks
Of our inimitable Max!
Enclose thy larynx in a stock
(As though afflicted with the fever);
And in the place of “billycock”
Procure a bristling “beaver”;
[Pg 102]And practise, not I hope in vain,
The “conduct of a clouded cane.”
If thou consentest thus to act,
In scorn of popular convention,
Thy bearing shall indeed attract
Much feminine attention;
As day by day, in brilliant hue,
Thy figure fills Fifth Avenue.
[Pg 103]
When the shadow-shapes shone like a shaddock,
Where the sunset had kissed them to flame,
On his palfrey, the pick of the paddock,
With his sword in its scabbard, he came!
In the glamour of amorous passion
He would blaze like a seasoned cigar;
[Pg 104]And he fought in a similar fashion,
Did Young Lochinvar!
By the fences and fens unaffrighted,
And unstopt by the stream in its spate,
In a lather, at last, he alighted,
And he knocked at the Netherbys’ gate.
’Twas too late! (As he doubtless had dreaded.)
He perceived his particular “star”
To a blackguard about to be wedded,
Did Young Lochinvar!
[Pg 105]
But he passed through the portal so proudly
To the room where the gifts were displayed,
That old Netherby called to him loudly
(For the bridegroom, poor fool, was afraid).
“Is it blood you are bent upon shedding?
With a murder this marriage to mar?
Or to waltz do you wish at the wedding,
My Young Lochinvar?”
He replied, “Tho’ ’twere useless to smother
My love for the maid at your side;
[Pg 106]Tho’ my Helen be bound to another,
I shall trust to the turn of the tied.
As I drink to her squint and her freckles,
I’ll remark how few ladies there are
Who would shrink from a share of the shekels
Of Young Lochinvar.”
Then he pledged her in port, so politely
(Tho’ her mother lamented his taste),
And she smiled at him ever so slightly,
As he settled his arm round her waist.
When he drew her direct to the dancers,
[Pg 107]The Bohemian band struck a bar,
And she found herself leading the Lancers
With Young Lochinvar!
Oh, the beauty and grace are so vivid
Of this perfectly parallel pair,
That the parents grow purple and livid,
And the bridegroom is tearing his hair;
While the bridesmaids talk ten to the dozen,
Saying: “Goodness, what gabies we are,
Not to marry our exquisite cousin
To Young Lochinvar!”
[Pg 108]
Then the girl by her partner is beckoned
To the door, where a charger they find;
To the saddle he springs in a second,
And he lifts her up lightly behind;
“She is mine!” he announces, adjourning
To the distant horizon afar,
“Till the cattle to roost are returning!”
[3]Says Young Lochinvar.
O the tumult! The tumbling of tables!
O the stress of the scene that succeeds!
[Pg 109]O the stir on the stairs,—in the stables!
O the stamping and saddling of steeds!
But the bride has eluded them surely;
In the room of some kind Registrar,
She is now being wedded securely
To Young Lochinvar!
[Pg 110]
[Pg 111]
How I have labored, night and day,
Just like the hero of a novel,
To drive the hungry wolf away
From my baronial hovel,
To keep the bailiffs from my home,
By finishing this bulky tome.
[Pg 118]
To such a trying mental strain
My intellect is far from fitted,
Tho’ if I had an ounce more brain
I should be quite half-witted,
And when I wander in my mind
I am most difficult to find.
The sort of life for which I care
Is one combining Peace and Plenty
With laisser aller, laisser faire,
And dolce far niente.
(The heart of ev’ry Bridge-fiend jumps:
Dolce ... ’tis sweet to make “No Trumps.”)
[Pg 119]
I shrink from work in any shape,—
Too clearly do these pages show it,—
But work is what one can’t escape
And be a Minor Poet;
And critics I may well defy
To find a minor bard than I.
I ought to live out ’Frisco way,
Where working is considered silly,
As Greeley (Horace) used to say,—
Or was it Collier (Willie)?—
“Go West, young man” (I understand),
“Go West and blow up with the land!”
[Pg 120]
Were I as full of zeal and fun
As Balzac, who could drudge so gaily,
Or diligent as Peter Dunne,
I might accomplish daily
An ode of Pleasure or of Passion
In Ella Wheeler Wilcox fashion;
But, as it is, I sit and toil,
Consuming time and ink and curses
And pints of precious midnight oil
To perpetrate these verses.
If writing them be dull indeed,
Alas! what must they be to read!
