Kitabı oku: «A Parody Anthology», sayfa 8

SIR EGGNOGG

 
FORTH from the purple battlements he fared,
Sir Eggnogg of the Rampant Lily, named
From that embrasure of his argent shield
Given by a thousand leagues of heraldry
On snuffy parchments drawn. So forth he fared,
By bosky boles and autumn leaves he fared,
Where grew the juniper with berries black,
The sphery mansions of the future gin.
But naught of this decoyed his mind, so bent
On fair Miasma, Saxon-blooded girl,
Who laughed his loving lullabies to scorn,
And would have snatched his hero-sword to deck
Her haughty brow, or warm her hands withal,
So scornful she; and thence Sir Eggnogg cursed
Between his teeth, and chewed his iron boots
In spleen of love. But ere the morn was high
In the robustious heaven, the postern-tower
Clang to the harsh, discordant, slivering scream
Of the tire-woman, at the window bent
To dress her crispéd hair. She saw, ah, woe!
The fair Miasma, overbalanced, hurled
O'er the flamboyant parapet which ridged
The muffled coping of the castle's peak,
Prone on the ivory pavement of the court,
Which caught and cleft her fairest skull, and sent
Her rosy brains to fleck the Orient floor.
This saw Sir Eggnogg, in his stirrups poised.
Saw he and cursed, with many a deep-mouthed oath,
And, finding nothing more could reunite
The splintered form of fair Miasma, rode
On his careering palfrey to the wars,
And there found death, another death than hers.
 

Bayard Taylor.

GODIVA

 
"I   WAITED for the Train at Coventry,"
The Train was several hundred years too late
(It had not been invented yet, you see);
Such is the Cold Cast Irony of Fate.
At last the Train arrived, and with it too
Your Book – a Precious Package marked "collect."
Raptured I read it through and through, and through,
And then I paused in sadness to reflect —
How that same Book had been a priceless boon,
But for a little accident of Date;
If only I had not been born so soon,
Or if you had not gone to press so late.
O Book, if only you had come to me
Ere I rode forth upon that morning sad!
In naught but Faith and Hope and Charity,
And other Vague Abstractions thinly clad;
In whole Editions I would have invested
(I hope you get good Royalties therefrom),
To keep the naughty townfolk interested
And most Particularly, Peeping Tom.
 

Oliver Herford.

A LAUREATE'S LOG

(Rough-weather notes from the New Birthday-Book)

MONDAY

 
IF you're waking, please don't call me, please don't call me, Currie dear,
For they tell me that to-morrow toward the open we're to steer!
No doubt, for you and those aloft, the maddest merriest way, —
But I always feel best in a bay, Currie,
I always feel best in a bay.
 

TUESDAY

 
Take, take, take?
What will I take for tea?
The thinnest slice – no butter,
And that's quite enough for me.
 

WEDNESDAY

 
It is the little roll within the berth
That, by and by, will put an end to mirth,
And, never ceasing, slowly prostrate all.
 

THURSDAY

 
Let me alone! What pleasure can you have
In chaffing evil? Tell me what's the fun
Of ever climbing up the climbing wave?
 
 
All you, the rest, you know how to behave
In roughish weather! I, for one
Ask for the shore – or death, dark death, —
I am so done.
 

FRIDAY

 
Twelve knots an hour! But what am I?
A poet with no land in sight,
Insisting that he feels "all right,"
With half a smile and half a sigh.
 

SATURDAY

 
Comfort? Comfort scorned of lubbers! Hear this truth the Poet roar,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering days on shore.
Drug his soda lest he learn it when the foreland gleams a speck
In the dead unhappy night, when he can't sit up on deck!
 

SUNDAY

 
Ah! you've called me nice and early, nice and early, Currie dear!
What? Really in? Well, come, the news I'm precious glad to hear;
For though in such good company I willingly would stay —
I'm glad to be back in the bay, Currie,
I'm glad to be back in the bay.
 

Punch.

THE RECOGNITION

 
HOME they brought her sailor son,
Grown a man across the sea,
Tall and broad and black of beard,
And hoarse of voice as man may be.
 
 
Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,
Both he offered ere he spoke;
But she said – "What man is this
Comes to play a sorry joke?"
 
 
Then they praised him – call'd him "smart,"
"Tightest lad that ever stept;"
But her son she did not know,
And she neither smiled nor wept.
 
 
Rose, a nurse of ninety years,
Set a pigeon-pie in sight;
She saw him eat – "'Tis he! 'tis he!"
She knew him – by his appetite!
 

William Sawyer.

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL

 
ONE, who is not, we see; but one, whom we see not, is;
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.
 
 
What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.
 
 
Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?
 
 
Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.
 
 
Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.
 
 
Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.
 
 
Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.
 
 
One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.
 
 
Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;
Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.
 
 
Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.
You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.
 
 
Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.
 
 
God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.
 

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

TIMBUCTOO. – PART I

The situation

 
IN Africa (a Quarter of the World),
Men's skins are black, their hair is crisp and curl'd,
And somewhere there, unknown to public view,
A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.
 

The natural history

 
There stalks the tiger, – there the lion roars,
Who sometimes eats the luckless blackamoors;
All that he leaves of them the monster throws
To jackals, vultures, dogs, cats, kites, and crows;
His hunger thus the forest monster gluts,
And then lies down 'neath trees called cocoa-nuts.
 

The lion hunt

 
Quick issue out, with musket, torch, and brand,
The sturdy blackamoors, a dusky band!
The beast is found – pop goes the musketoons —
The lion falls covered with horrid wounds.
 

Their lives at home

 
At home their lives in pleasure always flow,
But many have a different lot to know!
 

Abroad

 
They're often caught and sold as slaves, alas!
 

Reflections on the foregoing

 
Thus men from highest joy to sorrow pass;
Yet though thy monarch and thy nobles boil
Rack and molasses in Jamaica's isle,
Desolate Africa! thou art lovely yet!
One heart yet beats which ne'er thee shall forget.
 
 
What though thy maidens are a blackish brown,
Does virtue dwell in whiter breasts alone?
Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!
It shall not, must not, cannot, e'er be so.
The day shall come when Albion's self shall feel
Stern Afric's wrath, and writhe 'neath Afric's steel.
 
 
I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,
And sell their sugars on their own account;
While round her throne the prostrate nations come,
Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum!
 

Notes. – Lines 1 and 2. – See Guthrie's Geography. The site of Timbuctoo is doubtful; the author has neatly expressed this in the poem, at the same time giving us some slight hints relative to its situation.

Line 5. – So Horace: leonum arida nutrix.

Line 13. – "Pop goes the musketoons." A learned friend suggested "Bang" as a stronger expression, but as African gunpowder is notoriously bad, the author thought "Pop" the better word.

Lines 15-18. – A concise but affecting description is here given of the domestic habits of the people. The infamous manner in which they are entrapped and sold as slaves is described, and the whole ends with an appropriate moral sentiment. The enthusiasm the author feels is beautifully expressed in lines 25 and 26.

W. M. Thackeray.

AFTER TUPPER

OF FRIENDSHIP

 
CHOOSE judiciously thy friends; for to discard them is undesirable,
Yet it is better to drop thy friends, O my daughter, than to drop thy H's.
Dost thou know a wise woman? yea, wiser than the children of light?
Hath she a position? and a title? and are her parties in the Morning Post?
If thou dost, cleave unto her, and give up unto her thy body and mind;
Think with her ideas, and distribute thy smiles at her bidding:
So shalt thou become like unto her; and thy manners shall be "formed,"
And thy name shall be a Sesame, at which the doors of the great shall fly open:
Thou shalt know every Peer, his arms, and the date of his creation,
His pedigree and their intermarriages, and cousins to the sixth remove:
Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty, and lo! in next morning's papers,
Side by side with rumors of wars, and stories of shipwrecks and sieges,
Shall appear thy name, and the minutiæ of thy head-dress and petticoat,
For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin.
 

Charles S. Calverley.

OF READING

 
READ not Milton, for he is dry; nor Shakespeare, for he wrote of common life;
Nor Scott, for his romances, though fascinating, are yet intelligible;
Nor Thackeray, for he is a Hogarth, a photographer who flattereth not;
Nor Kingsley, for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream, but do.
Read incessantly thy Burke; that Burke who, nobler than he of old,
Treateth of the Peer and Peeress, the truly Sublime and Beautiful;
Likewise study the "creations" of "the Prince of modern Romance;"
Sigh over Leonard the Martyr, and smile on Pelham the puppy;
Learn how "love is the dram-drinking of existence;"
And how we "invoke, in the Gadara of our still closets,
The beautiful ghost of the Ideal, with the simple wand of the pen."
Listen how Maltravers and the orphan "forgot all but love,"
And how Devereux's family chaplain "made and unmade kings;"
How Eugene Aram, though a thief, a liar, and a murderer,
Yet, being intellectual, was amongst the noblest of mankind;
So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and master spirits
And if thou canst not realize the Ideal, thou shalt at least idealize the Real.
 

Charles S. Calverley.

AFTER THACKERAY

THE WILLOW-TREE

(Another version)

 
LONG by the willow-trees
Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother's screams
O'er the gray water:
"Where is my lovely one?
Where is my daughter?
 
 
"Rouse thee, Sir Constable —
Rouse thee and look;
Fisherman, bring your net,
Boatman, your hook.
Beat in the lily-beds,
Dive in the brook!"
 
 
Vainly the constable
Shouted and called her;
Vainly the fisherman
Beat the green alder;
Vainly he flung the net,
Never it hauled her!
 
 
Mother beside the fire
Sat, her nightcap in;
Father, in easy chair,
Gloomily napping,
When at the window-sill
Came a light tapping!
 
 
And a pale countenance
Looked through the casement,
Loud beat the mother's heart,
Sick with amazement,
And at the vision which
Came to surprise her,
Shrieked in an agony —
"Lor'! it's Elizar!"
 
 
Yes, 'twas Elizabeth —
Yes, 'twas their girl;
Pale was her cheek, and her
Hair out of curl.
"Mother," the loving one,
Blushing exclaimed,
"Let not your innocent
Lizzy be blamed.
 
 
"Yesterday, going to Aunt
Jones's to tea,
Mother, dear mother, I
Forgot the door-key!
And as the night was cold
And the way steep,
Mrs. Jones kept me to
Breakfast and sleep."
 
 
Whether her Pa and Ma
Fully believed her,
That we shall never know,
Stern they received her;
And for the work of that
Cruel, though short, night
Sent her to bed without
Tea for a fortnight.
 

MORAL

 
Hey diddle diddlety,
Cat and the fiddlety,
Maidens of England, take caution by she!
Let love and suicide
Never tempt you aside,
And always remember to take the door-key.
 

W. M. Thackeray.

AFTER CHARLES DICKENS

MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE

(Dedicated to Darwin and Huxley)

 
THEY told him gently he was made
Of nicely tempered mud,
That man no lengthened part had played
Anterior to the Flood.
'Twas all in vain; he heeded not,
Referring plant and worm,
Fish, reptile, ape, and Hottentot,
To one primordial germ.
 
 
They asked him whether he could bear
To think his kind allied
To all those brutal forms which were
In structure Pithecoid;
Whether he thought the apes and us
Homologous in form;
He said, "Homo and Pithecus
Came from one common germ."
 
 
They called him "atheistical,"
"Sceptic," and "infidel."
They swore his doctrines without fail
Would plunge him into hell.
But he with proofs in no way lame.
Made this deduction firm,
That all organic beings came
From one primordial germ.
 
 
That as for the Noachian flood,
'Twas long ago disproved,
That as for man being made of mud,
All by whom truth is loved
Accept as fact what, malgré strife,
Research tends to confirm —
That man, and everything with life,
Came from one common germ.
 

Anonymous.

AFTER ROBERT BROWNING

HOME TRUTHS FROM ABROAD

I

 
"OH! to be in England
Now that April's there.
And whoever wakes in England
Sees some morning" in despair;
There's a horrible fog i' the heart o' the town,
And the greasy pavement is damp and brown,
While the rain-drop falls from the laden bough
In England – now!
 

II

 
"And after April when May follows,"
How foolish seem the returning swallows.
Hark! how the east wind sweeps along the street,
And how we give one universal sneeze!
The hapless lambs at thought of mint-sauce bleat,
And ducks are conscious of the coming peas.
Lest you should think the Spring is really present,
A biting frost will come to make things pleasant;
And though the reckless flowers begin to blow,
They'd better far have nestled down below;
An English Spring sets men and women frowning,
Despite the rhapsodies of Robert Browning.
 

Anonymous.

AFTER BROWNING

 
NOT that I care for ceremonies – no;
But still there are occasions, as you see
(Observe the costumes – gallantly they show
To my poor judgment!) which, twixt you and me,
Not to come forth, one's few remaining hairs,
Or wig, – it matters little, – bravely brushed
And oiled, dress-coated, sprucely-clad, the tears
And tweaks and wrenches, people overflushed
With – well, not wine – oh, no, we'll rather say
Anticipation, the delight of seeing
No matter what! inflict upon you (pray
Remove your elbow, friend!) in spite of being
Not quite the man one used to be, and not
So young as once one was, would argue one
Churlish, indifferent, hipped, rheumatic, what
You please to say.
 
 
So, not to spoil the fun —
Comprenez-vous? – observe that lady there,
In native worth! Aha! you see the jest?
Not bad, I think. My own, too! Woman's fair.
Or not – the odds so long as she is dressed?
They're coming! Soh! Ha, Bennett's Barcarole —
A poor thing, but mine own! That minor third
Is not so bad now! Mum, sirs! (Bless my soul,
I wonder what her veil cost!) Mum's the word!
 

Anonymous.

THE COCK AND THE BULL

 
YOU see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought
Off a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day.
I like to dock the smaller parts o' speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail'd cur —
(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?)
Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same
By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange —
"Chop" was my snickering dandiprat's own term —
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.
O-n-e one, and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence – you are with me, sir? —
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see – bar a spit o' rain!)
In February, eighteen sixty-nine,
Alexandria Victoria, Fidei —
Hm – hm – how runs the jargon? being on the throne.
 
 
Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum – what you will will —
Of the impending eighty thousand lines.
"Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge.
But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.
That shilling – and for matter o' that, the pence —
I had o' course upo' me – wi' me say —
(Mecum's the Latin, make a note o' that)
When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratch'd ear, wiped snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff'd – tch! – at snuff-box; tumbled up, ne-heed,
Haw-haw'd (not hee-haw'd, that's another guess thing),
Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door.
I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat;
And in vestibulo, i' the lobby to wit
(Iacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir),
Donn'd galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o' rain,
I flopp'd forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes
(I do assure you there be ten of them),
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy.
But case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought
This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D.
That's proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn't it, old Fatchaps? You're in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling – having i' fact a lot —
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de —
What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O' the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun,
for one and fourpence. Here we are again.
 
 
Now Law steps in, bigwigg'd, voluminous-jaw'd;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.
 
 
At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.
But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) vice versa all the coin,
Per juris operationem, vests
I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom;
(In sæcula sæculo-o-o-rum;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them.
Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.
 
 
Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,
And all that appertaineth thereunto,
Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem
(I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat),
Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should
(Subaudi cætera – clap we to the close —
For what's the good of Law in a case o' the kind),
Is mine to all intents and purposes.
This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.
Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality.
He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him
(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand),
And paid for't, like a gen'lman, on the nail.
"Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit.
Fiddlepin's end! Get out, you blazing ass!
Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby me!
Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?"
There's the transaction view'd i' the vendor's light.
 
 
Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,
With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes,
The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap – Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! οτοτοτοτοτοἱ
('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now),
And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Jill,
Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.
 
 
He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad
A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square,
And carry it off per saltum, jauntily,
Propria quae maribus, gentleman's property now
(Agreeably to the law explain'd above),
In proprium usum, for his private ends,
The boy he chuck'd a brown i' the air, and bit
I' the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by
(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door),
Then abiit – what's the Ciceronian phrase? —
Excessit, evasit, erupit – off slogs boy;
Off like bird, avi similis – (you observed
The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!) – Anglice
Off in three flea skips. Hactenus, so far,
So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male, —
Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
Verbum personale, a verb personal,
Concordat – ay, "agrees," old Fatchaps – cum
Nominativo, with its nominative,
Genere, i' point o' gender, numero,
O' number, et persona, and person. Ut,
Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et, and,
Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.
You see the trick on't though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse ad libitum.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at;
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.
 

Charles S. Calverley.