The Judgement of Valhalla

by Gilbert Frankau

I.

Wherein the bard—released from War’s confusions—

Preludes with egotistical allusions.

Six years ago—or is it six-and-twenty?

(How vast the gulf from those ecstatic days!)—

When the whole earth snored on in slothful plenty

(Tho’ poets cashed small pittance for their lays);

When war appeared less real than G. A. Henty,

And Oxo’s snaky signs were yet ablaze;

When all seemed peaceful as the press of Cadbury,

And no one dreamed of bombs, or bet a Bradbury;

Or e’er stern Mars had roped us in his tether,

Ere British guns had thundered at Le Câteau:

We fitted out—my Muse and I together—

And launched adown the galley-slips of Chatto

A barque of verse, full-rigged for halcyon weather,

Which many a critic judged to take the gâteau:

(Though some there were, high pundits of disparity,

Who wept at our unscholarly vulgarity).

We have sailed far since then; crossed our horizon;

Published our loves and travels in a novel

(A tale, men say, that Peckham’s flapper cries on,

So that both Boots and Smith’s before us grovel);

And eaten ration bully-beef—with flies on;

And sheltered gratefully in many a hovel,

What time we sang of guns and gore and trenches—

Instead of oysters, tango-teas and wenches.

For times have changed since we wrote “One of Us”:

Et nos mutamus—more or less—in illis.

Muse finds herself in urbe somewhat rus;

And I—if I disport with Amaryllis—

Where once my motor flashed, prefer a ’bus;

And shuddering note how vast the supper-bill is;

And signing, sigh in secret for the calm,

Chaste, cheap seclusion of my Chiltern farm.

Yes, Muse and I are tired, and super-serious:

Her damask cheek is lined a bit, and wrinkled.

We are grown old, and London’s late nights weary us:

While the gold wine that erst in ice-pail tinkled,

Her doctor finds extremely deleterious;

And mine forbids me red lips, passion-crinkled:

So now we cultivate domestic habits

Amongst our pigs, our poultry, and our rabbits.

Yet sometimes, as we trench our stubborn soil,

Or feed our sows, or strow the peat-moss litter,

Or set the morrow’s chicken-mash to boil,

Or wander out where our young turkeys twitter,

Or read by mellow candle-light—since oil

Is dear and scarce; or talk—a little bitter

Because we find that Food Control Committees

Are all composed of men brought up in cities;

Sometimes, in this five-acre paradise

Whither my nerve-racked spirit fled the battle

Deferring to sound Harley Street advice—

A silver badge its only martial chattel,

I hear a voice, loud as the market price

That butchers bid for Rhondda’s missing cattle,

Voice of my Muse, still vibrant with old passion,

Telling how poetry is now the fashion.

“Look you,” she cries, “the Wheels are turning, turning.

Though Pegasus long since wore out his pinions,

Somehow his shod hooves keep the bread-mills churning.

Shrill, night and day, sing Marsh Georgian minions:

Each sinking sun sets some new Noyes a-burning,

Each rising moon reveals fresh hordes of Binyons;

Who batten fat on unsuspecting editors,

And—unlike you—contrive to pay their creditors.

“Poet, forsooth! You agricultural brute!

Have you no soul above the weight of porkers?

Was it for this I hearkened to your suit,

Gave you my metres and my rhymes—some, corkers?

Up, Gilbert! rummage out your rusty lute:

Polish it blacker than your black Minorcas:

And let its notes once more, in refluent stanzas,

Dower the Income-tax with glad Bonanzas.”

So she; and—since I loathe to disappoint

The least illusion of the equal sex—

Let Byron’s oil once more these locks anoint,

Once more let honour meet these Cox-drawn cheques ...

Though well I know that times are spare of joint,

And satire’s song less like to please than vex;

Now small beer, Smallwood, raids and strikes and rations,

Have near eclipsed the gaiety of nations:

Still, let me sing. Yet not as once I sung:

Love, fear, and death have chastened, sobered, saddened,

One who knew life’s full burden-time too young;

Whom never youth’s unhampered freedom gladdened,

But only envy and ambition stung,

And fickle passions—in love’s semblance maddened;

So that he needs must tumble now, poor clown,

On this Pindaric stage for half-a-crown:

Yet one who, ’spite a past that shocked St. Tony

And paid recording angels overtime,

Still holds his own at sonnet or canzone.

As some shall know who follow this, my rhyme—

Some few: for gladly would I lay a pony,

Or larger sum, against a ten-cent dime,

That most of those who read this metred tract’ll

Not know a spondee from a pterodactyl.