IV.
In which the author, contrary to custom,
Goes for the gloves—as Sohrab went for Rustum.
I have discovered, after much perusal
Of Cannan, George Mackenzie, Walpole, Bennett,
A Law whose discipline brooks no refusal,—
A neo-rheo-literary tenet
Which runs: “In art, forbear to pick and choose. All
That happens, happens. Wherefore, up and pen it!
Let the scribe’s tale be casual and cursory;
End where you like—but start us in the nursery.”
And so I fain had traced, through many a canto,
My heroine; all dimples in her cot;
Bored with her lessons; laughing at the panto.;
Immersed in “Fauntleroy” or Walter Scott:
But, since green herbs from memory’s campo santo
Provide no flavouring for satire’s pot,
For seething, bubbling cauldron such as this is,
I’ll skip the skipping-rope and jump to kisses.
’Tis such a night as only London knew
In the full seasons of our heart’s content—
When, like some fairy pageant in review,
Love, Pleasure, Luxury together blent,
Made life not all too boring for the Few;
And Unemployment, fix’t at ten per cent.,
Furnished—by all means of charity bazaars—
Right many a dame with perquisites and “pars.”
London, in London’s June! Above, the starshine:
Below, against the rails of Berkeley Square,
The patient lights of brougham, or rarer car, shine—
Waiting stiff-shirted squires and ladies fair:
Music, from high French windows that afar shine,
Thrills, till a dancer well might curse and swear,
And call himself a “dashed unlucky fella”
To miss the Lewis-Seymour’s Cinderella.
Within those halls, where plush-breeched flunkeys stand,
What sounds, what scents, what visions of delight!
How—to the bluest Blue Hungarian band—
Youth whirls away the unreturning night!
How—perfumed as the blooms of Samarcand—
The dying flow’rets whisper, “Carlton White!”
But, oh! to weary war-time ration-hunters,
How like a dream, this stand-up supper—Gunter’s!
For here, in reach of every slender hand which is
Scarce languidly outstretched to porcelain plate,
Are dainties drawn from each vale, stream, or strand which is
Most famed for fruit or fish or fowl or cate:
Creamed strawberries; thin, lavish-buttered sandwiches
Of livered geese (that now squawk Hymns of Hate),
Of priceless hams and tongues and caviar; ices;
And sugared sweets in myriad strange devices....
Yet sweeter far than all these sweet things, Jill is:
Queen of my verse and this “Young People’s Dance”:
Fairer than fairest of Mayfairy fillies!
Sweet, is the smile that lights a countenance
Bright as moon-dappled, pink-tipped lotus-lilies;
Sweet, are her jade-green eyes that gleam and glance—
And give no hint of yester-tea-time’s flare-up
When stern mamma forbade her bind her hair up.
Jill’s hair! How beautiful it is; the tresses
Warm-golden, soft as cygnet’s earliest downing.
Jill’s foot! How slim the arch the flounce caresses.
Jill’s brow! How pure; how yet uncreased in frowning.
(My Muse! How easily the jade impresses
On this base coin a stamp of pseudo-Browning.)
Jill’s youth! Jill’s dreams! These luxuries that lap her!...
Don’t they present a most alluring flapper?
So thinks, at least, this lad in evening raiment—
Shoes, shirt-front, collar, waistcoat-buttons, glowing;
This sub. of other days—when soldier’s payment
Scarcely sufficed each monthly mess-bill’s owing,
And triple stars full fifteen years delay meant;
He, who presents the goblet, over-flowing
With icy rubies to its crinkled brim,
And asks if Jill won’t “sit this out” with him....
And there it hangs, word-carven, my last image.
(Browning again! now Keats!) O hapless pair,
Loth lover and bold maiden of a dim age—
Lost to us now, and dead, but still most fair.
O Attic shapes! Arcadian girlhood’s slim age,
And silken youth with brilliantined hair!
What climaxes must I not sacrifice,
Who write this epic at a weekly price?
For—as long melodies are sweet, but sweeter
Poems in short instalments, such as mine—
Seven full days, teased puppet of this metre,
Must thy parched tongue await that roseate wine;
Seven full nights, fond boy, must thou entreat her;
Whilst mantle to her cheeks, incarnadine,
Youth’s beauty, beauty’s youth—and readers vex’t
Know, need know, nothing more till Tuesday next.