Puck on Pegasus / Fourth Edition

by H. Cholmondeley-Pennell

I.

IFE! what depths of mystery

hide

In the oceans of Hate and the

rivers of Pride,

That mingle in Tribulation's

tide,

To quench the spark,

Vitality!

What chords of Love and "bands" of Hope,

Were "made strong" (without the use of rope)

In the Thread—Individuality.

Life! what a web of follies and fears,

Pleasures and griefs, sighs, smiles and tears,

Are twined in the woof that Mortality's shears

Must be everlastingly thinning,—

What holes for Physician Death to darn,

Are eternally spun in the wonderful yam

That the Fates are eternally spinning!

Life! what marvellous throbs and throes

The alchemy of Existence knows;

What "weals within wheels" (and woes without wohs!)

Give sophistry a handle;

Though Hare * himself could be dipp'd in the well

Where Truth's proverbial waters dwell,

It would throw no more light on the vital spell

Than a dip in the Polytechnic bell,

Or the dip—a ha'penny candle!

Alas! for the metaphysical host;

The wonderful wit and wisdom they boast,

* C. J. Hare, author of "Guesses at Truth."

When the time arrives they must give up the ghost,

Become quite phantasmagorical,—

And it's found at the last that they know as much

Of the secret of LIFE—as they do of Dutch—

Or, if a lame verse may borrow a crutch,

As was known by the Delphic Oracle.

Into being we come, in ones and twos,

To be kiss'd, to be cuffd, to obey, to abuse,

Each destined to stand in another's shoes

To whose heels we may come the nighest;

This turns at once into Luxury's bed,

Whilst that in a gutter lays his head,

And this—in a house with a wooden lid

And a roof that's none of the highest.

We fall like the drops of April show'rs,

Cradled in mud or cradled in flow'rs,

Now idly to wile the rosy hours,

And now for bread to importune;

Petted, and fêted, and fed upon pap

One prattler comes in for a fortune, slap—

And one—a "more kicks than ha'pence chap"—

For a slap—without the fortune!

Who hasn't heard of the infant squall?

Sharper, shriller, and longer than all

The Nor'-wester squalls, that may chance to befall

At Cape Horn, as nauticals tell us;

And who,—oh who?—hasn't heard before

The dulcet tones of the infant roar?

Ear-piercing in at the drawing room door—

Down-bellowing, right thro' the nursery floor—

Like a hundred power bellows?

Alas! that the very rosiest wreath

Should ever be twined with a thorn beneath!

Forth peeping, from purple and damask sheath,

In a manner quite anti-floral;

And startling, as when to that Indian root

The traveller stretches his hand for the fruit,

And a crested head comes glittering out

With a tongue that is somewhat forkèd no doubt,

And a tail—that has quite a moral!

And who'd have believed that diminutive thing

Just form'd as you'd say, to kiss and to cling,

Would ever have opened, except to sing,

Those lips, that look so choral?

Behold the soft little struggling ball!

With rosy niouth ever ready to squall,

Kicking and crowing and grasping "small,"

At its Indiarrabber dangle,—

Whilst tiny fists in the pillows lurk

That are destined perhaps for fighting the Turk,

And doing no end of mangling work,

Or perhaps, for working a mangle!

'Tis passing strange, that all over the earth

Men talk of the "stars" that "rule" at their birth,

For little such dazzling sponsors are worth,

Whate'er Cagliostro may say;

Tho' all the Bears in the heav'ns combined—

Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter shined,

In our glitt'ring horoscope, we shall find

Most men who are bom of woman kind

Are born in the milky-way.

In the milky-way! ev'ry mother's son;

From the son of a lord, to the 'son of a gun,'

Of colors, red, brown and yellow and dun,

An astonishing constellation;

From the black Papouse of the Cape de Verd,

The cream of Tartar, and scum of Kurd,

To the son and heir of Napoleon the Third,

Who sucks—to the joy of a Nation!

And that puny atom may happen to claim

The yeiy first round on the Ladder of Fame,

At the general conflagration.

The squeaky voice may be heard ere long

In the shout of the battle, deep and strong,

Like the brazen clash of a mighty gong

That has broken loose from tether;

Whilst many a hardy bosom quails

And many a swarthy visage pales

At the griffin clutch of those tender nails

As they come to the "scratch" together.

But well says a poet of rising fame,*

That to hint at an 'infantile frailty's' a shame

For the Baby-days have come round the same

To us all, and we can't but confess'em;

* F. Locker, Author of London Lyrics, &c.

When the brawny hands, that can rend an oak,

Went both into Mammy's mouth for a joke!—

And the feet that stand like the solid rock,

Were "tootsies pootsies, bless'em!"

When to howl was the only accomplishment rife

In our 'tight little bundle' of wailing and strife,

And pap was the summum bonum of life,

To a mouth in perpetual pucker;

When "Ma" was a semi-intelligent lump,

Possess'd by a mania for making us "plump,"

And "Nus" was an inexhaustible pump

With an everlasting "sucker."

Yet, laugh if we will at those baby-days,

There was more of bliss in its careless plays,

Than in after time from the careful ways

Or the hollow world, with its empty praise,

Its honey'd speeches, and hackney'd phrase,

And its pleasures, for ever fleeting,—

And more of sense in its bald little pate,

On its own little matters of Church and State,

Than in many a House of Commons' debate,

Or the "sense" of a Manchester meeting!

And laugh as we may, it would make us start,

Could we read the depths of its mother's heart,—

Or imagine one twenty-thousandth part

Of the feelings that stir within it;

What a freight that little existence bears

Of pallid smiles and tremulous tears,

Of joys never breathed into mortal ears,

Griefs that the callous world never hears,

SufFring that only the more endears,

And love, that would reach into endless years,

Snuff' d out, it may be, in a minute!

Would you look on a mother in all her pride?

Her radiant, dazzling, glorious pride?—

Then seek yon garret—leaden-eyed—

And thrust the mouldering panel aside—

The door that has nothing to lock it,—

And the walls are tatter'd, and damp, and drear,

And the light has a quivering gleam, like fear,

For the hand of Sickness is heavy here

And the lamp bums low in the socket.

Mid rags, and want, and misery, piled,

A woman is watching her stricken child,

With a love so tender, a look so mild,

That the patient little sufTrer has smil'd—

A smile that is strangely fair!—

And lo! in that chamber, poverty-dyed,

A mother in all her dazzling pride—

A glorious mother is there!

And the child is squalid, and puny, and thin,—

But HUSH—hush your voice as you enter in!

Nor dare to despise, lest a deadly sin

On your soul rest unforgiven;—

Perchance, oh scornful and worldly-wise,

A Shakespeare dreams in those thoughtful eyes—

A Newton looks out at the starry skies—

Or a prison'd angel in calm surprise

Looks back to its Heaven!