Eastern Serenade.
by the honourable sinjin muff.
The minarets wave on the plain of Stamboul,
And the breeze of the evening blows freshly and cool;
The voice of the musnud is heard from the west,
And kaftan and kalpac have gone to their rest.
The notes of the kislar re-echo no more,
And the waves of Al Sirat fall light on the shore.
Where art thou, my beauty; where art thou, my bride?
Oh, come and repose by thy dragoman’s side!
I wait for thee still by the flowery tophaik—
I have broken my Eblis for Zuleima’s sake.
But the heart that adores thee is faithful and true,
Though it beats ’neath the folds of a Greek Allah-hu!
Oh, wake thee, my dearest! the muftis are still,
And the tschocadars sleep on the Franguestan hill;
No sullen aleikoum—no derveesh is here,
And the mosques are all watching by lonely Kashmere!
Oh, come in the gush of thy beauty so full,
I have waited for thee, my adored attar-gul!
I see thee—I hear thee—thy antelope foot
Treads lightly and soft on the velvet cheroot;
The jewelled amaun of thy zemzem is bare,
And the folds of thy palampore wave in the air.
Come, rest on the bosom that loves thee so well,
My dove! my phingari! my gentle gazelle!
Nay, tremble not, dearest! I feel thy heart throb,
’Neath the sheltering shroud of thy snowy kiebaub;
Lo, there shines Muezzin, the beautiful star!
Thy lover is with thee, and danger afar:
Say, is it the glance of the haughty vizier,
Or the bark of the distant effendi, you fear?
Oh, swift fly the hours in the garden of bliss!
And sweeter than balm of Gehenna thy kiss!
Wherever I wander—wherever I roam,
My spirit flies back to its beautiful home;
It dwells by the lake of the limpid Stamboul,
With thee, my adored one! my own attar-gul! [269]
Dame Fredegonde.
When folks, with headstrong passion blind,
To play the fool make up their mind,
They’re sure to come with phrases nice
And modest air, for your advice.
But as a truth unfailing make it,
They ask, but never mean to take it.
’Tis not advice they want, in fact,
But confirmation in their act.
Now mark what did, in such a case,
A worthy priest who knew the race.
A dame more buxom, blithe, and free,
Than Fredegonde you scarce would see.
So smart her dress, so trim her shape,
Ne’er hostess offered juice of grape,
Could for her trade wish better sign;
Her looks gave flavour to her wine,
And each guest feels it, as he sips,
Smack of the ruby of her lips.
A smile for all, a welcome glad,—
A jovial coaxing way she had;
And,—what was more her fate than blame,—
A nine months’ widow was our dame.
But toil was hard, for trade was good,
And gallants sometimes will be rude.
“And what can a lone woman do?
The nights are long and eerie too.
Now, Guillot there’s a likely man,
None better draws or taps a can;
He’s just the man, I think, to suit,
If I could bring my courage to’t.”
With thoughts like these her mind is crossed:
The dame, they say, who doubts, is lost.
“But then the risk? I’ll beg a slice
Of Father Haulin’s good advice.”
Prankt in her best, with looks demure,
She seeks the priest; and, to be sure,
Asks if he thinks she ought to wed:
“With such a business on my head,
I’m worried off my legs with care,
And need some help to keep things square.
I’ve thought of Guillot, truth to tell!
He’s steady, knows his business well.
What do you think?” When thus he met her:
“Oh, take him, dear, you can’t do better!”
“But then the danger, my good pastor,
If of the man I make the master.
There is no trusting to these men.”
“Well, well, my dear, don’t have him, then!”
“But help I must have; there’s the curse.
I may go farther and fare worse.”
“Why, take him, then!” “But if he should
Turn out a thankless ne’er-do-good—
In drink and riot waste my all,
And rout me out of house and hall?”
“Don’t have him, then! But I’ve a plan
To clear your doubts, if any can.
The bells a peal are ringing,—hark!
Go straight, and what they tell you mark.
If they say ‘Yes!’ wed, and be blest—
If ‘No,’ why—do as you think best.”
The bells rang out a triple bob:
Oh, how our widow’s heart did throb,
As thus she heard their burden go,
“Marry, mar-marry, mar-Guillot!”
Bells were not then left to hang idle:
A week,—and they rang for her bridal.
But, woe the while, they might as well
Have rung the poor dame’s parting knell.
The rosy dimples left her cheek,
She lost her beauties plump and sleek;
For Guillot oftener kicked than kissed,
And backed his orders with his fist,
Proving by deeds as well as words
That servants make the worst of lords.
She seeks the priest, her ire to wreak,
And speaks as angry women speak,
With tiger looks and bosom swelling,
Cursing the hour she took his telling.
To all, his calm reply was this,—
“I fear you’ve read the bells amiss:
If they have lead you wrong in aught,
Your wish, not they, inspired the thought.
Just go, and mark well what they say.”
Off trudged the dame upon her way,
And sure enough their chime went so,—
“Don’t have that knave, that knave Guillot!”
“Too true,” she cried, “there’s not a doubt:
What could my ears have been about?”
She had forgot, that, as fools think,
The bell is ever sure to clink.
Song of the Ennuyé.
I’m weary, and sick, and disgusted
With Britain’s mechanical din;
Where I’m much too well known to be trusted,
And plaguily pestered for tin;
Where love has two eyes for your banker,
And one chilly glance for yourself;
Where souls can afford to be franker,
But when they’re well garnished with pelf.
I’m sick of the whole race of poets,
Emasculate, misty, and fine;
They brew their small-beer, and don’t know its
Distinction from full-bodied wine.
I’m sick of the prosers, that house up
At drowsy St Stephen’s,—ain’t you?
I want some strong spirits to rouse up
A good revolution or two!
I’m sick of a land, where each morrow
Repeats the dull tale of to-day,
Where you can’t even find a new sorrow
To chase your stale pleasures away.
I’m sick of blue-stockings horrific,
Steam, railroads, gas, scrip, and consols;
So I’ll off where the golden Pacific
Round Islands of Paradise rolls.
There the passions shall revel unfettered,
And the heart never speak but in truth,
And the intellect, wholly unlettered,
Be bright with the freedom of youth!
There the earth can rejoice in her blossoms,
Unsullied by vapour or soot,
And there chimpanzees and opossums
Shall playfully pelt me with fruit.
There I’ll sit with my dark Orianas,
In groves by the murmuring sea,
And they’ll give, as I suck the bananas,
Their kisses, nor ask them from me.
They’ll never torment me for sonnets,
Nor bore me to death with their own;
They’ll ask not for shawls nor for bonnets,
For milliners there are unknown.
There my couch shall be earth’s freshest flowers,
My curtains the night and the stars,
And my spirit shall gather new powers,
Uncramped by conventional bars.
Love for love, truth for truth ever giving,
My days shall be manfully sped;
I shall know that I’m loved while I’m living,
And be wept by fond eyes when I’m dead!
The Death of Space.
[Why has Satan’s own Laureate never given to the world his marvellous threnody on the “Death of Space”? Who knows where the bays might have fallen, had he forwarded that mystic manuscript to the Home Office? If unwonted modesty withholds it from the public eye, the public will pardon the boldness that tears from blushing obscurity the following fragments of this unique poem.]
Eternity shall raise her funeral-pile
In the vast dungeon of the extinguished sky,
And, clothed in dim barbaric splendour, smile,
And murmur shouts of elegiac joy.
While those that dwell beyond the realms of space,
And those that people all that dreary void,
When old Time’s endless heir hath run his race,
Shall live for aye, enjoying and enjoyed.
And ’mid the agony of unsullied bliss,
Her Demogorgon’s doom shall Sin bewail,
The undying serpent at the spheres shall hiss,
And lash the empyrean with his tail.
And Hell, inflated with supernal wrath,
Shall open wide her thunder-bolted jaws,
And shout into the dull cold ear of Death,
That he must pay his debt to Nature’s laws.
And when the King of Terrors breathes his last,
Infinity shall creep into her shell,
Cause and effect shall from their thrones be cast,
And end their strife with suicidal yell:
While from their ashes, burnt with pomp of kings,
’Mid incense floating to the evanished skies,
Nonenity, on circumambient wings,
An everlasting Phœnix shall arise.
Caroline.
Lightsome, brightsome, cousin mine,
Easy, breezy Caroline!
With thy locks all raven-shaded,
From thy merry brow up-braided,
And thine eyes of laughter full,
Brightsome cousin mine!
Thou in chains of love hast bound me—
Wherefore dost thou flit around me,
Laughter-loving Caroline?
When I fain would go to sleep
In my easy-chair,
Wherefore on my slumbers creep—
Wherefore start me from repose,
Tickling of my hookèd nose,
Pulling of my hair?
Wherefore, then, if thou dost love me,
So to words of anger move me,
Corking of this face of mine,
Tricksy cousin Caroline?
When a sudden sound I hear,
Much my nervous system suffers,
Shaking through and through.
Cousin Caroline, I fear,
’Twas no other, now, but you,
Put gunpowder in the snuffers,
Springing such a mine!
Yes, it was your tricksy self,
Wicked-trickèd little elf,
Naughty Caroline!
Pins she sticks into my shoulder,
Places needles in my chair,
And, when I begin to scold her,
Tosses back her combèd hair,
With so saucy-vexed an air,
That the pitying beholder
Cannot brook that I should scold her:
Then again she comes, and bolder,
Blacks anew this face of mine,
Artful cousin Caroline!
Would she only say she’d love me,
Winsome, tinsome Caroline,
Unto such excess ’twould move me,
Teazing, pleasing, cousin mine!
That she might the live-long day
Undermine the snuffer-tray,
Tickle still my hookèd nose,
Startle me from calm repose
With her pretty persecution;
Throw the tongs against my shins,
Run me through and through with pins,
Like a piercèd cushion;
Would she only say she’d love me,
Darning-needles should not move me;
But, reclining back, I’d say,
“Dearest! there’s the snuffer-tray;
Pinch, O pinch those legs of mine!
Cork me, cousin Caroline!”
To a Forget-Me-Not,
found in my emporium of love-tokens.
Sweet flower, that with thy soft blue eye
Didst once look up in shady spot,
To whisper to the passer-by
Those tender words—Forget-me-not!
Though withered now, thou art to me
The minister of gentle thought,—
And I could weep to gaze on thee,
Love’s faded pledge—Forget-me-not!
Thou speak’st of hours when I was young,
And happiness arose unsought;
When she, the whispering woods among,
Gave me thy bloom—Forget-me-not!
That rapturous hour with that dear maid
From memory’s page no time shall blot,
When, yielding to my kiss, she said,
“Oh, Theodore—Forget me not!”
Alas for love! alas for truth!
Alas for man’s uncertain lot!
Alas for all the hopes of youth
That fade like thee—Forget-me-not!
Alas for that one image fair,
With all my brightest dreams inwrought!
That walks beside me everywhere,
Still whispering—Forget-me-not!
Oh, Memory! thou art but a sigh
For friendships dead and loves forgot,
And many a cold and altered eye
That once did say—Forget-me-not!
And I must bow me to thy laws,
For—odd although it may be thought—
I can’t tell who the deuce it was
That gave me this Forget-me-not!
The Meeting.
Once I lay beside a fountain,
Lulled me with its gentle song,
And my thoughts o’er dale and mountain
With the clouds were borne along.
There I saw old castles flinging
Shadowy gleams on moveless seas,
Saw gigantic forests swinging
To and fro without a breeze;
And in dusky alleys straying,
Many a giant shape of power,
Troops of nymphs in sunshine playing,
Singing, dancing, hour on hour.
I, too, trod these plains Elysian,
Heard their ringing tones of mirth,
But a brighter, fairer vision
Called me back again to earth.
From the forest shade advancing,
See, where comes a lovely May;
The dew, like gems, before her glancing,
As she brushes it away!
Straight I rose, and ran to meet her,
Seized her hand—the heavenly blue
Of her eyes smiled brighter, sweeter,
As she asked me—“Who are you?”
To that question came another—
What its aim I still must doubt—
And she asked me, “How’s your mother?
Does she know that you are out?”
“No! my mother does not know it,
Beauteous, heaven-descended muse!”
“Then be off, my handsome poet,
And say I sent you with the news!”
