(1824-1874)
ydney Dobell, the son of a wine merchant, was born at Cranbrook in Kent. His parents, both persons of strong individuality, believed in home training, and not one of their eight children went either to school or to university. They belonged to the Broad Church Community founded by Sydney's maternal grandfather, Samuel Thompson; a church intended to recall in its principles the primitive Christian ages. The parents looked upon Sydney, their eldest-born, as destined to become the apostle of this creed. He grew up in a kind of religious fervor, with his precocious mind unnaturally stimulated; a course of conduct which materially weakened his constitution, and made him a chronic invalid at the early age of thirty-three. He read whatever books came to hand, many of them far beyond his years. At the age of eight he filled his diary with theological discussions.
Entering his father's counting-house as a mere lad, he remained to the end of his life a business man of great energy. Notwithstanding his rare poetic endowments, he never seems to have entertained a single-minded purpose to be a poet and nothing more. On the contrary, he thought the ideal and the practical life perfectly compatible, and he strove to unite in himself the poet and the man of affairs. He wrote habitually until 1856, when regular literary work was forbidden by his physicians. With characteristic energy he now turned his thoughts into other channels; identified himself with the affairs of Gloucester, where he was living, looked after his business, and was one of the first to adopt the system of industrial co-operation. The last four years of his life, a period of suffering and helplessness, he spent at Barton-End House, above the Stroud valley, where he died in the spring of 1874.
In the work of Dobell it is curious to find so few traces of the influences under which he grew up. He had every encouragement to become a writer of religious poetry; yet much of his work is philosophic and recondite. His delicate health is in a measure responsible for his failure to achieve the success which his natural endowments promised. All his literary work was done between the ages of twenty-three and thirty-three. 'The Roman,' his first long poem, appeared in 1850. Dedicated to the Italian struggle for liberty, it showed his breadth of sympathy. In 'Balder,' finished in 1853, Dobell is at his best both as thinker and as poet. Yet its many fine passages, its wealth of metaphor, and the exquisite songs of Amy, hardly counterbalance the remoteness of its theme, and its over-subtle analysis of morbid psychic states. It is a poem to be read in fragments, and has aptly been called a mine for poets.
With Alexander Smith he published in 1855 a series of sonnets inspired by the Crimean War. This was followed in 1856 by 'England in War Time,' a collection of Dobell's lyrical and descriptive poems, which possess more general human interest than any other of his books.
After continuous work was interdicted, he still contributed verse and prose to the periodicals. His essays have been collected by Professor Nichol, under the title 'Thoughts on Art, Philosophy, and Religion.' As a poet Dobell belongs to the so-called "spasmodic school," a school "characterized by an undercurrent of discontent with the mystery of existence, by vain effort, unrewarded struggle, skeptical unrest, and an uneasy striving after some incomprehensible end.... Poetry of this kind is marked by an excess of metaphor which darkens rather than illustrates, and by a general extravagance of language. On the other hand, it manifests freshness and originality, and a rich natural beauty." Dobell's descriptions of scenery are among the finest in English literature. His senses were abnormally acute, like those of a savage, a condition which intensified his appreciation of natural beauty. Possessing a vivid imagination and wide sympathies, he was often over-subtle and obscure. He strove to realize in himself his ideal of a poet, and during his years of ill-health gave himself up to promoting the welfare of his fellow-men; but of his seventeen years of inactivity he says:—"The keen perception of all that should be done, and that so bitterly cries for doing, accompanies the consciousness of all that I might but cannot do."
EPIGRAM ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD FORBES
Nature, a jealous mistress, laid him low.
He wooed and won her; and, by love made bold,
She showed him more than mortal man should know—
Then slew him lest her secret should be told.
HOW'S MY BOY?
"Ho, sailor of the sea!
How's my boy—my boy?"—
"What's your boy's name, good wife,
And in what good ship sailed he?"
"My boy John—
He that went to sea—
What care I for the ship, sailor?
My boy's my boy to me.
"You come back from the sea,
And not know my John?
I might as well have asked some landsman,
Yonder down in the town.
There's not an ass in all the parish
But knows my John.
"How's my boy—my boy?
And unless you let me know,
I'll swear you are no sailor,
Blue jacket or no—
Brass buttons or no, sailor,
Anchor and crown or no—
"Sure, his ship was the Jolly Briton—"
"Speak low, woman, speak low!
"And why should I speak low, sailor,
About my own boy John?
If I was loud as I am proud
I'd sing him over the town!
Why should I speak low, sailor?"—
"That good ship went down."
"How's my boy—my boy?
What care I for the ship, sailor?
I was never aboard her.
Be she afloat or be she aground,
Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound
Her owners can afford her!
I say, how's my John?"—
"Every man on board went down,
Every man aboard her."
"How's my boy—my boy?
What care I for the men, sailor?
I'm not their mother.
How's my boy—my boy?
Tell me of him and no other!
How's my boy—my boy?"
THE SAILOR'S RETURN
This morn I lay a-dreaming,
This morn, this merry morn;
When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,
I heard a bugle horn.
And through the dream I was dreaming,
There sighed the sigh of the sea,
And through the dream I was dreaming,
This voice came singing to me:—
"High over the breakers,
Low under the lee,
Sing ho!
The billow,
And the lash of the rolling sea!
"Boat, boat, to the billow,
Boat, boat, to the lee!
Love, on thy pillow,
Art thou dreaming of me?
"Billow, billow, breaking,
Land us low on the lee!
For sleeping or waking,
Sweet love, I am coming to thee!
"High, high, o'er the breakers,
Low, low, on the lee,
Sing ho!
The billow
That brings me back to thee!"
AFLOAT AND ASHORE
"Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port;
Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!"
"I see the ship on the sea, love;
I stand alone
On this rock;
The sea does not shock
The stone;
The waters around it are swirled,
But under my feet
I feel it go down
To where the hemispheres meet
At the adamant heart of the world.
Oh that the rock would move!
Oh that the rock would roll
To meet thee over the sea, love!
Surely my mighty love
Should fill it like a soul,
And it should bear me to thee, love;
Like a ship on the sea, love,
Bear me, bear me, to thee, love!"
"Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering,
Low on our lee, love.
Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over and over
The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love;
And on through the loud pealing pomp of her cloud
The great ship is going to thee, love,
Blind to her mark, like a world through the dark,
Thundering, sundering, to the crowds wondering,
Thundering over to thee, love."
"I have come down to thee coming to me, love;
I stand, I stand
On the solid sand;
I see thee coming to me, love;
The sea runs up to me on the sand:
I start—'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand
And touched me through the sea, love.
I feel as if I must die,
For there's something longs to fly,
Fly and fly, to thee, love.
As the blood of the flower ere she blows
Is beating up to the sun,
And her roots do hold her down,
And it blushes and breaks undone
In a rose,
So my blood is beating in me, love!
I see thee nigh and nigher;
And my soul leaps up like sudden fire,
My life's in the air
To meet thee there,
To meet thee coming to me, love!
Over the sea,
Coming to me,
Coming, and coming to me, love!"
"The boats are lowered: I leap in first,
Pull, boys, pull! or my heart will burst!
More! more!—lend me an oar!—
I'm thro' the breakers! I'm on the shore!
I see thee waiting for me, love!"
"A sudden storm
Of sighs and tears,
A clenching arm,
A look of years.
In my bosom a thousand cries,
A flash like light before my eyes,
And I am lost in thee, love!"
THE SOUL
From 'Balder'
And as the mounting and descending bark,
Borne on exulting by the under deep,
Gains of the wild wave something not the wave,
Catches a joy of going and a will
Resistless, and upon the last lee foam
Leaps into air beyond it,—so the soul
Upon the Alpine ocean mountain-tossed,
Incessant carried up to heaven, and plunged
To darkness, and, still wet with drops of death,
Held into light eternal, and again
Cast down, to be again uplift in vast
And infinite succession, cannot stay
The mad momentum.
ENGLAND
From 'Balder'
This dear English land!
This happy England, loud with brooks and birds,
Shining with harvests, cool with dewy trees,
And bloomed from hill to dell: but whose best flowers
Are daughters, and Ophelia still more fair
Than any rose she weaves; whose noblest floods
The pulsing torrent of a nation's heart;
Whose forests stronger than her native oaks
Are living men; and whose unfathomed lakes,
Forever calm, the unforgotten dead
In quiet grave-yards willowed seemly round,
O'er which To-day bends sad, and sees his face.
Whose rocks are rights, consolidate of old
Through unremembered years, around whose base
The ever-surging peoples roll and roar
Perpetual, as around her cliffs the seas
That only wash them whiter; and whose mountains,
Souls that from this mere footing of the earth
Lift their great virtues through all clouds of Fate
Up to the very heavens, and make them rise
To keep the gods above us!
AMERICA
Nor force nor fraud shall sunder us! O ye
Who north or south, or east or western land,
Native to noble sounds, say truth for truth,
Freedom for freedom, love for love, and God
For God; O ye who in eternal youth
Speak with a living and creative flood
This universal English, and do stand
Its breathing book; live worthy of that grand
Heroic utterance—parted, yet a whole,
Far, yet unsevered,—children brave and free
Of the great Mother tongue, and ye shall be
Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul,
Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme,
And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream.
AMY'S SONG OF THE WILLOW
From 'Balder'
The years they come, and the years they go,
Like winds that blow from sea to sea;
From dark to dark they come and go,
All in the dew-fall and the rain.
Down by the stream there be two sweet willows,
—Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,—
One hale, one blighted, two wedded willows,
All in the dew-fall and the rain.
She is blighted, the fair young willow;
—Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,—
She hears the spring-blood beat in the bark;
She hears the spring-leaf bud on the bough;
But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
All in the dew-fall and the rain.
The stream runs sparkling under the willow,
—Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,—
The summer rose-leaves drop in the stream;
The winter oak-leaves drop in the stream;
But she bends blighted, the wan weeping willow,
All in the dew-fall and the rain.
Sometimes the wind lifts the bright stream to her,
—Hush thee, babe, while the wild winds blow,—
The false stream sinks, and her tears fall faster;
Because she touched it her tears fall faster;
Over the stream her tears fall faster,
All in the sunshine or the rain.
The years they come, and the years they go;
Sing well-away, sing well-away!
And under mine eyes shines the bright life-river;
Sing well-away, sing well-away!
Sweet sounds the spring in the hale green willow,
The goodly green willow, the green waving willow,
Sweet in the willow, the wind-whispering willow;
Sing well-away, sing well-away!
But I bend blighted, the wan weeping willow,
All in the sun, and the dew, and the rain.
AUSTIN DOBSON
(1840-)
BY ESTHER SINGLETON
t first thought it seems difficult to consider Austin Dobson as belonging to the Victorian period, so entirely is he saturated with the spirit of the eighteenth century. A careful study of his verse reveals the fact that the Georgian era, seen through the vista of his poetic imagination, is divested of all that is coarse, dark, gross, and prosaic. The mental atmosphere and the types and characters that he gives, express only beauty and charm.
Austin Dobson
One approaches the poems of Austin Dobson as one stands before a rare collection of enamels, fan-mounts, jeweled snuff-boxes, and delicate carvings in ivory and silver; and after delighting in the beauty and finish of these graceful curios, passes into a gallery of paintings and water-colors, suggesting Watteau, Fragonard, Boucher, Meissonier, and Greuze. We also wander among trim box-hedges and quaint gardens of roses and bright hollyhocks; lean by sun-dials to watch the shadow of Time; and enjoy the sight of gay belles, patched and powdered and dressed in brocaded gowns and gypsy hats. Gallant beaux, such as are associated with Reynolds's portraits, appear, and hand them into sedan-chairs or lead them through stately minuets to the notes of Rameau, Couperin, and Arne.
Just as the scent of rose-leaves, lavender, and musk rises from antique Chinese jars, so Dobson's delicate verse reconstructs a life
"Of fashion gone, and half-forgotten ways."
He is equally at home in France. Nothing could be more sympathetic and exquisite than 'A Revolutionary Relic,' 'The Curé's Progress,' 'Une Marquise,' and the 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' one of which is cited below.
In the 'Vers de Société,' as well as his other poetry, Dobson fulfills all the requirements of light verse—charm, mockery, pathos, banter, and, while apparently skimming the surface, often shows us the strange depths of the human heart. He blends so many qualities that he deserves the praise of T.B. Aldrich, who says, "Austin Dobson has the grace of Suckling and the finish of Herrick, and is easily master of both in metrical art."
Henry Austin Dobson, the son of Mr. George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, was born in Plymouth, England, January 18th 1840. His early years were spent in Anglesea, and after receiving his education in Beaumaris, Coventry, and Strasburg, he returned to England to become a civil engineer. In 1856 he entered the civil service of Great Britain, and ever since that date he has held offices in the Board of Trade. His leisure was devoted to literature, and when Anthony Trollope first issued his magazine St. Paul's in 1868, he introduced to the public the verse of Austin Dobson. In 1873 his fugitive poems were published in a small volume entitled 'Vignettes in Rhyme' and 'Vers de Société.' This was followed in 1877 by 'Proverbs in Porcelain,' and both books, with additional poems, were printed again in two volumes: 'Old World Idylls' (1883), and 'At the Sign of the Lyre' (1885). Mr. Dobson's original essays are contained in three volumes: 'Four Frenchwomen,' studies of Charlotte Corday, Madame Roland, the Princess de Lamballe, and Madame de Genlis (1890), and 'Eighteenth-Century Vignettes' (first series 1892, second series 1894), which touch upon a host of picturesque and fascinating themes. He has written also several biographies: of Hogarth, of Fielding, of Steele (1886), of Goldsmith (1888), and a 'Memoir of Horace Walpole' (1890). He has also written felicitous critical introductions to many new editions of the eighteenth-century classics.
Austin Dobson has been most happy in breathing English life into the old poems of French verse, such as ballades, villanelles, roundels, and rondeaux; and he has also written clever and satirical fables, cast in the form and temper of Gay and Prior, with quaint obsolete affectations, redolent of the classic age of Anne.
So serious is his attitude towards art, and so large his audience, that the hope expressed in the following rondeau will certainly be realized:—
In after days, when grasses high
O'er-top the stone where I shall lie,
Though ill or well the world adjust
My slender claim to honored dust,
I shall not question nor reply.
I shall not see the morning sky,
I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
I shall be mute, as all men must,
In after days.
But yet, now living, fain were I
That some one then should testify,
Saying—He held his pen in trust
To Art, not serving shame or lust.
Will none?—Then let my memory die
In after days!
ON A NANKIN PLATE
Villanelle
"Ah me, but it might have been!
Was there ever so dismal a fate?"
Quoth the little blue mandarin.
"Such a maid as was never seen:
She passed, tho' I cried to her, 'Wait,'—
Ah me, but it might have been!
"I cried, 'O my Flower, my Queen,
Be mine!'—'Twas precipitate,"
Quoth the little blue mandarin.
"But then ... she was just sixteen,—
Long-eyed, as a lily straight,—
Ah me, but it might have been!
"As it was, from her palankeen
She laughed—'You're a week too late!'"
(Quoth the little blue mandarin.)
"That is why, in a mist of spleen
I mourn on this Nankin Plate.
Ah me, but it might have been!"
Quoth the little blue mandarin.
THE OLD SEDAN-CHAIR
"What's not destroyed by Time's devouring Hand?
Where's Troy,—and where's the May-Pole in the Strand?"
—Bramston's 'Art of Politicks.'
It stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,
Propped up by a broomstick and covered with leaves;
It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,
But now 'tis a ruin,—that old Sedan-chair!
It is battered and tattered,—it little avails
That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;
For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square
Like a canvas by Wilkie,—that old Sedan-chair.
See, here come the bearing-straps; here were the holes
For the poles of the bearers—when once there were poles;
It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,
As the birds have discovered,—that old Sedan-chair.
"Where's Troy?" says the poet! Look; under the seat
Is a nest with four eggs; 'tis a favored retreat
Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,
Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan-chair.
And yet—Can't you fancy a face in the frame
Of the window,—some high-headed damsel or dame,
Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,
While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan-chair?
Can't you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands,
With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,
With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,
As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan-chair?
Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league
It has trotted 'twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;
Stout fellows!—but prone, on a question of fare,
To brandish the poles of that old Sedan-chair!
It has waited by portals where Garrick has played;
It has waited by Heidegger's "Grand Masquerade";
For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,
It has waited—and waited, that old Sedan-chair!
Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell
Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,—
Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)
Of Fête-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan-chair!
"Heu! quantum mutata," I say as I go.
It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!
We must furbish it up, and dispatch it,—"With Care,"—
To a Fine-Art Museum—that old Sedan-chair.
THE BALLAD OF PROSE AND RHYME
When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,
In November fogs, in December snows,
When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,—
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,
And the jasmine-stars at the casement climb,
And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,
When the reason stands on its squarest toes,
When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"—
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever the May-blood stirs and glows,
And the young year draws to the "golden prime,"
And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,—
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant-strut,
In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"
In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"—
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever a soft glance softer grows
And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,
And the secret is told "that no one knows,"—
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
Envoy
In the work-a-day world,—for its needs and woes,
There is place and enough for the pains of prose;
But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,
Then hey! for the ripple of laughing rhyme!
THE CURÉ'S PROGRESS
Monsieur The Curé down the street
Comes with his kind old face,—
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair,
And his green umbrella-case.
You may see him pass by the little "Grande Place,"
And the tiny "Hôtel-de-Ville";
He smiles as he goes, to the fleuriste Rose,
And the pompier Théophile.
He turns as a rule through the "Marché" cool,
Where the noisy fishwives call;
And his compliment pays to the "belle Thérèse,"
As she knits in her dusky stall.
There's a letter to drop at the locksmith's shop,
And Toto, the locksmith's niece,
Has jubilant hopes, for the Curé gropes
In his tails for a pain d'épice.
There's a little dispute with a merchant of fruit
Who is said to be heterodox,
That will ended be with a "Ma foi, oui!"
And a pinch from the Curé's box.
There is also a word that no one heard
To the furrier's daughter Lou;
And a pale cheek fed with a flickering red,
And a "Bon Dieu garde M'sieu!"
But a grander way for the Sous-Préfet,
And a bow for Ma'am'selle Anne;
And a mock "off-hat" to the Notary's cat,
And a nod to the Sacristan:—
For ever through life the Curé goes
With a smile on his kind old face—
With his coat worn bare, and his straggling hair.
And his green umbrella-case.
"GOOD-NIGHT, BABETTE"
"Si vieillesse pouvait!"
Scene.—A small neat room. In a high Voltaire chair sits a white-haired old gentleman.
M. VIEUXBOIS [turning querulously]
Day of my life! Where can she get?
Babette! I Say! Babette!—Babette!
BABETTE [entering hurriedly]
Coming, M'sieu'! If M'sieu' speaks
So loud, he won't be well for weeks!
M. VIEUXBOIS
Where have you been?
BABETTE
Why, M'sieu' knows:—
April!... Ville-d' Avray!... Ma'm'selle Rose!
M. VIEUXBOIS
Ah! I am old,—and I forget.
Was the place growing green, Babette?
BABETTE
But of a greenness!—Yes, M'sieu'!
And then the sky so blue!—so blue!
And when I dropped my immortelle,
How the birds sang!
[Lifting her apron to her eyes.]
This poor Ma'm'selle!
M. VIEUXBOIS
You're a good girl, Babette, but she,—
She was an angel, verily.
Sometimes I think I see her yet
Stand smiling by the cabinet;
And once, I know, she peeped and laughed
Betwixt the curtains....
Where's the draught?
[She gives him a cup.]
Now I shall sleep, I think, Babette;—
Sing me your Norman chansonnette.
BABETTE [sings]
"Once at the Angelus
(Ere I was dead),
Angels all glorious
Came to my bed;—
Angels in blue and white,
Crowned on the head."
M. VIEUXBOIS [drowsily]
"She was an Angel" ... "Once she laughed" ...
What! was I dreaming?
Where's the draught?
BABETTE [showing the empty cup]
The draught, M'sieu'?
M. VIEUXBOIS
How I forget!
I am so old! But sing, Babette!
BABETTE [sings]
"One was the Friend I left
Stark in the Snow;
One was the Wife that died
Long,—long ago;
One was the Love I lost—
How could she know?"
M. VIEUXBOIS [murmuring]
Ah Paul! ... old Paul! ... Eulalie, too!
And Rose ... And O! "the sky so blue!"
BABETTE [sings]
"One had my Mother's eyes,
Wistful and mild;
One had my Father's face;
One was a Child:
All of them bent to me,—
Bent down and smiled!"
[He is asleep!]
M. VIEUXBOIS [almost inaudibly]
How I forget!
I am so old!... Good-night, Babette!
THE LADIES OF ST. JAMES'S
A Proper New Ballad of the Country and the Town
"Phyllida amo ante alias."—Virgil.
The ladies of St. James's
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them
With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.
The ladies of St. James's
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May-dew
Before the world is down.
The ladies of St. James's!
They are so fine and fair,
You'd think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
The breath of heath and furze,
When breezes blow at morning,
Is not so fresh as hers.
The ladies of St. James's!
They're painted to the eyes;
Their white it stays forever,
Their red it never dies:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her color comes and goes;
It trembles to a lily,—
It wavers like a rose,
The ladies of St. James's!
You scarce can understand
The half of all their speeches,
Their phrases are so grand:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her shy and simple words
Are clear as after rain-drops
The music of the birds.
The ladies of St. James's!
They have their fits and freaks;
They smile on you—for seconds;
They frown on you—for weeks:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Come either storm or shine,
From Shrove-tide unto Shrove-tide,
Is always true—and mine.
My Phyllida! my Phyllida!
I care not though they heap
The hearts of all St. James's,
And give me all to keep;
I care not whose the beauties
Of all the world may be,—
For Phyllida, my Phyllida,
Is all the world to me.
DORA VERSUS ROSE
"The Case is Proceeding"
From the tragic-est novels at Mudie's—
At least on a practical plan—
To the tales of mere Hodges and Judys,
One love is enough for a man.
But no case that I ever yet met is
Like mine: I am equally fond
Of Rose, who a charming brunette is,
And Dora, a blonde.
Each rivals the other in powers—
Each waltzes, each warbles, each paints—
Miss Rose, chiefly tumble-down towers;
Miss Do., perpendicular saints.
In short, to distinguish is folly;
'Twixt the pair I am come to the pass
Of Macheath, between Lucy and Polly,—
Or Buridan's ass.
If it happens that Rosa I've singled
For a soft celebration in rhyme,
Then the ringlets of Dora get mingled
Somehow with the tune and the time;
Or I painfully pen me a sonnet
To an eyebrow intended for Do.'s,
And behold I am writing upon it
The legend, "To Rose."
Or I try to draw Dora (my blotter
Is all over scrawled with her head),
If I fancy at last that I've got her,
It turns to her rival instead;
Or I find myself placidly adding
To the rapturous tresses of Rose
Miss Dora's bud-mouth, and her madding,
Ineffable nose.
Was there ever so sad a dilemma?
For Rose I would perish (pro tem.);
For Dora I'd willingly stem a—
(Whatever might offer to stem);
But to make the invidious election,—
To declare that on either one's side
I've a scruple,—a grain,—more affection,
I cannot decide.
And as either so hopelessly nice is,
My sole and my final resource
Is to wait some indefinite crisis,—
Some feat of molecular force,
To solve me this riddle conducive
By no means to peace or repose,
Since the issue can scarce be inclusive
Of Dora and Rose.
(After-thought)
But perhaps if a third (say, a Norah),
Not quite so delightful as Rose,
Nor wholly so charming as Dora,
Should appear, is it wrong to suppose,—
As the claims of the others are equal,—
And flight—in the main—is the best,—
That I might ... But no matter,—the sequel
Is easily guessed.
UNE MARQUISE
A Rhymed Monologue in the Louvre
"Belle Marquise, vos beaux yeux me font mourir d'amour."
—Molière.
I
As you sit there at your ease,
O Marquise!
And the men flock round your knees
Thick as bees,
Mute at every word you utter,
Servants to your least frill-flutter,
"Belle Marquise!"
As you sit there, growing prouder,
And your ringed hands glance and go,
And your fan's frou-frou sounds louder,
And your "beaux yeux" flash and glow;—
Ah, you used them on the Painter,
As you know,
For the Sieur Larose spoke fainter,
Bowing low,
Thanked Madame and Heaven for Mercy
That each sitter was not Circe,—
Or at least he told you so;
Growing proud, I say, and prouder
To the crowd that come and go,
Dainty Deity of Powder,
Fickle Queen of Fop and Beau,
As you sit where lustres strike you,
Sure to please,
Do we love you most, or like you,
"Belle Marquise!"
II
You are fair; oh yes, we know it
Well, Marquise;
For he swore it, your last poet,
On his knees;
And he called all heaven to witness
Of his ballad and its fitness,
"Belle Marquise!"
You were everything in ère
(With exception of sévère),—
You were cruelle and rebelle,
With the rest of rhymes as well;
You were "Reine" and "Mère d' Amour";
You were "Vénus à Cythère";
"Sappho mise en Pompadour,"
And "Minerve en Paravère";
You had every grace of heaven
In your most angelic face,
With the nameless finer leaven
Lent of blood and courtly race;
And he added, too, in duty,
Ninon's wit and Boufflers's beauty;
And La Valliere's yeux veloutés
Followed these;
And you liked it, when he said it
(On his knees),
And you kept it, and you read it,
"Belle Marquise!"
III
Yet with us your toilet graces
Fail to please,
And the last of your last faces,
And your mise;
For we hold you just as real,
"Belle Marquise!"
As your Bergers and Bergères,
Tes d' Amour and Batelières;
As your pares, and your Versailles,
Gardens, grottoes, and socailles;
As your Naiads and your trees;—
Just as near the old ideal
Calm and ease,
As the Venus there by Coustou,
That a fan would make quite flighty,
Is to her the gods were used to,—
Is to grand Greek Aphroditè,
Sprung from seas.
You are just a porcelain trifle,
"Belle Marquise!"
Just a thing of puffs and patches
Made for madrigals and catches,
Not for heart wounds, but for scratches,
O Marquise!
Just a pinky porcelain trifle,
"Belle Marquise!"
Wrought in rarest rose-Dubarry,
Quick at verbal point and parry,
Clever, doubtless;—but to marry,
No, Marquise!
IV
For your Cupid, you have clipped him,
Rouged and patched him, nipped and snipped him,
And with chapeau-bras equipped him,
"Belle Marquise!"
Just to arm you through your wife-time,
And the languors of your lifetime,
"Belle Marquise!"
Say, to trim your toilet tapers
Or—to twist your hair in papers,
Or—to wean you from the vapors;—
As for these,
You are worth the love they give you,
Till a fairer face outlive you,
Or a younger grace shall please;
Till the coming of the crows'-feet,
And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
"Belle Marquise!"
Till your frothed-out life's commotion
Settles down to Ennui's ocean,
Or a dainty sham devotion,
"Belle Marquise!"
V
No: we neither like nor love you,
"Belle Marquise!"
Lesser lights we place above you,—
Milder merits better please.
We have passed from Philosophe-dom
Into plainer modern days,—
Grown contented in our oafdom,
Giving grace not all the praise;
And, en partant, Arsinoé,—
Without malice whatsoever,—
We shall counsel to our Chloë
To be rather good than clever;
For we find it hard to smother
Just one little thought, Marquise!
Wittier perhaps than any other,—
You were neither Wife nor Mother.
"Belle Marquise!"
A BALLAD TO QUEEN ELIZABETH
Of the Spanish Armada
King Philip had vaunted his claims;
He had sworn for a year he would sack us;
With an army of heathenish names
He was coming to fagot and stack us;
Like the thieves of the sea he would track us,
And shatter our ships on the main;
But we had bold Neptune to back us,—
And where are the galleons of Spain?
His carackes were christened of dames
To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,
And Drake to his Devon again,
And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,—
For where are the galleons of Spain?
Let his Majesty hang to St. James
The axe that he whetted to hack us:
He must play at some lustier games.
Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
To his mines of Peru he would pack us
To tug at his bullet and chain;
Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!—
But where are the galleons of Spain?
Envoy
Gloriana!—the Don may attack us
Whenever his stomach be fain;
He must reach us before he can rack us,...
And where are the galleons of Spain?
THE PRINCESS DE LAMBALLE
From 'Four Frenchwomen'
A tender wife, a loving daughter, and a loyal friend,—shall we not here lay down upon the grave of Marie de Lamballe our reverential tribute, our little chaplet of immortelles, in the name of all good women, wives, and daughters?
"Elle était mieux femme que les autres."[A] To us that apparently indefinite, exquisitely definite sentence most fitly marks the distinction between the subjects of the two preceding papers and the subject of the present. It is a transition from the stately figure of a marble Agrippina to the breathing, feeling woman at your side; it is the transition from the statuesque Rachelesque heroines of a David to the "small sweet idyl" of a Greuze. And, we confess it, we were not wholly at ease with those tragic, majestic figures. We shuddered at the dagger and the bowl which suited them so well. We marveled at their bloodless serenity, their superhuman self-sufficiency; inly we questioned if they breathed and felt. Or was their circulation a matter of machinery—a mere dead-beat escapement? We longed for the sexe prononcé of Rivarol—we longed for the showman's "female woman!" We respected and we studied, but we did not love them. With Madame de Lamballe the case is otherwise. Not grand like this one, not heroic like that one, "elle est mieux femme que les autres."
She at least is woman—after a fairer fashion—after a truer type. Not intellectually strong like Manon Philipon, not Spartan-souled like Marie de Corday, she has still a rare intelligence, a courage of affection. She has that clairvoyance of the heart which supersedes all the stimulants of mottoes from Reynel or maxims from Rousseau; she has that "angel instinct" which is a juster lawgiver than Justinian. It was thought praise to say of the Girondist lady that she was a greater man than her husband; it is praise to say of this queen's friend that she was more woman than Madame Roland. Not so grand, not so great, we like the princess best. Elle est mieux femme que les autres.
[A] She was more woman than the others.