A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN.
(From The World, July 23rd, 1879).
Long time I fed my eyes on that strange scene,
Painted by Poynter, of the famous bay,
Wherein Phæacian maids surround their queen
Nausicaa in play.
And clearer on my trancèd gaze there grew
The celebrated beauties of the town;
Leaping in front, I saw with wonder new
The sexless thing in brown.
Meseemed that, as I gazed, my vision changed:
The loose-girt ladies on the pictured wall
I saw no more; but, fancy led, I ranged
The fair in Albert Hall.
The hothouse blossoms of a sunless year,
And quaintest crewels, wrought in grays and greens,
Adorned the stalls—extravagantly dear,
For they were sold by queens.
Foremost I saw, with overloaded stall
Beset from morn till eve with densest crowd,
A daughter of the Jews, divinely small,
And most divinely proud.
With high-pitched tones in broken English she
Waved bystanders aside, and sold her wares
Only to scions of nobility,
With all her choicest airs.
And passing on, not caring to pay dear
For portraits which in all shop-windows are,
I saw our novel Helen standing near,
Far-gleaming like a star.
Softly she spake: 'I would that from my stall
Some favour you would buy, that I may gain
Tenfold in praise, and beat my rivals all
In making fools of men.'
Outleapt my answer: 'Try me with thy wile:
A crown for that sweet rose!' With polished ease
She shook from haughty eyes a languid smile:
'Not so; a guinea, please.'
Lighter my purse, as onward, pacing slow,
I turned from right to left in idle quest,
Till on me flashed, fair as the sunset glow,
Mrs. Cornwallis West.
Strangely my eyes their wonted functions changed;
I saw her once again, white-veiled, white-furred,
As oft by deft photographers arranged,
A photographic bird
Prest to her lips 'mid counterfeited snow.
Full soon the fancy ceased. I heard a cry
Peal from the lips that men have worshipped so:
'Pass quickly on, or buy!'
A labyrinth of beauty, sweet to see!
The proud Guinness, the noted Wheeler—all
Our much-belauded London galaxy,
Protecting each a stall.
Sweet forms, fair faces, everywhere the same;
And many a withered flower and trinket old
I purchased recklessly, till joy became
A solemn scorn of gold.
The slow day faded in the evening sky
Ere all my petty cash was squandered free.
One joy remained. I bade my hansom fly
To visit Connie G.
TERRÆ FILIUS.
Those who have read Locksley Hall will greatly appreciate The Lay of the Lovelorn, a parody contained in the Bon Gaultier Ballads of Theodore Martin and Professor Aytoun.
Tennyson's original poem commences thus:—
Comrades leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn;
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old the curlews' call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;
Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time.
* * * * * *
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.
O my cousin, shallow hearted! O my Amy, mine no more,
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
Is it well to wish thee happy? having known me—to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!
Yet it shall be: thou shall lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
* * * *
Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest nature's rule.
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straightened forehead of the fool.