Algernon Charles Swinburne
ON
MR. GLADSTONE AND HOME RULE.
During the recent election The Times newspaper was strongly opposed to Mr. Gladstone’s policy, and on July 1, 1886, it published a poem by A. C. Swinburne, entitled “The Commonweal” to which it thus solemnly drew attention in its leading article:—
“None can accuse Mr. Swinburne of sympathy with oppression, or with failure to champion the cause of struggling nationalities. But he is clear-sighted enough to see on which side in this struggle lie the great interests of human liberty, and the vigorous poem which we print to-day from his pen is a worthy contribution to the battle now being waged. “See the man of words embrace the man of blood”—points an alliance which English Liberals may well blush to acknowledge; and an appeal to all that is sound in this nation cannot better end than in Mr. Swinburne’s words:—
“Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation,
“Answer, England, man by man, from sea to sea!”
The Commonweal.
A Song for Unionists.
1.
Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union,
Men, whose brothers met rebellion face to face,
Shew the hearts ye have, if worthy long descent and high communion,
Shew the spirits, if unbroken, of your race.
2.
What are these that howl and hiss across the strait of westward water,
What is he who floods our ears with speech in flood;
See the long tongue lick the dripping hand that smokes and reeks of slaughter!
See the man of words embrace the man of blood!
3.
Hear the plea whereby the tonguester mocks and charms the gazing gaper—
“We are they whose works are works of love and peace;
Till disunion bring forth union, what is union, Sirs, but paper?
Break and rend it, then shall trust and strength increase.”
4.
Who would fear to trust a double-faced but single-hearted dreamer,
Pure of purpose, clean of hand, and clear of guile?
“Life is well-nigh spent,” he sighs, “you call me shuffler, trickster, schemer?
I am old—when young men yell at me, I smile.”
5.
Many a year that priceless light of life has trembled, we remember,
On the platform of extinction—unextinct;
Many a month has been for him the long year’s last—life’s calm December:
Can it be that he who said so, saying so, winked?
6.
No: the lust of life, the thirst for work and days with work to do in,
Drove and drives him down the road of splendid shame;
All is well, if o’er the monument recording England’s ruin
Time shall read, inscribed in triumph, Gladstone’s name.
7.
Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies,
Clap and clamour—“God for Gladstone and Parnell!”
Truth, unscared and undeluded by their praise or blame, replies—
“Is the gaol of fraud and bloodshed heaven or hell?”
8.
Old men eloquent, who truckle to the traitors of the time,
Love not office—power is no desire of theirs:
What if yesterday their hearts recoiled from blood and fraud and crime?
Conscience erred—an error which to-day repairs.
9.
Conscience only now convinces them of strange though transient error:
Only now they see how fair is treason’s face;
See how true the falsehood, just the theft, and blameless is the terror,
Which replaces just and blameless men in place.
10.
Place and time decide the right and wrong of thought and word and action;
Crime is black as hell, till virtue gain its vote;
Then—but ah, to think or say so smacks of fraud or smells of faction:—
Mercy holds the door while Murder hacks the throat.
11.
Murder? Treason? Theft? Poor brothers who succumb to such temptations,
Shall we lay on you or take on us the blame?
Reason answers, and religion echoes round to wondering nations,
“Not with Ireland, but with England rests the shame.”
12.
Reason speaks through mild religion’s organ, loud and long and lusty—
Profit speaks through lips of patriots pure and true—
“English friends, whose trust we ask for, has not England found us trusty?
Not for us we seek advancement, but for you.
13.
“Far and near the world bears witness of our wisdom, courage, honour;
Egypt knows if there our fame burns bright or dim.
Let but England trust as Gordon trusted, soon shall come upon her
Such deliverance as our daring brought on him.
14.
“Far and wide the world rings record of our faith, our constant dealing,
Love of country, truth to friends, contempt for foes.
Sign once more the bond of trust in us that here awaits but sealing,
We will give yet more than all our record shows.
15.
“Perfect ruin, shame eternal, everlasting degradation,
Freedom bought and sold, truth bound and treason free”
Yet an hour is here for answer; now, if here be yet a nation,
Answer, England, man by man from sea to sea!
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
June 30, 1886.
The Times, July 1, 1886.
The next day The Daily News, which was in favor of Mr. Gladstone’s policy of Home Rule for Ireland, published a parody of the poem, and, in one of its articles, alluded to Mr. Swinburne in the following terms of reproach:—
“Every topic of prejudice is being urged by the opponents of Home Rule. All the sins of the Irish people, all the errors of their leaders, are being daily enumerated by critics who have made it their business to stir up international hatred between the two countries as the best means of consolidating union. The latest ally of the Tories is a red republican, who happens also to be the foulest-mouthed and foulest-minded poet of the age. Mr. Swinburne is alleged by Mr. Theodore Watts to be a man of genius, and he has unquestionably a marvellous command of rhythmical and sonorous verse. But the words in which he attacks Mr. Gladstone are faint and feeble when compared with the language in which he has previously inveighed against Christianity, morality, and Almighty God.”
The Old Cause.
A Counterblast.
1.
Men, whose fathers did most grievous wrong in ignorance and blindness,
Men whose brothers wrought our Commonweal’s disgrace,
Show the hearts ye have, if holding honour high and human kindness,
Show the courage, conscience-guided, of your race.
2.
What are these that shriek and shout against the resolute wrong-righter?
What is he that sets their wrath to tuneful chimes?
See the lyric tongue swift tripping aid the furious party fighter!
See the men of wrath embrace the man of rhymes!
3.
Hear the plea whereby the poet helps the swaggering patriot-aper—
“We are they whose fathers never failed in fight.”
And the clamour of the Club-room and the prating of the Paper
Hail the vain and vapid vaunting with delight.
4.
Who will care to hear the poet when he turns a parrot screamer?
At the party Yahoo’s yelling men may smile,
But the fieriest Muse must sigh when the fine and fluent dreamer
Stoops like rancorous Lord Randolph to revile.
5.
What, you echo the coarse railings of the rude and rabid rabble,
Who cackle, and calumniate, and curse?
You drape their silly slander and their base insulting babble
With the brave, dishonoured vesture of your verse?
6.
Many a year your Muse has fulminated fiercely, we remember,
Against tyrants. Is that righteous rage extinct?
How you smote the scourge of Italy, the false Man of December!
Can it be that he who did so, doing so, winked?
7.
No: the lust of right, the thirst for noble freedom, Sir, live in you,
Splendid brighteners of the splendour of your fame.
All is well with that; but wherefore should the scurril chorus win you
To cast dust upon another noble name?
8.
It is stale and slanderous fustian, all this talk of “blood” and “lies,”
Clap-trap clamour that ’tis poor of you to swell.
Leave carrion to the crows, Sir, and putrescence to the flies,
Our goal is one—what need to rage and yell?
9.
Old men eloquent may err, and are poets safe from error?
All hearts recoil from blood, and fraud, and crime;
But to say that we to traitors mean to truckle, and from terror,
Is plain falsehood, whether put in prose or rhyme.
10.
When tyranny makes traitors then the tyrant’s plea is “treason!”
We through love would make men loyal to just law,
Our means may be ill-chosen, but our aim is right and reason,
An Union without gyves but without flaw.
11.
The Commonweal? Go to, Sir! We all love it, in our fashion,
He most whom you mistakenly malign;
Not with fiery patriot vauntings or with wild hysteric passion,
But with justice, which we deem yet more divine.
12.
If we differ—let us differ, but like gentlemen and brothers,
And fight the fight out fairly to the end,
These Isles shall bear our children, as they bare our sires and mothers;
Where lives the traitor-fool who’s not their friend?
13.
Not in our shapes, Sir Singer, nor in his whom you bespatter
With too stale slime, but whom we love and trust.
He traitor, trickster, coward? Well, let time decide the matter;
Our hearts are hot, but history’s cool and just.
14.
O “man of words”—and wild ones—“men of blood,” by sorrow maddened,
Have made the task we toil at sorely hard;
Yet must we toil unhalting, though unaided and ungladdened
By the Song of England’s tyrant-scourging bard.
15.
Such causes long are championed amidst slander, shame, and sorrow,
But ever to one issue. Well know we,
Heard by our ears to-day or by other ears to-morrow,
Our England’s “Aye!” shall ring from sea to sea!
The Daily News, July 2, 1886.
The Common Squeal.
A Song for Shriekers.
I.
Men, whose fathers lied, and tricked, and bribed to bring about the Union,
Men, whose brothers at the Music Hall grimace,
I will show you that the Poet with your spirits own communion,
I will show you that the Bard is of your race.
II.
What are those that shriek and squeal against the Isle across the water.
What is he that crams our ears with patriot cant?
See the lyrist lick the party hack at breathing fire and slaughter?
See the man of rhymes embrace the man of rant?
III.
Here the plea whereby the Poet apes, and charms, the Penny Paper—
“We are they whose works sensationally shine,
I was ever good at curses, Victor Hugo I’ll out-vapour,
And if there is a scurril tongue ’tis mine.”
IV.
Who would fear to back the Poet as a double-barrelled screamer,
Pure of morals, clean of language, free from bile?
Do you want old Gladstone scarified, the sanguinary schemer?
I will show you how to slander and revile.
(Does so in nine violent verses, savage and scathing,
but scarcely suited for publication.)
* * * * *
XIV.
There! That cuts every record in the way of party squealing,
That’s the style to pelt and pulverise your foes.
You thought Lord Randolph rabid, but this comes as a revealing,
And there’s lots more where it comes from—verse or prose.
XV.
Perfect rancour, wrath eternal, everlasting objurgation,
Freedom? Yes, I’ve always praised it, and may be
It may do for France or Italy. But that curst Irish nation?—
Rather slay them man by man from sea to sea!
Punch, July 10, 1886.
The Weekly Dispatch Parody Competition.
Prize Poem.
Men, whose fathers went to battle hounded on by bards and singers,
Deafened by loud cymbals and the sounding drum,
Show your spirit now, if any trace of courage in you lingers;
Something worse than all these evils now has come.
Who is this most dreary driveller, rowdy ranter, prating poet?
Whence comes all this filthy flood of nasty rhyme?
See the tongue that talked of truth so steeped in lies that none may know it;
See the man of poesy besmeared with slime.
Quarrelling cats upon your housetop, cocks and hens in your back garden.
Dogs that in the silent midnight bay the moon,
Next-door neighbour’s cracked piano, wild excursionists to Hawarden,
Are a sweet relief compared with this man’s tune.
Perfect nonsense, utter rubbish, everlasting shameless drivel,
Still to some it sounds like truth. To you and me
There’s still time to kill the slander, put to shame the lying devil;
Spitting venom o’er our land from sea to sea.
A. Whalley.
Highly commended:—
The Common Squeal: a Song for the Sleepless.
What are these that scream and squeal upon the roof of this, my dwelling?
Who are they who flood my ears with nightly squall?
See the tabby join the horrid band that sets the neighbours yelling—
See Grimalkin lord it grimly over all!
Hear the words wherein I sharply rate, and execrate this babel
“Ye are they who are disturbers of my peace.
Till I bring forth my revolver, what is slumber but a fable?
When I use it—then shall hope of sleep increase!”
Who would fear to shoot a double-faced, unmusical old tabby,
Harsh of language, lank of limb, and sharp of claw?
“Night is well-nigh spent,” I cry; “you vote me cruel, tricksy, shabby?
I am riled and will not give you any law!”
Many a night that caterwauling has continued, I remember,
On my housetops and my neighbour’s in the town;
Many a time I’ve blazed at him—the fell band’s grey and grizzled member—
But, unluckily, I’ve never brought him down!
F. B. Doveton.
From The Weekly Dispatch, July 18, 1886.