Parodies of the works of English & American authors, vol. VI

by Unknown

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

r. Swinburne, son of Admiral Charles Henry Swinburne, and grandson of Sir John Edward Swinburne, sixth baronet, was born in 1838, and educated first at Eton, and afterwards at Oxford.

Despite his ancient pedigree, his aristocratic connections, and his university education, the early writings of Mr. A. C. Swinburne, both in prose and verse, were coloured by Radical opinions of the most advanced description. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Southey commenced thus, with results which should have taught him how unwise it is for a poet, who wishes to be widely read, to descend into the heated atmosphere of political strife.

The Undergraduate Papers, published by Mr. Mansell, Oxford, 1857-8, contained some of Mr. Swinburne’s earliest poems, these were followed by “Atalanta in Calydon,” “Chastelard,” and “Poems and Ballads.”

It will be readily understood that only a few brief extracts can be given from Mr. Swinburne’s poems, sufficient merely to strike the key notes of the Parodies.

---

THE CREATION OF MAN.

Before the beginning of years

There came to the making of man

Time, with a gift of tears;

Grief, with a glass that ran;

Pleasure, with pain for leaven!

Summer, with flowers that fell;

Remembrance fallen from heaven,

And madness risen from hell;

Strength without hands to smite:

Love that endures for a breath;

Night, the shadow of light,

And life the shadow of death.

And the high gods took in hand

Fire, and the falling of tears,

And a measure of sliding sand

From under the feet of the years:

And froth and drift of the sea;

And dust of the labouring earth;

And bodies of things to be

In the houses of death and of birth;

And wrought with weeping and laughter,

And fashioned with loathing and love.

With life before and after,

And death beneath and above,

For a day and a night and a morrow,

That his strength might endure for a span

With travail and heavy sorrow,

The holy spirit of man.

For the winds of the north and the south

They gathered as into strife;

They breathed upon his mouth,

They filled his body with life;

Eyesight and speech they wrought

For the veils of the soul therein,

A time for labour and thought,

A time to serve and to sin;

They gave him light in his ways,

And love, and a space for delight,

And beauty and length of days,

And night, and sleep in the night.

His speech is a burning fire;

With his lips he travaileth;

In his heart is a blind desire,

In his eyes foreknowledge of death;

He weaves, and is clothed with derision;

Sows, and he shall not reap;

His life is a watch or a vision

Between a sleep and a sleep.

*  *  *  *  *

A. C. Swinburne.

---

American Parody.

Before the beginning of years,

There went to the making of man

Nine tailors with their shears,

A coupe and a tiger and span,

Umbrellas and neckties and canes,

An ulster, a coat, and all that—

But the crowning glory remains,

His last best gift was his hat.

And the mad hatters took in hand

Skins of the beaver, and felt,

And straw from the isthmus land,

And silk and black bear’s pelt:

And wrought with prophetic passion,

Designed on the newest plan,

They made in the height of fashion

The hat for the wearing of man.

---

A Poet’s Valentine.

Before the beginning of post

There came to the making of love

Rhyme and of follies a host;

Ducks with a dart and a dove;

Flow’rs with initials beneath,

Cupid conceal’d in a cell,

Lovers alone on a heath.

A Parson pulling a bell.

Follies all fetched afar,

Mirth for a maid and a man,

Jokes that jingle and jar,

And lines refusing to scan.

And still with the change of things

The annual craze comes back

With knocks and riotous rings

From the post piled up with a pack.

Still letters of love and laughter,

And verse in various time,

With roars that reach to the rafter,

And sheets of scurrilous rhyme.

Of old we counted our money

And played but a note for a kiss,

But now we send hampers of honey

And boxes of boisterous bliss.

Fun. February 15, 1868.

---

Shilling Dreadfuls.

“A nervous and well red-wigged gentleman, Mr. Allburnon-Charles Swingbun, ran excitedly to our rescue, and rhapsodically chaunted the following chorus from his ‘Atlas in Paddington’:

“Now in the railway years

There come to the making of books

Crime with its gift of fears,

Dream with mesmeric looks,

Nihilist Czar-abhorrence,

Acres of ‘snowy sward,’

Ouida, bottled in Florence,

And Broughton in Oxenforde;

Length, to deserve twelve pence;

Plot, to atone for pith;

Not a shadow of sense,

And boys the shadows of Smith.

And the tourist takes in hand

Paper with creasy back,

And a type he can understand,

As he sways with his rolling rack,

And froth and drift of the French,

And mirth that is meet to sell,

And bodies of things that drench

The diversions of Max O’Rell.

They are wrought with weeping for laughter,

And in fashion for chap and cove,

With Life before and after,

And Truth beneath and above.

For a day, for a night, for a nuisance

That the novice may fling his flukes,

And the publisher reap his usance—

The ‘Shillingsworth’ plague of books.”

Christmas Number of The World. 1885.

---

A chorus in “Atalanta in Calydon” commences:—

“For winter’s rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins.”

This passage was thus parodied by Mr. Austin Dobson:—

“For Mayfair’s balls and ballets are over,

And all the ‘Season’ of drums and dins;

The maids dividing lover and lover,

The wight that loses, the knight that wins;

And last month’s life is a leaf that’s rotten,

And flasks are filled and game bags gotten,

And from green underwood and cover

Pheasant on Pheasant his flight begins.”

——:o:——

The peculiar metre in which “Dolores” and the Dedication of the “Poems and Ballads” Volume are written, although it invites parody, is difficult to imitate successfully. The ending line of each stanza abruptly cut short is a trick in composition which few but Mr. Swinburne himself have thoroughly mastered.

The following stanzas from the Dedication will enable readers to perceive how closely they have been parodied by Mr. Pollock.

The sea gives her shells to the shingle,

The earth gives her streams to the sea;

They are many, but my gift is single,

My verses, the first-fruits of me.

Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,

Cast forth without fruit upon air;

Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf

Blown loose from the hair.

*  *  *  *  *

Though the world of your hands be more gracious

And lovelier in lordship of things,

Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious

Warm heaven of her imminent wings;

Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,

For the love of old loves and lost times,

And receive in your palace of painting

This revel of rhymes.

*  *  *  *  *

Though the many lights dwindle to one light,

There is help if the heaven has one;

Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight,

And the earth dispossessed of the sun,

They have moonlight and sleep for repayment

When refreshed as a bride, and set free,

With stars and sea-winds in her raiment,

Night sinks on the sea.

---

“Dedication to J. S.”

This parody, dedicated to the notorious “John Stiles,” of the old law-books, was written by Mr. Pollock, and originally appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette. It has since been included in a small volume (published by Macmillan & Co., London, 1875) entitled “Leading Cases done into English,” by an apprentice of Lincoln’s Inn.

When waters are rent with commotion

Of storms, or with sunlight made whole,

The river still pours to the ocean

The stream of its effluent soul;

You, too, from all lips of all living

Of worship disthroned and discrowned,

Shall know by these gifts of my giving

That faith is yet found.

By the sight of my song-flight of cases

That bears on wings woven of rhyme

Names set for a sign in high places

By sentence of men of old time;

From all counties they meet and they mingle,

Dead suitors whom Westminster saw;

There are many, but your name is single,

The flower of pure law.

When bounty of grantors was gracious

To enfeoff you in fee and in tail,

The bounds of your land were made spacious

With lordship from Sale unto Dale;

Trusts had you, and services loyal,

Lips sovereign for ending of strife,

And the names of the world’s names most royal

For light of your life.

Ah desire that was urgent to Romeward,

And feet that were swifter than fate’s,

And the noise of the speed of them homeward

For mutation and fall of estates!

Ah the days when your riding to Dover

Was prayed for and precious as gold,

The journeys, the deeds that are over,

The praise of them told.

But the days of your reign are departed,

And our fathers that fed on your looks

Have begotten a folk feeble-hearted,

That seek not your name in their books;

And against you is risen a new foeman,

To storm with strange engines your home,

We wax pale at the name of him Roman,

His coming from Rome.

*  *  *  *  *

Yet I pour you this drink of my verses,

Of learning made lovely with lays,

Song bitter and sweet that rehearses

The deeds of your eminent days;

Yea, in these evil days from their reading

Some profit a student shall draw,

Though some points are of obsolete pleading,

And some are not law.

Though the Courts that were manifold dwindle

To divers Divisions of one,

And no fire from your face may rekindle

The light of old learning undone;

We have suitors and briefs for our payment,

While so long as a Court shall hold pleas,

We talk moonshine, with wigs for our raiment,

Not sinking the fees.

This “J. S.” was a mythical person introduced for the purposes of illustration, and constantly met with in old law books and reports. His devotion to Rome is shown by his desperate attempts to get there in three days: “If J. S. shall go to Rome in three days,” was then a standing example of an impossible condition, which modern science has robbed of most of its point.

——:o:——

THE BALLAD OF BURDENS.

This poem will be found on page 144 of Mr. Swinburne’s Poems and Ballads (first series). It is one of his best known ballads, and in 1879 it was chosen by the editor of The World as the model on which to found parodies describing the wet and gloomy summer of that year.

The successful poems in the competition were printed in The World, July 16, 1879. The first prize was won by a well known London Architect, the second by a Dublin gentleman who has since published several amusing Volumes of light poems.

First Prize.

A burden of foul weathers. Dim daylight

And summer slain in some sad sloppy way,

And pitiless downpour that comes by night,

And watery gleam that has no heart by day,

And change from gray to black, from black to gray,

And weariness that doth at each repine;

Grief in all work, and pleasure in no play—

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of vain blossoms. This is sore

A burden of false hope in fruit-bearing:

Upon thy strawberry-bed, behold, threescore—

Threescore dead blooms for one that’s ripening;

And if that one to fulness thou dost bring,

Thy shuddering lips the scanty feast decline,

For ’tis a pallid and insipid thing—

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of set phrases. Thou shalt hear

The same drear murmurs breathed from every side:

‘Something is wrong with the Gulf Stream, I fear.’

‘Through cycle wet the decade now doth glide.’

‘The sun is “spot”-less, and ashamed would hide.’

Dull ign’rance with long words did aye combine!

And thou shalt half believe and half deride

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of lost leisure. Thou shalt grieve

By rain-vexed stream, drenched moor, or seashore dead;

And say at night, ‘Would I had had no leave!’

And say at dawn, ‘Would that my leave were sped!’

The water of affliction and the bread

For food and for attire shall then be thine,

Goloshed beneath, umbrellaed overhead,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of cold hearthstones. Thou shalt see

Pale willow shreds and gold above the green;

And as the willow so thy face shall be,

And no more as the thing before-time seen.

And thou shalt say of sunshine, ‘It hath been,’

And, chilling, watch the chilly light decline;

And shivering-fits shall take thy breath between

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of sad sayings. In that day

Thou shalt tell all thy summers o’er, and tell

Thy joys and thy delights in each, and say

How one was calm and one was changeable,

And sweet were all to hear and sweet to smell;

But now of passing hours scarce one doth shine

Of twenty. In the rest deep gloom doth dwell.

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of mixed seasons. Snow in spring,

Thaw, and then frost, with each its miseries;

No summer, though the days be shortening;

No autumn-promise from the fields and trees;

With sad face turned towards Christmas, that foresees

Huge bills for fuel, (and yet for fires doth pine;)

Rheumatics, pleurisy, and lung-disease,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of umbrellas. In thy sight

Dawn’s gray or vesper’s red may promise much,

Yet shalt thou never venture day nor night

Without that ‘little shadow’ in thy clutch.

Horn of rhinoceros and ebon crutch

Shall unmolested in their stand recline;

Thy trusty Penang shall forget thy touch,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

The burden of sham gladness. In desire

(The substance lost) for shadows of delight,

Though underfoot the trodden lawn be mire,

Tea, tennis, and Terpsichore invite.

Go, then! and let thy face with smiles be dight,

To hollow joy’s ordeal thyself resign

Till dreary daylight yield to drearier night,

Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

L’ENVOY.

Brave hearts, and ye whom hope yet quickeneth,

Hope on; next summer may perchance be fine.

The life grows short, and soon will come the death

Anni Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.

Ziegelstein. (Goymour Cuthbert.)

---

Second Prize.

The burden of strange seasons. Rain all night,

Blown-rain and wind co-mingling all the day;

Perchance we say the morrow will be bright;

But lo, the morrow is as yesterday:

With sullen skies and sunsets cold and gray,

With lights reverse, the heavy hours retire;

And so the strange sad season slips away—

I pray thee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of rheumatics. This is sore

Damp, and east wind maketh it past bearing;

When thy life’s span has stretched to threescore,

No rest hast thou at dawn or evening.

The shivering in thy bones, the shivering

In all thy marrows through this season dire,

Makes summer seem a shameful wretched thing—

For God’s love put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of dead apples. Lo, their doom,

Decay and blight upon the tender trees,

All fruit made fruitless, blossom bloomless bloom

An eastern wind of many miseries.

Naught has survived save pale-green gooseberries,

The food in fools, of fools, who such desire.

God wot, no lack have we of fooleries—

I prithee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of bad harvests. For the gods,

Who change the springing corn from green to red,

Have scourged us for our sins with many rods,

And left our grain and oil ungarnerèd.

The market-men heap ashes on their head,

And cry aloud and rend their best attire;

The gods are just, prayers are unanswerèd—

I pray thee put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of lost peaches. Ah, my sweet,

This year I seek them in the sunny South,

To press them to thy sharp white tooth to eat,

To kiss thy amorous hair and curled-up mouth.

Lust and desire are dust and deadly drouth,

For lust is dust and deadly drouth desire,

And time creeps over all with wingèd feet—

For love’s sake put fresh coals upon the fire.

The burden of dull colours. Thou shalt see

Strange harmonies in brown and olive-green,

In curious costumes fashioned cunningly,

And all unlike the things in summer seen;

And thou shalt say of summer, it hath been.

Or if unconsciously thou wouldst inquire

What these my mournful music-measures mean,

I bid thee heap fresh coals upon the fire.

L’ENVOY.

Tourists and ye whom Cook accomp’nies,

Heed well before from him ye tickets hire—

This season is a mist of miseries;

So once more heap fresh coals upon the fire.

Floreant-Lauri (J. M. Lowry).

This parody was afterwards included in A Book of Jousts, edited by James M. Lowry. London, Field and Tuer.

---

Ballade of Cricket.

The burden of long fielding: when the clay

Clings to thy shoon, in sudden shower’s down-pour,

And running still thou stumblest; or the ray

Of fervent suns doth bite and burn thee sore,

And blind thee, till, forgetful of thy lore,

Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a skyer,

And lose a match the gods cannot restore—

This is the end of every man’s desire!

The burden of loose bowling: when the stay

Of all thy team is collared—swift or slower—

When bowlers break not in the wonted way

And “yorkers” come not off as heretofore;

When length-balls shoot no more, ah! never more,

And all deliveries lose their wonted fire,

When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door—

This is the end of every man’s desire!

The burden of free hitting; slog away,

Here shalt thou make a five, and there a four.

And then thy heart unto thy heart shall say

That thou art in for an exceeding score;

Yea, the loud Ring, applauding thee shall roar.

And thou to rival Hornby shalt aspire,

And lo! the Umpire gives thee “leg before.”

This is the end of every man’s desire!

ENVOY.

Alas, yet rather on youth’s hither shore

Would I be some poor player, on scant hire,

Ahan King among the old, who play no more.

This is the end of every man’s desire.

A. L.

St. James’s Gazette. June 27, 1881.

---

Ballade of Cricket.

(To T. W. Lang.)

The burden of hard hitting: slog away!

Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”

And then upon thy bat shalt lean and say,

That thou art in for an uncommon score.

Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,

And thou to rival Thornton shalt aspire,

When low, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of much bowling, when the stay

Of all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,

When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,

And “yorkers” come not off as heretofore.

When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,

When all deliveries lose their former fire,

When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of long fielding, when the clay

Clings to thy shoon in sudden showers downpour,

And running still thou stumblest, or the ray

Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,

And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,

Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer”

And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Envoy.

Alas, yet liefer on youth’s hither shore

Would I be some poor Player on scant hire

Than king among the old who play no more,—

“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

Andrew Lang.

This second Ballade of Cricket was included in a collection of “Ballades and Rondeaus” edited by Mr. Gleeson White, and published by Walter Scott, London, 1887.

---

A Ballad of Burdens.

The burden of Old Women. They delight

In bulky bundles, always in the way;

In ’busses close they wedge you tight at night,

In railway trains they jam you up by day.

Plump dames with pulpy cheeks and locks of grey,

In weariness they waddle, puff, perspire.

To banish them for ever one would say,

This must be every busy man’s desire.

*  *  *  *  *

The burden of Sad Colours. Thou shalt see

Gold tarnished, ghostly grey, and livid green,

And lank and languorous thy face must be

To harmonise with the lugubrious scene.

And thou shalt say of scarlet, “It have been,”

And sighing of old tints and tones shalt tire.

To bring back brightness and to banish spleen,

This must be every cheerful man’s desire.

The burden of Smart Sayings. In this day

All wish as cynic wits to bear the bell.

Men mock at honour, justice, love, and say

The end of life “good stories” is to tell.

The cad’s coarse jest, the cackle of the swell

Are much alike, things that the most admire.

To patter slang and tell side-splitters well,

This is the end of every fool’s desire.

The burden of Bad Seasons. Rain in Spring,

Chill rain and wind among the budding trees,

A Summer of grey storm-clouds gathering,

Damp Autumn one dull mist of miseries,

With showers that soak, and blasts that bite and freeze;

A drenching Winter with north-easters dire.

To make an end of seasons such as these,

This must be every suffering man’s desire.

The burden of Strange Crazes. Woman’s right

To throng the polls, and join the spouting bands;

Theosophy and astral bodies, sleight

Of cunning jugglers from far foreign lands;

Buddhistic bosh which no one understands,

A thousand fads that ’gainst good sense conspire.

To gag the crotcheteers and tie their hands,

This must be every sober man’s desire.

L’Envoy.

Donkeys, and ye whom frenzy quickeneth,

Heed well this rhyme. Life’s many burdens tire.

To lighten them a little, ere our death,

This must be every kindly man’s desire.

Punch. August 7, 1886.

——:o:——

Parodies of
DOLORES.

Pain and Travel.

Perpetual swaying of steamers,

Oh, terrible tumble of tides—

More dear than the drowsing of dreamers,

Who ramble by rustic road-sides!

Oh, lips that are pale with the anguish,

Let me see you again and again;

They are yours when so seasick they languish,

Our Lady of Pain!

I gloat on the grins and the groaning,

The torments that torture—not kill:

And music to me is the moaning

Of travellers terribly ill.

A rapture I cannot unravel,

Their throes set a-thrill in my brain:

These—these are my pleasures of travel,

Our Lady of Pain!

And on landing I lose not the longing,

That mingles my manhood with mud:

For the merry mosquitos come thronging,

With lips that laugh blithely in blood:

And fleas, with their kisses that burn me,

Bite till cruel red mouths show the stain—

Into poesy passionate turn me,

Our Lady of Pain!

And the donkeys Egyptian and spiteful

Shall share in the shame of my hymns,

For the jolting that brands the delightful

Dark bruises on delicate limbs.

And the Alps shall be ranked with the asses

For the fracture, the frostbite, the sprain,

And the mangling of flesh in crevasses,

Our Lady of Pain!

And if—leaving me, though, unshattered—

An accident fell should betide,

And the train that I ride in is scattered

In ruin on every side—

Dislocations and discolourations,

And gush of bright gore, not in vain

Shall awake in me languid sensations,

Our Lady of Pain!

Thus I roam through the universe vasty,

O’er mountain, vale, meadow, and wood;

And I venerate all that is nasty,

And gird against all that is good;

In the mire my delight is to linger,

Although I to the heights might attain:

Aut you don’t catch me scratching my finger,

Our Lady of Pain!

Fun. October 12, 1867.

---

My Lady Champagne.

Wayward, soft, luscious, and tender,

Lightsome, and spotless from stain,

Graceful of figure and slender,

Decked with a golden crown’s splendour—

Our Lady Champagne.

Brilliantly sparkling and creaming,

Haughty and lovely and vain,

Gay ’midst the froth lightly beaming,

Swift o’er the crystal edge streaming—

Our Lady Champagne.

Bubbling and seething and springing,

Solace and soother of pain,

Joys of an outer world bringing,

Sweets to the air gaily flinging—

Our Lady Champagne.

Proud in the depth of deep scorning,

Haughty and grand with disdain,

Rosy as soft clouds at dawning,

Fresh as the breeze of the morning—

Our Lady Champagne.

Kisses seductive in greeting,

Falling like soft summer rain,

Rapturous bliss of lips meeting,

Sighing a woe at retreating—

Our Lady Champagne.

Frothy, light, bubbly and beady,

Life to the overworked brain;

Beer for the humble and needy,

Wine for the wealthy and greedy—

Our Lady Champagne!

Judy. May 26, 1880.

---

The Southern Cross.

A Frustration.

Four stars on Night’s brow, or Night’s bosom,

Whichever the reader prefers;

Or Night without either may do some,

Each one to his taste or to hers.

Four stars—to continue inditing,

So long as I feel in the vein—

Hullo! what the deuce is that biting?

Mosquitos again!

Oh glories not gilded but golden,

Oh daughters of Night unexcelled,

By the sons of the North unbeholden,

By our sons (if we have them) beheld;

Oh jewels the midnight enriching,

Oh four which are double of twain!

Oh mystical—bother the itching!

Mosquitos again!

You alone I can anchor my eye on,

Of you and you only I’ll write,

And I now look awry on Orion,

That once was my chiefest delight.

Ye exalt me high over the petty

Conditions of pleasure and pain,

Oh Heaven! Here are these maladetti

Mosquitos again!

The poet should ever be placid.

Oh vex not his soul or his skin!

Shall I stink them with carbolic acid?

It is done and afresh I begin.

Lucid orbs!—that last sting very sore is;

I am fain to leave off, I am fain;

It has given me uncommon dolores—

The Latin for pain.

Not quite what the shape of a cross is—

A little lop-sided, I own—

Confound your infernal proboscis,

Inserted well nigh to the bone!

Queen-lights of the heights of high heaven,

Ensconced in the crystal inane—

Oh me, here are seventy times seven

Mosquitos again.

Oh horns of a mighty trapezium!

Quadrilatoral area, hail!

Oh bright is the light of magnesium!—

Oh hang them all, female and male!

At the end of an hour of their stinging,

What shall rest of me then, what remain?

I shall die as the swan dieth, singing,

Mosquitos again!

Shock keen as the stroke of the leven!

They sting, and I change as a flash

From the peace and the poppies of heaven

To the flame and the firewood of—dash!

Oh Cross of the South, I forgot you!

These demons have addled my brain.

Once more I look upward———Od rot you!

You’re at it again.

There! stick in your pitiless brad-awl,

And do your malevolent worst!

Dine on me and when you have had all,

Let others go in for a burst!

Oh silent and pure constellation,

Can you pardon my fretful refrain?

Forgive, oh forgive my vexation—

They’re at it again!

Oh imps that provoke to mad laughter,

Winged fiends that are fed from my brow,

Bite hard! let your neighbours come after,

And sting where you stung me just now!

Red brands on it smitten and bitten,

Round blotches I rub at in vain!

Oh Crux! whatsoever I’ve written,

I’ve written in pain.

Ye chrysolite crystalline creatures,

Wan watchers the fairest afield,

Stars, and garters, are these my own features

In the merciless mirror revealed?

They are mine, even mine and none other,

And my hands how they slacken and strain!

Oh my sister, my spouse, and my mother!

I’m going insane!

From Miscellaneous Poems, by J. Brunton Stephens.

---

Brandy and Soda.

Mine eyes to mine eyelids cling thickly;

My tongue feels a mouthful and more;

My senses are sluggish and sickly;

To live and to breathe is a bore.

My head weighs a ton and a quarter,

By pains and by pangs ever split,

Which manifold washings with water

Relieve not a bit.

My longings of thirst are unlawful,

And vain to console or control,

The aroma of coffee is awful,

Repulsive the sight of the roll.

I take my matutinal journal,

And strive my dull wits to engage,

But cannot endure the infernal

Sharp crack of its page.

What bad luck my soul had bedevilled,

What demon of spleen and of spite,

That I rashly went forth, and I revelled

In riotous living last night?

Had the fumes of the goblet no odour

That well might repulse or restrain?

O insidious brandy and soda,

Our Lady of Pain.

Thou art golden of gleam as the summer

That smiled o’er a tropical sod,

O daughter of Bacchus, the bummer,

A foamer, a volatile tod!

But thy froth is a serpent that hisses,

And thy gold as a balefire doth shine,

And the lovers who rise from thy kisses

Can’t walk a straight line.

I recall, with a flush and a flutter,

That orgie whose end is unknown;

Did they bear me to bed on a shutter,

Or did I reel home all alone?

Was I frequent in screams and in screeches?

Did I swear with a forcéd affright?

Did I perpetrate numerous speeches?

Did I get in a fight?

Of the secrets I treasure and prize most

Did I empty my bacchanal breast?

Did I button-hole men I despise most,

And frown upon those I like best?

Did I play the low farmer and flunkey

With people I always ignore?

Did I caricole round like a monkey?

Did I sit on the floor?

O longing no research may satiate—

No aim to exhume what is hid!

For falsehood were vain to expatiate

On deeds more depraved than I did;

And though friendly faith I would flout not

On this it were rash to rely,

Since the friends who beheld me, I doubt not,

Were drunker than I.

Thou hast lured me to passionate pastime,

Dread goddess, whose smile is a snare!

Yet I swear thou hast tempted me the last time—

I swear it; I mean what I swear!

And thy beaker shall always forebode a

Disgust ’twere not wise to disdain,

O luxurious brandy-and-soda;

Our Lady of Pain.

Hugh Howard. 1882.

---

Dolores.

[Miss Dolores Lleonart-y-Casanovas, M.D., has just, at the age of 19, taken her doctor’s degree at Barcelona. July, 1886.]

With dark eyes that flash like a jewel,

And red lips that flame like a flower

Capricious, coquettish and cruel,

When flirting in boudoir or bower;

So shine Spanish girls in old stories.

But thou’rt of a different strain,

Oh learned and lucky Dolores,

Our M.D. of Spain.

Thy studies commencing, sweet virgin,

At College when scarce more than seven,

Now past mistress scalpel and purge in

A full-blown Physician! Great Heaven!

Sangrados no more to our sorrow

Our veins shall deplete; the control

Of our hearts goes to girls, whence we borrow

Much hope—on the whole.

It startles us, though, the reflection

That you are not twenty to-day,

Yet our tongues may invite your inspection,

Our pulses your touch may assay.

Thou, a girlish she-Galen, arisest:

In faith thou may’st fairly feel vain,

O young among women yet wisest,

Our M.D. of Spain!

Will you “fee” in the fearless old fashion,

And dose like a horse-drenching Vet.?

Ah! it is not alone the Caucasian

Who’s nearly played out, I regret.

However, unless luck desert you,

Barcelona its fame may regain.

Let us hope Hahnemann mayn’t convert you,

Our M.D. of Spain.

(Five verses omitted.)

Punch. July 31, 1886.

---

Octopus.[1]

Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed,

Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?

With thy bosom bespangled and branded

With the hues of the seas and the skies;

Is thy home European or Asian,

Oh mystical monster marine?

Part molluscous and partly crustacean,

Betwixt and between.

Wast thou born to the sound of sea trumpets?

Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess

Of the sponges—thy muffins and crumpets,

Of the seaweed—thy mustard and cress?

Wast thou nurtured in caverns of coral,

Remote from reproof or restraint?

Art thou innocent, art thou immoral,

Sinburnian or Saint?

Lithe limbs, curling free, as a creeper

That creeps in a desolate place,

To enrol and envelop the sleeper

In a silent and stealthy embrace;

Cruel beak craning forward to bite us,

Our juices to drain and to drink,

Or to whelm us in waves of Cocytus,

Indelible ink!

Oh breast, that ’twere rapture to writhe on!

Oh arms ’twere delicious to feel

Clinging close with the crush of the Python,

When she maketh her murderous meal;

In thy eight-fold embraces enfolden,

Let our empty existence escape;

Give us death that is glorious and golden,

Crushed all out of shape!

Ah thy red lips, lascivious and luscious,

With death in their amorous kiss!

Cling round us, and clasp us, and crush us,

With bitings of agonised bliss!

We are sick with the poison of pleasure,

Dispense us the potion of pain;

Ope thy mouth to its uttermost measure,

And bite us again!

The Light Green. Cambridge, 1872.

---

Procuratores.

O vestment of velvet and virtue,

O venomous victors of vice,

Who hurt men who never have hurt you,

Oh, calm, cruel, colder than ice;

Why wilfully wage ye this war? Is

Pure pity purged out of your breast?

O purse-prigging Procuratores,

O pitiless pest!

Do you dream of what was and no more is,

When fresher and freer than air?

Does it pain you, proud Procuratores,

These badges of bondage to bear?

In your youth were you greener than grass is,

And fearful of infinite fines,

Or casual, careless of classes,

Frequenters of wines?

Was it woe for a woman who jilted,

Or dread of your debts or a dun?

Or was it your nose was tip-tilted,

Or a frivolous fancy for fun?

Did duty, dark despot, decide you,

That fame to the dogs must be hurled

Or was it a whim, woe betide you,

To worry the world?

Five shillings ye fine the frail freshmen,

Five shillings, which cads call a crown,

Men caught in your merciless mesh, men

Who care not for cap or for gown.

When ye go grandly garbed in your glories,

With your coarse, callous crew of canines,

O pitiless Procuratores,

Inflictors of fines.

We have smote and made redder than roses,

With juice not of fruit nor of bud,

The truculent town’s-people’s noses,

And bathed brutal butchers in blood;

And we, all aglow with our glories,

Heard you not in the deafening din,

And ye came, O ye Procuratores,

And ran us all in.

I write not as one with no knowledge,

Unaware of your weird, wily ways,

For you’ve often inquired my college,

And fined me on subsequent days.

Oft stopped, I have stuffed you with stories,

When wandering wildly from wines;

Pawned property, Procuratores,

To find you your fines.

E. B. Iwan-Müller.

This parody originally appeared, anonymously, in “The Shotover Papers, or, Echoes from Oxford.” 1874.

---

A Song.

Oh, vanished benevolent Bobby!

Ah, beautiful wearisome beats,

Where rascals range, ready to rob ye,

In dim and disconsolate streets!

When I meet with a murderous nature,

And welcome thy bludgeon would be,

Two dirty hens tearing a ’tatur

Are all that I see.

In cosy recesses of kitchens,

Secure from the shrieking of slums;

Where cook’s so uncommon bewitching,

And the infinite tea kettle hums.

Yet art thou misled and mistaken,

Though served with celestial cheer,

Though feasted on liver and bacon,

And beauty and beer.

Oh, leisurely, helmeted Bobby!

Hast never with jealousy shook;

Lest Mercury, Jeames in the lobby,

Should chisel thee out of thy cook?

Ah, mark thou what mischief is hatching,

By love who doth nothing by halves;

What chance hast thou, Bobby, of matching

Those marvellous calves!

Oh, there are more perilous places

Than horrible hovering seas!

Come! Radiant the area space is

With the beams of the emerald cheese.

Thou art bold and thy uniform nobby,

But subtle are Syrens, and sweet!

Oh, fiery, melodious Bobby,

Come back to thy beat!

The Figaro. October 11, 1876.

---

Foam and Fangs.

O, Nymph with the nicest of noses;

And finest and fairest of forms;

Lips ruddy and ripe as the roses

That sway and that surge in the storms;

O, buoyant and blooming Bacchante,

Of fairer than feminine face,

Rush, raging as demon of Dante—

To this, my embrace!

The foam, and the fangs, and the flowers,

The raving and ravenous rage,

Of a poet as pinion’d in powers,

As condor confined in a cage!

My heart in a haystack I’ve hidden,

As loving and longing I lie,

Kiss open thine eyelids unbidden—

I gaze and I die!

I’ve wander’d the wild waste of slaughter,

I’ve sniff’d up the sepulchre’s scent,

I’ve doated on devilry’s daughter,

And murmur’d much more than I meant;

I’ve paused at Penelope’s portal,

So strange are the sights that I’ve seen,

And mighty’s the mind of the mortal,

Who knows what I mean!

From Patter Poems, by Walter Parke,

London, Vizetelly & Co., 1885.

——:o:——

A MATCH.

One of the cleverest parodies on Swinburne was written by the late Mr. Tom Hood, the younger, on the above named poem, and first appeared in Fun, whence it has frequently been copied without proper acknowledgment.

The parody will be better appreciated after reading a few stanzas of the original which, as will be observed, is written in a difficult and very uncommon metre:

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,

Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pleasure or gray grief;

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.

*  *  *  *  *

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May,

We’d throw with leaves for hours

And draw for days with flowers,

Till day like night were shady,

And night were bright like day;

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain,

We’d hunt down love together,

Pluck out his flying-feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain.

A. C. Swinburne.

---

A Catch.

(By a Mimic of Modern Melody.)

If you were queen of bloaters,

And I were king of soles,

The sea we’d wag our fins in

Nor heed the crooked pins in

The water dropt by boaters,

To catch our heedless joles;

If you were queen of bloaters

And I were king of soles.

If you were Lady Mile-End,

And I were Duke of Bow,

We’d marry and we’d quarrel,

And then, to point the moral

Should Lord Penzance his file lend,

Our chains to overthrow;

If you were Lady Mile-End,

And I were Duke of Bow.

If you were chill November,

And I were sunny June;

I’d not with love pursue you;

For I should be to woo you

(You’re foggy, pray remember)

A most egregious spoon;

If you were chill November,

And I were sunny June.

If you were cook to Venus

And I were J. 19;

When missus was out dining,

Our suppetites combining,

We’d oft contrive between us

To keep the patter clean;

If you were cook to Venus

And I were J. 19.

If you were but a jingle,

And I were but a rhyme;

We’d keep this up for ever,

Nor think it very clever,

A grain of sense to mingle

At times with simple chime;

If you were but a jingle

And I were but a rhyme.

Tom Hood, the younger.

Fun. December 30, 1871.

---

IF!

If life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet,

Then who would care to borrow

A moral from to morrow—

If Thames would always glitter,

And joy would ne’er retreat,

If life were never bitter,

And love were always sweet!

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow’s chair,

When easy-going sinners

Sit down to Richmond dinners,

And life’s swift stream flows straighter—

By Jove, it would be rare,

If care were not the waiter

Behind a fellow’s chair.

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced,

And bores were kicked out straightway

Through a convenient gateway;

Then down the year’s long gradient

’Twere sad to be enticed,

If wit were always radiant,

And wine were always iced.

Mortimer Collins.

As a parody this is scarcely inferior to that of Mr. Tom Hood, but the poet has let the sound run away from the sense, and has forgotten that a wit who is always a radiant wit is apt to become tiresome; whilst if “wine were always iced,” all red wines would greatly suffer, especially Port and Burgundy.

---

The University Election.

A Candidates Carol.

If you were an elector,

And I a candidate,

I’d send you round a notice,

And say “I trust your vote is

A thing I may expect, or

Request at any rate.”

If you were an elector,

And I a candidate.

If you were influential,

And I of no renown,

I’d say, “It is a pity

You’re not on my committee,

Your name is consequential

So let me put it down,”

If you were influential,

And I of no renown.

If I were well supported,

And you of little weight,

I’d say, “I hope to rank you

Among my voters—thank you.”

Your promise once extorted,

I’d leave you to your fate;

If I were well supported,

And you of little weight.

If you were at the polling,

And I were in the booth,

And if your vote you gave, or

Recorded in my favour,

I’d find it both consoling,

And powerful to soothe,

If you were at the polling,

And I were in the booth.

If you should vote against me,

And I were standing by,

I might be forced to fell you,

And then should simply tell you

That having so incensed me

You ought to mind your eye;

If you should vote against me,

And I were standing by.

If I were not elected,

And you would keep alive,

You oughtn’t to come nigh me,

But shun, avoid, and fly me,

And go about protected

(For vide stanza 5).

If I were not elected,

And you would keep alive.

If you were not a voter,

Nor I a candidate,

I would not give a penny,

To know your views (if any),

Contingency remoter

I can’t enunciate,

If you were not a voter,

Nor I a candidate.

From Dublin Doggerels, by Edwin Hamilton, M.A. Dublin. C. Smyth, Dame Street. 1877.

---

A Matcher.

If you were what your nose is,

And I were like the red,

Then should we glow together,

Sunned in the singing weather,

Blown well as winter closes,

And colds come in the head—

If you were what your nose is,

And I were like the red.

If I were what your words are,

And you H aspirate,

We ne’er should dwell together;

For you would snap your tether,

And leave me where the birds are,

And drop at hailstone rate—

If I were what your words are,

And you H aspirate,

If you were “call to-morrow,”

And I an unpaid bill,

You’d meet me at all seasons,

With plaintive looks and reasons,

And leave me then to sorrow,

And all unsettled still—

If you were “call to-morrow.”

And I an unpaid bill,

If you were what’s called “shady,”

And I were quarter-day,

You’d take French leave some hours

Ere I arrived; no powers,

Could make you meet me, Lady,

Nor make me stay away—

If you were what’s termed “shady”

And I were quarter-day.

If you were Queen of Pleasure,

And I were King Champagne,

We’d hunt the bard together,

Pluck out his inked goose-feather,

And leave him “feet” and “measure,”

But muddle his poor brain—

If you were Queen of Pleasure,

And I were King Champagne.

From Lunatic Lyrics, by Alfred Greenland, Junior. London, Tinsley Brothers. 1882.

---

A Philistine to an Æsthete.

(By an Oxford Under grad who “makes hay” in
an Æsthete’s room “while the sun shines.”)

If I were big Nat Langham,

And you the Suffolk Pet,

I’d strike out from the shoulder,

Between your eyes, you’ll bet,

And give you such a drubbing,

As you would not forget;

If I were big Nat Langham,

And you the Suffolk Pet.

If I were Jockey Archer,

And you my racing horse,

I’d give you such a breather

Across a stiff race-course,

That you would think your fortunes

Had altered for the worse;

If I were Jockey Archer,

And you my racing-horse.

*  *  *  *  *

If I were a wild Indian,

And you were my canoe,

I’d shoot with you the rapids,

Like the wild Indians do,

And care not if by drowning

Myself I could drown you;

If I were a wild Indian,

And you were my canoe.

Punch. April 1, 1882.

---

In Pictures at Play, by two Art-Critics, illustrated by Harry Furniss (Longmans, Green & Co.), a dialogue is given between a portrait of Mr. Gladstone by Frank Holl (No. 499), and a bust of the same gentleman by Albert Toft (No. 1,928). The Bust (supposed to represent Mr. Gladstone in his younger days) thus addresses the Portrait:—

I am your Dr. Jekyll

And you’re my Mr. Hyde,

On my head mortals wreak ill,

(I am your Dr. Jekyll)

Of me they often speak ill,

By you left undenied,—

I am your Dr. Jekyll

And you’re my Mr. Hyde!

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

’Tis you should bear the blame,

Sold England for a vote, sir,

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

Made friends with “Skin the Goat,” sir.

Or Ford, who’s much the same;

They say I’ve turned my coat, sir,

’Tis you should bear the blame.

Be either you or I, sir,

Be Jekyll please, or Hyde,

The Statesman pure and high, sir,

(Be either you or I, sir)

Or cast your virtues by, sir,

And take the darker side,

Be either you or I, sir,

Be Jekyll, please, or Hyde.

——:o:——

In October 1885 the English Illustrated Magazine published a short poem by Mr. Swinburne, which the Editor of the Weekly Dispatch shortly afterwards reprinted, in his competition column, and invited Parodies upon it:—

THE INTERPRETERS.

Days dawn on us that make amends for many

Sometimes,

When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any

Man’s rhymes,

Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled

In Greece,

Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held

His peace,

Had Sappho’s self not left her word thus long

For token,

The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song

Had spoken.

And yet these days of subtler air and finer

Delight,

When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner

The light,

The gift they give of all these golden hours,

Whose urn

Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers

In turn,

Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day’s track

Seem living—

What were they did no spirit give them back

Thanksgiving?

Dead air, dead fire, dead shapes and shadows, telling

Time nought,

Man gives them sense and soul by song, and dwelling

In thought.

In human thought their being endures, their power

Abides:

Else were their life a thing that each light hour

Derides.

The years live, work, sigh, smile, and die, with all

They cherish;

The soul endures, though dreams that fed it fall

And perish.

In human thought have all things habitation;

Our days

Laugh, lower, and lighten past, and find no station

That stays.

But thought and faith are mightier things than time

Can wrong,

Made splendid once with speech, or made sublime

By song,

Remembrance, though the tide of change that rolls

Wax hoary,

Gives earth and heaven, for song’s sake and the soul’s

Their glory.

A. C. Swinburne.

Three of the competition poems were printed in the Weekly Dispatch, October, 18, 1885, the first prize was awarded to the following:—

Lays dawn on us that have few charms for many,

Sometimes,

Sure heaven and earth were seldom rack’d for any

Worse rhymes.

Light would not all be quench’d were bards compelled

To cease,

Had Tennyson sung not, or Swinburne held

His peace—

Had Algy’s self not writ these lines so long

And broken:

’Tis sad to see our Swinny rave in song

Mad spoken!

And yet few lays or subtler airs give finer

Delight,

Or soar from out the darkness with diviner

A flight,

Than his whose gift, in his most golden hours,

Can earn

Reverberate praise for all his varied powers

In turn;

Grand, grave or gay, that make his verse at times

Seem living,

But where are they who yield him for these rhymes

Thanksgiving?

Dull verse, queer style, dim tropes and rhythm, telling

Us nought;

One looks for sense and shape in song, compelling

Sweet thought!

In this what thought there is all clouded o’er

Abides,

And ev’ry one the more he reads the more

Derides!

The words start, jump and jerk, and rise and fall

So funny,

That one endures, yet deems such stuff is all

For money!

A poet’s thoughts should please in all their stages.

This lay

Seems cobbled up to find a home in pages

That pay.

But thought and rhythm flighty have this time

Gone wrong,

Though splendid once his speech, and oft sublime

His song!

(Remembrance tells the powers of poet-souls

Wax hoary)

This song may give him guineas, but enrols

No glory!

Herbert L. Gould.

Highly commended:—

The Ladies.

Faces we see that make amends for many

Most plain,

When English girls seem sweeter e’en than any

From Spain,

Beauty had not been rare with us, or quelled

In Greece,

Had Tom Moore sung not, or Anacreon held

His peace.

Had Aphrodite never cleft the sea,

In splendour,

Our modern belles would still as winsome be

And tender.

And so these girls of gentle air and manner

Delight:

Who lovelier looks than Hilda, as you scan her?

Sweet sight!

The gleam that shines from every golden tress,

Whose wealth

The sunbeam kisses, or the winds caress

By stealth.

Hair, lips, and eyes, with which our nymphs prepare

For action—

What were they, did no esprit give them rare

Attraction?

Dead lips, dead eyes, dead silken tresses, telling

Men nought;

Wit only gives them life and soul and dwelling

In thought.

In memory must their grace endure, their spell

Abide:

Else were their sway a thing that we might well

Deride.

The “darlings” flirt, sigh, smile, wax old, with none

To cherish;

Their hope endures, though charms fail one by one

And perish.

In faces sweet seek all men consolation;

Our “fair”

Laugh, lisp, and lighten life, and find flirtation

A snare.

But wit and soul are mightier things than Time

Can wrong,

Linked with a silv’ry voice that is sublime

In song.

Dreams of fair girls illume, like stars on pall,

Life’s story;

Give rapture rare, and our soft slumbers all

Their glory.

F. B. Doveton.

Truths take live forms that make a hope for labour,

Though rare,

When life seems sweeter with each bright hope’s neighbour—

Dreams fair.

Progress had not been crushed nor lost its spell

For men,

Had Rousseau never found the tyrant’s knell,

His pen.

Had Gladstone’s self ne’er poured the words that burn

For token,

The voice of Right for myriads who earn

Had spoken.

And yet these truths which show to us immortal

To-day,

When swart Injustice sees through its last portal

Decay;

The joy these truths can give to heart and soul,

And pour

Glory on prophets gone who filled the roll

Of yore;

Truths, gifts, and hopes that make our life’s hard track

Worth living—

What were they did no voices thunder back

Thanksgiving?

Mere thoughts, mere hopes, mere dreams, mere visions showing

No form;

The statesman gives their shape in language glowing

Heart-warm.

In deathless speech their life is found, their power

Is seen,

Else were their names the shadows of an hour

That’s been.

Mere theories rise, fall, and fade, though all

May cherish.

The fact endures, free speech forbids its fall

To perish.

In champions’ tongues has truth its full progression:

Bare thought

Dawns, shines, and fades, through finding no expression,

Though sought.

But speech and Press are mightier than all sway

Can bind,

Made potent by wide utterance their way

To find.

Progress and Freedom, though Time’s tide that rolls

Wax hoary,

Give to a nation’s life, both mind’s and soul’s,

Its glory.

A. Pratt.

——:o:——

Lofty Lines.

(By a Swinburnean Lofty Liner.)

Imparadised by my environment,

In rhymes impeccably good,

Let me scribble, as poor proud Byron meant

To have scribbled, if he could!

I’ll strain, as the sinuous cameleopard

Strains after the blossomy bough,

And with faculties that develop hard

Let me write—I can’t say how.

Impish idiom’s idiosyncrasy

Shall my verse festoon with flowers;

In a kingdom of pen-and-inkrasy

I shall wield prosodian powers.

Through innumerous apotheoses

The future my name shall learn,

And like passionate plethoric peonies

My perpetual poems burn.

Let my glory grow as the icicle

Accrues between night and morn;

As the bicyclist rides his bicycle

Let me on my metre be borne.

Flashing thus on verses vehicular,

With Pegasus ’neath my touch,

My method can’t be too particular,

Nor the public see too much.

The critics are all anthropophagous,

And feed on poetic flesh;

My heart nestles in my esophagous,

To think I’ve been in their mesh.

As vessels that sail on the Bosphorus

Catch Constantinople’s beams,

So my soul from prosody’s phosphorus

Still gathers Dædalian gleams.

Funny Folks, May 11, 1878.

---

The Family Herald (London) for July 28, 1888, contained an amusing article on Parodies, from which the following is an extract:

“But we wish to get away from well-trodden tracks, and we will for once forsake our usual purely didactic groove in order that we may give our readers an idea of what we regard as artistic drollery, Take this dreadful imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s manner. The parodist seems to have genuinely enjoyed his work; and we have no doubt but that Mr. Swinburne laughed as heartily as anybody. The poet is supposed to be attending a wedding of distinguished persons in Westminster Abbey, and the naughty scoffer represents him as bursting forth with the following rather alarming clarion call—

There is glee in the groves of the Galilean—

The groves that were wont to be gray and glum—

And a sound goes forth to the dim Ægean,

To Helen hopeless and Dido dumb—

The sound of a noise of cab or carriage,

A rhythm of rapture, a mode of marriage.

Sing “Hallelujah!” Shout “Io Pæan!”

Hymen—O Hymen, behold, they come!

What shall I sing to them? How shall I speak to them?

Whose is the speech that a groom thinks good?

Oh that a while I might gabble in Greek to them—

Gabble and gush and be understood,

Gush and glow and be understanded,

Apprehended and shaken-handed!

Yea, though a minute should seem a week to them,

I would utter such words as I might or could!

For winter’s coughs and cossets are over,

And all the season of sniffs and snows,

The rheums that ravish lover from lover,

The eyes that water, the nose that blows;

And time forgotten is not remembered,

And cards are wedded and cake dismembered,

And in the Abbey, closed, under cover,

Blooms and blossoms and breaks love’s rose.

A masterpiece! And there is not a touch of malignity in the lines; the poet’s curious way of writing occasionally in the Hebraic style, his vagueness, his peculiar mode of procuring musical effects, are all picked out and shown with a smile. No one has quite equalled Caldecott, but this anonymous wit runs him hard.”

Unfortunately the author of the article omits to state the source from whence he derived the parody he praises so highly.

---

Home, Sweet Home.

As Algernon Charles Swinburne might have wrapped it up in Variations.

(’Mid pleasures and palaces—)

As sea-foam blown of the winds, as blossom of brine that is drifted

Hither and yon on the barren breast of the breeze,

Though we wander on gusts of a god’s breast shaken and shifted,

The salt of us stings, and is sore for the sobbing seas.

For home’s sake hungry at heart, we sicken in pillared porches

Of bliss made sick for a life that is barren of bliss,

For the place whereon is a light out of heaven that sears not nor scorches,

Nor elsewhere than this.

(An exile from home, splendour dazzles in vain—)

For here we know shall no gold thing glisten

No bright thing burn, and no sweet thing shine;

Nor Love lower never an ear to listen

To words that work in the heart like wine.

What time we are set from our land apart,

For pain of passion and hunger of heart,

Though we walk with exiles fame faints to christen,

Or sing at the Cytherean’s shrine.

(Variation: An exile from home.)

Whether with him whose head of gods is honorèd

With song made splendent in the sight of men

Whose heart most sweetly stout,

From ravished France cast out,

Bring firstly hers, was hers most wholly then—

Or where on shining seas like wine

The dove’s wings draw the drooping Erycine.

(Give me my lowly thatched cottage—)

For Joy finds Love grow bitter,

And spreads his wings to quit her,

At thoughts of birds that twitter

Beneath the roof-tree’s straw—

Of birds that come for calling,

No fear or fright appalling,

When dews of dusk are falling,

Or day light’s draperies draw.

(Give me them, and the peace of mind.)

Give me these things then back, though the giving

Be at cost of earth’s garner of gold;

There is no life without these worth living,

No treasure where these are not told.

For the heart give the hope that it knows not,

Give the balm for the burn of the breast—

Ior the soul and the mind that repose not,

O, give us a rest!

H. C. Bunner.

This Parody originally appeared in Scribner’s Monthly, May, 1881, with imitations of Bret Harte, Austin Dobson, Oliver Goldsmith, and Walt Whitman. They were afterwards republished in a volume, entitled Airs from Arcady, by H. C. Bunner. London, Charles Hutt, 1885.

——:o:——

A Swinburnian Interlude.

Short space shall be hereafter

Ere April brings the hour

Of weeping and of laughter,

Of sunshine and of shower,

Of groaning and of gladness,

Of singing and of sadness,

Of melody and madness,

Of all sweet things and sour.

Sweet to the blithe bucolic

Who knows nor cribs nor crams,

Who sees the frisky frolic

Of lanky little lambs:

But sour beyond expression

To one in deep depression

Who sees the closing session,

And imminent exams.

He cannot hear the singing

Of birds upon the bents.

Nor watch the wild-flowers springing.

Nor smell the April scents.

He gathers grief with grinding,

Foul food of sorrow finding

In books of beastly binding

And beastlier contents.

Our hope alone sustains him,

And no more hopes beside,

One only trust restrains him

From shocking suicide:

He will not play nor palter

With hemlock or with halter,

He will not fear nor falter,

Whatever chance betide.

He knows examinations

Like all things else have ends,

And then come vast vacations

And visits to his friends:

And youth with pleasure yoking,

And joyfulness and joking,

And smilingness and smoking,

For grief to make amends.

The University News Sheet. St. Andrews, N. B. March 31, 1886.

——:o:——

Vaccine.

Written after reading “Faustine.”

Hail! sacred salutary nymph,

Fair freckless queen;

Pure and translucent flows thy lymph,

Potent Vaccine!

“Each shapely silver arm” receives

The lancet keen;

E’en warriors trembling raise their sleeves

For thee, Vaccine.

“Let me go over your good gifts,”

That plain are seen;

Thou sav’st the face from scars and rifts,

Clear-browed Vaccine.

Belovèd maid of many charms,

Calm and serene,

Fondly we take thee in our arms,

Lovely Vaccine!

Virtue of inoculation,

To try we mean;

We’re now a humour-us nation,

You’ll own, Vaccine.

Doctors, like ancient knights again,

With lances keen,

Daily go “pricking o’er the plain,”

With thee, Vaccine.

It would have gladdened Jenner’s heart,

Could he have seen

Such thousands suffering from the smart

Of thee, Vaccine.

And Jenner-ations yet to be

Seen on life’s scene,

Shall pæans sing in praise of thee,

Saving Vaccine!

The Day’s Doings. March 4, 1871.

——:o:——

La Belle Dame Sans Merci
(A.D. 1875).

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

Alone, and idly loitering?

The season’s o’er—at operas

No “stars” now sing.

Oh, what can ail thee, seedy swell,

So moody! in the dumps so down?

Why linger here when all the world

Is “out of town?”

I see black care upon thy brow,

Tell me, are I.O.U.’s now due?

And in thy pouch, I fear thy purse

Is empty, too.

“I met a lady at a ball,

Full beautiful—a fairy bright;

Her hair was golden (dyed, I find!)

Struck by the sight—

“I gazed, and long’d to know her then:

So I entreated the M.C.

To introduce me—and he did!

Sad hour for me.

“We paced the mazy dance, and too,

We talked thro’ that sweet evening long,

And to her—it came to pass,

I breathed Love’s song.

“She promised me her lily hand,

She seemed particularly cool:

No warning voice then whispered low,

‘Thou art a fool!’

“Next day I found I lov’d her not,

And then she wept and sigh’d full sore,

Went to her lawyer, on the spot,

And talked it o’er

“She brought an action, too, for breach

Of promise—’tis the fashion—zounds!

The jury brought in damages

Five thousand pounds!

“And this is why I sojourn here

Alone, and idly loitering,

Tho’ all the season’s through and tho’

No ‘stars’ now sing!”

The Figaro. September 15, 1875.

——:o:——

A Song after Sunset.

The breeze o’er the bridge was a-blowing,

O’er wicked and wan Waterloo,

The busses buzzed, coming and going,

As busses will do.

Amid the cold coigns of the causeway.

I secretly, silently sat,

Aloof, out of laughter’s and law’s way,

Hard-holding my hat.

In crowds that seemed never to cease, men

Heaved, hurtled, home-hurried and howled,

While pestilent prigs of policemen,

Persistently prowled.

From pockets that penniless sounded

Two tickets I’d drearily drawn,

They prated of pledges impounded

In pitiless pawn.

They seemed with a cynical sorrow,

To sing the same sedulous strain:

“Pay up, and redeem us to-morrow,

Your watch and your chain!

We know you of old, sworn tormentor!

You thriver on thriftless and thief!

Spout-spider!—on spoiling intent, or

Rapacious relief!

Avuncular author of anguish,

We damn you with deepest disdain!

We linger, we long, and we languish

For freedom again.”

I smiled on the speakers unheeding,

I grinned at their garrulous games—

When the breeze blew them, splendidly speeding,

Right into the Thames.

They scattered, as seed that is sown, or

The fringe of the fast flowing foam,

And their hungry, hysterical owner

Went hopelessly home.

Judy. June, 16, 1880.

——:o:——

The Mad, Mad Muse.

Out on the margin of moonshine land,

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

Out where the whing-whang loves to stand,

Writing his name with his tail on the sand,

And wipes it out with his oogerish hand;

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Is it the gibber of gungs and keeks?

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs,

Or what is the sound the whing-whang seeks,

Crouching low by winding creeks,

And holding his breath for weeks and weeks?

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Anoint him the wealthiest of wealthy things!

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

’Tis a fair whing-whangess with phosphor rings,

And bridal jewels of fangs and stings,

And she sits and as sadly and softly sings;

Is the mildewed whir of her own dead wings;

Tickle me, dear; tickle me here;

Tickle me, love, in these lonesome ribs.

Robert J. Burdette.

From S. Thompson’s Collection of Poems. Chicago. 1886.

Studies in Exotic Verse.

A Ballade of the Nurserie.

(After Mr. Swinburne’s “Dreamland.”)

She hid herself in the soirée kettle

Out of her Ma’s way, wise wee maid!

Wan was her lip as the lily’s petal,

Sad was the smile that over it played.

Why doth she warble not? Is she afraid

Of the hound that howls, or the moaning mole?

Can it be on an errand she hath delayed?

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul!

The nightingale sings to the nodding nettle

In the gloom o’ the gloaming athwart the glade:

The zephyr sighs soft on Popòcatapètl,

And Auster is taking it cool in the shade:

Sing, hey for a gutta serenade!

Not mine to stir up a storied pole,

No noses snip with a bluggy blade—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul?

Shall I bribe with a store of minted metal?

With Everton toffee thee persuade?

That thou in a kettle thyself should’st settle,

When grandly and gaudily all arrayed!

Thy flounces ’ill foul and fangles fade.

Come out, and Algernon Charles ’ill roll

Thee safe and snug in Plutonian plaid—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul.

Envoi.

When nap is none and raiment frayed,

And winter crowns the puddered poll,

A kettle sings ane soote ballade—

Hush thee, hush thee, dear little soul.

John Twig.

——:o:——

On Marriage with a Deceased Wife’s Sister.

O blood-bitten lip all aflame,

O Dolores and also Faustine,

O aunts of the world worried shame,

Lo your hair with its amorous sheen

Meshes man in its tangles of gold;

O aunts of the tremulous thrill,

We are pining—we long to enfold

The Deceased Wife’s Fair Relative Bill.

G. R. Sims.

——:o:——

A Parody.

If it be but a dream or a vision,

The life which is after the grave,

The moil of the metaphysician

Is vain,—but an answer I crave,

Amid bright intellectual flambeaux

I shall find no light clearer than thee,

O sable and sensual Sambo,

The servant of me!

I beheld thee beholding the ballet,

Dumps doleful display’d deep despair,

Thou didst think of thine own land, my valet,

The land in which nought thou didst wear.

*  *  *  *  *

O statue, us Philistines loathing,

Of Phœbus!—our tailors we fear,

Come down, and redeem us from clothing,

O nude Belvidere!

We are wise—and we make ourselves hazy,

We are foolish—and, so, go to church;

While Sambo but laughs, and is lazy,

(Vile Discipline! lend me thy birch);

He dreams of no life save the present,

His virtue is but when it suits;

Sometimes, which is not quite so pleasant,

I miss coat or boots.

Anonymous.

Once a Week. January 16, 1869.

——:o:——

Gillian.

Jacke and Jille

I have made me an end of the moods of maidens,

I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love;

From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens,

The woes that madden, the words that move.

In the dim last days of a spent September,

When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain;

Before you forget, and while I remember,

I cry as I shall cry never again.

Went up a hylle

Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels

Of misty meadows, and streams that stray;

We raised us at eve from our rosy revels,

With faces aflame for the death of the day;

With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver,

Low lids that cling to the last of love:

We left the levels, we left the river,

And turned us and toiled to the air above.

to fetch a paile of water,

By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow,

The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips—

Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk to-morrow—

The wells of lethe for wearied lips.

With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter,

With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray,

We bowed us and bent to the white well-water,

We dipped and we drank it and bore away.

Jacke felle downe

The low light trembled on languid lashes,

The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown,

Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes,

As night’s dim net on the day was thrown.

What was it meant for, or made for, that minute,

But that our lives in delight should be dipt?

Was it yours, or my fault, or fate’s, that in it

Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt?

And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after.

Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder,

Love from our limbs as a shift was shed,

But paused a moment, to watch with wonder

The pale pained body, the bursten head.

While our sad souls still with regrets are riven,

While the blood burns bright on our bruisèd brows,

I have set you free, and I stand forgiven—

And now I had better go and call my cows.

From a scarce little pamphlet entitled “Poems and Parodies, by Two Undergrads.” Oxford. B. H. Blackwell, 1880. Price one shilling.

How Jack Harris became Æsthetic.

Ye Muses nine that in Arcadia dwell,

Quit Pindus and the cold Castalian well,

And me your lowliest follower inspire

With such clear flame as long ago did fire

The mighty lips of Blackstone; so may I,

A feeble trump of truth that cannot die,

Clearly proclaim and on the roll of fame

Inscribe, however humbly, my poor name.

Jack Harris before his Conversion.

Come down to me, cling to me, lay thy red lips on me, love,

Let me drown in thy bountiful beauty, O glorious consecrate dove,

Made fit for the vigil of Venus, made fair by the Cyprian dame,

Made fair in the form of a maiden, a medley of music and flame;

For the world grows giddy around us, and swoons, and the pale souls preach

Poor fables of sorrow and virtue, and all that the grey gods teach,

But we clasp and we bite and we madden, and I worship your throat and your hair.

We have strayed in the cold sea places, we have laughed on the altar stair,

We have eaten and drunken of love, and the lesson of living is this,

That the high sky bends above us, and life is a curse and a kiss.

Make me glad, O thou rare hand-maiden, with the sound of thy passionate sighs,

While I sing of thy body’s white beauty and live in the light of thine eyes,

For save me there’s no man living made worthy to utter thy praise,

Who art come as new moon to our night-tide, new sun toour days.

Jack Harris after his Conversion.

From an article by Mr. Justin H. McCarthy, which appeared in Belgravia (London). March, 1880.

——:o:——

The Lay of Macaroni.

As a wave that steals when the winds are stormy

From creek to cove of the curving shore,

Buffeted, blown, and broken before me,

Scattered and spread to its sunlit core:

As a dove that dips in the dark of maples

To sip the sweetness of shelter and shade,

I kneel in thy nimbus, O noon of Naples,

I bathe in thine beauty, by thee embayed.

What is it ails me that I should sing of her?

The queen of the flashes and flames that were!

Yea, I have felt the shuddering sting of her,

The flower-sweet throat and the hands of her!

I have swayed and sung to the sound of her psalters,

I have danced her dances of dizzy delight,

I have hallowed mine hair to the horns of her altars,

Between the nightingale’s song and the night!

What is it, Queen, that now I should do for thee?

What is it now I should ask at thine hands?

Blow of the trumpets thine children once blew for thee?

Break from thine feet and thine bosom the bands?

Nay, as sweet as the songs of Leone Leoni,

And gay as her garments of gem-sprinkled gold,

She gives me mellifluous, mild macaroni,

The choice of her children when cheeses are old!

And over me hover, as if by the wings of it,

Frayed in the furnace by flame that is fleet,

The curious coils and the strenuous strings of it,

Dropping, diminishing down, as I eat:

Lo! and the beautiful Queen, as she brings of it,

Lifts me the links of the limitless chain,

Bidding mine mouth chant the splendidest things of it,

Out of the wealth of my wonderful brain!

Behold! I have done it: my stomach is smitten

With sweets of the surfeit her hands have unrolled.

Italia, mine cheeks with thine kisses are bitten:

I am broken with beauty, stabbed, slaughtered, and sold!

No man of thy millions is more macaronied,

Save mighty Mazzini, than musical Me:

The souls of the Ages shall stand as astonied,

And faint in the flame I am fanning for thee!

From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor.

——:o:——

BALLAD OF DREAMLAND.

I.

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,

Out of the sun’s way, hidden apart;

In a softer bed than the soft white snow’s is,

Under the roses I hid my heart.

Why should it sleep not? why should it start,

When never a leaf of the rose tree stirred?

What made sleep flutter his wings and part?

Only the song of a secret bird.

*  *  *  *  *

III.

The green land’s name that a charm encloses,

It never was writ in the traveller’s chart,

And sweet as the fruit on its tree that grows is,

It never was sold in the merchants’ mart.

The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,

And sleep’s are the tunes in its tree tops heard;

No hound’s note wakens the wild wood hart,

Only the song of a secret bird.

*  *  *  *  *

A. C. Swinburne.

---

A Ballad of after Dinner.

A Month after Swinburne.

I hid my head in a rug from Moses,

From the clatter of moving dishes apart,

And curled up my feet for forty dozes,

Just for to soothe my beating heart.

Why did it sleep not? Why did it start,

When never a dish remained to shock?

What made the fluttering doze depart?

Only the tick of an eight day clock.

Be still, I said, for hope pre-supposes

A still mild mood for the sleep-slain hart;

Be still, for the wind, with its curled-up toes, is

Silent and quieter yet than thou art.

Doth a wound in thee deep as a thorn’s wound smart?

Dost thou fretfully languish for Clicquot and hock?

What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart;

Only the tick of an eight-day clock.

I wait in vain for the charm that encloses

The green land of dreams in sleep’s mystical chart,

For the fruit of its trees and the breath of its roses,

More sweet than are sold in the merchants’ mart.

So close to its border, why fails my heart?

What holdeth it back, tho’ my dim brain rock?

Without, the noise of the nightman’s cart,

Within, the tick of an eight-day clock.

Envoi.

Erewhile in hope I had chosen my part,

To sleep for a season as sound as a block,

With never a thought of a nightman’s cart,

Or the hateful tick of an eight-day clock.

---

A Ballad of Dreamland.

The sorest stress of the Season’s over;

Out of it’s crush I am lying alone,

My face to the sky, and my back in the clover.

Hark to that lark! Its jubilant tone

Is a cheery change from St. Stephen’s drone;

And ah! that whift from the wind-swept brine!

With nought to do but absorb ozone—

Should there be ballad more blythe than mine?

Song of a haven-welcoming lover!

Rare rose-scents from our garden blown

Reach me here, and my eyes discover,

Shimmering there, in a tangle thrown,

Sunny locks. “She is coming, my own!”

The green bowers sever, her blue eyes shine.

Sweet love nearing, sore labour flown,—

Should there be ballad more blythe than mine?

What to me though weariness hover

Still o’er Town where the toilers groan?

Lazy lounger, leisurely lover,

What care I for the Members’ moan

At the Irish incubus, heavy as stone?

For Biggar’s bullying, Whalley’s whine?

Peace unchequered, and care unknown,

Should there be ballad more blithe than mine?

Envoi.

Eh! What! Drowsing? A dream? Ochone!

St. Patrick’s curse on those Irish swine,

Who have burst the bubble by slumber blown,

And broken a ballad so blithe as mine!

Punch. August 11, 1877.

——:o:——

The following parody appeared in The Tomahawk (London) on the occasion of a visit paid by Ada Isaacs Menken to M. Alexandre Dumas, in Paris. “Miss Menken,” who was really the wife of John C. Heenan the pugilist, will be best remembered for her appearance (in very scanty attire) as “Mazeppa,” at Astley’s Theatre. She had a fine stage appearance, but was a very indifferent actress. She published a small volume of poems, entitled Infelicia, which is now eagerly sought after by collectors, because it contains an introduction written by Charles Dickens.

To Ada.

So must the sinewy Centaur snort and rear,

As some sweet maiden-mare trots wickedly

Across his pagan path, burning his very heart;

Flicking the flies from off her heaving flanks,

The amorous flies who fill their lips with blood;

And while his life-blood riots in his hocks,

She spreads her cunning heels and whisks her tail;

Then kicks the bitter sand into his eyes,

Still gazing smarting on the supple form—

For I have felt a joy new-born to pain!

For I have seen that silken syren glide

Across the desert, hight old Astley’s Fane.

My breast could hardly flutter as she came

Bare-backed before my timorous sight; my nails

Curved inward to my palms, and such a sweet

Soft tremor crept around my nervous knees.

I swooned but for the kindly guardian of the box,

Who brought me welcome water at my wish,

And damped my throbbing temples.

On my bed

I rolled and rioted in frenzied fret,

For turn howe’er I would, upon the walls,

Across the sheets, the beauteous Ada rode,

Scenting the air with black-head clustering hair,

Loading the senses with soft-thrilling sighs;

While through the rosy lips pale pearls of teeth

Flashed hungrily. Strapped to her showy steed,

She bites her charger in the side, till lips

Run red with the brave beast’s blood; and as the sting

Of her small fangs urges his wild career,

So this hot flame that chars me to the bones,

Spreads out the fire of jealousy, and cries,

Mazeppa flies across the sea to greet

Great Athos-Porthos-Aramis.

——:o:——

On [page 9], an imitation of Mr. Swinburne’s style written by Mr. Walter Parke, was given; the following, which is a parody of Dolores, appears in “Lays of the Saintly,” (London, Vizetelly & Co.), a clever work written by the same gentleman:—

St. Simeon Stylites.

*  *  *  *  *

Talking of bards, one day a pagan poet

Approach’d the pillar, and began to sing;

The blessed Simeon could not choose but know it,

So high the minstrel pitch’d his voice and string.

This bard was Greek in sentiment and style;

A Venus-worshipper—profuse of curses

On those who deem’d his ethics loose and vile:

I give you a translation of his verses:—

Stylites.

“Closed eyelids that hide like a shutter,

Hard eyes that have visions apart,

The grisly gaunt limbs, and the utter

And deadly abstraction of heart;

Whence all that is joyous and bright is

Expell’d as both vicious and vain

O, stony and stolid Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“There can be but warfare between us,

For thine is a spiritual creed,

And mine is the worship of Venus,

On “raptures and roses” I feed;

Self-torture’s thine only employment,

We both feel the bliss and the bane,

For woe will oft spring from enjoyment,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“Can joys be of Martyrdom’s giving?

Men seek them, and change at a breath

The leisures and labours of living,

For the ravings and rackings of death:

To stand all alone on that height is

An action unsought and insane,

O, moveless and morbid Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“There are those who still offer to Bacchus,

There are men who Love’s goddess still own,

What right have new faiths to attack us?

And why are our shrines overthrown?

There are poets, inspired by Castalia,

Whose lyres have Anacreon’s strain,

Whose lives are one long saturnalia,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“We sing of voluptuous blisses,

Of all that thy rigour would spurn,

Of “biting” and “ravenous” kisses,

Of bosoms that beat and that burn;

To all that is earthy and carnal,

Our votaries’ souls we would chain,

We breathe of the chamber and charnel

Our Patron of Pain!”

“Oho! for the days of sweet vices,

The glory of goddess and Greek!

(For all that most naughty and nice is

Most purely and surely antique).

Oho! for the days when Endymion

Thro’ love o’er Diana did reign!

These, these were Elysian, St. Simeon,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“We’ll crown us with myrtle and laurel,

We’ll wreathe us in Paphian flowers,

To be and make others immoral,

We’ll ply our poetical powers;

Our worship shall be Aphrodite’s,

To woman the wine we will drain,

O, loveless and lonely Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

“By the hunger thine abstinence causes,

By the thirst of unbearable heat,

By thy pray’rs which have very few pauses,

By thy lodging devoid of a seat,

By sleep that so meagre at night is,

’Twere better awake to remain,

Come down from thy pillar, Stylites,

Our Patron of Pain!”

The holy man, it need not be remark’d,

Turn’d as deaf ear to such lascivious singing

As when a serpent hiss’d or wild dog barked,

Or raven croak’d around his column winging;

Immovable in body as in mind,

He bore his life’s insufferable tedium,

Ft seems a pity that he could not find

’Twixt vice and virtue’s height some “happy medium.”

——:o:——

In 1872, the late Mr. Mortimer Collins published “The British Birds, a communication from the Ghost of Aristophanes.” Extracts from this very clever satire are still often quoted. The following passages contain parodies of A. C. Swinburne, Robert Browning, and Alfred Tennyson, whose identities are thinly veiled under the names of Brow, Beard, and Hair.

Scene. In the Clouds.

Peisthetairus, discovered.

(Enter three Poets, all handsome. One hath redundant hair, a second redundant beard, a third redundant brow. They present a letter of introduction from an eminent London publisher, stating that they are candidates for the important post of Poet Laureate to the New Municipality which the Birds are about to create.)

Peisthetairus. Gentlemen:

Happy to see you in the Realms of Air

As yet the worthy Mayor and Aldermen

And Councillors of the Town have not decided

Whether they want a Poet Laureate.

But, if ’twill ease your minds to sing a little,

I’ll try and listen. As my memory

Fails me entirely in regard to names,

Let me without the least discourtesy

Name you by your appearance. Amorous Naso

Was named from his chief feature. So I beg

To call you Hair, and Beard, and Brow.

The three Poets. Agreed.

Euelpides.

For this delightful tourney of rhyme I hunger:

Who’s to begin, my master?

Peisthetairus. Why, the younger.

For the topic—as ’tis tropic

Heat at present—perhaps ’twere pleasant

If each Paladin

His ballad in

Put salad in.

But there must be no single metre, please

That’s not allowed by Dr. Guest, of Caius,

Brow. (Swinburne.)

“O cool in the summer is salad,

And warm in the winter is love;

And a poet shall sing you a ballad

Delicious thereon and thereof.

A singer am I, if no sinner,

My Muse has a marvellous wing,

And I willingly worship at dinner

The Sirens of Spring.

Take endive—like love it is bitter;

Take beet—for like love it is red;

Crisp leaf of the lettuce shall glitter,

And cress from the rivulet’s bed:

Anchovies foam-born, like the lady

Whose beauty has maddened this bard,

And olives, from groves that are shady;

And eggs—boil ’em hard.”

Beard. (Browning.)

Waitress, with eyes so marvellous black,

And the blackest possible lustrous gay tress,

This is the month of the Zodiac

When I want a pretty deft-handed waitress.

Bring a china-bowl, you merry young soul;

Bring anything green, from worsted to celery;

Bring pure olive-oil from Italy’s soil—

Then your china-bowl we’ll well array.

When the time arrives chip choicest chives,

And administer quietly chili and capsicum—

Young girls do not quite know what’s what

’Till as a Poet into their laps I come).

Then a lobster fresh as fresh can be

(When it screams in the pot I feel a murderer);

After which I fancy we

Shall want a few bottles of Heidsieck or Roederer.

Hair. (Tennyson.)

King Arthur, growing very tired indeed

Of wild Tintagel, now that Launcelot

Had gone to Jersey or to Jericho,

And there was nobody to make a rhyme,

And Cornish girls were christened Jennifer,

And the Round Table had grown rickety,

Said unto Merlin (who had been asleep

For a few centuries in Broceliande,

But woke, and had a bath, and felt refreshed):

“What shall I do to pull myself together?”

Quoth Merlin, “Salad is the very thing,

And you can get it at the Cheshire Cheese”

King Arthur went there; verily, I believe

That he has dined there every day since then.

Have you not marked the portly gentleman

In his cool corner, with his plate of greens?

The great knight Launcelot prefers the Cock,

Where port is excellent (in pints), and waiters

Are portlier than kings, and steaks are tender,

And poets have been known to meditate—

Ox-fed orating ominous ostasticks.

*  *  *  *  *

The first edition of The British Birds soon went out of print, and became very scarce. But in December, 1885, Mrs. Mortimer Collins wrote a letter to the editor of Parodies, which has now a melancholy interest:—“I believe copies of British Birds can still be had at Mr. Bentley’s, as I brought out a second edition there some eight years ago. Yes, there are some parodies of Swinburne, Tennyson and Browning. But the best known bits of the book are not parodies, unless you call the whole book a parody of Aristophanes.

“The ‘Positivists’ is the most famous piece in the book, containing the lines:—

“There was an Ape in the days that were earlier;

Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier;

Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist—

Then he was Man, and a Positivist.”

“and ‘Skymaking’ is another oft quoted bit. I thought, perhaps, that you had written parodies on these; though it seemed unlikely, because satiric verse does not lend itself to parody. I am always interested in anything connected with my husband’s works, because I truly believe in his genius. I may perhaps be somewhat partial in my judgment, for Mortimer was a more brilliant talker than writer. Day after day I enjoyed his wit, and I used to be so sorry there were not more to hear it: but he was quite content with his audience of one.

“My husband has written many parodies. If you would like to quote them I can refer you to them.”

But this kind offer of assistance was not to be fulfilled, for Mrs. Collins complained at the end of the letter of her failing strength, and in less than three months she passed away.

——:o:——

A MATCH.

(Matched.)

If I were Anglo-Saxon,

And you were Japanese,

We’d study storks together,

Pluck out the peacock’s feather

And lean our languid backs on

The stiffest of settees;

If I were Anglo-Saxon,

And you were Japanese.

If you were Della-Cruscan,

And I were A.-Mooresque,

We’d make our limbs look less in

Artistic folds, and dress in

What once were tunics Tuscan

In Dante’s days grotesque;

If you were Della-Cruscan,

And I were A.-Mooresque.

If I were mock Pompeian,

And you Belgravian Greek,

We’d glide ’mid gaping Vandals

In shapeless sheets and sandals,

Like shades in Tartarean

Dim ways remote and bleak;

If I were mock Pompeian,

And you Belgravian Greek.

If you were Culture’s scarecrow,

And I the guy of Art

I’d learn in latest phrases

Of either’s quaintest crazes

To lisp, and let my hair grow,

While yours you’d cease to part;

If you were Culture’s scarecrow,

And I the guy of Art.

If I’d a Botticelli,

And you’d a new Burne-Jones,

We’d doat for days and days on

Their mystic hues, and gaze on

With lowering looks that felly

We’d fix upon their tones;

If I’d a Botticelli,

And you’d a new Burne-Jones.

If you were skilled at crewels,

And I, a dab at rhymes,

I’d write delirious “ballads,”

While you your bilious salads

Where stitching upon two ells

Of coarsest crass, at times;

If you were skilled at crewels,

And I, a dab at rhymes.

If I were what’s “consummate,”

And you were quite “too too,”

’Twould be our Eldorado

To have a yellow dado,

Our happiness to hum at

A teapot tinted blue;

If I were what’s “consummate,”

And you were quite “too too.”

If you were what “intense” is,

And I were like “decay,”

We’d mutely muse or mutter

In terms distinctly utter,

And find out what the sense is

Of this Æsthetic lay;

If you were what “intense” is,

And I were like “decay.”

If you were wan, my lady,

And I, your lover, weird,

We’d sit and wink for hours

At languid lily-flowers,

Till, fain of all things fady,

We faintly—disappeared!

If you were wan, my lady,

And I, your lover, weird.

This Parody appeared in Punch, (June 18, 1881), at the time when the Æsthetic revival in art and literature was the subject of much undeserved ridicule, because of the absurd extent to which it was carried by a few senseless fanatics.

——:o:——

Between the Sunset and the Sea.

An American Imitation.

Between the gate post and the gate

I lingered with my love till late;

And what cared I for time of night

Till wakened by the watch dogs bite,

And thud of leathering boxtoed fate

Between the gate post and the gate.

Between the seaside and the sea

I kissed my love and she kissed me;

But rapturous day was grewsome night

And what is love but bloom and blight?

And what is kiss of mine to thee

Between the seaside and the sea.

Between the sunshine and the sun

I saw a face that hinted fun;

But what is fun and what is face

When driven at life’s killing pace?

I simply say that I have none

Between the sunshade and the sun.

Between the bumble and the bee

Full many a soul has had to flee;

And what is love may I inquire

When asked to build the kitchen fire?

Or who would not leap in the sea

Between the bumble and the bee.

Between the tea store and the tea

There is a wide immensity;

A dollar twenty five a pound

And not a nickel to be found;

Then what has fate in store for thee

Between the tea store and the tea.

R. W. Answell.

——:o:——

A Song after Sunset.

(Being a Word from the Hanley Dog
by the Cynic Poet Laureate,
Alg-rn-n Sw-nb-rne.)

Lo, from my Black Country flung for thee,

Raving, red-eyed, scarred and seared;

To a bran-new sensation tune sung for thee,

With red lips, white teeth, underhung for thee,

Beauty begrimed and blood-smeared!

Vice-jawed, retractile, snub-snouted—

Tushes for fists swift to smite;

Round by round felled but not routed,

Rare of bark, bitter of bite!

If with grapplings and pluckings asunder—

If with throat-thirst for worry unslaked—

If with rush on growl, flash on low thunder—

Knocked over, but ne’er knocking under—

With cash on me lavishly staked—

If eye against eye glimly glaring,

Biped Brummy could quadruped scan,

Ring and chain with me, blood with me, sharing,—

Say which was brute, which was man?

*  *  *  *  *

Punch. August 1, 1874.

——:o:——

The following is a parody of another favourite metre of Mr. Swinburne, which has been sent in, unfortunately without any information as to when and where it originally appeared:—

April Showers.

Oh, April showers

Are good for flowers,

And fill the bowers

With perfumes rare;

But twinge erratic,

And pang rheumatic

And not ecstatic

Do they prepare!

And though the leanness

And arid meanness

Of lawns with greenness

They hide and clothe;

They, past disputing,

Set corns a-shooting,

Which makes your booting

A thing to loathe!

And of the Future

Although they suit your

Bright dreams, compute you’re

The Past’s sad prey;

The while you yell a

Vain ritornello

For that umbrella

That’s stolen away!

——:o:——

In 1880, Messrs. Chatto and Windus, of Piccadilly, published an anonymous volume of Poems, entitled “The Heptalogia, or the seven against sense, a cap with Seven Bells.” In this there are parodies of Robert Browning, Tennyson, Coventry Patmore, and others, but it is more than doubtful whether the general public appreciated the sarcasm of these clever skits. Amongst reading men much curiosity was felt as to the author, but in answer to enquiries on the subject, the publishers replied they were not at liberty to mention the author’s name. Eventually public opinion assigned the work to Mr. Swinburne, although it contains an exquisite parody on his own style, entitled Nephelidia. This is a charming specimen of rhythmical, musical nonsense. A few of the opening lines may be quoted, without injury to themselves, or to the rest of the poem, as the conclusion is perfectly irrelevant to the beginning, or to anything else:—

Nephelidia.

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,

Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,

Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine,

These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat?

Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s appalled agitation,

Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past;

Flushed with the famishing fullness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation,

Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?

Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror,

Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:

Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,

Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude’s breath.

Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses

Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh;

Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses—

‘Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die.’

Another parody, which was generally attributed to Mr. Swinburne, appeared in The Fortnightly Review for December, 1881. It was entitled “Disgust; a Dramatic Monologue,” and was a parody of Tennyson’s “Despair, a Dramatic Monologue” published in The Nineteenth Century, November, 1881.

The original poem contained arguments of a most unpleasant and absurd description, these were ably ridiculed in the burlesque, which will be found on page 184, Volume 1, of this collection.

The following parody was also printed with the initials “A. C. S.,” but clever as it is, few would venture to assert that it was actually written by Mr. Swinburne.

The Toper’s Lament.

Oh, my memory lovingly lingers

Around the sweet sound of thy name,

And the spell of those magical fingers

That kindled my heart into flame;

But the joy that I think on no more is,

And my throat feels an ominous lump,

As I muse o’er the wreck of thy glories,

Thou Magpie and Stump!

For day after day have I sought thee,

As flowers are sought by the gale;

And night after night have I brought thee

A lip for thine exquisite ale.

Thy portals have welcomed me ever,

Mine hostess was pleasant and plump,

And her handmaids attentive and clever,

O Magpie and Stump!

Did I rage with the thirst of a Hector

(A thirst that she nimbly foresaw)

For a cup of thy ravishing nectar,

Who drew it as Nancy could draw?

While for grilling a steak that was juicy,

Or a chop that was chopped from the chump,

Had’st thou ever an equal to Lucy,

My Magpie and Stump?

Ah! thy votaries flocked beyond number,

And worshipped full oft at thy shrine;

And we poured forth libations to slumber,

And we censed with tobacco divine;

And then haply some bibulous fellow

Would fall to the floor with a bump—

For thy potions were potently mellow,

Our Magpie and Stump.

But I rave—for the past of my pleasure

Has left me a little intense,

And the lolloping lilt of my measure

Is stronger in sound than in sense.

Yet an ecstasy must have its morrow,

And an ace may succumb to a trump;

So my spirit is sunken in sorrow,

Dear Magpie and Stump.

Farewell! nevermore shall thy chalice

Of barleycorn bubble for me;

They have altered thee into a palace

Devoted to coffee and tea.

Thy courts are now trod by the teacher,

Thy fountains the cow and the pump,

And thy priest is a temperance preacher,

Poor Magpie and Stump!

Farewell! But if e’er in the distance

Of time that we cannot foresee,

Thou return to thy pristine existence—

For I cannot, alas! come to thee!

As the prodigal found from his father

Forgiveness, again shalt thou jump

To the height of my patronage—rather!

Rare Magpie and Stump!

A. C. S.

St. James’s Gazette. March 19, 1881.

——:o:——

Song of the Springtide.

O Season supposed of all free flowers,

Made lovely by light of the sun,

Of garden, of field, and of tree-flowers,

Thy singers are surely in fun!

Or what is it wholly unsettles

Thy sequence of shower and shine,

And maketh thy pushings and petals

To shrivel and pine?

Why is it that o’er the wild waters

That beastly North-Easter still blows,

Dust-dimming the eyes of our daughters,

Blue-nipping each nice little nose?

Why is it these sea-skirted islands

Are plagued with perpetual chills,

Driving men to Italian or Nile-lands

From Albion’s ills?

Happy he, O Springtide, who hath found thee,

All sunlit, in luckier lands,

With thy garment of greenery round thee,

And belted with blossomy bands.

From us by the blast thou art drifted.

All brag of thy beauties is bosh;

When the songs of thy singers are sifted,

They simply won’t wash.

*  *  *  *  *

What lunatic lune, what vain vision,

Thy laureate, Springtide, may move

To sing thee—oh, bitter derision!—

As season of laughter and love?

You make a man mad beyond measure,

O Spring, and thy lauders like thee:

Thy flowers, thy pastimes and pleasures,

Are fiddlededee!

Punch. May 22, 1880.

——:o:——

Swinburnism.

I trow, wild friends, God’s soul wots well by rote

My sweet soft strains and lovely lays of love,

And all the white ways of her sweet sharp throat,

Which, not right yet, I have waxed weary of.

*  *  *  *  *

I never left off kissing her, I well think,

But wrapped in rich red raiment of her hair,

Kissed her all day, till her lips parch’d for drink

As the parch’d often lips of a flute-player.

No maid of a king’s blood, but held right high

In God’s sharp sight, from whom no things are hid.

“You must not tell,” she sighed and turned to cry.

“That I should tell your mother, God forbid!”

Said so I kept my word, I never told her

You drink pure water? I, sir, I drink wine!

Your cool clear brain must needs yield verse-water,

But, sweet strong drunken maniac music, mine.

S. K. Cowan.

From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

---

A Valentine.

Ah, Love! if love lie still betwixt us twain,

Through all these years—yea, love, before love wane

Lift up thine eyes and slay me; the desire

Of death consumes me, like the sun-god’s fire.

Slay me, and kill me, dearest, deal me death.

Lo! I will murmur with my latest breath,

Laying this lily at thy gracious feet,

How precious, nay, how utter art thou, sweet.

J. M. Lowry.

---

Swinburnese.

Also thine eyes were mild as a lowlit flame of fire,

When thou wovest the web whereof wiles were the woof and the warp was my heart.

Why left’st thou the fertile field whence thou reapedst the fruit of desire?

For the change of the face of thy colour I know thee not whence thou art!

Alas for the going of swiftness, for the feet of the running of thee,

When thou wentest among the swords, and the shoutings of Captain’s made shrill!

Woe is me for the pleasant places! yea, one shall say of thy glee,

“It is not,” and as for delight the feet of thy dancing are still.

Translation.

Where are those eyes that were so mild

When of my heart you me beguiled?

Why did you skedaddle from me and the child?

O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

Where are those legs with which you run

When first you went to shoulder the gun?

Indeed, your dancing days are done—

O, Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

R. Y. Tyrrell.

From A Book of Jousts. London, Field and Tuer.

---

In The World Christmas Number, 1879, there was an exquisite satire on Mr. Burne Jones’s art entitled “The God and the Damosel”; it was accompanied by the following verses, and a prose criticism (too long to quote in full) written in imitation of the intensely Æsthetic jargon familiar to the frequenters of the Grosvenor Gallery. To fully appreciate the poem and the criticism, the burlesque picture by Mr. E. B. T. Burnt Bones should be seen, once seen it could never be forgotten.

The God and the Damosel.

By A. C. Sinburn.

THE GOD.

Look in my face, and know me who I am.

I smite and save; I bless, and, lo, I damn.

Incline thine head, thy browless brow incline;

I touch thee, and I tap thee, and proclaim,

For ever and for ever thou art mine!

O long as grief, and leaner than desire!

O sweet retreating breasts and amorous-kissing knees!

O grace and goodliness of strait attire!

A robe of them who sport in summer seas.

By these, and by the eyelids of thine eyes,

Ringed round with darkness, swollen weeper-wise,

By these I know thee; these are for a sign,

Surer, yea, even than thy most splendid size

Of spreaden hands: I know thee, thou art mine.

THE DAMOSEL.

Master and lord, I know thee who thou art;

Lo, and with homage of the stricken heart,

I hail thee, I adore thee, and obtest:

I am thine own, I know no better part;

Do with me, master, as thee seemeth best.

O loose as thought and bodiless as dream!

O globular grand eyes, a bane of maidenhood!

O miracle of tunic-folds, that seem

Self-balanced, firm, a glory of carven wood!

By these, and by the crown thy temples wear,

Holy, a cauline flower of wondrous hair;

By thy red mouth, a bow without a chord,

And shaftless, yea, but deadly, O most fair,

I knew thee, and I know thee for my lord!

THE GOD.

Ay, now the flicker of a nauseate smile

Bestirs thy cheek and wan lips imbecile;

Thy pale plucked blossom droops; its day is done.

THE DAMOSEL.

Nay, let me deck my bosom therewithal,

It were ill-ominous to let it fall,

The faithful mistress of Hyperion Sun.

THE GOD.

Stoop thou, what ails thee, child, to shudder? stoop and brush

Hair with tow-towzled hair, that for a space

I breathe my godhead through thy thirsting veins, and flush

The soft submalar hollows of thy face,

And thrill thee, crown to sole, till that in downward rush

Of eager ecstasy with fair flat feet thou crush

The beetle, Virtue, in the lowly place.

THE DAMOSEL.

Ah, master and lord, I feel it; the wind of thy fierce delight,

Hell-hot as the blast from the furnace, sea-cold as a gust of the sea.

O deaf blind Love, that art deaf as a poker and blind as the night!

O my flushed faint cheeks and my chin! O mine eye and the elbow of me!

I bow to thy might, O my lord, to the keen blown breath of thy lips,

With a loathing of love that longs, and a longing of love that loathes,

With shiver of angular shoulders, and shake of invisible hips,

As boweth the light slight stake in the torture of wind-whirled clothes!

Thou hast rent me enough, O Divine! … and behold, thou stayest thine hand,

And leavest me crushed as a reed, that I wot not whether I tread

Upon Earth, our holy old mother, with feet down-pressing, or stand

Inverse, in a fearless new fashion, uplift on my passionate head!

The Criticism.—“I have judged it good and helpful to prefix to my few words in appreciation of Mr. Bones’s noble picture this exquisite lyric of Mr. Sinburn’s. It may serve to a better understanding of the one master’s work to note in what wise it has inspired the other. The scene of Mr. Bones’s picture is a garden; the time, high noon. A damosel, tall and gracious, stands before us, clad, but ‘more expressed than hidden,’ in a robe of subtle tissue; which, loyal through three parts of its length to the lines of her sinuous figure, breaks loose round her finely-modelled knees into a riot of enchanting curves and folds; yet, withal, an orderly revolt, and obedient to its own higher law of rebellious grace. At her side stands the fatal Eros, the divine, the immortal, bow in hand, a glory of great light about his head. Behind him rise his outspread wings, which, by one of those eloquently significant touches whereof this painter possesses, one must think, the exclusive secret, are made to simulate the expanded tail of the bird of Heré. What he has here set down for us, in reporting of the lower limbs of this Immortal, he may well have noticed when he himself was last set down at his own house-door; since we see that for the knees of the young Eros of the ancients he has not disdained to study from the ancient Kab-os of the moderns. In the form of the maiden who bends towards him, quivering like a shot bird at the touch of his long lithe finger, we have another triumph of the master’s unique powers. The mere volume of her frame is, let us allow it, spare to the verge of the penurious; its curves are sudden to precipitancy, abrupt even to brusquerie; without being at all exaggerated, the charm of morbidezza is certainly insisted upon to the full limits of the admissible; but the charm is there, victorious and exultant, a voluptuousness not of the flesh, nor appealing thereto, yet a voluptuousness the more subtle and penetrating, perhaps, for that very reason. One sees that the burden of the great mystery has passed upon this woman; one sees it in the heavy-lidded eyes, in the chastened, even ascetic, lines of the face, and above all, in the thin, almost fleshless, figure consumed by inner fires, a conception only capable, perhaps, of being realised in the sympathetic imagination of a Burnt Bones. To the colour-harmonies of the whole picture I despair of doing justice. It may be remembered that I likened Mr. Bones’s last work to a cantata; this one is an oratorio, full of exquisitely tuneful fancies, grand instrumental combinations, profound contrapuntal erudition.”

---

Dream Poem a la Swinburne.

(After a Supper of Pork Chops.)

Soft is the smell of it, sweet the sad sound of it,

Mournfully mingled on yon mountain’s top,

Grateful, and green, and caressing the ground of it,

Calm as a calyx, and deep as a drop.

Ah! the enlivenment, dark as the distance!

Ah! the allurements that lavish and lave!

Is there no sound but the sun’s sweet insistance,

Night in the forest, and noon on the wave?

Fierce as a festival, fragrant and fading—

Grim as the grandeur that dreams of a day—

Is there no balm in Love’s lavish unlading,

Born in the brightness, and grieving, and gray?

Lo! in the glimmering, sweet Aphrodite,

Ghastly and gracious, and groaning and grave,

Brilliant in banishment, mournful and mighty,

Soft as the samite that sinks in the wave!

Light are the longings that listen and linger:

Ah! the sick kingdoms that grapple and groan

Red as Republics that point the far finger,

Or hail the horizon, aghast and alone.

Sinks in the distance the Dream and the Dreaming,

Leaves the wide world to its pining and pain;

From the great Universe, lo! in the gleaming,

Blazes the bandersnatch, faithless and fain!

——:o:——

Parody on a Poem in Mr. Swinburne’s
Tragedy “Erechtheus.”

I see the sad sorrow that hangs like a shadow

From ocean to ocean obscuring the light,

Till hamlet and farm upon mountain and meadow

Are blasted and bare with the blight.

O, Erin, to me as my mother,

O, Irishmen, each one a brother,

Whose wrongs are remembered to-day,

Whose tyrants their terrors betray;

O, Erin, the fairest outvying,

Quail not at their fearfullest frown;

Hear this that I breathe to thee dying,

O land of renown.

Though landlord and agent with breathings of slaughter

Unite to assail and oppress thee again,

Secure thou shalt stand in the midst of the water,

The hate of their hearts shall be vain.

For their power shall be past and made idle,

And their pride shall be checked with a bridle,

And the height of their heads bow down

At the loss of their rents and renown.

Be cherished and loved as I love thee,

Of all that to thee owe their breath;

Be thy life like the stars up above thee—

Now, come to me, death.

D. Evans.

The Weekly Dispatch. June 25, 1882.

---

Les Poetes s’amusent.

Swinburne chez Hugo.

The Banquet of the two distinct demigods is over. The dinner, a two-franc Palais Royal feast fit for Parnassus, came off last night; and I was there ready to watch and to wink at the matchless mouthfuls of the two mighty Masters. As these disappeared amidst rich rhythm and rhapsody, I stood in a corner, note-book in hand, mutely worshipful.

There was a hungry hush, the Elder Master had a message to deliver, and catching the reporter’s eye, did not halt or hesitate.

“What,” he asked, addressing the lady presiding at the bureau behind the little plated saucers of sugar, “what is Swinburne? Is he,” he proceeded, “a costermonger? No. What then. A sweep? You cannot be a sweep without singing a Song before Sunrise. But this Swinburne has written Chastelard. That sounds like Bacon. Is he then a philosopher? Yes, and No. Which? Never mind. But there is this remarkable thing about a philosopher: he produces fruits. Sometimes they are nuts to crack, and when Civilisation has a nut to crack it holds its jaw. This is a paradox, and suggests the question, ‘Am I Civilisation?’ To this there is an answer. It is again ‘No and Yes.’ Last time it was ‘Yes and No.’ Now it is ‘No and Yes.’ Why? Is there a reason for this? None. And when there is no reason for anything, it becomes a subject of reference. To whom? To the Marines: and you cannot refer a subject to the Marines without asking them a riddle. And this is the riddle that posterity will ask them: ‘What is Victor Hugo?’”

There was a pause; but in an instant the Younger Master had sprung on to a velvet fauteuil, and, thrumming the back of an entrée dish as an impromptu lyre, with a high-piped treble cry of “I’ll tell you,” had soon sufficiently and signally silenced the Elder with the following unsung and understudied Ode:—

“You are he who,—ere upon my noisome nurses

Large limbèd lap

I coughed my first shrieked shrill-throated choke of curses,

In pulp of pap,—

Rose in reek made rich of decomposing matter

Round kinglets curled,

To greet with white-soul’d yell of ‘Yah!—who’s your hatter?’

An out-wash’d world:

“You who, with a wind of words in thuds of thunder,

Of sense made hash;

Blind, yet bleating in the blaze of your own blunder

Whole yards of trash;

By your posing—your back somersaults of error

That no one fire,—

By the frenzy and the cry of loud-tongued terror

Your jokes inspire;

By the promise of your early dawn reversèd

Clean upside down,

By your curst cloy of Pantomime, and thrice accursèd

Cat-call for Clown;

“By the pasteboard heads that, beaten in in places,

Smile on in pain,

By sightless eyes and worsted hair, by large, mild faces,—

By Drury Lane;

By all frolic, freak and fooling, food for laughter,

Nor said nor sung,

When next on spouting bent—pity your hereafter,

And hold your tongue!”

*  *  *  *  *

Punch. December 2, 1882.

——:o:——

In 1883, Messrs. Chatto and Windus published a small quarto volume, entitled “A Century of Roundels,” by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Very soon afterwards, there was a parody competition on these little poems in The Weekly Dispatch, which published the following imitations on July 1, 1883.

The prize of two guineas was awarded to Mr. Henry William Hancock for:—

Far-fetched and Dear-bought!

Far-fetched and dear-bought, sure this volume of verse is,

Tho’ ever as clever in rhythm and thought;

And yet tho’ a master each roundel rehearses,

Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Tho’ perfect in beauty each ditty is wrought,

Monotony much admiration disperses;

Ye gods! a whole hundred! Is Swinburne distraught?

The appetite cloyed e’er with dainties far worse is

Than hunger that waits till one’s dinner is caught;

So this is my verdict condemning these verses—

Far-fetched and dear-bought!

Highly commended.

Ulysses.

What gain were mine if I should anchor cast

And soothe my senses with these songs divine

When I had wearied of the sweet repast,

What gain were mine?

Save for my skill, ye yet were Circe’s swine,

And barking Scylla safe I led you past—

And past Charybdis, ambushed in the brine.

Then faithful comrades bind, and bind me fast—

My lips are fain for kisses and for wine;

But so I fail of Ithaca at last,

What gain were mine?

Gossamer.

To Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Magician of song and of sound that enslaves the ear,

Subtle and sweet are the arts which to thee belong;

Varied thy chant as the lark’s which is heard so clear,

Magician of song.

Divine as the sound of billows that swell and throng

And crash with a music that gods might love to hear;

So gather thy waves of language rapid and strong,

Bursting in pæans of Love, and of Joy, and Fear,

Welcome thy strain as a bird’s the flowers among,

Welcome thy notes as blossoms that light the year,

Magician of song.

Apsley Roberts.

——:o:——

A Trio of Roundels.

I was born like other men,

And at last shall die.

Who will live for ever then?

Just a smile, a sigh,

Tears a few, a smile again,

Some endeavours high.

Who shines grander, truer, when

Placed in contrast by

Grunting swine or clucking hen?

Half-a-crown, that cannot last for ever,

Yet who is there takes it with a frown?

Who seeks not with passionate endeavour

Half-a-crown?

Who despises it, in all the town,

You shall find a human being never

From the tinselled monarch to the clown.

Let a man be dull of brain or clever,

Be his lot, or up in life or down,

Easily from him you shall not sever

Half-a-crown.

Around and about the singer his song disperses

He flings to the heavens a crashing mellifluous shout.

Vast harmonies mingled for ever of blessings and curses

Around and about.

In melody filling and thrilling his voice rings out

In strivings splendidly human. Better or worse is

The joy of the poor or the rich, of the lord or the lout;

What sirens ever sang sweeter? What wine of Circe’s,

More quickly dispelled the fumes of a priestly doubt,

Than this of the bay-crowned Man who is flinging his verses

Around and about?

St. James’s Gazette.

——:o:——

The New Jack Horner.

The pigmy and portative Horner,

Whom all men denominate Jack,

Against an approximate corner

Had set his exiguous back.

On his knee, formed of paste that was puffy,

Was a pie they for Yule-tide had made;

Into which his fat fingers to stuff he

No palpable moment delayed.

And his voice told of raptures and roses,

As, plucking a plum from that pie,

He cried (as the legend discloses),

“What a plump pie-ous urchin am I!”

Funny Folks Annual. 1884.

Christmas Mottoes.

(By Eminent Hands.)

Our Lady Champagne.

By A.C.S.

A Maiden makes moan, “Oh my motto

Lies lost with its love-litten lay:

’Twas something on ‘green in a grotto,’

And ‘sad seas were sweeter than spray.’”

O theme for the scorn of the scoffer,

I hear my own verses again,

And she ogles me well as I offer

My Lady—Champagne.

The Blooming Damozel.

By D.G.R.

The blooming damozel leaned o’er

The station bar at even,

And she was deeper than the depths

Of water at Lochleven;

She kept my change within her purse,

It came to one-and-seven.

The Volsung Tale.

By W.M.

Oh, fain for the wine was Sigurd, and wild were the songs he sang,

Like the words from the Halls of Music, for glamour was on his tongue,

And he dropped the sword of the Branstock, that trembled in his clutch,

And said Gudrun, “Son of the Volsungs, methinks thou has ta’en too much.”

Then up rose the King of Men-folk, and vowed he had drunk no ale;

And that was the story of Sigurd—lo!—that was the Volsung tale!

The Motto.

By R.B.

A Motto! Just a catch-word such as lies

Betwixt Imprimis and the colophon;

French mot, Italian motto: for the rest

Latin mutire. Body o’ me—the Greek

Gives muthos. So this poem I write and leave

To Jansenists, to lie i’ the brains o’ men,

I sell you for a lira, eight pence just,

Then home to Casa Guidi, by the Church.

And, British Public, ye who like me not,

I think i’ faith I’ve got the best of it!

——:o:——

MARCH: AN ODE.

Ere frost-flower and snow blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,

The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;

The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed.

Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade.

That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,

Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,

March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,

And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,

How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born.

So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness, whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?

Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow

As a lover’s that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn,

Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

*  *  *  *  *

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The Nineteenth Century. March, 1888.

---

Another Ode To March.

(Being a Counterblast to Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s rhythmical rhapsody in the “Nineteenth Century.” By one who has certainly “learned in suffering” what he endeavours to “teach in song.”)

Ere frost-slush and snow-slopping dried up and went, and the horrors of Winter had slid out of sight,

The ways of the wood pavement fouler were far than a clay-country lane on a mucky March night.

The breath of the month of the winds had stabbed us through top-coats and mufflers, and made us afraid.

Such bronchial bothers, such blossomy noses, such frostbitten fingers for man and for maid!

The sea was not lovelier then than the land, each appeared in a dismal and desolate plight;

But the Winter is not so much worse than the Spring-time; each plays up the mischief with pleasure and trade.

March, master of winds, is a flatulent fraud, a marshal of banes and a bringer of blight.

And now that the rage of your rhythmical rapture, your revel of rhyming has finished its flow,

Oh, incontinent Algernon Charles, what the dickens you mean by such rubbish I should like to know.

How, how can you love and rejoice, you, leader and lord of the lyrists of curses and scorn,

In a beast of a month that half drives one to madness, and makes a man wish he had never been born?

Have you shaken the snow from your shoes on a doormat, with frost have your nose and your lips been aglow?

Have you met a March wind coming sharp round a corner, your mackintosh drenched and your gingham all torn,

And tried to take breath in the nip of North-Easters? No, Algernon Charles, or you’d never talk so!

(Four verses omitted.)

The body is drenched one dismal moment, the next one’s skin is as dry as starch.

Its rains that chill us are most disgusting, and equally so are its gales that parch.

What! kindle mortals to love and laughter by lauding the beastliest winds that blow?

Arouse our fondness for wintry wetness, for choking dust or for blinding snow?

No, no, your lips are eloquent, Algernon, set in Apollo’s own genuine arch;

But neither the flame that fires your tropes, nor the fervour that setteth your figures aglow,

Shall gammon us into the fatuous folly of making a god of the wind of March!

Punch. March 17, 1888.

---

Lines a la Swinburne.

I sing of the months of the whirligig years that are fading far out of sight and of sound and of motionless mind;

Of the days without dreams and the dreams without days, and the days and the dreams and the dreams and the days grown silent and blind;

Gone mad with the vigor of spring and the blush of the radish new blown in the meadows far kissed by the lips of the Sound:

The maddest and gladdest and saddest and baddest and sweetest, completest and fleetest and neatest of days ever found.

I sing of them often in words that are winding, in adjectives blinding, in dactyles and trochees with cunning combined,

In lines that are long as a sentence of Evarts, in lines on the plan of the Washington Monument deftly designed;

With wildering fancy of words and of musical syllables weighted with little of thought and with much less of rhyme,

I cover ten pages a sitting with verse that has value in market, and readily getteth there every time.

And when the idea is the thinnest, new burst from the void of the infinite nothing, the zenith of space where the nebulous ether is pregnant with cobwebs of fancy bestrewn with the dew-drops of slush,

I build up long lines such as never a poet, who was not a crank on the subject of versification, built up for the purpose of drowning a suffering public with torrents of stupid and meaningless gibbering gush.

If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had made of the past and hereafter a single adorable season whose life was a rapture of love and of laughter for all of the maidens and lads,

I’d write you a poem with lines like the city of Rome, and with rhymes on beholders and shoulders; on measure and pleasure; on closes and roses; on sterile, imperil; remember, September; and hither and thither and whither; on slacken and bracken; on season and reason; defrauded, applauded; on dwindled, rekindled; on giving and living; on slumbers and numbers; beholden and golden; on glory and story and Morey; on wizard and gizzard and blizzard; on Blaine and on Maine; and each rhyme would be stuck on the end of a line just like this one I’m writing; and oh, and heyday, and yea, marry, they’d run about eight to the page, and they’d collar the scads.

Tricotrin.

Harper’s Monthly Magazine, June, 1888.

——:o:——

In Pictures at Play (London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1888), a picture by J. W. Waterhouse, A.R.A., is supposed to sing the following parody of the “Masque of Queen Bersabe”:—

I am the Lady of Shalott,

And if you say you love me not,

I shall reply, I wis,

That Bastien-Lepage has been

Much marked of Waterhouse, I ween,

And the result is—this!

The A.R.A. who painted me

Is young and popular, and free

To gratify his whim;

Where on a couch of pain I lay,

He came and called me up one day,

And bade me follow him.

In strange attire he vestured me,

Yea, in the silks of Liberty,

He set me thus afloat;

He bade me seem to have the shakes,

And ope my mouth as one that takes

A high and hopeless note.

And painting merely what he saw,

According to the last-found law

Of values and of tones,

He made me, much to my amaze,

A thing whereon the public gaze,

And mock me for the nones.

I am the Lady of Shalott

And if you tell me I am not,

I say but this one thing:

That here be “Values” rare and quaint,

A goodly “quality of paint,”

And “workmanlike hand-ling.”

I am the Lady of Shalott,

And, though you recognize me not,

Denied it may not be

That I am of the things right good,

Albeit scantly understood,

In this Acadamee.

——:o:——

Strophes from a
Song after Moonrise.

Strophe I.

I bowed my laurel’d head

Above my lyre and said:—

“What new song shall I sing across the strings?

Madden’d for whose new sake

What new noise shall I make?”

And I answered: “Lo, I will sing of no new things,

I will turn to her once more,

I have sung so oft before—

Freedom! and worship her, and curse some Kings.”

Set on her motherly knee,

Her nursing arms round me,

I will cling about her neck as a child clings,

Re-wounding with my kiss

Each scarce-healed cicatrice

Doing to her divers and disgusting things

Whilst in her ears my chaunt,

Re-risen and reboant,

Sounds as one sounds, who, being senseless, sings.

Strophe II.

On one cant name of many names I have chosen—

Freedom—lo, once again I call to thee;

By the cold earth’s iron-bound ends and oceans frozen,

By the rivers that run billowing to the sea,

By the lisp and laughter of spring in leafy places,

By the storms that follow and the calms that flee,

By the pale light flung in men’s funeral faces

From holocausts of kings we burn to thee;

By the seas that link us and the lands that sever

By the foes upon our weather-side and lee—

By all these things and all other things whatever,

We call, and howl, and squeak, and shriek to thee,

Calling thee early and late,

Wild, inarticulate,

Calling and bawling that thou set something free.

Strophe III.

But where is the something—a land

In the east or the uttermost west—

A land with a grievance, a curse?

I heed not her name or her place.

So shame on her brow be a brand,

So she have but a scourged white breast,

And a name that will scan in verse;

And I ask for the royal race,

For the land opprest.

But where shall I find her—where?

I mean the land with a wrong

Not already outworn

By those that have sung for her sake

For Byron and bards that were,

Were singing of Freedom long

Before I was thought of or born,

And they plucked all the plums from the cake

From the cake of song.

Strophe IV.

Ah, but would that I

Had been the first of these!

I would have drained them dry,

These themes of war and peace,

Nor have left one song to sing of Italy,

Nor a poet’s picking on the bones of Greece.

Then with flowers and fire,

And bitter foam and wine,

And fangs and fierce desire,

And things I call divine,

would nauseate so the world that no man’s lyre

Should again be struck to a note I had once made mine.

*  *  *  *  *

Epode.

I hung my laurel’d head,

Down on my lyre and said:

“What answer does my sovereign, Freedom, make?”

And in the air I heard

Not even a whisper’d word

From her for whom my very lungs do ache,

And as an addled egg is, is my brain:

Wherefore for her most royal and holy sake

I think I will behowl her once again.

“Hear me, O goddess! for it indeed is I

That call thee, at thy knees,

And don’t be frightened, please,

At the many things I shall adjure thee by.

Come to us, bright, in clear re-arisen ascendency,

Loosen o’er us all thine orient oriflamme!

By the power Mat Arnold calls: ‘A stream of tendency,’

By the Christianity we have proved a sham,

By the lowering name that darkened Hebrew story

We have turned to ‘Thou art not,’ that was once ‘I Am;’

We thy singers, we thy sons that work thee glory

With the unburnt offerings of our worthless verses

Heaped on thy shrine, adjure thee and adore thee:

I, the clamouring herd’s choragus, I implore thee:

By all the things that we bemire with curses—

That is, by all the holy things that are,

Rise and make manifest upon us thy mercies,

Rise o’er us all a large and lonely star.

For the night is now far spent: the air gives warning

With a dewy stir and chillness of the morning,

And the wan dark whitens on the eastern hill.

Burn through the east, grow large, and lighten, until

In the saffron of the sunrise we discern thee

Shining and trembling like a tear of gladness.

Draw near to us, we will love thee, we will learn thee—

Learn thee to the heart, and love thee even to madness,

If thou wilt only hear us in our crying

Across the night,

Conjuring thee by this our rhythmic sighing—

Our songs which might

Have many senses but which have not one sense

A man may see;

By the sounding and the fluent form of nonsense

We shower on thee;

By the shallow and the babbling things, our mothers,

From whom we spring;

By the barking and the braying things, our brothers

Like whom we sing;

By all the fatuous things, our near relations,

That chaunt and cheer us;

By Leeds, and Liberal associations

Oh, Freedom, hear us!”

St. James’s Gazette.

——:o:——

Parodies of Mr. Swinburne’s Political Poems.

Numerous parodies have been written of Mr. Swinburne’s political poems, and of these some have already appeared in this collection.

Thus, in Volume III (p. 187), will be found Swinburne’s The Commonweal, which had originally appeared in The Times of July 1, 1886, together with four parodies upon it. And, in Volume IV. (p. 147), Swinburne’s The Question, from The Daily Telegraph, April 29, 1887, was given, together with the caustic Answer, which appeared in The Daily News of April 30, 1887.

The following parody is from Truth May 5, 1887:—

Mr. Swinburne’s “Question” Answered.

Come, frenzied poet, first, then, pray

Just tell us what those verses meant

Which to the Telegraph you sent

Last Thursday; since we, sad to say,

Can’t fathom their intent,

That you were very wild, ’twas clear,

With some one; for you were profuse

In that alliterative abuse,

And in those epithets severe

You aptly can produce.

But who it was you wished to curse,

Or what it was had roused your ire,

Or why you wrote, with wroth so dire,

So much involved Swinburnian verse,

Why, that did not transpire

Something, of course, had put you out,

Or, otherwise, why did you deem

It meet to wildly rave and scream,

And throw those adjectives about

With which your stanzas teem?

And as you always in past time

Have been a struggling nation’s friend,

And hastened Freedom to defend,

So doubtless now your angry rhyme

Has the same worthy end.

And, granting this, we then can find

Who are the men you would asperse,

And why you wrote such raving verse:—

Of course, it must have been designed

To Ireland’s tyrants curse!

“The clamorous crew” you write about;

The fierce “blood-mongers” you decry;

The men who “stand in shame so high”

These are the landlord-set, no doubt,

Who pity’s plea deny.

The men who “steal and skulk and flee”—

Why, it is plain you mean by these

Those heartless, greedy absentees,

Who, to live on in luxury,

Their cruel rack-rents seize.

These are the “shameless gang,” ’tis clear,

From whose “red hands” nor “dew nor rain”

Can ever “cleanse the blood again”;

And to whose hearts, so hard and sere,

Appealing is in vain.

Yes, ’tis these landlords, who disdain

To pity, though poor “children die

Starved”; and though helpless women lie

On the hill-side, ’neath sleet and rain,

Thrust from their homes hard by.

And ’tis their tenants, too, who fight

Vainly against the ruthless power

That leaves their lives “no joyful hour,”

Nor gives them e’en the “natural right

To claim life’s natural dower.”

Well may you ask, with stern surprise,

Why men, who thus their duty shirk,

And do, in sooth, “a murderous work,”

Do not seem “hideous in our eyes

As Austrian or as Turk?”

Well may you call the landlord crew,

“The cowardliest hounds that blood e’er lapp’d;”

And hint they should be “track’d and trapp’d,”

Whilst we that “woful past undo,”

Which chains on Erin clapp’d.

With reason you bid “England bow,

Lest worst befall her yet”; and swear

That nought, save pity, conscience, care,

Truth and mercy, should be now

Her sister Erin’s share.

But, frantic poet, none the less,

When next your angry feelings egg

You into verse like Silas Wegg,

Do try your meaning to express

More clearly, let us beg.

’Tis vain, in fact, for you to use

Such very gory epithets,

And terms involved, and sounding threats,

If all the time your shrieking Muse

Sense utterly forgets.

And truly, if you thus again

Should in the Telegraph break out,

Its readers, there is little doubt,

When they have tried to find in vain

Whom ’tis you fain would flout.

Will bid you to the fact recall

That empty sound and fury blind,

And words ambitiously designed,

Must needs be worthless, one and all,

Unless with sense combined.

And you will be assailed with blame,

“The lips of all will laugh you dead,”

“And mockery shriek round your head,”

Whilst you live on to hear with shame

Your reputation’s fled!

——:o:——

CLEAR THE WAY!

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day.

Here you have your answer—England’s yea against your nay:

Long enough your House has held you: up, and clear the way!

Lust and falsehood, craft and traffic, precedent and gold,

Tongue of courtier, kiss of harlot, promise bought and sold,

Gave you heritage of empire over thralls of old.

Now that all these things are rotten, all their gold is rust,

Quenched the pride they lived by, dead the faith and cold the lust,

Shall their heritage not also turn again to dust?

By the grace of these they reigned, who left their sons their sway:

By the grace of these, what England says her lords unsay:

Till at last her cry go forth against them—Clear the way!

By the grace of trust in treason knaves have lived and lied!

By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride:

By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse,

Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse,

Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.

Where we stand, as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray;

But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay:

Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way!

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The Pall Mall Gazette. August 19, 1884.

Rail Away!

(Written by an aspiring young poet of the Neo-Billingsgate School in humble imitation of the “Clear the Way!” contributed by Mr. Swinburne to a recent number of the Pall Mall Gazette.)

Rail away, my budding bardlets! This hysteric day

Shrieking lives so shrieking answers,—Journals say not nay;

Long enough has reason held you: up and rail away!

Slang and slate, revile and bludgeon with assurance bold!

Tongue of gentle, style of scholar, now are far too cold

Go it like an angry fishwife when upon the scold.

Now that chivalry’s forgotten, knightly steel all rust

Quenched the pride old poets lived by, dead their grace as dust,

Shall their mild example bind us? Not a whit, I trust!

Blow the grace of Gentle Spenser, courtesy’s soft sway!

Hang the grace of Wordsworth, leaving nothing to unsay!

Let the Poet’s shriek go forth falsetto—Rail away!

By the grace of trust in reason dolts have lived and died

By the fear of noisy folly tongues have oft been tied,

By the strength of rabid ranting reason’s now defied.

Lest perchance your reckoning, with good manners mar your verse

Halt and hearken lords of language, who would plump your purse

Be not tied by taste’s restrictions; learn to howl and curse!

Where we stand of slang to come, scarce falls a sprinkling spray

But the wave of Billingsgate that’s coming who shall stay?

Spread your sails my budding bardlets,—up and rail away!

Punch, August 30, 1884.

It was formerly a frequent theme of Mr. Swinburne’s political verse, this violent abuse of the House of Lords:—

“They are worthy to reign o’er their brothers,

To contemn them as clods and as carles,

Who are Graces by grace of such mothers

As brightened the bed of King Charles.”

Have the dukes of Buccleugh, Grafton, Richmond, and St. Albans forgotten and forgiven this humorous and playful allusion to their ancestresses, Lucy Waters, Lady Castlemaine, Louise de Querouaille, and Nell Gwynne, to whom they owe their dignities and estates?

---

A Word for the Poet.

(The Rebuke Parodic.)

[Mr. Swinburne’s latest effusion, which has been eagerly quoted by Conservative journals, appears in “Sea Song and River Rhyme,” and is entitled “A Word for the Navy.”]

The lords of thy fate and thy keepers,

O Swinburne, should padlock thy lips;

It leaves us for genius weepers

To hear thy Macdermottish tips.

Such crowing and blowing,

Such blatant British “side,”

Will scatter and shatter

Full soon thy poet’s pride.

“Smooth France, as a serpent for rancour”—

Fie! fie! what an insolent style!

Pray slip the Conservative anchor,

And be thy old self for awhile.

Men deem thee, or dream thee,

Less living now than dead;

The news is, thy Muse is

A little off her head.

Do thou, though the Blues should misdoubt thee,

Resume thy first role on our boards;

Hind on former armour about thee,

And tilt at the “lackeys and lords.”

Where you stood, the True stood,

It stands not where you stand;

Quit Jingo, and in go

For Lib’ralism grand.

Funny Folks, March 5, 1887.

——:o:——

The Banquet, a Political Satire, by Mr. George Cotterell, was published in 1885 by William Blackwood & Sons. Like most political squibs its interest was somewhat ephemeral, but it contained several amusing parodies of Tennyson, and of Swinburne. Some of those on Tennyson have already been quoted, the following extracts are taken from a parody of Swinburne’s “Dolores,” entitled

The Radical Programme.

(After the Franchise Bill.)

The days of the dunces are over,

The wiles of the Whigs are undone,

They shall lie nevermore in the clover,

And bask not again in the sun;

In hip and in thigh will we smite them,

Our rulers who ruled us of old,

And nothing shall raise them or right them,

Nor acres, nor gold.

They sought us with sweet condescension,

They pledged us, a hand for a hand—

We were snobs, it is needless to mention,

And they the best blood in the land:

They bartered for place and we gave it,

We staked for high game and we won,

But their place goes and nothing can save it—

Our day has begun.

When this beggarly bill they conceded

They thought we should ask for no more;

Poor fools! it was all that we needed

To make us more fierce than before:

Now the game is our own and we’ll make it,

Not a hand will we yield, not a trick;

Here’s a notice to all who will take it

To clear away quick.

To the Lords shall the mandate be spoken,

The people’s behest and decree;

For the bonds that have bound us are broken,

We are mighty at last, we are free!

Look, my lords, where the writing is written,

On the walls of your House, on the door,

You are weighed and found wanting, and smitten

Behind and before.

*  *  *  *  *

Then hurrah for the bill that we carried,

For the Caucus that carried the bill!

The Lords would have tampered and tarried,

But we swept them along with a will;

We swept them and sweep them before us,

The prize of our prowess to-day,

While we march to the lilt of the chorus

That bids us not stay.

It was time for another beginning,

So we started the world with a spin

And while it goes spinning and spinning

We will gather the spoils that we win;

For it spins out the Whigs and the Tories,

The Lords and the Church and the Crown

And it spins us this glory of glories—

To tread them all down.

——:o:——

Hymn to Gladstonian Liberals.

Is not this the First Lord of your choice?

Sure its time that you put him to bed,

For the kingdom is seared by his fires, O fools;

He was Lord, and is dead.

You will hear not again his fine speaking,

His sophistry now as before

And the tone of his wonderful lying will

Humbug your senses no more;

By the party he ruled as his slave, is he

Slain who was mighty to slay;

And the stigma that rests on his name

He can raise not, nor roll it away.

He is choked by his raiment of lies,

Now the wane of his power is come;

Truth hears he, and heeds not; and facts,

And he sees not; and taunts, and is dumb.

Power and will hath he none of it left him

Nor truth in his breath;

Till his name be struck out of the lists

Will ye know not the truth of his death!

Surely, ye say, he is strong, but the Times

Is ’gainst him and Parnell;

Wait a little, ye say—nay too long

He has made our fair island a hell;

Let him then die, as all must die, that

Use treason thus as a rod;

Let him fade from the ranks of his Party

Take his foot from the neck that he trod.

They cry out, his elect, his seekers for

Office, who cling to his shame,

They call him sweet light of his Party;

They call him their Lord, by his name;

The name that is written in Egypt,

And in Africa stained by retreat,

That name by our enemies loved, but

Scorned by our army and fleet.

He answers them not—he is fallen,

Political death his reward,

He is smitten! behold, he is smitten!

As though by the stroke of a sword.

The Conservative cause is triumphant,

And peace and prosperity brings

So glory to that in the highest,

The healer and mender of things.

F.A.C.

The St. Stephen’s Review, May 28, 1887.

——:o:——

In Rhymes à la Mode, by Mr. Andrew Lang (Kegan, Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1883), there are also two good parodies of Swinburne. In one, the “Palace of Bric-à-Brac,” the exquisite diction and appropriate rhythm of the “Garden of Proserpine,” are most amusingly caricatured:—

“Here, where old Nankin glitters,

Here, where men’s tumult seems

As faint as feeble twitters

Of sparrows heard in dreams,

We watch Limoges enamel,

An old chased silver camel,

A shawl, the gift of Schamyl,

And manuscript in reams.

Here, where the hawthorn pattern

On flawless cup and plate

Need fear no housemaid slattern,

Fell minister of fate,

’Mid webs divinely woven,

And helms and hauberks cloven,

On music of Beethoven

We dream and meditate.”

*  *  *  *  *

But all lovers of dainty books and quaint old world ballades will go to the fountain head to taste this stream.

---

Several excellent imitations of Swinburne’s style remain to be quoted from Punch, one, which appeared January 7, 1882, entitled “Clowning and Classicism,” contains some skits on Burne Jones, Oscar Wilde, and John Ruskin; another, dated December 11, 1886, commences as follows:—

Babydom.

A Contribution to the Poetry of Pap.

Baby, see the flowers!

—Baby sees

Other things than these.

Baby, our soft age’s first of powers.

Baby, hear the birds!

—Baby’s nose

Cocks at sounds like those.

Baby rules our deeds and thoughts and words.

Baby, want the moon?

—Baby’s eyes

Blink in blue surprise.

Baby is the boss of night and noon.

Baby, hear the sea!

—Baby’s face

Yermeates all space,

Filled with noises of the nursery.

*  *  *  *  *

The next appeared on April 23, 1887:—

The Vultures; or, What of the Fight.

(A Suggestion from Swinburne.)

England, what of the fight?—

The fight that may come again,

When the ridge of the battle-plain

By the last lurid sun-ray is lit,

And thou in thine armèd might

Hast fought the good fight, and thy men

Lie low where the night-birds flit,—

What then, oh land, what then?

Prophet, what of the fight?

What is the vision you see?

England the stubbornly free,

Erect, ’midst the whirl of her waves.

Harbours she traitors and slaves,

Harpies, of gold-worship bred,

Who grope for their gain amongst graves

That hide the hosts of her dead?

(Four verses omitted.)

Vultures, what of the fight?—

Ah! but ye crowd for gain.

Little care ye for the slain.

Only your maws to cram.

There they be in the night,

Sold for your sakes to death.

System? A scoundrel sham

That leaves ye with wings and breath!

England, what of that fight?—

Rouse you, and raise a hand.

These Vultures swarm in the land,

Incompetence, traitrous greed.

Scourge them to headlong flight,

Vermin of office and mart,

Ere the harpies batten indeed,

Their beaks in the nation’s heart.

---

“According to a certain critic,” said the Daily News in August, 1888, Mr. Swinburne “makes ‘services’ rhyme to ‘berries.’ How in the world does he manage that? Can it be in a poem on Lawn Tennis?”

‘Oh, thy swift, subtle, slanting, services

That skim the net, and ’scape the racket of me,

Oh, thy rich, red, ripe, ruby raspberries,

Oh, thy straw hat, and dainty body of thee!’

Nothing exactly like this occurs in the English edition of Mr. Swinburne’s poems, but this, perhaps, shows how the thing could be done, if the poet were so inclined.”

---

In the course of a singularly brilliant career it is not surprising that Mr. Swinburne should have been the subject of many fierce literary attacks. The history of these feuds must await the advent of another Isaac D’Israeli to add a Chapter to the “Calamities and Quarrels of Authors”; interesting as the topic most certainly is, it cannot be dealt with here. Suffice it to say that the principal grounds for adverse criticism have been the asserted voluptuousness and immoral tendency of his romantic poems, and the inconsistency of his political writings. As an instance of the latter failing The Daily News of May 2, 1887, reprinted a poem Mr. Swinburne wrote for The Morning Star (a Radical paper, now defunct) in November 1867 in favour of the Fenians then lying under sentence of death for the murder of Serjeant Brett. This poem Mr. Swinburne had also included in his volume, Songs before Sunrise, published in 1871, and it certainly presents a marked contrast to his recent utterances on the Irish question.

As to the alleged immoral tendency of his works much has been written, and by many pens, one of the bitterest of his assailants being Mr. Robert Williams Buchanan, whose own early writings were, most assuredly, open to adverse criticism on the same ground.

In his little work entitled, “The Fleshly School of Poetry,” published in 1872, Mr. Buchanan not only attacked Swinburne, but he was also most malignant in his criticisms of the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the kindest, gentlest, and purest of men. The controversy this aroused raged for some years, and the last word was only spoken when Mr. Edmund Yates published his article on “A Scrofulous Scotch Poet,” severely castigating Mr. Buchanan, in The World, September 26, 1877. Long prior to this, the following verses relating to Swinburne, had been attributed to Buchanan. It is doubtful whether in 1866 Mr. Swinburne’s name was sufficiently established to entitle him to a place in such distinguished company as is here mentioned.

THE SESSION OF THE POETS.

“Di magni, salaputium disertum!”——Cat. Lib. Liii.

“At the Session of Poets held lately in London,

The Bard of Freshwater was voted the chair:

With his tresses unbrush’d, and his shirt-collar undone,

He loll’d at his ease like a good-humour’d Bear;

‘Come, boys!’ he exclaimed, ‘we’ll be merry together!’

And lit up his pipe with a smile on his cheek;

While with eye like a skipper’s cock’d up at the weather,

Sat the Vice-Chairman Browning, thinking in Greek.

“The company gather’d embraced great and small bards,

Both strong bards and weak bards, funny and grave,

Fat bards and lean bards, little and tall bards,

Bards who wear whiskers, and others who shave.

Of books, men, and things, was the bards’ conversation—

Some praised Ecce Homo, some deemed it so-so—

And then there was talk of the state of the nation,

And when the unwash’d would devour Mr. Lowe.

“Right stately sat Arnold—his black gown adjusted

Genteely, his Rhine wine deliciously iced,—

With puddingish England serenely disgusted,

And looking in vain (in the mirror) for ‘Geist;’

He heark’d to the Chairman, with ‘Surely!’ and ‘Really?’

Aghast at both collar and cutty of clay,—

Then felt in his pocket, and breath’d again freely,

On touching the leaves of his own classic play.

“Close at hand lingered Lytton, whose Icarus-winglets

Had often betrayed him in regions of rhyme—

How glitter’d the eye underneath his gray ringlets,

A hunger within it unlessened by time!

Remoter sat Bailey—satirical, surly—

Who studied the language of Goethe too soon,

Who sang himself hoarse to the stars very early,

And crack’d a weak voice with too lofty a tune.

“How name all that wonderful company over?—

Prim Patmore, mild Alford—and Kingsley also?

Among the small sparks who was realler than Lover?

Among misses, who sweeter than Miss Ingelow?

There sat, looking moony, conceited, and narrow,

Buchanan,—who, finding when foolish and young,

Apollo asleep on a coster-girl’s barrow,

Straight dragged him away to see somebody hung.

“What was said? what was done? was there prosing or rhyming?

Was nothing noteworthy in deed or in word?

Why, just as the hour for the supper was chiming,

The only event of the evening occurred.

Up jumped, with his neck stretching out like a gander,

Master Swinburne, and squeal’d, glaring out through his hair,

‘All Virtue is bosh! Hallelujah for Lander!

I disbelieve wholly in everything!—there!’

“With language so awful he dared then to treat ’em,—

Miss Ingelow fainted in Tennyson’s arms,

Poor Arnold rush’d out, crying ‘Sœcl’inficetum!’

And great bards and small bards were full of alarms;

Till Tennyson, flaming and red as a gipsy,

Struck his fist on the table and uttered a shout:

‘To the door with the boy! Call a cab! He is tipsy!’

And they carried the naughty young gentleman out.

“After that, all the pleasanter talking was done there—

Whoever had known such an insult before?

The Chairman tried hard to re-kindle the fun there,

But the Muses were shocked, and the pleasure was o’er.

Then ‘Ah!’ cried the Chairman, ‘this teaches me knowledge,

The future shall find me more wise, by the powers!’

This comes of assigning to yonkers from college

Too early a place in such meetings as ours!”

Caliban.

The Spectator. September 15. 1886.

——:o:——

Although this collection is avowedly confined to Parodies which have previously appeared in print, it will be readily understood that numbers of original parodies are sent in, of which but a very small proportion can be inserted.

Some amusing incidents occur, thus a short time ago a gentlemen sent from Scotland the M.S.S. of new and original burlesques on Hamlet and Othello, the first containing about 850 lines, and the second about double that number. The author earnestly requested they should be inserted in Parodies, but whether he had succeeded in getting any “new and original” fun out of such fresh and lively topics as Hamlet and Othello, the world will never be able to judge through this medium.

Another, and almost equally humorous request was worded as follows:—“I enclose a parody on Mr. Algernon Swinburne’s Dolores in the form of an encomium on ‘Someone’s Essence of Something’ which is absurdly close to some of the original verses. If you accept it please send proof and remuneration to me at above address.”

It so happened that this parody was not devoid of literary merit, but the author was presuming a little too much in expecting to get a puff inserted gratis, and to be paid for it in the bargain.

A verse or two will suffice to indicate the author’s treatment of the topic:—

All pale from the past we draw nigh thee,

And satiate with rollicking hours;

And we know thee how none can deny thee,

And we purchase the gift of new pow’rs,

The draught that allays and recovers,

The boons and the blessings that rain

On the livers and lungs of thy lovers,

Exorcist of Pain!

What care though disease be a fixture

Which for ages has baffled all skill,

Thou art more than the famous blood mixture,

Superior to Cockle’s best pill;

Thou canst cast out disordered secretion,

Reduce the swelled kidney, revive

The victim of constant depletion,

And keep him alive!

Fruits fail, Autumn dies, and Time ranges,

*   *   * have perpetual breath,

The price of its bottles ne’er changes,

Two-and-ninepence can wrestle with Death

Our lives are rekindled and rallied,

Our systems made wholesome and clean,

Relieved of Dyspepsia, that pallid,

And poisonous Queen!

Sick-headache, and sudden affliction,

Carbuncles, and feverish skin,

Epidemics, severe mental friction,

Too much of a favourite bin;

For these panacea thou devisest,

For these, and for all other bane,

O wise among chemists, and wisest,

Exorcist of Pain!

*  *  *  *  *

The remainder of this Poem will be inserted with full details as to price, and number of cures effected, on receipt of the customary advertisement fee.

Another correspondent kindly sent in a lengthy rhymed criticism of Swinburne’s style, commencing as follows:—

Paddy Blake on Swinburne.

Dear Bailey, I will not deny

That of Swinburne’s great merit I’m sensible,

But this one complaint I must cry—

“He’s exceedingly incomprehensible!”

He sings pretty songs about kisses,

He christens them “red,” also “white”;

I confess, in all lowliness, this is

Beyond my intelligence quite.

It may well be that I’m very silly,

But some of his songs seem to me

Like a mixture of very weak skilly

With ten times as much eau-de-vie.

His language is wrondrously charming,

And falls like a spell on the ear;

But there’s one thing that’s rather alarming—

Would it ever bring laughter or tear?

End of Parodies on A. C. Swinburne.

VERNON AVICK.

Dedicated without permission to the Author of “Father
O’Flynn,” by the Author of “The Blarney Ballads.”

Of all the gay “scions” and sprigs of nobility,

Far renowned for their grace and agility,

Faix i’d advance you for sheer volatility

Vernon avick! as the flower of them all.

Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick!

Long may you flounder through thin and through thick,

Merriest mummer,

And burliest “bummer,”

And loudest big-drummer in Westminster Hall.

Don’t talk of your sages and seers of antiquity,

Famous for rectitude—or for obliquity,

Faix an’ the divils at mental ubiquity,

Vernon avick! would make hay of them all.

Come, I’ll wager that nobody quite

Aiquals his elegant blatherumskite,

Down from urbanity,

Into inanity,

Troth! and profanity—if he’d the call.

Arrah, Vernon machree! what were Bottom or Puck to you?

Falstaff himself was a harmless ould buck to you;

Look how you gather the Radical ruck to you;

Whisha, bad luck to you, Vernon avick!

Still, for all, you’re the prince of buffoons,

Gad! you’ve the dash of a troop of dragoons,

Firing the flagging ones,

Bolstering the bragging ones,

Leathering the lagging ones on wid the stick.

And though never crossing the confines of charity,

Still, in your moments of mammoth hilarity,

Who, without showing the widest disparity

Vies in vulgarity, Vernon with you?

Once Sir Ughtred was minded to frown,

Till this remark broke his prudery down—

“Is it lave jollity

All to the ‘quality,’

Cannot we masses be mountebanks too?”

Here’s a health to you, Vernon avick!

Long may you flounder, through thin and through thick,

Merriest mummer,

And burliest “bummer,”

And loudest big drummer in Westminster Hall.

The Globe. December 11, 1888.