MISS JEAN INGELOW.
The Apple-Woman’s Song.
The marten flew to the finch’s nest,
Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay:
The arrow it sped to thy brown mate’s breast;
Low in the broom is thy mate to-day!
“Liest thou low, love! low in the broom?
Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay,
Warm the white eggs till I learn his doom.”
She beateth her wings, and away, away.
“Ah, my sweet singer, thy days are told,
(Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay,)
O mournful morrow! O dark to-day!”
The finch flew back to her cold, cold nest,
Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay.
Mine is the trouble that rent her breast,
And home is silent, and love is clay.
This little ballad, which is taken from Mopsa the Fairy, by Jean Ingelow (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1869) is supposed to have been the original which C. S. Calverley had in his mind when he composed the amusing parody commencing:—
The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.
This ballad has already been alluded to, and some imitations of it given on [p. 71] of this volume.
It will be found in Fly Leaves, by C. S. Calverley (London: George Bell & Sons, 1878), in which there is another burlesque imitation of Miss Jean Ingelow’s poetry, entitled—
Lovers, and a Reflection.
In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter),
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above:
Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!
Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was glorious weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours;—
By rises that flushed with their purple favours,
Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,
We walked and waded, we two young shavers;
Thanking our stars we were both so green.
We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:—
Songbirds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!
But they skim over bents which the millstream washes,
Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;
They need no parasols, no goloshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.
Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather)
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—
Our fingers at fate and her goddess-glooms.
And Willie ’gan sing (oh, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-wing’d sea)—
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry.”
Bowers of flowers encounter’d showers
In William’s carol—(O love my Willie!)
When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow
I quite forgot what—say a daffodilly:
A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:
* * * * *
O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted, or carried on “wafts” away,
Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be.
Admirers of Miss Ingelow’s fiction may be interested in knowing the history of those funny little bits of verse with which she enlivened the later chapters of “Fated to be Free.” There can be no doubt that they were intended as a delicate kind of retaliation to Mr. Calverley. As he, who was a cunning master of every kind of metre, had thought fit to directly parody Miss Ingelow’s most popular pieces, by exposing and exaggerating all her worst faults, it was only natural that she should seek to be revenged in kind. But it is clear that the lady cannot cope with Calverley in parody. Her verses read more like deliberate nonsense, and lack the faculty of imitation of style in which he excelled. The following satirical lines, from “Fated to be Free” illustrate this point, “Crayshaw” having been substituted for “Calverley,” doubtless for the sake of the rhyme:—
That maiden’s nose, that puppy’s eyes,
Which I this happy day saw,
They’ve touched the manliest chords that rise
I’ the breast of Clifford Crayshaw.
* * * * *
All day she worked, no lover lent
His aid; and yet with glee
At dusk she sought her home, content,
That beauteous Bumble Bee.
A cell it was, nor more nor less,
But oh! all’s one to me,
Whether you write it with an S,
Dear girl, or with a C.
* * * * *
Then doth Tuck-man smile, “Them there
(Ho and Hi and futile Hum)
Jellies three-and-sixpence air,
Use of spoons an equal sum.”
Trees are rich. Sweet task, ’tis o’er,
“Tuck-man, you’re a brick,” they cry.
Wildly then, shake hands, all four
(Hum and Ho, the end is Hi).
The Shrimp-gatherers.
Scarlet spaces of sand and ocean.
Gulls that circle and winds that blow;
Baskets and boats and men in motion,
Sailing and scattering to and fro.
Girls are waiting, their wimples adorning
With crimson sprinkles the broad gray flood;
And down the beach the blush of the morning,
Shines reflected from moisture and mud.
Broad from the yard the sails hang limpy,
Lightly the steersman whistles a lay;
Pull with a will, for the nets are shrimpy,
Pull with a whistle, our hearts are gay!
Tuppence a quart; there are more than fifty,
Coffee is certain, and beer galore:
Coats are corduroy, and minds are thrifty,
Won’t we go it on sea and shore?
See, behind, how the hills are freckled
With low white huts, where the lasses bide!
See, before, how the sea is speckled
With sloops and schooners that wait the tide!
Yarmouth fishers may rail and roister,
Tyne-side boys may shout “Give way!”
Let them dredge for the lobster and oyster,
Pink and sweet are our shrimps to-day!
Shrimps and the delicate periwinkle,
Such are the sea-fruits lasses love:
Ho! to your nets till the blue stars twinkle,
And the shutterless cottages gleam above!
From Diversions of the Echo Club, by Bayard Taylor.
In a volume of poems by Miss Jean Ingelow, published in 1880, there was a long one entitled The Letter L, which gave rise to the following parody, printed in “The Daily News” of December 4, 1885.
The Letter L.
By a Despairing Tory.
Oh, letter L, Miss Ingelow
Once wrote a poem all about you,
And what she meant I do not know,
I know I never thought to doubt you!
But now I fairly tell you this—
I wish I’d never learnt to spell,
You come between me and my bliss,
Oh, hated, hated letter L!
As daily to the Club I go,
My heart with honest ardour burns,
I hope for Gladstone’s overthrow,
Expect Conservative returns;
But where I long to see a C,
Of Tory victory to tell,
I only meet the face of thee,
Oh hated, hateful letter L!
The Labour and the Crofter vote,
I do not greatly dread them now,
Rather the influence I note
Of that once sacred beast, the Cow.
I mark a lot of N’s and P’s
That brand the people of Parnell;
I’m quite prepared to swallow these,
But not, oh not the letter L!
This was at the time of the general election, when the returns were daily being scanned with great interest, and the C’s and L’s and P’s were eagerly counted up by all politicians.
