THE BALLET.
Lament by the Rev. S. D. Headlam.
What was it first my fancy fed,
My steps to the Alhambra led,
And finally quite turned my head?
The Ballet!
What, when I studied it apart,
Struck me with force that made me start,
As being a noble form of Art?
The Ballet!
And what, when seen night after night,
Inspired me with supreme delight,
And made me to the Pall-Mall write?
The Ballet!
But what, when kindled with its fire,
I hoped my Bishop to inspire,
Alas! excited but his ire?
The Ballet!
And what, although the orthodox
Two places in an upper box
I offered him,—but gave him shocks?
The Ballet!
Ah! what, though every nerve I've strained
To see the dancers' battle gained,
Leaves me episcopally chained?
The Ballet!
Last Fruits of the Session.—Pairs.
"The modern Venetian takes pleasure not only in neglecting but in persecuting the palace and the gondola.... As to the gondola, the mass of Venetians possess none, and rarely go in them.... They forget that the much-desired foreigner does not come to Venice to read signboards from a steamboat up and down the Grand Canal; and, by handing over this magnificent waterway to a company of foreign speculators, they have well-nigh reduced the ancient body of gondoliers to beggary. The steamers are numerous and noisy.... If one contrasts the passengers of these rival craft, the gondola and the vaporetto, one asks which, as a body, most contribute to the prosperity of Venice, and so merits most consideration.... The penny steamer and the gondola are irreconcileable, and cannot exist long together, for the simple reason that the gondoliers cannot earn a support, and must take to other avocations."
"Exsul's" Letter to the Times on "The Venice of To-day."
Shade of Childe Harold sings:—
Yes, this is Venice; yon's the Bridge of Sighs;
The palace and the prison, still they stand:
But 'midst the maze foul funnel fumes arise.
As by the touch of an enchanter's hand,
A hundred such their smoky wings expand,
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
On what was once the poet's, artist's land,
Soot smears the wingéd Lion's marble piles,
And Venice reeks like Hull, throned on her hundred isles.
She looks a swart sea Cyclops, from the ocean,
Rising with smutted walls and blackened towers;
The vaporetto, with erratic motion,
Muddies the waters with its carbon-showers.
And such she is! Progress's dismal dowers
Have spoilt the picture; now the eye may feast
On garish signs and posters. Gracious powers!
Sewing-machines and hair-washes at least
Might spare the Grand Canal. Trade is an ogre-ish beast!
In Venice Vulcan's echoes hiss and roar,
And idle sits the hapless Gondolier.
His Gondola is crumbling on the shore,
The Penny Steamer's whistle racks his ear.
'Arry exults—but Beauty is not here;
Trade swells, Arts grow—but Nature seems to die.
Hucksters may boast that Venice is less "dear,"
"Progresso!" is the Press, the Public cry;
But, by great Ruskin's self, the thing is all my eye.
For unto us she had a spell beyond
Cheap dinners and Advertisement's array
Of polychrome, of which Trade seems so fond.
Alas! the Dogeless city's silent sway
Will lessen momently, and fade away,
When the Rialto echoes to the roar
Of vaporetti, and in sad decay
The Gondola, its swan-like flittings o'er,
Neglected rots upon the solitary shore.
Such is the Venice of my youth and age,
Its spell a void, its charm a vacancy.
Rosy Romance, thou owest many a page,
Ay, many that erst grew beneath mine eye,
To what was once the loved reality
Of this true fairy-land; but I refuse
To deck with Art's fantastic wizardry
A haunt of Trade. Mine is not Mammon's Muse,
She will not sing for hire of Soaps, or Silks, or Shoes.
I know that there are such,—but let them go,—
They came like ghouls, they'll disappear like dreams.
But oh! my Venice, dare they treat thee so?
I fain would flay the Vandal horde; still teems
My mind with memories of thy towers and streams,—
All that I sought for in thy midst, and found.
Must these too go? The ogre Progress deems
Such fair and flattering phantasies unsound;
Now other voices speak, and other sights surround.
"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord,"
Ay, and yet worse, Venetian souls grow rude.
The Gondola lies rotting unrestored,
The Gondolier unhired must lounge and brood,
Or stoop to "stoking" for his daily food,
On board a puffing fiend that by "horse pow'r"
Measures its might. Oh! base ingratitude!
Dogs! ye one day shall howl for the lost hour,
When Venice was a Queen, with loveliness for dower.
Gondolas ruled, and now the Steam Launch reigns,
A stoker shovels where a lover knelt.
This thing of steam and smoke that stinks and stains,
Might suit the tainted Thames, the sluggish Scheldt;
But the Canal, which for long years hath felt
The sunshine of Romance—that downward go?
This is the deadliest blow that Trade hath dealt;
Enough to bring back blind old Dandolo,
To fight his country's latest most debasing foe.
Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
But garish signboards glitter in the sun;
And up and down the watery alleys pass
The snorting steamers. Venice lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of beauty done,
Sinks to an Isle of Dogs. Let her life close!
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun
Ev'n in destruction's depths her Vandal foes,
Than live a thrall to Trade, a scourge to eyes and nose.
Dreams of Romance—all shattered! They revile
Our "Ruskinismo," do these souls of dust,
Who care not for their sumptuous marble pile,
Oh, sons unworthy of their splendid trust!
With his oar broken, and his dry keel thrust,
Unused ashore, the Gondolier recalls
Gay days and nights of glory, such as must
Too oft remind him who his land enthrals,
And flings a sordid cloud o'er Venice' shining walls.
How can the Childe's poetic shade refuse
To plead his cause, on his base foe make war?
Perchance redemption from a phantom Muse,
Whose voice now faintly echoes from afar,
May come, and check his sordid conqueror's car,
E'en in its roll of victory, snatch the reins,
From Greed's foul hands and further havoc bar,
Say, shall the Penny Steamer's petty gains,
Banish the Gondolier, and hush his cheery strains?
