ON THE BAYS.
(To the tune—more or less—of "In the Bay.")
I.
Beyond the bellowing onset of base war,
Their latest wearer wendeth! With wild zest.
Fulfilled of windy resonance, the rest
Of the bard-mob must hotly joust and jar
To win the wreath that he beyond the bar
Bare not away athwart the bland sea's breast.
II.
And sooth the soft sheen of that deathless bay
Gleams glamorous! Amorous was I in my day,
Clamorous were Gath's goose-critics. But my fire,
Chastened from To-phet-fumes, burns purer, higher;
My thoughts on courtier-wings might make their way
Did my brow bear the laurels all these desire.
III.
For I, to the proprieties reconciled.
Who hymned Dolores, sing the "weanling child."
At "home-made treacle" I made mocking mirth;
That was before my better self had birth.
At virtue's lilies and languors then I smiled,
But Hertha's not thine only goddess, O Earth!
IV.
For surely brother, and master, and lord, and king,
Though vice's roses and raptures did not spring
In thy poetic garden's trim parterre;
Though thou wert fond of sunshine and sweet air,
More than of kisses, that burn, and bite, and sting;
Some living love our England for thee bare.
V.
Thou, too, couldst sing about her sweet salt sea,
And trumpet pæans loud to Liberty,
With clamour of all applausive throats. Thy feet,
Not wine-press red, yet left the flowers more sweet,
From the pure passage of the god to be;
And then couldst thunder praises of England's Fleet.
VI.
I did not think to glorify gods and kings,
Who scourged them ever with hate's sanguineous rods;
But who with hope and faith may live at odds?
And then these jingling jays with plume-plucked wings,
Compete, and laureate laurels are lovely things,
Though crowing lyric lauders of kings and gods!
Beshrew the blatant bleating of sheep-voiced mimes!
True thunder shall strike dumb their chirping chimes.
If there be laureate laurels, or bays, or palms,
In these red, Radical, revelling, riotous times,
They should be the true bard's, though mid-age calms
His revolutionary fierce rolling rhymes,
Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storm of—psalms
That great lyre's golden echoes rolled away!
Forth tripped another claimant of the bay.
Trim, tittivated, tintinnabulant,
His bosom aped the true Parnassian pant,
As may a housemaid's leathern bellows mock
The rock—whelmed Titan's breathings. He no shock
Of bard-like shagginess shook to the breeze.
A modern Cambrian Minstrel hopes to please
By undishevelled dandy-daintiness,
Whether of lays or locks, of rhymes or dress.
Some bards pipe from Parnassus, some from Hermon;
Room for the singer of the Sunday Sermon!
His stimulant tepid tea, his theme a text,
Carmarthen's cultured caroller comes next!