THE PALACE OF (ADVERTISING) ART.
(A Long Way After the Laureate.)
I found myself a huckster's pleasure-place,
Wherein 'twas horrible to dwell.
I said, "O Soul, the object of our race
Is ever one—to sell."
A huge-walled wilderness of ways it was,
With hoardings of exceeding height,
Which no one without pangs of fear, could pass,
And spasms of affright.
Its purpose, though, was plain; 'twas simply pelf;
Whether a woman wild of glare,
Or a colossal man shaving himself,
All, all meant money there.
"And while the world rolls round and round," I said,
"Advertisement is the one thing
Which need concern the wise and worldly head
Of huckster, histrio, king."
To which my soul made answer readily,—
"In patience I must fain abide
In these vast vistas of vulgarity.
Stretching on every side."
Full of long-reaching bulks of board it was,
Where, glaring forth from ghostly gloom,
Were gibbering monkeys grinning in a glass,
In a dame's dressing-room.
And some were hung with daubs of green and blue,
As gaudy as a cheap Cremorne,
Where actors postured in the public view,
Some frantic, some forlorn.
One seemed all glare and gore—a stabbing hand,
A woman flopping with a groan;
An ill-drawn idiot trying to look grand,
Big-nosed, and high in bone.
One showed an ochre coast and emerald waves;
You seemed to see them rise and fall,
As infant supers—wretched little slaves—
Under the canvass crawl.
And one a full-faced, flashed comedian—low—
Showing his teeth, with nervous strain,
With queer goggle-eyes striking like a blow,
And causing quite a pain.
And one a miser, hoarding fruits of toil,
In front a bony beak, behind,
Wisps of grey hairs all destitute of oil,
Blown hoary on the wind.
And one a foreground with three hideous hags,
Each twice as tall as life, or higher,
Medusa-monsters, clothed in wretched rags,
And crouching round a fire.
And one an English home—lantern-light poured
On a forced safe, skeleton keys,
Whilst gloating o'er the family plate there stored,
Glowered the murderer, Peace.
Nor these alone, but everything to scare,
Fit for each morbid mood of mind;
Murder and misery, want and woe were there
As large as life designed.
There was a fellow in a pretty fix,
"Tied to a corpse," all wild alarm,
Struggling across a sort of sooty Styx,
The "body" on his arm.
Or in a snow-choked city wretchedly,
Dead babe at breast, with bare blown hair,
A ruined woman crawled with quivering knee;
Two bobbies scowled at her.
Or, posing in a footlight paradise,
A group of Houris smirked to see
Young fools with clapping hands and ogling eyes
Which said, "We come for ye!"
Or else a lost and deeply wounded one,
In a wild swamp all bilious greens,
Came on a corpse a bare branch dangling on;
The ghastliest of scenes!
Holloaed a half-choked boy with horrid fear,
A brute the rope about to draw;
A second with a knife and axe was near
To give the first Lynch Law.
Or in a railway-tunnel, iron rail'd,
A man lay bound; his blood ran ice
Who looked thereon, an engine shrieked; he paled,
And fainted in a trice.
A monkey by her hair a woman clasp'd;
From her poor head it seemed half torn,
One ape-hand dragged it back; the other grasp'd
A steel blade's haft of horn.
A hideous babe in nauseous nudity,
Huge-headed, grinning like a clown,
Advertised Soap. A vile monstrosity,
The terror of the Town!
Nor these alone; but every horror rare,
Which the sensation-poisoned mind.
Imaged to advertise vile trash, was there—
As large as life design'd.
Deep dread and loathing of these horrors crude,
Fell on my Soul, hard to be borne,
She cried, "Why should these incubi intrude
And plague us night and morn?
"What! is not this a civilised town," she said,
"A spacious city, cultured, free?
Why give it up to dismalness and dread,
Murder and misery?"
In every corner of that city stood,
Unholy shapes, and spectral scares,
And fiends, and phantoms, brutal scenes of blood,
And horrible nightmares.
"We are shut up as in a tomb, girt round
With charnel scenes on every wall;
Wherever echoes of town-traffic sound,
Or human footsteps fall.
She cried, "By Jove, it is a pretty game
That Man, the Advertiser's thrall,
Should have these scenes of grimness, gore, and shame,
Shock him from every wall.
"The very cab-horses go wild with fears!
I rather fancy it is time
To stop these poster-terrors, placard-tears,
And advertising crimes.
"Yes, yes, pull down these pictured screens that are
All dedicate to gore and guilt.
Not solely for Soap-vendor or Stage-star
Was our big Babylon built!