SWINBURNE'S VERSION:
Shall I dip, shall I dip it, Dolores,
This luminous paste-brush of thine?
Shall I sully its white-breasted glories,
Its fair, foam-flecked figure divine?
O shall I—abstracted, unheeding—
Swish swirling this pen in my haste,
And, deaf to thy pitiful pleading,
Just jab it in paste?
STEPHEN CRANE'S VERSION:
I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire,
And I saw
Ranged in solemn row before me,
A paste-pot and an ink-pot.
I held in my either hand
A pen and a brush.
Ay, a pen and a brush.
Now this is the strange part;
I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire,
Glad, exultant,
Because
The choice was mine!
Ay, mine!
As I stood upon a church spire,
A slender, pointed spire.
Perhaps one of the most enjoyable occasions was the night when the members of the Re-Echo Club discussed the merits of the classic poem:
Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her;
Put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.
In many ways this historic narrative called forth admiration. One must admit Peter's great strength of character, his power of quick decision, and immediate achievement. Some held that his inability to retain the lady's affection in the first place argued a defect in his nature; but remembering the lady's youth and beauty (implied by the spirit of the whole poem), they could only reiterate their appreciation of the way he conquered circumstances, and proved himself master of his fate, and captain of his soul! Truly, the Pumpkin-Eaters must have been a forceful race, able to defend their rights and rule their people.
The Poets at their symposium unanimously felt that the style of the poem, though hardly to be called crude, was a little bare, and they took up with pleasure the somewhat arduous task of rewriting it.