There, Little Nude, don't cry!
You've descended the stairs, I know;
And the weird wild ways
Of the Cubist Jays
Have made you a holy show!
But Post Impressions will soon pass by.
There Little Nude, don't cry, don't cry!
Sir A. Tennyson caught the Cubical spirit neatly thus:
As the staircase is, the Nude is; thou art painted by a freak.
And I think that he has knocked thee to the middle of next week.
He will paint thee (till this fashion shall expend its foolish force),
Something like a rabid dog,—a little larger than a horse.
Semblance? Likeness? Scorned of Cubists! This th' evangel that he sings;
Any picture's crown of glory is to look like other things!
So thou art not seen descending in the ordinary way,
But, like fifty motor-cycles, breaking speed laws in Cathay.
Mr. C. Kingsley was greatly interested:
My Cubist Nude, I have no song to give you;
I could not pipe you, howsoe'er I tried;
But ere I go, I wish that you would teach me
That Staircase Slide!
Be skittish, child, and let who will be graceful,
Do whizzy whirls whenever you've the chance;
And so make life, death and that grand old staircase
One song and dance.
Oscar Wilde was moody and this was his mood:
Adown the stairs the Nudelet came;
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
Hark! to the smitten cubes of flame!
Ah, me! Ah, jamboree!
Her soul seethed in emotions sweet;
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
Symbolling like a torn-up street;
Ah, jamboree! Ah, me!
And still the Nude's soul-cubes are there,—
(Pale pink cats up a purple tree!)
In writhen glory of despair,—
Ah, me! Ah, Hully Gee!
Mr. W. Wordsworth was frankly disdainful:
She trod among the untrodden maze
Of Cubists on a spree;
A Nude whom there were none to praise,
And very few could see.
A violet 'neath a mossy stone,
Quite hidden from the eye,
Is far more easy to discern
Than that same Nude to spy.
She lived unseen. Though some few fakes
Pretended her to see;
But if she's on the stairs, it makes
No difference to me.
Mr. Longfellow fairly let himself go: