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Next I saw
A pensive gentleman of middle age,
That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe
Pendent beneath his chin––a double one––
(Meaning the pipe); reluctant was his breath,
For he had mingled in the Morris dance
And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,
All decorous and decorously clad,
Their very ankles hardly visible,
Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,
Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall
Beamed approbation.
On his face I read
Signs of high sadness such as poets wear,
Being divinely discontented with
The praise of jeunes filles. Even as I looked,
He touched the portion of his pipe reserved
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For minor poetry of solemn tone,
Checking the humorous stops intended for
Electioneering posters and the like;
And therewithal he made the following
Addition to his Songs Unsung, or else
His Unremarked Remarks:
“Dear Sir,” he said,
“Excuse my saying ‘Sir’ like that; it is
Our way in Hades here among the damned;
For you must know that some of us are damned
Not only by faint praise but full applause
Of simple critics. Take my case. In me
Behold the good knight Marsyas, M.A.,
Three times a candidate for Parliament,
And twice retired; a Justice of the Peace;
Master of Arts (I said), and better known
In literary spheres as Master of
The Mediocre-Obvious; and read
By boarding-misses in their myriads.
These dote upon me. Sweetly have I sung
The commonplaces of philosophy
In common parlance.
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You have read perhaps
The Cymric Triads? Poetry, they say,
Excels alone by sheer simplicity
Of language, subject, and invention. Sir!
The excellence of mine lay that way too.
But fate is partial. Heaven’s fulgour moulds
‘To happiness some, some to unhappiness!’
(Look you, the harp was Welsh that figured forth
That excellent last line.) I ask you, Sir,
What would you? Ill content with mortal praise,
And haply somewhat overbold, I sought
To be as gods be; sought, in fact, to filch
Apollo’s bays!
Ah me! Dear me! I fain
Would use a stronger phrase, but hardly dare,
Being, whatever else, respectable.
I say I tired of vulgar homage, gift
Of ignorance. ‘High failure overleaps
The bounds of low successes’ (there, again,
The harp that twanged was Welsh, but with an echo
Of Browning). Godlike it must be, I thought,
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To climb the giddy brink; to pen, for instance,
An Ode to the Imperial Institute,
And fall, if bound to, from a decent height.
I did and missed the laurel; still I go
On writing; what you hear just now is blank,
Distinctly blank, and might be measured by
The kilomètre; yet I rhyme as well
A little; but it takes a lot of time,
And checks the lapse of my pellucid stream
Not all conveniently.”
Thereat he paused,
And wrung the moisture from his pipe; but I,
As one that was intolerably bored,
Took even this occasion to be gone;
And, going, marked him how he took his stile,
Polished the waxen tablets, and began
To make a Royal Pæan by request,
Or so he said.
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