By Heaven! we want you one and all,
For Hypochondria is reigning—
The Mater Dolorosa’s squall
Makes Nature hideous with complaining!
Ah! who will paint the Face that smiled
When Art was virginal and vernal—
The pure Madonna with her Child,
Pure as the light, and as eternal!
Pest on these dreary, dolent airs!
Confound these funeral pomps and poses!
Is Life Dyspepsia’s and Despair’s,
And Love’s complexion all chlorosis?
A lie! There’s Health, and Mirth, and Song,
The World still laughs, and goes a-Maying—
The dismal, droning, doleful Throng
Are only smuts in sunshine playing!
Play up, ye horns of Fairyland!
Shine out, O sun, and planets seven!
Beyond these clouds a beckoning Hand
Gleams from the lattices of Heaven!
The World’s alive—still quick, not dead,
It needs no Undertaker’s warning;
So put the Dismal Throng to bed,
And wake once more to Light and Morning!
[1] Mathilde Serao, an Italian novelist.
[2] A Spanish novelist.
[3] Verlaine and Rimbaud, two poets of the Parisian Decadence.
[4] A Norwegian playwright.
[5] Guy de Maupassant, Paul Bourget, and Pierre Loti, novelists of the Decadence.
[6] Catulle Mendès, a Parisian poet and novelist.