Phantasmagoria and Other Poems Read online

  Pour some salt water over the floor –

  Ugly I'm sure you'll allow it to be:

  Suppose it extended a mile or more,

  THAT'S very like the Sea.

  Beat a dog till it howls outright –

  Cruel, but all very well for a spree:

  Suppose that he did so day and night,

  THAT would be like the Sea.

  I had a vision of nursery-maids;

  Tens of thousands passed by me –

  All leading children with wooden spades,

  And this was by the Sea.

  Who invented those spades of wood?

  Who was it cut them out of the tree?

  None, I think, but an idiot could –

  Or one that loved the Sea.

  It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float

  With 'thoughts as boundless, and souls as free':

  But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,

  How do you like the Sea?

  There is an insect that people avoid

  (Whence is derived the verb 'to flee').

  Where have you been by it most annoyed?

  In lodgings by the Sea.

  If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,

  A decided hint of salt in your tea,

  And a fishy taste in the very eggs –

  By all means choose the Sea.

  And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,

  You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,

  And a chronic state of wet in your feet,

  Then – I recommend the Sea.

  For I have friends who dwell by the coast –

  Pleasant friends they are to me!

  It is when I am with them I wonder most

  That anyone likes the Sea.

  They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,

  To climb the heights I madly agree;

  And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,

  They kindly suggest the Sea.

  I try the rocks, and I think it cool

  That they laugh with such an excess of glee,

  As I heavily slip into every pool

  That skirts the cold cold Sea.

  Ye Caroette Knyghte

  I have a horse – a ryghte good horse –

  Ne doe Y envye those

  Who scoure ye playne yn headye course

  Tyll soddayne on theyre nose

  They lyghte wyth unexpected force

  Yt ys – a horse of clothes.

  I have a saddel – "Say'st thou soe?

  Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?"

  I sayde not that – I answere "Noe" –

  Yt lacketh such, I woote:

  Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!

  Parte of ye fleecye brute.

  I have a bytte – a ryghte good bytte –

  As shall bee seene yn tyme.

  Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte;

  Yts use ys more sublyme.

  Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?

  Yt ys – thys bytte of rhyme.

  Hiawatha's Photographing

  In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of 'The Song of Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.

  FROM his shoulder Hiawatha

  Took the camera of rosewood,

  Made of sliding, folding rosewood;

  Neatly put it all together.

  In its case it lay compactly,

  Folded into nearly nothing;

  But he opened out the hinges,

  Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,

  Till it looked all squares and oblongs,

  Like a complicated figure

  In the Second Book of Euclid.

  This he perched upon a tripod –

  Crouched beneath its dusky cover –

  Stretched his hand, enforcing silence –

  Said, "Be motionless, I beg you!"

  Mystic, awful was the process.

  All the family in order

  Sat before him for their pictures:

  Each in turn, as he was taken,

  Volunteered his own suggestions,

  His ingenious suggestions.

  First the Governor, the Father:

  He suggested velvet curtains

  Looped about a massy pillar;

  And the corner of a table,

  Of a rosewood dining-table.

  He would hold a scroll of something,

  Hold it firmly in his left-hand;

  He would keep his right-hand buried

  (Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;

  He would contemplate the distance

  With a look of pensive meaning,

  As of ducks that die in tempests.

  Grand, heroic was the notion:

  Yet the picture failed entirely:

  Failed, because he moved a little,

  Moved, because he couldn't help it.

  Next, his better half took courage;

  SHE would have her picture taken.

  She came dressed beyond description,

  Dressed in jewels and in satin

  Far too gorgeous for an empress.

  Gracefully she sat down sideways,

  With a simper scarcely human,

  Holding in her hand a bouquet

  Rather larger than a cabbage.

  All the while that she was sitting,

  Still the lady chattered, chattered,

  Like a monkey in the forest.

  "Am I sitting still?" she asked him.

  "Is my face enough in profile?

  Shall I hold the bouquet higher?

  Will it came into the picture?"

  And the picture failed completely.

  Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:

  He suggested curves of beauty,

  Curves pervading all his figure,

  Which the eye might follow onward,

  Till they centered in the breast-pin,

  Centered in the golden breast-pin.

  He had learnt it all from Ruskin

  (Author of 'The Stones of Venice,'

  'Seven Lamps of Architecture,'

  'Modern Painters,' and some others);

  And perhaps he had not fully

  Understood his author's meaning;

  But, whatever was the reason,

  All was fruitless, as the picture

  Ended in an utter failure.

  Next to him the eldest daughter:

  She suggested very little,

  Only asked if he would take her

  With her look of 'passive beauty.'

  Her idea of passive beauty

  Was a squinting of the left-eye,

  Was a drooping of the right-eye,

  Was a smile that went up sideways

  To the corner of the nostrils.

  Hiawatha, when she asked him,

  Took no notice of the question,

  Looked as if he hadn't heard it;

  But, when pointedly appealed to,

  Smiled in his peculiar manner,

  Coughed and said it 'didn't matter,'

  Bit his lip and changed the subject.

  Nor in this was he mistaken,

  As the picture failed completely.

  So in turn the other sisters.

  Last, the youngest son was taken:

  Very rough and thick his hair was,

  Very round and red his face was,

  Very dusty was his jacket,

  Very fidgety his manner.

  And his overbearing sisters

  Called him names he disapproved of:

  Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'

  Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'

  And, so awful was the
picture,

  In comparison the others

  Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,

  To have partially succeeded.

  Finally my Hiawatha

  Tumbled all the tribe together,

  ('Grouped' is not the right expression),

  And, as happy chance would have it

  Did at last obtain a picture

  Where the faces all succeeded:

  Each came out a perfect likeness.

  Then they joined and all abused it,

  Unrestrainedly abused it,

  As the worst and ugliest picture

  They could possibly have dreamed of.

  'Giving one such strange expressions –

  Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.

  Really any one would take us

  (Any one that did not know us)

  For the most unpleasant people!'

  (Hiawatha seemed to think so,

  Seemed to think it not unlikely).

  All together rang their voices,

  Angry, loud, discordant voices,

  As of dogs that howl in concert,

  As of cats that wail in chorus.

  But my Hiawatha's patience,

  His politeness and his patience,

  Unaccountably had vanished,

  And he left that happy party.

  Neither did he leave them slowly,

  With the calm deliberation,

  The intense deliberation

  Of a photographic artist:

  But he left them in a hurry,

  Left them in a mighty hurry,

  Stating that he would not stand it,

  Stating in emphatic language

  What he'd be before he'd stand it.

  Hurriedly he packed his boxes:

  Hurriedly the porter trundled

  On a barrow all his boxes:

  Hurriedly he took his ticket:

  Hurriedly the train received him:

  Thus departed Hiawatha.

  Verses added later — when the wet-plate process was less common.

  First, a piece of glass he coated

  With collodion, and plunged it

  In a bath of lunar caustic

  Carefully dissolved in water —

  There he left it certain minutes.

  Secondly, my Hiawatha

  Made with cunning hand a mixture

  Of the acid pyrro-gallic,

  And of glacial-acetic,

  And of alcohol and water

  This developed all the picture.

  Finally, he fixed each picture

  With a saturate solution

  Which was made of hyposulphite

  Which, again, was made of soda.

  (Very difficult the name is

  For a metre like the present

  But periphrasis has done it.)

  Melancholetta

  WITH saddest music all day long

  She soothed her secret sorrow:

  At night she sighed "I fear 'twas wrong

  Such cheerful words to borrow.

  Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song

  I'll sing to thee to-morrow."

  I thanked her, but I could not say

  That I was glad to hear it:

  I left the house at break of day,

  And did not venture near it

  Till time, I hoped, had worn away

  Her grief, for nought could cheer it!

  My dismal sister! Couldst thou know

  The wretched home thou keepest!

  Thy brother, drowned in daily woe,

  Is thankful when thou sleepest;

  For if I laugh, however low,

  When thou'rt awake, thou weepest!

  I took my sister t'other day

  (Excuse the slang expression)

  To Sadler's Wells to see the play

  In hopes the new impression

  Might in her thoughts, from grave to gay

  Effect some slight digression.

  I asked three gay young dogs from town

  To join us in our folly,

  Whose mirth, I thought, might serve to drown

  My sister's melancholy:

  The lively Jones, the sportive Brown,

  And Robinson the jolly.

  The maid announced the meal in tones

  That I myself had taught her,

  Meant to allay my sister's moans

  Like oil on troubled water:

  I rushed to Jones, the lively Jones,

  And begged him to escort her.

  Vainly he strove, with ready wit,

  To joke about the weather –

  To ventilate the last 'ON DIT' –

  To quote the price of leather –

  She groaned "Here I and Sorrow sit:

  Let us lament together!"

  I urged "You're wasting time, you know:

  Delay will spoil the venison."

  "My heart is wasted with my woe!

  There is no rest – in Venice, on

  The Bridge of Sighs!" she quoted low

  From Byron and from Tennyson.

  I need not tell of soup and fish

  In solemn silence swallowed,

  The sobs that ushered in each dish,

  And its departure followed,

  Nor yet my suicidal wish

  To BE the cheese I hollowed.

  Some desperate attempts were made

  To start a conversation;

  "Madam," the sportive Brown essayed,

  "Which kind of recreation,

  Hunting or fishing, have you made

  Your special occupation?"

  Her lips curved downwards instantly,

  As if of india-rubber.

  "Hounds IN FULL CRY I like," said she:

  (Oh how I longed to snub her!)

  "Of fish, a whale's the one for me,

  IT IS SO FULL OF BLUBBER!"

  The night's performance was "King John."

  "It's dull," she wept, "and so-so!"

  Awhile I let her tears flow on,

  She said they soothed her woe so!

  At length the curtain rose upon

  'Bombastes Furioso.'

  In vain we roared; in vain we tried

  To rouse her into laughter:

  Her pensive glances wandered wide

  From orchestra to rafter –

  "TIER UPON TIER!" she said, and sighed;

  And silence followed after.

  A Valentine

  Sent to a friend who had complained that he was glad enough to see him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.

  And cannot pleasures, while they last,

  Be actual unless, when past,

  They leave us shuddering and aghast,

  With anguish smarting?

  And cannot friends be firm and fast,

  And yet bear parting?

  And must I then, at Friendship's call,

  Calmly resign the little all

  (Trifling, I grant, it is and small)

  I have of gladness,

  And lend my being to the thrall

  Of gloom and sadness?

  And think you that I should be dumb,

  And full DOLORUM OMNIUM,

  Excepting when YOU choose to come

  And share my dinner?

  At other times be sour and glum

  And daily thinner?

  Must he then only live to weep,

  Who'd prove his friendship true and deep

  By day a lonely shadow creep,

  At night-time languish,

  Oft raising in his broken sleep

  The moan of anguish?

  The lover, if for certain days

  His fair one be denied his gaze,

  Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,

  But, wiser wooer,

  He spends the time in writing lays,

  And posts them to her.

  And if the verse flow free and fast,

  Till even the poet is aghast,

  A touching Valentine at last


  The post shall carry,

  When thirteen days are gone and past

  Of February.

  Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,

  In desert waste or crowded street,

  Perhaps before this week shall fleet,

  Perhaps to-morrow.

  I trust to find YOUR heart the seat

  Of wasting sorrow.

  The Three Voices

  First Voice

  HE trilled a carol fresh and free,

  He laughed aloud for very glee:

  There came a breeze from off the sea:

  It passed athwart the glooming flat –

  It fanned his forehead as he sat –

  It lightly bore away his hat,

  All to the feet of one who stood

  Like maid enchanted in a wood,

  Frowning as darkly as she could.

  With huge umbrella, lank and brown,

  Unerringly she pinned it down,

  Right through the centre of the crown.

  Then, with an aspect cold and grim,

  Regardless of its battered rim,

  She took it up and gave it him.

  A while like one in dreams he stood,

  Then faltered forth his gratitude

  In words just short of being rude:

  For it had lost its shape and shine,

  And it had cost him four-and-nine,

  And he was going out to dine.

  "To dine!" she sneered in acid tone.

  "To bend thy being to a bone

  Clothed in a radiance not its own!"

  The tear-drop trickled to his chin:

  There was a meaning in her grin

  That made him feel on fire within.

  "Term it not 'radiance,'" said he:

  "'Tis solid nutriment to me.

  Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea."

  And she "Yea so? Yet wherefore cease?

  Let thy scant knowledge find increase.