Phantasmagoria and Other Poems Read online

  "Yet still before him as he flies

  One pallid form shall ever rise,

  And, bodying forth in glassy eyes

  "The vision of a vanished good,

  Low peering through the tangled wood,

  Shall freeze the current of his blood."

  Still from each fact, with skill uncouth

  And savage rapture, like a tooth

  She wrenched some slow reluctant truth.

  Till, like a silent water-mill,

  When summer suns have dried the rill,

  She reached a full stop, and was still.

  Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,

  As when the loaded omnibus

  Has reached the railway terminus:

  When, for the tumult of the street,

  Is heard the engine's stifled beat,

  The velvet tread of porters' feet.

  With glance that ever sought the ground,

  She moved her lips without a sound,

  And every now and then she frowned.

  He gazed upon the sleeping sea,

  And joyed in its tranquillity,

  And in that silence dead, but she

  To muse a little space did seem,

  Then, like the echo of a dream,

  Harked back upon her threadbare theme.

  Still an attentive ear he lent

  But could not fathom what she meant:

  She was not deep, nor eloquent.

  He marked the ripple on the sand:

  The even swaying of her hand

  Was all that he could understand.

  He saw in dreams a drawing-room,

  Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom,

  Waiting – he thought he knew for whom:

  He saw them drooping here and there,

  Each feebly huddled on a chair,

  In attitudes of blank despair:

  Oysters were not more mute than they,

  For all their brains were pumped away,

  And they had nothing more to say –

  Save one, who groaned "Three hours are gone!"

  Who shrieked "We'll wait no longer, John!

  Tell them to set the dinner on!"

  The vision passed: the ghosts were fled:

  He saw once more that woman dread:

  He heard once more the words she said.

  He left her, and he turned aside:

  He sat and watched the coming tide

  Across the shores so newly dried.

  He wondered at the waters clear,

  The breeze that whispered in his ear,

  The billows heaving far and near,

  And why he had so long preferred

  To hang upon her every word:

  "In truth," he said, "it was absurd."

  A Game of Fives

  Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One:

  Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.

  Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six:

  Sitting down to lessons – no more time for tricks.

  Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven:

  Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!

  Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen:

  Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you mean!"

  Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one:

  But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?

  Five showy girls – but Thirty is an age

  When girls may be engaging, but they somehow don't engage.

  Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more:

  So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!

  Five passe girls – Their age? Well, never mind!

  We jog along together, like the rest of human kind:

  But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows

  The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!

  Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur

  "How shall I be a poet?

  How shall I write in rhyme?

  You told me once 'the very wish

  Partook of the sublime.'

  Then tell me how! Don't put me off

  With your 'another time'!"

  The old man smiled to see him,

  To hear his sudden sally;

  He liked the lad to speak his mind

  Enthusiastically;

  And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,

  Nor any shilly-shally."

  "And would you be a poet

  Before you've been to school?

  Ah, well! I hardly thought you

  So absolute a fool.

  First learn to be spasmodic –

  A very simple rule.

  "For first you write a sentence,

  And then you chop it small;

  Then mix the bits, and sort them out

  Just as they chance to fall:

  The order of the phrases makes

  No difference at all.

  'Then, if you'd be impressive,

  Remember what I say,

  That abstract qualities begin

  With capitals alway:

  The True, the Good, the Beautiful –

  Those are the things that pay!

  "Next, when you are describing

  A shape, or sound, or tint;

  Don't state the matter plainly,

  But put it in a hint;

  And learn to look at all things

  With a sort of mental squint."

  "For instance, if I wished, Sir,

  Of mutton-pies to tell,

  Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks

  Pent in a wheaten cell'?"

  "Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase

  Would answer very well.

  "Then fourthly, there are epithets

  That suit with any word –

  As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce

  With fish, or flesh, or bird –

  Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'

  Are much to be preferred."

  "And will it do, O will it do

  To take them in a lump –

  As 'the wild man went his weary way

  To a strange and lonely pump'?"

  "Nay, nay! You must not hastily

  To such conclusions jump.

  "Such epithets, like pepper,

  Give zest to what you write;

  And, if you strew them sparely,

  They whet the appetite:

  But if you lay them on too thick,

  You spoil the matter quite!

  "Last, as to the arrangement:

  Your reader, you should show him,

  Must take what information he

  Can get, and look for no im-

  mature disclosure of the drift

  And purpose of your poem.

  "Therefore, to test his patience –

  How much he can endure –

  Mention no places, names, or dates,

  And evermore be sure

  Throughout the poem to be found

  Consistently obscure.

  "First fix upon the limit

  To which it shall extend:

  Then fill it up with 'Padding'

  (Beg some of any friend):

  Your great SENSATION-STANZA

  You place towards the end."

  "And what is a Sensation,

  Grandfather, tell me, pray?

  I think I never heard the word

  So used before to-day:

  Be kind enough to mention one

  'EXEMPLI GRATIA.'"

  And the old man, looking sadly

  Across the garden-lawn,

  Where here and there a dew-drop

  Yet glittered in the dawn,

  Said "Go to the Adelphi,

  And see the 'Colleen Bawn.'

  'The word is due to Boucicault –

  The theory is his,

  Where Life becomes a Spasm,

  And History a Whiz:

  If that is not Sensat
ion,

  I don't know what it is.

  "Now try your hand, ere Fancy

  Have lost its present glow – "

  "And then," his grandson added,

  "We'll publish it, you know:

  Green cloth – gold-lettered at the back –

  In duodecimo!"

  Then proudly smiled that old man

  To see the eager lad

  Rush madly for his pen and ink

  And for his blotting-pad –

  But, when he thought of PUBLISHING,

  His face grew stern and sad.

  Size and Tears

  WHEN on the sandy shore I sit,

  Beside the salt sea-wave,

  And fall into a weeping fit

  Because I dare not shave –

  A little whisper at my ear

  Enquires the reason of my fear.

  I answer "If that ruffian Jones

  Should recognise me here,

  He'd bellow out my name in tones

  Offensive to the ear:

  He chaffs me so on being stout

  (A thing that always puts me out)."

  Ah me! I see him on the cliff!

  Farewell, farewell to hope,

  If he should look this way, and if

  He's got his telescope!

  To whatsoever place I flee,

  My odious rival follows me!

  For every night, and everywhere,

  I meet him out at dinner;

  And when I've found some charming fair,

  And vowed to die or win her,

  The wretch (he's thin and I am stout)

  Is sure to come and cut me out!

  The girls (just like them!) all agree

  To praise J. Jones, Esquire:

  I ask them what on earth they see

  About him to admire?

  They cry "He is so sleek and slim,

  It's quite a treat to look at him!"

  They vanish in tobacco smoke,

  Those visionary maids –

  I feel a sharp and sudden poke

  Between the shoulder-blades –

  "Why, Brown, my boy! Your growing stout!"

  (I told you he would find me out!)

  "My growth is not YOUR business, Sir!"

  "No more it is, my boy!

  But if it's YOURS, as I infer,

  Why, Brown, I give you joy!

  A man, whose business prospers so,

  Is just the sort of man to know!

  "It's hardly safe, though, talking here –

  I'd best get out of reach:

  For such a weight as yours, I fear,

  Must shortly sink the beach!" –

  Insult me thus because I'm stout!

  I vow I'll go and call him out!

  Atalanta in Camden-Town

  AY, 'twas here, on this spot,

  In that summer of yore,

  Atalanta did not

  Vote my presence a bore,

  Nor reply to my tenderest talk "She had

  heard all that nonsense before."

  She'd the brooch I had bought

  And the necklace and sash on,

  And her heart, as I thought,

  Was alive to my passion;

  And she'd done up her hair in the style that

  the Empress had brought into fashion.

  I had been to the play

  With my pearl of a Peri –

  But, for all I could say,

  She declared she was weary,

  That "the place was so crowded and hot, and

  she couldn't abide that Dundreary."

  Then I thought "Lucky boy!

  'Tis for YOU that she whimpers!"

  And I noted with joy

  Those sensational simpers:

  And I said "This is scrumptious!" – a

  phrase I had learned from the Devonshire shrimpers.

  And I vowed "'Twill be said

  I'm a fortunate fellow,

  When the breakfast is spread,

  When the topers are mellow,

  When the foam of the bride-cake is white,

  and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow!"

  O that languishing yawn!

  O those eloquent eyes!

  I was drunk with the dawn

  Of a splendid surmise –

  I was stung by a look, I was slain by a tear,

  by a tempest of sighs.

  Then I whispered "I see

  The sweet secret thou keepest.

  And the yearning for ME

  That thou wistfully weepest!

  And the question is 'License or Banns?',

  though undoubtedly Banns are the cheapest."

  "Be my Hero," said I,

  "And let ME be Leander!"

  But I lost her reply –

  Something ending with "gander" –

  For the omnibus rattled so loud that no

  mortal could quite understand her.

  The Lang Coortin'

  THE ladye she stood at her lattice high,

  Wi' her doggie at her feet;

  Thorough the lattice she can spy

  The passers in the street,

  "There's one that standeth at the door,

  And tirleth at the pin:

  Now speak and say, my popinjay,

  If I sall let him in."

  Then up and spake the popinjay

  That flew abune her head:

  "Gae let him in that tirls the pin:

  He cometh thee to wed."

  O when he cam' the parlour in,

  A woeful man was he!

  "And dinna ye ken your lover agen,

  Sae well that loveth thee?"

  "And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir,

  That have been sae lang away?

  And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir?

  Ye never telled me sae."

  Said – "Ladye dear," and the salt, salt tear

  Cam ' rinnin' doon his cheek,

  "I have sent the tokens of my love

  This many and many a week.

  "O didna ye get the rings, Ladye,

  The rings o' the gowd sae fine?

  I wot that I have sent to thee

  Four score, four score and nine."

  "They cam' to me," said that fair ladye.

  "Wow, they were flimsie things!"

  Said – "that chain o' gowd, my doggie to howd,

  It is made o' thae self-same rings."

  "And didna ye get the locks, the locks,

  The locks o' my ain black hair,

  Whilk I sent by post, whilk I sent by box,

  Whilk I sent by the carrier?"

  "They cam' to me," said that fair ladye;

  "And I prithee send nae mair!"

  Said – "that cushion sae red, for my doggie's head,

  It is stuffed wi' thae locks o' hair."

  "And didna ye get the letter, Ladye,

  Tied wi' a silken string,

  Whilk I sent to thee frae the far countrie,

  A message of love to bring?"

  "It cam' to me frae the far countrie

  Wi' its silken string and a';

  But it wasna prepaid," said that high-born maid,

  "Sae I gar'd them tak' it awa'."

  "O ever alack that ye sent it back,

  It was written sae clerkly and well!

  Now the message it brought, and the boon that it sought,

  I must even say it mysel'."

  Then up and spake the popinjay,

  Sae wisely counselled he.

  "Now say it in the proper way:

  Gae doon upon thy knee!"

  The lover he turned baith red and pale,

  Went doon upon his knee:

  "O Ladye, hear the waesome tale

  That must be told to thee!

  "For five lang years, and five lang years,

  I coorted thee by looks;

  By nods and winks, by smiles and tears,

  As I had read in books.

  "For ten lang years, O
weary hours!

  I coorted thee by signs;

  By sending game, by sending flowers,

  By sending Valentines.

  "For five lang years, and five lang years,

  I have dwelt in the far countrie,

  Till that thy mind should be inclined

  Mair tenderly to me.

  "Now thirty years are gane and past,

  I am come frae a foreign land:

  I am come to tell thee my love at last –

  O Ladye, gie me thy hand!"

  The ladye she turned not pale nor red,

  But she smiled a pitiful smile:

  "Sic' a coortin' as yours, my man," she said

  "Takes a lang and a weary while!"

  And out and laughed the popinjay,

  A laugh of bitter scorn:

  "A coortin' done in sic' a way,

  It ought not to be borne!"

  Wi' that the doggie barked aloud,

  And up and doon he ran,

  And tugged and strained his chain o' gowd,

  All for to bite the man.

  "O hush thee, gentle popinjay!

  O hush thee, doggie dear!

  There is a word I fain wad say,

  It needeth he should hear!"

  Aye louder screamed that ladye fair

  To drown her doggie's bark:

  Ever the lover shouted mair

  To make that ladye hark:

  Shrill and more shrill the popinjay

  Upraised his angry squall:

  I trow the doggie's voice that day

  Was louder than them all!

  The serving-men and serving-maids

  Sat by the kitchen fire:

  They heard sic' a din the parlour within