Sing me a hero! Quench my thirstOf soul, ye bards!Quoth Bard the first:“Sir Olaf, the good knight, did donHis helm and eke his habergeon”...Sir Olaf and his bard—!“That sin-scathed brow” (quoth Bard the second),“That eye wide ope as though Fate beckonedMy hero to some steep, beneathWhich precipice smiled tempting death”...You too without your host have reckoned!“A beggar-child” (let’s hear this third!)“Sat on a quay’s edge: like a birdSang to herself at careless play,And fell into the stream. ‘Dismay!Help, you the standers-by!’ None stirred.“Bystanders reason, think of wivesAnd children ere they risk their lives.Over the balustrade has bouncedA mere instinctive dog, and pouncedPlumb on the prize. ‘How well he dives!“‘Up he comes with the child, see, tightIn mouth, alive too, clutched from quiteA depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!Good dog! What, off again? There’s yetAnother child to save? All right!“‘How strange we saw no other fall!It’s instinct in the animal.Good dog! But he’s a long while under:If he got drowned I should not wonder—Strong current, that against the wall!“‘Here he comes, holds in mouth this time—What may the thing be? Well, that’s prime!Now, did you ever? Reason reignsIn man alone, since all Tray’s painsHave fished—the child’s doll from the slime!’“And so, amid the laughter gay,Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—Till somebody, prerogativedWith reason, reasoned: ‘Why he dived,His brain would show us, I should say.“‘John, go and catch—or, if needs be,Purchase—that animal for me!By vivisection, at expenseOf half-an-hour and eighteenpence,How brain secretes dog’s soul, we’ll see!’”
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirstOf soul, ye bards!Quoth Bard the first:“Sir Olaf, the good knight, did donHis helm and eke his habergeon”...Sir Olaf and his bard—!“That sin-scathed brow” (quoth Bard the second),“That eye wide ope as though Fate beckonedMy hero to some steep, beneathWhich precipice smiled tempting death”...You too without your host have reckoned!“A beggar-child” (let’s hear this third!)“Sat on a quay’s edge: like a birdSang to herself at careless play,And fell into the stream. ‘Dismay!Help, you the standers-by!’ None stirred.“Bystanders reason, think of wivesAnd children ere they risk their lives.Over the balustrade has bouncedA mere instinctive dog, and pouncedPlumb on the prize. ‘How well he dives!“‘Up he comes with the child, see, tightIn mouth, alive too, clutched from quiteA depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!Good dog! What, off again? There’s yetAnother child to save? All right!“‘How strange we saw no other fall!It’s instinct in the animal.Good dog! But he’s a long while under:If he got drowned I should not wonder—Strong current, that against the wall!“‘Here he comes, holds in mouth this time—What may the thing be? Well, that’s prime!Now, did you ever? Reason reignsIn man alone, since all Tray’s painsHave fished—the child’s doll from the slime!’“And so, amid the laughter gay,Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—Till somebody, prerogativedWith reason, reasoned: ‘Why he dived,His brain would show us, I should say.“‘John, go and catch—or, if needs be,Purchase—that animal for me!By vivisection, at expenseOf half-an-hour and eighteenpence,How brain secretes dog’s soul, we’ll see!’”
Sing me a hero! Quench my thirstOf soul, ye bards!
Quoth Bard the first:“Sir Olaf, the good knight, did donHis helm and eke his habergeon”...Sir Olaf and his bard—!
“That sin-scathed brow” (quoth Bard the second),“That eye wide ope as though Fate beckonedMy hero to some steep, beneathWhich precipice smiled tempting death”...You too without your host have reckoned!
“A beggar-child” (let’s hear this third!)“Sat on a quay’s edge: like a birdSang to herself at careless play,And fell into the stream. ‘Dismay!Help, you the standers-by!’ None stirred.
“Bystanders reason, think of wivesAnd children ere they risk their lives.Over the balustrade has bouncedA mere instinctive dog, and pouncedPlumb on the prize. ‘How well he dives!
“‘Up he comes with the child, see, tightIn mouth, alive too, clutched from quiteA depth of ten feet—twelve, I bet!Good dog! What, off again? There’s yetAnother child to save? All right!
“‘How strange we saw no other fall!It’s instinct in the animal.Good dog! But he’s a long while under:If he got drowned I should not wonder—Strong current, that against the wall!
“‘Here he comes, holds in mouth this time—What may the thing be? Well, that’s prime!Now, did you ever? Reason reignsIn man alone, since all Tray’s painsHave fished—the child’s doll from the slime!’
“And so, amid the laughter gay,Trotted my hero off,—old Tray,—Till somebody, prerogativedWith reason, reasoned: ‘Why he dived,His brain would show us, I should say.
“‘John, go and catch—or, if needs be,Purchase—that animal for me!By vivisection, at expenseOf half-an-hour and eighteenpence,How brain secretes dog’s soul, we’ll see!’”
What a pretty tale you told meOnce upon a time—Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)Was it prose or was it rhyme,Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,While your shoulder propped my head.Anyhow there’s no forgettingThis much if no more,That a poet (pray, no petting!)Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,Went where suchlike used to go,Singing for a prize, you know.Well, he had to sing, nor merelySing but play the lyre;Playing was important clearlyQuite as singing: I desire,Sir, you keep the fact in mindFor a purpose that’s behind.There stood he, while deep attentionHeld the judges round,—Judges able, I should mention,To detect the slightest soundSung or played amiss: such earsHad old judges, it appears!None the less he sang out boldly,Played in time and tune,Till the judges, weighing coldlyEach note’s worth, seemed, late or soon,Sure to smile “In vain one triesPicking faults out: take the prize!”When, a mischief! Were they sevenStrings the lyre possessed?Oh, and afterwards eleven,Thank you! Well, sir,—who had guessedSuch ill luck in store?—it happedOne of those same seven strings snapped.All was lost, then! No! a cricket(What “cicada?” Pooh!)—Some mad thing that left its thicketFor mere love of music—flewWith its little heart on fire,Lighted on the crippled lyre.So that when (Ah, joy!) our singerFor his truant stringFeels with disconcerted finger,What does cricket else but flingFiery heart forth, sound the noteWanted by the throbbing throat?Ay, and ever to the ending,Cricket chirps at need,Executes the hand’s intending,Promptly, perfectly,—indeedSaves the singer from defeatWith her chirrup low and sweet.Till, at ending, all the judgesCry with one assent“Take the prize—a prize who grudgesSuch a voice and instrument?Why, we took your lyre for harp,So it shrilled us forth F sharp!”Did the conqueror spurn the creature,Once its service done?That’s no such uncommon featureIn the case when Music’s sonFinds his Lotte’s power too spentFor aiding soul-development.No! This other, on returningHomeward, prize in hand,Satisfied his bosom’s yearning:(Sir, I hope you understand!)—Said “Some record there must beOf this cricket’s help to me!”So, he made himself a statue:Marble stood, life-size;On the lyre, he pointed at you,Perched his partner in the prize;Never more apart you foundHer, he throned, from him, she crowned.That’s the tale: its application?Somebody I knowHopes one day for reputationThrough his poetry that’s—Oh,All so learned and so wiseAnd deserving of a prize!If he gains one, will some ticket,When his statue’s built,Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricketHelped my crippled lyre, whose liltSweet and low, when strength usurpedSoftness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?“For as victory was nighest,While I sang and played,—With my lyre at lowest, highest,Right alike,—one string that made‘Love’ sound soft was snapt in twain,Never to be heard again,—“Had not a kind cricket fluttered,Perched upon the placeVacant left, and duly uttered‘Love, Love, Love,’ whene’er the bassAsked the treble to atoneFor its somewhat sombre drone.”But you don’t know music! WhereforeKeep on casting pearlsTo a—poet? All I care forIs—to tell him that a girl’s“Love” comes aptly in when gruffGrows his singing. (There, enough!)
What a pretty tale you told meOnce upon a time—Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)Was it prose or was it rhyme,Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,While your shoulder propped my head.Anyhow there’s no forgettingThis much if no more,That a poet (pray, no petting!)Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,Went where suchlike used to go,Singing for a prize, you know.Well, he had to sing, nor merelySing but play the lyre;Playing was important clearlyQuite as singing: I desire,Sir, you keep the fact in mindFor a purpose that’s behind.There stood he, while deep attentionHeld the judges round,—Judges able, I should mention,To detect the slightest soundSung or played amiss: such earsHad old judges, it appears!None the less he sang out boldly,Played in time and tune,Till the judges, weighing coldlyEach note’s worth, seemed, late or soon,Sure to smile “In vain one triesPicking faults out: take the prize!”When, a mischief! Were they sevenStrings the lyre possessed?Oh, and afterwards eleven,Thank you! Well, sir,—who had guessedSuch ill luck in store?—it happedOne of those same seven strings snapped.All was lost, then! No! a cricket(What “cicada?” Pooh!)—Some mad thing that left its thicketFor mere love of music—flewWith its little heart on fire,Lighted on the crippled lyre.So that when (Ah, joy!) our singerFor his truant stringFeels with disconcerted finger,What does cricket else but flingFiery heart forth, sound the noteWanted by the throbbing throat?Ay, and ever to the ending,Cricket chirps at need,Executes the hand’s intending,Promptly, perfectly,—indeedSaves the singer from defeatWith her chirrup low and sweet.Till, at ending, all the judgesCry with one assent“Take the prize—a prize who grudgesSuch a voice and instrument?Why, we took your lyre for harp,So it shrilled us forth F sharp!”Did the conqueror spurn the creature,Once its service done?That’s no such uncommon featureIn the case when Music’s sonFinds his Lotte’s power too spentFor aiding soul-development.No! This other, on returningHomeward, prize in hand,Satisfied his bosom’s yearning:(Sir, I hope you understand!)—Said “Some record there must beOf this cricket’s help to me!”So, he made himself a statue:Marble stood, life-size;On the lyre, he pointed at you,Perched his partner in the prize;Never more apart you foundHer, he throned, from him, she crowned.That’s the tale: its application?Somebody I knowHopes one day for reputationThrough his poetry that’s—Oh,All so learned and so wiseAnd deserving of a prize!If he gains one, will some ticket,When his statue’s built,Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricketHelped my crippled lyre, whose liltSweet and low, when strength usurpedSoftness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?“For as victory was nighest,While I sang and played,—With my lyre at lowest, highest,Right alike,—one string that made‘Love’ sound soft was snapt in twain,Never to be heard again,—“Had not a kind cricket fluttered,Perched upon the placeVacant left, and duly uttered‘Love, Love, Love,’ whene’er the bassAsked the treble to atoneFor its somewhat sombre drone.”But you don’t know music! WhereforeKeep on casting pearlsTo a—poet? All I care forIs—to tell him that a girl’s“Love” comes aptly in when gruffGrows his singing. (There, enough!)
What a pretty tale you told meOnce upon a time—Said you found it somewhere (scold me!)Was it prose or was it rhyme,Greek or Latin? Greek, you said,While your shoulder propped my head.
Anyhow there’s no forgettingThis much if no more,That a poet (pray, no petting!)Yes, a bard, sir, famed of yore,Went where suchlike used to go,Singing for a prize, you know.
Well, he had to sing, nor merelySing but play the lyre;Playing was important clearlyQuite as singing: I desire,Sir, you keep the fact in mindFor a purpose that’s behind.
There stood he, while deep attentionHeld the judges round,—Judges able, I should mention,To detect the slightest soundSung or played amiss: such earsHad old judges, it appears!
None the less he sang out boldly,Played in time and tune,Till the judges, weighing coldlyEach note’s worth, seemed, late or soon,Sure to smile “In vain one triesPicking faults out: take the prize!”
When, a mischief! Were they sevenStrings the lyre possessed?Oh, and afterwards eleven,Thank you! Well, sir,—who had guessedSuch ill luck in store?—it happedOne of those same seven strings snapped.
All was lost, then! No! a cricket(What “cicada?” Pooh!)—Some mad thing that left its thicketFor mere love of music—flewWith its little heart on fire,Lighted on the crippled lyre.
So that when (Ah, joy!) our singerFor his truant stringFeels with disconcerted finger,What does cricket else but flingFiery heart forth, sound the noteWanted by the throbbing throat?
Ay, and ever to the ending,Cricket chirps at need,Executes the hand’s intending,Promptly, perfectly,—indeedSaves the singer from defeatWith her chirrup low and sweet.
Till, at ending, all the judgesCry with one assent“Take the prize—a prize who grudgesSuch a voice and instrument?Why, we took your lyre for harp,So it shrilled us forth F sharp!”
Did the conqueror spurn the creature,Once its service done?That’s no such uncommon featureIn the case when Music’s sonFinds his Lotte’s power too spentFor aiding soul-development.
No! This other, on returningHomeward, prize in hand,Satisfied his bosom’s yearning:(Sir, I hope you understand!)—Said “Some record there must beOf this cricket’s help to me!”
So, he made himself a statue:Marble stood, life-size;On the lyre, he pointed at you,Perched his partner in the prize;Never more apart you foundHer, he throned, from him, she crowned.
That’s the tale: its application?Somebody I knowHopes one day for reputationThrough his poetry that’s—Oh,All so learned and so wiseAnd deserving of a prize!
If he gains one, will some ticket,When his statue’s built,Tell the gazer “’Twas a cricketHelped my crippled lyre, whose liltSweet and low, when strength usurpedSoftness’ place i’ the scale, she chirped?
“For as victory was nighest,While I sang and played,—With my lyre at lowest, highest,Right alike,—one string that made‘Love’ sound soft was snapt in twain,Never to be heard again,—
“Had not a kind cricket fluttered,Perched upon the placeVacant left, and duly uttered‘Love, Love, Love,’ whene’er the bassAsked the treble to atoneFor its somewhat sombre drone.”
But you don’t know music! WhereforeKeep on casting pearlsTo a—poet? All I care forIs—to tell him that a girl’s“Love” comes aptly in when gruffGrows his singing. (There, enough!)
“HAIR, SUCH A WONDER OF FLIX AND FLOSS.”
“HAIR, SUCH A WONDER OF FLIX AND FLOSS.”
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,Just where the sea and the Loire unite!And a boasted name in BrittanyShe bore, which I will not write.Too white, for the flower of life is red:Her flesh was the soft seraphic screenOf a soul that is meant (her parents said)To just see earth, and hardly be seen,And blossom in heaven instead.Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!One grace that grew to its full on earth:Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,And her waist want half a girdle’s girth,But she had her great gold hair.Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,Freshness and fragrance—floods of it, too!Gold, did I say? Nay, gold’s mere dross:Here, Life smiled, “Think what I meant to do!”And Love sighed, “Fancy my loss!”So, when she died, it was scarce more strangeThan that, when delicate evening dies,And you follow its spent sun’s pallid range,There’s a shoot of colour startles the skiesWith sudden, violent change,—That, while the breath was nearly to seek,As they put the little cross to her lips,She changed; a spot came out on her cheek,A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse,And she broke forth, “I must speak!”“Not my hair!” made the girl her moan—“All the rest is gone or to go;But the last, last grace, my all, my own,Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know!Leave my poor gold hair alone!”The passion thus vented, dead lay she;Her parents sobbed their worst on that;All friends joined in, nor observed degree:For indeed the hair was to wonder at,As it spread—not flowing free,But curled around her brow, like a crown,And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap,And calmed about her neck—ay, downTo her breast, pressed flat, without a gapI’ the gold, it reached her gown.All kissed that face, like a silver wedge’Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair:E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege,As he planted the crucifix with careOn her breast, ’twixt edge and edge.And thus was she buried, inviolateOf body and soul, in the very spaceBy the altar; keeping saintly stateIn Pornic church, for her pride of race,Pure life and piteous fate.And in after-time would your fresh tear fall,Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile,As they told you of gold, both robe and pall,How she prayed them leave it alone awhile,So it never was touched at all.Years flew; this legend grew at lastThe life of the lady; all she had done,All been, in the memories fading fastOf lover and friend, was summed in oneSentence survivors passed:To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth;Had turned an angel before the time:Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearthOf frailty, all you could count a crimeWas—she knew her gold hair’s worth.At little pleasant Pornic church,It chanced, the pavement wanted repair,Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch,A certain sacred space lay bare,And the boys began research.’Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint,A benefactor,—a bishop, suppose,A baron with armour-adornments quaint,Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose,Things sanctity saves from taint;So we come to find them in after-daysWhen the corpse is presumed to have done with gaudsOf use to the living, in many ways:For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds,And the church deserves the praise.They grubbed with a will: and at length—O corHumanum, pectora cæca, and the rest!—They found—no gaud they were prying for,No ring, no rose, but—who would have guessed?—A double Louis-d’or!Here was a case for the priest: he heard,Marked, inwardly digested, laidFinger on nose, smiled, “There’s a birdChirps in my ear:” then, “Bring a spade,Dig deeper!”—he gave the word.And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,Or rotten planks which composed it once,Why, there lay the girl’s skull wedged amidA mint of money, it served for the nonceTo hold in its hair-heaps hid!Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont(She the stainless soul) to treasure upMoney, earth’s trash and heaven’s affront?Had a spider found out the communion-cup,Was a toad in the christening-font?Truth is truth: too true it was.Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first,Longed for it, leaned o’er it, loved it—alas—Till the humour grew to a head and burst,And she cried, at the final pass,—“Talk not of God, my heart is stone!Nor lover nor friend—be gold for both!Gold I lack; and, my all, my own,It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die lothIf they let my hair alone!”Louis-d’or, some six times five,And duly double, every piece.Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive,With parents preventing her soul’s releaseBy kisses that kept alive,—With heaven’s gold gates about to ope,With friends’ praise, gold-like, lingering still,An instinct had bidden the girl’s hand gropeFor gold, the true sort—“Gold in heaven, if you will;But I keep earth’s too, I hope.”Enough! The priest took the grave’s grim yield:The parents, they eyed that price of sinAs ifthirty pieceslay revealedOn the placeto bury strangers in,The hideous Potter’s Field.But the priest bethought him: “‘Milk that’s spilt’—You know the adage! Watch and pray!Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!It would build a new altar; that, we may!”And the altar therewith was built.Why I deliver this horrible verse?As the text of a sermon, which now I preach:Evil or good may be better or worseIn the human heart, but the mixture of eachIs a marvel and a curse.The candid incline to surmise of lateThat the Christian faith proves false, I find;For our Essays-and-Reviews’ debateBegins to tell on the public mind,And Colenso’s words have weight:I still, to suppose it true, for my part,See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:’Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dartAt the head of a lie—taught Original Sin,The Corruption of Man’s Heart.
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,Just where the sea and the Loire unite!And a boasted name in BrittanyShe bore, which I will not write.Too white, for the flower of life is red:Her flesh was the soft seraphic screenOf a soul that is meant (her parents said)To just see earth, and hardly be seen,And blossom in heaven instead.Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!One grace that grew to its full on earth:Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,And her waist want half a girdle’s girth,But she had her great gold hair.Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,Freshness and fragrance—floods of it, too!Gold, did I say? Nay, gold’s mere dross:Here, Life smiled, “Think what I meant to do!”And Love sighed, “Fancy my loss!”So, when she died, it was scarce more strangeThan that, when delicate evening dies,And you follow its spent sun’s pallid range,There’s a shoot of colour startles the skiesWith sudden, violent change,—That, while the breath was nearly to seek,As they put the little cross to her lips,She changed; a spot came out on her cheek,A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse,And she broke forth, “I must speak!”“Not my hair!” made the girl her moan—“All the rest is gone or to go;But the last, last grace, my all, my own,Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know!Leave my poor gold hair alone!”The passion thus vented, dead lay she;Her parents sobbed their worst on that;All friends joined in, nor observed degree:For indeed the hair was to wonder at,As it spread—not flowing free,But curled around her brow, like a crown,And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap,And calmed about her neck—ay, downTo her breast, pressed flat, without a gapI’ the gold, it reached her gown.All kissed that face, like a silver wedge’Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair:E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege,As he planted the crucifix with careOn her breast, ’twixt edge and edge.And thus was she buried, inviolateOf body and soul, in the very spaceBy the altar; keeping saintly stateIn Pornic church, for her pride of race,Pure life and piteous fate.And in after-time would your fresh tear fall,Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile,As they told you of gold, both robe and pall,How she prayed them leave it alone awhile,So it never was touched at all.Years flew; this legend grew at lastThe life of the lady; all she had done,All been, in the memories fading fastOf lover and friend, was summed in oneSentence survivors passed:To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth;Had turned an angel before the time:Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearthOf frailty, all you could count a crimeWas—she knew her gold hair’s worth.At little pleasant Pornic church,It chanced, the pavement wanted repair,Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch,A certain sacred space lay bare,And the boys began research.’Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint,A benefactor,—a bishop, suppose,A baron with armour-adornments quaint,Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose,Things sanctity saves from taint;So we come to find them in after-daysWhen the corpse is presumed to have done with gaudsOf use to the living, in many ways:For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds,And the church deserves the praise.They grubbed with a will: and at length—O corHumanum, pectora cæca, and the rest!—They found—no gaud they were prying for,No ring, no rose, but—who would have guessed?—A double Louis-d’or!Here was a case for the priest: he heard,Marked, inwardly digested, laidFinger on nose, smiled, “There’s a birdChirps in my ear:” then, “Bring a spade,Dig deeper!”—he gave the word.And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,Or rotten planks which composed it once,Why, there lay the girl’s skull wedged amidA mint of money, it served for the nonceTo hold in its hair-heaps hid!Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont(She the stainless soul) to treasure upMoney, earth’s trash and heaven’s affront?Had a spider found out the communion-cup,Was a toad in the christening-font?Truth is truth: too true it was.Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first,Longed for it, leaned o’er it, loved it—alas—Till the humour grew to a head and burst,And she cried, at the final pass,—“Talk not of God, my heart is stone!Nor lover nor friend—be gold for both!Gold I lack; and, my all, my own,It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die lothIf they let my hair alone!”Louis-d’or, some six times five,And duly double, every piece.Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive,With parents preventing her soul’s releaseBy kisses that kept alive,—With heaven’s gold gates about to ope,With friends’ praise, gold-like, lingering still,An instinct had bidden the girl’s hand gropeFor gold, the true sort—“Gold in heaven, if you will;But I keep earth’s too, I hope.”Enough! The priest took the grave’s grim yield:The parents, they eyed that price of sinAs ifthirty pieceslay revealedOn the placeto bury strangers in,The hideous Potter’s Field.But the priest bethought him: “‘Milk that’s spilt’—You know the adage! Watch and pray!Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!It would build a new altar; that, we may!”And the altar therewith was built.Why I deliver this horrible verse?As the text of a sermon, which now I preach:Evil or good may be better or worseIn the human heart, but the mixture of eachIs a marvel and a curse.The candid incline to surmise of lateThat the Christian faith proves false, I find;For our Essays-and-Reviews’ debateBegins to tell on the public mind,And Colenso’s words have weight:I still, to suppose it true, for my part,See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:’Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dartAt the head of a lie—taught Original Sin,The Corruption of Man’s Heart.
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,Just where the sea and the Loire unite!And a boasted name in BrittanyShe bore, which I will not write.
Too white, for the flower of life is red:Her flesh was the soft seraphic screenOf a soul that is meant (her parents said)To just see earth, and hardly be seen,And blossom in heaven instead.
Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!One grace that grew to its full on earth:Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,And her waist want half a girdle’s girth,But she had her great gold hair.
Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,Freshness and fragrance—floods of it, too!Gold, did I say? Nay, gold’s mere dross:Here, Life smiled, “Think what I meant to do!”And Love sighed, “Fancy my loss!”
So, when she died, it was scarce more strangeThan that, when delicate evening dies,And you follow its spent sun’s pallid range,There’s a shoot of colour startles the skiesWith sudden, violent change,—
That, while the breath was nearly to seek,As they put the little cross to her lips,She changed; a spot came out on her cheek,A spark from her eye in mid-eclipse,And she broke forth, “I must speak!”
“Not my hair!” made the girl her moan—“All the rest is gone or to go;But the last, last grace, my all, my own,Let it stay in the grave, that the ghosts may know!Leave my poor gold hair alone!”
The passion thus vented, dead lay she;Her parents sobbed their worst on that;All friends joined in, nor observed degree:For indeed the hair was to wonder at,As it spread—not flowing free,
But curled around her brow, like a crown,And coiled beside her cheeks, like a cap,And calmed about her neck—ay, downTo her breast, pressed flat, without a gapI’ the gold, it reached her gown.
All kissed that face, like a silver wedge’Mid the yellow wealth, nor disturbed its hair:E’en the priest allowed death’s privilege,As he planted the crucifix with careOn her breast, ’twixt edge and edge.
And thus was she buried, inviolateOf body and soul, in the very spaceBy the altar; keeping saintly stateIn Pornic church, for her pride of race,Pure life and piteous fate.
And in after-time would your fresh tear fall,Though your mouth might twitch with a dubious smile,As they told you of gold, both robe and pall,How she prayed them leave it alone awhile,So it never was touched at all.
Years flew; this legend grew at lastThe life of the lady; all she had done,All been, in the memories fading fastOf lover and friend, was summed in oneSentence survivors passed:
To wit, she was meant for heaven, not earth;Had turned an angel before the time:Yet, since she was mortal, in such dearthOf frailty, all you could count a crimeWas—she knew her gold hair’s worth.
At little pleasant Pornic church,It chanced, the pavement wanted repair,Was taken to pieces: left in the lurch,A certain sacred space lay bare,And the boys began research.
’Twas the space where our sires would lay a saint,A benefactor,—a bishop, suppose,A baron with armour-adornments quaint,Dame with chased ring and jewelled rose,Things sanctity saves from taint;
So we come to find them in after-daysWhen the corpse is presumed to have done with gaudsOf use to the living, in many ways:For the boys get pelf, and the town applauds,And the church deserves the praise.
They grubbed with a will: and at length—O corHumanum, pectora cæca, and the rest!—They found—no gaud they were prying for,No ring, no rose, but—who would have guessed?—A double Louis-d’or!
Here was a case for the priest: he heard,Marked, inwardly digested, laidFinger on nose, smiled, “There’s a birdChirps in my ear:” then, “Bring a spade,Dig deeper!”—he gave the word.
And lo, when they came to the coffin-lid,Or rotten planks which composed it once,Why, there lay the girl’s skull wedged amidA mint of money, it served for the nonceTo hold in its hair-heaps hid!
Hid there? Why? Could the girl be wont(She the stainless soul) to treasure upMoney, earth’s trash and heaven’s affront?Had a spider found out the communion-cup,Was a toad in the christening-font?
Truth is truth: too true it was.Gold! She hoarded and hugged it first,Longed for it, leaned o’er it, loved it—alas—Till the humour grew to a head and burst,And she cried, at the final pass,—
“Talk not of God, my heart is stone!Nor lover nor friend—be gold for both!Gold I lack; and, my all, my own,It shall hide in my hair. I scarce die lothIf they let my hair alone!”
Louis-d’or, some six times five,And duly double, every piece.Now, do you see? With the priest to shrive,With parents preventing her soul’s releaseBy kisses that kept alive,—
With heaven’s gold gates about to ope,With friends’ praise, gold-like, lingering still,An instinct had bidden the girl’s hand gropeFor gold, the true sort—“Gold in heaven, if you will;But I keep earth’s too, I hope.”
Enough! The priest took the grave’s grim yield:The parents, they eyed that price of sinAs ifthirty pieceslay revealedOn the placeto bury strangers in,The hideous Potter’s Field.
But the priest bethought him: “‘Milk that’s spilt’—You know the adage! Watch and pray!Saints tumble to earth with so slight a tilt!It would build a new altar; that, we may!”And the altar therewith was built.
Why I deliver this horrible verse?As the text of a sermon, which now I preach:Evil or good may be better or worseIn the human heart, but the mixture of eachIs a marvel and a curse.
The candid incline to surmise of lateThat the Christian faith proves false, I find;For our Essays-and-Reviews’ debateBegins to tell on the public mind,And Colenso’s words have weight:
I still, to suppose it true, for my part,See reasons and reasons; this, to begin:’Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dartAt the head of a lie—taught Original Sin,The Corruption of Man’s Heart.
Do you happen to know in Ross-shireMount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:Of the naked fact I am sure enough,Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.You may recognise Ben by description;Behind him—a moor’s immenseness:Up goes the middle mount of a range,Fringed with its firs in denseness.Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!For an edge there is, though narrow;From end to end of the range, a stripOf path runs straight as an arrow.And the mountaineer who takes that pathSaves himself miles of journeyHe has to plod if he crosses the moorThrough heather, peat, and burnie.But a mountaineer he needs must be,For, look you, right in the middleProjects bluff Ben—with an end inich—Why planted there, is a riddle:Since all Ben’s brothers little and bigKeep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,And only this burliest out must bulgeTill it seems—to the beholderFrom down in the gully,—as if Ben’s breast,To a sudden spike diminished,Would signify to the boldest foot“All further passage finished!”Yet the mountaineer who sidles onAnd on to the very bending,Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,No necessary ending.Foot up, foot down, to the turn abruptHaving trod, he, there arriving,Finds—what he took for a point was breadthA mercy of Nature’s contriving.So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,From one side gains the other:The wee path widens—resume the march,And he foils you, Ben my brother!But Donald—(that name, I hope, will do)—I wrong him if I call “foiling”The tramp of the callant, whistling the whileAs blithe as our kettle’s boiling.He had dared the danger from boyhood up,And now,—when perchance was waitingA lass at the brig below,—’twixt mountAnd moor would he standing debating?Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,A glory of bone and muscle:Did a fiend dispute the right of way,Donald would try a tussle.Lightsomely marched he out of the broadOn to the narrow and narrow;A step more, rounding the angular rock,Reached the front straight as an arrow.He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,When—whom found he full-facing?What fellow in courage and wariness too,Had scouted ignoble pacing,And left low safety to timid mates,And made for the dread dear danger,And gained the height where—who could guessHe would meet with a rival ranger?’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,Gigantic and magnific,By the wonder—ay, and the peril—struckIntelligent and pacific:For a red deer is no fallow deerGrown cowardly through park-feeding;He batters you like a thunderboltIf you brave his haunts unheeding.I doubt he could hardly performvolte-faceHad valour advised discretion:You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a ropeNo Blondin makes profession.Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,Though pride ill brooks retiring:Each eyed each—mute man, motionless beast—Less fearing than admiring.These are the moments when quite new sense,To meet some need as novel,Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:—“Nor advance nor retreat but—grovel!”And slowly, surely, never a whitRelaxing the steady tensionOf eye-stare which binds man to beast,—By an inch and inch declension,Sank Donald sidewise down and down:Till flat, breast upwards, lyingAt his six-foot length, no corpse more still,—“If he cross me! The trick’s worth trying.”Minutes were an eternity;But a new sense was createdIn the stag’s brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,With eye-stare unabated,Feelingly he extends a footWhich tastes the way ere it touchesEarth’s solid and just escapes man’s soft,Nor hold of the same unclutchesTill its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,Lands itself no less finely:So a mother removes a fly from the faceOf her babe asleep supinely.And now ’tis the haunch and hind-foot’s turn—That’s hard: can the beast quite raise it?Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,His hoof-tip does not graze it.Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,Was sportsman first, man after:A fancy lightened his caution through,—He wellnigh broke into laughter:“It were nothing short of a miracle!Unrivalled, unexampled—All sporting feats with this feat matchedWere down and dead and trampled!”The last of the legs as tenderlyFollows the rest: or neverOr now is the time! His knife in reach,And his right hand loose—how clever!For this can stab up the stomach’s soft,While the left hand grasps the pastern.A rise on the elbow, and—now’s the timeOr never: this turn’s the last turn!I shall dare to place myself by GodWho scanned—for he does—each featureOf the face thrown up in appeal to himBy the agonising creature.Nay, I hear plain words: “Thy gift brings this!”Up he sprang, back he staggered,Over he fell, and with him our friend—At following game no laggard.Yet he was not dead when they picked next dayFrom the gully’s depth the wreck of him;His fall had been stayed by the stag beneathWho cushioned and saved the neck of him.But the rest of his body—why, doctors said,Whatever could break was broken;Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toastIn a tumbler of port wine soaken.“That your life is left you, thank the stag!”Said they when—the slow cure ended—They opened the hospital door, and thence—Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,And minor damage left wisely alone,—Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,Out—what went in a Goliath wellnigh,—Some half of a David hobbled.“You must ask an alms from house to house:Sell the stag’s head for a bracket,With its grand twelve tines—I’d buy it myself—And use the skin for a jacket!”He was wiser, made both head and hideHis win-penny: hands and knees on,Would manage to crawl—poor crab—by the roadsIn the misty stalking season.And if he discovered a bothy like this,Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.And when he had come to the close, and spreadHis spoils for the gazers’ wonder,With “Gentlemen, here’s the skull of the stagI was over, thank God, not under!”—The company broke out in applause;“By Jingo, a lucky cripple!Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,And a tug, besides, at our tipple!”And “There’s my pay for your pluck!” cried This,“And mine for your jolly story!”Cried That, while T’other—but he was drunk—Hiccupped “A trump, a Tory!”I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;For, as Homer would say, “within grateThough teeth kept tongue,” my whole soul growled,“Rightly rewarded,—Ingrate!”
Do you happen to know in Ross-shireMount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:Of the naked fact I am sure enough,Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.You may recognise Ben by description;Behind him—a moor’s immenseness:Up goes the middle mount of a range,Fringed with its firs in denseness.Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!For an edge there is, though narrow;From end to end of the range, a stripOf path runs straight as an arrow.And the mountaineer who takes that pathSaves himself miles of journeyHe has to plod if he crosses the moorThrough heather, peat, and burnie.But a mountaineer he needs must be,For, look you, right in the middleProjects bluff Ben—with an end inich—Why planted there, is a riddle:Since all Ben’s brothers little and bigKeep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,And only this burliest out must bulgeTill it seems—to the beholderFrom down in the gully,—as if Ben’s breast,To a sudden spike diminished,Would signify to the boldest foot“All further passage finished!”Yet the mountaineer who sidles onAnd on to the very bending,Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,No necessary ending.Foot up, foot down, to the turn abruptHaving trod, he, there arriving,Finds—what he took for a point was breadthA mercy of Nature’s contriving.So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,From one side gains the other:The wee path widens—resume the march,And he foils you, Ben my brother!But Donald—(that name, I hope, will do)—I wrong him if I call “foiling”The tramp of the callant, whistling the whileAs blithe as our kettle’s boiling.He had dared the danger from boyhood up,And now,—when perchance was waitingA lass at the brig below,—’twixt mountAnd moor would he standing debating?Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,A glory of bone and muscle:Did a fiend dispute the right of way,Donald would try a tussle.Lightsomely marched he out of the broadOn to the narrow and narrow;A step more, rounding the angular rock,Reached the front straight as an arrow.He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,When—whom found he full-facing?What fellow in courage and wariness too,Had scouted ignoble pacing,And left low safety to timid mates,And made for the dread dear danger,And gained the height where—who could guessHe would meet with a rival ranger?’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,Gigantic and magnific,By the wonder—ay, and the peril—struckIntelligent and pacific:For a red deer is no fallow deerGrown cowardly through park-feeding;He batters you like a thunderboltIf you brave his haunts unheeding.I doubt he could hardly performvolte-faceHad valour advised discretion:You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a ropeNo Blondin makes profession.Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,Though pride ill brooks retiring:Each eyed each—mute man, motionless beast—Less fearing than admiring.These are the moments when quite new sense,To meet some need as novel,Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:—“Nor advance nor retreat but—grovel!”And slowly, surely, never a whitRelaxing the steady tensionOf eye-stare which binds man to beast,—By an inch and inch declension,Sank Donald sidewise down and down:Till flat, breast upwards, lyingAt his six-foot length, no corpse more still,—“If he cross me! The trick’s worth trying.”Minutes were an eternity;But a new sense was createdIn the stag’s brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,With eye-stare unabated,Feelingly he extends a footWhich tastes the way ere it touchesEarth’s solid and just escapes man’s soft,Nor hold of the same unclutchesTill its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,Lands itself no less finely:So a mother removes a fly from the faceOf her babe asleep supinely.And now ’tis the haunch and hind-foot’s turn—That’s hard: can the beast quite raise it?Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,His hoof-tip does not graze it.Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,Was sportsman first, man after:A fancy lightened his caution through,—He wellnigh broke into laughter:“It were nothing short of a miracle!Unrivalled, unexampled—All sporting feats with this feat matchedWere down and dead and trampled!”The last of the legs as tenderlyFollows the rest: or neverOr now is the time! His knife in reach,And his right hand loose—how clever!For this can stab up the stomach’s soft,While the left hand grasps the pastern.A rise on the elbow, and—now’s the timeOr never: this turn’s the last turn!I shall dare to place myself by GodWho scanned—for he does—each featureOf the face thrown up in appeal to himBy the agonising creature.Nay, I hear plain words: “Thy gift brings this!”Up he sprang, back he staggered,Over he fell, and with him our friend—At following game no laggard.Yet he was not dead when they picked next dayFrom the gully’s depth the wreck of him;His fall had been stayed by the stag beneathWho cushioned and saved the neck of him.But the rest of his body—why, doctors said,Whatever could break was broken;Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toastIn a tumbler of port wine soaken.“That your life is left you, thank the stag!”Said they when—the slow cure ended—They opened the hospital door, and thence—Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,And minor damage left wisely alone,—Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,Out—what went in a Goliath wellnigh,—Some half of a David hobbled.“You must ask an alms from house to house:Sell the stag’s head for a bracket,With its grand twelve tines—I’d buy it myself—And use the skin for a jacket!”He was wiser, made both head and hideHis win-penny: hands and knees on,Would manage to crawl—poor crab—by the roadsIn the misty stalking season.And if he discovered a bothy like this,Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.And when he had come to the close, and spreadHis spoils for the gazers’ wonder,With “Gentlemen, here’s the skull of the stagI was over, thank God, not under!”—The company broke out in applause;“By Jingo, a lucky cripple!Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,And a tug, besides, at our tipple!”And “There’s my pay for your pluck!” cried This,“And mine for your jolly story!”Cried That, while T’other—but he was drunk—Hiccupped “A trump, a Tory!”I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;For, as Homer would say, “within grateThough teeth kept tongue,” my whole soul growled,“Rightly rewarded,—Ingrate!”
Do you happen to know in Ross-shireMount Ben ... but the name scarce matters:Of the naked fact I am sure enough,Though I clothe it in rags and tatters.
You may recognise Ben by description;Behind him—a moor’s immenseness:Up goes the middle mount of a range,Fringed with its firs in denseness.
Rimming the edge, its fir-fringe, mind!For an edge there is, though narrow;From end to end of the range, a stripOf path runs straight as an arrow.
And the mountaineer who takes that pathSaves himself miles of journeyHe has to plod if he crosses the moorThrough heather, peat, and burnie.
But a mountaineer he needs must be,For, look you, right in the middleProjects bluff Ben—with an end inich—Why planted there, is a riddle:
Since all Ben’s brothers little and bigKeep rank, set shoulder to shoulder,And only this burliest out must bulgeTill it seems—to the beholder
From down in the gully,—as if Ben’s breast,To a sudden spike diminished,Would signify to the boldest foot“All further passage finished!”
Yet the mountaineer who sidles onAnd on to the very bending,Discovers, if heart and brain be proof,No necessary ending.
Foot up, foot down, to the turn abruptHaving trod, he, there arriving,Finds—what he took for a point was breadthA mercy of Nature’s contriving.
So, he rounds what, when ’tis reached, proves straight,From one side gains the other:The wee path widens—resume the march,And he foils you, Ben my brother!
But Donald—(that name, I hope, will do)—I wrong him if I call “foiling”The tramp of the callant, whistling the whileAs blithe as our kettle’s boiling.
He had dared the danger from boyhood up,And now,—when perchance was waitingA lass at the brig below,—’twixt mountAnd moor would he standing debating?
Moreover this Donald was twenty-five,A glory of bone and muscle:Did a fiend dispute the right of way,Donald would try a tussle.
Lightsomely marched he out of the broadOn to the narrow and narrow;A step more, rounding the angular rock,Reached the front straight as an arrow.
He stepped it, safe on the ledge he stood,When—whom found he full-facing?What fellow in courage and wariness too,Had scouted ignoble pacing,
And left low safety to timid mates,And made for the dread dear danger,And gained the height where—who could guessHe would meet with a rival ranger?
’Twas a gold-red stag that stood and stared,Gigantic and magnific,By the wonder—ay, and the peril—struckIntelligent and pacific:
For a red deer is no fallow deerGrown cowardly through park-feeding;He batters you like a thunderboltIf you brave his haunts unheeding.
I doubt he could hardly performvolte-faceHad valour advised discretion:You may walk on a rope, but to turn on a ropeNo Blondin makes profession.
Yet Donald must turn, would pride permit,Though pride ill brooks retiring:Each eyed each—mute man, motionless beast—Less fearing than admiring.
These are the moments when quite new sense,To meet some need as novel,Springs up in the brain: it inspired resource:—“Nor advance nor retreat but—grovel!”
And slowly, surely, never a whitRelaxing the steady tensionOf eye-stare which binds man to beast,—By an inch and inch declension,
Sank Donald sidewise down and down:Till flat, breast upwards, lyingAt his six-foot length, no corpse more still,—“If he cross me! The trick’s worth trying.”
Minutes were an eternity;But a new sense was createdIn the stag’s brain too; he resolves! Slow, sure,With eye-stare unabated,
Feelingly he extends a footWhich tastes the way ere it touchesEarth’s solid and just escapes man’s soft,Nor hold of the same unclutches
Till its fellow foot, light as a feather whisk,Lands itself no less finely:So a mother removes a fly from the faceOf her babe asleep supinely.
And now ’tis the haunch and hind-foot’s turn—That’s hard: can the beast quite raise it?Yes, traversing half the prostrate length,His hoof-tip does not graze it.
Just one more lift! But Donald, you see,Was sportsman first, man after:A fancy lightened his caution through,—He wellnigh broke into laughter:
“It were nothing short of a miracle!Unrivalled, unexampled—All sporting feats with this feat matchedWere down and dead and trampled!”
The last of the legs as tenderlyFollows the rest: or neverOr now is the time! His knife in reach,And his right hand loose—how clever!
For this can stab up the stomach’s soft,While the left hand grasps the pastern.A rise on the elbow, and—now’s the timeOr never: this turn’s the last turn!
I shall dare to place myself by GodWho scanned—for he does—each featureOf the face thrown up in appeal to himBy the agonising creature.
Nay, I hear plain words: “Thy gift brings this!”Up he sprang, back he staggered,Over he fell, and with him our friend—At following game no laggard.
Yet he was not dead when they picked next dayFrom the gully’s depth the wreck of him;His fall had been stayed by the stag beneathWho cushioned and saved the neck of him.
But the rest of his body—why, doctors said,Whatever could break was broken;Legs, arms, ribs, all of him looked like a toastIn a tumbler of port wine soaken.
“That your life is left you, thank the stag!”Said they when—the slow cure ended—They opened the hospital door, and thence—Strapped, spliced, main fractures mended,
And minor damage left wisely alone,—Like an old shoe clouted and cobbled,Out—what went in a Goliath wellnigh,—Some half of a David hobbled.
“You must ask an alms from house to house:Sell the stag’s head for a bracket,With its grand twelve tines—I’d buy it myself—And use the skin for a jacket!”
He was wiser, made both head and hideHis win-penny: hands and knees on,Would manage to crawl—poor crab—by the roadsIn the misty stalking season.
And if he discovered a bothy like this,Why, harvest was sure: folk listened.He told his tale to the lovers of Sport:Lips twitched, cheeks glowed, eyes glistened.
And when he had come to the close, and spreadHis spoils for the gazers’ wonder,With “Gentlemen, here’s the skull of the stagI was over, thank God, not under!”—
The company broke out in applause;“By Jingo, a lucky cripple!Have a munch of grouse and a hunk of bread,And a tug, besides, at our tipple!”
And “There’s my pay for your pluck!” cried This,“And mine for your jolly story!”Cried That, while T’other—but he was drunk—Hiccupped “A trump, a Tory!”
I hope I gave twice as much as the rest;For, as Homer would say, “within grateThough teeth kept tongue,” my whole soul growled,“Rightly rewarded,—Ingrate!”
“AND FULL IN THE FACE OF ITS OWNER FLUNG THE GLOVE.”
“AND FULL IN THE FACE OF ITS OWNER FLUNG THE GLOVE.”
“Heigho,” yawned one day King Francis,“Distance all value enhances!When a man’s busy, why, leisureStrikes him as wonderful pleasure:‘Faith, and at leisure once is he?Straightway he wants to be busy.Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’mCaught thinking war the true pastime.Is there a reason in metre?Give us your speech, master Peter!”I who, if mortal dare say so,Ne’er am at a loss with my Naso,“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:Men are the merest Ixions”—Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s—Heigho—go look at our lions!”Such are the sorrowful chancesIf you talk fine to King Francis.And so, to the courtyard proceedingOur company, Francis was leading,Increased by new followers tenfoldBefore he arrived at the penfold;Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizenAt sunset the western horizon.And Sir De Lorge pressed ’mid the foremostWith the dame he professed to adore most.Oh, what a face! One by fits eyedHer, and the horrible pitside;For the penfold surrounded a hollowWhich led where the eye scarce dared follow,And shelved to the chamber secludedWhere Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster.They opened a hole in the wire-workAcross it, and dropped there a firework,And fled: one’s heart’s beating redoubled;A pause, while the pit’s mouth was troubled,The blackness and silence so utter,By the firework’s slow sparkling and sputter;Then earth in a sudden contortionGave out to our gaze her abortion.Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot(Whose experience of nature’s but narrow,And whose faculties move in no small mistWhen he versifies David the Psalmist)I should study that brute to describe youIllum Juda Leonem de Tribu.One’s whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,As over the barrier which boundedHis platform, and us who surroundedThe barrier, they reached and they restedOn space that might stand him in best stead:For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,And if, in this minute of wonder,No outlet, ’mid lightning and thunder,Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,The lion at last was delivered?Ay, that was the open sky o’erhead!And you saw by the flash on his forehead,By the hope in those eyes wide and steady.He was leagues in the desert already,Driving the flocks up the mountain,Or catlike couched hard by the fountainTo waylay the date-gathering negress:So guarded he entrance or egress.“How he stands!” quoth the King: “we may well swear,(No novice, we’ve won our spurs elsewhereAnd so can afford the confession,)We exercise wholesome discretionIn keeping aloof from his threshold,Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,Their first would too pleasantly purloinThe visitor’s brisket or sirloin:But who’s he would prove so foolhardy?Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!”The sentence no sooner was uttered,Than over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame ’twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.Sound the trumpet, no true knight’s a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe’er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring’s sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,Leaped back where the lady was seated,And full in the face of its ownerFlung the glove.“Your heart’s queen, you dethrone her?So should I!”—cried the King—“’twas mere vanity,Not love, set that task to humanity!”Lords and ladies alike turned with loathingFrom such a proved wolf in sheep’s clothing.Not so, I; for I caught an expressionIn her brow’s undisturbed self-possessionAmid the Court’s scoffing and merriment,—As if from no pleasing experimentShe rose, yet of pain not much heedfulSo long as the process was needful,—As if she had tried in a crucible,To what “speeches like gold” were reducible,And, finding the finest prove copper,Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;To know what she hadnotto trust to,Was worth all the ashes and dust too.She went out ’mid hooting and laughter;Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?If she wished not the rash deed’s recallment?“For I”—so I spoke—“am a poet:Human nature,—behooves that I know it!”She told me, “Too long had I heardOf the deed proved alone by the word:For my love—what De Lorge would not dare!With my scorn—what De Lorge could compare!And the endless descriptions of deathHe would brave when my lip formed a breath,I must reckon as braved, or, of course,Doubt his word—and moreover, perforce,For such gifts as no lady could spurn,Must offer my love in return.When I looked on your lion, it broughtAll the dangers at once to my thought,Encountered by all sorts of men,Before he was lodged in his den,—From the poor slave whose club or bare handsDug the trap, set the snare on the sands,With no King and no Court to applaud,By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,Yet to capture the creature made shift,That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,—To the page who last leaped o’er the fenceOf the pit, on no greater pretenceThan to get back the bonnet he dropped,Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.So, wiser I judged it to makeOne trial what ‘death for my sake’Really meant, while the power was yet mine,Than to wait until time should defineSuch a phrase not so simply as I,Who took it to mean just ‘to die.’The blow a glove gives is but weak:Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?But when the heart suffers a blow,Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?”I looked, as away she was sweeping,And saw a youth eagerly keepingAs close as he dared to the doorway.No doubt that a noble should more weighHis life than befits a plebeian;And yet, had our brute been Nemean—(I judge by a certain calm fervourThe youth stepped with, forward to serve her)—He’d have scarce thought you did him the worst turnIf you whispered, “Friend, what you’d get, first earn!”And when, shortly after, she carriedHer shame from the Court, and they married,To that marriage some happiness, maugreThe voice of the Court, I dared augur.
“Heigho,” yawned one day King Francis,“Distance all value enhances!When a man’s busy, why, leisureStrikes him as wonderful pleasure:‘Faith, and at leisure once is he?Straightway he wants to be busy.Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’mCaught thinking war the true pastime.Is there a reason in metre?Give us your speech, master Peter!”I who, if mortal dare say so,Ne’er am at a loss with my Naso,“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:Men are the merest Ixions”—Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s—Heigho—go look at our lions!”Such are the sorrowful chancesIf you talk fine to King Francis.And so, to the courtyard proceedingOur company, Francis was leading,Increased by new followers tenfoldBefore he arrived at the penfold;Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizenAt sunset the western horizon.And Sir De Lorge pressed ’mid the foremostWith the dame he professed to adore most.Oh, what a face! One by fits eyedHer, and the horrible pitside;For the penfold surrounded a hollowWhich led where the eye scarce dared follow,And shelved to the chamber secludedWhere Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster.They opened a hole in the wire-workAcross it, and dropped there a firework,And fled: one’s heart’s beating redoubled;A pause, while the pit’s mouth was troubled,The blackness and silence so utter,By the firework’s slow sparkling and sputter;Then earth in a sudden contortionGave out to our gaze her abortion.Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot(Whose experience of nature’s but narrow,And whose faculties move in no small mistWhen he versifies David the Psalmist)I should study that brute to describe youIllum Juda Leonem de Tribu.One’s whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,As over the barrier which boundedHis platform, and us who surroundedThe barrier, they reached and they restedOn space that might stand him in best stead:For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,And if, in this minute of wonder,No outlet, ’mid lightning and thunder,Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,The lion at last was delivered?Ay, that was the open sky o’erhead!And you saw by the flash on his forehead,By the hope in those eyes wide and steady.He was leagues in the desert already,Driving the flocks up the mountain,Or catlike couched hard by the fountainTo waylay the date-gathering negress:So guarded he entrance or egress.“How he stands!” quoth the King: “we may well swear,(No novice, we’ve won our spurs elsewhereAnd so can afford the confession,)We exercise wholesome discretionIn keeping aloof from his threshold,Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,Their first would too pleasantly purloinThe visitor’s brisket or sirloin:But who’s he would prove so foolhardy?Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!”The sentence no sooner was uttered,Than over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame ’twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.Sound the trumpet, no true knight’s a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe’er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring’s sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,Leaped back where the lady was seated,And full in the face of its ownerFlung the glove.“Your heart’s queen, you dethrone her?So should I!”—cried the King—“’twas mere vanity,Not love, set that task to humanity!”Lords and ladies alike turned with loathingFrom such a proved wolf in sheep’s clothing.Not so, I; for I caught an expressionIn her brow’s undisturbed self-possessionAmid the Court’s scoffing and merriment,—As if from no pleasing experimentShe rose, yet of pain not much heedfulSo long as the process was needful,—As if she had tried in a crucible,To what “speeches like gold” were reducible,And, finding the finest prove copper,Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;To know what she hadnotto trust to,Was worth all the ashes and dust too.She went out ’mid hooting and laughter;Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?If she wished not the rash deed’s recallment?“For I”—so I spoke—“am a poet:Human nature,—behooves that I know it!”She told me, “Too long had I heardOf the deed proved alone by the word:For my love—what De Lorge would not dare!With my scorn—what De Lorge could compare!And the endless descriptions of deathHe would brave when my lip formed a breath,I must reckon as braved, or, of course,Doubt his word—and moreover, perforce,For such gifts as no lady could spurn,Must offer my love in return.When I looked on your lion, it broughtAll the dangers at once to my thought,Encountered by all sorts of men,Before he was lodged in his den,—From the poor slave whose club or bare handsDug the trap, set the snare on the sands,With no King and no Court to applaud,By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,Yet to capture the creature made shift,That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,—To the page who last leaped o’er the fenceOf the pit, on no greater pretenceThan to get back the bonnet he dropped,Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.So, wiser I judged it to makeOne trial what ‘death for my sake’Really meant, while the power was yet mine,Than to wait until time should defineSuch a phrase not so simply as I,Who took it to mean just ‘to die.’The blow a glove gives is but weak:Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?But when the heart suffers a blow,Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?”I looked, as away she was sweeping,And saw a youth eagerly keepingAs close as he dared to the doorway.No doubt that a noble should more weighHis life than befits a plebeian;And yet, had our brute been Nemean—(I judge by a certain calm fervourThe youth stepped with, forward to serve her)—He’d have scarce thought you did him the worst turnIf you whispered, “Friend, what you’d get, first earn!”And when, shortly after, she carriedHer shame from the Court, and they married,To that marriage some happiness, maugreThe voice of the Court, I dared augur.
“Heigho,” yawned one day King Francis,“Distance all value enhances!When a man’s busy, why, leisureStrikes him as wonderful pleasure:‘Faith, and at leisure once is he?Straightway he wants to be busy.Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’mCaught thinking war the true pastime.Is there a reason in metre?Give us your speech, master Peter!”I who, if mortal dare say so,Ne’er am at a loss with my Naso,“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:Men are the merest Ixions”—Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s—Heigho—go look at our lions!”Such are the sorrowful chancesIf you talk fine to King Francis.
And so, to the courtyard proceedingOur company, Francis was leading,Increased by new followers tenfoldBefore he arrived at the penfold;Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizenAt sunset the western horizon.And Sir De Lorge pressed ’mid the foremostWith the dame he professed to adore most.Oh, what a face! One by fits eyedHer, and the horrible pitside;For the penfold surrounded a hollowWhich led where the eye scarce dared follow,And shelved to the chamber secludedWhere Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.The King hailed his keeper, an ArabAs glossy and black as a scarab,And bade him make sport and at once stirUp and out of his den the old monster.They opened a hole in the wire-workAcross it, and dropped there a firework,And fled: one’s heart’s beating redoubled;A pause, while the pit’s mouth was troubled,The blackness and silence so utter,By the firework’s slow sparkling and sputter;Then earth in a sudden contortionGave out to our gaze her abortion.Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot(Whose experience of nature’s but narrow,And whose faculties move in no small mistWhen he versifies David the Psalmist)I should study that brute to describe youIllum Juda Leonem de Tribu.
One’s whole blood grew curdling and creepyTo see the black mane, vast and heapy,The tail in the air stiff and straining,The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning,As over the barrier which boundedHis platform, and us who surroundedThe barrier, they reached and they restedOn space that might stand him in best stead:For who knew, he thought, what the amazement,The eruption of clatter and blaze meant,And if, in this minute of wonder,No outlet, ’mid lightning and thunder,Lay broad, and, his shackles all shivered,The lion at last was delivered?Ay, that was the open sky o’erhead!And you saw by the flash on his forehead,By the hope in those eyes wide and steady.He was leagues in the desert already,Driving the flocks up the mountain,Or catlike couched hard by the fountainTo waylay the date-gathering negress:So guarded he entrance or egress.“How he stands!” quoth the King: “we may well swear,(No novice, we’ve won our spurs elsewhereAnd so can afford the confession,)We exercise wholesome discretionIn keeping aloof from his threshold,Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold,Their first would too pleasantly purloinThe visitor’s brisket or sirloin:But who’s he would prove so foolhardy?Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!”
The sentence no sooner was uttered,Than over the rails a glove fluttered,Fell close to the lion, and rested:The dame ’twas, who flung it and jestedWith life so, De Lorge had been wooingFor months past; he sat there pursuingHis suit, weighing out with nonchalanceFine speeches like gold from a balance.
Sound the trumpet, no true knight’s a tarrier!De Lorge made one leap at the barrier,Walked straight to the glove,—while the lionNe’er moved, kept his far-reaching eye onThe palm-tree-edged desert-spring’s sapphire,And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,—Picked it up, and as calmly retreated,Leaped back where the lady was seated,And full in the face of its ownerFlung the glove.
“Your heart’s queen, you dethrone her?So should I!”—cried the King—“’twas mere vanity,Not love, set that task to humanity!”Lords and ladies alike turned with loathingFrom such a proved wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Not so, I; for I caught an expressionIn her brow’s undisturbed self-possessionAmid the Court’s scoffing and merriment,—As if from no pleasing experimentShe rose, yet of pain not much heedfulSo long as the process was needful,—As if she had tried in a crucible,To what “speeches like gold” were reducible,And, finding the finest prove copper,Felt the smoke in her face was but proper;To know what she hadnotto trust to,Was worth all the ashes and dust too.She went out ’mid hooting and laughter;Clement Marot stayed; I followed after,And asked, as a grace, what it all meant?If she wished not the rash deed’s recallment?“For I”—so I spoke—“am a poet:Human nature,—behooves that I know it!”
She told me, “Too long had I heardOf the deed proved alone by the word:For my love—what De Lorge would not dare!With my scorn—what De Lorge could compare!And the endless descriptions of deathHe would brave when my lip formed a breath,I must reckon as braved, or, of course,Doubt his word—and moreover, perforce,For such gifts as no lady could spurn,Must offer my love in return.When I looked on your lion, it broughtAll the dangers at once to my thought,Encountered by all sorts of men,Before he was lodged in his den,—From the poor slave whose club or bare handsDug the trap, set the snare on the sands,With no King and no Court to applaud,By no shame, should he shrink, overawed,Yet to capture the creature made shift,That his rude boys might laugh at the gift,—To the page who last leaped o’er the fenceOf the pit, on no greater pretenceThan to get back the bonnet he dropped,Lest his pay for a week should be stopped.So, wiser I judged it to makeOne trial what ‘death for my sake’Really meant, while the power was yet mine,Than to wait until time should defineSuch a phrase not so simply as I,Who took it to mean just ‘to die.’The blow a glove gives is but weak:Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?But when the heart suffers a blow,Will the pain pass so soon, do you know?”
I looked, as away she was sweeping,And saw a youth eagerly keepingAs close as he dared to the doorway.No doubt that a noble should more weighHis life than befits a plebeian;And yet, had our brute been Nemean—(I judge by a certain calm fervourThe youth stepped with, forward to serve her)—He’d have scarce thought you did him the worst turnIf you whispered, “Friend, what you’d get, first earn!”And when, shortly after, she carriedHer shame from the Court, and they married,To that marriage some happiness, maugreThe voice of the Court, I dared augur.
THE END.