Chapter I: GO away this blessed day,

To sail across the sea, MATILDA!
My vessel starts for various parts
At twenty after three, MATILDA.
I hardly know where we may go,
Or if it’s near or far, MATILDA,
For CAPTAIN HYDE does not confide
In any ’fore-mast tar, MATILDA!

Beneath my ban that mystic man
Shall suffer, _coûte qui coûte_, MATILDA!
What right has he to keep from me
The Admiralty route, MATILDA?
Because, forsooth! I am a youth
Of common sailors’ lot, MATILDA!
Am I a man on human plan
Designed, or am I not, MATILDA?

But there, my lass, we’ll let that pass!
With anxious love I burn, MATILDA.
I want to know if we shall go
To church when I return, MATILDA?
Your eyes are red, you bow your head;
It’s pretty clear you thirst, MATILDA,
To name the day—What’s that you say?—
“You’ll see me further first,” MATILDA?

I can’t mistake the signs you make,
Although you barely speak, MATILDA;
Though pure and young, you thrust your tongue
Right in your pretty cheek, MATILDA!
My dear, I fear I hear you sneer—
I do—I’m sure I do, MATILDA!
With simple grace you make a face,
Ejaculating, “Ugh!” MATILDA.

Oh, pause to think before you drink
The dregs of Lethe’s cup, MATILDA!
Remember, do, what I’ve gone through,
Before you give me up, MATILDA!
Recall again the mental pain
Of what I’ve had to do, MATILDA!
And be assured that I’ve endured
It, all along of you, MATILDA!

Do you forget, my blithesome pet,
How once with jealous rage, MATILDA,
I watched you walk and gaily talk
With some one thrice your age, MATILDA?
You squatted free upon his knee,
A sight that made me sad, MATILDA!
You pinched his cheek with friendly tweak,
Which almost drove me mad, MATILDA!

I knew him not, but hoped to spot
Some man you thought to wed, MATILDA!
I took a gun, my darling one,
And shot him through the head, MATILDA!
I’m made of stuff that’s rough and gruff
Enough, I own; but, ah, MATILDA!
It _did_ annoy your sailor boy
To find it was your pa, MATILDA!

I’ve passed a life of toil and strife,
And disappointments deep, MATILDA;
I’ve lain awake with dental ache
Until I fell asleep, MATILDA!
At times again I’ve missed a train,
Or p’rhaps run short of tin, MATILDA,
And worn a boot on corns that shoot,
Or, shaving, cut my chin, MATILDA.

But, oh! no trains—no dental pains—
Believe me when I say, MATILDA,
No corns that shoot—no pinching boot
Upon a summer day, MATILDA—
It’s my belief, could cause such grief
As that I’ve suffered for, MATILDA,
My having shot in vital spot
Your old progenitor, MATILDA.

Bethink you how I’ve kept the vow
I made one winter day, MATILDA—
That, come what could, I never would
Remain too long away, MATILDA.
And, oh! the crimes with which, at times,
I’ve charged my gentle mind, MATILDA,
To keep the vow I made—and now
You treat me so unkind, MATILDA!

For when at sea, off Caribbee,
I felt my passion burn, MATILDA,
By passion egged, I went and begged
The captain to return, MATILDA.
And when, my pet, I couldn’t get
That captain to agree, MATILDA,
Right through a sort of open port
I pitched him in the sea, MATILDA!

Remember, too, how all the crew
With indignation blind, MATILDA,
Distinctly swore they ne’er before
Had thought me so unkind, MATILDA.
And how they’d shun me one by one—
An unforgiving group, MATILDA—
I stopped their howls and sulky scowls
By pizening their soup, MATILDA!

So pause to think, before you drink
The dregs of Lethe’s cup, MATILDA;
Remember, do, what I’ve gone through,
Before you give me up, MATILDA.
Recall again the mental pain
Of what I’ve had to do, MATILDA,
And be assured that I’ve endured
It, all along of you, MATILDA!

THE REVEREND SIMON MAGUS

A RICH advowson, highly prized,
For private sale was advertised;
And many a parson made a bid;
The REVEREND SIMON MAGUS did.

He sought the agent’s: “Agent, I
Have come prepared at once to buy
(If your demand is not too big)
The Cure of Otium-cum-Digge.”

“Ah!” said the agent, “_there’s_ a berth—
The snuggest vicarage on earth;
No sort of duty (so I hear),
And fifteen hundred pounds a year!

“If on the price we should agree,
The living soon will vacant be;
The good incumbent’s ninety five,
And cannot very long survive.

“See—here’s his photograph—you see,
He’s in his dotage.” “Ah, dear me!
Poor soul!” said SIMON. “His decease
Would be a merciful release!”

The agent laughed—the agent blinked—
The agent blew his nose and winked—
And poked the parson’s ribs in play—
It was that agent’s vulgar way.

The REVEREND SIMON frowned: “I grieve
This light demeanour to perceive;
It’s scarcely _comme il faut_, I think:
Now—pray oblige me—do not wink.

“Don’t dig my waistcoat into holes—
Your mission is to sell the souls
Of human sheep and human kids
To that divine who highest bids.

“Do well in this, and on your head
Unnumbered honours will be shed.”
The agent said, “Well, truth to tell,
I _have_ been doing very well.”

“You should,” said SIMON, “at your age;
But now about the parsonage.
How many rooms does it contain?
Show me the photograph again.

“A poor apostle’s humble house
Must not be too luxurious;
No stately halls with oaken floor—
It should be decent and no more.

“No billiard-rooms—no stately trees—
No croquêt-grounds or pineries.”
“Ah!” sighed the agent, “very true:
This property won’t do for you.”

“All these about the house you’ll find.”—
“Well,” said the parson, “never mind;
I’ll manage to submit to these
Luxurious superfluities.

“A clergyman who does not shirk
The various calls of Christian work,
Will have no leisure to employ
These ‘common forms’ of worldly joy.

“To preach three times on Sabbath days—
To wean the lost from wicked ways—
The sick to soothe—the sane to wed—
The poor to feed with meat and bread;

“These are the various wholesome ways
In which I’ll spend my nights and days:
My zeal will have no time to cool
At croquet, archery, or pool.”

The agent said, “From what I hear,
This living will not suit, I fear—
There are no poor, no sick at all;
For services there is no call.”

The reverend gent looked grave, “Dear me!
Then there is _no_ ‘society’?—
I mean, of course, no sinners there
Whose souls will be my special care?”

The cunning agent shook his head,
“No, none—except”—(the agent said)—
“The DUKE OF A., the EARL OF B.,
The MARQUIS C., and VISCOUNT D.

“But you will not be quite alone,
For though they’ve chaplains of their own,
Of course this noble well-bred clan
Receive the parish clergyman.”

“Oh, silence, sir!” said SIMON M.,
“Dukes—Earls! What should I care for them?
These worldly ranks I scorn and flout!”
“Of course,” the agent said, “no doubt!”

“Yet I might show these men of birth
The hollowness of rank on earth.”
The agent answered, “Very true—
But I should not, if I were you.”

“Who sells this rich advowson, pray?”
The agent winked—it was his way—
“His name is HART; ’twixt me and you,
He is, I’m grieved to say, a Jew!”

“A Jew?” said SIMON, “happy find!
I purchase this advowson, mind.
My life shall be devoted to
Converting that unhappy Jew!”

DAMON _v._ PYTHIAS

TWO better friends you wouldn’t pass
Throughout a summer’s day,
Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS,—
Two merchant princes they.

At school together they contrived
All sorts of boyish larks;
And, later on, together thrived
As merry merchants’ clerks.

And then, when many years had flown,
They rose together till
They bought a business of their own—
And they conduct it still.

They loved each other all their lives,
Dissent they never knew,
And, stranger still, their very wives
Were rather friendly too.

Perhaps you think, to serve my ends,
These statements I refute,
When I admit that these dear friends
Were parties to a suit?

But ’twas a friendly action, for
Good PYTHIAS, as you see,
Fought merely as executor,
And DAMON as trustee.

They laughed to think, as through the throng
Of suitors sad they passed,
That they, who’d lived and loved so long,
Should go to law at last.

The junior briefs they kindly let
Two sucking counsel hold;
These learned persons never yet
Had fingered suitors’ gold.

But though the happy suitors two
Were friendly as could be,
Not so the junior counsel who
Were earning maiden fee.

They too, till then, were friends. At school
They’d done each other’s sums,
And under Oxford’s gentle rule
Had been the closest chums.

But now they met with scowl and grin
In every public place,
And often snapped their fingers in
Each other’s learned face.

It almost ended in a fight
When they on path or stair
Met face to face. They made it quite
A personal affair.

And when at length the case was called
(It came on rather late),
Spectators really were appalled
To see their deadly hate.

One junior rose—with eyeballs tense,
And swollen frontal veins:
To all his powers of eloquence
He gave the fullest reins.

His argument was novel—for
A verdict he relied
On blackening the junior
Upon the other side.

“Oh,” said the Judge, in robe and fur,
“The matter in dispute
To arbitration pray refer—
This is a friendly suit.”

And PYTHIAS, in merry mood,
Digged DAMON in the side;
And DAMON, tickled with the feud,
With other digs replied.

But oh! those deadly counsel twain,
Who were such friends before,
Were never reconciled again—
They quarrelled more and more.

At length it happened that they met
On Alpine heights one day,
And thus they paid each one his debt,
Their fury had its way—

They seized each other in a trice,
With scorn and hatred filled,
And, falling from a precipice,
They, both of them, were killed.

MY DREAM

THE other night, from cares exempt,
I slept—and what d’you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom—

Where vice is virtue—virtue, vice:
Where nice is nasty—nasty, nice:
Where right is wrong and wrong is right—
Where white is black and black is white.

Where babies, much to their surprise,
Are born astonishingly wise;
With every Science on their lips,
And Art at all their finger-tips.

For, as their nurses dandle them
They crow binomial theorem,
With views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.

But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in his head,
He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself a man.

For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured sphere;
The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in their eyes.

A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every day;
And cut, to carry out this view,
His wisdom teeth and wisdom too.

Historians burn their midnight oils,
Intent on giant-killers’ toils;
And sages close their aged eyes
To other sages’ lullabies.

_Our_ magistrates, in duty bound,
Commit all robbers who are found;
But there the Beaks (so people said)
Commit all robberies instead.

_Our_ Judges, pure and wise in tone,
Know crime from theory alone,
And glean the motives of a thief
From books and popular belief.

But there, a Judge who wants to prime
His mind with true ideas of crime,
Derives them from the common sense
Of practical experience.

Policemen march all folks away
Who practise virtue every day—
Of course, I mean to say, you know,
What we call virtue here below.

For only scoundrels dare to do
What we consider just and true,
And only good men do, in fact,
What we should think a dirty act.

But strangest of these social twirls,
The girls are boys—the boys are girls!
The men are women, too—but then,
_Per contra_, women all are men.

To one who to tradition clings
This seems an awkward state of things,
But if to think it out you try,
It doesn’t really signify.

With them, as surely as can be,
A sailor should be sick at sea,
And not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.

A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round).

“How strange!” I said to one I saw;
“You quite upset our every law.
However can you get along
So systematically wrong?”

“Dear me!” my mad informant said,
“Have you no eyes within your head?
You sneer when you your hat should doff:
Why, we begin where you leave off!

“Your wisest men are very far
Less learned than our babies are!”
I mused awhile—and then, oh me!
I framed this brilliant repartee:

“Although your babes are wiser far
Than our most valued sages are,
Your sages, with their toys and cots,
Are duller than our idiots!”

But this remark, I grieve to state,
Came just a little bit too late
For as I framed it in my head,
I woke and found myself in bed.

Still I could wish that, ’stead of here,
My lot were in that favoured sphere!—
Where greatest fools bear off the bell
I ought to do extremely well.

THE BISHOP OF RUM-TI-FOO AGAIN