Chapter XXX: Part I (10)

Mr. Robert Browning contradicts both these statements, in a prefatory note to a small volume of his late wife’s poems, published by Smith Elder and Co. in 1887. He contends that she was born on March 6, 1806, at Carlton Hall, Durham, the residence of her father’s brother, and that she had an elder sister, who died in childhood. This statement is the more peculiar as Mr. Browning had previously written to Mr. Ingram (in 1886) “I engaged to verify any dates Mrs. Ritchie furnished, and I did so. _Only those are to be depended upon._” Yet it is clearly impossible that both Mrs. Ritchie and Mr. Browning can be correct, and it seems very probable that both are mistaken. _The Athenæum_, February 4, 1888, published a letter from Mr. Ingram in answer to Mr. Browning’s _Note_, showing, firstly, that there is no such place as Carlton Hall, Durham, nor any record of Mrs. E. B. Browning’s birth in that city; secondly, that the newspaper announcement of the birth stated “London, _March_ 4, 1809, the wife of Edward M. Barrett, Esq., of a daughter,” so that it was obviously impossible for that lady also to have given birth to a daughter at Burn Hall, Durham, on _March_ 6, 1809, as stated by Mrs. Ritchie; and thirdly, that as in 1806 Mr. Barrett was a student in Cambridge, and only about twenty years of age, it was unlikely that he would then be the father of two children, (as Mr. Browning asserts), although it is admitted he married early. To this letter Mr. Browning briefly replied, disclaiming any “certitude in the matter from knowledge of his own,” which reads like a tacit admission of the accuracy of Mr. J. H. Ingram’s statements.

That there should be some doubt about an event which occurred eighty years ago can be readily understood, but it is difficult to explain the discrepancies which exist in several descriptions of Mrs. Browning’s personal appearance, thus Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote:――

“It is wonderful to see how small she is, how pale her cheek, how bright and _dark her eyes_. There is not such another figure in the world; and her _black ringlets_ cluster down on her neck, and make her face look the whiter by their sable profusion.”

Two other observers give very different details:――

“But it was Mrs. Browning’s face upon which one loved to
gaze――that face and head which almost lost themselves in the
_thick curls of her dark brown_ hair.... Her large, _brown
eyes_ were beautiful, and were, in truth, the windows of her
soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the
poet-passion of heart and intellect; and in gazing into them
it was easy to read why Mrs. Browning wrote.” KATE FIELD,
1861, “_Letter from Florence_.”――_Atlantic Monthly,
September._

“She was slight and fragile in appearance, with a pale,
wasted face, shaded by _masses of soft chestnut curls_ which
fell on her cheeks, and serious _eyes of bluish-gray_. Her
frame seemed to be altogether disproportionate to her
soul.”――BAYARD TAYLOR, “_At Home and Abroad_.”

Mrs. Browning’s poetry, though highly praised by critics and literary men, has not yet attained that popularity which engenders many parodies, being, as Charlotte Brontë wrote, somewhat wordy, intricate and obscure.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers――
And _that_ cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing t’wards the west:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!――
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in their sorrow
Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago.
The old tree is leafless in the forest,
The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost:
But the young, young children, O my brothers!
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man’s hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy.
“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary;”
“Our young feet,” they say, “are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary――
Our grave rest is very far to seek.
Ask the agéd why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,
And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old.

“True,” say the children, “it may happen
That we die before our time.
Little Alice died last year――the grave is shapen
Like a snowball in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her;
Was no room for any work in the close clay;
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, ‘Get up, little Alice! it is day.’”

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries!
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes!
And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime!
“It is good when it happens,” say the children,
“That we die before our time.”

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have;
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city――
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do――
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow cow-slips pretty――
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer are your cow-slips of the meadows
Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping――
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For all day we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark underground,
Or all day we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories round and round.

“For all day the wheels are droning, turning,――
Their wind comes in our faces,――
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places,――
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,――
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,――
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,――
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes we could pray,
“O ye wheels” (breaking out in a mad moaning),
“Stop! be silent for to-day!”

* * * * *

E. B. BROWNING.

――――

THE WAIL OF THE CHILDREN.

“To look at these half-starved children in London Schools is to be ‘full of pity.’ Very touching is it to think of the quiet heroism with which, when hunger is gnawing within and the dull misery of want overflows them, they sit uncomplaining at their little desks, toiling at their allotted tasks, wondering, no doubt, sometimes what it all means, but bearing their burdens patiently.”――_Dr. Crichton-Browne’s Report on Over Pressure._

Do you hear the Children wailing in the daytime,
And the watches of the night:
Far too sad are they for pleasure in their playtime,
Or for laughter and delight.
They are old before their age and worn and weary
And their little heads are bowed upon their books;
“For this life at school,” they say “is very dreary,”
And there’s listlessness and languor in their looks.
And all day, the Wheel of Education,
By the orders of the State,
Whirleth round in every school-room in the nation,
Like the direful Wheel of Fate.

It is hard to see the Children growing older,
With such heavy eyes and dim,
As you mark the pallid cheek and rounded shoulder,
From this stern pedantic whim.
They are suffering from a sempiternal dead ache
In the tortured brows that know so little rest,
And they fly to ease the constant “School-Board head-ache,”
On a mother’s or a sister’s kindly breast.
For all day they toil on in their classes,
With an earnestness too sad;
It is well that we should educate the masses,
But not drive the Children mad.

They come breakfastless from alleys in the city,
Undersized and underfed,
They are starving, and we give them――more’s the pity!
Education, and not bread.
And we work their brains through every changing season,
Till the ceaseless labour stupifies and numbs;
They are sleepless, and they give the childish reason――
“I can’t get to sleep for thinking of my sums!”
For all day the labour seems quite endless,
In this philanthropic land;
Oh, ye Women; are the wastrels then so friendless
That ye will not lend a hand?

* * * * *

It is well to praise the spread of education,
And the people need more light,
But the horror of each long examination
Haunts the little ones at night.
Here are Children born ’mid London’s toil and traffic,
They are bloodless and half-starving we can see;
And we feed them with statistics geographic,
And, in the place of bread, we give them “Rule of Three.”
How long then, we ask it in all sadness,
Can such laws be deemed the best;
While the Children, through brain-fever and through madness,
Seek the graveyard――and their rest!

_Punch._ October 25, 1884.

――――

THE BITTER CRY OF AGRICULTURE.

Do you hear the cry from Farmers, O my brothers,
As the toilsome years go by?
’Tis a cry that should be heard above all others
A continuous and bitter cry.
The shipping may be crying with its grievance,
The factory as each spindle slowly turns
Home competition with its dogged keen adherence
And labour for employment daily yearns;
But the cry from Agriculture, O my brothers,
Comes up from English Homesteads wearily
And affects the Nation far above all others
In this Country of the free.

If you question Farmers why this land depression,
Why this weary, bitter cry
You will hear their quick and ever sad expression,
We are being ruined, they reply.
We’ve toil’d against successive cloudy seasons
And competed with the trade of every clime,
Whilst Manufacture for her obvious reasons
And her labour market filled from time to time,
Cares naught for Agriculture, O my brothers,
Or if its Capital shall fall or stand,
But piles up wealth, and has no care for others,
In this our Fatherland.

They look on wasting stock from land and pocket
And the sight is sad to see
For the strain upon each Agricultural socket
Presses hard and heavily.
Landlords, they say, have met the question bravely
As the value of their land has slipp’d away,
And our diminished income presses gravely
This sad question “How long will depression stay?”
Can no Economist, Philanthropist or Statesman,
Solve this great problem, to our hopes forlorn,
Before our land becomes a hunting-field for great men
Dependent on foreign corn?

* * * * *

Our old Homesteads are as dear to us my brothers,
As your Factories are to you,
And we cannot starve our children with their mothers
For quack maxims preached as true;
Our pilgrim fathers left the land that bore them,
And their Agricultural sons must do the same,
And with a foreign banner waving o’er them
Forget the native land from whence they came.
But when war or trouble meets the English nation,
And the foreigner commands his price for corn,
You may wish you had given consolation,
And your help instead of scorn.

J. D. BEESTON.

――――

“Gus Harris has got Shuttleworth, or Pennington, or some other reverend gentleman, to write him a letter about the sad condition of the children of the poorer clergy, who are in worse plight than the thousands who recently attended Drury Lane from the national and orphan schools and asylums, seeing that they are never invited to witness a pantomime. Quite ready with his response was Gussy, who has now issued an invitation for Thursday morning next to ‘the families of curates and ministers of all denominations who are not in a position to pay for seats.’”

CHURCH OR STAGE;
_Or, the Cry of the Clergymen’s Children._

Do you hear those children weeping, O my brothers?
They’re poor parsons’ little dears!
They want to go to theatres, like the others,
And hence their trickling tears.
All the ragged-schools have seen the clown’s hot poker――
They have watched him steal the sausages with zest,
They have seen his face all bismuth and red ochre,
They have seen the fairies beautifully dressed.
But the children of our clergymen, my brothers,
Are “boo-hooing” bitterlee,
They want to see a panto, like the others,
And they want to go in free.

Did you read that parson’s letter――full of sorrow――
Which described these children’s woe?
Did you see who tried publicity to borrow
From that note――not long ago?
’Twas written by a well-known London preacher
(For parsons Harris seems to have a craze),
And that letter told of many a little creature
Whose pa is much too poor to go to plays.
That parson said _his_ youngster――O my brothers!――
Had complained in accents grim
That, though he was as poor as lots of others,
No lessee invited him.

“We are worse off than the children from the alleys”
(Thus the parson’s weeping boy);
“They can go in free and see the ‘spills’ and ‘rallies,’
And the fairies――ah, what joy!
They give these children buns, and even verses,”
Said the parson’s child (or words to this effect),
“But our pa’s have little money in their purses”――
“Which, alas!” exclaims that parson, “is correct.
――――Then have pity, Mr. Harris, on the children
Of all parsons short of cash.”
(Mrs. Browning for a rhyme here has “bewildering”
But for _me_ that’s much too rash.)

Then lo! in striking “ads,” said Gus, “With pleasure!
Those servants of the Church――
Who have children thus lamenting beyond measure――
I will _not_ leave in the lurch!
All ministers who’re not in a position
To pay for seats my pantomime to see,
Shall anon to Drury Lane have free admission,
If they send in full particulars to me.”
Such as (probably) their date of ordination,
And what their “plates” collect;
And if they have their bishop’s approbation;
And if “chapel,” of what sect?

Thus Harris, in a patronising fashion,
And all by way of trade,
On the offspring of the clergy takes compassion,
And essays the Church to aid.
Such a splendid chance was not to be rejected――
It would make a grand advertisement, forsooth!――
And probably young Harris recollected
That to parsons he owed puffs for “Pluck” and “Youth.”
But what about that clergyman’s suggestion
To the Lessee of the Lane?
Was it written (Gussy, please excuse the question)
By friend Pennington again?

CARADOS.

_The Referee._ February 24, 1884.

――――:o:――――

“DOWN EAST.”

Would you know the sin and crime, that your educated time
Endures within your clime unchecked, unceased?
Take an omnibus with me (’tis a shilling carries three),
And the scenes you shall see “Down East,” “Down East.”

Whitechapel has a road, where many a night has flowed
The blood from knife or goad of a goodly beast,
But down the alley’s gloom, in a miserable room,
A woman’s met her doom――“Down East,” “Down East.”

In a miserable shed, with an old rug for a bed,
As the dreary days on sped, her want increased,
And he who should have thought of the famine that he wrought,
Had just another “quartern” bought “Down East,” “Down East.”

He was of that wild drunken crew that prowl when the day is new,
With whom we know not what to do from gaol released;
One of a dogged sullen air, who beat his wife and tore her hair,
And taught his children how to swear, “Down East,” “Down East.”

One night――life’s longest needs but one――he struck his wife and all
was done,
From sorrow, ere the rise of sun she was released;
Oh! you talk of distant lands, of savages on Afric’s sands,
Stretch forth in Town your soothing hands “Down East,” “Down East.”

EDMUND H. YATES.

From “_Our Miscellany_” (which ought to have come out, but didn’t). London, G. Routledge and Co., 1856.

――――:o:――――

GWENDOLINE.
_An Imitation._

’Twas not the brown of chestnut boughs
That shadowed her so finely;
It was the hair that swept her brows,
And framed her face divinely;
Her tawny hair, her purple eyes,
The spirit was ensphered in,
That took you with such swift surprise,
Provided you had peered in.

Her velvet foot amid the moss
And on the daisies patted,
As, querulous with sense of loss,
It tore the herbage matted;
“And come he early, come he late,”
She saith “it will undo me;
The sharp fore-speeded shaft of fate
Already quivers through me.

“When I beheld his red-roan steed,
I knew what aim impelled it;
And that dim scarf of silver brede,
I guessed for whom he held it;
I recked not, while he flaunted by,
Of Love’s relentless vi’lence,
Yet o’er me crashed the summer sky,
In thunders of blue silence.

“His hoof-prints crumbled down the vale,
But left behind their lava;
What should have been my woman’s mail,
Grew jellied as guava:
I looked him proud, but ’neath my pride
I felt a boneless tremor;
He was the Beër, I descried,
And I was but the Seemer!

“Ah, how to be what then I seemed,
And bid him seem that is so!
We always tangle threads we dreamed,
And contravene our bliss so.
I see the red-roan steed again!
He looks, as something sought he:
Why, hoity toity!――_he_ is fain,
So _I’ll_ be cold and haughty!”

From _Diversions of the Echo Club_, by Bayard Taylor.

――――:o:――――

A TOOL OF TRADE.

(_Imitated from Mrs. Browning’s “A Musical Instrument.”_) _An Allegory on the Banks of the――Pactolus, dedicated to the London Water Companies._

What is he doing, the Middleman,
Down by Trade’s Golden River?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Grubbing up grain with the greed of a goat,
And swamping the tiny shallops afloat
On the golden flood of the River.

He tore up a reed, did the Middleman,
A flourishing reed, from that River.
The troubled water turbidly ran,
And the broken reed all helpless lay
In the cunning hand which tore it away
From its root in the Golden River.

High on the shore sate the Middleman,
While turbidly flowed the River,
And hacked and hewed, as your huckster can,
With his cruel steel, at the severed reed,
Till there was small sign of life indeed
To prove it fresh from the River.

He cut it short, did the Middleman,
(How big he swelled by the River!)
Then drew out the pith, on a patent plan
Devised by his like of the cruel Trade Ring,
And sucked through the poor dry empty thing
Deep draughts from the Golden River.

“This is the way,” laughed the Middleman
(Laughed as he sate by the River!),
“The only way, since Rings began
To suck Trade’s blood, they could fully succeed.”
Then popping his lips to the conduit-reed,
He drew, drew, drew, from the River.

Neat cheat, O Middleman!
Vampire-ghoul of the River!
Blind _most_ neat, O Middleman!
You idly sit as the stream flows by,
And suck at ease whilst your victims die
For want of a draught from the River.

Yet a bloated brute is the Middleman
To laugh as he sits by the River,
Playing the leech on his patent plan,
Trade’s heart depleting, sucking its brain,
And bruising and breaking to plump _his_ gain
The myriad reeds of the River!

_Punch._ April 23, 1887.

――――

THE ORIGIN OF PAN.
_A Musical Instrument._

What is he doing, this crookshank’d Pan
Down in the reeds by the river?
You’re welcome the puzzle to solve――if you can.
Just fancy him stroke in an Oxford boat,
This mixture of athlete, and Pan-pipe, and goat,
What a charm he’d lend to the river!

He’s classic-contorted, this nondescript Pan,
In the startled reeds by the river;
And therefore he’s built on the neo-Greek plan.
An artist who’s bent on the mystical lay
Could hardly do better, at this time of day,
To give one the neo-Greek shiver.

“This is the way,” laughs the great god Pan
(Laughs as he sits by the river),
The only way, since _renaissance_ began,
To prevent a poor god being left on the shelf:
How can one do better than “_puffing one’s self_?”
And he puffs, as he squats by the river.

From _Harry Furniss’s Royal Academy; an Artistic Joke_. London. 1887.

Unfortunately the humour of this parody greatly depended on Mr. Furniss’s funny illustration of the great god Pan, _en deshabille_, as an artist’s model.

――――:o:――――

A long and rather serious poem written in imitation of Mrs. Browning’s style, appears in _The Book of Ballads_, edited by Bon Gaultier, published by Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh. It commences thus:――

THE RHYME OF SIR LAUNCELOT BOGLE.
_A Legend of Glasgow._

There’s a pleasant place of rest, near a City of the West,
Where its bravest and its best find their grave.
Below the willows weep, and their hoary branches steep
In the waters still and deep,
Not a wave!

And the old cathedral wall, so scathed and grey, and tall,
Like a priest surveying all, stands beyond;
And the ringing of its bell, when the ringers ring it well,
Makes a kind of tidal swell
On the pond!

And there it was I lay, on a beauteous summer’s day,
With the odour of the hay floating by;
And I heard the blackbirds sing, and the bells demurely ring,
Chime by chime, ting by ting,
Droppingly.

* * * * *

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

ORN, August 4, 1792. DROWNED, July 8, 1822.

Shelley’s poetry has not been extensively parodied, nor have his prose writings been burlesqued, unless, indeed, the forged letters published in 1852 by Mr. Edward Moxon, London, may be considered in the light of a burlesque. This little volume was entitled “Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, with an Introductory Essay by Robert Browning.” The essay, dated “Paris, December 4th, 1851,” occupies 44 pages, and the letters, which were 25 in number, occupy pp. 47 to 165 inclusive.

This was one of the most ingenious literary forgeries of modern times, so clever, not only in its imitation of handwriting, but in style and circumstances, as to have deceived the very elect.

The genuineness of the letters was first called in question by Mr. F. T. Palgrave, who saw the book at Lord (then Mr.) Tennyson’s house, and accidentally opened it at a passage which he recognised as taken from an article contributed by his father to the “Quarterly Review.” Other tests were then applied, the post marks were carefully examined, and little by little the network of fraud was unravelled.

In February, March, and April, 1852, a great controversy, concerning these letters, was carried on in literary circles, but it was practically decided by a series of articles published in the _Athenæum_, that they were forgeries.

The book was rigidly suppressed, and as only a few copies had got abroad, it now very rarely occurs for sale.

――――:o:――――

In 1886, the Shelley Society produced Shelley’s gloomy tragedy “The Cenci,” at the Grand Theatre, Islington, when they also issued printed copies of the tragedy containing the revolting “Relation of the Death of the Family of the Cenci,” which Shelley had suppressed. For this offence against decency, and good taste, the Shelley Society was severely reproved by the press, and _Truth_, May 13, 1886, contained a satirical poem, entitled

_The Salacious Shelley Society_

O, shame upon you Shelleyites! Aye, shame on everyone
Who helped to do the sorry deed which was last Friday done!
And fired by heedless self-conceit, and covetous of fame,
Has made known acts of fiendish lust too terrible to name.

Yes, think of it! You bid them come, those English maids, that day,
To hear the nameless horrors of a grossly brutal play!
And, not content with doing this, a wicked act made worse,
By giving them to read in prose the filth concealed in verse!

As this poem is not a parody, it is unnecessary to give
further extracts from it.

――――:o:――――

TO A SKYLARK.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still, and higher,
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever, singest.

In the golden lightening
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

* * * * *

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

P. B. SHELLEY.

――――

TO A BICYCLE.

(“Mr. Bushby said he could not convict a person of ‘furiously driving’ a bicycle under any clause of the Police Act, except in cases when the machine had been driven on the footway.”)

Hail to thee, blithe roadster!――
Spurr’d thou never wert,
But _sans_ stripe, or goad-stir,
Puttest on thy spurt,
In profuse rains, or unpremeditated dirt.

Nigher still and nigher
Down the hill thou springest;
Like a flash of fire,
O’er the ground thou wingest,
And “ting”-ing still dost speed, and speeding ever “ting”-est.

In the golden lightening
Of the sunken sun,
And when day is brightening
Thou dost rush and run,
Like a silk-bodied “jock” whose race is just begun.

The hale “peeler” even
Pelts from out thy flight,
Like a star of heaven
On a murky night,
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy bell’s delight.

Swift as bow-sped arrow
Spins thy silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp, narrow,
’Twixt thy spokes hangs clear――
So that we, doubly, see and hear that thou art there.

All the earth and air
With a voice is loud
As, bebruised and bare,
Circled by a crowd,
A girl rains out her screams, and thou liest in the road.

We ache before and after
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our deepest sighs are those that tell of some bruis’d spot.

Yet if we could scorn
Pain and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy Bushby to us could be too dear.

Better than all measures
In the “Commons” found,
Better than all treasures
Here, or underground,
Thy wheel to pilot ’twere, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half their sadness
Who thy sore pains know――
Such outrageous badness
From my lips should flow
_Moonshine_’d not print me then, as it is printing now.

_Moonshine._ August 8, 1885.

――――:o:――――

THE CLOUD.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast,
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes, and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves, remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

* * * * *

P. B. SHELLEY.

A long parody, entitled _The Cloudy_, appeared in the Christmas number of _The World_, 1885, but it would be utterly unintelligible without long extracts from the prose, and very prosy context.

――――

THE CLOUD.
(_Another Version of Shelley’s partial view of the Subject._)

I bring cats and dogs, and November fogs,
For the folks of Cockney land;
And I brew the flood of slush and mud
In Fleet Street and the Strand.
From my watery bed spring colds in the head,
And highly inflamed sore-throats;
And I’m the Mama[125] of the bad Catarrh,
And the mother of waterproof coats;
I gave birth to goloshes and macintoshes,
The clog, the corksole, and the patten,
And I act as wet Nus’ to each omnibus,
For ’tis on my moisture they fatten.

I come down pretty thick at every picnic,
And throw my cold water upon it,
And delight at each fête that is called a Champêtre,
To spoil every new silk bonnet;
I’m more kind to each jarvey than was Wittle Harvey
When he was Commiss’ner of Stamps,
I’m the foe of Vauxhall’s Grand Fancy Dress Balls,
Where I love to extinguish the lamps;
And whenever a fellow leaves at home his umbrella,
Oh Lord! how I chuckle and grin!
For then you may warrant I’ll come down in a torrent,
And soak the poor wretch to the skin.

From _George Cruikshank’s Comic Almanack for_ 1847.

――――

A correspondent, writing from Norwich, sent a copy of this parody, in which the second verse was altered, and improved, as follows:――

I’m as kind to each beau in his brand new chapeau,
Who sports not his silk or his gamp,
My delight is to fall at a fancy dress ball,
And I love to extinguish a lamp.
And whenever a fellow leaves at home his umbrella
Oh, my! how I chuckle and grin,
For then you may warrant I’ll come down a torrent
And soak the poor wretch to the skin.

――――

THE OTHER CLOUD.

I bring the rain again and again,
From the seas and rivers,
And I pour it down on the deluged town
Till it reeks and shivers.
From my skirts are shaken the floods that waken
Poor Cits with the morning light;
I shower my best till they go to rest,
And I keep up the game all night.
By the bucket and pail, like a watery flail,
I lash the wet world under
With occasional spurts of hail (which hurts)
And frequent claps of thunder.

My pall of grey from day to day
Hangs over the dripping lands,
And from hour to hour of the night I pour
Unceasing as Time’s own sands.
The dreamer waking hears windows shaking.
Whipped by my lashing flood,
It splashes and sputters from spouts and gutters,
And churns the poor earth into mud.
When the morning breaks the world awakes
To another day of drench.

* * * * *

The dainty maiden, with tennis-bat laden,
In vain prepares for sport;
For with heavy wet I have soaked the net,
And utterly swamped the Court.
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof
O’er the sodden cricket-ground,
Keeping all things damp as a dripping lamp
All the summer season round,
Until most mankind goes half out of its mind,
And the damp earth seems half drowned.

I am the daughter of smoke and water,
The child of a cheerless sky;
All, save ducks and pumps, must be down in the dumps,
In a world that is never dry!
For after the rain, when my victims fain,
Would believe in sign “set fair:”
And ginghams are furled, and waterproofs hurled
Into corners, anywhere.
I silently laugh at my own cruel chaff;
And deriding man’s hopes so vain,
From a sky all gloom, to an earth like a tomb,
_I come down a drencher again_!

_Punch._ November 27, 1880, but equally appropriate in
1888.

――――:o:――――

SEAWARD.

The bathers are splashing,
The spaniels are dashing,
The darlings are dancing,
Their bright eyes are glancing――
Away!
The railways are rolling,
The steamers are coaling,
The inn bells are ringing,
The Niggers are singing――
Get away!
The sea and the ocean
Are both in commotion:
BLACK, WHITE, GREEN, and BROWN
Have all vanished from Town――
Get away!

Take a dip, take a sail,
Never mind turning pale――
A bold fellow, I trow,
Who dare blot paper now
We are free――
Let him feather his oar,
Let him flirt on the shore,
Observe mollusks and shells,
But not the blue belles
In the sea;
And from cliff, cove, and rock,
At the sound of the clock,
Hurry home fleet and fast,
To that wholesome repast――
Shrimps and tea.

And crabs too, and prawns too,
And croquet on lawns too,
And drives on the sands,
And those terrible Bands,
Lovest thou?
Thy fortnight at Dover
Too soon will be over,
At Bognor thy pleasure
Shall be beyond measure,
I vow,
By that great saline lotion,
The blue briny ocean,
Which at rest, or uplifted,
Is sketched by the gifted
E’en now,

At the “Crown” or the “Royal,”
Where sojourn the loyal,
Crowds of tourists are meeting,
Hosts of tourists are eating
At seven;
While all down the tables,
In white ties and sables,
Pass the grave solemn waiters
To hand the potat_ers_
In Devon;
And with napkin in hand,
In the coffee-room stand,
To extinguish the gas,
When to bed you shall pass
At eleven!

_Punch._ August 28, 1869.

――――

THROWN OUT.
_By a badly mounted 15 stoner._

Horse’s bits clashing,
Huntsmen’s whips lashing;
Soft sunbeam glancing,
The sight’s most entrancing
To-day!

In numbers increasing,
With murmur unceasing,
There’s no need of saying
The hounds are all baying
Away.

Smart scarlet and tops,
Young and old fops
Twisting and turning,
Through the blue mist still yearning
To stay.

Off we start down the vale,
Jumping over a rail,
For a broken-down paling,
Is fair easy sailing
You know.

But though not a coward,
I always feel soured,
When I hear the scent’s strong,
And old Reynard not gone
Long ago,

It means quickish pace,
A rush and a race;
And, when heavily pressed
You see, at my best
I don’t show.

They are now on his track,
And hang it, the pack
Stream up the hill side,
And we’ve got to ride
From below.

Each taking his line,
Up bank and incline,
In the distance a lout
Begins loudly to shout
Tally-ho!

As o’er ploughed fields we gallop,
And our jaded steed wallop,
The field is fast thinning,
And my steed’s beginning
To blow.

With the hounds out of sight,
The prospect ain’t bright,
And, just like my fate,
Locked or barred is each gate,
What a shame.

Nothing more to be done,
But to give up the run;
Then struck with a thought,
Vote hunting a sport
Rather tame.

(_A Friend’s Advice Afterwards._)

“On the whole, better say
You’d have had a good day,
That is――if your nag
Didn’t linger or lag,
Or go lame!”

From _Cribblings from the Poets_, by Hugh Cayley. Cambridge. Jones & Piggott. 1883.

――――:o:――――

THE TALE OF THE SENSITIVE “FREAK.”
(_A Parody of Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant.”_)

A sensitive “freak” in a museum stood,
Where the hours were short and the salary good;
He was tattooed red, white, and blue,
He was the “Bearded Lady,” too,
Likewise the skeleton tall and thin,
And he boasted a most elastic skin:
He’d grown his feet to abnormal size,
And whitened his hair Albino wise,
So he said in language plain and bold
That when _he_ was abandoned the day’d be cold!

Yet he was unhappy exhibiting there,
For down in his breast lurked a poignant care.
He suffered deeply and oft because
He wanted to be far more than he was;
His sensitive nature could not brook
That the public at anyone else should look.
_He_ wanted to be the “Leopard Boy,”
And the “Phantom Lady” cold and coy,
The wonderful “Glass-devouring Star”
And the fair “Circassian,” from Mullingar!

He hated the sinuous “Human Snakes,”
Whose pictures sold like the hottest cakes,
Though it was said that he practised lots
Tying himself into awful knots.
He punched the “What Is it?” in the head,
And cut the “Capillary Sisters” dead;
Placed the “Midget” under the ban
And wouldn’t shake feet with the “Armless Man”;
Kicked the “Cannibal” out of his road,
And said to the “Glass-Blower,” “You be blowed!”

Greater each day his importance grew,
’Till his head at length began swelling too.
When others were noticed he screamed and cried,
’Till his head exploded, and so he died;
And they said, as they washed off the gay tattoo,
And hung up his beard where the wind blew through,
That it was amazing he should be dead.
Simply because he had lost his head;
But that ’twas a warning, his awful fate,
To people who think themselves so great.

From _The Umpire_.

ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN MUMMY IN BELZONI’S EXHIBITION.

The success of the ancient Egyptians in preserving their dead by the operation of embalming was surprisingly great. For a proof of this we have only to turn to the fact of our viewing at this day the bodies of persons who lived three thousand years since. This ingenious people applied the powers of art to the purposes of their religion, and did all they could to keep the human frame entire after death, fondly thinking that if it proved a fit dwelling, its former inhabitant, the soul, would return at some distant period, and animate it afresh, even upon earth.

And thou hast walked about, (how strange a story!)
In Thebes’s street three thousand years ago;
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous.

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy,――
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou’rt standing on thy legs, above ground, Mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,
Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones, and flesh, and limbs, and features.

Tell us, for doubtless thou canst recollect,
To whom should we assign the Sphinx’s fame;
Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect,
Of either pyramid that bears his name?
Is Pompey’s Pillar really a misnomer?
Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?

Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden,
By oath to tell the mysteries of thy trade:
Then say what secret melody was hidden
In Memnon’s statue which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest, and hast been dealing
In human blood, and horrors past revealing.

Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer’s hat,
Or dofted thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon’s own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple’s dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled or knuckled,
For thou wert dead and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled!
Antiquity appears to have begun,
Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou could’st develop, if that withered tongue
Might tell us, what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great Deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old, that History’s pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!
Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;
But prithee tell us something of thyself,――
Reveal the secrets of thy prison-house!
Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,
What thou hast seen, what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,
We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations;
The Roman empire has begun and ended,
New worlds have risen, we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o’er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o’er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O’erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,
And shook the Pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb’s secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:
A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusty cheek have rolled.
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh――Immortal of the dead!
Imperishable type of evanescence!
Posthumous man, who quitt’st thy narrow bed,
And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment-morning,
When the great Trump shall thrill thee with its warning!

Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guests be lost for ever?
Oh, let us keep the _soul embalmed and pure_
_In living virtue_; that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th’ immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!

HORACE SMITH.
(One of the Authors of “Rejected Addresses.”)

――――

THE ANSWER OF THE EGYPTIAN MUMMY.

Child of the latter days! thy words have broken
A spell that long has bound these lungs of clay,
For since this smoke-dried tongue of mine hath spoken,
Three thousand tedious years have rolled away
Unswathed at length, I ’stand at ease’ before ye,――
List, then, oh! list, while I unfold my story.

Thebes was my birthplace――an unrivalled city,
With _many_ gates; but here I might declare
Some strange plain truths, except that it were pity
To blow a poet’s fabric into air;
Oh, I could read you quite a Theban lecture,
And give a deadly finish to conjecture!

But then you would not have me throw discredit
On grave historians――or on him who sung
THE ILIAD――true it is I never read it,
But heard it read when I was very young;
An old blind minstrel, for a trifling profit,
Recited parts――I think the _author_ of it.

All that I know about the town of HOMER,
Is, that they scarce would own him in his day;
Were glad, too, when he proudly turned a roamer,
Because by this they saved their _parish pay_;
His townsmen would have been ashamed to flout him,
Had they foreseen the fuss since made about him.

One blunder I can fairly set at rest,
He says that men were once more big and bony
Than now, which is a bouncer at the best,――
I’ll just refer you to our friend Belzoni,
Near seven feet high! in sooth a lofty figure!
Now look at _me_, and tell me, am I _bigger_?

Not half the size: but then I’m sadly dwindled;
Three thousand years, with that embalming glue,
Have made a serious difference, and have swindled
My face of all its beauty――there were few
Egyptian youths more gay,――behold the sequel;
Nay, smile not――you and I may soon be equal!

For this lean hand did one day hurl the lance
With mortal aim――this light fantastic toe
Threaded the mystic mazes of the dance:
This heart hath throbbed at tales of love and woe,
These shreds of raven hair once set the fashion,
This withered form inspired the tender passion.

In vain! the skilful hand, and feelings warm,
The foot that figured in the bright quadrille,
The palm of genius and the manly form,
All bowed at once to Death’s mysterious will,
Who sealed me up where Mummies sound are sleeping,
In cere-cloth, and in tolerable keeping.

Where cows and monkeys squat in rich brocade,
And well-dressed crocodiles in painted cases,
Rats, bats, and owls, and cats in masquerade,
With scarlet flounces and with varnished faces;
Men, birds, brutes, reptiles, fish, all crammed together,
With ladies that might pass for well-tanned leather.

Where Rameses and Sabacon lie down,
And splendid Psammis in his hide of crust;
Princes and heroes, men of high renown,
Who in their day kicked up a mighty dust,――
Their swarthy Mummies kicked up dust in numbers,
When huge Belzoni came to scare their slumbers!

Who’d think these rusty hams of mine were seated
At Dido’s table, when the wond’rous tale
Of “Juno’s hatred” was so well repeated?
And ever and anon the queen turned pale;
Meanwhile the brilliant gas-lights, hung above her,
Threw a wild glare upon her shipwrecked lover,

Ay, _gas-lights_! mock me not; we men of yore
Were versed in all the knowledge you can mention;
Who hath not heard of Egypt’s peerless lore?
Her patient toil? Acuteness of invention?
Survey the proofs――our Pyramids are thriving,――
Old Memnon still looks young, and I’m surviving.

A land in arts and sciences prolific,
On blocks gigantic building up her fame!
Crowded with signs, and letters hieroglyphic,
Temples and obelisks her skill proclaim!
Yet though her art and toil unearthly seem,
_Those blocks were brought on_ RAIL-ROADS _and by_ STEAM!

How, when, and why, our people came to rear
The Pyramid of Cheops, mighty pile!
This, and the other secrets thou shalt hear;
I will unfold if thou wilt stay awhile,
The hist’ry of the Sphinx, and who began it,
Onr mystic marks, and monsters made of granite.

Well, then, in grievous times, when King Cephrenes――
But, ha! what’s that?――the shades of bards and kings
Press on my lips their fingers! What they mean is,
I am not to reveal these hidden things.
Mortal, farewell! Till Science ’self unbind them,
Men must e’en take these secrets as they find them.

MUMMIUS.

From _The Saturday Magazine_. Vol. IV.

――――

LINES TO THE WESTERN MUMMY.

O stranger, whose repose profound
These latter ages dare to break,
And call thee from beneath the ground
Ere Nature did thy slumber shake,――

What wonders of the secret earth
Thy lips too silent, might reveal!
Of tribes round whose mysterious birth
A thousand envious ages wheel.

Thy race, by savage war o’errun,
Sunk down, their very name forgot;
But ere those fearful times begun,
Perhaps, in this sequestered spot

By Friendship’s hand thine eyelid closed,
By Friendship’s hand the turf was laid;
And Friendships here, perhaps, reposed.
With moonlight vigils in the shade.

The stars have run their nightly round,
The sun looked out and passed his way,
And many a season o’er the ground
Has trod where thou so softly lay.

And wilt thou not one moment raise
Thy weary head, awhile to see
The later sports of earthly days,
How like what once enchanted thee?

Thy name, thy date, thy life declare――
Perhaps a queen, whose feathery band
A thousand maids have sighed to wear,
The brightest in thy beauteous land――

Perhaps a Helen, from whose eye
Love kindled up the flame of war――
Ah, me! do thus thy graces lie
A faded phantom, and no more?

Oh, not like thee would I remain,
But o’er the earth my ashes strew,
And in some rising bud regain
The freshness that my childhood knew.

But has thy soul, O maid, so long
Around this mournful relic dwelt?
Or burst away with pinion strong,
And at the foot of Mercy knelt?

Or has it in some distant clime,
With curious eye, unsated, strayed,
And down the winding stream of time,
On every changeful current played?

Or, lock’d in everlasting sleep.
Must we thy heart extinct deplore,
Thy fancy lost in darkness weep,
And sigh for her who feels no more?

Or, exiled to some humbler sphere,
In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell,
And murmuring in the stranger’s ear,
Thy tender melancholy tell?

Whoe’er thou be, thy sad remains
Shall from the Muse a tear demand,
Who, wandering on these distant plains.
Looks fondly to a distant land.

GALLAUDET.

――――

SIR MOSES MONTEFIORE.

And thou hast walked about, how strange a story,
In Europe’s streets, a century nigh ago:
Long time ere Nap the First had gained his glory,
And longer still before his overthrow
On that dread field, where hard he tried to burk us,
Some who were there still linger (in the workus).

I need not ask thee if that hand of thine
Has scattered to the poor thy gold in plenty,
For charity was ever in thy line.
Before thy modest years had numbered twenty,
The same kind spirit which has marked thee ever.
Had shown itself in many a bright endeavour.

Did’st thou not hear the pother in the town
On Monday last, when Ramsgate to the fore,
Placed on thy brow its tributary crown,
And hailed thy patriarchal years, five score?
Here’s to thy long, long life, thou Hebrew hoary,
God’s blessing on thy head, Montefiore!

BOTCHER.

November, 1884.

On page 103 of “The Wit and Humour of Shirley Brooks” (Bradbury, Agnew & Co., 1883), there is a parody founded on Horace Smith’s “George Barnewell.” It was written in 1858 to ridicule “Soapy Sam,” Bishop Wilberforce, it is quite out of date now, and of no interest, except to some possible historian of theological controversies.

Parodies of American Poetry.

MAUD MÜLLER.

Maud Müller, on a summer’s day
Raked the meadows sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree,

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast――

A wish, that she had hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple trees to greet the maid,

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadows across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup;

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.

“Thanks! said the judge, a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed.”

He spoke of the grass, and flowers, and trees,
Of the singing birds, and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her briar torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Müller looked and sighed――“Ah me!
That I the judge’s bride might be!

“He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

“My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.

“I’d dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.

“And I’d feed the hungry and clothe the poor,
And all should bless me who left our door.

The judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Müller standing still.

“A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne’er hath it been my lot to meet.

“And her modest answer and graceful air,
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

“Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay.

“No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
And weary lawyers with endless tongues,

“But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health of quiet and loving words.”

But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the judge rode on,
And Maude was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love tune;

And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth’s bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;

And sweet Maud Müller’s hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.

Oft when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on the garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover blooms.

And the proud man sighed with a secret pain;
“Ah, that I were free again!

“Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay.”

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and child-birth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,

And she heard the little spring-brook fall
Over the roadside through the wall,