Chapter L: A Y S O F T H E L a N D (3)

And at the appointed hour Giannolo came,
Rising before the people in his state,
Waiting awhile the appearance of the man
Who was to play the organ while he—blew!
And all the congregation waited too,
All staring steadily at the great man
In anxious expectation, till at last
Giannolo from the pulpit cried aloud:
“Where is the man who is to touch the keys?
What is the use of making music, hey—
And filling up the thing with melody,
As I have come to do, unless there be
Some one to click the bones and let it out?
You don’t suppose that I can raise the wind,
And steer, and sail the ship as well, my friends.
Such things were ne’er beheld at any time.”

There was an instant’s silence—deep and strange;
In all the great cathedral rang no sound.
All stared at one another open-eyed,
Or at Giannolo—just as if some power
Before unknown in life had seized on them
With a tremendous sense of dire amaze,
Not knowing what the devil it could mean;
When all at once they _took_—and from them all
There rose a roar of laughter like a crash
Of thunder, and so near it that one seemed
To miss the lightning—or, as I might say,
’Twas like a flash of sound—and then again
It came re-echoed from the multitude
Gathered outside, as the electric peal
Resounds, repeated by the mountain tops.
Yea, such a peal of laughter as the book
Declares “at vespers ne’er was heard before,”
And ne’er again will be at any time.

* * * * *

_Moral._ I pray you think upon it well.
There are full many people in this world
Who think that they are wondrous wise in ART,
And who, as Critics, write about the same
In transcendental phrase with capitals,
And call it Faith, and Love, and Heaven knows what,
And cannot think of it without a gasp
And uttering phrases silly, mystical,—
Because they are the empty, windy ones,
Inflating and inflated, who but blow
The bellows of the organ, yet believe
That they are leaders in the Realm of Art!

THE GOTH AND THE PIGEON

Among the merry tales of olden time
Which are still current in fair Italy
Are many told in taverns or in type
About the rude barbarians of the North
Who cross the Alps, even as they did of yore,
When they invaded fertile Lombardy,
And helped themselves to all which pleased their eyes,
And paid for it in iron and with blood:
Those times are fled, but Northmen still are here;
States fall, arts fade, but English yet abound,
And Austrian-Germans and Americans
Stalk proudly through the streets with Baedeker,
Or Murray, with the very gait and air
Of their barbarian ancestors—although
They are cleaner washed and more completely shaved—
Bet high upon the latter; for as once
They came to rob the natives of their goods,
The latter now do live by spoiling them.
And thus strange things do happen in this world.

Thus we may note that all these foreigners,
Be it the daintiest English dame alive,
Or damsel born in fair America,
Or Russians of a royal family,
Or Frenchmen of the very noblest stock,
Or Viennese as elegant and _fesch_[12]
As even Viennese can be produced—
Wherein they wellnigh rival Baltimore—
Are still regarded by the Italian with
A doubtful smile, who as he smiles exclaims:
“_Sono forestieri_”—which indeed
Means “They are foreigners”—and yet the word
Comes from _Foresto_—savage—desert—wild—
And so do ancient thorns live round the rose.
And thus strange things do happen in the world.

Now it befell that in the Lombard time
When Dieterich-Theodoric was king,
And from Ravenna ruled all Italy,
The court religion was the Arian,
To which men nowadays an Unit add,
Yet do not add by the process—that I see—
Aught to its value; but the odd result
Was that the Gothic warriors nothing knew
About the mystery of the Trinity,—
Nay, they were even far more ignorant
Than was the English curate, who when asked
What he did understand by the Holy Ghost,
Replied: “I am not sure, but I believe
It is a kind of pigeon.” These poor Goths
Had never learned so much as this youth knew.
And thus strange things do happen in the world.

Now it befell that once a Visigoth
Stately, while all unconscious of his state,
And proud while nothing thinking of his pride,
Went stalking onwards through the streets of Rome,
Unheeding all the casual passers-by
Who turned to look at him—as a grave bull
Might walk through many sheep—or as my lord
Guy de Plantagenet just now walked by
Before my window, where I writing sit,
In Florence—true he came _bien à propos_.
And thus strange things do happen in this world.

Well then, this fierce barbarian from the North,
Who as I said was densely ignorant
Of Trinitarian theology,
Was not much further in the Italian tongue,
Seeing that that which he essayed to speak
Was of the _pidgin_ kind,—oh, marvel strange!
Oh, wondrous miracle!—lo, how the Muse
Brings up that word to keep me to my tale!
Ah! what strange things do happen in this world!

Now as he strode along the Roman street,
With thoughts of dinner flitting through his soul,
Lifting his eyes he saw upon a sign
The picture of a dove with outspread wings
Above the door of a _trattoria_,
Which means a place where you can treat yourself
To what you want—that is, a restaurant.
And ’neath the bird he read inscribed in gold:
_Spirito Santo_; and he gazed at it,
And took an object-lesson, and exclaimed:
“So _that_ is the Italian for a dove!
I must remember it.” So in he went
Repeating ever to himself the words
“_Spirito Santo! Santo Spirito!_”
Those who o’erheard him deemed him a devout
And fervid follower of the Trinity.
And thus strange things do happen in the world.

And having sat him down, the waiter came
And asked His Excellence what he would have;
To which his Gothic Excellence replied:
“I want a bottle of your noblest wine,
With it a soup of highest quality,
And after that a roast San’ Spirito!”
“A roasted—WHAT? Signore,” cried the man,
As one who had not rightly understood,
While all the guests around did glare amazed.
“I said,” resumed the Northern warrior,
“A _Spirito Santo_, such as you have got
Upon your sign outside—a _bird_, you know,
That moves its wings like this”—and here he moved
His bended arms like wings, both up and down,
While with his voice he murmured _Coo-oo-oo!_
Or what is called in French a _roucoulement_,
Or _girren_ in the German. Hearing this,
All who were present promptly understood;
And though they all were naturally polite,
And never laughed at any foreigner
Before his face, because he erred in words,
This was too—too—too much, and all burst out
In a tremendous—an Homeric roar.
They drew the line at pigeons; and the Goth
When ’twas explained laughed loudest of them all;
And thus it was he learned another word.
And thus strange things do happen in the world.

-----

[12] A very peculiar Viennese slang word, signifying stylish or elegant. It is supposed to be an abbreviation of the mispronunciation of the English word fashionable—_Germanicé_, _feshionable_.

REFLECTIONS IN A PRINTING-OFFICE

Faust means a fist—a fist can hit, I ween:
Faust made the greatest hit that e’er was seen.

I know not if ’twas Guttenberg
Or Faust who first began
To print—the honour was too great
For any single man.

Printing is called the Art of Arts,
And typos then are artists—right—
They are the nobler counterparts
Of those who work in Black and White.