Czytaj książkę: «A Satire Anthology», strona 16

BALLADE OF EXPANSION

1899

 
TIME was he sang the British Brute,
The ruthless lion’s grasping greed,
The European Law of Loot,
The despot’s devastating deed;
But now he sings the heavenly creed
Of saintly sword and friendly fist,
He loves you, though he makes you bleed —
The Ethical Expansionist!
 
 
He loves you, Heathen! Though his foot
May kick you like a worthless weed
From that wild field where you have root,
And scatter to the winds your seed;
He’s just the government you need;
If you object, why, he’ll insist,
And, on your protest, “draw a bead” —
The Ethical Expansionist!
 
 
He’ll take you to him coute que coute!
He’ll win you, though you fight and plead.
His guns shall urge his ardent suit,
Relentless fire his cause shall speed.
In time you’ll learn to write and read,
(That is, if you should then exist!)
You won’t, if you his course impede —
The Ethical Expansionist!
 

ENVIO

 
Heathen, you must, you shall be freed!
It’s really useless to resist;
To save your life, you’d better heed
The Ethical Expansionist!
 

Hilda Johnson.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON AT THE BOSTON SYMPHONY HALL

 
SINCE Bach so well his clavier tuned, since Palestrina wrote his Masses,
Since Modes Ecclesiastical began to puzzle music-classes,
All Anglo-Saxondom has tried, by teaching of its lads and lasses,
The gift of Orpheus to acquire,
Whilst substituting for his lyre
The concert-room’s imposing choir – string-orchestra, wood, wind, and brasses.
 
 
Hallé in Free Trade Hall I heard when first I took the music craze on;
Later, in Sydney, New South Wales, I listened to Roberto Hazon;
Berlin’s “Philharmonie,” which plays the winter through alternate days on,
Took my spare cash from time to time,
And I may add, for sake of rhyme,
Richter at Bradford, quite sublime! Pauer and Colonne in the Saison.
 
 
Lest I should make the list too short, and show a lack of erudition,
I’d better mention Cowan, who ruled at the Melbourne Exhibition,
Villiers Stanford, Auguste Mannés, and Thomas, whose keen intuition
Carried him westward from New York
To the Metropolis of Pork,
Where, thanks to his devoted work, Beethoven found superb rendition.
 
 
All these I’ve heard, and others, too – poor Seidl, who has talked with Charon;
Nikisch, whose eager gestures make it difficult to keep your hair on;
Then there’s a chap whose name I’ve lost (I think he wrote “The Rose of Sharon”);
Wood, of Queen’s Hall, in London Town;
Strauss, for his programme-music known;
Dozens whose brains the genius own that’s common to the seed of Aaron.
 
 
But if good music is the thing your inmost soul would fain get fat on,
Avoid, I pray, good Boston town, where, though no male may keep his hat on,
The ladies talk the whole show through, and you will certainly be sat on
If you protest, for they will say
“We have the right to, if we pay
Each for a seat, and chat away in time with the conductor’s baton.”
 
 
Oft that October day I see – delightful month, June’s elder sister;
The splendid Hall was opened, and a poem read by Owen Wister
(So kind the Muse, ’twas plain to see in Philadelphia he had kissed her).
Missa Solennis, then, in B,
Proud to be in such company
Of fair-clad girls, and panoply of bright new paint without a blister.
 
 
Nowhere on this broad earth, I grant, is music played to such perfection;
Even strict Apthorp will admit that false notes are a rare exception;
But what avail such wond’rous play, when to the Hall for friend’s inspection
Each lady takes some little thing —
New-purchased pocket-book, or ring —
Or in loud voice the matrons sing the dangers of small-pox infection.
 
 
To Mendelssohn’s Scotch Symphony I’ve heard of Johnny’s scarlet fever;
Bizet’s Arlesienne Suites I link with Kate’s sore throat that wouldn’t leave her;
Oft to Wagnerian strains I’ve heard eager dispute of seal and beaver,
To clasp fair Mabel’s dainty throat,
Or make for Madge a winter coat,
As seen on transatlantic boat, from Messrs. Robinson and Cleaver.
 
 
Pray do not think that Boston girls all talk such feeble stuff as this is;
To Glazounoff’s inspiring notes they’ll quote from Phillips’s “Ulysses”;
To Massenet’s caressing phrase admire Burne-Jones’s long-necked misses;
Ask what of Ibsen you may think,
Of Nietzsche or of Maeterlinck,
And tell, to score of Humperdink, Buddha’s most esoteric blisses.
 
 
A concert it is hard to turn into a conversazione,
Except with consequences which would make the softest heart quite stony,
Unless ’tis done in restaurant where foreigners eat macaroni,
And greasy dago tips a stave,
Or where the blue Atlantic wave,
While pallid shop-girls misbehave, doth cool the verdant Isle of Coney.
 
 
Forgive me if I criticise; I love you none the less, Priscilla,
And when the concert’s o’er, we’ll go where Huyler serves his best vanilla;
Talk as you will, I love you still; I’d live with you in flat or villa,
For never, never you’d commit
A split infinitive, and it
Is certain you would not omit in proper place the French cedilla.
 

Faulkner Armytage.

WAR IS KIND

 
DO not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands towards the sky,
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
 
 
Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom —
A field where a thousand corpses lie.
 
 
Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
 
 
Swift-blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter;
Make plain to them the excellence of killing,
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.
 
 
Mother, whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
 

Stephen Crane.

LINES

 
A  LITTLE ink more or less!
It surely can’t matter?
Even the sky and the opulent sea,
The plains and the hills, aloof,
Hear the uproar of all these books.
But it is only a little ink more or less.
 
 
A  MAN said to the universe,
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
 
 
THE Wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
“Ha,” he said,
“I see that none has passed here
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
“Well,” he mumbled at last,
“Doubtless there are other roads.”
 
 
“HAVE you ever made a just man?”
“Oh, I have made three,” answered God,
“But two of them are dead,
And the third —
Listen! listen,
And you will hear the thud of his defeat.”
 
 
THREE little birds in a row
Sat musing.
A man passed near that place.
Then did the little birds nudge each other.
They said, “He thinks he can sing.”
They threw back their heads to laugh.
With quaint countenances
They regarded him.
They were very curious,
Those three little birds in a row.
 
 
A  YOUTH, in apparel that glittered,
Went to walk in a grim forest.
There he met an assassin
Attired all in garb of old days;
He, scowling through the thickets,
And dagger poised quivering,
Rushed upon the youth.
“Sir,” said the latter,
“I am enchanted, believe me,
To die thus
In this mediæval fashion,
According to the best legends;
Ah, what joy!”
Then took he the wound, smiling,
And died, content.
 
 
A  MAN saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it;
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
 
 
“THINK as I think,” said a man,
“Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad.”
And after I had thought of it,
I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”
 
 
UPON the road of my life,
Passed me many fair creatures,
Clothed all in white, and radiant;
To one, finally, I made speech:
“Who art thou?”
But she, like the others,
Kept cowled her face,
And answered in haste, anxiously,
“I am Good Deed, forsooth;
You have often seen me.”
“Not uncowled,” I made reply.
And with rash and strong hand,
Though she resisted,
I drew away the veil,
And gazed at the features of Vanity.
She, shamefaced, went on;
And after I had mused a time,
I said of myself, “Fool!”
 

Stephen Crane.

FROM THE HOUSE OF A HUNDRED LIGHTS

 
WHAT! doubt the Master Workman’s hand
Because my fleshly ills increase?
No; for there still remains one chance
That I am not His masterpiece.
 
 
Out of all Epicurus’ train
I wonder which class is sincerest,
The drones, or workers, who believe
This doctrine of “Believe-the-Nearest.”
 
 
You invalids who cannot drink
Much wine or love, I say to you,
“Content yourselves with laughing at
The antics of the fools who do.”
 
 
Bad-liver says each morning’s sun
Is but to him a juggling bawd,
That opens up for man’s deceit
Only another chest of fraud.
 
 
Old Ash-in-Blood still deals advice
To Rose-of-Youth, and as he deals it,
Rolls piously his eyes; but ah,
He knows the pain whose body feels it.
 
 
In youth my head was hollow, like
A gourd, not knowing good from ill;
Now, though ’tis long since then, I’m like
A reed – wind-shaken, hollow still.
 
 
Said one young foolish mouth with words
As many as the desert sands,
“My grandfather took daily baths
In rose-water; just smell my hands!”
 
 
And now young poets will arise
And burst earth’s fetters link by link,
And mount the skies of poesy,
And daub Time’s helpless wings with ink!
In youth I wrote a song so great,
I thought that, like a flaring taper,
’Twould shine abroad; and so it did,
To the four corners of the – paper.
 
 
And, poet, should you think your songs
Must, or even will, be read,
Bethink thee, friend, what fine springs rise
Impotently from the sea’s bed.
 
 
I marvelled at the speaker’s tongue,
And marvelled more as he unrolled it.
How strange a thing it was, and yet
How much more strange if he could hold it!
 
 
A little judge once said to me,
“Behold, my friend, I caused these laws!”
But I knew One who, strange to say,
Had been the Causer of this Cause.
 
 
See fathoms deep, midst gold and gems,
Life sits and weeps on ocean’s floor;
But though on land no treasure is,
Life laughs and stands. I’ll stay on shore.
 
 
This mess of cracked ice, stones and bread,
Of sweetness savours not a bit,
And yet, my friends, I’m satisfied,
For lo! I – I – invented it!
 

Frederic Ridgely Torrence.

THE BRITISH VISITOR

 
ARRIV’D, at last, Niagara to scan,
He walks erect and feels himself a man;
Surveys the cataract with a “critic’s eye,”
Resolv’d to pass no “imperfections by” —
Niag’ra, wonder of the Deity,
Where God’s own spirit reigns in majesty.
With sullen roar the foaming billows sweep;
A world of waters thunders o’er the steep;
The unmingled colours laugh upon the spray,
And one eternal rainbow gilds the day.
Oh, glorious God! Oh, scene surpassing all!
“True, true,” quoth he, “’tis something of a fall.”
Now, shall unpunish’d such a vagrant band,
Pour like the plagues of Egypt on the land,
Eyeing each fault, to all perfection blind,
Shedding the taint of a malignant mind?
 

From the Trollopiad.

A MATCH

 
IF I were Anglo-Saxon,
And you were Japanese,
We’d study storks together,
Pluck out the peacock’s feather,
And lean our languid backs on
The stiffest of settees —
If I were Anglo-Saxon,
And you were Japanese.
If you were Della-Cruscan,
And I were A. – Mooresque,
We’d make our limbs look less in
Artistic folds, and dress in
What once were tunics Tuscan
In Dante’s days grotesque —
If you were Della-Cruscan,
And I were A. – Mooresque.
 
 
If I were mock Pompeian,
And you Belgravian Greek,
We’d glide ’mid gaping Vandals
In shapeless sheets and sandals,
Like shades in Tartarean
Dim ways remote and bleak —
If I were mock Pompeian,
And you Belgravian Greek.
 
 
If you were Culture’s scarecrow,
And I the guy of Art,
I’d learn in latest phrases
Of either’s quaintest crazes
To lisp, and let my hair grow,
While yours you’d cease to part —
If you were Culture’s scarecrow,
And I the guy of Art.
 
 
If I’d a Botticelli,
And you’d a new Burne-Jones,
We’d dote for days and days on
Their mystic hues, and gaze on
With lowering looks that felly
We’d fix upon their tones —
If I’d a Botticelli,
And you’d a new Burne-Jones.
 
 
If you were skilled at crewels,
And I a dab at rhymes,
I’d write delirious “ballads,”
While you your bilious salads
Were stitching upon two ells
Of coarsest crash, at times —
If you were skilled at crewels,
And I a dab at rhymes.
 
 
If I were what’s “consummate,”
And you were quite “too, too,”
’Twould be our Eldorado
To have a yellow dado,
Our happiness to hum at
A teapot tinted blue —
If I were what’s “consummate,”
And you were quite “too, too.”
 
 
If you were what “intense” is,
And I were like “decay,”
We’d mutely muse, or mutter
In terms distinctly utter,
And find out what the sense is
Of this æsthetic lay —
If you were what “intense” is,
And I were like “decay.”
 
 
If you were wan, my lady,
And I your lover weird,
We’d sit and wink for hours
At languid lily-flowers,
Till, fain of all things fady,
We faintly – disappeared —
If you were wan, my lady,
And I your lover weird.
 

Punch.

WANTED – A GOVERNESS

 
A  GOVERNESS wanted – well fitted to fill
The post of tuition with competent skill —
In a gentleman’s family highly genteel;
Superior attainments are quite indispensable,
With everything, too, that’s correct and ostensible;
Morals of pure unexceptionability;
Manners well formed, and of strictest gentility.
The pupils are five – ages, six to sixteen,
All as promising girls as ever were seen;
And besides (though ’tis scarcely worth while to put that in),
There is one little boy, but he only learns Latin.
The lady must teach all the several branches
Whereinto polite education now launches.
She’s expected to speak the French tongue like a native,
And be to her pupils of all its points dative.
Italian she must know à fond, nor need banish
Whatever acquaintance she may have with Spanish;
Nor would there be harm in a trifle of German,
In the absence, that is, of the master, Von Hermann.
The harp and piano —cela va sans dire—
With thorough-bass, too, on the plan of Logier.
In drawing in pencil, and chalks, and the tinting
That’s called Oriental, she must not be stint in;
She must paint upon paper, and satin, and velvet;
And if she knows gilding, she’s no need to shelve it.
Dancing, of course, with the newest gambades,
The Polish mazurka, and best gallopades;
Arithmetic, history joined with chronology,
Heraldry, botany, writing, conchology,
Grammar, and satin stitch, netting, geography,
Astronomy, use of the globes, and cosmography.
’Twere also as well she should be calisthenical,
That her charges’ young limbs may be pliant to any call.
Their health, play, and studies, and moral condition
Must be superintended without intermission.
At home she must all habits check that disparage,
And when they go out must attend to their carriage.
Her faith must be orthodox, temper most pliable,
Health good, and reference quite undeniable.
These are the principal matters —Au reste,
Address, Bury Street, Mrs. General Peste.
As the salary’s moderate, none need apply
Who more on that point than on comfort rely.
 

Anonymous.

LINES BY AN OLD FOGY

 
I’M thankful that the sun and moon
Are both hung up so high,
That no presumptuous hand can stretch
And pull them from the sky.
If they were not, I have no doubt
But some reforming ass
Would recommend to take them down
And light the world with gas.
 

Anonymous.