MORAL

In this brief pedigree

A moral we should find--

But what it ought to be

Has quite escaped my mind!

_Anonymous_.

_ON THE OXFORD CARRIER_

Here lieth one, who did most truly prove

That he could never die while he could move;

So hung his destiny never to rot

While he might still jog on and keep his trot;

Made of sphere metal, never to decay

Until his revolution was at stay.

Time numbers motion, yet (without a crime

'Gainst old truth) motion number'd out his time,

And like an engine moved with wheel and weight,

His principles being ceased, he ended straight.

Rest, that gives all men life, gave him his death,

And too much breathing put him out of breath;

Nor were it contradiction to affirm,

Too long vacation hasten'd on his term.

Merely to drive the time away he sicken'd,

Fainted, and died, nor would with ale be quicken'd;

"Nay," quoth he, on his swooning bed outstretch'd,

"If I mayn't carry, sure I'll ne'er be fetch'd,

But vow, though the cross doctors all stood hearers,

For one carrier put down to make six bearers."

Ease was his chief disease; and to judge right,

He died for heaviness that his cart went light:

His leisure told him that his time was come,

And lack of load made his life burdensome.

That even to his last breath (there be that say't),

As he were press'd to death, he cried, "More weight;"

But, had his doings lasted as they were,

He had been an immortal carrier.

Obedient to the moon he spent his date

In course reciprocal, and had his fate

Link'd to the mutual flowing of the seas,

Yet (strange to think) his wane was his increase:

His letters are deliver'd all, and gone,

Only remains the superscription.

_John Milton_.

_NEPHELIDIA_

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn

through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,

Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower

that flickers with fear of the flies as they float,

Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel

of mystic miraculous moonshine,

These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and

threaten with sobs from the throat?

Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's

appalled agitation,

Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the

promise of pride in the past;

Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with

radiance of rathe recreation,

Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom

of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?

Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch

on the temples of terror,

Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who

is dumb as the dust-heaps of death:

Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional

exquisite error,

Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by

beatitude's breath.

Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit

and soul of our senses

Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the

semblance and sound of a sigh;

Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and

triangular tenses--

Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the

dawn of the day when we die.

Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory melodiously mute

as it may be,

While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of

men's rapiers resigned to the rod;

Made meek as a mother whose bosom--beats bound with the bliss--

bringing bulk of a balm--breathing baby,

As they grope through the grave-yards of creeds, under skies

growing green'at a groan for the grimness of God.

Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old and its binding

is blacker than bluer:

Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their

dews are the wine of the bloodshed of things;

Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that

is freed from the fangs that pursue her,

Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the

hunt that has harried the kernel of kings.

_A. C. Swinburne,

in "The Heptalogia_."

_MARTIN LUTHER AT POTSDAM_

What lightning shall light it? What thunder shall tell it?

In the height of the height, in the depth of the deep?

Shall the sea--storm declare it, or paint it, or smell it?

Shall the price of a slave be its treasure to keep?

When the night has grown near with the gems on her bosom,

When the white of mine eyes is the whiteness of snow,

When the cabman--in liquor--drives a blue roan, a kicker,

Into the land of the dear long ago.

Ah!--Ah, again!--You will come to me, fall on me--

You are _so_ heavy, and I am _so_ flat.

And I? I shall not be at home when you call on me,

But stray down the wind like a gentleman's hat:

I shall list to the stars when the music is purple,

Be drawn through a pipe, and exhaled into rings;

Turn to sparks, and then straightway get stuck in the gateway

That stands between speech and unspeakable things.

As I mentioned before, by what light is it lighted?

Oh! Is it fourpence, or piebald, or gray?

Is it a mayor that a mother has knighted,

Or is it a horse of the sun and the day?

Is it a pony? If so, who will change it?

O golfer, be quiet, and mark where it scuds,

And think of its paces--of owners and races--

Relinquish the links for the study of studs.

Not understood? Take me hence! Take me yonder!

Take me away to the land of my rest--

There where the Ganges and other gees wander,

And uncles and antelopes act for the best,

And all things are mixed and run into each other

In a violet twilight of virtues and sins,

With the church-spires below you and no one to show you

Where the curate leaves off and the pew-rent begins!

In the black night through the rank grass the snakes peer--

The cobs and the cobras are partial to grass--

And a boy wanders out with a knowledge of Shakespeare

That's not often found in a boy of his class,

And a girl wanders out without any knowledge,

And a bird wanders out, and a cow wanders out,

Likewise one wether, and they wander together--

There's a good deal of wandering lying about.

But it's all for the best; I've been told by my friends, Sir,

That in verses I'd written the meaning was slight;

I've tried with no meaning--to make 'em amends, Sir--

And find that this kind's still more easy to write.

The title has nothing to do with the verses,

But think of the millions--the laborers who

In busy employment find deepest enjoyment,

And yet, like my title, have nothing to do!

_Barry Pain_.

_COMPANIONS_

I know not of what we ponder'd

Or made pretence to talk,

As, her hand within mine, we wander'd

Tow'rd the pool by the limetree walk,

While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers

And the blush-rose bent on her stalk.

I cannot recall her figure:

Was it regal as Juno's own?

Or only a trifle bigger

Than the elves who surround the throne

Of the Faëry Queen, and are seen, I ween,

By mortals in dreams alone?

What her eyes were like, I know not:

Perhaps they were blurred with tears;

And perhaps in your skies there glow not

(On the contrary) clearer spheres.

No as to her eyes I am just as wise

As you or the cat, my dears.

Her teeth, I presume, were "pearly":

But which was she, brunette or blonde?

Her hair, was it quaintly curly,

Or as straight as a beadle's wand?

That I failed to remark;--it was rather dark

And shadowy round the pond.

Then the hand that reposed so snugly

In mine--was it plump or spare?

Was the countenance fair or ugly?

Nay, children, you have me there!

My eyes were p'raps blurr'd; and besides, I'd heard

That it's horribly rude to stare.

And I--was I brusque and surly?

Or oppressively bland and fond?

Was I partial to rising early?

Or why did we twain abscond,

All breakfastless too, from the public view

To prowl by a misty pond?

What passed, what was felt or spoken--

Whether anything passed at all--

And whether the heart was broken

That beat under that sheltering shawl--

(If shawl she had on, which I doubt)--has gone.

Yes, gone from me past recall.

Was I haply the lady's suitor?

Or her uncle? I can't make out--

Ask your governess, dears, or tutor.

For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt

As to why we were there, and who on earth we were,

And what this is all about.

_C. S. Calverley_.

_THE COCK AND THE BULL_

You see this pebble-stone? It's a thing I bought

Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day--

I like to dock the smaller parts-o-speech,

As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur

(You catch the paronomasia, play 'po' words?)

Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days.

Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,

And clapt it i' my poke, having given for same

By way o' chop, swop, barter or exchange--

"Chop" was my snickering dandiprat's own term--

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm.

O-n-e one and f-o-u-r four

Pence, one and fourpence--you are with me, sir?--

What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o' the clock,

One day (and what a roaring day it was

Go shop or sight-see--bar a spit o' rain!)

In February, eighteen sixty nine,

Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei,

Hm--hm--how runs the jargon? being on the throne.

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,

The basis or substratum--what you will--

Of the impending eighty thousand lines.

"Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge.

But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit.

Mark first the rationale of the thing:

Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.

That shilling--and for matter o' that, the pence--

I had o' course upo' me--wi' me say--

(_Mecum's_ the Latin, make a note o' that)

When I popp'd pen i' stand, scratched ear, wiped snout,

(Let everybody wipe his own himself)

Sniff'd--tch!--at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed,

Haw-haw'd (not he-haw'd, that's another guess thing):

Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door,

I shoved the timber ope wi' my omoplat;

And _in vestibulo_, i' the lobby to-wit,

(Iacobi Facciolati's rendering, sir,)

Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes,

And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,

One on and one a-dangle i' my hand,

And ombrifuge (Lord love you!) cas o' rain,

I flopped forth, 'sbuddikins! on my own ten toes,

(I do assure you there be ten of them)

And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale

To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy.

Put case I hadn't 'em on me, could I ha' bought

This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call-toy,

This pebble-thing, o' the boy-thing? Q. E. D.

That's proven without aid for mumping Pope,

Sleek porporate or bloated cardinal.

(Isn't it, old Fatchops? You're in Euclid now.)

So, having the shilling--having i' fact a lot--

And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them,

I purchased, as I think I said before,

The pebble (_lapis, lapidis, di, dem, de_--

What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchops, eh?)

O the boy, a bare-legg'd beggarly son of a gun,

For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.

Now Law steps in, biwigged, voluminous-jaw'd;

Investigates and re-investigates.

Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head.

Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.

But now (by virtue of the said exchange

And barter) _vice versa_ all the coin,

_Rer juris operationem_, vests

I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom;

_In saecula saeculo-o-o-orum_;

(I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)

To have and hold the same to him and them ...

Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,

And all that appertaineth thereunto,

_Quodcunque pertinet ad em rem_,

(I fancy, sir, my Latin's rather pat)

Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should,

_Subaudi caetera_--clap we to the close--

For what's the good of law in such a case o' the kind

Is mine to all intents and purposes.

This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale.

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality.

He says a gen'lman bought a pebble of him,

(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand)--

And paid for 't, _like_ a gen'lman, on the nail.

"Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny? Devil a bit.

Fiddlepin's end! Get out, you blazing ass!

Gabble o' the goose. Don't bugaboo-baby _me_!

Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what's the odds?"

--There's the transaction viewed in the vendor's light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,

With her three frowsy blowsy brats o' babes,

The scum o' the Kennel, cream o' the filth-heap--Faugh!

Aie, aie, aie, aie! [Greek: otototototoi],

('Stead which we blurt out, Hoighty toighty now)--

And the baker and candlestick maker, and Jack and Gill,

Blear'd Goody this and queasy Gaffer that,

Ask the Schoolmaster, Take Schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad

A stone, and pay for it _rite_ on the square,

And carry it off _per saltum_, jauntily

_Propria quae maribus_, gentleman's property now

(Agreeable to the law explained above).

_In proprium usum_, for his private ends,

The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit

I' the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone

At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by,

(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,)

Then _abiit_--What's the Ciceronian phrase?

_Excessit, evasit, erupit_--off slogs boy;

Off like bird, _avi similis_--(you observed

The dative? Pretty i' the Mantuan!)--_Anglice_

Off in three flea skips. _Hactenus_, so far,

So good, _tam bene. Bene, satis, male_,--

Where was I with my trope 'bout one in a quag?

I did once hitch the Syntax into verse

_Verbum personale_, a verb personal,

_Concordat_--"ay", agrees old Fatchops--_cum

Nominativo_, with its nominative,

_Genere_, i' point of gender, _numero_,

O' number, _et persona_, and person. _Ut_,

Instance: _Sol ruit_, down flops sun, _et_ and,

_Montes umbrantur_, out flounce mountains. Pah!

Excuse me, sir, I think I'm going mad.

You see the trick on't, though, and can yourself

Continue the discourse _ad libitum_.

It takes up about eighty thousand lines,

A thing imagination boggles at;

And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands

Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

_C.S. Calverley_.