Shapes of Clay Part 4

Where the squalid town of Dae Irks the comfortable sea, Spreading webs to gather fish, As for wealth we set a wish, Dwelt a king by right divine, Sprung from Adam's royal line, Town of Dae by the sea, Divers kinds of kings there be.

Name nor fame had Picklepip: Ne'er a soldier nor a s.h.i.+p Bore his banners in the sun; Naught knew he of kingly sport, And he held his royal court Under an inverted tun.

Love and roses, ages through, Bloom where cot and trellis stand; Never yet these blossoms grew-- Never yet was room for two-- In a cask upon the strand.

So it happened, as it ought, That his simple schemes he wrought Through the lagging summer's day In a solitary way.

So it happened, as was best, That he took his nightly rest With no dreadful incubus This way eyed and that way tressed, Featured thus, and thus, and thus, Lying lead-like on a breast By cares of State enough oppressed.

Yet in dreams his fancies rude Claimed a lordly lat.i.tude.

Town of Dae by the sea, Dreamers mate above their state And waken back to their degree.

Once to cask himself away He prepared at close of day.

As he tugged with swelling throat At a most unkingly coat-- Not to get it off, but on, For the serving sun was gone-- Pa.s.sed a silk-appareled sprite Toward her castle on the height, Seized and set the garment right.

Turned the startled Picklepip-- Splendid crimson cheek and lip!

Turned again to sneak away,

But she bade the villain stay, Bade him thank her, which he did With a speech that slipped and slid, Sprawled and stumbled in its gait As a dancer tries to skate.

Town of Dae by the sea, In the face of silk and lace Rags too bold should never be.

Lady Minnow c.o.c.ked her head: "Mister Picklepip," she said, "Do you ever think to wed?"

Town of Dae by the sea, No fair lady ever made a Wicked speech like that to me!

Wretched little Picklepip Said he hadn't any s.h.i.+p, Any flocks at his command, Nor to feed them any land; Said he never in his life Owned a mine to keep a wife.

But the guilty stammer so That his meaning wouldn't flow; So he thought his aim to reach By some figurative speech: Said his Fate had been unkind Had pursued him from behind (How the mischief could it else?)

Came upon him unaware, Caught him by the collar--there Gushed the little lady's glee Like a gush of golden bells: "Picklepip, why, that is _me_!"

Town of Dae by the sea, Grammar's for great scholars--she Loved the summer and the lea.

Stupid little Picklepip Allowed the subtle hint to slip-- Maundered on about the s.h.i.+p That he did not chance to own; Told this grievance o'er and o'er, Knowing that she knew before; Told her how he dwelt alone.

Lady Minnow, for reply, Cut him off with "So do I!"

But she reddened at the fib; Servitors had she, _ad lib._ Town of Dae by the sea, In her youth who speaks no truth Ne'er shall young and honest be.

Witless little Picklepip Manned again his mental s.h.i.+p And veered her with a sudden s.h.i.+ft.

Painted to the lady's thought How he wrestled and he wrought

Stoutly with the swimming drift By the kindly river brought From the mountain to the sea, Fuel for the town of Dae.

Tedious tale for lady's ear: From her castle on the height, She had watched her water-knight Through the seasons of a year, Challenge more than met his view And conquer better than he knew.

Now she shook her pretty pate And stamped her foot--'t was growing late: "Mister Picklepip, when I Drifting seaward pa.s.s you by; When the waves my forehead kiss And my tresses float above-- Dead and drowned for lack of love-- You'll be sorry, sir, for this!"

And the silly creature cried-- Feared, perchance, the rising tide.

Town of Dae by the sea, Madam Adam, when she had 'em, May have been as bad as she.

_Fiat lux!_ Love's lumination Fell in floods of revelation!

Blinded brain by world aglare, Sense of pulses in the air,

Sense of swooning and the beating Of a voice somewhere repeating Something indistinctly heard!

And the soul of Picklepip Sprang upon his trembling lip, But he spake no further word Of the wealth he did not own; In that moment had outgrown s.h.i.+p and mine and flock and land-- Even his cask upon the strand.

Dropped a stricken star to earth, Type of wealth and worldly worth.

Clomb the moon into the sky, Type of love's immensity!

Shaking silver seemed the sea, Throne of G.o.d the town of Dae!

Town of Dae by the sea, From above there cometh love, Blessing all good souls that be.

AN ANARCHIST.

False to his art and to the high command G.o.d laid upon him, Markham's rebel hand Beats all in vain the harp he touched before: It yields a jingle and it yields no more.

No more the strings beneath his finger-tips Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips, Touched with a living coal from sacred fires, Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires.

The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak; They labor, they complain, they sweat, they reek!

The more the wayward, disobedient song Errs from the right to celebrate the wrong, More diligently still the singer strums, To drown the horrid sound, with all his thumbs.

G.o.ds, what a spectacle! The angels lean Out of high Heaven to view the sorry scene, And Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a lute,"

Though now compa.s.sion makes their music mute, Among the weeping company appears, Pearls in his eyes and cotton in his ears.

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE.

Once I "dipt into the future far as human eye could see,"

And saw--it was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but she-- The Emanc.i.p.ated Woman, who was weeping as she ran Here and there for the discovery of Expurgated Man.

But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set, And that tardiest of mortals hadn't evoluted yet.

Hence the tears that she cascaded, hence the sighs that tore apart All the tendinous connections of her indurated heart.

Cried Emanc.i.p.ated Woman, as she wearied of the search: "In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the lurch!

Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes and dudes I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes.

Now without a mate of any kind where am I?--that's to say, Where shall I be to-morrow?--where exert my rightful sway And the purifying strength of my emanc.i.p.ated mind?

Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined?

Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my Advance-- From the Region of Unprogress in the Dark Domain of Chance-- Long I heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return To share the degradation he's reluctant to unlearn.

But I fancy I detected--though I pray it wasn't that-- A low reverberation, like an echo in a hat.

So I've held my way regardless, evoluting year by year, Till I'm what you now behold me--or would if you were here-- A condensed Emanc.i.p.ation and a Purifier proud An Independent Ent.i.ty appropriately loud!

Independent? Yes, in spirit, but (O, woful, woful state!) Doomed to premature extinction by privation of a mate-- To extinction or reversion, for Unexpurgated Man Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the van.

O the horrible dilemma!--to be odiously linked With an Undeveloped Species, or become a Type Extinct!"

As Emanc.i.p.ated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air, Stalking out of desolation came a being strange and rare-- Plato's Man!--bipedal, featherless from mandible to rump, Its wings two quilless flippers and its tail a plumeless stump.

First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in hospitable terms It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms.

Then it strutted up before her with a lifting of the head, And in accents of affection and of sympathy it said: "My estate is some 'at 'umble, but I'm qualified to draw Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and claw To Emanc.i.p.ated Anything as walks upon the earth; And them things is at your service for whatever they are worth.

I'm sure to be congenial, marm, nor e'er deserve a scowl-- I'm Emanc.i.p.ated Rooster, I am Expurgated Fowl!"

From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, and then Wrote this wild unfestive prophecy about the Coming Hen.

ARMA VIRUMQUE.

"Ours is a Christian Army"; so he said A regiment of bangomen who led.

"And ours a Christian Navy," added he Who sailed a thunder-junk upon the sea.

Better they know than men unwarlike do What is an army and a navy, too.

Pray G.o.d there may be sent them by-and-by The knowledge what a Christian is, and why.