The Battle of the Bays Part 4

7.

AN ODE TO SPRING IN THE METROPOLIS.

(AFTER R. LE G.)

Is this the Seine?

And am I altogether wrong About the brain, Dreaming I hear the British tongue?

Dear Heaven! what a rhyme!

And yet 'tis all as good As some that I have fas.h.i.+oned in my time, Like _bud_ and _wood_; And on the other hand you couldn't have a more precise or neater Metre.

Is this, I ask, the Seine?

And yonder sylvan lane, Is it the _Bois_?

_Ma foi!_ _Comme elle est chic_, my Paris, my grisette!

Yet may I not forget That London still remains the missus Of this Narcissus.

No, no! 'tis not the Seine!

It is the artificial mere That permeates St. James's Park.

The air is bosom-shaped and clear; And, Himmel! do I hear the lark, The good old Sh.e.l.ley-Wordsworth lark?

Even now, I prithee, Hark Him hammer On Heaven's harmonious st.i.thy, Dew-drunken--like my grammar!

And O the trees!

Beneath their shade the hairless coot Waddles at ease, Hus.h.i.+ng the magic of his gurgling beak; Or haply in Tree-wors.h.i.+p leans his cheek Against their blind And h.o.a.ry rind, Observing how the sap Comes humming upwards from the tap- Root!

Thrice happy, hairless coot!

And O the sun!

See, see, he shakes His big red hands at me in wanton fun!

A glorious image that! it might be Blake's; As in my critical capacity I took occasion to remark elsewhere, When heaping praise On this exceptionally happy phrase, Although I made it up myself.

But I and Blake, we really const.i.tute a pair, Each being rather like an artless woodland elf.

And O the stars! I cannot say I see a star just now, Not at this time of day; But anyhow The stars are all my brothers; (This verse is shorter than the others).

O Const.i.tution Hill!

(This verse is shorter still).

Ah! London, London in the Spring!

You are, you know you are, So full of curious sights, Especially by nights.

From gilded bar to gilded bar Youth goes his giddy whirl, His heart fulfilled of Music-Hall, His arm fulfilled of girl!

I frankly call That last effect a perfect pearl!

I know it's Not given to many poets To frame so fair a thing As this of mine, of Spring.

Indeed, the world grows Lilliput All but A precious few, the heirs of utter G.o.dlihead, Who wear the yellow flower of blameless bodlihead!

And they, with Laureates dead, look down On smaller fry unworthy of the crown, Mere mushroom men, puff-b.a.l.l.s that advertise And bravely think to brush the skies.

Great is advertis.e.m.e.nt with little men!

_Moi, qui vous parle, L- G-ll--nn-_, Have told them so; I ought to know!

8.

YET.

(AFTER F. E. W.)

Sing me a drawing-room song, darling!

Sing by the sunset's glow; Now while the shadows are long, darling; Now while the lights are low; Something so chaste and so coy, darling!

Something that melts the chest; Milder than even Molloy, darling!

Better than Bingham's best.

Sing me a drawing-room song, darling!

Sing as you sang of yore, Lisping of love that is strong, darling!

Strong as a big barn-door; Let the true knight be bold, darling!

Let him arrive too late; Stick in a bower of gold, darling!

Stick in a golden gate.

Sing me a drawing-room song, darling!

Bear on the angels' wings Children that know no wrong, darling!

Little cherubic things!

Sing of their sunny hair, darling!

Get them to die in June; Wake, if you can, on the stair, darling!

Echoes of tiny shoon.

Sing me a drawing-room song, darling!

Sentiment may be false, Yet it will worry along, darling!

Set to a tum-tum valse; See that the verses are few, darling!

Keep to the rule of three; That will be better for you, darling!

Certainly better for me.

9.

ELEGI MUSARUM.

(AFTER W. W.)

[To Mr. St. Loe Strachey.]

Dawn of the year that emerges, a fine and ebullient Phnix, Forth from the cinders of Self, out of the ash of the Past; Year that discovers my Muse in the thick of purpureal sonnets, Slating diplomacy's sloth, blus.h.i.+ng for 'Abdul the d----d'; Year that in guise of a herald declaring the close of the tourney Clears the redoubtable lists hot with the Battle of Bays; Binds on the brows of the Tory, the highly respectable Austin, Laurels that Phbus of old wore on the top of his tuft;

Leaving the locks of the hydra, of Bodley the numerous-headed, Clean as the chin of a boy, bare as a babe in a bath; Year that--I see in the vista the princ.i.p.al verb of the sentence Loom as a deeply-desired bride that is late at the post-- Year that has painfully tickled the lachrymal nerves of the Muses, Giving Another the gift due to Respectfully Theirs;-- _Hinc illae lacrimae!_ Ah, reader! I grossly misled you; See, it was false; there is no princ.i.p.al verb after all!

His likewise is the anguish, who followed with soft serenading Me as the tremulous tide tracks the meandering moon; Climbing as Romeo clomb, peradventure by help of a flower-pot, Where in her balconied bower lay, inexpressibly coy, Juliet, not as the others, supinely, insanely erotic, Pallid and yellow of hue, very degenerate souls, Rioting round with the rapture of palpitant ichorous ardour, But an immaculate maid, 'one,' you may say, 'of the best'!

His, I repeat, is the anguish--my journalist, eulogist critic, Strachey, the generous judge, Saintly unlimited Loe!

Vainly the stolid _Spectator_, bewildered with fabulous bow-wows, Sick with a surfeit of dog, ran me for all it was worth!

Vainly--if I may recur to a metaphor drawn from the ocean, Long (in a figure of speech) tied to the tail of the moon-- Vainly, O excellent organ! with ample and aqueous unction Once, as a rule, in a week, 'cleansing the Earth of her stain'; (Here you will possibly pardon the natural scion of poets, Proud with humility's pride, spoiling a pa.s.sage from Keats)-- Vainly your voice on the ears of impregnable Laureate-makers, Rang as the sinuous sea rings on a petrified coast; Vainly your voice with a subtle and slightly indelicate largess, Broke on an obdurate world hymning the advent of Me; When from the 'commune of air,' from 'the exquisite fabric of Silence,'

I, a superior orb, burst into exquisite print!

What shall we say for your greeting, O good horticultural Alfred!