A Century of Emblems

THE HEIFER DEPRIVED OF HER MATES.

For absent friends and interrupted loves
See yonder solitary heifer mourn,
As questing vainly round the close she roves,
Of all her spotted yoke-fellows forlorn.

Quickened like us this thing of kindred clay
Frets with our passions, trembles with our fears,
But lacking spirit-wings it finds no way
To hopes that shine above the fount of tears.

DUCKS AT PLAY.

They flirt and flounce with many a quack and blow,
Those ducks intoxicate with summer rain;
Then deeply dive, and hidden long below,
From unexpected places rise again.

Thus our old playmates in life's widening stream,
Amid the crossing currents disappear,
Yet haply show again as in a dream
With startling gladness after many a year.

THE TAME HARE.

Was never beast so cautious seen
As Tiny our pet hare;
He sniffs at dado, chair, and screen,
With such suspicious care.

Yet when his nightly quest is o'er,
Each rift and corner scanned,
He'll spring around and snatch his store
Of parsley from my hand.

With Puss let all suspicion end;
The jealous heart will rue;
Ah! never doubt an ancient friend,
Though wary with the new.

THE WATCHFUL DOG.

One ear he held, a flapping dockleaf, low,
The other pricking like a horn on high;
This heeded all around that come and go,
And this the larks careering up the sky.

Smile, twofold man, yet own your emblem here,
Spirit and flesh alert for duty's call;
And, 'mid the discords of this earthly sphere,
Hearken the voice of Heaven above them all.

THE PUPPIES AND THE THUNDER.

We heard the puppies madly scold,
When crashed on high the thundering peal;
They leaped aloft, as though to hold
The lightning by the heel.

And as the flashes followed fast,
Still sharper rang the yelping tone,
Till hoarse and worn they sank at last,
Yet rolled the thunder on.

So worth above detraction's rout
Maintains its even lofty course,
And clamour ceases, wearied out
With its own futile force.

EMBLEM OF TRUE PHILOSOPHY.

At fashion's call with cruel shears
They cropped poor Tray's superfluous ears;
Twice shrieked the mutilated pup,
Then sniffed and ate the fragments up,
Nor stayed his losses to deplore,
But wagged his tail and craved for more.
Here, without Tupper, we may see
The marrow of philosophy,
The how and where with natural ease
To stow away our miseries;
Nor simply to gulp down our pain,
But turn disaster into gain;
And when her scissors shear our pate
To batten on the spoils of Fate.

THE GUIDE-POST.

Vainly, unlettered youth, you come
And scrutinise each painted word,
No aid those arms all fixed and dumb,
To your perplexity afford.

God's ministers life's guide-posts are,
And to the people roundly tell
At each cross road and thoroughfare,
The track to Heaven, the ways to Hell.

Still more, they purge the darkened mind
With helping hands and tongues of fire;
What boots the guide-post to the blind,
Or paralytic in the mire?

THE WAYSIDE MONITOR.

To one of Nature's loving tricks
Chance lent a solemn power,
A skull beneath a crucifix
Upheld a shining flower.

This by the road a traveller saw,
And wondering could not chuse
But nearer still and nearer draw,
In silence then to muse.

To faith he owned with bated breath
An emblematic call;
Life blooming in the jaws of death,
And Jesus over all.

THE BOOMERANG.

On isles within a distant zone,
Where bows are slighted or unknown,
Of toughest wood they say is made
A missile with a curving blade,
Which at an angle cleaves the air,
And smites its victim unaware.
But, should a hand unskilful throw,
It works an unexpected woe,
Swift on its owner whirling back
Like levin on its deadly track.
So from malicious lips slung forth,
False words of calumny or wrath
Recoil upon the utterer's heart,
Inflicting with remorseful dart
The festering wound, so slow to heal
In breasts that are not brass or steel.

THE WRONG PLACE.

Friend Colin reared his country seat
Close to a group of noble trees,
He blessed their shadows in the heat,
He blessed their music in the breeze.

Grown old and sere, he dreads their fall,
'Tis safety waging war with taste;
He cries, "Down with them one and all,
Were never wych elms so misplaced."

So they who neither thought nor planned
Hold for secure some transient good,
And having built upon the sand,
Declaim against the wind and flood.

THE WRONG TIME.

Some indiscreet Abderite boys
Within a limpet's hollow,
Offer'd in laurel-juice blue flies
As victims to Apollo.

The god appeased will bless, they thought,
Our tasks of prose and rhyme;
So they the flitting insects caught,
But lost the flitting time.

When Pedagogue their progress tries,
Nor finds the lesson done,
In vain they plead the sacrifice,
He whips them every one.

TRAVELLING FOR EXCITEMENT.

I heard the great gorilla roar,
My icy blood did curdling creep,
Astride the Erymanthian boar,
The brute came crashing through my sleep.

I woke, and there all fleecy white,
My dainty dog in sunshine played,
His feathery paw, which caused the fright,
Upon my bosom gently laid.

"Thank heaven," I gasped, and quivering cried,
For still the roaring shook my ear,
"Why seek Gaboona's deadly tide,
When I can thrill in safety here?"

THE HAWSER.

We saw a crew in bygone years
Bear out a hawser long and good,
Which to the tune of mighty cheers
That stirred our hearts and stunned our ears,
Drew forth a barque from shoal and mud.

Large-hearted love thus flies to save
Some victim of life's treacherous sea,
From the oppressor's deadly cave,
From calumny's o'erwhelming wave,
Or sordid sink of poverty.

TRAINED CORMORANTS.

These cormorants bear a metal ring,
The channel of their greed to stay,
So trained—they are not taught to sing—
They dive at will and catch and bring,
But cannot gorge the prey.

When orators in their excess
Blab forth what prudence would conceal,
Say, could their partisans wish less
Than for a ring their throats to press,
And throttle half their zeal?

THE BAT.

O plumeless bird, O legless mouse;
Between the night and day,
Flitting around my summer-house
In quest of insect prey.

In thee a type of man is seen,
Half ape, half angel he,
Hope chases the dim hours between
Blank and eternity.

But when his twilight course is o'er,
Freed from the bestial clay,
Above the angels he shall soar
In everlasting day.

WATERFALL BY THE SEA.

This little fountain night and day
So far from all the flowers,
Chants to itself, and flings away
A wealth of diamond showers.

Incessantly without demand,
Here Nature's purest gift
Moistens the unproductive sand,
Or floats the base sea-drift.

So from the living Rock above,
On stony hearts and ears
The message falls of Gospel love,
Where not a fruit appears.

Judge not, O stranger, thus, but know
There many a thirsty fleet
Has filled its casks to overflow,
And found the water sweet.

Though hearts awhile may stony prove,
And fruitless as the main,
God's mingled stream of truth and love
Has never flowed in vain.

THE DYING SWAN.

Host.

Tell me, O pilgrim! for my soul is stirred,
On what far shore the willing winds prolong
The melody of that imperial bird
Which sings to chill-eared death its only song.

Pilgrim.

Not mine Ogygian secrets to impart;
But this they said where vague Meander shone,
That only he who hath the poet's heart
May hear the music of the dying swan.

THE PEACOCK.

O paragon of feathered grace,
What charms thy neck enfold,
Backed by that glorious orbed space
Thick starred with eyes of gold.

Though Philomela soothe the night,
'Tis thine to paint the day;
And each a splendour and delight
Sheds on our earthly way.

So in thy beauty I rejoice,
Nor flout thy tuneless cries;
Peacocks with Philomela's voice,
Sing but in Paradise.

THE HUNTER.

True Faith.

A royal boon for man's delight
We deem this noble steed,
So great in his enduring might
Of courage, spring, and speed.

And as from coronet to crest
I muse the creature o'er,
There rises freely in my breast
One happy emblem more.

'Tis Faith, the spirit-steed so strong,
God's gift to our poor race,
Which bears the soul of man along
Through duty's arduous chase.

With reason's rein his fervour guide
O soul, he'll carry thee
Safe up the jagged mountain's side
As on the level lea.

Alike to him the morn outspread,
Or midnight on his way,
The fields of light where he was bred
Know neither night nor day.

The floods in vain lift up their voice,
No slough makes him despond;
His rider smiles at ocean's voice,
And cries, "Beyond! beyond!"

He leaps with a sublime delight
O'er æther's flaming zones,
And cheers the rider with the sight
Of Heaven and all its thrones.

Best at the last, he knows not death;
And when the chase is o'er,
Changes the simple name of "Faith"
To "Joy for evermore."

THE RACER.

While to the racer swift and strong,
Inexorable fate
Assigns the weight, the spur, the thong,
The choking struggle sharp and long,
The owner wins the plate.

Falls to the hind rasped down by toil,
And prematurely old,
The scanty dole his only spoil
From lifelong battle with the soil,
The master wins the gold.

Now comes a crying through the air,
The peasant's righteous call;
Lords of the land in liberal care
Earth's profit with the workers share,
And we'll be winners all.

THE SYBARITES.

Valour, not ornament, Wins the life tournament.

The silken Sybarites, we know,
In their superfluous elegance,
To measured music, swift or slow,
Had trained their battle steeds to dance.

'Twas thus they fell before the flutes
Of that sagacious Spartan crew,
For with the caracoling brutes
What could such dainty riders do?

O tutors! nerve your pupils' hearts
With energy for strenuous deeds,
Or all your sciences and arts
May prove but Sybaritic steeds.

FRANCIS PERRIER THE ENGRAVER.

With our needs change our deeds.

That coinless youth who left his home
Was wealthy in an ardent soul,
For, failing other ways to Rome,
He led the blind and shared his dole.

But when the guidance reached its end,
The sacred seat of art and fame,
His skilful burin stood his friend,
And won him competence and name.

He leads no more the poor and blind,
His walk in life is altered quite;
The rich he guides to art refined,
And caters for the keenest sight.

ROME.

Three symbols in one sketch combine
The charms, O Rome, we find in thee,
The dome, the monument, the pine,
Nature, and Art, and Memory.

THEODORIC.

"Conscience makes cowards of us all."

A tale grotesque in old-world story read
Of conscience in its dread fantastic force,
Tells at a banquet how a fish's head
Wrought in the tyrant an insane remorse.

For great Theodoric with blood imbrued,
Blood of the guiltless, was to death struck down,
When in the dull-eyed sturgeon's face he viewed
Stark murdered Symmachus' avenging frown.

SOCIAL LIFE A PICNIC.

By many an image, saint and sage
Have figured human life;
A mart, a maze, a pilgrimage,
A race, a battle strife.

And many another he might phrase
Who studies as they pass
The human emmet's social ways,
Through observation's glass.

So in my emblem I compare
Life to that summer feast
Where every guest supplies a share,
The greatest and the least,

In this wide hall which God hath built
And hung with landscapes round,
Whose belted dome at night is gilt
With stars on azure ground.

And here beneath the varying sky,
'Mid meadows, streams, and trees,
I place my motley company
Reclined in summer ease.

In circles set by chance or choice,
Custom, or birth, or creed;
Yet none so wide but hand or voice
May minister at need.

To live and let live their intent,
And viands interchange,
Piquant, and sweet, and succulent,
The homely and the strange.

Bitters and acids some supply,
And some the loving cup,
While some exhibit wondrously
A zeal for stirring up.

Lo, where apart by fount and rock
Sit lovers all in pairs;
Here grin buffoons, here cynics mock
Our follies and our cares.

See too the bores, expect no less
From any crowd on earth;
These teach us patience, we confess,
And give them ample berth.

Now let us range from group to group,
And mingle where we may;
Let no one scoff, or scorn to stoop,
It is but clay to clay.

Here all may gain, and all rejoice
Beneath the genial law
Proclaimed by Nature's loving voice
From Siam to Loch Awe.

"Mingle," she cries, "a glance, a tone
May play an angel's part,
And serve to pulverise the stone
Which chills the lonely heart."

"Mingle," she cries, "Who loves us best,
Society decreed;
And inequality the test
Of love in every need."

Here some are grand in gems and silk,
Some grim in ragged grey,
Poor parents bring but "mother's milk,"
And millionaires Tokay.

Some as if empty-handed come;
Yet with brave sound and show
Add to the brilliance and the hum;
Life scarce might these forego.

And faithful guests will aye believe
The poor who nought afford,
Welcomed, bring more than they receive,
In blessings from the Lord.

And surely 'twere a godless roll
Whose record should exclude
The hearts that feed the hungry soul
With spiritual food.

The cates that wit and science bring,
Beauty, and art, and joy,
The arms that toil and tongues that sing
Might Homer's lyre employ.

My emblem briefly would express
The wealth of deed and speech
Man brings to man, wherewith to bless
All hearts within their reach,

So they observe as they approve,
The golden rule divine,
His sacramental law of Love
Who blessed the bread and wine.

THE HIPPOCAMPUS, OR SEA-HORSE.

Sea minnow this with pony's crest,
Just one of Amphitrite's toys,
With which her Nereids coax to rest
The little stormy Triton boys;

In truth, a tiny twisted thing
Which cast upon that golden shore
The dark-eyed boys to strangers bring
Where sang Parthenope of yore.

Device befitting sculptured page
Quaintly with whiffs of song entwined,
Waif from the ebbing tide of age,
A Hippocampus of the mind,

Which seeks from out the old and new,
A happy cento to compile,
Whose signs and words around may strew
The soothing of a quiet smile.

Now in the fish some hearts may claim
A symbol ever dear to us;
And some the pony pet, though lame,
A little mule of Pegasus.

Then haste, thou atom of a book,
To young and old with cheery call;
In town, or train, or pastoral nook,
Thy message has a word for all.

BIVALVES

BIVALVES.

Abstinence and Temperance.

Proud Abstinence the gifts of Heaven denies;
But Temperance the Giver justifies.

Affectation and Rudeness.

Affected manners irritate we know,
But rudeness hurts us like a clumsy blow.

Almsgiving.

Deny yourself how much let no one see;
God loves a secret costly charity.

Architect.

O Architect! beware how you begin:
Who founds in error elevates a sin.

Art.

When Genius took fair Nature to his heart,
She bore a daughter, and her name is Art.

Art.

Five powers combine for Art's successful course:
Truth, beauty, passion, unity, and force.

Beauty.

A stream to feed love, joy, and wonder given;
It blesses Earth, but springs and ends in Heaven.

Books.

Books I prefer, for when not to my mind,
I shut them up; not so with human kind.

Candour.

You speak out what you think, I hear you boast;
To think out what you speak would profit most.

Candour.

You always speak your mind; then cautious be;
No mind from prejudice is always free.

Certain Preachers.

He preaches like those thorn trees which men say
Pierce to the quick, and hold you half the day.

Christian Love.

A loving nature is a lovely prize,
But Christian love all nature beautifies.

Communism.

Equalise all men! let a year go round,
And where will your equality be found?

Comparison of Poets.

Comparison of poets nought avails:
Eagles with pards, gazelles with nightingales!

Controversialist's use of the Bible.

An armourer's store they make the Book; O scandal!
Where each may find a blade to suit his handle.

Cowardice.

Alone, the coward is his shadow's slave:
Spectators make the vain enact the brave.

Criticism.

Truth, taste, and learning, twine the living three,
And thou, O critic, shalt my Hermes be.

Delusion.

For seven years only will this world be seen,
Says one; but hires a mansion for fourteen.

Detraction.

Like a bad habit oft this vice prevails,
Some nibble characters as some their nails.

Difference in judging Others.

The bad condemn with savagery and sneer,
The good arraign in sorrow and in fear.

Dreams.

Sleep hath drugged Reason; Fancy Memory weds;
Lo, the wild offspring with a hundred heads.

Duty to God.

What frenzy dreams of an unpunctual sun?
Lord, as in Heaven, on Earth Thy Will be done.

Earth.

To him who sets on earth his only care,
Life is idolatry, and Death despair.

Elevated Nonentity.

Through all these years attendance thus to dance,
To gain a public insignificance!

Enthusiasts.

But for such flight, although it frantic seems,
Spirits would crawl; no mean without extremes.

Experience.

The hard-won fruit of failure and of sorrow,
The wisdom many buy, but few will borrow.

Facts and Ideas.

We cherish our ideas like hot-house flowers,
Fact, stubborn ass, breaks in and all devours.

Facts and Imagination.

In facts amassed a world chaotic lies,
Imagination bids the Kosmos rise.

Faith.

Faith prays more fervently for love than light;
Love's voice will guide to Heaven though all be night.

Faith without Love.

Who loveless faith imbibes, that devil's drink,
Makes life a mad-house, death a fiery sink.

Faith and Reason.

Reason, God's revelation shows to Faith,
Faith, Reason arms for sorrow or for death.

Faith's Effect.

Pierced hearts by faith may light and cheerful be;
Pure gold admits the finest filigree.

Fear of Pedantry.

Scared by the name of pedant, many flee
Into pert slang or tedious levity.

Fire-eater.

The roar of cannon-balls delights his ears,
To him it is the music of the spheres.

Foolhardiness.

Take sense away and men won't dare the less,
But courage then we call foolhardiness.

Friendship.

Scan not a friend with microscopic glass;
You know his faults, then let his foibles pass.

Genius.

Draws like Prometheus from the heavenly hearth
Creative fire that glorifies our earth.

Genius and Talent.

This, Talent reproduces to a turn,
Brightly it shines, but ah! it will not burn.

Half better than the Whole.

Share happy fortune with thy friend, my soul,
So shall thy half be better than the whole.

Happiness.

Isle of our hopes beyond the sea of tears,
Reefed round with sin and woe, delays and fears.

Heartless Fun.

Her rattling mouth-peals yield me no delight,
She laughs but with her teeth, and means to bite.

History.

Fragments of fact mosaic-like combined,
All toned and tinted to the artist's mind.

Ignorant Antagonism.

Wise opposition challenges advance,
But we recoil from arguing ignorance.

Ill-natured Satire.

It wears away all love this trenchant art;
Whittling with keen-edged wit the hearer's heart.

Impartiality.

Justice is easy, barring love or grudge;
But to thyself, that proves the righteous judge.

Impenitent Tears.

'Tis not for sin he droops his tearful eye,
'Tis not for sin, but the discovery.

Inconstancy.

From love to love the heart inconstant veers
As passion fills the sail, and fancy steers.

Injudicious Praise of a Picture.

He praised the scarlet cap; this vexed my soul.
To praise a portion thus—condemns the whole.

Jealousy.

Strange freak of selfishness which fiends approve,
With love intoxicate it murders love.

Joking.

Join in his joke against himself and friends,
But do so mildly or your friendship ends.

Just and Generous.

Art just? be more—be generous all the while;
Dost give? give quickly with a loving smile.

Life.

Life is a task which takes a life to know;
How it is learnt another life must show.

Life.

Life is a long enigma; true, my friend;
Read on, read on, the answer's at the end.

Life's Garden.

Life's garden tilled with toil and tears we see;
No Paradise, sometimes Gethsemane.

Light and Shade.

He never marked the sunshine on his track,
Till from the chilly shadows he looked back.

Literary Quarrels.

Hard thrusts and ink shed mark the scribbler's strife,
Charge, counter-charge, war to the paper-knife.

Limpness.

Your feeble minds and self-indulgent wills,
Are patients ready to gulp Satan's pills.

Love.

Let not Love sleep cocoon-like, self-infurled,
Spin the fair silk, O man, and clothe the world.

Love the Tyrant.

Sweet playfellow is Love, but let him rule,
A tyrant he becomes, and you his fool.

Love and Truth.

Love without Truth is but a bubble fair;
Burst through the glitter, and your joy is air.

Man's View of Providence.

What suits their turn is providential all;
That which does not by other names they call.

Obscure Speculation.

If "fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"
When wise men follow what is to be said?

Originality.

A dexterous following is admired by all,
But few dare praise the brave original.

Painters.

Painters are men, and haply Claude and Titian
Discussed as we brown pink, and composition.

Peace and War.

Broken is many a heart by war accurst;
Some think by peace and plenty they would burst.

Point of View.

He views all subjects from one point alone;
Need it be said that point is just his own?

Pre-Raffaelites.

Make to the whole subservient every part;
Your piecemeal excellence shows skill not art.

Pride.

"I have no pride, not I," the donkey cries;
"What can an ass be proud of?" fox replies.

Pride in Small Matters.

"How splendidly I milk!" you make me laugh;
Who milks a cow the best must be a calf!

Proof of Worth.

Slight not the world, but still console thy breast
When those esteem thee most who know thee best.

Recrimination.

Do not recriminate; that biting strain
Backward and forward will saw love in twain.

Scholarship.

For scholarship few read, not one in twenty;
But make it Fellowship, and you'll find plenty.

Scripture and Pride.

Who weighs his worth by God's eternal word
Finds pride a curse, and vanity absurd.

Self.

On your own merits to descant be shy,
Or false, or true, the end is vanity.

Self-love.

Monimia's constancy we all must feel,
She loves herself, and is as true as steel.

Shakspeare and Milton.

A lofty Christian shrine our Milton is,
But Shakspeare is the world's metropolis.

Slow Wife and Fast Husband.

On his wild ways as calmly smileth she,
As the May moon upon a roaring sea.

Sorrow.

Sorrow's dark storm he blesses through all years
Who finds the priceless pearl among his tears.

Tennyson and Petrarch.

Love's laureate crown Italian Petrarch won;
Friendship's we twine for British Tennyson.

Terror.

The quivering flesh ignores the will's control,
Unnerved beneath the palsy of the soul.

The Epigram.

Who for an epigram would try, nor fail,
Puts Attic salt upon his verse's tail.

The Morose Man.

Carries within his heart a little hell,
And all his phrases of the sulphur smell.

The Proud Man.

Failing to rule shuts up his swelling breast;
Himself he cannot please, and scorns the rest.

The Vain Man.

Craves To Seem First in Matters Great Or Small;
Always, in Short, To Be Admired of All.

The Likeness between Them.

In this at least the proud and vain agree;
Each in his heart cries, "Fall and worship me!"

The Difference between Them.

This, praise devoureth howsoe'er exprest,
This, starves in sullen fast denied the best.

To a Tear.

O symbol dubious of mirth or woe!
Is't wit, or grief, or onions makes you flow?

Truth and Love.

Truth without Love its mark must often miss,
It gives a cuff when you expect a kiss.

War.

Thousands on distant fields endure and die;
Thousands at home can give no reason why.

Weak and Strong.

Some by the strength of others keep alive;
But full as many on their weakness thrive.

Wisdom.

Queen of all knowledge, thou, in every age!
Science thy counsellor, and Art thy page.

Wit and Humour.

Wit from the mind, and Humour from the mode,
And each helps Mirth to cheer life's weary road.

Wit, Humour, and Comedy.

Humour is mode and form, Wit thought and sprite;
Both to combine is Comedy's delight.

Wit, Beauty, and Pronunciation.

Like Cupid's bow her vermeil lip she bends,
And with a twang her flashing wit descends.

Woman loves Man of renown.

Dearer his name than beauty, youth, and pelf;
She'd be his Fame, and blow the trump herself.

Youth and Age.

About the world Youth loves to peer and cruise,
About the world Age loves to hear and muse.

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