“Where the spinsters at tea are collected,
Her arrival is hailed with delight”
The Cry of the Children
[On the subject of infant education it has been suggested that more advantageous results might be obtained if, instead of filling children’s minds with such nonsense as fairy-tales, stories were read to them about Julius Cæsar.]
O my Brothers, do you hear the children weeping?
Do you note the teardrops tumbling from their eyes?
To the school-house they reluctantly are creeping,
Discontented with the teaching it supplies.
At the quality of modern education
Little urchins may with justice look askance,
Since it panders to a child’s imagination,
And encourages romance.
Do you see that toddling baby with a bib on,
How his eyes with silent misery are dim?
He is yearning for the chance of reading Gibbon;
But his teachers give him nothing else but Grimm!
What a handicap to infantile ambition!
’Tis enough to make the brightest bantling fume,
To be gammoned with an Andrew Lang edition,
When he longs for Hume, sweet Hume!
See that tiny one, what boredom he expresses!
What intolerance his frequent yawns evince
Of the fairy-tales where beautiful princesses
Are delivered from a dragon by a prince!
How he curses the pedantic institution
Where he can’t obtain such volumes as “Le Cid,”
Or that masterpiece on “Social Evolution”
By another kind of Kidd!
Do you hear the children weeping, O my Brothers?
They are crying for Max Müller and Carlyle.
Tho’ Hans Andersen may satisfy their mothers,
They are weary of so immature a style.
And their time is far too brief to be expended
On such nonsense as their “rude forefathers” read;
For they know the days of sentiment are ended,
And that Chivalry is dead!
Oh remember that the pillars of the nation
Are the children that we discipline to-day;
That to give them a becoming education
You must rear them in a reasonable way!
Let us guard them from the glamour of the mystics,
Who would throw a ray of sunshine on their lives!
Let us feed each helpless atom on statistics,
And pray Heaven he survives!
Let us cast away the out-of-date traditions,
Which our poets and romanticists have sung!
Let us sacrifice the senseless superstitions
That illuminate the fancies of the young!
If we limit our instruction to the “reals,”
We may prove to ev’ry baby from the start,
The futility of cherishing ideals
In his golden little heart!
“He is yearning for the chance of reading Gibbon”
The Cry of the Elders
[With steady but increasing pace the world is approaching a point at which the cleverness of the young will amount to a social problem. Already things are getting uncomfortable for persons of age and sobriety, whose notion of happiness is to ruminate a few solid and simple ideas in freedom from disturbance.—Macmillan’s Magazine.]
O my Children, do you hear your elders sighing?
Do you wonder that senility should find
Your encyclopædic knowledge somewhat trying
To the ordinary mind?
In the heyday of a former generation,
Some respect for our intelligence was shown;
And it’s hard for us to cotton
To the fact that you’ve forgotten
More than we have ever known!
O my Children, do you hear your elders snoring,
When the “chassis” of your motors you discuss?
Do you wonder that your “shop” is rather boring
To such simple souls as us?[1]
Do you marvel that your dreary conversation
Should evoke the yawns that “lie too deep for tears,”
When you lecture to your betters
About “tanks” and “carburettors,”
About “sparking-plugs” and “gears”?
O my Children, in the season of your nonage,
(Which delightful days no longer now exist!)
We could join with other fogeys of our own age
In a quiet game of whist.
Now, at bridge, our very experts are defeated
By some beardless but impertinent young cub,
Who converts our silent table
To a very Tow’r of Babel,
At the Knickerbocker Club!
O my Children, we no longer are respected!
’Tis a fact we older fellows must deplore,
Whose opinions and whose judgments are neglected,
As they never were before.
We may tender good advice to our descendants;
We may offer them our money, if we will;
Lo, the one shall be forsaken,
And the other shall be taken
(Like the women at the mill!).
O my Children, note the moral (like a kernel)
I have hidden in the centre of my song!
Do not contradict a relative maternal,
If she happens to be wrong!
Be indulgent to the author of your being;
Never show him the contempt that you must feel;
Treat him tolerantly, rather,
Since a man who is your father
Can’t be wholly imbecile!
O my Children, we, the older generation,
At whose feet you ought (in theory) to sit,
Are bewildered by your mental penetration,
We are dazzled by your wit!
But we hopefully anticipate a future
When the airship shall replace the motor-’bus,
And your children, when they meet you,
Shall inevitably treat you
Just as you are treating us!
[1] “As us” is not grammar.—Publishers’ Reader. “As we” is not verse.—H. G.
An Epithalamium
LONGWORTH—ROOSEVELT, February 17th, 1906
Hail, bride and bridegroom of the West!
Your troth irrevocably plighted!
Your act of Union doubly blest,
Your single States United,
With full approval and assent
Of populace and President!
Let Spangled Banners wave on high,
To greet the maiden as she passes!
See how the proud Proconsul’s eye
Grows dim behind his glasses!
How fond the heart that beats beneath
Those pleated Presidential teeth!
The bishop has received his cheque,
The final slipper has been thrown;
With rice down each respective neck,
The couple stand alone.
To them, at last, the fates provide
A privacy so long denied.
Letters and wires, from near and far,
Lie thickly piled on ev’ry table;
The peaceful message from the Czar,
The Kaiser’s kindly cable;
The well-expressed congratulations
From Heads of all the Sister Nations.
Rich gifts, as countless as the sand
That cloaks the desert of Sahara,
From fish-slice to piano (grand),
From toast-rack to tiara,
Still overwhelm the lucky maid
(With heavy duties to be paid!).
See, hand-in-hand, the couple stand!
(The guests their homeward journey take,
Concealing their emotion—and
Some lumps of wedding cake!)
How glad the happy pair must be
That Hymen’s bonds have set them free!
Free of the curious Yellow Press,
Free of the public’s prying gaze,
Of all the troubles that obsess
The path of fiancés!
Alone at last, and safely screen’d
From onslaughts of the kodak-fiend!
The Bride, who bore without demur
The wiles of artists photographic,
Of vulgar crowds that gaped at her,
Congesting all the traffic,
Can shop, once more, in perfect peace,
Without the help of the police.
Arrayed in stylish trav’lling dress,
Behold, with blushes she departs!
The free Republican Princess
A captive Queen of Hearts!
(Captive to Cupid, need I say?
But Queen in ev’ry other way!)
And this must surely be the hour
For Anglo-Saxons, ev’rywhere,
With cousinly regard, to show’r
Good wishes on the pair;
Borne on the bosom of the breeze,
Our blessings speed across the seas!
“How glad the happy pair must be
That Hymen’s bonds have set them free”
The Self-Made Father to His Ready-Made Son
(AN OPEN LETTER)
My Offspring:—Ere you raise the glass,
To irrigate your ardent throttle;
Ere once again you gladly pass
The bottle;
Take heed that your prevailing passion
Be not completely out of fashion.
No longer does the Prodigal
Expend his nights in drunken frolic;
Or pass his days in revels al-Coholic;
For, nowadays, a glass de trop
Is not considered comme il faut.
No longer do the youthful fall,
Like leaf or partridge in October;
For they, if anything at all,
Are sober.
(I mean the boys,—don’t be absurd!
And not the foliage or the bird.)
No longer arm-in-arm they roam,
Despite constabulary warning,
Declaring that they won’t go home
Till morning!
With bursts of bacchanalian song,
And jokes as broad as they are long.
No more they wander to-and-fro,
Exchanging incoherent greetings—
The kind in vogue at Caledo-
-Nian Meetings
(Behavior that we all condemn,
Especially at 3 a. m.).
Yes; fashions change—and well they may!
No longer, at the dinner-table,
Do persons drink as much as they
Are able;
And seek the hospitable floor,
When they have drunk a trifle more.
My nasal hue, incarnadine,
Shall not, perhaps, be wholly wasted,
If sons of mine but leave their wine
Untasted;
And vanquish, with deserving merit,
The varied vices they inherit.
Yes, Offspring, I rejoice to think
That, shunning my example truly,
You never may be led to drink
Unduly.
It is indeed a blessèd thought!
Now, will you kindly pass the port?
The Author to His Hostess
(AN OPEN LETTER)
[Very few English men of letters enjoy a desirable social position. To be sure, they are frequently invited to functions, where they are treated with insistent affability by persons belonging to the higher classes; but the sort of position to be obtained in this way is insecure, and unpleasant to any save those of adamantine cheek.—Current Magazine.]
Dear Lady,—When you bade me come
To grace your crowded “Kettledrum,”
And mingle in the best society;
When Melba sang, and Elman played,
And waiters handed lemonade
(Tempering music with sobriety),
I never had the least suspicion
Of my precarious position.
But now, with opened eyes, I leap
To this conclusion, shrewd and deep,
(What cerebral agility!):
Your compliments were insincere,
Your hospitality was mere
“Insistent affability!”
And I, a foolish man of letters,
Who thought to mingle with his betters!
Ah me! How pride precedes a fall!
That one who haunted “rout” or ball,
When invitations were acquirable,
Should see himself as others see,
Becoming suddenly, like me,
A social “undesirable”;
Invading the selectest clique
With truly adamantine cheek!
How proud an air I used to wear!
When titled persons turned to stare,
I blushed like a geranium.
When lovely ladies softly said:
“Oh, Duchess, did you see his head?”
“What a capacious cranium!”
“Yes; isn’t that the man who writes?”
“I wonder why they look such frights!”
I used to bridle coyly when
Some schoolmate, of the Upper Ten
(They were not over-numerous!),
Would slap my back, and shout “By Jove!
“Ain’t you a literary cove?”
(As tho’ ’twere something humorous!)
“Those books of yours are grand, you bet!
What? No, I haven’t read them yet.”
But now I realize my fate;
A stranger at the social gate
(Tho’ treated with civility);
The choicest circles I frequent
Must be the ones my brains invent,
With fictional futility;
The only Royalties I know
Are those my publisher can show!
The garden-party, and the tea,
Are surely not for men like me
(O Vanity of Vanities!);
Such entertainments are taboo,
And might debase my talents to
Additional inanities.
The Poet has no business there:
Que ferait-il dans cette galère?
“I wonder why they look such frights”
On the Decline of Gentility Among the Young
(SUGGESTED BY MR. MAX BEERBOHM)
O youth uncouth, who slouchest by,
Along the crowded public street,
An eyeglass in thy languid eye,
Brown boots upon thy feet,
A loose umbrella in thy grip,
A toothpick pendent from thy lip.
Much I deplore thy clumsy gait,
Thy drab sartorial display,
So wholly inappropriate
To this august highway;
How can a man in such attire
Set any spinster’s heart on fire?
Thou art in dress no epicure,
By weight of fashions overladen;
Thy tawdry togs do not allure
The soul of every maiden;
They sound no echoing color-note
To her tempestuous petticoat.
Her stylish skirt, her dainty blouse,
Are crêpe-de-chine, or bombazine[2];
Compare the texture of thy trous:
With their chromatic sheen;
To what abysm of taste we reach
By the Observance of thy Breech!
Think what she pays her modiste for
Those hats of questionable shapes,
Surmounted by a seagull or
Some imitation grapes!
Small wonder she receives a shock
Each time she views thy “billycock”!
Observe how like an autumn leaf
The colors of the male canary,
The garb of each New Zealand chief
Who woos his Little Maori;
The savage mind has thus designed
A dress to please its womankind.
And tho’ I would not have thee go
As far as primal man or beast,
To lovely woman thou should’st show
Some deference at least,
And give a thought of what to wear
Upon the public thoroughfare.
And should’st thou wish to walk aright,
Let Mr. Beerbohm be thy mould;
Sedate yet courtly, and polite
As any beau of old;
Yea, plant thy footsteps in the tracks
Of our inimitable Max!
[2] Impossible.—Publishers’ Reader.
These ones were.—H. G.
“Small wonder she receives a shock each time she views thy billycock”
“Lochinvar”
(WITH APOLOGIES TO SCOTT AND SWINBURNE)
When the shadow-shapes shone like a shaddock,
Where the sunset had kissed them to flame,
On his palfrey, the pick of the paddock,
With his sword in its scabbard, he came!
In the glamour of amorous passion
He would blaze like a seasoned cigar;
And he fought in a similar fashion,
Did Young Lochinvar!
By the fences and fens unaffrighted,
And unstopt by the stream in its spate,
In a lather, at last, he alighted,
And he knocked at the Netherbys’ gate.
’Twas too late! (As he doubtless had dreaded.)
He perceived his particular “star”
To a blackguard about to be wedded,
Did Young Lochinvar!
But he passed through the portal so proudly
To the room where the gifts were displayed,
That old Netherby called to him loudly
(For the bridegroom, poor fool, was afraid).
“Is it blood you are bent upon shedding?
With a murder this marriage to mar?
Or to waltz do you wish at the wedding,
My Young Lochinvar?”
He replied, “Tho’ ’twere useless to smother
My love for the maid at your side;
Tho’ my Helen be bound to another,
I shall trust to the turn of the tied.
As I drink to her squint and her freckles,
I’ll remark how few ladies there are
Who would shrink from a share of the shekels
Of Young Lochinvar.”
Then he pledged her in port, so politely
(Tho’ her mother lamented his taste),
And she smiled at him ever so slightly,
As he settled his arm round her waist.
When he drew her direct to the dancers,
The Bohemian band struck a bar,
And she found herself leading the Lancers
With Young Lochinvar!
Oh, the beauty and grace are so vivid
Of this perfectly parallel pair,
That the parents grow purple and livid,
And the bridegroom is tearing his hair;
While the bridesmaids talk ten to the dozen,
Saying: “Goodness, what gabies we are,
Not to marry our exquisite cousin
To Young Lochinvar!”
Then the girl by her partner is beckoned
To the door, where a charger they find;
To the saddle he springs in a second,
And he lifts her up lightly behind;
“She is mine!” he announces, adjourning
To the distant horizon afar,
“Till the cattle to roost are returning!”[3]
Says Young Lochinvar.
[3] “Till the cows come home”: an old English saying, denoting eternity.
“‘She is mine!’ he announces, adjourning To the distant horizon afar”
Abbreviation’s Artful Aid
The Bard, at times
Is stumped for rhymes,
Without the least excuse.
He can defy
Such moments by
Abbreviation’s use,
And gain the grat:
Of friend or neighb:
Without an at:
Of extra lab:
So simp: a rule
May seem pecul:
And make the crit: indig:
What matter if
The scans: is diff:
The meaning too ambig:?
The net result,
Lacon: and punct:
Is worth a mult:
Of needless unct:
We long for sile:
From folks who pile
Their worldly Pel: on Oss:
Extremely nox:
And quite intox:
By their exhub: verbos:
We curse their imp:
In manner dras:
And fail to symp:
With their loquac:
In House of Rep:
Applause is tep:
For periphrastic Pol:
Reviewers sniff
At auth: prolif:
With semiannual vol:
But we can pard:
However peev:
The minor bard
Who will abbrev:
Author’s Aftword
How I have labored, night and day,
Just like the hero of a novel,
To drive the hungry wolf away
From my baronial hovel,
To keep the bailiffs from my home,
By finishing this bulky tome.
To such a trying mental strain
My intellect is far from fitted,
Tho’ if I had an ounce more brain
I should be quite half-witted,
And when I wander in my mind
I am most difficult to find.
The sort of life for which I care
Is one combining Peace and Plenty
With laisser aller, laisser faire,
And dolce far niente.
(The heart of ev’ry Bridge-fiend jumps:
Dolce ... ’tis sweet to make “No Trumps.”)
I shrink from work in any shape,—
Too clearly do these pages show it,—
But work is what one can’t escape
And be a Minor Poet;
And critics I may well defy
To find a minor bard than I.
I ought to live out ’Frisco way,
Where working is considered silly,
As Greeley (Horace) used to say,—
Or was it Collier (Willie)?—
“Go West, young man” (I understand),
“Go West and blow up with the land!”
Were I as full of zeal and fun
As Balzac, who could drudge so gaily,
Or diligent as Peter Dunne,
I might accomplish daily
An ode of Pleasure or of Passion
In Ella Wheeler Wilcox fashion;
But, as it is, I sit and toil,
Consuming time and ink and curses
And pints of precious midnight oil
To perpetrate these verses.
If writing them be dull indeed,
Alas! what must they be to read!