Men thought him, as he swaggered by,
Some scion of nobility,
And never dreamed, so cold his look,
That he had loved – and loved a Cook.
Upon the beach he stood and sighed
All heedless of the rising tide;
Thus sang he to the listening main,
[30] And soothed his sorrow with the strain:
Coronach
“She is gone by the Hilda,
She is lost unto Whitby,
And her name is Matilda,
Which my heart it was smit by;
Tho’ I take the Goliah,
I learn to my sorrow
That ‘it won’t,’ says the crier,
‘Be off till to-morrow.’
“She had called me her ‘Neddy’,
[40] (Though there mayn’t be much in it,)
And I should have been ready,
If she’d waited a minute;
I was following behind her
When, if you recollect, I
Merely ran back to find a
Gold pin for my neck-tie.
“Rich dresser of suet!
Prime hand at a sassage!
I have lost thee, I rue it,
[50] And my fare for the passage!
Perhaps she thinks it funny,
Aboard of the Hilda,
But I’ve lost purse and money,
And thee, oh, my ’Tilda!”
His pin of gold the youth undid,
And in his waistcoat-pocket hid,
Then gently folded hand in hand,
And dropped asleep upon the sand.
Lays of Mystery, Imagination, and Humour
Number 1
The Palace of Humbug
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls.
Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never-ending sneeze.
Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.
[10] One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.
And one, a dotard grim and grey,
Who wasteth childhood’s happy day
In work more profitless than play.
Whose icy breast no pity warms,
Whose little victims sit in swarms,
And slowly sob on lower forms.
And one, a green thyme-honoured Bank,
[20] Where flowers are growing wild and rank,
Like weeds that fringe a poisoned tank.
All birds of evil omen there
Flood with rich Notes the tainted air,
The witless wanderer to snare.
The fatal Notes neglected fall,
No creature heeds the treacherous call,
For all those goodly Strawn Baits Pall.
The wandering phantom broke and fled,
Straightway I saw within my head
[30] A Vision of a ghostly bed,
Where lay two worn decrepit men,
The fictions of a lawyer’s pen,
Who never more might breathe again.
The servingman of Richard Roe
Wept, inarticulate with woe:
She wept, that waited on John Doe.
“Oh rouse”, I urged, “the waning sense
With tales of tangled evidence,
Of suit, demurrer, and defence.”
[40] “Vain”, she replied, “such mockeries:
For morbid fancies, such as these,
No suits can suit, no plea can please.”
And bending o’er that man of straw,
She cried in grief and sudden awe,
Not inappropriately, “Law!”
The well-remembered voice he knew,
He smiled, he faintly muttered “Sue!”
(Her very name was legal too.)
The night was fled, the dawn was nigh:
[50] A hurricane went raving by,
And swept the Vision from mine eye.
Vanished that dim and ghostly bed,
(The hangings, tape; the tape was red:)
’Tis o’er, and Doe and Roe are dead!
Oh, yet my spirit inly crawls,
What time it shudderingly recalls
That horrid dream of marble halls!
Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry
This curious fragment reads thus in modern characters:
TWAS BRYLLYG, AND THE SLYTHY TOVES
DID GYRE AND GYMBLE IN THE WABE:
ALL MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES;
AND THE MOME RATHS OUTGRABE.
The meanings of the words are as follows :
BRYLLYG (derived from the verb to BRYL or BROIL). “the time of broiling dinner, i.e. the close of the afternoon.”
SLYTHY (compounded of SLIMY and LITHE). “Smooth and active.”
TOVE. A species of Badger. They had smooth white hair, long hind legs, and short horns like a stag: lived chiefly on cheese.
GYRE, verb (derived from GYAOUR or GIAOUR, “a dog”). “To scratch like a dog.”
GYMBLE (whence GIMBLET). “To screw out holes in anything.”
WABE (derived from the verb to SWAB or SOAK). “The side of a hill” (from its being soaked by the rain).
MIMSY (whence MIMSERABLE and MISERABLE). “Unhappy.”
BOROGOVE. An extinct kind of Parrot. They had no wings, beaks turned up, and made their nests under sun-dials: lived on veal.
MOME (hence SOLEMOME, SOLEMONE, and SOLEMN). “Grave.”
RATH. A species of land turtle. Head erect: mouth like a shark: the fore legs curved out so that the animal walked on its knees: smooth green body: lived on swallows and oysters.
OUTGRABE, past tense of the verb to Outgribe. (It is connected with the old verb to GRIKE or SHRIKE, from which are derived “shriek” and “creak.”) “Squeaked.”
Hence the literal English of the passage is: “It was evening, and the smooth active badgers were scratching and boring holes in the hill-side: all unhappy were the parrots; and the grave turtles squeaked out.”
There were probably sun-dials on the top of the hill, and the “borogoves” were afraid that their nests would be undermined. The hill was probably full of the nests of “raths,” which ran out, squeaking with fear, on hearing the “toves” scratching outside. This is an obscure, but yet deeply-affecting, relic of ancient Poetry. – Ed. [=LC]
Tommy’s Dead
Written Dec. 31, 1857. There is a poem by Sydney Dobell with the same name, and something like this – but not very.
It’s the last night of the year, boys,
You may bring out the bread and beer, boys,
We’ve nought else to do to-night, boys,
This crust is too hard to bite, boys,
Is the donkey all right in the stable, boys?
Set two or three chairs round the table, boys,
We must have some’at to eat afore we go, boys,
Stick another coal on the fire or so, boys,
For the night’s very cold,
[10] And I’m very old,
And Tommy’s dead.
Will somebody go and call t’owd wife, boys?
And just, while you’re about it, fetch another knife, boys,
Get the loaf and cut me a slice, boys,
And how about the cheese, is it nice, boys?
I asked just now for a slice of bread, boys,
I say – did you hear what I said, boys?
There’s no end of crumbs, sweep up the floor, boys,
Mind you don’t forget to bar the door, boys,
[20] For the night’s very cold, boys,
And I’m very old, boys,
And Tommy’s dead.
Come, cheer up your old daddy like men, boys,
Why, I
declare it’s nigh upon half-past ten, boys!
Bread’s not much, I’d rather have had some tripe, boys,
D’ye think there’s time for a quiet pipe, boys?
There’d be beer enough, if it hadn’t been spilt, boys,
I wish I were snug under my quilt, boys
I does so like having a talk o’ nights, boys!
[30] Ah! boys, you’re young, I’ve seen a pack o’ sights, boys,
When you’ve lived as long as I, you’ll know what it is, boys,
Lads like you think it’s all to be done in a whiz, boys,
Well, you may carry me upstairs, it’s so late, boys,
If it wasn’t for the beer, I’m not much weight, boys,
My gout’s not so well, so mind how you go, boys,
Some of you’ll catch it, if you tread upon my toe, boys,
Gently now, don’t trip up on the mat, boys,
There, I told you so, you stupids you, take that, boys!
It’s good for you, and keeps my hands warm, boys,
[40] I shan’t apologise – quite an unnecessary form, boys,
For the night’s very cold,
And I’m very old,
And Tommy’s dead.
Additional Note. – The last three lines of each paragraph, and the second line of the poem, (perhaps the first as well,) are by Sydney Dobell. For the rest the Editor is responsible: he has taken a less melancholy view of the subject than the original writer did, in support of which theory he begs to record his firm conviction that “Tommy” was a cat. Recollections of its death cause a periodical gloom to come over the father’s mind, accompanied always by the other two grounds of complaint which appear to have continually weighed upon him, cold and age: this gloom, we find, was only to be dispelled by one of three things, supper, the prospect of bed, and ill-temper.
There is something very instructive in the fact that the boys are never rude enough to interrupt, and probably never attend till he suggests going to bed, when they carry out his wishes with affectionate, almost unseemly, haste.
Ode to Damon (From Chloe, who Understands His Meaning.)
Oh, do not forget the day when we met
At the Lowther Arcade in the City:
When you said I was plain and excessively vain,
But I knew that you meant I was pretty.
Oh forget not the hour when I purchased the flour
(For the dumplings, you know) and the suet;
Whilst the apples I told my dear Damon to hold,
(Just to see if you knew how to do it).
Likewise call to your mind how you left me behind,
[10] And went off in a bus with the pippins;
When you said you’d forgot, but I knew you had not;
(It was merely to save the odd threepence!).
Then recall your delight in the dumplings that night,
(Though you said they were tasteless and doughy,)
But you winked as you spoke, and I saw that the joke
(If it was one,) was meant for your Chloe.
And remember the moment when my cousin Joe meant
To show us the Great Exhibition;
You proposed a short cut, and we found the thing shut,
[20] (We were two hours too late for admission).
Your “short cut”, dear, we found took us seven miles round,
(And Joe said exactly what we did,)
Well, I helped you out then: (it was just like you men,
Not an atom of sense when it’s needed!)
You said “What’s to be done?” and I thought you in fun
(Never dreaming you were such a ninny).
“Home directly!” said I, and you paid for the fly,
(And I think that you gave him a guinea).
Well! that notion, you said, had not entered your head,
[30] You proposed, “The best thing, as we’re come, is”
(Since it opens again in the morning at ten,)
“To wait,” oh you prince of all dummies!
And when Joe asked you “Why, if a man were to die,
Just as you ran a sword through his middle,
You’d be hung for the crime?” and you said, “give me time,”
And brought to your Chloe the riddle,
Why, remember, you dunce, how I solved it at once,
(The question which Joe had referred to you),
Why, I told you the cause, was “the force of the laws,”
[40] And you said “it had never occurred to you!”
“This instance will show that your brain is too slow,
And, (though your exterior is showy,)
Yet so arrant a goose can be no sort of use
To Society – come to your Chloe!
“You’ll find no one like me, who can manage to see
Your meaning, you talk so obscurely:
Why, if once I were gone, how would you get on?
Come, you know what I mean, Damon, surely!”
[Riddle]
A monument – men all agree –
Am I in all sincerity,
Half cat, half hindrance made.
If head and tail removed should be,
Then most of all you strengthen me;
Replace my head, the stand you see
On which my tail is laid.
Other Early Verse
Prologue to “La Guida di Bragia”
Shall soldiers tread the murderous path of war,
Without a notion what they do it for?
Shall pallid mercers drive a roaring trade,
And sell the stuffs their hands have never made?
And shall not we, in this our mimic scene,
Be all that better actors e’er have been?
Awake again a Kemble’s tragic tone,
And make a Liston’s humour all our own?
Or vie with Mrs Siddons in the art
[10] To rouse the feelings and to charm the heart?
While Shakespeare’s self, with all his ancient fires,
Lights up the forms that tremble on our wires?
Why can’t we have, in theatres ideal,
The good, without the evil of the real?
Why may not Marionettes be just as good
As larger actors made of flesh and blood?
Presumptuous thought! to you and your applause
In humbler confidence we trust our cause.
The Ligniad, in two Books
Book I
Of man in stature small yet deeds sublime,
Who, even from his tender toothless years,
Boldly essayed to swallow and digest
Whole tomes of massive learning, ostrich-like,
Sing, classic Muse! and speed my daring quill,
Whiles that in language all too poor and weak
For such high themes, I tremblingly recount
To listening world’s an hero’s history.
Nursed in a cradle framed of Doric reeds,
[10] In a fly-leaf of Scapula enwrapped,
Fed on black-broth (oh classic privilege!)
Seasoned with Attic salt, the infant throve.
Small taste had he for toys of infancy;
The coral and the bells he put aside;
But in his cradle would soliloquise,
And hold high commune with his inner man
In Greek Iambics, aptly modified.
A smile sardonic wore he in his joy;
And in his sorrow shed no mawkish tear;
[20] “ ’” was his only cry,
And with much “smiting of the breast,” he wrestled,
And would have rent his hair, but that he had none.
A merry boy the infant hath become;
He leaps and dances in the light of life,
With his shrill laughter rings the ancient house,
The stairs re-echo to his tread, as light
As when beneath the solemn oaks at eve
The tricksy fairies in their revelry
Wheel in wild dance, nor mark the dewy grass.
[30] Yet even now upon that chiselled brow,
Lately so bright and fair, a Shadow dwells;
It is the Ghost of Latin yet unlearnt,
And dark forebodings of the Greek-to-come!
What can his grief be? he has all he loves,
A Scapula, an “Ainsworth’s Dictionary”,
And “all the Greek, and all the Latin authors –”
Then wherefore, moody boy, that crystal tear?
“It is the thought,” methinks I hear him moan,
Clasping with quivering hands his aching brow,
[40] “That certain Plays Euripides hath written
Are lost, are lost, and I shall never see them!”
“Homer may come, and Homer may go,
And be shifted, like lumber, from shelf to shelf,
But I will read no Greek, no Greek,
Until the Lost Dramas I’ve found for myself!”
Thus, all unconscious, rhymed his agony,
Adapting to the anguish of the hour
A fragment from our Poet Laureate.
Book II
Sing ye, who list, the deeds of ancient might,
[50] In tournament, or deadlier battle-fray:
Sing ye the havoc and the din of war,
A nobler and a gentler theme be mine!
Through twice nine years eventless passed his life,
Save that each day some large addition brought
To that vast mass of learning stored within.
But now bright Fancy thrilled his raptured mind,
And poised her wings for flight, yet ere she rose,
With ponderous Sense he loaded her to Earth;
And the full flood of Poesy within
[60] He primly tortured into wooden verse:
“Glory of the ancient time,
Classic fount of other days!
How shall I, in modern rhyme
Fitly sing thy praise?
It chanced, the other day,
A tattered beggar asked an alms of me:
‘Bestow a trifle, sir, in charity!’
I turned and said
‘Good man,
[70] I have but sixpence in my purse
Yet rather than
In hunger you should pine,
And so your misery grow worse,
It shall be thine,
If you’ll be only good enough to say
That, in
Latin.’
Was this encouragement to classic lore?
Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense Page 8
