Title: Lyra Frivola
Author: A. D. Godley
Release date: March 2, 2006 [eBook #17898]
Language: English
Produced by Al Haines
METHUEN & CO.
1900
Second Edition
Most of the pieces in this book have appeared in the St James's Gazette, the Oxford Magazine, or the National Observer. I have to thank the Proprietors of these papers for permission to republish.
AFTER HORACE
THE JOURNALIST ABROAD
VERNAL VERSES
PENSÉES DE NOEL
AD LECTIONEM SUAM
RUBÁIYYÁT OF MODERATIONS
LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND
THE PARADISE OF LECTURERS
A DIALOGUE ON ETHICS
PEDAGOGY
SONG FOR THE NAVY LEAGUE
A DREAM
THE SCHOOL of AGRICULTURE
THE LAST STRAW
THE 1713 AGAINST NEWNHAM
QUADRIVIAD, ll. 1-51
MUSICAL DEGREES
QUIETA MOVERE
GRAECULUS ESURIENS
THE ROAD TO RENOWN
L'AFFAIRE (CHAPTER ONE)
UNSELFISH DEVOTION
THE ARREST
"THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN"
THE PATRIOT'S "POME"
MR MORLEY'S APOLOGY
HONESTY REWARDED
THE END OF IT
A NEW DEPARTURE
MULLIGAN ON THE AUSTRIAN PARLIAMENT
BROKEN VOWS
THE TRUE REMEDY
UNITED IRELAND
JUSTICE FOR PRIVATE MULVANEY
What asks the Bard? He prays for nought
But what the truly virtuous crave:
That is, the things he plainly ought
To have.
'Tis not for wealth, with all the shocks
That vex distracted millionaires,
Plagued by their fluctuating stocks
And shares:
While plutocrats their millions new
Expend upon each costly whim,
A great deal less than theirs will do
For him;
The simple incomes of the poor
His meek poetic soul content:
Say, L30,000 at four
Per cent.!
His taste in residence is plain:
No palaces his heart rejoice:
A cottage in a lane (Park Lane
For choice)—
Here be his days in quiet spent:
Here let him meditate the Muse:
Baronial Halls were only meant
For Jews,
And lands that stretch with endless span
From east to west, from south to north,
Are often much more trouble than
They're worth!
Let epicures who eat too much
Become uncomfortably stout:
Let gourmets feel th' approaching touch
Of gout,—
The Bard subsists on simpler food:
A dinner, not severely plain,
A pint or so of really good
Champagne—
Grant him but these, no care he'll take
Though Laureates bask in Fortune's smile,
Though Kiplings and Corellis make
Their pile:
Contented with a scantier dole
His humble Muse serenely jogs,
Remote from scenes where authors roll
Their logs:
Far from the madding crowd she lurks,
And really cares no single jot
Whether the public read her works
Or not!
When Parson, Doctor, Don,—
In short, when all the nation
Goes gaily off upon
Its annual vacation,
Their cares professional
No more avail to bind them:
They go at Pleasure's call
And leave their trades behind them.
Like them, departs afar
From England's fogs and vapours
The literary star,
The writer for the papers:
But not, like them, at home
Leaves he his calling's fetters:
Nought can release him from
The tyranny of Letters!
When classic scenes amid
For rest and peace he hankers,
Amari aliquid
His joys aesthetic cankers:
Whate'er he sees, he knows
He has to write upon it
A paragraph of prose
Or possibly a sonnet:
By mountain lakelets blue,
'Mid wild romantic heath, he's
A martyr always to
Scribendi cacoethes:
The Naiad-haunted stream
Or lonely mountain-top he
Considers as a theme
Available for "copy."
If on the sunlit main
With ardour rapt he gazes,
He's torturing his brain
For neat pictorial phrases:
When in a ship or boat
He navigates the briny
(And here 'tis his to quote
Examples set by Heine)
While fellow-passengers
Lie stretched in mere prostration,
He duly registers
Each horrible sensation—
He notes his qualms with care,
And bids the public know 'em
In "Thoughts on Mal de Mer,"
Or "Nausea: a Poem."
* * * *
Such is his earthly lot:
Nor is it wholly certain
If Death for him or not
Rings down the final curtain,
Or if, when hence he's fled
To worlds or worse or better,
He'll send per Mr St—d
A crisp descriptive letter!
When early worms began to crawl, and early birds to sing,
And frost, and mud, and snow, and rain proclaimed the jocund spring,
Its all-pervading influence the Poet's soul obeyed—
He made a song to greet the Spring, and this is what he made:—
They sadly lacked enlightenment, our ancestors of old,
Who used to suffer simply from an ordinary cold:
But we, of Science' mysteries less ignorant by far,
Have nothing less distinguished than a Bronchial Catarrh!
O when your head's a lump of lead and nought can do but sneeze:
Whene'er in turn you freeze and burn, and then you burn and freeze:—
It does not mean you're going to die, although you think you are—
These are the primal symptoms of a Bronchial Catarrh.
And when you've taken drugs and pills, and stayed indoors a week,
Yet still your chest with pain opprest will hardly let you speak:
Amid your darksome miseries be this your guiding star—
'Tis simply the remainder of a Bronchial Catarrh.
In various ways do various men invite misfortune's rods,—
Some row within their College boat,—some Logic read for Mods.:
But oh! of all the human ills our happiness that mar
I do not know the equal of a Bronchial Catarrh!
When the landlord wants the rent
Of your humble tenement,
When the Christmas bills begin
Daily, hourly pouring in,
When you pay your gas and poor rate,
Tip the rector, fee the curate,
Let this thought your spirit cheer—
Christmas comes but once a year.
When the man who brings the coal
Claims his customary dole:
When the postman rings and knocks
For his usual Christmas-box:
When you're dunned by half the town
With demands for half-a-crown,—
Think, although they cost you dear,
Christmas comes but once a year.
When you roam from shop to shop,
Seeking, till you nearly drop,
Christmas cards and small donations
For the maw of your relations,
Questing vainly 'mid the heap
For a thing that's nice, and cheap:
Think, and check the rising tear,
Christmas comes but once a year.
Though for three successive days
Business quits her usual ways,
Though the milkman's voice be dumb,
Though the paper doesn't come;
Though you want tobacco, but
Find that all the shops are shut:
Bravely still your sorrows bear—
Christmas comes but once a year.
When mince-pies you can't digest
Join with waits to break your rest:
When, oh when, to crown your woe,
Persons who might better know
Think it needful that you should
Don a gay convivial mood;—
Bear with fortitude and patience
These afflicting dispensations:
Man was born to suffer here:
Christmas comes but once a year.
When Autumn's winds denude the grove,
I seek my Lecture, where it lurks
'Mid the unpublished portion of
My works,
And ponder, while its sheets I scan,
How many years away have slipt
Since first I penned that ancient man-
uscript.
I know thee well—nor can mistake
The old accustomed pencil stroke
Denoting where I mostly make
A joke,—
Or where coy brackets signify
Those echoes faint of classic wit
Which, if a lady's present, I
Omit.
Though Truth enlarge her widening range,
And Knowledge be with time increased,
While thou, my Lecture! dost not change
The least,
But fixed immutable amidst
The advent of a newer lore,
Maintainest calmly what thou didst
Before:
Though still malignity avows
That unsuccessful candidates
To thee ascribe their frequent ploughs
In Greats—
Once more for intellectual food
Thou'lt serve: an added phrase or two
Will make thee really just as good
As new:
And listening crowds, that throng the spot,
Will still as usual complain
That "Here's the old familiar rot
Again!"
Wake! for the Nightingale upon the Bough
Has sung of Moderations: ay, and now
Pales in the Firmament above the Schools
The Constellation of the boding Plough.
I too in distant Ages long ago
To him that ploughed me gave a Quid or so:
It was a Fraud: it was not good enough;
Ne'er for my Quid had I my Quid pro Quo.
Yet—for the Man who pays his painful Pence
Some Laws may frame from dark Experience:
Still from the Wells of harsh Adversity
May Wisdom draw the Pail of Common Sense—
Take these few Rules, which—carefully rehearsed—
Will land the User safely in a First,
Second, or Third, or Gulf: and after all
There's nothing lower than a Plough at worst.
Plain is the Trick of doing Latin Prose,
An Esse Videantur at the Close
Makes it to all Intents and Purposes
As good as anything of Cicero's.
Yet let it not your anxious Mind perturb
Should Grammar's Law your Diction fail to curb:
Be comforted: it is like Tacitus:
Tis mostly done by leaving out the Verb.
Mark well the Point: and thus your Answer fit
That you thereto all Reference omit,
But argue still about it and about
Of This, and That, and T'Other—not of It.
Say, why should You upon your proper Hook
Dilate on Things which whoso cares to look
Will find, in Libraries or otherwhere,
Already stated in a printed Book?
Keep clear of Facts: the Fool who deals in those
A Mucker he inevitably goes:
The dusty Don who looks your Paper o'er
He knows about it all—or thinks he knows.
A Pipe, a Teapot, and a Pencil blue,
A Crib, perchance a Lexicon—and You
Beside him singing in a Wilderness
Of Suppositions palpably untrue—
'Tis all he needs: he is content with these:
Not Facts he wants, but soft Hypotheses
Which none need take the Pains to verify:
This is the Way that Men obtain Degrees!
'Twixt Right and Wrong the Difference is dim:
'Tis settled by the Moderator's Whim:
Perchance the Delta on your Paper marked
Means that his Lunch has disagreed with him:
Perchance the Issue lies in Fortune's Lap:
For if the Names be shaken in a Cap
(As some aver) then Truth and Fallacy
No longer signify a single Rap.
Nay! till the Hour for pouring out the Cup
Of Tea post-prandial calls you home to sup,
And from the dark Invigilator's Chair
The mild Muezzin whispers "Time is Up"—
The Moving Finger writes: then, having writ,
The Product of your Scholarship and Wit
Deposit in the proper Pigeonhole—
And thank your Stars that there's an End of it!
When we're daily called to arms by continual alarms,
And the journalist unceasingly dilates
On the agitating fact that we're soon to be attacked
By the Germans, or the Russians, or the States:
When the papers all are swelling with a patriotic rage,
And are hurling a defiance or a threat,
Then I cool my martial ardour with the pacifying page
Of the Oxford University Gazette.
When I hanker for a statement that is practical and dry
(Being sated with sensation in excess,
With the vespertinal rumour and the matutinal lie
Which adorn the lucubrations of the Press),
Then I turn me to the columns where there's nothing to attract,
Or the interest to waken and to whet,
And I revel in a banquet of unmitigated fact
In the Oxford University Gazette.
When the Laureate obedient to an editor's decree
Puts his verses in the columns of the Times;
When the endless minor poet in an endless minor key
Gives the public his unnecessary rhymes,
When you're weary of the poems which they constantly compose,
And endeavour their existence to forget,
You may seek and find repose in the satisfying prose
Of the Oxford University Gazette.
In that soporific journal you may stupefy the mind
With the influence narcotic which it draws
From the Latest Information about Scholarships Combined
Or the contemplated changes in a clause:
Place me somewhere that is far from the Standard and the Star,
From the fever and the literary fret,—
And the harassed spirit's balm be the academic calm
Of the Oxford University Gazette!
When you might be a name for the world to acclaim,
and when Opulence dawns on the view,
Why slave like a Turk at Collegiate work
for a wholly inadequate screw?
Why grind at the trade—insufficiently paid—of
instructing for Mods and for Greats,
When fortunes immense are diurnally made
by a lecturing tour in the States?
Do you know that in scores they will pay at the doors—these
millions in darkness who grope—
For a glimpse of Mark Twain or a word from Hall Caine
or a reading from Anthony Hope?
We are ignorant here of the glorious career
which conspicuous talent awaits:
Not a master of style but is making his pile
by the lectures he gives in the States!
With amazement I hear of the chances they
lose—of the simply incredible sums
Which a Barrie might have (if he did not refuse)
for reciting A Window in Thrums:
Of the prospects of gain which are offered
in vain as a sop to the Laureate's pride:
Of the price which I learn Mr Bradshaw
might earn by declaiming his excellent Guide.
Columbia! desist from soliciting those who
your bribes and petitions contemn:
Though plutocrats scorn the rewards you
propose, there are others superior to them:
Why burden the proud with superfluous
pelf, who wealth in abundance possess,
When indigent Worth (I allude to myself)
would go for substantially less?
For Europe, I know, to oblivion may doom
the fruits of my talented brain,
But they're perfectly sure of creating a boom
in the wilds of Kentucky and Maine:
They'll appreciate there my illustrious work
on the way to make Pindar to scan,
And Culture will hum in the State of New York
when I read it my essay on 'An! [1]
I've a scheme, which is this:—I will start
for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co.,
And the public invite in the same to invest
to the tune of a million or so:
They will all be recouped for initial expense
by receiving their share of the "gates,"
Which I venture to think will be truly
immense when I lecture on Prose in the States.
Thus Merit will not be permitted to rot—as
it does—on Obscurity's shelf:
Thus the national hoard shall with profit be
stored (with a trifle of course for myself):
For lectures are dear in that fortunate
sphere, and are paid for at fabulous rates,—
All the gold of Klondike isn't anything like
to the sums that are made in the States!
[1. Transcriber's note: In the original book, the two characters preceding the exclamation mark are the Greek "Alpha" and "nu". They appear to be preceded by the Greek rough-breathing diacritical, making the three characters together rhyme with "Maine", two lines earlier.]
Said the Isis to the Cherwell in a tone of indignation,
"With a blush of conscious virtue your enormities I see:
And I wish that a reversal of the laws of gravitation
Would prevent your vicious current from contaminating me!
With your hedonists who grovel on a cushion with a novel
(Which is sure to sap the morals and the intellect to stunt),
And the spectacle nefarious of your idle, gay Lotharios
Who pursue a mild flirtation in a misdirected punt!"
Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "You may talk about my vices—
But of all the sights of sorrow since the universe began,
Just commend me to the patience that can bear the degradations
Which inflicted are by Rowing on the dignity of man:
The unspeakable reproaches which are lavished by your coaches—
On my sense of what is proper they continually jar"—
("It is simply Mos Majorum—'twas their fathers' way before 'em—
'Tis a kind of ancient Cussed 'em"—said the Isis to the Cher.)
"Are we men and are we Britons? shall we ne'er obtain a quittance"—
Said the Cherwell to the Isis—"from the tyrants of the oar?
O it's Youth in a Canader with the willow boughs to shade her
And a chaperone discreetly in attendance (on the shore),
O it's cultivated leisure that is life's supremest treasure,
Far from athletes merely brutal, and from Philistines afar:
I've a natural aversion to gratuitous exertion,
And I'm prone to mild flirtation," said the unrepentant Cher.
But in accents of the sternest, "Life is Real: Life is Earnest,"
(Said the grim rebuking Isis to his tributary stream);
"Don't you know the Joy of Living is in honourably Striving,
Don't you know the Chase of Pleasure is a vain delusive Dream?
When they toil and when they shiver in the tempests on the River,
When they're faint and spent and weary, and they have
to pull it through,
'Tis in Action stern and zealous that they truly find a Telos, [1]
Though a moment's relaxation be afforded them by you!"
Said the Cherwell to the Isis, "When the trees are clad in greenness,
When the Eights are fairly over, and it's drawing near Commem.,
It is Ver and it is Venus that shall judge the case between us,
And I think for all your maxims that you won't compete with them!
Then despite their boasted virtue shall your athletes all desert you
(Come to me for information if you don't know where they are):
For it's ina scholaxomen [2] that's the proper end of Woman
And of Man—at least in summer," said the easy-going Cher.
[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Telos" was transliterated from the Greek characters Tau, epsilon, lambda, omicron, and sigma.]
[2. Transcriber's note: The two words "ina scholaxomen" were transliterated from Greek as follows: "ina"—iota (possibly accompanied by the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha; "scholaxomen"—sigma, chi, omicron, lambda, alpha (possibly with the soft-breathing diacritical), xi, omega, mu, epsilon, nu.]
Our fathers on the pedagogue held sentiments irrational,
Curricula for training him 'twas never theirs to know,
And when he taught the way he ought, by genius educational,
They gave their thanks to Providence, who made him do it so.
But our developed intellect and keener perspicacity
Has all reduced to system now and a priori rule:
We've altogether ceased to trust in natural capacity,
And pin alone our faith upon a Pedagogy School.
Don't talk to me of knowledge gained by base experience practical
(A thing that's wholly obsolete and laid upon the shelf):
Don't waste your time in aiming at exactitude syntactical,
Or hold that he who teaches Greek should know that Greek himself:
For if you wish to face the truth, and fact no more to see awry—
Who strives to wake the dormant mind of unreceptive imps
Need only read the works of Rein on Education's Theory
And study the immortal tomes of Ziegler and De Guimps!
Whene'er of old a boy was dull or quite adverse to knowledge, he
Was set an imposition or corrected with a switch:
Far different our practice is, who reign by Methodology
And guide the dunce by precepts learnt from Landon or from Fitch:
'Twas difficult by rule of thumb to check unseemly merriment,
To make your class their pastor treat with proper due regard—
'Tis easy quite for specialists in Juvenile Temperament,
Who know the books on Punishment and also on Reward!
There's no demand for authors now of erudite opuscula,
For Wranglers or for Science men or linguists of repute:
No cricketers can gain a post by mere distinction muscular,
No Socker Blues can hope to teach the young idea to Shoot:
Read Lange his Psychology—Didactics of Comenius—
By works like these and only these your prudent mind prepare:
For if you've nought but scholarship or independent genius
You'd better far adopt the Bar and make your fortune there!
O all ye ancient dominies whose names are writ in history—
Shade of the late Orbilius, and ghost of Dr Parr,
Howe'er you got your fame of old—the reason's wrapt in mystery—
Where'er you be, I hope you see how obsolete you are!
'Tis Handbooks make the Pedagogue: O great, eternal verity!
O fact of which our ancestors could ne'er obtain a glimpse!
But we'll proclaim the truth abroad and noise it to posterity,
Our watchword a curriculum—our shibboleth DE GUIMPS!
(Dedicated without permission to LORD CHARLES BERESFORD.)
O where be all those mariners bold
who used to control the sea,
The Admiral great and the bo'sun's mate
and the skipper who skipped so free?
O what has become of our midshipmites,
the terror of every foe,
And the captain brave who dares the wave
when the stormy winds do blow?
_For the tar may roam, but the tar comes home
to wherever his home may be,
With a Yo, heave ho, and a o e to, [1] and a
Master of Arts Degree_!
They have gone to imbibe the classical lore
of Learning's ancient seat
(They are sadly at sea in the classics as
yet, though classis is Latin for fleet),
It is there you will find those naval men,
by the Isis and eke the Cher.,
For Scholarship is the only ship that is fit
for a bold Jack Tar.
He has bartered his rum for a coach and a
crib, at the First Lord's stern decree,
And he learns the use of the rocket and
squib (which are useful as lights at sea):
And they train him in part of the nautical
art, as much as a landsman can,
For they teach him to paddle the gay canoe,
and to row the rash randan.
Should he e'er be inclined his Tutors and
Deans to look with contempt upon
(Observing the maxims of Raleigh and
Drake, who never thought much of a Don),
Let him think there are things in the nautical
line that even a Don can do,
For only too well are examiners versed in
the way to plough the Blue!
Though a Captain per se is an excellent
thing for repelling his country's foes,
He is better by far, as an engine of war, with
a knowledge of Logic and Prose:
And a bold A.B. is the nation's pride, in
his rude uncultured way,
But prouder still will the nation be when
he's also a bold B.A.!
For the Horse Marine will be Tutor and Dean,
in the glorious days to be,
With his Yo, heave ho, and his o e to, [1] and a
Master of Arts degree!
[1. Transcriber's note: the character group "o e to" was transliterated from the Greek characters omicron (with the rough-breathing diacritical), eta (with the rough-breathing diacritical), tau, and omicron (with the soft-breathing diacritical).]
In sleep the errant phantasy,
No more by sense imprisoned,
Creates what possibly might be
But actually isn't:
And this my tale is past belief,
Of truth and reason emptied,
'Tis fiction manifest—in brief
I was asleep, and dreamt it.
I met a man by Isis' stream,
Whose phrase discreet and prudent,
Whose penchant for a learned theme
Proclaimed the Serious Student:
I never knew a scholar who
Could more at ease converse on
The latest Classical Review
Than that superior person.
He spoke of books—all manly sports
He deemed but meet for scoffing:
He did not know the Racquet Courts—
He'd never heard of golfing—
Professors ne'er were half so wise,
Nor Readers more sedate!
He was—I learnt with some surprise—
An undergraduate.
Another man I met, whose head
Was crammed with pastime's annals,
And who, to judge from what he said,
Must simply live in flannels:
A shallow mind his talk proclaimed,
And showed of culture no trace:
One "book" and one alone he named—
His own—'twas on the Boat-race.
"Of course," you cry, "some brainless lad,
Some scion of ancient Tories,
Bob Acres, sent to Oxford ad
Emolliendos mores,
Meant but to drain the festive glass
And win the athlete's pewter!"
There you are wrong: this person was
That undergraduate's Tutor.
* * * *
Twas but a dream, I said above,
In concrete truth deficient,
Belonging to the region of
The wholly Unconditioned:
Yet, when I see how strange the ways
Of undergrad. and Don are,
Methinks it was, in classic phrase,
Not upar less than onar. [1]
[1. Transcriber's note: the words "upar" and "onar" were transliterated from the Greek as follows: "upar"—upsilon (possibly with the rough-breathing diacritical), pi, alpha, and rho; "onar"—omicron (possibly with the rough-breathing diacritical), nu, alpha, and rho.]
I gazed with wild prophetic eye
Into the future vast and dim:
I saw the University
Indulge its last and strangest whim:
It did away with Mods and Greats,
Its other Schools abolished all:
And simply made its candidates
Read Science Agricultural.
They learnt to hoe: they learnt to plough:
To delve and dig was all their joy:
But O in ways we know not now
Those candidates we did employ:
No more, accepting of a bribe
To take these persons off our hands,
We sent them off, a studious tribe,
To distant climes and foreign lands.
We did not then examine in
The subjects which we could not teach
To those who Honours aimed to win
We taught their subjects, all and each
We made the Professoriate
Take from its Professorial shelf
Authorities of ancient date,
And teach the candidates itself
My scanty page could ne'er contain
Of works the long and learned list
By which it was their plan to train
The sucking agriculturist:
In brief, the arts of tilling land
Sufficiently imparted were
By great Professor Ellis, and
By great Professor Bywater.
One taught th' aspiring candidate
In Hesiod each alternate day:
One showed him how the crops rotate
From Cato De Re Rustica:
The bee that in our bonnets lurks
He taught to yield its honied store
By reading Columella's works
And also Virgil (Georgic Four).
Yet not by Theory alone
Did learning train the student mind—
Its exercise was carried on
In places properly assigned:
From toil by weather undeterred
In winter wild or burning June,
The precepts in the morning heard
They practised in the afternoon.
The Colleges, whose grassy plots
Are now resorts of vicious ease,
Were then laid out in little lots,
With useful beans and early peas:
Each merely ornamental sod
They dug with spades and hoed with hoes:
The wilderness in every quad
Was made to blossom as the rose.
The gardens too, with cereals decked,
Where tennis-courts no longer were,
Showed Agriculture's due effect
Upon the student's character:
No more by practices beguiled
Which Virtue with displeasure notes,
No longer dissolute and wild,
He sowed domesticated oats.
It was indeed a blissful state:
For Convocation's high decree
Dubbed the successful candidate
Magister Agriculturae:
And if he failed, his vows denied,
The world observed without surprise
That those who learnt the plough to guide
Were objects of its exercise!
Now Spring bedecks with nascent green
The meadows near and far,
And Sabbath calm pervades the scene,
And Sabbath punts the Cher.:
While I, like trees new drest by June,
Must bow to Fashion's law,
And wear on Sunday afternoon
A variegated Straw.
My Topper! so serenely sleek,
So beautifully tall,
Wherein I decked me once a week
Whene'er I went to call,—
No more shall now th' admiring maid,
While handing me my tea,
View her reflected charms displayed
(Narcissus-like) in thee!
Yet oh! though different forms of hat
May wreathe my manly brow,
No Straw shall e'er (be sure of that)
Be half so dear as thou.
Hang then upon thy native rack
As varying modes compel,
Till next year's fashions bring thee back,
My Chimneypot, farewell!
[This Fragment will be found to contain, in a concentrated form, all the constituent parts of Greek Tragedy. It has an Anagnorisis, because its subject is the Recognition of Women. It also contains at least one Peripeteia: and the action has been strictly confined, chiefly by the Editor of the Magazine, within one revolution of the sun.]
Sisters, from far upon my senses steals
A sound of crackers and of Catherine wheels,
By which I know the Senate in debate
Decides our future and the country's fate:
And lo! a herald from the city's stir
I see arrive—the usual Messenger.
Enter a Messenger
M. O maiden guardians of this sacred shrine—
Ch. Observe the rules: you've had your single line.
M. Say, is the Lady Principal at home?
Ch. Thou speak'st, as one for information come.
M. I ask the question, for I wish to know.
Ch. By shrewd conjecture one might guess 'twas so.
M. Go, tell your Lady I would speak with her.
Ch. About what thing? what quest dost thou prefer?
M. I bear a tale I hardly dare to tell.
Ch. Why vex her ears, when ours will do as well?
M. Hear then the facts which with self-seeing eyes
I witnessed, not receiving from another.
For when I came within those doors august
Where sat the Boule, doubting if to grant
The boon of honour which the women ask,
Or not: and like some Thracian Hellespont
Tides of opinion flowed in different ways,
Until obeying some divine decree
(This is a Nominative Absolute)
The hollow-bellied circle of a hat
Received their votes (and now, but not till now,
Observe my true apodosis begin)—
Arithmetic, supreme of sciences,
Proclaimed that persons to the number of
One thousand seven hundred and thirteen
Voted Non-Placet (or, It does not please),
While thrice two hundred, also sixty-two,
Voted for Placet on the other side;
Who, being worsted, come as suppliants
With boughs and fillets and the rest complete,
Winging the booted oarage of their feet
Within your gates: the obscurantist rout
Pursue them here with threats, and swear they'll drag them out!
Such is my tale: its truth should you deny,
I simply answer, that you tell a lie.
Woe! Woe! Woe! Woe! What shall we do and where shall we go?
Dublin or Durham, Heidelberg, Bonn,
All to escape the recalcitrant don?
In what peaceful shade reclined
Shall the cultured female mind
E'er remunerated be
By a Bachelor's Degree?
Pheu, pheu! [1] Whence, O whence (here the
antistrophe ought to commence),
Whence shall we the privilege seek
Due to our knowledge of Latin and Greek?
Shall we tear our waving locks?
Shall we rend our Sunday frocks?
No, 'tis plain that nothing can
Melt the so-called heart of man.
While with loud triumphant pealings
Ring his cries of horrid joy,
Let us vent our outraged feelings
In a wild otototoi— [2]
Justifiable impatience, when the shafts of fate annoy,
Makes one utter exclamations such as ototototoi! [2]
Enter PROFESSOR PLACET
I ask you, ye intolerable creatures,
Why raise this wholly execrable din,
O objects of dislike to the discreet?
Six hundred persons, also sixty-two
(Almost the very number of the Beast)
Have voted for you, and defend your gates.
Moreover, mark my subtle argument:—
When gates are locked no person can get in
Without unlocking them: your gates are locked,
And I have got the key: so that, unless
I ope the gates, the foe cannot get in.
This statement is Pure Reason: or, if this
Is not Pure Reason, I don't know what is.
Holy Reason! sacred Nous! [3]
Thou that hast for ever parted
From the Cambridge Senate House,
Make, O make us valiant hearted!
Wisdom, still residing here,
Calm our mind and chase our fear
While with wild discordant clamour
On our College gate they hammer!
[Confused Noise without.]
Hemich. a. [4] Horrid things! I really wonder
how they ever dared to come,
When they know to base Non-Placets
that we're always Not At Home.
Hemich. B. [4] 'Tis a national dishonour:
'tis the century's disgrace.
Hemich. a. If the College rules allowed it,
I should like to scratch their face.
Hemich. B. Never mind! a time is coming
when despite of all their Dons
We will sack the hall of Jesus,
and enjoy the wealth of John's!
Hemich. a. Vengeance! let us face the foe-man,
boldly bear the battle's brunt,
With our Placets to assist us
and our chaperons in front!
[Alarums; Excursions—special trains for voters.]
(A violation of the rule "Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet" is about to commence, when—)
Enter APOLLO
(With apologies to Dr V-rr-ll for his profligate character.)
When all too deftly poets tie the knot
And can't untwist their complicated plot,
'Tis then that comes by Jove's supreme decrees
The useful theos apo mechanes. [5]
Rash youths! forbear ungallantly to vex
Your fellow students of the softer sex!
Ladies! proud leaders of our culture's van,
Crush not too cruelly the reptile Man!
Or by experience you, as now, will learn
Th' eternal maxim's truth, that e'en a worm will turn.
[1. Transcriber's note: The words "Pheu" and "pheu" were transliterated from the Greek as follows: "Pheu"—Phi, epsilon, upsilon; "pheu"—phi, epsilon, upsilon.]
[2. Transcriber's note: The words "otototoi" and "ototototoi" were transliterated from the Greek as follows: the "ot" pairs—omicron (with the rough-breathing diacritical), tau; the trailing "i"—iota.]
[3. Transcriber's note: The word "Nous" was transliterated from the Greek as follows: Nu, omicron, upsilon, sigma.]
[4. Transcriber's note: The "a" and "B" following each "Hemich" were transliterated from the Greek "alpha" and "Beta", respectively.]
[5. Transcriber's note: The phrase "theos apo mechanes" was transliterated from the Greek as follows: "theos"—theta, epsilon, omicron, sigma; "apo"—alpha, pi, omicron; "mechanes"—mu, eta, chi, alpha, nu, eta, sigma.]
QUADRIVIAD, ll. 1-51
Arma virosque cano: procul o, procul este profani: nescio mentiri: si quis mendacia quaerit in vespertinis quaerat mendacia chartis. me neque multo iterum Pharsalia sanguine tincta nec tam Larissa nuper fugitiva relicta Graecia percussit, quam Curia Municipalis Principis augusta dextra Cambrensis aperta, atque novae longis imbutae litibus aedes: omnia quae vobis canerem si tempus haberem aut spatium: sed non habeo, varias ob causas. nunc civilia bella viaeque cruore rubentes Musae sufficient et Quadrivialis Enyo. Nox erat et caeio fulgebat luna sereno desuper: in terris fulgebat Serica lampas plurima, et ornatis pendent vexilla fenestris. spectando gaudent cives: academica pubes palatur passim plateis aut ordine facto proruit ignavum cives pecus: omnia late laetitia magni praesentia Principis implet. Metropolitanae custos, Robertule, pacis, tu quoque laetus ades, nec dedignaris amice inter ridentem comis ridere popellum. ecce tamen Furiae Martini desuper arce dant belli signum: ruit undique vulgus ad arma: procuratores obsistunt subgraduatis, civibus iratis obsistunt subgraduati et cives illis: pacis custodibus, omnes. turba venit diris ultrix accincta bacillis: Metropolitani vecti per strata caballis proturbant cunctos, reliquos in carcere claudunt. Consiliarius en! Urbanus in occiput ipse percutitur nec scit quisnam cere comminuat brum: namque negant omnes, et adhuc sub judice lis est. quid Medicina viris jurisve peritia prodest, jurisconsultos dubio si jure coercent vincula, nec proprios arcet Medicina bacillos? heu pietas, heu prisca fides! neglectus alumnus Tutorem in vacua tristis desiderat aula: interea Tutor sub judice municipali litigat, et jurat nil se fecisse nefandum, obtestans divos: nec creditur obtestanti. quid referam versos equites iterumque reversos subgraduatorum pellentes agmina ferro, inque pavimentis equitantes undique turmas? proh pudor! o mores, o tempora! forsitan olim exercens operam curvo Moderator aratro inveniet mixtis capitum fragmenta galeris relliquias pugnae, et mentem mortalia tangent. me sacer Aegidius Musarum fana colentem aegide defendit, perque ignea tela, per hostes incolumem vexitque tuens rursusque revexit.
Too oft there grows a painful thorn the floweret's stalk upon:
Behind each cupboard's gilded doors there lurks a Skeleton:
The crumpled roseleaf mocks repose, beneath the bed of down:
In proof of which attend the tale of Bach Beethoven Brown.
Beethoven Brown could play and sing before he learnt to crawl:
Piano, bones, or ophicleide—he played upon them all!
Some talk of Paderewski, or of Dr Joachim—
These artists meritorious are, but can't compare with him.
No faults or errors technical his Symphonies deface:
He calculates in counterpoint, he thinks in thoroughbass:
Composers of celebrity—musicians of renown—
Confess that they're inferior far to Bach Beethoven Brown.
As conquerors, their triumphs won, new fields before them see,
So Mr Brown resolved to have a Musical Degree:
Some say that it the title was and others say the gown
That captive took the soaring soul of Bach Beethoven Brown.
But ah! our Statues grovelling command their candidates
To satisfy examiners in Smalls, and Mods., and Greats,
To learn those verbs irregular which men of taste abhor,
Before you can a Doctor be or e'en a Bachelor!
O mores! and O tempora! can pedantry compel
Musicians who write choruses to construe them as well?
Is this (I ask) the way to deal with genius great and high?
Why fetter it with Latin Prose? and Echo answers "Why?"
Beethoven Brown is famous still, though ignorant of Greek,
He writes cantatas every month and anthems once a week:
And still in every capital and each provincial town
Piano organs play the tunes of Bach Beethoven Brown;
Earls, Viscounts, Dukes, and R-y-lties his music throng to hear:
Already he's a Baronet, and soon he'll be a Peer:
And—thrice a year this awful news a nation's heart appals,
That great Sir Bach Beethoven Brown is ploughed again in Smalls!
"Any leap in the dark is better than standing still."—New Proverb.
Talk not to us of the joys of the Present,
Say not what is is undoubtedly best:
Never be ours to be merely quiescent—
Anything, everything rather than rest!
Placid prosperity bores us and vexes:
What if philosophers Latin and Greek
Say that well-being's a Status and Exis? [1]
Nothing should please you for more than a week.
Tinkering, doctoring, shifting, deranging,
Urged by a constant satiety on,
Ever the new for the newer exchanging,
Hazarding ever the gains we have won—
Only perpetual flux can delight us,
Blown like a billow by winds of the sea:
Still let us bow to the shrine of St. Vitus—
Vite Sanctissime, ora pro me!
Pray, that when leaps in the darkness uncaring
End in a fall (as they probably will),
Mine be the credit for valiantly daring,
Others be charged with defraying the bill!
[1. Transcriber's note: The word "Exis" was transliterated from the Greek as follows: Epsilon (with the rough-breathing diacritical), xi, iota, sigma.]
There came a Grecian Admiral to pale Britannia's shore—
In Eighteen Ninety-eight he came, and anchored off the Nore;
An ultimatum he despatched (I give the text complete),
Addressing it "To Kurio, the Premier, Downing-street." [1]
"Whereas the sons of Liberty with indignation view
The number of dependencies which governed are by you—
With Hellas (Freedom's chosen land) we purpose to unite
Some part of those dependencies—let's say the Isle of Wight."
"The Isle of Wight!" said Parliament, and shuddered at the word,
"Her Majesty's at Osborne, too—of course, the thing's absurd!"
And this response Lord Salisbury eventually gave:
"Such transfers must attended be by difficulties grave."
"My orders," said the Admiral, "are positive and flat:
I am not in the least deterred by obstacles like that:
We're really only acting in the interests of peace:
Expansion is a nation's law—we've aims sublime in Greece."
With that Britannia blazed amain with patriotic flames!
They built a hundred ironclads and launched them in the Thames:
They girded on their fathers' swords, both commoners and peers;
They mobilized an Army Corps, and drilled the Volunteers!
The Labour Party armed itself, invasion's path to bar,
"Truth" and the "Daily Chronicle" proclaimed a Righteous War;
Sir William Harcourt stumped the towns that sacred fire to fan,
And Mr Gladstone every day sent telegrams from Cannes.
But ere they marched to meet the foe and drench the land with gore,
Outspake that Grecian Admiral—from somewhere near the Nore—
And "Ere," he said, "hostilities are ordered to commence,
Just hear a last appeal unto your educated sense:—
"You can't intend," he said, said he, "to turn your Maxims on
The race that fought at Salamis, that bled at Marathon!
You can't propose with brutal force to drive from off your seas
The men of Homer's gifted line—the sons of Socrates!"
Britannia heard the patriot's plea, she checked her murderous plans:
Homer's a name to conjure with, 'mong British artisans:
Her Army too, profoundly moved by arguments like these,
Said 'e'd be blowed afore 'e'd fight the sons of Socrates.
They cast away their fathers' swords, those commoners and peers,—
Demobilized their Army Corps—dismissed their Volunteers:
Soft Sentiment o'erthrew the bars that nations disunite,
And Greece, in Freedom's sacred name, annexed the Isle of Wight.
[1. Transcriber's note: The phrase "To Kurio" was transliterated from the Greek as follows: "To"—Tau, omega; "Kurio"—Kappa, upsilon, rho, iota, omega.]
If it still is your luck to be left in the ruck,
and of fame you're an impotent seeker,
If you fruitlessly aim at a Senate's acclaim
when you can't catch the eye of the Speaker,
If whenever you rise you observe with surprise
that the House is perceptibly thinner,
And your eloquent pleas are a sign to M.P.'s
that it's nearly the time for their dinner:
Should you sigh for the heights where the eminent lights,
in the region of letters who shine, are;
Should your novels and tales have indifferent sales
and your verses be hopelessly minor,
Should the public refuse your attempts to peruse
when you try to instruct or to shock it,
While it adds to the spoils of its Barries and Doyles,
and increases the hoards of a Crockett:
If you're baffled, in short, by the fame that you court,
and your name's overlooked by the papers,—
There's a road to success without toil or distress,
or nocturnal consumption of tapers:
By adopting this plan you're a prominent man,
and no longer a painful aspirant:
You must come on the scene as a bold Philhellene,
and a foe to the Turk and the Tyrant!
You'll orate to the crowd on the heritage proud
which by Greece is bequeathed to the nations
(You can gain in a week an acquaintance with Greek
by a liberal use of translations),
And the names that you quote with the aid of your "Grote"
and a noble assumption of choler,
Will attest that you feel that excusable zeal
which belongs to an eminent scholar.
You will prate before mobs of Lord Salisbury's jobs
and the villainous schemes of the Kaiser,
Which will make them believe you've a plan up your sleeve
if they'd only take you for adviser;
You may cheerfully speak of assisting the Greek
'gainst the foes that his country environ:
'Tis improbable quite you'll be wanted to fight,
and the phrase will remind them of Byron.
If you can't get a place in Society's race,
and you have to confess that you're beaten,
Yet I hope I have shown you may make yourself known
by espousing the cause of the Cretan:
You will sell all your works by denouncing the Turks,
and the public will hasten to read 'em,
When in reverent tones you are mentioned as "Jones,
the Defender and Champion of Freedom!"
It was a little Bordereau that lay upon the ground:
The Franco-Gallic Government that document it found,
And straightway drew the inference, though how I do not know,
Some Jew had sold to Germany this dreadful Bordereau.
'Tis all (they said) a Hebrew trick—-a treasonable plan—
And, now we come to think of it, why Dreyfus is the man!
At any rate (they argued thus), it is for him to show
That he is not the criminal who sold the Bordereau.
Some hinted at another man, whose autograph it bore—
But this was Dreyfus' artifice, and proved his guilt the more:
No motive for the horrid deed confessedly he had:
And crimes which are gratuitous are nearly twice as bad.
They caught that Jew (did Government) and charged him with the sale;
They proved his guilt—or said they did—and shut him up in gaol;
And then, their case to justify and show their verdict true,
They took and baited every one who called himself a Jew.
These incidents an uproar caused like Donnybrook its Fair:
Wherever Frenchmen met to talk 'twas Pandemonium there:
And anywhere except in France you'd argue from events
That Ministers had rather lost the public confidence.
Then spake the German Government (and here I must deplore
The fact that they had not presumed to mention it before):
"Although," they said respectfully, "we would not interfere
With any Angelegenheit outside our proper sphere—
Why make this quite-essentially-unnecessary fuss?
This compromising document was never sold to us:
Potztausend!" said the Chancellor, "upon my honour, no!
We have not got and do not want your precious Bordereau!"
This rather struck the Ministers, in Paris where they sat:
They took and read the Bordereau: they had not yet done that.
'Twas found to mention obvious facts which any one might know—
No horrid revelations lurked within the Bordereau!
And did they set poor Dreyfus free, the due amends to make,
Regain the public confidence by owning their mistake,
And cease for popularity by sordid means to bid?
These are the things they might have done; but this is what they did:—
They said, those Gallic Ministers, "Undoubtedly it's true
The document has not been sold, and is not worth a sou;
But as the man's in prison now, why, there he's got to stay—
Que voulez-vous?" they simply said, "it is a Chose Jugée!"
This artless little narrative is specially designed
To illustrate the workings of the Gallic statesman's mind;
And till they change those processes and mould their ways anew,
It is not yet in Paris that I want to be a Jew.
Ye Concerts who plan for the welfare of Man
and compose his occasional quarrels,
Whom we properly deem to be teachers supreme
in the sphere of Political Morals,
May you win the renown that your efforts should crown
and reward your assiduous labours
In arranging the cares and embarrassed affairs
that afflict your unfortunate neighbours!
Should a potentate go for his national foe,
and, as soon as he's thoroughly licked him,
Should he dare to demand a concession of land
from his prostrate and paralyzed victim,
It is then you arise and his arm you arrest
when his harvest is ripe for the reaping,
And a people oppressed may in confidence rest
when it's safe in Diplomacy's keeping.
It is you who protest in a horrified tone
at a hint of Integrity's danger,
And the victor is shown that a Concert alone
is of Law and of Fate the arranger:
With a warlike display of your fleets in array
and of Maxims (both empty and loaded)
You establish it plain that his notions of gain
are immoral and also exploded!
Let the blasphemous cry that it's done with an eye
to your ultimate personal profit,
That your chivalrous task is but worn as a mask
till occasion allows you to doff it,
Let the caviller say that the victim to-day
is preserved from a final disaster,
And is saved from the Japs that to-morrow perhaps
he may furnish a meal for their master:
Yet I cannot believe that what Concerts achieve
is by reasons ulterior dictated,
I am perfectly sure that their motives are pure
(by themselves it is frequently stated);
By themselves we are taught that they never in thought
could the Good with the Selfish commingle—
What they do is designed for the good of mankind
with an eye that is simple and single!
For whomever—e.g., let us say the Chinee—
you have freed from the fear of invasion,
Should he presently seem in a posture to be
which is open to Moral Persuasion,—
How you take him in hand, a philanthropist band!
how you toil to improve his condition,
With a noble disdain of the trouble and pain
of a wholly unselfish Partition!
For it grieves you, of course, when—ignoring the force
which the doctrine of Mine and of Thine has—
E'en Integrity's self you must lay on the shelf
(I allude, not to Europe's but China's)!
Let detractors contend that your means and your end
are the end and the means of the vulture—
Such an altruist plan must betoken the man
who is bent on diffusion of culture.
Be it yours to assuage for inadequate wage
our unseemly contentions and quarrels,
Be it yours to maintain your respectable reign
in the sphere of Political Morals;
And, relying no more on the shedding of gore
or the rule of torpedoes and sabres,
Make beneficent plots for dividing in lots
the domains of your paralyzed neighbours!
Come hither, Terence Mulligan, and sit upon the floor,
And list a tale of woe that's worse than all you heard before:
Of all the wrongs the Saxon's done since Erin's shores he trod
The blackest harm he's wrought us now—sure Doolan's put in quod!
It was the Saxon minister, he said unto himself,
I'll never have a moment's peace till Doolan's on the shelf—
So bid them make a warrant out and send it by the mail,
To put that daring patriot in dark Kilmainham gaol.
The minions of authority, that document they wrote,
And Mr Buckshot took the thing upon the Dublin boat:
Och! sorra much he feared the waves, incessantly that roar,
For deeper flows the sea of blood he shed on Ireland's shore!
But the hero slept unconscious still—tis kilt he was with work,
Haranguing of the multitudes in Waterford and Cork,—
Till Buckshot and the polis came and rang the front door bell
Disturbing of his slumbers sweet in Morrison's Hotel.
Then out and spake brave Morrison—"Get up, yer sowl, and run!"
(O bright shall shine on History's page the name of Morrison!)
"To see the light of Erin quenched I never could endure:
Slip on your boots—I'll let yez out upon the kitchen doore!"
But proudly flashed the patriot's eye and he sternly answered—"No!
I'll never turn a craven back upon my country's foe:
Doolan aboo, for Liberty! . . . and anyhow" (says he)
"The Government's locked the kitchen-door and taken away the key."
They seized him and they fettered him, those minions of the Law,
('Twas Pat the Boots was looking on, and told me what he saw)—
But sorra step that Uncrowned King would leave the place, until
A ten per cent reduction he had got upon his bill.
Had I been there with odds to aid—say twenty men to one—
It stirs my heart to think upon the deeds I might have done!
I wouldn't then be telling you the melancholy tale
How Ireland's pride imprisoned lies in dark Kilmainham gaol.
Yet weep not, Erin, for thy son! 'tis he that's doing well,
For Ireland's thousands feed him there within his dungeon cell,—
And if by chance he eats too much and his health begins to fail,
The Government then will let him out from black Kilmainham gaol!
(1890)
Oh, wanst I was a tinant, an' I wisht I was one stilt,
With my cow an' pig an' praties, an' my cabin on the hill!
'Twas plinty then I had to drink an' plinty too to ate,
And the childer had employment on the Ponsonby estate.
It was in Tipperary town, as down the street I went,
I met with Mr Blarnigan, that sits in Parliament:
'Tis he that has the eloquence! An' "Pay no rint," says he,
"For that's the way you'll get your land, an' set the country free."
I'd paid my rint—sure, 'twas rejuiced—before the rows began,
An' the agent that was in it was a dacent kind of man;
But parties kem by moonlight now, and tould me I must not,
And if I paid it any more they'd surely have me shot.
The agent said he'd take the half of all the rint I owed,
Because he'd be unwilling for to put me on the road:
I said, "I thank your honour, and in glory may you be!
But that is not the way," says I, "to set ould Ireland free."
They kem an' put me out of that, and left me there forlorn,
Beside the empty ruins of the house where I was born:
I'm indepindent now myself, and have no work to do,
Until the day when Ireland is indepindent too.
"A day will come," says Blarnigan, "when tyranny's o'erthrown—
Just hould the rint a year or so, and all the land's your own!"
Well, 'tis not for the likes of me to question what they say,
But it's starved we'll be before we see that great and glorious day!
This fighting against tyranny's a splendid kind of thrade,
For thim that goes to London for't, and gets their tickets paid!
I'm loafing on the road myself, an' sorra know I know
What way I'll live the winter through, an' where on earth I'll go.
Oh, wanst I was a tinant, an' I wisht I was one still,
With my cow an' pig an' praties, an' my cabin on the hill!
Now it's to New York City that I'll have to cross the sea,
And all because I held my rint to set the counthry free.
Ye shanties so airy of New Tipperary,
With walls and with floors of the national mud,
Where the home of the freeman mocks Tyranny's demon,
And the landlord and agent are nipped in the bud!
No Saxon may venture those precincts to enter,
He is barred from their portals by Liberty's ban,
And we boycott each other, each patriot brother,
And safely deride the Emergency Man.
Though the comfort exterior, perhaps, is inferior
To the homes you have left, on a casual view—
With its excellent moral no person can quarrel,
Morality's always the weapon for you.
'Tis a duty you owe to your country's condition,
For her, to relinquish your homes and your pelf:
Were I placed (as I'm not) in a similar position,
I have no doubt at all I should do so myself.
It is dastards alone who are ready to grovel,
And make themselves footballs for landlords to kick,
It is better by far to be free in a hovel
Than to owe for your rent in a palace of brick!
When the Saxon invader has rows with his tenants,
It's absurd to assert that it's nihil ad rem
To inflict on yourselves a gratuitous penance,
For it irritates him and encourages them.
And it's always a mark of the National Party—
Which their logical shrewdness distinctively shows—
That each member is ready, with cheerfulness hearty,
When his face he would punish, to cut off his nose.
So we still turn our backs on the gifts of the Saxon—
Yes, Freedom itself, if they give it, contemn:
We would willingly have it from Parnell and Davitt,
But we'd sooner be slaves than accept it from them!
We statesmen of Erin, Archbishops, M.P.'s,
and Leaders of National Thought,
Pray explain to your friends that I'm anxious
to please, if I do not succeed as I ought!
When I sympathize quite with their notions of right,
it is hard, as I'm sure you'll agree,
That an agent should come with a dynamite bomb,
which perhaps was intended for me!
My views on the tenants evicted for debt
are identical wholly with yours,
And the fact that they're not in possession
as yet no statesman more deeply deplores:
I approve of explosives—they're often a link
which our union may serve to complete—
But they're dangerous too, as I venture to think,
when employed in a populous street.
I planned the Commission; I packed it with men
opposed to the payment of rent;
No landlord had ever evicted again if they
only had done what I meant:
It "adjourned," as I know, in a fortnight or so,
and it did not do much while it sat,
But I was not to blame if we failed in our aim—
for I could not anticipate that.
'Tis a shame, I agree, that I cannot set free
all persons who kill the police;
That patriots leal who in dynamite deal
I can only in sections release:
But I think you must see that a statesman like me
has a character moral at stake,
And must simulate doubt as to letting them out,
for my Saxon constituents' sake.
For their sentiments move in the narrowest groove—
be thankful you are not like them!
Mere murder's an act which they seldom approve,
and are even inclined to condemn:
When the patriot blows up his friends or his foes,
those prejudiced Saxons among,
It is reckoned a flaw in his notion of law,
and he is not unfrequently hung.
Then explain to your friends that their means and their ends
I wholly and fully approve,
Though at times what I feel I am forced to conceal,
and to partly dissemble my love,
And the Saxon, I hope, may develop the scope
of his narrow and obsolete view—
He will alter in time his conception of crime,
on a longer acquaintance with You.
I have always regarded with wonder and awe
The conception of Justice embodied in Law:
For it dealt in a highly remarkable way
With Cornelius Molloy and with Peter O'Shea.
Now, Peter O'Shea was by nature a serf,
And he paid (when he could) for his land and his turf:
But Cornelius, his friend, was a broth of a boy—
The Sassenach's scourge was Cornelius Molloy.
Cornelius adopted the Plan of Campaign,
And he tried to tempt Peter, but tempted in vain.
"'Twas the masther, not thim, I conthracted to pay:
'Tis a quare kind of business," said Peter O'Shea.
But the Plan of Campaign, as its authors confess,
Was not, on the whole, a decided success:
And the blackguardly minion whom tyrants employ
Evicted at last great Cornelius Molloy.
The Saxon oppressor, still potent for harm,
Gave Peter a lease of Cornelius' farm:
Which Peter accepted with virtuous joy—
For he lived quite adjacent to Mr Molloy.
Cornelius was angry (and faith he'd a right),
So he came with a party to Peter's by night,
And they shot through the door, with intention to slay
That traitor and land-grabber, Peter O'Shea.
Poor Peter was pained, but he scorned to show fear:
"Sure the law will protect me so long as I'm here:
'Tis an iligant holding and little to pay;
Och! 'twas only wid shnipe-shot!" said Pether O'Shea.
But the Liberal Party observed with dismay
The outrageous proceedings of Peter O'Shea;
And Mr O'Kelly, our pride and our joy,
Made a law for restoring Cornelius Molloy.
Cornelius came back to his former abode,
And Peter was houseless, and starved on the road:
For Justice, whose methods O'Kelly can tell,
Gave Cornelius his holding and Peter's as well.
It is this which inspires us with feelings of awe
For the standards of Justice embodied in Law:
And tenants, the law when inclined to obey,
Will be cheered by the instance of Peter O'Shea.
Must we then cease to exist as a party,
Sink to the items that once we have been,
All for the scruples of Justin M'Carthy,
All for Committee-Room No. 15?
This is the end of a decade of labour,
Blood that we might have—conceivably—shed,
Daily incitements to boycott your neighbour,
Daily allusions to ounces of lead!
Is it for this that the champion whose speeches
Fear not to mention the year '98
Sleeps on a plank and is robbed of his breeches,
Loses some pounds of his natural weight?
These, it would seem, are that patriot's wages—
Only to hear that the battle is o'er,
Only to blot from our history's pages
Memories of Mitchelstown, tales of Gweedore!
All the great days of the row and the ruction,
Days on the hillside and nights in the House,
When by persistent and careful obstruction
Saxons were kept from their yachts and their grouse:
All was a dream unsubstantial and airy—
Tenants are cravens, and landlords are paid:
Lone and deserted is New Tipperary,
Lodgings to let in O'Brien Arcade!
Some are for Redmond and some for M'Carthy,
All are the items that once they have been:
This is the end of the National Party,
All for Committee-Room No. 15.
Oh, the Irish M.P.s they are bound for the seas,
to the country of Cleveland and Blaine,
And I hear for a fact, their portmanteaus are packed
and we never shall see them again,
And Hibernia thrills through her valleys and hills
with a passionate cry of farewell,
While the manager weeps as they're paying their bills,
in the "Westminster Palace hotel!
Though he lived all the while in the highest of style
and was fed at his country's expense,
Yet he felt (did the Celt) that in Meshech he dwelt,
and resided in Kedar its tents,
And he yearned in his heart to be playing a part
in a higher and holier sphere—
For his soul was alight with a zeal for the Right
that we cannot appreciate here.
Oh, the story is long of the villainous wrong
he endured from the Sassenach reign,
How he languished for weeks, minus freedom (and breeks),
for supporting the Plan of Campaign;
How, when statesmen arose, to diminish his woes,
and the tide of oppression to stem,
We ejected the friends who promoted his ends,
and refused to be guided by them.
For the Tories have won, and the party is gone
that he ruled with his counsel and swayed,
And there's no one cares that for the suffrage of Pat
or will stoop to solicit his aid:
So the sons of the Gael have determined to sail
for the regions serene of the West,
Where a Balfour's police from their bludgeoning cease,
and the Patriot weary may rest!
'Tis in Congress he'll find the intelligent mind
which is able to probe to the roots
The malignant intrigue that endangers the League,
and M'Carthy's and Dillon's disputes,—
Which is sure to postpone all affairs of its own
and to list to Tim Healy intent
When he takes up the tale of Compulsory Sale,
or complete abolition of rent.
There'll be wigs on the green (as in No. 15)
and the usual trailing of coats,
For I happen to know Mr Redmond will go,
—by a separate service of boats:—
And O'Brien will show, while he jumps on his foe
and his blood fratricidally sheds,
That the Union of Hearts of necessity starts
from a general breaking of heads.
The Hibernian M.P.s are afloat on the seas,
the debates of the West to control,
And the thought of their scheme's a magnificent dream
which may calm our disconsolate soul:
For if ever the Yanks should return them with thanks
and consider their presence a bore,
We have plenty of cranks in the Radical ranks,
and can always supply them with more!
It was a gallant Irishman, and thus I heard him sing—
"To legislate at Westminster's a dull decorous thing:
But O in merry Austria's deliberative hall,
Bedad, the fun and divilment is simply kolossàl!
"No base procedure rules restrain those wild untutored Czechs,
They have no vile formalities the patriot's soul to vex:
While we must catch the Speaker's eye before a word is said,
In free and happy Austria they blacken it instead.
"Cold water oft on me to throw is Mr Gully's whim,
But Dr Abrahamovitch has buckets thrown on him:
Quite pleasant and familiar are their dealings with the Chair—
We 'pull' sometimes the Speaker's 'leg'—they always pull his hair!
"When, for my own metropolis, I quit this formal scene,
And Ireland's native Parliament shall sit in College-green,
To keep the fun alive and fresh we'll bring a Czech or two
(The Czechs but not the Balances that Mr Gladstone knew):
"We'll have no dictatorial rule—no Peels or Gullys there—
But Dr Abrahamovitch shall fill the Speaker's chair:
'Tis he shall guide by gentle arts our legislative aims,
While Mr Dillon tweaks his nose and Healy calls him names."
It was an Irish patriot, and thus I heard him say—
"O set me in Vienna's walls, beneath the Kaiser's sway!
For since Home Rule I cannot get, 'tis there that I would be,
A-chivying the President, an Austrian M.P.!"
O party, pledged in years agone to change our sad condition,
How have you left your task undone and quite resigned your Mission!
How changed the time since tongue and pen our feuds combined to smother,
And Harcourt walked with Healy then as brother walks with brother!
We from Coercion's darkest gloom saw Erin's star re-risen,
You hob-and-nobbed with patriots, whom yourselves had sent to prison:
It was our schemes of mutual good such close allies that made us:
You spoke as we decreed you should, we voted as you bade us:
'Twas we, when fain you were to fare on Office' loaves and fishes,
'Twas we alone who put you there despite your country's wishes:
While you, when some our acts would blame, proved nought
could be absurder
Than rent to call a legal claim, or landlord-shooting murder.
Yet why recount our ancient loves which now you turn your backs on?
The maxim old it only proves—you ne'er should trust a Saxon:
Deceitful still, his promised plan he docks, interprets, hedges,
And when he thinks he safely can, he turns and breaks his pledges!
True Celts despise the paltry baits wherewith you try to feed 'em:
What! offer your diminished rates to men who pine for Freedom!
On County Councils ne'er can thrive a People's aspirations,
No local Government can give a place among the Nations!
Begone! to swell the Jingo train and ape the tricks of Tories:
Let Rosebery share with Chamberlain his cheap Imperial glories:
Let Primrose Leaguers' base applause to Duty's promptings blind you—
Desert an outraged nation's cause, and take this curse behind you;—
Expect your doom, ye Liberals! though now you scorn and flout us,
Full soon within St Stephen's walls you'll fare but ill without us;
No more to us for succour come, for when you most would have it,
It will not be forthcoming from yours truly, MICHAEL DAVITT!
The angry Gael to sooth you'll fail—the wrongs he lays your door at
It won't redress to pay his cess and nearly all his poor rate:
'Tis useless quite to calm his spite by show'ring blessings o'er him,
While still he lacks the O's and Macs his fathers had before him!
But now, to close the tale of woes which long had tried our patience,
Great MacAleese cements a peace between the warring nations;
No more the swords of Saxon hordes are rankling in our vitals,
For Erin's shore enjoys once more her ancient styles and titles.
O long ago had things been so ere feud had rent our party,
And Parnell those for leader chose while these preferred McCarthy,
I doubt not but the Cause had cut a fat superior figure,
If, better led, we'd had for head O'Parnell and MacBiggar!
'Twas hard to spot the patriot when parties mingled freely,
And Labouchere at times would share the politics of Healy;
A symbol new and plain to view from such mistakes will free him—
By Mac and O you'll always know a patriot when you see him:
This shibboleth shall bind till death, without respect of faction,
In mutual love, all persons of Hibernian extraction:
I see them stand, a gallant band, agreed each question vexed on,
O'Saunderson in heart at one with Dillon and MacSexton!
And when we've found Home Rule All Round the only panacea,
The Welsh perhaps will all be Aps—the Scotchmen Macs as we are—
While Englishmen will sorrow then, in shame and degradation,
To think they've not the titles got which really make a Nation.
"Here's your fery good health,
And tamn ta Whuskey Duty!"
Though Hibernians for long in dissension have dwelt
(As a dog that resides with a cat),
There's a bond that the Saxon allies to the Celt—
They are perfectly solid on that!
And if ever their union is marred by a flaw,
It is due to the craven who shrinks
From proclaiming aloud the immutable law,
That he ought not to pay for his drinks.
They have differed at times on the theme of Repeal
(As I gather from platform and press),
And the language they used in their patriot zeal
Was intended to wound and distress:
But at last they are joined by a brotherly love,
And his anger the patriot sinks,
For his eloquence now is directed to prove
That he ought not to pay for his drinks.
There were times when the payment that landlords demand
Was a source of continual woe,
When the tenant preferred to adhere to his land,
And the agent preferred him to go:
When their claims to adjust and the balance to strike
Was a riddle to baffle the Sphinx,—
But they're reconciled now, by resolving alike
That they never will pay for their drinks.
There's an influence soft, which has calmed and assuaged
The contentions of Orange and Green:
It has silenced the wars that were formerly waged
In Committee Room Number Fifteen:
For in Cork and Belfast they're united at last
By the strongest and surest of links,
And together they go for the Sassenach foe
Who has asked them to pay for their drinks!
There's a gentleman called Doolan with an eloquence would charm ye
When he talks of shooting landlords and of peaceful themes like that:
But I'd like to undesave him on the subject of the Army—
Sure the things he says about us are the idlest kind of chat!
We are all (says he) seditious, and the most of us is Fenians:
(And it's true I am a Fenian when I find meself at home:)
But he says we're that devoted to our patriot opinions
That we would not face the foeman when the marching orders come!
Is it that way, Misther Doolan, that you'd see your country righted?
Troth, to many in the Service 'twill be information new
That they'd lave the flag they followed and betray
the faith they plighted
To be comrades and companions of a gentleman like you!
Tisn't mutiny and treason will make Ireland e'er a nation:
No, we never yet were traitors, though we're rebels now and then!
For your country's name to tarnish and disgrace her reputation—
Faith! it may be "patriotic," but it isn't fit for men.
Would we shame those valiant Irishmen, the lads of Meath and Mallow,
Them that fought with Moore and Beresford through many a hard campaign,
Men that dared the Saxon follow, with a roaring "Faugh-a-ballagh,"
And that shed their blood like water on the stricken fields of Spain?
Would we shame our bold companions and the land, the land that bore us,
And the gallant boys that led us, and the rattling days we've seen,
When we drove the foe before us with the "Shan Van Voght" in chorus,
And we stormed his mountain stronghold to "The Wearing of the Green?"
Though we've cursed the name of England: though in faith
and blood we're aliens:
Though we're bred to hate the Union as an Irishman should do—
Yet we're shoulder still to shoulder in the Englishman's battalions,
And the soldier's pride in Erin is the pledge that he'll be true.
No! if e'er the day is coming of an Irish host's uniting,
When they march to meet the Saxon, with the green above the red,
'Mid the ranks of England's foemen 'tisn't we that will be fighting—
—And it isn't Mr Doolan will be marching at their head!