Misrepresentative Women

Publishers’ Preface

 

Gentle Reader, who so patiently have waited

For such viands as your poet can provide,

(Which, as critics have occasionally stated,

Must be trying to a delicate inside,)

Once again are opportunities afforded

Of a banquet, or a déjeuner at least,

Once again your toleration is rewarded

By a literary feast!

   

You may think that Rudyard Kipling’s work is stronger,

Or that Chaucer’s may be rather more mature;

Byron’s lyrics are indubitably longer,

Robert Browning’s just a trifle more obscure;

But ’tis certain that no poems are politer,

Or more fitted for perusal in the home,

Than the verses of the unassuming writer

Of this memorable tome!

   

Austin Dobson is a daintier performer,

Andrew Lang is far more scholarly and wise,

Mr. Swinburne can, of course, be somewhat warmer,

Alfred Austin more amusing, if he tries;

But there’s no one in the world (and well you know it!)

Who can emulate the bard of whom we speak,

For the literary methods of our poet

Are admittedly unique!

   

Tho’ he shows no sort of penitence at breaking

Ev’ry rule of English grammar and of style,

(Not a rhyme is too atrocious for his making,

Not a metre for his purpose is too vile!)

Tho’ his treatment is essentially destructive,

And his taste a thing that no one can admire,

There is something incontestably seductive

In the music of his lyre!

   

Gentle Reader, some apologies are needed

For depositing this volume on your desk,

Since the author has undoubtedly exceeded

All the limits of legitimate burlesque,

And we look with very genuine affection

To a Public who, for better or for worse,

Will relieve us of this villainous collection

Of abominable verse!

 

Eve

 

I always love to picture Eve,

Whatever captious critics say,

As one who was, as I believe,

The nicest woman of her day;

Attractive to the outward view,

And such a perfect lady too!

   

Unselfish, – that one can’t dispute,

Recalling her intense delight,

When she acquired some novel fruit,

In giving all her friends a bite;

Her very troubles she would share

With those who happened to be there.

   

Her wardrobe, though extremely small,

Sufficed a somewhat simple need;

She was, if anything at all,

A trifle underdressed, indeed,

And never visited a play

In headgear known as “matinée.”

   

Possessing but a single beau,

With only one affaire de cœur,

She promptly married, as we know,

The man who first proposed to her;

Not for his title or his pelf,

But simply for his own sweet self.

   

He loved her madly, at first sight;

His callow heart was quite upset;

He thought her nearly, if not quite,

The sweetest soul he’d ever met;

She found him charming – for a man,

And so their young romance began.

   

Their wedding was a trifle tame —

A purely family affair —

No guests were asked, no pressmen came

To interview the happy pair;

No crowds of curious strangers bored them,

The “Eden Journal” quite ignored them.

   

They had the failings of their class,

The faults and foibles of the youthful;

She was inquisitive, alas!

And he was – not exactly truthful;

But never was there man or woman

So truly, so intensely human!

   

And, hand in hand, from day to day,

They lived and labored, man and wife;

Together hewed their common way

Along the rugged path of Life;

Remaining, though the seasons pass’d,

Friends, lovers, to the very last.

   

So, side by side, they shared, these two,

The sorrow and the joys of living;

The Man, devoted, tender, true,

The Woman, patient and forgiving;

Their common toil, their common weather,

But drew them closelier still together.

   

And if they ever chanced to grieve,

Enduring loss, or suff’ring pain,

You may be certain it was Eve

Brought comfort to their hearts again;

If they were happy, well I know,

It was the Woman made them so.

 

······

 

And though the anthropologist

May mention, in his tactless way,

That Adam’s weaknesses exist

Among our modern Men to-day,

In Women we may still perceive

The virtues of their Mother Eve!

 

Lady Godiva

 

In the old town of Coventry, so people say,

Dwelt a Peer who was utterly lacking in pity;

Universally loathed for the rigorous way

That he burdened the rates of the City.

By his merciless methods of petty taxation,

The poor were reduced to the verge of starvation.

   

But the Earl had a wife, whom the people adored,

For her kindness of heart even more than her beauty,

And her pitiless lord she besought and implored

To remit this extortionate “duty”;

But he answered: “My dear, pray reflect at your leisure,

What you deem a ‘duty,’ to me is a pleasure!”

   

At the heart of her spouse she continued to storm,

And she closed her entreaties, one day, by exclaiming: —

“If you take off the tax, I will gladly perform

Any task that you like to be naming!”

“Well, if that be the case,” said the nobleman, “I’ve a

Good mind just to test you, my Lady Godiva!

   

“To your wishes, my dear, I will straight acquiesce,

On the single condition – I give you fair warning —

That you ride through the City, at noon, in the dress

That you wear in your bath of a morning!”

“Very well!” she replied. “Be it so! Though you drive a

Hard bargain, my lord,” said the Lady Godiva.

   

So she slipped off her gown, and her shoulders lay bare,

Gleaming white like the moon on Aonian fountains;

When about them she loosened her curtain of hair,

’Twas like Night coming over the mountains!

And she blushed, ’neath the veil of her wonderful tresses,

As blushes the Morn ’neath the Sun’s first caresses!

   

Then she went to the stable and saddled her steed,

Who erected his ears, till he looked like a rabbit,

He was somewhat surprised, as he might be, indeed,

At the lady’s unusual “habit”;

But allowed her to mount in the masculine way,

For he couldn’t say “No,” and he wouldn’t say “Neigh!”

   

So she rode through the town, in the heat of the sun,

For the weather was (luckily) warm as the Tropics,

And the people all drew down their blinds – except one,

On the staff of the local “Town Topics.”

(Such misconduct produced in the eyes of this vile one

A cataract nearly as large as the Nile one!)

   

Then Godiva returned, and the Earl had to yield,

(And the paralyzed pressman dictated his cable;)

The tax was remitted, the bells were repealed,

And the horse was returned to the stable;

While banners were waved from each possible quarter,

Except from the flat of the stricken reporter.

   

Now the Moral is this – if I’ve fathomed the tale

(Though it needs a more delicate pen to explain it): —

You can get whatsoever you want, without fail,

If you’ll sacrifice all to obtain it.

You should try to avoid unconventional capers,

And be sure you don’t write for Society papers.

 

Miss Marie Corelli

 

A very Woman among Men!

Her pæans, sung in ev’ry quarter,

Almost persuade Le Gallienne

To go and get his hair cut shorter;

When Kipling hears her trumpet-note

He longs to don a petticoat.

   

Her praise is sung by old or young,

From Happy Hampstead to Hoboken,

Where’er old England’s mother-tongue

Is (ungrammatically) spoken:

In that supremely simple set

Which loves the penny novelette.

   

When Anglo-Saxon peoples kneel

Before their literary idol,

It makes all rival authors feel

Depressed and almost suicidal;

They cannot reach within a mile

Of her sublime suburban style.

   

Her modest, unobtrusive ways,

In sunny Stratford’s guide-books graven,

Her brilliance, lighting with its rays

The birthplace of the Swan of Avon,

Must cause the Bard as deep a pain

As his resemblance to Hall Caine.

   

Mere ordinary mortals ask,

With no desire for picking quarrels,

Who gave her the congenial task

Of judging other people’s morals?

Who bade her flay her fellow-men

With such a frankly feline pen?

   

And one may seek, and seek in vain.

The social set she loves to mention,

Those offspring of her fertile brain,

Those creatures of her fond invention.

(She is, or so it would appear,

Unlucky in her friends, poor dear!)

   

For tho’, like her, they feel the sway

Of claptrap sentimental glamour,

And frequently, like her, give way

To lapses from our English grammar,

The victims of her diatribes

Are not the least as she describes.

   

To restaurants they seldom go,

Just for the sake of over-eating;

While ladies don’t play bridge, you know,

Entirely for the sake of cheating;

And husbands can be quite nice men,

And wives are faithful, now and then.

   

Were she to mingle with her ink

A little milk of human kindness,

She would not join, I dare to think,

To chronic social color-blindness

An outlook bigoted and narrow

As that of some provincial sparrow.

   

But still, perhaps, it might affect

Her literary circulation,

If she were tempted to neglect

Her talent for vituperation;

Since work of this peculiar kind

Delights the groundling’s curious mind.

   

For while, of course, from day to day,

Her popularity increases,

As, in an artless sort of way,

She tears Society to pieces,

Her sense of humor, so they tell us,

Makes even Alfred Austin jealous!

   

Yet even bumpkins, by and by,

(Such is the spread of education)

May view with cold, phlegmatic eye

The fruits of her imagination,

And learn to temper their devotion

With slight, if adequate, emotion.

 

·····

 

Dear Miss Corelli: – Should your eyes

Peruse this page (’tis my ambition!),

Be sure that I apologize

In any suitable position

For having weakly imitated

The style that you yourself created.

   

I cannot fancy to attain

To heights of personal invective

Which you, with subtler pen and brain,

Have learnt to render so effective;

I follow dimly in your trail;

Forgive me, therefore, if I fail!

 

Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy

 

Have you a pain all down your back?

A feeling of intense prostration?

Are you anæmic, for the lack

Of proper circulation?

With bloodshot eye and hand unsteady?

Pray send at once for Mrs. Eddy.

   

The Saint and Prophetess is she

Of what is known as Christian Science;

And you can lean on Mrs. E.

With absolute reliance;

For she will shortly make it plain

That there is no such thing as pain.

   

The varied ailments on your list

Which cause you such extreme vexation

Are nothing more, she will insist,

Than mere imagination.

’Tis so with illness or disease;

Nothing exists … except her fees!

   

A friend of mine had not been taught

This doctrine, I regret to say.

He fell downstairs, or so he thought,

And broke his neck, one day.

Had Mrs. Eddy come along,

She could have shown him he was wrong.

   

She could have told him (or his wraith)

That stairs and necks have no existence,

That persons with sufficient faith

Can fall from any distance,

And that he wasn’t in the least

What local papers called “deceased.”

   

Of ills to which the flesh is heir

She is decidedly disdainful;

But once, or so her friends declare,

Her teeth became so painful

That, tho’ she knew they couldn’t be,

She had them taken out, to see.

   

Afflictions of the lame or halt,

Which other people view with terror,

To her denote some moral fault,

Some form of mental error.

While doctors probe or amputate,

She simply heals you while you wait.

   

My brother, whom you may have seen,

Possessed a limp, a very slight one;

His leg, the left, had always been

Much shorter than the right one;

But Mrs. Eddy came his way,

And … well, just look at him to-day!

   

At healing she had grown so deft

That when she finished with my brother,

His crippled leg, I mean the left,

Was longer than the other!

And now he’s praying, day and night,

For faith to lengthen out the right.

   

So let it be our chief concern

To set diseases at defiance,

Contriving, as the truths we learn

Of so-called Christian Science,

To live from illnesses exempt, —

Or else to die in the attempt!

 

Mrs. Grundy

 

When lovely Woman stoops to smoke

(A vice in which she often glories),

Or sees the somewhat doubtful joke

In after-dinner stories,

Who is it to her bedroom rushes

To hide the fervor of her blushes?

   

When Susan’s skirt’s a trifle short,

Or Mary’s manner rather skittish,

Who is it, with a fretful snort

(So typically British),

Emits prolonged and startled cries,

Suggestive of a pained surprise?

   

Who is it, tell me, in effect,

Who loves to centre her attentions

On all who wilfully neglect

Society’s conventions,

And seems eternally imbued

With saponaceous rectitude?

   

’Tis Mrs. Grundy, deaf and blind

To anything the least romantic,

Combining with a narrow mind

A point of view pedantic,

Since no one in the world can stop her

From thinking ev’rything improper.

   

The picture or the marble bust

At any public exhibition

Evokes her unconcealed disgust

And rouses her suspicion,

If human forms are shown to us

In puris naturalibus.

   

The bare, in any sense or shape.

She looks upon as wrong or faulty;

Piano-legs she likes to drape,

If they are too décoll’té;

For long with horror she has viewed

The naked Truth, for being nude.

   

On modern manners that efface

The formal modes of introduction

She is at once prepared to place

The very worst construction, —

And frowns, suspicious and sardonic,

On friendships that are termed Platonic.

   

The English restaurants must close

At twelve o’clock at night on Sunday,

To suit (or so we may suppose)

The taste of Mrs. Grundy;

On week-days, thirty minutes later,

Ejected guests revile the waiter.

   

A sense of humor she would vote

The sign of mental dissipations;

She scorns whatever might promote

The gaiety of nations;

Of lawful fun she seems no fonder

Than of the noxious dooblontonder!

   

And if you wish to make her blench

And snap her teeth together tightly,

Say something in Parisian French,

And close one optic slightly.

“Rien ne va plus! Enfin, alors!”

She leaves the room and slams the door!

   

O Mrs. Grundy, do, I beg,

To false conclusions cease from rushing,

And learn to name the human leg

Without profusely blushing!

No longer be (don’t think me rude)

   

That unalluring thing, the prude!

No more patrol the world, I pray,

In search of trifling social errors,

Let “What will Mrs. Grundy say?”

No longer have its terrors;

Leave diatribe and objurgation

To Mrs. Chant and Carrie Nation!

 

Mrs. Christopher Columbus

 

The bride grows pale beneath her veil,

The matron, for the nonce, is dumb,

Who listens to the tragic tale

Of Mrs. Christopher Columb:

Who lived and died (so says report)

A widow of the herbal sort.

   

Her husband upon canvas wings

Would brave the Ocean, tempest-tost;

He had a cult for finding things

Which nobody had ever lost,

And Mrs. C. grew almost frantic

When he discovered the Atlantic.

   

But nothing she could do or say

Would keep her Christopher at home;

Without delay he sailed away

Across what poets call “the foam,”

While neighbors murmured, “What a shame!”

And wished their husbands did the same.

   

He ventured on the highest C’s

That reared their heads above the bar,

Knowing the compass and the quays

Like any operatic star;

And funny friends who watched him do so

Would call him “Robinson Caruso.”

   

But Mrs. C. remained indoors,

And poked the fire and wound the clocks,

Amused the children, scrubbed the floors,

Or darned her absent husband’s socks.

(For she was far too sweet and wise

To darn the great explorer’s eyes.)

   

And when she chanced to look around

At all the couples she had known,

And realized how few had found

A home as peaceful as her own,

She saw how pleasant it may be

To wed a chronic absentee.

   

Her husband’s absence she enjoyed,

Nor ever asked him where he went,

Thinking him harmlessly employed

Discovering some Continent.

Had he been always in, no doubt,

Some day she would have found him out.

   

And so he daily left her side

To travel o’er the ocean far,

And she who, like the bard, had tried

To “hitch her wagon to a star,”

Though she was harnessed to a comet,

Got lots of satisfaction from it.

   

To him returning from the West

She proved a perfect anti-dote,

Who loosed his Armour (beef compress’d)

And sprayed his “automobile throat”;

His health she kept a jealous eye on,

And played PerUna to his lion!

   

And when she got him home again,

And so could wear the jewels rare

Which Isabella, Queen of Spain,

Entrusted to her husband’s care,

Her monetary wealth was “far

Beyond the dreams of caviar!”

 

·····

 

A melancholy thing it is

How few have known or understood

The manifold advantages

Of such herbaceous widowhood!

(What is it ruins married lives

But husbands … not to mention wives?)

   

O wedded couples of to-day,

Pray take these principles to heart,

And copy the Columbian way

Of living happily apart.

And so, to you, at any rate,

Shall marriage be a “blessèd state.”

 

Dame Rumor

 

I should like to remark that Dame Rumor

Is the most unalluring of jades.

She has little or no sense of humor,

And her fables are worse than George Ade’s.

(Or rather, I mean, if the reader prefers,

That the fables of Ade are much better than hers!)

   

Her appearance imbues one with loathing,

From her jaundiced, malevolent eyes

To the tinsel she cares to call clothing,

Which is merely a patchwork of lies.

For her garments are such that a child could see through,

And her blouse (need I add?) is the famed Peek-a-boo!

   

She is wholly devoid of discretion,

She is utterly wanting in tact,

She’s a gossip by trade and profession,

And she much prefers fiction to fact.

She is seldom veracious, and always unkind,

And she moves to and fro with the speed of the wind.

   

She resembles the men who (’tis fabled)

Tumble into the Packingtown vats,

Who are boiled there, and bottled, and labelled

For the tables of true democrats:

Pickled souls who are canned for the public to buy,

And (like her) have a finger in every pie!

   

With a step that is silent and stealthy,

Or an earsplitting clamor and noise,

She disturbs the repose of the wealthy,

Or the peace which the pauper enjoys.

And, however securely the doors may be shut,

She can always gain access to palace or hut.

   

Where the spinsters at tea are collected,

Her arrival is hailed with delight;

She is welcomed, adored, and respected

In each newspaper office at night;

For her presence imprints an original seal

On an otherwise commonplace journal or meal.

   

She has nothing in common with Virtue,

And with Truth she was never allied;

If she hasn’t yet managed to hurt you,

It can’t be from not having tried!

For the poison of adders is under her tongue,

And you’re lucky indeed, if you’ve never been stung.

   

Are you statesman, or author, or artist,

With a perfectly blameless career?

Are your talents and wits of the smartest,

And your conscience abnormally clear?

“He’s a saint!” says Dame Rumor, and smiles like the Sphinx.

“He’s a hero!” (She adds:) “What a pity he drinks!”

   

Gentle Reader, keep clear of her clutches!

O beware of her voice, I entreat!

Be you journalist, dowager duchess,

Or just merely the Man in the Street.

And I beg of you not to encourage a jade

Who, if once she is started, can never be stayed.

 

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!

 

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!

 

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!

   

Hail, Bride and Bridegroom of the West!

(Pray pardon my redundant lyre)

May your united lives be blest

With all your hearts’ desire!

Accept the warm felicitations

Of fond, if distant, blood-relations!

 

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?

   

Ah, lonely is the Author’s lot!

Assuming, if he hath it not,

A suitable humility.

For when his daily work is done,

He must inevitably shun

The homes of the Nobility,

As, with dejected steps, he passes

To supper with the middle classes!

 

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 bombazine2;

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!

   

Enclose thy larynx in a stock

(As though afflicted with the fever);

And in the place of “billycock”

Procure a bristling “beaver”;

And practise, not I hope in vain,

The “conduct of a clouded cane.”

   

If thou consentest thus to act,

In scorn of popular convention,

Thy bearing shall indeed attract

Much feminine attention;

As day by day, in brilliant hue,

Thy figure fills Fifth Avenue.

 

“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.

   

O the tumult! The tumbling of tables!

O the stress of the scene that succeeds!

O the stir on the stairs, – in the stables!

O the stamping and saddling of steeds!

But the bride has eluded them surely;

In the room of some kind Registrar,

She is now being wedded securely

To Young Lochinvar!

 

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:

   

With pen and ink

In close propinq:

The Poet, lucky fell:!

Avoiding troub:

May give his pub:

The cred: for some intell:

And like an orph:

In pose recumb:

In arms of Morph:

Securely slumb:

   

Let corks explode:

With brand: and sod:

Ye wearers of the mot:!

Decant the cham:

(What matt: the dam:?)

And empt: the flowing bott:!

And ne’er surren:

The Laureate’s palm,

His haunch of ven:

And butt of Malm:!

 

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!

 

1

“As us” is not grammar. – Publishers’ Reader. “As we” is not verse. – H. G.

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2

Impossible. – Publishers’ Reader.

These ones were. – H. G.

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3

“Till the cows come home”: an old English saying, denoting eternity.

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