[Illustration]

Proem.

Tan-ta-ra-ra-ra-ra! The trumpets blare!  The rival Bards, wild-eyed, with windblown hair, And close-hugged harps, advance with fire-winged feet For the green Laureate Laurels to compete; The laurels vacant from the brows of him In whose fine light all lesser lustres dim.  Tourney of Troubadours!  The laurels lie On crimson velvet cushion couched on high, Whilst Punch, Lord-Warden of his country’s fame, Attends the strains to hear, the victor-bard to name.

  And first advances, as by right supreme,
  With frosted locks adrift, and eyes a-dream,
  With quick short footfalls, and an arm a-swing,
  As to some cosmic rhythm heard to ring
  From Putney to Parnassus, a brief bard. 
  (In stature, not in song!) Though passion-scarred,
  Porphyrogenitus at least he looks;
  Haughty as one who rivalry scarce brooks;
  Unreminiscent now of youthful rage,
  Almost “respectable,” and well-nigh sage,
  Dame GRUNDY owns her once redoubted foe,
  Whose polished paganry’s erotic flow,
  And red anarchic wrath ’gainst priests, and kings,
  The virtues, and most other “proper” things,
  Once drew her frown where now her smile’s bestowed. 
  Such is the power of timely palinode! 
  Soft twanged his lyre and loud his voice outrang,
  As the first Bard this moving measure sang:—­

ON THE BAYS.

(To the tune—­more or less—­of “In the Bay.")

I.

  Beyond the bellowing onset of base war,
  Their latest wearer wendeth!  With wild zest. 
  Fulfilled of windy resonance, the rest
  Of the bard-mob must hotly joust and jar
  To win the wreath that he beyond the bar
  Bare not away athwart the bland sea’s breast.

II.

  And sooth the soft sheen of that deathless bay
  Gleams glamorous!  Amorous was I in my day,
  Clamorous were Gath’s goose-critics.  But my fire,
  Chastened from To-phet-fumes, burns purer, higher;
  My thoughts on courtier-wings might make their way
  Did my brow bear the laurels all these desire.

III.

  For I, to the proprieties reconciled. 
  Who hymned Dolores, sing the “weanling child.” 
  At “home-made treacle” I made mocking mirth;
  That was before my better self had birth. 
  At virtue’s lilies and languors then I smiled,
  But Hertha’s not thine only goddess, O Earth!

IV.

  For surely brother, and master, and lord, and king,
  Though vice’s roses and raptures did not spring
  In thy poetic garden’s trim parterre;
  Though thou wert fond of sunshine and sweet air,
  More than of kisses, that burn, and bite, and sting;
  Some living love our England for thee bare.