The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
All other sections in this Literature Study Guide are owned and copyrighted by BookRags, Inc.
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!
VERNAL VERSES
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.
AD LECTIONEM SUAM
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!”
I
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.
II
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.
III
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—
IV
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.
V
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.
VI
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.
VII
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.
VIII
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?
IX
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.
X
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—
XI
’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!
XII
’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:
XIII
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.
XIV
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”—
XV
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!
LINES TO AN OLD FRIEND
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!
SONG FOR THE NAVY LEAGUE
(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?
CHORUS
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.!
CHORUS
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!
THE LAST STRAW
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.]
SCENE: Interior of a Ladies’ College
LEADER OF THE CHORUS OF LADIES
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.
CHORUS
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.
CHORUS
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.]
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.
MUSICAL DEGREES
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!”
L’AFFAIRE (CHAPTER ONE)
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 Jugee!”
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!
THE ARREST (1881)
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!
“THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN”
(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.
THE PATRIOTS “POME” (1890)
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.
HONESTY REWARDED (1892).
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.
A NEW DEPARTURE
SHOULD IRELAND SEND HER M.P.S TO WASHINGTON?
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
kolossal!
“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.!”
BROKEN VOWS
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.
UNITED IRELAND
“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!