Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
Page 18
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?
XI
I did look, sharp as a lynx,
(And yet the memory rankles)
When models arrived, some minx
Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles.
XII
But I think I gave you as good!
‘That foreign fellow, – who can know
How she pays, in a playful mood,
For his tuning her that piano?’
XIII
[50] Could you say so, and never say
‘Suppose we join hands and fortunes,
And I fetch her from over the way,
Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes?’
XIV
No, no: you would not be rash,
Nor I rasher and something over:
You’ve to settle yet Gibson’s hash,
And Grisi yet lives in clover.
XV
But you meet the Prince at the Board,
I’m queen myself at bals-paré,
[60] I’ve married a rich old lord,
And you’re dubbed knight and an R.A.
XVI
Each life unfulfilled, you see;
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy:
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired, – been happy.
XVII
And nobody calls you a dunce,
And people suppose me clever:
This could but have happened once,
And we missed it, lost it for ever.
A Likeness
Some people hang portraits up
In a room where they dine or sup:
And the wife clinks tea-things under,
And her cousin, he stirs his cup,
Asks, ‘Who was the lady, I wonder?’
‘’Tis a daub John bought at a sale,’
Quoth the wife, – looks black as thunder:
‘What a shade beneath her nose!
Snuff-taking, I suppose, –’
[10] Adds the cousin, while John’s corns ail.
Or else, there’s no wife in the case,
But the portrait’s queen of the place,
Alone ’mid the other spoils
Of youth, – masks, gloves and foils,
And pipe-sticks, rose, cherry-tree, jasmine,
And the long whip, the tandem-lasher,
And the cast from a fist (‘not, alas! mine,
But my master’s, the Tipton Slasher’),
And the cards where pistol-balls mark ace,
[20] And a satin shoe used for cigar-case,
And the chamois-horns (‘shot in the Chablais’)
And prints – Rarey drumming on Cruiser,
And Sayers, our champion, the bruiser,
And the little edition of Rabelais:
Where a friend, with both hands in his pockets,
May saunter up close to examine it,
And remark a good deal of Jane Lamb in it,
‘But the eyes are half out of their sockets;
That hair’s not so bad, where the gloss is,
[30] But they’ve made the girl’s nose a proboscis:
Jane Lamb, that we danced with at Vichy!
What, is not she Jane? Then, who is she?’
All that I own is a print,
An etching, a mezzotint;
’Tis a study, a fancy, a fiction,
Yet a fact (take my conviction)
Because it has more than a hint
Of a certain face, I never
Saw elsewhere touch or trace of
[40] In women I’ve seen the face of:
Just an etching, and, so far, clever.
I keep my prints, an imbroglio,
Fifty in one portfolio.
When somebody tries my claret,
We turn round chairs to the fire,
Chirp over days in a garret,
Chuckle o’er increase of salary,
Taste the good fruits of our leisure,
Talk about pencil and lyre,
[50] And the National Portrait Gallery:
Then I exhibit my treasure.
After we’ve turned over twenty,
And the debt of wonder my crony owes
Is paid to my Marc Antonios,
He stops me – ‘Festina lentè!
What’s that sweet thing there, the etching?’
How my waistcoat-strings want stretching,
How my cheeks grow red as tomatoes,
How my heart leaps! But hearts, after leaps, ache.
[60] ‘By the by, you must take, for a keepsake,
That other, you praised, of Volpato’s.’
The fool! would he try a flight further and say –
He never saw, never before today,
What was able to take his breath away,
A face to lose youth for, to occupy age
With the dream of, meet death with, – why, I’ll not engage
But that, half in a rapture and half in a rage,
I should toss him the thing’s self – ‘’Tis only a duplicate,
A thing of no value! Take it, I supplicate!’
Mr Sludge, ‘The Medium’
Now, don’t, sir! Don’t expose me! Just this once!
This was the first and only time, I’ll swear, –
Look at me, – see, I kneel, – the only time,
I swear, I ever cheated, – yes, by the soul
Of Her who hears – (your sainted mother, sir!)
All, except this last accident, was truth –
This little kind of slip! – and even this,
It was your own wine, sir, the good champagne,
(I took it for Catawba, you’re so kind)
[10] Which put the folly in my head!
‘Get up?’
You still inflict on me that terrible face?
You show no mercy? – Not for Her dear sake,
The sainted spirit’s, whose soft breath even now
Blows on my cheek – (don’t you feel something, sir?)
You’ll tell?
Go tell, then! Who the devil cares
What such a rowdy chooses to …
Aie – aie – aie!
Please, sir! your thumbs are through my windpipe, sir!
Ch-ch!
Well, sir, I hope you’ve done it now!
Oh Lord! I little thought, sir, yesterday,
[20] When your departed mother spoke those words
Of peace through me, and moved you, sir, so much,
You gave me – (very kind it was of you)
These shirt-studs – (better take them back again,
Please, sir) – yes, little did I think so soon
A trifle of trick, all through a glass too much
Of his own champagne, would change my best of friends
Into an angry gentleman!
Though, ’twas wrong.
I don’t contest the point; your anger’s just:
Whatever put such folly in my head,
[30] I know ’twas wicked of me. There’s a thick
Dusk undeveloped spirit (I’ve observed)
Owes me a grudge – a negro’s, I should say,
Or else an Irish emigrant’s; yourself
Explained the case so well last Sunday, sir,
When we had summoned Franklin to clear up
A point about those shares i’ the telegraph:
Ay, and he swore … or might it be Tom Paine? …
Thumping the table close by where I crouched,
He’d do me soon a mischief: that’s come true!
[40] Why, now your face clears! I was sure it would!
Then, this one time … don’t take your hand away,
Through yours I surely kiss your mother’s hand …
You’ll promise to forgive me? – or, at least,
Tell nobody of this? Consider, sir!
What harm can mercy do? Would but the shade
Of the venerable dead-one just vouchsafe
Suppose we take a pencil, let her write,
Make the least sign, she urges on her child
[50] Forgiveness? There now! Eh? Oh! ’Twas your foot,
And not a natural creak, sir?
Answer, then!
Once, twice, thrice … see, I’m waiting to say ‘thrice!’
All to no use? No sort of hope for me?
It’s all to post to Greeley’s newspaper?
What? If I told you all about the tricks?
Upon my soul! – the whole truth, and naught else,
And how there’s been some falsehood – for your part,
Will you engage to pay my passage out,
And hold your tongue until I’m safe on board?
[60] England’s the place, not Boston – no offence!
I see what makes you hesitate: don’t fear!
I mean to change my trade and cheat no more,
Yes, this time really it’s upon my soul!
Be my salvation! – under Heaven, of course.
I’ll tell some queer things. Sixty Vs must do.
A trifle, though, to start with! We’ll refer
The question to this table?
How you’re changed!
Then split the difference; thirty more, we’ll say.
Ay, but you leave my presents! Else I’ll swear
[70] ’Twas all through those: you wanted yours again,
So, picked a quarrel with me, to get them back!
Tread on a worm, it turns, sir! If I turn,
Your fault! ’Tis you’ll have forced me! Who’s obliged
To give up life yet try no self-defence?
At all events, I’ll run the risk. Eh?
Done!
May I sit, sir? This dear old table, now!
Please, sir, a parting egg-nog and cigar!
I’ve been so happy with you! Nice stuffed chairs,
And sympathetic sideboards; what an end
[80] To all the instructive evenings! (It’s alight.)
Well, nothing lasts, as Bacon came and said.
Here goes, – but keep your temper, or I’ll scream!
Fol-lol-the-rido-liddle-iddle-ol!
You see, sir, it’s your own fault more than mine;
It’s all your fault, you curious gentlefolk!
You’re prigs, – excuse me, – like to look so spry,
So clever, while you cling by half a claw
To the perch whereon you puff yourselves at roost,
Such piece of self-conceit as serves for perch
[90] Because you chose it, so it must be safe.
Oh, otherwise you’re sharp enough! You spy
Who slips, who slides, who holds by help of wing,
Wanting real foothold, – who can’t keep upright
On the other perch, your neighbour chose, not you:
There’s no outwitting you respecting him!
For instance, men love money – that, you know
And what men do to gain it: well, suppose
A poor lad, say a help’s son in your house,
Listening at keyholes, hears the company
[100] Talk grand of dollars, V-notes, and so forth,
How hard they are to get, how good to hold,
How much they buy, – if, suddenly, in pops he –
‘I’ve got a V-note!’ – what do you say to him?
What’s your first word which follows your last kick?
‘Where did you steal it, rascal?’ That’s because
He finds you, fain would fool you, off your perch,
Not on the special piece of nonsense, sir,
Elected your parade-ground: let him try
Lies to the end of the list, – ‘He picked it up,
[110] His cousin died and left it him by will,
The President flung it to him, riding by,
An actress trucked it for a curl of his hair,
He dreamed of luck and found his shoe enriched,
He dug up clay, and out of clay made gold’ –
How would you treat such possibilities?
Would not you, prompt, investigate the case
With cow-hide? ‘Lies, lies, lies,’you’d shout: and why?
Which of the stories might not prove mere truth?
This last, perhaps, that clay was turned to coin!
[120] Let’s see, now, give him me to speak for him!
How many of your rare philosophers,
In plaguy books I’ve had to dip into,
Believed gold could be made thus, saw it made
And made it? Oh, with such philosophers
You’re on your best behaviour! While the lad –
With him, in a trice, you settle likelihoods,
Nor doubt a moment how he got his prize:
In his case, you hear, judge and execute,
All in a breath: so would most men of sense.
[130] But let the same lad hear you talk as grand
At the same keyhole, you and company,
Of signs and wonders, the invisible world;
How wisdom scouts our vulgar unbelief
More than our vulgarest credulity;
How good men have desired to see a ghost,
What Johnson used to say, what Wesley did,
Mother Goose thought, and fiddle-diddle-dee: –
If he break in with, ‘Sir, I saw a ghost!’
Ah, the ways change! He finds you perched and prim;
[140] It’s a conceit of yours that ghosts may be:
There’s no talk now of cow-hide. ‘Tell it out!
Don’t fear us! Take your time and recollect!
Sit down first: try a glass of wine, my boy!
And, David, (is not that your Christian name?)
Of all things, should this happen twice – it may –
Be sure, while fresh in mind, you let us know!’
Does the boy blunder, blurt out this, blab that,
Break down in the other, as beginners will?
All’s candour, all’s considerateness – ‘No haste!
[150] Pause and collect yourself! We understand!
That’s the bad memory, or the natural shock,
Or the unexplained phenomena!’
Egad,
The boy takes heart of grace; finds, never fear,
The readiest way to ope your own heart wide,
Show – what I call your peacock-perch, pet post
To strut, and spread the tail, and squawk upon!
‘Just as you thought, much as you might expect!
There be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’ …
And so on. Shall not David take the hint,
[160] Grow bolder, stroke you down at quickened rate?
If he ruffle a feather, it’s ‘Gently, patiently!
Manifestations are so weak at first!
Doubting, moreover, kills them, cuts all short,
Cures with a vengeance!’
There, sir, that’s your style!
You and your boy – such pains bestowed on him,
Or any headpiece of the average worth,
To teach, say, Greek, would perfect him apace,
Make him a Person (‘Person?’ thank you, sir!)
Much more, proficient in the art of lies.
[170] You never leave the lesson! Fire alight,
Catch you permitting it to die! You’ve friends;
There’s no withholding knowledge, – least from those
Apt to look elsewhere for their souls’ supply:
Why should not you parade your lawful prize?
Who finds a picture, digs a medal up,
Hits on a first edition, – he henceforth
Gives it his name, grows notable: how much more,
Who ferrets out a ‘medium’? ‘David’s yours,
You highly-favoured man? Then, pity souls
[180] Less privileged! Allow us share your luck!’
; So, David holds the circle, rules the roast,
Narrates the vision, peeps in the glass ball,
Sets-to the spirit-writing, hears the raps,
As the case may be.
Now mark! To be precise –
Though I say, ‘lies’ all these, at this first stage,
’Tis just for science’ sake: I call such grubs
By the name of what they’ll turn to, dragonflies.
Strictly, it’s what good people style untruth;
But yet, so far, not quite the full-grown thing:
[190] It’s fancying, fable-making, nonsense-work –
What never meant to be so very bad –
The knack of story-telling, brightening up
Each dull old bit of fact that drops its shine.
One does see somewhat when one shuts one’s eyes,
If only spots and streaks; tables do tip
In the oddest way of themselves: and pens, good Lord,
Who knows if you drive them or they drive you?
’Tis but a foot in the water and out again;
Not that duck-under which decides your dive.
[200] Note this, for it’s important: listen why.
I’ll prove, you push on David till he dives
And ends the shivering. Here’s your circle, now:
Two-thirds of them, with heads like you their host,
Turn up their eyes, and cry, as you expect,
‘Lord, who’d have thought it!’ But there’s always one
Looks wise, compassionately smiles, submits
‘Of your veracity no kind of doubt,
But – do you feel so certain of that boy’s?
Really, I wonder! I confess myself
[210] More chary of my faith!’ That’s galling, sir!
What, he the investigator, he the sage,
When all’s done? Then, you just have shut your eyes,
Opened your mouth, and gulped down David whole,
You! Terrible were such catastrophe!
So, evidence is redoubled, doubled again,
And doubled besides; once more, ‘He heard, we heard,
You and they heard, your mother and your wife,
Your children and the stranger in your gates:
Did they or did they not?’ So much for him,
[220] The black sheep, guest without the wedding-garb,
The doubting Thomas! Now’s your turn to crow:
‘He’s kind to think you such a fool: Sludge cheats?
Leave you alone to take precautions!’
Straight
The rest join chorus. Thomas stands abashed,
Sips silent some such beverage as this,
Considers if it be harder, shutting eyes
And gulping David in good fellowship,
Than going elsewhere, getting, in exchange,
With no egg-nog to lubricate the food,