Phantasmagoria and Other Poems

CANTO VII

Sad Souvenaunce

“What’s this?” I pondered.  “Have I slept?      Or can I have been drinking?”But soon a gentler feeling creptUpon me, and I sat and wept      An hour or so, like winking.“No need for Bones to hurry so!”      I sobbed.  “In fact, I doubtIf it was worth his while to go —And who is Tibbs, I’d like to know,      To make such work about?“If Tibbs is anything like me,      It’s possible,” I said,“He won’t be over-pleased to beDropped in upon at half-past three,      After he’s snug in bed.“And if Bones plagues him anyhow —      Squeaking and all the rest of it,As he was doing here just now —I prophesy there’ll be a row,      And Tibbs will have the best of it!”Then, as my tears could never bring      The friendly Phantom back,It seemed to me the proper thingTo mix another glass, and sing      The following Coronach.‘And art thou gone, beloved Ghost?      Best of Familiars!Nay then, farewell, my duckling roast,Farewell, farewell, my tea and toast,      My meerschaum and cigars!The hues of life are dull and gray,      The sweets of life insipid,When thou, my charmer, art away—Old Brick, or rather, let me say,      Old Parallelepiped!’Instead of singing Verse the Third,      I ceased – abruptly, rather:But, after such a splendid wordI felt that it would be absurd      To try it any farther.So with a yawn I went my way      To seek the welcome downy,And slept, and dreamed till break of dayOf Poltergeist and Fetch and Fay      And Leprechaun and Brownie!For years I’ve not been visited      By any kind of Sprite;Yet still they echo in my head,Those parting words, so kindly said,      “Old Turnip-top, good-night!”

ECHOES

      Lady Clara Vere de Vere      Was eight years old, she said:Every ringlet, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden thread.      She took her little porringer:      Of me she shall not win renown:For the baseness of its nature shall have strength to drag her down.      “Sisters and brothers, little Maid?      There stands the Inspector at thy door:Like a dog, he hunts for boys who know not two and two are four.”      “Kind words are more than coronets,”      She said, and wondering looked at me:“It is the dead unhappy night, and I must hurry home to tea.”

A SEA DIRGE

There are certain things – as, a spider, a ghost,   The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three —That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most   Is a thing they call the Sea.Pour some salt water over the floor —   Ugly I’m sure you’ll allow it to be:Suppose it extended a mile or more,   That’s very like the Sea.Beat a dog till it howls outright —   Cruel, but all very well for a spree:Suppose that he did so day and night,   That would be like the Sea.I had a vision of nursery-maids;   Tens of thousands passed by me —All leading children with wooden spades,   And this was by the Sea.Who invented those spades of wood?   Who was it cut them out of the tree?None, I think, but an idiot could —   Or one that loved the Sea.It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt, to float   With ‘thoughts as boundless, and souls as free’:But, suppose you are very unwell in the boat,   How do you like the Sea?There is an insect that people avoid   (Whence is derived the verb ‘to flee’).Where have you been by it most annoyed?   In lodgings by the Sea.If you like your coffee with sand for dregs,   A decided hint of salt in your tea,And a fishy taste in the very eggs —   By all means choose the Sea.And if, with these dainties to drink and eat,   You prefer not a vestige of grass or tree,And a chronic state of wet in your feet,   Then – I recommend the Sea.For I have friends who dwell by the coast —   Pleasant friends they are to me!It is when I am with them I wonder most   That anyone likes the Sea.They take me a walk: though tired and stiff,   To climb the heights I madly agree;And, after a tumble or so from the cliff,   They kindly suggest the Sea.I try the rocks, and I think it cool   That they laugh with such an excess of glee,As I heavily slip into every pool   That skirts the cold cold Sea.

Ye Carpette Knyghte

I have a horse – a ryghte good horse —   Ne doe Y envye thoseWho scoure ye playne yn headye course   Tyll soddayne on theyre noseThey lyghte wyth unexpected force   Yt ys – a horse of clothes.I have a saddel – “Say’st thou soe?   Wyth styrruppes, Knyghte, to boote?”I sayde not that – I answere “Noe” —   Yt lacketh such, I woote:Yt ys a mutton-saddel, loe!   Parte of ye fleecye brute.I have a bytte – a ryghte good bytte —   As shall bee seene yn tyme.Ye jawe of horse yt wyll not fytte;   Yts use ys more sublyme.Fayre Syr, how deemest thou of yt?   Yt ys – thys bytte of rhyme.

HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING

[In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’ Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.]

From his shoulder HiawathaTook the camera of rosewood,Made of sliding, folding rosewood;Neatly put it all together.In its case it lay compactly,Folded into nearly nothing;But he opened out the hinges,Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,Till it looked all squares and oblongs,Like a complicated figureIn the Second Book of Euclid.This he perched upon a tripod —Crouched beneath its dusky cover —Stretched his hand, enforcing silence —Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”Mystic, awful was the process.All the family in orderSat before him for their pictures:Each in turn, as he was taken,Volunteered his own suggestions,His ingenious suggestions.First the Governor, the Father:He suggested velvet curtainsLooped about a massy pillar;And the corner of a table,Of a rosewood dining-table.He would hold a scroll of something,Hold it firmly in his left-hand;He would keep his right-hand buried(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;He would contemplate the distanceWith a look of pensive meaning,As of ducks that die ill tempests.Grand, heroic was the notion:Yet the picture failed entirely:Failed, because he moved a little,Moved, because he couldn’t help it.Next, his better half took courage;She would have her picture taken.She came dressed beyond description,Dressed in jewels and in satinFar too gorgeous for an empress.Gracefully she sat down sideways,With a simper scarcely human,Holding in her hand a bouquetRather larger than a cabbage.All the while that she was sitting,Still the lady chattered, chattered,Like a monkey in the forest.“Am I sitting still?” she asked him.“Is my face enough in profile?Shall I hold the bouquet higher?Will it came into the picture?”And the picture failed completely.Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:He suggested curves of beauty,Curves pervading all his figure,Which the eye might follow onward,Till they centered in the breast-pin,Centered in the golden breast-pin.He had learnt it all from Ruskin(Author of ‘The Stones of Venice,’‘Seven Lamps of Architecture,’‘Modern Painters,’ and some others);And perhaps he had not fullyUnderstood his author’s meaning;But, whatever was the reason,All was fruitless, as the pictureEnded in an utter failure.Next to him the eldest daughter:She suggested very little,Only asked if he would take herWith her look of ‘passive beauty.’Her idea of passive beautyWas a squinting of the left-eye,Was a drooping of the right-eye,Was a smile that went up sidewaysTo the corner of the nostrils.Hiawatha, when she asked him,Took no notice of the question,Looked as if he hadn’t heard it;But, when pointedly appealed to,Smiled in his peculiar manner,Coughed and said it ‘didn’t matter,’Bit his lip and changed the subject.Nor in this was he mistaken,As the picture failed completely.So in turn the other sisters.Last, the youngest son was taken:Very rough and thick his hair was,Very round and red his face was,Very dusty was his jacket,Very fidgety his manner.And his overbearing sistersCalled him names he disapproved of:Called him Johnny, ‘Daddy’s Darling,’Called him Jacky, ‘Scrubby School-boy.’And, so awful was the picture,In comparison the othersSeemed, to one’s bewildered fancy,To have partially succeeded.Finally my HiawathaTumbled all the tribe together,(‘Grouped’ is not the right expression),And, as happy chance would have itDid at last obtain a pictureWhere the faces all succeeded:Each came out a perfect likeness.Then they joined and all abused it,Unrestrainedly abused it,As the worst and ugliest pictureThey could possibly have dreamed of.‘Giving one such strange expressions —Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.Really any one would take us(Any one that did not know us)For the most unpleasant people!’(Hiawatha seemed to think so,Seemed to think it not unlikely).All together rang their voices,Angry, loud, discordant voices,As of dogs that howl in concert,As of cats that wail in chorus.But my Hiawatha’s patience,His politeness and his patience,Unaccountably had vanished,And he left that happy party.Neither did he leave them slowly,With the calm deliberation,The intense deliberationOf a photographic artist:But he left them in a hurry,Left them in a mighty hurry,Stating that he would not stand it,Stating in emphatic languageWhat he’d be before he’d stand it.Hurriedly he packed his boxes:Hurriedly the porter trundledOn a barrow all his boxes:Hurriedly he took his ticket:Hurriedly the train received him:Thus departed Hiawatha.

MELANCHOLETTA

With saddest music all day long   She soothed her secret sorrow:At night she sighed “I fear ’twas wrong   Such cheerful words to borrow.Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song   I’ll sing to thee to-morrow.”I thanked her, but I could not say   That I was glad to hear it:I left the house at break of day,   And did not venture near itTill time, I hoped, had worn away   Her grief, for nought could cheer it!My dismal sister!  Couldst thou know   The wretched home thou keepest!Thy brother, drowned in daily woe,   Is thankful when thou sleepest;For if I laugh, however low,   When thou’rt awake, thou weepest!I took my sister t’other day   (Excuse the slang expression)To Sadler’s Wells to see the play   In hopes the new impressionMight in her thoughts, from grave to gay   Effect some slight digression.I asked three gay young dogs from town   To join us in our folly,Whose mirth, I thought, might serve to drown   My sister’s melancholy:The lively Jones, the sportive Brown,   And Robinson the jolly.The maid announced the meal in tones   That I myself had taught her,Meant to allay my sister’s moans   Like oil on troubled water:I rushed to Jones, the lively Jones,   And begged him to escort her.Vainly he strove, with ready wit,   To joke about the weather —To ventilate the last ‘on dit’ —   To quote the price of leather —She groaned “Here I and Sorrow sit:   Let us lament together!”I urged “You’re wasting time, you know:   Delay will spoil the venison.”“My heart is wasted with my woe!   There is no rest – in Venice, onThe Bridge of Sighs!” she quoted low   From Byron and from Tennyson.I need not tell of soup and fish   In solemn silence swallowed,The sobs that ushered in each dish,   And its departure followed,Nor yet my suicidal wish   To be the cheese I hollowed.Some desperate attempts were made   To start a conversation;“Madam,” the sportive Brown essayed,   “Which kind of recreation,Hunting or fishing, have you made   Your special occupation?”Her lips curved downwards instantly,   As if of india-rubber.“Hounds in full cry I like,” said she:   (Oh how I longed to snub her!)“Of fish, a whale’s the one for me,   It is so full of blubber!”The night’s performance was “King John.”   “It’s dull,” she wept, “and so-so!”Awhile I let her tears flow on,   She said they soothed her woe so!At length the curtain rose upon   ‘Bombastes Furioso.’In vain we roared; in vain we tried   To rouse her into laughter:Her pensive glances wandered wide   From orchestra to rafter —“Tier upon tier!” she said, and sighed;   And silence followed after.

A VALENTINE

[Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see him when he came, but didn’t seem to miss him if he stayed away.]

And cannot pleasures, while they last,Be actual unless, when past,They leave us shuddering and aghast,      With anguish smarting?And cannot friends be firm and fast,      And yet bear parting?And must I then, at Friendship’s call,Calmly resign the little all(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)      I have of gladness,And lend my being to the thrall      Of gloom and sadness?And think you that I should be dumb,And full dolorum omnium,Excepting when you choose to come      And share my dinner?At other times be sour and glum      And daily thinner?Must he then only live to weep,Who’d prove his friendship true and deepBy day a lonely shadow creep,      At night-time languish,Oft raising in his broken sleep      The moan of anguish?The lover, if for certain daysHis fair one be denied his gaze,Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,      But, wiser wooer,He spends the time in writing lays,      And posts them to her.And if the verse flow free and fast,Till even the poet is aghast,A touching Valentine at last      The post shall carry,When thirteen days are gone and past      Of February.Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,In desert waste or crowded street,Perhaps before this week shall fleet,      Perhaps to-morrow.I trust to find your heart the seat      Of wasting sorrow.

THE THREE VOICES

The First Voice

He trilled a carol fresh and free,He laughed aloud for very glee:There came a breeze from off the sea:It passed athwart the glooming flat —It fanned his forehead as he sat —It lightly bore away his hat,All to the feet of one who stoodLike maid enchanted in a wood,Frowning as darkly as she could.With huge umbrella, lank and brown,Unerringly she pinned it down,Right through the centre of the crown.Then, with an aspect cold and grim,Regardless of its battered rim,She took it up and gave it him.A while like one in dreams he stood,Then faltered forth his gratitudeIn words just short of being rude:For it had lost its shape and shine,And it had cost him four-and-nine,And he was going out to dine.“To dine!” she sneered in acid tone.“To bend thy being to a boneClothed in a radiance not its own!”The tear-drop trickled to his chin:There was a meaning in her grinThat made him feel on fire within.“Term it not ‘radiance,’” said he:“’Tis solid nutriment to me.Dinner is Dinner: Tea is Tea.”And she “Yea so?  Yet wherefore cease?Let thy scant knowledge find increase.Say ‘Men are Men, and Geese are Geese.’”He moaned: he knew not what to say.The thought “That I could get away!”Strove with the thought “But I must stay.“To dine!” she shrieked in dragon-wrath.“To swallow wines all foam and froth!To simper at a table-cloth!“Say, can thy noble spirit stoopTo join the gormandising troupWho find a solace in the soup?“Canst thou desire or pie or puff?Thy well-bred manners were enough,Without such gross material stuff.”“Yet well-bred men,” he faintly said,“Are not willing to be fed:Nor are they well without the bread.”Her visage scorched him ere she spoke:“There are,” she said, “a kind of folkWho have no horror of a joke.“Such wretches live: they take their shareOf common earth and common air:We come across them here and there:“We grant them – there is no escape —A sort of semi-human shapeSuggestive of the man-like Ape.”“In all such theories,” said he,“One fixed exception there must be.That is, the Present Company.”Baffled, she gave a wolfish bark:He, aiming blindly in the dark,With random shaft had pierced the mark.She felt that her defeat was plain,Yet madly strove with might and mainTo get the upper hand again.Fixing her eyes upon the beach,As though unconscious of his speech,She said “Each gives to more than each.”He could not answer yea or nay:He faltered “Gifts may pass away.”Yet knew not what he meant to say.“If that be so,” she straight replied,“Each heart with each doth coincide.What boots it?  For the world is wide.”“The world is but a Thought,” said he:“The vast unfathomable seaIs but a Notion – unto me.”And darkly fell her answer dreadUpon his unresisting head,Like half a hundredweight of lead.“The Good and Great must ever shunThat reckless and abandoned oneWho stoops to perpetrate a pun.“The man that smokes – that reads the Times—That goes to Christmas Pantomimes —Is capable of any crimes!”He felt it was his turn to speak,And, with a shamed and crimson cheek,Moaned “This is harder than Bezique!”But when she asked him “Wherefore so?”He felt his very whiskers glow,And frankly owned “I do not know.”While, like broad waves of golden grain,Or sunlit hues on cloistered pane,His colour came and went again.Pitying his obvious distress,Yet with a tinge of bitterness,She said “The More exceeds the Less.”“A truth of such undoubted weight,”He urged, “and so extreme in date,It were superfluous to state.”Roused into sudden passion, sheIn tone of cold malignity:“To others, yea: but not to thee.”But when she saw him quail and quake,And when he urged “For pity’s sake!”Once more in gentle tones she spake.“Thought in the mind doth still abideThat is by Intellect supplied,And within that Idea doth hide:“And he, that yearns the truth to know,Still further inwardly may go,And find Idea from Notion flow:“And thus the chain, that sages sought,Is to a glorious circle wrought,For Notion hath its source in Thought.”So passed they on with even pace:Yet gradually one might traceA shadow growing on his face.

The Second Voice

They walked beside the wave-worn beach;Her tongue was very apt to teach,And now and then he did beseechShe would abate her dulcet tone,Because the talk was all her own,And he was dull as any drone.She urged “No cheese is made of chalk”:And ceaseless flowed her dreary talk,Tuned to the footfall of a walk.Her voice was very full and rich,And, when at length she asked him “Which?”It mounted to its highest pitch.He a bewildered answer gave,Drowned in the sullen moaning wave,Lost in the echoes of the cave.He answered her he knew not what:Like shaft from bow at random shot,He spoke, but she regarded not.She waited not for his reply,But with a downward leaden eyeWent on as if he were not bySound argument and grave defence,Strange questions raised on “Why?” and “Whence?”And wildly tangled evidence.When he, with racked and whirling brain,Feebly implored her to explain,She simply said it all again.Wrenched with an agony intense,He spake, neglecting Sound and Sense,And careless of all consequence:“Mind – I believe – is Essence – Ent —Abstract – that is – an Accident —Which we – that is to say – I meant – ”When, with quick breath and cheeks all flushed,At length his speech was somewhat hushed,She looked at him, and he was crushed.It needed not her calm reply:She fixed him with a stony eye,And he could neither fight nor fly.While she dissected, word by word,His speech, half guessed at and half heard,As might a cat a little bird.Then, having wholly overthrownHis views, and stripped them to the bone,Proceeded to unfold her own.“Shall Man be Man?  And shall he missOf other thoughts no thought but this,Harmonious dews of sober bliss?“What boots it?  Shall his fevered eyeThrough towering nothingness descryThe grisly phantom hurry by?“And hear dumb shrieks that fill the air;See mouths that gape, and eyes that stareAnd redden in the dusky glare?“The meadows breathing amber light,The darkness toppling from the height,The feathery train of granite Night?“Shall he, grown gray among his peers,Through the thick curtain of his tearsCatch glimpses of his earlier years,“And hear the sounds he knew of yore,Old shufflings on the sanded floor,Old knuckles tapping at the door?“Yet still before him as he fliesOne pallid form shall ever rise,And, bodying forth in glassy eyes“The vision of a vanished good,Low peering through the tangled wood,Shall freeze the current of his blood.”Still from each fact, with skill uncouthAnd savage rapture, like a toothShe wrenched some slow reluctant truth.Till, like a silent water-mill,When summer suns have dried the rill,She reached a full stop, and was still.Dead calm succeeded to the fuss,As when the loaded omnibusHas reached the railway terminus:When, for the tumult of the street,Is heard the engine’s stifled beat,The velvet tread of porters’ feet.With glance that ever sought the ground,She moved her lips without a sound,And every now and then she frowned.He gazed upon the sleeping sea,And joyed in its tranquillity,And in that silence dead, but sheTo muse a little space did seem,Then, like the echo of a dream,Harked back upon her threadbare theme.Still an attentive ear he lentBut could not fathom what she meant:She was not deep, nor eloquent.He marked the ripple on the sand:The even swaying of her handWas all that he could understand.He saw in dreams a drawing-room,Where thirteen wretches sat in gloom,Waiting – he thought he knew for whom:He saw them drooping here and there,Each feebly huddled on a chair,In attitudes of blank despair:Oysters were not more mute than they,For all their brains were pumped away,And they had nothing more to say —Save one, who groaned “Three hours are gone!”Who shrieked “We’ll wait no longer, John!Tell them to set the dinner on!”The vision passed: the ghosts were fled:He saw once more that woman dread:He heard once more the words she said.He left her, and he turned aside:He sat and watched the coming tideAcross the shores so newly dried.He wondered at the waters clear,The breeze that whispered in his ear,The billows heaving far and near,And why he had so long preferredTo hang upon her every word:“In truth,” he said, “it was absurd.”

The Third Voice

Not long this transport held its place:Within a little moment’s spaceQuick tears were raining down his faceHis heart stood still, aghast with fear;A wordless voice, nor far nor near,He seemed to hear and not to hear.“Tears kindle not the doubtful spark.If so, why not?  Of this remarkThe bearings are profoundly dark.”“Her speech,” he said, “hath caused this pain.Easier I count it to explainThe jargon of the howling main,“Or, stretched beside some babbling brook,To con, with inexpressive look,An unintelligible book.”Low spake the voice within his head,In words imagined more than said,Soundless as ghost’s intended tread:“If thou art duller than before,Why quittedst thou the voice of lore?Why not endure, expecting more?”“Rather than that,” he groaned aghast,“I’d writhe in depths of cavern vast,Some loathly vampire’s rich repast.”“’Twere hard,” it answered, “themes immenseTo coop within the narrow fenceThat rings thy scant intelligence.”“Not so,” he urged, “nor once alone:But there was something in her toneThat chilled me to the very bone.“Her style was anything but clear,And most unpleasantly severe;Her epithets were very queer.“And yet, so grand were her replies,I could not choose but deem her wise;I did not dare to criticise;“Nor did I leave her, till she wentSo deep in tangled argumentThat all my powers of thought were spent.”A little whisper inly slid,“Yet truth is truth: you know you did.”A little wink beneath the lid.And, sickened with excess of dread,Prone to the dust he bent his head,And lay like one three-quarters deadThe whisper left him – like a breezeLost in the depths of leafy trees —Left him by no means at his ease.Once more he weltered in despair,With hands, through denser-matted hair,More tightly clenched than then they were.When, bathed in Dawn of living red,Majestic frowned the mountain head,“Tell me my fault,” was all he said.When, at high Noon, the blazing skyScorched in his head each haggard eye,Then keenest rose his weary cry.And when at Eve the unpitying sunSmiled grimly on the solemn fun,“Alack,” he sighed, “what have I done?”But saddest, darkest was the sight,When the cold grasp of leaden NightDashed him to earth, and held him tight.Tortured, unaided, and alone,Thunders were silence to his groan,Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:“What?  Ever thus, in dismal round,Shall Pain and Mystery profoundPursue me like a sleepless hound,“With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,Me, still in ignorance of the cause,Unknowing what I broke of laws?”The whisper to his ear did seemLike echoed flow of silent stream,Or shadow of forgotten dream,The whisper trembling in the wind:“Her fate with thine was intertwined,”So spake it in his inner mind:“Each orbed on each a baleful star:Each proved the other’s blight and bar:Each unto each were best, most far:“Yea, each to each was worse than foe:Thou, a scared dullard, gibbering low,And she, an avalanche of woe!”