XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

ENVOY

Ghosts, at your Poet’s word ye dare
To break Death’s dungeons through,
And frisk, as in that golden air,
When these Old Plays were new!

BALLADE OF HIS BOOKS

Here stand my books, line upon line
They reach the roof, and row by row,
They speak of faded tastes of mine,
And things I did, but do not, know:
Old school books, useless long ago,
Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in,
Could scarcely answer “yes” or “no” —
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!

Here’s Villon, in morocco fine,
(The Poet starved, in mud and snow,)
Glatigny does not crave to dine,
And René’s tears forget to flow.
And here’s a work by Mrs. Crowe,
With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in;
Ah, all my ghosts have gone below —
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!

He’s touched, this mouldy Greek divine,
The Princess D’Este’s hand of snow;
And here the arms of D’Hoym shine,
And there’s a tear-bestained Rousseau:
Here’s Carlyle shrieking “woe on woe”
(The first edition, this, he wailed in);
I once believed in him – but oh,
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!

ENVOY

Prince, tastes may differ; mine and thine
Quite other balances are scaled in;
May you succeed, though I repine —
“The many things I’ve tried and failed in!”

BALLADE OF ÆSTHETIC ADJECTIVES

There be “subtle” and “sweet,” that are bad ones to beat,
There are “lives unlovely,” and “souls astray;”
There is much to be done yet with “moody” and “meet,”
And “ghastly,” and “grimly,” and “gaunt,” and “grey;”
We should ever be “blithesome,” but never be gay,
And “splendid” is suited to “summer” and “sea;”
“Consummate,” they say, is enjoying its day, —
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!

The Snows and the Rose they are “windy” and “fleet,”
And “frantic” and “faint” are Delight and Dismay;
Yea, “sanguine,” it seems, as the juice of the beet,
Are “the hands of the King” in a general way:
There be loves that quicken, and sicken, and slay;
“Supreme” is the song of the Bard of the free;
But of adjectives all that I name in my lay,
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!

The Matron intense – let us sit at her feet,
And pelt her with lilies as long as we may;
The Maiden intense – is not always discreet;
But the Singer intense, in his “singing array,”
Will win all the world with his roundelay:
While “blithe” birds carol from tree to tree,
And Art unto Nature doth simper, and say, —
“‘Intense’ is the adjective dearest to me!”

ENVOY

Prince, it is surely as good as a play
To mark how the poets and painters agree;
But of plumage æsthetic that feathers the jay,
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!

BALLADE OF THE PLEASED BARD

They call me “dull,” “affected,” “tame;”
My Muse “has neither voice nor wing;”
My prose (though lucrative) is “lame,”
My satires, “wasps without the sting.”
The Critic thus – Opprobrious thing! —
No more I heed or hear his chaff,
Nor note the ink that he may sling —
A Lady wants my autograph!

All heedless of the common blame,
My muse her random rhymes will string;
The Boers may shoot, the Irish “schame,”
The world and all its woes go swing!
My heart has ceased from sorrowing,
I grasp Apollo’s laurell’d staff,
And cry aloud, like anything, —
A Lady wants my autograph!