New Collected Rhymes

Beneath the daisies, there they lie!

And where is Lambert, that would get
The stumps with balls that broke astray?
And Mann, whose balls would ricochet
In almost an unholy way
(So do baseballers “pitch” to-day)
George Lear, that seldom let a bye,
And Richard Nyren, grave and gray?
Beneath the daisies, there they lie!

Tom Sueter, too, the ladies’ pet,
Brown that would bravest hearts affray;
Walker, invincible when set,
(Tom, of the spider limbs and splay);
Think ye that we could match them, pray,
These heroes of Broad-halfpenny,
With Buck to hit, and Small to stay?
Beneath the daisies, there they lie!

Envoy

Prince, canst thou moralise the lay?
How all things change below the sky!
Of Fry and Grace shall mortals say,
“Beneath the daisies, there they lie!”

Brahma

After Emerson

If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,
Or if the batsman thinks he’s bowled,
They know not, poor misguided souls,
They too shall perish unconsoled.
I am the batsman and the bat,
I am the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.

CRITICAL OF LIFE, ART, AND LITERATURE

Gainsborough Ghosts

In The Grosvenor Gallery

They smile upon the western wall,
The lips that laughed an age agone,
The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,
Le Brun that sang, and Carr that shone.
We gaze with idle eyes: we con
The faces of an elder time —
Alas! and ours is flitting on;
Oh, moral for an empty rhyme!

Think, when the tumult and the crowd
Have left the solemn rooms and chill,
When dilettanti are not loud,
When lady critics are not shrill —
Ah, think how strange upon the still
Dim air may sound these voices faint;
Once more may Johnson talk his fill
And fair Dalrymple charm the Saint!

Of us they speak as we of them,
Like us, perchance, they criticise:
Our wit, they vote, is Brummagem;
Our beauty – dim to Devon’s eyes!
Their silks and lace our cloth despise,
Their pumps – our boots that pad the mud,
What modern fop with Walpole vies?
With St. Leger what modern blood?

Ah, true, we lack the charm, the wit,
Our very greatest, sure, are small;
And Mr. Gladstone is not Pitt,
And Garrick comes not when we call.
Yet – pass an age – and, after all,
Even we may please the folk that look
When we are faces on the wall,
And voices in a history book!

In Art the statesman yet shall live,
With collars keen, with Roman nose;
To Beauty yet shall Millais give
The roses that outlast the rose:
The lords of verse, the slaves of prose,
On canvas yet shall seem alive,
And charm the mob that comes and goes,
And lives – in 1985.

A Remonstrance with the Fair

There are thoughts that the mind cannot fathom,
The mind of the animal male;
But woman abundantly hath ’em,
And mostly her notions prevail.
And why ladies read what they do read
Is a thing that no man may explain,
And if any one asks for a true rede