Pent in a wheaten cell’?”
“Why, yes,” the old man said: “that phrase
Would answer very well.
“Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word —
As well as Harvey’s Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird —
Of these, ‘wild,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘weary,’ ‘strange,’
Are much to be preferred.”
“And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump —
As ‘the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump’?”
“Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.
“Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!
“Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im-
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.
“Therefore, to test his patience —
How much he can endure —
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.
“First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with ‘Padding’
(Beg some of any friend):
Your great Sensation-stanza
You place towards the end.”
“And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
‘Exempli gratiâ.’”
And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said “Go to the Adelphi,
And see the ‘Colleen Bawn.’
“The word is due to Boucicault —
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don’t know what it is.
“Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow – ”
“And then,” his grandson added,
“We’ll publish it, you know:
Green cloth – gold-lettered at the back —
In duodecimo!”
Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad —
But, when he thought of publishing,
His face grew stern and sad.
SIZE AND TEARS
When on the sandy shore I sit,
Beside the salt sea-wave,
And fall into a weeping fit
Because I dare not shave —
A little whisper at my ear
Enquires the reason of my fear.
I answer “If that ruffian Jones
Should recognise me here,
He’d bellow out my name in tones
Offensive to the ear:
He chaffs me so on being stout
(A thing that always puts me out).”
Ah me! I see him on the cliff!
Farewell, farewell to hope,
If he should look this way, and if