A Satire Anthology

To save your life, you’d better heed
The Ethical Expansionist!

    Hilda Johnson.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON AT THE BOSTON SYMPHONY HALL

SINCE Bach so well his clavier tuned, since Palestrina wrote his Masses,
Since Modes Ecclesiastical began to puzzle music-classes,
All Anglo-Saxondom has tried, by teaching of its lads and lasses,
The gift of Orpheus to acquire,
Whilst substituting for his lyre
The concert-room’s imposing choir – string-orchestra, wood, wind, and brasses.

Hallé in Free Trade Hall I heard when first I took the music craze on;
Later, in Sydney, New South Wales, I listened to Roberto Hazon;
Berlin’s “Philharmonie,” which plays the winter through alternate days on,
Took my spare cash from time to time,
And I may add, for sake of rhyme,
Richter at Bradford, quite sublime! Pauer and Colonne in the Saison.

Lest I should make the list too short, and show a lack of erudition,
I’d better mention Cowan, who ruled at the Melbourne Exhibition,
Villiers Stanford, Auguste Mannés, and Thomas, whose keen intuition
Carried him westward from New York
To the Metropolis of Pork,
Where, thanks to his devoted work, Beethoven found superb rendition.

All these I’ve heard, and others, too – poor Seidl, who has talked with Charon;
Nikisch, whose eager gestures make it difficult to keep your hair on;
Then there’s a chap whose name I’ve lost (I think he wrote “The Rose of Sharon”);
Wood, of Queen’s Hall, in London Town;
Strauss, for his programme-music known;
Dozens whose brains the genius own that’s common to the seed of Aaron.

But if good music is the thing your inmost soul would fain get fat on,
Avoid, I pray, good Boston town, where, though no male may keep his hat on,
The ladies talk the whole show through, and you will certainly be sat on
If you protest, for they will say
“We have the right to, if we pay
Each for a seat, and chat away in time with the conductor’s baton.”

Oft that October day I see – delightful month, June’s elder sister;
The splendid Hall was opened, and a poem read by Owen Wister
(So kind the Muse, ’twas plain to see in Philadelphia he had kissed her).
Missa Solennis, then, in B,
Proud to be in such company
Of fair-clad girls, and panoply of bright new paint without a blister.

Nowhere on this broad earth, I grant, is music played to such perfection;
Even strict Apthorp will admit that false notes are a rare exception;
But what avail such wond’rous play, when to the Hall for friend’s inspection
Each lady takes some little thing —
New-purchased pocket-book, or ring —
Or in loud voice the matrons sing the dangers of small-pox infection.

To Mendelssohn’s Scotch Symphony I’ve heard of Johnny’s scarlet fever;
Bizet’s Arlesienne Suites I link with Kate’s sore throat that wouldn’t leave her;
Oft to Wagnerian strains I’ve heard eager dispute of seal and beaver,
To clasp fair Mabel’s dainty throat,
Or make for Madge a winter coat,
As seen on transatlantic boat, from Messrs. Robinson and Cleaver.

Pray do not think that Boston girls all talk such feeble stuff as this is;
To Glazounoff’s inspiring notes they’ll quote from Phillips’s “Ulysses”;
To Massenet’s caressing phrase admire Burne-Jones’s long-necked misses;
Ask what of Ibsen you may think,
Of Nietzsche or of Maeterlinck,
And tell, to score of Humperdink, Buddha’s most esoteric blisses.

A concert it is hard to turn into a conversazione,
Except with consequences which would make the softest heart quite stony,
Unless ’tis done in restaurant where foreigners eat macaroni,
And greasy dago tips a stave,
Or where the blue Atlantic wave,
While pallid shop-girls misbehave, doth cool the verdant Isle of Coney.

Forgive me if I criticise; I love you none the less, Priscilla,
And when the concert’s o’er, we’ll go where Huyler serves his best vanilla;
Talk as you will, I love you still; I’d live with you in flat or villa,
For never, never you’d commit
A split infinitive, and it
Is certain you would not omit in proper place the French cedilla.

    Faulkner Armytage.

WAR IS KIND

DO not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands towards the sky,
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom —
A field where a thousand corpses lie.