Lady, canst thou not guess

The words which my thoughts seek?
Perhaps thou deem'st them well to spurn
And better not to speak.

Oh thou must know my love is strong,
Hearing my voice so weak.

Lady, ah go not thus:

Lady, give ear again :

Lady, oh learn from me that yet
There may one thing remain

Which stands not in the knowledge thou hast
And in thy lore of men.

Lady, the darkness lasteth long

Ere the dawn touch the skies;
Many are the leagues of wilderness

Till ye come where the green lies;
Nay often betwixt doubt and doubt
Death whispers and makes wise.

Lady, has not my thought

Dared much? For I would be
The ending of darkness and the dawn
Of a new day to thee,

And thine oasis, and thy place of rest,
And thy time of peace, lady.

ON BROWNING'S SORDELLO

"SORDELLO's story," the Sphinx yawned and said, "Who would has heard." Is that enough? Who could, 'Twere not amiss to add, has understood :

Who understood perhaps has profited.

For my part I could tell a tale instead

Of one who, dreaming of no likelihood

Even that the Book was going to end for good, Turned the last page, and lo the book was read.

*

THE CAN-CAN AT VALENTINO'S

(N.B.-The numerical characteristics refer to the danseuses.)
THE first, a mare; the second, 'twixt bow-wow
And pussy-cat, a cross; the third, a beast
To baffle Buffon; the fourth, not the least
In hideousness, nor last; the fifth, a cow;
The sixth, Chimera; the seventh, Sphinx ;

Come now,

One woman, France, ere this frog-hop have ceased,
And it shall be enough. A toothsome feast
Of blackguardism . . and bald row,

For me,

No doubt for such as love those same.
I confess, William, and avow to thee,
(Soft in thine ear) that such sweet female whims

*

Are not a passion of mine naturally.

*

*

AT THE STATION OF THE VERSAILLES RAILWAY

I WAITED for the train unto Versailles.

I hung with bonnes and gamins on the bridge

Watching the gravelled road where, ridge with ridge,
Under black arches gleam the iron rails

Clear in the darkness, till the darkness fails
And they press on to light again-again
To reach the dark. I waited for the train
Unto Versailles; I leaned over the bridge,
And wondered, cold and drowsy, why the knave
Claude is in worship; and why (sense apart)
Rubens preferred a mustard vehicle.

The wind veered short. I turned upon my heel
Saying, Correggio was a toad"; then gave
Three dizzy yawns, and knew not of the Art.

L'ENVOI: BRUSSELS, HÔTEL DU MIDI
18 October

It's copied out at last: very poor stuff
Writ in the cold, with pauses of the cramp.
Direct, dear William, to the Poste Restante
At Ghent-here written Gand-Gong, Hunticè.
We go to Antwerp first, but shall not stay;
After, to Ghent and Bruges; and after that
To Ostend, and thence home. To Waterloo
Was yesterday. Thither, and there, and back,
I managed to scrawl something,-most of it
Bad, and the sonnet at the close mere slosh.
'Twas only made because I was knocked up,
And it helped yawning. Take it, and the rest.

SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS (ANTWERP)

Messieurs, le Dieu des peintres": We felt odd :
'Twas Rubens, sculptured. A mean florid church
Was the next thing we saw,-from vane to porch
His drivel. The museum: as we trod
Its steps, his bust held us at bay. The clod
Has slosh by miles along the wall within.
("I say, I somehow feel my gorge begin
To rise.")-His chair in a glass case, by God!
To the Cathedral. Here too the vile snob
Has fouled in every corner. ("Wherefore brave
Our fate? Let's go.") There is a monument
We pass.
"Messieurs, you tread upon the grave
Of the great Rubens." Well, that's one good job!
What time this evening is the train for Ghent?"

...

BETWEEN GHENT AND BRUGES

(Wednesday night, 24 October)

Ан yes, exactly so; but when a man

Has trundled out of England into France

And half through Belgium, always in this prance Of steam, and still has stuck to his first plan

Blank verse or sonnets; and as he began

Would end;-why, even the blankest verse may chance

To falter in default of circumstance,

And even the sonnet miss its mystic span.

Trees will be trees, grass grass, pools merely pools,

Unto the end of time and Belgium-points

Of fact which Poets (very abject fools)

Get scent of once their epithets grown tame
And scarce. Even to these foreign rails-my joints
Begin to find their jolting much the same.

VERSES TO JOHN TUPPER

DEAR Jack

Alack!

A few days back

I bound myself by oath to smack
My lips o'er sloshy tea, and attack
White, brown, or black

Bread, and vile jokes to crack,

This night with brutes whose knack
Would squeeze a pun in Syriac.
And for to-morrow, alack!

I have a model on my track,

So that I may not pack.

Of course I writhe upon the rack:

Though as to NATURE, Jack,

(Poor dear old hack !)

Touching sky, sun, stone, stick, and stack,

I guess I'm half a quack;

For whom ten lines of Browning whack
The whole of the Zodiac.

Nevertheless, alack!

Seeing this time I must send back

To Prince and Baron, Stephens and Jack

(Spec-cadav Rex, hic hæc hoc hac),

And to the Maniac,

The SACK.

This much from D. G. R. (in black,

I.e., with coal-ash cloth-of-sack.)

ST. WAGNES' EVE

THE hop-shop is shut up the night doth wear.
Here, early, Collinson this evening fell
"Into the gulfs of sleep"; and Deverell
Has turned upon the pivot of his chair

The whole of this night long; and Hancock there
Has laboured to repeat, in accents screechy,

;

Guardami ben, ben son, ben son Beatrice
And Bernhard Smith still beamed, serene and square.
By eight, the coffee was all drunk. At nine

We gave the cat some milk. Our talk did shelve,
Ere ten, to gasps and stupor. Helpless grief

Made, towards eleven, my inmost spirit pine,

Knowing North's hour. And Hancock, hard on twelve,
Showed an engraving of his bas-relief.

"
PARODY ON UNCLE NED"

DERE was an old nigger, and him name was Uncle Tom,
And him tale was rather slow;

Me try to read de whole, but me only read some,
Because me found it no go.

Den hang up de auther Mrs. Stowe,

And kick de volume wid your toe

And dere's no more public for poor Uncle Tom,
He am gone whar de trunk-lining go.

Him tale dribbles on and on widout a break,

Till you hab no eyes for to see;

When I reached Chapter 4 I had got a headache,
So I had to let Chapter 4 be.

Den hang up, etc.

De demand one fine morning for Uncle Tom died,

De tears down Mrs. Stowe's face ran like rain;

For she knew berry well, now dey'd laid him on de shelf, Dat she'd neber get a publisher again.

Den hang up, etc.

DUNS SCOTUS

HERE lies Duns Scotus
Who died of lotus.

MACCRACKEN

(Parody on Tennyson's " Kraken ")

GETTING his pictures, like his supper, cheap,
Far, far away in Belfast by the sea,
His watchful one-eyed uninvaded sleep
MacCracken sleepeth. While the P.R.B.
Must keep the shady side, he walks a swell
Through spungings of perennial growth and height:
And far away in Belfast out of sight,

By many an open do and secret sell,

Fresh daubers he makes shift to scarify,

And fleece with pliant shears the slumbering "green." There he has lied, though aged, and will lie,

Fattening on ill-got pictures in his sleep,

Till some Præraphael prove for him too deep.

Then, once by Hunt and Ruskin to be seen,

Insolvent he will turn, and in the Queen's Bench die.

VALENTINE-TO LIZZIE SIDDAL

YESTERDAY was St. Valentine.
Thought you at all, dear dove divine,
Upon the beard in sorry trim
And rueful countenance of him,
That Orson who's your Valentine?

He daubed, you know, as usual.

The stick would slip, the brush would fall:
Yet daubed he till the lamplighter
Set those two seedy flames astir ;
But growled all day at slow St. Paul.

The bore was heard ere noon; the dun
Was at the door by half-past one:

At least 'tis thought so, but the clock-
No Lizzy there to help its stroke-
Struck work before the day begun.

At length he saw St. Paul's bright orb
Flash back-the serried tide absorb

That burning West which it sucked up,
Like wine poured in a water cup ;-
And one more twilight toned his daub.

Some time over the fire he sat,
So lonely that he missed his cat;

Then wildly rushed to dine on tick,—
Nine minutes swearing for his stick,
And thirteen minutes for his hat.