Nursery Rhymes à la Mode

MORE IMPRESSIONS

LA FUITE DES OIES

To outer senses they are geese,
Dull drowsing by a weedy pool;

But try the impression trick. Cool! Cool!
Snow-slumbering sentinels of Peace!

Deep silence on the shadowy flood,

Save rare sharp stridence (that means "quack "),
Low amber light in Ariel track
Athwart the dun (that means the mud).

And suddenly subsides the sun,

Bulks mystic, ghostly, thrid the gloom

(That means the white geese waddling home), And darkness reigns! (See how it's done?)

509

Oscuro Wildgoose.

NURSERY RHYMES À LA MODE

(Our nurseries will soon be too cultured to admit the old rhymes in their Philistine and unesthetic garb. They may be redressed somewhat on this model.)

OH, but she was dark and shrill,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)
The cat that (on the first April)
Played the fiddle on the lea.

Oh, and the moon was wan and bright,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

The Cow she looked nor left nor right,
But took it straight at a jump, pardie!
The hound did laugh to see this thing,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

As it was parlous wantoning,

(Ah, good my gentles, laugh not ye,)

And underneath a dreesome moon
Two lovers fled right piteouslie;
A spooney plate with a plated spoon,
(Hey-de-diddle and hey-de-dee!)

POSTSCRIPT

Then blame me not, altho' my verse

Sounds like an echo of C. S. C.

Since still they make ballads that worse and worse Savor of diddle and hey-de-dee.

Unknown.

A MAUDLE-IN BALLAD

TO HIS LILY

My lank limp lily, my long lithe lily,

My languid lily-love fragile and thin,

With dank leaves dangling and flower-flap chilly,
That shines like the shin of a Highland gilly!
Mottled and moist as a cold toad's skin!
Lustrous and leper-white, splendid and splay!
Art thou not Utter and wholly akin

To my own wan soul and my own wan chin,
And my own wan nose-tip, tilted to sway
The peacock's feather, sweeter than sin,
That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday?

My long lithe lily, my languid lily,
My lank limp lily-love, how shall I win-
Woo thee to wink at me? Silver lily,
How shall I sing to thee, softly or shrilly?

What shall I weave for thee-what shall I spin-
Rondel, or rondeau, or virelai?

Shall I buzz like a bee with my face thrust in
Thy choice, chaste chalice, or choose me a tin
Trumpet, or touchingly, tenderly play
On the weird bird-whistle, sweeter than sin,
That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday.

Gillian

My languid lily, my lank limp lily,
My long lithe lily-love, men may grin-
Say that I'm soft and supremely silly-
What care I while you whisper stilly;

511

What care I while you smile? Not a pin!
While you smile, you whisper-'Tis sweet to decay?

I have watered with chlorodine, tears of chagrin,
The churchyard mould I have planted thee in,
Upside down in an intense way,

In a rough red flower-pot, sweeter than sin,
That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday.

Unknown.

GILLIAN

JACK and Jille

I have made me an end of the moods of maidens,
I have loosed me, and leapt from the links of love;
From the kiss that cloys and desire that deadens,
The woes that madden, the words that move.
In the dim last days of a spent September,
When fruits are fallen, and flies are fain;
Before you forget, and while I remember,
I cry as I shall cry never again.

Went up a hylle

Where the strong fell faints in the lazy levels
Of misty meadows, and streams that stray;
We raised us at eve from our rosy revels,
With the faces aflame for the death of the day;
With pale lips parted, and sighs that shiver,
Low lids that cling to the last of love:

We left the levels, we left the river,

And turned us and toiled to the air above.

To fetch a paile of water,

By the sad sweet springs that have salved our sorrow,
The fates that haunt us, the grief that grips-

Where we walk not to-day nor shall walk not to

morrow

The wells of Lethe for wearied lips.
With souls nor shaken with tears nor laughter,
With limp knees loosed as of priests that pray,
We bowed us and bent to the white well-water,
We dipped and we drank it and bore away.

Jack felle downe

The low light trembled on languid lashes,

The haze of your hair on my mouth was blown, Our love flashed fierce from its fading ashes,

As night's dim net on the day was thrown. What was it meant for, or made for, that minute, But that our lives in delight should be dipt? Was it yours, or my fault, or fate's, that in it

Our frail feet faltered, our steep steps slipt.

And brake his crowne, and Jille came tumblynge after.
Our linked hands loosened and lapsed in sunder,
Love from our limbs as a shift was shed,
But paused a moment, to watch with wonder
The pale pained body, the bursten head.
While our sad souls still with regrets are riven,
While the blood burns bright on our bruised brows,
I have set you free, and I stand forgiven—
And now I had better go call my cows.

Unknown.

EXTRACTS FROM THE RUBAIYAT OF
OMAR CAYENNE

WAKE! for the Hack can scatter into flight
Shakespeare and Dante in a single Night!

The Penny-a-Liner is Abroad, and strikes
Our Modern Literature with blithering Blight.

Before Historical Romances died,

Methought a Voice from Art's Olympus cried, "When all Dumas and Scott is still for Sale, Why nod o'er drowsy Tales, by Tyros tried?"

Extracts from Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne 513

A Book of Limericks-Nonsense, anyhow-
Alice in Wonderland, the Purple Cow
Beside me singing on Fifth Avenue-
Ah, this were Modern Literature enow!

Ah, my Beloved, write the Book that clears
TO-DAY of dreary Debt and sad Arrears;

To-morrow!-Why, To-Morrow I may see
My Nonsense popular as Edward Lear's.

And we, that now within the Editor's Room
Make merry while we have our little Boom,

Ourselves must we give way to next month's Set-
Girls with Three Names, who know not Who from Whom!

As then the Poet for his morning Sup

Fills with a Metaphor his mental Cup,

Do you devoutly read your Manuscripts

That Someone may, before you burn them up!

And if the Bosh you write, the Trash you read,
End in the Garbage-Barrel-take no Heed;

Think that you are no worse than other Scribes,
Who scribble Stuff to meet the Public Need.

So, when WHO's-WHO records your silly Name,
You'll think that you have found the Road to Fame;
And though ten thousand other Names are there,

You'll fancy you're a Genius, just the Same!

Why, if an Author can fling Art aside,

And in a Book of Balderdash take pride,

Were't not a Shame-were't not a Shame for him

A Conscientious Novel to have tried?

And fear not, if the Editor refuse

Your work, he has no more from which to choose;
The Literary Microbe shall bring forth

Millions of Manuscripts too bad to use.