قراءة كتاب Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, September 17, 1892
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
amid "Unpitying shapes of death's dread twin despair," where "Rapine and slaughter raged, and none rebuked." Another reviewer observed that "The soul of ARCHER's, the tavern-brawler's glorious victim, KIT MARLOWE, has taken again a habitation of clay. She speaks trumpet-tongued by the mouth of Mr. CHEPSTOWE. We note in these outpourings of dramatic passion an audacity, an energy, an enthusiasm, that are calculated to shake Peckham Rye to its centre, and make Balham tremble in its ridiculous carpet slippers. Who—to take only one example—but Mr. CHEPSTOWE or MARLOWE could have written thus of 'Rapture'?—
'Not in the mouths of prating men who deem
That God dwells in the senseless clay they mould,
Who live their little lives and die their deaths,
Lapped in a smug respectability;
Who never dreamt of breaking puny laws
Formed for a puny race of grovellers;
But in the blood-stained track of flaming swords,
Wielded by knotty arms in Man's despite,
Or on the wings of crashing battle-balls,
Bone-shattering dealers of a thousand wounds,
The roaring heralds of indignant God,
There rapture dwells, and there I too would dwell.'
"Here is power that would furnish forth a whole legion of the poetasters who crawl through our effete literature!" But I cannot pursue these memories. They are too painful. For who speaks of CHEPSTOWE now? Who cares to cumber his bookshelves with the volumes in which this inflated arm-chair prophet of the tin pots delivered his shrieking message? His very name has flickered out; and when I spoke of him the other day, I was asked, by a person of some intelligence, if I referred to CHEPSTOWE who had just made 166 playing cricket for the Gentlemen against the Players. Not even the lion and the lizard keep his courts, and yet JAMSHYD CHEPSTOWE gloried and drank deep in his day. He blustered through many editions, he bellowed his contempt at a shrinking world, he outraged conventionality, he swung himself by the aid of newly-fashioned metres to lofty peaks of poetic daring, and to-day the dust lies thick upon his books, and his name is confounded with that of an eminent cricket-player!
My excellent SWAGGER, it was meanly done. If you meant to wipe him out so swiftly, why did you ever exalt him?
Farewell for a space. I may have to write to you again.
"USED UP."—Lord BRASSEY requested several papers last week to publish his denial as to having the finest collection of stamps in the world. His Lordship, it appears, "doesn't take the smallest interest in foreign stamps." Fortunate for Lord BRASSEY. There are some excellent people who can't get up any interest, or capital either, at all without a stamp of some sort. Lord BRASSEY wished it further known, that he was not a collector of curios, and had no curiosity of any kind. Lord BRASSEY must be a later edition of L'Homme Blasé, to whom the world was round like an indiarubber-ball and "nothing in it."
"IN NUBIBUS."—If the new Sky-signs with which we are threatened, viz., advertisements reflected in the clouds, become the fashion, the aspect of the heavens by daylight will be as delightful and artistic as are the walls of our hoardings and Railway-stations. The anthem of "The Heavens are Telling" will have to be adapted for large towns. Perhaps pictures may be projected on the nebulous back-ground. If so, some of our best Artists may not object to taking a good sum, and then having their work "Sky'd."
PHANTASMA-GORE-IA!
Picturing the Various Modes of Melodramatic Murder. (By Our "Off-his"-Head Poet.)
No. I.—THE DAGGER MURDER.
They stand alone on the moonlit spot,—
Sing Ho—ho! and Ha—ha! there!
One is the villain, and one is not,
But the heroine's father.
They stand alone on the patch of light
(Which comes from the left as well as right)—
Oh, 'tis a glorious place and night
For a Murder Scene! Rather!
They talk of deeds (of the parchment kind)—
Sing Ha—ha! and Ho-ho! there!
The heavy father, to reason blind,
Has them with him to show there!
The deeds relate to the old man's will;
The villain wants them to pay a bill!
The night is cold, and the night is still
Let the music be slow there!
They stand alone in the pale-green light—
Sing Hey—hey! and he—he! there!
What is this flashing so keen and bright?
What is this that I see there?
Oh! deed of darkness in light descried!
Oh! villain thrice damn'd that blade to hide,
Right 'tween the arm on the farther side—
Certain death when it be there!
They're still alone on the moonlit spot—
Sing He—he! and Hey—hey! there!
Though one is Standing,1 and one is not,
For one's cold as the clay there!
The villain covers the dead man's stare—
The corpse lies stiff in the limelight's glare!
The act is done!—and for all I care,
The dead body can stay there!
TO MY LUGGAGE-LABELS.
Wonderful pictures of purple and gold,
Ultramarine, and vermilion, and bistre;
Splendid inscriptions of hostels untold,
Touching memorials breathing of "Mr.;"
"Schweizerhof," "Bernerhof," "Hofs" by the score;
Signs of the Bear and the Swan, and the Bellevue,
Gasthaus, Albergo, Posada, galore—
Beautiful wrecks, how I wish I could shelve you!
Visions of Venice—her stones and her smells!
Whiffs of Cologne—aromatic mementos;
Visiting cards, so to speak, of hotels;
Como's, Granada's, Zermatt's and Sorrento's
Ah! how ye cling to my boxes and bags,
Glued with a pigment that baffles removal;
Dogged adherents in dirt and in rags;
Labels, receive my profane disapproval!
Much as I prized you, when roaming afield,
Loved you, when Life was metheglyn and skittles,
Wished you the spell of remembrance to wield,
Calling the scenery back and the victuals;
Still, when it blows and it rains, and it irks,
Here in apartments adjoining a seaview,
After a meal that would terrify Turks,
Somehow I feel I can scarcely believe you.
Yes! It's too much to remember the past—
Here, amid shrimps, and agilities nameless;
Glaciers gigantic, and Restaurants vast
Chime not with sands and a tablecloth shameless;
Smoking a pestilent, sea-side cigar,
Mewed