THE BATTLE
OF
THE BAYS
BY OWEN SEAMAN
JOHN LANE
THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON & NEW YORK
1902
Copyright in the United States.
All Rights Reserved.
Eighth Edition
CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. The Battle of the Bays 1 1. A Song of Renunciation 1 2. For the Albums of Crowned Heads Only 5 3. Marsyas in Hades 11 4. The Rhyme of the Kipperling 15 5. A Ballad of a Bun 22 6. A Vigo-Street Eclogue 27 7. An Ode to Spring in the Metropolis 37 8. Yet 42 9. Elegi Musarum 44 II. To Mr. William Watson 49 III. England’s Alfred Abroad 53 IV. Lilith Libifera 57 V. Ars Postera 58 VI. A New Blue Book 61 VII. To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence 64 VIII. To Julia in Shooting Togs 66 IX. The Links of Love 69 X. Swords and Ploughshares 71 XI. To the Lord of Potsdam 76 XII. From the Lord of Potsdam 80 XIII. ‘The Spacious Times’ 83I. THE BATTLE OF THE BAYS.
1.
A SONG OF RENUNCIATION.
(AFTER A. C. S.)
In the days of my season of salad,
When the down was as dew on my cheek,
And for French I was bred on the ballad,
For Greek on the writers of Greek,––
Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,
Of ‘pleasure that winces and stings,’
Of white women and wine that is bloody,
And similar things.
Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,
And Desire that is dear as Delight;
Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,
Of the bruises of kisses that bite;
2
Of embraces that clasp and that sever,
Of blushes that flutter and flee
Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever
Dolores may be.
I sang of false faith that is fleeting
As froth of the swallowing seas,
Time’s curse that is fatal as Keating
Is fatal to amorous fleas;
Of the wanness of woe that is whelp of
The lust that is blind as a bat––
By the help of my Muse and the help of
The relative THAT.
Panatheist, bruiser and breaker
Of kings and the creatures of kings,
I shouted on Freedom to shake her
Feet loose of the fetter that clings;
Far rolling my ravenous red eye,
And lifting a mutinous lid,
To all monarchs and matrons I said I
Would shock them––and did.
3
Thee I sang, and thy loves, O Thalassian,
O ‘noble and nude and antique!’
Unashamed in the ‘fearless old fashion’
Ere washing was done by the week;
When the ‘roses and rapture’ that girt you
Were visions of delicate vice,
And the ‘lilies and languors of virtue’
Not nearly so nice.
O delights of the time of my teething,
Félise, Fragoletta, Yolande!
Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething
On blasted and blithering sand!
Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted
With blossoms that coil and decay,
Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted
Like ices in May.
Hushed now is the bibulous bubble
Of ‘lithe and lascivious’ throats;
Long stript and extinct is the stubble
Of hoary and harvested oats;
4
From the sweets that are sour as the sorrel’s
The bees have abortively swarmed;
And Algernon’s earlier morals
Are fairly reformed.
I have written a loyal Armada,
And posed in a Jubilee pose;
I have babbled of babies and played a
New tune on the turn of their toes;
Washed white from the stain of Astarte,
My books any virgin may buy;
And I hear I am praised by a party
Called Something Mackay!
When erased are the records, and rotten
The meshes of memory’s net;
When the grace that forgives has forgotten
The things that are good to forget;
When the trill of my juvenile trumpet
Is dead and its echoes are dead;
Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet
And crown of my head!
2.
FOR THE ALBUMS OF CROWNED HEADS ONLY.
(AFTER SIR E. A.)
1. From the third Sa’dine Box of the eighth Gazelle of Ghazal.
Yá Yá! Best-Belovéd! I look to thy dimples and drink;
Tiddlihî! to thy cheek-pits and chin-pit, my Tulip, my Pink!
See my heart rises up like a bubble, and bursts in my throat,
And the dimples that draw it are Three, like the Men in a Boat.
Thrice Three are the Muses, and I that begat her should guess
That the Tenth is the Tēle-Ephēmera, Pride of the PRESS!
6
And the Graces were triplets till lately the fruitful Dîtî
Propagated a Fourth, and the infant was W. G.
From my post of Propinquity prone on my languorous knees
My tears slither down like the Gum of Arabia’s trees.
“Am I drunk?” Heart-Entangler! By Hafiz, the Blender of Squish!
’Tis the camel that sits on the prayer-mat is drunk as a fish.
As I hope for the future Uprising, deny it who can,
Two years I have worn the Blue Ribbon, come next Ramadan!
7
Chest-Preserver! thou knowest thine eyes, they alone, are my drink,
Blue-black as the sloes of the Garden or Stephens his Ink.
On thy sugar-sweet liplets, my Cypress! I browse like a bee,
And am aching, as after a surfeit of Melon, for thee!
Low laid at thy feet––little feet––in the dust like a worm,
Round the train of thy skirt, O my Peacock, I fitfully squirm.
By Allah! I swoon, I rotate, I am sickly of hue!
And the Infidel swore that Jam-Jam was a Temperance brew!
Heart-Punisher! Surely I think it was jalapped with gin!
Aha! Paradise! I am passing! So be it! Amin!
2. From a little thing by the Princess Onono Goawaī.
The bulbul hummeth like a book
Upon the pooh-pooh tree,
And now and then he takes a look
At you and me,
At me and you.
Kuchi!
Kuchoo!
3.
Wind! a word with thee! thou goest where my Well-Preservéd lies
On her bed of bonny briers keeping off the wicked flies.
Thou shalt know her by th’ aroma of her bosom, which is musk,
And her ivories that glisten like an elephantine tusk.
9
Seek her coral-guarded tympanum and whisper “Poppinjai!”
And (referring to her lover) kindly add “A-lal-lal-lai!”
Breeze! thou knowest my condition; state it broadly, if you please,
In a smattering of Indo-Turco-Perso-Japanese.
Say my youth is flitting freely, and before the season goes
From the garden of my Tûtsi I am fain to pluck a rose.
Tell her I’m a wanton Sufí (what a Sufí really is
She may know, perhaps––I count it one of Allah’s mysteries).
Fly, O blessed Breeze, and hither bring me back the net result;
Fly as flies the rude mosquito from Abdullah’s catapult.
10
Fly as flies the rusty rickshaw of the Kurumayasan,
When he scents a Hippopotam down the groves of Gulistan.
Fly and cull, O cull, a section of my Pipkin’s purple tress;
Thou shalt find me drinking deeply with the Lords that rule the Mess;
Quaffing mead and mighty sodas with the Johnís, Lords of War,
Talking ‘jungle in the gun-room,’ underneath the deodar.
Hoo Tawâ! I go to join them; he that cometh late is curst,
For the Lords of War (by Akbar) have a most amazing thirst!
3.
MARSYAS IN HADES.
(AFTER SIR L. M.)
Next I saw
A pensive gentleman of middle age,
That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe
Pendent beneath his chin––a double one––
(Meaning the pipe); reluctant was his breath,
For he had mingled in the Morris dance
And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,
All decorous and decorously clad,
Their very ankles hardly visible,
Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,
Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall
Beamed approbation.
On his face I read
Signs of high sadness such as poets wear,
Being divinely discontented with
The praise of jeunes filles. Even as I looked,
He touched the portion of his pipe reserved
12
For minor poetry of solemn tone,
Checking the humorous stops intended for
Electioneering posters and the like;
And therewithal he made the following
Addition to his Songs Unsung, or else
His Unremarked Remarks:
“Dear Sir,” he said,
“Excuse my saying ‘Sir’ like that; it is
Our way in Hades here among the damned;
For you must know that some of us are damned
Not only by faint praise but full applause
Of simple critics. Take my case. In me
Behold the good knight Marsyas, M.A.,
Three times a candidate for Parliament,
And twice retired; a Justice of the Peace;
Master of Arts (I said), and better known
In literary spheres as Master of
The Mediocre-Obvious; and read
By boarding-misses in their myriads.
These dote upon me. Sweetly have I sung
The commonplaces of philosophy
In common parlance.
13
You have read perhaps
The Cymric Triads? Poetry, they say,
Excels alone by sheer simplicity
Of language, subject, and invention. Sir!
The excellence of mine lay that way too.
But fate is partial. Heaven’s fulgour moulds
‘To happiness some, some to unhappiness!’
(Look you, the harp was Welsh that figured forth
That excellent last line.) I ask you, Sir,
What would you? Ill content with mortal praise,
And haply somewhat overbold, I sought
To be as gods be; sought, in fact, to filch
Apollo’s bays!
Ah me! Dear me! I fain
Would use a stronger phrase, but hardly dare,
Being, whatever else, respectable.
I say I tired of vulgar homage, gift
Of ignorance. ‘High failure overleaps
The bounds of low successes’ (there, again,
The harp that twanged was Welsh, but with an echo
Of Browning). Godlike it must be, I thought,
14
To climb the giddy brink; to pen, for instance,
An Ode to the Imperial Institute,
And fall, if bound to, from a decent height.
I did and missed the laurel; still I go
On writing; what you hear just now is blank,
Distinctly blank, and might be measured by
The kilomètre; yet I rhyme as well
A little; but it takes a lot of time,
And checks the lapse of my pellucid stream
Not all conveniently.”
Thereat he paused,
And wrung the moisture from his pipe; but I,
As one that was intolerably bored,
Took even this occasion to be gone;
And, going, marked him how he took his stile,
Polished the waxen tablets, and began
To make a Royal Pæan by request,
Or so he said.
4.
THE RHYME OF THE KIPPERLING.
(AFTER R. K.)
[N.B.––No nautical terms or statements guaranteed.]
Away by the haunts of the Yang-tse-boo,
Where the Yuletide runs cold gin,
And the rollicking sign of the Lord Knows Who
Sees mariners drink like sin;
Where the Jolly Roger tips his quart
To the luck of the Union Jack;
And some are screwed on the foreign port,
And some on the starboard tack;––
Ever they tell the tale anew
Of the chase for the kipperling swag;
How the smack Tommy This and the smack Tommy That
They broached each other like a whiskey-vat,
And the Fuzzy-Wuz took the bag.
16
Now this is the law of the herring fleet that harries the northern main,
Tattooed in scars on the chests of the tars with a brand like the brand of Cain:
That none may woo the sea-born shrew save such as pay their way
With a kipperling netted at noon of night and cured ere the crack of day.
It was the woman Sal o’ the Dune, and the men were three
Bill the Skipper and Ned the Nipper and Sam that was Son of a Gun;
Bill was a Skipper and Ned was a Nipper and Sam was the Son of a Gun,
And the woman was Sal o’ the Dune, as I said, and the men were three to one.
There was never a light in the sky that night of the soft midsummer gales,
But the great man-bloaters snorted low, and the young ’uns sang like whales;
17
And out laughed Sal (like a dog-toothed wheel was the laugh that Sal laughed she):
“Now who’s for a bride on the shady side of up’ards of forty-three?”
And Neddy he swore by butt and bend, and Billy by bend and bitt,
And nautical names that no man frames but your amateur nautical wit;
And Sam said, “Shiver my topping-lifts and scuttle my foc’s’le yarn,
And may I be curst, if I’m not in first with a kipperling slued astarn!”
Now the smack Tommy This and the smack Tommy That and the Fuzzy-Wuz smack, all three,
Their captains bold, they were Bill and Ned and Sam respectivelee.
And it’s writ in the rules that the primary schools of kippers should get off cheap
For a two mile reach off Foulness beach when the July tide’s at neap;
18
And the lawless lubbers that lust for loot and filch the yearling stock
They get smart raps from the coastguard chaps with their blunderbuss fixed half-cock.
Now Bill the Skipper and Ned the Nipper could tell green cheese from blue,
And Bill knew a trick and Ned knew a trick, but Sam knew a trick worth two.
So Bill he sneaks a corporal’s breeks and a belt of pipeclayed hide,
And splices them on to the jibsail-boom like a troopship on the tide.
And likewise Ned to his masthead he runs a rag of the Queen’s,
With a rusty sword and a moke on board to bray like the Horse Marines.
But Sam sniffs gore and he keeps off-shore and he waits for things to stir,
Then he tracks for the deep with a long fog-horn rigged up like a bowchasér.
19
Now scarce had Ned dropped line and lead when he spots the pipeclayed hide,
And the corporal’s breeks on the jibsail-boom like a troopship on the tide;
And Bill likewise, when he ups and spies the slip of a rag of the Queen’s,
And the rusty sword, and he sniffs aboard the moke of the Horse Marines.
So they each luffed sail, and they each turned tail, and they whipped their wheels like mad,
When the one he said “By the Lord, it’s Ned!” and the other, “It’s Bill, by Gad!”
Then about and about, and nozzle to snout, they rammed through breach and brace,
And the splinters flew as they mostly do when a Government test takes place.
Then up stole Sam with his little ram and the nautical talk flowed free,
And in good bold type might have covered the two front sheets of the P. M. G.
20
But the fog-horn bluff was safe enough, where all was weed and weft,
And the conger-eels were a-making meals, and the pick of the tackle left
Was a binnacle-lid and a leak in the bilge and the chip of a cracked sheerstrake
And the corporal’s belt and the moke’s cool pelt and a portrait of Francis Drake.
So Sam he hauls the dead men’s trawls and he booms for the harbour-bar,
And the splitten fry are salted dry by the blink of the morning star.
And Sal o’ the Dune was wed next moon by the man that paid his way
With a kipperling netted at noon of night and cured ere the crack of day;
For such is the law of the herring fleet that bloats on the northern main,
Tattooed in scars on the chests of the tars with a brand like the brand of Cain.
21
And still in the haunts of the Yang-tse-boo
Ever they tell the tale anew
Of the chase for the kipperling swag;
How the smack Tommy This and the smack Tommy That
They broached each other like a whiskey-vat,
And the Fuzzy-Wuz took the bag.
5.
A BALLAD OF A BUN.
(AFTER J. D.)
‘I am sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the sun and moon.’
‘Heed not belletrist jargon.’
John Davidson.
From Whitsuntide to Whitsuntide––
That is to say, all through the year––
Her patient pen was occupied
With songs and tales of pleasant cheer.
But still her talent went to waste
Like flotsam on an open sea;
She never hit the public taste,
Or knew the knack of Bellettrie.
Across the sounding City’s fogs
There hurtled round her weary head
The thunder of the rolling logs;
“The Critics’ Carnival!” she said.
23
Immortal prigs took heaven by storm,
Prigs scattered largesses of praise;
The work of both was rather warm;
“This is,” she said, “the thing that pays!”
Sharp envy turned her wine to blood––
I mean it turned her blood to wine;
And this resolve came like a flood––
“The cake of knowledge must be mine!
“I am in Eve’s predicament––
I sha’n’t be happy till I’ve sinned;
Away!” She lightly rose, and sent
Her scruples sailing down the wind.
She did not tear her open breast,
Nor leave behind a track of gore,
But carried flannel next her chest,
And wore the boots she always wore.
Across the sounding City’s din
She wandered, looking indiscreet,
And ultimately landed in
The neighbourhood of Regent Street.
24
She ran against a resolute
Policeman standing like a wall;
She kissed his feet and asked the route
To where they held
Her strange behaviour caused remark;
They said, “Her reason has been lost;”
Beside her eyes the gas was dark,
But that was owing to the frost.
A Decadent was dribbling by;
“Lady,” he said, “you seem undone;
You need a panacea; try
This sample of the Bodley bun.
“It is fulfilled of precious spice,
Whereof I give the recipe;––
Take common dripping, stew in vice,
And serve with vertu; taste and see!
“And lo! I brand you on the brow
As kin to Nature’s lowest germ;
You are sister to the microbe now,
And second-cousin to the worm.”
25
He gave her of his golden store,
Such hunger hovered in her look;
She took the bun, and asked for more,
And went away and wrote a book.
To put the matter shortly, she
Became the topic of the town;
In all the lists of Bellettrie
Her name was regularly down.
“We recognise,” the critics wrote,
“Maupassant’s verve and Heine’s wit;”
Some even made a verbal note
Of Shakespeare being out of it.
The seasons went and came again;
At length the languid Public cried:
“It is a sorry sort of Lane
That hardly ever turns aside.
“We want a little change of air;
On that,” they said, “we must insist;
We cannot any longer bear
The seedy sex-impressionist.”
26
Across the sounding City’s din
This rumour smote her on the ear:
“The publishers are going in
For songs and tales of pleasant cheer!”
“Alack!” she said, “I lost the art,
And left my womanhood foredone,
When first I trafficked in the mart
All for a mess of Bodley bun.
“I cannot cut my kin at will,
Or jilt the protoplastic germ;
I am sister to the microbe still,
And second-cousin to the worm!”
6.
A VIGO-STREET ECLOGUE.
(AFTER THE SAME)
Mæcenas. John. George. Arthur. Grant. Richard.
MÆCENAS.
What ho! a merry Christmas! Pff!
Sharp blows the frosty blizzard’s whff!
Pile on more logs and let them roll,
And pass the humming wassail-bowl!
JOHN.
The wassail-bowl! the wind is snell!
Drinc hael! and warm the poet’s pell!
MÆCENAS.
Richard! say something rustic.
RICHARD.
Lo!
The customary mistletoe,
Prehensile on the apple-bough,
Invites the usual kiss.
28
GEORGE.
And now
Cathartic hellebore should be
A cure for imbecility.
GRANT.
Now holly-berries have begun
To blush for Women That Have Done.
ARTHUR.
The farmer sticks his stuffy goose!
MÆCENAS.
Come, come, you grow a little loose;
That’s Michaelmas; you must remember
That Michaelmas is in September!
ARTHUR.
Northward the swallow sweeps his wing.
MÆCENAS.
No, no! the bird arrives in spring!
29
ARTHUR.
Such knowledge fits the country clown;
We’ve better things to note in town.
What’s Nature’s lore compared with women’s?
JOHN.
For this enigma go to S-m-ns;
He is the–––
ARTHUR.
Yes, I am, I know,
The devil of a Romeo!
JOHN.
Hark! hark! the waits, the precious waits!
Their music beats at Heaven’s gates.
MÆCENAS.
What Bodley wight will sing a stave
To match their strumming? I would have
The manly bass of Hobbes’s voice;
But Unwin’s house is Hobbes’s choice.
George! you’ve a baritone at need.
30
GEORGE.
Alas! my famous Keynotes lead
To Discords.
JOHN.
I’ve a little thing
Of Resurrection. Shall I sing?
ARTHUR.
Please do; but à propos of what?
JOHN.
I cannot say, unless de bottes.
[Proceeds to sing a Ballad of Resurrection.
A letter-card from my dear love!
O folded page of blessed blue!
She burst her many-buttoned glove,
And ripped the perforation through.
“My love, to-night, about eleven,
With never a priest or passing-bell,
We die! and meet, with luck, in Heaven,
But anyhow at least in Hell!”
31
Her courage very nearly failed,
In fact she swooned along the floor;
But curiosity prevailed,
She came again and read some more.
“There is no way but this to choose;
My people fain would have us wed;
But you and I have later views,
And scorn the vulgar marriage-bed.
“Far be it from me to dictate
How best to break the mortal bond,
But personally I may state
That I shall use the village pond.
“Be punctual, love, and let us meet
For weal or woe!
This line has lost a pair of feet;
The post is now about to go.”
Ay, ay, she thought, to meet were well,
But if we found each other out?
You, say, in Heaven, I in Hell,
Or else the other way about!
32
Nay, there be heavy odds, she said,
One fate shall save us both or damn;
We surely shall be bracketed!
She ceased and sent a telegram.
To Guy le Preux de Balthazar––
Here followed his address, and then
This pregnant message––“Right you are!”
She wrote it with the office pen.
She flashed the phrase along the wires,
Then, passing by a dagger-shop,
Bought one and wiped it on her sire’s
Best graduated razor-strop.
On second thoughts, she said, I lean
To poison; true, a knife like this
Looks pretty, rib and rib between,
But people very often miss.
She sought the chemist in his place;
He sampled her with searching eye;
She looked him frankly in the face,
And told a wicked, wicked lie.
33
“My hen,” she said,––“a bantam blend––
Has hatched a poor demented chick;
To ease the gentle creature’s end
I want a pint of arsenic.”
The chemist deemed the order large,
But said no thing and drew the drug;
She seized and bore the sacred charge
Before her in a pewter mug.
At tea she faced her fell intent;
Dressing, she lightly laughed at doom;
Dined with the family, and spent
The evening in the drawing-room.
At ten the early rooster crowed;
Ten-thirty struck and she was gone;
She crossed alone the naked road;
The road had really nothing on.
Her golden braids hung down her back;
Within her side she felt a stitch;
And once the moon behind the wrack
Came out and caught her in a ditch.
34
Once ere she reached the trysting-pear
She broke the slumber of the rooks;
She wrung her hands, she tore her hair,
And did as people do in books.
From out her cloak she fetched the drug––
“Thy health, my love, in Heaven or Hell!”
Deep to the dregs she drained the mug
And dropped it, feeling far from well.
Upon the punctual stroke her fond
True lover kept the oath he swore;
Plunged softly in the village pond,
But feeling chilly swam ashore.
Next morning in the judgment-place
Two pallid prisoners were tried;
Their guilt was plain; it was a case
Of ineffective suicide.
Yestreen a member of the Force
Had found a woman deadly sick,
Lamenting, with sincere remorse,
An overdose of arsenic.
35
Another heard upon his beat
One darkly muttering, “This is Hell!”
His weed was wet from head to feet;
He put him in a common cell.
The Justice chewed the evidence;
His eyes were soft, his lips were bland;
It was, he said, a first offence;
He merely gave a reprimand.
“Go free, my poppets, keep the laws,
And get ye wed at once,” said he;
The court indulged in rude applause;
The usher cleared the gallery.
The prison-warder, deeply stirred,
Approached the culprits at the bar;
Then haled them forth without a word
Towards the nearest Registrar.
RICHARD.
John, you surpass yourself. Next week
Expect a flattering critique!
36
JOHN.
The waits are whining in the cold
With clavicorn and clarigold;
They play them like a crumpled horn,
The clarigold and clavicorn.