The Project Gutenberg EBook of Green Bays. Verses and Parodies by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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Title: Green Bays. Verses and Parodies
Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
Release Date: October 18, 2005 [EBook #16898]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEN BAYS. VERSES AND PARODIES ***
Produced by Lionel Sear
GREEN BAYS.
VERSES AND PARODIES.
BY ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH (Q).
ET, SI NON ALIUM LATE JACTARET ODOREM LAURUS ERAT.
Most of the verses in this volume were written at Oxford, and first appeared in the 'Oxford Magazine.' A few are reprinted from 'The Speaker' and a few from certain works of fiction published by Messrs. Cassell and Co.
Q.
CONTENTS.
IN A COLLEGE GARDEN.
THE SPLENDID SPUR.
THE WHITE MOTH.
IRISH MELODIES I. TIM THE DRAGOON. II. KENMARE RIVER.
LADY JANE (SAPPHICS).
A TRIOLET.
AN OATH.
UPON GRACIOSA, WALKING AND TALKING.
WRITTEN UPON LOVE'S FRONTIER-POST.
TITANIA.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
RETROSPECTION.
WHY THIS VOLUME IS SO THIN.
NUGAE OXONIENSES.
TWILIGHT.
WILLALOO.
THE SAIR STROKE.
THE DOOM OF THE ESQUIRE BEDELL.
'BEHOLD! I AM NOT ONE THAT GOES TO LECTURES.'
CALIBAN UPON RUDIMENTS.
SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMPS.
A LETTER.
OCCASIONAL VERSES.
ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS.
UNITY PUT QUARTERLY.
FIRE!
DE TEA FABULA.
L'ENVOI (AS I LAYE A-DREAMYNGE).
IN A COLLEGE GARDEN.
Senex. Saye, cushat, callynge from the brake,
What ayles thee soe to pyne?
Thy carefulle heart shall cease to ake
When dayes be fyne
And greene thynges twyne:
Saye, cushat, what thy griefe to myne?
Turtur. Naye, gossyp, loyterynge soe late,
What ayles thee thus to chyde?
My love is fled by garden-gate;
Since Lammas-tyde
I wayte my bryde.
Saye, gossyp, whom dost thou abyde?
Senex. Loe! I am he, the 'Lonelie Manne,'
Of Time forgotten quite,
That no remembered face may scanne—
Sadde eremyte,
I wayte
Pale Death, nor any other wyghte.
O cushat, cushat, callynge lowe,
Goe waken Time from sleepe:
Goe whysper in his ear, that soe
His besom sweepe
Me to that heape
Where all my recollections keepe.
Hath he forgott? Or did I viewe
A ghostlye companye
This even, by the dismalle yewe,
Of faces three
That beckoned mee
To land where no repynynges bee?
O Harrye, Harrye, Tom and Dicke,
Each lost companion!
Why loyter I among the quicke,
When ye are gonne?
Shalle I alone
Delayinge crye 'Anon, Anon'?
Naye, let the spyder have my gowne,
To brayde therein her veste.
My cappe shal serve, now I 'goe downe,'
For mouse's neste.
Loe! this is best.
I care not, soe I gayne my reste.
THE SPLENDID SPUR.
Not on the neck of prince or hound,
Nor on a woman's finger twin'd,
May gold from the deriding ground
Keep sacred that we sacred bind:
Only the heel
Of splendid steel
Shall stand secure on sliding fate,
When golden navies weep their freight.
The scarlet hat, the laurell'd stave
Are measures, not the springs, of worth;
In a wife's lap, as in a grave,
Man's airy notions mix with earth.
Seek other spur
Bravely to stir
The dust in this loud world, and tread
Alp-high among the whisp'ring dead.
Trust in thyself,—then spur amain:
So shall Charybdis wear a grace,
Grim Aetna laugh, the Libyan plain
Take roses to her shrivell'd face.
This orb—this round
Of sight and sound—
Count it the lists that God hath built
For haughty hearts to ride a-tilt.
THE WHITE MOTH.
If a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?
The light above the poet's head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-wing'd moth;
'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside
And 'Open, open, open!' cried:
'I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the
Led over wastes where millions
Of tangled comets hissed and burned—
I was bewilder'd and I turned.
'O, it was easy then! I knew
Your window and no star beside.
Look up, and take me back to you!'
—He rose and thrust the window wide.
'Twas but because his brain was hot
With rhyming; for he heard her not.
But poets polishing a phrase
Show anger over trivial things;
And as she blundered in the blaze
Towards him, on ecstatic wings,
He raised a hand and smote her dead;
Then wrote 'That I had died instead!'
IRISH MELODIES.
I.
TIM THE DRAGOON (From 'Troy Town')
Be aisy an' list to a chune
That's sung of bowld Tim the Dragoon—
Sure, 'twas he'd niver miss
To be stalin' a kiss,
Or a brace, by the light of the moon—
Aroon—
Wid a wink at the Man in the Moon!
Rest his sowl where the daisies grow thick;
For he's gone from the land of the quick:
But he's still makin' love
To the leddies above,
An' be jabbers! he'll tache 'em the thrick—
Avick—
Niver doubt but he'll tache 'em the thrick!
'Tis by Tim the dear saints'll set sthore,
And 'ull thrate him to whisky galore:
For they 've only to sip
But the tip of his lip
An' bedad! they'll be askin' for more—
Asthore—
By the powers, they'll be shoutin' 'Ancore!'
IRISH MELODIES.
II.
KENMARE RIVER.
'Tis pretty to be in Ballinderry,
'Tis pretty to be in Ballindoon,
But 'tis prettier far in County Kerry
Coortin' under the bran' new moon,
Aroon, Aroon!
'Twas there by the bosom of blue Killarney
They came by the hundther' a-coortin' me;
Sure I was the one to give back their blarney,
An' merry was I to be fancy-free.
But niver a step in the lot was lighter,
An' divvle a boulder among the bhoys,
Than Phelim O'Shea, me dynamither,
Me illigant arthist in clock-work toys.
'Twas all for love he would bring his figgers
Of iminent statesmen, in toy machines,
An' hould me hand as he pulled the thriggers
An' scattered the thraytors to smithereens.
An' to see the Queen in her Crystial Pallus
Fly up to the roof, an' the windeys broke!
And all with divvle a trace of malus,—
But he was the bhoy that enjoyed his joke!
Then O, but his cheek would flush, an' 'Bridget,'
He 'd say, 'Will yez love me?' But I 'd be coy
Though at heart I loved him, me arthist bhoy!
One night we stood by the Kenmare river,
An' 'Bridget, creina, now whist,' said he,
'I'll be goin' to-night, an' may be for iver;
Open your arms at the last to me.'
'Twas there by the banks of the Kenmare river
He took in his hands me white, white face,
An' we kissed our first an' our last for iver—
For Phelim O'Shea is disparsed in space.
'Twas pretty to be by blue Killarney,
'Twas pretty to hear the linnets's call,
But whist! for I cannot attind their blarney,
Nor whistle in answer at all, at all.
For the voice that he swore 'ud out-call the linnet's
Is cracked intoirely, and out of chune,
Since the clock-work missed it by thirteen minutes
An' scattered me Phelim around the moon,
Aroon, Aroon!
LADY JANE.
Sapphics.
Down the green hill-side fro' the castle window
Lady Jane spied Bill Amaranth a-workin';
Day by day watched him go about his ample
Nursery garden.
Cabbages thriv'd there, wi' a mort o' green-stuff—
Kidney beans, broad beans, onions, tomatoes,
Artichokes, seakale, vegetable marrows,
Early potatoes.
Lady Jane cared not very much for all these:
What she cared much for was a glimpse o' Willum
Strippin' his brown arms wi' a view to horti-
-Cultural effort.
Little guessed Willum, never extra-vain, that
Up the green hill-side, i' the gloomy castle,
Feminine eyes could so delight to view his
Noble proportions.
Only one day while, in an innocent mood,
Moppin' his brow ('cos 'twas a trifle sweaty)
With a blue kerchief—lo, he spies a white 'un
Coyly responding.
Oh, delightsome Love! Not a jot do you care
For the restrictions set on human inter-
-course by cold-blooded social refiners;
Nor do I, neither.
Day by day, peepin' fro' behind the bean-sticks,
Willum observed that scrap o' white a-wavin',
Till his hot sighs out-growin' all repression
Busted his weskit.
Lady Jane's guardian was a haughty Peer, who
Clung to old creeds and had a nasty temper;
Can we blame Willum that he hardly cared to
Risk a refusal?
Year by year found him busy 'mid the bean-sticks,
Wholly uncertain how on earth to take steps.
Thus for eighteen years he beheld the maiden
Wave fro' her window.
But the nineteenth spring, i' the Castle post-bag,
Came by book-post Bill's catalogue o'
Mark'd wi' blue ink at 'Paragraphs relatin'
Mainly to Pumpkins.'
'W. A. can,' so the Lady Jane read,
'Strongly commend that very noble Gourd, the
Lady Jane, first-class medal, ornamental;
Grows to a great height.'
Scarce a year arter, by the scented hedgerows—
Down the mown hill-side, fro' the castle gateway—
Came a long train and, i' the midst, a black bier,
Easily shouldered.
'Whose is yon corse that, thus adorned wi' gourd-leaves,
Forth ye bear with slow step?' A mourner answer'd,
''Tis the poor clay-cold body Lady Jane grew
Tired to abide in.'
'Delve my grave quick, then, for I die to-morrow.
Delve it one furlong fro' the kidney bean-sticks,
Where I may dream she's goin' on precisely
As she was used to.'
Hardly died Bill when, fro' the Lady Jane's grave,
Crept to his white death-bed a lovely pumpkin:
Climb'd the house wall and over-arched his head wi'
Billowy verdure.
Simple this tale!—but delicately perfumed
As the sweet roadside honeysuckle. That's why,
Difficult though its metre was to tackle,
I'm glad I wrote it.
A TRIOLET.
To commemorate the virtue of Homoeopathy in restoring one apparently drowned.
Love, that in a tear was drown'd,
Lives revived by a tear.
Stella heard them mourn around
Love that in a tear was drown'd,
Came and coax'd his dripping swound,
Wept 'The fault was mine, my dear!'
Love, that in a tear was drown'd,
Lives, revived by a tear.
AN OATH.
(From 'Troy Town'.)
A month ago Lysander pray'd
To Jove, to Cupid, and to Venus,
That he might die if he betray'd
A single vow that pass'd between us.
Ah, careless gods, to hear so ill
And cheat a maid on you relying!
For false Lysander's thriving still,
And 'tis Corinna lies a-dying.
UPON GRACIOSA, WALKING AND TALKING.
(From 'Troy Town'.)
When as abroad, to greet the morn,
I mark my Graciosa walk,
In homage bends the whisp'ring corn,
Yet to confess
Its awkwardness
Must hang its head upon the stalk.
And when she talks, her lips do heal
The wounds her lightest glances give:—
In pity then be harsh, and deal
Such wounds that I
May hourly die,
And, by a word restored, live.
WRITTEN UPON LOVE'S FRONTIER-POST.
(From 'Troy Town'.)
Toiling love, loose your pack,
All your sighs and tears unbind:
Care's a ware will break a back,
In this State a man shall need
Neither priest nor law giver:
Those same lips that are his creed
Shall confess their worshipper.
All the laws he must obey,
Now in force and now repeal'd,
Shift in eyes that shift as they,
Till alike with kisses seal'd.
TITANIA.
By Lord T-n.
So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:
And when they married her, the little church
Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.
The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,
And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;—
Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top
Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves
Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,
As who should say 'I see you!'—Such the joy
When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith
With Mariana of the Moated Grange.
For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,
Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,
Lacking the finer wit that saith,
'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,'
Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,
Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,
Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane—
All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,
Blurted a free 'Good-day t'ye,' left and right,
And shaped his gathering choler to this head:—
'Custom! And yet what profit of it all?
The old order changeth yielding place to new,
To me small change, and this the Counter-change
Of custom beating on the self-same bar—
Change out of chop. Ah me! the talk, the tip,
The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,
The forged solicitude for petty wants
More petty still than they,—all these I loathe,
Learning they lie who feign that all things come
To him that waiteth. I have waited long,
And now I go, to mate me with a bride
Who is aweary waiting, even as I!'
But when the amorous moon of honeycomb
Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love—
Step-sister of To-morrow's marmalade—
Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord
Did something jar the nicer feminine sense
With usage, being all too fine and large,
Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick
Of blunting 'Mariana's' keener edge
To 'Mary Ann'—the same but not the same:
Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,
Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever calling 'Churl!'
Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,
To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,
Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,
Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle
And there found love, a duskier love than hers.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
By O—r K—m.
Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept,
And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug, jug!'
Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.
Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
Its Red Triangle to a world of drought,
Where Death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.
Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, 'Lo,
The Pledge departed, what avails the Cup?
Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go.'
But I: 'For every thirsty soul that drains
This Anodyne of Thought its rim contains—
Free-will the can, Necessity the must,
Pour off the must, and, see, the can remains.
'Then, pot or glass, why label it "With Care"?
Or why your Sheepskin with my Gourd compare?
Lo! here the Bar and I the only Judge:—
O, Dog that bit me, I exact an hair!'
We are the Sum of things, who jot our score
With Caesar's clay behind the Tavern door:
And Alexander's armies—where are they,
But gone to Pot—that Pot you push for more?
And this same Jug I empty, could it speak,
Might whisper that itself had been a Beak
And dealt me Fourteen Days 'without the Op.'—
Your Worship, see, my lip is on your cheek.
Yourself condemned to three score years and ten,
Say, did you judge the ways of other men?
Why, now, sir, you are hourly filled with wine,
And has the clay more licence now than then?
Life is a draught, good sir; its brevity
Gives you and me our measures, and thereby
Has docked your virtue to a tankard's span,
And left of my criterion—a Cri'!
RETROSPECTION.
After C. S. C.
When the hunter-star Orion
(Or, it may be, Charles his Wain)
Tempts the tiny elves to try on
All their little tricks again;
When the earth is calmly breathing
Draughts of slumber undefiled,
And the sire, unused to teething,
Seeks for errant pins his child;
When the moon is on the ocean,
And our little sons and heirs
From a natural emotion
Wish the luminary theirs;
Then a feeling hard to stifle,
Even harder to define,
Makes me feel I 'd give a trifle
For the days of Auld Lang Syne.
James—for we have been as brothers
(Are, to speak correctly, twins),
Went about in one another's
Clothing, bore each other's sins,
Rose together, ere the pearly
Tint of morn had left the heaven,
And retired (absurdly early)
Simultaneously at seven—
James, the days of yore were pleasant.
Sweet to climb for alien pears
Till the irritated peasant
Came and took us unawares;
Sweet to devastate his chickens,
As the ambush'd catapult
Scattered, and the very dickens
Was the natural result;
Sweet to snare the thoughtless rabbit;
Break the next-door neighbour's pane;
Cultivate the smoker's habit
On the not-innocuous cane;
Leave the exercise unwritten;
Systematically cut
Morning school, to plunge the kitten
Age, my James, that from the cheek of
Beauty steals its rosy hue,
Has not left us much to speak of:
But 'tis not for this I rue.
Beauty with its thousand graces,
Hair and tints that will not fade,
You may get from many places
Practically ready-made.
No; it is the evanescence
Of those lovelier tints of Hope—
Bubbles, such as adolescence
Joys to win from melted soap—
Emphasizing the conclusion
That the dreams of Youth remain
Castles that are An delusion
(Castles, that's to say, in Spain).
Age thinks 'fit,' and I say 'fiat.'
Here I stand for Fortune's butt,
As for Sunday swains to shy at
Stands the stoic coco-nut.
If you wish it put succinctly,
Gone are all our little games;
But I thought I 'd say distinctly
What I feel about it, James.
WHY THIS VOLUME IS SO THIN.
In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt,
Of love, and thrummed an amateur guitar
To verses of my own,—a stout attempt
To hold communion with the Evening Star
I wrote a sonnet, rhymed it, made it scan.
Ah me! how trippingly those last lines ran.—
O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the tranced west,
To match the hours heave by upon her breast,
And at her parted lip for dreams attend—
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deemed,
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?
For weeks I thought these lines remarkable;
For weeks I put on airs and called myself
A bard: till on a day, as it befell,
I took a small green Moxon from the shelf
At random, opened at a casual place,
And found my young illusions face to face
With this:—'Still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair Love's ripening breast
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever,—or else swoon to death.'
O gulf not to be crossed by taking thought!
O heights by toil not to be overcome!
Great Keats, unto your altar straight I brought
My speech, and from the shrine departed dumb.
—And yet sometimes I think you played it hard
Upon a rather hopeful minor bard.