Rhymes a la Mode

Lang, Andrew

• Publisher: pubOne.info
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9782819933724
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

BALLADE OF NEGLECTED MERIT {1}

  I have scribbled in verse and in prose,

  I have painted “arrangements in greens, ”

  And my name is familiar to those

  Who take in the high class magazines;

  I compose; I've invented machines;

  I have written an “Essay on Rhyme”;

  For my county I played, in my teens,

  But— I am not in “Men of the Time! ”

  I have lived, as a chief, with the Crows;

  I have “interviewed” Princes and Queens;

  I have climbed the Caucasian snows;

  I abstain, like the ancients, from beans, -

  I've a guess what Pythagoras means,

  When he says that to eat them's a crime, -

  I have lectured upon the Essenes,

  But— I am not in “Men of the Time! ”

  I've a fancy as morbid as Poe's,

  I can tell what is meant by “Shebeens, ”

  I have breasted the river that flows

  Through the land of the wild Gadarenes;

  I can gossip with Burton on skenes,

  I can imitate Irving (the Mime),

  And my sketches are quainter than Keene's,

  But— I am not in “Men of the Time! ”

ENVOY

  So the tower of mine eminence leans

  Like the Pisan, and mud is its lime;

  I'm acquainted with Dukes and with Deans,

  But— I am not in “Men of the Time! ”

BALLADE OF RAILWAY NOVELS

  Let others praise analysis

  And revel in a “cultured” style,

  And follow the subjective Miss {2}

  From Boston to the banks of Nile,

  Rejoice in anti-British bile,

  And weep for fickle hero's woe,

  These twain have shortened many a mile,

  Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

  These damsels of “Democracy's, ”

  How long they stop at every stile!

  They smile, and we are told, I wis,

  Ten subtle reasons WHY they smile.

  Give ME your villains deeply vile,

  Give me Lecoq, Jottrat, and Co. ,

  Great artists of the ruse and wile,

  Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!

  Oh, novel readers, tell me this,

  Can prose that's polished by the file,

  Like great Boisgobey's mysteries,

  Wet days and weary ways beguile,

  And man to living reconcile,

  Like these whose every trick we know?

  The agony how high they pile,

  Miss Braddon and Gaboriau!

ENVOY

  Ah, friend, how many and many a while

  They've made the slow time fleetly flow,

  And solaced pain and charmed exile,

  Miss Braddon and Gaboriau.

THE CLOUD CHORUS (FROM ARISTOPHANES)

  Socrates speaks.

  Hither, come hither, ye Clouds renowned, and unveil yourselves

  here;

  Come, though ye dwell on the sacred crests of Olympian snow,

  Or whether ye dance with the Nereid choir in the gardens clear,

  Or whether your golden urns are dipped in Nile's overflow,

  Or whether you dwell by Maeotis mere

  Or the snows of Mimas, arise! appear!

  And hearken to us, and accept our gifts ere ye rise and go.

  The Clouds sing.

  Immortal Clouds from the echoing shore

  Of the father of streams, from the sounding sea,

  Dewy and fleet, let us rise and soar.

  Dewy and gleaming, and fleet are we!

  Let us look on the tree-clad mountain crest,

  On the sacred earth where the fruits rejoice,

  On the waters that murmur east and west

  On the tumbling sea with his moaning voice,

  For unwearied glitters the Eye of the Air,

  And the bright rays gleam;

  Then cast we our shadows of mist, and fare

  In our deathless shapes to glance everywhere

  From the height of the heaven, on the land and air,

  And the Ocean stream.

  Let us on, ye Maidens that bring the Rain,

  Let us gaze on Pallas' citadel,

  In the country of Cecrops, fair and dear

  The mystic land of the holy cell,

  Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,

  And the gifts of the Gods that know not stain

  And a people of mortals that know not fear.

  For the temples tall, and the statues fair,

  And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there,

  The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers

  And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,

  And the musical voices that fill the hours,

  And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!

BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME

“All these for Fourpence. ”

Oh, where are the endless Romances

Our grandmothers used to adore?

The Knights with their helms and their lances,

Their shields and the favours they wore?

And the Monks with their magical lore?

They have passed to Oblivion and Nox,

They have fled to the shadowy shore, -

They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And where the poetical fancies

Our fathers rejoiced in, of yore?

The lyric's melodious expanses,

The Epics in cantos a score?

They have been and are not: no more

Shall the shepherds drive silvery flo...

Table of contents

• BALLADE DEDICATORY—TO MRS. ELTON OF WHITE STAUNTON
• ENVOY
• A DREAM IN JUNE
• A VISION IN THE STRAND
• ALMAE MATRES—(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865)
• DESIDERIUM—IN MEMORIAM S. F. A.
• BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE
• ENVOY
• THE LAST CAST—THE ANGLER'S APOLOGY
• TWILIGHT—SONNET (AFTER RICHEPIN)
• BALLADE OF SUMMER—TO C. H. ARKCOLL
• ENVOY.
• BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS
• ENVOY.
• LOVE'S EASTER—SONNET
• BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL
• ENVOY.
• RONSARD'S GRAVE
• SAN TERENZO
• ROMANCE
• BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY
• TO C. H. ARKCOLL
• ENVOY
• TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS
• BALLADE OF CRICKET—TO T. W. LANG
• ENVOY.
• THE LAST MAYING
• HOMERIC UNITY
• IN TINTAGEL
• ELLE.
• LUI.
• ELLE.
• LUI.
• ELLE.
• PISIDICE
• FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST
• BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN'S PARADISE
• ENVOY
• BALLADE OF A FRIAR
• ENVOY
• BALLADE OF NEGLECTED MERIT {1}
• ENVOY
• BALLADE OF RAILWAY NOVELS
• ENVOY
• THE CLOUD CHORUS (FROM ARISTOPHANES)
• BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME
• ENVOY
• A VERY WOFUL BALLADE OF THE ART CRITIC (TO E. A. ABBEY.)
• ENVOY
• ART'S MARTYR
• THE PALACE O BRIC-A-BRAC
• RONDEAUX OF THE GALLERIES
• THE BARBAROUS BIRD-GODS: A SAVAGE PARABASIS
• MAN AND THE ASCIDIAN—A MORALITY
• BALLADE OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST
• ENVOY
• CAMEOS—SONNETS FROM THE ANTIQUE
• CAMEOS
• I.
• II.
• THE CANNIBAL ZEUS—A.D. 160
• THE COMING OF ISIS
• THE SPINET
• NOTES
• Copyright