Punch: Punch (81.1881)

26

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[July 23, 1881.

"SPENCER, SPARE THAT TREE!"

(A Plane Chant for the Lord President
set to a Plane-tive Air.)

" It is beyond all measure the finest tree in
London ; and being of a kind that defies London
smoke, it actually seems to enjoy and thrive upon
it. It is sad to think that we have Vandals paid
by the public to do such irreparable, wanton
mischief. It makes me wild to think of it."—
Mr. Nasmyth, on the cutting down of the old
South Kensington plane tree.

Spencer, spare that tree !

Touch not a single bough.!
For years you've let it be :—

Why set upon it now ?
I know not whose the hand

That placed it on that spot ;—
But, Spencer, let it stand,
Or else you/11 get it hot!

The old familiar plane

That decks this end of town:—-
"Why, those are scarcely sane

Who want to cut it down.
South Kensing-ton secures

Its ends with'many a joke ;
But if you must have yours,—
0 Spencer, spare this stroke.!

When, in my childhood's joy,

T'wards Fulham's fields I strayed ;
Charles Matthews, still a boy,
Grew young beneath its shade.
And later, it was here,

Ere Brompton saw its close,—
Forgive this foolish tear,
The dear old boilers'rosel

So, if you've work in view,

Cut down—I '11 not.repine—
A salary or two,

But not this tree of mine !
And though in wild dismay

Your underlings complain,—
0 Spencer, cut away,
But dont cut down my plane '

AT A SMOKING CONCERT.

ttjce it in a Lechidimate Vay ! waterproofs should be taxed-because they

Our Tenor. "Perhaps if I did it would no longer please. are for.rain goods, (*#* The person who

Herr Professor. " Ach ! Vat op dat ? iiEisras is not effeet dikg ! You should left this in our letter-box, had better call at
alvays beotuce tour Foice in a Lechidimate Vay, vedder it kifs Pleasure or not l" 1 our office and see what he '11 get.)

SWINBURNE AND WATER.

Mr. Lambert Streyke, in The Colonel, published a book of
poems for the benefit of his followers, and his own—and Mr. Oscar
Wilde has followed his example.

The cover is consummate, the paper is distinctly precious, the
binding is beautiful, and the type is utterly too. Poems by Oscar
Wilde, that is the title of the book of the assthetic singer, which
comes to us arrayed in white vellum and gold. There is a certain
amount of originality about the binding, but that is more than can
be said for the inside of the volume. Mr. Wilde may be aesthetic,
but he is not original. This is a volume of echoes—it is Swindurne
and water, while here and there we note that the author has been
reminiscent of Mr. Rossetti and Mrs. Browning.

The Swinburnian jargon appears on nearly every page. We have
" blossoming foam," "flame of passion," "sick and sunless day,"
"hungering delight," "argent body," "love's drouth," "sensuous
ecstasy," "passion's wine, "moony pearl," "pulse of sin," and
" rose of flame." Moreover, a great many of the titles are in Latin,
which show conclusively what a cultivated person our poet is;
while, at the end of the book, he positively rises into Greek, which
will have the same effect on the multitude as "that blessed word
Mesopotamia" had upon the old woman, in the sermon.

In justice to Mr. Wilde, we will give a quotation from his poems,
and if the reader can make head or tail of it, all we can say is he
ought to make a fortune at guessing double acrostics. This is all
one sentence, as will be seen from the punctuation ; and we print it
like prose to save space, and with the hope of making it a little
easier of comprehension :—

" To make the Body and the Spirit one with all right things, till no thing
live in vain from morn to noon, but in sweet unison with every pulse of flesh
and throb of brain the Soul in flawless essence high enthroned, against all
outer vain attack invisibly bastioned, mark with serene impartiality the strife
of things, and yet be comforted, knowing that by the chain causality all
separate existences are wed into one supreme whole, whose utterance is joy or
holier praise ! ah ! surely this were governance of Life in most august omni-
presence, through which the rational intellect would find in passion its ex-
pression, and mere sense, ignoble else, lend fire to the mind, and being joined
with in harmony more mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,
strike from their several tones one octave chord whose cadence being measure-
less would fly through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord return refreshed
with its new empery and more exultant power,—this indeed could we but
reach it were to find the last, the perfect creed."

This is not a joke, not a sham quotation made to throw scorn on
the bard, but it is an exact reproduction of four stanzas of a poem (!)
called " Hu?nanitad." There are other compositions equally unintel-
ligible, and there is a most objectionable one which ought to have been
omitted altogether. To sum up ; these outpourings of our eesthetic
bard must be pronounced poor and pretentious stuff. Mr. Wilde
tells us that— «< We sliall ^e

Part of the mighty universal whole,

And through all aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul."

Pending that eminently undesirable arrangement, however, time
may be more profitably employed than in reading these warblmgs.
The "Kosmic Soul "—which sounds like the name of either a music-
hall singer or a cooling drink—and the rest of these effusions, will no
doubt be pronounced by the Poet's admirers to be Utter—to which
we are afraid that the disgusted Philistine will add the expressive
monosyllable—Bosh!