Punch (85.1883)

December 15, 1883.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

277

THE MODERN ARS AMANDI,

(.By Punchius Naso.)

CANTO TV.—The Men (continued).

Trapped ? And is Love a net ? Is all its art
To play the vigilant bird-snarer's part,

And vagrant fancies, like shy finches, catch ?

Hnmph! Would you win a mate or “ make a match ” ?
So queries Winifred of the watchet eyes :

So counter-queries Punchius the Wise.

Gusher and Cynic are alike but geese ;

One cackles, t’other hisses. Babblers, cease
Apportioning your praise to this or that!

Although the one is sharp, the other flat,

They both are simply out of tune with truth -T
The wise man will be neither, knowing both.

But means to ends must be adapted still

Many will practise with elaborate skill

The Art of Love, who ne’er may know its nature.

Since Passion’s lore and Cupid’s nomenclature
Are learned alike by Cynic and by Clown,

Timon or Coion. Timon takes the Town
With icy insolence of drawling speech,

Slow as the circulation of a leech.

Yet of so callous confidence that it
Passes with dullards less self-poised for Wit.

Would Psyche win him with a passion pure ?

Bather he’d rise to arch Timantha’s lure,

Timantha false as Cressid and as cold
As Becky Sharp, but so serenely bold,

So valiantly responsive, eye and hand,

So swift to see, so prompt to understand,

The veiled or half-avowed, that ‘ ‘ a smart run ”

With her is more than rapture,—’tis “ good fun,”
Society’s best beatitude, all unknown
To the soft bosom or the straitened zone.

And Cymon ? Cymon is a Curate mild,

Or cricket-loving muscular big child.

Bull-throated, sheepish-smiling, he can smite
The spheric leather almost out of sight,

Flex the ash scull to semblance of a bow,

Or hurl the hammer seventy feet or so.

Him would you witch with babblings about books,
Parade of crewel-work or. crochet-hooks ?

No, with the chances Henley Beach or Lord’s
To Mayfair Galatea free affords,

When she would tickle Titans. She, of late,

Athletic honours, in a Cookham eight,

Contests with mere male muscle, adding grace
That wins the eye to strength that wins the race.

Ah ! me, the snowy flannel cinctured close

With azure, fair flushed cheeks that shame the rose,

The close-mopp’d curls crowned with the jaunty straw ;
The comic clench of the soft-rounded jaw,

Stern set in strenuous effort, the alert
Tense muscle, prompt for steady spin or spurt!

Whom, what might they not win ? Cymon at least
His blue unspeculative eyes will feast
On such a picture, feel his fancy warm
At this divine development of “ form.”

Cymon whom Punch hath seen on Thames’s tide,

In all a Benedick’s unbounded pride,

Of fresh possession “ stroking ” smartly down
Past Ciiefden’s golden woods, bare-armed and brown,
With glance triumphant o’er his shoulder cast,

And laughing query, “ Do I pull too fast ? ”

Sure of a confident negative from lips
Through which sweet breath in equal pulses slips
Unfluttered and unstrained. Clear, bright, and strong
Her laugh bewitched him, whom the Sirens’ song
Had left untouched. Where laughter wins its way
Why waste the sweetness of Ligea’s lay ?

Yet where you’d softly snare, shock not nor frighten
A more sophisticated modern Titan,

Self-conscious, self-admiring, proud to pose
The Providence of pic-nics, one who rows,

Pot-hunting prowess in his every stroke ;

Him too close emulation may provoke,

Not prepossess. Him follow and not lead !

The hands that fumble, and the lips that plead
Will with the subtlest throes of flattery thrill
His soul, and mould young Anak to your will.

Hear Cupid’s confidences once again !

Did Love’s selected Laureate choose, the strain
That uttered his revealings might display
The touch Asmodean. Nay, turn not away
Fawn-eyed Lucile or fiery-orbed Faustine !

.He sings virgimhuc puerisque. Spleen
Sardonic might an Ars Amandi shape
That garlands should not deck, nor fancy drape
In garb Arcadian only. Cupid knows
More than in genial stanzas fitly flows
When girlhood is the audience. He could tell
How Mammon and worse spirits counter-spell
His purer inspirations ; how the heart
Is made a Moloch altar, or a mart
For sordid merchandise. Not for to-day
The sterner strain, this song shall not betray
Faustine or fright Lucile. He holds the myrtle,

And not the nettle ; sharp his dartlets hurtle ;

But if some sting, the sly satiric touch
The softest bosom shall not scathe o’ermuch.

Cupid.

Amandus, pride of the swift-flowing river,

Callous as Pan held his triumphant way on,

Untouched by any dartlet from my quiver,

Holding girl-hearts, like gathered reeds, to play on
Pleasant impromptu pipings, fleeting lays,

Brief paeans of self-praise.

A comely churl, a shallow-soul’d Adonis,

A river-haunting, self-possessed Narcissus,

Cackling in slang of “ form,” and “ pots,” and “ ponies,”
Deeming girls born to comfort, flatter, kiss us,

And fond of varying shandy-gaff, pipes, spurting,

With non-committal flirting.

Amanda—ah, Amanda ! Such bright twists
Of tangled chestnut glittering as she shook ’em!

And who would think that pair of dimpled wrists
Could stroke untired from Maidenhead to Cookham,

That swelling breast bear with so little trouble
Passion or pulling double ?

A cool coquette, with glance as warm and sunny
As Marlow Beach in August midday. Knowing
Amandus quite au fond, soul, muscle, money :

He deemed that he was coaching her—in rowing,

But, unaware and all unwilling, taught her
The art of cynic-slaughter.

An easy art! Eh ? None of mine f Why, verily,

I had not much to do with this cool couple.

Yet I, dans cette galere, oft chuckled merrily
To watch wit make cold metal hot and supple.

Alternate blast and douche dart points will temper,

Or hearts—eadem semper !

Hers was no Pan-pipe for the passing playing
Of any cynic-satyr draped in flannel,

But, siren-strained, the churl to bonds betraying,

Though Phoebus might have deemed it poor and scrannel.
It does not need the flutings of a god
To witch a comely clod.

So every sort of man, the sage, the sad,

The thrall of muscle or of maudlin fad,

Hath his unarmoured place. Think not to trap
In Girton meshes, like a soft she-sap,

The hero of the cinder-path ; nor hope
With Pater-patter or Tibullian trope
To snare the unconscious slave of lesser slang,
Whose ears upon Burlesque’s stale twaddlings hang,
And hold Anacreon’s raptures rot and trash,
Compared with variants of the verb “ to Mash.”