Punch (86.1884)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [Jan-oaky 12. 1884.

THE MODERN ARS AMANDI.

(By Punchius Naso.)

CANTO YIL—Love, the Mime.

Did Punch indeed his oracle set up
Beneath his cedar (Psyche, pass the cup !)

How would the fair Hock hither from Mayfair
And rural Hole-cum-Corner! Query, prayer,

Whisper, and wail, shy hint, and blushful plaint,

From blameless sinner or from saucy saint,

Secrets should tell, such as Dodona’s oak
Heard never. For the young-ling Archer’s yoke
All necks would bow to, whilst all hearts would fain
In double-harness drag his rose-wreathed wain.

“Please, may I flirt t ” The silvery whisper slips
Softly, from many a pair of pouting lips,

In Punch's ready ear. The genial sage
Is no Draconic dragon. War to wage
A outrance against all the trips and twirls
Of vagrant fancy in our boys and girls,

Those semi-tender tentatives of hearts,

Mild mock-rehearsals of the sweets and smarts
Of full-played Passion, were not wiser fun
Than stalking midges with an Armstrong gun.

“ Hooray ! ” shouts Flo. “ Let solemn seniors chide,
And prudes cry ‘ shocking! ’ Punch is on our side.”
Free-jihrased and frolic Mischief, not too fast!

Could such sly net as venomed Vulcan cast

O’er flagrant Venus and hot-chaling Mars

Snare some bare hearts, what stains, what sanguine scar.-,

Born of the Love-burlesques light souls find sweet,

The Olympian leisurely regard might greet!

Stains ! Spirit-stains, gay sprite, though like the dye
Of long-shed blood, safe-hidden from the eye,

Are blazoned to the conscience. Lethal hurt
All variations of the verb “ to flirt ”—

Circean vocable !—may not impart
To worldly “ honour ” or to modish “ heart.”

“ Such splendid practice ! ” sparkling Clelia cries,

With a consummate flash of conscious eves
Which, trained in mirrored manifold reflection,

Are calculable as a conic section.

Well, to submit to calmly cold analysis,

True coquetry might bring a strange paralysis
On mobile Maidenhood. To test her arms,

Parade and prove her panoply of charms,

Essay, rehearse effects of clasp and glance,

The blood’s warm bounds the pulses’ maddening dance,

Hint adoration by a radiant lift

Of swimming eyes whose movements slow or swift

Are deftly measured ; flash affected scorn

Or flush a well-feigned shyness, ape forlorn

Lone Ariadne’s lingering long regard,

Or Sappho’s brooding yearning, raise unbarred
Twin heavens of amorous and irradiant blue,

Prove what soft, fingers, what sweet breath can do
By furtive pressure or by fragrant waft;

Try every flight and pitch of the toy shaft
Of Love the Mime; all this—in girlish phrase-
“ Comes natural ” to the maid of modern days

As to love-cunning Cressida of old.

Playing at Love ! A pleasant game, we ’re told
By—well, by those whom conscious shame holds not
To a wise silence covering sear or blot.

Play, if you please, brisk Beauties, who care less
For stainless scutcheon than assured success.

White is a trying tint to keep quite clear
From smirch ; a decent grey makes easier wear.

Play, if you please ! In tender conscience wakes
Scorn of the game, or horror of the stakes ;

But cheery callousness is the “ good form ”

Of boudoir as of Club-room. Tea-cup storm

Of prickly prudishness will little move

The votaries of that pleasant Cult, Mock-Love.

Mock-Love ! And what if that, and that alone,

It be that, after all, hath ever known

The rules of Art ? What, if attempts to teach

Charm to the rose or sweetness to the peach,

To instruct the wanton woodbine how to cling,

Or the shy violet to bewitch the Spring,

Were all as wise and fruitful as to aim
At teaching love as experts teach a game *

What if the real Eros laughed at rule

And, though an urchin, scorned attending school

(No pupil, but the universal master)

What if Dame Nature fairer teach and faster
All honest love-lore than erotic bard,

Sage erudite or matron keen and hard ?

What if mere coded artifice were all
That Ovid or “ Mamma ” might fairly call
An Ars Amancli, dealing with mock passion
Inspired by sensuousness and shaped by fashion ?

Hear the Boy, wise with all the lore of age,

To Punchius, youthful yet though thrice a Sage.
Young Age, old Youth! A dual marvel rare
That deathless, fitly matched and matchless pair.

Love to his Laureate.

Magister Artium ! Love is “ Art of Arts,”

But ’tis “ an Art which Nature makes.” As she,
The Protean Thaumaturge, plays myriad parts
Through multitudinous mutability,

Unchanged in essence,

So through Art’s maskings and quaint. aimicry
Lives Love’s perennial jjresence.

By law cloud pageantries take form and fleet,

By rule June’s lavish leafery, wind-stirred, shakes.
Untracked, untraceable as fairy feet

O'er flowers, or siren dances on dim lakes,

But ever shaping.

So the pure spirit of Love, like Ariel, takes
Innumerous tricksy draping.

Teach on, elected Laureate ! Lesson still
In blameless Art not disavowed by me,

Rebel to rule, yet owning sleight and skill
To frank heart-impulse fair auxiliary.

Sham priests insult us
With Bacchic rites. Frolic and gentle glee
Grace the true Cyprian cultus.

'Mock-Love hath its own ritual, and a code
As hollow as itself. The callous .-ham
Of Marriage-Marts, the Mscnad brazen-browed
Of female fiction, each may coach and cram
In her own fashion.

For the two branches of their base “ exam.,”

Cold greed and sensual passion.

Let Love the Mime absolve them, if he may,

Of falseness and disfame. I know, them not.

But venial preludings of hearts o’er gay,

The sweet burlesques that scarcely sting or blot,
Shall I be hard on ?

Sham skirmishes ere yet his shaft is shot
Cupid can lightly pardon.

Play at, but not with Love ! A rule to take
Cum grano. No austere precisian, I,

But when the game is for the nobler stake,

To win it not by tricks but honours try,

Bright British Maiden!

The burthen with whose mild morality
This Ars Amandi’s laden !