DOI Heft:
June 28, 1884
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17756#0306
June 28, 1884.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
301
THE TOWN.
IV.—Mayfair. A Thing of Beauty.
Beauty in Babylon ? Asa butterfly
Lit on the horn of Behemoth, it seems
Incongruous! Yet Boeotia hath
an eye,
Like Polyphemus, and indul-
geth dreams
Of Galatea. Passion’s lyric cry
Upward through London’s
brumous welkin streams,
As through the Athenian blue,
in burning praise
Of the strange modish Charts
of our days.
A Fashionable Beauty ! ’Twere
a text
For Ltjcian or for Heine.
Lesser lyres
May try it, but the ear of
wisdom, yext
With much hysteric thin-
toned twangling, tires
Of expectation ; whosoe’er the
next
Town twitterer boudoir love-
liness inspires,
The Mayfair manufacturer of
triolets
Will hardly win the Ionian crown of violets.
Yes, Beauty’s fashionable, and to-day,
Like other modes, is just a branch of trade,
Self-advertised in as serene a way
As soaps or corsets ; lavishly displayed
Like coarser “ goods.” ’Tis not the modern way
For Amaryllis to affect the shade ;
The nymph has turned a bold, unblushing boaster
In photograph, trade-circular, and poster.
Fair Amaryllis ! She at seventeen
Was sweet and fresh as her own Devon lanes,
But greed hath eyes ubiquitous and keen,
And Beauty to the mart is brought like brains.
An English Cressid ? Hay, restrain your spleen,
Thersites ! Greek device no longer reigns.
Beauty is made a marketable toy.
But scarce in the frank fashion of old Troy.
How ? Mothers, husbands, chaperons may reply.
The many-mystery’d art hath various phases.
Beauty that poses in the crowd’s coarse eye,
Or panders to Society’s daintier crazes
Must sacrifice the sweets of privacy,
Show open, common, cheap as summer daisies.
But hath she not reward when each quack bill is
Bright with the beauteous bust of Amaryllis ?
Trade subsidises Art. Mumthrumbo’s braces
Are blazoned to the world by an It. A.,
And why should womanhood’s seductive graces
Hot serve the counter Croesus ? Trade can paij
For its commodity of pretty faces ;
A Duchess in artistic negligee,
Or loose-robed star of Stagedom’s light o’ loves,
Both help to push the sale of hose or gloves.
So Amaryllis moves, Queen, not of Love,
But the queer realm of quidnunc Cockneydom;
In its strange fame some few degrees above
A skipping stage chit. Little lyrists strum
Her praises, proud to play the Paphian dove
About her car of triumph ; painters come
To do her canvas-homage, all as hollow
As neo-pagan pseans to Apollo.
Helen, Aspasia, Cleopatra,—these
Were Passion’s frank, unfaltering ministrants ;
But ’tis not Antony or Pericles
Whom Amaryllis charms ; her postulants
Are modish mannikins, the dregs and lees
Of the effeminate coteries and cants,
Who swell the silly legion, never scanty,
Of the homunculi and the dilettanti.
Poor Beauty ! Handmaid of this cackling herd,
Star of the social pageant hired for show !
What Puch-Yike tricks the Imp of the Absurd
Plays in this world ! Beauty perforce must go
Where’er Society’s languid pulse is stirred,
Shine at a race, or pose in a tableau,
To please the Argus mob whose gloating eyes
Gleam praises which are veiled indignities.
Theme of the Club-room’s cold and cynic chatter,
The Peeping-Toms of Pressdom gush and gloat
L pon her published charms, her graces Hatter,
Appraise her lips, er eulogise her throat.
The common quarry of the Cad ! What matter
If he display a starred and broidered coat,
The counter-jumper’s oily hirsute twist,
Or the smart frock of the smart journalist ?
Hail, conquering Cad ! Thy spirit widely rules,
Late risen from its native home, the gutter.
The Clotens of the Senate, Press, Clubs, Schools,
Thy bald brutalities now boldly utter.
Who now of courtesy or candour pules r
The cleverness that Cockneydom would flutter
Is blatant, self-assertive, rancorous, rude,
The ape of ’Aery’s every mode and mood.
The chuckling churl, who flattens his snub nose
Against the window where the flaunted charms
Of Amaryllis glow in graceful pose,
With Lady Limpet’s white bewitching arms,
And Mrs. Merle, the sumptuous southern rose,
Competing conqueringly, thrills not nor warms
Like rustic Cymon to a higher sense,
Quickened by beauty’s calm omnipotence.
He grins and gloses as they glose and grin
In courtlier sort in gallery, stall, or stand.
There is no touch of inspiration in
The pitiful parade that makes the land
Accomplice in destroying what should win
Defence of every honest heart and hand,—■
That privacy of home which vulgar bribes
Leaves at the mercy of Society scribes.
And Beauty’s self ? To paint her inner war
Of hope and fear, ambition, shame, disgust,
Heeds divination. But a Social Star
Shines for its season only ; Pharaoh’s dust
Is not more dead than banished World-Queens are,
If Beauty be not shrewd to make the lust
Of the crowd’s curious eye yield solid gain,
Than memories of past triumphs what more vain ?
Of Beauty and the many-headed Beast
A later legend phantasy might frame.
Who ’ll try the task ? The Poet or the Priest ?
Hay, zeal is honey-tongued, and satire tame ;
But the fierce Prophet of the fervid East
Might strike in London homes the trail of shame,
Though wide the difference, as ’twixt flames and lilies,
Between Aholibah and Amaryllis.
Most Inappropriate.
The commemoration of the Tercentenary of the murder of William
the Silent will take place at Delft on the Tenth of July. The
Times says:—
“ Professor HE Tries, of Leyden University, considered the most effective
speaker of Holland, has consented to pronounce an oration over the splendid
tomb of ‘ The Silent ’ in the New Church of Delft.”
Fancy commemorating William the Silent with a long speech !
The proceedings ought to be in dumb show, and his health drunk
in solemn silence in a glass of Mumm all round.
“ Here is a bit of news,
stockings are coming in
Black or White P
I don’t know whether I like it or not. White
rin.”—Girl’s Gossip in “ Truth.’’’
Those symphonies in black,
Brave in their silken sheen,
The graceful sable hose,
With creaseless fit and clock-
ing:
They ’re doomed, alas ! alack !
The flying skirt I ween
Ho longer will disclose
The dainty black silk stocking !
The laughing Tennis lass
A hint of ebon limbs,
For ten years, I suppose, _
Has shown ’neath frills and
frocking :
But now, when o’er the grass
She fleetly trips and skims,
She deftly hides and shows
A spotless snow-white stocking!
[Any colour (we say) that the Ladies like best; hut let Blue-
Stockings disappear entirely.—Ed.]
Yon. 86
10
301
THE TOWN.
IV.—Mayfair. A Thing of Beauty.
Beauty in Babylon ? Asa butterfly
Lit on the horn of Behemoth, it seems
Incongruous! Yet Boeotia hath
an eye,
Like Polyphemus, and indul-
geth dreams
Of Galatea. Passion’s lyric cry
Upward through London’s
brumous welkin streams,
As through the Athenian blue,
in burning praise
Of the strange modish Charts
of our days.
A Fashionable Beauty ! ’Twere
a text
For Ltjcian or for Heine.
Lesser lyres
May try it, but the ear of
wisdom, yext
With much hysteric thin-
toned twangling, tires
Of expectation ; whosoe’er the
next
Town twitterer boudoir love-
liness inspires,
The Mayfair manufacturer of
triolets
Will hardly win the Ionian crown of violets.
Yes, Beauty’s fashionable, and to-day,
Like other modes, is just a branch of trade,
Self-advertised in as serene a way
As soaps or corsets ; lavishly displayed
Like coarser “ goods.” ’Tis not the modern way
For Amaryllis to affect the shade ;
The nymph has turned a bold, unblushing boaster
In photograph, trade-circular, and poster.
Fair Amaryllis ! She at seventeen
Was sweet and fresh as her own Devon lanes,
But greed hath eyes ubiquitous and keen,
And Beauty to the mart is brought like brains.
An English Cressid ? Hay, restrain your spleen,
Thersites ! Greek device no longer reigns.
Beauty is made a marketable toy.
But scarce in the frank fashion of old Troy.
How ? Mothers, husbands, chaperons may reply.
The many-mystery’d art hath various phases.
Beauty that poses in the crowd’s coarse eye,
Or panders to Society’s daintier crazes
Must sacrifice the sweets of privacy,
Show open, common, cheap as summer daisies.
But hath she not reward when each quack bill is
Bright with the beauteous bust of Amaryllis ?
Trade subsidises Art. Mumthrumbo’s braces
Are blazoned to the world by an It. A.,
And why should womanhood’s seductive graces
Hot serve the counter Croesus ? Trade can paij
For its commodity of pretty faces ;
A Duchess in artistic negligee,
Or loose-robed star of Stagedom’s light o’ loves,
Both help to push the sale of hose or gloves.
So Amaryllis moves, Queen, not of Love,
But the queer realm of quidnunc Cockneydom;
In its strange fame some few degrees above
A skipping stage chit. Little lyrists strum
Her praises, proud to play the Paphian dove
About her car of triumph ; painters come
To do her canvas-homage, all as hollow
As neo-pagan pseans to Apollo.
Helen, Aspasia, Cleopatra,—these
Were Passion’s frank, unfaltering ministrants ;
But ’tis not Antony or Pericles
Whom Amaryllis charms ; her postulants
Are modish mannikins, the dregs and lees
Of the effeminate coteries and cants,
Who swell the silly legion, never scanty,
Of the homunculi and the dilettanti.
Poor Beauty ! Handmaid of this cackling herd,
Star of the social pageant hired for show !
What Puch-Yike tricks the Imp of the Absurd
Plays in this world ! Beauty perforce must go
Where’er Society’s languid pulse is stirred,
Shine at a race, or pose in a tableau,
To please the Argus mob whose gloating eyes
Gleam praises which are veiled indignities.
Theme of the Club-room’s cold and cynic chatter,
The Peeping-Toms of Pressdom gush and gloat
L pon her published charms, her graces Hatter,
Appraise her lips, er eulogise her throat.
The common quarry of the Cad ! What matter
If he display a starred and broidered coat,
The counter-jumper’s oily hirsute twist,
Or the smart frock of the smart journalist ?
Hail, conquering Cad ! Thy spirit widely rules,
Late risen from its native home, the gutter.
The Clotens of the Senate, Press, Clubs, Schools,
Thy bald brutalities now boldly utter.
Who now of courtesy or candour pules r
The cleverness that Cockneydom would flutter
Is blatant, self-assertive, rancorous, rude,
The ape of ’Aery’s every mode and mood.
The chuckling churl, who flattens his snub nose
Against the window where the flaunted charms
Of Amaryllis glow in graceful pose,
With Lady Limpet’s white bewitching arms,
And Mrs. Merle, the sumptuous southern rose,
Competing conqueringly, thrills not nor warms
Like rustic Cymon to a higher sense,
Quickened by beauty’s calm omnipotence.
He grins and gloses as they glose and grin
In courtlier sort in gallery, stall, or stand.
There is no touch of inspiration in
The pitiful parade that makes the land
Accomplice in destroying what should win
Defence of every honest heart and hand,—■
That privacy of home which vulgar bribes
Leaves at the mercy of Society scribes.
And Beauty’s self ? To paint her inner war
Of hope and fear, ambition, shame, disgust,
Heeds divination. But a Social Star
Shines for its season only ; Pharaoh’s dust
Is not more dead than banished World-Queens are,
If Beauty be not shrewd to make the lust
Of the crowd’s curious eye yield solid gain,
Than memories of past triumphs what more vain ?
Of Beauty and the many-headed Beast
A later legend phantasy might frame.
Who ’ll try the task ? The Poet or the Priest ?
Hay, zeal is honey-tongued, and satire tame ;
But the fierce Prophet of the fervid East
Might strike in London homes the trail of shame,
Though wide the difference, as ’twixt flames and lilies,
Between Aholibah and Amaryllis.
Most Inappropriate.
The commemoration of the Tercentenary of the murder of William
the Silent will take place at Delft on the Tenth of July. The
Times says:—
“ Professor HE Tries, of Leyden University, considered the most effective
speaker of Holland, has consented to pronounce an oration over the splendid
tomb of ‘ The Silent ’ in the New Church of Delft.”
Fancy commemorating William the Silent with a long speech !
The proceedings ought to be in dumb show, and his health drunk
in solemn silence in a glass of Mumm all round.
“ Here is a bit of news,
stockings are coming in
Black or White P
I don’t know whether I like it or not. White
rin.”—Girl’s Gossip in “ Truth.’’’
Those symphonies in black,
Brave in their silken sheen,
The graceful sable hose,
With creaseless fit and clock-
ing:
They ’re doomed, alas ! alack !
The flying skirt I ween
Ho longer will disclose
The dainty black silk stocking !
The laughing Tennis lass
A hint of ebon limbs,
For ten years, I suppose, _
Has shown ’neath frills and
frocking :
But now, when o’er the grass
She fleetly trips and skims,
She deftly hides and shows
A spotless snow-white stocking!
[Any colour (we say) that the Ladies like best; hut let Blue-
Stockings disappear entirely.—Ed.]
Yon. 86
10