DOI issue:
October 15, 1892
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17694#0179
174 PUNCH, OE THE LONDON CHARIVARI. [October 15, 1892.
POST-PRANDIAL PESSIMISTS.
Scene—The Smoking-room at the Decadents.
First Decadent {M. A. Oxon). "After all, Smythe, what would Life be without Coffee?"
Second Decadent {B. A. Camb.). "True, Jeohkes, true ! And yet, after all, what is Life with Coffee?"
" CROSSING THE BAR."
IN MEMOKIAM.
Boiix, August 5, 1809. Died, October 6, 1892.
" Taliessen is our fullest throat of song."
The Holy Grail.
Ottr fullest throat of song is silent, hushed
In Autumn, when the songless woods are
% ' still,
And with October's boding hectic flushed
Slowly the year disrobes. A passionate
thrill
Of strange proud sorrow pulses through the
land,
His land, his England, which he loved so
well;
And brows bend low, as slow from, strand to
strand
The Poet's passing bell
Sends forth its solemn note, and every heart
Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start.
Sad tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so.
Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song
Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the
glow
Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou
strong
Full tide, as over the unmoaning bar
Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep,
Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star
Of valiant souls, who keep
Through the long strife of thought-life free
from scathe
The luminous guidance of the larger faith.
No sadness of farewell ? Great Singer,
crowned
"With lustrous laurel, facing that far light,
In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed
and drowned,
And death a passing shade, of meaning
slight ;
Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call,
The twilight shadow, and the evening bell,
Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er
befall
Thou must indeed fare well.
But we—we have but memories now, and love
The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove.
Great singer, he, and great among the great,
Or greatness hath no sure abiding test.
The poet's splendid pomp, the shining state
Of royal singing robes, were his, con-
fest,
By slowly growing certitude of fame,
Since first, a youth, he found fresh-op2ning
portals
To Beauty's Pleasure-House. Ranked with
acclaim
Amidst the true Immortals,
The amaranth fields with native ease he trod,
Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god.
Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways
In Art's great Palace, shrined in Nature's
heart,
Sought the young singer, and his limpid
lays,
O'er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick
blood start
To many a cheek mere glittering rhymes left
cold.
But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn
His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold
As to repulse with scorn
The shining troop because of shadowy birth,
Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth P
But the true god-gift grows. Sweet, sweet,
still sweet
As great Apollo's lyre, or Pan's plain reed,
His music flowed, but slowly he out-beat
His song to finer issues. Fingers fleet,
That trifled with the pipe-stops, shook grand
sound
From the great organ's golden mouths
anon.
A mellow-measured might, a beauty bound
(As Yenus with her zone)
By that which shaped from chaos Earth, Air,
The unhampering restraint of Harmony.
Hysteric ecstasy, now fierce, now faint,
But ever fever-sick, shook not his lyre
With epileptic fervours. Sensual taint
Of satyr heat, or bacchanal desire,
Polluted not the passion of his song ;
No corybantic clangor clamoured through
Its manly harmonies, as sane as strong ;
So that the captious few
Found sickliness in pure Elysian balm,
And coldness in such high Olympian calm.
Impassioned purity, high minister
Of spirit's joys, was his, reserved, re-
strained.
His song was like the sword Excalibur
Of his symbolic knight; trenchant, un-
stained,
It shook the world of wordly baseness, smote
The Christless heathendom of huckstering
days.
POST-PRANDIAL PESSIMISTS.
Scene—The Smoking-room at the Decadents.
First Decadent {M. A. Oxon). "After all, Smythe, what would Life be without Coffee?"
Second Decadent {B. A. Camb.). "True, Jeohkes, true ! And yet, after all, what is Life with Coffee?"
" CROSSING THE BAR."
IN MEMOKIAM.
Boiix, August 5, 1809. Died, October 6, 1892.
" Taliessen is our fullest throat of song."
The Holy Grail.
Ottr fullest throat of song is silent, hushed
In Autumn, when the songless woods are
% ' still,
And with October's boding hectic flushed
Slowly the year disrobes. A passionate
thrill
Of strange proud sorrow pulses through the
land,
His land, his England, which he loved so
well;
And brows bend low, as slow from, strand to
strand
The Poet's passing bell
Sends forth its solemn note, and every heart
Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start.
Sad tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so.
Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song
Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the
glow
Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou
strong
Full tide, as over the unmoaning bar
Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep,
Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star
Of valiant souls, who keep
Through the long strife of thought-life free
from scathe
The luminous guidance of the larger faith.
No sadness of farewell ? Great Singer,
crowned
"With lustrous laurel, facing that far light,
In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed
and drowned,
And death a passing shade, of meaning
slight ;
Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call,
The twilight shadow, and the evening bell,
Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er
befall
Thou must indeed fare well.
But we—we have but memories now, and love
The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove.
Great singer, he, and great among the great,
Or greatness hath no sure abiding test.
The poet's splendid pomp, the shining state
Of royal singing robes, were his, con-
fest,
By slowly growing certitude of fame,
Since first, a youth, he found fresh-op2ning
portals
To Beauty's Pleasure-House. Ranked with
acclaim
Amidst the true Immortals,
The amaranth fields with native ease he trod,
Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god.
Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways
In Art's great Palace, shrined in Nature's
heart,
Sought the young singer, and his limpid
lays,
O'er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick
blood start
To many a cheek mere glittering rhymes left
cold.
But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn
His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold
As to repulse with scorn
The shining troop because of shadowy birth,
Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth P
But the true god-gift grows. Sweet, sweet,
still sweet
As great Apollo's lyre, or Pan's plain reed,
His music flowed, but slowly he out-beat
His song to finer issues. Fingers fleet,
That trifled with the pipe-stops, shook grand
sound
From the great organ's golden mouths
anon.
A mellow-measured might, a beauty bound
(As Yenus with her zone)
By that which shaped from chaos Earth, Air,
The unhampering restraint of Harmony.
Hysteric ecstasy, now fierce, now faint,
But ever fever-sick, shook not his lyre
With epileptic fervours. Sensual taint
Of satyr heat, or bacchanal desire,
Polluted not the passion of his song ;
No corybantic clangor clamoured through
Its manly harmonies, as sane as strong ;
So that the captious few
Found sickliness in pure Elysian balm,
And coldness in such high Olympian calm.
Impassioned purity, high minister
Of spirit's joys, was his, reserved, re-
strained.
His song was like the sword Excalibur
Of his symbolic knight; trenchant, un-
stained,
It shook the world of wordly baseness, smote
The Christless heathendom of huckstering
days.