Green Bays. Verses and Parodies Part 6

UNITY PUT QUARTERLY[1].

By A. C. S.

The Centuries kiss and commingle, Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain; No cycle but scorns to be single, No two but demur to be twain, 'Till the land of the lute and the love-tale Be bride of the boreal breast, And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail, The East with the West.

The desire of the grey for the dun nights Is that of the dun for the grey; The tales of the Thousand and One Nights Touch lips with 'The Times' of to-day.-- Come, chasten the cheap with the cla.s.sic; Choose, Churton, thy chair and thy cla.s.s, Mix, melt in the must that is Ma.s.sic The beer that is Ba.s.s!

Omnipotent age of the Aorist!

Infinitely freely exact!-- As the fragrance of fiction is fairest If frayed in the furnace of fact-- Though nine be the Muses in number There is hope if the handbook be one,-- Dispelling the planets that c.u.mber The path of the sun.

Though crimson thy hands and thy hood be With the blood of a brother betrayed, O Would-be-Professor of Would-be, We call thee to bless and to aid.

Trans.m.u.ted would travel with Er, see The Land of the Rolling of Logs, Charmed, chained to thy side, as to Circe The Ithacan hogs.

O bourne of the black and the G.o.dly!

O land where the good n.i.g.g.e.rs go.

With the books that are borrowed of Bodley, Old moons and our castaway clo'!

There, there, till the roses be ripened Rebuke us, revile, and review, Then take thee thine annual stipend So long over-due.

[1] Suggested by an Article in the _Quarterly Review_, enforcing the unity of literature ancient and modern, and the necessity of providing a new School of Literature in Oxford.

FIRE!

By Sir W. S.

Written on the occasion of the visit of the United Fire Brigades to Oxford, 1887.

I.

St. Giles's street is fair and wide, St. Giles's street is long; But long or wide, may naught abide Therein of guile or wrong; For through St. Giles's, to and fro, The mild ecclesiastics go From prime to evensong.

It were a fearsome task, perdie!

To sin in such good company.

II.

Long had the slanting beam of day Proclaimed the Thirtieth of May Ere now, erect, its fiery heat Illumined all that hallowed street, And breathing benediction on Thy serried battlements, St. John, Suffused at once with equal glow The cl.u.s.ter'd Archipelago, The Art Professor's studio And Mr. Greenwood's shop, Thy building, Pusey, where below The stout Salvation soldiers blow The cornet till they drop; Thine, Balliol, where we move, and oh!

Thine, Randolph, where we stop.

III.

But what is this that frights the air, And wakes the curate from his lair In Pusey's cool retreat, To leave the feast, to climb the stair, And scan the startled street?

As when perambulate the young And call with unrelenting tongue On home, mamma, and sire; Or voters shout with strength of lung For Hall & Co's Entire; Or Sabbath-breakers scream and shout-- The band of Booth, with drum devout, Eliza on her Sunday out, Or Farmer with his choir:--

IV.

E'en so, with shriek of fife and drum And horrid clang of bra.s.s, The Fire Brigades of England come And down St. Giles's pa.s.s.

Oh grand, methinks, in such array To spend a Whitsun Holiday All soaking to the skin!

(Yet shoes and hose alike are stout; The shoes to keep the water out, The hose to keep it in.)

V.

They came from Henley on the Thames, From Berwick on the Tweed, And at the mercy of the flames They left their children and their dames, To come and play their little games On Morrell's dewy mead.

Yet feared they not with fire to play-- The pyrotechnics (so they say) Were very fine indeed.

VI.

(P.S. by Lord Macaulay).

Then let us bless Our Gracious Queen and eke the Fire Brigade, And bless no less the horrid mess they've been and gone and made; Remove the dirt they chose to squirt upon our best attire, Bless all, but most the lucky chance that no one shouted 'Fire!'

DE TEA FABULA.

Plain Language from truthful James[1].

Do I sleep? Do I dream?

Am I hoaxed by a scout?

Are things what they seem, Or is Sophists about?

Is our "to ti en einai" a failure, or is Robert Browning played out?

Which expressions like these May be fairly applied By a party who sees A Society skied Upon tea that the Warden of Keble had biled with legitimate pride.

'Twas November the third, And I says to Bill Nye, 'Which it's true what I've heard: If you're, so to speak, fly, There's a chance of some tea and cheap culture, the sort recommended as High.'

Which I mentioned its name, And he ups and remarks: 'If dress-coats is the game And pow-wow in the Parks, Then I 'm nuts on Sordello and Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau and similar Snarks.'

Now the pride of Bill Nye Cannot well be express'd; For he wore a white tie And a cut-away vest: Says I, 'Solomon's lilies ain't in it, and they was reputed well dress'd.'

But not far did we wend, When we saw Pippa pa.s.s On the arm of a friend --Doctor Furnivall 'twas, And he wore in his hat two half-tickets for London, return, second-cla.s.s.