free-verse176 lines
Vigo-Street Eclogue, A
by Owen Seaman(AFTER J. D.)
Maecenas. John. George. Arthur. Grant. Richard.
MAECENAS.
What ho! a merry Christmas! Pff!
Sharp blows the frosty blizzard's whff!
Pile on more logs and let them roll,
And pass the humming wassail-bowl!
JOHN.
The wassail-bowl! the wind is snell!
Drinc hael! and warm the poet's pell!
M'CENAS.
Richard! say something rustic.
RICHARD.
Lo!
The customary mistletoe,
Prehensile on the apple-bough,
Invites the usual kiss.
GEORGE.
And now
Cathartic hellebore should be
A cure for imbecility.
GRANT.
Now holly-berries have begun
To blush for Women That Have Done.
ARTHUR.
The farmer sticks his stuffy goose!
M'CENAS.
Come, come, you grow a little loose;
That's Michaelmas; you must remember
That Michaelmas is in September!
ARTHUR.
Northward the swallow sweeps his wing.
M'CENAS.
No, no! the bird arrives in spring!
ARTHUR.
Such knowledge fits the country clown;
We've better things to note in town.
What's Nature's lore compared with women's?
JOHN.
For this enigma go to S-m-ns;
He is the ----
ARTHUR.
Yes, I am, I know,
The devil of a Romeo!
JOHN.
Hark! hark! the waits, the precious waits!
Their music beats at Heaven's gates.
M'CENAS.
What Bodley wight will sing a stave
To match their strumming? I would have
The manly bass of Hobbes's voice;
But Unwin's house is Hobbes's choice.
George! you've a baritone at need.
GEORGE.
Alas! my famous Keynotes lead
To Discords.
JOHN.
I've a little thing
Of Resurrection. Shall I sing?
ARTHUR.
Please do; but a propos of what?
JOHN.
I cannot say, unless de bottes.
[Proceeds to sing a Ballad of Resurrection.
A letter-card from my dear love!
O folded page of blessed blue!
She burst her many-buttoned glove,
And ripped the perforation through.
"My love, to-night, about eleven,
With never a priest or passing-bell,
We die! and meet, with luck, in Heaven,
But anyhow at least in Hell!"
Her courage very nearly failed,
In fact she swooned along the floor;
But curiosity prevailed,
She came again and read some more.
"There is no way but this to choose;
My people fain would have us wed;
But you and I have later views,
And scorn the vulgar marriage-bed.
"Far be it from me to dictate
How best to break the mortal bond,
But personally I may state
That I shall use the village pond.
"Be punctual, love, and let us meet
For weal or woe!
This line has lost a pair of feet;
The post is now about to go."
Ay, ay, she thought, to meet were well,
But if we found each other out?
You, say, in Heaven, I in Hell,
Or else the other way about!
Nay, there be heavy odds, she said,
One fate shall save us both or damn;
We surely shall be bracketed!
She ceased and sent a telegram.
To Guy le Preux de Balthazar,
Here followed his address, and then
This pregnant message, "Right you are!"
She wrote it with the office pen.
She flashed the phrase along the wires,
Then, passing by a dagger-shop,
Bought one and wiped it on her sire's
Best graduated razor-strop.
On second thoughts, she said, I lean
To poison; true, a knife like this
Looks pretty, rib and rib between,
But people very often miss.
She sought the chemist in his place;
He sampled her with searching eye;
She looked him frankly in the face,
And told a wicked, wicked lie.
"My hen," she said, "a bantam blend,
Has hatched a poor demented chick;
To ease the gentle creature's end
I want a pint of arsenic."
The chemist deemed the order large,
But said no thing and drew the drug;
She seized and bore the sacred charge
Before her in a pewter mug.
At tea she faced her fell intent;
Dressing, she lightly laughed at doom;
Dined with the family, and spent
The evening in the drawing-room.
At ten the early rooster crowed;
Ten-thirty struck and she was gone;
She crossed alone the naked road;
The road had really nothing on.
Her golden braids hung down her back;
Within her side she felt a stitch;
And once the moon behind the wrack
Came out and caught her in a ditch.
Once ere she reached the trysting-pear
She broke the slumber of the rooks;
She wrung her hands, she tore her hair,
And did as people do in books.
From out her cloak she fetched the drug,
"Thy health, my love, in Heaven or Hell!"
Deep to the dregs she drained the mug
And dropped it, feeling far from well.
Upon the punctual stroke her fond
True lover kept the oath he swore;
Plunged softly in the village pond,
But feeling chilly swam ashore.
Next morning in the judgment-place
Two pallid prisoners were tried;
Their guilt was plain; it was a case
Of ineffective suicide.
Yestreen a member of the Force
Had found a woman deadly sick,
Lamenting, with sincere remorse,
An overdose of arsenic.
Another heard upon his beat
One darkly muttering, "This is Hell!"
His weed was wet from head to feet;
He put him in a common cell.
The Justice chewed the evidence;
His eyes were soft, his lips were bland;
It was, he said, a first offence;
He merely gave a reprimand.
"Go free, my poppets, keep the laws,
And get ye wed at once," said he;
The court indulged in rude applause;
The usher cleared the gallery.
The prison-warder, deeply stirred,
Approached the culprits at the bar;
Then haled them forth without a word
Towards the nearest Registrar.
RICHARD.
John, you surpass yourself. Next week
Expect a flattering critique!
JOHN.
The waits are whining in the cold
With clavicorn and clarigold;
They play them like a crumpled horn,
The clarigold and clavicorn.