Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 29

The less of this cold world, the more of heaven; The briefer life, the earlier immortality."

Various other examples of watch-case verses follow:

THE WATCH'S MOMENTS.

"See how the moments pa.s.s, How swift they fly away!

In the instructive gla.s.s Behold thy life's decay.

Oh! waste not then thy prime In sin's pernicious road; Redeem thy misspent time, Acquaint thyself with G.o.d.

So when thy pulse shall cease Its throbbing transient play, The soul to realms of bliss May wing its joyful way."

"Deign, lady fair, this watch to wear, To mark how moments fly; For none a moment have to spare, Who in a moment die."

TO A LADY WITH THE PRESENT OF A WATCH.

"With me while present, may thy lovely eyes, Be never turned upon this golden toy; Think every pleasing hour too swiftly flies, And measure time by joy succeeding joy.

But when the cares that interrupt our bliss, To me not always will thy sight allow, Then oft with fond impatience look on this, Then every minute count--as I do now."

"Time is thou hast, employ the portion small; Time past is gone, thou canst not it recall; Time future is not, and may never be; Time present is the only time for thee."

"Watch against evil thoughts Watch against idle words; Watch against sinful ways; Watch against wicked actions.

What I say unto you I say unto all, Watch."

The following lines have a sand-gla.s.s engraved between the first four and the last four lines:

"Mark the rapid motion Of this timepiece; hear it say, Man, attend to thy salvation; Time does quickly pa.s.s away.

Why, heedless of the warning Which my tinkling sound doth give, Do forget, vain frame adorning, Man thou art not born to live?"

On a sun-dial the following verse has been found engraved:

"Once at a potent leader's voice it stayed; Once it went back when a good monarch prayed; Mortals! howe'er ye grieve, howe'er deplore, The flying shadow shall return no more."

This was found under an hour-gla.s.s in a grotto near water:

"This babbling stream not uninstructive flows, Nor idly loiters to its destined main; Each flower it feeds that on its margin grows, Now bids thee blush, whose days are spent in vain.

Nor void of moral, though unheeded glides Time's current, stealing on with silent haste; For lo! each falling sand _his_ folly chides, Who lets one precious moment run to waste."

_PROSE POEMS._

Several pages of this kind appeared at the end of an early volume of "Cornhill Magazine," of which this is the beginning:

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

"'Tis in the middle of the night; and as with weary hand we write, 'Here endeth C. M. volume seven,' we turn our grateful eyes to heaven.

The fainting soul, oppressed long, expands and blossoms into song; but why 'twere difficult to state, for here commenceth volume eight.

"And ah! what mischiefs him environ who claps the editorial tiar on!

'Tis but a paper thing, no doubt; but those who don it soon find out the weight of lead--ah me, how weary!--one little foolscap sheet may carry. Pleasing, we hear, to G.o.ds and man was Mr. William Gladstone when he calmed the paper duty fuss; but oh, 'twas very hard on Us.

Before he took the impost off, one gentleman was found enough (he _was_ Herculean, but still!--) to bear the letters from Cornhill: two men are needed now, and these are clearly going at the knees. Yet happy hearts had we to-day if one in fifteen hundred, say, of all the packets, white and blue, which we diurnally go through, yielded an ounce of sterling brains, or ought but headache for our pains. Ah, could the Correspondent see the Editor in his misery, no more injurious ink he'd shed, but tears of sympathy instead. What is this tale of straws and bricks? A hen with fifty thousand chicks clapt in Sahara's sandy plain to peck the wilderness for grain--in that unhappy fowl is seen the despot of a magazine. Only one difference we find; but that is most important, mind. Instinct compels _her_ patient beak; ours--in all modesty we speak--is kept by CONSCIENCE (sternly chaste) pegging the literary waste. Our barns are stored, our garners--well, the stock in them's considerable; yet when we're to the desert brought, again comes back the welcome thought that somewhere in its depths may hide one little seed, which, multiplied in our half-acre on Cornhill, might all the land with gladness fill. Experience then no more we heed; but, though we seldom find the seed, we read, and read, and read, and read." &c. &c.

This is also an instance of this hidden verse in the beginning of one of Macaulay's letters to his sister Hannah:

"MY DARLING,--Why am I such a fool as to write to a gipsy at Liverpool, who fancies that none is so good as she if she sends one letter for my three? A lazy chit, whose fingers tire in penning a page in reply to a quire! There, miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, and never knew that you were reading verse."

When Mr. Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House" was first published, the "Athenaeum" furnished the following unique criticism:

"The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managed his rhymes to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another 'In Memoriam.' How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz The poet's record of his she, Some little pictures you shall see, Not in our language but in his:

'While thus I grieved and kissed her glove, My man brought in her note to say Papa had bid her send his love, And hoped I dine with them next day; They had learned and practised Purcell's glee, To sing it by to-morrow night: The postscript was--her sisters and she Inclosed some violets blue and white.

'Restless and sick of long exile, From those sweet friends I rode, to see The church repairs, and after a while Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.

They introduced the Cousin Fred I'd heard of, Honor's favourite; grave, Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred, And with an air of the salt wave.'

Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless they may be tears of mirth.

From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun.

The rest will come another day, If public sympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the 'Angel in the House.'"

THE PRINTER.

"The printer-man had just set up a 'stickful' of brevier, filled with italic, fractions, signs, and other things most queer; the type he lifted from the stick, nor dreamt of coming woes, when lo! a wretched wasp thought fit to sting him on the nose: the printer-man the type let fall, as quick as quick could be, and gently murmured a naughty word beginning with a D."

MY LOVE.

"I seen her out a-walking in her habit de la rue, and it ain't no use a-talking, but she's pumpkins and a few. She glides along in glory like a duck upon a lake, and I'd be all love and duty, if I only were her drake!"

THE SOLO.

"He drew his breath with a gasping sob, with a quivering voice he sang, but his voice leaked out and could not drown the accompanist's clamorous bang. He lost his pitch on the middle A, he faltered on the lower D, and foundered at length like a battered wreck adrift on the wild high C."

PONY LOST.

_On Feb. 21st, 1822, this devil bade me adieu._

"Lost, stolen, or astray, not the least doubt but run away, a mare pony that is all bay,--if I judge pretty nigh, it is about eleven hands high; full tail and mane, a pretty head and frame; cut on both shoulders by the collar, not being soft nor hollow; it is about five years old, which may be easily told; for spirit and for speed, the devil cannot her exceed."

An excellent specimen of this kind of literary work is to be found in J.

Russell Lowell's "Fable for Critics," of which the t.i.tle-page and preface are written in this fas.h.i.+on, and there is here given an extract from the latter:

"Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom n.o.body knows, some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in following wherever I wander at pleasure,--that, in short, I take more than a young author's lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like Mephistopheles, that the public will doubt, as they grope through my rhythm, if in truth I am making fun _at_ them or _with_ them.

"So the excellent Public is hereby a.s.sured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land, but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it.

Now, I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are something like ten thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review and Magazine critics call _lofty_ and _true_, and about thirty thousand (_this_ tribe is increasing) of the kinds who are termed _full of promise_ and _pleasing_. The public will see by a glance at this schedule, that they cannot expect me to be over-sedulous about courting _them_, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of for boiling my pot.