Verses 1889-1896 Part 29

But a rival, of Solutr]/e, told the tribe my style was _outr]/e_ -- 'Neath a tomahawk of diorite he fell.

And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.

Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting dogs fed full, And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong; And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead, For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong."

But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole shrine he came, And he told me in a vision of the night: -- "There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right!"

Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail; And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer [And a minor poet certified by Tr--ll].

Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow, When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn; When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses, And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.

Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage, Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk; Still we let our business slide -- as we dropped the half-dressed hide -- To show a fellow-savage how to work.

Still the world is wondrous large, -- seven seas from marge to marge, -- And it holds a vast of various kinds of man; And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu, And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.

Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose And the reindeer roared where Paris roars to-night: -- There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!

THE STORY OF UNG

Once, on a glittering ice-field, ages and ages ago, Ung, a maker of pictures, fas.h.i.+oned an image of snow.

Fas.h.i.+oned the form of a tribesman -- gaily he whistled and sung, Working the snow with his fingers. _Read ye the Story of Ung!_

Pleased was his tribe with that image -- came in their hundreds to scan -- Handled it, smelt it, and grunted: "Verily, this is a man!

Thus do we carry our lances -- thus is a war-belt slung.

Lo! it is even as we are. Glory and honour to Ung!"

Later he pictured an aurochs -- later he pictured a bear -- Pictured the sabre-tooth tiger dragging a man to his lair -- Pictured the mountainous mammoth, hairy, abhorrent, alone -- Out of the love that he bore them, scribing them clearly on bone.

Swift came the tribe to behold them, peering and pus.h.i.+ng and still -- Men of the berg-battered beaches, men of the boulder-hatched hill -- Hunters and fishers and trappers, presently whispering low: "Yea, they are like -- and it may be -- But how does the Picture-man know?"

"Ung -- hath he slept with the Aurochs -- watched where the Mastodon roam?

Spoke on the ice with the Bow-head -- followed the Sabre-tooth home?

Nay! These are toys of his fancy! If he have cheated us so, How is there truth in his image -- the man that he fas.h.i.+oned of snow?"

Wroth was that maker of pictures -- hotly he answered the call: "Hunters and fishers and trappers, children and fools are ye all!

Look at the beasts when ye hunt them!" Swift from the tumult he broke, Ran to the cave of his father and told him the shame that they spoke.

And the father of Ung gave answer, that was old and wise in the craft, Maker of pictures aforetime, he leaned on his lance and laughed: "If they could see as thou seest they would do what thou hast done, And each man would make him a picture, and -- what would become of my son?

"There would be no pelts of the reindeer, flung down at thy cave for a gift, Nor dole of the oily timber that comes on the Baltic drift; No store of well-drilled needles, nor ouches of amber pale; No new-cut tongues of the bison, nor meat of the stranded whale.

"_Thou_ hast not toiled at the fis.h.i.+ng when the sodden trammels freeze, Nor worked the war-boats outward through the rush of the rock-staked seas, Yet they bring thee fish and plunder -- full meal and an easy bed -- And all for the sake of thy pictures." And Ung held down his head.

"_Thou_ hast not stood to the Aurochs when the red snow reeks of the fight; Men have no time at the houghing to count his curls aright.

And the heart of the hairy Mammoth, thou sayest, they do not see, Yet they save it whole from the beaches and broil the best for thee.

"And now do they press to thy pictures, with opened mouth and eye, And a little gift in the doorway, and the praise no gift can buy: But -- sure they have doubted thy pictures, and that is a grievous stain -- Son that can see so clearly, return them their gifts again!"

And Ung looked down at his deerskins -- their broad sh.e.l.l-ta.s.selled bands -- And Ung drew downward his mitten and looked at his naked hands; And he gloved himself and departed, and he heard his father, behind: "Son that can see so clearly, rejoice that thy tribe is blind!"

Straight on the glittering ice-field, by the caves of the lost Dordogne, Ung, a maker of pictures, fell to his scribing on bone Even to mammoth editions. Gaily he whistled and sung, Blessing his tribe for their blindness. _Heed ye the Story of Ung!_

THE THREE-DECKER

"_The three-volume novel is extinct._"

Full thirty foot she towered from waterline to rail.

It cost a watch to steer her, and a week to shorten sail; But, spite all modern notions, I found her first and best -- The only certain packet for the Islands of the Blest.

Fair held the breeze behind us -- 'twas warm with lovers' prayers.

We'd stolen wills for ballast and a crew of missing heirs.

They s.h.i.+pped as Able b.a.s.t.a.r.ds till the Wicked Nurse confessed, And they worked the old three-decker to the Islands of the Blest.

By ways no gaze could follow, a course unspoiled of Cook, Per Fancy, fleetest in man, our t.i.tled berths we took With maids of matchless beauty and parentage unguessed, And a Church of England parson for the Islands of the Blest.

We asked no social questions -- we pumped no hidden shame -- We never talked obstetrics when the Little Stranger came: We left the Lord in Heaven, we left the fiends in h.e.l.l.

We weren't exactly Yussufs, but -- Zuleika didn't tell.

No moral doubt a.s.sailed us, so when the port we neared, The villain had his flogging at the gangway, and we cheered.

'Twas fiddle in the forc's'le -- 'twas garlands on the mast, For every one got married, and I went ash.o.r.e at last.

I left 'em all in couples a-kissing on the decks.

I left the lovers loving and the parents signing cheques.

In endless English comfort by county-folk caressed, I left the old three-decker at the Islands of the Blest!

That route is barred to steamers: you'll never lift again Our purple-painted headlands or the lordly keeps of Spain.

They're just beyond your skyline, howe'er so far you cruise In a ram-you-d.a.m.n-you liner with a brace of bucking screws.

Swing round your aching search-light -- 'twill show no haven's peace.

Ay, blow your shrieking sirens to the deaf, gray-bearded seas!

Boom out the dripping oil-bags to skin the deep's unrest -- And you aren't one knot the nearer to the Islands of the Blest!

But when you're thres.h.i.+ng, crippled, with broken bridge and rail, At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale, Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed, You'll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You'll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread; You'll hear the long-drawn thunder 'neath her leaping figure-head; While far, so far above you, her tall p.o.o.p-lanterns s.h.i.+ne Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!

Hull down -- hull down and under -- she dwindles to a speck, With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.

All's well -- all's well aboard her -- she's left you far behind, With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.

Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?