Hawthorn and Lavender | Page 8

conversation.
XI. DRUM-MAJOR
Who says _Drum-Major_ says a man of mould,?Shaking the meek earth with tremendous tread,?And pacing still, a triumph to behold,?Of his own spine at least two yards ahead!?Attorney, grocer, surgeon, broker, duke--?His calling may be anything, who comes?Into a room, his presence a rebuke?To the dejected, as the pipes and drums?Inspired his port!--who mounts his office stairs?As though he led great armies to the fight!?His bulk itself's pure genius, and he wears?His avoirdupois with so much fire and spright
That, though the creature stands but five feet five,?You take him for the tallest He alive.
XII. FLOWER-GIRL
There's never a delicate nurseling of the year?But our huge _LONDON_ hails it, and delights?To wear it on her breast or at her ear,?Her days to colour and make sweet her nights.?Crocus and daffodil and violet,?Pink, primrose, valley-lily, clove-carnation,?Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette,?The daisies all--these be her recreation,?Her gaudies these! And forth from _DRURY LANE_,?Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers,?Her flower-girls foot it, honest and hoarse and vain,?All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers:
Of populous corners right advantage taking,?And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making.
XIII. BARMAID
Though, if you ask her name, she says _ELISE_,?Being plain _ELIZABETH_, e'en let it pass,?And own that, if her aspirates take their ease,?She ever makes a point, in washing glass,?Handling the engine, turning taps for _tots_,?And countering change, and scorning what men say,?Of posing as a dove among the pots,?Nor often gives her dignity away.?Her head's a work of art, and, if her eyes?Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist;?Cheaply the Mode she shadows; and she tries?From penny novels to amend her taste;
And, having mopped the zinc for certain years,?And faced the gas, she fades and disappears.?_The Artist muses at his ease_,?_Contented that his work is done_,?_And smiling_--_smiling_!--_as he sees_?_His crowd collecting_, _one by one_.?_Alas_! _his travail's but begun_!?_None_, _none can keep the years in line_,?_And what to Ninety-Eight is fun_?_May raise the gorge of Ninety-Nine_!
MUSWELL HILL, 1898.
III. THREE PROLOGUES
I. BEAU AUSTIN
_By W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson_,?_Haymarket Theatre_, _November_ 3, 1890.
Spoken by Mr. TREE in the character of Beau Austin.
'To all and singular,' as _DRYDEN_ says,?We bring a fancy of those Georgian days,?Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume?Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom:?When speech was elegant and talk was fit,?For slang had not been canonised as wit;?When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall,?And Women--yes!--were ladies first of all;?When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness,?And man--though Man!--was not ashamed to dress.?A brave formality, a measured ease?Were his--and hers--whose effort was to please.?And to excel in pleasing was to reign,?And, if you sighed, never to sigh in vain.
But then, as now--it may be, something more--?Woman and man were human to the core.?The hearts that throbbed behind that brave attire?Burned with a plenitude of essential fire.?They too could risk, they also could rebel:?They could love wisely--they could love too well.?In that great duel of Sex, that ancient strife?Which is the very central fact of life,?They could--and did--engage it breath for breath,?They could--and did--get wounded unto death.?As at all times since time for us began?Woman was truly woman, man was man,?And joy and sorrow were as much at home?In trifling _TUNBRIDGE_ as in mighty _ROME_.
Dead--dead and done with! Swift from shine to shade?The roaring generations flit and fade.?To this one, fading, flitting, like the rest,?We come to proffer--be it worst or best--?A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time;?A hint of what it might have held sublime;?A dream, an idyll, call it what you will,?Of man still Man, and woman--Woman still!
II. RICHARD SAVAGE
_By J. M. Barrie and H. B. Marriott Watson_, _Criterion Theatre_, _April_ 16, 1891.
To other boards for pun and song and dance!?Our purpose is an essay in romance:?An old-world story where such old-world facts?As hate and love and death, through four swift acts--?Not without gleams and glances, hints and cues,?From the dear bright eyes of the Comic Muse!--?So shine and sound that, as we fondly deem,?They may persuade you to accept our dream:?Our own invention, mainly--though we take,?Somewhat for art but most for interest's sake?One for our hero who goes wandering still?In the long shadow of _PARNASSUS HILL_;?Scarce within eyeshot; but his tragic shade?Compels that recognition due be made,?When he comes knocking at the student's door,?Something as poet, if as blackguard more.
Poet and blackguard. Of the first--how much??As to the second, in quite perfect touch?With folly and sorrow, even shame and crime,?He lived the grief and wonder of his time!?Marked for reproaches from his life's beginning;?Extremely sinned against as well as sinning;?Hack, spendthrift, starveling, duellist in turn;?Too cross to cherish yet too fierce to spurn;?Begrimed with ink or brave with wine and blood;?Spirit of fire and manikin of mud;?Now shining clear, now fain to starve and skulk;?Star of the cellar, pensioner of the bulk;?At once the child of passion and