The Heptalogia | Page 7

no consideration. A poet, you see,
now and then must
be gay.
(I declined to give more, I remember, than fifty centeems to
the waiter; For I asked him if that was enough; and the jackanapes
answered--
_Peut-être_.
Ah, it isn't in you to draw up a _menu_ such as ours was,
though humble: When I told Lady Shoreditch, she thought it a regular
_grand tout
ensemble_.)
She danced the heart out of my body--I can see in the
glare of the lights, I can see her again as I saw her that evening, in
spangles and tights. When I spoke to her first, her eye flashed so, I
heard--as I
fancied--the spark whiz
From her eyelid--I said so next day to that
jealous old fool of a Marquis. She reminded me, Bill, of a lovely
volcano, whose entrails are lava-- Or (you know my _penchant_ for
original types) of the upas in Java. In the curve of her sensitive nose
was a singular species of dimple, Where the flush was the mark of an

angel's creased kiss--if it wasn't
a pimple.
Now I'm none of your bashful John Bulls who don't know a
pilau from a
puggaree
Nor a chili, by George, from a chopstick. So, sir, I marched
into her
snuggery,
And proposed a light supper by way of a finish. I treated
her, Bill, To six _entrées_ of ortolans, sprats, maraschino, and oysters.
It made
her quite ill.
Of which moment of sickness I took some advantage. I
held her like this, And availed myself, sir, of her sneezing, to shut up
her lips with a kiss. The waiters, I saw, were quite struck; and I felt, I
may say, _entre nous_, Like Don Juan, Lauzun, Almaviva, Lord Byron,
and old Richelieu. (You'll observe, Bill, that rhyme's quite Parisian; a
Londoner, sir,
would have cited old Q.
People tell me the French in my verses
recalls that of Jeames or John
Thomas: I
Must maintain it's as good as the average accent of British
diplomacy.) These are moments that thrill the whole spirit with spasms
that excite
and exalt.
I stood more than the peer of the great Casanova--you
know--de Seingalt. She was worth, sir, I say it without hesitation, two
brace of her sisters. Ah, why should all honey turn rhubarb--all cherries
grow onions--all
kisses leave blisters?
Oh, and why should I ask myself questions? I've
heard such before--once
or twice.
Ah, I can't understand it--but, O, I imagine it strikes me as
nice. There's a deity shapes us our ends, sir, rough-hew them, my boy,
how

we will--
As I stated myself in a poem I published last year, you
know, Bill-- Where I mentioned that that was the question--to be, or, by
Jove, not
to be.
Ah, it's something--you'll think so hereafter--to wait on a poet
like me. Had I written no more than those verses on that Countess I
used to
call Pussy--
Yes, Minette or Manon--and--you'll hardly believe it--she
said they
were all out of Musset.
Now I don't say they weren't--but what then?
and I don't say they
were--I'll bet pounds against pennies on
The subject--I wish I may
never die Laureate, if some of them weren't
out of Tennyson.
And I think--I don't like to be certain, with Death,
so to speak, by
me, frowning--
But I think there were some--say a dozen, perhaps, or
a score--out of
Browning.
And--though God knows his poems are not (as all mine
are, sir) perfumed
with orris--
Or at least with patchouli--I wouldn't be sworn there were
none out of
Morris.
And it's possible--only the legend of Circe is quite an old
yarn--old As the hills--that I might have been thinking, perhaps, of a
poem by Arnold When I sang how Ulysses--Odysseus I mean--would
have yearned to dishevel
her
Bright hair with his kisses, and painted myself at her feet--a
Strayed

Reveller.
As for poets who go on a contrary tack to what I go and you
go-- You remember my lyrics _translated_--like "sweet bully
Bottom"--from Hugo? Though I will say it's curious that simply on just
that account there
should be
Men so bold as to say that not one of my poems was
written by me. It would stir the political bile or the physical spleen of a
drab or a Tory To hear critics disputing my claim to Empedocles, Maud,
and the Laboratory. Yes, it's singular--nay, I can't think of a parallel
(ain't it a high lark? As that Countess would say)--there are few men
believe it was I wrote the
Ode to a Skylark.
And it often has given myself and Lord Albert no
end of diversion To hear fellows maintain to my face it was
Wordsworth who wrote the
Excursion,
When they know that whole reams of the verses recur in
my authorized works Here and there, up and down! Why, such readers
are infidels--heretics--
Turks.
And the pitiful critics who think in their paltry presumption to
pay me a