Upstairs I knew the matron bed Held her whose name confirms all joy To me; and tremblingly I said, "Ah! will it be a girl or boy?"

And, soothed, my fluttering doubts began To sift the pleasantness of things; Developing the unshapen man, An eagle baffled of his wings; Considering, next, how fair the state And large the license that sublimes A nineteenth-century female fate-- Sweet cause that thralls my liberal rhymes!

And Chast.i.ties and colder Shames, Decorums mute and marvellous, And fair Behaviour that reclaims All fancies grown erroneous, Moved round me musing, till my choice Faltered. A female in a wig Stood by me, and a drouthy voice Announced her--Mrs. Betsy Prig.

2. THE CAUDLE

Sweet Love that sways the reeling years, The crown and chief of cert.i.tudes, For whose calm eyes and modest ears Time writes the rule and text of prudes-- That, surpliced, stoops a nuptial head, Nor chooses to live blindly free, But, with all pulses quieted, Plays tunes of domesticity-- That Love I sing of and have sung And mean to sing till Death yawn sheer, He rules the music of my tongue, Stills it or quickens, there or here.

I say but this: as we went up I heard the Monthly give a sniff And "_if_ the big dog makes the pup--"

She murmured--then repeated "if!"

The caudle on a slab was placed; She snuffed it, snorting loud and long; I fled--I would not stop to taste-- And dreamed all night of things gone wrong.

3. THE SENTENCES

I

Abortive Love is half a sin; But Love's abortions dearer far Than wheels without an axle-pin Or life without a married star.

II

My rules are hard to understand For him whom sensual rules depress; A bandbox in a midwife's hand May hold a costlier bridal dress.

III

"I like her not; in fact I loathe; Bugs hath she brought from London beds."

Friend! wouldst thou rather bear their growth Or have a baby with two heads?

IDYL CCCLXVI

THE KID

My spirit, in the doorway's pause, Fluttered with fancies in my breast; Obsequious to all decent laws, I felt exceedingly distressed.

I knew it rude to enter there With Mrs. V. in such a state; And, 'neath a magisterial air, Felt actually indelicate.

I knew the nurse began to grin; I turned to greet my Love. Said she-- "Confound your modesty, come in!

--What shall we call the darling, V.?"

(There are so many charming names!

Girls'--Peg, Moll, Doll, Fan, Kate, Blanche, Bab: Boys'--Mahershahal-hashbaz, James, Luke, Nick, d.i.c.k, Mark, Aminadab.)

Lo, as the acorn to the oak, As well-heads to the river's height, As to the chicken the moist yolk, As to high noon the day's first white-- Such is the baby to the man.

There, straddling one red arm and leg, Lay my last work, in length a span, Half hatched, and conscious of the egg.

A creditable child, I hoped; And half a score of joys to be Through sunny lengths of prospect sloped Smooth to the bland futurity.

O, fate surpa.s.sing other dooms, O, hope above all wrecks of time!

O, light that fills all vanquished glooms, O, silent song o'ermastering rhyme!

I covered either little foot, I drew the strings about its waist; Pink as the unsh.e.l.l'd inner fruit, But barely decent, hardly chaste, Its nudity had startled me; But when the petticoats were on, "I know," I said; "its name shall be Paul Cyril Athanasius John."

"Why," said my wife, "the child's a girl."

My brain swooned, sick with failing sense; With all perception in a whirl, How could I tell the difference?

"Nay," smiled the nurse, "the child's a boy."

And all my soul was soothed to hear That so it was: then startled Joy Mocked Sorrow with a doubtful tear.

And I was glad as one who sees For sensual optics things unmeet: As purity makes pa.s.sion freeze, So faith warns science off her beat.

Blessed are they that have not seen, And yet, not seeing, have believed: To walk by faith, as preached the Dean, And not by sight, have I achieved.

Let love, that does not look, believe; Let knowledge, that believes not, look: Truth pins her trust on falsehood's sleeve, While reason blunders by the book.

Then Mrs. Prig addressed me thus; "Sir, if you'll be advised by me, You'll leave the blessed babe to us; It's my belief he wants his tea."

LAST WORDS OF A SEVENTH-RATE POET

Bill, I feel far from quite right--if not further: already the pill Seems, if I may say so, to bubble inside me. A poet's heart, Bill, Is a sort of a thing that is made of the tenderest young bloom on a fruit.

You may pa.s.s me the mixture at once, if you please--and I'll thank you to boot For that poem--and then for the julep. This really is d.a.m.nable stuff!

(Not the poem, of course.) Do you snivel, old friend? well, it's nasty enough, But I think I can stand it--I think so--ay, Bill, and I could were it worse.

But I'll tell you a thing that I can't and I won't. 'Tis the old, old curse-- The gall of the gold-fruited Eden, the lure of the angels that fell.

'Tis the core of the fruit snake-spotted in the hush of the shadows of h.e.l.l, Where a lost man sits with his head drawn down, and a weight on his eyes.

You know what I mean, Bill--the tender and delicate mother of lies, Woman, the devil's first cousin--no doubt by the female side.

The breath of her mouth still moves in my hair, and I know that she lied, And I feel her, Bill, sir, inside me--she operates there like a drug.

Were it better to live like a beetle, to wear the cast clothes of a slug, Be the louse in the locks of the hangman, the mote in the eye of the bat, Than to live and believe in a woman, who must one day grow aged and fat?

You must see it's preposterous, Bill, sir. And yet, how the thought of it clings!

I have lived out my time--I have prigged lots of verse--I have kissed (ah, that stings!) Lips that swore I had cribbed every line that I wrote on them--cribbed-- honour bright!

Then I loathed her; but now I forgive her; perhaps after all she was right.

Yet I swear it was shameful--unwomanly, Bill, sir--to say that I fibbed.

Why, the poems were mine, for I bought them in print. Cribbed? of course they were cribbed.

Yet I wouldn't say, cribbed from the French--Lady Bathsheba thought it was vulgar-- But picked up on the banks of the Don, from the lips of a highly intelligent Bulgar.

I'm aware, Bill, that's out of all metre--I can't help it--I'm none of your sort Who set metres, by Jove, above morals--not exactly. They don't go to Court-- As I mentioned one night to that cowslip-faced pet, Lady Rahab Redrabbit (Whom the Marquis calls Drabby for short). Well, I say, if you want a thing, grab it-- That's what I did, at least, when I took that _danseuse_ to a swell _cabaret_, Where expense was 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-etre_.

Ah, it isn't in you to draw up a _menu_ such as ours was, though humble: When I told Lady Sh.o.r.editch, 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 _entrees_ 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 p.u.s.s.y-- Yes, Minette or Manon--and--you'll hardly believe it--she said they were all out of Musset.