XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

BALLADE OF LIFE

“‘Dead and gone,’ – a sorry burden of the Ballad of Life.”

Death’s Jest Book.

 
Say, fair maids, maying
In gardens green,
In deep dells straying,
What end hath been
Two Mays between
Of the flowers that shone
And your own sweet queen —
“They are dead and gone!”
 
 
Say, grave priests, praying
In dule and teen,
From cells decaying
What have ye seen
Of the proud and mean,
Of Judas and John,
Of the foul and clean? —
“They are dead and gone!”
 
 
Say, kings, arraying
Loud wars to win,
Of your manslaying
What gain ye glean?
“They are fierce and keen,
But they fall anon,
On the sword that lean, —
They are dead and gone!”
 

ENVOY

 
Through the mad world’s scene,
We are drifting on,
To this tune, I ween,
“They are dead and gone!”
 

BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA

 
There’s a joy without canker or cark,
There’s a pleasure eternally new,
’Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark
Of china that’s ancient and blue;
Unchipp’d all the centuries through
It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang,
And they fashion’d it, figure and hue,
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
 
 
These dragons (their tails, you remark,
Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), —
When Noah came out of the ark,
Did these lie in wait for his crew?
They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew,
They were mighty of fin and of fang,
And their portraits Celestials drew
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
 
 
Here’s a pot with a cot in a park,
In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,
Where the lovers eloped in the dark,
Lived, died, and were changed into two
Bright birds that eternally flew
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;
’Tis a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
 

ENVOY

 
Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,
Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang”
But – a sage never heeded a shrew
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
 

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

(AFTER VILLON.)

 
Nay, tell me now in what strange air
The Roman Flora dwells to-day.
Where Archippiada hides, and where
Beautiful Thais has passed away?
Whence answers Echo, afield, astray,
By mere or stream, – around, below?
Lovelier she than a woman of clay;
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?
 
 
   Where is wise Héloïse, that care
Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?
All for her love he found a snare,
A maimed poor monk in orders grey;
And where’s the Queen who willed to slay
Buridan, that in a sack must go
Afloat down Seine, – a perilous way —
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?
 
 
Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare,
With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay?
Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?
Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?
Good Joan, whom English did betray
In Rouen town, and burned her?  No,
Maiden and Queen, no man may say;
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?
 

ENVOY

 
Prince, all this week thou need’st not pray,
Nor yet this year the thing to know.
One burden answers, ever and aye,
“Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”
 

VILLON’S BALLADE

OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL LIFE

 
Nay, be you pardoner or cheat,
Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,
You’ll burn your fingers at the feat,
And howl like other folks that fry.
All evil folks that love a lie!
And where goes gain that greed amasses,
By wile, and trick, and thievery?
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!
 
 
Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,
With game, and shame, and jollity,
Go jigging through the field and street,
With myst’ry and morality;
Win gold at gleek, – and that will fly,
Where all you gain at passage passes, —
And that’s?  You know as well as I,
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!
 
 
Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,
Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,
Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,
If you’ve no clerkly skill to ply;
You’ll gain enough, with husbandry,
But – sow hempseed and such wild grasses,
And where goes all you take thereby? —
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!
 

ENVOY

 
Your clothes, your hose, your broidery,
Your linen that the snow surpasses,
Or ere they’re worn, off, off they fly,
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!
 

BALLADE OF RABBITS AND HARES

 
In a vision a Sportsman forlorn
I beheld, in an isle of the West,
And his purple and linen were torn,
And he wailed, as he beat on his breast, —
“My people are men dispossessed,
They have vanished, and nobody cares, —
They have passed to the place of their rest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!
 
 
“Oh, why was a gentleman born
With a title, a name, and a crest,
Where the Rabbit is treated with scorn,
And the Hare is accounted a pest,
By the lumbering farmer repressed,
With his dogs, and his guns, and his snares?
But my fathers have ended their quest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!
 
 
“Ah, woe for the clover and corn
That the Rabbit was wont to infest!
Ah, woe for my youth in its morn,
When the farmer obeyed my behest!
Happy days! like a wandering guest
Ye have fled, ye are sped unawares;
But my fathers are now with the blest,
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!”
 

ENVOY

 
Prince, mourn for a nation oppressed,
And absorbed in her stocks and her shares,
And bereaved of her bravest and best —
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!
 

VALENTINE IN FORM OF BALLADE

 
The soft wind from the south land sped,
He set his strength to blow,
From forests where Adonis bled,
And lily flowers a-row:
He crossed the straits like streams that flow,
The ocean dark as wine,
To my true love to whisper low,
To be your Valentine.
 
 
The Spring half-raised her drowsy head,
Besprent with drifted snow,
“I’ll send an April day,” she said,
“To lands of wintry woe.”
He came, – the winter’s overthrow
With showers that sing and shine,
Pied daisies round your path to strow,
To be your Valentine.
 
 
Where sands of Egypt, swart and red,
’Neath suns Egyptian glow,
In places of the princely dead,
By the Nile’s overflow,
The swallow preened her wings to go,
And for the North did pine,
And fain would brave the frost her foe,
To be your Valentine.
 

ENVOY

 
Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so,
Their various voice combine;
But that they crave on me bestow,
To be your Valentine.
 

BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS

(Les Œuvres de Monsieur Molière. A Paris,

chez Louys Billaine, à la Palme

M.D.C.LXVI.)

LA COUR

 
When these Old Plays were new, the King,
Beside the Cardinal’s chair,
Applauded, ’mid the courtly ring,
The verses of Molière;
Point-lace was then the only wear,
Old Corneille came to woo,
And bright Du Parc was young and fair,
When these Old Plays were new!
 

LA COMÉDIE

 
How shrill the butcher’s cat-calls ring,
How loud the lackeys swear!
Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling,
At Brécourt, fuming there!
The Porter’s stabbed! a Mousquetaire
Breaks in with noisy crew —
’Twas all a commonplace affair
When these Old Plays were new!
 

LA VILLE

 
When these Old Plays were new!  They bring
A host of phantoms rare:
Old jests that float, old jibes that sting,
Old faces peaked with care:
Ménage’s smirk, de Visé’s stare,
The thefts of Jean Ribou, —³
Ah, publishers were hard to bear
When these Old Plays were new.
 

ENVOY

 
Ghosts, at your Poet’s word ye dare
To break Death’s dungeons through,
And frisk, as in that golden air,
When these Old Plays were new!