Come you back and let me out!"
For she's in a punkin shell,
I have locked her in her cell;
But it really is a comfy, well-constructed punkin shell;
And there she'll have to dwell,
For she didn't treat me well,
So I put her in the punkin and I've kept her very well.
Algernon Swinburne was also in one of his early moods, and as a result he wove the story into this exquisite fabric of words:
IN THE PUMPKIN
Leave go my hands. Let me catch breath and see,
What is this confine either side of me?
Green pumpkin vines about me coil and crawl,
Seen sidelong, like a 'possum in a tree,—
Ah me, ah me, that pumpkins are so small!
Oh, my fair love, I charge thee, let me out
From this gold lush encircling me about;
I turn and only meet a pumpkin wall.
The crescent moon shines slim,—but I am stout,—
Ah me, ah me, that pumpkins are so small!
Pumpkin seeds like cold sea blooms bring me dreams;
Ah, Pete,—too sweet to me,—My Pete, it seems
Love like a Pumpkin holds me in its thrall;
And overhead a writhen shadow gleams,—
Ah me, ah me, that pumpkins are so small!
This intense poesy thrilled the heavens, and it was with a sense of relief to their throbbing souls that they listened to Mr. Bret Harte's contribution:
Which I wish to remark,
That the lady was plain;
And for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain
She had predilections peculiar,
And drove Peter nearly insane.
Far off, anywhere,
She wandered each day;
And though Peter would swear,
The lady would stray;
And whenever he thought he had got her,
She was sure to be rambling away.
Said Peter, "My Wife,
Hereafter you dwell
For the rest of your life
In a big Pumpkin Shell."
He popped her in one that was handy,
And since then he's kept her quite well.
Which is why I remark,
Though the lady was plain,
For ways that are dark
And tricks that are vain
A husband is very peculiar,
And the same I am free to maintain.
Oscar Wilde, in a poetic fervor and a lily-like kimono, recited with tremulous intensity this masterpiece of his own:
Oh, Peter! Pumpkin-fed and proud,
Ah me; ah me!
(Sweet squashes, mother!)
Thy woe knells like a stricken cloud;
(Ah me; ah me!
Hurroo, Hurree!)
Lo! vanisht like an anguisht wraith;
Ah me; ah me!
(Sweet squashes, mother!)
Wan hope a dolorous musing saith;
(Ah me; ah me!
Dum diddle dee!)
Hist! dare we soar? The Pumpkin Shell!
Ah me; ah me!
(Sweet squashes, mother!)
Fast and forever! Sooth, 'tis well.
(Ah me; ah me!
Faloodle dee!)
There was little to be said after this, so the meeting closed with a solo by Lady Arthur Hill, sung with a truly touching touch:
In the pumpkin, oh, my darling,
Think not bitterly of me;
Though I went away in silence,
Though I couldn't set you free.
For my heart was filled with longing,
For another piece of pie;
It was best to leave you there, dear,
Best for you and best for I.
At Christmas the members of the Re-Echo Club voiced these pleasant sentiments:
BY MR. TENNYSON:
Give me no more! Though worsted slippers be
The proper gift from woman unto man,
Component of the universal plan;
But, oh, too many hast thou given me,
Give me no more!
BY MR. SHAKESPEARE:
To give or not to give, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler on the whole to suffer
The old exchange of trinkets, gauds and kickshaws,
Or to take arms against this Christmas nuisance,
And, by opposing, end it? To buy—to give—
No more; and by that gift to say we end
The Christmas obligations to our friends
We all are heir to! To buy—to give;
To give—perchance to get; ay, there's the rub!
For in those bundles gay what frights may come
When we have shuffled off the ribbon bows
And tissue paper! Who would gifts receive
Of foolish books and little silver traps,
That make us rather keep the things we buy,
Than get these others that we know not of!
Thus Christmas doth make cowards of us all,
And, notwithstanding our good resolutions,
Each year we bandy gifts, and follow out
The same old Christmas programme!
BY MR. WORDSWORTH:
It was the very best of pies,
All plummy, thick and sweet;
A pie of most prodigious size—
And very few to eat.
'Twas passing rich, and few folks know
How rich mince pie can be;
But I have eaten it—and, oh,
The difference to me!
BY MR. DOBSON:
When she gave me cigars (!)
I smiled at the present.
Her eyes were like stars
When she gave me cigars.
(I can stand sudden jars.)
So I looked very pleasant
When she gave me cigars (!)
I smiled at the present.
BY MR. SWINBURNE:
If you eat turkey stuffing,
And I eat hot mince pie,
We'll vow that our digestion
Is quite beyond all question;
But soon we'll quit our bluffing
And curl us up to die,
If you eat turkey stuffing,
And I eat hot mince pie.
BY MR. LONGFELLOW:
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls on our little flat,
As a feather is wafted downward
From a lady's mushroom hat.
I've a feeling of fullness and sorrow
That is not like being ill,
And resembles colic only
As a pillow resembles a pill.
But the night shall be filled with nightmares,
And the food that was left to-day
Shall be given to poor street Arabs,
Or silently thrown away!
BY MR. MOORE:
'Twas ever thus, from childhood's bawl,
I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
Whatever I want most of all,
I do not get it Christmas Day!
BY MISS PROCTER:
Seated one day at the table,
I was stuffy and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the nuts and cheese.
I know not what I had eaten,
Or what I was eating then,
But I struck a delicious flavor
That I'd like to taste again.
It linked all elusive savors
Into one perfect taste,
Then faded away on my palate
Without any undue haste.
I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost taste so fine,
That came from the head of the kitchen,
And entered into mine.
BY MR. RILEY:
There, little girl, don't cry!
You are awfully broke, I know;
And of course you've spent
Far more than you meant,
And lots of bills you owe.
But at Christmas time one has to buy—
There, little girl, don't cry, don't cry!
The Re-Echo Club met in their pleasant rooms at No. 4, Poetic Mews. Spring had passed, so their fancy was lightly turning to other matters than Love, and it chanced to turn lightly to the Cubist Movement in Art.
"Of course," mused the President, rolling his eyes in an especially fine frenzy, "this movement will strike the poets next."
"Ha," said Dan Rossetti, refraining for a moment from the refrain he was building, "we must be ready for it."
"We must advance to meet it," said Teddy Poe, who was ever of an adventurous nature. "What's it all about?"
"The principles are simple," observed Rob Browning, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; "in fact, it's much like my own work always has been. I was born cubic. You see, you just symbolize the liquefaction of the essence of an idea into its emotional constituents, and there you are!"
"Dead easy!" declared Lally Tennyson, who went out poeting by the day, and knew how to do any kind. "What's the subject?"
"That's just the point," said the President; "preeminently and exclusively it's subjective, and you must keep it so. On no account allow an object of any kind to creep in. Now, here's one of the Cubist pictures. They call it 'A Nude Descending the Staircase.' They pick names at random out of a hat, I believe. Take this, you fellows, and throw it into poetry."
"Any rules or conditions?" asked Billy Wordsworth.
"Absolutely none. It's the Ruleless School."
Then the Poets opened the aspiration valves, ignited the divine spark plugs, and whiz! went their motor-meters in a whirring, buzzing melody.
Soon their Cubist emotions were splashed upon paper, and the Poets read with justifiable pride these symbolic results.
Ally Swinburne tossed off this poetic gem without a bit of trouble.
Square eyelids that hide like a jewel;
Ten heads,—though I sometimes count more;
Six mouths that are cubic and cruel;
Of mixed arms and legs, twenty-four;
Descending in Symbolic glories
Of lissome triangles and squares;
Oh, mystic and subtle Dolores,
Our Lady of Stairs.
You descend like an army with banners,
In a cyclone of wrecked parasols.
You look like a mob with mad manners
Or a roystering row of Dutch dolls.
Oh, Priestess of Cubical passion,
Oh, Deification of Whim,
You seem to walk down in the fashion
That lame lobsters swim.
Here we have Mr. P.B. Shelley's noble lines:
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Nude thou never wert.
Not from Heaven nor near it
Breathed thy cubic heart
In profuse stairs of unintelligible art.
What thou art, we know not;
What is thee most like?
Snakes tied in a bow-knot?
Stovepipes on a strike?
Or Bellevue inmates on a Suffrage hike!
We look before and after,
And pine thy face to see;
Our sincerest laughter
Is aroused by thee.
Art thou perchance the sad cube root of 23?
Mr. R. Kipling felt a flash of his old fire, and threw in a high speed:
On an old symbolic staircase,
Looking forty ways at once;
There's a Cubist Nude descending,
With the queerest sort of stunts.
For the staircase is a-falling,
And the Noodle seems to say:
"Though you hear my soul a-calling,
You can't see me, anyway!"
Oh, this symbol balderdash,
And this post-Impression trash;
Can't you see their paint a-chunkin in a hotchy-potchy splash?
Where the motives bold and brash
Of the Cubist painters clash,
And the Nude descends like thunder down a staircase gone to smash!
Mr. D.G. Rossetti, ever a sweet singer, warbled thus tunefully:
The Blessed Nude at eve leaned out
From the gold staircase rail;
Her paint was deeper than the depth
Of waters in a pail.
She wore three bonnets on her heads,
And seven coats of mail.
And still she bowed herself and swayed