MARSYAS IN HADES.

Next I saw

A pensive gentleman of middle age,

That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe

Pendent beneath his chin — a double one —

( Meaning the pipe ); reluctant was his breath,

For he had mingled in the Morris dance

And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,

All decorous and decorously clad,

Their very ankles hardly visible,

Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,

Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall

Beamed approbation.

On his face I read

Signs of high sadness such as poets wear,

Being divinely discontented with

The praise of jeunes filles. Even as I looked,

He touched the portion of his pipe reserved

For minor poetry of solemn tone,

Checking the humorous stops intended for

Electioneering posters and the like;

And therewithal he made the following

Addition to his Songs Unsung, or else

His Unremarked Remarks:

“Dear Sir,” he said,

“Excuse my saying‘ Sir’ like that; it is

Our way in Hades here among the damned;

For you must know that some of us are damned

Not only by faint praise but full applause

Of simple critics. Take my case. In me

Behold the good knight Marsyas, M. A.,

Three times a candidate for Parliament,

And twice retired; a Justice of the Peace;

Master of Arts ( I said ), and better known

In literary spheres as Master of

The Mediocre-Obvious; and read

By boarding-misses in their myriads.

These dote upon me. Sweetly have I sung

The commonplaces of philosophy

In common parlance.

You have read perhaps

The Cymric Triads? Poetry, they say,

Excels alone by sheer simplicity

Of language, subject, and invention. Sir!

The excellence of mine lay that way too.

But fate is partial. Heaven's fulgour moulds

‘ To happiness some, some to unhappiness!’

( Look you, the harp was Welsh that figured forth

That excellent last line. ) I ask you, Sir,

What would you? Ill content with mortal praise,

And haply somewhat overbold, I sought

To be as gods be; sought, in fact, to filch

Apollo's bays!

Ah me! Dear me! I fain

Would use a stronger phrase, but hardly dare,

Being, whatever else, respectable.

I say I tired of vulgar homage, gift

Of ignorance.‘ High failure overleaps

The bounds of low successes’ ( there, again,

The harp that twanged was Welsh, but with an echo

Of Browning ). Godlike it must be, I thought,

To climb the giddy brink; to pen, for instance,

An Ode to the Imperial Institute,

And fall, if bound to, from a decent height.

I did and missed the laurel; still I go

On writing; what you hear just now is blank,

Distinctly blank, and might be measured by

The kilomètre; yet I rhyme as well

A little; but it takes a lot of time,

And checks the lapse of my pellucid stream

Not all conveniently.”

Thereat he paused,

And wrung the moisture from his pipe; but I,

As one that was intolerably bored,

Took even this occasion to be gone;

And, going, marked him how he took his stile,

Polished the waxen tablets, and began

To make a Royal Pæan by request,

Or so he said.