Part 8 (1/2)
PAGEANTS
My t.i.tyrus! and is't a fact (As wondrous facts there are) That History's scenes thou wouldst enact Beside the banks of Cher?
Wilt thou for pomps like these desert Thy calm and cloistered lair, Not quite so young as once thou wert, Nor (pardon me) so fair?
We saw thee stalk in youthful prime With high Proctorial mien: We saw the majesty sublime Which marked the Junior Dean; O pundit grave! O sage M.A.!
Say in what happy part Thou wilt before the crowd display Thy histrionic art!
With cranium bald, which ne'er again Will need the barber's shear, Wilt thou present in Charles his train Some long-locked Cavalier?
A sober Don for all to see Who once didst walk abroad, Wilt now an Ancient Briton be And painted blue with woad?
Me from such scenes afar remove, And hide my shuddering head Where Nature doth in field and grove Her fairer pageant spread: There will I meditating lie 'Mid summer's calm delights,- But thou wilt walk adown the High My t.i.tyrus,-in Tights. . . .
RULES FOR FICTION
A Novelist, whose magic art, Had plumbed ('twas said) the human heart, Whom for the penetrative ken Wherewith he probed the souls of men The Public and the Public's wife Declared synonymous with Life,- Sat idle, being much perplexed What Att.i.tude to study next, Because he would not wholly tell Which Pose was likeliest to sell.
To him the Muse: ”Why seek afar For things that on the threshold are?
Why thus evolve with care and pain From your imaginative brain?
Put Artifice upon the shelf,- Take pen and ink, and draw-Yourself!”
The author heard: he took the hint: He photographed himself in print.
His very inmost self he drew. . . .
The critics said, ”_This_ Will Not Do.
No more we recognize the art Which used to plumb the human heart,- This suffers from the patent vice Of being not Art but Artifice.
'Tis deeply with the fault imbued Of Inverisimilitude: He's written out; his skill's forgot: He only writes to Boil the Pot!
It is not true; it will not wash; 'Tis mere imaginative Bosh; And if he can't” (they told him flat) ”Get nearer to the Life than that, He will not earn the Public's pelf!”
This happens when you draw Yourself.
Or-I should say-it happens when Such portraits are essayed by Men: For presently a Lady came And did substantially the same.
(Let everyone peruse this sequel Who dreams that Man is Woman's equal),- She with a hand divinely free Drew what she thought herself to be: It did not much resemble Her In moral strength or mental stature- Yet did the critics all aver It simply teemed with Human Nature!
ART AND LETTERS
In that dim and distant aeon Known as Ante-Mycenaean, When the proud Pelasgian still Bounded on his native hill, And the shy Iberian dwelt Undisturbed by conquering Celt, Ere from out their Aryan home Came the Lords of Greece and Rome, Somewhere in those ancient spots Lived a man who painted Pots- Painted with an art defective, Quite devoid of all perspective, Very crude, and causing doubt When you tried to make them out, Men (at least they looked like that), Beasts that might be dog or cat, Pictures blue and pictures red, All that came into his head: Not that any tale he meant On the Pots to represent: Simply 'twas to make them smart, Simply Decorative Art.
So the seasons onward hied, And the Painter-person died- But the Pot whereon he drew Still survived as good as new: Painters come and painters go, Art remains _in statu quo_.
When a thousand years (perhaps) Had proceeded to elapse, Out of Time's primeval mist Came an aetiologist; He by shrewd and subtle guess Wrote Descriptive Letterpress, Setting forth the various causes For the drawings on the vases, All the motives, all the plots Of the painter of the pots, Entertained the nations with Fable, Saga, Solar Myth, Based upon ingenious shots At the Purpose of the Pots, Showing ages subsequent What the painter really meant (Which, of course, the painter hadn't; He'd have been extremely saddened Had he seen his meanings missed By the aetiologist).
Next arrives the p.r.o.ne to Err Very ancient Chronicler, All that mythologic lore Swallowing whole and wanting more, Crediting what wholly lacked All similitude of Fact, Building on this wondrous basis All we know of early races; So the Past as seen by him Furnished from its chambers dim Hypothetical foundations Whence succeeding generations Built, as on a basis sure, Branches three of Literature, Social Systems four (or five), Two Religions Primitive; So that one may truly say (Speaking in a general way) All the facts and all the knowledge Taught in School and taught in College, All the books the printer prints- Everything that's happened since- Feels the influence of what Once was drawn upon that Pot, Plus the curious mental twist Of that aetiologist!
But the Pot that caused the trouble Lay entombed in earth and rubble, Left about in various places, In the way that early races- Hitt.i.tes, Greeks, or Hottentots- Used to leave important Pots; Till at length, to close the list, Came an Archaeologist, Came and dug with care and pain, Came and found the Pot again: Dug and delved with spade and shovel, Made a version wholly novel Of the Potman's old design (Others none were genuine).
Pots were in a special sense _Echt-Historisch_ Doc.u.ments: All who Error hope to stem Must begin by studying them; So the Public (which, he said, Had been grievously misled) Must in all things freshly start From his views of Ancient Art.