Poetical Ingenuities and Eccentricities Part 5

Pleasure dead can live no more.

No more, then, languish for the buried, Buried calmly let it be.

Be the star of promise Heaven, Heaven has sweeter joys for thee.

For thee perchance, though dark the seeming, Seeming dark, may yet prove bright, Bright through mortal cares, shall softly, Softly dissipate the night.

Night shall not endure for ever,-- Ever! no, the laws of Earth, Earth inconstant, shall forbid it-- Bid it change from gloom to mirth.

Mirth and grief, are light and shadow-- Shadows light to us are dear.

Dear the scene becomes by contrast-- Contrast there, in beauty here.

Here, through sun and tempest many, Many shall thy being pa.s.s-- Pa.s.s without a sigh of sorrow, Sorrow wins not by alas!

Alas! we pardon in a maiden, Maiden when her heart is young, Young and timid, but in manhood, Manhood should be sterner strung, Strung as though his nerves were iron, Iron tempered well to bend-- Bend, mayhap, but yielding never, Never, when despair would rend-- Rend the pillars from the temple, Temple in the human breast, Breast that lonely grief has chosen, Chosen for her place of rest-- Rest unto thy spirit, only, Only torment will she bring.

Bring, oh man! the lyre of gladness, Gladness frights the harpy's wing!"

The following two pieces are similar in style to some of our seventeenth-century poets:

AD MORTEM.

"The longer life, the more offence; The more offence, the greater pain; The greater pain, the less defence; The less defence, the greater gain-- Wherefore, come death, and let me die!

The shorter life, less care I find, Less care I take, the sooner over; The sooner o'er, the merrier mind; The merrier mind, the better lover-- Wherefore, come death, and let me die!

Come, gentle death, the ebb of care; The ebb of care, the flood of life; The flood of life, I'm sooner there; I'm sooner there--the end of strife-- The end of strife, that thing wish I-- Wherefore, come death, and let me die!"

TRUTH.

"Nerve thy soul with doctrines n.o.ble, n.o.ble in the walks of time, Time that leads to an eternal An eternal life sublime; Life sublime in moral beauty, Beauty that shall ever be; Ever be to lure thee onward, Onward to the fountain free-- Free to every earnest seeker, Seeker for the Fount of Youth-- Youth exultant in its beauty, Beauty of the living truth."

The following hymn appears in the Irish Church Hymnal, and is by Mr. J.

Byrom:

"My spirit longs for Thee Within my troubled breast, Though I unworthy be Of so Divine a Guest.

Of so Divine a Guest Unworthy though I be, Yet has my heart no rest, Unless it come from Thee.

Unless it come from Thee, In vain I look around; In all that I can see No rest is to be found.

No rest is to be found.

But in Thy blessed love; Oh, let my wish be crowned And send it from above."

Dr., as he was commonly called, Byrom, seems to have been an amiable and excellent man, and his friends after his death in September 1763 collected and published all the verses of his they could lay hands on, in 2 vols.

12mo, at Manchester in 1773. A more complete edition was issued in 1814.

Many of Byrom's poems evince talent, but a great part are only calculated for private perusal: his "Diary" and "Remains" were published by the Chetham Society (1854-57). Byrom was the inventor of a successful system of shorthand. He was a decided Jacobite, and his mode of defending his sentiments on this point are still remembered and quoted:

"G.o.d bless the King! I mean the Faith's defender; G.o.d bless--no harm in blessing--the Pretender!

But who Pretender is, or who the King, G.o.d bless us all--that's quite another thing!"

_MACARONIC VERSE._

Macaronic verse is properly a system of Latin inflections joined to words of a modern vernacular, such as English, French, German, &c.; some writers, however, choose to disregard the strictness of this definition, and consider everything macaronic which is written with the aid of more than one language or dialect. Dr. Geddes (born 1737; died 1802), considered one of the greatest of English macaronic writers, says: "It is the characteristic of a Macaronic poem to be written in Latin hexameters; but so as to admit occasionally vernacular words, either in their native form, or with a Latin inflection--other licenses, too, are allowed in the measure of the lines, contrary to the strict rules of prosody." Broad enough reservations these, of which Dr. Geddes in his own works was not slow in availing himself, and as will be seen in the specimens given, his example has been well followed, for the strict rule that an English macaronic should consist of the vernacular made cla.s.sical with Latin terminations has been as much honoured in the breach as in the observance.

Another characteristic in macaronics is that these poems recognise no law in orthography, etymology, syntax, or prosody. The examples which here follow are confined exclusively to those which have their basis, so to speak, in the English language, and, with the exception of a few of the earlier ones, the majority of the selections in this volume have their origin in our own times.

"The earliest collection of English Christmas carols supposed to have been published," says Hone's "Every Day Book," "is only known from the last leaf of a volume printed by Wynkyn Worde in 1521. There are two carols upon it: 'A Carol of Huntynge' is reprinted in the last edition of Juliana Berners' 'Boke of St. Alban's;' the other, 'A carol of bringing in the Bore's Head,' is in Dibdin's edition of 'Ames,' with a copy of the carol as it is now sung in Queen's College, Oxford, every Christmas Day." Dr.

Bliss of Oxford printed a few copies of this for private circulation, together with Anthony Wood's version of it. The version subjoined is from a collection imprinted at London, "in the Poultry, by Richard Kele, dwelling at the long shop vnder Saynt Myldrede's Chyrche," about 1546:

A CAROL BRINGING IN THE BORE'S HEAD.

"Caput apri defero Reddens laudes Domino.

The bore's heed in hande bring I, With garlands gay and rosemary, I pray you all synge merelye Qui estis in convivio.

The bore's heed I understande Is the thefte service in this lande, Take wherever it be fande, Servite c.u.m cantico.

Be gladde lordes both more and la.s.se, For this hath ordeyned our stewarde, To cheere you all this Christma.s.se, The bore's heed with mustarde.

Caput apri defero Reddens laudes Domino."

Another version of the last verse is:

"Our steward hath provided this In honour of the King of Bliss: Which on this clay to be served is, In Regimensi Atrio.

Caput apri defero Reddens laudes Domino."

Skelton, who was the poet-laureate about the end of the fifteenth century, has in his "Boke of Colin Clout," and also in that of "Philip Sparrow,"

much macaronic verse, as in "Colin Clout," when he is speaking of the priests of those days, he says:

"Of suche vagabundus Speaking totus mundus, How some syng let abundus, At euerye ale stake With welcome hake and make, By the bread that G.o.d brake, I am sory for your sake.

I speake not of the G.o.d wife But of their apostles lyfe, c.u.m ipsis vel illis Qui manent in villis Est uxor vel ancilla, Welcome Jacke and Gilla, My prety Petronylla, An you wil be stilla You shall haue your willa, Of such pater noster pekes All the world speakes," &c.

In Harsnett's "Detection" are some curious lines, being a curse for "the miller's eeles that were stolne":

"All you that stolne the miller's eeles, Laudate dominum de coelis, And all they that have consented thereto, Benedicamus domino."

In "Literary Frivolities" there was a notice of and quotation from Ruggles' _jeu d'esprit_ of "Ignoramus," and here follows a short scene from this play, containing a humorous burlesque of the old Norman Law-Latin, in which the elder brethren of the legal profession used to plead, and in which the old Reporters come down to the Bar of to-day--if, indeed, that venerable absurdity can be caricatured. It would be rather difficult to burlesque a system that provided for a writ _de pipa vini carrianda_--that is, "for negligently carrying a pipe of wine!"

IGNORAMUS.

ACTUS I.--SCENA III.

ARGUMENTUM.

IGNORAMUS, clericis suis vocatis DULMAN & PECUS, amorem suum erga ROSABELLAM narrat, irredetque MUSaeUM quasi hominem academic.u.m.

_Intrant_ IGNORAMUS, DULMAN, PECUS, MUSaeUS.

_Igno._ Phi, phi: tanta pressa, tantum croudum, ut fui pene trusus ad mortem. Habebo actionem de intrusione contra omnes et singulos. Aha Mounsieurs, voulez voz intruder par joint tenant? il est playne case, il est point droite de le bien seance. O valde caleor: O chaud, chaud, chaud: precor Deum non meltavi meum pingue. Phi, phi. In nomine Dei, ubi sunt clerici mei jam? Dulman, Dulman.

_Dul._ Hc, Magister Ignoramus, vous avez Dulman.

_Igno._ Meltor, Dulman, meltor. Rubba me c.u.m towallio, rubba. Ubi est Pecus?

_Pec._ Hc, Sir.