Faith become a caitiff knave,
And Selfhood turned into a slave
To work in Mammon's cave,
Fair Ladye?
Will Truth's long blade ne'er gleam again?
Hath Giant Trade in dungeons slain
All great contempts of mean-got gain
And hates of inward stain,
Fair Ladye?
For aye shall Name and Fame be sold,
And Place be hugged for the sake of gold,
And smirch-robed Justice feebly scold
At Crime all money-bold,
Fair Ladye?
Shall self-wrapt husbands aye forget
Kiss-pardons for the daily fret
Wherewith sweet wifely eyes are wet—
Blind to lips kiss-wise set—
Fair Ladye?
Shall lovers higgle, heart for heart,
Till wooing grows a trading mart
Where much for little, and all for part,
Make love a cheapening art,
Fair Ladye?
Shall woman scorch for a single sin
That her betrayer can revel in,
And she be burnt, and he but grin
When that the flames begin,
Fair Ladye?
Shall ne'er prevail the woman's plea,
We maids would far, far whiter be
If that our eyes might sometimes see
Men maids in purity,
Fair Ladye?
Shall Trade aye salve his conscience-aches
With jibes at Chivalry's old mistakes,
The wars that o'erhot knighthood makes
For Christ's and ladies' sakes,
Fair Ladye?
Now by each knight that e'er hath prayed
To fight like a man and love like a maid,
Since Pembroke's life, as Pembroke's blade,
I' the scabbard, death, was laid,
Fair Ladye.
I dare avouch my faith is bright
That God doth right and God hath might,
Nor time hath changed His hair to white,
Nor His dear love to spite,
Fair Ladye.
I doubt no doubts: I strive, and shrive my clay,
And fight my fight in the patient modern way
For true love and for thee—ah me! and pray
To be thy knight until my dying day,
Fair Ladye,"
Said that knightly horn, and spurred away
Into the thick of the melodious fray.
And then the hautboy played and smiled,
And sang like a little large-eyed child,
Cool-hearted and all undefiled.
"Huge Trade!" he said,
"Would thou wouldst lift me on thy head,
And run where'er my finger led!
Once said a Man—and wise was He—
Never shalt thou the heavens see,
Save as a little child thou be."
Then o'er sea-lashings of commingling tunes
The ancient wise bassoons,
Like weird
Gray-beard
Old harpers sitting on the wild sea-dunes,
Chanted runes:
"Bright-waved gain, gray-waved loss,
The sea of all doth lash and toss,
One wave forward and one across.
But now 'twas trough, now 'tis crest,
And worst doth foam and flash to best,
And curst to blest.
"Life! Life! thou sea-fugue, writ from east to west,
Love, Love alone can pore
On thy dissolving score
Of wild half-phrasings,
Blotted ere writ,
And double erasings.
Of tunes full fit.
Yea, Love, sole music-master blest,
May read thy weltering palimpsest.
To follow Time's dying melodies through,
And never to lose the old in the new,
And ever to solve the discords true—
Love alone can do.
And ever Love hears the poor-folks' crying,
And ever Love hears the women's sighing,
And ever sweet knighthood's death-defying,
And ever wise childhood's deep implying,
And never a trader's glozing and lying.
"And yet shall Love himself be heard,
Though long deferred, though long deferred:
O'er the modern waste a dove hath whirred:
Music is Love in search of a Word."
THE BLOUSARD IN HIS HOURS OF EASE
Bulwer in his last novel said something to the effect that an orang-outang would receive a degree of polish and refinement by ten years of life in Paris. This statement is not to be taken literally, of course: I have detected no special polish of manners in the monkeys confined at the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris, some of whom are pretty well on in years. The novelist only sought to make a strong expression of his good opinion of French manners, no doubt. In observing the blouse wearers of Paris in their hours of ease and relaxation, I have been struck with the great prevalence of a certain unforced courtesy of manner, even among the coarsest. No one would dream what a howling demon this creature could and did become in the days of the Commune who should see him enjoying himself at his ball, his concert, his theatre or his dinner.
I suppose no one not in the confidence of the managers of these places would readily credit to what an extent the public masquerade-balls of Paris are the peculiar possession of the blousard. The gaping crowds of English and Americans who go to the disreputable Jardin Mabille and the like resorts in summer to gaze at what they imagine is a scene of French revelry, do not know that the cancan-dancer there is paid for his jollity. The men who dance at the Jardin Mabille are not there for revelry's sake: they are earning a few sous from the manager, who knows that he must do something to amuse his usual spectators—viz., the tourists—who go back to Manchester or to Omaha and astonish their friends with tales of the goings-on of those dreadful Frenchmen in Paris. The women who disport in the cancan at the same place are simply hired by the season. It is not at the Jardin Mabille that the visitor to Paris need ever look to see genuine revelry: the place is as much a place of jollification for the people as the stage of a theatre is, and no more. Very often the dancer at night is a blousard by day. So at many of the masquerade-balls which rage in the winter, particularly during the weeks just preceding Mardi Gras. These are less purely tourist astonishers than the Jardin Mabille. They are largely visited by the fast young men and old beaux and roués of Paris, but these are almost never seen to go upon the floor and dance. In the crowded ball-room