Hanuman:
A POEM.
Translated, in the original meter, from the Bohemian of
Svatopluk Cech.Sestri Levante, Feb. 1893.
I.
Like a desert prophet sighed I
For some fairy dreams elysian.
Rarach came meanwhile, the tempter,
Hopped into my cave, derision
In his eyes, and fluttered round me;
Straddlewise my nose bespanned,
Like a Cupid his pagoda,
With the lotus in his hand
Waved the wonder-working floweret,
Lo! a thousand imps and nixies,
Pucks and gnomes and winged goblins,
Fairies, elfin wisps and pixies
O’er the mussels swarmed in countless
Hosts, and lusty carols sung
In the crystal sea’s recesses,
And their tinkling handbells rung.
All in vain I shouted “Hold! and
Elsewhere play those skipping jingles
On jest’s cymbal with the sistrum,
That with sting of satire tingles;
For I crave a song whose rhythm
From the soul of beauty brims,
And with purest ore poetic
Choirs enthusiastic hymns.
Thine’s a troop of drolls fantastic,
With their false and foreign spangles.”
“Nay, but o’er our meadows only
Such a charming flower wreath dangles
For the poet and such heroes
In our own domestic runes,
And this fellow must to Bombay
Trudge in search of his buffoons.”
All in vain still thrums the timbrel
Ceaseless hand and foot as pliant,
Moulds the fulsome dance responsive,
And the sparkling eye defiant
Dares me, and the papery pinions
With sham iris colours pearled,
Flirt and buzz round like a night-moth:
“Let us out into the world.”
“Fly then! on thy gummy vans, in-
augurate a furtive Aden,
Leading souls poetic, slily
To thy jungles, legend-laden.
Then ensconced in thy liana-
Swing, with thumb to nose deride him.
Thou hast scandalized full other
Brahmins not of Ind beside him.”
II.
“Somewhere in thy jungles Hindostani
Relics of a giant city sadly
Brood o’er memories of departed glory,
Splendors now collapsing to the tomb,
Dreaming of the throngs that filled its churches,
Of the swarms of worship-loving people
And the palaces of haughty Nabobs,
Jewelled thrones and flashing presence-room.
Minarets, pagodas, all in ruin
And dismantled seats of mighty rajahs,
Hide beneath the fans of wavy palm groves
And the rank banana’s spacious leaves
In a heavy pall of fronds and flowers,
Pitiful the virgin woodland shrouds them
And a veil of hundred-fold lianas
O’er the face of perished glory weaves
All among that web of airy tendrils
Like a saucy gang of agile sailors
In their rigging, now of sportive apes a
Family their giddy dances run,
Sacred and descendants of the fabled
Hanuman, with whom the great one Vishnu,
Taking on himself the form of Rama,
Lanek, isle of giants, proudly won.
Here, in former times, these sacred monkeys
In a lordly church were fondly cherished
By the tender care of pious Hindoos,
’Neath the goddess Durga’s patron hand:
But when Church and city fell to ruin,
By the guile of wicked foes deflowered,
They remained above the ruined city
Only dwellers in that lonely land.
Sated were they with the luscious fruitage
Of the forest lords whose green recesses
Rang from morn to eve enlivened by the
Dance and chatter of their apish fold.
These grotesque of body were, a long tail
Smartly clasped the branches like a lasso;
’Neath a front of irrepressive bristles
Peeped a mask of wholly human mould.
Much as other apes they lived and flourished,
Save obedient to divine prescription,
One of them was recognised their monarch
And the royal dignity began
And descended in unbroke succession
By inheritance from sire to sire,
Handed downward from the half-diving one,
Apedom’s glorious hero—Hanuman.
Hanuman the last was now, in childhood,
By his gracious mother fondly tended;
his virtues kindled every ape-heart
With the prescience of his future fame.
But Parvati, with her dreadful sickle,
Shore the leaf, the precious bud that shrouded
And a flash of fate unkindly blasted
All the proud spun dream of bliss and name.
In the shady leafage of a plane tree
Once the queen was lulling him to slumber,
Tenderly removing from the soft fur
Aught that sucked audacious those blue veins;
Sudden from the bamboo thicket issued,
In a sailor’s garb, a human monster,
Softened not that heart of flint the touching
Sight of all that mother’s love and pains.
O’er the woods a musket shot; a piteous
Cry; the smoke cleared off and down the princess
Toppled headlong from her leafy fastness
Overtaken by the fatal lead;
From the mother’s dying arms the murderer
Tore the child and to his vessel bore him:
So to distant lands in galling fetters
Apedom’s last surviving promise sped.
III.
Ah! what anguish smote within thee, luckless
Hanuman, as far away
Thine ancestral wood and forest fastness
Muffled in the mist-wreath lay,
And beyond the stern thine eye went ranging
Tearful, under foreign skies and changing
Stars that bent o’er endless seas of grey.
Thou, around whose brow primeval legend
Wove a starry crown, whose fame
Holy Ganges, snow-clad Himalaya
Echoed, at whose sacred name
Pious Ind low looted, rude born sailors
Now art made the butt of: rabble railers
Taunt and pelt thee with the words of shame.
Thee who wont’st to be the bright exemplar
To all creatures of thy race,
And who knewest naught but warm affection
In a mother’s fond embrace,
And the love her heart alone could offer:
Now the stinging lash constrains to proffer
Servile bows and tricks of little grace.
Thus the high-born captive sailed the ocean
Many a night and many a day;
Flashed around him like a spangled dream-land
Foreign shores in bright array,
Till, at length, the vessel reached the clouded
Northworld and by Albion’s mists enshrouded,
Moored within the echoing harbour lay.
There within the sailors’ reeking tavern,
On a mat of plaited cane,
Crouched the ape, disconsolate, when o’er him
Those colossi once again
Waved their spreading boughs—and lo! the lotus
Through the serried gloom flashed out remote as
Some wild eyeball from th’ enchanted main.
O’er his fevered brow the giant palm leaves’
Fringe of green their freshness shower,
Like a winged gem the insect quivers
In the gloom of branch and flower.
Golden through its leaves the date—he graspeth
For it—woe!—but empty air he claspeth.
All is but a dream’s deceptive power!
In a smart ne suit next morn his master
Dressed him: his two-cornered hat
baude Cocked in rakish guise with gorgeous top-knot—
Sure some gift of fairy that;
Ruddy frock all filigree bedizened,
Violet ducks, in huge top-boots imprisoned,
Loose about his nether person sat.
Seated on a squeaking hurdy-gurdy
Which his master’s shoulder bore,
Off he set o’er Rhineland, France, Italia,
On his artist’s wanderjahr,
From the southern vine to Norway’s larches,
Half of Europe, covered with his marches,
Did that landless prince of apes explore.
Hailed with wild acclaim and children’s laughter,
He must show his wit, the slum
Of the town amuse, divert the village
Tavern bumpkins rude and glum,
Take his cap off, courtier-wise on one knee
Drop, play cards or smoke the sailors’ honey-
Dew, walk on his head and tipple rum,
Neatly bind the napkin’s snow-white corners
Round his neck and eat his food
Nicely, bit by bit, with fork impaling
And, magnanimous of mood,
To the waiter hand a frank and duly
Ply his toothpick—crowning wonder truly!
Wipe his small moustache with wine imbued,
In his chequered hat collect the pennies;
From some generous little hand
Sometimes fell some sweet fruit from some orchard
For him of that northern land.
In his master’s arms he slept: nor more he
Moaned his forest home, it seemed the glory
Of his heavenly home from thought was banned.
But at last that nomad life the outcast
Wearied of, and now once more
Yearned to coil the cable and the ocean’s
Boundless plain to voyage o’er;
And so once he stepped into the haven
There the ship stood with the tall masts shaven
And the sails set for some foreign shore.
Thus it chanced: a green-room Alexander
Caught by a sublime idea,
Would, this genius of an impressario,
Forth to Himalaya steer;
Indus, Ganges, and Nerbudda’s sluices
Tap, a virgin soil for thirsty muses,
Those to whom the Thespian art is dear,
What a host of needy mimes flock round him
From the east-end and the west,
Goddesses of fame and money avid,
Ballerine light of vest—
With an air or pirouette who ponder
All thy diamond shoals to net Golconda,
All thy wealth Benares to enchest.
Prima donnas’ golden heads are running
On a rain of golden posies
In their laps, of topaz, sapphires, rubies,
While the ballet sylph in hose is
Panting for some spark in pearl-sewn turban,
Or with supple thumb prepares suburban
Pinches for proud Brahmins’ august noses.
Scarce the ship, that ark of art, suffices
In its cells to stow away
All that world of lath and plaster fashioned,
Which to India now would stray:
All that medley—boxes, trunks, portmanteaus,
Wardrobes, cases lined with unsold cantos,
Rouge pots, hair dyes, wigs red, black and grey.
Ship of Argonauts—with song resounding,
Boldly plough the furrowy blue!
Hanuman’s new master is thy captain:
At his side, a comrade true,
Bides the ape, oh! how the small eye sparkles
As unfolding free around it darkles nine
Ocean’s boundless zones of azure hue.
Oh! how throbbed his heart as thro’ the grating
Criss-cross yard and rigging made him,
Through warm nights again the Southern Cross’s
Gleam of welcome calm surveyed him
As the ship, on Heaven’s blue vault designing,
Once again the slender palm-stems twining,
Nearer, nearer to his home conveyed him.
And the nearer, ofter sank in pensive
Dreams and reveries the ape.
Once he started—sure, there, in the distance
’Twas his homeland’s wooded cape!
But swift tempest’s fury long impending
Sudden burst with thunder music blending
Earth and sea and sky in one wild shape.
Oh! then on that ill-starred bark heartrending,
Were the tragedies achieved
By those wan-eyed singers, actors—ghastly
Fair the opera they weaved,
To which into drum and trumpet storming
Tempest played the ouverture performing;
Feats of art e’en Wagner ne’er conceived.
Hanuman from that wild tumult clambered
To the main mast—terrors blight—
Thunder deafens—stoops the groaning top-mast,
It the surge-foams drift and bite;
And with that small ape, firm hold maintaining,
Wrathful ocean’s deep, as if disdaining,
Spat it forth on India’s shores of light.
IV.
Oh! forest world, thou gorgeous affluence
Of beauty, grandeur, magic, horror, wonder,
Infinite treasures of form and sense,
Light, color, shadow, scent and sound, as under
Day’s glowing kiss awoke to consciousness
How passing fair! how clothe them in its sheen,
Haughty, the veterans of thy wilderness,
Waving their tropic wealth of glowing green,
Flashing in emerald waves, a sea of splendour.
But to the lower cycles of the grove
Day from its crowned monarchs deigns to rove
Down to where yet a second forest tenders
(Being but itself those giants’ undergrowth,)
Shelter to thickets lower yet and blending
Leaves great and small in wealth of forms unending,
Fantastic groups you here may see of both
Plumes and enormous fans which all around
Spread from the palms’ slim crowns a feather frond
Massed into stately vault or ribbed network,
Here emerald blades, here fringe of fairy fretwork;
And amid all those feather-forms unending
Sportively night here battles with the daylight,
’Mid a myriad shadows, exquisitely blending,
Till, lower chased, she walks the dusky grey light,
Free and unchallenged, in perpetual shades
Where through her poisoned weeds entangled waste
Slime and morass and serpent root enlaced
No glance of curious day her gloom invades.
But up above light strings a hundred bows
And iris sparks. There, spreading in a rose
Yon targe of fronds, whose drooping tips around it,
Like ornamental lace their fringes roll
Flames lonely through the leafy shades that bound it,
Some great Mogul’s emblazoned parasol.
Here the liana garland-wise festooning
Platane and mango in its plaited maze,
Swings the light blooms, their spotted bells attuning
Into an arabesque of colour; blaze
Ruby with sapphire, topaz, agate, banded:
Here in full pomp the spacious dawn expanded.
Now freshly through the woods a spirit heaves
As from dawn’s bosom, bearing, pleasure-laden,
A hundred odours, murmurs in all leaves,
And wakes to myriad life the forest Aden.
Here hails the sun the parrot’s shrill acclaiming,
As o’er his fluttering wing, with purple flaming,
Light’s tracery glints, he preens his emerald side,
The woodland peacock flashing through the gloom,
A glowing meteor, irridescent-eyed:
The butterfly there poises on the bloom,
A winged fire aloft the apes in guise
Of demons scare repose, in bough and trailer
Entanglement ensconced, with dismal cries:
Lower head-downward fly, hang by the tail or
Swarm, lightning-like, o’er tree trunks, swarm or scatter:
Daring upon festooned lianas swing
In attitudes grotesque: while all sides ring,
Above, below, with endless buzz and chatter.
To-day, a strange report in fits has flung ’em,
Their Hanuman’s alive, nay, he’s among ’em,
Sudden returned from distant lands in might
And such a strange costume—their god of light,—
He they so long bewailed in orphan station.
Now, at his bidding troop from every side
In mighty conclave all the apish nation;
With gibbering goblins all the jungles chide
As all rush off where stands ’mid ruins hoary all
Their Parliament House from times immemorial.
’Mid most the ruined cities’ crumbling eaves
O’er which the wood a second roofage weaves
A grey pagoda stands, all weather battered,
Girdled with hosts of countless images,
Cupids and animals and turrets scattered
Concentric, mosses hide a ruined frieze,
And on four trunks of elephants converging,
Is seen a little spike-crowned dome emerging.
On this small cupola, as on a throne, is
Already seated Hanuman, in clusters
On statuettes and turrets lower down is
All that of birth and breeding apedom musters;
Already, too, through all its precincts bustle,
From tree and ruin, members here assembling,
And o’er it all the waving branches rustle
Forming a vault, some palace choir resembling.
But now the cupola seems all alive,
And by the little satans wondrous dances,
Buzzing and swarming like a monkey hive,
Changed to a waving world of mango plants is,
Bread trees, bananas, banyans and filling
Fast with live fruits that dangle from the ceiling.
Lo! all the branches round are swaying, spinning
With swarms grotesque of bodies frizzed and furry,
And with a hundred monkey masks are grinning:
Down by the pendent, spreading creepers hurry
Groups thicker yet, and from its trellis dangling,
Down swings another heavy vintage wrangling.
How fix in words that hubbub and those japes,
Buzz, chatter, shrieks, the Parliament of apes
Rent all the wood with proffering its delight
At the lost king’s return: and, heavenly sight!
There calmly sat the king on the pagoda:
That vaulted forest opening o’er his head,
A quivering stream of light upon him shed,
That like a glory round his person glowed—ah!
But what rare sight amidst it all was that?
A scarlet frock with golden frippery rigid
And violet breeks it wore, a costume pat
For kings designed: its head erect and frigid,
A hat of mighty mould and wondrous build, hid
In form and style like that so felted, wadded,
Thy brows, famed son of Corsica, once shielded,
Save that o’er this a plume stupendous nodded,
Of gilded wire, beads, feathers dyed and spangled,
While from each horn a golden tassel dangled,
’Faith, ’twas a costume worthy of a godhead!
The Parliament of apes, at all astounded,
Gazed, and full many a raptured cry resounded,
Though ’mid the tendrils, too, may be some blockhead
A stupid smile at that quaint little frock hid.
Until at length from all sides thundering ran:
“Be welcome home, prince, mighty Hanuman.”
Then Apedom’s chief took off the hat and, bowing,
Opened the Session with a speech as glowing.
“To Vishnu praise! and hearty thanks to thee,
Great ancestor, for sure thine interceding
With him who rules yon cloud-wrought canopy
(Past services to Rama tendered pleading
With Vishnu) ’twas through rolling seas upbore me
To where the star of destiny shone o’er me;
Now mine uncurtained gaze the truth descrieth,
And opened wide before me, like a scroll,
The book of apish fates and human lieth,
I read each secret sign and judge the whole.
Ape, of creation diadem and pride,
Issued from hands divine, dowered in full measure,
And multiplied, his seats expanding wide;
But one part of that mighty brotherhood
In unprogressive state stagnated, having
Its dwelling in the trees—their fruits for food,
The gift of nature—without labour craving,
Neglecting its rare talents’ cultivation,
So that some atrophied, some wholly perished,
And evermore approaching the base station
Of those brute beasts, whose comradeship it cherished.
Not so the other part; this higher still
Its gifts developed accent with each fresh endeavour,
Earth, beings’ empire, subjected to its will,
Keeping along the road of progress ever.
Of countless ages thus he reaped the promise
So far excelled, his reason schooled so soundly,
In grace of life and outward polish from his
Arboreal brethren differed so profoundly,
That now, if face and body’s conformations
Had not announced it, hard ’twere to believe in
The common origin of those two nations:
But our poor language fails to paint, O! Heaven!
My raptures when I think of thee, Europa;
Thou loveliest land of full-formed apedom proper!
To paint those cities, full of glittering treasure,
Those fine turns-out, that swarm of smart costumes,
That joy of life, its comfort, grace and leisure,
Those polished manners and assembly rooms.
Oh! I confess with shame, alas! we hairy ’uns,
Compared with them, are little but barbarians.
Like the brute beasts, who with us haunt the woods,
We’re only skilled to skip and climb and gobble.
On us, no ray of Progress e’er intrudes,
Nor poetry nor music us ennoble.
To us, the theatre’s scarce e’en a name;
And as for politics, saloons—O! Brahm!
What wonder if those apes of progress—or rest
E’en the mere name ape’s now tabooed as shocking.
The cultured race of man, then, looks down mocking
Upon his uncouth brethren of the forest:
Nay, ’tis but yesterday Cam’s glorious son dared,
After long ages, scornful, had denied it,
To own the kinship, by his great heart guided,
And what a storm of protest ’gainst him thundered!
But better I than he intend to show ’em
Our birth is one, and that the present chasm
That scorned, degraded brother now below ’em
Can span with ease and reach or perhaps surpass ’em.
When first, out yonder, pain and shame at heart, I
Compared our wretched lot with that of man,
A sudden flash within my temples ran,
And, in an instant, warmed my every part: ay,
That flash the germ was of a great idea
Which with the breath of blessed hope grew clear;
And now my guiding star before me burneth,
To which my glance enthusiastic turneth;
My race neglected, from its degradation,
I’d raise by culture and civilization;
I’d till the glebe for spiritual sowing
My ancestors, in secular neglect, had
Let fallow: by my glorious deed bestowing
On mine, the self-same rights the race elect had.
To-day, upon that glorious task I enter;
But ere to spheres of higher thought I venture,
I’ll touch on three things where the outward shape
Differs most strikingly in man and ape.
First, there’s our tails, which only in derision
Stream out behind us. This is my decision:
Dock the superfluous adjunct with a chopper
At once; ’tis not nice, not to say improper.
And then our foot, which long disuse degrading
To be the hands’ mere helpmate, blindly stumbles,
Nor knows the art of orderly parading,
But for its bough, with thumb inconstant fumbles
Shall reach at last its natural destination
And real top boots, its toes compressing tightly,
Conform it promptly to the latest fashion.
And then—woe’s me! that matters so unsightly
In open Parliament should e’er be treated
With unflushed cheeks-things scarce to be repeated.
Woe’s me! your feelings have been so neglected—
So dreadfully—my nation most respected,
You’ll hear, perhaps unflinching, what half-speechless
I—nay, my modest tongue—words fail—you’re breechless.
Nay, never point for your more deep discredit
On that coarse fur—that brute-beasts’ vesture tedded
That only muffles—shame if man now caught us!
Enough about this object. Brief, I vow, sirs,
We’ll into pourpoints, petticoats and trowsers;
Ay, promptly, too, and humanwise comport us.
Our faith firm pinned on human dress, reliance
On that shall soon conduct us to the van,
O’er stepping-stones of morals, art and science—
The glorious Church of brotherhood and man!”
The king has ceased; around, the apish clusters
Also hang motionless. Like meteor showers,
Those grand conceptions blind their puny powers,
Those glittering vistas—unimagined lustres.
Then, by degrees, the rustling storm prevails,
And wonder thrills those clumps of heads and tails.
A hundred brandished hands through mid air flutter,
A hundred polls go swagging up and down,
A hundred figures dance and clutch and splutter,
A hundred faces gibber, grin and frown;
But as to what they think, a dismal hum is
The only oral clue—all mute and mum is;
And many a puzzled Chatham keeps his seat,
And scratches both his ears with both his feet.
At length an aged ape of aspect sour,
Grey eld with silver threads his scarce fur raying,
His face a map of wrinkles, stubborn, dour,
A mango fruit in one fist, th’ other playing
With the blue honors of his beard, and tightly
An aery tendril with the third embracing
Among the tropic creeper’s interlacing,
Wherein, as on a swing, he dangled lightly,
Now stretched his fourth hand to the monarch breeched,
And thus for rhetoric’s crown of laurels reached:
“I say out plain; I can’t assent, great sire,
That men than we—nay, we than men stand higher,
As stood our ancestors from earliest ages.
Here’s a clear proof from old world History’s pages:
When gracious Sita once was borne away
By Ravanas to Lanek, to retrieve her,
His bride, the god, then wearing human clay,
Turned not for aid to men but us—Sugriva
He summoned, and on Hanuman relied:
And how those glorious apish chiefs achieved
True miracles of valour; how the bride
Of Rama from the ogre was retrieved
By Hanuman; how one bold archway bended
Across the sea to Ceylon’s isle, suspended
By hands of apes:—of this the lustrous story
Is graved on History’s slabs in deathless glory.
And once e’en man our prior claim confessed:
That half-divine Ind deems our race, the shrines
Scattered from Simla to the sea attest,
Where choirs of apes religious life refines.
Oh! just let us live on as lived our sires.
The mango fruit—what sweeter in the wide world?
And life on boughs with scented blooms, this pied world
Of woods—what nearer to the heart’s desires?
’Tis just sheer folly and not worth a tittle,
This progress, science, culture and the rest of it—
For me this mango stone outweighs the best of it.
I, too, have looked into the world a little,
Have been as far as Bombay and Calcutta
And watched the life of this mad western species
How starched it sits in circles—not a flutter!
But like a puppet carved in boxwood each is,
How anxiously its every movement weighed is!
What gestures, vapid phrases, formal, flat,
Chewed and rechewed; what stiff bows to the ladies!
My humble thanks for such a life as that!
No, no, these mountebanks had reason greater
To fly to us, here rocked in freedom’s arms
From empty care and self-inflicted fetter
To mother Nature’s breast and life’s pure charms.
To think of us going mimicking these flunkeys!
Rather should they conform to us,—to monkeys!
We’ve stayed as Nature’s soul—as wisest essence
Has fashioned us; why fash ourselves because
Man’s farcicalities in effervescence
Have marred the jollier scheme of heavenly laws.
Disdain your tail, my lord, if you think fit,
I wear mine with delight—I’m proud of it:
Look at its tapering form so gently sportive,
The grace and softness of each supple motion,
In every one it wakens warm devotion
Whose natural sense of beauty’s not abortive.
Its use for life on trees can’t be denied,
’Tis sanctioned, too, by countless generations.
Sires, grandsires, gloried in this train’s gyrations:
’Twas Hanuman the Mighty’s joy and pride
E’en fairest stars through night’s autumnal trail
In lines of glittering light a sparkling tail:
And this choice decoration—we’re to flout it
Merely because mankind is now without it?
And feet, whose fingers free and unimpeded
Are capable of touch, and work if needed,
Why must their poor maimed thumbs, all knobs and sores
Be cramped in Spanish pumps, to slip and fumble
Through mire and dust, with many an awkward tumble;
Nay, rather we, intrepid on all fours,
Above the clods of earth, where man sticks bestial,
Will climb to higher heights and realms celestial;
And quite content let’s wear these furs delicious
Wherewith, where need is, Nature kindly wraps us.
This cant ’gainst nakedness is all fictitious—
Man’s prudishness—a mere eccentric lapsus;
Our members’ forms,—’twas Nature’s hand applied ’em,
They’re known;—why hypocritically hide ’em?
You’ll ne’er drill me into these chequered tatters;
I have grown grey untrowsered—by all hatters!
I won’t rig my old age in rags and motley!”
“Enough, enough,” broke in the prince here hotly,
“So untrimmed a discourse, one so provocative,
No Senate’s annals sure have e’er confessed.
All’s Greek to him-the Parliament’s prerogative,
And how ’tis meet that kings should be addressed!
Forth from our Senate! Off! and be right glad
We’ve not yet called our Law Courts—if we had
The wheel those caitiff limbs had seen disjointed
For gross offence against high heaven’s anointed.”
The aged ape, aghast, perused him storming,
Then turned its back upon his Senate, slowly
Hand over hand o’er high lianas swarming,
Sought the thick foliage of a pipal holy,
And sucked its mango there, snarled wrathful, shifted,
And flung the kernels down from palm uplifted.
And now the king had quite a host of reasons
With which to quench the opposition treasons.
“My mighty grandsire from yon starry height
Looks down, methinks, with no contented eye
On such an advocate, and small delight
To be the ancestor of such a guy.
’Tis well to reverence our great departed;
But when our comic side is thus paraded
In sire’s cast suits of fame, by sons degraded
Who clash their swords, themselves being chicken-hearted,
Like windbags puff themselves with those sires’ fame:
Methinks that fleas can boast themselves the same,
A lion tolerates in his royal mane,
That lion’s blood is circling in their vein!
This bungler has to journey many a rood
To fetch his proofs, to times before the flood;
For charlatans are more at home and able
Where all clear outlines ’neath a dappled haze
Subtract themselves from critics’ serious gaze.
But let us soberly review this fable:
I honour Hanuman, his fame assert,
Truth, though, will ne’er diminish his desert;
In Rama, in man’s form, god being embodied,
And not in ape, to man the preference gave.
This man a warrior was, with whom a brave
But mere ally, the apish hero plodded.
Apes’ prior claims! ’tis a mere craze that haunts him,
And in the magic bridge he vainly vaunts him;
’Twas, true enough, by apish hands erected
But Samudra, the sea god, first projected
The whole design; we ape folk, to complete it,
Brought nought but sturdy thews, which I’ve admitted,
Nor wit nor mind—i’faith, a feeble nimbus—
E’en trunks of elephants bear joists and timbers.
’Tis ludicrous to boast the modest share is
Ours in the Hindoos’ Pantheistic ritual
When every loon can claim a place in it. You all
Have heard how bulls are sacred in Benares.
And vulgar taste it is to eulogise—h’m!
This good-for-naught posterior appendage—
This obvious lapse of nature—this loose endage
That flaps slap in thy face, Æstheticism!
Man’s foot, I’m told, constrains him to the mire,
While ours, instead, to heaven exalts us higher.
Yon foolish parrots reach yet higher regions;
Are we, for that, below those spottled pigeons?
The fashion of our feet—say, ’tis degenerate—
For climbing’s now adapted best, at any rate?
Yes; but we’ve no desire with squirrels, thrushes,
Henceforth to skip and hop o’er trees and bushes;
Nor scurry down lianas’ high festoons,
But nicely sit in orderly saloons.
Last, as concerns our nudity—oh! let
Us thank our stars that to these woodland quarters,
From Europe have not penetrated yet
The Argus-eyes of newspaper reporters;
(That Europe where, in these days, in some places,
Of fair maid’s bosoms ’tis a crime to warble,
And whose police scarce suffer naked graces
In goddesses, though they’re antiques and marble;)
For if he overheard our so immoral
Debate and to his paper gave it entry,
And added comic cuts, as well as oral,—
As is the way with journalistic gentry—
Our Senate’s session would become the sport
Of the whole world of cultivated thought.
Enough of words. But of this vow take heed:
Let folly, let indifference resist,
Obscurist, tailist, or reactionist,
On with undaunted courage I’ll proceed
Where bright above me beams the goal transcendent:
An apedom dressed, un-tailed and independent.”
Applausive cries and clappings hailed the royal
Harangue, ay, one ape wishing, all too loyal,
To clap with all four palms at once, was found
After a thundering fall, upon the ground.
(For courtiers’ arts e’en apes have not neglected.)
But well the quick-eyed monarch’s glance detected
Not from the heart those cries applausive flowed;
And therefore vexed, for sympathy he searches
Where lower, and most near the throne, bestrode
A trunk of elephant, ’neath the little church’s
Domelet, an ape, as Bhandragura noted,
Noblest of all for lofty lineage voted;
Of this rare magnate, then, the prince inquired:
“Our well loved Bhandragura, say, in verity,
What think’st thou of our plan? and be inspired
In thy reply with frank, complete sincerity.”
Then bowing low responded Bhandragura:
“Flattery apart, thy speech, O Majesty!
Ah! ’twas one string of splendid thoughts, ay, sure a
Necklace—each word a pearl of wisdom high.
Blots on the sun I easier could detect
Than on the work thy genius has created.
A miracle of wit it must be rated,
And perfect through and through in each respect.
Above all, as to dress, in me, O Sire!
You’ll find a preacher full of faith and fire.
Ah, me! with what delight I, too, had ruffled
In that brave hat of thine; my body muffled
In that fine frock, those picturesque cut breeches;
But where to find ’em—that the one small hitch is.”
Here in accord the Senate cheered revealing
This doubt respondent to the general feeling;
And eager looks upon the king all rivet,
To see what satisfaction he would give it.
But now o’er all the king emerged thrice glorious,
And round and round the Senate glanced victorious,
“Thrice honored be that word, so frank, so human,
Without the useless gloss of flattery’s spangle.
Thee, forthwith, my prime minister I summon:
But know our august work from every angle
In all its parts we’ve marked with diligence.
Not far from here, where round our forest fastness
The sea beach winds and depths of ocean vastness,
Upon a spot to which I’ll lead you hence,
As if in homage, Ocean’s waves have brought us
Of different suits a countless choice, a banquet
Of gems and diamonds of the rarest waters,
That from this store each one of you may prank it
From head to heels in gold galoons and samet,
Lace, silks—whate’er you will—you’ve but to name it.”
This last announcement did indeed occasion
Wild throes of joy to all the apish nation,
From wold and ruin loud the cries were bruited,
Tempests of praise through all the foliage ran,
And thus the king in thunder tones saluted:
“Long live our monarch, mighty Hanuman”
Then, not a moment waiting for his guidance,
Like the wild huntsman’s pack of phantoms chiding
Through wintry woods, that mass of apes roll, gliding
O’er branch and creeper, skip and hop and fly, dance
Through the dense thickets, leap from trees to trees
In one wild avalanche of deafening roar, all
Converging to where into depths of seas
The old wood’s selvage peers from cliffs of coral.
V.
The rolling main, where yestreen’s storm suspended
Its vapoury hills o’er myriad valleys blended
Where surge and thunder-peal rang forth and vivid
Heaven’s cloud-born arrows leapt from darkness livid,
To-day, in tranquil majesty reposing
Beneath the gorgeous dome of southern skies,
A mighty sapphire half of space enclosing,
Flecked with the gold of myriad sparkles, lies.
Blue robe of Ocean, which the wavelets plashing,
Scarce heard, in crispy bands of snowy laces
’Neath the low shore-line fringe and, gorgeous, graces
A diadem of palms, with emerald flashing;
Such the proud vanguard of that wood’s recesses,
With sprays superb of towering growths, in motion,
And garlands drooping to a painted ocean
And flower bright wreaths entwined in darkling tresses:
And from the waves’ transparent shield, far under
Glows, strangely fair, the sub-marine wrought Aden,
Girdling the shore with wealth of flower forms laden,
The tender polypes’ patient work of wonder,
Those stems in ruby carved and turquoise blue,
Whose threads enamelled many a whorl embowers
Of slender-fashioned bells and living flowers
In hundred-fold delight of varying hues:—
Those globed Medusa’s colours, the slim mould
Of other beings, that glassy microcosms’
Still insect life, that circles round its blossoms
Coralline:—bivalves strewn o’er sands of gold,
Whose iris sheen at every moment varies,—
’Tis like a glance on some bright haunt of fairies.
But yestreen’s storm which with the Muses’ Ark
So many a proud hope at one blow had shattered
Left ’mid those beauties, its dread power to mark,
More than one piteous trace at random scattered.
Upon the beach a medley strange is strewn
Heaped up in sand and hither, thither bandied
By force of waves and salt surf spoiled and stranded,
Lie chest, case, hamper in disorder thrown.
And in the sea itself, a stone’s throw farther,
Lo! by the splintered reefs and crags surrounded,
That blacken where the snowy foam-wreaths gather,
Half fallen on one side the ship’s hull grounded.
Hark! ’tis as though above the wooded reach
Some sudden squall has burst with hundred guns,
And hurrying near and nearer to the beach
With gathering roar of crackling branches, runs:
And in that din may be distinguished cries
And yells from numerous throats: now, high in air
Above the palms the frighted parrot flies,
A tulip of the clouds, and vibrates there
Its Iris plumes: from leafy covert lair
An ape has sprung and down its tree trunk stair
Slid lightning-like to earth: behind him follow,
One, two, three, four: whole packs in full cry hollow;
Now from the brakes of pleated leaves is spilling
A perfect cloud of these wild apish swarms,
Down the lianas jerked, as if distilling
A waterfall of fawn-furred pygmy forms.
Each to the chests and packing cases scampers,
Rends the portmanteau-straps and tugs the hampers.
Now, hellish Breughle, lend thy pincers’ aid
That I, from far, may catch that mad parade;
My feeble pen can offer of that scene a
Mere shade of mummeries, tricks a record scanty
Over the relics of those drowned cantanti,
Those mimers, prime-donne, ballerine;
A whirlwind of impatient, apish pickers
’Tis now that dips and rages in that frippery
Of tinsel robes;—with what grotesques it flickers,
What comic postures as they tug the heap awry!
Here with fantastic casque that frames in her face
A cat ape’s gibbering from the mirror’s surface;
One in Mephisto’s ruddy trowsers sticketh
Her ape’s hand: here a foot, in gauntlet shod, is
Thrust through the sleeve of Margarita’s bodice:
On triangle with sceptre here one clicketh;
And here’s an ape, his fur with snow-drift crowned,
From full fist flings the puff powder around,
Till all’s just like a shop of Paris plaster:
Behind him one, a mimic modern master,
Stripes all his back, a brush assiduous plying
Well charged with chalk and ruddle: here one, eyeing
The scene through pince-nez, flourished to and fro,
Dressed half antique-wise, half in rokoko,
Head over heels above the drums goes flying.
Some type here of all lands’, all nations’ clothes is,
Arms that have threatened death in every age,
Wigs and moustachios, with all sorts of noses,
Masks, padded calves for sylph or ballet page.
Here laurel wreaths with ribbon, goblet, fan, are
Once more alive, scores wave and many a banner
Unrolls above the gibbering demon host,
This way and that, in wild disorder tossed:
And strains to match accompany the racket,
A crash of tones, earth had not heard as yet,
Apes’ chatter, tom-toms’ deafening thuds to back it,
Crisp, tinkling bells, and clattering castanet.
And from the palms yet other throngs come showering
That scarce the close-packed strip of beach will hold,
That reckless rout of carnival, unrolled,
Like some bright ball of ribbon, where go scouring
The apish maskers: o’er the plunder tussle:
Show sharp toothed gums, in one another’s muzzle
And challenge strife. Here one keen pair of eyes have
Flown to the shipwreck on the reef; the cries of
Their owner summoned others. Swift to leeward
A troop of apes has scrambled up the plane tree
That stiffens ’mid the palms—a lonely sentry,
And one strong arm points furthest out to seaward.
From this, in shorter time than takes to write it,
Of apes and cat-apes swings a girdle dappled,
Upon the branch, with feet and tail united.
The first, head prone to earth, is firmly grappled,
And, with both hands, the ape below it claspeth
Fast by the tail; this ape a third’s tail graspeth;
The third a fourth—and so ad libitum—
Head downwards, back to seaward—sight amazing,
They hang—the ground the last link all but grazing.
And now this long and living pendulum,
All hands and arms in rapid agitation,
Swings to and fro, more swift at each pulsation,
Till far beyond the wave line to where’s lying
Th’ ill fated wreck, the lowest ape is flying:
Now his fore-arm has nipped the balustrade,
And perfect thus, that living bridge compactly
Built out of apish heads and tails exactly
As Ulloa wrote, a mighty archway made
(For that’s maintained unshaken in his pages
Which seems a mere quaint jest to modern sages).
O’er the ape bridge now fresh detachments thundered,
And in brief time the luckless vessel plundered
Down to the very hold, fresh tawdry adding
To that about the beach already gadding.
Here, last to show himself amongst his own,
Lo! my lord Hanuman. Now, only, reader,
He had caught up his subjects, tho’ their leader.
He really could not skip it o’er lianas
But picked his way on land like us bimanas,
Leaning upon a piece of sugar cane,
A sorry trot being all he could attain,
For every step, almost, he lost his balance,
And bloody falls ’mid thorns tried his nonchalance,
This kind of monkey scarce at all being able
To walk upright like chimpanzee or cego.
Thus, last, he tramped it o’er the sand and pebble
And paused like some personified Quos ego.
“Ah! ha!” he shrieked, “this spectacle divine is!”
Then raised his cane in threatening hand, but so
Reft of that necessary prop, his highness
Plumped on his fore-paws without more ado;
And so, on all fours planted, like the rest,
Continued thus to chide his hair-brained hopefuls:
“Enough of foolishness and childish jest!
What’s in the hampers yet, just let there stop, fools!
And first within our woodland empire be
All duly fetched in manner orderly;
Then only, when a proper invent’ry
Is taken, will I serve all out in packets
To each in keeping with his quality,
And teach you how to live up to your jackets.”
VI.
How Hanuman depict in fitting manner
That mighty change in all things, high and low,
Wherewith, great Peter’s compeer, at a blow
O’er Apedom thou didst hoist fair culture’s banner!
How deftly wert thou skilled to use the stores
The ship’s broad shoulders brought thee to thy shores;
Those side scenes, costumes and a hundred trifles,
Of which is built our real world’s scenic rival’s:
With these thou hadst in thy still forest grove meant
To found a world, of well bred apes the sure hope,
Whose polish fine and cultivated movement
Should more than run abreast with that of Europe.
Who could believe, but now, in simple fleeces
Of their own hair, they crept o’er trees and trailers—
Those figures, that now prank it in pelisses,
Gowns, mantles, frock-coats cut by West-end tailors;
Who carry fans and double eyeglasses,
And cut each other courtly reverences!
Who’d ere divine an apish hind hand fleecy
In those soft Paris pumps or Hessian pairs—
You’d say, perhaps, the cobbler sewed too easy.
And soon those forms—an upright gait is theirs.
Out from the hip they swing in style disdaining
All props—such wonders come from constant training.
The tail? beneath the steel, without restriction
It fell, the name e’en being expunged from diction.
Poor thing, it served to dust the floor or clothes:
The ladies, though, kept theirs; it came in handy
As bustle paddings, in default of those
That nowadays round off our female dandy.
Where palaces of ancient rajahs lifted,
Mid-most the ruined streets, their blue walls rifted,
Half in the wood’s dense roofage disappearing,
And bells of creepers on the façade bearing,
Which many a trace of bygone glory cherished,
The Ape chief raised his seat o’er those had perished.
Before a time-worn gate, whose traceried fretwork,
Moss overrun, and flower stars’ heavier network,
As guard of honour, to and fro, and making
At need a military salute, lo! paces
Ape martial—in a uniform so taking,
Cut à la Gerolstein—’twas once her Grace’s.
And ’neath the graceful archway of the portal
With a cocked bat, fur tippet rich in laces,
Gold mounted staff, his thin fist scarce embraces,
Behold ape concièrge—as his colleagues mortal
Cock their disdainful eye at you-he cocks his:
The porter’s lodge, by the way, a prompter’s box is.
And then you pass o’er Persian carpets, all of
The finest work, through suites of gilt and buhl
To where a spacious inner vestibule
Conducts you to the monarch’s audience hall, of
The loveliest side scenes built, bespangled, clipped,
And in unheard-of pomp and pride equipped.
Fine silver-broidered tapestries here float o’er you,
A splendid carved arm-chair, too, stands before you.
Here Sèvres, here real Japan, your notice claims;
A modern stove, in which dance tinsel flames;
A gallery of portraits, frames and all,
Painted with taste direct upon the wall:
And in the midst, in full imperial state,
King Hanuman upon a throne reposes
In the bright raiment luckless Lear of late
Raved in; the crown half o’er his ears and nose is—
Being somewhat large; but what of that? his right hand
Grasps the gold lily-sceptre, type of might and
Justice; and on his lap th’ imperial ball is
With which his left hand languidly just dallies.
A rostrum bears the statutes of the realm,—
They’re scores and actors’ parts—as actors spell ’em,
Old love letters, musk-scented, and cream-laid ones;
And tailors’ bills—in general, unpaid ones.
And would the prince to rooms yet more resplendent,
He just signs with his sceptre to the attendant—
No more—and says: “Ho! throne room!” for example.
Lo! swarms of servants clutch at every angle,
Detach the walls, return with walls more ample,
Wheel, fit them: high and low the hammers jangle,
And presto! as by wizard’s wand enchanted,
The wished-for hall around the king is planted.
Thus, without need to stir a foot, he changes
Hall after hall, and which of all the range is
The loveliest, who can say? as though one dallies
In fairy-land within a spell-bound palace.
And passing rich his robes, to fit his station,
He’s always at it, stripping and unstripping:
His pearl-sewn chasuble, pre-Reformation,
Succumbs to Louis Quinze, and now he’s slipping
Into thy supple suit Napoleone.
Next stalks a Spanish general, proud and bony,—
Six times a day he changes everything—
August in all, and every hair a king.
And when he gives a banquet to his magnates
The tables groan beneath the load of dainties,
There peacock pasty, bright with every paint, is
And ’mid such tarts the vase of orchids stagnates.
Exalted guests sit round it circumspectly
And carve away, it does you good to see them,
At platefuls of well-moulded, graceful fishes,
And ptarmigan fried fast to golden dishes,
Though seldom knives are raised from what’s beneath them
And but for form: for e’en apes’ wit it passes
To learn a taste for coloured paper masses:
But who would in your cultured State aspire
Replete from your State banquet to retire.
Then there’s a tasteful park for recreation,
With groves of palms and creepers’ starry bowers,
Such as a tropic flora’s bounty showers.
There apes bent double weed without cessation,
And now grand transformation scenes enthral
The eye, disposed at random here and there,
Bushes cut out in cardboard, flowers as rare,
E’en an old-fashioned fountain ’mid them all
Flings painted water-jets to heights aerial,
Here in these canvas grounds our Hanuman
Loved to parade, revolving many a plan,
Upon his brow a crowd of cares imperial,
And these, behind the rose—that one of paper—
He sometimes banished with an agile caper.
The rest, ’tis true, more poorly are provided,
And most of all is furniture deficient,
One divan ’twixt two families divided,
For one an old arm chair must be sufficient,
And thus a law of true politeness is it
To take your chair with you upon a visit.
To compensate of clothes there was a surfeit,
That if he chose a populous empire
The king could duly clothe in man’s attire,
For there was everything from rags to fur, fit
For every calling, every social grade,
Of which the intricate civic state is made,
And nought remained, but give the apes a hint or two
How to behave in their respective vestures,
How cringe and regulate obsequious squint or toe,
And how manipulate their smirks and gestures
To have a folk just like the folk they copied,
And here the prince gave without stint or stop aid.
His realm in all had human regulations,
Ay, e’en a Constitution’s delectations,
He gave his apes the right, as Europe teaches,
In halls of delegates to make fine speeches,
Here deputies take thought about new taxes,
Bright flower of empire these, in peace and quiet:
Some, perhaps oppose: the Government relaxes:
And all refer the question to the Diet.
Of different laws with zeal, too, they debated,
And their debate-before the king they laid it:
Who, in full glory, from his throne just bending,—
It was a spectacle august to view,—
Gave ear to all, most bland and condescending,
And then did just what he’d a mind to do.
The State a swarm of bureaucrats directed;
They sat and sat, with pen behind the ear
Behind a heap of ledgers, frowned, reflected.
And how one storms and vents one’s rage; oh dear!
Should some audacious cit distract one’s labour.
Then sometimes in frock coat, white belt and sabre
One goes, one’s back quite into horse-shoes bent,
Oneself at one’s head office to present.
Here barristers and lawyers lived in clover,
These gave a crafty glance at one another,
Exchanging briefs and actions ten times over—
These being comic rolls,—my learned brother
Adjourns the sitting—terms were kept and cases
For jurisdiction summary, protracted
A year: o’er long bills clients pulled long faces,
For fees on palm leaves to a mite exacted.
Who pass in medicine their examinations
Put on a look of wisdom far superior,
With pins on parrots test innoculations,
With opera glasses, too, “work out” bacteria;
Pulses they feel from morn to dewy even,
The inward functions note, with ear to chest,
And then prescribe; would ours did so, by Heaven!
Their patients, green-room bon-bons of the best.
And there were crowds, too, of Proffesor gibbons
With gold-rimmed spectacles upon their noses;
From head to foot dry pedants in shrunk hoses,
You’d scarce distinguish ’em from Europe’s glib ’uns.
These buzzed round books, as filings round a magnet,
They fished them from the shipwreck with a bagnet,
Tugged many a book to bits, brought scissors, glue, an’
Hi! presto! from the old comes out a new ’un.
But hark! the shrilly professional wail:
“Peace! at our threshhold, dunce! by all the Muses!
We mean to throw some light upon your tail
You say your Indian ape can run in nooses.
Primeval forests, too, in Hindostan!
That, and some other things, won’t do, my bantling!
Not even in a poem, no, my man!
I stand abashed; my cheek shame’s purple mantling.”
Here theologians, plump, red-cheeked and hoary,
Too, veiled themselves in supra-mundane glory:
If orthodoxy murmur, to disarm her
I say expressly, these apes worshipped Brahma.
There Apery’s Brachmans, all in robes and fringes,
In spite of fasts grew wondrous fat and blooming,
And proved Law, Science, Art, in brief resuming,
Let’s say the All on their own Vedas hinges.
Of course these Vedas, too, must be protected,
So Apes a University erected:
There Ape-professors took a world of trouble
For every trick and trait to be the double
Of Halle and Leipzig’s learned, to a hair
As Halle and Leipzig snuff, they snuffed and grumbled,
While Apedom’s beadle Deutschland’s best out-Bumbled
With gorgeous staff and cocked hat rich and rare.
Art, letters too, by no means retrograded
With ruffled locks about a brow intensive
And hand in bosom, geniuses paraded
Their “welt-schmerz” on a cheek as sickly pensive,
According to great patterns, ate, drank, slumbered,
And many an apish Byron, apeland numbered.
Here artists, too, in velveteens disported,
With broad-brimmed hat on nape of neck, much courted.
Well skilled they were to wield their blessed palettes
And miles of canvas daubed in greens and scarlets,
And when the ape musicians meet to thump it
With blows the drum, and this the cymbal riddles,
This puffs with cheek cherubic at the trumpet,
And others scrape infuriate bows on fiddles—
You seem to hear, i’ faith, the suave seductions
Of our dramatic music’s grave productions.
Thus from the inexhaustible provisions
Of raiment that the sunken vessel offered,
The king tricked out the types of all conditions
That Europe’s own capacious lap e’er coffered;
From simple stuffs of master tailor clipped out
Milords and squires, while ’neath the scissors tripped out
Troops of contractors, those who job in shares,
Sleek Common Councilmen and staid Lord Mayors,
Head gamekeepers and shopkeepers, jack tars,
Waiters in black, with sleek solicitors,
White-aproned cooks, Swiss chocolate and ice men,
A dappled fire brigade and town policemen,
Tapsters and postmen, those in cheese and butter
Who deal, the threadbare scamps who pad the gutter;
And who was good for nothing else was set
To circulate a Government gazette.
And in the mimic art were wonders truly,
How soon the facile apish nation duly
Its whole existence to its rôle adapted,
Walking or standing still how deftly shaped it,
In every smile and attitude and gesture,
To what was just in keeping with its vesture.
Faith, if upon the apish Boulevard’s border
You’d marked an ape-one of the masher order—
How dressed in pure French style—here loose and baggy,
Here, on the contrary, too tight and scraggy,
It waved its tiny cane or opera glasses,
And preened a comic coiffeur’s frizzled masses,
You, sure, forgetting there of apes the land is,
Had cried: “Lo! Pricop, one of thy prime dandies!”
As to ape lady lionesses say,
Who’d paint the lily or their charms pourtray?
Those gorgeous silks, those “parures” so transcendent,
The subtle movement of those fine, dusk hands,
When, like a love-net, many a fan resplendent
Its wavering curves and chequered ribs expands,
And listening to the soft and bird-like cluttering
You think of other fair ones’ half-lisped kisses
By moonlit Moldau, or the foreign spluttering
Of malapropos by raw school-girl misses.
A heavy dream behind the apes it lay—
That time of barbarous customs, clamberings, dances;
To keep in all the pure Caucasian way
Each watched his neighbour with Draconian glances;
A crushing smile would stab the social sinner
Who, absent-minded, trod the thronged saloons
Without his tie or minus pantaloons,
Or handed with his foot some dame to dinner.
And “chronique scandaleuse” cut like a sabre
With blighting taunt, and quickly gossip warmed up
How this or that uncultivated neighbour,
By day, quite unabashed the banyan swarmed up;
And if of lotus bloom or parrot ever
Some lady ape a mild remark should venture,
Bent shell-like ear to ear each female censor,
“How naive! nu! she was never very clever!”
For well-bred apedom’s small talk to two themes is
Confined: the Bois de Boulogne and St. James’.
But ah! I see in soul, how o’er my fancies
Like snow-white butterfly that flits o’er roses
Too oft a tender hand o’er lips reposes—
Lips whose light ennui e’en their charm enhances.
And hear the sigh that flutters o’er my mystery,
“Instead of rose and tender nightingale,”
He limns us grinning monkey masks and fails
E’en thus to keep the slight thread of his history.
Ah, me! I feel the weight of your just anger,
But peace! the coming Canto shall work wonders,
There, like a tempest, roars the battle’s clangour
And in a cataract the action thunders.
VII.
Long time in peace the ape empire bloomed, progressing,
His work’s success the king with pleasure filled,
Only at times the parrot plague distilled
A drop of wormwood in his cup of blessing.
These spottled dolts we all know have the failing
To mimic what they hear with dismal wailing.
Thus it befel one graceless bird kept screeching
“Humanity,” here “Culture” one went preaching,
Here “Progress,” “Freedom,” through the leaf-wove thatch whirred,
There “Ideal” the fools squalled on and on,
And clumps of parrots pealed their favourite catchword
In chorus: “Ci—Civilization.”
These words exalted in those idiot echoes
Rang as in scorn around the breeched makakoes
And stung them all day long, nor could the king
See any help for it, save this: to fling
Stones at these flocks and drive them to a distance,—
’Gainst parrots who could think of armed resistance?
A cloudlet this the apish heaven that covered,
But heavier, stormier clouds behind it hovered.
Once to the palace Bhandragura hurried,
Fear in his eye, a cloud of cares his brow hid,
Nor did he ring, as was his wont, before he
Withdrew the silks that veiled the throne room’s glory,
He raised the curtain, but stepped back much faster,
For there in full undress, behold! his master
Sprawling about the baldachin and chucking
This way and that the gold imperial pippin,
The globe aloft with cuts of sceptre flipping,
Catching again, in wondrous postures, ducking
And all those capers cutting with it, briefly,
That apes with apples ever cut most liefly.
The minister with fine tact first coughed slightly,
Paused, then coughed louder, paused, again asserted
His presence, paused, then touched the bell rope lightly,
E’en thus, perhaps, the king he’d disconcerted;
There was a thud as if some weight fell down,
And minutes passed ere “Come in” was repeated:
But Bhandragura, entering, on the throne
Already saw the monarch gravely seated:
Th’ imperial apple his unquavering fist held
And every august hair enquiry bristled.
The minister with knee to earth low looted
And raised to heaven sick look and hands: “Confusion!
Ah! king,” he cried, “and were my tongue outrooted
That I need not announce it: Revolution!”
The monarch trembled as that dread word sounded,
And from his palm the globe of empire bounded,
He stooped to pick it up, and vaguely stuck it
Into his royal robes posterior tucket,
Then, having stowed away that gold potato,
Shrieked: “Revolution! what! and in my State, too?”
With anguish Bhandragura answering sighed: “Ra-
-jah, know Rebellion crawls with subtle slyness,
Then raises all at once its head of hydra:
Perhaps thou dost recal the old ape, Highness,
Named Vindragupta, who once in full session
Challenged thy sovereign will, at thine accession,
Stormed against Progress, raved of continuity,
And when the t— h’m! that rearward superfluity
Thou badest to dock-blew up sedition’s bellows
And strove to head a rising of his fellows;
But, not succeeding, found in flight salvation,
And next, from what I hear, took up his station
In a remote woodside, just like a hermit,
Upon a banyan huge, where parrots permit
To share their noisy roost, a very Tartar.
His plots, oh! king, this uproar’s soul and heart are.
“The lapse of morals, which in part pervaded
Our lower orders, I’d long marked unaided:
Their ringleaders were beings sunk in excesses,
Who from neglect or sheer corrupt caprices
Had spoiled their previously becoming dresses,
Lawyers with half a gown and cap in creases,
Schoolmasters with their spectacles all shattered,
And geniuses in mantles ragged and tattered;
These looked with evil eye on all henceforward
Who kept their shoes and stockings neat and shining.
‘We wants our rights’ they whined, and still are whining.
Ay! hardy looks they even dared on your ward-
-robe, king, to fix, and murmured ever bolder,
‘We’re out at elbows, our broadcloth’s all rusty,
There on the shelves by thousands fine suits moulder,
And moths are pasturing on those samets musty.’
“Ah! ha! methought, the social crisis: full sure
We’ll lay the knife to this corrupting ulcer:
Lynx-eyed I watched: chastised with knout and rope-end,
Only at last my eyes were fully opened.
“In base degraded souls ’tis deep implanted
The will to bring all down to their soiled level;
In others, if the ideals they once vaunted
Their breath of scorn can tarnish, how they revel!
Thus e’en this worn-out riff-raff of the slum
Against the well-to-do beats loud the drum,
And neat, well-kept costumes with venom acrid
Reviles, and all things which to us are sacred.
One of them sat to-day ’mid yon birth-wort’s leaves,
High o’er the public highway, in his shirtsleeves,
A public scandal ’twas to see the varlet:
(The schoolgirl apes, who just then with their mistress
Passed two and two that way, all blushed quite scarlet
Behind their fans, poor things, with shame and distress.)
Ay, worse—disgust mine utterance chokes—this fellow—
The Tartar—a bird’s nest upon his lap held
And made a fine feast off the egglets dappled,
Sucking their raw contents with lips all yellow.
“And when I would have chid the cool-faced rascal
He rounded on me thus: To prate is easy
In purple frock and ruffs; but look here, please ye,
Who’d recognise a human suit, I ask all,
Here in the sorry relics of my blouse?
As to these eggs, I’ll eat them if I choose,
Why not? when pleasanter than figs’ fresh juices
Upon my palate melt their honied sluices,
And do me good. These yolks, sucked raw, all ages
Have prized beyond all sweets. The present’s page is
Just like the rest. If you chastise as penal
What all indulge in secret and think venal,
Though publicly they feign to loathe as poison,
Yourself with all your realm must off to prison:
Nay, folk do say—but what that vile tongue uttered.
Should scarce in closest confidence be muttered—
Only to sate the sight, the prince his rations
Has served of painted fishes and crustaceans,
And while amongst his guests he lauds the courses
Of chamois, quail and pheasant without truce,
Behind the Spanish wall restore his forces
The fresh and tender shoots of young bamboos.’”
Here Bhandragura toward the carpet carried
His bloodshot orbs, meanwhile the royal eyes
Above that sunset, twirled into the skies;
Thus long in mute embarrassment they tarried.
At length the minister resumed, impressive:
“Those treasonable words I fain had chided,
But lo! my ape rounds on me, sharp, aggressive;
And all the abandoned rabble with him sided,
The rascal shouted: “Cutting to the marrow
Were Vindragupta’s words which smote the prince’s
In full assembly with a Parthian arrow.
Let’s go to him. For still their truth convinces,
We lived in peace the life our sires had taught us,
On trees, devoid of care and gay as Persians,
Until the prince, a pack from Europe brought us
Of poisons, human riff-raff and perversions.
Why have we to abjure our own traditions
And proper being, once free from care’s attritions,
And that disdain which nature’s powers assign us,
And to which use and custom both incline us,
To ape grotesquely the human puppet’s dances,
Merely to gratify the king’s vain fancies,
Who yet from apes real human beings wont fashion,
Ay, scarcely wins a smile from the Caucasian.
Nay, take again your spotted rags and scout us,
We’ll bend no more a collared neck like horses,
But plunge our breasts in apedom’s purest sources:
Play out your sorry comedy without us.’
“Consentient hands applauded and decisive
Stripped off their rags: then, houp la! o’er lianas
To tree-tops, once more full-blown quadrumanas,
They swarmed and scampered off with squeals derisive:
Then only dawned on me that speech was mainly
An echo of another more diffusive,
When Vindragupta’s eloquence abusive
With rank breath fanned rebellion’s flame, but vainly.
Perhaps, their secret head long undetected,
He’d been en rapport with the disaffected.”
The monarch heard him out with visage troubled,
His eye electric flashed, his small fist doubled:
“Ha traitors! but I swear by Para-brahma,
By Brama, Siva, ay, by Krishma, Rama,
By all gods—by thy streams oh! sacred Ganges,
By thee, great-grandsire, Hanuman, th’ anointed
By heaven, to which this hand of mine is pointed,
By throne and crown, by these gold-glittering flanges
I swear upon my purple, on this brand,
Th’ imperial apple which I hold in hand,
By this—”
The king looked down, a little flurried,
Then in the purple vainly plunged a finger,
Then round and round with searching glances hurried,
Which now on Bhandragura vaguely linger,
Whose own, belated, toward the ceiling skurried
And the throne’s baldachin, then sank devoted
Earthward before the monarch’s, but alas! his
Had caught already ’mid those silken masses,
And not without embarrassment there noted
The precious sceptre’s tip which like a cockade’s
Peeped out high o’er the baldachin’s rich brocades.
Awhile he paused, then, wrathful, thus continued:
“I vow if to reclaim them Justice hath ways
I will not leave them blinded thus to sin nude,
But turn the traitors back to culture’s pathways.
In name of outraged Progress and Good Manners
And all those priceless Ideals called human
Unfurl, oh! Bhandragura, war’s red banners
And mine heroic army swiftly summon,
To-morrow’s sun, as o’er the world it glances,
Shall blench with fear before our glittering lances,
Before th’ heroic hosts—er—I shall muster
To roll these hardy rebels in the dust—er.”
Now, Muse, to war’s turmoils attune the lyre,
And with a wing enraptured thrill the chords,
That I in fitting numbers may aspire
To chaunt the deeds of those heroic hordes,
As ranked behind their warrior king they thunder,
And war’s dread scourge the woodland rifts asunder.
The valiant infantry ’s already mustered,
When Mistress Sun peeps slily through the thicket,
And views in awe the tips of long spikes clustered,
And formidable muskets of the pickets.
Views, too, impressed, those uniforms so mottled,
Not one with less than four bright colours spottled,
So that this military simian crop is
To look at much like an immense parterre
Of mallows, tulips, pæonies, and poppies
Or our own Civic Council and Lord Mayor.
All the world’s armies here are represented,
Look where you will ’tis all gold fringe and lacings,
A choice of all the shakos e’er invented,
With epaulettes, plumes, cockades, corded facings,
And grenadiers’ red caps with spiky crown,
So that they look much like a lobster salad,
And ’neath whose brim of gold ape warriors frown,
Haughty as those of troubadour and ballad.
As for the cavalry, its gleam and glint
Fatigues the eye like sparkles struck from flint.
Here gold cuirasses in the sun are glancing,
Here quaintly crested casque and helmet flash,
Where elf-long wisps of horse-hair mane are dancing,
Here blinks a cutlass drawn from sheath and sash:
The riders’ boots are drawn up tight and bound
Under the armpits with a pair of braces,
Else had their ample veal-skins beat the ground,
Where, as it is, each spur a furrow traces:
Half down the calf within, the small foot dips,
Although the tops are braced up to the hips:
And in default of horseflesh these dragoons
Are mounted on high-spirited baboons.
Before his guards, a bow stupendous wielding,
Amongst his staff, behold! the monarch ride,
Strapped in a case of leather sleek and yielding,
His field perspective dangling at his side:
Once from the stalls alone the foot’s light course
It spied, but now surveys both foot and horse.
Like some death-bearing cloud through dell and cover
The host rolls on: around in terror hover
Flocks of macaws, and fly with fitful wailing
Before the rattling drum and shrill fife sailing.
In stately pomp march forth the royal forces,
But rather slow: to quick march, run or double,
Not yet avail the simian foot’s resources,
And every step they take’s a world of trouble:
Dense brushwood clogs the van: a quagmire swallows
A whole battalion, uniforms grow rarer
Minced on the thorns, the recreant helmet follows
The tendrils’ noose twitched high above its wearer
Tree stumps trip many up, the overweighted
Dragoons’ unlucky steeds are quite checkmated,
And without fail capsize at every root,
So that the horse remains behind the foot.
Not Flora only, all the woodland Fauna,
Seems also up in arms at every corner:
A cloud of winged ants with every dole ’tis
That first invests them—like a mustard poultice:
Foul leeches here festoon their shuddering trotters,
Before a hissing snake the vanguard totters,
And here all thrill with dread, a form divining
More awful yet, yon bamboos’ ambush lining.
When half its daily course the sun completed,
Within that wood’s yet unexplored dominions
They pitched their camp all footsore, tired, and heated,
The king and generals ’neath their tents’ proud pinions
(’Twas but a tent in outline, being restricted
To that side of the cloth on which depicted),
Discussed the campaign’s further prosecution,
And ’twas resolved to wait there in seclusion
Till dusk, then by a night march in three sections
Reduce the rebels, right and left wing wheeling,
Their way round Vindragupta’s quarters feeling,
The rest straight forward, then all join connections,
chain impenetrable round the foe form,
And having him thus snared, at leisure go for him.
While for that march by sleep the host’s preparing,
The king, awake, succumbs to reveries daring,
Now glory, o’er her favourite fondly stooping,
Infuses hopes of deeds immortal, storied,
The rainbow winnowing of her pinions drooping
To fan the fever of his glowing forehead.
So yet he tarried while the night descended,
Phantasmal, and its dragon wings extended,
Far o’er that forest world in shadows blended,
Then woke the camp to roll of drums, and parted
In three, in three directions so light-hearted,
Upon that march of gloom and midnight started.
Straight to the goal the king and centre aiming
Paced gingerly, each step a halt proclaiming
Suspicious sounds to note, without stop or rest,
Or spy about them in the still, dark forest.
And that old wood a dreadful form took on,
The cloak of gloom its arrows fear-compelling
Shot all around, and when the crescent wan
Rained silvery shafts among the tree-tops swelling
All changed its being and weirdly stirred and eddied,
As if to midnight’s spectral ghost-world wedded.
Those foliage fans and clusters that resembled,
Bathed in the moonlight, sprays all diamond showered,
Swayed by a secret hand fantasmal, trembled
And in the branches’ vast arch, high embowered,
Titanic shadows came and went fantastic,
A gnarled face of bark, all tendril braided,
Its death’s head on a ghastly nape paraded
Above a coil of serpent-roots elastic.
Here, through the gloom, two fire-stars blue and hoary
Announced the beast of night, the lurking lory
And ghost-moths huge upon the night-breeze shiver,
And bats hawk wheeling o’er a stagnant river;
At every crackling twig the army flinches,
Some wild beast’s distant roar the terror clinches.
But if those sounds ill-omened cease, you’ll scarcely
Detect the rustling steps, they fall so sparsely;
So noiselessly the host, this, that way peeping,
As though some caravan of ghosts ’twere, creeping.
No clink of sword disturbs the night air balmy,
All hold their breath and damp their small feet’s pattering,
The silence of the grave broods o’er the army,
Scarce broken by the warriors’ poor teeth chattering.
Lo! here a massive trunk decumbent branches,
Loaded with heavy fruitage, earthward launches,
How temptingly its luscious load stoops o’er ’em!
Each ape-mouth’s watering, and—hi cockalorum!
The vanguard’s pulling down the promised branches,
But all at once recoils upon its haunches
In panic terror, thunder-struck, half-dying,
And with a squeal the ranks are tumbling, flying,
For ugh! it is transformed, that fruity banquet
To vampires which, by hinder claws suspended
In drowsy slumber, fruit-like forms protended,
Swathed in their olive pinions’ oil-skin blanket.
But now, in wild nocturnal rigs is wheeling
On dusk-brown bats’ wings o’er the army’s squealing.
Nay, those vicissitudes I’ll limn no more, or
That glorious march pourtray, that night of horror.
Now I would rather deal with what befel in
That banyan huge, headquarters of the villain
Called Vandragupta, when the mob plebeian
Fled to that fortress of the empyrean.
It Vindragupta greeted with complaisance:
“Shades of the mighty dead for this renaissance
Shall render thanks. Long have they marked in anger
How ’tis disdainéd by this modern Treason—
Their sacred watchword—hatred of the stranger:
But now has triumphed healthy simian reason
And soon shall beam the bright dawn long attended,
When from our backs this human trash we’ll scour,
There long by crazy vanity suspended,
And apedom pure reclaim the woodland bower.
Welcome first heralds of a better time,
Again o’er creepers on all fours we’ll climb,
Eat what the woods prepare so rich and fruity,
And naked creep in pristine classic beauty.
Off with all foreign manners! foreign varnish!
Again in all be Apery’s Laws applied
In my true apedom that no spot can tarnish,
You have a flawless mirror for your guide,
Then in pure philosimianism’s glory, ah!
Purge your whole essence from all human scoria.”
Under his guidance on the following day,
The true ape style of life resumed its sway,
O’er boughs and vines they wreathed their wood gymnastic;
The foot so long in boots benumbed and strained,
Once more it quick prehensile touch regained;
To unperverted ape-grins jowls grew plastic;
In perfect discords all the wood went squealing,
And shewed its grinning teeth from floor to ceiling,
Nay, tails were luted on with gum or mastic
To prove them perfect apes in form and feeling.
If one resumed his human rôle, forgetful
Of self-respect, and like a dandy swaggered,
Blinked crafty eyes of advocate, or haggard
Smiled the thin sickly smile of poet fretful,
A nasty pinch or sharp reproof at any rate
Would warn him such things smacked of the degenerate.
Nay, they surpassed what Apery’s creed demands,
And only ate with feet and walked with hands.
How softly when late dusk their sports abated,
Up to the neck with figs and durians sated,
Beneath the star-wrought vault of heaven’s clear bowers,
On odorous boughs of trees wrought o’er with flowers,
Filled with some strange delight they sank to rest,
Oh! Mother Nature! on thy kindly breast.
But on the morrow all jumped up confounded,
Cries, blares of trump and dizzying drums resounded;
And when they first peered down in dread and wonder,
Flashed ghastly on their sight, in that bright morning,
Close coiled around like some bronze anaconda
The chain of deadly Mars in silent warning.
Where’er they sped with pupils fear-distended
That band of uniforms so variegated,
Casques, sabres, pikes and muskets also wended,
And apish jowls with thirst of war inflated
Not without effort Vindragupta lulled
His followers’ fears and improvised a rapid
Plan of defence and fitting weapons culled,
Displaying here a humour rude but sapid.
The Indian fig in which the rebels nested
Reared high its bole’s broad bulwark, uncontested,
And massive tangled branches, foliage matted
Into a crown gigantic spread around,
And from the lower branches, thick and plaited,
Like wreathed columns, suckers sought the ground,
There rooted, and again their sapling grove
Of shoots upreared, which circle wise emerging,
With roots aerial picturesquely wove
A strangely complex trellis work, converging
Into impenetrable thickets graced
E’en these, with slim liana stems enlaced.
Thus the whole tree a natural fort afforded
Wherein, unseen, full speed to earth the rebels
Slid down the coiling suckers, tendril-corded,
And swiftly to the crown returned with pebbles,
And plucked, besides, the fig-tree’s purpling grapes,
Then calmly waited for the other apes.
A royal gesture silenced horn and drum, and
The king alone the misled miscreants summoned:
“Though all, by rights, deserve the law’s last sentence,
My clemency accepts of late repentance.
Come down at once and show your true contrition
By promise of perpetual submission,
Or be assured that when I’ve stormed your stockades,
Your heads all fall upon the block, ye blockheads.”
Alas! the leader of the rising turned
A deaf ear and that gracious pardon spurned;
Nor e’en, if all be true that history vouches,
Vouchsafed one brief response; the graceless Nero,
Only in speechless wrath, discharged his pouches,
Screened by the foliage, on the royal hero.
Ha! how the ape-king now his bile discharged,
How gnashed and scraped his teeth! his eyes enlarged!
And thus with rapid speech his troops exhorted:
“Now grasp your swords, my lads, now guns be ported;
In glorious war we’ll reap immortal honours,
Who fall in Culture’s sacred cause are martyrs:
To-day all Europe’s eyes are fixt upon us.
Then hurrah! forward, boys, and at the Tartars!”
As to some cliff, when wintry seas are spuming
Around a rock-girt isle, in fleecy vastness,
The waves roll on and charge the granite fastness,
Surge high and all is foaming, bubbling, booming,
So ’mid the roll of drums, the trumpets’ blaring,
The clash of arms, and still indignant swearing,
The ape hosts round the fated banyan rumble,
But weak of foot and ’neath their harness gasping,
They fall in heaps: the foot are all a-stumble,
Despairing horsemen chargers’ necks are clasping.
The ground is but one motley rough and tumble,
And from the dappled heap in which they stifle
Here peeps a boot and spur and there a rifle.
But “Onward!” roared the monarch undismayed,
And waved them forward with his glittering blade.
Like Durga’s self upon his steed he towered,
His face aflame with war, his two eyes glowered,
Waved round his brows his long dishevelled hair,
His gorgeous casque at once seemed everywhere;
And after him the rear to storm the banyan’s
Redoubt, sprang o’er the tufts of lapsed companions.
Now from the mighty figs’ dense vegetation,
Like desolating hail from dark clouds whistles
’Mid the besiegers an unwelcome ration
Of purple fig grenades and flintstone missiles.
The army wavered: round-eyed, mad with pain,
Fled many an ape from that remorseless rain;
And “The King’s wounded!” flew above the flying:
A well-aimed banyan fruit had burst in shivers
Upon that front of Mars, discharging rivers
Of blood-red juice, nose, cheek and eyeball dyeing.
Now all stream off like icicles in spring,
In panic flight past hope of rallying,
Till out of reach of these pain-dealing cobbles
The host discomforted together hobbles.
To serious counsel here in his pavilion
His band of generals Hanuman, vermilion
With fig juice and vexation ill-restrained,
Now summoned: “Had the ship brought ammunition,”
He cried, “our guns had blown them to perdition,
These chicken hearts, and not a shred remained:
But how with pikes and guns get at ’em—burk it!
That’s the weak link in our strategic circuit.”
“I know a way,” said Bhandragura, turning:
“Let’s doff our arms and cumbrous coats, and spurning
The load of boots which clog the foot’s play, free it,
Then to the banyan: all at once assail it,
And swift as lightning o’er lianas scale it—
This aery fort. My head shall guarantee it,
Once our superior force has stormed the Babel,
Our teeth and fists will soon despatch the rabble.”
The king heard out his speech, morose, unmoving,
Then fixed on him a look of stern reproving.
“Oh! Bhandragura, woe! that from thy lip
I e’er should hear such counsel, to the shame of
My cultured realm—for Europe to make game of:
We’re here to challenge nudeness; shall we strip
And, nude ourselves, the recreants’ nudeness chastise?
For what, then, arms and uniforms? oh! cast eyes
On History’s page, and say if it appears
That in the cultivated races’ combats
The Regulars, or even Volunteers—
Oh horror! ever scratched and bit like wombats.
That you escape your words’ just penalty
Is only due to your past loyalty.”
Off to a mat crawled Bhandragura, moaning,
And fear long sealed the lips like counsels owning,
Until, at last, another chief, intrepid
In all but arms, now warmed to counsels tepid:
“The tree will ne’er be stormed, and yonder cattle
Will scarce come down and match us in fair battle
As modern war and precedent require:
Diplomatists, in such straits, take the threads up,
Humanitarian heroes hold their heads up,
And swords before the olive branch retire.
I hold a bran new calmuck each would quiet
The clowns at once and promptly quell the riot.
And for a scarlet frock or so that dangles
Within your clothes-room, all gold lace and spangles,
E’en Vindragupta—I know that old Daniel—
Would let himself be docked like any spaniel.”
“Enough!” the king exclaimed, “fine counsels truly,
So I must always yield to mob unruly;
A wardrobe poor enough already scatter
’Midst rebels in fictitious destitution—
Why, every day will have its revolution.
The week’s end find my shelves with scarce a tatter,
No, I’ll not vilely cringe, my power restrict or
Ever issue from this war except as victor.
“But victory’s twofold, moral and material,
The second’s royal: but the first’s imperial.
I choose it: but before our every deed it
Behoves us well to mark if now or ever
In other cultured States the act had credit,
Ne’er from the tracks of precedent to sever,
Only do just what Europeans have erst,
And shun the roads that others have not traversed.
Once Ziska, glorious chief, prepared to ravage
Perfidious Prague, exacting vengeance savage,
When, all but sacrificed to flail and gun,
That queen of cities moved him to compassion,
The blood of brothers curbed his wrath, and won
His iron palm in reconciliation.
Like Ziska—to whose greatness I aspire—
I, too, would curb the force of my just ire;
The fairest laurels o’er my brow shall waver:
Those of self-conquest. Pity vengeance smothers:
Those yonder, though misled, they are our brothers,
And fratricide my sword shall sully never.”
Trembled his voice, salt tears his cheek bedewed,
Melt e’en the features of those warriors rude,
So to announce his grace sublime he pushes,
Crowned with his chieftains, through the tamarind bushes.
But Vindragupta greeted him with scorn:
“For a new peppering dost so soon return?
Would’st test again how heavy our just wrath is,
And what the strength of free, true, apish swarthies?
Nay, bring such riff-raff countless as the sand,
Rouse up in arms against me sea and land,
Ay, the whole Universe”
With horror livid
He paused, beyond the royal army vivid
His eye perused the jungle: thither roaming
Thousands of eyeballs focussed in distraction:
Two awful stars were gleaming through the gloaming.
How to pourtray the next two minutes’ action?
Who has not seen, in some autumnal glade,
A sudden eddy smite the fallen leaves
And fleecy shreds that heap the dewy shade:
The dappled mass a dance demoniac weaves:
The dust-cloud with it spins—a shaft of smoke,
Now high in air the eddying spires have leapt,
And now collapsed in yonder branching oak,
And all below is like a meadow swept.
Thus all that royal host of foot and mounted,
A goodly throng, in uniforms uncounted,
Jumbled at once in one wild, motley bustle,
Seething, confused, with many a squeal and tussle,
Flinging away its arms, o’er long boots falling,
In panic flight o’er tips of scabbards sprawling,
On toward the sheltering banyan, jostled, shambled;
Then, houp-la! o’er the pendent vegetation
The whole corps d’armée in a twinkling scrambled,
Leaving below a lifeless desolation,
Save for the various arms the brushwood harbours.
Here flames a casque, there gleam two dreadful sabres;
The ground is black with boots; French horns, cockades,
Flags, drums, and ribbons flaunt a hundred shades,
But, to make up, the banyan tree-top ample
All round with warrior forms is all a trample:
Here grenadiers condense to wine dark clusters,
Here bootless cuirassiers depend festoon-like,
And with the fig-leaves’ sheen metallic lustres
Of epaulettes and topknots twinkle moon-like.
While from all sides toward one fixt spot, like rockets,
Eyes, glazed with fear, are starting from their sockets.
Thence now emerged the prince of th’ Indian night world,
A mighty tiger. Form of horrid beauty,
With that lank grace of body, chest-nut bright, whorled
With many a belted charm and marking sooty;
From topaz eyeballs lurid glances throwing,
He paced the battlefield with lordly going,
From side to side, in many a curve expanded
Of supple grace his tail swept, darkly banded.
Then stealing past the tree, the apes one single
Disdainful glance he flung from grass-grown dingle,
Then vanished in the dusk of bamboos sear,
Scenting perchance some daintier quarry near.
But long by horror froze, with terror blind
And hair on end, the apes the banyan lined:
Not till a distant roar at last proclaimed
That all was safe again, the curdling veins
To their warm, mobile life-stream throbbed and flamed,
And thought revisited the fear-struck brains.
Then from the tree-top, where he sat astride
A jutting knot, the king, in jubilation,
Cried: “Lo! the fortress stormed!” “Hurrah!” replied
His regiments in joyous acclamation.
Soon now the insurgents feel the victor’s rancour;
Their flint artillery’s now a broken anchor:
But briefly raged the combat ’mid the boughs, and
Lo! on the ground lie trussed the rebel thousand.
Great was the exultation, as beseemed,
For such a victory won; but Glory’s chalice
The monarch’s noble spirit had not dimmed;
Pardon awaited who disowned their malice.
Mercy condoned e’en Vindragupta’s hate,
His sentence being to loss of tail commuted.
Thus fell the last frail bridge to things embruted,
The last faint shadow in that perfect State.
Too cold of hue is human speech to print
The proud procession home in fitting tint:
The royal entry to the civic bowers:
How white-robed cat-apes strewed the way with flowers
Before the royal palfrey: how, proud mortal,
The Mayor, with speech laboriously studied,
Before a palm-wove arch of triumph’s portal,
Put all on tenterhooks till he’d concluded:
How clouds of onlookers obscured the gables:
Guilds flanked the streets behind the buntinged cables.
How at the shouts of rapture broad earth shivered,
And tears of transport from each eyelid quivered
As Hanuman rode in and bowed so blandly,
With head and hand to all sides: wreaths of laurel
Gigantic from his shoulder streaming grandly,
Down to the very fetlocks of his sorrel,
From which two watered satin ribbons, spangled
With stars and plates of gold leaf, proudly dangled:
On one, “Divine Flametta, thanks!” was graved.
On th’ other, “Of thy little foot th’ enslaved.”
Behind the king the King’s Own proudly paced,
With tender fronds of palm their helmets crested,
And flowering orchid wreaths their pike tips graced,
And threatening muskets on their shoulders rested;
And flags waved: midst them all, upon a pale,
Reared high,—rare trophy!—Vindragupta’s tail.
That day, too, fell on all, write the recorders,
A copious deluge of cotillon orders.
Long time did patriot bands with harps untired
Chaunt that thrice glorious war in strains inspired,
And pedagogues, with loyal zeal o’erbrimming,
The crême of what came out with judgment skimming
Stuffed into reading books: there essays, odes,
Praised “the great king,” “the great war’s” episodes.
How heaved with patriotic pride the tender
Child breast of infant apes of either gender
To read how that exemplar to all ages,
With his bold army, in a battle gory,
That has no counterpart in History’s pages,
Covered his name with everlasting glory:
How with a charge that shook earth’s broad foundations,
And frightened all the tigers of the grove,
O’er Vindragupta’s dread fortifications,
He boldly raised his flag to heaven above!
VIII.
Thus in glory and contentment
Flourished long the apish State,
But on Hanuman the shadow
Of a shadow often sate.
That still woodland was oppressive,
Where the parrot unprogressive,
Mocked it all with empty prate.
“What avails it, ah! that here in
All we’re just as human kind,”
Sighed he, “when to our advancement
Human eyes are ever blind,
And when he who formed the nation
Cultured Europe’s admiration
Of his merits fails to find?”
So his apes he called in conclave
And harangued them from the throne:
“Heaven permitted this exalted
Rôle to me of apes alone,
And that apes, by my endeavour
Raised to human height, should ever
Art and science love and own.
“But ’tis meet to show to people
We’re no more a savage horde,
And a dignified position
Claim at Europe’s council board.
For State reasons, too, most meet ’tis
I should fortify by treaties
What I’ve won me by the sword.
“Therefore I have firmly settled
For the glory of our race,
A stupendous expedition
Unto Europe’s shores to face;
There to show a world astounded
Apedom’s State, on Progress founded,
Stands compact from crown to base.
“’Tis a journey that will bring us
Benefits in various ways,
In its every finest nuance
Culture we shall there appraise.
We shall learn there to delight us
In the beefsteak, nor affright us
At the Briton’s tea and trays.
“’Neath the Seine’s new tower of Babel
We the demi-monde shall ken,
Gauge their whimsies and caprices,
And the price of public men:
Sternly prune our robes’ excesses,
For oh! dismal thought! our dress is
Of a date—the Lord knows when!
“But in Berlin town awaits us
Other benefits as rare,
For I shall engage officials,
To instruct my army, there.
Then the whole world in alliance,
When mine ape troops hurl defiance,
To confront us will not dare.
“And then, ah! it irks me sorely
On the throne alone to pine,
Mine impulsive heart compels me
To the wedded state divine.
So at court I’ll look about me,
And ere six months, never doubt me,
Some spruce princess shall be mine.
“Kings and emperors will invite me
To State banquets and reviews;
I shall give my name to sundry
Regiments of Bays and Blues.
All the papers will be savoured
With what Hanuman most favoured
Of their wine cups and ragoûts.
“Only think what an ovation
Europe gave that phantom thin
Of my greatness, on his visit—
That barbarian, Nasr-ed-din.
Every brilliant claimed a column
Daily, and discussions solemn
Every wretched topaz pin.
“Why my suite alone the whole world’s
Utmost wonder will excite:
Just get ready! polish up your
Choicest pearls and jewels bright;
Be the passports duly vizéd,
Don’t forget your hair brush, frizéd
Be each head of hair to-night.”
IX.
Hanuman put on his golden garments
And adorned him with his crown and sceptre,
Gathered all his ministers and trinkets
And to far Calcutta took his way.
It was night when, after endless hardships,
They descended to the mighty harbour,
Where just ready to set sail to Europe,
With its white wings spread, the vessel lay.
Here aboard the royal party hastened,
After them the sailors raised the plank-way,
With a smile the schooner’s captain hailed them.
Cursed for aye, be that insidious snake!
He shall be in Culture’s golden pages
Ever mentioned with revolt and horror,
That black blemish on humanity,
Wild beast dealer, German Hagenbeck.
By a wily trick that wretch arrested
Hanuman, arrested, too, his escort,
Then he locked them up in spacious cages
With a crowd of creatures wild and scared,
Marabous and tortoises and gavials,
Antelopes and parrakeets and pythons,
Which for zoological collections
Through the Indian forests had been snared.
Thus, ah! thus that famous ape reformer,
With his ministry by law elected,
In a cage of rude uncultured monkeys,
Stuffed amid macaws and clacking rails,
Thus ah! thus on mouldy figs ill-nourished,
Stung by lash of angry whip and curses,
All of noblest birth in apedom’s empire,
To the world of western culture sails.
In the Hamburg dock the ship cast anchor,
And the king and suite stepped on the main land
Of that Europe which was both the cradle
Of their gilded vision, and its tomb;
They were sold for Jewish pence to gardens
Dilettanti, circuses and jugglers,
Some as pets, and some to be the comrades
Of the strolling fiddlers’ wandering doom.
Such was the most lamentable ending
Of a splendid enterprise that promised
By some thousands more of worthy subjects
To extend the world of culture’s span;
Subjects every whit as apt and handy
With their pantaloons, frock coats and gauntlets,
As the nation that to culture’s treadmill
Now so lightly dooms its fair Japan.
Quenched for ever and for ever, may be,
Is that lamp of progress that was kindled
In the forest world of Hindustani
By a hand of genius past away.
O’er lianas, there, the apish nation
Doubtless wreathes again its dances, naked,
Mangoes eats, and birds’ eggs sucks, forgetful
That it ere was lit by culture’s ray.
X.
Hark! what barbarous strains, I thrust my
Head out from the window sashes;
Lo! a parti-colored couple
In a laughing circle flashes;
O’er his bagpipes bends an hazel
Cheek, the son of southern lands,
And the whirling cymbals dazzle
In a black-eyed maiden’s hands.
Dressed in cloak of blue the piper,
On his hat are ribbands rosy,
His companion’s bust embellish
Many a brightly broidered posy,
Burn, allure with snaky lustre,
Languish those seductive eyes,
Stars Italian seem to cluster
’Neath their black-fringed canopies.
But oh! look! an ape all hoary,
Shows its teeth at the beholders
Sitting in a ball upon the
Blooming maiden’s sunny shoulders:
From his crouching body peeling
Flames a once embroidered vest,
From beneath his cap are stealing
Dreamy looks of vague unrest.
And he strangely fixes on me
Two mute ape-eyes interceding
To the well of tears within me,
Smites that glance so sickly pleading;
Hanuman, thy secret knowing,
I can feel thy fallen state,
And those tears so thickly flowing
From thine eyes, compassionate.
Thou, whose intellect enlightened,
Plied refinement’s halls Elysian,
And thine apes unwearying polished
On the fine grained stone Parisian,
Thou must add one more attraction
To the gaudy colors’ glare,
Which, to cultured folks’ distraction,
Flaunts upon that savage pair.
Hanuman! thy grief I share it,
But give ear to what I’m saying,
Times shall come we long have dreamed of
Chafing at their long delaying.
When at last we’ll leave behind us
Strife of tongues and wars shall cease,
And one common language bind us
In the golden chains of peace.
All shall then be one in feeling,
One in acting, one in thinking,
From one single fount of wisdom
Thirsty souls shall then be drinking;
Hanuman then e’en thine apes shall,
Too, mature to freedom’s ray,
And no fable then, perhaps, shall
Be my wild fantastic lay.
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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|---|---|
| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929. The longest-living author of this work died in 1938, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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