Auld Lang Syne - Various

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around,

      A huge barrel-organ of hideous sound,

                  Incessantly!

            From morning’s light

            Till the deep midnight,

      In all sorts of streets and all sorts of squares.

      Up the cul-de-sacs– down the thoroughfares,

      Where Thames rolls his waters from Greenwich to Kew,

      Not a lane could you find that he didn’t go through.

      You heard him at all times when most unaware,

      In quiet back-parlours up five flights of stair;

      When you ate, when you drank, when you read morning prayer,

      Or sat dozing awhile in an easy armchair,

      Or read a new novel – or talk’d to a friend,

      Or endeavour’d to settle accounts without end,

      Or when grief (or champagne), caused an ache in your head,

      Or you promised yourself to lie latish in bed,

            It was all the same

            That Demon came,

            Grind! grind!

            Peace there was none,

            Under the sun;

      That odious organ never had done.

            Sick, sad, or sorry,

            No end to the worry.

            No sort of grief

            Brought the slightest relief;

      You might send out to say you were dying or dead,

      The organ ground on as if nothing were said!

            Grind! grind!

            Till you lost your mind.

      No use to scold, or draw down the blind,

      The fiend only ground more loud and more fast,

      Till you had to give him a shilling at last.

      So that having tormented you madly that day,

      He would surely next morning come round the same way,

      And grind and grind – till in frenzy of pain,

      You should bribe him once more – just to come back again!

      Know ye, my friends, who this Fiend may be?

      Here is the key to the mystery —

      It is Tubal Cain! who – the Bible says —

      Invented organs in very old days,

      And for that dread crime, so atrocious and black,

      Was sentenced thenceforth to bear one on his back,

      A heavier fate (as was justly his due),

      Than befell his Papa when poor Abel he slew:

      For Cain, killing one man, was let off quite cheap —

      Tubal murdered us all– at least “murder’d our sleep.”

      THE ORGAN-BOY

      Great brown eyes,

      Thick plumes of hair,

      Old corduroys

      The worse for wear.

      A button’d jacket,

      And peeping out

      An ape’s grave poll,

      Or a guinea-pig’s snout.

      A sun-kiss’d face

      And a dimpled mouth,

      With the white flashing teeth,

      And soft smile of the south.

      A young back bent,

      Not with age or care,

      But the load of poor music

      ’Tis fated to bear.

      But a common-place picture

      To common-place eyes,

      Yet full of a charm

      Which the thinker will prize.

      They were stern, cold rulers,

      Those Romans of old,

      Scorning art and letters

      For conquest and gold;

      Yet leavening mankind,

      In mind and tongue,

      With the laws that they made

      And the songs that they sung.

      Sitting, rose-crown’d,

      With pleasure-choked breath,

      As the nude young limbs crimson’d,

      Then stiffen’d in death.

      Piling up monuments

      Greater than praise,

      Thoughts and deeds that shall live

      To the latest of days.

      Adding province to province,

      And sea to sea,

      Till the idol fell down

      And the world rose up free.

      And this is the outcome,

      This vagabond child

      With that statue-like face

      And eyes soft and mild;

      This creature so humble,

      So gay, yet so meek,

      Whose sole strength is only

      The strength of the weak.

      Of those long cruel ages

      Of lust and of guile,

      Nought left us to-day

      But an innocent smile.

      For the labour’d appeal

      Of the orator’s art,

      A few foolish accents

      That reach to the heart.

      For those stern legions speeding

      O’er sea and o’er land,

      But a pitiful glance

      And a suppliant hand.

      I could moralize still

      But the organ begins,

      And the tired ape swings downward,

      And capers and grins,

      And away flies romance.

      And yet, time after time,

      As I dwell on days spent

      In a sunnier clime,

      Of blue lakes deep set

      In the olive-clad mountains,

      Of gleaming white palaces

      Girt with cool fountains,

      Of minsters where every

      Carved stone is a treasure,

      Of sweet music hovering

      ’Twixt pain and ’twixt pleasure;

      Of chambers enrich’d

      On all sides, overhead,

      With the deathless creations

      Of hands that are dead;

      Of still cloisters holy,

      And twilight arcade,

      Where the lovers still saunter

      Thro’ chequers of shade;

      Of tomb and of temple,

      Arena

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