Excerpt
"Though cold the coxcomb, and though coarse the boor,
Though dulness haunts the rich and pain the poor,
In this colossal city,
Yet London is not Rome, O Shade!" I said.
"A later Juvenal should not find her dead
To purity and pity."
"Satire, of shames and follies in sole quest,
Is a one-eyed divinity at best,"
My guide responded, slowly.
"The tale of Zoïlus hath its moral still.
Such critics are but blowflies, their small skill
To carrion given wholly.
"Not all the Romans of Domitian's days
Were such as live in Juvenal's savage lays;
Not all the Latian ladies
Were Hippias or Collatias. Neither here
May all be gauged by satire's rule severe,
Or earth would be a Hades.
"The scalpel hath no terrors for the sound,
Nor is the hand that wields it harshly bound
To ceaseless vivisection.
The Cynic sharply sees, but sees not far;
The eye that hunts the mote may miss the star
Too great for scorn's detection.
"Dream not, oh friend, because I let the light
On lurid London through the cloak of night
(As was my undertaking.)
That I've a spirit wholly given to scorn,
Or blind to all, save sin, that with the morn
Will see a bright awaking.
"Yet could the freedman's son but wield his flail
In London, there are those might shrink and pale
As did Domitian's minion.
Paris lives yet, pander and parasite
Still flaunt in bold impunity, despite
A custom-freed opinion.
"Dull in the drawing-room, our beardless boys
Can sparkle in the haunts of coarser joys,
Coldness and muteness vanish
When Tullia dances or when Pollio sings.
With riotous applause the precinct rings,
There chill restraint they banish.
"Behold Lord Limpet in his gilded Box,
His well-gloved palms and scarlet silken socks
Actively agitated;
He who erewhile about the ball-room stood
A solemn, weary, whispering thing of wood,
And sneered, and yawned, and waited."
"Wondrous!" I cried. "The youngster's cheeks flush red,
Wide laugh his lips, and swiftly wags his head,
He cheers, he claps, he chuckles.
Can he, the languid lounger limp and faint
Give way to mirth with the mad unrestraint
Of boys with ribs and knuckles?
"Frankly canaille is that dancing chit
Slang and suggestiveness serve her for wit,
And impudence for beauty.
Yet frigid 'Form' melts at her cockney spell,
'Form,' which votes valsing with the reigning belle
An undelightful duty.
"Bounds on the arch-buffoon, with flexile face,
With bagman smartness and batrachian grace.
Is he not sweet and winning?
Mime of the gutter, mimic of the slum,
Muse of the haunts unspeakable, else dumb,
A satyr gross and grinning?
"Limpet smiled," he said. "Shakspeare's boldest wit
Leaves Limpet listless, but each feature lit
At that last comic chorus.
London is full of Limpets; clownings please
The well-groom'd mob, though Aristophanes
Would miserably bore us.
"Untile the Town entirely? Nay, good friend,
That were to affright the timid, and offend
The tender and the trustful.
Unlifted yet must lie the dusky screen
That veils the viler features of the scene,
The dread and the disgustful."
"Shadow!" I said, "Civilisation fails,
While surfeits Idleness, and Labour pales....