Part I

       Table of Contents

       I

       "That oblong book's the Album; hand it here!

       Exactly! page on page of gratitude

       For breakfast, dinner, supper, and the view!

       I praise these poets: they leave margin-space;

       Each stanza seems to gather skirts around,

       And primly, trimly, keep the foot's confine,

       Modest and maidlike; lubber prose o'er-sprawls

       And straddling stops the path from left to right.

       Since I want space to do my cipher-work,

       Which poem spares a corner? What comes first?

       'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!' (Open the window, we burn daylight, boy!) Or see—succincter beauty, brief and bold— 'If a fellow can dine On rumpsteaks and port wine, He needs not despair Of dining well here—' 'Here!' I myself could find a better rhyme! That bard's a Browning; he neglects the form: But ah, the sense, ye gods, the weighty sense! Still, I prefer this classic. Ay, throw wide! I'll quench the bits of candle yet unburnt. A minute's fresh air, then to cipher-work! Three little columns hold the whole account: Ecarté, after which Blind Hookey, then Cutting-the-Pack, five hundred pounds the cut. 'Tis easy reckoning: I have lost, I think." Two personages occupy this room Shabby-genteel, that's parlor to the inn Perched on a view-commanding eminence; ———— -Inn which may be a veritable house Where somebody once lived and pleased good taste Till tourists found his coign of vantage out, And fingered blunt the individual mark And vulgarized things comfortably smooth. On a sprig-pattern-papered wall there brays Complaint to sky Sir Edwin's dripping stag; His couchant coast-guard creature corresponds; They face the Huguenot and Light o' the World. Grim o'er the mirror on the mantlepiece, Varnished and coffined, Salmo ferox glares —Possibly at the List of Wines which, framed And glazed, hangs somewhat prominent on peg. So much describes the stuffy little room— Vulgar flat smooth respectability: Not so the burst of landscape surging in, Sunrise and all, as he who of the pair Is, plain enough, the younger personage Draws sharp the shrieking curtain, sends aloft The sash, spreads wide and fastens back to wall Shutter and shutter, shows you England's best. He leans into a living glory-bath Of air and light where seems to float and move The wooded watered country, hill and dale And steel-bright thread of stream, a-smoke with mist, A-sparkle with May morning, diamond drift O' the sun-touched dew. Except the red-roofed patch Of half a dozen dwellings that, crept close For hill-side shelter, make the village-clump This inn is perched above to dominate— Except such sign of human neighborhood, (And this surmised rather than sensible) There's nothing to disturb absolute peace, The reign of English nature—which mean art And civilized existence. Wildness' self Is just the cultured triumph. Presently Deep solitude, be sure, reveals a Place That knows the right way to defend itself: Silence hems round a burning spot of life. Now, where a Place burns, must a village brood, And where a village broods, an inn should boast— Close and convenient: here you have them both. This inn, the Something-arms—the family's— (Don't trouble Guillim; heralds leave our half!) Is dear to lovers of the picturesque, And epics have been planned here; but who plan Take holy orders and find work to do. Painters are more productive, stop a week, Declare the prospect quite a Corot,—ay, For tender sentiment,—themselves incline Rather to handsweep large and liberal; Then go, but not without success achieved —Haply some pencil-drawing, oak or beech, Ferns at the base and ivies up the bole, On this a slug, on that a butterfly. Nay, he who hooked the salmo pendent here, Also exhibited, this same May-month, 'Foxgloves: a study' —so inspires the scene, The air, which now the younger personage Inflates him with till lungs o'erfraught are fain Sigh forth a satisfaction might bestir Even those tufts of tree-tops to the South I' the distance where the green dies off to grey, Which, easy of conjecture, front the Place; He eyes them, elbows wide, each hand to cheek. His fellow, the much older—either say A youngish-old man or man oldish-young— Sits at the table: wicks are noisome-deep In wax, to detriment of plated ware; Above—piled, strewn—is store of playing-cards, Counters and all that's proper for a game. He sets down, rubs out figures in the book, ⁠100 Adds and subtracts, puts back here, carries there. Until the summed-up satisfaction stands Apparent, and he pauses o'er the work: Soothes what of brain was busy under brow. By passage of the hard palm, curing so Wrinkle and crowfoot for a second's space; Then lays down book and laughs out. No mistake. Such the sum-total—ask Colenso else! Roused by which laugh, the other turns, laughs too— The youth, the good strong fellow, rough perhaps. "Well, what's the damage—three, or four, or five? How many figures in a row! Hand here! Come now, there's one expense all yours not mine— Scribbling the people's Album over, leaf The first and foremost too! You think, perhaps, They'll only charge you for a brand-new book Nor estimate the literary loss? Wait till the small account comes! 'To one night's Lodging'—for 'beds,' they can't say,— 'pound or so; Dinner, Apollinaris,—what they please, Attendance not included;' last looms large 'Defacement of our Album, late enriched With' —let's see what! Here, at the window, though! Ay, breathe the morning and forgive your luck! Fine enough country for a fool like me To own, as next month I suppose I shall! Eh? True fool's-fortune! so console yourself. Let's see, however—hand the book, I say! Well, you've improved the classic by romance. Queer reading! Verse with parenthetic prose 'Hail, calm acclivity, salubrious spot!' (Three-two fives ) 'life how profitably spent' (Five-naught, five-nine fives) 'yonder humble cot' (More and more naughts and fives) 'in mild content; And did my feelings find the natural vent In friendship and in love, how blest my lot!' Then follow the dread figures—five! 'Content!' That's apposite! Are you content as he— Simpkin the sonneteer? Ten thousand pounds Give point to his effusion—by so much Leave me the richer and the poorer you After our night's play; who's content the most, I, you, or Simpkin?" So the polished snob, The elder man, refinement every inch From brow to boot-end, quietly replies: "Simpkin's no name I know. I had my whim." "Ay, had you! And such things make friendship thick. Intimates I may boast we were; henceforth, Friends—shall it not be?—who discard reserve, Use plain words, put each dot upon each i, Till death us twain do part? The bargain's struck! Old fellow, if you fancy—(to begin—) I felled to penetrate your scheme last week,