Greybeards at Play — On the Disastrous Spread of Æstheticism in All Classes

* * * * * ON THE DISASTROUS SPREAD OF ÆSTHETICISM IN ALL CLASSES.

Impetuously I sprang from bed, Long before lunch was up, That I might drain the dizzy dew From day's first golden cup.

[Illustration] In swift devouring ecstacy Each toil in turn was done;

I had done lying on the lawn Three minutes after one.

For me, as Mr. Wordsworth says, The duties shine like stars;

I formed my uncle's character, Decreasing his cigars.

But could my kind engross me?

No!

Stern Art--what sons escape her?

Soon I was drawing Gladstone's nose On scraps of blotting paper.

[Illustration] Then on--to play one-fingered tunes Upon my aunt's piano.

In short, I have a headlong soul, I much resemble Hanno.

(Forgive the entrance of the not Too cogent Carthaginian.

It may have been to make a rhyme;

I lean to that opinion).

[Illustration] Then my great work of book research Till dusk I took in hand-- The forming of a final, sound Opinion on _The Strand_.

But when I quenched the midnight oil, And closed _The Referee_, Whose thirty volumes folio I take to bed with me, I had a rather funny dream, Intense, that is, and mystic;

I dreamed that, with one leap and yell, The world became artistic.

The Shopmen, when their souls were still, Declined to open shops-- [Illustration] And Cooks recorded frames of mind In sad and subtle chops.

[Illustration] The stars were weary of routine: The trees in the plantation Were growing every fruit at once, In search of a sensation.

The moon went for a moonlight stroll, And tried to be a bard, And gazed enraptured at itself: I left it trying hard.

The sea had nothing but a mood Of 'vague ironic gloom,' With which t'explain its presence in My upstairs drawing-room.

[Illustration] The sun had read a little book That struck him with a notion: He drowned himself and all his fires Deep in the hissing ocean.

Then all was dark, lawless, and lost: I heard great devilish wings: I knew that Art had won, and snapt The Covenant of Things.

[Illustration] I cried aloud, and I awoke, New labours in my head.

I set my teeth, and manfully Began to lie in bed.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, So I my life conduct.

Each morning see some task begun, Each evening see it chucked.

But still, in sudden moods of dusk, I hear those great weird wings, Feel vaguely thankful to the vast Stupidity of things.

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