James Brunton Stephens: Verses about Food

I had not thought again to be
A dreamer of such dreams as these.
The springtime is no more for me;
My summer died beyond the seas.
From what untimely source begin
These stirrings of the life within?

I had not thought again to taste
The bitter sweet, the joyous pain.
I dreamed that I had trodden waste,
Beyond the power of sun or rain,
The soil that grew the passion fruit;—
Then, whence this blossom underfoot?
I had not thought again to see
Beyond the homely pale of truth;—
The lights and shapes of witchery,
That glorify the skies of youth,
I only know as perished things;—
Whence, then, this flash of angel wings?

How spend the day, yet save the hours?
I had my day; the hours are fled.
How eat the fruit, yet hold the flowers?
I ate the fruit; the flowers are dead.
Oh, what divine or fiendish art
Hath twined fresh tendrils round my heart?

I said, 'tis good to be alone,
No alien hand to urge or check.
I said, my spirit is my own,
To loose or bind, to save or wreck.
I trod on Love, called Reason lord;—
Lo, whence this subtle silken cord?

Oh, who shall tell if this be strength
Re-risen, or ghost of old defect?
The truth of manhood come at length,
Or weakness born of purpose wrecked?
I only know it is the whole
Arch-craving of a hungry soul.

I only know that all the hordes
Of buried hopes and jealousies

Are risen again and crossing swords,
And that 'twas but an armistice,
A breathing time 'twixt strife and strife,
Which I had deemed a peace for life.

Oh! who can tell where duty lies—
To urge, repress, advance, or stay?
To grasp at Good in Beauty's guise,
Or brush the pretty lure away,
Ere doubtful war of hopes and fears
Consume the hoarded strength of years?

De mortuis nil ni-
Si bonum: R.I.P.:—
No more upbraid him:—
Nay, rather plead his cause,
For Ben exactly was
What Nature made him.

Not radically bad,
He naturally had
No leaning sinwards;
But Nature saw it good
One life-long crave for food
Should rack his inwards.

According to his lights,
And to the appetites
In him implanted,
He did his level best
To feed—and all the rest
He took for granted.

Ere birth he was laid low,
And yet no man I know
For high birth matched him:
Apollo was his sire,
Who with life-giving fire
Ab ovo hatched him.

Just over Capricorn
This same Big Ben was born,
A feeble lizard;
But with the years came strength,
And twenty feet of length—
The most part gizzard.

By Fitzroy's rugged crags,
Its “sawyers” and its snags,
He roamed piscivorous;
Or watching for his prey,
By Yaamba creek he lay,
In mood carnivorous.

Unthinking little hogs,
And careless puppy-dogs
Fitzroy-ward straying,
Were grist unto his mill. . . .
His grinders now are still,
Himself past preying.

Whether in self-defence,
Or out of hate prepense,
Or just for fun shot,
Are things beyond my ken—
I only know Big Ben
Died of a gunshot.

It was a sorry case;
For Ben loved all our race,
Both saint and sinner;
If he had had his way,
He would have brought each day
One home to dinner:—

Loved with that longing love,
Such as is felt above
The Southern Tropic:—
Small chance was ever his,
But his proclivities
Were philanthropic.

There are who would insist
He was misogynist—
'Tis slander horrid;
For every nymph he saw,
He would have liked her— raw,
From toe to forehead.

Then let his memory be;
No misanthrope was he;
No woman-hater;
But just what you may call,
Take him for all in all,
An alligator.

Like any other fork.—No mark you meet with
To point some psychological conceit with.
An ordinary fork. A fork to eat with.

No individuality of fashion:
No stamp of frenzy fine, or poet-passion;
An article in no respect Parnassian.

No muse “with ivy never sere” hath decked it:
In fact, it would be foolish to expect it.
I question if the muses recollect it.

A plain straightforward fork; yet interesting,
As to the world in general attesting
That poetizing hinges on digesting.
A fork not standing on its merits merely,
But, being Byron's, testifying clearly
That verse and victuals are related nearly.

Quite genuine; crest and all; a fork to swear by;
Some poet-stories doubtless hanging thereby,—
Associations such as gold can ne'er buy.

For 'twixt the fork and the divine afflatus
The links are perfect; there is no hiatus;
Fork, stomach, brain, pen,—all one apparatus.

So when the food that on the fork ascended
Grew into verse as with the brain it blended,
The fork wrote just as truly as the pen did.

For though the fork the earlier resource is,
Between the two no violent divorce is,—
I hold them to be correlated forces.

Perchance the unsuspected ministration
Of this same fork first set in circulation
The coinage of his rich imagination.

Perchance this very fork could give the clue to
What many of the famous thoughts were due to,
That now are part of me, and part of you too.

And if its prongs administered the fuel
That working duly unto brain-renewal

Kindled the thoughts that even yet fire you all,—

This very fork—(unless I quite astray be,
And you of unimpressionable clay be)—
A factor in your moral product may be.

And musing thus, does not this fork begin to you
To seem as consanguineously akin to you
As if the bard himself had stuck it into you?

'Tis ever thus: what Genius consecrateth
The nearest with the most remote collateth,
Till meanest use on highest issue waiteth.

This salad, now, in which the fork I'm pressing,
Wherein are all sweet savours coalescing—
What subtle shoot of genius efflorescing
Flowered in the flavour of so rich a blessing?
Is it that Byron's fork, some charm possessing,
Transmutes the—stop a bit—Who did the dressing?

They shall not perish! Not if help can save
Our hunger-stricken brethren from the grave!
They shall not perish! With no impious breath
We vow that Love shall stronger prove than Death!
Say not, 'Tis vain to strive against the Hand
That writeth Judgment o'er a mourning land!—
Say not, 'Tis Heav'n that worketh good or ill;
And if our brother die—it is God's will;—
Say not, if He is pleased to hide His face,
'Tis ours and theirs to wait returning grace;
Nor, listless, into prayerful chambers creep,
And be content to weep with those who weep;—
Say not that Nature but fulfils her plan,
Through righteous retribution teaching man;
Nor round your easy acquiescence draw
The curtain of inexorable Law.
Say rather, We are now the hands of God
To pour our fruits upon their fruitless sod!
Say rather, We are God's incarnate Will
To feed His lambs, His children's mouths to fill,
And in our very plenty read the sign
That we are chos'n as instruments Divine!
Say rather, if His face be darkened there,
'Tis ours to light the darkness of despair,
And through the tears that dim their sorrowing eyes
Show God reflected from our happier skies!
And what though Nature in her changelessness
Works out her ends through cycles of distress,—
We too are Nature! and, enthroned above
All other law, we own the Law of Love!
Therefore they shall not perish!—Oh sad Isle,
Endure thy burden yet a little while—
Yea, but a little while, for bounteous Heaven
The lightning for our messenger hath given,
To flash from cape to cape, o'er ocean's bed,
The word that for thy need becometh bread!
Oh grief-worn father, gazing on the soil
That mocks thy husbandry; whose fruitless toil
Provides no answer to the children's cry;
Who turn'st aside lest thou should'st see them die;
Lo, God hath not forsaken ev'n thy least.

Turn yet again: Help cometh from the East!
Oh drooping mother, bowed with hopeless cares
That labour lightens not, nor tears, nor prayers,—
Who spread'st ev'n now before thy famished brood
The scanty remnant of unwholesome food,—
Once more let hope awake within thy breast.
Be of good cheer: Help cometh from the West!
Ye little ones, whose raiment, rent and old,
Scarce hides the forms that tremble in the cold;
Whose play is silenced; all whose frolic wiles
Are turned to weariness; whose sunny smiles
Have vanished from the hunger-wasted mouth,—
Be warmed and fed: Help cometh from the South!
Say we too much? Nay, less than this would shame
Alike our hearts, our honour, and our name.
Nothing too much while Famine stalks abroad,
And Winter grips the shivering lambs of God!
Nothing too much while weeping kindred cry
To happier kindred, “Save us, or we die!”
Nothing too much while we whose bread is sure
Have hearts to pity, hands to help, the poor,—
And eyes in Ireland's hour of need to see
Queensland's, Australia's opportunity!

Yes, I got another Johnny; but he was to Number One
As a Satyr to Hyperion, as a rushlight to the sun;
He was lazy, he was cheeky, he was dirty, he was sly,
But he had a single virtue, and its name was rabbit pie.

Now those who say the bush is dull are not so far astray,
For the neutral tints of station life are anything but gay;
But, with all its uneventfulness, I solemnly deny
That the bush is unendurable along with rabbit pie.

We had fixed one day to sack him, and agreed to moot the point
When my lad should bring our usual regale of cindered joint,
But instead of cindered joint we saw and smelt, my wife and I,
Such a lovely, such a beautiful, oh! such a rabbit pie!

There was quite a new expression on his lemon-coloured face,
And the unexpected odour won him temporary grace,
For we tacitly postponed the sacking-point till by-and bye,
And we tacitly said nothing save the one word, “rabbit pie!”

I had learned that pleasant mystery should simply be endured,
And forebore to ask of Johnny where the rabbits were procured!
I had learned from Number One to stand aloof from how and why,
And I threw myself upon the simple fact of rabbit pie.

And when the pie was opened, what a picture did we see!
They lay in beauty side by side, they filled our home with glee!
How excellent, how succulent, back, neck, and leg, and thigh!
What a noble gift is manhood! What a trust is rabbit pie!

For a week the thing continued, rabbit pie from day to day;
Though where he got the rabbits John would ne'er vouchsafe to say;
But we never seemed to tire of them, and daily could descry
Subtle shades of new delight in each successive rabbit pie.

Sunday came; by rabbit reckoning, the seventh day of the week;
We had dined, we sat in silence, both our hearts (?) too full to speak,
When in walks Cousin George, and, with a sniff, says he, “Oh my!
What a savoury suggestion! what a smell of rabbit pie!”
“Oh, why so late, George?” says my wife, “the rabbit pie is gone;
But you must have one for tea, though. Ring the bell, my dear, for John.”
So I rang the bell for John, to whom my wife did signify,
“Let us have an early tea, John, and another rabbit pie.”

But John seemed taken quite aback, and shook his funny head,
And uttered words I comprehended no more than the dead;

“Go, do as you are bid,” I cried, “we wait for no reply;
Go! let us have tea early, and another rabbit pie!”

Oh, that I had stopped his answer! But it came out with a run:
“Last-a week-a plenty puppy; this-a week-a puppy done!”
Just then my wife, my love, my life, the apple of mine eye,
Was seized with what seemed “mal-de-mer,” — “sick transit” rabbit pie!

And George! By George, he laughed, and then he howled like any bear!
The while my wife contorted like a mad “convulsionnaire;”
And I—I rushed on Johnny, and I smote him hip and thigh,
And I never saw him more, nor tasted more of rabbit pie.

And the childless mothers met me, as I kicked him from the door,
With loud maternal wailings and anathemas galore;
I must part with pretty Tiny, I must part with little Fly,
For I'm sure they know the story of the so-called “rabbit pie.”

“Chieftain, enter my verandah;
Sit not in the blinding glare;
Thou shalt have a refuge, and a
Remnant of my household fare.

“Ill becomes thy princely haunches
Such a seat upon the ground:
Doubtless on a throne of branches
Thou hast sat, banana-crowned.

“By the brazen tablet gleaming
On the darkness of thy breast,
Which, unto all outward seeming,
Serves for trousers, coat, and vest;—

“By the words thereon engraven,
Of thy royal rank the gage,
Hail! true King, in all things save in
Unessential acreage.

“Such divinity doth hedge thee,
I had guessed thy rank with ease—
Such divinity—(but edge thee
Somewhat more to leeward, please).

“Though thy lineage I know not,
Thou art to the manner born;
Every inch a king, although not
King of one square barleycorn.

“Enter, sire; no longer linger;
Cease thy signals grandly dumb:
Point not thus with royal finger
To thy hungry vacuum.

“Though thy pangs are multifarious,
Soon they all shall pass away:
Come, my begging Belisarius—
Belisorious I should say.

“Fear not; I am the intruder;
I, and white men such as I:
Simpler though thou art, and ruder,

Thou art heir of earth and sky.

“Thine the mountain, thine the river,
Thine the endless miles of scrub:
Shall I grudge thee, then—oh never!—
Useless ends of refuse grub?

“Lay aside thy spears—(I doubt them),
Lay aside thy tomahawk;
I prefer thee, sire, without them,
By a somewhat longish chalk.

“Lay aside thy nullah-nullahs;
Is there war betwixt us two?
Soon the pipe of peace shall lull us—
Pipe a-piece, bien entendu.

“Seat thee in this canvas chair here;
Heed not thou the slumbering hound;
Fear not; all is on the square here,
Though thou strangely lookest round.

“Or if thou, my chair deriding,
Follow thine ancestral bent,
To the naked floor subsiding
Down the groove of precedent,—

“If the boards have more temptation,
Wherefore should I say thee No,
Seeing caudal induration
Must have set in long ago?

“Take thou now this refuse mince-meat;
Pick this bone, my regal guest:
Shall a fallen warrior-prince meet
Other welcome than the best?

“Treated like a very rebel,
Chased from town at set of sun,
Wert thou ev'n the debbil-debbil,
Thou shouldst eat—when I am done.”

On the bare floor sat the sable
Chieftain of a fallen race,
Two black knees his only table,
“Wai-a-roo” his simple grace.

Stood I by and ruminated
On the chief's Decline and Fall,
While his highness masticated
What I gave him, bone and all.

“Chief,” said I, when all had vanished,
“Fain am I thou shouldst relate
Why thou roam'st discrowned and banished
From thy scrub-palatinate.”

Stared the chief, and wildly muttered,
As if words refused to come;
“Want him rum,” at length he uttered;
“Black f'lo plenty like him rum!”

“Nay! 'Twill make thee mad—demoniac!
Set thee all a-fire within!
Law forbids thee rum and cognac,
Though in mercy spares thy gin.

“Come; thy tale, if thou hast any.”—
Forth the chieftain stretched his hand,
Stood erect, and shouted “Penny!”
In a voice of stern command.

“Out upon thee! savage squalid!
Mine ideal thus to crush,
With thy beggary gross and solid,
All for money and for lush!

“Out upon thee! prince degenerate!
Get thee to thy native scrub!
Die a dog's death!—or, at any rate,
Trouble me no more for grub!

“At him, Ginger! Up and at him!
Go it, lad! On, Ginger, on!
King, indeed! the beggar! . . Drat him!
One more fond illusion gone.”

They who say the bush is dull are not so very far astray,
For this eucalyptic cloisterdom is anything but gay;
But its uneventful dulness I contentedly could brook,
If I only could get back my lost, lamented Chinee cook.

We had tried them without number—cooks, to wit—my wife and I;
One a week, then three a fortnight, as my wife can testify;
But at last we got the right one; I may say 'twas by a fluke,
For he dropped in miscellaneous-like, that handy Chinee cook,

He found the kitchen empty, laid his swag down, and commenced;
My wife, surprised, found nothing to say anything against;
But she asked him for how much a year the work he undertook—
“Me workee for me ration,” said that noble Chinee cook.

Then right off from next to nothing such a dinner he prepared,
That the Governor I'm certain less luxuriously fared;
And he waited, too, in spotless white, with such respectful look,
And bowed his head when grace was said, that pious Chinee cook.

He did the work of man and maid—made beds and swept out rooms;
Nor cooled he in his zeal, as is the manner of new brooms:
Oh, he shed celestial brightness on the most sequestered nook,
For his mop and pail were everywhere—my cleanly Chinee cook.

We got fat upon his cooking; we were happy in those days,
For he tickled up our palates in a thousand pleasant ways.
Oh his dinners! Oh his dinners! they were fit for any duke!
Oh delectable Mongolian! Oh celestial Chinee cook!

There was nothing in creation that he didn't put to use,
And the less he got to cook with, all the more he could produce,
All nature was his kitchen range, likewise his cook'ry book—
Neither Soyer nor Meg Dod could teach that knowing Chinee cook.

And day by day upon my wife and me the mystery grew,
How his virtues were so many and his earnings were so few;
And we laid our heads together to find out by hook or crook,
The secret of the cheapness of that priceless Chinee cook.
And still the sense of mystery grew on us day by day,
Till it came to be a trouble, and we wished him well away;
But we could not find a fault in one so far above rebuke—
Ah, we didn't know the value of that valuable cook.

But one day when I was out he brought my wife a lot of things,
Turquoise earrings, opal bracelets, ruby brooches, diamond rings,

And he ran their various prices o'er as glibly as a book,
And dirt cheap, too, were the jewels of that jewel of a cook.

I returned, and just in time to stop the purchase of the lot,
And to ask him where on earth those costly jewels he had got,
And when I looked him in the face, good gracious how he shook!
And he says, says he, “Me bought him”—did that trembling Chinee cook.

And I a justice of the peace! O Fortune! how unkind!
For a certain Sydney robbery came rushing to my mind
“You bought them! Ah, I fear me, John, you paid them with a hook!
I am bound to apprehend you, oh unhappy Chinee cook!”

So the mystery was solved at length; the secret now we saw;
John had used us as a refuge from the clutches of the law;
And, now, alas, too late would I his frailty overlook!
He is gone, and I am left without my skilful Chinee cook.

Oh, could I taste again of those delicious luscious things,
I could pardon him the robbery of other people's rings;
I exaggerated principle, my duty I mistook,
When I handed over to the law my peerless Chinee cook.

What would I give just now for one of his superb ragouts,
His entrements, his entrées, his incomparable stews?
Oh, art and taste and piquancy my happy board forsook,
When I came the J.P. over my lamented Chinee cook.

Take away the hated letters. 'Twas my “justice” robbed my “peace”;
Take my name from the commission, and my matchless cook release.
But I fear my Johnny's dead, for I am haunted by a spook,
With oblique eyes and a pigtail, like my lost, my Chinee cook.

Come, take the tenner, doctor . . . yes, I know the bill says “five,”
But it ain't as if you'd merely kep' our little 'un alive;
Man, you saved the mother's reason when you saved that babby's life,
An' it's thanks to you I ha'n't a ravin' idiot for a wife.

Let me tell you all the story, an' if then you think it strange
That I'd like to fee ye extry—why, I'll take the bloomin' change.
If yer bill had said a hundred . . . I'm a poor man, doc, an' yet
I'd 'a' slaved till I had squared it; ay, an' still been in yer debt.

Well, you see the wife's got notions on a heap o' things that ain't
To be handled by a man as don't pretend to be a saint;
So I minds “the cultivation,” smokes my pipe, an' makes no stir,
An' religion an' such p'ints I lays entirely on to her.

Now, she's got it fixed within her that, if children die afore
They've been sprinkled by the parson, they've no show for evermore;
An' though they're spared the pitchforks, an' the brim-stun', an' the smoke,
They ain't allowed to mix up there with other little folk.

So when our last began to pine, an' lost his pretty smile,
An' not a parson to be had within a hunder mile—
(For though there is a chapel down at Bluegrass Creek, you know,
The clargy's there on dooty only thrice a year or so)—

Well, when our yet unchristen'd mite grew limp an' thin an' pale,
It would 'a' cut you to the heart to hear the mother wail
About her “unregenerate babe,” an' how, if it should go,
'Twould have no chance with them as had their registers to show.

Then awful quiet she grew, an' hadn't spoken for a week,
When in came brother Bill one day with news from Bluegrass Creek.
“I seen,” says he, “a notice on the chapel railin' tied;
They'll have service there this evenin'—can the youngster stand the ride?

“For we can't have parson here, if it be true, as I've heard say,
There's a dyin' man as wants him more'n twenty mile away;
So —He hadn't time to finish ere the child was out of bed
With a shawl about its body an' a hood upon its head.
“Saddle up,” the missus said. I did her biddin' like a bird.
Perhaps I thought it foolish, but I never said a word;
For though I have a vote in what the kids eat, drink, or wear,
Their sperritual requirements are entirely her affair.

We started on our two hours' ride beneath a burnin' sun,
With Aunt Sal and Bill for sureties to renounce the Evil One;

An' a bottle in Sal's basket that was labelled “Fine Old Tom”
Held the water that regeneration was to follow from.

For Bluegrass Creek was dry, as Bill that very day had found,
An' not a sup o' water to be had for miles around;
So, to make salvation sartin for the babby's little soul,
We had filled a dead marine, sir, at the fam'ly waterhole.

Which every forty rods or so Sal raised it to her head,
An' took a snifter, “just enough to wet her lips,” she said;
Whereby it came to pass that when we reached the chapel door
There was only what would serve the job, an' deuce a dribble more.

The service had begun—we didn't like to carry in
A vessel with so evident a carritur for gin;
So we left it in the porch, an,' havin' done our level best,
Went an' owned to bein' “mis'rable offenders” with the rest.

An' nigh upon the finish, when the parson had been told
That a lamb was waitin' there to be admitted to the fold,
Rememberin' the needful, I gets up an' quietly slips
To the porch to see—a swagsman—with our bottle at his lips!

Such a faintness came all over me, you might have then an' there
Knocked me down, sir, with a feather, or tied me with a hair.
Doc, I couldn't speak nor move; an' though I caught the beggar's eye,
With a wink he turned the bottle bottom up an' drank it dry.

An' then he flung it from him, bein' suddintly aware
That the label on't was merely a deloosion an' a snare;
An' the crash cut short the people in the middle of “A-men,”
An' all the congregation heard him holler “Sold again!”

So that christ'nin' was a failure; every water-flask was drained;
Ev'n the monkey in the vestry not a blessed drop contained;
An' the parson in a hurry cantered off upon his mare,
Leaving baby unregenerate, an' missus in despair.

That night the child grew worse, but all my care was for the wife;
I feared more for her reason than for that wee spark o' life. . . .
But you know the rest—how Providence contrived that very night
That a doctor should come cadgin' at our shanty for a light. . . .

Baby? Oh, he's chirpy, thank ye—been baptized—his name is Bill.
It's weeks an' weeks since parson came an' put him through the mill;
An' his mother's mighty vain upon the subjick of his weight,
An' reg'lar cook-a-hoop about his sperritual state

So now you'll take the tenner. Oh, confound the bloomin' change!
Lord, had Billy died!—but, doctor, don't you think it summut strange
That them as keeps the Gate would have refused to let him in

Because a fool mistook a drop of Adam's ale for gin?