FullReads

Some of them are far too sacred and tender for publication, and of others, at this distance of time, I confess I can make nothing at all. But there lies a batch before me which will serve as a specimen of our talents, and can hardly hurt the feelings of any one responsible for their production.

Our club, as I have said, was highly competitive in its operations. It by no means contented us each to follow his own course and woo his own muse. No, we all set our caps at the same muse and tried to cut one another out. If I happened to write an ode to a blackbird–and I wrote four or five–every one else must write an ode to a blackbird too; until the luckless songster must have hated the sound of its own name.

It was no easy work finding fit subjects for these poetic competitions. But the papers lying here before me remind me at least of one which excited great interest and keen rivalry. Complaints had been made that the club had hitherto devoted itself almost altogether to abstract rhapsodies, and had omitted the cultivation of itself in the epic or heroic side of its genius. On the other hand, the abstract rhapsodists protested that any one could write ballads, and that the subject to be chosen should at least be such as would admit of any treatment. One member suggested we should try the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, as being both abstract and historical–but he was deemed to be a scoffer. Eventually Stray said, why not take a simple nursery rhyme and work upon it, just as musicians take some simple melody as the theme of their great compositions?

It was a good idea, and after some consideration–for we had most of us forgotten our nursery rhymes–we fixed upon the tragical history of “Jack and Jill;” and decided to deal with it.

The understanding was that we might treat it any way we liked except– notable exception–in prose!

And so we went off to our studies and gave ourselves up to our inspirations. The result, the reader shall judge of for himself. Only he shall never know the real names of the poets; nor will anything induce me to disclose which particular production was the performance of the humble Author of this veritable narrative.

I will select the specimens haphazard, and distinguish them only by their numbers.

Number 1 was a follower of the classic models, and rendered the story in Homeric fashion.

Attend, ye Nine! and aid me, while I sing
The cruel fate of two whom heaven’s dread king
Hurled headlong to their doom. Scarce had the sun
His blazing course for one brief hour run
When Jack arose and radiant climbed the mount
To where beneath the summit sprang the fount.
Nor went he single; Jill, the beauteous maid,
Danced at his side, and took his proffered aid.
Together went they, pail in hand, and sang
Their love songs till the leafy valleys rang.
Alas! the fount scarce reached, the heedless swain
Turned on his foot and slipped and turned again.
Then fell he headlong: and the woe-struck maid,
Jealous of his fell doom, a moment stayed
And watched him; then to the depths she rushed
And shared his fate. Behold them, mangled, crushed.
Weep, oh my muse! for Jack, for Jill your tears outpour,
For hand-in-hand they’ll climb the hill no more.

After this somewhat severe version of the story it is a relief to turn to the lighter rendering of the same affecting theme by Number 2. Number 2 was evidently an admirer of that species of poetry which begins everything at the wrong end, and seems to expect the reader to assist the poet in understanding what it is the latter is driving at.