Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3810/Tempering the Wind
or, The Indemnification of Antonio.
[In the Census returns for 1911, recently published, organ-grinders are no longer counted as musicians.]
When buffets from the frowning Fates demoralise, And all the spirit yearns for honeyed death;When limply on the harper's brow the laurel lies And something in his bosom deeply saith,"N. G. I give it up! Behold! misshapen is The bowler that surmounts my glorious mane:Life is all kicks without the boon of halfpennies; The rates are here again;"———
'Tis sweet, 'tis very sweet to gaze at Helicon And think, "On me the sacred fire has dropped,The lute, at any rate, still hangs, a relic, on This diaphragm, although the shirt is popped;"And so it was, I ween, with your position, Ausonia's sunny child, from house to houseAye wandering: still you ranked as a musician, The same as Dr. Strauss.
People were rude to you: they said, "Be gibbetted!" In many a ruthless road your cheek grew wanWhere hawkers and street-inusic were prohibited And stout policemen urged you to get on:Yet still that stubborn heart, the heart of Cato's kin, Stayed you, and still the gleam that cannot die,Though every now and then an old potato skin Did welt you in the eye.
Tattered and soiled, an exile and an alien, Somehow you touched the Cockney nymphs with awe;You lit the cold clay statue, like Pygmalion, To blood-red raptures; you were sib to Shaw;Others might hale the town in cushioned chariots To see them dance or daub, to hear them strum;You also had your moments: jigging Harriets Joyed in your simian chum.
And how shall these things change? Shall childish galleries That deemed you once Apollo's minister,Say, "Garn, old monkey!" Shall colossal salaries Reward the Muse and not the dulcimer?Not gleaming eyeballs, not the soul illuminate? Shall old faiths falter and Antonio's heartSicken the while he churns, and chilly ruminate, "This is no longer Art"?
So be it then. But lest the slight unparalleled Shall cause extinction of a breed so stout,And scatter to the winds what tags his barrel held And doom him to go under and get out;Lest he despair and pine from this new streak of ills, Not ranked with virtuosi's shining shapes,Let him be classed anew amongst Pithokophils, An amateur of Apes.Evoe.