LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE'S REPLY
Thomas Nehemiah Briggs,
You write as though most strangely vexed,
But I am at a loss to know
With what offences I am taxed:
"I smiled, but you were unbeguiled"—
But where's the snare a smile discovers?
Upon a man a maid may smile
Surely, although they are not lovers?
Thomas Nehemiah Briggs,
Your own conceit led you astray,
You twisted civil words I said
To sweet ones such as lovers say:
What you would hide I soon espied,
Your snobbishness and self-conceit,
Your foolish vanity and pride—
And treated you as it was meet.
Thomas Nehemiah Briggs,
A woman loves a man although
He may be but of humble birth,
But you—tut, tut, too well I know
You're but the shadow of a man,
With shallow brain and half a heart,
Too weak and vain for life's campaign,
A true King Arthur's counterpart:
Not Mallory's hero, stern and rough,
But that insufferable bore,
That preaching, plaster, bloodless saint,
Anæmic girls so much adore:
That simulacrum stuffed with bran,
Whom Tennyson (so much a bard
He was so much the less a man,)
Most sadly in the making marred.
Thomas Nehemiah Briggs,
Is't possible the grapes were sour,
Which reached, you'd quickly said Goodbye
To your sweet maiden in her flower?
Why all this heat and fury if
Your self-love had not felt a wound?
You seek to hide a blow to pride,
Or why so angry and untuned?
Trust me, Nehemiah Briggs,
You know naught of a woman's soul,
Which, light and fickle though it seem,
A true man always can control:
She gives herself without reserve
When once her true lord she discovers,
But 'tis not such as you deserve
To be her favoured friends or lovers.