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PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY
AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
Transformations in Religions and Societies

Edited by Ananta Kumar Giri

Practical Spirituality and Human Development
 Ananta Kumar Giri
Editor

Practical Spirituality
and Human
Development
Transformations in Religions and Societies
Editor
Ananta Kumar Giri
Madras Institute of Development Studies
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

ISBN 978-981-13-0802-4    ISBN 978-981-13-0803-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0803-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018951119

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
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Cover credit: Ekely

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-­01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
To St. Mother Teresa, His Holiness The 14th Dalai Lama, Mata
Amritanandamayi Devi, and Kailash Satyarthi
 Foreword: On Being Poor in Spirit

My friend Ananta Kumar Giri has asked me to write a Foreword to this

book, Practical Spirituality and Human Development. I am happy to
comply with his request, not least because I find the topic important and
stimulating. I want to start with a meditation, which, although originating
in a Christian context, has in my view a broader cross-cultural and inter-­
religious significance.
The gospel of Matthew offers in chapter 5:3–10 a list of “beatitudes”
or benedictions pronounced by Jesus during his sojourn in Galilee. The
first benediction says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king-
dom of heaven.” The benediction is followed by blessings on “those who
mourn,” on “the meek,” on “those who hunger and thirst for righteous-
ness,” on “the pure in heart,” on “the peacemakers,” and those “persecuted
for righteousness’s sake.” But the first blessing goes to the “poor in spirit.”
What does that mean? Interestingly, the gospel of Luke (6:20–23) also
offers a list of benedictions, but the first simply says, “Blessed are the
poor” (beati pauperes). This seems to be straightforward. But what about
the statement in Matthew?
Among the sermons delivered by the German mystic Meister Eckhart,
there is one (Sermon 32) titled: “Beati pauperes spiritu,” “Blessed are the
poor in spirit.” Could we also say here: “poor in spirituality”? Eckhart
leads us on a difficult path. He urges us not treat spirit/spirituality as a
property or possession, as something we have or own in addition to our
material, psychic, or mental possessions. He urges us to let go of all of
that, to enter into a state of dispossession, of utter poverty or emptiness.

vii
viii FOREWORD: ON BEING POOR IN SPIRIT

The sermon first speaks of two kinds of poverty: an outer and an inner
poverty. “The first is an outer poverty, and that is good and very praise-
worthy in those people who willingly take it upon themselves out of love
for our Lord, because he too was poor in this sense while he was on earth.”
The sermon speaks no further of this kind of poverty but turns to the
other, the “inner poverty” which it considers more important. To intro-
duce that kind, Eckhart briefly invokes the testimony of Albertus Magnus.
“Bishop Albert,” he states, “said that a poor person is one who takes no
pleasure in any of the things God has ever created—and that is well said.
However, I will say it still better and take poverty in a higher sense. A poor
man is one who wills nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing.” He then
proceeds to speak of these three kinds of poverty.
Turning to willing nothing, Eckhart recognizes the difficulty of this
notion for many people, especially for people who have “good intentions”
and always want to do “good,” by committing themselves to acts of pen-
ance and good works. Some people go a step further by combining their
willing with God’s willing, saying that “a person must live so as not to
fulfill his own will but strive to fulfill the will of God.” Eckhart acknowl-
edges that such people have made a “good beginning,” because their
intention seems laudable. Basically, however, they still “hold fast to their
own selves which they consider to be great.” Hence, they are “neither
poor nor similar to poor people.” As he sternly adds: “They are considered
great in the eyes of those who don’t know any better. Yet I say they are
asses and they don’t understand anything of God’s truth.”
Pursuing this point, Eckhart indicates clearly what we have to let go or
get rid of: “If someone asks me what that is (a poor person who wills noth-
ing), I answer thus: As long as a person has something of himself which is
his will with which he can will to fulfill the will of God, such a person does
not have the poverty of which we speak. For such a person still has a will
with which he can satisfy the will of God, and that is not true poverty. For
a person to have true poverty, he must be as empty of his created will as he
was [empty] before he was,” Eckhart here makes a distinction between the
ground (or unground) of all Being and the realm of created beings (which
also includes God as a being and object of desire). “Before the creatures
were,” he says, “God was not yet ‘God’; he was rather what He was. As
the creatures came into being and received their created being, God was
no longer ‘God in Himself,’ rather was ‘God’ through and for creatures.”
This means that God after creation cannot be the highest goal of human
desire or willing. Rather, humans must turn to the unground of Being and
 FOREWORD: ON BEING POOR IN SPIRIT
   ix

abandon separate willing. In Eckhart’s stark language: “We pray that we

may be free of ‘God’ [as object],” and a person poor in will must “will and
desire as little as he willed and desired before he was [created].” In this
way, the person who is poor “wills nothing.”
As previously stated, Eckhart’s sermon extends the praise of emptiness
also to knowing and having nothing. With regard to knowing, the sermon
exhorts us to get rid of all pretended knowledge, including knowledge of
ourselves, of so-called eternal ideas, and even of God. A person who is
genuinely poor in spirit, he says, must live as “that he does not even know
that he lives, neither himself nor the ‘truth’ nor ‘God.’ Rather, he must be
so empty of all knowledge that he neither knows nor recognizes nor senses
that ‘God’ lives in him.” Emptiness of knowing here means that a person
“is as empty as he was when he was not yet [created] and allows God to
act as He will.” Once we have emptied ourselves into the groundless
ground, we are robbed not only of our separate willing but also of know-
ing that God acts in the ground. Therefore, it is necessary for the poor
person to desire to know or recognize nothing about his own work or the
work of God. Only in this way can a person obtain poverty of knowing.
Finally, a person poor in willing and knowing also has or possesses
nothing. Non-possession here refers not only to material things but also
and especially to spiritual things or matters of spirit. Eckhart calls this the
supreme poverty, and its meaning is very radical. As he recognizes, there
are people who say that a person should be completely free or empty of all
things so that she/he offers a place for God wherein God can work.
Eckhart goes beyond that, saying: “If a person is empty of all things or
beings, of himself and of God, yet if God can still find a place to work in
him, that person is not poor in the truest sense.” For God does not intend
that person to have a place in himself where God can work; rather, it is
true poverty of spirit when the person is “so empty of God and all His
works, that God—if he wishes to work in the soul—is Himself [and noth-
ing else] the place wherein He will work.” If God finds a person that poor,
then God works His own works and the person “bears God within Himself.
… and thus is a pure God-bearer.” Eckhart’s sermon concludes with some
bold and provocative statements for which he is so well known: “We say
that the person must be so poor that he has no place in himself wherein
God can work. Therefore, I pray that God will make me free of ‘God’
insofar as we take ‘God’ as beginning of all creation” (i.e., of all created
things and hence of all differentiation and separation).
x FOREWORD: ON BEING POOR IN SPIRIT

This is the gist of the sermon “Beati pauperes spiritu.” I had to

abbreviate here and there. But even in its abbreviated form the message of
the sermon is powerful: it is powerful in its indictment of human power,
of a pretended human empowerment: the empowerment by God, by
metaphysical knowledge, by eternal ideas and higher values. To avoid mis-
understanding: the problem here is not God “as such” or eternal ideas and
higher values “as such.” The problem is their use and abuse for all-too-­
human initiatives, their instrumentalization for power-political agendas
when human beings—specifically political elites—claim to be stand-ins for
or “vice-regents” of God on earth. In human history this has happened all
too often, especially in the history of Western imperialism. At the time of
the Spanish conquest of America, the eminent historian Ginés de Sepúlveda
justified the conquest on the basis of both religion and philosophy, saying
that both sanction the rule of “virtue over vice,” of the civilized over the
barbarian. The conquest resulted in the death of some 70 million native
inhabitants by killing, starvation, and disease.
In subsequent history, imperial rule was justified less often by religion
and more in terms of “civilization,” a broad concept including a whole
range of higher values and beliefs. In this context, it is good to remember
some words of Mahatma Gandhi who struggled against the British Empire
all his life. At the time of a visit to England, Gandhi was asked by reporters
what he thought of Western civilization—to which he pithily replied: “It
would be a good idea,” meaning that there was much rhetoric but little or
no substance. The rhetoric of self-congratulation has continued unabated
since Gandhi’s time. Western imperial ambitions have brought higher civi-
lized “values” to many “backward” countries, including Vietnam, Iraq,
and Libya. When, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings, France orga-
nized a big demonstration celebrating the idea of “freedom,” the French
President declared that Paris was once again the center of the world and
the citadel of civilization. In the meantime, the rhetoric has not stopped
gaining momentum and virulence, until of late it culminated in the
celebration of “American Sniper.”
Treated in this fashion, civilization is clearly “full of itself,” full of its
importance, and the superiority of its values, including its “spiritual” values.
Again, the point is not simply to debunk values, including spiritual values.
The point is to abandon the claim of ownership or possession, a claim that
would enable a person (or group of persons) to “know” them fully and to
“will” them by enacting and enforcing them on the rest of the world. The
gospel of Luke lists not only a series of benedictions but also a series of
 FOREWORD: ON BEING POOR IN SPIRIT
   xi

maledictions or warnings: “Woe to you that are full now, for you shall
hunger. Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your reward already
Woe to you when all men [especially the rulers and owners of the world]
speak well of you.” So the gospel does not praise “beati possidentes,” but
“beati pauperes” and “beati esurientes,” “blessed are you that hunger and
thirst.” These blessings, of course, concur entirely with the words of
Mary in her response to Gabriel (Luke 1:51–53): “He has scattered the
proud in the imagination of their hearts; he has put down the mighty
from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree; he has filled the
hungry (esurientes) with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”
So, the empty and hungry ones are blessed, but the rich—the “owners
of the world”—are dismissed. Mahatma Gandhi once said that one has to
be able to “reduce oneself to zero.” This is also what Buddhist teachers
mean by emptiness or sunyata. This is also what Meister Eckhart meant in
his sermon “Beati pauperes spiritu.” Here one must also recall Luke’s
warnings. How long do the rulers of the earth believe they can own, dom-
inate, and exploit the world without retribution? How long do they think
they can, without retribution, delay or prevent the coming of the promise:
the promise of peace with justice? How long?

University of Notre Dame Fred Dallmayr

Notre Dame, IN, USA
 Preface

Our contemporary moment is characterized by political mobilization of

religious forces often in a violent manner. There is revitalization of religion
which is challenging the secular thesis of decline of religion. But in this
story what is often not realized is the rise of movements of practical
spirituality in our present-day world from different domains and walks of
life—religion, science, and the arts—which strive to transform violence
emerging from lack of communication and respect. Movements of practi-
cal spirituality strive to create relations and landscapes of beauty, dignity,
and dialogues in a world full of ugliness, disrespect, and monological
assertions and annihilations of many kinds. Practical Spirituality and
Human Development presents glimpses of movements of practical spiritu-
ality from multiple traditions and domains of life and the way it contrib-
utes to human development, social transformations, and planetary
realizations. Planetary realizations refer to the way practical spirituality
helps us to realize that we are children of Mother Earth and not lords over
each other and the world. Our book explores how spiritual mobilizations
address the practical challenges of life and society such as poverty, loss of
meaning, and ecological degradation, among others, and how it also trans-
forms the meaning of development from solely preoccupied with eco-
nomic development and political empowerment to visions and practices of
spiritual, ethical, and aesthetic development of self, society, and the world.
This book has been long in the making. It began with a paper, “The
Calling of Practical Spirituality,” which I presented at the International
Seminar on “Science and Religion” organized by Professor Makarand
Paranjape of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, in February 2006. I am

xiii
xiv PREFACE

grateful to Makarand for his invitation, which provided me an occasion to

meditate about this issue. This subsequently came out in the conference
volume edited by Makarand, Science and Spirituality in Modern India
(Paranjape 2008) and subsequently also formed part of my book,
Knowledge and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations
(Giri 2013). I have then nurtured a workshop on the theme of practical
spirituality and human development in India and Europe with my essay,
“The Calling of Practical Spirituality,” as an invitation to think further
together about this issue. The book draws upon some presentations in
these workshops and includes many other contributors whom I had the
privilege and blessing to meet in the roads and rivers of life in the last
11 years.
As our book is coming out, I am grateful to all the contributors of this
volume for their kindness and patience. I thank Professor Subash Sharma,
Director, Indus Business Academy, Bangalore, and Late Professor
Hermann Schwengel of Institute of Sociology, University of Freiburg, for
their kind support and hosting of our workshops. I am grateful to Professor
Fred Dallmayr for his engaging Foreword and to Piet Strydom for his
insightful Afterword. I am also grateful to friends in Palgrave Macmillan,
especially Sara Crowley Vigneu and Connie Li for their kind interest and
help. I thank Aswhin V and Manjushree Mishra for helping me in the edit-
ing process.
We are now publishing our original manuscript into two volumes. We
dedicate this first volume to Saint Mother Teresa, His Holiness 14th Dalai
Lama, Mata Amritanandamayi, and Kailash Satyarthi who in their own
ways bring spirituality to transform conditions of our daily living and
wider structures of culture, society, and the world. Saint Mother Teresa
gave a touch of healing love to abandoned people and continues to work
in the lives of many through her immortal prayers, action, and Missionaries
of Charity—an order she founded. Mother Teresa tells us that it is not
possible to just do social service or practical work without being a soul of
prayer as she tells us: “It is not possible to engage in the direct apostolate
without being a soul of prayer.” She also tells us: “All our words will be
useless unless they come from within. […] In the Silence of the heart God
speaks, and we listen. […] I am a little pencil in Gods’ Hand. He does the
writing. He does the movement. I have only to be the pencil.” Sisters of
her Missionaries of Charity now work in many countries in the world pro-
viding love and succor in a world full of cruelty and abandonment.
 PREFACE
   xv

Similarly His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama urges us to practice ­compassion
in our daily lives and be responsible for our own development and
transformation as well as of others. Practical spirituality is not confined
only to doing good deeds but also developing compassionate mind and
heart what the Dalai Lama calls bodhichitta. But development of bodhi-
chitta is not possible only with individual meditation but also collaborative
circles of work, meditation in society. He challenges us to realize the sig-
nificance of developing bodhichitta in our contemporary materialistic
world: “In the materialistic way of life, there is no concept of friendship,
no concept of love just work, twenty-four hours a day, like a machine. So
in modern society, we eventually also become part of the large-moving
machine” (Dalai Lama and Tutu 2016: 127).
Mata Amritanandamayi Devi is a spiritual seeker of our times who also
embodies practical spirituality in her vision, prayers, and manifold works.
She urges all of us to cultivate a relationship of loving embrace and also
build homes and hearts for the people in need. Amma, as she is lovingly
called, has built houses for many homeless people in both normal condi-
tions and conditions of natural disaster such as the 2004 Tsunami that hit
South India, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Kailash Satyarthi has been
bringing his spiritual devotion to creating conditions of love and freedom
for the children of India and the world. He has liberated many bonded
children, but he says that in fact these children have liberated him.
Recognized for his contribution with a Nobel Prize, like Mother Teresa
and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Satyarthi urges us to realize practi-
cal spirituality in our relationship with crying children of humanity. He
also calls for transformation of politics as he writes: “Politics has to evolve,
politics with compassionate intelligence.” He also tells us: “[…] globalize
compassion through protecting our children, because they are all our chil-
dren” (Satyarthi in Gill 2016: 23).
All of them challenge us to realize new meanings of life in the midst of
challenges of poverty and cruelty. I wish to share here the following poem
of mine, which hopefully reflects the vision and practice of these seekers
and helps us to realize the vision and practice of practical spirituality in
our lives:

I thirst for faith and prayer

Love, Light and Water
Bread, Touch and Soul
An ocean of communication, compassion and communion.
xvi PREFACE

This poem invites us to realize communication, compassion, and com-

munion at the heart of our journey with practical spirituality. To realize
this we can draw inspiration from the following thoughts of Gandhi:

I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty.
I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest
Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.

We can also draw inspiration from the following thoughts of the philoso-
pher R. Sundara Rajan (1987: 83):

The possibility of finite transcendence is essentially the problem of the pos-

sibility of communication—i.e., communication or dialogue between sub-
jects and a communication or dialogue of human subjects with the world. It
is essentially to note that these two are aspects of a single dialogue, which we
may call the dialogue of transcendence.

Finally we hope this book helps us realize the significance of practical

spirituality and human development in our lives and undertake transfor-
mative meditation and works to create a world of more beauty, dignity,
and dialogues.

Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Ananta Kumar Giri

Durgapuja, September 25, 2017

References
Dalai Lama and Deshmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams. 2016. The Book of Joy:
Lasting Happiness in a Changing World. London: Penguin Books.
Gill, Kaveri (ed.). 2016. Celebrating His Holiness The Dalai Lama. New Delhi:
Timeless Books.
Giri, Ananta Kumar. 2013. The Calling of Practical Spirituality. In idem, Knowledge
and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations. London: Anthem
Press.
Paranjape, Makarand (ed.). 2008. Science and Spirituality in Modern India. Delhi:
Anthem Press.
Sunder Rajan, R. 1987. Towards a Critique of Cultural Reason. Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
 Contents

1 Practical Spirituality and Human Development:

An Introduction and an Invitation   1
Ananta Kumar Giri

Part I Practical Spirituality: Understanding New Modes of

Thinking and Transformative Practice  11

2 The Calling of Practical Spirituality  13

Ananta Kumar Giri

3 What It Means to Be Religious?  31

Ashgar Ali Engineer

4 Practical Spirituality: Human Beings Evolving into a Higher

Level of Communion and Ethical Relation with One
Another  35
Janine Joyce

5 Critical Spirituality: Towards a Revitalised Humanity  53

Marcus Bussey

6 Practices of Nontheistic Spirituality  63

Peter Heehs

xvii
xviii Contents

7 The Ashram as a Secular Place: An Understanding of the

Human as a Spiritual Place  81
Jyoti Sahi

8 There Is No Path: And You Are on It—Searching for the

Self in Starting from Zero  97
Hazen Robert Walker

9 Life Is Story: Tales and Journeys in Practical Spirituality

in the Aesthetic Plasma of Story in the Lila 109
Barbara A. Amodio

10 Creative Nonfiction Is Everything: Postmodernism,

Groundlessness, and the Dual Portrait 137
Elizabeth S. Gunn

11 Concrete and Abstract Realities 155

Henk de Weijer

12 Divine Path of Humanity: Co-creating “In the Image

of God” 179
Nina Goncharova

Part II Practical Spirituality and Transformation of Religions

and Societies 187

13 Brahman and Karman: The Theory of Institutional Action

in the Bhagavadgı ̄tā 189
Binod Kumar Agarwala

14 Practical Spirituality: Judaic and Multi-faith Practices

of Transformations 217
Rabbi Pamela Frydman

15 Practical Spirituality and the Desert Fathers 237

Shlomit C. Schuster
 Contents 
   xix

16 Mysticism, Sufism, and Practical Spirituality 257

Muhammad Maroof Shah

17 Quaker Process as Practical Spirituality for the

Anthropocene Age 277
Sara J. Wolcott

18 Paganism as Practical Spirituality 293

Melinda Reidinger

19 Beyond Self to Society and Sustainability: Lesson in

Practical Spirituality from Sikhism 315
Karminder Ghuman and Mohinder Pal Singh

20 Practical Spirituality and the Transformation of Political

Power: The Great Law of Peace and the Influence of
Iroquois Women and Policies on U.S. Women Suffragists 327
Julie Mazzarella Geredien

21 Tolstoy and Practical Spirituality 361

Christian Bartolf

22 Discovering Reality as Old as the Hills Assisted with

Gandhi’s Light: Some Notes on Practical Spirituality
and Human Development 371
Bernard “Bernie” Meyer

23 Building a Peaceful World and the Calling of Practical

Spirituality: Mahatma Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer 385
Predrag Cicovacki

24 Falling Together: Practical Spirituality in an Impractical

World 407
Paul Schwartzentruber
xx Contents

25 Thomas Berry: A New Cosmology and Practical

Spirituality 435
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim

26 Mysticism, Practical Spirituality, and Hospitality: Walking

and Meditating with Jacques Derrida 445
Nishant Alphonse Irudayadason

27 Afterword: Worlds of Mindful Practices 461

Piet Strydom

Index 477
 Notes on Editor and Contributors

Editor

Ananta Kumar Giri is a professor at the Madras Institute of Development

Studies, Chennai, India. He has taught at and done research in many uni-
versities in India and abroad, including Aalborg University (Denmark),
Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris (France), the University of Kentucky
(USA), University of Freiburg & Humboldt University (Germany),
Jagiellonian University (Poland) and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi. He has an abiding interest in social movements and cultural change,
criticism, creativity and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories
of self, culture and society, and creative streams in education, philosophy
and literature. Giri has written and edited around two dozen books in Odia
and English, including Global Transformations: Postmodernity and Beyond
(1998); Sameekhya o Purodrusti (Criticism and Vision of the Future; 1999);
Patha Prantara Nrutattwa (Anthropology of the Street Corner; 2000);
Mochi o Darshanika (The Cobbler and the Philosopher; 2009); Sri
Jagannathanka Saha: Khyaya, Khata o Kehetra (With Sri Jagannatha: Loss,
Wound and the Field; 2018); Conversations and Transformations: Toward
a New Ethics of Self and Society (2002); Self-Development and Social
Transformations? The Vision and Practice of Self-Study Mobilization of
Swadhyaya (2008); Mochi o Darshanika (The Cobbler and the Philosopher;
2009); Sociology and Beyond: Windows and Horizons (2012), Knowledge
and Human Liberation: Towards Planetary Realizations (2013); Philosophy
and Anthropology: Border-Crossing and Transformations (co-edited with
John Clammer; 2013); New Horizons of Human Development (editor;

xxi
xxii NOTES ON EDITOR AND CONTRIBUTORS

2015); Pathways of Creative Research: Towards a Festival of Dialogues (edi-

tor; 2017); Cultivating Pathways of Creative Research: New Horizons of
Transformative Practice and Collaborative Imagination (editor; 2017);
Research as Realization: Science, Spirituality and Harmony (editor; 2017);
The Aesthetics of Development: Art, Culture and Social Transformation (co-
editor with John Clammer; 2017); Beyond Sociology (editor; 2018); Social
Theory and Asian Dialogues: Cultivating Planetary Conversations (editor;
2018); Weaving New Hats: Our Half Birthdays (2018); Beyond
Cosmopolitanism: Towards Planetary Transformations (editor; 2018); and
Transformative Harmony (editor; 2018).

Contributors

Binod Kumar Agarwala (born in 1953) is working as Dean, School of

Humanities, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India. He joined as
Professor of Philosophy at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India,
after teaching for more than two decades at Lucknow University, Lucknow.
He began his academic career with a brief stint at Visva-Bharati,
Santiniketan. He graduated with first class honors in Physics from Hans
Raj College, University of Delhi. With M.A. and M. Phil. from University
of Delhi and Ph.D. from Lucknow University, Agarwala is actively engaged
in research in the Critical Philosophy of Kant, political philosophy, philo-
sophical hermeneutics, and understanding of classical Indian texts like the
Bhagavadgı̄tā, the Upaniṣads, two Paramār thasāras by Ā diśeṣa and
Abhinavagupta, respectively, and Bhartṛhari’sVākyapadı̄ya. He has written
scholarly essays in political philosophy, Kant’s Critical Philosophy, and the
philosophy of the Bhagavadgı̄tā in international journals like Journal of
Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Sandhān, and Indian Philosophical
Quarterly and in books edited by eminent scholars.
Barbara A. Amodio is a semi-retired professor, higher education admin-
istrator, field researcher, and published writer in comparative Western and
non-Western philosophy, sacred aesthetics and symbols, intercultural stud-
ies, world diversity, comparative phenomenologies of consciousness, and
philosophy of world religions and spirituality. She writes on Indian, Chinese,
Middle Eastern, Indo-Celtic-Mediterranean and Indo-Asian process phi-
losophy, mathematical mysticism, comparative medical philosophy, and
more. Fluent in several languages, she has researched, traveled, and taught
extensively on several continents. Lifelong learning and Jesuit tradition led
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 And these toes.

What soles to charm an elf!

Had Crusoe, sick of self,
Chanced to view
One printed near the tide,
Oh, how hard he would have tried
For the two!

For Gerry’s debonair

And innocent, and fair
As a rose;
She’s an angel in a frock,
With a fascinating cock
To her nose.

The simpletons who squeeze

Their extremities to please
Mandarins,
Would positively flinch
From venturing to pinch
Geraldine’s.

Cinderella’s lefts and rights,

To Geraldine’s were frights;
And I trow,
The damsel, deftly shod,
Has dutifully trod
Until now.

Come, Gerry, since it suits

Such a pretty Puss (in Boots)
These to don;
Set this dainty hand awhile
On my shoulder, dear, and I’ll
Put them on.

ON A SENSE OF HUMOUR
He cannot be complete in aught
Who is not humorously prone;
A man without a merry thought
Can hardly have a funny-bone.
 SOME LADIES
Some ladies now make pretty songs,
And some make pretty nurses;
Some men are great at righting wrongs
And some at writing verses.

A TERRIBLE INFANT
I recollect a nurse call’d Ann,
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up, and kiss’d the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, “Aha!
When I can talk I’ll tell Mamma”
—And that’s my earliest recollection.

Charles Stuart Calverley is called the Prince of Parodists, but his

genius deserves far higher praise than that.
His serious work is of a high order but it is for his humorous verse
that he is most loved and praised.
His parodies while showing the best and finest burlesque
qualities, are also poems in themselves, and are of an exquisite wit
and a spontaneous humor rarely excelled.
One of the best is the ballad in which Rossetti’s manner is
parodied in very spirit.
BALLAD
PART I

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.

The piper he piped on the hilltop high,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said “I die,” and the goose asked “Why?”
And the dog said nothing, but search’d for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;

 (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard—
The connection of which the plot one sees.

The farmer’s daughter hath frank blue eyes;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies.
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.
PART II

She sat with her hands ’neath her dimpled cheeks,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she didn’t even sneeze.

She sat, with her hands ’neath her crimson cheeks;

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She gave up mending her father’s breeks,
And let the cat roll in her new chemise.

She sat with her hands ’neath her burning cheeks,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she follow’d him o’er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them,

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And this song is consider’d a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it’s what you please.

Equally marvelous in its assured touch and utter lack of mere

burlesque exaggeration is his parody of Browning.
THE COCK AND THE BULL
You see this pebble-stone? It’s a thing I bought
Of a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day.
I like to dock the smaller parts o’ speech,
As we curtail the already cur-tail’d cur—
(You catch the paronomasia, play ’po’ words?)
Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days.
Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,
And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for same
By way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange—
“Chop” was my snickering dandiprat’s own term—
One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm.
O-n-e one, and f-o-u-r four
Pence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?—
What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock,
One day (and what a roaring day it was
Go shop or sight-see—bar a spit o’ rain!)
In February, eighteen, sixty-nine,
Alexandria Victoria, Fidei—
Hm—hm—how runs the jargon? being on the throne.
Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,
The basis or substratum—what you will—
Of the impending eighty thousand lines.
“Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge.
But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:
Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.
That shilling—and for matter o’ that, the pence—
I had o’ course upo’ me—wi’ me say—
(Mecum’s the Latin, make a note o’ that)
When I popp’d pen i’ stand, scratch’d ear, wiped snout,
(Let everybody wipe his own himself)
Sniff’d—tch!—at snuff-box; tumbled up, teheed,
Haw-haw’d (not hee-haw’d, that’s another guess thing),
Then fumbled at and stumbled out of, door.
I shoved the timber ope wi’ my omoplat;
And in vestibulo, i’ the lobby to wit
(Iacobi Facciolati’s rendering, sir),
Donn’d galligaskins, antigropeloes,
And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,
One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand,
And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o’ rain,
I flopp’d forth, ’sbuddikins! on my own ten toes
(I do assure you there be ten of them),
And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale
To find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy.
But case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ bought
This sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy,
This pebble thing, o’ the boy-thing? Q. E. D.
That’s proven without aid from mumping Pope,
Sleek proporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You’re in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling—having i’ fact a lot—
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis,-di,-dem,-de—
What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun,
For one and fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.

But now (by virtue of the said exchange
And barter) vice versa all the coin,
Per juris operationem, vests
I’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom;
(In sæcula sæculo-o-o-rum;
I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)
To have and hold the same to him and them.
Confer some idiot on Conveyancing.

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,

And all that appertaineth thereunto,
Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem
(I fancy, sir, my Latin’s rather pat),
Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should
(Subaudi cætera—clap we to the close—
For what’s the good of Law in a case o’ the kind),
Is mine to all intents and purposes.
This settled, I resume the thread o’ the tale.

Now for a touch o’ the vendor’s quality.

He says a gen’lman bought a pebble of him
(This pebble i’ sooth, sir, which I hold i’ my hand),
And paid for’t, like a gen’lman, on the nail.
“Did I o’ercharge him a ha’penny? Devil a bit.
Fiddlepin’s end! Get out, you blazing ass!
Gabble o’ the goose. Don’t bugaboo-baby me!
Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what’s the odds?”
There’s the transaction view’d i’ the vendor’s light.

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,

With her three frowsy blowsy brats o’ babes,
The scum o’ the kennel, cream o’ the filth-heap—Faugh!
Aie, aie, aie, aie! οτοτοτοτοτοι
(’Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now),
And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Jill,
Blear’d Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.
Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad

A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square,
And carry it off per saltum, jauntily,
Propria quae maribus, gentleman’s property now
(Agreeably to the law explain’d above),
In proprium usum, for his private ends,
The boy he chuck’d a brown i’ the air, and bit
I’ the face the shilling; heaved a thumping stone
At a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by
(And hit her, dead as nail i’ post o’ door),
Then abiit—what’s the Ciceronian phrase?—
Excessit, evasit, erupit—off slogs boy;
Off like bird, avi similis—you observed
The dative? Pretty i’ the Mantuan!)—Anglice
Off in three flea skips. Hactenus, so far,
So good, tam bene. Bene, satis, male,—
Where was I with my trope ’bout one in a quag?
I did once hitch the syntax into verse:
Verbum personale, a verb personal,
Concordat—ay, “agrees,” old Fatchaps—cum
Nominativo, with its nominative,
Genere, i’ point o’ gender, numero,
O’ number, et persona, and person. Ut,
Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et, and,
Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I’m going mad.
You see the trick on ’t though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse ad libitum.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at;
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy.

While the style of Jean Ingelow is thus genially made fun of.
LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION
In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Through God’s own heather we wonned together,

I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats wavered alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing

(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight!

Through the rare red heather we danced together,

(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was glorious weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:—

By rises that flushed with their purple favors,

Through becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,
We walked or waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,

In “fortunate parallels!” Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock’s eyes:

Song-birds darted about, some inky

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!
But they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes,
Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;
They need no parasols, no galoshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst his heather)

That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—
Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:

And Willie ’gan sing—(O, his notes were fluty;

Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)—
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry”:

Bowers of flowers encountered showers

In William’s carol (O love my Willie!)
When he bade sorrow borrow from blithe To-morrow
I quite forget what—say a daffodilly:

A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”

I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,

And all least furlable things got “furled”;
Not with any design to conceal their glories,
But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”

* * * * *

O, if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,

And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together this genial weather,
And carted, or carried on wafts away,
Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be!

ODE TO TOBACCO
Thou who, when fears attack,
Bid’st them avaunt, and Black
Care, at the horseman’s back
Perching, unseatest;
Sweet when the morn is gray;
Sweet, when they’ve cleared away
Lunch; and at close of day
Possibly sweetest:

I have a liking old

For thee, though manifold
Stories, I know, are told,
Not to thy credit;
How one (or two at most)
Drops make a cat a ghost—
Useless, except to roast—
Doctors have said it:

How they who use fusees

All grow by slow degrees
Brainless as chimpanzees,
Meagre as lizards;
Go mad, and beat their wives;
Plunge (after shocking lives)
Razors and carving-knives
Into their gizzards.

Confound such knavish tricks!

Yet know I five or six
Smokers who freely mix
Still with their neighbors;
Jones—(who, I’m glad to say,
Asked leave of Mrs. J.)—
Daily absorbs a clay
After his labors.

Cats may have had their goose

Cooked by tobacco-juice;
Still why deny its use
Thoughtfully taken?
We’re not as tabbies are:
Smith, take a fresh cigar!
Jones, the tobacco-jar!
Here’s to thee, Bacon!

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is better known as Lewis Carroll,

though during his lifetime, the author of Alice was extremely careful
to preserve a decided distinction between the College Don and the
writer of nonsense.
Lewis Carroll was the first to produce coherent humor in the form
of sheer nonsense, and his work, often imitated, has never been
equaled.
Beside the Alice books he wrote several volumes only a degree
less wise and witty in the nonsense vein.
But few selections can be given.
JABBERWOCKY
(From Through the Looking-Glass)
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

WAYS AND MEANS

I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
“Who are you, aged man?” I said,
“And how is it you live?”
His answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.

He said, “I look for butterflies

That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,” he said,
“Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread—
A trifle, if you please.”

But I was thinking of a plan

To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, “Come, tell me how you live!”
And thumped him on the head.

His accents mild took up the tale;

He said, “I go my ways
And when I find a mountain-rill
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rowland’s Macassar Oil—
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.”

But I was thinking of a way

 To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue;
“Come, tell me how you live,” I cried,
“And what it is you do!”

He said, “I hunt for haddock’s eyes

Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine,
But for a copper halfpenny
And that will purchase nine.

“I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,

Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom cabs.
And that’s the way” (he gave a wink)
“By which I get my wealth—
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honor’s noble health.”

I heard him then, for I had just

Completed my design
To keep the Menai Bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

And now if e’er by chance I put

My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know—
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly, and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo—
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.

SOME HALLUCINATIONS
He thought he saw an Elephant,
That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
A letter from his wife.
“At length I realize,” he said,
“The bitterness of Life!”

He thought he saw a Buffalo

Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
His Sister’s Husband’s Niece.
“Unless you leave this house,” he said,
“I’ll send for the Police!”

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake

That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
“The one thing I regret,” he said,
“Is that it cannot speak!”

He thought he saw a Banker’s Clerk

Descending from the ’bus:
He looked again, and found it was
A Hippopotamus:
“If this should stay to dine,” he said,
“There won’t be much for us!”

Edward Lear, contemporary of Lewis Carroll, is the only peer of

the great writer of nonsense.
 Lear’s nonsense is in different vein, but his verses are equally
facile and felicitous and his prose quite as delightfully extravagant.
If Carroll’s imagination was more exquisitely fanciful, Lear’s had a
broader scope, and both writers are masters of that peculiar
combination of paradox and reasoning that makes for delightful
surprise.
Lear was the first to make popular the style of stanza since called
a Limerick, though the derivation of this name has never been
satisfactorily determined.
There was an old man of Thermopylæ,
Who never did anything properly;
But they said: “If you choose
To boil eggs in your shoes,
You cannot remain in Thermopylæ.”

There was an Old Man who said, “Hush!

I perceive a young bird in this bush!”
When they said, “Is it small?”
He replied, “Not at all;
It is four times as big as the bush!”

There was an Old Man who supposed

That the street door was partially closed;
But some very large Rats
Ate his coats and his hats,
While that futile Old Gentleman dozed.

There was an Old Man of Leghorn,

The smallest that ever was born;
But quickly snapt up he
Was once by a Puppy,
Who devoured that Old Man of Leghorn.

There was an Old Man of Kamschatka

Who possessed a remarkably fat Cur;
His gait and his waddle
Were held as a model
To all the fat dogs in Kamschatka.

THE TWO OLD BACHELORS

Two old Bachelors were living in one house
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,
“This happens just in time, for we’ve nothing in the house,
Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey,
And what to do for dinner,—since we haven’t any money?
And what can we expect if we haven’t any dinner
But to lose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?”

Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,
“We might cook this little Mouse if we only had some Stuffin’!
If we had but Sage and Onions we could do extremely well,
But how to get that Stuffin’ it is difficult to tell!”

And then these two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops or in the Market or in all the Gardens round.

But some one said, “A hill there is, a little to the north,
And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;
And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,—
An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
Climb up and seize him by the toes,—all studious as he sits,—
And pull him down, and chop him into endless little bits!
Then mix him with your Onion (cut up likewise into scraps),
And your Stuffin’ will be ready, and very good—perhaps.”

And then these two old Bachelors, without loss of time,

The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage a-reading of a most enormous book.
“You earnest Sage!” aloud they cried, “your book you’ve read enough in!
We wish to chop you into bits and mix you into Stuffin’!”

But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book
At those two Bachelors’ bald heads a certain aim he took;
And over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,—
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town;
And when they reached their house, they found (besides their want of Stuffin’)
The Mouse had fled—and previously had eaten up the Muffin.

They left their home in silence by the once convivial door;

And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.
 Algernon Charles Swinburne, whose marvelous mastery of the
lyric is well known, is not so noted as a humorist.
Yet his parodies are among the finest in the language. His day
was the Golden Age of Parody, and the writers who achieved it were
true poets and true wits.
This parody of Tennyson is alike a perfect mimicry of sound and
sense.
THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSHELL
One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is;
Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under;
If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;

We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover;
Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight;
Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate.

Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels;
God, once caught in the fact, shews you a fair pair of heels.

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which;
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch.

One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two;
Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks;

Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew.

You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock;
Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock.
God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see;
Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

Swinburne’s parody of his own work is beautifully done in

NEPHELIDIA
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of
nebulous moonshine,
Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as
they float,
Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous
moonshine,
These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with
throbs through the throat?
Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor’s appalled agitation,
Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in
the past;
Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe
recreation,
Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the
gloaming when ghosts go aghast?
Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of
terror,
Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the
dust-heaps of death;
Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic emotional exquisite error,
Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beatitude’s breath.
Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses
Sweetens the stress of surprising suspicion that sobs in the semblance and
sound of a sigh;
Only this oracle opens Olympian, in mystical moods and triangular tenses,—
“Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when
we die.”
Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be,
While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men’s rapiers,
resigned to the rod;
Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of
a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a
groan for the grimness of God.
Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than
bluer:
 Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of
the bloodshed of things:
Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs
that pursue her,
Till the heart-beats of hell shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has
harried the kennel of kings.

Henry Austin Dobson, better known without his first name, was a
skillful writer of beautiful vers de société.
He also wrote much in the French Forms and seemed to find
them in no way trammeling.
ON A FAN
THAT BELONGED TO THE MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR
(Ballade)
Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light,
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty frou-frou
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew,—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

See how they rise at the sight,

Thronging the Œil de Bœuf through,
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falaba, queue,
Cardinal, duke,—to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue,—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

Ah, but things more than polite

Hung on this toy, voyez-vous
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, maybe, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;—
Here was the sign and the cue,—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
 Envoy
Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
—But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

THE ROUNDEAU
You bid me try, Blue-eyes, to write
A Rondeau. What! forthwith?—tonight?
Reflect? Some skill I have, ’tis true;
But thirteen lines!—and rhymed on two!—
“Refrain,” as well. Ah, hapless plight!
Still there are five lines—ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you—
You bid me try!

That makes them eight.—The port’s in sight;

’Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in “oo,”—
When maids command, what can’t we do?
Behold! The Rondeau—tasteful, light—
You bid me try!

Andrew Lang was perhaps the most versatile writer among

English bookmen of his day. Verse or prose, religious research or
translations, to each and all he gives his individual touch,—light, airy,
humorous.
Fairies, Dreams and Ghosts are all his happy hunting ground, and
he was one of the first to experiment with the old French Forms, in
which he gave his own delightful fancy free play, while adhering
strictly to the inflexible rules.
BALLAD OF THE PRIMITIVE JEST
I am an ancient Jest!
Paleolithic man
In his arboreal nest
The sparks of fun would fan;
My outline did he plan,
And laughed like one possessed,
’Twas thus my course began,
I am a Merry Jest.

I am an early Jest!
Man delved and built and span;
Then wandered South and West
The peoples Aryan,
I journeyed in their van;
The Semites, too, confessed,—
From Beersheba to Dan,—
I am a Merry Jest.

I am an ancient Jest,
Through all the human clan,
Red, black, white, free, oppressed,
Hilarious I ran!
I’m found in Lucian,
In Poggio, and the rest,
I’m dear to Moll and Nan!
I am a Merry Jest!

Prince, you may storm and ban—

Joe Millers are a pest,
Suppress me if you can!
I am a Merry Jest!

BALLADE OF LITERARY FAME

Oh, where are the endless Romances
Our grandmothers used to adore?
The knights with their helms and their lances,
Their shields and the favours they wore?
And the monks with their magical lore?
They have passed to Oblivion and Nox,
They have fled to the shadowy shore,—
They are all in the Fourpenny Box!

And where the poetical fancies

Our fathers rejoiced in, of yore?
The lyric’s melodious expanses,
The epics in cantos a score,
They have been and are not: no more
Shall the shepherds drive silvery flocks,
Nor the ladies their languors deplore,—