The San Francisco call., 1899-10-15

fight. Old Time is slow in New York,
but he has won in every match SO far.
If the inillionaires who have provided
the sport for the entertainment of na-
tions cannot raise the wind to make the
affair interesting they would do we'll to
call the races off and submit the thing
to arbitration
Now that the talking between the Boer
and the Briton has ceased and shooting
has begun, the fervor of American SYM
pathy with the little fellow in the fight
has reached the singing point and poetry
pours forth from every quarter Of the
country exhorting the Afrikanders to be
valiant and sweep the Anglo-Saxon from
the land. All of this poetry is worse
than wasted. The Beers have songs of
their own. For the benefit of those who
like to express their sympathy by sing
ing it may be worth while to state that
a specimen verse of the national hymn
of the Transvaal runs thus:
Waai hoog in ons helder lug
Transvaalse vrijhedsvlag,
Ons vljande is weggevlug;
Nou blink bljer dag
I know not the tune of 1t, but that
is a minor matter. The words are the
main thing and these sound warlike
sibly to the hearts Of foes, no matter in
what rhythm they be chanted or what
melody sung. Doubtless they will strike
as much terror into the British as fell
upon the Filipino when for the first time
he heard an American regiment shaking
the air Of the tropic evening with a
grand chorus of that chivalric battle
song, "A Hot Time in the Old Town To-
Night"
The best outcome of the racket in the
Transvaal thus far has been the reawak-
ening of Algernon Swinburne from his
long intellectual slumber 1t Is true the
sonnet he sent forth on awakening is of
no value as contribution to literature
to history or the news of the day, for it
was hoarse and uneven as If the singer
had a frog in his throat, and wild and in
coherent as if he were singing under the
influence OF a nightmare. Such defects
however, are due probably to the fact
that the poet was not fully awake when
he uttered his song. Better things are
to be expected of him and will surely
come if the war rouse him to mental ac-
tivity again. The educated world, sati-
ated with Kiping's barrack room style
Of rhyme, is beginning to long for some
thing Of genuine literary elegance, and
Swinburne is the only man In England
who can furnish it in the form of poetry
If Dom Paul bring him from retirement
and sets him to work again the old Boer
will have conferred some benefit on liter
ature, whatever damage he may do in
other ways.
1t is said there are among the Brit
ish many bitter enemies of the Ameri-
can people and the saying may be true
At any rate there is a fellow over there
with brains enough to write and money
enough to have his book published who
has set about melting poets of this coun-
try to strike their Tyres and make
noise incessantly. In an lode to Amer
ica' he declares:
Thy lyric Muse
Haunted by songs of either Oceans waves,
Shall dip her pinions in celestial hues,
And strike the note of new Poesy In minstrels
yet unborn.
And sing the twilight solitude
or many old primeval wood.
And celebrate the dawn of Freedoms ar1pler
morn.
The dithyrambc eloquence Of that apos-
trophe sounds like praise, but was doubt
less intended to incite domestic disturb
ance. 1t is hardly complimentary, for ex-
ample, to say our lyric muse is to dip her
hues are generally blue-deeply. darklv
blue. The only redeeming feature of it all
is the intimation that the muse will strike
her new poesy in minstrels who are as yet
unborn. There is something of hope in
that. Perhaps minstrels now born will
keep quiet.
1t is time the outpouring Of replies,
whether in prose or in verse to 'The Man
With the Hoe should be stopped by lynch
law if necessary, for the limit has been
reached, and sent to me, moreover, with
request for comment. 1t is too long to be
quoted in full; two stanzas will suffice,
and here they are:
in scorn forsake
OF whose green corn shall Markham, pray. In
scorn partake?
Lord almoner to queen, to maid of plaided
yoke.
Sun, Rain and God thy partners grand at every
stroke,
Is't more, or less than kin to Balaam's friend
who mocks
OF thee, ito rapture dead, a brother to the
ox?"
Thou heart of hard work, we bow to thy hoe
We thousand Wales, that mother fond the
fruiting vine,
we thousand Plalns WheTe million reapers
garner grain.
We thousand Hills, that Craze and green fore
God do nod
Protest we alive live not servants to a clod,
Likewise we million meadowed Homes, half
like to heav'n
Confirm fatherman Of earth the hope the
leav'n.
Ye scribes of embroil, beware of his hoe
AS for the request for comment. it must
be deferentially but firmly refused This
is not an objurgatory column, and I am
not a scribe of embroil.
There exist in the East certain associa-
tions known as mothers clubs and they
have been writing articles of vehement
controversy on the subject of Mother
Goose According to one of our exchanges
these clubs in no less than four leading
States have made movement to abolish
her melodies and jingles on the ground
that they are foolish, or, as the mothers
express 1t, "are vulgar, senseless jansle."
One mother is particularly severe on the
rhyme that tells how the COW jumped over
the moon, and says
'All the child knows of animal life is
what you are teaching him, and If he gets
false ideas it is because you have given
him wrong perspective. which his baby
mind absorbs and which he has to un-
tangle and learn later on. Why not give
him rhyme that is true?"