Will throw my championship.
But ’tis so cruel.
Is it so? I have hardly noticed that,
So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand,
That many a two days’ bruise hath ruthless given,
Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years,
Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport.
I am too squeamish for your dainty world,
That cowers behind the gallows and the lash,
The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil
Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies!
Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance
To Nature; cowering if one say to them
“What will the servants think?” Your gentlemen!
Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom
Flutter of wing and singing in the wood
Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men!
Groping for cures in the tormented entrails
Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these
To change their occupations? Find you mine
So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe
An air so petty and so poisonous.
But find you not their manners very nice?
To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend
With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends
Almost to the whole world, might for a Man
Pass in the eyes of those who never saw
The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods,
The duke turn footman, and his eager dame
Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid!
Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court
Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist
I could make all its windy vanity
Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well.
I did not choose my calling; but at least
I can refrain from being a gentleman.
You say farewell to me without a pang.
My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs.
This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it.
It is a lonely thing to be a champion.
It is a lonelier thing to be a woman.
Be lonely then. Shall it be said of thee
That for his brawn thou misalliance mad’st
Wi’ the Prince of Ruffians? Never. Go thy ways;
Or, if thou hast nostalgia of the mud,
Wed some bedoggéd wretch that on the slot
Of gilded snobbery, ventre à terre,
Will hunt through life with eager nose on earth
And hang thee thick with diamonds. I am rich;
But all my gold was fought for with my hands.
What dost thou mean by rich?
There is a man,
Hight Paradise, vaunted unconquerable,
Hath dared to say he will be glad to hear from me.
I have replied that none can hear from me
Until a thousand solid pounds be staked.
His friends have confidently found the money.
Ere fall of leaf that money shall be mine;
And then I shall possess ten thousand pounds.
I had hoped to tempt thee with that monstrous sum.
Thou silly Cashel, ’tis but a week’s income.
I did propose to give thee three times that
For pocket money when we two were wed.
Give me my hat. I have been fooling here.
Now, by the Hebrew lawgiver, I thought
That only in America such revenues
Were decent deemed. Enough. My dream is dreamed.
Your gold weighs like a mountain on my chest.
Farewell.
The golden mountain shall be thine
The day thou quit’st thy horrible profession.
Tempt me not, woman. It is honor calls.
Slave to the Ring I rest until the face
Of Paradise be changed.
Madam, your carriage,
Ordered by you at two. ’Tis now half-past.
Sdeath! is it half-past two? The king! the king!
The king! What mean you?
I must meet a monarch
This very afternoon at Islington.
At Islington! You must be mad.
A cab!
Go call a cab; and let a cab be called;
And let the man that calls it be thy footman.
You are not well. You shall not go alone.
My carriage waits. I must accompany you.
I go to find my hat. Exit.
Like Paracelsus,
Who went to find his soul. To Bashville. And now, young man,
How comes it that a fellow of your inches,
So deft a wrestler and so bold a spirit,
Can stoop to be a flunkey? Call on me
On your next evening out. I’ll make a man of you.
Surely you are ambitious and aspire—
To be a butler and draw corks; wherefore,
By Heaven, I will draw yours.
Thoughtfully putting the side of his forefinger to his nose, and studying the blood on it.
Too quick for me!
There’s money in this youth.
O Heaven! you bleed.
Lend me a key or other frigid object,
That I may put it down my back, and staunch
The welling life stream.
Giving him her keys. Oh, what have you done?
Flush on the boko napped your footman’s left.
I do not understand.
True. Pardon me.
I have received a blow upon the nose
In sport from Bashville. Next, ablution; else
I shall be total gules. He hurries out.
How well he speaks!
There is a silver trumpet in his lips
That stirs me to the finger ends. His nose
Dropt lovely color: ’tis a perfect blood.
I would ’twere mingled with mine own!
What now?
Madam, the coachman can no longer wait:
The horses will take cold.
I do beseech him
A moment’s grace. Oh, mockery of wealth!
The third class passenger unchidden rides
Whither and when he will: obsequious trams
Await him hourly: subterranean tubes
With tireless coursers whisk him through the town;
But we, the rich, are slaves to Houyhnhnms:
We wait upon their colds, and frowst all day
Indoors, if they but cough or spurn their hay.
Madam, an omnibus to Euston Road,
And thence t’ th’ Angel—
Let us haste, my love:
The coachman is impatient.
Did he guess
He stays for Cashel Byron, he’d outwait
Pompei’s sentinel. Let us away.
This day of deeds, as yet but half begun,
Must ended be in merrie Islington.
Gods! how she hangs on’s arm! I am alone.
Now let me lift the cover from my soul.
O wasted humbleness! Deluded diffidence!
How often have I said, Lie down, poor footman:
She’ll never stoop to thee, rear as thou wilt
Thy powder
