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And vulgar taste it is to eulogise—h’m!
This good-for-naught posterior appendage—
This obvious lapse of nature—this loose endage
That flaps slap in thy face, Æstheticism!
Man’s foot, I’m told, constrains him to the mire,
While ours, instead, to heaven exalts us higher.
Yon foolish parrots reach yet higher regions;
Are we, for that, below those spottled pigeons?
The fashion of our feet—say, ’tis degenerate—
For climbing’s now adapted best, at any rate?
Yes; but we’ve no desire with squirrels, thrushes,
Henceforth to skip and hop o’er trees and bushes;
Nor scurry down lianas’ high festoons,
But nicely sit in orderly saloons.
Last, as concerns our nudity—oh! let
Us thank our stars that to these woodland quarters,
From Europe have not penetrated yet
The Argus-eyes of newspaper reporters;
(That Europe where, in these days, in some places,
Of fair maid’s bosoms ’tis a crime to warble,
And whose police scarce suffer naked graces
In goddesses, though they’re antiques and marble;)
For if he overheard our so immoral
Debate and to his paper gave it entry,
And added comic cuts, as well as oral,—
As is the way with journalistic gentry—
Our Senate’s session would become the sport
Of the whole world of cultivated thought.
Enough of words. But of this vow take heed:
Let folly, let indifference resist,
Obscurist, tailist, or reactionist,
On with undaunted courage I’ll proceed
