Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
William John Courthope b. 1842From The Paradise of Birds. II. OdeTo the Roc
O
As porter of the Pole,
Of beakless things, who have no wings,
Exact no heavy toll.
If this my song its theme should wrong,
The theme itself is sweet;
Let others rhyme the unborn time,
I sing the Obsolete.
Of birds preceding Noah,
The giant clan, whose meat was Man,
Dinornis, Apteryx, Moa.
These, by the hints we get from prints
Of feathers and of feet,
Excell’d in wits the later tits,
And so are obsolete.
In their primeval woods,
While Gospel Aid inspires Free-Trade
To traffic with their goods.
With Norman Dukes the still Sioux
In breeding might compete;
But where men talk the tomahawk
Will soon grow obsolete.
Great cities plough’d to loam;
Chaldæan kings; the Bulls with wings;
Dead Greece, and dying Rome.
The Druids’ shrine may shelter swine,
Or stack the farmer’s peat;
’T is thus mean moths treat finest cloths,
Mean men the obsolete.
The Ptolemaic system?
Figure and phrase, that bent all ways
Duns Scotus lik’d to twist ’em?
Averrhoes’ thought? and what was taught
In Salamanca’s seat?
Sihons and Ogs? and showers of frogs?
Sea-serpents obsolete?
Dead is “the Tally-ho;”
Steam rails cut down each festive crown
Of the old world and slow;
Jack-in-the-Green no more is seen.
Nor Maypole in the street;
No mummers play on Christmas-day;
St. George is obsolete.
So many a frolic fashion?
Doublet and hose, and powder’d beaux?
Where are thy songs, whose passion
Turn’d thought to fire in knight and squire,
While hearts of ladies beat?
Where thy sweet style, ours, ours erewhile?
All this is obsolete.
Upon volcanoes old;
The moon, they say, had her young day,
Though now her heart is cold;
Even so our earth, sorrow and mirth,
Seasons of snow and heat,
Check’d by her tides in silence glides
To become obsolete.
Reads, in its fatal sky,
“Man’s largest room is the low tomb—
Ye all are born to die.”
Therefore this theme, O Birds, I deem
The noblest we may treat;
The final cause of Nature’s laws
Is to grow obsolete.