entry in a literary encyclopedia includes the following descriptive words: peculiar, melancholic, argumentative, inherent indolence, almost pathological shyness, coarseness, irreverence, bitter, misanthropic, lover of luxury and pomp, querulous), John Armstrong was a Scottish physician who wrote a famous didactic poem on preserving health.
Despite his rather fearsome reputation, a favored few found him “sweet-tempered and whimsical,” although those reading “The Art of Preserving Health” might find
bilious
more appropriate.
from The Art of Preserving Health
Book II—Diet
Enough of air. A desert subject now,
Rougher and wilder rises to my sight.…
…
Half subtilised to chyle, the liquid food
Readiest obeys the assimilating powers;
And soon the tender vegetable mass
Relents.…
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
For more, the oily ailments relax
Its feeble tone, and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate all it meets)
Coyly they mix, and shun with slippery wiles
The woo’d embrace. The irresoluble oil,
So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o’erflows: what tumults hence,
What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gummy nutriment imbibes.
ALFRED AUSTIN
(1835-1913)
I n Alfred Austin’s monumental
The Human Tragedy,
his heroine, Urania, poses what for the poem is a rather quick question:
Do you not find Nature’s unpunctuality retrieves our too precise
forebodings, filling up all disappointing vacancies with gifts not
reckoned in our calendar?
Such is
The Human Tragedy,
which the prolix poet viewed as his magnum opus and over which he labored for many years, through four editions. Although his work was largely ignored by the critics and the public, Austin remained unconcerned, quite convinced of his own Byronic literary genius, which also extended to the writing of plays and an autobiography. According to the latter, his first book bore the wonderful title
Randolph, A Tale of Polish Grief
and sold seventeen copies. Largely because the conservative government wanted a safe, conservative poet, Austin became England’s poet laureate.
Supposedly pompous, egotistical, and certainly verbose and prone to using obscure words and phrases, the poet was also known for his breast fixation, which is much in evidence in his poetry. Breasts appear in often unexpected ways or places, often doing unexpected things, such as ploughing the brine or opening doors. A notable specimen of breasts on a platter occurs in Florence.
In that same palace, the Uffizi, I
Remember to have marked a virgin lift
Upon a silver salver up on high
The offering of her breasts—no trivial gift.
from
The Human Tragedy
But the fleet hours pass pitilessly fleeter,
Or where, half-sadly warbling as it went,
Like a boy-poets’ happy discontent.
….
The stiff wain creaks ’neath the nodding wheat;
Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree.
The babe is hushed on its mother’s teat,
And the acorn drops at your dreaming feet,
Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree.
The whimpering winds have lost their way,
Scream, yaffel, scream from tree to tree.
The following excerpt, from the same extremely long poem, is a fulmination against what Austin apparently considered a scourge of mankind—the padded bra.
from
The Human Tragedy
And do they wear that lubricating lie,
That fleshless falsehood! Palpitating maids
Puff themselves out with hollow buxomness,
To lead some breathless gaby at their heels
A scentless paper chase!
from
“Go Away, Death!”
Go away, Death!
You have come too soon.
To sunshine and song I but just awaken,
And the dew on my heart is undried and unshaken;
Come back at noon.
from
“The Wind Speaks”
XI
The flocks of the wandering waves I hold
In the hollows of my hand,
And I let them loose, like a huddled fold,
And with them I flood the land.
XII
Till they
Despite his rather fearsome reputation, a favored few found him “sweet-tempered and whimsical,” although those reading “The Art of Preserving Health” might find
bilious
more appropriate.
from The Art of Preserving Health
Book II—Diet
Enough of air. A desert subject now,
Rougher and wilder rises to my sight.…
…
Half subtilised to chyle, the liquid food
Readiest obeys the assimilating powers;
And soon the tender vegetable mass
Relents.…
The languid stomach curses even the pure
Delicious fat, and all the race of oil:
For more, the oily ailments relax
Its feeble tone, and with the eager lymph
(Fond to incorporate all it meets)
Coyly they mix, and shun with slippery wiles
The woo’d embrace. The irresoluble oil,
So gentle late and blandishing, in floods
Of rancid bile o’erflows: what tumults hence,
What horrors rise, were nauseous to relate.
Choose leaner viands, ye whose jovial make
Too fast the gummy nutriment imbibes.
ALFRED AUSTIN
(1835-1913)
I n Alfred Austin’s monumental
The Human Tragedy,
his heroine, Urania, poses what for the poem is a rather quick question:
Do you not find Nature’s unpunctuality retrieves our too precise
forebodings, filling up all disappointing vacancies with gifts not
reckoned in our calendar?
Such is
The Human Tragedy,
which the prolix poet viewed as his magnum opus and over which he labored for many years, through four editions. Although his work was largely ignored by the critics and the public, Austin remained unconcerned, quite convinced of his own Byronic literary genius, which also extended to the writing of plays and an autobiography. According to the latter, his first book bore the wonderful title
Randolph, A Tale of Polish Grief
and sold seventeen copies. Largely because the conservative government wanted a safe, conservative poet, Austin became England’s poet laureate.
Supposedly pompous, egotistical, and certainly verbose and prone to using obscure words and phrases, the poet was also known for his breast fixation, which is much in evidence in his poetry. Breasts appear in often unexpected ways or places, often doing unexpected things, such as ploughing the brine or opening doors. A notable specimen of breasts on a platter occurs in Florence.
In that same palace, the Uffizi, I
Remember to have marked a virgin lift
Upon a silver salver up on high
The offering of her breasts—no trivial gift.
from
The Human Tragedy
But the fleet hours pass pitilessly fleeter,
Or where, half-sadly warbling as it went,
Like a boy-poets’ happy discontent.
….
The stiff wain creaks ’neath the nodding wheat;
Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree.
The babe is hushed on its mother’s teat,
And the acorn drops at your dreaming feet,
Flit, yaffel, flit from tree to tree.
The whimpering winds have lost their way,
Scream, yaffel, scream from tree to tree.
The following excerpt, from the same extremely long poem, is a fulmination against what Austin apparently considered a scourge of mankind—the padded bra.
from
The Human Tragedy
And do they wear that lubricating lie,
That fleshless falsehood! Palpitating maids
Puff themselves out with hollow buxomness,
To lead some breathless gaby at their heels
A scentless paper chase!
from
“Go Away, Death!”
Go away, Death!
You have come too soon.
To sunshine and song I but just awaken,
And the dew on my heart is undried and unshaken;
Come back at noon.
from
“The Wind Speaks”
XI
The flocks of the wandering waves I hold
In the hollows of my hand,
And I let them loose, like a huddled fold,
And with them I flood the land.
XII
Till they
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