The Poker, Clanging. I am the Poker the straight and the strong, Prone in the fire grate, Black at the nether end, Knobby and nebulous.
Fashioned for fight In the Pit Acherontic: Many have grappled me, Poised me and thrust me Into the glowing, The flashing and furious Heart of the fire. Raked with me, prized with me, Till on a sudden Besparked and encircled With Welsh or with Wallsend, Shattering, battering They drew me away. Others in rivalry, Thinking to better The previous performance, Seized me again; Pushed with a leverage Hard on the haft of me, Till with the shocks Sank the red fire, Shivered and sank Subdued into blackness. That is my Toil; I am the Poker.
Oh, and the burglar's head Often hath felt me, Hard, undesirable Cracker of craniums. I have drunk of the blood, The red blood, the life-blood Of the wife of the drunkard. Hoh! then, the glory. The joyous, ineffable Cup of fulfilment, When the policeman, Tall with a bull's-eye, Took me and shook me, Produced me in evidence, There in the dim Unappeasable grisliness Of the Police-Court. Women to shrink at me, Men to be cursed with me, Bloodstained, contemptuous, Laid on the table. I am the Minister, Azrael's Minister. I am the Poker.
[Illustration: VENUS (ANNO DOMINI 1892) RISES FROM THE SEA!!]
_Wednesday_.--Great German Night. Third Part of the Festival Play for Four Nights by RICHARD WAGNER, with (thank goodness just to lighten it) an English translation by the Messrs. CORDER.
"_Sursum Corder!_" A light and airy work as everyone knows is _Der Ring des Nibelungen_, or _The Nibelung's Ring_, requiring all the power of lungs to get the true ring out of the work. Hard work for singers, more so for orchestra, and most so for audience. As for the "Ring," there are a lot of animals in the Opera, but no horse, so the Circus entertainment is not complete until _Brünnhilde_ shall appear in the next part of the tetralogy, with her highly-trained steed. Odd! Throughout two long (and, ahem! somewhat weary, eh?) Acts, not a female singer visible on stage (though one sings "like a bird" off it,--that is, quite appropriately, "at the wings"), and not until the Third Act, does _Erda_ the witch "rise from below," and we all saw her and 'Erd 'er. Then, later on, appears _Brünnhilde_, asleep, "in a complete suit of gleaming plate-armour, with helmet on her head and long shield over her body," a style of free-and-easy costume which, as everyone knows, is highly conducive to sleeping in perfect comfort. No wonder _Siegfried_ mistakes her for a man-in-armour out of the Lord Mayor's Show, and exclaims,