Diversions of the Re-Echo Club

It is with pleasure that we announce our ability to offer to the public the papers of the Re-Echo Club. This club, somewhat after the order of the Echo Club, late of Boston, takes pleasure in trying to better what is done. On the occasion of the meeting of which the following gems of poesy are the result, the several members of the club engaged to write up the well-known tradition of the Purple Cow in more elaborate form than the quatrain made famous by Mr. Gelett Burgess:

"I never saw a Purple Cow,

  I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you anyhow,

  I'd rather see than be one."

I: Mr. J. Milton

HENCE, vain deluding cows.

The herd of folly, without colour bright,

How little you delight,

Or fill the Poet's mind, or songs arouse!

But, hail! thou goddess gay of feature!

Hail, divinest purple creature!

Oh, Cow, thy visage is too bright

To hit the sense of human sight.

And though I'd like, just once, to see thee,

I never, never, never'd be thee!

II: Mr. P. Bysshe Shelley

     HAIL to thee, blithe spirit!

       Cow thou never wert;

     But in life to cheer it

       Playest thy full part

In purple lines of unpremeditated art.

     The pale purple colour

       Melts around thy sight

     Like a star, but duller,

       In the broad daylight.

I'd see thee, but I would not be thee if I might.

     We look before and after

       At cattle as they browse;

     Our most hearty laughter

       Something sad must rouse.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of Purple Cows.

III: Mr. W. Wordsworth

SHE dwelt among the untrodden ways

  Beside the springs of Dee;

A Cow whom there were few to praise

  And very few to see.

A violet by a mossy stone

  Greeting the smiling East

Is not so purple, I must own,

  As that erratic beast.

She lived unknown, that Cow, and so

  I never chanced to see;

But if I had to be one, oh,

  The difference to me!

IV: Mr. T. Gray

THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

  The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;

I watched them slowly wend their weary way,

  But, ah, a Purple Cow I did not see.

Full many a cow of purplest ray serene

  Is haply grazing where I may not see;

Full many a donkey writes of her, I ween,

  But neither of these creatures would I be.

V: Mr. J. W. Riley

THERE, little Cow, don't cry!

  You are brindle and brown, I know.

And with wild, glad hues

Of reds and blues,

  You will never gleam and glow.

But though not pleasing to the eye,

There, little Cow, don't cry, don't cry.

VI: Lord A. Tennyson

ASK me no more. A cow I fain would see

Of purple tint, like a sun-soaked grape--

Of purple tint, like royal velvet cape--

But such a creature I would never be--

     Ask me no more.

VII: Mr. R. Browning

ALL that I know

Of a certain Cow

Is it can throw,

Somewhere, somehow,

Now a dart of red,

Now a dart of blue

  (That makes purple, 'tis said).

I would fain see, too.

The Cow that darkles the red and the blue!

VIII: Mr. J. Keats

A COW of purple is a joy forever.

Its loveliness increases. I have never

Seen this phenomenon. Yet ever keep

A brave lookout; lest I should be alseep

When she comes by. For, though I would not be one,

I've oft imagined 'twould be joy to see one.

IX: Mr. D. G. Rossetti

THE Purple Cow strayed in the glade;

  (Oh, my soul! but the milk is blue!)

She strayed and strayed and strayed and strayed

  (And I wail and I cry Wa-hoo!).

I've never seen her--nay, not I;

  (Oh, my soul! but the milk is blue!)

Yet were I that Cow I should want to die.

  (And I wail and I cry Wa-hoo!),

  But in vain my tears I strew.

X: Mr. T. Aldrich

SOMEWHERE in some faked nature place,

  In Wonderland, in Nonsense Land,

Two darkling shapes met face to face,

  And bade each other stand.

"And who are you!" said each to each;

  "Tell me your title, anyhow."

One said, "I am the Papal Bull,"

  "And I am the Purple Cow."

XI: Mr. E. Allan Poe

    OPEN then I flung a shutter,

    And, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a Purple Cow which gayly tripped around my floor.

    Not the least obeisance made she,

    Not a moment stopped or stayed she,

But with mien of chorus lady perched herself above my door.

On a dusty bust of Dante perched and sat above my door.

    And that Purple Cow unflitting

    Still is sitting--still is sitting

On that dusty bust of Dante just above my chamber door,

    And her horns have all the seeming

    Of a demon's that is screaming

    And the arc-light o'er her streaming

Cast her shadow on the floor.

And my soul from out that pool of Purple shadow on the floor,

Shall be lifted Nevermore!

XII: Mr. H. Longfellow

THE day is done, and the darkness

  Falls from the wing of night

As ballast is wafted downward

  From an airship in its flight.

I dream of a purple creature

  Which is not as kine are now;

And resembles cattle only

  As Cowper resembles a cow.

Such cows have power to quiet

  Our restless thoughts and rude;

They come like the Benedictine

  That follows after food.

XIII: Mr. A. Swinburne

OH, Cow of rare rapturous vision,

  Oh, purple, impalpable Cow,

Do you browse in the Dream Field Elysian,

  Are you purpling pleasantly now?

By the the side of wan waves do you languish?

  Or in the lithe lush of the grove?

While vainly I search in my anguish,

  O Bovine of mauve!

Despair in my bosom is sighing,

  Hope's star has sunk sadly to rest;

Though cows of rare sorts I am buying,

  Not one breathes a balm to my breast.

Oh, rapturous, rose-crowned occasion,

  When I such a glory might see!

But a cow of a purple persuasion

  I never would be.

XIV: Mr. A. Dobson

I'D love to see

A Purple Cow,

Oh, Goodness me!

I'd love to see

But not to be

One. Anyhow,

I'd love to see

A Purple Cow.

XV: Mr. O. Herford

CHILDREN, observe the Purple Cow,

You cannot see her, anyhow;

And, little ones, you need not hope

Your eyes will e'er attain such scope.

But if you ever have a choice

To be, or see, lift up your voice

And choose to see. For surely you

Don't want to browse around and moo.

XVI: Mr. H. C. Bunner

OH, what's the way to Arcady,

  Where all the cows are purple?

Ah, woe is me! I never hope

On such a sight my eyes to ope:

But as I sing in merry glee

Along the road to Arcady,

Perchance full soon I may espy

A Purple Cow come dancing by.

  Heigho! I then shall see one.

Her horns bedecked with ribbons gay,

And garlanded with rosy may,--

  A tricksy sight. Still I must say

  I'd rather see than be one.

XVII: Mr. A. Swinburne

(Who was so enthused that he made a second attempt)

ONLY in dim, drowsy depths of a dream do I dare to delight in deliciously dreaming

Cows there may be of a passionate purple,--cows of a violent violet hue;

Ne'er have I seen such a sight, I am certain it is but a demi-delirious dreaming--

Ne'er may I happily harbour a hesitant hope in my heart that my dream my come true.

Sad is my soul, and my senses are sobbing so strong is my strenuous spirit to see one.

Dolefully, drearily doomed to despair as warily wearily watching I wait;

Thoughts thickly thronging are thrilling and throbbing; to see is a golorious gain--but to be one!

That were a darker and direfuller destiny, that were a fearfuller, frightfuller fate!

XVIII: Mr. R. Kipling

IN the old ten-acre pasture,

  Lookin' eastward toward a tree,

There's a Purple Cow a-settin'

  And I know she thinks of me.

For the wind is in the gum-tree,

  And the hay is in the mow,

And the cow-bells are a-callin'

  "Come and see a Purple Cow!"

  But I am not going now,

  Not at present, anyhow,

For I am not fond of purple, and

  I can't abide a cow;

  No, I shall not go to-day,

  Where the Purple Cattle play.

  But I think I'd rather see one

  Than to be one, anyhow.

Carolyn Wells