Crystal Palace - I

CONTRAPTION,— that's the bizarre, proper slang,
Eclectic word, for this portentous toy,
The flying-machine, that gyrates stiffly, arms
A-kimbo, so to say, and baskets slung
From every elbow, skating in the air.
Irreverent, we; but Tartars from Thibet
May deem Sir Hiram the Grandest Lama, deem
His volatile machinery best, and most
Magnific, rotatory engine, meant
For penitence and prayer combined, whereby
Petitioner as well as orison
Are spun about in space: a solemn rite
Before the portal of that fane unique,
Victorian temple of commercialism,
Our very own eighth wonder of the world.
The Crystal Palace.

        So sublime! Like some
Immense crustacean's gannoid skeleton,
Unearthed, and cleansed, and polished! Were it so
Our paleontological respect
Would shield it from derision; but when a shed,
Intended for a palace, looks as like
The fossil of a giant myriapod!...
'Twas Isabey — sarcastic wretch!— who told
A young aspirant, studying tandem art
And medicine, that he certainly was born
To be a surgeon: "When you try", he said,
*'To paint a boat you paint a tumour".

                                            No
Idea of its purpose, and no word
Can make your glass and iron beautiful.
Colossal ugliness may fascinate
If something be expressed; and time adopts
Ungainliest stone and brick and ruins them
To beauty; but a building lacking life,
A house that must not mellow or decay? —
'Tis nature's outcast. Moss and lichen? Stains
Of weather? From the first Nature said "No!
Shine there unblessed, a witness of my scorn!
I love the ashlar and the well-baked clay;
My seasons can adorn them sumptuously:
Put you shall stand rebuked till men ashamed,
Abhor you, and destroy you and repent!"

But come: here's crowd; here's mob; a gala day!
The walks are black with people: no one hastes;
They all pursue their purpose business-like —
The polo-ground, the cycle-track; but most
Invade the palace glumly once again.
It is "again"; you feel it in the air—
Resigned habitues on every hand:
And yet agog; abandoned, yet concerned!
They can't tell why they come; they only know
They must shove through the holiday somehow.

In the main floor the fretful multitude
Circulates from the north nave to the south
Across the central transept — swish and tread
And murmur, like a seaboard's mingled sound.
About the sideshows eddies swirl and swing :
Distorting mirrors; waltzing-tops — wherein
Couples are wildly spun contrariwise
To your revolving platform; biographs,
Or rifle-ranges; panoramas: choose!

As stupid as it was last holiday?
They think so, — every whit! Outside, perhaps?
A spice of danger in the flying-machine?
A few who passed that whirligig, their hopes
On higher things, return disconsolate
To try the Tartar's volant oratory.
Others again, no more anticipant
Of any active business in their own
Diversion, joining stalwart folk who sought
At once the polo-ground, the cycle-track,
Accept the ineludible ; while some
(Insidious anti-climax here) frequent
The water-entertainments— shallops, chutes
And rivers subterrene:— thus, passive, all.
Like savages bewitched, submit at last
To be the dupes of pleasure, sadly gay—
Victims, and not companions, of delight!

[Extract]