y to the Cubist Movement in Art.

"Of course," mused the President, rolling his eyes in an especially fine
frenzy, "this movement will strike the poets next."

"Ha," said Dan Rossetti, refraining for a moment from the refrain he was
building, "we must be ready for it."

"We must advance to meet it," said Teddy Poe, who was ever of an
adventurous nature. "What's it all about?"

"The principles are simple," observed Rob Browning, glancing from heaven
to earth, from earth to heaven; "in fact, it's much like my own work
always has been. I was born cubic. You see, you just symbolize the
liquefaction of the essence of an idea into its emotional constituents,
and there you are!"

"Dead easy!" declared Lally Tennyson, who went out poeting by the day,
and knew how to do any kind. "What's the subject?"

"That's just the point," said the President; "preeminently and
exclusively it's subjective, and you must keep it so. On no account
allow an object of any kind to creep in. Now, here's one of the Cubist
pictures. They call it 'A Nude Descending the Staircase.' They pick
names at random out of a hat, I believe. Take this, you fellows, and
throw it into poetry."

"Any rules or conditions?" asked Billy Wordsworth.

"Absolutely none. It's the Ruleless School."

Then the Poets opened the aspiration valves, ignited the divine spark
plugs, and whiz! went their motor-meters in a whirring, buzzing melody.

Soon their Cubist emotions were splashed upon paper, and the Poets read
with justifiable pride these symbolic results.

* * * * *

Ally Swinburne tossed off this poetic gem without a bit of trouble.

Square eyelids that hide like a jewel;
Ten heads,--though I sometimes count more;
Six mouths that are cubic and cruel;
Of mixed arms and legs, twenty-four;
Descending in Symbolic glories
Of lissome triangles and squares;
Oh, mystic and subtle Dolores,
Our Lady of Stairs.

You descend like an army with banners,
In a cyclone of wrecked parasols.
You look like a mob with mad manners
Or a roystering row of Dutch dolls.
Oh, Priestess of Cubical passion,
Oh, Deification of Whim,
You seem to walk down in the fashion
That lame lobsters swim.

Here we have Mr. P.B. Shelley's noble lines:

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Nude thou never wert.
Not from Heaven nor near it
Breathed thy cubic heart
In profuse stairs of unintelligible art.