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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10122 ***
+
+FAIRIES AND FUSILIERS
+
+BY
+
+ROBERT GRAVES
+
+1918
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+THE ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS
+
+_I have to thank Mr. Harold Monro, of The
+Poetry Book Shop, for permission to include
+in this volume certain poems of which he
+possesses the copyright; also the editor of the
+"Nation" for a similar courtesy._
+
+R.G.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+TO AN UNGENTLE CRITIC
+AN OLD TWENTY-THIRD MAN
+TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR--FOR THE FOURTH TIME
+TWO FUSILIERS
+TO ROBERT NICHOLS
+DEAD COW FARM
+GOLIATH AND DAVID
+BABYLON
+MR. PHILOSOPHER
+THE CRUEL MOON
+FINLAND
+A PINCH OF SALT
+THE CATERPILLAR
+SORLEY'S WEATHER
+THE COTTAGE
+THE LAST POST
+WHEN I'M KILLED
+LETTER TO S.S. FROM MAMETZ WOOD
+A DEAD BOCHE
+FAUN
+THE SPOILSPORT
+THE SHIVERING BEGGAR
+JONAH
+JOHN SKELTON
+I WONDER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE DROWNED?
+DOUBLE RED DAISIES
+CAREERS
+I'D LOVE TO BE A FAIRY'S CHILD
+THE NEXT WAR
+STRONG BEER
+MARIGOLDS
+THE LADY VISITOR IN THE PAUPER WARD
+LOVE AND BLACK MAGIC
+SMOKE-RINGS
+A CHILD'S NIGHTMARE
+ESCAPE
+THE BOUGH OF NONSENSE
+NOT DEAD
+A BOY IN CHURCH
+CORPORAL STARE
+THE ASSAULT HEROIC
+THE POET IN THE NURSERY
+IN THE WILDERNESS
+CHERRY-TIME
+1915
+FREE VERSE
+
+
+
+
+
+TO AN UNGENTLE CRITIC
+
+_The great sun sinks behind the town
+Through a red mist of Volnay wine...._
+But what's the use of setting down
+That glorious blaze behind the town?
+You'll only skip the page, you'll look
+For newer pictures in this book;
+You've read of sunsets rich as mine.
+
+_A fresh wind fills the evening air
+With horrid crying of night birds...._
+But what reads new or curious there
+When cold winds fly across the air?
+You'll only frown; you'll turn the page,
+But find no glimpse of your "New Age
+Of Poetry" in my worn-out words.
+
+Must winds that cut like blades of steel
+And sunsets swimming in Volnay,
+The holiest, cruellest pains I feel,
+Die stillborn, because old men squeal
+For something new: "Write something new:
+We've read this poem--that one too,
+And twelve more like 'em yesterday"?
+
+No, no! my chicken, I shall scrawl
+Just what I fancy as I strike it,
+Fairies and Fusiliers, and all
+Old broken knock-kneed thought will crawl
+Across my verse in the classic way.
+And, sir, be careful what you say;
+There are old-fashioned folk still like it.
+
+
+
+
+AN OLD TWENTY-THIRD MAN
+
+"Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
+Marching below, and we still gulping wine?"
+From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
+The red-faced old centurion started up,
+Cursed, battered on the table. "No," he said,
+"Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion's
+  dead,
+Dead in the first year of this damned campaign--
+The Legion's dead, dead, and won't rise again.
+Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
+But we need pity also, you and I,
+Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,
+Who live to see the Legion come to this,
+Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot,
+Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot.
+O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy
+  thigh!
+Where are they now? God! watch it struggle
+  by,
+The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine.
+Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the
+  wine!"
+"Strabo," said Gracchus, "you are strange tonight.
+The Legion is the Legion; it's all right.
+If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking,
+God damn it! you'll not better them by drinking.
+They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands.
+The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands,
+And these same men before the autumn's fall
+Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul."
+
+
+
+
+TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR--
+FOR THE FOURTH TIME
+
+It doesn't matter what's the cause,
+  What wrong they say we're righting,
+A curse for treaties, bonds and laws,
+  When we're to do the fighting!
+And since we lads are proud and true,
+  What else remains to do?
+Lucasta, when to France your man
+Returns his fourth time, hating war,
+Yet laughs as calmly as he can
+ And flings an oath, but says no more,
+That is not courage, that's not fear--
+Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
+  And his pride sends him here.
+
+Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
+  And so decide who started
+This bloody war, and who's to pay,
+  But he must be stout-hearted,
+Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
+  Playing at cards with Death.
+Don't plume yourself he fights for you;
+It is no courage, love, or hate,
+But let us do the things we do;
+  It's pride that makes the heart be great;
+It is not anger, no, nor fear--
+Lucasta he's a Fusilier,
+  And his pride keeps him here.
+
+
+
+
+TWO FUSILIERS
+
+And have we done with War at last?
+Well, we've been lucky devils both,
+And there's no need of pledge or oath
+To bind our lovely friendship fast,
+By firmer stuff
+Close bound enough.
+
+By wire and wood and stake we're bound,
+By Fricourt and by Festubert,
+By whipping rain, by the sun's glare,
+By all the misery and loud sound,
+By a Spring day,
+By Picard clay.
+
+Show me the two so closely bound
+As we, by the red bond of blood,
+By friendship, blossoming from mud,
+By Death: we faced him, and we found
+Beauty in Death,
+In dead men breath.
+
+
+
+
+TO ROBERT NICHOLS
+
+(From Frise on the Somme in February, 1917, in answer
+to a letter saying: "I am just finishing my 'Faun's
+Holiday.' I wish you were here to feed him with
+cherries.")
+
+
+Here by a snowbound river
+In scrapen holes we shiver,
+And like old bitterns we
+Boom to you plaintively:
+Robert how can I rhyme
+Verses for your desire--
+Sleek fauns and cherry-time,
+Vague music and green trees,
+Hot sun and gentle breeze,
+England in June attire,
+And life born young again,
+For your gay goatish brute
+Drunk with warm melody
+Singing on beds of thyme
+With red and rolling eye,
+All the Devonian plain,
+Lips dark with juicy stain,
+Ears hung with bobbing fruit?
+Why should I keep him time?
+Why in this cold and rime,
+Where even to dream is pain?
+No, Robert, there's no reason:
+Cherries are out of season,
+Ice grips at branch and root,
+And singing birds are mute.
+
+
+
+
+DEAD COW FARM
+
+An ancient saga tells us how
+In the beginning the First Cow
+(For nothing living yet had birth
+But Elemental Cow on earth)
+Began to lick cold stones and mud:
+Under her warm tongue flesh and blood
+Blossomed, a miracle to believe:
+And so was Adam born, and Eve.
+Here now is chaos once again,
+Primeval mud, cold stones and rain.
+Here flesh decays and blood drips red,
+And the Cow's dead, the old Cow's dead.
+
+
+
+
+GOLIATH AND DAVID
+
+(FOR D.C.T., KILLED AT FRICOURT, MARCH,
+1916)
+
+
+Yet once an earlier David took
+Smooth pebbles from the brook:
+Out between the lines he went
+To that one-sided tournament,
+A shepherd boy who stood out fine
+And young to fight a Philistine
+Clad all in brazen mail. He swears
+That he's killed lions, he's killed bears,
+And those that scorn the God of Zion
+Shall perish so like bear or lion.
+But ... the historian of that fight
+Had not the heart to tell it right.
+
+Striding within javelin range,
+Goliath marvels at this strange
+Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength.
+David's clear eye measures the length;
+With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee,
+Poises a moment thoughtfully,
+And hurls with a long vengeful swing.
+The pebble, humming from the sling
+Like a wild bee, flies a sure line
+For the forehead of the Philistine;
+Then ... but there comes a brazen clink,
+And quicker than a man can think
+Goliath's shield parries each cast.
+Clang! clang! and clang! was David's last.
+Scorn blazes in the Giant's eye,
+Towering unhurt six cubits high.
+Says foolish David, "Damn your shield!
+And damn my sling! but I'll not yield."
+He takes his staff of Mamre oak,
+A knotted shepherd-staff that's broke
+The skull of many a wolf and fox
+Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks.
+Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh
+Can scatter chariots like blown chaff
+To rout; but David, calm and brave,
+Holds his ground, for God will save.
+Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh!
+Shame for beauty's overthrow!
+(God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.)
+One cruel backhand sabre-cut
+"I'm hit! I'm killed!" young David cries,
+Throws blindly forward, chokes ... and dies.
+And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim,
+Goliath straddles over him.
+
+
+
+
+BABYLON
+
+The child alone a poet is:
+Spring and Fairyland are his.
+Truth and Reason show but dim,
+And all's poetry with him.
+Rhyme and music flow in plenty
+For the lad of one-and-twenty,
+But Spring for him is no more now
+Than daisies to a munching cow;
+Just a cheery pleasant season,
+Daisy buds to live at ease on.
+He's forgotten how he smiled
+And shrieked at snowdrops when a child,
+Or wept one evening secretly
+For April's glorious misery.
+Wisdom made him old and wary
+Banishing the Lords of Faery.
+Wisdom made a breach and battered
+Babylon to bits: she scattered
+To the hedges and ditches
+All our nursery gnomes and witches.
+Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves,
+Drag their treasures from the shelves.
+Jack the Giant-killer's gone,
+Mother Goose and Oberon,
+Bluebeard and King Solomon.
+Robin, and Red Riding Hood
+Take together to the wood,
+And Sir Galahad lies hid
+In a cave with Captain Kidd.
+None of all the magic hosts,
+None remain but a few ghosts
+Of timorous heart, to linger on
+Weeping for lost Babylon.
+
+
+
+
+MR. PHILOSOPHER
+
+Old Mr. Philosopher
+  Comes for Ben and Claire,
+An ugly man, a tall man,
+  With bright-red hair.
+
+The books that he's written
+  No one can read.
+"In fifty years they'll understand:
+  Now there's no need.
+
+"All that matters now
+  Is getting the fun.
+Come along, Ben and Claire;
+  Plenty to be done."
+
+Then old Philosopher,
+  Wisest man alive,
+Plays at Lions and Tigers
+  Down along the drive--
+
+Gambolling fiercely
+  Through bushes and grass,
+Making monstrous mouths,
+  Braying like an ass,
+
+Twisting buttercups
+  In his orange hair,
+Hopping like a kangaroo,
+  Growling like a bear.
+
+Right up to tea-time
+  They frolic there.
+"My legs _are_ wingle,"
+  Says Ben to Claire.
+
+
+
+
+THE CRUEL MOON
+
+The cruel Moon hangs out of reach
+Up above the shadowy beech.
+Her face is stupid, but her eye
+Is small and sharp and very sly.
+Nurse says the Moon can drive you mad?
+No, that's a silly story, lad!
+Though she be angry, though she would
+Destroy all England if she could,
+Yet think, what damage can she do
+Hanging there so far from you?
+Don't heed what frightened nurses say:
+Moons hang much too far away.
+
+
+
+
+FINLAND
+
+Feet and faces tingle
+  In that frore land:
+Legs wobble and go wingle,
+  You scarce can stand.
+
+The skies are jewelled all around,
+The ploughshare snaps in the iron ground,
+The Finn with face like paper
+And eyes like a lighted taper
+Hurls his rough rune
+At the wintry moon
+And stamps to mark the tune.
+
+
+
+
+A PINCH OF SALT
+
+When a dream is born in you
+  With a sudden clamorous pain,
+When you know the dream is true
+  And lovely, with no flaw nor stain,
+O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch
+You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.
+
+Dreams are like a bird that mocks,
+  Flirting the feathers of his tail.
+When you seize at the salt-box
+  Over the hedge you'll see him sail.
+Old birds are neither caught with salt nor chaff:
+They watch you from the apple bough and laugh.
+
+Poet, never chase the dream.
+  Laugh yourself and turn away.
+Mask your hunger, let it seem
+Small matter if he come or stay;
+But when he nestles in your hand at last,
+Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.
+
+
+
+
+THE CATERPILLAR
+
+Under this loop of honeysuckle,
+A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
+I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
+I nibble it leaf by leaf away.
+
+Down beneath grow dandelions,
+Daisies, old-man's-looking-glasses;
+Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
+I eat and swallow and eat again.
+
+Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
+I munch and nibble unregarding:
+Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
+I'll mind my business: I'm a good worm.
+
+When I'm old, tired, melancholy,
+I'll build a leaf-green mausoleum
+Close by, here on this lovely spray,
+And die and dream the ages away.
+
+Some say worms win resurrection,
+With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
+But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
+Either way I'll miss my share.
+
+Under this loop of honeysuckle,
+A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
+I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
+And eat, eat, eat--as one ought to eat.
+
+
+
+
+SORLEY'S WEATHER
+
+When outside the icy rain
+  Comes leaping helter-skelter,
+Shall I tie my restive brain
+  Snugly under shelter?
+
+Shall I make a gentle song
+  Here in my firelit study,
+When outside the winds blow strong
+  And the lanes are muddy?
+
+With old wine and drowsy meats
+  Am I to fill my belly?
+Shall I glutton here with Keats?
+  Shall I drink with Shelley?
+
+Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good:
+  Poetry makes both better.
+Clay is wet and so is mud,
+  Winter rains are wetter.
+
+Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
+  For though the winds come frorely,
+I'm away to the rain-blown hill
+  And the ghost of Sorley.
+
+
+
+
+THE COTTAGE
+
+Here in turn succeed and rule
+Carter, smith, and village fool,
+Then again the place is known
+As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;
+Now somehow it's come to me
+To light the fire and hold the key,
+Here in Heaven to reign alone.
+
+All the walls are white with lime,
+Big blue periwinkles climb
+And kiss the crumbling window-sill;
+Snug inside I sit and rhyme,
+Planning, poem, book, or fable,
+At my darling beech-wood table
+Fresh with bluebells from the hill.
+
+Through the window I can see
+Rooks above the cherry-tree,
+Sparrows in the violet bed,
+Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,
+And old red bracken smoulders still
+Among boulders on the hill,
+Far too bright to seem quite dead.
+
+But old Death, who can't forget,
+Waits his time and watches yet,
+Waits and watches by the door.
+Look, he's got a great new net,
+And when my fighting starts afresh
+Stouter cord and smaller mesh
+Won't be cheated as before.
+
+Nor can kindliness of Spring,
+Flowers that smile nor birds that sing.
+Bumble-bee nor butterfly,
+Nor grassy hill nor anything
+Of magic keep me safe to rhyme
+In this Heaven beyond my time.
+No! for Death is waiting by.
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST POST
+
+The bugler sent a call of high romance--
+"Lights out! Lights out!" to the deserted square.
+On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
+"God, if it's _this_ for me next time in France ...
+O spare the phantom bugle as I lie
+Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,
+Dead in a row with the other broken ones
+Lying so stiff and still under the sky,
+Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die."
+
+
+
+
+WHEN I'M KILLED
+
+When I'm killed, don't think of me
+Buried there in Cambrin Wood,
+Nor as in Zion think of me
+With the Intolerable Good.
+And there's one thing that I know well,
+I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!
+
+So when I'm killed, don't wait for me,
+Walking the dim corridor;
+In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me,
+Or you must wait for evermore.
+You'll find me buried, living-dead
+In these verses that you've read.
+
+So when I'm killed, don't mourn for me,
+Shot, poor lad, so bold and young,
+Killed and gone--don't mourn for me.
+On your lips my life is hung:
+O friends and lovers, you can save
+Your playfellow from the grave.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER TO S.S. FROM MAMETZ WOOD
+
+I never dreamed we'd meet that day
+In our old haunts down Fricourt way,
+Plotting such marvellous journeys there
+For jolly old "Après-la-guerre."
+
+Well, when it's over, first we'll meet
+At Gweithdy Bach, my country seat
+In Wales, a curious little shop
+With two rooms and a roof on top,
+A sort of Morlancourt-ish billet
+That never needs a crowd to fill it.
+But oh, the country round about!
+The sort of view that makes you shout
+For want of any better way
+Of praising God: there's a blue bay
+Shining in front, and on the right
+Snowden and Hebog capped with white,
+And lots of other jolly peaks
+That you could wonder at for weeks,
+With jag and spur and hump and cleft.
+There's a grey castle on the left,
+And back in the high Hinterland
+You'll see the grave of Shawn Knarlbrand,
+Who slew the savage Buffaloon
+By the Nant-col one night in June,
+And won his surname from the horn
+Of this prodigious unicorn.
+Beyond, where the two Rhinogs tower,
+Rhinog Fach and Rhinog Fawr,
+Close there after a four years' chase
+From Thessaly and the woods of Thrace,
+The beaten Dog-cat stood at bay
+And growled and fought and passed away.
+You'll see where mountain conies grapple
+With prayer and creed in their rock chapel
+Which Ben and Claire once built for them;
+They call it Söar Bethlehem.
+You'll see where in old Roman days,
+Before Revivals changed our ways,
+The Virgin 'scaped the Devil's grab,
+Printing her foot on a stone slab
+With five clear toe-marks; and you'll find
+The fiendish thumbprint close behind.
+You'll see where Math, Mathonwy's son,
+Spoke with the wizard Gwydion
+And bad him from South Wales set out
+To steal that creature with the snout,
+That new-discovered grunting beast
+Divinely flavoured for the feast.
+No traveller yet has hit upon
+A wilder land than Meirion,
+For desolate hills and tumbling stones,
+Bogland and melody and old bones.
+Fairies and ghosts are here galore,
+And poetry most splendid, more
+Than can be written with the pen
+Or understood by common men.
+
+In Gweithdy Bach we'll rest awhile,
+We'll dress our wounds and learn to smile
+With easier lips; we'll stretch our legs,
+And live on bilberry tart and eggs,
+And store up solar energy,
+Basking in sunshine by the sea,
+Until we feel a match once more
+For _anything_ but another war.
+
+So then we'll kiss our families,
+And sail across the seas
+(The God of Song protecting us)
+To the great hills of Caucasus.
+Robert will learn the local _bat_
+For billeting and things like that,
+If Siegfried learns the piccolo
+To charm the people as we go.
+
+The jolly peasants clad in furs
+Will greet the Welch-ski officers
+With open arms, and ere we pass
+Will make us vocal with Kavasse.
+In old Bagdad we'll call a halt
+At the Sâshuns' ancestral vault;
+We'll catch the Persian rose-flowers' scent,
+And understand what Omar meant.
+Bitlis and Mush will know our faces,
+Tiflis and Tomsk, and all such places.
+Perhaps eventually we'll get
+Among the Tartars of Thibet.
+Hobnobbing with the Chungs and Mings,
+And doing wild, tremendous things
+In free adventure, quest and fight,
+And God! what poetry we'll write!
+
+
+
+
+A DEAD BOCHE
+
+To you who'd read my songs of War
+  And only hear of blood and fame,
+I'll say (you've heard it said before)
+  "War's Hell!" and if you doubt the same,
+Today I found in Mametz Wood
+A certain cure for lust of blood:
+
+Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
+  In a great mess of things unclean,
+Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
+  With clothes and face a sodden green,
+Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
+Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
+
+
+
+
+FAUN
+
+Here down this very way,
+Here only yesterday
+  King Faun went leaping.
+He sang, with careless shout
+Hurling his name about;
+He sang, with oaken stock
+His steps from rock to rock
+  In safety keeping,
+    "Here Faun is free,
+    Here Faun is free!"
+
+Today against yon pine,
+Forlorn yet still divine,
+  King Faun leant weeping.
+"They drank my holy brook,
+My strawberries they took,
+My private path they trod."
+Loud wept the desolate God,
+Scorn on scorn heaping,
+  "Faun, what is he,
+  Faun, what is he?"
+
+
+
+
+THE SPOILSPORT
+
+My familiar ghost again
+  Comes to see what he can see,
+Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
+  Spying on our privacy.
+
+Slam the window, bolt the door,
+  Yet he'll enter in and stay;
+In tomorrow's book he'll score
+  Indiscretions of today.
+
+Whispered love and muttered fears,
+  How their echoes fly about!
+None escape his watchful ears,
+  Every sigh might be a shout.
+
+No kind words nor angry cries
+  Turn away this grim spoilsport;
+No fine lady's pleading eyes,
+  Neither love, nor hate, nor ... port.
+
+Critics wears no smile of fun,
+  Speaks no word of blame nor praise,
+Counts our kisses one by one,
+  Notes each gesture, every phrase.
+
+My familiar ghost again
+  Stands or squats where suits him best;
+Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
+  Listens, watches, takes no rest.
+
+
+
+
+THE SHIVERING BEGGAR
+
+Near Clapham village, where fields began,
+Saint Edward met a beggar man.
+It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled,
+The old man trembled for the fierce cold.
+
+Saint Edward cried, "It is monstrous sin
+A beggar to lie in rags so thin!
+An old grey-beard and the frost so keen:
+I shall give him my fur-lined gaberdine."
+
+He stripped off his gaberdine of scarlet
+And wrapped it round the aged varlet,
+Who clutched at the folds with a muttered curse,
+Quaking and chattering seven times worse.
+
+Said Edward, "Sir, it would seem you freeze
+Most bitter at your extremities.
+Here are gloves and shoes and stockings also,
+That warm upon your way you may go."
+
+The man took stocking and shoe and glove,
+Blaspheming Christ our Saviour's love,
+Yet seemed to find but little relief,
+Shaking and shivering like a leaf.
+
+Said the saint again, "I have no great riches,
+Yet take this tunic, take these breeches,
+My shirt and my vest, take everything,
+And give due thanks to Jesus the King."
+
+The saint stood naked upon the snow
+Long miles from where he was lodged at Bowe,
+Praying, "O God! my faith, it grows faint!
+This would try the temper of any saint.
+
+"Make clean my heart, Almighty, I pray,
+And drive these sinful thoughts away.
+Make clean my heart if it be Thy will,
+This damned old rascal's shivering still!"
+
+He stooped, he touched the beggar man's shoulder;
+He asked him did the frost nip colder?
+"Frost!" said the beggar, "no, stupid lad!
+'Tis the palsy makes me shiver so bad."
+
+
+
+
+JONAH
+
+A purple whale
+Proudly sweeps his tail
+Towards Nineveh;
+Glassy green
+Surges between
+A mile of roaring sea.
+
+"O town of gold,
+Of splendour multifold,
+Lucre and lust,
+Leviathan's eye
+Can surely spy
+Thy doom of death and dust."
+
+On curving sands
+Vengeful Jonah stands.
+"Yet forty days,
+Then down, down,
+Tumbles the town
+In flaming ruin ablaze."
+
+With swift lament
+Those Ninevites repent.
+They cry in tears,
+"Our hearts fail!
+The whale, the whale!
+Our sins prick us like spears."
+
+Jonah is vexed;
+He cries, "What next? what next?"
+And shakes his fist.
+"Stupid city,
+The shame, the pity,
+The glorious crash I've missed."
+
+Away goes Jonah grumbling,
+Murmuring and mumbling;
+Off ploughs the purple whale,
+With disappointed tail.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN SKELTON
+
+What could be dafter
+Than John Skelton's laughter?
+What sound more tenderly
+Than his pretty poetry?
+So where to rank old Skelton?
+He was no monstrous Milton,
+Nor wrote no "Paradise Lost,"
+So wondered at by most,
+Phrased so disdainfully,
+Composed so painfully.
+He struck what Milton missed,
+Milling an English grist
+With homely turn and twist.
+He was English through and through,
+Not Greek, nor French, nor Jew,
+Though well their tongues he knew,
+The living and the dead:
+Learned Erasmus said,
+_Hie 'unum Britannicarum
+Lumen et decus literarum._
+But oh, Colin Clout!
+How his pen flies about,
+Twiddling and turning,
+Scorching and burning,
+Thrusting and thrumming!
+How it hurries with humming,
+Leaping and running,
+At the tipsy-topsy Tunning
+Of Mistress Eleanor Rumming!
+How for poor Philip Sparrow
+Was murdered at Carow,
+How our hearts he does harrow
+Jest and grief mingle
+In this jangle-jingle,
+For he will not stop
+To sweep nor mop,
+To prune nor prop,
+To cut each phrase up
+Like beef when we sup,
+Nor sip at each line
+As at brandy-wine,
+Or port when we dine.
+But angrily, wittily,
+Tenderly, prettily,
+Laughingly, learnedly,
+Sadly, madly,
+Helter-skelter John
+Rhymes serenely on,
+As English poets should.
+Old John, you do me good!
+
+
+
+
+I WONDER WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE DROWNED?
+
+Look at my knees,
+That island rising from the steamy seas!
+The candles a tall lightship; my two hands
+Are boats and barges anchored to the sands,
+With mighty cliffs all round;
+They're full of wine and riches from far lands....
+_I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?_
+
+I can make caves,
+By lifting up the island and huge waves
+And storms, and then with head and ears well under
+Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder,
+A bull-of-Bashan sound.
+The seas run high and the boats split asunder....
+_I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?_
+
+The thin soap slips
+And slithers like a shark under the ships.
+My toes are on the soap-dish--that's the effect
+Of my huge storms; an iron steamer's wrecked.
+The soap slides round and round;
+He's biting the old sailors, I expect....
+_I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?_
+
+
+
+
+DOUBLE RED DAISIES
+
+Double red daisies, they're my flowers,
+  Which nobody else may grow.
+In a big quarrelsome house like ours
+  They try it sometimes--but no,
+I root them up because they're my flowers,
+  Which nobody else may grow.
+
+_Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it;
+Ben has an iris, but I don't want it.
+Daisies, double red daisies for me,
+The beautifulest flowers in the garden._
+
+Double red daisy, that's my mark:
+  I paint it in all my books!
+It's carved high up on the beech-tree bark,
+  How neat and lovely it looks!
+So don't forget that it's my trade mark;
+  Don't copy it in your books.
+
+_Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it;
+Ben has an iris, but I don't want it.
+Daisies, double red daisies for me,
+The beautifulest flowers in the garden._
+
+
+
+
+CAREERS
+
+Father is quite the greatest poet
+  That ever lived anywhere.
+You say you're going to write great music--
+  I chose that first: it's unfair.
+Besides, now I can't be the greatest painter and
+    do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
+    and apples and grapes on a green dish,
+    or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
+Because that's been taken by Claire.
+
+It's stupid to be an engine-driver,
+  And soldiers are horrible men.
+I won't be a tailor, I won't be a sailor,
+  And gardener's taken by Ben.
+It's unfair if you say that you'll write great
+    music, you horrid, you unkind (I simply
+    loathe you, though you are my
+    sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat,
+    bully, liar!
+Well? Say what's left for me then!
+But _we_ won't go to your ugly music.
+  (Listen!) Ben will garden and dig,
+And Claire will finish her wondrous pictures
+  All flaming and splendid and big.
+
+And I'll be a perfectly marvellous carpenter,
+    and I'll make cupboards and benches
+    and tables and ... and baths, and
+    nice wooden boxes for studs and
+    money,
+And you'll be jealous, you pig!
+
+
+
+
+I'D LOVE TO BE A FAIRY'S CHILD
+
+Children born of fairy stock
+Never need for shirt or frock,
+Never want for food or fire,
+Always get their heart's desire:
+Jingle pockets full of gold,
+Marry when they're seven years old.
+Every fairy child may keep
+Two strong ponies and ten sheep;
+All have houses, each his own,
+Built of brick or granite stone;
+They live on cherries, they run wild--
+I'd love to be a Fairy's child.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEXT WAR
+
+You young friskies who today
+Jump and fight in Father's hay
+With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
+Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers,
+Happy though these hours you spend,
+Have they warned you how games end?
+Boys, from the first time you prod
+And thrust with spears of curtain-rod,
+From the first time you tear and slash
+Your long-bows from the garden ash,
+Or fit your shaft with a blue jay feather,
+Binding the split tops together,
+From that same hour by fate you're bound
+As champions of this stony ground,
+Loyal and true in everything,
+To serve your Army and your King,
+Prepared to starve and sweat and die
+Under some fierce foreign sky,
+If only to keep safe those joys
+That belong to British boys,
+To keep young Prussians from the soft
+Scented hay of father's loft,
+And stop young Slavs from cutting bows
+And bendy spears from Welsh hedgerows.
+  Another War soon gets begun,
+A dirtier, a more glorious one;
+Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
+It's the cruellest team will win.
+So hold your nose against the stink
+And never stop too long to think.
+Wars don't change except in name;
+The next one must go just the same,
+And new foul tricks unguessed before
+Will win and justify this War.
+Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage
+Once more with pomp and greed and rage;
+Courtly ministers will stop
+At home and fight to the last drop;
+By the million men will die
+In some new horrible agony;
+And children here will thrust and poke,
+Shoot and die, and laugh at the joke,
+With bows and arrows and wooden spears,
+Playing at Royal Welch Fusiliers.
+
+
+
+
+STRONG BEER
+
+"What do you think
+The bravest drink
+Under the sky?"
+"Strong beer," said I.
+
+"There's a place for everything,
+Everything, anything,
+There's a place for everything
+Where it ought to be:
+For a chicken, the hen's wing;
+For poison, the bee's sting;
+For almond-blossom, Spring;
+A beerhouse for me."
+
+"There's a prize for every one
+Every one, any one,
+There's a prize for every one,
+Whoever he may be:
+Crags for the mountaineer,
+Flags for the Fusilier,
+For English poets, beer!
+Strong beer for me!"
+
+"Tell us, now, how and when
+We may find the bravest men?"
+"A sure test, an easy test:
+Those that drink beer are the best,
+Brown beer strongly brewed,
+English drink and English food."
+
+Oh, never choose as Gideon chose
+By the cold well, but rather those
+Who look on beer when it is brown,
+Smack their lips and gulp it down.
+Leave the lads who tamely drink
+With Gideon by the water brink,
+But search the benches of the Plough,
+The Tun, the Sun, the Spotted Cow,
+For jolly rascal lads who pray,
+Pewter in hand, at close of day,
+"Teach me to live that I may fear
+The grave as little as my beer."
+
+
+
+
+MARIGOLDS
+
+With a fork drive Nature out,
+  She will ever yet return;
+Hedge the flowerbed all about,
+  Pull or stab or cut or burn,
+  She will ever yet return.
+
+Look: the constant marigold
+  Springs again from hidden roots.
+Baffled gardener, you behold
+  New beginnings and new shoots
+  Spring again from hidden roots.
+  Pull or stab or cut or burn,
+  They will ever yet return.
+
+Gardener, cursing at the weed,
+  Ere you curse it further, say:
+Who but you planted the seed
+  In my fertile heart, one day?
+  Ere you curse me further, say!
+  New beginnings and new shoots
+String again from hidden roots
+Pull or stab or cut or burn,
+Love must ever yet return.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY VISITOR IN THE PAUPER WARD
+
+Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,
+This painted peace of ours,
+With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
+With garish flowers?
+Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,
+Selfish old skin-and-bone?
+Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,
+Leave us alone.
+
+
+
+
+LOVE AND BLACK MAGIC
+
+To the woods, to the woods is the wizard gone;
+In his grotto the maiden sits alone.
+She gazes up with a weary smile
+At the rafter-hanging crocodile,
+The slowly swinging crocodile.
+Scorn has she of her master's gear,
+Cauldron, alembic, crystal sphere,
+Phial, philtre--"Fiddlededee
+For all such trumpery trash!" quo' she.
+"A soldier is the lad for me;
+Hey and hither, my lad!
+
+"Oh, here have I ever lain forlorn:
+My father died ere I was born,
+Mother was by a wizard wed,
+And oft I wish I had died instead--
+Often I wish I were long time dead.
+But, delving deep in my master's lore,
+I have won of magic power such store
+I can turn a skull--oh, fiddlededee
+For all this curious craft!" quo' she.
+"A soldier is the lad for me;
+Hey and hither, my lad!
+
+"To bring my brave boy unto my arms,
+What need have I of magic charms--
+'Abracadabra!' and 'Prestopuff'?
+I have but to wish, and that is enough.
+The charms are vain, one wish is enough.
+My master pledged my hand to a wizard;
+Transformed would I be to toad or lizard
+If e'er he guessed--but fiddlededee
+For a black-browed sorcerer, now," quo' she.
+"Let Cupid smile and the fiend must flee;
+Hey and hither, my lad."
+
+
+
+
+SMOKE-RINGS
+
+BOY
+Most venerable and learned sir,
+Tall and true Philosopher,
+These rings of smoke you blow all day
+With such deep thought, what sense have they?
+
+PHILOSOPHER
+Small friend, with prayer and meditation
+I make an image of Creation.
+And if your mind is working nimble
+Straightway you'll recognize a symbol
+Of the endless and eternal ring
+Of God, who girdles everything--
+God, who in His own form and plan
+Moulds the fugitive life of man.
+These vaporous toys you watch me make,
+That shoot ahead, pause, turn and break--
+Some glide far out like sailing ships,
+Some weak ones fail me at my lips.
+He who ringed His awe in smoke,
+When He led forth His captive folk,
+In like manner, East, West, North, and South,
+Blows us ring-wise from His mouth.
+
+
+
+
+A CHILD'S NIGHTMARE
+
+Through long nursery nights he stood
+By my bed unwearying,
+Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
+Purring in my haunted ear
+That same hideous nightmare thing,
+Talking, as he lapped my blood,
+In a voice cruel and flat,
+Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
+
+That one word was all he said,
+That one word through all my sleep,
+In monotonous mock despair.
+Nonsense may be light as air,
+But there's Nonsense that can keep
+Horror bristling round the head,
+When a voice cruel and flat
+Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."
+
+He had faded, he was gone
+Years ago with Nursery Land
+When he leapt on me again
+From the clank of a night train,
+Overpowered me foot and head,
+Lapped my blood, while on and on
+The old voice cruel and flat
+Says for ever, "Cat!... Cat!... Cat!..."
+
+Morphia drowsed, again I lay
+In a crater by High Wood:
+He was there with straddling legs,
+Staring eyes as big as eggs,
+Purring as he lapped my blood,
+His black bulk darkening the day,
+With a voice cruel and flat,
+"Cat!... Cat!... Cat!..." he said,
+  "Cat!... Cat!..."
+
+When I'm shot through heart and head,
+And there's no choice but to die,
+The last word I'll hear, no doubt,
+Won't be "Charge!" or "Bomb them out!"
+Nor the stretcher-bearer's cry,
+"Let that body be, he's dead!"
+But a voice cruel and flat
+Saying for ever, "Cat!... Cat!... Cat!"
+
+
+
+
+ESCAPE
+
+(_August_ 6, 1916.--Officer previously reported died of
+wounds, now reported wounded: Graves, Captain R.,
+Royal Welch Fusiliers.)
+
+
+ ... But I _was_ dead, an hour or more.
+I woke when I'd already passed the door
+That Cerberus guards, and half-way down the road
+To Lethe, as an old Greek signpost showed.
+Above me, on my stretcher swinging by,
+I saw new stars in the subterrene sky:
+A Cross, a Rose in bloom, a Cage with bars,
+And a barbed Arrow feathered in fine stars.
+I felt the vapours of forgetfulness
+Float in my nostrils. Oh, may Heaven bless
+Dear Lady Proserpine, who saw me wake,
+And, stooping over me, for Henna's sake
+Cleared my poor buzzing head and sent me back
+Breathless, with leaping heart along the track.
+After me roared and clattered angry hosts
+Of demons, heroes, and policeman-ghosts.
+"Life! life! I can't be dead! I won't be dead!
+Damned if I'll die for any one!" I said....
+Cerberus stands and grins above me now,
+Wearing three heads--lion, and lynx, and sow.
+"Quick, a revolver! But my Webley's gone,
+Stolen!... No bombs ... no knife....
+  The crowd swarms on,
+Bellows, hurls stones.... Not even a honeyed sop ...
+Nothing.... Good Cerberus!... Good dog!... but stop!
+Stay!... A great luminous thought ... I do believe
+There's still some morphia that I bought on leave."
+Then swiftly Cerberus' wide mouths I cram
+With army biscuit smeared with ration jam;
+
+And sleep lurks in the luscious plum and apple.
+He crunches, swallows, stiffens, seems to grapple
+With the all-powerful poppy ... then a snore,
+A crash; the beast blocks up the corridor
+With monstrous hairy carcase, red and dun--
+Too late! for I've sped through.
+    O Life! O Sun!
+
+
+
+
+THE BOUGH OF NONSENSE
+
+An Idyll
+
+Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
+Limped painfully home; the elder said,
+_S_. "Robert, I've lived three thousand years
+This Summer, and I'm nine parts dead."
+_R_. "But if that's truly so," I cried, "quick, now,
+Through these great oaks and see the famous bough
+
+"Where once a nonsense built her nest
+With skulls and flowers and all things queer,
+In an old boot, with patient breast
+Hatching three eggs; and the next year ..."
+_S_. "Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid
+Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did."
+
+Said he, "Before this quaint mood fails,
+We'll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,"
+_R_. "Hanging it up with monkey tails
+   In a deep grove all hushed and dim...."
+_S_. "To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,"
+_R_. "Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,"
+
+_S_. "Which men are wise beyond their time,
+  And worship nonsense, no one more."
+_R_. "Hard by, among old quince and lime,
+  They've built a temple with no floor,"
+_S_. "And whosoever worships in that place,
+  He disappears from sight and leaves no trace."
+
+_R_. "Once the Galatians built a fane
+  To Sense: what duller God than that?"
+_S_. "But the first day of autumn rain
+  The roof fell in and crushed them flat."
+_R_. "Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls
+  When nonsense is foundation for the walls."
+
+
+I tell him old Galatian tales;
+He caps them in quick Portuguese,
+While phantom creatures with green scales
+Scramble and roll among the trees.
+The hymn swells; on a bough above us sings
+A row of bright pink birds, flapping their wings.
+
+
+
+
+NOT DEAD
+
+Walking through trees to cool my heat and pain,
+I know that David's with me here again.
+All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
+Caressingly I stroke
+Rough hark of the friendly oak.
+A brook goes bubbling by: the voice is his.
+Turf burns with pleasant smoke;
+I laugh at chaffinch and at primroses.
+All that is simple, happy, strong, he is.
+Over the whole wood in a little while
+Breaks his slow smile.
+
+
+
+
+A BOY IN CHURCH
+
+"Gabble-gabble,... brethren,... gabble-gabble!"
+  My window frames forest and heather.
+I hardly hear the tuneful babble,
+  Not knowing nor much caring whether
+The text is praise or exhortation,
+Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation.
+
+Outside it blows wetter and wetter,
+  The tossing trees never stay still.
+I shift my elbows to catch better
+  The full round sweep of heathered hill.
+The tortured copse bends to and fro
+In silence like a shadow-show.
+
+The parson's voice runs like a river
+  Over smooth rocks. I like this church:
+The pews are staid, they never shiver,
+  They never bend or sway or lurch.
+"Prayer," says the kind voice, "is a chain
+That draws down Grace from Heaven again."
+
+I add the hymns up, over and over,
+   Until there's not the least mistake.
+Seven-seventy-one. (Look! there's a plover!
+   It's gone!)  Who's that Saint by the lake?
+The red light from his mantle passes
+Across the broad memorial brasses.
+
+It's pleasant here for dreams and thinking,
+   Lolling and letting reason nod,
+With ugly serious people linking
+   Sad prayers to a forgiving God....
+But a dumb blast sets the trees swaying
+With furious zeal like madmen praying.
+
+
+
+
+CORPORAL STARE
+
+Back from the line one night in June,
+I gave a dinner at Bethune--
+Seven courses, the most gorgeous meal
+Money could buy or batman steal.
+Five hungry lads welcomed the fish
+With shouts that nearly cracked the dish;
+Asparagus came with tender tops,
+Strawberries in cream, and mutton chops.
+Said Jenkins, as my hand he shook,
+"They'll put this in the history book."
+We bawled Church anthems _in choro_
+Of Bethlehem and Hermon snow,
+With drinking songs, a jolly sound
+To help the good red Pommard round.
+Stories and laughter interspersed,
+We drowned a long La Bassée thirst--
+Trenches in June make throats damned dry.
+Then through the window suddenly,
+Badge, stripes and medals all complete,
+We saw him swagger up the street,
+Just like a live man--Corporal Stare!
+Stare! Killed last May at Festubert.
+Caught on patrol near the Boche wire,
+Tom horribly by machine-gun fire!
+He paused, saluted smartly, grinned,
+Then passed away like a puff of wind,
+Leaving us blank astonishment.
+The song broke, up we started, leant
+Out of the window--nothing there,
+Not the least shadow of Corporal Stare,
+Only a quiver of smoke that showed
+A fag-end dropped on the silent road.
+
+
+
+
+THE ASSAULT HEROIC
+
+Down in the mud I lay,
+Tired out by my long day
+Of five damned days and nights,
+Five sleepless days and nights, ...
+Dream-snatched, and set me where
+The dungeon of Despair
+Looms over Desolate Sea,
+Frowning and threatening me
+With aspect high and steep--
+A most malignant keep.
+My foes that lay within
+Shouted and made a din,
+Hooted and grinned and cried:
+"Today we've killed your pride;
+Today your ardour ends.
+We've murdered all your friends;
+We've undermined by stealth
+Your happiness and your health.
+We've taken away your hope;
+Now you may droop and mope
+To misery and to Death."
+But with my spear of Faith,
+Stout as an oaken rafter,
+With my round shield of laughter,
+With my sharp, tongue-like sword
+That speaks a bitter word,
+I stood beneath the wall
+And there defied them all.
+The stones they cast I caught
+And alchemized with thought
+Into such lumps of gold
+As dreaming misers hold.
+The boiling oil they threw
+Fell in a shower of dew,
+Refreshing me; the spears
+Flew harmless by my ears,
+Struck quivering in the sod;
+There, like the prophet's rod,
+Put leaves out, took firm root,
+And bore me instant fruit.
+My foes were all astounded,
+Dumbstricken and confounded,
+Gaping in a long row;
+They dared not thrust nor throw.
+Thus, then, I climbed a steep
+Buttress and won the keep,
+And laughed and proudly blew
+My horn, _"Stand to! Stand to!
+Wake up, sir! Here's a new
+Attack! Stand to! Stand to!"_
+
+
+
+
+THE POET IN THE NURSERY
+
+The youngest poet down the shelves was fumbling
+  In a dim library, just behind the chair
+From which the ancient poet was mum-mumbling
+  A song about some Lovers at a Fair,
+Pulling his long white beard and gently grumbling
+  That rhymes were beastly things and never there.
+
+And as I groped, the whole time I was thinking
+  About the tragic poem I'd been writing,...
+An old man's life of beer and whisky drinking,
+  His years of kidnapping and wicked fighting;
+And how at last, into a fever sinking,
+  Remorsefully he died, his bedclothes biting.
+
+But suddenly I saw the bright green cover
+  Of a thin pretty book right down below;
+I snatched it up and turned the pages over,
+  To find it full of poetry, and so
+Put it down my neck with quick hands like a lover,
+  And turned to watch if the old man saw it go.
+
+The book was full of funny muddling mazes,
+  Each rounded off into a lovely song,
+And most extraordinary and monstrous phrases
+  Knotted with rhymes like a slave-driver's thong.
+And metre twisting like a chain of daisies
+  With great big splendid words a sentence long.
+
+I took the book to bed with me and gloated,
+  Learning the lines that seemed to sound most grand;
+So soon the pretty emerald green was coated
+  With jam and greasy marks from my hot hand,
+While round the nursery for long months there floated
+  Wonderful words no one could understand.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE WILDERNESS
+
+Christ of His gentleness
+Thirsting and hungering,
+Walked in the wilderness;
+Soft words of grace He spoke
+Unto lost desert-folk
+That listened wondering.
+He heard the bitterns call
+From ruined palace-wall,
+Answered them brotherly.
+He held communion
+With the she-pelican
+Of lonely piety.
+Basilisk, cockatrice,
+Flocked to his homilies,
+With mail of dread device,
+With monstrous barbéd slings,
+With eager dragon-eyes;
+Great rats on leather wings
+And poor blind broken things,
+Foul in their miseries.
+And ever with Him went,
+Of all His wanderings
+Comrade, with ragged coat,
+Gaunt ribs--poor innocent--
+Bleeding foot, burning throat,
+The guileless old scapegoat;
+For forty nights and days
+Followed in Jesus' ways,
+Sure guard behind Him kept,
+Tears like a lover wept.
+
+
+
+
+CHERRY-TIME
+
+Cherries of the night are riper
+   Than the cherries pluckt at noon
+Gather to your fairy piper
+   When he pipes his magic tune:
+      Merry, merry,
+      Take a cherry;
+      Mine are sounder,
+      Mine are rounder,
+      Mine are sweeter
+      For the eater
+      Under the moon.
+   And you'll be fairies soon.
+
+In the cherry pluckt at night,
+   With the dew of summer swelling,
+There's a juice of pure delight,
+   Cool, dark, sweet, divinely smelling.
+      Merry, merry,
+      Take a cherry;
+      Mine are sounder,
+Mine are rounder
+      Mine are sweeter
+      For the eater
+      In the moonlight.
+  And you'll be fairies quite.
+
+When I sound the fairy call,
+  Gather here in silent meeting,
+Chin to knee on the orchard wall,
+  Cooled with dew and cherries eating.
+    Merry, merry,
+    Take a cherry;
+    Mine are sounder,
+    Mine are rounder,
+    Mine are sweeter.
+    For the eater
+    When the dews fall.
+  And you'll be fairies all.
+
+
+
+
+1915
+
+I've watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow,
+In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune;
+Primroses and the first warm day of Spring,
+Red poppy floods of June,
+August, and yellowing Autumn, so
+To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow,
+And you've been everything.
+
+Dear, you've been everything that I most lack
+In these soul-deadening trenches--pictures, books,
+Music, the quiet of an English wood,
+Beautiful comrade-looks,
+The narrow, bouldered mountain-track,
+The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black,
+And Peace, and all that's good.
+
+
+
+
+FREE VERSE
+
+I now delight
+In spite
+Of the might
+And the right
+Of classic tradition,
+In writing
+And reciting
+Straight ahead,
+Without let or omission,
+Just any little rhyme
+In any little time
+That runs in my head;
+Because, I've said,
+My rhymes no longer shall stand arrayed
+Like Prussian soldiers on parade
+That march,
+Stiff as starch,
+Foot to foot,
+Boot to boot,
+Blade to blade,
+Button to button
+Cheeks and chops and chins like mutton.
+No! No!
+My rhymes must go
+Turn 'ee, twist 'ee,
+Twinkling, frosty,
+Will-o'-the-wisp-like, misty;
+Rhymes I will make
+Like Keats and Blake
+And Christina Rossetti,
+With run and ripple and shake.
+How pretty
+To take
+A merry little rhyme
+In a jolly little time
+And poke it,
+And choke it,
+Change it, arrange it,
+Straight-lace it, deface it,
+Pleat it with pleats,
+Sheet it with sheets
+Of empty conceits,
+And chop and chew,
+And hack and hew,
+And weld it into a uniform stanza,
+And evolve a neat,
+Complacent, complete,
+Academic extravaganza!
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10122 ***