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diff --git a/77833-h/77833-h.htm b/77833-h/77833-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5598ae7 --- /dev/null +++ b/77833-h/77833-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8334 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + +<head> + +<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + +<link rel="icon" href="images/img-cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + +<meta charset="utf-8"> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems from Punch, 1909-1920 +</title> + +<style> +body { color: black; + background: white; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 1.5em } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +h1 { text-align: center } +h2 { text-align: center } +h3 { text-align: center } +h4 { text-align: center } +h5 { text-align: center } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; + letter-spacing: 2em ; + text-align: center } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +.smcap { font-variant: small-caps } + +p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.intro {font-size: 90% ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.quote {text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77833 ***</div> + +<h1> +<br><br> + POEMS FROM PUNCH<br> +</h1> + +<p class="t3b"> + 1909-1920<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY<br> + BY<br> + W. B. DRAYTON HENDERSON<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + <i>REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF<br> + THE PROPRIETORS</i><br> +</p> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br> + ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON<br> + 1922<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p class="t4"> + COPYRIGHT<br> +</p> + +<p class="t4"> + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap000b."></a></p> + +<p class="t3b"> +Preface +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Of "Singing masons building roofs of gold."<br> + <i>King Henry V.</i> I. 11.<br> +</p> + +<p> +The following poems from 'Punch' are brought +together to represent a larger number which +amid much delightful but, as is fitting, ephemeral +verse, serve the permanent interest of the Comic +Spirit. They cover the period between 1908, +when the last collection of the sort was published, +and the end of 1920. The latter date I have +accepted as a terminus, because it seems to mark, +as nearly as it can be marked, the end of a period +that is distinct from other periods, and the +commencement of a new one. +</p> + +<p> +Odd happenings tell us that this new cycle +has arrived—old names, questions, and problems +begin to turn up again: and not exactly as they +were. Just now, for instance, harsh news comes +roaring out of Printing House Square, pounding +ragged holes in the gentle noise of Fleet Street. +The Australians have added more thorns to our +cricket laurel. Before the next 'bus bound +prayerfully to Paul's wipes out the horrid spot +with its smooth low singing, rampant patriotism +is at work compelling indolent youth from +"pat-ball" to the manly "willow." In a little while +there will be fresh ardours on the village +greens—and cartoons of the ardours: arduous as ever, +even if diminished somewhat of the pride of 1909. +We have come from strike to strike also. And +sales-people, who were then growing to oily +perfection, whence they slipped and fell, are once +more polite. The war the messes hoped would +come between the polo and the huntin' proved +strangely accommodating, and so came. The +cause of women—dear ever to the Comic Spirit—presses +on to new supremacies. Their goals of +the decade are now matters of antiquarian interest. +But new illumine the future—and in their light +the Comic Spirit, no doubt, smiles her Mona +Lisa smile as she wanders in the churches of +sainted women who converted wild Saxons or +suchlike, and made them sit down orderly in their +thousands,—from St. Materiana's to St. Editha's, +and beyond. For there she reads firm protests +of modern incapacity for such spiritualities, and +sees spaces provided for the signatures of +incapable, modest females; sees them—if she wanders +where I did—unfilled, unsigned! +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The difficulties of this last decade, if they were +different difficulties from those of other decades, +gave some individuality to the comedy of the +time: using 'comedy' in its broadest sense, as +indicating the behaviour of the Comic Spirit. +For comedy as such is for the most part the +encounter of the Comic Spirit with difficulties, +and its triumph over them. Not the struggle, +mark it; for Struggle and Agonies, properties of +the Tragic Spirit or whomever else, are no +belongings of the Comic. Neither is victory +deferred, or partial victory which suits the pathetic; +or unworthy victory, which may suit the +burlesque. The Comic Spirit encounters, and it +overthrows. <i>Veni</i>, <i>vidi</i>, <i>vixi</i>, is its record—with +'vidi' and all intervening delays left out. It +does its seeing as it comes, and when it arrives it +is already victor—with laurels and a Triumph. +</p> + +<p> +Also, it is a victor without expectation. It +did not look like a victor. You would not have +picked it in the paddock—not even to place. Its +appearance at the start is, characteristically, +insignificant. The course set appears to be +impossible for it. Yet it romps in a winner, +and its very life becomes the doing of the +impossible, the overturning of something big by +something very little. Put it tersely, high comedy +is the immediate Triumph of a seemingly minor +over a seemingly major value. +</p> + +<p> +To this end the Comic Spirit makes use of all +sorts of properties, simple and subtle, animate and +inanimate. It could man a rush and overcome +Othello, if it had the mind, or in Mercutio +overcome battalions of Fates. It does actually begin +even more simply and terminate quite as high; +and since the height is where we wish to come, it +may be useful to follow the progress, through +some typical situations. +</p> + +<p> +At the start may come some simple slipperiness, +tropical or arctic, playful underneath the impressed +dignity of a greatness of the flesh or the church or +the state; upsetting it completely, and winning a +laughter that would be incredible if the victim +were less great or the offence more so. Not +much above would come some small folly—a +mole on Cyrano's nose, or, say, the spectacles that +crown Dostoievsky's Government official in <i>An +Unfortunate Incident</i>. This minor property, steadfast +on the head of the official at the instant of his +complete disappearance down the throat of a +very major crocodile, draws, quite understandably, +the uproarious laughter of his friend and +wife-widow. Next might come a spider, as in the +historical case of Miss Muffet. Solidly seated +upon a tuffet, fortified with curds and whey +inside and outside, and embellished, no doubt, +with implements suiting her occupation, no one +could have been more formidable than that +person. In comparison, the spider was the most +obvious minor. Yet no sooner did he arrive, +having done his seeing as he came, than his now +well-known victory was allowed by the most +bigoted strategical-retirement war correspondents. +And since then he has retained his fame, without +contest, as a veritable instrument of comedy. +</p> + +<p> +Of higher but parallel significance is a certain +apple in Mr. Augustus John's picture—"Down +to the Sea": at least, I always feel it so. An +unquestionable procession of weird women and +strange children moves along a headland. They +are of a world where there is nothing that one +knows. It might easily be intolerable. But one +of the women holds an apple in her hand. It +gleams amongst the unknown, an offering to the +Intelligence; and propitiatory, so that the +bewildered deity, finding something so insignificant +and familiar so much more than holding its own +against strangeness, shares in the triumph, first +in anticipation through sympathy, then actually +using the apple as a sort of <i>point-d'appui</i> whence to +search out the unknown:—as Eve did. +</p> + +<p> +Raise the level yet higher, and instead of +simple meanings overcoming strange people it +is the microcosmic simple human who triumphs +against scarcely conceivable cosmic splendour. +Remember Sirius rising with Procyon attendant +and the unlooseable glittering bands of Orion—suns +and suns and the white wonder of nebula. +It is only recalled, not seen, the time being day, +but recalled so as to present the true magnitude. +Somewhere beneath it walk Dr. Middleton, of +Meredith's <i>The Egoist</i>, with his daughter Clara +but this moment self-withdrawn from immolation +before the pattern of Patternes, and with no +reason to be grateful to her unshriven parent. +"Clara linked her arm with her father's and said, +on a sudden brightness, 'Sirius, papa!' +</p> + +<p> +"He repeated it in the profoundest manner. +'Sirius! And is there,' he asked, 'a feminine +scintilla of sense in that?' +</p> + +<p> +"It is the name of the star I was thinking of, +dear papa. +</p> + +<p> +"It was the star observed by King Agamemnon +before the sacrifice in Aulis. You were thinking +of that? But, my love, my Iphigenia, you have +not a father who will insist on sacrificing you! +</p> + +<p> +"Did I hear him tell you to humour me, papa? +</p> + +<p> +"Dr. Middleton humphed. +</p> + +<p> +"'Verily the dog star rages in many heads,' +he responded." +</p> + +<p> +That is all the apology Clara ever got or, +indeed, ever needed. Against cosmic brightness +her microcosmic affair lifted itself, and proved (as +Hardy proved in another connection), "that of +the two contrasting magnitudes the latter was, for +us, the more important": proved it immediately, +with an opulence of light against any doubtful +interpretation, like that of Sirius itself, preserved +against "a night of frost and strong moonlight." +</p> + +<p> +The human triumph can be intenser also, as +a last illustration will show from Tchaikovski's +"Trio in A minor"—To the memory of a great +artist. The second movement, as near as can +be, presents the drama of the artistic effort under +stress of the imminence of death. <i>Ars longa, +vita brevis</i> is the theme—the uncertainty of which +is carried on the strings, while the sombre +certainty, the sombre sense of mortality moves upon +the muffled pianoforte, a sort of dead march: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Comes death on shadowy and resistless feet;<br> + Death is the end, the end.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Against this opposition, and commentary, the +theme of the artist's life seems to develop: to +strengthen. It heeds. Then it takes swift +possession. The actual theme from the piano +is appropriated by the strings, and in a glory of +technical as well as moral triumph minor absorbs +major: and death, become not the foe but an +actual material of art, is swallowed up in victory. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +All comedy—even high comedy—is not +necessarily as intent as this last: nor all—even +low—so simple as the nursery rhyme. Yet all, +worth the name, has sympathy with both—from +Menander to Shakespeare or Molière or +Meredith. The apparent major may be age and +tallow-dripping corpulence, as in the case of +Falstaff, and the triumph that of the mere +suppressed voice of the Comic Spirit breaking +through in his shout on Gadshill,—"They hate +us, youth." More often it is no physical defeat, +but a moral one. It is convention without +meaning, learning without significance, mode +without kindliness, show without reason: every +sort of sham and hardening of mind or heart +against the unformulated fact of fluid life. And +comedy is, so, life's victory. +</p> + +<p> +This victory, of course, is not confined to art. +Living that is worth the name must be a succession +of such instances, becoming, as culture ripens, of +greater range, and surer. +</p> + +<p> +In comparison with earlier times this larger +embrace shows itself now and then—a quality of +our time or race: particularly in the front we +present to circumstances or events that people +quite unmoved by the Comic Spirit might find +anything but attractive, except as an occasion for +martyrdom or some such hardening of mind quite +opposed to the immediately accessible Comic +Spirit. We can enjoy the hidden beauty, or the +very fact of opposition, behind the forbiddingness +of things—even though the forbiddingness +destroys body and body-comfort at a stroke. +Enjoy it, too, not in the negative way of <i>Non +dolets</i>, but actively and radiantly. To one so +gifted, the forbiddingness of forbidden cities +becomes as nothing, and the shadow of their +golden watch-towers everything, as it falls, +mingling with lotus blossom, in the moat. The +Antarctic, blowing its cheeks off with storm and +promise of immediate destruction, is of little +account—and the "splendid pirate" of Sir Ernest +Shackleton's last expedition buys matches in the +face of it and pays for them in futures—a bottle +of champagne per match, to be handed over at a +dream 'pub' in a most improbable future. The +war furnished other illustrations. This spirit +was one of its very few virtues, without which it +could not have carried on at all. Simple and daily +life has them too, with the same result. For the +spirit of comedy is the hope within and the light +upon it, its shelter and its power to dare. It is +the urge to a radiant beauty in the house of life we +build, and the metal by which the roof, as it were, +of that common house becomes a roof of gold. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +If our comedy is the golden roof we raise, the +shining triumph of the small matter of man's +spirit over frowning great difficulties, something +must be exacted of the builders who, if it is reared +at all, must rear it. True comedy is essentially +social. It reflects truth, and its servants building +it constantly and immaterially must be servants +of the truest social good. Satirists and cynics, +tragedians and farceurs, may be as remote from +life as they please and as individualistic. The +servant of the Comic Spirit knows his kind, moves +with them and loves them. He could be strong +without this love no more than Antaeus without +earth. It puts him in possession of the strength +of the whole. Allow for the necessary semi-detachment +of the artist, and it gives to all who +serve the Comic Spirit that sense of more than +equalness to the task which makes men sing as +they work and of that work otherwise perhaps +uninspired, makes the true <i>domus aurea</i>. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Doubtless such love can be intense, and foster +comedy, where there is little to love. But it +goes beyond intensity where there is much. It +becomes diverse, many-coloured, passionate yet +urbane, robust yet fanciful; and comedy, +responsive to all its moods, becomes as various. +</p> + +<p> +The pages of <i>Punch</i>, to apply what has been +said, are an illustration of such Comedy. In +obvious and in subtler ways, of fine jocoserie or +of fine courage, they show the unrecorded minor +besting the plausible major. Sometimes, if not +mountains, then sizable hills are brought to labour, +and the <i>ridiculus mus</i> which ultimately appears +proves to be of quite different maternity, putting +them to the blush: as in Mr. Hilton Brown's +"To an Early Daffodil," or Mr. Chalmers's +"To a Bank of England Pigeon," where the +modern instance, modest Scillies or drab Old +Lady of Threadneedle Street, wins the prize from +the epic Cyclades or from Cypris-not-to-be-outdone. +Mr. Chalmers gives an even more natural +example of it in "Little Cow Hay." Here the +good story of the wholesome doings of the Culpeppers, +fit and famous, is piled high—only to have +an insignificant ribald moment, regardless of them +all, flutter with proud crowing to its very crown: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But that must be nigh<br> + Sixty seasons away,<br> + When things was all different<br> + D'ye see—an' to-day<br> + There ain't no Culpeppers<br> + At Little Cow Hay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sometimes the minor human makes the triumph. +Opposed by a full-grown if incomplete planet, he +takes it up, without effort, as a very little thing: +Smith, M.A., Oxon., for instance, of Mr. Bretherton's +poem; or the hero of "The Desert Optimist," +who, if history went so far, would doubtless be +Piccadillyish in Penang and urban in the Gobi. +</p> + +<p> +Most often, however, it is no particular coup +of the Comic Spirit that these poems celebrate. +It is the Comic Spirit preparing itself for any, by +making sure of the strong social life, in all its +disciplines or humours, from which its strength +springs. It contemplates the towers which +whisper to Smith in Mesopotamy the smooth, +cool enchantments of the Middle Age. It +regards London—Fleet Street levying tribute +from all romance, Charing Cross Road and the +ancient kingdom of books, people and zoo and +parks—and from all this it gathers the comfort +"of no mean city," so that our gentlemen adventurers +at the end of things may possess that, and +with it give a genuinely comic overturn to alien +unpleasantnesses at time of need. Such help is +precious, and Mr. Symns is not the first to record it. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Urbs errat ante oculos;"<br> + Then Fortune, send me where you list,<br> + I care not, London holds me close<br> + An exile, yet an optimist.<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The greatest of such times of need has (we +hope) come and gone. And not a little of the +activity of the Comic Spirit while it lasted was just +such a gathering, on a larger scale, and such a +distribution of the gathered strength. The khaki +flood covered up accounted landmarks. Even +among the priests of the Ideal, the Ideal was not +seldom lost. The Comic Spirit remembered both, +and quietly recalled some things that were +continuous beneath all change. The resulting poems +as they appeared in <i>Punch</i> dealt with traditional +themes, fairies and fancies and symbols of the +spiritual ripening of the land under generations +of love; but with a new tenderness, accented by +the need, and also a new scope that included +in the magic circle actual work-a-day doings, +especially those of ships and sea. Of these, Miss +Farjeon's "Nursery Rhymes of London Town" +come first to thought, with Miss Fyleman's fairy +poems and Miss Fox Smith's marines, all three +represented here, and, fortunately, available +complete in separate volumes as well. +</p> + +<p> +It is needless to speak of the strength which +came from such accounting of our spiritual +possession. Col. McCrae's "In Flanders Fields," +and Mrs. Robertson Glasgow's "Dulce et +Decorum," antiphonal one to the other, are both +included here. They answer for those who +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + ...with the flame of their bright youth unspent<br> + Went shouting up the pathway to the sun.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And history can take care of the rest. It is +necessary to complete the tale of possession, +however, by noting, in addition to the "Nimphidia" +and poems of sentiment, those in memory of great +servants of the Social Good, and hence of the +Comic Spirit, or of that spirit itself most +immediately, which <i>Punch</i> admitting in its scheme +from the start, makes possible to include here. +And finally, there are the poems on sport. There +is an obvious difference between the tenderness +and fancy of the 'Nimphidia' and the rollicking +certainty of the last. Yet the two are +complementary as flowers and earth. Oberon was first +cousin to Robin Hood before Robin had become +a myth, and now may be half your fairy music is +the echo of yesterday's or yester-year's hunting +horn. Half your fairy flowers grow on fields that +have known harsh ploughing—Flanders fields will +bear them among their poppies. So, if the noting +of national sentiment contributes to the Comic +Spirit, this noting of national discipline (which +has a sentiment of its own now, as well as that it +may help to create) does so also. It may be war, +or hunting, or cricket, or +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When eight strong fellows are out to row<br> + With a slip of a lad to guide them:<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +from it all comes to the individual the strength of +the group—and a knowledge too of those peculiar +delights of comedy, a genuine sincerity of +technique and a constant opposition of the best laid +plans to a trifle—a ball or a fox or a rapid +feather—with the certainty that out of that situation +laughter may spring. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +W. B. DRAYTON HENDERSON. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap000c."></a></p> + +<p class="t3b"> +Prefatory Note +</p> + +<p> +The poems in this collection are reprinted by permission +of their proprietors, the proprietors of <i>Punch</i>. They +are used with the added consent of their authors, or their +representatives except in one case, of death, and two +where present addresses are unknown. In some cases the +consent of book-publishers has been superadded. All this +we acknowledge gratefully. It would be gratifying if, in +return, this use might add to the fame of the poets +represented. The wish is, however, presumptuous, seeing +that most of them are known, even outside the pages +of <i>Punch</i> by many readers: C. K. Burrow through his +<i>In Time of Peace</i>, etc. (Collins); Hartley Carrick, through +<i>The Muse in Motley</i> (Bowes); P. R. Chalmers, <i>Green +Days</i>, etc. (Maunsel); Mrs. Eden, <i>Coal and Candlelight</i>, +etc. (Lane), etc.; Miss Farjeon, <i>Nursery Rhymes of London +Town</i>, etc. (Duckworth); Miss Fyleman, <i>Fairies and +Chimneys</i>, etc. (Methuen); Miss Fox Smith, <i>Sailor Town</i>, +etc. (Matthews), <i>Rhymes of the Red Ensign</i> (Hodder and +Stoughton), etc.; Crosbie Garstin, <i>Vagabond Verses</i> +(Sidgwick and Jackson), with which will be coupled a new +volume (Heinemann) including poems from <i>Punch</i> +reprinted here; A. P. Herbert, <i>Play Hours with Pegasus</i>, +etc. (Blackwell); A. L. Jenkins, <i>Forlorn Adventures</i> +(Sidgwick and Jackson); E. V. Knox, <i>The Brazen Lyre</i> +(Murray), etc.; R. C. Lehmann, <i>The Vagabond</i> (Lane); +W. H. Ogilvie, <i>Rainbows and Witches</i>, etc. (Matthews), +<i>Hearts of Gold</i>, etc. (Oxford); R. K. Risk, <i>Songs of the +Links</i> (Duckworth); Sir Owen Seaman, <i>In Cap and Bells</i>, +etc. (Lane), and <i>A Harvest of Chaff</i>, etc. (Constable). +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3b"> + Contents<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#putney">At Putney</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#ballad">Ballad of the Resurrection Packet, The</a><br> + <a href="#ballade">Ballade of August</a><br> + <a href="#bazar">Bazar</a><br> + <a href="#belfries">Belfries, The</a><br> + <a href="#blueroses">Blue Roses</a><br> + <a href="#booklover">Booklover, The</a><br> + <a href="#breakingup">Breaking-up Song</a><br> + <a href="#canal">By the Canal in Flanders</a><br> + <a href="#romanroad">By the Roman Road</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#cambridge">Cambridge in Kharki</a><br> + <a href="#canadian">Canadian to his Parents, A</a><br> + <a href="#child">Child of the Sun, A</a><br> + <a href="#commem">"Commem."</a><br> + <a href="#cornish">Cornish Lullaby, A</a><br> + <a href="#cottage">Cottage Garden Prayer</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#dartymoor">Dartymoor, For</a><br> + <a href="#defaulters">Defaulters</a><br> + <a href="#desert">Desert Optimist, The</a><br> + <a href="#despair">Despair of my Muse, The</a><br> + <a href="#devon">Devon Men</a><br> + <a href="#devil">Devil in Devon, The</a><br> + <a href="#dream">Dream, A</a><br> + <a href="#dreamship">Dream Ship, A</a><br> + <a href="#dulce">Dulce Domum</a><br> + <a href="#decorum">"Dulce et Decorum"</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#failure">Failure of Sympathy, A</a><br> + <a href="#fairies">Fairies in the Malverns</a><br> + <a href="#fairymusic">Fairy Music</a><br> + <a href="#fairy">Fairy Went A-Marketing, A</a><br> + <a href="#farewell">Farewell to Summer</a><br> + <a href="#february">February Trout Fancy, A</a><br> + <a href="#figure">Figure Head, The</a><br> + <a href="#first">First Game, The</a><br> + <a href="#dartymoor">For Dartymoor</a><br> + <a href="#fount">Fount of Inspiration</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#gambol">"Gambol"</a><br> + <a href="#ghosts">Ghosts of Paper</a><br> + <a href="#glad">Glad Good-bye, The</a><br> + <a href="#golden">Golden Valley, The</a><br> + <a href="#goodbye">Good-bye, Australians!</a><br> + <a href="#guns">Guns of Verdun</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#herbs">Herbs of Grace</a><br> + <a href="#honey">Honey Meadow</a><br> + <a href="#house">House in a Wood, A</a><br> + <a href="#huntin">Huntin' Weather</a><br> + <a href="#hymn">Hymn for High Places</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#ideal">Ideal Home, The</a><br> + <a href="#flanders">In Flanders Fields</a><br> + <a href="#booth">In Memoriam—William Booth</a><br> + <a href="#meredith">In Memoriam—George Meredith</a><br> + <a href="#swinburne">In Memoriam—Algernon Charles Swinburne</a><br> + <a href="#winter">In Winter</a><br> + <a href="#inland">Inland Golf</a><br> + <a href="#inn">Inn o' the Sword, The</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#jimmy">Jimmy, Killed in Action</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#labuntur">Labuntur Anni</a><br> + <a href="#lanes">Lanes leading down to the Thames, The</a><br> + <a href="#last">Last Cock Pheasant, The</a><br> + <a href="#smiling">Left Smiling</a><br> + <a href="#lighted">Lighted Way, The</a><br> + <a href="#mudlark">Lines to a Mudlark</a><br> + <a href="#cowhay">Little Cow Hay</a><br> + <a href="#foxes">"Little Foxes, The"</a><br> + <a href="#ships">Little Ships, The</a><br> + <a href="#lonehand">Lone Hand, The</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#medalitis">Medalitis</a><br> + <a href="#shooting">Mixed Shooting, On</a><br> + <a href="#flight">My First Flight</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#resistance">New Resistance, The</a><br> + <a href="#northsea">North Sea Ground, The</a><br> + <a href="#nurse">Nurse, The</a><br> + <a href="#nursery">Nursery Rhymes of London Town</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#oldships">Old Ships, The</a><br> + <a href="#simons">On Simon's Stack</a><br> + <a href="#oxford">Oxford Revisited</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#pagan">Pagan Fancies</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#quat">"Quat' sous Lait"</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#ramshackle">Ramshackle Room, A</a><br> + <a href="#return">Return, The</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#saturdays">Saturdays</a><br> + <a href="#school">School for Motley, The</a><br> + <a href="#seats">Seats of the Mighty</a><br> + <a href="#sitting">Sitting Bard, The</a><br> + <a href="#sometimes">Sometimes</a><br> + <a href="#song">Song of Syrinx, A</a><br> + <a href="#southampton">Southampton</a><br> + <a href="#southward">Southward</a><br> + <a href="#spanish">Spanish Ledges</a><br> + <a href="#spring">Spring Cleaning</a><br> + <a href="#strange">Strange Servant, The</a><br> + <a href="#summer">Summer and Sorrow</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#three">Three Ships, The</a><br> + <a href="#times">Time's Revenges</a><br> + <a href="#pigeon">To a Bank of England Pigeon</a><br> + <a href="#cuckoo">To a Cuckoo, Heard on the Links</a><br> + <a href="#departed">To a Dear Departed</a><br> + <a href="#daffodil">To an Early Daffodil</a><br> + <a href="#egyptian">To an Egyptian Boy</a><br> + <a href="#deer">To an Unknown Deer</a><br> + <a href="#santa">To Santa Claus</a><br> + <a href="#smith">To Smith in Mesopotamy</a><br> + <a href="#godlove">To the God of Love</a><br> + <a href="#treasure">"Treasure Island"</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#vagrant">Vagrant, A</a><br> + <a href="#voyage">Voyage Of H.M.S. "President," The</a><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent smcap"> + <a href="#watch">Watch in the Night, A</a><br> + <a href="#whine">Whine from a Wooer, A</a><br> + <a href="#wildswan">Wild Swan, The</a><br> + <a href="#windmill">Windmill, The</a><br> + <a href="#wintry">Wintry Fires</a><br> + <a href="#wireless">Wireless</a><br> + <a href="#woods">Woods of France, The</a><br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> </h2> + +<h3> +<a id="school"></a> + The School for Motley +</h3> + +<p> +["It is pessimism which produces wit. Optimism is nearly +always dull."] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When I was a feather-brained stripling<br> + And new to my frivolous Muse,<br> + I parodied AUSTIN and KIPLING<br> + And floundered in CALVERLEY'S shoes.<br> + With hope as a tonic I primed my internals<br> + And sent in my stuff to the various journals<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Although the wet blanket of chronic<br> + Rejection adhered to my form,<br> + I took the above-mentioned tonic<br> + And managed to keep myself warm.<br> + My verses were light, but my spirits were lighter;<br> + Some day, I kept saying, the sky would get brighter.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Years passed, but my lot never varied,<br> + And hope seemed to suffer a slump,<br> + And life became empty and arid—<br> + In short, I contracted the "hump."<br> + Despair filled my heart, once so sanguine and placid;<br> + Thenceforward I wrote not with ink, but with acid.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I put away laughter and pleasure,<br> + I sought Fortune's arrows and slings,<br> + And found what a wonderful treasure<br> + Lies hid on the dark side of things;<br> + For woe gave me wit, and my bile-begot vapours<br> + Procured me the ear of the humorous papers.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And now, when prosperity chases<br> + The frown from my forehead, I go<br> + And scatter my cash at the races,<br> + Or visit a music-hall show;<br> + Restored to a decent depression, <i>instanter</i><br> + I turn out a column of exquisite banter.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Sour grapes make the daintiest nectar;<br> + I fill up a bumper each night<br> + To banish the fatuous spectre<br> + Of dull-witted joy from my sight,<br> + And, sitting alone in a darkness Cimmerian,<br> + I drink to the toast, 'A long life and a weary 'un!'<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + STANLEY J. FAY.<br> + July 5, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="godlove"></a> + <i>The Elder Song</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + To the God of Love<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Come to me, Eros, if you needs must come<br> + This year, with milder twinges;<br> + Aim not your arrow at the bull's-eye plumb,<br> + But let the outer pericardium<br> + Be where the point impinges.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Garishly beautiful I watch them wane<br> + Like sunsets in a pink west,<br> + The passions of the past; but O their pain!<br> + You recollect that nice affair with Jane?<br> + We nearly had an inquest.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I want some mellower romance than these,<br> + Something that shall not waken<br> + The bosom of the bard from midnight ease,<br> + Nor spoil his appetite for breakfast, please<br> + (Porridge and eggs and bacon).<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Something that shall not steep the soul in gall.<br> + Nor plant it <i>in excelsis</i>,<br> + Nor quite prevent the bondman in its thrall<br> + From biffing off the tee as good a ball<br> + As anybody else's;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But rather, when the world is dull and gray<br> + And everything seems horrid,<br> + And books are impotent to charm away<br> + The leaden-footed hours, shall make me say,<br> + "My hat!" (and strike my forehead)<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "I am in love, O circumstance how sweet!<br> + O ne'er to be forgot knot!"<br> + And praise the damsel's eyebrows, and repeat<br> + Her name out loud, until it's time to eat,<br> + Or go to bed, or what not.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This is the kind of desultory bolt,<br> + Eros, I bid you shoot me;<br> + One with no barb to agitate and jolt,<br> + One where the feathers have begun to moult—<br> + Any old sort will suit me.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + April 5, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="resistance"></a> +The New Resistance +</h3> + +<p> +[A novel form of opposition is threatened on the part of +mutinous wives. The development is due to the success of +certain Suffragettes who, after being admitted to gaol of their +own heroic choice, have contrived by dint of fasting to prevail +on Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE to let them out.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No, Frederica, no; I may have knuckled<br> + Under, at times, to woman's soft appeal,<br> + But now I have my armour on and buckled;<br> + Tears cannot melt that tegument of steel;<br> + That which I've said I've said:<br> + "You <i>shall not</i> wear a bee-hive on your head!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I have allowed you loosely to conduct your<br> + Home-life according to your lack of taste,<br> + But to permit this pestilential structure<br> + Would be to have my dignity displaced;<br> + Frankly I draw the line<br> + At such a hat on any wife of mine.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When we exchanged our pledges at the altar<br> + You undertook to honour and obey;<br> + And though, ere now, I have been known to palter<br> + With manhood's rights, this time I'll have my way;<br> + I lay the law down flat,<br> + Saying, "You <i>shall not</i> wear a thing like that."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Nor would it shake my purpose should you follow<br> + The lead of Suffragettes that live on air,<br> + Refusing, out of cussedness, to swallow<br> + Your salutary meals. I shouldn't care<br> + Two paltry jots or tittles<br> + What attitude you took about your victuals.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You might adopt a course of strict starvation,<br> + But you would never break my manly pride;<br> + You might arrest the fount of sustentation<br> + Till you were just a bag of bones and hide,<br> + But that would not disturb<br> + A man of stouter stuff than GLADSTONE (HERB.).<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Believe me, I am anything but brutal;<br> + I take no pleasure in a hollow cheek;<br> + I could not get my heart to hum or tootle<br> + If you were slowly waning week by week;<br> + But here I must be firm,<br> + Or I should show no better than a worm.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And, if you stuck to it and went on sinking<br> + Until you failed to draw another breath,<br> + Your widower would console himself with thinking<br> + That there are tragedies far worse than death:<br> + Dishonour may be reckoned<br> + The first of such, and your bee-hat the second.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + July 28, 1909.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="whine"></a> + A Whine from a Wooer<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Once on a time, ere leagues for woman's freedom<br> + Had shed upon the world their golden gleam,<br> + Ere dames had stormed the fortress of M.P.dom,<br> + The mere man reigned supreme.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No female dared to challenge that position;<br> + She only lived to grovel at his throne,<br> + Content if she obtained his kind permission<br> + To call her soul her own.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then, lovers' vows were food for maids' digestion;<br> + Then, swains received their meed of fond support,<br> + Or read in azure eyes the plaintive question,—<br> + Why come you not to court?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + That was indeed a great and glorious era;<br> + But now we mourn for moments that are not,<br> + Since modern damsels bluntly state that we're a<br> + Sad and sorry lot.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Lovers, whose wounds still crave the same old healing,<br> + Find when they come to throw the handkerchief<br> + An absolutely callous lack of feeling<br> + Almost beyond belief.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I love my country; I would gladly serve her;<br> + But, since her daughters have no eyes to see<br> + A matrimonial prize, I say with fervour,<br> + "This is no place for me!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Fixed is my resolution to escape hence;<br> + I used to think my skin was fairly tough,<br> + But kicks have been more plentiful than ha'pence;<br> + It isn't good enough!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + England, farewell, a long farewell; for why let<br> + The heart remain a slave for chits to tease,<br> + When there is many a comfy little islet<br> + Set in the Southern seas.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Thither I'll go, a lorn and lonely wight who,<br> + Grown tired of wooing Phyllises, may rest<br> + Content to know some coloured beads would buy two,<br> + <i>Two</i> of the very best!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + HARTLEY CARRICK.<br> + Jan. 26, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="glad"></a> + The Glad Good-bye<br> +</h3> + +<p> +[According to the New York correspondent of <i>The Daily +Telegraph</i>, recent practical tests prove that the substitution of +ragtime melodies for the lugubrious farewell music usually played +on a big liner's departure does away with the mournful scenes +attending such functions and puts everybody in the best of spirits.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When I broke the news to Mabel that a most insistent cable<br> + Had demanded my departure to a land across the sea,<br> + She occasioned some dissension by announcing her intention<br> + Of delaying her farewell until the vessel left the quay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I displayed a frigid shoulder to her scheme, and frankly told her<br> + That no public show of sentiment my tender heart should sear,<br> + For I knew the tears would blind me when "The Girl I Left Behind Me"<br> + And the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" reverberated in my ear.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But I've recently relented and quite willingly consented<br> + To be sped upon my journey by the mistress of my soul;<br> + I shall banish sorrow's canker ere the sailors weigh the anchor,<br> + And present a smiling visage when the ship begins to roll.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There'll be no one feeling chippy when the band plays "Mississippi"<br> + (Such a melody would even lend a fillip to a wreck);<br> + I shall laugh and warble freely when they start "The Robert E. Lee,"<br> + And my cup will be complete when "Snooky-Ookums" sweeps the deck.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Tears of joy there'll be for shedding when "The Darkie's Ragtime Wedding"<br> + Sends a syncopated spasm through the passengers and crew;<br> + And, when warning tocsins clang go, down the gangway Mab will tango,<br> + While I bunny-hug the steward to the tune of "Hitchy-Koo."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + STANLEY J. FAY.<br> + July 30, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="wintry"></a> + Wintry Fires<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Lady, having been engaged since May-day<br> + (Pity that the Spring should ever stop!)<br> + Now the year's no longer in its heyday,<br> + Don't you think we'd better let it drop?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly<br> + Turns to love, as doubtless you're aware;<br> + In the Spring we wax exceeding sprightly,<br> + Due, no doubt, to something in the air.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then, as was both natural and proper,<br> + We two met and, scorning all delay,<br> + Vowed to wed, and neither cared a copper<br> + For the pregnant fact that it was May.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Summer came and, warming with the weather,<br> + Rarely was an ardour such as mine;<br> + You'll recall that, take it altogether,<br> + For an English summer it was fine.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Summer turned to Autumn, and September<br> + Opened to the world her golden feast;<br> + Quite a record month, as you'll remember,<br> + And my love, if anything, increased.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Honestly, I thought it was a sure case;<br> + Only, now the early Winter's come,<br> + Lady, as in others', so in your case,<br> + I confess to getting rather numb.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Do not deem me fickle, dear, and faithless;<br> + Though the readjustment seems to be<br> + Sudden—not to call it startling—natheless<br> + You can hardly put it down to me.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Love appears, for some unfathomed reason,<br> + Like a flow'r that ripens with the sun;<br> + And, like everything that has its season,<br> + Withers when its little course is run.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + That's what I conceive to be the matter;<br> + And I write, believe me, with regret;<br> + For I own, with no desire to flatter,<br> + That you're quite the nicest girl I've met.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Still, farewell, or (put it less severely)<br> + <i>Au revoir</i>; I hope you'll keep the ring;<br> + Snows are brief, and I, who loved you dearly<br> + Once, again may do so—in the Spring.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CAPT. KENDALL.<br> + <i>Almanack</i>, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="fount"></a> + The Fount of Inspiration<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + You ask me, Araminta, why my pen,<br> + Whose airy efforts helped me once to win you,<br> + Has, since you made me happiest of men,<br> + Apparently resolved to discontinue<br> + Its periodic flights<br> + And steadily avoids the Muses' heights.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I, too, have wondered. Are connubial cares<br> + Antipathetic to divine afflatus?<br> + Yet many a bard has piped his liveliest airs<br> + After surrendering his single status;<br> + Or can it be the War<br> + That's been and dried me up in every pore?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Darling, I groped for light, but found no ray;<br> + Chill with despair, I almost ceased to seek a<br> + Way through the fog, when suddenly to-day<br> + Like ARCHIMEDES I exclaimed, "Eureka!"<br> + I found indeed the path<br> + This morning as I lay inside my bath.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For yesterday to rural scenes you fled<br> + And left me, duty's slave, to desolation;<br> + To-day I sought my tub with measured tread<br> + And spent an hour immersed in contemplation<br> + Just as I used to do<br> + Ere yet in beauty side by side we grew.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No urgent call to breakfast broke my rest;<br> + Serene and snug I heard the quarters chiming,<br> + And, as the brimming waters lapped my breast,<br> + Almost unconsciously I started rhyming;<br> + Then through my mind it shot<br> + That thus were all my master-works begot.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Straight from the slopes of Helicon the stream<br> + Poured through the tap its music-making shower;<br> + Each floating bubble held a precious gleam<br> + Which grew to glory as a lyric flower;<br> + Idly I laved my curls,<br> + And from the sponge there dropped a rain of pearls.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Therefore, when back you hasten to my side,<br> + Place this, my love, among your resolutions—<br> + Though eggs grow chill and bacon petrified,<br> + Never to hustle me in my ablutions,<br> + And, to redeem your fault,<br> + Order me several tins of Attic Salt.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + STANLEY J. FAY.<br> + July 28, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="times"></a> + Time's Revenges +</h3> + +<p> +[A straight talk addressed by a middle-aged bachelor to the +love of his youth.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No, Honoria, I am greatly flattered<br> + When you cast a soft, seductive eye<br> + On a figure permanently battered<br> + Out of shape by Anno Domini;<br> + Yet, you'll take it please, from me,<br> + It can never, never be.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Vainly,—and you mustn't be offended<br> + Should a certain candour mark my words—<br> + Vainly is the obvious net extended<br> + Underneath the eyes of us old birds;<br> + Nor are we—it sounds unkind—<br> + Taking any salt behind.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You have passed, you say, the salad season,<br> + Growing sick of boyhood's callow fluff;<br> + You prefer the age of settled reason—<br> + Men with minds composed of sterner stuff;<br> + All your nature, now so ripe,<br> + Yearns towards the finished type.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, but what about your full-fledged fogeys?<br> + Youth is good enough for us, I guess;<br> + Still we like it fluffy; still the vogue is<br> + Sweet-and-Twenty—ay, or even less;<br> + Only lately I have been<br> + Badly hit by Seventeen.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I have known my heart to melt like tallow<br> + In the company of simple youth,<br> + Careless though its brain was clearly shallow,<br> + Beauty being tantamount to Truth;<br> + Give us freshness, free of art,<br> + We'll supply the brainy part.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Thus in <i>your</i> hands I was soft as putty<br> + Ere your intellect began to grow,<br> + When we went a-Maying in the nutty<br> + Time—it seems a thousand years ago;<br> + <i>Then</i> I wished to make you mine;<br> + Why on earth did you decline?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You declined because you had a notion<br> + You could choose a husband when you would;<br> + There were better fish inside the ocean<br> + Than had come to hand—or quite as good;<br> + So, until you reached the thirties,<br> + We were treated much as dirt is.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then you grew a little less fastidious,<br> + Wondering if your whale would soon arrive,<br> + Till your summers (age is so insidious)<br> + Touched their present total—45;<br> + Well, then, call it 38;<br> + Anyhow, it's <i>far</i> too late.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You may say there's something most unknightly<br> + Something almost rude about my tone?<br> + No, Honoria, when regarded rightly,<br> + These are Time's revenges, not my own;<br> + You may deem it want of tact,<br> + Still, I only state the fact.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet, to end upon a note less bitter,<br> + You shall hear what chokes me off to-day:<br> + 'Tis the thought (it makes my heart-strings twitter)<br> + Of a Young Thing chasing nuts in May:<br> + 'Tis my loyalty to Her,<br> + To the Girl that once you were.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + <i>Almanack</i>, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="daffodil"></a> + <i>Chorus of the Months</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + To an Early Daffodil<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Rare, rare bloom of the sun enslaven,<br> + Laughter-laden and gold-bedight,<br> + How came you to a Northern haven,<br> + To a sky the colour of anthracite?<br> + To what fair land do your thoughts go homing,<br> + Southern shore with cream waves combing,<br> + Where the birds and bees are all day roaming<br> + And nightingales sing to the stars all night?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Was it Persephone's guileless finger<br> + Coaxed you first from Sicily's sward,<br> + Where the herdsmen's steps were fain to linger<br> + And the cattle splashed in the drowsy ford,<br> + While the Satyrs danced with their Naiad neighbours<br> + To a measure of shepherd-pipes and tabors,<br> + And the Cyclops toiled at his endless labours<br> + By the flaming forges of Etna's lord?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Or were you born by the staid Cephissus<br> + Where the dull Boeotian days went by,<br> + To mind men ever of fond Narcissus<br> + Where Helicon climbed to the stormy sky;<br> + Where the clouds still follow the tearful Hyads<br> + By the homes of the oak-tree Hamadryads,<br> + And the Thracian wind with its sough and sigh adds<br> + Homage to graves where the heroes lie?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I love to think it; but could you tell us<br> + We should find, I fear, that with all your class<br> + You know as much of the land of Hellas<br> + As I do, say, of the Khyber Pass.<br> + For I doubt you are none of the old-time lilies<br> + Beloved of Hector and fleet Achilles;<br> + In the Channel Isles, or perhaps the Scillies,<br> + You were grown in a hot-house under glass.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. HILTON BROWN.<br> + Feb. 14, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="despair"></a> + The Despair of My Muse<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Ye great brown hares, grown madder through the Spring!<br> + Ye birds that utilise your tiny throttles<br> + To make the archways of the forest ring<br> + Or go about your easy house-hunting!<br> + Ye toads! ye axolotls!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ye happy blighters all, that squeal and squat<br> + And fly and browse where'er the mood entices,<br> + Noting in every hedge or woodland grot<br> + The swelling surge of sap, but noting not<br> + The rise in current prices!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But chiefly you, ye birds, whose jocund note<br> + (Linnets and larks and jays and red-billed ousels)<br> + Oft in those happier springtides now remote<br> + Caused me to catch the lyre and clear my throat<br> + After some coy refusals!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ay, and would cause me now—I have such bliss<br> + Seeing the star-set vale, the pearls, the agates<br> + Sown on the wintry boughs by Flora's kiss—<br> + Only the trouble in my case is this,<br> + I do not feed on maggots.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Could I but share your diet cheap and rude,<br> + Your simple ways in trees and copses lurking;<br> + But no, I need a pipe and lots of food,<br> + A comfortable chair on which to brood—<br> + Silence! the bard is working.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Could I but know that freedom from all care<br> + That comes, I say, from gratis sets of suitings<br> + And homes that need not premium nor repair<br> + Except with sticks and mud and moss and hair,<br> + My! there would be some flutings.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So and so only would the ivory rod<br> + Stir the wild strings once more to exaltation,<br> + So and so only the impetuous god<br> + Pound in my bosom and produce that odd<br> + Tum-tiddly-um sensation.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And often as I heard the throstles vamp,<br> + Pouring their liquid notes like golden syrup,<br> + Out would I go and round the garden tramp,<br> + Wearing goloshes if the day were damp,<br> + And imitate their chirrup.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Or, bowling peacefully upon my bike,<br> + Well breakfasted, by no distractions flustered,<br> + Pause near a leafy copse or brambled dyke,<br> + And answer song for song the black-backed shrike,<br> + The curlew and the bustard.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But now—ah, why prolong the dreadful strain?—<br> + Limply my hand the unstrung harp relaxes;<br> + The dear old days will not come back again<br> + Whatever Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN<br> + Does with the nation's taxes.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Lambs, buds, leap up; the lark to heaven climbs;<br> + Bread does the same; the price of baccy's brutal;<br> + And save (I do not note it in <i>The Times</i>)<br> + They make exceptions for evolving rhymes,<br> + Dashed if I mean to tootle!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + March 24, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="child"></a> + A Child of the Sun<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Winged pirate with the poisoned dagger!<br> + Devourer of the jampot's hoard,<br> + And quite incorrigible ragger<br> + Of every British breakfast board,<br> + Till blind with surfeit to your doom you stagger,<br> + Drunk as a lord;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Till, trapped amid the heady spices,<br> + Snared by the treason of your taste,<br> + Foreseeing not the hand that slices<br> + (Be cautious, woman, not with haste!)—<br> + Mary, who's always bold at such a crisis,<br> + Severs your waist;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Wasp (to be brief), my dear good fellow—<br> + A pestilential bore to some<br> + Who mark you round their plates grow mellow,<br> + But I am glad to hear you hum—<br> + Which is your favourite brand, old boy, the yellow<br> + Or greengage plum?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + 'Ware of your appetite for toping<br> + I do not shriek nor tremble if<br> + I find you round my foodstuffs sloping,<br> + But, like a man, at danger sniff,<br> + Watching my hour, well-armed and always hoping<br> + To have you stiff.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Nay, what is more, I praise your pounces,<br> + I contemplate with joy your nerve;<br> + At every boom my bosom bounces,<br> + It almost pains me when you swerve<br> + Down to your last long sleep in 16 oz.<br> + Of pure conserve.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For this I know, what time you smother<br> + Remembrance in that final bout,<br> + The sun's your sire, the earth's your mother,<br> + You bring the days of halcyon drought;<br> + Therefore I weep for you the while, my brother,<br> + I wipe you out.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX<br> + July 20, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="herbs"></a> + Herbs of Grace<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + VI.-ROSEMARY<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Whenas on summer days I see<br> + That sacred herb, the Rosemary,<br> + The which, since once our Lady threw<br> + Upon its flow'rs her robe of blue,<br> + Has never shown them white again,<br> + But still in blue doth dress them—<br> + <i>Then, oh, then<br> + I think upon old friends and bless them.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And when beside my winter fire<br> + I feel its fragrant leaves suspire,<br> + Hung from my hearth-beam on a hook,<br> + Or laid within a quiet book<br> + There to awake dear ghosts of men<br> + When pages ope that press them—<br> + <i>Then, oh, then<br> + I think upon old friends and bless them.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The gentle Rosemary, I wis,<br> + Is Friendship's herb and Memory's.<br> + Ah, ye whom this small herb of grace<br> + Brings back, yet brings not face to face,<br> + Yea, all who read those lines I pen,<br> + Would ye for truth confess them?<br> + <i>Then, oh, then<br> + Think upon old friends and bless them.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + W. W. BLAIR FISH.<br> + April 11, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="spring"></a> + Spring Cleaning<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The hailstorm stopped; a watery sun came out,<br> + And late that night I clearly saw the moon;<br> + The lilac did not actually sprout,<br> + But looked as if it ought to do in June.<br> + I did not say, "My love, it is the Spring";<br> + I rubbed my chilblains in a cheerful way<br> + And asked if there was some warm woollen thing<br> + My wife had bought me for the first of May;<br> + And, just to keep the ancient customs green,<br> + We said we'd give the poor old house a clean.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Good Mr. Ware came down with all his men,<br> + And filled the house with lovely oily pails,<br> + And went away to lunch at half-past ten,<br> + And came again at tea-time with some nails.<br> + And laid a ladder on the daffodil,<br> + And opened all the windows they could see,<br> + And glowered fiercely from the window sill<br> + On me and Mrs. Tompkinson at tea,<br> + And set large quantities of booby-traps<br> + And then went home—a little tired, perhaps.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + They left their paint-pots strewn about the stair,<br> + And switched the lights off—but I knew the game;<br> + They took the geyser—none could tell me where;<br> + It was impossible to wash my frame.<br> + The painted windows would not shut again,<br> + But gaped for ever at the Eastern skies;<br> + The house was full of icicles and rain;<br> + The bedrooms smelled of turpentine and size;<br> + And if there be a more unpleasant smell<br> + I have no doubt that it was there as well.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + My wife went out and left me all alone,<br> + While more men came and clamoured at the door<br> + To strip the house of everything I own,<br> + The curtains and the carpets from the floor,<br> + The kitchen range, the cushions and the stove,<br> + And ask me things that husbands never know,<br> + "Is this 'ere paint the proper shade of mauve?"<br> + Or "Where is it this lino has to go?"<br> + I slunk into the cellar with the cat,<br> + This being where the men had put my hat.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I cowered in the smoking-room, unmanned;<br> + The days dragged by and still the men were here.<br> + And then I said, "I, too, will take a hand,"<br> + And borrowed lots of decorating gear.<br> + I painted the conservatory blue;<br> + I painted all the rabbit-hutches red;<br> + I painted chairs in every kind of hue,<br> + A summer-house, a table and a shed;<br> + And all of it was very much more fair<br> + Than any of the work of Mr. Ware.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But all his men were stung with sudden pique<br> + And worked as never a worker worked before;<br> + They decorated madly for a week<br> + And then the last one tottered from the door,<br> + And I was left, still working day and night,<br> + For I have found a way of keeping warm,<br> + And putting paint on everything in sight<br> + Is surely Art's most satisfying form;<br> + I know no joy so simple and so true<br> + As painting the conservatory blue.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. P. HERBERT.<br> + May 14, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="mudlark"></a> + Lines to a Mudlark +</h3> + +<p> + [In memory of the days when Summers were wet.]<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Thrice happy fay, ah, would that men could model<br> + Their lives on thine, most beautiful, most calm,<br> + Melodious songster! List, how, while we swaddle<br> + Our limbs in mackintoshes, thy clear psalm<br> + Rises untroubled. Lo! low thou dost waddle<br> + About in filthy pools and find them balm,<br> + Insatiate of beastliness and muck,<br> + Blithe spirit of our summer, hail, O duck!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There is no gleam of comfort in the heavens,<br> + Now, while we sit with suppliant hands and groan,<br> + Pavilion-bound the impotent elevens,<br> + The farmer cursing at the tempest's moan,<br> + But thou, O duck, O duck, of Mrs. Evans,<br> + For ever singest in mellifluous tone,<br> + The deluge pouring from thy rain-proof back,<br> + Loud orisons of praise. Thou goest "Quack,"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And once more, "Quack," well knowing to recover<br> + The first fine careless sound, egregious brute,<br> + Out in the orchard yonder, where some lover<br> + Maybe has wandered with goloshless boot<br> + In other years, and plucked from boughs above her<br> + (Matching his lady's cheek) the ripened fruit:<br> + But now in vain they vaunt their crimson front,<br> + One cannot pick them, not without a punt.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ah, yes, thou singest on, thy voice assuages<br> + (Or ought to) human plaints about the corn,<br> + Perhaps the self-same voice that in past ages<br> + Cheered the sick heart of HAM some early morn,<br> + As he leaned out and cried, "The flood still rages,<br> + The Ark is tossing in a sea forlorn,<br> + But some live thing is happy; don't condemn<br> + Our Eastern climate, JAPHET! Cheer up, SHEM!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But I, when I observe no sunshine dapple<br> + The leaden pall above, the rayless gloom,<br> + And hear thee singing 'neath the pendant apple,<br> + Although I praise thee, duck, I also fume,<br> + I ask for vengeance, for the gods who grapple<br> + With too much fortune, for the hand of doom;<br> + I like to think that thou must end thy joys,<br> + And stop that silly sort of rootling noise.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I lift my nose to catch the wafted savour<br> + Of incense stealing from the onion-bed,<br> + The perfume of the sage leaf. O, thou laver<br> + In filthiness and slush, I want thee dead—<br> + No more to gloat upon our grief, nor favour<br> + The air with that wild music, but instead<br> + With vermeil fruit, like those on yonder trees,<br> + Garnished in dissolution. Also peas.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + SEPT. 4, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="pagan"></a> + Pagan Fancies<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Blow, Father Triton, blow your wreathéd horn<br> + Cheerily, as is your wont, and let the blast<br> + Circle our island on the breezes born;<br> + Blow, while the shining hours go swiftly past.<br> + Rise, Proteus, from the cool depths rise, and be<br> + A friend to them that breast your ancient sea.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I shall be there to greet you, for I tire<br> + Of the dull meadows and the crawling stream.<br> + Now with a heart uplifted and a-fire<br> + I come to greet you and to catch the gleam<br> + Of jocund Nereids tossing in the air<br> + The sportive tresses of their amber hair.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + High on a swelling upland I shall stand<br> + Stung by the buffets of the wind-borne spray;<br> + Or join the troops that sport upon the sand,<br> + With shouts and laughter wearing out the day;<br> + Or pace apart and listen to the roar<br> + Of the great waves that beat the crumbling shore.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then, when the children all are lapped in sleep<br> + The pretty Nymphlets of the sea shall rise,<br> + And we shall know them as they flit and creep<br> + And peep and glance and murmur lullabies;<br> + While the pale moon comes up beyond the hill,<br> + And Proteus rests and Triton's horn is still.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. C. LEHMANN.<br> + Aug. 14, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<h3> +<a id="ballade"></a> + Ballade of August<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Now when the street-pent airs blow stale<br> + A longing stirs us as of yore<br> + To take the old Odyssian trail,<br> + To bend upon the trireme's oar<br> + For isled stream and hill-bound shore;<br> + To lay aside the dirty pen<br> + For summer's blue and golden store<br> + 'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then let the rover's call prevail<br> + That opes for us the enchanted door,<br> + That bids us stretch the silken sail<br> + For bays o'er which the seabirds soar,<br> + And foam-flecked rollers pitch and roar,<br> + Where nymph maybe, and mermaiden,<br> + Come beachward to the moonrise hoar,<br> + 'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Blue-eyed Calypsos, Circes pale<br> + (The sage who shuns them I abhor),<br> + These—for a fortnight—shall not fail<br> + To thrill the heart's susceptive core,<br> + To bind us with their ancient lore,<br> + Who rather like to listen when<br> + Sweet-lipp'd the sirens voice their score,<br> + 'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + ENVOY<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Masters, who seek the minted ore,<br> + It's only August now and then,<br> + Ah, take the Wanderer's way once more,<br> + 'Neath other skies, 'mid stranger men!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Aug. 23, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="farewell"></a> + Farewell to Summer<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Summer, if now at length your time is through,<br> + And, as occurs with lovers, we must part,<br> + My poor return for all the debt, your due,<br> + Is just to say that you may keep my heart;<br> + Still warm with heat-waves rolling up the sky,<br> + Its melting tablets mark in mid-September<br> + Their record of the best three months that I<br> + Ever remember.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I had almost forgotten how it felt<br> + Not to awake at dawn to sweltering mirth,<br> + And hourly modify my ambient belt<br> + To cope with my emaciated girth;<br> + It seems that always I have had to stay<br> + My forehead's moisture with the frequent mopper,<br> + And found my cheek assume from day to day<br> + A richer copper.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Strange spells you wrought with your transforming glow!<br> + O London drabness bathed in lucent heat!<br> + O Mansions of the late Queen Anne, and O<br> + Buckingham Palace (also Wimpole Street)!<br> + O laughing skies traditionally sad!<br> + O barometric forecasts never "rainy"!<br> + O balmy days, and nodes, let me add,<br> + <i>Ambrosianae!</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And if your weather brought the strikers out<br> + And turned to desert-brown the verdant plot;<br> + If civic fathers, who are often stout,<br> + Murmured at times, "This is a bit too hot!"<br> + If the slow blood of rural swains has stirred<br> + When stating what their views about the crops is,<br> + Or jammy lips have flung some bitter word<br> + At this year's wopses;—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + What then? You may have missed the happy mean,<br> + But by excess of virtue's ample store,<br> + Proving your lavish heart was over-keen,<br> + And for that fault I love you yet the more;<br> + Nay, had you been more temperate in your zeal,<br> + I should have lacked the best of all your giving—<br> + The thirst, the lovely thirst, that made me feel<br> + Life worth the living.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + Sept. 20, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="failure"></a> + A Failure of Sympathy<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + When the dead leaves adown the lane are hurried,<br> + And all the dells are bare and bonfires smoke,<br> + The bard (by rights) should be extremely worried,<br> + He ought not to evolve a single joke,<br> + But wander, woods among, a pale down-hearted bloke.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And I (of old) have felt the chestnuts patter<br> + Like sounds of nails upon my coffin-lid;<br> + My landlady, disturbed about the matter,<br> + Asked if I liked my food; I said I did;<br> + But told her where I ailed, and why Joy's face was hid.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "The flowers," I said, "are gone; once more Proserpina<br> + Is rapt by Pluto to the iron gates;<br> + Can even hard-boiled eggs prolong the chirp in a<br> + Poetic bosom at such awful dates?"<br> + And she said nothing, but removed the breakfast plates.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But now (I know not why) I feel quite jolly;<br> + The ways are thick with mire, the woods are sere;<br> + The rain is falling, I have lost my brolly,<br> + Yet still my aptitude for song and cheer<br> + Seems unaffected by the damp. It's deuced queer.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And when I wander by the leafless spinneys<br> + I notice as a mere phenomenon<br> + The way they've moulted; I would give two guineas<br> + To feel the good old thrill, but ah, it's gone:<br> + I neither weep nor tear my hair; I just move on.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I quite enjoy my meals (it seems like treason);<br> + Far other was the case in days of yore,<br> + When every mood of mine subserved the season—<br> + Mirth for the flowery days, and mirth no more<br> + When Summer ended and her garlands choked the floor.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You bid me take my fill of joy, dear reader,<br> + And hang repining! but I dread my bliss;<br> + If I can prove myself a hearty feeder,<br> + Saying to tea-shop fairs, "Two crumpets, Miss,"<br> + What time Demeter's daughter feels that icy kiss,<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Shall I be some day cold to Nature's laughter?<br> + Shall I no longer leap and shout and sing<br> + And shake with vernal odes the echoing rafter,<br> + When at the first warm flush of amorous Spring<br> + The woodlands shine again? That <i>would</i> be sickening.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + Nov. 1, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="santa"></a> + To Santa Claus<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Historic Santa! Seasonable Claus!<br> + Whose bulging sack is pregnant with delight;<br> + Who comest in the middle of the night<br> + To stuff distracting playthings in the maws<br> + Of stockings never built for infant shins,<br> + Suspended from the mantelpiece by pins.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Thou who on earth was named Nicholas—<br> + There be dull clods who doubt thy magic power<br> + To tour the sleeping world in half-an-hour,<br> + And pop down all the chimneys as you pass<br> + With woolly lambs and dolls of frabjous size<br> + For grubby hands and wonder-laden eyes.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not so thy singer, who believes in thee<br> + Because he has a young and foolish spirit;<br> + Because the simple faith that bards inherit<br> + Of happiness is still the master key,<br> + Opening life's treasure-house to whoso clings<br> + To the dim beauty of imagined things.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Wherefore, good Kringle, do not pass me by,<br> + Who am too old, alas! for trains and blocks,<br> + But stuff the Love of Beauty in my socks<br> + And Childlike Faith to last me till I die;<br> + And there'll be room, I doubt not, in the toes<br> + For Magic Cap and Spectacles of Rose.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And not a song of beauty, sung of old,<br> + Or saga of the dead heroic days,<br> + And not a blossom laughing by the ways,<br> + Or wind of April blowing on the wold<br> + But in my heart shall have the power to stir<br> + The shy communion of the worshipper.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Hark! On the star-bright highways of the sky<br> + Light hoofs beat and the far-off sleigh-bell sounds!<br> + Is it old Santa on his gracious rounds<br> + Or one dead legend drifting sadly by?<br> + Not mine to say. And, though I long to peep,<br> + Santa shall always find me fast asleep.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Dec. 26, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="winter"></a> + In Winter<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Boreas blows on his high wood whistle,<br> + Over the coppice and down the lane<br> + Where the goldfinch chirps from the haulm of the thistle<br> + And mangolds gleam in the farmer's wain.<br> + Last year's dead and the new year sleeping<br> + Under its mantle of leaves and snow;<br> + Earth holds beauty fast in her keeping<br> + But Life invincible stirs below.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Runs the sap in each root and rhizome,<br> + Primrose yellow and snowdrop cold,<br> + Windyflowers when the chiffchaff flies home,<br> + Lenten lilies with crowns of gold.<br> + Soon the woods will be blithe with bracken,<br> + April whisper of lambs at play;<br> + Springs will triumph—and our old black hen<br> + (Thank the Lord!) will begin to lay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Jan. 22, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap053"></a></p> + +<h2> +<i>Sport</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="huntin"></a> + Huntin' Weather<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + There's a dog-fox down in Lannigan's spinney<br> + (And Lannigan's wife has hens to mourn);<br> + The hunters stamp in their stalls and whinny,<br> + Soft with leisure an' fat with corn.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The colts are pasturin', bold an' lusty,<br> + Sleek they are with their coats aglow,<br> + Ripe to break, but the bits grow rusty<br> + And the saddles sit in a dusty row.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Old O'Dwyer was here a-Monday<br> + With a few grey gran'fathers out for a field<br> + (Like the ghostly hunt of a dead-an'-done day),<br> + They—an' some lassies that giggled an' squealed.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The houn's they rioted like the devil<br> + (They ran a hare an' they killed a goose);<br> + I cursed Caubeen, but he looked me level:<br> + "The boys are away—so what's the use?"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The mists lie clingin' on bog an' heather,<br> + Haws hang red on the silver thorn;<br> + It's huntin' weather, ay, huntin' weather,<br> + But trumpets an' bugles have beat the horn!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CROSBIE GARSTIN.<br> + Jan. 5, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="february"></a> + A February Trout-Fancy<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Now are the days ere the crocus<br> + Peeps in the Park,<br> + Ere the first snowdrops invoke us,<br> + Ere the brown lark<br> + Hymns over headland and heather<br> + Spring and her riot of weather,<br> + Days when the East winds are moaning together,<br> + Dreary and dark!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Still, just at times comes a hint of<br> + Softness that brings,<br> + Spite of the season, a glint of<br> + April's own wings:<br> + Violets hawked on the highway,<br> + West winds a-whoop down a byway,<br> + Silver clouds loose on the blue of their sky-way,<br> + Such are the things!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, though old Winter o'ertake us<br> + Swiftly again,<br> + These are the portents that make us<br> + Pause by the pane—<br> + Windows where weavers of tackle<br> + Snare us with shows that unshackle<br> + Dreams, as we gaze upon tinsel and hackle,<br> + Greenheart and cane!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Visions of bud on the sallow,<br> + Swards in gay gown,<br> + Glimpses of pool and of shallow,<br> + Streams brimming down;<br> + Wail of the wandering plover,<br> + Flute of the thrush in the cover,<br> + Swirl of the pounder that breaks, turning over<br> + At your March Brown!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Hark to the reel's sudden shrill of<br> + Line that's ripped out,<br> + Feel the rod thrill with the thrill of<br> + Fate still in doubt,<br> + Till, where the shingles are showing,<br> + Yours are the rainbow tints glowing<br> + Crimson and gold on a lusty and knowing<br> + Devonshire trout!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Such are the fancies they throw us,<br> + Sun and soft air,<br> + Woven at windows that show us,<br> + Lingering there,<br> + Not the mere flies for our buying,<br> + Not only rods for our trying,<br> + But—if we've eyes for it—all the undying<br> + Fun o' Spring Fair!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Feb. 9, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="putney"></a> + At Putney<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + When eight strong fellows are out to row,<br> + With a slip of a lad to guide them,<br> + I warrant they'll make the light ship go,<br> + Though the coach on the launch may chide them,<br> + With his "Six, get on to it! Five, you're late!<br> + Don't hurry the slides, and use your weight!<br> + You're bucketing, Bow; and, as to Four,<br> + The sight of his shoulders makes me sore!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But Stroke has steadied his fiery men,<br> + And the lift on the boat gets stronger;<br> + And the Coxswain suddenly shouts for "Ten!<br> + Reach out to it, longer, longer!"<br> + While the wind and the tide raced hand in hand<br> + The swing of the crew and the pace were grand;<br> + But now that the two meet face to face<br> + It's buffet and slam and a tortoise-pace.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For Hammersmith Bridge has rattled past,<br> + And, oh, but the storm is humming.<br> + The turbulent white steeds gallop fast;<br> + They're tossing their crests and coming.<br> + It's a downright rackety, gusty day,<br> + And the backs of the crew are drenched in spray;<br> + But it's "Swing, boys, swing till you're deaf and blind,<br> + And you'll beat and baffle the raging wind."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + They have slipped through Barnes; they are round the bend;<br> + And the chests of the eight are tightening.<br> + "Now spend your strength, if you've strength to spend,<br> + And away with your hands like lightning!<br> + Well rowed!"—and the coach is forced to cheer—<br> + "Now stick to it, all, for the post is near!"<br> + And, lo, they stop at the coxswain's call,<br> + With its message of comfort, "Easy all!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So here's to the sturdy undismayed<br> + Eight men who are bound together<br> + By the faith of the slide and the flashing blade<br> + And the swing and the level feather;<br> + To the deeds they do and the toil they bear;<br> + To the dauntless mind and the will to dare;<br> + And the joyous spirit that makes them one<br> + Till the last fierce stroke of the race is done.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. C. LEHMANN.<br> + March 16, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="gambol"></a> + "Gambol"<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + I stood among the rapturous kennelled pack,<br> + Rejecting love from many a slobbering jaw,<br> + Caressing many a twisting mottled back<br> + And gripping here and there a friendly paw.<br> + But yet a well-known white-and-liver stern<br> + I sought in vain amid the dappled scramble.<br> + A sudden apprehension made me turn<br> + And say, "Where's Gambol?"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Gambol—a nailer on a failing scent,<br> + Leading by fifty yards across the plough!<br> + Gambol, who erst would riot and repent,<br> + Who loved to instigate a kennel row!<br> + Who'd often profit by "a private view"<br> + "Huic-ing to him" incarnadined from cover,<br> + And when a "half-cooked hare" sat squatting, who<br> + Through roots would shove her!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I turned with mute inquiry in my eyes,<br> + Dire rumours of distemper made me dumb,<br> + The kennel huntsman, chary of replies,<br> + Behind his shoulder jerked a horny thumb.<br> + Such silence, though familiar, boded ill;<br> + With doubts and fears increasing every minute,<br> + I paused before a doorway—all was still<br> + As death within it.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Gambol was stretched upon a truss of hay,<br> + But not the ruthless hound that I had known.<br> + That snarling terrorist of many a fray<br> + Now at my feet lay low, but not alone,<br> + Then rose to greet me—slowly shaking free<br> + Four sleek round shapes that piped a puling twitter—<br> + And fawned, half shamed, half proud for me to see<br> + Her brand-new litter.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS JESSIE POPE.<br> + March 20, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="foxes"></a> + "The Little Foxes"<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + This was a wisdom that SOLOMON said<br> + In a garden of citron and roses red,<br> + A word he wove, where his grey apes played,<br> + In the rhyme he strung for love of a maid;<br> + Thus went his learning, most discerning,<br> + Thus he sang of his old designs,<br> + "Take us the foxes—little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + (Though SOLOMON never since he was born<br> + Had heard the twang of a huntsman's horn,<br> + Killing his foxes, so I'll be bound,<br> + Without the help of a horse or hound,<br> + Still down the ages, this his sage's<br> + Word with gallanter meaning shines,<br> + When we take foxes, little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines!)<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So when the morn hangs misty now<br> + Where the grass shows never a patch of plough,<br> + Hark to the cry on the spruce-crowned hill,<br> + For SOLOMON'S wisdom is working still;<br> + Hark to the singing voices flinging,<br> + White sterns waving among the pines,<br> + All for the foxes—little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The lift of a cap at the cover side,<br> + A thud of hoofs in a squelchy ride,<br> + And the pack is racing a breast-high scent<br> + Like a shadow cloud o'er a windy bent!<br> + Customer cunning—full of running,<br> + Never a moment the game declines;<br> + Thus are the foxes—little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So it's afternoon, and eight miles away<br> + That beat, dead-weary and stiff with clay<br> + A tired mask, set for a distant whin,<br> + Is turned on Death with a brigand grin!<br> + There by the paling, wet brush trailing,<br> + Still he bares them his lips' long lines;<br> + So die the foxes—little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This was the wisdom that SOLOMON made<br> + In a garden of citron and almug shade,<br> + That a man and a horse might find them fun<br> + Wherever the little dog-foxes run,<br> + Since of his meaning we've been gleaning,<br> + Since we've altered his old designs.<br> + All about foxes—little foxes,<br> + Little dog-foxes that spoil the vines!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + April 3, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="cuckoo"></a> + To a Cuckoo, Heard on the Links +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Bohemian spirit! unencumbered by Penates,<br> + And sole performer of the woodland band<br> + Whose contributions I can recognise with great ease,<br> + Let others count you shifting as the sand,<br> + But surely underneath that bosom black-barred<br> + There lurks a sentiment that I (the hack-bard)<br> + Can fully comprehend. So, cuckoo, here's my hand.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not for the sake of ease you flit about the copses<br> + And bid your partner to an alien care,<br> + Entrust the incubation of her popsy-wopsies,<br> + Planting the eggy mites at unaware;<br> + But art, the voice of art, is ever calling.<br> + How could CARUSO sing with infants squalling?<br> + To fetter genius is to drive it to despair.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Should I not turn also my heartstrings to macadam?<br> + I too deposit, whereso'er I could,<br> + A host of unmelodious babies (if I had 'em)<br> + Or in the kindly shelter of some wood<br> + (With robins), or whatever creche was going,<br> + Soon as I felt the inspiration flowing,<br> + The bubbling in my brain-pan? Yes, by Jove, I should.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + 'Tis therefore that I sometimes wonder when I hear you<br> + Fulfil the valley with that vagrant noise,<br> + Now by the holm-oak yonder, now beside this near yew<br> + (Unhampered as you are by household ploys),<br> + Why you have never hit on something neater,<br> + Some outburst less monotonous of metre,<br> + Less easy to be aped by unregenerate boys.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Is it perhaps that, like that other star, the throstle,<br> + Simply to prove your throat can stand the strain,<br> + You too keep on, the Spring's repetitive apostle,<br> + Piping your pæan till it haunts the brain?<br> + I cannot say. But what I find so sad is<br> + One never knows if you or if the caddies<br> + Are making all that rumpus. There it goes again!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + April 21, 1909.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="first"></a> + The First Game<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + There comes a Day (I can hear it coming),<br> + One of those glorious deep-blue days,<br> + When larks are singing and bees are humming,<br> + And Earth gives voice in a thousand ways—<br> + Then I, my friends, I too shall sing,<br> + And hum a foolish little thing,<br> + And whistle like (but not too like) a blackbird in the Spring.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There looms a Day (I can feel it looming;<br> + Yes, it will be in a month or less),<br> + When all the flowers in the world are blooming<br> + And Nature flutters her fairest dress—<br> + Then I, my friends, I too shall wear<br> + A blazer that will make them stare,<br> + And brush—this is official: I shall also brush my hair.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It is the day that I watch for yearly,<br> + Never before has it come so late;<br> + But now I've only a month—no, merely<br> + A couple of fortnights left to wait;<br> + And then (to make the matter plain)<br> + I hold—at last!—a bat again:<br> + Dear HOBBS! the weeks this summer—think! the <i>weeks</i><br> + I've lived in vain!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I see already the first ball twisting<br> + Over the green as I take my stand,<br> + I hear already long-on insisting<br> + It wasn't a chance that came to hand—<br> + Or no; I see it miss the bat<br> + And strike me on the knee, whereat<br> + Some fool, some silly fool at point, says blandly, "How was that?"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then, scouting later, I hold a hot 'un<br> + At deep square-leg from the local FRY,<br> + And at short mid-on to the village SCOTTON<br> + I snap a skimmer some six-foot high—<br> + Or else, perhaps, I get the ball,<br> + Upon the thumb, or not at all,<br> + Or right into the hands, and then, lorblessme, let it fall.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But what care I? It's the game that calls me—<br> + Simply to be on the field of play;<br> + How can it matter what fate befalls me,<br> + With ten good fellows and one good day? ... But still,<br> + I rather hope spectators will,<br> + Observing any lack of skill,<br> + Remark, "This is his first appearance." Yes, I <i>hope</i> they will.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. A. MILNE.<br> + July 6, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="inland"></a> + Inland Golf<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + I hate the dreadful hollow, in the shade of the little wood,<br> + Its lips in the grass above are bearded with flame-gold whin;<br> + I have tried to forget the past, to play the shot as I should,<br> + But echo there, however I put it, answers me, "In!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For there in that ghastly pit long years ago I was found,<br> + Playing the sad three-more, interring the sphere where it fell;<br> + Mangled and flattened and hacked and dinted deep in the ground,<br> + My ball had the look that is joy to the loafer with balls to sell.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Down at the foot of the cliff, whose shadow makes dusk of the dawn,<br> + Maddened I stood and muttered, making a friend of despair;<br> + Then out I climbed while the wind that had tricked me began to fawn,<br> + Politely removing the sand that had made a mat of my hair.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Why do they prate of the blessings of golf on an inland course<br> + Where the "pretty" is but the plain, the "rough," prehensile hay,<br> + That yields up the ball (if at all) to a reckless <i>tour de force</i>,<br> + And mocks with rippling mirth your search in it day by day.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And the lost-ball madness flushes up in the 12-man's head,<br> + When the breeze brings down the impatient, contemptuous "Fore!"<br> + Till he gives it up at last and, dropping another instead,<br> + Envies those fortunate folk, the dead, who need golf no more.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. K. RISK.<br> + July 12, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="deer"></a> + To an Unknown Deer<br> +</h3> + +<p> + [Somewhere above the head of Loch Fyne.]<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + King of the treeless forest, lo, I come!<br> + This is to let you have the welcome news<br> + That you will shortly hear my bullet's hum<br> + Shatter Argyll amid her mountain dews;<br> + Will hear, from hill to hill, its rumour fly<br> + To startle (if the wind be not contrary)<br> + The tripper gathering picture-postcards by<br> + The pier at Inveraray.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This is your funeral, my friend, not mine,<br> + So play the game, for slackness I abhor;<br> + Give me a broadside target, large and fine,<br> + A hundred paces off—don't make it more;<br> + If in a sitting posture when we meet,<br> + You mustn't think of moving; stay quite steady<br> + Or (better) rise, and standing on your feet<br> + Wait there till I am ready.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Lurk not in hollows where you can't be found,<br> + Or let the local colour mock my search;<br> + But take the sky-line; choose the sort of ground<br> + That shows you up as obvious as a church;<br> + Don't skulk among your hinds, or use for scouts<br> + The nimble progeny of last year's harem<br> + To bring reports upon my whereabouts<br> + In case I chance to scare 'em.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + If I should perforate you in a place<br> + Not strictly vital, but from that rude shock<br> + Death must ensue, don't run and hide your face,<br> + But let me ease you with another knock;<br> + And if, by inadvertence, I contrive<br> + Initially to miss you altogether,<br> + Stand till I empty out my clip of five,<br> + Or make you bite the heather.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + As for your points, I take a snobbish view:<br> + I dearly love a stag of Royal stuff;<br> + But, if a dozen's more than you can do,<br> + Ten (of the best) will suit me well enough;<br> + As for your weight, I want a bulky beast,<br> + That I may win a certain patron's benison,<br> + Loading his board, to last a week at least,<br> + With whiffy slabs of venison.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Finally, be a sportsman; try to play<br> + Your part in what should prove a big success;<br> + Let me repeat—don't keep too far away;<br> + My distance is a hundred yards (or less);<br> + So, ere the eager gillies ope your maw,<br> + I'll say, in tones to such occasions proper,<br> + The while I drink your death in usquebagh,<br> + "He is indeed a topper!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Nor shall that sentence be your sole reward;<br> + Our mutual prowess in the fatal Glen<br> + Your headpiece, stuffed and mounted, shall record<br> + And be the cynosure of envious men;<br> + And when they see that segment of the bag,<br> + And want the tale again and I must tell it,<br> + I'll say how stoutly, like a well-bred stag,<br> + You stopped the soft-nosed pellet.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + Sept. 14, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="medalitis"></a> + Medalitis<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + In the full height and glory of the year,<br> + When husbandmen are housing golden sheaves,<br> + Before the jealous frost has come to shear<br> + From the bright woodland its reluctant leaves,<br> + I pass within a gateway, where the trees,<br> + Tall, stately, multi-coloured, manifold,<br> + Draw the eye on as to some Chersonese,<br> + Spanning the pathway with their arch of gold.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A river sings and loiters through the grass,<br> + Girdling a pleasance scythed and trimly shorn;<br> + And here I watch men vanish and repass<br> + To the last hour of eve from early morn;<br> + Dryads peer out at them, and goat-foot Pan<br> + Plays on his pipe to their unheeding ears;<br> + They pass, like pilgrims in a caravan,<br> + Towards some Mecca in the far-off years.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Blind to the woodland's autumn livery,<br> + Blind to the emerald pathway that they tread,<br> + Deaf to the river's low-pitched lullaby,<br> + Their limbs are quick and yet their souls are dead;<br> + Nothing to them the song of any bird,<br> + For them in vain were horns of Elfland wound,<br> + Blind, deaf and stockfish-mute; for, in a word,<br> + They are engaged upon a Medal Round.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Making an anxious torment of a game<br> + Whose humours now intrigue them not at all,<br> + They chase the flying wraith of printed fame,<br> + With card and pencil arithmetical;<br> + With features pinched into a painful frown<br> + Looming misfortunes they anticipate,<br> + Or, as the fatal record is set down,<br> + Brood darkly on a detrimental 8.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + These are in thrall to Satan, who devised<br> + Pencil and card to tempt weak men to sin,<br> + Whereby their prowess might be advertised—<br> + Say, 37 Out and 40 In;<br> + Rarely does any victim break his chains<br> + And from his nape the lethal burden doff—<br> + The man with medal virus in his veins<br> + Seldom outlives it and gets back to Golf.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. K. RISK.<br> + Oct. 2, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="flight"></a> + My First Flight<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Stranded at Brighton and bored to monotony,<br> + Sadly I roamed by the crowd-haunted shore;<br> + Fed up with bathing and boating and botany,<br> + Languidly humming the strains of "Asthore";<br> + Then, in the offing, descended an aeroplane,<br> + Gaily the pilot came striding my way;<br> + "'Afternoon, Sir!" he exclaimed. "Would you dare a 'plane<br> + Voyage to-day?"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Turning, I gazed with an eye that was critical<br> + At the contraption of fabric and wires;<br> + Flying's a game which my friends in the City call<br> + Simply gilt-edged—it uplifts and inspires.<br> + Holiday-makers stood by in expectancy,<br> + Cinema merchants rushed up with their reels;<br> + "Go it!" cried somebody; "go an' get wrecked an' see<br> + Just how it feels."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I who had fought for a seat in an omnibus<br> + Surely could never recoil from a 'plane?<br> + There, newly painted, she stood like a Romney 'bus,<br> + Bidding me soar through the vasty inane.<br> + Breathing a prayer for myself and my Fatherland<br> + Swiftly I scrambled aboard (the First Act);<br> + Upward we soared till I felt I would rather land<br> + Promptly—intact.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Swift rushed the air and the engine was thunderous,<br> + "Say, shall I stunt you?" the pilot then roared.<br> + Clouds were above us and Brighton was under us;<br> + Peace reigned below—there was Panic on board.<br> + Fiercely pulsated my turbulent heart inside,<br> + Fiercely we skidded and stunted and swayed;<br> + Grimly I crouched in that brute of a Martinsyde—<br> + Dazed and dismayed.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Every mad moment seemed in its intensity<br> + More than a cycle of slow-moving years;<br> + Finally I, in a state of dumb density,<br> + Reached <i>terra firma</i> mid hurricane cheers.<br> + Since I've decided that nothing can justify<br> + Passenger flights in a nerve-racking 'plane;<br> + <i>Others</i> may welcome the sport, but I'm cussed if I<br> + Try it again.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + G. R. SAMWAYS.<br> + Aug. 13, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="shooting"></a> + On Mixed Shooting<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Let my Bettina take it not amiss<br> + Nor deem that from my side I wish to shove her<br> + If I forego the too, too poignant bliss<br> + Of her adjacence in the hedgerow's cover,<br> + Where I propose to lurk<br> + And do among the driven birds some deadly work.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Linked in the dance, you cannot be too near,<br> + Nor where the waves permit our joint immersion;<br> + Dinners or theatres yield an added cheer<br> + With you beside me to afford diversion<br> + From thoughts of play or platter,<br> + And not of fundamental things that really matter.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But here, where my immortal soul, afire<br> + With fervour savouring almost of religion,<br> + Fain would pursue, unvexed, its one desire—<br> + To down the partridge or the errant pigeon,<br> + What if you stood (or sat)<br> + Close by and asked me if I liked your latest hat?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I could not bear it; you would sap my nerve;<br> + My hand and eye would cease to work together;<br> + I could not rightly gauge the covey's swerve,<br> + And, swinging round to spray the rearmost feather,<br> + I might mislay my wits<br> + And blow your smart confection into little bits.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Go rather where he stands, a field away,<br> + Yon youth who likes himself; go there, my Betty,<br> + Beguile his vision; round his trigger lay<br> + "One strangling golden hair" (D. G. ROSSETTI).<br> + That ought to spoil his feats<br> + And keep him fairly quiet in between the beats.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But later, when the luncheon-hour is come,<br> + Be near me all you will; for then your prattle<br> + Will be most welcome with its pleasant hum<br> + So out of place amid the stress of battle;<br> + Over an Irish stew,<br> + With "Bristol cream" to top it, I am <i>tout à vous</i>.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not that your virtues have no higher use;<br> + Such gifts would grace the loftiest position;<br> + But where the birds come down wind like the deuce<br> + I mark the limit of your woman's mission;<br> + In other circs, elsewhere,<br> + "A ministering angel thou"; but not just there.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + Oct. 11, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="southward"></a> + Southward<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + When against the window-pane tap the fingers of the rain,<br> + An ill rain, a chill rain, dripping from the eaves,<br> + When the farmers haul their logs and the marsh is whisht with fogs,<br> + And the wind sighs like an old man, brushing withered leaves;<br> + When the Summertime is gone and the Winter creeping on,<br> + The doleful Northern winter of snow and sleet and hail,<br> + Then I smell the salty brine and I see you, ship o' mine,<br> + Bowling through the sunshine under all plain sail.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I can see you, Lady love, the Trade clouds strung above,<br> + White clouds, bright clouds, flocking South with you;<br> + Like snowy lily buds are the flowery foaming suds<br> + That bloom about your forefoot as you tread the meadows blue.<br> + Oh the diamond Southern Cross! Oh the wheeling albatross!<br> + Oh the shoals of silver flying-fish that skim beside the rail!<br> + Though my body's in the North still my heart goes faring forth<br> + Bowling through the sunshine under all plain sail.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Dec. 6, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="last"></a> + The Last Cock-Pheasant +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Splendour, whom lately on your glowing flight<br> + Athwart the chill and cheerless winter-skies<br> + I marked and welcomed with a futile right,<br> + And then a futile left, and strained my eyes<br> + To see you so magnificently large,<br> + Sinking to rest beyond the fir-wood's marge—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not mine, not mine the fault; despise me not<br> + In that I missed you; for the sun was down,<br> + And the dim light was all against the shot;<br> + And I had booked a bet of half-a-crown.<br> + My deadly fire is apt to be upset<br> + By many causes—always by a bet.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Or had I overdone it with the sloes,<br> + Snared by their home-picked brand of ardent gin<br> + Designed to warm a shivering sportsman's toes<br> + And light a fire his reckless head within?<br> + Or did my silly loader put me off<br> + With aimless chatter with regard to golf?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You too, I think, displayed a lack of nerve;<br> + You did not quite—now did you?—play the game;<br> + For when you saw me you were seen to swerve,<br> + Doubtless in order to disturb my aim.<br> + No, no, you must not ask me to forgive<br> + A swerve because you basely planned to live.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + At any rate, I missed you, and you went,<br> + The last day's absolutely final bird,<br> + Scathless, and left me very ill content;<br> + And someone (was it I?) pronounced a word,<br> + A word which rather forcible than nice is,<br> + A little word which does not rhyme with Isis.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Farewell! I may behold you once again<br> + When next November's gales have stripped the leaf.<br> + Then, while your upward flight you grandly strain,<br> + May I be there to add you to my sheaf;<br> + And may they praise your tallness, saying "This<br> + Was such a bird as men are proud to miss!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. C. LEHMANN.<br> + Jan. 25, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="labuntur"></a> + Labuntur Anni<br> +</h3> + +<p> + [To a Chital Head on the Wall of a London Club.]<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Light in the East, the dawn wind singing,<br> + Solemn and grey and chill,<br> + Rose in the sky, with Orion swinging<br> + Down to the distant hill;<br> + The grass dew-pearled and the <i>mohwa</i> shaking<br> + Her scented petals across the track,<br> + And the herd astir to the new day breaking—<br> + Gods! How it all comes back.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So it was, and on such a morning<br> + Somebody's bullet sped,<br> + And you, as you called to the herd a warning,<br> + Dropped in the grasses dead;<br> + And some stout hunter's heart was brimming<br> + For joy that the gods of sport were good—<br> + With a lump in his throat and his eyes a-dimming,<br> + As the eyes of sportsmen should;—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + As mine have done in the springtime running,<br> + As mine in the halcyon days<br> + Ere trigger-finger had lapsed from cunning<br> + Or foot from the forest ways,<br> + When I'd wake with the stars and the sunrise meeting<br> + In the dewy fragrance of myrrh and musk,<br> + Peacock and spurfowl sounding a greeting<br> + And the jungle mine till dusk.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You take me back to the valleys of laughter,<br> + The hills that hunters love,<br> + The sudden rain and the sunshine after,<br> + The cloud and the blue above,<br> + The morning mist and creatures crying,<br> + The beat in the drowsy afternoon,<br> + Clear-washed eve with the sunset dying,<br> + Night and the hunter's moon.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not till all trees and jungles perish<br> + Shall we go back that way<br> + To those dear hills that the hunters cherish,<br> + Where the hearts of the hunters stay;<br> + So you dream on of the ancient glories,<br> + Of water-meadows and hinds and stags,<br> + While I and my like tell old, old stories...<br> + Ah! but it drags—it drags.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. HILTON BROWN.<br> + April 14, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="commem"></a> +<i>School</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + "Commem."<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Fair ladies, why don't you direct us<br> + What hour you are coming from Town<br> + In the toilets that ravage the masculine pectus,<br> + The bonnets that knock a man down?<br> + Silky and summery flounces and flummery,<br> + Gossamer muslins and lawns,<br> + With the spring in your air and a rose in your hair<br> + And a step that is light as a fawn's?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Our Fellows, both clergy and laity,<br> + Leaving their sheltering oaks,<br> + In a rapture of light irresponsible gaiety<br> + Burst into flannels and jokes;<br> + The Dean is canoeing, the Bursar is wooing,<br> + The Junior Proctor you'll find<br> + In a sumptuous punt with a damsel in front<br> + And a Bull-dog to push from behind.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ah, moist are our meadows, but moister<br> + My lip at the thought of it all!<br> + Soft ripple of dresses that flow in the cloister,<br> + Girl laughter that rings on the wall!<br> + But avaunt, trepidation! it's time for the station;<br> + I'm glad that my trousers are pressed;<br> + For I think you'll arrive by the 4.45,<br> + And I want to be looking my best.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + G. W. ARMITAGE.<br> + June 28, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ramshackle"></a> + A Ramshackle Room<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn,<br> + And the lights are put out in the vault of the night;<br> + When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn,<br> + And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight,<br> + Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am<br> + My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + 'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain<br> + Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor;<br> + With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane,<br> + And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door;<br> + With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall,<br> + And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes—<br> + A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay—<br> + There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes<br> + When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away.<br> + There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot,<br> + Such as <i>Plato</i>, and <i>Dickens</i>, and <i>Liddell</i> and <i>Scott</i>.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag<br> + From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out;<br> + And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag<br> + As she tidies the room where she bustles about;<br> + For a man may be strong and a man may be young,<br> + But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease<br> + In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down,<br> + With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees,<br> + And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown.<br> + Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am<br> + From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. C. LEHMANN.<br> + Feb. 9, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="cambridge"></a> + Cambridge in Kharki<br> +</h3> + +<p> + [Impressions of an absent Alumnus.]<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Since 1642, when CROMWELL (late<br> + Of Sidney Sussex), constitution-wrecker,<br> + Sat on the Cam to keep the college plate<br> + From drifting into CHARLES'S low exchequer,<br> + No shattering battle-blast has shocked the walls<br> + Of these enchanted halls.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But now their hoary shrines and hallowed shade<br> + Provide the billets for a camp's headquarters;<br> + An army, bedded out on King's Parade,<br> + Usurps the wonted haunt of gowns and mortars,<br> + Even adopts—a wanton thing to do—<br> + The blessed name of "Blue"!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The paths where pensive scholars paced at ease<br> + Ring to the hustling clank of spurs and sabres;<br> + The ploughshare, forged for pale examinees,<br> + Forgets its usual academic labours<br> + And, commandeered for ends unknown before,<br> + Turns to a tool of war.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The buttery becomes a mere canteen;<br> + Upon the dais whence the Johnian fellow<br> + Pities the undergraduate's rude cuisine<br> + (His own condition verging on the mellow),<br> + Foreign attachés eat the local swans<br> + Bred for the use of dons.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I see the grass of many an ancient court<br> + All divots where the cavalry has pawed it;<br> + I see the thirsty aides-de-camp resort<br> + There where the Trinity fountain runs with audit;<br> + I see the Reverend MONTAGU, Chief BUTLER,<br> + Acting as army sutler!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Those swards that grace his own familiar quad,<br> + Where only angels (looking in from Ely),<br> + Angels and dons alone, till now have trod—<br> + There I remark the War-Lord, Colonel SEELY,<br> + Brazenly tramping, under martial law,<br> + Dead to a sense of awe.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Where mid her storied reeds old Granta flows<br> + Profane vedettes discuss the morrow's mêlée;<br> + On Parker's sacred Piece the troopers dose,<br> + And, when the sudden bugle sounds reveille,<br> + Feed their indifferent chargers on the dews<br> + Ambrosial of the Muse.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And what is this strange object like a whale<br> + In Jesus Close? None ever thought to meet a<br> + Monster like that, on such a bulgy scale<br> + (Not though it bore the classic sign of "Beta"),<br> + Lashed for the night in yon Elysian lair—<br> + Not there, my child, not there.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The peaceful pedant by his well-trimmed lamp,<br> + Dimly aware of this adjacent bogie,<br> + Protests against the horrors of a camp<br> + And <i>Cur</i>, he asks, <i>cur cedunt armis togae</i>?<br> + And the same thought is echoed on the lips<br> + Of bedders and of gyps.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + O Cambridge, home of Culture's pure delights,<br> + My fostering Mother, what a desecration!<br> + Yet England chose you (out of several sites)<br> + To be her bulwark and to save the nation;<br> + Compared with this proud triumph you have won,<br> + Pray, what has Oxford done?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + Sept. 25, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="oxford"></a> + Oxford Revisited<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Last week, a prey to military duty,<br> + I turned my lagging footsteps to the West;<br> + I have a natural taste for scenic beauty,<br> + And all my pent emotions may be guessed<br> + To find myself again<br> + At Didcot, loathliest junction of the plain.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But all things come unto the patient waiter,<br> + "Behold!" I cried, "in yon contiguous blue<br> + Beetle the antique spires of Alma Mater<br> + Almost exactly as they used to do<br> + In 1898,<br> + When I became an undergraduate.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "O joys whereto I went as to a bridal,<br> + With Youth's fair aureole clustering on a brow<br> + That no amount of culture (herpecidal)<br> + Will coax the semblance of a crop from now,<br> + Once more I make ye mine;<br> + There is a train that leaves at half-past nine.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "In a rude land where life among the boys is<br> + One long glad round of cards and coffin juice,<br> + And any sort of intellectual poise is<br> + The constant butt of well-expressed abuse,<br> + And it is no disgrace<br> + To put a table-knife inside one's face,<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "I have remembered picnics on the Isis,<br> + Bonfires and bumps and BOFFIN'S cakes and tea,<br> + Nor ever dreamed a European crisis<br> + Would make a British soldier out of me—<br> + The mute inglorious kind<br> + That push the beastly war on from behind.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "But here I am" (I mused) "and quad and cloister<br> + Are beckoning to me with the old allure;<br> + The lovely world of Youth shall be mine oyster<br> + Which I for one-and-ninepence can secure,<br> + Reaching on Memory's wing<br> + Parnassus' groves and Wisdom's fabled spring."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But oh, the facts! How doomed to disillusion<br> + The dreams that cheat the mind's responsive eye!<br> + Where are the undergrads in gay profusion<br> + Whose waistcoats made melodious the High,<br> + All the <i>jeunesse dorée</i><br> + That shed the glamour of an elder day?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Can this be Oxford? And is that my college<br> + That vomits khaki through its sacred gate?<br> + Are those the schools where once I aired my knowledge<br> + Where nurses pass and ambulances wait?<br> + Ah! sick ones, pale of face,<br> + I too have suffered tortures in that place!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + In Tom his quad the Bloods no longer flourish;<br> + Balliol is bare of all but mild Hindoos;<br> + The stalwart oars that Isis used to nourish<br> + Are in the trenches giving Fritz the Blues,<br> + And many a stout D.D.<br> + Is digging trenches with the V.T.C.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Why press the search when every hallowed close is<br> + Cluttered with youthful soldiers forming fours;<br> + While the drum stutters and the bugler blows his<br> + Loud summons, and the hoarse bull-sergeant roars,<br> + While almost out of view<br> + The thrumming biplane cleaves the astonished blue?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It is a sight to stir the pulse of poet,<br> + These splendid youths with zeal and courage fired.<br> + But as for Private Me, M.A.—why, blow it!<br> + The very sight of soldiers makes me tired;<br> + Learning—detached, apart—<br> + I sought, not War's reverberating art.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Vain search! But see! One ancient institution<br> + Still doing business at the same old stand;<br> + 'Tis Messrs. Barclay's Bank, or I'm a Proossian,<br> + That erst dispensed my slender cash-in-hand;<br> + I'll borrow of their pelf<br> + And buy some War Loan to console myself.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Feb. 21, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="breakingup"></a> + Breaking-Up Song<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Now, when the ties that lightly bind us<br> + Slacken awhile at the call of Home,<br> + Leaving our latter-day science behind us,<br> + Leaving the love of ancient Rome—<br> + Ere we depart to enjoy for a season<br> + Freedom from regular work and rules,<br> + Come let us all in rhyme and reason<br> + Honour the best of schools.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Here's to our Founder, whose ancient bounty<br> + Freely bestowed with a pious care,<br> + Fostered the youth of his native county,<br> + Gave us a name we are proud to bear.<br> + Here's to his followers, wise gift-makers,<br> + Friends who helped when our numbers were few,<br> + Widened our walls and enlarged our acres,<br> + Stablished the school anew.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Here's to our Head, in whom all centres,<br> + Ruling his realm with a kindly sway;<br> + Here's to the Masters, our guides and mentors,<br> + Helpers in work and comrades in play;<br> + Here's to the Old Boys, working their way up<br> + Out in the world on the ladder of Fame;<br> + Here's to the New Boys, learning to play up,<br> + Ay, and to play the game.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Time will bring us our seasons of trial,<br> + Seasons of joy when our ship arrives,<br> + Yet, whatever be writ on the dial,<br> + Now is the golden hour of our lives;<br> + Now is the feast spread fair before us—<br> + None but slackers or knaves or fools<br> + Ever shall fail to swell the chorus,<br> + "Here's to the best of schools."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. L. GRAVES and E. V. LUCAS.<br> + March 13, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="ideal"></a> +<i>Metropolis</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + The Ideal Home<br> +</h3> + +<p> +[With apologies to the progressive organisers of a certain +Exhibition at Olympia.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Before the thing ends," I observed to my Lilian,<br> + "Let's hasten and see if it's true<br> + That the Fortunate Isles and the Vale of Avilion<br> + Are dumped at Olympia. Do."<br> + And Lilian said, "Thos,<br> + Happy thought!" and it was;<br> + But that very same day it occurred to a million<br> + Intelligent Londoners too.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There were hangings and curtains and carpets and ranges<br> + For kitchens, and cauldrons and pots,<br> + And vacuum-cleaners and servant-exchanges,<br> + And toys for the infantile tots.<br> + There were homes of the Russ<br> + Which would not do for us;<br> + There was furniture taken from futurist granges<br> + At Hanwell and similar spots.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There were baths with gold taps and a malachite stopper,<br> + And one with a card that explained<br> + It was open to all who expended a copper<br> + To fill it and try it. But, trained<br> + As we were in the rules<br> + Of Victorian schools,<br> + Neither Lilian nor I thought that that would be proper,<br> + And so we severely refrained.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There were rooms which suggested the time when the slattern<br> + Should trouble no longer, and all<br> + Should be comfort and peace in the empire of Saturn,<br> + But oh, it was hot in that hall!<br> + And "Lilian," said I,<br> + "I could drop. Let us buy<br> + That brace of armchairs of a willowy pattern,<br> + And rest by the side of this stall."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But Lilian said "No." The implacable faces<br> + Of constables frowned. With a sob<br> + We turned us away from that palmy oasis<br> + And went and had tea for a bob.<br> + That was helpful, no doubt,<br> + But before we got out<br> + Through the ranks of the ravenous, squealing for places,<br> + We all but expired in the mob.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "This is closer," said Lil, "than the bell of a diver."<br> + "It's awful," I answered, "my sweet;<br> + Any room in this show would be dear at a fiver,<br> + Compared with our worst. Let us fleet."<br> + So I hastened to nab<br> + A well-oiled taxicab,<br> + And "The Ideal Home," I remarked to the driver,<br> + And mentioned our number and street.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. G. V. KNOX.<br> + October 29, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ghosts"></a> + Ghosts of Paper<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Should you go down Ludgate Hill,<br> + As I'm sure you sometimes will,<br> + When the dark comes soft and new,<br> + Smudged and smooth and powder-blue,<br> + And the lights on either hand<br> + Run away to reach the Strand;<br> + And the winter rains that stream<br> + Make the pavements glance and gleam;<br> + There you'll see the wet roofs rise<br> + Packed against the lamp-lit skies,<br> + And at once you shall look down<br> + Into an enchanted town.<br> + Jewelled Fleet Street, golden gay,<br> + Sloughs the drab of work-a-day,<br> + Conjuring before you then<br> + All her ghosts of ink and pen,<br> + Striking from her magic mint<br> + Places you have loved in print,<br> + From the fairy towns and streets<br> + Raised by Djinn and fierce Afreets,<br> + To the columned brass that shone<br> + On the gates of Babylon;<br> + You shall wander, mazed, amid<br> + Pylon, palm, and pyramid;<br> + You shall see, where taxis throng,<br> + River lamps of old Hong Kong;<br> + See the ramparts standing tall<br> + Of the wondrous Tartar Wall;<br> + See, despite of rain and wind,<br> + Marble towns of rosy Ind,<br> + And the domes and palaces<br> + Crowning Tripolis and Fez;<br> + While, where buses churn and splash,<br> + There's the ripple of a sash,<br> + Silken maid and paper fan<br> + And the peach-bloom of Japan;<br> + But, the finest thing of all,<br> + You shall ride a charger tall<br> + Into huddled towns that haunt<br> + Picture-books of old Romaunt,<br> + Where go squire and knight and saint,<br> + Heavy limned in golden paint;<br> + You shall ride above the crowd<br> + On a courser pacing proud,<br> + In fit panoply and meet<br> + Through be-cobbled square and street,<br> + Where with bays and gestures bland<br> + Little brown-faced angels stand!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + These are some of things you'll view<br> + When the night is blurred and blue,<br> + If you look down Ludgate Hill,<br> + As I'm sure you often will!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Jan. 4, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="desert"></a> + The Desert Optimist<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + An exile, I would fain forget<br> + That circumstance hath put me down<br> + Quite close to places like Tibet,<br> + But very far from London town.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And though the outlook's rather drear<br> + I sometimes fancy I detect<br> + A sort of Cockney atmosphere,<br> + A Metropolitan effect.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Behind my chair in solemn state<br> + The bearer and khansama stand,<br> + Swart replicas of those who wait<br> + In Piccadilly or the Strand.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + My punkah brings a grateful wind<br> + To cheeks climatically brown'd,<br> + A fitful gust that calls to mind<br> + The draughts about the Underground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And though they spoil my morning rest<br> + I like to lie awake and hark<br> + To parrakeets whose notes suggest<br> + Their captive kin in Regent's Park.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + About my house the pigeons roost,<br> + They perch upon the compound walls,<br> + Own brothers to the friends who used<br> + To flap me greeting from St. Paul's.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + In yellow waves the dawn-mist drives<br> + Across the paddy-field and jogs<br> + The memory of one who strives<br> + To reconstruct his London fogs.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And when I hear a bullock-cart<br> + Go rumbling 'neath its harvest truss<br> + The echo wakens in my heart<br> + The music of the omnibus.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And thus it is I've learned to find<br> + A remedy for things that irk;<br> + My desert fades and with a kind<br> + Of cinematographic jerk—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Urbs errat ante oculos;"<br> + Then, Fortune, send me where you list,<br> + I care not, London holds me close,<br> + An exile, yet an optimist.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + J. M. SYMNS.<br> + Aug. 2, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="pigeon"></a> + To a Bank of England Pigeon<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Descendant of the doves of Aphrodite<br> + Who fluttered in that type of beauty's train<br> + And followed her affairs—the grave, the flighty,<br> + Cooing in just your calm, uncaring strain,<br> + Whether she thought to rid her of a rival,<br> + Or bring some laggard lover to her knees;—<br> + I see you, Sir, the latter-day survival<br> + Of such fair plumed satellites as these!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Bred in the bone," perchance you know the motto!<br> + And so you doubtless dream of tides that lace<br> + O'er snow-white sand by some blue Paphian grotto,<br> + Or of your sires' dark, murmurous, woodland Thrace;<br> + A penny whistle shrilling 'mid the traffic<br> + May seem the goat-foot god's own oaten trill,<br> + Till you shall think to hear the Maenads maffic<br> + In the upborne commotion of Cornhill!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And from your perch where sooty winds are striving,<br> + O Bank Stock-dove, as o'er Hymettian bloom<br> + You yet may watch the busy bees a-hiving<br> + The sweet and subtle fragrance of the Boom,<br> + And see, as once before the Cyprian matron,<br> + The crowds that wait, obsequious and discreet,<br> + On her, your passionless and newer patron,<br> + The stern Old Lady of Threadneedle Street!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + May 11, 1910.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="smiling"></a> + Left Smiling<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + It is the joyful time when out of town<br> + (For me a large red letter checks it)<br> + To sea and loch, to dale and windy down<br> + The public makes its annual exit,<br> + Deeming that they are dotty in the mind<br> + Who choose to stay behind.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Exodus" is the tag the papers use,<br> + A Scriptural term from ancient Jewry,<br> + But I shall always steadily refuse<br> + To do like PHARAOH in his fury<br> + And fling my horse and chariot on their track<br> + To fetch the people back.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Poor crowded souls, who think that when they fare<br> + Forth to the briny, there to wallow,<br> + They leave in London's every street and square<br> + An aching void, a yawning hollow.<br> + "Town," they observe, "is empty!" It is not:<br> + I still am on the spot.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + They picture Beauty vanished from the Park,<br> + Clubland a waste for flies to buzz in,<br> + The Halls of Song and high Cinema dark,<br> + And here and there a country cousin<br> + Sharing with vagrant cat and mongrel dawg<br> + The putrid dust of Aug.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + These are their views who shun the quiet shade<br> + And go <i>en masse</i> in search of glamour,<br> + Wash in the same sea, walk the same parade,<br> + Fill the same solitude with clamour,<br> + And on the same rock, in a fist like Fame's,<br> + Knife their confounded names.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So let them trip it where their neighbours press<br> + With loud excursion and alarum,<br> + And leave me London in her Summer dress<br> + Exquisite as the lily (<i>arum</i>)<br> + And fragrant with the absence, all too short,<br> + Of the more stuffy sort.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For then, when all the obvious people flit,<br> + The town unlocks her rarer treasures;<br> + More freely, with companions few but fit,<br> + I taste the less obtrusive pleasures<br> + With which the Choicer Spirits keep in touch<br> + (As Editors and such).<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Dearer I find than any change of scene<br> + The charm of old familiar places,<br> + When the dull obstacle that stood between<br> + Fades and reveals their hidden graces.<br> + London with half her Londoners removed<br> + Is very much improved.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>Enfin, j'y reste</i>. And, if some folk regard<br> + My conduct as a thing of beauty,<br> + Saying, "He stops in town, this virtuous bard,<br> + Because he loves the way of Duty,"<br> + Why, let them talk; I shall not take the trouble<br> + To prick this wanton bubble.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + July 31, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="sitting"></a> + The Sitting Bard +</h3> + +<p> +[Lines addressed to one of those officials who charge you +a copper for your seat in St. James's Park.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Fellow, you have no <i>flair</i> for art, I fear,<br> + Who thus confound me with the idle Many—<br> + The loafer pensive o'er his betting rag,<br> + The messenger (express) with reeking fag,<br> + The nursemaid sighing for her bombardier—<br> + All charged the same pew-rate, a common penny.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I am an artist; I am not as these;<br> + He does me horrid despite who confuses<br> + My taste with theirs who come this way to chuck<br> + Light provender to some exotic duck,<br> + Whereas I sit beneath these secular trees<br> + In close collaboration with the Muses.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To me St. James's Park is holy ground;<br> + In fancy I regard these glades as Helicon's;<br> + This lake (although an artificial pond)<br> + To Hippocrene should roughly correspond;<br> + Others, not I, shall make its shores resound,<br> + Bandying chaff with yonder jaunty pelicans.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + All this escaped you, lacking minstrel lore.<br> + 'Tis so with poets: men are blind and miss us;<br> + You did not mark my eye's exultant mood,<br> + The inflated chest, the listening attitude,<br> + Nor, bent above the mere, the look I wore<br> + When lost in self-reflection—like Narcissus.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Else you could scarce have charged me for my seat;<br> + I must have earned an honorary session;<br> + For how could I have strained your solid chair,<br> + I that am all pure spirit, fine as air,<br> + And sit as light as when with wingéd feet<br> + Mercury settles, leaving no impression?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Well, take your paltry penny, trivial dun!<br> + And bid your chair-contractors freely wallow<br> + In luxury therewith; but, when you find<br> + Another in this hallowed seat reclined,<br> + Squeeze him for tuppence, saying, "<i>Here sat one<br> + On June the fifth and parleyed with Apollo</i>."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + June 11, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="nursery"></a> + Nursery Rhymes of London Town<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + KINGSWAY<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Walking on the King's Way, lady, my lady,<br> + Walking on the King's Way, will you go in red?<br> + With a silken wimple, and a ruby on your finger,<br> + And a furry mantle trailing where you tread?<br> + Neither red nor ruby I'll wear upon the King's Way;<br> + I will go in duffle grey with nothing on my head.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Walking on the King's Way, lady, my lady,<br> + Walking on the King's Way, will you go in blue?<br> + With an ermine border, and a plume of peacock feathers,<br> + And a silver circlet, and a sapphire on your shoe?<br> + Neither blue nor sapphire I'll wear upon the King's Way;<br> + I will go in duffle grey, and barefoot too.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Walking on the King's Way, lady, my lady,<br> + Walking on the King's Way, will you go in green?<br> + With a golden girdle, and a pointed velvet slipper,<br> + And a crown of emeralds fit for a queen?<br> + Neither green nor emerald I'll wear upon the King's Way;<br> + I will go in duffle grey so lovely to be seen,<br> + And Somebody will kiss me and call me his queen.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + March 2, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + HAYMARKET<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I went up to the Hay-market upon a summer day,<br> + I went up to the Hay-market to sell a load of hay—<br> + To sell a load of hay and a little bit over,<br> + And I sold it all to a pretty girl for a nosegay of red clover.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A nosegay of red clover and a hollow golden straw;<br> + Now wasn't that a bargain, the best you ever saw?<br> + I whistled on my straw in the market-place all day,<br> + And the London folk came flocking for to foot it in the hay.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + THE ANGEL<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The Angel flew down<br> + One morning to town,<br> + But didn't know where to rest;<br> + For they shut her out of the East End<br> + And they shut her out of the West.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The Angel went on<br> + To Islington,<br> + And there the people were kinder.<br> + If ever you go to Islington<br> + That's where you will find her.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS E. FARJEON.<br> + June 4, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="booklover"></a> + The Booklover<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + By Charing Cross in London Town<br> + There runs a road of high renown,<br> + Where antique books are ranged on shelves<br> + As dark and dusty as themselves.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And many booklovers have spent<br> + Their substance there with great content,<br> + And vexed their wives and filled their homes<br> + With faded prints and massive tomes.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And ere I sailed to fight in France<br> + There did I often woo Romance,<br> + Searching for jewels in the dross,<br> + Along the road to Charing Cross.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But booksellers and men of taste<br> + Have fled the towns the Hun laid waste,<br> + And within Ypres Cathedral square<br> + I sought but found no bookshops there.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + What little hope have books to dwell<br> + 'Twixt Flemish mud and German shell?<br> + Yet have I still upon my back,<br> + Hid safely in my haversack,<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A tattered Horace, printed fine<br> + (Anchor and Fish, the printer's sign),<br> + Of sage advice, of classic wit;<br> + Much wisdom have I gained from it.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And should I suffer sad mischance<br> + When Summer brings the Great Advance,<br> + I pray no cultured Bosch may bag<br> + My Aldus print to swell his swag.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet would I rather ask of Fate<br> + So to consider my estate,<br> + That I may live to loiter down<br> + By Charing Cross in London Town.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + NORMAN DAVEY.<br> + June 21, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="lanes"></a> + The Lanes leading down to the Thames<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + There are beautiful lanes leading down to the Thames<br> + By the meadows all studded with buttercup gems,<br> + Where the thrush and the blackbird and cuckoo all day<br> + Waft their songs on the incense of roses and may.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But the lanes here in London, near warehouse and mart,<br> + Are as winding and steep and as dear to my heart;<br> + Their mansions all mildewed in tenderest tones,<br> + With priceless old doorways by INIGO JONES.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Though the roadway is rough and the cobbles are hard,<br> + There are plane-trees in leaf in St. Dunstan's churchyard,<br> + And the twittering sparrows their parliament keep<br> + In the peaceful demesne where the citizens sleep.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh! the sights and the sounds of those wonderful lanes,<br> + The tramp of the horses, the creak of the cranes,<br> + Men fresh from the perils that lurk in the seas,<br> + The balm of the Indies that spices the breeze.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Crude critics find fault with the fish-porters' yells,<br> + The strength of the briny and orangey smells,<br> + But they're part of the charm of the lanes I hold dear,<br> + "Harp," "Pudding" and "Idol," "Love," "Water" and "Beer."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + R. H. ROBERTS.<br> + July 12, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="departed"></a> + To a Dear Departed +</h3> + +<p> +["Georgina," the largest of the giant tortoises at the Zoo, has +died. She was believed to be about two hundred and fifty +years old.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Winds blow cold and the rain, Georgina,<br> + Beats and gurgles on roof and pane;<br> + Over the Gardens that once were green a<br> + Shadow stoops and is gone again;<br> + Only a sob in the wild swine's squeal<br> + Only the bark of the plunging seal,<br> + Only the laugh of the striped hyæna<br> + Muffled with poignant pain.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Long ago, in the mad glad May days,<br> + Woo'd I one who was with us still;<br> + Bade him wake to the world's blithe heydays,<br> + Leap in joyance and eat his fill;<br> + Sang I, sweet as the bright-billed ousel, a<br> + Pæan of praise for thy pal, Methuselah.<br> + Ah! he too in the Winter's grey days<br> + Died of the usual chill.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + He was old when the Reaper beckoned,<br> + Ripe for the paying of Nature's debt;<br> + Forty score—if he'd lived a second—<br> + Years had flown, but he lingered yet;<br> + But you had gladdened this vale of tears<br> + For a bare two hundred and fifty years;<br> + You, Georgina, we always reckoned<br> + One of the younger set.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Winter's cold and the influenza<br> + Wreaked and ravaged the ranks among;<br> + Bills that babbled a gay cadenza,<br> + Snouts that snuffled and claws that clung—<br> + Now they whistle and root and run<br> + In Happy Valleys beyond the sun;<br> + Never back to the ponds and pens a<br> + Sigh of regret is flung.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Flaming parrots and pink flamingoes,<br> + Birds of Paradise, frail as fair;<br> + Monkeys talking a hundred lingoes,<br> + Ring-tailed lemur and Polar bear—<br> + Somehow our grief was not profound<br> + When they passed to the Happy Hunting Ground;<br> + Deer and ducks and yellow dog dingoes<br> + Croaked, but we did not care.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But you—ah, you were our pride, our treasure,<br> + Care-free child of a kingly race.<br> + Undemonstrative? Yes, in a measure,<br> + But every movement replete with grace.<br> + Whiles we mocked at the monkeys' tricks<br> + Or pored apart on the apteryx;<br> + These could yield but a passing pleasure;<br> + Yours was the primal place.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + How our little ones' hearts would flutter<br> + When your intelligent eye peeped out,<br> + Saying as plainly as words could utter,<br> + "Hurry up with that Brussels-sprout!"<br> + How we chortled with simple joy<br> + When you bit that impudent errand-boy;<br> + "That'll teach him," we heard you mutter,<br> + "Whether I've got the gout."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Fairest, rarest in all the Zoo, you<br> + Bound us tight in affection's bond;<br> + Now you're gone from the friends that knew you,<br> + Wails the whaup in the Waders' Pond;<br> + Wails the whaup and the seamews keen a<br> + Song of sorrow; but you, Georgina,<br> + Frisk for ever where warm winds woo you,<br> + There, in the Great Beyond.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Feb. 19, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="dulcedomum"></a> +"<i>Dulce Domum</i>" +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="romanroad"></a> + By the Roman Road<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The wind it sang in the pine-tops, it sang like a humming harp;<br> + The smell of the sun on the bracken was wonderful sweet and sharp,<br> + As sharp as the piney needles, as sweet as the gods were good,<br> + For the wind it sung of the old gods, as I came through the wood!<br> + It sung how long ago the Romans made a road,<br> + And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It sang of the wayside altars (the pine-tops sighed like the surf),<br> + Of little shrines uplifted, of stone and scented turf,<br> + Of youths divine and immortal, of maids as white as the snow<br> + That glimmered among the thickets a mort of years ago!<br> + All in the cool of dawn, all in the twilight grey,<br> + The gods came up from Italy along the Roman way!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The altar smoke it has drifted and faded afar on the hill;<br> + No wood-nymphs haunt the hollows; the reedy pipes are still;<br> + No more the youth Apollo shall walk in his sunshine clear;<br> + No more the maid Diana shall follow the fallow-deer<br> + (The woodmen grew so wise, the woodmen grew so old,<br> + The gods went back to Italy—or so the story's told!)<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But the woods are full of voices and of shy and secret things—<br> + The badger down by the brook-side, the flick of a woodcock's wings,<br> + The plump of a falling fir-cone, the pop of the sun-ripe pods,<br> + And the wind that sings in the pine-tops the song of the ancient gods—<br> + The song of the wind that says the Romans made a road,<br> + And the gods came up from Italy and found them an abode!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + July 31, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="cowhay"></a> + Little Cow Hay<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Stephen Culpepper<br> + Of Little Cow Hay<br> + Farmed four hundred acres—<br> + As Audit-book say;<br> + An' he rode on a flea-bitten<br> + Fiddle-faced grey;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There's the house—in the hollow,<br> + With gable an' eave,<br> + But they've altered it so<br> + That you wouldn't believe;—<br> + Wouldn't know the old place<br> + If he saw it—old Steve;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + His dads an' his gran'dads<br> + Had lived there before;—<br> + Born, married an' died there—<br> + At least half a score;<br> + Big men the Culpeppers—<br> + As high as the door!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + His wife was a Makepeace—<br> + An' none likelier,<br> + For she'd five hundred pounds<br> + When he married o' her;<br> + An' a grey eye as kindly<br> + As grey lavender;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + He'd sweetest o' roses,<br> + He'd soundest o' wheat;<br> + Six sons—an' a daughter<br> + To make 'em complete,<br> + An' he always said Grace<br> + When they sat down to meat!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + He'd the Blessin' o' Heaven<br> + On barnyard an' byre,<br> + For he made the best prices<br> + Of all in the shire;<br> + An' he always shook hands<br> + With the Parson an' Squire!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + An' whether his markets<br> + Had downs or had ups,<br> + He walked 'em three couple<br> + O' blue-mottle pups—<br> + As clumsy as ducklings—<br> + As crazy as tups!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But that must be nigh<br> + Sixty seasons away,<br> + When things was all diff'rent<br> + D'ye see—an' to-day<br> + There ain't no Culpeppers<br> + At Little Cow Hay!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Oct. 8, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="simons"></a> + On Simon's Stack<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Hill shepherds, hard north-country men,<br> + Bring down the baa'ing blackface droves<br> + To market or to shearing-pen<br> + From the high places and the groves—<br> + High places of the fox and gled,<br> + Groves of the stone-pine on the scree,<br> + Lone sanctuaries where we have said,<br> + "The gods have been; the gods may be!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + 'Mid conifer and fern and whin<br> + I sat; the turf was warm and dry;<br> + A sailing speck, the peregrine<br> + Wheeled in the waste of azure sky;<br> + The blue-grey clouds of pinewoods clung,<br> + Their vanguard climbed the heathery steep;<br> + A terrier with lolling tongue<br> + Blinked in my shadow, half asleep.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The Legion's Way shone far beneath;<br> + A javelin white as Adria's foam,<br> + It gleamed across dark leagues of heath<br> + To Rome, to everlasting Rome;<br> + Likewise from Rome to Simon's Stack<br> + (That's logical, at least), and so<br> + It may have brought a Huntress back<br> + On trails She followed long ago!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I watched my drifting smoke-wreaths rise,<br> + And pictured Pagans plumed and tense<br> + Who climbed the hill to sacrifice<br> + To great Diana's excellence;<br> + And—"Just the sort of church for me,"<br> + I said, and heard a fir-cone fall;<br> + The puppy bristled at my knee—<br> + And that was absolutely all.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A queer thing is a clump of fir;<br> + But, if it's old and on a hill,<br> + Free to that ancient trafficker,<br> + The wind, it's ten times queerer still;<br> + Sometimes it's filled with bag-pipe skirls,<br> + Anon with heathen whispering;<br> + Just then it seemed alive with girls<br> + Who laughed, and let a bowstring sing!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, funny things your firwoods do:<br> + They fill with elemental sounds;<br> + Hence, one has fancied feet that flew<br> + And the high whimpering of hounds;<br> + A wind from down the corrie's cup—<br> + "Only the wind," said I to Tramp;<br> + He heard—stern down and hackles up,<br> + I—with a forehead strangely damp.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Wind? or the Woodland Chastity<br> + Passing, as once, upon Her way,<br> + That left a little dog and me<br> + Confounded in the light of day?<br> + A rabbit hopped across the track;<br> + The pup pursued with shrill ki-yi;<br> + I asked him which, when he came back;<br> + He couldn't tell—no more can I.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Sept. 24, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dartymoor"></a> + For Dartymoor +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Now I be man ov Dartymoor,<br> + Grim Dartymoor, grey Dartymoor;<br> + I come vrom wur there hain't no war,<br> + An' Tavy be a-voaming;<br> + I'd pigs an' sheep <i>an'</i> lass—Aw my!<br> + The beyootifullest maid 'er be!<br> + An' one vine day 'er comes to I,<br> + An' zays—"My Jan," 'er zays,—"lukee!<br> + To France yu must be roaming!<br> + Vur Devon needs her sons again;<br> + Her du be rousing moor an' fen;<br> + An' yu must fight wi' Devon men<br> + Vur Dartymoor, your Dartymoor!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I zays, zays I, "Leave Dartymoor?<br> + Grim Dartymoor, grey Dartymoor?<br> + Dear life," I zays, "<i>whatever vor,</i><br> + While Tavy be a-voaming?<br> + While pigs be pigs, an' 'earts be true;<br> + An' market prices purty vair;<br> + Why should 'un go an' <i>parley-voo</i>?"<br> + 'Er zays, "'Cuz yu be waanted there!<br> + Thet's why yu must be roaming!<br> + Vur Devon needs her sons again;<br> + Her du be rousing moor an' fen;<br> + An' yu must fight wi' Devon men<br> + Vur Dartymoor; my Dartymoor!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Ef yu woan't fight vur Dartymoor,<br> + Grim Dartymoor, grey Dartymoor,<br> + Things shall be as they wur avore<br> + Us courted in the gloaming!"<br> + 'Er zays an' left me arl alone,<br> + A-thinking over what 'er zaid,<br> + Till arl was plain as Dewar Stone—<br> + I zays to Dad, "Mind pigs is fed,<br> + While I be gone a-roaming!<br> + Vur Devon needs her sons again;<br> + Her du be rousing moor an' fen;<br> + An' I must fight wi' Devon men<br> + Vur Dartymoor, our Dartymoor!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + DUDLEY CLARK.<br> + May 5, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="golden"></a> + The Golden Valley<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + [Herefordshire.]<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Abbeydore, Abbeydore,<br> + Land of apples and of gold,<br> + Where the lavish field-gods pour<br> + Song and cider manifold;<br> + Gilded land of wheat and rye,<br> + Land where laden branches cry,<br> + "Apples for the young and old<br> + Ripe at Abbeydore!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Abbeydore, Abbeydore,<br> + Where the shallow river spins<br> + Elfin spells for evermore,<br> + Where the mellow kilderkins<br> + Hoard the winking apple-juice<br> + For the laughing reapers' use;<br> + All the joy of life begins<br> + There at Abbeydore.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Abbeydore, Abbeydore,<br> + In whose lap of wonder teems<br> + Largess from a wizard store,<br> + World of idle, crooning streams—<br> + From a stricken land of pain<br> + May I win to you again,<br> + Garden of the God of Dreams,<br> + Golden Abbeydore.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + PERCY HAZELDEN.<br> + Feb. 9, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="devon"></a> + Devon Men<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + From Bideford to Appledore the meadows lie aglow<br> + With kingcup and buttercup that flout the summer snow;<br> + And crooked-back and silver-head shall mow the grass to-day,<br> + And lasses turn and toss it till it ripen into hay;<br> + For gone are all the careless youth did reap the land of yore,<br> + The lithe men and long men,<br> + The brown men and strong men,<br> + The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + From Bideford and Appledore they swept the sea of old<br> + With cross-bow and falconet to tap the Spaniard's gold;<br> + They sped away with dauntless DRAKE to traffic on the Main,<br> + To trick the drowsy galleon and loot the treasure train;<br> + For fearless were the gallant hands that pulled the sweeping oar,<br> + The strong men, the free men,<br> + The bold men, the seamen,<br> + The men that sailed from Bideford and ruddy Appledore.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + From Bideford and Appledore in craft of subtle grey<br> + Are strong hearts and steady hearts to keep the sea to-day;<br> + So well may fare the garden where the cider-apples bloom<br> + And Summer weaves her colour-threads upon a golden loom;<br> + For ready are the tawny hands that guard the Devon shore,<br> + The cool men, the bluff men,<br> + The keen men, the tough men,<br> + The men that hie from Bideford and ruddy Appledore!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + PERCY HAZELDEN.<br> + July 7, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="southampton"></a> + Southampton<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The sky is grey and the clouds are weeping;<br> + Winter wails in the wind again;<br> + Night with her eyes bedimmed comes creeping;<br> + The sea is hidden in dusk and rain.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This is the gate of the path that leads us<br> + Whither our duty the goal has set;<br> + This is the way Old England speeds us—<br> + Darkness, dreariness, wind and wet!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + This is the gate where battle sends us,<br> + Gaunt and broken, in pain and pride;<br> + This is the welcome Home extends us—<br> + Weeping rain on the cold grey tide.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Would we have balmy sunshine glowing<br> + Over the blue from the blue above?<br> + Rather the rain and the night wind blowing,<br> + Rather the way of the land we love!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + W. K. HOLMES.<br> + Dec. 22, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="cottage"></a> + Cottage Garden Prayer<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Little garden gods,<br> + You of good bestowing,<br> + You of kindly showing<br> + Mid the potting and the pods,<br> + Watchers of geranium beds,<br> + Pinks and stocks and suchlike orders,<br> + Rose, and sleepy poppy-heads,—<br> + Bless us in our borders,<br> + Little garden gods!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Little garden gods,<br> + Bless the time of sowing,<br> + Watering and growing;<br> + Lastly, when our sunflower nods,<br> + And our rambler's red array<br> + Waits the honey-bee her labours,<br> + Bless our garden that it may<br> + Beat our next-door neighbour's,<br> + Little garden gods!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + May 8, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="devil"></a> + The Devil in Devon<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The Devil walked about the land<br> + And softly laughed behind his hand<br> + To see how well men worked his will<br> + And helped his darling projects still,<br> + The while contentedly they said:<br> + "There is no Devil; he is dead."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But when by chance one day in Spring<br> + Through Devon he went wandering<br> + And for an idle moment stood<br> + Upon the edge of Daccombe wood,<br> + Where bluebells almost hid the green,<br> + With the last primroses between,<br> + He bit his lip and turned away<br> + And could do no more work that day.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.<br> + May 26, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dulce"></a> + Dulce Domum<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The air is full of rain and sleet,<br> + A dingy fog obscures the street;<br> + I watch the pane and wonder will<br> + The sun be shining on Boar's Hill,<br> + Rekindling on his western course<br> + The dying splendour of the gorse<br> + And kissing hands in joyous mood<br> + To primroses in Bagley Wood.<br> + I wish that when old Phœbus drops<br> + Behind yon hedgehog-haunted copse<br> + And high and bright the Northern Crown<br> + Is standing over White Horse Down<br> + I could be sitting by the fire<br> + In that my Land of Heart's Desire—<br> + A fire of fir-cones and a log<br> + And at my feet a fubsy dog<br> + In Robinwood! In Robinwood!<br> + I think the angels, if they could,<br> + Would trade their harps for railway tickets<br> + Or hang their crowns upon the thickets<br> + And walk the highways of the world<br> + Through eves of gold and dawns empearled,<br> + Could they be sure the road led on<br> + Twixt Oxford spires and Abingdon<br> + To where above twin valleys stands<br> + Boar's Hill, the best of promised lands;<br> + That at the journey's end there stood<br> + A heaven on earth like Robinwood.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Heigho! The sleet still whips the pane<br> + And I must turn to work again<br> + Where the brown stout of Erin hums<br> + Through Dublin's aromatic slums<br> + And Sinn Fein youths with shifty faces<br> + Hold "Parliaments" in public places<br> + And, heaping curse on mountainous curse<br> + In unintelligible Erse,<br> + Harass with threats of war and arson<br> + Base Briton and still baser CARSON.<br> + But some day when the powers that be<br> + Demobilise the likes of me<br> + (Some seven years hence, as I infer,<br> + My actual exit will occur)<br> + Swift o'er the Irish Sea I'll fly,<br> + Yea, though each wave be mountains high,<br> + Nor pause till I descend to grab<br> + Oxford's surviving taxicab.<br> + Then "Home!" (Ah, HOME! my heart be still!)<br> + I'll say, and, when we reach Boar's Hill,<br> + I'll fill my lungs with heaven's own air<br> + And pay the cabman twice his fare,<br> + Then, looking far and looking nigh,<br> + Bare-headed and with hand on high,<br> + "Hear ye," I'll cry, "the vow I make,<br> + Familiar sprites of byre and brake,<br> + <i>J'y suis, j'y reste</i>. Let Bolshevicks<br> + Sweep from the Volga to the Styx;<br> + Let internecine carnage vex<br> + The gathering hosts of Poles and Czechs,<br> + And Jugo-Slavs and Tyrolese<br> + Impair the swart Italian's ease—<br> + Me for Boar's Hill! These war-worn ears<br> + Are deaf to cries for volunteers;<br> + No Samuel Browne or British warm<br> + Shall drape this svelte Apolline form<br> + Till over Cumnor's outraged top<br> + The actual shells begin to drop;<br> + Till below Youlberry's stately pines<br> + Echo the whiskered Bolshy's lines<br> + And General TROTSKY'S baggage blocks<br> + The snug bar-parlour of 'The Fox.'"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Feb. 5, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="seats"></a> + The Seats of the Mighty<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + I think there can be nothing much more fair<br> + Than owning some large mansion in the shires,<br> + And living almost permanently there,<br> + In constant touch with animals and squires;<br> + Yet there is joy in peering through the gates<br> + Or squinting from the summit of a wall<br> + At other people's beautiful estates,<br> + Wondering what they have to pay in rates<br> + And coveting it all.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, it is sweet to circle with one's spouse<br> + Some antique Court, constructed by QUEEN ANNE,<br> + Complete with oaks and tennis-courts and cows,<br> + And many a nice respectful serving-man,<br> + With dogs and donkeys and perhaps a swan,<br> + And lovely ladies having <i>such</i> a time,<br> + And garden-parties always going on,<br> + And ruins where the guide-book says KING JOHN<br> + Did nearly every crime.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, it is sweet; but what I want to know<br> + Is why one has to prowl about outside;<br> + Surely the Earl of Bodleton and Bow,<br> + Surely Sir Egbert and his lovely bride<br> + Should wait all eager in the entrance-way<br> + To ask us in and take us through the grounds,<br> + And give one food and worry one to stay,<br> + Instead of simply keeping one at bay<br> + With six or seven hounds.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Surely they realise one wants to see<br> + The mullioned windows in the South-West wing,<br> + The private trout-stream and the banyan-tree,<br> + The lilac bedroom where they lodged the King;<br> + Surely they know how Bolshevist we feel<br> + Outside, where shrubberies obstruct the view,<br> + Particularly as they scarce conceal<br> + The Earl and household at a hearty meal<br> + Under the old, old yew.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I do not grudge the owner of The Chase;<br> + I do not loathe the tenant of The Lea;<br> + I only want to walk about his place<br> + And just imagine it belongs to me;<br> + That is the kind of democratic sport<br> + For keeping crime and Bolshevism low;<br> + I don't imagine that the fiercest sort<br> + Feel quite so anarchist at Hampton Court,<br> + Where anyone may go.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But I dare say that many a man must take<br> + Long looks of wonderment at Number Nine,<br> + Laburnum Avenue, and vainly ache<br> + To go inside a dwelling so divine;<br> + And if indeed some Marquis knocks one day<br> + And says, "I'm tired of standing in the street;<br> + I want to see your mansion, if I may,"<br> + I shall receive him in the nicest way<br> + And show him round my "seat."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. P. HERBERT.<br> + Oct. 15, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="blueroses"></a> +"<i>Nimphidia</i>" +</h2> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> + Blue Roses<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Shepherd in delicate Dresden china,<br> + Loitering ever the while you twine a<br> + Garland of oddly azure roses,<br> + All for a shepherdess passing fair;<br> + Poor little shepherdess waiting there<br> + All the time for your china posies,<br> + Posies pale for her jet-black hair!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Doesn't she wait (oh the anxious glances!)<br> + Flowers for one of your stately dances,<br> + A crown to finish a dainty toilette,<br> + (Haven't the harps just now begun,<br> + Minuets 'neath a china sun?)—<br> + Doesn't she dread that the dust may soil it,<br> + When, oh <i>when</i> will the boy be done?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Summer and winter and still you linger,<br> + Laggard lover with lazy finger,<br> + Never your little maid's wreath completing,<br> + Still half-strung are its petalled showers;<br> + Must she wait all her dancing hours,<br> + Wait in spite of her shy entreating,<br> + Wait for ever her azure flowers?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Aug. 30, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="house"></a> + A House in a Wood<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + So 'tis your will to have a cell,<br> + My Betsey, of your own and dwell<br> + Here where the sun for ever shines<br> + That glances off the holly spines—<br> + A clearing where the trunks are few,<br> + Here shall be built a house for you,<br> + The little walls of beechen stakes<br> + Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes,<br> + Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round<br> + The fallen giants on the ground;<br> + Under your little feet shall be<br> + A ground-work of wild strawberry<br> + With gadding stem, a pleasant wort<br> + Alike for carpet and dessert.<br> + Here, Betsey, in the lucid shade<br> + Come, let us twine a green stockade<br> + With slender saplings all about,<br> + And a small window to look out,<br> + So that you may be "Not at Home"<br> + If any mortal callers come.<br> + Then shall arrive to make you mirth<br> + The four wise peoples of the earth:<br> + The thrifty ants who run around<br> + To fill their store-rooms underground;<br> + The rabbit-folk, a feeble race,<br> + From out their rocky sleeping-place;<br> + The grasshoppers who have no king,<br> + Yet come in companies to sing;<br> + The lizard slim who shyly stands<br> + Swaying upon his slender hands—<br> + I'll give them all your new address.<br> + For me, my little anchoress,<br> + I'll never stir the bracken by<br> + Your house; the brown wood butterfly,<br> + Passing you like the sunshine's fleck<br> + That gilds the nape of your warm neck,<br> + Shall still report me how you do<br> + And bring me all the news of you,<br> + And tell me (where I sit alone)<br> + How gay you are, and how you're grown<br> + A fox-glove's span in the soft weather.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No? Then we'll wander home together.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MRS. HELEN PARRY EDEN.<br> + July 24, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="song"></a> + A Song of Syrinx<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Little lady, whom 'tis said<br> + Pan tried very hard to please,<br> + I expect before you fled<br> + 'Neath the wondering willow-trees,<br> + Ran away from his caress<br> + In the Doric wilderness,<br> + That you'd led him on a lot,<br> + Said you would, and then would not,—<br> + No way that to treat a man,<br> + Little lady loved of Pan!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I expect you'd dropped your eyes<br> + (Eyes that held your stream's own hue,<br> + Kingfishers and dragon-flies<br> + Sparkling in their ripple blue),<br> + And you'd tossed your tresses up,<br> + Yellow as the cool king-cup,<br> + And you'd dimpled at his vows<br> + Underneath the willow boughs,<br> + Ere you mocked him, ere you ran,<br> + Little lady loved of Pan!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So they've turned you to a reed,<br> + As the great Olympians could,<br> + You've to bow, so they've decreed,<br> + When old Pan comes through the wood,<br> + You've to curtsey and to gleam<br> + In the wind and in the stream<br> + (Which are forms, I've heard folks say,<br> + That the god adopts to-day),<br> + And we watch you bear your ban,<br> + Little lady loved of Pan!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For in pleasant spots you lie<br> + Where the lazy river is,<br> + Where the chasing whispers fly<br> + Through the beds of bulrushes,<br> + Where the big chub, golden dun,<br> + Turns his sides to catch the sun,<br> + Where one listens for the queer<br> + Voices in the splashing weir,<br> + Where I know that still you can<br> + Weave a spell to charm a man,<br> + Little lady loved of Pan!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Sept. 13, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="honey"></a> + Honey Meadow<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Here, Betsey, where the sainfoin blows<br> + Pink and the grass more thickly grows,<br> + Where small brown bees are winging<br> + To clamber up the stooping flowers,<br> + We'll share the sweet and sunny hours<br> + Made murmurous with their singing.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Dear, it requires no small address<br> + In such a billowy floweriness<br> + For you, so young, to sally;<br> + Yet would you still out-stay the sun<br> + And linger when his light was done<br> + Along the haunted valley.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + O small brown fingers, clutched to seize<br> + The biggest blooms, don't spill the bees;<br> + Imagine what contempt he<br> + Would meet who ventured to arrive<br> + Home, of an evening, at the hive<br> + With both his pockets empty!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Moreover, if you steal their share,<br> + The bees become too poor to spare<br> + Their sweets nor part with any<br> + Honey at tea-time; so for you<br> + What were for them a cell too few<br> + Would be a sell too many!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Or, what were worse for you and me,<br> + They might admire the industry<br> + So thoughtlessly paraded,<br> + And, tired of their brown queen, maintain<br> + That no one needed Betsey-Jane<br> + As urgently as they did.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So would you taste in some far clime<br> + The plunder of eternal thyme<br> + And you would quite forget us,<br> + Our cottage and these English trees,<br> + When you were Queen of Honey Bees<br> + At Hybla or Hymettus.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MRS. HELEN PARRY EDEN.<br> + Sept. 18, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dream"></a> + A Dream<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + And at night we'd find a town,<br> + Flat-roofed, by a star-strewn sea,<br> + Where the pirate crew came down<br> + To a long-forgotten quay,<br> + And we'd meet them in the gloaming,<br> + Tarry pigtails, back from roaming,<br> + With a pot of pirate ginger for the likes of her and me!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She was small and rather pale,<br> + Grey-eyed, grey as smoke that weaves,<br> + And we'd watch them stowing sail,<br> + Forty most attractive thieves;<br> + Propped against the porphyry column,<br> + She was seven, sweet and solemn,<br> + And she'd hair blue-black as swallows when they flit<br> + beneath the eaves.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + On the moonlit sands and bare,<br> + Clamorous, jewelled in the dusk,<br> + There would be an Eastern Fair,<br> + We could smell the mules and musk,<br> + We could see the cressets flaring,<br> + And we'd run to buy a fairing<br> + Where a black man blew a fanfare on a carven ivory tusk;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And we'd stop before the stall<br> + Of a grave green-turbaned khan,<br> + Gem or flower—he kept them all—<br> + Persian cat or yataghan,<br> + And I'd pay a golden guinea<br> + And she'd fill her holland pinny<br> + With white kittens and red roses and blue stones<br> + from Turkestan!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + London streets have flowers anew,<br> + London shops with gems are set;<br> + When you've none to give them to,<br> + What is pearl or violet?<br> + Vain things both and emptinesses,<br> + So they wait a dream-Princess's<br> + Coming, if she's sweet and solemn with grey eyes<br> + and hair of jet!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Jan. 24, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="vagrant"></a> + A Vagrant<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + The humble bee<br> + No skep has he,<br> + No twisted, straw-thatched dome,<br> + A ferny crest<br> + Provides his nest,<br> + The mowing-grass his home.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The crook-beaked shrike<br> + His back may spike<br> + And pierce him with a thorn;<br> + The humble bee<br> + A tramp is he<br> + And there is none to mourn.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + O'er bank and brook,<br> + In wooded nook,<br> + He wanders at his whim,<br> + Lives as he can,<br> + Owes naught to man,<br> + And man owes naught to him.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No hive receives<br> + The sweets he gives,<br> + No flowers for him are sown,<br> + Yet wild and gay<br> + He hums his way,<br> + A nomad on his own.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS JESSIE POPE.<br> + May 20, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="treasure"></a> + "Treasure Island"<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + A lover breeze to the roses pleaded,<br> + Failed and faltered, took heart and advanced;<br> + Up over the peaches, unimpeded,<br> + A great Red Admiral ducked and danced;<br> + But the boy with the book saw not, nor heeded,<br> + Reading entranced—entranced!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + He read, nor knew that the fat bees bumbled;<br> + He woke no whit to the tea-bell's touch,<br> + The browny pigeons that wheeled and tumbled,<br> + (For how should a pirate reck of such?).<br> + He read, and the flaming flower-beds crumbled,<br> + At tap of the sea-cook's crutch!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And lo, there leapt for him dolphins running<br> + The peacock seas of the buccaneer,<br> + Lone, savage reefs where the seals lay sunning,<br> + The curve of canvas, the creak of gear;<br> + For ever the Master's wondrous cunning<br> + Lent him of wizard lear!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But lost are the garden days of leisure,<br> + Lost with their wide-eyed ten-year-old,<br> + Yet if you'd move to a bygone measure,<br> + Or shape your heart to an ancient mould,<br> + Maroons and schooners and buried treasure<br> + Wrought on a page of gold,—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then take the book in the dingy binding,<br> + Still the magic comes, bearded, great,<br> + And swaggering files of sea-thieves winding<br> + Back, with their ruffling cut-throat gait,<br> + Reclaim an hour when we first went finding<br> + Pieces of Eight—of Eight.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + July 5, 1911.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="bazar"></a> + Bazar +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Dive in from the sunlight, smiting like a falchion,<br> + Underneath the awnings to the sudden shade,<br> + Saunter through the packed lane, many-voiced, colourful,<br> + Rippling with the currents of the South and Eastern trade.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Here are Persian carpets, ivory and peach-bloom,<br> + Tints to fill the heart of any child of man,<br> + Here are copper rose-bowls, leopard-skins, emeralds,<br> + Scarlet slippers curly-toed and beads from Kordofan.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Water-sellers pass with brazen saucers tinkling;<br> + Hajjis in the doorways tell their amber beads;<br> + Buy a lump of turquoise, a scimitar, a neckerchief<br> + Worked with rose and saffron for a lovely lady's needs.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Here we pass the goldsmiths, copper, brass and silver-smiths,<br> + All a-clang and jingle, all a-glint and gleam;<br> + Here the silken webs hang, shimmering, delicate,<br> + Soft-hued as an afterglow and melting as a dream.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Buy a little blue god brandishing a sceptre,<br> + Buy a dove with coral feet and pearly breast,<br> + Buy some ostrich feathers, silver shawls, perfume jars,<br> + Buy a stick of incense for the shrine that you love best.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS MACKELLAR.<br> + July 23, 1913.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="fairy"></a> + A Fairy went A-Marketing<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + A fairy went a-marketing—<br> + She bought a little fish;<br> + She put it in a crystal bowl<br> + Upon a golden dish;<br> + All day she sat in wonderment<br> + And watched its silver gleam.<br> + And then she gently took it up<br> + And slipped it in a stream.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A fairy went a-marketing—<br> + She bought a coloured bird;<br> + It sang the sweetest, shrillest song<br> + That ever she had heard;<br> + She sat beside its painted cage<br> + And listened half the day,<br> + And then she opened wide the door<br> + And let it fly away.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A fairy went a-marketing—<br> + She bought a winter gown<br> + All stitched about with gossamer<br> + And lined with thistledown;<br> + She wore it all the afternoon<br> + With prancing and delight,<br> + Then gave it to a little frog<br> + To keep him warm at night.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A fairy went a-marketing—<br> + She bought a gentle mouse<br> + To take her tiny messages,<br> + To keep her tiny house;<br> + All day she kept its busy feet<br> + Pit-patting to and fro,<br> + And then she kissed its silken ears,<br> + Thanked it, and let it go.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.<br> + Jan. 2, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="fairies"></a> + Fairies in the Malverns<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + As I walked over Hollybush Hill<br> + The sun was low and the winds were still,<br> + And never a whispering branch I heard<br> + Nor ever the tiniest call of a bird.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And when I came to the topmost height<br> + Oh, but I saw such a wonderful sight,<br> + All about on the hill-crest there<br> + The fairies danced in the golden air.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Danced and frolicked with never a sound<br> + In and out in a magical round;<br> + Wide and wider the circle grew<br> + Then suddenly melted into the blue.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + As I walked down into Eastnor Vale<br> + The stars already were twinkling pale,<br> + And over the spaces of dew-white grass<br> + I saw a marvellous pageant pass.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Tiny riders on tiny steeds<br> + Decked with blossoms and armed with reeds,<br> + With gossamer banners floating far<br> + And a radiant queen in an ivory car.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The beeches spread their petticoats wide<br> + And curtseyed low upon either side;<br> + The rabbits scurried across the glade<br> + To peep at the glittering cavalcade.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Far and farther I saw them go<br> + And vanish into the woods below;<br> + Then over the shadowy woodland ways<br> + I wandered home in a sweet amaze.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But Malvern people need fear no ill<br> + Since fairies bide in their country still.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.<br> + Aug. 28, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="fairymusic"></a> + Fairy Music<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + When the fiddlers play their tunes you may sometimes hear,<br> + Very softly chiming in, magically clear,<br> + Magically high and sweet, the tiny crystal notes<br> + Of fairy voices bubbling free from tiny fairy throats.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When the birds at break of day chant their morning prayers<br> + Or on sunny afternoons pipe ecstatic airs,<br> + Comes an added rush of sound to the silver din—<br> + Songs of fairy troubadours gaily joining in.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When athwart the drowsy fields summer twilight falls,<br> + Through the tranquil air there float elfin madrigals;<br> + And in wild November nights, on the winds astride,<br> + Fairy hosts go rushing by, singing as they ride.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Every dream that mortals dream, sleeping or awake,<br> + Every lovely fragile hope—these the fairies take,<br> + Delicately fashion them and give them back again<br> + In tender limpid melodies that charm the hearts of men.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.<br> + Sept. 18, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="sometimes"></a> + Sometimes<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Some days are fairy days. The minute that you wake<br> + You have a magic feeling that you never could mistake;<br> + You may not see the fairies, but you know they're all about,<br> + And any single minute they might all come popping out;<br> + You want to laugh, you want to sing, you want to dance and run,<br> + Everything is different, everything is fun;<br> + The sky is full of fairy clouds, the streets are fairy ways—<br> + <i>Anything</i> might happen on truly fairy days.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Some nights are fairy nights. Before you go to bed<br> + You hear their darling music go chiming in your head;<br> + You look into the garden and through the misty grey,<br> + You see the trees all waiting in a breathless kind of way.<br> + All the stars are smiling; they know that very soon<br> + The fairies will come singing from the land behind the moon.<br> + If only you could keep awake when Nurse puts out the light...<br> + <i>Anything</i> might happen on a truly fairy night.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS ROSE FYLEMAN.<br> + June 16, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="wildswan"></a> + The Wild Swan<br> +</h3> + +<p> +[Lament on a very rare bird who recently appeared in +England, and was immediately shot.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Over the sea (ye maids) a wild swan came;<br> + (O maidens) it was but the other day;<br> + Men saw him as he passed with earnest aim<br> + To some sequestered spot down Norfolk way—<br> + A thing whose like had not been seen for years:<br> + <i>Lament, ye damsels, nor refuse your tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Serene, he winged his alabaster flight<br> + Neath the full beams of the mistaken sun<br> + O'er gazing crowds, till at th' unwonted sight<br> + Some unexpected sportsman with a gun<br> + Brought down the bird, all fluff, mid sounding cheers:<br> + <i>Mourn, maidens, mourn, and wipe the thoughtful tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Well you may weep. No common bird was he.<br> + Has it not long been known, the whole world wide,<br> + A wild swan is a prince of faerie,<br> + Who comes in such disguise to choose his bride<br> + From those of humble lot and tame careers,<br> + <i>Of whom I now require some punctual tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Wherefore, I say, let every scullion-wench<br> + Grieve, nor the dairy-maid from sobs refrain;<br> + The sad postmistress, too, should feel the wrench,<br> + And the lone tweeny of her loss complain;<br> + Let one—let all afflict the listening spheres:<br> + <i>Deplore, ye maids, his fate with rueful tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It was for these he sought this teeming land,<br> + High on the silvery wings of old romance;<br> + One knows not where he had bestowed his hand,<br> + But e'en the least had stood an equal chance<br> + Of such fair triumph o'er her bitter peers<br> + <i>And the sweet pleasure of their anguished tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + O prince of faerie! O stately swan!<br> + And ye, whose hopes are with the might-have-beens,<br> + Curst be the wretch through whom those hopes have gone,<br> + Who blew your magic swain to smithereens;<br> + Let your full sorrows whelm his stricken ears;<br> + <i>Lament, ye damsels, nor refuse your tears.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CAPT. KENDALL.<br> + March 18, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="strange"></a> + The Strange Servant<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Tall she is, and straight and slender,<br> + With soft hair beneath a cap<br> + Pent and pinned; within her lap<br> + Weep her lily hands, for work too tender.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She's a fairy, through transgression<br> + Doomed to doff her webby smock,<br> + Doomed to rise at six o'clock,<br> + Doomed to bear a mistress's repression.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Once she romped in fairy revels<br> + Down the dim moon-dappled glades,<br> + Rode on thrilling honey-raids,<br> + Danced the glow-lamps out on lawny levels.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ere her trouble she was tiny:<br> + 'Tis her doom to be so tall;<br> + Thus her hair no more will fall<br> + To her feet, all shimmering and sunshiny.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + O her eyes—like pools at twilight,<br> + Mournful, whence pale radiance peers!<br> + O her voice, that throbs with tears<br> + In the attic 'neath the staring skylight!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Daylong does she household labour,<br> + Lights the fires and scrubs the floors,<br> + Washes up and answers doors,<br> + Ushers in the dread suburban neighbour.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then at night she seeks her attic,<br> + Parts her clothes with those pale hands,<br> + Slips at last her shift, and stands<br> + Moon-caressed, most yearningly ecstatic,<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Arms out pleads her condonation—<br> + Hapless one! she gains no grace;<br> + They whom fairy laws abase<br> + Serve the utter term of tribulation.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet (though far her happy wood is)<br> + Oft her folk fly in at night,<br> + Pour sweet pity on her plight,<br> + Comfort her with gossipry and goodies.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + W. W. BLAIR FISH.<br> + Oct. 1, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="egyptian"></a> + To an Egyptian Boy<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Child of the gorgeous East, whose ardent suns<br> + Have kissed thy velvet skin to deeper lustre<br> + And given thine almond eyes<br> + A look more calm and wise<br> + Than any we pale Westerners can muster,<br> + Alas! my mean intelligence affords<br> + No clue to grasp the meaning of the words<br> + Which vehemently from thy larynx leap.<br> + How is it that the liquid language runs?<br> + "<i>Nai—soring—trîf—erwonbi—aster—-ferish—îp.</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E'en so, methinks, did CLEOPATRA woo<br> + Her vanquished victor, couched on scented roses<br> + And PHARAOH from his throne<br> + With more imperious tone<br> + Addressed in some such terms rebellious Moses;<br> + And esoteric priests in Theban shrines,<br> + Their ritual conned from hieroglyphic signs,<br> + Thus muttered incantations dark and deep<br> + To Isis and Osiris, Thoth and Shu:<br> + "<i>Nai—soring—trîf—erwonbi—aster—-ferish—îp.</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + In all my youthful studies why was this<br> + Left out? What tutor shall I blame my folly on?<br> + From Sekhet-Hetepu<br> + Return to mortal view,<br> + O shade of BRUGSCH or MARIETTE or CHAMPOLLION;<br> + Expound the message latent in his speech<br> + Or send a clearer medium, I beseech;<br> + For lo! I listen till I almost weep<br> + For anguish at the priceless gems I miss:<br> + "<i>Nai—soring—trîf—erwonbi—aster—ferish—îp.</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To sundry greenish orbs arranged on trays—<br> + Unripe, unluscious fruit—he draws attention.<br> + My mind, till now so dark,<br> + Receives a sudden spark<br> + That glows and flames to perfect comprehension;<br> + And I, whom no Rosetta Stone assists,<br> + Become the peer of Egyptologists,<br> + From whom exotic tongues no secrets keep;<br> + For this is what the alien blighter says:<br> + "Nice orang'; three for one piastre; very cheap."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + H. W. BERRY.<br> + Jan. 8, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="swinburne"></a> +<i>In Memoriam</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + In Memoriam<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + Algernon Charles Swinburne<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + BORN 1837. DIED APRIL 10, 1909.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + What of the night? For now his day is done,<br> + And he, the herald of the red sunrise,<br> + Leaves us in shadow even as when the sun<br> + Sinks from the sombre skies.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + High peer of SHELLEY, with the chosen few<br> + He shared the secrets of Apollo's lyre,<br> + Nor less from Dionysian altars drew<br> + The god's authentic fire.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Last of our land's great singers, dowered at birth<br> + With music's passion, swift and sweet and strong,<br> + Who taught in heavenly numbers, new to earth,<br> + The wizardry of song—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + His spirit, fashioned after Freedom's mould,<br> + Impatient of the bonds that mortals bear,<br> + Achieves a franchise large and uncontrolled,<br> + Rapt through the void of air.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "What of the night?" For him no night can be;<br> + The night is ours, left songless and forlorn;<br> + Yet o'er the darkness, where he wanders free,<br> + Behold, a star is born!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + APRIL 21, 1909.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="meredith"></a> + In Memoriam<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + George Meredith, O.M.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + BORN 1828. DIED MAY 18, 1909<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Masked in the beauty of the May-dawn's birth,<br> + Death came and kissed the brow still nobly fair,<br> + And hushed that heart of youth for which the earth<br> + Still kept its morning air.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Long time initiate in her lovely lore,<br> + Now is he one with Nature's woods and streams<br> + Whereof, a Paradisal robe, he wore<br> + The visionary gleams.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Among her solitudes he moved apart;<br> + The mystery of her clouds and star-sown skies,<br> + Touched by the fusing magic of his art,<br> + Shone clear for other eyes.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When from his lips immortal music broke,<br> + It was the myriad voice of vale and hill;<br> + "The lark ascending" poured a song that woke<br> + An echo sweeter still.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet most we mourn his loss as one who gave<br> + The gift of laughter and the boon of tears,<br> + Interpreter of life, its gay and grave,<br> + Its human hopes and fears.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Seer of the soul of things, inspired to know<br> + Man's heart and woman's, over all he threw<br> + The spell of fancy's iridescent glow,<br> + The sheen of sunlit dew.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And of the fellowship of that great Age<br> + For whose return our eyes have waited long,<br> + None left so rich a twofold heritage<br> + Of high romance and song.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We knew him, fronted like the Olympian gods,<br> + Large in his loyalty to land and friend,<br> + Fearless to fight alone with Fortune's odds,<br> + Fearless to face the end.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And he is dead. And at the parting sign<br> + We speak, too late, the love he little guessed,<br> + And bid him in the nation's heart for shrine<br> + Take his eternal rest.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + May 26, 1909.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="booth"></a> + In Memoriam<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + William Booth<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + FOUNDER AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE<br> + SALVATION ARMY.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + BORN 1829. DIED AUGUST 20, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + As theirs, the warrior knights of Christian fame,<br> + Who for the Faith led on the battle line,<br> + Who stormed the breach and swept through blood and flame<br> + Under the Cross for sign,<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Such was his life's crusade; and, as their death<br> + Inspired in men a purpose pure of taint—<br> + In some great cause to give their latest breath—<br> + So died this soldier-saint.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Nay, his the nobler warfare, since his hands<br> + Set free the thralls of misery and her brood—<br> + Hunger and haunting shame and sin that brands—<br> + And gave them hope renewed.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Bruised souls, and bodies broken by despair,<br> + He healed their heartache and their wounds he dressed,<br> + And drew them, so redeemed, his task to share,<br> + Sworn to the same high quest.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Armed with the Spirit's wisdom for his sword,<br> + His feet with tidings of salvation shod,<br> + He knew no foes save only such as warred<br> + Against the peace of God.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Scorned or acclaimed, he kept his harness bright,<br> + Still, through the darkest hour, untaught to yield<br> + And at the last, his face toward the light,<br> + Fell on the victor's field.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + No laurelled blazon rests above his bier,<br> + Yet a great people bows its stricken head<br> + Where he who fought without reproach or fear,<br> + Soldier of Christ, lies dead.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + SIR OWEN SEAMAN.<br> + Aug. 28, 1912.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="wireless"></a> +<i>The War</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + Wireless<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + There sits a little demon<br> + Above the Admiralty,<br> + To take the news of seamen<br> + Seafaring on the sea;<br> + So all the folk aboard-ships<br> + Five hundred miles away<br> + Can pitch it to their Lordships<br> + At any time of day.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The cruisers prowl observant;<br> + Their crackling whispers go;<br> + The demon says, "Your servant,"<br> + And lets their Lordships know;<br> + A fog's come down off Flanders?<br> + A something showed off Wick?<br> + The captains and commanders<br> + Can speak their Lordships quick.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The demon sits a-waking;<br> + Look up above Whitehall—<br> + E'en now, mayhap, he's taking<br> + The Greatest Word of all;<br> + From smiling folk aboard-ships<br> + He ticks it off the reel:—<br> + "An' may it please your Lordships:<br> + A Fleet's put out o' Kiel!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Nov. 11, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="guns"></a> + Guns of Verdun<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Guns of Verdun point to Metz<br> + From the plated parapets;<br> + Guns of Metz grin back again<br> + O'er the fields of fair Lorraine.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Guns of Metz are long and grey<br> + Growling through a summer day;<br> + Guns of Verdun, grey and long,<br> + Boom an echo of their song.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Guns of Metz to Verdun roar,<br> + "Sisters, you shall foot the score";<br> + Guns of Verdun say to Metz,<br> + "Fear not, for we pay our debts."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Guns of Metz they grumble, "When?"<br> + Guns of Verdun answer then,<br> + "Sisters, when to guard Lorraine<br> + Gunners lay you East again!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + P. R. CHALMERS.<br> + Sept. 2, 1914.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="woods"></a> + The Woods of France<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + MIDSUMMER 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Not this year will the hamadryads sing<br> + The old-time songs of Arcady that ran<br> + Down the Lycæan glades; the joyous ring<br> + Of satyr dancers call away their clan;<br> + Not this year follow on the ripened Spring<br> + The Summer pipes of Pan.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Cometh a time—as times have come before—<br> + When the loud legions rushing in array,<br> + The flying bullet and the cannon roar,<br> + Scatter the Forest Folk in pale dismay<br> + To hie them far from their green dancing floor,<br> + And wait a happier day.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet think not that your Forest Folk are dead;<br> + To this old haunt, when friend has vanquished foe,<br> + They will return anon with lightsome tread<br> + And labour that this place they love and know,<br> + All broken now and bruised, may raise its head<br> + And still in beauty grow.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Wherefore they wait the coming of good time<br> + In the green English woods down Henley way,<br> + In meadows where the tall cathedrals chime,<br> + Or watching from the white St. Margaret's Bay,<br> + Or North among the heather hills that climb<br> + Above the Tweed and Tay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And you, our fighters in the woods of France,<br> + Take heart and smite their enemy, the Hun,<br> + Who knows not Arcady, by whom the dance<br> + Of fauns is scattered, at whose deeds the sun<br> + Hides in despair; strike boldly and perchance<br> + The work will soon be done.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To you, so fighting, messengers will bring<br> + The comfort of quiet places; in the din<br> + Of battle you shall hear the murmuring<br> + Of the home winds and waters; there will win<br> + Through to your hearts the word, "Still Pan is king;<br> + His Midsummer is in."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. HILTON BROWN.<br> + June 23, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="summer"></a> + Summer and Sorrow<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Brier rose and woodbine flaunting by the wayside,<br> + Field afoam with ox-eyes, crowfoot's flaming gold,<br> + Poppies in the corn-rig, broom on every braeside,<br> + Once again 'tis summer as in years of old—<br> + Only in my bosom lags the winter's cold.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + All among the woodland hyacinths are gleaming;<br> + O the blue of heaven glinting through the trees!<br> + Lapped in noonday languor Nature lies a-dreaming,<br> + Lulled to rest by droning clover-haunting bees.<br> + (Deeper dreams my dear love, slain beyond the seas.)<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Lost against the sunlight happy larks are singing,<br> + Lowly list their loved ones nestled in the plain;<br> + Bright about my pathway butterflies are winging,<br> + Fair and fleet as moments mourned for now in vain—<br> + In my eyes the shadow, at my heart the pain.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. B. GILLESPIE.<br> + July 28, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="defaulters"></a> + Defaulters<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + For an extra drink<br> + Defaulters we,<br> + We cuts the lawn in front of the Mess;<br> + We're shoved in clink,<br> + Ten days C.B.,<br> + And rolls the lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We picks up weeds<br> + And 'umps the coal;<br> + We trims the lawn in front of the Mess;<br> + We're plantin' seeds,<br> + The roads we roll,<br> + Likewise the lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The Officers they<br> + Are sloshin' balls<br> + On the lawn we've marked in front of the Mess;<br> + And every day<br> + Our names they call<br> + To rake the lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And once a while<br> + They 'as a "do"<br> + On the lawn in front of the Officers' Mess.<br> + Ain't 'arf some style,<br> + Band playin' too,<br> + On our bloomin' lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + They dances about<br> + And digs their 'eels<br> + In our lawn in front of the Officers' Mess;<br> + There ain't no doubt<br> + As 'ow we feels<br> + For the lawn in front of the Officers' Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The turf's gone west,<br> + And so you see<br> + There ain't much lawn in front of the Mess.<br> + We does our best,<br> + Gets more C.B.,<br> + And mends the lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The C.O., who<br> + Sez 'e can see<br> + We loves the lawn in front of the Mess<br> + 'E knows this too—<br> + Without C.B.<br> + There'd be no lawn in front of the Mess.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. T. PEZARE.<br> + Aug. 11, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="canadian"></a> + A Canadian to His Parents +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Mother and Dad, I understand<br> + At last why you've for ever been<br> + Telling me how that way-off land<br> + Of yours was Home; for since I've seen<br> + The place that up to now was just a name<br> + I feel the same.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The college green, the village hall,<br> + St. Paul's, The Abbey, how could I<br> + Spell out your meaning, I whose all<br> + Was peaks that pricked a sun-down sky<br> + And endless prairie lands that stretched below<br> + Their pathless snow?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But now I've trodden magic stairs<br> + Age-rounded in a Norman fane,<br> + Beat time to bells that trembled prayers<br> + Down spangly banks of country lane,<br> + Throbbed with the universal heart that beats<br> + In London streets.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I'd heard of world-old chains that bind<br> + So tight that she can scarcely stir,<br> + Till tired Old England drops behind<br> + Live nations more awake than her,<br> + Like us out West. I thought it all was true<br> + Before I knew.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But England's sure what she's about,<br> + And moves along in work and rest<br> + Too big and set for brag and shout,<br> + And so I never might have guessed<br> + All that she means unless I'd watched her ways<br> + These battle-days.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And now I've seen what makes me proud<br> + Our chaps have proved a soldier's right<br> + To England; glad that I'm allowed<br> + My bit with her in field and fight;<br> + And since I'm come to join them Over There<br> + I claim my share.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. CONWAY PLUMBE.<br> + Sept. 1, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="quat"></a> + "<i>Quat' Sous Lait</i>"<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Marie Thérèse is passing fair,<br> + Marie Thérèse has red gold hair,<br> + Marie Thérèse is passing shy,<br> + And Marie Thérèse is passing by;<br> + Soldiers lounging along the street<br> + Smile as they rise to their aching feet,<br> + And with aching hearts they make their way<br> + After the maiden for <i>quat' sous lait</i>.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Beer in the mug is amber brown,<br> + Beer in the mug is the stuff to drown<br> + Dust and drought and a parching thirst;<br> + Beer in the mug comes an easy first,<br> + Except when Marie Thérèse is near,<br> + With the sun in her tresses so amber clear;<br> + Then quickly we leave our estaminets<br> + For Marie Thérèse's <i>quat' sous lait</i>.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yvonne Pol of <i>La Belle Française</i><br> + Cannot compare with Marie Thérèse;<br> + Berthe of the "Coq" looks old and staid<br> + When one but thinks of our dairymaid;<br> + Beer in the mug is good to quench<br> + Thirsts of men who can speak no French;<br> + Heaven is ours who can smile and say,<br> + "Marie Thérèse, give me <i>quat' sous lait</i>."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + DENIS GARSTIN.<br> + Aug. 18, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="flanders"></a> + In Flanders Fields<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + In Flanders fields the poppies blow<br> + Between the crosses, row on row,<br> + That mark our place; and in the sky<br> + The larks, still bravely singing, fly<br> + Scarce heard amid the guns below.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We are the Dead. Short days ago<br> + We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,<br> + Loved and were loved, and now we lie<br> + In Flanders fields.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Take up our quarrel with the foe:<br> + To you from failing hands we throw<br> + The torch; be yours to hold it high.<br> + If ye break faith with us who die<br> + We shall not sleep, though poppies grow<br> + In Flanders fields.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + LT.-COL. JOHN McCRAE.<br> + Dec. 8, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="decorum"></a> + <i>Dulce et Decorum</i><br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + O young and brave, it is not sweet to die,<br> + To fall and leave no record of the race,<br> + A little dust trod by the passers-by,<br> + Swift feet that press your lonely resting-place;<br> + Your dreams unfinished, and your song unheard—<br> + Who wronged your youth by such a careless word?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + All life was sweet—veiled mystery in its smile;<br> + High in your hands you held the brimming cup;<br> + Love waited at your bidding for a while,<br> + Not yet the time to take its challenge up;<br> + Across the sunshine came no faintest breath<br> + To whisper of the tragedy of death.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And then, beneath the soft and shining blue,<br> + Faintly you heard the drum's insistent beat;<br> + The echo of its urgent note you knew,<br> + The shaken earth that told of marching feet;<br> + With quickened breath you heard your country's call,<br> + And from your hands you let the goblet fall.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You snatched the sword, and answered as you went,<br> + For fear your eager feet should be outrun,<br> + And with the flame of your bright youth unspent<br> + Went shouting up the pathway to the sun.<br> + O valiant dead, take comfort where you lie.<br> + So sweet to live? Magnificent to die!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MRS. ROBERTSON GLASGOW.<br> + Jan. 26, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="nurse"></a> + The Nurse<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Here in the long white ward I stand,<br> + Pausing a little breathless space,<br> + Touching a restless fevered hand,<br> + Murmuring comfort's commonplace—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Long enough pause to feel the cold<br> + Fingers of fear about my heart;<br> + Just for a moment, uncontrolled,<br> + All the pent tears of pity start.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + While here I strive, as best I may,<br> + Strangers' long hours of pain to ease,<br> + Dumbly I question—<i>Far away<br> + Lies my beloved even as these?</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS G. M. MITCHELL.<br> + Aug. 30, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="jimmy"></a> + Jimmy—Killed in Action<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Horses he loved, and laughter, and the sun,<br> + A song, wide spaces and the open air;<br> + The trust of all dumb living things he won,<br> + And never knew the luck too good to share.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + His were the simple heart and open hand,<br> + And honest faults he never strove to hide;<br> + Problems of life he could not understand,<br> + But as a man would wish to die he died.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Now, though he will not ride with us again,<br> + His merry spirit seems our comrade yet,<br> + Freed from the power of weariness or pain,<br> + Forbidding us to mourn—or to forget.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + W. K. HOLMES.<br> + Aug. 1, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="inn"></a> + The Inn o' the Sword<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + A SONG OF YOUTH AND WAR.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Roving along the King's highway<br> + I met wi' a Romany black.<br> + "Good day," says I; says he, "Good day,<br> + And what may you have in your pack?"<br> + "Why, a shirt," says I, "and a song or two<br> + To make the road go faster."<br> + He laughed: "Ye'll find or the day be through<br> + There's more nor that, young master.<br> + Oh, roving's good and youth is sweet<br> + And love is its own reward;<br> + But there's that shall stay your careless feet<br> + When ye come to the Sign o' the Sword."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Riddle me, riddlemaree," quoth I,<br> + "Is a game that's ill to win,<br> + And the day is o'er fair such tasks to try"—<br> + Said he, "Ye shall know at the inn."<br> + With that he suited his path to mine<br> + And we travelled merrily,<br> + Till I was ware of the promised sign<br> + And the door of an hostelry.<br> + And the Romany sang, "To the very life<br> + Ye shall pay for bed and board;<br> + Will ye turn aside to the House of Strife?<br> + Will ye lodge at the Inn o' the Sword?"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then I looked at the inn 'twixt joy and fear,<br> + And the Romany looked at me.<br> + Said I, "We ha' come to a parting here<br> + And I know not who you be."<br> + But he only laughed as I smote on the door:<br> + "Go, take ye the fighting chance;<br> + Mayhap I once was a troubadour<br> + In the knightly days of France.<br> + Oh, the feast is set for those who dare<br> + And the reddest o' wine outpoured;<br> + And some sleep sound after peril and care<br> + At the Hostelry of the Sword."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. L. JENKINS.<br> + Jan. 24, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="lighted"></a> + The Lighted Way +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Little beam of purest ray<br> + Lying like a path of glory<br> + Through the chimney-pots that sway<br> + Over London's topmost storey,<br> + Lighting to the knightly fray<br> + Pussies black and brown and gray,<br> + Lovesick tenors young and gay,<br> + Whiskered bassos old and hoary,<br> + Shining from my attic room<br> + Thou dost lure them to their doom.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + How could I without thine aid<br> + Greet their ill-timed serenade?<br> + How discover in the dark<br> + If the hair-brush found its mark,<br> + Or distinguish hits from misses<br> + As the whistling soap-dish hisses,<br> + Lifting like a bursting bomb<br> + James, the next door neighbour's Tom?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Now by nailing half a kipper<br> + Neath thy radiance I can down<br> + (Aiming carefully at the brown<br> + With a bootjack or a slipper)<br> + Half the amorous cats in Town.<br> + Now as I remove my boots<br> + I can count the stricken brutes,<br> + Chalking as I pass to bed<br> + On the wall above my head,<br> + "Thirteen wounded, seven dead."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I have strafed the surly Fritz<br> + In the neighbourhood of "Wipers,"<br> + Bombed the artless Turk to bits,<br> + Potted his elusive snipers,<br> + Blown his comfortable lair<br> + Like a nest of stinging vipers<br> + Several hundred feet in air;<br> + But the sport was tame, I wis,<br> + In comparison with this,<br> + When the bottle built for stout<br> + Lays the chief soprano out,<br> + And the heavy letter-weight<br> + Drums on her astonished mate,<br> + Ginger Bill, the bass, who falls<br> + Uttering fearful caterwauls.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + (<i>Later.</i>) Baleful shaft of light,<br> + Blazing like a ruddy beacon,<br> + Guiding through the starless night<br> + Zeppelins that come to wreak on<br> + Sleeping Londoners the might<br> + Of Teutonic <i>schrecklichkeit</i>,<br> + Tears bedew the pillow white<br> + Which I lay my blenching cheek on,<br> + For the minion of the law,<br> + Who in peace-time droops and drowses,<br> + From a point of vantage saw,<br> + Gleaming high above the houses,<br> + Thee, incriminating ray,<br> + And—there is a fine to pay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + Nov. 8, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="hymn"></a> + Hymn for High Places<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + In darkened days of strife and fear,<br> + When far from home and hold,<br> + I do essay my soul to cheer<br> + As did wise men of old;<br> + When folk do go in doleful guise<br> + And are for life afraid,<br> + I to the hills will lift mine eyes<br> + From whence doth come mine aid.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I shall my soul a temple make<br> + Where hills stand up on high;<br> + Thither my sadness shall I take<br> + And comfort there descry;<br> + For every good and noble mount<br> + This message doth extend—<br> + That evil men must render count<br> + And evil days must end.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For, sooth, it is a kingly sight<br> + To see God's mountain tall<br> + That vanquisheth each lesser height<br> + As great hearts vanquish small;<br> + Stand up, stand up, ye holy hills,<br> + As saints and seraphs do,<br> + That ye may bear these present ills<br> + And lead men safely through.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Let high and low repair and go<br> + To where great hills endure;<br> + Let strong and weak be there to seek<br> + Their comfort and their cure;<br> + And for all hills in fair array<br> + Now thanks and blessings give,<br> + And, bearing healthful hearts away,<br> + Home go and stoutly live.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. HILTON BROWN.<br> + Aug. 22, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="smith"></a> + To Smith in Mesopotamy<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Master of Arts, how is it with you now?<br> + Our spires stand up against the saffron dawn<br> + And Isis breaks in silver at the prow<br> + Of many a skiff, and by each dewy lawn<br> + Purple and gold the tall flag-lilies stand;<br> + And SHELLEY sleeps above his empty tomb<br> + Hard by the staircase where you had your room,<br> + And all the scented lilacs are in bloom,<br> + But you are far from this our fairy-land.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Your heavy wheel disturbs the ancient dust<br> + Of empires dead ere Oxford saw the light.<br> + Those flies that form a halo round your crust<br> + And crawl into your sleeping-bag at night—<br> + Their grandsires drank the blood of NADIR SHAH,<br> + And tapped the sacred veins of SULEYMAN;<br> + There flashed dread TIMOUR'S whistling yataghan,<br> + And soothed the tiger ear of GENGHIZ KHAN<br> + The cream of Tartary's battle-drunk "Heiyah!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And yonder, mid the colour and the cries<br> + Of mosque and minaret and thronged bazaars<br> + And fringéd palm-trees dark against the skies<br> + HARUN AL RASCHID walked beneath the stars<br> + And heard the million tongues of old Baghdad,<br> + Till out of Basrah, as the dawn took wing,<br> + Came up the laden camels, string on string;<br> + But now there is not left them anything<br> + Of all the wealth and wisdom that they had.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Somehow I cannot see you, lean and browned,<br> + Chasing the swart Osmanli through the scrub<br> + Or hauling railroad ties and "steel mild round"<br> + Sunk in the sands of Irak to the hub,<br> + Heaping coarse oaths on Mesopotamy;<br> + But rather strewn in gentlemanly ease<br> + In some cool <i>serdab</i> or beneath the trees<br> + That fringe the river-bank you hug your knees<br> + And watch the garish East go chattering by.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And at your side some wise old priest reclines<br> + And weaves a tale of dead and glorious days<br> + When MAMUN reigned; expounds the heavenly signs<br> + Whose movements fix the span of mortal days;<br> + Touches on Afreets and the ways of Djinns;<br> + Through his embroidered tale real heroes pass,<br> + RUSTUM the bold and BAHRAM the wild ass,<br> + Who never dreamed of using poisoned gas<br> + Or spread barbed wire before the foeman's shins.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I think I hear you saying, "Not so much<br> + Of waving palm-trees and the flight of years;<br> + It's evident that you are out of touch<br> + With war as managed by the Engineers.<br> + Hot blasts of <i>sherki</i> are our daily treat,<br> + And toasted sandhills full of Johnny Turk<br> + And almost anything that looks like work,<br> + And thirst and flies and marches that would irk<br> + A cast-iron soldier with asbestos feet."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Know, then, the thought was fathered by the wish<br> + We oldsters feel, that you and everyone<br> + Who through the heat and flies conspire to dish<br> + The "<i>Drang nach Osten</i>" of the beastly Hun<br> + Shall win their strenuous virtue's modest wage.<br> + And if at Nishapur and Babylon<br> + The cup runs dry, we'll fill it later on,<br> + And here where Cherwell soothes the fretful don<br> + In flowing sherbet pledge our easeful sage.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. H. BRETHERTON.<br> + June 6, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="canal"></a> + By the Canal in Flanders<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + By the canal in Flanders I watched a barge's prow<br> + Creep slowly past the poplar-trees; and there I made a vow<br> + That when these wars are over and I am home at last<br> + However much I travel I shall not travel fast.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Horses and cars and yachts and planes: I've no more use for such:<br> + For in three years of war's alarms I've hurried far too much;<br> + And now I dream of something sure, silent and slow and large;<br> + So when the War is over—why, I mean to buy a barge.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A gilded barge I'll surely have, the same as Egypt's Queen,<br> + And it will be the finest barge that ever you have seen;<br> + With polished mast of stout pitch pine, tipped with a ball of gold,<br> + And two green trees in two white tubs placed just abaft the hold.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So when past Pangbourne's verdant meads, by Clieveden's mossy stems,<br> + You see a barge all white-and-gold come gliding down the Thames,<br> + With tow-rope spun from coloured silks and snow-white horses three,<br> + Which stop beside your river house—you'll know the bargee's me.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I'll moor my craft beside your lawn; so up and make good cheer!<br> + Pluck me your greenest salads! Draw me your coolest beer!<br> + For I intend to lunch with you and talk an hour or more<br> + Of how we used to hustle in the good old days of war.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + NORMAN DAVEY.<br> + Sept. 5, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="watch"></a> + A Watch in the Night<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + "Watchmen, what of the night?"<br> + "Rumours clash from the towers;<br> + The clocks strike different hours;<br> + The vanes point different ways.<br> + Through darkness leftward and right<br> + Voices quaver and boom,<br> + Pealing our victory's praise,<br> + Tolling the tocsin of doom."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Optimist, what of the night?"<br> + "Night is over and gone;<br> + See how the dawn marches on,<br> + Triumphing, over the hills.<br> + Armies of foemen in flight<br> + Scatter dismay and despair,<br> + Wild is the terror that fills<br> + War-lords that crouch in their lair."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Pessimist, what of the night?"<br> + "Blackness that walls us about;<br> + The last little star has gone out,<br> + Whelmed in the wrath of the storm.<br> + Exhaustless, resistless in might,<br> + The enemy faints not nor fails;<br> + Thundering, swarm upon swarm,<br> + He sweeps like a flood through the vales.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Pacifist, what of the night?"<br> + "We hear the thunder afar,<br> + But all is still where we are;<br> + Good and evil are friends.<br> + Here in the passionless height<br> + War and morality cease,<br> + And the noon with the midnight blends<br> + In perennial twilight of peace."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + H. E. WILKES.<br> + Feb. 6, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="windmill"></a> + The Windmill<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + A SONG of VICTORY.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yes, it was all like a garden glowing<br> + When first we came to the hill-top there,<br> + And we laughed to know that the Bosch was going,<br> + And laughed to know that the land was fair;<br> + Acre by acre of green fields sleeping,<br> + Hamlets hid in the tufts of wood,<br> + And out of the trees were church-towers peeping,<br> + And away on a hillock the Windmill stood.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>Then, ah then, 'twas a land worth winning,<br> + And now there is naught but the naked clay,<br> + But I can remember the Windmill spinning,<br> + And the four sails shone in the sun that day.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But the guns came after and tore the hedges<br> + And stripped the spinneys and churned the plain,<br> + And a man walks now on the windy ledges<br> + And looks for a feather of green in vain;<br> + Acre by acre the sad eye traces<br> + The rust-red bones of the earth laid bare,<br> + And the sign-posts stand in the market-places<br> + To say that a village was builded there.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>But better the French fields stark and dying<br> + Than ripe for a conqueror's fat content,<br> + And I can remember the mill-sails flying,<br> + Yet I cheered with the rest when the Windmill went.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Away to the East the grass-land surges<br> + Acre by acre across the line,<br> + And we must go on till the end like scourges,<br> + Though the wilderness stretch from sea to Rhine;<br> + But I dream some days of a great reveille,<br> + When the buds shall burst in the Blasted Wood,<br> + And the children chatter in Death-Trap Alley,<br> + And a windmill stand where the Windmill stood.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>And we that remember the Windmill spinning.<br> + We may go under, but not in vain,<br> + For our sons shall come in the new beginning<br> + And see that the Windmill spins again.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. P. HERBERT.<br> + April 10, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="return"></a> + The Return<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Into the home-side wood, the long straight aisle of pines,<br> + I turned with a slower step than ever my youth-time knew;<br> + Dusk was gold in the valley, grey in the deep-cut chines,<br> + And below, like a dream afloat, was the quiet sea's fading blue.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh, it was joy to see the still night folding down<br> + Over the simple fields I loved, saved by the sacred dead,<br> + Playmates and friends of mine, brothers in camp and town,<br> + The loyal hearts that leapt at the word that England said.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I paused by the cross-roads' sign, for a tinkling sound rang clear,<br> + The small sharp sound of a bell away up the western road;<br> + And presently out of the mist, with clank and clatter of gear,<br> + Rumbled the carrier's cart with its tilt and its motley load:—<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The old grey horse that moved in the misty headlight's gleam,<br> + The carrier crouched on his seat, with the bellboy perched astride,<br> + Voices from under the tilt, and laughter—was it a dream,<br> + Or was I awake and alive, standing there by the cross-roads' side?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I came to the village street where glinting lights shone fair,<br> + The little homely lights that make the glad tears start;<br> + And I knew that one was yearning and waiting to welcome me there,<br> + She that is mother in blood and steadfast comrade in heart.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh, but my youth swept back like the tide to a thirsty shore,<br> + Or the little wind at dawn that heralds the wash of rain;<br> + And I ran, I ran, with a song in my heart to the unlatched door,<br> + I returned to the gentle breast that had nursed me—a boy again!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. KENNETH BURROW.<br> + Dec. 18, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="goodbye"></a> + Good-Bye, Australians<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Through the Channel's drift and toss<br> + Swift your homing transports churn;<br> + Soon for you the Southron Cross<br> + High above your bows shall burn;<br> + Soon beyond the rolling Bight<br> + Gleam the Leeuwin's lance of light.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Rich reward your hearts shall hold,<br> + None less dear if long delayed,<br> + For with gifts of wattle-gold<br> + Shall your country's debt be paid;<br> + From her sunlight's golden store<br> + She shall heal your hurts of war.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ere the mantling Channel mist<br> + Dim your distant decks and spars,<br> + And your flag that victory kissed<br> + And Valhalla hung with stars—<br> + Crowd and watch our signal fly:<br> + "Gallant hearts, good-bye! <i>Good-bye!</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + W. H. OGILVIE.<br> + Jan. 15, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="belfries"></a> + The Belfries<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + If you should go to La Bassée<br> + Or Bethune, grey and bare,<br> + You'll hear the sweetest bells that play<br> + A faint and chiming air;<br> + And belfries in each little town<br> + Sing out the hour and mark it down.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + If you should go to La Bassée<br> + Or walk the Bethune street<br> + You'll see the lorries pass that way<br> + And hear the tramp of feet;<br> + And where the road with trees is lined<br> + You'll watch the long battalions wind.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But all the clocks that mark the time<br> + Are months and years too slow,<br> + And all the bells that ring and chime<br> + Strike hours of long ago,<br> + And all the belfries where you pass<br> + Lie tumbled in the dust and grass.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yet still the long battalions wind.<br> + Though all the men are gone,<br> + Because one hour has stayed behind<br> + And wanders there alone—<br> + Yes, one heroic shining hour<br> + Chimes on from every fallen tower.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MRS. A. P. TROTTER.<br> + Aug. 27, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="saturdays"></a> + Saturdays<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Now has the soljer handed in his pack,<br> + And "Peace on earth, goodwill to all" been sung;<br> + I've got a pension and my ole job back—<br> + Me, with my right leg gawn and half a lung;<br> + But, Lord! I'd give my bit o' buckshee pay<br> + And my gratuity in honest Brads<br> + To go down to the field nex' Saturday<br> + And have a game o' football with the lads.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It's Saturdays as does it. In the week<br> + It's not too bad; there's cinemas and things;<br> + But I gets up against it, so to speak,<br> + When half-day-off comes round again and brings<br> + The smell o' mud an' grass an' sweating men<br> + Back to my mind—there's no denying it;<br> + There ain't much comfort tellin' myself then,<br> + "Thank Gawd, I went <i>toot sweet</i> an' did my bit!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh, yes, I knows I'm lucky, more or less;<br> + There's some pore blokes back there who played the game<br> + Until they heard the whistle go, I guess,<br> + For Time an' Time eternal. All the same<br> + It makes me proper down at heart and sick<br> + To see the lads go laughing off to play;<br> + I'd sell my bloomin' soul to have a kick—<br> + But what's the good of talkin', anyway?<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + E. W. PIGOTT.<br> + Jan. 28, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h2> +<a id="northsea"></a> +<i>Sea-Scape</i> +</h2> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<h3> + The North Sea Ground<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh, Grimsby is a pleasant town as any man may find,<br> + An' Grimsby wives are thrifty wives, an' Grimsby girls are kind,<br> + An' Grimsby lads were never yet the lads to lag behind<br> + When there's men's work doin' on the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" for the high tide's flowin',<br> + An' off the misty waters a cold wind blowin';<br> + Skipper's come aboard, an' it's time that we were goin',<br> + An' there's fine fish waitin' on the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Soles in the Silver Pit—an' there we'll let 'em lie;<br> + Cod on the Dogger—oh, we'll fetch 'em by-an'-by;<br> + War on the water—an' it's time to serve an' die,<br> + For there's wild work doin' on the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" they want you at the trawlin'<br> + (With your long sea-boots and your tarry old tarpaulin');<br> + All across the bitter seas duty comes a-callin'<br> + In the Winter's weather off the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It's well we've learned to laugh at fear—the sea has taught us how;<br> + It's well we've shaken hands with death—we'll not be strangers now,<br> + With death in every climbin' wave before the trawler's bow,<br> + An' the black spawn swimmin' on the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Good luck to all our fightin' ships that rule the English sea;<br> + Good luck to our brave merchantmen wherever they may be;<br> + The sea it is their highway, an' we've got to sweep it free<br> + For the ships passin' over on the North Sea ground.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + An' it's "Wake up, Johnnie!" for the sea wind's crying;<br> + "Time an' time to go where the herrin' gulls are flyin';"<br> + An' down below the stormy seas the dead men lyin',<br> + Oh, the dead lying quiet on the North Sea ground!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS C. FOX SMITH.<br> + March 24, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ballad"></a> + The Ballad of the Resurrection Packet<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh, she's in from the deep water, she's safe in port once more,<br> + With shot 'oles in the funnel which were not there before;<br> + Yes, she's 'ome, dearie, 'ome, an' we've 'alf the sea inside!<br> + Ought to 'ave sunk, but she couldn't if she tried.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + An' it was "'Ome, dearie, 'ome, oh, she'll bring us 'ome some day,<br> + Rollin' both rails under in the old sweet way,<br> + Freezin' in the foul weather, fryin' in the fine,<br> + The resurrection packet of the Salt 'Orse Line!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + If she'd been built for sinkin' she'd have done it long ago;<br> + She's tried her best in every sea an' all the winds that blow,<br> + In hurricanes at Galveston, pamperos off the Plate,<br> + An' icy Cape 'Orn snorters which freeze you while you wait.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She's been ashore at Vallipo, Algoa Bay likewise,<br> + She's broke her screw-shaft off Cape Race an' stove 'er bows in ice,<br> + She's lost 'er deck-load overboard an' 'alf 'er bulwarks too,<br> + An' she's come in with fire aboard, smokin' like a flue.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But it's "'Ome, dearie, 'ome, oh, she gets there just the same,<br> + Reekin', leakin', 'alf a wreck, scarred an' stove an' lame;<br> + Patch 'er up with putty, lads, tie 'er up with twine,<br> + The resurrection packet of the Salt 'Orse Line!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A bit west the Scillies the sky was stormy red,<br> + "To-night we'll lift Saint Agnes Light if all goes well," we said,<br> + But we met a slinkin' submarine as dark was comin' down,<br> + An' she ripped our rotten plates away an' left us there to drown.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A bit west the Scillies we thought her sure to sink,<br> + There was 'alf a gale blowin', the sky was black as ink,<br> + The seas begun to mount an' the wind begun to thunder,<br> + An' every wave that come, oh, we thought 'twould roll 'er under.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But it was "'Ome, dearie, 'ome, an' she'll get there after all,<br> + Steamin' when she can steam, an' when she can't she'll crawl;<br> + This year, next year—rain or storm or shine—<br> + The resurrection packet of the Salt 'Orse Line!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We thought about the bulk-'eads—we wondered if they'd last,<br> + An' the cook 'e started groanin' an' repentin' of the past;<br> + But thinkin' an' groanin', oh, they wouldn't shift the water,<br> + So we got the pumps a-workin' same as British seamen oughter.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + If she'd been a crack liner she'd 'ave gone like a stone,<br> + An' why she didn't sink is a thing as can't be known;<br> + Our arms was made of lead, our backs was split with achin',<br> + But we pumped 'er into port just before the day was breakin'!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For it was "'Ome, dearie, 'ome, oh, she'll bring us 'ome some day,—<br> + Don't you 'ear the pumps a-clankin' in the old sweet way?—<br> + This year, next year—rain or storm or shine—<br> + She's the resurrection packet of the Salt 'Orse Line!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS C. FOX SMITH.<br> + Nov. 3, 1915.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="figure"></a> + The Figure-Head<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + A SALT SEA YARN.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + There was an ancient carver that carved of a saint,<br> + But the parson wouldn't have it, so he took a pot of paint<br> + And changed its angel garment for a dashing soldier rig,<br> + And said it was a figure-head and sold it to a brig.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The brig hauled her mainsail to an off-shore draught,<br> + Then she shook her snowy royals and the Scillies went abaft;<br> + And cloudy with her canvas she ran before the Trade<br> + Till she got to the Equator, where she struck a merrymaid.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A string of pearls and conches were all of her togs,<br> + But the flying-fish and porpoises they followed her like dogs;<br> + She had a voice of silver and lips of coral red,<br> + She climbed the dolphin-striker and kissed the figure-head.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then every starry evening she'd swim in the foam<br> + About the bows, a-singing like a nightingale at Home;<br> + She'd call to him and sing to him as sweetly as a bird,<br> + But the wooden-headed effigy he never said a word.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And every starry evening in the Doldrum calms<br> + She'd wriggle up the bobstay and throw her tender arms<br> + About his scarlet shoulders and fondle him and cry<br> + And stroke his curly whiskers, but he never winked an eye.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She couldn't get an answer to her tears or moans,<br> + So she went and told her daddy, told the ancient Davy Jones;<br> + Old Davy damned his eyesight and puzzled of his wits,<br> + Then whistled up his hurricanes and tore the brig to bits.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Down on the ocean-bed, green fathoms deep,<br> + Where the wrecks lie rotting and great sea-serpents creep,<br> + In a gleaming grotto all built of sailors' bones,<br> + Sits the handsome figure-head, listening to Miss Jones.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Songs o' love she sings him the livelong day,<br> + And she hangs upon his bosom and sobs the night away,<br> + But he never, never answers, for beneath his soldier paint<br> + The wooden-headed lunatic still thinks that he's a saint.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CROSBIE GARSTIN.<br> + July 26, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ships"></a> + The Little Ships<br> +</h3> + +<p> +["The small steamer —— struck a mine yesterday and sank. +The crew perished."—Daily Paper.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Who to the deep in ships go down<br> + Great marvels do behold,<br> + But comes the day when some must drown<br> + In the grey sea and cold.<br> + For galleons lost great bells do toll,<br> + But now must we implore<br> + God's ear for sunken Little Ships<br> + Who are not heard of more.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When ships of war put out to sea<br> + They go with guns and mail,<br> + That so the chance may equal be<br> + Should foemen them assail;<br> + But Little Ships men's errands run<br> + And are not clad for strife;<br> + God's mercy then on Little Ships<br> + Who cannot fight for life.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To warm and cure, to clothe and feed,<br> + They stoutly put to sea,<br> + And since that men of them had need<br> + Made light of jeopardy;<br> + Each in her hour her fate did meet<br> + Nor flinched nor made outcry;<br> + God's love be with these Little Ships<br> + Who could not choose but die.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + To friar and nun, and every one<br> + Who lives to save and tend,<br> + Sisters were these whose work is done<br> + And cometh thus to end;<br> + Full well they knew what risk they ran<br> + But still were strong to give;<br> + God's grace for all the Little Ships<br> + Who died that men might live.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + C. HILTON BROWN.<br> + Sept. 20, 1916.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="lonehand"></a> + The Lone Hand +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + She took her tide and she passed the Bar with the<br> + first o' the morning light;<br> + She dipped her flag to the coast patrol at the<br> + coming down of the night;<br> + She has left the lights of the friendly shore and<br> + the smell of the English land,<br> + And she's somewhere South o' the Fastnet now—<br> + God help her ... South o' the Fastnet now,<br> + Playing her own lone hand.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She is ugly and squat as a ship can be, she was new<br> + when the Ark was new,<br> + But she takes her chance and she runs her risk as<br> + well as the best may do;<br> + And it's little she heeds the lurking death and<br> + little she gets of fame,<br> + Out yonder South o' the Fastnet now—<br> + God help her ... South o' the Fastnet now,<br> + Playing her own lone game.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + She has played it once, she has played it twice,<br> + she has played it times a score;<br> + Her luck and her pluck are the two trump cards<br> + that have won her the game before;<br> + And life is the stake where the tin fish run and<br> + Death is the dealer's name,<br> + Out yonder South o' the Fastnet now—<br> + God help her ... South o' the Fastnet now,<br> + Playing her own lone game.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS C. FOX SMITH.<br> + Jan. 2, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="dreamship"></a> + A Dream Ship<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + Oh I wish I had a clipper ship with carvings on her counter,<br> + With lanterns on her poop-rail of beaten copper wrought;<br> + I would dress her like a lady in the whitest cloth and mount her<br> + With a long bow-chasing swivel and a gun at every port.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I would sign me on a master who had solved MERCATOR'S riddle,<br> + A nigger cook with earrings who neither chewed nor drank,<br> + Who wore a red bandanna and was handy on the fiddle,<br> + I would take a piping bos'un and a cabin-boy to spank.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Then some fine Summer morning when the Falmouth cocks were crowing<br> + I would set my capstan spinning to the chanting of all hands,<br> + And the milkmaids on the uplands would lament to see me going<br> + As I beat for open Channel and away to foreign lands,<br> + <i>Singing—</i><br> + Fare ye well, O lady mine,<br> + Fare ye well, my pretty one,<br> + For the anchor's at the cat-head and the voyage is begun,<br> + The wind is in the mainsail, we're slipping from the land<br> + Hull-down with all sail making, close-hauled with<br> + the white-tops breaking,<br> + Bound for the Rio Grande.<br> + Fare ye well!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With the flying-fish around us and a porpoise school before us,<br> + Full crowded under royals to the south'ard we would sweep;<br> + We would hear the bull whales blowing and the mermaids<br> + sing in chorus,<br> + And perhaps the white seal mummies hum their chubby calves to sleep.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We would see the hot towns paddling in the surf of Spanish waters,<br> + And prowl beneath dim balconies and twang discreet guitars,<br> + And sigh our adoration to Don Juan's lovely daughters<br> + Till they lifted their mantillas and their dark eyes shone like stars.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We would cruise by fairy islands where the gaudy parrot screeches<br> + And the turtle in his soup-tureen floats basking in the calms;<br> + We would see the fire-flies winking in the bush above the beaches<br> + And a moon of honey yellow drifting up behind the palms.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + We would crown ourselves with garlands and tread a frolic measure<br> + With the nut-brown island beauties in the firelight by the huts;<br> + We would give them rum and kisses; we would hunt for pirate treasure,<br> + And bombard the apes with pebbles in exchange for coco-nuts.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + When we wearied of our wand'rings 'neath the blazing Southern heaven<br> + And dreamed of Kentish orchards fragrant-scented after rain,<br> + Of the cream there is in Cornwall and the cider brewed in Devon,<br> + We would crowd our yards with canvas and sweep foaming home again,<br> + <i>Singing—</i><br> + Cheerily, O lady mine,<br> + Cheerily, my sweetheart true,<br> + For the blest Blue Peter's flying and I'm rolling home to you;<br> + For I'm tired of Spanish ladies and of tropic afterglows,<br> + Heart-sick for an English Spring-time, all afire<br> + for an English ring-time,<br> + In love with an English rose.<br> + Rolling home!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CROSBIE GARSTIN.<br> + Jan. 17, 1917.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="voyage"></a> + The Voyage of H.M.S. <i>President</i> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + A DREAM<br> +</p> + +<p> +[Mr. Punch means no disrespect to H.M.S. <i>President</i>, +which, being moored in the Thames off Bouverie Street, he +has always looked upon as his guardship, but he has often +wondered what would happen if only a few thousands of the +officers and men borne on her books were to issue from the +Admiralty and elsewhere—but especially from the Admiralty—and +go on board their ship; hence the disquieting dream +that follows.] +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It was eighteen bells in the larboard watch with<br> + a neap-tide running free,<br> + And a gale blew out of the Ludgate Hills when<br> + the <i>President</i> put to sea;<br> + An old mule came down Bouverie Street to give<br> + her a helping hand,<br> + And I didn't think much of the ship as such, but<br> + the crew was something grand.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The bo'sun stood on a Hoxton bus and blew the<br> + Luncheon Call,<br> + And the ship's crew came from the four wide<br> + winds, but chiefly from Whitehall;<br> + They came like the sand on a wind-swept strand,<br> + like shots from a Maxim gun,<br> + And the old mule stood with the tow-rope on and<br> + said, "It can't be done."<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With a glitter of wiggly braid they came, with a<br> + clatter of forms and files,<br> + The little A.P.'s they swarmed like bees, the<br> + Commodores stretched for miles;<br> + Post-Captains came with hats in flame, and<br> + Admirals by the ell,<br> + And which of the lot was the biggest pot there<br> + was never a man could tell.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + They choked the staggering quarter-deck and did<br> + the thing no good;<br> + They hung like tars on the mizzen-spars (or those<br> + of the crowd that could);<br> + Far out of view still streamed the queue when the<br> + moke said, "Well, I'm blowed<br> + If I'll compete with the 'ole damn Fleet," and he<br> + pushed off down the road.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And the great ship she sailed after him, though<br> + the Lord knows how she did,<br> + With her gunwales getting a terrible wetting and<br> + a brace of her stern sheets hid,<br> + When up and spoke a sailor-bloke and he said,<br> + "It strikes me queer,<br> + And I've sailed the sea in the R.N.V. this five-and<br> + forty year;<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "But a ship as can't 'old 'arf 'er crew, why, what<br> + sort of a ship is 'er?<br> + And oo's in charge of the pore old barge if dangers<br> + do occur?<br> + And I says to you, I says, "'Eave to, until this<br> + point's agreed';"<br> + And some said, "Why?" and the rest, "Ay,<br> + ay," but the mule he paid no heed.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So the old beast hauled and the Admirals bawled<br> + and the crew they fought like cats,<br> + And the ship went dropping along past Wapping<br> + and down by the Plumstead Flats;<br> + But the rest of the horde that wasn't aboard they<br> + trotted along the bank,<br> + Or jumped like frogs from the Isle of Dogs, or<br> + fell in the stream and sank.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But while they went by the coast of Kent up spoke<br> + an aged tar—<br> + "A joke's a joke, but this 'ere moke is going a bit<br> + too far;<br> + I can tell by the motion we're nearing the ocean—and<br> + <i>that's</i> too far for me;"<br> + But just as he spoke the tow-rope broke and the<br> + ship sailed out to sea.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And somewhere out on the deep, no doubt, they<br> + probe the problems through<br> + Of who's in charge of the poor old barge and what<br> + they ought to do;<br> + And the great files flash and the dockets crash and<br> + the ink-wells smoke like sin,<br> + But many a U-boat tells the tale how the <i>President</i><br> + did her in.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For many have tried to pierce her hide and flung<br> + torpedoes at her,<br> + But the vessel, they found, was barraged round<br> + with a mile of paper matter;<br> + The whole sea swarms with Office Forms and the<br> + U-boats stick like glue,<br> + So nothing can touch the <i>President</i> much, for<br> + nothing at all gets through.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But never, alack, will the ship come back, for the<br> + <i>President</i> she's stuck too.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + A. P. HERBERT.<br> + May 15, 1918.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="oldships"></a> + The Old Ships<br> +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + They called 'em from the breakers' yards, the<br> + shores of Dead Men's Bay,<br> + From coaling wharves the wide world round,<br> + red-rusty where they lay,<br> + And chipped and caulked and scoured and tarred<br> + and sent 'em on their way.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + It didn't matter what they were nor what they<br> + once had been,<br> + They cleared the decks of harbour-junk and<br> + scraped the stringers clean<br> + And turned 'em out to try their luck with the<br> + mine and submarine...<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With a scatter o' pitch and a plate or two,<br> + And she's fit for the risks o' war—<br> + Fit for to carry a freight or two,<br> + The same as she used before;<br> + To carry a cargo here and there,<br> + And what she carries she don't much care<br> + Boxes or barrels or baulks or bales,<br> + Coal or cotton or nuts or nails,<br> + Pork or pepper or Spanish beans,<br> + Mules or millet or sewing-machines,<br> + Or a trifle o' lumber from Hastings Mill...<br> + She's carried 'em all and she'll carry 'em still,<br> + The same as she's done before.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And some were waiting for a freight, and some were laid away,<br> + And some were liners that had broke all records in their day,<br> + And some were common eight-knot tramps that couldn't make it pay.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And some were has-been sailing cracks of famous old renown,<br> + Had logged their eighteen easy when they ran their easting down<br> + With cargo, mails and passengers bound South from London Town...<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With a handful or two o' ratline stuff,<br> + And she's fit for to sail once more;<br> + She's rigged and she's ready and right enough,<br> + The same as she was before;<br> + The same old ship on the same old road<br> + She's always used and she's always knowed,<br> + For there isn't a blooming wind can blow<br> + In all the latitudes, high or low,<br> + Nor there isn't a kind of sea that rolls,<br> + From both the Tropics to both the Poles,<br> + But she's knowed 'em all since she sailed sou' Spain,<br> + She's weathered the lot, and she'll do it again,<br> + The same as she's done before.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And sail or steam or coasting craft, the big ships with the small,<br> + The barges which were steamers once, the hulks that once were tall,<br> + They wanted tonnage cruel bad, and so they fetched 'em all.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And some went out as fighting-craft and shipped a fighting crew,<br> + But most they tramped the same old road they always used to do,<br> + With a crowd of merchant-sailormen, as might be me or you...<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With a lick o' paint and a bucket o' tar,<br> + And she's fit for the seas once more,<br> + To carry the Duster near and far,<br> + The same as she used before;<br> + The same old Rag on the same old round,<br> + Bar Light vessel and Puget Sound,<br> + Brass and Bonny and Grand Bassam,<br> + Both the Rios and Rotterdam—<br> + Dutch and Dagoes, niggers and Chinks,<br> + Palms and fire-flies, spices and stinks—<br> + Portland (Oregon), Portland (Maine),<br> + She's been there once and she'll go there again,<br> + The same as she's been before.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + * * * *<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Their bones are strewed to every tide from Torres Strait to Tyne—<br> + God's truth, they've paid their blooming dues to<br> + the tin-fish and the mine,<br> + By storm or calm, by night or day, from Longships light to Line.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + With a bomb or a mine or a bursting shell,<br> + And she'll follow the seas no more,<br> + She's fetched and carried and served you well,<br> + The same as she's done before—<br> + They've fetched and carried and gone their way,<br> + As good ships should and as brave men may...<br> + And we'll build 'em still, and we'll breed 'em again,<br> + The same good ships and the same good men,<br> + The same—the same—the same as we've done before!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS C. FOX SMITH.<br> + April 9, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="three"></a> + The Three Ships +</h3> + +<p class="poem"> + I had tramped along through dockland till the day was all but spent,<br> + But for all the ships I there did find I could not be content;<br> + By the good pull-ups for carmen and the Chinese dives I passed,<br> + And the streets of grimy houses each one grimier than the last,<br> + And the shops whose shoddy oilskins many a sailorman has cursed<br> + In the wintry Western ocean when it's weather of the worst—<br> + All among the noisy graving docks and waterside saloons<br> + And the pubs with punk pianos grinding out their last year's tunes,<br> + And the rattle of the winches handling freights from near and far;<br> + And the whiffs of oil and engines, and the smells of bilge and tar;<br> + And of all the craft I came across, the finest for to see<br> + Was a dandy ocean liner—but she wasn't meant for me!<br> + She was smart as any lady, and the place was fair alive<br> + With the swarms of cooks and waiters, just like bees about a hive;<br> + It was nigh her time for sailing, and a man could hardly stir<br> + For the piles of rich folks' dunnage here and there and everywhere.<br> + But the stewards and the awnings and the white paint and the gold<br> + Take a deal o' living up to for a chap that's getting old;<br> + And the mailboat life's a fine one, but a shellback likes to be<br> + Where he feels a kind o' homelike after half his life at sea.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I sighed and passed her by—"Fare you well, my dear," said I,<br> + "You're as smart and you're as dainty as can be;<br> + You're a lady through and through, but I know it wouldn't do—<br> + You're a bit too much a rich man's gal for me!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I rambled on through dockland, but I couldn't seem to find<br> + Out of all the craft I saw there just the one to please my mind;<br> + There were tramps and there were tankers, there were freighters<br> + large and small,<br> + There were concrete ships and standard ships and motor ships<br> + and all,<br> + And of all the blessed shooting-match the one I liked the best<br> + Was a saucy topsail schooner from some harbour in the West.<br> + She was neat and she was pretty as a country lass should be,<br> + And the girl's name on her counter seemed to suit her to a T;<br> + You could almost smell the roses, almost see the red and green<br> + Of the Devon plough and pasture where her home port must have been,<br> + And I'll swear her blocks were creaking in a kind o' Devon drawl—<br> + Oh, she took my fancy rarely, but I left her after all!<br> + For it's well enough, is coasting, when the summer days are long,<br> + And the summer hours slip by you just as sweetly as a song,<br> + When you catch the scent of clover blowing to you off the shore,<br> + And there's scarce a ripple breaking from the Land's End to the Nore;<br> + But I like a bit more sea-room when the short dark days come in,<br> + And the Channel gales and sea-fogs and the nights as black as sin,<br> + When you're groping in a fairway that's as crowded as a town<br> + With the whole damned Channel traffic looking out to run you down,<br> + Or a bloody lee shore's waiting with its fierce and foaming lips<br> + For the bones of poor drowned sailormen and broken ribs of ships.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I sighed and shook my head—"Fare you well, my dear," I said,<br> + "You're a bit too fond o' soundings, lass, for me;<br> + Oh, you're Devon's own dear daughter—but my fancy's for deep water<br> + And I think I'll set a course for open sea!"<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + So I tramped along through dockland, through the Isle of Dogs I went,<br> + But for all the ships I found there still I couldn't be content,<br> + Till, not far from Millwall Basin, in a dingy, dreary pond,<br> + Mouldy wharf-sheds all around it and a breaker's yard beyond,<br> + With its piles of rusty anchors and chain-cables large and small,<br> + Broken bones of ships forgotten—there I found her after all!<br> + She was foul from West Coast harbours, she was worn with<br> + wind and tide,<br> + There was paint on all the bright work that was once her<br> + captain's pride,<br> + And her gear was like a junk-store, and her decks a shame to see,<br> + And her shrouds they wanted rattling down as badly as could be;<br> + But she lay there on the water just as graceful as a gull,<br> + Keeping some old builder's secret in her strong and slender hull;<br> + By her splendid sweep of sheer-line and her clean, keen clipper bow<br> + You might know she'd been a beauty, and, by God, she was one now!<br> + And the river gulls were crying, and the sluggish river tide<br> + Made a kind of running whisper by her red and rusted side,<br> + And the river breeze came murmuring her tattered gear among,<br> + Like some old shellback, known of old, that sings a sailor's song,<br> + That whistles through his yellow teeth an old deepwater tune<br> + (The same did make the windows shake in the Boomerang Saloon!),<br> + Or by the steersman's elbow stays to tell a seaman's tale<br> + About the skippers and the crews in great old days of sail!<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And I said: "My dear, although you are growing old, I know,<br> + And as crazy and as cranky as can be,<br> + If you'll take me for your lover, oh we'll sail the wide seas over,<br> + You're the ship among them all that's meant for me!'<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + MISS C. FOX SMITH.<br> + Oct. 1, 1919.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="spanish"></a> + Spanish Ledges<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + SCILLY.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The bells of Cadiz clashed for them<br> + When they sailed away;<br> + The Citadel guns, saluting, crashed for them<br> + Over the Bay;<br> + With banners of saints aloft unfolding,<br> + Their poops a glitter of golden moulding,<br> + Tambours throbbing and trumpets neighing,<br> + Into the sunset they went swaying.<br> + But the port they sought they wandered wide of,<br> + And they won't see Spain again this side of Judgment Day.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For they're down, deep down, in Dead Man's Town,<br> + Twenty fathoms under the clean green waters.<br> + No more hauling sheets in the rolling treasure fleets,<br> + No more stinking rations and dread red slaughters;<br> + No galley oars shall bow them nor shrill whips cow them,<br> + Frost shall not shrivel them nor the hot sun smite,<br> + No more watch to keep, nothing now but sleep—<br> + Sleep and take it easy in the long twilight.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The bells of Cadiz tolled for them<br> + Mournful and glum;<br> + Up in the Citadel requiems rolled for them<br> + On the black drum;<br> + Priests had many a mass to handle,<br> + Nuestra Señora many a candle,<br> + And many a lass grew old in praying<br> + For a sight of those topsails homeward swaying—<br> + But it's late to wait till a girl is bride of<br> + A Jack who won't be back this side of Kingdom Come.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + But little they care down there, down there,<br> + Hid from time and tempest by the jade-green waters;<br> + They have loves a-plenty down at fathom twenty,<br> + Pearly-skinned silver-finned mer-kings' daughters.<br> + At the gilt quarter-ports sit the Dons at their sports,<br> + A-dicing and drinking the red wine and white,<br> + While the crews forget their wrongs in the sea-maids' songs<br> + And dance upon the foc'sles in the grey ghost light.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CROSBIE GARSTIN.<br> + Sept. 22, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<h3> +<a id="cornish"></a> + A Cornish Lullaby<br> +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> + A.D. 1760.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Sleep, my little ugling,<br> + Daddy's gone a-smuggling,<br> + Daddy's gone to Roscoff in the <i>Mevagissey Maid</i>,<br> + A sloop of ninety tons<br> + With ten brass-carriage guns,<br> + To teach the King's ships manners and respect for honest trade.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Hush, my joy and sorrow,<br> + Daddy'll come to-morrow<br> + Bringing baccy, tea and snuff and brandy home from France;<br> + And he'll run the goods ashore<br> + While the old Collectors snore<br> + And the wicked troopers gamble in the dens of Penzance.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Rock-a-bye, my honey,<br> + Daddy's making money;<br> + You shall be a gentleman and sail with privateers,<br> + With a silver cup for sack<br> + And a blue coat on your back,<br> + With diamonds on your finger-bones and gold rings in your ears.<br> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + CROSBIE GARSTIN.<br> + June 30, 1920.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p class="t4"> + PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.<br> + THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br><br></p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77833 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + diff --git a/77833-h/images/img-cover.jpg b/77833-h/images/img-cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca3364b --- /dev/null +++ b/77833-h/images/img-cover.jpg |
