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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8433-8.txt b/8433-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a254f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/8433-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2983 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by R. C. Lehmann + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch + +Author: R. C. Lehmann + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8433] +This file was first posted on July 9, 2003 +Last Updated: May 14, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS FROM _PUNCH_ + + +By R. C. Lehmann + +Author of "Anni Fugaces", "Crumbs Of Pity", And "Light And Shade" + + +London: John Lane, The Bodley Head + +New York: John Lane Company MCMXVIII + +_Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ + + + +NOTE + +All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in _Punch_. +My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors of +_Punch_, for permitting me to reprint them here. "For Wilma" was first +published in _Blackwood's Magazine_, and appears here by the courtesy +of the Editor. + +R. C. L. + + + + CONTENTS + +THE VAGABOND +SINGING WATER +FOR WILMA +CRAGWELL END +THE BIRD IN THE ROOM +KILLED IN ACTION +EPITAPH +TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. +PAGAN FANCIES +ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY +THE BIRTHDAY +THE DANCE +PANSIES +THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL +FLUFFY, A CAT +THE LEAN-TO SHED +THE CONTRACT +JOHN +THE SPARROW +GELERT +AVE, CAESAR! +SOO-TI +THE BATH +PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY +THE DOGS' WELCOME +ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY +TEETH-SETTING +THE DEATH OF EUCLID +TO POSTUMUS IN OCTOBER +A RAMSHACKLE ROOM +THE LAST STRAW +THE OLD GREY MARE +AT PUTNEY +"A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" +THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT +IN MEMORIAM + + + + +THE VAGABOND + +It was deadly cold in Danbury town + One terrible night in mid November, + A night that the Danbury folk remember +For the sleety wind that hammered them down, +That chilled their faces and chapped their skin, + And froze their fingers and bit their feet, +And made them ice to the heart within, + And spattered and scattered + And shattered and battered +Their shivering bodies about the street; +And the fact is most of them didn't roam +In the face of the storm, but stayed at home; +While here and there a policeman, stamping +To keep himself warm or sedately tramping +Hither and thither, paced his beat; +Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter +Some wretched being had crept to shelter, +And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled +Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled. + +But one there was who didn't care, +Whatever the furious storm might dare, +A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow +In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow +That perched on his dripping coal-black hair. +A red scarf set off his throat and bound him, +Crossing his breast, and, winding round him, + Flapped at his flank + In a red streak dank; +And his hose were red, with a purple sheen +From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green. +He was most outlandishly patched together +With ribbons of silk and tags of leather, +And chains of silver and buttons of stone, +And knobs of amber and polished bone, +And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade, +And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade, +And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade +And jewelled handle of burnished gold +Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold-- +A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard + On a calm warm day + In the month of May, +But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard. + +Whence had he come there? Who could say, +As he swung through Danbury town that day, + With a friendly light in his deep-set eyes, +And his free wild gait and his upright bearing, + And his air that nothing could well surprise, +So bright it was and so bold and daring? +He might have troubled the slothful ease + Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever; +He might have bled for the Maccabees, + Or risen, spurred + By the Prophet's word, +And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever. + +Whatever his birth and his nomenclature, + Something he seemed to have, some knowledge + That never was taught at school or college, +But was part of his very being's nature: + Some ingrained lore that wanderers show + As over the earth they come and go, + Though they hardly know what it is they know. + +And so with his head upheld he walked, + And ever the rain drove down; +And now and again to himself he talked + In the streets of Danbury town. +And now and again he'd stop and troll +A stave of music that seemed to roll +From the inmost depths of his ardent soul; +But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them +And the few who chanced to be near him lost them. + +So, moving on where his fancy listed, +He came to a street that turned and twisted; +And there by a shop-front dimly lighted +He suddenly stopped as though affrighted, +Stopped and stared with his deep gaze centred +On something seen, like a dream's illusion, +Through the streaming glass, mid the queer confusion +Of objects littered on shelf and floor, +And about the counter and by the door-- +And then with his lips set tight he entered. + +There were rusty daggers and battered breastplates, +And jugs of pewter and carved oak cases, +And china monsters with hideous faces, +And cracked old plates that had once been best plates; +And needle-covers and such old-wivery; +Wonderful chess-men made from ivory; +Cut-glass bottles for wines and brandies, +Sticks once flourished by bucks and dandies; +Deep old glasses they drank enough in, +And golden boxes they took their snuff in; +Rings that flashed on a gallant's knuckles, +Seals and lockets and shining buckles; +Watches sadly in need of menders, +Blackened firedogs and dinted fenders; +Prints and pictures and quaint knick-knackery, +Rare old silver and mere gimcrackery-- +Such was the shop, and in its middle +Stood an old man holding a dusty fiddle. + +The Vagabond bowed and the old man bowed, +And then the Vagabond spoke aloud. +"Sir," he said, "we are two of a trade, +Each for the other planned and made, +And so we shall come to a fair agreement, +Since I am for you and you're for me meant. +And I, having travelled hither from far, gain +You yourself as my life's best bargain. + But I am one + Who chaffers for fun, +Who when he perceives such stores of beauty +Outspread conceives it to be his duty +To buy of his visit a slight memento: +Some curious gem of the quattrocento, +Or something equally rare and priceless, +Though its outward fashions perhaps entice less: +A Sultan's slipper, a Bishop's mitre, +Or the helmet owned by a Roundhead fighter, +Or an old buff coat by the years worn thin, +Or--what do you say to the violin? +I'll wager you've many, so you can't miss one, +And I--well, I have a mind for this one, +This which was made, as you must know, +Three hundred years and a year ago +By one who dwelt in Cremona city +For me--but I lost it, more's the pity, +Sixty years back in a wild disorder +That flamed to a fight on the Afghan border; +And, whatever it costs, I am bound to win it, +For I left the half of my full soul in it." + +And now as he spoke his eyes began +To shiver the heart of the grey old man; + And the old man stuttered, + And "Sir," he muttered, +"The words you speak are the merest riddle, +But-five pounds down, and you own the fiddle! +And I'll choose for your hand, while the pounds you dole out, +A bow with which you may pick that soul out." + +So said so done, and our friend again +Was out in the raging wind and rain. +Swift through the twisting street he passed +And came to the Market Square at last, + And climbed and stood + On a block of wood +Where a pent-house, leant to a wall, gave shelter +From the brunt of the blizzard's helter-skelter, +And, waving his bow, he cried, "Ahoy! +Now steady your hearts for an hour of joy!" +And so to his cheek and jutting chin +Straight he fitted the violin, +And, rounding his arm in a movement gay, +Touched the strings and began to play. + +There hasn't been heard since the world spun round +Such a marvellous blend of thrilling sound. +It streamed, it flamed, it rippled and blazed, +And now it reproached and now it praised, +And the liquid notes of it wove a scheme +That was one-half life and one-half a dream. +And again it scaled in a rush of fire +The glittering peaks of high desire; +Now, foiled and shattered, it rose again +And plucked at the souls and hearts of men; +And still as it rose the sleet came down +In the Market Square of Danbury town. + +And now from hundreds of opened doors, + With quiet paces + And happy faces, +In ones and twos and threes and fours, +A crowd pressed out to the Market Square +And stood in the storm and listened there. + +And, oh, with what a solemn tender strain +The long-drawn music eased their hearts of pain; +And gave them visions of divine content; + Green fields and happy valleys far away, +And rippling streams and sunshine and the scent + Of bursting buds and flowers that come in May. +And one spoke in a rapt and gentle voice, + And bade his friends rejoice, +"For now," he said, "I see, I see once more +My little lass upon a pleasant shore +Standing, as long ago she used to stand, +And beckoning to me with her dimpled hand. + As in the vanished years, +So I behold her and forget my tears." +And each one had his private joy, his own, +All the old happy things he once had known, +Renewed and from the prisoning past set free, +And mixed with hope and happy things to be. + +So for a magic hour the music gushed, +Then faded to a close, and all was hushed, +And the tranced people woke and looked about, +And fell to wondering what had brought them out +On such a night of wind and piercing sleet, +Exposed with hatless heads and thin-shod feet. +Something, they knew, had chased their heavy sadness; + And for the years to come they still may keep, + As from a morning sleep, +Some broken gleam of half-remembered gladness. +But the wild fiddler on his feet of flame +Vanished and went the secret way he came. + + + + +SINGING WATER + +I heard--'twas on a morning, but when it was and where, +Except that well I heard it, I neither know nor care-- +I heard, and, oh, the sunlight was shining in the blue, +A little water singing as little waters do. + +At Lechlade and at Buscot, where Summer days are long, +The tiny rills and ripples they tremble into song; +And where the silver Windrush brings down her liquid gems, +There's music in the wavelets she tosses to the Thames. + +The eddies have an air too, and brave it is and blithe; +I think I may have heard it that day at Bablockhythe; +And where the Eynsham weir-fall breaks out in rainbow spray +The Evenlode comes singing to join the pretty play. + +But where I heard that music I cannot rightly tell; +I only know I heard it, and that I know full well: +I heard a little water, and, oh, the sky was blue, +A little water singing as little waters do. + + + + +FOR WILMA +(AGED FIVE YEARS) + +Like winds that with the setting of the sun + Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease, +So is her little struggle fought and done; + And the brief fever and the pain +In a last sigh fade out and so release +The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again. + +Now all that Wilma was is made as naught: + Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure; +The pretty air, the childish grace untaught, + The innocent wiles, + And all the sunny smiles, +The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; + The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, + The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; + Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, + And the gay impulse of her baby mind + That none could tame, +That sent her spinning round, + A spirit of living flame +Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground-- + All these with that faint sigh are made to be + Man's breath upon a glass, a mortal memory. + +Then from the silent room where late she played, + Setting a steady course toward the light, +Swifter than thistledown the little shade, + Reft from the nooks that she had made her own + And from the love that sheltered, fared alone +Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night, + Until at last she lit before the gate + Where all the suppliant shades must stand and wait. + +Grim Cerberus, the foiler of the dead, + Keeping his everlasting vigil there + In deep-mouthed wrath + Athwart the rocky path, +Did at her coming raise his triple head + And lift his bristling hair; +But when he saw our tender little maid + Forlorn, but unafraid, +He blinked his flaming eyes and ceased to frown, + And, fawning on her, smoothed his shaggy crest, +Composed his savage limbs and settled down + With ears laid back and all his care at rest; +And so with kindly aspect beckoned in +The little playmate of his earthly kin. + +For often she had tugged old Rollo's mane, + And often Lufra felt the loving check + Of childish arms about her glossy neck-- + Lufra and Rollo, who with anxious faces + Now cast about the haunts and hiding-places +To find their friend, but ever cast in vain. + +So now, set free from all that can oppress, + And in her own white innocence arrayed, +Made one for ever with all happiness, + Alert she wanders through the starry glade; +Or, where the blissful Shades intone their praise, + She from the lily-covered bowers + Heaping her arms with flowers + Soars and is borne along + The amaranthine the delightful ways, + Gushes the pretty notes and careless trills + Of her unstudied song, + And with her music all the joyous valley fills. + +Yet, oh ye Powers whose rule is set above + These fair abodes that ring the firmament, +Spirits of Peace and Happiness and Love, + And thou, too, mild-eyed Spirit of Content, +Ye will not chide if sometimes in her play + The child should start and droop her shining head, + Turning in meek surmise + Her wistful eyes +Back tow'rd the dimness of our mortal day + And the loved home from which her soul was sped. +Soon shall our little Wilma learn to be + Amid the immortal blest + An unrepining guest, + Who now, dear heart, is young for your eternity. + + + + +CRAGWELL END + +I + +There's nothing I know of to make you spend +A day of your life at Cragwell End. +It's a village quiet and grey and old, +A little village tucked into a fold +(A sort of valley, not over wide) +Of the hills that flank it on either side. +There's a large grey church with a square stone tower, +And a clock to mark you the passing hour +In a chime that shivers the village calm +With a few odd bits of the 100th psalm. +A red-brick Vicarage stands thereby, + Breathing comfort and lapped in ease, +With a row of elms thick-trunked and high, + And a bevy of rooks to caw in these. + +'Tis there that the Revd. Salvyn Bent + (No tie could be neater or whiter than _his_ tie) +Maintains the struggle against dissent, + An Oxford scholar _ex Aede Christi_; +And there in his twenty-minute sermons +He makes mince-meat of the modern Germans, +Defying their _apparatus criticus_ + Like a brave old Vicar, + A famous sticker +To Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. +He enjoys himself like a hearty boy + Who finds his life for his needs the aptest; +But the poisoned drop in his cup of joy + Is the Revd. Joshua Fall, the Baptist, +An earnest man with a tongue that stings-- + The Vicar calls him a child of schism-- +Who has dared to utter some dreadful things + On the vices of sacerdotalism, + And the ruination + Of education + By the Church of England Catechism. + +Set in a circle of oak and beech, + North of the village lies Cragwell Hall; +And stretching far as the eye can reach, + Over the slopes and beyond the fall +Of the hills so keeping their guard about it +That the north wind never may chill or flout it, +Through forests as dense as that of Arden, +With orchard and park and trim-kept garden, +And farms for pasture and farms for tillage, +The Hall maintains its rule of the village. + And in the Hall + Lived the lord of all, +Girt round with all that our hearts desire +Of leisure and wealth, the ancient Squire. +He was the purplest-faced old man +Since ever the Darville race began, +Pompous and purple-faced and proud; +With a portly girth and a voice so loud +You might have heard it a mile away +When he cheered the hounds on a hunting day. +He was hard on dissenters and such encroachers, +He was hard on sinners and hard on poachers; +He talked of his rights as one who knew +That the pick of the earth to him was due: +The right to this and the right to that, +To the humble look and the lifted hat; +The right to scold or evict a peasant, +The right to partridge and hare and pheasant; +The right to encourage discontent +By raising a hard-worked farmer's rent; +The manifest right to ride to hounds +Through his own or anyone else's grounds; +The right to eat of the best by day +And to snore the whole of the night away; +For his motto, as often he explained, +Was "A Darville holds what a Darville gained." +He tried to be just, but that may be +Small merit in one who has most things free; + And his neighbours averred, + When they heard the word, +"Old Darville's a just man, is he? Bust his +Gills, we could do without his justice!" + +II + +The village itself runs, more or less, +On the sinuous line of a letter S, +Twining its little houses through +The twists of the street, as our hamlets do, +For no good reason, so far as I know, +Save that chance has arranged it so. +It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, +Keeping its staid accustomed pace; +Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, +The mad tempestuous windy hurry +Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, +While the village holds to its old-world quiet. + +There's a family grocer, a family baker, +A family butcher and sausage-maker-- +A butcher, proud of his craft and willing +To admit that his business in life is killing, +Who parades a heart as soft as his meat's tough-- +There's a little shop for the sale of sweet stuff; +There's a maker and mender of boots and shoes +Of the sort that the country people use, +Studded with iron and clamped with steel, +And stout as a ship from toe to heel, +Who announces himself above his entry +As "patronised by the leading gentry." + There's an inn, "The George"; + There's a blacksmith's forge, +And in the neat little inn's trim garden +The old men, each with his own churchwarden, +Bent and grey, but gossipy fellows, +Sip their innocent pints of beer, +While the anvil-notes ring high and clear +To the rushing bass of the mighty bellows. +And thence they look on a cheerful scene +As the little ones play on the Village Green, + Skipping about + With laugh and shout +As if no Darville could ever squire them, +And nothing on earth could tame or tire them. + +On the central point of the pleasant Green +The famous stone-walled well is seen +Which has never stinted its ice-cold waters +To generations of Cragwell's daughters. +No matter how long the rain might fail +There was always enough for can and pail-- +Enough for them and enough to lend +To the dried-out rivals of Cragwell End. +An army might have been sent to raise +Enough for a thousand washing days +Crowded and crammed together in one day, +One vast soap-sudded and wash-tubbed Monday, +And, however fast they might wind the winch, +The water wouldn't have sunk an inch. +For the legend runs that Crag the Saint, + At the high noon-tide of a summer's day, +Thirsty, spent with his toil and faint, + To the site of the well once made his way, +And there he saw a delightful rill +And sat beside it and drank his fill, +Drank of the rill and found it good, +Sitting at ease on a block of wood, +And blessed the place, and thenceforth never +The waters have ceased but they run for ever. +They burnt St. Crag, so the stories say, +And his ashes cast on the winds away, +But the well survives, and the block of wood +Stands--nay, stood where it always stood, +And still was the village's pride and glory +On the day of which I shall tell my story. +Gnarled and knotty and weather-stained, +Battered and cracked, it still remained; + And thither came, + Footsore and lame, +On an autumn evening a year ago +The wandering pedlar, Gipsy Joe. +Beside the block he stood and set +His table out on the well-stones wet. +"Who'll buy? Who'll buy?" was the call he cried +As the folk came flocking from every side; +For they knew their Gipsy Joe of old, +His free wild words and his laughter bold: +So high and low all gathered together +By the village well in the autumn weather, +Lured by the gipsy's bargain-chatter +And the reckless lilt of his hare-brained patter. +And there the Revd. Salvyn Bent, +The parish church's ornament, +Stood, as it chanced, in discontent, +And eyed with a look that was almost sinister +The Revd. Joshua Fall, the minister. +And the Squire, it happened, was riding by, +With an angry look in his bloodshot eye, +Growling, as was his wont, and grunting +At the wasted toil of a bad day's hunting; +And he stopped his horse on its homeward way +To hear what the gipsy had to say. + +III + +Then the pedlar called to the crowd to hear, +And his voice rang loud and his voice rang clear; +And he lifted his head and began to troll +The whimsical words of his rigmarole:-- + +"_Since last I talked to you here I've hurled +My lone way over the wide, wide world. +South and North and West and East +I've fought with man and I've fought with beast_; +_And I've opened the gates and cleared the bar +That blocks the road to the morning star!_ + +"_I've seen King Pharaoh sitting down +On his golden throne in his jewelled crown, +With wizards fanning like anything +To cool the face of the mighty King: +But the King said, 'Wizards are off,' said he; +'Let Joseph the gipsy talk to me.'_ + +"_So I sat by the King and began to spout +As the day drew in and the sun went out; +And I sat by the King and spun my tale +Till the light returned and the night grew pale; +And none of the Wizards blinked or stirred +While the King sat drinking it word by word._ + +"_Then he gave me rubies and diamonds old; +He gave me masses of minted gold. +He gave me all that a King can give: +The right to live and to cease to live +Whenever--and that'll be soon, I know-- +The days are numbered of Gipsy Joe._ + +"_Then I went and I wandered on and on +Till I came to the kingdom of Prester John; +And there I stood on a crystal stool +And sang the song of 'The First Wise Fool': +Oh, I sang it low and I sang it high +Till John he whimpered and piped his eye._ + +"_Then I drew a tooth from the lively jaw +Of the Prester's ebony Aunt-in-law; +And he bubbled and laughed so long, d'you see, +That his wife looked glum and I had to flee. +So I fled to the place where the Rajahs grow, +A place where they wanted Gipsy Joe._ + +"_The Rajahs summoned the turbaned hordes +And gave me sheaves of their inlaid swords; +And the Shah of Persia next I saw, +Who's brother and friend to the Big Bashaw; +And he sent me a rope of turquoise stones +The size of a giant's knuckle-bones._ + +"_But a little brown Pygmie took my hand +And rattled me fast to a silver strand, +Where the little brown Pygmie boys and girls +Are cradled and rocked to sleep in pearls._ +_And the Pygmies flattered me soft and low, +'You are tall; be King of us, Gipsy Joe.'_ + +"_I governed them well for half-a-year, +But it came to an end, and now I'm here. +Oh, I've opened the gates and cleared the bar, +And I've come, I've come to my friends from far. +I'm old and broken, I'm lame and tired, +But I've come to the friends my soul desired._ + +"_So it's watches and lockets, and who will buy? +It's ribbon and lace, and they're not priced high. +If you're out for a ring or a golden chain +You can't look over my tray in vain: +And here is a balsam made of drops +From a tree that's grown by the AEthiops!_ + +"_I've a chip of the tooth of a mastodont +That's sure to give you the girl you want. +I've a packet of spells to make men sigh +For the lustrous glance of your liquid eye-- +But it's much too dark for such wondrous wares, +So back, stand back, while I light my flares!_" + +Then he lit a match, but his fingers fumbled, +And, striking his foot on a stone, he stumbled; +And the match, released by the sudden shock, +Fell in flame on the old wood-block, +And burnt there very quietly-- +But before you could have counted three, +Hardly giving you time to shout, +A red-blue column of fire shot out, +Up and up and ever higher, +A marvellous burst of raging fire, +Lighting the crowd that shrank from its flashes, + And so decreasing, + And suddenly ceasing +As the seat of St. Crag was burnt to ashes! + +But in the smoke that drifted on the Green +Queer freaks of vision weirdly wrought were seen: +For on that shifting background each one saw +His own reflection and recoiled in awe; +Saw himself there, a bright light shining through him, +Not as he thought himself, but as men knew him. +Before this sudden and revealing sense +Each rag of sham, each tatter of pretence +Withered and vanished, as dissolved in air, +And left the shuddering human creature bare. +But when they turned and looked upon a friend +They saw a sight that all but made amend: +For they beheld him as a radiant spirit +Indued with virtue and surpassing merit, +Not vain or dull or mean or keen for pelf, +But splendid--as he mostly saw himself. +Darville and Fall were drawn to one another, +And both to Bent as to their heart's own brother; +And a strange feeling grew in every breast, +A self-defeating altruistic zest +Which from that moment's flash composed their strife, +Informed their nature and controlled their life. +But when they sought the Gipsy, him they found, +His dark eyes staring, dead upon the ground. + + + + +THE BIRD IN THE ROOM + +A robin skimmed into the room, + And blithe he looked and jolly, +A foe to every sort of gloom, + And, most, to melancholy. +He cocked his head, he made no sound, + But gave me stare for stare back, +When, having fluttered round and round, + He perched upon a chair-back. + +I rose; ah, then, it seemed, he knew + Too late his reckless error: +Away in eager haste he flew, + And at his tail flew terror. +Now here, now there, from wall to floor, + For mere escape appealing, +He fled and struck against the door + Or bumped about the ceiling. + +I went and flung each window wide, + I drew each half-raised blind up; +To coax him out in vain I tried; + He could not make his mind up. +He flew, he fell, he took a rest, + And off again he scuffled +With parted beak and panting breast + And every feather ruffled. + +At length I lured him to the sill, + All dazed and undivining; +Beyond was peace o'er vale and hill, + And all the air was shining. +I stretched my hand and touched him; then + He made no more resistance, +But left the cramped abode of men + And flew into the distance. + + * * * * * + +Is life like that? We make it so; + We leave the sunny spaces, +And beat about, or high or low, + In dark and narrow places; +Till, worn with failure, vexed with doubt, + Our strength at last we rally, +And the bruised spirit flutters out + To find the happy valley. + + + + +KILLED IN ACTION + +RUPERT is dead, and RUPERT was my friend; +"Only surviving son of"--so it ran-- +"Beloved husband" and the rest of it. +But six months back I saw him full of life, +Ardent for fighting; now he lies at ease +In some obscure but splendid field of France, +His strivings over and his conflicts done. +He was a fellow of most joyous moods +And quaint contrivings, ever on the point +Of shaking fame and fortune by the hand +But always baulked of meeting them at last. +He could not brook--and always so declared-- +The weak pomposities of little men, +Scorned all the tin-gods of our petty world, +And plunged headlong into imprudences, +And smashed conventions with a reckless zeal, +Holding his luck and not himself to blame +For aught that might betide when reckoning came. +But he was true as steel and staunch as oak. +And if he pledged his word he bore it out +Unswerving to the finish, and he gave +Whate'er he had of strength to help a friend. + +When the great summons came he rushed to arms, +Counting no cost and all intent to serve +His country and to prove himself a man. +Yet he could laugh at all his ardour too +And find some fun in glory, as a child +Laughs at a bauble but will guard it well. +Now he is fall'n, and on his shining brow +Glory has set her everlasting seal. + +I like to think how cheerily he talked +Amid the ceaseless tumult of the guns, +How, when the word was given, he stood erect, +Sprang from the trench and, shouting to his men, +Led them forthright to where the sullen foe +Waited their coming; and his brain took fire, +And all was exultation and a high +Heroic ardour and a pulse of joy. +"Forward!" his cry rang out, and all his men +Thundered behind him with their eyes ablaze, +"Forward for England! Clear the beggars out! +Remember--" and death found him, and he fell +Fronting the Germans, and the rush swept on. + +Thrice blesséd fate! We linger here and droop +Beneath the heavy burden of our years, +And may not, though we envy, give our lives +For England and for honour and for right; +But still must wear our weary hours away, +While he, that happy fighter, in one leap, +From imperfection to perfection borne, +Breaks through the bonds that bound him to the earth. +Now of his failures is a triumph made; +His very faults are into virtues turned; +And, reft for ever from the haunts of men, +He wears immortal honour and is joined +With those who fought for England and are dead. + + + + +EPITAPH + +FOR AN ENGLISH SOLDIER AND AN INDIAN SOLDIER BURIED TOGETHER IN FRANCE + +When the fierce bugle thrilled alarm, + From lands apart these fighters came. +An equal courage nerved each arm, + And stirred each generous heart to flame. + +Now, greatly dead, they lie below; + Their creed or language no man heeds, +Since for their colour they can show + The blood-red blazon of their deeds! + + + + +TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. + +You with the hawk's eyes and the nerves of steel, + How was it with you when the hurried word +Roused you and sent you swiftly forth to deal + A blow for justice? Sure your pulses stirred, +And all your being leapt to meet the call + Which bade you strike nor spare + Where poised in air +Murder and ravening flame were hid intent to fall. + +Alone upon your fearful task you flew, + Where in the vault of heaven the high stars swing, +Alone and upward, lost to mortal view, + Winding about the assassin craft a ring +Of fateful motion, till at last you sped + Through the far tracts of gloom + The bolt of doom, +Shattering the dastard foe to earth with all his dead. + +For this we thank you, and we bid you know + That henceforth in the air, by day or night, +A myriad hopes of ours, where'er you go, + Rise as companions of your soaring flight; +And well we know that when there comes the need + A host of men like you, + As staunch, as true, +Will rush to prove the daring of the island breed. + + + + +PAGAN FANCIES + +Blow, Father Triton, blow your wreathéd horn + Cheerly, as is your wont, and let the blast +Circle our island on the breezes borne; + Blow, while the shining hours go swiftly past. +Rise, Proteus, from the cool depths rise, and be +A friend to them that breast your ancient sea. + +I shall be there to greet you, for I tire + Of the dull meadows and the crawling stream. +Now with a heart uplifted and a-fire + I come to greet you and to catch the gleam +Of jocund Nereids tossing in the air +The sportive tresses of their amber hair. + +High on a swelling upland I shall stand + Stung by the buffets of the wind-borne spray; +Or join the troops that sport upon the sand, + With shouts and laughter wearing out the day; +Or pace apart and listen to the roar +Of the great waves that beat the crumbling shore. + +Then, when the children all are lapped in sleep + The pretty Nymphlets of the sea shall rise, +And we shall know them as they flit and creep + And peep and glance and murmur lullabies; +While the pale moon comes up beyond the hill, +And Proteus rests and Triton's horn is still. + + + + +ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY + +Ho, ruddy-cheeked boys and curly maids, +Who deftly ply your pails and spades, +All you who sturdily take your stand +On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand, + And thence defy + With a fearless eye +And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter +The stealthy trickling waves that lap you +And the crested breakers that tumble after +To souse and batter you, sting and sap you-- +All you roll-about rackety little folk, +Down-again, up-again, not-a-bit brittle folk, + Attend, attend, + And let each girl and boy + Join in a loud "Ahoy!" +For, lo, he comes, your tricksy little friend, +From the clear caverns of his crystal home +Beyond the tossing ridges of the foam: +Planner of sandy romps and wet delights, +Robin the Sea-boy, prince of ocean-sprites, +Is come, is come to lead you in your play +And fill your hearts with mirth and jocund sport to-day! + +What! Can't you see him? There he stands +On a sheer rock and lifts his hands, +A little lad not three feet high, +With dancing mischief in his eye. +His body gleams against the light, +A clear-cut shape of dazzling white +Set off and topped by golden hair +That streams and tosses in the air. +A moment poised, he dares the leap +And cuts the wind and cleaves the deep. +Down through the emerald vaults self-hurled +That roof the sea-god's awful world. +Another moment sees him rise +And beat the salt spray from his eyes. +He breasts the waves, he spurns their blows; +Then, like a rocket, up he goes, +Up, up to where the gusty wind +With all its wrath is left behind; +Still up he soars and high and high +A speck of light that dots the sky. +Then watch him as he slowly droops +Where the great sea-birds wheel their troops. +Three broad-winged gulls, himself their lord, +He hitches to a silken cord, +Bits them and bridles them with skill +And bids them draw him where he will. +Above the tumult of the shores +He floats, he stoops, he darts, he soars; +From near and far he calls the rest +And waves them forward for a quest; +Then straight, without a check, he speeds +Across the azure tracts and leads +With apt reproof and cheering words +As on a chase his cry of birds. + +And when he has finished his airy fun +And all his flights and his swoops are done +He will drop to the shore and lend a hand +In building a castle of weed and sand. +He will cover with flints its frowning face +To keep the tide in its proper place, +And the waves shall employ their utmost damp art +In vain to abolish your moated rampart. +And nobody's nurse shall make a fuss, +As is far too often the case with us; +Instead of the usual how-de-do +She will give us praise when we get wet through; +In fact she will smile and think it better +When we get as wet as we like and wetter. +As for eating too much, you can safely risk it +With chocolate, lollipop, cake, and biscuit, +And your mother will revel with high delight +In the state of her own one's appetite. +Great shells there shall be of a rainbow hue +To be found and gathered by me and you; +Wonderful nets for the joy of making 'em. +And scores of shrimps for the trouble of taking 'em; +In fact it isn't half bad--now is it?-- +When Robin the Sea-boy pays his visit. +And perhaps he will tire of his shape and habit +And change and turn to a frisky rabbit, +A plump young gadabout cheerful fellow +With a twitching nose and a coat of yellow, +And never the smallest trace of fear +From his flashing scut to his flattened ear. + +But, lo, there's a hint of coming rain, +So, presto, Robin is back again. +He lifts his head and he cocks his eye +And waves his hand and prepares to fly-- +"Good-bye, Robin, good-bye, good-bye!" + + + + +THE BIRTHDAY + +Sweetheart, where all the dancing joys compete +Take now your choice; the world is at your feet, +All turned into a gay and shining pleasance, +And every face has smiles to greet your presence. + Treading on air, + Yourself you look more fair; +And the dear Birthday-elves unseen conspire +To flush your cheeks and set your eyes on fire. + +Mayhap they whisper what a birthday means +That sets you spinning through your pretty teens. +A slim-grown shape adorned with golden shimmers +Of tossing hair that streams and waves and glimmers, + Lo, how you run + In mere excess of fun, +Or change to silence as you stand and hear +Some kind old tale that moves you to a tear. + +And, since this is your own bright day, my dear, +Of all the days that gem the sparkling year, +See, we have picked as well as we were able +And set your gifts upon your own small table: + A knife from John, + Who straightway thereupon, +Lest you should cut your friendship for the boy, +Receives a halfpenny and departs with joy. + +The burnished inkstand was your mother's choice; +For six new handkerchiefs I gave my voice, +Having in view your tender little nose's +Soft comfort; and the agate pen is Rosie's; + The torch is Peg's, + Guide for your errant legs +When ways are dark, and, last, behold with these +A pencil from your faithful Pekinese! + +And now the mysteries are all revealed +That were so long, so ardently concealed-- +All save the cake which still is in the making, +Not yet smooth-iced and unprepared for taking + The thirteen flames + That start the noisy games +Of tea-time, when my happy little maid +Thrones it triumphant, teened and unafraid. + +So through the changing years may all delight +Live in your face and make your being bright. +May the good sprites and busy fays befriend you, +And cheerful thoughts and innocent defend you; + And, far away + From this most joyous day, +When in the chambers of your mind you see +Those who have loved you, then remember me. + + + + +THE DANCE + +When good-nights have been prattled, and prayers have been said, +And the last little sunbeam is tucked up in bed, +Then, skirting the trees on a carpet of snow, +The elves and the fairies come out in a row. + With a preening of wings + They are forming in rings; +Pirouetting and setting they cross and advance +In a ripple of laughter, and pair for a dance. + +And it's oh for the boom of the fairy bassoon, +And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, +And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, +And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; + And the fiddles sail in + To the musical din, +While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, +Rattles on the gay measure and stirs up his band. + +With a pointing of toes and a lifting of wrists +They are off through the whirls and the twirls and the twists; +Thread the mazes of marvellous figures, and chime +With a bow to a curtsey, and always keep time: + All the gallant and girls + In their diamonds and pearls, +And their gauze and their sparkles, designed for a dance +By the leaders of fairy-land fashion in France. + +But the old lady fairies sit out by the trees, +And the old beaux attend them as pert as you please. +They quiz the young dancers and scorn their display, +And deny any grace to the dance of to-day; + "In Oberon's reign," + So they're heard to complain, +"When we went out at night we could temper our fun +With some manners in dancing, but now there are none." + +But at last, though the music goes gallantly on, +And the dancers are none of them weary or gone, +When the gauze is in rags and the hair is awry, +Comes a light in the East and a sudden cock-cry. + With a scurry of fear + Then they all disappear, +Leaving never a trace of their gay little selves +Or the winter-night dance of the fairies and elves. + + + + +PANSIES + +Tufted and bunched and ranged with careless art +Here, where the paving-stones are set apart, +Alert and gay and innocent of guile, +The little pansies nod their heads and smile. + +With what a whispering and a lulling sound +They watch the children sport about the ground, +Longing, it seems, to join the pretty play +That laughs and runs the light-winged hours away. + +And other children long ago there were +Who shone and played and made the garden fair, +To whom the pansies in their robes of white +And gold and purple gave a welcome bright. + +Gone are those voices, but the others came. +Joyous and free, whose spirit was the same; +And other pansies, robed as those of old, +Peeped up and smiled in purple, white and gold. + +For pansies are, I think, the little gleams +Of children's visions from a world of dreams, +Jewels of innocence and joy and mirth, +Alight with laughter as they fall to earth. + +Below, the ancient guardian, it may hap, +The kindly mother, takes them in her lap, +Decks them with glowing petals and replaces +In the glad air the friendly pansy-faces. + +So tread not rashly, children, lest you crush +A part of childhood in a thoughtless rush. +Would you not treat them gently if you knew +Pansies are little bits of children too? + + + + +THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL + + I + +This is the tale the old men tell, the tale that was told to me, + Of the blue-green dragon, + The dreadful dragon, + The dragon who flew so free, + The last of his horrible scaly race + Who settled and made his nesting place + Some hundreds of thousands of years ago. + One day, as the light was falling low + And the turbulent wind was still, + In a stony hollow, + Where none dared follow, +Beyond the ridge on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill! + +The news went round in the camp that night; + it was Dickon who brought it first + How the wonderful dragon, + The fiery dragon, + On his terrified eyes had burst. + +"I was out," he said, "for a fat young buck, +But never a touch I had of luck; +And still I wandered and wandered on +Till all the best of the day was gone; +When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame +Full over the ridge a green head came, +A green head flapped with a snarling lip, +And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip. +I own I didn't stand long at bay, +But I cast my arrows and bow away, +And I cast my coat, and I changed my plan, +And forgot the buck, and away I ran-- + And, oh, but my heart was chill: + For still as I ran I heard the bellow + Of the terrible slaughtering fierce-eyed fellow +Who has made his lair on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill." + +Then the women talked, as the women will, and the men-folk they talked too + Of the raging dragon, + The hungry dragon, +The dragon of green and blue. +And the Bards with their long beards flowing down, +They sat apart and were seen to frown. + +But at last the Chief Bard up and spoke, +"Now I swear by beech and I swear by oak, +By the grass and the streams I swear," said he, +"This dragon of Dickon's puzzles me. +For the record stands, as well ye know, +How a hundred years and a year ago +We dealt the dragons a smashing blow +By issuing from our magic tree +A carefully-framed complete decree, +Which ordered dragons to cease to be. +Still, since our Dickon is passing sure +That he saw a regular Simon pure. +Some dragon's egg, as it seems, contrived +To elude our curses, and so survived +On an inaccessible rocky shelf, +Where at last it managed to hatch itself. +Whatever the cause, the result is plain: +We're in for a dragon-fuss again. +We haven't the time, and, what is worse, +We haven't the means to frame a curse. +So what is there left for us to say +Save this, that our men at break of day + Must gather and go to kill + The monstrous savage + Whose fire-blasts ravage +The flocks and herds on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill?" + + II + +So the men, when they heard the Chief Bard utter the order that bade them + try + For the awful dragon, + The dauntless dragon, +They all of them shouted "Aye!" +For everyone felt assured that he, +Whatever the fate of the rest might be, +However few of them might survive, +Was certainly safe to stay alive, +And was probably bound to deal the blow +That would shatter the beast and lay him low, +And end the days of their dragon-foe. +And all the women-folk egged them on: +It was "Up with your heart, and at him, John!" +Or "Gurth, you'll bring me his ugly head," +Or "Lance, my man, when you've struck him dead, +When he hasn't a wag in his fearful tail, +Carve off and bring me a blue-green scale." + +Then they set to work at their swords and spears-- +Such a polishing hadn't been seen for years. +They made the tips of their arrows sharp, +Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp, +Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag, +Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag; +And all in the midst of the talk and racket +Each wife was making her man a packet-- +A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese +And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these, +A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin, +As a driving force for his javelin + When the moment arrived to spill + The blood of the terror + Hatched out in error +Who had perched his length on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + +The night had taken her feast of stars, and the sun shot up in flame, + When "Now for the dragon! + Who hunts the dragon?" +The call from the watchers came; +And, shaking the mists of sleep away, +The men stepped into the light of day, +Twice two hundred in loose array; +With a good round dozen of bards to lead them +And their wives all waving their hands to speed them, +While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state, +With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate. +It wasn't his place to fight or tramp; +When the warriors went he stayed in camp; +But still from his chair he harped them on +Till the very last of the host had gone, +Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head +And, leaving his seat, returned to bed, + To sleep, as a good man will + Who, braving malice and tittle-tattle, + Has checked his natural lust for battle, +And sent the rest to the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + + III + +Marching at ease in the cheerful air, on duty and daring bent, + In quest of the dragon, + The fateful dragon, +The fierce four hundred went: +Over the hills and through the plain, +And up the slopes of the hills again. +The sleek rooks, washed in the morning's dew, +Rose at their coming and flapped and flew +In a black procession athwart the blue; +And the plovers circled about on high +With many a querulous piping cry. +And the cropping ewes and the old bell-wether +Looked up in terror and pushed together; +And still with a grim unbroken pace +The men moved on to their battle-place. +Softly, silently, all tip-toeing, +With their lips drawn tight and their eyes all glowing, +With gleaming teeth and straining ears +And the sunshine laughing on swords and spears, +Softly, silently on they go +To the hidden lair of the fearful foe. +They have neared the stream, they have crossed the bridge, +And they stop in sight of the rugged ridge, +And it's "Flankers back!" and "Skirmishers in!" +And the summit is theirs to lose or win-- +To win with honour or lose with shame; +And so to the place itself they came, + And gazed with an awful thrill + At the ridge of omen, + Beset by foemen, +At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + +But where was the dragon, the scale-clad dragon, + the dragon that Dickon saw, + The genuine dragon, + The pitiless dragon, +The dragon that knew no law? +Lo, just as the word to charge rang out, +And before they could give their battle shout, + On a stony ledge + Of the ridge's edge, +With its lips curled back and its teeth laid bare, +And a hiss that ripped the morning air, + With its backbone arched + And its tail well starched, +With bristling hair and flattened ears, +What shape of courage and wrath appears? +A cat, a tortoiseshell mother-cat! +And a very diminutive cat at that! +And below her, nesting upon the ground, +A litter of tiny kits they found: +Tortoiseshell kittens, one, two, three, +Lying as snug as snug could be. +And they took the kittens with shouts of laughter +And turned for home, and the cat came after. +And when in the camp they told their tale, +The women--but stop! I draw a veil. +The cat had tent-life forced upon her +And was kept in comfort and fed with honour; + But Dickon has heard his fill + Of the furious dragon + They tried to bag on +The dragonless summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill! + + + + +FLUFFY, A CAT + +So now your tale of years is done, +Old Fluff, my friend, and you have won, +Beyond our land of mist and rain, +Your way to the Elysian plain, +Where through the shining hours of heat +A cat may bask and lap and eat; +Where goldfish glitter in the streams, +And mice refresh your waking dreams, +And all, in fact, is planned--and that's +Its great delight--to please the cats. + +Yet sometimes, too, your placid mind +Will turn to those you've left behind, +And most to one who sheds her tears, +The mistress of your later years, +Who sheds her tears to summon back +Her faithful cat, the white-and-black. + +Fluffy, full well you understood +The frequent joys of motherhood-- +To lick, from pointed tail to nape, +The mewing litter into shape; +To show, with pride that condescends, +Your offspring to your human friends, +And all our sympathy to win +For every kit tucked snugly in. + +In your familiar garden ground +We've raised a tributary mound, +And passing by it we recite +Your merits and your praise aright. + +"Here lies," we say, "from care released +A faithful, furry, friendly beast. +Responsive to the lightest word, +About these walks her purr was heard. +Love she received, for much she earned, +And much in kindness she returned. +Wherefore her comrades go not by +Her little grave without a sigh." + + + + +THE LEAN-TO-SHED + +(COMMUNICATED BY AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD) + +I've a palace set in a garden fair, +And, oh, but the flowers are rich and rare, + Always growing + And always blowing +Winter or summer--it doesn't matter-- +For there's never a wind that dares to scatter +The wonderful petals that scent the air +About the walls of my palace there. +And the palace itself is very old, +And it's built of ivory splashed with gold. +It has silver ceilings and jasper floors +And stairs of marble and crystal doors; +And whenever I go there, early or late, +The two tame dragons who guard the gate +And refuse to open the frowning portals +To sisters, brothers and other mortals, + Get up with a grin + And let me in. +And I tickle their ears and pull their tails +And pat their heads and polish their scales; +And they never attempt to flame or fly, +Being quelled by me and my human eye. +Then I pour them drink out of golden flagons, +Drink for my two tame trusty dragons... + But John, + Who's a terrible fellow for chattering on, + John declares + They are Teddy-bears; +And the palace itself, he has often said, +Is only the gardener's lean-to shed. + +In the vaulted hall where we have the dances +There are suits of armour and swords and lances, +Plenty of steel-wrought who's-afraiders, +All of them used by real crusaders; +Corslets, helmets and shields and things +Fit to be worn by warrior-kings, + Glittering rows of them-- + Think of the blows of them, + Lopping, + Chopping, + Smashing + And slashing +The Paynim armies at Ascalon... +But, bother the boy, here comes our John +Munching a piece of currant cake, +Who says the lance is a broken rake, +And the sword with its keen Toledo blade +Is a hoe, and the dinted shield a spade, +Bent and useless and rusty-red, +In the gardener's silly old lean-to shed. + +And sometimes, too, when the night comes soon +With a great magnificent tea-time moon. +Through the nursery-window I peep and see +My palace lit for a revelry; +And I think I shall try to go there instead +Of going to sleep in my dull small bed. + But who are these + In the shade of the trees + That creep so slow + In a stealthy row? +They are Indian braves, a terrible band, +Each with a tomahawk in his hand, +And each has a knife _without a sheath_ +Fiercely stuck in his gleaming teeth. +Are the dragons awake? Are the dragons sleepers? +Will they meet and scatter these crafty creepers? +What ho! ... But John, who has sorely tried me, +Trots up and flattens his nose beside me; +Against the window he flattens it + And says he can see + As well as me, +But never an Indian--not a bit; +Not even the top of a feathered head, +But only a wall and the lean-to shed. + + + + +THE CONTRACT + +"Come, Peggy, put your toys away; you needn't shake your head, +Your bear's been working overtime; he's panting for his bed. +He's turned a thousand somersaults, and now his head must ache; +It's cruelty to animals to keep the bear awake." + +At this she stamped in mutiny, and then she urged her plea, +Her wonted plea, "A little time, a minute more, for me." +"Be off, you little rogue of rogues," I sternly made reply; +"It's wicked to be sitting up with sand in either eye. + +"To bed, to bed, you sleepy head; and then, and then--who knows?-- +Some day you'll be a grown-up girl, and lovely as a rose. +And some day some one else will come, a gallant youth and gay, +To harry me and marry you and carry you away." + +At this the storm broke out afresh:--"You know I hate the boys; +They're only good at taking things, and breaking things, and noise. +So, Daddy, please remember this, because--I--want--you--to:-- +I'll never marry any boy; I'll only marry _you_." + +"Agreed," I cried--the imp, of course, had won the bout of wits; +Had gained her point and got her time and beaten me to fits-- +"Agreed, agreed,"--she danced for joy--"we'll leave no room for doubt, +But bind ourselves with pen and ink, and write the contract out:-" + +_This is a contract, firm and clear +Made, as doth from these presents appear, +Between Peggy, being now in her sixth year, + A child of laughter, + A sort of funny actress, + Referred to hereinafter + As the said contractress-- +Between the said contractress, that is to say, +And a person with whom she is often good enough to play; +Who happens to have been something of a factor + In bringing her into the world, who, in short, is her father, +And is hereinafter spoken of as the said contractor. + Now the said contractress declares she would rather +Marry the said contractor than any other. +At the same time she affirms with the utmost steadiness + Her perfect readiness + To take any other fellow on as a brother. + Still, she means to marry her father, and to be his wife, + And to live happily with him all the rest of her life. + This contract is made without consideration, + And is subject to later ratification. +The said contractress had it read through + to see that nothing was missed, +And she took her pen, and she held it tight + in a chubby and cramped-up fist, +And she made her mark with a blotted cross, + instead of signing her name; +And the said contractor he signed in full, + and they mean to observe the same._ + +"Now give me, Peg, that old brown shoe, that battered shoe of yours, +I'll stow the contract in its toe, and, if the shoe endures, +When sixteen years or so are gone, I'll hunt for it myself +And take it gently from its drawer, or get it from its shelf. + +"And when, mid clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl +A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl, +Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim, +I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the lot at him." + + + + +JOHN + + He's a boy, +And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it, +And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it; + A two-year-old with a taste for a toy, + And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it, + And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it; + And a short stout couple of sturdy legs + As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs; + And a jolly round head, so fairly round + You could easily roll it, + Or take it and bowl it + With never a bump along the ground. + +And, as to his cheeks, they're also fat-- +I've seen them in ancient prints like that, + Where a wind-boy high + In a cloudy sky + Is puffing away for all he's worth, + Uprooting the trees + With a reckless breeze, + And strewing them over the patient earth, + Or raising a storm to wreck the ships + With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips. + +Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you, +Were ever two eyes more truly blue? +If you went and worried the whole world through +You'd never discover a bluer blue; +I doubt if you'd find a blue so true +In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew. + + And his hair + Is as fair + As a pretty girl's, + +But it's right for a boy with its crisp, short curls +All a-gleam, as he struts about + With a laugh and a shout, +To summon his sister-slaves to him +For his joyous Majesty's careless whim. + +But now, as, after a stand, he budges, +And sets to work and solemnly trudges, +Out from a bush there springs full tilt +His four-legged playmate--and John is spilt. + +She's a young dog and a strong dog +And a tall dog and a long dog, +A Danish lady of high degree, +Black coat, kind eye and a stride that's free. + + And out she came + Like a burst of flame, + And John, + As he trudged and strutted + Sturdily on, + Was blindly butted, + And, all his dignity spent and gone, + On a patch of clover + Was tumbled over, + His two short legs having failed to score + In a sudden match against Lufra's four. + + But we picked him up + And we brushed him down, + And he rated the pup + With a dreadful frown; +And then he laughed and he went and hugged her, +Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her, + And so, with a sister's hand to guide him, + Continued his march with the dog beside him. + +And soon he waggles his way upstairs-- +He does it alone, though he finds it steep. +He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers, + And he condescends + To admit his friends + To a levée before he goes to sleep. + He thrones it there + With a battered bear + And a tattered monkey to form his Court, + And, having come to the end of day, + Conceives that this is the time for play + And every possible kind of sport. + +But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time, +He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme, + And on the bed + Droops his curly round head, + Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content + Over a day so well, so proudly spent, + Resigned at last to listen and obey, + And so begins to breathe his quiet night away. + + + + +THE SPARROW + +Let others from the feathered brood +Which through the garden seeks its food +Pick out for a commending word +Each one his own peculiar bird; +Hail the plump tit, or fitly sing +The finch's crest and flashing wing; +Exalt the rook's black satin dress-coat, +The thrush's speckled fancy waistcoat; +Or praise the robin, meek, but sly, +For breast and tail and friendly eye-- +These have their place within my heart; +The sparrow owns the larger part, +And, for no virtues, rules in it, +My reckless cheerful favourite! +Friend sparrow, let the world contemn +Your ways and make a mock of them, +And dub you, if it has a mind, +Low, quarrelsome, and unrefined; +And let it, if it will, pursue +With harsh abuse the troops of you +Who through the orchard and the field +Their busy bills in mischief wield; +Who strip the tilth and bare the tree, +And make the gardener's face to be +Expressive of the words he could, +But must not, utter, though he would +(For gardeners still, where'er they go, +Whate'er they do, in weal or woe, +Through every chance of life retain +Their ancient Puritanic strain; +Tried by the weather they control +Each day their angry human soul, +And, by the sparrow teased, may tear +Their careworn locks, but never swear). +Let us admit--alas,'tis true-- +You are not adequately few; +That half your little life is spent +In furious strife or argument; +Still, though your wickedness must harrow +All feeling souls, I love my sparrow; +Still, though I oft and gravely doubt you, +I really could not do without you. +Your pluck, your wit, your nonchalance, +Your cheerful confidence in chance, +Your darting flight, your bouts of play, +Your chirp, so sociable and gay-- +These, and no beauty soft or striking, +Make up your passport to my liking; +And for your faults I'll still defend you, +My little sparrow, and befriend you. + + + + +GELERT + +Tested and staunch through many a changing year, +Gelert, his master's faithful hound, lies here. +Humble in friendship, but in service proud, +He gave to man whate'er his lot allowed; +And, rich in love, on each well-trusted friend +Spent all his wealth and still had more to spend. +Now, reft beyond the unfriendly Stygian tide, +For these he yearns and has no wish beside. + + + + +AVE, CAESAR! + +(MAY 20, 1910) + +Full in the splendour of this morning hour, + With tramp of men and roll of muffled drums, +In what a pomp and pageantry of power, + Borne to his grave, our lord, King EDWARD, comes! + +In flashing gold and high magnificence, + Lo, the proud cavalcade of comrade Kings, +Met here to do the dead KING reverence, + Its solemn tribute of affection brings. + +Heralds and Pursuivants and Men-at-arms, + Sultan and Paladin and Potentate, +Scarred Captains who have baffled war's alarms + And Courtiers glittering in their robes of state, + +All in their blazoned ranks, with eyes cast down, + Slow pacing in their sorrow pass along +Where that which bore the sceptre and the crown + Cleaves at their head the silence of the throng. + +And in a space behind the passing bier, + Looking and longing for his lord in vain, +A little playmate whom the KING held dear, + Caesar, the terrier, tugs his silver chain! + + * * * * * + +Hail, Caesar, lonely little Caesar, hail! +Little for you the gathered Kings avail. +Little you reck, as meekly past you go, +Of that solemnity of formal woe. +In the strange silence, lo, you prick your ear +For one loved voice, and that you shall not hear. +So when the monarchs with their bright array +Of gold and steel and stars have passed away, +When, to their wonted use restored again, +All things go duly in their ordered train, +You shall appeal at each excluding door, +Search through the rooms and every haunt explore; +From lawn to lawn, from path to path pursue +The well-loved form that still escapes your view. +At every tree some happy memories rise +To stir your tail and animate your eyes, +And at each turn, with gathering strength endued, +Hope, still frustrated, must be still renewed. +How should you rest from your appointed task +Till chance restore the happiness you ask, +Take from your heart the burden, ease your pain, +And grant you to your master's side again, +Proud and content if but you could beguile +His voice to flatter and his face to smile? + +Caesar, the kindly days may bring relief; +Swiftly they pass and dull the edge of grief. +You too, resigned at last, may school your mind +To miss the comrade whom you cannot find, +Never forgetting, but as one who feels +The world has secrets which no skill reveals. +Henceforth, whate'er the ruthless fates may give, +You shall be loved and cherished while you live. +Reft of your master, little dog forlorn, +To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn, +And in her queenly service you shall dwell, +At rest with one who loved your master well. +And she, that gentle lady, shall control +The faithful kingdom of a true dog's soul, +And for the past's dear sake shall still defend +Caesar, the dead KING'S humble little friend. + + + + +SOO-TI + +A PEKINESE + +Soo-Ti, I thank the careful fate +That made you wise and obstinate, +Alert, but with a proper pride, +And gay, but wondrous dignified. +I praise your black and tilted nose; +I praise your heart's deep love that shows +In songs made up of whimpering cries +And in the radiance of your eyes +(And if they bulge--forgive the allusion-- +Are eyes the worse for such protrusion? +The smaller eyes are, sure, the blinder, +And size makes every kind eye kinder). +Next with affection's look I note +The glossy levels of your coat, +Where a rich black doth most prevail, +Shading to beaver in your tail, +And lightly fading as it reaches +The tufted things you wear as breeches. + +The dweller on the cushion purrs +No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. +She blinks and blinks and lets you share +Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. +For you she hides her cruel claw +And taps you with a velvet paw; +And, mastered by your lordly air, +For you is meek and debonair. +Even should you growl her hair stays flat: +Be sure she thinks you half a cat. +But you're a Dog and know your job: +Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob, +And grandly gracious to unbend +With a Great Dane, your humble friend. +As on the lawn with him you roll, +He makes your very being droll. +Yet how you set to work to flout him, +To tease and gnaw and dance about him! +You risk the pressure of his paws, +Plunge all you are within his jaws, +And, swelling to a final rage, +With pin-point teeth the fight engage, +While he submits his silly size +To every insult you devise. +At last, withdrawing from the fuss, +You come and tell your tale to us, +Bearing aloft through every room +Your high tail's undefeated plume, +Till, fed with triumphs, you subside, +And sleep and doff your native pride, +Composing in a wicker fane +Those limbs that terrify the Dane. + +So, Soo-Ti, I have tried to praise +Yourself and all your winning ways, +Content if I may guard and please +My little dusky Pekinese. + + + + +THE BATH + +Hang garlands on the bathroom door; + Let all the passages be spruce; +For, lo, the victim comes once more, + And, ah, he struggles like the deuce! + +Bring soaps of many scented sorts; + Let girls in pinafores attend, +With John, their brother, in his shorts, + To wash their dusky little friend. + +Their little friend, the dusky dog, + Short-legged and very obstinate, +Faced like a much-offended frog, + And fighting hard against his fate. + +No Briton he! From palace-born + Chinese patricians he descends; +He keeps their high ancestral scorn; + His spirit breaks, but never bends. + +Our water-ways he fain would'scape; + He hates the customary bath +That thins his tail and spoils his shape, + And turns him to a fur-clad lath; + +And, seeing that the Pekinese + Have lustrous eyes that bulge like buds, +He fain would save such eyes as these, + Their owner's pride, from British suds. + +Vain are his protests--in he goes. + His young barbarians crowd around; +They soap his paws, they soap his nose; + They soap wherever fur is found. + +And soon, still laughing, they extract + His limpness from the darkling tide; +They make the towel's roughness act + On back and head and dripping side. + +They shout and rub and rub and shout-- + He deprecates their odious glee-- +Until at last they turn him out, + A damp gigantic bumble-bee. + +Released, he barks and rolls, and speeds + From lawn to lawn, from path to path, +And in one glorious minute needs + More soapsuds and another bath. + + + + +PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY + +Our Peter, who's famed as an eater of things, +Is a miniature dragon without any wings. +He can gallop or trot, he can amble or jog, +But he flies like a flash when he's after his prog; +And the slaves who adore him, whatever his mood, + Say that nothing is fleeter + Than Peter the eater, +Than Peter pursuing his food. + +He considers the garden his absolute own: +It's the place where a digger can bury a bone. +Then he tests his pin-teeth on a pansy or rose, +Spreading ruin and petals wherever he goes; +And his mistress declares, when he's nibbled for hours, + That nothing is sweeter + Than Peter the eater, +The resolute eater of flowers. + +Having finished his dinner he wheedles the cook, +Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book, +Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat, +To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that; +_Faute de mieux_ takes a dress; and his mistress asserts + That there's nothing to beat her + Like Peter the eater +Attached by his teeth to her skirts. + +But at last he has supped, and the moment is come +When, his stretchable turn being tight as a drum, +He is meek and submissive, who once was so proud, +And he creeps to his basket and slumbers aloud. +And his mistress proclaims, as she tucks up his shawl, + That nothing is neater + Than Peter the eater, +Than Peter curled up in a ball, +Asleep and digesting it all. + + + + +THE DOGS' WELCOME + +Hush! We're not a pack of boys +Always bound to make a noise. + True, there's one amongst us, but + He is young; +And, wherever we may take him, + We can generally shut +Such a youngster up and make him + Hold his tongue. + +Hush! Most cautiously we go +On the tippest tip of toe. + Are the dogs expecting us + At the gate? +Two, who usually prize us, + Will they jump and make a fuss? +Will they really recognise us + Where they wait? + + Hush! I hear the funny pair + Softly whimpering--yes, they're there. +Dane and Pekinese, they scratch + At the wood, + At the solid wood between us; +Duke attempts to lift the latch; + It's a month since they have seen us-- + Open! Good! + +Down, Duke, down! Enough, enough! +Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff. + Soo-Ti's having fearful fits; + Duke is tearing us to bits. +One will trip us, one will throw us-- +But, the darlings, _don't_ they know us! + +Then off with a clatter the long dog leapt, and, oh, what a race he ran, +At the hurricane pace of a minute a mile, as only a long dog can. +Into and out of the bushes he pierced like a shooting star; +And now he thundered around us, and now he was whirling far. +And the little dog gazed till he seemed amazed, + and then he took to it too; +With shrill notes flung from his pert pink tongue + right after his friend he flew; +And the long legs lashed and the short legs flashed + and scurried like anything, +While Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran in a ring. + +And last they hurtled amongst us, and then there were tales to tell, +For all of us seemed to be scattered and torn, + and all of us shrieked and fell; +And John, who is plump, got an awful bump, + and Helen, who's tall and thin, +Was shot through a shrub and gained in bruise + as much as she lost in skin; +And Rosamond's frock was rent in rags, and tattered in strips was Peg's, +And both of them suffered the ninepin fate to the ruin of arms and legs; +And every face was licked by a dog, and battered was every limb, +When Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran after him. + + + + +ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY + +(THE NOTES FOR £1 AND 10S ARE SIGNED BY JOHN BRADBURY) + + When the Red KAISER, swoll'n with impious pride + And stuffed with texts to serve his instant need, + Took Shame for partner and Disgrace for guide, + Earned to the full the hateful traitor's meed, + And bade his hordes advance + Through Belgium's cities towards the fields of France; + And when at last our patient island race, + By the attempted wrong + Made fierce and strong, + Flung back the challenge in the braggart's face, + Oh then, while martial music filled the air, + Clarion and fife and bagpipe and the drum, + Calling to men to muster, march, and dare, + Oh, then thy day, JOHN BRADBURY, was come. + + JOHN BRADBURY, the Muse shall fill my strain + To sing thy praises; thou hadst spent thy time + Not idly, nor hadst lived thy life in vain, + Unfitted for the guerdon of my rhyme. + For lo, the Funds went sudden crashing down, + And men grew pale with monetary fear, + And in the toppling mart + The stoutest heart + Melted, and fortunes seemed to disappear; + And some, forgetting their austere renown, + Went mad and sold + Whate'er they could and wildly called for Gold! + + "Since through no fault of ours the die was cast + We shall go forth and fight + In death's despite + And shall return victorious at the last; + But how, ah how," they said, + "Shall we and ours be fed + And clothed and housed from dreary day to day, + If, while our hearths grow cold, we have no coin to pay?" + + Then thou, where no gold was and little store + Of silver, didst appear and wave thy pen, + And with thy signature + Make things secure, + Bidding us all pluck up our hearts once more + And face our foolish fancied fears like men. + "I give you notes," you said, "of different kinds + To ease your anxious minds: + The one is black and shall be fairly found + Equal in value to a golden pound; + The other--mark its healthy scarlet print-- + Is worth a full half-sovereign from the Mint." + + Thus didst thou speak--at least I think thou didst-- + And, lo, the murmurs fell + And all things went right well, + While thy notes fluttered in our happy midst. + Therefore our grateful hearts go forth to thee, + Our British note-provider, brave JOHN BRADBURY! + + + + +TEETH-SETTING + +(1914) + +When the thunder-shaking German hosts are marching over France-- +Lo, the glinting of the bayonet and the quiver of the lance!-- +When a rowdy rampant KAISER, stout and mad and middle-aged, +Strips his breast of British Orders just to prove that he's enraged; + When with fire and shot and pillage + He destroys each town and village; +When the world is black with warfare, then there's one thing you must do: +Set your teeth like steel, my hearties, and sit tight and see it through. + + + + +Oh, it's heavy work is fighting, but our soldiers do it well-- +Lo, the booming of the batteries, the clatter of the shell!-- +And it's weary work retiring, but they kept a dauntless front, +All our company of heroes who have borne the dreadful brunt. + They can meet the foe and beat him, + They can scatter and defeat him, +For they learnt a steady lesson (and they taught a lesson, too), +Having set their teeth in earnest and sat tight and seen it through. + +Then their brothers trooped to join them, taking danger for a bride, +Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride; +Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame, +So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name. + Toil and wounds could but delight them, + Death itself could not affright them, +Who went out to fight for freedom and the red and white and blue, +While they set their teeth as firm as flint and vowed to see it through. + + + + +THE DEATH OF EUCLID + +["Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of + an immortality that he never much deserved."--_The Times Literary + Supplement_.] + + A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he + Who with his learning made our youth a waste, + Holding our souls in fee; + A god whose high-set crystal throne was based + Beyond the reach of tears, + Deeper than time and his relentless years! + + Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament; + Ye little Postulates, and all the throng + Of Definitions, with your heads besprent + In funeral ashes, ye who long + Worshipped the King and followed in his train; + For he is dead and cannot rise again. + + Then from the shapes that beat their breasts and wept, + Soft to the light a gentle Problem stepped, + And, lo, her clinging robe she swiftly loosed + And with majestic hands her side produced: + + "Sweet Theorem," she said, and called her mate, + "Sweet Theorem, be with me at this hour. + How oft together in a dear debate + We two bore witness to our Sovereign's power. + But he is dead and henceforth all our days + Are wrapped in gloom, + And we who never ceased to sing his praise + May weep our lord, but cannot call him from his tomb." + + And, as they bowed their heads and to and fro + Wove in a mournful gait their web of woe, + Two sentinels forth came, + Their hearts aflame, + And moved behind the pair: + "Warders we are," they cried, + "Of these two sisters who were once so fair, + So joyous in their pride." + And now their massy shields they lifted high, + Embossed with letters three, + And, though a mist of tears bedimmed each eye, + The sorrowing Nymphs could see + Q., E. and F. on one, and on the other Q. E. D. + + But on a sudden, with a hideous noise + Of joy and laughter rushed a rout of boys; + And all the mourners in affright + Scattered to left and right. + Problems and Theorems and Angles too, + Postulates, Definitions, Circles, Planes, + A jibbering crew, + With all their hoary gains + Of knowledge, from their monarch dead + Into the outer darkness shrieking fled. + + And now with festal dance and laughter loud + Broke in the boyish and intruding crowd; + Nor did they fail, + Seeing that all the painful throng was sped, + To let high mirth prevail, + And raise the song of joy for EUCLID dead. + + + + +TO POSTUMOUS IN OCTOBER + +When you and I were younger the world was passing fair; +Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air; +Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll +In endless shining vistas a playground for the soul. +But now no glory fires us; we linger in the cold, +And both of us are weary, and both are growing old; +Come, Postumus, and face it, and, facing it, confess +Your years are half a hundred, and mine are nothing less. + +When you and I were twenty, my Postumus, we kept +In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept. +And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall +That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall. +The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts +Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports; +Then riverward we trudge it, all talking, once again +Down all the long unlovely extent of Jesus Lane. + +One figure leads the others; with frank and boyish mien, +Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene; +His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red; +The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head. +And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring; +With dauntless iteration I see his body swing: +The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew-- +O Postumous, my bold one, can this be truly you? + +Nay, Postumus, my comrade, the years have hurried on; +You're not the only Phoenix, I know, whose plumes are gone. +When I recall your splendour, your memory, too, is stirred; +You too can show a moulted, but once refulgent, bird; +And, if I still should press you, you too could hardly fail +To point a hateful moral where I adorned the tale. +'Twere better to be thankful to Heaven that ruled it so, +And gave us for our spending the days of long ago. + + + + +A RAMSHACKLE ROOM + +When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn, + And the lights are put out in the vault of the night; +When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn, + And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight, +Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am + My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam. + +'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain + Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor; +With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane, + And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door; +With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall, + And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall. + +There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes-- + A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay-- +There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes + When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away. +There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot, + Such as _Plato_, and _Dickens_, and _Liddell and Scott_. + +And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag + From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out; +And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag + As she tidies the room where she bustles about; +For a man may be strong and a man may be young, + But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue. + +And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease + In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down, +With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees, + And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown. +Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am + From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam. + + + + +THE LAST STRAW + + I sing the sofa! It had stood for years, + An invitation to benign repose, + A foe to all the fretful brood of fears, + Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close. + Massive and deep and broad it was and bland-- + In short the noblest sofa in the land. + + You, too, my friend, my solid friend, I sing, + Whom on an afternoon I did behold + Eying--'twas after lunch--the cushioned thing, + And murmuring gently, "Here are realms of gold, + And I shall visit them," you said, "and be + The sofa's burden till it's time for tea." + + "Let those who will go forth," you said, "and dare, + Beyond the cluster of the little shops, + To strain their limbs and take the eager air, + Seeking the heights of Hedsor and its copse. + I shall abide and watch the far-off gleams + Of fairy beacons from the world of dreams." + + Then forth we fared, and you, no doubt, lay down, + An easy victim to the sofa's charms, + Forgetting hopes of fame and past renown, + Lapped in those padded and alluring arms. + "How well," you said, and veiled your heavy eyes, + "It slopes to suit me! This is Paradise." + + So we adventured to the topmost hill, + And, when the sunset shot the sky with red, + Homeward returned and found you taking still + Deep draughts of peace with pillows 'neath your head. + "His sleep," said one, "has been unduly long." + Another said, "Let's bring and beat the gong." + + "Gongs," said a third and gazed with looks intent + At the full sofa, "are not adequate. + There fits some dread, some heavy, punishment + For one who sleeps with such a dreadful weight. + Behold with me," he moaned, "a scene accurst. + The springs are broken and the sofa's burst!" + + Too true! Too true! Beneath you on the floor + Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things + That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store + Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. + Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, + Mute proofs and mournful of your weight and guilt. + + And you? You slept as sweetly as a child, + And when you woke you recked not of your shame, + But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled + From that eviscerated sofa's frame, + Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw + Through the addition of yourself as straw. + + + + + + THE OLD GREY MARE + + There's a line of rails on an upland green + With a good take-off and a landing sound, + Six fences grim as were ever seen, + And it's there I would be with fox and hound. + Oh, that was a country free and fair + For the raking stride of my old grey mare! + + With her raking stride, and her head borne high, + And her ears a-prick, and her heart a-flame, + And the steady look of her deep brown eye, + I warrant the grey mare knew the game: + It was "Up to it, lass," and before I knew + We were up and over, and on we flew. + + The rooks from the grass got up, and so, + With a caw and flap, away they went; + When the grey mare made up her mind to go + At the tail of the bounds on a breast-high scent, + The best of the startled rooks might fail + To match her flight over post and rail. + + While some of the thrusters grew unnerved, + And looked and longed for an open gate, + And one crashed down and another swerved, + She went for it always true and straight: + She pounded the lot, for she made it good + With never a touch of splintered wood. + + Full many a year has come and gone + Since last she gathered her spring for me, + And lifted me up, and so flew on + Unchecked in a country fair and free. + I've ridden a score since then, but ne'er + Crossed one that could live with the old grey mare. + + + + +AT PUTNEY + +When eight strong fellows are out to row, + With a slip of a lad to guide them, +I warrant they'll make the light ship go, + Though the coach on the launch may chide them, +With his "Six, get on to it! Five, you're late! +Don't hurry the slides, and use your weight! +You're bucketing, Bow; and, as to Four, +The sight of his shoulders makes me sore!" + +But Stroke has steadied his fiery men, + And the lift on the boat gets stronger; +And the Coxswain suddenly shouts for "Ten! + Reach out to it, longer, longer!" +While the wind and the tide raced hand in hand +The swing of the crew and the pace were grand; +But now that the two meet face to face +It's buffet and slam and a tortoise-pace. + +For Hammersmith Bridge has rattled past, + And, oh, but the storm is humming. +The turbulent white steeds gallop fast; + They're tossing their crests and coming. +It's a downright rackety, gusty day, +And the backs of the crew are drenched in spray; +But it's "Swing, boys, swing till you're deaf and blind, +And you'll beat and baffle the raging wind." + +They have slipped through Barnes; they are round thebend; + And the chests of the eight are tightening. +"Now spend your strength, if you've strength to spend, + And away with your hands like lightning! +Well rowed!"--and the coach is forced to cheer-- +"Now stick to it, all, for the post is near!" +And, lo, they stop at the coxswain's call, +With its message of comfort, "Easy all!" + +So here's to the sturdy undismayed + Eight men who are bound together +By the faith of the slide and the flashing blade + And the swing and the level feather; +To the deeds they do and the toil they bear; +To the dauntless mind and the will to dare; +And the joyous spirit that makes them one +Till the last fierce stroke of the race is done. + + + + +"A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" + +When the waves rise high and higher as they toss about together, +And the March-winds, loosed and angry, cut your chilly heart in two, +Here are eighteen gallant gentlemen who come to face the weather +All for valour and for honour and a little bit of blue! + + _Chorus._ + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure. + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. + +Isis blessed her noble youngsters as they left her; Father Camus +Sped his youths to fame and Putney from his grey and ancient Courts:-- +"Keep," they said, "the old traditions, and we know you will not shame us +When you try the stormy tideway in your zephyrs and your shorts. + +"For it's toil and tribulation till your roughnesses are polished, +And it's bitterness and sorrow till the work of oars is done; +But it's high delight and triumph when your faults are all abolished, +With yourself and seven brothers firmly welded into one." + +So they stood the weary trial and the people poured to greet them, +Filled a cup with praise and welcome--it was theirs to take and quaff; +And they ranged their ships alongside, and the umpire came to meet them, +And they stripped themselves and waited till his pistol sent them off. + +With a dash and spurt and rally; with a swing and drive and rattle, +Both the boats went flashing faster as they cleft the swelling stream; +And the old familiar places, scenes of many a sacred battle, +Just were seen for half a moment and went by them in a dream. + +But at last the flag has fallen and the splendid fight is finished, +And the victory is blazoned on the record-roll of Fame. +They are spent and worn and broken, but their soul is undiminished; +There are winners now and losers, but their glory is the same! + + _Chorus_. + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure, + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. + + + + +THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT + +Splendour, whom lately on your glowing flight + Athwart the chill and cheerless winter-skies +I marked and welcomed with a futile right, + And then a futile left, and strained my eyes +To see you so magnificently large, +Sinking to rest beyond the fir-wood's marge-- + +Not mine, not mine the fault: despise me not + In that I missed you; for the sun was down, +And the dim light was all against the shot; + And I had booked a bet of half-a-crown. +My deadly fire is apt to be upset +By many causes--always by a bet. + +Or had I overdone it with the sloes, + Snared by their home-picked brand of ardent gin +Designed to warm a shivering sportsman's toes + And light a fire his reckless head within? +Or did my silly loader put me off +With aimless chatter in regard to golf? + +You too, I think, displayed a lack of nerve; + You did not quite-now did you?-play the game; +For when you saw me you were seen to swerve, + Doubtless in order to disturb my aim. +No, no, you must not ask me to forgive +A swerve because you basely planned to live. + +At any rate I missed you, and you went, + The last day's absolutely final bird, +Scathless, and left me very ill content; + And someone (was it I?) pronounced a word, +A word which rather forcible than nice is, +A little word which does not rhyme with Isis. + +Farewell! I may behold you once again + When next November's gales have stripped the leaf. +Then, while your upward flight you grandly strain, + May I be there to add you to my sheaf; +And may they praise your tallness, saying "This +Was such a bird as men are proud to miss!" + + + + +IN MEMORIAM + + FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND, 1836-1917 + + EDITOR OF "PUNCH," 1880-1906 + +Hail and Farewell, dear Brother of the Pen, +Maker of sunshine for the minds of men, +Lord of bright cheer and master of our hearts-- +What plaint is fit when such a friend departs? +Not with mere ceremonial words of woe +Come we to mourn--you would not have it so; +But with our memories stored with joyous fun, +Your constant largesse till your life was done, +With quips, that flashed through frequent twists and bends, +Caught from the common intercourse of friends; +And gay allusions gayer for the zest +Of one who hurt no friend and spared no jest. +What arts were yours that taught you to indite +What all men thought, but only you could write! + +That wrung from gloom itself a fleeting smile; +Rippled with laughter but refrained from guile; +Led you to prick some bladder of conceit +Or trip intrusive folly's blundering feet, +While wisdom at your call came down to earth, +Unbent awhile and gave a hand to mirth! + +You too had pondered mid your jesting strife +The deeper issues of our mortal life; +Guided to God by faith no doubt could dim, +You fought your fight and left the rest to Him, +Content to set your heart on things above +And rule your days by laughter and by love. + +Rest in our memories! You are guarded there +By those who knew you as you lived and were. +There mid our Happy Thoughts you take your stand, +A sun-girt shade, and light that shadow-land. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by +R. C. Lehmann + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 8433-8.txt or 8433-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/4/3/8433/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/8433-8.zip b/8433-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..562ecbe --- /dev/null +++ b/8433-8.zip diff --git a/8433-h.zip b/8433-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..820912c --- /dev/null +++ b/8433-h.zip diff --git a/8433-h/8433-h.htm b/8433-h/8433-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bf1899 --- /dev/null +++ b/8433-h/8433-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3440 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Vagabond and Other Poems from _punch_, by R. C. Lehmann + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre {font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by R. C. Lehmann + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch + +Author: R. C. Lehmann + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8433] +This file was first posted on July 9, 2003 +Last Updated: May 14, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + +Text file produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS FROM <i>PUNCH</i> + </h1> + <h2> + By R. C. Lehmann + </h2> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + Author of "Anni Fugaces", "Crumbs Of Pity", And "Light And Shade" + </p> + <p> + London: John Lane, The Bodley Head + </p> + <p> + New York: John Lane Company MCMXVIII + </p> + <p> + <i>Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh</i> + </p> + <br /> <br /> + <hr /> + <br /> <br /> + <p> + <b>NOTE</b> + </p> + <p> + All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in <i>Punch</i>. + My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors + of <i>Punch</i>, for permitting me to reprint them here. "For Wilma" was + first published in <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i>, and appears here by the + courtesy of the Editor. + </p> + <p> + R. C. L. + </p> + </div> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE VAGABOND </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> SINGING WATER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> CRAGWELL END </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> THE BIRD IN THE ROOM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> KILLED IN ACTION </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> EPITAPH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> PAGAN FANCIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE BIRTHDAY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> THE DANCE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> PANSIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> FLUFFY, A CAT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> THE LEAN-TO-SHED </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE CONTRACT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> JOHN </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE SPARROW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> GELERT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> AVE, CAESAR! </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> SOO-TI </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> THE BATH </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> THE DOGS' WELCOME </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> TEETH-SETTING </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> THE DEATH OF EUCLID </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> TO POSTUMOUS IN OCTOBER </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0029"> A RAMSHACKLE ROOM </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0030"> THE LAST STRAW </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> AT PUTNEY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> "A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0033"> THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> IN MEMORIAM </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE VAGABOND + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + It was deadly cold in Danbury town + One terrible night in mid November, + A night that the Danbury folk remember + For the sleety wind that hammered them down, + That chilled their faces and chapped their skin, + And froze their fingers and bit their feet, + And made them ice to the heart within, + And spattered and scattered + And shattered and battered + Their shivering bodies about the street; + And the fact is most of them didn't roam + In the face of the storm, but stayed at home; + While here and there a policeman, stamping + To keep himself warm or sedately tramping + Hither and thither, paced his beat; + Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter + Some wretched being had crept to shelter, + And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled + Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled. + + But one there was who didn't care, + Whatever the furious storm might dare, + A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow + In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow + That perched on his dripping coal-black hair. + A red scarf set off his throat and bound him, + Crossing his breast, and, winding round him, + Flapped at his flank + In a red streak dank; + And his hose were red, with a purple sheen + From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green. + He was most outlandishly patched together + With ribbons of silk and tags of leather, + And chains of silver and buttons of stone, + And knobs of amber and polished bone, + And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade, + And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade, + And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade + And jewelled handle of burnished gold + Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold— + A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard + On a calm warm day + In the month of May, + But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard. + + Whence had he come there? Who could say, + As he swung through Danbury town that day, + With a friendly light in his deep-set eyes, + And his free wild gait and his upright bearing, + And his air that nothing could well surprise, + So bright it was and so bold and daring? + He might have troubled the slothful ease + Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever; + He might have bled for the Maccabees, + Or risen, spurred + By the Prophet's word, + And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever. + + Whatever his birth and his nomenclature, + Something he seemed to have, some knowledge + That never was taught at school or college, + But was part of his very being's nature: + Some ingrained lore that wanderers show + As over the earth they come and go, + Though they hardly know what it is they know. + + And so with his head upheld he walked, + And ever the rain drove down; + And now and again to himself he talked + In the streets of Danbury town. + And now and again he'd stop and troll + A stave of music that seemed to roll + From the inmost depths of his ardent soul; + But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them + And the few who chanced to be near him lost them. + + So, moving on where his fancy listed, + He came to a street that turned and twisted; + And there by a shop-front dimly lighted + He suddenly stopped as though affrighted, + Stopped and stared with his deep gaze centred + On something seen, like a dream's illusion, + Through the streaming glass, mid the queer confusion + Of objects littered on shelf and floor, + And about the counter and by the door— + And then with his lips set tight he entered. + + There were rusty daggers and battered breastplates, + And jugs of pewter and carved oak cases, + And china monsters with hideous faces, + And cracked old plates that had once been best plates; + And needle-covers and such old-wivery; + Wonderful chess-men made from ivory; + Cut-glass bottles for wines and brandies, + Sticks once flourished by bucks and dandies; + Deep old glasses they drank enough in, + And golden boxes they took their snuff in; + Rings that flashed on a gallant's knuckles, + Seals and lockets and shining buckles; + Watches sadly in need of menders, + Blackened firedogs and dinted fenders; + Prints and pictures and quaint knick-knackery, + Rare old silver and mere gimcrackery— + Such was the shop, and in its middle + Stood an old man holding a dusty fiddle. + + The Vagabond bowed and the old man bowed, + And then the Vagabond spoke aloud. + "Sir," he said, "we are two of a trade, + Each for the other planned and made, + And so we shall come to a fair agreement, + Since I am for you and you're for me meant. + And I, having travelled hither from far, gain + You yourself as my life's best bargain. + But I am one + Who chaffers for fun, + Who when he perceives such stores of beauty + Outspread conceives it to be his duty + To buy of his visit a slight memento: + Some curious gem of the quattrocento, + Or something equally rare and priceless, + Though its outward fashions perhaps entice less: + A Sultan's slipper, a Bishop's mitre, + Or the helmet owned by a Roundhead fighter, + Or an old buff coat by the years worn thin, + Or—what do you say to the violin? + I'll wager you've many, so you can't miss one, + And I—well, I have a mind for this one, + This which was made, as you must know, + Three hundred years and a year ago + By one who dwelt in Cremona city + For me—but I lost it, more's the pity, + Sixty years back in a wild disorder + That flamed to a fight on the Afghan border; + And, whatever it costs, I am bound to win it, + For I left the half of my full soul in it." + + And now as he spoke his eyes began + To shiver the heart of the grey old man; + And the old man stuttered, + And "Sir," he muttered, + "The words you speak are the merest riddle, + But-five pounds down, and you own the fiddle! + And I'll choose for your hand, while the pounds you dole out, + A bow with which you may pick that soul out." + + So said so done, and our friend again + Was out in the raging wind and rain. + Swift through the twisting street he passed + And came to the Market Square at last, + And climbed and stood + On a block of wood + Where a pent-house, leant to a wall, gave shelter + From the brunt of the blizzard's helter-skelter, + And, waving his bow, he cried, "Ahoy! + Now steady your hearts for an hour of joy!" + And so to his cheek and jutting chin + Straight he fitted the violin, + And, rounding his arm in a movement gay, + Touched the strings and began to play. + + There hasn't been heard since the world spun round + Such a marvellous blend of thrilling sound. + It streamed, it flamed, it rippled and blazed, + And now it reproached and now it praised, + And the liquid notes of it wove a scheme + That was one-half life and one-half a dream. + And again it scaled in a rush of fire + The glittering peaks of high desire; + Now, foiled and shattered, it rose again + And plucked at the souls and hearts of men; + And still as it rose the sleet came down + In the Market Square of Danbury town. + + And now from hundreds of opened doors, + With quiet paces + And happy faces, + In ones and twos and threes and fours, + A crowd pressed out to the Market Square + And stood in the storm and listened there. + + And, oh, with what a solemn tender strain + The long-drawn music eased their hearts of pain; + And gave them visions of divine content; + Green fields and happy valleys far away, + And rippling streams and sunshine and the scent + Of bursting buds and flowers that come in May. + And one spoke in a rapt and gentle voice, + And bade his friends rejoice, + "For now," he said, "I see, I see once more + My little lass upon a pleasant shore + Standing, as long ago she used to stand, + And beckoning to me with her dimpled hand. + As in the vanished years, + So I behold her and forget my tears." + And each one had his private joy, his own, + All the old happy things he once had known, + Renewed and from the prisoning past set free, + And mixed with hope and happy things to be. + + So for a magic hour the music gushed, + Then faded to a close, and all was hushed, + And the tranced people woke and looked about, + And fell to wondering what had brought them out + On such a night of wind and piercing sleet, + Exposed with hatless heads and thin-shod feet. + Something, they knew, had chased their heavy sadness; + And for the years to come they still may keep, + As from a morning sleep, + Some broken gleam of half-remembered gladness. + But the wild fiddler on his feet of flame + Vanished and went the secret way he came. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SINGING WATER + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I heard—'twas on a morning, but when it was and where, + Except that well I heard it, I neither know nor care— + I heard, and, oh, the sunlight was shining in the blue, + A little water singing as little waters do. + + At Lechlade and at Buscot, where Summer days are long, + The tiny rills and ripples they tremble into song; + And where the silver Windrush brings down her liquid gems, + There's music in the wavelets she tosses to the Thames. + + The eddies have an air too, and brave it is and blithe; + I think I may have heard it that day at Bablockhythe; + And where the Eynsham weir-fall breaks out in rainbow spray + The Evenlode comes singing to join the pretty play. + + But where I heard that music I cannot rightly tell; + I only know I heard it, and that I know full well: + I heard a little water, and, oh, the sky was blue, + A little water singing as little waters do. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +FOR WILMA + (AGED FIVE YEARS) + + Like winds that with the setting of the sun + Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease, + So is her little struggle fought and done; + And the brief fever and the pain + In a last sigh fade out and so release + The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again. + + Now all that Wilma was is made as naught: + Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure; + The pretty air, the childish grace untaught, + The innocent wiles, + And all the sunny smiles, + The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; + The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, + The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; + Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, + And the gay impulse of her baby mind + That none could tame, + That sent her spinning round, + A spirit of living flame + Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground— + All these with that faint sigh are made to be + Man's breath upon a glass, a mortal memory. + + Then from the silent room where late she played, + Setting a steady course toward the light, + Swifter than thistledown the little shade, + Reft from the nooks that she had made her own + And from the love that sheltered, fared alone + Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night, + Until at last she lit before the gate + Where all the suppliant shades must stand and wait. + + Grim Cerberus, the foiler of the dead, + Keeping his everlasting vigil there + In deep-mouthed wrath + Athwart the rocky path, + Did at her coming raise his triple head + And lift his bristling hair; + But when he saw our tender little maid + Forlorn, but unafraid, + He blinked his flaming eyes and ceased to frown, + And, fawning on her, smoothed his shaggy crest, + Composed his savage limbs and settled down + With ears laid back and all his care at rest; + And so with kindly aspect beckoned in + The little playmate of his earthly kin. + + For often she had tugged old Rollo's mane, + And often Lufra felt the loving check + Of childish arms about her glossy neck— + Lufra and Rollo, who with anxious faces + Now cast about the haunts and hiding-places + To find their friend, but ever cast in vain. + + So now, set free from all that can oppress, + And in her own white innocence arrayed, + Made one for ever with all happiness, + Alert she wanders through the starry glade; + Or, where the blissful Shades intone their praise, + She from the lily-covered bowers + Heaping her arms with flowers + Soars and is borne along + The amaranthine the delightful ways, + Gushes the pretty notes and careless trills + Of her unstudied song, + And with her music all the joyous valley fills. + + Yet, oh ye Powers whose rule is set above + These fair abodes that ring the firmament, + Spirits of Peace and Happiness and Love, + And thou, too, mild-eyed Spirit of Content, + Ye will not chide if sometimes in her play + The child should start and droop her shining head, + Turning in meek surmise + Her wistful eyes + Back tow'rd the dimness of our mortal day + And the loved home from which her soul was sped. + Soon shall our little Wilma learn to be + Amid the immortal blest + An unrepining guest, + Who now, dear heart, is young for your eternity. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CRAGWELL END + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I + + There's nothing I know of to make you spend + A day of your life at Cragwell End. + It's a village quiet and grey and old, + A little village tucked into a fold + (A sort of valley, not over wide) + Of the hills that flank it on either side. + There's a large grey church with a square stone tower, + And a clock to mark you the passing hour + In a chime that shivers the village calm + With a few odd bits of the 100th psalm. + A red-brick Vicarage stands thereby, + Breathing comfort and lapped in ease, + With a row of elms thick-trunked and high, + And a bevy of rooks to caw in these. + + 'Tis there that the Revd. Salvyn Bent + (No tie could be neater or whiter than <i>his</i> tie) + Maintains the struggle against dissent, + An Oxford scholar <i>ex Aede Christi</i>; + And there in his twenty-minute sermons + He makes mince-meat of the modern Germans, + Defying their <i>apparatus criticus</i> + Like a brave old Vicar, + A famous sticker + To Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. + He enjoys himself like a hearty boy + Who finds his life for his needs the aptest; + But the poisoned drop in his cup of joy + Is the Revd. Joshua Fall, the Baptist, + An earnest man with a tongue that stings— + The Vicar calls him a child of schism— + Who has dared to utter some dreadful things + On the vices of sacerdotalism, + And the ruination + Of education + By the Church of England Catechism. + + Set in a circle of oak and beech, + North of the village lies Cragwell Hall; + And stretching far as the eye can reach, + Over the slopes and beyond the fall + Of the hills so keeping their guard about it + That the north wind never may chill or flout it, + Through forests as dense as that of Arden, + With orchard and park and trim-kept garden, + And farms for pasture and farms for tillage, + The Hall maintains its rule of the village. + And in the Hall + Lived the lord of all, + Girt round with all that our hearts desire + Of leisure and wealth, the ancient Squire. + He was the purplest-faced old man + Since ever the Darville race began, + Pompous and purple-faced and proud; + With a portly girth and a voice so loud + You might have heard it a mile away + When he cheered the hounds on a hunting day. + He was hard on dissenters and such encroachers, + He was hard on sinners and hard on poachers; + He talked of his rights as one who knew + That the pick of the earth to him was due: + The right to this and the right to that, + To the humble look and the lifted hat; + The right to scold or evict a peasant, + The right to partridge and hare and pheasant; + The right to encourage discontent + By raising a hard-worked farmer's rent; + The manifest right to ride to hounds + Through his own or anyone else's grounds; + The right to eat of the best by day + And to snore the whole of the night away; + For his motto, as often he explained, + Was "A Darville holds what a Darville gained." + He tried to be just, but that may be + Small merit in one who has most things free; + And his neighbours averred, + When they heard the word, + "Old Darville's a just man, is he? Bust his + Gills, we could do without his justice!" + + II + + The village itself runs, more or less, + On the sinuous line of a letter S, + Twining its little houses through + The twists of the street, as our hamlets do, + For no good reason, so far as I know, + Save that chance has arranged it so. + It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, + Keeping its staid accustomed pace; + Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, + The mad tempestuous windy hurry + Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, + While the village holds to its old-world quiet. + + There's a family grocer, a family baker, + A family butcher and sausage-maker— + A butcher, proud of his craft and willing + To admit that his business in life is killing, + Who parades a heart as soft as his meat's tough— + There's a little shop for the sale of sweet stuff; + There's a maker and mender of boots and shoes + Of the sort that the country people use, + Studded with iron and clamped with steel, + And stout as a ship from toe to heel, + Who announces himself above his entry + As "patronised by the leading gentry." + There's an inn, "The George"; + There's a blacksmith's forge, + And in the neat little inn's trim garden + The old men, each with his own churchwarden, + Bent and grey, but gossipy fellows, + Sip their innocent pints of beer, + While the anvil-notes ring high and clear + To the rushing bass of the mighty bellows. + And thence they look on a cheerful scene + As the little ones play on the Village Green, + Skipping about + With laugh and shout + As if no Darville could ever squire them, + And nothing on earth could tame or tire them. + + On the central point of the pleasant Green + The famous stone-walled well is seen + Which has never stinted its ice-cold waters + To generations of Cragwell's daughters. + No matter how long the rain might fail + There was always enough for can and pail— + Enough for them and enough to lend + To the dried-out rivals of Cragwell End. + An army might have been sent to raise + Enough for a thousand washing days + Crowded and crammed together in one day, + One vast soap-sudded and wash-tubbed Monday, + And, however fast they might wind the winch, + The water wouldn't have sunk an inch. + For the legend runs that Crag the Saint, + At the high noon-tide of a summer's day, + Thirsty, spent with his toil and faint, + To the site of the well once made his way, + And there he saw a delightful rill + And sat beside it and drank his fill, + Drank of the rill and found it good, + Sitting at ease on a block of wood, + And blessed the place, and thenceforth never + The waters have ceased but they run for ever. + They burnt St. Crag, so the stories say, + And his ashes cast on the winds away, + But the well survives, and the block of wood + Stands—nay, stood where it always stood, + And still was the village's pride and glory + On the day of which I shall tell my story. + Gnarled and knotty and weather-stained, + Battered and cracked, it still remained; + And thither came, + Footsore and lame, + On an autumn evening a year ago + The wandering pedlar, Gipsy Joe. + Beside the block he stood and set + His table out on the well-stones wet. + "Who'll buy? Who'll buy?" was the call he cried + As the folk came flocking from every side; + For they knew their Gipsy Joe of old, + His free wild words and his laughter bold: + So high and low all gathered together + By the village well in the autumn weather, + Lured by the gipsy's bargain-chatter + And the reckless lilt of his hare-brained patter. + And there the Revd. Salvyn Bent, + The parish church's ornament, + Stood, as it chanced, in discontent, + And eyed with a look that was almost sinister + The Revd. Joshua Fall, the minister. + And the Squire, it happened, was riding by, + With an angry look in his bloodshot eye, + Growling, as was his wont, and grunting + At the wasted toil of a bad day's hunting; + And he stopped his horse on its homeward way + To hear what the gipsy had to say. + + III + + Then the pedlar called to the crowd to hear, + And his voice rang loud and his voice rang clear; + And he lifted his head and began to troll + The whimsical words of his rigmarole:— + + "<i>Since last I talked to you here I've hurled + My lone way over the wide, wide world. + South and North and West and East + I've fought with man and I've fought with beast</i>; + <i>And I've opened the gates and cleared the bar + That blocks the road to the morning star!</i> + + "<i>I've seen King Pharaoh sitting down + On his golden throne in his jewelled crown, + With wizards fanning like anything + To cool the face of the mighty King: + But the King said, 'Wizards are off,' said he; + 'Let Joseph the gipsy talk to me.'</i> + + "<i>So I sat by the King and began to spout + As the day drew in and the sun went out; + And I sat by the King and spun my tale + Till the light returned and the night grew pale; + And none of the Wizards blinked or stirred + While the King sat drinking it word by word.</i> + + "<i>Then he gave me rubies and diamonds old; + He gave me masses of minted gold. + He gave me all that a King can give: + The right to live and to cease to live + Whenever—and that'll be soon, I know— + The days are numbered of Gipsy Joe.</i> + + "<i>Then I went and I wandered on and on + Till I came to the kingdom of Prester John; + And there I stood on a crystal stool + And sang the song of 'The First Wise Fool': + Oh, I sang it low and I sang it high + Till John he whimpered and piped his eye.</i> + + "<i>Then I drew a tooth from the lively jaw + Of the Prester's ebony Aunt-in-law; + And he bubbled and laughed so long, d'you see, + That his wife looked glum and I had to flee. + So I fled to the place where the Rajahs grow, + A place where they wanted Gipsy Joe.</i> + + "<i>The Rajahs summoned the turbaned hordes + And gave me sheaves of their inlaid swords; + And the Shah of Persia next I saw, + Who's brother and friend to the Big Bashaw; + And he sent me a rope of turquoise stones + The size of a giant's knuckle-bones.</i> + + "<i>But a little brown Pygmie took my hand + And rattled me fast to a silver strand, + Where the little brown Pygmie boys and girls + Are cradled and rocked to sleep in pearls.</i> + <i>And the Pygmies flattered me soft and low, + 'You are tall; be King of us, Gipsy Joe.'</i> + + "<i>I governed them well for half-a-year, + But it came to an end, and now I'm here. + Oh, I've opened the gates and cleared the bar, + And I've come, I've come to my friends from far. + I'm old and broken, I'm lame and tired, + But I've come to the friends my soul desired.</i> + + "<i>So it's watches and lockets, and who will buy? + It's ribbon and lace, and they're not priced high. + If you're out for a ring or a golden chain + You can't look over my tray in vain: + And here is a balsam made of drops + From a tree that's grown by the AEthiops!</i> + + "<i>I've a chip of the tooth of a mastodont + That's sure to give you the girl you want. + I've a packet of spells to make men sigh + For the lustrous glance of your liquid eye— + But it's much too dark for such wondrous wares, + So back, stand back, while I light my flares!</i>" + + Then he lit a match, but his fingers fumbled, + And, striking his foot on a stone, he stumbled; + And the match, released by the sudden shock, + Fell in flame on the old wood-block, + And burnt there very quietly— + But before you could have counted three, + Hardly giving you time to shout, + A red-blue column of fire shot out, + Up and up and ever higher, + A marvellous burst of raging fire, + Lighting the crowd that shrank from its flashes, + And so decreasing, + And suddenly ceasing + As the seat of St. Crag was burnt to ashes! + + But in the smoke that drifted on the Green + Queer freaks of vision weirdly wrought were seen: + For on that shifting background each one saw + His own reflection and recoiled in awe; + Saw himself there, a bright light shining through him, + Not as he thought himself, but as men knew him. + Before this sudden and revealing sense + Each rag of sham, each tatter of pretence + Withered and vanished, as dissolved in air, + And left the shuddering human creature bare. + But when they turned and looked upon a friend + They saw a sight that all but made amend: + For they beheld him as a radiant spirit + Indued with virtue and surpassing merit, + Not vain or dull or mean or keen for pelf, + But splendid—as he mostly saw himself. + Darville and Fall were drawn to one another, + And both to Bent as to their heart's own brother; + And a strange feeling grew in every breast, + A self-defeating altruistic zest + Which from that moment's flash composed their strife, + Informed their nature and controlled their life. + But when they sought the Gipsy, him they found, + His dark eyes staring, dead upon the ground. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BIRD IN THE ROOM + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A robin skimmed into the room, + And blithe he looked and jolly, + A foe to every sort of gloom, + And, most, to melancholy. + He cocked his head, he made no sound, + But gave me stare for stare back, + When, having fluttered round and round, + He perched upon a chair-back. + + I rose; ah, then, it seemed, he knew + Too late his reckless error: + Away in eager haste he flew, + And at his tail flew terror. + Now here, now there, from wall to floor, + For mere escape appealing, + He fled and struck against the door + Or bumped about the ceiling. + + I went and flung each window wide, + I drew each half-raised blind up; + To coax him out in vain I tried; + He could not make his mind up. + He flew, he fell, he took a rest, + And off again he scuffled + With parted beak and panting breast + And every feather ruffled. + + At length I lured him to the sill, + All dazed and undivining; + Beyond was peace o'er vale and hill, + And all the air was shining. + I stretched my hand and touched him; then + He made no more resistance, + But left the cramped abode of men + And flew into the distance. + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Is life like that? We make it so; + We leave the sunny spaces, + And beat about, or high or low, + In dark and narrow places; + Till, worn with failure, vexed with doubt, + Our strength at last we rally, + And the bruised spirit flutters out + To find the happy valley. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + KILLED IN ACTION + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + RUPERT is dead, and RUPERT was my friend; + "Only surviving son of"—so it ran— + "Beloved husband" and the rest of it. + But six months back I saw him full of life, + Ardent for fighting; now he lies at ease + In some obscure but splendid field of France, + His strivings over and his conflicts done. + He was a fellow of most joyous moods + And quaint contrivings, ever on the point + Of shaking fame and fortune by the hand + But always baulked of meeting them at last. + He could not brook—and always so declared— + The weak pomposities of little men, + Scorned all the tin-gods of our petty world, + And plunged headlong into imprudences, + And smashed conventions with a reckless zeal, + Holding his luck and not himself to blame + For aught that might betide when reckoning came. + But he was true as steel and staunch as oak. + And if he pledged his word he bore it out + Unswerving to the finish, and he gave + Whate'er he had of strength to help a friend. + + When the great summons came he rushed to arms, + Counting no cost and all intent to serve + His country and to prove himself a man. + Yet he could laugh at all his ardour too + And find some fun in glory, as a child + Laughs at a bauble but will guard it well. + Now he is fall'n, and on his shining brow + Glory has set her everlasting seal. + + I like to think how cheerily he talked + Amid the ceaseless tumult of the guns, + How, when the word was given, he stood erect, + Sprang from the trench and, shouting to his men, + Led them forthright to where the sullen foe + Waited their coming; and his brain took fire, + And all was exultation and a high + Heroic ardour and a pulse of joy. + "Forward!" his cry rang out, and all his men + Thundered behind him with their eyes ablaze, + "Forward for England! Clear the beggars out! + Remember—" and death found him, and he fell + Fronting the Germans, and the rush swept on. + + Thrice blesséd fate! We linger here and droop + Beneath the heavy burden of our years, + And may not, though we envy, give our lives + For England and for honour and for right; + But still must wear our weary hours away, + While he, that happy fighter, in one leap, + From imperfection to perfection borne, + Breaks through the bonds that bound him to the earth. + Now of his failures is a triumph made; + His very faults are into virtues turned; + And, reft for ever from the haunts of men, + He wears immortal honour and is joined + With those who fought for England and are dead. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EPITAPH + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + FOR AN ENGLISH SOLDIER AND AN INDIAN SOLDIER BURIED TOGETHER IN FRANCE + + When the fierce bugle thrilled alarm, + From lands apart these fighters came. + An equal courage nerved each arm, + And stirred each generous heart to flame. + + Now, greatly dead, they lie below; + Their creed or language no man heeds, + Since for their colour they can show + The blood-red blazon of their deeds! +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + You with the hawk's eyes and the nerves of steel, + How was it with you when the hurried word + Roused you and sent you swiftly forth to deal + A blow for justice? Sure your pulses stirred, + And all your being leapt to meet the call + Which bade you strike nor spare + Where poised in air + Murder and ravening flame were hid intent to fall. + + Alone upon your fearful task you flew, + Where in the vault of heaven the high stars swing, + Alone and upward, lost to mortal view, + Winding about the assassin craft a ring + Of fateful motion, till at last you sped + Through the far tracts of gloom + The bolt of doom, + Shattering the dastard foe to earth with all his dead. + + For this we thank you, and we bid you know + That henceforth in the air, by day or night, + A myriad hopes of ours, where'er you go, + Rise as companions of your soaring flight; + And well we know that when there comes the need + A host of men like you, + As staunch, as true, + Will rush to prove the daring of the island breed. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PAGAN FANCIES + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Blow, Father Triton, blow your wreathéd horn + Cheerly, as is your wont, and let the blast + Circle our island on the breezes borne; + Blow, while the shining hours go swiftly past. + Rise, Proteus, from the cool depths rise, and be + A friend to them that breast your ancient sea. + + I shall be there to greet you, for I tire + Of the dull meadows and the crawling stream. + Now with a heart uplifted and a-fire + I come to greet you and to catch the gleam + Of jocund Nereids tossing in the air + The sportive tresses of their amber hair. + + High on a swelling upland I shall stand + Stung by the buffets of the wind-borne spray; + Or join the troops that sport upon the sand, + With shouts and laughter wearing out the day; + Or pace apart and listen to the roar + Of the great waves that beat the crumbling shore. + + Then, when the children all are lapped in sleep + The pretty Nymphlets of the sea shall rise, + And we shall know them as they flit and creep + And peep and glance and murmur lullabies; + While the pale moon comes up beyond the hill, + And Proteus rests and Triton's horn is still. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Ho, ruddy-cheeked boys and curly maids, + Who deftly ply your pails and spades, + All you who sturdily take your stand + On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand, + And thence defy + With a fearless eye + And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter + The stealthy trickling waves that lap you + And the crested breakers that tumble after + To souse and batter you, sting and sap you— + All you roll-about rackety little folk, + Down-again, up-again, not-a-bit brittle folk, + Attend, attend, + And let each girl and boy + Join in a loud "Ahoy!" + For, lo, he comes, your tricksy little friend, + From the clear caverns of his crystal home + Beyond the tossing ridges of the foam: + Planner of sandy romps and wet delights, + Robin the Sea-boy, prince of ocean-sprites, + Is come, is come to lead you in your play + And fill your hearts with mirth and jocund sport to-day! + + What! Can't you see him? There he stands + On a sheer rock and lifts his hands, + A little lad not three feet high, + With dancing mischief in his eye. + His body gleams against the light, + A clear-cut shape of dazzling white + Set off and topped by golden hair + That streams and tosses in the air. + A moment poised, he dares the leap + And cuts the wind and cleaves the deep. + Down through the emerald vaults self-hurled + That roof the sea-god's awful world. + Another moment sees him rise + And beat the salt spray from his eyes. + He breasts the waves, he spurns their blows; + Then, like a rocket, up he goes, + Up, up to where the gusty wind + With all its wrath is left behind; + Still up he soars and high and high + A speck of light that dots the sky. + Then watch him as he slowly droops + Where the great sea-birds wheel their troops. + Three broad-winged gulls, himself their lord, + He hitches to a silken cord, + Bits them and bridles them with skill + And bids them draw him where he will. + Above the tumult of the shores + He floats, he stoops, he darts, he soars; + From near and far he calls the rest + And waves them forward for a quest; + Then straight, without a check, he speeds + Across the azure tracts and leads + With apt reproof and cheering words + As on a chase his cry of birds. + + And when he has finished his airy fun + And all his flights and his swoops are done + He will drop to the shore and lend a hand + In building a castle of weed and sand. + He will cover with flints its frowning face + To keep the tide in its proper place, + And the waves shall employ their utmost damp art + In vain to abolish your moated rampart. + And nobody's nurse shall make a fuss, + As is far too often the case with us; + Instead of the usual how-de-do + She will give us praise when we get wet through; + In fact she will smile and think it better + When we get as wet as we like and wetter. + As for eating too much, you can safely risk it + With chocolate, lollipop, cake, and biscuit, + And your mother will revel with high delight + In the state of her own one's appetite. + Great shells there shall be of a rainbow hue + To be found and gathered by me and you; + Wonderful nets for the joy of making 'em. + And scores of shrimps for the trouble of taking 'em; + In fact it isn't half bad—now is it?— + When Robin the Sea-boy pays his visit. + And perhaps he will tire of his shape and habit + And change and turn to a frisky rabbit, + A plump young gadabout cheerful fellow + With a twitching nose and a coat of yellow, + And never the smallest trace of fear + From his flashing scut to his flattened ear. + + But, lo, there's a hint of coming rain, + So, presto, Robin is back again. + He lifts his head and he cocks his eye + And waves his hand and prepares to fly— + "Good-bye, Robin, good-bye, good-bye!" +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BIRTHDAY + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Sweetheart, where all the dancing joys compete + Take now your choice; the world is at your feet, + All turned into a gay and shining pleasance, + And every face has smiles to greet your presence. + Treading on air, + Yourself you look more fair; + And the dear Birthday-elves unseen conspire + To flush your cheeks and set your eyes on fire. + + Mayhap they whisper what a birthday means + That sets you spinning through your pretty teens. + A slim-grown shape adorned with golden shimmers + Of tossing hair that streams and waves and glimmers, + Lo, how you run + In mere excess of fun, + Or change to silence as you stand and hear + Some kind old tale that moves you to a tear. + + And, since this is your own bright day, my dear, + Of all the days that gem the sparkling year, + See, we have picked as well as we were able + And set your gifts upon your own small table: + A knife from John, + Who straightway thereupon, + Lest you should cut your friendship for the boy, + Receives a halfpenny and departs with joy. + + The burnished inkstand was your mother's choice; + For six new handkerchiefs I gave my voice, + Having in view your tender little nose's + Soft comfort; and the agate pen is Rosie's; + The torch is Peg's, + Guide for your errant legs + When ways are dark, and, last, behold with these + A pencil from your faithful Pekinese! + + And now the mysteries are all revealed + That were so long, so ardently concealed— + All save the cake which still is in the making, + Not yet smooth-iced and unprepared for taking + The thirteen flames + That start the noisy games + Of tea-time, when my happy little maid + Thrones it triumphant, teened and unafraid. + + So through the changing years may all delight + Live in your face and make your being bright. + May the good sprites and busy fays befriend you, + And cheerful thoughts and innocent defend you; + And, far away + From this most joyous day, + When in the chambers of your mind you see + Those who have loved you, then remember me. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DANCE + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When good-nights have been prattled, and prayers have been said, + And the last little sunbeam is tucked up in bed, + Then, skirting the trees on a carpet of snow, + The elves and the fairies come out in a row. + With a preening of wings + They are forming in rings; + Pirouetting and setting they cross and advance + In a ripple of laughter, and pair for a dance. + + And it's oh for the boom of the fairy bassoon, + And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, + And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, + And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; + And the fiddles sail in + To the musical din, + While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, + Rattles on the gay measure and stirs up his band. + + With a pointing of toes and a lifting of wrists + They are off through the whirls and the twirls and the twists; + Thread the mazes of marvellous figures, and chime + With a bow to a curtsey, and always keep time: + All the gallant and girls + In their diamonds and pearls, + And their gauze and their sparkles, designed for a dance + By the leaders of fairy-land fashion in France. + + But the old lady fairies sit out by the trees, + And the old beaux attend them as pert as you please. + They quiz the young dancers and scorn their display, + And deny any grace to the dance of to-day; + "In Oberon's reign," + So they're heard to complain, + "When we went out at night we could temper our fun + With some manners in dancing, but now there are none." + + But at last, though the music goes gallantly on, + And the dancers are none of them weary or gone, + When the gauze is in rags and the hair is awry, + Comes a light in the East and a sudden cock-cry. + With a scurry of fear + Then they all disappear, + Leaving never a trace of their gay little selves + Or the winter-night dance of the fairies and elves. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PANSIES + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Tufted and bunched and ranged with careless art + Here, where the paving-stones are set apart, + Alert and gay and innocent of guile, + The little pansies nod their heads and smile. + + With what a whispering and a lulling sound + They watch the children sport about the ground, + Longing, it seems, to join the pretty play + That laughs and runs the light-winged hours away. + + And other children long ago there were + Who shone and played and made the garden fair, + To whom the pansies in their robes of white + And gold and purple gave a welcome bright. + + Gone are those voices, but the others came. + Joyous and free, whose spirit was the same; + And other pansies, robed as those of old, + Peeped up and smiled in purple, white and gold. + + For pansies are, I think, the little gleams + Of children's visions from a world of dreams, + Jewels of innocence and joy and mirth, + Alight with laughter as they fall to earth. + + Below, the ancient guardian, it may hap, + The kindly mother, takes them in her lap, + Decks them with glowing petals and replaces + In the glad air the friendly pansy-faces. + + So tread not rashly, children, lest you crush + A part of childhood in a thoughtless rush. + Would you not treat them gently if you knew + Pansies are little bits of children too? +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I + + This is the tale the old men tell, the tale that was told to me, + Of the blue-green dragon, + The dreadful dragon, + The dragon who flew so free, + The last of his horrible scaly race + Who settled and made his nesting place + Some hundreds of thousands of years ago. + One day, as the light was falling low + And the turbulent wind was still, + In a stony hollow, + Where none dared follow, + Beyond the ridge on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill! + + The news went round in the camp that night; + it was Dickon who brought it first + How the wonderful dragon, + The fiery dragon, + On his terrified eyes had burst. + + "I was out," he said, "for a fat young buck, + But never a touch I had of luck; + And still I wandered and wandered on + Till all the best of the day was gone; + When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame + Full over the ridge a green head came, + A green head flapped with a snarling lip, + And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip. + I own I didn't stand long at bay, + But I cast my arrows and bow away, + And I cast my coat, and I changed my plan, + And forgot the buck, and away I ran— + And, oh, but my heart was chill: + For still as I ran I heard the bellow + Of the terrible slaughtering fierce-eyed fellow + Who has made his lair on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill." + + Then the women talked, as the women will, and the men-folk they talked too + Of the raging dragon, + The hungry dragon, + The dragon of green and blue. + And the Bards with their long beards flowing down, + They sat apart and were seen to frown. + + But at last the Chief Bard up and spoke, + "Now I swear by beech and I swear by oak, + By the grass and the streams I swear," said he, + "This dragon of Dickon's puzzles me. + For the record stands, as well ye know, + How a hundred years and a year ago + We dealt the dragons a smashing blow + By issuing from our magic tree + A carefully-framed complete decree, + Which ordered dragons to cease to be. + Still, since our Dickon is passing sure + That he saw a regular Simon pure. + Some dragon's egg, as it seems, contrived + To elude our curses, and so survived + On an inaccessible rocky shelf, + Where at last it managed to hatch itself. + Whatever the cause, the result is plain: + We're in for a dragon-fuss again. + We haven't the time, and, what is worse, + We haven't the means to frame a curse. + So what is there left for us to say + Save this, that our men at break of day + Must gather and go to kill + The monstrous savage + Whose fire-blasts ravage + The flocks and herds on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill?" + + II + + So the men, when they heard the Chief Bard utter the order that bade them + try + For the awful dragon, + The dauntless dragon, + They all of them shouted "Aye!" + For everyone felt assured that he, + Whatever the fate of the rest might be, + However few of them might survive, + Was certainly safe to stay alive, + And was probably bound to deal the blow + That would shatter the beast and lay him low, + And end the days of their dragon-foe. + And all the women-folk egged them on: + It was "Up with your heart, and at him, John!" + Or "Gurth, you'll bring me his ugly head," + Or "Lance, my man, when you've struck him dead, + When he hasn't a wag in his fearful tail, + Carve off and bring me a blue-green scale." + + Then they set to work at their swords and spears— + Such a polishing hadn't been seen for years. + They made the tips of their arrows sharp, + Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp, + Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag, + Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag; + And all in the midst of the talk and racket + Each wife was making her man a packet— + A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese + And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these, + A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin, + As a driving force for his javelin + When the moment arrived to spill + The blood of the terror + Hatched out in error + Who had perched his length on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + + The night had taken her feast of stars, and the sun shot up in flame, + When "Now for the dragon! + Who hunts the dragon?" + The call from the watchers came; + And, shaking the mists of sleep away, + The men stepped into the light of day, + Twice two hundred in loose array; + With a good round dozen of bards to lead them + And their wives all waving their hands to speed them, + While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state, + With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate. + It wasn't his place to fight or tramp; + When the warriors went he stayed in camp; + But still from his chair he harped them on + Till the very last of the host had gone, + Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head + And, leaving his seat, returned to bed, + To sleep, as a good man will + Who, braving malice and tittle-tattle, + Has checked his natural lust for battle, + And sent the rest to the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + + III + + Marching at ease in the cheerful air, on duty and daring bent, + In quest of the dragon, + The fateful dragon, + The fierce four hundred went: + Over the hills and through the plain, + And up the slopes of the hills again. + The sleek rooks, washed in the morning's dew, + Rose at their coming and flapped and flew + In a black procession athwart the blue; + And the plovers circled about on high + With many a querulous piping cry. + And the cropping ewes and the old bell-wether + Looked up in terror and pushed together; + And still with a grim unbroken pace + The men moved on to their battle-place. + Softly, silently, all tip-toeing, + With their lips drawn tight and their eyes all glowing, + With gleaming teeth and straining ears + And the sunshine laughing on swords and spears, + Softly, silently on they go + To the hidden lair of the fearful foe. + They have neared the stream, they have crossed the bridge, + And they stop in sight of the rugged ridge, + And it's "Flankers back!" and "Skirmishers in!" + And the summit is theirs to lose or win— + To win with honour or lose with shame; + And so to the place itself they came, + And gazed with an awful thrill + At the ridge of omen, + Beset by foemen, + At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + + But where was the dragon, the scale-clad dragon, + the dragon that Dickon saw, + The genuine dragon, + The pitiless dragon, + The dragon that knew no law? + Lo, just as the word to charge rang out, + And before they could give their battle shout, + On a stony ledge + Of the ridge's edge, + With its lips curled back and its teeth laid bare, + And a hiss that ripped the morning air, + With its backbone arched + And its tail well starched, + With bristling hair and flattened ears, + What shape of courage and wrath appears? + A cat, a tortoiseshell mother-cat! + And a very diminutive cat at that! + And below her, nesting upon the ground, + A litter of tiny kits they found: + Tortoiseshell kittens, one, two, three, + Lying as snug as snug could be. + And they took the kittens with shouts of laughter + And turned for home, and the cat came after. + And when in the camp they told their tale, + The women—but stop! I draw a veil. + The cat had tent-life forced upon her + And was kept in comfort and fed with honour; + But Dickon has heard his fill + Of the furious dragon + They tried to bag on + The dragonless summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill! +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + FLUFFY, A CAT + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + So now your tale of years is done, + Old Fluff, my friend, and you have won, + Beyond our land of mist and rain, + Your way to the Elysian plain, + Where through the shining hours of heat + A cat may bask and lap and eat; + Where goldfish glitter in the streams, + And mice refresh your waking dreams, + And all, in fact, is planned—and that's + Its great delight—to please the cats. + + Yet sometimes, too, your placid mind + Will turn to those you've left behind, + And most to one who sheds her tears, + The mistress of your later years, + Who sheds her tears to summon back + Her faithful cat, the white-and-black. + + Fluffy, full well you understood + The frequent joys of motherhood— + To lick, from pointed tail to nape, + The mewing litter into shape; + To show, with pride that condescends, + Your offspring to your human friends, + And all our sympathy to win + For every kit tucked snugly in. + + In your familiar garden ground + We've raised a tributary mound, + And passing by it we recite + Your merits and your praise aright. + + "Here lies," we say, "from care released + A faithful, furry, friendly beast. + Responsive to the lightest word, + About these walks her purr was heard. + Love she received, for much she earned, + And much in kindness she returned. + Wherefore her comrades go not by + Her little grave without a sigh." +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LEAN-TO-SHED + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (COMMUNICATED BY AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD) + + I've a palace set in a garden fair, + And, oh, but the flowers are rich and rare, + Always growing + And always blowing + Winter or summer—it doesn't matter— + For there's never a wind that dares to scatter + The wonderful petals that scent the air + About the walls of my palace there. + And the palace itself is very old, + And it's built of ivory splashed with gold. + It has silver ceilings and jasper floors + And stairs of marble and crystal doors; + And whenever I go there, early or late, + The two tame dragons who guard the gate + And refuse to open the frowning portals + To sisters, brothers and other mortals, + Get up with a grin + And let me in. + And I tickle their ears and pull their tails + And pat their heads and polish their scales; + And they never attempt to flame or fly, + Being quelled by me and my human eye. + Then I pour them drink out of golden flagons, + Drink for my two tame trusty dragons... + But John, + Who's a terrible fellow for chattering on, + John declares + They are Teddy-bears; + And the palace itself, he has often said, + Is only the gardener's lean-to shed. + + In the vaulted hall where we have the dances + There are suits of armour and swords and lances, + Plenty of steel-wrought who's-afraiders, + All of them used by real crusaders; + Corslets, helmets and shields and things + Fit to be worn by warrior-kings, + Glittering rows of them— + Think of the blows of them, + Lopping, + Chopping, + Smashing + And slashing + The Paynim armies at Ascalon... + But, bother the boy, here comes our John + Munching a piece of currant cake, + Who says the lance is a broken rake, + And the sword with its keen Toledo blade + Is a hoe, and the dinted shield a spade, + Bent and useless and rusty-red, + In the gardener's silly old lean-to shed. + + And sometimes, too, when the night comes soon + With a great magnificent tea-time moon. + Through the nursery-window I peep and see + My palace lit for a revelry; + And I think I shall try to go there instead + Of going to sleep in my dull small bed. + But who are these + In the shade of the trees + That creep so slow + In a stealthy row? + They are Indian braves, a terrible band, + Each with a tomahawk in his hand, + And each has a knife <i>without a sheath</i> + Fiercely stuck in his gleaming teeth. + Are the dragons awake? Are the dragons sleepers? + Will they meet and scatter these crafty creepers? + What ho! ... But John, who has sorely tried me, + Trots up and flattens his nose beside me; + Against the window he flattens it + And says he can see + As well as me, + But never an Indian—not a bit; + Not even the top of a feathered head, + But only a wall and the lean-to shed. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE CONTRACT + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Come, Peggy, put your toys away; you needn't shake your head, + Your bear's been working overtime; he's panting for his bed. + He's turned a thousand somersaults, and now his head must ache; + It's cruelty to animals to keep the bear awake." + + At this she stamped in mutiny, and then she urged her plea, + Her wonted plea, "A little time, a minute more, for me." + "Be off, you little rogue of rogues," I sternly made reply; + "It's wicked to be sitting up with sand in either eye. + + "To bed, to bed, you sleepy head; and then, and then—who knows?— + Some day you'll be a grown-up girl, and lovely as a rose. + And some day some one else will come, a gallant youth and gay, + To harry me and marry you and carry you away." + + At this the storm broke out afresh:—"You know I hate the boys; + They're only good at taking things, and breaking things, and noise. + So, Daddy, please remember this, because—I—want—you—to:— + I'll never marry any boy; I'll only marry <i>you</i>." + + "Agreed," I cried—the imp, of course, had won the bout of wits; + Had gained her point and got her time and beaten me to fits— + "Agreed, agreed,"—she danced for joy—"we'll leave no room for doubt, + But bind ourselves with pen and ink, and write the contract out:-" + + <i>This is a contract, firm and clear + Made, as doth from these presents appear, + Between Peggy, being now in her sixth year, + A child of laughter, + A sort of funny actress, + Referred to hereinafter + As the said contractress— + Between the said contractress, that is to say, + And a person with whom she is often good enough to play; + Who happens to have been something of a factor + In bringing her into the world, who, in short, is her father, + And is hereinafter spoken of as the said contractor. + Now the said contractress declares she would rather + Marry the said contractor than any other. + At the same time she affirms with the utmost steadiness + Her perfect readiness + To take any other fellow on as a brother. + Still, she means to marry her father, and to be his wife, + And to live happily with him all the rest of her life. + This contract is made without consideration, + And is subject to later ratification. + The said contractress had it read through + to see that nothing was missed, + And she took her pen, and she held it tight + in a chubby and cramped-up fist, + And she made her mark with a blotted cross, + instead of signing her name; + And the said contractor he signed in full, + and they mean to observe the same.</i> + + "Now give me, Peg, that old brown shoe, that battered shoe of yours, + I'll stow the contract in its toe, and, if the shoe endures, + When sixteen years or so are gone, I'll hunt for it myself + And take it gently from its drawer, or get it from its shelf. + + "And when, mid clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl + A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl, + Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim, + I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the lot at him." +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + JOHN + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + He's a boy, + And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it, + And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it; + A two-year-old with a taste for a toy, + And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it, + And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it; + And a short stout couple of sturdy legs + As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs; + And a jolly round head, so fairly round + You could easily roll it, + Or take it and bowl it + With never a bump along the ground. + + And, as to his cheeks, they're also fat— + I've seen them in ancient prints like that, + Where a wind-boy high + In a cloudy sky + Is puffing away for all he's worth, + Uprooting the trees + With a reckless breeze, + And strewing them over the patient earth, + Or raising a storm to wreck the ships + With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips. + + Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you, + Were ever two eyes more truly blue? + If you went and worried the whole world through + You'd never discover a bluer blue; + I doubt if you'd find a blue so true + In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew. + + And his hair + Is as fair + As a pretty girl's, + + But it's right for a boy with its crisp, short curls + All a-gleam, as he struts about + With a laugh and a shout, + To summon his sister-slaves to him + For his joyous Majesty's careless whim. + + But now, as, after a stand, he budges, + And sets to work and solemnly trudges, + Out from a bush there springs full tilt + His four-legged playmate—and John is spilt. + + She's a young dog and a strong dog + And a tall dog and a long dog, + A Danish lady of high degree, + Black coat, kind eye and a stride that's free. + + And out she came + Like a burst of flame, + And John, + As he trudged and strutted + Sturdily on, + Was blindly butted, + And, all his dignity spent and gone, + On a patch of clover + Was tumbled over, + His two short legs having failed to score + In a sudden match against Lufra's four. + + But we picked him up + And we brushed him down, + And he rated the pup + With a dreadful frown; + And then he laughed and he went and hugged her, + Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her, + And so, with a sister's hand to guide him, + Continued his march with the dog beside him. + + And soon he waggles his way upstairs— + He does it alone, though he finds it steep. + He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers, + And he condescends + To admit his friends + To a levée before he goes to sleep. + He thrones it there + With a battered bear + And a tattered monkey to form his Court, + And, having come to the end of day, + Conceives that this is the time for play + And every possible kind of sport. + + But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time, + He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme, + And on the bed + Droops his curly round head, + Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content + Over a day so well, so proudly spent, + Resigned at last to listen and obey, + And so begins to breathe his quiet night away. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE SPARROW + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Let others from the feathered brood + Which through the garden seeks its food + Pick out for a commending word + Each one his own peculiar bird; + Hail the plump tit, or fitly sing + The finch's crest and flashing wing; + Exalt the rook's black satin dress-coat, + The thrush's speckled fancy waistcoat; + Or praise the robin, meek, but sly, + For breast and tail and friendly eye— + These have their place within my heart; + The sparrow owns the larger part, + And, for no virtues, rules in it, + My reckless cheerful favourite! + Friend sparrow, let the world contemn + Your ways and make a mock of them, + And dub you, if it has a mind, + Low, quarrelsome, and unrefined; + And let it, if it will, pursue + With harsh abuse the troops of you + Who through the orchard and the field + Their busy bills in mischief wield; + Who strip the tilth and bare the tree, + And make the gardener's face to be + Expressive of the words he could, + But must not, utter, though he would + (For gardeners still, where'er they go, + Whate'er they do, in weal or woe, + Through every chance of life retain + Their ancient Puritanic strain; + Tried by the weather they control + Each day their angry human soul, + And, by the sparrow teased, may tear + Their careworn locks, but never swear). + Let us admit—alas,'tis true— + You are not adequately few; + That half your little life is spent + In furious strife or argument; + Still, though your wickedness must harrow + All feeling souls, I love my sparrow; + Still, though I oft and gravely doubt you, + I really could not do without you. + Your pluck, your wit, your nonchalance, + Your cheerful confidence in chance, + Your darting flight, your bouts of play, + Your chirp, so sociable and gay— + These, and no beauty soft or striking, + Make up your passport to my liking; + And for your faults I'll still defend you, + My little sparrow, and befriend you. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GELERT + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Tested and staunch through many a changing year, + Gelert, his master's faithful hound, lies here. + Humble in friendship, but in service proud, + He gave to man whate'er his lot allowed; + And, rich in love, on each well-trusted friend + Spent all his wealth and still had more to spend. + Now, reft beyond the unfriendly Stygian tide, + For these he yearns and has no wish beside. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AVE, CAESAR! + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (MAY 20, 1910) + + Full in the splendour of this morning hour, + With tramp of men and roll of muffled drums, + In what a pomp and pageantry of power, + Borne to his grave, our lord, King EDWARD, comes! + + In flashing gold and high magnificence, + Lo, the proud cavalcade of comrade Kings, + Met here to do the dead KING reverence, + Its solemn tribute of affection brings. + + Heralds and Pursuivants and Men-at-arms, + Sultan and Paladin and Potentate, + Scarred Captains who have baffled war's alarms + And Courtiers glittering in their robes of state, + + All in their blazoned ranks, with eyes cast down, + Slow pacing in their sorrow pass along + Where that which bore the sceptre and the crown + Cleaves at their head the silence of the throng. + + And in a space behind the passing bier, + Looking and longing for his lord in vain, + A little playmate whom the KING held dear, + Caesar, the terrier, tugs his silver chain! + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Hail, Caesar, lonely little Caesar, hail! + Little for you the gathered Kings avail. + Little you reck, as meekly past you go, + Of that solemnity of formal woe. + In the strange silence, lo, you prick your ear + For one loved voice, and that you shall not hear. + So when the monarchs with their bright array + Of gold and steel and stars have passed away, + When, to their wonted use restored again, + All things go duly in their ordered train, + You shall appeal at each excluding door, + Search through the rooms and every haunt explore; + From lawn to lawn, from path to path pursue + The well-loved form that still escapes your view. + At every tree some happy memories rise + To stir your tail and animate your eyes, + And at each turn, with gathering strength endued, + Hope, still frustrated, must be still renewed. + How should you rest from your appointed task + Till chance restore the happiness you ask, + Take from your heart the burden, ease your pain, + And grant you to your master's side again, + Proud and content if but you could beguile + His voice to flatter and his face to smile? + + Caesar, the kindly days may bring relief; + Swiftly they pass and dull the edge of grief. + You too, resigned at last, may school your mind + To miss the comrade whom you cannot find, + Never forgetting, but as one who feels + The world has secrets which no skill reveals. + Henceforth, whate'er the ruthless fates may give, + You shall be loved and cherished while you live. + Reft of your master, little dog forlorn, + To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn, + And in her queenly service you shall dwell, + At rest with one who loved your master well. + And she, that gentle lady, shall control + The faithful kingdom of a true dog's soul, + And for the past's dear sake shall still defend + Caesar, the dead KING'S humble little friend. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + SOO-TI + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + A PEKINESE + + Soo-Ti, I thank the careful fate + That made you wise and obstinate, + Alert, but with a proper pride, + And gay, but wondrous dignified. + I praise your black and tilted nose; + I praise your heart's deep love that shows + In songs made up of whimpering cries + And in the radiance of your eyes + (And if they bulge—forgive the allusion— + Are eyes the worse for such protrusion? + The smaller eyes are, sure, the blinder, + And size makes every kind eye kinder). + Next with affection's look I note + The glossy levels of your coat, + Where a rich black doth most prevail, + Shading to beaver in your tail, + And lightly fading as it reaches + The tufted things you wear as breeches. + + The dweller on the cushion purrs + No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. + She blinks and blinks and lets you share + Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. + For you she hides her cruel claw + And taps you with a velvet paw; + And, mastered by your lordly air, + For you is meek and debonair. + Even should you growl her hair stays flat: + Be sure she thinks you half a cat. + But you're a Dog and know your job: + Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob, + And grandly gracious to unbend + With a Great Dane, your humble friend. + As on the lawn with him you roll, + He makes your very being droll. + Yet how you set to work to flout him, + To tease and gnaw and dance about him! + You risk the pressure of his paws, + Plunge all you are within his jaws, + And, swelling to a final rage, + With pin-point teeth the fight engage, + While he submits his silly size + To every insult you devise. + At last, withdrawing from the fuss, + You come and tell your tale to us, + Bearing aloft through every room + Your high tail's undefeated plume, + Till, fed with triumphs, you subside, + And sleep and doff your native pride, + Composing in a wicker fane + Those limbs that terrify the Dane. + + So, Soo-Ti, I have tried to praise + Yourself and all your winning ways, + Content if I may guard and please + My little dusky Pekinese. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE BATH + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Hang garlands on the bathroom door; + Let all the passages be spruce; + For, lo, the victim comes once more, + And, ah, he struggles like the deuce! + + Bring soaps of many scented sorts; + Let girls in pinafores attend, + With John, their brother, in his shorts, + To wash their dusky little friend. + + Their little friend, the dusky dog, + Short-legged and very obstinate, + Faced like a much-offended frog, + And fighting hard against his fate. + + No Briton he! From palace-born + Chinese patricians he descends; + He keeps their high ancestral scorn; + His spirit breaks, but never bends. + + Our water-ways he fain would'scape; + He hates the customary bath + That thins his tail and spoils his shape, + And turns him to a fur-clad lath; + + And, seeing that the Pekinese + Have lustrous eyes that bulge like buds, + He fain would save such eyes as these, + Their owner's pride, from British suds. + + Vain are his protests—in he goes. + His young barbarians crowd around; + They soap his paws, they soap his nose; + They soap wherever fur is found. + + And soon, still laughing, they extract + His limpness from the darkling tide; + They make the towel's roughness act + On back and head and dripping side. + + They shout and rub and rub and shout— + He deprecates their odious glee— + Until at last they turn him out, + A damp gigantic bumble-bee. + + Released, he barks and rolls, and speeds + From lawn to lawn, from path to path, + And in one glorious minute needs + More soapsuds and another bath. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Our Peter, who's famed as an eater of things, + Is a miniature dragon without any wings. + He can gallop or trot, he can amble or jog, + But he flies like a flash when he's after his prog; + And the slaves who adore him, whatever his mood, + Say that nothing is fleeter + Than Peter the eater, + Than Peter pursuing his food. + + He considers the garden his absolute own: + It's the place where a digger can bury a bone. + Then he tests his pin-teeth on a pansy or rose, + Spreading ruin and petals wherever he goes; + And his mistress declares, when he's nibbled for hours, + That nothing is sweeter + Than Peter the eater, + The resolute eater of flowers. + + Having finished his dinner he wheedles the cook, + Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book, + Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat, + To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that; + <i>Faute de mieux</i> takes a dress; and his mistress asserts + That there's nothing to beat her + Like Peter the eater + Attached by his teeth to her skirts. + + But at last he has supped, and the moment is come + When, his stretchable turn being tight as a drum, + He is meek and submissive, who once was so proud, + And he creeps to his basket and slumbers aloud. + And his mistress proclaims, as she tucks up his shawl, + That nothing is neater + Than Peter the eater, + Than Peter curled up in a ball, + Asleep and digesting it all. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DOGS' WELCOME + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Hush! We're not a pack of boys + Always bound to make a noise. + True, there's one amongst us, but + He is young; + And, wherever we may take him, + We can generally shut + Such a youngster up and make him + Hold his tongue. + + Hush! Most cautiously we go + On the tippest tip of toe. + Are the dogs expecting us + At the gate? + Two, who usually prize us, + Will they jump and make a fuss? + Will they really recognise us + Where they wait? + + Hush! I hear the funny pair + Softly whimpering—yes, they're there. + Dane and Pekinese, they scratch + At the wood, + At the solid wood between us; + Duke attempts to lift the latch; + It's a month since they have seen us— + Open! Good! + + Down, Duke, down! Enough, enough! + Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff. + Soo-Ti's having fearful fits; + Duke is tearing us to bits. + One will trip us, one will throw us— + But, the darlings, <i>don't</i> they know us! + + Then off with a clatter the long dog leapt, and, oh, what a race he ran, + At the hurricane pace of a minute a mile, as only a long dog can. + Into and out of the bushes he pierced like a shooting star; + And now he thundered around us, and now he was whirling far. + And the little dog gazed till he seemed amazed, + and then he took to it too; + With shrill notes flung from his pert pink tongue + right after his friend he flew; + And the long legs lashed and the short legs flashed + and scurried like anything, + While Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran in a ring. + + And last they hurtled amongst us, and then there were tales to tell, + For all of us seemed to be scattered and torn, + and all of us shrieked and fell; + And John, who is plump, got an awful bump, + and Helen, who's tall and thin, + Was shot through a shrub and gained in bruise + as much as she lost in skin; + And Rosamond's frock was rent in rags, and tattered in strips was Peg's, + And both of them suffered the ninepin fate to the ruin of arms and legs; + And every face was licked by a dog, and battered was every limb, + When Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran after him. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (THE NOTES FOR £1 AND 10S ARE SIGNED BY JOHN BRADBURY) + + When the Red KAISER, swoll'n with impious pride + And stuffed with texts to serve his instant need, + Took Shame for partner and Disgrace for guide, + Earned to the full the hateful traitor's meed, + And bade his hordes advance + Through Belgium's cities towards the fields of France; + And when at last our patient island race, + By the attempted wrong + Made fierce and strong, + Flung back the challenge in the braggart's face, + Oh then, while martial music filled the air, + Clarion and fife and bagpipe and the drum, + Calling to men to muster, march, and dare, + Oh, then thy day, JOHN BRADBURY, was come. + + JOHN BRADBURY, the Muse shall fill my strain + To sing thy praises; thou hadst spent thy time + Not idly, nor hadst lived thy life in vain, + Unfitted for the guerdon of my rhyme. + For lo, the Funds went sudden crashing down, + And men grew pale with monetary fear, + And in the toppling mart + The stoutest heart + Melted, and fortunes seemed to disappear; + And some, forgetting their austere renown, + Went mad and sold + Whate'er they could and wildly called for Gold! + + "Since through no fault of ours the die was cast + We shall go forth and fight + In death's despite + And shall return victorious at the last; + But how, ah how," they said, + "Shall we and ours be fed + And clothed and housed from dreary day to day, + If, while our hearths grow cold, we have no coin to pay?" + + Then thou, where no gold was and little store + Of silver, didst appear and wave thy pen, + And with thy signature + Make things secure, + Bidding us all pluck up our hearts once more + And face our foolish fancied fears like men. + "I give you notes," you said, "of different kinds + To ease your anxious minds: + The one is black and shall be fairly found + Equal in value to a golden pound; + The other—mark its healthy scarlet print— + Is worth a full half-sovereign from the Mint." + + Thus didst thou speak—at least I think thou didst— + And, lo, the murmurs fell + And all things went right well, + While thy notes fluttered in our happy midst. + Therefore our grateful hearts go forth to thee, + Our British note-provider, brave JOHN BRADBURY! +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TEETH-SETTING + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (1914) + + When the thunder-shaking German hosts are marching over France— + Lo, the glinting of the bayonet and the quiver of the lance!— + When a rowdy rampant KAISER, stout and mad and middle-aged, + Strips his breast of British Orders just to prove that he's enraged; + When with fire and shot and pillage + He destroys each town and village; + When the world is black with warfare, then there's one thing you must do: + Set your teeth like steel, my hearties, and sit tight and see it through. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Oh, it's heavy work is fighting, but our soldiers do it well— + Lo, the booming of the batteries, the clatter of the shell!— + And it's weary work retiring, but they kept a dauntless front, + All our company of heroes who have borne the dreadful brunt. + They can meet the foe and beat him, + They can scatter and defeat him, + For they learnt a steady lesson (and they taught a lesson, too), + Having set their teeth in earnest and sat tight and seen it through. + + Then their brothers trooped to join them, taking danger for a bride, + Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride; + Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame, + So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name. + Toil and wounds could but delight them, + Death itself could not affright them, + Who went out to fight for freedom and the red and white and blue, + While they set their teeth as firm as flint and vowed to see it through. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE DEATH OF EUCLID + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ["Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of + an immortality that he never much deserved."—<i>The Times Literary + Supplement</i>.] + + A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he + Who with his learning made our youth a waste, + Holding our souls in fee; + A god whose high-set crystal throne was based + Beyond the reach of tears, + Deeper than time and his relentless years! + + Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament; + Ye little Postulates, and all the throng + Of Definitions, with your heads besprent + In funeral ashes, ye who long + Worshipped the King and followed in his train; + For he is dead and cannot rise again. + + Then from the shapes that beat their breasts and wept, + Soft to the light a gentle Problem stepped, + And, lo, her clinging robe she swiftly loosed + And with majestic hands her side produced: + + "Sweet Theorem," she said, and called her mate, + "Sweet Theorem, be with me at this hour. + How oft together in a dear debate + We two bore witness to our Sovereign's power. + But he is dead and henceforth all our days + Are wrapped in gloom, + And we who never ceased to sing his praise + May weep our lord, but cannot call him from his tomb." + + And, as they bowed their heads and to and fro + Wove in a mournful gait their web of woe, + Two sentinels forth came, + Their hearts aflame, + And moved behind the pair: + "Warders we are," they cried, + "Of these two sisters who were once so fair, + So joyous in their pride." + And now their massy shields they lifted high, + Embossed with letters three, + And, though a mist of tears bedimmed each eye, + The sorrowing Nymphs could see + Q., E. and F. on one, and on the other Q. E. D. + + But on a sudden, with a hideous noise + Of joy and laughter rushed a rout of boys; + And all the mourners in affright + Scattered to left and right. + Problems and Theorems and Angles too, + Postulates, Definitions, Circles, Planes, + A jibbering crew, + With all their hoary gains + Of knowledge, from their monarch dead + Into the outer darkness shrieking fled. + + And now with festal dance and laughter loud + Broke in the boyish and intruding crowd; + Nor did they fail, + Seeing that all the painful throng was sped, + To let high mirth prevail, + And raise the song of joy for EUCLID dead. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TO POSTUMOUS IN OCTOBER + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When you and I were younger the world was passing fair; + Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air; + Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll + In endless shining vistas a playground for the soul. + But now no glory fires us; we linger in the cold, + And both of us are weary, and both are growing old; + Come, Postumus, and face it, and, facing it, confess + Your years are half a hundred, and mine are nothing less. + + When you and I were twenty, my Postumus, we kept + In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept. + And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall + That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall. + The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts + Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports; + Then riverward we trudge it, all talking, once again + Down all the long unlovely extent of Jesus Lane. + + One figure leads the others; with frank and boyish mien, + Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene; + His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red; + The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head. + And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring; + With dauntless iteration I see his body swing: + The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew— + O Postumous, my bold one, can this be truly you? + + Nay, Postumus, my comrade, the years have hurried on; + You're not the only Phoenix, I know, whose plumes are gone. + When I recall your splendour, your memory, too, is stirred; + You too can show a moulted, but once refulgent, bird; + And, if I still should press you, you too could hardly fail + To point a hateful moral where I adorned the tale. + 'Twere better to be thankful to Heaven that ruled it so, + And gave us for our spending the days of long ago. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A RAMSHACKLE ROOM + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn, + And the lights are put out in the vault of the night; + When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn, + And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight, + Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am + My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam. + + 'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain + Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor; + With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane, + And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door; + With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall, + And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall. + + There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes— + A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay— + There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes + When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away. + There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot, + Such as <i>Plato</i>, and <i>Dickens</i>, and <i>Liddell and Scott</i>. + + And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag + From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out; + And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag + As she tidies the room where she bustles about; + For a man may be strong and a man may be young, + But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue. + + And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease + In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down, + With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees, + And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown. + Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am + From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LAST STRAW + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I sing the sofa! It had stood for years, + An invitation to benign repose, + A foe to all the fretful brood of fears, + Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close. + Massive and deep and broad it was and bland— + In short the noblest sofa in the land. + + You, too, my friend, my solid friend, I sing, + Whom on an afternoon I did behold + Eying—'twas after lunch—the cushioned thing, + And murmuring gently, "Here are realms of gold, + And I shall visit them," you said, "and be + The sofa's burden till it's time for tea." + + "Let those who will go forth," you said, "and dare, + Beyond the cluster of the little shops, + To strain their limbs and take the eager air, + Seeking the heights of Hedsor and its copse. + I shall abide and watch the far-off gleams + Of fairy beacons from the world of dreams." + + Then forth we fared, and you, no doubt, lay down, + An easy victim to the sofa's charms, + Forgetting hopes of fame and past renown, + Lapped in those padded and alluring arms. + "How well," you said, and veiled your heavy eyes, + "It slopes to suit me! This is Paradise." + + So we adventured to the topmost hill, + And, when the sunset shot the sky with red, + Homeward returned and found you taking still + Deep draughts of peace with pillows 'neath your head. + "His sleep," said one, "has been unduly long." + Another said, "Let's bring and beat the gong." + + "Gongs," said a third and gazed with looks intent + At the full sofa, "are not adequate. + There fits some dread, some heavy, punishment + For one who sleeps with such a dreadful weight. + Behold with me," he moaned, "a scene accurst. + The springs are broken and the sofa's burst!" + + Too true! Too true! Beneath you on the floor + Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things + That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store + Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. + Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, + Mute proofs and mournful of your weight and guilt. + + And you? You slept as sweetly as a child, + And when you woke you recked not of your shame, + But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled + From that eviscerated sofa's frame, + Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw + Through the addition of yourself as straw. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + THE OLD GREY MARE + + There's a line of rails on an upland green + With a good take-off and a landing sound, + Six fences grim as were ever seen, + And it's there I would be with fox and hound. + Oh, that was a country free and fair + For the raking stride of my old grey mare! + + With her raking stride, and her head borne high, + And her ears a-prick, and her heart a-flame, + And the steady look of her deep brown eye, + I warrant the grey mare knew the game: + It was "Up to it, lass," and before I knew + We were up and over, and on we flew. + + The rooks from the grass got up, and so, + With a caw and flap, away they went; + When the grey mare made up her mind to go + At the tail of the bounds on a breast-high scent, + The best of the startled rooks might fail + To match her flight over post and rail. + + While some of the thrusters grew unnerved, + And looked and longed for an open gate, + And one crashed down and another swerved, + She went for it always true and straight: + She pounded the lot, for she made it good + With never a touch of splintered wood. + + Full many a year has come and gone + Since last she gathered her spring for me, + And lifted me up, and so flew on + Unchecked in a country fair and free. + I've ridden a score since then, but ne'er + Crossed one that could live with the old grey mare. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + AT PUTNEY + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When eight strong fellows are out to row, + With a slip of a lad to guide them, + I warrant they'll make the light ship go, + Though the coach on the launch may chide them, + With his "Six, get on to it! Five, you're late! + Don't hurry the slides, and use your weight! + You're bucketing, Bow; and, as to Four, + The sight of his shoulders makes me sore!" + + But Stroke has steadied his fiery men, + And the lift on the boat gets stronger; + And the Coxswain suddenly shouts for "Ten! + Reach out to it, longer, longer!" + While the wind and the tide raced hand in hand + The swing of the crew and the pace were grand; + But now that the two meet face to face + It's buffet and slam and a tortoise-pace. + + For Hammersmith Bridge has rattled past, + And, oh, but the storm is humming. + The turbulent white steeds gallop fast; + They're tossing their crests and coming. + It's a downright rackety, gusty day, + And the backs of the crew are drenched in spray; + But it's "Swing, boys, swing till you're deaf and blind, + And you'll beat and baffle the raging wind." + + They have slipped through Barnes; they are round thebend; + And the chests of the eight are tightening. + "Now spend your strength, if you've strength to spend, + And away with your hands like lightning! + Well rowed!"—and the coach is forced to cheer— + "Now stick to it, all, for the post is near!" + And, lo, they stop at the coxswain's call, + With its message of comfort, "Easy all!" + + So here's to the sturdy undismayed + Eight men who are bound together + By the faith of the slide and the flashing blade + And the swing and the level feather; + To the deeds they do and the toil they bear; + To the dauntless mind and the will to dare; + And the joyous spirit that makes them one + Till the last fierce stroke of the race is done. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + "A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When the waves rise high and higher as they toss about together, + And the March-winds, loosed and angry, cut your chilly heart in two, + Here are eighteen gallant gentlemen who come to face the weather + All for valour and for honour and a little bit of blue! + + <i>Chorus.</i> + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure. + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. + + Isis blessed her noble youngsters as they left her; Father Camus + Sped his youths to fame and Putney from his grey and ancient Courts:— + "Keep," they said, "the old traditions, and we know you will not shame us + When you try the stormy tideway in your zephyrs and your shorts. + + "For it's toil and tribulation till your roughnesses are polished, + And it's bitterness and sorrow till the work of oars is done; + But it's high delight and triumph when your faults are all abolished, + With yourself and seven brothers firmly welded into one." + + So they stood the weary trial and the people poured to greet them, + Filled a cup with praise and welcome—it was theirs to take and quaff; + And they ranged their ships alongside, and the umpire came to meet them, + And they stripped themselves and waited till his pistol sent them off. + + With a dash and spurt and rally; with a swing and drive and rattle, + Both the boats went flashing faster as they cleft the swelling stream; + And the old familiar places, scenes of many a sacred battle, + Just were seen for half a moment and went by them in a dream. + + But at last the flag has fallen and the splendid fight is finished, + And the victory is blazoned on the record-roll of Fame. + They are spent and worn and broken, but their soul is undiminished; + There are winners now and losers, but their glory is the same! + + <i>Chorus</i>. + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure, + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Splendour, whom lately on your glowing flight + Athwart the chill and cheerless winter-skies + I marked and welcomed with a futile right, + And then a futile left, and strained my eyes + To see you so magnificently large, + Sinking to rest beyond the fir-wood's marge— + + Not mine, not mine the fault: despise me not + In that I missed you; for the sun was down, + And the dim light was all against the shot; + And I had booked a bet of half-a-crown. + My deadly fire is apt to be upset + By many causes—always by a bet. + + Or had I overdone it with the sloes, + Snared by their home-picked brand of ardent gin + Designed to warm a shivering sportsman's toes + And light a fire his reckless head within? + Or did my silly loader put me off + With aimless chatter in regard to golf? + + You too, I think, displayed a lack of nerve; + You did not quite-now did you?-play the game; + For when you saw me you were seen to swerve, + Doubtless in order to disturb my aim. + No, no, you must not ask me to forgive + A swerve because you basely planned to live. + + At any rate I missed you, and you went, + The last day's absolutely final bird, + Scathless, and left me very ill content; + And someone (was it I?) pronounced a word, + A word which rather forcible than nice is, + A little word which does not rhyme with Isis. + + Farewell! I may behold you once again + When next November's gales have stripped the leaf. + Then, while your upward flight you grandly strain, + May I be there to add you to my sheaf; + And may they praise your tallness, saying "This + Was such a bird as men are proud to miss!" +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + IN MEMORIAM + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND, 1836-1917 + + EDITOR OF "PUNCH," 1880-1906 + + Hail and Farewell, dear Brother of the Pen, + Maker of sunshine for the minds of men, + Lord of bright cheer and master of our hearts— + What plaint is fit when such a friend departs? + Not with mere ceremonial words of woe + Come we to mourn—you would not have it so; + But with our memories stored with joyous fun, + Your constant largesse till your life was done, + With quips, that flashed through frequent twists and bends, + Caught from the common intercourse of friends; + And gay allusions gayer for the zest + Of one who hurt no friend and spared no jest. + What arts were yours that taught you to indite + What all men thought, but only you could write! + + That wrung from gloom itself a fleeting smile; + Rippled with laughter but refrained from guile; + Led you to prick some bladder of conceit + Or trip intrusive folly's blundering feet, + While wisdom at your call came down to earth, + Unbent awhile and gave a hand to mirth! + + You too had pondered mid your jesting strife + The deeper issues of our mortal life; + Guided to God by faith no doubt could dim, + You fought your fight and left the rest to Him, + Content to set your heart on things above + And rule your days by laughter and by love. + + Rest in our memories! You are guarded there + By those who knew you as you lived and were. + There mid our Happy Thoughts you take your stand, + A sun-girt shade, and light that shadow-land. +</pre> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by +R. C. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch + +Author: R. C. Lehmann + + +Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8433] +This file was first posted on July 9, 2003 +Last Updated: May 14, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + +THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS FROM _PUNCH_ + + +By R. C. Lehmann + +Author of "Anni Fugaces", "Crumbs Of Pity", And "Light And Shade" + + +London: John Lane, The Bodley Head + +New York: John Lane Company MCMXVIII + +_Printed in Great Britain by Tumbull & Spears, Edinburgh_ + + + +NOTE + +All but two of the pieces here printed appeared originally in _Punch_. +My thanks are due to Messrs Bradbury, Agnew & Co., the Proprietors of +_Punch_, for permitting me to reprint them here. "For Wilma" was first +published in _Blackwood's Magazine_, and appears here by the courtesy +of the Editor. + +R. C. L. + + + + CONTENTS + +THE VAGABOND +SINGING WATER +FOR WILMA +CRAGWELL END +THE BIRD IN THE ROOM +KILLED IN ACTION +EPITAPH +TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. +PAGAN FANCIES +ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY +THE BIRTHDAY +THE DANCE +PANSIES +THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL +FLUFFY, A CAT +THE LEAN-TO SHED +THE CONTRACT +JOHN +THE SPARROW +GELERT +AVE, CAESAR! +SOO-TI +THE BATH +PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY +THE DOGS' WELCOME +ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY +TEETH-SETTING +THE DEATH OF EUCLID +TO POSTUMUS IN OCTOBER +A RAMSHACKLE ROOM +THE LAST STRAW +THE OLD GREY MARE +AT PUTNEY +"A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" +THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT +IN MEMORIAM + + + + +THE VAGABOND + +It was deadly cold in Danbury town + One terrible night in mid November, + A night that the Danbury folk remember +For the sleety wind that hammered them down, +That chilled their faces and chapped their skin, + And froze their fingers and bit their feet, +And made them ice to the heart within, + And spattered and scattered + And shattered and battered +Their shivering bodies about the street; +And the fact is most of them didn't roam +In the face of the storm, but stayed at home; +While here and there a policeman, stamping +To keep himself warm or sedately tramping +Hither and thither, paced his beat; +Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter +Some wretched being had crept to shelter, +And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled +Blur of a man and his rags, lay huddled. + +But one there was who didn't care, +Whatever the furious storm might dare, +A wonderful, hook-nosed bright-eyed fellow +In a thin brown cape and a cap of yellow +That perched on his dripping coal-black hair. +A red scarf set off his throat and bound him, +Crossing his breast, and, winding round him, + Flapped at his flank + In a red streak dank; +And his hose were red, with a purple sheen +From his tunic's blue, and his shoes were green. +He was most outlandishly patched together +With ribbons of silk and tags of leather, +And chains of silver and buttons of stone, +And knobs of amber and polished bone, +And a turquoise brooch and a collar of jade, +And a belt and a pouch of rich brocade, +And a gleaming dagger with inlaid blade +And jewelled handle of burnished gold +Rakishly stuck in the red scarf's fold-- +A dress, in short, that might suit a wizard + On a calm warm day + In the month of May, +But was hardly fit for an autumn blizzard. + +Whence had he come there? Who could say, +As he swung through Danbury town that day, + With a friendly light in his deep-set eyes, +And his free wild gait and his upright bearing, + And his air that nothing could well surprise, +So bright it was and so bold and daring? +He might have troubled the slothful ease + Of the Great Mogul in a warlike fever; +He might have bled for the Maccabees, + Or risen, spurred + By the Prophet's word, +And swooped on the hosts of the unbeliever. + +Whatever his birth and his nomenclature, + Something he seemed to have, some knowledge + That never was taught at school or college, +But was part of his very being's nature: + Some ingrained lore that wanderers show + As over the earth they come and go, + Though they hardly know what it is they know. + +And so with his head upheld he walked, + And ever the rain drove down; +And now and again to himself he talked + In the streets of Danbury town. +And now and again he'd stop and troll +A stave of music that seemed to roll +From the inmost depths of his ardent soul; +But the wind took hold of the notes and tossed them +And the few who chanced to be near him lost them. + +So, moving on where his fancy listed, +He came to a street that turned and twisted; +And there by a shop-front dimly lighted +He suddenly stopped as though affrighted, +Stopped and stared with his deep gaze centred +On something seen, like a dream's illusion, +Through the streaming glass, mid the queer confusion +Of objects littered on shelf and floor, +And about the counter and by the door-- +And then with his lips set tight he entered. + +There were rusty daggers and battered breastplates, +And jugs of pewter and carved oak cases, +And china monsters with hideous faces, +And cracked old plates that had once been best plates; +And needle-covers and such old-wivery; +Wonderful chess-men made from ivory; +Cut-glass bottles for wines and brandies, +Sticks once flourished by bucks and dandies; +Deep old glasses they drank enough in, +And golden boxes they took their snuff in; +Rings that flashed on a gallant's knuckles, +Seals and lockets and shining buckles; +Watches sadly in need of menders, +Blackened firedogs and dinted fenders; +Prints and pictures and quaint knick-knackery, +Rare old silver and mere gimcrackery-- +Such was the shop, and in its middle +Stood an old man holding a dusty fiddle. + +The Vagabond bowed and the old man bowed, +And then the Vagabond spoke aloud. +"Sir," he said, "we are two of a trade, +Each for the other planned and made, +And so we shall come to a fair agreement, +Since I am for you and you're for me meant. +And I, having travelled hither from far, gain +You yourself as my life's best bargain. + But I am one + Who chaffers for fun, +Who when he perceives such stores of beauty +Outspread conceives it to be his duty +To buy of his visit a slight memento: +Some curious gem of the quattrocento, +Or something equally rare and priceless, +Though its outward fashions perhaps entice less: +A Sultan's slipper, a Bishop's mitre, +Or the helmet owned by a Roundhead fighter, +Or an old buff coat by the years worn thin, +Or--what do you say to the violin? +I'll wager you've many, so you can't miss one, +And I--well, I have a mind for this one, +This which was made, as you must know, +Three hundred years and a year ago +By one who dwelt in Cremona city +For me--but I lost it, more's the pity, +Sixty years back in a wild disorder +That flamed to a fight on the Afghan border; +And, whatever it costs, I am bound to win it, +For I left the half of my full soul in it." + +And now as he spoke his eyes began +To shiver the heart of the grey old man; + And the old man stuttered, + And "Sir," he muttered, +"The words you speak are the merest riddle, +But-five pounds down, and you own the fiddle! +And I'll choose for your hand, while the pounds you dole out, +A bow with which you may pick that soul out." + +So said so done, and our friend again +Was out in the raging wind and rain. +Swift through the twisting street he passed +And came to the Market Square at last, + And climbed and stood + On a block of wood +Where a pent-house, leant to a wall, gave shelter +From the brunt of the blizzard's helter-skelter, +And, waving his bow, he cried, "Ahoy! +Now steady your hearts for an hour of joy!" +And so to his cheek and jutting chin +Straight he fitted the violin, +And, rounding his arm in a movement gay, +Touched the strings and began to play. + +There hasn't been heard since the world spun round +Such a marvellous blend of thrilling sound. +It streamed, it flamed, it rippled and blazed, +And now it reproached and now it praised, +And the liquid notes of it wove a scheme +That was one-half life and one-half a dream. +And again it scaled in a rush of fire +The glittering peaks of high desire; +Now, foiled and shattered, it rose again +And plucked at the souls and hearts of men; +And still as it rose the sleet came down +In the Market Square of Danbury town. + +And now from hundreds of opened doors, + With quiet paces + And happy faces, +In ones and twos and threes and fours, +A crowd pressed out to the Market Square +And stood in the storm and listened there. + +And, oh, with what a solemn tender strain +The long-drawn music eased their hearts of pain; +And gave them visions of divine content; + Green fields and happy valleys far away, +And rippling streams and sunshine and the scent + Of bursting buds and flowers that come in May. +And one spoke in a rapt and gentle voice, + And bade his friends rejoice, +"For now," he said, "I see, I see once more +My little lass upon a pleasant shore +Standing, as long ago she used to stand, +And beckoning to me with her dimpled hand. + As in the vanished years, +So I behold her and forget my tears." +And each one had his private joy, his own, +All the old happy things he once had known, +Renewed and from the prisoning past set free, +And mixed with hope and happy things to be. + +So for a magic hour the music gushed, +Then faded to a close, and all was hushed, +And the tranced people woke and looked about, +And fell to wondering what had brought them out +On such a night of wind and piercing sleet, +Exposed with hatless heads and thin-shod feet. +Something, they knew, had chased their heavy sadness; + And for the years to come they still may keep, + As from a morning sleep, +Some broken gleam of half-remembered gladness. +But the wild fiddler on his feet of flame +Vanished and went the secret way he came. + + + + +SINGING WATER + +I heard--'twas on a morning, but when it was and where, +Except that well I heard it, I neither know nor care-- +I heard, and, oh, the sunlight was shining in the blue, +A little water singing as little waters do. + +At Lechlade and at Buscot, where Summer days are long, +The tiny rills and ripples they tremble into song; +And where the silver Windrush brings down her liquid gems, +There's music in the wavelets she tosses to the Thames. + +The eddies have an air too, and brave it is and blithe; +I think I may have heard it that day at Bablockhythe; +And where the Eynsham weir-fall breaks out in rainbow spray +The Evenlode comes singing to join the pretty play. + +But where I heard that music I cannot rightly tell; +I only know I heard it, and that I know full well: +I heard a little water, and, oh, the sky was blue, +A little water singing as little waters do. + + + + +FOR WILMA +(AGED FIVE YEARS) + +Like winds that with the setting of the sun + Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease, +So is her little struggle fought and done; + And the brief fever and the pain +In a last sigh fade out and so release +The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again. + +Now all that Wilma was is made as naught: + Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure; +The pretty air, the childish grace untaught, + The innocent wiles, + And all the sunny smiles, +The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure; + The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high, + The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye; + Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined, + And the gay impulse of her baby mind + That none could tame, +That sent her spinning round, + A spirit of living flame +Dancing in airy rapture o'er the ground-- + All these with that faint sigh are made to be + Man's breath upon a glass, a mortal memory. + +Then from the silent room where late she played, + Setting a steady course toward the light, +Swifter than thistledown the little shade, + Reft from the nooks that she had made her own + And from the love that sheltered, fared alone +Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night, + Until at last she lit before the gate + Where all the suppliant shades must stand and wait. + +Grim Cerberus, the foiler of the dead, + Keeping his everlasting vigil there + In deep-mouthed wrath + Athwart the rocky path, +Did at her coming raise his triple head + And lift his bristling hair; +But when he saw our tender little maid + Forlorn, but unafraid, +He blinked his flaming eyes and ceased to frown, + And, fawning on her, smoothed his shaggy crest, +Composed his savage limbs and settled down + With ears laid back and all his care at rest; +And so with kindly aspect beckoned in +The little playmate of his earthly kin. + +For often she had tugged old Rollo's mane, + And often Lufra felt the loving check + Of childish arms about her glossy neck-- + Lufra and Rollo, who with anxious faces + Now cast about the haunts and hiding-places +To find their friend, but ever cast in vain. + +So now, set free from all that can oppress, + And in her own white innocence arrayed, +Made one for ever with all happiness, + Alert she wanders through the starry glade; +Or, where the blissful Shades intone their praise, + She from the lily-covered bowers + Heaping her arms with flowers + Soars and is borne along + The amaranthine the delightful ways, + Gushes the pretty notes and careless trills + Of her unstudied song, + And with her music all the joyous valley fills. + +Yet, oh ye Powers whose rule is set above + These fair abodes that ring the firmament, +Spirits of Peace and Happiness and Love, + And thou, too, mild-eyed Spirit of Content, +Ye will not chide if sometimes in her play + The child should start and droop her shining head, + Turning in meek surmise + Her wistful eyes +Back tow'rd the dimness of our mortal day + And the loved home from which her soul was sped. +Soon shall our little Wilma learn to be + Amid the immortal blest + An unrepining guest, + Who now, dear heart, is young for your eternity. + + + + +CRAGWELL END + +I + +There's nothing I know of to make you spend +A day of your life at Cragwell End. +It's a village quiet and grey and old, +A little village tucked into a fold +(A sort of valley, not over wide) +Of the hills that flank it on either side. +There's a large grey church with a square stone tower, +And a clock to mark you the passing hour +In a chime that shivers the village calm +With a few odd bits of the 100th psalm. +A red-brick Vicarage stands thereby, + Breathing comfort and lapped in ease, +With a row of elms thick-trunked and high, + And a bevy of rooks to caw in these. + +'Tis there that the Revd. Salvyn Bent + (No tie could be neater or whiter than _his_ tie) +Maintains the struggle against dissent, + An Oxford scholar _ex Aede Christi_; +And there in his twenty-minute sermons +He makes mince-meat of the modern Germans, +Defying their _apparatus criticus_ + Like a brave old Vicar, + A famous sticker +To Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus. +He enjoys himself like a hearty boy + Who finds his life for his needs the aptest; +But the poisoned drop in his cup of joy + Is the Revd. Joshua Fall, the Baptist, +An earnest man with a tongue that stings-- + The Vicar calls him a child of schism-- +Who has dared to utter some dreadful things + On the vices of sacerdotalism, + And the ruination + Of education + By the Church of England Catechism. + +Set in a circle of oak and beech, + North of the village lies Cragwell Hall; +And stretching far as the eye can reach, + Over the slopes and beyond the fall +Of the hills so keeping their guard about it +That the north wind never may chill or flout it, +Through forests as dense as that of Arden, +With orchard and park and trim-kept garden, +And farms for pasture and farms for tillage, +The Hall maintains its rule of the village. + And in the Hall + Lived the lord of all, +Girt round with all that our hearts desire +Of leisure and wealth, the ancient Squire. +He was the purplest-faced old man +Since ever the Darville race began, +Pompous and purple-faced and proud; +With a portly girth and a voice so loud +You might have heard it a mile away +When he cheered the hounds on a hunting day. +He was hard on dissenters and such encroachers, +He was hard on sinners and hard on poachers; +He talked of his rights as one who knew +That the pick of the earth to him was due: +The right to this and the right to that, +To the humble look and the lifted hat; +The right to scold or evict a peasant, +The right to partridge and hare and pheasant; +The right to encourage discontent +By raising a hard-worked farmer's rent; +The manifest right to ride to hounds +Through his own or anyone else's grounds; +The right to eat of the best by day +And to snore the whole of the night away; +For his motto, as often he explained, +Was "A Darville holds what a Darville gained." +He tried to be just, but that may be +Small merit in one who has most things free; + And his neighbours averred, + When they heard the word, +"Old Darville's a just man, is he? Bust his +Gills, we could do without his justice!" + +II + +The village itself runs, more or less, +On the sinuous line of a letter S, +Twining its little houses through +The twists of the street, as our hamlets do, +For no good reason, so far as I know, +Save that chance has arranged it so. +It's a quaint old ramshackle moss-grown place, +Keeping its staid accustomed pace; +Not moved at all by the rush and flurry, +The mad tempestuous windy hurry +Of the big world tossing in rage and riot, +While the village holds to its old-world quiet. + +There's a family grocer, a family baker, +A family butcher and sausage-maker-- +A butcher, proud of his craft and willing +To admit that his business in life is killing, +Who parades a heart as soft as his meat's tough-- +There's a little shop for the sale of sweet stuff; +There's a maker and mender of boots and shoes +Of the sort that the country people use, +Studded with iron and clamped with steel, +And stout as a ship from toe to heel, +Who announces himself above his entry +As "patronised by the leading gentry." + There's an inn, "The George"; + There's a blacksmith's forge, +And in the neat little inn's trim garden +The old men, each with his own churchwarden, +Bent and grey, but gossipy fellows, +Sip their innocent pints of beer, +While the anvil-notes ring high and clear +To the rushing bass of the mighty bellows. +And thence they look on a cheerful scene +As the little ones play on the Village Green, + Skipping about + With laugh and shout +As if no Darville could ever squire them, +And nothing on earth could tame or tire them. + +On the central point of the pleasant Green +The famous stone-walled well is seen +Which has never stinted its ice-cold waters +To generations of Cragwell's daughters. +No matter how long the rain might fail +There was always enough for can and pail-- +Enough for them and enough to lend +To the dried-out rivals of Cragwell End. +An army might have been sent to raise +Enough for a thousand washing days +Crowded and crammed together in one day, +One vast soap-sudded and wash-tubbed Monday, +And, however fast they might wind the winch, +The water wouldn't have sunk an inch. +For the legend runs that Crag the Saint, + At the high noon-tide of a summer's day, +Thirsty, spent with his toil and faint, + To the site of the well once made his way, +And there he saw a delightful rill +And sat beside it and drank his fill, +Drank of the rill and found it good, +Sitting at ease on a block of wood, +And blessed the place, and thenceforth never +The waters have ceased but they run for ever. +They burnt St. Crag, so the stories say, +And his ashes cast on the winds away, +But the well survives, and the block of wood +Stands--nay, stood where it always stood, +And still was the village's pride and glory +On the day of which I shall tell my story. +Gnarled and knotty and weather-stained, +Battered and cracked, it still remained; + And thither came, + Footsore and lame, +On an autumn evening a year ago +The wandering pedlar, Gipsy Joe. +Beside the block he stood and set +His table out on the well-stones wet. +"Who'll buy? Who'll buy?" was the call he cried +As the folk came flocking from every side; +For they knew their Gipsy Joe of old, +His free wild words and his laughter bold: +So high and low all gathered together +By the village well in the autumn weather, +Lured by the gipsy's bargain-chatter +And the reckless lilt of his hare-brained patter. +And there the Revd. Salvyn Bent, +The parish church's ornament, +Stood, as it chanced, in discontent, +And eyed with a look that was almost sinister +The Revd. Joshua Fall, the minister. +And the Squire, it happened, was riding by, +With an angry look in his bloodshot eye, +Growling, as was his wont, and grunting +At the wasted toil of a bad day's hunting; +And he stopped his horse on its homeward way +To hear what the gipsy had to say. + +III + +Then the pedlar called to the crowd to hear, +And his voice rang loud and his voice rang clear; +And he lifted his head and began to troll +The whimsical words of his rigmarole:-- + +"_Since last I talked to you here I've hurled +My lone way over the wide, wide world. +South and North and West and East +I've fought with man and I've fought with beast_; +_And I've opened the gates and cleared the bar +That blocks the road to the morning star!_ + +"_I've seen King Pharaoh sitting down +On his golden throne in his jewelled crown, +With wizards fanning like anything +To cool the face of the mighty King: +But the King said, 'Wizards are off,' said he; +'Let Joseph the gipsy talk to me.'_ + +"_So I sat by the King and began to spout +As the day drew in and the sun went out; +And I sat by the King and spun my tale +Till the light returned and the night grew pale; +And none of the Wizards blinked or stirred +While the King sat drinking it word by word._ + +"_Then he gave me rubies and diamonds old; +He gave me masses of minted gold. +He gave me all that a King can give: +The right to live and to cease to live +Whenever--and that'll be soon, I know-- +The days are numbered of Gipsy Joe._ + +"_Then I went and I wandered on and on +Till I came to the kingdom of Prester John; +And there I stood on a crystal stool +And sang the song of 'The First Wise Fool': +Oh, I sang it low and I sang it high +Till John he whimpered and piped his eye._ + +"_Then I drew a tooth from the lively jaw +Of the Prester's ebony Aunt-in-law; +And he bubbled and laughed so long, d'you see, +That his wife looked glum and I had to flee. +So I fled to the place where the Rajahs grow, +A place where they wanted Gipsy Joe._ + +"_The Rajahs summoned the turbaned hordes +And gave me sheaves of their inlaid swords; +And the Shah of Persia next I saw, +Who's brother and friend to the Big Bashaw; +And he sent me a rope of turquoise stones +The size of a giant's knuckle-bones._ + +"_But a little brown Pygmie took my hand +And rattled me fast to a silver strand, +Where the little brown Pygmie boys and girls +Are cradled and rocked to sleep in pearls._ +_And the Pygmies flattered me soft and low, +'You are tall; be King of us, Gipsy Joe.'_ + +"_I governed them well for half-a-year, +But it came to an end, and now I'm here. +Oh, I've opened the gates and cleared the bar, +And I've come, I've come to my friends from far. +I'm old and broken, I'm lame and tired, +But I've come to the friends my soul desired._ + +"_So it's watches and lockets, and who will buy? +It's ribbon and lace, and they're not priced high. +If you're out for a ring or a golden chain +You can't look over my tray in vain: +And here is a balsam made of drops +From a tree that's grown by the AEthiops!_ + +"_I've a chip of the tooth of a mastodont +That's sure to give you the girl you want. +I've a packet of spells to make men sigh +For the lustrous glance of your liquid eye-- +But it's much too dark for such wondrous wares, +So back, stand back, while I light my flares!_" + +Then he lit a match, but his fingers fumbled, +And, striking his foot on a stone, he stumbled; +And the match, released by the sudden shock, +Fell in flame on the old wood-block, +And burnt there very quietly-- +But before you could have counted three, +Hardly giving you time to shout, +A red-blue column of fire shot out, +Up and up and ever higher, +A marvellous burst of raging fire, +Lighting the crowd that shrank from its flashes, + And so decreasing, + And suddenly ceasing +As the seat of St. Crag was burnt to ashes! + +But in the smoke that drifted on the Green +Queer freaks of vision weirdly wrought were seen: +For on that shifting background each one saw +His own reflection and recoiled in awe; +Saw himself there, a bright light shining through him, +Not as he thought himself, but as men knew him. +Before this sudden and revealing sense +Each rag of sham, each tatter of pretence +Withered and vanished, as dissolved in air, +And left the shuddering human creature bare. +But when they turned and looked upon a friend +They saw a sight that all but made amend: +For they beheld him as a radiant spirit +Indued with virtue and surpassing merit, +Not vain or dull or mean or keen for pelf, +But splendid--as he mostly saw himself. +Darville and Fall were drawn to one another, +And both to Bent as to their heart's own brother; +And a strange feeling grew in every breast, +A self-defeating altruistic zest +Which from that moment's flash composed their strife, +Informed their nature and controlled their life. +But when they sought the Gipsy, him they found, +His dark eyes staring, dead upon the ground. + + + + +THE BIRD IN THE ROOM + +A robin skimmed into the room, + And blithe he looked and jolly, +A foe to every sort of gloom, + And, most, to melancholy. +He cocked his head, he made no sound, + But gave me stare for stare back, +When, having fluttered round and round, + He perched upon a chair-back. + +I rose; ah, then, it seemed, he knew + Too late his reckless error: +Away in eager haste he flew, + And at his tail flew terror. +Now here, now there, from wall to floor, + For mere escape appealing, +He fled and struck against the door + Or bumped about the ceiling. + +I went and flung each window wide, + I drew each half-raised blind up; +To coax him out in vain I tried; + He could not make his mind up. +He flew, he fell, he took a rest, + And off again he scuffled +With parted beak and panting breast + And every feather ruffled. + +At length I lured him to the sill, + All dazed and undivining; +Beyond was peace o'er vale and hill, + And all the air was shining. +I stretched my hand and touched him; then + He made no more resistance, +But left the cramped abode of men + And flew into the distance. + + * * * * * + +Is life like that? We make it so; + We leave the sunny spaces, +And beat about, or high or low, + In dark and narrow places; +Till, worn with failure, vexed with doubt, + Our strength at last we rally, +And the bruised spirit flutters out + To find the happy valley. + + + + +KILLED IN ACTION + +RUPERT is dead, and RUPERT was my friend; +"Only surviving son of"--so it ran-- +"Beloved husband" and the rest of it. +But six months back I saw him full of life, +Ardent for fighting; now he lies at ease +In some obscure but splendid field of France, +His strivings over and his conflicts done. +He was a fellow of most joyous moods +And quaint contrivings, ever on the point +Of shaking fame and fortune by the hand +But always baulked of meeting them at last. +He could not brook--and always so declared-- +The weak pomposities of little men, +Scorned all the tin-gods of our petty world, +And plunged headlong into imprudences, +And smashed conventions with a reckless zeal, +Holding his luck and not himself to blame +For aught that might betide when reckoning came. +But he was true as steel and staunch as oak. +And if he pledged his word he bore it out +Unswerving to the finish, and he gave +Whate'er he had of strength to help a friend. + +When the great summons came he rushed to arms, +Counting no cost and all intent to serve +His country and to prove himself a man. +Yet he could laugh at all his ardour too +And find some fun in glory, as a child +Laughs at a bauble but will guard it well. +Now he is fall'n, and on his shining brow +Glory has set her everlasting seal. + +I like to think how cheerily he talked +Amid the ceaseless tumult of the guns, +How, when the word was given, he stood erect, +Sprang from the trench and, shouting to his men, +Led them forthright to where the sullen foe +Waited their coming; and his brain took fire, +And all was exultation and a high +Heroic ardour and a pulse of joy. +"Forward!" his cry rang out, and all his men +Thundered behind him with their eyes ablaze, +"Forward for England! Clear the beggars out! +Remember--" and death found him, and he fell +Fronting the Germans, and the rush swept on. + +Thrice blessed fate! We linger here and droop +Beneath the heavy burden of our years, +And may not, though we envy, give our lives +For England and for honour and for right; +But still must wear our weary hours away, +While he, that happy fighter, in one leap, +From imperfection to perfection borne, +Breaks through the bonds that bound him to the earth. +Now of his failures is a triumph made; +His very faults are into virtues turned; +And, reft for ever from the haunts of men, +He wears immortal honour and is joined +With those who fought for England and are dead. + + + + +EPITAPH + +FOR AN ENGLISH SOLDIER AND AN INDIAN SOLDIER BURIED TOGETHER IN FRANCE + +When the fierce bugle thrilled alarm, + From lands apart these fighters came. +An equal courage nerved each arm, + And stirred each generous heart to flame. + +Now, greatly dead, they lie below; + Their creed or language no man heeds, +Since for their colour they can show + The blood-red blazon of their deeds! + + + + +TO FLIGHT-LIEUTENANT ROBINSON, V.C. + +You with the hawk's eyes and the nerves of steel, + How was it with you when the hurried word +Roused you and sent you swiftly forth to deal + A blow for justice? Sure your pulses stirred, +And all your being leapt to meet the call + Which bade you strike nor spare + Where poised in air +Murder and ravening flame were hid intent to fall. + +Alone upon your fearful task you flew, + Where in the vault of heaven the high stars swing, +Alone and upward, lost to mortal view, + Winding about the assassin craft a ring +Of fateful motion, till at last you sped + Through the far tracts of gloom + The bolt of doom, +Shattering the dastard foe to earth with all his dead. + +For this we thank you, and we bid you know + That henceforth in the air, by day or night, +A myriad hopes of ours, where'er you go, + Rise as companions of your soaring flight; +And well we know that when there comes the need + A host of men like you, + As staunch, as true, +Will rush to prove the daring of the island breed. + + + + +PAGAN FANCIES + +Blow, Father Triton, blow your wreathed horn + Cheerly, as is your wont, and let the blast +Circle our island on the breezes borne; + Blow, while the shining hours go swiftly past. +Rise, Proteus, from the cool depths rise, and be +A friend to them that breast your ancient sea. + +I shall be there to greet you, for I tire + Of the dull meadows and the crawling stream. +Now with a heart uplifted and a-fire + I come to greet you and to catch the gleam +Of jocund Nereids tossing in the air +The sportive tresses of their amber hair. + +High on a swelling upland I shall stand + Stung by the buffets of the wind-borne spray; +Or join the troops that sport upon the sand, + With shouts and laughter wearing out the day; +Or pace apart and listen to the roar +Of the great waves that beat the crumbling shore. + +Then, when the children all are lapped in sleep + The pretty Nymphlets of the sea shall rise, +And we shall know them as they flit and creep + And peep and glance and murmur lullabies; +While the pale moon comes up beyond the hill, +And Proteus rests and Triton's horn is still. + + + + +ROBIN, THE SEA-BOY + +Ho, ruddy-cheeked boys and curly maids, +Who deftly ply your pails and spades, +All you who sturdily take your stand +On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand, + And thence defy + With a fearless eye +And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter +The stealthy trickling waves that lap you +And the crested breakers that tumble after +To souse and batter you, sting and sap you-- +All you roll-about rackety little folk, +Down-again, up-again, not-a-bit brittle folk, + Attend, attend, + And let each girl and boy + Join in a loud "Ahoy!" +For, lo, he comes, your tricksy little friend, +From the clear caverns of his crystal home +Beyond the tossing ridges of the foam: +Planner of sandy romps and wet delights, +Robin the Sea-boy, prince of ocean-sprites, +Is come, is come to lead you in your play +And fill your hearts with mirth and jocund sport to-day! + +What! Can't you see him? There he stands +On a sheer rock and lifts his hands, +A little lad not three feet high, +With dancing mischief in his eye. +His body gleams against the light, +A clear-cut shape of dazzling white +Set off and topped by golden hair +That streams and tosses in the air. +A moment poised, he dares the leap +And cuts the wind and cleaves the deep. +Down through the emerald vaults self-hurled +That roof the sea-god's awful world. +Another moment sees him rise +And beat the salt spray from his eyes. +He breasts the waves, he spurns their blows; +Then, like a rocket, up he goes, +Up, up to where the gusty wind +With all its wrath is left behind; +Still up he soars and high and high +A speck of light that dots the sky. +Then watch him as he slowly droops +Where the great sea-birds wheel their troops. +Three broad-winged gulls, himself their lord, +He hitches to a silken cord, +Bits them and bridles them with skill +And bids them draw him where he will. +Above the tumult of the shores +He floats, he stoops, he darts, he soars; +From near and far he calls the rest +And waves them forward for a quest; +Then straight, without a check, he speeds +Across the azure tracts and leads +With apt reproof and cheering words +As on a chase his cry of birds. + +And when he has finished his airy fun +And all his flights and his swoops are done +He will drop to the shore and lend a hand +In building a castle of weed and sand. +He will cover with flints its frowning face +To keep the tide in its proper place, +And the waves shall employ their utmost damp art +In vain to abolish your moated rampart. +And nobody's nurse shall make a fuss, +As is far too often the case with us; +Instead of the usual how-de-do +She will give us praise when we get wet through; +In fact she will smile and think it better +When we get as wet as we like and wetter. +As for eating too much, you can safely risk it +With chocolate, lollipop, cake, and biscuit, +And your mother will revel with high delight +In the state of her own one's appetite. +Great shells there shall be of a rainbow hue +To be found and gathered by me and you; +Wonderful nets for the joy of making 'em. +And scores of shrimps for the trouble of taking 'em; +In fact it isn't half bad--now is it?-- +When Robin the Sea-boy pays his visit. +And perhaps he will tire of his shape and habit +And change and turn to a frisky rabbit, +A plump young gadabout cheerful fellow +With a twitching nose and a coat of yellow, +And never the smallest trace of fear +From his flashing scut to his flattened ear. + +But, lo, there's a hint of coming rain, +So, presto, Robin is back again. +He lifts his head and he cocks his eye +And waves his hand and prepares to fly-- +"Good-bye, Robin, good-bye, good-bye!" + + + + +THE BIRTHDAY + +Sweetheart, where all the dancing joys compete +Take now your choice; the world is at your feet, +All turned into a gay and shining pleasance, +And every face has smiles to greet your presence. + Treading on air, + Yourself you look more fair; +And the dear Birthday-elves unseen conspire +To flush your cheeks and set your eyes on fire. + +Mayhap they whisper what a birthday means +That sets you spinning through your pretty teens. +A slim-grown shape adorned with golden shimmers +Of tossing hair that streams and waves and glimmers, + Lo, how you run + In mere excess of fun, +Or change to silence as you stand and hear +Some kind old tale that moves you to a tear. + +And, since this is your own bright day, my dear, +Of all the days that gem the sparkling year, +See, we have picked as well as we were able +And set your gifts upon your own small table: + A knife from John, + Who straightway thereupon, +Lest you should cut your friendship for the boy, +Receives a halfpenny and departs with joy. + +The burnished inkstand was your mother's choice; +For six new handkerchiefs I gave my voice, +Having in view your tender little nose's +Soft comfort; and the agate pen is Rosie's; + The torch is Peg's, + Guide for your errant legs +When ways are dark, and, last, behold with these +A pencil from your faithful Pekinese! + +And now the mysteries are all revealed +That were so long, so ardently concealed-- +All save the cake which still is in the making, +Not yet smooth-iced and unprepared for taking + The thirteen flames + That start the noisy games +Of tea-time, when my happy little maid +Thrones it triumphant, teened and unafraid. + +So through the changing years may all delight +Live in your face and make your being bright. +May the good sprites and busy fays befriend you, +And cheerful thoughts and innocent defend you; + And, far away + From this most joyous day, +When in the chambers of your mind you see +Those who have loved you, then remember me. + + + + +THE DANCE + +When good-nights have been prattled, and prayers have been said, +And the last little sunbeam is tucked up in bed, +Then, skirting the trees on a carpet of snow, +The elves and the fairies come out in a row. + With a preening of wings + They are forming in rings; +Pirouetting and setting they cross and advance +In a ripple of laughter, and pair for a dance. + +And it's oh for the boom of the fairy bassoon, +And the oboes and horns as they strike up a tune, +And the twang of the harps and the sigh of the lutes, +And the clash of the cymbals, the purl of the flutes; + And the fiddles sail in + To the musical din, +While the chief all on fire, with a flame for a hand, +Rattles on the gay measure and stirs up his band. + +With a pointing of toes and a lifting of wrists +They are off through the whirls and the twirls and the twists; +Thread the mazes of marvellous figures, and chime +With a bow to a curtsey, and always keep time: + All the gallant and girls + In their diamonds and pearls, +And their gauze and their sparkles, designed for a dance +By the leaders of fairy-land fashion in France. + +But the old lady fairies sit out by the trees, +And the old beaux attend them as pert as you please. +They quiz the young dancers and scorn their display, +And deny any grace to the dance of to-day; + "In Oberon's reign," + So they're heard to complain, +"When we went out at night we could temper our fun +With some manners in dancing, but now there are none." + +But at last, though the music goes gallantly on, +And the dancers are none of them weary or gone, +When the gauze is in rags and the hair is awry, +Comes a light in the East and a sudden cock-cry. + With a scurry of fear + Then they all disappear, +Leaving never a trace of their gay little selves +Or the winter-night dance of the fairies and elves. + + + + +PANSIES + +Tufted and bunched and ranged with careless art +Here, where the paving-stones are set apart, +Alert and gay and innocent of guile, +The little pansies nod their heads and smile. + +With what a whispering and a lulling sound +They watch the children sport about the ground, +Longing, it seems, to join the pretty play +That laughs and runs the light-winged hours away. + +And other children long ago there were +Who shone and played and made the garden fair, +To whom the pansies in their robes of white +And gold and purple gave a welcome bright. + +Gone are those voices, but the others came. +Joyous and free, whose spirit was the same; +And other pansies, robed as those of old, +Peeped up and smiled in purple, white and gold. + +For pansies are, I think, the little gleams +Of children's visions from a world of dreams, +Jewels of innocence and joy and mirth, +Alight with laughter as they fall to earth. + +Below, the ancient guardian, it may hap, +The kindly mother, takes them in her lap, +Decks them with glowing petals and replaces +In the glad air the friendly pansy-faces. + +So tread not rashly, children, lest you crush +A part of childhood in a thoughtless rush. +Would you not treat them gently if you knew +Pansies are little bits of children too? + + + + +THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL + + I + +This is the tale the old men tell, the tale that was told to me, + Of the blue-green dragon, + The dreadful dragon, + The dragon who flew so free, + The last of his horrible scaly race + Who settled and made his nesting place + Some hundreds of thousands of years ago. + One day, as the light was falling low + And the turbulent wind was still, + In a stony hollow, + Where none dared follow, +Beyond the ridge on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill! + +The news went round in the camp that night; + it was Dickon who brought it first + How the wonderful dragon, + The fiery dragon, + On his terrified eyes had burst. + +"I was out," he said, "for a fat young buck, +But never a touch I had of luck; +And still I wandered and wandered on +Till all the best of the day was gone; +When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame +Full over the ridge a green head came, +A green head flapped with a snarling lip, +And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip. +I own I didn't stand long at bay, +But I cast my arrows and bow away, +And I cast my coat, and I changed my plan, +And forgot the buck, and away I ran-- + And, oh, but my heart was chill: + For still as I ran I heard the bellow + Of the terrible slaughtering fierce-eyed fellow +Who has made his lair on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill." + +Then the women talked, as the women will, and the men-folk they talked too + Of the raging dragon, + The hungry dragon, +The dragon of green and blue. +And the Bards with their long beards flowing down, +They sat apart and were seen to frown. + +But at last the Chief Bard up and spoke, +"Now I swear by beech and I swear by oak, +By the grass and the streams I swear," said he, +"This dragon of Dickon's puzzles me. +For the record stands, as well ye know, +How a hundred years and a year ago +We dealt the dragons a smashing blow +By issuing from our magic tree +A carefully-framed complete decree, +Which ordered dragons to cease to be. +Still, since our Dickon is passing sure +That he saw a regular Simon pure. +Some dragon's egg, as it seems, contrived +To elude our curses, and so survived +On an inaccessible rocky shelf, +Where at last it managed to hatch itself. +Whatever the cause, the result is plain: +We're in for a dragon-fuss again. +We haven't the time, and, what is worse, +We haven't the means to frame a curse. +So what is there left for us to say +Save this, that our men at break of day + Must gather and go to kill + The monstrous savage + Whose fire-blasts ravage +The flocks and herds on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill?" + + II + +So the men, when they heard the Chief Bard utter the order that bade them + try + For the awful dragon, + The dauntless dragon, +They all of them shouted "Aye!" +For everyone felt assured that he, +Whatever the fate of the rest might be, +However few of them might survive, +Was certainly safe to stay alive, +And was probably bound to deal the blow +That would shatter the beast and lay him low, +And end the days of their dragon-foe. +And all the women-folk egged them on: +It was "Up with your heart, and at him, John!" +Or "Gurth, you'll bring me his ugly head," +Or "Lance, my man, when you've struck him dead, +When he hasn't a wag in his fearful tail, +Carve off and bring me a blue-green scale." + +Then they set to work at their swords and spears-- +Such a polishing hadn't been seen for years. +They made the tips of their arrows sharp, +Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp, +Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag, +Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag; +And all in the midst of the talk and racket +Each wife was making her man a packet-- +A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese +And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these, +A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin, +As a driving force for his javelin + When the moment arrived to spill + The blood of the terror + Hatched out in error +Who had perched his length on the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + +The night had taken her feast of stars, and the sun shot up in flame, + When "Now for the dragon! + Who hunts the dragon?" +The call from the watchers came; +And, shaking the mists of sleep away, +The men stepped into the light of day, +Twice two hundred in loose array; +With a good round dozen of bards to lead them +And their wives all waving their hands to speed them, +While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state, +With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate. +It wasn't his place to fight or tramp; +When the warriors went he stayed in camp; +But still from his chair he harped them on +Till the very last of the host had gone, +Then he yawned and solemnly shook his head +And, leaving his seat, returned to bed, + To sleep, as a good man will + Who, braving malice and tittle-tattle, + Has checked his natural lust for battle, +And sent the rest to the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + + III + +Marching at ease in the cheerful air, on duty and daring bent, + In quest of the dragon, + The fateful dragon, +The fierce four hundred went: +Over the hills and through the plain, +And up the slopes of the hills again. +The sleek rooks, washed in the morning's dew, +Rose at their coming and flapped and flew +In a black procession athwart the blue; +And the plovers circled about on high +With many a querulous piping cry. +And the cropping ewes and the old bell-wether +Looked up in terror and pushed together; +And still with a grim unbroken pace +The men moved on to their battle-place. +Softly, silently, all tip-toeing, +With their lips drawn tight and their eyes all glowing, +With gleaming teeth and straining ears +And the sunshine laughing on swords and spears, +Softly, silently on they go +To the hidden lair of the fearful foe. +They have neared the stream, they have crossed the bridge, +And they stop in sight of the rugged ridge, +And it's "Flankers back!" and "Skirmishers in!" +And the summit is theirs to lose or win-- +To win with honour or lose with shame; +And so to the place itself they came, + And gazed with an awful thrill + At the ridge of omen, + Beset by foemen, +At the arduous summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill. + +But where was the dragon, the scale-clad dragon, + the dragon that Dickon saw, + The genuine dragon, + The pitiless dragon, +The dragon that knew no law? +Lo, just as the word to charge rang out, +And before they could give their battle shout, + On a stony ledge + Of the ridge's edge, +With its lips curled back and its teeth laid bare, +And a hiss that ripped the morning air, + With its backbone arched + And its tail well starched, +With bristling hair and flattened ears, +What shape of courage and wrath appears? +A cat, a tortoiseshell mother-cat! +And a very diminutive cat at that! +And below her, nesting upon the ground, +A litter of tiny kits they found: +Tortoiseshell kittens, one, two, three, +Lying as snug as snug could be. +And they took the kittens with shouts of laughter +And turned for home, and the cat came after. +And when in the camp they told their tale, +The women--but stop! I draw a veil. +The cat had tent-life forced upon her +And was kept in comfort and fed with honour; + But Dickon has heard his fill + Of the furious dragon + They tried to bag on +The dragonless summit, the gorse-clad summit, + the summit of Winter Hill! + + + + +FLUFFY, A CAT + +So now your tale of years is done, +Old Fluff, my friend, and you have won, +Beyond our land of mist and rain, +Your way to the Elysian plain, +Where through the shining hours of heat +A cat may bask and lap and eat; +Where goldfish glitter in the streams, +And mice refresh your waking dreams, +And all, in fact, is planned--and that's +Its great delight--to please the cats. + +Yet sometimes, too, your placid mind +Will turn to those you've left behind, +And most to one who sheds her tears, +The mistress of your later years, +Who sheds her tears to summon back +Her faithful cat, the white-and-black. + +Fluffy, full well you understood +The frequent joys of motherhood-- +To lick, from pointed tail to nape, +The mewing litter into shape; +To show, with pride that condescends, +Your offspring to your human friends, +And all our sympathy to win +For every kit tucked snugly in. + +In your familiar garden ground +We've raised a tributary mound, +And passing by it we recite +Your merits and your praise aright. + +"Here lies," we say, "from care released +A faithful, furry, friendly beast. +Responsive to the lightest word, +About these walks her purr was heard. +Love she received, for much she earned, +And much in kindness she returned. +Wherefore her comrades go not by +Her little grave without a sigh." + + + + +THE LEAN-TO-SHED + +(COMMUNICATED BY AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD) + +I've a palace set in a garden fair, +And, oh, but the flowers are rich and rare, + Always growing + And always blowing +Winter or summer--it doesn't matter-- +For there's never a wind that dares to scatter +The wonderful petals that scent the air +About the walls of my palace there. +And the palace itself is very old, +And it's built of ivory splashed with gold. +It has silver ceilings and jasper floors +And stairs of marble and crystal doors; +And whenever I go there, early or late, +The two tame dragons who guard the gate +And refuse to open the frowning portals +To sisters, brothers and other mortals, + Get up with a grin + And let me in. +And I tickle their ears and pull their tails +And pat their heads and polish their scales; +And they never attempt to flame or fly, +Being quelled by me and my human eye. +Then I pour them drink out of golden flagons, +Drink for my two tame trusty dragons... + But John, + Who's a terrible fellow for chattering on, + John declares + They are Teddy-bears; +And the palace itself, he has often said, +Is only the gardener's lean-to shed. + +In the vaulted hall where we have the dances +There are suits of armour and swords and lances, +Plenty of steel-wrought who's-afraiders, +All of them used by real crusaders; +Corslets, helmets and shields and things +Fit to be worn by warrior-kings, + Glittering rows of them-- + Think of the blows of them, + Lopping, + Chopping, + Smashing + And slashing +The Paynim armies at Ascalon... +But, bother the boy, here comes our John +Munching a piece of currant cake, +Who says the lance is a broken rake, +And the sword with its keen Toledo blade +Is a hoe, and the dinted shield a spade, +Bent and useless and rusty-red, +In the gardener's silly old lean-to shed. + +And sometimes, too, when the night comes soon +With a great magnificent tea-time moon. +Through the nursery-window I peep and see +My palace lit for a revelry; +And I think I shall try to go there instead +Of going to sleep in my dull small bed. + But who are these + In the shade of the trees + That creep so slow + In a stealthy row? +They are Indian braves, a terrible band, +Each with a tomahawk in his hand, +And each has a knife _without a sheath_ +Fiercely stuck in his gleaming teeth. +Are the dragons awake? Are the dragons sleepers? +Will they meet and scatter these crafty creepers? +What ho! ... But John, who has sorely tried me, +Trots up and flattens his nose beside me; +Against the window he flattens it + And says he can see + As well as me, +But never an Indian--not a bit; +Not even the top of a feathered head, +But only a wall and the lean-to shed. + + + + +THE CONTRACT + +"Come, Peggy, put your toys away; you needn't shake your head, +Your bear's been working overtime; he's panting for his bed. +He's turned a thousand somersaults, and now his head must ache; +It's cruelty to animals to keep the bear awake." + +At this she stamped in mutiny, and then she urged her plea, +Her wonted plea, "A little time, a minute more, for me." +"Be off, you little rogue of rogues," I sternly made reply; +"It's wicked to be sitting up with sand in either eye. + +"To bed, to bed, you sleepy head; and then, and then--who knows?-- +Some day you'll be a grown-up girl, and lovely as a rose. +And some day some one else will come, a gallant youth and gay, +To harry me and marry you and carry you away." + +At this the storm broke out afresh:--"You know I hate the boys; +They're only good at taking things, and breaking things, and noise. +So, Daddy, please remember this, because--I--want--you--to:-- +I'll never marry any boy; I'll only marry _you_." + +"Agreed," I cried--the imp, of course, had won the bout of wits; +Had gained her point and got her time and beaten me to fits-- +"Agreed, agreed,"--she danced for joy--"we'll leave no room for doubt, +But bind ourselves with pen and ink, and write the contract out:-" + +_This is a contract, firm and clear +Made, as doth from these presents appear, +Between Peggy, being now in her sixth year, + A child of laughter, + A sort of funny actress, + Referred to hereinafter + As the said contractress-- +Between the said contractress, that is to say, +And a person with whom she is often good enough to play; +Who happens to have been something of a factor + In bringing her into the world, who, in short, is her father, +And is hereinafter spoken of as the said contractor. + Now the said contractress declares she would rather +Marry the said contractor than any other. +At the same time she affirms with the utmost steadiness + Her perfect readiness + To take any other fellow on as a brother. + Still, she means to marry her father, and to be his wife, + And to live happily with him all the rest of her life. + This contract is made without consideration, + And is subject to later ratification. +The said contractress had it read through + to see that nothing was missed, +And she took her pen, and she held it tight + in a chubby and cramped-up fist, +And she made her mark with a blotted cross, + instead of signing her name; +And the said contractor he signed in full, + and they mean to observe the same._ + +"Now give me, Peg, that old brown shoe, that battered shoe of yours, +I'll stow the contract in its toe, and, if the shoe endures, +When sixteen years or so are gone, I'll hunt for it myself +And take it gently from its drawer, or get it from its shelf. + +"And when, mid clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl +A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl, +Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim, +I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the lot at him." + + + + +JOHN + + He's a boy, +And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it, +And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it; + A two-year-old with a taste for a toy, + And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it, + And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it; + And a short stout couple of sturdy legs + As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs; + And a jolly round head, so fairly round + You could easily roll it, + Or take it and bowl it + With never a bump along the ground. + +And, as to his cheeks, they're also fat-- +I've seen them in ancient prints like that, + Where a wind-boy high + In a cloudy sky + Is puffing away for all he's worth, + Uprooting the trees + With a reckless breeze, + And strewing them over the patient earth, + Or raising a storm to wreck the ships + With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips. + +Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you, +Were ever two eyes more truly blue? +If you went and worried the whole world through +You'd never discover a bluer blue; +I doubt if you'd find a blue so true +In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew. + + And his hair + Is as fair + As a pretty girl's, + +But it's right for a boy with its crisp, short curls +All a-gleam, as he struts about + With a laugh and a shout, +To summon his sister-slaves to him +For his joyous Majesty's careless whim. + +But now, as, after a stand, he budges, +And sets to work and solemnly trudges, +Out from a bush there springs full tilt +His four-legged playmate--and John is spilt. + +She's a young dog and a strong dog +And a tall dog and a long dog, +A Danish lady of high degree, +Black coat, kind eye and a stride that's free. + + And out she came + Like a burst of flame, + And John, + As he trudged and strutted + Sturdily on, + Was blindly butted, + And, all his dignity spent and gone, + On a patch of clover + Was tumbled over, + His two short legs having failed to score + In a sudden match against Lufra's four. + + But we picked him up + And we brushed him down, + And he rated the pup + With a dreadful frown; +And then he laughed and he went and hugged her, +Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her, + And so, with a sister's hand to guide him, + Continued his march with the dog beside him. + +And soon he waggles his way upstairs-- +He does it alone, though he finds it steep. +He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers, + And he condescends + To admit his friends + To a levee before he goes to sleep. + He thrones it there + With a battered bear + And a tattered monkey to form his Court, + And, having come to the end of day, + Conceives that this is the time for play + And every possible kind of sport. + +But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time, +He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme, + And on the bed + Droops his curly round head, + Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content + Over a day so well, so proudly spent, + Resigned at last to listen and obey, + And so begins to breathe his quiet night away. + + + + +THE SPARROW + +Let others from the feathered brood +Which through the garden seeks its food +Pick out for a commending word +Each one his own peculiar bird; +Hail the plump tit, or fitly sing +The finch's crest and flashing wing; +Exalt the rook's black satin dress-coat, +The thrush's speckled fancy waistcoat; +Or praise the robin, meek, but sly, +For breast and tail and friendly eye-- +These have their place within my heart; +The sparrow owns the larger part, +And, for no virtues, rules in it, +My reckless cheerful favourite! +Friend sparrow, let the world contemn +Your ways and make a mock of them, +And dub you, if it has a mind, +Low, quarrelsome, and unrefined; +And let it, if it will, pursue +With harsh abuse the troops of you +Who through the orchard and the field +Their busy bills in mischief wield; +Who strip the tilth and bare the tree, +And make the gardener's face to be +Expressive of the words he could, +But must not, utter, though he would +(For gardeners still, where'er they go, +Whate'er they do, in weal or woe, +Through every chance of life retain +Their ancient Puritanic strain; +Tried by the weather they control +Each day their angry human soul, +And, by the sparrow teased, may tear +Their careworn locks, but never swear). +Let us admit--alas,'tis true-- +You are not adequately few; +That half your little life is spent +In furious strife or argument; +Still, though your wickedness must harrow +All feeling souls, I love my sparrow; +Still, though I oft and gravely doubt you, +I really could not do without you. +Your pluck, your wit, your nonchalance, +Your cheerful confidence in chance, +Your darting flight, your bouts of play, +Your chirp, so sociable and gay-- +These, and no beauty soft or striking, +Make up your passport to my liking; +And for your faults I'll still defend you, +My little sparrow, and befriend you. + + + + +GELERT + +Tested and staunch through many a changing year, +Gelert, his master's faithful hound, lies here. +Humble in friendship, but in service proud, +He gave to man whate'er his lot allowed; +And, rich in love, on each well-trusted friend +Spent all his wealth and still had more to spend. +Now, reft beyond the unfriendly Stygian tide, +For these he yearns and has no wish beside. + + + + +AVE, CAESAR! + +(MAY 20, 1910) + +Full in the splendour of this morning hour, + With tramp of men and roll of muffled drums, +In what a pomp and pageantry of power, + Borne to his grave, our lord, King EDWARD, comes! + +In flashing gold and high magnificence, + Lo, the proud cavalcade of comrade Kings, +Met here to do the dead KING reverence, + Its solemn tribute of affection brings. + +Heralds and Pursuivants and Men-at-arms, + Sultan and Paladin and Potentate, +Scarred Captains who have baffled war's alarms + And Courtiers glittering in their robes of state, + +All in their blazoned ranks, with eyes cast down, + Slow pacing in their sorrow pass along +Where that which bore the sceptre and the crown + Cleaves at their head the silence of the throng. + +And in a space behind the passing bier, + Looking and longing for his lord in vain, +A little playmate whom the KING held dear, + Caesar, the terrier, tugs his silver chain! + + * * * * * + +Hail, Caesar, lonely little Caesar, hail! +Little for you the gathered Kings avail. +Little you reck, as meekly past you go, +Of that solemnity of formal woe. +In the strange silence, lo, you prick your ear +For one loved voice, and that you shall not hear. +So when the monarchs with their bright array +Of gold and steel and stars have passed away, +When, to their wonted use restored again, +All things go duly in their ordered train, +You shall appeal at each excluding door, +Search through the rooms and every haunt explore; +From lawn to lawn, from path to path pursue +The well-loved form that still escapes your view. +At every tree some happy memories rise +To stir your tail and animate your eyes, +And at each turn, with gathering strength endued, +Hope, still frustrated, must be still renewed. +How should you rest from your appointed task +Till chance restore the happiness you ask, +Take from your heart the burden, ease your pain, +And grant you to your master's side again, +Proud and content if but you could beguile +His voice to flatter and his face to smile? + +Caesar, the kindly days may bring relief; +Swiftly they pass and dull the edge of grief. +You too, resigned at last, may school your mind +To miss the comrade whom you cannot find, +Never forgetting, but as one who feels +The world has secrets which no skill reveals. +Henceforth, whate'er the ruthless fates may give, +You shall be loved and cherished while you live. +Reft of your master, little dog forlorn, +To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn, +And in her queenly service you shall dwell, +At rest with one who loved your master well. +And she, that gentle lady, shall control +The faithful kingdom of a true dog's soul, +And for the past's dear sake shall still defend +Caesar, the dead KING'S humble little friend. + + + + +SOO-TI + +A PEKINESE + +Soo-Ti, I thank the careful fate +That made you wise and obstinate, +Alert, but with a proper pride, +And gay, but wondrous dignified. +I praise your black and tilted nose; +I praise your heart's deep love that shows +In songs made up of whimpering cries +And in the radiance of your eyes +(And if they bulge--forgive the allusion-- +Are eyes the worse for such protrusion? +The smaller eyes are, sure, the blinder, +And size makes every kind eye kinder). +Next with affection's look I note +The glossy levels of your coat, +Where a rich black doth most prevail, +Shading to beaver in your tail, +And lightly fading as it reaches +The tufted things you wear as breeches. + +The dweller on the cushion purrs +No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. +She blinks and blinks and lets you share +Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. +For you she hides her cruel claw +And taps you with a velvet paw; +And, mastered by your lordly air, +For you is meek and debonair. +Even should you growl her hair stays flat: +Be sure she thinks you half a cat. +But you're a Dog and know your job: +Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob, +And grandly gracious to unbend +With a Great Dane, your humble friend. +As on the lawn with him you roll, +He makes your very being droll. +Yet how you set to work to flout him, +To tease and gnaw and dance about him! +You risk the pressure of his paws, +Plunge all you are within his jaws, +And, swelling to a final rage, +With pin-point teeth the fight engage, +While he submits his silly size +To every insult you devise. +At last, withdrawing from the fuss, +You come and tell your tale to us, +Bearing aloft through every room +Your high tail's undefeated plume, +Till, fed with triumphs, you subside, +And sleep and doff your native pride, +Composing in a wicker fane +Those limbs that terrify the Dane. + +So, Soo-Ti, I have tried to praise +Yourself and all your winning ways, +Content if I may guard and please +My little dusky Pekinese. + + + + +THE BATH + +Hang garlands on the bathroom door; + Let all the passages be spruce; +For, lo, the victim comes once more, + And, ah, he struggles like the deuce! + +Bring soaps of many scented sorts; + Let girls in pinafores attend, +With John, their brother, in his shorts, + To wash their dusky little friend. + +Their little friend, the dusky dog, + Short-legged and very obstinate, +Faced like a much-offended frog, + And fighting hard against his fate. + +No Briton he! From palace-born + Chinese patricians he descends; +He keeps their high ancestral scorn; + His spirit breaks, but never bends. + +Our water-ways he fain would'scape; + He hates the customary bath +That thins his tail and spoils his shape, + And turns him to a fur-clad lath; + +And, seeing that the Pekinese + Have lustrous eyes that bulge like buds, +He fain would save such eyes as these, + Their owner's pride, from British suds. + +Vain are his protests--in he goes. + His young barbarians crowd around; +They soap his paws, they soap his nose; + They soap wherever fur is found. + +And soon, still laughing, they extract + His limpness from the darkling tide; +They make the towel's roughness act + On back and head and dripping side. + +They shout and rub and rub and shout-- + He deprecates their odious glee-- +Until at last they turn him out, + A damp gigantic bumble-bee. + +Released, he barks and rolls, and speeds + From lawn to lawn, from path to path, +And in one glorious minute needs + More soapsuds and another bath. + + + + +PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY + +Our Peter, who's famed as an eater of things, +Is a miniature dragon without any wings. +He can gallop or trot, he can amble or jog, +But he flies like a flash when he's after his prog; +And the slaves who adore him, whatever his mood, + Say that nothing is fleeter + Than Peter the eater, +Than Peter pursuing his food. + +He considers the garden his absolute own: +It's the place where a digger can bury a bone. +Then he tests his pin-teeth on a pansy or rose, +Spreading ruin and petals wherever he goes; +And his mistress declares, when he's nibbled for hours, + That nothing is sweeter + Than Peter the eater, +The resolute eater of flowers. + +Having finished his dinner he wheedles the cook, +Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book, +Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat, +To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that; +_Faute de mieux_ takes a dress; and his mistress asserts + That there's nothing to beat her + Like Peter the eater +Attached by his teeth to her skirts. + +But at last he has supped, and the moment is come +When, his stretchable turn being tight as a drum, +He is meek and submissive, who once was so proud, +And he creeps to his basket and slumbers aloud. +And his mistress proclaims, as she tucks up his shawl, + That nothing is neater + Than Peter the eater, +Than Peter curled up in a ball, +Asleep and digesting it all. + + + + +THE DOGS' WELCOME + +Hush! We're not a pack of boys +Always bound to make a noise. + True, there's one amongst us, but + He is young; +And, wherever we may take him, + We can generally shut +Such a youngster up and make him + Hold his tongue. + +Hush! Most cautiously we go +On the tippest tip of toe. + Are the dogs expecting us + At the gate? +Two, who usually prize us, + Will they jump and make a fuss? +Will they really recognise us + Where they wait? + + Hush! I hear the funny pair + Softly whimpering--yes, they're there. +Dane and Pekinese, they scratch + At the wood, + At the solid wood between us; +Duke attempts to lift the latch; + It's a month since they have seen us-- + Open! Good! + +Down, Duke, down! Enough, enough! +Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff. + Soo-Ti's having fearful fits; + Duke is tearing us to bits. +One will trip us, one will throw us-- +But, the darlings, _don't_ they know us! + +Then off with a clatter the long dog leapt, and, oh, what a race he ran, +At the hurricane pace of a minute a mile, as only a long dog can. +Into and out of the bushes he pierced like a shooting star; +And now he thundered around us, and now he was whirling far. +And the little dog gazed till he seemed amazed, + and then he took to it too; +With shrill notes flung from his pert pink tongue + right after his friend he flew; +And the long legs lashed and the short legs flashed + and scurried like anything, +While Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran in a ring. + +And last they hurtled amongst us, and then there were tales to tell, +For all of us seemed to be scattered and torn, + and all of us shrieked and fell; +And John, who is plump, got an awful bump, + and Helen, who's tall and thin, +Was shot through a shrub and gained in bruise + as much as she lost in skin; +And Rosamond's frock was rent in rags, and tattered in strips was Peg's, +And both of them suffered the ninepin fate to the ruin of arms and legs; +And every face was licked by a dog, and battered was every limb, +When Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran after him. + + + + +ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY + +(THE NOTES FOR L1 AND 10S ARE SIGNED BY JOHN BRADBURY) + + When the Red KAISER, swoll'n with impious pride + And stuffed with texts to serve his instant need, + Took Shame for partner and Disgrace for guide, + Earned to the full the hateful traitor's meed, + And bade his hordes advance + Through Belgium's cities towards the fields of France; + And when at last our patient island race, + By the attempted wrong + Made fierce and strong, + Flung back the challenge in the braggart's face, + Oh then, while martial music filled the air, + Clarion and fife and bagpipe and the drum, + Calling to men to muster, march, and dare, + Oh, then thy day, JOHN BRADBURY, was come. + + JOHN BRADBURY, the Muse shall fill my strain + To sing thy praises; thou hadst spent thy time + Not idly, nor hadst lived thy life in vain, + Unfitted for the guerdon of my rhyme. + For lo, the Funds went sudden crashing down, + And men grew pale with monetary fear, + And in the toppling mart + The stoutest heart + Melted, and fortunes seemed to disappear; + And some, forgetting their austere renown, + Went mad and sold + Whate'er they could and wildly called for Gold! + + "Since through no fault of ours the die was cast + We shall go forth and fight + In death's despite + And shall return victorious at the last; + But how, ah how," they said, + "Shall we and ours be fed + And clothed and housed from dreary day to day, + If, while our hearths grow cold, we have no coin to pay?" + + Then thou, where no gold was and little store + Of silver, didst appear and wave thy pen, + And with thy signature + Make things secure, + Bidding us all pluck up our hearts once more + And face our foolish fancied fears like men. + "I give you notes," you said, "of different kinds + To ease your anxious minds: + The one is black and shall be fairly found + Equal in value to a golden pound; + The other--mark its healthy scarlet print-- + Is worth a full half-sovereign from the Mint." + + Thus didst thou speak--at least I think thou didst-- + And, lo, the murmurs fell + And all things went right well, + While thy notes fluttered in our happy midst. + Therefore our grateful hearts go forth to thee, + Our British note-provider, brave JOHN BRADBURY! + + + + +TEETH-SETTING + +(1914) + +When the thunder-shaking German hosts are marching over France-- +Lo, the glinting of the bayonet and the quiver of the lance!-- +When a rowdy rampant KAISER, stout and mad and middle-aged, +Strips his breast of British Orders just to prove that he's enraged; + When with fire and shot and pillage + He destroys each town and village; +When the world is black with warfare, then there's one thing you must do: +Set your teeth like steel, my hearties, and sit tight and see it through. + + + + +Oh, it's heavy work is fighting, but our soldiers do it well-- +Lo, the booming of the batteries, the clatter of the shell!-- +And it's weary work retiring, but they kept a dauntless front, +All our company of heroes who have borne the dreadful brunt. + They can meet the foe and beat him, + They can scatter and defeat him, +For they learnt a steady lesson (and they taught a lesson, too), +Having set their teeth in earnest and sat tight and seen it through. + +Then their brothers trooped to join them, taking danger for a bride, +Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride; +Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame, +So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name. + Toil and wounds could but delight them, + Death itself could not affright them, +Who went out to fight for freedom and the red and white and blue, +While they set their teeth as firm as flint and vowed to see it through. + + + + +THE DEATH OF EUCLID + +["Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of + an immortality that he never much deserved."--_The Times Literary + Supplement_.] + + A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he + Who with his learning made our youth a waste, + Holding our souls in fee; + A god whose high-set crystal throne was based + Beyond the reach of tears, + Deeper than time and his relentless years! + + Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament; + Ye little Postulates, and all the throng + Of Definitions, with your heads besprent + In funeral ashes, ye who long + Worshipped the King and followed in his train; + For he is dead and cannot rise again. + + Then from the shapes that beat their breasts and wept, + Soft to the light a gentle Problem stepped, + And, lo, her clinging robe she swiftly loosed + And with majestic hands her side produced: + + "Sweet Theorem," she said, and called her mate, + "Sweet Theorem, be with me at this hour. + How oft together in a dear debate + We two bore witness to our Sovereign's power. + But he is dead and henceforth all our days + Are wrapped in gloom, + And we who never ceased to sing his praise + May weep our lord, but cannot call him from his tomb." + + And, as they bowed their heads and to and fro + Wove in a mournful gait their web of woe, + Two sentinels forth came, + Their hearts aflame, + And moved behind the pair: + "Warders we are," they cried, + "Of these two sisters who were once so fair, + So joyous in their pride." + And now their massy shields they lifted high, + Embossed with letters three, + And, though a mist of tears bedimmed each eye, + The sorrowing Nymphs could see + Q., E. and F. on one, and on the other Q. E. D. + + But on a sudden, with a hideous noise + Of joy and laughter rushed a rout of boys; + And all the mourners in affright + Scattered to left and right. + Problems and Theorems and Angles too, + Postulates, Definitions, Circles, Planes, + A jibbering crew, + With all their hoary gains + Of knowledge, from their monarch dead + Into the outer darkness shrieking fled. + + And now with festal dance and laughter loud + Broke in the boyish and intruding crowd; + Nor did they fail, + Seeing that all the painful throng was sped, + To let high mirth prevail, + And raise the song of joy for EUCLID dead. + + + + +TO POSTUMOUS IN OCTOBER + +When you and I were younger the world was passing fair; +Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air; +Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll +In endless shining vistas a playground for the soul. +But now no glory fires us; we linger in the cold, +And both of us are weary, and both are growing old; +Come, Postumus, and face it, and, facing it, confess +Your years are half a hundred, and mine are nothing less. + +When you and I were twenty, my Postumus, we kept +In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept. +And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall +That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall. +The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts +Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports; +Then riverward we trudge it, all talking, once again +Down all the long unlovely extent of Jesus Lane. + +One figure leads the others; with frank and boyish mien, +Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene; +His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red; +The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head. +And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring; +With dauntless iteration I see his body swing: +The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew-- +O Postumous, my bold one, can this be truly you? + +Nay, Postumus, my comrade, the years have hurried on; +You're not the only Phoenix, I know, whose plumes are gone. +When I recall your splendour, your memory, too, is stirred; +You too can show a moulted, but once refulgent, bird; +And, if I still should press you, you too could hardly fail +To point a hateful moral where I adorned the tale. +'Twere better to be thankful to Heaven that ruled it so, +And gave us for our spending the days of long ago. + + + + +A RAMSHACKLE ROOM + +When the gusts are at play with the trees on the lawn, + And the lights are put out in the vault of the night; +When within all is snug, for the curtains are drawn, + And the fire is aglow and the lamps are alight, +Sometimes, as I muse, from the place where I am + My thoughts fly away to a room near the Cam. + +'Tis a ramshackle room, where a man might complain + Of a slope in the ceiling, a rise in the floor; +With a view on a court and a glimpse on a lane, + And no end of cool wind through the chinks of the door; +With a deep-seated chair that I love to recall, + And some groups of young oarsmen in shorts on the wall. + +There's a fat jolly jar of tobacco, some pipes-- + A meerschaum, a briar, a cherry, a clay-- +There's a three-handled cup fit for Audit or Swipes + When the breakfast is done and the plates cleared away. +There's a litter of papers, of books a scratch lot, + Such as _Plato_, and _Dickens_, and _Liddell and Scott_. + +And a crone in a bonnet that's more like a rag + From a mist of remembrance steps suddenly out; +And her funny old tongue never ceases to wag + As she tidies the room where she bustles about; +For a man may be strong and a man may be young, + But he can't put a drag on a Bedmaker's tongue. + +And, oh, there's a youngster who sits at his ease + In the hope, which is vain, that the tongue may run down, +With his feet on the grate and a book on his knees, + And his cheeks they are smooth and his hair it is brown. +Then I sigh myself back to the place where I am + From that ramshackle room near the banks of the Cam. + + + + +THE LAST STRAW + + I sing the sofa! It had stood for years, + An invitation to benign repose, + A foe to all the fretful brood of fears, + Bidding the weary eye-lid sink and close. + Massive and deep and broad it was and bland-- + In short the noblest sofa in the land. + + You, too, my friend, my solid friend, I sing, + Whom on an afternoon I did behold + Eying--'twas after lunch--the cushioned thing, + And murmuring gently, "Here are realms of gold, + And I shall visit them," you said, "and be + The sofa's burden till it's time for tea." + + "Let those who will go forth," you said, "and dare, + Beyond the cluster of the little shops, + To strain their limbs and take the eager air, + Seeking the heights of Hedsor and its copse. + I shall abide and watch the far-off gleams + Of fairy beacons from the world of dreams." + + Then forth we fared, and you, no doubt, lay down, + An easy victim to the sofa's charms, + Forgetting hopes of fame and past renown, + Lapped in those padded and alluring arms. + "How well," you said, and veiled your heavy eyes, + "It slopes to suit me! This is Paradise." + + So we adventured to the topmost hill, + And, when the sunset shot the sky with red, + Homeward returned and found you taking still + Deep draughts of peace with pillows 'neath your head. + "His sleep," said one, "has been unduly long." + Another said, "Let's bring and beat the gong." + + "Gongs," said a third and gazed with looks intent + At the full sofa, "are not adequate. + There fits some dread, some heavy, punishment + For one who sleeps with such a dreadful weight. + Behold with me," he moaned, "a scene accurst. + The springs are broken and the sofa's burst!" + + Too true! Too true! Beneath you on the floor + Lay blent in ruin all the obscure things + That were the sofa's strength, a scattered store + Of tacks and battens and protruded springs. + Through the rent ticking they had all been spilt, + Mute proofs and mournful of your weight and guilt. + + And you? You slept as sweetly as a child, + And when you woke you recked not of your shame, + But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled + From that eviscerated sofa's frame, + Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw + Through the addition of yourself as straw. + + + + + + THE OLD GREY MARE + + There's a line of rails on an upland green + With a good take-off and a landing sound, + Six fences grim as were ever seen, + And it's there I would be with fox and hound. + Oh, that was a country free and fair + For the raking stride of my old grey mare! + + With her raking stride, and her head borne high, + And her ears a-prick, and her heart a-flame, + And the steady look of her deep brown eye, + I warrant the grey mare knew the game: + It was "Up to it, lass," and before I knew + We were up and over, and on we flew. + + The rooks from the grass got up, and so, + With a caw and flap, away they went; + When the grey mare made up her mind to go + At the tail of the bounds on a breast-high scent, + The best of the startled rooks might fail + To match her flight over post and rail. + + While some of the thrusters grew unnerved, + And looked and longed for an open gate, + And one crashed down and another swerved, + She went for it always true and straight: + She pounded the lot, for she made it good + With never a touch of splintered wood. + + Full many a year has come and gone + Since last she gathered her spring for me, + And lifted me up, and so flew on + Unchecked in a country fair and free. + I've ridden a score since then, but ne'er + Crossed one that could live with the old grey mare. + + + + +AT PUTNEY + +When eight strong fellows are out to row, + With a slip of a lad to guide them, +I warrant they'll make the light ship go, + Though the coach on the launch may chide them, +With his "Six, get on to it! Five, you're late! +Don't hurry the slides, and use your weight! +You're bucketing, Bow; and, as to Four, +The sight of his shoulders makes me sore!" + +But Stroke has steadied his fiery men, + And the lift on the boat gets stronger; +And the Coxswain suddenly shouts for "Ten! + Reach out to it, longer, longer!" +While the wind and the tide raced hand in hand +The swing of the crew and the pace were grand; +But now that the two meet face to face +It's buffet and slam and a tortoise-pace. + +For Hammersmith Bridge has rattled past, + And, oh, but the storm is humming. +The turbulent white steeds gallop fast; + They're tossing their crests and coming. +It's a downright rackety, gusty day, +And the backs of the crew are drenched in spray; +But it's "Swing, boys, swing till you're deaf and blind, +And you'll beat and baffle the raging wind." + +They have slipped through Barnes; they are round thebend; + And the chests of the eight are tightening. +"Now spend your strength, if you've strength to spend, + And away with your hands like lightning! +Well rowed!"--and the coach is forced to cheer-- +"Now stick to it, all, for the post is near!" +And, lo, they stop at the coxswain's call, +With its message of comfort, "Easy all!" + +So here's to the sturdy undismayed + Eight men who are bound together +By the faith of the slide and the flashing blade + And the swing and the level feather; +To the deeds they do and the toil they bear; +To the dauntless mind and the will to dare; +And the joyous spirit that makes them one +Till the last fierce stroke of the race is done. + + + + +"A LITTLE BIT OF BLUE" + +When the waves rise high and higher as they toss about together, +And the March-winds, loosed and angry, cut your chilly heart in two, +Here are eighteen gallant gentlemen who come to face the weather +All for valour and for honour and a little bit of blue! + + _Chorus._ + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure. + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. + +Isis blessed her noble youngsters as they left her; Father Camus +Sped his youths to fame and Putney from his grey and ancient Courts:-- +"Keep," they said, "the old traditions, and we know you will not shame us +When you try the stormy tideway in your zephyrs and your shorts. + +"For it's toil and tribulation till your roughnesses are polished, +And it's bitterness and sorrow till the work of oars is done; +But it's high delight and triumph when your faults are all abolished, +With yourself and seven brothers firmly welded into one." + +So they stood the weary trial and the people poured to greet them, +Filled a cup with praise and welcome--it was theirs to take and quaff; +And they ranged their ships alongside, and the umpire came to meet them, +And they stripped themselves and waited till his pistol sent them off. + +With a dash and spurt and rally; with a swing and drive and rattle, +Both the boats went flashing faster as they cleft the swelling stream; +And the old familiar places, scenes of many a sacred battle, +Just were seen for half a moment and went by them in a dream. + +But at last the flag has fallen and the splendid fight is finished, +And the victory is blazoned on the record-roll of Fame. +They are spent and worn and broken, but their soul is undiminished; +There are winners now and losers, but their glory is the same! + + _Chorus_. + Oh get hold of it and shove it! + It is labour, but you love it; + Let your stroke be long and mighty; keep your body on the swing; + While your pulses dance a measure + Full of pride and full of pleasure, + And the boat flies free and joyous like a swallow on the wing. + + + + +THE LAST COCK-PHEASANT + +Splendour, whom lately on your glowing flight + Athwart the chill and cheerless winter-skies +I marked and welcomed with a futile right, + And then a futile left, and strained my eyes +To see you so magnificently large, +Sinking to rest beyond the fir-wood's marge-- + +Not mine, not mine the fault: despise me not + In that I missed you; for the sun was down, +And the dim light was all against the shot; + And I had booked a bet of half-a-crown. +My deadly fire is apt to be upset +By many causes--always by a bet. + +Or had I overdone it with the sloes, + Snared by their home-picked brand of ardent gin +Designed to warm a shivering sportsman's toes + And light a fire his reckless head within? +Or did my silly loader put me off +With aimless chatter in regard to golf? + +You too, I think, displayed a lack of nerve; + You did not quite-now did you?-play the game; +For when you saw me you were seen to swerve, + Doubtless in order to disturb my aim. +No, no, you must not ask me to forgive +A swerve because you basely planned to live. + +At any rate I missed you, and you went, + The last day's absolutely final bird, +Scathless, and left me very ill content; + And someone (was it I?) pronounced a word, +A word which rather forcible than nice is, +A little word which does not rhyme with Isis. + +Farewell! I may behold you once again + When next November's gales have stripped the leaf. +Then, while your upward flight you grandly strain, + May I be there to add you to my sheaf; +And may they praise your tallness, saying "This +Was such a bird as men are proud to miss!" + + + + +IN MEMORIAM + + FRANCIS COWLEY BURNAND, 1836-1917 + + EDITOR OF "PUNCH," 1880-1906 + +Hail and Farewell, dear Brother of the Pen, +Maker of sunshine for the minds of men, +Lord of bright cheer and master of our hearts-- +What plaint is fit when such a friend departs? +Not with mere ceremonial words of woe +Come we to mourn--you would not have it so; +But with our memories stored with joyous fun, +Your constant largesse till your life was done, +With quips, that flashed through frequent twists and bends, +Caught from the common intercourse of friends; +And gay allusions gayer for the zest +Of one who hurt no friend and spared no jest. +What arts were yours that taught you to indite +What all men thought, but only you could write! + +That wrung from gloom itself a fleeting smile; +Rippled with laughter but refrained from guile; +Led you to prick some bladder of conceit +Or trip intrusive folly's blundering feet, +While wisdom at your call came down to earth, +Unbent awhile and gave a hand to mirth! + +You too had pondered mid your jesting strife +The deeper issues of our mortal life; +Guided to God by faith no doubt could dim, +You fought your fight and left the rest to Him, +Content to set your heart on things above +And rule your days by laughter and by love. + +Rest in our memories! You are guarded there +By those who knew you as you lived and were. +There mid our Happy Thoughts you take your stand, +A sun-girt shade, and light that shadow-land. + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch, by +R. C. Lehmann + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VAGABOND AND OTHER POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 8433.txt or 8433.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/4/3/8433/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, Charles +Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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