Verses

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> <hr class="chap" /> <p class="ph1">VERSES BY H. BELLOC</p> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="titlepage"> <h1>VERSES</h1> <p><i>By</i><br/> <span class="xlarge">HILAIRE BELLOC</span></p> <p><i>With an Introduction</i><br/> <small><i>By</i></small><br/> JOYCE KILMER</p> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" /></div> <p><small>NEW YORK</small><br/> LAURENCE J. GOMME<br/> 1916</p> </div> <hr class="tb" /> <p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1916, By<br/> Laurence J. Gomme</span><br/> <br/> VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY<br/> BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK</p> <hr class="chap" /> <p class="center"><span class="antiqua">To</span></p> <p class="center"><span class="xlarge">JOHN SWINNERTON PHILLIMORE</span></p> <p class="center">A DEDICATION<br/> WITH THIS BOOK OF VERSE</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><i>When you and I were little tiny boys</i></div> <div class="indent"><i>We took a most impertinent delight</i></div> <div class="verse"><i>In foolish, painted and misshapen toys</i></div> <div class="indent"><i>That hidden mothers brought to us at night.</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><i>Do you that have the child&#8217;s diviner part&mdash;</i></div> <div class="indent"><i>The dear content a love familiar brings&mdash;</i></div> <div class="verse"><i>Take these imperfect toys, till in your heart</i></div> <div class="indent"><i>They too attain the form of perfect things?</i></div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2></div> <div class="hangingindent"> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> <tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="tdr"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_xi">xi</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">To Dives</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_1">1</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Stanzas Written on Battersea Bridge During<br/> a South-Westerly Gale</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_4">4</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The South Country</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_7">7</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Fanatic</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_10">10</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Noël</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_14">14</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Early Morning</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_16">16</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Birds</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_17">17</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Our Lord and Our Lady</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_18">18</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">In a Boat</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_20">20</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Courtesy</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_22">22</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Night</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_24">24</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Leader</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_25">25</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">A Bivouac</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_27">27</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">To the Balliol Men Still in Africa</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_28">28</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Verses to a Lord Who, in the House of Lords,<br/> Said That Those Who Opposed the South<br/> African Adventure Confused Soldiers with<br/> Money-Grubbers</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_30">30</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Rebel</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_32">32</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_34">34</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Song, Inviting the Influence of a Young Lady<br/> upon the Opening Year</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_36">36</SPAN><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</SPAN></span></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Ring</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_37">37</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Cuckoo</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_38">38</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Mirror</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_39">39</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Little Serving Maid</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_40">40</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The End of the Road</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_43">43</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Auvergnat</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_45">45</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Drinking Song, on the Excellence of<br/> Burgundy Wine</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_46">46</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Drinking Dirge</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_48">48</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">West Sussex Drinking Song</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_50">50</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">A Ballad on Sociological Economics</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_52">52</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">An Oracle That Warned the Writer When<br/> on Pilgrimage</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_54">54</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Heretics All</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_55">55</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Death and Last Confession of Wandering &nbsp; &nbsp;<br/> Peter</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_56">56</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Dedicatory Ode</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_58">58</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Dedication on the Gift of a Book to a Child</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_66">66</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Dedication of a Child&#8217;s Book of Imaginary<br/> Tales</span></td><td class="tdr" valign="bottom"><SPAN href="#Page_67">67</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Homage</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_68">68</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Fille-la-Haine</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_69">69</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Moon&#8217;s Funeral</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_70">70</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Happy Journalist</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_72">72</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Lines to a Don</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_74">74</SPAN><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</SPAN></span></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Newdigate Poem</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_77">77</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Yellow Mustard</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_82">82</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">On Hygiene</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_83">83</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The False Heart</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_84">84</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Sonnet upon God the Wine-Giver</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_85">85</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">The Politician or the Irish Earldom</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_86">86</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td><span class="smcap">Short Ballad and Postscript on Consols</span></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_89">89</SPAN></td></tr> </table></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">INTRODUCTION</h2></div> <p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Joyce Kilmer</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Far from the poets being astray in prose-writing (said Francis Thompson) it might plausibly be contended that English prose, as an art, is but a secondary stream of the Pierian fount, and owes its very origin to the poets. The first writer one remembers with whom prose became an art was Sir Philip Sidney. And Sidney was a poet.</p> <p>This quotation is relevant to a consideration of Hilaire Belloc, because Belloc is a poet who happens to be known chiefly for his prose. His <i>Danton</i> and <i>Robespierre</i> have been read by every intelligent student of French history, his <i>Path to Rome</i>, that most high-spirited and engaging of travel books, has passed through many editions, his political writings are known to all lovers&mdash;and many foes&mdash;of democracy, his whimsically imaginative novels have their large and appreciative<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</SPAN></span> audience, and his exquisite brief essays are contemporary classics. And since the unforgetable month of August of the unforgetable year 1914, Hilaire Belloc has added to the number of his friends many thousands who care little for <i>belles lettres</i> and less for the French Revolution&mdash;he has become certainly the most popular, and by general opinion the shrewdest and best informed, of all chroniclers and critics of the Great War.</p> <p>There is nothing, it may be said, about these achievements to indicate the poet. How can this most public of publicists woo the shy and exacting Muse? His superabundant energy may now and again overflow in little lyrical rivulets, but how can he find time to turn it into the deep channels of song?</p> <p>Well, what is the difference between a poet who writes prose and a prose-writer who writes verse? The difference is easy to see but hard to describe. Mr. Thomas Hardy is a prose writer. He has forsaken the novel, of which he was so distinguished a master, to make cynical little sonnet portraits and to pour the acid wine of his philosophy&mdash;a sort of perverted Presbyterianism<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</SPAN></span>&mdash;into the graceful amphora of poetic drama. But he is not a poet. Thackeray was a prose-writer, in spite of his delicious light verse. Every novelist writes or has written verse, but not all of them are poets.</p> <p>Of course, Sir Walter Scott was first of all a poet&mdash;the greatest poet who ever wrote a novel. And no one who has read <i>Love in the Valley</i> can hesitate to give Meredith his proper title. Was Macaulay a poet? I think so&mdash;but perhaps I am in a hopeless minority in my belief that the author of <i>The Battle of Naseby</i> and <i>The Lays of Ancient Rome</i> was the last of the great English ballad makers.</p> <p>But this general truth cannot, I think, honestly be denied; there have been many great poets who have devoted most of their lives to writing prose. Some of them have died without discovering their neglected talent. I think that Walter Pater was one of these; much that is annoyingly subtle or annoyingly elaborate in his essays needs only rhyme and rhythm&mdash;the lovely accidents of poetry&mdash;to become graceful and appropriate. His famous description of the Mona Lisa is worthless if considered as a piece of serious æsthetic criticism.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</SPAN></span> But it would make an admirable sonnet. And it is significant that Walter Pater&#8217;s two greatest pupils&mdash;Lionel Johnson and Father Gerard Hopkins, S.J.,&mdash;found expression for their genius not in prose, the chosen medium of their &#8220;unforgetably most gracious friend,&#8221; but in verse.</p> <p>From Walter Pater, that exquisite of letters, to the robust Hilaire Belloc may seem a long journey. But there is, I insist, this similarity between these contrasting writers, both are poets, and both are known to fame by their prose.</p> <p>For proof that Walter Pater was a poet, it is necessary only to read his <i>Renaissance Studies</i> or his interpretations&mdash;unsound but fascinating&mdash;of the soul of ancient Greece. Often his essays, too delicately accurate in phrasing or too heavily laden with golden rhetoric, seem almost to cry aloud for the relief of rhyme and rhythm.</p> <p>Now, Hilaire Belloc suggests in many of his prose sketches that he is not using his true medium. I remember a brief essay on sleep which appeared in <i>The New Witness</i>&mdash;or, as it was then called, <i>The Eye Witness</i>&mdash;several years ago, which was not so much a complete work in itself as it was a draft for a poem. It had the economy of phrase,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</SPAN></span> the concentration of idea, which is proper to poetry.</p> <p>But it is not necessary in the case of Hilaire Belloc, as it is in that of Walter Pater, to search pages of prose for proof that their author is a poet. Now and then&mdash;all too seldom&mdash;the idea in this man&#8217;s brain has insisted on its right, has scorned the proffered dress of prose, however fine of warp and woof, however stiff with rich verbal embroidery, and has demanded its rhymed and rhythmed wedding garments. Therefore, for proof that Hilaire Belloc is a poet it is necessary only to read his poetry.</p> <h3>II</h3> <p>Hilaire Belloc is a poet. Also he is a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Oxford man, a Roman Catholic, a country gentleman, a soldier, a democrat, and a practical journalist. He is always all these things.</p> <p>One sign that he is naturally a poet is that he is never deliberately a poet. No one can imagine him writing a poem to order&mdash;even to his own order. The poems knock at the door of his brain and demand to be let out. And he lets them out,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</SPAN></span> carelessly enough, setting them comfortably down on paper simply because that is the treatment they desire. And this happens to be the way all real poetry is made.</p> <p>Not that all verse makers work that way. There are men who come upon a waterfall or mountain or an emotion and say: &#8220;Aha! here is something out of which I can extract a poem!&#8221; And they sit down in front of that waterfall or mountain or emotion and think up clever things to say about it. These things they put into metrical form, and the result they fondly call a poem.</p> <p>There&#8217;s no harm in that. It&#8217;s good exercise for the mind, and of it comes much interesting verse. But it is not the way in which the sum of the world&#8217;s literature is increased.</p> <p>Could anything, for example, be less studied, be more clearly marked with the stigmata of that noble spontaneity we call inspiration, than the passionate, rushing, irresistible lines &#8220;To the Balliol Men Still in Africa&#8221;? Like Gilbert K. Chesterton and many another English democrat, Hilaire Belloc deeply resented his country&#8217;s war upon the Boers. Yet his heart went out to the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</SPAN></span> friends of his university days who were fighting in Africa. They were fighting, he thought, in an unjust cause; but they were his friends and they were, at any rate, fighting. And so he made something that seems (like all great writing) an utterance rather than a composition; he put his love of war in general and his hatred of this war in particular, his devotion to Balliol and to the friends of his youth into one of the very few pieces of genuine poetry which the Boer War produced. Nor has any of Oxford&#8217;s much-sung colleges known praise more fit than this</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse1">&#8220;House that armours a man</div> <div class="indent">With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger,</div> <div class="verse">And a laughing way in the teeth of the world,</div> <div class="indent">And a holy hunger and thirst for danger.&#8221;</div> </div></div> <p>But perhaps a more typical example of Hilaire Belloc&#8217;s wanton genius is to be found not among those poems which are, throughout, the beautiful expressions of beautiful impressions, but among those which are careless, whimsical, colloquial. There is that delightful, but somewhat exasperating <i>Dedicatory Ode</i>. Hilaire Belloc is talking&mdash;charmingly, as is his custom&mdash;to some of his friends, who had belonged, in their university days,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</SPAN></span> to a youthful revolutionary organization called the Republican Club. He happens to be talking in verse, for no particular reason except that it amuses him to talk in verse. He makes a number of excellent jokes, and enjoys them very much; his Pegasus is cantering down the road at a jolly gait, when suddenly, to the amazement of the spectators, it spreads out great golden wings and flashes like a meteor across the vault of heaven! We have been laughing at the droll tragedy of the opium-smoking Uncle Paul; we have been enjoying the humorous spectacle of the contemplative freshman&mdash;and suddenly we come upon a bit of astonishingly fine poetry. Who would expect, in all this whimsical and jovial writing, to find this really great stanza?</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse1">&#8220;From quiet homes and first beginning,</div> <div class="indent">Out to the undiscovered ends.</div> <div class="verse">There&#8217;s nothing worth the wear of winning,</div> <div class="indent">But laughter and the love of friends.&#8221;</div> </div></div> <p>Who having read these four lines, can forget them? And who but a poet could write them? But Hilaire Belloc has not forced himself into this high mood, nor does he bother to maintain it. He gaily passes on to another verse of drollery,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[xix]</SPAN></span> and then, not because he wishes to bring the poem to an effective climax, but merely because it happens to be his mood, he ends the escapade he calls an Ode with eight or ten stanzas of nobly beautiful poetry.</p> <p>There is something almost uncanny about the flashes of inspiration which dart out at the astonished reader of Hilaire Belloc&#8217;s most frivolous verses. Let me alter a famous epigram and call his light verse a circus illuminated by lightning. There is that monumental burlesque, the Newdigate Poem&mdash;<i>A Prize Poem Submitted by Mr. Lambkin of Burford to the Examiners of the University of Oxford on the Prescribed Poetic Theme Set by Them in 1893, &#8220;The Benefits of the Electric Light.&#8221;</i> It is a tremendous joke; with every line the reader echoes the author&#8217;s laughter. But without the slightest warning, Hilaire Belloc passes from the rollicking burlesque to shrewd satire; he has been merrily jesting with a bladder on a stick, he suddenly draws a gleaming rapier and thrusts it into the heart of error. He makes Mr. Lambkin say:</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[xx]</SPAN></span></p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse1">&#8220;Life is a veil, its paths are dark and rough</div> <div class="verse">Only because we do not know enough:</div> <div class="verse">When Science has discovered something more</div> <div class="verse">We shall be happier than we were before.&#8221;</div> </div></div> <p>Here we find the directness and restraint which belong to really great satire. This is the materialistic theory, the religion of Science, not burlesqued, not parodied, but merely stated nakedly, without the verbal frills and furbelows with which our forward-looking leaders of popular thought are accustomed to cover its obscene absurdity. Almost these very words have been uttered in a dozen &#8220;rationalistic&#8221; pulpits I could mention, pulpits occupied by robustuous practical gentlemen with very large eyes, great favourites with the women&#8217;s clubs. Their pet doctrines, their only and most offensive dogma, is not attacked, is not ridiculed; it is merely stated for them, in all kindness and simplicity. They cannot answer it, they cannot deny that it is a mercilessly fair statement of the &#8220;philosophy&#8221; that is their stock in trade. I hope that many of them will read it.</p> <h3>III</h3> <p>Hilaire Belloc was born July 27, 1870. He<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</SPAN></span> was educated at the Oratory School, Edgbaston, and at Balliol College, Oxford. After leaving school he served as a driver in the Eighth Regiment of French Artillery at Toul Meurthe-et-Moselle, being at that time a French citizen. Later he was naturalized as a British subject, and entered the House of Commons in 1906 as Liberal Member for South Salford. British politicians will not soon forget the motion which Hilaire Belloc introduced one day in the early Spring of 1908, the motion that the Party funds, hitherto secretly administered, be publicly audited. His vigorous and persistent campaign against the party system has placed him, with Cecil Chesterton, in the very front ranks of those to whom the democrats of Great Britain must look for leadership and inspiration. He was always a keen student of military affairs; he prophesied, long before the event, the present international conflict, describing with astonishing accuracy the details of the German invasion of Belgium and the resistance of Liège. Now he occupies a unique position among the journalists who comment upon the War, having tremendously increased the circulation of <i>Land and Water</i>, the periodical for which he writes<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</SPAN></span> regularly, and lecturing to a huge audience once a week on the events of the War in one of the largest of London&#8217;s concert halls&mdash;Queen&#8217;s Hall, where the same vast crowds that listen to the War lectures used to gather to hear the works of the foremost German composers.</p> <h3>IV</h3> <p>Hilaire Belloc, as I have said, is a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Oxford man, a country gentleman, a soldier, a democrat, and a practical journalist. In all these characters he utters his poetry. As a Frenchman, he is vivacious and gallant and quick. He has the noble English frankness, and that broad irresistible English mirthfulness which is so much more inclusive than that narrow possession, a sense of humour. Democrat though he is, there is about him something of the atmosphere of the country squire of some generations ago; it is in his heartiness, his jovial dignity, his deep love of the land. The author of <i>The South Country</i> and <i>Courtesy</i> has made Sussex his inalienable possession; he owns Sussex, as Dickens owns London, and Blackmore owns Devonshire. And he<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</SPAN></span> is thoroughly a soldier, a happy warrior, as brave and dextrous, no one can doubt, with a sword of steel as with a sword of words.</p> <p>He has taken the most severe risk which a poet can take: he has written poems about childhood. What happened when the late Algernon Charles Swinburne bent his energies to the task of celebrating this theme? As the result of his solemn meditation on the mystery of childhood, he arrived at two conclusions, which he melodiously announced to the world. They were, first, that the face of a baby wearing a plush cap looks like a moss-rose bud in its soft sheath, and, second, that &#8220;astrolabe&#8221; rhymes with &#8220;babe.&#8221; Very charming, of course, but certainly unworthy of a great poet. And upon this the obvious comment is that Swinburne was not a great poet. He took a theme terribly great and terribly simple, and about it he wrote ... something rather pretty.</p> <p>Now, when a really great poet&mdash;Francis Thompson, for example&mdash;has before him such a theme as childhood, he does not spend his time making far-fetched comparisons with moss-rose buds, or hunting for words that rhyme with &#8220;babe.&#8221; Childhood suggests Him Who made<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</SPAN></span> childhood sacred, so the poet writes <i>Ex Ore Infantium</i>, or such a poem as that which ends with the line:</p> <p class="center">&#8220;Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.&#8221;</p> <p>A poet may write pleasingly about mountains, and cyclones, and battles, and the love of woman, but if he is at all timid about the verdict of posterity he should avoid the theme of childhood as he would avoid the plague. For only great poets can write about childhood poems worthy to be printed.</p> <p>Hilaire Belloc has written poems about children, and they are worthy to be printed. He is never ironic when he thinks about childhood; he is gay, whimsical, with a slight suggestion of elfin cynicism, but he is direct, as a child is direct. He has written two dedicatory poems for books to be given to children; they are slight things but they are a revelation of their author&#8217;s power to do what only a very few poets can do, that is, to enter into the heart and mind of the child, following that advice which has its literary as well as moral significance, to &#8220;become as a little child.&#8221;</p> <p>And in many of Hilaire Belloc&#8217;s poems by no<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</SPAN></span> means intended for childish audiences there is an appealing simplicity that is genuinely and beautifully childish, something quite different from the adult and highly artificial simplicity of Professor A. E. Housman&#8217;s <i>A Shropshire Lad</i>. Take that quatrain <i>The Early Morning</i>. It is as clear and cool as the time it celebrates; it is absolutely destitute of rhetorical indulgence, poetical inversions or &#8220;literary&#8221; phrasing. It is, in fact, conversation&mdash;inspired conversation, which is poetry. It might have been written by a Wordsworth not painfully self-conscious, or by a Blake whose brain was not as yet muddled with impressionistic metaphysics.</p> <p>And his Christmas carols&mdash;they are fit to be sung by a chorus of children. Can any songs of the sort receive higher praise than that? Children, too, appreciate <i>The Birds</i> and <i>Our Lord and Our Lady</i>. Nor is that wonderful prayer rather flatly called <i>In a Boat</i> beyond the reach of their intelligence.</p> <p>Naturally enough, Hilaire Belloc is strongly drawn to the almost violent simplicity of the ballad. Bishop Percy would not have enjoyed the theological and political atmosphere of <i>The Little</i><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</SPAN></span> <i>Serving Maid</i>, but he would have acknowledged its irresistible charm. There is that wholly delightful poem <i>The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter</i>&mdash;a most Bellocian vagabond. &#8220;He wandered everywhere he would: and all that he approved was sung, and most of what he saw was good.&#8221; Says Peter:</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse1">&#8220;If all that I have loved and seen</div> <div class="indent">Be with me on the Judgment Day,</div> <div class="verse">I shall be saved the crowd between</div> <div class="indent">From Satan and his foul array.&#8221;</div> </div></div> <p>Hilaire Belloc has seen much and loved much. He has sung lustily the things he approved&mdash;with what hearty hatred has he sung the things he disapproved!</p> <h3>V</h3> <p>Hilaire Belloc is not the man to spend much time in analysing his own emotions; he is not, thank God, a poetical psychologist. Love songs, drinking songs, battle songs&mdash;it is with these primitive and democratic things that he is chiefly concerned.</p> <p>But there is something more democratic than<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</SPAN></span> wine or love or war. That thing is Faith. And Hilaire Belloc&#8217;s part in increasing the sum of the world&#8217;s beauty would not be the considerable thing that it is were it not for his Faith. It is not that (like Dante Gabriel Rossetti) he is attracted by the Church&#8217;s pageantry and wealth of legend. To Hilaire Belloc the pageantry is only incidental, the essential thing is his Catholic Faith. He writes convincingly about Our Lady and Saint Joseph and the Child Jesus because he himself is convinced. He does not delve into mediæval tradition in quest of picturesque incidents, he merely writes what he knows to be true. His Faith furnishes him with the theme for those of his poems which are most likely to endure; his Faith gives him the &#8220;rapture of an inspiration.&#8221; His Faith enables him, as it has enabled many another poet, to see &#8220;in the lamp that is beauty, the light that is God.&#8221;</p> <p>And therein is Hilaire Belloc most thoroughly and consistently a democrat. For in this twentieth century it happens that there is on earth only one genuine democratic institution. And that institution is the Catholic Church.</p> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">TO DIVES</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Dives,</span> when you and I go down to Hell,</div> <div class="verse">Where scribblers end and millionaires as well,</div> <div class="verse">We shall be carrying on our separate backs</div> <div class="verse">Two very large but very different packs;</div> <div class="verse">And as you stagger under yours, my friend,</div> <div class="verse">Down the dull shore where all our journeys end,</div> <div class="verse">And go before me (as your rank demands)</div> <div class="verse">Towards the infinite flat underlands,</div> <div class="verse">And that dear river of forgetfulness&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Charon, a man of exquisite address</div> <div class="verse">(For, as your wife&#8217;s progenitors could tell,</div> <div class="verse">They&#8217;re very strict on etiquette in Hell),</div> <div class="verse">Will, since you are a lord, observe, &#8220;My lord,</div> <div class="verse">We cannot take these weighty things aboard!&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">Then down they go, my wretched Dives, down&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">The fifteen sorts of boots you kept for town,</div> <div class="verse">The hat to meet the Devil in; the plain</div> <div class="verse">But costly ties; the cases of champagne;</div> <div class="verse">The solid watch, and seal, and chain, and charm;</div> <div class="verse">The working model of a Burning Farm</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">(To give the little Belials); all the three</div> <div class="verse">Biscuits for Cerberus; the guarantee</div> <div class="verse">From Lambeth that the Rich can never burn,</div> <div class="verse">And even promising a safe return;</div> <div class="verse">The admirable overcoat, designed</div> <div class="verse">To cross Cocytus&mdash;very warmly lined:</div> <div class="verse">Sweet Dives, you will leave them all behind</div> <div class="verse">And enter Hell as tattered and as bare</div> <div class="verse">As was your father when he took the air</div> <div class="verse">Behind a barrow-load in Leicester Square.</div> <div class="verse">Then turned to me, and noting one that brings</div> <div class="verse">With careless step a mist of shadowy things:</div> <div class="verse">Laughter and memories, and a few regrets,</div> <div class="verse">Some honour, and a quantity of debts,</div> <div class="verse">A doubt or two of sorts, a trust in God,</div> <div class="verse">And (what will seem to you extremely odd)</div> <div class="verse">His father&#8217;s granfer&#8217;s father&#8217;s father&#8217;s name,</div> <div class="verse">Unspoilt, untitled, even spelt the same;</div> <div class="verse">Charon, who twenty thousand times before</div> <div class="verse">Has ferried Poets to the ulterior shore,</div> <div class="verse">Will estimate the weight I bear, and cry&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;Comrade!&#8221; (He has himself been known to try</div> <div class="verse">His hand at Latin and Italian verse,</div> <div class="verse">Much in the style of Virgil&mdash;only worse)</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">&#8220;We let such vain imaginaries pass!&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">Then tell me, Dives, which will look the ass&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">You, or myself? Or Charon? Who can tell?</div> <div class="verse">They order things so damnably in Hell.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">STANZAS WRITTEN ON BATTERSEA<br/> BRIDGE DURING A SOUTH-WESTERLY<br/> GALE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> woods and downs have caught the mid-December,</div> <div class="indent">The noisy woods and high sea-downs of home;</div> <div class="verse">The wind has found me and I do remember</div> <div class="indent">The strong scent of the foam.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Woods, darlings of my wandering feet, another</div> <div class="indent">Possesses you, another treads the Down;</div> <div class="verse">The South West Wind that was my elder brother</div> <div class="indent">Has come to me in town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The wind is shouting from the hills of morning,</div> <div class="indent">I do remember and I will not stay.</div> <div class="verse">I&#8217;ll take the Hampton road without a warning</div> <div class="indent">And get me clean away.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The Channel is up, the little seas are leaping,</div> <div class="indent">The tide is making over Arun Bar;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And there&#8217;s my boat, where all the rest are sleeping</div> <div class="indent">And my companions are.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I&#8217;ll board her, and apparel her, and I&#8217;ll mount her,</div> <div class="indent">My boat, that was the strongest friend to me&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">That brought my boyhood to its first encounter</div> <div class="indent">And taught me the wide sea.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Now shall I drive her, roaring hard a&#8217; weather,</div> <div class="indent">Right for the salt and leave them all behind.</div> <div class="verse">We&#8217;ll quite forget the treacherous streets together</div> <div class="indent">And find&mdash;or shall we find?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There is no Pilotry my soul relies on</div> <div class="indent">Whereby to catch beneath my bended hand,</div> <div class="verse">Faint and beloved along the extreme horizon</div> <div class="indent">That unforgotten land.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We shall not round the granite piers and paven</div> <div class="indent">To lie to wharves we know with canvas furled.</div> <div class="verse">My little Boat, we shall not make the haven&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">It is not of the world.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Somewhere of English forelands grandly guarded</div> <div class="indent">It stands, but not for exiles, marked and clean;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Oh! not for us. A mist has risen and marred it:&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">My youth lies in between.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">So in this snare that holds me and appals me,</div> <div class="indent">Where honour hardly lives nor loves remain,</div> <div class="verse">The Sea compels me and my Country calls me,</div> <div class="indent">But stronger things restrain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">England, to me that never have malingered,</div> <div class="indent">Nor spoken falsely, nor your flattery used,</div> <div class="verse">Nor even in my rightful garden lingered:&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">What have you not refused?</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE SOUTH COUNTRY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">When</span> I am living in the Midlands</div> <div class="indent">That are sodden and unkind,</div> <div class="verse">I light my lamp in the evening:</div> <div class="indent">My work is left behind;</div> <div class="verse">And the great hills of the South Country</div> <div class="indent">Come back into my mind.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The great hills of the South Country</div> <div class="indent">They stand along the sea;</div> <div class="verse">And it&#8217;s there walking in the high woods</div> <div class="indent">That I could wish to be,</div> <div class="verse">And the men that were boys when I was a boy</div> <div class="indent">Walking along with me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The men that live in North England</div> <div class="indent">I saw them for a day:</div> <div class="verse">Their hearts are set upon the waste fells,</div> <div class="indent">Their skies are fast and grey;</div> <div class="verse">From their castle-walls a man may see</div> <div class="indent">The mountains far away.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The men that live in West England</div> <div class="indent">They see the Severn strong,</div> <div class="verse">A-rolling on rough water brown</div> <div class="indent">Light aspen leaves along.</div> <div class="verse">They have the secret of the Rocks,</div> <div class="indent">And the oldest kind of song.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But the men that live in the South Country</div> <div class="indent">Are the kindest and most wise,</div> <div class="verse">They get their laughter from the loud surf,</div> <div class="indent">And the faith in their happy eyes</div> <div class="verse">Comes surely from our Sister the Spring</div> <div class="indent">When over the sea she flies;</div> <div class="verse">The violets suddenly bloom at her feet,</div> <div class="indent">She blesses us with surprise.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I never get between the pines</div> <div class="indent">But I smell the Sussex air;</div> <div class="verse">Nor I never come on a belt of sand</div> <div class="indent">But my home is there.</div> <div class="verse">And along the sky the line of the Downs</div> <div class="indent">So noble and so bare.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A lost thing could I never find,</div> <div class="indent">Nor a broken thing mend:</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And I fear I shall be all alone</div> <div class="indent">When I get towards the end.</div> <div class="verse">Who will there be to comfort me</div> <div class="indent">Or who will be my friend?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I will gather and carefully make my friends</div> <div class="indent">Of the men of the Sussex Weald,</div> <div class="verse">They watch the stars from silent folds,</div> <div class="indent">They stiffly plough the field.</div> <div class="verse">By them and the God of the South Country</div> <div class="indent">My poor soul shall be healed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">If I ever become a rich man,</div> <div class="indent">Or if ever I grow to be old,</div> <div class="verse">I will build a house with deep thatch</div> <div class="indent">To shelter me from the cold,</div> <div class="verse">And there shall the Sussex songs be sung</div> <div class="indent">And the story of Sussex told.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I will hold my house in the high wood</div> <div class="indent">Within a walk of the sea,</div> <div class="verse">And the men that were boys when I was a boy</div> <div class="indent">Shall sit and drink with me.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FANATIC</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Last</span> night in Compton Street, Soho,</div> <div class="verse">A man whom many of you know</div> <div class="verse">Gave up the ghost at half past nine.</div> <div class="verse">That evening he had been to dine</div> <div class="verse">At Gressington&#8217;s&mdash;an act unwise,</div> <div class="verse">But not the cause of his demise.</div> <div class="verse">The doctors all agree that he</div> <div class="verse">Was touched with cardiac atrophy</div> <div class="verse">Accelerated (more or less)</div> <div class="verse">By lack of proper food, distress,</div> <div class="verse">Uncleanliness, and loss of sleep.</div> <div class="indent">He was a man that could not keep</div> <div class="verse">His money (when he had the same)</div> <div class="verse">Because of creditors who came</div> <div class="verse">And took it from him; and he gave</div> <div class="verse">So freely that he could not save.</div> <div class="indent">But all the while a sort of whim</div> <div class="verse">Persistently remained with him,</div> <div class="verse">Half admirable, half absurd:</div> <div class="verse">To keep his word, to keep his word....</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">By which he did not mean what you</div> <div class="verse">And I would mean (of payments due</div> <div class="verse">Or punctual rental of the Flat&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">He was a deal too mad for that)</div> <div class="verse">But&mdash;as he put it with a fine</div> <div class="verse">Abandon, foolish or divine&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">But &#8220;That great word which every man</div> <div class="verse">Gave God before his life began.&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">It was a sacred word, he said,</div> <div class="verse">Which comforted the pathless dead</div> <div class="verse">And made God smile when it was shown</div> <div class="verse">Unforfeited, before the Throne.</div> <div class="verse">And this (he said) he meant to hold</div> <div class="verse">In spite of debt, and hate, and cold;</div> <div class="verse">And this (he said) he meant to show</div> <div class="verse">As passport to the wards below.</div> <div class="verse">He boasted of it and gave praise</div> <div class="verse">To his own self through all his days.</div> <div class="indent">He wrote a record to preserve</div> <div class="verse">How steadfastly he did not swerve</div> <div class="verse">From keeping it; how stiff he stood</div> <div class="verse">Its guardian, and maintained it good.</div> <div class="verse">He had two witnesses to swear</div> <div class="verse">He kept it once in Berkeley Square.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">(Where hardly anything survives)</div> <div class="verse">And, through the loneliest of lives</div> <div class="verse">He kept it clean, he kept it still,</div> <div class="verse">Down to the last extremes of ill.</div> <div class="indent">So when he died, of many friends</div> <div class="verse">Who came in crowds from all the ends</div> <div class="verse">Of London, that it might be known</div> <div class="verse">They knew the man who died alone,</div> <div class="verse">Some, who had thought his mood sublime</div> <div class="verse">And sent him soup from time to time,</div> <div class="verse">Said, &#8220;Well, you cannot make them fit</div> <div class="verse">The world, and there&#8217;s an end of it!&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">But others, wondering at him, said:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;The man that kept his word is dead!&#8221;</div> <div class="indent">Then angrily, a certain third</div> <div class="verse">Cried, &#8220;Gentlemen, he kept his word.</div> <div class="verse">And as a man whom beasts surround</div> <div class="verse">Tumultuous, on a little mound</div> <div class="verse">Stands Archer, for one dreadful hour,</div> <div class="verse">Because a Man is borne to Power&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">And still, to daunt the pack below,</div> <div class="verse">Twangs the clear purpose of his bow,</div> <div class="verse">Till overwhelmed he dares to fall:</div> <div class="verse">So stood this bulwark of us all.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">He kept his word as none but he</div> <div class="verse">Could keep it, and as did not we.</div> <div class="verse">And round him as he kept his word</div> <div class="verse">To-day&#8217;s diseased and faithless herd,</div> <div class="verse">A moment loud, a moment strong,</div> <div class="verse">But foul forever, rolled along.&#8221;</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">NOËL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">On a winter&#8217;s night long time ago</div> <div class="indent2">(<i>The bells ring loud and the bells ring low</i>),</div> <div class="verse">When high howled wind, and down fell snow</div> <div class="indent2">(Carillon, Carilla).</div> <div class="verse">Saint Joseph he and Notre Dame,</div> <div class="verse">Riding on an ass, full weary came</div> <div class="verse">From Nazareth into Bethlehem.</div> <div class="indent2">And the small child Jesus smile on you.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And Bethlehem inn they stood before</div> <div class="indent2">(<i>The bells ring less and the bells ring more</i>),</div> <div class="verse">The landlord bade them begone from his door</div> <div class="indent2">(Carillon, Carilla).</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;Poor folk&#8221; (says he), &#8220;must lie where they may,</div> <div class="verse">For the Duke of Jewry comes this way,</div> <div class="verse">With all his train on a Christmas Day.&#8221;</div> <div class="indent2">And the small child Jesus smile on you.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</SPAN></span></p> <h3>III</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Poor folk that may my carol hear</div> <div class="indent2">(<i>The bells ring single and the bells ring clear</i>),</div> <div class="verse">See! God&#8217;s one child had hardest cheer!</div> <div class="indent2">(Carillon, Carilla).</div> <div class="verse">Men grown hard on a Christmas morn;</div> <div class="verse">The dumb beast by and a babe forlorn.</div> <div class="verse">It was very, very cold when our Lord was born.</div> <div class="indent2">And the small child Jesus smile on you.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>IV</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Now these were Jews as Jews must be</div> <div class="indent2">(<i>The bells ring merry and the bells ring free</i>),</div> <div class="verse">But Christian men in a band are we</div> <div class="indent2">(Carillon, Carilla).</div> <div class="verse">Empty we go, and ill be-dight,</div> <div class="verse">Singing Noël on a Winter&#8217;s night.</div> <div class="verse">Give us to sup by the warm firelight,</div> <div class="indent2">And the small child Jesus smile on you.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE EARLY MORNING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:</div> <div class="verse">The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.</div> <div class="verse">The moon on my left and the dawn on my right.</div> <div class="verse">My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE BIRDS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">When Jesus Christ was four years old,</div> <div class="verse">The angels brought Him toys of gold,</div> <div class="verse">Which no man ever had bought or sold.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And yet with these He would not play.</div> <div class="verse">He made Him small fowl out of clay,</div> <div class="verse">And blessed them till they flew away:</div> <div class="indent5"><i>Tu creasti Domine</i>.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Jesus Christ, Thou child so wise,</div> <div class="verse">Bless mine hands and fill mine eyes,</div> <div class="verse">And bring my soul to Paradise.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">OUR LORD AND OUR LADY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">They</span> warned Our Lady for the Child</div> <div class="indent">That was Our blessed Lord,</div> <div class="verse">And She took Him into the desert wild,</div> <div class="indent">Over the camel&#8217;s ford.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And a long song She sang to Him</div> <div class="indent">And a short story told:</div> <div class="verse">And She wrapped Him in a woollen cloak</div> <div class="indent">To keep Him from the cold.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But when Our Lord was grown a man</div> <div class="indent">The Rich they dragged Him down,</div> <div class="verse">And they crucified Him in Golgotha,</div> <div class="indent">Out and beyond the Town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They crucified Him on Calvary,</div> <div class="indent">Upon an April day;</div> <div class="verse">And because He had been her little Son</div> <div class="indent">She followed Him all the way.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Our Lady stood beside the Cross,</div> <div class="indent">A little space apart,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And when She heard Our Lord cry out</div> <div class="indent">A sword went through Her Heart.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They laid Our Lord in a marble tomb,</div> <div class="indent">Dead, in a winding sheet.</div> <div class="verse">But Our Lady stands above the world</div> <div class="indent">With the white Moon at Her feet.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">IN A BOAT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Lady!</span> Lady!</div> <div class="verse">Upon Heaven-height,</div> <div class="verse">Above the harsh morning</div> <div class="verse">In the mere light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Above the spindrift</div> <div class="verse">And above the snow,</div> <div class="verse">Where no seas tumble,</div> <div class="verse">And no winds blow.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The twisting tides,</div> <div class="verse">And the perilous sands</div> <div class="verse">Upon all sides</div> <div class="verse">Are in your holy hands.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The wind harries</div> <div class="verse">And the cold kills;</div> <div class="verse">But I see your chapel</div> <div class="verse">Over far hills.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">My body is frozen,</div> <div class="verse">My soul is afraid:</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Stretch out your hands to me,</div> <div class="verse">Mother and maid.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Mother of Christ,</div> <div class="verse">And Mother of me,</div> <div class="verse">Save me alive</div> <div class="verse">From the howl of the sea.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">If you will Mother me</div> <div class="verse">Till I grow old,</div> <div class="verse">I will hang in your chapel</div> <div class="verse">A ship of pure gold.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">COURTESY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Of</span> Courtesy, it is much less</div> <div class="verse">Than Courage of Heart or Holiness,</div> <div class="verse">Yet in my Walks it seems to me</div> <div class="verse">That the Grace of God is in Courtesy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">On Monks I did in Storrington fall,</div> <div class="verse">They took me straight into their Hall;</div> <div class="verse">I saw Three Pictures on a wall,</div> <div class="verse">And Courtesy was in them all.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The first the Annunciation;</div> <div class="verse">The second the Visitation;</div> <div class="verse">The third the Consolation,</div> <div class="verse">Of God that was Our Lady&#8217;s Son.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The first was of Saint Gabriel;</div> <div class="verse">On Wings a-flame from Heaven he fell;</div> <div class="verse">And as he went upon one knee</div> <div class="verse">He shone with Heavenly Courtesy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Our Lady out of Nazareth rode&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">It was Her month of heavy load;</div> <div class="verse">Yet was Her face both great and kind,</div> <div class="verse">For Courtesy was in Her Mind.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The third it was our Little Lord,</div> <div class="verse">Whom all the Kings in arms adored;</div> <div class="verse">He was so small you could not see</div> <div class="verse">His large intent of Courtesy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Our Lord, that was Our Lady&#8217;s Son,</div> <div class="verse">Go bless you, People, one by one;</div> <div class="verse">My Rhyme is written, my work is done.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE NIGHT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Most</span> holy Night, that still dost keep</div> <div class="verse">The keys of all the doors of sleep,</div> <div class="verse">To me when my tired eyelids close</div> <div class="indent2">Give thou repose.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And let the far lament of them</div> <div class="verse">That chaunt the dead day&#8217;s requiem</div> <div class="verse">Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,</div> <div class="indent2">Soft lullaby.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Let them that guard the horned moon</div> <div class="verse">By my bedside their memories croon.</div> <div class="verse">So shall I have new dreams and blest</div> <div class="indent2">In my brief rest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Fold your great wings about my face,</div> <div class="verse">Hide dawning from my resting-place,</div> <div class="verse">And cheat me with your false delight,</div> <div class="indent2">Most Holy Night.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE LEADER</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> sword fell down: I heard a knell;</div> <div class="indent">I thought that ease was best,</div> <div class="verse">And sullen men that buy and sell</div> <div class="indent">Were host: and I was guest.</div> <div class="verse">All unashamed I sat with swine,</div> <div class="indent">We shook the dice for war,</div> <div class="verse">The night was drunk with an evil wine&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">But she went on before.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent2"><i>She rode a steed of the sea-foam breed,</i></div> <div class="indent3"><i>All faery was her blade,</i></div> <div class="indent2"><i>And the armour on her tender limbs</i></div> <div class="indent3"><i>Was of the moonshine made.</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">By God that sends the master-maids,</div> <div class="indent">I know not whence she came,</div> <div class="verse">But the sword she bore to save the soul</div> <div class="indent">Went up like an altar flame</div> <div class="verse">Where a broken race in a desert place</div> <div class="indent">Call on the Holy Name.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent2"><i>We strained our eyes in the dim day-rise,</i></div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</SPAN></span> <div class="indent3"><i>We could not see them plain;</i></div> <div class="indent2"><i>But two dead men from Valmy fen</i></div> <div class="indent3"><i>Rode at her bridle-rein.</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I hear them all, my fathers call,</div> <div class="indent">I see them how they ride,</div> <div class="verse">And where had been that rout obscene</div> <div class="indent">Was an army straight with pride.</div> <div class="verse">A hundred thousand marching men,</div> <div class="indent">Of squadrons twenty score,</div> <div class="verse">And after them all the guns, the guns,</div> <div class="indent">But she went on before.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent2"><i>Her face was like a king&#8217;s command</i> </div> <div class="indent3"><i>When all the swords are drawn.</i></div> <div class="indent2"><i>She stretched her arms and smiled at us,</i></div> <div class="indent2"><i>Her head was higher than the hills.</i></div> <div class="indent2"><i>She led us to the endless plains.</i></div> <div class="indent3"><i>We lost her in the dawn.</i></div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">A BIVOUAC</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">You</span> came without a human sound,</div> <div class="indent">You came and brought my soul to me;</div> <div class="verse">I only woke, and all around</div> <div class="verse">They slumbered on the firelit ground,</div> <div class="indent">Beside the guns in Burgundy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I felt the gesture of your hands,</div> <div class="indent">You signed my forehead with the Cross;</div> <div class="verse">The gesture of your holy hands</div> <div class="verse">Was bounteous&mdash;like the misty lands</div> <div class="indent">Along the Hills in Calvados.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>III</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But when I slept I saw your eyes,</div> <div class="indent">Hungry as death, and very far.</div> <div class="verse">I saw demand in your dim eyes</div> <div class="verse">Mysterious as the moons that rise</div> <div class="indent">At midnight, in the Pines of Var.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">TO THE BALLIOL MEN STILL IN AFRICA</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Years</span> ago when I was at Balliol,</div> <div class="indent">Balliol men&mdash;and I was one&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Swam together in winter rivers,</div> <div class="indent">Wrestled together under the sun.</div> <div class="verse">And still in the heart of us, Balliol, Balliol,</div> <div class="indent">Loved already, but hardly known,</div> <div class="verse">Welded us each of us into the others:</div> <div class="indent">Called a levy and chose her own.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Here is a House that armours a man</div> <div class="indent">With the eyes of a boy and the heart of a ranger,</div> <div class="verse">And a laughing way in the teeth of the world</div> <div class="indent">And a holy hunger and thirst for danger:</div> <div class="verse">Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,</div> <div class="indent">Whatever I had she gave me again:</div> <div class="verse">And the best of Balliol loved and led me.</div> <div class="indent">God be with you, Balliol men.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I have said it before, and I say it again,</div> <div class="indent">There was treason done, and a false word spoken,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And England under the dregs of men,</div> <div class="indent">And bribes about, and a treaty broken:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But angry, lonely, hating it still,</div> <div class="indent">I wished to be there in spite of the wrong.</div> <div class="verse">My heart was heavy for Cumnor Hill</div> <div class="indent">And the hammer of galloping all day long.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Galloping outward into the weather,</div> <div class="indent">Hands a-ready and battle in all:</div> <div class="verse">Words together and wine together</div> <div class="indent">And song together in Balliol Hall.</div> <div class="verse">Rare and single! Noble and few!...</div> <div class="indent">Oh! they have wasted you over the sea!</div> <div class="verse">The only brothers ever I knew,</div> <div class="indent">The men that laughed and quarrelled with me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Balliol made me, Balliol fed me,</div> <div class="indent">Whatever I had she gave me again;</div> <div class="verse">And the best of Balliol loved and led me,</div> <div class="indent">God be with you, Balliol men.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">VERSES TO A LORD</h2></div> <p class="center">WHO, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SAID THAT<br/> THOSE WHO OPPOSED THE SOUTH AFRICAN<br/> ADVENTURE CONFUSED SOLDIERS<br/> WITH MONEY-GRUBBERS</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">You</span> thought because we held, my lord,</div> <div class="indent">An ancient cause and strong,</div> <div class="verse">That therefore we maligned the sword:</div> <div class="indent">My lord, you did us wrong.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We also know the sacred height</div> <div class="indent">Up on Tugela side,</div> <div class="verse">Where those three hundred fought with Beit</div> <div class="indent">And fair young Wernher died.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The daybreak on the failing force,</div> <div class="indent">The final sabres drawn:</div> <div class="verse">Tall Goltman, silent on his horse,</div> <div class="indent">Superb against the dawn.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">The little mound where Eckstein stood</div> <div class="indent">And gallant Albu fell,</div> <div class="verse">And Oppenheim, half blind with blood,</div> <div class="verse">Went fording through the rising flood&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">My Lord, we know them well.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The little empty homes forlorn,</div> <div class="verse">The ruined synagogues that mourn,</div> <div class="indent">In Frankfort and Berlin;</div> <div class="verse">We knew them when the peace was torn&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">We of a nobler lineage born&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">And now by all the gods of scorn</div> <div class="indent">We mean to rub them in.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE REBEL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">There</span> is a wall of which the stones</div> <div class="verse">Are lies and bribes and dead men&#8217;s bones.</div> <div class="verse">And wrongfully this evil wall</div> <div class="verse">Denies what all men made for all,</div> <div class="verse">And shamelessly this wall surrounds</div> <div class="verse">Our homesteads and our native grounds.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But I will gather and I will ride,</div> <div class="verse">And I will summon a countryside,</div> <div class="verse">And many a man shall hear my halloa</div> <div class="verse">Who never had thought the horn to follow;</div> <div class="verse">And many a man shall ride with me</div> <div class="verse">Who never had thought on earth to see</div> <div class="verse">High Justice in her armoury.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">When we find them where they stand,</div> <div class="verse">A mile of men on either hand,</div> <div class="verse">I mean to charge from right away</div> <div class="verse">And force the flanks of their array,</div> <div class="verse">And press them inward from the plains,</div> <div class="verse">And drive them clamouring down the lanes,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And gallop and harry and have them down,</div> <div class="verse">And carry the gates and hold the town.</div> <div class="verse">Then shall I rest me from my ride</div> <div class="verse">With my great anger satisfied.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Only, before I eat and drink,</div> <div class="verse">When I have killed them all, I think</div> <div class="verse">That I will batter their carven names,</div> <div class="verse">And slit the pictures in their frames,</div> <div class="verse">And burn for scent their cedar door,</div> <div class="verse">And melt the gold their women wore,</div> <div class="verse">And hack their horses at the knees,</div> <div class="verse">And hew to death their timber trees,</div> <div class="verse">And plough their gardens deep and through&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">And all these things I mean to do</div> <div class="verse">For fear perhaps my little son</div> <div class="verse">Should break his hands, as I have done.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE PROPHET LOST IN THE HILLS<br/> AT EVENING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Strong</span> God which made the topmost stars</div> <div class="indent">To circulate and keep their course,</div> <div class="verse">Remember me; whom all the bars</div> <div class="indent">Of sense and dreadful fate enforce.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Above me in your heights and tall,</div> <div class="indent">Impassable the summits freeze,</div> <div class="verse">Below the haunted waters call</div> <div class="indent">Impassable beyond the trees.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I hunger and I have no bread.</div> <div class="indent">My gourd is empty of the wine.</div> <div class="verse">Surely the footsteps of the dead</div> <div class="indent">Are shuffling softly close to mine!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It darkens. I have lost the ford.</div> <div class="indent">There is a change on all things made.</div> <div class="verse">The rocks have evil faces, Lord,</div> <div class="indent">And I am awfully afraid.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Remember me! the Voids of Hell</div> <div class="indent">Expand enormous all around.</div> <div class="verse">Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel,</div> <div class="indent">Redeem me from accursed ground.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The long descent of wasted days,</div> <div class="indent">To these at last have led me down;</div> <div class="verse">Remember that I filled with praise</div> <div class="verse">The meaningless and doubtful ways</div> <div class="indent">That lead to an eternal town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I challenged and I kept the Faith,</div> <div class="indent">The bleeding path alone I trod;</div> <div class="verse">It darkens. Stand about my wraith,</div> <div class="indent">And harbour me&mdash;almighty God!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">SONG</h2></div> <p class="center">INVITING THE INFLUENCE OF A YOUNG LADY<br/> UPON THE OPENING YEAR</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">You</span> wear the morning like your dress</div> <div class="verse">And are with mastery crowned;</div> <div class="verse">Whenas you walk your loveliness</div> <div class="verse">Goes shining all around.</div> <div class="verse">Upon your secret, smiling way</div> <div class="verse">Such new contents were found,</div> <div class="verse">The Dancing Loves made holiday</div> <div class="verse">On that delightful ground.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then summon April forth, and send</div> <div class="verse">Commandment through the flowers;</div> <div class="verse">About our woods your grace extend</div> <div class="verse">A queen of careless hours.</div> <div class="verse">For oh, not Vera veiled in rain,</div> <div class="verse">Nor Dian&#8217;s sacred Ring,</div> <div class="verse">With all her royal nymphs in train</div> <div class="verse">Could so lead on the Spring.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE RING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">When</span> I was flying before the King</div> <div class="verse">In the wood of Valognes in my hiding,</div> <div class="verse">Although I had not anything</div> <div class="verse">I sent a woman a golden ring.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A Ring of the Moors beyond Leon</div> <div class="verse">With emerald and with diamond stone,</div> <div class="verse">And a writing no man ever had known,</div> <div class="verse">And an opal standing all alone.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The shape of the ring the heart to bind:</div> <div class="verse">The emerald turns from cold to kind:</div> <div class="verse">The writing makes her sure to find:&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">But the evil opal changed her mind.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Now when the King was dead, was he,</div> <div class="verse">I came back hurriedly over the sea</div> <div class="verse">From the long rocks in Normandy</div> <div class="verse">To Bosham that is by Selsey.</div> <div class="verse">And we clipt each other knee to knee.</div> <div class="verse">But what I had was lost to me.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">CUCKOO!</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">In</span> woods so long time bare.</div> <div class="indent2">Cuckoo!</div> <div class="verse">Up and in the wood, I know not where</div> <div class="verse">Two notes fall.</div> <div class="verse">Yet I do not envy him at all</div> <div class="verse">His phantasy.</div> <div class="verse">Cuckoo!</div> <div class="verse">I too,</div> <div class="verse">Somewhere,</div> <div class="verse">I have sung as merrily as he</div> <div class="verse">Who can dare,</div> <div class="verse">Small and careless lover, so to laugh at care,</div> <div class="verse">And who</div> <div class="verse">Can call</div> <div class="verse">Cuckoo!</div> <div class="verse">In woods of winter weary,</div> <div class="verse">In scented woods, of winter weary, call</div> <div class="verse">Cuckoo!</div> <div class="verse">In woods so long time bare.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE MIRROR</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> mirror held your Fair, my Fair,</div> <div class="indent">A fickle moment&#8217;s space;</div> <div class="verse">You looked into mine eyes and there</div> <div class="indent">For ever fixed your face.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Keep rather to your Looking Glass</div> <div class="indent">Than my more faithful eyes.</div> <div class="verse">It told the truth. Alas! my lass!</div> <div class="indent">My constant memory lies.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE LITTLE SERVING MAID</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">There</span> was a Queen of England,</div> <div class="indent">And a good Queen too.</div> <div class="verse">She had a house in Powis Land</div> <div class="indent">With the Severn running through;</div> <div class="verse">And Men-folk and Women-folk</div> <div class="indent">Apprenticed to a trade;</div> <div class="verse">But the prettiest of all</div> <div class="indent">Was a Little Serving Maid.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Oh Madam, Queen of England!</div> <div class="indent">Oh will you let me go!</div> <div class="verse">For there&#8217;s a Lad in London</div> <div class="indent">And he would have it so.</div> <div class="verse">And I would have it too, Madam,</div> <div class="indent">And with him would I bide;</div> <div class="verse">And he will be the Groom, Madam,</div> <div class="indent">And I shall be the Bride!&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span> <h3>III</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Oh fie to you and shame to you,</div> <div class="indent">You Little Serving Maid!</div> <div class="verse">And are you not astonied?</div> <div class="indent">And are you not afraid?</div> <div class="verse">For never was it known</div> <div class="indent">Since Yngelonde began</div> <div class="verse">That a Little Serving Maid</div> <div class="indent">Should go a-meeting of a man!&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>IV</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then the Little Serving Maid</div> <div class="indent">She went and laid her down,</div> <div class="verse">With her cross and her bede,</div> <div class="indent">In her new courting gown.</div> <div class="verse">And she called in Mother Mary&#8217;s name</div> <div class="indent">And heavily she sighed:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;I think that I have come to shame!&#8221;</div> <div class="indent">And after that she died.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>V</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The good Queen of England</div> <div class="indent">Her women came and ran:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;The Little Serving Maid is dead</div> <div class="indent">From loving of a man!&#8221;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Said the good Queen of England</div> <div class="indent">&#8220;That is ill news to hear!</div> <div class="verse">Take her out and shroud her,</div> <div class="indent">And lay her on a bier.&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>VI</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They laid her on a bier,</div> <div class="indent">In the court-yard all;</div> <div class="verse">Some came from Foresting,</div> <div class="indent">And some came from Hall.</div> <div class="verse">And Great Lords carried her,</div> <div class="indent">And proud Priests prayed.</div> <div class="verse">And that was the end</div> <div class="indent">Of the Little Serving Maid.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE END OF THE ROAD</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">In these boots and with this staff</span></div> <div class="verse">Two hundred leaguers and a half</div> <div class="verse">Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I,</div> <div class="verse">Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I,</div> <div class="verse">Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I;</div> <div class="verse">Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I,</div> <div class="verse">Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled,</div> <div class="verse">Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled;</div> <div class="verse">Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I,</div> <div class="verse">And in lonely spinnies camped I,</div> <div class="verse">And in haunted pinewoods slept I,</div> <div class="verse">Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I,</div> <div class="verse">Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I;</div> <div class="verse">Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I,</div> <div class="verse">And ... (Oh! Patron saints and Angels</div> <div class="indent5">That protect the four Evangels!</div> <div class="indent5">And you Prophets vel majores</div> <div class="indent5">Vel incerti, vel minores,</div> <div class="indent5">Virgines ac confessores</div> <div class="indent5">Chief of whose peculiar glories</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span> <div class="indent5">Est in Aula Regis stare</div> <div class="indent5">Atque orare et exorare</div> <div class="indent5">Et clamare et conclamare</div> <div class="indent5">Clamantes cum clamoribus</div> <div class="indent5">Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.)</div> <div class="verse">Let me not conceal it.... <i>Rode I.</i></div> <div class="verse">(For who but critics could complain</div> <div class="verse">Of &#8220;riding&#8221; in a railway train?)</div> <div class="verse">Across the valley and the high-land,</div> <div class="verse">With all the world on either hand</div> <div class="verse">Drinking when I had a mind to,</div> <div class="verse">Singing when I felt inclined to;</div> <div class="verse">Nor ever turned my face to home</div> <div class="verse">Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">AUVERGNAT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">There</span> was a man was half a clown</div> <div class="indent">(It&#8217;s so my father tells of it).</div> <div class="verse">He saw the church in Clermont town</div> <div class="verse">And laughed to hear the bells of it.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He laughed to hear the bells that ring</div> <div class="verse">In Clermont Church and round of it;</div> <div class="verse">He heard the verger&#8217;s daughter sing,</div> <div class="verse">And loved her for the sound of it.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The verger&#8217;s daughter said him nay;</div> <div class="verse">She had the right of choice in it.</div> <div class="verse">He left the town at break of day:</div> <div class="verse">He hadn&#8217;t had a voice in it.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The road went up, the road went down,</div> <div class="verse">And there the matter ended it.</div> <div class="verse">He broke his heart in Clermont town,</div> <div class="verse">At Pontgibaud they mended it.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DRINKING SONG</h2></div> <p class="center">ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY WINE</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">My</span> jolly fat host with your face all a-grin,</div> <div class="verse">Come, open the door to us, let us come in.</div> <div class="verse">A score of stout fellows who think it no sin</div> <div class="verse">If they toast till they&#8217;re hoarse, and they drink till they spin,</div> <div class="indent4">Hoofed it amain,</div> <div class="indent4">Rain or no rain,</div> <div class="indent3">To crack your old jokes, and your bottles to drain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets</div> <div class="verse">As soon as his guts with its humour he wets,</div> <div class="verse">The miser his gold, and the student his debts,</div> <div class="verse">And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets.</div> <div class="indent4">For there&#8217;s never a wine</div> <div class="indent4">Like this tipple of thine</div> <div class="indent3">From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go</div> <div class="verse">By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx,</div> <div class="verse">But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may blow,</div> <div class="verse">If the Devil&#8217;s above there&#8217;s good liquor below.</div> <div class="indent4">So it abound,</div> <div class="indent4">Pass it around,</div> <div class="indent3">Burgundy&#8217;s Burgundy all the year round.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DRINKING DIRGE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">A thousand</span> years ago I used to dine</div> <div class="indent">In houses where they gave me such regale</div> <div class="verse">Of dear companionship and comrades fine</div> <div class="indent">That out I went alone beyond the pale;</div> <div class="verse">And riding, laughed and dared the skies malign</div> <div class="indent">To show me all the undiscovered tale&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">But my philosophy&#8217;s no more divine,</div> <div class="indent">I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And you, my friends, oh! pleasant friends of mine,</div> <div class="indent">Who leave me now alone, without avail,</div> <div class="verse">On Californian hills you gave me wine,</div> <div class="indent">You gave me cider-drink in Longuevaille;</div> <div class="verse">If after many years you come to pine</div> <div class="indent">For comradeship that is an ancient tale&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">You&#8217;ll find me drinking beer in Dead Man&#8217;s Chine.</div> <div class="indent">I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In many a briny boat I&#8217;ve tried the brine,</div> <div class="indent">From many a hidden harbour I&#8217;ve set sail,</div> <div class="verse">Steering towards the sunset where there shine</div> <div class="indent">The distant amethystine islands pale.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">There are no ports beyond the far sea-line,</div> <div class="indent">Nor any halloa to meet the mariner&#8217;s hail;</div> <div class="verse">I stand at home and slip the anchor-line.</div> <div class="indent">I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>ENVOI</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Prince! Is it true when you go out to dine</div> <div class="indent">You bring your bottle in a freezing pail?</div> <div class="verse">Why then you cannot be a friend of mine.</div> <div class="indent"><i>I</i> put my pleasure in a pint of ale.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">They</span> sell good Beer at Haslemere</div> <div class="indent">And under Guildford Hill.</div> <div class="verse">At Little Cowfold as I&#8217;ve been told</div> <div class="indent">A beggar may drink his fill:</div> <div class="verse">There is a good brew in Amberley too,</div> <div class="indent">And by the bridge also;</div> <div class="verse">But the swipes they take in at Washington Inn</div> <div class="indent">Is the very best Beer I know.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="center"><i>Chorus</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent">With my here it goes, there it goes,</div> <div class="indent2">All the fun&#8217;s before us:</div> <div class="indent">The Tipple&#8217;s Aboard and the night is young,</div> <div class="indent">The door&#8217;s ajar and the Barrel is sprung,</div> <div class="indent">I am singing the best song ever was sung</div> <div class="indent2">And it has a rousing chorus.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">If I were what I never can be,</div> <div class="indent">The master or the squire:</div> <div class="verse">If you gave me the hundred from here to the sea,</div> <div class="indent">Which is more than I desire:</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Then all my crops should be barley and hops,</div> <div class="indent">And did my harvest fail</div> <div class="verse">I&#8217;d sell every rood of mine acres I would</div> <div class="indent">For a belly-full of good Ale.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="center"><i>Chorus</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent">With my here it goes, there it goes,</div> <div class="indent2">All the fun&#8217;s before us:</div> <div class="indent">The Tipple&#8217;s aboard and the night is young,</div> <div class="indent">The door&#8217;s ajar and the Barrel is sprung,</div> <div class="indent">I am singing the best song ever was sung</div> <div class="indent2">And it has a rousing chorus.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL<br/> ECONOMICS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">A while</span> ago it came to pass</div> <div class="indent">(Merry we carol it all the day),</div> <div class="verse">There sat a man on the top of an ass</div> <div class="indent">(Heart be happy and carol be gay</div> <div class="indent2">In spite of the price of hay).</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And over the down they hoofed it so</div> <div class="indent">(Happy go lucky has best of fare),</div> <div class="verse">The man up above and the brute below</div> <div class="indent">(And singing we all forget to care</div> <div class="indent2">A man may laugh if he dare).</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Over the stubble and round the crop</div> <div class="indent">(Life is short and the world is round),</div> <div class="verse">The donkey beneath and the man on top</div> <div class="indent">(Oh! let good ale be found, be found,</div> <div class="indent2">Merry good ale and sound).</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It happened again as it happened before</div> <div class="indent">(Tobacco&#8217;s a boon but ale is bliss),</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">The moke in the ditch and the man on the floor</div> <div class="indent">(And that is the moral to this, to this</div> <div class="indent2">Remarkable artifice).</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">AN ORACLE</h2></div> <p class="center">THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON<br/> PILGRIMAGE</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Matutinus</span> adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te</div> <div class="verse">Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes</div> <div class="verse">Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus</div> <div class="verse">Occupat&mdash;In sancto tum, tum, stans Aede caveto</div> <div class="verse">Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem</div> <div class="verse">Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem</div> <div class="verse">Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore</div> <div class="verse">Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><i>Translation of the above</i>:&mdash;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">When early morning seems but eve</div> <div class="verse">And they that still refuse receive:</div> <div class="verse">When speech unknown men understand;</div> <div class="verse">And floods are crossed upon dry land.</div> <div class="verse">Within the Sacred Walls beware</div> <div class="verse">The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair,</div> <div class="verse">For when the road attains the rail</div> <div class="verse">The Pilgrim&#8217;s great attempt shall fail.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">HERETICS ALL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Heretics</span> all, whoever you be,</div> <div class="verse">In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,</div> <div class="verse">You never shall have good words from me.</div> <div class="indent"><i>Caritas non conturbat me.</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But Catholic men that live upon wine</div> <div class="verse">Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;</div> <div class="verse">Wherever I travel I find it so,</div> <div class="indent"><i>Benedicamus Domino</i>.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">On childing women that are forlorn,</div> <div class="verse">And men that sweat in nothing but scorn:</div> <div class="verse">That is on all that ever were born,</div> <div class="indent"><i>Miserere Domine</i>.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">To my poor self on my deathbed,</div> <div class="verse">And all my dear companions dead,</div> <div class="verse">Because of the love that I bore them,</div> <div class="indent"><i>Dona Eis Requiem</i>.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION<br/> OF WANDERING PETER</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">When</span> Peter Wanderwide was young</div> <div class="indent">He wandered everywhere he would:</div> <div class="verse">And all that he approved was sung,</div> <div class="indent">And most of what he saw was good.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">When Peter Wanderwide was thrown</div> <div class="indent">By Death himself beyond Auxerre,</div> <div class="verse">He chanted in heroic tone</div> <div class="indent">To priests and people gathered there:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;If all that I have loved and seen</div> <div class="indent">Be with me on the Judgment Day,</div> <div class="verse">I shall be saved the crowd between</div> <div class="indent">From Satan and his foul array.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Almighty God will surely cry,</div> <div class="indent">&#8216;St. Michael! Who is this that stands</div> <div class="verse">With Ireland in his dubious eye,</div> <div class="indent">And Perigord between his hands,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;&#8216;And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,</div> <div class="indent">And in his gait the narrow seas,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">And in his mouth Burgundian songs,</div> <div class="indent">But in his heart the Pyrenees?&#8217;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;St. Michael then will answer right</div> <div class="indent">(And not without angelic shame),</div> <div class="verse">&#8216;I seem to know his face by sight:</div> <div class="indent">I cannot recollect his name...?&#8217;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;St. Peter will befriend me then,</div> <div class="indent">Because my name is Peter too:</div> <div class="verse">&#8216;I know him for the best of men</div> <div class="indent">That ever walloped barley brew.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;&#8216;And though I did not know him well</div> <div class="indent">And though his soul were clogged with sin,</div> <div class="verse"><i>I</i> hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.</div> <div class="indent">Be welcome, noble Peterkin.&#8217;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Then shall I spread my native wings</div> <div class="indent">And tread secure the heavenly floor,</div> <div class="verse">And tell the Blessed doubtful things</div> <div class="indent">Of Val d&#8217;Aran and Perigord.&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">This was the last and solemn jest</div> <div class="indent">Of weary Peter Wanderwide.</div> <div class="verse">He spoke it with a failing zest,</div> <div class="indent">And having spoken it, he died.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DEDICATORY ODE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I mean</span> to write with all my strength</div> <div class="indent">(It lately has been sadly waning),</div> <div class="verse">A ballad of enormous length&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">Some parts of which will need explaining.<SPAN name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</SPAN></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Because (unlike the bulk of men</div> <div class="indent">Who write for fame or public ends),</div> <div class="verse">I turn a lax and fluent pen</div> <div class="indent">To talking of my private friends.<SPAN name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</SPAN></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For no one, in our long decline,</div> <div class="indent">So dusty, spiteful and divided,</div> <div class="verse">Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,</div> <div class="indent">Or loved them half as much as I did.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</SPAN></span> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The Freshman ambles down the High,</div> <div class="indent">In love with everything he sees,</div> <div class="verse">He notes the very Midland sky,</div> <div class="indent">He sniffs a more than Midland breeze.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Can this be Oxford? This the place?&#8221;</div> <div class="indent">(He cries) &#8220;of which my father said</div> <div class="verse">The tutoring was a damned disgrace,</div> <div class="indent">The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Can it be here that Uncle Paul</div> <div class="indent">Was driven by excessive gloom,</div> <div class="verse">To drink and debt, and, last of all,</div> <div class="indent">To smoking opium in his room?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Is it from here the people come,</div> <div class="indent">Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes,</div> <div class="verse">And stammer? How extremely rum!</div> <div class="indent">How curious! What a great surprise.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Some influence of a nobler day</div> <div class="indent">Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul&#8217;s),</div> <div class="verse">Has roused the sleep of their decay,</div> <div class="indent">And flecked with light their ancient walls.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;O! dear undaunted boys of old,</div> <div class="indent">Would that your names were carven here,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">For all the world in stamps of gold,</div> <div class="indent">That I might read them and revere.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Who wrought and handed down for me</div> <div class="indent">This Oxford of the larger air,</div> <div class="verse">Laughing, and full of faith, and free,</div> <div class="indent">With youth resplendent everywhere?&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind,</div> <div class="indent">Young, callow, and untutored man,</div> <div class="verse">Their private names were ...<SPAN name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</SPAN></div> <div class="indent">Their club was called REPUBLICAN.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Where on their banks of light they lie,</div> <div class="indent">The happy hills of Heaven between,</div> <div class="verse">The Gods that rule the morning sky</div> <div class="indent">Are not more young, nor more serene</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Than were the intrepid Four that stand,</div> <div class="indent">The first who dared to live their dream.</div> <div class="verse">And on this uncongenial land</div> <div class="indent">To found the Abbey of Theleme.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">We kept the Rabelaisian plan:<SPAN name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</SPAN></div> <div class="indent">We dignified the dainty cloisters</div> <div class="verse">With Natural Law, the Rights of Man,</div> <div class="indent">Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The library was most inviting:</div> <div class="indent">The books upon the crowded shelves</div> <div class="verse">Were mainly of our private writing:</div> <div class="indent">We kept a school and taught ourselves.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We taught the art of writing things</div> <div class="indent">On men we still should like to throttle:</div> <div class="verse">And where to get the Blood of Kings</div> <div class="indent">At only half a crown a bottle.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Eheu Fugaces! Postume!</div> <div class="indent">(An old quotation out of mode);</div> <div class="verse">My coat of dreams is stolen away</div> <div class="indent">My youth is passing down the road.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">The wealth of youth, we spent it well</div> <div class="indent">And decently, as very few can.</div> <div class="verse">And is it lost? I cannot tell:</div> <div class="indent">And what is more, I doubt if you can.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The question&#8217;s very much too wide,</div> <div class="indent">And much too deep, and much too hollow,</div> <div class="verse">And learned men on either side</div> <div class="indent">Use arguments I cannot follow.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They say that in the unchanging place,</div> <div class="indent">Where all we loved is always dear,</div> <div class="verse">We meet our morning face to face</div> <div class="indent">And find at last our twentieth year....</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They say (and I am glad they say)</div> <div class="indent">It is so; and it may be so:</div> <div class="verse">It may be just the other way,</div> <div class="indent">I cannot tell. But this I know:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">From quiet homes and first beginning,</div> <div class="indent">Out to the undiscovered ends,</div> <div class="verse">There&#8217;s nothing worth the wear of winning,</div> <div class="indent">But laughter and the love of friends.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">But something dwindles, oh! my peers,</div> <div class="indent">And something cheats the heart and passes,</div> <div class="verse">And Tom that meant to shake the years</div> <div class="indent">Has come to merely rattling glasses.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And He, the Father of the Flock,</div> <div class="indent">Is keeping Burmesans in order,</div> <div class="verse">An exile on a lonely rock</div> <div class="indent">That overlooks the Chinese border.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And One (Myself I mean&mdash;no less),</div> <div class="indent">Ah!&mdash;will Posterity believe it&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Not only don&#8217;t deserve success,</div> <div class="indent">But hasn&#8217;t managed to achieve it.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Not even this peculiar town</div> <div class="indent">Has ever fixed a friendship firmer,</div> <div class="verse">But&mdash;one is married, one&#8217;s gone down,</div> <div class="indent">And one&#8217;s a Don, and one&#8217;s in Burmah.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And oh! the days, the days, the days,</div> <div class="indent">When all the four were off together:</div> <div class="verse">The infinite deep of summer haze,</div> <div class="indent">The roaring charge of autumn weather!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">I will not try the reach again,</div> <div class="indent">I will not set my sail alone,</div> <div class="verse">To moor a boat bereft of men</div> <div class="indent">At Yarnton&#8217;s tiny docks of stone.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But I will sit beside the fire,</div> <div class="indent">And put my hand before my eyes,</div> <div class="verse">And trace, to fill my heart&#8217;s desire,</div> <div class="indent">The last of all our Odysseys.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The quiet evening kept her tryst:</div> <div class="indent">Beneath an open sky we rode,</div> <div class="verse">And passed into a wandering mist</div> <div class="indent">Along the perfect Evenlode.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The tender Evenlode that makes</div> <div class="indent">Her meadows hush to hear the sound</div> <div class="verse">Of waters mingling in the brakes,</div> <div class="indent">And binds my heart to English ground.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A lovely river, all alone,</div> <div class="indent">She lingers in the hills and holds</div> <div class="verse">A hundred little towns of stones,</div> <div class="indent">Forgotten in the western wolds</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">I dare to think (though meaner powers</div> <div class="indent">Possess our thrones, and lesser wits</div> <div class="verse">Are drinking worser wine than ours,</div> <div class="indent">In what&#8217;s no longer Austerlitz)</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">That surely a tremendous ghost,</div> <div class="indent">The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler,</div> <div class="verse">Still sings to an immortal toast,</div> <div class="indent">The Misadventures of the Miller.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The unending seas are hardly bar</div> <div class="indent">To men with such a prepossession:</div> <div class="verse">We were? Why then, by God, we <i>are</i>&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">Order! I call the Club to session!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">You do retain the song we set,</div> <div class="indent">And how it rises, trips and scans?</div> <div class="verse">You keep the sacred memory yet,</div> <div class="indent">Republicans? Republicans?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">You know the way the words were hurled,</div> <div class="indent">To break the worst of fortune&#8217;s rub?</div> <div class="verse">I give the toast across the world,</div> <div class="indent">And drink it, &#8220;Gentlemen: the Club.&#8221;</div> </div></div> </div> <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></SPAN></p> <p>But do not think I shall explain<br/> <span class="gap">To any great extent. Believe me,</span><br/> I partly write to give you pain,<br/> <span class="gap">And if you do not like me, leave me.</span></p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></SPAN></p> <p>And least of all can you complain,<br/> <span class="gap">Reviewers, whose unholy trade is,</span><br/> To puff with all your might and main<br/> <span class="gap">Biographers of single ladies.</span></p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></SPAN> Never mind.</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></SPAN></p> <p>The plan forgot (I know not how,<br/> <span class="gap">Perhaps the Refectory filled it),</span><br/> To put a chapel in; and now<br/> <span class="gap">We&#8217;re mortgaging the rest to build it.</span></p> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A<br/> BOOK TO A CHILD</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Child!</span> do not throw this book about!</div> <div class="indent">Refrain from the unholy pleasure</div> <div class="verse">Of cutting all the pictures out!</div> <div class="indent">Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Child, have you never heard it said</div> <div class="indent">That you are heir to all the ages?</div> <div class="verse">Why, then, your hands were never made</div> <div class="indent">To tear these beautiful thick pages!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Your little hands were made to take</div> <div class="indent">The better things and leave the worse ones:</div> <div class="verse">They also may be used to shake</div> <div class="indent">The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And when your prayers complete the day,</div> <div class="indent">Darling, your little tiny hands</div> <div class="verse">Were also made, I think, to pray</div> <div class="indent">For men that lose their fairylands.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DEDICATION OF A CHILD&#8217;S BOOK<br/> OF IMAGINARY TALES</h2></div> <p class="center">WHEREIN WRONG-DOERS SUFFER</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">And</span> is it true? It is not true!</div> <div class="verse">And if it was it wouldn&#8217;t do</div> <div class="verse">For people such as me and you,</div> <div class="verse">Who very nearly all day long</div> <div class="verse">Are doing something rather wrong.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">HOMAGE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">There</span> is a light around your head</div> <div class="verse">Which only Saints of God may wear,</div> <div class="verse">And all the flowers on which you tread</div> <div class="verse">In pleasaunce more than ours have fed,</div> <div class="verse">And supped the essential air</div> <div class="verse">Whose summer is a-pulse with music everywhere.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For you are younger than the mornings are</div> <div class="verse">That in the mountains break;</div> <div class="verse">When upland shepherds see their only star</div> <div class="verse">Pale on the dawn, and make</div> <div class="verse">In his surcease the hours,</div> <div class="verse">The early hours of all their happy circuit take.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">FILLE-LA-HAINE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Death</span> went into the steeple to ring,</div> <div class="indent">And he pulled the rope and he tolled a knell.</div> <div class="verse">Fille-la-Haine, how well you sing!</div> <div class="indent">Why are they ringing the Passing Bell?</div> <div class="verse"><i>Death went into the steeple to ring;</i></div> <div class="verse"><i>Fille-la-Haine, how well you sing!</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Death went down the stream in a boat,</div> <div class="indent">Down the river of Seine went he;</div> <div class="verse">Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat,</div> <div class="indent">Fille-la-Haine was nothing to me.</div> <div class="verse"><i>Death went down the stream in a boat;</i></div> <div class="verse"><i>Fille-la-Haine had a pain in her throat.</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Death went up the hill in a cart</div> <div class="indent">(I have forgotten her lips and her laughter).</div> <div class="verse">Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart</div> <div class="indent">(And all the village was following after).</div> <div class="verse"><i>Death went up the hill in a cart.</i></div> <div class="verse"><i>Fille-la-Haine was my sweetheart.</i></div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE MOON&#8217;S FUNERAL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> Moon is dead. I saw her die.</div> <div class="verse">She in a drifting cloud was drest,</div> <div class="verse">She lay along the uncertain west,</div> <div class="verse">A dream to see.</div> <div class="verse">And very low she spake to me:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;I go where none may understand,</div> <div class="verse">I fade into the nameless land,</div> <div class="verse">And there must lie perpetually.&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">And therefore I,</div> <div class="verse">And therefore loudly, loudly I</div> <div class="verse">And high</div> <div class="verse">And very piteously make cry:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;The Moon is dead. I saw her die.&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And will she never rise again?</div> <div class="verse">The Holy Moon? Oh, never more!</div> <div class="verse">Perhaps along the inhuman shore</div> <div class="verse">Where pale ghosts are</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Beyond the low lethean fen</div> <div class="verse">She and some wide infernal star&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">To us who loved her never more,</div> <div class="verse">The Moon will never rise again.</div> <div class="verse">Oh! never more in nightly sky</div> <div class="verse">Her eye so high shall peep and pry</div> <div class="verse">To see the great world rolling by.</div> <div class="verse">For why?</div> <div class="verse">The Moon is dead. I saw her die.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE HAPPY JOURNALIST</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I love</span> to walk about at night</div> <div class="indent">By nasty lanes and corners foul,</div> <div class="verse">All shielded from the unfriendly light</div> <div class="indent">And independent as the owl.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">By dirty grates I love to lurk;</div> <div class="indent">I often stoop to take a squint</div> <div class="verse">At printers working at their work.</div> <div class="indent">I muse upon the rot they print.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The beggars please me, and the mud:</div> <div class="indent">The editors beneath their lamps</div> <div class="verse">As&mdash;Mr. Howl demanding blood,</div> <div class="indent">And Lord Retender stealing stamps,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And Mr. Bing instructing liars,</div> <div class="indent">His elder son composing trash;</div> <div class="verse">Beaufort (whose real name is Meyers)</div> <div class="indent">Refusing anything but cash.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">I like to think of Mr. Meyers,</div> <div class="indent">I like to think of Mr. Bing.</div> <div class="verse">I like to think about the liars:</div> <div class="indent">It pleases me, that sort of thing.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Policemen speak to me, but I,</div> <div class="indent">Remembering my civic rights,</div> <div class="verse">Neglect them and do not reply.</div> <div class="indent">I love to walk about at nights!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">At twenty-five to four I bunch</div> <div class="indent">Across a cab I can&#8217;t afford.</div> <div class="verse">I ring for breakfast after lunch.</div> <div class="indent">I am as happy as a lord!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">LINES TO A DON</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Remote</span> and ineffectual Don</div> <div class="verse">That dared attack my Chesterton,</div> <div class="verse">With that poor weapon, half-impelled,</div> <div class="verse">Unlearnt, unsteady, hardly held,</div> <div class="verse">Unworthy for a tilt with men&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Your quavering and corroded pen;</div> <div class="verse">Don poor at Bed and worse at Table,</div> <div class="verse">Don pinched, Don starved, Don miserable;</div> <div class="verse">Don stuttering, Don with roving eyes,</div> <div class="verse">Don nervous, Don of crudities;</div> <div class="verse">Don clerical, Don ordinary,</div> <div class="verse">Don self-absorbed and solitary;</div> <div class="verse">Don here-and-there, Don epileptic;</div> <div class="verse">Don puffed and empty, Don dyspeptic;</div> <div class="verse">Don middle-class, Don sycophantic,</div> <div class="verse">Don dull, Don brutish, Don pedantic;</div> <div class="verse">Don hypocritical, Don bad,</div> <div class="verse">Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad;</div> <div class="verse">Don (since a man must make an end),</div> <div class="verse">Don that shall never be my friend.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Don different from those regal Dons!</div> <div class="verse">With hearts of gold and lungs of bronze,</div> <div class="verse">Who shout and bang and roar and bawl</div> <div class="verse">The Absolute across the hall,</div> <div class="verse">Or sail in amply bellowing gown</div> <div class="verse">Enormous through the Sacred Town,</div> <div class="verse">Bearing from College to their homes</div> <div class="verse">Deep cargoes of gigantic tomes;</div> <div class="verse">Dons admirable! Dons of Might!</div> <div class="verse">Uprising on my inward sight</div> <div class="verse">Compact of ancient tales, and port</div> <div class="verse">And sleep&mdash;and learning of a sort.</div> <div class="verse">Dons English, worthy of the land;</div> <div class="verse">Dons rooted; Dons that understand.</div> <div class="verse">Good Dons perpetual that remain</div> <div class="verse">A landmark, walling in the plain&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">The horizon of my memories&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Like large and comfortable trees.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Don very much apart from these,</div> <div class="verse">Thou scapegoat Don, thou Don devoted,</div> <div class="verse">Don to thine own damnation quoted,</div> <div class="verse">Perplexed to find thy trivial name</div> <div class="verse">Reared in my verse to lasting shame.</div> <div class="verse">Don dreadful, rasping Don and wearing,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Repulsive Don&mdash;Don past all bearing.</div> <div class="verse">Don of the cold and doubtful breath,</div> <div class="verse">Don despicable, Don of death;</div> <div class="verse">Don nasty, skimpy, silent, level;</div> <div class="verse">Don evil; Don that serves the devil.</div> <div class="verse">Don ugly&mdash;that makes fifty lines.</div> <div class="verse">There is a Canon which confines</div> <div class="verse">A Rhymed Octosyllabic Curse</div> <div class="verse">If written in Iambic Verse</div> <div class="verse">To fifty lines. I never cut;</div> <div class="verse">I far prefer to end it&mdash;but</div> <div class="verse">Believe me I shall soon return.</div> <div class="verse">My fires are banked, yet still they burn</div> <div class="verse">To write some more about the Don</div> <div class="verse">That dared attack my Chesterton.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">NEWDIGATE POEM</h2></div> <div class="hangingindent"> <blockquote> <p>A PRIZE POEM SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBKIN OF BURFORD TO THE EXAMINERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ON THE PRESCRIBED POETIC THEME SET BY THEM IN 1893, &#8220;THE BENEFITS OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT&#8221;</p> </blockquote></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="indent"><span class="smcap">Hail,</span> Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful string!</div> <div class="verse">The benefits conferred by Science<SPAN name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[1]</SPAN> I sing.</div> <div class="indent">Under the kind Examiners&#8217; direction<SPAN name="FNanchor_2_6" id="FNanchor_2_6"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_2_6" class="fnanchor">[2]</SPAN></div> <div class="verse">I only write about them in connection</div> <div class="verse">With benefits which the Electric Light</div> <div class="verse">Confers on us; especially at night.</div> <div class="verse">These are my theme, of these my song shall rise.</div> <div class="verse">My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies.<SPAN name="FNanchor_3_7" id="FNanchor_3_7"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_3_7" class="fnanchor">[3]</SPAN></div> <div class="verse">And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden&#8217;s eyes.</div> <div class="indent">Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span> <div class="indent">To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road;</div> <div class="verse">For under Osney&#8217;s solitary shade</div> <div class="verse">The bulk of the Electric Light is made.</div> <div class="verse">Here are the works;&mdash;from hence the current flows</div> <div class="verse">Which (so the Company&#8217;s prospectus goes)</div> <div class="indent">Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour</div> <div class="verse">No less than sixteen thousand candle power,<SPAN name="FNanchor_4_8" id="FNanchor_4_8"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_4_8" class="fnanchor">[4]</SPAN></div> <div class="verse">All at a thousand volts. (It is essential</div> <div class="verse">To keep the current at this high potential</div> <div class="verse">In spite of the considerable expense.)</div> <div class="indent">The Energy developed represents,</div> <div class="verse">Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces</div> <div class="verse">Of fifteen elephants and forty horses.</div> <div class="verse">But shall my scientific detail thus</div> <div class="verse">Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus?</div> <div class="indent">Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear</div> <div class="verse">That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear?</div> <div class="verse">Shall I describe the complex Dynamo</div> <div class="verse">Or write about its Commutator? No!</div> <div class="indent">To happier fields I lead my wanton pen,</div> <div class="verse">The proper study of mankind is men.</div> <div class="indent">Awake, my Muse! Portray the pleasing sight</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">That meets us where they make Electric Light.</div> <div class="indent">Behold the Electrician where he stands:</div> <div class="verse">Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands;</div> <div class="verse">Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes,</div> <div class="verse">The while his conversation drips with oaths.</div> <div class="verse">Shall such a being perish in its youth?</div> <div class="verse">Alas! it is indeed the fatal truth.</div> <div class="verse">In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt,</div> <div class="verse">Familiarity has bred contempt.</div> <div class="verse">We warn him of the gesture all too late:</div> <div class="verse">Oh, Heartless Jove! Oh, Adamantine Fate!</div> <div class="indent">Some random touch&mdash;a hand&#8217;s imprudent slip&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">The Terminals&mdash;a flash&mdash;a sound like &#8220;Zip!&#8221;</div> <div class="verse">A smell of burning fills the started Air&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">The Electrician is no longer there!</div> <div class="indent">But let us turn with true Artistic scorn</div> <div class="verse">From facts funereal and from views forlorn</div> <div class="verse">Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.<SPAN name="FNanchor_5_9" id="FNanchor_5_9"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_5_9" class="fnanchor">[5]</SPAN></div> <div class="indent">Arouse thee, Muse! and chaunt in accents rich</div> <div class="verse">The interesting processes by which</div> <div class="verse">The Electricity is passed along:</div> <div class="verse">These are my theme: to these I bend my song.</div> <div class="indent">It runs encased in wood or porous brick</div> <div class="verse">Through copper wires two millimetres thick,</div> <div class="verse">And insulated on their dangerous mission</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">By indiarubber, silk, or composition.</div> <div class="verse">Here you may put with critical felicity</div> <div class="verse">The following question: &#8220;What is Electricity?&#8221;</div> <div class="indent">&#8220;Molecular Activity,&#8221; say some,</div> <div class="verse">Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb.</div> <div class="verse">Whatever be its nature, this is clear:</div> <div class="verse">The rapid current checked in its career,</div> <div class="verse">Baulked in its race and halted in its course<SPAN name="FNanchor_6_10" id="FNanchor_6_10"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_6_10" class="fnanchor">[6]</SPAN></div> <div class="verse">Transforms to heat and light its latent force:</div> <div class="indent">It needs no pedant in the lecturer&#8217;s chair</div> <div class="verse">To prove that light and heat are present there.</div> <div class="verse">The pear-shaped vacuum globe, I understand,</div> <div class="verse">Is far too hot to fondle with the hand.</div> <div class="verse">While, as is patent to the meanest sight,</div> <div class="verse">The carbon filament is very bright.</div> <div class="indent">As for the lights they hang about the town,</div> <div class="verse">Some praise them highly, others run them down.</div> <div class="verse">This system (technically called the Arc),</div> <div class="verse">Makes some passages too light, others too dark.</div> <div class="indent">But in the house the soft and constant rays</div> <div class="verse">Have always met with universal praise.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span> <div class="indent">For instance: if you want to read in bed</div> <div class="verse">No candle burns beside your curtain&#8217;s head,</div> <div class="verse">Far from some distant corner of the room</div> <div class="verse">The incandescent lamp dispels the gloom,</div> <div class="indent">And with the largest print need hardly try</div> <div class="verse">The powers of any young and vigorous eye.</div> <div class="indent">Aroint thee, Muse! Inspired the poet sings!</div> <div class="verse">I cannot help observing future things!</div> <div class="verse">Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough</div> <div class="verse">Only because we do not know enough:</div> <div class="verse">When Science has discovered something more</div> <div class="verse">We shall be happier than we were before.</div> <div class="indent">Hail, Britain, Mistress of the Azure Main,</div> <div class="verse">Ten thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain!</div> <div class="verse">Hail, Mighty Mother of the Brave and Free,</div> <div class="verse">That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me!</div> <div class="verse">Thou that canst wrap in thine emblazoned robe</div> <div class="verse">One quarter of the habitable globe.</div> <div class="verse">Thy mountains, wafted by a favouring breeze,</div> <div class="verse">Like mighty rocks withstand the stormy seas.</div> <div class="indent">Thou art a Christian Commonwealth; and yet</div> <div class="verse">Be thou not all unthankful&mdash;nor forget</div> <div class="verse">As thou exultest in Imperial Might</div> <div class="verse">The Benefits of the Electric Light.</div> </div></div> <h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[1]</span></SPAN> To be pronounced as a monosyllable in the Imperial fashion.</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_2_6" id="Footnote_2_6"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_2_6"><span class="label">[2]</span></SPAN> Mr. Punt, Mr. Howl, and Mr. Grewcock (now, alas, deceased).</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_3_7" id="Footnote_3_7"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_3_7"><span class="label">[3]</span></SPAN> A neat rendering of &#8220;Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.&#8221;</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_4_8" id="Footnote_4_8"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_4_8"><span class="label">[4]</span></SPAN> To the Examiners: These facts (of which I guarantee the accuracy) were given me by a Director.</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_5_9" id="Footnote_5_9"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_5_9"><span class="label">[5]</span></SPAN> A reminiscence of Milton: &#8220;Fas est et ab hoste doceri.&#8221;</p> </div> <div class="footnote"> <p><SPAN name="Footnote_6_10" id="Footnote_6_10"></SPAN><SPAN href="#FNanchor_6_10"><span class="label">[6]</span></SPAN> Lambkin told me he regretted this line, which was for the sake of Rhyme. He would willingly have replaced it, but to his last day could construct no substitute.</p> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE YELLOW MUSTARD</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Oh!</span> ye that prink it to and fro,</div> <div class="verse">In pointed flounce and furbelow,</div> <div class="verse">What have ye known, what can ye know</div> <div class="verse">That have not seen the mustard grow?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The yellow mustard is no less</div> <div class="verse">Than God&#8217;s good gift to loneliness;</div> <div class="verse">And he was sent in gorgeous press</div> <div class="verse">To jangle keys at my distress.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I heard the throstle call again,</div> <div class="verse">Come hither, Pain! come hither, Pain!</div> <div class="verse">Till all my shameless feet were fain</div> <div class="verse">To wander through the summer rain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And far apart from human place,</div> <div class="verse">And flaming like a vast disgrace,</div> <div class="verse">There struck me blinding in the face</div> <div class="verse">The livery of the mustard race.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">To see the yellow mustard grow</div> <div class="verse">Beyond the town, above, below;</div> <div class="verse">Beyond the purple houses, oh!</div> <div class="verse">To see the yellow mustard grow!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">ON HYGIENE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Of</span> old when folk lay sick and sorely tried,</div> <div class="verse">The doctors gave them medicine and they died.</div> <div class="verse">Here is an happier age, for now we know</div> <div class="verse">Both how to make men sick and keep them so.</div> </div></div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FALSE HEART</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I said</span> to Heart, &#8220;How goes it?&#8221; Heart replied:</div> <div class="verse">&#8220;Right as a Ribstone Pippin!&#8221; But it lied.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A critic said large margins did not please him,</div> <div class="verse">I therefore printed just two lines, to tease him.</div> <div class="verse">And if he still complains of what I&#8217;ve done,</div> <div class="verse">In my next book I&#8217;ll fill a page with <small>ONE</small>.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">SONNET UPON GOD, THE WINE<br/> GIVER</h2></div> <p class="center">(<i>For Easter Sunday</i>)</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Thought</span> Man made wine, I think God made it, too;</div> <div class="verse">God making all things, made Man made good wine.</div> <div class="verse">He taught him how the little tendrils twine</div> <div class="verse">About the stakes of labor close and true.</div> <div class="verse">Then next, with intimate prophetic laughter,</div> <div class="verse">He taught the Man, in His own image blest,</div> <div class="verse">To pluck and wagon and to&mdash;all the rest!</div> <div class="verse">To tread the grape and work his vintage after.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">So did God make us, making good wine makers;</div> <div class="verse">So did He order us to rule the field</div> <div class="verse">And now by God are we not only bakers;</div> <div class="verse">But winners also sacraments to yield;</div> <div class="verse">Yet most of all strong lovers, Praised be God!</div> <div class="verse">Who taught us how the wine-press should be trod!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE POLITICIAN<br/> OR THE IRISH EARLDOM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">A strong</span> and striking Personality,</div> <div class="indent">Worth several hundred thousand pounds&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Of strict political Morality&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">Was walking in his park-like Grounds;</div> <div class="verse">When, just as these began to pall on him</div> <div class="indent">(I mean the Trees, and Things like that),</div> <div class="verse">A Person who had come to call on him</div> <div class="indent">Approached him, taking off his Hat.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He said, with singular veracity:</div> <div class="indent">&#8220;I serve our Sea-girt Mother-Land</div> <div class="verse">In no conspicuous capacity.</div> <div class="indent">I am but an Attorney; and</div> <div class="verse">I do a little elementary</div> <div class="indent">Negotiation, now and then,</div> <div class="verse">As Agent for a Parliamentary</div> <div class="indent">Division of the Town of N....</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;Merely as one of the Electorate&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">A member of the Commonweal&mdash;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Before completing my Directorate,</div> <div class="indent">I want to know the way you feel</div> <div class="verse">On matters more or less debatable;</div> <div class="indent">As&mdash;whether our Imperial Pride</div> <div class="verse">Can treat as taxable or rateable</div> <div class="indent">The Gardens of ...&#8221; His host replied:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;The Ravages of Inebriety</div> <div class="indent">(Alas! increasing day by day!)</div> <div class="verse">Are undermining all Society.</div> <div class="indent">I do not hesitate to say</div> <div class="verse">My country squanders her abilities,</div> <div class="indent">Observe how Montenegro treats</div> <div class="verse">Her Educational Facilities....</div> <div class="indent">... As to the African defeats,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">&#8220;I bitterly deplored their frequency;</div> <div class="indent">On Canada we are agreed,</div> <div class="verse">The Laws protecting Public Decency</div> <div class="indent">Are very, very lax indeed!</div> <div class="verse">The Views of most of the Nobility</div> <div class="indent">Are very much the same as mine,</div> <div class="verse">On Thingumbob&#8217;s eligibility ...</div> <div class="indent">I trust that you remain to dine?&#8221;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">His Lordship pressed with importunity,</div> <div class="indent">As rarely he had pressed before.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It gave them both an opportunity</div> <div class="indent">To know each other&#8217;s value more.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">SHORT BALLAD AND<br/> POSTSCRIPT ON CONSOLS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <h3>I</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Gigantic</span> daughter of the West</div> <div class="indent">(The phrase is Tennysonian), who</div> <div class="verse">From this unconquerable breast</div> <div class="indent">The vigorous milk of Freedom drew</div> <div class="verse">&mdash;We gave it freely&mdash;shall the crest</div> <div class="indent">Of Empire in your keeping true,</div> <div class="verse">Shall England&mdash;I forget the rest,</div> <div class="indent">But Consols are at 82.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <h3>II</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Now why should any one invest,</div> <div class="indent">As even City people do</div> <div class="verse">(His Lordship did among the rest),</div> <div class="indent">When stocks&mdash;but what is that to you?</div> <div class="verse">And then, who ever could have guessed</div> <div class="indent">About the guns&mdash;and horses too!&mdash;</div> <div class="verse">Besides, they knew their business best,</div> <div class="indent">And Consols are at 82.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</SPAN></span> <h3>III</h3></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It serves no purpose to protest,</div> <div class="indent">It isn&#8217;t manners to halloo</div> <div class="verse">About the way the thing was messed&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">Or vaguely call a man a Jew.</div> <div class="verse">A gentleman who cannot jest</div> <div class="indent">Remarked that we should muddle through</div> <div class="verse">(The continent was much impressed),</div> <div class="indent">And Consols are at 82.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="center"><i>Envoi</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And, Botha lay at Pilgrim&#8217;s Rest</div> <div class="indent">And Myberg in the Great Karroo</div> <div class="verse">(A desert to the south and west),</div> <div class="indent">And Consols are at 82.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="center"><i>Postscript</i></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Permit me&mdash;if you do not mind&mdash;</div> <div class="indent">To add it would be screaming fun</div> <div class="verse">If, after printing this, I find</div> <div class="indent">Them after all at 81.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Or 70 or 63,</div> <div class="indent">Or 55 or 44,</div> <div class="verse">Or 39 and going free,</div> <div class="indent">Or 28&mdash;or even more.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">No matter&mdash;take no more advice</div> <div class="indent">From doubtful and intriguing men.</div> <div class="verse">Refuse the stuff at any price,</div> <div class="indent">And slowly watch them fall to 10.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Meanwhile I feel a certain zest</div> <div class="indent">In writing once again the new</div> <div class="verse">Refrain that all is for the best,</div> <div class="indent">And Consols are at 82.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="transnote"> <p class="ph2">TRANSCRIBER&#8217;S NOTES:</p> <p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> <p>The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber and is entered into the public domain.</p> </div> <SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />