The Poetical Works of Andrew Lang :: :: University of Virginia Library

Silence! ‘The best’ (he said) ‘are silent now,
That younger bearer of the laurel bough,
Who with his Thyrsis, kindred souls divine,
Harps only for Sicilian Proserpine:
For Arnold died, and Browning died, and he
The oldest, wisest, greatest of the three—
Dies, and what voice shall dirge for him to-day?
For the Muse went with him the darkling way,
And left us mute! . . . Peace! who shall rhyme or rave?
The violet blooms not on the new-made grave,
And not in this first blankness of regret
Are eyes of men who mourn their Master wet.
New grief is dumb: himself through many a year
Withheld the meed of his melodious tear
While Hallam slept. But no! the moment flies!
And rapid rhymers, when the Poet dies,
Wail punctual, and prompt, and unafraid,
In copious instant ditties ready made.
Oh, peace! Ye do but make our loss more deep,
Who wail above his unawaking sleep.

Our Fathers

Not ‘better than our fathers’, we
Can wisely boast ourselves to be;
And evil may the scribbler speed
Who vaunts the vaunt of Diomede!

Our fathers eighty years ago,
From Princes Street amazed the Row.
From his far castle upon Tweed
The Great Magician came at need,
And every woman, man, and child
Was gladder when the Shirra smiled;
Nay, every tyke about the place
Took pleasure in the Shirra's face!

He, too, was here, the Giant Childe,
Tender, magniloquent, and wild,
Whose lure lay light on lochs and streams;
Whose prose or weeps, or glooms, or gleams,
As shower and shadow flit in turn
O'er moor and tarn and ben and burn;
Whose crutch fell heavier than he knew
On laurelled crest or Cockney crew,—
The mighty Christopher beside him
He that ‘gules feared’ whene'er they spied him

The Scorpion of the loyal heart,
Who saw youth, love, and friends depart;
Bearing dark sorrows in his breast
Yet held his own and broke his jest—
Crowned, as I deem, are men above,
At once with Scott's and Carlyle's love!

With them the Shepherd : never plaid
Of shepherd wrapped so strange a lad.
Second alone was he to him
Who turns all peasant glories dim.
Oh, kindly heart and random tongue!
That erst of fair Kilmeny sung,
And taught how dreadfully he died,
The Sinner, Lost and Justified,
And turned to rhyme and told in prose
The fortunes of the Fallen Rose—

These were our Fathers: truly we
Scarce better men may boast to be!

John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854) was denounced as ‘the Scorpion’ in an anonymous pamphlet called Hypocrisy Unveiled, because of his satirical articles in Blackwood's Magazine.

James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd (1770-1835).

Scythe Song

Mowers, weary and brown, and blithe,
What is the word methinks ye know—
Endless over-word that the scythe
Sings to the blades of the grass below?
Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,
Something, still, they say as they pass;
What is the word that, over and over,
Sings the scythe to the flowers and grass?

Hush, ah bush, the scythes are saying,
Hush, and beed not, and fall asleep;
Hush, they say to the grasses swaying,
Hush, they sing to the clover deep!
Hush—'tis the lullaby Time is singing—
Hush, and beed not, for all things pass,
Hush, ah hush! and the scythes are swinging
Over the clover, over the grass.

Tired of Towns

‘When we spoke to her of the New Jerusalem, she said she would rather go to a country place in Heaven.’—Letters from the Black Country.

I'm weary of towns, it seems a'most a pity
We didn't stop down i' the country and clem ;
And you say that I'm bound for another city,
For the streets o' the New Jerusalem.

And the streets are never like Sheffield, here,
Nor the smoke don't cling like a smut to them;
But the water o' life flows cool and clear
Through the streets o' the New Jerusalem.

And the houses, you say, are of jasper cut,
And the gates are gaudy wi' gold and gem;
But there's times I could wish as the gates were shut—
The gates o' the New Jerusalem.

For I come from a country that's over-built
Wi' streets that stifle, and walls that hem;
And the gorse on a common's worth all the gilt
And the gold of your New Jerusalem.

And I hope that they'll bring me, in Paradise,
To green lanes leafy wi' bough and stem—
To a country place in the land o' the skies,
And not to the New Jerusalem.

Lancashire for hunger.

Pen and Ink

Ye wanderers that were my sires,
Who read men's fortunes in the hand,
Who voyaged with your smithy fires
From waste to waste across the land—
Why did you leave for garth and town
Your life by heath and river's brink?
Why lay your gipsy freedom down
And doom your child to Pen and Ink?

You wearied of the wild-wood meal
That crowned, or failed to crown, the day;
Too honest or too tame to steal
You broke into the beaten way:
Plied loom or awl like other men,
And learned to love the guineas' chink—
Oh, recreant sires, who doomed me then
To earn so few—with Pen and Ink!

Where it hath fallen the tree must lie,
'Tis over late for me to roam;
Yet the caged bird who hears the cry
Of his wild fellows fleeting home,
May feel no sharper pang than mine,
Who seem to hear, whene'er I think,
Spate in the stream and wind in pine,
Call me to quit dull Pen and Ink.

For then the spirit wandering,
That slept within the blood, awakes;
For then the summer and the spring
I fain would meet by streams and lakes;
But ah, my birthright long is sold,
But custom chains me, link on link,
And I must get me, as of old,
Back to my tools—to Pen and Ink.

Disillusions of Astronomy

I once took delight
In the meteorite;
I was eager his passage to scan,
For I said, ‘From some far
And mysterious star
He is bearing his message to man.

‘In sidereal showers
There is metal like ours;
They have iron, and therefore have wars;
It is easy to think
They may be on the brink
Of a social convulsion in Mars.’

So I followed the flight
Of the meteorite;
I was eager his journey to scan;
For I deemed that he came
On his pathway of flame
For the edification of man.

But, alas! I have read
That his journey is sped
From the earth, as she once was of yore,
When the globe was red-hot,
And Vesuvius shot
Stones at six miles a second or more.

From Vesuvius' cup
There were rocks that flew up,
Out of gravity's reach; now they fall!
Which accounts for the flight
Of the meteorite,
As I read in Astronomer Ball.

So he brings us no news
From the stars we peruse,
Or in hope, or in terror survey;
He is only a stone
From the world that was thrown
When the earth was an infant at play.

He conveyed us no germs
Of amœbæ, or worms,
As Sir William conjectured of yore;
Whence he came doth he fall,
Thinks Astronomer Ball:
Life's a mystery, much as before.

And the creeds that come down,
With a smile or a frown,
To the earth, from the world's walls of flame:
Are they guesses and fears,
That flew up to the spheres,
And return to the hearts whence they came?

So Dame Science avers;
But these fancies of hers,
They are vague as the wandering breeze;
And concerning the flight
Of the meteorite,
And the rest—I'll believe what I please.

Zimbabwe

(The ruined Gold Cities of Rhodesia. The Ophir of Scripture.)

Into the darkness whence they came,
They passed—their country knoweth none,
They and their gods without a name
Partake the same oblivion.
Their work they did, their work is done,
Whose gold, it may be, shone like fire
About the brows of Solomon,
And in the House of God's Desire.

Hence came the altar all of gold,
The hinges of the Holy Place,
The censer with the fragrance rolled
Skyward to seek Jehovah's face;
The golden ark that did encase
The Law within Jerusalem,
The lilies and the rings to grace
The high priest's robe and diadem.

The pestilence, the desert spear,
Smote them; they passed with none to tell
The names of them that laboured here:
Stark walls and crumbling crucible,
Strait gates, and graves, and ruined well,
Abide, dumb monuments of old,
We know but that men fought and fell,
Like us—like us—for love of gold.

A Review in Rhyme

A little of Horace, a little of Prior,
A sketch of a milkmaid, a lay of the squire—
These, these are ‘on draught’ ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

A child in blue ribbons that sings to herself,
A talk of the books on the Sheraton shelf,
A sword of the Stuarts, a wig of the Guelph,

A lai, a pantoum, a ballade, a rondeau,
A pastel by Greuze, and a sketch by Moreau,
And the chimes of the rhymes that sing sweet as they go;

A fan, and a folio, a ringlet, a glove,
'Neath a dance by Laguerre on the ceiling above,
And a dream of the days when the bard was in love;

A scent of dead roses, a glance at a pun,
A toss of old powder, a glint of the sun,
They meet in the volume that Dobson has done.

If there's more that the heart of a man can desire,
He may search in his Swinburne, for fury and fire;
If he's wise—he'll alight ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

At the Sign of the Lyre, by H. A. Dobson, 1885.

The Banks of Wye

Once more we watch the fields we knew,
Once more the valley fair,
Moonlight, and silence, and the dew
Are dreaming on the air:
Ah, silence! not a curlew's cry
To vex the midnight still,
'Tis only Wye goes moaning by
Beneath the shadowy hill.

Say, is it long ago she smiled
Here, in the birchen wood,
With sweetest eyes that ever child
Wore into womanhood?
And now we watch the hills alone,
And Wye, his banks along,
Must sound, for us, a parting moan;
For her—a bridal song.

Well, so doth Heaven or fate decide,
And time has willed it so:
Farewell to bridegroom and to bride,
Farewell to long ago!
And years and faces change, and feet
In alien regions range,
And souls may meet, or ne'er may meet,
But one can never change.

An Aspiration

When we have cut each other's throats
And robbed each other's land;
And turned, and changed, and lost our coats,
Till progress is at stand;
When every ‘programme's’ been gone through
This good old world will wake anew!

When science, art, and learning cease
As wealth and commerce die—
The children they of wealth and peace,
With peace and wealth they fly—
Then ghosts will walk, and in their train
Bring old religion back again.

When hunger, war, and pestilence
Have run their ancient round;
When law has long been banished hence;
When hate has cleared the ground;
When men grown few, as once they were,
Breathe uncontaminated air—

Till then I fain would sleep, and then
Be born in other days—
A hermit in some happy glen
Where some clear river strays;
Nursed in some faith—I know not, I—
Wherein a man might live and die.

Ah, early would I rise to pray,
And early would I steal
From chapel, in the dawning gray,
To earn the Friday's meal—
A monk who never dreamed of doubt,
I'd catch uneducated trout!

A priest where woman might not come,
Nor any household care;
A land where newspapers were dumb
From scandal and from scare—
That priest I'd be, that land I'd see,
Would fortune work my wish for me!

O Buddha, if thy tale be true,
Of still returning life;
A monk may I be born anew
In valleys far from strife—
A monk where Meggatt winds and laves
The lone St. Mary's of the waves.

The ruined Chapel of Our Lady on St. Mary's Loch at the head of Yarrow, ‘The lone St. Mary's of the waves’ is a charming line by Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd.

Tout finit par des Chansons

[_]

(Ballade en guise de Rondeau)

All ends in song! Dame Nature toiled
In stellar space, by land, by sea;
And many a monstrous thing she spoiled,
And many another brought to be;
Strange brutes that sprawled, strange stars that flee,
Or flare the steadfast signs among:
What profit thence—to you or me?
All ends in song!

All ends in song! But Nature moiled
And brought forth Man, who deems him free,
Who dreams 'twas his own hand embroiled
The tangles of his destiny:
Who fashioned empires—who but he?—
Who fashioned gods, a motley throng:
They fall, they fade by Time's decree—
All ends in song!

All ends in song! we strive, are foiled,
Are broken-hearted—even we:
Where that old sinful snake is coiled
We shake the knowledgeable tree,
We listen to the serpent's plea,
‘As gods shall ye know right and wrong’—
And this is all the mystery—
‘All ends in song.’

Envoy

Muse, or in sooth or mockery,
Or brief of days, or lasting long,
Our love, or hate, or gloom, or glee—
All ends in song.

A Dream

Why will you haunt my sleep?
You know it may not be;
The grave is wide and deep,
That sunders you and me;
In bitter dreams we reap
The sorrow we have sown,
And I would I were asleep,
Forgotten and alone!

We knew and did not know—
We saw and did not see,
The nets that long ago
Fate wove for you and me;
The cruel nets that keep
The birds that sob and moan;
And I would we were asleep,
Forgotten and alone!

The Grave of Orpheus

The story about the suicide of Orpheus, after the second loss of Eurydice, and about the nightingales that sing over his tomb, is in Pausanias.

'Twas hence the Thracian minstrel went
The second time the sunless way,
And found his twice-lost love, content
'Mid songless shades to be as they;
But the songs died not—all the May
And all through June they flood the vales,
And still on Orpheus' tomb, men say,
Most sweetly sing the nightingales.

The Melancholy Muses

A weary lot is his who longs
For something bright in rhyme;
Men, women, children send me songs
Sepulchral or sublime.
The songs are all of bale and blight;
Alas! I do not need them,
For almost every one can write,
And nobody can read them!
Has merriment gone wholly out?
Have all the hearts been broken?
Must every mortal sing of doubt,
From Peebles to Portsoken?
Men rhyme of penalties and pains,
Forgetting joy and wassail;
The Muses dwell with stripes and chains
In Bunyan's Doubting Castle.
Ah, there have all the pleasures fled,
The Cupids all departed,
The Muses that to dance we led,
Light-footed and light-hearted!

Will ne'er a knight go blow the horn,
And knock that giant over,
Dispel the dark, let in the morn,
Give every Muse a lover?
Sad maiden Muses, vowed to pain,
Too long, perchance, they've tarried;
There never will be joy again
Till every Muse is married!

Νηνεμος Αιων

I would my days had been in other times,
A moment in the long unnumbered years
That knew the sway of Horus and of hawk,
In peaceful lands that border on the Nile.

I would my days had been in other times,
Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymn
Between the five great rivers, or in shade
And shelter of the cool Himâlyan hills.

I would my days had been in other times,
That I in some old abbey of Touraine
Had watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life,
Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais!

I would my days had been in other times,
When quiet life to death not terrible
Drifted, as ashes of the Santhal dead
Drift down the sacred rivers to the sea!

The Old Love and the New

How oft I've watched her footstep glide
Across th' enamelled plain,
And deemed she was the fairest bride
And I the fondest swain!
How oft with her I've cast me down
Beneath the odorous limes,
How often twined her daisy crown,
In the glad careless times!

By that old wicket ne'er we meet
Where still we met of yore,
But I have found another sweet
Beside the salt sea-shore:
With sea-daisies her locks I wreathe,
With sea-grass bind her hands,
And salt and sharp's the air we breathe
Beside the long sea-sands!

Mine own true love had eyes of blue,
And Willow! was her song;
Sea-green her eyes, my lady new,
And of the east her tongue.
And she that's worsted in the strife,
A southland lass is she;
But she that's won—the Neuk o' Fife,
It is her ain countrie!

No more the old sweet words we call,
These kindly words of yore—
‘Over!’ ‘Hard in!’ ‘Leg-bye!’ ‘No ball!’
Ah, now we say ‘Two more’;
And of the ‘Like’ and ‘Odd’ we shout,
Till swains and maidens scoff;
‘The fact is, cricket's been bowled out
By that eternal golf!’

A Remonstrance with the Fair

There are thoughts that the mind cannot fathom,
The mind of the animal male;
But woman abundantly hath 'em,
And mostly her notions prevail.
And why ladies read what they do read
Is a thing that no man may explain,
And if any one asks for a true rede
He asketh in vain.

Ah, why is each ‘passing depression’
Of stories that gloomily bore,
Received as the subtle expression
Of almost unspeakable lore?
In the dreary, the sickly, the grimy
Say, why do our women delight?
And wherefore so constantly ply me
With Ships in the Night?

Dear ladies, in vain you approach us,
With books to your taste in your hands;
For, alas! though you offer to coach us,
Yet the soul of no man understands
Why the grubby is always the moral,
Why the nasty's preferred to the nice,
While you keep up a secular quarrel
With a gay little Vice;

Yes, a Vice with her lips full of laughter,
A Vice with a rose in her hair,
You condemn in the present and after,
To darkness of utter despair:
But a sin, if no rapture redeem it,
But a passion that's pale and played out,
Or in surgical hands—you esteem it
Worth scribbling about!

What is sauce for the goose, for the gander
Is sauce, ye inconsequent fair!
It is better to laugh than to maunder,
And better is mirth than despair;
And though life's not all beer and all skittles,
Yet the sun, on occasion, can shine,
And, mon Dieu! he's a fool who belittles
This cosmos of Thine!

There are cakes, there is ale—ay, and ginger
Shall be hot in the mouth, as of old:
And a villain, with cloak and with whinger,
And a hero, in armour of gold,
And a maid with a face like a lily,
With a heart that is stainless and gay,
Make a tale worth a world of the silly
Sad trash of to-day.

Sir Toby.

Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?

Clown.

Yes, by St. Anne! and ginger shall be hot in the mouth too.

Twelfth Night, 11. iii.

The Lover in Hades

Persephone
Now take and eat, and have release;
And memory, and longing leave;
Then shall the seasons pass in peace
Wherein thou dost not grieve.
Thou wouldst not suffer for love's sake
Longer, and longer idly crave?

The Lover
The pomegranate I will not take,
Nor drink the mystic wave:
I had a lady, passing dear,
And fair, beneath earth's windy skies—
And but one joy I fail of here—
To look into her eyes.
And if she keep my memory,
I know mine shall be sadder yet.
But if she quite forgetteth me,
Yet will I not forget!

[_]

[On the centenary of Robert Burns in 1896 Lord Rosebery addressed two meetings held to celebrate it on the same day, first in Dumfries and then in Glasgow. Both speeches were remarkable, casting fresh light on a well-worn theme.]

Lord Rosebery loquitur

Was I ever sae tormentit?
I'm nearly driven dementit.
The things I hae inventit
To speak about the Bard
Are mony and meritorious,
So say the maist censorious;
But, oh! it's fair notorious
To find new things is hard!

Ma very sleep is broken wi't,
The Glorious Shade I've spoken wi't,
Poetic thirst I've sloken wi't,
But, faith! I'm rinning oot;
And here's another bust, ye ken,
And talk on it I must, ye ken,
For Paisley pits her trust, ye ken,
In me, and has nae doot.

Faith, a' the Sultan's meenions
I'll curse, and ma opeenions
About the puir Armenians
I'll speak and mak' ma maen.
Though Robbie never heard o' them,
His heart would hae been stirred for them,
And speaking out my word for them
Kills twa birds wi' ae stane!

A Song of Patents

A've three pair o' patent shune,
An' they're a' for gowfin' in,
But, lord! they gi'e a body unco fa's!
It's forward now ye'll coup,
And now ye'll rax your dowp,
And ye stotter whan addressing till your ba's.

But they're patents, ye maun ken,
And the race of thinking men
Maunna dare the things their faithers likit weel;
So we've Companies and Shares
And bonnie Bulls and Bears,
Or the country wad be gangin' to the de'il!

A've a braw new patent cleek,
Like a Plawtypuss's beak,
And they threip that it is excellent in sand;
But, if I tap my ba'
It slices it in twa;
Yet a' the shop-fowk tell me it is grand!

The name I canna utter
O' my braw new patent putter,
For the name it is derivit frae the Greek;
But I canna hole a ba' off it,
In fact I ha'e a staw of it—
But no to use a ‘patent’ wad be weak.

Yestreen I saw a lassie
Foozle wi' a patent brassie,
And I bocht ane on the spot for seven-and-three;
And that same lass has coft her
An amazin' patent lofter,
And she halvit the short hole in twenty-three.

A'm mysel' the sole survivor
O' the last new patent driver,
For it split and killed my pairtners on the green;
And a splinter slew my caddie
(A wiedy's son, puir laddie!)
But—a ‘patent’ is the sicht for the sair eyne.

For we've ‘patents’ a', ye ken,
And the race of thinking men
Maunna use the clubs their faithers likit weel;
So we've Companies and Shares
And we've bonnie Bulls and Bears,
Or the country wad be gangin' to the de'il!

staw, a surfeit.

coft, bought.

Fairyland

In light of sunrise and sunsetting
The long days lingered, in forgetting
That ever passion, keen to hold
What may not tarry, was of old,
In lands beyond the weary wold—
Beyond the bitter stream whose flood
Runs red waist-high with slain men's blood.
Was beauty once a thing that died?
Was pleasure never satisfied?
Was rest still broken by the vain
Desire of action, bringing pain,
To die in vapid rest again?
All this was quite forgotten there,
No winter brought us cold and care,
No spring gave promise unfulfilled,
Nor, with the eager summer killed,

The languid days drooped autumnwards.
So magical a season guards
The constant prime of a green June;
So slumbrous is the river's tune,
That knows no thunder of rushing rains,
Nor ever in the summer wanes,
Like waters of the summer time
In lands far from the fairy clime.

Yea, there the fairy maids are kind,
With nothing of the changeful mind
Of maidens in the days that were;
And if no laughter fills the air
With sound of silver murmurings,
And if no prayer of passion brings
A love nigh dead to earth again
Yet sighs more subtly sweet remain
And smiles that never satiate,
And loves that fear scarce any fate—
Alas! no words can bring the bloom
Of Fairyland, the faint perfume,
The sweet low light, the magic air,
To those who have not yet been there:
Alas! no words, nor any spell
Can lull the heart that knows too well
The towers that by the river stand,
The lost fair world of Fairyland.

Ah, would that I had never been
The lover of the Fairy Queen!
Or would that I again might be
Asleep below the Eildon tree,
And see her ride the forest way
As on that morning of the May!

Omar Khayyam

Wise Omar, do the southern breezes fling
Above your grave, at ending of the spring,
The snowdrift of the petals of the rose,
The wild white roses you were wont to sing?

Far in the south I know a land divine,
And there is many a saint and many a shrine,
And over all the shrines the blossom blows
Of roses that were dear to you as wine.

You were a saint of unbelieving days,
Liking your life and happy in men's praise;
Enough for you the shade beneath the bough,
Enough to watch the wild world go its ways.

Dreadless and hopeless thou of heaven or hell,
Careless of words thou hadst not skill to spell,
Content to know not all thou knowest now,
What's death? Doth any pitcher dread the well?

The pitchers we, whose maker makes them ill,
Shall he torment them if they chance to spill?
Nay, like the broken potsherds are we cast
Forth and forgotten—and what will be will!

So still were we, before the months began
That rounded us and shaped us into man.
So still we shall be, surely, at the last,
Dreamless, untouched of blessing or of ban!

Ah, strange it seems that this thy common thought—
How all things have been, ay, and shall be nought—
Was ancient wisdom in thine ancient east,
In those old days when Senlac fight was fought,

Which gave our England for a captive land
To pious chiefs of a believing band—
A gift to the believer from the priest,
Tossed from the holy to the blood-red hand!

Yea, thou wert singing when that arrow clave
Through helm and brain of him who could not save
His England, even of Harold Godwin's son;
The high tide murmurs by the hero's grave!

And thou wert wreathing roses—who can tell?—
Or chanting for some girl that pleased thee well,
Or satst at wine in Nashâpûr, when dun
The twilight veiled the field where Harold fell!

The salt sea-waves above him rage and roam!
Along the white walls of his guarded home
No zephyr stirs the rose, but o'er the wave
The wild wind beats the breakers into foam!

And dear to him, as roses were to thee,
Rings the long roar of onset of the sea;
The Swan's Bath of his Fathers is his grave:
His sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can be.

His was the age of faith, when all the west
Looked to the priest for torment or for rest;
And thou wert living then, and didst not heed
The saint who banned thee or the saint who blessed!

Ages of Progress! These eight hundred years
Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears,
And now!—she listens in the wilderness
To thee, and half believeth what she hears!

Hadst thou THE SECRET? Ah, and who may tell?
‘An hour we have,’ thou saidst; ‘Ah, waste it well!’
An hour we have, and yet eternity
Looms o'er us, and the thought of heaven or hell.

Nay, we can never be as wise as thou,
O idle singer 'neath the blossomed bough!
Nay, and we cannot be content to die.
We cannot shirk the questions ‘where?’ and ‘how?’

Ah, not from learned peace and gay content
Shall we of England go the way be went—
The singer of the red wine and the rose—
Nay, otherwise than his our day is spent!

Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nashâpûr,
But we must wander while the stars endure.
He knew THE SECRET: we have none that knows;
No man so sure as Omar once was sure!

Waitin' on the Glesca' Train

When the holidays come roun'
And on pleasure ye are boun',
For the Trossachs, Brig o' Allan or Dunblane;
You'll be sometimes keepit waitin'
When ye hear the porter statin'
That ye're waitin' on the Glesca' train.

Chorus

Tak' yer time—tak' yer time!
With indifference sublime,
Ye may watch the people hurry micht an' main;
Just tak' a seat an' wait,
For ye canna be ower late,
When ye're waitin' on the Glesca' train.

It's attended wi' expense,
For a lad o' ony sense—
If it's wet or cauld or looks like rain—
The interval mon' fill
Wi' a mutchkin or a gill
When he's waitin' for the Glesca' train.

Chorus.

There's a frien' o' mine—Mackay—
Constitutionally dry,
Thocht that he had just got time to tak' a drain;
But he somehow lost his way,
An' he's no' foun' to this day,
A' wi' waitin' on the Glesca' train.

Chorus.

I was ettlin' at Kinross,
Where the train is kin' o' cross,
And Bradshaw's no' that easy to explain,
And what was left o' me
Was just coupit at Dundee,
A' wi' waitin' on the Glesca' train.

Chorus.

But the ploy has merit whiles,
For a sonsie lassie's smiles
Had entrappit aince ma frien' Maclean;
But Maclean he got off it,
For the lass was lost at Moffat,
A' wi' waitin' on the Glesca' train.

Chorus.

There's occasions when I think
That the interests o' drink
Is the notion that directors entertain;
And that's may be why ye're waitin',
When ye hear the porter statin'
That ye're waitin' on the Glesca' train.

Chorus

Tak' yer time—tak' yer time!
With indifference sublime,
Ye may watch the people hurry micht an' main;
Just tak' a seat an' wait,
For ye canna be ower late,
When ye're waitin' on the Glesca' train.

ettling, aiming.

The Shade of Helen

Some say that Helen never went to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for the gods, having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, sent the same to be wife to Paris. For this shadow then the Greeks and Trojans slew each other.

Why from the quiet hollows of the hills,
And extreme meeting place of light and shade,
Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became
Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams
And dying glories of the sun would dwell—
Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,
Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,
And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,
Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,
To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?
One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,
Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not;
And some strange force, within me or around,
Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,
And somewhere there is fever in the halls,
That troubles me, for no such trouble came
To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.

The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry,
That house, and wife, and lands, and all Troy town,
Are little to lose, if they may keep me here,
And see me flit, a pale and silent shade,
Among the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.

At other hours another life seems mine,
Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,
By pyramids of unremembered kings,
And homes of men obedient to the dead.
There dark and quiet faces come and go
Around me, then again the shriek of arms,
And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.
What are they? even shadows such as I.
What make they? Even this—the sport of gods—
The sport of gods, however free they seem.
Ah, would the game were ended, and the light,
The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,
Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades,
Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist,
Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.

Love and Wisdom

‘When last we gathered roses in the garden I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.’ The Broken Heart.

July and June brought flowers and love
To you, but I would none thereof,
Whose heart kept all through summer time
A flower of frost and winter rime.
Yours was true wisdom—was it not?—
Even love; but I had clean forgot,
Till seasons of the falling leaf,
All loves, but one that turned to grief.
At length at touch of autumn tide,
When roses fell, and summer died,
All in a dawning deep with dew,
Love flew to me—love fled from you.
The roses drooped their weary heads,
I spoke among the garden beds;
You would not hear, you could not know,
Summer and love seemed long ago,

As far, as faint, as dim a dream,
As to the dead this world may seem.
Ah sweet, in winter's miseries,
Perchance you may remember this,
How wisdom was not justified
In summer time or autumn-tide,
Though for this once below the sun,
Wisdom and love were made at one;
But love was bitter-bought enough,
And wisdom light of wing as love.

Good-bye

Kiss me, and say good-bye;
Good-bye—there is no word to say but this,
Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
Kiss me, and say good-bye.

Farewell! be glad—forget;
There is no need to say ‘forget’, I know,
For youth is youth, and time will have it so;
And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,
Farewell, you must forget.

You shall bring home your sheaves,
Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
Of memories that go not out of mind;
Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
When you bring home your sheaves.

In garnered loves of thine—
The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years—
Somewhere let this lie, gray and salt with tears;
It grew too near the sea wind and the brine
Of life, this love of mine.

This sheaf was spoiled in spring,
And over-long was green, and early sere,
And never gathered gold in the late year
From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,
But failed in frosts of spring.

Yet was it thine, my sweet,
This love, though weak as young corn witherèd
Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;
Forget not quite, my sweet.

Christmas Violets

Last night I found the violets
You sent me once across the sea;
From gardens that the winter frets
In summer lands they came to me.

Still fragrant of the English earth,
Still humid from the frozen dew,
To me they spoke of Christmas mirth,
They spoke of England—spoke of you.

But you have reached a windless age,
The haven of a happy clime;
You do not dread the winter's rage,
Although we missed the summer time.

And like the flower's breath over sea,
Across the gulf of time and pain,
To-night returns the memory
Of castles that we built—in Spain!

The Nemesis of Art

[_]

(Written after reading The Tinted Venus, by Mr. Anstey.)

I

Alas! that thou art dear, and not so dear,
As faces fading from the painted wall,
The queens of ages immemorial,
Helen, and grace of golden Guinevere!
Alas! thy kisses are not worth a tear,
One single tear of all the tears that fall
For memory of loves gone out of call,
And these old voices that we shall not hear.
Alas! that thou art fair, and not so fair,
As ladies Lionardo loved to paint,
Set in a frame of curled and golden hair,
Saintlike; with smiles that are not of a saint,
Glad with inexplicable mirth, or faint
With extreme languor and supreme despair.

II

We love like him who gave, long time ago,
To Venus' marble hand his wedding ring;
No more his love's embrace might round him cling,
Nor heart with heart responsive ebb and flow;
Only the goddess-ghost would come and go,
To fan him with the breath of her white wing,
And dull the fever, and assuage the sting,
And comfort him a little in his woe.
And we, like him, have given our hearts away
To beauty that was never clad in clay,
That puts all mortal loveliness to scorn;
A pale, a bitter, and a jealous queen,
With her undying beauty set between
Our loves and us, to make us all forlorn.

Legion

Oh, it's billy and swag, and it's do and dare
In the mining camp, in the good free air,
We do golden deeds by the batch!
For we won the Cup on a nobbled mare
(Oh, it's billy and swag and it's do and dare!)
And we pulled off the English match!
And we hunted the Boer as you hunt a hare,
And we brought off a gallery catch!
And you'll find the Cornstalks everywhere,
In the mining camp, in the good free air;
They are first on the flat, they are all on the square,
Their lads are as brave as their lasses are fair,
And you'll find the Australians everywhere,
Oh, it's billy and swag, and it's do and dare,
From the turf to the last dispatch!
And it's boot and saddle and devil may care,
It's ‘won by a hand and a little to spare’,
And the handicap landed from scratch!

Sylvie et Aurélie

In Memory of Gérard de Nerval

Two loves there were, and one was born
Between the sunset and the rain;
Her singing voice went through the corn,
Her dance was woven 'neath the thorn,
On grass the fallen blossoms stain;
And suns may set, and moons may wane,
But this love comes no more again.

There were two loves and one made white
Thy singing lips, and golden hair;
Born of the city's mire and light,
The shame and splendour of the night,
She trapped and fled thee unaware;
Not through the lamplight and the rain
Shalt thou behold this love again.

Go forth and seek, by wood and hill,
Thine ancient love of dawn and dew;
There comes no voice from mere or rill,
Her dance is over, fallen still
The ballad burdens that she knew;
And thou must wait for her in vain,
Till years bring back thy youth again.

That other love, afield, afar
Fled the light love, with lighter feet.
Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,
And flit in dreams from star to star,
That dead love shalt thou never meet,
Till through bleak dawn and blowing rain
Thy soul shall find her soul again.

The Tournay of the Heroes

Ho, warders, cry a tournay! ho, heralds, call the knights!
What gallant lance for old romance 'gainst modern fiction fights?
The lists are set, the knights are met, I ween, a dread array,
St. Chad to shield, a stricken field shall we behold to-day!
First to the northern barriers pricks Roland of Roncesvaux,
And by his side, in knightly pride, Wilfred of Ivanhoe,
The Templar rideth by his rein, two gallant foes were they;
And proud to see, le brave Bussy his colours doth display.
Ready at need he comes with speed, William of Deloraine,
And Hereward the Wake himself is pricking o'er the plain.

The good knight of La Mancha's here; here is Sir Amyas Leigh,
And Eric of the gold hair, pride of northern chivalry.
There shines the steel of Alan Breck, the sword of Athos shines,
Dalgetty on Gustavus rides along the marshalled lines;
With many a knight of sunny France the Cid has marched from Spain,
And Götz the lron-handed leads the lances of Almain.

But who upon the modern side are champions? With the sleeve
Adorned of his false lady-love, rides glorious David Grieve;
A bookseller sometime was he, in a provincial town,
But now before his iron mace go horse and rider down.
Ho, Robert Elsmere! count thy beads; lo, champion of the fray,
With brandished colt, comes Felix Holt, all of the modern day.
And Silas Lapham's six-shooter is cocked: the colonel's spry!
There spurs the wary Egoist, defiance in his eye;
There Zola's ragged regiment comes, with dynamite in hand,
And Flaubert's crew of country doctors devastate the land.

On Robert Elsmere Friar Tuck falls with his quarter-staff,
Nom Dé! to see the clerics fight might make the sourest laugh!
They meet—they shock—full many a knight is smitten on the crown;
So keep us good St. Geneviève, Umslopogaas is down!
About the mace of David Grieve his blood is flowing red,
Alas for ancient chivalry, le brave Bussy is sped!
Yet where the sombre Templar rides the modern caitiffs fly,
The Mummer (of The Mummer's Wife) has got it in the eye;
From Felix Holt his patent colt hath not averted fate,
And Silas Lapham's smitten fair, right through his gallant pate.
There Dan Deronda reels and falls, a hero sore surprised;
Ha, Beauséant! still may such fate befall the Circumcised!
The Egoist is flying fast from him of lvanhoe:
Beneath the axe of Skalagrim fall prigs at every blow:
The ragged Zolaists have fled, screaming ‘We are betrayed’,
But loyal Alan Breck is shent, stabbed through the Stuart plaid.
In sooth it is a grimly sight, so fast the heroes fall,
Three volumes fell could scarcely tell the fortunes of them all.

At length but two are left on ground, and David Grieve is one.
Ma foy, what deeds of derring-do that bookseller hath done!
The other, mark the giant frame, the great portentous fist!
'Tis Porthos! David Grieve may call on Kuenen an he list.
The swords are crossed; Doublez, dégagez, vite! great Porthos calls,
And David drops, that secret botte hath pierced his overalls;
And goodly Porthos, as of old the famed Orthryades,
Raises the trophy of the fight; then, falling on his knees,
He writes in gore upon his shield, ‘Romance, Romance, has won!’
And blood-red on that stricken field goes down the angry sun.
Night falls upon the field of death, night on the darkling lea:
Oh send us such a tournay soon, and send me there to see!

Gallia

Lady, lady neat
Of the roguish eye,
Wherefore dost thou hie
Stealthy, down the street,
On well-booted feet?
From French novels I
Gather that you fly,
Guy or Jules to meet.

Furtive dost thou range,
Oft thy cab dost change;
So, at least, 'tis said;
Oh, the sad old tale
Passionately stale,
We've so often read.

The Fairy Minister

[_]

The Rev. Mr. Kirk of Aberfoyle was carried away by the Fairies in 1692.

People of Peace! a peaceful man,
Well worthy of your love was he,
Who, while the roaring Garry ran
Red with the life-blood of Dundee,
While coats were turning, crowns were falling,
Wandered along his valley still,
And heard your mystic voices calling
From fairy knowe and haunted hill.
He heard, he saw, he knew too well
The secrets of your fairy clan;
You stole him from the haunted dell,
Who never more was seen of man.
Now far from heaven, and safe from hell,
Unknown of earth, he wanders free.

Would that he might return and tell
Of his mysterious company!
For we have tired the Folk of Peace;
No more they tax our corn and oil;
Their dances on the moorland cease,
The brownie stints his wonted toil.
No more shall any shepherd meet
The ladies of the fairy clan,
Nor are their deathly kisses sweet
On lips of any earthly man.
And half I envy him who now,
Clothed in her court's enchanted green,
By moonlit loch or mountain's brow
Is chaplain to the Fairy Queen.

To Correspondents

My postman, though I fear thy tread,
And tremble as thy foot draws nearer,
'Tis not the Christmas dun I dread,
My mortal foe is much severer—
The unknown correspondent, who,
With indefatigable pen,
And nothing in the world to do,
Perplexes literary men.

From Pentecost and Ponder's End
They write: from Deal, and from Dacota;
The people of the Shetlands send
No inconsiderable quota;
They write for autographs; in vain—
In vain does Phyllis write, and Flora;
They write that Allan Quatermain
Is not at all the book for Brora.

They write to say that they have met
This writer ‘at a garden party,
And though’ this writer ‘may forget’
Their recollection's keen and hearty;
‘And will you praise in your reviews
A novel by our distant cousin.’
These letters from provincial blues
Assail us daily by the dozen.

O friends with time upon your hands,
O friends with postage-stamps in plenty,
O poets out of many lands,
O youths and maidens under twenty,
Seek out some other wretch to bore,
Or wreak yourselves upon your neighbours,
And leave me to my dusty lore
And my unprofitable labours!

Partant pour la Scribie

[_]

[Scribie, on the north-east littoral of Bohemia, is the land of stage conventions. It is named after the discoverer, M. Scribe.]

A pleasant land is Scribie, where
The light comes mostly from below,
And seems a sort of symbol rare
Of things at large, and how they go,
In rooms where doors are everywhere
And cupboards shelter friend or foe.

There is a realm where people tell
Each other, when they chance to meet,
Of things that long ago befell—
And do most solemnly repeat
Secrets they both know very well,
Aloud, and in the public street!

100

A land where lovers go in fours,
Master and mistress, man and maid;
Where people listen at the doors
Or 'neath a table's friendly shade,
And comic Irishmen in scores
Roam o'er the scenes all undismayed:

A land where virtue in distress
Owes much to uncles in disguise;
Where British sailors frankly bless
Their limbs, their timbers, and their eyes:
And where the villain doth confess,
Conveniently, before he dies!

A land of lovers false and gay;
A land where people dread a ‘curse’;
A land of letters gone astray,
Or intercepted, which is worse;
Where weddings false fond maids betray,
And all the babes are changed at nurse.

Oh, happy land, where things come right!
We of the world where things go ill;
Where lovers love, but don't unite;
Where no one finds the missing will—
Dominion of the heart's delight,
Scribie, we've loved, and love thee still!

101

The Fairy's Gift

[_]

‘Take short views.’—Sydney Smith.

The fays that to my christ'ning came
(For come they did, my nurses taught me,
They did not bring me wealth or fame—
'Tis very little that they brought me.
But one, the crossest of the crew,
The ugly old one, uninvited,
Said, ‘I shall be avenged on you,
My child; you shall grow up short-sighted!’
With magic juices did she lave
Mine eyes, and wrought her wicked pleasure.
Well, of all gifts the fairies gave,
Hers is the present that I treasure!
The bore whom others fear and flee,
I do not fear—I do not flee him;
I pass him calm as calm can be;
I do not cut—I do not see him!

102

And with my feeble eyes and dim,
Where you see patchy fields and fences,
For me the mists of Turner swim—
My ‘azure distance’ soon commences!
Nay, as I blink about the streets
Of this befogged and miry city,
Why, almost every girl one meets
Seems preternaturally pretty!
‘Try spectacles,’ one's friends intone;
‘You'll see the world correctly through them.’
But I have visions of my own,
And not for worlds would I undo them.

103

Villanelle

To Lucia

Apollo left the golden Muse
And shepherded a mortal's sheep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!

To mock the giant swain that woos
The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,
Apollo left the golden Muse.

Afield he drove his lambs and ewes
Where Milon and where Battus reap,
Theocritus of Syracuse!

To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise
Below the dim Sicilian steep
Apollo left the golden Muse.

104

Ye twain did loiter in the dews,
Ye slept the swain's unfever'd sleep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!

That time might half with his confuse
Thy songs—like his, that laugh and leap—
Theocritus of Syracuse,
Apollo left the golden Muse!

105

Woman and the Weed

[_]

Founded on a New Zealand Myth

In the morning of time, when his fortunes began,
How bleak, how un-Greek, was the nature of man!
From his wigwam, if ever he ventured to roam,
There was nobody waiting to welcome him home;
For the man had been made, but the woman had not,
And earth was a highly detestable spot.
Man hated his neighbours; they met and they scowled,
They did not converse but they struggled and howled,
For man had no tact—he would ne'er take a hint,
And his notions he backed with a hatchet of flint.

So man was alone, and he wished he could see
On the earth some one like him, but fairer than he,
With locks like the red gold, a smile like the sun,
To welcome him back when his hunting was done.
And he sighed for a voice that should answer him still,
Like the affable echo he heard on the hill:
That should answer him softly and always agree,
And oh, man reflected, how nice it would be!

106

So he prayed to the gods, and they stooped to his prayer,
And they spoke to the sun on his way through the air,
And he married the echo one fortunate morn,
And woman, their beautiful daughter, was born!
The daughter of sunshine and echo she came
With a voice like a song, with a face like a flame;
With a face like a flame, and a voice like a song,
And happy was man, but it was not for long!

For weather's a painfully changeable thing,
Not always the child of the echo would sing;
And the face of the sun may be hidden with mist,
And his child can be terribly cross if she list;
And unfortunate man had to learn with surprise
That a frown's not peculiar to masculine eyes;
That the sweetest of voices can scold and can sneer,
And cannot be answered—like men—with a spear.

So man went and called to the gods in his woe,
And they answered him—‘Sir, you would needs have it so:
And the thing must go on as the thing has begun,
She's immortal—your child of the echo and sun.
But we'll send you another, and fairer is she,
This maiden with locks that are flowing and free.
This maiden so gentle, so kind, and so fair,
With a flower like a star in the night of her hair.

107

With her eyes like the smoke that is misty and blue,
With her heart that is heavenly, tender, and true.
She will die in the night, but no need you should mourn,
You shall bury her body and thence shall be born
A weed that is green, that is fragrant and fair,
With a flower like the star in the night of her hair.
And the leaves must ye burn till they offer to you
Soft smoke, like her eyes that are misty and blue.

‘And the smoke shall ye breathe and no more shall ye fret,
But the child of the echo and sun shall forget—
Shall forget all the trouble and torment she brings,
Shall bethink ye of none but delectable things;
And the sound of the wars with your brethren shall cease,
While ye smoke by the camp-fire the great pipe of peace.’
So the last state of man was by no means the worst,
The second gift softened the sting of the first.

Nor the child of the echo and sun doth he heed
When he dreams with the maid that was changed to the weed;
Though the echo be silent, the sun in a mist,
The maid is the fairest that ever was kissed;
And when tempests are over and ended the rain,
And the child of the sunshine is sunny again
He comes back, glad at heart, and again is at one
With the changeable child of the echo and sun.

108

Another Way

Come to me in my dreams, and then,
One saith, I shall be well again,
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Nay, come not thou in dreams, my sweet!
With shadowy robes, and silent feet,
And with the voice, and with the eyes
That greet me in a soft surprise.

Last night, last night, in dreams we met,
And how, to-day, shall I forget?
Or how, remembering, restrain
Mine incommunicable pain?

Nay, where thy land and people are,
Dwell thou remote, apart, afar,
Nor mingle with the shapes that sweep
The melancholy ways of sleep.

But if, perchance, the shadows break—
If dreams depart, if men awake,
If face to face at length we see,
Be thine the voice to welcome me.

109

Valé

Once the Muse was fair,
Once—when we were young;
Gay and debonair,
Or with pensive air;
So she came, she sung.

Often, through the noise
Of the running stream,
Would we hear her voice—
Hear it and rejoice;
‘Dream not 'twas a dream.’

Could we see her now
Come at a command,
Withered on her brow
Were the wreath—the bough
Broken in her hand.

110

Nay, as erst the morn
Floating far away,
More in ruth than scorn
Left her love outworn,
Once his locks were gray.

So, for ever young,
Ever fair, the Muse
Leaves us, who have sung
Till the lute's unstrung;
Doth her grace refuse.

'Tis not she, but we,
That are weary now;
Well, howe'er it be,
Her we shall not see—
Broken is the bough.

111

To Fiona

From the damp shieling on the draggled island
Mountains divide you, and no end of seas.
But, though your heart is genuinely Highland,
Still, you're in luck to be away from these!

Far from the mountains where the thirsty crofter
Early and eager registers his vote,
Still drinking harder as the day grows ‘softer’,
Fiona, from these thou art happily remote.

Far from the hostels where the baffled tripper
Watches the window and contemplates the rain;
Far from the drenched decks where the oilskinned skipper
Herds the unhappy clients of Macbrayne.

Far from the caves where unfortunate Prince Charlie
Served as the pasture of the eager midge,
Fiona, methinks that, after dining early,
Thou art enjoying the delights of bridge.

Yes, Fiona dear, the Highlands, from a distance,
Seem a seductive subject for a lay,
But, when it rains with the usual persistence,
Fiona, perhaps you would rather stop away.

The steamers of David Macbrayne would provide readiest access to the Western Isles during the tourist season.

112

Lines on the Inaugural meeting of The Shelley Society

‘By Jove, I will; he was my father's friend!’
Thus Dr. Furnivall, in choice blank verse,
Replied when he was asked by Mr. Sweet
(Sweet of the pointed and envenomed pen,
Wherewith he pricks the men who not elect
Him a Professor, as he ought to be),
'Twas thus, we say, that Furnivall replied
To the bold question asked by bitter Sweet.
‘And what that question?’ Briefly, it was this—
‘Why do not you, who start so many things,
Societies for poets live and dead,
Why do not you a new communion found—
“Shelley Society” might be the name—
Where men might worry over Shelley's bones?’
‘By Jove, I will; he was my father's friend,’
Said Furnivall; and lo, the thing was done!

113

Then the fresh victim to ‘inaugurate’,
They called upon the Reverend Stopford Brooke.
Who, being well disposed to them, arose,
And did address them in majestic phrase,
‘Forewords’, as they are styled by Furnivall,
By Jove, for Shelley was his father's friend.
‘A thoughtful and most temperate address’
Was Stopford Brooke's, who, as we learn with grief
From the reporter of this merry fit,
‘Knocked Mr. Matthew Arnold out of time’.
Oh, somewhere, meek, unconscious Matt, that sit'st
Below Teutonic limes, somewhere thou'lt read
I' the Times, how Stopford Brooke has knocked thee flat!
Then, to the joy of the assembled host,
To them arose intrepid Furnivall
(Young Mr. Shelley was his father's friend),
And proved that Matthew is a Philistine!
Oh, tell it not in Gath; oh, tell it not
Where men do congregate in Ascalon,
That Mr. Arnold tarries in their tents
Disguised, and worships Dagon e'en as they.
Such is the view of Dr. Furnivall.

Then anecdotes of Shelley were brought forth—
Old anecdotes, and such as Captain Sumph
Was wont to tell of Byron and the priest
Who grieved that he was ‘not a family man’.

114

This was the bravest of the anecdotes,
How Shelley at the elder Furnivall's
(For Shelley was the Doctor's father's friend)
Was asked one day, at tea, ‘What he would take’?
And what took Shelley but a dish of milk
(It seems he did not like it in a cup)—
A dish of milk, and, butterless, a crust.
Such was the food of this superior mind,
Such the tradition and the influence
That shaped the soul of Dr. Furnivall.

What more? Why not so much as we might hope;
But Mr. Brooke—the Reverend Stopford Brooke,
He who in our religion finds romance—
Declared that Shelley was the poet-priest
Of what he calls ‘the modern Meliorism’.
What that may be we know not; but 'tis thought
To be a kind of pious Socialism,
To be a dallying with dynamite,
With Mr. Hyndman and the other gents
Who lead a mob along the streets and break
The windows, and who scare the little girls.

Then these weird figures went their several ways,
All the Society of Shelleyites.
Much have they added to the public stock
Of information about Shelley's ways;

115

Much, very much, it helps us to enjoy
The Adonais and Alastor, too,
Prometheus and Epipsychidion.
Oh, happy Shelley! happy in thy friends,
And happy in the culminating chance
When Mr. Sweet inquired of Furnivall
Why he should so neglect so great a bard,
For Shelley was the Doctor's father's friend.