University of Virginia Library

COMMANDERS IN CHIEF

THE General seemed to hear the guns as, warily and slow,
He moved his paper soldiers from a paper Continent.
A rosebud in his buttonhole laughed softly. Long ago
HER legions took the British Isles with nothing but a scent!

HOPEFUL GARDENING

OF bushes plant the laurel most,
And near to miracle remain;
For none can tell when Daphne's ghost
Will leap to lovely flesh again.

THE WISH

WOULD God that I could be
A little more each day
The better man I see
Part showing in my clay!

THE MIMIC

OF all the excellent mimics I know
There is none can touch Sleep's masterly act:
Just look at this girl with the face of snow
And the hands crossed over the breast! Exact!

LIFE

THIS chemist in his famous cup
May mix some nasty fluids up,
Yet even while we call him cheat
He laughs and passes us a sweet.

THE LAST DOSE

“TAKE it!” said the SPECIALIST, “Take it, for you must!
Gone the hyacinth valley, gone the naked heath.
Now, and for the last time, dignify your dust—
COWARDS let the wineglass rattle on their teeth!”

JUDAS

REMEMBERING Judas, darkly sealed
To wound the side has never healed,
We know his heart must be a heaven
If Heaven by him can be forgiven.

ISAAC

SINCE God was kind to him, and caught
The threatening knife from Abraham,
I hope the little Hebrew thought
To beg a favour for the ram.

THE TESTIMONIAL

IN Death's old heart that, cool and placid,
Tick by tick with the Cosmos goes
There's more of mellow and less of acid
Than anybody knows.

THE GOOD FORTUNE

A SOUR-FACED monkey, long unchecked,
Was grumbling at the monkey-plan.
At last his aunt said, “Recollect,
You might have been a man!”

THE DEVOTEE

THIS girl's a piece of music being played
Above the devilish discord of the town,
Fingered by Angels Christianly arrayed,
Who keep the pedal of holiness always down.

A TRUTH

WAVE farewell, and cross the seas,
Would you learn, as far you roam,
How to find Hesperides
On the map of home.

THE HEROINE

WHILE Wealth was a-squandering, Poverty set
To work in a fashion enthusiastic
To juggle with bellies and parings, and get
A farthing to stretch like a piece of elastic.

THE VALLEY

“I MUST not wear too broad a smile,” said Earth,
“Or humankind at once will deem me simple.”
Thereat, by way of dignifying mirth,
She cradled in her cheek this lovely dimple.

THE RUNNERS

BE it mine to view the course, with looks
As bright as heaven-haunted brooks,
When Spring is watching from her bower
The race between the Leaf and Flower.

THE BUDDING HERO

BEHOLD him at the Raleigh age,
Red in the cheeks with England's story,
And almost weeping if a page
Fails of the signature of Glory!

BAD TASTE

ATTACK him with your beauty! Throw
Beneath his feet your limbs of snow!
'Tis vain. What curves shall give him zest
Whose tidbit is the mouldering breast?

CUI BONO?

OFTEN I wonder, when I read the tale
Of how the pigs went headlong to the brine,
If at his visible ruin the man turned pale
Who chanced to own the herd of Gadarene swine.

THE FOLLY

GOD said, “Use this lovely place,
Children, for your rambles.”
Hardly had He turned His face
Ere it reeked like shambles.

THE CHESS MASTERS

DEATH, staring darkly at the pieces spread
Upon the board, felt suddenly elated;
For, as he looked ten thousand moves ahead,
He saw how Life at last could be checkmated.

THE GIPSY

REMEMBERING Hagar, cast away
While Ishmael yet on her bosom lay,
Lend me your ragged ends of shire,
With a cony or two for the pot on the fire.

THE WRONG TURNING

THEY reached a forking road, and Man
Branched off, to be a peer or flunkey;
But very soon his heart began
To think the luck was with the Monkey.

HOUSEWIFE CORN

THE dough being ready, the housekeeper takes
Beams of the sun as her coals,
Then borrows an overn from August, and bakes
Millions of little brown rolls.

THE THORN TO THE ROSE

HONOURED art thou in every land,
And I as much oppressed;
Yet I have only pricked the hand,
Whilst thou hast torn the breast.

THE REBEL

THOUGH Frost is Winter's bondman for all time,
What's left in him of warmness so rebels
That on our windowpane he draws in rime
A ghostly Spring of ferns and flowery bells.

THE SCOURGE

LOOK at his open sores! Dispel
Both rage and pity — if you can.
How shrewd a blow on horsekind fell
When God invented man!

THE AFTER-LIFE

BE you certain of this: You shall seldom ride
In the bay with your lubberly canvas furled,
But shall creakingly out to the toss of the tide—
There are herrings to catch! 'Tis a workaday world!

DARK

LOOK at me quickly, then turn away,
And I seem as black as the swarthy coal;
But run to my lullaby heart to stay,
And watch how brightly I nurse my soul!

THE HANDICAP

THE doom of Eden's thrilling skies
Was known to God ere worlds began,
And Adam lost his paradise
Before he breathed the breath of man.

A PICTURE OF LAZINESS

AFRICA sings in a pear-tree; Ceylon
Breathes in a cup on a book of romances;
Egypt is burning; I loll in the sun,
Begging the Gulf Stream to water my pansies!

THE CAT

ALTHOUGH she thinks that busy man
Builds lofty dwellings for her ease,
She snubs him at the Vatican
And flouts him in the Tuileries.

SACRILEGE

IN honour of the Prince of Peace,
The opposing generals say
That bloody butcherings shall cease
Till dawn on Boxing Day.

THE QUESTION

LOVELY of hair and breast and face,
Utterly lost to Christian grace,
How will you lift that bankrupt head
When all the butterfly beauty's dead?

BACK TO THE LAND

SAID Decay to himself, “Human beings are right.
I am thankful these noodles at last understand
That the world they have spoilt will go perfectly right
When the whole of their race has gone BACK TO THE LAND.”

MILLIONAIRES

THE millionaires have uses. Even these
Are crooked ways of help, be sure.
Behold, they drive us to our knees
To thank God for the poor!

A DISCOVERY

WHEN I grew strong, I quickly found
My weakness; for my power was less
Than when I crawled along the ground
In childhood's strength of strengthlessness.

THE CONSEQUENCE

WHEN Eve from duty turned away,
How small the prize, how large the loss!
The hand that robbed the apple-spray
Transfixed our Saviour on the Cross.

PRISON FARE

THEY tell me Life's a prison. Granted!
But there are flowers and birds and dew.
I'd pick a million miles of oakum
For such a gaol of green and blue!

TO A MISERLY LANDOWNER

OUT with your loaded purse, and stand
To help the weariful passer-by!
'Tis strange for one so rich in land
To be so very poor in sky.

THE STALWART

“KILL me the ox!” roared Vice in tones
That shook, as thunder shakes, the quiet;
“For I should soon be skin and bones
On Virtue's vegetarian diet!”

THE INDIGNANT ONION

ROSE AMONG ROOTS he called me. Well,
The madman must have lost his nose!
I trust I have the grace to smell
Far sweeter than a stinking rose!

THE TORTURERS

THERE is a sound of hammers always reaching
From earth to heaven; for hourly, to their loss,
Some so-called Christians, blasphemously preaching
By lips, not hearts, nail Jesus to the Cross.

THE FIRST CROCUS

WHEN out of Heaven Prometheus brought
The fire to Earth, he dropped a spark;
And where it tumbled, Nature wrought
A fire-filled crocus for a mark.

A SISTER OF THE POOR

HER bosom is a belfry. Hark!
She rings an octave clear and sweet
For many a soul that feels too dark
To fall in tears at Jesu's feet.

THUNDER

FLAT fall the oak-trees in the grove,
Rivers disperse and mountains crack,
When leap-frog is the game, and Jove
From broad-beamed Vulcan takes a back.

THE REVERSAL

IF you would be a groundling, keep
The maxim, LOOK BEFORE YOULEAP;
But if a hero, Valour's Book
Advises, LEAP BEFORE YOU LOOK!

THE REASON

“BECAUSE these fools,” the Earthquake said,
“Regard themselves as perfect models,
I have at times to leave my bed
To shake such nonsense from their noddles.”

IN A CEMETERY

FOR countless centuries revolve
With Earth these dead by Death destroyed.
I would to God that I might solve
THIS Problem of the Unemployed!

THE SWORD

I DID but hint myself to man
In the long, sharp leaf,
And, changed to a devil, he foamed, and ran
To embrace his grief.

PERCHANCE

HE who underneath this stone
No longer hears the bruised world moan,
By being deaf to Earth may hear
The anguish of another sphere.

A BAD RECORD

A WORLD of pathos lies in this—
That out of all the lower creatures
There's only one content to kiss
Our hands and search in love our features.

THE SAME COMPLAINT

“WHAT your most vexing parasite,”
Bawled Earth to Mars, “since Life began?”
Mars roared an answer through the night
In emphasis of thunder, “Man!”

A MODERN TYPE

SHE clutched the doctor's arm, and eyed
The newborn babe with petulance:
“Now mind you get me well,” she cried,
“Before the Digby-Jones's dance!”

SHORT SIGHTED

WHILE Virtue kept her ancient grace
She was truly Queen of the Moral Lasses;
But how she ruined her lovely face
When she took to wearing glasses!

DEPARTED

SHE died on Easter Tuesday. Being tired,
She limped along till she was out of School.
May she be welcomed as a soul desired,
And her discoveries all be beautiful!

CONQUERING WOMAN

WHILE troopers were lusty with swords and spears,
And generals deep in the craft of their duty,
She vanquished a couple of hemispheres
By drawing an inch of the bodkin of beauty.

A PERSONAL MATTER

TOO old at forty! Venomous jibe
For the brain that feels like fruit in the sun!
If this be the fate of the Mellowing Tribe,
Each man of the Tribe was too old at one!

THE QUIBBLE

“HE forbade us to pluck, you remember, Madam,
'Tis better to leave it alone,” said Adam.
“But, my love, it's a WINDFALL!” the woman protested.
So the pippin was munched, and the husband was bested.

MYSELF TO MYSELF

WHAT skies! What flowers! I feel in you
Your heart as frolic as a colt.
Beware! From just as clear a blue
There crashed that unforgettable bolt!

A BAD EXAMPLE

IF in the firmament at night
For homely lessoning you seek,
Beware the silver satellite
That never turns the other cheek.

LAZARUS

THOU had'st to pay a fee to Death
Ere coming back to mortal reach:
Methinks the price he charged for breath
(Shrewd bargainer!) was loss of speech.

CITY SPIDERS

THE insect came from its web, to crawl
Where the human insect sat and spied:
Smudging it dead with his thumb on the wall,
He committed the horror of fratricide.

A PESSIMIST TO THE WORLD

I AM weary to death of your noisy ado,
And 'tis plain as the sun we can never agree:
I shall thankfully finish my business with you
When you heartily finish your business with me.

DISTANT RELATIVES

I WATCHED her coming. Unaware of fault,
I raised my cap and smiled to Susie March.
Lot's wife, if you remember, changed to salt,
But Sue (the little cat!) had turned to starch.

VARIANCE AT FORTY

“TURN!” cried the brain. “I am weary of the mountain.”
“Climb!” quoth the heart. “We are only half way up.
Throw a vision to the peak! And I will be a fountain
Pouring red refreshment in our master's shaking cup.”

THE DUET

LOVELY and Lovable, if yesterday
My rendering seemed to fail in merit,
Forgive me! Flesh must sometimes play
A little out of tune with Spirit.

A HINT

CATERPILLAR, you ought to try
To mend your manners! Butterfly,
'Tis sad when near relations pass
Without a nod in sky or grass.

CONCEIT

THOUGH many Christians coldly turn
From much that Christ would have them learn,
Be sure they hotly claim as theirs
His pearls of price. Conceited heirs!

THE TEMPEST

BY the breves and the titan sharps in a swarm
Long was his mood conveyed:
On a fiddle of earth with a bow of storm,
Jove! how the fiddler played!

RENUNCIATION

SINCE it were well for me to rise
A hero over fire and feast,
Veil in thy hair those star-sent eyes—
She loves me best who loves me least.

UNSEXED

BEGIN my shroud! Stitch, stitch away,
And bring it me home this very day;
For English schoolboys, soft as doves,
Snowball (Great Hercules!) in gloves.