Green Bays | Page 5

hair,
Called him 'Sir Churl,' and ever
calling 'Churl!'
Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,
To forge a
thousand theories of the rocks,
Then somewhat else for thousands
dewy cool,
Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle
And there
found love, a duskier love than hers.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
By O--r K--m.
Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
Their silence while the
white-eyed Kaffir slept,
And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug,
jug!'
Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.
Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
Its Red Triangle to a
world of drought,
Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn,
Where Death,
Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.
Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
Stood by the

Tavern-door and whispered, 'Lo,
The Pledge departed, what avails
the Cup?
Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go.'
But I: 'For every thirsty soul that drains
This Anodyne of Thought its
rim contains--
Free-will the can_, Necessity the _must,
Pour off the
must_, and, see, the _can remains.
'Then, pot or glass, why label it "With Care"?
Or why your Sheepskin
with my Gourd compare?
Lo! here the Bar and I the only Judge:--

O, Dog that bit me, I exact an hair!'
We are the Sum of things, who jot our score
With Caesar's clay
behind the Tavern door:
And Alexander's armies--where are they,

But gone to Pot--that Pot you push for more?
And this same Jug I empty, could it speak,
Might whisper that itself
had been a Beak
And dealt me Fourteen Days 'without the Op.'--

Your Worship, see, my lip is on your cheek.
Yourself condemned to three score years and ten,
Say, did you judge
the ways of other men?
Why, now, sir, you are hourly filled with
wine,
And has the clay more licence now than then?
Life is a draught, good sir; its brevity
Gives you and me our measures,
and thereby
Has docked your virtue to a tankard's span,
And left of
my criterion--a Cri'!
RETROSPECTION.
After C. S. C.
When the hunter-star Orion
(Or, it may be, Charles his Wain)

Tempts the tiny elves to try on
All their little tricks again;
When the
earth is calmly breathing
Draughts of slumber undefiled,
And the
sire, unused to teething,
Seeks for errant pins his child;

When the moon is on the ocean,
And our little sons and heirs
From
a natural emotion
Wish the luminary theirs;
Then a feeling hard to
stifle,
Even harder to define,
Makes me feel I 'd give a trifle
For
the days of Auld Lang Syne.
James--for we have been as brothers
(Are, to speak correctly, twins),

Went about in one another's
Clothing, bore each other's sins,

Rose together, ere the pearly
Tint of morn had left the heaven,
And
retired (absurdly early)
Simultaneously at seven--
James, the days of yore were pleasant.
Sweet to climb for alien pears

Till the irritated peasant
Came and took us unawares;
Sweet to
devastate his chickens,
As the ambush'd catapult
Scattered, and the
very dickens
Was the natural result;
Sweet to snare the thoughtless rabbit;
Break the next-door
neighbour's pane;
Cultivate the smoker's habit
On the
not-innocuous cane;
Leave the exercise unwritten;
Systematically
cut
Morning school, to plunge the kitten
In his bath, the water-butt.
Age, my James, that from the cheek of
Beauty steals its rosy hue,

Has not left us much to speak of:
But 'tis not for this I rue.
Beauty
with its thousand graces,
Hair and tints that will not fade,
You may
get from many places
Practically ready-made.
No; it is the evanescence
Of those lovelier tints of Hope--
Bubbles,
such as adolescence
Joys to win from melted soap--
Emphasizing
the conclusion
That the dreams of Youth remain
Castles that are An
delusion
(Castles, that's to say, in Spain).
Age thinks 'fit,' and I say 'fiat.'
Here I stand for Fortune's butt,
As
for Sunday swains to shy at
Stands the stoic coco-nut.
If you wish it
put succinctly,
Gone are all our little games;
But I thought I 'd say
distinctly
What I feel about it, James.

WHY THIS VOLUME IS SO THIN.
In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt,
Of love, and
thrummed an amateur guitar
To verses of my own,--a stout attempt

To hold communion with the Evening Star
I wrote a sonnet, rhymed
it, made it scan.
Ah me! how trippingly those last lines ran.--
_O Hesperus! O happy star! to bend
O'er Helen's bosom in the
tranced west,
To match the hours heave by upon her breast,
And at
her parted lip for dreams attend--
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be
deemed,
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?_
For weeks I thought these lines remarkable;
For weeks I put on airs
and called myself
A bard: till on a day, as it befell,
I took a small
green Moxon from the shelf
At random, opened at a casual place,

And found my young illusions face to face
With this:--'_Still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair
Love's ripening breast
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake
for ever in a sweet unrest;
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever,--or else swoon to death._'
O gulf not to be crossed by taking thought!
O heights by toil not to be
overcome!
Great Keats, unto your altar straight I brought
My
speech, and from the shrine departed