Green Bays | Page 7

wis we maun be bumpit sair
By boaties two and three:
Sing stretchers of yew for our Toggere,
Sith we maun bumpit be!
THE DOOM OF THE ESQUIRE BEDELL.
Adown the torturing mile of street
I mark him come and go,
Thread in and out with tireless feet
The crossings to and fro;
A soul that treads without retreat
A labyrinth of woe.
Palsied with awe of such despair,
All living things give room,
They flit before his sightless glare
As horrid shapes, that loom
And shriek the curse that bids him bear
The symbol of his doom.
The very stones are coals that bake

And scorch his fevered skin;
A fire no hissing hail may slake
Consumes his heart within.
Still must he hasten on to rake
The furnace of his sin.
Still forward! forward! For he feels
Fierce claws that pluck his breast,
And blindly beckon as he reels
Upon his awful quest:
For there is that behind his heels
Knows neither ruth nor rest.
The fiends in hell have flung the dice;
The destinies depend
On feet that run for fearful price,
And fangs that gape to rend;
And still the footsteps of his Vice
Pursue him to the end:--
The feet of his incarnate Vice
Shall dog him to the end.
'BEHOLD! I AM NOT ONE THAT GOES TO LECTURES.'
By W. W.
Behold! I am not one that goes to Lectures or the pow-wow of
Professors.
The elementary laws never apologise: neither do I apologise.
I find letters from the Dean dropt on my table--and every one is
signed by the Dean's name--
And I leave them where they are; for I know that as long as I

stay up
Others will punctually come for ever and ever.
I am one who goes to the river,
I sit in the boat and think of 'life' and of 'time.'
How life is much, but time is more; and the beginning is
everything,
But the end is something.
I loll in the Parks, I go to the wicket, I swipe.
I see twenty-two young men from Foster's watching me, and the
trousers of the twenty-two young men,
I see the Balliol men en masse watching me.--The Hottentot
that loves his mother, the untutored Bedowee, the Cave-man that wears
only his certificate of baptism, and the shaggy Sioux that hangs his
testamur with his scalps.
I see the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me: and the
wife of the Don who ploughed me in Rudiments watching me.
I see the rapport of the wicket-keeper and umpire. I cannot see
that I am out.
Oh! you Umpires!
I am not one who greatly cares for experience, soap, bull-dogs,
cautions, majorities, or a graduated Income-Tax,

The certainty of space, punctuation, sexes, institutions,
copiousness, degrees, committees, delicatesse, or the fetters of rhyme--
For none of these do I care: but least for the fetters of rhyme.
Myself only I sing. Me Imperturbe! Me Prononce!
Me progressive and the depth of me progressive,
And the bathos, Anglice bathos
Of me chanting to the Public the song of Simple Enumeration.
CALIBAN UPON RUDIMENTS[1].
OR AUTOSCHEDIASTIC THEOLOGY IN A HOLE.
Rudiments, Rudiments, and Rudiments!
'Thinketh one made them i'
the fit o' the blues.
'Thinketh one made them with the 'tips' to match,
But not the answers;
'doubteth there be none,
Only Guides, Helps, Analyses, such as that:

Also this Beast, that groweth sleek thereon,
And snow-white bands
that round the neck o' the same.
'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease.
'Hath heard that Satan finds
some mischief still
For idle hands, and the rest o 't. That's the case.

Also 'hath heard they pop the names i' the hat,
Toss out a brace, a
dozen stick inside;
Let forty through and plough the sorry rest.
'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in them,
Only their
strength, being made o' sloth i' the main-- 'Am strong myself compared
to yonder names
O' Jewish towns i' the paper. Watch th' event--
'Let
twenty pass, 'have a shot at twenty-first,
'Miss Ramoth-Gilead, 'take
Jehoiakim,
'Let Abner by and spot Melchizedek,
Knowing not,
caring not, just choosing so,
As it likes me each time, I do: so they.

'Saith they be terrible: watch their feats i' the Viva! One question plays
the deuce with six months' toil.
Aha, if they would tell me! No, not
they!
There is the sport: 'come read me right or die!'
All at their
mercy,--why they like it most
When--when--well, never try the same
shot twice!
'Hath fled himself and only got up a tree.
'Will say a plain word if he gets a plough.
[1] Caliban museth of the now extinct Examination in the Rudiments of
Faith and Religion.
SOLVITUR ACRIS HIEMPS.
My Juggins, see: the pasture green,
Obeying Nature's kindly law,
Renews its mantle; there has been
A thaw.
The frost-bound earth is free at last,
That lay 'neath Winter's sullen yoke
'Till people felt it getting past
A joke.
Now forth again the Freshers