New Collected Rhymes | Page 6

of chief and clan:?Nairne and Caryl stand together;?Here's a health to every man?Bore the brunt of wind and weather!
Oh, round Charlie many ran,?When his foot was on the heather,?When his sword shone in the van.?Now at ending of his span,?Gask and Caryl stand together!
Ne'er a hope from plot or plan,?Ne'er a hope from rose or heather;?Ay, the King's a broken man;?Few will bless, and most will ban.?Nairne and Caryl stand together!
Help is none from Crown or clan,?France is false, a fluttered feather;?But Kings are not made by man,?Till God end what God began,?Nairne and Caryl stand together,?Gask and Caryl stand together;?Here's a health to every man?Bore the brunt of wind and weather!
JEANNE d'ARC
The honour of a loyal boy,?The courage of a paladin,?With maiden's mirth, the soul of joy,?These dwelt her happy breast within.?From shame, from doubt, from fear, from sin,?As God's own angels was she free;?Old worlds shall end, and new begin?To be
Ere any come like her who fought?For France, for freedom, for the King;?Who counsel of redemption brought?Whence even the armed Archangel's wing?Might weary sore in voyaging;?Who heard her Voices cry "Be free!"?Such Maid no later human spring?Shall see!
Saints Michael, Catherine, Margaret,?Who sowed the seed that Thou must reap,?If eyes of angels may be wet,?And if the Saints have leave to weep,?In Paradise one pain they keep,?Maiden! one mortal memory,?One sorrow that can never sleep,?For Thee!
TO HELEN
(After seeing her bowl with her usual success.)
ST. LEONARD'S HALL
Helen, thy bowling is to me?Like that wise Alfred Shaw's of yore,?Which gently broke the wickets three:?From Alfred few could smack a four:?Most difficult to score!
The music of the moaning sea,?The rattle of the flying bails,?The grey sad spires, the tawny sails -?What memories they bring to me,?Beholding thee!
Upon our old monastic pitch,?How sportsmanlike I see thee stand!?The leather in thy lily hand,?Oh, Helen of the yorkers, which?Are nobly planned!
BALLADE OF DEAD CRICKETERS
Ah, where be Beldham now, and Brett,?Barker, and Hogsflesh, where be they??Brett, of all bowlers fleetest yet?That drove the bails in disarray??And Small that would, like Orpheus, play?Till wild bulls followed his minstrelsy? {2}?Booker, and Quiddington, and May??Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
And where is Lambert, that would get?The stumps with balls that broke astray??And Mann, whose balls would ricochet?In almost an unholy way?(So do baseballers "pitch" to-day)?George Lear, that seldom let a bye,?And Richard Nyren, grave and gray??Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
Tom Sueter, too, the ladies' pet,?Brown that would bravest hearts affray;?Walker, invincible when set,?(Tom, of the spider limbs and splay);?Think ye that we could match them, pray,?These heroes of Broad-halfpenny,?With Buck to hit, and Small to stay??Beneath the daisies, there they lie!
ENVOY.
Prince, canst thou moralise the lay??How all things change below the sky!?Of Fry and Grace shall mortals say,?"Beneath the daisies, there they lie!"
BRAHMA--AFTER EMERSON
If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,?Or if the batsman thinks he's bowled,?They know not, poor misguided souls,?They too shall perish unconsoled.?I am the batsman and the bat,?I am the bowler and the ball,?The umpire, the pavilion cat,?The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.
GAINSBOROUGH GHOSTS--IN THE GROSVENOR GALLERY
They smile upon the western wall,?The lips that laughed an age agone,?The fops, the dukes, the beauties all,?Le Brun that sang, and Carr that shone.?We gaze with idle eyes: we con?The faces of an elder time -?Alas! and OURS is flitting on;?Oh, moral for an empty rhyme!
Think, when the tumult and the crowd?Have left the solemn rooms and chill,?When dilettanti are not loud,?When lady critics are not shrill -?Ah, think how strange upon the still?Dim air may sound these voices faint;?Once more may Johnson talk his fill?And fair Dalrymple charm the Saint!
Of us they speak as we of them,?Like us, perchance, they criticise:?Our wit, they vote, is Brummagem;?Our beauty--dim to Devon's eyes!?Their silks and lace our cloth despise,?Their pumps--our boots that pad the mud,?What modern fop with Walpole vies??With St. Leger what modern blood?
Ah, true, we lack the charm, the wit,?Our very greatest, sure, are small;?And Mr. Gladstone is not Pitt,?And Garrick comes not when we call.?Yet--pass an age--and, after all,?Even WE may please the folk that look?When we are faces on the wall,?And voices in a history book!
In Art the statesman yet shall live,?With collars keen, with Roman nose;?To Beauty yet shall Millais give?The roses that outlast the rose:?The lords of verse, the slaves of prose,?On canvas yet shall seem alive,?And charm the mob that comes and goes,?And lives--in 1985.
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