Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes | Page 9

me;
And heard my father snore.

And once,
As sure as I'm alive,
Out of those wallowing,
moon-flecked waves
I saw a mermaid dive;
Head and shoulders
above the wave,
Plain as I now see you,
Combing her hair, now
back, now front,
Her two eyes peeping through;
Calling me, 'Sam!'
-quietlike- 'Sam!'...
But me .... I never went,
Making believe I kind
of thought
'Twas some one else she meant....
Wonderful lovely
there she sat,
Singing the night away,
All in the solitudinous sea

Of that there lonely bay.
P'raps,' and he'd smooth his hairless mouth,
'P'raps, if 'twere now, my
son,
Praps, if I heard a voice say, 'Sam!'...
Morning would find we
gone.'
ANDY BATTLE
Once and there was a young sailor, yeo ho!
And he sailed out over
the say
For the isles where pink coral and palm branches blow,
And
the fire-flies turn night into day,
Yeo ho!
And the fire-flies turn
night into day.
But the Dolphin went down in a tempest, yeo ho!
And with three
forsook sailors ashore,
The portingales took him wh'ere sugar-canes
grow,
Their slave for to be evermore,
Yeo ho!
Their slave for to
be evermore.
With his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho!
He warred with the
Cannibals drear,
in forests where panthers pad soft to and fro,
And
the Pongo shakes noonday with fear,
Yeo ho!
And the Pongo
shakes noonday with fear.
Now lean with long travail, all wasted with woe,
With a monkey for
messmate and friend,
He sits 'neath the Cross in the cankering snow,

And waites for his sorrowful end,
Yeo ho!

And waits for his
sorrowful end.

THE OLD SOLDIER
There came an Old Soldier to my door,
Asked a crust, and asked no
more;
The wars had thinned him very bare,
Fighting and marching
everywhere,
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in,
A bristling beard upon his
chin -
Powder and bullets and wounds and drums
Had come to that
Soldier as suchlike comes -
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
'Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May,
Flowers springing from
every spray;
And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled
The
song of youth that never grows old,
Called Fol rol dol rol di do.
Most of him rags, and all of him lean,
And the belt round his belly
drawn tightsome in
He lifted his peaked old grizzled head,
And
these were the very same words he saidA
Fol-rol-dol-rol-di-do.
THE PICTURE
Here is a sea-legged sailor,
Come to this tottering Inn,
Just when
the bronze on its signboard is fading,
And the black shades of evening begin.,
With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog,
There stoops the
Shepherd, and see,
All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle
homeward,
Under the sycamore tree.
Very brown is the face of the Sailor,
His bundle is crimson, and green

Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o'er the Tavern,
And blue the far meadows between.

But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor,
His Mug and his platter
of Delf,
And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog
The painter has kept to himself.
THE LITTLE OLD CUPID
'Twas a very small garden;
The paths were of stone,
Scattered with
leaves,
With moss overgrown;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under
a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
The dog-rose in briars
Hung over the weeds,
The air was aflock

With the floating of seed,
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,

With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
The dovecote was tumbling,
The fountain dry,
A wind in the
orchard
Went whispering by;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a
tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.
KING DAVID
King David was a sorrowful man:
No cause for his sorrow had he;

And he called for the music of a hundred harps,
To ease his
melancholy.
They played till they all fell silent:
Played-and play sweet did they;

But the sorrow that haunted the heart of King David
They could not
charm away.
He rose; and in his garden
Walked by the moon alone,
A
nightingale hidden in a cypress-tree
Jargoned on and on.
King David lifted his sad eyes
Into the dark-boughed tree-
''Tell me,
thou little bird that singest,
Who taught my grief to thee?'
But the bird in no wise heeded
And the king in the cool of the moon


Hearkened to the nightingale's sorrowfulness,
Till all his own was
gone.
THE OLD HOUSE
A very, very old house I knowAnd
ever so many people go,
Past
the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till

Comes the blank wall, and there's the door.
Go in they do; come out
no more.
No voice says aught; no spark of light
Across that
threshold cheers the sight;
Only the evening star on high
Less
lonely makes a lonely sky,
As, one by one, the people go
Into that
very old house I know.
BEASTS
UNSTOOPING
Low on his fours the Lion
Treads with the surly Bear',
But Men
straight upward from the dust
Walk with their heads in air;
The free
sweet winds of heaven,
The sunlight from on high
Beat on their
clear bright cheeks and brows
As they go striding by;
The doors of
all their houses
They arch so they may go,
Uplifted o'er