Songs from Vagabondia | Page 9

it so?
In the August weather
Long ago!

Did we kiss and fellow,
Side by side,
Till the sunbeams
quickened
From our stalks great yellow
Sunflowers, till we
sickened
There and died?
Were we tigers creeping
Through the glade
Where our prey lay
sleeping,
Unafraid,
In some Eastern jungle?
Better so.
I am sure
the snarling
Beasts could never bungle
Life as men do, darling,

Who half know.
Ah, if all of life, love,
Were the living!
Just to cease from strife,
love,
And from grieving;
Let the swift world pass us,
You and me,

Stilled from all aspiring,--
Sinai nor Parnassus
Longer worth
desiring,
Launa Dee!
Just to live like lilies
In the lake!
Where no thought nor will is,
To
mistake!
Just to lose the human
Eyes that weep!
Just to cease
from seeming
Longer man and woman!
Just to reach the dreaming

And the sleep!
THE MENDICANTS.
We are as mendicants who wait
Along the roadside in the sun.

Tatters of yesterday and shreds
Of morrow clothe us every one.
And some are dotards, who believe
And glory in the days of old;

While some are dreamers, harping still
Upon an unknown age of
gold.
Hopeless or witless! Not one heeds,
As lavish Time comes down the
way
And tosses in the suppliant hat
One great new-minted gold
To-day.
Ungrateful heart and grudging thanks,
His beggar's wisdom only sees

Housing and bread and beer enough;
He knows no other things

than these.
O foolish ones, put by your care!
Where wants are many, joys are few;

And at the wilding springs of peace,
God keeps an open house for
you.
But that some Fortunatus' gift
Is lying there within his hand,
More
costly than a pot of pearls,
His dulness does not understand.
And so his creature heart is filled;
His shrunken self goes starved
away.
Let him wear brand-new garments still,
Who has a
threadbare soul, I say.
But there be others, happier few,
The vagabondish sons of God,

Who know the by-ways and the flowers,
And care not how the world
may plod.
They idle down the traffic lands,
And loiter through the woods with
spring;
To them the glory of the earth
Is but to hear a bluebird sing.
They too receive each one his Day;
But their wise heart knows many
things
Beyond the sating of desire,
Above the dignity of kings.
One I remember kept his coin,
And laughing flipped it in the air;

But when two strolling pipe-players
Came by, he tossed it to the pair.
Spendthrift of joy, his childish heart
Danced to their wild outlandish
bars;
Then supperless he laid him down
That night, and slept
beneath the stars.
THE MARCHING MORROWS.
Now gird thee well for courage,
My knight of twenty year,
Against
the marching morrows
That fill the world with fear!
The flowers fade before them;
The summer leaves the hill;
Their

trumpets range the morning,
And those who hear grow still.
Like pillagers of harvest,
Their fame is far abroad,
As gray
remorseless troopers
That plunder and maraud.
The dust is on their corselets;
Their marching fills the world;
With
conquest after conquest
Their banners are unfurled.
They overthrow the battles
Of every lord of war,
From
world-dominioned cities
Wipe out the names they bore.
Sohrab, Rameses, Roland,
Ramoth, Napoleon, Tyre,
And the
Romeward Huns of Attila--
Alas, for their desire!
By April and by autumn
They perish in their pride,
And still they
close and gather
Out of the mountain-side.
The tanned and tameless children
Of the wild elder earth,
With
stature of the northlights,
They have the stars for girth.
There's not a hand to stay them,
Of all the hearts that brave;
No
captain to undo them,
No cunning to off-stave.
Yet fear thou not! If haply
Thou be the kingly one,
They'll set thee
in their vanguard
To lead them round the sun.
IN THE WORKSHOP.
Once in the Workshop, ages ago,
The clay was wet and the fire was
low.
And He who was bent on fashioning man
Moulded a shape from a
clod,
And put the loyal heart therein;
While another stood watching
by.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A lover," said God.
And Beelzebub

frowned, for he knew that kind.
And then God fashioned a fellow shape
As lithe as a willow rod,

And gave it the merry roving eye
And the range of the open road.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A vagrant," said God.
And
Beelzebub smiled, for he knew that kind.
And last of all God fashioned a form,
And gave it, what was odd,

The loyal heart and the roving eye;
And he whistled, light of care.
"What's that?" said Beelzebub.
"A poet," said God.
And Beelzebub
frowned, for he did not know.
THE MOTE.
Two shapes of august bearing, seraph tall,
Of indolent imperturbable
regard,
Stood in the Tavern door to drink. As the first
Lifted his
glass to let the warm light melt
In the slow bubbles of the wine, a
sunbeam,
Red and broad as smouldering autumn, smote
Down
through its mystery; and a single fleck,
The tiniest sun-mote settling
through the air,
Fell on the grape-dark surface and there swam.
Gently the Drinker with fastidious care
Stretched hand to clear the
speck away. "No, no!"--
His comrade stayed his arm. "Why," said the
first,
"What would you have me do?" "Ah, let it float
A moment
longer!" And the second smiled.
"Do you not know what that is?"
"No, indeed."
"A mere dust-mote, a speck of soot, you think,
A
plague-germ still unsatisfied. It is not.
That is the