Songs from Vagabondia | Page 6

beyond Silence and night!
I sit by the taffrail,?Alone in the dark and the blown cold mist and the spray,?Feeling myself swept on irresistibly,?Sunk in the night and the sea, and made one with their footfall-less onrush, Letting myself be borne like a spar adrift?Helplessly into the night.
Without fear, without wish,?Insensate save of a dull, crushed ache in my heart,?Careless whither the steamer is going,?Conscious only as in a dream of the wet and the dark?And of a form that looms and fades indistinctly?Everywhere out of the night.
O love, how came I here??Shall I wake at thy side and smile at my dream??The dream that grips me so hard that I cannot wake nor stir! O love! O my own love, found but to be lost!?My soul sends over the waters a wild inarticulate cry,?Like a gull's scream heard in the night.
The mist creeps closer. The beacon?Vanishes astern. The sea's monotonous noises?Lapse through the drizzle with a listless, subsiding cadence. And thou, O love, and the sea throb on in my brain together, While the steamer plunges along,?Butting its way through the night.
ISABEL.
In her body's perfect sweet?Suppleness and languor meet,--?Arms that move like lapsing billows,?Breasts that Love would make his pillows,?Eyes where vision melts in bliss,?Lips that ripen to a kiss.
CONTEMPORARIES.
"A barbered woman's man,"--yes, so?He seemed to me a twelvemonth since;?And so he may be--let it go--?Admit his flaws--we need not wince?To find our noblest not all great.?What of it? He is still the prince,?And we the pages of his state.
The world applauds his words; his fame?Is noised wherever knowledge be;?Even the trader hears his name,?As one far inland hears the sea;?The lady quotes him to the beau?Across a cup of Russian tea;?They know him and they do not know.
I know him. In the nascent years?Men's eyes shall see him as one crowned;?His voice shall gather in their ears?With each new age prophetic sound;?And you and I and all the rest,?Whose brows to-day are laurel-bound,?Shall be but plumes upon his crest.
A year ago this man was poor,--?This Alfred whom the nations praise;?He stood a beggar at my door?For one mere word to help him raise?From fainting limbs and shoulders bent?The burden of the weary days;?And I withheld it--and he went.
I knew him then, as I know now,?Our largest heart, our loftiest mind;?Yet for the curls upon his brow?And for his lisp, I could not find?The helping word, the cheering touch.?Ah, to be just, as well as kind,--?It costs so little and so much!
It seemed unmanly in my sight?That he, whose spirit was so strong?To lead the blind world to the light,?Should look so like the mincing throng?Who advertise the tailor's art.?It angered me--I did him wrong--?I grudged my groat and shut my heart.
I might have been the prophet's friend,?Helped him who is to help the world!?Now, when the striving is at end,?The reek-stained battle-banners furled,?And the age hears its muster-call,?Then I, because his hair was curled,?I shall have lost my chance--that's all.
THE TWO BOBBIES.
Bobbie Burns and Bobbie Browning,?They're the boys I'd like to see.?Though I'm not the boy for Bobbie,?Bobbie is the boy for me!
Bobbie Browning was the good boy;?Turned the language inside out,?Wrote his plays and had his days,?Died--and held his peace, no doubt.
Poor North Bobbie was the bad boy,--?Bad, bad, bad, bad Bobbie Burns!?Loved and made the world his lover,?Kissed and barleycomed by turns.
London's dweller, child of wisdom,?Kept his counsel, took his toll;?Ayrshire's vagrant paid the piper,?Lost the game--God save his soul!
Bobbie Burns and Bobbie Browning,?What's the difference, you see??Bob the lover, Bob the lawyer;?Bobbie is the boy for me!
A TOAST.
Here's a health to thee, Roberts,?And here's a health to me;?And here's to all the pretty girls?From Denver to the sea!
Here's to mine and here's to thine!?Now's the time to clink it!?Here's a flagon of old wine,?And here are we to drink it.
Wine that maketh glad the heart?Of the bully boy!?Here's the toast that we love most,?"Love and song and joy!"
Song that is the flower of love,?And joy that is the fruit!?Here's the love of woman, lad,?And here's our love to boot!
You and I are far too wise?Not to fill our glasses.?Here's to me and here's to thee,?And here's to all the lasses!
THE KAVANAGH.
A stone jug and a pewter mug,?And a table set for three!?A jug and a mug at every place,?And a biscuit or two with Brie!?Three stone jugs of Cruiskeen Lawn,?And a cheese like crusted foam!?The Kavanagh receives to-night!?McMurrough is at home!
We three and the barley-bree!?And a health to the one away,?Who drifts down careless Italy,?God's wanderer and estray!?For friends are more than Arno's store?Of garnered charm, and he?Were blither with us here the night?Than Titian bids him be.
Throw ope the window to the stars,?And let the warm night in!?Who knows what revelry in Mars?May rhyme with rouse akin??Fill up and drain the loving cup?And leave no