Songs from Vagabondia | Page 9

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 Earth. See, I will stretch my hand?Between it and the sun; the passing shadow?Gives its poor dwellers a glacial period.?Let it but stand an hour, it would dissolve,?Intangible as the color of the wine.?There, throw it away now! Lift it from the sweet?Enveloping flood it has enjoyed so well;"?(He smiled as only those who live can smile)?"Its time is done, its revelry complete,?Its being accomplished. Let us drink again."
IN THE HOUSE OF IDIEDAILY.
Oh, but life went gayly, gayly,?In the house of Idiedaily!
There were always throats to sing?Down the river-banks with spring,
When the stir of heart's desire?Set the sapling's heart on fire.
Bobolincolns in the meadows,?Leisure in the purple shadows,
Till the poppies without number?Bowed their heads in crimson slumber,
And the twilight came to cover?Every unreluctant lover.
Not a night but some brown maiden?Bettered all the dusk she strayed in,
While the roses in her hair?Bankrupted oblivion there.
Oh, but life went gayly, gayly,?In the house of Idiedaily!
But this hostelry, The Barrow,?With its chambers, bare and narrow,
Mean, ill-windowed, damp, and wormy,?Where the silence makes you squirmy,
And the guests are never seen to,?Is a vile place, a mere lean-to,
Not a traveller speaks well of,?Even worse than I heard tell of,
Mouldy, ramshackle, and foul.?What a dwelling for a soul!
Oh, but life went gayly, gayly,?In the house of Idiedaily!
There the hearth was always warm,?From the slander of the storm.
There your comrade was your neighbor,?Living on to-morrow's labor.
And the board was always steaming,?Though Sir Ringlets might be dreaming.
Not a plate but scoffed at porridge,?Not a cup but floated borage.
There were always jugs of sherry?Waiting for the makers merry,
And the dark Burgundian wine?That would make a fool divine.
Oh, but life went gayly, gayly?In the