The Glugs of Gosh | Page 5

Bird,
Then laugh and laugh till the fat tears roll
To the roots
of the joy-bush deep in your soul.
When you see them squat on the
tree-tops high,
Scanning for ever that heedless sky,
Lie flat on your
back on the good, green earth
And roar till the great vault echoes your
mirth."
As he walked in the city, to Sym there came
Sounds envenomed with
fear and hate,
Shouts of anger and words of shame,
As Glug blamed
Glug for his woeful state.
"This blame?" said Sym, "Is it mortal's
right
To blame his fellow for aught he be?"
But the father said, "Do
we blame the night
When darkness gathers and none can see?"
Said he: "Whenever there springs from earth
A plant all crooked and
marred at birth,
Shall we, unlearned in the Gardener's scheme,
Blame plant or earth

for the faults that seem?"
Said he: "Whenever your wondering eyes

Look out on the glory of earth and skies,
Shall you, 'mid the blessing of fields a-bloom,
Fling blame at the
blind man, prisoned in gloom?"
So Joi had a son, and his name was Sym;
Far from the ken of the great King Splosh.
And small was the Glugs'
regard of him,
Mooning along in the streets of Gosh.
But many a creature by field
and ford
Shared in the schooling of that strange boy,
Dreaming and planning
to gather and hoard
Knowledge of all things precious to Joi.
V. THE GROWTH OF SYM
Now Sym was a Glug; and 'tis mentioned so
That the tale reads
perfectly plain as we go.
In his veins ran blood of that stupid race
Of docile folk, who inhabit
the place
Called Gosh, sad Gosh, where the tall trees sigh
With a
strange, significant sort of cry
When the gloaming creeps and the
wind is high.
When the deep shades creep and the wind is high
The trees bow low
as the gods ride by:
Gods of the gloaming, who ride on the breeze,
Stooping to heaften
the birds and the trees.
But each dull Glug sits down by his door,

And mutters, " 'Tis windy!" and nothing more,
Like the long-dead
Glugs in the days of yore.

When Sym was born there was much to-do,
And his parents thought
him a joy to view;
But folk not prejudiced saw the Glug,
As his nurse remarked, "In the
cut of his mug."
For he had their hair, and he had their eyes,
And
the Glug expression of pained surprise,
And their predilection for
pumpkin pies.
And his parents' claims were a deal denied
By his maiden aunt on his
mother's side,
A tall Glug lady of fifty-two
With a slight moustache of an auburn
hue.
"Parental blither!" she said quite flat.
"He's an average Glug;
and he's red and fat!
And exceedingly fat and red at that!"
But the father, joi, when he gazed on Sym,
Dreamed great and
wonderful things for him.
Said he, "If the mind of a Glug could wake
Then, Oh, what a
wonderful Glug he'd make!
We shall teach this laddie to play life's
game
With a different mind and a definite aim:
A Glug in
appearance, yet not the same."
But the practical aunt said, "Fudge! You fool!
We'll pack up his
dinner and send him to school.
He shall learn about two-times and parsing and capes,
And how to
make money with inches on tapes.
We'll apprentice him then to the
drapery trade,
Where, I've heard it reported, large profits are made;

Besides, he can sell us cheap buttons and braid."
So poor young Sym, he was sent to school,
Where the first thing
taught is the Golden Rule.
"Do unto others," the teacher said . . .
Then suddenly stopped and
scratched his head.
"You may look up the rest in a book," said he.


"At present it doesn't occur to me;
But do it, whatever it happens to
be."
"And now," said the teacher, "the day's task brings
Consideration of
practical things.
If a man makes a profit of fifteen pounds
On one week's takings from
two milk rounds,
How many . . ." And Sym went dreaming away

To the sunlit lands where the field-mice play,
And wrens hold revel
the livelong day.
He walked in the welcoming fields alone,
While from far, far away
came the pedagogue's drone:
"If a man makes . . .Multiply . . . Abstract nouns . . . From B
take . . .Population of towns . . .
Rods, poles or perches . . . Derived
from Greek
Oh, the hawthorn buds came out this week,
And robins
are nesting down by the creek.
So Sym was head of his class not once;
And his aunt repeatedly
dubbed him "Dunce."
But, "Give him a chance," said his father, Joi.
"His head is
abnormally large for a boy."
But his aunt said, "Piffie! It's crammed
with bosh!
Why, he don't know the rivers and mountains of Gosh,

Nor the names of the nephews of good King Splosh!"
In Gosh, when a youth gets an obstinate look,
And copies his
washing-bill into a book,
And blackens his boot-heels, and frowns at a joke,
"Ah, he's getting
sense,"