The New Morning | Page 9

began to write, most carefully,?These couplets, in the old heroic style:--_
O, had I known in boyhood, only known?The few sad truths that time has made my own,?I had not lost the best that youth can give,?Nay, life itself, in learning how to live.?This laboring heart would not be tired so soon,?This jaded blood would jog to a livelier tune:?And some few friends, could I begin again,?Should know more happiness, and much less pain.?I should not wound in ignorance, nor turn?In foolish pride from those for whom I yearn.?I should have kept nigh half the friends I've lost,?And held for dearest those I wronged the most.
Yet, when I see more cunning men evade?With colder tact, the blunders that I made;?Sometimes I wonder if the better part?Is not still mine, who lacked their subtle art.?For I have conned my book in harsher schools,?And learned from struggling what they worked by rules;?Learned--with some pain--more quickly to forgive?My fellow-blunderers, while they learn to live;?Learned--with some tears--to keep a steadfast mind,?And think more kindly of my own poor kind.
_He read the verses through, shaking his wig.?"Perhaps ... perhaps"--he whispered to himself,?"I'd better leave it to the will of God.?They might upset my own. I do not think?They'd understand. Jocelyn might, perhaps;?And Dick, if only they were left alone.?But Rosalind never; nor that nephew of mine,?The witty politician. No. No. No.?They'd say my mind was wandering, I'm afraid."?So, with a frozen face, reluctantly,?He tossed his verses into the dying fire,?And watched the sparks fly upward.
There, at dawn,?They found him, cold and stiff by the cold hearth,?His amber snuff-box in his ivory hand.?"You see," they said, "he never needed friends.?He had that curious antique frozen way.?He had no heart--only an amber snuff-box.?He died quite happily, taking a pinch of snuff."
His nephew, that engaging politician,?Inherited the snuff-box, and remarked?His epitaph should be "Snuffed Out." The clubs?Laughed, and the statesman's reputation grew._
WHAT GRANDFATHER SAID
(_An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism._)
Your thoughts are for the poor and weak??Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!?Your tongue is always in your cheek?At poverty that's not in fashion.
You like a ploughman's rugged face,?Or painted eyes in Piccadilly;?But bowler hats are commonplace,?And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly.
The clerk that sings "God save the King,"?And still believes his Tory paper,--?You hate the an?mic fool? I thought?You loved the weak! Was that all vapour?
Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat,?At such a shiny-trousered Tory?Because he doffs his poor old hat?To what he thinks his country's glory,
To you it's just a coloured rag.?You hate the "patriots" that bawl so.?Well, my Ulysses, there's a flag?That lifts men in Republics also.
No doubt his thoughts are cruder far;?And, where those linen folds are shaking,?Perhaps he sees a kind of star?Because his eyes are tired and aching.
Banal enough! Banal as truth!?But I'm not thinking of his banners.?I'm thinking of his pinched white youth?And your disgusting "new art" manners.
His meek submission stirs your hate??Better, my lad, if you're so fervent,?Turn your cold steel against the State?Instead of sneering at the servant.
He does his job. He draws his pay.?You sneer, and dine with those that pay him;?And then you write a snobbish play?For democrats, in which you play him.
Ah, yes, you like simplicity?That sucks its cheeks to make the dimple.?But this domestic bourgeoisie?You hate,--because it's all too simple.
You hate the hearth, the wife, the child,?You hate the heavens that bend above them.?Your simple folk must all run wild?Like jungle-beasts before you love them.
You own a house in Cheyne Walk,?(You say it costs three thousand fully)?Where subtle snobs can talk and talk?And play the intellectual bully.
Yes. I say "snobs." Are names alone?Free from all change? Your word "Victorian"?Could bite and sting in ninety one?But now--it's deader than the saurian.
You think I live in yesterday,?Because I think your way the wrong one;?But I have hewed and ploughed my way,?And--unlike yours--it's been a long one.
I let Victoria toll her bell,?And went with Strindberg for a ride, sir.?I've fought through your own day as well,?And come out on the other side, sir,--
The further side, the morning side,?I read free verse (the Psalms) on Sunday.?But I've decided (you'll decide)?That there is room for song on Monday.
I've seen the new snob on his way,?The intellectual snob I mean, sir,?The artist snob, in book and play,?Kicking his mother round the scene, sir.
I've heard the Tories talk like fools;?And the rich fool that apes the Tory.?I've seen the shopmen break your rules?And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory.
But, as for you, that liberal sneer?Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser.?He was a "socialist," my dear.?Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser.
MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST
I know a land, I, too,?Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,?And all the winter long the skies are blue,?And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.
Deserts of