The Scarlet Gown | Page 5

thing excited
About the fields he ran.
III
A sweet life and an idle
He lives from year to year,?Unknowing bit or bridle
(There are no proctors here),?Free as the flying swallow?Which Ida's Prince would follow?If but his bones were hollow,
Until the end draws near.
Then comes a Dies Irae,
When full of misery?And torments worse than fiery
He crams for his degree;?And hitherto unvexed books,?Dry lectures, abstracts, text-books,?Perplexing and perplexed books,
Make life seem vanity.
IV
Before admiring sister
And mother, see, he stands,?Made Artium Magister
With laying on of hands.?He gives his books to others?(Perchance his younger brothers),?And free from all such bothers
Goes out into all lands.
THE WASTER'S PRESENTIMENT
I shall be spun. There is a voice within
Which tells me plainly I am all undone;?For though I toil not, neither do I spin,
I shall be spun.
April approaches. I have not begun
Schwegler or Mackintosh, nor will begin?Those lucid works till April 21.
So my degree I do not hope to win,
For not by ways like mine degrees are won;?And though, to please my uncle, I go in,
I shall be spun.
THE CLOSE OF THE SESSION
The Session's over. We must say farewell
To these east winds and to this eastern sea,?For summer comes, with swallow and with bee,?With many a flower and many a golfing swell.
No more the horribly discordant bell
Shall startle slumber; and all men agree?That whatsoever other things may be?A cause of sorrow, this at least is well.
The class-room shall not open wide its doors,
Or if it does, such opening will be vain;
The gown shall hang unused upon a nail;?South Street shall know us not; we'll wipe the Scores
From our remembrance; as for Mutto's Lane,
Yea, even the memory of this shall fail.
A BALLAD OF THE TOWN WATER
It is the Police Commissioners,
All on a winter's day;?And they to prove the town water
Have set themselves away.
They went to the north, they went to the south,
And into the west went they,?Till they found a civil, civil engineer,
And unto him did say:
'Now tell to us, thou civil engineer,
If this be fit to drink.'?And they showed him a cup of the town water,
Which was as black as ink.
He took three sips of the town water,?And black in the face was he;?And they turned them back and fled away,
Amazed that this should be.
And he has written a broad letter
And sealed it with a ring,?And the letter saith that the town water
Is not a goodly thing.
And they have met, and the Bailies all,
And eke the Councillors,?And they have ta'en the broad letter
And read it within the doors.
And there has fallen a great quarrel,
And a striving within the doors,?And quarrelsome words have the Bailies said,
And eke the Councillors.
And one saith, 'We will have other water,'?And another saith, 'But nay;'?And none may tell what the end shall be,
Alack and well-a-day!
[GREEK TITLE]
I love the inoffensive frog,
'A little child, a limber elf,'?With health and spirits all agog,?He does the long jump in a bog?Or teaches men to swim and dive.?If he should be cut up alive,
Should I not be cut up myself?
So I intend to be straightway
An Anti-Vivisectionist;?I'll read Miss Cobbe five hours a day?And watch the little frogs at play,?With no desire to see their hearts?At work, or other inward parts,
If other inward parts exist.
TO NUMBER 27X.
Beloved Peeler! friend and guide
And guard of many a midnight reeler,?None worthier, though the world is wide,
Beloved Peeler.
Thou from before the swift four-wheeler
Didst pluck me, and didst thrust aside?A strongly built provision-dealer
Who menaced me with blows, and cried
'Come on! Come on!' O Paian, Healer,?Then but for thee I must have died,
Beloved Peeler!
A STREET CORNER
Here, where the thoroughfares meet at an angle
Of ninety degrees (this angle is right),?You may hear the loafers that jest and wrangle
Through the sun-lit day and the lamp-lit night;?Though day be dreary and night be wet,?You will find a ceaseless concourse met;?Their laughter resounds and their Fife tongues jangle,
And now and again their Fife fists fight.
Often here the voice of the crier
Heralds a sale in the City Hall,?And slowly but surely drawing nigher
Is heard the baker's bugle call.?The baker halts where the two ways meet,?And the blast, though loud, is far from sweet?That with breath of bellows and heart of fire
He blows, till the echoes leap from the wall.
And on Saturday night just after eleven,?When the taverns have closed a moment ago,?The vocal efforts of six or seven
Make the corner a place of woe.?For the time is fitful, the notes are queer,?And it sounds to him who dwelleth near?Like the wailing for cats in a feline heaven
By orphan cats who are left below.
Wherefore, O Bejant, Son of the Morning,
Fresh as a daisy dipt in the dew,?Hearken to me and receive my warning:
Though rents be heavy, and bunks be few?And most of them troubled with rat or mouse,?Never take rooms in a corner house;?Or sackcloth and ashes and sad self-scorning
Shall be for a portion unto you.
THE POET'S HAT
The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He passed through the