Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch | Page 9

guardian, it may hap,?The kindly mother, takes them in her lap,?Decks them with glowing petals and replaces?In the glad air the friendly pansy-faces.
So tread not rashly, children, lest you crush?A part of childhood in a thoughtless rush.?Would you not treat them gently if you knew?Pansies are little bits of children too?
THE DRAGON OF WINTER HILL
I
This is the tale the old men tell, the tale that was told to me,
Of the blue-green dragon,?The dreadful dragon,?The dragon who flew so free,?The last of his horrible scaly race?Who settled and made his nesting place?Some hundreds of thousands of years ago.?One day, as the light was falling low?And the turbulent wind was still,?In a stony hollow,?Where none dared follow,?Beyond the ridge on the gorse-clad summit, the summit of Winter Hill!
The news went round in the camp that night;?it was Dickon who brought it first?How the wonderful dragon,?The fiery dragon,?On his terrified eyes had burst.
"I was out," he said, "for a fat young buck,?But never a touch I had of luck;?And still I wandered and wandered on?Till all the best of the day was gone;?When, suddenly, lo, in a flash of flame?Full over the ridge a green head came,?A green head flapped with a snarling lip,?And a long tongue set with an arrow's tip.?I own I didn't stand long at bay,?But I cast my arrows and bow away,?And I cast my coat, and I changed my plan,?And forgot the buck, and away I ran--?And, oh, but my heart was chill:?For still as I ran I heard the bellow?Of the terrible slaughtering fierce-eyed fellow?Who has made his lair on the gorse-clad summit,
the summit of Winter Hill."
Then the women talked, as the women will, and the men-folk they talked too Of the raging dragon,?The hungry dragon,?The dragon of green and blue.?And the Bards with their long beards flowing down,?They sat apart and were seen to frown.
But at last the Chief Bard up and spoke,?"Now I swear by beech and I swear by oak,?By the grass and the streams I swear," said he,?"This dragon of Dickon's puzzles me.?For the record stands, as well ye know,?How a hundred years and a year ago?We dealt the dragons a smashing blow?By issuing from our magic tree?A carefully-framed complete decree,?Which ordered dragons to cease to be.?Still, since our Dickon is passing sure?That he saw a regular Simon pure.?Some dragon's egg, as it seems, contrived?To elude our curses, and so survived?On an inaccessible rocky shelf,?Where at last it managed to hatch itself.?Whatever the cause, the result is plain:?We're in for a dragon-fuss again.?We haven't the time, and, what is worse,?We haven't the means to frame a curse.?So what is there left for us to say?Save this, that our men at break of day?Must gather and go to kill?The monstrous savage?Whose fire-blasts ravage?The flocks and herds on the gorse-clad summit,
the summit of Winter Hill?"
II
So the men, when they heard the Chief Bard utter the order that bade them
try?For the awful dragon,?The dauntless dragon,?They all of them shouted "Aye!"?For everyone felt assured that he,?Whatever the fate of the rest might be,?However few of them might survive,?Was certainly safe to stay alive,?And was probably bound to deal the blow?That would shatter the beast and lay him low,?And end the days of their dragon-foe.?And all the women-folk egged them on:?It was "Up with your heart, and at him, John!"?Or "Gurth, you'll bring me his ugly head,"?Or "Lance, my man, when you've struck him dead,?When he hasn't a wag in his fearful tail,?Carve off and bring me a blue-green scale."
Then they set to work at their swords and spears--?Such a polishing hadn't been seen for years.?They made the tips of their arrows sharp,?Re-strung and burnished the Chief Bard's harp,?Dragged out the traditional dragon-bag,?Sewed up the rents in the tribal flag;?And all in the midst of the talk and racket?Each wife was making her man a packet--?A hunch of bread and a wedge of cheese?And a nubble of beef, and, to moisten these,?A flask of her home-brewed, not too thin,?As a driving force for his javelin?When the moment arrived to spill?The blood of the terror?Hatched out in error?Who had perched his length on the gorse-clad summit,
the summit of Winter Hill.
The night had taken her feast of stars, and the sun shot up in flame, When "Now for the dragon!?Who hunts the dragon?"?The call from the watchers came;?And, shaking the mists of sleep away,?The men stepped into the light of day,?Twice two hundred in loose array;?With a good round dozen of bards to lead them?And their wives all waving their hands to speed them,?While the Chief Bard, fixed in his chair of state,?With his harp and his wreath looked most sedate.?It wasn't his place to fight or tramp;?When the warriors went he stayed in camp;?But still from his chair he harped them on?Till the very last of the host had