The Home Book of Verse Volume Iv Part 46

Some greatly more accomplished man than I Must tackle them: let's say then Shakespeare said it; And, if he did not, Lewis Morris may (Or even if he did). Some other day,

When I have nothing pressing to impart, I should not mind dilating on this matter.

I feel its import both in head and heart, And always did,--especially the latter.

I could discuss it in the busy mart Or on the lonely housetop; hold! this chatter Diverts me from my purpose. To the point: The time, as Hamlet said, is out of joint,

And perhaps I was born to set it right,-- A fact I greet with perfect equanimity.

I do not put it down to "cursed spite,"

I don't see any cause for cursing in it. I Have always taken very great delight In such pursuits since first I read divinity.

Whoever will may write a nation's songs As long as I'm allowed to right its wrongs.

What's Eton but a nursery of wrong-righters, A mighty mother of effective men; A training ground for amateur reciters, A sharpener of the sword as of the pen; A factory of orators and fighters, A forcing-house of genius? Now and then The world at large shrinks back, abashed and beaten, Unable to endure the glare of Eton.

I think I said I knew a man: what then?

I don't suppose such knowledge is forbid.

We nearly all do, more or less, know men,-- Or think we do; nor will a man get rid Of that delusion while he wields a pen.

But who this man was, what, if aught, he did, Nor why I mentioned him, I do not know, Nor what I "wished to say" a while ago.

James Kenneth Stephen [1859-1892]

"NOT A SOU HAD HE GOT"

After Charles Wolfe

Not a sou had he got--not a guinea or note-- And he looked confoundedly flurried, As he bolted away without paying his shot, And the landlady after him hurried.

We saw him again at dead of night, When home from the club returning; We twigged the doctor beneath the light Of the gas-lamp brilliantly burning.

All bare and exposed to the midnight dews, Reclined in a gutter we found him; And he looked like a gentleman taking a snooze With his Marshall cloak around him.

"The doctor's as drunk as the devil," we said, And we managed a shutter to borrow; We raised him; and sighed at the thought that his head Would consumedly ache on the morrow.

We bore him home, and we put him to bed, And we told his wife and his daughter To give him next morning a couple of red- Herrings, with soda-water.

Loudly they talked of his money that's gone, And his lady began to upbraid him; But little he recked, so they let him snore on 'Neath the counterpane, just as we laid him.

We tucked him in, and had hardly done, When, beneath the window calling, We heard the rough voice of a son of a gun Of a watchman "One o'clock!" bawling.

Slowly and sadly we all walked down From his room on the uppermost story; A rushlight we placed on the cold hearth-stone, And we left him alone in his glory.

Richard Harris Barham [1788-1845]

THE WHITING AND THE SNAIL From "Alice in Wonderland"

After Mary Howitt

"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail, See bow eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the s.h.i.+ngle--will you come and join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?

"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"

But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance-- Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.

"There is another sh.o.r.e, you know, upon the other side.

The further off from England the nearer is to France-- Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"

Lewis Carroll [1832-1898]

THE RECOGNITION After Tennyson

Home they brought her sailor son, Grown a man across the sea, Tall and broad and black of beard, And hoa.r.s.e of voice as man may be.

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, Both he offered ere he spoke; But she said, "What man is this Comes to play a sorry joke?"

Then they praised him--called him "smart,"

"Tightest lad that ever stept;"

But her son she did not know, And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years, Set a pigeon-pie in sight; She saw him eat:--"'Tis he! 'tis he!"

She knew him--by his appet.i.te!

Frederick William Sawyer [1810-1875]

THE HIGHER PANTHEISM IN A NUTSh.e.l.l After Tennyson

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is; Surely this is not that: but that is a.s.suredly this.

What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under; If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt; We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover; Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over.

Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight; Fate and G.o.d may be twain: but G.o.d is the same thing as fate.