Peacock Pie Part 4

SAM

When Sam goes back in memory, It is to where the sea Breaks on the s.h.i.+ngle, emerald-green, In white foam, endlessly; He says - with small brown eye on mine- 'I used to keep awake, And lean from my window in the moon, Watching those billows break.

And half a million tiny hands, And eyes, like sparks of frost, Would dance and come tumbling into the moon, On every breaker tossed.

And all across from star to star, I've seen the watery sea, With not a single s.h.i.+p in sight, Just ocean there, and me; And heard my father snore. And once, As sure as I'm alive, Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves I saw a mermaid dive; Head and shoulders above the wave, Plain as I now see you, Combing her hair, now back, now front, Her two eyes peeping through; Calling me, 'Sam!' -quietlike- 'Sam!'...

But me .... I never went, Making believe I kind of thought 'Twas some one else she meant....

Wonderful lovely there she sat, Singing the night away, All in the solitudinous sea Of that there lonely bay.

P'raps,' and he'd smooth his hairless mouth, 'P'raps, if 'twere now, my son, Praps, if I heard a voice say, 'Sam!'...

Morning would find we gone.'

ANDY BATTLE

Once and there was a young sailor, yeo ho!

And he sailed out over the say For the isles where pink coral and palm branches blow, And the fire-flies turn night into day, Yeo ho!

And the fire-flies turn night into day.

But the Dolphin went down in a tempest, yeo ho!

And with three forsook sailors ash.o.r.e, The portingales took him wh'ere sugar-canes grow, Their slave for to be evermore, Yeo ho!

Their slave for to be evermore.

With his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho!

He warred with the Cannibals drear, in forests where panthers pad soft to and fro, And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear, Yeo ho!

And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear.

Now lean with long travail, all wasted with woe, With a monkey for messmate and friend, He sits 'neath the Cross in the cankering snow, And waites for his sorrowful end, Yeo ho!

And waits for his sorrowful end.

THE OLD SOLDIER

There came an Old Soldier to my door, Asked a crust, and asked no more; The wars had thinned him very bare, Fighting and marching everywhere, With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in, A bristling beard upon his chin - Powder and bullets and wounds and drums Had come to that Soldier as suchlike comes - With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

'Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May, Flowers springing from every spray; And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled The song of youth that never grows old, Called Fol rol dol rol di do.

Most of him rags, and all of him lean, And the belt round his belly drawn tightsome in He lifted his peaked old grizzled head, And these were the very same words he said- A Fol-rol-dol-rol-di-do.

THE PICTURE

Here is a sea-legged sailor, Come to this tottering Inn, Just when the bronze on its signboard is fading, And the black shades of evening begin.

With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog, There stoops the Shepherd, and see, All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle homeward, Under the sycamore tree.

Very brown is the face of the Sailor, His bundle is crimson, and green Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o'er the Tavern, And blue the far meadows between.

But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor, His Mug and his platter of Delf, And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog The painter has kept to himself.

THE LITTLE OLD CUPID

'Twas a very small garden; The paths were of stone, Scattered with leaves, With moss overgrown; And a little old Cupid Stood under a tree, With a small broken bow He stood aiming at me.

The dog-rose in briars Hung over the weeds, The air was aflock With the floating of seed, And a little old Cupid Stood under a tree, With a small broken bow He stood aiming at me.

The dovecote was tumbling, The fountain dry, A wind in the orchard Went whispering by; And a little old Cupid Stood under a tree, With a small broken bow He stood aiming at me.

KING DAVID

King David was a sorrowful man: No cause for his sorrow had he; And he called for the music of a hundred harps, To ease his melancholy.

They played till they all fell silent: Played-and play sweet did they; But the sorrow that haunted the heart of King David They could not charm away.

He rose; and in his garden Walked by the moon alone, A nightingale hidden in a cypress-tree Jargoned on and on.

King David lifted his sad eyes Into the dark-boughed tree- ''Tell me, thou little bird that singest, Who taught my grief to thee?'

But the bird in no wise heeded And the king in the cool of the moon Hearkened to the nightingale's sorrowfulness, Till all his own was gone.

THE OLD HOUSE

A very, very old house I know- And ever so many people go, Past the small lodge, forlorn and still, Under the heavy branches, till Comes the blank wall, and there's the door.

Go in they do; come out no more.

No voice says aught; no spark of light Across that threshold cheers the sight; Only the evening star on high Less lonely makes a lonely sky, As, one by one, the people go Into that very old house I know.

BEASTS

UNSTOOPING

Low on his fours the Lion Treads with the surly Bear', But Men straight upward from the dust Walk with their heads in air; The free sweet winds of heaven, The sunlight from on high Beat on their clear bright cheeks and brows As they go striding by; The doors of all their houses They arch so they may go, Uplifted o'er the four-foot beasts, Unstooping, to and fro.

ALL BUT BLIND

All but blind In his cambered hole Gropes for worms The four-clawed Mole.

All but blind In the evening sky The hooded Bat Twirls softly by.

All but blind In the burning day The Barn-Owl blunders On her way.

And blind as are These three to me, So blind to someone I must be.