s: Must have its crust, though hard and dry,


s: I 've caught--Lord bless me! how he squirms!


s: Here youth, unchanging, blooms and smiles,


s: And gray-haired grandsires look and laugh


s: What change has clothed the ancient sire


s: THERE is no time like the old time, when you and I were young,


s: But oh, the sweet, sweet violets, the flowers that opened first!


s: There is no place like the old place, where you and I were born,


s: Where we lifted first our eyelids on the splendors of the morn


s: Fame is the scentless sunflower, with gaudy crown of gold;


s: But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold.


s: There is no love like the old love, that we courted in our pride;


s: And we live in borrowed sunshine when the day-star is withdrawn.


s: ANGEL of Peace, thou hast wandered too long!


s: Spread thy white wings to the sunshine of love!


s: Come while our voices are blended in song,--


s: Fly to our ark like the storm-beaten dove!


s: Fly to our ark on the wings of the dove,--


s: Speed o'er the far-sounding billows of song,


s: Crowned with thine olive-leaf garland of love,--


s: Angel of Peace, thou hast waited too long!


s: Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee,


s: Sweet with the odors of myrtle and pine,


s: Breeze of the prairie and breath of the sea,--


s: Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine,


s: Brothers once more round this altar of thine!


s: Hark! a new birth-song is filling the sky!--


s: Loud as the storm-wind that tumbles the main


s: Bid the full breath of the organ reply,--


s: Roll its long surge like the-earth-shaking main!


s: Swell the vast song till it mounts to the sky!


s: "That lovely, bright-eyed boy."  William Sturgis.


s: "Who faced the storm so long." Francis B. Crowninshield.


s: "Our many featured friend." George T. Davis.


s: works printed in 1717 he included the _Epistle of Eloisa_ and


s: _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, two poems inimitable for pathetic


s: believed to have contributed the spurious philosophy and false


s: rendered his life one long disease. He was, as his friend Lord


s: that is included in the poem. It would have been impossible to


s: give a full and exact idea of the art of poetical criticism


s: without entering into the consideration of the art of poetry.


s: Accordingly Pope has interwoven the precepts of both throughout


s: the poem which might more properly have been styled an essay on


s: 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill


s: But of the two less dangerous is the offense


s: To tire our patience than mislead our sense


s: Some few in that but numbers err in this,


s: Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss,


s: Now one in verse makes many more in prose.


s: 'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none


s: Go just alike, yet each believes his own


s: True taste as seldom is the critic share


s: Both must alike from Heaven derive their light,


s: These born to judge as well as those to write


s: Let such teach others who themselves excel,


s: And censure freely, who have written well


s: Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true


s: But are not critics to their judgment too?


s: Yet if we look more closely we shall find


s: Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind


s: Nature affords at least a glimmering light


s: The lines though touched but faintly are drawn right,


s: But as the slightest sketch if justly traced


s: Is by ill coloring but the more disgraced


s: So by false learning is good sense defaced


s: Some are bewildered in the maze of schools


s: And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools


s: In search of wit these lose their common sense


s: And then turn critics in their own defense


s: Each burns alike who can or cannot write


s: All fools have still an itching to deride


s: And fain would be upon the laughing side


s: There are who judge still worse than he can write.


s: Some have at first for wits then poets passed


s: Turned critics next and proved plain fools at last


s: Some neither can for wits nor critics pass


s: As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.


s: Those half-learned witlings, numerous in our isle,


s: As half-formed insects on the banks of Nile


s: Unfinished things one knows not what to call


s: To tell them would a hundred tongues require,


s: Or one vain wits that might a hundred tire.


s: But you who seek to give and merit fame,


s: Be sure yourself and your own reach to know


s: How far your genius taste and learning go.


s: Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet


s: And mark that point where sense and dullness meet.


s: Nature to all things fixed the limits fit


s: And wisely curbed proud man's pretending wit.


s: As on the land while here the ocean gains.


s: In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains


s: But oft in those confined to single parts


s: Like kings, we lose the conquests gained before,


s: By vain ambition still to make them more


s: Each might his several province well command,


s: Would all but stoop to what they understand.


s: First follow nature and your judgment frame


s: By her just standard, which is still the same.


s: One clear, unchanged and universal light,


s: Life force and beauty, must to all impart,


s: At once the source and end and test of art


s: Art from that fund each just supply provides,


s: Works without show and without pomp presides


s: In some fair body thus the informing soul


s: With spirits feeds, with vigor fills the whole,


s: Each motion guides and every nerve sustains,


s: Itself unseen, but in the effects remains.


s: Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,


s: Want as much more, to turn it to its use;


s: For wit and judgment often are at strife,


s: Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife.


s: 'Tis more to guide, than spur the muse's steed,


s: Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed,


s: The winged courser, like a generous horse,


s: Shows most true mettle when you check his course.


s: Those rules, of old discovered, not devised,


s: Are nature still, but nature methodized;


s: By the same laws which first herself ordained.


s: Hear how learned Greece her useful rules indites,


s: When to repress and when indulge our flights.


s: High on Parnassus' top her sons she showed,


s: And pointed out those arduous paths they trod;


s: Held from afar, aloft, the immortal prize,


s: And urged the rest by equal steps to rise.


s: Just precepts thus from great examples given,


s: She drew from them what they derived from Heaven.


s: The generous critic fanned the poet's fire,


s: And taught the world with reason to admire.


s: Then criticism the muse's handmaid proved,


s: To dress her charms, and make her more beloved:


s: But following wits from that intention strayed


s: Who could not win the mistress, wooed the maid


s: Against the poets their own arms they turned


s: Sure to hate most the men from whom they learned


s: By doctors bills to play the doctor's part.


s: Prescribe, apply, and call their masters fools.


s: Some on the leaves of ancient authors prey,


s: Nor time nor moths e'er spoil so much as they.


s: Some dryly plain, without invention's aid,


s: Write dull receipts how poems may be made


s: These leave the sense their learning to display,


s: And those explain the meaning quite away.


s: You then, whose judgment the right course would steer,


s: Know well each ancient's proper character,


s: Without all these at once before your eyes,


s: Thence form your judgment thence your maxims bring


s: And trace the muses upward to their spring.


s: Still with itself compared, his text peruse,


s: And let your comment be the Mantuan Muse.


s: When first young Maro in his boundless mind,


s: A work to outlast immortal Rome designed,


s: Perhaps he seemed above the critic's law


s: And but from nature's fountain scorned to draw


s: Convinced, amazed, he checks the bold design


s: And rules as strict his labored work confine


s: As if the Stagirite o'erlooked each line


s: Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem,


s: Some beauties yet no precepts can declare,


s: For there's a happiness as well as care.


s: Are nameless graces which no methods teach,


s: If, where the rules not far enough extend


s: (Since rules were made but to promote their end),


s: The intent proposed that license is a rule.


s: May boldly deviate from the common track


s: Great wits sometimes may gloriously offend,


s: And rise to faults true critics dare not mend,


s: From vulgar bounds with brave disorder part,


s: And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,


s: Which without passing through the judgment gains


s: The heart and all its end at once attains.


s: In prospects, thus, some objects please our eyes,


s: Which out of nature's common order rise,


s: The shapeless rock or hanging precipice.


s: But though the ancients thus their rules invade


s: (As kings dispense with laws themselves have made),


s: Against the precept, ne'er transgress its end,


s: Let it be seldom, and compelled by need,


s: And have, at least, their precedent to plead.


s: The critic else proceeds without remorse,


s: Seizes your fame, and puts his laws in force.


s: I know there are, to whose presumptuous thoughts


s: Those freer beauties, even in them, seem faults


s: Some figures monstrous and misshaped appear,


s: Which, but proportioned to their light, or place,


s: Due distance reconciles to form and grace.


s: His powers in equal ranks and fair array,


s: But with the occasion and the place comply.


s: Conceal his force, nay, seem sometimes to fly.


s: Those oft are stratagems which errors seem,


s: Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream.


s: Still green with bays each ancient altar stands,


s: Secure from flames, from envy's fiercer rage,


s: See, from each clime the learned their incense bring;


s: Hear, in all tongues consenting Paeans ring!


s: In praise so just let every voice be joined,


s: Hail! bards triumphant! born in happier days;


s: Whose honors with increase of ages grow,


s: As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow;


s: Nations unborn your mighty names shall sound,


s: And worlds applaud that must not yet be found!


s: Oh may some spark of your celestial fire,


s: The last, the meanest of your sons inspire,


s: (That, on weak wings, from far pursues your flights,


s: Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes),


s: To teach vain wits a science little known,


s: To admire superior sense, and doubt their own!


s: Of all the causes which conspire to blind


s: Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,


s: What the weak head with strongest bias rules,


s: Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.


s: She gives in large recruits of needful pride;


s: For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find


s: What wants in blood and spirits, swelled with wind:


s: Pride where wit fails steps in to our defense,


s: And fills up all the mighty void of sense.


s: If once right reason drives that cloud away,


s: Truth breaks upon us with resistless day


s: Trust not yourself, but your defects to know,


s: Make use of every friend--and every foe.


s: Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring


s: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,


s: Fired at first sight with what the muse imparts,


s: In fearless youth we tempt the heights of arts


s: While from the bounded level of our mind


s: Short views we take nor see the lengths behind


s: But more advanced behold with strange surprise,


s: New distant scenes of endless science rise!


s: So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,


s: Mount o'er the vales and seem to tread the sky,


s: And the first clouds and mountains seem the last.


s: The growing labors of the lengthened way


s: The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,


s: Hills peep o'er hills and Alps on Alps arise!


s: A perfect judge will read each work of wit


s: With the same spirit that its author writ


s: Survey the whole nor seek slight faults to find


s: Where nature moves and rapture warms the mind,


s: Nor lose for that malignant dull delight


s: The generous pleasure to be charmed with wit


s: But in such lays as neither ebb nor flow,


s: That, shunning faults, one quiet tenor keep;


s: We cannot blame indeed--but we may sleep.


s: In wit, as nature, what affects our hearts


s: But the joint force and full result of all.


s: Thus, when we view some well proportioned dome


s: (The worlds just wonder, and even thine, O Rome!),


s: No monstrous height or breadth, or length, appear;


s: Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see.


s: Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.


s: Since none can compass more than they intend;


s: And if the means be just, the conduct true,


s: Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due.


s: As men of breeding, sometimes men of wit,


s: To avoid great errors, must the less commit:


s: Neglect the rules each verbal critic lays,


s: For not to know some trifles is a praise.


s: Most critics, fond of some subservient art,


s: Still make the whole depend upon a part:


s: They talk of principles, but notions prize,


s: Once on a time La Mancha's knight, they say,


s: Discoursed in terms as just, with looks as sage,


s: As e'er could Dennis, of the Grecian stage;


s: Concluding all were desperate sots and fools,


s: Produced his play, and begged the knight's advice;


s: Made him observe the subject, and the plot,


s: The manners, passions, unities, what not?


s: All which, exact to rule, were brought about,


s: "What! leave the combat out?" exclaims the knight.


s: "Yes, or we must renounce the Stagirite."


s: "Not so, by heaven!" (he answers in a rage)


s: "Knights, squires, and steeds must enter on the stage."


s: "So vast a throng the stage can ne'er contain."


s: "Then build a new, or act it in a plain."


s: Thus critics of less judgment than caprice,


s: Curious, not knowing, not exact, but nice,


s: (As most in manners) by a love to parts.


s: Some to conceit alone their taste confine,


s: And glittering thoughts struck out at every line;


s: Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit;


s: Poets, like painters, thus, unskilled to trace


s: And hide with ornaments their want of art.


s: True wit is nature to advantage dressed;


s: What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;


s: Something, whose truth convinced at sight we find


s: That gives us back the image of our mind.


s: As shades more sweetly recommend the light,


s: So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit


s: For works may have more wit than does them good,


s: As bodies perish through excess of blood.


s: Others for language all their care express,


s: And value books, as women men, for dress.


s: Their praise is still--"the style is excellent,"


s: Words are like leaves, and where they most abound


s: Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found.


s: False eloquence, like the prismatic glass.


s: Its gaudy colors spreads on every place,


s: All glares alike without distinction gay:


s: But true expression, like the unchanging sun,


s: Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon;


s: It gilds all objects, but it alters none.


s: Expression is the dress of thought, and still


s: A vile conceit in pompous words expressed,


s: For different styles with different subjects sort,


s: As several garbs with country town and court


s: Some by old words to fame have made pretense,


s: Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;


s: Such labored nothings, in so strange a style,


s: Amaze the unlearned, and make the learned smile.


s: These sparks with awkward vanity display


s: As apes our grandsires in their doublets dressed.


s: In words as fashions the same rule will hold,


s: Be not the first by whom the new are tried,


s: And smooth or rough, with them is right or wrong.


s: In the bright muse though thousand charms conspire,


s: Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire,


s: Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,


s: Not mend their minds, as some to church repair,


s: Not for the doctrine but the music there


s: Though oft the ear the open vowels tire;


s: While expletives their feeble aid do join;


s: And ten low words oft creep in one dull line,


s: While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,


s: With sure returns of still expected rhymes,


s: Where'er you find "the cooling western breeze,"


s: In the next line it "whispers through the trees"


s: If crystal streams "with pleasing murmurs creep"


s: The reader's threatened (not in vain) with "sleep"


s: Then, at the last and only couplet fraught


s: With some unmeaning thing they call a thought,


s: That, like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.


s: Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know


s: What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow;


s: Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join.


s: True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,


s: As those move easiest who have learned to dance


s: 'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,


s: The sound must seem an echo to the sense.


s: Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,


s: And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows,


s: But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,


s: The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar,


s: When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,


s: The line too labors, and the words move slow;


s: Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,


s: Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.


s: Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,


s: And bid alternate passions fall and rise!


s: While, at each change, the son of Libyan Jove


s: Now burns with glory, and then melts with love;


s: Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow,


s: Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow:


s: Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found,


s: And the world's victor stood subdued by sound?


s: The power of music all our hearts allow,


s: Avoid extremes, and shun the fault of such,


s: Who still are pleased too little or too much.


s: That always shows great pride, or little sense:


s: Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best,


s: Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest.


s: Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move;


s: For fools admire, but men of sense approve:


s: As things seem large which we through mist descry,


s: Some foreign writers, some our own despise,


s: The ancients only, or the moderns prize.


s: Thus wit, like faith, by each man is applied


s: To one small sect, and all are damned beside.


s: Meanly they seek the blessing to confine,


s: And force that sun but on a part to shine,


s: Which not alone the southern wit sublimes,


s: But ripens spirits in cold northern climes.


s: Which from the first has shone on ages past,


s: Enlights the present, and shall warm the last,


s: Though each may feel increases and decays,


s: And see now clearer and now darker days.


s: But blame the false, and value still the true.


s: Some ne'er advance a judgment of their own,


s: But catch the spreading notion of the town,


s: And own stale nonsense which they ne'er invent.


s: Some judge of authors names not works, and then


s: Nor praise nor blame the writing, but the men.


s: Of all this servile herd the worst is he


s: That in proud dullness joins with quality


s: A constant critic at the great man's board,


s: What woful stuff this madrigal would be,


s: In some starved hackney sonnetteer, or me!


s: But let a lord once own the happy lines,


s: How the wit brightens! how the style refines!


s: Before his sacred name flies every fault,


s: And each exalted stanza teems with thought!


s: So much they scorn the crowd that if the throng


s: By chance go right they purposely go wrong:


s: So schismatics the plain believers quit,


s: And are but damned for having too much wit.


s: Some praise at morning what they blame at night,


s: But always think the last opinion right.


s: A muse by these is like a mistress used,


s: This hour she's idolized, the next abused;


s: While their weak heads, like towns unfortified,


s: 'Twixt sense and nonsense daily change their side.


s: Ask them the cause, they're wiser still they say;


s: And still to-morrow's wiser than to-day.


s: We think our fathers fools, so wise we grow;


s: Our wiser sons, no doubt, will think us so.


s: Once school-divines this zealous isle o'erspread.


s: Who knew most sentences was deepest read,


s: Faith, Gospel, all, seemed made to be disputed,


s: And none had sense enough to be confuted:


s: Scotists and Thomists now in peace remain,


s: Amidst their kindred cobwebs in Duck Lane.


s: If faith itself has different dresses worn,


s: What wonder modes in wit should take their turn?


s: And authors think their reputation safe,


s: Which lives as long as fools are pleased to laugh.


s: Some valuing those of their own side or mind,


s: Still make themselves the measure of mankind:


s: When we but praise ourselves in other men.


s: Parties in wit attend on those of state,


s: And public faction doubles private hate.


s: Pride, malice, folly against Dryden rose,


s: In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux;


s: But sense survived, when merry jests were past;


s: Might he return, and bless once more our eyes,


s: New Blackmores and new Millbourns must arise:


s: Nay, should great Homer lift his awful head,


s: Zoilus again would start up from the dead


s: But like a shadow, proves the substance true:


s: For envied wit, like Sol eclipsed, makes known


s: The opposing body's grossness, not its own.


s: When first that sun too powerful beams displays,


s: It draws up vapors which obscure its rays,


s: But even those clouds at last adorn its way


s: Be thou the first true merit to befriend


s: His praise is lost who stays till all commend


s: Short is the date alas! of modern rhymes


s: And 'tis but just to let them live betimes


s: When patriarch wits survived a thousand years


s: Now length of fame (our second life) is lost


s: And bare threescore is all even that can boast,


s: Our sons their fathers failing language see


s: So when the faithful pencil has designed


s: Where a new world leaps out at his command


s: And sweetly melt into just shade and light


s: When mellowing years their full perfection give


s: And each bold figure just begins to live


s: The treacherous colors the fair art betray


s: Atones not for that envy which it brings


s: In youth alone its empty praise we boast


s: But soon the short lived vanity is lost.


s: Like some fair flower the early spring supplies


s: That gayly blooms but even in blooming dies


s: What is this wit, which must our cares employ?


s: Then most our trouble still when most admired


s: And still the more we give the more required


s: Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease,


s: Sure some to vex, but never all to please,


s: 'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun,


s: By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone!


s: Ah! let not learning too commence its foe!


s: Of old, those met rewards who could excel,


s: And such were praised who but endeavored well:


s: Though triumphs were to generals only due,


s: Crowns were reserved to grace the soldiers too.


s: Now they who reach Parnassus' lofty crown,


s: Employ their pains to spurn some others down;


s: And, while self-love each jealous writer rules,


s: Contending wits become the sport of fools:


s: But still the worst with most regret commend,


s: To what base ends, and by what abject ways,


s: Are mortals urged, through sacred lust of praise!


s: Ah, ne'er so dire a thirst of glory boast,


s: Good-nature and good sense must ever join;


s: But if in noble minds some dregs remain,


s: Not yet purged off, of spleen and sour disdain;


s: Discharge that rage on more provoking crimes,


s: Nor fear a dearth in these flagitious times.


s: Though wit and art conspire to move your mind;


s: In the fat age of pleasure, wealth, and ease,


s: Sprung the rank weed, and thrived with large increase:


s: When love was all an easy monarch's care,


s: Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ;


s: Nay, wits had pensions, and young lords had wit:


s: The fair sat panting at a courtier's play,


s: And virgins smiled at what they blushed before.


s: The following license of a foreign reign,


s: Did all the dregs of bold Socinus drain,


s: Then unbelieving priests reformed the nation.


s: And taught more pleasant methods of salvation;


s: Where Heaven's free subjects might their rights dispute,


s: Lest God himself should seem too absolute:


s: Pulpits their sacred satire learned to spare,


s: And vice admired to find a flatterer there!


s: Encouraged thus, wit's Titans braved the skies,


s: And the press groaned with licensed blasphemies.


s: These monsters, critics! with your darts engage,


s: Here point your thunder, and exhaust your rage!


s: Yet shun their fault, who, scandalously nice,


s: All seems infected that the infected spy,


s: As all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.


s: Learn, then, what morals critics ought to show,


s: For 'tis but half a judge's task to know.


s: 'Tis not enough, taste, judgment, learning, join;


s: In all you speak, let truth and candor shine:


s: That not alone what to your sense is due


s: All may allow, but seek your friendship too.


s: Be silent always, when you doubt your sense;


s: And speak, though sure, with seeming diffidence:


s: Who, if once wrong will needs be always so;


s: But you, with pleasure, own your errors past,


s: And make each day a critique on the last.


s: 'Tis not enough your counsel still be true;


s: Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do;


s: Men must be taught as if you taught them not,


s: And things unknown proposed as things forgot.


s: Without good breeding truth is disapproved;


s: With mean complacence, ne'er betray your trust,


s: Fear not the anger of the wise to raise,


s: Those best can bear reproof who merit praise.


s: 'Twere well might critics still this freedom take,


s: But Appius reddens at each word you speak,


s: And stares, tremendous with a threatening eye,


s: Such, without wit are poets when they please,


s: As without learning they can take degrees


s: Leave dangerous truths to unsuccessful satires,


s: Whom, when they praise, the world believes no more,


s: Than when they promise to give scribbling o'er.


s: 'Tis best sometimes your censure to restrain,


s: Your silence there is better than your spite,


s: For who can rail so long as they can write?


s: Still humming on, their drowsy course they keep,


s: And lashed so long like tops are lashed asleep.


s: False steps but help them to renew the race,


s: As after stumbling, jades will mend their pace.


s: What crowds of these, impenitently bold,


s: In sounds and jingling syllables grown old,


s: Even to the dregs and squeezing of the brain;


s: Strain out the last dull droppings of their sense,


s: And rhyme with all the rage of impotence!


s: Such shameless bards we have, and yet, 'tis true,


s: With loads of learned lumber in his head,


s: With his own tongue still edifies his ears,


s: All books he reads and all he reads assails


s: From Dryden's Fables down to Durfey's Tales


s: With him most authors steal their works or buy;


s: Name a new play, and he's the poets friend


s: Nay, showed his faults--but when would poets mend?


s: No place so sacred from such fops is barred,


s: Nor is Paul's Church more safe than Paul's Churchyard:


s: Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,


s: For fools rush in where angels fear to tread


s: Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,


s: It still looks home, and short excursions makes;


s: But rattling nonsense in full volleys breaks,


s: And, never shocked, and never turned aside.


s: Bursts out, resistless, with a thundering tide,


s: But where's the man who counsel can bestow,


s: Still pleased to teach, and yet not proud to know?


s: Not dully prepossessed, nor blindly right;


s: Though learned, well-bred, and though well bred, sincere,


s: Who to a friend his faults can freely show,


s: Blessed with a taste exact, yet unconfined;


s: A knowledge both of books and human kind;


s: Generous converse, a soul exempt from pride;


s: And love to praise, with reason on his side?


s: Such once were critics such the happy few,


s: The mighty Stagirite first left the shore,


s: Spread all his sails, and durst the deeps explore;


s: He steered securely, and discovered far,


s: Received his laws, and stood convinced 'twas fit,


s: Who conquered nature, should preside o'er wit.


s: Horace still charms with graceful negligence,


s: Might boldly censure, as he boldly writ,


s: Yet judged with coolness though he sung with fire;


s: His precepts teach but what his works inspire


s: They judge with fury, but they write with phlegm:


s: Nor suffers Horace more in wrong translations


s: By wits than critics in as wrong quotations.


s: And call new beauties forth from every line!


s: The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease.


s: In grave Quintilian's copious work we find


s: The justest rules and clearest method joined:


s: All ranged in order, and disposed with grace,


s: But less to please the eye, than arm the hand,


s: Still fit for use, and ready at command.


s: Thee bold Longinus! all the Nine inspire,


s: And bless their critic with a poet's fire.


s: An ardent judge, who, zealous in his trust,


s: With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just:


s: Whose own example strengthens all his laws;


s: And is himself that great sublime he draws.


s: Thus long succeeding critics justly reigned,


s: License repressed, and useful laws ordained.


s: And arts still followed where her eagles flew,


s: From the same foes at last, both felt their doom,


s: And the same age saw learning fall, and Rome.


s: As that the body, this enslaved the mind;


s: Much was believed but little understood,


s: And to be dull was construed to be good;


s: And the monks finished what the Goths begun.


s: At length Erasmus, that great injured name


s: (The glory of the priesthood and the shame!)


s: Stemmed the wild torrent of a barbarous age,


s: And drove those holy Vandals off the stage.


s: But see! each muse, in Leo's golden days,


s: Starts from her trance and trims her withered bays,


s: Rome's ancient genius o'er its ruins spread


s: Shakes off the dust, and rears his reverent head


s: Then sculpture and her sister arts revive,


s: Stones leaped to form, and rocks began to live;


s: With sweeter notes each rising temple rung,


s: As next in place to Mantua, next in fame!


s: But soon by impious arms from Latium chased,


s: Their ancient bounds the banished muses passed.


s: Thence arts o'er all the northern world advance,


s: But critic-learning flourished most in France,


s: The rules a nation born to serve, obeys;


s: And Boileau still in right of Horace sways


s: But we, brave Britons, foreign laws despised,


s: Fierce for the liberties of wit and bold,


s: Yet some there were, among the sounder few


s: Of those who less presumed and better knew,


s: Who durst assert the juster ancient cause,


s: And here restored wit's fundamental laws.


s: Such was the muse, whose rule and practice tell


s: "Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well."


s: Such was Roscommon, not more learned than good,


s: With manners generous as his noble blood,


s: To him the wit of Greece and Rome was known,


s: Such late was Walsh--the muse's judge and friend,


s: To failings mild, but zealous for desert,


s: The clearest head, and the sincerest heart,


s: This humble praise, lamented shade! receive,


s: This praise at least a grateful muse may give.


s: The muse whose early voice you taught to sing


s: Prescribed her heights and pruned her tender wing,


s: (Her guide now lost) no more attempts to rise,


s: But in low numbers short excursions tries,


s: Content if hence the unlearned their wants may view,


s: The learned reflect on what before they knew


s: Careless of censure, nor too fond of fame,


s: Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame,


s: Not free from faults, nor yet too vain to mend.


s: meanings (1) Here it seems to mean _genius_ or _fancy_,


s: understanding_ or _powers of the mind_, (4) in line 81 it


s: philosophy as taught by particular teachers.]


s: Cum canerem reges et proelia Cynthius aurem


s: Concluding all were desperate sots and fools


s: Who durst depart from Aristotle's rules.]


s: Homerus_, 'even the good Homer nods'--Horace, _Epistola ad


s: war--Probably an allusion to the irruption of the barbarians into


s: 'Round the whole world this dreaded name shall sound,


s: And reach to worlds that must not yet be found,"--COWLEY.]


s: Spanish knight, the hero of a book written (1605) by Cervantes, a


s: place in his _Dunciad_, and wrote a prologue for his benefit.]


s: _Every Man out of his Humor_ who assumed the dress and tried to


s: poets and made the most mild and gentle of the sylvan deities.]


s: "Then Ajax seized the fragment of a rock


s: Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high,


s: The huge stone thundering through his buckler broke."


s: Camilla, queen of the Volsci, was brought up in the woods, and,


s: "Dura pan, cursuque pedum praevertere ventos.


s: Illa vel intactae segetis per summa volaret


s: Gramina nec teneras cursu laesisset aristas;


s: Vel mare per medium fluctu suspensa tumenti,


s: Ferret iter, celeres nec tingeret aequore plantas."


s: "Outstripped the winds in speed upon the plain,


s: Flew o'er the fields, nor hurt the bearded grain;


s: She swept the seas, and as she skimmed along,


s: Her flying feet unbathed on billows hung"]


s: Ignorance is apt to magnify, but dullness reposes in stolid


s: most famous and influential of the scholastics of the fourteenth


s: books were sold. The cobwebs were kindred to the works of these


s: the author of _A Short View etc, of the English Stage_. Critics,


s: beaux.--This to the Duke of Buckingham, the author of _The


s: Masque_. Millbourn, Rev. Luke, who criticised Dryden; which


s: age to which the antediluvian patriarchs of the Bible lived.]


s: the reign of Charles II.) of a sequel in five acts of _The


s: Rehearsal_, a series of sonnets entitled _Pills to Purge


s: teacher of rhetoric and oratory at Rome. His greatwork is _De


s: he has Shakespeare's example as precedent.]


s: monks, cloister life, festivals, pilgrimages etc.]


s: "Mantua vae miserae nimium vicina Cremona."--Virg.]


s: Poetry_ which had been eulogized also by Dryden and Dr. Garth.]


s: to be the first critic who praised Milton's _Paradise Lost_, died


s: The deaths ye died I have watched beside,


s: Old as the chicken that kitmutgars bring


s: Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.


s: His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer;


s: He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear.


s: He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day,


s: He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way,


s: His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,


s: But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders.


s: He took two months to Simla when the year was at the spring,


s: And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.


s: He warbled like a bulbul, but particularly at


s: Cornelia Agrippina who was musical and fat.


s: From April to October on a plump retaining fee,


s: Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury.


s: Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;


s: He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they:


s: So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,


s: Cornelia told her husband: "Tom, you mustn't send him down."


s: They haled him from his regiment which didn't much regret him;


s: And draw his plump retaining fee--which means his double pay.


s: Now, ever after dinner, when the coffeecups are brought,


s: Ahasuerus waileth o'er the grand pianoforte;


s: And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,


s: And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a power in the State.


s: And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led


s: Each bridge that he makes he either buckles or breaks,


s: And I can't understand why you gave him your hand,


s: For They bow and They smile in an affable style


s: Of a highly-paid post which is claimed by a host


s: What is the spell that you manage so well,


s: RUSTUM BEG of Kolazai--slightly backward native state


s: Lusted for a C. S. I.,--so began to sanitate.


s: Built a Jail and Hospital--nearly built a City drain--


s: Strange departures made he then--yea, Departments stranger still,


s: Talked of noble aims and high, hinted of a future fine


s: For the state of Kolazai, on a strictly Western line.


s: Rajah Rustum held his peace; lowered octroi dues a half;


s: Organized a State Police; purified the Civil Staff;


s: Settled cess and tax afresh in a very liberal way;


s: Cut temptations of the flesh--also cut the Bukhshi's pay;


s: Roused his Secretariat to a fine Mahratta fury,


s: By a Hookum hinting at supervision of dasturi;


s: Turned the State of Kolazai very nearly upside-down;


s: When the end of May was nigh, waited his achievement crown.


s: Stood against the Rajah's name nothing more than C. I. E.!


s: Things were lively for a week in the State of Kolazai.


s: Even now the people speak of that time regretfully.


s: How he disendowed the Jail--stopped at once the City drain;


s: Turned to beauty fair and frail--got his senses back again;


s: Doubled taxes, cesses, all; cleared away each new-built thana;


s: Turned the two-lakh Hospital into a superb Zenana;


s: Heaped upon the Bukhshi Sahib wealth and honors manifold;


s: Clad himself in Eastern garb--squeezed his people as of old.


s: Happy, happy Kolazai!  Never more  will Rustum Beg


s: Play to catch the Viceroy's eye. He prefers the "simpkin" peg.


s: Though tangled and twisted the course of true love


s: No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve


s: Ere the steamer bore him Eastward, Sleary was engaged to marry


s: Sleary's pay was very modest; Sleary was the other way.


s: Who can cook a two-plate dinner on eight poor rupees a day?


s: Certainly an impecunious Subaltern was not a catch,


s: But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make another match.


s: Anyhow, the billet carried pay enough for him to marry--


s: Did he, therefore, jilt Miss Boffkin--impulse of a baser mind?


s: No! He started epileptic fits of an appalling kind.


s: Frequently in public places his affliction used to smite


s: Sleary with distressing vigour--always in the Boffkins' sight.


s: Ere a week was over Minnie weepingly returned his ring,


s: Told him his "unhappy weakness" stopped all thought of marrying.


s: Sleary bore the information with a chastened holy joy,--


s: Epileptic fits don't matter in Political employ,--


s: Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs. Boffkin sits


s: Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's fits.


s: By the Laws of the Family Circle 'tis written in letters of brass


s: Now Exeter Battleby Tring had laboured from boyhood to eld


s: Black as the raven his garb, and his heresies jettier still--


s: Hinting that Railways required lifetimes of study and knowledge--


s: Wherefore the Little Tin Gods harried their little tin souls,


s: Seeing he came not from Chatham, jingled no spurs at his heels,


s: Knowing that, nevertheless, was he first on the Government rolls


s: Letters not seldom they wrote him, "having the honour to state,"


s: It would be better for all men if he were laid on the shelf.


s: Much would accrue to his bank-book, an he consented to wait


s: Until the Little Tin Gods built him a berth for himself,


s: Thus did the Little Tin Gods (long may Their Highnesses thrive!)


s: Silence his mouth with rupees, keeping their Circle intact;


s: We have another viceroy now,--those days are dead and done


s: Of Delilah Aberyswith and depraved Ulysses Gunne.


s: Delilah Aberyswith was a lady--not too young--


s: With a perfect taste in dresses and a badly-bitted tongue,


s: With a thirst for information, and a greater thirst for praise,


s: And a little house in Simla in the Prehistoric Days.


s: By reason of her marriage to a gentleman in power,


s: Delilah was acquainted with the gossip of the hour;


s: And many little secrets, of the half-official kind,


s: Were whispered to Delilah, and she bore them all in mind.


s: She patronized extensively a man, Ulysses Gunne,


s: Whose mode of earning money was a low and shameful one.


s: He wrote for certain papers, which, as everybody knows,


s: Is worse than serving in a shop or scaring off the crows.


s: He praised her "queenly beauty" first; and, later on, he hinted


s: At the "vastness of her intellect" with compliment unstinted.


s: He went with her a-riding, and his love for her was such


s: That he lent her all his horses and--she galled them very much.


s: One day, THEY brewed a secret of a fine financial sort;


s: It related to Appointments, to a Man and a Report.


s: 'Twas almost worth the keeping,--only seven people knew it--


s: And Gunne rose up to seek the truth and patiently pursue it.


s: It was a Viceroy's Secret, but--perhaps the wine was red--


s: Perhaps an Aged Councillor had lost his aged head--


s: Perhaps Delilah's eyes were bright--Delilah's whispers sweet--


s: The Aged Member told her what 'twere treason to repeat.


s: Ulysses went a-riding, and they talked of love and flowers;


s: Ulysses went a-calling, and he called for several hours;


s: Ulysses went a-waltzing, and Delilah helped him dance--


s: Ulysses let the waltzes go, and waited for his chance.


s: The summer sun was setting, and the summer air was still,


s: The couple went a-walking in the shade of Summer Hill.


s: The wasteful sunset faded out in Turkish-green and gold,


s: Ulysses pleaded softly, and-- that bad Delilah told!


s: Next morn, a startled Empire learnt the all-important news;


s: Next week, the Aged Councillor was shaking in his shoes.


s: Next month, I met Delilah and she did not show the least


s: Hesitation in affirming that Ulysses was a "beast."


s: We have another Viceroy now, those days are dead and done--


s: Of Delilah Aberyswith and most mean Ulysses Gunne!


s: Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,


s: Owner of a native press, "Barrishter-at-Lar,"


s: Waited on the Government with a claim to wear


s: Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.


s: Then the Indian Government winked a wicked wink,


s: Said to Chunder Mookerjee: "Stick to pen and ink.


s: They are safer implements, but, if you insist,


s: We will let you carry arms wheresoe'er you list."


s: Hurree Chunder Mookerjee sought the gunsmith and


s: Bought the tubes of Lancaster, Ballard, Dean, and Bland,


s: Bought a shiny bowie-knife, bought a town-made sword,


s: Jingled like a carriage-horse when he went abroad.


s: But the Indian Government, always keen to please,


s: Also gave permission to horrid men like these--


s: Yar Mahommed Yusufzai, down to kill or steal,


s: Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer, Tantia the Bhil;


s: Killar Khan the Marri chief, Jowar Singh the Sikh,


s: He was a Wahabi; last, little Boh Hla-oo


s: Took advantage of the Act--took a Snider too.


s: They were unenlightened men, Ballard knew them not.


s: They procured their swords and guns chiefly on the spot;


s: And the lore of centuries, plus a hundred fights,


s: Made them slow to disregard one another's rights.


s: All those hairy gentlemen out of foreign parts


s: Said: "The good old days are back--let us go to war!"


s: Swaggered down the Grand Trunk Road into Bow Bazaar,


s: Nubbee Baksh Punjabi Jat found a hide-bound flail;


s: Chimbu Singh from Bikaneer oiled his Tonk jezail;


s: Yar Mahommed Yusufzai spat and grinned with glee


s: As he ground the butcher-knife of the Khyberee.


s: Jowar Singh the Sikh procured sabre, quoit, and mace,


s: Abdul Huq, Wahabi, jerked his dagger from its place,


s: While amid the jungle-grass danced and grinned and jabbered


s: Little Boh Hla-oo and cleared his dah-blade from the scabbard.


s: What became of Mookerjee? Soothly, who can say?


s: Jowar Singh is reticent, Chimbu Singh is mute.


s: But the belts of all of them simply bulge with loot.


s: What became of Ballard's guns? Afghans black and grubby


s: Sell them for their silver weight to the men of Pubbi;


s: And the shiny bowie-knife and the town-made sword are


s: Hanging in a Marri camp just across the Border.


s: What became of Mookerjee? Ask Mahommed Yar


s: Prodding Siva's sacred bull down the Bow Bazaar.


s: Speak to placid Nubbee Baksh--question land and sea--


s: Ask the Indian Congressmen--only don't ask me!


s: Now we had arranged, through notes exchanged


s: With a kiss or two (which is nothing to you),


s: She turned her head and the name she said


s: But ere I could speak, with a smothered shriek


s: Had cloaked the spouse of Sir Julian House,


s: And the name she said when she turned her head


s: Shun--shun the Bowl! That fatal, facile drink


s: Has ruined many geese who dipped their quills in 't;


s: Bribe, murder, marry, but steer clear of Ink


s: Save when you write receipts for paid-up bills in 't.


s: There may be silver in the "blue-black"--all


s: Boanerges Blitzen, servant of the Queen,


s: Is a dismal failure--is a Might-have-been.


s: Rise to high position through a ready pen.


s: With the selfsame weapon, can attain as high."


s: Only he did not possess when he made the trial,


s: Something more than ordinary journalistic prose.]


s: Never young Civilian's prospects were so bright,


s: Till an Indian paper found that he could write:


s: Never young Civilian's prospects were so dark,


s: When the wretched Blitzen wrote to make his mark.


s: Certainly he scored it, bold, and black, and firm,


s: In that Indian paper--made his seniors squirm,


s: Quoted office scandals, wrote the tactless truth--


s: Was there ever known a more misguided youth?


s: When the Rag he wrote for praised his plucky game,


s: Boanerges Blitzen felt that this was Fame;


s: When the men he wrote of shook their heads and swore,


s: Posed as Young Ithuriel, resolute and grim,


s: Till he found promotion didn't come to him;


s: Till he found that reprimands weekly were his lot,


s: Till he found his furlough strangely hard to win,


s: Then it seemed to dawn on him something wasn't right--


s: Boanerges Blitzen put it down to "spite";


s: Languished in a District desolate and dry;


s: Watched the Local Government yearly pass him by;


s: Wondered where the hitch was; called it most unfair.


s: That was seven years ago--and he still is there!


s: "Thus," quoth that most veracious man:--


s: It was an August evening and, in snowy garments clad,


s: I paid a round of visits in the lines of Hezabad;


s: When, presently, my Waler saw, and did not like at all,


s: A Commissariat elephant careering down the Mall.


s: I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed


s: That that Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.


s: I didn't care to meet him, and I couldn't well get down,


s: So I let the Waler have it, and we headed for the town.


s: Till the Waler jumped a bullock just above the City Drain;


s: And the next that I remember was a hurricane of squeals,


s: And the creature making toothpicks of my five-foot patent wheels.


s: He seemed to want the owner, so I fled, distraught with fear,


s: To the Main Drain sewage-outfall while he snorted in my ear--


s: Heard it trumpet on my shoulder--tried to crawl a little higher--


s: While the trunk was feeling blindly for a purchase on my toes!


s: It missed me by a fraction, but my hair was turning grey


s: Before they called the drivers up and dragged the brute away.


s: Then I sought the City Elders, and my words were very plain.


s: You may hold with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure,


s: And, if you don't believe me, get shikarred yourself. That's all.


s: Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,


s: And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,


s: To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught


s: His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught.


s: And Love had made him very sage, as Nature made her fair;


s: So Cupid and Apollo linked, per heliograph, the pair.


s: At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise--


s: At e'en, the dying sunset bore her husband's homilies.


s: He warned her 'gainst seductive youths in scarlet clad and gold,


s: As much as 'gainst the blandishments paternal of the old;


s: But kept his gravest warnings for (hereby the ditty hangs)


s: That snowy-haired Lothario, Lieutenant-General Bangs.


s: "Was ever General Officer addressed as 'dear' before?


s: The artless Aide-de-camp was mute; the gilded Staff were still,


s: But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]


s: With damnatory dot and dash he heliographed his wife


s: Some interesting details of the General's private life.


s: The artless Aide-de-camp was mute, the shining Staff were still,


s: And red and ever redder grew the General's shaven gill.


s: And this is what he said at last (his feelings matter not):--


s: All honour unto Bangs, for ne'er did Jones thereafter know


s: By word or act official who read off that helio.


s: But the tale is on the Frontier, and from Michni to Mooltan


s: They know the worthy General as "that most immoral man."


s: None whole or clean," we cry, "or free from stain


s: The Last Department where nor fraud nor fools,


s: Nor grade nor greed, shall trouble us again.


s: Fear, Favour, or Affection--what are these


s: To the grim Head who claims our services?


s: Delay that pukka step, miscalled "decease";


s: When leave, long overdue, none can deny;


s: Our thriftless, bullion-minting Treasury


s: Each in his strait, wood-scantled office pent,


s: No longer Brown reverses Smith's appeals,


s: And One, long since a pillar of the Court,


s: As mud between the beams thereof is wrought;


s: And One who wrote on phosphates for the crops


s: These be the glorious ends whereto we pass--


s: And He shall see the mallie steals the slab


s: For currie-grinder, and for goats the grass.


s: A breath of wind, a Border bullet's flight,


s: A draught of water, or a horse's fright--


s: Ceases, the punkah stops, and falls the night


s: For you or Me. Do those who live decline


s: The step that offers, or their work resign?


s: Five hundred men can take your place or mine.


s: That night, when through the mooring-chains


s: They told their tales of wreck and wrong,


s: They backed their toughest statements with


s: Now Anne of Austria shared their drinks,


s: Since Life is strife, and strife means knife,


s: As I left the Halls at Lumley, rose the vision of a comely


s: That was all--the rest was settled by the clinking tonga-bar.


s: Yea, my life and hers were coupled by the tonga coupling-bar.


s: For my misty meditation, at the second changin'-station,


s: Suffered sudden dislocation, fled before the tuneless jar


s: Of a Wagner obbligato, scherzo, doublehand staccato,


s: Played on either pony's saddle by the clacking tonga-bar--


s: Played with human speech, I fancied, by the jigging, jolting bar.


s: Heart of man--oh, heart of putty! Had I gone by Kakahutti,


s: On the old Hill-road and rutty, I had 'scaped that fatal car.


s: "You must call on Her tomorrow!"--post-horn gallop by the bar.


s: Yet a further stage my goal on--we were whirling down to Solon,


s: "'Been accepted or rejected!" banged and clanged the tonga-bar.


s: Then a notion wild and daring, 'spite the income tax's paring,


s: And a hasty thought of sharing--less than many incomes are,


s: "Simple Rule of Two will prove it," lilted back the tonga-bar.


s: It was under Khyraghaut I mused. "Suppose the maid be haughty--


s: (There are lovers rich--and rotty)--wait some wealthy Avatar?


s: Answer monitor untiring, 'twixt the ponies twain perspiring!"


s: "Can I tell you ere you ask Her?" pounded slow the tonga-bar.


s: Last, the Tara Devi turning showed the lights of Simla burning,


s: Lit my little lazy yearning to a fiercer flame by far.


s: As below the Mall we jingled, through my very heart it tingled--


s: Did the iterated order of the threshing tonga-bar--


s: If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,


s: Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?


s: If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?


s: "Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me today!"


s: Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum


s: Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vexed,


s: Who are the rulers of Ind--to whom shall we bow the knee?


s: Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.


s: Does the woodpecker flit round the young ferash?


s: Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall?


s: If She grow suddenly gracious--reflect. Is it all for thee?


s: Seek not for favor of women. So shall you find it indeed.


s: Does not the boar break cover just when you're lighting a weed?


s: With a "weed" among men or horses verily this is the best,


s: As the thriftless gold of the babul, so is the gold that we spend


s: The ways of man with a maid be strange, yet simple and tame


s: In public Her face is averted, with anger. She nameth thy name.


s: If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips are sealed,


s: If She have written a letter, delay not an instant, but burn it.


s: My Son, if a maiden deny thee and scufflingly bid thee give o'er,


s: Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth forever Remorse.


s: That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib


s: And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets


s: Glare down, old Hecate, through the dust,


s: In the name of the Empress of India, make way,


s: O Lords of the Jungle, wherever you roam.


s: The woods are astir at the close of the day--


s: We exiles are waiting for letters from Home.


s: Let the robber retreat--let the tiger turn tail--


s: With a jingle of bells as the dusk gathers in,


s: He turns to the foot-path that heads up the hill--


s: The bags on his back and a cloth round his chin,


s: And, tucked in his waist-belt, the Post Office bill:


s: "Despatched on this date, as received by the rail,


s: Per runner, two bags of the Overland Mail."


s: Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim.


s: Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff.


s: Does the tempest cry "Halt"? What are tempests to him?


s: The Service admits not a "but" or and "if."


s: While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail,


s: From aloe to rose-oak, from rose-oak to fir,


s: From level to upland, from upland to crest,


s: From rice-field to rock-ridge, from rock-ridge to spur,


s: Fly the soft sandalled feet, strains the brawny brown chest.


s: From rail to ravine--to the peak from the vale--


s: Up, up through the night goes the Overland Mail.


s: There's a speck on the hillside, a dot on the road--


s: A jingle of bells on the foot-path below--


s: There's a scuffle above in the monkey's abode--


s: The world is awake, and the clouds are aglow.


s: For the great Sun himself must attend to the hail:


s: "In the name of the Empress the Overland Mail!"


s: They have heard, as the dull Earth hears


s: Then, far and near, as the twilight drew,


s: Great serpents, blazing, of red and blue,


s: And the Ploughman listened and bowed his head:


s: "Today and tomorrow God's will," he said,


s: "Mogul Mahratta, and Mlech from the North,


s: God raiseth them up and driveth them forth


s: As the dust of the ploughshare flies in the breeze;


s: But the wheat and the cattle are all my care,


s: How can he drink tea with the Executioner?"


s: And I meet him oft o' mornings on the Course;


s: As I canter past the Undertaker's Horse.


s: Trot, professional and placid, he affects;


s: "Mend your pace, my friend, I'm coming. Who's the next?"


s: Of pith and might and muscle--at your heels,


s: In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.


s: Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force?


s: Bring them back to me, O Undertaker's Horse!


s: And that businesslike black crimping of your tail,


s: What wonder when I meet you I turn pale?


s: Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass--


s: Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.


s: See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse--


s: I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker's Horse!


s: Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text,


s: "'Sure to catch you sooner or later. Who's the next?"


s: An' syne he trumped his partner's trick,


s: "God save the lad! Whence comes the licht


s: "There's a third o' hair on your dress-coat breast,


s: "Oh! lang-haired Skyes are lovin' beasts,


s: "There's a smirch o' pouther on your breast,


s: "Last nicht ye told that tale yoursel'--


s: An' it fell when sirris-shaws were sere,


s: That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."


s: The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,


s: Strike hard who cares--shoot straight who can--


s: With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,


s: "You must choose between me and your cigar."


s: Open the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout,


s: For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.


s: We quarrelled about Havanas--we fought o'er a good cheroot,


s: And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.


s: Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a space;


s: In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie's face.


s: Maggie is pretty to look at--Maggie's a loving lass,


s: There's peace in a Larranaga, there's calm in a Henry Clay;


s: But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away--


s: Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown--


s: Maggie, my wife at fifty--grey and dour and old--


s: With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!


s: The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket--


s: Open the old cigar-box--let me consider a while.


s: Here is a mild Manila--there is a wifely smile.


s: Which is the better portion--bondage bought with a ring,


s: Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?


s: Counsellors cunning and silent--comforters true and tried,


s: And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?


s: Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes,


s: Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,


s: This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return,


s: With only a Suttee's passion--to do their duty and burn.


s: This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead,


s: Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.


s: The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main,


s: When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.


s: For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between


s: The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o' Teen.


s: And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear,


s: But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;


s: And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove,


s: Open the old cigar-box--let me consider anew--


s: Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?


s: A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke;


s: And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.


s: Light me another Cuba--I hold to my first-sworn vows.


s: If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for Spouse!


s: Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles


s: Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow


s: Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea,


s: Stands a City--Charnock chose it--packed away


s: By the Sewage rendered fetid, by the sewer


s: By the Sunderbunds unwholesome, by the swamp


s: And the City and the Viceroy, as we see,


s: Once, two hundred years ago, the trader came


s: Where his timid foot first halted, there he stayed,


s: Grew to Empire, and he sent his armies forth


s: Till the country from Peshawur to Ceylon


s: Thus the midday halt of Charnock--more's the pity!


s: As the fungus sprouts chaotic from its bed,


s: Chance-directed, chance-erected, laid and built


s: Palace, byre, hovel--poverty and pride--


s: And, above the packed and pestilential town,


s: Fled, with each returning spring-tide from its ills


s: From the clammy fogs of morning, from the blaze


s: From the sickness of the noontide, from the heat,


s: But the Merchant risked the perils of the Plain


s: Now the resting-place of Charnock, 'neath the palms,


s: "Because for certain months, we boil and stew,


s: "Cast the Viceroy and his Council, to perspire


s: That an amateur Saint Lawrence cannot fry:


s: That the Merchant risks the perils of the Plain


s: Nor can Rulers rule a house that men grow rich in,


s: And mature--consistent soul--his plan for stealing


s: Let the Merchant seek, who makes his silver pile,


s: Let the City Charnock pitched on--evil day!


s: Though the argosies of Asia at Her doors


s: Though "out-station orders punctually obeyed"


s: Still, for rule, administration, and the rest,


s: Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall


s: Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment


s: But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,


s: tho' they come from the ends of the earth!


s: Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side,


s: And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride:


s: Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:


s: "At dusk he harries the Abazai--at dawn he is into Bonair,


s: But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare,


s: So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,


s: The Colonel's son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he,


s: The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat--


s: He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,


s: It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dustdevils go,


s: The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,


s: The dun he fell at a water-course--in a woful heap fell he,


s: "If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,


s: The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row:


s: If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,


s: "If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,


s: Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.


s: "May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath;


s: "Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he;


s: "Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!"


s: Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,


s: Thy life is his--thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.


s: The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,


s: "Ha' done! ha' done!" said the Colonel's son.


s: Last night ye had struck at a Border thief--


s: But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,


s: tho' they come from the ends of the earth!


s: And there was sobbing behind the screen,


s: He passed at dawn--the death-fire leaped


s: "See, now, that we die as our mothers died


s: Had reached the turn to the open street,


s: The bars shot down, the guard-drum beat--


s: A face looked down in the gathering day,


s: When the house is rotten, the rats must fly,


s: "For I ruled the King as ne'er did Queen,--


s: In scourge and torture!"  She leaped below,


s: They knew that the King had spent his soul


s: That he prayed to a flat-nosed Lucknow god,


s: And kissed the ground where her feet had trod,


s: Where the gray apes swing, and the peacocks preen


s: And the wild boar couch in the house of the Queen


s: And called on the King--but the great King slept,


s: Small thought had he to mark the strife--


s: When thrice she leaped from the leaping flame,


s: And thrice she beat her breast for shame,


s: Who had stood by the King in sport and fray,


s: Will the white ash rise from the blistered brand?


s: Then she:  "By the faith of my tarnished soul,


s: With base-born blood of a trade abhorred,"--


s: He drew and struck:  the straight blade drank


s: "I had looked for the Queen to face the flame,


s: But the harlot dies for the Rajpoot dame--


s: That whistled and fluttered from head to heel,


s: Leaped up anew, for they found their meal


s: He has taken toll of the North and the South--


s: Before the old Peshawur Gate, where Kurd and Kaffir meet,


s: The Governor of Kabul dealt the Justice of the Street,


s: And that was strait as running noose and swift as plunging knife,


s: There was a hound of Hindustan had struck a Euzufzai,


s: Wherefore they spat upon his face and led him out to die.


s: And he was honoured of the King--the which is salt to Death;


s: And blood of old Durani Lords ran fire in his veins;


s: And 'twas to tame an Afghan pride nor Hell nor Heaven could bind,


s: The North and the South shall open their mouth


s: When the big guns speak to the Khyber peak,


s: Ye have heard the song--How long? How long?


s: And grimly said the Afghan King:  "I rule the Afghan race.


s: My path is mine--see thou to thine--tonight upon thy bed


s: Think who there be in Kabul now that clamour for thy head."


s: That night when all the gates were shut to City and to throne,


s: Within a little garden-house the King lay down alone.


s: Before the sinking of the moon, which is the Night of Night,


s: Yar Khan came softly to the King to make his honour white.


s: The children of the town had mocked beneath his horse's hoofs,


s: But as he groped against the wall, two hands upon him fell,


s: And that thou bearest in thy hand is all too sharp to write.


s: For I am merciful to all, and most of all to thee.


s: "My butcher of the shambles, rest--no knife hast thou for me!"


s: But the Ghilzai knows, ere the melting snows,


s: When the red-coats crawl to the sungar wall,


s: They stoned him in the rubbish-field when dawn was in the sky,


s: According to the written word, "See that he do not die."


s: One watched beside the dreary mound that veiled the battered


s: And him the King with laughter called the Herald of the King.


s: It was upon the second night, the night of Ramazan,


s: The watcher leaning earthward heard the message of Yar Khan.


s: "Bid him endure until the day," a lagging answer came;


s: "The night is short, and he can pray and learn to bless my name."


s: Before the dawn three times he spoke, and on the day once more:


s: "Creature of God, deliver me, and bless the King therefor!"


s: They shot him at the morning prayer, to ease him of his pain,


s: Which thing the singers made a song for all the world to sing,


s: So that the Outer Seas may know the mercy of the King.


s: He has opened his mouth to the North and the South,


s: Ye have heard the song--How long? How long?


s: When spring-time flushes the desert grass,


s: Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.


s: Light are the purses but heavy the bales,


s: As the snowbound trade of the North comes down


s: In a turquoise twilight, crisp and chill,


s: A kafila camped at the foot of the hill.


s: Then blue smoke-haze of the cooking rose,


s: Strained at their ropes as the feed was piled;


s: And the tribesmen bellowed to hasten the food;


s: And the camp-fires twinkled by Fort Jumrood;


s: And there fled on the wings of the gathering dusk


s: A savour of camels and carpets and musk,


s: To tell us the trade of the Khyber woke.


s: The lid of the flesh-pot chattered high,


s: The knives were whetted and--then came I


s: Patching his bridles and counting his gear,


s: "Better is speech when the belly is fed."


s: So we plunged the hand to the mid-wrist deep


s: In a cinnamon stew of the fat-tailed sheep,


s: We cleansed our beards of the mutton-grease,


s: We lay on the mats and were filled with peace,


s: And the talk slid north, and the talk slid south,


s: With the sliding puffs from the hookah-mouth.


s: Four things greater than all things are,--


s: We spake of them all, but the last the most,


s: Of a shifty promise, an unsheathed sword


s: And a gray-coat guard on the Helmund ford.


s: In the fashion of one who is weaving lies.


s: When the night is gathering all is gray.


s: But we look that the gloom of the night shall die


s: In the morning flush of a blood-red sky.


s: But no man knoweth the mind of the King.


s: And the colt bred close to the vice of each,


s: For he carried the curse of an unstanched speech.


s: To the line where the gray-coat squadrons are.


s: Saw naught, said naught, and--did not die!


s: He harked to rumour, and snatched at a breath


s: Of 'this one knoweth' and 'that one saith',--


s: Of a gray-coat coming, and sack of the South.


s: With each new spring and the winter grass.


s: The King held talk with his Chief in War.


s: And what he had heard of the coming spoke.


s: "Then Gholam Hyder, the Red Chief, smiled,


s: But those who would laugh restrained their breath,


s: When the face of the King showed dark as death.


s: "And he said to the boy: 'They shall praise thy zeal


s: So long as the red spurt follows the steel.


s: Great is thy prudence--await them, thou.


s: Watch from the tree.  Thou art young and strong,


s: A guard was set that he might not flee--


s: "The peach-bloom fell in showers of snow,


s: When he shook at his death as he looked below.


s: By the power of God, who alone is great,


s: Till the seventh day he fought with his fate.


s: He mowed in the branches as ape and bear,


s: And last as a sloth, ere his body failed,


s: And he hung as a bat in the forks, and wailed,


s: And he fell, and was caught on the points and died.


s: But no man knoweth the mind of the King.


s: When the night is gathering all is gray.


s: "And since we know not how War may prove,


s: Heart of my heart, let us talk of Love!"


s: His sword and his Snider were bossed with gold,


s: And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore


s: Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.


s: He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak


s: From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:


s: "The patriot fights for his countryside!"


s: But little they cared for the Native Press,


s: Who tramped through the jungle and camped in the byre,


s: Who died in the swamp and were tombed in the mire,


s: Who gave up their lives, at the Queen's Command,


s: For the Pride of their Race and the Peace of the Land.


s: Now, first of the foemen of Boh Da Thone


s: There were lads from Galway and Louth and Meath


s: Who went to their death with a joke in their teeth,


s: And worshipped with fluency, fervour, and zeal


s: The mud on the boot-heels of "Crook" O'Neil.


s: And ever their quarry would vanish away,


s: Till the sun-dried boys of the Black Tyrone


s: Took a brotherly interest in Boh Da Thone:


s: And, sooth, if pursuit in possession ends,


s: The Boh and his trackers were best of friends.


s: A rush through the mist--a scattering fight--


s: A volley from cover--a corpse in the clearing--


s: The glimpse of a loin-cloth and heavy jade earring--


s: The flare of a village--the tally of slain--


s: And...the Boh was abroad "on the raid" again!


s: They cursed their luck, as the Irish will,


s: They gave him credit for cunning and skill,


s: They buried their dead, they bolted their beef,


s: And started anew on the track of the thief


s: Till, in place of the "Kalends of Greece", men said,


s: "When Crook and his darlings come back with the head."


s: They had hunted the Boh from the hills to the plain--


s: He doubled and broke for the hills again:


s: They had crippled his power for rapine and raid,


s: They had routed him out of his pet stockade,


s: And at last, they came, when the Day Star tired,


s: A black cross blistered the Morning-gold,


s: And the body upon it was stark and cold.


s: The high grass bowed her plumes to the blast.


s: And out of the grass, on a sudden, broke


s: Was blessed with a slug in the ulnar-bone--


s: (Now a slug that is hammered from telegraph-wire


s: Is a thorn in the flesh and a rankling fire.)


s: The shot-wound festered--as shot-wounds may


s: The left arm throbbed, and the Captain swore,


s: "I'd like to be after the Boh once more!"


s: "I'd give a hundred to look at his head!"


s: The Hospital punkahs creaked and whirred,


s: He thought of the cane-brake, green and dank,


s: That girdled his home by the Dacca tank.


s: He thought of his wife and his High School son,


s: He thought--but abandoned the thought--of a gun.


s: And swindled the cartmen of half their pay.


s: And the months went on, as the worst must do,


s: But the Captain had quitted the long-drawn strife,


s: With hair like the sunshine and heart of gold,


s: And little she knew the arms that embraced


s: Had cloven a man from the brow to the waist:


s: And little she knew that the loving lips


s: And the eye that lit at her lightest breath


s: Had glared unawed in the Gates of Death.


s: As a general rule, from an innocent Bride.)


s: And little the Captain thought of the past,


s: But slow, in the sludge of the Kathun road,


s: The Government Bullock Train toted its load.


s: Speckless and spotless and shining with ghee,


s: Then the lead-cart stuck, though the coolies slaved,


s: And the cartmen flogged and the escort raved;


s: And out of the jungle, with yells and squeals,


s: Pranced Boh Da Thone, and his gang at his heels!


s: The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack,


s: To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring,


s: And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed,


s: As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist,


s: And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes


s: The Peacock Banner staggered and swayed.


s: And girded his ponderous loins for flight,


s: But Fate had ordained that the Boh should start


s: On a lone-hand raid of the rearmost cart,


s: And out of that cart, with a bellow of woe,


s: The Babu fell--flat on the top of the Boh!


s: For years had Harendra served the State,


s: To the growth of his purse and the girth of his _pet_.


s: There were twenty stone, as the tally-man knows,


s: On the broad of the chest of this best of Bohs.


s: And twenty stone from a height discharged


s: Are bad for a Boh with a spleen enlarged.


s: Oh, short was the struggle--severe was the shock--


s: He dropped like a bullock--he lay like a block;


s: And the Babu above him, convulsed with fear,


s: Heard the labouring life-breath hissed out in his ear.


s: Turn now to Simoorie where, lapped in his ease,


s: The Captain is petting the Bride on his knees,


s: Where the whit of the bullet, the wounded man's scream


s: Are mixed as the mist of some devilish dream--


s: Forgotten, forgotten the sweat of the shambles


s: Where the hill-daisy blooms and the gray monkey gambols,


s: From the sword-belt set free and released from the steel,


s: The Peace of the Lord is with Captain O'Neil.


s: Up the hill to Simoorie--most patient of drudges--


s: The bags on his shoulder, the mail-runner trudges.


s: "For Captain O'Neil, Sahib.  One hundred and ten


s: (Their breakfast was stopped while the screw-jack and hammer


s: Tore waxcloth, split teak-wood, and chipped out the dammer;)


s: Open-eyed, open-mouthed, on the napery's snow,


s: With a crash and a thud, rolled--the Head of the Boh!


s: And gummed to the scalp was a letter which ran:--


s: "Dear Sir,--I have honour to send, as you said,


s: For final approval (see under) Boh's Head;


s: "Was took by myself in most bloody affair.


s: "By High Education brought pressure to bear.


s: To mail V.P.P. (rupees hundred)  Please add


s: "Whatever Your Honour can pass.  Price of Blood


s: Much cheap at one hundred, and children want food;


s: "So trusting Your Honour will somewhat retain


s: True love and affection for Govt. Bullock Train,


s: As the rabbit is drawn to the rattlesnake's power,


s: As the smoker's eye fills at the opium hour,


s: As a horse reaches up to the manger above,


s: As the waiting ear yearns for the whisper of love,


s: From the arms of the Bride, iron-visaged and slow,


s: The Captain bent down to the Head of the Boh.


s: And e'en as he looked on the Thing where It lay


s: 'Twixt the winking new spoons and the napkins' array,


s: The freed mind fled back to the long-ago days--


s: The hand-to-hand scuffle--the smoke and the blaze--


s: The forced march at night and the quick rush at dawn--


s: The banjo at twilight, the burial ere morn--


s: The stench of the marshes--the raw, piercing smell


s: When the overhand stabbing-cut silenced the yell--


s: The oaths of his Irish that surged when they stood


s: Where the black crosses hung o'er the Kuttamow flood.


s: As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide


s: The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,


s: Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,


s: When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.


s: As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,


s: In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,


s: And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life


s: Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife.


s: For she who had held him so long could not hold him--


s: Though a four-month Eternity should have controlled him--


s: But watched the twin Terror--the head turned to head--


s: The scowling, scarred Black, and the flushed savage Red--


s: The spirit that changed from her knowing and flew to


s: Some grim hidden Past she had never a clue to.


s: But It knew as It grinned, for he touched it unfearing,


s: And muttered aloud, "So you kept that jade earring!"


s: Then nodded, and kindly, as friend nods to friend,


s: "Old man, you fought well, but you lost in the end."


s: The visions departed, and Shame followed Passion:--


s: "He took what I said in this horrible fashion,


s: "I'll write to Harendra!"  With language unsainted


s: The Captain came back to the Bride...who had fainted.


s: And this is a fiction?  No.  Go to Simoorie


s: And look at their baby, a twelve-month old Houri,


s: A pert little, Irish-eyed Kathleen Mavournin--


s: She's always about on the Mall of a mornin'--


s: And you'll see, if her right shoulder-strap is displaced,


s: This:  Gules upon argent, a Boh's Head, erased!


s: The black shall mourn for hoof and hide,


s: For the wrong you have done to a chief of men,


s: That you cram my throat with the foul pig's flesh,


s: Their anchors down, by London town, the Three Great Captains lay;


s: And one was Lord of the Wessex coast and all the lands thereby,


s: And one was Master of the Thames from Limehouse to Blackwall,


s: And he was Captain of the Fleet--the bravest of them all.


s: When there came a certain trading-brig with news of a privateer.


s: I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare


s: "He would not fly the Rovers' flag--the bloody or the black,


s: But now he floated the Gridiron and now he flaunted the Jack.


s: "He has taken my little parrakeets that nest beneath the Line,


s: "Had I had guns (as I had goods) to work my Christian harm,


s: "There is never a Law on the Cocos Keys to hold a white man in,


s: By two and three the flags blew free to lash the laughing air:--


s: Flying his pluck at our mizzen-truck for weft of Admiralty,


s: They dipped their noses deep in the sea,


s: They racked their stays and stanchions free


s: Till the bow-gun drooped like a lily tired


s: 'Twere well to rest for an hour or twain,


s: And the great stern-gun shot fair and true,


s: With the heave of the ship, to the stainless blue,


s: You can hear the hiss of the helpless ram,


s: As the White Whale faces the Thresher's ire


s: To bide in the heart of an eight-day clock


s: Lay bare as the paunch of the purser's sow,


s: "Captain, they hack us through and through;


s: We have emptied the bunkers in open sea,


s: Their shrapnel bursts where our coal should be."


s: And the blood and the bubbling steam ran forth,


s: And he answered, "Grapple her stern and bow.


s: They have asked for the steel.  They shall have it now;


s: As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight


s: They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet;


s: They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,


s: To the cod and the corpse-fed conger-eel,


s: Seven men from all the world, back to Docks again,


s: Rolling down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:


s: Give the girls another drink 'fore we sign away--


s: We that took the Bolivar out across the Bay!


s: We put out from Sunderland loaded down with rails;


s: We put back to Sunderland 'cause our cargo shifted;


s: We put out from Sunderland--met the winter gales--


s: Seven days and seven nights to the Start we drifted.


s: Racketing her rivets loose, smoke-stack white as snow,


s: All the coals adrift adeck, half the rails below,


s: Leaking like a lobster-pot, steering like a dray--


s: Out we took the Bolivar, out across the Bay!


s: One by one the Lights came up, winked and let us by;


s: Mile by mile we waddled on, coal and fo'c'sle short;


s: Met a blow that laid us down, heard a bulkhead fly;


s: Left the Wolf behind us with a two-foot list to port.


s: Trailing like a wounded duck, working out her soul;


s: Clanging like a smithy-shop after every roll;


s: Just a funnel and a mast lurching through the spray--


s: So we threshed the Bolivar out across the Bay!


s: 'Felt her hog and felt her sag, betted when she'd break;


s: Wondered every time she raced if she'd stand the shock;


s: Heard the seas like drunken men pounding at her strake;


s: Hoped the Lord 'ud keep his thumb on the plummer-block.


s: Banged against the iron decks, bilges choked with coal;


s: Flayed and frozen foot and hand, sick of heart and soul;


s: Last we prayed she'd buck herself into judgment Day--


s: Hi! we cursed the Bolivar--knocking round the Bay!


s: O her nose flung up to sky, groaning to be still--


s: Up and down and back we went, never time for breath;


s: Then the money paid at Lloyd's caught her by the heel,


s: And the stars ran round and round dancin' at our death.


s: Aching for an hour's sleep, dozing off between;


s: 'Heard the rotten rivets draw when she took it green;


s: 'Watched the compass chase its tail like a cat at play--


s: That was on the Bolivar, south across the Bay.


s: Once we saw between the squalls, lyin' head to swell--


s: Mad with work and weariness, wishin' they was we--


s: Some damned Liner's lights go by like a long hotel;


s: Cheered her from the Bolivar--swampin' in the sea.


s: Then a grayback cleared us out, then the skipper laughed;


s: "Boys, the wheel has gone to Hell--rig the winches aft!


s: Yoke the kicking rudder-head--get her under way!"


s: So we steered her, pulley-haul, out across the Bay!


s: Just a pack o' rotten plates puttied up with tar,


s: In we came, an' time enough, 'cross Bilbao Bar.


s: Overloaded, undermanned, meant to founder, we


s: Euchred God Almighty's storm, bluffed the Eternal Sea!


s: Seven men from all the world, back to town again,


s: Rollin' down the Ratcliffe Road drunk and raising Cain:


s: Seven men from out of Hell.  Ain't the owners gay,


s: 'Cause we took the "Bolivar" safe across the Bay?


s: Above the portico a flag-staff, bearing the Union Jack,


s: remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately


s: when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts,


s: and seemed to see significance in the incident.--DAILY PAPERS.


s: The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,


s: Must we borrow a clout from the Boer--to plaster anew with dirt?


s: An Irish liar's bandage, or an English coward's shirt?


s: We may not speak of England; her Flag's to sell or share.


s: What is the Flag of England?  Winds of the World, declare!


s: The North Wind blew:--"From Bergen my steel-shod vanguards go;


s: I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe;


s: By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God,


s: "I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame,


s: Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came;


s: "The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night,


s: What is the Flag of England?  Ye have but my bergs to dare,


s: Ye have but my drifts to conquer.  Go forth, for it is there!"


s: "Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys,


s: I waked the palms to laughter--I tossed the scud in the breeze--


s: Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone,


s: But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown.


s: "My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross,


s: Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross.


s: What is the Flag of England?  Ye have but my reefs to dare,


s: Ye have but my seas to furrow.  Go forth, for it is there!"


s: "The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before,


s: I raped your richest roadstead--I plundered Singapore!


s: I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose,


s: "Never the lotus closes, never the wild-fowl wake,


s: Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed.


s: "The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows,


s: The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows.


s: What is the Flag of England?  Ye have but my sun to dare,


s: Ye have but my sands to travel.  Go forth, for it is there!"


s: The West Wind called:--"In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly


s: They make my might their porter, they make my house their path,


s: "I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole,


s: They bellow one to the other, the frighted ship-bells toll,


s: "But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day,


s: I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away,


s: First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky,


s: Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by.


s: What is the Flag of England?  Ye have but my breath to dare,


s: Ye have but my waves to conquer.  Go forth, for it is there!"


s: Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,


s: Help for an honorable clan sore trampled in the dirt!


s: From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,


s: The honorable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.


s: Their noble names were mentioned--O the burning black disgrace!--


s: Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies,


s: Like phoenixes from Phoenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!


s: Go shout it to the emerald seas-give word to Erin now,


s: Her honorable gentlemen are cleared--and this is how:


s: They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,


s: They only helped the murderer with council's best advice,


s: But--sure it keeps their honor white--the learned Court believes


s: They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.


s: They ever told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide,


s: By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!


s: They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too,


s: The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew and well they knew.


s: They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail,


s: They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clan-na-Gael.


s: "Cleared," honorable gentlemen.  Be thankful it's no more:


s: The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.


s: On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South


s: The band of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.


s: It's sticking to your fist today for all your sneer and scoff,


s: And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.


s: Hold up those hands of innocence--go, scare your sheep, together,


s: Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!


s: "The charge is old"?--As old as Cain--as fresh as yesterday;


s: Old as the Ten Commandments, have ye talked those laws away?


s: If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,


s: You spoke the words that sped the shot--the curse be on you all.


s: "Our friends believe"? Of course they do--as sheltered women may;


s: The secret half a country keeps, the whisper in the lane,


s: The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane,


s: The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees,


s: But you--you know--ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead,


s: Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred,


s: My soul!  I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight,


s: Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate,


s: Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,


s: The other on your dress-shirt front to show your heart is @dane,


s: If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends:


s: Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed,


s: The paper lay on the table, the strong heads bowed thereby,


s: And each one heard Her laughing as each one saw Her plain--


s: "There's a girl in Jersey City who works on the telephone;


s: We're going to hitch our horses and dig for a house of our own,


s: And over the German benches the bearded whisper ran:--


s: "Lager, der girls und der dollars, dey makes or dey breaks a man.


s: They passed one resolution:--"Your sub-committee believe


s: Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser held--


s: Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,


s: And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair--


s: A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,


s: "Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high


s: The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die--


s: --"For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,


s: For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."


s: Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,


s: And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.


s: "This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,


s: There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!


s: O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin


s: The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell


s: "Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,


s: "That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me?


s: I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn,


s: "Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high


s: The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die."


s: The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light;


s: And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet


s: The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.


s: "O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall,


s: And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all."


s: --"All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair,


s: But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square:


s: The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,


s: And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life:--


s: Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in--


s: There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth."


s: Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire,


s: As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard.


s: "Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place,


s: My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face;


s: They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host,


s: And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone.


s: But sinful pride has rule inside--and mightier than my own.


s: "Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said;


s: Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.


s: "I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain,


s: But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again.


s: And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:


s: And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!


s: And treat you as a Christian ought to do;


s: "What are the bugles blowin' for?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "To turn you out, to turn you out", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: "What makes you look so white, so white?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "I'm dreadin' what I've got to watch", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,


s: An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.


s: "What makes the rear-rank breathe so 'ard?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "It's bitter cold, it's bitter cold", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: "What makes that front-rank man fall down?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "A touch o' sun, a touch o' sun", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: They are hangin' Danny Deever, they are marchin' of 'im round,


s: They 'ave 'alted Danny Deever by 'is coffin on the ground;


s: An' 'e'll swing in 'arf a minute for a sneakin' shootin' hound--


s: O they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'!


s: "'Is cot was right-'and cot to mine", said Files-on-Parade.


s: "'E's sleepin' out an' far tonight", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: "I've drunk 'is beer a score o' times", said Files-on-Parade.


s: "'E's drinkin' bitter beer alone", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: They are hangin' Danny Deever, you must mark 'im to 'is place,


s: For 'e shot a comrade sleepin'--you must look 'im in the face;


s: Nine 'undred of 'is county an' the regiment's disgrace,


s: While they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.


s: "What's that so black agin' the sun?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "It's Danny fightin' 'ard for life", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: "What's that that whimpers over'ead?" said Files-on-Parade.


s: "It's Danny's soul that's passin' now", the Colour-Sergeant said.


s: I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,


s: The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."


s: The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,


s: I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:


s: O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";


s: O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.


s: I went into a theatre as sober as could be,


s: They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;


s: They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,


s: Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep


s: Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;


s: An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit


s: Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.


s: The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,


s: O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.


s: We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,


s: But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;


s: An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,


s: Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;


s: But it's "Please to walk in front, sir",


s: You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:


s: We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.


s: Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face


s: The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.


s: An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;


s: An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool--you bet that Tommy sees!


s: We've fought with many men acrost the seas,


s: An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:


s: But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.


s: We never got a ha'porth's change of 'im:


s: 'E squatted in the scrub an' 'ocked our 'orses,


s: An' 'e played the cat an' banjo with our forces.


s: So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;


s: You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;


s: We gives you your certificate, an' if you want it signed


s: We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.


s: We took our chanst among the Khyber 'ills,


s: Was pop to what the Fuzzy made us swaller;


s: We 'eld our bloomin' own, the papers say,


s: But man for man the Fuzzy knocked us 'oller.


s: Then 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, an' the missis and the kid;


s: Our orders was to break you, an' of course we went an' did.


s: We sloshed you with Martinis, an' it wasn't 'ardly fair;


s: But for all the odds agin' you, Fuzzy-Wuz, you broke the square.


s: When 'e's 'oppin' in an' out among the bush


s: With 'is coffin-'eaded shield an' shovel-spear,


s: But give an' take's the gospel, an' we'll call the bargain fair,


s: For if you 'ave lost more than us, you crumpled up the square!


s: 'E rushes at the smoke when we let drive,


s: An', before we know, 'e's 'ackin' at our 'ead;


s: 'E's all 'ot sand an' ginger when alive,


s: An' 'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead.


s: 'E's a daisy, 'e's a ducky, 'e's a lamb!


s: 'E's the on'y thing that doesn't give a damn


s: So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;


s: You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;


s: An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air--


s: You big black boundin' beggar--for you broke a British square!


s: "We're fresh from off the ship an' 'e's maybe give the slip,


s: The dead they cannot rise, an' you'd better dry your eyes,


s: "I seed 'im serve the Queen in a suit o' rifle-green,


s: "I seed 'im runnin' by when the shots begun to fly--


s: "I couldn't see the fight, for the smoke it lay so white--


s: "'E's lying on the dead with a bullet through 'is 'ead,


s: "The pit we dug'll 'ide 'im an' the twenty men beside 'im--


s: Do you bring no sign from my true love?"


s: "I bring a lock of 'air that 'e allus used to wear,


s: O then I know it's true I've lost my true love!"


s: "An' I tell you truth again--when you've lost the feel o' pain


s: An' you'd best take 'im for your true love.


s: that handles the dear little pets--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: o' course you will know what to do--hoo! hoo!


s: You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees,


s: They sends us along where the roads are,


s: For we fancies ourselves at two thousand,


s: we guns that are built in two bits--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im


s: If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im


s: D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns?


s: By God, you must lather with us--'Tss! 'Tss!


s: We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub,


s: The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules--