Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

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BREAD AND CIRCUSES

by

HELEN PARRY EDEN

London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York: John Lane Company Toronto: Bell & Cockburn MCMXIV

William Brendon and Son, Ltd., Printers, Plymouth

ERRATA
Page 4, line 11, _for_ “about” _read_ “above.”
” 15, ” 5, _for_ “who” _read_ “Who.”
” 55, ” 11, _for_ “saw I” _read_ “saw that I.”
” 87, ” 15, _for_ “Close” _read_ “close.”

TO
THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER
JOAN ABBOTT PARRY

THESE, AND MUCH MORE

NOTE

Of the verses contained in this book, the greater part have already appeared, notably in the _Westminster Gazette_, _The Englishwoman_, _The Daily Chronicle_, _The Catholic Messenger_, _The Pall Mall Magazine_, _T.P.’s Magazine_, and _Punch_. To the proprietors of _Punch_ I am especially indebted for leave to reprint thirteen numbers of which they own the copyright.

H. P. E.

CONTENTS

PAGE
THE BROOK ALONG THE ROMSEY ROAD 3
THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE 5
“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT” 7
“VOX CLAMANTIS” 8
SORROW 9
THE MULBERRY 10
THE WINDOW-SILL 11
THE ANGELUS-BELL 12
THE APPLE-MAN FROM AWBRIDGE 13
OF DULCIBEL 15
THE LADY PHEASANT 16
TIME’S TYRANNESS 17
THE GINGER CAT 19
Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη 21
A SONG IN A LANE 22
CRIES OF LONDON 23
THE THIRD BIRTHDAY 25
ONE-EYED JOCKO 26
A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT 27
“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT” 30
HELENA TO HERMIA 31
“EFFANY” 32
THE ARK 34
AN UPLAND STATION 36
THE WORSHIPPERS 38
LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A
NOBLE LORD RECENTLY CREATED 39
THE BELGIAN PINAFORE 41
THE WIND 43
TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING TO GO
INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN 45
IN BETHLEHEM TOWN 46
THE MOON 48
A LADY OF FASHION ON THE DEATH OF HER DOG 49
TO A LITTLE GIRL 51
LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E. IN A COPY OF “THE CHILD’S
GARDEN OF VERSES” 52
EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK, CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM 53
FOR MY MOTHER, WITH A NEW BUTTON-BOX 56
A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB 57
TO MASS AT DAWN 59
THE NUNS’ CHAPEL 60
THE SNARE 61
A HOUSE IN A WOOD 63
THE CONFESSIONAL 65
EPITAPH ON A CHILD, RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A
MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET 67
THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT 70
THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH 72
THE FIRST PARTY 75
SOUVENIR OF MICHAEL DRAYTON 77
“FOUR-PAWS” 79
“FOUR-PAWS” IN LONDON 81
TO MY SISTER DOROTHY, WITH A PASTE BROOCH 83
SESTINA, TO D. E. 84
LULLABY FOR A LITTLE GIRL 86
RONDEAU OF SARUM CLOSE 87
THE KNOBBY-GREEN 88
THE CARCANET 89
TO A TOWN CRIER 90
THE TALE OF JOCKO, A STORY FOR A CHILD 91
THE WAG-TAIL 98
HIGH TIDE AT BATTERSEA 100
TO MY DAUGHTER, WHO TELLS ME SHE CAN
DRESS HERSELF 101
THE BABY GOAT 103
BOURNEMOUTH TO POOLE:
(1) BOURNEMOUTH 105
(2) POOLE HARBOUR 105
THE JAPANESE DUCKLING 107
THE PRIVET HEDGE 108
THE VEGETARIAN’S DAUGHTER 109
HONEY MEADOW 110
AN ELEGY, FOR FATHER ANSELM, OF THE ORDER OF
REFORMED CISTERCIANS, GUEST-MASTER
AND PARISH PRIEST 112
THE REGRET 117
FIRST SNOW 118
TO A CHILD RETURNING HOME UPON A WINDY DAY 119
THE DEATH OF SIR MATHO 120
THE PETALS 124
POST-COMMUNION 126
INDEX TO FIRST LINES 127

THE BROOK ALONG THE ROMSEY ROAD

The brook along the Romsey road
With cresses fringed about,
Holds waving fins and streaming weeds
And bubbles bright as crystal beads
And root-bound reaches whither speeds
Startled the shadowy trout.

As southward runs the Romsey road
The sunny wind blows harsh
With yellow shale and whirling sands
That sting the faces and the hands
Of us who leave the wooded lands
Of pleasant Michelmarsh.

Where southward runs the Romsey road
Southward lagged Betsey-Jane
Clutching my hand, and still the grit
Lay rough between our fingers, it
Smarted on Betsey’s face and knit
Her little brows with pain.

A bend was in the Romsey road,
Shut off by elms the wind
Was stilled, below a bridge the brook
Came dimpling forth, and Betsey shook
Her fingers free and ran to look,—
I held her frock behind.

On the far shore a wag-tail dipped
His beak,—we gazed below,
And Betsey was content to stand
And see the trout and hold my hand,
And watch them wave above the sand
Until we turned to go.

The brook along the Romsey road
With cresses fringed about
Ran all day long in Betsey’s head,
She played at wag-tails while she fed,
And even as she went to bed
She babbled of the trout.

THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE

A portly Wood-louse, full of cares,
Transacted eminent affairs
Along a parapet where pears
Unripened fell
And vines embellished the sweet airs
With muscatel.

Day after day beheld him run
His scales a-twinkle in the sun
About his business never done;
Night’s slender span he
Spent in the home his wealth had won—
A red-brick cranny.

Thus, as his Sense of Right directed,
He lived both honoured and respected,
Cherished his children and protected
His duteous wife,
And nought of diffidence deflected
His useful life.

One mid-day, hastening to his Club,
He spied beside a water-tub
The owner of each plant and shrub
A humble Bard
Who turned upon the conscious grub
A mild regard.

“Eh?” quoth the Wood-louse, “Can it be
A Higher Power looks down to see
My praiseworthy activity
And notes me plying
My Daily Task?—Not strange, dear me,
But gratifying!”

To whom the Bard: “I still divest
My orchard of the Insect Pest,
That you are such is manifest,
Prepare to die.—
And yet, how sweetly does your crest
Reflect the sky!

“Go then forgiven, (for what ails
Your naughty life this fact avails
To pardon) mirror in your scales
Celestial blue,
Till the sun sets and the light fails
The skies and you.”

* * * * *

May all we proud and bustling parties
Whose lot in forum, street and mart is
Stand in conspectu Deitatis
And save our face,
Reflecting where our scaly heart is
Some skyey grace.

“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”

When the wind blows without the garden walls
Where from high vantage of the budding boughs
The wanton starling claps his wing and brawls
And finches to their half-erected house
Trail silver straws; when on the sand-pit verges
The young lambs leap, when clouds on sunny tiles
Pass and re-pass, then the young Spring emerges
From Winter’s fingers panoplied with smiles.
So some bright demoiselle but late returning
To her old home with new-acquirèd graces
Learnt in some strait academy and burning
To kindle wonderment in homely faces
Smileth, while she who taught her all her arts,
The dark duenna, with a sigh departs.

“VOX CLAMANTIS”

How late in the wet twilight doth that bird
Prolong his ditty; from what darkling thorn,
Dim elder wand or blackest box unstirred
By drip of rain, is the dear descant borne?
So late it is, two seeming candles shine
Athwart blue panes in the extremest hedge,
Ev’n the child’s bunch of daisies close their eyne
In their horn goblet on the window ledge.
Sad is the night, doth it so smell of spring
And wake such ardours in thy pelted breast?
Aye, thou wert ever one to stay and sing
Of surgent East to the declining West:—
And now thou’rt gone, the last of a bright breed,
Draw-to the curtains, it is night indeed.

SORROW

Of Sorrow, ’tis as Saints have said—
That his ill-savoured lamp shall shed
A light to Heaven, when, blown about
By the world’s vain and windy rout,
The candles of delight burn out.

Then usher Sorrow to thy board,
Give him such fare as may afford
Thy single habitation—best
To meet him half-way in his quest,
The importunate and sad-eyed guest.

Yet somewhat should he give who took
Thy hospitality, for look,
His is no random vagrancy,
Beneath his rags what hints there be
Of a celestial livery.

Sweet Sorrow, play a grateful part,
Break me the marble of my heart
And of its fragments pave a street
Where, to my bliss, myself may meet
One hastening with piercèd feet.

THE MULBERRY

Within our garden walls you see
A huge old-fashioned mulberry
Whose purple fruit in summer falls
Into the shade below the walls.

Its blackened trunk grows grim and hard
From the harsh gravel of the yard,
Its crest beholds the winds go by
And scans the milky evening sky.

And like this tree my soul makes mirth,
(Though rooted deep in blackened earth)
For it shall grow till it hath sight
(The walls o’er-topped) of endless light.

THE WINDOW-SILL

The fuchsias dangle on their stem,
The baby girl looks up at them,
The light comes through the muslin frill
Upon the painted window-sill.

She cannot see the world outside
Where men in snorting motors ride,
Each speeding from his far abode
To town, along the Fulham Road.

THE ANGELUS-BELL

My night-dress hangs on fire-guard rail
And my cup of milk on the table stands,
The day goes down like a distant sail
And leaves me undressed in my Mother’s hands.

She has washed me clean of the long day’s grime
And the pillow is cool for my sleepy head,
For the Angelus-bell with its three-fold chime
Has tolled the sun and myself to bed.

THE APPLE-MAN FROM AWBRIDGE

While I stand upon the pavement and I dress the dusty stall,
Where they sell the travelled apples, I bethink me most of all
How the Quarentines are ripening in Michelmarsh again
And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-clinking up the lane.

Sweet and slim the Ladies’ Fingers fall around you as you
pass,
And the Hollycores are mellow by the pig-hole in the grass,
’Tis but green they look, you pluck them, and you list the ratt’ling
core—
And the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-chaffering at the door.

Then the first baked batch of Profits, ’twas a treat my mother
planned,
Drew them foaming from the oven with the dishcloth round her hand,
She who poured the amber cider to the pewter’s polished brink
And the Apple-man from Awbridge wet the bargain with a drink.

For he buys them by the bushel and he buys them on the trees
And he sends them from the orchard plot to places such as these;
And there’s money in your pocket and a hollow at your heart
When the Apple-man from Awbridge comes a-loading of his cart.

And maybe the nameless apples on the stall in Fulham Road
Once were piled behind his pony in that fresh and fragrant load
And maybe it was my mother pulled the Ladies’ Fingers down;
And the Apple-man from Awbridge turned them over to the town.

OF DULCIBEL

When by the fire-light Dulcibel
Stirs the red ash with lively grace,
Is it the glow of Heaven or Hell
That mantles in her rosy face?

They know, Who for despair and joy
All fateful loveliness have blent,
Who do both comfort and destroy
With the indifferent element.

THE LADY PHEASANT

Whom meet we, Betsey, in the wood?
The Lady Pheasant and her Brood;
So stand we still, to let them pass
On oak-leaves through the tasselled grass.

Down dappled aisles of hazel shade
They disappear along the glade,
My Lady in her rusty gown,
Ten children clad in useful brown.

But one fledged laggard stops to eat
The plantain seeds at Betsey’s feet,
Who plucks my fingers: “Mother, come
We’ll pick him up and take him home!”

The nestling joins the hidden nine
Deep in the copse; and I lift mine
And bear her home along the lane,—
“I want him!” still pouts Betsey-Jane.

TIME’S TYRANNESS

How few alack,
There be along the track
Of life which hear not at their back

(Though small birds sing
And blessèd belfries ring)
The creaking of Time’s iron wing;

And, in mad flight
From an untempted might,
Trample the lovely fields of light,

Nor for a space
Pause in their fearful race
To look their tyrant in the face.—

In you alone,
Dear child, there ever shone
Divine deliberation.

And now in weed
And grass you bid Time speed
Away in dandelion seed,

Till your bright hair,
For the down mingled there,
His very greyness looks to wear.

Ah happy she
Whose gentle hours be
Told by such kind chronometry!

For now Time saith,
Who smiling listeneth,
“Lo, a child flouts me with a breath!”

And so, to assuage
Sweetly a feignèd rage,
He dims your hair with mimic age.

THE GINGER CAT

’Tis the old wife at Rickling, she
Has lost her ginger cat, ’twas he
Who used to share the Master’s tea
Beside the settle,
Or on his corduroy-clad knee
Out-purr the kettle;

Who followed when she pinned a-row
Her flapping gowns of indigo
And watched the apple-petals blow,
With stealthy rapture
Rehearsing in a mimic show
Some mouse’s capture.

At dew-fall, with uncovered head,
What tidings have the old wife led
Hither where oak and hazel shed
Their shadow deeper?
—They say the ginger cat is dead,
Shot by the Keeper.

Through coverts dim her searches lie
(Howe’er so hardly sorrows try
The burden of uncertainty
To bear were harder)
To where things dangle when they die—
The Keeper’s larder.

A bough the larder hangs upon—
Rats, and decaying hedge-hogs grown
Shapeless, and owls their features gone,—
A grisly freight,
And many a weasel skeleton
With hairless pate,

And trophy of cats’ tails arrayed,
Tabby and white and black displayed,
The adornment of the still green glade—
More gay for that
Of him who in the morning strayed,
The ginger cat.

She knows it, and she cuts it down;
Then warm beneath her folded gown
Bestows the severed brush’s brown
And orange bands—
So soft of fur, the tears fall down
Upon her hands.

The copse-wood parts, ’tis she who goes,
Whom shades obscure and star-light shows,
Treading between the hazel rows
The fallen sticks,
Home, where the careless fire-light glows
Along the bricks.

Μονοχρόνος Ἡδόνη.

Pull out my couch across the fire,
Let the flames warm me through,
Though the pain gnaw my back away
There shall be pleasure too!

Search out the desolate garden walks—
What though the year be spent—
There shall be marigolds enough
For the bowl we bought in Ghent:

Fire shall bring out their acrid scents
For a walled garden’s sweets,
With the melody of Flemish bells
And the angles of Flemish streets.

Fire and blossom and dreamful shapes
And I, while the long pain stays,
Ward off the shot of the savage hours
On my rampart of yesterdays.

A SONG IN A LANE

When the Wind comes up the lane
And you go down—
The elms their spacious branches swing,
The hidden hedgelings sing and sing,
The nettle draws aside his sting
And kindly weeds their shadows fling
Across your sunny gown;—
When the Wind comes up the lane
And you go down.

When the Wind comes up the lane
And you go down—
Your tresses, for a gusty space,
Discover all your merry face
And the Wind drops with pinioned grace
To kiss the small white forehead place
Above your summer brown;—
When the Wind comes up the lane
And you go down.

CRIES OF LONDON

What dusky branches fret the yellow sky,
Betsey, beyond our urban balcony
How darkly looms the street;
And from below how many a note assails
Your unaccustomed ears where London wails
About your little feet.

Here, princess of a sombre citadel,
You stand, the muffin-man with twilight bell
Preludes your early tea
And where the milk-man on melodious ways
Slowly meanders, you incline to praise
His clear delivery;

How pitiful you scan the vagabond
Who cries his ferns as though each arid frond
Sprang from his arid heart,
And list the lamentable sweep complain
Urging in wrath against the slanting rain
The sable of his cart.

These for your little ears, so lately blest
With cluck of painted poultry on the nest
And rooks’ loquacious flight,
Who, when the pear-blossom was hardly blown,
Answered the cuckoo’s folly with your own
And chid the owls at night.

Dear, I could thank you for your brave content—
But, ah, beware, when spring is gone and spent,
Lest summer’s dusty stir
Lead gypsies Londonwards from scented loam
Of Mitcham and the furrows nearer home
With song of “Lavender!”

Then close your casement, shun the outer air,
Let no sublime virago mount the stair
And bring the rustic South,
Lest some quick memory of all before
And the great silver bush beside the door,
Deject your happy mouth.

THE THIRD BIRTHDAY

Three candles had her cake,
Which now are burnt away;
We wreathed it for her sake
With currant-leaves and bay
And the last graces
Of Michaelmas Daisies
Pluckt on a misty day.

Curled (as she cut her cake)
In mine her fingers lay;
Purple the petals brake,
Bruised was the scented bay;
Like a yellow moth
On the white white cloth
One currant-leaf flew away.

Three candles lit her state;
Dimmed is their golden reign—
Leaves on an empty plate,
Petals and tallow-stain;
Nor will she
Nor the candles three
Ever be three again.

ONE-EYED JOCKO

The Baby slumbers through the night
With One-eyed Jocko close to her,
She clasps his fluffy limbs so tight
Beside her cheek, her breathings stir
His agèd fur.

When Mother, with the shaded light
Held from the sleepy pillow, stays
To smooth the counterpane, this sight
Of Friendship’s sweet nocturnal ways
Arrests her gaze.

Yet in the nursery by day
Jocko doth all neglected lie
Prone on the hearth-rug, while away
The Baby stalks, unheeded by
His vacant eye.

A SUBURBAN NIGHT’S ENTERTAINMENT

With a full house of other folks
I pass the night at Sevenoaks;
And, for the air is still outside,
Push the new-painted lattice wide
Where night’s blue decent quilt is drawn
Over the shrubs and tennis-lawn
Up to the very star-lit face
Of the dim unacquainted place.
A yellow street-lamp, hid to me,
Haloes a dusky-headed tree,
And, by a hedge-row screened from sight,
Paves the still road with tranquil light,
Save where the path gold-parapetted
Lies by a shade of leaves o’erfretted;
Leaves dangle dark above the fence,
Their shadowy forms sole evidence
Of their sweet-breath’d nocturnal sleeping
And leaves out-face the light which leaping
A war with monstrous gloom to wage
Spangles a den of foliage.
A second lamp that burns in sight
Fronts shops fast closèd for the night
Whose white façades are all as mild
As eye-lids of a sleeping child
Which in their mute mendacity
The bustle of the day belie.
Among the darkling trees set back,
With many a swarthy chimney-stack,
The great, rich houses of the place
Lie all unlit, while the slow pace
Of night goes on and still lets be
Their dark inert felicity.
Here is all still, save when again
The shuddering cries of the hid train,
Deep in the cutting no one sees,
Muffled below the heavy trees,
Waken the sleeping shrubberies;
And, with red speed and scudding spark,
Disperse the arboreal-scented dark.
Were’t not for these, there is no doubt
But some fair daemon long cast out
(The authentic goddess of the place
Who far too long hath screened her face
And beauty in some beechen bole
Gigantic in the woods of Knole)
Would choose this night for her returning,
The lawns with silent footfall spurning;
And such mis-shapen woodland gods
As work-men with their laden hods
Scattered, when Progress came with Pride
And bound in brick the country-side
And Sevenoaks was edified.
To-night the wan demesne out-spread
By star-light waits her wonted tread;—
Fair! (for the dripping herb is so
Fragrant and dark) forget to know
That the dim grass, your sweet resort,
Is branded for a tennis-court,
Where silent conies scrambled through
The grey-clumped fox-gloves drenched with dew
In the old days so dear to you.
O pardon and forget it all,
The long insulting interval,
Know all a dream, believe them gone,
The urban race, nor having done
Hurt to your oaks nor stained your streams;
So stay, until the windy gleams
Of dawn the occult sweet minstrels wake.
Then through the gloaming by-ways take
Your way bent-headed whence you stole
Last night, the covert ferns of Knole,
Ere the first yawning maid unbars
The door and drives away the stars;
Lest haply from the northern sky
Smite on your ear the long-drawn sigh
(There where the silence was most deep)
Of London turning in her sleep.

“A PURPOSE OF AMENDMENT”

He who a mangold-patch doth hoe,
Sweating beneath a sturdy sun,
Clearing each weed-disguisèd row
Till day-light and the task be done,

Standeth to view his labour’s scene—
Where now, within the hedge-row’s girth,
The little plants untrammelled green
Stripes the brown fabric of the earth.

So when the absolution’s said
Behind the grille, and I may go,
And all the flowers of sin are dead,
And all the stems of sin laid low,

And I am come to Mary’s shrine
To lay my hopes within her hand—
Ah, in how fair and green a line
The seedling resolutions stand.

HELENA TO HERMIA (FOR WINIFRED MORGAN-BROWN)

Throw up the cinders, let the night wear through
And all the dear accustomed things be said
Ere up the sleepy stair-case I and you
Take our warm ways to bed.
Then let us loose our hands’ reluctant hold
Lest the uneasy dawn behind dim groves
Stir the still leaves and any hint of cold
Blow on our loves.

“EFFANY”

When elm-buds turn from red to green
And growing lambs more staidly graze
And brighter nettle-tops are seen
Along the hedge-rows’ rambling ways;
When leaves unclose where late the hail
Rustled in naked hawthorn twig,
April comes laughing up the vale
And Effany comes round to dig.

Aloof among her nursery toys
From her high casement Betsey sees
His vellum-coloured corduroys
Stirring behind the apple-trees,
Clutching her trowel she descends,
With unimagined projects big,
For Effany and she are friends,
And she helps Effany to dig.

Deep in the flowering currant-rows
The robin twitters gentle mirth
Where Effany with Betsey goes
Triumphant o’er the new-turned earth;
And the wind wanders out and in
As doubting which it loves the best—
The grizzly stubble round his chin,
Or her be-ruffled golden crest.

His coat, lined with carnation red,
Hangs in the plum-tree’s forkèd boughs,
Till sun is low and the day sped
And Betsey called into the house—
He scrapes his spade, her trowel she,
She looks and lingers loath to start
With little earth-bound feet to tea,
He takes his coat down to depart.

Half musing on the little maid
He trudges towards the coming night,
Stooping beneath his shouldered spade,
To where across the curtained light
With leaves upon its fiery fold
His wife’s thin shadow falls alone—
For she and Effany are old
And all their little ones are gone.

THE ARK

Vainly, my Betsey, to the weeping day
You sing the rhyme that drives the rain away;
And from your window mourn the patient trees
Buffeted by the peevish Hyades.
Come, let us shut the lattice, do you slide
From your old Ark the gaudy-painted side
And let the enlargèd captives walk about;
For though a deluge be at work without,
Secure within we’ve no concern for that,
And all the nursery is Ararat.
Not on the rug,—a space of oaken boards
A firmer footing for the crew affords:
Softly, my Betsey, lest your fervour harm
The extreme frailness of a leg or arm—
Poor limbs, so often and so rudely tossed
And rattled down, no wonder some be lost
Beyond the aid of glue! What skill did cram
Into the hold vermilion-hatted Ham
And Shem with the green top-knot and the slim
Contours of Japheth, Noah (somewhat grim
With buttons) and his consort after him!
The wives are at the bottom, dear, but now
Come the black pig and terra-cotta cow,
Three foxes, this a purple collar round
His rigid neck proclaims the faithful hound;
The birds are not so nice, tradition fails
To account for such a quantity of quails,
But the old weary crow that flew and flew
Away from Noah has come back for you.
Where is the dove? For if my memory speak
The truth there _was_ a dove and in his beak
The olive leaves he plucked upon the day
When, as you know, the waters ebbed away;
Who perched on Noah’s window with pink feet,
And without whom no Ark is thought complete.
Where is the missing dove? For now I see,
Standing or prone the whole menagerie,
And the rain’s stopped without and all above
Beams the benignant sky; and still no dove,
Of the same beautiful fact the feathered proof!
Why here—upon the ripples of the roof—
Here is your truant painted, to abide
When Shem and Ham are scattered far and wide,
And all the beasts are broke, to brood with furled
Pacific wings over the new-washed world.

AN UPLAND STATION

O the trucks that leave Southampton bring a smell of twine and tar,
And fishy like the asphalt ways that front the glittering bar,
And they steam into the station where the laurel bushes are;

And the trucks be wet and slippery as sea-weed on the rocks
With their cumbrous coils of cordage from the ships beside the docks,
And they creak along the platform like the clank of ogres’ locks.

What send we to Southampton for our upland valley’s freight?
Comes a band of armoured milk-cans through the level-crossing’s gate
And cabbages with leaves a-curl and sprouting through the crate.

And ducklings in a wicker coop and gilly-flowers to fall,
Dusty-petalled in a bucket under some Southampton stall,
And sons who sail for ’Meriky and bid good-bye to all.

Then it’s “Forward for Southampton!” They are gone and we turn back,
Past the river and the orchard and the warm dishevelled stack,
And again the silent barriers are swung across the track;

Again the platform is at peace, the idle metals shine,
And the tendrils are untroubled on the station-master’s vine,
And the sun is on the laurels and the sparrows on the line.

THE WORSHIPPERS

When the young Spring in Betsey’s fingers sets
The first white violets,
And she hath reared them in her soft brown fist,
Ev’n to my stooping mouth till they be kist:—
Shall I allow my kiss more fainly lingers
Among her baby fingers,
Where (for all pride of perfume that they shed),
The very violets be out-violetted?

Great is her portion whose auriferous mines
Yield new-coin’d celandines,
Her dowry hoarded in the hedge-row’s heart
Till the March wind hath blown the buds apart;
For her delight these gay-wrought tassels be
By name Dog’s Mercury,
For her delight I scour from wood to wood,
Lured by one lode-star with her Babyhood.

Dare I avow then, Betsey, that your grove
Hath not mine only love?
Have we not quit a brave and bustling world
For catkins and the cuckoo-pint uncurl’d?
So, while your wind-blown cheek to mine you press,
I know you’ll never guess
Whereto my woodland incense I prefer—
And that I worship you, dear worshipper.

LINES TO A JOURNALIST, ON HIS PRAISING A NOBLE LORD RECENTLY CREATED

[“Finally it is proof of his faith in his race and
his country that he owns twenty thousand acres in
England and fifteen thousand in Scotland; and he has
no terrors even of Mr. Lloyd George’s budgets.”]

Permit, Dear Sir, that the judicious grieve
Hearing you thus old Mammon’s faith profess
And the career of commerce interweave
With terms of more than standard unctuousness;

For (you yourself have said it) what reward
Hope you enrolled among the sworn defenders
Of one who, while you tender your regard,
Remains impassive and regards his tenders?

True he has great possessions, well they might
Stagger your brain and sway your understanding,
His English leagues—while English paupers fight
To hang their washing on a London landing;

Also (’tis as you say) while they the facts
Deplore of governmental tolls, his rest
Is still secure, nor any Georgian Acts
Rouse panic terror in that sturdy breast.

And yet, and yet, Dear Sir, it would not do
For all of us to kiss the feet that Fate
Has set upon our necks although (with you)
We own they are superlatively great;—

Here is a rule to save the like mistakes
And sift the patriots from the money-makers,
These take an interest in their country’s aches,
And those an interest on their country’s acres.

THE BELGIAN PINAFORE

’Twas bought in Bruges, the shop was poor,
One read “Au Bébé” flourished o’er
The ancient lintel; to that door
No English guinea
Had ever come nor travelled gold
Gladdened her gaze, that woman old,
Who tottered from the gloom and sold
The Belgian “pinny.”

I mind me choosing in the place
A cap with frills of little lace;
“That too,” I said, “shall come to grace
My Small and Sweet.”
Prim in her pinafore arrayed
I pictured Betsey while I strayed
Where, all the time, the proud bells played
Above the street.

Now, Betsey, on the roguish back
That stalks around the sunny stack
The turkey’s truculence or the track
Of stable cats
The Belgian “pinny” flaunts its hue,
Still the same stripe of white and blue
As when ’twas dyed, no doubt for you,
In Flemish vats.

Still of its old lost life it tells
And alien provenance, there are spells
And glamour of the Town of Bells
About it shed;
And when my Belgian Betsey climbs
My knee I’ve heard a hundred times
The clash and ripple of the chimes
Around her head.

As though the child herself did play
Without some white estaminet
Shuttered and silent where, all day
In sun and shower,
Two little lions with stone grins
Hold ’scutcheons under paws and chins
And their divine appellant dins
The honoured hour.

THE WIND

The sun sank, and the wind uprist whose note
Piped on amid the stubble melodies
Of such appeal as ’scape the limber throat
Of robin singing under saffron skies;—
Then did he breathe like winding of a horn,
Whereat some sable flock of clouds affrighted
Huddled across their rosy pasturage
Behind the troubled leaves,—
Larger he loomed, a traveller benighted,
Hinting of menace and insurgent rage
Around the placid twilight of our eaves.

The sun was gone; beneath the steady stars
That watched the spectral anticks of the oak
The plumèd elm-tops met in savage wars,
The smitten pools in argent splinters broke;
While, as a labourer among the boughs
Cudgels a harvest from the branches crooked,
Within the orchard fence one plied a flail
That woke the sleeping house,
Till from the shivered lattice faces looked
Whitely, because the apples fell like hail.

The sun uprose, serenely gold and fair,
And Morning in a little ruffled pond
Scanned her sweet face and prinkt her yellow hair.
Around her mirror lapped the leaves, beyond
Jetsam of mast and acorn hid the strand,
Thick in the orchard was the wreckage piled
Of twig and fruit, the pitifullest noise
Of sobbing filled the land:—
The wind was sleeping sadly as a child
Littered about by all its broken toys.

TO BETSEY-JANE, ON HER DESIRING TO GO INCONTINENTLY TO HEAVEN

My Betsey-Jane it would not do,
For what would Heaven make of you,
A little honey-loving bear,
Among the Blessèd Babies there?

Nor do you dwell with us in vain
Who tumble and get up again
And try, with bruisèd knees, to smile—
Sweet, you are blessèd all the while

And we in you: so wait, they’ll come
To take your hand and fetch you home,
In Heavenly leaves to play at tents
With all the Holy Innocents.

IN BETHLEHEM TOWN

In Bethlehem Town by lantern light
Installèd is our King to-night
Who for us men shall come to weep
Our sins alone while very deep
In shade of leaves His comrades sleep.
To-night we rise with Thee to pray,
O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town the shepherds spread
Their fairest fleeces for Thy head
Which for us men with buffets broke
Shall stain the mockery of Thy cloak
For the rude scorn of sinful folk.
No scorn know we who sing and say,
O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town soft linens wrap
Thy limbs upon Thy Mother’s lap
Which for us men shall soon be bound
Fast to the pillar whilst around
The plying scourges fall and wound.
Alas, our sins be sharp as they,
O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thou scarce couldst hold
The three Kings’ gift of myrrh and gold
Who for us men shall come to groan
Beneath a guerdon not Thine own,
Thy most dispiteous cross, alone.
Now Simon’s part be ours to play,
O parve Jesu Domine.

In Bethlehem Town Thy Mother’s knee
Bore Bliss Itself in bearing Thee
Who for us men with arms outspanned
The Cross shall bear while she doth stand
With pardon at Thy piercèd hand.
So may we stand with her alway,
O parve Jesu Domine.

THE MOON

Playthings my Betsey hath, the snail’s cast shell,
Pebbles and small unripened pears, she dotes
On gentle things with furred or feathered coats,
A bunch of keys, a little brazen bell;
But none of these enticements please so well,
Nor pouring tea nor sailing paper boats,
As the rare moon that of an evening floats
In anchorages inaccessible.
On frost-bound nights a portly yellow moon
She kissed her hand to him before she slept,
The slim white stripling of an afternoon
In summer, still she longed for him and wept
Seeking to coax him down an elder wand,
For once, that she might hold him in her hand.

A LADY OF FASHION ON THE DEATH OF HER DOG

“Amongst the many others that were present that
Cup Day were ... Mr. and Mrs. W.—— L.—— (the
latter by the way has just lost a dear dog in
London).”—_The Lady._

I am not lightly moved, my grief was dumb
At Great-Aunt Cohen’s death, nor did I whine
When Uncle Monty did at last succumb,
Aged close on sixty-nine.

Dear are my friends, and yet my heart still light is,
Undimmed the eyes that see our set depart,
Snatched from the Season by appendicitis
Or something quite as smart.

But when my Chin-Chin drew his latest breath
On Marie’s out-spread apron, slow and wheezily,
I simply sniffed, I could not take _his_ death
So Pekineasily.

All day at Goodwood, where I planned to go,
Superb in pink and Coronation-blue,
I mourned, until my husband sought to know
What good would mourning do?

“Fool,” I replied, “grief courts these sad ovations,
And many press my sable-suèded hand,
Noting the blackest of Lucile’s creations,
Inquire, and understand:

And he who lies among the plane-trees shady,
May rest in peace below the fallen leaf,
For one, the Correspondent of ‘The Lady,’
Shares and respects my grief.”

TO A LITTLE GIRL

You taught me ways of gracefulness and fashions of address,
The mode of plucking pansies and the art of sowing cress,
And how to handle puppies, with propitiatory pats
For mother dogs, and little acts of courtesy to cats.

O connoisseur of pebbles, coloured leaves and trickling rills,
Whom seasons fit as do the sheaths that wrap the daffodils,
Whose eyes’ divine expectancy foretells some starry goal,
You taught me here docility—and how to save my soul.

LINES WRITTEN FOR D. E.

IN A COPY OF “THE CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES”

You that have fenced about my storm-swept ways
With a green hedge-row of your hard-won bays
And set the flints with flowers such as start
Deep in the dear Child’s Garden of your heart—
Take this small gift from her to whom ’tis life
To be your Dearest Debtor and your Wife.

EPISTLE TO THOMAS BLACK, CAT TO THE SOANE MUSEUM

Pardon, Dear Sir, if with intrusive pen
I would remind you that we met last week;
Not that you showed me any favour then
Nor that I have forgot the infernal cheek
You tendered to your fellow-citizen,
Veiling your yellow eyes, where black and sleek
You graced the hearth-rug in the glittering gloom
Of Sir John Soane’s be-mirrored breakfast-room.

Which snub to soften, an official leant
Hinting, behind his tactful fingers, that
It was but seldom that you _quite_ unbent
Being almost a Statutory cat;
If not retained by Act of Parliament
(As is your noble shrine) at least you sat,
Kept up by twenty shillings and tradition,
As part and parcel of the exhibition.

For when (he added in an undertone)
Each Reynolds, Fuseli, and Bartolozzi,
Hogarth and Lawrence were bequeathed by Soane
With Roman marbles and Athenian pots, he
Begrudged to leave them lifeless and alone,
So, having ranged them in appropriate spots, he
Said—“There shall be a Cat,” and, in effect, you’re
His last word in Domestic Architecture.

Thus far Authority. Now, might I ask it,—
How came you, Thomas, by this lofty station
From kitten-hood and the maternal basket?
Was there, perchance, some stiff examination
Such as tests candidates whose pleasant task it
Is to advance the cause of education,
In places advertised, you often see ’em,
On outside pages of the _Athenæum_?

Or how were you appointed? Was it Fate or
The cat before, some mid-Victorian mouser,
Left you the seat Death bade him abdicate or
Did hirelings kidnap you like Kaspar Hauser?
Did rich relations canvass the Curator
And the Trustees on your behalf? Allow, Sir,
Some little light to play upon the mystery
Of Thomas Black his entrance into History.

O happy he for whom does not exist
Our later London—that superb disaster,
Who in his Georgian hermitage has missed
Our schemes of girders overlaid with plaster,
Who has not met a Post-Impressionist
Nor heard a maniac acclaimed a master,
But sits with those who draw their weekly salary
Soothed by dim models of the Dulwich Gallery.

For, be their outlook dull, at least ’tis clean.
Not so the cat’s whose whole existence spent is
In some half-lighted haunt of the obscene—
The studio of that modern idle ’prentice
Who thinks he has the trick of Hogarth’s spleen
(Of course he’s twice the draughtsman) if his bent is
To paint that vice with intimate elation
Which Hogarth limned, apart, with detestation.

All this you’re spared; and so you might have paid
Some courtesy to those, a very few,
Who come withdrawn from that exterior shade
To spend an hour with sanity and you,—
And, when you saw that I had gladly stayed,
Not closed your eye-lids and our interview
But told me what the contents of each case meant
And let me come with you to see the basement.

Yet, after all, you know your part, doze on;
You are no common cat, you rather seem,
If not the incarnation of Sir John,
To be at least the creature of his dream;
Visitors enter, sign their names, are gone—
You stay, the centre of his classic scheme.
Blink not an ear for me—t’were not expedient—
But let me rest, Dear Sir, your most obedient.

FOR MY MOTHER, WITH A NEW BUTTON-BOX

When I was small, great joy it was to see
Your button-box: the deathless comedy
Of blowing on the lid enacted, wide
It flew, I scanned the treasure-trove tongue-tied,
Cassim in caves of Haberdashery!
The small pearl “glove” evoked essential glee,
The large white linen was an ecstasy
And each gilt hook was covetously eyed
When I was small.
Lost are the clothes whereon those buttons be—
But not the love that planned the stitchery,
The button-baby is herself a bride—
But sends you this with love, and writes inside
“You are far dearer than you were to me
When I was small.”

A CHILD BEFORE THE CRIB

We came on Christmas Day
Within the church to pray
And lit by candle-ray
I Mary saw
And Joseph and the mild
Ox and that little Child
With open arms who smiled
Amid the straw.

Behind a press of folk
We knelt and no one spoke,
Our Lady in her cloak
Made not less noise,
With folded fingers, than
Each silent kneeling man,
And sweet small girls who can
Be still, and boys.

But for that Babe divine,
His cot compared to mine,
There in the candle-shine
Was poor and hard.
Yet did He never cry,
Laid on such stems of rye
As we see blowing by
The stable yard.

And I who lie and wail,
Pent by the polished rail
Of my white cot while pale
The night-light gleams,
Who spurn my sheets and stain
The patchwork counterpane
With tears, then sink again
Into my dreams,

Must mind me of His lot
Whose mother poor had got
No whitely pillowed cot
To ease His head,
But was at pains to shake
The straws up for His sake
And did a manger make
Into His bed.

Sweet Jesus let me wear
My swaddling-bands of care
Smiling, and still forbear
To be so nice;
That thus I may behold
Thy True Face, being old,
Where straws are turned to gold
In Paradise.

TO MASS AT DAWN

“EX UMBRIS ET IMAGINIBUS IN VERITATEM”

On the high frosty fields afoot at dawn
I start:—with rarest mist the vale below
Brims like a milky cup, the elm-tops show
As floating islets, not a sound is borne
Up from the river, shadowy on the lawn
Two monstrous pheasants fight and strangely low
The white sun peers between a spectral row
Of quicksets spanned by spider-webs untorn.
And the return:—the high sun over-head,
The fair sleek fallows spread before my sight,
The garrulous clear waters in their bed
Of greenest sedge, the multitudinous flight
Of little wings—O miracle of light—
The self-same track, with all the shadows fled.

THE NUNS’ CHAPEL

Now night hath fallen on the little town,
Lights glimmer from each ancient window-pane,
On darkling chimney-cowl and weather-vane
The buoyant moon looks equitably down;
The portico’s be-shadowed columns frown
At the market’s verge, and the long lights again
Stream from the inn,—I to the convent lane
Pass betwixt looming walls and ilex brown.
The little door’s ajar, the moon in the porch
Gleams on the water-stoup, “In Nomine
Patris et Filii....” God’s rosy light
Plays on its swinging chain, the auguster torch
Of prayer hath burnt to fragrance here all day
Whose ashes lie about His feet to-night.

THE SNARE

Dear, the delightful world I see
Holdeth its attributes for thee,
Nor on my heart doth earth intrude
Save to thy grace it hath some rude
Inadequate similitude.

So lilac leaves the showers bespatter,
The dropping acorns’ elfin patter—
These are but echoes of thy feet,
Naked or shod, how fair and fleet
On oaken board or paven street.

The burnish of thy hair is far
Dearer to me than sunsets are—
When, from sheer Compton looking west,
Such gilded after-glows invest
The twilight on the Vale of Test.

Grey mirrors to the blue of the skies
Are the fringed candours of your eyes—
So hoof-prints in the grassy lane,
Goblets full-brimmed of Heaven, contain
Celestial leavings of the rain.

But vain the wordy nets I make
To trap the look of thee and take
Thy graces by the wings which be
So sturdy as to flutter free

Yet shall the broke words cast away
Serve for thy monument which say—
“Behold us, all too weak a gin
Too slack a toil to fetter in
The shadows on her childish chin.”

A HOUSE IN A WOOD

So ’tis your will to have a cell,
My Betsey, of your own and dwell
Here where the sun for ever shines
That glances off the holly spines—
A clearing where the trunks are few
Here shall be built a house for you,
The little walls of beechen stakes,
Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes,
Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round
The fallen giants on the ground;
Under your little feet shall be
A ground-work of wild strawberry
With gadding stem, a pleasant wort
Alike for carpet and dessert.
Here Betsey, in the lucid shade,
Come, let us twine a green stockade,
With slender saplings all about,
And a small window to look out,
So that you may be “Not at Home”
If any mortal callers come.
Then shall arrive to make you mirth
The four wise peoples of the earth:
The thrifty ants who run around
To fill their store-rooms underground,
The rabbit-folk, a feeble race,
From out their rocky sleeping place,
The grasshoppers who have no king
Yet come in companies to sing,
The lizard slim who shyly stands
Swaying upon his slender hands—
I’ll give them all your new address.
For me, my little anchoress,
I’ll never stir the bracken by
Your house; the brown wood butterfly,
Passing you like the sunshine’s fleck
That gilds the nape of your warm neck,
Shall still report me how you do
And bring me all the news of you,
And tell me (where I sit alone)
How gay you are and how you’re grown
A fox-glove’s span in the soft weather.

* * * * *

No? Then we’ll wander home together.

THE CONFESSIONAL

My Sorrow diligent would sweep
That dingy room infest
With dust (thereby I mean my soul)
Because she hath a Guest
Who doth require that self-same room
Be garnished for His rest.

And Sorrow (who had washed His feet
Where He before had been)
Took the long broom of Memory
And swept the corners clean,
Till in the midst of the fair floor
The sum of dust was seen.

It lay there, settled by her tears,
That fell the while she swept—
Light fluffs of grey and earthy dregs;
And over these she wept,
For all were come since last her Guest
Within the room had slept.

And, for nor broom nor tears had power
To lift the clods of ill,
She called one servant of her Guest
Who came with right good will,
For, by his sweet Lord’s bidding, he
Waiteth on Sorrow still;

Who, seeing she had done her part
As far as in her lay
And had intent to keep the place
More cleanly from that day,
Did with his Master’s dust-pan come
And take the dust away.

She thankèd him, and Him who sent
Such succour, and she spread
Fair sheets of Thankfulness and Love
Upon her Master’s bed,
Then on the new-scoured threshold stood
And listened for His tread.

EPITAPH ON A CHILD

RUN OVER AND KILLED BY A MOTOR-CAR IN THE STREET

Here lies A. B. who, four years from her birth,
Found there was nowhere left to play on earth.
Strange, for her mother’s child had ever grown
In the quaint precincts of a country town,
Yet was she one whose small predestined feet
Learnt nor forgot to walk upon the street.
She might not ramble where the farmer spanned
With consecrated quickset all his land
To fill her pinafore when mushrooms swell;
Nor dare she scale the lovely citadel
Of brambles in the lane, for their sweet prize
Was spoilt with dust that dimmed the children’s eyes
When local gods dispersed the timid crowd
And went before in pillars of grey cloud.
Nor might a bigger child frequent the edge
Of the pebbled stream to plait the flowering sedge,
For aught of native life was kept without
The chosen haunt of Dives and his trout;
His pheasants held the coppice and its nuts,
Where bearded men played peep behind their butts
And wolvish keepers prowling through the woods
Had a short way with all Red Riding Hoods.
No blade of wholesome grass shot through the hard
And greasy flagstones of the narrow yard
At home, nor might the children ever play
Through the allotments where, a mile away,
The civic cabbages congested stood,
Reluctant tenants of a stony rood.
One playground, one alone, for such as she,
Had planned a grave adult humanity,
There where grey asphalt hid the ruder ground
And serried spikes begirt the place around;
At the one end, of yellow brick and slate,
Was reared a sort of female Traitors’ Gate,
At t’other end the piety of a nation
Had raised a shrine of tin to sanitation.
This, thanks to man, was all the children’s share
And Nature was allowed to tender air.
Hence did it chance (as now and then it may)
The Powers that Be decreed a holiday.
And reckless childhood, whom it ever galls
To sit within the compass of four walls,
Loosed from its wonted pen conspired to run
At random through the town beneath the sun,
Rashly disporting in the common street
Its rude hands and unnecessary feet.
That day, so many a hooting corner crost,
The marvel is that one alone was lost,
She to whom poverty no tomb assigns
But a low mound and these unworthy lines.—
Mourn not at all that Her whose burnished wing
Flies on the blissful errands of her King,
Whom (by a heavenly law too young to err,
Accounted on the earth a Trespasser)
He hath resumèd and her footfall white
Enfranchised of the liberties of light:
But for all those who play the part of Fate
To engineer this poor and mirthless state
Weep,—and for all who loved that childish hair
And saw it stained with Tragedy—one prayer.

THE WATER-MEADS OF MOTTISFONT

On the painted bridge at Mottisfont above the Test I’ve stood
Where the dab-chick from a rushy raft directs her little brood,
Where fringed with sedge and willow-weed the waters spread about
And linger in pellucid glooms the sleepy spotted trout.

I’ve seen the tawny tumult of the headlong Highland spate,
And the ebb round Hair-brush Island (which the map calls
Chiswick Ait)
Where the withy bristles shimmer and the purple mud-banks gleam
And the lights come out by Thornycroft’s and glisten in the stream.

’Twere good to be at Abergeirch: the little brook again
Greets the brine among the shingle on the beetling coast of Lleyn,—
O the shallows on the sand-banks where the dozing flat-fish lie
And the heather surging inland till it breaks against the sky!

But the chalky scaurs of Compton hold the shadows; and between
Lie the water-meads of Mottisfont enamelled with such green
As discolours all I’ve looked upon in valleys far apart—
For the water-meads of Mottisfont lie nearest to my heart.

THE SENIOR MISTRESS OF BLYTH

[“BLYTH SECONDARY SCHOOL.—The Governors
of the above School invite applications for the
post of Senior Mistress. Candidates must be
Graduates in Honours of a British University and
must be well qualified in Mathematics, Latin,
and English. Ability to teach Art will be a
recommendation.”—Advertisement in _The Spectator_.]

It is told of the painter Da Vinci,
Being once unemployed for a span,
At the menace of poverty’s pinch he
Sought work at the Court of Milan.
Having shown himself willing and able
To perform on the curious lyre,
He presented the Duke with a table
Of the talents he proffered for hire.

“I can raze you a fortress,” it ran on,
“Quell castles, drain ditches and moats,
Make shapely and competent cannon,
Build aqueducts, bridges and boats;
In peace I can mould for your Courts a
Few models in marble or clay
And paint the illustrious Sforza
With anyone living to-day.”

Leonardo is dead, they asseverate,
He has left no successor behind,
For the days of the specialist never rate
At its value the versatile mind.
Is Lord Brougham, then, our latest example?
No, Time, the old churl with his scythe,
Shall spare us a notable sample
In the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

She shall guide Standard Three through Progressions,
Study Statics and Surds with the Fourth,
She shall dwell on De Quincey’s Confessions,
Donne, Caedmon and Christopher North;
And no class-room shall boast of a quicker row
When her classical pupils rehearse
Their prose, which is modelled on Cicero,
And their more than Horatian verse.

She shall lead them to love Cimabue,
To distinguish with scholarship ripe
’Twixt the texture of Clausen and Clouet,
And the values of Collier and Cuyp.
Nay, all Blyth shall reflect her ability
As its brushes acquire by her aid
Or South Kensington’s pretty facility
Or the terrible strength of the Slade.

Yes, her duties are diverse, and this’ll
Suggest to each candidate why
They should read Leonardo’s epistle
Before they sit down to apply;
For his style is itself a credential
Though truly he has not a tithe
Of the qualifications essential
To the Senior Mistress of Blyth.

THE FIRST PARTY

Follow, my Betsey-Jane, as best you can,
Clutching your Mother’s fingers in firm hold,
The sable progress of the serving-man,
Nor stumble on your shawl’s imperial fold;
Whose ceremonious pin of jade and gold
Bringeth such rosy awe into your face
As the white frock, the stockings silken-soled
And the white shoes (with pompons) which will grace
The lightness of your feet in this illumined place.

Shawls being shed, descend the ample stair
And greet our Hostess. Now you’re set to see
The Conjurer, nor think to leave your chair
For safer eyrie of your Mother’s knee;—
Still, as his tricks are tedious to Three
And strange the flounce-clad children in their tiers,
Turn your shy back on wiles and wizardry
To hug, for comfort’s sake, two homely bears
And a prepost’rous poodle, white with knitted ears.

For tea, gramercie to a thoughtful choice
And nice derangement of the chairs, your seat
Faces a fair acquaintance known as Joyce;—
What glances under glossy tresses greet
The fellow-connoisseur of cake and sweet
Till the last cracker’s pulled on the last plate.
Now sidle through the dancers’ tortuous feet
And come at last, for the time waxes late,
Where in their cloudy breath the shadowy horses wait.