Chapter VI

They laid her on a bier,
In the court-yard all;
Some came from Foresting,
And some came from Hall.
And Great Lords carried her,
And proud Priests prayed.
And that was the end
Of the Little Serving Maid.

THE END OF THE ROAD

IN THESE BOOTS AND WITH THIS STAFF
Two hundred leaguers and a half
Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I,
Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I,
Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I;
Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I,
Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled,
Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled;
Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I,
And in lonely spinnies camped I,
And in haunted pinewoods slept I,
Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I,
Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I;
Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I,
And ... (Oh! Patron saints and Angels
That protect the four Evangels!
And you Prophets vel majores
Vel incerti, vel minores,
Virgines ac confessores
Chief of whose peculiar glories
Est in Aula Regis stare
Atque orare et exorare
Et clamare et conclamare
Clamantes cum clamoribus
Pro Nobis Peccatoribus.)
Let me not conceal it.... _Rode I._
(For who but critics could complain
Of “riding” in a railway train?)
Across the valley and the high-land,
With all the world on either hand
Drinking when I had a mind to,
Singing when I felt inclined to;
Nor ever turned my face to home
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.

AUVERGNAT

There was a man was half a clown
(It’s so my father tells of it).
He saw the church in Clermont town
And laughed to hear the bells of it.

He laughed to hear the bells that ring
In Clermont Church and round of it;
He heard the verger’s daughter sing,
And loved her for the sound of it.

The verger’s daughter said him nay;
She had the right of choice in it.
He left the town at break of day:
He hadn’t had a voice in it.

The road went up, the road went down,
And there the matter ended it.
He broke his heart in Clermont town,
At Pontgibaud they mended it.

DRINKING SONG

ON THE EXCELLENCE OF BURGUNDY WINE

My jolly fat host with your face all a-grin,
Come, open the door to us, let us come in.
A score of stout fellows who think it no sin
If they toast till they’re hoarse, and they drink till they spin,
Hoofed it amain,
Rain or no rain,
To crack your old jokes, and your bottles to drain.

Such a warmth in the belly that nectar begets
As soon as his guts with its humour he wets,
The miser his gold, and the student his debts,
And the beggar his rags and his hunger forgets.
For there’s never a wine
Like this tipple of thine
From the great hill of Nuits to the River of Rhine.

Outside you may hear the great gusts as they go
By Foy, by Duerne, and the hills of Lerraulx,
But the rain he may rain, and the wind he may blow,
If the Devil’s above there’s good liquor below.
So it abound,
Pass it around,
Burgundy’s Burgundy all the year round.

DRINKING DIRGE

A thousand years ago I used to dine
In houses where they gave me such regale
Of dear companionship and comrades fine
That out I went alone beyond the pale;
And riding, laughed and dared the skies malign
To show me all the undiscovered tale--
But my philosophy’s no more divine,
I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.

And you, my friends, oh! pleasant friends of mine,
Who leave me now alone, without avail,
On Californian hills you gave me wine,
You gave me cider-drink in Longuevaille;
If after many years you come to pine
For comradeship that is an ancient tale--
You’ll find me drinking beer in Dead Man’s Chine.
I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.

In many a briny boat I’ve tried the brine,
From many a hidden harbour I’ve set sail,
Steering towards the sunset where there shine
The distant amethystine islands pale.
There are no ports beyond the far sea-line,
Nor any halloa to meet the mariner’s hail;
I stand at home and slip the anchor-line.
I put my pleasure in a pint of ale.

ENVOI

Prince! Is it true when you go out to dine
You bring your bottle in a freezing pail?
Why then you cannot be a friend of mine.
_I_ put my pleasure in a pint of ale.

WEST SUSSEX DRINKING SONG

They sell good Beer at Haslemere
And under Guildford Hill.
At Little Cowfold as I’ve been told
A beggar may drink his fill:
There is a good brew in Amberley too,
And by the bridge also;
But the swipes they take in at Washington Inn
Is the very best Beer I know.

_Chorus_

With my here it goes, there it goes,
All the fun’s before us:
The Tipple’s Aboard and the night is young,
The door’s ajar and the Barrel is sprung,
I am singing the best song ever was sung
And it has a rousing chorus.

If I were what I never can be,
The master or the squire:
If you gave me the hundred from here to the sea,
Which is more than I desire:

Then all my crops should be barley and hops,
And did my harvest fail
I’d sell every rood of mine acres I would
For a belly-full of good Ale.

_Chorus_

With my here it goes, there it goes,
All the fun’s before us:
The Tipple’s aboard and the night is young,
The door’s ajar and the Barrel is sprung,
I am singing the best song ever was sung
And it has a rousing chorus.

A BALLAD ON SOCIOLOGICAL ECONOMICS

A while ago it came to pass
(Merry we carol it all the day),
There sat a man on the top of an ass
(Heart be happy and carol be gay
In spite of the price of hay).

And over the down they hoofed it so
(Happy go lucky has best of fare),
The man up above and the brute below
(And singing we all forget to care
A man may laugh if he dare).

Over the stubble and round the crop
(Life is short and the world is round),
The donkey beneath and the man on top
(Oh! let good ale be found, be found,
Merry good ale and sound).

It happened again as it happened before
(Tobacco’s a boon but ale is bliss),
The moke in the ditch and the man on the floor
(And that is the moral to this, to this
Remarkable artifice).

AN ORACLE

THAT WARNED THE WRITER WHEN ON PILGRIMAGE

Matutinus adest ubi Vesper, et accipiens te
Saepe recusatum voces intelligit hospes
Rusticus ignotas notas, ac flumina tellus
Occupat--In sancto tum, tum, stans Aede caveto
Tonsuram Hirsuti Capitis, via namque pedestrem
Ferrea praeveniens cursum, peregrine, laborem
Pro pietate tua inceptum frustratur, amore
Antiqui Ritus alto sub Numine Romae.

_Translation of the above_:--

When early morning seems but eve
And they that still refuse receive:
When speech unknown men understand;
And floods are crossed upon dry land.
Within the Sacred Walls beware
The Shaven Head that boasts of Hair,
For when the road attains the rail
The Pilgrim’s great attempt shall fail.

HERETICS ALL

Heretics all, whoever you be,
In Tarbes or Nimes, or over the sea,
You never shall have good words from me.
_Caritas non conturbat me._

But Catholic men that live upon wine
Are deep in the water, and frank, and fine;
Wherever I travel I find it so,
_Benedicamus Domino_.

On childing women that are forlorn,
And men that sweat in nothing but scorn:
That is on all that ever were born,
_Miserere Domine_.

To my poor self on my deathbed,
And all my dear companions dead,
Because of the love that I bore them,
_Dona Eis Requiem_.

THE DEATH AND LAST CONFESSION OF WANDERING PETER

When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
And all that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.

When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:

“If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.

“Almighty God will surely cry,
‘St. Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,

“‘And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,
And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?’

“St. Michael then will answer right
(And not without angelic shame),
‘I seem to know his face by sight:
I cannot recollect his name...?’

“St. Peter will befriend me then,
Because my name is Peter too:
‘I know him for the best of men
That ever walloped barley brew.

“‘And though I did not know him well
And though his soul were clogged with sin,
_I_ hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.’

“Then shall I spread my native wings
And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the Blessed doubtful things
Of Val d’Aran and Perigord.”

* * * * *

This was the last and solemn jest
Of weary Peter Wanderwide.
He spoke it with a failing zest,
And having spoken it, he died.

DEDICATORY ODE

I mean to write with all my strength
(It lately has been sadly waning),
A ballad of enormous length--
Some parts of which will need explaining.[1]

Because (unlike the bulk of men
Who write for fame or public ends),
I turn a lax and fluent pen
To talking of my private friends.[2]

For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did.

* * * * *

The Freshman ambles down the High,
In love with everything he sees,
He notes the very Midland sky,
He sniffs a more than Midland breeze.

“Can this be Oxford? This the place?”
(He cries) “of which my father said
The tutoring was a damned disgrace,
The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead?

“Can it be here that Uncle Paul
Was driven by excessive gloom,
To drink and debt, and, last of all,
To smoking opium in his room?

“Is it from here the people come,
Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes,
And stammer? How extremely rum!
How curious! What a great surprise.

“Some influence of a nobler day
Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul’s),
Has roused the sleep of their decay,
And flecked with light their ancient walls.

“O! dear undaunted boys of old,
Would that your names were carven here,
For all the world in stamps of gold,
That I might read them and revere.

“Who wrought and handed down for me
This Oxford of the larger air,
Laughing, and full of faith, and free,
With youth resplendent everywhere?”

Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind,
Young, callow, and untutored man,
Their private names were ...[3]
Their club was called REPUBLICAN.

* * * * *

Where on their banks of light they lie,
The happy hills of Heaven between,
The Gods that rule the morning sky
Are not more young, nor more serene

Than were the intrepid Four that stand,
The first who dared to live their dream.
And on this uncongenial land
To found the Abbey of Theleme.

We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[4]
We dignified the dainty cloisters
With Natural Law, the Rights of Man,
Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters.

The library was most inviting:
The books upon the crowded shelves
Were mainly of our private writing:
We kept a school and taught ourselves.

We taught the art of writing things
On men we still should like to throttle:
And where to get the Blood of Kings
At only half a crown a bottle.

* * * * *

Eheu Fugaces! Postume!
(An old quotation out of mode);
My coat of dreams is stolen away
My youth is passing down the road.

* * * * *

The wealth of youth, we spent it well
And decently, as very few can.
And is it lost? I cannot tell:
And what is more, I doubt if you can.

The question’s very much too wide,
And much too deep, and much too hollow,
And learned men on either side
Use arguments I cannot follow.

They say that in the unchanging place,
Where all we loved is always dear,
We meet our morning face to face
And find at last our twentieth year....

They say (and I am glad they say)
It is so; and it may be so:
It may be just the other way,
I cannot tell. But this I know:

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

* * * * *

But something dwindles, oh! my peers,
And something cheats the heart and passes,
And Tom that meant to shake the years
Has come to merely rattling glasses.

And He, the Father of the Flock,
Is keeping Burmesans in order,
An exile on a lonely rock
That overlooks the Chinese border.

And One (Myself I mean--no less),
Ah!--will Posterity believe it--
Not only don’t deserve success,
But hasn’t managed to achieve it.

Not even this peculiar town
Has ever fixed a friendship firmer,
But--one is married, one’s gone down,
And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah.

* * * * *

And oh! the days, the days, the days,
When all the four were off together:
The infinite deep of summer haze,
The roaring charge of autumn weather!

* * * * *

I will not try the reach again,
I will not set my sail alone,
To moor a boat bereft of men
At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone.

But I will sit beside the fire,
And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart’s desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.

The quiet evening kept her tryst:
Beneath an open sky we rode,
And passed into a wandering mist
Along the perfect Evenlode.

The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.

A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stones,
Forgotten in the western wolds

* * * * *

I dare to think (though meaner powers
Possess our thrones, and lesser wits
Are drinking worser wine than ours,
In what’s no longer Austerlitz)

That surely a tremendous ghost,
The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler,
Still sings to an immortal toast,
The Misadventures of the Miller.

The unending seas are hardly bar
To men with such a prepossession:
We were? Why then, by God, we _are_--
Order! I call the Club to session!

You do retain the song we set,
And how it rises, trips and scans?
You keep the sacred memory yet,
Republicans? Republicans?

You know the way the words were hurled,
To break the worst of fortune’s rub?
I give the toast across the world,
And drink it, “Gentlemen: the Club.”

FOOTNOTES:

[1] But do not think I shall explain
To any great extent. Believe me,
I partly write to give you pain,
And if you do not like me, leave me.

[2] And least of all can you complain,
Reviewers, whose unholy trade is,
To puff with all your might and main
Biographers of single ladies.

[3] Never mind.

[4] The plan forgot (I know not how,
Perhaps the Refectory filled it),
To put a chapel in; and now
We’re mortgaging the rest to build it.

DEDICATION ON THE GIFT OF A BOOK TO A CHILD

Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.

Child, have you never heard it said
That you are heir to all the ages?
Why, then, your hands were never made
To tear these beautiful thick pages!

Your little hands were made to take
The better things and leave the worse ones:
They also may be used to shake
The Massive Paws of Elder Persons.

And when your prayers complete the day,
Darling, your little tiny hands
Were also made, I think, to pray
For men that lose their fairylands.

DEDICATION OF A CHILD’S BOOK OF IMAGINARY TALES

WHEREIN WRONG-DOERS SUFFER

And is it true? It is not true!
And if it was it wouldn’t do
For people such as me and you,
Who very nearly all day long
Are doing something rather wrong.

HOMAGE

I

There is a light around your head
Which only Saints of God may wear,
And all the flowers on which you tread
In pleasaunce more than ours have fed,
And supped the essential air
Whose summer is a-pulse with music everywhere.