Styx River Anthology

525

ANNABEL LEE

They may say all they like

About germs and micro-crocuses,

Or whatever they are!

But my set opinion is,

If you want to get a good, old-fashioned chills and fever,

Just poke around

In a damp, messy place by the sea,

Without rubbers on.

A good cold wind,

Blowing out of a cloud, by night,
Will give you a harder shaking ague
Than all the bacilli in the Basilica.
It did me.

ANGUS MC PHAIRSON

Oh, of course,

It's always some dratted petticoat!

Just because that little flibbertigibbet, Annie Laurie

Had a white throat and a blue e'e,

She played the very devil with my peace of mind.

She'd dimple at me

Till I was aboot crazy;

And then laugh at me through her dimples!

She was my bespoke.

And I'd beg her to have the banns called,

But there was no pinning her down.

Well, she was so bonny

That like a fool, I said I'd lay me doon

And dee for her.

And,—like a fool,—
I did.

Carolyn Wells.

ANSWER TO MASTER WITHER'S SONG,

I, WASTING IN DESPAIR?"

SHALL I, mine affections slack,
'Cause I see a woman's black?
Or myself, with care cast down,
'Cause I see a woman brown?
Be she blacker than the night,
Or the blackest jet in sight!
If she be not so to me,
What care I how black she be?

Shall my foolish heart be burst,
'Cause I see a woman's curst?
Or a thwarting hoggish nature
Joined in as bad a feature?
Be she curst or fiercer than
Brutish beast, or savage man!
If she be not so to me,
What care I how curst she be?

Shall a woman's vices make
Me her vices quite forsake?

Or her faults to me made known,
Make me think that I have none?

Be she of the most accurst,

And deserve the name of worst!

If she be not so to me,
What care I how bad she be?

'Cause her fortunes seem too low,
Shall I therefore let her go?
He that bears an humble mind
And with riches can be kind,
Think how kind a heart he'd have,
If he were some servile slave!

And if that same mind I see

What care I how poor she be?

"SHALL

Song of the Springtide

Poor, or bad, or curst, or black,
I will ne'er the more be slack!
If she hate me (then believe!)
She shall die ere I will grieve!
If she like me when I woo
I can like and love her too!
If that she be fit for me!
What care I what others be?

527

Ben Jonson.

SONG OF THE SPRINGTIDE

O SEASON supposed of all free flowers,
Made lovely by light of the sun,
Of garden, of field, and of tree-flowers,
Thy singers are surely in fun!
Or what is it wholly unsettles

Thy sequence of shower and shine,
And maketh thy pushings and petals
To shrivel and pine?

Why is it that o'er the wild waters
That beastly North-Easter still blows,
Dust-dimming the eyes of our daughters,
Blue-nipping each nice little nose?
Why is it these sea-skirted islands

Are plagued with perpetual chills,
Driving men to Italian or Nile-lands
From Albion's ills?

Happy he, O Springtide, who hath found thee,
All sunlit, in luckier lands,

With thy garment of greenery round thee,
And belted with blossomy bands.
From us by the blast thou art drifted,
All brag of thy beauties is bosh;
When the songs of thy singers are sifted,
They simply won't wash.

What lunatic lune, what vain vision,
Thy laureate, Springtide, may move
To sing thee,-oh, bitter derision!
A season of laughter and love?
You make a man mad beyond measure,
O Spring, and thy lauders like thee:
Thy flowers, thy pastimes and pleasures,
Are fiddlededee!

Unknown.

THE VILLAGE CHOIR

HALF a bar, half a bar,
Half a bar onward!

Into an awful ditch

Choir and precentor hitch,

Into a mess of pitch,

They led the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenors to left of them,
Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.
Oh, that precentor's look,
When the sopranos took
Their own time and hook

From the Old Hundred!

Screeched all the trebles here,

Boggled the tenors there,

Raising the parson's hair,

While his mind wandered;

Theirs not to reason why
This psalm was pitched too high:
Theirs but to gasp and cry

Out the Old Hundred.

Trebles to right of them,

Tenors to left of them,

Basses in front of them,

Bellowed and thundered.

My Foe

Stormed they with shout and yell,
Not wise they sang nor well,
Drowning the sexton's bell,
While all the church wondered.

Dire the percentor's glare,
Flashed his pitchfork in air
Sounding fresh keys to bear
Out the Old Hundred.
Swiftly he turned his back,
Reached he his hat from rack,
Then from the screaming pack,
Himself he sundered.

Tenors to right of him,

Tenors to left of him,

Discords behind him,

Bellowed and thundered.

Oh, the wild howls they wrought:
Right to the end they fought!
Some tune they sang, but not,
Not the Old Hundred.

529

Unknown.

MY FOE

JOHN ALCOHOL, my foe, John,
When we were first acquaint,
I'd siller in my pockets, John,
Which noo, ye ken, I want;
I spent it all in treating, John,
Because I loved you so;

But mark ye, how you've treated me,
John Alcohol, my foe.

John Alcohol, my foe, John,

We've been ower lang together,
Sae ye maun tak' ae road, John,
And I will take anither;
For we maun tumble down, John,
If hand in hand we go;
And I shall hae the bill to pay,
John Alcohol, my foe.