Hardly a May-go-down, 't is just "What wonder," say you, "that we cough, and blink At Autumn's heady drink?” Is it a fancy, friends? Mighty and mellow are never mixed, Though mighty and mellow be born at once. Sweet for the future,-strong for the nonce! Stuff you should stow away, ensconce In the deep and dark, to be found fastfixed At the century's close: such time strength spends A-sweetening for my friends! And then-why, what you quaff With a smack of lip and a cluck of tongue, Is leakage and leavings-just what haps From the tun some learned taster taps With a promise "Prepare your watery chaps! Here's properest wine for old and young! Dispute its perfection? You make us laugh! Have faith, give thanks, butquaff!" Leakage, I say, or-worse- Leavings suffice, pot-valiant souls. Somebody, brimful, long ago, Frothed flagon he drained to the dregs; and, lo, Down whisker and beard what an overflow! Lick spilth that has trickled from classic jowls, Sup the single scene, sip the only verseOld wine, not new and worse! I grant you: worse by much! Renounce that new where you never gained One glow at heart, one gleam at head, And stick to the warrant of age instead! No dwarf's-lap! Fatten, by giants fed! You fatten, with oceans of drink undrained? You feed-who would choke did a cobweb smutch The Age you love so much? A mine 's beneath a moor: Acres of moor roof fathoms of mine Which diamonds dot where you please to dig; Yet who plies spade for the bright and big? Your product is--truffles, you hunt with a pig! Since bright-and-big, when a man would dine, Suits badly and therefore the Kohi noor May sleep in mine 'neath moor! Wine, pulse in might from me! It may never emerge in must from vat, Never fill cask nor furnish can, But spirit 's at proof, I promise that! No sparing of juice spoils what should be Not let them alone, but deftly shear And shred and reduce to-what may suit Children, beyond dispute? And, here 's May-month, all bloom, All bounty: what if I sacrifice? If I out with shears and shear, nor stop Shearing till prostrate, lo, the crop? And will you prefer it to ginger-pop When I've made you wine of the memories Which leave as bare as a churchyard tomb My meadow, late all blocm? Nay, what ingratitude Should I hesitate to amuse the wits That have pulled so long at my flask, nor grudged The headache that paid their pains, nor budged From bunghole before they sighed and judged "Too rough for our taste, to-day, befits PROLOGUE GOOD, to forgive; Soul, clap thy pinion, Earth have dominion, Body, o'er thee! Wander at will, Waft of soul's wing. What lies above? Sunshine and Love Skyblue and Spring! Body hides-where? Ferns of all feather, Mosses and heather, Yours be the care! 1876. 1878. THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC PROLOGUE SUCH a starved bank of moss Till, that May-morn, Blue ran the flash across; Sky-what a scowl of cloud Ray on ray split the shroud: World-how it walled about Till God's own smile came out : EPILOGUE What a pretty tale you told me -Said you found it somewhere (scold me!) Was it prose or was it rhyme, Anyhow there's no forgetting There stood he, while deep attention To detect the slightest sound None the less he sang out boldly, Each note's worth, seemed, late or soon. Sure to smile" In vain one tries When, a mischief! Were they seven Thank you! Well, sir,-who had guessed Such ill luck in store?-it happed All was lost, then! No! a cricket (What" cicada"? Pooh !) -Some mad thing that left its thicket For mere love of music-flew So that when (Ah, joy !) our singer What does cricket else but fling Ay and, ever to the ending, Promptly, perfectly,—indeed Till, at ending, all the judges "Take the prize-a prize who grudges Did the conqueror spurn the creature, That's no such uncommon feature No! This other, on returning (Sir, I hope you understand!) -Said "Some record there must be Of this cricket's help to me!" So, he made himself a statue: On the lyre, he pointed at you, Her, he throned, from him, she crowned, That's the tale: its application? Somebody I know Hopes one day for reputation Through his poetry that 's--Oh, If he gains one, will some ticket, Tell the gazer ""Twas a cricket Helped my crippled lyre, whose lilt Sweet and low, when strength usurped Softness' place i' the scale, she chirped? Good dog! What, off again? There's yet Another child to save? All right! "How strange we saw no other fall! It's instinct in the animal. Good dog! But he's a long while under: If he got drowned I should not wonderStrong current, that against the wall! "Here he comes, holds in mouth this time ---What may the thing be? Well, that's prime! Now, did you ever? Reason reigns "And so, amid the laughter gay, With reason, reasoned: Why he dived, His brain would show us, I should say. "John, go and catch-or, if needs be, Purchase that animal for me! By vivisection, at expense Of half-an-hour and eighteenpence, How brain secretes dog's soul, we 'il see!'" 1879. ECHETLOS HERE is a story, shall stir you! Stand up, Greeks dead and gone, Who breasted, beat Barbarians, stemmed Persia rolling on, Did the deed and saved the world, for the day was Marathon! No man but did his manliest, kept rank and fought away In his tribe and file: up, back, out, down-was the spear-arm play: Like a wind-whipt branchy wood, all spear-arms a-swing that day! But one man kept no rank, and his sole arm plied no spear, As a flashing came and went, and a form i' the van, the rear, Brightened the battle up, for he blazed now there, now here. Nor helmed nor shielded, he! but, a goat-skin all his wear, Like a tiller of the soil, with a clown's limbs broad and bare, Went he ploughing on and on: ho pushed with a ploughman's share. ADAM, LILITH, AND EVE ONE day, it thundered and lightened. Sank to their knees, transformed, transfixed, 66 At the feet of the man who sat betwixt ; And Mercy!" cried each--" if I tell the truth Of a passage in my youth!" Said This: "Do you mind the morning His slave, soul, body, and all!'” Said that: "We stood to be married; The priest, or some one, tarried; 1 Having been criticised for speaking thus of his own work (as well he might, if he chose), Browning wrote the following lines in an album, for an American girl, at Venice : Thus I wrote in London, musing on my betters, Binding Dante bind up-me! as if true pride |