O bard of fortune, you deem me nought
But a mark for your careless scorn.
For I am the echo-less grave of thought
That is strangled before it's born.
You think perchance that I am a doom
Which only a dunce should dread —
Nor dream I've been the dishonoured tomb
Of the noblest and brightest dead.

The brightest fancies that e'er can fly
From the labouring minds of men
Are often written in lines awry,
And marred by a blundering pen;
And thus it comes that I gain a part
Of what to the world is loss —

Me and Ed and a stretcher
Out on the nootral ground.
(If there's one dead corpse. I'll betcher
There's a 'undred smellin' around.)
Me and Eddie O'Brian,
Both of the R. A. M. C.
“It's a 'ell of a night
For a soul to take flight,”
As Eddie remarks to me.
Me and Ed crawlin' 'omeward,
Thinkin' our job is done,
When sudden and clear,
Wot do we 'ear:
'Owl of a wounded 'Un.
“Got to take 'im,” snaps Eddie;
“Got to take all we can.
'E may be a Germ
Wiv the 'eart of a worm,
But, blarst 'im! ain't 'e a man?”

Taking coolness
for my lodging

Fleas, lice —
a horse passes water

Down the street as I was drifting with the city's human tide,
Came a ghost, and for a moment walked in silence by my side —
Now my heart was hard and bitter, and a bitter spirit he,
So I felt no great aversion to his ghostly company.
Said the Shade: " At finer feelings let your lip in scorn be curled,
" Self and Pelf", my friend, has ever been the motto for the world. "

And he said: " If you'd be happy, you must clip your fancy's wings,
Stretch your conscience at the edges to the size of earthly things;

I

1

Moonlight and Autumn: floods of silver,
A waterfall,
Pour over cliffs of space
On crouching hills and camel-backed forests and crowded gardens.

I, too, a moon reflect
The essence of sunlight of old days
And in the silver of memory
Relive youth.

2

The city holds up her chimneys like rain-barrels to catch moonlight,
The ocean drinks silver
To bathe in a pale tinge of green her ships and fishes,

Matsushima —
borrow the body of a crane

I. THE CIVIL SERVANT

Maybe a son of storekeepers,
Maybe a son of belted Earls —
They catch him young and cramp his brains
Like feet of Chinese baby girls.
A blatant politician's pup,
A silly mother's hope and joy,
He never sees the glorious chance
That comes to every office boy.

From brain-dead North-Shore boarding-house
To soul-dead office, and the block;

When now my song selects and praises
Your forceful name, think not it raises
The rallying-flag for battle near;
The street-fight shall not reach us here.
If sacred poetry's fair hill
Lies open to assassination, —
Is this the newer revelation,
Then I withdraw and hold me still.
Then I the words of Einar borrow,
When southern change of kings brought sorrow,
And Harald's hosts their ravage spread:
I follow rather Magnus dead
Than Harald living thus, — and then
I sail away with ships and men.

In meeknes raies of splendor do appeare,
And a meek nobleman he shines most cleare:
Meeknes the greatest on the earth doth grace,
Encouraging the poore with smiling face.
Since then meek raies you do possesse great Earle,
Keep still those pretious Iewels, that rare pearle,
Excell with meeknes , and let a meek mind,
Raies of true meeknes alwaies to it joyne;
Ever averre that Louthians Earle is kind.