Classic Poem

ENLARGES UPON IT IN SEVERAL OF HIS MANNERS AND INTERPOLATES A LYRIC

I

This is the tale:
Friend, you shall know the right and the wrong of it.
Listen, before old Sirius grows pale
And the tang leaves the ale—
For, saith the poet, all things have an end,
Even beauty must fail,
The rapture and song of it.
Here, to be brief, is the short and the long of it—
Listen, my friend.
II

Virtue, I hold, is the raiment to travel in.
Fuscus, my friend, if you're swaddled in virtue,
Never a spear-head, a sword or a javelin,
No, not an arrow that's poisoned can hurt you.
Virtue is more than a shield or a stirrup;
Virtue's the charm—it will shock sloth and rasp ease,
Even in lands where the lazy Hydaspes
Ambles along like a curious syrup;
Aye, and in climes where the voice is as raucous as
Winds in the barren and harborless Caucasus.
Fuscus, the man who is guiltless is fearless;
He's of the chosen, the purple, the peerless—
What does he care for a frown more, a cheer less?
Bearing the falchion of Truth—
But I bore you.
Plague take all pedantry. Learning, what stuff is it …
Weighty and erudite preambles— Sufficit!
Here, you shall have only facts set before you,
Told in my harsh but imperative accents.
(Music in which the musician must pack sense
Cannot be sensuous with every syllable)
But—here's the tale, though as teller I'm ill able
(Would I were worthy!) to render the glories
Of my adventure—how goes it? … O mores!
I tell it in rhyme like an intricate minuet
To caution the soul that, I warrant, is in you yet;
Didactic with hoping—why should I deny it—
You'll guess at the moral and, what's more, apply it!
III

One day I went wandering casually;
The sky was a deep lapis lazuli ;
The poplars were rustling with merriment,
As half in a burst, half experiment,
I sang, without fear or apology,
Of honor, of love—and of Lalage.
And yet, 'neath the ballad's urbanity
Was an echo of Life and its vanity.
The fabric of living, how sheer it is,
How fragile … The song—eh? Well, here it is.
IV

What's love that you should ask
?How long Life's sands will run—
See how the butterflies bask
?On the crocus lips i' the sun.
Theirs is no mighty task …
?And yet who'ld say ill-done?
The years glide swiftly by.
?How swiftly, no one knows;
The drainers and dancers will lie
?I' the long, stark night 'neath the snows.
The clay outlives the cry;
?The thorn survives the rose.
Love, even as we stay,
?Age subtly strokes thy cheek.
Let us snatch Time's sleeve while we may,
?Ere the heart with the hand grows weak.
Come, let us live to-day—
?What's life but loving … Speak!
V

Well, as I sang, thinking no whit of harm,
I walked along, when … zooks, before me sprang
A wolf, a monster with a head like Death's,
As—how d'ye call—Apulia does not rear,
Or Juba, land that's nursing-mother to lions,
Never gave birth to. How my heart flew up!
Gr-r-r-r he stood growling in my very path.
Flesh and blood—that's all I'm made of, friend.
What to do? Fly at his face? Turn tail
And run as fast as legs could carry me?
Thus, craving your pardon, sir, might you have done.
Not I … My mind was set, my conscience clear;
I faltered not and kept on with my song.
With that the beast retreats, gives way, runs off—
And I am left alone, unscratched, unscathed;
A victor without arms, a conqueror without strife.
(There's thought for you in this, and moral too.)
And so all's right with me, and so I go
Singing of Lalage in every place—
Spring, summer, winter, autumn—what's the odds;
Lalage, her sweet prattle, sweeter laughter …
Believe it, Fuscus, to the righteous man
There's no hurt in this world but love and song
Can draw the sting and leave all sound again.
Now, let us understand the matter, sift the thing.
Here, in a nutshell, is the crux of it:
Old Euclid teaches—ha! d'ye note the dawn!—
That—What? Must you be going?
Well, good-night …