PEPYS' DIARY

(TO ONE WHO ASKED WHY HE WROTE IT)

ask

me what was his intent?

In truth I'm not a German ;—

'Tis plain though that he neither meant

A Lecture nor a Sermon.

But there it is, the thing's a Fact.

I find no other reason

But that some scribbling itch attacked
Him in and out of season,

To write what no one else should read,-
With this for second meaning,
To "cleanse his bosom " (and indeed
It sometimes wanted cleaning);

To speak, as 'twere, his private mind
Unhindered by repression,

To make his motley life a kind

Of Midas' ears confession;

And thus outgrew this work per se,—
This queer, kaleidoscopic,
Delightful, blabbing, vivid, free
Hotch-pot of daily topic,

So artless in its vanity,

So fleeting, so eternal,

So packed with "poor Humanity "We know as Pepys his Journal.

1905.

THE SIMPLE LIFE

WF

"And 'a babbled of green fields."

-SHAKESPEARE-cum-Theobald,

HEN the starlings dot the lawn,
Cheerily we rise at dawn;

Cheerily, with blameless cup,

Greet the wise world waking up ;—
Ah, they little know of this,-
They of Megalopolis!

Comes the long, still morning when
Work we ply with book and pen;
Then, the pure air in our lungs,—
Then "persuasion tips our tongues";
Then we write as would, I wis,
Men in Megalopolis!

Next (and not a stroke too soon!)
PHYLLIS spreads the meal of noon,
Simple, frugal, choicely clean,
Gastronomically mean;-

Appetite our entrée is,

Far from Megalopolis!

Salad in our garden grown,

Endive, beetroot,—all our own;

Bread,

we saw it made and how;

Milk and cream,- we know the cow; Nothing here of "Force" or "Vis" As at Megalopolis!

After, surely, there should be,
Somewhere, seats beneath a tree,
Where we 'twixt the curling rings-
Dream of transitory things;

Chiefly of what people miss
Drowsed in Megalopolis!

Then, before the sunlight wanes,
Comes the lounge along the lanes;
Comes the rocking shallop tied
By the reedy river-side ;-
Clearer waves the light keel kiss
Than by Megalopolis!

So we speed the golden hours
In this Hermitage of ours
(Hermits we are not, believe!
Every Adam has his Eve,
Loved with a serener bliss
Than in Megalopolis):-

So until the shadows fall:

Then Good Night say each and all;
Sleep secure from smoke and din,
Quiet Conscience tucks us in;
Ah, they nothing know of this,-
They of Megalopolis!

(Thus URBANUS to his Wife Babbled of The Simple Life. Then his glances unawares Lighting on a List of Shares— Gulping all his breakfast down, Bustled, by the Train, to Town.)

1905.