TO A FRIEND

WHO DEPLORED THE BRIEF LIFE OF LITERARY

PERSONALITY

IT is most true and most untrue!

Though all should die of Me and You

And all of later men who press

This weary ball, 'tis like, no less,

That our stray thistle-down of thought

Claimed of some winnowing breeze, and brought To some safe seeding-place, may lie

Securely there, and fructify;

And in a world still out of joint—
May serve some bard for starting-point
Of some yet larger utterance whence
New bards shall borrow, aeons hence.

What skills it then, though We be done:
Our thought is living-and lives on!

1907.

A PROEM

(To Mr. Arthur Rackham's edition of Alice in Wonderland.)

'IS two-score years since Carroll's art,

'TIS

With topsy-turvy magic,

Sent Alice wandering through a part

Half-comic and half-tragic.

Enchanting Alice!

Black-and-white

Has made your charm perennial;

And nought save "Chaos and old Night"
Can part you now from Tenniel;

But still you are a Type, and based
In Truth, like Lear and Hamlet;
And Types may be re-draped to taste
In cloth of gold or camlet.

Here comes a fresh Costumier then;
That Taste may gain a wrinkle
From him who drew with such deft pen
The rags of Rip van Winkle.

1907.

THE LAST PROOF

AN EPILOGUE TO ANY BOOK

Finissons. Mais demain, Muse, à recommencer."-BOILEAU.

"FINIS

INIS at last-the end, the End, the END! No more of paragraphs to prune or mend; No more blue pencil, with its ruthless line, To blot the phrase 'particularly fine';

No more of slips,' and 'galleys,' and 'revises,'
Of words 'transmogrified,' and 'wild surmises';
No more of n's that masquerade as u's,
No nice perplexities of p's and q's;
No more mishaps of ante and of post,

That most mislead when they should help the most; No more of 'friend' as 'fiend,' and 'warm' as 'worm';

No more negations where we would affirm;
No more of those mysterious freaks of fate
That make us bless when we should execrate;
No more of those last blunders that remain
Where we no more can set them right again:
No more apologies for doubtful data;
No more fresh facts that figure as Errata;
No more, in short, O TYPE, of wayward lore
From thy most un-Pierian fount-NO MORE!"

So spoke PAPYRIUS. Yet his hand meanwhile
Went vaguely seeking for the vacant file,
Late stored with long array of notes, but now
Bare-wired and barren as a leafless bough ;-
And even as he spoke, his mind began
Again to scheme, to purpose and to plan.

There is no end to Labour 'neath the sun;
There is no end of labouring-but One;

And though we " twitch [or not] our Mantle blue," "To-morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new."

1907.

AN EPITAPH

(FOR A PARISH MAGAZINE)

"On n'y lit aucun nom."-V. HUGO.

HERE sleeps, at last, in narrow bed,

A man of whom, whate'er is spoken,

This may with certainty be said
His promises were never broken.

He boasted no high-sounding name,
Or graced with academic letters;
He paid his way though, all the same,
And-more than once-forgave his debtors.

He never joined the cry of those

Who prate about the Public Morals;

But reconciled some private foes,

And patched up sundry standing quarrels.

It never came within his plan

To "demonstrate" on Want or Labour;

He strove to serve his fellow-man,

And did his best to love his neighbour.