TO A FRIEND

WHO DEPLORED THE BRIEF LIFE OF LITERARY

PERSONALITY

T is most true-and most untrue!

IT

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.

* Finissons.

THE LAST PROOF

AN EPILOGUE TO ANY BOOK

Mais demain, Muse, à recommencer.' "BOILEAU.

"FINIS 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 6 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.