TO AN UNKNOWN BUST IN THE

WHO

BRITISH MUSEUM

"Sermons in stones,"

HO were you once? Could we but guess,
We might perchance more boldly

Define the patient weariness

That sets your lips so coldly;

You "lived," we know, for blame and fame;
But sure, to friend or foeman,

You bore some more distinctive name

Than mere "B. C.," and "Roman"?

Your pedestal should help us much.
Thereon your acts, your title,
(Secure from cold Oblivion's touch!)
Had doubtless due recital;

Vain hope!-not even deeds can last!

That stone, of which you're minus, Maybe with all your virtues past Endows . . . a TIGELLINUS!

We seek it not; we should not find.
But still, it needs no magic

To tell you wore, like most mankind,
Your comic mask and tragic;

And held that things were false and true,
Felt angry or forgiving,
As step by step you stumbled through
This life-long task . . . of living!

You tried the cul-de-sac of Thought;
The montagne Russe of Pleasure;
You found the best Ambition brought
Was strangely short of measure;
You watched, at last, the fleet days fly,
Till-drowsier and colder-
You felt MERCURIUS loitering by

To touch you on the shoulder.

'Twas then (why not?) the whim would come That howso Time should garble

Those deeds of yours when you were dumb,

At least you'd live-in Marble; You smiled to think that after days, At least, in Bust or Statue,

(We all have sick-bed dreams!) would gaze, Not quite incurious, at you.

We gaze; we pity you, be sure !
In truth, Death's worst inaction
Must be less tedious to endure

Than nameless petrifaction;
Far better, in some nook unknown,

To sleep for once-and soundly-
Than still survive in wistful stone,

Forgotten more profoundly!

MOLLY TREFUSIS

"Now the Graces are four and the Venuses tro,
And ten is the number of Muses;

For a Muse and a Grace and a Venus are you,-
My dear little Molly Trefusis!"

So he wrote, the old bard of an "old Magazine":

As a study it not without use is,

If we wonder a moment who she may have been, This same "little Molly Trefusis!"

She was Cornish. We know that at once by the "Tre";

Then of guessing it scarce an abuse is

If we say that where Bude bellows back to the sea Was the birthplace of Molly Trefusis.

And she lived in the era of patches and bows,
Not knowing what rouge or ceruse is;
For they needed (I trust) but her natural rose,
The lilies of Molly Trefusis.

And I somehow connect her (I frankly admit
That the evidence hard to produce is)

With BATH in its hey-day of Fashion and Wit,-
This dangerous Molly Trefusis.

I fancy her, radiant in ribbon and knot,

(How charming that old-fashioned puce is!) All blooming in laces, fal-lals, and what not, At the PUMP ROOM,-Miss Molly Trefusis.

I fancy her reigning,-a Beauty,-a Toast,-
Where BLADUD's medicinal cruse is;

And we know that at least of one Bard it could boast,

The Court of Queen Molly Trefusis.

He says she was "VENUS." I doubt it. Beside, (Your rhymer so hopelessly loose is!)

His "little" could scarce be to Venus applied,
If fitly to Molly Trefusis.

No, no. It was HEBE he had in his mind;
And fresh as the handmaid of Zeus is,

And rosy, and rounded, and dimpled-you'll find-
Was certainly Molly Trefusis!

Then he calls her "a MUSE." To the charge I reply

That we all of us know what a Muse is;

It is something too awful,-too acid,—too dry,― For sunny-eyed Molly Trefusis.

But "a GRACE."

right;

There I grant he was probably

(The rest but a verse-making ruse is)

It was all that was graceful,-intangible,-light,The beauty of Molly Trefusis!

Was she wooed? Who can hesitate much about

that

Assuredly more than obtuse is;

For how could the poet have written so pat "My dear little Molly Trefusis! "

And was wed? That I think we must plainly infer,

Since of suitors the common excuse is

To take to them Wives. So it happened to her, Of course," little Molly Trefusis!"

To the Bard? 'Tis unlikely. Apollo, you see, In practical matters a goose is ;

"Twas a Knight of the Shire, and a hunting J.P., Who carried off Molly Trefusis!

And you'll find, I conclude, in the "Gentleman's Mag.,"

At the end, where the pick of the news is, "On the (blank), at the Bath,' to Sir Hilary

Bragg,

With a Fortune, MISS MOLLY TREFUSIS."

Thereupon... But no farther the student may pry
Love's temple is dark as Eleusis;

So here, at the threshold we part, you and I,
From "dear little Molly Trefusis."