VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE MENU OF THE OMAR KHAYYÁM CLUB

APRIL 22, 1910

OOSES and Wine your OMAR brings, Yet o'er the Cup, a Moment-Space, Peers into Naught with wistful Face, As One who views but bygone Things.

Not so with Us. Our larger Scope

Looks backward through the Past to see Not what has been, but what may beWe drink, not Memory, but Hope.

1910.

LA BONNE COMÉDIE

"Les Précieuses Ridicules' allèrent aux nues dès le premier jour. Un vieillard s'écria du milieu du parterre: Courage, Molière!' voilà de la bonne comédie!" (Notice sur Molière.)

RUE Comedy circum praecordia ludit—

TRU

It warms the heart's cockles. 'Twas thus
that he viewed it,

That simple old Critic, who smote on his knee,
And named it no more than he knew it to be.

"True Comedy ! " Ah! there is this thing. about it,

If it makes the House merry, you never need doubt it:

It lashes the vicious; it laughs at the fool;

And it brings all the prigs and pretenders to school.

To the poor it is kind; to the plain it is gentle;
It is neither too tragic nor too sentimental;
Its thrust, like a rapier's, though cutting, is clean,
And it pricks Affectation all over the scene.

Its rules are the rules ARISTOTLE has taught us;
Its ways have not altered since TERENCE and
PLAUTUS;

Its mission is neither to praise nor to blame;
Its weapon is Ridicule; Folly, its game.

It clears out the cobwebs; it freshens the air; And it treads in the steps of its Master, MOLIÈRE !

1910.

IN MEMORIAM

(FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1910)

"Extinctus amabitur idem.”

Hor. Epist., II. i, 14.

HE that was King an hour ago

Is King no more; and we that bend Beside the bier, too surely know We lose a Friend.

His was no "blood-and-iron ❞ blend

To write in tears a ruthless reign;
Rather he strove to make an end
Of strife and pain.

Rather he strove to heal again

The half-healed wound, to hide the scar, To purge away the lingering stain Of racial war.

Thus, though no trophies deck his car
Of captured guns or banners torn,
Men hailed him as they hail a star
That comes with morn:

A star of brotherhood, not scorn,
A morn of loosing and release-
A fruitful time of oil and corn-
An Age of Peace!

Sleep then, O Dead beloved! and sleep
As one who, when his course is run,
May yet, in slumber, memory keep
Of duty done;

Sleep then, our England's King, as one Who knows the lofty aim and pure, Beyond all din of battles won,

Must still endure.

1910.