Ban and Arriere Ban [12]
Profound detective deeds to do,
And that repose was mean.
Now there was nothing to detect
Pomona Road along -
None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib,
Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,--
Minds cultivated and select
Slip rarely into wrong!
Thus bored to desolation went
The Peeler on his beat;
He know not Love, he did not care,
If Love be born on mountains bare;
Nay, crime to punish, or prevent,
Was more than dalliance sweet!
The weary wanderer, day by day,
Was marked by Howard Fry -
A neighbouring philanthropist,
Who saw what that Policeman missed -
A sympathetic 'Well-a-day'
He'd moan, and pipe his eye.
'What CAN I do,' asked Howard Fry,
'To soothe that brother's pain?
His glance when first we met was keen,
Most martial and erect his mien'
(What mien may mean, I know not I)
'But HE must joy again.'
'I'll start on a career of crime,
I will,' said Howard Fry -
He spake and acted! Deeds of bale
(With which I do not stain my tale)
He wrought like mad time after time,
Yet wrought them blushfully.
And now when 'buses night by night
Were stopped, conductors slain,
When youths and men, and maids unwed,
Were stabbed or knocked upon the head,
Then B. 13 grew sternly bright,
And was himself again!
Pomona Road and Gardens, N.,
Are now a name of fear.
Commercial travellers flee in haste,
Revolvers girt about the waist
Are worn by city gentlemen
Who have their mansions near.
But B. 13 elated goes,
Detection in his eye;
While Howard Fry does deeds of bale
(With which I do not stain my tale)
To lighten that Policeman's woes,
But does them blushfully.
MORAL
Such is Philanthropy, my friends,
Too often such her plan,
She shoots, and stabs, and robs, and flings
Bombs, and all sorts of horrid things.
Ah, not to serve her private ends,
But for the good of Man!
IN ERCILDOUNE
In light of sunrise and sunsetting,
The long days lingered, in forgetting
That ever passion, keen to hold
What may not tarry, was of old
Beyond the doubtful stream whose flood
Runs red waist-high with slain men's blood.
Was beauty once a thing that died?
Was pleasure never satisfied?
Was rest still broken by the vain
Desire of action, bringing pain,
To die in vapid rest again?
All this was quite forgotten, there
No winter brought us cold and care,
Nor spring gave promise unfulfilled,
Nor, with the heavy summer killed,
The languid days droop autumnwards.
So magical a season guards
The constant prime of a green June.
So slumbrous is the river's tune,
That knows no thunder of rushing rains,
Nor ever in the summer wanes,
Like waters of the summer-time
In lands far from the fairy clime.
Alas! no words can bring the bloom
Of Fairyland, the lost perfume.
The sweet low light, the magic air,
To minds of who have not been there:
Alas! no words, nor any spell
Can lull the heart that knows too well
The towers that by the river stand,
The lost fair world of Fairyland.
Ah, would that I had never been
The lover of the Fairy Queen.
Or would that I again might be
Asleep below the Eildon Tree,
And see her ride the forest way
As on that morning of the May!
Or would that through the little town,
The grey old place of Ercildoune,
And all along the sleepy street
The soft fall of the white deer's feet
Came, with the mystical command,
That I must back to Fairy Land!
FOR A ROSE'S SAKE--FRENCH FOLK-SONG
I laved my hands
By the water-side,
With willow leaves
My hands I dried.
The nightingale sang
On the bough of a tree,
Sing, sweet nightingale,
It is well with thee.
Thou hast heart's delight,
I have sad heart's sorrow,
For a false false maid
That will wed to-morrow.
It is all for a rose
That I gave her not,
And I would that it grew
In the garden plot,
And I would the rose-tree
Were still to set,
That my love Marie
Might love me yet!
THE BRIGAND'S GRAVE--MODERN GREEK
The moon came up above the hill,
The sun went down the sea,
'Go, maids, and draw the well-water,
But, lad, come here to me.
Gird on my jack,