A portly Wood-louse, full of cares,
Transacted eminent affairs
Along a parapet where pears
Unripened fell
And vines embellished the sweet airs
With muscatel.
Day after day beheld him run
His scales a-twinkle in the sun
About his business never done;
Night’s slender span he
Spent in the home his wealth had won—
A red-brick cranny.
Thus, as his Sense of Right directed,
He lived both honoured and respected,
Cherished his children and protected
His duteous wife,
And nought of diffidence deflected
His useful life.
One mid-day, hastening to his Club,
He spied beside a water-tub
The owner of each plant and shrub
A humble Bard
Who turned upon the conscious grub
A mild regard.
“Eh?” quoth the Wood-louse, “Can it be
A Higher Power looks down to see
My praiseworthy activity
And notes me plying
My Daily Task?—Not strange, dear me,
But gratifying!”
To whom the Bard: “I still divest
My orchard of the Insect Pest,
That you are such is manifest,
Prepare to die.—
And yet, how sweetly does your crest
Reflect the sky!
“Go then forgiven, (for what ails
Your naughty life this fact avails
To pardon) mirror in your scales
Celestial blue,
Till the sun sets and the light fails
The skies and you.”
* * * * *
May all we proud and bustling parties
Whose lot in forum, street and mart is
Stand in conspectu Deitatis
And save our face,
Reflecting where our scaly heart is
Some skyey grace.
“JAM HIEMS TRANSIIT”
When the wind blows without the garden walls
Where from high vantage of the budding boughs
The wanton starling claps his wing and brawls
And finches to their half-erected house
Trail silver straws; when on the sand-pit verges
The young lambs leap, when clouds on sunny tiles
Pass and re-pass, then the young Spring emerges
From Winter’s fingers panoplied with smiles.
So some bright demoiselle but late returning
To her old home with new-acquirèd graces
Learnt in some strait academy and burning
To kindle wonderment in homely faces
Smileth, while she who taught her all her arts,
The dark duenna, with a sigh departs.
“VOX CLAMANTIS”
How late in the wet twilight doth that bird
Prolong his ditty; from what darkling thorn,
Dim elder wand or blackest box unstirred
By drip of rain, is the dear descant borne?
So late it is, two seeming candles shine
Athwart blue panes in the extremest hedge,
Ev’n the child’s bunch of daisies close their eyne
In their horn goblet on the window ledge.
Sad is the night, doth it so smell of spring
And wake such ardours in thy pelted breast?
Aye, thou wert ever one to stay and sing
Of surgent East to the declining West:—
And now thou’rt gone, the last of a bright breed,
Draw-to the curtains, it is night indeed.