AN angler to an angler here,
To one who longed not for the bays,
I bring a little gift and dear,
A line of love, a word of praise,
A common memory of the ways,
By Elibank and Yair that lead;
Of all the burns, from all the braes,
That yield their tribute to the Tweed.
His boyhood found the waters clean,
His age deplored them, foul with dye;
But purple hills, and copses green,
And these old towers he wandered by,
Still to the simple strains reply
Of his pure unrepining reed,
Who lies where he was fain to lie,
Like Scott, within the sound of Tweed.
_The Contented Angler_.
THE Angler hath a jolly life
Who by the rail runs down,
And leaves his business and his wife,
And all the din of town.
The wind down stream is blowing straight,
And nowhere cast can he:
Then lo, he doth but sit and wait
In kindly company.
The miller turns the water off,
Or folk be cutting weed,
While he doth at misfortune scoff,
From every trouble freed.
Or else he waiteth for a rise,
And ne’er a rise may see;
For why, there are not any flies
To bear him company.
Or, if he mark a rising trout,
He straightway is caught up,
And then he takes his flasket out,
And drinks a rousing cup.
Or if a trout he chance to hook,
Weeded and broke is he,
And then he finds a godly book
Instructive company.
_Off My Game_.
“I’M of my game,” the golfer said,
And shook his locks in woe;
“My putter never lays me dead,
My drives will never go;
Howe’er I swing, howe’er I stand,
Results are still the same,
I’m in the burn, I’m in the sand—
I’m off my game!
“Oh, would that such mishaps might fall
On Laidlay or Macfie,
That they might toe or heel the ball,
And sclaff along like me!
Men hurry from me in the street,
And execrate my name,
Old partners shun me when we meet—
I’m off my game!
“Why is it that I play at all?
Let memory remind me
How once I smote upon my ball,
And bunkered it—_behind me_.
I mostly slice into the whins,
And my excuse is lame—
It cannot cover half my sins—
I’m off my game!
“I hate the sight of all my set,
I grow morose as Byron;
I never loved a brassey yet,
And now I hate an iron.
My cleek seems merely made to top,
My putting’s wild or tame;
It’s really time for me to stop—
I’m off my game!”
_The Property of a Gentleman who has given up Collecting_.
OH blessed be the cart that takes
Away my books, my curse, my clog,
Blessed the auctioneer who makes
Their inefficient catalogue.
Blessed the purchasers who pay
However little—less were fit—
Blessed the rooms, the rainy day,
The knock-out and the end of it.
For I am weary of the sport,
That seemed a while agone so sweet,
Of Elzevirs an inch too short,
And First Editions—incomplete.
Weary of crests and coats of arms,
“Attributed to Padeloup”
The sham Deromes have lost their charms,
The things Le Gascon did not do.
I never read the catalogues
Of rubbish that come thick as rooks,
But most I loathe the dreary dogs
That write in prose, or worse, on books.
Large paper surely cannot hide
Their grammar, nor excuse their rhyme,
The anecdotes that they provide
Are older than the dawn of time.
Ye bores, of every shape and size,
Who make a tedium of delight,
Good-bye, the last of my good-byes.
Good night, to all your clan good night!
* * * *
Thus in a sullen fit we swore,
But on mature reflection,
Went on collecting more and more,
And kept our old collection!
_The Ballade of the Subconscious Self_.
WHO suddenly calls to our ken
The knowledge that should not be there;
Who charms Mr. Stead with the pen,
Of the Prince of the Powers of the Air;
Who makes Physiologists stare—
Is he ghost, is he demon, or elf,
Who fashions the dream of the fair?
It is just the Subconscious Self.
He’s the ally of Medicine Men
Who consult the Australian bear,
And ’tis he, with his lights on the fen,
Who helps Jack o’ Lanthorn to snare
The peasants of Devon, who swear
Under Commonwealth, Stuart, or Guelph,
That they never had half such a scare—
It is just the Subconscious Self.
It is he, from his cerebral den,
Who raps upon table and chair,
Who frightens the housemaid, and then
Slinks back, like a thief, to his lair:
’Tis the Brownie (according to Mair)
Who rattles the pots on the shelf,
But the Psychical sages declare
“It is just the Subconscious Self.”
Prince, each of us all is a pair—
The Conscious, who labours for pelf,
And the other, who charmed Mr. Blair,
It is just the Subconscious Self.
_Ballade of the Optimist_.
HEED not the folk who sing or say
In sonnet sad or sermon chill,
“Alas, alack, and well-a-day,
This round world’s but a bitter pill.”
Poor porcupines of fretful quill!
Sometimes we quarrel with our lot:
We, too, are sad and careful; still
We’d rather be alive than not.
What though we wish the cats at play
Would some one else’s garden till;
Though Sophonisba drop the tray
And all our worshipped Worcester spill,
Though neighbours “practise” loud and shrill,
Though May be cold and June be hot,
Though April freeze and August grill,
We’d rather be alive than not.
And, sometimes on a summer’s day
To self and every mortal ill
We give the slip, we steal away,
To walk beside some sedgy rill:
The darkening years, the cares that kill,
A little while are well forgot;
When deep in broom upon the hill,
We’d rather be alive than not.
Pistol, with oaths didst thou fulfil
The task thy braggart tongue begot,
We eat our leek with better will,
We’d rather be alive than not.
_Zimbabwe_.
(The ruined Gold Cities of Rhodesia. The Ophir of Scripture.)
INTO the darkness whence they came,
They passed, their country knoweth none,
They and their gods without a name
Partake the same oblivion.
Their work they did, their work is done,
Whose gold, it may be, shone like fire
About the brows of Solomon,
And in the House of God’s Desire.
Hence came the altar all of gold,
The hinges of the Holy Place,
The censer with the fragrance rolled
Skyward to seek Jehovah’s face;
The golden Ark that did encase
The Law within Jerusalem,
The lilies and the rings to grace
The High Priest’s robe and diadem.
The pestilence, the desert spear,
Smote them; they passed, with none to tell
The names of them who laboured here:
Stark walls and crumbling crucible,
Strait gates, and graves, and ruined well,
Abide, dumb monuments of old,
We know but that men fought and fell,
Like us, like us, for love of Gold.
_Love’s Cryptogram_.
[The author (if he can be so styled) awoke from a restless sleep, with
the first stanza of the following piece in his mind. He has no memory of
composing it, either awake or asleep. He had long known the perhaps
Pythagorean fable of the bean-juice, but certainly never thought of
applying it to an amorous correspondence! The remaining verses are the
contribution of his Conscious Self!]