And at night we'd find a town,
Flat-roofed, by a star-strewn sea,
Where the pirate crew came down
To a long-forgotten quay,
And we'd meet them in the gloaming,
Tarry pigtails, back from roaming,
With a pot of pirate ginger for the likes of her and me!
She was small and rather pale,
Grey-eyed, grey as smoke that weaves,
And we'd watch them stowing sail,
Forty most attractive thieves;
Propped against the porphyry column,
She was seven, sweet and solemn,
And she'd hair blue-black as swallows when they flit
beneath the eaves.
On the moonlit sands and bare,
Clamorous, jewelled in the dusk,
There would be an Eastern Fair,
We could smell the mules and musk,
We could see the cressets flaring,
And we'd run to buy a fairing
Where a black man blew a fanfare on a carven ivory tusk;
And we'd stop before the stall
Of a grave green-turbaned khan,
Gem or flower--he kept them all--
Persian cat or yataghan,
And I'd pay a golden guinea
And she'd fill her holland pinny
With white kittens and red roses and blue stones
from Turkestan!
* * * *
London streets have flowers anew,
London shops with gems are set;
When you've none to give them to,
What is pearl or violet?
Vain things both and emptinesses,
So they wait a dream-Princess's
Coming, if she's sweet and solemn with grey eyes
and hair of jet!
P. R. CHALMERS.
Jan. 24, 1912.