Upon the old black guns
The old black raven hops;
We gave him bits of buns
And cakes and acid-drops;
He's wise, and his way's devout,
But he croaks and he flaps his wings
(And the flood runs out and the sergeants shout)
For the first and the last of things;
He croaks to Robinson, Brown, and Jones,
The song of the ravens, "_Dead Men's Bones!_"
For into the lifting dark
And a drizzle of clearing rain,
His sire flapped out of the Ark
And never came back again;
So I always fancy that,
Ere the frail lost blue showed thin,
Alone he sat upon Ararat
To see a new world in,
And yelped to the void from a cairn of stones
The song of the ravens, "_Dead Men's Bones!_"
When the last of mankind lie slain
On Armageddon's field,
When the last red west has ta'en
The last day's flaming shield,
There shall sit when the shadows run
(D'you doubt, good Sirs, d'you doubt?)
His last rogue son on an empty gun
To see an old world out;
And he'll croak (as to Robinson, Brown and Jones)
The song of the ravens, "_Dead Men's Bones!_"
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LIBERAL CAVE-MEN; OR, A HOLT FROM THE BLUE.
HARASSED CHANCELLOR. "IT'S NOT SO MUCH FOR MY FEET THAT I
MIND--THEY'RE HARDENED AGAINST THIS KIND OF THING; BUT I DO HATE ROCKS
ON MY HEAD."]
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE MARCH OF CIVILISATION IN IRELAND.
_Tim._ "WELL, PATSY, ARE YE AFTHER BUILDING AN ADDITION TO YER
HOUSE?"
_Patsy._ "SHURE AND THE HINS LIKES A PLACE TO THIMSILVES."]
* * * * *
TEMPERING THE WIND;
OR, THE INDEMNIFICATION OF ANTONIO.
[_In the Census returns for 1911, recently published, organ-grinders
are no longer counted as musicians._]
When buffets from the frowning Fates demoralise,
And all the spirit yearns for honeyed death;
When limply on the harper's brow the laurel lies
And something in his bosom deeply saith,
"N.G. I give it up! Behold! misshapen is
The bowler that surmounts my glorious mane;
Life is all kicks without the boon of halfpennies;
The rates are here again;"----
'Tis sweet, 'tis very sweet to gaze at Helicon
And think, "On me the sacred fire has dropped,
The lute, at any rate, still hangs, a relic, on
This diaphragm, although the shirt is popped;"
And so it was, I ween, with your position,
Ansonia's sunny child, from house to house
Aye wandering: still you ranked as a musician,
The same as Dr. STRAUSS.
People were rude to you: they said, "Be gibbetted!"
In many a ruthless road your cheek grew wan
Where hawkers and street-music were prohibited
And stout policemen urged you to get on;
Yet still that stubborn heart, the heart of CATO'S kin,
Stayed you, and still the gleam that cannot die,
Though every now and then an old potato skin
Did welt you in the eye.
Tattered and soiled, an exile and an alien,
Somehow you touched the Cockney nymphs with awe;
You lit the cold clay statue, like Pygmalion,
To blood-red raptures; you were sib to SHAW;
Others might hale the town in cushioned chariots
To see them dance or daub, to hear them strum;
You also had your moments: jigging Harriets
Joyed in your simian chum.
And how shall these things change? Shall childish galleries
That deemed you once Apollo's minister,
Say, "Garn, old monkey!" Shall colossal salaries
Reward the Muse and not the dulcimer?
Not gleaming eyeballs, not the soul illuminate?
Shall old faiths falter and Antonio's heart
Sicken the while he churns, and chilly ruminate,
"This is no longer Art"?
So be it then. But lest the slight unparalleled
Shall cause extinction of a breed so stout,
And scatter to the winds what tags his barrel held
And doom him to go under and get out;
Lest he despair and pine from this now streak of ills,
Not ranked with virtuosi's shining shapes,
Let him he classed anew amongst Pithekophils,
An amateur of Apes.