THE
gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours -- on the wall --
Are drawing a long breath to shout 'Hurray!'
The strangest whim has seized me . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself today.
Tomorrow
is the time I get my pay --
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall --
I see a little cloud all pink and grey --
Perhaps the Rector's mother will not call --
I fancy that I heard from Mr Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way --
I never read the works of Juvenal --
I think I will not hang myself today.
The
world will have another washing day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall;
Rationalists are growing rational --
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray,
So secret that the very sky seems small --
I think I will not hang myself today.
Envoi
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even today your royal head may fall --
I think I will not hang myself today.
--G. K. Chesterton
Somtyme the world was so stedfast and stable
That mannes word was obligacioun,
And now it is so fals and deceivable
That word and deed, as in conclusioun,
Ben nothing lyk, for turned up-so-doun
Is al this world for mede and wilfulnesse,
That al is lost for lak of stedfastnesse.
What maketh this world to be so variable
But lust that folk have in dissensioun?
For among us now a man is holde unable,
But if he can by som collusioun
Don his neighbour wrong or oppressioun.
What causeth this but wilful wrecchednesse,
That al is lost for lak of stedfastnesse?
Trouthe is put doun, resoun is holden fable,
Vertu hath now no dominacioun;
Pitee exyled, no man is merciable.
Through covetyse is blent discrecioun.
The world hath mad a permutacioun
Fro right to wrong, fro trouthe to fikelnesse,
That al is lost for lak of stedfastnesse.
O prince, desyre to be honourable,
Cherish thy folk and hate extorcioun.
Suffre nothing that may be reprevable
To thyn estat don in thy regioun.
Shew forth thy swerd of castigacioun,
Dred God, do law, love trouthe and worthinesse,
And wed thy folk agein to stedfastnesse.
--Geoffrey Chaucer
WHERE
are the passions they essayed,
And where the tears they made to flow?
Where the wild humours they portrayed
For laughing worlds to see and know?
Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe?
Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall?
And Millamant and Romeo?
Into the night go one and all.
Where
are the braveries, fresh or frayed?
The plumes, the armours--friend or foe?
The cloth of gold, the rare brocade,
The mantles glittering to and fro?
The pomp, the pride, the royal show?
The cries of war and festival?
The youth, the grace, the charm, the glow?
Into the night go one and all.
The
curtain falls, the play is played:
The Beggar packs beside the Beau;
The Monarch troops, and troops the Maid;
The Thunder huddles with the Snow.
Where are the revellers high and low?
The clashing swords? The lover's call?
The dancers gleaming row on row?
Into the night go one and all.
Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrow
The Hero tumbles with the Thrall:
As dust that drives, as straws that blow,
Into the night go one and all.
-- William Ernest Henley
From the French of FRANCOIS VILLON
Tell
me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere--
She whose beauty was more than human?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Where's
Heloise, the learned nun,
For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
(From Love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
Who willed that Buridan should steer
Sewed in a sack's mouth down the Seine?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
White
Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies,
With a voice like any mermaiden--
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
And Ermengarde the lady of Maine--
And that good Joan whom Englishmen
At Rouen doomed and burned her there--
Mother of God, where are they then?--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
Nay,
never ask this week, fair lord,
Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword--
But where are the snows of yester-year?
--Dante Gabriel Rossetti
A parliament of mice, they say,
Assembled, glorious to behold,
Considering how to do away
With cats, their enemies of old,
How cats might finally be controlled
To put an end to the ancient spat;
A logical mouse at once made bold:
"Which of us will bell the cat?"
The question seemed resolved: straightway
They took their leave, greatly consoled.
But a flatland mouse that came that way
Wanted to chat, and buttonholed
Each one: "What's up?" The plans unfold:
With a bell to tell where he was at
They'd have the foe in a stranglehold:
"Which of us will bell the cat?
--Ay, there's the rub," said a rat in gray.
The mouse, with wisdom manifold,
Kept asking who would save the day.
The response to this was rather cold;
They all backed off, not overbold:
Their enterprise, of course, fell flat.
Big talk, but then when all is told,
Which of us will bell the cat?
Envoi
Prince, advice comes thousandfold,
But one might say, like that gray rat,
Of counsels no one dares uphold:
"Which of us will bell the cat?"
--Eustache Deschamps, trans. H. T. Kirby-Smith