Well, my advice to you is, Face the crea

tures,

Or spot them sideways with your weather

eye,

Just to keep tab on their expansive features;

It isn't pleasant when you're stepping high To catch a giraffe smiling on the sly.

If nature made you graceful, don't get gay

Back-to before the hippopotamus;

If meek and godly, find some place to play Besides right where three mad hyenas fuss:

You may hear language that we won't discuss. 130

If you're a sweet thing in a flower-bed hat, Or her best fellow with your tie tucked in, Don't squander love's bright springtime girding at

An old chimpanzee with an Irish chin: There may be hidden meaning in his grin. (1901)

SEA FEVER *

JOHN MASEFIELD

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

KEW IN LILAC-TIME

ALFRED NOYES

[One of the lyrics supposed to be heard by the poet in the music of a street-piano in London; from a long poem called "The Barrel-Organ."]

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac

time, in lilac-time;

Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)

And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;

Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!).

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume, The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!),

And there, they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky, The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The Dorian nightingale is rare and yet they say you'll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!),

10

The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo

And golden-eyed tu-whit, tu-whoo of owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard

At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!).

And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London :

When the censers of the roses o'er the forest-aisles are shaken,

Is it but the wind that cometh o'er the far green hill?

For they say 'tis but the sunset winds that wander through the heather,

Rustle all the meadow-grass and bend the dewy fern;

They say 'tis but the winds that bow the reeds in prayer together,

And fill the shaken pools with fire along the shadowy burn,

In the beauty of the twilight, in the Garden that He loveth,

ΙΟ

They have veiled His lovely vesture with the darkness of a name! Thro' His Garden, thro' His Garden it is but the wind that moveth,

No more; but O, the miracle, the miracle is the same!

In the cool of the evening, when the sky is an old story

Slowly dying, but remembered, ay, and loved with passion still,

Hush! . . the fringes of His garment, in the fading golden glory,

Softly rustling as He cometh o'er the far green hill.

(1907)

SOMETIMES*

THOMAS S. JONES, JR.
Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play-
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,

I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.

(1907)

TO A GREEK BOOTBLACK†
O. W. FIRKINS

In a dusk and scant retreat,
Fronting on the noisy street,
Six lads, quick of hands and feet,
Ply a trade for song unmeet,

In the passer's careless view:

* Reprinted from "The Rose-Jar," published by Thomas Bird Mosher, by special permission of the author.

Reprinted by special permission from the author and The Atlantic Monthly.

Who taught me to strike, and to fall, dear fighter,

And gathered me up in his boyhood arms;

Taught me the rifle, and with me went riding,

Suppled my limbs to the horseman's war;

Where is he now, for whom my heart's biding,

Biding, biding-but he rides far!

O love that passes the love of woman! Who that hath felt it shall ever forget, When the breath of life with a throb turns human,

And a lad's heart is to a lad's heart set? Ever, forever, lover and rover

21

They shall cling, nor each from other

shall part

Till the reign of the stars in the heavens

Where the ghost of winter fled Swift I followed with the snow, Like a silver arrow sped

From a bow.

I have trailed the summer south Like a flash of burnished gold, When she fled the hungry mouth Of the cold.

(1910)

THE UNCONQUERED AIR*
FLORENCE EARLE COATES
I

(1906)

30

40

Others endure Man's rule: he therefore deems

I shall endure it-I, the unconquered Air! Imagines this triumphant strength may bear

His paltry sway! yea, ignorantly dreams, Because proud Rhea1 now his vassal

seems,

And Neptune2 him obeys in billowy lair, That he a more sublime assault may dare, Where blown by tempest wild the vulture screams!

Presumptuous, he mounts: I toss his bones

Back from the height supernal he has braved:

ΙΟ

Ay, as his vessel nears my perilous zones,
I blow the cockle-shell away like chaff
And give him to the Sea he has enslaved.
He founders in its depths; and then I
laugh!

I Rhea. A goddess of earth.
Neptune. The sea-god.

Reprinted by special permission from the

author.