XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES

TO E. W. GOSSE

The dust of Carthage and the dust

Of Babel on the desert wold,

The loves of Corinth, and the lust,

Orchomenos increased with gold;

The town of Jason, over-bold,

And Cherson, smitten in her prime —

What are they but a dream half-told?

Where are the cities of old time?

In towns that were a kingdom’s trust,

In dim Atlantic forests’ fold,

The marble wasteth to a crust,

The granite crumbles into mould;

O’er these – left nameless from of old —

As over Shinar’s brick and slime,

One vast forgetfulness is roll’d —

Where are the cities of old time?

The lapse of ages, and the rust,

The fire, the frost, the waters cold,

Efface the evil and the just;

From Thebes, that Eriphyle sold,

To drown’d Caer-Is, whose sweet bells toll’d

Beneath the wave a dreamy chime

That echo’d from the mountain-hold, —

“Where are the cities of old time?”

ENVOY

Prince, all thy towns and cities must

Decay as these, till all their crime,

And mirth, and wealth, and toil are thrust

Where are the cities of old time.

BALLADE OF THE ROYAL GAME OF GOLF

(EAST FIFESHIRE.)

There are laddies will drive ye a ba’

To the burn frae the farthermost tee,

But ye mauna think driving is a’,

Ye may heel her, and send her ajee,

Ye may land in the sand or the sea;

And ye’re dune, sir, ye’re no worth a preen,

Tak’ the word that an auld man ’ll gie,

Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!

The auld folk are crouse, and they craw

That their putting is pawky and slee;

In a bunker they’re nae gude ava’,

But to girn, and to gar the sand flee.

And a lassie can putt – ony she, —

Be she Maggy, or Bessie, or Jean,

But a cleek-shot’s the billy for me,

Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!

I hae play’d in the frost and the thaw,

I hae play’d since the year thirty-three,

I hae play’d in the rain and the snaw,

And I trust I may play till I dee;

And I tell ye the truth and nae lee,

For I speak o’ the thing I hae seen —

Tom Morris, I ken, will agree —

Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!

ENVOY

Prince, faith you’re improving a wee,

And, Lord, man, they tell me you’re keen;

Tak’ the best o’ advice that can be,

Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!

DOUBLE BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN

TO J. A. FARRER

He lived in a cave by the seas,

He lived upon oysters and foes,

But his list of forbidden degrees,

An extensive morality shows;

Geological evidence goes

To prove he had never a pan,

But he shaved with a shell when he chose, —

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.

He worshipp’d the rain and the breeze,

He worshipp’d the river that flows,

And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,

And bogies, and serpents, and crows;

He buried his dead with their toes

Tucked-up, an original plan,

Till their knees came right under their nose, —

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.

His communal wives, at his ease,

He would curb with occasional blows;

Or his State had a queen, like the bees

(As another philosopher trows):

When he spoke, it was never in prose,

But he sang in a strain that would scan,

For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

On the coasts that incessantly freeze,

With his stones, and his bones, and his bows;

On luxuriant tropical leas,

Where the summer eternally glows,

He is found, and his habits disclose

(Let theology say what she can)

That he lived in the long, long agos,

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

From a status like that of the Crees,

Our society’s fabric arose, —

Develop’d, evolved, if you please,

But deluded chronologists chose,

In a fancied accordance with Mos

es, 4000 B.C. for the span

When he rushed on the world and its woes, —

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

But the mild anthropologist, —

he’s

Not

recent

 inclined to suppose

Flints Palæolithic like these,

Quaternary bones such as those!

In Rhinoceros, Mammoth and Co.’s,

First epoch, the Human began,

Theologians all to expose, —

’Tis the

mission

 of Primitive Man.

ENVOY

Max, proudly your Aryans pose,

But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,

For, as every Darwinian knows,

’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!

BALLADE OF AUTUMN

We built a castle in the air,

In summer weather, you and I,

The wind and sun were in your hair, —

Gold hair against a sapphire sky:

When Autumn came, with leaves that fly

Before the storm, across the plain,

You fled from me, with scarce a sigh —

My Love returns no more again!

The windy lights of Autumn flare:

I watch the moonlit sails go by;

I marvel how men toil and fare,

The weary business that they ply!

Their voyaging is vanity,

And fairy gold is all their gain,

And all the winds of winter cry,

“My Love returns no more again!”

Here, in my castle of Despair,

I sit alone with memory;

The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,

To keep the outcast company.

The brooding owl he hoots hard by,

The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane

,

The Rhymer’s soothest prophecy, —

2

2

  Thomas of Ercildoune.

My Love returns no more again!

ENVOY

Lady, my home until I die

Is here, where youth and hope were slain;

They flit, the ghosts of our July,

My Love returns no more again!

BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM

While others are asking for beauty or fame,

Or praying to know that for which they should pray,

Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,

Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,

The sage has found out a more excellent way —

To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,

And his humble petition puts up day by day,

For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.

Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,

And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;

Philosophers kneel to the God without name,

Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;

The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,

The maiden wild roses