Chimneysmoke Part 21

I too have lived remembered hours In Cambridge; heard the summer showers Make music on old _Heffer's_ pane While I was reading Pepys or Taine.

Through _Trumpington_ and _Grantchester_

I used to roll on _Shotover_; At _Hauxton Bridge_ my lamp would light And sleep in _Royston_ for the night.

Or to _Five Miles from Anywhere_ I used to scull; and sit and swear While wasps attacked my bread and jam Those summer evenings on the Cam.

(O crispy English cottage-loaves Baked in ovens, not in stoves!

O white unsalted English b.u.t.ter O satisfaction none can utter!)...

To think that while those joys I knew In Cambridge, I did not know you.

July, 1915.

CASUALTY

A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write: When guns are c.o.c.ked, the shot is guaranteed; The primed occasion puts the deed in sight: Who steals a book who knows not how to read?

Seeing a pulpit, who can silence keep?

A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife?

Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ended life.

A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL

O n.o.ble gracious English tongue Whose fibers we so sadly twist, For caitiff measures he has sung Have pardon on the journalist.

For mumbled meter, leaden pun, For slipshod rhyme, and lazy word, Have pity on this graceless one-- Thy mercy on Thy servant, Lord!

The metaphors and tropes depart, Our little clippings fade and bleach: There is no virtue and no art Save in straightforward Saxon speech.

Yet not in ignorance or spite, Nor with Thy n.o.ble past forgot We sinned: indeed we had to write To keep a fire beneath the pot.

Then grant that in the coming time, With inky hand and polished sleeve, In lucid prose or honest rhyme Some worthy task we may achieve--

Some pinnacled and marbled phrase, Some lyric, breaking like the sea, That we may learn, not hoping praise, The gift of Thy simplicity.

PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A FUNERAL SERVICE: BEING A POEM IN FOUR STANZAS

Say this poor fool misfeatured all his days, And could not mend his ways; And say he trod Most heavily upon the corns of G.o.d.

But also say that in his clabbered brain There was the essential pain-- The idiot's vow To tell his troubled Truth, no matter how.

Unhappy fool, you say, with pitiful air: Who was he, then, and where?

Ah, you divine He lives in your heart, as he lives in mine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: To bed]