The Lord of Misrule, and Other Poems Part 2

He rolled it up like a crimson cloth, And crammed it into his hold.

His masts were Lebanon cedars, His sheets were singing blue, But that was never the reason why He stuffed his hold with the sunset sky!

The kings could cut their cedars, And sail from Ophir, too; But Salomon packed his heart with dreams And all the dreams were true.

_Chorus_: The kings could cut their cedars, Cut their Lebanon cedars; But Salomon packed his heart with dreams, And all the dreams were true.

When Salomon sailed from Ophir, He sailed not as a king.

The kings--they weltered to and fro, Tossed wherever the winds could blow; But Salomon's tawny seamen Could lift their heads and sing, Till all their crowded clouds of sail Grew sweeter than the Spring.

_Chorus_: Their singing sheets grew sweeter, Their crowded clouds grew sweeter, For Salomon's tawny seamen, sirs, Could lift their heads and sing:

When Salomon sailed from Ophir With crimson sails so tall, The kings went up, the kings went down, Trying to match King Salomon's crown; But Salomon brought the sunset To hang on his Temple wall; He rolled it up like a crimson cloth, So his was better than all.

_Chorus_: Salomon gat the sunset, Salomon gat the sunset; He carried it like a crimson cloth To hang on his Temple wall.

BLIND MOONE OF LONDON

Blind Moone of London He fiddled up and down, Thrice for an angel, And twice for a crown.

He fiddled at the _Green Man_, He fiddled at the _Rose_; And where they have buried him Not a soul knows.

All his tunes are dead and gone, dead as yesterday.

And his lanthorn flits no more Round the _Devil Tavern_ door, Waiting till the gallants come, singing from the play; Waiting in the wet and cold!

All his Whitsun tales are told.

He is dead and gone, sirs, very far away.

He would not give a silver groat For good or evil weather.

He carried in his white cap A long red feather.

He wore a long coat Of the Reading-tawny kind, And darned white hosen With a blue patch behind.

So--one night--he shuffled past, in his buckled shoon.

We shall never see his face, Twisted to that queer grimace, Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune; Very whimsical and white, Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night!

He is grown too proud at last--old blind Moone.

Yet, when May was at the door, And Moone was wont to sing, Many a maid and bachelor Whirled into the ring: Standing on a tilted wain He played so sweet and loud The Mayor forgot his golden chain And jigged it with the crowd.

Old blind Moone, his fiddle scattered flowers along the street; Into the dust of Brookfield Fair Carried a shining primrose air, Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet, Drew us close, and held us bound, Then--to the tune of _Pedlar's Pound_, Caught us up, and whirled us round, a thousand frolic feet.

Master Shakespeare was his host.

The tribe of Benjamin Used to call him Merlin's Ghost At the _Mermaid Inn_.

He was only a crowder, Fiddling at the door.

Death has made him prouder.

We shall not see him more.

Only--if you listen, please--through the master's themes, You shall hear a wizard strain, Blind and bright as wind and rain Shaken out of willow-trees, and shot with elfin gleams.

_How should I your true love know?_ Sc.r.a.ps and s.n.a.t.c.hes--even so!

That is old blind Moone again, fiddling in your dreams.

Once, when Will had called for sack And bidden him up and play, Old blind Moone, he turned his back, Growled, and walked away, Sailed into a thunder-cloud, Snapped his fiddle-string, And hobbled from _The Mermaid_ Sulky as a king.

Only from the darkness now, steals the strain we knew: No one even knows his grave!

Only here and there a stave, Out of all his hedge-row flock, be-drips the may with dew.

And I know not what wild bird Carried us his parting word:-- _Master Shakespeare needn't take the crowder's fiddle, too._

Will has wealth and wealth to spare.

Give him back his own.

_At his head a gra.s.s-green turf, At his heels a stone._ See his little lanthorn-spark.

Hear his ghostly tune, Glimmering past you, in the dark, Old blind Moone!

All the little crazy brooks, where love and sorrow run Crowned with sedge and singing wild, Like a sky-lark--or a child!-- Old blind Moone, he knew their springs, and played 'em every one; Stood there, in the darkness, blind, And sang them into Shakespeare's mind....

Old blind Moone of London, O now his songs are done, The light upon his lost white face, they say it was the sun!

The light upon his poor old face, they say it was the sun!

OLD GREY SQUIRREL

A great while ago, there was a school-boy.

He lived in a cottage by the sea.

And the very first thing he could remember Was the rigging of the schooners by the quay.

He could watch them, when he woke, from his window, With the tall cranes hoisting out the freight.

And he used to think of shipping as a sea-cook, And sailing to the Golden Gate.

For he used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls, And read them where he fished for conger eels, And listened to the lapping of the water, The green and oily water round the keels.

There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish, And red nets hanging out to dry, And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em, And landsmen never knew the fish to fry.

There were brigantines with timber out of Norroway, Oozing with the syrups of the pine.

There were rusty dusty schooners out of Sunderland, And ships of the Blue Cross line.

And to tumble down a hatch into the cabin Was better than the best of broken rules; For the smell of 'em was like a Christmas dinner, And the feel of 'em was like a box of tools.

And, before he went to sleep in the evening, The very last thing that he could see Was the sailor-men a-dancing in the moonlight By the capstan that stood upon the quay.

_He is perched upon a high stool in London.

The Golden Gate is very far away.

They caught him, and they caged him, like a squirrel.

He is totting up accounts, and going grey._

_He will never, never, never sail to 'Frisco.

But the very last thing that he will see Will be sailor-men a-dancing in the sunrise By the capstan that stands upon the quay...._