Time's Laughingstocks, and Other Verses Part 21

It brought the end. And when he had breathed his last The woman went. I saw her never again . . .

Now glares my moody meaning on you, friend? - That when you talk of offspring as sheer joy So trustingly, you blink contingencies.

Fors Fortuna! He who goes fathering Gives frightful hostages to hazardry!"

Thus Panthera's tale. 'Twas one he seldom told, But yet it got abroad. He would unfold, At other times, a story of less gloom, Though his was not a heart where jests had room.

He would regret discovery of the truth Was made too late to influence to ruth The Procurator who had condemned his son-- Or rather him so deemed. For there was none To prove that Panthera erred not: and indeed, When vagueness of ident.i.ty I would plead, Panther himself would sometimes own as much - Yet lothly. But, a.s.suming fact was such, That the said woman did not recognize Her lover's face, is matter for surprise.

However, there's his tale, fantasy or otherwise.

Thereafter shone not men of Panthera's kind: The indolent heads at home were ill-inclined To press campaigning that would hoist the star Of their lieutenants valorous afar.

Jealousies kept him irked abroad, controlled And stinted by an Empire no more bold.

Yet in some actions southward he had share - In Mauretania and Numidia; there With eagle eye, and sword and steed and spur, Quelling uprisings promptly. Some small stir In Parthia next engaged him, until maimed, As I have said; and cynic Time proclaimed His n.o.ble spirit broken. What a waste Of such a Roman!--one in youth-time graced With indescribable charm, so I have heard, Yea, magnetism impossible to word When faltering as I saw him. What a fame, O Son of Saturn, had adorned his name, Might the Three so have urged Thee!--Hour by hour His own disorders hampered Panthera's power To brood upon the fate of those he had known, Even of that one he always called his own - Either in morbid dream or memory . . .

He died at no great age, untroublously, An exit rare for ardent soldiers such as he.

THE UNBORN

I rose at night, and visited The Cave of the Unborn: And crowding shapes surrounded me For tidings of the life to be, Who long had prayed the silent Head To haste its advent morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust, Hope thrilled their every tone; "A scene the loveliest, is it not?

A pure delight, a beauty-spot Where all is gentle, true and just, And darkness is unknown?"

My heart was anguished for their sake, I could not frame a word; And they descried my sunken face, And seemed to read therein, and trace The news that pity would not break, Nor truth leave unaverred.

And as I silently retired I turned and watched them still, And they came helter-skelter out, Driven forward like a rabble rout Into the world they had so desired By the all-immanent Will.

1905.

THE MAN HE KILLED

"Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have sat us down to wet Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because - Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand like--just as I - Was out of work--had sold his traps - No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down You'd treat if met where any bar is, Or help to half-a-crown."

1902.

GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE (A MEMORY OF CHRISTIANA C-)

Where Blackmoor was, the road that led To Bath, she could not show, Nor point the sky that overspread Towns ten miles off or so.

But that Calcutta stood this way, Cape Horn there figured fell, That here was Boston, here Bombay, She could declare full well.

Less known to her the track athwart Froom Mead or Yell'ham Wood Than how to make some Austral port In seas of surly mood.

She saw the glint of Guinea's sh.o.r.e Behind the plum-tree nigh, Heard old unruly Biscay's roar In the weir's purl hard by . . .

"My son's a sailor, and he knows All seas and many lands, And when he's home he points and shows Each country where it stands.

"He's now just there--by Gib's high rock - And when he gets, you see, To Portsmouth here, behind the clock, Then he'll come back to me!"

ONE RALPH BLOSSOM SOLILOQUIZES

("It being deposed that vij women who were mayds before he knew them have been brought upon the towne [rates?] by the fornicacions of one Ralph Blossom, Mr Major inquired why he should not contribute xiv pence weekly toward their mayntenance. But it being shewn that the sayd R. B. was dying of a purple feaver, no order was made."--Budmouth Borough Minutes: 16--.)

When I am in h.e.l.l or some such place, A-groaning over my sorry case, What will those seven women say to me Who, when I coaxed them, answered "Aye" to me?

"I did not understand your sign!"

Will be the words of Caroline; While Jane will cry, "If I'd had proof of you, I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!"

"I won't reproach: it was to be!"

Will dryly murmur Cicely; And Rosa: "I feel no hostility, For I must own I lent facility."

Lizzy says: "Sharp was my regret, And sometimes it is now! But yet I joy that, though it brought notoriousness, I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!"

Says Patience: "Why are we apart?

Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!

A manchild born, now tall and beautiful, Was worth the ache of days undutiful."

And Anne cries: "O the time was fair, So wherefore should you burn down there?

There is a deed under the sun, my Love, And that was ours. What's done is done, my Love.

These trumpets here in Heaven are dumb to me With you away. Dear, come, O come to me!"

THE n.o.bLE LADY'S TALE (circa 1790)

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