A Ballad of Suicide The figure on the throne you see Of silken coat and gilded wand. His counsellors are rogues, Perdie! While men of honest mind are banned We want a chief to bear the brand, 1787 ENVOY Louis the Little, play the grand; Buffet the foe with sword and lance; A BALLADE OF SUICIDE THE gallows in my garden, people say, As one that knots his necktie for a ball; But just as all the neighbors-on the wall- I think I will not hang myself to-day. To-morrow is the time I get my pay- I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall That mushrooms could be cooked another way- I think I will not hang myself to-day. The world will have another washing day; And through thick woods one finds a stream astray, I think I will not hang myself to-day. ENVOI Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal, I think I will not hang myself to-day. Gilbert Keith Chesterton [1874 CHIFFONS! THROUGH this our city of delight, This Paris of our joy and play, So fair to see, so frail au fond, Echoes-mon Dieu!-the Ragman's bray: Foul, hunched, a plague to dainty sight, Our trappings rare, our braveries gay, "Marchand d'habits! Chiffons!" The Court Historian Their lot is ours! A grislier wight, The Ragman Time, takes day by day 1789 "Marchand d'habits! Chiffons!" ENVOY Princes take heed!--for where are they, William Samuel Johnson [1859 THE COURT HISTORIAN LOWER EMPIRE. Circa A. D. 700 THE Monk Arnulphus uncorked his ink Just now as the sun began to sink; His vellum was pumiced a silvery white; "The Basileus"---for so he began "Is a royal sagacious Mars of a man, Than the very lion bolder; · He has married the stately widow of Thrace-" His palette gleamed with a burnished green, His gold-leaf shone like the robe of a queen, Is about to wed with a Prince much older, Of an unpropitious mien and look—” The red flowers trellised the parchment page, The birds leaped up on the spray, The yellow fruit swayed and drooped and swung, (O, but his cheek was shrivelled and shrunk!) "Is golden-haired-tender the Queen's arms fold her. Her step-mother Zoë doth love her so-" "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. The Kings and Martyrs and Saints and Priests There was Daniel snug in the lions' den Singing no whit perplexed Brazen Samson with spear and helm "The Queen," wrote the Monk, "rules firm this realm, For the King gets older and older. The Norseman Thorkill is brave and fair-” "Hush!" cried a voice at his shoulder. Walter Thornbury [1828–1876] MISS LOU WHEN thin-strewn memory I look through, I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, Her nose, her hair-her muffled words, She made some small remark to me. It's always drowsy summer when While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, As into piercing song it breaks; Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar; And I am sitting, dull and shy, And she with gaze of vacancy, The Poet and the Wood-Louse And large hands folded on the tray, And one would think that poor Miss Loo Walter De la Mare [1873 THE POET AND THE WOOD-LOUSE A PORTLY Wood-louse, full of cares, Transacted eminent affairs Along a parapet where pears Unripened fell And vines embellished the sweet airs With muscatel. Day after day beheld him run His scales a-twinkle in the sun About his business never done; Night's slender span he Spent in the home his wealth had won- A red-brick cranny. Thus, as his Sense of Right directed, And naught of diffidence deflected His useful life. One mid-day, hastening to his Club, He spied beside a water-tub The owner of each plant and shrub A humble Bard Who turned upon the conscious grub "Eh?" quoth the Wood-louse, "Can it be 1791 |