VI Now the door was one great diamond and the hall a hollow ruby Big as Beachy Head, my lads, nay bigger by a half! And I sees the mate wi' mouth agape, a-staring like a booby, And the skipper close behind him, with his tongue out like a calf! Now the way to take it rightly Was to walk along politely Just as if you didn't notice-so I couldn't help but laugh! For they both forgot their manners and the crew was bound to laugh! VII But he took us through his palace, and, my lads, as I'm a sinner, We walked into an opal like a sunset colored cloud"My dining room," he says, and, quick as light, we saw a dinner Spread before us by the fingers of a hidden fairy crowd; And the skipper, swaying gently After dinner, murmurs faintly, "I looks to-wards you, Prester John, you've done us very proud!" And he drank his health with honors, for he done us very proud! VIII Then he walks us to his gardens where we sees a feathered demon Very splendid and important on a sort of spicy tree! "That's the Pheonix," whispers Prester, "which all eddicated seamen Knows the only one existent, and he's waiting for to flee! When his hundred years expire Then he'll set hisself a-fire And another from his ashes rise most beautiful to see !" With wings of rose and emerald most beautiful to see! IX Then he says, "In yonder forest there's a little silver river And whosoever drinks of it, his youth will never die! The centuries go by, but Prester John endures for ever With his music in the mountains and his magic on the sky! While your hearts are growing colder, While your world is growing older, There's a magic in the distance, where the sea-line meets the sky." It shall call to singing seamen till the fount o' song is dry! X So we thought we'd up and seek it, but that forest fair defied us,— First a crimson leopard laughed at us most horrible to see, Then a sea-green lion came and sniffed and licked his chops and eyed us, While a red and yellow unicorn was dancing round a tree! We was trying to look thinner, Which was hard, because our dinner Must ha' made us very tempting to a cat o' high degree! Must ha' made us very tempting to the whole menarjeree! XI So we scuttled from that forest and across the poppy meadows Where the awful shaggy horror brooded o'er us in the dark! And we pushes out from shore again a-jumping at our shadows And pulls away most joyful to the old black barque! And home again we plodded While the Polyphemus nodded With his battered moon-eye winking red and yellow through the dark. Oh, the moon above the mountains red and yellow through the dark! XII Across the seas of Wonderland to London town we blundered, Forty singing seamen as was puzzled for to know If the visions that we saw was caused by-here again we pondered— A tipple in a vision forty thousand years ago. Could the grog we dreamt we swallowed. Make us dream of all that followed? We were simply singing seamen, so of course we didn't know! We were simply singing seamen, so of course we could not know! ALFRED NOYES T THE BLESSED DAMOZEL HE blessed damozel leaned out From the gold bar of Heaven; Her eyes were deeper than the depth Of waters stilled at even; She had three lilies in her hand, And the stars in her hair were seven. Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, The hair that lay along her back Herseemed she scarce had been a day One of God's choristers; The wonder was not yet quite gone From that still look of hers; Albeit, to them she left, her day Had counted as ten years. (To one, it is ten years of years. Yet now, and in this place, |