Works

(An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism.)


Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!...

The moon's a holy owl-queen.
She keeps them in a jar
Under her arm till evening,
Then sallies forth to war.

She pours the owls upon us.
They hoot with horrid noise...

Hurree Chunder Mookerjee, pride of Bow Bazaar,
Owner of a native press, "Barrishter-at-Lar,"
Waited on the Government with a claim to wear
Sabres by the bucketful, rifles by the pair.
...

"Here, Charlotte," said Mamma one day.
"These stockings knit while I'm away,
And should you fail, be sure you'll find
Mamma is strict, although she's kind."


But Charlotte took a lazy fit,...

When thy hand touches mine, through all the mesh
Of intricate and interlaced veins
Shoot swift delights that border on keen pains:
Flesh thrills to thrilling flesh.
...

The industrialist is having his aeroplane serviced.
The priest is wondering what he said in his sermon eight weeks ago about tithes.
The generals are putting on civvies and looking like bank clerks....

What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear...

What have the cavalry done?
Cantered and trotted about,
Routin' the enemy out,
Causin' the beggars to run!
And we tramped along in the blazin' heat,
Over the veldt on our weary feet....

What have we all forgotten, at the break of the seventh year?
With a nation born to the ages and a Bad Time borne on its bier!
Public robbing, and lying that death cannot erase,...

I

What have you done, and what are you doing with life, O Man!
O Average Man of the world -
Average Man of the Christian world we call civilised?...

What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine
Through my very heart they shine;
And, if my brow gives back their light,
Do thou look gladly on the sight;
As the clear Moon with modest pride...

What if I say I shall not wait?
What if I burst the fleshly gate
And pass, escaped, to thee?
What if I file this mortal off,
See where it hurt me, -- that 's enough, --
And wade in liberty?
...

What if our numbers barely could defy
The arithmetic of babes, must foreign hordes,
Slaves, vile as ever were befooled by words,
Striking through English breasts the anarchy...

I have come with my verses - I think I may claim
It is not the first time I have tried on the same.
They were puckered in rhyme, they were wrinkled in wit;
But your hearts were so large that they made them a fit....

What inn is this
Where for the night
Peculiar traveller comes?
Who is the landlord?
Where the maids?
Behold, what curious rooms!
No ruddy fires on the hearth,
No brimming tankards flow....

Looking on a page where stood
Graven of old on old-world wood
Death, and by the grave's edge grim,
Pale, the young man facing him,
Asked my well-beloved of me
Once what strange thing this might be,...

What is flirtation? Really,
How can I tell you that?
But when she smiles I see its wiles,
And when he lifts his hat.

'Tis walking in the moonlight,
'Tis buttoning on a glove,...

What is it maks a crusty wife
Forget to scold, an leeave off strife?
What is it smoothes th' rooad throo life?
It's sooap.

What is it maks a gaumless muff
Grow rich, an roll i' lots o' stuff,...

And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;...

And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;...