The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch by R. C. Lehmann
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R. C. Lehmann >> The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch
THE CONTRACT
"Come, Peggy, put your toys away; you needn't shake your head,
Your bear's been working overtime; he's panting for his bed.
He's turned a thousand somersaults, and now his head must ache;
It's cruelty to animals to keep the bear awake."
At this she stamped in mutiny, and then she urged her plea,
Her wonted plea, "A little time, a minute more, for me."
"Be off, you little rogue of rogues," I sternly made reply;
"It's wicked to be sitting up with sand in either eye.
"To bed, to bed, you sleepy head; and then, and then--who knows?--
Some day you'll be a grown-up girl, and lovely as a rose.
And some day some one else will come, a gallant youth and gay,
To harry me and marry you and carry you away."
At this the storm broke out afresh:--"You know I hate the boys;
They're only good at taking things, and breaking things, and noise.
So, Daddy, please remember this, because--I--want--you--to:--
I'll never marry any boy; I'll only marry _you_."
"Agreed," I cried--the imp, of course, had won the bout of wits;
Had gained her point and got her time and beaten me to fits--
"Agreed, agreed,"--she danced for joy--"we'll leave no room for doubt,
But bind ourselves with pen and ink, and write the contract out:-"
_This is a contract, firm and clear
Made, as doth from these presents appear,
Between Peggy, being now in her sixth year,
A child of laughter,
A sort of funny actress,
Referred to hereinafter
As the said contractress--
Between the said contractress, that is to say,
And a person with whom she is often good enough to play;
Who happens to have been something of a factor
In bringing her into the world, who, in short, is her father,
And is hereinafter spoken of as the said contractor.
Now the said contractress declares she would rather
Marry the said contractor than any other.
At the same time she affirms with the utmost steadiness
Her perfect readiness
To take any other fellow on as a brother.
Still, she means to marry her father, and to be his wife,
And to live happily with him all the rest of her life.
This contract is made without consideration,
And is subject to later ratification.
The said contractress had it read through
to see that nothing was missed,
And she took her pen, and she held it tight
in a chubby and cramped-up fist,
And she made her mark with a blotted cross,
instead of signing her name;
And the said contractor he signed in full,
and they mean to observe the same._
"Now give me, Peg, that old brown shoe, that battered shoe of yours,
I'll stow the contract in its toe, and, if the shoe endures,
When sixteen years or so are gone, I'll hunt for it myself
And take it gently from its drawer, or get it from its shelf.
"And when, mid clouds of scattered rice, through all the wedding whirl
A laughing fellow hurries out a certain graceless girl,
Unless my hand have lost its strength, unless my eye be dim,
I'll lift the shoe, the contract too, and fling the lot at him."
JOHN
He's a boy,
And that's the long and (chiefly) the short of it,
And the point of it and the wonderful sport of it;
A two-year-old with a taste for a toy,
And two chubby fists to clutch it and grasp it,
And two fat arms to embrace it and clasp it;
And a short stout couple of sturdy legs
As hard and as smooth as ostrich eggs;
And a jolly round head, so fairly round
You could easily roll it,
Or take it and bowl it
With never a bump along the ground.
And, as to his cheeks, they're also fat--
I've seen them in ancient prints like that,
Where a wind-boy high
In a cloudy sky
Is puffing away for all he's worth,
Uprooting the trees
With a reckless breeze,
And strewing them over the patient earth,
Or raising a storm to wreck the ships
With the work of his lungs and cheeks and lips.
Take a look at his eyes; I put it to you,
Were ever two eyes more truly blue?
If you went and worried the whole world through
You'd never discover a bluer blue;
I doubt if you'd find a blue so true
In the coats and scarves of a Cambridge crew.
And his hair
Is as fair
As a pretty girl's,
But it's right for a boy with its crisp, short curls
All a-gleam, as he struts about
With a laugh and a shout,
To summon his sister-slaves to him
For his joyous Majesty's careless whim.
But now, as, after a stand, he budges,
And sets to work and solemnly trudges,
Out from a bush there springs full tilt
His four-legged playmate--and John is spilt.
She's a young dog and a strong dog
And a tall dog and a long dog,
A Danish lady of high degree,
Black coat, kind eye and a stride that's free.
And out she came
Like a burst of flame,
And John,
As he trudged and strutted
Sturdily on,
Was blindly butted,
And, all his dignity spent and gone,
On a patch of clover
Was tumbled over,
His two short legs having failed to score
In a sudden match against Lufra's four.
But we picked him up
And we brushed him down,
And he rated the pup
With a dreadful frown;
And then he laughed and he went and hugged her,
Seized her tail in his fist and tugged her,
And so, with a sister's hand to guide him,
Continued his march with the dog beside him.
And soon he waggles his way upstairs--
He does it alone, though he finds it steep.
He is stripped and gowned, and he says his prayers,
And he condescends
To admit his friends
To a levee before he goes to sleep.
He thrones it there
With a battered bear
And a tattered monkey to form his Court,
And, having come to the end of day,
Conceives that this is the time for play
And every possible kind of sport.
But at last, tucked in for the hundredth time,
He babbles a bit of nursery rhyme,
And on the bed
Droops his curly round head,
Gives one long sigh of unalloyed content
Over a day so well, so proudly spent,
Resigned at last to listen and obey,
And so begins to breathe his quiet night away.
THE SPARROW
Let others from the feathered brood
Which through the garden seeks its food
Pick out for a commending word
Each one his own peculiar bird;
Hail the plump tit, or fitly sing
The finch's crest and flashing wing;
Exalt the rook's black satin dress-coat,
The thrush's speckled fancy waistcoat;
Or praise the robin, meek, but sly,
For breast and tail and friendly eye--
These have their place within my heart;
The sparrow owns the larger part,
And, for no virtues, rules in it,
My reckless cheerful favourite!
Friend sparrow, let the world contemn
Your ways and make a mock of them,
And dub you, if it has a mind,
Low, quarrelsome, and unrefined;
And let it, if it will, pursue
With harsh abuse the troops of you
Who through the orchard and the field
Their busy bills in mischief wield;
Who strip the tilth and bare the tree,
And make the gardener's face to be
Expressive of the words he could,
But must not, utter, though he would
(For gardeners still, where'er they go,
Whate'er they do, in weal or woe,
Through every chance of life retain
Their ancient Puritanic strain;
Tried by the weather they control
Each day their angry human soul,
And, by the sparrow teased, may tear
Their careworn locks, but never swear).
Let us admit--alas,'tis true--
You are not adequately few;
That half your little life is spent
In furious strife or argument;
Still, though your wickedness must harrow
All feeling souls, I love my sparrow;
Still, though I oft and gravely doubt you,
I really could not do without you.
Your pluck, your wit, your nonchalance,
Your cheerful confidence in chance,
Your darting flight, your bouts of play,
Your chirp, so sociable and gay--
These, and no beauty soft or striking,
Make up your passport to my liking;
And for your faults I'll still defend you,
My little sparrow, and befriend you.
GELERT
Tested and staunch through many a changing year,
Gelert, his master's faithful hound, lies here.
Humble in friendship, but in service proud,
He gave to man whate'er his lot allowed;
And, rich in love, on each well-trusted friend
Spent all his wealth and still had more to spend.
Now, reft beyond the unfriendly Stygian tide,
For these he yearns and has no wish beside.
AVE, CAESAR!
(MAY 20, 1910)
Full in the splendour of this morning hour,
With tramp of men and roll of muffled drums,
In what a pomp and pageantry of power,
Borne to his grave, our lord, King EDWARD, comes!
In flashing gold and high magnificence,
Lo, the proud cavalcade of comrade Kings,
Met here to do the dead KING reverence,
Its solemn tribute of affection brings.
Heralds and Pursuivants and Men-at-arms,
Sultan and Paladin and Potentate,
Scarred Captains who have baffled war's alarms
And Courtiers glittering in their robes of state,
All in their blazoned ranks, with eyes cast down,
Slow pacing in their sorrow pass along
Where that which bore the sceptre and the crown
Cleaves at their head the silence of the throng.
And in a space behind the passing bier,
Looking and longing for his lord in vain,
A little playmate whom the KING held dear,
Caesar, the terrier, tugs his silver chain!
* * * * *
Hail, Caesar, lonely little Caesar, hail!
Little for you the gathered Kings avail.
Little you reck, as meekly past you go,
Of that solemnity of formal woe.
In the strange silence, lo, you prick your ear
For one loved voice, and that you shall not hear.
So when the monarchs with their bright array
Of gold and steel and stars have passed away,
When, to their wonted use restored again,
All things go duly in their ordered train,
You shall appeal at each excluding door,
Search through the rooms and every haunt explore;
From lawn to lawn, from path to path pursue
The well-loved form that still escapes your view.
At every tree some happy memories rise
To stir your tail and animate your eyes,
And at each turn, with gathering strength endued,
Hope, still frustrated, must be still renewed.
How should you rest from your appointed task
Till chance restore the happiness you ask,
Take from your heart the burden, ease your pain,
And grant you to your master's side again,
Proud and content if but you could beguile
His voice to flatter and his face to smile?
Caesar, the kindly days may bring relief;
Swiftly they pass and dull the edge of grief.
You too, resigned at last, may school your mind
To miss the comrade whom you cannot find,
Never forgetting, but as one who feels
The world has secrets which no skill reveals.
Henceforth, whate'er the ruthless fates may give,
You shall be loved and cherished while you live.
Reft of your master, little dog forlorn,
To one dear mistress you shall now be sworn,
And in her queenly service you shall dwell,
At rest with one who loved your master well.
And she, that gentle lady, shall control
The faithful kingdom of a true dog's soul,
And for the past's dear sake shall still defend
Caesar, the dead KING'S humble little friend.
SOO-TI
A PEKINESE
Soo-Ti, I thank the careful fate
That made you wise and obstinate,
Alert, but with a proper pride,
And gay, but wondrous dignified.
I praise your black and tilted nose;
I praise your heart's deep love that shows
In songs made up of whimpering cries
And in the radiance of your eyes
(And if they bulge--forgive the allusion--
Are eyes the worse for such protrusion?
The smaller eyes are, sure, the blinder,
And size makes every kind eye kinder).
Next with affection's look I note
The glossy levels of your coat,
Where a rich black doth most prevail,
Shading to beaver in your tail,
And lightly fading as it reaches
The tufted things you wear as breeches.
The dweller on the cushion purrs
No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs.
She blinks and blinks and lets you share
Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair.
For you she hides her cruel claw
And taps you with a velvet paw;
And, mastered by your lordly air,
For you is meek and debonair.
Even should you growl her hair stays flat:
Be sure she thinks you half a cat.
But you're a Dog and know your job:
Oft have I seen you hob-a-nob,
And grandly gracious to unbend
With a Great Dane, your humble friend.
As on the lawn with him you roll,
He makes your very being droll.
Yet how you set to work to flout him,
To tease and gnaw and dance about him!
You risk the pressure of his paws,
Plunge all you are within his jaws,
And, swelling to a final rage,
With pin-point teeth the fight engage,
While he submits his silly size
To every insult you devise.
At last, withdrawing from the fuss,
You come and tell your tale to us,
Bearing aloft through every room
Your high tail's undefeated plume,
Till, fed with triumphs, you subside,
And sleep and doff your native pride,
Composing in a wicker fane
Those limbs that terrify the Dane.
So, Soo-Ti, I have tried to praise
Yourself and all your winning ways,
Content if I may guard and please
My little dusky Pekinese.
THE BATH
Hang garlands on the bathroom door;
Let all the passages be spruce;
For, lo, the victim comes once more,
And, ah, he struggles like the deuce!
Bring soaps of many scented sorts;
Let girls in pinafores attend,
With John, their brother, in his shorts,
To wash their dusky little friend.
Their little friend, the dusky dog,
Short-legged and very obstinate,
Faced like a much-offended frog,
And fighting hard against his fate.
No Briton he! From palace-born
Chinese patricians he descends;
He keeps their high ancestral scorn;
His spirit breaks, but never bends.
Our water-ways he fain would'scape;
He hates the customary bath
That thins his tail and spoils his shape,
And turns him to a fur-clad lath;
And, seeing that the Pekinese
Have lustrous eyes that bulge like buds,
He fain would save such eyes as these,
Their owner's pride, from British suds.
Vain are his protests--in he goes.
His young barbarians crowd around;
They soap his paws, they soap his nose;
They soap wherever fur is found.
And soon, still laughing, they extract
His limpness from the darkling tide;
They make the towel's roughness act
On back and head and dripping side.
They shout and rub and rub and shout--
He deprecates their odious glee--
Until at last they turn him out,
A damp gigantic bumble-bee.
Released, he barks and rolls, and speeds
From lawn to lawn, from path to path,
And in one glorious minute needs
More soapsuds and another bath.
PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY
Our Peter, who's famed as an eater of things,
Is a miniature dragon without any wings.
He can gallop or trot, he can amble or jog,
But he flies like a flash when he's after his prog;
And the slaves who adore him, whatever his mood,
Say that nothing is fleeter
Than Peter the eater,
Than Peter pursuing his food.
He considers the garden his absolute own:
It's the place where a digger can bury a bone.
Then he tests his pin-teeth on a pansy or rose,
Spreading ruin and petals wherever he goes;
And his mistress declares, when he's nibbled for hours,
That nothing is sweeter
Than Peter the eater,
The resolute eater of flowers.
Having finished his dinner he wheedles the cook,
Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book,
Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat,
To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that;
_Faute de mieux_ takes a dress; and his mistress asserts
That there's nothing to beat her
Like Peter the eater
Attached by his teeth to her skirts.
But at last he has supped, and the moment is come
When, his stretchable turn being tight as a drum,
He is meek and submissive, who once was so proud,
And he creeps to his basket and slumbers aloud.
And his mistress proclaims, as she tucks up his shawl,
That nothing is neater
Than Peter the eater,
Than Peter curled up in a ball,
Asleep and digesting it all.
THE DOGS' WELCOME
Hush! We're not a pack of boys
Always bound to make a noise.
True, there's one amongst us, but
He is young;
And, wherever we may take him,
We can generally shut
Such a youngster up and make him
Hold his tongue.
Hush! Most cautiously we go
On the tippest tip of toe.
Are the dogs expecting us
At the gate?
Two, who usually prize us,
Will they jump and make a fuss?
Will they really recognise us
Where they wait?
Hush! I hear the funny pair
Softly whimpering--yes, they're there.
Dane and Pekinese, they scratch
At the wood,
At the solid wood between us;
Duke attempts to lift the latch;
It's a month since they have seen us--
Open! Good!
Down, Duke, down! Enough, enough!
Soo-Ti's screaming; seize his scruff.
Soo-Ti's having fearful fits;
Duke is tearing us to bits.
One will trip us, one will throw us--
But, the darlings, _don't_ they know us!
Then off with a clatter the long dog leapt, and, oh, what a race he ran,
At the hurricane pace of a minute a mile, as only a long dog can.
Into and out of the bushes he pierced like a shooting star;
And now he thundered around us, and now he was whirling far.
And the little dog gazed till he seemed amazed,
and then he took to it too;
With shrill notes flung from his pert pink tongue
right after his friend he flew;
And the long legs lashed and the short legs flashed
and scurried like anything,
While Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran in a ring.
And last they hurtled amongst us, and then there were tales to tell,
For all of us seemed to be scattered and torn,
and all of us shrieked and fell;
And John, who is plump, got an awful bump,
and Helen, who's tall and thin,
Was shot through a shrub and gained in bruise
as much as she lost in skin;
And Rosamond's frock was rent in rags, and tattered in strips was Peg's,
And both of them suffered the ninepin fate to the ruin of arms and legs;
And every face was licked by a dog, and battered was every limb,
When Duke ran round in a circle and Soo-Ti ran after him.
ODE TO JOHN BRADBURY
(THE NOTES FOR L1 AND 10S ARE SIGNED BY JOHN BRADBURY)
When the Red KAISER, swoll'n with impious pride
And stuffed with texts to serve his instant need,
Took Shame for partner and Disgrace for guide,
Earned to the full the hateful traitor's meed,
And bade his hordes advance
Through Belgium's cities towards the fields of France;
And when at last our patient island race,
By the attempted wrong
Made fierce and strong,
Flung back the challenge in the braggart's face,
Oh then, while martial music filled the air,
Clarion and fife and bagpipe and the drum,
Calling to men to muster, march, and dare,
Oh, then thy day, JOHN BRADBURY, was come.
JOHN BRADBURY, the Muse shall fill my strain
To sing thy praises; thou hadst spent thy time
Not idly, nor hadst lived thy life in vain,
Unfitted for the guerdon of my rhyme.
For lo, the Funds went sudden crashing down,
And men grew pale with monetary fear,
And in the toppling mart
The stoutest heart
Melted, and fortunes seemed to disappear;
And some, forgetting their austere renown,
Went mad and sold
Whate'er they could and wildly called for Gold!
"Since through no fault of ours the die was cast
We shall go forth and fight
In death's despite
And shall return victorious at the last;
But how, ah how," they said,
"Shall we and ours be fed
And clothed and housed from dreary day to day,
If, while our hearths grow cold, we have no coin to pay?"
Then thou, where no gold was and little store
Of silver, didst appear and wave thy pen,
And with thy signature
Make things secure,
Bidding us all pluck up our hearts once more
And face our foolish fancied fears like men.
"I give you notes," you said, "of different kinds
To ease your anxious minds:
The one is black and shall be fairly found
Equal in value to a golden pound;
The other--mark its healthy scarlet print--
Is worth a full half-sovereign from the Mint."
Thus didst thou speak--at least I think thou didst--
And, lo, the murmurs fell
And all things went right well,
While thy notes fluttered in our happy midst.
Therefore our grateful hearts go forth to thee,
Our British note-provider, brave JOHN BRADBURY!
TEETH-SETTING
(1914)
When the thunder-shaking German hosts are marching over France--
Lo, the glinting of the bayonet and the quiver of the lance!--
When a rowdy rampant KAISER, stout and mad and middle-aged,
Strips his breast of British Orders just to prove that he's enraged;
When with fire and shot and pillage
He destroys each town and village;
When the world is black with warfare, then there's one thing you must do:
Set your teeth like steel, my hearties, and sit tight and see it through.
Oh, it's heavy work is fighting, but our soldiers do it well--
Lo, the booming of the batteries, the clatter of the shell!--
And it's weary work retiring, but they kept a dauntless front,
All our company of heroes who have borne the dreadful brunt.
They can meet the foe and beat him,
They can scatter and defeat him,
For they learnt a steady lesson (and they taught a lesson, too),
Having set their teeth in earnest and sat tight and seen it through.
Then their brothers trooped to join them, taking danger for a bride,
Not in insolence and malice, but in honour and in pride;
Caring nought to be recorded on the muster-roll of fame,
So they struck a blow for Britain and the glory of her name.
Toil and wounds could but delight them,
Death itself could not affright them,
Who went out to fight for freedom and the red and white and blue,
While they set their teeth as firm as flint and vowed to see it through.
THE DEATH OF EUCLID
["Euclid, we are told, is at last dead, after two thousand years of
an immortality that he never much deserved."--_The Times Literary
Supplement_.]
A THRENODY for EUCLID! This is he
Who with his learning made our youth a waste,
Holding our souls in fee;
A god whose high-set crystal throne was based
Beyond the reach of tears,
Deeper than time and his relentless years!
Come then, ye Angle-Nymphs, and make lament;
Ye little Postulates, and all the throng
Of Definitions, with your heads besprent
In funeral ashes, ye who long
Worshipped the King and followed in his train;
For he is dead and cannot rise again.
Then from the shapes that beat their breasts and wept,
Soft to the light a gentle Problem stepped,
And, lo, her clinging robe she swiftly loosed
And with majestic hands her side produced:
"Sweet Theorem," she said, and called her mate,
"Sweet Theorem, be with me at this hour.
How oft together in a dear debate
We two bore witness to our Sovereign's power.
But he is dead and henceforth all our days
Are wrapped in gloom,
And we who never ceased to sing his praise
May weep our lord, but cannot call him from his tomb."
And, as they bowed their heads and to and fro
Wove in a mournful gait their web of woe,
Two sentinels forth came,
Their hearts aflame,
And moved behind the pair:
"Warders we are," they cried,
"Of these two sisters who were once so fair,
So joyous in their pride."
And now their massy shields they lifted high,
Embossed with letters three,
And, though a mist of tears bedimmed each eye,
The sorrowing Nymphs could see
Q., E. and F. on one, and on the other Q. E. D.
But on a sudden, with a hideous noise
Of joy and laughter rushed a rout of boys;
And all the mourners in affright
Scattered to left and right.
Problems and Theorems and Angles too,
Postulates, Definitions, Circles, Planes,
A jibbering crew,
With all their hoary gains
Of knowledge, from their monarch dead
Into the outer darkness shrieking fled.
And now with festal dance and laughter loud
Broke in the boyish and intruding crowd;
Nor did they fail,
Seeing that all the painful throng was sped,
To let high mirth prevail,
And raise the song of joy for EUCLID dead.
TO POSTUMOUS IN OCTOBER
When you and I were younger the world was passing fair;
Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air;
Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll
In endless shining vistas a playground for the soul.
But now no glory fires us; we linger in the cold,
And both of us are weary, and both are growing old;
Come, Postumus, and face it, and, facing it, confess
Your years are half a hundred, and mine are nothing less.
When you and I were twenty, my Postumus, we kept
In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept.
And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall
That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall.
The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts
Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports;
Then riverward we trudge it, all talking, once again
Down all the long unlovely extent of Jesus Lane.
One figure leads the others; with frank and boyish mien,
Straight back and sturdy shoulders, he lords it o'er the scene;
His grip is firm and manly, his cheeks are smooth and red;
The tangled curls cling tightly about his jolly head.
And when we launch the eight-oar I hear his orders ring;
With dauntless iteration I see his body swing:
The pride of all the river, the mainstay of our crew--
O Postumous, my bold one, can this be truly you?