VILLONAUD FOR THIS YULE
TOWARDS the Noel that morte saison
(Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer
And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon,
Then maketh my heart his yule-tide cheer
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Ask ye what ghosts I dream upon?
(What of the magians’ scented gear?)
The ghosts of dead loves everyone
That make the stark winds reek with fear
Lest love return with the foison sun
And slay the memories that me cheer
(Such as I drink to mine fashion)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Where are the joys my heart had won?
(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near!)[4]
Aye! where are the glances feat and clear
That bade my heart his valour don?
I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown mere
(Who knows whose was that paragon?)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
Prince: ask me not what I have done,
Nor what God hath that can me cheer,
But ye ask first where the winds are gone
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.
A VILLONAUD, BALLAD OF THE GIBBET
OR, THE SONG OF THE SIXTH COMPANION
Scene: “En cest bourdel ou tenoms nostr estat.”
It being remembered that there were six of us with Master Villon, when that expecting presently to be hanged he writ a ballad whereof ye know:
“Frères humains qui après nous vivez.”
DRINK ye a skoal for the gallows tree!
François and Margot and thee and me,
Drink we the comrades merrily
Who said us, “Till then” for the gallows tree!
Fat Pierre with the hook gauche-main,
Thomas Larron “Ear-the-less,”
Tybalde and that armouress
Who gave this poignard its premier stain
Pinning the Guise that had been fain
To make him a mate of the “Haulte Noblesse”
And bade her be out with ill address
Drink we a skoal for the gallows tree!
François and Margot and thee and me,
Drink we to Marienne Ydole,
That hell brenn not her o’er cruelly.
Drink we the lusty robbers twain,
Black is the pitch o’ their wedding dress,[5]
Lips shrunk back for the wind’s caress
As lips shrink back when we feel the strain
Of love that loveth in hell’s disdeign
And sense the teeth through the lips that press
’Gainst our lips for the soul’s distress
That striveth to ours across the pain.
Drink we skoal to the gallows tree!
François and Margot and thee and me,
For Jehan and Raoul de Vallerie
Whose frames have the night and its winds in fee.
Maturin, Guillaume, Jacques d’Allmain,
Culdou, lacking a coat to bless
One lean moiety of his nakedness,
That plundered St. Hubert back o’ the fane:
Aie! the lean bare tree is widowed again
For Michault le Borgne that would confess
In “faith and troth” to a traitoress,
“Which of his brothers had he slain?”
But drink we skoal to the gallows tree!
These that we loved shall God love less
And smite alway at their feebleness?
Skoal!! to the Gallows! and then pray we:
God damn his hell out speedily
And bring their souls to his High City.
MESMERISM
“And a cat’s in the water-butt.”—Robert Browning.
AYE, you’re a man that! ye old mesmerizer!
Tyin’ your meanin’ in seventy swadelin’s,
One must of needs be a hang’d early riser
To catch you at worm turning. Holy Odd’s bodykins!
“Cat’s i’ the water-butt!” Thought’s in your verse-barrel,
Tell us this thing rather, then we’ll believe you,
You, Master Bob Browning, spite your apparel
Jump to your sense and give praise as we’d lief do.
You wheeze as a head-cold long-tonsilled Calliope,
But, God! what a sight you ha’ got o’ our in’ards,
Mad as a hatter but surely no Myope,
Broad as all ocean and leanin’ mankin’ards.
Heart that was big as the bowels of Vesuvius,
Words that were wing’d as her sparks in eruption,
Eagled and thundered as Jupiter Pluvius,
Here’s to you, Old Hippety-hop o’ the accents,
True to the Truth’s sake and crafty dissector,
You grabbed at the gold sure; had no need to pack cents
Into your versicles.
Clear sight’s elector!
FAMAM LIBROSQUE CANO
YOUR songs?
Oh! The little mothers
Will sing them in the twilight,
And when the night
Shrinketh the kiss of the dawn
That loves and kills,
What time the swallow fills
Her note, the little rabbit folk
That some call children,
Such as are up and wide
Will laugh your verses to each other,
Pulling on their shoes for the day’s business,
Serious child business that the world
Laughs at, and grows stale;
Such is the tale
—Part of it—of thy song-life.
Mine?
A book is known by them that read
That same. Thy public in my screed
Is listed. Well! Some score years hence
Behold mine audience,
Scrawny, be-spectacled, out at heels,
Such an one as the world feels
A sort of curse against its guzzling
And its age-lasting wallow for red greed
And yet, full speed
Though it should run for its own getting,
Will turn aside to sneer at
’Cause he hath
No coin, no will to snatch the aftermath
Of Mammon.
Such an one as women draw away from
For the tobacco ashes scattered on his coat
And sith his throat
Show razor’s unfamiliarity
And three days’ beard:
Such an one picking a ragged
Backless copy from the stall,
Too cheap for cataloguing,
Loquitur,
“Ah-eh! the strange rare name ...
Ah-eh! He must be rare if even I have not ....
And lost mid-page
Such age
As his pardons the habit,
He analyzes form and thought to see
How I ’scaped immortality.