Part 9 (2/2)

Whichever wind may meetest blow.

Our quarry sails on either sea, Fat prey for such bold lads as we.

And every sun-dried buccaneer Must hand and reef and watch and steer.

And bear great wrath of sea and sky Before the plate-s.h.i.+ps wallow by.

Now, as our tall bows take the foam, Let no man turn his heart to home, Save to desire treasure more, And larger warehouse for his store, When treasure won from Santos Bay Shall make our sea-washed village gay.

Because I sought it far from men, In deserts and alone, I found it burning overhead, The jewel of a Throne.

Because I sought--I sought it so And spent my days to find-- It blazed one moment ere it left The blacker night behind.

When a lover hies abroad.

Looking for his love, Azrael smiling sheathes his sword, Heaven smiles above.

Earth and sea His servants be, And to lesser compa.s.s round, That his love be sooner found.

There was a strife 'twixt man and maid-- Oh that was at the birth of time!

But what befell 'twixt man and maid, Oh that's beyond the grip of rhyme.

'Twas, 'Sweet, I must not bide with you,'

And 'Love, I cannot bide alone'; For both were young and both were true, And both were hard as the nether stone.

There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay, When the artist's hand is potting it; There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay, When the poet's pad is blotting it; There is pleasure in the s.h.i.+ne of your picture on the line At the Royal Acade-my; But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese When it comes to a well-made Lie: To a quite unwreckable Lie, To a most impeccable Lie!

To a water-tight, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-face Lie!

Not a private hansom Lie, But a pair-and-brougham Lie, Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.

We be the G.o.ds of the East-- Older than all-- Masters of Mourning and Feast How shall we fall?

Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer Or yearn to your song?

And we--have we nothing to offer Who ruled them so long-- In the fume of the incense, the clash of the cymbal, the blare of the conch and the gong?

Over the strife of the schools Low the day burns-- Back with the kine from the pools Each one returns To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the _tulsi_ is trimmed in the urns.

THE LIGHT THAT FAILED

So we settled it all when the storm was done As comfy as comfy could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three, And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot Because he was five and a man; And that's how it all began, my dears, And that's how it all began.

'If I have taken the common clay And wrought it cunningly In the shape of a G.o.d that was digged a clod, The greater honour to me.'

'If thou hast taken the common clay, And thy hands be not free From the taint of the soil, thou hast made thy spoil The greater shame to thee.'

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