Τ

GETHSEMANE

HE Garden called Gethsemane

In Picardy it was,

And there the people came

The English soldiers pass.

We used to pass-we used to pass
Or halt, as it might be,

And ship our masks in case of gas
Beyond Gethsemane.

The Garden called Gethsemane,
It held a pretty lass,

But all the time she talked to me
I prayed my cup might pass.
The officer sat on the chair,

The men lay on the grass,

And all the time we halted there
I prayed my cup might pass.

It didn't pass-it didn't pass-
It didn't pass from me.

I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane.

THE PRO-CONSULS

THE overfaithful sword returns the user

T

His heart's desire at price of his heart's blood.
The clamour of the arrogant accuser

Wastes that one hour we needed to make good.
This was foretold of old at our outgoing;
This we accepted who have squandered, knowing,
The strength and glory of our reputations,
At the day's need, as it were dross, to guard
The tender and new-dedicate foundations
Against the sea we fear—not man's award.

They that dig foundations deep,
Fit for realms to rise upon,
Little honour do they reap
Of their generation,

Any more than mountains gain
Stature till we reach the plain.

With no veil before their face
Such as shroud or sceptre lend-
Daily in the market-place,

Of one height to foe and friend-
They must cheapen self to find
Ends uncheapened for mankind.

THE PRO-CONSULS

Through the night when hirelings rest, Sleepless they arise, alone,

The unsleeping arch to test

And the o'er-trusted corner-stone, 'Gainst the need, they know, that lies Hid behind the centuries.

Not by lust of praise or show
Not by Peace herself betrayed-
Peace herself must they forego
Till that peace be fitly made;
And in single strength uphold
Wearier hands and hearts acold.

On the stage their act hath framed
For thy sports, O Liberty!
Doubted are they, and defamed

By the tongues their act set free, While they quicken, tend and raise Power that must their power displace.

Lesser men feign greater goals,

Failing whereof they may sit

Scholarly to judge the souls

That go down into the pit,
And, despite its certain clay,
Heave a new world towards the day.

These at labour make no sign,
More than planets, tides or years
Which discover God's design,

Not our hopes and not our fears;
Nor in aught they gain or lose
Seek a triumph or excuse.

For, so the Ark be borne to Zion, who

Heeds how they perished or were paid that bore it ? For, so the Shrine abide, what shame-what prideIf we, the priests, were bound or crowned before it ?

Ο

THE CRAFTSMAN

NCE, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,
He to the overbearing Boanerges

Jonson, uttered (If half of it were liquor,
Blessed be the vintage!)

Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra,
Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning
Love for a tinker.

How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers,
Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight
Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet

Rail at the dawning.

How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens
Winced at the business; whereupon his sister
(Lady Macbeth aged seven) thrust 'em under,

Sombrely scornful.

How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionate-
She being known since her birth to the townsfolk-
Stratford dredged and delivered from Avon

Dripping Ophelia.