Archives: Poems

1 
The ’buses run to Battersea,
  The ’buses run to Bow
The ’buses run to Westbourne Grove
  And Notting Hill also;
But I am sick of London town
  From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.
2 
I see the smut upon my cuff
  And feel him on my nose;
I cannot leave my window wide
  When gentle zephyr blows,
Because he brings disgusting things
  And drops ’em on my “clo’es”.
3 
The sky, a greasy soup-tureen,
  Shuts down atop my brow.
Yes, I have sighed for London town 
  And I have got it now:
And half of it is fog and filth,
  And half is fog and row.
4 
And when I take my nightly prowl
  ’Tis passing good to meet
The pious Briton lugging home
  His wife and daughter sweet,
Through four packed miles of seething vice
  Thrust out upon the street.
5 
Earth holds no horror like to this
  In any land displayed,
From Suez unto Sandy Hook,
  From Calais to Port Said;
And ’twas to hide their heathendom
  The beastly fog was made.
6 
I cannot tell when dawn is near,
  Or when the day is done, 
Because I always see the gas
  And never see the sun,
And now, methinks, I do not care
  A cuss for either one.
7 
But stay, there was an orange, or
  An aged egg its yolk;
It might have been a Pears’ balloon
  Or Barnum’s latest joke:
I took it for the sun and wept
  To watch it through the smoke.
8 
It’s Oh to see the morn ablaze
  Above the mango-tope,
When homeward through the dewy cane
  The little jackals lope,
And half Bengal heaves into view,
  New-washed—with sunlight soap.
9 
It’s Oh for one deep whisky peg
  When Christmas winds are blowing,
When all the men you ever knew,
  And all you’ve ceased from knowing,
Are “entered for the Tournament,
  And everything that’s going.”
10 
But I consort with long-haired things
  In velvet collar-rolls,
Who talk about the Aims of Art,
  And “theories” and “goals,”
And moo and coo with women-folk
  About their blessed souls.
11 
But that they call “psychology”
  Is lack of liver pill,
And all that blights their tender souls
  Is eating till they’re ill,
And their chief way of winning goals
  Consists of sitting still.
12 
It’s Oh to meet an Army man,
  Set up, and trimmed and taut,
Who does not spout hashed libraries
  Or think the next man’s thought
And walks as though he owned himself,
  And hogs his bristles short.
13 
Hear now, a voice across the seas
  To kin beyond my ken,
If ye have ever filled an hour
  With stories from my pen,
For pity’s sake send some one here
  To bring me news of men!
14 
The ’buses run to Islington,
  To Highgate and Soho,
To Hammersmith and Kew therewith
  And Camberwell also,
But I can only murmur “Bus!”
  From Shepherd’s Bush to Bow.

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Old is the song that I sing -
Old as my unpaid bills -
Old as the chicken that *khitmutgars bring 
Men at dak-bungalows - old as the Hills.

1
Ahasuerus Jenkins of the "Operatic Own,"
Was dowered with a tenor voice of super-Santley tone.
His views on equitation were, perhaps, a trifle queer.
He had no seat worth mentioning, but oh! he had an ear. 
2
He clubbed his wretched company a dozen times a day;
He used to quit his charger in a parabolic way;
His method of saluting was the joy of all beholders,
But Ahasuerus Jenkins had a head upon his shoulders. 
3
He took two months at Simla when the year was at the spring,
And underneath the deodars eternally did sing.
He warbled like a **bul-bul but particularly at
Cornelia Agrippina, who was musical and fat. 
4
She controlled a humble husband, who, in turn, controlled a Dept.
Where Cornelia Agrippina's human singing-birds were kept
From April to October on a plump retaining-fee,
Supplied, of course, per mensem, by the Indian Treasury. 
5
Cornelia used to sing with him, and Jenkins used to play;
He praised unblushingly her notes, for he was false as they;
So when the winds of April turned the budding roses brown,
Cornelia told her husband: - "Tom, you mustn't send him down." 
6
They haled him from his regiment, which didn't much regret him;
They found for him an office-stool, and on that stool they set him
To play with maps and catalogues three idle hours a day,
And draw his plump retaining-fee - which means his double pay. 
7
Now, ever after dinner, when the coffee-cups are brought,
Ahasuerus waileth o'er the grand pianoforte;
And, thanks to fair Cornelia, his fame hath waxen great,
And Ahasuerus Jenkins is a Power in the State! 
 

*Khitmutgars - Waiters  
**bul-bul - Nightingale

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                          BEFORE  

       'TWAS NOT while England's sword unsheathed
  Put half a world to flight,
       Nor while their new-built cities breathed
  Secure behind her might;
       Not while she poured from Pole to Line
  Treasure and ships and men—
       These worshippers at Freedoms shrine
  They did not quit her then!

       Not till their foes were driven forth
  By England o'er the main—
       Not till the Frenchman from the North
  Had gone with shattered Spain;
       Not till the clean-swept oceans showed
  No hostile flag unrolled,
       Did they remember what they owed
  To Freedom—and were bold!


                          AFTER  

THE SNOW lies thick on Valley Forge,
  The ice on the Delaware,   
But the poor dead soldiers of King George
  They neither know nor care.

Not though the earliest primrose break
  On the sunny side of the lane,
And scuffling rookeries awake
  Their England's spring again.

They will not stir when the drifts are gone,
  Or the ice melts out of the bay:
And the men that served with Washington
  Lie all as still as they.

They will not stir though the mayflower blows
  In the moist dark woods of pine,
And every rock-strewn pasture shows
  Mullein and columbine.

Each for his land, in a fair fight,
  Encountered, strove, and died,
And the kindly earth that knows no spite 
  Covers them side by side.

She is too busy to think of war;
  She has all the world to make gay;
And, behold, the yearly flowers are
  Where they were in our fathers' day!

Golden-rod by the pasture-wall 
  When the columbine is dead,
And sumach leaves that turn, in fall,
  Bright as the blood they shed.

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"Go wash thyself in Jordan–go, wash thee and be clean!"
Nay, not for any Prophet will I plunge a toe therein!
For the banks of curious Jordan are parcelled into sites,
Commanded and embellished and patrolled by Israelites.

There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,
Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn;
And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin
In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.

And here be merry murtherings, and steeds with fiery hooves;
And furious hordes with guns and swords, and clamberings over rooves;
And horrid tumblings down from Heaven, and flights with wheels and wings;
And always one weak virgin who is chased through all these things.

And here is mock of faith and truth, for children to behold; 
And every door of ancient dirt reopened to the old;
With every word that taints the speech, and show that weakens thought;
And Israel watcheth over each, and–doth not watch for nought...

But Pharphar–but Abana–which Hermon launcheth down–
They perish fighting desert-sands beyond Damascus-town.
But yet their pulse is of the snows–their strength is from on high–
And, if they cannot cure my woes, a leper will I die!

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Lucretia Sempavee Riddens McWhone 
Was loveliest of the Daughters of the Hills, 
And therefore made an idol of by Those
Who should have been at school, but drew instead
Rupees two hundred, ten, and some odd pice 
For serving an ungrateful Government.
And L.S.R.McW. enjoyed
Herself exceedingly, and made to fly 
The pay of Angus, who was fat and red, 
And, at some early period  of his life,
Had been her husband. Angus didn't care,
And L.S.R.McW. drove on.

    *        *        *        *         *        *        *
 	
She had a Skeleton. Who hasn't? Two
In fact. The one she kept beneath her stays
And dressed with clothes from Europe. T'other one 
She generally hid inside her mouth
Because it wasn't hers, except by right 
Of purchase-gold paid down for pearls and gold. 
Two were the molars of a Communist
Young lady, pistolled on the barricades;
The canines came from some grim Plevna 
And one bicuspid from the Schipka pass;
The rest from Javanese rhinoceri;
But all were lovely and had cost much gold,
And had a lot of little pegs and plates
And springs and wires. And she loved them much.
And no–one knew of it or only guessed;
And thus our naughty little world goes round. 

    *        *        *        *        *        *        *

He was Macacus Rhesus, Sterndale says—
I call him Bandar and at half past six
One summer morning through the open door
He ambled, searching for an early meal,
His Simian chota hazri L.S.R.
I really can't repeat her name again)
Was sleeping. Angus was at Bogglybad,
And Something Else was in a tooth glass.—This
Macacus Rhesus bolted with and chewed
It on a pine tree half way down the khud, 
And spat It out, and put It in his pouch
To please his babes with. Then he let It drop 
At Mrs. Duvvlegh's bedroom door–sill. Thus 
Our naughty, naughty little world goes round. 
Then L.S.R. McW. awoke,
And slapped her ayah, called the Khitmutgar, 
The mehter, bhist, sais, massalchi, cook, 
And from the safe side of her bedroom door 
Addressed those menials in a wobbly voice
That thrilled their dusky marrows. Then she wept,
And then she lifted up that voice again
Da capo, piano, prestissimo, 
Fortissimo, ad lib. till ten o'clock;
Then she darwaza banded up the house, 
And wept in the verandah. Mrs. D.
Woke also; found It at her bedroom door;
And since she wore an article herself
Of plates and springs and pegs and pearls and gold;
And since she was a rival, hating much
Lucretia Sempavee Riddens; and since
She understood that memsahib was bemar.
She guessed, and wrote a pretty little chit 
On pink and perfumed paper; sent her sais 
And went to call on ten dear female friends 
With Something in a satchel on her arm, 
And looked extremely pretty. So did not 
Lucretia when the sais produced the chit,
But mumbled naughty epithets like 'Wretch', 
'Thing', 'Vixen', 'Hussy', 'Beast', et cetera. 
Yet wrote a gushing little answer back
And sat and 'grizzled' in her dressing-gown. 

    *        *        *        *        *        *        *

At half-past four she got It, smashed and spoilt, 
The Communistic molars upside down
And marks of other molars on the plates,
(Macacus Rhesus had a lovely set)
And all the pretty little springs and wires 
Like tempest–tossed umbrella ribs. 'Tis thus
Our naughty, naughty little world goes round. 

    *        *        *        *        *        *        *

They laughed at Mrs. L.S.R. McWhone; 
She sent It to Calcutta for a week,
And then she left the Station for the Plains.
And this is how the Gods afflict our lives
Sometimes, somehow, for nothing ....Which is hard.

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