Poems List
Stamp Collector
Stamp Collector
My worldly wealth I hoard in albums three,
My life collection of rare postage stamps;
My room is cold and bare as you can see,
My coat is old and shabby as a tramp's;
Yet more to me than balances in banks,
My albums three are worth a million francs.
I keep them in that box beside my bed,
For who would dream such treasures it could hold;
But every day I take them out and spread
Each page, to gloat like miser o'er his gold:
Dearer to me than could be child or wife,
I would defend them with my very life.
They are my very life, for every night
over my catalogues I pore and pore;
I recognize rare items with delight,
Nothing I read but philatelic lore;
And when some specimen of choice I buy,
In all the world there's none more glad than I.
Behold my gem, my British penny black;
To pay its price I starved myself a year;
And many a night my dinner I would lack,
But when I bought it, oh, what radiant cheer!
Hitler made war that day - I did not care,
So long as my collection he would spare.
Look - my triangular Cape of Good Hope.
To purchase it I had to sell my car.
Now in my pocket for some sous I grope
To pay my omnibus when home is far,
And I am cold and hungry and footsore,
In haste to add some beauty to my store.
This very day, ah, what a joy was mine,
When in a dingy dealer's shop I found
This franc vermillion, eighteen forty-nine . . .
How painfully my heart began to pound!
(It's weak they say), I paid the modest price
And tremblingly I vanished in a trice.
But oh, my dream is that some day of days,
I might discover a Mauritius blue,
poking among the stamp-bins of the quais;
Who knows! They say there are but two;
Yet if a third one I should spy,
I think - God help me! I should faint and die. . . .
Poor Monsieur Pns, he's cold and dead,
One of those stamp-collecting cranks.
His garret held no crust of bread,
But albums worth a million francs.
on them his income he would spend,
By philatelic frenzy driven:
What did it profit in the end. . .
You can't take stamps to Heaven.
My worldly wealth I hoard in albums three,
My life collection of rare postage stamps;
My room is cold and bare as you can see,
My coat is old and shabby as a tramp's;
Yet more to me than balances in banks,
My albums three are worth a million francs.
I keep them in that box beside my bed,
For who would dream such treasures it could hold;
But every day I take them out and spread
Each page, to gloat like miser o'er his gold:
Dearer to me than could be child or wife,
I would defend them with my very life.
They are my very life, for every night
over my catalogues I pore and pore;
I recognize rare items with delight,
Nothing I read but philatelic lore;
And when some specimen of choice I buy,
In all the world there's none more glad than I.
Behold my gem, my British penny black;
To pay its price I starved myself a year;
And many a night my dinner I would lack,
But when I bought it, oh, what radiant cheer!
Hitler made war that day - I did not care,
So long as my collection he would spare.
Look - my triangular Cape of Good Hope.
To purchase it I had to sell my car.
Now in my pocket for some sous I grope
To pay my omnibus when home is far,
And I am cold and hungry and footsore,
In haste to add some beauty to my store.
This very day, ah, what a joy was mine,
When in a dingy dealer's shop I found
This franc vermillion, eighteen forty-nine . . .
How painfully my heart began to pound!
(It's weak they say), I paid the modest price
And tremblingly I vanished in a trice.
But oh, my dream is that some day of days,
I might discover a Mauritius blue,
poking among the stamp-bins of the quais;
Who knows! They say there are but two;
Yet if a third one I should spy,
I think - God help me! I should faint and die. . . .
Poor Monsieur Pns, he's cold and dead,
One of those stamp-collecting cranks.
His garret held no crust of bread,
But albums worth a million francs.
on them his income he would spend,
By philatelic frenzy driven:
What did it profit in the end. . .
You can't take stamps to Heaven.
176
Spanish Peasant
Spanish Peasant
We have no aspiration vain
For paradise Utopian,
And here in our sun-happy Spain,
Though man exploit his fellow man,
To high constraint we humbly yield,
And turn from politics to toil,
Content to till a kindly field
And bring forth bounty from the soil.
They tell us wars will never cease;
They sy the world is out of joint.
How well we Know! But peace is peace
Even imposed at pistol point.
And we have learnt our lesson well,
By many a death, by many a tear;
So let us live a feudal spell, -
The cost of freedom is too dear.
Let us be the cattle kind,
Praying the goad be not a sword;
In servitude obeying blind
The tyrant ruling of our Lord.
His army can be swift to slay,
His Church teach us humility . . .
But never never will we pay
Again blood-price for Liberty.
We have no aspiration vain
For paradise Utopian,
And here in our sun-happy Spain,
Though man exploit his fellow man,
To high constraint we humbly yield,
And turn from politics to toil,
Content to till a kindly field
And bring forth bounty from the soil.
They tell us wars will never cease;
They sy the world is out of joint.
How well we Know! But peace is peace
Even imposed at pistol point.
And we have learnt our lesson well,
By many a death, by many a tear;
So let us live a feudal spell, -
The cost of freedom is too dear.
Let us be the cattle kind,
Praying the goad be not a sword;
In servitude obeying blind
The tyrant ruling of our Lord.
His army can be swift to slay,
His Church teach us humility . . .
But never never will we pay
Again blood-price for Liberty.
140
Song Of The Sardine
Song Of The Sardine
A fat man sat in an orchestra stall and his cheeks were wet with tears,
As he gazed at the primadonna tall, whom he hadn't seen in years.
"Oh don't you remember" he murmured low "that Spring in Montparnasse,
When hand in hand we used to go to our nightly singing class.
Ah me those days so gay and glad, so full of hope and cheer.
And that little super that we had of tinned sardines and beer.
When you looked so like a little queen with your proud and haughty air,
That I took from the box the last sardine and I twined it in your hair."
Alas I am only a stockbroker now while you are high and great,
The laurels of fame adorn your brow while on you Princes wait.
And as I sit so sadly here and list to your thrilling tones,
You cannot remember I sadly fear if my name is Smith or jones.
Yet Oh those days of long ago, when I had scarce a sou.
And as my bitter tears down flow I think again of you.
And once again I seem to see that mad of sweet sixteen,
Within whose tresses tenderly I twined that bright sardine.
Chorus:
Oh that sardine in your hair, I can see it shining there,
As I took it from its box, And I twined it in your locks.
Silver sardine in your hair. Like a jewel rich and rare,
Oh that little silver sardine in your hair.
A fat man sat in an orchestra stall and his cheeks were wet with tears,
As he gazed at the primadonna tall, whom he hadn't seen in years.
"Oh don't you remember" he murmured low "that Spring in Montparnasse,
When hand in hand we used to go to our nightly singing class.
Ah me those days so gay and glad, so full of hope and cheer.
And that little super that we had of tinned sardines and beer.
When you looked so like a little queen with your proud and haughty air,
That I took from the box the last sardine and I twined it in your hair."
Alas I am only a stockbroker now while you are high and great,
The laurels of fame adorn your brow while on you Princes wait.
And as I sit so sadly here and list to your thrilling tones,
You cannot remember I sadly fear if my name is Smith or jones.
Yet Oh those days of long ago, when I had scarce a sou.
And as my bitter tears down flow I think again of you.
And once again I seem to see that mad of sweet sixteen,
Within whose tresses tenderly I twined that bright sardine.
Chorus:
Oh that sardine in your hair, I can see it shining there,
As I took it from its box, And I twined it in your locks.
Silver sardine in your hair. Like a jewel rich and rare,
Oh that little silver sardine in your hair.
202
Slugging Saint
Slugging Saint
'Twas in a pub in Battersea
They call the "Rose and Crown,"
Quite suddenly, it seemed to me,
The Lord was looking down;
The Lord was looking from above,
And shiny was His face,
And I was filled with gush of love
For all the human race.
Anon I saw three ancient men
Who reckoned not of bliss,
And they looked quite astonished when
I gave them each a kiss.
I kissed each on his balding spot
With heart of Heaven grace . . .
And then it seemed there was a lot
Of trouble round the place.
They had me up before the beak,
But though I told my tale,
He sentanced me to spend a week
In Yard of Scotland Gaol.
So when they kindly set me free
Please don't think it amiss,
If Battling Bill of Battersea,
For love of all humanity
Gives you a kiss.
'Twas in a pub in Battersea
They call the "Rose and Crown,"
Quite suddenly, it seemed to me,
The Lord was looking down;
The Lord was looking from above,
And shiny was His face,
And I was filled with gush of love
For all the human race.
Anon I saw three ancient men
Who reckoned not of bliss,
And they looked quite astonished when
I gave them each a kiss.
I kissed each on his balding spot
With heart of Heaven grace . . .
And then it seemed there was a lot
Of trouble round the place.
They had me up before the beak,
But though I told my tale,
He sentanced me to spend a week
In Yard of Scotland Gaol.
So when they kindly set me free
Please don't think it amiss,
If Battling Bill of Battersea,
For love of all humanity
Gives you a kiss.
199
Someone's Mother
Someone's Mother
Someone's Mother trails the street
Wrapt in rotted rags;
Broken slippers on her feet
Drearily she drags;
Drifting in the bitter night,
Gnawing gutter bread,
With a face of tallow white,
Listless as the dead.
Someone's Mother in the dim
Of the grey church wall
Hears within a Christmas hymn,
One she can recall
From the h so long ago,
When divinely far,
in the holy alter glow
She would kneel in prayer.
Someone's Mother, huddled there,
Had so sweet a dream;
Seemed the sky was Heaven's stair,
Golden and agleam,
Robed in gown Communion bright,
Singingly she trod
Up and up the stair of light,
And thee was waiting - God.
Someone's Mother cowers down
By the old church wall;
Soft above the sleeping town
Snow begins to fall;
Now her rags are lily fair,
but unproud is she:
Someone's Mother is not there . . .
Lo! she climbs the starry stair
Only angels see.
Someone's Mother trails the street
Wrapt in rotted rags;
Broken slippers on her feet
Drearily she drags;
Drifting in the bitter night,
Gnawing gutter bread,
With a face of tallow white,
Listless as the dead.
Someone's Mother in the dim
Of the grey church wall
Hears within a Christmas hymn,
One she can recall
From the h so long ago,
When divinely far,
in the holy alter glow
She would kneel in prayer.
Someone's Mother, huddled there,
Had so sweet a dream;
Seemed the sky was Heaven's stair,
Golden and agleam,
Robed in gown Communion bright,
Singingly she trod
Up and up the stair of light,
And thee was waiting - God.
Someone's Mother cowers down
By the old church wall;
Soft above the sleeping town
Snow begins to fall;
Now her rags are lily fair,
but unproud is she:
Someone's Mother is not there . . .
Lo! she climbs the starry stair
Only angels see.
290
Sinister Sooth
Sinister Sooth
You say I am the slave of Fate
Bound by unalterable laws.
I harken, but your words I hate,
Your damnable Effect and Cause.
If there's no hope for happy Chance
Give me the bliss of ignorance.
You say my life ends with the tomb;
This brain, my mind machine, will rot;
Its many million cells that room
My personality and thought
Will in the Dark Destroyer's term
Provide a banquet for the worm.
You say--yet though your wisdom wells,
To it I am unreconciled;
My mind admits, my heart rebels . . .
O let me listen like a child
To Him who spoke with blessed breath
From bench of toil in Nazareth!
You say I am the slave of Fate
Bound by unalterable laws.
I harken, but your words I hate,
Your damnable Effect and Cause.
If there's no hope for happy Chance
Give me the bliss of ignorance.
You say my life ends with the tomb;
This brain, my mind machine, will rot;
Its many million cells that room
My personality and thought
Will in the Dark Destroyer's term
Provide a banquet for the worm.
You say--yet though your wisdom wells,
To it I am unreconciled;
My mind admits, my heart rebels . . .
O let me listen like a child
To Him who spoke with blessed breath
From bench of toil in Nazareth!
204
Silence
Silence
When I was cub reporter I
Would interview the Great,
And sometimes they would make reply,
And sometimes hesitate;
But often they would sharply say,
With bushy eyebrows bent:
"Young man, your answer for to-day
Is - No Comment."
Nigh sixty years have called the tune,
And silver is my pate;
No longer do I importune
Important men of state;
But time has made me wise, and so
When button-holed I shake
My head and say: "To-day, I've no
Comment to make."
Oh, silence is a mighty shield,
Verbosity is vain;
let others wordy warfare wield,
From arguments abstain;
When faced with dialectic foes
Just shrug and turn away:
Be sure your wisest words are those
You do not say.
Yea, Silence is a gleaming sword
Whose wounds are hard to heal;
Its quiet stuns the spoken word
More than a thunder peal;
Against it there is no defense,
For like the grave-yard sod
Its hush is Heaven's eloquence,
The VOICE OF GOD.
When I was cub reporter I
Would interview the Great,
And sometimes they would make reply,
And sometimes hesitate;
But often they would sharply say,
With bushy eyebrows bent:
"Young man, your answer for to-day
Is - No Comment."
Nigh sixty years have called the tune,
And silver is my pate;
No longer do I importune
Important men of state;
But time has made me wise, and so
When button-holed I shake
My head and say: "To-day, I've no
Comment to make."
Oh, silence is a mighty shield,
Verbosity is vain;
let others wordy warfare wield,
From arguments abstain;
When faced with dialectic foes
Just shrug and turn away:
Be sure your wisest words are those
You do not say.
Yea, Silence is a gleaming sword
Whose wounds are hard to heal;
Its quiet stuns the spoken word
More than a thunder peal;
Against it there is no defense,
For like the grave-yard sod
Its hush is Heaven's eloquence,
The VOICE OF GOD.
213
Shakespeare And Cervantes
Shakespeare And Cervantes
Obit 23rd April 1616
Is it not strange that on this common date,
Two titans of their age, aye of all Time,
Together should renounce this mortal state,
And rise like gods, unsullied and sublime?
Should mutually render up the ghost,
And hand n hand join Jove's celestial host?
What wondrous welcome from the scribes on high!
Homer and Virgil would be waiting there;
Plato and Aristotle standing nigh;
Petrarch and Dante greet the peerless pair:
And as in harmony they make their bow,
Horace might quip: "Great timing, you'll allow."
Imagine this transcendant team arrive
At some hilarious banquet of the gods!
Their nations battled when they were alive,
And they were bitter foes - but what's the odd?
Actor and soldier, happy hand in hand,
By death close-linked, like loving brothers stand.
But how diverse! Our Will had gold and gear,
Chattels and land, the starshine of success;
The bleak Castilian fought with casque and spear,
Passing his life in prisons - more or less.
The Bard of Avon was accounted rich;
Cervantes often bedded in a ditch.
Yet when I slough this flesh, if I could meet
By sweet, fantastic fate one of these two,
In languorous Elysian retreat,
Which would I choose? Fair reader, which would you?
Well, though our William more divinely wrote,
By gad! the lousy Spaniard has my vote.
Obit 23rd April 1616
Is it not strange that on this common date,
Two titans of their age, aye of all Time,
Together should renounce this mortal state,
And rise like gods, unsullied and sublime?
Should mutually render up the ghost,
And hand n hand join Jove's celestial host?
What wondrous welcome from the scribes on high!
Homer and Virgil would be waiting there;
Plato and Aristotle standing nigh;
Petrarch and Dante greet the peerless pair:
And as in harmony they make their bow,
Horace might quip: "Great timing, you'll allow."
Imagine this transcendant team arrive
At some hilarious banquet of the gods!
Their nations battled when they were alive,
And they were bitter foes - but what's the odd?
Actor and soldier, happy hand in hand,
By death close-linked, like loving brothers stand.
But how diverse! Our Will had gold and gear,
Chattels and land, the starshine of success;
The bleak Castilian fought with casque and spear,
Passing his life in prisons - more or less.
The Bard of Avon was accounted rich;
Cervantes often bedded in a ditch.
Yet when I slough this flesh, if I could meet
By sweet, fantastic fate one of these two,
In languorous Elysian retreat,
Which would I choose? Fair reader, which would you?
Well, though our William more divinely wrote,
By gad! the lousy Spaniard has my vote.
216
Seven
Seven
If on water and sweet bread
Seven years I'll add to life,
For me will no blood be shed,
No lamb know the evil knife;
Excellently will I dine
On a crust and Adam's wine.
If a bed in monkish cell
Well mean old of age to me,
Let me in a convent dwell,
And from fellow men be free;
Let my mellow sunset days
Pass in piety and praise.
For I love each hour I live,
Wishing it were twice as long;
Dawn my gratitude I give,
Laud the Lord with evensong:
Now that moons are sadly few
How I grudge the grave its due!
Yet somehow I seem to know
Seven Springs are left to me;
Seven Mays may cherry tree
Will allume with sudden snow . . .
Then let seven candles shine
Silver peace above my shrine.
If on water and sweet bread
Seven years I'll add to life,
For me will no blood be shed,
No lamb know the evil knife;
Excellently will I dine
On a crust and Adam's wine.
If a bed in monkish cell
Well mean old of age to me,
Let me in a convent dwell,
And from fellow men be free;
Let my mellow sunset days
Pass in piety and praise.
For I love each hour I live,
Wishing it were twice as long;
Dawn my gratitude I give,
Laud the Lord with evensong:
Now that moons are sadly few
How I grudge the grave its due!
Yet somehow I seem to know
Seven Springs are left to me;
Seven Mays may cherry tree
Will allume with sudden snow . . .
Then let seven candles shine
Silver peace above my shrine.
272
Sensibility
Sensibility
I
Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful sensuous delight,
It looks aloft with lambent eyes,
Mystic, Egyptianly wise,
And O so eloquently tries
In every fibre to express
Consummate trust and friendliness.
II
I think the longer that we live
The more do we grow sensitive
Of hurt and harm to man and beast,
And learn to suffer at the least
Surmise of other's suffering;
Till pity, lie an eager spring
Wells up, and we are over-fain
To vibrate to the chords of pain.
For look you - after three-score yeas
I see with anguish nigh to tears
That starveling cat so sudden still
I set my terrier to to kill.
Great, golden memories pale away,
But that unto my dying day
Will haunt and haunt me horribly.
Why, even my poor dog felt shame
And shrank away as if to blame
of that poor mangled mother-cat
Would ever lie at his doormat.
III
What's done is done. No power can bring
To living joy a slaughtered thing.
Aye, if of life I gave my own
I could not for my guilt atone.
And though in stress of sea and land
Sweet breath has ended at my hand,
That boyhood killing in my eyes
A thousand must epitomize.
Yet to my twilight steals a thought:
Somehow forgiveness may be bought;
Somewhere I'll live my life again
So finely sensitized to pain,
With heart so rhymed to truth and right
That Truth will be a blaze of light;
All all the evil I have wrought
Will haggardly to home be brought. . . .
Then will I know my hell indeed,
And bleed where I made others bleed,
Till purged by penitence of sin
To Peace (or Heaven) I may win.
Well, anyway, you know the why
We are so pally, cats and I;
So if you have the gift of shame,
O Fellow-sinner, be the same.
I
Once, when a boy, I killed a cat.
I guess it's just because of that
A cat evokes my tenderness,
And takes so kindly my caress.
For with a rich, resonant purr
It sleeks an arch or ardent fur
So vibrantly against my shin;
And as I tickle tilted chin
And rub the roots of velvet ears
Its tail in undulation rears.
Then tremoring with all its might,
In blissful sensuous delight,
It looks aloft with lambent eyes,
Mystic, Egyptianly wise,
And O so eloquently tries
In every fibre to express
Consummate trust and friendliness.
II
I think the longer that we live
The more do we grow sensitive
Of hurt and harm to man and beast,
And learn to suffer at the least
Surmise of other's suffering;
Till pity, lie an eager spring
Wells up, and we are over-fain
To vibrate to the chords of pain.
For look you - after three-score yeas
I see with anguish nigh to tears
That starveling cat so sudden still
I set my terrier to to kill.
Great, golden memories pale away,
But that unto my dying day
Will haunt and haunt me horribly.
Why, even my poor dog felt shame
And shrank away as if to blame
of that poor mangled mother-cat
Would ever lie at his doormat.
III
What's done is done. No power can bring
To living joy a slaughtered thing.
Aye, if of life I gave my own
I could not for my guilt atone.
And though in stress of sea and land
Sweet breath has ended at my hand,
That boyhood killing in my eyes
A thousand must epitomize.
Yet to my twilight steals a thought:
Somehow forgiveness may be bought;
Somewhere I'll live my life again
So finely sensitized to pain,
With heart so rhymed to truth and right
That Truth will be a blaze of light;
All all the evil I have wrought
Will haggardly to home be brought. . . .
Then will I know my hell indeed,
And bleed where I made others bleed,
Till purged by penitence of sin
To Peace (or Heaven) I may win.
Well, anyway, you know the why
We are so pally, cats and I;
So if you have the gift of shame,
O Fellow-sinner, be the same.
201
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