Collected Works (Vol. II)

2 ORACLES Your age and sex forbid, old man, I need not tell you how, Or else I’d knock you down, old man, Like that extremist cow.} You've gained your every seat, my friend, By perjuring your soul ; You’ve climbed to Downing Street, my friend, A very greasy poll. You bear a traitor’s brand, old man, You bear a liar’s brand ; I will zo¢ shake thy hand, old man, I will ot shake thy hand. [And I didn’t. THE BALLOON. Written (at the age of fifteen, and still unsur- passed) while in bed with measles at Ton- bridge in Kent, FLOATING in the summer air, What is that for men to see? Anywhere and everywhere, Now a bullet, now a tree— Till we all begin to swear : What the devil can it be? See its disproportioned head, Tiny trunk and limbs lopped bare, Hydrocephalus the dread With a surgeon chopping there ; Chopping legs and arms all red With the sticky lumps of hair. Like a man in this complaint Floats this creature in the sky, Till the gaping rustics faint And the smirking milkmaids cry, As the cord and silk and paint, Wood and iron drifteth by. Floating in the summer sky Like a model of the moon :— How supreme to be so high In a treacherous balloon, Like the Kings of Destiny, All the earth for their spittoon. 1 Mr. Gladstone was attacked by a cow in Hawarden Park in 1891. Toads are gnawing at my feet. Take them off me quick, I pray! Worms my juicy liver eat. Take the awful beasts away ! Vipers make my bowels their meat. Fetch a cunning knife and slay ! Kill the tadpoles in my lung, And the woodlice in my spine, And the beast that gnaws my tongue, And the weasel at my chine, And the horde of adders young That around mine entrails twine! Come, dissect me! Rip the skin! Tear the bleeding flesh apart ! See ye all my hellish grin While the straining vitals smart. Never mind! Go in and win, Till you reach my gory heart ! While my heart’s soft pulse did go, Devils had it in their bands. Doctors keep it in a row, Now, on varnished wooden stands : And I really do not know If it is in different hands. SPOLIA OPIMA. | My home is set between two ivory towers, | Fresh with the fragrance of a thousand flowers. And the twin portals of a ruby door, Portcullissed with the pearls of India’s shore, Loosed with a smile and opened with a kiss, Bid me a joyous welcome there, I wis. My home is on the brink of heaven's delight, But for that endless day a lovelier night Is in my home, that sunset’s arms enfold, Lit with the mellowness of autumn gold. Pillowed on linen of the purest white, Half-hidden by her locks’ luxurious night, Maddened by those soft eyes of melting glow, Enamoured of that breast .of breathing snow, Caught in the meshes of her fine-spun hair, Rocked by the beating of her bosom fair,