Poems

CONTENTS
Most or these verses have appeared in the papers— The Nation, New Statesman, Cambridge Magazine —to the editors of which I tender customary dues. Also, in 1917, a dozen were brought together to make a little book, Ad Familiares , of which a hundred copies were printed privately. Of these seventy were immediately distributed amongst my friends, while the remaining thirty have drifted into the hands of curious amateurs who wrote and asked for them. My stock is now exhausted; but apparently the stock of amateurs is not: for, from time to time, still reach me civil requests for a copy. What can I do? On the one hand, my vanity is outraged by the idea of people anxious but unable to read me; on the other, I am too mean to print for their benefit at my own expense. What I have done is to accept with joy an offer by the Hogarth Press to publish a complete edition of my poems—seventeen in number. Thus, in future, without being at pains to write a flattering letter, and at a trifling cost, any amateur can acquire the works of an extremely rare poet.
C. B.
And so he laboured very hard, Piled little card on little card And laughed to see how well it stood, How all his work was sure and good And pretty as a minaret. He shone with pleasure. Now I'll set A jolly cap to crown the thing. He clapped his hands. Perhaps the fling, Perhaps the shout was over-daring; It toppled down while he was staring. One had to titter, willy-nilly, To see him look so sad and silly.
1912.
Here in a garden under vines Translucent in the mid-day sun, Washing, green shutters, and the lines Of the Salute , which is fun And pure baroque to men of taste, I'm waiting—while the pot-boy chaste Or chastish since Ignatius Chowne And J. A. Symonds to this town Have taught Italian history—waiting, I say, while he is regulating A conto of 12.50-Change For 50 lire; it is strange In tutto il viale bello In which the shops are small but thrifty There's not a single honest fellow To furnish 37.50. I'm waiting still, and still I ponder, As I have pondered all the morning, Out on the blue Giudecca yonder, Under the arches, listless, yawning Full-mouthed against precocious summer That's sprung this quick surprise upon us, And found us out, the sly new-comer, Tweed-coated, winter-hosed, astonished— I ponder, knowing all the time The answer, ponder for the pleasure Of fitting fancy into rhyme And matching music with the weather, What lacks when sea and sky conspire With form as thin but more romantic Than that which some of us admire At Covent Garden,—Transatlantic Cousins still call it monumental, But we know better—sentimental People divine a riddle basking Under its marble,—never mind them, Be sure they'll come, their tales behind them, Safe home to Chelsea. Still I'm asking: What's lacking yet? The Spring's awake, Each palace curtsies to her neighbour, Each gondolier's a handsome rake, Each mouth-organ a dulcet tabor; What can I want when Venice plays And Time's a song, and Fate's a dancer, And Life drifts gaily down her ways, What's lacking, Madame? Can you answer?