A PORTRAIT

I am a kind of farthing dip, Unfriendly to the nose and eyes; A blue-behinded ape, I skip Upon the trees of Paradise. At mankind’s feast, I take my place In solemn, sanctimonious state, And have the air of saying grace While I defile the dinner-plate. I am “the smiler with the knife,” The battener upon garbage, I— Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life Were it not better far to die? Yet still, about the human pale, I love to scamper, love to race, To swing by my irreverent tail All over the most holy place; And when at length, some golden day, The unfailing sportsman, aiming at, Shall bag, me—all the world shall say: Thank God, and there’s an end of that!
XXXI
Sing clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still, Sing truer or no longer sing! No more the voice of melancholy Jaques To wake a weeping echo in the hill; But as the boy, the pirate of the spring, From the green elm a living linnet takes, One natural verse recapture—then be still.
XXXII

A CAMP[1]

The bed was made, the room was fit, By punctual eve the stars were lit; The air was still, the water ran, No need was there for maid or man, When we put up, my ass and I, At God’s green caravanserai.
XXXIII

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS[1]

We travelled in the print of olden wars; Yet all the land was green; And love we found, and peace, Where fire and war had been. They pass and smile, the children of the sword— No more the sword they wield; And O, how deep the corn Along the battlefield!

[1] From “Travels with a Donkey.”

XXXIV