COMFORT

WHO would care to pass his life away

Of the Lotos-land a dreamful denizen,—

Lotos-islands in a waveless bay,

Sung by Alfred Tennyson?

Who would care to be a dull new-comer

Far across the wild sea’s wide abysses,

Where, about the earth’s three thousandth summer,

Passed divine Ulysses?

Rather give me coffee, art, a book,

From my windows a delicious sea-view,

Southdown mutton, somebody to cook,—

“Music?”—I believe you.

Strawberry icebergs in the summer time,—

But of elm-wood many a massive splinter,

Good ghost stories, and a classic rhyme,

For the nights of winter.

Now and then a friend and some Sauterne,

Now and then a haunch of Highland venison,

And for Lotos-land I’ll never yearn,

Malgré Alfred Tennyson.

Mortimer Collins.