BLIND MOONE OF LONDON

BLIND Moone of London He fiddled up and down, Thrice for an angel, And twice for a crown. He fiddled at the Green Man, He fiddled at the Rose; And where they have buried him Not a soul knows. All his tunes are dead and gone, dead as yesterday. And his lanthorn flits no more Round the Devil Tavern door, Waiting till the gallants come, singing from the play; Waiting in the wet and cold! All his Whitsun tales are told. He is dead and gone, sirs, very far away. He would not give a silver groat For good or evil weather. He carried in his white cap A long red feather. He wore a long coat Of the Reading-tawny kind, And darned white hosen With a blue patch behind. So—one night—he shuffled past, in his buckled shoon. We shall never see his face, Twisted to that queer grimace, Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune; Very whimsical and white, Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night! He is grown too proud at last—old blind Moone. Yet, when May was at the door, And Moone was wont to sing, Many a maid and bachelor Whirled into the ring: Standing on a tilted wain He played so sweet and loud The Mayor forgot his golden chain And jigged it with the crowd. Old blind Moone, his fiddle scattered flowers along the street; Into the dust of Brookfield Fair Carried a shining primrose air, Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet, Drew us close, and held us bound, Then—to the tune of Pedlar’s Pound, Caught us up, and whirled us round, a thousand frolic feet. Master Shakespeare was his host. The tribe of Benjamin Used to call him Merlin’s Ghost At the Mermaid Inn. He was only a crowder, Fiddling at the door. Death has made him prouder. We shall not see him more. Only—if you listen, please—through the master’s themes, You shall hear a wizard strain, Blind and bright as wind and rain Shaken out of willow-trees, and shot with elfin gleams. How should I your true love know? Scraps and snatches—even so! That is old blind Moone again, fiddling in your dreams. Once, when Will had called for sack And bidden him up and play, Old blind Moone, he turned his back, Growled, and walked away, Sailed into a thunder-cloud, Snapped his fiddle-string, And hobbled from The Mermaid Sulky as a king. Only from the darkness now, steals the strain we knew: No one even knows his grave! Only here and there a stave, Out of all his hedge-row flock, be-drips the may with dew. And I know not what wild bird Carried us his parting word:— Master Shakespeare needn’t take the crowder’s fiddle, too. Will has wealth and wealth to spare. Give him back his own. At his head a grass-green turf, At his heels a stone. See his little lanthorn-spark. Hear his ghostly tune, Glimmering past you, in the dark, Old blind Moone! All the little crazy brooks, where love and sorrow run Crowned with sedge and singing wild, Like a sky-lark—or a child!— Old blind Moone, he knew their springs, and played ’em every one; Stood there, in the darkness, blind, And sang them into Shakespeare’s mind.... Old blind Moone of London, O now his songs are done, The light upon his lost white face, they say it was the sun! The light upon his poor old face, they say it was the sun!

OLD GREY SQUIRREL

A GREAT while ago, there was a school-boy. He lived in a cottage by the sea. And the very first thing he could remember Was the rigging of the schooners by the quay. He could watch them, when he woke, from his window, With the tall cranes hoisting out the freight. And he used to think of shipping as a sea-cook, And sailing to the Golden Gate. For he used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls, And read them where he fished for conger eels, And listened to the lapping of the water, The green and oily water round the keels. There were trawlers with their shark-mouthed flat-fish, And red nets hanging out to dry, And the skate the skipper kept because he liked ’em, And landsmen never knew the fish to fry. There were brigantines with timber out of Norroway, Oozing with the syrups of the pine. There were rusty dusty schooners out of Sunderland, And ships of the Blue Cross line. And to tumble down a hatch into the cabin Was better than the best of broken rules; For the smell of ’em was like a Christmas dinner, And the feel of ’em was like a box of tools. And, before he went to sleep in the evening, The very last thing that he could see Was the sailor-men a-dancing in the moonlight By the capstan that stood upon the quay. He is perched upon a high stool in London. The Golden Gate is very far away. They caught him, and they caged him, like a squirrel. He is totting up accounts, and going grey. He will never, never, never sail to ’Frisco. But the very last thing that he will see Will be sailor-men a-dancing in the sunrise By the capstan that stands upon the quay.... To the tune of an old concertina, By the capstan that stands upon the quay.

THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

JUST as the moon was rising, I met a ghostly pedlar Singing for company beneath his ghostly load,— Once, there were velvet lads with vizards on their faces, Riding up to rob me on the great North Road. Now, my pack is heavy, and my pocket full of guineas Chimes like a wedding-peal, but little I enjoy Roads that never echo to the chirrup of their canter,— The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy. Rogues were they all, but their raid was from Elf-land! Shod with elfin silver were the steeds they bestrode. Merlin buckled on the spurs that wheeled thro’ the wet fern Bright as Jack-o’-Lanthorns off the great North Road. Tales were told in country inns when Turpin rode to Rippleside! Puck tuned the fiddle-strings, and country maids grew coy, Tavern doors grew magical when Colonel Jack might tap at them, The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy. What are you seeking then? I asked this honest pedlar. —O, Mulled Sack or Natty Hawes might ease me of my load!— Where are they flown then?—Flown where I follow; They are all gone for ever up the great North Road. Rogues were they all; but the white dust assoils ’em! Paradise without a spice of deviltry would cloy. Heavy is my pack till I meet with Jerry Abershaw, The gay Golden Farmer and the Hereford Boy.

THE RIVER OF STARS