But the Boys? the Boys, they stands
With white lilies in their hands,
And they do not know the meaning of a whipping:
For the whole delightful ship is
Like a dream of Lippo Lippi’s,
More than what you mostly see in modern shipping.
Well, some coves they cuts up rough,
And they calls æsthetics stuff,
And they says as we’ve no business to keep dipping
In the rates, but ladies likes it,
And our flag we never strikes it—
Bless old England’s new Æsthetic Training Shipping!
NATURAL THEOLOGY.
ἐπει καὶ τοῦτον ὀῖομαι ἀθανάτοισιν
ἔυχεσθαι· Πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ’ ἄνθρωποι.Od. iii. 47.
“Once Cagn was like a father, kind and good,
But He was spoiled by fighting many things;
He wars upon the lions in the wood,
And breaks the Thunder-bird’s tremendous wings;
But still we cry to Him,—We are thy brood—
O Cagn, be merciful! and us He brings
To herds of elands, and great store of food,
And in the desert opens water-springs.”
So Qing, King Nqsha’s Bushman hunter, spoke,
Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,
When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke
Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:
And suddenly in each man’s heart there woke
A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.
THE ODYSSEY.
As one that for a weary space has lain
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,
And only the low lutes of love complain,
And only shadows of wan lovers pine,
As such an one were glad to know the brine
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,—
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
And through the music of the languid hours,
They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
IDEAL.
Suggested by a female head in wax, of unknown date, but supposed to be either of the best Greek age, or a work of Raphael or Leonardo. It is now in the Lille Museum.