"MY LANDS, NOT THINE"
MY lands, not thine, we look upon,
Friend Croesus, hill and vale and lawn.
Mine every woodland madrigal,
And mine thy singing waterfall
That vaguely hints of Helicon.
Mark how thine upland slopes have drawn
A golden glory from the dawn!—
Fool's gold?—thy dullness proves them all
My lands—not thine!
For when all title-deeds are gone,
Still, still will satyr, nymph, and faun
Through brake and covert pipe and call
In dances bold and bacchanal—
For them, for me, you hold in pawn,
My lands—not thine!
TO A DANCING DOLL
FORMAL, quaint, precise, and trim,
You begin your steps demurely—
There's a spirit almost prim
In the feet that move so surely,
So discreetly, to the chime
Of the music that so sweetly
Marks the time.
But the chords begin to tinkle
Quicker,
And your feet they flash and flicker—
Twinkle!—
Flash and flutter to a tricksy
Fickle meter;
And you foot it like a pixie—
Only fleeter!
Now our current, dowdy
Things—
"Turkey-trots" and rowdy
Flings—
For they made you overseas
In politer times than these,
In an age when grace could please,
Ere St. Vitus
Clutched and shook us, spine and knees;—
Loosed a plague of jerks to smite us!
Well, our day is far more brisk
And our manner rather slacker),
And you are nothing more than bisque
And lacquer—
But you shame us with the graces
Of courtlier times and places
When the cheap
And vulgar wasn't "art"—
When the faunal prance and leap
Weren't "smart."