Ghastly wet moon-faces
Puckered and peered;
Blind things in the darkness
Gibbered and jeered;
And ev’ry witch-woman there
Wagged a thin beard.
Each had an evil dream
Under her hood;
All spinning a witch-web
Redder than blood
Across the dim spaces
Near where he stood.
Their moonish old gabblement
Loosened his knees,
Down on his face fell
Go-as-you-please.
Now ev’ry summer’s night,
Go-as-you-please ’ll
Sing to the crazy moon
‘Pop goes the weazel.’
‘Æ’: THE INEFFABLE SPLENDOUR OF THINGUMBOB
THROUGH the pearl-grey heart of twilight, lit with amethyst and gold,
We beheld the mystic Thingumbob, in visions fold on fold;
And the Ages bowed before him as he passed the glimmering deep;
We renewed our ancient beauty and arose from dewy sleep.
Where the starry thrones grew brighter as the heights were touched with flame,
High above a million faces burned the crown of What’s-his-Name.
In what ivory-towered city, in what thronged and radiant street,
Shall we see through mists of violet the shining Feet of Feet?
Not the lily nor the lotus but the crimson flow’r of Pain
Blossoms now to lead the spirit to the Light of Lights again;
Now the bard of faery song and rune is set down as a bore,
Far from Babylon and Sackville Street and boggy Carrowmore;
Gods and heroes flee before us in a reeling fiery rout;
Earth grows faint and hungry-hearted now as dream on dream fades out;
And the dim blue reader wonders what the poem is all about.
SIR WM WATSON: ON RECEIVING
AN ÉDITION-DE-LUXE OF ELLA
WHEELER WILCOX
A QUEENLY gift that wears a regal dress
Of wine-flushed velvet blazoned with fine gold;
Sumptuous these lettered heralds that remain
Without the hall, bidding us enter there,
Proclaiming puissant titles for their queen;
More sumptuous still, the largesse and the feast
Of poesie within. Here in this Isle,
Where once were mighty poets, we have but known
A fugitive or sterile muse of late:
Across the sundering floods and leagues of foam,
On younger peoples in a riper clime
There falls no blight of song, but in full tide
Of passion, poets have blossomed year by year.
And greatest among these, O Wilcox, thou!
Song lived again in thee: no single note
Of human bliss or woe that did not come
Unto thy tutored and melodious tongue
And swell thy opulence of rhyme.
Shall we, who share a common speech, forget
Thy guerdon? Nay, not Tupper’s beaten gold,
Nor Mistress Hemans, that white garden rose
Of song, nor Bulwer Lytton’s mystic peaks
Of thought, nor Morris (Lewis of that name)
With all his large discourse and epic strain,
Shall move us more in the dark days to come.