THE APOLOGY
Do not be distant with me, do not be
Angry because I drank deep of your wine,
But treat that laughing matter laughingly
Because I am a poet, and incline
By nature and by art to jollity.
Always I loved to see, I will aver,
The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim,
Sitting half fool and half philosopher,
Chatting with every kind of her and him,
And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer.
Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall,
Too often there's no money in my purse,
Nor malice in my mind ever at all,
And for my songs no person is the worse
But I who give all of my store to all.
If busybody spoke to you of it,
Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live:
The poet only takes his sup and bit,
And say: It is no great return to give
For his unstinted gift of verse and wit.
THE GANG
Our fathers must have sinned: we pay for it!
Through them the base-born tribe that sold their king
Sneaked into power, and in high places sit,
And do their will and wish in everything;
For they may rob and kill, grieve and disgrace
All who are left alive of Eiver's race.
They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf,
And swore that they would never bend a knee
Unto the king: they robbed the Church herself:
They stole our princes' lands, and o'er the sea
They packed those princes, or drove them away
To barren rocks and fields that have no clay.
That spawn of base mechanics! who could ne'er,
Though Doomsday came, by any art be made
Noble, are noble now, and have no care:
Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid
In stately places, proud as if the mud
And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood.