Then we built in the air a cloud palace
From the gold that our fancy had spun,
And we poured our hearts’ blood in Love’s chalice
In the dreams of the days that are done.
Red lips that were curved to enslave us,
White arms that encircled and bound,
From your sway bitter-sweet who could save us
When love in Bohemia was crowned.
Old friends and old loves and old pleasures,
As spectres you surge through the mist
That envelops our past kingdom’s treasures,
That lies chill on the lips that we kissed.
Lost land of Bohemia, we mourn you,
Despond and desire and deplore;
Though the ease of the Philistine scorn you,
Lotos-land, what a glamour you bore!
BALLADE OF ONE-AND-TWENTY
TO toy with Amaryllis in the shade
Becomes a thing one ceases to enjoy,
To pat Nærea’s tresses (Clarkson-made)
As ecstasy admits of some alloy.
The fairy bloom forsakes the peach. The toy,
Stripped of its paint, mocks at delight’s long done.
The little duck results a dear decoy—
Oh! the brave days when we were twenty-one.
The World, the Flesh, the Devil all arrayed
In vain with gauds deck out their gross charoy.
Weary senility rejects the maid;
Gout lurks within the bubbles of “the Boy.”
Satan (in sulphur baths) we may employ—
A healing gift denied to Tomlinson
(Kipling as sponsor made Mephisto coy)—
Oh! the brave days when we were twenty-one.
Hazard’s the only game that now is played.
Death holds the Ace of Spades, so Clubs must cloy,
Hearts slower beat, Diamonds’ flashes fade.
Leaden despair succeeds the hopes that buoy.
Doomward the broken gamesters’ ranks deploy;
Le jeu est fait—the Table’s made its run.
Time’s croupier wields his rake but to destroy—
Oh! the brave days when we were twenty-one.
L’Envoi
PRINCE, when the creeping shades of age annoy,
When Life’s kaleidoscope grows dark and dun,
Hearken our plaint ere Charon grounds his hoy—
Oh! the brave days when we were twenty-one.