O friend of Shenstone, do you frown
In realms remote from me
When Messrs Durrant send you down
By inadvertency
Clippings identifying you
With some dim man in the moon,
A Spiritual Quixote, true,
But friend of S. Sassoon?
“A VEHICLE, TO WIT, A BICYCLE.”
(Dedicated, without permission, to my friend P. C. Flowers)
“My front-lamp, constable? Why, man, the moon!
My rear-lamp? Shining there ten yards behind me,
Warm parlour lamplight of The Dish and Spoon!”
But for all my fancy talk, they would have fined me,
Had I not set a rather sly half-crown
Winking under the rays of my front lamp:
Goodwill towards men disturbed the official frown,
My rear-light beckoned through the evening’s damp.
MOTTO TO A BOOK OF EMBLEMS
Though you read these, but understand not, curse not!
Or though you read and understand, yet praise not!
What poet weaves a better knot or worse knot
Untangling which, your own lives you unbrace not?
THE BOWL AND RIM
The bearded rabbi, the meek friar,
Linked by their ankles in one cell,
Through joint distress of dungeon mire
Learned each to love his neighbour well.
When four years passed and five and six,
When seven years brought them no release,
The Jew embraced the crucifix,
The friar assumed phylacteries.
Then every Sunday, keeping score,
And every Sabbath in this hymn
They reconciled an age-long war
Between the platter’s bowl and rim.