"Small gnats that fly
In hot July
And lodge in sleeping ears,
Can rouse therein
A trumpet's din
With Day-of-Judgment fears.
Small mice at night
Can wake more fright
Than lions at midday.
An urchin small
Torments us all
Who tread his prickly way.
A straw will crack
The camel's back,
To die we need but sip,
So little sand
As fills the hand
Can stop a steaming ship.
One smile relieves
A heart that grieves
Though deadly sad it be,
And one hard look
Can close the book
That lovers love to see."
He listens to the pale-bearded Janus, who urges him to
"Sing and laugh and easily run
Through the wide waters of my plain,
Bathe in my waters, drink my sun,
And draw my creatures with soft song;
They shall follow you along
Graciously with no doubt or pain."
So he extols the simple rhymes that we learnt in childhood's days and seeks to add to them.
"So these same rhymes shall still be told
To children yet unborn,
While false philosophy growing old
Fades and is killed by scorn."
Unfortunately it is not given to any modern to imitate with any degree of success either the ballads our ancestors loved or the nursery rhymes which all children have learnt: this age is too sophisticated and this avenue of escape is denied to Mr Graves: one of the lessons that we find most painful in the learning is that we are the product of our own age and cannot get away from it. Mr Graves anticipates his reviewers in his L'Envoi when he says: