(Yet much is merry in men’s moods diverse.
I am no mystic, I, that I should preach
With lips string-drawn as tight as miser’s purse,
Dispense thin wisdom by my scrannel speech;
No, none, thank God, can more have loved good laughter,
Beauty, well-being, perilous lottery,
Or paid the reckoning that followed after
With smaller grudge to justice than did I.)
IV
Sometimes I met with one, and would have cried,
“Pilgrim! by the proud manner of your going
Clearly you ask no alms when ills betide.
Though of your journey’s end I have no knowing,
Travel a little distance by my side.
Lonely am I; lonely; I have not spoken
Closely with friend this many a questing day;
Body, my beast of burden, stumbles broken,
Rowelled by desperate spur along the way.
Pilgrim, if lonely spirit cross another
And pride in me salute in you your pride,
Shall we not either recognise a brother?”
But reticence held me, and I passed him wide.
V
And sometimes met with those who offered me
Comfort upholstered like a harlot’s bed
With winks for ribbons, shrugs to swansdown wed,
And squalor under frowsy frippery.
This draggletail of passion should be mine,
This slattern bastard born of spleen and lust,
Convention’s shrewd Bacchante, if I must
Yield to the senses’ feverish anodyne!
But I would turn, and, half-defeated, failing,
(How near defeat, they never guessed or knew,)
Load my last breath with scorn, and cry “You? You?”
And cry, at bay before their vanguard, railing,