XI
So let them scatter, jangled in Duress.
What reckons Love of Hairpins more or less?
Guard well your Heart and let the Hairpins go -
To lose your Heart were arrant Carelessness.
XII
Acephalous Time to febrous Lengths bestirred
Strips the lush Blossom and outstrips the Bird,
Makes sweet the Wine - I cannot say the Same
Of Women or of Songs that I have heard.
XIII
With me along that mezzotinted Zone
Where Hymen Spring is hymning to his Own -
See how grave Mahmud gambols on the Glebe
And hangs the sign TO LET upon his Throne!
XIV
A Grand Piano underneath the Bough,
A Gramophone, a Chinese Gong, and Thou
Trying to sing an Anthem off the Key -
Oh, Paradise were Wilderness enow?
XV
Chromatic Catches troll from yonder Hill
Where Bill to Beak the Wren and Whip-poor-Will
In deed and truth beshrew the Beldam Life
Who kisses first and then presents the Bill.