Stupid little Picklepip
Allowed the subtle hint to slip—
Maundered on about the ship
That he did not chance to own;
Told this grievance o’er
and o’er,
Knowing that she knew before;
Told her how he dwelt alone.
Lady Minnow, for reply,
Cut him off with “So do I!”
But she reddened at the fib;
Servitors had she, ad lib.
Town of Dae by the sea,
In her youth who speaks no truth
Ne’er shall young and
honest be.
Witless little Picklepip
Manned again his mental ship
And veered her with a sudden shift.
Painted to the lady’s
thought
How he wrestled and he wrought
Stoutly with the swimming drift
By the kindly river brought
From the mountain to the sea,
Fuel for the town of Dae.
Tedious tale for lady’s ear:
From her castle on the height,
She had watched her water-knight
Through the seasons of a year,
Challenge more than met his view
And conquer better than he knew.
Now she shook her pretty pate
And stamped her foot—’t
was growing late:
“Mister Picklepip, when I
Drifting seaward pass you by;
When the waves my forehead kiss
And my tresses float above—
Dead and drowned for lack
of love—
You’ll be sorry, sir, for this!”
And the silly creature cried—
Feared, perchance, the rising tide.
Town of Dae by the sea,
Madam Adam, when she had ’em,
May have been as bad as she.
Fiat lux! Love’s lumination Fell in floods of revelation! Blinded brain by world aglare, Sense of pulses in the air,
Sense of swooning and the beating
Of a voice somewhere repeating
Something indistinctly heard!
And the soul of Picklepip
Sprang upon his trembling
lip,
But he spake no further word
Of the wealth he did not own;
In that moment had outgrown
Ship and mine and flock and land—
Even his cask upon the strand.
Dropped a stricken star to earth,
Type of wealth and worldly worth.
Clomb the moon into the sky,
Type of love’s immensity!
Shaking silver seemed the sea,
Throne of God the town of Dae!
Town of Dae by the sea,
From above there cometh love,
Blessing all good souls that
be.
AN ANARCHIST.
False to his art and to the high command
God laid upon him, Markham’s rebel
hand
Beats all in vain the harp he touched
before:
It yields a jingle and it yields no more.
No more the strings beneath his finger-tips
Sing harmonies divine. No more his
lips,
Touched with a living coal from sacred
fires,
Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires.
The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak;
They labor, they complain, they sweat,