For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,
     Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,
     Lacking the finer wit that saith,
    ‘I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,’
     Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,
     Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,
     Flicked a full dozen flies that flecked the pane—­
     All crystal-cheated of the fuller air,
     Blurted a free ‘Good-day t’ye,’ left and right,
     And shaped his gathering choler to this head:—­

    ’Custom!  And yet what profit of it all? 
     The old order changeth yielding place to new,
     To me small change, and this the Counter-change
     Of custom beating on the self-same bar—­
     Change out of chop.  Ah me! the talk, the tip,
     The would-be-evening should-be-mourning suit,
     The forged solicitude for petty wants
     More petty still than they,—­all these I loathe,
     Learning they lie who feign that all things come
     To him that waiteth.  I have waited long,
     And now I go, to mate me with a bride
     Who is aweary waiting, even as I!’

     But when the amorous moon of honeycomb
     Was over, ere the matron-flower of Love—­
     Step-sister of To-morrow’s marmalade—­
     Swooned scentless, Mariana found her lord
     Did something jar the nicer feminine sense
     With usage, being all too fine and large,
     Instinct of warmth and colour, with a trick
     Of blunting ‘Mariana’s’ keener edge
     To ’Mary Ann’—­the same but not the same: 
     Whereat she girded, tore her crisped hair,
     Called him ‘Sir Churl,’ and ever calling ‘Churl!’
     Drave him to Science, then to Alcohol,
     To forge a thousand theories of the rocks,
     Then somewhat else for thousands dewy cool,
     Wherewith he sought a more Pacific isle
     And there found love, a duskier love than hers.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

By O—­r K—­m.

     Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
     Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept,
       And wailed the Nightingale with ‘Jug, jug, jug!’
     Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.

     Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
     Its Red Triangle to a world of drought,
       Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn,
     Where Death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.

     Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
     Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, ’Lo,
       The Pledge departed, what avails the Cup? 
     Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go.’

     But I:  ’For every thirsty soul that drains
     This Anodyne of Thought its rim contains—­
       Free-will the can, Necessity the must,
     Pour off the must, and, see, the can remains.