Полная версия
Купить и скачатьДобавить В библиотеку
Wayside Weeds
Автор:
Жанр:
Год написания книги: 2017
Тэги:
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля
Magaguadavic 4 and Digdeguash
“Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel?”
Let each man praise the riverThat’s dearest to his heart,The Rhine, the Guadalquivir,The Danube or the Dart.Let others sing the Tavy,The Tweed, the Wye, the Lea,Give me the Magaguadavic,The Digdeguash for me.Some men choose lakes for fishing —Ceceebe or Couchiching,Namabinagashishing,Kenongewagaming.I’ll take my affidavyThat what they say is bosh;Give me the Magaguadavic,Give me the Digdeguash!Beneath the shady willowCast cunningly your flies,His wake a widening billow;Behold the monster rise!No dreadnought in the navyCould make so big a splosh;You’d hear at MagaguadavicThe trout of Digdeguash!Behind the purple sprucesThe golden sunset dies,As each his pipe producesAnd puts away his flies.The basket’s full, the slaveyTo-morrow morn shall washThe spoils of Magaguadavic,The loot of Digdeguash!And when upon the tableThey come to lie in state,Hardly shall we be ableA decent grace to wait.They need no sauce nor gravy,For none can beat, by gosh!The trout of Magaguadavic,But those of Digdeguash!O restless Bay of Fundy,O mist and fog and rain,Hope whispers I may one dayBehold you yet again.How gladly would I brave ye,Nor ask a mackintosh,To see the Magaguadavic,To fish the Digdeguash.Callirrhoe’s fair daughtersHave fled their ancient grots;The voice of many watersTurns shrieking into watts.But spare, oh! spare, I crave ye,Amid the general squash,The falls of Magaguadavic,The rips of Digdeguash!1910.Rhona Adair
How dull these links to me!Rhona’s not there,She whom I long to see,Rhona Adair!Who has a swing so true?Who such a follow through?Who, who can putt like you,Rhona Adair?Who drives her ball so far,Far through the airSwift as a shooting star?Rhona Adair.Who hits her ball so clean,Landing, whate’er’s betweenDead on the putting green?Rhona Adair!Whose strokes, of all who strikeWith hers compare?Who has a waggle likeRhona Adair?Of all the girls I’ve seenPlaying across the greenYou, Rhona, are the Queen!Rhona Adair!The Duffer’s Elegy
“Oh! put me on your waiting listI’ll be a golfer if I mayAnd learn the joys too long I’ve missedBefore I get too old to play!”They gave him on the list a placeAnd year by year they let him wait,For golfers are a long-lived raceAnd very seldom emigrate.When, after many weary years,He reached the top his sponsor said,“The friend (excuse these natural tears)Whom I proposed has long been dead.”And when at last in Charon’s wherry,It was the sponsor’s turn to standHis friend came down to meet the ferryA phantom niblick in his hand.“Welcome to Hades,” thus the shadeIn hollow-sounding accents spokeThen spied a puff-ball and essayedTo loft it, but he muffed his stroke.“Permit me, pray, to be your guideUntil you’ve learnt your way aboutOur golf course is our greatest prideOld Colonel Bogey laid it out.“Some people say Avernus stinksAnd Acheron smells like a sewerBut Fernhill golfers like our linksThey find the air so fresh and pure.“Cocytus, Styx and PhlegethonAs hazards serve extremely well,In this particular alone,The Lambton links are just like Hell.“The asphodel wants cutting sadly,The lies are wretched, more’s the pityBut everything is managed badlyBy that infernal Green Committee.“Come, lay aside your shroud and pallAnd play a friendly round with me.”(A Dead Sea apple was the ball,A pinch of church-yard dust, the tee.)He took the club of cypress woodAnd smote what seemed a mighty blow,But, though the aim was true and goodThe ball remained in statu quo.“Alack and well-a-day,” he cried,“A duffer must I ever be,A duffer I have lived and diedA duffer through Eternity.”1905.When Potter Played
When Potter played in front of meThe other day upon the links,The mist rolled landward from the sea(The sleepy Caddie yawns and blinks),We watched him waggle at the teeAnd curl his body into kinks,When Potter played in front of meThe other day upon the links.We watched him make the divots fleeAnd dribble o’er the bunker’s brinks,The dewdrops sparkled on the lea,The sun shone through the fog bank’s chinks.My partner, hopeful, said to me“He’ll lose, and let us through methinks!”When Potter played in front of meThe other day upon the links.The noonday sun looks down in gleeWhile Potter in the bunker swinks,He plies the niblick merrilyWhile Caddie unto Caddie winks.The crow on yonder tall fir treeLooks down and caws at such high jinks,When Potter played in front of meThe other day upon the links.The shadows fall on land and sea,The sun to rest in splendour sinks,And Potter crouched on hand and kneeThinks out each putt, and thinks and thinks.We all got home too late for tea!My mind with grief and horror shrinksFrom memory of the day when wePlayed after Potter on the links.1910.Colonial Preference
Macgregor, always spick and span,Was quite the military man.He never walked about the townArrayed in sober cap and gown,But blazed in scarlet, gold and steel,And clanked a sabre at his heel.He took no pride in his degree,In F.C.S. and F.I.C.,But wrote with joy akin to tearsC.D., Canadian Engineers!Macgregor had been often sentHis country’s arms to represent,To Chatham, Woolwich, Aldershot,Or anywhere, it mattered not.He always followed, never weary,“Quo fas et gloria duxere.”At length, because they thought him yearningTo represent his Country’s learning,Toronto Universitee,Knowing how ready he would beAlike in “bello” and in “pace,”Despatched him to the I.C.A.C.He packed his trappings Academical,And sailed to join the Congress Chemical,Which met that year in London reeky,To study “la chimie appliquée.”Watching the vessel’s fall and rise,’Twas thus he did soliloquise —“I may not wear my sword and spurs,But one glad thought my bosom stirs,’Tis this that I shall surely bePresented to His Majesty!It may be when he sees my faceHe will reward me with a placeWith my deserts commensurateThe Secretary, say, of StateFor War, or give me Chief CommandOf all his troops on sea and land!”Arrived in town, his journey done,He took a cab to Kensington,Sir William Ramsay, honest man,With kindly words to greet him ran.“Put on,” he cried, “your cleanest shirtAnd free your hands and face from dirt,To-morrow you shall go with meTo meet His Gracious Majesty!”When they alighted from the trainThey met the Lord High ChamberlainWho scanned each name with anxious careLest some who ought not should be there.“Here’s Stinkemout from Buda Pesth,And Sneezetoff, and all the rest,Ezra P. Binks from Idaho,But here’s a name I do not know‘Dr. Macgregor from Toronto,’That’s something that I’ve not got onto!”Sir William cried “The College whereMy friend Macgregor holds a chairIs in Toronto, Canada.”“Ah!” said the Chamberlain, “Ahah!I’ve heard of Canada, of course,But that’s another coloured horse.Your friend, to say it gives me pain,Will have to toddle back again!The King, the invitation states,Receives the Foreign Delegates.Remove this person from the listHe’s nothing but a Colonist.”A prophet, says the Holy Book,Must not at home for honour look,The greater here includes the lesser,For “Prophet” therefore read “Professor.”1912.The Lyric League 5
We be seventy Lyric Poets,All in the Fatherland,Our verse is delightful, although itsNot easy to understand.We’re the flower and crown of the nation,The crown and flower of the earth,But we find our remunerationInadequate to our worth.We sing of “Sehnsucht” and “Trauer,”“Die Liebe,” “Das Herz” and “Die Welt,”But leider, we haven’t the power,To sing from the public “Das Geld.”The plumbers have their Union,Fast joined the joiners keep,And sweep hold dark communion,With sooty brother sweep.The motormen and switchmen,The very firemen band,Alone against the richmen,The Poets helpless stand.A fig for the Philistine slander,Let’s cut from all precedent loose,What’s sauce for the bus-driving gander,Is sauce for the quill-driving goose.We’ll found (because empty our purse is)A Lyrische Dichterverein;And we won’t write any more verses,Under 50 pfennig a line.6Psychology
Dr. Jaeger has propounded the theory that the Soul is an emanation emitted by animals, and is the cause of the odour characteristic of each species. Cf. in Lives of the Saints, “the odour of sanctity”; also supra, page 17.
What’s the Soul? throughout the agesMystery never yet unveiledProphets, poets, saints and sagesAll have tried and all have failed.But at last we’ve got an answerNo vague dream or fancy vaguerFrom a scientific man – SirHerr Professor Dr. Jaeger.Printed in his lucid pagesThis is what he has to tellListen poets; listen sages;That’s the Soul that makes the smell.Whoso takes his meat to seasonOnions chopped or garlic wholeShall enjoy a feast of reasonFollowed by a flow of soul.The Bal Poudré 7
The Reverend Canon DumoulinAlthough he don’t objectTo dancing in a room alongWith company selectCan’t tolerate the Bal PoudréI am not surprised at allFor when there’s powder, cannons playThe mischief with a ball.Wisdom and Fancy
From the German of A. G. Marius
With weary steps as Wisdom trodIn Reason’s dusty wayCame Fancy with alluring nodAnd beckoned him astray.Laughing she snatched away his books,And charmed him with her witching looks,He could not say her nay.She shook her curls with childlike graceAnd all his anger fled,He looked into her sunny faceAnd followed where she led.And lo! his weariness was goneFresh vigour filled his soulShe led him up, she led him onTill he had reached his goal.Persicos odi
TO MY TOBACCONIST
I hate your imported Havannahs,Your perfumed cheroots I decline;His own special weakness each man has,A pipe, I confess it, is mine.Why take from their elegant wrappersYour gilded cork-tipped cigarettes,Fit only for militant flappersOr reckless R.M.C. cadets?What need for cigars to be piningWhen smoking a briar or a clay;In front of the fire I’m reclining,And peacefully puffing away.The Iceberg
We stood upon the deck and sawMid fog and mist the iceberg loom;And while we gazed in wondering awe,It vanished into mist and gloom.With various skill each tried to drawWhat printed on his brain had beenThe vision that he thought he sawOr that he thought he should have seen.Some drew it flat, some drew it roundAnd some with many a tower and steepleAnd when we shewed our work we foundAs many bergs as there were people!Across each other’s paths we driftPale shadows on a misty sea.The clouds but for a moment liftThen naught is left but memory.If then at any distant dayYour thoughts should chance to turn to meDraw me not as I am, I pray,But as you think I ought to be.Horace, Odes I. i. 8
Colonel, Most worthy President,Our Club’s chief stay and ornament,One man who drives with dust and jarA 40 h.p. motor car,All other mortals counts but clods,Himself a rival of the Gods.The fickle crowd another woosHim for a threefold term to choose.A third will lie awake all nightIf Manitoba wheat be light.Not Rockefeller’s treasure chestCould tempt the Farmer to investThe savings of his life of toilIn shares of rubber or of oil.The liner’s skipper when he steers,The foghorn booming in his ears,Through thousand dangers all unseen,Sighs for the peaceful village green;Yet fog nor ice nor foundered shipsCan stop him making record trips.Some spurn not, when their throats are dry,Long drinks of Irish or Old Rye,Nor scorn to blow through moistened lipsGreat clouds of smoke between the sips;Others in such things find no charms,And when the bugle calls to armsWould banish from the tented green(Bugbear of matrons) the Canteen.The hunter leaves his tender spouseFor a rude bed of hemlock boughs,Content to bag a head or twoOf bearded moose or caribou.But give me rather, if you please,A score-card full of 4’s and 3’s.The bunker cleared, the putt gone done,And, of all joys the flower and crown,The well-hit tee-shot’s graceful flightWhen everything has gone just right!Alas! Fate holds for me in storeNo chances of a bogey score.I must send in till I am sickCards that defy arithmetic;Nay, Haply, the EtobicokeMay add to every hole a stroke,Yet, Colonel, if your grace awardsSome place among the minor bards,Who sing the Game to me – Ah, then,I am the happiest of men!If me from this no fate debarsThen my swelled head shall strike the stars.When You and I were Young 9
When you and I were babes, Adam,In good Prince Albert’s time,The word went forth that war should cease,Commerce should link all lands, and PeaceShould dwell in every clime.When you and I were boys, Adam,In Queen Victoria’s days,Those guns that now so silent stand,Where meet the rulers of our land,With olive decked and bays.Roared from the Russian ramparts grim,Their muzzles all ablaze,While old Todleben, with his backAgainst the wall, foiled each attackIn Queen Victoria’s days.When you and I were young, Adam,In good Victoria’s time,We stood together side by side,When Mewburn and Mackenzie died,And Tempest, “ere their prime.”But say not “they have left no peer – ”That were unwelcome praiseTo those three friends of ours long dead,Whose blood for Fatherland was shedIn good Victoria’s days.In royal Edward’s time, Adam,Fresh prophecies were rife.They told us nickel-pointed shotAnd flat trajectories and what notWould rid the world of strife.But now that we are old, Adam,We see with startled eyesQuick-firing guns won’t stop the Jap,Nor Serb nor Bulgar cares a rapWho wins the Nobel prize.When you and I were young, Adam,There were no telephones;There was no ultramicroscope;And no X-rays for those who gropeAnd pry among the bones.But, though with diagnostic aidsThey were but ill supplied,There were a few who shrewdly guessed(Old What’s-his-name among the rest)At what went on inside.When you and I were young, Adam,It was damnation starkTo doubt that all that breathe the air,Came, male and female, pair by pair,Straight out of Noah’s ark.“Mutantur,” Adam, “temporaMutamur atque nos,”And now we’re not a bit afraidTo tell just how the world was madeIn detail and in gross.In pre-Archæan periodsOf elemental stressThe C and H and O and NCollide, rebound, combine, and thenReact with H2S.Colloidal specks from this ensuedWhich grew, and grew, and grew,With lively motion all endued,Till they attained a magnitudeOf 0·01μ.Then somewhere over ·01And under ·05Amoeboid feelers out they sentAnd took some liquid nourishmentAnd, lo, they were alive!In pre-Archæan periodsLet fancy have her fling,But, Adam, will your faith allowSuch goings on can happen nowWhen George the Fifth is King?Well, times may change, and we may change,But find him when I can,I’ll drink a health to one who’s stoodFor all that’s honest, kind and good;So here’s to you, Old Man!1912.As a Watch in the Night 10
The soldier called from rest or playTo take his post as sentinel,To guard until the break of daySome sore-beleaguered citadel,Springs to his arms with beating heartTo take some war-worn veteran’s place,Proud to perform a soldier’s part,Dreading what yet he dares to face.His comrades’ footsteps on his earsRing fainter and fainter. Silence fallsAbout him. Moments seem like years,And loneliness his soul appals.But when the signal rockets flareHe strains his eyes the void to scan;When sounds of battle fill the airIn face of death he plays the man.He stays where duty bids him stay,The boldest when he fears the most;And Rounds, come whensoe’er they may,Find him alert and at his post.Unnumbered now the moments flyBy him whose thoughts are set uponEach moment’s task. The eastern skyBrightens with dawn. The night is gone.And hark, at last he grows awareOf footsteps his release that tell.Clear rings his challenge, “Who goes there?”“Relief!” “Advance, Relief, all’s well!”1913.To R. R. W. 11
From Scotland’s mists across the sea you boreThe sacred fire, (kindled by him whose nameHas made the century famous with his fame,)And bid our lamp burn brighter than before.Upon our Tree, a branch from Scotland’s shoreYou grafted, and behold our Tree becameWanton in leafage; with blossoms all aflame;Deep rooted; and with boughs to heaven that soar.We see the better issue from the strife,And hope the best. In loathsome crawling thingsWe feel the fluttering of jewelled wings.In Nature’s score, with seeming discords rife,We seek to read, with you, the note that bringsTo harmony the jarring chords of life.1
Awarded the prize for English verse in the University of Toronto in 1865.
2
The fickle botanists have changed the generic name of the Skunk Cabbage to Spathyema. For reasons which will be obvious to the intelligent reader, the author prefers to retain the older designation.
3
The place where the Maskinongé dwells. In the vulgar tongue “Lunge Lake.”
4
Pronounced Mackadavy.
5
“Seventy lyric poets in Germany have formed a trade’s union, and agreed not to sell their verses for less than half a mark a line.” —Daily paper.
6
The author encloses his name and address, not for publication, but in order that the editor may know where to send the three dollars and thirty-six cents – twenty-eight lines at twelve cents.
7
While rector of St. James’s, Toronto, the late Canon Dumoulin protested against the holding of a bal poudré in aid of a local charity.
8
Read at the Farewell Dinner at the Old Toronto Golf Club House, October 19th, 1912, Col. G. A. Sweny, the President of the Club, in the Chair.
9
Read at the Dinner given at the York Club, Toronto, November 29th, 1912, in honour of Dr. Adam H. Wright.
10
Read at the Dinner given in May, 1913, in honour of Professor van der Smissen, Professor of German in University College, Toronto, on his retirement after forty-eight years’ service in the University and University College.
11
Read at the Dinner given in honour of Professor R. Ramsay Wright, Professor of Biology and Dean of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Toronto, on his retirement, May, 1912.