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“Nothing that’s happened in his reign
Has caused my Emperor so much pain.”
Upon his back he did declare,
While juggling five balls in the air,
“This attitude – the humblest yet —
Expresses personal regret.”
Last, spreading out a deck of cards —
“Accept my Emperor’s regards.
As our intentions were well meant,
Pray overlook the incident.”
THE DAY OF THE COMET
(May 18, 1910.)
Here it is – Eighteenth of May!
Dawneth now the fatal day
When we take the awful veil
Of the fearsome comet’s tail.
Vale, Earth!
What will happen, heaven knows;
We can’t even guess, suppose,
Hazard, speculate, surmise,
Hint, conjecture, theorize,
Or divine.
Will we merely drill a hole
Through the trailing aureole?
Or will the prediction dire
Of a world destroyed by fire
Be fulfilled?
Shall we crook our knees and pray
Counting this the Judgment Day?
Or preserve a cosmic ca’m,
Caring not a cosmic dam
What may come?
There’s the rub. If we but knew
We should know just what to do.
Yes is just as good as No
To all questions. Here we go! —
Hang on tight!
THE MORNING AFTER
(May 19, 1910.)
Here we are, friends, whole and hale
In or through the comet’s tail;
And as far as we can say,
Matters are about as they
Were before.
Everything is much the same
As before the comet came.
Grasses grow and waters run —
Nothing new beneath the sun —
Same old sphere.
Life is drab or life is gay,
Thorny path or primrose way;
All is common, all is strange;
“Down the ringing grooves of change”
Spins the world.
Change but of a humdrum kind.
What we vaguely had in mind
Was some new sensation or
Thrill we never felt before.
Vain desire!
Nothing’s added to the stock:
Same old shiver, same old shock.
Round about the sun we’ll go
In the same old status quo.
Awful bore!
A BALLADE OF IRRESOLUTION
Isolde, in the story old,
When Ireland’s coast the vessel nears,
And Death were fairer to behold,
To Tristan gives “the cup that clears.”
Straight to their fate the helmsman steers:
Unknowing, each the potion sips…
Comes echoing through the ghostly years
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
Ah, that like Tristan I were bold!
My soul into the future peers,
And passion flags, and heart grows cold,
And sicklied resolution veers.
I see the Sister of the Shears
Who sits fore’er and snips, and snips…
Still falls upon my inward ears,
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
Has caused my Emperor so much pain.”
Upon his back he did declare,
While juggling five balls in the air,
“This attitude – the humblest yet —
Expresses personal regret.”
Last, spreading out a deck of cards —
“Accept my Emperor’s regards.
As our intentions were well meant,
Pray overlook the incident.”
THE DAY OF THE COMET
(May 18, 1910.)
Here it is – Eighteenth of May!
Dawneth now the fatal day
When we take the awful veil
Of the fearsome comet’s tail.
Vale, Earth!
What will happen, heaven knows;
We can’t even guess, suppose,
Hazard, speculate, surmise,
Hint, conjecture, theorize,
Or divine.
Will we merely drill a hole
Through the trailing aureole?
Or will the prediction dire
Of a world destroyed by fire
Be fulfilled?
Shall we crook our knees and pray
Counting this the Judgment Day?
Or preserve a cosmic ca’m,
Caring not a cosmic dam
What may come?
There’s the rub. If we but knew
We should know just what to do.
Yes is just as good as No
To all questions. Here we go! —
Hang on tight!
THE MORNING AFTER
(May 19, 1910.)
Here we are, friends, whole and hale
In or through the comet’s tail;
And as far as we can say,
Matters are about as they
Were before.
Everything is much the same
As before the comet came.
Grasses grow and waters run —
Nothing new beneath the sun —
Same old sphere.
Life is drab or life is gay,
Thorny path or primrose way;
All is common, all is strange;
“Down the ringing grooves of change”
Spins the world.
Change but of a humdrum kind.
What we vaguely had in mind
Was some new sensation or
Thrill we never felt before.
Vain desire!
Nothing’s added to the stock:
Same old shiver, same old shock.
Round about the sun we’ll go
In the same old status quo.
Awful bore!
A BALLADE OF IRRESOLUTION
Isolde, in the story old,
When Ireland’s coast the vessel nears,
And Death were fairer to behold,
To Tristan gives “the cup that clears.”
Straight to their fate the helmsman steers:
Unknowing, each the potion sips…
Comes echoing through the ghostly years
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
Ah, that like Tristan I were bold!
My soul into the future peers,
And passion flags, and heart grows cold,
And sicklied resolution veers.
I see the Sister of the Shears
Who sits fore’er and snips, and snips…
Still falls upon my inward ears,
“Give me the philtre of thy lips!”
Другие электронные книги автора Bert Taylor
Последний отзыв
Это скорее приключение, чем история. Но читать приятно.