THE CRAFTSMAN ONCE, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid, Blessed be the vintage!) Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold, How, while he hid from Sir Thomas's keepers, Crouched in a ditch and drenched by the midnight Dews, he had listened to gipsy Juliet Rail at the dawning. How at Bankside, a boy drowning kittens How on a Sabbath, hushed and compassionateShe being known since her birth to the townsfolkStratford dredged and delivered from Avon Dripping Ophelia. So, with a thin third finger marrying Drop to wine-drop domed on the table, Shakespeare opened his heart till the sunrise Entered to hear him. London wakened and he, imperturbable, Yes, but he knew it! FILES The Files Office Files! THE FILES 1903 (The Sub-editor Speaks) Oblige me by referring to the Files. Every question man can raise, Every phrase of every phase Of that question is on record in the Files (Threshed out threadbare-fought and finished in the Files). Ere the Universe at large Was our new-tipped arrows' targe Ere we rediscovered Mammon and his wiles Faenza, gentle reader, spent her-five-and-twentieth leader(You will find him, and some others, in the Files). Warn all coming Robert Brownings and Carlyles, Lie the crowded years of old In that Kensall-Green of greatness called the Files (In our newspaPère-la-Chaise the Office Files), Where the dead men lay them down Meekly sure of long renown, And above them, sere and swift, When Reform and you were young— Made their boasts and spake according in the Files (Hear the ghosts that wake applauding in the Files!) Trace each all-forgot career From long primer through brevier (Para minion-solid-bottom of the Files). And their deaths were triple-headed, So they catch the eye in running through the Files (Show as blazes in the mazes of the Files); For their "paramours and priests," And their gross, jack-booted feasts, And their "epoch-marking actions" see the Files. Once of Oxford, brought redress or Forty-odd-year-old Septembers?— Only sextons paid to dig among the Files Ere you know for sure who was it Came to burial with such honour in the Files "And it ends the Age of Giants," say the Files; (The open-minded, opportunist Files The easy "O King, live for ever" Files). It is good to read a little in the Files; 'Tis a sure and sovereign balm Unto philosophic calm, Yea, and philosophic doubt when Life beguiles. When you marvel at your lateness In apprehending facts so plain to Smiles (Self-helpful, wholly strenuous Samuel Smiles). When your Imp of Blind Desire Bids you set the Thames afire, You'll remember men have done so-in the Files. You'll have seen those flames transpire-in the Files (More than once that flood has run so-in the Files). When the Conchimarian horns Of the reboantic Norns Usher gentlemen and ladies With new lights on Heaven and Hades, All yesterday's modernity; When Brocken-spectres made by Shout ecstatic: Quod ubique, "Quod ab omnibus means semper !" Oh, my brother, keep your temper! Light your pipe and take a look along the Files. You've a better chance to guess At the meaning of Success (Which is Greatness-vide press) When you've seen it in perspective in the Files. THE VIRGINITY TRY as he will, no man breaks wholly loose Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose, Myself, it don't excite me nor amuse To watch a pack o' shipping on the sea, But I can understand my neighbour's views From certain things which have occurred to me. Men must keep touch with things they used to use He knows he's never going on no cruise- Even though she cost him all he had to lose, Parsons in pulpits, tax-payers in pews, And where we lost it there our hearts will be ! THE LEGENDS OF EVIL 1890 I THIS is the sorrowful story "Our fathers lived in the forest, |