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THE CRAFTSMAN

ONCE, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,
He to the overbearing Boanerges
Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,

Blessed be the vintage!)

Saying how, at an alehouse under Cotswold,
He had made sure of his very Cleopatra,
Drunk with enormous, salvation-contemning
Love for a tinker.

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
Winced at the business; whereupon his sister-
Lady Macbeth aged seven- thrust 'em under,
Sombrely scornful.

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,
Passed from waking to hurry after shadows
Busied upon shows of no earthly importance?

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,
It will interest them to hunt among the Files,
Where unvisited, a-cold,

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,
Packs the daily deepening drift
Of the all-recording, all-effacing Files-
The obliterating, automatic Files.
Count the mighty men who slung
Ink, Evangel, Sword, or Tongue

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
Unto Death, a para minion in the Files

(Para minion-solid-bottom of the Files).
Some successful Kings and Queens adorn the Files.
They were great, their views were leaded,

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.
Was it Bomba fled the blue Sicilian isles?
Was it Saffi, a professor

Once of Oxford, brought redress or
Garibaldi? Who remembers

Forty-odd-year-old Septembers?—

Only sextons paid to dig among the Files
(Such as I am, born and bred among the Files).
You must hack through much deposit

Ere you know for sure who was it

Came to burial with such honour in the Files
(Only seven seasons back beneath the Files).
"Very great our loss and grievous—
"So our best and brightest leave us,

"And it ends the Age of Giants," say the Files;
All the '60-'70-'80-'90 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 know Success is Greatness,

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,
Guaranteeing to Eternity

All yesterday's modernity;

When Brocken-spectres made by
Some one's breath on ink parade by,
Very earnest and tremendous,
Let not shows of shows offend us.
When of everything we like we

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
From his first love, no matter who she be.

Oh, was there ever sailor free to choose,
That didn't settle somewhere near the sea?

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
To earn their living, even when they are free;
And so come back upon the least excuse—
Same as the sailor settled near the sea.

He knows he's never going on no cruise-
He knows he's done and finished with the sea;
And yet he likes to feel she's there to use—
If he should ask her-as she used to be.

Even though she cost him all he had to lose,
Even though she made him sick to hear or see,
Still, what she left of him will mostly choose
Her skirts to sit by. How comes such to be?

Parsons in pulpits, tax-payers in pews,
Kings on your thrones, you know as well as me,
We've only one virginity to lose,

And where we lost it there our hearts will be !

THE LEGENDS OF EVIL

1890

I

THIS is the sorrowful story
Told as the twilight fails
And the monkeys walk together
Holding their neighbours' tails:-

"Our fathers lived in the forest,
"Foolish people were they,
"They went down to the cornland
"To teach the farmers to play.

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