Property:Has text
From Off the Road Database
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Q
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<p>Blind fools of fate and slaves of circumstance,<br />
Life is a fiddler, and we all must dance.<br />
From gloom where mocks that will-o'-wisp, Free-will<br />
I heard a voice cry: "Say, give us a chance."
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<p>It's all decreed—the mighty earthquake crash;<br />
The countless constellations' wheel and flash;<br />
The rise and fall of empires, war's red tide;<br />
The composition of your dinner hash.
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R
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<p>We cannot comfort you;<br />
Your life is anguish;<br />
All we can do—<br />
Mutely bring pungent herbs and branches of oak<br />
And resinous scented pine wreaths<br />
To hide the crown of thorny pain<br />
Crushing your white frail foreheads.
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<p>Vagabonds of beauty,<br />
Wistful, exquisite waifs<br />
From a lost, and a forgotten, and a lovely land,<br />
We cannot comfort you<br />
Though our souls yearn for you.
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<p>You are delicate strangers<br />
In a gloomy town,<br />
Stared at and hated—<br />
Gold crocus blossoms in a drab lane.
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<p>Man is dreaming when he says, money he has made,<br />
Raising Belgian rabbits as his only line of trade.<br />
We had our fun, quit the game, for a better profit-maker,<br />
The rest of life we’ll be content in selling Studebaker.
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<div class="poem">
<p>We were told by rabbit men, buy only blooded stock,<br />
Every breeder of a kind would all the others knock.<br />
To get the weight it seemed to us the safe and easy way,<br />
Only raise the blooded stock of purest Belgian gray.
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<p>Had we the balance of our life raised only Belgian hare,<br />
In years a few, at best, our cupboard would be bare.<br />
A bankrupt we would turn to be and die a debtor slave,<br />
Rabbits beat the world to eat a man into his grave.
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<p>There came to us a vision of life’s perpetual dream,<br />
We made our decision to follow up the gleam.<br />
We could build a fortune big and doubly sure,<br />
Raising market rabbits if the breed was pure.
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<p>But rabbits often figure out in real the other way,<br />
We weren’t slow in finding out, buying Hinman hay.<br />
For every dollar rabbits brought two was spent for grain,<br />
We sold a million, more or less, but not a cent of gain.
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<div class="poem">
<p>So we bought at fancy price a hundred for a start,<br />
We’d show the rabbit men that we were very smart.<br />
We saw them grow and multiply, built castles in the air,<br />
Figured what we’d also buy from raising Belgian hare.
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<p>A fleet of latest motor cars, the best ones ever built,<br />
Masterpieces, too, of art in frames of finest gilt.<br />
Profits from our rabbits would buy us many things,<br />
Wipe away the loss our orchard always brings.
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<div class="poem">
<p>We bought up all the lumber in Curran’s lumber yard,<br />
Built a thousand hutches, for cost had no regard.<br />
Faithfully with many tools we labored every day,<br />
Fully settled in our mind we’d make the rabbits pay.
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<div class="poem">
<p>These are your blood; their begetters<br />
made in the same bed as yours<br />
(horror of copulation),<br />
colossal promiscuity of flesh through centuries<br />
(seed and cemeteries).<br />
Sculptor! show Mars<br />
bloody in gas-lit abattoirs,<br />
Apollo organist of Saint Mary's,<br />
Venus of High Street, Athena,<br />
worshipped at National schools.<br />
Painter! there are beets in allotments,<br />
embankments, coal-yards, villas, grease,<br />
interpret the music, orchestra,<br />
trams, trains, cars, hobnails, factories—<br />
O poet! chant them to the pianola,<br />
to the metronome in faultless verse . . .
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<div class="poem">
<p>Deadness of English winter, dreariness,<br />
cold sky over provincial towns, mist.<br />
Melancholy of undulating trams<br />
solitary jangling through muddy streets,<br />
narrowness, imperfection, dullness,<br />
black extinguisher over English towns;<br />
mediocre women in dull clothes—<br />
their nudity a disaster—<br />
heavy cunning men (guts and passbooks),<br />
relics of gentry, workmen on bicycles,<br />
puffy small whores, baby carriages,<br />
shops, newspapers, bets, cinemas, allotments . . .
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<p>A cow in a meadow shakes her bell<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> And the notes cut sharp through the autumn air,</span><br />
Each chattering brook bears a fleet of leaves<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> Their cargo the rainbow, and just now where</span><br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> The sun splashed bright on the road ahead</span><br />
A startled rabbit quivered and fled.<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> O Uphill roads and roads that dip down!</span><br />
You curl your sun-spattered length along,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> And your march is beaten into a song</span><br />
By the softly ringing hoofs of a horse<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> And the panting breath of the dogs I love.</span><br />
The pageant of Autumn follows its course<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> And the blue sky of Autumn laughs above.</span>
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<div class="poem">
<p>And the song and the country become as one,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> I see it as music, I hear it as light;</span><br />
Prismatic and shimmering, trembling to tone,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> The land of desire, my soul's delight.</span><br />
And always it beats in my listening ears<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> With the gentle thud of a horse's stride,</span><br />
With the swift-falling steps of many dogs,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> Following, following at my side.</span><br />
O Roads that journey to fairyland!<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> Radiant highways whose vistas gleam,</span><br />
Leading me on, under crimson leaves,<br />
<span class="mw-poem-indented" style="display: inline-block; margin-inline-start: 3em;"> To the opaline gates of the Castles of Dream.</span>
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