Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack, Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro, Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe, And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back, Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack! To make Wiseacredom, both high and low, Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) Dispatch its Dogberrys upon thy track: Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest? Yet would to-day when Courtesy grows chill, And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, Some fire of thine might burn within us still! Ah, would but one might lay his lance in rest, And charge in earnest--were it but a mill! A BROKEN SWORD. (To A. L.) The shopman shambled from the doorway out And twitched it down-- Snapped in the blade! 'Twas scarcely dear, I doubt, At half-a-crown. Useless enough! And yet can still be seen, In letters clear, Traced on the metal's rusty damaskeen-- "_Povr Paruenyr._" Whose was it once?--Who manned it once in hope His fate to gain? Who was it dreamed his oyster-world should ope To this--in vain? Maybe with some stout Argonaut it sailed The Western Seas; Maybe but to some paltry Nym availed For toasting cheese! Or decked by Beauty on some morning lawn With silken knot, Perchance, ere night, for Church and King 'twas drawn-- Perchance 'twas not! Who knows--or cares? To-day, 'mid foils and gloves Its hilt depends, Flanked by the favours of forgotten loves,-- Remembered friends;-- And oft its legend lends, in hours of stress, A word to aid; Or like a warning comes, in puffed success, Its broken blade. THE POET'S SEAT. AN IDYLL OF THE SUBURBS. "_Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes Angulus_ Ridet." --Hor. ii. 6. It was an elm-tree root of yore, With lordly trunk, before they lopped it, And weighty, said those five who bore Its bulk across the lawn, and dropped it Not once or twice, before it lay. With two young pear-trees to protect it, Safe where the Poet hoped some day The curious pilgrim would inspect it. He saw him with his Poet's eye, The stately Maori, turned from etching The ruin of St. Paul's, to try Some object better worth the sketching:-- He saw him, and it nerved his strength What time he hacked and hewed and scraped it, Until the monster grew at length The Master-piece to which he shaped it. To wit--a goodly garden seat, And fit alike for Shah or Sophy, With shelf for cigarettes complete, And one, but lower down, for coffee; He planted pansies 'round its foot,-- "Pansies for thoughts!" and rose and arum; The Motto (that he meant to put) Was "_Ille angulus terrarum._"