What, old Chaucer! a royal jest Once you made in your laughing verse: “No more goldfinch-song in the nest-- Autumn nest of the empty purse!” Master Spenser, your looks are spare; Princes’ favors, how fleet they be! Thinking that yours was the selfsame fare, Crust or crumb shall be sweet to me. Worshipful Shakespeare of Stratford town, Prosperous-portly in doublet red, What of the days when you first came down To London city to earn your bread? What of the lodging where Juliet’s face Startled your dream with its Southern glow, Flooding with splendor the sordid place? That was a garret in Poverty Row! Many a worthy has here, I ween, Made brief sojourn or long abode: Johnson, dining behind the screen; Goldsmith, vagrant along the road; Keats, ah, pitiful! poor and ill, Harassed and hurt, in his short spring day; Best Sir Walter, with flagging quill Digging the mountain of debt away. Needy comrade, whose evil star, Pallid-frowning, decrees you wrong, Greatly neighbored, in truth, we are; Hold your heart up and sing your song! Lift your eyes to the book-shelf where, Glorious-gilded, a shining show, Every man in his mansion fair, Dwell the princes of Poverty Row! THE INN OF THE STAR When the Old Year plods down Toward the end of the hill, Where the white little town Lies asleep, wonder-still, Then he mends his dull pace, For a ray, streaming far, Strikes a gleam on his face From the Inn of the Star. Then the staff is set by, And the shoon from his feet, And the burden let lie, And he sitteth at meat; Old jests round the board, Old songs round the blaze, While the faint bells accord Like the souls of old days. In the sweet bed of peace He shall sleep for a night, And faith, like a fleece, Lap him kindly and light; Then the wind, crooning wild, Mystic music shall seem, And the brow of the Child Be a light through his dream. And we, too, follow down The long slope of the hill: See, the white little Town, Where it shines, wonder-still! Be our hopes quenched or bright, Be our griefs what they are, We shall sojourn a night At the Inn of the Star. MARINA SINGS (_Pericles, Act V, Sc. i._)