I sang of false faith that is fleeting As froth of the swallowing seas, Time's curse that is fatal as Keating Is fatal to amorous fleas; Of the wanness of woe that is whelp of The lust that is blind as a bat-- By the help of my Muse and the help of The relative THAT. Panatheist, bruiser and breaker Of kings and the creatures of kings, I shouted on Freedom to shake her Feet loose of the fetter that clings; Far rolling my ravenous red eye, And lifting a mutinous lid, To all monarchs and matrons I said I Would shock them--and did. Thee I sang, and thy loves, O Thalassian, O 'noble and nude and antique!' Unashamed in the 'fearless old fashion' Ere washing was done by the week; When the 'roses and rapture' that girt you Were visions of delicate vice, And the 'lilies and languors of virtue' Not nearly so nice. O delights of the time of my teething, Félise, Fragoletta, Yolande! Foam-yeast of a youth in its seething On blasted and blithering sand! Snake-crowned on your tresses and belted With blossoms that coil and decay, Ye are gone; ye are lost; ye are melted Like ices in May. Hushed now is the bibulous bubble Of 'lithe and lascivious' throats; Long stript and extinct is the stubble Of hoary and harvested oats; From the sweets that are sour as the sorrel's The bees have abortively swarmed; And Algernon's earlier morals Are fairly reformed. I have written a loyal Armada, And posed in a Jubilee pose; I have babbled of babies and played a New tune on the turn of their toes; Washed white from the stain of Astarte, My books any virgin may buy; And I hear I am praised by a party Called Something Mackay! When erased are the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And crown of my head! 2. FOR THE ALBUMS OF CROWNED HEADS ONLY. (AFTER SIR E. A.) 1. _From the third Sa'dine Box of the eighth Gazelle of Ghazal._ Yá Yá! Best-Belovéd! I look to thy dimples and drink; Tiddlihî! to thy cheek-pits and chin-pit, my Tulip, my Pink! See my heart rises up like a bubble, and bursts in my throat, And the dimples that draw it are Three, like the Men in a Boat. Thrice Three are the Muses, and I that begat her should guess That the Tenth is the TĒLE-EPHĒMERA, Pride of the PRESS! And the Graces were triplets till lately the fruitful Dîtî Propagated a Fourth, and the infant was W. G. From my post of Propinquity prone on my languorous knees My tears slither down like the Gum of Arabia's trees. "Am I drunk?" Heart-Entangler! By Hafiz, the Blender of Squish! 'Tis the camel that sits on the prayer-mat is drunk as a fish.