The serfs may know an hour of pride When the high flames of tumult ride. The rover has his days of ease When he has sacked his palaces. A king may live a year like God When prostrate peoples drape the sod. We ask for little,-leave to tend Our modest fields: at daylight's end The fires of home: a wife's caress: The star of children's happiness. Vain hope! 'Tis ours for ever and aye To do the job the slaves have marred, To clear the wreckage of the fray, And please our kings by working hard. Daily we mend their blunderings, Swachbucklers, demagogues, and kings! What if we rose?--If some fine morn, Unnumbered as the autumn corn, With all the brains and all the skill Of stubborn back and steadfast will, We rose and, with the guns in train, Proposed to deal the cards again, And, tired of sitting up o' nights, Gave notice to our parasites, Announcing that in future they Who paid the piper should call the lay! Then crowns would tumble down like nuts, And wastrels hide in water-butts; Each lamp-post as an epilogue: Would hold a pendent demagogue: Then would the world be for the wise!-- . . . . . . . . . . . . . But ah! the plain folk never rise. VIII THE KINGS OF ORION "An ape and a lion lie side by side in the heart of a man." --PERSIAN PROVERB Spring-fishing in the North is a cold game for a man whose blood has become thin in gentler climates. All afternoon I had failed to stir a fish, and the wan streams of the Laver, swirling between bare grey banks, were as icy to the eye as the sharp gusts of hail from the north-east were to the fingers. I cast mechanically till I grew weary, and then with an empty creel and a villainous temper set myself to trudge the two miles of bent to the inn. Some distant ridges of hill stood out snow-clad against the dun sky, and half in anger, half in dismal satisfaction, I told myself that fishing to-morrow would be as barren as to-day.