THE MARTYRED DECADENTS: A SYMPATHETIC SATIRE We strain our strings thus tight, Our voices pitch thus high, A song to indite That nevermore shall die. The Poet being divine Admits no social sin, Spurring with wine And lust the Muse within. Finding no use at all In arms or civic deeds, Perched on a wall Fulfilling fancy’s needs. Let parents, children, wife, Be ghosts beside his art, Be this his life To hug the snake to his heart. Sad souls, the more we stress The advantage of our crown, So much the less Our welcome by the Town, By the gross and rootling hog Who grunts nor lifts his head, By jealous dog Or old ass thistle-fed. By so much less their praise, By so much more our glory. Grim pride outweighs The anguish of our story. We strain our strings thus tight, Our voices pitch thus high, To enforce our right Over futurity. EPIGRAMS ON CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE Here ranted Isaac’s elder son, The proud shag-breasted godless one, From whom observant Smooth-Cheek stole Birthright, blessing, hunter’s soul. A VILLAGE CONFLICT The cottage damson laden as could be Scowls at the Manor House magnolia tree That year by year within its thoughtless powers Yields flowers and leaves and flowers and leaves and flowers, While the Magnolia shudders as in fear, “_Figurez-vous!_ two sackfuls every year!” DEDICATORY Dolon, analyst of souls, To the Graces hangs up here His shrimp-net rotting into holes And oozy from the infernal mere; He wreathes his gift around with cress, Lush harvest of the public cess. TO MY COLLATERAL ANCESTOR, REV. R. GRAVES, THE FRIEND OF THE POET SHENSTONE AND AUTHOR OF _THE SPIRITUAL QUIXOTE_: ON RECEIPT OF A PRESS-CUTTING INTENDED FOR HIM. O friend of Shenstone, do you frown In realms remote from me When Messrs Durrant send you down By inadvertency Clippings identifying you With some dim man in the moon, A Spiritual Quixote, true, But friend of S. Sassoon? “A VEHICLE, TO WIT, A BICYCLE.” (Dedicated, without permission, to my friend P. C. Flowers) “My front-lamp, constable? Why, man, the moon! My rear-lamp? Shining there ten yards behind me, Warm parlour lamplight of _The Dish and Spoon_!” But for all my fancy talk, they would have fined me, Had I not set a rather sly half-crown Winking under the rays of my front lamp: Goodwill towards men disturbed the official frown, My rear-light beckoned through the evening’s damp. MOTTO TO A BOOK OF EMBLEMS