Sairey - Excerpts From An Incongruity

After A. C. S.


In Spring there are lashings of new books,
In Autumn fresh novels are sold,
They are many, but my shelf has few books,
My comrades, the favourites of old;
Tho' the roll of the cata-logues vary,
Thou alone art unchangeably dear,
O bibulous, beautiful Sairey,
Our Lady of Cheer.

By the whites of thine eyes that were yellow,
By the folds of thy duplicate chin,
By thy voice that was husky but mellow
With gin, with the richness of gin,
By thy scorn of the boy that was Bragian,
By thy wealth of perambulate swoons,
O matchless and mystical Magian,
Beguile us with boons.

For thou scatterest the evil before us
With grave humours and exquisite speech,
Till we heed not the 'new men that bore us,'
Nor regard the new women that screech;
We are weak, but thy hand shall refresh us;
We are faint, but we know thee sublime;
More priceless than pills, and more precious
Than draughts that are slime.

Thou hast lifted us forth from the melly,
Thou hast told, with thick heavings of pride,
Of the Package in Jonadge's belly,
And the Camel that rich folks may ride;
From the mire and the murk of a stern Age
In the Font of St. Polge we are clean,
O Gold as has passed through the Furnage,
Our Lady and Queen.


In thy chamber where Holborn is highest,
At the banquet, ere night had begun,
Thou wert seated with her that was nighest
Thy heart, save the Only, the One;
For the hours of thy labour were ended,
And the spirit of peace was within,
And the fumes from the teapot ascended
Of unsweetened gin.

Dost thou dream in dim dusk when light lingers,
Of Betsy, the bage, the despiged,
Who with snap of imperious fingers
Hariçina, thy figment, deniged?
Dost thou gasp at the shock of the blow sich
As she, in her tantrum, let fall,
Who 'didn't believe there was no sich
A person' at all?

Fear not! Though the torters be frightful,
Though the words that thou took'st unawares
Be as serpiants that twine and are spiteful,
O thou best of good creeturs, who cares?
For the curse hath recoiled, and the stigma
Thou hast turned to her sorrer and shame,
While thy cryptic and sombre Enigma
Is shrined in a Name.


And our wine shall not lack for thy throttle,
Nor at night shall our portals be cloged,
And thy lips thou shalt place to the bottle
On our chimley, when so thou'rt dispoged;
We have pickled 'intensely' our salmon;
To thy moods are great cowcumbers dressed,
O Daughter of Gumption and Gammon,
Our Mistress and Guest!

And in hours when our lamp-ile has dwindled
In deep walleys of uttermost pain,
When our hopes to grey ashes are kindled,
We are fain of thee still, we are fain;
In this Piljian's Projiss of Woe, in
This Wale of white shadders and damp,
O Roge all a-blowin' and growin',
We open our Gamp!

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

No biography available

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The Iron Hand

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

Elysium

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

Ode On A Distant Prospect Of Ever Getting To The Hills

John Kendall (Dum-Dum), Simple Poetry

Omar Out Of Date

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English

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Haven

Here, in mine old-time harbourage installed,
Lulled by the murmurous hum of London's traffic
To that full calm which may be justly called
Seraphic,

I praise the gods; and vow, for my escape
From the hard grip of premature Jehannun,
One golden-tissued bottle of the grape
Per annum.

For on this day, from Orient toils enlarged,
Kneeling, I kissed the parent soil at Dover,
Where a huge porter in his orbit charged
Me over;

Flashed in the train by Shorncliffe's draughty camp;
Gazed on the hurrying landscape's pastoral graces,
Old farms, and happy fields (a trifle damp
In places);

Passed the grim suburbs, indigent and bare
Of natural foliage, but bravely flying
Frank garlandry of last week's underwear
Out drying;

And ...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

Omar Out Of Date

BY A RENEGADE DISCIPLE


Wake! for Reveillée scatters into flight
The flagging Rearguard of a ruined Night,
And hark! the meagre Champion of the Roost
Has flung a matins to the Throne of Light.

Here, while the first beam smites the sullen Sky,
With silent feet Hajâm comes stealing nigh,
Bearing the Brush, the Vessel, and the Blade,
These sallow cheeks of mine to scarify.

How often, oh, how often have I sworn
Myself myself to shave th' ensuing Morn!
And then - and then comes Guest-night, and Hajâm
Appears unbidden, and is gladly borne.

Come, fill the Cup! The nerve-restoring Ti
Shall woo me with the Leaf of far Bohi;
What matter that to some the Koko makes
Appeal, to some the Cingalese Kofi?

For in a minute Toil, that ever...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

The Rubaiyat Of Ohow Dryyam With Apologies To Omar

I

Wail! for the Law has scattered into flight
Those Drinks that were our sometime dear Delight;
And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan
New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite.


II

After the phantom of our Freedom died
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried:
"Drink coffee, Lads, for that is all that's left
Since our Land of the Free is washed--and dried."


[Illustration:

And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan
New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite.]


III

The Haigs indeed are gone, and on the Nose
That bourgeoned once with color of the rose
A deathly Pallor sits, while down the lane
Where once strode Johnny Walker--Water goes.


IV

Come, fill the Cup, a...

J. L. Duff

Summer Portents

Come, let us quaff the brimming cup
Of sorrow, bitterness, and pain;
For clearly, things are warming up
Again.

Observe with what awakened powers
The vulgar Sun resumes the right
Of rising in the hallowed hours
Of night.

Bound to the village water-wheel,
The motive bullock bows his crest,
And signals forth a mute appeal
For rest.

His neck is galled beneath the yoke:
His patient eyes are very dim:
Life is a dismal sort of joke
To him.

Yet one there is, to whom the ox
Is kin; who knows, as habitat,
The cold, unsympathetic box,
Or mat;

Who urges on, with wearied arms,
The punkah's rhythmic, laboured sweep,
Nor dares to contemplate the charms
Of sleep.

Now 'mid a host of lesser thing...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

To My Lady Of The Hills

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.


'Tis the hour when golden slumbers
Through th' Hesperian portals creep,
And the youth who lisps in numbers
Dreams of novel rhymes to 'sleep';
I shall merely note, at starting,
That responsive Nature thrills
To the twilight hour of parting
From my Lady of the Hills.

Lady, 'neath the deepening umbrage
We have wandered near and far,
To the ludicrously dumb rage
Of your truculent Mamma;
We have urged the long-tailed gallop;
Lightly danced the still night through;
Smacked the ball, and oared the shallop
(In a vis-à-vis canoe);

We have walked this fair Oasis,
Keeping...

John Kendall (Dum-Dum)

The Feaster

Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
    While we are glad within?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors;
    (And gather close, my kin.)
Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,--
    Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
        Though we implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased,
    It is her silence that no flute can drown,
        It is her moonlit silence at the door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high
    That frights my heart with an immortal Cry,
        Calling me evermore.

Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
    Let me not hear her voice;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
    With waves of golden noise!
For she is wise as Eden, even mute,
    To search my spirit through the deep and height

Josephine Preston Peabody