Unity Put Quarterly[1].

By A. C. S.


The Centuries kiss and commingle,
Cling, clasp, and are knit in a chain;
No cycle but scorns to be single,
No two but demur to be twain,
'Till the land of the lute and the love-tale
Be bride of the boreal breast,
And the dawn with the darkness shall dovetail,
    The East with the West.

The desire of the grey for the dun nights
Is that of the dun for the grey;
The tales of the Thousand and One Nights
Touch lips with 'The Times' of to-day.--
Come, chasten the cheap with the classic;
Choose, Churton, thy chair and thy class,
Mix, melt in the must that is Massic
    The beer that is Bass!

Omnipotent age of the Aorist!
Infinitely freely exact!--
As the fragrance of fiction is fairest
If frayed in the furnace of fact--
Though nine be the Muses in number
There is hope if the handbook be one,--
Dispelling the planets that cumber
    The path of the sun.

Though crimson thy hands and thy hood be
With the blood of a brother betrayed,
O Would-be-Professor of Would-be,
We call thee to bless and to aid.
Transmuted would travel with Er, see
The Land of the Rolling of Logs,
Charmed, chained to thy side, as to Circe
    The Ithacan hogs.

O bourne of the black and the godly!
O land where the good niggers go.
With the books that are borrowed of Bodley,
Old moons and our castaway clo'!
There, there, till the roses be ripened
Rebuke us, revile, and review,
Then take thee thine annual stipend
    So long over-due.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, born on November 21, 1863, and died on May 12, 1944, was a Cornish writer, who published under the pen name Q. His legacy includes a vast body of critical and anthological work, most notably 'The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250–1900'. Quiller-Couch was knighted in 1910 and also served as a professor of English at the University of Cambridge. His works have influenced many, including writers like Virginia Woolf.

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Written Upon Love's Frontier-Post. (From 'Troy Town'.)

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

Of Three Children Choosing - A Chaplet Of Verse

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

The Statues And The Tear

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

To Maurice Hewlett

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Solvitur Acris Hiemps.

My Juggins, see: the pasture green,
    Obeying Nature's kindly law,
Renews its mantle; there has been
    A thaw.

The frost-bound earth is free at last,
    That lay 'neath Winter's sullen yoke
'Till people felt it getting past
    A joke.

Now forth again the Freshers fare,
    And get them tasty summer suits
Wherein they flaunt afield and scare
    The brutes.

Again the stream suspects the keel;
    Again the shrieking captain drops
Upon his crew; again the meal
    Of chops

Divides the too-laborious day;
    Again the Student sighs o'er Mods,
And prompts his enemies to lay
    Long odds.

Again the shopman spreads his wiles;
    Again the organ-pipes, unbound,
Distract the populace for miles
  ...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Retrospection.

After C. S. C.

When the hunter-star Orion
    (Or, it may be, Charles his Wain)
Tempts the tiny elves to try on
    All their little tricks again;
When the earth is calmly breathing
    Draughts of slumber undefiled,
And the sire, unused to teething,
    Seeks for errant pins his child;

When the moon is on the ocean,
    And our little sons and heirs
From a natural emotion
    Wish the luminary theirs;
Then a feeling hard to stifle,
    Even harder to define,
Makes me feel I 'd give a trifle
    For the days of Auld Lang Syne.

James--for we have been as brothers
    (Are, to speak correctly, twins),
Went about in one another's
    Clothing, bore each other's sins,
Rose together, ere the pearly
    Tint of morn ha...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Measure For Measure.

By O--r K--m.

Wake! for the closed Pavilion doors have kept
Their silence while the white-eyed Kaffir slept,
    And wailed the Nightingale with 'Jug, jug, jug!'
Whereat, for empty cup, the White Rose wept.

Enter with me where yonder door hangs out
Its Red Triangle to a world of drought,
    Inviting to the Palace of the Djinn,
Where Death, Aladdin, waits as Chuckerout.

Methought, last night, that one in suit of woe
Stood by the Tavern-door and whispered, 'Lo,
    The Pledge departed, what avails the Cup?
Then take the Pledge and let the Wine-cup go.'

But I: 'For every thirsty soul that drains
This Anodyne of Thought its rim contains--
    Free-will the can, Necessity the must,
Pour off the must, and, see, the ca...

Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Willaloo.
By E. A. P.

In the sad and sodden street,
To and fro,
Flit the fever-stricken feet
Of the freshers as they meet,
Come and go,
Ever buying, buying, buying
Where the shopmen stand supplying,
Vying, vying
All they know,
While the Autumn lies a-dying
Sad and low
As the price of summer suitings when the winter breezes blow,
Of the summer, summer suitings that are standing in a row
On the way to Jericho.

See the freshers as they row
To and fro,
Up and down the Lower River for an afternoon or so--
(For the deft manipulation
Of the never-resting oar,
Though it lead to approbation,
Will induce excoriation)--
They are infinitely sore,
Keeping time, time, time
...
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Titania.
By Lord T-n.

So bluff Sir Leolin gave the bride away:
And when they married her, the little church
Had seldom seen a costlier ritual.
The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten,
And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;--
Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top
Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves
Of two fond cushats on a field of ice,
As who should say 'I see you!'--Such the joy
When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith
With Mariana of the Moated Grange.

For Edwin, plump head-waiter at The Cock,
Grown sick of custom, spoilt of plenitude,
Lacking the finer wit that saith,
'I wait, They come; and if I make them wait, they go,'
Fell in a jaundiced humour petulant-green,
Watched the dull clerk slow-rounding to his cheese,
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Tempora Mutantur.
There once was a time when I revelled in rhyme, with Valentines deluged my cousins,

Translated Tibullus and half of Catullus, and poems produced by the dozens.

Now my tale is nigh told, for my blood's running cold, all my laurels lie yellow and faded.

"We have come to the boss;" [1] like a weary old hoss, poor Pegasus limps, and is jaded.

And yet Mr. Editor, like a stern creditor, duns me for this or that article,

Though he very well knows that of Verse and of prose I am stripped to the very last particle.

What shall I write of? What subject indite of? All my vis viva is failing;

Emeritus sum; Mons Parnassus is dumb, and my prayers to the Nine unavailing. -

Thus in vain have I often attempted to soft...
Edward Woodley Bowling