XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]

BALLADE OF LIFE

“‘Dead and gone,’ – a sorry burden of the Ballad of Life.”

Death’s Jest Book.

Say, fair maids, maying

In gardens green,

In deep dells straying,

What end hath been

Two Mays between

Of the flowers that shone

And your own sweet queen —

“They are dead and gone!”

Say, grave priests, praying

In dule and teen,

From cells decaying

What have ye seen

Of the proud and mean,

Of Judas and John,

Of the foul and clean? —

“They are dead and gone!”

Say, kings, arraying

Loud wars to win,

Of your manslaying

What gain ye glean?

“They are fierce and keen,

But they fall anon,

On the sword that lean, —

They are dead and gone!”

ENVOY

Through the mad world’s scene,

We are drifting on,

To this tune, I ween,

“They are dead and gone!”

BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA

There’s a joy without canker or cark,

There’s a pleasure eternally new,

’Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark

Of china that’s ancient and blue;

Unchipp’d all the centuries through

It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang,

And they fashion’d it, figure and hue,

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

These dragons (their tails, you remark,

Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), —

When Noah came out of the ark,

Did these lie in wait for his crew?

They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew,

They were mighty of fin and of fang,

And their portraits Celestials drew

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Here’s a pot with a cot in a park,

In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,

Where the lovers eloped in the dark,

Lived, died, and were changed into two

Bright birds that eternally flew

Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;

’Tis a tale was undoubtedly true

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

ENVOY

Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,

Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang”

But – a sage never heeded a shrew

In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES

(AFTER VILLON.)

Nay, tell me now in what strange air

The Roman Flora dwells to-day.

Where Archippiada hides, and where

Beautiful Thais has passed away?

Whence answers Echo, afield, astray,

By mere or stream, – around, below?

Lovelier she than a woman of clay;

Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

   Where is wise Héloïse, that care

Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?

All for her love he found a snare,

A maimed poor monk in orders grey;

And where’s the Queen who willed to slay

Buridan, that in a sack must go

Afloat down Seine, – a perilous way —

Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare,

With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay?

Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?

Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?

Good Joan, whom English did betray

In Rouen town, and burned her?  No,

Maiden and Queen, no man may say;

Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?

ENVOY

Prince, all this week thou need’st not pray,

Nor yet this year the thing to know.

One burden answers, ever and aye,

“Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”

VILLON’S BALLADE

OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL LIFE

Nay, be you pardoner or cheat,

Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,

You’ll burn your fingers at the feat,

And howl like other folks that fry.

All evil folks that love a lie!

And where goes gain that greed amasses,

By wile, and trick, and thievery?

’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,

With game, and shame, and jollity,

Go jigging through the field and street,

With

myst’ry

 and

morality

;

Win gold at

gleek

, – and that will fly,

Where all you gain at

passage

 passes, —

And that’s?  You know as well as I,

’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,

Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,

Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,

If you’ve no clerkly skill to ply;

You’ll gain enough, with husbandry,

But – sow hempseed and such wild grasses,

And where goes all you take thereby? —

’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

ENVOY

Your clothes, your hose, your broidery,

Your linen that the snow surpasses,

Or ere they’re worn, off, off they fly,

’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!

BALLADE OF RABBITS AND HARES

In a vision a Sportsman forlorn

I beheld, in an isle of the West,

And his purple and linen were torn,

And he wailed, as he beat on his breast, —

“My people are men dispossessed,

They have vanished, and nobody cares, —

They have passed to the place of their rest,

They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!

“Oh, why was a gentleman born

With a title, a name, and a crest,

Where the Rabbit is treated with scorn,

And the Hare is accounted a pest,

By the lumbering farmer repressed,

With his dogs, and his guns, and his snares?

But my fathers have ended their quest,

They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!

“Ah, woe for the clover and corn

That the Rabbit was wont to infest!

Ah, woe for my youth in its morn,

When the farmer obeyed my behest!

Happy days! like a wandering guest

Ye have fled, ye are sped unawares;

But my fathers are now with the blest,

They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!”

ENVOY

Prince, mourn for a nation oppressed,

And absorbed in her stocks and her shares,

And bereaved of her bravest and best —

They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!

VALENTINE IN FORM OF BALLADE

The soft wind from the south land sped,

He set his strength to blow,

From forests where Adonis bled,

And lily flowers a-row:

He crossed the straits like streams that flow,

The ocean dark as wine,

To my true love to whisper low,

To be your Valentine.

The Spring half-raised her drowsy head,

Besprent with drifted snow,

“I’ll send an April day,” she said,

“To lands of wintry woe.”

He came, – the winter’s overthrow

With showers that sing and shine,

Pied daisies round your path to strow,

To be your Valentine.

Where sands of Egypt, swart and red,<br