XXXII Ballades in Blue China [1885]. Lang Andrew

      Friend, when you bear a care-dulled eye,

      And brow perplexed with things of weight,

      And fain would bid some charm untie

      The bonds that hold you all too strait,

      Behold a solace to your fate,

      Wrapped in this cover’s china blue;

      These ballades fresh and delicate,

      This dainty troop of Thirty-two!

      The mind, unwearied, longs to fly

      And commune with the wise and great;

      But that same ether, rare and high,

      Which glorifies its worthy mate,

      To breath forspent is disparate:

      Laughing and light and airy-new

      These come to tickle the dull pate,

      This dainty troop of Thirty-two.

      Most welcome then, when you and I,

      Forestalling days for mirth too late,

      To quips and cranks and fantasy

      Some choice half-hour dedicate,

      They weave their dance with measured rate

      Of rhymes enlinked in order due,

      Till frowns relax and cares abate,

      This dainty troop of Thirty-two.

      Princes, of toys that please your state

      Quainter are surely none to view

      Than these which pass with tripping gait,

      This dainty troop of Thirty-two.

      Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar

      Of London, and the bustling street,

      For still, by the Sicilian shore,

      The murmur of the Muse is sweet.

      Still, still, the suns of summer greet

      The mountain-grave of Helikê,

      And shepherds still their songs repeat

      Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

      What though they worship Pan no more,

      That guarded once the shepherd’s seat,

      They chatter of their rustic lore,

      They watch the wind among the wheat:

      Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat,

      Where whispers pine to cypress tree;

      They count the waves that idly beat

      Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

      Theocritus! thou canst restore

      The pleasant years, and over-fleet;

      With thee we live as men of yore,

      We rest where running waters meet:

      And then we turn unwilling feet

      And seek the world – so must it be —

      We may not linger in the heat

      Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

      Master, – when rain, and snow, and sleet

      And northern winds are wild, to thee

      We come, we rest in thy retreat,

      Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

      Ye giant shades of Ra and Tum,

      Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian,

      If murmurs of our planet come

      To exiles in the precincts wan

      Where, fetish or Olympian,

      To help or harm no more ye list,

      Look down, if look ye may, and scan

      This monument in London mist!

      Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb

      That once were read of him that ran

      When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum

      Wild music of the Bull began;

      When through the chanting priestly clan

      Walk’d Ramses, and the high sun kiss’d

      This stone, with blessing scored and ban —

      This monument in London mist.

      The stone endures though gods be numb;

      Though human effort, plot, and plan

      Be sifted, drifted, like the sum

      Of sands in wastes Arabian.

      What king may deem him more than man,

      What priest says Faith can Time resist

      While this endures to mark their span —

      This monument in London mist?

      Prince, the stone’s shade on your divan

      Falls; it is longer than ye wist:

      It preaches, as Time’s gnomon can,

      This monument in London mist!

      This life – one was thinking to-day,

      In the midst of a medley of fancies —

      Is a game, and the board where we play

      Green earth with her poppies and pansies.

      Let manque be faded romances,

      Be passe remorse and regret;

      Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances —

      The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.

      The lover will stake as he may

      His heart on his Peggies and Nancies;

      The girl has her beauty to lay;

      The saint has his prayers and his trances;

      The poet bets endless expanses

      In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:

      How they gaze at the wheel as it glances —

      The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette!

      The Kaiser will stake his array

      Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances;

      An Englishman punts with his pay,

      And glory the jeton of France is;

      Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances,

      Have voices or colours to bet;

      Will you moan that its motion askance is —

      The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette?

      The prize that the pleasure enhances?

      The prize is – at last to forget

      The changes, the chops, and the chances —

      The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.