I

A PORTRAIT

AM a kind of farthing dip,
Unfriendly to the nose and eyes;
A blue-behinded ape, I skip
Upon the trees of Paradise.

At mankind's feast, I take my place
In solemn, sanctimonious state,
And have the air of saying grace
While I defile the dinner plate.

I am "the smiler with the knife,"
The battener upon garbage, I

Dear Heaven, with such a rancid life,
Were it not better far to die?

Yet still, about the human pale,
I love to scamper, love to race,
To swing by my irreverent tail
All over the most holy place;

And when at length, some golden day, The unfailing sportsman, aiming at, Shall bag, me—all the world shall say: Thank God, and there's an end of that!

SING

XXXI

ING clearlier, Muse, or evermore be still,
Sing truer or no longer sing!

No more the voice of melancholy Jacques
To wake a weeping echo in the hill;
But as the boy, the pirate of the spring,
From the green elm a living linnet takes,
One natural verse recapture-then be still.

A CAMP1

HE bed was made, the room was fit,

THE

By punctual eve the stars were lit; The air was still, the water ran,

No need was there for maid or man,
When we put up, my ass and I,
At God's green caravanserai.

1 From Travels with a Donkey.

XXXIII

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS 1

E travelled in the print of olden wars,

WE

WYet all the land was green,

And love we found, and peace,

Where fire and war had been.

They pass and smile, the children of the swordNo more the sword they wield;

And O, how deep the corn

Along the battlefield!

1 From Travels with a Donkey.

SKERRYVORE

OR love of lovely words, and for the sake

For those, my kinsmen and my countrymen,

Who early and late in the windy ocean toiled To plant a star for seamen, where was then The surfy haunt of seals and cormorants:

I, on the lintel of this cot, inscribe

The name of a strong tower.