ALGERNON CHARLES SWIN- Still fair to see and good to smell BURNE As in the quaintness of its prime, A dainty thing's the Villanelle, It serves its purpose passing well. AUSTIN DOBSON URCEUS EXIT And there the unregulated sun 30 TRIOLET 1 I intended an Ode, And it turned to a Sonnet. It began a la mode, I intended an Ode; But Rose crossed the road In her latest new bonnet; I intended an Ode; And it turned to a Sonnet. 35 40 RUPERT BROOKE THE OLD VICARAGE, GRANT. CHESTER 45 (CAFÉ DES WESTENS, BERLIN, MAY 1912) cibe yevoiuny ? . . . would I were sky, night; And spectral dance, before the dawn, A hundred Vicars down the lawn; Curates, long dust, will come and go On lissom, clerical, printless toe; And oft between the boughs is seen The sly shade of a Rural Dean Till, at a shiver in the skies, Vanishing with Satanic cries, The prim ecclesiastic rout Leaves but a startled sleeper-out, Gray heavens, the first bird's drowsy calls, The falling house that never falls. summer Just now the lilac is in bloom, through, Du lieber Gott! 55 10 60 16 65 70 Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot, dews God! I will pack, and take a train, And get me to England once again! For England's the one land, I know, 1 eithe genoimen, would I were 1 120 80 125 Ah, God! to see the branches stir 115 Across the moon at Grantchester ! To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten Unforgettable, unforgotten River-smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees. Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand Still guardians of that holy land ? The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream, The yet unacademic stream? Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold ? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley! And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool, Gentle and brown, above the pool ? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill!. Say, is there Beauty yet to find ! And Certainty? and Quiet kind ! Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain? ... 86 130 135 oh! yet Where men with Splendid Hearts may go; And Cambridgeshire, of all England, 75 The shire for Men who Understand; And of that district I prefer The lovely hamlet Grantchester. For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile; And Royston men in the far South Are black and fierce and strange of mouth; At Over they fling oaths at one, And worse than oaths at Trumpington, And Ditton girls are mean and dirty, And there's none in Harston under thirty, And folks in Shelford and those parts Have twisted lips and twisted hearts, And Barton men make Cockney rhymes, And Coton's full of nameless crimes, 90 And things are done you'd not believe At Madingley on Christmas Eve. Strong men have run for miles and miles, When one from Cherry Hinton smiles; Strong men have blanched, and shot their wives, 95 Rather than send them to St. Ives; Strong men have cried like babes, bydam, To hear what happened at Babraham. But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester! There's peace and holy quiet there, 100 Great clouds along pacific skies, And men and women with straight eyes, Lithe children lovelier than a dream, A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream, And little kindly winds that creep 105 Round twilight corners, half asleep. In Grantchester their skins are white; They bathe by day, they bathe by night; The women there do all they ought; The men observe the Rules of Thought. They love the Good; they worship Truth; They laugh uproariously in youth; (And when they get to feeling old, They up and shoot themselves, I'm told). .. Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea! 140 WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES LEISURE What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, 5 Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like stars at night. 111 |