Archive for April, 2009
Size and Tears
When on the sandy shore I sit,
Beside the salt sea-wave,
And fall into a weeping fit
Because I dare not shave -
A little whisper at my ear
Enquires the reason of my fear.
I answer “If that ruffian Jones
Should recognise me here,
He’d bellow out my name in tones
Offensive to the ear:
He chaffs me so on being stout
(A thing that always puts me out).”
Ah me! I see him on the cliff!
Farewell, farewell to hope,
If he should look this way, and if
He’s got his telescope!
To whatsoever place I flee,
My odious rival follows me!
For every night, and everywhere,
Tema con Varazioni
[Why is it that Poetry has never yet been subjected to that process
of Dilution which has proved so advantageous to her sister-art
Music? The Diluter gives us first a few notes of some well-known
Air, then a dozen bars of his own, then a few more notes of the
Air, and so on alternately: thus saving the listener, if not from
all risk of recognising the melody at all, at least from the too-
exciting transports which it might produce in a more concentrated
form. The process is termed "setting" by Composers, and any one,
that has ever experienced the emotion of being unexpectedly set
The Lang Coortin’
The ladye she stood at her lattice high,
Wi’ her doggie at her feet;
Thorough the lattice she can spy
The passers in the street,
“There’s one that standeth at the door,
And tirleth at the pin:
Now speak and say, my popinjay,
If I sall let him in.”
Then up and spake the popinjay
That flew abune her head:
“Gae let him in that tirls the pin:
He cometh thee to wed.”
O when he cam’ the parlour in,
A woeful man was he!
“And dinna ye ken your lover agen,
Sae well that loveth thee?”
“And how wad I ken ye loved me, Sir,
That have been sae lang away?
