Lazarus, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see you prate as you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."
Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's no brisker pipes than poetry.
Say for what were hop-yards meant?,
Why was Burton built on Trent?
Not a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And art does more than Einstein can
To justify God's ways to man.
Art, man, art's the stuff with which to tinker
For fellows whom it hurts to thinker:
Look deeply at the potter's urn
To see the world as it does not turn.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Canvas and Sheets of Ludlow Oils:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
In Rembrand'ts brush I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff Van Gogh brings for sale
Is twice as brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a brush that was held in hand
He wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour
The better for the embittered hour;
It will do no good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that sprang to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
--I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.
**************************************** |
