mine eyes have seen,
My heart been privileged to know;
With all my lips in love have brought
To lips that yearned in love to them, and wrought
In the way of wrath, and pity, and sport, and song:
Content, this miracle of being alive
Dwindling, that I, thrice weary of worst and best,
May shed my duds, and go
From right and wrong,
And, ceasing to regret, and long, and strive,
Accept the past, and be for ever at rest.

FINALE

_Schizzando ma con sentimento_

A sigh sent wrong,
A kiss that goes astray,
A sorrow the years endlong--
So they say.

So let it be--
Come the sorrow, the kiss, the sigh!
They are life, dear life, all three,
And we die.

WORTHING, 1899-1901.

LONDON TYPES

(_To_ S. S. P.)

I. BUS-DRIVER

He's called _The General_ from the brazen craft
And dash with which he _sneaks a bit of road_
And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed,
_Back-answers_ of the newest he'll explode;
He reins his horses with an air; he treats
With scoffing calm whatever powers there be;
He _gets it straight_, puts _a bit on_, and meets
His losses with both _lip_ and _pounds s. d._;
He arrogates a special taste in _short_;
Is loftily grateful for a flagrant _smoke_;
At all the smarter housemaids winks his court,
And taps them for half-crowns; being _stoney-broke_,
Lives lustily; is ever _on the make_;
And hath, I fear, none other gods but _Fake_.

II. LIFE-GUARDSMAN

Joy of the Milliner, Envy of the Line,
Star of the Parks, jack-booted, sworded, helmed,
He sits between his holsters, solid of spine;
Nor, as it seems, though _WESTMINSTER_ were whelmed,
With the great globe, in earthquake and eclipse,
Would he and his charger cease from mounting guard,
This Private in the Blues, nor would his lips
Move, though his gorge with throttled oaths were charred!
He wears his inches weightily, as he wears
His old-world armours; and with his port and pride,
His sturdy graces and enormous airs,
He towers, in speech his Colonel countrified,
A triumph, waxing statelier year by year,
Of British blood, and bone, and beef, and beer.

III. HAWKER

Far out of bounds he's figured--in a race
Of West-End traffic pitching to his loss.
But if you'd see him in his proper place,
Making the _browns_ for _bub_ and _grub_ and _doss_,
Go East among the merchants and their men,
And where the press is noisiest, and the tides
Of trade run highest and widest, there and then
You