to snap!
It's just sea's fun, breeze done, to spite
God's rods that scourge her surge, I'd urge--
Not proper, is it--quite?
VI
See, fore and aft, life's craft undone!
Crank plank, split spritsail--mark, sea's lark!
That gray cold sea's old sprees, begun
When men lay dark i' the ark, no spark,
All water--just God's fun!
VII
Not bright, at best, his jest to these
Seemed--screamed, shrieked, wreaked on kin for sin!
When for mirth's yell earth's knell seemed please
Some dumb new grim great whim in him
Made Jews take chalk for cheese.
VIII
Could God's rods bruise God's Jews? Their jowls
Bobbed, sobbed, gaped, aped, the plaice in face!
None heard, 'tis odds, his--God's--folk's howls.
Now, how must I apply, to try
This hookiest-beaked of owls?
Well, I suppose God knows--I don't.
Time's crimes mark dark men's types, in stripes
Broad as fen's lands men's hands were wont
Leave grieve unploughed, though proud and loud
With birds' words--No! he won't!
X
One never should think good impossible.
Eh? say I'd hide this Jew's oil's cruse--
His shop might hold bright gold, engrossible
By spy--spring's air takes there no care
To wave the heath-flower's glossy bell!
XI
But gold bells chime in time there, coined--
Gold! Old Sphinx winks there--"Read my screed!"
Doctrine Jews learn, use, burn for, joined
(Through new craft's stealth) with health and wealth--
At once all three purloined!
XII
I rose with dawn, to pawn, no doubt,
(Miss this chance, glance untried aside?)
John's shirt, my--no! Ay, so--the lout!
Let yet the door gape, store on floor
And not a soul about?
XIII
Such men lay traps, perhaps--and I'm
Weak--meek--mild--child of woe, you know!
But theft, I doubt, my lout calls crime.
Shrink? Think! Love's dawn in pawn--you spawn
Of Jewry! Just in time!
_Algernon Charles Swinburne._
IN IMMEMORIAM
We seek to know, and knowing seek;
We seek, we know, and every sense
Is trembling with the great Intense
And vibrating to what we speak.
We ask too much, we seek too oft,
We know enough, and should no more;
And yet we skim through Fancy's lore
And look to earth and not aloft.
A something comes from out the gloom;
I know it not, nor seek to know;
I only see it swell and grow,
And more than this world
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