ursed me? look! approve me! I
have wings.

"Ah, men's poets! men's conventions crust you round and swathe you
mist-like,
And the world's wheels grind your spirits down the dust ye overtrod:
We stand sinlessly stark-naked in effulgence of the Christlight,
And our polecat chokes not cherubs; and our skunk smells sweet to God.

"For He grasps the pale Created by some thousand vital handles,
Till a Godshine, bluely winnowed through the sieve of thunderstorms,
Shimmers up the non-existent round the churning feet of angels;
And the atoms of that glory may be seraphs, being worms.

"Friends, your nature underlies us and your pulses overplay us;
Ye, with social sores unbandaged, can ye sing right and steer wrong?
For the transient cosmic, rooted in imperishable chaos,
Must be kneaded into drastics as material for a song.

"Eyes once purged from homebred vapours through humanitarian passion
See that monochrome a despot through a democratic prism;
Hands that rip the soul up, reeking from divine evisceration,
Not with priestlike oil anoint him, but a stronger-smelling chrism.

"Pass, O poet, retransfigured! God, the psychometric rhapsode,
Fills with fiery rhythms the silence, stings the dark with stars
that blink;
All eternities hang round him like an old man's clothes collapsed,
While he makes his mundane music--AND HE WILL NOT STOP, I THINK."

* * * * *

THE PERSON OF THE HOUSE

IDYL CCCLXVI

THE ACCOMPANIMENTS

1. THE MONTHLY NURSE
2. THE CAUDLE
3. THE SENTENCES

THE KID

1. THE MONTHLY NURSE

The sickly airs had died of damp;
Through huddling leaves the holy chime
Flagged; I, expecting Mrs. Gamp,
Thought--"Will the woman come in time?"
Upstairs I knew the matron bed
Held her whose name confirms all joy
To me; and tremblingly I said,
"Ah! will it be a girl or boy?"
And, soothed, my fluttering doubts began
To sift the pleasantness of things;
Developing the unshapen man,
An eagle baffled of his wings;
Considering, next, how fair the state
And large the license that sublimes
A nineteenth-century female fate--
Sweet cause that thralls my liberal rhymes!
And Chastities and colder Shames,
Decorums mute and marvellous,
And fair Behaviour that reclaims
All fancies grown erroneous,
Moved round me musing, till my choice
Faltered. A female in a wig
Stood by me, and a drouthy voice
Announced her--Mrs. Betsy Prig.