AN IDYLL


Back from the Somme two Fusiliers
Limped painfully home; the elder said,
S. -Robert, I-ve lived three thousand years
This Summer, and I-m nine parts dead.�
R. -But if that-s truly so,� I cried, -quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough

�Where once a nonsense built her nest
With skulls and flowers and all things queer,
In an old boot, with patient breast
Hatching three eggs; and the next year...�
S. -Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid
Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did.�

Said he, -Before this quaint mood fails,
We-ll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,�
R. -Hanging it up with monkey tails
In a deep grove all hushed and dim....�
S. -To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,�
R. -Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,�

S. -Which men are wise beyond their time,
And worship nonsense, no one more.�
R. -Hard by, among old quince and lime,
They-ve built a temple with no floor,�
S. -And whosoever worships in that place,
He disappears from sight and leaves no trace.�

R. -Once the Galatians built a fane
To Sense: what duller God than that?�
S. -But the first day of autumn rain
The roof fell in and crushed them flat.�
R. -Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls
When nonsense is foundation for the walls.�

I tell him old Galatian tales;
He caps them in quick Portuguese,
While phantom creatures with green scales
Scramble and roll among the trees.
The hymn swells; on a bough above us sings
A row of bright pink birds, flapping their wings.