* * *

Now after all these years it has come to pass that I am to change places with the cabman.

Perched aloft in the driver's seat of the First Person Singular, it is my proud privilege to crack the prefatory whip and start this newest and best Le Gallienne Vehicle upon its course through the garlanded Via Laurea to the Sign of the Golden Sheaf.

Look at it well, Dear People, before it starts, this golden vehicle of
Richard Le Gallienne.

Consider how it is built on the authentic lines of the best workmanship, made to last for generations, maybe for ever.

Take note of its springs so perfectly hung that the Muse may ride in luxurious ease, unjarred by metrical joltings as befits the Queen.

Mark the mirror smooth surface of the lacquer that only time and tireless labour can apply.

Before this Master Coach of Poesy the rattle-jointed Tin Lizzie of Free Verse and the painted jazz wagon of Futurism and the cheap imitation of the Chinese palanquin must turn aside, they have no right of way, these literary road-lice on the garlanded Via Laurea.

With angry thumb, the traffic cop Time will jerk them back to the side streets and byways where they belong, to make way for the Golden Coach of Richard Le Gallienne.

OLIVER HERFORD

I

AN ECHO FROM HORACE

  Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti;
  Tempus abire, tibi est.

  Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove
    Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away
  Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above
    Write upon the lintel this; Time is done for play!
  Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show
  Ends at last, 'twas long enough—time it is to go.

  Thou hast played—ah! heart, how long!—past all count were they,
    Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow,
  Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze for hair, wild clay
    Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow.
  Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove,—
  Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.

  Thou hast eaten; peacock's tongues,—fed thy carp with slaves,—
    Nests of Asiatic birds, brought from far Cathay,
  Umbrian boars, and mullet roes snatched from stormy waves;
    Half thy father's lands have gone one strange meal to pay;
  For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea and shore;
  Thou hast eaten—'tis enough, thou shalt eat no more.

  Thou hast drunk—how hast thou drunk! mighty vats, whole seas;
    Vineyards purpling half a world turned to gold thy throat,
  Falernian, true Massic, the gods' own vintages,
    Lakes thou hast swallowed deep enough galleys tall to float;
  Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness divine,
  All that dreams within the grape, madness too, were thine.

  Time it is to go and sleep—draw the curtains close—
    Tender strings shall lull thee still, mellow flutes be blown,
  Still the spring shall shower down on thy couch the rose,
    Still the laurels crown thine head, where thou dreamest alone.
  Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou hast drunken deep,
  Time at last it is to go, time it is to sleep.

BALLADE OF THE OLDEST DUEL IN THE WORLD

  A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred,
    I scarce had thought to fight again,
  But love of the old game dies hard,
    So to't, my lady, if you're fain!
    I'm scarce the mettle to refrain,
  I'll ask no quarter from your art—
    But what if we should both be slain!
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

  I warn you, though, be on your guard,
    Nor an old swordsman's craft disdain,
  He jests at scars—what saith the Bard?
    Love's wounds are real, and fierce the pain;
    If we should die of love, we twain!
  You laugh—en garde then—so we start;
    Cyrano-like, here's my refrain:
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

  If compliments I interlard
    Twixt feint and lunge, you'll not complain
  Lacking your eyes, the night's un-starred,
    The rose is beautiful in vain,
    In vain smells sweet—Rose-in-the-Brain,
  Dizzying the world—a touch! sweet smart!—
    Only the envoi doth remain:
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

ENVOI

  Princess, I'm yours; the rose-red rain
    Pours from my side—but see! I dart
  Within your guard—poor pretty stain!
    I fight you, darling, for your heart.

SORCERY

  Face with the forest eyes,
    And the wayward wild-wood hair,
  How shall a man be wise,
    When a girl's so fair;
  How, with her face once seen,
  Shall life be as it has been,
    This many a year?

  Beautiful fearful thing!
    You undulant sorcery!
  I dare not hear you sing,
    Dance not for me;
  The whiteness of your breast,
  Divinely manifest
    I must not see.

  Too late, thou luring child,
    Moon matches little moon;
  I must not be beguiled,
    With the honied tune:
  Yet O to lay my head
  Twixt moon and moon!
  'Twas so my sad heart said,
    Only last June.

THE DRYAD

  My dryad hath her hiding place
    Among ten thousand trees.
      She flies to cover
      At step of a lover,
  And where to find her lovely face
    Only the woodland bees
      Ever discover,
  Bringing her honey
  From meadows sunny,
      Cowslip and clover.

  Vainly on beech and oak I knock
    Amid the silent boughs;
      Then hear her laughter,
      The moment after,
  Making of me her laughing-stock
    Within her hidden house.

  The young moon with her wand of pearl
    Taps on her hidden door,
      Bids her beauty flower
      In that woodland bower,
  All white like a mortal girl,
    With moonshine hallowed o'er.

  Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
    To hide her face from me,
      Not all her fleeing
      Should 'scape my seeing,
  Nor all her ambushed sorceries
    Secure concealment be
      For her bright being.

  Yea! should she by the laddered pine
    Steal to the stars on high,
      Her fairy whiteness,
      Hidden in brightness,
  Her hiding-place would so out-shine
    The constellated sky,
    She could not 'scape the eye
  Of my pursuing,
    Nor her fawn-foot lightness
  Out-speed my wooing.

MAY IS BACK

  May is back, and You and I