WHEN Salomon sailed from Ophir ...

The clouds of Sussex thyme

That crown the cliffs in mid-July

Were all we needed—you and I—

But Salomon sailed from Ophir,

And broken bits of rhyme

Blew to us on the white chalk coast

From O, what elfin clime?

A peacock butterfly flaunted

Its four great crimson wings,

As over the edge of the chalk it flew

Black as a ship on the Channel blue ...

When Salomon sailed from Ophir,—

He brought, as the high sun brings,

Honey and spice to the Queen of the South,

Sussex or Saba, a song for her mouth,

Sweet as the dawn-wind over the downs

And the tall white cliffs that the wild thyme crowns

A song that the whole sky sings:—

When Salomon sailed from Ophir,

With Olliphants and gold,

The kings went up, the kings went down,

Trying to match King Salomon’s crown,

But Salomon sacked the sunset,

Wherever his black ships rolled.

He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,

And crammed it into his hold.

Chorus: Salomon sacked the sunset!

Salomon sacked the sunset!

He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,

And crammed it into his hold.

His masts were Lebanon cedars,

His sheets were singing blue,

But that was never the reason why

He stuffed his hold with the sunset sky!

The kings could cut their cedars,

And sail from Ophir, too;

But Salomon packed his heart with dreams

And all the dreams were true.

Chorus: The kings could cut their cedars,

Cut their Lebanon cedars;

But Salomon packed his heart with dreams,

And all the dreams were true.

When Salomon sailed from Ophir,

He sailed not as a king.

The kings—they weltered to and fro,

Tossed wherever the winds could blow;

But Salomon’s tawny seamen

Could lift their heads and sing,

Till all their crowded clouds of sail

Grew sweeter than the Spring.

Chorus: Their singing sheets grew sweeter,

Their crowded clouds grew sweeter,

For Salomon’s tawny seamen, sirs,

Could lift their heads and sing:

When Salomon sailed from Ophir

With crimson sails so tall,

The kings went up, the kings went down,

Trying to match King Salomon’s crown;

But Salomon brought the sunset

To hang on his Temple wall;

He rolled it up like a crimson cloth,

So his was better than all.

Chorus: Salomon gat the sunset,

Salomon gat the sunset;

He carried it like a crimson cloth

To hang on his Temple wall.

BLIND Moone of London

He fiddled up and down,

Thrice for an angel,

And twice for a crown.

He fiddled at the Green Man,

He fiddled at the Rose;

And where they have buried him

Not a soul knows.

All his tunes are dead and gone, dead as yesterday.

And his lanthorn flits no more

Round the Devil Tavern door,

Waiting till the gallants come, singing from the play;

Waiting in the wet and cold!

All his Whitsun tales are told.

He is dead and gone, sirs, very far away.

He would not give a silver groat

For good or evil weather.

He carried in his white cap

A long red feather.

He wore a long coat

Of the Reading-tawny kind,

And darned white hosen

With a blue patch behind.

So—one night—he shuffled past, in his buckled shoon.

We shall never see his face,

Twisted to that queer grimace,

Waiting in the wind and rain, till we called his tune;

Very whimsical and white,

Waiting on a blue Twelfth Night!

He is grown too proud at last—old blind Moone.

Yet, when May was at the door,

And Moone was wont to sing,

Many a maid and bachelor

Whirled into the ring:

Standing on a tilted wain

He played so sweet and loud

The Mayor forgot his golden chain

And jigged it with the crowd.

Old blind Moone, his fiddle scattered flowers along the street;

Into the dust of Brookfield Fair

Carried a shining primrose air,

Crooning like a poor mad maid, O, very low and sweet,

Drew us close, and held us bound,

Then—to the tune of Pedlar’s Pound,

Caught us up, and whirled us round, a thousand frolic feet.

Master Shakespeare was his host.

The tribe of Benjamin

Used to call him Merlin’s Ghost

At the Mermaid Inn.

He was only a crowder,

Fiddling at the door.

Death has made him prouder.

We shall not see him more.

Only—if you listen, please—through the master’s themes,

You shall hear a wizard strain,

Blind and bright as wind and rain

Shaken out of willow-trees, and shot with elfin gleams.

How should I your true love know?

Scraps and snatches—even so!

That is old blind Moone again, fiddling in your dreams.

Once, when Will had called for sack

And bidden him up and play,

Old blind Moone, he turned his back,

Growled, and walked away,

Sailed into a thunder-cloud,

Snapped his fiddle-string,

And hobbled from The Mermaid

Sulky as a king.

Only from the darkness now, steals the strain we knew:

No one even knows his grave!

Only here and there a stave,

Out of all his hedge-row flock, be-drips the may with dew.

And I know not what wild bird

Carried us his parting word:—

Master Shakespeare needn’t take the crowder’s