He sigh'd and stretch'd brown arms. His friend came in And stood beside him in the morning sun. The goldwork glitter'd.... '_That's the best I've done._ '_And now I've got a necklace to begin._'
This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete... A girl was selling flowers along the street.
I was near the King that day. I saw him snatch And briskly scan the G.H.Q. dispatch. Thick-voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.) 'This officer advanced with the first wave, 'And when our first objective had been gained, '(Though wounded twice), reorganized the line: 'The spirit of the troops was by his fine 'Example most effectively sustained.'
He gripped his beard; then closed his eyes and said, 'Bathsheba must be warned that he is dead. 'Send for her. I will be the first to tell 'This wife how her heroic husband fell.'
Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain; '_He was the grandest of them all--was Cain!_ 'A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; 'Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, 'Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.'
Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair-- A lover with disaster in his face, And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. 'Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? ... '_God always hated Cain._' ... He bowed his head-- The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead.
I watched old squatting Chimpanzee: he traced His painful patterns in the dirt: I saw Red-haired Ourang-Utang, whimsical-faced, Chewing a sportsman's meditative straw. I'd met them years ago, and half-forgotten They'd come to grief. (But how, I'd never heard, Poor beggars!) Still, it seemed so rude and rotten To stand and gape at them with never a word.
I ventured 'Ages since we met,' and tried My candid smile of friendship. No success. One scratched his hairy thigh, while t'other sighed And glanced away. I saw they liked me less Than when, on Epsom Downs, in cloudless weather, We backed The Tetrarch and got drunk together.
WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID AT THE POINT-TO-POINT
I've had a good bump round; my little horse Refused the brook first time, Then jumped it prime; And ran out at the double, But of course There's always trouble at a double: And then--I don't know how It was--he turned it up At that big, hairy fence before the plough; And some young silly pup, (I don't know which), Near as a toucher knocked me into the ditch; But we finished full of running, and quite sound: And anyhow I've had a good bump round.