We have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent sport,
Beauty that we have won
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.
Once, when midnight smote the air,
Eunuchs ran through Hell and met
On every crowded street to stare
Upon great Juan riding by:
Even like these to rail and sweat
Staring upon his sinewy thigh.
“Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day,
I have not found a thing to eat
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?”
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
“For all my pains on lebeen-lone.”
King Guari walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said:
“You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what’s in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire?”
A beggar said: “They get the most
Whom man or devil cannot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so.”
But Guari laughed with secret thought,
“If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thousand pounds
Who is first asleep, if but he can
Sleep before the third noon sounds.”
And thereon merry as a bird,
With his old thoughts King Guari went
From river-side and palace-yard
And left them to their argument.
“And if I win,” one beggar said,
“Though I am old I shall persuade
A pretty girl to share my bed”;
The second: “I shall learn a trade”;
The third: “I’ll hurry to the course
Among the other gentlemen,
And lay it all upon a horse”;
The second: “I have thought again:
A farmer has more dignity.”
One to another sighed and cried:
The exorbitant dreams of beggary,
That idleness had borne to pride,
Sang through their teeth from noon to noon;
And when the second twilight brought
The frenzy of the beggars’ moon
None closed his blood-shot eyes but sought
To keep his fellows from their sleep;
All shouted till their anger grew
And they were whirling in a heap.
They mauled and bit the whole night through;
They mauled and bit till the day shone;
They mauled and bit through all that day
And till another night had gone,
Or if they made a moment’s stay
They sat upon their heels to rail,
And when old Guari came and stood
Before the three to end this tale,
They were commingling lice and blood.
“Time’s up,” he cried, and all the three
With blood-shot eyes upon him stared.
“Time’s up,” he cried, and all the three
Fell down upon the dust and snored.
“Maybe I shall be lucky yet,
Now they are silent,” said the crane.
“Though to my feathers in the wet
I’ve stood as I were made of stone
And seen the rubbish run about,
It’s certain there are trout somewhere
And maybe I shall take a trout
If but I do not seem to care.”
Three old hermits took the air
By a cold and desolate sea,
First was muttering a prayer,
Second rummaged for a flea;
On a windy stone, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year,
Sang unnoticed like a bird.
“Though the Door of Death is near
And what waits behind the door,
Three times in a single day
I, though upright on the shore,
Fall asleep when I should pray.”
So the first but now the second,
“We’re but given what we have earned
When all thoughts and deeds are reckoned,
So it’s plain to be discerned
That the shades of holy men,
Who have failed being weak of will,
Pass the Door of Birth again,
And are plagued by crowds, until
They’ve the passion to escape.”
Moaned the other, “They are thrown
Into some most fearful shape.”
But the second mocked his moan:
“They are not changed to anything,
Having loved God once, but maybe,
To a poet or a king
Or a witty lovely lady.”
While he’d rummaged rags and hair,
Caught and cracked his flea, the third,
Giddy with his hundredth year
Sang unnoticed like a bird.
“Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,”
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And make my soul before my pate is bare.”
“And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,”
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And the worse devil that is between my thighs.”
“And though I’d marry with a comely lass,
She need not be too comely—let it pass,”
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“But there’s a devil in a looking-glass.”
“Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,”
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“And cannot have a humorous happy speech.”
“And there I’ll grow respected at my ease,
And hear amid the garden’s nightly peace,”
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
“The wind-blown clamor of the barnacle-geese.”
As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit’s grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
The wind is old and still at play
While I must hurry upon my way,
For I am running to Paradise;
Yet never have I lit on a friend
To take my fancy like the wind
That nobody can buy or bind:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
A
