X

One never should think good impossible. 
  Eh? say I’d hide this Jew’s oil’s cruse—­
His shop might hold bright gold, engrossible
  By spy—­spring’s air takes there no care
To wave the heath-flower’s glossy bell!

XI

But gold bells chime in time there, coined—­
  Gold!  Old Sphinx winks there—­“Read my screed!”
Doctrine Jews learn, use, burn for, joined
  (Through new craft’s stealth) with health and wealth—­
At once all three purloined!

XII

I rose with dawn, to pawn, no doubt,
  (Miss this chance, glance untried aside?)
John’s shirt, my—­no!  Ay, so—­the lout! 
  Let yet the door gape, store on floor
And not a soul about?

XIII

Such men lay traps, perhaps—­and I’m
  Weak—­meek—­mild—­child of woe, you know! 
But theft, I doubt, my lout calls crime. 
  Shrink?  Think!  Love’s dawn in pawn—­you spawn
Of Jewry!  Just in time!

V

OFF THE PIER

I

One last glance at these sands and stones! 
  Time goes past men, and lives to his liking,
Steals, and ruins, and sometimes atones. 
  Why should he be king, though, and why not I king? 
There now, that wind, like a swarm of sick drones!

II

Is it heaven or mere earth (come!) that moves so and moans? 
  Oh, I knew, when you loved me, my soul was in flowerage—­
Now the frost comes; from prime, though, I watched through to nones,
  Read love’s litanies over—­his age was not our age! 
No more flutes in this world for me now, dear! trombones.

III

All that youth once denied and made mouths at, age owns. 
  Facts put fangs out and bite us; life stings and grows viperous;
And time’s fugues are a hubbub of meaningless tones. 
  Once we followed the piper; now why not the piper us? 
Love, grown grey, plays mere solos; we want antiphones.

IV

And we sharpen our wits up with passions for hones,
  Melt down loadstars for magnets, use women for whetstones,
Learn to bear with dead calms by remembering cyclones,
  Snap strings short with sharp thumbnails, till silence begets tones,
Burn our souls out, shift spirits, turn skins and change zones;

V

Then the heart, when all’s done with, wakes, whimpers, intones
  Some lost fragment of tune it thought sweet ere it grew sick;
(Is it life that disclaims this, or death that disowns?)
  Mere dead metal, scrawled bars—­ah, one touch, you make music! 
Love’s worth saving, youth doubts, but experience depones.