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Read book online Β«Songs Of The Road by Arthur Conan Doyle (free children's online books .txt) πŸ“•Β».   Author   -   Arthur Conan Doyle



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We plucked Life's blossoms long ago
     What's left is but December's snow.

     But winter has its joys as fair,
          The gentler joys, aloof, apart;
     The snow may lie upon our hair
          But never, darling, in our heart.
     Sweet were the springs of long ago
     But sweeter still December's snow.

     Yes, long ago, and yet to me
          It seems a thing of yesterday;
     The shade beneath the willow tree,
          The word you looked but feared to say.
     Ah! when I learned to love you so
     What recked we of December's snow?

     But swift the ruthless seasons sped
          And swifter still they speed away.
     What though they bow the dainty head
          And fleck the raven hair with gray?
     The boy and girl of long ago
     Are laughing through the veil of snow.





SHAKESPEARE'S EXPOSTULATION

          Masters, I sleep not quiet in my grave,
     There where they laid me, by the Avon
          shore,
     In that some crazy wights have set it forth
     By arguments most false and fanciful,
     Analogy and far-drawn inference,
     That Francis Bacon, Earl of Verulam
     (A man whom I remember in old days,
     A learned judge with sly adhesive palms,
     To which the suitor's gold was wont to
     stick) β€”
     That this same Verulam had writ the plays
     Which were the fancies of my frolic brain.
     What can they urge to dispossess the crown
     Which all my comrades and the whole loud
          world
     Did in my lifetime lay upon my brow?
     Look straitly at these arguments and see
     How witless and how fondly slight they be.
          Imprimis, they have urged that, being
            born
     In the mean compass of a paltry town,
     I could not in my youth have trimmed
          my mind
     To such an eagle pitch, but must be found,
     Like the hedge sparrow, somewhere near
            the ground.
          Bethink you, sirs, that though I was
            denied
     The learning which in colleges is found,
     Yet may a hungry brain still find its fo
     Wherever books may lie or men may be;
     And though perchance by Isis or by Cam
     The meditative, philosophic plant
     May best luxuriate; yet some would say
     That in the task of limning mortal life
     A fitter preparation might be made
     Beside the banks of Thames.   And then
            again,
     If I be suspect, in that I was not
     A fellow of a college, how, I pray,
     Will Jonson pass, or Marlowe, or the rest,
     Whose measured verse treads with as
          proud a gait
     As that which was my own? Whence did
          they suck
     This honey that they stored?   Can you
          recite
     The vantages which each of these has had
     And I had not?   Or is the argument
     That my Lord Verulam hath written all,
     And covers in his wide-embracing self
     The stolen fame of twenty smaller men?
          You  prate  about  my  learning.   I
            would urge
     My want of learning rather as a proof
     That I am still myself.   Have I not traced
     A seaboard to Bohemia, and made
     The cannons roar a whole wide century
     Before the first was forged?   Think you,
          then,
     That he, the ever-learned Verulam,
     Would have erred thus?   So may my very
          faults
     In their gross falseness prove that I am true,
     And by that falseness gender truth in you.
     And what is left?   They say that they
          have found
     A script, wherein the writer tells my Lord
     He is a secret poet.   True enough!
     But surely now that secret is o'er past.
     Have you not read his poems?   Know
          you not
     That in our day a learned chancellor
     Might better far dispense unjustest law
     Than be suspect of such frivolity
     As lies in verse?   Therefore his poetry
     Was secret.   Now that he is gone
     'Tis so no longer.   You may read his verse,
     And judge if mine be better or be worse:
     Read  and pronounce!   The  meed  of
          praise is thine;
     But still let his be his and mine be mine.
          I say no more; but how can you for-
            swear
     Outspoken Jonson, he who knew me well;
     So, too, the epitaph which still you read?
     Think you they faced my sepulchre with
          lies β€”
     Gross lies, so evident and palpable
     That every townsman must have wot of it,
     And not a worshipper within the church
     But must have smiled to see the marbled
          fraud?
     Surely this touches you?   But if by chance
     My reasoning still leaves you obdurate,
     I'll lay one final plea.   I pray you look
     On my presentment, as it reaches you.
     My features shall be sponsors for my fame;
     My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's
          voice is dumb,
     And be his warrant in an age to come.





THE EMPIRE

1902
     They said that it had feet of clay,
          That its fall was sure and quick.
     In the flames of yesterday
          All the clay was burned to brick.

     When they carved our epitaph
          And marked us doomed beyond recall,
     "We are," we answered, with a laugh,
          "The Empire that declines to fall."





A VOYAGE

1909
     Breathing the stale and stuffy air
          Of office or consulting room,
     Our thoughts will wander back to where
          We heard the low Atlantic boom,

     And, creaming underneath our screw,
          We watched the swirling waters break,
     Silver filagrees on blue
          Spreading fan-wise in our wake.

     Cribbed within the city's fold,
          Fettered to our daily round,
     We'll conjure up the haze of gold
          Which ringed the wide horizon round.

     And still we'll break the sordid day
          By fleeting visions far and fair,
     The silver shield of Vigo Bay,
          The long brown cliff of Finisterre.

     Where once the Roman galley sped,
          Or Moorish corsair spread his sail,
     By wooded shore, or sunlit head,
          By barren hill or sea-washed vale

     We took our way.   But we can swear,
          That many countries we have scanned,
     But never one that could compare
          With our own island mother-land.

     The dream is o'er.   No more we view
          The shores of Christian or of Turk,
     But turning to our tasks anew,
          We bend us to our wonted work.

     But there will come to you and me
          Some glimpse of spacious days gone
            by,
     The wide, wide stretches of the sea,
          The mighty curtain of the sky,





THE ORPHANAGE

      When, ere the tangled web is reft,
           The  kid-gloved  villain  scowls  and
             sneers,
      And hapless innocence is left
           With no assets save sighs and tears,

      'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks
           The hero, watchful of her needs;
      He talks, Great heavens how he talks!
           But we forgive him, for his deeds.

      Life is the drama here to-day
           And Death the villain of the plot.
      It is a realistic play.
           Shall it end well or shall it not?

      The hero?   Oh, the hero's part
           Is vacant β€” to be played by you.
      Then act it well! An orphan's heart
           May beat the lighter if you do.





SEXAGENARIUS LOQUITUR

     From our youth to our age
     We have passed each stage
          In  old immemorial  order,
     From primitive days
     Through flowery ways
          With love like a hedge as their border.
     Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy,
          And we were the king and the queen,
             When I was a year
             Short of thirty, my dear,
          And you were just nearing nineteen.
     But dark follows light
     And day follows night
          As the old planet circles the sun;
     And nature still traces
     Her score on our faces
          And tallies the years as they run.
     Have they chilled the old warmth in your
            heart?
          I swear that they have not in mine,
             Though I am a year
             Short of sixty, my dear,
          And you are β€” well, say thirty-nine.





NIGHT VOICES

     Father, father, who is that a-whispering?
          Who is it who whispers in the wood?
               You say it is the breeze
               As it sighs among the trees,
     But there's some one who whispers in the
          wood.

     Father, father, who is that a-murmuring?
          Who is it who murmurs in the night?
               You say it is the roar
               Of the wave upon the shore,
     But there's some one who murmurs in the
          night.

     Father, father, who is that who laughs
            at us?
          Who is it who chuckles in the glen?
               Oh, father, let us go,
               For the light is burning low,
     And there's somebody laughing in the
            glen.

     Father, father, tell me what you're waiting
            for,
          Tell me why your eyes are on the
            door.
               It is dark and it is late,
               But you sit so still and straight,
     Ever staring, ever smiling, at the door.





THE MESSAGE

(From Heine)

     Up, dear laddie, saddle quick,
          And spring upon the leather!
     Away post haste o'er fell and waste
          With whip and spur together!

     And when you win to Duncan's kin
          Draw one of them aside
     And shortly say, "Which daughter may
          We welcome as the bride?"

     And if he says, "It is the dark,"
          Then quickly bring the mare,
     But if he says, "It is the blonde,"
          Then you have time to spare;

     But buy from off the saddler man
          The stoutest cord you see,
     Ride at your ease and say no word,
          But bring it back to me.





THE ECHO

(After Heine)

     Through the lonely mountain land
          There rode a cavalier.
     "Oh ride I to my darling's arms,
          Or to the grave so drear?"
          The Echo answered clear,
          "The grave so drear."

     So onward rode the cavalier
          And clouded was his brow.
     "If now my hour be truly come,
          Ah well, it must be now!"
          The Echo answered low,
          "It must be now."





ADVICE TO A YOUNG AUTHOR

     First begin
     Taking in.
     Cargo stored,
     All aboard,
     Think about
     Giving out.
     Empty ship,
     Useless trip!

     Never strain
     Weary brain,
     Hardly fit,
     Wait a bit!
     After rest
     Comes the best.

     Sitting still,
     Let it fill;
     Never press;
     Nerve stress
     Always shows.
     Nature knows.

     Critics kind,
     Never mind!
     Critics flatter,
     No matter!
     Critics curse,
     None the worse.
     Critics blame,
     All the same!
     Do your best.
     Hang the rest!





A LILT OF THE ROAD

Being the doggerel Itinerary of a Holiday in September, 1908
     To St. Albans' town we came;
     Roman Albanus β€” hence the name.
     Whose shrine commemorates the faith
     Which led him to a martyr's death.
     A high cathedral marks his grave,
     With noble screen and sculptured nave.
     From thence to Hatfield lay our way,
     Where the proud Cecils held their sway,
     And ruled the country, more or less,
     Since the days of Good Queen Bess.
     Next through Hitchin's Quaker hold
     To Bedford, where in days of old
     John Bunyan, the unorthodox,
     Did a deal in local stocks.
     Then from Bedford's peaceful nook
     Our pilgrim's progress still we took
     Until we slackened up our pace
     In Saint Neots' market-place.

     Next day, the motor flying fast,
     Through Newark, Tuxford, Retford
          passed,
     Until at Doncaster we found
     That we had crossed broad Yorkshire's
          bound.
     Northward and ever North we pressed,
     The BrontΓ« Country to our West.
     Still on we flew without a wait,
     Skirting the edge of Harrowgate,
     And through a wild and dark ravine,
     As bleak a pass as we have seen,
     Until we slowly circled down
     And settled into Settle town.

     On Sunday, in the pouring rain,
     We started on our way again.
     Through
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