Classic Poem

Where now the brownie fisher-lad?
His hundred thousand fishing-boats
Rock idly in the reedy moats;
His baby wife no more is glad.
But yesterday, with all Nippon,
Beneath his pink-white cherry-trees,
In chorus with his brown, sweet bees,
He careless sang, and sang right on.
Take care! for he has ceased to sing;
His startled bees have taken wing!

His cherry-blossoms drop like blood;
His bees begin to storm and sting;
His seas flash lightning, and a flood
Of crimson stains their wide, white ring;
His battle-ships belch hell, and all
Nippon is but one Spartan wall!
Aye, he, the boy of yesterday,
Now holds the bearded Russ at bay;
While, blossom'd steeps above, the clouds
Wait idly, still, as waiting shrouds.

But oh, beware his scorn of death,
His love of Emperor, of isles
That boast a thousand bastioned miles
Above the clouds where never breath
Of frost or foe has ventured yet,
Or foot of foreign man has set!
Beware his scorn of food (his fare
Is scarcely more than sweet sea-air);
Beware his cunning, sprite-like skill—
But most beware his dauntless will.

Goliath, David, once again,
The giant and the shepherd youth—
The tallest, smallest of all men,
The trained in tongue, the trained in truth.
Beware this boy, this new mad man:
That erst mad man of Macedon,
Who drank and died at Babylon;
That shepherd lad; the Corsican—
They sat the thrones of earth! Beware
This new mad man whose drink is air!

His bees are not more slow to strife,
But, stirred, they court a common death!
He knows the decencies of life—
Of all men underneath the sun
He is the one clean man, the one
Who never knew a drunken breath!
Beware this sober, wee brown man,
Who yesterday stood but a span
Beneath his blossom'd cherry-trees,
Soft singing with his brother bees!

The brownie's sword is as a snake,
A sudden, sinuous copperhead:
It makes no flourish, no mistake;
It darts but once—the man is dead!
'Tis short and black; 'tis never seen
Save when, close forth, it leaps its sheath
And, snake-like, darts up from beneath.
But oh, its double edge is keen!
It strikes but once, then on, right on:
The sword is gone—the Russ is gone!