Classic Poem

I heard a maid on a godolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That G. K. C. grew civil at her song.
Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II , Scene 3.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with whoops . . .
Hamlet, Act I , Scene 3.

Dear Sappho of satiric flight —
Deem not it does your kindness wrong,
If such delay on such delight
Keeps silent him that heard your song:
And you that know our dreams undying
While all the dying days go by
Forgive me first for not replying,
And then forgive me the reply.

Nor bend that dark didactic brow,
From your scholastic seat who stoop
To our old lyre of laughter, now
Mute as the harp of Tara (whoop).
Save for some chord that whoops at night —
— Or bannered trumpets dumb and drooping,
Whoop, bugles, whoop — in echo's flight
Hear horns of elfland faintly whooping.

Forgive if effort and fatigue,
Be spent on slighter occupations
On sports like the New Witness League,
Or trifles like the League of Nations.
Whether I wrote of Art or Air,
The War, the Nation, the New Age;
Whether at Lady Stopford's Fair
I played the fool to play the sage —

None but the brave deserve the Fair,
And at the Fair I dared to tread,
Equipped with Johnson's hat and hair,
But not, I grieve to say, his head.
The part of Mrs. Thrale was thrown
(Who wed a fiddler and a brewer)
On Mrs. Commeline — though her own
Husbands were more refined — and fewer.

Though round the ladies as they stood
Crinolines kept the crowd at bay,
My whoops did more than their hoops could
To wave the shrieking world away.
No tyrant with his armed troop
Could wield my terrors or could win them.
— Alas for those that never whoop
But die with all their whooping in them!

Pray that we dream not wholly wrong
Such drivel makes the strife less dreary,
And any light and foolish song
May be a war-song for the weary.
Loans may be War-loans, and not lost,
Work may be War-work, yet not kill,
Pray then that at my dingy post
My whoop may be a war-whoop still.