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,
The days remember and the nights remember
The kingly hours that once you made so great,
Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,
Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.
Let them not wake again, better to lie there,
Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed--
Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep
And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
As I was going to town,
I saw a King and a Queen.
Such ringing of bells you never heard,
The clerks ran out of the stores;
You know how it was, Me alone.
I was standing as the others were,
“Oh! you little girl,” some one said,
“The King wants you,”
I became frightened
Wondering what he had to say,
Me alone.
Here’s what he wanted:
He wanted me to ride in his coach,
I felt myself so much riding in a King’s coach,
Me alone.
I WALKED among the streets of an old city and the
streets were lean as the throats of hard seafish
soaked in salt and kept in barrels many years.
How old, how old, how old, we are : — the walls went
on saying, street walls leaning toward each other
like old women of the people, like old midwives
tired and only doing what must be done.
The greatest the city could offer me, a stranger, was
statues of the kings, on all corners bronzes of
kings — ancient bearded kings who wrote books
and spoke of God's love for all people — and young
kings who took forth armies out across the frontiers
splitting the heads of their opponents and
enlarging their kingdoms.
Strangest of all to me, a stranger in this old city, was
What have you given me for my strong sons?
O scion of kings!
In new veins the blood of old kings runs cold.
Your people thinking of old victories, lose the lust of conquest,
Your men guard what they have.
Your women nurse their silver pots.
Dead beauty mocks hot blood!
What shall these women conceive of their chill loves
But still more pots?
But I have conceived of you new men;
Boys brave from the breast,
Running and striving like no children of your House,
And with their brave new brains
Making new myth.
My people were without, while yours were kings.
They sang the song of exile in low places