LINES
WRITTEN ON FIRST SMOKING AN ANCIENT PI PE DUG UP IN OXFORD.
Two hundred years since any lips of man Set round this hollow stem have drawn delight, Since breathed in azure mist the light smoke ran With dainty power to cheer through sense and sight The wan wits of some unremembered wight,— Some scholar weary with his world of books, Some yeoman waxen wise with Lenten ale, Some lover musing on his lady's looks, Or dreamer steering fancies dreamy-pale Through seas of time and thought beyond his wonted sail.
So long, earth mingled deep in kindred earth, Entombed but undecaying bath it lain, Unchanging through the change of death and birth, Or changing but to lose its gathered stain Through cleansing power of kindly mould and rain : While overhead each year new dust was sown To bide the sunken relic deeper still, Till children's children into grandsires grown, Though holy, great in lordship, strong of will, Passed viewless underground, unknowing good or ill.
There lie they : but their flesh is longtime gone, Their bones are longtime crumbled quite away : Their wrack that thundered and their suns that shone, Their loves and lives long-rested, seem to-day Dim dreams forgotten in the morning fray.
Two hundred years ! Yet thus I cross and curb The long dark seasons that between do roll By kindling once again the scented herb And breathing from this little censer-bowl Light clouds of thought that veil the olden owner's soul.
A. J. B.
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