Read Ebook: Lays of Ancient Virginia and Other Poems by Bartley James Avis

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Ebook has 693 lines and 37660 words, and 14 pages

PAGE

THE ZAGABOG 1

QUITE OUT OF THE COMMON 7

JOHNSON'S BOSWELL 61

THE NINE MUSKETEERS 78

THE GAME OF LIFE 94

"ALAS! POOR GHOST" 101

GREENSMITH'S CHARADE 120

THE MATE OF THE "BUNCH O' KEYS" 136

THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF TARVER 141

THE FIRST WORD 166

"STAR O' BOSTON" 175

THE SACRIFICE 189

THE DIARY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN 196

INOCULATION DAY 210

A STORY WITHOUT AN END 221

THE BIOGRAPHY OF PETER PARKINSON 231

THE JACKY-TOAD 252

A CELESTIAL CHAT 271

THE ARCHDEACON AND THE DEINOSAURS 279

THE BILLS 297

PAGE

"'OLD TOM RUM,' READ OUT 'STAR O' BOSTON'" 181

FANCY FREE

THE ZAGABOG

Here's a funny sort of story of an Isle beyond the sun, Of a gleaming golden island seldom seen by anyone; So prick your ears and listen to my most eccentric lays Of the Island and the Zagabog from old pre-Cambrian days-- The mild and humble Zagabog, The plain, good-hearted Zagabog With prehistoric ways.

Upon his wondrous head he wore a rather ugly crown; His eyes were green and somewhat sad, his tail hung meekly down; But on a throne of early mud he comfortably sat And ruled his Golden Island in a way I marvel at. He was a peaceful Zagabog, A practical old Zagabog, And quite unique at that.

For Nature only made but one, though we shall never know Why just a single Zagabog exhausted Nature so; His subjects rose from trilobites, the newest of the new, To other bygone beasts that leapt and swam and crawled and flew; But all obeyed the Zagabog, The good primeval Zagabog. Which they were right to do.

From periods ante-Primary he dated, as we know, And with the greatest interest observed that wondrous show Of shells and fish, of monstrous newts, of dragons on the wing; Then chronicled the changes that the rolling ages bring,-- That scientific Zagabog, That most observant Zagabog; And he loved everything.

Some twenty million years passed by and all the Isle went well; Great palms grew on the mountain-tops; huge ferns adorned the dell; And everywhere vast reptiles took their Mesozoic ease, And ate each other frequently, with snap and snarl and sneeze; But their beloved Zagabog, Their wise and wakeful Zagabog, They always tried to please.

For in those Secondary times, when monsters had their day, Triassic and Jurassic giants about his feet would play; And through the air there sometimes came the Archaeopteryx-- A funny sort of feathered thing where bird and dragon mix. "Your fossil," said the Zagabog, The humour-loving Zagabog, "Will put them in a fix."

He made no laws, he made no fuss; he just sat on his throne With a genial simplicity peculiarly his own. The Plesiosaur, the Teleosaur, the Early Crocodile, The weird Cretaceous ocean-folk, who never, never smile-- All worshipped the old Zagabog, The quaint, benignant Zagabog Of that enchanted Isle.

More ages passed, more monsters passed, and others took their place; The Zagabog he still endured from endless race to race; Till Toxodons and Mammoths came, with Sloths of stature grand, Whose small relations still exist in many a distant land. Of course an old-time Zagabog, A right down Early Zagabog, Such moderns could not stand.

But still, with all the wisdom of a hundred million years, He tried to be more sanguine and resist his growing fears, Till Palaeolithic ages brought Dame Nature's latest joys And all that Golden Island rang and rippled with the noise. "Good gracious!" said the Zagabog; "God bless us!" cried the Zagabog, "They're little girls and boys!"

About his throne with laughter shrill the lads and lasses came, And put their little hands in his and bade him make a game; So still he rules and still he helps the children with their fun. Of course he'll never die himself, there being only one-- One calm, persistent Zagabog, One good pre-Cambrian Zagabog Beyond the setting sun.

QUITE OUT OF THE COMMON

I wasn't even thinking of the fool. It is enough to be in the same market on 'Change with Norton Bellamy, and outside my office or the House I like to forget him.

But long ago he joined the City of London Club, to my great regret, and now, in the smoking-room after lunch, during my cup of coffee, cigar, and game of dominoes, he will too often hurl himself uninvited into a conversation that he is neither asked to join nor desired to enlighten.

Upon a day in January last my friend George Mathers had a chill on the liver, and was suffering under sustained professional ill-fortune. From his standpoint, therefore, in the Kaffir Market, he looked out at the world and agreed with Carlyle's unreasonable estimate of mankind. As a jobber in a large way he came to this conclusion; while I, who am a broker and a member of the Committee, could by no means agree with him.

"The spirit of common-sense must be reckoned with," I explained to Mathers. "This nation stands where it does by right of that virtue. Take the giving and receiving of advice. You may draw a line through that. There is a rare, a notable genius for giving advice in this country. The war illustrates my point. You will find every journal full of advice given by civilians to soldiers, by soldiers to civilians, by the man in the street to the man in the Cabinet, and by the man in the Cabinet to the man in the street. We think for ourselves, develop abnormal common-sense, and as a consequence, I maintain that much more good advice is given than bad."

But Mathers, what with his chilled liver and business depression, was unreasonable. He derided my contention. He flouted it. He raised his voice in hard, simulated laughter, and attracted other men from their coffee and cigars. When he had won their attention, he tried to crush me publicly. He said:

"My dear chap, out of your own mouth I will confute you. If more good advice is given than bad, every man will get more good than harm by following advice. That's logical; but you won't pretend to maintain such a ridiculous position, surely?"

I like a war of words after luncheon. It sharpens the wits and assists digestion. So, without being particularly in earnest, I supported my contention.

"Qualifying himself for a lunatic asylum!" Here burst in the blatant Bellamy from his seat by the fire. He put down a financial journal, and then turned to me. "If there's more good advice flying about than bad, old man, why don't you take some?" he said. "I could give you plenty of excellent advice at this moment, Honeybun. For instance, I could tell you to play the fool only in your own house; but you wouldn't thank me. You'd say it was uncalled-for and impertinent; you know you would."

Bellamy is the only man who has any power to annoy me after my lunch; and knowing it, he exercises that power. He can shake me at a word, can reach my nerve-centres quicker than a tintack. Seen superficially, he appears to be nothing more than the mere, common stockbroker, but his voice it is that makes him so hated--his voice, and his manners, and his sense of humour. I turned upon him and did a foolish thing, as one often does foolish things when suddenly maddened into them by some bigger fool than oneself. I answered:

Bellamy has no education, and nothing irritates him quicker than a quotation in a foreign language, though any other quotation he's more than a match for. He scowled and meant mischief from the moment the laugh went with me. He ignored the Latin, but stuck to the English of my remark.

"Bad as well as good," he answered. "Just what I say. Only you assert 'more good than bad,' and I declare 'more bad than good,' which means that the more advice I refuse the better for me in the long run."

"You judge human nature from an intimate knowledge of your own lack of judgment, my dear fellow," I said, in a bantering voice.

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