human
Can you continue this poem for me?
  Garm--a Hostage
Gallio's Song
The Rabbi's Song
My friend, if cause doth wrest thee,
Ere folly hath much oppressed thee,
Far from acquaintance kest thee
Where country may digest thee...
Thank God that so hath blessed thee,
And sit down, Robin, and rest thee.
the other, tongue pressed into palate, wondering whether the next
"And I'm over thirty," he cried. "With all I meant to do!"
Mrs. Shonts smiled, and took them in hand. She wrote widely and
telegraphed far on their behalf till, armed with her letter of
"A house!" said Sophie, in a whisper. "A Colonial house!"
Behind the blue-green of the twin trees rose a dark-bluish brick
"This is like all England," she said at last. "Wonderful, but no
"The drawing-room, of course." Sophie swam up and down it. "That
"It's the proportions. I've noticed it."
"Look at that view. It's a framed Constable," her husband cried.
"No; it's a Morland--a parody of a Morland. But about that couch,
"But why was it allowed to get like this?" said Sophie.
"Here?" Sophie moved beneath the light of a hole in the roof.
"Who does all the wool belong to downstairs?" George asked.
He led them on and on, through a maze of back kitchens, dairies,
larders, and sculleries, that melted along covered ways into a
"Somehow," said Sophie, sitting exhausted on an ancient
"You mean about the Elphicks and the Moones?" he answered.
"I like Mrs. Cloke. But what is the old house called?"
"Well, old man Cloke said--"
"Here to-day an' gone to-morrow," said Cloke warningly. "They've
"Have you realized," she asked one morning, "that we've been here
"Have you counted them?" he asked.
"Did you like them?" she replied.
assistant
Sure, a continuation for this poem could be:
  "No." He smiled. "All the same, I'm going to see after my mail."
"You promised you wouldn't have any."
"Want a secretary?"
"No, thanks, old thing! Isn't that quite English?"
"He's dead," she said, without preface.
"No. I'm perfectly well," Sophie protested.
"Are you the son that was in America?" she asked.
"Whereabouts in Connecticut?" asked George over her shoulder.
"Oh--that!" said Sophie, enlightened.
Mrs. Cloke murmured something.
"No. I'm soaked from the knees down. If I hang about I shall get
"Yes, my lady!" Mrs. Cloke ran and returned swiftly.
"Once. I daren't look again. Who is she?"
Mrs. Cloke, shocked at their levity, told them that it was Lady
"What d'you mean?" she asked quickly, though she knew his voice.
"That I'm better. I'm well enough to kick."
She nodded gravely, but her eyes sparkled.
"Seventy-five thousand dollars. They'll take sixty-eight."
"Sure." He smiled.
lumber--timber they call it--in the Hangers alone."
"Wouldn't they call it a liberty now?" said he.
"But I liked him."
"But you didn't own him at the date of his death."
"Send and have that mended to-morrow," Sophie whispered.
"What's that?" said George.
"Then it wouldn't be Friars Pardon," said Sophie. "Would it?"
"I see," said Sophie. "How did Mr. Sangres make his money?"
"Ever hear of her?" he whispered.
"Never knew any of us came from here."
"Your people," said the clear voice of Lady Conant in her ear.
"Has Dr. Dallas seen her?"
"Not yet, my lady."
"Yes. Thank you very much, my lady."
"Did you find out anything about the Lashmars?" he interrupted.
"What did you say?"
George mopped a brow already browned by outdoor exposures.
"That's one of 'em," said George calmly.
"And what did they say?"
"To show us we mustn't shut up their rights of way."
"But we don't want to," she said.
"The whole community would fight if we did."
"But it's our land. We can do what we like."
"We shall make some bad breaks," he said at last.
"Together, though. You won't let anyone else in, will you?"
"But you might feel the want of some one," she insisted.
"How is one to know?" said George.
"Yes, that's my work," said Sophie. (Billy Beartup of Griffons,
a woodman by training and birth, a tenant farmer by misfortune of
"Are they roads yonder?" said Skim, sitting under the laurels.
"Why?" said the incautious Skim.
"I didn't last time neither," Skim roared.
"Would they be gentry yonder now?" Skim asked.
"Lord! What's a hundred years?" said Whybarne, who had seen
seventy-eight of them.
"Aren't you overdoing it too? You look a little tired," he said.
"No more I did." Sophie sat bolt upright, and began to laugh.
"No--no. If I could only be sure of you."
She turned on the green drawing-room's couch (it was Empire, not
"It has changed everything, hasn't it?" she whispered.
"Oh, Lord, yes. But I still think if we went back to Baltimore--"
"But we're absolutely alone."
"Where did you lunch? With the Conants?"
"What concern is it of theirs, confound 'em!"
This was a bold, brazen little black-browed woman--a widow for
"You aren't going to bring her up again?" he asked anxiously.
George stared at his wife.
"Go on," she twinkled, from the pillows.
Affectionately yours,
P.S.--How quiet you've kept about it all!
"Don't swear," said Sophie. "Bad for the infant mind."
"Your great-grandmother's brother! She's traced the whole
"But still I don't quite see--"
"Are we so undesirable in ourselves?" George grunted.
"Yiss," Mrs. Cloke went on. "An' Cloke was only wonderin' this
afternoon--your pillow's slipped my dear, you mustn't lie that
"But Sir Walter doesn't want to sell, does he?"
"Here's the place," said his father at last among the water
"I don't know nothin' about that," said Cloke.
I am the land of their fathers,
In me the virtue stays;
I will bring back my children,
After certain days.
Under their feet in the grasses
My clinging magic runs.
They shall return as strangers,
They shall remain as sons.
Over their heads in the branches
Of their new-bought, ancient trees,
I weave an incantation,
And draw them to my knees.
Scent of smoke in the evening,
Smell of rain in the night,
The hours, the days and the seasons
Order their souls aright;
Till I make plain the meaning
Of all my thousand years
Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,
While I fill their eyes with tears.
One night, a very long time ago, I drove to an Indian military
"Nonsense! That dog's worth more than most men, Stanley," I said.
"'E's that and more. 'Tention!"
"Eyes right!"
She was admitted and flew to her pillow. When she was quieted I
"Garm," I said, "another time you will be washed with Vixen."
I explained the whole case, and wound up with:
"Hostage for what? I don't want hostages from Stanley."
"Has he taken the pledge?"
"If you'll drive me home I think I can show you," I said.
"You here?" said the officer, turning away his head.
"Yes, sir, but I'm just goin' back."
Then I said:
"What kind of animal is Bullen Sahib's dog? Look at him!"
Next evening who should turn up but Stanley. The officer had sent
But Garm cared for none of these things. His big eyes were on the
Once, and only once, did I see Garm at all contented with his
"He's dying of a broken heart," said the lady-doctor suddenly.
The best man-doctor in the place wrote a prescription, and the
"Garm," I said, "we are going back to Stanley at Kasauli.
Here Garm left me.
Then he said he felt hungry, and thirsty, and happy.
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair
But... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will
When the whimper of welcome is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear!
We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long
So why in Heaven (before we are there!)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
The little grey Wax-moth, pressed close in a crack in the
"Don't call me 'Miss.' I'm a sister to all in affliction--just a
"You mustn't lay here," cried Melissa. "You aren't a Queen."
"I'm afraid I foul-brooded you just now," said a voice over her
shoulder. "I'd been on the Gate for three hours, and one would
foul-brood the Queen herself after that. No offence meant."
confidence. Our dear sister in grey says so."
An old, baldish bee came up the comb.
"I see," she murmured, "that at heart you are one of Us."
"I work with the Hive," Melissa answered briefly.
"It's the same thing. We and the Hive are one."
"Then why are your feelers different from ours? Don't cuddle so."
"Don't be provincial, Carissima. You can't have all the world
"But why do you lay eggs?" Melissa insisted. "You lay 'em like a
"Yes; but it didn't defend the Gate," she replied.
"I wish she'd go!" Sacharissa lowered her voice. "She meets
these--er--oddities as they dry out, and cuddles 'em in corners."
"That is the truth," said the Queen's voice behind them. They had
"You hear?" said the Queen. "I know the Hive!"
"And then?" asked horrified Sacharissa.
When the caterpillars became moths, they made friends with the
ever-increasing Oddities--albinoes, mixed-leggers, single-eyed
composites, faceless drones, halfqueens and laying sisters; and
"It was. Worse luck, it is."
"Ye-es, but it won't be long at this rate," said Melissa.
preaching--and dirtying things in the dark."
"I do. How's our Queen?" said Melissa.
"More than that," chanted the Oddities in the sunshine; "you have
He beat it on his knee like a tambourine, and it also crumbled to
"But it's tucked away among--What on earth has come to the little
As frame after frame followed it, the swarm beheld the upheaval,
"No, the mistake was entirely ours," said the Princess.
"Pardon me," said the Wax-moth. "When you think of the enormous
A FARMER of the Augustan age
Perused in Virgil's golden page,
The story of the secret won
From Proteus by Cyrene's son
How the dank sea-god sowed the swain
Means to restore his hives again
More briefly, how a slaughtered bull
Breeds honey by the bellyful.
The egregious rustic put to death
A bull by stopping of its breath:
Disposed the carcass in a shed
With fragrant herbs and branches spread.
And, having thus performed the charm,
Sat down to wait the promised swarm.
Nor waited long... The God of Day
Impartial, quickening with his ray
Evil and good alike, beheld
The carcass--and the carcass swelled!
Big with new birth the belly heaves
Beneath its screen of scented leaves;
Past any doubt, the bull conceives!
The farmer bids men bring more hives
To house the profit that arrives;
Prepares on pan, and key and kettle,
Sweet music that shall make 'em settle;
But when to crown the work he goes,
Gods! What a stink salutes his nose!
Where are the honest toilers?
Where The gravid mistress of their care?
A busy scene, indeed, he sees,
But not a sign or sound of bees.
Worms of the riper grave unhid
By any kindly coffin lid,
Obscene and shameless to the light,
Seethe in insatiate appetite,
Through putrid offal; while above
The hissing blow-fly seeks his love,
Whose offspring, supping where they supt,
Consume corruption twice corrupt.
(Together with extracts from the magazine in which it appeared)
From the despatching-caisson I was conducted by a courteous and
wonderfully learned official Mr. L.L. Geary, Second Despatcher of
The eye detects no joint in her skin plating save the sweeping
"What's our level?" I ask.
"Four thousand. Aren't you coming up on the bridge?"
Then lights sink under the curve of the ocean.
thought--literally in full blast. The three engines are H.T.&T.
"What under the stars are you doing here, you sky-scraping
Then the stranger bellows: "Look at my propellers! There's been a
"Can't I fetch St. John's--not even with this breeze?" the voice
quavers.
"Shunt the lift out of him with a spanner. Hurry!"
"But I can make St. John's if you'll stand by."
Captain Hodgson opens the underbody colloid, swings the heavy
We hurry into the heavy rubber suits--the engineers are already
packet's made of? Gummed silk? Tell her we're coming on straight,
laterals, Tim; she'll want some holding."
"I've got her," is the answer. "Come up, old woman."
"Look!" he said. "We must clear those refugees with a high lift."
"Now I hope she's satisfied," said Tim. "I'm glad I'm not a
sardine-tin?"
"A Rimouski drogher on the look-out for a tow."
"Those droghers will go anywhere on a chance of salvage," George
explained. "We call' em kittiwakes."
A long-beaked, bright steel ninety-footer floated at ease for one
"So I noticed. Wasn't that quite a little draught?"
I see. Wholly and entirely do I see!
"The dawn-gust," says Tim. "It'll go on to meet the Sun. Look!
Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic
Forty couple waltzing on the floor!
And you can watch my Ray,
For I must go away
And dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
Then, while they sweated home the covering-plates:
West from Sourabaya to the Baltic--
Ninety knot an hour to the Skaw!
Mother Rugen's tea-house on the Baltic
And a dance with Ella Sweyn at Elsinore!
The clips parted with a gesture of indignant dismissal, as though
In ten seconds the coach with its clerks clashed down to the
No changes in English Inland lights for week ending Dec. 18th.
SNAEFELL JOKUL--White occulting light withdrawn for winter.
ST. JUST   }    Lights.
Week ending Dec. 18th.
SABLE ISLAND--Green single barbette-tower freighter, number
General Call (all Mark Boats) out for:
(twice warned).
MARVEL of PERU (racing plane), J. X. Peixoto owner, Rio de
Janeiro (twice warned). For the Board:
McKEOUGH }  Traffic
finished, the road was seared, and blown, and pitted with unequal
VIGILANS--The Laws of Auroral Derangements are still imperfectly
INDIGNANT--On your own showing, you were not under control. That
be included, but the average courts are not, as a rule, swayed by
ALDEBARAN--(1) war, as a paying concern, ceased in 1987. (2) The
PULMONAR--(1) For the symptoms you describe, try the Gobi Desert
"No one answers.
"The mayor, furious, 'Xavier Lavalle--'