CAPTAIN CRAIG
"From all that I can see, is doing well
I should say very well. Three meals a day,
Siestas, and innumerable pipes
Not to the tune of water on the stones,
But rather to the tune of his own Ego,
Which seems to be about the same as God.
But I was always weak in metaphysics,
And pray therefore that you be lenient.
I'm going to be married in December,
And I have made a poem that will scan
So Plunket says. You said the other wouldn't:
"Augustus Plunket, Ph.D.,
And oh, the Bishop's daughter;
A very learned man was he
And in twelve weeks he got her;
And oh, she was as fair to see
As pippins on the pippin tree . . .
Tu, tui, tibi, te, chubs in the mill water.
"Connotative, succinct, and erudite;
Three dots to boot. Now goodman Killigrew
May wind an epic one of these glad years,
And after that who knoweth but the Lord
The Lord of Hosts who is the King of Glory?"
Still, when the Captain's own words were before me,
I seemed to read from them, or into them,
The protest of a mortuary joy
Not all substantiating Killigrew's
Off-hand assurance. The man's face came back
The while I read them, and that look again,
Which I had seen so often, came back with it.
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