Page:Sea spray and smoke drift (IA seaspraysmokedri00gord).pdf/48

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
30
YE WEARIE WAYFARER.
Keep your thanks till the combative instinct dies
With the taint of the olden leaven;
Yes, the times are changed, for better or worse,
The prayer that no harm befall
Has given its place to a drunken curse,
And the manly game to a brawl.




Our burdens are heavy, our natures weak,
Some pastime devoid of harm
May we look for? “Puritan elder, speak!”
“Yea, friend, peradventure thou mayest seek
Recreation singing a psalm."
If I did, your visage so grim and stern
Would relax in a ghastly smile,
For of music I never one note could learn,
And my feeble minstrelsy would turn
Your chant to discord vile.

Tho' the Philistine's mail could naught avail,
Nor the spear like a weaver's beam,
There are episodes yet in the Psalmist's tale,
To obliterate which his poems fail,
Which his exploits fail to redeem.
Can the Hittite's wrongs forgotten be?
Does he warble “Non nobis Domine,
With his monarch in blissful concert, free