Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/17

Rh And he was right: there were no men to blame: There was just a false note in the Tilbury tune— A note that able-bodied men might sound Hosannas on while Captain Craig lay quiet. They might have made him sing by feeding him Till he should work again, but probably Such yielding would have jeopardized the rhythm; They found it more melodious to shout Right on, with unmolested adoration, To keep the tune as it had always been, To trust in God, and let the Captain starve.

He must have understood that afterwards— When we had laid some fuel to the spark Of him, and oxidized it—for he laughed Out loud and long at us to feel it burn, And then, for gratitude, made game of us: "You are the resurrection and the life," He said, "and I the hymn the Brahmin sings; O Fuscus! and we'll go no more a-roving."

We were not quite accoutred for a blast Of any lettered nonchalance like that, And some of us—the five or six of us Who found him out—were singularly struck.