Page:The Glugs of Gosh (C. J. Dennis, 1917).djvu/136

117 "Yet," said Sym, as he tinkered his can, "What should you know of her, Emily Ann? Early as cock-crow yester morn I watched young sunbeams, newly born, As out of the East they frolicked and ran. Eager to greet her, my Emily Ann."

"King Splosh," said the riders, "is bowed with grief; And the glory of Gosh is a yellowing leaf. Up with you, Tinker! There's work ahead. With a King forsaken, and Swanks in dread, To whom may we turn for the salving of man?" And Sym, he answered them, "Emily Ann."

Said he: "Whenever I watch her pass, With her skirts so high o'er the dew-wet grass, I envy every blade the bruise It earns in the cause of her twinkling shoes. Oh, the dew-wet grass, where this morn she ran, Was doubly jewelled for Emily Ann."

"But haste!" they cried. "By the palace gates A sorrowing king for a tinker waits. And what shall we answer our Lord the King If never a tinker hence we bring, To tinker a kingdom so sore amiss?" But Sym, he said to them, "Answer him this: