The Bough of Nonsense

 AN IDYLL


Back from the Somme two Fusiliers 
Limped painfully home; the elder said, 
S.
 “Robert, I’ve lived three thousand years 
This Summer, and I’m nine parts dead.
” 
R.
 “But if that’s truly so,” I cried, “quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough 

”Where once a nonsense built her nest 
With skulls and flowers and all things queer, 
In an old boot, with patient breast 
Hatching three eggs; and the next year…”
S.
 “Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid 
Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did.
” 

Said he, “Before this quaint mood fails, 
We’ll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,” 
R.
 “Hanging it up with monkey tails
In a deep grove all hushed and dim….
” 
S.
 “To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,” 
R.
 “Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,” 

S.
 “Which men are wise beyond their time, 
And worship nonsense, no one more.
”
R.
 “Hard by, among old quince and lime, 
They’ve built a temple with no floor,” 
S.
 “And whosoever worships in that place, 
He disappears from sight and leaves no trace.
” 

R.
 “Once the Galatians built a fane
To Sense: what duller God than that?” 
S.
 “But the first day of autumn rain 
The roof fell in and crushed them flat.
” 
R.
 “Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls 
When nonsense is foundation for the walls.
”

I tell him old Galatian tales; 
He caps them in quick Portuguese, 
While phantom creatures with green scales 
Scramble and roll among the trees.
 
The hymn swells; on a bough above us sings
A row of bright pink birds, flapping their wings.

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