London Feast
By Ernest Rhys
O WHERE do you go, and what’s your will,
My sunburnt herdsmen of the hill,
That leave your herds no pastoral priest,
And take the road where, sad and dun,
The smoke-cloud drapes the April sun?—
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
O country-lads, this April tide,
Why do you leave the country-side?
The new-come Spring stirs bird and beast;
The winter storm is over now,
And melted the December snow:—
“We go to taste
Of London feast!”
O village maidens, April girls,
With dancing eyes and country curls,
Is April naught, the maypole ceased,
That you must leave the daisied places
That painted all your pretty faces?—
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
And ancient dalesmen of the north,
That leave your dales, and the sweet brown earth,
Are country acres so decreased,
And Cumbrian fells no longer ringing
With bleating lambs, and blackbirds singing?—
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
O sailor lads, that love the sea,
Are you, too, of this company?—
The shifting wind ’s no longer east;
Yet you have put the helm about,
To come ashore, and join the rout?—
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
Too late, my golden mariners!
I have seen there these many years,
How Most grew more, and less grew Least;
And now you go too late; the board
Cannot one crumb to you afford:
You cannot taste
Of London feast.
Too late, dear children of the sun;
For London Feast is past and gone!
I sat it out, and now released
Make westward from its weary gate.
Fools and unwise, you are too late:
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
They did not heed, they would not stay;
I saw the dust on London way
By denser thousands still increased:
My cry was vain. As they went by
Their murmur ran, for all reply:
“We go to taste
Of London feast.”
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Tonight is the Enterprise third season finale, so the last review I must write until Fridays this fall. I hope it's good. I hope they don't stick on a stupid cliffhanger-type ending now that they know they can. But there is a teeny, tiny part of me that wonders whether the smartest thing they could do for the show is kill off Archer and bring in a new captain, played by someone well-known and charismatic and very unlike him. When a show's ratings have dropped off as much as this one's have, no matter how fair it is to blame the network and the writers, sometimes the only way to draw attention back to it is to do something drastic. For Voyager that meant bringing on Seven of Nine and getting rid of Kes, but Enterprise already has a woman in a catsuit, and I don't think the lack of sleaze factor has been a problem. If there's to be any hope for a fifth season, the show needs a bigger change than a war story arc...and the best way to accomplish that might be a major change of casting. There, I've said it...Opinions and flames welcome.
It's only May and I can't take the heat. What will I be like by August? Today at least there is a breeze. We are going to my in-laws' in Pennsylvania on Saturday and Sunday, after dinner Friday night with my parents for my father's birthday. I am on the one hand pleased about this, as it is generally cooler in Pennsylvania and we will get to see rabbits and groundhogs and the Amish market, and on the other hand feeling landlocked and wishing we could go to the beach, or at least to a lake somewhere.
Moon Bounce and Swings, North Pier, Chicago, Illinois
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