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| IN 1 Tilbury Town did Old King Cole | |
| A wise old age anticipate, | |
| Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, | |
| No Khan’s extravagant estate. | |
| No crown annoyed his honest head, | 5 |
| No fiddlers three were called or needed; | |
| For two disastrous heirs instead | |
| Made music more than ever three did. | |
| |
| Bereft of her with whom his life | |
| Was harmony without a flaw, | 10 |
| He took no other for a wife, | |
| Nor sighed for any that he saw; | |
| And if he doubted his two sons, | |
| And heirs, Alexis and Evander, | |
| He might have been as doubtful once | 15 |
| Of Robert Burns and Alexander. | |
| |
| Alexis, in his early youth, | |
| Began to steal—from old and young. | |
| Likewise Evander, and the truth | |
| Was like a bad taste on his tongue. | 20 |
| Born thieves and liars, their affair | |
| Seemed only to be tarred with evil— | |
| The most insufferable pair | |
| Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. | |
| |
| The world went on, their fame went on, | 25 |
| And they went on—from bad to worse; | |
| Till, goaded hot with nothing done, | |
| And each accoutred with a curse, | |
| The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, | |
| And fours, and sevens, and elevens, | 30 |
| Pronounced unalterable views | |
| Of doings that were not of heaven’s. | |
| |
| And having learned again whereby | |
| Their baleful zeal had come about, | |
| King Cole met many a wrathful eye | 35 |
| So kindly that its wrath went out— | |
| Or partly out. Say what they would, | |
| He seemed the more to court their candor; | |
| But never told what kind of good | |
| Was in Alexis and Evander. | 40 |
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| And Old King Cole, with many a puff | |
| That haloed his urbanity, | |
| Would smoke till he had smoked enough, | |
| And listen most attentively. | |
| He beamed as with an inward light | 45 |
| That had the Lord’s assurance in it; | |
| And once a man was there all night, | |
| Expecting something every minute. | |
| |
| But whether from too little thought, | |
| Or too much fealty to the bowl, | 50 |
| A dim reward was all he got | |
| For sitting up with Old King Cole. | |
| “Though mine,” the father mused aloud, | |
| “Are not the sons I would have chosen, | |
| Shall I, less evilly endowed, | 55 |
| By their infirmity be frozen? | |
| |
| “They’ll have a bad end, I’ll agree, | |
| But I was never born to groan; | |
| For I can see what I can see, | |
| And I’m accordingly alone. | 60 |
| With open heart and open door, | |
| I love my friends, I like my neighbors; | |
| But if I try to tell you more, | |
| Your doubts will overmatch my labors. | |
| |
| “This pipe would never make me calm, | 65 |
| This bowl my grief would never drown. | |
| For grief like mine there is no balm | |
| In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. | |
| And if I see what I can see, | |
| I know not any way to blind it; | 70 |
| Nor more if any way may be | |
| For you to grope or fly to find it. | |
| |
| “There may be room for ruin yet, | |
| And ashes for a wasted love; | |
| Or, like One whom you may forget, | 75 |
| I may have meat you know not of. | |
| And if I’d rather live than weep | |
| Meanwhile, do you find that surprising? | |
| Why, bless my soul, the man’s asleep! | |
| That’s good. The sun will soon be rising.” | 80 |
