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.â?
R. -But if that-s truly so,â? I cried, -quick, now,
Through these great oaks and see the famous bough
â?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...â?
S. -Foaled thirteen squamous young beneath, and rid
Wales of drink, melancholy, and psalms, she did.â?
Said he, -Before this quaint mood fails,
We-ll sit and weave a nonsense hymn,â?
R. -Hanging it up with monkey tails
In a deep grove all hushed and dim....â?
S. -To glorious yellow-bunched banana-trees,â?
R. -Planted in dreams by pious Portuguese,â?
S. -Which men are wise beyond their time,
And worship nonsense, no one more.â?
R. -Hard by, among old quince and lime,
They-ve built a temple with no floor,â?
S. -And whosoever worships in that place,
He disappears from sight and leaves no trace.â?
R. -Once the Galatians built a fane
To Sense: what duller God than that?â?
S. -But the first day of autumn rain
The roof fell in and crushed them flat.â?
R. -Ay, for a roof of subtlest logic falls
When nonsense is foundation for the walls.â?
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.
Robert Graves
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