SURLY JOE’S CHRISTMAS

YOUR holidays are naught to me.
I do not care to hear or see
Your jangling bells, or Christmas tree.

With sad, dull eyes I watch the fire
On Yule logs, having no desire
For flame or fame that rises higher.

A discontented, dull content,
Much pain with little pleasure blent:
I wonder where the summer went.

Creed follows creed, fools follow fools;
Laws break through laws, rules alter rules,
Myths breed a myth, schools gender schools.

And laws, and myths, and clashing creeds
With rules and schools, and all that breeds
Discord, what are they to our needs?

Nothing. An empty, weary sound:
The howling of a prisoned hound:
A mirage, hiding fertile ground.

A whistling wind, whose tones escape
By cornice, eaves, or gabled cape,—
Intoned by architectural shape.