Meditations On A Holiday (A New Theme To An Old Folk-Jingle)

'Tis May morning,     All-adorning,     No cloud warning     Of rain to-day.     Where shall I go to,     Go to, go to? -     Can I say No to     Lyonnesse-way?     Well what reason     Now at this season     Is there for treason     To other shrines?     Tristram is not there,     Isolt forgot there,     New eras blot there     Sought-for signs!     Stratford-on-Avon -     Poesy-paven -     I'll find a haven     There, somehow! -     Nay I'm but caught of     Dreams long thought of,     The Swan knows nought of     His Avon now!     What shall it be, then,     I go to see, then,     Under the plea, then,     Of votary?     I'll go to Lakeland,     Lakeland, Lakeland,     Certainly Lakeland     Let it be.     But why to that place,     That place, that place,     Such a hard come-at place     Need I fare?     When its bard cheers no more,     Loves no more, fears no more,     Sees no more, hears no more     Anything there!     Ah, there is Scotland,     Burns's Scotland,     And Waverley's. To what land     Better can I hie? -     Yet if no whit now     Feel those of it now -     Care not a bit now     For it why I?     I'll seek a town street,     Aye, a brick-brown street,     Quite a tumbledown street,     Drawing no eyes.     For a Mary dwelt there,     And a Percy felt there     Heart of him melt there,     A Claire likewise.     Why incline to THAT city,     Such a city, THAT city,     Now a mud-bespat city! -     Care the lovers who     Now live and walk there,     Sit there and talk there,     Buy there, or hawk there,     Or wed, or woo?     Laughters in a volley     Greet so fond a folly     As nursing melancholy     In this and that spot,     Which, with most endeavour,     Those can visit never,     But for ever and ever     Will now know not!     If, on lawns Elysian,     With a broadened vision     And a faint derision     Conscious be they,     How they might reprove me     That these fancies move me,     Think they ill behoove me,     Smile, and say:     "What! our hoar old houses,     Where the past dead-drowses,     Nor a child nor spouse is     Of our name at all?     Such abodes to care for,     Inquire about and bear for,     And suffer wear and tear for -     How weak of you and small!"     May 1921.