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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1912

Fan

page 18

Fan.

I think Fan has a grief—how sad her eyes;
As melancholy as a Quaker jacket.
She that was giddy as the sugared flies,
She the lightwinged Dryad of the racquet,
Now is contemplative as angler mused
Beside the brook, where all the babble's fused
Of sleepy hamlet. Fan, art thou Love's toy?
Doth the blithe morning from the furrowed cloud
Color your chamber, where the rose hath vowed
To find your sweetness, so she may compare
Two such incomparables? Who is the boy
Whom thou adorest with a ledgered joy—
Part credit and part debit, foul and fair?

Fan, when I drew a bow at venture, proud
To touch the flying gleam of beauty bared
O'er the dull pool of earth like dragon fly
Glittering with splendor, very often I
Found Love a disenchantment; like the weed
Smuggled by a sailor carle from Teneriffe,
So fondly smoked in fancy. Fate decreed
The slimly got cigar be very poor—
The shining sail must draggle on the reef;
And Love's light breath be like a draughty door.

Love bears a yoke like milkmaid to the cows,
With cedar pails to catch the hippocrene.
Drudging it back the monstrous burden bows—
Nought is so heavy as the love that's been.
Fly, fly from that deluding harlequin.
Keep clear those charming eyes for other joys
Than those the privilege of lucky boys
Who'd find the happy way to enter in
Your heart to ravage it. Procure a key
That nobody can take impression of.
Lock, lock heart as safe as safe can be.
If any wish to open it for Love,
Say, pretty Fan, "You get no more of me!"

Hubert Church