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The Spike or Victoria College Review 1936

Fantasy

page 9

Fantasy

Time there was when the organ grand,
Much proclaimed, lavishly planned—
Sat in his feted, gilded prime,
Prinked and filled with a glory new,
When at the erst-appointed time
Proud he posed to the public's view.

Then out to the organ someone strolled;
(None but a friend could be so bold)
Looked at the keys—the keys were dead:
With faith serene, he bowed his head,
And kissed them with slim finger-tips.
While gazed the organ with parted lips,
There swelled in his breast a queer sweet pang,
And he lifted aloft his voice and sang.

And the organ grand gazed down, gazed down,
Gazed on the elite of the town,
And all had paid their half-a-crown—
Willingly, yes of their own free choice—
To thrill to the sonorous blast of his voice.
Like the zephyr skimming the verdant turf,
Or the rolling surge of a mighty surf—
"What you will! Name it!" the organ cried,
And heard, as the dulcet thunder died
The thin, sweet clatter of clamant hands.

* * *

But—what a shock for the organ grand:
Drunk with the sweetness of that hour,
His senses reeled—he had the power,
But not the will, to hold them firm—
And so he wandered for a term
The fragrance of sub-sentience.
He woke—a crowd—turbulent, dense,
And all had paid two bob plus tax
To see pink gods sprawl on their backs.
From up above, a golden glare
Smeared sweatiness on bodies bare;
They rise, the charge, they meet with shock,
Their sticky limbs in hate-hug lock,
And so on, till the organ thought—
"They seek not what their fathers sought!"
So, height abased, and art forgot,
He proudly resigned himself to rot.

—Boru.