# Variations on an Air

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First published 1920 in New Witness as "Old King Cole: A Parody".
Composed on Having to Appear in a Pageant as Old King Cole
Old King Cole Was a merry old soul And a merry old soul was he He called for his pipe and he called for his bowl and he called for his fiddlers three
after Lord Tennyson
Cole, that unwearied prince of Colchester, Growing more gay with age and with long days Deeper in laughter and desire of life As that Virginian climber on our walls Flames scarlet with the fading of the year; Called for his wassail and that other weed Virginian also, from the western woods Where English Raleigh checked the boast of Spain, And lighting joy with joy, and piling up Pleasure as crown for pleasure, bade me bring Those three, the minstrels whose emblazoned coats Shone with the oyster-shells of Colchester; And these three played, and playing grew more fain Of mirth and music; till the heathen came And the King slept beside the northern sea.
after W.B. Yeats
Of an old King in a story From the grey sea-folk I have heard Whose heart was no more broken Than the wings of a bird.
As soon as the moon was silver And the thin stars began, He took his pipe and his tankard, Like an old peasant man.
And three tall shadows were with him And came at his command; And played before him for ever The fiddles of fairyland.
And he died in the young summer Of the world's desire; Before our hearts were broken Like sticks in a fire.
After Robert Browning
Who smoke-snorts toasts o' My Lady Nicotine,
Kicks stuffing out of Pussyfoot, bids his trio
Stick up their Stradivarii (that's the plural
Or near enough, my fatheads; nimium
Vicina Cremonce; that's a bit too near.)
Is there some stockfish fails to understand?
Catch hold o' the notion, bellow and blurt back "Cole"?
Must I bawl lessons from a horn-book, howl,
Cat-call the cat-gut "fiddles"? Fiddlesticks!
after Walt Whitman
Me clairvoyant, Me conscious of you, old camarado, Needing no telescope, lorgnette, field-glass, opera-glass, myopic pince-nez, Me piercing two thousand years with eye naked and not ashamed; The crown cannot hide you from me, Musty old feudal-heraldic trappings cannot hide you from me, I perceive that you drink. (I am drinking with you. I am as drunk as you are.) I see you are inhaling tobacco, puffing, smoking, spitting (I do not object to your spitting), You prophetic of American largeness, You anticipating the broad masculine manners of these States; I see in you also there are movements, tremors, tears, desire for the melodious, I salute your three violinists, endlessly making vibrations, Rigid, relentless, capable of going on for ever; They play my accompaniment; but I shall take no notice of any accompaniment; I myself am a complete orchestra. So long.
After Swinburne.
In the time of old sin without sadness
And golden with wastage of gold
Like the gods that grow old in their gladness
Was the king that was glad, growing old:
And with sound of loud lyres from his palace
The voice of his oracles spoke,
And the lips that were red from his chalice
Were splendid with smoke.
When the weed was as flame for a token
And the wine was as blood for a sign;
And upheld in his hands and unbroken
The fountains of fire and of wine.
And a song without speech, without singer,
Stung the soul of a thousand in three
As the flesh of the earth has to sting her,
The soul of the sea.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1936, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 87 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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