Page:Crome Yellow.djvu/294
Anne put her head on one side deprecatingly. “Only three so far, I'm afraid. But I’m giving a free copy to everyone who spends more than a shilling on his tea. So in any case it’s having a circulation.”
Denis made no reply, but walked slowly away. He looked at the broadsheet in his/hand and read the lines to himself relishingly as he walked along:
“This day of roundabouts and swings,
Struck weights, shied cocoa-nuts, tossed rings,
Switchbacks, Aunt Sallies, and all such small
High jinks—you call it ferial?
A holiday? But paper noses
Sniffed the artificial roses
Of round Venetian cheeks through half
Each carnival year, and masks might laugh
At things the naked face for shame
Would blush at—laugh and think no blame.
A holiday? But Galba showed
Elephants on an airy road;
Jumbo trod the tightrope then,
And in the circus arméd men
Stabbed home for sport and died to break
Those dull imperatives that make
A prison of every working day,
Where all must drudge and all obey.
Sing Holiday! You do not know
How to be free. The Russian snow
Flowered with bright blood whose roses spread
Petals of fading, fading red
That died into the snow again,
Into the virgin snow; and men
From all the ancient bonds were freed.