Charles G. D. Roberts (1860-1943)
Bat, Bat, Come Under my Hat
(A Modernity)
1Twelve good friends
2Passed under her hat,
3And devil a one of them
4Knew where he was at.
5Had they but known,
6Then had they known all things, --
7The littleness of great things,
8The unmeasured immensity of small things.
9They had known the Where and the Why,
10The When and the Wherefore,
11And how the Eternal
12Conceived the Eternal, and therefore
13Beginning began the Beginning;
14They had apprehended
15The ultimate virtue of sinning;
16They had caught the whisper
17That Vega vibrates to Arcturus,
18Piercing the walls
19Of heavy flesh that immure us.
20But if they had known,
21Then had there been no mystery;
22And Life had been poorer,
23And laughter unsurer,
24And the shadow of death securer,
25By lack of this brief history.
Notes
17] Vega: brightest star in the constellation Lyra.
Arcturus: bright star in the constellation Boötes.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: Selected Poems of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (Toronto: Ryerson, 1936): 19. PS 8485 O22A17 Robarts Library.
First publication date:
1934
Publication date note: The Icebreg and Other Poems (1934)
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1998.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/3
Composition date:
12
June
1929
Rhyme: irregularly rhyming
Other poems by Charles G. D. Roberts
