CV

YOU ’VE seen balloons set, haven’t you?

So stately they ascend

It is as swans discarded you

For duties diamond.

Their liquid feet go softly out

Upon a sea of blond;

They spurn the air as’t were to mean

For creatures so renowned.

Their ribbons just beyond the eye,

They struggle some for breath,

And yet the crowd applauds below;

They would not encore death.

The gilded creature strains and spins,

Trips frantic in a tree,

Tears open her imperial veins

And tumbles in the sea.

The crowd retire with an oath

The dust in streets goes down,

And clerks in counting-rooms observe,

“’T was only a balloon.”