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.”