A RESIDENTIAL SOUL.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19676, 20 July 1929, Page 13

A RESIDENTIAL SOUL.

* A Sydney correspondent has sent The Pre 39 the following lines copied from an old number of the Sydney "Bulletin," and has attached this short note: "M.C.K. WTote this in 1904 —I think in the month of May. He signed it 'M. Cormac' It is worth printing, for I think few men know it." \ A recently sold Keats letter contained these remarks: —"I feel it in my strength to refuse the poisonous suffrage of the public. The soul is a world of itself and has enough to do in its own home." I have finished; I have come to my resolve — I have put the shutters up upon my soul. I have thrown away the key and plugged the hole; And I do not care a jot If the old world goes to pot, Or stops, or just continues to revolve.

When Love comes rapping wildly at the door, I'll be busy poking round among the cells, Where my convoluted eore of fancy dwells, Brushing cobwebs from the walls Of my contemplative halls, Or" sweeping up my visions from the floor.

The world is all a-clamor for my muse; Let it clamor —I've a better audience Than tlie public, and a finer recompense Than their suffrage or their pelf, For I'm singing to myself; So what's the use of talking—what's the use?

I love to hear the sounds of joy and woe That I sometimes hear while dozing in my home, Where hob-nailed humani never come; Let them live and die outside, I have passed the great divide — They are less to me than nothing. Let them go!

Name and fame are not to me, nor blame and shame — I cook my mental chops and sausages Myself, and eat them on the premises, And I drink my dream Three-Star, And light my soul's cigar, At the taper of my intellectual flame.

Fellow geniuses, be happy, evermore! Heave your load of hustling worries overboard; Let the Universe be totally ignored— Climb in softly to your soul, Lock the door and plug the hole, And scatter man-traps round about the door.