Index
Index of First Lines:
A,
B,
C,
D,
F,
G,
H,
I,
K,
L,
M,
N,
O,
P,
S,
T,
U,
V,
W,
Y.
List of Poems in Order
(etext transcriber's note) |
LOVE’S OLD SWEET SONG
A SHEAF OF LATTER-DAY LOVE-POEMS
GARNERED FROM MANY SOURCES
Books by the Same Author
——
The Garden’s Story, or Pleasures and Trials of an Amateur Gardener
The Story of My House
In Gold and Silver
The Rose. By H. B. Ellwanger. Revised edition, with an Introduction
by George H. Ellwanger.
Idyllists of the Country-Side
Love’s Demesne
Meditations on Gout
The Pleasures of the Table
Copyright, 1903,
By Dodd, Mead and Company.
All rights reserved.
Copyright, 1896,
By Dodd, Mead and Company,
as “Love’s Demesne.”
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.
TO
THE MEMORY OF
GLEESON WHITE, ESQ.
In Friendliest Regard
ENVOY.
RESOUND, ye strains, attuned by master-fingers,
That breathe so fondly Love’s consuming fire;
Some sweet and subtle as a chord that lingers,
Some grave and plaintive as the heart’s desire.
Like June’s gay laughter thro’ the woodlands ringing,
These hymn the Present’s gladsome roundelay;
As Autumn grieves when choirs have ceased their singing,
Those voice their haunting burden, “Well-a-day!”
Yet, past or present, who the power would banish
That charms or blights, that blesses or that mars:
To happy lovers, how may Love e’er vanish,—
To hearts forlorn, how hallowed are his scars!
PUBLISHERS’ NOTE.
IN this Anthology is included in more convenient form the greater
portion of the poems contained in the two volumes entitled “Love’s
Demesne,” now out of print. The present collection has been carefully
revised by the Compiler, and like its predecessor occupies an entirely
distinct field, most of the selections being otherwise only accessible
in the volumes where they originally appeared, and the major part being
by living lyrists.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT.
THE sincere thanks of the Editor are due, not only to those American
authors who have graciously allowed the reproduction of their poems, but
equally to the numerous British living poets whose graceful verses
appear in the following pages. In but one instance on the part of a
native author, and in but one instance on the part of a publisher, was
permission to include poems refused. With these exceptions the Compiler
has received the most cordial assistance from holders of copyrights. It
becomes a personal pleasure, therefore, to thank the following in
particular for their uniform courtesy, without which many a flowing
measure contained in “Love’s Old Sweet Song” must necessarily have been
omitted: Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Roberts Bros., Charles
Scribner’s Sons, Macmillan & Co., G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Stone & Kimball,
J. G. Cupples, Belford, Clarke & Co., D. Lothrop & Co., Copeland & Day,
Henry Holt & Co., R. Worthington & Co., Way & Williams, Longmans, Green
& Co. To these and other publishers, to the sonorous choir of the poets
quoted from, and, finally, to Mr. Gleeson White and Mr. Edmund Clarence
Stedman, the Compiler tenders his most grateful acknowledgments.
A PASSING WORD.
BEARING in mind the assertion of Monsieur de Milcourt, that prefaces for
the most part seem only made in order to “impose” upon the reader, a
brief foreword will suffice to explain the scope of the following pages.
As will be apparent at a glance, the selections are all from modern, and
largely from living poets; the dominant chord is lyrical; and in the
general unisance the minor prevails over the major key. No excuse seems
called for in presenting a new anthology; for, given the same theme,
each compiler must of necessity present a different score, subject to
individual taste and preferences. “To apologize for a new anthology is
but one degree less sensible than to prepare it,” pertinently remarks
the editor of Ballades and Rondeaus. Such were but another case of
qui s’excuse, s’accuse. It may be observed, nevertheless, that the
path of the compiler is far from being strewn with flowers. Indeed, it
has been truly said that Æsop’s old man and boy with the donkey had not
a harder task than the maker of selections and collections of verses.
Of recent years a number of excellent anthologies have been published on
a similar theme. But these deal mainly with the rhythmic fancies of the
elder bards, or in fewer instances, combine the older and the younger
schools. In the present instance the editor has been guided solely by
his own taste or predilections, having had no recourse to other
collections, beyond that of avoiding excerpta too oft repeated; the
aim being so far as possible to include such examples of merit as are
not generally familiar to the average lover of poetry. Whether these be
by well-known authors, or by those who are little known, has not entered
into consideration, the prime object being to present as intrinsically
meritorious a collection, by both British and American modern lyrists,
as is possible within the limits of the space at command.
The writer is not aware of a similar compilation having been previously
attempted, there being few who would care to brave the “omissions” that
must naturally be thrust at one’s door, more especially in the case of
an abstract from the works of living writers. Yet while fault may be
found, perchance, on the score of selection both by those who may be
excluded, as well as by those who are included, the editor of an
anthology should at least be thanked for placing many selections before
the reader that in the ordinary course of things he would miss,—either
through lack of time, or the inability to possess or consult the
multitudinous volumes he would be called upon to peruse.
“The purchasing public for poetry,” says Mr. Lang, “must now consist
chiefly of poets, and they are usually poor.” The anthologist is the
bee, therefore, to extract the honey from the fragrant garland of song,
at the least fatigue to the reader. For every poet has not a hive of
sweets to draw from; and though the blooms be many in the parterre of
poesy, still these require to be plucked with reference not only to
individual beauty, but to general harmony as well. A single line may
sadly mar an otherwise flawless verse, as a single sonnet rendered
immortal the name of Félix Arvers. Many no doubt will miss some
favourites. Of such it may be observed that not a few lovely apostrophes
have been omitted on account of too great length, or, as previously
stated, owing to their being familiar to the great majority of readers.
Some poems, moreover, beautiful in themselves, have not been included,
despite their intrinsic merits, because they seemed to be out of accord
with the prevailing key, as in the case of numerous lyrics approaching
the form of so-termed Vers de Société. Still others, and many of these
extremely beautiful amatory poems, somewhat free in motif or
treatment, have been excluded as not fulfilling the precise requirements
of the present collection; these were more appropriate grouped in a
volume by themselves.
A few translations only have been admitted; the satisfactory translation
of verse being an art by itself, demanding special qualifications
possessed only by the few. But though it is not often that a rendition
does not suffer when compared with its original, it is equally true that
in some hands a transcription may equal if not surpass its prototype.
Witness, for example, Mr. Andrew Lang’s graceful stanzas entitled “An
Old Tune,” adapted from Gérard de Nerval’s dreamy Fantaisie, and which
although very closely rendered fully equal the original in colour and
fragrance, while surpassing it in melodiousness and rhythm. Nearly as
much might be said of Mr. Edmund Gosse’s version of Théophile de Viau’s
lovely sonnet, Au moins ay-ie songé que ie vous ay baisée, as also of
the late Thomas Ashe’s phrasing of Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son
mystère, which has been so variously rendered by various translators.
With Waller’s “Go, lovely rose,” Herrick’s “Gather ye roses,” Ford’s
“There is a lady sweet and kind,” and many another harmonious measure of
Lily, Lodge, Lovelace, Campion, Carew, and the rest of them ringing in
our ears, what comparison shall be made with the modern laureates of
love? Whether the latter indeed chant as sweetly as the Elizabethan
meistersingers and their successors under the Restoration, is a question
it were perhaps wiser to pass, from lack of space to dwell upon, leaving
the reader to form his own opinion. There are those who hold to the
contrary; there are others who in the best of existent love-poetry find
conceits as colourful, rhythm as resonant, and inspiration as melodious
as is still echoed from the sweetest strains of the Elizabethan lyre.
Rather, to each let that merit be accorded which is its due. The old
songs, like all truly beautiful things of eld, possess the puissant
stamp of endurance and the approval of the centuries, added to that
indefinable charm which age alone may impart; the new must yet be
mellowed and adjudged by Time.
It must be remembered, too, that it is the best of the ancient songs
we know and love so well; that if the entire verse of almost any olden
bard be closely scanned, it will be found, in very numerous instances,
of a widely uneven quality, with many a limping line, strained conceit,
or halting measure to offend. Song did not mount to the strain of merle
or mavis, or sing itself in the past with greater ease than is the case
at present. Greater freedom it possessed; and in the method more than in
the matter the chief distinction lies. This distinction between the
past-masters and the bards of the present is deftly set forth by Edmund
Gosse in his poem, “Impression,”—
. . . . . . . . . .
“If we could dare to write as ill
As some whose voices haunt us still,
Even we, perchance, might call our own
Their deep enchanting undertone.
We are too diffident and nice,
Too learnèd and too overwise,
Too much afraid of faults to be
The flutes of bold sincerity.
For, as this sweet life passes by,
We blink and nod with critic eye;
We’ve no words rude enough to give
Its charm so frank and fugitive.”
. . . . . . . . . .
The term “ill” which is applied to the ancient versifiers in the above
lines were perhaps better rendered by the qualification “bold.” It is in
this boldness, vigour, and fire that the distinguishing difference
largely consists. And in the striving for new effects, when the present
aims to reproduce the past, these qualities are usually lacking in their
pristine fervour; while the latter-day impressionist and symbolist is
frequently so vague as to be well-nigh unintelligible.
The sentiment underlying the expression of the lyrist of to-day does not
differ materially, after all, from that of his remote predecessor. The
pitch and timbre of modern poetry are somewhat altered, to be sure.
There is less personality, less freedom,—shall I say a certain naïve
grace and spontaneous virility are wanting in existent verse as compared
with Elizabethan song? though in general the latter-day lyrist is the
superior craftsman in rhyme. The most marked variation between the two
periods is that the so-called Elizabethan poets for the most part wrote
their songs to be sung,—“music married to immortal verse.” The lilt and
blitheness of these are individual; and these qualities we are apt to
miss, in their primal grace, in many a love-song of the present.
So far as the prevailing spirit of love itself is concerned, this has
undergone no change, unless that evolved by the natural refining
processes of time. Human nature must be human nature still; and passion
in the human heart exists unaltered in its essence. We may not have
another Herrick, nor may we summon another Tennyson; the breeze of
summer blows not twice alike in its passage through the woodland keys.
But there must always remain new chords to be sounded while the most
potent of verbs remains to be conjugated. The poets pass away, yet Love
is ever new; and so long as the seasons endure and new days dawn, the
tuneful choir will chant in infinite variation,—
“Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring,
But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.”
The darts of Eros’ quiver are just as numerous and deftly feathered as
of yore. Only there are more hearts to hit, with proportionally more
registrars to chronicle the passage of his shafts. Still, as of old, the
exhortation, Carpe Diem! reverberates through the poet’s page; the
rose likewise hath not lost her fragrance, or the violet her perfume;
and still, despite stings and thorns, kisses and favours remain sweet
things.
Writing love-lyrics is less a momentous occupation now than in the times
of doublet and hose. It is fair to assume, notwithstanding, that many a
charming fantasy in verse, many an ethereal flight winged from modern
lover to modern mistress, never sees the light of the printed page, as
was far less the case in ancient days; but remains inviolate with the
person by whom it was inspired. Could we obtain access to many
passionate apostrophes that exist but in manuscript alone, cherished or
known only by the sender and recipient, what a fragrant garland were
ours!
Recurring to the comparison already touched upon, Cupid and Campaspe
have not ceased to play their game of cards; while the admonition to
Lesbia to “live and love” will continue to be current coin amid the
“golden cadences” of all time. For,
“What to him is snow or rime,
Who calls his love his own?”
It were difficult, in truth, to wrest from Waller his “girdle” of
immortal fame, or for any twentieth-century laureate to excel Jonson’s
spirited pledge, “To Celia,” or to vie with the sublime strain of
Herrick’s “Bid me to live.” And who shall surpass the delicate lacelike
grace of Lodge’s “Love in my bosom like a bee,” “My bonny lass! thine
eye,” and his still more impassioned rendition of the charms of
“Rosalind”?
Who, too, shall outsoar the plumèd flight of Heywood’s “Pack clouds
away,” or transcend the birdlike carol of Davenant, “The lark now leaves
his wat’ry nest”? And where shall we look for a rival to Marvell’s “Had
we but world enough and time,” or the music and dainty conceit of
Carew’s “Ask me no more where Jove bestows”? These, and how many, many
more, pulsate with the sweetness and plaintiveness of a zither touched
by master fingers. Reading them as they attune and chant themselves
despite the lapse of centuries, they recall the picture Glapthorne so
vividly depicts of a Gentleman playing on the Lute:—
“Whose numerous fingers whiter farre
Than Venus swans or ermines are
Wag’d with the amorous strings a Warre,
But such a Warre as did invite
The sense of Hearing, and the Sight
To riot in a full delight.”
A review of the following pages, on the other hand, will disclose many a
delicious wild-flower that, alike in form and hue, is a stranger to the
gardens of the past. It is perhaps unfair to individualise; but for the
sake of comparison solely, a few instances may be cited with no
disparagement to the excellence of the whole of which they form a part.
So far as musical sweetness of tone, elevated sentiment, and facility of
rhythmic utterance are concerned, Tennyson and Swinburne stand
unequalled in their special spheres. The short lyric, however, does not
occur nearly as frequently with the latter as with the former, who
abounds in pure love-lays, fluid and tender as a thrush’s song. What
more fragrantly exquisite than “Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the
white,” or indeed the scores of amoretti with which he has added to
“golden numbers, golden numbers”! With Shakespeare and Milton a master
of the sonnet, a large portion of Rossetti’s shorter pieces have been
expressed in this his favourite vehicle of verse. Surely the music of
song, even though it be in sonnet form, has not suffered a decline when
such impassioned chords are heard as vibrate amid “The House of Life.”
But acting on prescribed lines, the sonnet in consequence has been but
sparingly employed in this collection.
Surely, too, there is a grace as fine as that of the choir of Elizabeth
and James, in such airy flights as, “Love on my heart from heaven fell,”
“Sweetheart, sigh no more,” “I breathe my heart in the heart of the
rose,” and “Up, up, my heart!” Again, we must search long for as
powerful a love lyric as Splendide Mendax, or the haunting cadences
that rise and fall, sonata-like, throughout “A Dead March.” And how
exquisite the simple lines to a star of Mr. Garnett, the rhapsody “Oh to
think, oh to think” of Mr. Gale, Mr. Bridges’ “Long are the hours the
sun is above,” Mathilde Blind’s “I charge you, O winds of the West,”
Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Has summer come without the rose,” or the
chivalrous notes of Mr. Pollock’s “It is not mine to sing the stately
grace”! And these are not exceptions or individual instances, but
merely a few examples taken at random for the sake of illustration. It
is more the lack of the musicians, it would seem, than any want of
suitable pieces to be set to music, that must account for the decadence
of “Song” proper, since the ancient days of lute and lyre.
No great poet sings because he must sing, we are told; a great poet
sings because he chooses to sing. Let us thank the truly great,
therefore, for so choosing, and the lesser in proportion, on the
principle of receiving all favours thankfully according to their merit
and degree. Meanwhile, in the various phases of Love as portrayed so
musically by the full-throated choir in the subjoined pages, the reader
may peradventure read and learn. For, as voiced by Owen Meredith,—
“To mock the faith that lovers place
In life’s acquired love lore,
New lessons, latest-learned, efface
Old teachings taught before.”
G. H. E.
{1}
LOVE’S OLD SWEET SONG.
SINCE YESTERDAY.
THE mavis sang but yesterday
A strain that thrilled through autumn’s dearth;
He read the music of his lay
In light and leaf, and heaven and earth;
The wind-flowers by the wayside swung,
Words of the music that was sung.
In all his song the shade and sun
Of earth and heaven seemed to meet;
Its joy and sorrow were as one,
Its very sadness was but sweet.
He sang of summers yet to be;
You listened to his song with me.{2}
The heart makes sunshine in the rain,
Or winter in the midst of May;
And though the mavis sings again
His self-same song of yesterday,
I find no gladness in his tone:
To-day I listen here alone.
And—even our sunniest moment takes
Such shadows of the bliss we knew—
To-day his throbbing song awakes
But wistful, haunting thoughts of you;
Its very sweetness is but sad:
You gave it all the joy it had.
{3}
A. St. J. Adcock.
AN AWAKENING.
LOVE had forgotten and gone to sleep;
Love had forgotten the present and past.
I was so glad when he ceased to weep;
“Now he is quiet,” I whispered, “at last.”
What sent you here on that night of all nights,
Breaking his slumber, dreamless and deep,
Just as I whispered below my breath,
“Love has forgotten and gone to sleep”?
{4}
Anne Reeve Aldrich.
LOVE, THE DESTROYER.
LOVE is a Fire;
Nor Shame nor Pride can well withstand Desire.
“For what are they,” we cry, “that they should dare
To keep, O Love, the haughty look they wear?
Nay, burn the victims, O thou sacred Fire,
That with their death thou mayst but flame the higher.
Let them feel once the fierceness of thy breath,
And make thee still more beauteous with their death.”
Love is a Fire;
But ah, how short-lived is the flame Desire!
Love, having burnt whatever once we cherished,
And blackened all things else, itself hath perished.
And now alone in gathering night we stand,
Ashes and ruin stretch on either hand;
Yet while we mourn, our sad hearts whisper low:
“We served the mightiest God that man can know.”
SWEETHEART, SIGH NO MORE.
IT was with doubt and trembling
I whispered in her ear.
Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough,
That all the world may hear—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
Upon the wayside tree,
How fair she is, how true she is,
How dear she is to me—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
Sing it, sing it, tawny throat,
And through the summer long
The winds among the clover-tops,
And brooks, for all their silvery stops,
Shall envy you the song—
Sweetheart, sigh no more!
{6}
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
THE FADED VIOLET.
WHAT thought is folded in thy leaves!
What tender thought, what speechless pain!
I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Thou darling of the April rain!
I hold thy faded lips to mine,
Though scent and azure tint are fled—
O dry, mute lips! ye are the type
Of something in me cold and dead:
Of something wilted like thy leaves;
Of fragrance flown, of beauty dim;
Yet for the love of those white hands
That found thee by a river’s brim—
That found thee when thy dewy mouth
Was purpled as with stains of wine—
For love of her who love forgot,
I hold thy faded lips to mine.{7}
That thou shouldst live when I am dead,
When hate is dead, for me, and wrong,
For this I use my subtlest art,
For this I fold thee in my song.
{8}
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
SONG.
NAY! if thou must depart, thou shalt depart;
But why so soon, oh, heart-blood of my heart!
Go then! Yet, going, turn and stay thy feet,
That I may once more see that face so sweet.
Once more—if never more; for swift days go
As hastening waters from their fountains flow;
And whether yet again shall meeting be
Who knows? Who knows? Ah! turn once more to me!
{9}
Sir Edwin Arnold.
CALAIS SANDS.
A THOUSAND knights have rein’d their steeds
To watch this line of sand hills run,
Along the never-silent strait,
To Calais, glittering in the sun.
To look tow’rd Ardres’ Golden Field
Across the wide aerial plain,
Which glows as if the Middle Age
Were gorgeous upon earth again.
Oh, that to share this famous scene,
I saw, upon the open sand,
Thy lovely presence at my side,
Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand!
How exquisite thy voice would come,
My darling, on this lonely air!
How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze
Shake loose some band of soft brown hair!{10}
Yet now my glance but once hath roved
O’er Calais and its famous plain;
To England’s cliffs my gaze is turn’d,
On the blue strait mine eyes I strain.
Thou comest! Yes! the vessel’s cloud
Hangs dark upon the rolling sea.
Oh, that yon sea-bird’s wings were mine,
To win one instant’s glimpse of thee!
I must not spring to grasp thy hand,
To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye;
But I may stand far off, and gaze,
And watch thee pass unconscious by,
And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts,
Mixt with the idlers on the pier.—
Ah, might I always rest unseen,
So I might have thee always near!
To-morrow hurry through the fields
Of Flanders to the storied Rhine!
To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close
Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine.
{11}
Matthew Arnold.
PHANTOMS.
MY days are full of pleasant memories
Of all those women sweet
Whom I have known! How tenderly their eyes
Flash thro’ the days—too fleet!—
Which long ago went by with sun and rain,
Flowers, or the winter snow;
And still thro’ memory’s palace-halls are fain
In rustling robes to go!
Or wed, or widow’d, or with milkless breasts,
Around those women stand,
Like mists that linger on the mountain crests
Rear’d in a phantom land;
And love is in their mien and in their look,
And from their lips a stream
Of tender words flows, smooth as any brook,
And softer than a dream:
And one by one, holding my hands, they say
Things of the years agone;
And each head will a little turn away,
And each one still sigh on,{12}
Because they think such meagre joy we had;
For love was little bold,
And youth had store, and chances to be glad,
And squander’d so his gold.
Blue eyes, and gray, and blacker than the sloe,
And dusk and golden hair,
And lips that broke in kisses long ago,
Like sun-kiss’d flowers are there;
And warm fireside, and sunny orchard wall,
And river-brink and bower,
And wood and hill, and morning and day-fall,
And every place and hour!
And each on each a white unclouded brow
Still as a sister bends,
As they would say, “Love makes us kindred now,
Who sometime were his friends.{13}”
Thomas Ashe.
THE GUEST.
LIGHTS Love, the timorous bird, to dwell,
While summer smiles, a guest with you?
Be wise betimes and use him well,
And he will stay in winter too:
For you can have no sweeter thing
Within the heart’s warm nest to sing.
The blue-plumed swallows fly away,
Ere autumn gilds a leaf; and then
Have wit to find another day
The little clay-built house again:
He will not know, a second spring,
His last year’s nest, if Love take wing.
{14}
Thomas Ashe.
THE SECRET.
From the French of Félix Arvers.
MY life its secret and its mystery has,
A love eternal in a moment born;
There is no hope to help my evil case,
And she knows naught who makes me thus forlorn.
And I unmark’d shall ever by her pass
Aye at her side, and yet for aye alone;
And I shall waste my bitter days, alas!
And never dare to claim my love my own!
And she whom God has made so sweet and dear,
Will go her way, distraught, and never hear
This murmur round her of my love and pain;
To austere duty true, will go her way,
And read these verses full of her, and say,
“Who is this woman that he sings of then?{15}”
Thomas Ashe.
IF LOVE COULD LAST!
IF Love could last, if Love could last,
The Future be as was the Past,
Nor faith and fondness ever know
The chill of dwindling afterglow,
Oh, then we should not have to long
For cuckoo’s call and throstle’s song,
But every season then would ring
With rapturous voices of the spring.
In budding brake and grassy glade
The primrose then would never fade,
The windflower flag, the bluebell haze
Faint from the winding woodland ways,
But vernal hopes chase wintry fears,
And happy smiles and happier tears
Be like the sun and clouds at play,—
If Love could last!
If Love could last, the rose would then
Not bloom but once, to fade again.{16}
June to the lily would not give
A life less fair than fugitive,
But flower and leaf and lawn renew
Their freshness nightly with the dew.
In forest dingles, dim and deep,
Where curtained noonday lies asleep,
The faithful ringdove ne’er would cease
Its anthem of abiding peace.
All the year round we then should stray
Through fragrance of the new-mown hay,
Or sit and ponder old-world rhymes
Under the leaves of scented limes.
Careless of time, we should not fear
The footsteps of the fleeting year,
Or, did the long warm days depart,
’Twould still be summer in our heart,—
Did Love but last!
Did Love but last, no shade of grief
For fading flower, for falling leaf,
For stubbles whence the piled-up wain
Hath borne away the golden grain,
Leaving a load of loss behind,
Would shock the heart and haunt the mind.
With mellow gaze we then should see
The ripe fruit shaken from the tree,
The swallows troop, the acorns fall,{17}
The last peach redden on the wall,
The oasthouse smoke, the hopbine burn,
Knowing that all good things return
To Love that lasts!
If Love could last, who then would mind
The freezing rack, the unfeeling wind,
The curdling pool, the shivering sedge,
The empty nest in leafless hedge,
Brown dripping bents and furrows bare,
The wild geese clamouring through the air,
The huddling kine, the sodden leaves,
Lack-lustre dawns and clammy eves?
For then through twilight days morose
We should within keep warm and close,
And by the friendly fireside blaze
Talk of the ever-sacred days
When first we met, and felt how drear
Were life without the other near;
Or, too at peace with bliss to speak,
Sit hand in hand, and cheek to cheek,—
If Love could last!
Yet Love Can Last.
Yet Love can last, yes, Love can last,
The Future be as was the Past,{18}
And faith and fondness never know
The chill of dwindling afterglow,
If to familiar hearth there cling
The virgin freshness of the spring,
And April’s music still be heard
In wooing voice and winning word.
If when autumnal shadows streak
The furrowed brow, the wrinkled cheek,
Devotion, deepening to the close,
Like fruit that ripens, tenderer grows;
If, though the leaves of youth and hope
Lie thick on life’s declining slope,
The fond heart, faithful to the last,
Lingers in love-drifts of the past;
If, with the gravely shortening days,
Faith trims the lamp, Faith feeds the blaze,
And Reverence, robed in wintry white,
Sheds fragrance like a summer night,—
Then Love can last!
{19}
Alfred Austin.
A JOURNEY.
THE same green hill, the same blue sea,—
Yet, love, thou art no more to me!
The same long reach of yellow sand,—
Where is the touch of thy soft hand?
The same wide open arch of sky,—
But, sweetheart, thou no more art nigh!
God love thee and God keep thee strong:
I breathe that pure prayer through my song!
I send my soul across the waste
To seek and find thy soul in haste!
Across the inland woods and glades,
And through the leaf-laced checkered shades,
My spirit passes, seeking thee;
No more I tarry by the sea.
For where thou art am I for ever;
Mere space and time divide us never.
{20}
George Barlow.
IF ONLY THOU ART TRUE.
IF only a single Rose is left,
Why should the summer pine?
A blade of grass in a rocky cleft;
A single star to shine.
—Why should I sorrow if all be lost,
If only thou art mine?
If only a single Bluebell gleams
Bright on the barren heath,
Still of that flower the summer dreams,
Not of his August wreath.
—Why should I sorrow if thou art mine,
Love, beyond change and death?
If only once on a wintry day
The sun shines forth in the blue,
He gladdens the groves till they laugh as in May
And dream of the touch of the dew.
—Why should I sorrow if all be false,
If only thou art true?
{21}
George Barlow.
THE ECSTASY OF THE HAIR.
I’D send a troop of kisses to entangle
And lose themselves in labyrinths of hair,—
Thy deep dark night of hair with stars to spangle,
And each, a firefly’s tiny lamp, to dangle
Amid the tresses of that forest fair.
A perfume seems to blossom into air;
The ecstasy that hangs about the tresses,
Their blush, their overflow, their breath, their bloom;
A wind that gently lifts them and caresses,
And wings itself and floats about the room;
The beauty that the flame of youth expresses,
A tender fire, too tender to consume,
Which, seizing all my soul, pervades, possesses,
And mingleth in a subtly sweet perfume.
{22}
George Barlow.
THE NIGHT WATCHES.
COME, oh, come to me, voice or look, or spirit or dream, but, oh, come now;
All these faces that crowd so thick are pale and cold and dead—Come thou,
Scatter them back to the ivory gate and be alone and rule the night.
Surely all worlds are nothing to Love, for Love to flash thro’ the night and come;
Hither and thither he flies at will, with thee he dwelleth—there is his home.
Come, O Love, with a voice, a message; haste, O Love, on thy wings of light.
Love, I am calling thee, Love, I am calling; dost thou not hear my crying, sweet?
Does not the live air throb with the pain of my beating heart, till thy heart beat?—
Surely momently thou wilt be here, surely, O sweet Love, momently.{23}
No, my voice would be all too faint, too faint, when it reached Love’s ear, tho’ the night is still,
Fainter ever and fainter grown o’er hill and valley and valley and hill,
There where thou liest quietly sleeping, and Love keeps watch as the dreams flit by.
Ah, my thought so subtle and swift, can it not fly till it reach thy brain,
And whisper there some faint regret for a weary watch and a distant pain?—
Not too loud, to awake thy slumber; not too tender, to make thee weep;
Just so much for thy head to turn on the pillow so, and understand
Dimly, that a soft caress has come long leagues from a weary land,
Turn and half remember and smile, and send a kiss on the wings of sleep.
{24}
H. C. Beeching.
IN A ROSE GARDEN.
A HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,
We will not care at all.
It will not matter then a whit,
The honey or the gall.
The summer days that we have known
Will all forgotten be and flown;
The garden will be overgrown
Where now the roses fall.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We will not mind the pain.
The throbbing crimson tide of life
Will not have left a stain.
The song we sing together, dear,
The dream we dream together here,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a summer rain.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o’er;
The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.{25}
These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way:
We will be wineless then as they,
And will not mind it more.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We’ll neither know nor care
What came of all life’s bitterness
Or followed love’s despair.
Then fill the glasses up again
And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We’ll build one castle more in Spain,
And dream one more dream there.
{26}
John Bennett.
I CHARGE YOU, O WINDS OF THE WEST.
I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,
That ye blow o’er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.
I charge you, O dews of the dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my love, with the sound of one weeping forlorn.
I charge you, O birds of the air, O birds flying home to your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast.
I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels and droops with despair.
O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee,{27}
A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be.
Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish the flames of love’s fire,
Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it and breaks its desire.
I rise like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the way
To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and white hawthorn of May.
The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry to its core,
The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him no more.
The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where I weep,
My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne’er soothed into sleep.
The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst into leaf,
But love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is the grief.
{28}
Mathilde Blind.
SONG.
THOU walkest with me as the spirit-light
Of the hushed moon, high o’er a snowy hill,
Walks with the houseless traveller all the night,
When trees are tongueless and when mute the rill.
Moon of my soul, O phantom of delight,
Thou walkest with me still.
The vestal flame of quenchless memory burns
In my soul’s sanctuary. Yea, still for thee
My bitter heart hath yearned, as moonward yearns
Each separate wave-pulse of the clamorous sea:
My moon of love, to whom for ever turns
That life that aches through me.
{29}
Mathilde Blind.
CÆLI.
IF stars were really watching eyes
Of angel armies in the skies,
I should forget all watchers there,
And only for your glances care.
And if your eyes were really stars,
With leagues that none can mete for bars
To keep me from their longed-for day,
I could not feel more far away.
{30}
F. W. Bourdillon.
LOVE IN THE HEART.
LOVE in the heart is as a nightingale
That sings in a green wood;
And none can pass unheeding there, nor fail
Of impulses of good.
Though cruel brief be Love’s bright hour of song,
Yet let him sing his fill!
For other hearts the echoes shall prolong
When Love’s own voice is still.
{31}
F. W. Bourdillon.
I WILL NOT LET THEE GO.
I will not let thee go.
Ends all our month-long love in this?
Can it be summed up so,
Quit in a single kiss?
I will not let thee go.
I will not let thee go.
If thy words’ breath could scare thy deeds,
As the soft south can blow
And toss the feathered seeds,
Then might I let thee go.
I will not let thee go.
Had not the great sun seen, I might;
Or were he reckoned slow
To bring the false to light,
Then might I let thee go.{32}
I will not let thee go.
The stars that crowd the summer skies
Have watched us so below
With all their million eyes,
I dare not let thee go.
I will not let thee go.
Have we not chid the changeful moon,
Now rising late, and now
Because she set too soon,
And shall I let thee go?
I will not let thee go.
Have not the young flowers been content,
Plucked ere their buds could blow,
To seal our sacrament?
I cannot let thee go.
I will not let thee go.
I hold thee by too many bands:
Thou sayest farewell, and lo!
I have thee by the hands,
And will not let thee go.
{33}
Robert Bridges.
LONG ARE THE HOURS.
LONG are the hours the sun is above,
But when evening comes I go home to my love.
I’m away the daylight hours and more,
Yet she comes not down to open the door.
She does not meet me upon the stair,—
She sits in my chamber and waits for me there.
As I enter the room, she does not move:
I always walk straight up to my love;
And she lets me take my wonted place
At her side, and gaze in her dear, dead face.
There as I sit, from her head thrown back
Her hair falls straight in a shadow black.
Aching and hot as my tired eyes be,
She is all that I wish to see.{34}
And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear,
She says all things that I wish to hear.
Dusky and duskier grows the room,
Yet I see her best in the darker gloom.
When the winter eves are early and cold,
The firelight hours are a dream of gold.
And so I sit here night by night,
In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight.
But a knock on the door, a step on the stair
Will startle, alas, my love from her chair.
If a stranger comes, she will not stay:
At the first alarm she is off and away.
And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne,
That I sit so much by myself alone.
{35}
Robert Bridges.
APPARITIONS.
I.
SUCH a starved bank of moss
Till, that May morn,
Blue ran the flash across:
Violets were born!
II.
SKY—what a scowl of cloud
Till, near and far,
Ray on ray split the shroud:
Splendid, a star!
III.
WORLD—how it walled about
Life with disgrace
Till God’s own smile came out:
That was thy face.
{36}
Robert Browning.
PORPHYRIA’S LOVER.
THE rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake;
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake.
I listened with heart fit to break,
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,{37}
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth, white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread o’er all her yellow hair,—
Murmuring how she loved me,—she
Too weak for all her heart’s endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,{38}
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before.
Only this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word.
{39}
Robert Browning.
ROBIN’S SONG.
Warwickshire, 16—.
UP, up, my heart! up, up, my heart,
This day was made for thee!
For soon the hawthorn spray shall part,
And thou a face shalt see
That comes, O heart, O foolish heart,
This way to gladden thee.
The grass shows fresher on the way
That soon her feet shall tread—
The last year’s leaflet curled and gray,
I could have sworn was dead,
Looks green, for lying in the way
I know her feet will tread.
What hand yon blossom-curtain stirs,
More light than errant air?
I know the touch—’tis hers, ’tis hers!
She parts the thicket there—
The flowerèd branch her coming stirs
Hath perfumed all the air.{40}
The springs of all forgotten years
Are waked to life anew—
Up, up, my eyes, nor fill with tears
As tender as the dew—
I knew her not in all those years;
But life begins anew.
Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart,
This day was made for thee!
Come, Wit, take on thy nimblest art,
And win Love’s victory—
What now? Where art thou, coward heart?
Thy hour is here—and She!
{41}
H. C. Bunner.
THE HOUR OF SHADOWS.
UPON that quiet day that lies
Where forest branches screen the skies,
The spirit of the eve has laid
A deeper and a dreamier shade;
And winds that through the tree-tops blow
Wake not the silent gloom below.
Only the sound of far-off streams,
Faint as our dreams of childhood’s dreams,
Wandering in tangled pathways crost,
Like woodland truants strayed and lost,
Their faint, complaining echoes roam,
Threading the forest toward their home.
O brooks, I too have gone astray,
And left my comrade on the way—
Guide me through aisles where soft you moan,
To some sad spot you know alone,
Where only leaves and nestlings stir,
And I may dream, and dream of Her.
{42}
H. C. Bunner.
CARNATIONS IN WINTER.
YOUR carmine flakes of bloom to-night
The fire of wintry sunsets hold;
Again in dreams you burn to light
A fair Canadian garden old.
The blue north summer over it
Is bland with long ethereal days;
The gleaming martins wheel and flit
Where breaks your sun down orient ways.
There, when the gradual twilight falls,
Through quietudes of dusk afar,
Hermit, antiphonal hermit calls
From hills below the first pale star.
Then, in your passionate love’s foredoom
Once more your spirit stirs the air,
And you are lifted through the gloom
To warm the coils of her dark hair.
{43}
Bliss Carman.
THE EAVESDROPPER.
IN a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple-tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With small innumerable sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.
The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with their shadows on the floor;
And the lost children of the wind
Went straying homeward by our door.{44}
And all the swarthy afternoon
We watched the great deliberate sun
Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
Counting his hilltops one by one.
Then as the purple twilight came
And touched the vines along our eaves,
Another shadow stood without
And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.
The silence fell on my Love’s lips;
Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
With pondering some maze of dream,
Though all the splendid year was glad.
Restless and vague as a gray wind
Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
But hurrying to the open door,
Against the verge of western sky
I saw retreating on the hills,
Looming and sinister and black,
The stealthy figure swift and huge
Of One who strode and looked not back.
{45}
Bliss Carman.
THE IMPOSSIBLE SHE.
FAR away hangs an apple that ripens on high
The latest-born child of old sun-blind July,
Till the summer’s warm kiss as he wooes overhead
Turns its sour heart to sweetness, its wan cheek to red.
But it is not for you, and it is not for me,
Nay, it is not for any who here may be;
For its dawning red sweetness,
That rounds to completeness
Grows moist for the lips that we never may see.
There’s a white rose leaf-cloistered in heavy noon-hush,
And no eyes but the stars tempt its pale face to blush,
In that wilderness garden where, shut from day’s beam,
Fall its fragrant white leaves, light as steps of a dream.{46}
But it is not for you, and it is not for me,
Nay, it is not for any who here may be;
For it sleeps and then wakes
In dew-scented snow-flakes,
As a star for the dusk hair we never may see.
In a green golden valley there grows an elf-girl,
And her lip is red-ripe; and her soul, one rich pearl,
Yields once to one diver a treasure unpriced
As the wine of the Gods or the wine-blood of Christ.
But she is not for you, and she is not for me,
Nay she is not for any who here may be;
For her breast like a moon
Through the rosed air of June
Grows round for his hand whom we never may see.
{47}
Henry Bernard Carpenter.
A DREAM SHAPE.
WITH moon-white hearts that held a gleam
I gathered wild flowers in a dream,
And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood
Was odour of the wildwood bud.
From dew, the starlight arrowed through,
I wrought a woman’s eyes of blue;
The lids, that on her eyeballs lay,
Were rose-pale petals of the May.
I took the music of the breeze,
And water whispering in the trees,
And shaped the soul that breathed below
A woman’s blossom breasts of snow.
Out of a rose-bud’s veins I drew
The fragrant crimsom beating through
The languid lips of her, whose kiss
Was as a poppy’s drowsiness.{48}
Out of the moonlight and the air
I wrought the glory of her hair,
That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay
Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day.
A shadow’s shadow in the glass
Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass;
And, thinking of it now, meseems
We only live within our dreams.
For in that time she was to me
More real than our reality;
More real than Earth, more real than I—
The unreal things that pass and die.
{49}
Madison Cawein.
UNREQUITED.
PASSION? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes—
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz set within the sear
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music-sweet,
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer;
Sweetheart I called her.—When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a glad flower’s fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird,
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
{50}
Madison Cawein.
IN THE WOOD.
THROUGH laughing leaves the sunlight comes,
Turning the green to gold;
The bee about the heather hums,
And the morning air is cold
Here on the breezy woodland side,
Where we two ride.
Through laughing leaves on golden hair,
The sunlight glances down,
And makes a halo round her there,
And crowns her with a crown
Queen of the sunrise and the sun,
As we ride on.
The wanton wind has kissed her face,—
His lips have left a rose,—
He found her cheek so sweet a place
For kisses, I suppose,—
He thought he’d leave a sign, that so
Others might know.{51}
The path grows narrower as we ride
The green boughs close above,
And overhead, and either side,
The wild birds sing of Love:—
But ah, she is not listening
To what they sing!
Till I take up the wild bird’s song
And word by word unfold
Its meaning as we ride along,—
And when my tale is told,
I turn my eyes to hers again,—
And then,—and then,—
(The bridle path more narrow grows,
The leaves shut out the sun;—)
Where the wind’s lips left their one rose
My own leave more than one:—
While the leaves murmur up above,
And laugh for love.
This was the place;—you see the sky
Now ’twixt the branches bare;
About the path the dead leaves lie,
And songless is the air;—
All’s changed since then, for that you know
Was long ago.{52}
Let us ride on! The wind is cold.—
Let us ride on—ride fast!—
’Tis winter, and we know of old
That love could never last
Without the summer and the sun!—
Let us ride on!
{53}
Herbert E. Clarke.
BIRDS AND LOVERS.
I.
O BROWN lark, loving cloud-land best
And sun-smit seas of sky,
Thee does a musical unrest
Drive to rise upward from thy nest
Far fathoms high.
II.
O fluid-fluting blackbird, keep
The midnight of thy wing
Close to my home where leaves grow deep,
Since where two lovers lie asleep
Thou lovest to sing.
{54}
Mortimer Collins.
DAWN.
DAWN, with flusht foot upon the mountain tops,
Stands beckoning to the Sun-god’s golden car,
While on her high clear brow the morning star
Grows fainter, as the silver-misty copse
And rosy river-bend and village white
Feel the strong shafts of light.
The tide of dreams has reached its utter ebb;
The joy of Dawn is in my Lady’s eyes,
Where at her window with a half-surprise
She sees the meadows meshed with fairy web,
And hears the happy skylark, far above,
Singing, I live! I love!
{55}
Mortimer Collins.
LOVE’S POWER.
THE fire is smouldering while the daylight wanes;
Rain taps impatient on the window-panes;
The waves roll high, and the cold wind complains.
The wind complains.
Reluctant start the embers to a blaze;
Among the ashy drifts the red coal plays;
In fairy rings the circling smoke delays.
The smoke delays.
Ah, lonely life! it is the wind’s sad cry;
Ah, only life! calls Echo, floating by;
Ah, love is life! it is my heart’s reply.
My heart’s reply.
Burn low, ye fires that on the hearthstone play!
Beat out your life, O waves in dashing spray!
My heart chants not your monotone to-day.
Oh, not to-day!{56}
I hear no dirge, I see no ashes gray—
Love! love! love! love! its rapture fills the day!
The winter brings to me the bloom of May.
The bloom of May.
{57}
Lydia Avery Coonley.
LAST NIGHT MY LADY TALKED WITH ME.
LAST night my lady talked with me,
As on a green hill I and she
Sat close, where erst alone I stood
Beneath the dusk-leaved ilex-wood.
The earth was gathered to her rest,
Sweet silence lay upon her breast,
Well-nigh asleep, save that she heard
The wandering waters’ silver word.
The sun had kissed the earth’s dark lips
That grow so ruddy ere he dips,
Wine-coloured to his golden rim,
As purple evening pours for him.
Low stooped his head, as he would drink,
Till out of sight we saw him sink,
And with his splendour in our eyes,
Full-orbed we watched the great moon rise.{58}
Rose-tinged in the dim sky shone she
Like Venus from the opal sea,
So grew her glory in our sight,
Till in her face we saw love’s light,
Love’s light in hers, like flame on flame,—
Yea, very Love in presence came,
Between the fires of moon and sun,
He stood, like dawn ere night begun.
Clear-aureoled his golden head,
His eyes our burning hearts well read,
And in the sanctuary of my soul
I won of love the golden goal.
{59}
Walter Crane.
LOVE’S ARROWS.
I SAW young Love make trial of his bow,
In May’s green garden where he shot his dart,
Nor recked if any nigh beheld his art,
But other eyes did mark him as I know;
For my sweet lady sate anear his throw,
And I with her, and joinèd heart to heart,
So that we might not feel the bitter smart
Love leaveth there when time doth force us go.
We heard Love’s arrows falling in the grass,
Or watched them quiver in the targe below;
Yet few to us came nigh, nor might they pass
Beyond our feet, which trembled when they came,
Whose hearts were not the quarry for his aim,
That in Love’s chase fell stricken long ago.
{60}
Walter Crane.
A LOVE SONG.
From the French of Alphonse de Lamartine.
TIME with his jealous icy blast
Will wither all your charms, like sweet flowers past
And dead in winter’s tomb;
Till soft, red lips are kissless, and the joy
They now can give, tho’ now, alas, too coy,
Has perish’d with their bloom.
Yet when your eyes, veil’d in a cloud of tears,
Shall mourn the rigour of the fleeting years,
And see each grace depart,
When in the past, as in a stream, you gaze,
And seek the lovely form of other days,
Look rather in my heart;
There will your beauty flourish years untold,
There will my loyalty watch you as of old,
And keep you still the same;{61}
Just as a golden lamp some holy maid
Might shelter with her hand, while thro’ the shade
She bears the trembling flame.
Oh, when Death smiling comes, as come he must,
And shatters our twin torches in the dust,
A stronger love shall bloom;
Then shall my last sweet resting-place be thine,
And your soft hand clasp’d tenderly in mine,
In our last bed, the tomb.
Or, rather, darling, let us fly away,
Just as upon some glorious autumn day
Two loving swans might rise,
And, still caressing, leave their wonted nest,
And seek for brighter lands, and climes more blest,
And fuller, deeper skies!
{62}
Harry Curwen.
THE PARTING HOUR.
NOT yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high;
You said last night, “At sunset I will go.”
Come to the garden, where, when blossoms die,
No word is spoken; it is better so:
Ah! bitter word, “Farewell.”
Hark how the birds sing sunny songs of spring!
Soon they will build, and work will silence them;
So we grow less light-hearted as years bring
Life’s grave responsibilities—and then
The bitter word “Farewell.”
The violets fret to fragrance ’neath your feet,
Heaven’s gold sunlight dreams aslant your hair:
No flower for me! your mouth is far more sweet.
Oh, let my lips forget, while lingering there,
Love’s bitter word “Farewell.{63}”
. . . . . . . . . .
Sunset already! have we sat so long?
The parting hour, and so much left unsaid!
The garden has grown silent—void of song,
Our sorrow shakes us with a sudden dread!
Ah! bitter word “Farewell.{64}”
Olive Custance.
THE SUNDIAL.
’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain;
In summer crowned with drifting orchard-bloom,
Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,
And white in winter like a marble tomb;
And round about its gray, time-eaten brow
Lean letters speak—a worn and shattered row;
I am a Shade: a Shadow too arte thou:
I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?
Here would the ringdoves linger, head to head;
And here the snail a silver course would run,
Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread
His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.
The tardy shade moved forward to the noon;
Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept,
That swung a flower, and, smiling, hummed a tune,—
Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.{65}
O’er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed,
About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone;
And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed,
Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.
She leaned upon the slab a little while,
Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone,
Scribbled a something with a frolic smile,
Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.
The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail;
There came a second lady in the place,
Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale—
An inner beauty shining from her face.
She, as if listless with a lonely love,
Straying among the alleys with a book,—
Herrick or Herbert,—watched the circling dove,
And spied the tiny letter in the nook.
Then, like to one who confirmation found
Of some dread secret half accounted true,—
Who knew what hands and hearts the letter bound,
And argued loving commerce ’twixt the two,{66}
She bent her fair young forehead on the stone,
The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head;
And ’twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone
The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed.
The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom;
There came a soldier gallant in her stead,
Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume,
A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head;
Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow,
Scar-seamed a little, as the women love;
So kindly fronted that you marvel how
The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his glove;
Who switched at Psyche plunging in the sun;
Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge;
And standing somewhat widely, like to one
More used to “Boot and Saddle” than to cringe{67}
As courtiers do, but gentleman withal,
Took out the note; held it as one who feared
The fragile thing he held would slip and fall;
Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard;
Kissed it, I think, and hid it in his breast;
Laughed softly in a flattered happy way,
Arranged the broidered baldrick on his chest,
And sauntered past, singing a roundelay.
. . . . . . . . . .
The shade crept forward through the dying glow;
There came no more nor dame nor cavalier;
But for a little time the brass will show
A small gray spot—the record of a tear.
{68}
Austin Dobson.
SPRING SONG.
HERALD of peace and joy,
Lone on the bough;
Minstrel without alloy.
What flutest thou?
Violet, hiding low,
Fragrant and shy,
What message bearest thou
Voiced in thy sigh?
Buds that unloose your hasp
Long cased in mail,
Wrest from grim Winter’s grasp,
Freed from his pale;
Brooklets, swift hurrying,
Purling your chime.
What is the theme ye sing
Endless as Time?{69}
“We sing the sun,” they say,
“We sing the spring;
Love crowns our holyday,
Love is our king.”
E’en so the thought of Thee
Rapture doth bring,
Yielding delight to me
Dearer than spring;
Blither than robin’s strain,
Fairer than flowers;
Fresh as the vernal rain,
Bright as the hours.
Thy smile my sun, I ween,
Thine eyes my May:
All thy sweet grace, my Queen,
Fondly, I pray,
Grant me to keep and hold
Fast in love’s shrine,—
Spring may no joys unfold
Art thou not mine!
{70}
George H. Ellwanger.
TO JESSIE’S DANCING FEET.
HOW, as a spider’s web is spun
With subtle grace and art,
Do thy light footsteps, every one,
Cross and recross my heart!
Now here, now there, and to and fro,
Their winding mazes turn;
Thy fairy feet so lightly go
They seem the earth to spurn.
Yet every step leaves there behind
A something, when you dance,
That serves to tangle up my mind
And all my soul entrance.
How, as the web the spiders spin
And wanton breezes blow,
Thy soft and filmy laces in
A swirl around thee flow!
The cobweb ’neath thy chin that’s crossed
Remains demurely put,
While those are ever whirled and tossed
That show thy saucy foot:{71}
That show the silver grayness of
Thy stocking’s silken sheen,
And mesh of snowy skirts above
The silver that is seen.
How, as the spider from his web
Dangles in light suspense,
Do thy sweet measures’ flow and ebb
Sway my enraptured sense!
Thy flutt’ring lace, thy dainty airs,
Thy every charming pose—
There are not more alluring snares
To bind me with than those.
Swing on! Sway on! With easy grace
Thy witching steps repeat!
The love I dare not—to thy face—
I offer at thy feet.
{72}
W. D. Ellwanger.
A LOVE SONG.
OH, to think, oh, to think as I see her stand there
With the rose that I plucked in her glorious hair,
In the robe that I love.
So demure and so neat,
I am lord of her lips and her eyes and her feet.
Oh, to think, oh, to think when the last hedge is leapt,
When the blood is awakened that dreamingly slept,
I shall make her heart throb
In its cradle of lace,
As the lord of her hair and her breast and her face.
Oh, to think, oh, to think when our wedding-bells ring,
When our love’s at the summer but life’s at the spring,
I shall guard her asleep
As my hound guards her glove,
Being lord of her life and her heart and her love!
{73}
Norman R. Gale.
A SONG.
I WILL not say my true love’s eyes
Outshine the noblest star;
But in their depth of lustre lies
My peace, my truce, my war.
I will not say upon her neck
Is white to shame the snow;
For if her bosom hath a speck
I would not have it go.
My love is as a woman sweet,
And as a woman white;
Who’s more than this is more than meet
For me and my delight.
{74}
Norman R. Gale.
A NOCTURNE.
KEEN winds of cloud and vaporous drift
Disrobe yon star, as ghosts that lift
A snowy curtain from its place,
To scan a pillowed beauty’s face.
They see her slumbering splendours lie
Bedded on blue unfathomed sky,
And swoon for love and deep delight,
And stillness falls on all the night.
{75}
Richard Garnett.
VIOLETS.
COLD blows the wind against the hill,
And cold upon the plain;
I sit me by the bank, until
The violets come again.
Here sat we when the grass was set
With violets shining through,
And leafing branches spread a net
To hold a sky of blue.
The trumpet clamoured from the plain,
The cannon rent the sky;
I cried, O Love, come back again,
Before the violets die!
But they are dead upon the hill,
And he upon the plain;
I sit me by the bank, until
My violets come again.
{76}
Richard Garnett.
A YEAR.
WHEN the hot wasp hung in the grape last year,
And tendrils withered and leaves grew sear,
There was little to hope and nothing to fear,
And the smouldering autumn sank apace,
And my heart was hollow and cold and drear.
When the last gray moth that November brings
Had folded its sallow and sombre wings,
Like the tuneless voice of a child that sings,
A music arose in that desolate place,
A broken music of hopeless things.
But time went by with the month of snows,
And the pulse and tide of that music rose;
As a pain that fades is a pleasure that grows,
So hope sprang up with a heart of grace,
And love as a crocus-bud that blows.{77}
And now I know when next autumn has dried
The sweet hot juice to the grape-skin’s side,
And the new wasps dart where the old ones died,
My heart will have rest in one luminous face,
And its longing and yearning be satisfied.
{78}
Edmund William Gosse.
I’VE KISSED THEE, SWEETHEART.
From the French of Théophile de Viau.
I’VE kissed thee, sweetheart, in a dream at least,
And though the core of love is in me still,
This joy, that in my sense did softly thrill,
The ardour of my longing hath appeased,
And by this tender strife my spirit, eased,
Can laugh at that sweet theft against thy will,
And, half consoled, I soothe myself until
I find my heart from all its pain released.
My senses, hushed, begin to fall on sleep;
Slumber, for which two weary nights I weep,
Takes thy dear place at last within mine eyes;
And though so cold he is, as all men vow,
For me he breaks his natural icy guise,
And shows himself more warm and fond than thou.
{79}
Edmund William Gosse.
COMPLAINT.
MEN, women, call thee so and so;
I do not know.
Thou hast no name
For me, but in my heart a flame
Burns tireless, ’neath a silver vine;
And round entwine
Its purple girth
All things of fragrance and of worth.
Thou shout! thou burst of light! thou throb
Of pain! thou sob!
Thou like a bar
Of some sonata, heard from far
Through blue-hued veils! When in these wise,
To my soul’s eyes
Thy shape appears,
My aching hands are full of tears.
{80}
John Gray.
HEART’S DEMESNE.
LISTEN, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes
Made never answer when my eyes did pray,
Than with those quaintest looks of blank surprise.
But my lovelonging hath devised a way
To mock thy living image, from thy hair
To thy rose toes; and keep thee by alway.
My garden’s face is, oh! so maidly fair,
With limbs all tapering, and with hues all fresh;
Thine are the beauties all that flourish there.
Amaranth, fadeless, tells me of thy flesh.
Briar-rose knows thy cheek, the Pink thy pout,
Bunched kisses dangle from the Woodbine mesh.
I love to loll, when Daisy stars peep out,
And hear the music of my garden dell,
Hollyhock’s laughter and the Sunflower’s shout,—
And many whisper things I dare not tell.
{81}
John Gray.
IN THE EVENING.
From the Italian of Countess Lara.
I SIT alone and watch the cinders glare,
Or hear the pine-logs crackling sharp and low.
I wait him still; he went not long ago,
Humming a tune, his cigarette aflare.
He was called out by some most grave affair;
His friends, on cards intent, would have it so;
Or some new singer’s style he fain would know,
Who with false graces mars a grand old air.
And for such things as these he stays away,
Till midnight passes, and, at one, the bell
Booms from the neighbouring church its single flight;
Then gaily he returns, and half in play
Kisses me lightly, asks if I am well,
And never dreams that I have wept all night.
{82}
G. A. Greene.
WHEN THE LEAVES FALL IN AUTUMN.
From the Italian of Lorenzo Stecchetti.
WHEN the leaves fall in autumn, and you go
To seek the cross that marks my lonely grave,
In that far corner where they laid me low
The nodding wild-flowers o’er my bones shall wave.
Oh, pluck you then, to deck your golden hair,
The flowers born of my heart which blossom there:
They are the songs I dreamed, but ne’er have sung,
The words of love you heard not on my tongue.
{83}
G. A. Greene.
“QUI SAIT AIMER, SAIT MOURIR.”
“I burn my soul away!”
So spake the Rose and smiled; “within my cup
All day the sunbeams fall in flame, all day
They drink my sweetness up!”
“I sigh my soul away!”
The Lily said; “all night the moonbeams pale
Steal round and round me, whispering in their play
An all too tender tale!”
“I give my soul away!”
The Violet said; “the West wind wanders on,
The North wind comes; I know not what they say,
And yet my soul is gone!”
O Poet, burn away
Thy fervent soul! fond Lover at the feet
Of her thou lovest, sigh! dear Christian, pray,
And let the world be sweet!
{84}
Dora Greenwell.
SONG.
IF love were like a thrush’s song,
Ah me! ah me!
I’d list his tale the whole day long,
Ah me!
I’d never know how time went by,
I’d never guess that time will die;
Rapt in that living ecstasy,
Ah me! ah me!
I’d list a glorious life along
If love were but a thrush’s song.
But love is fierce and love is fain,
Ah me! ah me!
Love has one bitter sweet refrain,
Ah me!
Love knows of anguish every tone,
Love knows of joy but hope alone,
Love knows of hope that hope is flown,
Ah me! ah me!
Love! poor fierce Love, by storm winds driven,
Love is earth’s vain desire for heaven,
Ah me!
{85}
A. Stepney Gulston.
O KNIGHT, IF THOU A LADY HAST.
O KNIGHT, if thou a lady hast,
Gentle and loving, high and true,
Cling to her, live for her, die for her, too,
Swerve not from her while life shall last—
O knight, if thou a lady hast.
But if thou, knight, no lady hast,
Kind as courteous, fair as fond,
So grasp the joyless pilgrim’s wand,
Go high, go wide, go far and fast—
Till thou e’en such a lady hast.
{86}
Gertrude Hall.
AT LAST.
WHEN I shall stand before the judgment throne,
At that last hour when all things pass away,
And see beneath me there the vast array
Of souls who wait their life deeds to atone,
And there before the face of God, alone
Appear, and hear His awful voice then say,
“Throughout thy life, until thy dying day,
Is there not any good deed thou hast done?”
And I shall answer, “Nay, I cannot tell;
But this there is: I loved with all my heart,
Above mine own, one soul; was that not well?
On earth my love brought only bitter smart,
And there I felt the pangs of Thy dread Hell;
From her, my Heaven, bid me not now depart!{87}”
William C. Hall.
THE OLD IS BETTER.
ALONE, alone, thro’ the sunny street,
In the shadow of a dream,
The forms and faces I pass and meet
In a mist and darkness seem.
The old gray houses stand a-row,
Their windows blink and stare,
The sparrows chirp on the lilac bough
From the garden in the square.
The busy mower whets his scythe,
He hums a cheery rhyme;
The wild bees murmur, and drowse and dive
In the blossom of the lime.
The forms and faces that come and go,
They flicker and wane and gleam,
As I walk through the streets of long ago
In the shadow of a dream.
The faces waver and fade away;
While under the lilac bough
Upspringeth the aspect, bright and gay,
Of a face I used to know.{88}
I see her stand, and she calls my name,
And my heart and pulses glow
As the old life starts like a buried flame,
And the new life flickers low.
The present darkens and faints and fades,
And the old-loved smiles shine through;
The living wander, like ghostly shades,
And the lost are born anew.
And my soul with the joy of its calm is rife,
As I bask in my after-glow,
For I loved my love, and I lived my life
In the days of long ago.
{89}
Mary L. Hankin.
BALLADE OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS.
WITH a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmurous linger and gaze—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!{90}
There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich ripe rose as with incense steams—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights,
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
And it’s O! for my dear and the charm that stays—
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
It’s O! for my Love and the dark that plights—
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
{91}
W. E. Henley.
OH, GATHER ME THE ROSE.
OH, gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.
For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed forborne forever,
The worm regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.
So well it were to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us and above,
The dark before and after.
The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,
The memories that follow!
{92}
W. E. Henley.
HER DREAM.
FOLD your arms around me, Sweet,
As against your heart my heart doth beat.
Kiss me, Love, till it fade,—the fright
Of the dreadful dream I dreamt last night.
Oh, thank God, it is you, it is you,
My own love, fair and strong and true.
We two are the same that, yesterday,
Played in the light and tost the hay.
My hair you stroke, O dearest one,
Is alive with youth and bright with the sun.
Tell me again, Love, how I seem
“The prettiest queen of curds and cream.”
Fold me close and kiss me again;
Kiss off the shadow of last night’s pain.{93}
I dreamt last night, as I lay in bed,
That I was old and that you were dead.
I knew you had died long time ago,
And I well recalled the moan and woe.
You had died in your beautiful youth, my sweet;
You had gone to your rest with untired feet;
And I had prayed to come to you,
To lay me down and slumber too.
But it might not be, and the days went on,
And I was all alone, alone.
The women came so neighbourly,
And kissed my face and wept with me;
And the men stood still to see me pass,
And smiled grave smiles, and said, “Poor lass!”
Sometimes I seemed to hear your feet,
And my grief-numbed heart would wildly beat;
And I stopt and named my darling’s name—
But never a word of answer came.
The men and women ceased at last
To pity pain that was of the past;{94}
For pain is common, and grief, and loss;
And many come home by Weeping Cross.
Why do I tell you this, my dear?
Sorrow is gone now you are here.
You and I, we sit in the light,
And fled is the horror of yesternight.
The time went on, and I saw one day
My body was bent and my hair was gray.
But the boys and girls a-whispering
Sweet tales in the sweet light of the spring,
Never paused in the tales they told
To say, “He is dead and she is old.”
There’s a place in the churchyard where, I thought,
Long since my lover had been brought;
It had sunk with years from a high green mound
To a level no stranger would have found;
But I—I always knew the spot;
How could I miss it, know it not?
Darling, darling, draw me near,
For I cannot shake off the dread and fear.{95}
Fold me so close I scarce can breathe;
And kiss me, for, lo, above, beneath,
The blue sky fades, and the green grass dries,
And the sunshine goes from my lips and eyes.
O God—that dream—it has not fled—
One of us old, and one of us dead!
{96}
Emily H. Hickey.
SONG.
HOW many lips have uttered one sweet word—
Ever the sweetest word in any tongue!
How many listening hearts have wildly stirred,
While burning blushes to the soft cheeks sprung,
And dear eyes, deepening with a light divine,
Were lifted up, as thine are now to mine!
How oft the night, with silence and perfume,
Has hushed the world that heart might speak to heart,
And make in each dim haunt of leafy gloom
A trysting-place where love might meet and part,
And kisses fall unseen on lips and brow,
As on thine, sweet! my kisses linger now!
{97}
Charles Lotin Hildreth.
THE TRYST.
SWEET as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep
The silver gloaming melted into gloom,
Then came the evening silence rich and deep,
With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume;
The few first stars shone in the azure pale,
Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil.
Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet?
Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse,
Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat!
I needed not the light to find thy lips,
Nor in the balmy hush of even-time,
To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme.
{98}
Charles Lotin Hildreth.
BY ONE RAPT DAY.
BY one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete,
And from dream wings in memory’s light caressed
Fans calms of joy into my burning breast.
It is that day when Love bowed at thy feet,
And all the noontide in a rush of heat
Rippled with whispers of thy love confessed;
And larks afar sank down with sobs of rest,
Finding their carol heights in thee complete.
The day when, midst the well-known Sussex wood,
Stream music kissed the spirit of the wold
And sang the sun to rest, mingling its gold
With heather-bell and oak, and, rapt in moods
Of melody and shy sweet interludes,
Held our soul’s transport still with joys untold.
{99}
A. Ernest Hinshelwood.
THE DILEMMA.
NOW, by the blessed Paphian queen,
Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen;
By every name I cut on bark
Before my morning star grew dark;
By Hymen’s torch, by Cupid’s dart,
By all that thrills the beating heart;
The bright black eye, the melting blue,—
I cannot choose between the two.
I had a vision in my dreams;—
I saw a row of twenty beams;
From every beam a rope was hung,
In every rope a lover swung;
I asked the hue of every eye
That bade each luckless lover die;
Ten shadowy lips said heavenly blue,
And ten accused the darker hue.{100}
I asked a matron which she deemed
With fairest light of beauty beamed;
She answered, some thought both were fair,—
Give her blue eyes and golden hair.
I might have liked her judgment well,
But, as she spoke, she rung the bell,
And all her girls, nor small nor few,
Came marching in,—their eyes were blue.
I asked a maiden; back she flung
The locks that round her forehead hung,
And turned her eye, a glorious one,
Bright as a diamond in the sun,
On me, until beneath its rays
I felt as if my hair would blaze;
She liked all eyes but eyes of green;
She looked at me, what could she mean?
Ah! many lids Love lurks between,
Nor heeds the colouring of his screen;
And when his random arrows fly,
The victim falls, but knows not why.
Gaze not upon his shield of jet,
The shaft upon the string is set;
Look not beneath his azure veil,
Though every limb were cased in mail.{101}
Well both might make a martyr break
The chain that bound him to the stake;
And both with but a single ray
Can melt our very hearts away;
And both, when balanced, hardly seem
To stir the scales, or rock the beam;
But that is dearest, all the while,
That wears for us the sweetest smile.
{102}
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
THE MEASURE.
BETWEEN the pansies and the rye
Flutters my purple butterfly;
Between her white brow and her chin,
Does Love his fairy wake begin:
By poppy-cups and drifts of heather,
Dances the sun and she together.
But o’er the scarlet of her mouth
Whence those entreated words come forth,
Love hovers all the livelong day,
And cannot, through its spell, away;
But there, where he was born, must die
Between the pansies and the rye.
{103}
Herbert P. Horne.
TWO TRUTHS.
“Darling,” he said, “I never meant
To hurt you;” and his eyes were wet.
“I would not hurt you for the world:
Am I to blame if I forget?”
“Forgive my selfish tears!” she cried,
“Forgive! I knew that it was not
Because you meant to hurt me, sweet,—
I knew it was that you forgot!”
But all the same, deep in her heart
Rankled this thought, and rankles yet,—
“When love is at its best, one loves
So much that he cannot forget.{104}”
Helen Hunt.
A PRAYER.
DEAR, let me dream of love,
Ah! though a dream it be!
I’ll ask no boon above
A word, a smile from thee:
At most, in some still hour, one kindly thought of me.
Sweet, let me gaze awhile
Into those radiant eyes!
I’ll scheme not to beguile
The heart, that deeper lies
Beneath them than yon star in night’s pellucid skies.
Love, let my spirit bow
In worship at thy shrine!
I’ll swear thou shalt not know
One word from lip of mine,
An instant’s pain to send through that shy soul of thine.
{105}
Selwyn Image.
A JUNE STORM.
SULLENLY fell the rain while under the oak we stood;
It hissed in the leaves above us, and big drops plashed to the ground,
And a horror of darkness fell over river and field and wood,
Where the trees were huddling together like children scared by a sound.
Then suddenly rang a note from a wildbird out of the trees
In quick response to a sunbeam, and lo, o’erhead it was fair,
And sweet was the smell of the meadow, and pleasant the hum of the bees,
As we look’d in each other’s eyes—and the raindrops shone in your hair.
{106}
Henry Jenner.
DOLCINO TO MARGARET.
THE world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again,
Sweet wife;
No, never come over again.
For woman is warm, though man be cold,
And the night will hallow the day;
Till the heart which at even was weary and old
Can rise in the morning gay,
Sweet wife;
To its work in the morning gay.
{107}
Charles Kingsley.
A BALLADE OF WAITING.
NO girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought
So rich as the arms of my love can be;
No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught
Than her eyes when they answer me liquidly.
Dear lady of love, be kind to me
In days when the waters of hope abate,
And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught
No glitter of wile or traitorie,
More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught,
Or the heart of a crimson peony;
Oh, turn not its beauty away from me;
To kiss it and cling to it early and late
Shall make sweet minutes of days that flee,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.{108}
Rich hair, that a painter of old had sought
For the weaving of some soft phantasy,
Most fair when the streams of it run distraught
On the firm sweet shoulders yellowly;
Dear Lady, gather it close to me,
Weaving a nest for the double freight
Of cheeks and lips that are one and free,
For the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
ENVOY.
SO time shall be swift till thou mate with me,
For love is mightiest next to fate,
And none shall be happier, Love, than we,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
{109}
Archibald Lampman.
A FORECAST.
WHAT days await this woman whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart’s least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man’s desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
{110}
Archibald Lampman.
AN OLD TUNE.
From the French of Gérard de Nerval.
THERE is an air for which I would disown
Mozart’s, Rossini’s, Weber’s melodies,—
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
And keeps its secret charm for me alone.
Whene’er I hear that music vague and old,
Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;
The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
A green land golden in the dying day.
An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
The windows gay with many-coloured glass,
Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,
That bathe the castle basement as they pass.
In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
A lady looks forth from her window high;
It may be that I knew and found her fair,
In some forgotten life, long time gone by.
{111}
Andrew Lang.
GOOD-BYE.
KISS me, and say good-bye;
Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,
Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
Kiss me, and say good-bye.
Farewell, be glad, forget;
There is no need to say “forget,” I know,
For youth is youth, and time will have it so,
And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,
Farewell, you must forget.
You shall bring home your sheaves,
Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
Of memories that go not out of mind;
Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
When you bring home your sheaves.{112}
In garnered loves of thine,
The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,
Somewhere let this lie, gray and salt with tears;
It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine
Of life, this love of mine.
This sheaf was spoiled in spring,
And over-long was green, and early sear,
And never gathered gold in the late year
From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,
But failed in frosts of spring.
Yet was it thine, my sweet,
This love, though weak as young corn withered,
Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;—
Forget not quite, my sweet.
{113}
Andrew Lang.
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
I SHALL not see thee, nay, but I shall know
Perchance, thy gray eyes in another’s eyes,
Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow
On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise
Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise
Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,
When through the scent of heather, faint and low,
The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.
From all sweet art, and out of all “old rhyme,”
Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;
The shadows of the beauty of all time,
Carven and sung are only shapes of thee;
Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet, my dear,
Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
{114}
Andrew Lang.
A BALLADE OF OLD SWEETHEARTS.
WHO is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers
When the wood is aflame with the fires of spring,
And we hear her voice in the lilac bowers
As she croons the runes of the blossoming?
For the same old blooms do the new years bring,
But not to our lives do the years come so,
New lips must kiss and new bosoms cling.—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
Ah me! for a breath of those morning hours
When Alice and I went a-wandering
Through the shining fields, and it still was ours
To kiss and to feel we were shuddering—
Ah me! when a kiss was a holy thing.—
How sweet were a smile from Maud, and oh!
With Phyllis once more to be whispering.—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.{115}
But it cannot be that old Time devours
Such loves as was Annie’s and mine we sing,
And surely beneficent heavenly powers
Save Muriel’s beauty from perishing;
And if in some golden evening
To a quaint old garden I chance to go,
Shall Marion no more by the wicket sing?—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
In these lives of ours do the new years bring
Old loves as old flowers again to blow?
Or do new lips kiss and new bosoms cling?—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
{116}
Richard Le Gallienne.
IN THE MILE-END ROAD.
HOW like her! But ’tis she herself
Comes up the crowded street;
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet!
Whose else that motion and that mien?
Whose else that airy tread?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.
{117}
Amy Levy.
LOVE AFRAID.
I DARED not lead my arm around
Her dainty waist;
I dared not seek her lips, that mine
Hunger’d to taste:
I dared not, for such awe I found,
O Love divine!
I trembled as my eager hand
Her light touch graced;
And when her fond look answer’d mine,
I dared not haste,
But waited, holding my demand
For farther sign.
Sweet mouth, that with so sweet a sound
My dread hath chased,
And to my lips the holy wine,
Love’s vintage, placed!
Dear heart, that ever now will bound
Or rest with mine!
{118}
W. J. Linton.
TO MY MISTRESS.
COUNTESS, I see the flying year,
And feel how Time is wasting here:
Ay, more, he soon his worst will do,
And garner all your roses too.
It pleases Time to fold his wings
Around our best and fairest things;
He’ll mar your blooming cheek, as now
He stamps his mark upon my brow.
The same mute planets rise and shine
To rule your days and nights as mine:
Once I was young and gay, and see—
What I am now you soon will be.
And yet I boast a certain charm
That shields me from your worst alarm;
And bids me gaze, with front sublime,
On all these ravages of Time.{119}
You boast a gift to charm the eyes,
I boast a gift that Time defies:
For mine will still be mine, and last
When all your pride of beauty’s past.
My gift may long embalm the lures
Of eyes—ah, sweet to me as yours!
For ages hence the great and good
Will judge you as I choose they should.
In days to come the peer or clown,
With whom I still shall win renown,
Will only know that you were fair
Because I chanced to say you were.
Proud Lady! Scornful beauty mocks
At aged heads and silver locks;
But think awhile before you fly,
Or spurn a poet such as I.
{120}
Frederick Locker.
IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY.
THE sun is bright,—the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The bluebird prophesying spring.
So blue yon winding river flows,
It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where waiting till the west-wind blows,
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.
All things are new,—the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves;—
There are no birds in last year’s nest!
All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.{121}
Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O, it is not always May!
Enjoy the spring of Love and Youth,
To some good angel leave the rest;
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year’s nest.
{122}
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
ET MELLE ET FELLE.
WHAT hast thou done to me,
Girl, with the dream in thine eyes?
Brightened the sun to me,
Lightened the skies;
Made there be one to me,
One only sun to me
Not in the skies.
What hast thou done to me,
Girl, with the dream in thine eyes?
Darkened the sun to me,
Blackened the skies;
Made there be none to me,
Nor star nor sun to me,
Only black skies.
{123}
Love in a Mist.
A SONG OF LOVE.
IF in thine eyes
I saw that softer light
That in the skies
Doth herald spring’s delight,
Ah, love, how loud my heart should sing,
Ev’n as the blackbird to the spring!
If on thy cheek
I saw that warm hue play
That doth bespeak
The dawn of a new day,
Ah, love, how like the lark should rise
My soul in rapture to the skies!
If from thy mouth
I heard such whisper low
As from the South
Doth through the pine-woods blow,
How should my whole soul murmur through
With music, as the pine-woods do!
{124}
Love Lies Bleeding.
THE LONELY LANDSCAPE.
THE place again—
The wooded heights—the widening plain—
The whispering pines—the dry-leaved oaks, too young
To cast their dead dreams ere the new be sprung!
What profits it
Alone on this prone slope to sit
Where thou didst press the heath,—and see how dun
The landscape seems, lit only by the sun?
Yet, ah! not vain
To visit thy fair haunts again—
To trace thy footsteps by the upturned stone,
And conjure back thy looks, thy words, thy tone!
Like music fine
That simple seeming speech of thine
Hath in it soft harmonics, only heard
When from the memory fades the uttered word.{125}
And to mine eyes
Undazzled by thyself, doth rise
An image lovelier and more like to thee
Than even thy bodily self which sight can see.
Ah! The wind shakes
The withered leaves, and Love awakes,
And to the vacant landscape cries in vain:
“Ah, heaven! to have her at my side again!{126}”
Love Lies Bleeding.
THE OUTCAST.
THOU wilt come back again, but not for me,
Fair little face!
Thou wilt come back, but, ah! I may not see
That day of grace.
No sword is at the Eden’s gate I leave;
But viewless hands
Have thrust me into endless night, to grieve
In loveless lands.
Thou wilt come back: thy footsteps make the spring,
And birds sing round;
But I, in wilderness wandering,
Shall hear no sound;
Save as far off the traveller athirst
In desert lands,
Hears waters that he may not reach, accursed
In endless sands.
{127}
Love Lies Bleeding.
AUF WIEDERSEHEN!
SUMMER.
THE little gate was reached at last,
Half hid in lilacs down the lane;
She pushed it wide, and, as she past,
A wistful look she backward cast,
And said,—“Auf wiedersehen!”
With hand on latch, a vision white
Lingered reluctant, and again
Half doubting if she did aright,
Soft as the dews that fell that night,
She said,—“Auf wiedersehen!”
The lamp’s clear gleam flits up the stair;
I linger in delicious pain;
Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air
To breathe in thought I scarcely dare,
Thinks she,—“Auf wiedersehen!{128}”
’Tis thirteen years; once more I press
The turf that silences the lane;
I hear the rustle of her dress,
I smell the lilacs, and—ah, yes,
I hear “Auf wiedersehen!”
Sweet piece of bashful maiden art!
The English words had seemed too fain,
But these—they drew us heart to heart,
Yet held us tenderly apart;
She said,—“Auf wiedersehen!”
PALINODE.
AUTUMN.
STILL thirteen years: ’tis autumn now
On field and hill, in heart and brain;
The naked trees at evening sough;
The leaf to the forsaken bough
Sighs not,—“We meet again!”
Two watched yon oriole’s pendent dome,
That now is void, and dank with rain,
And one,—O, hope more frail than foam!
The bird to his deserted home
Sings not,—“We meet again!{129}”
The loath gate swings with rusty creak;
Once, parting there, we played at pain;
There came a parting, when the weak
And fading lips essayed to speak
Vainly,—“We meet again!”
Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,
Though thou in outer dark remain;
One sweet sad voice ennobles death,
And still for eighteen centuries saith
Softly,—“Ye meet again!”
If earth another grave must bear,
Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain,
And something whispers my despair,
That, from an orient chamber there,
Floats down, “We meet again!{130}”
James Russell Lowell.
SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN.”
YES, but the years run circling fleeter,
Ever they pass me—I watch, I wait—
Ever I dream, and awake to meet her;
She cometh never, or comes too late.
Should I press on? for the day grows shorter—
Ought I to linger? the far end nears;
Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her
On the bright sky-line of the gathering years.
Now that the shadows are eastward sloping,
As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun,
Cometh a thought—It is past all hoping,
Look not ahead, she is missed and gone.{131}
Here on the ridge of my upward travel
Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales,
Sadly I turn, and would fain unravel
The entangled maze of a search that fails.
When and where have I seen and passed her?
What are the words I forgot to say?
Should we have met had a boat rowed faster?
Should we have loved had I stayed that day?
Was it her face that I saw, and started,
Gliding away in a train that crossed?
Was it a form that I once, faint-hearted,
Followed awhile in a crowd, and lost?
Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping
Under the moon through the landscape hushed?
Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping,
Saw but a hamlet—and on we rushed.
Listen and linger—She yet may find me
In the last faint flush of the waning light—
Never a step on the path behind me;
I must journey alone, to the lonely night.{132}
But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder,
A fading figure, with eyes that wait,
Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder,
“He cometh never, or comes too late”?
{133}
Sir Alfred Lyall.
IF ...?
SO you but love me, be it your own way,
In your own time, no sooner than you will,
No warmer than you would from day to day,
But love me still!
Each day that still you love me seems to me
A little fairer than the day before;
For, daily given, love’s least must daily be
A little more.
And be my most gain’d your least given, if such
Your sweet will be! I reckon not the cost,
Nor count the gain, by little or by much,
Or least or most.
Little or much, to me the gift I crave
Is all in all. There is not any measure
Of more or less can gauge the need I have
Of that dear treasure.{134}
So you but love me, tho’ your love be cold,
Mine it can chill not. Tho’ your love come late,
Mine for its coming, by sweet dreams foretold,
Will dreaming wait.
Yet ah, if some fair chance, before I die,
One hour of waking life might let me live,
Rich with the dream’d-of dear reality
’Tis yours to give!
Your whole sweet self, with your sweet self’s whole love!
Those eyes of fire and dew, those lips wish-haunted,
Those feet whose steps like elfin music move
Thro’ worlds enchanted!
Your whole sweet self! The unutter’d thoughts that stir
Your lonest musings with light wings unheard,
And feelings that find no interpreter
In deed or word!
Your whole sweet self, that till by love reveal’d
Even to yourself still half unknown must be!
For of the wealth in souls like yours conceal’d
Love keeps the key.{135}
Ah, if your whole sweet self, by all the power
Of your sweet self’s whole love in some divine
Far distant hour made wholly yours, that hour
Made wholly mine,
And if in that blest hour all dreams came true,
All doubts dissolved, all fears were whirl’d away
In one wild storm of tendernesses new
As time’s first day,
What should we both be? Hush! I do not dare
Even to hear my own heart’s whisper utter’d.
Be its sole answerer the silent air
This sigh has flutter’d!
{136}
Robert, Lord Lytton.
OMENS AND ORACLES.
ALL the phantoms of the future, all the spectres of the past,
In the wakeful night came round me, sighing, crying, “Fool, beware!
Check the feeling o’er thee stealing! Let thy first love be thy last!
Or, if love again thou must, at least this fatal love forbear!”
Marah Amara!
Now the dark breaks. Now the lark wakes. Now their voices fleet away.
And the breeze about the blossom, and the ripple in the reed,
And the beams and buds and birds begin to whisper, sing, or say,
“Love her, love her, for she loves thee!” And I know not which to heed.
Cara Amara!
{137}
Robert, Lord Lytton.
THE GARDEN OF MEMORY.
THERE is a certain garden where I know
That flowers flourish in a poet’s spring,
Where aye young birds their amorous matins sing,
And never ill wind comes, nor any snow.
But if you wonder where so fair a show,
Where such eternal pleasure may be seen,
I say, my memory keeps that garden green,
Wherein I loved my first love long ago.
{138}
Justin Huntly McCarthy.
IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN.
IF I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
Pacing it wearily, wearily,
From chapel to cell till day were done
Wearily, wearily,
Oh! how would it be with these hearts of ours,
That need the sunshine and smiles and flowers?
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins’ call,
Morning foul or fair;
Such prayer as from lifeless lips may fall—
Words, but hardly prayer;
Vainly trying the thoughts to raise
Which in the sunshine would burst in praise.
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
The God revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon,
Painfully kneeling;
Or in thy chamber’s still solitude,
Bending thy head o’er the legend rude.{139}
I, in a cool and lonely nook,
Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book
Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or on the parchment margin unrolled,
Painting quaint pictures in purple and gold.
Perchance in slow procession to meet,
Wearily, wearily;
In an antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
Wearily, wearily;
Thy dark eyes lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again.
Sunshine and air! warmness and spring!
Merrily, merrily!
Back to its cell each weary thing,
Wearily, wearily!
And the heart so withered and dry and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold.
Thou on thy knees at the vespers’ call,
Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!{140}
Then to the lone couch at death of day,
Wearily, wearily;
Rising at midnight again to pray
Wearily, wearily;
And if through the dark those eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin.
And then when thy spirit was passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily;
The earth-born dwelling returning to clay,
Sleepily, sleepily;
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm face to thy cold cheek pressed.
And when my spirit was passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily;
The gray head lying ’mong ashes gray
Sleepily, sleepily;
No hovering angel-woman above
Waiting to clasp me in deathless love.
But now, beloved, thy hand in mine,
Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm around thee, my lips on thine,
Lovingly, lovingly,—
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?
{141}
George Macdonald.
A BALLADE OF COLOURS.
SHE went with morning down the wood
Between the green and blue;
The sunlight on the grass was good,
And all the year was new.
There Love came o’er the flowers to her,
A goodly sight to see
From crownèd hair to wing-feather;
“Arise and come with me.”
She walked with him in Paradise
Between the white and red,
With Love’s own kiss between her eyes,
Love’s crown upon her head.
Why two in heaven should not be thus
For ever, who may know?
Love spread his wings most glorious;
“Arise,” he said, “I go.{142}”
She came and sate down silently
Between the gray and gray;
The wet wind beat the leafless tree,
And Love was gone away.
The woodland breaks to flower anew,
The days bring back the year;
But how am I to comfort you,
My dear, my dear, my dear?
{143}
J. W. Mackail.
MY AMAZON.
I.
MY Love is a lady fair and free,
A lady fair from over the sea,
And she hath eyes that pierce my breast
And rob my spirit of peace and rest.
II.
A YOUTHFUL warrior, warm and young,
She takes me prisoner with her tongue;
Aye! and she keeps me—on parole—
Till paid the ransom of my soul.
III.
I SWEAR the foeman, arm’d for war
From cap-à-pie, with many a scar,
More mercy finds for prostrate foe
Than she who deals me never a blow.
{144}
IV.
AND so ’twill be, this many a day;
She comes to wound, if not to slay.
But in my dreams—in honeyed sleep—
’Tis I to smile, and she to weep!
{145}
Eric Mackay.
CHANGED LOVE.
WHEN did the change come, dearest Heart of mine,
Whom Love loves so?
When did Love’s moon less brightly seem to shine,
While to and fro,
And soft and slow,
Chill winds began to move in its decline?
When did the change come, thou who wast mine own?
When heard the rose
First far-off winds begin to moan,
At sunset’s close,
When sad Love goes
About the autumn woods to brood alone?
When did the change come in thy heart, sweetheart,—
Thy heart so dear to me?{146}
In what thing did I fail to bear my part,—
My part to thee,
Whose deity
My soul confesses, and how fair thou art?
Alas for poor changed Love! We cannot say
What changes Love.
My love would not suffice to make your day
Now gladly move,
Though kisses strove
With answering kisses, in Love’s sweetest way.
But though I know you changed, right well I know
That should we meet,
Deep in your heart some love for me would glow;
Though not that heat
Which made it beat
So fast with joy two years—one year ago.
{147}
Philip Bourke Marston.
SUMMER’S RETURN.
ONCE more I walk mid summer days, as one
Returning to the place where first he met
The face that he till death may not forget;
I know the scent of roses just begun,
And how at evening and at morn the sun
Falls on the places that remember yet
What feet last year within their bounds were set,
And what sweet things were said and dreamt and done.
The sultry silence of the summer night
Recalls to me the loved voice far away;
Oh, surely I shall see some early day,
In places that last year with love were bright,
The face of her I love, and hear the low,
Sweet troubled music of the voice I know.
{148}
Philip Bourke Marston.
MINE.
IN that tranced hush when sound sank awed to rest,
Ere from her spirit’s rose-red, rose-sweet gate
Came forth to me her royal word of fate,
Did she sigh “Yes,” and droop upon my breast,
While round our rapture, dumb, fixed, unexpressed
By the seized senses, there did fluctuate
The plaintive surges of our mortal state,
Tempering the poignant ecstasy too blest.
Do I wake into a dream, or have we twain,
Lured by soft wiles to some unconscious crime,
Dared joys forbid to man? Oh, Light supreme,
Upon our brows transfiguring glory rain,
Nor let the sword of thy just angel gleam
On two who entered heaven before their time!
{149}
Westland Marston.
AUBADE.
WHEN fair Hyperion dons his night attire,
Purple and silver, and his eyes with sleep
Go trembling, and the lids a-kissing keep,
And up he wings the plains of heaven the higher
The starry meadows all uncurl and creep
With twinkling shoots that tremble out and leap
From buds into a blossoming of fire.
When Spring, with primrose fillet round her brows,
Drifts on the dawn into the hyacinth west,
And flings fresh handfuls hoarded in her nest
Of tasty flowers, to Flora making vows,
The snow leaps down the mountain-side, and, press’d
With weight of leaves, the earth at happiest,
Rills into rivers thick from blossom-boughs.{150}
When Liris comes sometime at break of day
To take the vervain garlands from the door,
I’ve hung there fresh with dew an hour before,
And chances with soft eyes to look my way,
My heart brims out with love, and crowding o’er,
The passion-songs and rhythms spring and pour,
As storms in June, or blossom-boughs in May.
{151}
Theo. Marzials.
THE PHIAL AND THE PHILTRE.
MY lady has a casket cut
In scarlet coral, crimson-red;
Like Cupid’s bow, to keep it shut,
Two pouting locks are tightenèd,
In cunning curvings chisellèd.
Some mighty wizard it did make,
So strong that nothing can undo;
And if you thence would treasure take,
You press your lips the clasping to;
The magic word’s “I love but you!”
You’ll find a row of pearls within,
As pure as scarce come from the sea,
And set the rose and crimson in,
Twinkling with sweetest symmetry,—
I trow most beautiful to see!{152}
And eke the clasp ’s so cunning wrought,
That as it opens, treble clear,
There comes a music, glib befraught,
Like silver lutes, that to the ear
As sweet love-ditties do appear.
And there within, as peach and rose,
And pine and plum, most savoury choice,
Elixirs sweet my Lady stows,
To make the saddest heart rejoice,
Or passionate the poet’s voice.
A rich soul-philtre, that to sip
I swear must be to drain it dry,
And never take away your lip
Till time has toll’d your time to die,
Yet dying, love eternally.
{153}
Theo. Marzials.
NOT I, SWEET SOUL, NOT I.
ALL glorious as the Rainbow’s birth,
She came in Springtide’s golden hours;
When Heaven went hand-in-hand with Earth,
And May was crowned with buds and flowers.
The mounting devil at my heart
Clomb faintlier, as my life did win
The charmèd heaven she wrought apart,
To wake its better Angel in.
With radiant mien she trode serene,
And passed me smiling by!
Oh! who that looked could help but love?
Not I, sweet soul, not I.
The dewy eyelids of the Dawn
Ne’er oped such heaven as hers did show:
It seemed her dear eyes might have shone
As jewels in some starry brow.
Her face flashed glory like a shrine
Of lily-bell with sunburst bright,
Where came and went love-thoughts divine,
As low winds walk the leaves in light:{154}
She wore her beauty with the grace
Of Summer’s star-clad sky;
Oh! who that looked could help but love?
Not I, sweet soul, not I.
Her budding breasts like fragrant fruit
Of love were ripening to be pressed:
Her voice, that shook my heart’s red root,
Might not have broken a Babe’s rest,—
More liquid than the running brooks,
More vernal than the voice of Spring,
When Nightingales are in their nooks,
And all the leafy thickets ring.
The love she coyly hid at heart
Was shyly conscious in her eye;
Oh! who that looked could help but love?
Not I, sweet soul, not I.
{155}
Gerald Massey.
AT DINNER SHE IS HOSTESS.
AT dinner she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball.
It is in truth a most contagious game:
Hiding the skeleton shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appall!
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we,
Enamoured of our acting and our wits,
Admire each other like true hypocrites.
Warm lighted glances, Love’s Ephemeræ,
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fast, sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine!
{156}
George Meredith.
LOVE WITHIN THE LOVER’S BREAST.
LOVE within the lover’s breast
Burns like Hesper in the West,
O’er the ashes of the sun,
Till the day and night are done;
Then, when dawn drives up his car—
Lo! it is the morning star.
Love! thy love pours down on mine,
As the sunlight on the vine,
As the snow rill on the vale,
As the salt breeze on the sail;
As the song unto the bird
On my lips thy name is heard.
As a dewdrop on the rose
In thy heart my passion glows;
As a skylark to the sky,
Up into thy breast I fly;
As a sea-shell of the sea
Ever shall I sing of thee.
{157}
George Meredith.
A DEAD MARCH.
PLAY me a march low-toned and slow,—a march for a silent tread,
Fit for the wandering feet of one who dreams of the silent dead,
Lonely, between the bones below and the souls that are overhead.
Here for a while they smiled and sang, alive in the interspace,
Here with the grass beneath the foot, and the stars above the face,
Now are their feet beneath the grass, and whither has flown their grace?
Who shall assure us whence they come or tell us the way they go?
Verily, life with them was joy, and now they have left us, woe.
Once they were not, and now they are not, and this is the sum we know.{158}
Orderly range the seasons due, and orderly roll the stars.
How shall we deem the soldier brave who frets of his wounds and scars?
Are we as senseless brutes that we should dash at the well-seen bars?
No, we are here with feet unfixed, but ever as if with lead
Drawn from the orbs which shine above to the orb on which we tread,
Down to the dust from which we came and with which we shall mingle dead.
No, we are here to wait and work, and strain our banished eyes,
Weary and sick of soil and toil, and hungry and fain for skies
Far from the reach of wingless men and not to be scaled with cries.
Why do we mourn the days that go,—for the same sun shines each day,
Ever a spring her primrose hath, and ever a May her may,—
Sweet as the rose that died last year, is the rose that is born to-day.{159}
Do we not too return, we men, as ever the round earth whirls?
Never a head is dimmed with gray but another is sunned with curls.
She was a girl and he was a boy, but yet there are boys and girls.
Ah, but alas for the smile of smiles that never but one face wore!
Ah, for the voice that has flown away like a bird to an unseen shore!
Ah, for the face—the flower of flowers—that blossoms on earth no more!
{160}
Cosmo Monkhouse.
FAIR STAR THAT ON THE SHOULDER OF YON HILL.
FAIR star that on the shoulder of yon hill
Peepest, a little eye of tranquil night,
Come forth. Nor sun nor moon there is to kill
Thy ray with broader light.
Shine, star of eve that art so bright and clear;
Shine, little star, and bring my lover here.
My lover! oh, fair word for maid to hear!
My lover who was yesterday my friend!
Oh, strange we did not know before how near
Our stream of life smoothed to its fated end!
Shine, star of eve, as Love’s self bright and clear;
Shine, little star, and bring my lover here.
He comes! I hear the echo of his feet.
He comes! I fear to stay, I cannot go.
O Love, that thou art shame-fast, bitter-sweet;
Mingled with pain, and conversant with woe!
Shine, star of eve, more bright as night draws near;
Shine, little star, and bring my lover here.
{161}
Lewis Morris.
THY SHADOW, O TARDY NIGHT.
THY shadow, O tardy night,
Creeps onward by valley and hill,
And scarce to my streaming sight
Show the white road-reaches still.
O night, stay now a little, little space,
And let me see the light of my beloved’s face!
My love is late, O night,
And what has kept him away?
For I know that he takes not delight
In the garish joys of day.
Haste, night, dear night, that bring’st my love to me!
What if his footsteps halt and tarry but for thee!
Nay, what if his footsteps slide
By the swaying bridge of pine,
And whirled seaward by the tide
Is the loved form I counted mine!
O night, dear night, that comest yet dost not come,
How shall I wait the hour that brings my darling home?
{162}
Lewis Morris.
THE FIRST LYRIC.
LOVE is enough: though the World be a waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.
{163}
William Morris.
THE CONCLUDING LYRIC.
LOVE is enough: ho, ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
These know the World’s wound and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out, the World heedeth not, “Love, lead us home!”
He leadeth, he hearkeneth, he cometh to you-ward;
Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward:
Lo, his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble!{164}
Lo, his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble!
Cry out, for he heedeth, “O Love, lead us home.”
Oh, hearken the words of his voice of compassion:
“Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken
Of the weary unrest and the world’s passing fashion!
As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken,
But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken,
As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.
“Come—pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending!
Come—fear ye shall have, mid the sky’s over-casting!
Come—change ye shall have, for far are ye wending!
Come—no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting
But the kissed lips of Love and fair life ever-lasting!
Cry out, for one heedeth who leadeth you home!{165}”
Is he gone? was he with us? ho, ye who seek saving,
Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it?
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving,
Here is the Cup with the roses around it;
The World’s wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it:
Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home.
{166}
William Morris.
BESIDE A BIER.
I HAD never kissed her her whole life long,—
Now I stand by her bier, does she feel
How with love that the waiting years made strong,
I set on her lips my seal?
Will she wear my kiss in the grave’s long night,
And wake sometimes with a thrill,
From dreams of the old life’s missed delight,
To feel that the grave is chill?
“It was warm,” will she say, “in that world above;
It was warm, but I did not know
How he loved me there, with his whole life’s love,—
It is cold down here below.{167}”
Louise Chandler Moulton.
HEREAFTER.
IN after years a twilight ghost shall fill
With shadowy presence all thy waiting room:
From lips of air thou canst not kiss the bloom;
Yet at old kisses will thy pulses thrill,
And the old longing that thou couldst not kill,
Feeling her presence in the gathering gloom,
Will mock thee with the hopelessness of doom,
While she stands there and smiles, serene and still.
Thou canst not vex her, then, with passion’s pain:
Call, and the silence will thy call repeat;
But she will smile there, with cold lips and sweet,
Forgetful of old tortures, and the chain
That once she wore, the tears she wept in vain,
At passing from her threshold of thy feet.
{168}
Louise Chandler Moulton.
FORTUNIO’S SONG.
From the French of Alfred de Musset.
COMRADES! in vain ye seek to learn
For whom I burn;
Not for a kingdom would I dare
Her name declare.
But we will chant in chorus still,—
If so you will,—
That she I love is blonde and sweet,
As blades of wheat.
Whate’er her wayward fancies ask
Becomes my task;
Should she my very life demand,
’Tis in her hand.
The pain of passion unrevealed
Can scarce be healed:
Such pain within my heart I bear,
To my despair:{169}
Nathless I love her all too well
Her name to tell;
And I would sooner die than e’er
Her name declare.
{170}
George Murray.
SPLENDIDE MENDAX.
WHEN God some day shall call my name
And scorch me with a blaze of shame,
Bringing to light my inmost thought
And all the evil I have wrought,
Tearing away the veils I wove
To hide my foulness from my love,
And leaving my transgressions bare
To the whole heaven’s clear, cold air—
When all the angels weep to see
The branded outcast soul of me,
One saint at least will hide her face,—
She will not look at my disgrace.
“At least, O God, O God Most High,
He loved me truly!” she will cry,
And God will pause before He send
My soul to find its fitting end.{171}
Then, lest heaven’s light should leave her face
To think one loved her and was base,
I will speak out at judgment day,—
“I never loved her!” I will say.
{172}
E. Nesbit.
THE KISS.
THE snow is white on wood and wold,
The wind is in the firs,
So dead my heart is with the cold,
No pulse within it stirs,
Even to see your face, my dear,
Your face that was my sun;
There is no spring this bitter year,
And summer’s dreams are done.
The snakes that lie about my heart
Are in their wintry sleep;
Their fangs no more deal sting and smart,
No more they curl and creep.
Love with the summer ceased to be;
The frost is firm and fast.
God keep the summer far from me,
And let the snakes’ sleep last!
Touch of your hand could not suffice
To waken them once more;
Nor could the sunshine of your eyes
A ruined spring restore.{173}
But ah—your lips! You know the rest:
The snows are summer rain,
My eyes are wet, and in my breast
The snakes’ fangs meet again.
{174}
E. Nesbit.
THE MILL.
THE wheel goes round, the wheel goes round
With drip and whir and plash,
It keeps all green the grassy ground,
The alder, beech, and ash.
The ferns creep out mid mosses cool,
Forget-me-nots are found
Blue in the shadow by the pool—
And still the wheel goes round.
Round goes the wheel, round goes the wheel,
The foam is white like cream,
The merry waters dance and reel
Along the stony stream.
The little garden of the mill,
It is enchanted ground,
I smell its stocks and wall-flowers still,
And still the wheel goes round.
The wheel goes round, the wheel goes round,
And life’s wheel too must go,—
But all their clamour has not drowned
A voice I used to know.{175}
Her window’s blank. The garden’s bare
As her chill new-made mound,
But still my heart’s delight is there,
And still the wheel goes round.
{176}
E. Nesbit.
A PASTORAL.
MY love and I among the mountains strayed,
When heaven and earth in summer heat were still,
Aware anon that at our feet were laid,
Within a sunny hollow of the hill,
A long-haired shepherd lover and a maid.
They saw nor heard us, who a space above,
With hands clasped close as hers were clasped in his,
Marked how the gentle golden sunlight strove
To play about their leaf-crowned curls, and kiss
Their burnished slender limbs, half-barèd to his love.
But grave or pensive seemed the boy to grow,
For while upon the grass unfingered lay
The slim twin-pipes, he ever watched with slow
Dream-laden looks the ridge that far away
Surmounts the sleeping midsummer with snow.{177}
These things we saw; moreover we could hear
The girl’s soft voice of laughter, grown more bold
With the utter noonday silence, sweet and clear:
“Why dost thou think? By thinking one grows old.
Wouldst thou for all the world be old, my dear?”
Here my love turned to me, but her eyes told
Her thought with smiles before she spoke a word;
And being quick their meaning to behold,
I could not chuse but echo what we heard:
“Sweetheart, wouldst thou for all the world be old?{178}”
J. B. B. Nichols.
VIGILATE ITAQUE.
THE restless years that come and go,
The cruel years so swift and slow,
Once in our lives perchance will show
What they can give that we may know;
Too soon perchance, or else too late;
We may look back or we may wait;
The years are incompassionate,
And who shall touch the robe of fate?
Once only; haply if we keep
Watch with our lamps and do not sleep,
Our eyes shall, when the night is deep,
Behold the bridegroom’s face,—and weep.
Alas! for better far it were
That Love were heedless of our prayer
Than that his glory he should bare
And show himself to our despair.{179}
Better to wander till we die
And never come the door anigh,
Than weeping sore without to lie
And get no answer to our cry.
O child! the night is cold and blind,
The way is rough with rain and wind,
Narrow and steep and hard to find;
But I have found thee—love, be kind.
{180}
J. B. B. Nichols.
THE HORIZON.
OH, would, oh, would that thou and I,
Now this brief day of love is past,
Could toward the sunset straightway fly,
And fold our wearied wings at last
There, where the sea-line meets the sky.
A sweet thing and a strange ’twould be
Thus, thus to break our prison bars,
And know that we at last were free
As voiceful waves and silent stars,—
There, where the sky-line meets the sea.
But vain the longing! thou and I,
As we have been must ever be,
Yet thither, wind, oh, waft my sigh,
There where the sky-line meets the sea,—
There where the sea-line meets the sky.
{181}
James Ashcroft Noble.
SHADOWS.
AZURE of sky and silver of cloud
In the deep dark water show,
Amber of field and emerald of wood
That were pictured long ago.
Here, as of old, the beauty above,
And its shadow there below;
Why was their message jubilant then,
And their meaning now but woe?
Nay, not the same, O fool, as of yore!
These be other leaves that grow,
Other the harvests, other the waves;
Other the breezes that blow.
Sameness in sooth, but difference too;
And a simple change I know,
Within beholder, without in scene,
It may alter meaning so!{182}
Shadow of her who looked down with me,
In the depths so long ago—
Were all your archness glimmering there,
Would the picture breathe but woe?
{183}
Joseph O’Connor.
A FAREWELL.
HATH any loved you well down there,
Summer or winter through?
Down there, have you found any fair
Laid in the grave with you?
Is death’s long kiss a richer kiss
Than mine was wont to be?
Or have you gone to some far bliss,
And quite forgotten me?
What soft enamouring of sleep
Hath you in some soft way?
What charmed death holdeth you with deep
Strange lure by night and day?
A little space below the grass,
Out of the sun and shade;
But worlds away from me, alas!
Down there where you are laid!{184}
My bright hair’s waved and wasted gold,
What is it now to thee
Whether the rose-red life I hold
Or white death holdeth me?
Down there you love the grave’s own green,
And evermore you rave
Of some sweet seraph you have seen
Or dreamed of in the grave.
There you shall lie as you have lain,
Though in the world above
Another live your life again,
Loving again your love;
Is it not sweet beneath the palm?
Is not the warm day rife
With some long mystic golden calm
Better than love and life?
The broad quaint odorous leaves, like hands
Weaving the fair day through,
Weave sleep no burnished bird withstands,
While death weaves sleep for you;
And many a strange rich breathing sound
Ravishes morn and noon;
And in that place you must have found
Death a delicious swoon.{185}
Hold me no longer for a word
I used to say or sing;
Ah! long ago you must have heard
So many a sweeter thing:
For rich earth must have reached your heart,
And turned the faith to flowers;
And warm wind stolen, part by part,
Your soul through faithless hours.
And many a soft seed must have won
Soil of some yielding thought,
To bring a bloom up to the sun
That else had ne’er been brought;
And doubtless many a passionate hue
Hath made that place more fair,
Making some passionate part of you
Faithless to me down there.
{186}
Arthur O’Shaughnessy.
SONG.
HAS summer come without the rose,
Or left the bird behind?
Is the blue changed above thee,
O world! or am I blind?
Will you change every flower that grows,
Or only change this spot,
Where she who said, I love thee,
Now says, I love thee not?
The skies seemed true above thee,
The rose true on the tree;
The bird seemed true the summer through,
But all proved false to me.
World, is there one good thing in you,
Life, love, or death—or what?
Since lips that sang, I love thee,
Have said, I love thee not?{187}
I think the sun’s kiss will scarce fall
Into one flower’s gold cup;
I think the bird will miss me,
And give the summer up.
O sweet place! desolate in tall
Wild grass, have you forgot
How her lips loved to kiss me
Now that they kiss me not?
Be false or fair above me,
Come back with any face,
Summer! do I care what you do?
You cannot change one place—
The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew,
The grave I make this spot—
Here, where she used to love me,
Here, where she loves me not.
{188}
Arthur O’Shaughnessy.
SUPREME SUMMER.
O HEART full of song in the sweet song-weather,
A voice fills each bower, a wing shakes each tree,
Come forth, O winged singer, on song’s fairest feather,
And make a sweet fame of my love and of me.
The blithe world shall ever have fair loving leisure,
And long is the summer for bird and for bee;
But too short the summer and too keen the pleasure
Of me kissing her and of her kissing me.
Songs shall not cease of the hills and the heather;
Songs shall not fail of the land and the sea:
But, O heart, if you sing not while we are together,
What man shall remember my love or me?{189}
Some million of summers hath been and not known her,
Hath known and forgotten loves less fair than she;
But one summer knew her, and grew glad to own her,
And made her its flower, and gave her to me.
And she and I loving, on earth seem to sever
Some part of the great blue from heaven each day:
I know that the heaven and the earth are for ever,
But that which we take shall with us pass away.
And that which she gives me shall be for no lover
In any new love-time, the world’s lasting while;
The world, when it looses, shall never recover
The gold of her hair nor the sun of her smile.
A tree grows in heaven, where no season blanches
Or stays the new fruit through the long golden clime;
My love reaches up, takes a fruit from its branches,
And gives it to me to be mine for all time.{190}
What care I for other fruits, fed with new fire,
Plucked down by new lovers in fair future line?
The fruit that I have is the thing I desire,
To live of and die of,—the sweet she makes mine.
And she and I loving, are king of one summer
And queen of one summer to gather and glean:
The world is for us what no fair future comer
Shall find it or dream it could ever have been.
The earth, as we lie on its bosom, seems pressing
A heart up to bear us and mix with our heart;
The blue, as we wonder, drops down a great blessing
That soothes us and fills us and makes the tears start.
The summer is full of strange hundredth-year flowers,
That breathe all their lives the warm air of our love,
And never shall know a love other than ours
Till once more some phœnix-star flowers above.{191}
The silver cloud passing is friend of our loving;
The sea, never knowing this year from last year,
Is thick with fair words, between roaring and soughing,
For her and me only to gather and hear.
Yea, the life that we lead now is better and sweeter,
I think, than shall be in the world by and bye;
For those days, be they longer or fewer or fleeter,
I will not exchange on the day that I die.
I shall die when the rose-tree about and above me
Her red kissing mouth seems hath kissed summer through:
I shall die on the day that she ceases to love me—
But that will not be till the day she dies too.
Then, fall on us, dead leaves of our dear roses,
And ruins of summer fall on us erelong,
And hide us away where our dead year reposes;
Let all that we leave in the world be—a song.{192}
And, O song that I sing now while we are together,
Go, sing to some new year of women and men,
How I and she loved in the long loving weather,
And ask if they love on as we two loved then.
{193}
Arthur O’Shaughnessy.
AS ONE WOULD STAND WHO SAW A SUDDEN LIGHT.
AS one would stand who saw a sudden light
Flood down the world, and so encompass him,
And in that world illumined Seraphim
Brooded above and gladdened to his sight;
So stand I in the flame of one great thought,
That broadens to my soul from where she waits,
Who, yesterday, drew wide the inner gates
Of all my being to the hopes I sought.
Her words come to me like a summer-song,
Blown from the throat of some sweet nightingale;
I stand within her light the whole day long,
And think upon her till the white stars fail:
I lift my head towards all that makes life wise,
And see no farther than my lady’s eyes.
{194}
Gilbert Parker.
DEPARTURE.
IT was not like your great and gracious ways!
Do you, that have nought other to lament,
Never, my Love, repent
Of how, that July afternoon,
You went,
With sudden, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
Upon your journey of so many days,
Without a single kiss, or a good-bye?
I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon;
And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays,
You whispering to me, for your voice was weak,
Your harrowing praise.
Well, it was well,
To hear you such things speak,
And I could tell
What made your eyes a growing gloom of love,
As a warm south-wind sombres a March grove.{195}
And it was like your great and gracious ways
To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear,
Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash
To let the laughter flash,
Whilst I drew near,
Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear.
But all at once to leave me at the last,
More at the wonder than the loss aghast,
With huddled, unintelligible phrase,
And frighten’d eye,
And go your journey of all days
With not one kiss, or a good-bye,
And the only loveless look the look with which you passed:
’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways.
{196}
Coventry Patmore.
CADENCES.
Minor.
I.
THE ancient memories buried lie,
And the olden fancies pass;
The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly,
And die as the April cowslips die
That scatter the bloomy grass.
II.
All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead,
And the happy blossoming spring;
The winter comes with its iron tread,
The fields with the dying sun are red,
And the birds have ceased to sing.
III.
I trace the steps on the wasted strand
Of the vanished springtime’s feet:
Withered and dead is our Fairyland,
For Love and Death go hand in hand—
Go hand in hand, my sweet!
{197}
Major.
I.
Oh, what shall be the burden of our rhyme,
And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime?
Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long:
We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song.
II.
O lady of my summer and my spring,
We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing,
And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet,
When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet.
III.
We shall see the roses blowing in the green,
The pink-lipped roses kissing in the golden summer sheen;
We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold,
And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crowned wold.
{198}
IV.
The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain;
There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain;
But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together,
And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympian weather.
{199}
John Payne.
CHANT ROYAL OF THE GOD OF LOVE.
I.
O MOST fair God, O Love both new and old,
That wast before the flowers of morning blew,
Before the glad sun in his mail of gold
Leapt into light across the first day’s dew;
That art the first and last of our delight,
That in the blue day and the purple night
Holdest the hearts of servant and of king,
Lord of liesse, sovran of sorrowing,
That in thy hand hast heaven’s golden key
And hell beneath the shadow of thy wing,
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!
II.
What thing rejects thy mastery? Who so bold
But at thine altars in the dusk they sue?{200}
Even the straight pale goddess, silver-stoled,
That kissed Endymion when the spring was new,
To thee did homage in her own despite,
When in the shadow of her wings of white
She slid down trembling from her moonèd ring
To where the Latmian boy lay slumbering,
And in that kiss put off cold chastity.
Who but acclaim with voice and pipe and string,
“Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!”
III.
Master of men and gods, in every fold
Of thy wide vans the sorceries that renew
The labouring earth, tranced with the winter’s cold,
Lie hid—the quintessential charms that woo
The souls of flowers, slain with the sullen might
Of the dead year, and draw them to the light.
Balsam and blessing to thy garments cling;
Skyward and seaward, when thy white hands fling
Their spells of healing over land and sea,
One shout of homage makes the welkin ring,
“Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!{201}”
IV.
I see thee throned aloft; thy fair hands hold
Myrtles for joy, and euphrasy and rue:
Laurels and roses round thy white brows rolled,
And in thine eyes the royal heaven’s hue:
But in thy lips’ clear colour, ruddy bright,
The heart’s blood shines of many a hapless wight.
Thou art not only fair and sweet as spring;
Terror and beauty, fear and wondering
Meet on thy brow, amazing all that see:
All men do praise thee, ay, and everything;
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!
V.
I fear thee, though I love. Who can behold
The sheer sun burning in the orbèd blue,
What while the noontide over hill and wold
Flames like a fire, except his mazèd view
Wither and tremble? So thy splendid sight
Fills me with mingled gladness and affright.
Thy visage haunts me in the wavering
Of dreams, and in the dawn awakening,
I feel thy radiance streaming full on me.
Both fear and joy unto thy feet I bring;
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!
{202}
ENVOY.
God above Gods, High and Eternal King,
To whom the spheral symphonies do sing,
I find no whither from thy power to flee,
Save in thy pinions vast o’ershadowing.
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!
{203}
John Payne.
FALSE SPRING.
O BIRDS, ’twas not well done of you!
O flowers and breeze, right well ye knew
The weary glamour that the spring
Had laid for me on every thing.
’Twas but to bring me back again
The memory of the olden pain,
You lured me out with songs of birds,
With violet breath and fair false words!
For lo! my feet had hardly passed
The woven band of flowerage, cast
Betwixt the meadows and the trees,
When, in the bird-songs and the breeze,
Another strain was taken up;
And out of every blue-bell’s cup
The mocking voices sang again
The olden songs of love and pain.{204}
The flowers did mimic the old grace;
The wan white windflowers wore her face;
And in the stream I heard her words;
Her voice came rippling from the birds.
Dead love, I saw thy form anew
Bend down among the violets blue,
And, like a mist, the memory
Of all the past came back to me.
{205}
John Payne.
IN JUNE.
SO sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,
So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see;
So blithe and gay the humming-bird a-going
From flower to flower, a-hunting with the bee.
So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,
The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere;
So sweet the water’s song through reeds and rushes,
The plover’s piping note, now here, now there.
So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover
The west wind blowing, blowing up the hill;
So sweet, so sweet with news of some one’s lover,
Fleet footsteps, singing nearer, nearer still.
So near, so near, now listen, listen, thrushes;
Now, plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear;
And, water, hush your song through reeds and rushes,
That I may know whose lover cometh near.{206}
So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me;
So loud the millstream too kept fretting, falling,
O’er bar and bank in brawling, boisterous glee.
So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush nor plover,
Nor noisy millstream, in its fret and fall,
Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover,
My lover calling through the thrushes’ call.
“Come down, come down!” he called, and straight the thrushes
From mate to mate sang all at once, “Come down!”
And while the water laughed through reeds and rushes,
The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, “Come down!”
Then down and off, and through the fields of clover,
I followed, followed at my lover’s call;
Listening no more to blackbird, thrush or plover,
The water’s laugh, the millstream’s fret and fall.
{207}
Nora Perry.
A SONG OF WINTER.
BARB’d blossom of the guarded gorse,
I love thee where I see thee shine:
Thou sweetener of our common ways,
And brightener of our wintry days.
Flower of the gorse, the rose is dead,
Thou art undying, oh, be mine!
Be mine with all thy thorns, and prest
Close on a heart that asks not rest.
I pluck thee, and thy stigma set
Upon my breast and on my brow;
Blow, buds, and ’plenish so my wreath
That none may know the wounds beneath.
O crown of thorn that seem’st of gold,
No festal coronal art thou;
Thy honey’d blossoms are but hives
That guard the growth of wingèd lives.{208}
I saw thee in the time of flowers
As sunshine spill’d upon the land,
Or burning bushes all ablaze
With sacred fire; but went my ways.
I went my ways, and as I went
Pluck’d kindlier blooms on either hand;
Now of those blooms so passing sweet
None lives to stay my passing feet.
And still thy lamp upon the hill
Feeds on the autumn’s dying sigh,
And from thy midst comes murmuring
A music sweeter than in spring.
Barb’d blossoms of the guarded gorse,
Be mine to wear until I die,
And mine the wounds of love which still
Bear witness to his human will.
{209}
Emily Pfeiffer.
TO A LOST LOVE.
I CANNOT look upon thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet:
Better to hear the long wave wash
These wastes about my feet!
Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live
A spirit, though afar,
With a deep hush about thee, like
The stillness round a star?
Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere
Thou art a thing apart,
Losing in saner happiness
This madness of the heart.
And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel
A passing breath, a pain;
Disturb’d, as though a door in heaven
Had sped and closed again.{210}
And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns
The solemn hymns, shall cease;
A moment half remember me:
Then turn away in peace.
But oh! forevermore thy look,
Thy laugh, thy charm, thy tone,
Thy sweet and wayward loveliness,
Dear trivial things are gone!
Therefore I look not on thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet;
But rather hear the loud wave wash
These wastes about my feet.
{211}
Stephen Phillips.
PRINCE OF PAINTERS, COME, I PRAY.
PRINCE of painters, come, I pray,
Paint my love, for, though away,
King of craftsmen, you can well
Paint what I to thee can tell.
First her hair you must indite
Dark, but soft as summer night;
Hast thou no contrivance whence
To make it breathe its frankincense?
Rising from her rounded cheek
Let thy pencil duly speak,
How below that purpling night
Glows her forehead ivory-white.
Mind you neither part nor join
Those sweet eyebrows’ easy line;
They must merge, you know, to be
In separated unity.
Painter draw, as lover bids,
Now the dark line of the lids;
Painter, now ’tis my desire,
Make her glance from very fire,{212}
Make it as Athene’s blue,
Like Cythera’s liquid too;
Now to give her cheeks and nose,
Milk must mingle with the rose;
Her lips be like persuasion’s made,
To call for kisses they persuade;
And for her delicious chin,
O’er and under and within,
And round her soft neck’s Parian wall,
Bid fly the graces, one and all.
For the rest, enrobe my pet
In her faint clear violet;
But a little truth must show
There is more that lies below,
Hold! thou hast her—that is she.
Hush! she ’s going to speak to me.
{213}
William Philpot.
A LAGOON MESSAGE.
NOT now, but later, when the road
We tread together breaks apart,
When thou, my dearest, distant art,
And tedious days have swelled the load
Upon my heart.
Or haply after that, when I
Am sealed within an earthy bed,
Resting and unrememberèd,
This scene will speak and easily
The whole be said.
Some eve, when from his burning chair
The sun below Fusina slips,
And all the sable poplar tips
Wave in the warm vermilion air,
The wind, the lips
Of the soft breeze with wayward touch
Shall tell thee all I longed to own;
And thou, on lurid lakes alone,
Wilt say: “Poor soul, he loved me much;
And he is gone.{214}”
Percy C. Pinkerton.
A CONQUEST.
I FOUND him openly wearing her token;
I knew that her troth could never be broken;
I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword,
He did the same, and he spoke no word;
He faced me with his villainy;
He laughed and said, “She gave it me.”
We searched for seconds, they soon were found;
They measured our swords; they measured the ground:
They held to the deadly work too fast;
They thought to gain our place at last.
We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood,
The fair white snow was red with his blood;
But his was the victory, for, as he died,
He swore by the rood that he had not lied.
{215}
Walter Herries Pollock.
THE DEVOUT LOVER.
IT is not mine to sing the stately grace,
The great soul beaming in my lady’s face;
To write no sounding odes to me is given
Wherein her eyes outshine the stars in heaven.
Not mine in flowing melodies to tell
The thousand beauties that I know so well;
Not mine to serenade her ev’ry tress,
And sit and sigh my love in idleness.
But mine it is to follow in her train,
Do her behests in pleasure or in pain,
Burn at her altar love’s sweet frankincense,
And worship her in distant reverence.
{216}
Walter Herries Pollock.
BALLADE OF LOVERS.
FOR the man was she made by the Eden tree,
To be decked in soft raiment and worn on his sleeve,
To be fondled so long as they both agree,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave.
But for her, let her live through one long summer eve—
Just the stars, and the moon, and the man, and she—
And her soul will escape her beyond reprieve,
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.
To-morrow brings plenty as lovesome, maybe;
If she break when he handles her, why should he grieve?
She is only one pearl in a pearl-crowded sea,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave.
But she, though she knows he has kissed to deceive,{217}
And forsakes her, still only clings on at his knee—
When life has gone, what further loss can bereave?
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.
For the man was she made upon Eden lea,
To be helpmeet what time there is burden to heave,
White-footed, to follow where he walks free,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave;
White-fingered, to weave and to interweave
Her woof with his warp, and a tear two or three,
Till clear his way out through her web he cleave,
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.
ENVOI.
DID he own her no more when he called her Eve,
Than a thing to take, or a thing to leave?
A flower-filled plot that unlocks to his key—
But, alas! the whole of her world is he.
{218}
May Probyn.
IN A GARDEN.
THE cowslip glowed, the tulip burned,
The grass was green as green could be;
There, as in sweet content we turned,
Beneath the budding linden-tree,
We saw the westering sunbeams shake
Large glory o’er the mountain lake.
The cushat cooed, the blackbird’s cry
About the terrace garden rang;
Still as we wooed, my love and I,
The throstle still enraptured sang,
And still the waters danced with glee,
Beneath the budding linden-tree.
The tulips trembled still with flame,
The cowslips gleamed along the walk,
Yet, dear one, when the last word came,
And silence only seemed to talk,
We looked and found the lake was gone,
Flowers dim, birds hushed, and one star shone.{219}
Beloved! by many an up and down,
O’er level lawns, unlevel ways,
Through weeds and flowers, when birds had flown
And when birds sang, have passed the days
Since our new dawn forbade the night;
But lo! o’erhead Love’s star is bright.
{220}
Hardwick Drummond Rawnsley.
A SONG FOR CANDLEMAS.
THERE’s never a rose upon the bush,
And never a bud on any tree;
In wood and field nor hint nor sign
Of one green thing for you of me.
Come in, come in, sweet love of mine,
And let the bitter weather be.
Coated with ice the garden wall,
The river reeds are stark and still;
The wind goes plunging to the sea,
And last week’s flakes the hollows fill.
Come in, come in, sweet love, to me,
And let the year blow as it will.
{221}
Lizette Woodworth Reese.
A DREAM OF DIANA.
IN dream I saw Diana pass, Diana as of old,
Across the green wood radiantly, attired in green and gold;
With spear alert, with eyes afire, as they had seen the sun,
And gave its glances back again, with brightness of their own.
No human maid is she, I thought, who there so lightly fares
Upon her sylvan empery, afar from our pale cares.
She passed, and left me to that thought, who felt the sadder then
That only once, and not again, she might be seen of men;
Though constantly, by lawn and wood, and hanging mountain-side,
My restless eye might dare to hunt the huntress in her pride.{222}
Without her all was lonely grown; I had no liking left
For fern or foxglove bloom, of her bright grace bereft.
And in that taking, in a bed of softest fern I lay,
And found no joy of woodcraft left, the livelong summer day;
When lo! at eve, a silvery horn, a questing hound, a cry,
And swift, Diana came again, and sat her down thereby;
And then I saw those radiant eyes were full of perfect rest,
And found beneath the goddess there the woman’s softer breast.
{223}
Ernest Rhys.
WHEN SHE COMES HOME.
WHEN she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome. I shall tremble—yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart’s sweet distress.
Then silence, and the perfume of her dress:
The room will sway a little, and a haze
Cloy eyesight—soul-sight, even—for a space:
And tears—yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old embrace.
{224}
James Whitcomb Riley.
POPLAR LEAVES.
THE wind blows down the dusty street;
And through my soul that grieves
It brings a sudden odour sweet,
A smell of poplar leaves.
O leaves that herald in the spring,
O freshness young and pure,
Into my weary soul you bring
The vigour to endure.
The wood is near but out of sight,
Where all the poplars grow;
Straight up and tall and silver white,
They quiver in a row.
My love is out of sight, but near;
And through my soul that grieves
A sudden memory wafts her here
As fresh as poplar leaves.
{225}
A. Mary F. Robinson.
AFTER DEATH.
THE curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept
And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may
Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay,
Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept.
He leaned above me, thinking that I slept
And could not hear him; but I heard him say,
“Poor child, poor child!” and as he turned away
Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept.
He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold
That hid my face, or take my hand in his,
Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head:
He did not love me living; but once dead
He pitied me; and very sweet it is
To know he still is warm, though I am cold.
{226}
Christina G. Rossetti.
SOMEWHERE OR OTHER.
SOMEWHERE or other there must surely be
The face not seen, the voice not heard,
The heart that not yet—never yet—ah me!
Made answer to my word.
Somewhere or other, may be near or far;
Past land and sea, clean out of sight;
Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star
That tracks her night by night.
Somewhere or other, may be far or near;
With just a wall, a hedge between;
With just the last leaves of the dying year
Fallen on a turf grown green.
{227}
Christina G. Rossetti.
FIRST LOVE REMEMBERED.
PEACE in her chamber, wheresoe’er
It be, a holy place:
The thought still brings my soul such grace
As morning meadows wear.
Whether it still be small and light,
A maid’s who dreams alone,
As from her orchard-gate the moon
Its ceiling showed at night:
Or whether, in a shadow dense
As nuptial hymns invoke,
Innocent maidenhood awoke
To married innocence:
Then still the thanks unheard await
The unconscious gift bequeathed;
For there my soul this hour has breathed
An air inviolate.
{228}
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
LOVE ENTHRONED.
I MARKED all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
To signal-fires, Oblivion’s flight to scare;
And Youth, with still some single golden hair
Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.
Love’s throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
Though Truth foreknow Love’s heart, and Hope foretell,
And Fame be for Love’s sake desirable,
And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.
{229}
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
SUDDEN LIGHT.
I HAVE been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.
Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time’s eddying flight
Still with our lives our loves restore
In death’s despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?
{230}
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
A PERFECT DAY.
BLAND air and leagues of immemorial blue;
No subtlest hint of whitening rime or cold;
A revel of rich colours, hue on hue,
From radiant crimson to soft shades of gold.
A vagueness in the undulant hill line,
The flutter of a bird’s south-soaring wing;
Æolian harmonies in groves of pine,
And glad brook laughter like the mirth of spring.
A sense of gracious calm afar and near,
And yet a something wanting,—one fine ray
For consummation. Love, were you but here,
Then were the day indeed a perfect day.
{231}
Clinton Scollard.
RUS IN URBE.
POETS are singing, the whole world over,
Of May in melody, joys for June;
Dusting their feet in the careless clover,
And filling their hearts with the blackbird’s tune.
The “brown bright nightingale” strikes with pity
The sensitive heart of a count or clown;
But where is the song for our leafy city,
And where the rhymes for our lovely town?
“Oh for the Thames and its rippling reaches,
Where almond rushes and breezes sport!
Take me a walk under Burnham Beeches;
Give me a dinner at Hampton Court!”
Poets, be still, though your hearts I harden;
We’ve flowers by day, and have scents at dark;
The limes are in leaf in the cockney garden,
And lilacs blossom in Regent’s Park.{232}
“Come for a blow,” says a reckless fellow,
Burn’d red and brown by passionate sun;
“Come to the downs, where the gorse is yellow
The season of kisses has just begun!
Come to the fields where bluebells shiver,
Hear cuckoo’s carol, or plaint of dove:
Come for a row on the silent river;
Come to the meadows and learn to love!”
Yes, I will come when this wealth is over
Of softened colour and perfect tone:
The lilac’s better than fields of clover;
I’ll come when blossoming May has flown.
When dust and dirt of a trampled city
Have dragged the yellow laburnum down,
I’ll take my holiday,—more’s the pity,—
And turn my back upon London town.
Margaret! am I so wrong to love it,
This misty town that your face shines through?
A crown of blossom is waved above it;
But heart and life of the whirl—’tis you!
Margaret! pearl! I have sought and found you;
And though the paths of the wind are free,
I’ll follow the ways of the world around you,
And build my nest on the nearest tree.
{233}
Clement Scott.
SONG.
LOVE in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme.
What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream!
What if he changeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Oh, can the waters be void of the wind?
What if he wendeth afar and apart from me,
What if he leave me to perish behind?
What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
A flame i’ the dusk, a breath of Desire?
Nay, my sweet Love is the heart and the soul of me,
And I am the innermost heart of his fire!
Love in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme.
What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me!
Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream!
{234}
William Sharp.
THE COMING OF LOVE.
IN and out the osier beds, all along the shallows,
Lifts and laughs the soft south wind, or swoons among the grasses.
But, ah! whose following feet are these that bend the tall marsh-mallows?
Who laughs so low and sweet? Who sighs—and passes?
Flower of my heart, my darling, why so slowly
Lift’st thou thine eyes to mine, sweet wells of gladness?
Too deep this new-found joy, and this new pain too holy;
Or is there dread in thine heart of this divinest madness?
Who sighs with longing there? who laughs alow—and passes?
Whose following feet are these that bend the tall marsh-mallows?{235}
Who comes upon the wind that stirs the heavy seeding grasses
In and out the osier beds, and hither through the shallows?
Flower of my heart, my Dream, who whispers near so gladly?
Whose is the golden sunshine-net o’erspread for capture?
Lift, lift thine eyes to mine, who love so wildly, madly—
Those eyes of brave desire, deep wells o’er-brimmed with rapture.
{236}
William Sharp.
RECALL.
“Love me, or I am slain!” I cried, and meant
Bitterly true each word. Nights, morns, slipped by,
Moons, circling suns, yet still alive am I;
But shame to me, if my best time be spent.
On this perverse, blind passion! Are we sent
Upon a planet just to mate and die,
A man no more than some pale butterfly
That yields his day to nature’s sole intent?
Or is my life but Marguerite’s ox-eyed flower,
That I should stand and pluck and fling away,
One after one, the petal of each hour,
Like a love-dreamy girl, and only say,
“Loves me,” and “loves me not,” and “loves me”? Nay!
Let the man’s mind awake to manhood’s power.
{237}
Edward Rowland Sill.
FANTASIA.
WE’re all alone, we’re all alone!
The moon and stars are dead and gone;
The night’s at deep, the wind asleep,
And thou and I are all alone!
What care have we though life there be?
Tumult and life are not for me!
Silence and sleep about us creep;
Tumult and life are not for thee!
How late it is since such as this
Had topped the height of breathing bliss!
And now we keep an iron sleep,—
In that grave thou, and I in this!
{238}
Harriet Prescott Spofford.
ONLY A LEAF.
WHEN the late leaves lit all the place,
He left her with her ashen face;
“We shall not meet!” he lightly cried;
“Good-bye, sweetheart, the world is wide.”
Though bright the sunshine on that day,
Though the bare boughs around her lay,
She thought in blackened shadow stood
The melancholy autumn wood.
She bent, and lifted from the sod
A leaf whereon his foot had trod,—
An idle leaf, but dead and sere,
It held the heart’s blood of a year!
{239}
Harriet Prescott Spofford.
SONG FROM A DRAMA.
I KNOW not if moonlight or starlight
Be soft on the land or the sea,—
I catch but the near light, the far light,
Of eyes that are burning for me;
The scent of the night, of the roses,
May burden the air for thee, sweet,—
’Tis only the breath of thy sighing
I know, as I lie at thy feet.
The winds may be sobbing or singing,
Their touch may be fervent or cold,
The night-bells may toll or be ringing,—
I care not, while thee I enfold!
The feast may go on, and the music
Be scattered in ecstasy round,—
Thy whisper, “I love thee! I love thee!”
Hath flooded my soul with its sound.{240}
I think not of time that is flying,
How short is the hour I have won,
How near is this living to dying,
How the shadow still follows the sun;
There is naught upon earth, no desire,
Worth a thought, though ’twere had by a sign!
I love thee! I love thee! bring nigher
Thy spirit, thy kisses to mine.
{241}
Edmund Clarence Stedman.
THE VIOLET.
OH! faint delicious spring-time violet,
Thine odour, like a key,
Turns noiselessly in memory’s wards to let
A thought of sorrow free.
The breath of distant fields upon my brow
Blows through that open door
The sound of wind-borne bells more sweet and low
And sadder than of yore.
It comes afar from that beloved place,
And that beloved hour,
When Life hung ripening in Love’s golden grace,
Like grapes above a bower.
A spring goes singing through its reedy grass,
The lark sings o’er my head
Drowned in the sky—oh, pass, ye visions, pass!
I would that I were dead.{242}
Why hast thou opened that forbidden door
From which I ever flee?
O vanished Joy! O Love that art no more,
Let my vexed spirit be!
O violet! thy odour through my brain
Hath searched, and stung to grief
This sunny day, as if a curse did stain
Thy velvet leaf.
{243}
W. W. Story.
TO MY LADY.
FROM out the past she comes to me,
My Lady whom I loved long syne:
Her face is very fair to see,
Her gray eyes still with love-light shine,
I needs must think she still is mine.
Once—in those old years long ago—
I waited at the hour of dawn.
And, with the first faint Eastern glow—
Before the sun his sword had drawn
And flushed its light the world upon,
My Lady’s true love did I know!
But now at eve she comes—I stand
Alone. Among the autumn trees
Her white robe glimmers, and the breeze
Wafts me a ghostly fragrance rare.
Ah me! No rose doth she now bear—
But crimson poppies in her hand.
{244}
Edward Fairbrother Strange.
AT PARTING.
FOR a day and night, Love sang to us, played with us,
Folded us round from the dark and the light;
And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us,
Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us,
Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight
For a day and a night.
From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us,
Covered us close from the eyes that would smite,
From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden us,
Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us,
Spirit and flesh growing one with delight
For a day and a night.{245}
But his wings will not rest, and his feet will not stay for us:
Morning is here in the joy of its might;
With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us:
Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;
Love can but last in us here at his height
For a day and a night.
{246}
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
AUGUST.
THERE were four apples on the bough,
Half gold, half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.
The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the clover veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.
There were four apples on the tree,
Red-stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.{247}
The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Thirsted for song to help the heat;
As I to feel my lady’s feet
Draw close before the day were done:
Both lips grew dry with dreams of it.
In the mute August afternoon
They trembled to some undertune
Of music in the silver air:
Great pleasure was it to be there
Till green turned duskier, and the moon
Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair.
That August time it was delight
To watch the red moon’s wane to white
’Twixt gray-seamed stems of apple-trees:
A sense of heavy harmonies
Grew on the growth of patient night,
More sweet than shapen music is.
But some three hours before the moon
The air, still eager from the noon,
Flagged after heat, not wholly dead;
Against the stem I leant my head;
The colour soothed me like a tune,
Green leaves all round the gold and red.{248}
I lay there till the warm smell grew
More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew
Between the round ripe leaves had blurred
The rind with stain and wet; I heard
A wind that blew and breathed and blew,
Too weak to alter its one word.
The wet leaves next the gentle fruit
Felt smoother, and the brown tree root
Felt the mould warmer: I, too, felt
(As water feels the slow gold melt
Right through it when the day burns mute)
The peace of time wherein love dwelt.
There were four apples on the tree,
Gold stained on red that all might see
The sweet blood filled them to the core:
The colour of her hair is more
Like stems of fair faint gold, that be
Mown from the harvest’s middle floor.
{249}
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
BETWEEN THE SUNSET AND THE SEA.
BETWEEN the sunset and the sea
My love laid hands and lips on me.
Of sweet came sour, of day came night,
Of long desire came brief delight:
Ah, love, and what thing came of thee
Between the sea-downs and the sea?
Between the sea-mark and the sea
Joy grew to grief, grief grew to me;
Love turned to tears, and tears to fire,
And dead delight to new desire;
Love’s talk, love’s touch there seemed to be
Between the sea-sand and the sea.
Between the sundown and the sea
Love watched one hour of love with me;
Then down the all-golden water-ways
His feet flew after yesterdays;
I saw them come and saw them flee
Between the sea-foam and the sea.{250}
Between the sea-strand and the sea
Love fell on sleep, sleep fell on me;
The first star saw twain turn to one
Between the moonrise and the sun;
The next, that saw not love, saw me
Between the sea-banks and the sea.
{251}
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
THE OBLATION.
ASK nothing more of me, sweet:
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet;
Love that should help you to live,
Song that should spur you to soar.
All things were nothing to give,
Once to have sense of you more,
Touch you and taste of you, sweet,
Think you and breathe you, and live,
Swept of your wings as they soar,
Trodden by chance of your feet.
I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet;
He that hath more let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.
{252}
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
ON JUDGE’S WALK.
THAT night on Judge’s Walk the wind
Was as the voice of doom;
The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
As silent as the tomb.
The vast night brooded, white with stars,
Above the world’s unrest;
The awfulness of silence ached
Like a strong heart repressed.
That night we walked beneath the trees,
Alone, beneath the trees;
There was some word we could not say
Half uttered in the breeze.
That night on Judge’s Walk we said
No word of all we had to say;
And now no word shall e’er be said
Before the Judgment Day.
{253}
Arthur Symons.
ICH HÖR’ ES SOGAR IM TRAUM.
SING on, sing on: half dreaming still
I hear you singing down the hill,
Through the green wood, beside the rill.
Each to the other sing, sweet birds;
Make music sweeter far than words;
Drown my still soul with song, sweet birds.
Under each starbeam there was sleep;
Far down the river wandered deep;
The woods closed round it still and steep.
One watch-dog from the lone farm bayed;
The waterfowl beneath the shade
Of sedge and flowering reed were laid.
The birds sang on, and slumber shed
Like silver clouds upon my head;
I slept, nor stirred me in my bed.{254}
Into my room he seemed to glide;
The moonbeams through the window wide
Snowed in upon my white bedside.
He kissed my lips, he kissed my cheek;
I could not kiss him back nor speak:
I feared the blissful sleep to break.
Sing louder, nightingales of May!
Sing, dash my golden dream away!
Sing anthems to the orient day!
The moonlight pales; the gray cock crows;
A murmur in the tree top goes;
Sleep sheds her petals like a rose.
{255}
John Addington Symonds.
OH, WHEN WILL IT BE?
OH, when will it be, oh, when will it be, oh, when
That she shall be here, and the flute be here, and the wine be here? oh, then
Her lips shall kiss the lips of the flute, and my lips shall kiss the wine,
And I shall drink music from her sweet lips, and she shall drink madness from mine.
{256}
John Addington Symonds.
BALLADE OF THE LADYES OF LONG SYNE.
From the French of François Villon.
TELL me wher, in what contree, is
Flora, the beautifulle Romaine?
Thais and Archipiadis,
Wher are they now, those cosins twaine?
And Echo, gretyng her love agein
By banke of river and marge of mere,
Whos beaute was fre fro mortall stayne?
Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year?
Wher is the lerned Helowis,
For whom undon in celle did plaine
Pierre Abelard at Saint Denys?
For love’s reward he had this peine
Where is the quene who did ordeine
That Buridan shulde drift in fere
Sowed in a sacke adoun the Saine?
Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year?{257}
Quene Blanche, fayre as the floure-de-lys,
Who sang as swete as the meremaid strayne,
Alys too, Bertha, Bietris,
And Hermengarde, who halt the Mayne,
And Joan, the good may of Lorraine,
At Rouen brent by Englyshe fere,—
Wher are they, Virgine soveraine?
Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year?
ENVOY.
PRINCE, for this sevennyght be not fain,
Nor this twelfmonthe to question wher
They be, withouten this refraine,
Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year?
{258}
Stephen Temple.
FATIMA.
O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city’s eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll’d among the tender flowers:
I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth:
I looked athwart the burning drought
Of that long desert to the south.
Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver’d in my narrow frame.
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro’
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.{259}
Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierc’d thro’ with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace.
{260}
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
NOW SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL.
NOW sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake;
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
{261}
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS.
AT THE WINDOW.
VINE, vine and eglantine,
Clasp her window, trail and twine!
Rose, rose and clematis,
Trail and twine and clasp and kiss,
Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower
All of flowers, and drop me a flower,
Drop me a flower.
Vine, vine and eglantine,
Cannot a flower, a flower, be mine?
Rose, rose and clematis,
Drop me a flower, a flower, to kiss,
Kiss, kiss—and out of her bower
All of flowers, a flower, a flower
Dropt, a flower.
{262}
GONE.
Gone!
Gone till the end of the year,
Gone, and the light gone with her and left me in shadow here!
Gone—flitted away,
Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air!
Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where!
Down in the south is a flash and a groan; she is there! she is there!
{263}
Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
VALENTINE.
IF thou canst make the frost be gone,
And fleet away the snow
(And that thou canst, I trow);
If thou canst make the spring to dawn,
Hawthorn to put her brav’ry on,
Willow, her weeds of fine green lawn,
Say why thou dost not so—
Aye, aye!
Say why
Thou dost not so!
If thou canst chase the stormy rack,
And bid the soft winds blow
(And that thou canst, I trow);
If thou canst call the thrushes back
To give the groves the songs they lack,
And wake the violet in thy track,
Say why thou dost not so—
Aye, aye!
Say why
Thou dost not so!{264}
If thou canst make my winter spring,
With one word breathèd low
(And that thou canst, I know);
If in the closure of a ring
Thou canst to me such treasure bring,
My state shall be above a king,
Say why thou dost not so—
Aye, aye!
Say why
Thou dost not so!
{265}
Edith M. Thomas.
DREAM TRYST.
THE breaths of kissing night and day
Were mingled in the eastern heaven;
Throbbing with unheard melody
Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven:
When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy,
And dawn’s gray eyes were troubled gray;
And souls went palely up the sky,
And mine to Lucidé.
There was no change in her sweet eyes
Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope’s,
Wherein did ever come and go
The sparkle of the fountain-drops
From her sweet soul below.{266}
The chambers in the house of dreams
Are fed with so divine an air,
That Time’s hoar wings grow young therein,
And they who walk there are most fair.
I joyed for me, I joyed for her,
Who with the Past meet girt about,
Where our last kiss still warms the air,
Nor can her eyes go out.
{267}
Francis Thompson.
ATALANTA.
WHEN spring grows old, and sleepy winds
Set from the south with odours sweet,
I see my love, in green, cool groves,
Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet.
She throws a kiss and bids me run,
In whispers sweet as roses’ breath;
I know I cannot win the race,
And at the end, I know, is death.
But joyfully I bare my limbs,
Anoint me with the tropic breeze,
And feel through every sinew thrill
The vigour of Hippomenes.
A race of love! We all have run
Thy happy course through groves of spring,
And cared not, when at last we lost,
For life, or death, or anything!
{268}
Maurice Thompson.
A SONG OF THANKSGIVING.
MY love is the flaming sword, to fight through the world;
Thy love is the shield to ward,
And the armour of the Lord,
And the banner of Heav’n unfurl’d.
Let my voice ring out, and over the earth,
Through all the grief and strife,
With a golden joy in a silver mirth,
Thank God for Life!
Let my voice swell out through the great abyss,
To the azure dome above,
With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss
Thank God for Love!
Let my voice thrill out, beneath and above,
The whole world through,
O my Love and Life, O my Life and Love,
Thank God for you!
{269}
James Thomson.
DAY AFTER DAY OF THIS AZURE MAY.
DAY after day of this azure May,
The blood of the spring has swelled in my veins;
Night after night of broad moonlight,
A mystical dream has dazzled my brains.
A seething might, a fierce delight,
The blood of the spring is the wine of the world;
My veins run fire and thrill desire,
Every leaf of my heart’s red rose uncurled.
A sad, sweet calm, a tearful balm,
The light of the moon is the trance of the world;
My brain is fraught with yearning thought,
And the rose is pale, and its leaves are furled.
Oh, speed the day then, dear, dear May,
And hasten the night, I charge thee, O June!
When the trance divine shall burn with the wine,
And the red rose unfurl all its fire to the moon.
{270}
James Thomson.
THE SONG OF TRISTRAM.
THE star of love is trembling in the west,
Night hears the desolate sea with moan on moan
Sigh for the storm, who on his mountain lone
Smites his wild harp, and dreams of her wild breast.
I am thy storm, Isolt, and thou my sea!
Isolt!
My passionate sea!
The storm to her wild breast, the passionate sea
To his fierce arms: we to the rapturous leap
Of mated spirits mingling in love’s deep,
Flame to flame, I to thee and thou to me!
Thou to mine arms, Isolt, I to thy breast!
Isolt!
I to thy breast!
{271}
John Todhunter.
AUBADE.
THE lights are out in the street, and a cool wind swings
Loose poplar plumes on the sky;
Deep in the gloom of the garden the first bird sings:
Curt, hurried steps go by,
Loud in the hush of the dawn past the linden screen,
Lost in a jar and a rattle of wheels unseen,
Beyond on the wide highway:
Night lingers dusky and dim in the pear-tree boughs,
Hangs in the hollows of leaves, though the thrushes rouse,
And the glimmering lawn grows gray.
Yours, my heart knoweth, yours only the jewelled gloom,
Splendours of opal and amber, the scent, the bloom,{272}
Yours all, and your own demesne—
Scent of the dark, of the dawning, of leaves and dew;
Nothing that was but hath changed—’tis a world made new—
A lost world risen again.
The lamps are out in the street, and the air grows bright;
Come, lest the miracle fade in the broad, bare light,
The new world wither away:
Clear is your voice in my heart, and you call me—whence?
Come—for I listen, I wait,—bid me rise, go hence,
Or ever the dawn turn day.
{273}
Graham R. Tomson.
LOVE, THE GUEST.
I DID not dream that Love would stay,
I deemed him but a passing guest,
Yet here he lingers many a day.
I said, “Young Love will flee with May,
And leave forlorn the hearth he blest;”
I did not dream that Love would stay.
My envious neighbour mocks me, “Nay,
Love lies not long in any nest;”
Yet here he lingers many a day.
And though I did his will alway,
And gave him even of my best,
I did not dream that Love would stay.
I have no skill to bid him stay,
Of tripping tongue or cunning jest,
Yet here he lingers many a day.{274}
Beneath his ivory feet I lay
Pale plumage of the ringdove’s breast;
I did not dream that Love would stay.
Will Love be flown? I ofttimes say,
Home turning for the noonday rest;
Yet here he lingers many a day.
His gold curls gleam, his lips are gay,
His eyes through tears smile loveliest;
I did not dream that Love would stay.
He sometimes sighs, when far away
The low red sun makes fair the west,
Yet here he lingers many a day.
Thrice blest of all men am I! yea,
Although of all unworthiest;
I did not dream that Love would stay,
Yet here he lingers many a day.
{275}
Graham R. Tomson.
A BLUSH AT FAREWELL.
HER tears are all thine own! how blest thou art!
Thine, too, the blush which no reserve can bind;
Thy farewell voice was as the stirring wind
That floats the rose-bloom; thou hast won her heart;
Dear are the hopes it ushers to thy breast;
She speaks not—but she gives her silent bond;
And thou mayst trust it, asking nought beyond
The promise, which as yet no words attest;
Deep in her bosom sinks the conscious glow,
And deep in thine! and I can well foresee,
If thou shalt feel a lover’s jealousy
For her brief absence, what a ruling power
A bygone blush shall prove! until the hour
Of meeting, when thy next love-rose shall blow.
{276}
Charles Tennyson Turner.
THE KISS OF BETROTHAL.
WHEN lovers’ lips from kissing disunite
With sound as soft as mellow fruitage breaking,
They loathe to leave what was so sweet in taking,
So fraught with breathless magical delight;
The scent of flowers is long before it fade,
Long dwells upon the gale the Vesper-tone,
Far floats the wake the lightest skiff has made,
The closest kiss when once imprest, is gone;
What marvel, then, that each so closely kisseth?
Sweet is the fourfold touch—the living seal—
What marvel then, with sorrow each dismisseth
This thrilling pledge of all they hope and feel?
While on their lingering steps the shadows steal,
And each true heart beats as the other wisheth.
{277}
Charles Tennyson Turner.
THE PARTING-GATE.
IN that old beech-walk, now bestrewn with mast,
And roaring loud—they linger’d long and late;
Harsh was the clang of the last homeward gate
That latch’d itself behind them, as they pass’d—
Then kiss’d and parted. Soon her funeral knell
Toll’d from a foreign clime; he did not talk
Nor weep, but shudder’d at that stern farewell;
’Twas the last gate in all their lovers’-walk
Without the kiss beyond it! Was it good
To leave him thus, alone with his sad mood
In that dear footpath, haunted by her smile?
Where they had laugh’d and loiter’d, sat and stood?
Alone in life! alone in Moreham wood!
Through all that sweet, forsaken, forest mile!
{278}
Charles Tennyson Turner.
IRISH LOVE SONG.
WOULD God I were the tender apple-blossom,
Floating and falling from the twisted bough,
To lie and faint within your silken bosom,
As that does now!
Or would I were a little burnished apple
For you to pluck me, gliding by so cold,
While sun and shade your robe of lawn will dapple,
Your hair’s spun gold.
Yea, would to God I were among the roses
That lean to kiss you as you float between!
While on the lowest branch a bud uncloses
To touch you, Queen!
Nay, since you will not love, would I were growing
A happy daisy in the garden path;
That so your silver foot might press me going,
Even unto death!
{279}
Katherine Tynan.
GOOD-NIGHT.
IT is over now, she is gone to rest;
I have clasped the hands on the quiet breast;
Draw back the curtain, let in the light,
She will never shrink if it be too bright.
We were two in here but an hour gone by,
No streak was then in the midnight sky;
Now I am one to watch the day
Come glimmering up from the far-away.
What will he say when he comes in,
Waked by the city’s morning din,
Hoping to find and fearing to know
The sorrow he left but an hour ago?
What will he say who has watched so long,
When he shall find who has come and gone?
Come a watcher that will not bide
Love’s morning or noon or eventide.{280}
He thought to kiss her by morning gray,
But God has thought to take her away.
What will he say? God knows, not I;
“Good-night,” he said, but never “good-bye.{281}”
C. C. Fraser Tytler.
I KNOW ’TIS LATE, BUT LET ME STAY.
I KNOW ’tis late, but let me stay,
For night is tenderer than day;
Sweet love, dear love, I cannot go;
Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so.
The birds are in the grove asleep,
The katydids shrill concert keep,
The woodbine breathes a fragrance rare
To please the dewy, languid air,
The fireflies twinkle in the vale,
The river shines in moonlight pale:
See yon bright star! choose it for thine,
And call its near companion mine;
Yon air-spun lace above the moon,—
’Twill veil her radiant beauty soon;
And look! a meteor’s dreamy light
Streams mystic through the solemn night.
Ah, life glides swift, like that still fire—
How soon our gleams of joy expire!
Who can be sure the present kiss
Is not his last? Make all of this.{282}
I know ’tis late, dear love, I know,
Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so.
It cannot be the stealthy day
That turns the orient darkness gray;
Heardst thou? I thought or feared I heard
Vague twitters of some wakeful bird.
Nay, ’twas but summer in her sleep
Low murmuring from the leafy deep.
Fantastic mist obscurely fills
The hollows of Kentucky hills.
The wings of night are swift indeed!
Why makes the jealous morn such speed?
This rose thou wear’st may I not take
For passionate remembrance’ sake?
Press with thy lips its crimson heart.
Yes, blushing rose, we must depart.
A rose cannot return a kiss—
I pay its due with this, and this.
The stars grow faint, they soon will die,
But love fades not nor fails. Good-bye!
Unhappy joy—delicious pain—
We part in love, we meet again.
Good-bye! the morning dawns—I go;
Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so.
{283}
William H. Venable.
CASHEL OF MUNSTER.
I WOULD wed you, dear, without gold or gear, or counted kine;
My wealth you’ll be, would your friends agree, and you be mine.
My grief, my gloom! that you do not come, my heart’s dear hoard!
To Cashel fair, though our couch were there but a soft deal board.
Oh, come, my bride, o’er the wild hill-side to the valley low!
A downy bed for my love I’ll spread where waters flow,
And we shall stray where streamlets play, the groves among,
Where echo tells to the listening dells the blackbird’s song.
Love tender, true, I gave to you, and secret sighs,
In hope to see upon you and me one hour arise,{284}
When the priest’s blest voice would bind my choice and the ring’s strict tie,
If wife you be, love, to one but me, love, in grief I’ll die!
A neck of white has my heart’s delight, and breast like snow,
And flowing hair whose ringlets fair to the green grass flow,
Alas! that I did not early die, before the day
That saw me here, from my bosom’s dear, far, far away!
{285}
Edward Walsh.
DAFFODILS.
I QUESTION with the amber daffodils,
Sheeting the floors of April, how she fares;
Where king-cup buds gleam out between the rills,
And celandine in wide gold beadlets glares.
By pastured brows and swelling hedgerow bowers,
From crumpled leaves the primrose bunches slip,
My hot face roll’d in their faint-scented flowers,
I dream her rich cheek rests against my lip.
All weird sensations of the fervent prime
Are like great harmonies, whose touch can move
The glow of gracious impulse: thought and time
Renew my love with life, my life with love.
When this old world new-born puts glories on,
I cannot think she never will be won.
{286}
John Leicester Warren.
AVE ATQUE VALE.
FAREWELL my Youth! for now we needs must part,
For here the paths divide;
Here hand from hand must sever, heart from heart,—
Divergence deep and wide.
You’ll wear no withered roses for my sake,
Though I go mourning for you all day long,
Finding no magic more in bower and brake,
No melody in song.
Gray Eld must travel in my company
To seal this severance more fast and sure.
A joyless fellowship, i’ faith, ’twill be,
Yet must we fare together, I and he,
Till I shall tread the footpath way no more.
But when a blackbird pipes among the boughs,
On some dim iridescent day in spring,
Then I may dream you are remembering
Our ancient vows.{287}
Or when some joy foregone, some fate forsworn
Looks through the dark eyes of the violet,
I may recross the set, forbidden bourne, I may forget
Our long, long parting for a little while,
Dream of the golden splendours of your smile,
Dream you remember yet.
{288}
Rosamund Marriot Watson.
EPITAPH.
NOW lay thee down to sleep, and dream of me;
Though thou art dead and I am living yet,
Though cool thy couch and sweet thy slumbers be,
Dream—do not quite forget.
Sleep all the autumn, all the winter long,
With never a painted shadow from the past
To haunt thee; only, when the blackbird’s song
Wakens the woods at last,
When the young shoots grow lusty overhead,
Here, where the spring sun smiles, the spring wind grieves,
When budding violets close above thee spread
Their small heart-shapen leaves,{289}
Pass, O Belovèd, to dreams from slumber deep;
Recount the store that mellowing time endears,
Tread, through the measureless mazes of thy sleep,
Our old unchangeful years.
Lie still and listen—while thy sheltering tree
Whispers of suns that rose, of suns that set—
For far-off echoes of the spring and me.
Dream—do not quite forget.
{290}
Rosamund Marriot Watson.
A GOLDEN HOUR.
A BECKONING spirit of gladness seemed afloat,
That lightly danced in laughing air before us:
The earth was all in tune, and you a note
Of Nature’s happy chorus.
’Twas like a vernal morn, yet overhead
The leafless boughs across the lane were knitting:
The ghost of some forgotten spring, we said,
O’er winter’s world comes flitting.
Or was it spring herself, that, gone astray,
Beyond the alien frontier chose to tarry?
Or but some bold outrider of the May,
Some April emissary?
The apparition faded on the air,
Capricious and incalculable comer.—
Wilt thou too pass, and leave my chill days bare,
And fall’n my phantom summer?
{291}
William Watson.
AND THESE—ARE THESE INDEED THE END?
AND these—are these indeed the end,
This grinning skull, this heavy loam?
Do all green ways whereby we wend
Lead but to yon ignoble home?
Ah, well! Thine eyes invite to bliss;
Thy lips are hives of summer still.
I ask not other worlds while this
Proffers me all the sweets I will.
{292}
William Watson.
A DREAM.
BENEATH the loveliest dream there coils a fear:
Last night came she whose eyes are memories now,
Her far-off gaze seemed all-forgetful how
Love dimmed them once, so calm they shone, and clear.
“Sorrow (I said) hath made me old, my dear;
’Tis I, indeed, but grief doth change the brow;
A love like mine a seraph’s neck might bow,
Vigils like mine would blanch an angel’s hair.”
Ah! then I saw, I saw the sweet lips move!
I saw the love-mists thickening in her eyes;
I heard wild wordless melodies of love,
Like murmur of dreaming brooks in Paradise;
And when upon my neck she fell, my dove,
I knew her hair, though heavy of amaranth-spice.
{293}
Theodore Watts.
THE FIRST KISS.
IF only in dreams may man be fully blest,
Is heav’n a dream? Is she I claspt a dream?
Or stood she here even now where dewdrops gleam,
And miles of furze shine golden down the West?
I seem to clasp her still,—still on my breast
Her bosom beats; I see the blue eyes beam:
I think she kissed these lips, for now they seem
Scarce mine, so hallow’d of the lips they press’d!
Yon thicket’s breath—can that be eglantine?
Those birds—can they be morning’s choristers?
Can this be earth? Can these be banks of furze?
Like burning bushes fired of God they shine!
I seem to know them, though this body of mine
Pass’d into spirit at the touch of hers.
{294}
Theodore Watts.
SUFFICIENCY.
A LITTLE love, of Heaven a little share,
And then we go—what matters it, since where,
Or when, or how, none may aforetime know,
Nor if Death cometh soon, or lingering slow,
Send on ahead his herald of Despair.
On this gray life Love lights with golden glow
Refracted from The Source, his bright wings throw
Its glory on us, if Fate grant our prayer,
A little love!
A little; ’tis as much as we can bear,
For Love is compassed with such magic air
Who breathes it fully dies; and knowing so,
The Gods all wisely but a taste bestow
For little lives; a little while they spare
A little love.
{295}
Gleeson White.
BENEDICITE.
GOD’s love and peace be with thee, where
Soe’er this soft autumnal air
Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair!
Whether through city casements comes
Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms,
Or, out among the woodland blooms,
It freshens o’er thy thoughtful face,
Imparting, in its glad embrace,
Beauty to beauty, grace to grace!
Fair Nature’s book together read,—
The old wood-paths that knew our tread,
The maple shadows overhead,
The hills we climbed, the river seen
By gleams along its deep ravine,—
All keep thy memory fresh and green.{296}
Where’er I look, where’er I stray,
Thy thought goes with me on my way,
And hence the prayer I breathe to-day;
O’er lapse of time and change of scene,—
The weary waste which lies between
Thyself and me, my heart I lean.
Thou lack’st not Friendship’s spell-word, nor
The half-unconscious power to draw
All hearts to thine by Love’s sweet law.
With these good gifts of God is cast
Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast
To hold the blessed angels fast.
If, then, a fervent wish for thee
The gracious heavens will heed from me,
What should, dear heart, its burden be?
The sighing of a shaken reed,—
What can I more than meekly plead
The greatness of our common need?{297}
God’s love,—unchanging, pure, and true,—
The Paraclete white-shining through
His peace,—the fall of Hermon’s dew!
With such a prayer, on this sweet day,
As thou mayst hear and I may say,
I greet thee, dearest, far away!
{298}
John Greenleaf Whittier.
MY VIOLET.
WHEN violets blue begin to blow
Among the mosses fresh and green,
That grow the woodbine roots between,
I take my Violet out, and, oh!
Those cunning violets seem to know
A sweeter than themselves is nigh;
They greet her with a beaming eye,
And brighten where her footsteps go.
When summer glories light the glade
With gloss of green and gleam of gold,
And sunny sheens in wood and wold,
She loves to linger in the shade;
And such sweet light surrounds the maid,
That, somehow, it is fairer far
Where she and those dim shadows are,
Than where the sunbeams are displayed.
When every tree relinquisheth
Its garb of green for sombre brown,
And all the leaves are falling down,{299}
While breezes blow with angry breath,
With gentle pitying voice she saith,
“Poor leaves! I wish you would not die;”
And at the sound they peaceful lie,
And wear a pleasant calm in death.
When winter frosts hold land and sea,
And barren want and bleaker wind
Leave every thought of good behind,
I look upon my love, and she
From thrall of winter sets me free;
And with a sense of perfect rest
I lay my head upon her breast,
And twenty summers shine for me.
{300}
J. T. Burton Wollaston.
ASLEEP.
LIDS closed and pale, with parted lips she lay;
Black on white pillows spread her hair unbound.
Awake, I watched her sleeping face, and found
Its beauty perfect in the breaking day.
Ah, then I knew that Love had passed away;
Alas! though with the entering sun that crowned
With light the beauty that mine arms enwound,
Came too the morning music of the bay.
I wept that Love had been and was no more,
That never shower nor sunlight should restore
The love that gave her life and heart to me;
While radiant in the outburst of the dawn,
Fresh as the wind that swept the mountain lawn,
Green April wantoned on the noisy sea.
{301}
Theodore Wratislaw.
SWIMMING SONG.
THE broad green rollers lift and glide
Beneath our hearts as, side by side,
We breast them blithely, blithely swim
Toward the far horizon’s rim.
The murmur of the land recedes,
The land of grief that aches and needs;
We only as we fall and rise
Drink deep the splendour of the skies.
O far blue heaven above our head,
O near green sea about us spread,
What joy so full, since time began,
Could earth, our mother, give to man?
Your bright face through the water peers
And laughs. “What need have men for tears?”
We say. The land is far and dim,
The world is summer’s, and we swim.{302}
Your bright face peers and laughs. The sweet
Same joy fulfils us, hands and feet:
The same sea’s salt wet lips kiss ours:
We feel the same enraptured hours.
Out yonder! where our distant home
Beckons us from the crests of foam!
Out yonder through the roller’s mirth!
What part was ever ours with earth?
Your white limbs flash, your red lips gleam:
Love seems life’s best and holiest dream;
Nought comes between us here, and I
Could wish not otherwise to die.
With sea beneath us, heaven above,
Life holds but laughter, joy, and love;
No trammels bind us now, and we
Are freer than the birds are free.
Your face seems sweeter here; your hair,
Wet from the sea’s salt lips, more fair;
Your limbs that move and gleam and shine,
Hellenic, pagan, half divine.
If I should catch you now, make fast
Your hands with mine, about you cast
My limbs, and through the untroubled waves
Draw you down to the sea’s deep graves!{303}
Ah, sweet! God’s gift is good enough,
God’s gift of freedom, life, and love—
Though but for this brief hour are we
Alone upon the eternal sea.
{304}
Theodore Wratislaw.
THE PEACE OF THE ROSE.
IF Michael, leader of God’s host,
When Heaven and Hell are met,
Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post,
He would his deeds forget.
Brooding no more upon God’s wars
In his Divine homestead,
He would go weave out of the stars
A chaplet for your head;
And all folk seeing him bow down,
And white stars tell your praise,
Would come at last to God’s great town,
Led on by gentle ways;
And God would bid his warfare cease,
Saying all things were well,
And softly make a rosy peace,
A peace of Heaven and Hell.
{305}
W. B. Yeats.
THE BRIDAL PAIR.
HE.
THOUGH the roving bee as lightly
Sip the sweets of thyme and clover,
Though the moon of May as whitely
Silver all the greensward over,
Yet, beneath the trysting tree,
That hath been which shall not be!
SHE.
Drip the vials ne’er so sweetly
With the honey-dew of pleasure,
Trip the dancers ne’er so featly
Through the old remembered measure,
Yet, the lighted lanthorn round,
What is lost shall not be found!
{306}
William Young.
THE TRIFLERS.
HE.
BECAUSE thou wast cold and proud,
And as one alone in the crowd,
And because of thy wilful and wayward look,
I thought, as I saw thee above my book,
“I will prove if her heart be flesh or stone;”
And in seeking thine, I have found my own.
SHE.
Because thou wast proud and cold,
And because of the story told
That never had woman a smile from thee,
I thought as I glanc’d, “If he frown on me,
Why, be it so! but his peace shall atone;”
And in troubling thine, I have lost my own.
{307}
William Young.
AT THY GRAVE.
WAVES the soft grass at my feet;
Dost thou feel me near thee, sweet?
Though the earth upon thy face
Holds thee close from my embrace,
Yet my spirit thine can reach,
Needs betwixt us twain no speech,
For the same soul lives in each.
Now I meet no tender eyes
Seeking mine in soft surmise
At some broken utterance faint,
Smile quick brightening, sigh half spent;
Yet in some sweet hours gone by,
No responding eye to eye
Needed we for sympathy.
Love, I seem to see thee stand
Silent in a shadowy land,
With a look upon thy face
As if even in that dull place{308}
Distant voices smote thine ears,
Memories of vanished years,
Or faint echoes of those tears.
Yet I would not have it thus;
Then would be most piteous
Our divided lives, if thou
An imperfect bliss should know;
Sweet my suffering, if to thee
Death has brought the faculty
Of entire felicity.
Rather would I weep in vain,
That thou canst not share my pain,
Deem that Lethean waters roll
Softly o’er thy separate soul,
Know that a divided bliss
Makes thee careless of my kiss,
Than that thou shouldst feel distress.
Hush! I hear a low, sweet sound
As of music stealing round;
Forms thy hand the thrilling chords
Into more than spoken words?
Ah! ’tis but the gathering breeze
Whispering to the budding trees,
Or the song of early bees.{309}
Love! where art thou? Canst thou not
Hear me, or is all forgot?
Seest thou not these burning tears?
Can my words not reach thine ears?
Or betwixt my soul and thine
Has some mystery divine
Sealed a separating line?
Is it thus, then, after death
Old things none remembereth?
Is the spirit henceforth clear
Of the life it gathered here?
Will our noblest longings seem
Like some disremembered dream
In the after world’s full beam?
Hark! the rainy wind blows loud,
Scuds above the hurrying cloud;
Hushed is all the song of bees;
Angry murmurs of the trees
Herald tempests. Silent yet
Sleepest thou—nor fear nor fret
Troubles thee. Can I forget?
{310}
LO! IN A DREAM LOVE CAME TO ME.
LO! in a dream Love came to me and cried:
“The summer dawn creeps over land and sea;
The golden fields are ripe for harvest-tide,
And the grape-gatherers climb the mountain-side;
The harvest joy is come; I wait for thee.
Arise, come down, and follow, follow me.”
And I arose, went down, and followed him.
The reaper’s song went ringing through the air;
Below, the morning mists grew pale and dim,
And on the mountain ridge the sun’s bright rim
Rose swiftly, and the glorious dawn was there.
I followed, followed Love, I knew not where.{311}
Through orange groves and orchard ways we went;
The cool fresh dew lay deep on grass and tree,
Above our heads the laden boughs were bent
With weight of ripening fruit; the faint sweet scent
Of fragrant myrtles drifted up to me:
Blindly, O Love, blindly I followed thee!
O Love, the morning shadows passed away
From off the broad fair fields of waving wheat;
I followed thee, till in the full noonday
The weary women in the vineyards lay;
The tall field flowers drooped fading in the heat:
I followed thee with bruised and bleeding feet.
Upon the long white road the fierce sun shone,
And on the distant town and wide waste plain,
O Love, I blindly, blindly followed on,
Nor knew how sharp the way my feet had gone;
Nor knew I aught of shame or loss or pain,
Nor knew I all my labour was in vain.{312}
The sun sank down in silence o’er the land,
The heavy shadows gathered deep and black;
Across the lonely waste of reeds and sand
I followed Love: I could not touch his hand,
Nor see his hidden face, nor turn me back,
Nor find again the far-off mountain-track.
Blindly, O Love! blindly I followed thee:
The summer night lay on the silent plain,
And on the sleeping city and the sea;
The sound of rippling waves came up to me.
O Love! the dawn drew near; far off again
The gray light gathered where the night had lain.
On through the quiet street Love passed, and cried:
“The summer dawn creeps over land and sea;
Sweet is the summer and the harvest-tide;
Awake, arise, Love waits for thee, his Bride.”
And she arose and followed, followed thee,
O traitor Love! who hast forsaken me.
{313}
Fraser’s Magazine.
VALE.
Warbleth the bird of Love his golden song,
And many hearken to his magic strain;
In joyous major now he carols strong,
In minors low he croons his soft refrain.
So fair his lay of Love’s fond empery,
One scarce may mark the quaver of his sigh;
Or note amid his seeming ecstasy
The dream that fades, the hopes that shatter’d lie.
But most he sings for Youth’s enraptured ear,
When hope beats fast and buds are bourgeoning,—
“Time flies,” he trills, “clasp close the fleeting year
Ere winter cometh, and sweet Love take wing!”
{315}
{314}
INDEX
| Adcock, A. St. J.: |
| Since Yesterday | Chambers’ Journal |
| Aldrich, Anne Reeve: |
| An Awakening | The Rose of Flame |
| Love, the Destroyer | ““ |
| Aldrich, Thomas Bailey: |
| Sweetheart, Sigh no More | Wyndham Towers |
| The Faded Violet | Poems |
| Anonymous: |
| A Song of Love | Love lies Bleeding |
| At thy Grave. |
| Et Melle et Felle | Love in a Mist |
| Lo! in a Dream Love came to Me | Fraser’s Magazine |
| The Lonely Landscape | Love lies Bleeding |
| The Outcast | ““ |
| Arnold, Sir Edwin: |
| Song | The Light of Asia |
| Arnold, Matthew: |
| Calais Sands | Poems |
| Ashe, Thomas: |
| Phantoms | Poems |
| The Guest | “ |
| The Secret |
“{316} |
| Austin, Alfred: |
| If Love could Last | The Garden that I Love |
| Barlow, George: |
| A Journey | Song Spray |
| If only Thou art True | From Dawn to Sunset |
| The Ecstasy of the Hair | A Life’s Love |
| Beeching, H. C.: |
| The Night Watches | Love’s Looking-Glass |
| Bennett, John: |
| In a Rose Garden | The Chap Book |
| Blind, Mathilde: |
| I charge you, O Winds of the West | A Love Trilogy |
| Song | Love in Exile |
| Bourdillon, F. W.: |
| Cæli | Ailes d’Alouette |
| Love in the Heart | ““ |
| Bridges, Robert: |
| I will not let Thee go | The Shorter Poems |
| Long are the Hours | ““ |
| Browning, Robert: |
| Apparitions | Poems |
| Porphyria’s Lover | “ |
| Bunner, H. C.: |
| Robin’s Song | Airs from Arcady |
| The Hour of Shadows | ““ |
| Carman, Bliss: |
| Carnations in Winter | Low Tide on Grand Pré |
| The Eavesdropper | ““ |
| Carpenter, Henry Bernard: |
| The Impossible She | A Poet’s Last Songs |
| Cawein, Madison: |
| A Dream Shape | Undertones |
| Unrequited | Moods and Memories{317} |
| Clarke, Herbert E.: |
| In the Wood | Songs of Exile |
| Collier, Thomas Stevens: |
| At Love’s Gate | Song Spray |
| Collins, Mortimer: |
| Birds and Lovers | Selections from the Poetical Works |
| Dawn | ““““ |
| Coonley, Lydia Avery: |
| Love’s Power | Under the Pines, and Other Verses |
| Crane, Walter: |
| Last Night my Lady talked with Me | Renascence |
| Love’s Arrows | “ |
| Curwen, Harry: |
| A Love Song | French Love Songs, and Other Poems |
| Custance, Olive: |
| The Parting Hour. |
| Dobson, Austin: |
| The Sundial | Old World Idylls, and Other Verses |
| Ellwanger, George H.: |
| Spring Song. |
| Ellwanger, W. D.: |
| To Jessie’s Dancing Feet | The Century |
| Gale, Norman R.: |
| A Love Song | Violets |
| A Song | “ |
| Garnett, Richard: |
| A Nocturne | Poems |
| Violets | “ |
| Gosse, Edmund William: |
| A Year | On Viol and Flute |
| I’ve kissed Thee, Sweetheart | Firdausi in Exile, and Other Poems |
| Gray, John: |
| Complaint | Silverpoints |
| Heart’s Demesne |
“{318} |
| Greene, G. A.: |
| In the Evening | Italian Lyrists of To-day |
| When the Leaves Fall |
““
“ |
| Greenwell, Dora: |
| Qui sait aimer, sait mourir | Poems |
| Gulston, A. Stepney: |
| Song | Metempsychosis |
| Hall, Gertrude: |
| O Knight, if Thou a Lady hast | Verses |
| Hall, William C.: |
| At Last | Songs in a Minor Key |
| Hankin, Mary L.: |
| The Old is Better | Year by Year |
| Henley, W. E.: |
| Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights | A Book of Verses |
| Oh, gather me the Rose | ““ |
| Hickey, Emily H.: |
| Her Dream | Lyrics and Verse Tales |
| Hildreth, Charles Lotin: |
| Song | The Masque of Death, and Other Poems |
| The Tryst | ““““ |
| Hinshelwood, A. Ernest: |
| By one Rapt Day | Through Starlight to Dawn |
| Holmes, Oliver Wendell: |
| The Dilemma | Poems |
| Horne, Herbert P.: |
| The Measure | Diversi Colores |
| Hunt, Helen: |
| Two Truths | Verses |
| Image, Selwyn: |
| A Prayer | Poems and Carols |
| Jenner, Henry: |
| A June Storm | The Spectator{319} |
| Kingsley, Charles: |
| Dolcino to Margaret | Poems |
| Lampman, Archibald: |
| A Ballade of Waiting | Among the Millet and Other Poems |
| A Forecast | ““““ |
| Lang, Andrew: |
| An Old Tune | Ballades and Verses Vain |
| Good-bye | Grass of Parnassus |
| Metempsychosis | Ballades and Lyrics of Old France |
| Le Gallienne, Richard: |
| A Ballade of Old Sweethearts | My Ladies’ Sonnets |
| Levy, Amy: |
| In the Mile End Road | A London Plane Tree, and Other Poems |
| Linton, W. J.: |
| Love Afraid | Poems and Translations |
| Locker, Frederick: |
| To my Mistress | London Lyrics |
| Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: |
| It is not always May | Poetical Works |
| Lowell, James Russell: |
| Auf Wiedersehen | Poems |
| Lyall, Sir Alfred: |
| Sequel to “My Queen” | Verses written in India |
| Lytton, Robert, Lord: |
| If...? | Marah |
| Omens and Oracles | “ |
| McCarthy, Justin Huntly: |
| The Garden of Memory | Harlequinade |
| Macdonald, George: |
| If I were a Monk and thou wert a Nun | Poems |
| Mackail, J. W.: |
| A Ballade of Colours | Love’s Looking-Glass{320} |
| Mackay, Eric: |
| My Amazon | Love Letters of a Violinist |
| Marston, Philip Bourke: |
| Changed Love | Wind Voices |
| Summer’s Return | Song-Tide, and Other Poems |
| Marston, Westland: |
| Mine | Selected Dramatic Work and Poems |
| Marzials, Theo.: |
| Aubade | The Gallery of Pigeons, and Other Poems |
| The Phial and the Philtre | ““““ |
| Massey, Gerald: |
| Not I, Sweet Soul, not I | Love Lyrics |
| Meredith, George: |
| At Dinner she is Hostess | Modern Love |
| Love within the Lover’s Breast. |
| Monkhouse, Cosmo: |
| A Dead March | Corn and Poppies |
| Morris, Lewis: |
| Fair Star that on the Shoulder of yon Hill | Gwen |
| Thy Shadow, O Tardy Night | “ |
| Morris, William: |
| The First Lyric | Love is Enough |
| The Concluding Lyric | ““ |
| Moulton, Louise Chandler: |
| Beside a Bier | In the Garden of Dreams |
| Hereafter |
““ “ |
| Murray, George: |
| Fortunio’s Song | Verses and Versions |
| Nesbit, E. (Mrs. Hubert Bland): |
| Splendide Mendax | Lays and Legends, Second Series |
| The Kiss | Leaves of Life |
| The Mill | Lays and Legends, Second Series |
| Nichols, J. B. B.: |
| A Pastoral | Love in Idleness |
| Vigilate Itaque |
“
“
{321} |
| Noble, James Ashcroft: |
| The Horizon | Verses of a Prose Writer |
| O’Connor, Joseph: |
| Shadows | Poems |
| O’Shaughnessy, Arthur: |
| A Farewell | Music and Moonlight |
| Song | ““ |
| Supreme Summer | ““ |
| Parker, Gilbert: |
| As One would stand who saw a Sudden Light | A Lover’s Diary |
| Patmore, Coventry: |
| Departure | The Unknown Eros |
| Payne, John: |
| Cadences | Songs of Life and Death |
| Chant Royal of the God of Love | New Poems |
| False Spring | Songs of Life and Death |
| Perry, Nora: |
| In June | After the Ball, and Other Poems |
| Pfeiffer, Emily: |
| A Song of Winter. |
| Phillips, Stephen: |
| To a Lost Love | Primavera |
| Philpot, William: |
| Prince of Painters, come, I pray. |
| Pinkerton, Percy C.: |
| A Lagoon Message | Galeazzo, and Other Poems |
| Pollock, Walter Herries: |
| A Conquest | New and Old |
| The Devout Lover | ““ |
| Probyn, May: |
| Ballade of Lovers | A Ballade of the Road, and Other Poems |
| Rawnsley, Hardwick Drummond: |
| In a Garden | Poems, Ballads, and Bucolics{322} |
| Reese, Lizette Woodworth: |
| A Song for Candlemas | A Handful of Lavender |
| Rhys, Ernest: |
| A Dream of Diana | A London Rose, and Other Rhymes |
| Riley, James Whitcomb: |
| When She comes Home | Old-Fashioned Roses |
| Robinson, A. Mary F. (Madame James Darmesteter): |
| Poplar Leaves | Lyrics |
| Rossetti, Christina G.: |
| After Death | Poems |
| Somewhere or Other | “ |
| Rossetti, Dante Gabriel: |
| First Love Remembered | The House of Life |
| Love Enthroned | ““ |
| Sudden Light | ““ |
| Scollard, Clinton: |
| A Perfect Day | The Hills of Song |
| Scott, Clement: |
| Rus in Urbe | Lays and Lyrics |
| Sharp, William: |
| Song. |
| The Coming of Love | The Pagan Review |
| Sill, Edward Rowland: |
| Recall | Poems |
| Spofford, Harriet Prescott: |
| Fantasia | Poems |
| Only a Leaf | “ |
| Stedman, Edmund Clarence: |
| Song from a Drama | Poems |
| Story, W. W.: |
| The Violet | Poems |
| Strange, Edward Fairbrother: |
| To my Lady | Palissy in Prison, and Other Verses{323} |
| Swinburne, Algernon Charles: |
| At Parting | Poems and Ballads, Second Series |
| August | Laus Veneris |
| Between the Sunset and the Sea | Chastelard |
| The Oblation | Songs before Sunrise |
| Symons, Arthur: |
| On Judge’s Walk | Silhouettes |
| Symonds, John Addington: |
| Ich hör’ es sogar im Traum | New and Old |
| Oh, when will it be? | The Spirit Lamp |
| Temple, Stephen: |
| Ballade of the Ladyes of Long Syne. |
| Tennyson, Alfred, Lord: |
| Fatima | Poems |
| Now sleeps the Crimson Petal | “ |
| The Window; or the Songs of the Wrens | “ |
| Thomas, Edith M.: |
| Valentine | Lyrics and Sonnets |
| Thompson, Francis: |
| Dream Tryst | Poems |
| Thompson, Maurice: |
| Atalanta | Songs of Fair Weather |
| Thomson, James: |
| A Song of Thanksgiving | Sunday up the River |
| Day after Day of this Azure May | Sunday at Hampstead |
| Todhunter, John: |
| The Song of Tristram | The Second Book of the Rhymers’ Club |
| Tomson, Graham R. (Rosamund Marriott Watson): |
| Aubade | A Summer Night, and Other Poems |
| Love the Guest | The Bird Bride |
| Turner, Charles Tennyson: |
| A Blush at Farewell | Collected Sonnets |
| The Kiss of Betrothal | ““ |
| The Parting-Gate |
“
“
{324} |
| Tynan, Katherine: |
| Irish Love Song | Irish Love Songs |
| Tytler, C. C. Fraser (Mrs. Edward Liddell): |
| Good-Night | Songs in Minor Keys |
| Venable, William H.: |
| I know ’tis Late, but let Me stay | Melodies of the Heart |
| Walsh, Edward: |
| Cashel of Munster | Irish Love Songs |
| Warren, John Leicester (Lord de Tabley): |
| Daffodils | Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical |
| Watson, Rosamund Marriott (Graham R. Tomson): |
| Ave atque Vale | Vespertilia, and Other Verses |
| Epitaph | ““““ |
| Watson, William: |
| A Golden Hour | Lachrymæ Musarum, and Other Poems |
| And These—are These indeed the End? | Poems |
| Watts, Theodore: |
| A Dream | Aylwin |
| The First Kiss | Sonnets |
| White, Gleeson: |
| Sufficiency. |
| Whittier, John Greenleaf: |
| Benedicite | Poems |
| Wollaston, J. T. Burton: |
| My Violet | Golden Hours |
| Wratislaw, Theodore: |
| Asleep | Orchids |
| Swimming Song | “ |
| Yeats, W. B.: |
| The Peace of the Rose | The Countess Kathleen, and Various Legends and Lyrics |
| Young, William: |
| The Bridal Pair | Wishmakers’ Town |
| The Triflers | ““ |
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INDEX OF FIRST LINES
A,
B,
C,
D,
F,
G,
H,
I,
K,
L,
M,
N,
O,
P,
S,
T,
U,
V,
W,
Y.
| | Page |
| A beckoning spirit of gladness seemed afloat, | 290 |
| A hundred years from now, dear heart, | 24 |
| A little love, of Heaven a little share, | 294 |
| All glorious as the Rainbow’s birth, | 153 |
| All the phantoms of the future, all the spectres, | 136 |
| Alone, alone, thro’ the sunny street, | 87 |
| And these—are these indeed the end, | 291 |
| Ask nothing more of me, sweet, | 251 |
| As one would stand who saw a sudden light, | 193 |
| At dinner she is hostess, I am host, | 155 |
| A thousand knights have rein’d their steeds, | 9 |
| Azure of sky and silver of cloud, | 181 |
| |
| Barb’d blossom of the guarded gorse, | 207 |
| Because thou wast cold and proud, | 306 |
| Beneath the loveliest dream there coils a fear, | 292 |
| Between the pansies and the rye, | 102 |
| Between the sunset and the sea, | 249 |
| Bland air and leagues of immemorial blue, | 230 |
| By one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete, | 98 |
| |
| Cold blows the wind against the hill, | 75 |
| Come, oh, come to me, voice or look, or spirit,
| 22{326} |
| Comrades! in vain ye seek to learn, | 168 |
| Countess, I see the flying year, | 118 |
| “Darling,” he said, “I never meant”, | 103 |
| Dawn, with flusht foot upon the mountain tops, | 54 |
| Day after day of this azure May, | 269 |
| Dear, let me dream of love, | 104 |
| |
| Fair star that on the shoulder of yon hill, | 160 |
| Far away hangs an apple that ripens on high, | 45 |
| Farewell my Youth! for now we needs must part, | 286 |
| Fold your arms around me, Sweet, | 92 |
| For a day and night, Love sang to us, played, | 244 |
| For the man was she made by the Eden tree, | 216 |
| From out the past she comes to me, | 243 |
| |
| God’s love and peace be with thee, where, | 295 |
| Gone!, | 262 |
| |
| Has summer come without the rose, | 186 |
| Hath any loved you well down there, | 183 |
| Herald of peace and joy, | 68 |
| Her tears are all thine own! how blest thou art!, | 275 |
| How, as a spider’s web is spun, | 70 |
| How like her! But ’tis she herself, | 116 |
| How many lips have uttered one sweet word—, | 96 |
| |
| “I burn my soul away!”, | 83 |
| I cannot look upon thy grave, | 209 |
| I charge you, O winds of the West, | 26 |
| I dared not lead my arm around, | 117 |
| I did not dream that Love would stay, | 273 |
| I’d send a troop of kisses to entangle, | 21 |
| If in thine eyes, | 123 |
| If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun, |
138 |
| If Love could last, if Love could last, |
15
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|
| If love were like a thrush’s song, | 84 |
| If Michael, leader of God’s host, | 304 |
| If only a single Rose is left, | 20 |
| If only in dreams may man be fully blest, | 293 |
| I found him openly wearing her token, | 214 |
| If stars were really watching eyes, | 29 |
| If thou canst make the frost be gone, | 263 |
| I had never kissed her her whole life long, | 166 |
| I have been here before, | 229 |
| I know not if moonlight or starlight, | 239 |
| I know ’tis late, but let me stay, | 281 |
| I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair, | 228 |
| In after years a twilight ghost shall fill, | 167 |
| In and out the osier beds, all along the shallows, | 234 |
| In a still room at hush of dawn, | 43 |
| In dream I saw Diana pass, Diana as of old, | 221 |
| In that old beech-walk, now bestrewn with mast, | 277 |
| In that tranced hush when sound sank awed, | 148 |
| I question with the amber daffodils, | 285 |
| I saw young Love make trial of his bow, | 59 |
| I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know, | 113 |
| I sit alone and watch the cinders glare, | 81 |
| It is not mine to sing the stately grace, | 215 |
| It is over now, she is gone to rest, | 279 |
| It was not like your great and gracious ways, | 194 |
| It was with doubt and trembling, | 5 |
| I’ve kissed thee, sweetheart, in a dream at least, | 78 |
| I will not let thee go, | 31 |
| I will not say my true love’s eyes, | 73 |
| I would wed you dear, without gold or gear, | 283 |
| |
| Keen winds of cloud and vaporous drift, | 74 |
| Kiss me, and say good-bye, | 111{328} |
| |
| Last night my lady talked with me, | 57 |
| Lids closed and pale, with parted lips she lay, | 300 |
| Lights Love, the timorous bird, to dwell, | 13 |
| Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes, | 80 |
| Lo! in a dream Love came to me and cried, | 310 |
| Long are the hours the sun is above, | 33 |
| Love had forgotten and gone to sleep, | 3 |
| Love in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me!, | 233 |
| Love in the heart is as a nightingale, | 30 |
| Love is a Fire, | 4 |
| Love is enough: ho, ye who seek saving, | 163 |
| Love is enough: though the World be a-waning, | 162 |
| “Love me, or I am slain!” I cried, and meant, | 236 |
| Love within the lover’s breast, | 156 |
| |
| Men, women, call thee so and so, | 79 |
| My days are full of pleasant memories, | 11 |
| My lady has a casket cut, | 151 |
| My life its secret and its mystery has, | 14 |
| My love and I among the mountains strayed, | 176 |
| My Love is a lady fair and free, | 143 |
| My love is the flaming sword, to fight through, | 268 |
| |
| Nay! if thou must depart, thou shalt depart, | 8 |
| No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought, | 107 |
| Not now, but later, when the road, | 213 |
| Not yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high, | 62 |
| Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, | 99 |
| Now lay thee down to sleep, and dream of me, | 288 |
| Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white, | 260 |
| |
| O birds, ’twas not well done of you!, | 203 |
| O brown lark, loving cloud-land best, | 53 |
| O heart full of song in the sweet song-weather,
| 188
{329} |
| Oh! faint delicious spring-time violet, | 241 |
| Oh, gather me the rose, the rose, | 91 |
| Oh, to think, oh, to think as I see her stand there, | 72 |
| Oh, when will it be, oh, when will it be, oh, when, | 255 |
| Oh, would, oh, would that thou and I, | 180 |
| O knight, if thou a lady hast, | 85 |
| O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!, | 258 |
| O most fair God, O Love both new and old, | 199 |
| Once more I walk mid summer days, as one, | 147 |
| |
| Passion? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes, | 49 |
| Peace in her chamber, wheresoe’er, | 227 |
| Play me a march low-toned and slow, | 157 |
| Poets are singing, the whole world over, | 231 |
| Prince of painters, come, I pray, | 211 |
| |
| She went with morning down the wood, | 141 |
| Sing on, sing on: half dreaming still, | 253 |
| Somewhere or other there must surely be, | 226 |
| So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing, | 205 |
| So you but love me, be it your own way, | 133 |
| Such a starved bank of moss, | 35 |
| Sullenly fell the rain while under the oak we stood, | 105 |
| Sweet as the change from pleasant thoughts, | 97 |
| |
| Tell me wher, in what contree, is, | 256 |
| That night on Judge’s Walk the wind, | 252 |
| The ancient memories buried lie, | 196 |
| The breaths of kissing night and day, | 265 |
| The broad green rollers lift and glide, | 301 |
| The cowslip glowed, the tulip burned, | 218 |
| The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept, | 225 |
| The fire is smouldering while the daylight wanes, | 55 |
| The lights are out in the street, and a cool wind,
| 271
{330} |
| The little gate was reached at last, | 127 |
| The mavis sang but yesterday, | 1 |
| The place again, | 124 |
| The rain set early in to-night, | 36 |
| There is a certain garden where I know, | 137 |
| There is an air for which I would disown, | 110 |
| There’s never a rose upon the bush, | 220 |
| The restless years that come and go, | 178 |
| There were four apples on the bough, | 246 |
| The same green hill, the same blue sea, | 19 |
| The snow is white on wood and wold, | 172 |
| The star of love is trembling in the west, | 270 |
| The sun is bright,—the air is clear, | 120 |
| The wheel goes round, the wheel goes round, | 174 |
| The wind blows down the dusty street, | 224 |
| The world goes up and the world goes down, | 106 |
| Though the roving bee as lightly, | 305 |
| Thou walkest with me as the spirit-light, | 28 |
| Thou wilt come back again, but not for me, | 126 |
| Through laughing leaves the sunlight comes, | 50 |
| Thy shadow, O tardy night, | 161 |
| Time with his jealous icy blast, | 60 |
| ’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain, | 64 |
| |
| Upon that quiet day that lies, | 41 |
| Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart, | 39 |
| |
| Vine, vine and eglantine, | 261 |
| |
| Waves the soft grass at my feet, | 307 |
| We’re all alone, we’re all alone, | 237 |
| What days await this woman whose strange feet, | 109 |
| What hast thou done to me, | 122 |
| What thought is folded in thy leaves,
| 6
{331} |
| When did the change come, dearest Heart, | 145 |
| When fair Hyperion dons his night attire, | 149 |
| When God some day shall call my name, | 170 |
| When I shall stand before the judgment throne, | 86 |
| When lovers’ lips from kissing disunite, | 276 |
| When she comes home again! A thousand ways, | 223 |
| When spring grows old, and sleepy winds, | 267 |
| When the hot wasp hung in the grape last year, | 76 |
| When the late leaves lit all the place, | 238 |
| When the leaves fall in autumn, and you go, | 82 |
| When violets blue begin to blow, | 298 |
| Who is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers, | 114 |
| With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams, | 89 |
| With moon-white hearts that held a gleam, | 47 |
| Would God I were the tender apple-blossom, | 278 |
| |
| Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, | 130 |
| Your carmine flakes of bloom to-night, | 42 |
List of Poems in the Order of Their Appearance.
Envoy.
Since Yesterday.
An Awakening.
Love, The Destroyer.
Sweetheart, Sigh No More.
The Faded Violet.
Song.
Calais Sands.
Phantoms.
The Guest.
The Secret.
If Love Could Last!
A Journey.
If Only Thou Art True.
The Ecstasy Of The Hair.
The Night Watches.
In A Rose Garden.
I Charge You, O Winds Of The West.
Song.
Cæli.
Love In The Heart.
I Will Not Let Thee Go.
Long Are The Hours.
Apparitions.
Porphyria’s Lover.
Robin’s Song.
The Hour Of Shadows.
Carnations In Winter.
The Eavesdropper.
The Impossible She.
A Dream Shape.
Unrequited.
In The Wood.
Birds And Lovers.
Dawn.
Love’s Power.
Last Night My Lady Talked With Me.
Love’s Arrows.
A Love Song.
The Parting Hour.
The Sundial.
Spring Song.
To Jessie’s Dancing Feet.
A Love Song.
A Song.
A Nocturne.
Violets.
A Year.
I’ve Kissed Thee, Sweetheart.
Complaint.
Heart’s Demesne.
In The Evening.
When The Leaves Fall In Autumn.
“Qui Sait Aimer, Sait Mourir.”
Song.
O Knight, If Thou A Lady Hast.
At Last.
The Old Is Better.
Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights.
Oh, Gather Me The Rose.
Her Dream.
Song.
The Tryst.
By One Rapt Day.
The Dilemma.
The Measure.
Two Truths.
A Prayer.
A June Storm.
Dolcino To Margaret.
A Ballade Of Waiting.
A Forecast.
An Old Tune.
Good-bye.
Metempsychosis.
A Ballade Of Old Sweethearts.
In The Mile-end Road.
Love Afraid.
To My Mistress.
It Is Not Always May.
Et Melle Et Felle.
A Song Of Love.
The Lonely Landscape.
The Outcast.
Auf Wiedersehen!
Sequel To “My Queen.”
If ...?
Omens And Oracles.
The Garden Of Memory.
If I Were A Monk, And Thou Wert A Nun.
A Ballade Of Colours.
My Amazon.
Changed Love.
Summer’s Return.
Mine.
Aubade.
The Phial And The Philtre.
Not I, Sweet Soul, Not I.
At Dinner She Is Hostess.
Love Within The Lover’s Breast.
A Dead March.
Fair Star That On The Shoulder Of Yon Hill.
Thy Shadow, O Tardy Night.
The First Lyric.
The Concluding Lyric.
Beside A Bier.
Hereafter.
Fortunio’s Song.
Splendide Mendax.
The Kiss.
The Mill.
A Pastoral.
Vigilate Itaque.
The Horizon.
Shadows.
A Farewell.
Song.
Supreme Summer.
As One Would Stand Who Saw A Sudden Light.
Departure.
Cadences.
Chant Royal Of The God Of Love.
False Spring.
In June.
A Song Of Winter.
To A Lost Love.
Prince Of Painters, Come, I Pray.
A Lagoon Message.
A Conquest.
The Devout Lover.
Ballade Of Lovers.
In A Garden.
A Song For Candlemas.
A Dream Of Diana.
When She Comes Home.
Poplar Leaves.
After Death.
Somewhere Or Other.
First Love Remembered.
Love Enthroned.
Sudden Light.
A Perfect Day.
Rus In Urbe.
Song.
The Coming Of Love.
Recall.
Fantasia.
Only A Leaf.
Song From A Drama.
The Violet.
To My Lady.
At Parting.
August.
Between The Sunset And The Sea.
The Oblation.
On Judge’s Walk.
Ich Hör’ Es Sogar Im Traum.
Oh, When Will It Be?
Ballade Of The Ladyes Of Long Syne.
Fatima.
Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal.
The Window; Or The Songs Of The Wrens.
Gone.
Valentine.
Dream Tryst.
Atalanta.
A Song Of Thanksgiving.
Day After Day Of This Azure May.
The Song Of Tristram.
Aubade.
Love, The Guest.
A Blush At Farewell.
The Kiss Of Betrothal.
The Parting-gate.
Irish Love Song.
Good-night.
I Know ’Tis Late, But Let Me Stay.
Cashel Of Munster.
Daffodils.
Ave Atque Vale.
Epitaph.
A Golden Hour.
And These—are These Indeed The End?
A Dream.
The First Kiss.
Sufficiency.
Benedicite.
My Violet.
Asleep.
Swimming Song.
The Peace Of The Rose.
The Bridal Pair.
The Triflers.
At Thy Grave.
Lo! In A Dream Love Came To Me.
Vale.
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