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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grass of Parnassus, by Andrew Lang
+(#7 in our series by Andrew Lang)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Grass of Parnassus
+
+Author: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1060]
+[This file was first posted on October 8, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: June 28, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, GRASS OF PARNASSUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+Grass of Parnassus
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+ Grass of Parnassus
+ Deeds of men:
+ Seekers for a city
+ The white Pacha
+ Midnight, January 25, 1886
+ Advance, Australia
+ Colonel Burnaby
+ Melville and Coghill
+ Rhodocleia:
+ To Rhodocleia--on her melancholy singing
+ Ave:
+ Clevedon church
+ Twilight on Tweed *
+ Metempsychosis *
+ Lost in Hades *
+ A star in the night *
+ A sunset on yarrow *
+ Another way
+ Hesperothen:
+ The seekers for Phaeacia
+ A song of Phaeacia
+ The departure from Phaeacia
+ A ballad of departure
+ They hear the sirens for the second time
+ Circe's Isle revisited
+ The limit of lands
+ Verses:
+ Martial in town
+ April on Tweed
+ Tired of towns
+ Scythe song
+ Pen and ink
+ A dream
+ The singing rose
+ A review in rhyme
+ Colinette *
+ A sunset of Watteau *
+ Nightingale weather *
+ Love and wisdom *
+ Good-bye *
+ An old prayer *
+ A la belle Helene *
+ Sylvie et Aurelie *
+ A lost path *
+ The shade of Helen *
+ Sonnets:
+ She
+ Herodotus in Egypt
+ Gerard de Nerval *
+ Ronsard *
+ Love's miracle *
+ Dreams *
+ Two sonnets of the sirens *
+ Translations:
+ Hymn to the winds *
+ Moonlight *
+ The grave and the rose *
+ A vow to heavenly Venus *
+ Of his lady's old age *
+ Shadows of his lady *
+ April *
+ An old tune *
+ Old loves *
+ A lady of high degree *
+ Iannoula *
+ The milk-white doe *
+ Heliodore
+ The prophet
+ Lais
+ Clearista
+ The fisherman's tomb
+ Of his death
+ Rhodope
+ To a girl
+ To the ships
+ A late convert
+ The limit of life
+ To Daniel Elzevir
+ The Last Chance
+
+
+
+To E. M. S.
+
+
+Prima dicta mihi, summa dicenda Camena.
+
+
+The years will pass, and hearts will range,
+YOU conquer Time, and Care, and Change.
+Though Time doth still delight to shed
+The dust on many a younger head;
+Though Care, oft coming, hath the guile
+From younger lips to steal the smile;
+Though Change makes younger hearts wax cold,
+And sells new loves for loves of old,
+Time, Change, nor Care, hath learned the art
+To fleck your hair, to chill your heart,
+To touch your tresses with the snow,
+To mar your mirth of long ago.
+Change, Care, nor Time, while life endure,
+Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure,
+The love which flows from sacred springs,
+In 'old unhappy far-off things,'
+From sympathies in grief and joy,
+Through all the years of man and boy.
+
+Therefore, to you, the rhymes I strung
+When even this 'brindled' head was young
+I bring, and later rhymes I bring
+That flit upon as weak a wing,
+But still for you, for yours, they sing!
+
+
+
+Many of the verses and translations in this volume were published first in
+Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Though very sensible that they
+have the demerits of imitative and even of undergraduate rhyme, I print
+them again because people I like have liked them. The rest are of
+different dates, and lack (though doubtless they need) the excuse of having
+been written, like some of the earlier pieces, during College Lectures. I
+would gladly have added to this volume what other more or less serious
+rhymes I have written, but circumstances over which I have no control have
+bound them up with Ballades, and other toys of that sort.
+
+It may be as well to repeat in prose, what has already been said in verse,
+that Grass of Parnassus, the pretty Autumn flower, grows in the marshes at
+the foot of the Muses' Hill, and other hills, not at the top by any means.
+
+Several of the versions from the Greek Anthology have been published in the
+Fortnightly Review, and the sonnet on Colonel Burnaby appeared in Punch.
+These, with pieces from other serials, are reprinted by the courteous
+permission of the Editors.
+
+The verses that were published in Ballades and Lyrics, and in Ballads and
+Verses Vain (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), are marked in the contents
+with an asterisk.
+
+
+
+GRASS OF PARNASSUS.
+
+
+
+Pale star that by the lochs of Galloway,
+In wet green places 'twixt the depth and height
+Dost keep thine hour while Autumn ebbs away,
+When now the moors have doffed the heather bright,
+Grass of Parnassus, flower of my delight,
+How gladly with the unpermitted bay--
+Garlands not mine, and leaves that not decay--
+How gladly would I twine thee if I might!
+
+The bays are out of reach! But far below
+The peaks forbidden of the Muses' Hill,
+Grass of Parnassus, thy returning snow
+Between September and October chill
+Doth speak to me of Autumns long ago,
+And these kind faces that are with me still.
+
+
+
+DEEDS OF MEN
+
+
+
+
+[Greek text]
+
+
+
+To Colonel Ian Hamilton.
+
+
+To you, who know the face of war,
+You, that for England wander far,
+You that have seen the Ghazis fly
+From English lads not sworn to die,
+You that have lain where, deadly chill,
+The mist crept o'er the Shameful Hill,
+You that have conquered, mile by mile,
+The currents of unfriendly Nile,
+And cheered the march, and eased the strain
+When Politics made valour vain,
+Ian, to you, from banks of Ken,
+We send our lays of Englishmen!
+
+
+
+SEEKERS FOR A CITY.
+
+
+
+"Believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set on a hill
+visible to all the world, I should long ago have journeyed thither. . . But
+the number and variety of the ways! For you know, THERE IS BUT ONE ROAD
+THAT LEADS TO CORINTH."
+
+HERMOTIMUS (Mr Pater's Version).
+
+"The Poet says, DEAR CITY OF CECROPS, and wilt thou not say, DEAR CITY OF
+ZEUS?"
+
+M. ANTONINUS.
+
+
+"TO CORINTH LEADS ONE ROAD," you say:
+Is there a Corinth, or a way?
+Each bland or blatant preacher hath
+His painful or his primrose path,
+And not a soul of all of these
+But knows the city 'twixt the seas,
+Her fair unnumbered homes and all
+Her gleaming amethystine wall!
+
+Blind are the guides who know the way,
+The guides who write, and preach, and pray,
+I watch their lives, and I divine
+They differ not from yours and mine!
+
+One man we knew, and only one,
+Whose seeking for a city's done,
+For what he greatly sought he found,
+A city girt with fire around,
+A city in an empty land
+Between the wastes of sky and sand,
+A city on a river-side,
+Where by the folk he loved, he died. {1}
+
+Alas! it is not ours to tread
+That path wherein his life he led,
+Not ours his heart to dare and feel,
+Keen as the fragrant Syrian steel;
+Yet are we not quite city-less,
+Not wholly left in our distress--
+Is it not said by One of old,
+"Sheep have I of another fold?"
+Ah! faint of heart, and weak of will,
+For us there is a city still!
+
+"Dear city of Zeus," the Stoic says, {2}
+The Voice from Rome's imperial days,
+In Thee meet all things, and disperse,
+In Thee, for Thee, O Universe!
+To me all's fruit thy seasons bring,
+Alike thy summer and thy spring;
+The winds that wail, the suns that burn,
+From Thee proceed, to Thee return.
+
+"Dear city of Zeus," shall WE not say,
+Home to which none can lose the way!
+Born in that city's flaming bound,
+We do not find her, but are found.
+Within her wide and viewless wall
+The Universe is girdled all.
+All joys and pains, all wealth and dearth,
+All things that travail on the earth,
+God's will they work, if God there be,
+If not, what is my life to me?
+
+Seek we no further, but abide
+Within this city great and wide,
+In her and for her living, we
+Have no less joy than to be free;
+Nor death nor grief can quite appal
+The folk that dwell within her wall,
+Nor aught but with our will befall!
+
+
+
+THE WHITE PACHA.
+
+
+
+Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave,
+He perished with the folk he could not save,
+And though none surely told us he is dead,
+And though perchance another in his stead,
+Another, not less brave, when all was done,
+Had fled unto the southward and the sun,
+Had urged a way by force, or won by guile
+To streams remotest of the secret Nile,
+Had raised an army of the Desert men,
+And, waiting for his hour, had turned again
+And fallen on that False Prophet, yet we know
+GORDON is dead, and these things are not so!
+Nay, not for England's cause, nor to restore
+Her trampled flag--for he loved Honour more--
+Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or Victory,
+Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die.
+He will not come again, whate'er our need,
+He will not come, who is happy, being freed
+From the deathly flesh and perishable things,
+And lies of statesmen and rewards of kings.
+Nay, somewhere by the sacred River's shore
+He sleeps like those who shall return no more,
+No more return for all the prayers of men--
+Arthur and Charles--they never come again!
+They shall not wake, though fair the vision seem:
+Whate'er sick Hope may whisper, vain the dream!
+
+
+
+MIDNIGHT, JANUARY 25, 1886.
+
+
+
+To-morrow is a year since Gordon died!
+A year ago to-night, the Desert still
+Crouched on the spring, and panted for its fill
+Of lust and blood. Their old art statesmen plied,
+And paltered, and evaded, and denied;
+Guiltless as yet, except for feeble will,
+And craven heart, and calculated skill
+In long delays, of their great homicide.
+
+A year ago to-night 'twas not too late.
+The thought comes through our mirth, again, again;
+Methinks I hear the halting foot of Fate
+Approaching and approaching us; and then
+Comes cackle of the House, and the Debate!
+Enough; he is forgotten amongst men.
+
+
+
+ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA.
+
+
+
+On the offer of help from the Australians after the fall of Khartoum.
+
+
+Sons of the giant Ocean isle
+In sport our friendly foes for long,
+Well England loves you, and we smile
+When you outmatch us many a while,
+So fleet you are, so keen and strong.
+
+You, like that fairy people set
+Of old in their enchanted sea
+Far off from men, might well forget
+An elder nation's toil and fret,
+Might heed not aught but game and glee.
+
+But what your fathers were you are
+In lands the fathers never knew,
+'Neath skies of alien sign and star
+You rally to the English war;
+Your hearts are English, kind and true.
+
+And now, when first on England falls
+The shadow of a darkening fate,
+You hear the Mother ere she calls,
+You leave your ocean-girdled walls,
+And face her foemen in the gate.
+
+
+
+COLONEL BURNABY.
+
+
+
+[Greek text]
+
+
+Thou that on every field of earth and sky
+Didst hunt for Death, who seemed to flee and fear,
+How great and greatly fallen dost thou lie
+Slain in the Desert by some wandering spear:
+'Not here, alas!' may England say, 'not here
+Nor in this quarrel was it meet to die,
+But in that dreadful battle drawing nigh
+To thunder through the Afghan passes sheer:
+
+Like Aias by the ships shouldst thou have stood,
+And in some glen have stayed the stream of flight,
+The bulwark of thy people and their shield,
+When Indus or when Helmund ran with blood,
+Till back into the Northland and the Night
+The smitten Eagles scattered from the field.'
+
+
+
+MELVILLE AND COGHILL.
+
+
+
+(The place of the little hand.)
+
+
+Dead, with their eyes to the foe,
+Dead, with the foe at their feet,
+Under the sky laid low
+Truly their slumber is sweet,
+Though the wind from the Camp of the Slain Men blow,
+And the rain on the wilderness beat.
+
+Dead, for they chose to die
+When that wild race was run;
+Dead, for they would not fly,
+Deeming their work undone,
+Nor cared to look on the face of the sky,
+Nor loved the light of the sun.
+
+Honour we give them and tears,
+And the flag they died to save,
+Rent from the rain of the spears,
+Wet from the war and the wave,
+Shall waft men's thoughts through the dust of the years,
+Back to their lonely grave!
+
+
+
+
+RHODOCLEIA
+
+
+
+
+TO RHODOCLEIA--ON HER MELANCHOLY SINGING.
+
+
+
+(Rhodocleia was beloved by Rufinus, one of the late poets of the Greek
+Anthology.)
+
+
+Still, Rhodocleia, brooding on the dead,
+Still singing of the meads of asphodel,
+Lands desolate of delight?
+Say, hast thou dreamed of, or remembered,
+The shores where shadows dwell,
+Nor know the sun, nor see the stars of night?
+
+There, 'midst thy music, doth thy spirit gaze
+As a girl pines for home,
+Looking along the way that she hath come,
+Sick to return, and counts the weary days!
+So wouldst thou flee
+Back to the multitude whose days are done,
+Wouldst taste the fruit that lured Persephone,
+The sacrament of death; and die, and be
+No more in the wind and sun!
+
+Thou hast not dreamed it, but remembered
+I know thou hast been there,
+Hast seen the stately dwellings of the dead
+Rise in the twilight air,
+And crossed the shadowy bridge the spirits tread,
+And climbed the golden stair!
+
+Nay, by thy cloudy hair
+And lips that were so fair,
+Sad lips now mindful of some ancient smart,
+And melancholy eyes, the haunt of Care,
+I know thee who thou art!
+That Rhodocleia, Glory of the Rose,
+Of Hellas, ere her close,
+That Rhodocleia who, when all was done
+The golden time of Greece, and fallen her sun,
+Swayed her last poet's heart.
+
+With roses did he woo thee, and with song,
+With thine own rose, and with the lily sweet,
+The dark-eyed violet,
+Garlands of wind-flowers wet,
+And fragrant love-lamps that the whole night long
+Burned till the dawn was burning in the skies,
+Praising thy golden eyes,
+And feet more silvery than Thetis' feet!
+
+But thou didst die and flit
+Among the tribes outworn,
+The unavailing myriads of the past:
+Oft he beheld thy face in dreams of morn,
+And, waking, wept for it,
+Till his own time came at last,
+And then he sought thee in the dusky land!
+Wide are the populous places of the dead
+Where souls on earth once wed
+May never meet, nor each take other's hand,
+Each far from the other fled!
+
+So all in vain he sought for thee, but thou
+Didst never taste of the Lethaean stream,
+Nor that forgetful fruit,
+The mystic pom'granate;
+But from the Mighty Warden fledst; and now,
+The fugitive of Fate,
+Thou farest in our life as in a dream,
+Still wandering with thy lute,
+Like that sweet paynim lady of old song,
+Who sang and wandered long,
+For love of her Aucassin, seeking him!
+So with thy minstrelsy
+Thou roamest, dreaming of the country dim,
+Below the veiled sky!
+
+There doth thy lover dwell,
+Singing, and seeking still to find thy face
+In that forgetful place:
+Thou shalt not meet him here,
+Not till thy singing clear
+Through all the murmur of the streams of hell
+Wins to the Maiden's ear!
+May she, perchance, have pity on thee and call
+Thine eager spirit to sit beside her feet,
+Passing throughout the long unechoing hall
+Up to the shadowy throne,
+Where the lost lovers of the ages meet;
+Till then thou art alone!
+
+
+
+
+AVE.
+
+
+
+
+'Our Faith and Troth
+All time and space controules
+Above the highest sphere we meet
+Unseen, unknowne, and greet as Angels greet'
+
+Col. Richard Lovelace. 1649
+
+
+
+CLEVEDON CHURCH.
+
+
+
+[In memoriam H. B.]
+
+
+Westward I watch the low green hills of Wales,
+The low sky silver grey,
+The turbid Channel with the wandering sails
+Moans through the winter day.
+There is no colour but one ashen light
+On tower and lonely tree,
+The little church upon the windy height
+Is grey as sky or sea.
+But there hath he that woke the sleepless Love
+Slept through these fifty years,
+There is the grave that has been wept above
+With more than mortal tears.
+And far below I hear the Channel sweep
+And all his waves complain,
+As Hallam's dirge through all the years must keep
+Its monotone of pain.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Grey sky, brown waters, as a bird that flies,
+My heart flits forth from these
+Back to the winter rose of northern skies,
+Back to the northern seas.
+And lo, the long waves of the ocean beat
+Below the minster grey,
+Caverns and chapels worn of saintly feet,
+And knees of them that pray.
+And I remember me how twain were one
+Beside that ocean dim,
+I count the years passed over since the sun
+That lights me looked on him,
+And dreaming of the voice that, save in sleep,
+Shall greet me not again,
+Far, far below I hear the Channel sweep
+And all his waves complain.
+
+
+
+TWILIGHT ON TWEED.
+
+
+
+Three crests against the saffron sky,
+Beyond the purple plain,
+The kind remembered melody
+Of Tweed once more again.
+
+Wan water from the border hills,
+Dear voice from the old years,
+Thy distant music lulls and stills,
+And moves to quiet tears.
+
+Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood
+Fleets through the dusky land;
+Where Scott, come home to die, has stood,
+My feet returning stand.
+
+A mist of memory broods and floats,
+The Border waters flow;
+The air is full of ballad notes,
+Borne out of long ago.
+
+Old songs that sung themselves to me,
+Sweet through a boy's day dream,
+While trout below the blossom'd tree
+Plashed in the golden steam.
+
+* * * * *
+
+Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,
+Fair and too fair you be;
+You tell me that the voice is still
+That should have welcomed me.
+
+1870.
+
+
+
+METEMPSYCHOSIS.
+
+
+
+I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know
+Perchance, the grey 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,
+In song or story are but shapes of thee;
+Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear,
+Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
+
+
+
+LOST IN HADES.
+
+
+
+I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place,
+Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot
+In welcome, and regret remembered not;
+And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise
+On lips that had been songless many days;
+Hope had no more to hope for, and desire
+And dread were overpast, in white attire
+New born we walked among the new world's ways.
+
+Then from the press of shades a spirit threw
+Towards me such apples as these gardens bear;
+And turning, I was 'ware of her, and knew
+And followed her fleet voice and flying hair,--
+Followed, and found her not, and seeking you
+I found you never, dearest, anywhere.
+
+
+
+A STAR IN THE NIGHT.
+
+
+
+The perfect piteous beauty of thy face
+Is like a star the dawning drives away;
+Mine eyes may never see in the bright day
+Thy pallid halo, thy supernal grace;
+But in the night from forth the silent place
+Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray
+Star of the starry flock that in the grey
+Is seen, and lost, and seen a moment's space.
+
+And as the earth at night turns to a star,
+Loved long ago, and dearer than the sun,
+So in the spiritual place afar,
+At night our souls are mingled and made one,
+And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise,
+That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.
+
+
+
+A SUNSET ON YARROW.
+
+
+
+The wind and the day had lived together,
+They died together, and far away
+Spoke farewell in the sultry weather,
+Out of the sunset, over the heather,
+The dying wind and the dying day.
+
+Far in the south, the summer levin
+Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air:
+We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;
+You saw within, but to me 'twas given
+To see your face, as an angel's, there.
+
+Never again, ah surely never
+Shall we wait and watch, where of old we stood,
+The low good-night of the hill and the river,
+The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver,
+Twain grown one in the solitude.
+
+
+
+ANOTHER WAY.
+
+
+
+Come to me in my dreams, and then,
+One saith, I shall be well again,
+For then the night will more than pay
+The hopeless longing of the day.
+
+Nay, come not THOU in dreams, my sweet,
+With shadowy robes, and silent feet,
+And with the voice, and with the eyes
+That greet me in a soft surprise.
+
+Last night, last night, in dreams we met,
+And how, to-day, shall I forget,
+Or how, remembering, restrain
+Mine incommunicable pain?
+
+Nay, where thy land and people are,
+Dwell thou remote, apart, afar,
+Nor mingle with the shapes that sweep
+The melancholy ways of Sleep.
+
+But if, perchance, the shadows break,
+If dreams depart, and men awake,
+If face to face at length we see,
+Be thine the voice to welcome me.
+
+
+
+
+HESPEROTHEN
+
+
+
+
+By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from
+the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they
+know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian island,
+nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert
+country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land
+of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and
+by Circe's Isle, the place of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary,
+attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master
+Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the
+Macraeones.
+
+
+
+THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+There is a land in the remotest day,
+Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
+The eastern shore sees faint tides fade away,
+That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs
+Make life,--the lands below the blue of common skies.
+
+But in the west is a mysterious sea,
+(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
+With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
+With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
+And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.
+
+Eastward the human cares of house and home,
+Cities, and ships, and unknown gods, and loves;
+Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
+And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
+Wherein a god may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
+
+The gods are careless of the days and death
+Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
+The gods are heedless of their painful breath,
+And love them not, for they are not as these;
+But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
+
+Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live
+At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
+Most like the gods; and they have gifts to give,
+Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
+And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
+
+It is a quiet midland; in the cool
+Of the twilight comes the god, though no man prayed,
+To watch the maids and young men beautiful
+Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,
+For they are neat of kin to gods, and undismayed.
+
+Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
+The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!
+But with a mist they hide them wondrously,
+And far the path and dim to where they sleep,--
+The loved, the shadowy lands, along the shadowy deep.
+
+
+
+A SONG OF PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+The languid sunset, mother of roses,
+Lingers, a light on the magic seas,
+The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses,
+Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.
+
+The red rose clouds, without law or leader,
+Gather and float in the airy plain;
+The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar,
+The cedar scatters his scent to the main.
+
+The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing,
+Heard afar over moonlit seas:
+The Siren's song, grown faint in winging,
+Falls in scent on the cedar trees.
+
+As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying,
+Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds
+Brighten the air with their wings; their crying
+Wakens a moment the weary herds.
+
+Butterflies flit from the fairy garden,
+Living blossoms of flying flowers;
+Never the nights with winter harden,
+Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.
+
+Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden,
+Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;
+Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden,
+Swing, and cling to the garden wall.
+
+Deep in the woods as twilight darkens,
+Glades are red with the scented fire;
+Far in the dells the white maid hearkens,
+Song and sigh of the heart's desire.
+
+Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning,
+Maiden's song in the matin grey,
+Faints as the first bird's note, a warning,
+Wakes and wails to the new-born day.
+
+The waking song and the dying measure
+Meet, and the waxing and waning light
+Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure,
+The rose of the sea and the sky is white.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+
+The Phaeacians.
+
+
+Why from the dreamy meadows,
+More fair than any dream,
+Why seek ye for the shadows
+Beyond the ocean stream?
+
+Through straits of storm and peril,
+Through firths unsailed before,
+Why make you for the sterile,
+The dark Kimmerian shore?
+
+There no bright streams are flowing,
+There day and night are one,
+No harvest time, no sowing,
+No sight of any sun;
+
+No sound of song or tabor,
+No dance shall greet you there;
+No noise of mortal labour
+Breaks on the blind chill air.
+
+Are ours not happy places,
+Where gods with mortals trod?
+Saw not our sires the faces
+Of many a present god?
+
+
+The Seekers.
+
+
+Nay, now no god comes hither,
+In shape that men may see;
+They fare we know not whither,
+We know not what they be.
+
+Yea, though the sunset lingers
+Far in your fairy glades,
+Though yours the sweetest singers,
+Though yours the kindest maids,
+
+Yet here be the true shadows,
+Here in the doubtful light;
+Amid the dreamy meadows
+No shadow haunts the night.
+
+We seek a city splendid,
+With light beyond the sun;
+Or lands where dreams are ended,
+And works and days are done.
+
+
+
+A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. {3}
+
+
+
+Fair white bird, what song art thou singing
+In wintry weather of lands o'er sea?
+Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,
+Where no grass grows, and no green tree?
+
+I looked at the far-off fields and grey,
+There grew no tree but the cypress tree,
+That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May,
+And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
+
+And whoso eats of the fruit thereof
+Has no more sorrow, and no more love;
+And who sets the same in his garden stead,
+In a little space he is waste and dead.
+
+
+
+THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.
+
+
+
+The weary sails a moment slept,
+The oars were silent for a space,
+As past Hesperian shores we swept,
+That were as a remembered face
+Seen after lapse of hopeless years,
+In Hades, when the shadows meet,
+Dim through the mist of many tears,
+And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.
+
+So seemed the half-remembered shore,
+That slumbered, mirrored in the blue,
+With havens where we touched of yore,
+And ports that over well we knew.
+Then broke the calm before a breeze
+That sought the secret of the west;
+And listless all we swept the seas
+Towards the Islands of the Blest.
+
+Beside a golden sanded bay
+We saw the Sirens, very fair
+The flowery hill whereon they lay,
+The flowers set upon their hair.
+Their old sweet song came down the wind,
+Remembered music waxing strong,--
+Ah now no need of cords to bind,
+No need had we of Orphic song.
+
+It once had seemed a little thing
+To lay our lives down at their feet,
+That dying we might hear them sing,
+And dying see their faces sweet;
+But now, we glanced, and passing by,
+No care had we to tarry long;
+Faint hope, and rest, and memory
+Were more than any Siren's song.
+
+
+
+CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.
+
+
+
+Ah, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;
+Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied;
+No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous
+As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.
+
+There was no sound of singing in the air;
+Faded or fled the maidens that were fair,
+No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us,
+No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.
+
+The perfume, and the music, and the flame
+Had passed away; the memory of shame
+Alone abode, and stings of faint desire,
+And pulses of vague quiet went and came.
+
+Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place,
+Our dead youth came and looked on us a space,
+With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire.
+And wasted hair about a weary face.
+
+Why had we ever sought the magic isle
+That seemed so happy in the days erewhile?
+Why did we ever leave it, where we met
+A world of happy wonders in one smile?
+
+Back to the westward and the waning light
+We turned, we fled; the solitude of night
+Was better than the infinite regret,
+In fallen places of our dead delight.
+
+
+
+THE LIMIT OF LANDS.
+
+
+
+Between the circling ocean sea
+And the poplars of Persephone
+There lies a strip of barren sand,
+Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown
+With waste leaves of the poplars, blown
+From gardens of the shadow land.
+
+With altars of old sacrifice
+The shore is set, in mournful wise
+The mists upon the ocean brood;
+Between the water and the air
+The clouds are born that float and fare
+Between the water and the wood.
+
+Upon the grey sea never sail
+Of mortals passed within our hail,
+Where the last weak waves faint and flow;
+We heard within the poplar pale
+The murmur of a doubtful wail
+Of voices loved so long ago.
+
+We scarce had care to die or live,
+We had no honey cake to give,
+No wine of sacrifice to shed;
+There lies no new path over sea,
+And now we know how faint they be,
+The feasts and voices of the dead.
+
+Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!
+Glad life, sad life we did forego
+To dream of quietness and rest;
+Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here
+Poured light and perfume through the drear
+Pale year, and wan land of the west.
+
+Sad youth, that let the spring go by
+Because the spring is swift to fly,
+Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love,
+Behold how sadder far is this,
+To know that rest is nowise bliss,
+And darkness is the end thereof.
+
+
+
+
+VERSES
+
+
+
+
+MARTIAL IN TOWN.
+
+
+
+Last night, within the stifling train,
+Lit by the foggy lamp o'erhead,
+Sick of the sad Last News, I read
+Verse of that joyous child of Spain,
+
+Who dwelt when Rome was waxing cold,
+Within the Roman din and smoke.
+And like my heart to me they spoke,
+These accents of his heart of old:-
+
+"Brother, had we but time to live,
+And fleet the careless hours together,
+With all that leisure has to give
+Of perfect life and peaceful weather,
+
+"The Rich Man's halls, the anxious faces,
+The weary Forum, courts, and cases
+Should know us not; but quiet nooks,
+But summer shade by field and well,
+But county rides, and talk of books,
+At home, with these, we fain would dwell!
+
+"Now neither lives, but day by day
+Sees the suns wasting in the west,
+And feels their flight, and doth delay
+To lead the life he loveth best."
+
+So from thy city prison broke,
+Martial, thy wail for life misspent,
+And so, through London's noise and smoke
+My heart replies to the lament.
+
+For dear as Tagus with his gold,
+And swifter Salo, were to thee,
+So dear to me the woods that fold
+The streams that circle Fernielea!
+
+
+
+APRIL ON TWEED.
+
+
+
+As birds are fain to build their nest
+The first soft sunny day,
+So longing wakens in my breast
+A month before the May,
+When now the wind is from the West,
+And Winter melts away.
+
+The snow lies yet on Eildon Hill,
+But soft the breezes blow.
+If melting snows the waters fill,
+We nothing heed the snow,
+But we must up and take our will,--
+A fishing will we go!
+
+Below the branches brown and bare,
+Beneath the primrose lea,
+The trout lies waiting for his fare,
+A hungry trout is he;
+He's hooked, and springs and splashes there
+Like salmon from the sea!
+
+Oh, April tide's a pleasant tide,
+However times may fall,
+And sweet to welcome Spring, the Bride,
+You hear the mavis call;
+But all adown the water-side
+The Spring's most fair of all.
+
+
+
+TIRED OF TOWNS.
+
+
+
+'When we spoke to her of the New Jerusalem, she said she would rather go to
+a country place in Heaven.'
+
+Letters from the Black Country.
+
+
+I'm weary of towns, it seems a'most a pity
+We didn't stop down i' the country and clem,
+And you say that I'm bound for another city,
+For the streets o' the New Jerusalem.
+
+And the streets are never like Sheffield, here,
+Nor the smoke don't cling like a smut to THEM;
+But the water o' life flows cool and clear
+Through the streets o' the New Jerusalem.
+
+And the houses, you say, are of jasper cut,
+And the gates are gaudy wi' gold and gem;
+But there's times I could wish as the gates was shut--
+The gates o' the New Jerusalem.
+
+For I come from a country that's over-built
+Wi' streets that stifle, and walls that hem,
+And the gorse on a common's worth all the gilt
+And the gold of your New Jerusalem.
+
+And I hope that they'll bring me, in Paradise,
+To green lanes leafy wi' bough and stem--
+To a country place in the land o' the skies,
+And not to the New Jerusalem.
+
+
+
+SCYTHE SONG.
+
+
+
+Mowers, weary and brown, and blithe,
+What is the word methinks ye know,
+Endless over-word that the Scythe
+Sings to the blades of the grass below?
+Scythes that swing in the grass and clover,
+Something, still, they say as they pass;
+What is the word that, over and over,
+Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?
+
+Hush, ah hush, the Scythes are saying,
+Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep;
+Hush, they say to the grasses swaying,
+Hush, they sing to the clover deep!
+Hush--'tis the lullaby Time is singing--
+Hush, and heed not, for all things pass,
+Hush, ah hush! and the Scythes are swinging
+Over the clover, over the grass!
+
+
+
+PEN AND INK.
+
+
+
+Ye wanderers that were my sires,
+Who read men's fortunes in the hand,
+Who voyaged with your smithy fires
+From waste to waste across the land,
+Why did you leave for garth and town
+Your life by heath and river's brink,
+Why lay your gipsy freedom down
+And doom your child to Pen and Ink?
+
+You wearied of the wild-wood meal
+That crowned, or failed to crown, the day;
+Too honest or too tame to steal
+You broke into the beaten way;
+Plied loom or awl like other men,
+And learned to love the guineas' chink--
+Oh, recreant sires, who doomed me then
+To earn so few--with Pen and Ink!
+
+Where it hath fallen the tree must lie.
+'Tis over late for ME to roam,
+Yet the caged bird who hears the cry
+Of his wild fellows fleeting home,
+May feel no sharper pang than mine,
+Who seem to hear, whene'er I think,
+Spate in the stream, and wind in pine,
+Call me to quit dull Pen and Ink.
+
+For then the spirit wandering,
+That slept within the blood, awakes;
+For then the summer and the spring
+I fain would meet by streams and lakes;
+But ah, my Birthright long is sold,
+But custom chains me, link on link,
+And I must get me, as of old,
+Back to my tools, to Pen and Ink.
+
+
+
+A DREAM.
+
+
+
+Why will you haunt my sleep?
+You know it may not be,
+The grave is wide and deep,
+That sunders you and me;
+In bitter dreams we reap
+The sorrow we have sown,
+And I would I were asleep,
+Forgotten and alone!
+
+We knew and did not know,
+We saw and did not see,
+The nets that long ago
+Fate wove for you and me;
+The cruel nets that keep
+The birds that sob and moan,
+And I would we were asleep,
+Forgotten and alone!
+
+
+
+THE SINGING ROSE.
+
+
+
+'La Rose qui chante et l'herbe qui egare.'
+
+
+White Rose on the grey garden wall,
+Where now no night-wind whispereth,
+Call to the far-off flowers, and call
+With murmured breath and musical
+Till all the Roses hear, and all
+Sing to my Love what the White Rose saith.
+
+White Rose on the grey garden wall
+That long ago we sung!
+Again you come at Summer's call,--
+Again beneath my windows all
+With trellised flowers is hung,
+With clusters of the roses white
+Like fragrant stars in a green night.
+
+Once more I hear the sister towers
+Each unto each reply,
+The bloom is on those limes of ours,
+The weak wind shakes the bloom in showers,
+Snow from a cloudless sky;
+There is no change this happy day
+Within the College Gardens grey!
+
+St. Mary's, Merton, Magdalen--still
+Their sweet bells chime and swing,
+The old years answer them, and thrill
+A wintry heart against its will
+With memories of the Spring--
+That Spring we sought the gardens through
+For flowers which ne'er in gardens grew!
+
+For we, beside our nurse's knee,
+In fairy tales had heard
+Of that strange Rose which blossoms free
+On boughs of an enchanted tree,
+And sings like any bird!
+And of the weed beside the way
+That leadeth lovers' steps astray!
+
+In vain we sought the Singing Rose
+Whereof old legends tell,
+Alas, we found it not mid those
+Within the grey old College close,
+That budded, flowered, and fell,--
+We found that herb called 'Wandering'
+And meet no more, no more in Spring!
+
+Yes, unawares the unhappy grass
+That leadeth steps astray,
+We trod, and so it came to pass
+That never more we twain, alas,
+Shall walk the self-same way.
+And each must deem, though neither knows,
+That NEITHER found the Singing Rose!
+
+
+
+A REVIEW IN RHYME.
+
+
+
+A little of Horace, a little of Prior,
+A sketch of a Milkmaid, a lay of the Squire--
+These, these are 'on draught' 'At the Sign of the Lyre!'
+
+A child in Blue Ribbons that sings to herself,
+A talk of the Books on the Sheraton shelf,
+A sword of the Stuarts, a wig of the Guelph,
+
+A lai, a pantoum, a ballade, a rondeau,
+A pastel by Greuze, and a sketch by Moreau,
+And the chimes of the rhymes that sing sweet as they go,
+
+A fan, and a folio, a ringlet, a glove,
+'Neath a dance by Laguerre on the ceiling above,
+And a dream of the days when the bard was in love,
+
+A scent of dead roses, a glance at a pun,
+A toss of old powder, a glint of the sun,
+They meet in the volume that Dobson has done!
+
+If there's more that the heart of a man can desire,
+He may search, in his Swinburne, for fury and fire;
+If he's wise--he'll alight 'At the Sign of the Lyre!'
+
+
+
+COLINETTE.
+
+
+
+For a sketch by Mr. G. Leslie, R.A.
+
+
+France your country, as we know;
+Room enough for guessing yet,
+What lips now or long ago,
+Kissed and named you--Colinette.
+In what fields from sea to sea,
+By what stream your home was set,
+Loire or Seine was glad of thee,
+Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?
+
+Did you stand with maidens ten,
+Fairer maids were never seen,
+When the young king and his men
+Passed among the orchards green?
+Nay, old ballads have a note
+Mournful, we would fain forget;
+No such sad old air should float
+Round your young brows, Colinette.
+
+Say, did Ronsard sing to you,
+Shepherdess, to lull his pain,
+When the court went wandering through
+Rose pleasances of Touraine?
+Ronsard and his famous Rose
+Long are dust the breezes fret;
+You, within the garden close,
+You are blooming, Colinette.
+
+Have I seen you proud and gay,
+With a patched and perfumed beau,
+Dancing through the summer day,
+Misty summer of Watteau?
+Nay, so sweet a maid as you
+Never walked a minuet
+With the splendid courtly crew;
+Nay, forgive me, Colinette.
+
+Not from Greuze's canvases
+Do you cast a glance, a smile;
+You are not as one of these,
+Yours is beauty without guile.
+Round your maiden brows and hair
+Maidenhood and Childhood met
+Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair,
+New art's blossom, Colinette.
+
+
+
+A SUNSET OF WATTEAU.
+
+
+
+LUI.
+
+The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,
+Arise and tempt the seas;
+Our ocean is the Palace lake,
+Our waves the ripples that we make
+Among the mirrored trees.
+
+ELLE.
+
+Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,
+And dear the languid dream;
+The music mingled all day long
+With paces of the dancing throng,
+And murmur of the stream.
+
+An hour ago, an hour ago,
+We rested in the shade;
+And now, why should we seek to know
+What way the wilful waters flow?
+There is no fairer glade.
+
+LUI.
+
+Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail,
+And seek him everywhere;
+Perchance in sunset's golden pale
+He listens to the nightingale,
+Amid the perfumed air.
+
+Come, he has fled; you are not you,
+And I no more am I;
+Delight is changeful as the hue
+Of heaven, that is no longer blue
+In yonder sunset sky.
+
+ELLE.
+
+Nay, if we seek we shall not find,
+If we knock none openeth;
+Nay, see, the sunset fades behind
+The mountains, and the cold night wind
+Blows from the house of Death.
+
+
+
+NIGHTINGALE WEATHER.
+
+
+
+'Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
+Semi-je nonnette? je crois que non.
+Derriere chez mon pere
+Il est un bois taillis,
+Le rossignol y chante
+Et le jour et la nuit.
+Il chante pour les filles
+Qui n'ont pas d'ami;
+Il ne chant pas pour moi,
+J'en ai un, Dieu merci.'--Old French.
+
+
+I'll never be a nun, I trow,
+While apple bloom is white as snow,
+But far more fair to see;
+I'll never wear nun's black and white
+While nightingales make sweet the night
+Within the apple tree.
+
+Ah, listen! 'tis the nightingale,
+And in the wood he makes his wail,
+Within the apple tree;
+He singeth of the sore distress
+Of many ladies loverless;
+Thank God, no song for me.
+
+For when the broad May moon is low,
+A gold fruit seen where blossoms blow
+In the boughs of the apple tree,
+A step I know is at the gate;
+Ah love, but it is long to wait
+Until night's noon bring thee!
+
+Between lark's song and nightingale's
+A silent space, while dawning pales,
+The birds leave still and free
+For words and kisses musical,
+For silence and for sighs that fall
+In the dawn, 'twixt him and me.
+
+
+
+LOVE AND WISDOM.
+
+
+
+'When last we gathered roses in the garden
+I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.'
+
+The Broken Heart.
+
+
+July and June brought flowers and love
+To you, but I would none thereof,
+Whose heart kept all through summer time
+A flower of frost and winter rime.
+Yours was true wisdom--was it not?
+Even love; but I had clean forgot,
+Till seasons of the falling leaf,
+All loves, but one that turned to grief.
+At length at touch of autumn tide
+When roses fell, and summer died,
+All in a dawning deep with dew,
+Love flew to me, Love fled from you.
+The roses drooped their weary heads,
+I spoke among the garden beds;
+You would not hear, you could not know,
+Summer and love seemed long ago,
+As far, as faint, as dim a dream,
+As to the dead this world may seem.
+Ah sweet, in winter's miseries,
+Perchance you may remember this,
+How Wisdom was not justified
+In summer time or autumn tide,
+Though for this once below the sun,
+Wisdom and Love were made at one;
+But Love was bitter-bought enough,
+And Wisdom light of wing as Love.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+In garnered loves of thine,
+The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,
+Somewhere let this lie, grey 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 sere,
+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.
+
+
+
+AN OLD PRAYER.
+
+
+
+[Greek text]
+
+Odyssey, XIII.
+
+
+My prayer an old prayer borroweth,
+Of ancient love and memory--
+'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
+That come to all men, come to thee.'
+Gently as winter's early breath,
+Scarce felt, what time the swallows flee,
+To lands whereof no man knoweth
+Of summer, over land and sea;
+So with thy soul may summer be,
+Even as the ancient singer saith,
+'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
+That come to all men, come to thee.'
+
+
+
+A LA BELLE HELENE.
+
+
+
+After Ronsard.
+
+
+More closely than the clinging vine
+About the wedded tree,
+Clasp thou thine arms, ah, mistress mine!
+About the heart of me.
+Or seem to sleep, and stoop your face
+Soft on my sleeping eyes,
+Breathe in your life, your heart, your grace,
+Through me, in kissing wise.
+Bow down, bow down your face, I pray,
+To me, that swoon to death,
+Breathe back the life you kissed away,
+Breathe back your kissing breath.
+So by your eyes I swear and say,
+My mighty oath and sure,
+From your kind arms no maiden may
+My loving heart allure.
+I'll bear your yoke, that's light enough,
+And to the Elysian plain,
+When we are dead of love, my love,
+One boat shall bear us twain.
+They'll flock around you, fleet and fair,
+All true loves that have been,
+And you of all the shadows there,
+Shall be the shadow queen.
+Ah, shadow-loves and shadow-lips!
+Ah, while 'tis called to-day,
+Love me, my love, for summer slips,
+And August ebbs away.
+
+
+
+SYLVIE ET AURELIE.
+
+
+
+In memory of Gerard De Nerval.
+
+
+Two loves there were, and one was born
+Between the sunset and the rain;
+Her singing voice went through the corn,
+Her dance was woven 'neath the thorn,
+On grass the fallen blossoms stain;
+And suns may set, and moons may wane,
+But this love comes no more again.
+
+There were two loves and one made white,
+Thy singing lips, and golden hair;
+Born of the city's mire and light,
+The shame and splendour of the night,
+She trapped and fled thee unaware;
+Not through the lamplight and the rain
+Shalt thou behold this love again.
+
+Go forth and seek, by wood and hill,
+Thine ancient love of dawn and dew;
+There comes no voice from mere or rill,
+Her dance is over, fallen still
+The ballad burdens that she knew:
+And thou must wait for her in vain,
+Till years bring back thy youth again.
+
+That other love, afield, afar
+Fled the light love, with lighter feet.
+Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,
+And flit in dreams from star to star,
+That dead love shalt thou never meet,
+Till through bleak dawn and blowing rain
+Thy soul shall find her soul again.
+
+
+
+A LOST PATH.
+
+
+
+Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, had a certain proper mode of ecstasy,
+whereby, as Porphyry saith, his soul, becoming free from the deathly flesh,
+was made one with the Spirit that is in the world.
+
+
+Alas, the path is lost, we cannot leave
+Our bright, our clouded life, and pass away
+As through strewn clouds, that stain the quiet eve,
+To heights remoter of the purer day.
+The soul may not, returning whence she came,
+Bathe herself deep in Being, and forget
+The joys that fever, and the cares that fret,
+Made once more one with the eternal flame
+That breathes in all things ever more the same.
+She would be young again, thus drinking deep
+Of her old life; and this has been, men say,
+But this we know not, who have only sleep
+To soothe us, sleep more terrible than day,
+Where dead delights, and fair lost faces stray,
+To make us weary at our wakening;
+And of that long lost path to the Divine
+We dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing,
+Half credulous, of easy Proserpine,
+And of the lands that lie 'beneath the day's decline.'
+
+
+
+THE SHADE OF HELEN.
+
+
+
+Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for the gods,
+having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, sent the
+same to be wife to Paris. For this shadow then the Greeks and Trojans slew
+each other.
+
+
+Why from the quiet hollows of the hills,
+And extreme meeting place of light and shade,
+Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became
+Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams
+And dying glories of the sun would dwell,
+Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,
+Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,
+And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,
+Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,
+To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?
+
+One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,
+Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not,
+And some strange force, within me or around,
+Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,
+And somewhere there is fever in the halls
+That troubles me, for no such trouble came
+To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.
+
+The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry,
+That house, and wife, and lands, and all Troy town,
+Are little to lose, if they may keep me here,
+And see me flit, a pale and silent shade,
+Among the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.
+
+At other hours another life seems mine,
+Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,
+By pyramids of unremembered kings,
+And homes of men obedient to the Dead.
+There dark and quiet faces come and go
+Around me, then again the shriek of arms,
+And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.
+
+What are they? even shadows such as I.
+What make they? Even this--the sport of gods--
+The sport of gods, however free they seem.
+Ah, would the game were ended, and the light,
+The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,
+Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades,
+Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist,
+Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.
+
+
+
+
+SONNETS
+
+
+
+
+SHE.
+
+
+
+To H. R. H.
+
+
+Not in the waste beyond the swamps and sand,
+The fever-haunted forest and lagoon,
+Mysterious Kor thy walls forsaken stand,
+Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon,
+Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune
+Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned.
+The world is disenchanted; over soon
+Shall Europe send her spies through all the land.
+
+Nay, not in Kor, but in whatever spot,
+In town or field, or by the insatiate sea,
+Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot,
+Or break themselves on some divine decree,
+Or would o'erleap the limits of their lot,
+There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!
+
+
+
+HERODOTUS IN EGYPT.
+
+
+
+He left the land of youth, he left the young,
+The smiling gods of Greece; he passed the isle
+Where Jason loitered, and where Sappho sung,
+He sought the secret-founted wave of Nile,
+And of their old world, dead a weary while,
+Heard the priests murmur in their mystic tongue,
+And through the fanes went voyaging, among
+Dark tribes that worshipped Cat and Crocodile.
+
+He learned the tales of death Divine and birth,
+Strange loves of Hawk and Serpent, Sky and Earth,
+The marriage, and the slaying of the Sun.
+The shrines of gods and beasts he wandered through,
+And mocked not at their godhead, for he knew
+Behind all creeds the Spirit that is One.
+
+
+
+GERARD DE NERVAL.
+
+
+
+Of all that were thy prisons--ah, untamed,
+Ah, light and sacred soul!--none holds thee now;
+No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou
+Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,
+Within whose gates, on weary wings and maimed,
+Thou still would'st bear that mystic golden bough
+The Sibyl doth to singing men allow,
+Yet thy report folk heeded not, but blamed.
+And they would smile and wonder, seeing where
+Thou stood'st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,
+Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,
+Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou find
+A new life gladder than the old times were,
+A love more fair than Sylvie, and as kind?
+
+
+
+RONSARD.
+
+
+
+Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,
+Crowned by the Muses with the laurel-wreath;
+I see the roses hiding underneath,
+Cassandra's gift; she was less dear than they.
+Thou, Master, first hast roused the lyric lay,
+The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,
+Hast sung thine answer to the lays that breathe
+Through ages, and through ages far away.
+
+And thou hast heard the pulse of Pindar beat,
+Known Horace by the fount Bandusian!
+Their deathless line thy living strains repeat,
+But ah, thy voice is sad, thy roses wan,
+But ah, thy honey is not honey-sweet,
+Thy bees have fed on yews Sardinian!
+
+
+
+LOVE'S MIRACLE.
+
+
+
+With other helpless folk about the gate,
+The gate called Beautiful, with weary eyes
+That take no pleasure in the summer skies,
+Nor all things that are fairest, does she wait;
+So bleak a time, so sad a changeless fate
+Makes her with dull experience early wise,
+And in the dawning and the sunset, sighs
+That all hath been, and shall be, desolate.
+
+Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live,
+And know herself the fairest of fair things,
+Ah, if he have no healing gift to give,
+Warm from his breast, and holy from his wings,
+Or if at least Love's shadow in passing by
+Touch not and heal her, surely she must die.
+
+
+
+DREAMS.
+
+
+
+He spake not truth, however wise, who said
+That happy, and that hapless men in sleep
+Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep
+As countless, careless, races of the dead.
+Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,
+And one beholds the faces that he sighs
+In vain to bring before his daylit eyes,
+And waking, he remembers on his bed;
+
+And one with fainting heart and feeble hand
+Fights a dim battle in a doubtful land
+Where strength and courage were of no avail;
+And one is borne on fairy breezes far
+To the bright harbours of a golden star
+Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.
+
+
+
+TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS.
+
+
+
+'Les Sirenes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles compagnes de
+Proserpine, qu'elles estoient toujours ensemble. Esmues du juste deul de
+la perte de leur chere compagne, et enuyees jusques au desepoir, elles
+s'arresterent a la mer Sicilienne, ou par leurs chants elles attiroient
+les navigans, mais l'unique fin de la volupte de leur musique est la Mort.'
+
+Pontus De Tyard, 1570
+
+
+The Sirens once were maidens innocent
+That through the water-meads with Proserpine
+Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content
+Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,
+With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;
+Till once they sought the bright AEtnaean flowers,
+And their glad mistress fled from summer hours
+With Hades, far from olive, corn, and vine.
+And they have sought her all the wide world through
+Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong
+Have filled and changed their song, and o'er the blue
+Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song,
+And whoso hears must listen till he die
+Far on the flowery shores of Sicily.
+
+So is it with this singing art of ours,
+That once with maids went maidenlike, and played
+With woven dances in the poplar-shade,
+And all her song was but of lady's bowers
+And the returning swallows, and spring flowers,
+Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,
+A shadowy land; and now hath overweighed
+Her singing chaplet with the snow and showers.
+Yes, fair well-water for the bitter brine
+She left, and by the margin of life's sea
+Sings, and her song is full of the sea's moan,
+And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;
+And whoso once has listened to her, he
+His whole life long is slave to her alone.
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATIONS
+
+
+
+
+HYMN TO THE WINDS.
+
+
+
+THE WINDS ARE INVOKED BY THE WINNOWERS
+OF CORN.
+
+Du Bellay, 1550.
+
+
+To you, troop so fleet,
+That with winged wandering feet,
+Through the wide world pass,
+And with soft murmuring
+Toss the green shades of spring
+In woods and grass,
+Lily and violet
+I give, and blossoms wet,
+Roses and dew;
+This branch of blushing roses,
+Whose fresh bud uncloses,
+Wind-flowers too.
+
+Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
+Winnow the holt and heath,
+Round this retreat;
+Where all the golden mom
+We fan the gold o' the corn,
+In the sun's heat.
+
+
+
+MOONLIGHT.
+
+
+
+Jacques Tahureau.
+
+
+The high Midnight was garlanding her head
+With many a shining star in shining skies,
+And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes,
+And, after sorrow, quietness was shed.
+Far in dim fields cicalas jargoned
+A thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries;
+And all the woods were pallid, in strange wise,
+With pallor of the sad moon overspread.
+
+Then came my lady to that lonely place,
+And, from her palfrey stooping, did embrace
+And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;
+Wherefore the day is far less dear than night,
+And sweeter is the shadow than the light,
+Since night has made me such a happy lover.
+
+
+
+THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE.
+
+
+
+Victor Hugo.
+
+
+The Grave said to the Rose,
+'What of the dews of morn,
+Love's flower, what end is theirs?'
+'And what of souls outworn,
+Of them whereon doth close
+The tomb's mouth unawares?'
+The Rose said to the Grave.
+
+The Rose said, 'In the shade
+From the dawn's tears is made
+A perfume faint and strange,
+Amber and honey sweet.'
+'And all the spirits fleet
+Do suffer a sky-change,
+More strangely than the dew,
+To God's own angels new,'
+The Grave said to the Rose.
+
+
+
+A VOW TO HEAVENLY VENUS.
+
+
+
+Du Bellay.
+
+
+We that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,
+New wedded in the village by thy fane,
+Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is
+We bring these amaranths, these white lilies,
+A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray,
+Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;
+Like these cool lilies may our loves remain,
+Perfect and pure, and know not any stain;
+And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,
+Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower.
+
+
+
+OF HIS LADY'S OLD AGE.
+
+
+
+Ronsard.
+
+
+When you are very old, at evening
+You'll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,
+Humming my songs, 'Ah well, ah well-a-day!
+When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.'
+None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,
+Albeit with her weary task foredone,
+But wakens at my name, and calls you one
+Blest, to be held in long remembering.
+
+I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid
+On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,
+While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,
+My love, your pride, remember and regret;
+Ah, love me, love! we may be happy yet,
+And gather roses, while 't is called to-day.
+
+
+
+SHADOWS OF HIS LADY.
+
+
+
+Jacques Tahureau.
+
+
+Within the sand of what far river lies
+The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love?
+What highest circle of the Heavens above
+Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?
+And where is the rich sea whose coral vies
+With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?
+What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof
+The fled soul lives in her cheeks' rosy guise?
+
+What Parian marble that is loveliest
+Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast?
+When drew she breath from the Sabaean glade?
+Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea,
+Gardens, and glades Sabaean, all that be
+The far-off splendid semblance of my maid!
+
+
+
+APRIL.
+
+
+
+Remy Belleau, 1560.
+
+
+April, pride of woodland ways,
+Of glad days,
+April, bringing hope of prime,
+To the young flowers that beneath
+Their bud sheath
+Are guarded in their tender time;
+
+April, pride of fields that be
+Green and free,
+That in fashion glad and gay,
+Stud with flowers red and blue,
+Every hue,
+Their jewelled spring array;
+
+April, pride of murmuring
+Winds of spring,
+That beneath the winnowed air,
+Trap with subtle nets and sweet
+Flora's feet,
+Flora's feet, the fleet and fair;
+
+April, by thy hand caressed,
+From her breast,
+Nature scatters everywhere
+Handfuls of all sweet perfumes,
+Buds and blooms,
+Making faint the earth and air.
+
+April, joy of the green hours,
+Clothes with flowers
+Over all her locks of gold
+My sweet Lady; and her breast
+With the blest
+Buds of summer manifold.
+
+April, with thy gracious wiles,
+Like the smiles,
+Smiles of Venus; and thy breath
+Like her breath, the gods' delight,
+(From their height
+They take the happy air beneath;)
+
+It is thou that, of thy grace,
+From their place
+In the far-off isles dost bring
+Swallows over earth and sea,
+Glad to be
+Messengers of thee, and Spring.
+
+Daffodil and eglantine,
+And woodbine,
+Lily, violet, and rose
+Plentiful in April fair,
+To the air,
+Their pretty petals to unclose.
+
+Nightingales ye now may hear,
+Piercing clear,
+Singing in the deepest shade;
+Many and many a babbled note
+Chime and float,
+Woodland music through the glade.
+
+April, all to welcome thee,
+Spring sets free
+Ancient flames, and with low breath
+Wakes the ashes grey and old
+That the cold
+Chilled within our hearts to death.
+
+Thou beholdest in the warm
+Hours, the swarm
+Of the thievish bees, that flies
+Evermore from bloom to bloom
+For perfume,
+Hid away in tiny thighs.
+
+Her cool shadows May can boast,
+Fruits almost
+Ripe, and gifts of fertile dew,
+Manna-sweet and honey-sweet,
+That complete
+Her flower garland fresh and new.
+
+Nay, but I will give my praise
+To these days,
+Named with the glad name of Her {4}
+That from out the foam o' the sea
+Came to be
+Sudden light on earth and air.
+
+
+
+AN OLD TUNE.
+
+
+
+Gerard 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.
+
+
+
+OLD LOVES.
+
+
+
+Henri Murger.
+
+
+Louise, have you forgotten yet
+The corner of the flowery land,
+The ancient garden where we met,
+My hand that trembled in your hand?
+Our lips found words scarce sweet enough,
+As low beneath the willow-trees
+We sat; have you forgotten, love?
+Do you remember, love Louise?
+
+Marie, have you forgotten yet
+The loving barter that we made?
+The rings we changed, the suns that set,
+The woods fulfilled with sun and shade?
+The fountains that were musical
+By many an ancient trysting tree--
+Marie, have you forgotten all?
+Do you remember, love Marie?
+
+Christine, do you remember yet
+Your room with scents and roses gay?
+My garret--near the sky 'twas set--
+The April hours, the nights of May?
+The clear calm nights--the stars above
+That whispered they were fairest seen
+Through no cloud-veil? Remember, love!
+Do you remember, love Christine?
+
+Louise is dead, and, well-a-day!
+Marie a sadder path has ta'en;
+And pale Christine has passed away
+In southern suns to bloom again.
+Alas! for one and all of us--
+Marie, Louise, Christine forget;
+Our bower of love is ruinous,
+And I alone remember yet.
+
+
+
+A LADY OF HIGH DEGREE.
+
+
+
+I be pareld most of prise,
+I ride after the wild fee.
+
+
+Will ye that I should sing
+Of the love of a goodly thing,
+Was no vilein's may?
+'Tis all of a knight so free,
+Under the olive tree,
+Singing this lay.
+
+Her weed was of samite fine,
+Her mantle of white ermine,
+Green silk her hose;
+Her shoon with silver gay,
+Her sandals flowers of May,
+Laced small and close.
+
+Her belt was of fresh spring buds,
+Set with gold clasps and studs,
+Fine linen her shift;
+Her purse it was of love,
+Her chain was the flower thereof,
+And Love's gift.
+
+Upon a mule she rode,
+The selle was of brent gold,
+The bits of silver made;
+Three red rose trees there were
+That overshadowed her,
+For a sun shade.
+
+She riding on a day,
+Knights met her by the way,
+They did her grace:
+'Fair lady, whence be ye?'
+'France it is my countrie,
+I come of a high race.
+
+'My sire is the nightingale,
+That sings, making his wail,
+In the wild wood, clear;
+The mermaid is mother to me,
+That sings in the salt sea,
+In the ocean mere.'
+
+'Ye come of a right good race,
+And are born of a high place,
+And of high degree;
+Would to God that ye were
+Given unto me, being fair,
+My lady and love to be.'
+
+
+
+IANNOULA.
+
+
+
+Romaic folk-song.
+
+
+All the maidens were merry and wed
+All to lovers so fair to see;
+The lover I took to my bridal bed
+He is not long for love and me.
+
+I spoke to him and he nothing said,
+I gave him bread of the wheat so fine;
+He did not eat of the bridal bread,
+He did not drink of the bridal wine.
+
+I made him a bed was soft and deep,
+I made him a bed to sleep with me;
+'Look on me once before you sleep,
+And look on the flower of my fair body.
+
+'Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew,
+Dew of April and buds of May;
+Two white blossoms that bud for you,
+Buds that blossom before the day.'
+
+
+
+THE MILK-WHITE DOE.
+
+
+
+French Volks-Lied.
+
+
+It was a mother and a maid
+That walked the woods among,
+And still the maid went slow and sad,
+And still the mother sung.
+
+'What ails you, daughter Margaret?
+Why go you pale and wan?
+Is it for a cast of bitter love,
+Or for a false leman?'
+
+'It is not for a false lover
+That I go sad to see;
+But it is for a weary life
+Beneath the greenwood tree.
+
+'For ever in the good daylight
+A maiden may I go,
+But always on the ninth midnight
+I change to a milk-white doe.
+
+'They hunt me through the green forest
+With hounds and hunting men;
+And ever it is my fair brother
+That is so fierce and keen.'
+
+* * * * *
+
+'Good-morrow, mother.' 'Good-morrow, son;
+Where are your hounds so good?'
+'Oh, they are hunting a white doe
+Within the glad greenwood.
+
+'And three times have they hunted her,
+And thrice she's won away;
+The fourth time that they follow her
+That white doe they shall slay.'
+
+* * * * *
+
+Then out and spoke the forester,
+As he came from the wood,
+'Now never saw I maid's gold hair
+Among the wild deer's blood.
+
+'And I have hunted the wild deer
+In east lands and in west;
+And never saw I white doe yet
+That had a maiden's breast.'
+
+Then up and spake her fair brother,
+Between the wine and bread:
+'Behold I had but one sister,
+And I have been her dead.
+
+'But ye must bury my sweet sister
+With a stone at her foot and her head,
+And ye must cover her fair body
+With the white roses and red.
+
+'And I must out to the greenwood,
+The roof shall never shelter me;
+And I shall lie for seven long years
+On the grass below the hawthorn tree.'
+
+
+
+HELIODORE.
+
+
+
+(Meleager.)
+
+
+Pour wine, and cry again, again, again!
+To Heliodore!
+And mingle the sweet word ye call in vain
+With that ye pour!
+And bring to me her wreath of yesterday
+That's dank with myrrh;
+Hesternae Rosae, ah my friends, but they
+Remember her!
+Lo the kind roses, loved of lovers, weep
+As who repine,
+For if on any breast they see her sleep
+It is not mine!
+
+
+
+THE PROPHET.
+
+
+
+(Antiphilus.)
+
+
+I knew it in your childish grace
+The dawning of Desire,
+'Who lives,' I said, 'will see that face
+Set all the world on fire!'
+They mocked; but Time has brought to pass
+The saying over-true;
+Prophet and martyr now, alas,
+I burn for Truth,--and you!
+
+
+
+LAIS.
+
+
+
+(Pompeius.)
+
+
+Lais that bloomed for all the world's delight,
+Crowned with all love lilies, the fair and dear,
+Sleeps the predestined sleep, nor knows the flight
+Of Helios, the gold-reined charioteer:
+Revel, and kiss, and love, and hate, one Night
+Darkens, that never lamp of Love may cheer!
+
+
+
+CLEARISTA.
+
+
+
+(Meleager.)
+
+
+For Death, not for Love, hast thou
+Loosened thy zone!
+Flutes filled thy bower but now,
+Morning brings moan!
+Maids round thy bridal bed
+Hushed are in gloom,
+Torches to Love that led
+Light to the tomb!
+
+
+
+THE FISHERMAN'S TOMB.
+
+
+
+(Leonidas of Tarentum.)
+
+
+Theris the Old, the waves that harvested
+More keen than birds that labour in the sea,
+With spear and net, by shore and rocky bed,
+Not with the well-manned galley laboured he;
+Him not the star of storms, nor sudden sweep
+Of wind with all his years hath smitten and bent,
+But in his hut of reeds he fell asleep,
+As fades a lamp when all the oil is spent:
+This tomb nor wife nor children raised, but we
+His fellow-toilers, fishers of the sea.
+
+
+
+OF HIS DEATH.
+
+
+
+(Meleager.)
+
+
+Ah Love, my Master, hear me swear
+By all the locks of Timo's hair,
+By Demo, and that fragrant spell
+Wherewith her body doth enchant
+Such dreams as drowsy lovers haunt,
+By Ilias' mirth delectable.
+And by the lamp that sheds his light
+On love and lovers all the night,
+By those, ah Love, I swear that thou
+Hast left me but one breath, and now
+Upon my lips it fluttereth,
+Yet THIS I'll yield, my latest breath,
+Even this, oh Love, for thee to Death!
+
+
+
+RHODOPE.
+
+
+
+(Rufinus.)
+
+
+Thou hast Hera's eyes, thou hast Pallas' hands,
+And the feet of the Queen of the yellow sands,
+Thou hast beautiful Aphrodite's breast,
+Thou art made of each goddess's loveliest!
+Happy is he who sees thy face,
+Happy who hears thy words of grace,
+And he that shall kiss thee is half divine,
+But a god who shall win that heart of thine!
+
+
+
+TO A GIRL.
+
+
+
+(Asclepiades.)
+
+
+Believe me, love, it is not good
+To hoard a mortal maidenhood;
+In Hades thou wilt never find,
+Maiden, a lover to thy mind;
+Love's for the living! presently
+Ashes and dust in death are we!
+
+
+
+TO THE SHIPS.
+
+
+
+(Meleager.)
+
+
+O gentle ships that skim the seas,
+And cleave the strait where Helle fell,
+Catch in your sails the Northern breeze,
+And speed to Cos, where she doth dwell,
+My Love, and see you greet her well!
+And if she looks across the blue,
+Speak, gentle ships, and tell her true,
+'He comes, for Love hath brought him back,
+No sailor, on the landward tack.'
+
+If thus, oh gentle ships, ye do,
+Then may ye win the fairest gales,
+And swifter speed across the blue,
+While Zeus breathes friendly on your sails.
+
+
+
+A LATE CONVERT.
+
+
+
+(Paulus Silentiarius.)
+
+
+I that in youth had never been
+The servant of the Paphian Queen,
+I that in youth had never felt
+The shafts of Eros pierce and melt,
+Cypris! in later age, half grey,
+I bow the neck to THEE to-day.
+Pallas, that was my lady, thou
+Dost more triumphant vanquish now,
+Than when thou gained'st, over seas,
+The apple of the Hesperides.
+
+
+
+THE LIMIT OF LIFE.
+
+
+
+Thirty-six is the term that the prophets assign,
+And the students of stars to the years that are mine;
+Nay, let thirty suffice, for the man who hath passed
+Thirty years is a Nestor, and HE died at last!
+
+
+
+TO DANIEL ELZEVIR.
+
+
+
+(From the Latin of Menage.)
+
+
+What do I see! Oh gods divine
+And goddesses,--this Book of mine,--
+This child of many hopes and fears,--
+Is published by the Elzevirs!
+Oh perfect Publishers complete!
+Oh dainty volume, new and neat!
+The Paper doth outshine the snow,
+The Print is blacker than the crow,
+The Title-Page, with crimson bright,
+The vellum cover smooth and white,
+All sorts of readers do invite,
+Ay, and will keep them reading still,
+Against their will, or with their will!
+Thus what of grace the Rhymes may lack
+The Publisher has given them back,
+As Milliners adorn the fair
+Whose charms are something skimp and spare.
+Oh dulce decus, Elzevirs!
+The pride of dead and dawning years,
+How can a poet best repay
+The debt he owes your House to-day?
+May this round world, while aught endures,
+Applaud, and buy, these books of yours!
+May purchasers incessant pop,
+My Elzevirs, within your shop,
+And learned bards salute, with cheers,
+The volumes of the Elzevirs,
+Till your renown fills earth and sky,
+Till men forget the Stephani,
+And all that Aldus wrought, and all
+Turnebus sold in shop or stall,
+While still may Fate's (and Binders') shears
+Respect, and spare, the Elzevirs!
+
+
+
+THE LAST CHANCE.
+
+
+
+Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
+That down Cocytus valley flow,
+Girdling the grey domain of Death,
+The spectral fishes come and go;
+The ghosts of trout flit to and fro.
+Persephone, fulfil my wish,
+And grant that in the shades below
+My ghost may land the ghosts of fish.
+
+[Greek text]
+
+L. C.
+
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1} January 26, 1885.
+
+{2} M. Antoninus iv 23.
+
+{3} From the Romaic.
+
+{4} Aphrodite--Avril.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, GRASS OF PARNASSUS ***
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