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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51160 ***</div>
<p>Transcribed from the 1885 Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. edition
by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/coverb.jpg">
<img alt=
"Book cover"
title=
"Book cover"
src="images/covers.jpg" />
</a></p>
<h2><i>A BALLADE OF XXXII BALLADES</i>.</h2>
<p class="poetry"><i>Friend</i>, <i>when you bear a care-dulled
eye</i>,<br />
<i>And brow perplexed with things of weight</i>,<br />
<i>And fain would bid some charm untie</i><br />
<i>The bonds that hold you all too strait</i>,<br />
<i>Behold a solace to your fate</i>,<br />
<i>Wrapped in this cover’s china blue</i>;<br />
<i>These ballades fresh and delicate</i>,<br />
<i>This dainty troop of Thirty-two</i>!</p>
<p class="poetry"><i>The mind</i>, <i>unwearied</i>, <i>longs to
fly</i><br />
<i>And commune with the wise and great</i>;<br />
<i>But that same ether</i>, <i>rare and high</i>,<br />
<i>Which glorifies its worthy mate</i>,<br />
<i>To breath forspent is disparate</i>:<br />
<i>Laughing and light and airy-new</i><br />
<i>These come to tickle the dull pate</i>,<br />
<i>This dainty troop of Thirty-two</i>.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="pageii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
ii</span><i>Most welcome then</i>, <i>when you and I</i>,<br />
<i>Forestalling days for mirth too late</i>,<br />
<i>To quips and cranks and fantasy</i><br />
<i>Some choice half-hour dedicate</i>,<br />
<i>They weave their dance with measured rate</i><br />
<i>Of rhymes enlinked in order due</i>,<br />
<i>Till frowns relax and cares abate</i>,<br />
<i>This dainty troop of Thirty-two</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span
class="smcap">Envoy</span>.</p>
<p class="poetry"><i>Princes</i>, <i>of toys that please your
state</i><br />
<i>Quainter are surely none to view</i><br />
<i>Than these which pass with tripping gait</i>,<br />
<i>This dainty troop of Thirty-two</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">F. P.</p>
<h1><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
iii</span>XXXII BALLADES IN BLUE CHINA</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagev"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. v</span><span class="GutSmall">A.
LANG</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><b>XXXII Ballades</b><br />
<b>in Blue China</b></p>
<table>
<tr>
<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>Tout</i></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/tpb.jpg">
<img alt=
"Decorative graphic"
title=
"Decorative graphic"
src="images/tps.jpg" />
</a><br />
<i>par</i></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>Soullas</i></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br />
<i>KEGAN PAUL</i>, <i>TRENCH & CO</i><br />
<span class="GutSmall">MDCCCLXXXV</span></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p class="poetry"> <a
name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
vi</span>“<i>Rondeaux</i>, <span
class="smcap">Ballades</span>,<br />
<i>Chansons dizains</i>, <i>propos menus</i>,<br />
<i>Compte moy qu’ilz sont devenuz</i>:<br />
<i>Se faict il plus rien de nouveau</i>?”</p>
<p style="text-align: right" class="poetry"><span
class="smcap">Clement Marot</span>,<br />
<i>Dialogue de deux Amoureux</i>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“I love a ballad but even too well; if it be
doleful matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing
indeed, and sung lamentably.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>A Winter’s Tale</i>, Act
iv. sc. 3.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pagevii"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. vii</span><span class="smcap">to</span><br />
AUSTIN DOBSON.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<h2><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
ix</span>CONTENTS.</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right">Page</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Theocritus</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page15">15</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Cleopatra’s Needle</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page17">17</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Roulette</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page19">19</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Sleep</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page21">21</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Midnight Forest</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page24">24</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Tweed</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page27">27</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Book-hunter</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page29">29</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Voyage to Cythera</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page31">31</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Summer Term</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page34">34</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Muse</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page36">36</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade against the Jesuits</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page38">38</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Dead Cities</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page40">40</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Royal Game of Golf</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page42">42</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Double Ballade of Primitive Man</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page44">44</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Autumn</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page47">47</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of True Wisdom</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page49">49</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Worldly Wealth</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page51">51</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><a name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
x</span>Ballade of Life</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page53">53</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Blue China</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page55">55</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Dead Ladies</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page57">57</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Villon’s Ballade of Good Counsel</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page59">59</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Rabbits and Hares</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page61">61</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Valentine in form of Ballade</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page63">63</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Old Plays</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page65">65</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of his Books</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page67">67</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Æsthetic Adjectives</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page69">69</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of the Pleased Bard</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page72">72</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade for a Baby</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page74">74</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade Amoureuse</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page76">76</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Queen Anne</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page78">78</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of Blind Love</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page80">80</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ballade of his Choice of a Sepulchre</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page82">82</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Dizain</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page84">84</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">VERSES AND
TRANSLATIONS.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>A Portrait of 1783</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page87">87</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>The Moon’s Minion</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page90">90</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>In Ithaca</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page92">92</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
xi</span>Homer</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page93">93</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>The Burial of Molière</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page94">94</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Bion</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page95">95</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Spring</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page96">96</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Before the Snow</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page97">97</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Villanelle</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page98">98</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>The Mystery of Queen Persephone</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page100">100</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Stoker Bill</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page105">105</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Natural Theology</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page108">108</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>The Odyssey</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page110">110</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p>Ideal</p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page111">111</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
15</span>BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER.</h2>
<blockquote><p style="text-align:
center">ἐσορῶν τὰν
Σικελὰν ἐς
ἅλα.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">Id. viii. 56.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="poetry">Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar<br />
Of London, and the bustling street,<br />
For still, by the Sicilian shore,<br />
The murmur of the Muse is sweet.<br />
Still, still, the suns of summer greet<br />
The mountain-grave of Helikê,<br />
And shepherds still their songs repeat<br />
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.</p>
<p class="poetry">What though they worship Pan no more,<br />
That guarded once the shepherd’s seat,<br />
They chatter of their rustic lore,<br />
They watch the wind among the wheat:<br />
<a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>Cicalas
chirp, the young lambs bleat,<br />
Where whispers pine to cypress tree;<br />
They count the waves that idly beat<br />
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.</p>
<p class="poetry">Theocritus! thou canst restore<br />
The pleasant years, and over-fleet;<br />
With thee we live as men of yore,<br />
We rest where running waters meet:<br />
And then we turn unwilling feet<br />
And seek the world—so must it be—<br />
<i>We</i> may not linger in the heat<br />
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Master,—when rain, and snow, and sleet<br
/>
And northern winds are wild, to thee<br />
We come, we rest in thy retreat,<br />
Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!</p>
<h2><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
17</span>BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA’S NEEDLE.</h2>
<p class="poetry">Ye giant shades of <span
class="smcap">Ra</span> and <span class="smcap">Tum</span>,<br />
Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian,<br />
If murmurs of our planet come<br />
To exiles in the precincts wan<br />
Where, fetish or Olympian,<br />
To help or harm no more ye list,<br />
Look down, if look ye may, and scan<br />
This monument in London mist!</p>
<p class="poetry">Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb<br />
That once were read of him that ran<br />
When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum<br />
Wild music of the Bull began;<br />
When through the chanting priestly clan<br />
Walk’d Ramses, and the high sun kiss’d<br />
This stone, with blessing scored and ban—<br />
This monument in London mist.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
18</span>The stone endures though gods be numb;<br />
Though human effort, plot, and plan<br />
Be sifted, drifted, like the sum<br />
Of sands in wastes Arabian.<br />
What king may deem him more than man,<br />
What priest says Faith can Time resist<br />
While <i>this</i> endures to mark their span—<br />
This monument in London mist?</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, the stone’s shade on your
divan<br />
Falls; it is longer than ye wist:<br />
It preaches, as Time’s gnomon can,<br />
This monument in London mist!</p>
<h2><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
19</span>BALLADE OF ROULETTE.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">TO R. R.</p>
<p class="poetry">This life—one was thinking to-day,<br />
In the midst of a medley of fancies—<br />
Is a game, and the board where we play<br />
Green earth with her poppies and pansies.<br />
Let <i>manque</i> be faded romances,<br />
Be <i>passe</i> remorse and regret;<br />
Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances—<br />
The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.</p>
<p class="poetry">The lover will stake as he may<br />
His heart on his Peggies and Nancies;<br />
The girl has her beauty to lay;<br />
The saint has his prayers and his trances;<br />
The poet bets endless expanses<br />
In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:<br />
How they gaze at the wheel as it glances—<br />
The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
20</span>The Kaiser will stake his array<br />
Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances;<br />
An Englishman punts with his pay,<br />
And glory the <i>jeton</i> of France is;<br />
Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances,<br />
Have voices or colours to bet;<br />
Will you moan that its motion askance is—<br />
The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette?</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">The prize that the pleasure enhances?<br />
The prize is—at last to forget<br />
The changes, the chops, and the chances—<br />
The wheel of Dame Fortune’s roulette.</p>
<h2><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
21</span>BALLADE OF SLEEP.</h2>
<p class="poetry">The hours are passing slow,<br />
I hear their weary tread<br />
Clang from the tower, and go<br />
Back to their kinsfolk dead.<br />
Sleep! death’s twin brother dread!<br />
Why dost thou scorn me so?<br />
The wind’s voice overhead<br />
Long wakeful here I know,<br />
And music from the steep<br />
Where waters fall and flow.<br />
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?</p>
<p class="poetry">All sounds that might bestow<br />
Rest on the fever’d bed,<br />
All slumb’rous sounds and low<br />
Are mingled here and wed,<br />
And bring no drowsihed.<br />
<a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>Shy dreams
flit to and fro<br />
With shadowy hair dispread;<br />
With wistful eyes that glow,<br />
And silent robes that sweep.<br />
Thou wilt not hear me; no?<br />
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?</p>
<p class="poetry">What cause hast thou to show<br />
Of sacrifice unsped?<br />
Of all thy slaves below<br />
I most have labourèd<br />
With service sung and said;<br />
Have cull’d such buds as blow,<br />
Soft poppies white and red,<br />
Where thy still gardens grow,<br />
And Lethe’s waters weep.<br />
Why, then, art thou my foe?<br />
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, ere the dark be shred<br />
By golden shafts, ere low<br />
<a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>And long
the shadows creep:<br />
Lord of the wand of lead,<br />
Soft-footed as the snow,<br />
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep!</p>
<h2><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
24</span>BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">AFTER THÉODORE DE
BANVILLE.</p>
<p class="poetry">Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old,<br
/>
Beneath the shade of thorn and holly-tree;<br />
The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold,<br />
And wolves still dread Diana roaming free<br />
In secret woodland with her company.<br />
’Tis thought the peasants’ hovels know her rite<br />
When now the wolds are bathed in silver light,<br />
And first the moonrise breaks the dusky grey,<br />
Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright,<br />
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
25</span>With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold<br />
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee,<br />
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold<br />
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,<br />
The wild red dwarf, the nixies’ enemy;<br />
Then ’mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,<br />
The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,<br />
With one long sigh for summers pass’d away;<br />
The swift feet tear the ivy nets outright<br />
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.</p>
<p class="poetry">She gleans her silvan trophies; down the
wold<br />
She hears the sobbing of the stags that flee<br />
Mixed with the music of the hunting roll’d,<br />
But her delight is all in archery,<br />
And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she<br />
More than her hounds that follow on the flight;<br />
The goddess draws a golden bow of might<br />
And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay.<br />
She tosses loose her locks upon the night,<br />
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page26"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 26</span>ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the
spite,<br />
The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight:<br />
Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray<br />
There is the mystic home of our delight,<br />
And through the dim wood Dian threads her way.</p>
<h2><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
27</span>BALLADE OF THE TWEED.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(LOWLAND SCOTCH.)</p>
<p style="text-align: center">TO T. W. LANG.</p>
<p class="poetry">The ferox rins in rough Loch Awe,<br />
A weary cry frae ony toun;<br />
The Spey, that loups o’er linn and fa’,<br />
They praise a’ ither streams aboon;<br />
They boast their braes o’ bonny Doon:<br />
Gie <i>me</i> to hear the ringing reel,<br />
Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon<br />
By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!</p>
<p class="poetry">There’s Ettrick, Meggat, Ail, and
a’,<br />
Where trout swim thick in May and June;<br />
Ye’ll see them take in showers o’ snaw<br />
Some blinking, cauldrife April noon:<br />
Rax ower the palmer and march-broun,<br />
And syne we’ll show a bonny creel,<br />
In spring or simmer, late or soon,<br />
By fair Tweed-side, at Ashiesteel!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page28"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
28</span>There’s mony a water, great or sma’,<br />
Gaes singing in his siller tune,<br />
Through glen and heugh, and hope and shaw,<br />
Beneath the sun-licht or the moon:<br />
But set us in our fishing-shoon<br />
Between the Caddon-burn and Peel,<br />
And syne we’ll cross the heather broun<br />
By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Deil take the dirty, trading loon<br />
Wad gar the water ca’ his wheel,<br />
And drift his dyes and poisons doun<br />
By fair Tweed-side at Ashiesteel!</p>
<h2><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
29</span>BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER.</h2>
<p class="poetry">In torrid heats of late July,<br />
In March, beneath the bitter <i>bise</i>,<br />
He book-hunts while the loungers fly,—<br />
He book-hunts, though December freeze;<br />
In breeches baggy at the knees,<br />
And heedless of the public jeers,<br />
For these, for these, he hoards his fees,—<br />
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.</p>
<p class="poetry">No dismal stall escapes his eye,<br />
He turns o’er tomes of low degrees,<br />
There soiled romanticists may lie,<br />
Or Restoration comedies;<br />
Each tract that flutters in the breeze<br />
For him is charged with hopes and fears,<br />
In mouldy novels fancy sees<br />
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
30</span>With restless eyes that peer and spy,<br />
Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees,<br />
In dismal nooks he loves to pry,<br />
Whose motto evermore is <i>Spes</i>!<br />
But ah! the fabled treasure flees;<br />
Grown rarer with the fleeting years,<br />
In rich men’s shelves they take their ease,—<br />
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, all the things that tease and
please,—<br />
Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears,<br />
What are they but such toys as these—<br />
Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?</p>
<h2><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
31</span>BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">AFTER THÉODORE DE
BANVILLE.</p>
<p class="poetry">I know Cythera long is desolate;<br />
I know the winds have stripp’d the gardens green.<br />
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun’s weight<br />
A barren reef lies where Love’s flowers have been,<br />
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen!<br />
So be it, but we seek a fabled shore,<br />
To lull our vague desires with mystic lore,<br />
To wander where Love’s labyrinths beguile;<br />
There let us land, there dream for evermore:<br />
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle.”</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
32</span>The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate,<br />
If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene<br />
We watch the bolt of heaven, and scorn the hate<br />
Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen.<br />
Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen<br />
That veils the fairy coast we would explore.<br />
Come, though the sea be vex’d, and breakers roar,<br />
Come, for the air of this old world is vile,<br />
Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar;<br />
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle.”</p>
<p class="poetry">Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate<br />
Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen,<br />
And ruined is the palace of our state;<br />
But happy Loves flit round the mast, and keen<br />
The shrill wind sings the silken cords between.<br />
Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore,<br />
Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar,<br />
Yet haste, light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile;<br />
Love’s panthers sleep ’mid roses, as of yore:<br />
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page33"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 33</span>ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Sad eyes! the blue sea laughs, as
heretofore.<br />
Ah, singing birds your happy music pour!<br />
Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile;<br />
Flit to these ancient gods we still adore:<br />
“It may be we shall touch the happy isle!”</p>
<h2><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
34</span>BALLADE OF THE SUMMER TERM.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(<i>Being a Petition</i>, <i>in the
form of a Ballade</i>, <i>praying the University Commissioners to
spare the Summer Term</i>.)</p>
<p class="poetry">When Lent and Responsions are ended,<br />
When May with fritillaries waits,<br />
When the flower of the chestnut is splendid,<br />
When drags are at all of the gates<br />
(Those drags the philosopher “ slates”<br />
With a scorn that is truly sublime), <a name="citation34"></a><a
href="#footnote34" class="citation">[34]</a><br />
Life wins from the grasp of the Fates<br />
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!</p>
<p class="poetry">When wickets are bowl’d and defended,<br
/>
When Isis is glad with “the Eights,”<br />
When music and sunset are blended,<br />
When Youth and the summer are mates,<br />
<a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 35</span>When
Freshmen are heedless of “Greats,”<br />
And when note-books are cover’d with rhyme,<br />
Ah, these are the hours that one rates—<br />
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!</p>
<p class="poetry">When the brow of the Dean is unbended<br />
At luncheons and mild tête-à-têtes,<br />
When the Tutor’s in love, nor offended<br />
By blunders in tenses or dates;<br />
When bouquets are purchased of Bates,<br />
When the bells in their melody chime,<br />
When unheeded the Lecturer prates—<br />
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Reformers of Schools and of States,<br />
Is mirth so tremendous a crime?<br />
Ah! spare what grim pedantry hates—<br />
Sweet hours and the fleetest of time!</p>
<h2><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
36</span>BALLADE OF THE MUSE.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>Quem tu</i>, <i>Melpomene</i>,
<i>semel</i>.</p>
<p class="poetry">The man whom once, Melpomene,<br />
Thou look’st on with benignant sight,<br />
Shall never at the Isthmus be<br />
A boxer eminent in fight,<br />
Nor fares he foremost in the flight<br />
Of Grecian cars to victory,<br />
Nor goes with Delian laurels dight,<br />
The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!</p>
<p class="poetry">Not him the Capitol shall see,<br />
As who hath crush’d the threats and might<br />
Of monarchs, march triumphantly;<br />
But Fame shall crown him, in his right<br />
Of all the Roman lyre that smite<br />
The first; so woods of Tivoli<br />
Proclaim him, so her waters bright,<br />
The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
37</span>The sons of queenly Rome count <i>me</i>,<br />
Me too, with them whose chants delight,—<br />
The poets’ kindly company;<br />
Now broken is the tooth of spite,<br />
But thou, that temperest aright<br />
The golden lyre, all, all to thee<br />
He owes—life, fame, and fortune’s height—<br />
The man thou lov’st, Melpomene!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Queen, that to mute lips could’st
unite<br />
The wild swan’s dying melody!<br />
Thy gifts, ah! how shall he requite—<br />
The man thou lov’st, Melpomene?</p>
<h2><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
38</span>BALLADE AGAINST THE JESUITS.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">AFTER LA FONTAINE.</p>
<p class="poetry">Rome does right well to censure all the vain<br
/>
Talk of Jansenius, and of them who preach<br />
That earthly joys are damnable! ’Tis plain<br />
We need not charge at Heaven as at a breach;<br />
No, amble on! We’ll gain it, one and all;<br />
The narrow path’s a dream fantastical,<br />
And Arnauld’s quite superfluously driven<br />
Mirth from the world. We’ll scale the heavenly
wall,<br />
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!</p>
<p class="poetry">He does not hold a man may well be slain<br />
Who vexes with unseasonable speech,<br />
You <i>may</i> do murder for five ducats gain,<br />
<i>Not</i> for a pin, a ribbon, or a peach;<br />
He ventures (most consistently) to teach<br />
<a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>That there
are certain cases that befall<br />
When perjury need no good man appal,<br />
And life of love (he says) may keep a leaven.<br />
Sure, hearing this, a grateful world will bawl,<br />
“Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!”</p>
<p class="poetry">“For God’s sake read me somewhat in
the strain<br />
Of his most cheering volumes, I beseech!”<br />
Why should I name them all? a mighty train—<br />
So many, none may know the name of each.<br />
Make these your compass to the heavenly beach,<br />
These only in your library instal:<br />
Burn Pascal and his fellows, great and small,<br />
Dolts that in vain with Escobar have striven;<br />
I tell you, and the common voice doth call,<br />
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry"><i>Satan</i>, that pride did hurry to thy
fall,<br />
Thou porter of the grim infernal hall—<br />
Thou keeper of the courts of souls unshriven!<br />
To shun thy shafts, to ‘scape thy hellish thrall,<br />
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!</p>
<h2><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
40</span>BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">TO E. W. GOSSE.</p>
<p class="poetry">The dust of Carthage and the dust<br />
Of Babel on the desert wold,<br />
The loves of Corinth, and the lust,<br />
Orchomenos increased with gold;<br />
The town of Jason, over-bold,<br />
And Cherson, smitten in her prime—<br />
What are they but a dream half-told?<br />
Where are the cities of old time?</p>
<p class="poetry">In towns that were a kingdom’s trust,<br
/>
In dim Atlantic forests’ fold,<br />
The marble wasteth to a crust,<br />
The granite crumbles into mould;<br />
O’er these—left nameless from of old—<br />
As over Shinar’s brick and slime,<br />
One vast forgetfulness is roll’d—<br />
Where are the cities of old time?</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
41</span>The lapse of ages, and the rust,<br />
The fire, the frost, the waters cold,<br />
Efface the evil and the just;<br />
From Thebes, that Eriphyle sold,<br />
To drown’d Caer-Is, whose sweet bells toll’d<br />
Beneath the wave a dreamy chime<br />
That echo’d from the mountain-hold,—<br />
“Where are the cities of old time?”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, all thy towns and cities must<br />
Decay as these, till all their crime,<br />
And mirth, and wealth, and toil are thrust<br />
Where are the cities of old time.</p>
<h2><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
42</span>BALLADE OF THE ROYAL GAME OF GOLF.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(EAST FIFESHIRE.)</p>
<p class="poetry">There are laddies will drive ye a ba’<br
/>
To the burn frae the farthermost tee,<br />
But ye mauna think driving is a’,<br />
Ye may heel her, and send her ajee,<br />
Ye may land in the sand or the sea;<br />
And ye’re dune, sir, ye’re no worth a preen,<br />
Tak’ the word that an auld man ’ll gie,<br />
Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!</p>
<p class="poetry">The auld folk are crouse, and they craw<br />
That their putting is pawky and slee;<br />
In a bunker they’re nae gude ava’,<br />
But to girn, and to gar the sand flee.<br />
And a lassie can putt—ony she,—<br />
Be she Maggy, or Bessie, or Jean,<br />
<a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>But a
cleek-shot’s the billy for me,<br />
Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!</p>
<p class="poetry">I hae play’d in the frost and the
thaw,<br />
I hae play’d since the year thirty-three,<br />
I hae play’d in the rain and the snaw,<br />
And I trust I may play till I dee;<br />
And I tell ye the truth and nae lee,<br />
For I speak o’ the thing I hae seen—<br />
Tom Morris, I ken, will agree—<br />
Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, faith you’re improving a wee,<br
/>
And, Lord, man, they tell me you’re keen;<br />
Tak’ the best o’ advice that can be,<br />
Tak’ aye tent to be up on the green!</p>
<h2><a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>DOUBLE
BALLADE OF PRIMITIVE MAN.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">TO J. A. FARRER.</p>
<p class="poetry">He lived in a cave by the seas,<br />
He lived upon oysters and foes,<br />
But his list of forbidden degrees,<br />
An extensive morality shows;<br />
Geological evidence goes<br />
To prove he had never a pan,<br />
But he shaved with a shell when he chose,—<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.</p>
<p class="poetry">He worshipp’d the rain and the breeze,<br
/>
He worshipp’d the river that flows,<br />
And the Dawn, and the Moon, and the trees,<br />
And bogies, and serpents, and crows;<br />
He buried his dead with their toes<br />
Tucked-up, an original plan,<br />
Till their knees came right under their nose,—<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
45</span>His communal wives, at his ease,<br />
He would curb with occasional blows;<br />
Or his State had a queen, like the bees<br />
(As another philosopher trows):<br />
When he spoke, it was never in prose,<br />
But he sang in a strain that would scan,<br />
For (to doubt it, perchance, were morose)<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!</p>
<p class="poetry">On the coasts that incessantly freeze,<br />
With his stones, and his bones, and his bows;<br />
On luxuriant tropical leas,<br />
Where the summer eternally glows,<br />
He is found, and his habits disclose<br />
(Let theology say what she can)<br />
That he lived in the long, long agos,<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!</p>
<p class="poetry">From a status like that of the Crees,<br />
Our society’s fabric arose,—<br />
Develop’d, evolved, if you please,<br />
But deluded chronologists chose,<br />
<a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>In a
fancied accordance with Mos<br />
es, 4000 <span class="GutSmall">B.C.</span> for the span<br />
When he rushed on the world and its woes,—<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!</p>
<p class="poetry">But the mild
anthropologist,—<i>he’s</i><br />
Not <i>recent</i> inclined to suppose<br />
Flints Palæolithic like these,<br />
Quaternary bones such as those!<br />
In Rhinoceros, Mammoth and Co.’s,<br />
First epoch, the Human began,<br />
Theologians all to expose,—<br />
’Tis the <i>mission</i> of Primitive Man.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">Max</span>, proudly your
Aryans pose,<br />
But their rigs they undoubtedly ran,<br />
For, as every Darwinian knows,<br />
’Twas the manner of Primitive Man!</p>
<h2><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
47</span>BALLADE OF AUTUMN.</h2>
<p class="poetry">We built a castle in the air,<br />
In summer weather, you and I,<br />
The wind and sun were in your hair,—<br />
Gold hair against a sapphire sky:<br />
When Autumn came, with leaves that fly<br />
Before the storm, across the plain,<br />
You fled from me, with scarce a sigh—<br />
My Love returns no more again!</p>
<p class="poetry">The windy lights of Autumn flare:<br />
I watch the moonlit sails go by;<br />
I marvel how men toil and fare,<br />
The weary business that they ply!<br />
Their voyaging is vanity,<br />
And fairy gold is all their gain,<br />
And all the winds of winter cry,<br />
“My Love returns no more again!”</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
48</span>Here, in my castle of Despair,<br />
I sit alone with memory;<br />
The wind-fed wolf has left his lair,<br />
To keep the outcast company.<br />
The brooding owl he hoots hard by,<br />
<i>The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane</i>,<br />
The Rhymer’s soothest prophecy,—<a
name="citation48"></a><a href="#footnote48"
class="citation">[48]</a><br />
My Love returns no more again!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Lady, my home until I die<br />
Is here, where youth and hope were slain;<br />
They flit, the ghosts of our July,<br />
My Love returns no more again!</p>
<h2><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
49</span>BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM.</h2>
<p class="poetry">While others are asking for beauty or fame,<br
/>
Or praying to know that for which they should pray,<br />
Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame,<br />
Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey,<br />
The sage has found out a more excellent way—<br />
To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers,<br />
And his humble petition puts up day by day,<br />
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.</p>
<p class="poetry">Inventors may bow to the God that is lame,<br
/>
And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray;<br />
Philosophers kneel to the God without name,<br />
Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they;<br />
The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay,<br />
The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;<br />
But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,<br />
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
50</span>Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame<br />
(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day<br />
With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame)!<br />
O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,<br />
Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play<br />
With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!<br />
And I’d leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,<br />
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Gods, grant or withhold it; your
“yea” and your “nay”<br />
Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours:<br />
But life <i>is</i> worth living, and here we would stay<br />
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.</p>
<h2><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
51</span>BALLADE OF WORLDLY WEALTH.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(OLD FRENCH.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Money taketh town and wall,<br />
Fort and ramp without a blow;<br />
Money moves the merchants all,<br />
While the tides shall ebb and flow;<br />
Money maketh Evil show<br />
Like the Good, and Truth like lies:<br />
These alone can ne’er bestow<br />
Youth, and health, and Paradise.</p>
<p class="poetry">Money maketh festival,<br />
Wine she buys, and beds can strow;<br />
Round the necks of captains tall,<br />
Money wins them chains to throw,<br />
Marches soldiers to and fro,<br />
Gaineth ladies with sweet eyes:<br />
These alone can ne’er bestow<br />
Youth, and health, and Paradise.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
52</span>Money wins the priest his stall;<br />
Money mitres buys, I trow,<br />
Red hats for the Cardinal,<br />
Abbeys for the novice low;<br />
Money maketh sin as snow,<br />
Place of penitence supplies:<br />
These alone can ne’er bestow<br />
Youth, and health, and Paradise.</p>
<h2><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
53</span>BALLADE OF LIFE.</h2>
<blockquote><p>“‘Dead and gone,’—a sorry
burden of the Ballad of Life.”</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><i>Death’s Jest Book</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="poetry">Say, fair maids, maying<br />
In gardens green,<br />
In deep dells straying,<br />
What end hath been<br />
Two Mays between<br />
Of the flowers that shone<br />
And your own sweet queen—<br />
“They are dead and gone!”</p>
<p class="poetry">Say, grave priests, praying<br />
In dule and teen,<br />
From cells decaying<br />
What have ye seen<br />
Of the proud and mean,<br />
Of Judas and John,<br />
Of the foul and clean?—<br />
“They are dead and gone!”</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
54</span>Say, kings, arraying<br />
Loud wars to win,<br />
Of your manslaying<br />
What gain ye glean?<br />
“They are fierce and keen,<br />
But they fall anon,<br />
On the sword that lean,—<br />
They are dead and gone!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Through the mad world’s scene,<br />
We are drifting on,<br />
To this tune, I ween,<br />
“They are dead and gone!”</p>
<h2><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
55</span>BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA.</h2>
<p class="poetry">There’s a joy without canker or cark,<br
/>
There’s a pleasure eternally new,<br />
’Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark<br />
Of china that’s ancient and blue;<br />
Unchipp’d all the centuries through<br />
It has pass’d, since the chime of it rang,<br />
And they fashion’d it, figure and hue,<br />
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.</p>
<p class="poetry">These dragons (their tails, you remark,<br />
Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),—<br />
When Noah came out of the ark,<br />
Did these lie in wait for his crew?<br />
They snorted, they snapp’d, and they slew,<br />
They were mighty of fin and of fang,<br />
And their portraits Celestials drew<br />
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
56</span>Here’s a pot with a cot in a park,<br />
In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,<br />
Where the lovers eloped in the dark,<br />
Lived, died, and were changed into two<br />
Bright birds that eternally flew<br />
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;<br />
’Tis a tale was undoubtedly true<br />
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do,<br />
Kind critic, your “tongue has a tang”<br />
But—a sage never heeded a shrew<br />
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.</p>
<h2><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
57</span>BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(AFTER VILLON.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Nay, tell me now in what strange air<br />
The Roman Flora dwells to-day.<br />
Where Archippiada hides, and where<br />
Beautiful Thais has passed away?<br />
Whence answers Echo, afield, astray,<br />
By mere or stream,—around, below?<br />
Lovelier she than a woman of clay;<br />
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?</p>
<p class="poetry"> Where is wise
Héloïse, that care<br />
Brought on Abeilard, and dismay?<br />
All for her love he found a snare,<br />
A maimed poor monk in orders grey;<br />
And where’s the Queen who willed to slay<br />
Buridan, that in a sack must go<br />
Afloat down Seine,—a perilous way—<br />
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
58</span>Where’s that White Queen, a lily rare,<br />
With her sweet song, the Siren’s lay?<br />
Where’s Bertha Broad-foot, Beatrice fair?<br />
Alys and Ermengarde, where are they?<br />
Good Joan, whom English did betray<br />
In Rouen town, and burned her? No,<br />
Maiden and Queen, no man may say;<br />
Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, all this week thou need’st not
pray,<br />
Nor yet this year the thing to know.<br />
One burden answers, ever and aye,<br />
“Nay, but where is the last year’s snow?”</p>
<h2><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
59</span>VILLON’S BALLADE<br />
<span class="GutSmall">OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF EVIL
LIFE.</span></h2>
<p class="poetry">Nay, be you pardoner or cheat,<br />
Or cogger keen, or mumper shy,<br />
You’ll burn your fingers at the feat,<br />
And howl like other folks that fry.<br />
All evil folks that love a lie!<br />
And where goes gain that greed amasses,<br />
By wile, and trick, and thievery?<br />
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!</p>
<p class="poetry">Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet,<br
/>
With game, and shame, and jollity,<br />
Go jigging through the field and street,<br />
With <i>myst’ry</i> and <i>morality</i>;<br />
Win gold at <i>gleek</i>,—and that will fly,<br />
Where all you gain at <i>passage</i> passes,—<br />
And that’s? You know as well as I,<br />
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
60</span>Nay, forth from all such filth retreat,<br />
Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry,<br />
Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat,<br />
If you’ve no clerkly skill to ply;<br />
You’ll gain enough, with husbandry,<br />
But—sow hempseed and such wild grasses,<br />
And where goes all you take thereby?—<br />
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Your clothes, your hose, your broidery,<br />
Your linen that the snow surpasses,<br />
Or ere they’re worn, off, off they fly,<br />
’Tis all to taverns and to lasses!</p>
<h2><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
61</span>BALLADE OF RABBITS AND HARES.</h2>
<p class="poetry">In a vision a Sportsman forlorn<br />
I beheld, in an isle of the West,<br />
And his purple and linen were torn,<br />
And he wailed, as he beat on his breast,—<br />
“My people are men dispossessed,<br />
They have vanished, and nobody cares,—<br />
They have passed to the place of their rest,<br />
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!</p>
<p class="poetry">“Oh, why was a gentleman born<br />
With a title, a name, and a crest,<br />
Where the Rabbit is treated with scorn,<br />
And the Hare is accounted a pest,<br />
By the lumbering farmer repressed,<br />
With his dogs, and his guns, and his snares?<br />
But my fathers have ended their quest,<br />
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
62</span>“Ah, woe for the clover and corn<br />
That the Rabbit was wont to infest!<br />
Ah, woe for my youth in its morn,<br />
When the farmer obeyed my behest!<br />
Happy days! like a wandering guest<br />
Ye have fled, ye are sped unawares;<br />
But my fathers are now with the blest,<br />
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, mourn for a nation oppressed,<br />
And absorbed in her stocks and her shares,<br />
And bereaved of her bravest and best—<br />
They have gone with the Rabbits and Hares!</p>
<h2><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
63</span>VALENTINE IN FORM OF BALLADE.</h2>
<p class="poetry">The soft wind from the south land sped,<br />
He set his strength to blow,<br />
From forests where Adonis bled,<br />
And lily flowers a-row:<br />
He crossed the straits like streams that flow,<br />
The ocean dark as wine,<br />
To my true love to whisper low,<br />
To be your Valentine.</p>
<p class="poetry">The Spring half-raised her drowsy head,<br />
Besprent with drifted snow,<br />
“I’ll send an April day,” she said,<br />
“To lands of wintry woe.”<br />
He came,—the winter’s overthrow<br />
With showers that sing and shine,<br />
Pied daisies round your path to strow,<br />
To be your Valentine.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
64</span>Where sands of Egypt, swart and red,<br />
’Neath suns Egyptian glow,<br />
In places of the princely dead,<br />
By the Nile’s overflow,<br />
The swallow preened her wings to go,<br />
And for the North did pine,<br />
And fain would brave the frost her foe,<br />
To be your Valentine.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so,<br />
Their various voice combine;<br />
But that they crave on <i>me</i> bestow,<br />
To be your Valentine.</p>
<h2><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
65</span>BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(<i>Les Œuvres de Monsieur
Molière</i>. <i>A Paris</i>,<br />
<i>chez Louys Billaine</i>, <i>à la Palme</i>.<br />
<span class="GutSmall">M.D.C.LXVI.</span>)</p>
<p style="text-align: center">LA COUR.</p>
<p class="poetry">When these Old Plays were new, the King,<br />
Beside the Cardinal’s chair,<br />
Applauded, ’mid the courtly ring,<br />
The verses of Molière;<br />
Point-lace was then the only wear,<br />
Old Corneille came to woo,<br />
And bright Du Parc was young and fair,<br />
When these Old Plays were new!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">LA COMÉDIE.</p>
<p class="poetry">How shrill the butcher’s cat-calls
ring,<br />
How loud the lackeys swear!<br />
Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling,<br />
At Brécourt, fuming there!<br />
<a name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>The
Porter’s stabbed! a Mousquetaire<br />
Breaks in with noisy crew—<br />
’Twas all a commonplace affair<br />
When these Old Plays were new!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">LA VILLE.</p>
<p class="poetry">When these Old Plays were new! They
bring<br />
A host of phantoms rare:<br />
Old jests that float, old jibes that sting,<br />
Old faces peaked with care:<br />
Ménage’s smirk, de Visé’s stare,<br />
The thefts of Jean Ribou,—<a name="citation66"></a><a
href="#footnote66" class="citation">[66]</a><br />
Ah, publishers were hard to bear<br />
When these Old Plays were new.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ghosts, at your Poet’s word ye dare<br />
To break Death’s dungeons through,<br />
And frisk, as in that golden air,<br />
When these Old Plays were new!</p>
<h2><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
67</span>BALLADE OF HIS BOOKS.</h2>
<p class="poetry">Here stand my books, line upon line<br />
They reach the roof, and row by row,<br />
They speak of faded tastes of mine,<br />
And things I did, but do not, know:<br />
Old school books, useless long ago,<br />
Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in,<br />
Could scarcely answer “yes” or
“no”—<br />
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!</p>
<p class="poetry">Here’s Villon, in morocco fine,<br />
(The Poet starved, in mud and snow,)<br />
Glatigny does not crave to dine,<br />
And René’s tears forget to flow.<br />
And here’s a work by Mrs. Crowe,<br />
With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in;<br />
Ah, all my ghosts have gone below—<br />
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
68</span>He’s touched, this mouldy Greek divine,<br />
The Princess D’Este’s hand of snow;<br />
And here the arms of D’Hoym shine,<br />
And there’s a tear-bestained Rousseau:<br />
Here’s Carlyle shrieking “woe on woe”<br />
(The first edition, this, he wailed in);<br />
I once believed in him—but oh,<br />
The many things I’ve tried and failed in!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, tastes may differ; mine and thine<br />
Quite other balances are scaled in;<br />
May you succeed, though I repine—<br />
“The many things I’ve tried and failed in!”</p>
<h2><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
69</span>BALLADE OF ÆSTHETIC ADJECTIVES.</h2>
<p class="poetry">There be “subtle” and
“sweet,” that are bad ones to beat,<br />
There are “lives unlovely,” and “souls
astray;”<br />
There is much to be done yet with “moody” and
“meet,”<br />
And “ghastly,” and “grimly,” and
“gaunt,” and “grey;”<br />
We should ever be “blithesome,” but never be gay,<br
/>
And “splendid” is suited to “summer” and
“sea;”<br />
“Consummate,” they say, is enjoying its
day,—<br />
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
70</span>The Snows and the Rose they are “windy” and
“fleet,”<br />
And “frantic” and “faint” are Delight and
Dismay;<br />
Yea, “sanguine,” it seems, as the juice of the
beet,<br />
Are “the hands of the King” in a general way:<br />
There be loves that quicken, and sicken, and slay;<br />
“Supreme” is the song of the Bard of the free;<br />
But of adjectives all that I name in my lay,<br />
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!</p>
<p class="poetry">The Matron intense—let us sit at her
feet,<br />
And pelt her with lilies as long as we may;<br />
The Maiden intense—is not always discreet;<br />
But the Singer intense, in his “singing array,”<br />
Will win all the world with his roundelay:<br />
While “blithe” birds carol from tree to tree,<br />
And Art unto Nature doth simper, and say,—<br />
“‘Intense’ is the adjective dearest to
me!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page71"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 71</span>ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Prince, it is surely as good as a play<br />
To mark how the poets and painters agree;<br />
But of plumage æsthetic that feathers the jay,<br />
“Intense” is the adjective dearest to me!</p>
<h2><a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
72</span>BALLADE OF THE PLEASED BARD.</h2>
<p class="poetry">They call me “dull,”
“affected,” “tame;”<br />
My Muse “has neither voice nor wing;”<br />
My prose (though lucrative) is “lame,”<br />
My satires, “wasps without the sting.”<br />
The Critic thus—Opprobrious thing!—<br />
No more I heed or hear his chaff,<br />
Nor note the ink that he may sling—<br />
A Lady wants my autograph!</p>
<p class="poetry">All heedless of the common blame,<br />
My muse her random rhymes will string;<br />
The Boers may shoot, the Irish “schame,”<br />
The world and all its woes go swing!<br />
My heart has ceased from sorrowing,<br />
I grasp Apollo’s laurell’d staff,<br />
And cry aloud, like anything,—<br />
A Lady wants my autograph!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
73</span>Oh Flatt’ry, soft, delicious flame!<br />
Oh, fairer than the flowers of Spring,<br />
These blossoms of the noblest name<br />
A lady’s good enough to fling!<br />
Ah, tie them with a silver string,<br />
Crown, crown the bowl with shandygaff,<br />
And shout, till all the welkin ring,—<br />
“A Lady wants my autograph!”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Princess, my lips can never frame<br />
My whole acknowledgments, or half;<br />
For this, I feel, at last, is fame—<br />
A Lady wants my autograph!</p>
<h2><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
74</span>BALLADE FOR A BABY.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(FROM “THE GARLAND OF
RACHEL.”)</p>
<p class="poetry">’Tis distance lends, the poet says,<br />
Enchantment to the view,<br />
And this makes possible the praise<br />
Which I bestow on you.<br />
For babies rosy-pink of hue<br />
I do not <i>always</i> care,<br />
But distance paints the mountains blue,<br />
And Rachel always fair.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ah Time, speed on her flying days,<br />
Bring back my youth that flew,<br />
That she may listen to my lays<br />
Where Merton stock-doves coo;<br />
That I may sing afresh, anew,<br />
My songs, now faint and rare,<br />
Time, make me always twenty-two,<br />
And Rachel always fair.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
75</span>Nay, long ago, down dusky ways<br />
Fled Cupid and his crew;<br />
Life brings not back the morning haze,<br />
The dawning and the dew;<br />
And other lips must sigh and sue,<br />
And younger lovers dare<br />
To hint that Love is always true,<br />
And Rachel always fair.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Princess, let Age bid Youth adieu,<br />
Adieu to this despair,<br />
To me, who thus despairing woo,<br />
And Rachel always fair.</p>
<h2><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
76</span>BALLADE AMOUREUSE.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">AFTER FROISSART.</p>
<p class="poetry">Not Jason nor Medea wise,<br />
I crave to see, nor win much lore,<br />
Nor list to Orpheus’ minstrelsies;<br />
Nor Her’cles would I see, that o’er<br />
The wide world roamed from shore to shore;<br />
Nor, by St. James, Penelope,—<br />
Nor pure Lucrece, such wrong that bore:<br />
To see my Love suffices me!</p>
<p class="poetry">Virgil and Cato, no man vies<br />
With them in wealth of clerkly store;<br />
I would not see them with mine eyes;<br />
Nor him that sailed, <i>sans</i> sail nor oar,<br />
Across the barren sea and hoar,<br />
And all for love of his ladye;<br />
Nor pearl nor sapphire takes me more:<br />
To see my Love suffices me!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
77</span>I heed not Pegasus, that flies<br />
As swift as shafts the bowmen pour;<br />
Nor famed Pygmalion’s artifice,<br />
Whereof the like was ne’er before;<br />
Nor Oléus, that drank of yore<br />
The salt wave of the whole great sea:<br />
Why? dost thou ask? ’Tis as I swore—<br />
To see my Love suffices me!</p>
<h2><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
78</span>BALLADE OF QUEEN ANNE.</h2>
<p class="poetry">The modish Airs,<br />
The Tansey Brew,<br />
The <i>Swains</i> and <i>Fairs</i><br />
In curtained Pew;<br />
Nymphs <span class="smcap">Kneller</span> drew,<br />
Books <span class="smcap">Bentley</span> read,—<br />
Who knows them, who?<br />
<span class="smcap">Queen Anne</span> is dead!</p>
<p class="poetry">We buy her Chairs,<br />
Her China blue,<br />
Her red-brick Squares<br />
We build anew;<br />
But ah! we rue,<br />
When all is said,<br />
The tale o’er-true,<br />
<span class="smcap">Queen Anne</span> is dead!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
79</span>Now <i>Bulls</i> and <i>Bears</i>,<br />
A ruffling Crew,<br />
With Stocks and Shares,<br />
With Turk and Jew,<br />
Go bubbling through<br />
The Town ill-bred:<br />
The World’s askew,<br />
<span class="smcap">Queen Anne</span> is dead!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Friend, praise the new;<br />
The old is fled:<br />
<i>Vivat</i> <span class="smcap">Frou</span>-<span
class="smcap">Frou</span>!<br />
<span class="smcap">Queen Anne</span> is dead!</p>
<h2><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
80</span>BALLADE OF BLIND LOVE.</h2>
<p style="text-align: center">(AFTER LYONNET DE COISMES.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Who have loved and ceased to love, forget<br />
That ever they loved in their lives, they say;<br />
Only remember the fever and fret,<br />
And the pain of Love, that was all his pay;<br />
All the delight of him passes away<br />
From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met—<br />
Too late did I love you, my love, and yet<br />
I shall never forget till my dying day.</p>
<p class="poetry">Too late were we ‘ware of the secret
net<br />
That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray;<br />
There were we taken and snared, Lisette,<br />
In the dungeon of <b>La Fausse Amistié</b>;<br />
Help was there none in the wide world’s fray,<br />
Joy was there none in the gift and the debt;<br />
<a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>Too late
we knew it, too long regret—<br />
I shall never forget till my dying day!</p>
<p class="poetry">We must live our lives, though the sun be
set,<br />
Must meet in the masque where parts we play,<br />
Must cross in the maze of Life’s minuet;<br />
Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay:<br />
But while snows of winter or flowers of May<br />
Are the sad year’s shroud or coronet,<br />
In the season of rose or of violet,<br />
I shall never forget till my dying day!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Queen, when the clay is my coverlet,<br />
When I am dead, and when you are grey,<br />
Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet,<br />
“I shall never forget till my dying day!”</p>
<h2><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
82</span>BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE.</h2>
<p class="poetry">Here I’d come when weariest!<br />
Here the breast<br />
Of the Windburg’s tufted over<br />
Deep with bracken; here his crest<br />
Takes the west,<br />
Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.</p>
<p class="poetry">Silent here are lark and plover;<br />
In the cover<br />
Deep below the cushat best<br />
Loves his mate, and croons above her<br />
O’er their nest,<br />
Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover.</p>
<p class="poetry">Bring me here, Life’s tired-out guest,<br
/>
To the blest<br />
Bed that waits the weary rover,<br />
<a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>Here
should failure be confessed;<br />
Ends my quest,<br />
Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">ENVOY.</p>
<p class="poetry">Friend, or stranger kind, or lover,<br />
Ah, fulfil a last behest,<br />
Let me rest<br />
Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover!</p>
<h2><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
84</span>DIZAIN.</h2>
<p class="poetry"><i>As</i>, <i>to the pipe</i>, <i>with rhythmic
feet</i><br />
<i>In windings of some old-world dance</i>,<br />
<i>The smiling couples cross and meet</i>,<br />
<i>Join hands</i>, <i>and then in line advance</i>,<br />
<i>So</i>, <i>to these fair old tunes of France</i>,<br />
<i>Through all their maze of to-and-fro</i>,<br />
<i>The light-heeled numbers laughing go</i>,<br />
<i>Retreat</i>, <i>return</i>, <i>and ere they flee</i>,<br />
<i>One moment pause in panting row</i>,<br />
<i>And seem to say—Vos plaudite</i>!</p>
<p style="text-align: right">A. D.</p>
<h2><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>VERSES
AND TRANSLATIONS.</h2>
<blockquote><p><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
86</span><span class="smcap">Oronte</span>—<i>Ce ne sont
point de ces grands vers pompeux</i>,<br />
<i>Mais de petits vers</i>!</p>
<p style="text-align: right">“Le Misanthrope,” Acte
i., Sc. 2.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>A
PORTRAIT OF 1783.</h3>
<p class="poetry">Your hair and chin are like the hair<br />
And chin Burne-Jones’s ladies wear;<br />
You were unfashionably fair<br />
In ’83;<br
/>
And sad you were when girls are gay,<br />
You read a book about <i>Le vrai</i><br />
<i>Mérite de l’homme</i>, alone in May.<br />
What <i>can</i>
it be,<br />
<i>Le vrai mérite de l’homme</i>? Not gold,<br
/>
Not titles that are bought and sold,<br />
Not wit that flashes and is cold,<br />
But Virtue
merely!<br />
Instructed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau<br />
(And Jean-Jacques, surely, ought to know),<br />
You bade the crowd of foplings go,<br />
You glanced
severely,<br />
<a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>Dreaming
beneath the spreading shade<br />
Of ‘that vast hat the Graces made;’ <a
name="citation88"></a><a href="#footnote88"
class="citation">[88]</a><br />
So Rouget sang—while yet he played<br />
With courtly
rhyme,<br />
And hymned great Doisi’s red perruque,<br />
And Nice’s eyes, and Zulmé’s look,<br />
And dead canaries, ere he shook<br />
The sultry
time<br />
With strains like thunder. Loud and low<br />
Methinks I hear the murmur grow,<br />
The tramp of men that come and go<br />
With fire and
sword.<br />
They war against the quick and dead,<br />
Their flying feet are dashed with red,<br />
As theirs the vintaging that tread<br />
Before the
Lord.<br />
<a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>O head
unfashionably fair,<br />
What end was thine, for all thy care?<br />
We only see thee dreaming there:<br />
We cannot see<br
/>
The breaking of thy vision, when<br />
The Rights of Man were lords of men,<br />
When virtue won her own again<br />
In
’93.</p>
<h3><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>THE
MOON’S MINION.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">(FROM THE PROSE OF C.
BAUDELAIRE.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Thine eyes are like the sea, my dear,<br />
The wand’ring waters, green and grey;<br />
Thine eyes are wonderful and clear,<br />
And deep, and deadly, even as they;<br />
The spirit of the changeful sea<br />
Informs thine eyes at night and noon,<br />
She sways the tides, and the heart of thee,<br />
The mystic, sad, capricious Moon!</p>
<p class="poetry">The Moon came down the shining stair<br />
Of clouds that fleck the summer sky,<br />
She kissed thee, saying, “Child, be fair,<br />
And madden men’s hearts, even as I;<br />
Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet,<br />
That know me and are known of me;<br />
The lover thou shalt never meet,<br />
The land where thou shalt never be!”</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
91</span>She held thee in her chill embrace,<br />
She kissed thee with cold lips divine,<br />
She left her pallor on thy face,<br />
That mystic ivory face of thine;<br />
And now I sit beside thy feet,<br />
And all my heart is far from thee,<br />
Dreaming of her I shall not meet,<br />
And of the land I shall not see!</p>
<h3><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>IN
ITHACA.</h3>
<blockquote><p>“And now am I greatly repenting that ever I
left my life with thee, and the immortality thou didst promise
me.”—<i>Letter of Odysseus to Calypso</i>.
Luciani <i>Vera Historia</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="poetry">’Tis thought Odysseus when the strife was
o’er<br />
With all the waves and wars, a weary while,<br />
Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,<br />
And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,<br />
Go down the ways of gold, and evermore<br />
His sad heart followed after, mile on mile,<br />
Back to the Goddess of the magic wile,<br />
Calypso, and the love that was of yore.</p>
<p class="poetry">Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee
yet<br />
To look across the sad and stormy space,<br />
Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,<br />
Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet,<br />
Because, within a fair forsaken place<br />
The life that might have been is lost to thee.</p>
<h3><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
93</span>HOMER.</h3>
<p class="poetry">Homer, thy song men liken to the sea<br />
With all the notes of music in its tone,<br />
With tides that wash the dim dominion<br />
Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee<br />
Around the isles enchanted; nay, to me<br />
Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown<br />
That glasses Egypt’s temples overthrown<br />
In his sky-nurtured stream, eternally.</p>
<p class="poetry">No wiser we than men of heretofore<br />
To find thy sacred fountains guarded fast;<br />
Enough, thy flood makes green our human shore,<br />
As Nilus Egypt, rolling down his vast<br />
His fertile flood, that murmurs evermore<br />
Of gods dethroned, and empires in the past.</p>
<h3><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>THE
BURIAL OF MOLIÈRE.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">(AFTER J. TRUFFIER.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Dead—he is dead! The rouge has left
a trace<br />
On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a
tear,<br />
Even while the people laughed that held him dear<br
/>
But yesterday. He died,—and not in grace,<br />
And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace<br />
To slander him whose <i>Tartuffe</i> made them
fear,<br />
And gold must win a passage for his bier,<br />
And bribe the crowd that guards his resting-place.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ah, Molière, for that last time of
all,<br />
Man’s hatred broke upon thee, and went by,<br
/>
And did but make more fair thy funeral.<br />
Though in the dark they hid thee stealthily,<br />
Thy coffin had the cope of night for pall,<br />
For torch, the stars along the windy sky!</p>
<h3><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
95</span>BION.</h3>
<p class="poetry">The wail of Moschus on the mountains crying<br
/>
The Muses heard, and loved it long ago;<br />
They heard the hollows of the hills replying,<br />
They heard the weeping water’s overflow;<br />
They winged the sacred strain—the song undying,<br />
The song that all about the world must go,—<br
/>
When poets for a poet dead are sighing,<br />
The minstrels for a minstrel friend laid low.</p>
<p class="poetry">And dirge to dirge that answers, and the
weeping<br />
For Adonais by the summer sea,<br />
The plaints for Lycidas, and Thyrsis (sleeping<br />
Far from ‘the forest ground called
Thessaly’),<br />
These hold thy memory, Bion, in their keeping,<br />
And are but echoes of the moan for thee.</p>
<h3><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
96</span>SPRING.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">(AFTER MELEAGER.)</p>
<p class="poetry">Now the bright crocus flames, and now<br />
The slim narcissus takes the rain,<br />
And, straying o’er the mountain’s brow,<br />
The daffodilies bud again.<br />
The thousand blossoms wax and wane<br />
On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough,<br />
But fairer than the flowers art thou,<br />
Than any growth of hill or plain.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown,<br />
That my Love’s feet may tread it down,<br />
Like lilies on the lilies set;<br />
My Love, whose lips are softer far<br />
Than drowsy poppy petals are,<br />
And sweeter than the violet!</p>
<h3><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>BEFORE
THE SNOW.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">(AFTER ALBERT GLATIGNY.)</p>
<p class="poetry">The winter is upon us, not the snow,<br />
The hills are etched on the horizon bare,<br />
The skies are iron grey, a bitter air,<br />
The meagre cloudlets shudder to and fro.<br />
One yellow leaf the listless wind doth blow,<br />
Like some strange butterfly, unclassed and rare.<br
/>
Your footsteps ring in frozen alleys, where<br />
The black trees seem to shiver as you go.</p>
<p class="poetry">Beyond lie church and steeple, with their
old<br />
And rusty vanes that rattle as they veer,<br />
A sharper gust would shake them from their hold,<br />
Yet up that path, in summer of the year,<br />
And past that melancholy pile we strolled<br />
To pluck wild strawberries, with merry cheer.</p>
<h3><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
98</span>VILLANELLE.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">TO LUCIA.</p>
<p class="poetry">Apollo left the golden Muse<br />
And shepherded a mortal’s sheep,<br />
Theocritus of Syracuse!</p>
<p class="poetry">To mock the giant swain that woo’s<br />
The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,<br />
Apollo left the golden Muse.</p>
<p class="poetry">Afield he drove his lambs and ewes,<br />
Where Milon and where Battus reap,<br />
Theocritus of Syracuse!</p>
<p class="poetry">To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise<br />
Below the dim Sicilian steep<br />
Apollo left the golden Muse.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ye twain did loiter in the dews,<br />
Ye slept the swain’s unfever’d sleep,<br
/>
Theocritus of Syracuse!</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
99</span>That Time might half with <i>his</i> confuse<br />
Thy songs,—like his, that laugh and
leap,—<br />
Theocritus of Syracuse,<br />
Apollo left the golden Muse!</p>
<h3><a name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>THE
MYSTERY OF QUEEN PERSEPHONE.</h3>
<p>St. Paul and the Devil disputing about the Immortality of
Man’s Soul, and St. Paul maintaining the same, (from the
similitude of the corn-seed sown, which again sprouteth,) the
Devil refutes him by his atheistic subtlety, but is put to shame
by the evidence of three witnesses, namely, Persephone, Hela, and
St. Lucy.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">The Scene is Mount Gerizim.</p>
<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><i>Intrabunt Sanctus
Paulus</i>, <i>et Diabolus</i>, <i>inter</i><br />
<i>se de immortalitate Animae disputantes</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">SANCTUS PAULUS.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="poetry">Ye say that when a man is dead<br />
He never more shall lift his head,<br />
As doth the flower perishèd,<br />
Nor break ne sweet ne bitter bread.<br />
I hold you much in scorn!<br />
Lo, if you cast in earth a seed<br />
That seemeth to be dead indeed,<br />
I wot ye shall have corn;<br />
<a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 101</span>And all
men shall rejoice and reap:<br />
And so it fares with them that sleep,<br />
The narrow house doth them but keep<br />
Until the judgment morn.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">DIABOLUS.</p>
<p class="poetry">There is an end of grief and mirth,<br />
There is an end of all things born,<br />
And if ye sow into the earth<br />
A seed, ye shall have corn;<br />
But if ye sow its withered root<br />
It shall not bear you any fruit,<br />
It will not sprout and spring again;<br />
And if ye look to gather grain,<br />
Of men mote ye have scorn.<br />
Man’s body buried is the sown<br />
Dead root, whose flower is over-blown.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">SANCTUS PAULUS.</p>
<p class="poetry">Beshrew thee for thy subtleties<br />
That melt the hearts of men with lies,<br />
An evil task hath he that tries<br />
To still thy subtle tongue!<br />
<a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 102</span>But look
ye round and ye shall see<br />
The Dames that Queens of dead men be,<br />
I wot there are no mo than three,<br />
When all is said and sung.</p>
<p class="poetry"><i>Hic intrabunt et cantabunt tres
Reginæ</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">PERSEPHONE.</p>
<p class="poetry">I am the Queen Persephone.<br />
The lips of Grecians prayed to me,<br />
Saying, I give men sleep;<br />
But I would have ye well to know<br />
That with me none do slumber so;<br />
But there be some that weep,<br />
And juster souls content to dwell<br />
Among the fields of asphodel,<br />
By the Nine Waters deep.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">HELA.</p>
<p class="poetry">I am the Queen of Hela’s House,<br />
Great clouds I bind upon my brows;<br />
Night for a covering.<br />
For them I hold, I will ye wot<br />
<a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>They
sorrow, but they slumber not,<br />
They have no lust to sing,<br />
And never comes a merry voice,<br />
Nor doth a soul of them rejoice<br />
Until their uprising.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">SANCTA LUCIA.</p>
<p class="poetry">I am a Queen of Paradise,<br />
And who shall look on me, I wis,<br />
His spirit shall find grace.<br />
Whoso dwells with me walks along<br />
In gardens glad with small birds’ song,<br />
A flowered and grassy place,<br />
Therein the souls of blessèd men<br />
Wait each, till comes his love again,<br />
To look upon her face!</p>
<p style="text-align: center">SANCTUS PAULUS.</p>
<p class="poetry">Thou, Sir Diabolus, art shent,<br />
I wot that well ye might repent,<br />
But till Midsummer fall in Lent,<br />
Ye will not cease to sin.<br />
<a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>Get thee
to dungeon underground<br />
And sit beside thy man, Mahound.<br />
I wot I would ye twain were bound<br />
For evermore therein.</p>
<p class="poetry"><i>Fugiat Diabolus ad locum suum</i>.</p>
<h3><a name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
105</span>STOKER BILL.</h3>
<p style="text-align: center">A BALLAD OF THE SCHOOL-BOARD
FLEET.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Which my name is Stoker
Bill,<br />
And a pleasant berth I fill,<br />
And the care the ladies take of me is clipping;<br />
They have made me pretty snug,<br />
With a blooming Persian rug,<br />
In the Ladies’ new Æsthetic Training Shipping.</p>
<p class="poetry"> There’s my Whistler
pastels, there,<br />
As are quite beyond compare,<br />
And a portrait of Miss Connie Gilchrist skipping;<br />
From such art we all expect<br />
Quite a softening effect,<br />
In the Ladies’ new Æsthetic Training Shipping.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <a name="page106"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 106</span>And my beer comes in a mug—<br
/>
Such a rare old Rhodian jug!<br />
And here I sits æsthetically sipping;<br />
And I drinks my grog or ale<br />
On a chair by Chippendale—<br />
We’ve no others in our modern training shipping.</p>
<p class="poetry"> There’s our first
Liftenant, too,<br />
Is a rare old (China) Blue,<br />
And you do not very often catch him tripping<br />
At a monogram or mark,<br />
But no more than Noah’s ark,<br />
Does he know the way to manage this here shipping.</p>
<p class="poetry"> But the Boys? the Boys, they
stands<br />
With white lilies in their hands,<br />
And they do not know the meaning of a whipping:<br />
For the whole delightful ship is<br />
Like a dream of Lippo Lippi’s,<br />
More than what you mostly see in modern shipping.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <a name="page107"></a><span
class="pagenum">p. 107</span>Well, some coves they cuts up
rough,<br />
And they calls æsthetics stuff,<br />
And they says as we’ve no business to keep dipping<br />
In the rates, but ladies likes it,<br />
And our flag we never strikes it—<br />
Bless old England’s new Æsthetic Training
Shipping!</p>
<h3><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
108</span>NATURAL THEOLOGY.</h3>
<blockquote><p> <i>ἐπει
καὶ τοῦτον
ὀῖομαι
ἀθανάτοισιν</i><br
/>
<i>ἔυχεσθαι</i>·
<i>Πάντες δὲ
θεῶν
χατέουσ</i>’
<i>ἄνθρωποι</i>.</p>
<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Od</span>. <span
class="smcap">iii</span>. 47.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="poetry">“Once <span class="smcap">Cagn</span> was
like a father, kind and good,<br />
But He was spoiled by fighting many things;<br />
He wars upon the lions in the wood,<br />
And breaks the Thunder-bird’s tremendous
wings;<br />
But still we cry to Him,—<i>We are thy brood</i>—<br
/>
<i>O Cagn</i>, <i>be merciful</i>! and us He
brings<br />
To herds of elands, and great store of food,<br />
And in the desert opens water-springs.”</p>
<p class="poetry">So Qing, King Nqsha’s Bushman hunter,
spoke,<br />
Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair,<br />
<a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>When all
were weary, and soft clouds of smoke<br />
Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air:<br />
And suddenly in each man’s heart there woke<br />
A pang, a sacred memory of prayer.</p>
<h3><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>THE
ODYSSEY.</h3>
<p class="poetry">As one that for a weary space has lain<br />
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine<br />
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine,<br />
Where that Ææan isle forgets the main,<br />
And only the low lutes of love complain,<br />
And only shadows of wan lovers pine,<br />
As such an one were glad to know the brine<br />
Salt on his lips, and the large air again,—<br />
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech<br />
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free<br />
Shrill wind beyond the close of
heavy flowers,<br />
And through the music of the
languid hours,<br />
They hear like ocean on a western beach<br />
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.</p>
<h3><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
111</span>IDEAL.</h3>
<p><i>Suggested by a female head in wax</i>, <i>of unknown
date</i>, <i>but supposed to be either of the best Greek age</i>,
<i>or a work of Raphael or Leonardo</i>. <i>It is now in
the Lille Museum</i>.</p>
<p class="poetry">Ah, mystic child of Beauty, nameless maid,<br
/>
Dateless and fatherless, how long ago,<br />
A Greek, with some rare sadness overweighed,<br />
Shaped thee, perchance, and quite forgot his woe!<br
/>
Or Raphael thy sweetness did bestow,<br />
While magical his fingers o’er thee strayed,<br />
Or that great pupil of Verrocchio<br />
Redeemed thy still perfection from the shade</p>
<p class="poetry">That hides all fair things lost, and things
unborn,<br />
Where one has fled from me, that wore thy grace,<br
/>
<a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
112</span>And that grave tenderness of thine awhile;<br />
Nay, still in dreams I see her, but her face<br />
Is pale, is wasted with a touch of scorn,<br />
And only on thy lips I find her smile.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE
END.</span></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<div class="gapmediumline"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">CHISWICK
PRESS:—CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.</span><br />
<span class="GutSmall">TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.</span></p>
<h2>Footnotes</h2>
<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34"
class="footnote">[34]</a> Cf. “Suggestions for
Academic Reorganization.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote48"></a><a href="#citation48"
class="footnote">[48]</a> Thomas of Ercildoune.</p>
<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66"
class="footnote">[66]</a> A knavish publisher.</p>
<p class="poetry"><a name="footnote88"></a><a href="#citation88"
class="footnote">[88]</a> Vous y verrez, belle Julie,<br />
Que ce chapeau tout maltraité<br />
Fut, dans un instant de folie,<br />
Par les Grâces même inventé.</p>
<p>‘À Julie.’ <i>Essais en Prose et en
Vers</i>, par Joseph Lisle; Paris. An. V. de la
République.</p>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 51160 ***</div>
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