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diff --git a/old/54148-0.txt b/old/54148-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index b655eee..0000000 --- a/old/54148-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8786 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Love's Old Sweet Song, by -George H. (George Herman) Ellwanger - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Love's Old Sweet Song - -Author: George H. (George Herman) Ellwanger - -Release Date: February 10, 2017 [EBook #54148] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE'S OLD SWEET SONG *** - - - - -Produced by Chuck Greif, MFR and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - - LOVE’S OLD SWEET SONG - - A SHEAF OF LATTER-DAY LOVE-POEMS - GARNERED FROM MANY SOURCES - - - - - Books by the Same Author - - - THE GARDEN’S STORY, OR PLEASURES AND TRIALS OF AN AMATEUR GARDENER - - THE STORY OF MY HOUSE - - IN GOLD AND SILVER - - THE ROSE. By H. B. Ellwanger. Revised edition, with an Introduction - by George H. Ellwanger. - - IDYLLISTS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE - - LOVE’S DEMESNE - - MEDITATIONS ON GOUT - - THE PLEASURES OF THE TABLE - - - - - [Illustration: - - LOVE’S - OLD SWEET SONG - - A SHEAF OF - - LATTER-DAY LOVE-POEMS - - _Gathered from Many Sources_ - - BY - - GEORGE H. ELLWANGER - - _New York_ - - _Dodd-Mead - and - Company_ - - 1903] - - - - - _Copyright, 1903_, - BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY. - - _All rights reserved._ - - - _Copyright, 1896_, - BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, - AS “LOVE’S DEMESNE.” - - - - University Press: - JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. - - - - - TO - THE MEMORY OF - - GLEESON WHITE, ESQ. - - In Friendliest Regard - - - - - _ENVOY._ - - - _Resound, ye strains, attuned by master-fingers, - That breathe so fondly Love’s consuming fire; - Some sweet and subtle as a chord that lingers, - Some grave and plaintive as the heart’s desire._ - - _Like June’s gay laughter thro’ the woodlands ringing, - These hymn the Present’s gladsome roundelay; - As Autumn grieves when choirs have ceased their singing, - Those voice their haunting burden, “Well-a-day!”_ - - _Yet, past or present, who the power would banish - That charms or blights, that blesses or that mars: - To happy lovers, how may Love e’er vanish,-- - To hearts forlorn, how hallowed are his scars!_ - - - - - PUBLISHERS’ NOTE. - - -In this Anthology is included in more convenient form the greater -portion of the poems contained in the two volumes entitled “Love’s -Demesne,” now out of print. The present collection has been carefully -revised by the Compiler, and like its predecessor occupies an entirely -distinct field, most of the selections being otherwise only accessible -in the volumes where they originally appeared, and the major part being -by living lyrists. - - - - - ACKNOWLEDGMENT. - - -The sincere thanks of the Editor are due, not only to those American -authors who have graciously allowed the reproduction of their poems, but -equally to the numerous British living poets whose graceful verses -appear in the following pages. In but one instance on the part of a -native author, and in but one instance on the part of a publisher, was -permission to include poems refused. With these exceptions the Compiler -has received the most cordial assistance from holders of copyrights. It -becomes a personal pleasure, therefore, to thank the following in -particular for their uniform courtesy, without which many a flowing -measure contained in “Love’s Old Sweet Song” must necessarily have been -omitted: Messrs. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., ROBERTS BROS., CHARLES -SCRIBNER’S SONS, MACMILLAN & CO., G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, STONE & KIMBALL, -J. G. CUPPLES, BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., D. LOTHROP & CO., COPELAND & DAY, -HENRY HOLT & CO., R. WORTHINGTON & CO., WAY & WILLIAMS, LONGMANS, GREEN -& CO. To these and other publishers, to the sonorous choir of the poets -quoted from, and, finally, to Mr. GLEESON WHITE and Mr. _Edmund Clarence -Stedman_, the Compiler tenders his most grateful acknowledgments. - - - - - A PASSING WORD. - - -Bearing in mind the assertion of Monsieur de Milcourt, that prefaces for -the most part seem only made in order to “impose” upon the reader, a -brief foreword will suffice to explain the scope of the following pages. - -As will be apparent at a glance, the selections are all from modern, and -largely from living poets; the dominant chord is lyrical; and in the -general unisance the minor prevails over the major key. No excuse seems -called for in presenting a new anthology; for, given the same theme, -each compiler must of necessity present a different score, subject to -individual taste and preferences. “To apologize for a new anthology is -but one degree less sensible than to prepare it,” pertinently remarks -the editor of _Ballades and Rondeaus_. Such were but another case of -_qui s’excuse, s’accuse_. It may be observed, nevertheless, that the -path of the compiler is far from being strewn with flowers. Indeed, it -has been truly said that Æsop’s old man and boy with the donkey had not -a harder task than the maker of selections and collections of verses. - -Of recent years a number of excellent anthologies have been published on -a similar theme. But these deal mainly with the rhythmic fancies of the -elder bards, or in fewer instances, combine the older and the younger -schools. In the present instance the editor has been guided solely by -his own taste or predilections, having had no recourse to other -collections, beyond that of avoiding _excerpta_ too oft repeated; the -aim being so far as possible to include such examples of merit as are -not generally familiar to the average lover of poetry. Whether these be -by well-known authors, or by those who are little known, has not entered -into consideration, the prime object being to present as intrinsically -meritorious a collection, by both British and American modern lyrists, -as is possible within the limits of the space at command. - -The writer is not aware of a similar compilation having been previously -attempted, there being few who would care to brave the “omissions” that -must naturally be thrust at one’s door, more especially in the case of -an abstract from the works of living writers. Yet while fault may be -found, perchance, on the score of selection both by those who may be -excluded, as well as by those who are included, the editor of an -anthology should at least be thanked for placing many selections before -the reader that in the ordinary course of things he would miss,--either -through lack of time, or the inability to possess or consult the -multitudinous volumes he would be called upon to peruse. - -“The purchasing public for poetry,” says Mr. Lang, “must now consist -chiefly of poets, and they are usually poor.” The anthologist is the -bee, therefore, to extract the honey from the fragrant garland of song, -at the least fatigue to the reader. For every poet has not a hive of -sweets to draw from; and though the blooms be many in the parterre of -poesy, still these require to be plucked with reference not only to -individual beauty, but to general harmony as well. A single line may -sadly mar an otherwise flawless verse, as a single sonnet rendered -immortal the name of Félix Arvers. Many no doubt will miss some -favourites. Of such it may be observed that not a few lovely apostrophes -have been omitted on account of too great length, or, as previously -stated, owing to their being familiar to the great majority of readers. -Some poems, moreover, beautiful in themselves, have not been included, -despite their intrinsic merits, because they seemed to be out of accord -with the prevailing key, as in the case of numerous lyrics approaching -the form of so-termed _Vers de Société_. Still others, and many of these -extremely beautiful amatory poems, somewhat free in _motif_ or -treatment, have been excluded as not fulfilling the precise requirements -of the present collection; these were more appropriate grouped in a -volume by themselves. - -A few translations only have been admitted; the satisfactory translation -of verse being an art by itself, demanding special qualifications -possessed only by the few. But though it is not often that a rendition -does not suffer when compared with its original, it is equally true that -in some hands a transcription may equal if not surpass its prototype. -Witness, for example, Mr. Andrew Lang’s graceful stanzas entitled “An -Old Tune,” adapted from Gérard de Nerval’s dreamy _Fantaisie_, and which -although very closely rendered fully equal the original in colour and -fragrance, while surpassing it in melodiousness and rhythm. Nearly as -much might be said of Mr. Edmund Gosse’s version of Théophile de Viau’s -lovely sonnet, _Au moins ay-ie songé que ie vous ay baisée_, as also of -the late Thomas Ashe’s phrasing of _Ma vie a son secret, mon âme a son -mystère_, which has been so variously rendered by various translators. - -With Waller’s “Go, lovely rose,” Herrick’s “Gather ye roses,” Ford’s -“There is a lady sweet and kind,” and many another harmonious measure of -Lily, Lodge, Lovelace, Campion, Carew, and the rest of them ringing in -our ears, what comparison shall be made with the modern laureates of -love? Whether the latter indeed chant as sweetly as the Elizabethan -meistersingers and their successors under the Restoration, is a question -it were perhaps wiser to pass, from lack of space to dwell upon, leaving -the reader to form his own opinion. There are those who hold to the -contrary; there are others who in the best of existent love-poetry find -conceits as colourful, rhythm as resonant, and inspiration as melodious -as is still echoed from the sweetest strains of the Elizabethan lyre. -Rather, to each let that merit be accorded which is its due. The old -songs, like all truly beautiful things of eld, possess the puissant -stamp of endurance and the approval of the centuries, added to that -indefinable charm which age alone may impart; the new must yet be -mellowed and adjudged by Time. - -It must be remembered, too, that it is the _best_ of the ancient songs -we know and love so well; that if the entire verse of almost any olden -bard be closely scanned, it will be found, in very numerous instances, -of a widely uneven quality, with many a limping line, strained conceit, -or halting measure to offend. Song did not mount to the strain of merle -or mavis, or sing itself in the past with greater ease than is the case -at present. Greater freedom it possessed; and in the method more than in -the matter the chief distinction lies. This distinction between the -past-masters and the bards of the present is deftly set forth by Edmund -Gosse in his poem, “Impression,”-- - - - * * * * * - - “If we could dare to write as ill - As some whose voices haunt us still, - Even we, perchance, might call our own - Their deep enchanting undertone. - - We are too diffident and nice, - Too learnèd and too overwise, - Too much afraid of faults to be - The flutes of bold sincerity. - - For, as this sweet life passes by, - We blink and nod with critic eye; - We’ve no words rude enough to give - Its charm so frank and fugitive.” - - * * * * * - - -The term “ill” which is applied to the ancient versifiers in the above -lines were perhaps better rendered by the qualification “bold.” It is in -this boldness, vigour, and fire that the distinguishing difference -largely consists. And in the striving for new effects, when the present -aims to reproduce the past, these qualities are usually lacking in their -pristine fervour; while the latter-day impressionist and symbolist is -frequently so vague as to be well-nigh unintelligible. - -The sentiment underlying the expression of the lyrist of to-day does not -differ materially, after all, from that of his remote predecessor. The -pitch and _timbre_ of modern poetry are somewhat altered, to be sure. -There is less personality, less freedom,--shall I say a certain naïve -grace and spontaneous virility are wanting in existent verse as compared -with Elizabethan song? though in general the latter-day lyrist is the -superior craftsman in rhyme. The most marked variation between the two -periods is that the so-called Elizabethan poets for the most part wrote -their songs to be sung,--“music married to immortal verse.” The lilt and -blitheness of these are individual; and these qualities we are apt to -miss, in their primal grace, in many a love-song of the present. - -So far as the prevailing spirit of love itself is concerned, this has -undergone no change, unless that evolved by the natural refining -processes of time. Human nature must be human nature still; and passion -in the human heart exists unaltered in its essence. We may not have -another Herrick, nor may we summon another Tennyson; the breeze of -summer blows not twice alike in its passage through the woodland keys. -But there must always remain new chords to be sounded while the most -potent of verbs remains to be conjugated. The poets pass away, yet Love -is ever new; and so long as the seasons endure and new days dawn, the -tuneful choir will chant in infinite variation,-- - - “Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring, - But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.” - -The darts of Eros’ quiver are just as numerous and deftly feathered as -of yore. Only there are more hearts to hit, with proportionally more -registrars to chronicle the passage of his shafts. Still, as of old, the -exhortation, _Carpe Diem!_ reverberates through the poet’s page; the -rose likewise hath not lost her fragrance, or the violet her perfume; -and still, despite stings and thorns, kisses and favours remain sweet -things. - -Writing love-lyrics is less a momentous occupation now than in the times -of doublet and hose. It is fair to assume, notwithstanding, that many a -charming fantasy in verse, many an ethereal flight winged from modern -lover to modern mistress, never sees the light of the printed page, as -was far less the case in ancient days; but remains inviolate with the -person by whom it was inspired. Could we obtain access to many -passionate apostrophes that exist but in manuscript alone, cherished or -known only by the sender and recipient, what a fragrant garland were -ours! - -Recurring to the comparison already touched upon, Cupid and Campaspe -have not ceased to play their game of cards; while the admonition to -Lesbia to “live and love” will continue to be current coin amid the -“golden cadences” of all time. For, - - “What to him is snow or rime, - Who calls his love his own?” - -It were difficult, in truth, to wrest from Waller his “girdle” of -immortal fame, or for any twentieth-century laureate to excel Jonson’s -spirited pledge, “To Celia,” or to vie with the sublime strain of -Herrick’s “Bid me to live.” And who shall surpass the delicate lacelike -grace of Lodge’s “Love in my bosom like a bee,” “My bonny lass! thine -eye,” and his still more impassioned rendition of the charms of -“Rosalind”? - -Who, too, shall outsoar the plumèd flight of Heywood’s “Pack clouds -away,” or transcend the birdlike carol of Davenant, “The lark now leaves -his wat’ry nest”? And where shall we look for a rival to Marvell’s “Had -we but world enough and time,” or the music and dainty conceit of -Carew’s “Ask me no more where Jove bestows”? These, and how many, many -more, pulsate with the sweetness and plaintiveness of a zither touched -by master fingers. Reading them as they attune and chant themselves -despite the lapse of centuries, they recall the picture Glapthorne so -vividly depicts of a _Gentleman playing on the Lute_:-- - - “Whose numerous fingers whiter farre - Than Venus swans or ermines are - Wag’d with the amorous strings a Warre, - But such a Warre as did invite - The sense of Hearing, and the Sight - To riot in a full delight.” - -A review of the following pages, on the other hand, will disclose many a -delicious wild-flower that, alike in form and hue, is a stranger to the -gardens of the past. It is perhaps unfair to individualise; but for the -sake of comparison solely, a few instances may be cited with no -disparagement to the excellence of the whole of which they form a part. -So far as musical sweetness of tone, elevated sentiment, and facility of -rhythmic utterance are concerned, Tennyson and Swinburne stand -unequalled in their special spheres. The short lyric, however, does not -occur nearly as frequently with the latter as with the former, who -abounds in pure love-lays, fluid and tender as a thrush’s song. What -more fragrantly exquisite than “Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the -white,” or indeed the scores of _amoretti_ with which he has added to -“golden numbers, golden numbers”! With Shakespeare and Milton a master -of the sonnet, a large portion of Rossetti’s shorter pieces have been -expressed in this his favourite vehicle of verse. Surely the music of -song, even though it be in sonnet form, has not suffered a decline when -such impassioned chords are heard as vibrate amid “The House of Life.” -But acting on prescribed lines, the sonnet in consequence has been but -sparingly employed in this collection. - -Surely, too, there is a grace as fine as that of the choir of Elizabeth -and James, in such airy flights as, “Love on my heart from heaven fell,” -“Sweetheart, sigh no more,” “I breathe my heart in the heart of the -rose,” and “Up, up, my heart!” Again, we must search long for as -powerful a love lyric as _Splendide Mendax_, or the haunting cadences -that rise and fall, sonata-like, throughout “A Dead March.” And how -exquisite the simple lines to a star of Mr. Garnett, the rhapsody “Oh to -think, oh to think” of Mr. Gale, Mr. Bridges’ “Long are the hours the -sun is above,” Mathilde Blind’s “I charge you, O winds of the West,” -Arthur O’Shaughnessy’s “Has summer come without the rose,” or the -chivalrous notes of Mr. Pollock’s “It is not mine to sing the stately -grace”! And these are not exceptions or individual instances, but -merely a few examples taken at random for the sake of illustration. It -is more the lack of the musicians, it would seem, than any want of -suitable pieces to be set to music, that must account for the decadence -of “Song” proper, since the ancient days of lute and lyre. - -No great poet sings because he must sing, we are told; a great poet -sings because he chooses to sing. Let us thank the truly great, -therefore, for so choosing, and the lesser in proportion, on the -principle of receiving all favours thankfully according to their merit -and degree. Meanwhile, in the various phases of Love as portrayed so -musically by the full-throated choir in the subjoined pages, the reader -may peradventure read and learn. For, as voiced by Owen Meredith,-- - - “To mock the faith that lovers place - In life’s acquired love lore, - New lessons, latest-learned, efface - Old teachings taught before.” - - G. H. E. - - - - - LOVE’S OLD SWEET SONG. - - - - - SINCE YESTERDAY. - - - The mavis sang but yesterday - A strain that thrilled through autumn’s dearth; - He read the music of his lay - In light and leaf, and heaven and earth; - The wind-flowers by the wayside swung, - Words of the music that was sung. - - In all his song the shade and sun - Of earth and heaven seemed to meet; - Its joy and sorrow were as one, - Its very sadness was but sweet. - He sang of summers yet to be; - You listened to his song with me. - - The heart makes sunshine in the rain, - Or winter in the midst of May; - And though the mavis sings again - His self-same song of yesterday, - I find no gladness in his tone: - To-day I listen here alone. - - And--even our sunniest moment takes - Such shadows of the bliss we knew-- - To-day his throbbing song awakes - But wistful, haunting thoughts of you; - Its very sweetness is but sad: - You gave it all the joy it had. - - A. ST. J. ADCOCK. - - - - - AN AWAKENING. - - - Love had forgotten and gone to sleep; - Love had forgotten the present and past. - I was so glad when he ceased to weep; - “Now he is quiet,” I whispered, “at last.” - - What sent you here on that night of all nights, - Breaking his slumber, dreamless and deep, - Just as I whispered below my breath, - “Love has forgotten and gone to sleep”? - - ANNE REEVE ALDRICH. - - - - - LOVE, THE DESTROYER. - - - Love is a Fire; - Nor Shame nor Pride can well withstand Desire. - “For what are they,” we cry, “that they should dare - To keep, O Love, the haughty look they wear? - Nay, burn the victims, O thou sacred Fire, - That with their death thou mayst but flame the higher. - Let them feel once the fierceness of thy breath, - And make thee still more beauteous with their death.” - - Love is a Fire; - But ah, how short-lived is the flame Desire! - Love, having burnt whatever once we cherished, - And blackened all things else, itself hath perished. - And now alone in gathering night we stand, - Ashes and ruin stretch on either hand; - Yet while we mourn, our sad hearts whisper low: - “We served the mightiest God that man can know.” - - ANNE REEVE ALDRICH. - - - - - SWEETHEART, SIGH NO MORE. - - - It was with doubt and trembling - I whispered in her ear. - Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough, - That all the world may hear-- - _Sweetheart, sigh no more!_ - - Sing it, sing it, tawny throat, - Upon the wayside tree, - How fair she is, how true she is, - How dear she is to me-- - _Sweetheart, sigh no more!_ - - Sing it, sing it, tawny throat, - And through the summer long - The winds among the clover-tops, - And brooks, for all their silvery stops, - Shall envy you the song-- - _Sweetheart, sigh no more!_ - - THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. - - - - - THE FADED VIOLET. - - - What thought is folded in thy leaves! - What tender thought, what speechless pain! - I hold thy faded lips to mine, - Thou darling of the April rain! - - I hold thy faded lips to mine, - Though scent and azure tint are fled-- - O dry, mute lips! ye are the type - Of something in me cold and dead: - - Of something wilted like thy leaves; - Of fragrance flown, of beauty dim; - Yet for the love of those white hands - That found thee by a river’s brim-- - - That found thee when thy dewy mouth - Was purpled as with stains of wine-- - For love of her who love forgot, - I hold thy faded lips to mine. - - That thou shouldst live when I am dead, - When hate is dead, for me, and wrong, - For this I use my subtlest art, - For this I fold thee in my song. - - THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. - - - - - SONG. - - - Nay! if thou must depart, thou shalt depart; - But why so soon, oh, heart-blood of my heart! - Go then! Yet, going, turn and stay thy feet, - That I may once more see that face so sweet. - - Once more--if never more; for swift days go - As hastening waters from their fountains flow; - And whether yet again shall meeting be - Who knows? Who knows? Ah! turn once more to me! - - SIR EDWIN ARNOLD. - - - - - CALAIS SANDS. - - - A thousand knights have rein’d their steeds - To watch this line of sand hills run, - Along the never-silent strait, - To Calais, glittering in the sun. - - To look tow’rd Ardres’ Golden Field - Across the wide aerial plain, - Which glows as if the Middle Age - Were gorgeous upon earth again. - - Oh, that to share this famous scene, - I saw, upon the open sand, - Thy lovely presence at my side, - Thy shawl, thy look, thy smile, thy hand! - - How exquisite thy voice would come, - My darling, on this lonely air! - How sweetly would the fresh sea-breeze - Shake loose some band of soft brown hair! - - Yet now my glance but once hath roved - O’er Calais and its famous plain; - To England’s cliffs my gaze is turn’d, - On the blue strait mine eyes I strain. - - Thou comest! Yes! the vessel’s cloud - Hangs dark upon the rolling sea. - Oh, that yon sea-bird’s wings were mine, - To win one instant’s glimpse of thee! - - I must not spring to grasp thy hand, - To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye; - But I may stand far off, and gaze, - And watch thee pass unconscious by, - - And spell thy looks, and guess thy thoughts, - Mixt with the idlers on the pier.-- - Ah, might I always rest unseen, - So I might have thee always near! - - To-morrow hurry through the fields - Of Flanders to the storied Rhine! - To-night those soft-fringed eyes shall close - Beneath one roof, my queen! with mine. - - MATTHEW ARNOLD. - - - - - PHANTOMS. - - - My days are full of pleasant memories - Of all those women sweet - Whom I have known! How tenderly their eyes - Flash thro’ the days--too fleet!-- - Which long ago went by with sun and rain, - Flowers, or the winter snow; - And still thro’ memory’s palace-halls are fain - In rustling robes to go! - Or wed, or widow’d, or with milkless breasts, - Around those women stand, - Like mists that linger on the mountain crests - Rear’d in a phantom land; - And love is in their mien and in their look, - And from their lips a stream - Of tender words flows, smooth as any brook, - And softer than a dream: - And one by one, holding my hands, they say - Things of the years agone; - And each head will a little turn away, - And each one still sigh on, - Because they think such meagre joy we had; - For love was little bold, - And youth had store, and chances to be glad, - And squander’d so his gold. - Blue eyes, and gray, and blacker than the sloe, - And dusk and golden hair, - And lips that broke in kisses long ago, - Like sun-kiss’d flowers are there; - And warm fireside, and sunny orchard wall, - And river-brink and bower, - And wood and hill, and morning and day-fall, - And every place and hour! - And each on each a white unclouded brow - Still as a sister bends, - As they would say, “Love makes us kindred now, - Who sometime were his friends.” - - THOMAS ASHE. - - - - - THE GUEST. - - - Lights Love, the timorous bird, to dwell, - While summer smiles, a guest with you? - Be wise betimes and use him well, - And he will stay in winter too: - For you can have no sweeter thing - Within the heart’s warm nest to sing. - - The blue-plumed swallows fly away, - Ere autumn gilds a leaf; and then - Have wit to find another day - The little clay-built house again: - He will not know, a second spring, - His last year’s nest, if Love take wing. - - THOMAS ASHE. - - - - - THE SECRET. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF FÉLIX ARVERS. - - - My life its secret and its mystery has, - A love eternal in a moment born; - There is no hope to help my evil case, - And she knows naught who makes me thus forlorn. - - And I unmark’d shall ever by her pass - Aye at her side, and yet for aye alone; - And I shall waste my bitter days, alas! - And never dare to claim my love my own! - - And she whom God has made so sweet and dear, - Will go her way, distraught, and never hear - This murmur round her of my love and pain; - - To austere duty true, will go her way, - And read these verses full of her, and say, - “Who is this woman that he sings of then?” - - THOMAS ASHE. - - - - - IF LOVE COULD LAST! - - - If Love could last, if Love could last, - The Future be as was the Past, - Nor faith and fondness ever know - The chill of dwindling afterglow, - Oh, then we should not have to long - For cuckoo’s call and throstle’s song, - But every season then would ring - With rapturous voices of the spring. - In budding brake and grassy glade - The primrose then would never fade, - The windflower flag, the bluebell haze - Faint from the winding woodland ways, - But vernal hopes chase wintry fears, - And happy smiles and happier tears - Be like the sun and clouds at play,-- - If Love could last! - - If Love could last, the rose would then - Not bloom but once, to fade again. - June to the lily would not give - A life less fair than fugitive, - But flower and leaf and lawn renew - Their freshness nightly with the dew. - In forest dingles, dim and deep, - Where curtained noonday lies asleep, - The faithful ringdove ne’er would cease - Its anthem of abiding peace. - All the year round we then should stray - Through fragrance of the new-mown hay, - Or sit and ponder old-world rhymes - Under the leaves of scented limes. - Careless of time, we should not fear - The footsteps of the fleeting year, - Or, did the long warm days depart, - ’Twould still be summer in our heart,-- - Did Love but last! - - Did Love but last, no shade of grief - For fading flower, for falling leaf, - For stubbles whence the piled-up wain - Hath borne away the golden grain, - Leaving a load of loss behind, - Would shock the heart and haunt the mind. - With mellow gaze we then should see - The ripe fruit shaken from the tree, - The swallows troop, the acorns fall, - The last peach redden on the wall, - The oasthouse smoke, the hopbine burn, - Knowing that all good things return - To Love that lasts! - - If Love could last, who then would mind - The freezing rack, the unfeeling wind, - The curdling pool, the shivering sedge, - The empty nest in leafless hedge, - Brown dripping bents and furrows bare, - The wild geese clamouring through the air, - The huddling kine, the sodden leaves, - Lack-lustre dawns and clammy eves? - For then through twilight days morose - We should within keep warm and close, - And by the friendly fireside blaze - Talk of the ever-sacred days - When first we met, and felt how drear - Were life without the other near; - Or, too at peace with bliss to speak, - Sit hand in hand, and cheek to cheek,-- - If Love could last! - - - YET LOVE CAN LAST. - - Yet Love _can_ last, yes, Love can last, - The Future be as was the Past, - And faith and fondness never know - The chill of dwindling afterglow, - If to familiar hearth there cling - The virgin freshness of the spring, - And April’s music still be heard - In wooing voice and winning word. - If when autumnal shadows streak - The furrowed brow, the wrinkled cheek, - Devotion, deepening to the close, - Like fruit that ripens, tenderer grows; - If, though the leaves of youth and hope - Lie thick on life’s declining slope, - The fond heart, faithful to the last, - Lingers in love-drifts of the past; - If, with the gravely shortening days, - Faith trims the lamp, Faith feeds the blaze, - And Reverence, robed in wintry white, - Sheds fragrance like a summer night,-- - Then Love can last! - - ALFRED AUSTIN. - - - - - A JOURNEY. - - - The same green hill, the same blue sea,-- - Yet, love, thou art no more to me! - - The same long reach of yellow sand,-- - Where is the touch of thy soft hand? - - The same wide open arch of sky,-- - But, sweetheart, thou no more art nigh! - - God love thee and God keep thee strong: - I breathe that pure prayer through my song! - - I send my soul across the waste - To seek and find thy soul in haste! - - Across the inland woods and glades, - And through the leaf-laced checkered shades, - - My spirit passes, seeking thee; - No more I tarry by the sea. - - For where thou art am I for ever; - Mere space and time divide us never. - - GEORGE BARLOW. - - - - - IF ONLY THOU ART TRUE. - - - If only a single Rose is left, - Why should the summer pine? - A blade of grass in a rocky cleft; - A single star to shine. - --Why should I sorrow if all be lost, - If only thou art mine? - - If only a single Bluebell gleams - Bright on the barren heath, - Still of that flower the summer dreams, - Not of his August wreath. - --Why should I sorrow if thou art mine, - Love, beyond change and death? - - If only once on a wintry day - The sun shines forth in the blue, - He gladdens the groves till they laugh as in May - And dream of the touch of the dew. - --Why should I sorrow if all be false, - If only thou art true? - - GEORGE BARLOW. - - - - - THE ECSTASY OF THE HAIR. - - - I’d send a troop of kisses to entangle - And lose themselves in labyrinths of hair,-- - Thy deep dark night of hair with stars to spangle, - And each, a firefly’s tiny lamp, to dangle - Amid the tresses of that forest fair. - A perfume seems to blossom into air; - The ecstasy that hangs about the tresses, - Their blush, their overflow, their breath, their bloom; - A wind that gently lifts them and caresses, - And wings itself and floats about the room; - The beauty that the flame of youth expresses, - A tender fire, too tender to consume, - Which, seizing all my soul, pervades, possesses, - And mingleth in a subtly sweet perfume. - - GEORGE BARLOW. - - - - - THE NIGHT WATCHES. - - - Come, oh, come to me, voice or look, or spirit or dream, but, - oh, come now; - All these faces that crowd so thick are pale and cold and dead--Come thou, - Scatter them back to the ivory gate and be alone and rule the night. - - Surely all worlds are nothing to Love, for Love to flash thro’ - the night and come; - Hither and thither he flies at will, with thee he dwelleth--there - is his home. - Come, O Love, with a voice, a message; haste, O Love, on thy wings - of light. - - Love, I am calling thee, Love, I am calling; dost thou not hear my - crying, sweet? - Does not the live air throb with the pain of my beating heart, till - thy heart beat?-- - Surely momently thou wilt be here, surely, O sweet Love, momently. - - No, my voice would be all too faint, too faint, when it reached Love’s - ear, tho’ the night is still, - Fainter ever and fainter grown o’er hill and valley and valley and hill, - There where thou liest quietly sleeping, and Love keeps watch as the - dreams flit by. - - Ah, my thought so subtle and swift, can it not fly till it reach - thy brain, - And whisper there some faint regret for a weary watch and a - distant pain?-- - Not too loud, to awake thy slumber; not too tender, to make - thee weep; - - Just so much for thy head to turn on the pillow so, and understand - Dimly, that a soft caress has come long leagues from a weary land, - Turn and half remember and smile, and send a kiss on the wings - of sleep. - - H. C. BEECHING. - - - - - IN A ROSE GARDEN. - - - A hundred years from now, dear heart, - We will not care at all. - It will not matter then a whit, - The honey or the gall. - The summer days that we have known - Will all forgotten be and flown; - The garden will be overgrown - Where now the roses fall. - - A hundred years from now, dear heart, - We will not mind the pain. - The throbbing crimson tide of life - Will not have left a stain. - The song we sing together, dear, - The dream we dream together here, - Will mean no more than means a tear - Amid a summer rain. - - A hundred years from now, dear heart, - The grief will all be o’er; - The sea of care will surge in vain - Upon a careless shore. - These glasses we turn down to-day - Here at the parting of the way: - We will be wineless then as they, - And will not mind it more. - - A hundred years from now, dear heart, - We’ll neither know nor care - What came of all life’s bitterness - Or followed love’s despair. - Then fill the glasses up again - And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain; - We’ll build one castle more in Spain, - And dream one more dream there. - - JOHN BENNETT. - - - - - I CHARGE YOU, O WINDS OF THE WEST. - - - I charge you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove, - That ye blow o’er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I - sicken for love. - - I charge you, O dews of the dawn, O tears of the star of the morn, - That ye fall at the feet of my love, with the sound of one - weeping forlorn. - - I charge you, O birds of the air, O birds flying home to your nest, - That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled - from my breast. - - I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair, - That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels and droops - with despair. - - O Moon, when he lifts up his face, when he seeth the waning of thee, - A memory of her who lies wan on the limits of life let it be. - - Many tears cannot quench, nor my sighs extinguish the flames - of love’s fire, - Which lifteth my heart like a wave, and smites it and breaks - its desire. - - I rise like one in a dream; unbidden my feet know the way - To that garden where love stood in blossom with the red and - white hawthorn of May. - - The song of the throstle is hushed, and the fountain is dry - to its core, - The moon cometh up as of old; she seeks, but she finds him - no more. - - The pale-faced, pitiful moon shines down on the grass where - I weep, - My face to the earth, and my breast in an anguish ne’er - soothed into sleep. - - The moon returns, and the spring, birds warble, trees burst - into leaf, - But love once gone, goes for ever, and all that endures is - the grief. - - MATHILDE BLIND. - - - - - SONG. - - - Thou walkest with me as the spirit-light - Of the hushed moon, high o’er a snowy hill, - Walks with the houseless traveller all the night, - When trees are tongueless and when mute the rill. - Moon of my soul, O phantom of delight, - Thou walkest with me still. - - The vestal flame of quenchless memory burns - In my soul’s sanctuary. Yea, still for thee - My bitter heart hath yearned, as moonward yearns - Each separate wave-pulse of the clamorous sea: - My moon of love, to whom for ever turns - That life that aches through me. - - MATHILDE BLIND. - - - - - CÆLI. - - - If stars were really watching eyes - Of angel armies in the skies, - I should forget all watchers there, - And only for your glances care. - - And if your eyes were really stars, - With leagues that none can mete for bars - To keep me from their longed-for day, - I could not feel more far away. - - F. W. BOURDILLON. - - - - - LOVE IN THE HEART. - - - Love in the heart is as a nightingale - That sings in a green wood; - And none can pass unheeding there, nor fail - Of impulses of good. - - Though cruel brief be Love’s bright hour of song, - Yet let him sing his fill! - For other hearts the echoes shall prolong - When Love’s own voice is still. - - F. W. BOURDILLON. - - - - - I WILL NOT LET THEE GO. - - - I will not let thee go. - Ends all our month-long love in this? - Can it be summed up so, - Quit in a single kiss? - I will not let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - If thy words’ breath could scare thy deeds, - As the soft south can blow - And toss the feathered seeds, - Then might I let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - Had not the great sun seen, I might; - Or were he reckoned slow - To bring the false to light, - Then might I let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - The stars that crowd the summer skies - Have watched us so below - With all their million eyes, - I dare not let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - Have we not chid the changeful moon, - Now rising late, and now - Because she set too soon, - And shall I let thee go? - - I will not let thee go. - Have not the young flowers been content, - Plucked ere their buds could blow, - To seal our sacrament? - I cannot let thee go. - - I will not let thee go. - I hold thee by too many bands: - Thou sayest farewell, and lo! - I have thee by the hands, - And will not let thee go. - - ROBERT BRIDGES. - - - - - LONG ARE THE HOURS. - - - Long are the hours the sun is above, - But when evening comes I go home to my love. - - I’m away the daylight hours and more, - Yet she comes not down to open the door. - - She does not meet me upon the stair,-- - She sits in my chamber and waits for me there. - - As I enter the room, she does not move: - I always walk straight up to my love; - - And she lets me take my wonted place - At her side, and gaze in her dear, dead face. - - There as I sit, from her head thrown back - Her hair falls straight in a shadow black. - - Aching and hot as my tired eyes be, - She is all that I wish to see. - - And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear, - She says all things that I wish to hear. - - Dusky and duskier grows the room, - Yet I see her best in the darker gloom. - - When the winter eves are early and cold, - The firelight hours are a dream of gold. - - And so I sit here night by night, - In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight. - - But a knock on the door, a step on the stair - Will startle, alas, my love from her chair. - - If a stranger comes, she will not stay: - At the first alarm she is off and away. - - And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne, - That I sit so much by myself alone. - - ROBERT BRIDGES. - - - - - APPARITIONS. - - - I. - - Such a starved bank of moss - Till, that May morn, - Blue ran the flash across: - Violets were born! - - - II. - - Sky--what a scowl of cloud - Till, near and far, - Ray on ray split the shroud: - Splendid, a star! - - - III. - - World--how it walled about - Life with disgrace - Till God’s own smile came out: - That was thy face. - - ROBERT BROWNING. - - - - - PORPHYRIA’S LOVER. - - - The rain set early in to-night, - The sullen wind was soon awake; - It tore the elm-tops down for spite, - And did its worst to vex the lake. - I listened with heart fit to break, - - When glided in Porphyria; straight - She shut the cold out and the storm, - And kneeled and made the cheerless grate - Blaze up, and all the cottage warm; - Which done, she rose, and from her form - - Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl, - And laid her soiled gloves by, untied - Her hat and let the damp hair fall, - And, last, she sat down by my side - And called me. When no voice replied, - - She put my arm about her waist, - And made her smooth, white shoulder bare, - And all her yellow hair displaced, - And, stooping, made my cheek lie there, - And spread o’er all her yellow hair,-- - - Murmuring how she loved me,--she - Too weak for all her heart’s endeavour, - To set its struggling passion free - From pride, and vainer ties dissever, - And give herself to me for ever. - - But passion sometimes would prevail, - Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain - A sudden thought of one so pale - For love of her, and all in vain: - So, she was come through wind and rain. - - Be sure I looked up at her eyes - Happy and proud; at last I knew - Porphyria worshipped me; surprise - Made my heart swell, and still it grew - While I debated what to do. - - That moment she was mine, mine, fair, - Perfectly pure and good: I found - A thing to do, and all her hair - In one long yellow string I wound - Three times her little throat around, - - And strangled her. No pain felt she; - I am quite sure she felt no pain. - As a shut bud that holds a bee, - I warily oped her lids: again - Laughed the blue eyes without a stain. - - And I untightened next the tress - About her neck; her cheek once more - Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss: - I propped her head up as before. - Only this time my shoulder bore - - Her head, which droops upon it still: - The smiling rosy little head, - So glad it has its utmost will, - That all it scorned at once is fled, - And I, its love, am gained instead! - - Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how - Her darling one wish would be heard. - And thus we sit together now, - And all night long we have not stirred, - And yet God has not said a word. - - ROBERT BROWNING. - - - - - ROBIN’S SONG. - - WARWICKSHIRE, 16--. - - - Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart, - This day was made for thee! - For soon the hawthorn spray shall part, - And thou a face shalt see - That comes, O heart, O foolish heart, - This way to gladden thee. - - The grass shows fresher on the way - That soon her feet shall tread-- - The last year’s leaflet curled and gray, - I could have sworn was dead, - Looks green, for lying in the way - I know her feet will tread. - - What hand yon blossom-curtain stirs, - More light than errant air? - I know the touch--’tis hers, ’tis hers! - She parts the thicket there-- - The flowerèd branch her coming stirs - Hath perfumed all the air. - - The springs of all forgotten years - Are waked to life anew-- - Up, up, my eyes, nor fill with tears - As tender as the dew-- - I knew her not in all those years; - But life begins anew. - - Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart, - This day was made for thee! - Come, Wit, take on thy nimblest art, - And win Love’s victory-- - What now? Where art thou, coward heart? - Thy hour is here--and She! - - H. C. BUNNER. - - - - - THE HOUR OF SHADOWS. - - - Upon that quiet day that lies - Where forest branches screen the skies, - The spirit of the eve has laid - A deeper and a dreamier shade; - And winds that through the tree-tops blow - Wake not the silent gloom below. - - Only the sound of far-off streams, - Faint as our dreams of childhood’s dreams, - Wandering in tangled pathways crost, - Like woodland truants strayed and lost, - Their faint, complaining echoes roam, - Threading the forest toward their home. - - O brooks, I too have gone astray, - And left my comrade on the way-- - Guide me through aisles where soft you moan, - To some sad spot you know alone, - Where only leaves and nestlings stir, - And I may dream, and dream of Her. - - H. C. BUNNER. - - - - - CARNATIONS IN WINTER. - - - Your carmine flakes of bloom to-night - The fire of wintry sunsets hold; - Again in dreams you burn to light - A fair Canadian garden old. - - The blue north summer over it - Is bland with long ethereal days; - The gleaming martins wheel and flit - Where breaks your sun down orient ways. - - There, when the gradual twilight falls, - Through quietudes of dusk afar, - Hermit, antiphonal hermit calls - From hills below the first pale star. - - Then, in your passionate love’s foredoom - Once more your spirit stirs the air, - And you are lifted through the gloom - To warm the coils of her dark hair. - - BLISS CARMAN. - - - - - THE EAVESDROPPER. - - - In a still room at hush of dawn, - My Love and I lay side by side - And heard the roaming forest wind - Stir in the paling autumn-tide. - - I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad - Because the round day was so fair; - While memories of reluctant night - Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair. - - Outside, a yellow maple-tree, - Shifting upon the silvery blue - With small innumerable sound, - Rustled to let the sunlight through. - - The livelong day the elvish leaves - Danced with their shadows on the floor; - And the lost children of the wind - Went straying homeward by our door. - - And all the swarthy afternoon - We watched the great deliberate sun - Walk through the crimsoned hazy world, - Counting his hilltops one by one. - - Then as the purple twilight came - And touched the vines along our eaves, - Another shadow stood without - And gloomed the dancing of the leaves. - - The silence fell on my Love’s lips; - Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad - With pondering some maze of dream, - Though all the splendid year was glad. - - Restless and vague as a gray wind - Her heart had grown, she knew not why. - But hurrying to the open door, - Against the verge of western sky - - I saw retreating on the hills, - Looming and sinister and black, - The stealthy figure swift and huge - Of One who strode and looked not back. - - BLISS CARMAN. - - - - - THE IMPOSSIBLE SHE. - - - Far away hangs an apple that ripens on high - The latest-born child of old sun-blind July, - Till the summer’s warm kiss as he wooes overhead - Turns its sour heart to sweetness, its wan cheek to red. - But it is not for you, and it is not for me, - Nay, it is not for any who here may be; - For its dawning red sweetness, - That rounds to completeness - Grows moist for the lips that we never may see. - - There’s a white rose leaf-cloistered in heavy noon-hush, - And no eyes but the stars tempt its pale face to blush, - In that wilderness garden where, shut from day’s beam, - Fall its fragrant white leaves, light as steps of a dream. - But it is not for you, and it is not for me, - Nay, it is not for any who here may be; - For it sleeps and then wakes - In dew-scented snow-flakes, - As a star for the dusk hair we never may see. - - In a green golden valley there grows an elf-girl, - And her lip is red-ripe; and her soul, one rich pearl, - Yields once to one diver a treasure unpriced - As the wine of the Gods or the wine-blood of Christ. - But she is not for you, and she is not for me, - Nay she is not for any who here may be; - For her breast like a moon - Through the rosed air of June - Grows round for his hand whom we never may see. - - HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. - - - - - A DREAM SHAPE. - - - With moon-white hearts that held a gleam - I gathered wild flowers in a dream, - And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood - Was odour of the wildwood bud. - - From dew, the starlight arrowed through, - I wrought a woman’s eyes of blue; - The lids, that on her eyeballs lay, - Were rose-pale petals of the May. - - I took the music of the breeze, - And water whispering in the trees, - And shaped the soul that breathed below - A woman’s blossom breasts of snow. - - Out of a rose-bud’s veins I drew - The fragrant crimsom beating through - The languid lips of her, whose kiss - Was as a poppy’s drowsiness. - - Out of the moonlight and the air - I wrought the glory of her hair, - That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay - Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day. - - A shadow’s shadow in the glass - Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass; - And, thinking of it now, meseems - We only live within our dreams. - - For in that time she was to me - More real than our reality; - More real than Earth, more real than I-- - The unreal things that pass and die. - - MADISON CAWEIN. - - - - - UNREQUITED. - - - Passion? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes-- - One hand among the deep curls of her brow, - I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs: - She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow. - - So have I seen a clear October pool, - Cold, liquid topaz set within the sear - Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool, - Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year. - - Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music-sweet, - Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer; - Sweetheart I called her.--When did she repeat - Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair! - - So have I seen a glad flower’s fragrant head - Sung to and sung to by a longing bird, - And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead, - No blossom wilted, for it had not heard. - - MADISON CAWEIN. - - - - - IN THE WOOD. - - - Through laughing leaves the sunlight comes, - Turning the green to gold; - The bee about the heather hums, - And the morning air is cold - Here on the breezy woodland side, - Where we two ride. - - Through laughing leaves on golden hair, - The sunlight glances down, - And makes a halo round her there, - And crowns her with a crown - Queen of the sunrise and the sun, - As we ride on. - - The wanton wind has kissed her face,-- - His lips have left a rose,-- - He found her cheek so sweet a place - For kisses, I suppose,-- - He thought he’d leave a sign, that so - Others might know. - - The path grows narrower as we ride - The green boughs close above, - And overhead, and either side, - The wild birds sing of Love:-- - But ah, she is not listening - To what they sing! - - Till I take up the wild bird’s song - And word by word unfold - Its meaning as we ride along,-- - And when my tale is told, - I turn my eyes to hers again,-- - And then,--and then,-- - - (The bridle path more narrow grows, - The leaves shut out the sun;--) - Where the wind’s lips left their one rose - My own leave more than one:-- - While the leaves murmur up above, - And laugh for love. - - This was the place;--you see the sky - Now ’twixt the branches bare; - About the path the dead leaves lie, - And songless is the air;-- - All’s changed since then, for that you know - Was long ago. - - Let us ride on! The wind is cold.-- - Let us ride on--ride fast!-- - ’Tis winter, and we know of old - That love could never last - Without the summer and the sun!-- - Let us ride on! - - HERBERT E. CLARKE. - - - - - BIRDS AND LOVERS. - - - I. - - O brown lark, loving cloud-land best - And sun-smit seas of sky, - Thee does a musical unrest - Drive to rise upward from thy nest - Far fathoms high. - - - II. - - O fluid-fluting blackbird, keep - The midnight of thy wing - Close to my home where leaves grow deep, - Since where two lovers lie asleep - Thou lovest to sing. - - MORTIMER COLLINS. - - - - - DAWN. - - - Dawn, with flusht foot upon the mountain tops, - Stands beckoning to the Sun-god’s golden car, - While on her high clear brow the morning star - Grows fainter, as the silver-misty copse - And rosy river-bend and village white - Feel the strong shafts of light. - - The tide of dreams has reached its utter ebb; - The joy of Dawn is in my Lady’s eyes, - Where at her window with a half-surprise - She sees the meadows meshed with fairy web, - And hears the happy skylark, far above, - Singing, _I live! I love!_ - - MORTIMER COLLINS. - - - - - LOVE’S POWER. - - - The fire is smouldering while the daylight wanes; - Rain taps impatient on the window-panes; - The waves roll high, and the cold wind complains. - The wind complains. - - Reluctant start the embers to a blaze; - Among the ashy drifts the red coal plays; - In fairy rings the circling smoke delays. - The smoke delays. - - Ah, lonely life! it is the wind’s sad cry; - Ah, only life! calls Echo, floating by; - Ah, love is life! it is my heart’s reply. - My heart’s reply. - - Burn low, ye fires that on the hearthstone play! - Beat out your life, O waves in dashing spray! - My heart chants not your monotone to-day. - Oh, not to-day! - - I hear no dirge, I see no ashes gray-- - Love! love! love! love! its rapture fills the day! - The winter brings to me the bloom of May. - The bloom of May. - - LYDIA AVERY COONLEY. - - - - - LAST NIGHT MY LADY TALKED WITH ME. - - - Last night my lady talked with me, - As on a green hill I and she - Sat close, where erst alone I stood - Beneath the dusk-leaved ilex-wood. - - The earth was gathered to her rest, - Sweet silence lay upon her breast, - Well-nigh asleep, save that she heard - The wandering waters’ silver word. - - The sun had kissed the earth’s dark lips - That grow so ruddy ere he dips, - Wine-coloured to his golden rim, - As purple evening pours for him. - - Low stooped his head, as he would drink, - Till out of sight we saw him sink, - And with his splendour in our eyes, - Full-orbed we watched the great moon rise. - - Rose-tinged in the dim sky shone she - Like Venus from the opal sea, - So grew her glory in our sight, - Till in her face we saw love’s light, - - Love’s light in hers, like flame on flame,-- - Yea, very Love in presence came, - Between the fires of moon and sun, - He stood, like dawn ere night begun. - - Clear-aureoled his golden head, - His eyes our burning hearts well read, - And in the sanctuary of my soul - I won of love the golden goal. - - WALTER CRANE. - - - - - LOVE’S ARROWS. - - - I saw young Love make trial of his bow, - In May’s green garden where he shot his dart, - Nor recked if any nigh beheld his art, - But other eyes did mark him as I know; - For my sweet lady sate anear his throw, - And I with her, and joinèd heart to heart, - So that we might not feel the bitter smart - Love leaveth there when time doth force us go. - - We heard Love’s arrows falling in the grass, - Or watched them quiver in the targe below; - Yet few to us came nigh, nor might they pass - Beyond our feet, which trembled when they came, - Whose hearts were not the quarry for his aim, - That in Love’s chase fell stricken long ago. - - WALTER CRANE. - - - - - A LOVE SONG. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. - - - Time with his jealous icy blast - Will wither all your charms, like sweet flowers past - And dead in winter’s tomb; - Till soft, red lips are kissless, and the joy - They now can give, tho’ now, alas, too coy, - Has perish’d with their bloom. - - Yet when your eyes, veil’d in a cloud of tears, - Shall mourn the rigour of the fleeting years, - And see each grace depart, - When in the past, as in a stream, you gaze, - And seek the lovely form of other days, - Look rather in my heart; - - There will your beauty flourish years untold, - There will my loyalty watch you as of old, - And keep you still the same; - Just as a golden lamp some holy maid - Might shelter with her hand, while thro’ the shade - She bears the trembling flame. - - Oh, when Death smiling comes, as come he must, - And shatters our twin torches in the dust, - A stronger love shall bloom; - Then shall my last sweet resting-place be thine, - And your soft hand clasp’d tenderly in mine, - In our last bed, the tomb. - - Or, rather, darling, let us fly away, - Just as upon some glorious autumn day - Two loving swans might rise, - And, still caressing, leave their wonted nest, - And seek for brighter lands, and climes more blest, - And fuller, deeper skies! - - HARRY CURWEN. - - - - - THE PARTING HOUR. - - - Not yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high; - You said last night, “At sunset I will go.” - Come to the garden, where, when blossoms die, - No word is spoken; it is better so: - Ah! bitter word, “Farewell.” - - Hark how the birds sing sunny songs of spring! - Soon they will build, and work will silence them; - So we grow less light-hearted as years bring - Life’s grave responsibilities--and then - The bitter word “Farewell.” - - The violets fret to fragrance ’neath your feet, - Heaven’s gold sunlight dreams aslant your hair: - No flower for me! your mouth is far more sweet. - Oh, let my lips forget, while lingering there, - Love’s bitter word “Farewell.” - - * * * * * - - Sunset already! have we sat so long? - The parting hour, and so much left unsaid! - The garden has grown silent--void of song, - Our sorrow shakes us with a sudden dread! - Ah! bitter word “Farewell.” - - OLIVE CUSTANCE. - - - - - THE SUNDIAL. - - - ’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain; - In summer crowned with drifting orchard-bloom, - Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain, - And white in winter like a marble tomb; - - And round about its gray, time-eaten brow - Lean letters speak--a worn and shattered row; - _I am a Shade: a Shadow too arte thou: - I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?_ - - Here would the ringdoves linger, head to head; - And here the snail a silver course would run, - Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread - His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun. - - The tardy shade moved forward to the noon; - Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept, - That swung a flower, and, smiling, hummed a tune,-- - Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt. - - O’er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed, - About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone; - And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed, - Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone. - - She leaned upon the slab a little while, - Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone, - Scribbled a something with a frolic smile, - Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone. - - The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail; - There came a second lady in the place, - Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale-- - An inner beauty shining from her face. - - She, as if listless with a lonely love, - Straying among the alleys with a book,-- - Herrick or Herbert,--watched the circling dove, - And spied the tiny letter in the nook. - - Then, like to one who confirmation found - Of some dread secret half accounted true,-- - Who knew what hands and hearts the letter bound, - And argued loving commerce ’twixt the two, - - She bent her fair young forehead on the stone, - The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head; - And ’twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone - The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed. - - The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom; - There came a soldier gallant in her stead, - Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume, - A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head; - - Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow, - Scar-seamed a little, as the women love; - So kindly fronted that you marvel how - The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his glove; - - Who switched at Psyche plunging in the sun; - Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge; - And standing somewhat widely, like to one - More used to “Boot and Saddle” than to cringe - - As courtiers do, but gentleman withal, - Took out the note; held it as one who feared - The fragile thing he held would slip and fall; - Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard; - - Kissed it, I think, and hid it in his breast; - Laughed softly in a flattered happy way, - Arranged the broidered baldrick on his chest, - And sauntered past, singing a roundelay. - - * * * * * - - The shade crept forward through the dying glow; - There came no more nor dame nor cavalier; - But for a little time the brass will show - A small gray spot--the record of a tear. - - AUSTIN DOBSON. - - - - - SPRING SONG. - - - Herald of peace and joy, - Lone on the bough; - Minstrel without alloy. - What flutest thou? - - Violet, hiding low, - Fragrant and shy, - What message bearest thou - Voiced in thy sigh? - - Buds that unloose your hasp - Long cased in mail, - Wrest from grim Winter’s grasp, - Freed from his pale; - - Brooklets, swift hurrying, - Purling your chime. - What is the theme ye sing - Endless as Time? - - “We sing the sun,” they say, - “We sing the spring; - Love crowns our holyday, - Love is our king.” - - E’en so the thought of Thee - Rapture doth bring, - Yielding delight to me - Dearer than spring; - - Blither than robin’s strain, - Fairer than flowers; - Fresh as the vernal rain, - Bright as the hours. - - Thy smile my sun, I ween, - Thine eyes my May: - All thy sweet grace, my Queen, - Fondly, I pray, - - Grant me to keep and hold - Fast in love’s shrine,-- - Spring may no joys unfold - Art thou not mine! - - GEORGE H. ELLWANGER. - - - - - TO JESSIE’S DANCING FEET. - - - How, as a spider’s web is spun - With subtle grace and art, - Do thy light footsteps, every one, - Cross and recross my heart! - Now here, now there, and to and fro, - Their winding mazes turn; - Thy fairy feet so lightly go - They seem the earth to spurn. - Yet every step leaves there behind - A something, when you dance, - That serves to tangle up my mind - And all my soul entrance. - - How, as the web the spiders spin - And wanton breezes blow, - Thy soft and filmy laces in - A swirl around thee flow! - The cobweb ’neath thy chin that’s crossed - Remains demurely put, - While those are ever whirled and tossed - That show thy saucy foot: - That show the silver grayness of - Thy stocking’s silken sheen, - And mesh of snowy skirts above - The silver that is seen. - - How, as the spider from his web - Dangles in light suspense, - Do thy sweet measures’ flow and ebb - Sway my enraptured sense! - Thy flutt’ring lace, thy dainty airs, - Thy every charming pose-- - There are not more alluring snares - To bind me with than those. - Swing on! Sway on! With easy grace - Thy witching steps repeat! - The love I dare not--to thy face-- - I offer at thy feet. - - W. D. ELLWANGER. - - - - - A LOVE SONG. - - - Oh, to think, oh, to think as I see her stand there - With the rose that I plucked in her glorious hair, - In the robe that I love. - So demure and so neat, - I am lord of her lips and her eyes and her feet. - - Oh, to think, oh, to think when the last hedge is leapt, - When the blood is awakened that dreamingly slept, - I shall make her heart throb - In its cradle of lace, - As the lord of her hair and her breast and her face. - - Oh, to think, oh, to think when our wedding-bells ring, - When our love’s at the summer but life’s at the spring, - I shall guard her asleep - As my hound guards her glove, - Being lord of her life and her heart and her love! - - NORMAN R. GALE. - - - - - A SONG. - - - I will not say my true love’s eyes - Outshine the noblest star; - But in their depth of lustre lies - My peace, my truce, my war. - - I will not say upon her neck - Is white to shame the snow; - For if her bosom hath a speck - I would not have it go. - - My love is as a woman sweet, - And as a woman white; - Who’s more than this is more than meet - For me and my delight. - - NORMAN R. GALE. - - - - - A NOCTURNE. - - - Keen winds of cloud and vaporous drift - Disrobe yon star, as ghosts that lift - A snowy curtain from its place, - To scan a pillowed beauty’s face. - - They see her slumbering splendours lie - Bedded on blue unfathomed sky, - And swoon for love and deep delight, - And stillness falls on all the night. - - RICHARD GARNETT. - - - - - VIOLETS. - - - Cold blows the wind against the hill, - And cold upon the plain; - I sit me by the bank, until - The violets come again. - - Here sat we when the grass was set - With violets shining through, - And leafing branches spread a net - To hold a sky of blue. - - The trumpet clamoured from the plain, - The cannon rent the sky; - I cried, O Love, come back again, - Before the violets die! - - But they are dead upon the hill, - And he upon the plain; - I sit me by the bank, until - My violets come again. - - RICHARD GARNETT. - - - - - A YEAR. - - - When the hot wasp hung in the grape last year, - And tendrils withered and leaves grew sear, - There was little to hope and nothing to fear, - And the smouldering autumn sank apace, - And my heart was hollow and cold and drear. - - When the last gray moth that November brings - Had folded its sallow and sombre wings, - Like the tuneless voice of a child that sings, - A music arose in that desolate place, - A broken music of hopeless things. - - But time went by with the month of snows, - And the pulse and tide of that music rose; - As a pain that fades is a pleasure that grows, - So hope sprang up with a heart of grace, - And love as a crocus-bud that blows. - - And now I know when next autumn has dried - The sweet hot juice to the grape-skin’s side, - And the new wasps dart where the old ones died, - My heart will have rest in one luminous face, - And its longing and yearning be satisfied. - - EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE. - - - - - I’VE KISSED THEE, SWEETHEART. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF THÉOPHILE DE VIAU. - - - I’ve kissed thee, sweetheart, in a dream at least, - And though the core of love is in me still, - This joy, that in my sense did softly thrill, - The ardour of my longing hath appeased, - And by this tender strife my spirit, eased, - Can laugh at that sweet theft against thy will, - And, half consoled, I soothe myself until - I find my heart from all its pain released. - My senses, hushed, begin to fall on sleep; - Slumber, for which two weary nights I weep, - Takes thy dear place at last within mine eyes; - And though so cold he is, as all men vow, - For me he breaks his natural icy guise, - And shows himself more warm and fond than thou. - - EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE. - - - - - COMPLAINT. - - - Men, women, call thee so and so; - I do not know. - Thou hast no name - For me, but in my heart a flame - - Burns tireless, ’neath a silver vine; - And round entwine - Its purple girth - All things of fragrance and of worth. - - Thou shout! thou burst of light! thou throb - Of pain! thou sob! - Thou like a bar - Of some sonata, heard from far - - Through blue-hued veils! When in these wise, - To my soul’s eyes - Thy shape appears, - My aching hands are full of tears. - - JOHN GRAY. - - - - - HEART’S DEMESNE. - - - Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes - Made never answer when my eyes did pray, - Than with those quaintest looks of blank surprise. - - But my lovelonging hath devised a way - To mock thy living image, from thy hair - To thy rose toes; and keep thee by alway. - - My garden’s face is, oh! so maidly fair, - With limbs all tapering, and with hues all fresh; - Thine are the beauties all that flourish there. - - Amaranth, fadeless, tells me of thy flesh. - Briar-rose knows thy cheek, the Pink thy pout, - Bunched kisses dangle from the Woodbine mesh. - - I love to loll, when Daisy stars peep out, - And hear the music of my garden dell, - Hollyhock’s laughter and the Sunflower’s shout,-- - And many whisper things I dare not tell. - - JOHN GRAY. - - - - - IN THE EVENING. - - FROM THE ITALIAN OF COUNTESS LARA. - - - I sit alone and watch the cinders glare, - Or hear the pine-logs crackling sharp and low. - I wait him still; he went not long ago, - Humming a tune, his cigarette aflare. - - He was called out by some most grave affair; - His friends, on cards intent, would have it so; - Or some new singer’s style he fain would know, - Who with false graces mars a grand old air. - - And for such things as these he stays away, - Till midnight passes, and, at one, the bell - Booms from the neighbouring church its single flight; - - Then gaily he returns, and half in play - Kisses me lightly, asks if I am well, - And never dreams that I have wept all night. - - G. A. GREENE. - - - - - WHEN THE LEAVES FALL IN AUTUMN. - - FROM THE ITALIAN OF LORENZO STECCHETTI. - - - When the leaves fall in autumn, and you go - To seek the cross that marks my lonely grave, - In that far corner where they laid me low - The nodding wild-flowers o’er my bones shall wave. - - Oh, pluck you then, to deck your golden hair, - The flowers born of my heart which blossom there: - - They are the songs I dreamed, but ne’er have sung, - The words of love you heard not on my tongue. - - G. A. GREENE. - - - - -“QUI SAIT AIMER, SAIT MOURIR.” - - - “I burn my soul away!” - So spake the Rose and smiled; “within my cup - All day the sunbeams fall in flame, all day - They drink my sweetness up!” - - “I sigh my soul away!” - The Lily said; “all night the moonbeams pale - Steal round and round me, whispering in their play - An all too tender tale!” - - “I give my soul away!” - The Violet said; “the West wind wanders on, - The North wind comes; I know not what they say, - And yet my soul is gone!” - - O Poet, burn away - Thy fervent soul! fond Lover at the feet - Of her thou lovest, sigh! dear Christian, pray, - And let the world be sweet! - - DORA GREENWELL. - - - - - SONG. - - - If love were like a thrush’s song, - Ah me! ah me! - I’d list his tale the whole day long, - Ah me! - I’d never know how time went by, - I’d never guess that time will die; - Rapt in that living ecstasy, - Ah me! ah me! - I’d list a glorious life along - If love were but a thrush’s song. - - But love is fierce and love is fain, - Ah me! ah me! - Love has one bitter sweet refrain, - Ah me! - Love knows of anguish every tone, - Love knows of joy but hope alone, - Love knows of hope that hope is flown, - Ah me! ah me! - Love! poor fierce Love, by storm winds driven, - Love is earth’s vain desire for heaven, - Ah me! - - A. STEPNEY GULSTON. - - - - - O KNIGHT, IF THOU A LADY HAST. - - - O knight, if thou a lady hast, - Gentle and loving, high and true, - Cling to her, live for her, die for her, too, - Swerve not from her while life shall last-- - O knight, if thou a lady hast. - - But if thou, knight, no lady hast, - Kind as courteous, fair as fond, - So grasp the joyless pilgrim’s wand, - Go high, go wide, go far and fast-- - Till thou e’en such a lady hast. - - GERTRUDE HALL. - - - - - AT LAST. - - - When I shall stand before the judgment throne, - At that last hour when all things pass away, - And see beneath me there the vast array - Of souls who wait their life deeds to atone, - And there before the face of God, alone - Appear, and hear His awful voice then say, - “Throughout thy life, until thy dying day, - Is there not any good deed thou hast done?” - - And I shall answer, “Nay, I cannot tell; - But this there is: I loved with all my heart, - Above mine own, one soul; was that not well? - On earth my love brought only bitter smart, - And there I felt the pangs of Thy dread Hell; - From her, my Heaven, bid me not now depart!” - - WILLIAM C. HALL. - - - - - THE OLD IS BETTER. - - - Alone, alone, thro’ the sunny street, - In the shadow of a dream, - The forms and faces I pass and meet - In a mist and darkness seem. - - The old gray houses stand a-row, - Their windows blink and stare, - The sparrows chirp on the lilac bough - From the garden in the square. - - The busy mower whets his scythe, - He hums a cheery rhyme; - The wild bees murmur, and drowse and dive - In the blossom of the lime. - - The forms and faces that come and go, - They flicker and wane and gleam, - As I walk through the streets of long ago - In the shadow of a dream. - - The faces waver and fade away; - While under the lilac bough - Upspringeth the aspect, bright and gay, - Of a face I used to know. - - I see her stand, and she calls my name, - And my heart and pulses glow - As the old life starts like a buried flame, - And the new life flickers low. - - The present darkens and faints and fades, - And the old-loved smiles shine through; - The living wander, like ghostly shades, - And the lost are born anew. - - And my soul with the joy of its calm is rife, - As I bask in my after-glow, - For I loved my love, and I lived my life - In the days of long ago. - - MARY L. HANKIN. - - - - - BALLADE OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS. - - - With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams - The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, - And the winds are one with the clouds and beams-- - Midsummer days! midsummer days! - The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze, - While the west from a rapture of sunset rights, - Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise-- - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! - - The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams, - The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, - The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams-- - Midsummer days! midsummer days! - In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, - All secret shadows and mystic lights, - Late lovers murmurous linger and gaze-- - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! - - There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams, - Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze, - The rich ripe rose as with incense steams-- - Midsummer days! midsummer days! - A soul from the honeysuckle strays, - And the nightingale as from prophet heights, - Sings to the Earth of her million Mays-- - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! - - And it’s O! for my dear and the charm that stays-- - Midsummer days! midsummer days! - It’s O! for my Love and the dark that plights-- - Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights! - - W. E. HENLEY. - - - - - OH, GATHER ME THE ROSE. - - - Oh, gather me the rose, the rose, - While yet in flower we find it, - For summer smiles, but summer goes, - And winter waits behind it. - - For with the dream foregone, foregone, - The deed forborne forever, - The worm regret will canker on, - And time will turn him never. - - So well it were to love, my love, - And cheat of any laughter - The fate beneath us and above, - The dark before and after. - - The myrtle and the rose, the rose, - The sunshine and the swallow, - The dream that comes, the wish that goes, - The memories that follow! - - W. E. HENLEY. - - - - - HER DREAM. - - - Fold your arms around me, Sweet, - As against your heart my heart doth beat. - - Kiss me, Love, till it fade,--the fright - Of the dreadful dream I dreamt last night. - - Oh, thank God, it is you, it is you, - My own love, fair and strong and true. - - We two are the same that, yesterday, - Played in the light and tost the hay. - - My hair you stroke, O dearest one, - Is alive with youth and bright with the sun. - - Tell me again, Love, how I seem - “The prettiest queen of curds and cream.” - - Fold me close and kiss me again; - Kiss off the shadow of last night’s pain. - - I dreamt last night, as I lay in bed, - That I was old and that you were dead. - - I knew you had died long time ago, - And I well recalled the moan and woe. - - You had died in your beautiful youth, my sweet; - You had gone to your rest with untired feet; - - And I had prayed to come to you, - To lay me down and slumber too. - - But it might not be, and the days went on, - And I was all alone, alone. - - The women came so neighbourly, - And kissed my face and wept with me; - - And the men stood still to see me pass, - And smiled grave smiles, and said, “_Poor lass!_” - - Sometimes I seemed to hear your feet, - And my grief-numbed heart would wildly beat; - - And I stopt and named my darling’s name-- - But never a word of answer came. - - The men and women ceased at last - To pity pain that was of the past; - - For pain is common, and grief, and loss; - And many come home by Weeping Cross. - - Why do I tell you this, my dear? - Sorrow is gone now you are here. - - You and I, we sit in the light, - And fled is the horror of yesternight. - - The time went on, and I saw one day - My body was bent and my hair was gray. - - But the boys and girls a-whispering - Sweet tales in the sweet light of the spring, - - Never paused in the tales they told - To say, “_He is dead and she is old_.” - - There’s a place in the churchyard where, I thought, - Long since my lover had been brought; - - It had sunk with years from a high green mound - To a level no stranger would have found; - - But I--I always knew the spot; - How could I miss it, know it not? - - Darling, darling, draw me near, - For I cannot shake off the dread and fear. - - Fold me so close I scarce can breathe; - And kiss me, for, lo, above, beneath, - - The blue sky fades, and the green grass dries, - And the sunshine goes from my lips and eyes. - - O God--that dream--it has not fled-- - _One of us old, and one of us dead_! - - EMILY H. HICKEY. - - - - - SONG. - - - How many lips have uttered one sweet word-- - Ever the sweetest word in any tongue! - How many listening hearts have wildly stirred, - While burning blushes to the soft cheeks sprung, - And dear eyes, deepening with a light divine, - Were lifted up, as thine are now to mine! - - How oft the night, with silence and perfume, - Has hushed the world that heart might speak to heart, - And make in each dim haunt of leafy gloom - A trysting-place where love might meet and part, - And kisses fall unseen on lips and brow, - As on thine, sweet! my kisses linger now! - - CHARLES LOTIN HILDRETH. - - - - - THE TRYST. - - - Sweet as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep - The silver gloaming melted into gloom, - Then came the evening silence rich and deep, - With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume; - The few first stars shone in the azure pale, - Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil. - - Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet? - Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse, - Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat! - I needed not the light to find thy lips, - Nor in the balmy hush of even-time, - To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme. - - CHARLES LOTIN HILDRETH. - - - - - BY ONE RAPT DAY. - - - By one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete, - And from dream wings in memory’s light caressed - Fans calms of joy into my burning breast. - It is that day when Love bowed at thy feet, - And all the noontide in a rush of heat - Rippled with whispers of thy love confessed; - And larks afar sank down with sobs of rest, - Finding their carol heights in thee complete. - - The day when, midst the well-known Sussex wood, - Stream music kissed the spirit of the wold - And sang the sun to rest, mingling its gold - With heather-bell and oak, and, rapt in moods - Of melody and shy sweet interludes, - Held our soul’s transport still with joys untold. - - A. ERNEST HINSHELWOOD. - - - - - THE DILEMMA. - - - Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, - Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen; - By every name I cut on bark - Before my morning star grew dark; - By Hymen’s torch, by Cupid’s dart, - By all that thrills the beating heart; - The bright black eye, the melting blue,-- - I cannot choose between the two. - - I had a vision in my dreams;-- - I saw a row of twenty beams; - From every beam a rope was hung, - In every rope a lover swung; - I asked the hue of every eye - That bade each luckless lover die; - Ten shadowy lips said heavenly blue, - And ten accused the darker hue. - - I asked a matron which she deemed - With fairest light of beauty beamed; - She answered, some thought both were fair,-- - Give her blue eyes and golden hair. - I might have liked her judgment well, - But, as she spoke, she rung the bell, - And all her girls, nor small nor few, - Came marching in,--their eyes were blue. - - I asked a maiden; back she flung - The locks that round her forehead hung, - And turned her eye, a glorious one, - Bright as a diamond in the sun, - On me, until beneath its rays - I felt as if my hair would blaze; - She liked all eyes but eyes of green; - She looked at me, what could she mean? - - Ah! many lids Love lurks between, - Nor heeds the colouring of his screen; - And when his random arrows fly, - The victim falls, but knows not why. - Gaze not upon his shield of jet, - The shaft upon the string is set; - Look not beneath his azure veil, - Though every limb were cased in mail. - - Well both might make a martyr break - The chain that bound him to the stake; - And both with but a single ray - Can melt our very hearts away; - And both, when balanced, hardly seem - To stir the scales, or rock the beam; - But that is dearest, all the while, - That wears for us the sweetest smile. - - OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. - - - - - THE MEASURE. - - - Between the pansies and the rye - Flutters my purple butterfly; - - Between her white brow and her chin, - Does Love his fairy wake begin: - - By poppy-cups and drifts of heather, - Dances the sun and she together. - - But o’er the scarlet of her mouth - Whence those entreated words come forth, - Love hovers all the livelong day, - And cannot, through its spell, away; - But there, where he was born, must die - Between the pansies and the rye. - - HERBERT P. HORNE. - - - - - TWO TRUTHS. - - - “Darling,” he said, “I never meant - To hurt you;” and his eyes were wet. - “I would not hurt you for the world: - Am I to blame if I forget?” - - “Forgive my selfish tears!” she cried, - “Forgive! I knew that it was not - Because you meant to hurt me, sweet,-- - I knew it was that you forgot!” - - But all the same, deep in her heart - Rankled this thought, and rankles yet,-- - “When love is at its best, one loves - So much that he cannot forget.” - - HELEN HUNT. - - - - - A PRAYER. - - - Dear, let me dream of love, - Ah! though a dream it be! - I’ll ask no boon above - A word, a smile from thee: - At most, in some still hour, one kindly thought of me. - - Sweet, let me gaze awhile - Into those radiant eyes! - I’ll scheme not to beguile - The heart, that deeper lies - Beneath them than yon star in night’s pellucid skies. - - Love, let my spirit bow - In worship at thy shrine! - I’ll swear thou shalt not know - One word from lip of mine, - An instant’s pain to send through that shy soul of thine. - - SELWYN IMAGE. - - - - - A JUNE STORM. - - - Sullenly fell the rain while under the oak we stood; - It hissed in the leaves above us, and big drops plashed to the ground, - And a horror of darkness fell over river and field and wood, - Where the trees were huddling together like children scared by a sound. - - Then suddenly rang a note from a wildbird out of the trees - In quick response to a sunbeam, and lo, o’erhead it was fair, - And sweet was the smell of the meadow, and pleasant the hum of the bees, - As we look’d in each other’s eyes--and the raindrops shone in your hair. - - HENRY JENNER. - - - - - DOLCINO TO MARGARET. - - - The world goes up and the world goes down, - And the sunshine follows the rain; - And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown - Can never come over again, - Sweet wife; - No, never come over again. - - For woman is warm, though man be cold, - And the night will hallow the day; - Till the heart which at even was weary and old - Can rise in the morning gay, - Sweet wife; - To its work in the morning gay. - - CHARLES KINGSLEY. - - - - - A BALLADE OF WAITING. - - - No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought - So rich as the arms of my love can be; - No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught - Than her eyes when they answer me liquidly. - Dear lady of love, be kind to me - In days when the waters of hope abate, - And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be, - In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. - - Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught - No glitter of wile or traitorie, - More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught, - Or the heart of a crimson peony; - Oh, turn not its beauty away from me; - To kiss it and cling to it early and late - Shall make sweet minutes of days that flee, - In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. - - Rich hair, that a painter of old had sought - For the weaving of some soft phantasy, - Most fair when the streams of it run distraught - On the firm sweet shoulders yellowly; - Dear Lady, gather it close to me, - Weaving a nest for the double freight - Of cheeks and lips that are one and free, - For the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. - - - ENVOY. - - So time shall be swift till thou mate with me, - For love is mightiest next to fate, - And none shall be happier, Love, than we, - In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. - - ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN. - - - - - A FORECAST. - - - What days await this woman whose strange feet - Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine, - Tall, free and slender as the forest pine, - Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet - Frank eyes I feel the very heart’s least beat, - Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire: - How in the end, and to what man’s desire - Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet? - - One thing I know: if he be great and pure, - This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure; - Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm: - But if not this, some differing thing he be, - That dream shall break in terror; he shall see - The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm. - - ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN. - - - - - AN OLD TUNE. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF GÉRARD DE NERVAL. - - - There is an air for which I would disown - Mozart’s, Rossini’s, Weber’s melodies,-- - A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs, - And keeps its secret charm for me alone. - - Whene’er I hear that music vague and old, - Two hundred years are mist that rolls away; - The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold - A green land golden in the dying day. - - An old red castle, strong with stony towers, - The windows gay with many-coloured glass, - Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers, - That bathe the castle basement as they pass. - - In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair, - A lady looks forth from her window high; - It may be that I knew and found her fair, - In some forgotten life, long time gone by. - - ANDREW LANG. - - - - - GOOD-BYE. - - - Kiss me, and say good-bye; - Good-bye, there is no word to say but this, - Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss, - Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry; - Kiss me, and say good-bye. - - Farewell, be glad, forget; - There is no need to say “forget,” I know, - For youth is youth, and time will have it so, - And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet, - Farewell, you must forget. - - You shall bring home your sheaves, - Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined - Of memories that go not out of mind; - Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves - When you bring home your sheaves. - - In garnered loves of thine, - The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years, - Somewhere let this lie, gray and salt with tears; - It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine - Of life, this love of mine. - - This sheaf was spoiled in spring, - And over-long was green, and early sear, - And never gathered gold in the late year - From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting, - But failed in frosts of spring. - - Yet was it thine, my sweet, - This love, though weak as young corn withered, - Whereof no man may gather and make bread; - Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;-- - Forget not quite, my sweet. - - ANDREW LANG. - - - - - METEMPSYCHOSIS. - - - I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know - Perchance, thy gray eyes in another’s eyes, - Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow - On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise - Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise - Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow, - When through the scent of heather, faint and low, - The weak wind whispers to the day that dies. - - From all sweet art, and out of all “old rhyme,” - Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me; - The shadows of the beauty of all time, - Carven and sung are only shapes of thee; - Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet, my dear, - Shall life or death bring all thy being near? - - ANDREW LANG. - - - - - A BALLADE OF OLD SWEETHEARTS. - - - Who is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers - When the wood is aflame with the fires of spring, - And we hear her voice in the lilac bowers - As she croons the runes of the blossoming? - For the same old blooms do the new years bring, - But not to our lives do the years come so, - New lips must kiss and new bosoms cling.-- - Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago. - - Ah me! for a breath of those morning hours - When Alice and I went a-wandering - Through the shining fields, and it still was ours - To kiss and to feel we were shuddering-- - Ah me! when a kiss was a holy thing.-- - How sweet were a smile from Maud, and oh! - With Phyllis once more to be whispering.-- - Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago. - - But it cannot be that old Time devours - Such loves as was Annie’s and mine we sing, - And surely beneficent heavenly powers - Save Muriel’s beauty from perishing; - And if in some golden evening - To a quaint old garden I chance to go, - Shall Marion no more by the wicket sing?-- - Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago. - - In these lives of ours do the new years bring - Old loves as old flowers again to blow? - Or do new lips kiss and new bosoms cling?-- - Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago. - - RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. - - - - - IN THE MILE-END ROAD. - - - How like her! But ’tis she herself - Comes up the crowded street; - How little did I think, the morn, - My only love to meet! - - Whose else that motion and that mien? - Whose else that airy tread? - For one strange moment I forgot - My only love was dead. - - AMY LEVY. - - - - - LOVE AFRAID. - - - I dared not lead my arm around - Her dainty waist; - I dared not seek her lips, that mine - Hunger’d to taste: - I dared not, for such awe I found, - O Love divine! - - I trembled as my eager hand - Her light touch graced; - And when her fond look answer’d mine, - I dared not haste, - But waited, holding my demand - For farther sign. - - Sweet mouth, that with so sweet a sound - My dread hath chased, - And to my lips the holy wine, - Love’s vintage, placed! - Dear heart, that ever now will bound - Or rest with mine! - - W. J. LINTON. - - - - - TO MY MISTRESS. - - - Countess, I see the flying year, - And feel how Time is wasting here: - Ay, more, he soon his worst will do, - And garner all your roses too. - - It pleases Time to fold his wings - Around our best and fairest things; - He’ll mar your blooming cheek, as now - He stamps his mark upon my brow. - - The same mute planets rise and shine - To rule your days and nights as mine: - Once I was young and gay, and see-- - What I am now you soon will be. - - And yet I boast a certain charm - That shields me from your worst alarm; - And bids me gaze, with front sublime, - On all these ravages of Time. - - You boast a gift to charm the eyes, - I boast a gift that Time defies: - For mine will still be mine, and last - When all your pride of beauty’s past. - - My gift may long embalm the lures - Of eyes--ah, sweet to me as yours! - For ages hence the great and good - Will judge you as I choose they should. - - In days to come the peer or clown, - With whom I still shall win renown, - Will only know that you were fair - Because I chanced to say you were. - - Proud Lady! Scornful beauty mocks - At aged heads and silver locks; - But think awhile before you fly, - Or spurn a poet such as I. - - FREDERICK LOCKER. - - - - - IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY. - - - The sun is bright,--the air is clear, - The darting swallows soar and sing, - And from the stately elms I hear - The bluebird prophesying spring. - - So blue yon winding river flows, - It seems an outlet from the sky, - Where waiting till the west-wind blows, - The freighted clouds at anchor lie. - - All things are new,--the buds, the leaves, - That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest, - And even the nest beneath the eaves;-- - There are no birds in last year’s nest! - - All things rejoice in youth and love, - The fulness of their first delight! - And learn from the soft heavens above - The melting tenderness of night. - - Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme, - Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; - Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, - For O, it is not always May! - - Enjoy the spring of Love and Youth, - To some good angel leave the rest; - For Time will teach thee soon the truth, - There are no birds in last year’s nest. - - HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. - - - - - ET MELLE ET FELLE. - - - What hast thou done to me, - Girl, with the dream in thine eyes? - Brightened the sun to me, - Lightened the skies; - Made there be one to me, - One only sun to me - Not in the skies. - - What hast thou done to me, - Girl, with the dream in thine eyes? - Darkened the sun to me, - Blackened the skies; - Made there be none to me, - Nor star nor sun to me, - Only black skies. - - LOVE IN A MIST. - - - - - A SONG OF LOVE. - - - If in thine eyes - I saw that softer light - That in the skies - Doth herald spring’s delight, - Ah, love, how loud my heart should sing, - Ev’n as the blackbird to the spring! - - If on thy cheek - I saw that warm hue play - That doth bespeak - The dawn of a new day, - Ah, love, how like the lark should rise - My soul in rapture to the skies! - - If from thy mouth - I heard such whisper low - As from the South - Doth through the pine-woods blow, - How should my whole soul murmur through - With music, as the pine-woods do! - - LOVE LIES BLEEDING. - - - - - THE LONELY LANDSCAPE. - - - The place again-- - The wooded heights--the widening plain-- - The whispering pines--the dry-leaved oaks, too young - To cast their dead dreams ere the new be sprung! - - What profits it - Alone on this prone slope to sit - Where thou didst press the heath,--and see how dun - The landscape seems, lit only by the sun? - - Yet, ah! not vain - To visit thy fair haunts again-- - To trace thy footsteps by the upturned stone, - And conjure back thy looks, thy words, thy tone! - - Like music fine - That simple seeming speech of thine - Hath in it soft harmonics, only heard - When from the memory fades the uttered word. - - And to mine eyes - Undazzled by thyself, doth rise - An image lovelier and more like to thee - Than even thy bodily self which sight can see. - - Ah! The wind shakes - The withered leaves, and Love awakes, - And to the vacant landscape cries in vain: - “Ah, heaven! to have her at my side again!” - - LOVE LIES BLEEDING. - - - - - THE OUTCAST. - - - Thou wilt come back again, but not for me, - Fair little face! - Thou wilt come back, but, ah! I may not see - That day of grace. - - No sword is at the Eden’s gate I leave; - But viewless hands - Have thrust me into endless night, to grieve - In loveless lands. - - Thou wilt come back: thy footsteps make the spring, - And birds sing round; - But I, in wilderness wandering, - Shall hear no sound; - - Save as far off the traveller athirst - In desert lands, - Hears waters that he may not reach, accursed - In endless sands. - - LOVE LIES BLEEDING. - - - - - AUF WIEDERSEHEN! - - - SUMMER. - - The little gate was reached at last, - Half hid in lilacs down the lane; - She pushed it wide, and, as she past, - A wistful look she backward cast, - And said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_” - - With hand on latch, a vision white - Lingered reluctant, and again - Half doubting if she did aright, - Soft as the dews that fell that night, - She said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_” - - The lamp’s clear gleam flits up the stair; - I linger in delicious pain; - Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air - To breathe in thought I scarcely dare, - Thinks she,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_” - - ’Tis thirteen years; once more I press - The turf that silences the lane; - I hear the rustle of her dress, - I smell the lilacs, and--ah, yes, - I hear “_Auf wiedersehen!_” - - Sweet piece of bashful maiden art! - The English words had seemed too fain, - But these--they drew us heart to heart, - Yet held us tenderly apart; - She said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_” - - - PALINODE. - - - AUTUMN. - - Still thirteen years: ’tis autumn now - On field and hill, in heart and brain; - The naked trees at evening sough; - The leaf to the forsaken bough - Sighs not,--“We meet again!” - - Two watched yon oriole’s pendent dome, - That now is void, and dank with rain, - And one,--O, hope more frail than foam! - The bird to his deserted home - Sings not,--“We meet again!” - - The loath gate swings with rusty creak; - Once, parting there, we played at pain; - There came a parting, when the weak - And fading lips essayed to speak - Vainly,--“We meet again!” - - Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith, - Though thou in outer dark remain; - One sweet sad voice ennobles death, - And still for eighteen centuries saith - Softly,--“Ye meet again!” - - If earth another grave must bear, - Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain, - And something whispers my despair, - That, from an orient chamber there, - Floats down, “We meet again!” - - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. - - - - - SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN.” - - - Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, - Ever they pass me--I watch, I wait-- - Ever I dream, and awake to meet her; - She cometh never, or comes too late. - - Should I press on? for the day grows shorter-- - Ought I to linger? the far end nears; - Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her - On the bright sky-line of the gathering years. - - Now that the shadows are eastward sloping, - As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun, - Cometh a thought--It is past all hoping, - Look not ahead, she is missed and gone. - - Here on the ridge of my upward travel - Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales, - Sadly I turn, and would fain unravel - The entangled maze of a search that fails. - - When and where have I seen and passed her? - What are the words I forgot to say? - Should we have met had a boat rowed faster? - Should we have loved had I stayed that day? - - Was it her face that I saw, and started, - Gliding away in a train that crossed? - Was it a form that I once, faint-hearted, - Followed awhile in a crowd, and lost? - - Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping - Under the moon through the landscape hushed? - Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping, - Saw but a hamlet--and on we rushed. - - Listen and linger--She yet may find me - In the last faint flush of the waning light-- - Never a step on the path behind me; - I must journey alone, to the lonely night. - - But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder, - A fading figure, with eyes that wait, - Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder, - “He cometh never, or comes too late”? - - SIR ALFRED LYALL. - - - - - IF ...? - - - So you but love me, be it your own way, - In your own time, no sooner than you will, - No warmer than you would from day to day, - But love me still! - - Each day that still you love me seems to me - A little fairer than the day before; - For, daily given, love’s least must daily be - A little more. - - And be my most gain’d your least given, if such - Your sweet will be! I reckon not the cost, - Nor count the gain, by little or by much, - Or least or most. - - Little or much, to me the gift I crave - Is all in all. There is not any measure - Of more or less can gauge the need I have - Of that dear treasure. - - So you but love me, tho’ your love be cold, - Mine it can chill not. Tho’ your love come late, - Mine for its coming, by sweet dreams foretold, - Will dreaming wait. - - Yet ah, if some fair chance, before I die, - One hour of waking life might let me live, - Rich with the dream’d-of dear reality - ’Tis yours to give! - - Your whole sweet self, with your sweet self’s whole love! - Those eyes of fire and dew, those lips wish-haunted, - Those feet whose steps like elfin music move - Thro’ worlds enchanted! - - Your whole sweet self! The unutter’d thoughts that stir - Your lonest musings with light wings unheard, - And feelings that find no interpreter - In deed or word! - - Your whole sweet self, that till by love reveal’d - Even to yourself still half unknown must be! - For of the wealth in souls like yours conceal’d - Love keeps the key. - - Ah, if your whole sweet self, by all the power - Of your sweet self’s whole love in some divine - Far distant hour made wholly yours, that hour - Made wholly mine, - - And if in that blest hour all dreams came true, - All doubts dissolved, all fears were whirl’d away - In one wild storm of tendernesses new - As time’s first day, - - What should we both be? Hush! I do not dare - Even to hear my own heart’s whisper utter’d. - Be its sole answerer the silent air - This sigh has flutter’d! - - ROBERT, LORD LYTTON. - - - - - OMENS AND ORACLES. - - - All the phantoms of the future, all the spectres of the past, - In the wakeful night came round me, sighing, crying, “Fool, beware! - Check the feeling o’er thee stealing! Let thy first love be thy last! - Or, if love again thou must, at least this fatal love forbear!” - _Marah Amara!_ - - Now the dark breaks. Now the lark wakes. Now their voices fleet away. - And the breeze about the blossom, and the ripple in the reed, - And the beams and buds and birds begin to whisper, sing, or say, - “Love her, love her, for she loves thee!” And I know not which to heed. - _Cara Amara!_ - - ROBERT, LORD LYTTON. - - - - - THE GARDEN OF MEMORY. - - - There is a certain garden where I know - That flowers flourish in a poet’s spring, - Where aye young birds their amorous matins sing, - And never ill wind comes, nor any snow. - - But if you wonder where so fair a show, - Where such eternal pleasure may be seen, - I say, my memory keeps that garden green, - Wherein I loved my first love long ago. - - JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY. - - - - - IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN. - - - If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun, - Pacing it wearily, wearily, - From chapel to cell till day were done - Wearily, wearily, - Oh! how would it be with these hearts of ours, - That need the sunshine and smiles and flowers? - - To prayer, to prayer, at the matins’ call, - Morning foul or fair; - Such prayer as from lifeless lips may fall-- - Words, but hardly prayer; - Vainly trying the thoughts to raise - Which in the sunshine would burst in praise. - - Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon, - The God revealing, - Turning thy face from the boundless boon, - Painfully kneeling; - Or in thy chamber’s still solitude, - Bending thy head o’er the legend rude. - - I, in a cool and lonely nook, - Gloomily, gloomily, - Poring over some musty book - Thoughtfully, thoughtfully; - Or on the parchment margin unrolled, - Painting quaint pictures in purple and gold. - - Perchance in slow procession to meet, - Wearily, wearily; - In an antique, narrow, high-gabled street, - Wearily, wearily; - Thy dark eyes lifted to mine, and then - Heavily sinking to earth again. - - Sunshine and air! warmness and spring! - Merrily, merrily! - Back to its cell each weary thing, - Wearily, wearily! - And the heart so withered and dry and old, - Most at home in the cloister cold. - - Thou on thy knees at the vespers’ call, - Wearily, wearily; - I looking up on the darkening wall, - Wearily, wearily; - The chime so sweet to the boat at sea, - Listless and dead to thee and me! - - Then to the lone couch at death of day, - Wearily, wearily; - Rising at midnight again to pray - Wearily, wearily; - And if through the dark those eyes looked in, - Sending them far as a thought of sin. - - And then when thy spirit was passing away, - Dreamily, dreamily; - The earth-born dwelling returning to clay, - Sleepily, sleepily; - Over thee held the crucified Best, - But no warm face to thy cold cheek pressed. - - And when my spirit was passing away, - Dreamily, dreamily; - The gray head lying ’mong ashes gray - Sleepily, sleepily; - No hovering angel-woman above - Waiting to clasp me in deathless love. - - But now, beloved, thy hand in mine, - Peacefully, peacefully; - My arm around thee, my lips on thine, - Lovingly, lovingly,-- - Oh! is not a better thing to us given - Than wearily going alone to heaven? - - GEORGE MACDONALD. - - - - - A BALLADE OF COLOURS. - - - She went with morning down the wood - Between the green and blue; - The sunlight on the grass was good, - And all the year was new. - - There Love came o’er the flowers to her, - A goodly sight to see - From crownèd hair to wing-feather; - “Arise and come with me.” - - She walked with him in Paradise - Between the white and red, - With Love’s own kiss between her eyes, - Love’s crown upon her head. - - Why two in heaven should not be thus - For ever, who may know? - Love spread his wings most glorious; - “Arise,” he said, “I go.” - - She came and sate down silently - Between the gray and gray; - The wet wind beat the leafless tree, - And Love was gone away. - - The woodland breaks to flower anew, - The days bring back the year; - But how am I to comfort you, - My dear, my dear, my dear? - - J. W. MACKAIL. - - - - - MY AMAZON. - - - I. - - My Love is a lady fair and free, - A lady fair from over the sea, - And she hath eyes that pierce my breast - And rob my spirit of peace and rest. - - - II. - - A youthful warrior, warm and young, - She takes me prisoner with her tongue; - Aye! and she keeps me--on parole-- - Till paid the ransom of my soul. - - - III. - - I swear the foeman, arm’d for war - From _cap-à-pie_, with many a scar, - More mercy finds for prostrate foe - Than she who deals me never a blow. - - - IV. - - And so ’twill be, this many a day; - She comes to wound, if not to slay. - But in my dreams--in honeyed sleep-- - ’Tis I to smile, and she to weep! - - ERIC MACKAY. - - - - - CHANGED LOVE. - - - When did the change come, dearest Heart of mine, - Whom Love loves so? - When did Love’s moon less brightly seem to shine, - While to and fro, - And soft and slow, - Chill winds began to move in its decline? - - When did the change come, thou who wast mine own? - When heard the rose - First far-off winds begin to moan, - At sunset’s close, - When sad Love goes - About the autumn woods to brood alone? - - When did the change come in thy heart, sweetheart,-- - Thy heart so dear to me? - In what thing did I fail to bear my part,-- - My part to thee, - Whose deity - My soul confesses, and how fair thou art? - - Alas for poor changed Love! We cannot say - What changes Love. - My love would not suffice to make your day - Now gladly move, - Though kisses strove - With answering kisses, in Love’s sweetest way. - - But though I know you changed, right well I know - That should we meet, - Deep in your heart some love for me would glow; - Though not that heat - Which made it beat - So fast with joy two years--_one_ year ago. - - PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. - - - - - SUMMER’S RETURN. - - - Once more I walk mid summer days, as one - Returning to the place where first he met - The face that he till death may not forget; - I know the scent of roses just begun, - And how at evening and at morn the sun - Falls on the places that remember yet - What feet last year within their bounds were set, - And what sweet things were said and dreamt and done. - The sultry silence of the summer night - Recalls to me the loved voice far away; - Oh, surely I shall see some early day, - In places that last year with love were bright, - The face of her I love, and hear the low, - Sweet troubled music of the voice I know. - - PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. - - - - - MINE. - - - In that tranced hush when sound sank awed to rest, - Ere from her spirit’s rose-red, rose-sweet gate - Came forth to me her royal word of fate, - Did she sigh “Yes,” and droop upon my breast, - While round our rapture, dumb, fixed, unexpressed - By the seized senses, there did fluctuate - The plaintive surges of our mortal state, - Tempering the poignant ecstasy too blest. - - Do I wake into a dream, or have we twain, - Lured by soft wiles to some unconscious crime, - Dared joys forbid to man? Oh, Light supreme, - Upon our brows transfiguring glory rain, - Nor let the sword of thy just angel gleam - On two who entered heaven before their time! - - WESTLAND MARSTON. - - - - - AUBADE. - - - When fair Hyperion dons his night attire, - Purple and silver, and his eyes with sleep - Go trembling, and the lids a-kissing keep, - And up he wings the plains of heaven the higher - The starry meadows all uncurl and creep - With twinkling shoots that tremble out and leap - From buds into a blossoming of fire. - - When Spring, with primrose fillet round her brows, - Drifts on the dawn into the hyacinth west, - And flings fresh handfuls hoarded in her nest - Of tasty flowers, to Flora making vows, - The snow leaps down the mountain-side, and, press’d - With weight of leaves, the earth at happiest, - Rills into rivers thick from blossom-boughs. - - When Liris comes sometime at break of day - To take the vervain garlands from the door, - I’ve hung there fresh with dew an hour before, - And chances with soft eyes to look my way, - My heart brims out with love, and crowding o’er, - The passion-songs and rhythms spring and pour, - As storms in June, or blossom-boughs in May. - - THEO. MARZIALS. - - - - - THE PHIAL AND THE PHILTRE. - - - My lady has a casket cut - In scarlet coral, crimson-red; - Like Cupid’s bow, to keep it shut, - Two pouting locks are tightenèd, - In cunning curvings chisellèd. - - Some mighty wizard it did make, - So strong that nothing can undo; - And if you thence would treasure take, - You press your lips the clasping to; - The magic word’s “_I love but you!_” - - You’ll find a row of pearls within, - As pure as scarce come from the sea, - And set the rose and crimson in, - Twinkling with sweetest symmetry,-- - I trow most beautiful to see! - - And eke the clasp ’s so cunning wrought, - That as it opens, treble clear, - There comes a music, glib befraught, - Like silver lutes, that to the ear - As sweet love-ditties do appear. - - And there within, as peach and rose, - And pine and plum, most savoury choice, - Elixirs sweet my Lady stows, - To make the saddest heart rejoice, - Or passionate the poet’s voice. - - A rich soul-philtre, that to sip - I swear must be to drain it dry, - And never take away your lip - Till time has toll’d your time to die, - Yet dying, love eternally. - - THEO. MARZIALS. - - - - - NOT I, SWEET SOUL, NOT I. - - - All glorious as the Rainbow’s birth, - She came in Springtide’s golden hours; - When Heaven went hand-in-hand with Earth, - And May was crowned with buds and flowers. - The mounting devil at my heart - Clomb faintlier, as my life did win - The charmèd heaven she wrought apart, - To wake its better Angel in. - With radiant mien she trode serene, - And passed me smiling by! - Oh! who that looked could help but love? - Not I, sweet soul, not I. - - The dewy eyelids of the Dawn - Ne’er oped such heaven as hers did show: - It seemed her dear eyes might have shone - As jewels in some starry brow. - Her face flashed glory like a shrine - Of lily-bell with sunburst bright, - Where came and went love-thoughts divine, - As low winds walk the leaves in light: - She wore her beauty with the grace - Of Summer’s star-clad sky; - Oh! who that looked could help but love? - Not I, sweet soul, not I. - - Her budding breasts like fragrant fruit - Of love were ripening to be pressed: - Her voice, that shook my heart’s red root, - Might not have broken a Babe’s rest,-- - More liquid than the running brooks, - More vernal than the voice of Spring, - When Nightingales are in their nooks, - And all the leafy thickets ring. - The love she coyly hid at heart - Was shyly conscious in her eye; - Oh! who that looked could help but love? - Not I, sweet soul, not I. - - GERALD MASSEY. - - - - - AT DINNER SHE IS HOSTESS. - - - At dinner she is hostess, I am host. - Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps - The topic over intellectual deeps - In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. - With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball. - It is in truth a most contagious game: - HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name. - Such play as this the devils might appall! - But here’s the greater wonder; in that we, - Enamoured of our acting and our wits, - Admire each other like true hypocrites. - Warm lighted glances, Love’s Ephemeræ, - Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine. - We waken envy of our happy lot. - Fast, sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot. - Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine! - - GEORGE MEREDITH. - - - - - LOVE WITHIN THE LOVER’S BREAST. - - - Love within the lover’s breast - Burns like Hesper in the West, - O’er the ashes of the sun, - Till the day and night are done; - Then, when dawn drives up his car-- - Lo! it is the morning star. - - Love! thy love pours down on mine, - As the sunlight on the vine, - As the snow rill on the vale, - As the salt breeze on the sail; - As the song unto the bird - On my lips thy name is heard. - - As a dewdrop on the rose - In thy heart my passion glows; - As a skylark to the sky, - Up into thy breast I fly; - As a sea-shell of the sea - Ever shall I sing of thee. - - GEORGE MEREDITH. - - - - - A DEAD MARCH. - - - Play me a march low-toned and slow,--a march for a silent tread, - Fit for the wandering feet of one who dreams of the silent dead, - Lonely, between the bones below and the souls that are overhead. - - Here for a while they smiled and sang, alive in the interspace, - Here with the grass beneath the foot, and the stars above the face, - Now are their feet beneath the grass, and whither has flown their grace? - - Who shall assure us whence they come or tell us the way they go? - Verily, life with them was joy, and now they have left us, woe. - Once they were not, and now they are not, and this is the sum we know. - - Orderly range the seasons due, and orderly roll the stars. - How shall we deem the soldier brave who frets of his wounds and scars? - Are we as senseless brutes that we should dash at the well-seen bars? - - No, we are here with feet unfixed, but ever as if with lead - Drawn from the orbs which shine above to the orb on which we tread, - Down to the dust from which we came and with which we shall mingle dead. - - No, we are here to wait and work, and strain our banished eyes, - Weary and sick of soil and toil, and hungry and fain for skies - Far from the reach of wingless men and not to be scaled with cries. - - Why do we mourn the days that go,--for the same sun shines each day, - Ever a spring her primrose hath, and ever a May her may,-- - Sweet as the rose that died last year, is the rose that is born to-day. - - Do we not too return, we men, as ever the round earth whirls? - Never a head is dimmed with gray but another is sunned with curls. - She was a girl and he was a boy, but yet there are boys and girls. - - Ah, but alas for the smile of smiles that never but one face wore! - Ah, for the voice that has flown away like a bird to an unseen shore! - Ah, for the face--the flower of flowers--that blossoms on earth no more! - - COSMO MONKHOUSE. - - - - - FAIR STAR THAT ON THE SHOULDER OF YON HILL. - - - Fair star that on the shoulder of yon hill - Peepest, a little eye of tranquil night, - Come forth. Nor sun nor moon there is to kill - Thy ray with broader light. - Shine, star of eve that art so bright and clear; - Shine, little star, and bring my lover here. - - My lover! oh, fair word for maid to hear! - My lover who was yesterday my friend! - Oh, strange we did not know before how near - Our stream of life smoothed to its fated end! - Shine, star of eve, as Love’s self bright and clear; - Shine, little star, and bring my lover here. - - He comes! I hear the echo of his feet. - He comes! I fear to stay, I cannot go. - O Love, that thou art shame-fast, bitter-sweet; - Mingled with pain, and conversant with woe! - Shine, star of eve, more bright as night draws near; - Shine, little star, and bring my lover here. - - LEWIS MORRIS. - - - - - THY SHADOW, O TARDY NIGHT. - - - Thy shadow, O tardy night, - Creeps onward by valley and hill, - And scarce to my streaming sight - Show the white road-reaches still. - O night, stay now a little, little space, - And let me see the light of my beloved’s face! - - My love is late, O night, - And what has kept him away? - For I know that he takes not delight - In the garish joys of day. - Haste, night, dear night, that bring’st my love to me! - What if his footsteps halt and tarry but for thee! - - Nay, what if his footsteps slide - By the swaying bridge of pine, - And whirled seaward by the tide - Is the loved form I counted mine! - O night, dear night, that comest yet dost not come, - How shall I wait the hour that brings my darling home? - - LEWIS MORRIS. - - - - - THE FIRST LYRIC. - - - Love is enough: though the World be a waning - And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining, - Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover - The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder, - Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder, - And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over, - Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter; - The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter - These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover. - - WILLIAM MORRIS. - - - - - THE CONCLUDING LYRIC. - - - Love is enough: ho, ye who seek saving, - Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it, - And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving; - These know the Cup with the roses around it; - These know the World’s wound and the balm that hath bound it: - Cry out, the World heedeth not, “Love, lead us home!” - - He leadeth, he hearkeneth, he cometh to you-ward; - Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble - Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward: - Lo, his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble! - Lo, his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble! - Cry out, for he heedeth, “O Love, lead us home.” - - Oh, hearken the words of his voice of compassion: - “Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken - Of the weary unrest and the world’s passing fashion! - As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, - But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken, - As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home. - - “Come--pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending! - Come--fear ye shall have, mid the sky’s over-casting! - Come--change ye shall have, for far are ye wending! - Come--no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting - But the kissed lips of Love and fair life ever-lasting! - Cry out, for one heedeth who leadeth you home!” - - Is he gone? was he with us? ho, ye who seek saving, - Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it? - Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving, - Here is the Cup with the roses around it; - The World’s wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it: - Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home. - - WILLIAM MORRIS. - - - - - BESIDE A BIER. - - - I had never kissed her her whole life long,-- - Now I stand by her bier, does she feel - How with love that the waiting years made strong, - I set on her lips my seal? - - Will she wear my kiss in the grave’s long night, - And wake sometimes with a thrill, - From dreams of the old life’s missed delight, - To feel that the grave is chill? - - “It was warm,” will she say, “in that world above; - It was warm, but I did not know - How he loved me there, with his whole life’s love,-- - It is cold down here below.” - - LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. - - - - - HEREAFTER. - - - In after years a twilight ghost shall fill - With shadowy presence all thy waiting room: - From lips of air thou canst not kiss the bloom; - Yet at old kisses will thy pulses thrill, - And the old longing that thou couldst not kill, - Feeling her presence in the gathering gloom, - Will mock thee with the hopelessness of doom, - While she stands there and smiles, serene and still. - - Thou canst not vex her, then, with passion’s pain: - Call, and the silence will thy call repeat; - But she will smile there, with cold lips and sweet, - Forgetful of old tortures, and the chain - That once she wore, the tears she wept in vain, - At passing from her threshold of thy feet. - - LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. - - - - - FORTUNIO’S SONG. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF ALFRED DE MUSSET. - - - Comrades! in vain ye seek to learn - For whom I burn; - Not for a kingdom would I dare - Her name declare. - - But we will chant in chorus still,-- - If so you will,-- - That she I love is blonde and sweet, - As blades of wheat. - - Whate’er her wayward fancies ask - Becomes my task; - Should she my very life demand, - ’Tis in her hand. - - The pain of passion unrevealed - Can scarce be healed: - Such pain within my heart I bear, - To my despair: - - Nathless I love her all too well - Her name to tell; - And I would sooner die than e’er - Her name declare. - - GEORGE MURRAY. - - - - - SPLENDIDE MENDAX. - - - When God some day shall call my name - And scorch me with a blaze of shame, - Bringing to light my inmost thought - And all the evil I have wrought, - - Tearing away the veils I wove - To hide my foulness from my love, - And leaving my transgressions bare - To the whole heaven’s clear, cold air-- - - When all the angels weep to see - The branded outcast soul of me, - One saint at least will hide her face,-- - She will not look at my disgrace. - - “At least, O God, O God Most High, - He loved me truly!” she will cry, - And God will pause before He send - My soul to find its fitting end. - - Then, lest heaven’s light should leave her face - To think one loved her and was base, - I will speak out at judgment day,-- - “I never loved her!” I will say. - - E. NESBIT. - - - - - THE KISS. - - - The snow is white on wood and wold, - The wind is in the firs, - So dead my heart is with the cold, - No pulse within it stirs, - Even to see your face, my dear, - Your face that was my sun; - There is no spring this bitter year, - And summer’s dreams are done. - - The snakes that lie about my heart - Are in their wintry sleep; - Their fangs no more deal sting and smart, - No more they curl and creep. - Love with the summer ceased to be; - The frost is firm and fast. - God keep the summer far from me, - And let the snakes’ sleep last! - - Touch of your hand could not suffice - To waken them once more; - Nor could the sunshine of your eyes - A ruined spring restore. - But ah--your lips! You know the rest: - The snows are summer rain, - My eyes are wet, and in my breast - The snakes’ fangs meet again. - - E. NESBIT. - - - - - THE MILL. - - - The wheel goes round, the wheel goes round - With drip and whir and plash, - It keeps all green the grassy ground, - The alder, beech, and ash. - The ferns creep out mid mosses cool, - Forget-me-nots are found - Blue in the shadow by the pool-- - And still the wheel goes round. - - Round goes the wheel, round goes the wheel, - The foam is white like cream, - The merry waters dance and reel - Along the stony stream. - The little garden of the mill, - It is enchanted ground, - I smell its stocks and wall-flowers still, - And still the wheel goes round. - - The wheel goes round, the wheel goes round, - And life’s wheel too must go,-- - But all their clamour has not drowned - A voice I used to know. - Her window’s blank. The garden’s bare - As her chill new-made mound, - But still my heart’s delight is there, - And still the wheel goes round. - - E. NESBIT. - - - - - A PASTORAL. - - - My love and I among the mountains strayed, - When heaven and earth in summer heat were still, - Aware anon that at our feet were laid, - Within a sunny hollow of the hill, - A long-haired shepherd lover and a maid. - - They saw nor heard us, who a space above, - With hands clasped close as hers were clasped in his, - Marked how the gentle golden sunlight strove - To play about their leaf-crowned curls, and kiss - Their burnished slender limbs, half-barèd to his love. - - But grave or pensive seemed the boy to grow, - For while upon the grass unfingered lay - The slim twin-pipes, he ever watched with slow - Dream-laden looks the ridge that far away - Surmounts the sleeping midsummer with snow. - - These things we saw; moreover we could hear - The girl’s soft voice of laughter, grown more bold - With the utter noonday silence, sweet and clear: - “Why dost thou think? By thinking one grows old. - Wouldst thou for all the world be old, my dear?” - - Here my love turned to me, but her eyes told - Her thought with smiles before she spoke a word; - And being quick their meaning to behold, - I could not chuse but echo what we heard: - “Sweetheart, wouldst thou for all the world be old?” - - J. B. B. NICHOLS. - - - - - VIGILATE ITAQUE. - - - The restless years that come and go, - The cruel years so swift and slow, - Once in our lives perchance will show - What they can give that we may know; - - Too soon perchance, or else too late; - We may look back or we may wait; - The years are incompassionate, - And who shall touch the robe of fate? - - Once only; haply if we keep - Watch with our lamps and do not sleep, - Our eyes shall, when the night is deep, - Behold the bridegroom’s face,--and weep. - - Alas! for better far it were - That Love were heedless of our prayer - Than that his glory he should bare - And show himself to our despair. - - Better to wander till we die - And never come the door anigh, - Than weeping sore without to lie - And get no answer to our cry. - - O child! the night is cold and blind, - The way is rough with rain and wind, - Narrow and steep and hard to find; - But I have found thee--love, be kind. - - J. B. B. NICHOLS. - - - - - THE HORIZON. - - - Oh, would, oh, would that thou and I, - Now this brief day of love is past, - Could toward the sunset straightway fly, - And fold our wearied wings at last - There, where the sea-line meets the sky. - - A sweet thing and a strange ’twould be - Thus, thus to break our prison bars, - And know that we at last were free - As voiceful waves and silent stars,-- - There, where the sky-line meets the sea. - - But vain the longing! thou and I, - As we have been must ever be, - Yet thither, wind, oh, waft my sigh, - There where the sky-line meets the sea,-- - There where the sea-line meets the sky. - - JAMES ASHCROFT NOBLE. - - - - - SHADOWS. - - - Azure of sky and silver of cloud - In the deep dark water show, - Amber of field and emerald of wood - That were pictured long ago. - - Here, as of old, the beauty above, - And its shadow there below; - Why was their message jubilant then, - And their meaning now but woe? - - Nay, not the same, O fool, as of yore! - These be other leaves that grow, - Other the harvests, other the waves; - Other the breezes that blow. - - Sameness in sooth, but difference too; - And a simple change I know, - Within beholder, without in scene, - It may alter meaning so! - - Shadow of her who looked down with me, - In the depths so long ago-- - Were all your archness glimmering there, - Would the picture breathe but woe? - - JOSEPH O’CONNOR. - - - - - A FAREWELL. - - - Hath any loved you well down there, - Summer or winter through? - Down there, have you found any fair - Laid in the grave with you? - Is death’s long kiss a richer kiss - Than mine was wont to be? - Or have you gone to some far bliss, - And quite forgotten me? - - What soft enamouring of sleep - Hath you in some soft way? - What charmed death holdeth you with deep - Strange lure by night and day? - A little space below the grass, - Out of the sun and shade; - But worlds away from me, alas! - Down there where you are laid! - - My bright hair’s waved and wasted gold, - What is it now to thee - Whether the rose-red life I hold - Or white death holdeth me? - Down there you love the grave’s own green, - And evermore you rave - Of some sweet seraph you have seen - Or dreamed of in the grave. - - There you shall lie as you have lain, - Though in the world above - Another live your life again, - Loving again your love; - Is it not sweet beneath the palm? - Is not the warm day rife - With some long mystic golden calm - Better than love and life? - - The broad quaint odorous leaves, like hands - Weaving the fair day through, - Weave sleep no burnished bird withstands, - While death weaves sleep for you; - And many a strange rich breathing sound - Ravishes morn and noon; - And in that place you must have found - Death a delicious swoon. - - Hold me no longer for a word - I used to say or sing; - Ah! long ago you must have heard - So many a sweeter thing: - For rich earth must have reached your heart, - And turned the faith to flowers; - And warm wind stolen, part by part, - Your soul through faithless hours. - - And many a soft seed must have won - Soil of some yielding thought, - To bring a bloom up to the sun - That else had ne’er been brought; - And doubtless many a passionate hue - Hath made that place more fair, - Making some passionate part of you - Faithless to me down there. - - ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY. - - - - - SONG. - - - Has summer come without the rose, - Or left the bird behind? - Is the blue changed above thee, - O world! or am I blind? - Will you change every flower that grows, - Or only change this spot, - Where she who said, I love thee, - Now says, I love thee not? - - The skies seemed true above thee, - The rose true on the tree; - The bird seemed true the summer through, - But all proved false to me. - World, is there one good thing in you, - Life, love, or death--or what? - Since lips that sang, I love thee, - Have said, I love thee not? - - I think the sun’s kiss will scarce fall - Into one flower’s gold cup; - I think the bird will miss me, - And give the summer up. - O sweet place! desolate in tall - Wild grass, have you forgot - How her lips loved to kiss me - Now that they kiss me not? - - Be false or fair above me, - Come back with any face, - Summer! do I care what you do? - You cannot change one place-- - The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew, - The grave I make this spot-- - Here, where she used to love me, - Here, where she loves me not. - - ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY. - - - - - SUPREME SUMMER. - - - O heart full of song in the sweet song-weather, - A voice fills each bower, a wing shakes each tree, - Come forth, O winged singer, on song’s fairest feather, - And make a sweet fame of my love and of me. - - The blithe world shall ever have fair loving leisure, - And long is the summer for bird and for bee; - But too short the summer and too keen the pleasure - Of me kissing her and of her kissing me. - - Songs shall not cease of the hills and the heather; - Songs shall not fail of the land and the sea: - But, O heart, if you sing not while we are together, - What man shall remember my love or me? - - Some million of summers hath been and not known her, - Hath known and forgotten loves less fair than she; - But one summer knew her, and grew glad to own her, - And made her its flower, and gave her to me. - - And she and I loving, on earth seem to sever - Some part of the great blue from heaven each day: - I know that the heaven and the earth are for ever, - But that which we take shall with us pass away. - - And that which she gives me shall be for no lover - In any new love-time, the world’s lasting while; - The world, when it looses, shall never recover - The gold of her hair nor the sun of her smile. - - A tree grows in heaven, where no season blanches - Or stays the new fruit through the long golden clime; - My love reaches up, takes a fruit from its branches, - And gives it to me to be mine for all time. - - What care I for other fruits, fed with new fire, - Plucked down by new lovers in fair future line? - The fruit that I have is the thing I desire, - To live of and die of,--the sweet she makes mine. - - And she and I loving, are king of one summer - And queen of one summer to gather and glean: - The world is for us what no fair future comer - Shall find it or dream it could ever have been. - - The earth, as we lie on its bosom, seems pressing - A heart up to bear us and mix with our heart; - The blue, as we wonder, drops down a great blessing - That soothes us and fills us and makes the tears start. - - The summer is full of strange hundredth-year flowers, - That breathe all their lives the warm air of our love, - And never shall know a love other than ours - Till once more some phœnix-star flowers above. - - The silver cloud passing is friend of our loving; - The sea, never knowing this year from last year, - Is thick with fair words, between roaring and soughing, - For her and me only to gather and hear. - - Yea, the life that we lead now is better and sweeter, - I think, than shall be in the world by and bye; - For those days, be they longer or fewer or fleeter, - I will not exchange on the day that I die. - - I shall die when the rose-tree about and above me - Her red kissing mouth seems hath kissed summer through: - I shall die on the day that she ceases to love me-- - But that will not be till the day she dies too. - - Then, fall on us, dead leaves of our dear roses, - And ruins of summer fall on us erelong, - And hide us away where our dead year reposes; - Let all that we leave in the world be--a song. - - And, O song that I sing now while we are together, - Go, sing to some new year of women and men, - How I and she loved in the long loving weather, - And ask if they love on as we two loved then. - - ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY. - - - - - AS ONE WOULD STAND WHO SAW A SUDDEN LIGHT. - - - As one would stand who saw a sudden light - Flood down the world, and so encompass him, - And in that world illumined Seraphim - Brooded above and gladdened to his sight; - So stand I in the flame of one great thought, - That broadens to my soul from where she waits, - Who, yesterday, drew wide the inner gates - Of all my being to the hopes I sought. - Her words come to me like a summer-song, - Blown from the throat of some sweet nightingale; - I stand within her light the whole day long, - And think upon her till the white stars fail: - I lift my head towards all that makes life wise, - And see no farther than my lady’s eyes. - - GILBERT PARKER. - - - - - DEPARTURE. - - - It was not like your great and gracious ways! - Do you, that have nought other to lament, - Never, my Love, repent - Of how, that July afternoon, - You went, - With sudden, unintelligible phrase, - And frighten’d eye, - Upon your journey of so many days, - Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? - I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; - And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays, - You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, - Your harrowing praise. - Well, it was well, - To hear you such things speak, - And I could tell - What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, - As a warm south-wind sombres a March grove. - And it was like your great and gracious ways - To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, - Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash - To let the laughter flash, - Whilst I drew near, - Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. - But all at once to leave me at the last, - More at the wonder than the loss aghast, - With huddled, unintelligible phrase, - And frighten’d eye, - And go your journey of all days - With not one kiss, or a good-bye, - And the only loveless look the look with which you passed: - ’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. - - COVENTRY PATMORE. - - - - - CADENCES. - - - MINOR. - - - I. - - The ancient memories buried lie, - And the olden fancies pass; - The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly, - And die as the April cowslips die - That scatter the bloomy grass. - - - II. - - All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead, - And the happy blossoming spring; - The winter comes with its iron tread, - The fields with the dying sun are red, - And the birds have ceased to sing. - - - III. - - I trace the steps on the wasted strand - Of the vanished springtime’s feet: - Withered and dead is our Fairyland, - For Love and Death go hand in hand-- - Go hand in hand, my sweet! - - - MAJOR. - - - I. - - Oh, what shall be the burden of our rhyme, - And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime? - Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long: - We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song. - - - II. - - O lady of my summer and my spring, - We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing, - And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet, - When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet. - - - III. - - We shall see the roses blowing in the green, - The pink-lipped roses kissing in the golden summer sheen; - We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold, - And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crowned wold. - - - IV. - - The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain; - There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain; - But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together, - And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympian weather. - - JOHN PAYNE. - - - - - CHANT ROYAL OF THE GOD OF LOVE. - - - I. - - O most fair God, O Love both new and old, - That wast before the flowers of morning blew, - Before the glad sun in his mail of gold - Leapt into light across the first day’s dew; - That art the first and last of our delight, - That in the blue day and the purple night - Holdest the hearts of servant and of king, - Lord of liesse, sovran of sorrowing, - That in thy hand hast heaven’s golden key - And hell beneath the shadow of thy wing, - Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee! - - - II. - - What thing rejects thy mastery? Who so bold - But at thine altars in the dusk they sue? - Even the straight pale goddess, silver-stoled, - That kissed Endymion when the spring was new, - To thee did homage in her own despite, - When in the shadow of her wings of white - She slid down trembling from her moonèd ring - To where the Latmian boy lay slumbering, - And in that kiss put off cold chastity. - Who but acclaim with voice and pipe and string, - “Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!” - - - III. - - Master of men and gods, in every fold - Of thy wide vans the sorceries that renew - The labouring earth, tranced with the winter’s cold, - Lie hid--the quintessential charms that woo - The souls of flowers, slain with the sullen might - Of the dead year, and draw them to the light. - Balsam and blessing to thy garments cling; - Skyward and seaward, when thy white hands fling - Their spells of healing over land and sea, - One shout of homage makes the welkin ring, - “Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!” - - - IV. - - I see thee throned aloft; thy fair hands hold - Myrtles for joy, and euphrasy and rue: - Laurels and roses round thy white brows rolled, - And in thine eyes the royal heaven’s hue: - But in thy lips’ clear colour, ruddy bright, - The heart’s blood shines of many a hapless wight. - Thou art not only fair and sweet as spring; - Terror and beauty, fear and wondering - Meet on thy brow, amazing all that see: - All men do praise thee, ay, and everything; - Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee! - - - V. - - I fear thee, though I love. Who can behold - The sheer sun burning in the orbèd blue, - What while the noontide over hill and wold - Flames like a fire, except his mazèd view - Wither and tremble? So thy splendid sight - Fills me with mingled gladness and affright. - Thy visage haunts me in the wavering - Of dreams, and in the dawn awakening, - I feel thy radiance streaming full on me. - Both fear and joy unto thy feet I bring; - Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee! - - - ENVOY. - - God above Gods, High and Eternal King, - To whom the spheral symphonies do sing, - I find no whither from thy power to flee, - Save in thy pinions vast o’ershadowing. - Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee! - - JOHN PAYNE. - - - - - FALSE SPRING. - - - O birds, ’twas not well done of you! - O flowers and breeze, right well ye knew - The weary glamour that the spring - Had laid for me on every thing. - ’Twas but to bring me back again - The memory of the olden pain, - You lured me out with songs of birds, - With violet breath and fair false words! - - For lo! my feet had hardly passed - The woven band of flowerage, cast - Betwixt the meadows and the trees, - When, in the bird-songs and the breeze, - Another strain was taken up; - And out of every blue-bell’s cup - The mocking voices sang again - The olden songs of love and pain. - - The flowers did mimic the old grace; - The wan white windflowers wore her face; - And in the stream I heard her words; - Her voice came rippling from the birds. - Dead love, I saw thy form anew - Bend down among the violets blue, - And, like a mist, the memory - Of all the past came back to me. - - JOHN PAYNE. - - - - - IN JUNE. - - - So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing, - So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see; - So blithe and gay the humming-bird a-going - From flower to flower, a-hunting with the bee. - - So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes, - The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere; - So sweet the water’s song through reeds and rushes, - The plover’s piping note, now here, now there. - - So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover - The west wind blowing, blowing up the hill; - So sweet, so sweet with news of some one’s lover, - Fleet footsteps, singing nearer, nearer still. - - So near, so near, now listen, listen, thrushes; - Now, plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear; - And, water, hush your song through reeds and rushes, - That I may know whose lover cometh near. - - So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling, - Plover or blackbird never heeding me; - So loud the millstream too kept fretting, falling, - O’er bar and bank in brawling, boisterous glee. - - So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush nor plover, - Nor noisy millstream, in its fret and fall, - Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover, - My lover calling through the thrushes’ call. - - “Come down, come down!” he called, and straight the thrushes - From mate to mate sang all at once, “Come down!” - And while the water laughed through reeds and rushes, - The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, “Come down!” - - Then down and off, and through the fields of clover, - I followed, followed at my lover’s call; - Listening no more to blackbird, thrush or plover, - The water’s laugh, the millstream’s fret and fall. - - NORA PERRY. - - - - - A SONG OF WINTER. - - - Barb’d blossom of the guarded gorse, - I love thee where I see thee shine: - Thou sweetener of our common ways, - And brightener of our wintry days. - - Flower of the gorse, the rose is dead, - Thou art undying, oh, be mine! - Be mine with all thy thorns, and prest - Close on a heart that asks not rest. - - I pluck thee, and thy stigma set - Upon my breast and on my brow; - Blow, buds, and ’plenish so my wreath - That none may know the wounds beneath. - - O crown of thorn that seem’st of gold, - No festal coronal art thou; - Thy honey’d blossoms are but hives - That guard the growth of wingèd lives. - - I saw thee in the time of flowers - As sunshine spill’d upon the land, - Or burning bushes all ablaze - With sacred fire; but went my ways. - - I went my ways, and as I went - Pluck’d kindlier blooms on either hand; - Now of those blooms so passing sweet - None lives to stay my passing feet. - - And still thy lamp upon the hill - Feeds on the autumn’s dying sigh, - And from thy midst comes murmuring - A music sweeter than in spring. - - Barb’d blossoms of the guarded gorse, - Be mine to wear until I die, - And mine the wounds of love which still - Bear witness to his human will. - - EMILY PFEIFFER. - - - - - TO A LOST LOVE. - - - I cannot look upon thy grave, - Though there the rose is sweet: - Better to hear the long wave wash - These wastes about my feet! - - Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live - A spirit, though afar, - With a deep hush about thee, like - The stillness round a star? - - Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere - Thou art a thing apart, - Losing in saner happiness - This madness of the heart. - - And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel - A passing breath, a pain; - Disturb’d, as though a door in heaven - Had sped and closed again. - - And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns - The solemn hymns, shall cease; - A moment half remember me: - Then turn away in peace. - - But oh! forevermore thy look, - Thy laugh, thy charm, thy tone, - Thy sweet and wayward loveliness, - Dear trivial things are gone! - - Therefore I look not on thy grave, - Though there the rose is sweet; - But rather hear the loud wave wash - These wastes about my feet. - - STEPHEN PHILLIPS. - - - - - PRINCE OF PAINTERS, COME, I PRAY. - - - Prince of painters, come, I pray, - Paint my love, for, though away, - King of craftsmen, you can well - Paint what I to thee can tell. - First her hair you must indite - Dark, but soft as summer night; - Hast thou no contrivance whence - To make it breathe its frankincense? - Rising from her rounded cheek - Let thy pencil duly speak, - How below that purpling night - Glows her forehead ivory-white. - Mind you neither part nor join - Those sweet eyebrows’ easy line; - They must merge, you know, to be - In separated unity. - Painter draw, as lover bids, - Now the dark line of the lids; - Painter, now ’tis my desire, - Make her glance from very fire, - Make it as Athene’s blue, - Like Cythera’s liquid too; - Now to give her cheeks and nose, - Milk must mingle with the rose; - Her lips be like persuasion’s made, - To call for kisses they persuade; - And for her delicious chin, - O’er and under and within, - And round her soft neck’s Parian wall, - Bid fly the graces, one and all. - For the rest, enrobe my pet - In her faint clear violet; - But a little truth must show - There is more that lies below, - Hold! thou hast her--that is she. - Hush! she ’s going to speak to me. - - WILLIAM PHILPOT. - - - - - A LAGOON MESSAGE. - - - Not now, but later, when the road - We tread together breaks apart, - When thou, my dearest, distant art, - And tedious days have swelled the load - Upon my heart. - - Or haply after that, when I - Am sealed within an earthy bed, - Resting and unrememberèd, - This scene will speak and easily - The whole be said. - - Some eve, when from his burning chair - The sun below Fusina slips, - And all the sable poplar tips - Wave in the warm vermilion air, - The wind, the lips - - Of the soft breeze with wayward touch - Shall tell thee all I longed to own; - And thou, on lurid lakes alone, - Wilt say: “Poor soul, he loved me much; - And he is gone.” - - PERCY C. PINKERTON. - - - - - A CONQUEST. - - - I found him openly wearing her token; - I knew that her troth could never be broken; - I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword, - He did the same, and he spoke no word; - He faced me with his villainy; - He laughed and said, “She gave it me.” - We searched for seconds, they soon were found; - They measured our swords; they measured the ground: - They held to the deadly work too fast; - They thought to gain our place at last. - We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood, - The fair white snow was red with his blood; - But his was the victory, for, as he died, - He swore by the rood that he had not lied. - - WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. - - - - - THE DEVOUT LOVER. - - - It is not mine to sing the stately grace, - The great soul beaming in my lady’s face; - To write no sounding odes to me is given - Wherein her eyes outshine the stars in heaven. - - Not mine in flowing melodies to tell - The thousand beauties that I know so well; - Not mine to serenade her ev’ry tress, - And sit and sigh my love in idleness. - - But mine it is to follow in her train, - Do her behests in pleasure or in pain, - Burn at her altar love’s sweet frankincense, - And worship her in distant reverence. - - WALTER HERRIES POLLOCK. - - - - - BALLADE OF LOVERS. - - - For the man was she made by the Eden tree, - To be decked in soft raiment and worn on his sleeve, - To be fondled so long as they both agree,-- - A thing to take, or a thing to leave. - But for her, let her live through one long summer eve-- - Just the stars, and the moon, and the man, and she-- - And her soul will escape her beyond reprieve, - And, alas! the whole of her world is he. - - To-morrow brings plenty as lovesome, maybe; - If she break when he handles her, why should he grieve? - She is only one pearl in a pearl-crowded sea,-- - A thing to take, or a thing to leave. - But she, though she knows he has kissed to deceive, - And forsakes her, still only clings on at his knee-- - When life has gone, what further loss can bereave? - And, alas! the whole of her world is he. - - For the man was she made upon Eden lea, - To be helpmeet what time there is burden to heave, - White-footed, to follow where he walks free,-- - A thing to take, or a thing to leave; - White-fingered, to weave and to interweave - Her woof with his warp, and a tear two or three, - Till clear his way out through her web he cleave, - And, alas! the whole of her world is he. - - - ENVOI. - - Did he own her no more when he called her Eve, - Than a thing to take, or a thing to leave? - A flower-filled plot that unlocks to his key-- - But, alas! the whole of her world is he. - - MAY PROBYN. - - - - - IN A GARDEN. - - - The cowslip glowed, the tulip burned, - The grass was green as green could be; - There, as in sweet content we turned, - Beneath the budding linden-tree, - We saw the westering sunbeams shake - Large glory o’er the mountain lake. - - The cushat cooed, the blackbird’s cry - About the terrace garden rang; - Still as we wooed, my love and I, - The throstle still enraptured sang, - And still the waters danced with glee, - Beneath the budding linden-tree. - - The tulips trembled still with flame, - The cowslips gleamed along the walk, - Yet, dear one, when the last word came, - And silence only seemed to talk, - We looked and found the lake was gone, - Flowers dim, birds hushed, and one star shone. - - Beloved! by many an up and down, - O’er level lawns, unlevel ways, - Through weeds and flowers, when birds had flown - And when birds sang, have passed the days - Since our new dawn forbade the night; - But lo! o’erhead Love’s star is bright. - - HARDWICK DRUMMOND RAWNSLEY. - - - - - A SONG FOR CANDLEMAS. - - - There’s never a rose upon the bush, - And never a bud on any tree; - In wood and field nor hint nor sign - Of one green thing for you of me. - Come in, come in, sweet love of mine, - And let the bitter weather be. - - Coated with ice the garden wall, - The river reeds are stark and still; - The wind goes plunging to the sea, - And last week’s flakes the hollows fill. - Come in, come in, sweet love, to me, - And let the year blow as it will. - - LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE. - - - - - A DREAM OF DIANA. - - - In dream I saw Diana pass, Diana as of old, - Across the green wood radiantly, attired in green and gold; - With spear alert, with eyes afire, as they had seen the sun, - And gave its glances back again, with brightness of their own. - No human maid is she, I thought, who there so lightly fares - Upon her sylvan empery, afar from our pale cares. - - She passed, and left me to that thought, who felt the sadder then - That only once, and not again, she might be seen of men; - Though constantly, by lawn and wood, and hanging mountain-side, - My restless eye might dare to hunt the huntress in her pride. - Without her all was lonely grown; I had no liking left - For fern or foxglove bloom, of her bright grace bereft. - - And in that taking, in a bed of softest fern I lay, - And found no joy of woodcraft left, the livelong summer day; - When lo! at eve, a silvery horn, a questing hound, a cry, - And swift, Diana came again, and sat her down thereby; - And then I saw those radiant eyes were full of perfect rest, - And found beneath the goddess there the woman’s softer breast. - - ERNEST RHYS. - - - - - WHEN SHE COMES HOME. - - - When she comes home again! A thousand ways - I fashion, to myself, the tenderness - Of my glad welcome. I shall tremble--yes; - And touch her, as when first in the old days - I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise - Mine eyes, such was my faint heart’s sweet distress. - Then silence, and the perfume of her dress: - The room will sway a little, and a haze - Cloy eyesight--soul-sight, even--for a space: - And tears--yes; and the ache here in the throat, - To know that I so ill deserve the place - Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note - I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face - Again is hidden in the old embrace. - - JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. - - - - - POPLAR LEAVES. - - - The wind blows down the dusty street; - And through my soul that grieves - It brings a sudden odour sweet, - A smell of poplar leaves. - - O leaves that herald in the spring, - O freshness young and pure, - Into my weary soul you bring - The vigour to endure. - - The wood is near but out of sight, - Where all the poplars grow; - Straight up and tall and silver white, - They quiver in a row. - - My love is out of sight, but near; - And through my soul that grieves - A sudden memory wafts her here - As fresh as poplar leaves. - - A. MARY F. ROBINSON. - - - - - AFTER DEATH. - - - The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept - And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may - Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, - Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. - He leaned above me, thinking that I slept - And could not hear him; but I heard him say, - “Poor child, poor child!” and as he turned away - Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. - He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold - That hid my face, or take my hand in his, - Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: - He did not love me living; but once dead - He pitied me; and very sweet it is - To know he still is warm, though I am cold. - - CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. - - - - - SOMEWHERE OR OTHER. - - - Somewhere or other there must surely be - The face not seen, the voice not heard, - The heart that not yet--never yet--ah me! - Made answer to my word. - - Somewhere or other, may be near or far; - Past land and sea, clean out of sight; - Beyond the wandering moon, beyond the star - That tracks her night by night. - - Somewhere or other, may be far or near; - With just a wall, a hedge between; - With just the last leaves of the dying year - Fallen on a turf grown green. - - CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. - - - - - FIRST LOVE REMEMBERED. - - - Peace in her chamber, wheresoe’er - It be, a holy place: - The thought still brings my soul such grace - As morning meadows wear. - - Whether it still be small and light, - A maid’s who dreams alone, - As from her orchard-gate the moon - Its ceiling showed at night: - - Or whether, in a shadow dense - As nuptial hymns invoke, - Innocent maidenhood awoke - To married innocence: - - Then still the thanks unheard await - The unconscious gift bequeathed; - For there my soul this hour has breathed - An air inviolate. - - DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. - - - - - LOVE ENTHRONED. - - - I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:-- - Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast; - And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past - To signal-fires, Oblivion’s flight to scare; - And Youth, with still some single golden hair - Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last - Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast; - And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear. - - Love’s throne was not with these; but far above - All passionate wind of welcome and farewell - He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of; - Though Truth foreknow Love’s heart, and Hope foretell, - And Fame be for Love’s sake desirable, - And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love. - - DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. - - - - - SUDDEN LIGHT. - - - I have been here before, - But when or how I cannot tell: - I know the grass beyond the door, - The sweet keen smell, - The sighing sound, the lights around the shore. - - You have been mine before,-- - How long ago I may not know: - But just when at that swallow’s soar - Your neck turned so, - Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore. - - Has this been thus before? - And shall not thus time’s eddying flight - Still with our lives our loves restore - In death’s despite, - And day and night yield one delight once more? - - DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. - - - - - A PERFECT DAY. - - - Bland air and leagues of immemorial blue; - No subtlest hint of whitening rime or cold; - A revel of rich colours, hue on hue, - From radiant crimson to soft shades of gold. - - A vagueness in the undulant hill line, - The flutter of a bird’s south-soaring wing; - Æolian harmonies in groves of pine, - And glad brook laughter like the mirth of spring. - - A sense of gracious calm afar and near, - And yet a something wanting,--one fine ray - For consummation. Love, were you but here, - Then were the day indeed a perfect day. - - CLINTON SCOLLARD. - - - - - RUS IN URBE. - - - Poets are singing, the whole world over, - Of May in melody, joys for June; - Dusting their feet in the careless clover, - And filling their hearts with the blackbird’s tune. - The “brown bright nightingale” strikes with pity - The sensitive heart of a count or clown; - But where is the song for our leafy city, - And where the rhymes for our lovely town? - - “Oh for the Thames and its rippling reaches, - Where almond rushes and breezes sport! - Take me a walk under Burnham Beeches; - Give me a dinner at Hampton Court!” - Poets, be still, though your hearts I harden; - We’ve flowers by day, and have scents at dark; - The limes are in leaf in the cockney garden, - And lilacs blossom in Regent’s Park. - - “Come for a blow,” says a reckless fellow, - Burn’d red and brown by passionate sun; - “Come to the downs, where the gorse is yellow - The season of kisses has just begun! - Come to the fields where bluebells shiver, - Hear cuckoo’s carol, or plaint of dove: - Come for a row on the silent river; - Come to the meadows and learn to love!” - - Yes, I will come when this wealth is over - Of softened colour and perfect tone: - The lilac’s better than fields of clover; - I’ll come when blossoming May has flown. - When dust and dirt of a trampled city - Have dragged the yellow laburnum down, - I’ll take my holiday,--more’s the pity,-- - And turn my back upon London town. - - Margaret! am I so wrong to love it, - This misty town that your face shines through? - A crown of blossom is waved above it; - But heart and life of the whirl--’tis you! - Margaret! pearl! I have sought and found you; - And though the paths of the wind are free, - I’ll follow the ways of the world around you, - And build my nest on the nearest tree. - - CLEMENT SCOTT. - - - - - SONG. - - - Love in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me! - Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme. - What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! - Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream! - - What if he changeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! - Oh, can the waters be void of the wind? - What if he wendeth afar and apart from me, - What if he leave me to perish behind? - - What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! - A flame i’ the dusk, a breath of Desire? - Nay, my sweet Love is the heart and the soul of me, - And I am the innermost heart of his fire! - - Love in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me! - Love is my tyrant, Love is supreme. - What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! - Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream! - - WILLIAM SHARP. - - - - - THE COMING OF LOVE. - - - In and out the osier beds, all along the shallows, - Lifts and laughs the soft south wind, or swoons among the grasses. - But, ah! whose following feet are these that bend the tall marsh-mallows? - Who laughs so low and sweet? Who sighs--and passes? - - Flower of my heart, my darling, why so slowly - Lift’st thou thine eyes to mine, sweet wells of gladness? - Too deep this new-found joy, and this new pain too holy; - Or is there dread in thine heart of this divinest madness? - - Who sighs with longing there? who laughs alow--and passes? - Whose following feet are these that bend the tall marsh-mallows? - Who comes upon the wind that stirs the heavy seeding grasses - In and out the osier beds, and hither through the shallows? - - Flower of my heart, my Dream, who whispers near so gladly? - Whose is the golden sunshine-net o’erspread for capture? - Lift, lift thine eyes to mine, who love so wildly, madly-- - Those eyes of brave desire, deep wells o’er-brimmed with rapture. - - WILLIAM SHARP. - - - - - RECALL. - - - “Love me, or I am slain!” I cried, and meant - Bitterly true each word. Nights, morns, slipped by, - Moons, circling suns, yet still alive am I; - But shame to me, if my best time be spent. - - On this perverse, blind passion! Are we sent - Upon a planet just to mate and die, - A man no more than some pale butterfly - That yields his day to nature’s sole intent? - - Or is my life but Marguerite’s ox-eyed flower, - That I should stand and pluck and fling away, - One after one, the petal of each hour, - Like a love-dreamy girl, and only say, - “Loves me,” and “loves me not,” and “loves me”? Nay! - Let the man’s mind awake to manhood’s power. - - EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. - - - - - FANTASIA. - - - We’re all alone, we’re all alone! - The moon and stars are dead and gone; - The night’s at deep, the wind asleep, - And thou and I are all alone! - - What care have we though life there be? - Tumult and life are not for me! - Silence and sleep about us creep; - Tumult and life are not for thee! - - How late it is since such as this - Had topped the height of breathing bliss! - And now we keep an iron sleep,-- - In that grave thou, and I in this! - - HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. - - - - - ONLY A LEAF. - - - When the late leaves lit all the place, - He left her with her ashen face; - “We shall not meet!” he lightly cried; - “Good-bye, sweetheart, the world is wide.” - - Though bright the sunshine on that day, - Though the bare boughs around her lay, - She thought in blackened shadow stood - The melancholy autumn wood. - - She bent, and lifted from the sod - A leaf whereon his foot had trod,-- - An idle leaf, but dead and sere, - It held the heart’s blood of a year! - - HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. - - - - - SONG FROM A DRAMA. - - - I know not if moonlight or starlight - Be soft on the land or the sea,-- - I catch but the near light, the far light, - Of eyes that are burning for me; - The scent of the night, of the roses, - May burden the air for thee, sweet,-- - ’Tis only the breath of thy sighing - I know, as I lie at thy feet. - - The winds may be sobbing or singing, - Their touch may be fervent or cold, - The night-bells may toll or be ringing,-- - I care not, while thee I enfold! - The feast may go on, and the music - Be scattered in ecstasy round,-- - Thy whisper, “I love thee! I love thee!” - Hath flooded my soul with its sound. - - I think not of time that is flying, - How short is the hour I have won, - How near is this living to dying, - How the shadow still follows the sun; - There is naught upon earth, no desire, - Worth a thought, though ’twere had by a sign! - I love thee! I love thee! bring nigher - Thy spirit, thy kisses to mine. - - EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. - - - - - THE VIOLET. - - - Oh! faint delicious spring-time violet, - Thine odour, like a key, - Turns noiselessly in memory’s wards to let - A thought of sorrow free. - - The breath of distant fields upon my brow - Blows through that open door - The sound of wind-borne bells more sweet and low - And sadder than of yore. - - It comes afar from that beloved place, - And that beloved hour, - When Life hung ripening in Love’s golden grace, - Like grapes above a bower. - - A spring goes singing through its reedy grass, - The lark sings o’er my head - Drowned in the sky--oh, pass, ye visions, pass! - I would that I were dead. - - Why hast thou opened that forbidden door - From which I ever flee? - O vanished Joy! O Love that art no more, - Let my vexed spirit be! - - O violet! thy odour through my brain - Hath searched, and stung to grief - This sunny day, as if a curse did stain - Thy velvet leaf. - - W. W. STORY. - - - - - TO MY LADY. - - - From out the past she comes to me, - My Lady whom I loved long syne: - Her face is very fair to see, - Her gray eyes still with love-light shine, - I needs must think she still is mine. - - Once--in those old years long ago-- - I waited at the hour of dawn. - And, with the first faint Eastern glow-- - Before the sun his sword had drawn - And flushed its light the world upon, - My Lady’s true love did I know! - - But now at eve she comes--I stand - Alone. Among the autumn trees - Her white robe glimmers, and the breeze - Wafts me a ghostly fragrance rare. - Ah me! No rose doth she now bear-- - But crimson poppies in her hand. - - EDWARD FAIRBROTHER STRANGE. - - - - - AT PARTING. - - - For a day and night, Love sang to us, played with us, - Folded us round from the dark and the light; - And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us, - Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us, - Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight - For a day and a night. - - From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us, - Covered us close from the eyes that would smite, - From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden us, - Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us, - Spirit and flesh growing one with delight - For a day and a night. - - But his wings will not rest, and his feet will not stay for us: - Morning is here in the joy of its might; - With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us: - Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us; - Love can but last in us here at his height - For a day and a night. - - ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. - - - - - AUGUST. - - - There were four apples on the bough, - Half gold, half red, that one might know - The blood was ripe inside the core; - The colour of the leaves was more - Like stems of yellow corn that grow - Through all the gold June meadow’s floor. - - The warm smell of the fruit was good - To feed on, and the split green wood, - With all its bearded lips and stains - Of mosses in the clover veins, - Most pleasant, if one lay or stood - In sunshine or in happy rains. - - There were four apples on the tree, - Red-stained through gold, that all might see - The sun went warm from core to rind; - The green leaves made the summer blind - In that soft place they kept for me - With golden apples shut behind. - - The leaves caught gold across the sun, - And where the bluest air begun, - Thirsted for song to help the heat; - As I to feel my lady’s feet - Draw close before the day were done: - Both lips grew dry with dreams of it. - - In the mute August afternoon - They trembled to some undertune - Of music in the silver air: - Great pleasure was it to be there - Till green turned duskier, and the moon - Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair. - - That August time it was delight - To watch the red moon’s wane to white - ’Twixt gray-seamed stems of apple-trees: - A sense of heavy harmonies - Grew on the growth of patient night, - More sweet than shapen music is. - - But some three hours before the moon - The air, still eager from the noon, - Flagged after heat, not wholly dead; - Against the stem I leant my head; - The colour soothed me like a tune, - Green leaves all round the gold and red. - - I lay there till the warm smell grew - More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew - Between the round ripe leaves had blurred - The rind with stain and wet; I heard - A wind that blew and breathed and blew, - Too weak to alter its one word. - - The wet leaves next the gentle fruit - Felt smoother, and the brown tree root - Felt the mould warmer: I, too, felt - (As water feels the slow gold melt - Right through it when the day burns mute) - The peace of time wherein love dwelt. - - There were four apples on the tree, - Gold stained on red that all might see - The sweet blood filled them to the core: - The colour of her hair is more - Like stems of fair faint gold, that be - Mown from the harvest’s middle floor. - - ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. - - - - - BETWEEN THE SUNSET AND THE SEA. - - - Between the sunset and the sea - My love laid hands and lips on me. - Of sweet came sour, of day came night, - Of long desire came brief delight: - Ah, love, and what thing came of thee - Between the sea-downs and the sea? - - Between the sea-mark and the sea - Joy grew to grief, grief grew to me; - Love turned to tears, and tears to fire, - And dead delight to new desire; - Love’s talk, love’s touch there seemed to be - Between the sea-sand and the sea. - - Between the sundown and the sea - Love watched one hour of love with me; - Then down the all-golden water-ways - His feet flew after yesterdays; - I saw them come and saw them flee - Between the sea-foam and the sea. - - Between the sea-strand and the sea - Love fell on sleep, sleep fell on me; - The first star saw twain turn to one - Between the moonrise and the sun; - The next, that saw not love, saw me - Between the sea-banks and the sea. - - ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. - - - - - THE OBLATION. - - - Ask nothing more of me, sweet: - All I can give you I give. - Heart of my heart, were it more, - More would be laid at your feet; - Love that should help you to live, - Song that should spur you to soar. - - All things were nothing to give, - Once to have sense of you more, - Touch you and taste of you, sweet, - Think you and breathe you, and live, - Swept of your wings as they soar, - Trodden by chance of your feet. - - I that have love and no more - Give you but love of you, sweet; - He that hath more let him give; - He that hath wings, let him soar; - Mine is the heart at your feet - Here, that must love you to live. - - ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE. - - - - - ON JUDGE’S WALK. - - - That night on Judge’s Walk the wind - Was as the voice of doom; - The heath, a lake of darkness, lay - As silent as the tomb. - - The vast night brooded, white with stars, - Above the world’s unrest; - The awfulness of silence ached - Like a strong heart repressed. - - That night we walked beneath the trees, - Alone, beneath the trees; - There was some word we could not say - Half uttered in the breeze. - - That night on Judge’s Walk we said - No word of all we had to say; - And now no word shall e’er be said - Before the Judgment Day. - - ARTHUR SYMONS. - - - - - ICH HÖR’ ES SOGAR IM TRAUM. - - - Sing on, sing on: half dreaming still - I hear you singing down the hill, - Through the green wood, beside the rill. - - Each to the other sing, sweet birds; - Make music sweeter far than words; - Drown my still soul with song, sweet birds. - - Under each starbeam there was sleep; - Far down the river wandered deep; - The woods closed round it still and steep. - - One watch-dog from the lone farm bayed; - The waterfowl beneath the shade - Of sedge and flowering reed were laid. - - The birds sang on, and slumber shed - Like silver clouds upon my head; - I slept, nor stirred me in my bed. - - Into my room he seemed to glide; - The moonbeams through the window wide - Snowed in upon my white bedside. - - He kissed my lips, he kissed my cheek; - I could not kiss him back nor speak: - I feared the blissful sleep to break. - - Sing louder, nightingales of May! - Sing, dash my golden dream away! - Sing anthems to the orient day! - - The moonlight pales; the gray cock crows; - A murmur in the tree top goes; - Sleep sheds her petals like a rose. - - JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. - - - - - OH, WHEN WILL IT BE? - - - Oh, when will it be, oh, when will it be, oh, when - That she shall be here, and the flute be here, and the wine - be here? oh, then - Her lips shall kiss the lips of the flute, and my lips shall - kiss the wine, - And I shall drink music from her sweet lips, and she shall - drink madness from mine. - - JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. - - - - - BALLADE OF THE LADYES OF LONG SYNE. - - FROM THE FRENCH OF FRANÇOIS VILLON. - - - Tell me wher, in what contree, is - Flora, the beautifulle Romaine? - Thais and Archipiadis, - Wher are they now, those cosins twaine? - And Echo, gretyng her love agein - By banke of river and marge of mere, - Whos beaute was fre fro mortall stayne? - Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year? - - Wher is the lerned Helowis, - For whom undon in celle did plaine - Pierre Abelard at Saint Denys? - For love’s reward he had this peine - Where is the quene who did ordeine - That Buridan shulde drift in fere - Sowed in a sacke adoun the Saine? - Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year? - - Quene Blanche, fayre as the floure-de-lys, - Who sang as swete as the meremaid strayne, - Alys too, Bertha, Bietris, - And Hermengarde, who halt the Mayne, - And Joan, the good may of Lorraine, - At Rouen brent by Englyshe fere,-- - Wher are they, Virgine soveraine? - Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year? - - - ENVOY. - - Prince, for this sevennyght be not fain, - Nor this twelfmonthe to question wher - They be, withouten this refraine, - Nay, wher are the snowes that fell last year? - - STEPHEN TEMPLE. - - - - - FATIMA. - - O Love, Love, Love! O withering might! - O sun, that from thy noonday height - Shudderest when I strain my sight, - Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light, - Lo, falling from my constant mind, - Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind, - I whirl like leaves in roaring wind. - - Last night I wasted hateful hours - Below the city’s eastern towers: - I thirsted for the brooks, the showers: - I roll’d among the tender flowers: - I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth: - I looked athwart the burning drought - Of that long desert to the south. - - Last night, when some one spoke his name, - From my swift blood that went and came - A thousand little shafts of flame - Were shiver’d in my narrow frame. - O Love, O fire! once he drew - With one long kiss my whole soul thro’ - My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. - - Before he mounts the hill, I know - He cometh quickly: from below - Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow - Before him, striking on my brow. - In my dry brain my spirit soon, - Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, - Faints like a dazzled morning moon. - - The wind sounds like a silver wire, - And from beyond the noon a fire - Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher - The skies stoop down in their desire; - And, isled in sudden seas of light, - My heart, pierc’d thro’ with fierce delight, - Bursts into blossom in his sight. - - My whole soul waiting silently, - All naked in a sultry sky, - Droops blinded with his shining eye: - I _will_ possess him or will die. - I will grow round him in his place, - Grow, live, die looking on his face, - Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace. - - ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. - - - - - NOW SLEEPS THE CRIMSON PETAL. - - - Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; - Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; - Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: - The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. - - Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, - And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. - - Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, - And all thy heart lies open unto me. - - Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves - A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. - - Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, - And slips into the bosom of the lake; - So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip - Into my bosom and be lost in me. - - ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. - - - - - THE WINDOW; OR THE SONGS OF THE WRENS. - - - AT THE WINDOW. - - Vine, vine and eglantine, - Clasp her window, trail and twine! - Rose, rose and clematis, - Trail and twine and clasp and kiss, - Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower - All of flowers, and drop me a flower, - Drop me a flower. - - Vine, vine and eglantine, - Cannot a flower, a flower, be mine? - Rose, rose and clematis, - Drop me a flower, a flower, to kiss, - Kiss, kiss--and out of her bower - All of flowers, a flower, a flower - Dropt, a flower. - - - - - GONE. - - - Gone! - Gone till the end of the year, - Gone, and the light gone with her and left me in shadow here! - Gone--flitted away, - Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day! - Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air! - Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where! - Down in the south is a flash and a groan; she is there! she is there! - - ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON. - - - - - VALENTINE. - - - If thou canst make the frost be gone, - And fleet away the snow - (And that thou canst, I trow); - If thou canst make the spring to dawn, - Hawthorn to put her brav’ry on, - Willow, her weeds of fine green lawn, - Say why thou dost not so-- - Aye, aye! - Say why - Thou dost not so! - - If thou canst chase the stormy rack, - And bid the soft winds blow - (And that thou canst, I trow); - If thou canst call the thrushes back - To give the groves the songs they lack, - And wake the violet in thy track, - Say why thou dost not so-- - Aye, aye! - Say why - Thou dost not so! - - If thou canst make my winter spring, - With one word breathèd low - (And that thou canst, I know); - If in the closure of a ring - Thou canst to me such treasure bring, - My state shall be above a king, - Say why thou dost not so-- - Aye, aye! - Say why - Thou dost not so! - - EDITH M. THOMAS. - - - - - DREAM TRYST. - - - The breaths of kissing night and day - Were mingled in the eastern heaven; - Throbbing with unheard melody - Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven: - When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy, - And dawn’s gray eyes were troubled gray; - And souls went palely up the sky, - And mine to Lucidé. - - There was no change in her sweet eyes - Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine; - There was no change in her deep heart - Since last that deep heart knocked at mine. - Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope’s, - Wherein did ever come and go - The sparkle of the fountain-drops - From her sweet soul below. - - The chambers in the house of dreams - Are fed with so divine an air, - That Time’s hoar wings grow young therein, - And they who walk there are most fair. - I joyed for me, I joyed for her, - Who with the Past meet girt about, - Where our last kiss still warms the air, - Nor can her eyes go out. - - FRANCIS THOMPSON. - - - - - ATALANTA. - - - When spring grows old, and sleepy winds - Set from the south with odours sweet, - I see my love, in green, cool groves, - Speed down dusk aisles on shining feet. - - She throws a kiss and bids me run, - In whispers sweet as roses’ breath; - I know I cannot win the race, - And at the end, I know, is death. - - But joyfully I bare my limbs, - Anoint me with the tropic breeze, - And feel through every sinew thrill - The vigour of Hippomenes. - - A race of love! We all have run - Thy happy course through groves of spring, - And cared not, when at last we lost, - For life, or death, or anything! - - MAURICE THOMPSON. - - - - - A SONG OF THANKSGIVING. - - - My love is the flaming sword, to fight through the world; - Thy love is the shield to ward, - And the armour of the Lord, - And the banner of Heav’n unfurl’d. - - Let my voice ring out, and over the earth, - Through all the grief and strife, - With a golden joy in a silver mirth, - Thank God for Life! - - Let my voice swell out through the great abyss, - To the azure dome above, - With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss - Thank God for Love! - - Let my voice thrill out, beneath and above, - The whole world through, - O my Love and Life, O my Life and Love, - Thank God for you! - - JAMES THOMSON. - - - - - DAY AFTER DAY OF THIS AZURE MAY. - - - Day after day of this azure May, - The blood of the spring has swelled in my veins; - Night after night of broad moonlight, - A mystical dream has dazzled my brains. - - A seething might, a fierce delight, - The blood of the spring is the wine of the world; - My veins run fire and thrill desire, - Every leaf of my heart’s red rose uncurled. - - A sad, sweet calm, a tearful balm, - The light of the moon is the trance of the world; - My brain is fraught with yearning thought, - And the rose is pale, and its leaves are furled. - - Oh, speed the day then, dear, dear May, - And hasten the night, I charge thee, O June! - When the trance divine shall burn with the wine, - And the red rose unfurl all its fire to the moon. - - JAMES THOMSON. - - - - - THE SONG OF TRISTRAM. - - - The star of love is trembling in the west, - Night hears the desolate sea with moan on moan - Sigh for the storm, who on his mountain lone - Smites his wild harp, and dreams of her wild breast. - I am thy storm, Isolt, and thou my sea! - Isolt! - My passionate sea! - - The storm to her wild breast, the passionate sea - To his fierce arms: we to the rapturous leap - Of mated spirits mingling in love’s deep, - Flame to flame, I to thee and thou to me! - Thou to mine arms, Isolt, I to thy breast! - Isolt! - I to thy breast! - - JOHN TODHUNTER. - - - - - AUBADE. - - - The lights are out in the street, and a cool wind swings - Loose poplar plumes on the sky; - Deep in the gloom of the garden the first bird sings: - Curt, hurried steps go by, - Loud in the hush of the dawn past the linden screen, - Lost in a jar and a rattle of wheels unseen, - Beyond on the wide highway: - Night lingers dusky and dim in the pear-tree boughs, - Hangs in the hollows of leaves, though the thrushes rouse, - And the glimmering lawn grows gray. - - Yours, my heart knoweth, yours only the jewelled gloom, - Splendours of opal and amber, the scent, the bloom, - Yours all, and your own demesne-- - Scent of the dark, of the dawning, of leaves and dew; - Nothing that was but hath changed--’tis a world made new-- - A lost world risen again. - - The lamps are out in the street, and the air grows bright; - Come, lest the miracle fade in the broad, bare light, - The new world wither away: - Clear is your voice in my heart, and you call me--whence? - Come--for I listen, I wait,--bid me rise, go hence, - Or ever the dawn turn day. - - GRAHAM R. TOMSON. - - - - - LOVE, THE GUEST. - - - I did not dream that Love would stay, - I deemed him but a passing guest, - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - I said, “Young Love will flee with May, - And leave forlorn the hearth he blest;” - I did not dream that Love would stay. - - My envious neighbour mocks me, “Nay, - Love lies not long in any nest;” - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - And though I did his will alway, - And gave him even of my best, - I did not dream that Love would stay. - - I have no skill to bid him stay, - Of tripping tongue or cunning jest, - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - Beneath his ivory feet I lay - Pale plumage of the ringdove’s breast; - I did not dream that Love would stay. - - Will Love be flown? I ofttimes say, - Home turning for the noonday rest; - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - His gold curls gleam, his lips are gay, - His eyes through tears smile loveliest; - I did not dream that Love would stay. - - He sometimes sighs, when far away - The low red sun makes fair the west, - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - Thrice blest of all men am I! yea, - Although of all unworthiest; - I did not dream that Love would stay, - Yet here he lingers many a day. - - GRAHAM R. TOMSON. - - - - - A BLUSH AT FAREWELL. - - - Her tears are all thine own! how blest thou art! - Thine, too, the blush which no reserve can bind; - Thy farewell voice was as the stirring wind - That floats the rose-bloom; thou hast won her heart; - Dear are the hopes it ushers to thy breast; - She speaks not--but she gives her silent bond; - And thou mayst trust it, asking nought beyond - The promise, which as yet no words attest; - Deep in her bosom sinks the conscious glow, - And deep in thine! and I can well foresee, - If thou shalt feel a lover’s jealousy - For her brief absence, what a ruling power - A bygone blush shall prove! until the hour - Of meeting, when thy next love-rose shall blow. - - CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. - - - - - THE KISS OF BETROTHAL. - - - When lovers’ lips from kissing disunite - With sound as soft as mellow fruitage breaking, - They loathe to leave what was so sweet in taking, - So fraught with breathless magical delight; - The scent of flowers is long before it fade, - Long dwells upon the gale the Vesper-tone, - Far floats the wake the lightest skiff has made, - The closest kiss when once imprest, is gone; - What marvel, then, that each so closely kisseth? - Sweet is the fourfold touch--the living seal-- - What marvel then, with sorrow each dismisseth - This thrilling pledge of all they hope and feel? - While on their lingering steps the shadows steal, - And each true heart beats as the other wisheth. - - CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. - - - - - THE PARTING-GATE. - - - In that old beech-walk, now bestrewn with mast, - And roaring loud--they linger’d long and late; - Harsh was the clang of the last homeward gate - That latch’d itself behind them, as they pass’d-- - Then kiss’d and parted. Soon her funeral knell - Toll’d from a foreign clime; he did not talk - Nor weep, but shudder’d at that stern farewell; - ’Twas the last gate in all their lovers’-walk - Without the kiss beyond it! Was it good - To leave him thus, alone with his sad mood - In that dear footpath, haunted by her smile? - Where they had laugh’d and loiter’d, sat and stood? - Alone in life! alone in Moreham wood! - Through all that sweet, forsaken, forest mile! - - CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER. - - - - - IRISH LOVE SONG. - - - Would God I were the tender apple-blossom, - Floating and falling from the twisted bough, - To lie and faint within your silken bosom, - As that does now! - - Or would I were a little burnished apple - For you to pluck me, gliding by so cold, - While sun and shade your robe of lawn will dapple, - Your hair’s spun gold. - - Yea, would to God I were among the roses - That lean to kiss you as you float between! - While on the lowest branch a bud uncloses - To touch you, Queen! - - Nay, since you will not love, would I were growing - A happy daisy in the garden path; - That so your silver foot might press me going, - Even unto death! - - KATHERINE TYNAN. - - - - - GOOD-NIGHT. - - - It is over now, she is gone to rest; - I have clasped the hands on the quiet breast; - Draw back the curtain, let in the light, - She will never shrink if it be too bright. - - We were two in here but an hour gone by, - No streak was then in the midnight sky; - Now I am one to watch the day - Come glimmering up from the far-away. - - What will he say when he comes in, - Waked by the city’s morning din, - Hoping to find and fearing to know - The sorrow he left but an hour ago? - - What will he say who has watched so long, - When he shall find who has come and gone? - Come a watcher that will not bide - Love’s morning or noon or eventide. - - He thought to kiss her by morning gray, - But God has thought to take her away. - What will he say? God knows, not I; - “Good-night,” he said, but never “good-bye.” - - C. C. FRASER TYTLER. - - - - - I KNOW ’TIS LATE, BUT LET ME STAY. - - - I know ’tis late, but let me stay, - For night is tenderer than day; - Sweet love, dear love, I cannot go; - Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. - The birds are in the grove asleep, - The katydids shrill concert keep, - The woodbine breathes a fragrance rare - To please the dewy, languid air, - The fireflies twinkle in the vale, - The river shines in moonlight pale: - See yon bright star! choose it for thine, - And call its near companion mine; - Yon air-spun lace above the moon,-- - ’Twill veil her radiant beauty soon; - And look! a meteor’s dreamy light - Streams mystic through the solemn night. - Ah, life glides swift, like that still fire-- - How soon our gleams of joy expire! - Who can be sure the present kiss - Is not his last? Make all of this. - I know ’tis late, dear love, I know, - Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. - - It cannot be the stealthy day - That turns the orient darkness gray; - Heardst thou? I thought or feared I heard - Vague twitters of some wakeful bird. - Nay, ’twas but summer in her sleep - Low murmuring from the leafy deep. - Fantastic mist obscurely fills - The hollows of Kentucky hills. - The wings of night are swift indeed! - Why makes the jealous morn such speed? - This rose thou wear’st may I not take - For passionate remembrance’ sake? - Press with thy lips its crimson heart. - Yes, blushing rose, we must depart. - A rose cannot return a kiss-- - I pay its due with this, and this. - The stars grow faint, they soon will die, - But love fades not nor fails. Good-bye! - Unhappy joy--delicious pain-- - We part in love, we meet again. - Good-bye! the morning dawns--I go; - Dear love, sweet love, I love thee so. - - WILLIAM H. VENABLE. - - - - - CASHEL OF MUNSTER. - - - I would wed you, dear, without gold or gear, or counted kine; - My wealth you’ll be, would your friends agree, and you be mine. - My grief, my gloom! that you do not come, my heart’s dear hoard! - To Cashel fair, though our couch were there but a soft deal board. - - Oh, come, my bride, o’er the wild hill-side to the valley low! - A downy bed for my love I’ll spread where waters flow, - And we shall stray where streamlets play, the groves among, - Where echo tells to the listening dells the blackbird’s song. - - Love tender, true, I gave to you, and secret sighs, - In hope to see upon you and me one hour arise, - When the priest’s blest voice would bind my choice and the ring’s - strict tie, - If wife you be, love, to one but me, love, in grief I’ll die! - - A neck of white has my heart’s delight, and breast like snow, - And flowing hair whose ringlets fair to the green grass flow, - Alas! that I did not early die, before the day - That saw me here, from my bosom’s dear, far, far away! - - EDWARD WALSH. - - - - - DAFFODILS. - - - I question with the amber daffodils, - Sheeting the floors of April, how she fares; - Where king-cup buds gleam out between the rills, - And celandine in wide gold beadlets glares. - - By pastured brows and swelling hedgerow bowers, - From crumpled leaves the primrose bunches slip, - My hot face roll’d in their faint-scented flowers, - I dream her rich cheek rests against my lip. - - All weird sensations of the fervent prime - Are like great harmonies, whose touch can move - The glow of gracious impulse: thought and time - Renew my love with life, my life with love. - - When this old world new-born puts glories on, - I cannot think she never will be won. - - JOHN LEICESTER WARREN. - - - - - AVE ATQUE VALE. - - - Farewell my Youth! for now we needs must part, - For here the paths divide; - Here hand from hand must sever, heart from heart,-- - Divergence deep and wide. - - You’ll wear no withered roses for my sake, - Though I go mourning for you all day long, - Finding no magic more in bower and brake, - No melody in song. - - Gray Eld must travel in my company - To seal this severance more fast and sure. - A joyless fellowship, i’ faith, ’twill be, - Yet must we fare together, I and he, - Till I shall tread the footpath way no more. - - But when a blackbird pipes among the boughs, - On some dim iridescent day in spring, - Then I may dream you are remembering - Our ancient vows. - - Or when some joy foregone, some fate forsworn - Looks through the dark eyes of the violet, - I may recross the set, forbidden bourne, I may forget - Our long, long parting for a little while, - Dream of the golden splendours of your smile, - Dream you remember yet. - - ROSAMUND MARRIOT WATSON. - - - - - EPITAPH. - - - Now lay thee down to sleep, and dream of me; - Though thou art dead and I am living yet, - Though cool thy couch and sweet thy slumbers be, - Dream--do not quite forget. - - Sleep all the autumn, all the winter long, - With never a painted shadow from the past - To haunt thee; only, when the blackbird’s song - Wakens the woods at last, - - When the young shoots grow lusty overhead, - Here, where the spring sun smiles, the spring wind grieves, - When budding violets close above thee spread - Their small heart-shapen leaves, - - Pass, O Belovèd, to dreams from slumber deep; - Recount the store that mellowing time endears, - Tread, through the measureless mazes of thy sleep, - Our old unchangeful years. - - Lie still and listen--while thy sheltering tree - Whispers of suns that rose, of suns that set-- - For far-off echoes of the spring and me. - Dream--do not quite forget. - - ROSAMUND MARRIOT WATSON. - - - - - A GOLDEN HOUR. - - - A beckoning spirit of gladness seemed afloat, - That lightly danced in laughing air before us: - The earth was all in tune, and you a note - Of Nature’s happy chorus. - - ’Twas like a vernal morn, yet overhead - The leafless boughs across the lane were knitting: - The ghost of some forgotten spring, we said, - O’er winter’s world comes flitting. - - Or was it spring herself, that, gone astray, - Beyond the alien frontier chose to tarry? - Or but some bold outrider of the May, - Some April emissary? - - The apparition faded on the air, - Capricious and incalculable comer.-- - Wilt thou too pass, and leave my chill days bare, - And fall’n my phantom summer? - - WILLIAM WATSON. - - - - - AND THESE--ARE THESE INDEED THE END? - - - And these--are these indeed the end, - This grinning skull, this heavy loam? - Do all green ways whereby we wend - Lead but to yon ignoble home? - - Ah, well! Thine eyes invite to bliss; - Thy lips are hives of summer still. - I ask not other worlds while this - Proffers me all the sweets I will. - - WILLIAM WATSON. - - - - - A DREAM. - - - Beneath the loveliest dream there coils a fear: - Last night came she whose eyes are memories now, - Her far-off gaze seemed all-forgetful how - Love dimmed them once, so calm they shone, and clear. - “Sorrow (I said) hath made me old, my dear; - ’Tis I, indeed, but grief doth change the brow; - A love like mine a seraph’s neck might bow, - Vigils like mine would blanch an angel’s hair.” - - Ah! then I saw, I saw the sweet lips move! - I saw the love-mists thickening in her eyes; - I heard wild wordless melodies of love, - Like murmur of dreaming brooks in Paradise; - And when upon my neck she fell, my dove, - I knew her hair, though heavy of amaranth-spice. - - THEODORE WATTS. - - - - - THE FIRST KISS. - - - If only in dreams may man be fully blest, - Is heav’n a dream? Is she I claspt a dream? - Or stood she here even now where dewdrops gleam, - And miles of furze shine golden down the West? - I seem to clasp her still,--still on my breast - Her bosom beats; I see the blue eyes beam: - I think she kissed these lips, for now they seem - Scarce mine, so hallow’d of the lips they press’d! - - Yon thicket’s breath--can that be eglantine? - Those birds--can they be morning’s choristers? - Can this be earth? Can these be banks of furze? - Like burning bushes fired of God they shine! - I seem to know them, though this body of mine - Pass’d into spirit at the touch of hers. - - THEODORE WATTS. - - - - - SUFFICIENCY. - - - A little love, of Heaven a little share, - And then we go--what matters it, since where, - Or when, or how, none may aforetime know, - Nor if Death cometh soon, or lingering slow, - Send on ahead his herald of Despair. - - On this gray life Love lights with golden glow - Refracted from The Source, his bright wings throw - Its glory on us, if Fate grant our prayer, - A little love! - - A little; ’tis as much as we can bear, - For Love is compassed with such magic air - Who breathes it fully dies; and knowing so, - The Gods all wisely but a taste bestow - For little lives; a little while they spare - A little love. - - GLEESON WHITE. - - - - - BENEDICITE. - - - God’s love and peace be with thee, where - Soe’er this soft autumnal air - Lifts the dark tresses of thy hair! - - Whether through city casements comes - Its kiss to thee, in crowded rooms, - Or, out among the woodland blooms, - - It freshens o’er thy thoughtful face, - Imparting, in its glad embrace, - Beauty to beauty, grace to grace! - - Fair Nature’s book together read,-- - The old wood-paths that knew our tread, - The maple shadows overhead, - - The hills we climbed, the river seen - By gleams along its deep ravine,-- - All keep thy memory fresh and green. - - Where’er I look, where’er I stray, - Thy thought goes with me on my way, - And hence the prayer I breathe to-day; - - O’er lapse of time and change of scene,-- - The weary waste which lies between - Thyself and me, my heart I lean. - - Thou lack’st not Friendship’s spell-word, nor - The half-unconscious power to draw - All hearts to thine by Love’s sweet law. - - With these good gifts of God is cast - Thy lot, and many a charm thou hast - To hold the blessed angels fast. - - If, then, a fervent wish for thee - The gracious heavens will heed from me, - What should, dear heart, its burden be? - - The sighing of a shaken reed,-- - What can I more than meekly plead - The greatness of our common need? - - God’s love,--unchanging, pure, and true,-- - The Paraclete white-shining through - His peace,--the fall of Hermon’s dew! - - With such a prayer, on this sweet day, - As thou mayst hear and I may say, - I greet thee, dearest, far away! - - JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. - - - - - MY VIOLET. - - - When violets blue begin to blow - Among the mosses fresh and green, - That grow the woodbine roots between, - I take my Violet out, and, oh! - Those cunning violets seem to know - A sweeter than themselves is nigh; - They greet her with a beaming eye, - And brighten where her footsteps go. - - When summer glories light the glade - With gloss of green and gleam of gold, - And sunny sheens in wood and wold, - She loves to linger in the shade; - And such sweet light surrounds the maid, - That, somehow, it is fairer far - Where she and those dim shadows are, - Than where the sunbeams are displayed. - - When every tree relinquisheth - Its garb of green for sombre brown, - And all the leaves are falling down, - While breezes blow with angry breath, - With gentle pitying voice she saith, - “Poor leaves! I wish you would not die;” - And at the sound they peaceful lie, - And wear a pleasant calm in death. - - When winter frosts hold land and sea, - And barren want and bleaker wind - Leave every thought of good behind, - I look upon my love, and she - From thrall of winter sets me free; - And with a sense of perfect rest - I lay my head upon her breast, - And twenty summers shine for me. - - J. T. BURTON WOLLASTON. - - - - - ASLEEP. - - - Lids closed and pale, with parted lips she lay; - Black on white pillows spread her hair unbound. - Awake, I watched her sleeping face, and found - Its beauty perfect in the breaking day. - - Ah, then I knew that Love had passed away; - Alas! though with the entering sun that crowned - With light the beauty that mine arms enwound, - Came too the morning music of the bay. - - I wept that Love had been and was no more, - That never shower nor sunlight should restore - The love that gave her life and heart to me; - - While radiant in the outburst of the dawn, - Fresh as the wind that swept the mountain lawn, - Green April wantoned on the noisy sea. - - THEODORE WRATISLAW. - - - - - SWIMMING SONG. - - - The broad green rollers lift and glide - Beneath our hearts as, side by side, - We breast them blithely, blithely swim - Toward the far horizon’s rim. - - The murmur of the land recedes, - The land of grief that aches and needs; - We only as we fall and rise - Drink deep the splendour of the skies. - - O far blue heaven above our head, - O near green sea about us spread, - What joy so full, since time began, - Could earth, our mother, give to man? - - Your bright face through the water peers - And laughs. “What need have men for tears?” - We say. The land is far and dim, - The world is summer’s, and we swim. - - Your bright face peers and laughs. The sweet - Same joy fulfils us, hands and feet: - The same sea’s salt wet lips kiss ours: - We feel the same enraptured hours. - - Out yonder! where our distant home - Beckons us from the crests of foam! - Out yonder through the roller’s mirth! - What part was ever ours with earth? - - Your white limbs flash, your red lips gleam: - Love seems life’s best and holiest dream; - Nought comes between us here, and I - Could wish not otherwise to die. - - With sea beneath us, heaven above, - Life holds but laughter, joy, and love; - No trammels bind us now, and we - Are freer than the birds are free. - - Your face seems sweeter here; your hair, - Wet from the sea’s salt lips, more fair; - Your limbs that move and gleam and shine, - Hellenic, pagan, half divine. - - If I should catch you now, make fast - Your hands with mine, about you cast - My limbs, and through the untroubled waves - Draw you down to the sea’s deep graves! - - Ah, sweet! God’s gift is good enough, - God’s gift of freedom, life, and love-- - Though but for this brief hour are we - Alone upon the eternal sea. - - THEODORE WRATISLAW. - - - - - THE PEACE OF THE ROSE. - - - If Michael, leader of God’s host, - When Heaven and Hell are met, - Looked down on you from Heaven’s door-post, - He would his deeds forget. - - Brooding no more upon God’s wars - In his Divine homestead, - He would go weave out of the stars - A chaplet for your head; - - And all folk seeing him bow down, - And white stars tell your praise, - Would come at last to God’s great town, - Led on by gentle ways; - - And God would bid his warfare cease, - Saying all things were well, - And softly make a rosy peace, - A peace of Heaven and Hell. - - W. B. YEATS. - - - - - THE BRIDAL PAIR. - - - HE. - - Though the roving bee as lightly - Sip the sweets of thyme and clover, - Though the moon of May as whitely - Silver all the greensward over, - Yet, beneath the trysting tree, - That hath been which shall not be! - - - SHE. - - Drip the vials ne’er so sweetly - With the honey-dew of pleasure, - Trip the dancers ne’er so featly - Through the old remembered measure, - Yet, the lighted lanthorn round, - What is lost shall not be found! - - WILLIAM YOUNG. - - - - - THE TRIFLERS. - - - HE. - - Because thou wast cold and proud, - And as one alone in the crowd, - And because of thy wilful and wayward look, - I thought, as I saw thee above my book, - “I will prove if her heart be flesh or stone;” - And in seeking thine, I have found my own. - - - SHE. - - Because thou wast proud and cold, - And because of the story told - That never had woman a smile from thee, - I thought as I glanc’d, “If he frown on me, - Why, be it so! but his peace shall atone;” - And in troubling thine, I have lost my own. - - WILLIAM YOUNG. - - - - - AT THY GRAVE. - - - Waves the soft grass at my feet; - Dost thou feel me near thee, sweet? - Though the earth upon thy face - Holds thee close from my embrace, - Yet my spirit thine can reach, - Needs betwixt us twain no speech, - For the same soul lives in each. - - Now I meet no tender eyes - Seeking mine in soft surmise - At some broken utterance faint, - Smile quick brightening, sigh half spent; - Yet in some sweet hours gone by, - No responding eye to eye - Needed we for sympathy. - - Love, I seem to see thee stand - Silent in a shadowy land, - With a look upon thy face - As if even in that dull place - Distant voices smote thine ears, - Memories of vanished years, - Or faint echoes of those tears. - - Yet I would not have it thus; - Then would be most piteous - Our divided lives, if thou - An imperfect bliss should know; - Sweet my suffering, if to thee - Death has brought the faculty - Of entire felicity. - - Rather would I weep in vain, - That thou canst not share my pain, - Deem that Lethean waters roll - Softly o’er thy separate soul, - Know that a divided bliss - Makes thee careless of my kiss, - Than that thou shouldst feel distress. - - Hush! I hear a low, sweet sound - As of music stealing round; - Forms thy hand the thrilling chords - Into more than spoken words? - Ah! ’tis but the gathering breeze - Whispering to the budding trees, - Or the song of early bees. - - Love! where art thou? Canst thou not - Hear me, or is all forgot? - Seest thou not these burning tears? - Can my words not reach thine ears? - Or betwixt my soul and thine - Has some mystery divine - Sealed a separating line? - - Is it thus, then, after death - Old things none remembereth? - Is the spirit henceforth clear - Of the life it gathered here? - Will our noblest longings seem - Like some disremembered dream - In the after world’s full beam? - - Hark! the rainy wind blows loud, - Scuds above the hurrying cloud; - Hushed is all the song of bees; - Angry murmurs of the trees - Herald tempests. Silent yet - Sleepest thou--nor fear nor fret - Troubles thee. Can I forget? - - - - - LO! IN A DREAM LOVE CAME TO ME. - - - Lo! in a dream Love came to me and cried: - “The summer dawn creeps over land and sea; - The golden fields are ripe for harvest-tide, - And the grape-gatherers climb the mountain-side; - The harvest joy is come; I wait for thee. - Arise, come down, and follow, follow me.” - - And I arose, went down, and followed him. - The reaper’s song went ringing through the air; - Below, the morning mists grew pale and dim, - And on the mountain ridge the sun’s bright rim - Rose swiftly, and the glorious dawn was there. - I followed, followed Love, I knew not where. - - Through orange groves and orchard ways we went; - The cool fresh dew lay deep on grass and tree, - Above our heads the laden boughs were bent - With weight of ripening fruit; the faint sweet scent - Of fragrant myrtles drifted up to me: - Blindly, O Love, blindly I followed thee! - - O Love, the morning shadows passed away - From off the broad fair fields of waving wheat; - I followed thee, till in the full noonday - The weary women in the vineyards lay; - The tall field flowers drooped fading in the heat: - I followed thee with bruised and bleeding feet. - - Upon the long white road the fierce sun shone, - And on the distant town and wide waste plain, - O Love, I blindly, blindly followed on, - Nor knew how sharp the way my feet had gone; - Nor knew I aught of shame or loss or pain, - Nor knew I all my labour was in vain. - - The sun sank down in silence o’er the land, - The heavy shadows gathered deep and black; - Across the lonely waste of reeds and sand - I followed Love: I could not touch his hand, - Nor see his hidden face, nor turn me back, - Nor find again the far-off mountain-track. - - Blindly, O Love! blindly I followed thee: - The summer night lay on the silent plain, - And on the sleeping city and the sea; - The sound of rippling waves came up to me. - O Love! the dawn drew near; far off again - The gray light gathered where the night had lain. - - On through the quiet street Love passed, and cried: - “The summer dawn creeps over land and sea; - Sweet is the summer and the harvest-tide; - Awake, arise, Love waits for thee, his Bride.” - And she arose and followed, followed thee, - O traitor Love! who hast forsaken me. - - FRASER’S MAGAZINE. - - - - - _VALE._ - - - _Warbleth the bird of Love his golden song, - And many hearken to his magic strain; - In joyous major now he carols strong, - In minors low he croons his soft refrain._ - - _So fair his lay of Love’s fond empery, - One scarce may mark the quaver of his sigh; - Or note amid his seeming ecstasy - The dream that fades, the hopes that shatter’d lie._ - - _But most he sings for Youth’s enraptured ear, - When hope beats fast and buds are bourgeoning,-- - “Time flies,” he trills, “clasp close the fleeting year - Ere winter cometh, and sweet Love take wing!”_ - - - - - INDEX - - -ADCOCK, A. ST. J.: - -Since Yesterday....._Chambers’ Journal_ - -ALDRICH, ANNE REEVE: - -An Awakening....._The Rose of Flame_ -Love, the Destroyer.....“ “ - -ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY: - -Sweetheart, Sigh no More....._Wyndham Towers_ -The Faded Violet....._Poems_ - -ANONYMOUS: - -A Song of Love....._Love lies Bleeding_ -At thy Grave. -Et Melle et Felle....._Love in a Mist_ -Lo! in a Dream Love came to Me....._Fraser’s Magazine_ -The Lonely Landscape....._Love lies Bleeding_ -The Outcast.....“ “ - -ARNOLD, SIR EDWIN: - -Song....._The Light of Asia_ - -ARNOLD, MATTHEW: - -Calais Sands....._Poems_ - -ASHE, THOMAS: - -Phantoms....._Poems_ -The Guest.....“ -The Secret.....“ - -AUSTIN, ALFRED: - -If Love could Last....._The Garden that I Love_ - -BARLOW, GEORGE: - -A Journey....._Song Spray_ -If only Thou art True....._From Dawn to Sunset_ -The Ecstasy of the Hair....._A Life’s Love_ - -BEECHING, H. C.: - -The Night Watches....._Love’s Looking-Glass_ - -BENNETT, JOHN: - -In a Rose Garden....._The Chap Book_ - -BLIND, MATHILDE: - -I charge you, O Winds of the West....._A Love Trilogy_ -Song....._Love in Exile_ - -BOURDILLON, F. W.: - -Cæli....._Ailes d’Alouette_ -Love in the Heart.....“ “ - -BRIDGES, ROBERT: - -I will not let Thee go....._The Shorter Poems_ -Long are the Hours.....“ “ - -BROWNING, ROBERT: - -Apparitions....._Poems_ -Porphyria’s Lover.....“ - -BUNNER, H. C.: - -Robin’s Song....._Airs from Arcady_ -The Hour of Shadows.....“ “ - -CARMAN, BLISS: - -Carnations in Winter....._Low Tide on Grand Pré_ -The Eavesdropper.....“ “ - -CARPENTER, HENRY BERNARD: - -The Impossible She....._A Poet’s Last Songs_ - -CAWEIN, MADISON: - -A Dream Shape....._Undertones_ -Unrequited....._Moods and Memories_ - -CLARKE, HERBERT E.: - -In the Wood....._Songs of Exile_ - -COLLIER, THOMAS STEVENS: - -At Love’s Gate....._Song Spray_ - -COLLINS, MORTIMER: - -Birds and Lovers....._Selections from the Poetical Works_ -Dawn.....“ “ “ “ - -COONLEY, LYDIA AVERY: - -Love’s Power....._Under the Pines, and Other Verses_ - -CRANE, WALTER: - -Last Night my Lady talked with Me....._Renascence_ -Love’s Arrows.....“ - -CURWEN, HARRY: - -A Love Song....._French Love Songs, and Other Poems_ - -CUSTANCE, OLIVE: - -The Parting Hour. - -DOBSON, AUSTIN: - -The Sundial....._Old World Idylls, and Other Verses_ - -ELLWANGER, GEORGE H.: - -Spring Song. - -ELLWANGER, W. D.: - -To Jessie’s Dancing Feet....._The Century_ - -GALE, NORMAN R.: - -A Love Song....._Violets_ -A Song.....“ - -GARNETT, RICHARD: - -A Nocturne....._Poems_ -Violets.....“ - -GOSSE, EDMUND WILLIAM: - -A Year....._On Viol and Flute_ -I’ve kissed Thee, Sweetheart....._Firdausi in Exile, and Other Poems_ - -GRAY, JOHN: - -Complaint....._Silverpoints_ -Heart’s Demesne.....“ - -GREENE, G. A.: - -In the Evening....._Italian Lyrists of To-day_ -When the Leaves Fall.....“ “ “ - -GREENWELL, DORA: - -Qui sait aimer, sait mourir....._Poems_ - -GULSTON, A. STEPNEY: - -Song....._Metempsychosis_ - -HALL, GERTRUDE: - -O Knight, if Thou a Lady hast....._Verses_ - -HALL, WILLIAM C.: - -At Last....._Songs in a Minor Key_ - -HANKIN, MARY L.: - -The Old is Better....._Year by Year_ - -HENLEY, W. E.: - -Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights....._A Book of Verses_ -Oh, gather me the Rose.....“ “ - -HICKEY, EMILY H.: - -Her Dream....._Lyrics and Verse Tales_ - -HILDRETH, CHARLES LOTIN: - -Song....._The Masque of Death, and Other Poems_ -The Tryst.....“ “ “ “ - -HINSHELWOOD, A. ERNEST: - -By one Rapt Day....._Through Starlight to Dawn_ - -HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL: - -The Dilemma....._Poems_ - -HORNE, HERBERT P.: - -The Measure....._Diversi Colores_ - -HUNT, HELEN: - -Two Truths....._Verses_ - -IMAGE, SELWYN: - -A Prayer....._Poems and Carols_ - -JENNER, HENRY: - -A June Storm....._The Spectator_ - -KINGSLEY, CHARLES: - -Dolcino to Margaret....._Poems_ - -LAMPMAN, ARCHIBALD: - -A Ballade of Waiting....._Among the Millet and Other Poems_ -A Forecast.....“ “ “ “ - -LANG, ANDREW: - -An Old Tune....._Ballades and Verses Vain_ -Good-bye....._Grass of Parnassus_ -Metempsychosis....._Ballades and Lyrics of Old France_ - -LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD: - -A Ballade of Old Sweethearts....._My Ladies’ Sonnets_ - -LEVY, AMY: - -In the Mile End Road....._A London Plane Tree, and Other Poems_ - -LINTON, W. J.: - -Love Afraid....._Poems and Translations_ - -LOCKER, FREDERICK: - -To my Mistress....._London Lyrics_ - -LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH: - -It is not always May....._Poetical Works_ - -LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL: - -Auf Wiedersehen....._Poems_ - -LYALL, SIR ALFRED: - -Sequel to “My Queen”....._Verses written in India_ - -LYTTON, ROBERT, LORD: - -If...?....._Marah_ -Omens and Oracles.....“ - -MCCARTHY, JUSTIN HUNTLY: - -The Garden of Memory....._Harlequinade_ - -MACDONALD, GEORGE: - -If I were a Monk and thou wert a Nun....._Poems_ - -MACKAIL, J. W.: - -A Ballade of Colours....._Love’s Looking-Glass_ - -MACKAY, ERIC: - -My Amazon....._Love Letters of a Violinist_ - -MARSTON, PHILIP BOURKE: - -Changed Love....._Wind Voices_ -Summer’s Return....._Song-Tide, and Other Poems_ - -MARSTON, WESTLAND: - -Mine....._Selected Dramatic Work and Poems_ - -MARZIALS, THEO.: - -Aubade....._The Gallery of Pigeons, and Other Poems_ -The Phial and the Philtre.....“ “ “ “ - -MASSEY, GERALD: - -Not I, Sweet Soul, not I....._Love Lyrics_ - -MEREDITH, GEORGE: - -At Dinner she is Hostess....._Modern Love_ -Love within the Lover’s Breast. - -MONKHOUSE, COSMO: - -A Dead March....._Corn and Poppies_ - -MORRIS, LEWIS: - -Fair Star that on the Shoulder of yon Hill....._Gwen_ -Thy Shadow, O Tardy Night.....“ - -MORRIS, WILLIAM: - -The First Lyric....._Love is Enough_ -The Concluding Lyric.....“ “ - -MOULTON, LOUISE CHANDLER: - -Beside a Bier....._In the Garden of Dreams_ -Hereafter.....“ “ “ - -MURRAY, GEORGE: - -Fortunio’s Song....._Verses and Versions_ - -NESBIT, E. (MRS. HUBERT BLAND): - -Splendide Mendax....._Lays and Legends, Second Series_ -The Kiss....._Leaves of Life_ -The Mill....._Lays and Legends, Second Series_ - -NICHOLS, J. B. B.: - -A Pastoral....._Love in Idleness_ -Vigilate Itaque.....“ “ - -NOBLE, JAMES ASHCROFT: - -The Horizon....._Verses of a Prose Writer_ - -O’CONNOR, JOSEPH: - -Shadows....._Poems_ - -O’SHAUGHNESSY, ARTHUR: - -A Farewell....._Music and Moonlight_ -Song.....“ “ -Supreme Summer.....“ “ - -PARKER, GILBERT: - -As One would stand who saw a Sudden Light....._A Lover’s Diary_ - -PATMORE, COVENTRY: - -Departure....._The Unknown Eros_ - -PAYNE, JOHN: - -Cadences....._Songs of Life and Death_ -Chant Royal of the God of Love....._New Poems_ -False Spring....._Songs of Life and Death_ - -PERRY, NORA: - -In June....._After the Ball, and Other Poems_ - -PFEIFFER, EMILY: - -A Song of Winter. - -PHILLIPS, STEPHEN: - -To a Lost Love....._Primavera_ - -PHILPOT, WILLIAM: - -Prince of Painters, come, I pray. - -PINKERTON, PERCY C.: - -A Lagoon Message....._Galeazzo, and Other Poems_ - -POLLOCK, WALTER HERRIES: - -A Conquest....._New and Old_ -The Devout Lover.....“ “ - -PROBYN, MAY: - -Ballade of Lovers....._A Ballade of the Road, and Other Poems_ - -RAWNSLEY, HARDWICK DRUMMOND: - -In a Garden....._Poems, Ballads, and Bucolics_ - -REESE, LIZETTE WOODWORTH: - -A Song for Candlemas....._A Handful of Lavender_ - -RHYS, ERNEST: - -A Dream of Diana....._A London Rose, and Other Rhymes_ - -RILEY, JAMES WHITCOMB: - -When She comes Home....._Old-Fashioned Roses_ - -ROBINSON, A. MARY F. (MADAME JAMES DARMESTETER): - -Poplar Leaves....._Lyrics_ - -ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA G.: - -After Death....._Poems_ -Somewhere or Other.....“ - -ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL: - -First Love Remembered....._The House of Life_ -Love Enthroned.....“ “ -Sudden Light.....“ “ - -SCOLLARD, CLINTON: - -A Perfect Day....._The Hills of Song_ - -SCOTT, CLEMENT: - -Rus in Urbe....._Lays and Lyrics_ - -SHARP, WILLIAM: - -Song. -The Coming of Love....._The Pagan Review_ - -SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND: - -Recall....._Poems_ - -SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT: - -Fantasia....._Poems_ -Only a Leaf.....“ - -STEDMAN, EDMUND CLARENCE: - -Song from a Drama....._Poems_ - -STORY, W. W.: - -The Violet....._Poems_ - -STRANGE, EDWARD FAIRBROTHER: - -To my Lady....._Palissy in Prison, and Other Verses_ - -SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES: - -At Parting....._Poems and Ballads, Second Series_ -August....._Laus Veneris_ -Between the Sunset and the Sea....._Chastelard_ -The Oblation....._Songs before Sunrise_ - -SYMONS, ARTHUR: - -On Judge’s Walk....._Silhouettes_ - -SYMONDS, JOHN ADDINGTON: - -Ich hör’ es sogar im Traum....._New and Old_ -Oh, when will it be?....._The Spirit Lamp_ - -TEMPLE, STEPHEN: - -Ballade of the Ladyes of Long Syne. - -TENNYSON, ALFRED, LORD: - -Fatima....._Poems_ -Now sleeps the Crimson Petal.....“ -The Window; or the Songs of the Wrens.....“ - -THOMAS, EDITH M.: - -Valentine....._Lyrics and Sonnets_ - -THOMPSON, FRANCIS: - -Dream Tryst....._Poems_ - -THOMPSON, MAURICE: - -Atalanta....._Songs of Fair Weather_ - -THOMSON, JAMES: - -A Song of Thanksgiving....._Sunday up the River_ -Day after Day of this Azure May....._Sunday at Hampstead_ - -TODHUNTER, JOHN: - -The Song of Tristram....._The Second Book of the Rhymers’ Club_ - -TOMSON, GRAHAM R. (ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON): - -Aubade....._A Summer Night, and Other Poems_ -Love the Guest....._The Bird Bride_ - -TURNER, CHARLES TENNYSON: - -A Blush at Farewell....._Collected Sonnets_ -The Kiss of Betrothal.....“ “ -The Parting-Gate.....“ “ - -TYNAN, KATHERINE: - -Irish Love Song....._Irish Love Songs_ - -TYTLER, C. C. FRASER (MRS. EDWARD LIDDELL): - -Good-Night....._Songs in Minor Keys_ - -VENABLE, WILLIAM H.: - -I know ’tis Late, but let Me stay....._Melodies of the Heart_ - -WALSH, EDWARD: - -Cashel of Munster....._Irish Love Songs_ - -WARREN, JOHN LEICESTER (LORD DE TABLEY): - -Daffodils....._Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical_ - -WATSON, ROSAMUND MARRIOTT (GRAHAM R. TOMSON): - -Ave atque Vale....._Vespertilia, and Other Verses_ -Epitaph.....“ “ “ “ - -WATSON, WILLIAM: - -A Golden Hour....._Lachrymæ Musarum, and Other Poems_ -And These--are These indeed the End?....._Poems_ - -WATTS, THEODORE: -A Dream....._Aylwin_ -The First Kiss....._Sonnets_ - -WHITE, GLEESON: - -Sufficiency. - -WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF: - -Benedicite....._Poems_ - -WOLLASTON, J. T. BURTON: - -My Violet....._Golden Hours_ - -WRATISLAW, THEODORE: - -Asleep....._Orchids_ -Swimming Song.....“ - -YEATS, W. B.: - -The Peace of the Rose....._The Countess Kathleen, and Various Legends and Lyrics_ - -YOUNG, WILLIAM: - -The Bridal Pair....._Wishmakers’ Town_ -The Triflers.....“ “ - - - - - -INDEX OF FIRST LINES - - -.....PAGE - -A beckoning spirit of gladness seemed afloat, 290 - -A hundred years from now, dear heart, 24 - -A little love, of Heaven a little share, 294 - -All glorious as the Rainbow’s birth, 153 - -All the phantoms of the future, all the spectres, 136 - -Alone, alone, thro’ the sunny street, 87 - -And these--are these indeed the end, 291 - -Ask nothing more of me, sweet, 251 - -As one would stand who saw a sudden light, 193 - -At dinner she is hostess, I am host, 155 - -A thousand knights have rein’d their steeds, 9 - -Azure of sky and silver of cloud, 181 - - -Barb’d blossom of the guarded gorse, 207 - -Because thou wast cold and proud, 306 - -Beneath the loveliest dream there coils a fear, 292 - -Between the pansies and the rye, 102 - -Between the sunset and the sea, 249 - -Bland air and leagues of immemorial blue, 230 - -By one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete, 98 - - -Cold blows the wind against the hill, 75 - -Come, oh, come to me, voice or look, or spirit, 22 - -Comrades! in vain ye seek to learn, 168 - -Countess, I see the flying year, 118 - - -“Darling,” he said, “I never meant”, 103 - -Dawn, with flusht foot upon the mountain tops, 54 - -Day after day of this azure May, 269 - -Dear, let me dream of love, 104 - - -Fair star that on the shoulder of yon hill, 160 - -Far away hangs an apple that ripens on high, 45 - -Farewell my Youth! for now we needs must part, 286 - -Fold your arms around me, Sweet, 92 - -For a day and night, Love sang to us, played, 244 - -For the man was she made by the Eden tree, 216 - -From out the past she comes to me, 243 - - -God’s love and peace be with thee, where, 295 - -Gone!, 262 - - -Has summer come without the rose, 186 - -Hath any loved you well down there, 183 - -Herald of peace and joy, 68 - -Her tears are all thine own! how blest thou art!, 275 - -How, as a spider’s web is spun, 70 - -How like her! But ’tis she herself, 116 - -How many lips have uttered one sweet word--, 96 - - -“I burn my soul away!”, 83 - -I cannot look upon thy grave, 209 - -I charge you, O winds of the West, 26 - -I dared not lead my arm around, 117 - -I did not dream that Love would stay, 273 - -I’d send a troop of kisses to entangle, 21 - -If in thine eyes, 123 - -If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun, 138 - -If Love could last, if Love could last, 15 - -If love were like a thrush’s song, 84 - -If Michael, leader of God’s host, 304 - -If only a single Rose is left, 20 - -If only in dreams may man be fully blest, 293 - -I found him openly wearing her token, 214 - -If stars were really watching eyes, 29 - -If thou canst make the frost be gone, 263 - -I had never kissed her her whole life long, 166 - -I have been here before, 229 - -I know not if moonlight or starlight, 239 - -I know ’tis late, but let me stay, 281 - -I marked all kindred Powers the heart finds fair, 228 - -In after years a twilight ghost shall fill, 167 - -In and out the osier beds, all along the shallows, 234 - -In a still room at hush of dawn, 43 - -In dream I saw Diana pass, Diana as of old, 221 - -In that old beech-walk, now bestrewn with mast, 277 - -In that tranced hush when sound sank awed, 148 - -I question with the amber daffodils, 285 - -I saw young Love make trial of his bow, 59 - -I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know, 113 - -I sit alone and watch the cinders glare, 81 - -It is not mine to sing the stately grace, 215 - -It is over now, she is gone to rest, 279 - -It was not like your great and gracious ways, 194 - -It was with doubt and trembling, 5 - -I’ve kissed thee, sweetheart, in a dream at least, 78 - -I will not let thee go, 31 - -I will not say my true love’s eyes, 73 - -I would wed you dear, without gold or gear, 283 - - -Keen winds of cloud and vaporous drift, 74 - -Kiss me, and say good-bye, 111 - - -Last night my lady talked with me, 57 - -Lids closed and pale, with parted lips she lay, 300 - -Lights Love, the timorous bird, to dwell, 13 - -Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes, 80 - -Lo! in a dream Love came to me and cried, 310 - -Long are the hours the sun is above, 33 - -Love had forgotten and gone to sleep, 3 - -Love in my heart! oh, heart of me, heart of me!, 233 - -Love in the heart is as a nightingale, 30 - -Love is a Fire, 4 - -Love is enough: ho, ye who seek saving, 163 - -Love is enough: though the World be a-waning, 162 - -“Love me, or I am slain!” I cried, and meant, 236 - -Love within the lover’s breast, 156 - - -Men, women, call thee so and so, 79 - -My days are full of pleasant memories, 11 - -My lady has a casket cut, 151 - -My life its secret and its mystery has, 14 - -My love and I among the mountains strayed, 176 - -My Love is a lady fair and free, 143 - -My love is the flaming sword, to fight through, 268 - - -Nay! if thou must depart, thou shalt depart, 8 - -No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought, 107 - -Not now, but later, when the road, 213 - -Not yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high, 62 - -Now, by the blessed Paphian queen, 99 - -Now lay thee down to sleep, and dream of me, 288 - -Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white, 260 - - -O birds, ’twas not well done of you!, 203 - -O brown lark, loving cloud-land best, 53 - -O heart full of song in the sweet song-weather, 188 - -Oh! faint delicious spring-time violet, 241 - -Oh, gather me the rose, the rose, 91 - -Oh, to think, oh, to think as I see her stand there, 72 - -Oh, when will it be, oh, when will it be, oh, when, 255 - -Oh, would, oh, would that thou and I, 180 - -O knight, if thou a lady hast, 85 - -O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!, 258 - -O most fair God, O Love both new and old, 199 - -Once more I walk mid summer days, as one, 147 - - -Passion? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes, 49 - -Peace in her chamber, wheresoe’er, 227 - -Play me a march low-toned and slow, 157 - -Poets are singing, the whole world over, 231 - -Prince of painters, come, I pray, 211 - - -She went with morning down the wood, 141 - -Sing on, sing on: half dreaming still, 253 - -Somewhere or other there must surely be, 226 - -So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing, 205 - -So you but love me, be it your own way, 133 - -Such a starved bank of moss, 35 - -Sullenly fell the rain while under the oak we stood, 105 - -Sweet as the change from pleasant thoughts, 97 - - -Tell me wher, in what contree, is, 256 - -That night on Judge’s Walk the wind, 252 - -The ancient memories buried lie, 196 - -The breaths of kissing night and day, 265 - -The broad green rollers lift and glide, 301 - -The cowslip glowed, the tulip burned, 218 - -The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept, 225 - -The fire is smouldering while the daylight wanes, 55 - -The lights are out in the street, and a cool wind, 271 - -The little gate was reached at last, 127 - -The mavis sang but yesterday, 1 - -The place again, 124 - -The rain set early in to-night, 36 - -There is a certain garden where I know, 137 - -There is an air for which I would disown, 110 - -There’s never a rose upon the bush, 220 - -The restless years that come and go, 178 - -There were four apples on the bough, 246 - -The same green hill, the same blue sea, 19 - -The snow is white on wood and wold, 172 - -The star of love is trembling in the west, 270 - -The sun is bright,--the air is clear, 120 - -The wheel goes round, the wheel goes round, 174 - -The wind blows down the dusty street, 224 - -The world goes up and the world goes down, 106 - -Though the roving bee as lightly, 305 - -Thou walkest with me as the spirit-light, 28 - -Thou wilt come back again, but not for me, 126 - -Through laughing leaves the sunlight comes, 50 - -Thy shadow, O tardy night, 161 - -Time with his jealous icy blast, 60 - -’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain, 64 - - -Upon that quiet day that lies, 41 - -Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart, 39 - - -Vine, vine and eglantine, 261 - - -Waves the soft grass at my feet, 307 - -We’re all alone, we’re all alone, 237 - -What days await this woman whose strange feet, 109 - -What hast thou done to me, 122 - -What thought is folded in thy leaves, 6 - -When did the change come, dearest Heart, 145 - -When fair Hyperion dons his night attire, 149 - -When God some day shall call my name, 170 - -When I shall stand before the judgment throne, 86 - -When lovers’ lips from kissing disunite, 276 - -When she comes home again! A thousand ways, 223 - -When spring grows old, and sleepy winds, 267 - -When the hot wasp hung in the grape last year, 76 - -When the late leaves lit all the place, 238 - -When the leaves fall in autumn, and you go, 82 - -When violets blue begin to blow, 298 - -Who is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers, 114 - -With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams, 89 - -With moon-white hearts that held a gleam, 47 - -Would God I were the tender apple-blossom, 278 - - -Yes, but the years run circling fleeter, 130 - -Your carmine flakes of bloom to-night, 42 - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love's Old Sweet Song, by -George H. 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