Roadside Harp

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <div class="section"> <h1>A Roadside Harp</h1> <hr class="divider2" /></div> <div class="section hidehand"> <div class="figcenter width400"> <ANTIMG src="images/cover2.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="627" alt="Cover" /></div> </div> <hr class="divider" /> <div class="box"> <p class="center ornate p140">By Miss Guiney.</p> <hr class="tiny" /> <p class="hang">THE WHITE SAIL, AND OTHER POEMS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.</p> <p class="hang">SONGS AT THE START. 16mo, $1.00.</p> <p class="hang">A ROADSIDE HARP. 16mo.</p> <p class="center">HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN &amp; CO.<br/> <span class="smcap">Boston and New York.</span></p> </div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/title.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="615" alt="Title page" /></div> <div class="section hidehand"> <hr class="divider2" /> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <p class="noi">A <span class="underline">ROADSIDE</span> HARP<br/> A BOOK OF VERSES BY<br/> LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY</p> <div class="line">“<i>Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be,</i></div> <div class="line"><i>And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,</i></div> <div class="line"><i>Tempers her words to trampling horses’ feet,</i></div> <div class="line"><i>More oft than to a chamber melody!</i>”</div> </div></div> </div> <p class="center">BOSTON AND NEW YORK<br/> HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND<br/> COMPANY M DCCC XCIII<br/></p> </div> </div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <p class="center">COPYRIGHT, 1893<br/> BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY<br/> ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</p> <p class="center"><i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.</i><br/> Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton &amp; Co.</p> </div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="TO_DORA_AND_HESTER_SIGERSON" id="TO_DORA_AND_HESTER_SIGERSON"></SPAN>TO DORA AND HESTER SIGERSON</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><i>There in the Druid brake</i></div> <div class="line"><i>If the cuckoo be awake</i></div> <div class="line"><i>Again, O take my rhyme!</i></div> <div class="line"><i>And keep it long for the sake</i></div> <div class="line"><i>Of a bygone primrose-time;</i></div> <div class="line"><i>You of the star-bright head</i></div> <div class="line"><i>That twilight thoughts sequester,</i></div> <div class="line"><i>You to your native fountains led</i></div> <div class="line"><i>Like to a young Muse garlanded:</i></div> <div class="line"><i>Dora, and Hester.</i></div> </div> <div class="line outdent">March, 1893.</div> </div></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Contents" id="Contents"></SPAN>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h2></div> <table summary="Contents"> <tr> <th>&nbsp;</th> <th class="tdr2"><i>Page</i></th> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Peter_Rugg"><span class="cap">P</span>ETER RUGG the Bostonian</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">&nbsp;1</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Ballad">A Ballad of Kenelm</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">8</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Vergniaud">Vergniaud in the Tumbril</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">10</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Winter">Winter Boughs</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">13</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#M_A">M. A. 1822&ndash;1888</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">13</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#W_H">W. H. 1778&ndash;1830</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">14</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The_Vigil-at-Arms">The Vigil-at-Arms</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">14</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Madonna">A Madonna of Domenico Ghirlandajo</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">15</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Spring">Spring Nightfall</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">15</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Friends">A Friend’s Song for Simoisius</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">16</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Athassel">Athassel Abbey</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">17</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Florentin">Florentin</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">18</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Friendship">Friendship Broken</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">19</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Song_of">A Song of the Lilac</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">20</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#In_a_Ruin">In a Ruin, after a Thunder-Storm</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">21</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The_Cherry">The Cherry Bough</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">21</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Two_Irish">Two Irish Peasant Songs</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">23</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The_Japanese">The Japanese Anemone</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">25</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Tryste">Tryste Noel</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2"> 26</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Talisman">A Talisman</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">27</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Heathenesse">Heathenesse</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">27</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#For_Izaak">For Izaak Walton</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">28</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Sherman">Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">29</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#When_on">When on the Marge of Evening</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">32</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Rooks_in">Rooks in New College Gardens</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">32</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Open_Time">Open, Time</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2"> 33</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The">The Knight Errant (Donatello’s Saint George)</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">34</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#To_a_Dogs">To a Dog’s Memory</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2"> 35</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Seventeenth-Century">A Seventeenth-Century Song</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">36</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#On_the_Pre-Reformation">On the Pre-Reformation Churches about Oxford</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">37</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The_Still_of">The Still of the Year</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">38</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#A_Footnote">A Foot-note to a Famous Lyric</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">39</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#T_W_P">T. W. P. 1819&ndash;1892</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">41</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Summum">Summum Bonum</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2"> 41</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Saint_Florent-le-Vieil">Saint Florent-le-Vieil</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">42</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Hylas">Hylas</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">42</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Nocturne">Nocturne</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">43</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#The_Kings">The Kings</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">44</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#Alexandriana">Alexandriana</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">47</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl"><SPAN href="#LONDON">London: Twelve Sonnets.</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">&nbsp;</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#On_First">On First Entering Westminster Abbey</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">55</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#Fog">Fog</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">55</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#St_Peter-ad-Vincula">St. Peter-ad-Vincula</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">56</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#Strikers_in">Strikers in Hyde Park</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">56</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#Changes_in">Changes in the Temple</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2"> 57</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#The_Lights">The Lights of London</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">58</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#Doves">Doves</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">58</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#In_the">In the Reading-Room of the British Museum</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">59</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#Sunday">Sunday Chimes in the City</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">59</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#A_Porch">A Porch in Belgravia</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">60</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#York_Stairs">York Stairs</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">61</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl2"><SPAN href="#In_the_Docks">In the Docks</SPAN></td> <td class="tdr2">61</td> </tr> </table> <div class="section"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</SPAN></span> <hr class="divider" /> <p class="center p180"><SPAN name="A_ROADSIDE_HARP_POEMS" id="A_ROADSIDE_HARP_POEMS"></SPAN> A ROADSIDE HARP. POEMS<br/> BY LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY</p> </div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h2><SPAN name="Peter_Rugg" id="Peter_Rugg"></SPAN><i>Peter Rugg the Bostonian</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE mare is pawing by the oak,</div> <div class="line indent">The chaise is cool and wide</div> <div class="line">For Peter Rugg the Bostonian</div> <div class="line">With his little son beside;</div> <div class="line">The women loiter at the wheels</div> <div class="line">In the pleasant summer-tide.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“And when wilt thou be home, Father?”</div> <div class="line">“And when, good husband, say:</div> <div class="line">The cloud hangs heavy on the house</div> <div class="line">What time thou art away.”</div> <div class="line">He answers straight, he answers short,</div> <div class="line">“At noon of the seventh day.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“Fail not to come, if God so will,</div> <div class="line">And the weather be kind and clear.”</div> <div class="line">“Farewell, farewell! But who am I</div> <div class="line">A blockhead rain to fear?</div> <div class="line">God willing or God unwilling,</div> <div class="line">I have said it, I will be here.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">He gathers up the sunburnt boy</div> <div class="line">And from the gate is sped;</div> <div class="line">He shakes the spark from the stones below,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The bloom from overhead,</div> <div class="line">Till the last roofs of his own town</div> <div class="line">Pass in the morning-red.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Upon a homely mission</div> <div class="line">North unto York he goes,</div> <div class="line">Through the long highway broidered thick</div> <div class="line">With elder-blow and rose;</div> <div class="line">And sleeps in sound of breakers</div> <div class="line">At every twilight’s close.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Intense upon his heedless head</div> <div class="line">Frowns Agamenticus,</div> <div class="line">Knowing of Heaven’s challenger</div> <div class="line">The answer: even thus</div> <div class="line">The Patience that is hid on high</div> <div class="line">Doth stoop to master us.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Full light are all his parting dreams;</div> <div class="line">Desire is in his brain;</div> <div class="line">He tightens at the tavern-post</div> <div class="line">The fiery creature’s rein:</div> <div class="line">“Now eat thine apple, six years’ child!</div> <div class="line">We face for home again.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">They had not gone a many mile</div> <div class="line">With nimble heart and tongue,</div> <div class="line">When the lone thrush grew silent</div> <div class="line">The walnut woods among;</div> <div class="line">And on the lulled horizon</div> <div class="line">A premonition hung.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The babes at Hampton schoolhouse,</div> <div class="line">The wife with lads at sea,</div> <div class="line">Search with a level-lifted hand</div> <div class="line">The distance bodingly;</div> <div class="line">And farmer folk bid pilgrims in</div> <div class="line">Under a safe roof-tree.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The mowers mark by Newbury</div> <div class="line">How low the swallows fly,</div> <div class="line">They glance across the southern roads</div> <div class="line">All white and fever-dry,</div> <div class="line">And the river, anxious at the bend,</div> <div class="line">Beneath a thinking sky.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But there is one abroad was born</div> <div class="line">To disbelieve and dare:</div> <div class="line">Along the highway furiously</div> <div class="line">He cuts the purple air.</div> <div class="line">The wind leaps on the startled world</div> <div class="line">As hounds upon a hare;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">With brawl and glare and shudder ope</div> <div class="line">The sluices of the storm;</div> <div class="line">The woods break down, the sand upblows</div> <div class="line">In blinding volleys warm;</div> <div class="line">The yellow floods in frantic surge</div> <div class="line">Familiar fields deform.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">From evening until morning</div> <div class="line">His skill will not avail,</div> <div class="line">And as he cheers his youngest born,</div> <div class="line">His cheek is spectre-pale;</div> <div class="line">For the bonnie mare from courses known</div> <div class="line">Has drifted like a sail!</div> </div> <p class="center bold"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</SPAN></span> III</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">On some wild crag he sees the dawn</div> <div class="line">Unsheathe her scimitar.</div> <div class="line">“Oh, if it be my mother-earth,</div> <div class="line">And not a foreign star,</div> <div class="line">Tell me the way to Boston,</div> <div class="line">And is it near or far?”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">One watchman lifts his lamp and laughs:</div> <div class="line">“Ye’ve many a league to wend.”</div> <div class="line">The next doth bless the sleeping boy</div> <div class="line">From his mad father’s end;</div> <div class="line">A third upon a drawbridge growls:</div> <div class="line">“Bear ye to larboard, friend.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Forward and backward, like a stone</div> <div class="line">The tides have in their hold,</div> <div class="line">He dashes east, and then distraught</div> <div class="line">Darts west as he is told,</div> <div class="line">(Peter Rugg the Bostonian,</div> <div class="line">That knew the land of old!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And journeying, and resting scarce</div> <div class="line">A melancholy space,</div> <div class="line">Turns to and fro, and round and round,</div> <div class="line">The frenzy in his face,</div> <div class="line">And ends alway in angrier mood,</div> <div class="line">And in a stranger place,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Lost! lost in bayberry thickets</div> <div class="line">Where Plymouth plovers run,</div> <div class="line">And where the masts of Salem</div> <div class="line">Look lordly in the sun;</div> <div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</SPAN></span> Lost in the Concord vale, and lost</div> <div class="line">By rocky Wollaston!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Small thanks have they that guide him,</div> <div class="line">Awed and aware of blight;</div> <div class="line">To hear him shriek denial</div> <div class="line">It sickens them with fright:</div> <div class="line">“They lied to me a month ago</div> <div class="line">With thy same lie to-night!”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">To-night, to-night, as nights succeed,</div> <div class="line">He swears at home to bide,</div> <div class="line">Until, pursued with laughter</div> <div class="line">Or fled as soon as spied,</div> <div class="line">The weather-drenchèd man is known</div> <div class="line">Over the country side!</div> </div> <p class="center bold">IV</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">The seventh noon&thinsp;’s a memory,</div> <div class="line">And autumn&thinsp;’s closing in;</div> <div class="line">The quince is fragrant on the bough,</div> <div class="line">And barley chokes the bin.</div> <div class="line">“O Boston, Boston, Boston!</div> <div class="line">And O my kith and kin!”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The snow climbs o’er the pasture wall,</div> <div class="line">It crackles ’neath the moon;</div> <div class="line">And now the rustic sows the seed,</div> <div class="line">Damp in his heavy shoon;</div> <div class="line">And now the building jays are loud</div> <div class="line">In canopies of June.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">For season after season</div> <div class="line">The three are whirled along,</div> <div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</SPAN></span> Misled by every instinct</div> <div class="line">Of light, or scent, or song;</div> <div class="line">Yea, put them on the surest trail,</div> <div class="line">The trail is in the wrong.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Upon those wheels in any path</div> <div class="line">The rain will follow loud,</div> <div class="line">And he who meets that ghostly man</div> <div class="line">Will meet a thunder-cloud,</div> <div class="line">And whosoever speaks with him</div> <div class="line">May next bespeak his shroud.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Tho’ nigh two hundred years have gone,</div> <div class="line">Doth Peter Rugg the more</div> <div class="line">A gentle answer and a true</div> <div class="line">Of living lips implore:</div> <div class="line">“Oh, show me to my own town,</div> <div class="line">And to my open door!”</div> </div> <p class="center bold">V</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Where shall he see his own town</div> <div class="line">Once dear unto his feet?</div> <div class="line">The psalms, the tankard to the King,</div> <div class="line">The beacon’s cliffy seat,</div> <div class="line">The gabled neighborhood, the stocks</div> <div class="line">Set in the middle street?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">How shall he know his own town</div> <div class="line">If now he clatters thro’?</div> <div class="line">Much men and cities change that have</div> <div class="line">Another love to woo;</div> <div class="line">And things occult, incredible,</div> <div class="line">They find to think and do.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</SPAN></span> With such new wonders since he went</div> <div class="line">A broader gossip copes,</div> <div class="line">Across the crowded triple hills,</div> <div class="line">And up the harbor slopes,</div> <div class="line">Tradition’s self for him no more</div> <div class="line">Remembers, watches, hopes.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But ye, O unborn children!</div> <div class="line">(For many a race must thrive</div> <div class="line">And drip away like icicles</div> <div class="line">Ere Peter Rugg arrive,)</div> <div class="line">If of a sudden to your ears</div> <div class="line">His plaint is blown alive;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">If nigh the city, folding in</div> <div class="line">A little lad that cries,</div> <div class="line">A wet and weary traveller</div> <div class="line">Shall fix you with his eyes,</div> <div class="line">And from the crazy carriage lean</div> <div class="line">To spend his heart in sighs:&mdash;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“That I may enter Boston,</div> <div class="line">Oh, help it to befall!</div> <div class="line">There would no fear encompass me,</div> <div class="line">No evil craft appall;</div> <div class="line">Ah, but to be in Boston,</div> <div class="line"><span class="smcap">God willing</span>, after all!”&mdash;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Ye children, tremble not, but go</div> <div class="line">And lift his bridle brave</div> <div class="line">In the one Name, the dread Name,</div> <div class="line">That doth forgive and save,</div> <div class="line">And lead him home to Copp’s Hill ground,</div> <div class="line">And to his fathers’ grave.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="A_Ballad" id="A_Ballad"></SPAN><i>A Ballad of Kenelm</i></h2></div> <p class="center">“In Clent cow-batch, Kenelm King born Lieth under a thorn.”</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">I</span>T was a goodly child,</div> <div class="line indent">Sweet as the gusty May;</div> <div class="line">It was a knight that broke</div> <div class="line">On his play,</div> <div class="line">A fair and coaxing knight:</div> <div class="line">“O little liege!” said he,</div> <div class="line">“Thy sister bids thee come</div> <div class="line">After me.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“A pasture rolling west</div> <div class="line">Lies open to the sun,</div> <div class="line">Bright-shod with primroses</div> <div class="line">Doth it run;</div> <div class="line">And forty oaks be nigh,</div> <div class="line">Apart, and face to face,</div> <div class="line">And cow-bells all the morn</div> <div class="line">In the space.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“And there the sloethorn bush</div> <div class="line">Beside the water grows,</div> <div class="line">And hides her mocking head</div> <div class="line">Under snows;</div> <div class="line">Black stalks afoam with bloom,</div> <div class="line">And never a leaf hath she:</div> <div class="line">Thou crystal of the realm,</div> <div class="line">Follow me!”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Uplooked the undefiled:</div> <div class="line">“All things, ere I was born</div> <div class="line">My sister found; now find</div> <div class="line">Me the thorn.”</div> <div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</SPAN></span> They travelled down the lane,</div> <div class="line">An hour’s dust they made:</div> <div class="line">The belted breast of one</div> <div class="line">Bore a blade.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The primroses were out,</div> <div class="line">The aislèd oaks were green,</div> <div class="line">The cow-bells pleasantly</div> <div class="line">Tinked between;</div> <div class="line">The brook was beaded gold,</div> <div class="line">The thorn was burgeoning,</div> <div class="line">Where evil Ascobert</div> <div class="line">Slew the King.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">He hid him in the ground,</div> <div class="line">Nor washed away the dyes,</div> <div class="line">Nor smoothed the fallen curls</div> <div class="line">From his eyes.</div> <div class="line">No father had the babe</div> <div class="line">To bless his bed forlorn;</div> <div class="line">No mother now to weep</div> <div class="line">By the thorn.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">There fell upon that place</div> <div class="line">A shaft of heavenly light;</div> <div class="line">The thorn in Mercia spake</div> <div class="line">Ere the night:</div> <div class="line">“Beyond, a sister sees</div> <div class="line">Her crownèd period,</div> <div class="line">But at my root a lamb</div> <div class="line">Seeth God.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Unto each, even so.</div> <div class="line">As dew before the cloud,</div> <div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</SPAN></span> The guilty glory passed</div> <div class="line">Of the proud.</div> <div class="line">Boy Kenelm has the song,</div> <div class="line">Saint Kenelm has the bower;</div> <div class="line">His thorn a thousand years</div> <div class="line">Is in flower!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Vergniaud" id="Vergniaud"></SPAN><i>Vergniaud in the Tumbril</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE wheels are silent, the cords are slack,</div> <div class="line indent">The terrible faces are surging back.</div> <div class="line">France, they too love thee! bid that keep plain;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The wrath and carnage I stayed afar</div> <div class="line">Colleagues of my white conscience are:</div> <div class="line">Accept my slayers, accept me slain!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Shed for days, in its olden guise</div> <div class="line">The quiet delicate snake-skin lies</div> <div class="line">To cheat a boy on his woodland stroll:</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">What if he crush it? Others see</div> <div class="line">Beauty’s miracle under a tree</div> <div class="line">Supple in mail, and adroit, and whole;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The shaper rid of a shape, and thence</div> <div class="line">(Growth of an outgrown excellence),</div> <div class="line">Mounted with infinite might and speed,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Freed like a soul to the heaven it dreamed;</div> <div class="line">Over life that was, and death that seemed</div> <div class="line">A victory and a revenge indeed!</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">As the serpent moves to the open spring,</div> <div class="line">The while a mock, a delusive thing</div> <div class="line">Sole in sight of the crowd may be,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">So ye, my martyrs, arise, advance!</div> <div class="line">For what is left at the feet of France</div> <div class="line">It is our failure, it is not we.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Not to ourselves our strength we brought:</div> <div class="line">Inexpiable the Hand that wrought</div> <div class="line">In us the ruin of no redress,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The storm, the effort, the pang, the fire,</div> <div class="line">The premonition, the vast desire,</div> <div class="line">The primal passion of righteousness!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Scarce by the pitiful thwarted plan,</div> <div class="line">The haste, or the studious fears of man</div> <div class="line">Drawing a discord from best delight,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The measure is meted of God most wise;</div> <div class="line">Nor the future, with her adjusted eyes,</div> <div class="line">Shall speak us false in our dying fight.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But e’en to me now some use is clear</div> <div class="line">In the builded truth down-beaten here</div> <div class="line">For any along the way to spurn,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Since ever our broken task may stand</div> <div class="line">Disaster’s college in one saved land,</div> <div class="line">Whence many a stripling state shall learn.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Out of the human shoots the divine:</div> <div class="line">Be the Republic our only sign,</div> <div class="line">For whose life’s glory our lives have been</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Ambassadors on a noble way</div> <div class="line">Tempest-driven, and sent astray</div> <div class="line">The first and the final good between.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Close to the vision undestroyed,</div> <div class="line">The hope not compassed and yet not void,</div> <div class="line">We perish so; but the world shall mark</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">On the hilltop of our work we died,</div> <div class="line">With joy of the groom before the bride,</div> <div class="line">With a dawn-cry thro’ the battle’s dark.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">III</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">O last save me on the scaffold’s round!</div> <div class="line">Take heart, that after a thirst profound</div> <div class="line">The cup of delicious death is near,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And whoso hold it, or whence it flow,</div> <div class="line">O drink it to France, to France! and know</div> <div class="line">For the gift thou givest, thou hast her tear.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">True seed thou wert of the sunnier hour,</div> <div class="line">Honorable, and burst to flower</div> <div class="line">Late in a hell-pit poison-walled:</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Farewell, mortality lopped and pale,</div> <div class="line">Thou body that wast my friend! and Hail,</div> <div class="line">Dear spirit already!... My name is called.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="Winter" id="Winter"></SPAN><i>Winter Boughs</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">H</span>OW tender and how slow, in sunset’s cheer,</div> <div class="line indent">Far on the hill, our quiet treetops fade!</div> <div class="line">A broidery of northern seaweed, laid</div> <div class="line">Long in a book, were scarce more fine and clear.</div> <div class="line">Frost, and sad light, and windless atmosphere</div> <div class="line">Have breathed on them, and of their frailties made</div> <div class="line">Beauty more sweet than summer’s builded shade,</div> <div class="line">Whose green domes fall, to bring this wonder here.</div> <div class="line">O ye forgetting and outliving boughs,</div> <div class="line">With not a plume, gay in the jousts before,</div> <div class="line">Left for the Archer! so, in evening’s eye,</div> <div class="line">So stilled, so lifted, let your lover die,</div> <div class="line">Set in the upper calm no voices rouse,</div> <div class="line">Stript, meek, withdrawn, against the heavenly door.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="M_A" id="M_A"></SPAN><i>M. A. 1822&ndash;1888</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">G</span>OOD oars, for Arnold’s sake</div> <div class="line indent">By Laleham lightly bound,</div> <div class="line">And near the bank, O soft,</div> <div class="line">Darling swan!</div> <div class="line">Let not the o’erweary wake</div> <div class="line">From this his natal ground,</div> <div class="line">But where he slumbered oft,</div> <div class="line">Slumber on.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="W_H" id="W_H"></SPAN><i>W. H. 1778&ndash;1830</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">B</span>ETWEEN the wet trees and the sorry steeple,</div> <div class="line indent">Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt,</div> <div class="line">Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Beauty&thinsp;’s a sinking light, ah, none too faithful;</div> <div class="line">But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer,</div> <div class="line">Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit,</div> <div class="line">Safe also on our earth, begetting ever</div> <div class="line">Some one love worth the ages and the nations!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Nothing falls under to thine eyes eternal.</div> <div class="line">Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining,</div> <div class="line">Titian and Wordsworth live; the People marches.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="The_Vigil-at-Arms" id="The_Vigil-at-Arms"></SPAN><i>The Vigil-at-Arms</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">K</span>EEP holy watch with silence, prayer, and fasting</div> <div class="line indent">Till morning break, and all the bugles play;</div> <div class="line">Unto the One aware from everlasting</div> <div class="line">Dear are the winners: thou art more than they.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Forth from this peace on manhood’s way thou goest,</div> <div class="line">Flushed with resolve, and radiant in mail;</div> <div class="line">Blessing supreme for men unborn thou sowest,</div> <div class="line">O knight elect! O soul ordained to fail!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="A_Madonna" id="A_Madonna"></SPAN><i>A Madonna of Domenico Ghirlandajo</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">L</span>ET thoughts go hence as from a mountain spring,</div> <div class="line indent">Of the great dust of battle clean and whole,</div> <div class="line">And the wild birds that have no nest nor goal</div> <div class="line">Fold in a young man’s breast their trancèd wing;</div> <div class="line">For thou art made of purest Light, a thing</div> <div class="line">Art gave, beyond her own devout control;</div> <div class="line">And Light upon thy seeing, suffering soul</div> <div class="line">Hath wrought a sign for many journeying;</div> <div class="line">Our sign. As up a wayside, after rain,</div> <div class="line">When the blown beeches purple all the height</div> <div class="line">And clouds sink to the sea-marge, suddenly</div> <div class="line">The autumn sun (how soft, how solemn-bright!)</div> <div class="line">Moves to the vacant dial, so is lain</div> <div class="line">God’s meaning Hand, thou chosen, upon thee.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Spring" id="Spring"></SPAN><i>Spring Nightfall</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span>PRIL is sad, as if the end she knew.</div> <div class="line indent">The maple’s misty red, the willow’s gold</div> <div class="line">Face-deep in nimble water, seem to hold</div> <div class="line">In hope’s own weather their autumnal hue.</div> <div class="line">There is no wind, no star, no sense of dew,</div> <div class="line">But the thin vapors gird the mountain old,</div> <div class="line">And the moon, risen before the west is cold,</div> <div class="line">Pale with compassion slopes into the blue.</div> <div class="line">Under the shining dark the day hath passed</div> <div class="line">Shining; so even of thee was home bereaved,</div> <div class="line">Thou dear and pensive spirit! overcast</div> <div class="line">Hardly at all, but drawn from light to light,</div> <div class="line">Who in the doubtful hour, and unperceived,</div> <div class="line">Rebuked adoring hearts with change and flight.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="A_Friends" id="A_Friends"></SPAN><i>A Friend’s Song for Simoisius</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE breath of dew, and twilight’s grace,</div> <div class="line indent">Be on the lonely battle-place;</div> <div class="line">And to so young, so kind a face,</div> <div class="line">The long, protecting grasses cling!</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">In rocky hollows cool and deep,</div> <div class="line">The bees our boyhood hunted sleep;</div> <div class="line">The early moon from Ida’s steep</div> <div class="line">Comes to the empty wrestling-ring.</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Upon the widowed wind recede</div> <div class="line">No echoes of the shepherd’s reed,</div> <div class="line">And children without laughter lead</div> <div class="line">The war-horse to the watering.</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Thou stranger Ajax Telamon!</div> <div class="line">What to the loveliest hast thou done,</div> <div class="line">That ne’er with him a maid may run</div> <div class="line">Across the marigolds in spring?</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">With footstep separate and slow</div> <div class="line">The father and the mother go,</div> <div class="line">Not now upon an urn they know</div> <div class="line">To mingle tears for comforting.</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The world to me has nothing dear</div> <div class="line">Beyond the namesake river here:</div> <div class="line">O Simois is wild and clear!</div> <div class="line">And to his brink my heart I bring;</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">My heart no more, if that might be,</div> <div class="line">Would stay his waters from the sea,</div> <div class="line">To cover Troy, to cover me,</div> <div class="line">To save us from the perishing.</div> <div class="line">(Alas, alas,</div> <div class="line">The one inexorable thing!)</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Athassel" id="Athassel"></SPAN><i>Athassel Abbey</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">F</span>OLLY and Time have fashioned</div> <div class="line indent">Of thee a songless reed;</div> <div class="line">O not-of-earth-impassioned!</div> <div class="line">Thy music&thinsp;’s mute indeed.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Red from the chantry crannies</div> <div class="line">The orchids burn and swing,</div> <div class="line">And where the arch began is</div> <div class="line">Rest for a raven’s wing;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And up the bossy column</div> <div class="line">Quick tails of squirrels wave,</div> <div class="line">And black, prodigious, solemn,</div> <div class="line">A forest fills the nave.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Still faithfuller, still faster,</div> <div class="line">To ruin give thy heart:</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Perfect before the Master</div> <div class="line">Aye as thou wert, thou art.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But I am wind that passes</div> <div class="line">In ignorant wild tears,</div> <div class="line">Uplifted from the grasses,</div> <div class="line">Blown to the void of years,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Blown to the void, yet sighing</div> <div class="line">In thee to merge and cease,</div> <div class="line">Last breath of beauty’s dying,</div> <div class="line">Of sanctity, of peace!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Tho’ use nor place forever</div> <div class="line">Unto my soul befall,</div> <div class="line">By no belovèd river</div> <div class="line">Set in a saintly wall,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Do thou by builders given</div> <div class="line">Speech of the dumb to be,</div> <div class="line">Beneath thine open heaven,</div> <div class="line">Athassel! pray for me.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Florentin" id="Florentin"></SPAN><i>Florentin</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">H</span>EART all full of heavenly haste, too like the bubble bright</div> <div class="line indent">On loud little water floating half of an April night,</div> <div class="line">Fled from the ear in music, fled from the eye in light,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Dear and stainless heart of a boy! No sweeter thing can be</div> <div class="line">Drawn to the quiet centre of God who is our sea;</div> <div class="line">Whither, thro’ troubled valleys, we also follow thee.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Friendship" id="Friendship"></SPAN><i>Friendship Broken</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>E chose the faint chill morning, friend and friend,</div> <div class="line indent">Pacing the twilight out beneath an oak,</div> <div class="line">Soul calling soul to judgment; and we spoke</div> <div class="line">Strange things and deep as any poet penned,</div> <div class="line">Such truth as never truth again can mend,</div> <div class="line">Whatever arts we win, what gods invoke;</div> <div class="line">It was not wrath, it made nor strife nor smoke:</div> <div class="line">Be what it may, it had a solemn end.</div> <div class="line">Farewell, in peace. We of the selfsame throne</div> <div class="line">Are foeman vassals; pale astrologers,</div> <div class="line">Each a wise sceptic of the other’s star.</div> <div class="line">Silently, as we went our ways alone,</div> <div class="line">The steadfast sun, whom no poor prayer deters,</div> <div class="line">Drew high between us his majestic bar.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Mine was the mood that shows the dearest face</div> <div class="line">Thro’ a long avenue, and voices kind</div> <div class="line">Idle, and indeterminate, and blind</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</SPAN></span> <div class="line">As rumors from a very distant place;</div> <div class="line">Yet, even so, it gathered the first chase</div> <div class="line">Of the first swallows where the lane’s inclined,</div> <div class="line">An ebb of wavy wings to serve my mind</div> <div class="line">For round Spring’s vision. Ah, some equal grace</div> <div class="line">(The calm sense of seen beauty without sight)</div> <div class="line">Befell thee, honorable heart! no less</div> <div class="line">In patient stupor walking from the dawn;</div> <div class="line">Albeit thou too wert loser of life’s light,</div> <div class="line">Like fallen Adam in the wilderness,</div> <div class="line">Aware of naught but of the thing withdrawn.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="A_Song_of" id="A_Song_of"></SPAN><i>A Song of the Lilac</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span>BOVE the wall that&thinsp;’s broken,</div> <div class="line indent">And from the coppice thinned,</div> <div class="line">So sacred and so sweet</div> <div class="line">The lilac in the wind!</div> <div class="line">And when by night the May wind blows</div> <div class="line">The lilac-blooms apart,</div> <div class="line">The memory of his first love</div> <div class="line">Is shaken on his heart.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">In tears it long was buried,</div> <div class="line">And trances wrapt it round;</div> <div class="line">O how they wake it now,</div> <div class="line">The fragrance and the sound!</div> <div class="line">For when by night the May wind blows</div> <div class="line">The lilac-blooms apart,</div> <div class="line">The memory of his first love</div> <div class="line">Is shaken on his heart.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="In_a_Ruin" id="In_a_Ruin"></SPAN><i>In a Ruin, after a Thunder-Storm</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">K</span>EEP of the Norman, old to flood and cloud!</div> <div class="line indent">Thou dost reproach me with thy sunset look,</div> <div class="line">That in our common menace, I forsook</div> <div class="line">Hope, the last fear, and stood impartial proud:</div> <div class="line">Almost, almost, while ether spake aloud,</div> <div class="line">Death from the smoking stones my spirit shook</div> <div class="line">Into thy hollow as leaves into a brook,</div> <div class="line">No more than they by heaven’s assassins cowed.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But now thy thousand-scarrèd steep is flecked</div> <div class="line">With the calm kisses of the light delayed,</div> <div class="line">Breathe on me better valor: to subject</div> <div class="line">My soul to greed of life, and grow afraid</div> <div class="line">Lest, ere her fight’s full term, the Architect</div> <div class="line">See downfall of the stronghold that He made.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="The_Cherry" id="The_Cherry"></SPAN><i>The Cherry Bough</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">I</span>N a new poet’s and a new friend’s honor,</div> <div class="line indent">Forth from the scornèd town and her gold-getting,</div> <div class="line">Come men with lutes and bowls, and find a welcome</div> <div class="line">Here in my garden,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Find bowers and deep shade and windy grasses,</div> <div class="line">And by the south wall, wet and forward-jutting,</div> <div class="line">One early branch fire-tipped with Roman cherries.</div> <div class="line">O naught is absent,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">O naught but you, kind head that far in prison</div> <div class="line">Sunk on a weary arm, feels no god’s pity</div> <div class="line">Stroking and sighing where the kingly laurels</div> <div class="line">Were once so plenty,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Nor dreams, from revels and strange faces turning,</div> <div class="line">How on the strength of my fair tree that knew you,</div> <div class="line">I lean to-day, when most my heart is laden</div> <div class="line">With your rich verses!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Since, long ago, in other gentler weather</div> <div class="line">Ere wrath and exile were, you lay beneath it,</div> <div class="line">(Your symbol then, your innocent wild brother,</div> <div class="line">Glad with your gladness,)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">What has befallen in the world of wonder,</div> <div class="line">That still it puts forth bubbles of sweet color,</div> <div class="line">And you, and you that burst our eyes with beauty,</div> <div class="line">Are sapped and rotten?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Alas! When my young guests have done with singing,</div> <div class="line">I break it, leaf and fruit, my garden’s glory,</div> <div class="line">And hold it high among them, and say after:</div> <div class="line">“O my poor Ovid,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“Years pass, and loves pass too; and yet remember</div> <div class="line">For the clear time when we were boys together,</div> <div class="line">These tears at home are shed; and with you also</div> <div class="line">Your bough is dying.”</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="Two_Irish" id="Two_Irish"></SPAN><i>Two Irish Peasant Songs</i></h2></div> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">I</span> KNEAD and I spin, but my life is low the while,</div> <div class="line indent">Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile,</div> <div class="line">Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all,</div> <div class="line">Why from me that&thinsp;’s young should the wild tears fall?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The shower-stricken earth, the earth-colored streams,</div> <div class="line">They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams,</div> <div class="line">And yonder ivy fondling the broke castle-wall,</div> <div class="line">It pulls upon my heart till the wild tears fall.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The cabin-door looks down a furze-lighted hill,</div> <div class="line">And far as Leighlin Cross the fields are green and still;</div> <div class="line">But once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call,</div> <div class="line">The foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall!</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">’Tis the time o’ the year, if the quicken-bough be staunch,</div> <div class="line">The green, like a breaker, rolls steady up the branch,</div> <div class="line">And surges in the spaces, and floods the trunk, and heaves</div> <div class="line">In little angry spray that is the under-white of leaves;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</SPAN></span> <div class="line">And from the thorn in companies the foamy petals fall,</div> <div class="line">And waves of jolly ivy wink along a windy wall.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">’Tis the time o’ the year the marsh is full of sound,</div> <div class="line">And good and glorious it is to smell the living ground.</div> <div class="line">The crimson-headed catkin shakes above the pasture-bars,</div> <div class="line">The daisy takes the middle field and spangles it with stars,</div> <div class="line">And down the bank into the lane the primroses do crowd,</div> <div class="line">All colored like the twilight moon, and spreading like a cloud!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">’Tis the time o’ the year, in early light and glad,</div> <div class="line">The lark has a music to drive a lover mad;</div> <div class="line">The downs are dripping nightly, the breathèd damps arise,</div> <div class="line">Deliciously the freshets cool the grayling’s golden eyes,</div> <div class="line">And lying in a row against the chilly north, the sheep</div> <div class="line">Inclose a place without a wind for tender lambs to sleep.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">’Tis the time o’ the year I turn upon the height</div> <div class="line">To watch from my harrow the dance of going light;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</SPAN></span> <div class="line">And if before the sun be hid, come slowly up the vale</div> <div class="line">Honora with her dimpled throat, Honora with her pail,</div> <div class="line">Hey, but there&thinsp;’s many a March for me, and many and many a lass!</div> <div class="line">I fall to work and song again, and let Honora pass.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="The_Japanese" id="The_Japanese"></SPAN><i>The Japanese Anemone</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span>LL summer the breath of the roses around</div> <div class="line indent">Exhales with a delicate, passionate sound;</div> <div class="line">And when from a trellis, in holiday places,</div> <div class="line">They croon and cajole, with their slumberous faces,</div> <div class="line">A lad in the lane must slacken his paces.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Fragrance of these is a voice in a bower:</div> <div class="line">But low by the wall is my odorless flower,</div> <div class="line">So pure, so controlled, not a fume is above her,</div> <div class="line">That poet or bee should delay there and hover;</div> <div class="line">For she is a silence, and therefore I love her.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And never a mortal by morn or midnight</div> <div class="line">Is called to her hid little house of delight;</div> <div class="line">And she keeps from the wind, on his pillages olden,</div> <div class="line">Upon a true stalk in rough weather upholden,</div> <div class="line">Her winter-white gourd with the hollow moon-golden.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">While ardors of roses contend and increase,</div> <div class="line">Methinks she has found how noble is peace,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Like a spirit besought from the world to dissever,</div> <div class="line">Not absent to men, tho’ resumed by the Giver,</div> <div class="line">And dead long ago, being lovely for ever.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Tryste" id="Tryste"></SPAN><i>Tryste Noel</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE Ox he openeth wide the Doore</div> <div class="line indent">And from the Snowe he calls her inne,</div> <div class="line">And he hath seen her Smile therefore,</div> <div class="line">Our Ladye without Sinne.</div> <div class="line">Now soone from Sleepe</div> <div class="line">A Starre shall leap,</div> <div class="line">And soone arrive both King and Hinde;</div> <div class="line"><em>Amen, Amen</em>:</div> <div class="line">But O, the place co’d I but finde!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The Ox hath husht his voyce and bent</div> <div class="line">Trewe eyes of Pitty ore the Mow,</div> <div class="line">And on his lovelie Neck, forspent,</div> <div class="line">The Blessed lays her Browe.</div> <div class="line">Around her feet</div> <div class="line">Full Warme and Sweete</div> <div class="line">His bowerie Breath doth meeklie dwell;</div> <div class="line"><em>Amen, Amen</em>:</div> <div class="line">But sore am I with Vaine Travèl!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The Ox is host in Juda’s stall,</div> <div class="line">And Host of more than onelie one,</div> <div class="line">For close she gathereth withal</div> <div class="line">Our Lorde her littel Sonne.</div> <div class="line">Glad Hinde and King</div> <div class="line">Their Gyfte may bring</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</SPAN></span> <div class="line">But wo’d to-night my Teares were there,</div> <div class="line"><em>Amen, Amen</em>:</div> <div class="line">Between her Bosom and His hayre!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="A_Talisman" id="A_Talisman"></SPAN><i>A Talisman</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>AKE Temperance to thy breast,</div> <div class="line indent">While yet is the hour of choosing,</div> <div class="line">As arbitress exquisite</div> <div class="line">Of all that shall thee betide;</div> <div class="line">For better than fortune’s best</div> <div class="line">Is mastery in the using,</div> <div class="line">And sweeter than anything sweet</div> <div class="line">The art to lay it aside!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Heathenesse" id="Heathenesse"></SPAN><i>Heathenesse</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">N</span>O round boy-satyr, racing from the mere,</div> <div class="line indent">Shakes on the mountain-lawn his dripping head</div> <div class="line">This many a May, your sister being dead,</div> <div class="line">Ye Christian folk! your sister great and dear.</div> <div class="line">To breathe her name, to think how sad-sincere</div> <div class="line">Was all her searching, straying, dreaming, dread,</div> <div class="line">How of her natural night was Plato bred,</div> <div class="line">A star to keep the ways of honor clear,</div> <div class="line">Who will not sigh for her? who can forget</div> <div class="line">Not only unto campèd Israel,</div> <div class="line">Nor martyr-maids that as a bridegroom met</div> <div class="line">The Roman lion’s roar, salvation fell?</div> <div class="line">To Him be most of praise that He is yet</div> <div class="line">Your God thro’ gods not inaccessible.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="For_Izaak" id="For_Izaak"></SPAN><i>For Izaak Walton</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>HAT trout shall coax the rod of yore</div> <div class="line indent">In Itchen stream to dip?</div> <div class="line">What lover of her banks restore</div> <div class="line">That sweet Socratic lip?</div> <div class="line">Old fishing and wishing</div> <div class="line">Are over many a year.</div> <div class="line">O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Again the foamy shallows fill,</div> <div class="line">The quiet clouds amass,</div> <div class="line">And soft as bees by Catherine Hill</div> <div class="line">At dawn the anglers pass,</div> <div class="line">And follow the hollow,</div> <div class="line">In boughs to disappear.</div> <div class="line">O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Nay, rise not now, nor with them take</div> <div class="line">One silver-freckled fool!</div> <div class="line">Thy sons to-day bring each an ache</div> <div class="line">For ancient arts to cool.</div> <div class="line">But, father, lie rather</div> <div class="line">Unhurt and idle near;</div> <div class="line">O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">While thought of thee to men is yet</div> <div class="line">A sylvan playfellow,</div> <div class="line">Ne’er by thy marble they forget</div> <div class="line">In pious cheer to go.</div> <div class="line">As air falls, the prayer falls</div> <div class="line">O’er kingly Winchester:</div> <div class="line">O hush thee, O hush thee! heart innocent and dear.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="Sherman" id="Sherman"></SPAN><i>Sherman: “An Horatian Ode”</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HIS was the truest man of men,</div> <div class="line indent">The early-armored citizen,</div> <div class="line">Who had, with most of sight,</div> <div class="line">Most passion for the right;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Who first forecasting treason’s scope</div> <div class="line">Able to sap the Founders’ hope,</div> <div class="line">First to the laic arm</div> <div class="line">Cried ultimate alarm;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Who bent upon his guns the while</div> <div class="line">A misconceived and aching smile,</div> <div class="line">And felt, thro’ havoc’s part,</div> <div class="line">A torment of the heart,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Sure, when he cut the moated South</div> <div class="line">From Shiloh to Savannah’s mouth,</div> <div class="line">Braved grandly to the end,</div> <div class="line">To conquer like a friend;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">In whom the Commonwealth withstood</div> <div class="line">Again the Carolinian blood,</div> <div class="line">The beautiful proud line</div> <div class="line">Beneath an evil sign,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And taught his foes and doubters still</div> <div class="line">How fatal is a good man’s will,</div> <div class="line">That like a sun or sod</div> <div class="line">Thinks not itself, but God!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Many the captains of our wrath</div> <div class="line">Sought thus the pious civic path,</div> <div class="line">Knowing in what a land</div> <div class="line">Their destiny was planned,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">And after, with a forward sense,</div> <div class="line">A simple Roman excellence,</div> <div class="line">Pledge in their spirit bore</div> <div class="line">That war should be no more.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Thrice Roman he, who saw the shock</div> <div class="line">(Calm as a weather-wrinkled rock,)</div> <div class="line">Roll in the Georgian fen;</div> <div class="line">And steadfast aye as then</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">In plenitude of old control</div> <div class="line">That asked, secure of his own soul,</div> <div class="line">No pardon and no aid,</div> <div class="line">If clear his way were made,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Would have nor seat nor bays, nor bring</div> <div class="line">The Cæsar in him to be king,</div> <div class="line">But with abstracted ear</div> <div class="line">Rode pleased without a cheer.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Now he declines from peace and age,</div> <div class="line">And home, his triple heritage,</div> <div class="line">The last and dearest head</div> <div class="line">Of all our perfect dead,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">O what if sorrow cannot reach</div> <div class="line">Far in the shallow fords of speech,</div> <div class="line">But leads us silent round</div> <div class="line">The sad Missouri ground,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Where on her hero Freedom lays</div> <div class="line">The scroll and blazon of her praise,</div> <div class="line">And bids to him belong</div> <div class="line">Arms trailing, and a song,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">And broken flags with ruined dyes</div> <div class="line">(Bright once in young and dying eyes),</div> <div class="line">Against the morn to shake</div> <div class="line">For love’s familiar sake?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">The blessèd broken flags unfurled</div> <div class="line">Above a healed and happier world!</div> <div class="line">There let them droop, and be</div> <div class="line">His tent of victory;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">There, in each year’s auguster light,</div> <div class="line">Lean in, and loose their red and white,</div> <div class="line">Like apple-blossoms strewn</div> <div class="line">Upon his burial-stone.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">For nothing more, the ages thro’,</div> <div class="line">Can nature or the nation do</div> <div class="line">For him who helped retrieve</div> <div class="line">Our life, as we believe,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Save that we also, trooping by</div> <div class="line">In sound yet of his battle-cry,</div> <div class="line">Safeguard with general mind</div> <div class="line">Our pact as brothers kind,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And, ever nearer to our star,</div> <div class="line">Adore indeed not what we are,</div> <div class="line">But wise reprovings hold</div> <div class="line">Thankworthier than gold;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And bear in faith and rapture such</div> <div class="line">As can eternal issues touch,</div> <div class="line">Whole from the final field,</div> <div class="line">Our father Sherman’s shield.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="When_on" id="When_on"></SPAN><i>When on the Marge of Evening</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>HEN on the marge of evening the last blue light is broken,</div> <div class="line indent">And winds of dreamy odor are loosened from afar,</div> <div class="line">Or when my lattice opens, before the lark has spoken,</div> <div class="line">On dim laburnum-blossoms, and morning’s dying star,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">I think of thee, (O mine the more if other eyes be sleeping!)</div> <div class="line">Whose great and noonday splendor the many share and see,</div> <div class="line">While sacred and forever, some perfect law is keeping</div> <div class="line">The late and early twilight alone and sweet for me.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Rooks_in" id="Rooks_in"></SPAN><i>Rooks in New College Gardens</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HRO’ rosy cloud, and over thorny towers,</div> <div class="line indent">Their wings with all the autumn distance filled,</div> <div class="line">From Isis’ valley border hundred-hilled,</div> <div class="line">The rooks are crowding home as evening lowers:</div> <div class="line">Not for men only and their musing hours,</div> <div class="line">By battled walls did gracious Wykeham build</div> <div class="line">These dewy spaces early sown and stilled,</div> <div class="line">These dearest inland melancholy bowers.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Blest birds! A book held open on the knee</div> <div class="line">Below, is all they know of Adam’s blight:</div> <div class="line">With surer art the while, and simpler rite,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</SPAN></span> <div class="line">They follow Truth in some monastic tree,</div> <div class="line">Where breathe against their innocent breasts by night</div> <div class="line">The scholar’s star, the star of sanctity.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Open_Time" id="Open_Time"></SPAN><i>Open, Time</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">O</span>PEN, Time, and let him pass</div> <div class="line indent">Shortly where his feet would be!</div> <div class="line">Like a leaf at Michaelmas</div> <div class="line">Swooning from the tree,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Ere its hour the manly mind</div> <div class="line">Trembles in a sure decrease,</div> <div class="line">Nor the body now can find</div> <div class="line">Any hold on peace.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Take him, weak and overworn;</div> <div class="line">Fold about his dying dream</div> <div class="line">Boyhood, and the April morn,</div> <div class="line">And the rolling stream:</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Weather on a sunny ridge,</div> <div class="line">Showery weather, far from here;</div> <div class="line">Under some deep-ivied bridge,</div> <div class="line">Water rushing clear:</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Water quick to cross and part,</div> <div class="line">(Golden light on silver sound),</div> <div class="line">Weather that was next his heart</div> <div class="line">All the world around!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Soon upon his vision break</div> <div class="line">These, in their remembered blue;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</SPAN></span> <div class="line">He shall toil no more, but wake</div> <div class="line">Young, in air he knew.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">He has done with roofs and men.</div> <div class="line">Open, Time, and let him pass,</div> <div class="line">Vague and innocent again,</div> <div class="line">Into country grass.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="The" id="The"></SPAN><i>The Knight Errant (Donatello’s Saint George)</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">S</span>PIRITS of old that bore me,</div> <div class="line indent">And set me, meek of mind,</div> <div class="line">Between great dreams before me,</div> <div class="line">And deeds as great behind,</div> <div class="line">Knowing humanity my star</div> <div class="line">As first abroad I ride,</div> <div class="line">Shall help me wear, with every scar,</div> <div class="line">Honor at eventide.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Let claws of lightning clutch me</div> <div class="line">From summer’s groaning cloud,</div> <div class="line">Or ever malice touch me,</div> <div class="line">And glory make me proud.</div> <div class="line">O give my youth, my faith, my sword,</div> <div class="line">Choice of the heart’s desire:</div> <div class="line">A short life in the saddle, Lord!</div> <div class="line">Not long life by the fire.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Forethought and recollection</div> <div class="line">Rivet mine armor gay!</div> <div class="line">The passion for perfection</div> <div class="line">Redeem my failing way!</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The arrows of the tragic time</div> <div class="line">From sudden ambush cast,</div> <div class="line">With calm angelic touches ope</div> <div class="line">My Paradise at last!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">I fear no breathing bowman,</div> <div class="line">But only, east and west,</div> <div class="line">The awful other foeman</div> <div class="line">Impowered in my breast.</div> <div class="line">The outer fray in the sun shall be,</div> <div class="line">The inner beneath the moon;</div> <div class="line">And may Our Lady lend to me</div> <div class="line">Sight of the Dragon soon!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="To_a_Dogs" id="To_a_Dogs"></SPAN><i>To a Dog’s Memory</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE gusty morns are here,</div> <div class="line indent">When all the reeds ride low with level spear;</div> <div class="line">And on such nights as lured us far of yore,</div> <div class="line">Down rocky alleys yet, and thro’ the pine,</div> <div class="line">The Hound-star and the pagan Hunter shine:</div> <div class="line">But I and thou, ah, field-fellow of mine,</div> <div class="line">Together roam no more.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Soft showers go laden now</div> <div class="line">With odors of the sappy orchard-bough,</div> <div class="line">And brooks begin to brawl along the march;</div> <div class="line">The late frost steams from hollow sedges high;</div> <div class="line">The finch is come, the flame-blue dragon-fly,</div> <div class="line">The cowslip’s common gold that children spy,</div> <div class="line">The plume upon the larch.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">There is a music fills</div> <div class="line">The oaks of Belmont and the Wayland hills</div> <div class="line">Southward to Dewing’s little bubbly stream,</div> <div class="line">The heavenly weather’s call! Oh, who alive</div> <div class="line">Hastes not to start, delays not to arrive,</div> <div class="line">Having free feet that never felt a gyve</div> <div class="line">Weigh, even in a dream?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">But thou, instead, hast found</div> <div class="line">The sunless April uplands underground,</div> <div class="line">And still, wherever thou art, I must be.</div> <div class="line">My beautiful! arise in might and mirth,</div> <div class="line">For we were tameless travellers from our birth;</div> <div class="line">Arise against thy narrow door of earth,</div> <div class="line">And keep the watch for me.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="A_Seventeenth-Century" id="A_Seventeenth-Century"></SPAN><i>A Seventeenth-Century Song</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">S</span>HE alone of Shepherdesses</div> <div class="line indent">With her blue disdayning eyes,</div> <div class="line">Wo’d not hark a Kyng that dresses</div> <div class="line">All his lute in sighes:</div> <div class="line">Yet to winne</div> <div class="line">Katheryn,</div> <div class="line">I elect for mine Emprise.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">None is like her, none above her,</div> <div class="line">Who so lifts my youth in me,</div> <div class="line">That a littel more to love her</div> <div class="line">Were to leave her free!</div> <div class="line">But to winne</div> <div class="line">Katheryn,</div> <div class="line">Is mine utmost love’s degree.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Distaunce, cold, delay, and danger,</div> <div class="line">Build the four walles of her bower;</div> <div class="line">She&thinsp;’s noe Sweete for any stranger,</div> <div class="line">She&thinsp;’s noe valley flower:</div> <div class="line">And to winne</div> <div class="line">Katheryn,</div> <div class="line">To her height my heart can Tower!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Uppe to Beautie’s promontory</div> <div class="line">I will climb, nor loudlie call</div> <div class="line">Perfect and escaping glory</div> <div class="line">Folly, if I fall:</div> <div class="line">Well to winne</div> <div class="line">Katheryn!</div> <div class="line">To be worth her is my all.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="On_the_Pre-Reformation" id="On_the_Pre-Reformation"></SPAN><i>On the Pre-Reformation Churches about Oxford</i></h2></div> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">I</span>MPERIAL Iffley, Cumnor bowered in green,</div> <div class="line indent">And Templar Sandford in the boatman’s call,</div> <div class="line">And sweet-belled Appleton, and Wytham wall</div> <div class="line">That doth upon adoring ivies lean;</div> <div class="line">Meek Binsey; Dorchester where streams convene</div> <div class="line">Bidding on graves her solemn shadow fall;</div> <div class="line">Clear Cassington that soars perpetual;</div> <div class="line">Holton and Hampton, and ye towers between:</div> <div class="line">If one of all in your sad courts that come,</div> <div class="line">Belovèd and disparted! be your own,</div> <div class="line">Kin to the souls ye had, while time endures,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Known to each exiled, each estrangèd stone</div> <div class="line">Home in the quarries of old Christendom,&mdash;</div> <div class="line">Ah, mark him: he will lay his cheek to yours.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Is this the end? is this the pilgrim’s day</div> <div class="line">For dread, for dereliction, and for tears?</div> <div class="line">Rather, from grass and air and many spheres</div> <div class="line">In prophecy his spirit sinks away;</div> <div class="line">And under English eaves, more still than they,</div> <div class="line">Far-off, incoming, wonderful, he hears</div> <div class="line">The long-arrested and believing years</div> <div class="line">Carry the sea-wall! Shall he, sighing, say,</div> <div class="line">“Farewell to Faith, for she is dead at best</div> <div class="line">Who had such beauty”? or with kisses lain</div> <div class="line">For witness on her darkened doors, go by</div> <div class="line">With a new psalm: “O banished light so nigh!</div> <div class="line">Of them was I who bore thee and who blest;</div> <div class="line">Even here remember me when thou shalt reign.”</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="The_Still_of" id="The_Still_of"></SPAN><i>The Still of the Year</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">U</span>P from the willow-root</div> <div class="line indent">Subduing agonies leap;</div> <div class="line">The squirrel and the purple moth</div> <div class="line">Turn over amid their sleep;</div> <div class="line">The icicled rocks aloft</div> <div class="line">Burn saffron and blue alway,</div> <div class="line">And trickling and tinkling</div> <div class="line">The snows of the drift decay.</div> <div class="line">O mine is the head must hang</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</SPAN></span> <div class="line">And share the immortal pang!</div> <div class="line">Winter or spring is fair;</div> <div class="line">Thaw&thinsp;’s hard to bear.</div> <div class="line">Heigho! my heart&thinsp;’s sick.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Sweet is cherry-time, sweet</div> <div class="line">A shower, a bobolink,</div> <div class="line">And the little trillium-blossom</div> <div class="line">Tucked under her leaf to think;</div> <div class="line">But here in the vast unborn</div> <div class="line">Is the bitterest place to be,</div> <div class="line">Till striving and longing</div> <div class="line">Shall quicken the earth and me.</div> <div class="line">What change inscrutable</div> <div class="line">Is nigh us, we know not well;</div> <div class="line">Gone is the strength to sigh</div> <div class="line">Either to live or die.</div> <div class="line">Heigho! my heart&thinsp;’s sick.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="A_Footnote" id="A_Footnote"></SPAN><i>A Foot-note to a Famous Lyric</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>RUE love’s own talisman, which here</div> <div class="line indent">Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach,</div> <div class="line">A steel-and-velvet Cavalier</div> <div class="line">Gave to our Saxon speech:</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Chief miracle of theme and touch</div> <div class="line">That upstart enviers adore:</div> <div class="line"><em>I could not love thee, dear, so much,</em></div> <div class="line"><em>Loved I not Honour more</em>.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">No critic born since Charles was king</div> <div class="line">But sighed in smiling, as he read:</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</SPAN></span> <div class="line">“Here&thinsp;’s theft of the supremest thing</div> <div class="line">A poet might have said!”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Young knight and wit and beau, who won</div> <div class="line">Mid war’s adventure, ladies’ praise,</div> <div class="line">Was’t well of you, ere you had done,</div> <div class="line">To blight our modern bays?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">O yet to you, whose random hand</div> <div class="line">Struck from the dark whole gems like these,</div> <div class="line">Archaic beauty, never planned</div> <div class="line">Nor reared by wan degrees,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Which leaves an artist poor, and art</div> <div class="line">An earldom richer all her years;</div> <div class="line">To you, dead on your shield apart,</div> <div class="line">Be “Ave!” passed in tears.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">How shall this singing era spurn</div> <div class="line">Her master, and in lauds be loath?</div> <div class="line">Your worth, your work, bid us discern</div> <div class="line">Light exquisite in both.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">’T&thinsp;was virtue’s breath inflamed your lyre,</div> <div class="line">Heroic from the heart it ran;</div> <div class="line">Nor for the shedding of such fire</div> <div class="line">Lives since a manlier man.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And till your strophe sweet and bold</div> <div class="line">So lovely aye, so lonely long,</div> <div class="line">Love’s self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold</div> <div class="line">The pinnacles of song.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="T_W_P" id="T_W_P"></SPAN><i>T. W. P. 1819&ndash;1892</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">F</span>RIEND who hast gone, and dost enrich to-day</div> <div class="line indent">New England brightly building far away,</div> <div class="line">And crown her liberal walk</div> <div class="line">With company more choice, and sweeter talk,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Look not on Fame, but Peace; and in a bower</div> <div class="line">Receive at last her fulness and her power:</div> <div class="line">Nor wholly, pure of heart!</div> <div class="line">Forget thy few, who would be where thou art.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Summum" id="Summum"></SPAN><i>Summum Bonum</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>AITING on Him who knows us and our need,</div> <div class="line indent">Most need have we to dare not, nor desire,</div> <div class="line">But as He giveth, softly to suspire</div> <div class="line">Against His gift, with no inglorious greed,</div> <div class="line">For this is joy, tho’ still our joys recede;</div> <div class="line">And, as in octaves of a noble lyre,</div> <div class="line">To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher,</div> <div class="line">Sound forth our fate; for this is strength indeed.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense</div> <div class="line">In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest,</div> <div class="line">A praying more than prayer: “Great good have I,</div> <div class="line">Till it be greater good to lay it by;</div> <div class="line">Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence,</div> <div class="line">For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!”</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="Saint_Florent-le-Vieil" id="Saint_Florent-le-Vieil"></SPAN><i>Saint Florent-le-Vieil</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE spacious open vale, the vale of doom,</div> <div class="line indent">Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong</div> <div class="line">The semicirque of water sweeps among</div> <div class="line">Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb;</div> <div class="line">And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom</div> <div class="line">Two little idling clouds, that look for long</div> <div class="line">Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song</div> <div class="line">Correggio left to flush a convent room.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war!</div> <div class="line">In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest</div> <div class="line">With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest</div> <div class="line">Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire,</div> <div class="line">And fires that still suffuse the lower west,</div> <div class="line">Blanching the beauty of thine evening star.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Hylas" id="Hylas"></SPAN><i>Hylas</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">J</span>AR in arm, they bade him rove</div> <div class="line indent">Thro’ the alder’s long alcove,</div> <div class="line">Where the hid spring musically</div> <div class="line">Gushes to the ample valley.</div> <div class="line">(There ’s a bird on the under bough</div> <div class="line">Fluting evermore and now:</div> <div class="line">“Keep&mdash;young!” but who knows how?)</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Down the woodland corridor,</div> <div class="line">Odors deepened more and more;</div> <div class="line">Blossomed dogwood, in the briers,</div> <div class="line">Struck her faint delicious fires;</div> <div class="line">Miles of April passed between</div> <div class="line">Crevices of closing green,</div> <div class="line">And the moth, the violet-lover,</div> <div class="line">By the wellside saw him hover.</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Ah, the slippery sylvan dark!</div> <div class="line">Never after shall he mark</div> <div class="line">Noisy ploughmen drinking, drinking,</div> <div class="line">On his drownèd cheek down-sinking;</div> <div class="line">Quit of serving is that wild,</div> <div class="line">Absent, and bewitchèd child,</div> <div class="line">Unto action, age, and danger,</div> <div class="line">Thrice a thousand years a stranger.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Fathoms low, the naiads sing</div> <div class="line">In a birthday welcoming;</div> <div class="line">Water-white their breasts, and o’er him,</div> <div class="line">Water-gray, their eyes adore him.</div> <div class="line">(There ’s a bird on the under bough</div> <div class="line">Fluting evermore and now:</div> <div class="line">“Keep&mdash;young!” but who knows how?)</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <h2><SPAN name="Nocturne" id="Nocturne"></SPAN><i>Nocturne</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE sun that hurt his lovers from on high</div> <div class="line indent">Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh,</div> <div class="line">The blessèd one whose beauty’s even glow</div> <div class="line">Gave never wound to any shepherd’s eye.</div> <div class="line">Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted,</div> <div class="line">Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">O sing! the water-golds are deepening now,</div> <div class="line">A hush is come upon the beechen bough;</div> <div class="line">She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint</div> <div class="line">Sweet interchanged adorings may allow:</div> <div class="line">Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted;</div> <div class="line">They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="The_Kings" id="The_Kings"></SPAN><i>The Kings</i></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span> MAN said unto his angel:</div> <div class="line indent">“My spirits are fallen thro’,</div> <div class="line">And I cannot carry this battle,</div> <div class="line">O brother! what shall I do?</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“The terrible Kings are on me,</div> <div class="line">With spears that are deadly bright,</div> <div class="line">Against me so from the cradle</div> <div class="line">Do fate and my fathers fight.”</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Then said to the man his angel:</div> <div class="line">“Thou wavering, foolish soul,</div> <div class="line">Back to the ranks! What matter</div> <div class="line">To win or to lose the whole,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“As judged by the little judges</div> <div class="line">Who hearken not well, nor see?</div> <div class="line">Not thus, by the outer issue,</div> <div class="line">The Wise shall interpret thee.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“Thy will is the very, the only,</div> <div class="line">The solemn event of things;</div> <div class="line">The weakest of hearts defying</div> <div class="line">Is stronger than all these Kings.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“Tho’ out of the past they gather,</div> <div class="line">Mind’s Doubt and Bodily Pain,</div> <div class="line">And pallid Thirst of the Spirit</div> <div class="line">That is kin to the other twain,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“And Grief, in a cloud of banners,</div> <div class="line">And ringletted Vain Desires,</div> <div class="line">And Vice, with the spoils upon him</div> <div class="line">Of thee and thy beaten sires,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">“While Kings of eternal evil</div> <div class="line">Yet darken the hills about,</div> <div class="line">Thy part is with broken sabre</div> <div class="line">To rise on the last redoubt;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">“To fear not sensible failure,</div> <div class="line">Nor covet the game at all,</div> <div class="line">But fighting, fighting, fighting,</div> <div class="line">Die, driven against the wall!”</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</SPAN></span></div> </div></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <p class="center p180"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</SPAN></span> <SPAN name="Alexandriana" id="Alexandriana"></SPAN>ALEXANDRIANA</p> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</SPAN></span></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="Alexandriana2" id="Alexandriana2"></SPAN><i>Alexandriana</i></h2></div> <p class="center bold">I</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">I</span> LAID the strewings, sweetest, on thine urn;</div> <div class="line indent">I lowered the torch, I poured the cup to Dis.</div> <div class="line">Now hushaby, my little child, and learn</div> <div class="line">Long sleep how good it is.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">In vain thy mother prays, wayfaring hence,</div> <div class="line">Peace to her heart, where only heartaches dwell;</div> <div class="line">But thou more blest, O wild intelligence!</div> <div class="line">Forget her, and Farewell.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">II</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Gentle Grecian passing by,</div> <div class="line">Father of thy peace am I:</div> <div class="line">Wouldst thou now, in memory,</div> <div class="line">Give a soldier’s flower to me,</div> <div class="line">Choose the flag I named of yore</div> <div class="line">Beautiful Worth-dying-for,</div> <div class="line">That shall wither not, but wave</div> <div class="line">All the year above my grave.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">III</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Light thou hast of the moon,</div> <div class="line">Shade of the dammar-pine,</div> <div class="line">Here on thy hillside bed;</div> <div class="line">Fair befall thee, O fair</div> <div class="line">Lily of womanhood,</div> <div class="line">Patient long, and at last</div> <div class="line">Here on thy hillside bed,</div> <div class="line">Happier: ah, Blæsilla!</div> </div> <p class="center bold"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</SPAN></span>IV</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Two white heads the grasses cover:</div> <div class="line">Dorcas, and her lifelong lover.</div> <div class="line">While they graced their country closes</div> <div class="line">Simply as the brooks and roses,</div> <div class="line">Where was lot so poor, so trodden,</div> <div class="line">But they cheered it of a sudden?</div> <div class="line">Fifty years at home together,</div> <div class="line">Hand in hand, they went elsewhither,</div> <div class="line">Then first leaving hearts behind</div> <div class="line">Comfortless. Be thou as kind.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">V</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Upon thy level tomb, till windy winter dawn,</div> <div class="line">The fallen leaves delay;</div> <div class="line">But plain and pure their trace is, when themselves are torn</div> <div class="line">From delicate frost away.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">As here to transient frost the absent leaf is, such</div> <div class="line">Thou wert and art to me:</div> <div class="line">So on my passing life is thy long-passèd touch,</div> <div class="line">O dear Alcithoë!</div> </div> <p class="center bold">VI</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Hail, and be of comfort, thou pious Xeno,</div> <div class="line">Late the urn of many a kinsman wreathing;</div> <div class="line">On thine own shall even the stranger offer</div> <div class="line">Plentiful myrtle.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">VII</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Here lies one in the earth who scarce of the earth was moulded,</div> <div class="line">Wise Æthalides’ son, himself no lover of study,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Cnopus, asleep, indoors: the young invincible runner.</div> <div class="line">They from the cliff footpath that see on the grave we made him,</div> <div class="line">Tameless, slant in the wind, the bare and beautiful iris,</div> <div class="line">Stop short, full of delight, and shout forth: “See, it is Cnopus</div> <div class="line">Runs, with white throat forward, over the sands to Chalcis!”</div> </div> <p class="center bold">VIII</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Ere the Ferryman from the coast of spirits</div> <div class="line">Turn the diligent oar that brought thee thither,</div> <div class="line">Soul, remember: and leave a kiss upon it</div> <div class="line">For thy desolate father, for thy sister,</div> <div class="line">Whichsoever be first to cross hereafter.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">IX</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Jaffa ended, Cos begun</div> <div class="line">Thee, Aristeus. Thou wert one</div> <div class="line">Fit to trample out the sun:</div> <div class="line">Who shall think thine ardors are</div> <div class="line">But a cinder in a jar?</div> </div> <p class="center bold">X</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Me, deep-tressèd meadows, take to your loyal keeping,</div> <div class="line">Hard by the swish of sickles ever in Aulon sleeping,</div> <div class="line">Philophron, old and tired, and glad to be done with reaping!</div> </div> <p class="center bold"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</SPAN></span>XI</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">As wind that wasteth the unmarried rose,</div> <div class="line">And mars the golden breakers in the bay,</div> <div class="line">Hurtful and sweet from heaven forever blows</div> <div class="line">Sad thought that roughens all our quiet day;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">And elder poets envy while they weep</div> <div class="line">Ion, whom first the gods to covert brought,</div> <div class="line">Here under inland olives laid asleep,</div> <div class="line">Most wise, most happy, having done with thought.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">XII</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Cows in the narrowing August marshes,</div> <div class="line">Cows in a stretch of water</div> <div class="line">Motionless,</div> <div class="line">Neck on neck overlapped and drooping;</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">These in their troubled and dumb communion,</div> <div class="line">Thou on the steep bank yonder,</div> <div class="line">Pastora!</div> <div class="line">No more ever to lead and love them,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">No more ever. Thine innocent mourners</div> <div class="line">Pass thy tree in the evening</div> <div class="line">Heavily,</div> <div class="line">Hearing another herd-girl calling.</div> </div> <p class="center bold">XIII</p> <div class="verse"> <div class="line">Praise thou the Mighty Mother for what is wrought, not me,</div> <div class="line">A nameless nothing-caring head asleep against her knee.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</SPAN></span> <h2><SPAN name="LONDON" id="LONDON"></SPAN>LONDON:<br/> <span class="sub">TWELVE SONNETS</span></h2> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</SPAN></span></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</SPAN></span> <h3><SPAN name="On_First" id="On_First"></SPAN><i>On First Entering Westminster Abbey</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HABOR of England! since my light is short</div> <div class="line indent">And faint, O rather by the sun anew</div> <div class="line">Of timeless passion set my dial true,</div> <div class="line">That with thy saints and thee I may consort,</div> <div class="line">And wafted in the calm Chaucerian port</div> <div class="line">Of poets, seem a little sail long due,</div> <div class="line">And be as one the call of memory drew</div> <div class="line">Unto the saddle void since Agincourt!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Not now for secular love’s unquiet lease</div> <div class="line">Receive my soul, who rapt in thee erewhile</div> <div class="line">Hath broken tryst with transitory things;</div> <div class="line">But seal with her a marriage and a peace</div> <div class="line">Eternal, on thine Edward’s holy isle,</div> <div class="line">Above the stormy sea of ended kings.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="Fog" id="Fog"></SPAN><i>Fog</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">L</span>IKE bodiless water passing in a sigh,</div> <div class="line indent">Thro’ palsied streets the fatal shadows flow,</div> <div class="line">And in their sharp disastrous undertow</div> <div class="line">Suck in the morning sun, and all the sky.</div> <div class="line">The towery vista sinks upon the eye,</div> <div class="line">As if it heard the Hebrew bugles blow,</div> <div class="line">Black and dissolved; nor could the founders know</div> <div class="line">How what was built so bright should daily die.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Thy mood with man ’s is broken and blent in,</div> <div class="line">City of Stains! and ache of thought doth drown</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</SPAN></span> <div class="line">The primitive light in which thy life began;</div> <div class="line">Great as thy dole is, smirchèd with his sin,</div> <div class="line">Greater and elder yet the love of man</div> <div class="line">Full in thy look, tho’ the dark visor ’s down.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="St_Peter-ad-Vincula" id="St_Peter-ad-Vincula"></SPAN><i>St. Peter-ad-Vincula</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>OO well I know, pacing the place of awe,</div> <div class="line indent">Three queens, young save in trouble, moulder by;</div> <div class="line">More in his halo, Monmouth’s mocking eye,</div> <div class="line">The eagle Essex in a harpy’s claw;</div> <div class="line">Seymour and Dudley, and stout heads that saw</div> <div class="line">Sundown of Scotland: how with treasons lie</div> <div class="line">White martyrdoms; rank in a company</div> <div class="line">Breaker and builder of the eternal law.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Oft as I come, the hateful garden-row</div> <div class="line">Of ruined roses hanging from the stem,</div> <div class="line">Where winds of old defeat yet batter them,</div> <div class="line">Infects me: suddenly must I depart,</div> <div class="line">Ere thought of men’s injustice then and now</div> <div class="line">Add to these aisles one other broken heart.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="Strikers_in" id="Strikers_in"></SPAN><i>Strikers in Hyde Park</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span> WOOF reversed the fatal shuttles weave,</div> <div class="line indent">How slow! but never once they slip the thread.</div> <div class="line">Hither, upon the Georgian idlers’ tread,</div> <div class="line">Up spacious ways the lindens interleave,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Clouding the royal air since yester-eve,</div> <div class="line">Come men bereft of time and scant of bread,</div> <div class="line">Loud, who were dumb, immortal, who were dead,</div> <div class="line">Thro’ the cowed world their kingdom to retrieve.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">What ails thee, England? Altar, mart, and grange</div> <div class="line">Dream of the knife by night; not so, not so</div> <div class="line">The clear Republic waits the general throe,</div> <div class="line">Along her noonday mountains’ open range.</div> <div class="line">God be with both! for one is young to know</div> <div class="line">The other’s rote of evil and of change.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="Changes_in" id="Changes_in"></SPAN><i>Changes in the Temple</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE cry is at thy gates, thou darling ground,</div> <div class="line indent">Again; for oft ere now thy children went</div> <div class="line">Beggared and wroth, and parting greeting sent</div> <div class="line">Some red old alley with a dial crowned;</div> <div class="line">Some house of honor, in a glory bound</div> <div class="line">With lives and deaths of spirits excellent;</div> <div class="line">Some tree rude-taken from his kingly tent</div> <div class="line">Hard by a little fountain’s friendly sound.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">O for Virginius’ hand, if only that</div> <div class="line">Maintain the whole, and spoil these spoilings soon!</div> <div class="line">Better the scowling Strand should lose, alas,</div> <div class="line">Her peopled oasis, and where it was</div> <div class="line">All mournful in the cleared quadrangle sat</div> <div class="line">Echo, and ivy, and the loitering moon.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</SPAN></span> <h3><SPAN name="The_Lights" id="The_Lights"></SPAN><i>The Lights of London</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">T</span>HE evenfall, so slow on hills, hath shot</div> <div class="line indent">Far down into the valley’s cold extreme,</div> <div class="line">Untimely midnight; spire and roof and stream</div> <div class="line">Like fleeing spectres, shudder and are not.</div> <div class="line">The Hampstead hollies, from their sylvan plot</div> <div class="line">Yet cloudless, lean to watch as in a dream,</div> <div class="line">From chaos climb with many a sudden gleam,</div> <div class="line">London, one moment fallen and forgot.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Her booths begin to flare; and gases bright</div> <div class="line">Prick door and window; all her streets obscure</div> <div class="line">Sparkle and swarm with nothing true nor sure,</div> <div class="line">Full as a marsh of mist and winking light;</div> <div class="line">Heaven thickens over, Heaven that cannot cure</div> <div class="line">Her tear by day, her fevered smile by night.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="Doves" id="Doves"></SPAN><i>Doves</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span>H, if man’s boast and man’s advance be vain,</div> <div class="line indent">And yonder bells of Bow, loud-echoing home,</div> <div class="line">And the lone Tree foreknow it, and the Dome,</div> <div class="line">The monstrous island of the middle main;</div> <div class="line">If each inheritor must sink again</div> <div class="line">Under his sires, as falleth where it clomb</div> <div class="line">Back on the gone wave the disheartened foam?&mdash;</div> <div class="line">I crossed Cheapside, and this was in my brain.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">What folly lies in forecasts and in fears!</div> <div class="line">Like a wide laughter sweet and opportune,</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Wet from the fount, three hundred doves of Paul’s</div> <div class="line">Shook their warm wings, drizzling the golden noon,</div> <div class="line">And in their rain-cloud vanished up the walls.</div> <div class="line">“God keeps,” I said, “our little flock of years.”</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="In_the" id="In_the"></SPAN><i>In the Reading-Room of the British Museum</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">P</span>RAISED be the moon of books! that doth above</div> <div class="line indent">A world of men, the fallen Past behold,</div> <div class="line">And fill the spaces else so void and cold</div> <div class="line">To make a very heaven again thereof;</div> <div class="line">As when the sun is set behind a grove,</div> <div class="line">And faintly unto nether ether rolled,</div> <div class="line">All night his whiter image and his mould</div> <div class="line">Grows beautiful with looking on her love.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Thou therefore, moon of so divine a ray,</div> <div class="line">Lend to our steps both fortitude and light!</div> <div class="line">Feebly along a venerable way</div> <div class="line">They climb the infinite, or perish quite;</div> <div class="line">Nothing are days and deeds to such as they,</div> <div class="line">While in this liberal house thy face is bright.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="Sunday" id="Sunday"></SPAN><i>Sunday Chimes in the City</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">A</span>CROSS the bridge, where in the morning blow</div> <div class="line indent">The wrinkled tide turns homeward, and is fain</div> <div class="line">Homeward to drag the black sea-goer’s chain,</div> <div class="line">And the long yards by Dowgate dipping low;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Across dispeopled ways, patient and slow,</div> <div class="line">Saint Magnus and Saint Dunstan call in vain:</div> <div class="line">From Wren’s forgotten belfries, in the rain,</div> <div class="line">Down the blank wharves the dropping octaves go.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Forbid not these! Tho’ no man heed, they shower</div> <div class="line">A subtle beauty on the empty hour,</div> <div class="line">From all their dark throats aching and outblown;</div> <div class="line">Aye in the prayerless places welcome most,</div> <div class="line">Like the last gull that up a naked coast</div> <div class="line">Deploys her white and steady wing, alone.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="A_Porch" id="A_Porch"></SPAN><i>A Porch in Belgravia</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>HEN, after dawn, the lordly houses hide</div> <div class="line indent">Till you fall foul of it, some piteous guest,</div> <div class="line">Some girl the damp stones gather to their breast,</div> <div class="line">Her gold hair rough, her rebel garment wide,</div> <div class="line">Who sleeps, with all that luck and life denied</div> <div class="line">Camped round, and dreams how seaward and southwest</div> <div class="line">Blue over Devon farms the smoke-rings rest,</div> <div class="line">And sheep and lambs ascend the lit hillside,</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Dear, of your charity, speak low, step soft,</div> <div class="line">Pray for a sinner. Planet-like and still,</div> <div class="line">Best hearts of all are sometimes set aloft</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Only to see and pass, nor yet deplore</div> <div class="line">Even Wrong itself, crowned Wrong inscrutable,</div> <div class="line">Which cannot not have been for evermore.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="York_Stairs" id="York_Stairs"></SPAN><i>York Stairs</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">M</span>ANY a musing eye returns to thee,</div> <div class="line indent">Against the lurid street disconsolate,</div> <div class="line">Who kept in green domains thy bridal state,</div> <div class="line">With young tide-waters leaping at thy knee;</div> <div class="line">And lest the ravening smoke, and enmity,</div> <div class="line">Corrode thee quite, thy lover sighs, and straight</div> <div class="line">Desires thee safe afar, too graceful gate!</div> <div class="line">Throned on a terrace of the Boboli.</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">Nay, nay, thy use is here. Stand queenly thus</div> <div class="line">Till the next fury; teach the time and us</div> <div class="line">Leisure and will to draw a serious breath:</div> <div class="line">Not wholly where thou art the soul is cowed,</div> <div class="line">Nor the fooled capital proclaims aloud</div> <div class="line">Barter is god, while Beauty perisheth.</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="figcenter width30"> <ANTIMG src="images/leaf.png" width-obs="30" height-obs="38" alt="Divider" /></div> <div class="section"> <hr class="divider2" /> <h3><SPAN name="In_the_Docks" id="In_the_Docks"></SPAN><i>In the Docks</i></h3></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poem"> <div class="verse"> <div class="line"><span class="cap">W</span>HERE the bales thunder till the day is done,</div> <div class="line indent">And the wild sounds with wilder odors cope;</div> <div class="line">Where over crouching sail and coiling rope,</div> <div class="line">Lascar and Moor along the gangway run;</div> <div class="line">Where stifled Thames spreads in the pallid sun,</div> <div class="line">A hive of anarchy from slope to slope;</div> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</SPAN></span> <div class="line">Flag of my birth, my liberty, my hope,</div> <div class="line">I see thee at the masthead, joyous one!</div> </div><div class="verse"> <div class="line">O thou good guest! So oft as, young and warm,</div> <div class="line">To the home-wind thy hoisted colors bound,</div> <div class="line">Away, away from this too thoughtful ground,</div> <div class="line">Sated with human trespass and despair,</div> <div class="line">Thee only, from the desert, from the storm,</div> <div class="line">A sick mind follows into Eden air.</div> </div></div> </div> <p>&nbsp;</p> <hr class="divider" /> <p>&nbsp;</p> <table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> <tr> <td align="center"> Transcriber's Note </td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left"> The cover was created by the transcriber using elements from the original publication and is placed in the public domain. </td> </tr> </table> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <hr class="full" /> <SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />