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THE LIBRARY 
 
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 GIFT OF 
 
 Sara Bard Field Wood 
 
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 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2007 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 ** littp://www.arcliive.org/details/balladesinbluecliOOIangricli 
 
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®(d Wotl!) Setiee 
 
 BALLADES IN BLUE CHINA 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
TO THE READER 
 
 "Laughter and song the poet brings^ 
 And lends them form and gives them wings ; 
 Then sets his chirping squadron free 
 To post at will hy land or sea^ 
 And find their home^ if that may he, 
 
 Laughter and song this poety too, 
 
 O IVestern brothers, sends to you : 
 
 With doubtful flight the darting train 
 Have crossed the bleak Atlantic main, — 
 Now warm them in your hearts again! 
 
 AUSTIN DOB SON. 
 
 1884. 
 
BALLADES IN BLUE CHINA 
 AND OTHER POEMS BY 
 
 ANDREW LANG 
 
 PortlancI, Maine 
 TH03MJ9S a 740SHE^ 
 
 Mdccccvij 
 
Tbii First Edition on 
 Van G elder paper con- 
 sists of 925 copies. 
 
 GIFT 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ^55 
 
 r 
 
 Ballade by Frederick Pollock . 3 
 Ballades in Blue China: 
 
 ballade dedicatory ... 5 
 
 ballade of blue china . . 7 
 
 ballade to theocritus . . 9 
 
 ballade of cleopatra^s needle ii 
 
 ballade of roulette . . 1 3 
 
 ballade of sleep . . . 1 5 
 
 ballade of the midnight forest 1 7 
 
 ballade of the book-hunter . i9 
 ballade of the voyage to 
 
 CYTHERA 21 
 
 BALLADE OF THE MUSE ' . . 23 
 
 BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES . . 2$ 
 
 BALLADE OF AUTUMN ... 27 
 
 BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM . 29 
 
 BALLADE OF LIFE . . . 3I 
 
 BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES . . 33 
 
 VILLON'S BALLADE OF GOOD COUNSEL 35 
 
 BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM . 37 
 
 BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS . . 39 
 
 317 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Ballades in Blue China: 
 
 ballade of his books . . 4i 
 
 ballade of the dream . . 43 
 
 ballade of blind love . . 45 
 
 ballade of middle age . . 47 
 
 ballade of worldly wealth . 49 
 ballade of his choice of a 
 
 sepulchre .... 50 
 
 ballade en guise de rondeau' 5 1 
 
 dizain by austin dobson . 52 
 
 Verses Vain : 
 
 almae matres .... 55 
 
 A DREAM 57 
 
 desiderium 58 
 
 ronsard's grave • • • 59 
 
 ROMANCE 61 
 
 VILLANELLE 62 
 
 TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS . . 63 
 
 IN TINTAGEL .... 64 
 
 PISIDICE 65 
 
 A PORTRAIT OF 1 783 ... 67 
 
 FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST . 69 
 
 THE MOON*S MINION . . . 70 
 
 VILLANELLE TO LUCIA . . . 7 1 
 
 N-^i/c/iOs ^Atibv ..... 72 
 
 THE SPINET 73 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Sonnets : 
 
 HOMER 
 
 77 
 
 HOMERIC UNITY . 
 
 . 78 
 
 THE ODYSSEY 
 
 79 
 
 IN ITHACA .... 
 
 80 
 
 bion 
 
 81 
 
 HERODOTUS IN EGYPT . 
 
 82 
 
 SPRING (AFTER MELEAGER) 
 
 83 
 
 IDEAL 
 
 84 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 
 85 
 
 SHE 
 
 86 
 
 BEFORE THE SNOW 
 
 87 
 
 THE BURIAL OF MOLIl^RE 
 
 88 
 
 SAN TERENZO . . . . 
 
 89 
 
 love's EASTER . . . . 
 
 90 
 
 TWILIGHT 
 
 91 
 
 AN OLD GARDEN . . . . 
 
 92 
 
 GRASS OF PARNASSUS . 
 
 93 
 
 Three Letters to Dead Authors: 
 i to mr. alexander pope . 97 
 
 II TO LORD BYRON . . . lOI 
 
 III TO OMAR KHAYYAm . . I06 
 
 Rhymes Old and New: 
 
 TO E. m. s. . 
 
 A SCOT TO JEANNE D*ARC 
 SEEKERS FOR A CITY . 
 
 Ill 
 112 
 114 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Rhymes Old and New: 
 
 TO RHODOCLEIA ON HER SINGING 
 
 ANOTHER WAY 
 
 CLEVEDON CHURCH 
 
 MARTIAL IN TOWN 
 
 SCYTHE SONG 
 
 THE SONG OF ORPHEUS 
 
 FROM OMAR KHAYYAm 
 
 LES ROSES DE sIdI 
 
 THE HAUNTED TOWER 
 
 BOAT-SONG 
 
 LOST LOVE 
 
 THE PROMISE OF HELEN 
 
 ON CALAIS SANDS . 
 
 POSCIMUR 
 
 ON THE GARLAND TO RHODOCLEIA 
 
 A GALLOWAY GARLAND 
 
 ZIMBABWE 
 
 TUSITALA 
 
 VALE 
 
 Notes 
 
 117 
 120 
 121 
 
 123 
 125 
 126 
 127 
 129 
 130 
 132 
 ^33 
 134 
 135 
 136 
 
 137 
 138 
 139 
 140 
 141 
 
 143 
 
BALLADES IN BLUE CHINA 
 
" Rondeaux, Ballades, 
 Chansons y drains , propos menus y 
 Compte mojy quHl^ sont devenu{ : 
 Se faict il plus Hen de nouveau ? " 
 
 Clement Marot, Dialogue de deux 
 Amoureux. 
 
 " I love a ballad but even too well ; if it be doleful 
 matter, merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing 
 indeed, and sung lamentably." 
 
 A Winter's Tale, Act iv. sc. 3. 
 
A BALLADE OF XXII BALLADES 
 
 FRIEND, wbenj^ou hear a care-dulled eye^ 
 And brow perplexed with things of weighty 
 And fain would hid some charm untie 
 The honds that hold you all too strait^ 
 behold a solace to your fate, 
 y^ rapped in this coverts china hlue; 
 These ballades fresh and delicate^ 
 This dainty troop of twenty-two ! 
 
 The mind, unwearied, longs to fly 
 And commune with the wise and great ; 
 But that same ether, rare and high, 
 Vfhich glorifies its worthy mate. 
 To breath forspent is disparate : 
 'Laughing and light and airv-new 
 These\come to tickle the dull pate. 
 This dainty troop of twenty-two, 
 
 yiost welcome then, when you and I, 
 Forestalling days for mirth too late, 
 To quips and cranks and fantasy 
 Some choice half -hour dedicate, 
 Thev weave their dance with measured rate 
 Of rhymes enlinked in order due. 
 
Hill frowns relax and cares abate y 
 This dainty troop of twentjf-two, 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 V rimes, of toys that please your state 
 (Quainter are surely none to view 
 Than these which pass with tripping gait, 
 This dainty troop of twenty-two. 
 
 FREDERICK POLLOCK. 
 
BALLADE DEDICATORY 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. ELTON 
 OF WHITE STAUNTON 
 
 THE painted Briton built his mound, 
 And left his celts and clay, 
 On yon fair slope of sunlit ground 
 That fronts your garden gay ; 
 The Roman came, he bore the sway, 
 He bullied, bought, and sold. 
 Your fountain sweeps his works away 
 Beside your manor old ! 
 
 But still his crumbling urns are found 
 
 Within the window-bay, 
 
 Where once he listened to the sound 
 
 That lulls you day by day ; — 
 
 The sound of summer winds at play. 
 
 The noise of waters cold 
 
 To Yarty wandering on their way. 
 
 Beside your manor old 1 
 
 The Roman fell: his firm-set bound 
 
 Became the Saxon's stay ; 
 
 The bells made music all around 
 
 For monks in cloisters grey. 
 
 Till fled the monks in disarray 
 
 From their warm chantry's fold, 
 
Old Abbots slumber as they may, 
 Beside your manor old 1 
 
 Creeds, empires, peoples, all decay, 
 Down into darkness, rolled ; 
 May life that's fleet be sweet, I pray. 
 Beside your manor old. 
 
BALLADE OF BLUE CHINA 
 
 There's a joy without canker or cark, 
 There's a pleasure eternally new, 
 *Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark 
 Of china that's ancient and blue ; 
 Unchipp'd all the centuries through 
 It has pass'd, since the chime of it rang, 
 And they fashion'd it, figure and hue. 
 In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. 
 
 These dragons ( their tails, you remark, 
 Into bunches of gillyflowers grew), — 
 When Noah came out of the ark. 
 Did these lie in wait for his crew ? 
 They snorted, they snapp'd, and they slew; 
 They were mighty of fin and of fang. 
 And their portraits Celestials drew 
 In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. 
 
 Here's a pot with a cot in a park. 
 
 In a park where the peach -blossoms blew, 
 
 Where the lovers eloped in the dark, 
 
 Lived, died, and were changed into two 
 
 Bright birds that eternally flew 
 
 Through the boughs of the may, as they sang ; 
 
 'Tis a tale was undoubtedly true 
 
 In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. 
 
Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do. 
 Kind critic, your ** tongue has a tang" 
 But — a sage never heeded a shrew 
 In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. 
 
BALLADE TO THEOCRITUS, IN WINTER 
 
 icropCjv rkv ^iKeXhp is &Xa> 
 
 Id. viii. 56. 
 
 AH I leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar 
 Of London, and the bustling street, 
 For still, by the Sicilian shore. 
 The murmur of the Muse is sweet. 
 Still, still, the suns of summer greet 
 The mountain-grave of Helike, 
 And shepherds still their songs repeat 
 Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea. 
 
 What though they worship Pan no more, 
 That guarded once the shepherd's seat. 
 They chatter of their rustic lore. 
 They watch the wind among the wheat : 
 Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat, 
 Where whispers pine to cypress tree ; 
 They count the waves that idly beat 
 Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea. 
 
 Theocritus I thou canst restore 
 The pleasant years, and over-fleet ; 
 With thee we live as men of yore, 
 We rest where running waters meet : 
 And then we turn unwilling feet 
 And seek the world — so must it be — 
 fVg may not linger in the heat 
 Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea 1 
 
Master, — when rain, and snow, and sleet 
 And northern winds are wild, to thee 
 We come, we rest in thy retreat, 
 Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea 1 
 
 lO 
 
BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE 
 
 YE giant shades of Ra and Tum, 
 Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian, 
 If murmurs of our planet come 
 To exiles in the precincts wan 
 Where, fetish or Olympian, 
 To help or harm no more ye list, 
 Look down, if look ye may, and scan 
 This monument in London mist ! 
 
 Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb 
 That once were read of him that ran 
 When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum 
 Wild music of the Bull began ; 
 When through the chanting priestly clan 
 Walked Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd 
 This stone, with blessing scored and ban — 
 This monument in London mist. 
 
 The stone endures though gods be numb ; 
 Though human effort, plot, and plan 
 Be sifted, drifted, like the sum 
 Of sands in wastes Arabian. 
 What king may deem him more than man. 
 What priest says Faith can Time resist 
 While this endures to mark their span — 
 This monument in London mist t 
 
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan 
 Falls ; it is longer that ye wist : 
 It preaches, as Time's gnomon can, 
 This monument in London mist 1 
 
 12 
 
BALLADE OF ROULETTE 
 
 THIS life — one was thinking to-day, 
 In the midst of a medley of fancies - 
 Is a game, and the board where we play 
 Green earth with her poppies and pansies. 
 Let manque be faded romances. 
 Be passe remorse and regret ; 
 Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances - 
 The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette. 
 
 The lover will stake as he may 
 
 His heart on his Peggies and Nancies; 
 
 The girl has her beauty to lay ; 
 
 The saint has his prayers and his trances ; 
 
 The poet bets endless expanses 
 
 In Dreamland ; the scamp has his debt : 
 
 How they gaze at the wheel as it glances - 
 
 The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette I 
 
 The Kaiser will stake his array 
 
 Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances ; 
 
 An Englishman punts with his pay, 
 
 And glory ih^jeton of France is ; 
 
 Your artists, or Whistlers or Vances, 
 
 Have voices or colours to bet ; 
 
 Will you moan that its motion askance is - 
 
 The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette ? 
 
 13 
 
The prize that the pleasure enhances ? 
 The prize is — at last to forget 
 The changes, the chops, and the chances - 
 The wheel of Dame Fortune's roulette. 
 
 ^Ana »d lui tijtfito fljw li^vol 9ti 
 
 X^-Ui dd i^MU 
 
 
 14 
 
BALLADE OF SLEEP 
 
 THE hours are passing slow, 
 I hear their weary tread 
 Clang from the tower, and go 
 Back to their kinsfolk dead. 
 Sleep 1 death's twin brother dread 1 
 Why dost thou scorn me so ? 
 The wind's voice overhead 
 Long wakeful here I know. 
 And music from the steep 
 Where waters fall and flow. 
 Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ? 
 
 All sounds that might bestow 
 Rest on the fever' d bed, 
 All slumb'rous sounds and low 
 Are mingled here and wed, 
 And bring no drowsihed. 
 Shy dreams flit to and fro 
 With shadowy hair dispread ; 
 With wistful eyes that glow. 
 And silent robes that sweep. 
 Thou wilt not hear me ; no ? 
 Wilt thou not hear me. Sleep ? 
 
 What cause hast thou to show 
 Of sacrifice unsped ? 
 Of all thy slaves below 
 I most have laboured 
 With service sung and said ; 
 
 15 
 
Have cuird such buds as blow, 
 Soft poppies white and red, 
 Where thy still gardens grow, 
 And Lethe's waters weep. 
 Why, then, art thou my foe ? 
 Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep ? 
 
 Prince, ere the dark be shred 
 By golden shafts, ere low 
 And long the shadows creep : 
 Lord of the wand of lead, 
 Soft -footed as the snow, 
 Wilt thou not hear me. Sleep ! 
 
 i6 
 
BALLADE OF THE lOBKlGHT FOREST 
 
 Aim THtOWMM DS BOHnUJI 
 
 QTiLLsiictkefl 
 O BcBodlitkei 
 
 IDCidli«Ute««iQf0ld» 
 
 skodb of Aon and koDy^tioe; 
 
 The west w»d Ira 
 
 rthw lyi tfcf, pio Mid cold. 
 
 Andwolfessliadi 
 
 oidDinAnMnii^lioe 
 
 Inaecietvoodbad 
 
 IwUkkroQi^Mj. 
 
 TSsthoni^Aepc 
 
 HMls' Innoli kMm kernto 
 
 Wheniiovtkewal 
 
 d»«wrboiindiii«li^^t. 
 
 And fint tiie ■«» 
 
 OK bioifa Ike doi^ 8*7* 
 
 Thendowm^edd 
 
 !«, wkk Uom soft iMir aid biUit, 
 
 And thnm^ tiie &■ wood Dim tkmdi ker vmj. 
 
 With water-weedi tviMd a Aev kxlB of cold 
 
 The stiai^ coU loRM-fiMdes diaoe m gfee. 
 
 Sylphs OTcr4BMMOos lad ovcr-bold 
 
 Hannt the dak koloai wkoe tke dwaf aaj be. 
 
 The wOd red dwa^ tke i 
 
 Then 'mid tkdr sMk, a 
 
 The sadden Goddas cai 
 
 With one kng i^g^ ior snaan pmTd aay ; 
 
 The swift feet tea tke iwy mdtg oai%^t 
 
 And through tke dfai wood Dia tkieadi ker wmj. 
 
 Sheg^eaakeraNm 
 
 tiofUe 
 
 i; down tke wold 
 
 SheheantkesoUa^ 
 
 r of tke 
 
 stagitkatiee 
 
 Mixed widi tke aak 
 
 of tke] 
 
 koaasi^4 
 
 Butherddaktii^: 
 
 aankfl 
 
 ST« 
 
 17 
 
And naught of ruth and pity wotteth she 
 More than her hounds that follow on the flight ; 
 The goddess draws a golden bow of might 
 And thick she rains the gentle shafts that slay. 
 She tosses loose her locks upon the night, 
 And through the dim wood Dian threads her way. 
 
 Prince, let us leave the din, the dust, the spite. 
 
 The gloom and glare of towns, the plague, the blight : 
 
 Amid the forest leaves and fountain spray 
 
 There is the mystic home of our delight, 
 
 And through the dim wood Dian threads her way. 
 
 i8 
 
BALLADE OF THE BOOK-HUNTER 
 
 IN torrid heats of late July, 
 In March, beneath the bitter bise^ 
 He book -hunts while the loungers fly, — 
 He book -hunts, though December freeze; 
 In breeches baggy at the knees, 
 And heedless of the public jeers. 
 For these, for these, he hoards his fees, — 
 Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs. 
 
 No dismal stall escapes his eye. 
 
 He turns o'er tomes of low degrees. 
 
 There soiled romanticists may lie, 
 
 Or Restoration comedies ; 
 
 Each tract that flutters in the breeze 
 
 For him is charged with hopes and fears. 
 
 In mouldy novels fancy sees 
 
 Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs. 
 
 With restless eyes that peer and spy. 
 Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, 
 In dismal nooks he loves to pry, 
 Whose motto evermore is Spes I 
 But ah ! the fabled treasure flees ; 
 Grown rarer with the fleeting years, 
 In rich men's shelves they take their ease, — 
 Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs 1 
 
 19 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Prince, all the things that tease and please, — 
 Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears, 
 What are they but such toys as these — 
 Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs ? 
 
BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA 
 
 AFTER THEODORE DE BANVILLE 
 
 1KNOW Cythera long is desolate; 
 I know the winds have stripped the gardens green. 
 Alas, my friends ! beneath the fierce sun's weight 
 A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been, 
 Nor ever lover on that coast is seen ! 
 So be it, but we seek a fabled shore, 
 To lull our vague desires with mystic lore, 
 To wander where Love's labyrinths beguile; 
 There let us land, there dream for evermore : 
 " It may be we shall touch the happy isle." 
 
 The sea may be our sepulchre. If Fate, 
 If tempests wreak their wrath on us, serene 
 We watch the bolt of heaven, and scorn the hate 
 Of angry gods that smite us in their spleen. 
 Perchance the jealous mists are but the screen 
 That veils the fairy coast we would explore. 
 Come, though the sea be vex'd, and breakers roar, 
 Come, for the air of this old world is vile. 
 Haste we, and toil, and faint not at the oar ; 
 " It may be we shall touch the happy isle." 
 
 Grey serpents trail in temples desecrate 
 
 Where Cypris smiled, the golden maid, the queen, 
 
 And ruined is the palace of our state ; 
 
 But happy Loves flit round the mast, and keen 
 
 The shrill wind sings the silken cords between. 
 
 Heroes are we, with wearied hearts and sore, 
 
Whose flower is faded and whose locks are hoar, 
 Yet haste, light skiffs, where myrtle thickets smile ; 
 Love's panthers sleep 'mid roses, as of yore : 
 *' It may be we shall touch the happy isle 1 " 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Sad eyes ! the blue sea laughs, as heretofore. 
 Ah, singing birds your happy music pour ! 
 Ah, poets, leave the sordid earth awhile ; 
 Flit to these ancient gods we still adore : 
 ** It may be we shall touch the happy isle ! " 
 
 S2 
 
BALLADE OF THE MUSE 
 
 Quem tu^ Melpomene^ sent el, 
 
 THE man whom once, Melpomene, 
 Thou look'st on with benignant sight, 
 Shall never at the Isthmus be 
 A boxer eminent in fight, 
 Nor fares he foremost in the flight 
 Of Grecian cars to victory. 
 Nor goes with Delian laurels dight, 
 The man thou lov'st, Melpomene ! 
 
 Not him the Capitol shall see, 
 
 As who hath crush'd the threats and might 
 
 Of monarchs, march triumphantly ; 
 
 But Fame shall crown him, in his right 
 
 Of all the Roman lyre that smite 
 
 The first ; so woods of Tivoli 
 
 Proclaim him, so her waters bright, 
 
 The man thou lov^st, Melpomene ! 
 
 The sons of queenly Rome count me^ 
 
 Me too, with them whose chants delight, — 
 
 The poets* kindly company ; 
 
 Now broken is the tooth of spite, 
 
 But thou, that temperest aright 
 
 The golden lyre, all, all to thee 
 
 He owes — life, fame, and fortune's height - 
 
 The man thou lov'st, Melpomene ! 
 
 23 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Queen, that to mute lips could'st unite 
 The wild swan's dying melody ! 
 Thy gifts, ah ! how shall he requite — 
 The man thou lov'st, Melpomene ? 
 
 24 
 
BALLADE OF DEAD CITIES 
 
 TO*E. W. GOSSE 
 
 THE dust of Carthage and the dust 
 Of Babel on the desert wold, 
 The loves of Corinth, and the lust, 
 Orchomenos increased with gold ; 
 The town of Jason, over-bold, 
 And Cherson, smitten in her prime — 
 What are they but a dream half -told ? 
 Where are the cities of old time ? 
 
 In towns that were a kingdom's trust. 
 In dim Atlantic forests' fold. 
 The marble wasteth to a crust, 
 The granite crumbles into mould ; 
 O'er these — left nameless from of old — 
 As over Shinar's brick and slime. 
 One vast forgetfulness is roU'd — 
 Where are the cities of old time ? 
 
 The lapse of ages, and the rust, 
 
 The fire, the frost, the waters cold, 
 
 Efface the evil and the just; 
 
 From Thebes, that Eriphyle sold, 
 
 To drown'd Caer-Is, whose sweet bells toll'd 
 
 Beneath the wave a dreamy chime 
 
 That echo'd from the mountain -hold, — 
 
 " Where are the cities of old time ? " 
 
 »5 
 
Prince, all thy towns and cities must 
 Decay as these, till all their crime, 
 And mirth, and wealth, and toil are thrust 
 Where are the cities of old time. 
 
BALLADE OF AUTUMN 
 
 WE built a castle in the air, 
 In summer weather, you and I, 
 The wind and sun were in your hair, — 
 Gold hair against a sapphire sky : 
 When Autumn came, with leaves that fly 
 Before the storm, across the plain, 
 You fled from me, with scarce a sigh — 
 My Love returns no more again ! 
 
 The windy lights of Autumn flare : 
 I watch the moonlit sails go by ; 
 I marvel how men toil and fare. 
 The weary business that they ply ! 
 Their voyaging is vanity. 
 And fairy gold is all their gain, 
 And all the winds of winter cry, 
 " My Love returns no more again 1 " 
 
 Here, in my castle of Despair, 
 I sit alone with memory ; 
 The wind-fed wolf has left his lair, 
 To'keep the outcast company. 
 The brooding owl he hoots hard by, 
 The hare shall kindle on thy hearth -stane^ 
 The Rhymer's sooth est prophecy, — ^ 
 My Love returns no more again ! 
 
 I Thomas of Ercildoune. 
 
 27 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Lady, my home until I die 
 
 Is here, where youth and hope were slain ; 
 
 They flit, the ghosts of our July, 
 
 My Love returns no more again ! 
 
BALLADE OF TRUE WISDOM 
 
 WHILE others are asking for beauty or fame, 
 Or praying to know that for which they should 
 pray, 
 Or courting Queen Venus, that affable dame, 
 Or chasing the Muses the weary and grey. 
 The sage has found out a more excellent way — 
 To Pan and to Pallas his incense he showers. 
 And his humble petition puts up day by day, 
 For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. 
 
 Inventors may bow to the God that is lame. 
 And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray ; 
 Philosophers kneel to the God without name. 
 Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they ; 
 The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay, 
 The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours ; 
 But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay, 
 For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. 
 
 Oh ! grant me a life without pleasure or blame 
 ( As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day 
 With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame ) ! 
 O grant me a house by the beach of a bay. 
 Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play 
 With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers ! 
 And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray. 
 For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. 
 
 39 
 
Gods, grant or withhold it ; your " yea " and your " nay ' 
 Are immutable, heedless of outcry of ours : 
 But life is worth living, and here we would stay 
 For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. 
 
BALLADE OF LIFE 
 
 ** * Dead and gone,' — a sorry burden 
 of the Ballad of Life." 
 
 Death's Jest Book. 
 
 SAY, fair maids, maying 
 In gardens green. 
 In deep dells straying, 
 "What end hath been 
 Two Mays between 
 Of the flowers that shone 
 And your own sweet queen — 
 " They are dead and gone ! '* 
 
 Say, grave priests, praying 
 
 In dule and teen. 
 
 From cells decaying 
 
 What have ye seen 
 
 Of the proud and mean. 
 
 Of Judas and John, 
 
 Of the foul and clean ? — 
 
 " They are dead and gone 1 " 
 
 Say, kings, arraying 
 
 Loud wars to win, 
 
 Of your manslaying 
 
 What gain ye glean ? 
 
 " They are fierce and keen. 
 
 But they fall anon. 
 
 On the sword that lean, — 
 
 They are dead and gone ! " 
 
 31 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Through the mad world's scene, 
 
 We are drifting on, 
 
 To this tune, I ween, 
 
 " They are dead and gone I " 
 
 32 
 
BALLADE OF DEAD LADIES 
 
 (AFTER VILLON) 
 
 NAY, tell me now in what strange air 
 The Roman Flora dwells to-day. 
 Where Archippiada hides, and where 
 Beautiful Thais has passed away ? 
 Whence answers Echo, afield, astray. 
 By mere or stream, — around, below ? 
 Lovelier she than a woman of clay ; 
 Nay, but where is the last year's snow ? 
 
 Where is wise Heloise, that care 
 Brought on Abeilard, and dismay ? 
 All for her love he found a snare, 
 A maimed poor monk in orders grey ; 
 And Where's the Queen who willed to slay 
 Buridan, that in a sack must go 
 Afloat down Seine, — a perilous way — 
 Nay, but where is the last year's snow ? 
 
 Where's that White Queen, a lily rare. 
 With her sweet song, the Siren's lay ? 
 Where's Bertha Broad -foot, Beatrice fair? 
 Alys and Ermengarde, where are they ? 
 Good Joan, whom English did betray 
 In Rouen town, and burned her ? No, 
 Maiden and Queen, no man may say; 
 Nay, but where is the last year's snow ? 
 
 33 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Prince, all this week thou need'st not pray, 
 Nor yet this year the thing to know. 
 One burden answers, ever and aye, 
 " Nay, but where is the last year's snow ? " 
 
 34 
 
VILLON'S BALLADE 
 
 OF GOOD COUNSEL, TO HIS FRIENDS OF 
 EVIL LIFE 
 
 NAY, be you pardoner or cheat, 
 Or cogger keen, or mumper shy, 
 You*ll burn your fingers at the feat, 
 And howl like other folks that fry. 
 All evil folks that love a lie I 
 And where goes gain that greed amasses, 
 By wile, and trick, and thievery ? 
 *Tis all to taverns and to lasses I 
 
 Rhyme, rail, dance, play the cymbals sweet. 
 With game, and shame, and jollity, 
 Go jigging through the field and street, 
 With mysfry and morality ; 
 Win gold at gleek^ — and that will fly. 
 Where all you gain at passage passes, — 
 And that's ? You know as well as I, 
 'Tis all to taverns and to lasses 1 
 
 Nay, forth from all such filth retreat, 
 
 Go delve and ditch, in wet or dry. 
 
 Turn groom, give horse and mule their meat. 
 
 If you've no clerkly skill to ply ; 
 
 You'll gain enough, with husbandry. 
 
 But — sow hempseed and such wild grasses, 
 
 And where goes all you take thereby ? — 
 
 'Tis all to taverns and to lasses ! 
 
 35 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Your clothes, your hose, your broidery, 
 Your linen that the snow surpasses, 
 Or ere they're worn, off, off they fly, 
 'Tis all to taverns and to lasses I 
 
 36 
 
BALLADE OF THE BOOKWORM 
 
 FAR in the Past I peer, and see 
 A Child upon the Nursery floor, 
 A Child with books upon his knee, 
 Who asks, like Oliver, for more I 
 The number of his years is IV, 
 And yet in Letters hath he skill. 
 How deep he dives in Fairy-lore ! 
 The Books I loved, I love them still ! 
 
 One gift the Fairies gave me : ( Three 
 They commonly bestowed of yore ) 
 The Love of Books, the Golden Key 
 That opens the Enchanted Door ; 
 Behind it BLUEBEARD lurks, and o»er 
 And o'er doth JACK his Giants kill, 
 And there is all ALADDIN'S store,— 
 The Books I loved, I love them still ! 
 
 Take all, but leave my Books to me ! 
 
 These heavy creels of old we bore 
 
 We fill not now, nor wander free. 
 
 Nor wear the heart that once we wore ; 
 
 Not now each River seems to pour 
 
 His waters from the Muses' hill ; 
 
 Though something's gone from stream and shore, 
 
 The Books I loved, I love them still ! 
 
 37 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Fate, that art Queen by shore and sea, 
 We bow submissive to thy will, 
 Ah grant, by some benign decree, 
 The Books I loved — to love them still. 
 
 38 
 
BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS 
 
 (Les CBuvres de Monsieur Molihre. A Paris, 
 che^ Louys Billaine, a la Palme. 
 
 M. D. C. LXVI.) 
 
 WHEN these Old Plays were new, the King, 
 Beside the Cardinal's chair, 
 Applauded, 'mid the courtly ring, 
 The verses of^Moli^re ; 
 Point -lace was then the only wear, 
 Old Corneille came to woo, 
 And bright Du Pare was young and fair, 
 When these Old Plays were new ! 
 
 LA COMlftDIE 
 
 How shrill the butcher's cat -calls ring. 
 
 How loud the lackeys swear 1 
 
 Black pipe-bowls on the stage they fling, 
 
 At Br^court, fuming there I 
 
 The Porter's stabbed I a Mousquetaire 
 
 Breaks in with noisy crew — 
 
 'Twas all a commonplace affair 
 
 When these Old Plays were new ! 
 
 When these Old Plays were new 1 They bring 
 A host of phantoms rare : 
 Old jests that float, old jibes that sting. 
 Old faces peaked with care : 
 
 39 
 
Menage's s^nirk, de Vise's stare, 
 The thefts of Jean Ribou, — i 
 Ah, publishers were hard to bear 
 When these Old Plays were new. 
 
 ENVOY 
 
 Ghosts, at your Poet's word ye dare 
 To break Death's dungeons through, 
 And frisk, as in that golden air, 
 When these Old Plays were new I 
 
 I A knavish publisher. 
 
 40 
 
BALLADE OF HIS BOOKS 
 
 HERE Stand my books, line upon line 
 They reach the roof, and row by row, 
 They speak of faded tastes of mine, 
 And things I did, but do not, know : 
 Old school books, useless long ago, 
 Old Logics, where the spirit, railed in. 
 Could scarcely answer " yes " or " no " — 
 The many things I've tried and failed in I 
 
 Here's Villon, in morocco fine, 
 
 ( The Poet starved, in mud and snow, ) 
 
 Glatigny does not crave to dine, 
 
 And Rene's tears forget to flow. 
 
 And here's a work by Mrs. Crowe, 
 
 With hosts of ghosts and bogies jailed in ; 
 
 Ah, all my ghosts have gone below — 
 
 The many things I've tried and failed in I 
 
 He's touched, this mouldy Greek divine. 
 The Princess D'Este's hand of snow; 
 And here the arms of D'Hoym shine. 
 And there's a tear-bestained Rousseau : 
 Here's Carlyle shrieking " woe on woe " 
 ( The first edition, this, he wailed in ) ; 
 I once believed in him — but oh. 
 The many things I've tried and failed in ! 
 
 41 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Prince, tastes may differ; mine and thine 
 
 Quite other balances are scaled in ; 
 
 May you succeed, though I repine — 
 
 " The many things IVe tried and failed in ! ** 
 
 42 
 
BALLADE OF THE DREAM 
 
 SWIFT as sound of music fled 
 When no more the organ sighs, 
 Sped as all old days are sped, 
 So your lips, love, and your eyes, 
 So your gentle-voiced replies 
 Mine one hour in sleep that seem. 
 Rise and flit when slumber flies. 
 Following darkness likeji dream ! 
 
 Like the scent from roses red. 
 Like the dawn from golden skies, 
 Like the semblance of the dead 
 From the living love that hies. 
 Like the shifting shade that lies 
 On the moonlight -silvered stream. 
 So you rise when dreams arise. 
 Following darkness like a dream ! 
 
 Could some spell, or sung or said. 
 Could some kindly witch and wise, 
 Lull for aye this dreaming head 
 In a mist of memories, 
 I would lie like him who lies 
 Where the lights on Latmos gleam, — 
 Wake not, find not Paradise 
 Following darkness like a dream ! 
 
 43 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Sleep, that giv*st what Life denies, 
 Shadowy bounties and supreme, 
 Bring the dearest face that flies 
 Following darkness like a dream ! 
 
 44 
 
BALLADE OF BLIND LOVE 
 (after lyonnet de coismes) 
 
 WHO have loved and ceased to love, forget 
 That ever they loved in their lives, they say ; 
 Only remember the fever and fret, 
 And the pain of Love, that was all his pay ; 
 All the delight of him passes away 
 From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met — 
 Too late did I love you, my love, and yet 
 I shall never forget till my dying day. 
 
 Too late were we Vare of the secret net 
 That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray; 
 There were we taken and snared, Lisette, 
 
 In the dungeon of Xa ff au66e Hmistic ; 
 
 Help was there none in the wide world's fray, 
 Joy was there none in the gift and the debt ; 
 Too late we knew it, too long regret — 
 I shall never forget till my dying day ! 
 
 We must live our lives, though the sun be set, 
 
 Must meet in the masque where parts we play. 
 
 Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet ; 
 
 Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay : 
 
 But while snows of winter or flowers of May 
 
 Are the sad year's shroud or coronet. 
 
 In the season of rose or of violet, 
 
 I shall never forget till my dying day ! 
 
 45 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Queen, when the clay is my coverlet, 
 When I am dead, and when you are grey. 
 Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet, 
 " I shall never forget till my dying day 1 " 
 
 46 
 
BALLADE OF MIDDLE AGE 
 
 OUR youth began with tears and sighs, 
 With seeking what we could not find 
 Our verses all were threnodies, 
 In elegiacs still we whined ; 
 Our ears were deaf, our eyes were blind, 
 We sought and knew not what we sought. 
 We marvel, now we look behind : 
 Life's more amusing than we thought ! 
 
 Oh, foolish youth, untimely wise ! 
 Oh, phantoms of the sickly mind ! 
 What ? not content with seas and skies, 
 With rainy clouds and southern wind, 
 With common cares and faces kind. 
 With pains and joys each morning brought ? 
 Ah, old, and worn, and tired we find 
 Life's more amusing than we thought 1 
 
 Though youth " turns spectre-thin and dies," 
 
 To mourn for youth we're not inclined ; 
 
 We set our souls on salmon flies, 
 
 We whistle where we once repined. 
 
 Confound the woes of human-kind ! 
 
 By heaven we're " well deceived," I wot ; 
 
 Who hum, contented or resigned, 
 
 " Life's more amusing than we thought ! " 
 
 47 
 
O nate mecunty worn and lined 
 Our faces show, but that is naught ; 
 Our hearts are young 'neath wrinkled rind : 
 Life's more amusing than we thought ! 
 
 48 
 
BALLADE OF WORLDLY WEALTH 
 
 (OLD FRENCH) 
 
 MONEY taketh town and wall, 
 Fort and ramp without a blow ; 
 Money moves the merchants all, 
 While the tides shall ebb and flow ; 
 Money maketh Evil show 
 Like the Good, and Truth like lies : 
 These alone can ne'er bestow 
 Youth, and health, and Paradise. 
 
 Money maketh festival. 
 Wine she buys, and beds can strow ; 
 Round the necks of captains tall. 
 Money wins them chains to throw, 
 Marches soldiers to and fro, 
 Gaineth ladies with sweet eyes : 
 These alone can ne'er bestow 
 Youth, and health, and Paradise. 
 
 Money wins the priest his stall ; 
 Money mitres buys, I trow. 
 Red hats for the Cardinal, 
 Abbeys for the novice low ; 
 Money maketh sin as snow, 
 Place of penitence supplies : 
 These alone can ne'er bestow 
 Youth, and health, and Paradise. 
 
 49 
 
BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A 
 SEPULCHRE 
 
 HERE I'd come when weariest ! 
 Here the breast 
 Of the Windburg's tufted over 
 Deep with bracken ; here his crest 
 
 Takes the west, 
 Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover. 
 
 Silent here are lark and plover; 
 
 In the cover 
 Deep below the cushat best 
 Loves his mate, and croons above her 
 
 O'er their nest, 
 Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover. 
 
 Bring me here, Life's tired -out guest, 
 
 To the blest 
 Bed that waits the weary rover, " 
 
 Here should failure be confessed; 
 
 Ends my quest. 
 Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover! 
 
 Friend, or stranger kind, or lover, 
 Ah, fulfil a last behest, 
 
 Let me rest 
 Where the wide-winged hawk doth hover! 
 
 SO 
 
TOUT FINIT PAR DES CHANSONS 
 
 (BALLADE EN GUISE DE RONDEAU ) 
 
 ALL ends in song ! Dame Nature toiled 
 In stellar space, by land, by sea, 
 And many a monstrous thing she spoiled, 
 
 And many another brought to be ; 
 Strange brutes that sprawled, strange stars that flee, 
 
 Or flare the steadfast signs among : 
 What profit thence — to you or me ? 
 All ends in song I 
 
 All ends in song 1 But Nature moiled 
 
 And brought forth Man, who deems him free, 
 
 Who dreams 'twas his own hand embroiled 
 The tangles of his destiny : 
 
 Who fashioned empires, — who but he? — 
 Who fashioned gods, a motley throng : 
 
 They fall, they fade by Time's decree, — 
 All ends in song 1 
 
 All ends in song ! We strive, are foiled, 
 
 Are broken-hearted, — even we : 
 Where that old sinful snake is coiled 
 
 We shake the knowledgeable tree, 
 We listen to the serpent's plea, 
 
 "As Gods shall ye know Right and Wrong," — 
 And this is all the mystery, — 
 
 , "All ends in song I '* 
 
ENVOY 
 
 Muse, or in sooth or mockery, 
 
 Or brief of days, or lasting long. 
 Our love, or hate, or gloom, or glee 
 All ends in song 1 
 
 DIZAIN 
 
 As, to the pipBf with rhythmic feet 
 In windings of some old-world dance^ 
 The smiling couples cross and meet. 
 Join hands, and then in line advance, 
 So, to these fair old tunes of France, 
 Through all their ma^e of to-and-fro. 
 The light-heeled numbers laughing go, 
 Retreat, return, and ere they flee, 
 One moment pause in panting row, 
 A.nd seem to say — Vos Plaudite 1 
 
 AUSTIN DOBSON. 
 
VERSES VAIN 
 
^' Br antes, Virelais, Ballades, and Verses vain.'' 
 
 THE FAERIE QUEENE. 
 
ALMAE MATRES 
 
 (ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865 ) 
 
 ST. Andrews by the N^orthern sea, 
 A haunted town it is to me ! 
 A little city, worn and grey, 
 
 The grey North Ocean girds it round. 
 And o*er the rocks, and up the bay. 
 
 The long sea -rollers surge and sound. 
 And still the thin and biting spray 
 
 Drives down the melancholy street, 
 And still endure, and still decay. 
 
 Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. 
 Ghost-like and shadowy they stand 
 Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand. 
 
 St. Leonard's chapel, long ago 
 
 We loitered idly where the tall 
 Fresh budded mountain ashes blow 
 
 Within thy desecrated wall : 
 The tough roots rent the tomb below. 
 
 The April birds sang clamorous, 
 We did not dream, we could not know 
 
 How hardly Fate would deal with us ! 
 
 O, broken minster, looking forth 
 Beyond the bay, above the town, 
 
 O, winter of the kindly North, 
 O, college of the scarlet gown. 
 
 And shining sands beside the sea. 
 
 And stretch of links beyond the sand. 
 
 55 
 
Once more I watch you, and to me 
 It is as if I touched his hand I 
 
 And therefore art thou yet more dear, 
 
 O, little city, grey and sere, 
 Though shrunken from thine ancient pride 
 
 And lonely by thy lonely sea. 
 Than these fair halls on Isis' side. 
 
 Where Youth an hour came back to me 1 
 
 A land of waters green and clear. 
 
 Of willows and of poplars tall, 
 And, in the spring time of the year. 
 
 The white may breaking over all, 
 And Pleasure quick to come at call. 
 
 And summer rides by marsh and wold. 
 And Autumn with her crimson pall 
 
 About the towers of Magdalen rolled ; 
 And strange enchantments from the past, 
 
 And memories of the friends of old. 
 And strong Tradition, binding fast 
 
 The " flying terms " with bands of gold, — 
 
 All these hath Oxford : all are dear, 
 
 But dearer far the little town. 
 The drifting surf, the wintry year. 
 The college of the scarlet gown, 
 St. Andrews by the Northern sea^ 
 That is a haunted town to me ! 
 
 S6 
 
A DREAM 
 
 WHY will you haunt my sleep ? 
 You know it may not be, 
 The grave is wide and deep, 
 That sunders you and me ; 
 In bitter dreams we reap 
 
 The sorrow we have sown, 
 And I would I were asleep. 
 Forgotten and alone ! 
 
 We knew and did not know. 
 
 We saw and did not see. 
 The nets that long ago 
 
 Fate wove for you and me; 
 The cruel nets that keep 
 
 The birds that sob and moan. 
 And I would we were asleep. 
 
 Forgotten and alone I 
 
DESIDERIUM 
 
 IN MEMORIAM S. F. A. 
 
 THE call of homing rooks, the shrill 
 Song of some bird that watches late, 
 The cries of children break the still 
 Sad twilight by the churchyard gate. 
 
 And o'er your far-oiBf tomb the grey 
 
 Sad twilight broods, and from the trees 
 
 The rooks call on their homeward way. 
 And are you heedless quite of these ? 
 
 The clustered rowan berries red 
 And Autumn's may, the clematis. 
 
 They droop above your dreaming head. 
 And these, and all things must you miss ? 
 
 Ah, you that loved the twilight air, 
 The dim lit hour of quiet best, 
 
 At last, at last you have your share 
 Of what life gave so seldom, rest ! 
 
 Yes, rest beyond all dreaming deep, 
 
 Or labour, nearer the Divine, 
 And pure from fret, and smooth as sleep. 
 
 And gentle as thy soul, is thine ! 
 
 So let it be ! But could I know 
 That thou in this soft autumn eve. 
 
 This hush of earth that pleased thee so, 
 Hadst pleasure still, I might not grieve. 
 
 58 
 
RONSARD'S GRAVE 
 
 Y 
 
 E wells, ye founts that fall 
 
 From the steep mountain wall, 
 That fall, and flash, and fleet 
 With silver feet. 
 
 Ye woods, ye streams that lave 
 The meadows with your wave. 
 Ye hills, and valley fair. 
 Attend my prayer ! 
 
 When Heaven and Fate decree 
 My latest hour for me. 
 
 When I must pass away 
 From pleasant day, 
 
 I ask that none may break 
 The marble for my sake, 
 
 Wishful to make more fair 
 My sepulchre. 
 
 Only a laurel tree 
 Shall shade the grave of me, 
 Only Apollo's bough 
 
 Shall guard me now ! 
 
 Now shall I be at rest 
 Among the spirits blest, 
 
 The happy dead that dwell — 
 Where, — who may tell ? 
 
 59 
 
The snow and wind and hail 
 May never there prevail, 
 Nor ever thunder fall 
 Nor storm at all. 
 
 But always fadeless there 
 The woods are green and fair, 
 And faithful ever more 
 Spring to that shore ! 
 
 There shall I ever hear 
 Alcaeus* music clear. 
 
 And sweetest of all things 
 There Sappho sings. 
 
 60 
 
ROMANCE 
 
 MY Love dwelt in a Northern land. 
 A grey tower in a forest green 
 Was hers, and far on either hand 
 
 The long wash of the waves was seen, 
 And leagues on leagues of yellow sand, 
 The woven forest boughs between 1 
 
 And through the silver Northern night 
 The sunset slowly died away, 
 
 And herds of strange deer, lily-white, 
 Stole forth among the branches grey ; 
 
 About the coming of the light, 
 
 They fled like ghosts before the day 1 
 
 I know not if the forest green 
 
 Still girdles round that castle grey; 
 
 I know not if the boughs between 
 The white deer vanish ere the day ; 
 
 Above my Love the grass is green, 
 My heart is colder than the clay ! 
 
 6i 
 
VILLANELLE 
 
 (TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF 
 "LES VILLANELLES " ) 
 
 VILLANELLE, why art thou mute ? 
 Hath the singer ceased to sing ? 
 Hath the Master lost his lute ? 
 
 Many a pipe and scrannel flute 
 
 On the breeze their discords fling; 
 Villanelle, why art thou mute ? 
 
 Sound of tumult and dispute, 
 
 Noise of war the echoes bring ; 
 Hath the Master lost his lute ? 
 
 Once he sang of bud and shoot 
 
 In the season of the Spring ; 
 Villanelle, why art thou mute ? 
 
 Fading leaf and falling fruit 
 
 Say, " The year is on the wing, 
 Hath the Master lost his lute ? " 
 
 Ere the axe lie at the root, 
 
 Ere the winter come as king, 
 Villanelle, why art thou mute ? 
 Hath the Master lost his lute ? 
 
 62 
 
TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS 
 
 Aiai ral juaXdxai fih iT^v /card Koiirov SKwvTai 
 vcrrepov dv ^(bovrt, Kal els Itos dXXo <f)T6ovTL 
 dfifies 5' * 01 ixeyd'KoL koX KaprepoL ol co^ol dvdpes 
 oirxdre irpdra ddvcofies dvdKOOi ev x^oi/i Koi\(;f. 
 'e^dofjLCS ev fidXa /xaKpbv dr^pfiova vfiyperov 'iLfirvov. 
 
 ALAS, for us no second spring, 
 Like mallows in the garden-bed, 
 For these the grave has lost his sting, 
 Alas, for us no second spring, 
 Who sleep without awakening, 
 And, dead, for ever more are dead, 
 Alas, for us no second spring. 
 Like mallows in the garden-bed ! 
 
 Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave 
 
 That boast themselves the sons of men ! 
 
 Once they go down into the grave — 
 
 Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave, — 
 They perish and have none to save. 
 They are sown, and are not raised again ; 
 
 Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave. 
 
 That boast themselves the sons of men ! 
 
 63 
 
IN TINTAGEL 
 
 LUI 
 
 A 
 
 H lady, lady, leave the creeping mist. 
 And leave the iron castle by the sea ! 
 
 Nay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissed 
 My lips, and so I cannot come to thee 1 
 
 Ah lady, leave the cruel landward wind 
 
 That crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam ! 
 
 Nay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind, 
 And I must dwell with him and make my home I 
 
 LUI 
 
 Come, for the Spring is fair in Joyous Guard 
 And down deep alleys sweet birds sing again. 
 
 But I must tarry with the winter hard. 
 And with the bitter memory of pain, 
 
 Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard, 
 And in the gardens glad birds sing again 1 
 
PISIDIC£ 
 
 The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, 
 who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition 
 of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy. 
 
 THE daughter of the Lesbian king 
 Within her bower she watched the war, 
 Far off she heard the arrows ring, 
 The smitten harness ring afar ; 
 And, fighting from the foremost car. 
 
 Saw one that smote where all must flee ; 
 More fair than the Immortals are 
 He seemed to fair Pisidice ! 
 
 She saw, she loved him, and her heart 
 
 Before Achilles, Peleus' son, 
 Threw all its guarded gates apart, 
 
 A maiden fortress lightly won ! 
 And, ere that day of fight was done. 
 
 No more of land or faith recked she. 
 But joyed in her new life begun, — 
 
 Her life of love, Pisldic8 I 
 
 She took a gift into her hand, 
 
 As one that had a boon to crave ; 
 She stole across the ruined land 
 
 Where lay the dead without a grave, 
 And to Achilles' hand she gave 
 
 Her gift, the secret postern's key. 
 " To-morrow let me be thy slave ! " 
 
 Moaned to her love Pisidic8. 
 
 6s 
 
Ere dawn the Argives* clarion call 
 
 Rang down Methymna*s burning street ; 
 They slew the sleeping warriors all, 
 
 They drove the women to the fleet, 
 Save one, that to Achilles* feet 
 
 Clung, but, in sudden wrath, cried he : 
 " For her no doom but death is meet," 
 
 And there men stoned Pisidice. 
 
 In havens of that haunted coast, 
 
 Amid the myrtles of the shore. 
 The moon sees many a maiden ghost 
 
 Love's outcast now and evermore. 
 The silence hears the shades deplore 
 
 Their hour of dear-bought love ; but thee 
 The waves lull, 'neath thine olives hoar. 
 
 To dreamless rest, Pisidice 1 
 
 66 
 
A PORTRAIT OF 1783 
 
 YOUR hair and chin are like the hair 
 And chin Bume-Jones's ladies wear ; 
 You were unfashionably fair 
 
 In 'S3 ; 
 And sad you were when girls are gay, 
 You read a book about Le vrai 
 Merite de Phomme, alone in May. 
 
 What can it be, 
 Le vrai merite de Vhomme ? Not gold, 
 Not titles that are bought and sold, 
 Not wit that flashes and is cold. 
 
 But Virtue merely 1 
 Instructed by Jean- Jacques Rousseau 
 (And Jean -Jacques, surely, ought to know). 
 You bade the crowd of f oplings go. 
 
 You glanced severely, 
 Dreaming beneath the spreading shade 
 Of " that vast hat the Graces made; "i 
 So Rouget sang — while yet he played 
 
 With courtly rhyme. 
 And hymned great Doisi*s red perruque, 
 And Nice*s eyes, and Zulme*s look. 
 And dead canaries, ere he shook 
 
 The sultry time 
 
 I Vous y verrez, belle Julie, 
 Que ce chapeau tout maltrait^ 
 Fut, dans un instant de folic, 
 Par les Graces meme invent^. 
 
 *' A Julje." Essaii en Prose et en l^ers, par Joseph 
 Rouget de Lisle ; Paris. An. V. de la R^publique. 
 
 67 
 
With strains like thunder. Loud and low 
 Methinks I hear the murmur grow, 
 The tramp of men that come and go 
 
 With fire and sword. 
 They war against the quick and dead, 
 Their flying feet are dashed with red, 
 As theirs the vintaging that tread 
 
 Before the Lord. 
 O head unfashionably fair, 
 What end was thine, for all thy care ? 
 We only see thee dreaming there: 
 
 We cannot see 
 The breaking of thy vision, when 
 The Rights of Man were lords of men. 
 When virtue won her own again 
 
 In '93. 
 
 68 
 
FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST 
 
 RETURNING from what other seas 
 Dost thou renew thy murmuring, 
 Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of these l * 
 
 To tell, the shores where float and cling 
 My love, my hope, my memories ? 
 
 Say does my lady wake to note 
 
 The gold light into silver die ? 
 Or do thy waves make lullaby, 
 
 While dreams of hers, like angels, float 
 Through star-sown spaces of the sky ? 
 
 Ah, would such angels came to me 
 
 That dreams of mine might speak with hers. 
 Nor wake the slumber of the sea 
 With words as low as winds that be 
 
 Awake among the gossamers ! 
 
 *re 
 
 ion ilM^ I titfU «4i )<» haA 
 
 69 
 
THE MOON'S MINION 
 
 (from the prose of C. BAUDELAIRE) 
 
 THINE eyes are like the sea, my dear, 
 The wand'ring waters, green and grey ; 
 Thine eyes are wonderful and clear. 
 
 And deep, and deadly, even as they ; 
 The spirit of the changeful sea 
 
 Informs thine eyes at night and noon, 
 She sways the tides, and the heart of thee. 
 The mystic, sad, capricious Moon ! 
 
 The Moon came down the shining stair 
 
 Of clouds that fleck the summer sky, 
 She kissed thee, saying, " Child, be fair, 
 
 And madden men's hearts, even as I ; 
 Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet, 
 
 That know me and are known of me ; 
 The lover thou shalt never meet, 
 
 The land where thou shalt never be 1 '* 
 
 She held thee in her chill embrace. 
 
 She kissed thee with cold lips divine, 
 She left her pallor on thy face. 
 
 That mystic ivory face of thinej; 
 And now I sit beside thy feet. 
 
 And all my heart is far from thee, 
 Dreaming of her I shall not meet, 
 
 And of the land I shall not see 1 
 
 70 
 
VILLANELLE 
 
 TO LUCIA 
 
 APOLLO left the golden Muse 
 And shepherded a mortal's sheep, 
 Theocritus of Syracuse 1 
 
 To mock the giant swain that woos 
 
 The sea -nymph in the sunny deep, 
 Apollo left the golden Muse. 
 
 He drove afield his lambs and ewes, 
 
 Where Milon and where Battus reap, 
 Theocritus of Syracuse ! 
 
 To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise 
 
 Below the dim Sicilian steep 
 Apollo left the golden Muse. 
 
 Ye twain did loiter in the dews. 
 
 Ye slept the swain's unfever*d sleep, 
 Theocritus of Syracuse 1 
 
 That Time might half with his confuse 
 Thy songs, — like his, that laugh and leap, 
 
 Theocritus of Syracuse, 
 Apollo left the golden Muse 1 
 
 71 
 
I WOULD my days had been in other times, 
 A moment in the long unnumbered years 
 That knew the sway of Horus and of hawk, 
 In peaceful lands that border on the Nile. 
 
 I would my days had been in other times, 
 Lulled by the sacrifice and mumbled hymn 
 Between the Five great Rivers, or in shade 
 And shelter o£ the cool Himalayan hills. 
 
 I would my days had been in other times, 
 
 That I in some old abbey of Touraine 
 
 Had watched the rounding grapes, and lived my life, 
 
 Ere ever Luther came or Rabelais ! 
 
 I would my days had been in other times. 
 When quiet life to death not terrible 
 Drifted, as ashes of the Santhal dead 
 Drift down the sacred Rivers to the Seal 
 
 72 
 
THE SPINET 
 
 MY hearfs an old Spinet with strings 
 To laughter chiefly tuned^ hut some 
 That Fate has practised hard on^ dumb. 
 They answer not whoever sings. 
 The ghosts of half -for gotten things 
 
 Will touch the keys with fingers numbf 
 The little mocking spirits come 
 And thrill it with their fairy wings, 
 
 A jingling harmony it makes 
 
 My heart, my lyre, my old Spinet, 
 
 And now a memory it wakes, 
 
 And now the music means ''^ for get ^^ 
 
 And little heed the player takes 
 
 Howe'er the thoughtful critic fret. 
 
rJ" 
 
 ,J 
 
SONNETS 
 

HOMER 
 
 HOMER, thy song men liken to the sea 
 With all the notes of music in its tone, 
 With tides that wash the dim dominion 
 Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee 
 Around the isles enchanted; nay, to me 
 
 Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown 
 That glasses Egypt's temples overthrown 
 In his sky -nurtured stream, eternally. 
 
 No wiser we than men of heretofore 
 
 To find thy sacred fountains guarded fast ; 
 
 Enough, thy flood makes green our human shore, 
 As Nilus Egypt, rolling down his vast 
 
 His fertile flood, that murmurs evermore 
 Of gods dethroned, and empires in the past. 
 
 77 
 
HOMERIC UNITY 
 
 THE sacred keep of Ilion is rent 
 By shaft and pit ; foiled waters wander slow 
 Through plains where Simois and Scamander went 
 To war with Gods and heroes long ago. 
 Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low 
 In rich Mycenae, do the Fates relent : 
 
 The bones of Agamemnon are a show, 
 And ruined is his royal monument. 
 
 The dust and awful treasures of the Dead, 
 
 Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee, 
 
 Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead. 
 And strives to rend thy songs ; too blind to see 
 
 The crown that bums on thine immortal head 
 Of indivisible supremacy ! 
 
 78 
 
THE ODYSSEY 
 
 As one that for a weary space has lain 
 Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine 
 In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, 
 Where that ^aean isle forgets the main, 
 And only the low lutes of love complain, 
 And only shadows of wan lovers pine, 
 As such an one were glad to know the brine 
 Salt on his lips, and the large air again, — 
 So gladly, from the songs of modern speech 
 Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free 
 Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers. 
 And through the music of the languid hours, 
 They hear like ocean on a western beach 
 The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. 
 
 79 
 
IN ITHACA 
 
 "And now I am greatly repenting that ever I left my life 
 with thee, and the immortality thou didst promise me." — Let- 
 ter of Odysseus to Calypso. Luciani f^era Historia. 
 
 7 nPis thought Odysseus when the strife was o'er 
 1 With all the waves and wars, a weary while, 
 Grew restless in his disenchanted isle, 
 
 And still would watch the sunset, from the shore, 
 
 Go down the ways of gold, and evermore 
 His sad heart followed after, mile on mile, 
 Back to the Goddess of the magic wile, 
 
 Calypso, and the love that was of yore. 
 
 Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee yet 
 To look across the sad and stormy space, 
 Years of a youth as bitter as the sea. 
 
 Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet. 
 Because, within a fair forsaken place 
 The life that might have been is lost to thee. 
 
 80 
 
BION 
 
 THE wail of Moschus on the mountains crying 
 The Muses heard, and loved it long ago ; 
 They heard the hollows of the hills replying, 
 They heard the weeping water's overflow ; 
 They winged the sacred strain — the song undying. 
 
 The song that all about the world must go, — 
 When poets for a poet dead are sighing. 
 The minstrels for a minstrel friend laid low. 
 
 And dirge to dirge that answers, and the weeping 
 
 For Adonais by the summer sea. 
 The plaints for Lycidas, and Thyrsis ( sleeping 
 
 Far from "the forest ground called Thessaly,") 
 These hold thy memory, Bion, in their keeping, 
 
 And are but echoes of the moan for thee. 
 
 8i 
 
HERODOTUS IN EGYPT 
 
 HE left the land of youth, he left the young, 
 The smiling gods of Greece ; he passed the isle 
 Where Jason loitered, and where Sappho sung, 
 He sought the secret-founted wave of Nile, 
 And of their old world, dead a weary while. 
 Heard the priests murmur in their mystic tongue. 
 
 And through the fanes went voyaging, among 
 Dark tribes that worshipped Cat and Crocodile. 
 
 He learned the tales of death Divine and birth. 
 Strange loves of Hawk and Serpent, Sky and Earth, 
 
 The marriage, and the slaying of the Sun, 
 The shrines of gods and beasts he wandered through. 
 And mocked not at their godhead, for he knew 
 
 Behind all creeds the Spirit that is One. 
 
 82 
 
SPRING 
 
 (AFTER MELEAGER) 
 
 NOW the bright crocus flames, and now 
 The slim narcissus takes the rain, 
 And, straying o*er the mountain's brow, 
 The daffodilies bud again. 
 The thousand blossoms wax and wane 
 On wold, and heath, and fragrant bough, 
 But fairer than the flowers art thou. 
 Than any growth of hill or plain. 
 
 Ye gardens, cast your leafy crown, 
 That my Love's feet may tread it down, 
 
 Like lilies on the lilies set ; 
 My Love, whose lips are softer far 
 Than drowsy poppy petals are, 
 
 And sweeter than the violet 1 
 
 83 
 
IDEAL 
 
 Suggested by a female head in wax, of unknown 
 date, but supposed to be either of the best Greek age, 
 or a work of Raphael or Leonardo. It is now in 
 the Lille Museum. 
 
 AH, mystic child of Beauty, nameless maid, 
 Dateless and fatherless, how long ago, 
 A Greek, with some rare sadness overweighed, 
 Shaped thee, perchance, and quite forgot his woe 1 
 Or Raphael thy sweetness did bestow. 
 While magical his fingers o*er thee strayed. 
 
 Or that great pupil of Verrocchio 
 Redeemed thy still perfection from the shade 
 
 That hides all fair things lost, and things unborn, 
 Where one has fled from me, that wore thy grace, 
 And that grave tenderness of thine awhile ; 
 
 Nay, still in dreams I see her, but her face 
 Is pale, is wasted with a touch of scorn, 
 And only on thy lips I find her smile. 
 
 84 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 
 iirei, Kal tovtov dtofiuL dOavdroicriv 
 ^vxecdar Udvres 5^ deG)v xO'T^ova dvOpcairoL. 
 
 OD. III. 47. 
 
 4 4 /^^NCE Cagn was like a father, kind and good, 
 
 \o/ But He was spoiled by fighting many things ; 
 He wars upon the lions in the wood, 
 
 And breaks the Thunder-bird's tremendous wings; 
 But still we cry to Him, — We are thy brood — 
 
 O Cagn^ be merciful ! and us He brings 
 To herds of elands, and great store of food, 
 
 And in the desert opens water -springs." 
 
 So Qing, King Nqsha's Bushman hunter, spoke, 
 Beside the camp-fire, by the fountain fair. 
 
 When all were weary, and soft clouds of smoke 
 Were fading, fragrant, in the twilit air : 
 
 And suddenly in each man's heart there woke 
 A pang, a sacred memory of prayer. 
 
 8s 
 
SHE 
 
 TO H. R. H. 
 
 NOT in the waste beyond the swamps and sand, 
 The fever -haunted forest and lagoon, 
 Mysterious K6r thy walls forsaken stand, 
 Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon, 
 Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune 
 Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned. 
 
 The world is disenchanted ; over soon 
 Shall Europe send her spies through all the land. 
 
 Nay, not in Kor, but in whatever spot, 
 In town or field, or by the insatiate sea. 
 
 Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot. 
 Or break themselves on some divine decree, 
 
 Or would o'erleap the limits of their lot. 
 
 There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE I 
 
 86 
 
BEFORE THE SNOW 
 
 (AFTER ALBERT GLATIGNY) 
 
 THE winter is upon us, not the snow, 
 The hills are etched on the horizon bare. 
 The skies are iron grey, a bitter air, 
 The meagre cloudlets shudder to and fro. 
 One yellow leaf the listless wind doth blow, 
 Like some strange butterfly, unclassed and rare. 
 Your footsteps ring in frozen alleys, where 
 The black trees seem to shiver as you go. 
 
 Beyond lie church and steeple, with their old 
 And rusty vanes that rattle as they veer, 
 
 A sharper gust would shake them from their hold, 
 Yet up that path, in summer of the year. 
 
 And past that melancholy pile we strolled 
 To pluck wild strawberries, with merry cheer. 
 
 87 
 
THE BURIAL OF MOLlfeRE 
 
 (after J. TRUFFIER) 
 
 DEAD — he is dead! The rouge has left a,. trace 
 On that thin cheek where shone, perchance, a tear, 
 Even while the people laughed that held him dear 
 But yesterday. He died, — and not in grace. 
 And many a black-robed caitiff starts apace 
 
 To slander him whose Tartuffe made them fear, 
 And gold must win a passage for his bier, 
 And bribe the crowd that guards his resting-place. 
 
 Ah, Moliere, for that last time of all, 
 
 Man's hatred broke upon thee, and went by, 
 
 And did but make more fair thy funeral. 
 Though in the dark they hid thee stealthily, 
 
 Thy coffin had the cope of night for pall. 
 For torch, the stars along the windy sky 1 
 
SAN TERENZO 
 
 ( The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living 
 before the wreck of the Don Juan. ) 
 
 MID April seemed like some November day, 
 When through the glassy waters, dull as lead, 
 Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead, 
 Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay. 
 Rounded a point, — and San Terenzo lay 
 Before us, that gay village, yellow and red, 
 The roof that covered Shelley's homeless head, — 
 His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey. 
 
 The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen 
 Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again. 
 Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free. 
 
 When suddenly the forest glades were stirred 
 With waving pinions, and a great sea bird 
 
 Flew forth, like Shelley's spirit, to'the sea 1 
 
 89 
 
LOVE'S EASTER 
 
 LOVE died here 
 Long ago ; 
 O'er his bier, 
 Lying low, 
 Poppies throw; 
 Shed no tear ; 
 Year by year, 
 Roses blow I 
 
 Year by year, 
 Adon — dear 
 
 To Love's Queen — 
 
 Does not die 1 
 Wakes when green 
 May is nigh ! 
 
 90 
 
TWILIGHT 
 
 ( AFTER RICHEPIN ) 
 
 LIGHT has flown I 
 Through the grey 
 The wind's way 
 The sea's moan 
 Sound alone ! 
 For the day 
 These repay 
 And atone ! 
 
 Scarce I know, 
 Listening so 
 To the streams 
 
 Of the ]sea, 
 
 If old dreams 
 
 Sing to me ! 
 
 91 
 
AN OLD GARDEN 
 
 THE autumn sun is warm, the soft winds moan, 
 The golden fruits make sweet September air 
 In gardens where the apple blossoms were 
 Through these old Aprils that we twain have known. 
 I pass along the pathways overgrown ; 
 Of all the flowers a single poppy there 
 Droops her tired head, a faded flower and fair, 
 One poppy that the wandering breeze hath sown. 
 
 Here be no roses, and thou lack'st the rose, 
 
 No lilies fragrant in the lily bed ; 
 One poppy in the bare untended close. 
 
 Droops, and the sun is shrouded overhead ; 
 The grey sea-mist upon the sea -wind blows. 
 
 Chill; and methinks the summer-time is dead. 
 
 92 
 
GRASS OF PARNASSUS 
 
 PALE Star that by the lochs of Galloway, 
 In wet green places 'twixt the depth and height 
 Dost keep thine hour while Autumn ebbs away, 
 When now the moors have doffed the heather bright. 
 Grass of Parnassus, flower of my delight. 
 How gladly with the unpermitted bay — 
 Garlands not mine, and leaves that not decay — 
 How gladly would I twine thee if I might 1 
 
 The bays are out of reach I But far below 
 The peaks forbidden of the Muses' Hill, 
 
 Grass of Parnassus, thy returning snow 
 Between September and October chill 
 
 Doth speak to me of Autumns long ago, 
 And these kind faces that are with me still. 
 
rO 
 
THREE LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS 
 
EPISTLE TO MR. ALEXANDER POPE 
 
 FROM mortal Gratitude, decide, my Pope, 
 Have Wits Immortal more to fear or hope ? 
 Wits toil and travail round the Plant of Fame, 
 Their Works its Garden, and its Growth their Aim, 
 Then Commentators, in unwieldy Dance, 
 Break down the Barriers of the trim Pleasance, 
 Pursue the Poet, like Actaeon's Hounds, 
 Beyond the fences of his Garden Grounds, 
 Rend from the singing Robes each borrowed Gem, 
 Rend from the laurel'd Brows the Diadem, 
 And, if one Rag of Character they spare. 
 Comes the Biographer, and strips it bare 1 
 
 Such, Pope, has been thy Fortune, such thy Doom. 
 Swift the Ghouls gathered at the Poet's Tomb, 
 With Dust of Notes to clog each lordly Line, 
 Warburton, Warton, Croker, Bowles, combine 1 
 Collecting Cackle, Johnson condescends 
 To interview the Drudges of your Friends. 
 Thus though your Courthope holds your merits high. 
 And still proclaims your Poems Poetry^ 
 Biographers, un-Boswell-like, have sneered. 
 And Dunces edit him whom Dunces feared ! 
 
 " They say,*' " What say they ? " Not in vain You ask ; 
 To tell you what they say, behold my Task ! 
 " Methinks already I your Tears survey " 
 As I repeat " the horrid Things they say." « 
 
 I Rape of the Lock. 
 
 97 
 
Comes El — n first : I fancy you'll agree 
 
 Not frenzied Dennis smote so fell as he ; 
 
 For El — n*s Introduction, crabbed and dry, 
 
 Like ChurchilPs Cudgel's ' marked with Z/>, and Lie ! 
 
 " Too dull to know what his own System meant, 
 
 Pope yet was skilled new Treasons to invent ; 
 
 A Snake that puffed himself and stung his Friends, 
 
 Few Lied so frequent, for such little Ends ; 
 
 His mind, like Flesh inflamed,2 was raw and sore, 
 
 And still, the more he writhed, he stung the more 1 
 
 Oft in a Quarrel, never in the Right, 
 
 His Spirit sank when he was called to fight. 
 
 Pope, in the Darkness mining like a Mole, 
 
 Forged on Himself, as from Himself he stole, 
 
 And what for Caryll once he feigned to feel. 
 
 Transferred, in Letters never sent, to Steele ! 
 
 Still he denied the Letters he had writ. 
 
 And still mistook Indecency for Wit. 
 
 His very Grammar, so De Quincey cries, 
 
 * Detains the Reader, and at times defies 1 ' " 
 
 Fierce El — n thus : no Line escapes his Rage, 
 And furious Foot-notes growl 'neath every Page : 
 See St-ph-n next take up the woful Tale, 
 Prolong the Preaching, and protract the Wail 1 
 
 " Some forage Falsehoods from the North and South, 
 But Pope, poor D 1, lied from Hand to Mouth ; 3 
 
 1 In Mr. Hogarth's Caricatura. 
 
 2 Elwin's Pope, ii. 15. 
 
 3 "Poor Pope was always a hand-to-mouth liar." — Pope, by 
 Leslie Stephen, 139. 
 
 98 
 
 i 
 
Affected, hypocritical, and vain, 
 
 A Book in Breeches, and a Fop in Grain ; 
 
 A Fox that found not the high Clusters sour, 
 
 The Fanfaron of Vice beyond his power. 
 
 Pope yet possessed " — ( the Praise will make you start ) - 
 
 ** Mean, morbid, vain, he yet possessed a Heart I 
 
 And still we marvel at the Man, and still 
 
 Admire his Finish, and applaud his Skill : 
 
 Though, as that fabled Barque, a phantom Form, 
 
 Eternal strains, nor rounds the Cape of Storm, 
 
 Even so Pope strove, nor ever crossed the Line 
 
 That from the Noble separates the Fine! " 
 
 The Learned thus, and who can quite reply. 
 Reverse the Judgment, and Retort the Lie ? 
 You reap, in arm^d Hates that haunt your Name, 
 Reap what you sowed, the Dragon's Teeth of Fame : 
 You could not write, and from unenvious Time 
 Expect the Wreath that crowns the lofty Rhyme, 
 You still must fight, retreat, attack, defend, 
 And oft, to snatch a Laurel, lose a Friend ! 
 
 The Pity of it ! And the changing Taste 
 
 Of changing Time leaves half your Work a Waste ! 
 
 My Childhood fled your Couplet's clarion tone. 
 
 And sought for Homer in the Prose of Bohn. 
 
 Still through the Dust of that dim Prose appears 
 
 The Flight of Arrows and the Sheen of Spears ; 
 
 Still we may trace what Hearts heroic feel. 
 
 And hear the Bronze that hurtles on the Steel ! 
 
 But, ah, your Iliad seems a half-pretence, 
 
 Where Wits, not Heroes, prove their Skill in Fence, 
 
 99 
 
And great Achilles' Eloquence dotli show 
 As if no Centaur trained him, but Boileau ! 
 
 Again, your Verse is orderly, — and more, — 
 '♦ The Waves behind impel the Waves before ; " 
 Monotonously musical they glide, 
 Till Couplet unto Couplet hath replied. 
 But turn to Homer! How his Verses sweep! 
 Surge answers Surge and Deep doth call on Deep ; 
 This Line in Foam and Thunder issues forth. 
 Spurred by the West or smitten by the North, 
 Sombre in all its sullen Deeps, and all 
 Clear at the Crest, and foaming to the Fall, 
 The next with silver Murmur dies away, 
 Like Tides that falter to Calypso's Bay ! 
 
 Thus Time, with sordid Alchemy and dread, 
 
 Turns half the Glory of your Gold to Lead ; 
 
 Thus Time, — at Ronsard's wreath that vainly bit, — 
 
 Has marred the Poet to preserve the Wit, 
 
 Whose Knife cut cleanest with a poisoned pain, — 
 
 Who almost left on Addison a stain, 
 
 Yet Thou ( strange Fate that clings to all of Thine ! ) 
 
 When most a Wit dost most a Poet shine. 
 
 In Poetry thy Dunciad expires, 
 
 When Wit has shot " her momentary Fires." 
 
 'Tis Tragedy that watches by the Bed 
 
 " Where tawdry Yellow strove with dirty Red," 
 
 And Men, remembering all, can scarce deny 
 
 To lay the Laurel where thine Ashes lie ! 
 
II 
 
 TO LORD BYRON 
 
 MY Lord, 
 ( Do you remember how Leigh Hunt 
 Enraged you once by writing My dear Byron ? ) 
 
 Books have their fates, — as mortals have who punt, 
 Kndi yours have entered on an age of iron. 
 
 Critics there be who think your satire blunt, 
 Your pathos, fudge ; such perils must environ 
 Poets who in their time were quite the rage, 
 Though now there's not a soul to turn their page. 
 
 Yes, there is much dispute about your worth. 
 
 And much is said which you might like to know 
 By modern poets here upon the earth, 
 
 Where poets live, and love each other so ; 
 And, in Elysium, it may move your mirth 
 
 To hear of bards that pitch your praises low, 
 Though there be some that for your credit stickle. 
 
 As — Glorious Mat, — and not inglorious Nichol. 
 
 ( This kind of writing is my pet aversion, 
 I hate the slang, I hate the personalities, 
 
 I loathe the aimless, reckless, loose dispersion, 
 Of every rhyme that in the singer's wallet is, 
 
 I hate it as you hated the Excursion y 
 But, while no man a hero to his valet is. 
 
 The hero's still the model ; I indite 
 
 The kind of rhymes that Byron oft would write.) 
 
There's a Swiss critic whom I cannot rhyme to, 
 One Scherer, dry as sawdust, grim and prim. 
 
 Of him there's much to say, if I had time to 
 Concern myself in any wise with him. 
 
 He seems to hate the heights he cannot climb to, 
 He thinks your poetry a coxcomb's whim, 
 
 A good deal of his sawdust he has spilt on 
 
 Shakespeare, and Moliere, and you, and Milton. 
 
 Ay, much his temper is like Vivien's mood. 
 
 Which found not Galahad pure, nor Lancelot brave ; 
 
 Cold as a hailstorm on an April wood. 
 He buries poets in an icy grave. 
 
 His Essays — he of the Genevan hood ! 
 Nothing so fine, but better doth he crave. 
 
 So stupid and so solemn in his spite 
 
 He dares to print that Moliere could not write ! 
 
 Enough of these excursions ; I was saying 
 
 That half our English Bards are turned Reviewers, 
 
 And Arnold was discussing and assaying 
 The weight and value of that work of yours, 
 
 Examining and testing it and weighing, 
 And proved, the gems are pure, the gold endures. 
 
 While Swinburne cries with an exceeding joy. 
 
 The stones are paste, and half the gold, alloy. 
 
 In Byron, Arnold finds the greatest force, 
 
 Poetic, in this later age of ours ; 
 His song, a torrent from a mountain source. 
 
 Clear as the crystal, singing with the showers, 
 
Sweeps to the sea in unrestricted course 
 
 Through banks o*erhung with rocks and sweet with 
 flowers ; 
 None of your brooks that modestly meander, 
 But swift as Awe along the Pass of Brander. 
 
 And when our century has clomb its crest, 
 And backward gazes o'er the plains of Time, 
 
 And counts its harvest, yours is still the best, 
 The richest garner in the field of rhyme 
 
 ( The metaphoric mixture, 'tis conf est, 
 Is all my own, and is not quite sublime). 
 
 But fame's not yours alone ; you must divide all 
 
 The plums and pudding with the Bard of Rydal ! 
 
 Wordsworth and Byron, these the lordly names 
 And these the gods to whom most incense bums. 
 
 " Absurd ! " cries Swinburne, and in anger flames. 
 And in an iEschylean fury spurns 
 
 With impious foot your altar, and exclaims 
 And wreathes his laurels on the golden urns 
 
 Where Coleridge's and Shelley's ashes lie, 
 
 Deaf to the din and heedless of the cry. 
 
 For Byron ( Swinburne shouts ) has never woven 
 One honest thread of life within his song ; 
 
 As Offenbach is to divine Beethoven 
 
 So Byron is to Shelley {This is strong ! ), 
 
 And on Parnassus' peak, divinely cloven. 
 
 He may not stand, or stands by cruel wrong ; 
 
 For Byron's rank ( the examiner has reckoned ) 
 
 Is in the third class or a feeble second. 
 
 103 
 
" A Bemesque poet " at the very most, 
 
 And " never earnest save in politics," 
 The Pegasus that he was wont to boast 
 
 A blundering, floundering hackney, full of tricks, 
 A beast that must be driven to the post 
 
 By whips and spurs and oaths and kicks and sticks, 
 A gasping, ranting, broken -winded brute, 
 That any j udge of Pegasi would shoot ; 
 
 In sooth, a half-bred Pegasus, and far gone 
 In spavin, curb, and half a hundred woes. 
 
 And Byron*s style is "jolter -headed jargon ;'* 
 His verse is ** only bearable in prose." 
 
 So living poets write of those that are gone. 
 And o'er the Eagle thus the Bantam crows ; 
 
 And Swinburne ends where Verisopht began, 
 
 By owning you " a very clever man." 
 
 Or rather does not end : he still must utter 
 
 A quantity of the unkindest things. 
 Ah ! were you here, I marvel, would you flutter 
 
 O'er such a foe the tempest of your wings ? 
 'Tis ** rant and cant and glare and splash and splutter " 
 
 That rend the modest air when Byron sings. 
 There Swinburne stops : a critic rather fiery. 
 Animis ccelestibus tantcene irce 1 
 
 But whether he or Arnold in the right is. 
 Long is the argument, the quarrel long; 
 
 Non nobis est to settle tantas lites ; 
 
 No poet I, to judge of right or wrong : 
 
 But of all things I always think a fight is 
 
 104 
 
The most unpleasant in the lists of song ; 
 When Marsyas of old was flayed, Apollo 
 Set an example which we need not follow. 
 
 The fashion changes ! Maidens do not wear, 
 As once they wore, in necklaces and lockets 
 
 A curl ambrosial of Lord Byron's hair ; 
 
 ** Don Juan " is not always in our pockets — 
 
 Nay, a New Writer's readers do not care 
 
 Much for your verse, but are inclined to mock its 
 
 Manners and morals. Ay, and most young ladies 
 
 To yours prefer the " Epic " called " of Hades 1 " 
 
 I do not blame them ; I'm inclined to think 
 
 That with the reigning taste 'tis vain to quarrel, 
 
 And Burns might teach his votaries to drink. 
 And Byron never meant to make them moral. 
 
 You yet have lovers true, who will not shrink 
 From lauding you and giving you the laurel ; 
 
 The Germans too, those men of blood and iron, 
 
 Of all our poets chiefly swear by Byron. 
 
 Farewell, thou Titan fairer than the Gods 1 
 Farewell, farewell, thou swift and lovely spirit, 
 
 Thou splendid warrior with the world at odds, 
 Unpraised, unpraisable, beyond thy merit ; 
 
 Chased, like Orestes, by the Furies' rods. 
 
 Like him at length thy peace dost thou inherit ! 
 
 Beholding whom, men think how fairer far 
 
 Than all the steadfast stars the wandering star 1 1 
 
 I Mr. Swinburne's and Mr. Arnold's diverse views of Byron will 
 be found in the Selections by Mr, Arnold and in the Nineteenth 
 Century. 
 
 105 
 
Ill 
 
 TO OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 WISE Omar, do the Southern Breezes fling 
 Above your Grave, at ending of the Spring, 
 The Snowdrift of the Petals of the Rose, 
 The wild white Roses you were wont to sing ? 
 
 Far in the South J know a Land divine, i 
 And there is many a Saint and many a Shrine, 
 And over all the Shrines the Blossom blows 
 Of Roses that were dear to you as Wine. 
 
 You were a Saint of unbelieving Days, 
 Liking your Life and happy in Men's Praise ; 
 
 Enough for you the Shade beneath the Bough, 
 Enough to watch the wild World go its Ways. 
 
 Dreadless and hopeless thou of Heaven or Hell, 
 Careless of Words thou hadst not Skill to spell. 
 
 Content to know not all thou knowest now, 
 What's Death ? Doth any Pitcher dread the Well ? 
 
 The Pitchers we, whose Maker makes them ill, 
 Shall He torment them if they chance to spill ? 
 
 Nay, like the broken Potsherds are we cast 
 Forth and forgotten, — and what will be will I 
 
 I The hills above San Remo, where rose-bushes are planted by 
 the shrines. Omar desired that his grave might be where the wind 
 would scatter rose-leaves over it. 
 
 1 06 
 
So still were we, before the Months began 
 That rounded us and shaped us into Man. 
 
 So still we shall be, surely, at the last, 
 Dreamless, untouched of Blessing or of Ban I 
 
 Ah, strange it seems that this thy common Thought — 
 How all Things have been, ay, and shall be nought — 
 
 Was ancient Wisdom in thine ancient East, 
 In those old Days when Senlac Fight was fought, 
 
 Which gave our England for a captive Land 
 To pious Chiefs of a believing Band, 
 
 A gift to the Believer from the Priest, 
 Tossed from the holy to the blood-red Hand 1 » 
 
 Yea, thou wert singing when that Arrow clave 
 Through Helm and Brain of him who could not save 
 
 His England, even of Harold Godwin's son ; 
 The high Tide murmurs by the Hero's Grave ! 2 
 
 And thou wert wreathing Roses — who can tell ? — 
 Or chanting for some Girl that pleased thee well. 
 
 Or satst at Wine in Nashapiir, when dun 
 The twilight veiled the Field where Harold fell ! 
 
 The salt Sea-waves above him rage and roam ! 
 Along the white Walls of his guarded Home 
 
 No Zephyr stirs the Rose, but o'er the Wave 
 The wild Wind beats the Breakers into Foam I 
 
 I Omar was contemporary with the battle of Hastings. 
 2 Per mandata Ducts, Rex hie, Heralde, quiescis, 
 Ut eustos maneas littoris et pelagi. 
 
 107 
 
And dear to him, as Roses were to thee, 
 Rings the long Roar of Onset of the Sea ; 
 
 The Swan's Path of his Fathers is his Grave : 
 His Sleep, methinks, is sound as thine can be. 
 
 His was the Age of Faith, when all the West 
 Looked to the Priest for Torment or for Rest; 
 
 And thou wert living then, and didst not heed 
 The Saint who banned thee or the Saint who blessed 1 
 
 Ages of Progress ! These eight hundred Years 
 Hath Europe shuddered with her Hopes or Fears, 
 
 And now ! to thee she listeneth indeed, — 
 To thee^ and half believeth what she hears ! 
 
 Hadst thou the Secret ? Ah, and who may tell ? 
 " An Hour we have," thou saidst ; " Ah, waste it well ! " 
 
 An Hour we have, and yet Eternity 
 Looms o*er us, and the Thought of Heaven or Hell ! 
 
 Nay, we can never be as wise as thou, 
 
 O idle Singer *neath the blossomed Bough. 
 
 Nay, and we cannot be content to die. 
 We cannot shirk the Questions " Where ? " and *' How ? " 
 
 Ah, not from learned Peace and gay Content 
 Shall we of England go the way he went — 
 
 The Singer of the Red Wine and the Rose — 
 Nay, otherwise than his our Day is spent 1 
 
 Serene he dwelt in fragrant Nashapdr, 
 
 But we must wander while the Stars endure. 
 
 He knew the Secret : we have none that knows. 
 No Man so sure as Omar once was sure I 
 
RHYMES OLD AND NEW 
 
TO E. M. S. 
 
 Prima dicta mihiy sumtna dicenda Camena. 
 
 THE years will pass, and hearts will range, 
 You conquer Time, and Care, and Change. 
 Though Time doth still delight to shed 
 The dust on many a younger head ; 
 Though Care, oft coming, hath the guile 
 From younger lips to steal the smile ; 
 Though Change makes younger hearts wax cold, 
 And sells new loves for loves of old. 
 Time, Change, nor Care, hath learned the art 
 To fleck your hair, to chill your heart. 
 To touch your tresses with the snow. 
 To mar your mirth of long ago. 
 Change, Care, nor Time, while life endure. 
 Shall spoil our ancient friendship sure. 
 The love which flows from sacred springs. 
 In " old unhappy far-off things,'* 
 From sympathies in grief and joy. 
 Through all the years of man and boy. 
 
 Therefore, to you, the rhymes I strung 
 
 When even this " brindled " head was young 
 
 I bring, and later rhymes I bring 
 
 That flit upon as weak a wing. 
 
 But still for you, for yours, they sing ! 
 
A SCOT TO JEANNE D'ARC 
 
 D' 
 
 ^ARK Lily without blame, 
 Not upon us the shame, 
 Whose sires were to the Auld Alliance true, 
 They, by the Maiden's side, 
 Victorious fought and died. 
 One stood by thee that fiery torment through, 
 
 Till the White Dove from thy pure lips had passed. 
 And thou wert with thine own St. Catherine at the last. 
 
 Once only didst thou see 
 
 In artist's imagery, 
 Thine own face painted, and that precious thing 
 
 Was in an Archer's hand 
 
 From the leal Northern land. 
 Alas, what price would not thy people bring 
 
 To win that portrait of the ruinous 
 Gulf of devouring years that hide the Maid from us ! 
 
 Born of a lowly line, 
 
 Noteless as once was thine. 
 One of that name I would were kin to me. 
 
 Who, in the Scottish Guard 
 
 Won this for his reward. 
 To fight for France, and memory of thee : 
 Not upon us, dark Lily without blame. 
 Not on the North may fall the shadow of that shame. 
 
 On France and England both 
 The shame of broken troth. 
 Of coward hate and treason black must be ; 
 
If England slew thee, France 
 
 Sent not one word, one lance, 
 One coin to rescue or to ransom thee. 
 
 And still thy Church unto the Maid denies 
 The halo and the palms, the Beatific prize. 
 
 But yet thy people calls 
 
 Within the rescued walls 
 Of Orleans ; and makes its prayer to thee ; 
 
 What though the Church have chidden 
 
 These orisons forbidden, 
 Yet art thou with this earth's immortal Three, 
 
 With him in Athens that of hemlock died, 
 And with thy Master dear whom the world crucified. 
 
 "3 
 
SEEKERS FOR A CITY 
 
 " Believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set 
 on a hill visible to all the world, I should long ago have 
 journeyed thither. . . . But the number and variety of the 
 ways ! For you know. There is but one road that leads to 
 Corinth:' 
 
 Hermotimus ( Mr. Pater's Version). 
 
 " The Poet says, dear city of Cecro^s , and wilt thou not say, 
 dear city of Zeus f " 
 
 M. Antoninus. 
 
 TO Corinth leads one road, you say : 
 Is there a Corinth, or a way ? 
 Each bland or blatant preacher hath 
 His painful or his primrose path, 
 And not a soul of all of these 
 But knows the city 'twixt the seas, 
 Her fair unnumbered homes and all 
 Her gleaming amethystine wall I 
 
 Blind are the guides who know the way, 
 The guides who write, and preach, and pray, 
 I watch their lives, and I divine 
 They differ not from yours and mine ! 
 
 One man we knew, and only one. 
 
 Whose seeking for a city's done, 
 
 For what he greatly sought he found, 
 
 A city girt with fire around, 
 
 A city in an empty land 
 
 Between the wastes of sky and sand, 
 
 114 
 
A city on a river -side, 
 
 Where by the folk he loved, he died.* 
 
 Alas I it is not ours to tread 
 That path wherein his life he led, 
 Not ours his heart to dare and feel, 
 Keen as the fragrant Syrian steel ; 
 Yet are we not quite city -less. 
 Not wholly left in our distress — 
 Is it not said by One of old, 
 
 Sheep have I of another fold ? 
 Ah I faint of heart, and weak of will, 
 For us there is a city still ! 
 Dear city of Zeus^ the Stoic says,* 
 The Voice from Rome's imperial days, 
 In Thee meet all things^ and disperse^ 
 In Thee ^ for Thee^ O Universe! 
 To me alPs fruit thy seasons bring. 
 Alike thy summer and thy spring ; 
 The winds that wail, the suns that burn, 
 From Thee proceed, to Thee return. 
 
 Dear city of Zeus, shall we not say. 
 Home to which none can lose the way I 
 Bom in that city's flaming bound, 
 We do not find her, but are found. 
 Within her wide and viewless wall 
 The Universe is girdled all. 
 
 1 January 26, 1885. 
 
 2 M. Antoninus, iv. 23. 
 
 "5 
 
All joys and pains, all wealth and dearth, 
 All things that travail on the earth, 
 God's will they work, if God there be, 
 If not, what is my life to me ? 
 
 Seek we no further, but abide 
 Within this city great and wide. 
 In her and for her living, we 
 Have no less joy than to be free; 
 Nor death nor grief can quite appal 
 The folk that dwell within her wall, 
 Nor aught but with our will befall 
 
 ii6 
 
TO RHODOCLEIA 
 
 ON HER MELANCHOLY SINGING 
 
 (Rhodocleia was beloved by Rufinus, one of the late poets of 
 the Greek Anthology. ) 
 
 STILL, Rhodocleia, brooding on the dead, 
 Still singing of the meads of asphodel, 
 Lands desolate of delight ? 
 Say, hast thou dreamed of, or remembered, 
 The shores where shadows dwell, 
 
 Nor know the sun, nor see the stars of night ? 
 
 There, *midst thy music, doth thy spirit gaze 
 
 As a girl pines for home, 
 
 Looking along the way that she hath come. 
 Sick to return, and counts the weary days ! 
 So wouldst thou flee 
 
 Back to the multitude whose days are done, 
 Wouldst taste the fruit that lured Persephone, 
 The sacrament of death ; and die, and be 
 
 No more in the wind and sun ! 
 
 A 
 
 Thou hast not dreamed it, but remembered ! 
 
 I know thou hast been there, 
 Hast seen the stately dwellings of the dead 
 
 Rise in the twilight air, 
 And cross the shadowy bridge the spirits tread, 
 
 And climbed the golden stair 1 
 
 Nay, by thou cloudy hair 
 
 And lips that were so fair, 
 
 117 
 
Sad lips now mindful of some ancient smart, 
 And melancholy eyes, the haunt of Care, 
 
 I know thee who thou art 1 
 
 That Rhodocleia, Glory of the Rose, 
 
 Of Hellas, ere her close, 
 
 That Rhodocleia who, when all was done 
 The golden time of Greece, and fallen her sun. 
 
 Swayed her last poet's heart. 
 
 With roses did he woo thee, and with song. 
 
 With thine own rose, and with the lily sweet. 
 The dark-eyed violet. 
 Garlands of wind-flowers wet, 
 And fragrant love-lamps that the whole night long 
 
 Burned till the dawn was burning in the skies. 
 Praising thy golden eyes. 
 And feet more silvery than Thetis'* feet ! 
 
 But thou didst die and flit 
 
 Among the tribes outworn. 
 
 The unavailing myriads of the past : 
 
 Oft he beheld thy face in dreams of mom. 
 And, waking, wept for it, 
 
 Till his own time came at last. 
 
 And then he sought thee in the dusky land I 
 Wide are the populous places of the dead 
 Where souls on earth once wed 
 
 May never meet, nor each take other's hand, 
 Each far from the other fled I 
 
 So all in vain he sought for thee, but thou 
 Didst never taste of the Lethaean stream, 
 
 ii8 
 
Nor that forgetful fruit, 
 
 The mystic pomegranate ; 
 But from the Mighty Warden fledst ; and now, 
 
 The fugitive of Fate, 
 
 Thou farest in our life as in a dream, 
 Still wandering with thy lute, 
 Like that sweet paynim lady of old song, 
 Who sang and wandered long, 
 
 For love of her Aucassin, seeking him ! 
 So with thy minstrelsy 
 
 Thou roamest, dreaming of the country dim. 
 Below the veiled sky I 
 
 There doth thy lover dwell. 
 
 Singing, and seeking still to find thy face 
 In that forgetful place : 
 
 Thou shalt not meet him here. 
 Not till thy singing clear 
 Through all the murmur of the streams of hell 
 
 Wins to the Maiden's ear 1 
 May she, perchance, have pity on thee and call 
 
 Thine eager spirit to sit beside her feet, 
 Passing throughout the long unechoing hall 
 Up to the shadowy throne. 
 
 Where the lost lovers of the ages meet ; 
 Till then thou art alone 1 
 
 119 
 
ANOTHER WAY 
 
 COME to me in my dreams, and tben. 
 One saith, / shall he well again, 
 For then the night will more than pay 
 The hopeless longing of the day. 
 
 Nay, come not thou in dreams, my sweet, 
 With shadowy robes, and silent feet, 
 And with the voice, and with the eyes 
 That greet me in a soft surprise. 
 
 Last night, last night, in dreams we met. 
 And how, to-day, shall I forget. 
 Or how, remembering, restrain 
 Mine incommunicable pain ? 
 
 Nay, where thy land and people are. 
 Dwell thou remote, apart, afar, 
 Nor mingle with the shapes that sweep 
 The melancholy ways of Sleep. 
 
 But if, perchance, the shadows break. 
 If dreams depart, and men awake, 
 If face to face at length we see. 
 Be thine the voice to welcome me. 
 
CLEVEDON CHURCH 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 WESTWARD I watch the low green hills of Wales, 
 The low sky silver grey, 
 The turbid Channel with the wandering sails 
 
 Moans through the winter day. 
 There is no colour but one ashen light 
 
 On tower and lonely tree, 
 The little church upon the windy height 
 
 Is grey as sky or sea. 
 But there hath he that woke the sleepless Love 
 
 Slept through these fifty years, 
 There is the grave that has been wept above 
 
 With more than mortal tears. 
 And far below I hear the Channel sweep 
 
 And all his waves complain, 
 As Hallam's dirge through all the years must keep 
 
 Its monotone of pain. 
 
 Grey sky, brown waters, as a bird that flies. 
 
 My heart flits forth from these 
 Back to the winter rose of northern skies, 
 
 Back to the northern seas. 
 And lo, the long waves of the ocean beat 
 
 Below the minster grey, 
 Caverns and chapels worn of saintly feet, 
 
 And knees of them that pray. 
 
And I remember me how twain were one 
 
 Beside that ocean dim, 
 I count the years passed over since the sun 
 
 That lights me looked on him, 
 And dreaming of the voice that, save in sleep, 
 
 Shall greet me not again. 
 Far, far below I hear the Channel sweep 
 
 And all his waves complain. 
 
MARTIAL IN TOWN 
 
 LAST night, within the stifling train, 
 Lit by the foggy lamp o'erhead, 
 Sick of the sad Last News, I read 
 Verse of that joyous child of Spain, 
 
 Who dwelt when Rome was waxing cold. 
 Within the Roman din and smoke. 
 And like my heart to me they spoke. 
 
 These accents of his heart of old : — 
 
 Brother, had we hut time to live^ 
 And fleet the careless hours together , 
 
 IVith all that leisure has to give 
 Of perfect life and peaceful weather y 
 
 The Rich MatCs halls^ the anxious faces^ 
 The wearj/ Forum, courts, and cases 
 
 Should know us not ; hut quiet nooks. 
 But summer shade hy field and well, 
 
 But country rides, and talk of hooks, 
 At home, with these, we fain would dwell! 
 
 Now neither lives, hut day by day 
 Sees the suns wasting in the west. 
 
 And feels their flight, and doth delay 
 To lead the life he loveth best. 
 
 So from thy city prison broke, 
 Martial, thy wail for life misspent. 
 
 And so, through London's noise and smoke 
 My heart replies to the lament. 
 
 123 
 
For dear as Tagus with his gold, 
 And swifter Salo, were to thee, 
 
 So dear to me the woods that fold 
 The streams that circle Femielea ! 
 
 124 
 
 \ 
 
SCYTHE SONG 
 
 MOWERS, weary and brown, and blithe. 
 What is the word methinks ye know. 
 Endless over -word that the Scythe 
 
 Sings to the blades of the grass below ? 
 Scythes that swing in the grass and clover, 
 
 Something, still, they say as they pass ; 
 What is the word that, over and over. 
 
 Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass ? 
 
 Hush^ ah hush, the Scythes are saying. 
 
 Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep ; 
 Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, 
 
 Hush, they sing to the clover deep 1 
 Hush — *tis the lullaby Time is singing — 
 
 Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. 
 Hush, ah hush ! and the Scythes are swinging 
 
 Over the clover, over the grass ! 
 
 125 
 
THE SONG OF ORPHEUS 
 
 FROM THE ORPHIC ARGONAUTICA 
 
 SLEEP ! king of gods and men ! 
 Come to my call again, 
 Swift over field and fen, 
 
 Mountain and deep : 
 Come, bid the waves be still ; 
 Sleep, streams on height and hill ; 
 Beasts, birds, and snakes, thy will 
 
 Conquereth, Sleep ! 
 Come on thy golden wings, 
 Come ere the swallow sings, 
 Lulling all living things. 
 
 Fly they or creep ! 
 Come with thy leaden wand, 
 Come with thy kindly hand, 
 Soothing on sea or land 
 
 Mortals that weep. 
 Come from the cloudy west. 
 Soft over brain and breast. 
 Bidding the Dragon rest, 
 
 Come to me, Sleep ! 
 
 126 
 
FROM OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 RHYMED FROM THE PROSE VERSION OF 
 MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY 
 
 THE Paradise they bid us fast to win 
 Hath Wine and Women ; is it then a sin 
 To live as we shall live in Paradise, 
 And make a Heaven of Earth, ere Heaven begin ? 
 
 The wise may search the world from end to end, 
 From dusty nook to dusty nook, my friend. 
 
 And nothing better find than girls and wine, 
 Of all the things they neither make nor mend. 
 
 Nay, listen thou who, walking on Life's way. 
 Hast seen no lovelock of thy love's grow grey 
 Listen, and love thy life, and let the Wheel 
 Of Heaven go spinning its own wilful way. 
 
 Man is a flagon, and his soul the wine, 
 Man is a lamp, wherein the Soul doth shine, 
 Man is a shaken reed, wherein that wind. 
 The Soul, doth ever rustle and repine. 
 
 Each morn I say, to-night I will repent. 
 Repent 1 and each night go the way I went — 
 
 The way of Wine ; but now that reigns the rose. 
 Lord of Repentance, rage not, but relent. 
 
 I wish to drink of wine — so deep, so deep — 
 The scent of wine my sepulchre shall steep. 
 
 127 
 
And they, the revellers by Omar*s tomb, 
 Shall breathe it, and in Wine shall fall asleep. 
 
 Before the rent walls of a ruined town 
 
 Lay the King's skull, whereby a bird flew down 
 
 " And where," he sang, " is all thy clash of arms ? 
 Where the sonorous trumps of thy renown ?'* 
 
 128 
 
LES ROSES DE SADI 
 
 THIS morning I vowed I would bring thee my Roses, 
 They were thrust in the band that my bodice encloses, 
 But the breast -knots were broken, the Roses went free. 
 
 The breast-knots were broken ; the Roses together 
 Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather. 
 And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea. 
 
 And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses. 
 But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the Roses, 
 Thou shalt know, Love, how fragrant a memory can be. 
 
 129 
 
THE HAUNTED TOWER 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A POEM OF 
 TH^OPHILE GAUTIER 
 
 IN front he saw the donjon tall 
 Deep in the woods, and stayed to scan 
 The guards that slept along the wall, 
 
 Or dozed upon the bartizan. 
 He marked the drowsy flag that hung 
 
 Unwaved by wind, unfrayed by shower, 
 He listened to the birds that sung 
 
 Go forth and win the haunted tower ! 
 The tangled brake made way for him, 
 
 The twisted brambles bent aside ; 
 And lo, he pierced the forest dim, 
 
 And lo, he won the fairy bride ! 
 For he was young, but ah ! we find. 
 
 All we, whose beards are flecked with grey. 
 Our fairy castle's far behind. 
 
 We watch it from the darkling way : 
 *Twas ours, that palace, in our youth. 
 
 We revelled there in happy cheer : 
 Who scarce dare visit now in sooth, 
 
 Le Vieux Chateau de Souvenir ! 
 For not the boughs of forest green 
 
 Begird that castle far away. 
 There is a mist where we have been 
 
 That weeps about it, cold and grey, 
 And if we seek to travel back 
 
 'Tis through a thicket dim and sere, 
 
 130 
 
With many a grave beside the track, 
 
 And many a haunting form of fear. 
 Dead leaves are wet among the moss, 
 
 With weed and thistle overgrown — 
 A ruined barge within the fosse, 
 
 A castle built of crumbling stone 1 
 The drawbridge drops from rusty chains. 
 
 There comes no challenge from the hold ; 
 No squire, nor dame, nor knight remains, 
 
 Of all who dwelt with us of old. 
 And there is silence in the hall 
 
 No sound of songs, no ray of fire ; 
 But gloom where all was glad, and all 
 
 Is darkened with a vain desire. 
 And every picture's fading fast. 
 
 Of fair Jehanne, or Cydalise. 
 Lo, the white shadows hurrying past, 
 
 Below the boughs of dripping trees ! 
 
 Ah, rise, and march, and look not back, 
 Now the long way has brought us here ; 
 
 We may not turn and seek the track 
 To the old Chateau de Souvenir 1 
 
 131 
 
BOAT-SONG 
 
 ADRIFT, with Starlit skies above, 
 With starlit seas below, 
 We move with all the suns that move, 
 
 With all the seas that flow : 
 For, bond or free, earth, sky, and sea. 
 
 Wheel with one central will, 
 
 And thy heart drifteth on to me, 
 
 And only Time stands still. 
 
 Between two shores of death we drift. 
 
 Behind are things forgot. 
 Before, the tide is racing swift 
 
 To shores man knoweth not. 
 Above, the sky is far and cold. 
 
 Below, the moaning sea 
 Sweeps o'er the loves that were of old. 
 
 But thou, Love, love thou me. 
 
 Ah, lonely are the ocean ways. 
 
 And dangerous the deep, 
 And frail the fairy barque that strays 
 
 Above the seas asleep. 
 Ah, toil no more with helm or oar. 
 
 We drift, or bond or free. 
 On yon far shore the breakers roar, 
 
 But thou. Love, love thou me ! 
 
 13* 
 
LOST LOVE 
 
 WHO wins his Love shall lose her, 
 Who loses her shall gain, 
 For still the spirit woos her, 
 
 A soul without a stain ; 
 And Memory still pursues her 
 With longings not in vain 1 
 
 He loses her who gains her, 
 
 Who watches day by day 
 The dust of time that stains her. 
 
 The griefs that leave her grey, 
 The flesh that yet enchains her 
 
 Whose grace hath passed away I 
 
 Oh, happier he who gains not 
 The Love some seem to gain : 
 
 The joy that custom stains not 
 Shall still with him remain, 
 
 The loveliness that wanes not. 
 The Love that ne'er can wane. 
 
 In dreams she grows not older 
 The lands of Dream among, 
 
 Though all the world wax colder. 
 Though all the songs be sung. 
 
 In dreams doth he behold her 
 Still fair and kind and young. 
 
 133 
 
THE PROMISE OF HELEN 
 
 WHOM hast thou longed for most, 
 True love of mine ? 
 Whom hast thou loved and lost ? 
 Lo, she is thine ! 
 
 She that another wed 
 
 Breaks from her vow ; 
 She that hath long been dead 
 
 Wakes for thee now. 
 
 Dreams haunt the hapless bed, 
 
 Ghosts haunt the night, 
 Life crowns her living head, 
 
 Love and Delight. 
 
 Nay, not a dream nor ghost, 
 
 Nay, but Divine, 
 She that was loved and lost 
 
 Waits to be thine ! 
 
 134 
 
ON CALAIS SANDS 
 
 ON Calais Sands the grey began, 
 Then rosy red above the grey, 
 The mom with many a scarlet van 
 
 Leaped, and the world was glad with May 1 
 The little waves along the bay 
 
 Broke white upon the shelving strands ; 
 The sea-mews flitted white as they 
 On Calais Sands I 
 
 On Calais Sands must man with man 
 Wash honour clean in blood to-day; 
 
 On spaces wet from waters wan 
 
 How white the flashing rapiers play, 
 
 Parry, riposte ! and lunge ! The fray 
 Shifts for a while, then mournful stands 
 
 The Victor : life ebbs fast away 
 On Calais Sands ! 
 
 On Calais Sands a little space 
 
 Of silence, then the plash and spray, 
 
 The sound of eager waves than ran 
 To kiss the perfumed locks astray. 
 
 To touch these lips that ne'er said " Nay," 
 To dally with the helpless hands ; 
 
 Till the deep sea in silence lay 
 On Calais Sands ! 
 
 Between the lilac and the may 
 
 She waits her love from alien lands; 
 Her love is colder than the clay 
 On Calais Sands I 
 
 135 
 
POSCIMUR 
 
 FROM HORACE 
 
 HUSH, for they call ! If in the shade, 
 My lute, we twain have idly strayed, 
 And song for many a season made, 
 
 Once more reply ; 
 Once more we'll play as we have played, 
 My lute and I ! 
 
 Roman the song : the strain you know, 
 The Lesbian wrought it long ago. 
 Now singing as he charged the foe, 
 
 Now in the bay, 
 Where safe in the shore -water's flow 
 
 His galleys lay. 
 
 So sang he Bacchus and the Nine, 
 And Venus and her boy divine. 
 And Lycus of the dusky eyne. 
 
 The dusky hair ; 
 So shalt thou sing, ah. Lute of mine. 
 
 Of all things fair ; 
 
 Apollo's glory ! Sounding shell, 
 
 Thou lute, to Jove desirable, 
 
 When soft thine accents sigh and swell 
 
 At festival — 
 Delight more dear than words can tell. 
 
 Attend my call ! 
 
 136 
 
ON THE GARLAND SENT TO 
 RHODOCLEIA 
 
 GOLDEN EYES 
 
 4 4 A H, Golden Eyes, to win you yet, 
 
 iV I bring mine April coronet. 
 The lovely blossoms of the spring, 
 For you I weave, to you I bring 
 These roses with the lilies set. 
 The dewy dark -eyed violet. 
 Narcissus, and the wind-flower wet : 
 Wilt thou disdain mine offering ? 
 Ah, Golden Eyes 1 
 
 " Crowned with thy lover's flowers, forget 
 The pride wherein thy heart is set, 
 For thou, like these or anything. 
 Hast but a moment of thy spring. 
 Thy spring, and then — the long regret 1 
 Ah, Golden Eyes 1 " 
 
 137 
 
A GALLOWAY GARLAND 
 
 WE know not, on these hills of ours, 
 The fabled asphodel of Greece, 
 That fiUeth with immortal flowers 
 Fields where the heroes are at peace ! 
 Not ours are myrtle buds like these 
 That breathe o'er isles where memories dwell 
 Of Sappho, in enchanted seas ! 
 
 We meet not, on our upland moor, 
 
 The singing Maid of Helicon, 
 You may not hear her music pure 
 
 Float on the mountain meres withdrawn ; 
 
 The Muse of Greece, the Muse is gone ! 
 But we have songs that please us well 
 
 And flowers we love to look upon. 
 
 More sweet than Southern myrtles far 
 
 The bruised Marsh-myrtle breatheth keen ; 
 
 Parnassus names the flower, the star. 
 That shines among the well-heads green 
 The bright Marsh-asphodels between — 
 
 Marsh-myrtle and Marsh -asphodel 
 
 May crown the Northern Muse a queen. 
 
 »38 
 
ZIMBABWE 
 
 (The ruined Gold Cities of Rhodesia. The Ophir of 
 Scripture.) 
 
 INTO the darkness whence they came, 
 They passed, their country knoweth none. 
 They and their gods without a name 
 
 Partake the same oblivion. 
 Their work they did, their work is done, 
 Whose gold, it may be, shone like fire 
 About the brows of Solomon, 
 
 And in the House of God's Desire. 
 
 Hence came the altar all of gold, 
 
 The hinges of the Holy Place, 
 The censer with the fragrance rolled 
 
 Skyward to seek Jehovah's face ; 
 The golden Ark that did encase 
 
 The Law within Jerusalem, 
 The lilies and the rings to grace 
 
 The High Priest's robe and diadem. 
 
 The pestilence, the desert spear, 
 
 Smote them ; they passed, with none to tell 
 The names of them who laboured here : 
 
 Stark walls and crumbling crucible. 
 Strait gates, and graves, and ruined well, 
 
 Abide, dumb monuments of old. 
 We know but that men fought and fell, 
 
 Like us, like us, for love of Gold. 
 
 139 
 
TUSITALA 
 
 WE spoke of a rest in a fairy knowe of the North, 
 but he, 
 Far from the firths of the East, and the racing tides 
 of the West, 
 Sleeps in the sight and the sound of the infinite South- 
 ern Sea, 
 Weary and well content in his grave on the Vaea 
 crest. 
 
 Tusitala, the lover of children, the teller of tales, 
 Giver of counsel and dreams, a wonder, a world's 
 delight, 
 Looks o'er the labours of men in the plain and the hill ; 
 and the sails 
 Pass and repass on the sea that he loved, in the day 
 and the night. 
 
 Winds of the West and the East in the rainy season 
 blow 
 Heavy with perfume, and all his fragrant woods are J 
 wet, ] 
 
 Winds of thfe East and West as they wander to and for. 
 Bear him the love of the land he loved, and the long 
 regret. 
 
 Once we were kindest, he said, when leagues of the 
 limitless sea 
 Flowed between us, but now that no wash of the 
 wandering tides 
 Sunders us each from each, yet nearer we seem to be, 
 Whom only the unbridged stream of the river of 
 Death divides. 
 
 140 
 
VALE 
 
 ONCE the Muse was fair. 
 Once : when we were youngy 
 Gajp and debonair ^ 
 Or with pensive air^ 
 So she came J she sung. 
 
 Often^ through the noise 
 
 Of the running stream, 
 Would we hear her voice. 
 Hear it and rejoice, 
 
 " Dream not Uwas a dream.** 
 
 Could we see her now 
 
 Come at a command, 
 Withered on her brow 
 Were the wreath, the bough 
 
 Broken in her band. 
 
 Nd[;/, as erst the Morn 
 
 floating far away, 
 More in ruth than scorn 
 "Left her love outworn. 
 
 Once his locks were grey. 
 
 So, for ever young, 
 
 ^ver fair, the Muse 
 'Leaves us, who have sung 
 Till the lute*s unstrung, 
 
 'Doth her grace refuse. 
 
 141 
 
*Tis not she, but we^ 
 
 That are weary now ; 
 Vfellf howe'er it he^ 
 Her we shall not see^ 
 broken is the hough. 
 
NOTES 
 
 To THE Rbadbr. — From Mr. Lang's Ballades and 
 Verses Vain (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 
 1884), which Mr. Dobson prepared for American 
 readers. 
 
 A Ballade of xxii Ballades. — Sir Frederick 
 Pollock reviewed the first edition of Mr. Lang's 
 XXII Ballades in Blue China in the St. James' 
 Ga^^ette, 3rd July, 1880, in which review this ballade 
 appeared. Mr. Lang was so pleased with the lines 
 that he asked to have them prefixed to his next edition, 
 and they accordingly adorn the third and every subse- 
 quent issue. 
 
 Dizain. — Specially written for XXII Ballades in 
 Blue China, where it still remains notwithstanding its 
 incorporation in Mr. Dobson's Collected Poems. 
 
 Ronsard's Grave. — This version ventures to con- 
 dense the original which, like most of the works of the 
 Pleiad, is unneccessarily long. 
 
 The snow, and wind, and hail. Ronsard's rendering 
 of the famous passage in Odyssey, vi., about the dwell- 
 ings of the Olympians. The vision of a Paradise of 
 learned lovers and poets constantly recurs in the 
 poetry of Joachim du Bellay, and of Ronsard. 
 
 See also Songs and Sonnets of Pierre de Ronsard . . 
 Selected and Translated into English Verse by Curtis 
 Hidden Page, (Boston, 1903.) 
 
 Romance. — Suggested by a passage in La Faustin, 
 by M. E. de Goncourt, a curious moment of poetry in 
 a repulsive piece of naturalisme. 
 
 143 
 
NOTES 
 
 Three Letters to Dead Authors. — These 
 three letters in verse have heretofore been accessible 
 only in Letters to Dead Authors (1886 and later re- 
 issues), of which a delightful pocket edition entitled 
 New and Old Letters to Dead Author s^ (London, 1907,) 
 is now to be had for two shillings net — in England ! 
 
 The first edition of Letters to Dead Authors was pub- 
 lished in March, 1886 ; in the second edition later in 
 the same year stanzas 4 and 5 of the Byron letter were 
 cancelled. 
 
 These are restored in all later editions. A new 
 Envoy, however, was added at the end of the second 
 edition which fails to appear in any later reissue. It 
 is as follows : 
 Go, Letters to the irresponsive Ghosts, 
 
 That scarce will heed them less than living Men. 
 For now new Books come thicker than on Coasts 
 
 And meads of Asia, throng the sea-birds when 
 The snow-wind drives them South in clamorous Hosts 
 
 From their salt marshes by Cayster's Fen. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 SMITH & SALE 
 PORTLAND 
 SMAINE 
 
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