dU' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES SONG IN SEPTEMBER SONG IN SEPTEMBER BY NORMAN GALE LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, LTD. lO ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C. I912 CONTENTS A Resemblance to the sweetwilliam . The Visit Born Dumb The Voice Dream and Ideal A Christening The Cheated Lover The Hyacinths Invocations Returning Thanks Shakespeare in the Thrush The Resolve . The Barley-Birds The Wrestling Day of Delight Michaelmas Daisies The Danger To A Snowdrop V PAGE I 2 s 7 lO 12 i8 20 21 25 27 29 31 34 36 37 40 44 46 CONTENTS PAGE The Theft . 47 The Masterpiece . 51 The Great Beech . • 53 The Companion . 60 The Crumbs . 61 The Review • 63 The Hidden Wealth 65 Payment 67 Bean Blossom 69 To A Bee • 70 Cupid's Arrow 72 The Mower's Vision • 73 To Canterbury Bells 75 The Old Piano 78 The Bargain . 81 The Worst 82 The Changes . 84 To Christopher 86 The Lover Muses 88 A Counsel 90 Rknkwai. . 92 With a Rose . 93 At Vari.ey. 95 The Shamk 97 The Link . 98 A Song lOI VI CONTENTS The Balance . A Cottage Monarchy South Warwickshire The Freckles . Unmelted . Bells of Dumbleton The Cherry of Lucullus Jeremy Joy Not to be Won Fair Fortune . The Lover to His Dead Mistress To THE Ideal . The Wanderer The Puzzled Thrush To My Mother To a Lover of Birds Truth in Silence . To A Blackbird The Shepherd's Song To Blue Campanulas Spion Kop . The Robin Gratitude . The Welcome . The Child Asleep The Refuge PAGE 108 118 120 129 135 148 154 155 157 159 162 164 165 167 169 171 Vll CONTENTS The Lover Speaks .... 172 The Appeal 174 Weary Heart and Weary Head 176 Vital Moments .... 177 To a Proud Beauty 178 Babe of Babes 1 80 The Loss 181 An Envoy to the Book 182 Vlll A RESEMBLANCE AS Orpheus flower and fern Called to his knees, And by delicious tones Ravished the trees, Forcing the oaks and poplars high, Lissom as maids, to change their sky ; So April's lovelier voice Calls to the birds. Hearing delicious tones, Ravishing words, Pipits with tiny cousins fly. Nimble as dreams, to change their sky. TO THE SWEETWILLIAM I SEARCH the poet's honied lines, And not in vain, for columbines ; And not in vain for other flowers That sanctify the many bowers Unsanctified by human souls. See where the larkspur lifts among The thousand blossoms finely sung, Still blossoming in the fragrant scrolls ! Charity, eglantine, and rue And love-in-a-mist are all in view, With coloured cousins ; but where are you, Sweetwilliam ? The lily and the rose have books Devoted to their lovely looks. And wit has fallen in vital showers Through England's most miraculous hours 2 TO THE SWEETWILLIAM To keep them fresh a thousand years. The immortal library can show The violet's well-thumbed folio Stained tenderly by girls in tears. The shelf where Genius stands in view Has brier and daffodil and rue And love-lies-bleeding ; but not you, Sweetwilliam. Thus, if I seek the classic line For marybuds, 'tis, Shakespeare, thine ! And ever is the primrose born 'Neath Goldsmith's overhanging thorn. In Herrick's breastknot I can see The appleblossom, fresh and fair As when he plucked and put it there, Heedless of Time's anthology. So flower by flower comes into view, Kept fadeless by the Olympian dew For startled eyes ; and yet not you, Sweetwilliam. Too seldom named ! And never so As makes the astonished heart to cfo 3 TO THE SWEETWILLIAM With deer-like leapings ! Horace found A name unsuited to the bound His gleaming satires had to bear : Even so, methinks, a want of grace In country calling lost a place In poesy for one so fair. How chancily a blossom slips From ballad sunshine to eclipse, Being short of honey for the lips, Sweetwilliam ! Though gods of song have let you be, Bloom in my little book for me. Unwont to stoop or lean, you show An undefeated heart, and grow As pluckily as cedars. Heat And cold, and winds that make Tumbledown sallies, cannot shake Your resolution to be sweet. Then take this song, be it born to die Ere yet the unwedded butterfly Has glimpsed a darling in the sky, Sweetwilliam ! THE VISIT WHEN the Snowdrop goes to Town In her Httle grandmotherly bonnet, With only a ribbon of light By a miracle fastened upon it, She takes for the world to wear Such a charm in the lappel of duty As gives of the earth and the air, And consoles by its Puritan beauty. When the Snowdrop goes to Town In her little grandmotherly bonnet, How many delight in the grace Of the exquisite trimming upon it ! They look her deep in the eyes. And the bird of their memory, trilling Simplicity's far-away skies. Takes the heart with unbearable thrillino;, t>* When the Snowdrop goes to Town In her little grandmotherly bonnet, 5 THE VISIT With only a glamour of earth And a magic of heaven upon it, Look at the rainbow of Spring In the eyes of the happy beholders ! Cares in a covey take wing, And weariness falls from the shoulders. BORN DUMB MY little love ! My little speechless child ! Can I forget my woman's heart, and be For ever mute to grief, for ever mild ? Is it not hard to bear the falling rod, When such an ailment for these baby lips Divinely suits the policy of God ? The lambs that play too long at hide-and-seek Have tongues that ask for mothers ; these, I know, Learn lovely meanings when the children speak. The mother comes from far across the field And calls assurance to her anxious child, As I had answered had my lamb appealed ! But I shall never hear that storied speech, That lovely language whose expression is Defiance of all rules that man may teach ; 7 BORN DUMB Nor hear against my heart a son's content When for his mouth the wiHing milk is kind, And for his h'ps my fountain is well spent. I have brought silence to my husband's knee ! And he (O baby, baby, try to speak !) So greatly counted on thy mimicry Of words his wit prepared to plague thy lips, Ready to kiss that rosebud impotence, Thy mouth, and garner all thy precious slips. ' Fairest,' he used to say, ' when I am worn In days to come with writing, you shall bring A bud of April on your shoulder borne. And he shall chatter to my chain, or tear My latest lyric, or shall cry to touch The raining splendours of your ravished hair, Until he dwindle and his eyes grow dim, And we can worship him before the fire, And kiss each other many thanks for him. 8 BORN DUMB There in your cradling lap we will undress Our rosy son, together praying God To fill his life with strength and sacredness. Then I will have him at my heart awhile ' (O baby, baby, baby, try to speak !) ' And watch the fading of his sleepy smile Till dimples cannot follow kisses pressed Upon the pouting slumber of his mouth, And I restore his beauty to your breast.' Ah, dearest husband, but the child is dumb ! The lamb outspeaks him, and the day-old thrush. How shall I voice this terror when you come ? My travail was for silence, and my dove Can only watch his mother's moving lips, And never give her back a word of love. Husband, steer homeward ! Husband, come. And let me weep the truth upon your knee — The child of our enchantment is born dumb ! THE VOICE AS I went down the hill I heard The laughter of the countryside ; For, rain being past, the whole land stirred With new emotion, like a bride. I scarce had left the grassy lane, When something made me catch my breath A woman called, and called again, Elizabeth ! Elizabeth ! It was my mother's name. A part Of wounded memory sprang to tears. And the few violets of my heart Shook in the wind of happier years. Quicker than magic came the face That once was sun and moon for me ; The garden shawl, the cap of lace, The collie's head against her knee. 10 THE VOICE Mother, who findest out a way To pass the sentinels, and stand Behind my chair at close of day, To touch me — almost — with thy hand. Deep in my breast how sure, how clear, The lamp of love burns on till death ! — How trembles if I chance to hear Elizabeth ! Elizabeth ! II DREAM AND IDEAL DIANA with her limbs of dream, Her wavering heart of lily-stuff, For long had mocked me with the gleam Too sweet, and yet not sweet enough. Hundreds of times my fevered hands Had fallen almost on the slope Of shoulder that was swift to be At once the pulse and death of hope. Stayed by her hair in hazels caught, She fed my blood with honeydew. And turning for a second showed Her deep-down eyes of larkspur blue. So near her lips, I smelled the breath Could shame the bush of lavender, Till all my body rang a peal Of lovely bells in praise of her. But as I stretched my arms to take The Goddess from the hazel snare, 12 DREAM AND IDEAL Once more with laughter she was gone, Once more she froh'cked otherwhere, O'erleaped a streamlet's gush of blue And left me quivering as I thought How nearly had the dream come true. But as I follow wideawake The fragrant girl without a name Who at the edge of being runs Between the light and dark, and calls Across the distance for my sake. So in the courses of my dreams I hunted tireless, and beheld The Goddess in a thousand gleams Flash on her woodland way unquelled, And sometimes on a hillock stand Horn-shaping there a sun-kissed hand To set against her lips and blow Across the whitebells' dancing snow, To keep me to my hunting true. The music of a girl's halloo. Sometimes she held her bosom close Against the beech-tree's flank of grey, 13 DREAM AND IDEAL And joyed to watch me bear the chase Beyond the marvel of her face, Till it was safe again to use The same, or else some other, ruse : As when in hyacinths she pressed Upon a couch of earth the breast Had wisely mingled snow and sun To shake thy heart, Endymion ! Or when among the ferns she drooped Her lovely length, and slyly stooped To watch me eagerly employ My eyes to sack a leafy Troy ; Or when she used divinely well Her royal right of miracle, Changing her body into stone, To ivy-spray her glittering zone, And making mosses of her hair. E'en as I rested by the rock The buried beauties in a flock Rushed back again to flesh, and flew Along a pathway out of view, While back to me the Goddess sent Through lovely hand to horn-shape bent The music of a girl's halloo. H DREAM AND IDEAL And once she floated sweet and cool, To lilies changing, in a pool. Then, since the blossoms did appear Too splendid for the plant to bear — Strange flowering of Diana's hair ! — I waded down the talking stream Toward the cups of golden beam. Sudden the blooms together leapt To make a mass of hair was swept By Zephyr to the shoulders bright, And in a flash I saw the leaves In curves of loveliness unite. And next the Goddess leap to land, Shake little rainbows on the strand, Lift to her mouth a horn-shaped hand, Then in the foliage rush away To try once more her cunning play. By early morn the chase was done. I woke. My room was kissed by sun, And birds about the neck of day Were hanging pearls of roundelay. Aroused, I watched the fading gleam Of all had glittered in my dream, 15 DREAM AND IDEAL And thought how in my waking hours My heart went hunting ceaselessly Surprises, hopings, tricks, and flowers, Because I follow wideawake A fragrant girl without a name Who at the edge of being runs Between the light and dark, and calls Across the distance for my sake. She is the hopeless touched by Hope ; For thus on man the cheat is played That helps him hour by hour to cope Against his dooming, undismayed. Deep in the heart of him there glows A spark by which he warms his soul, Believing faintly that his part Is somehow blessed beyond the whole. He makes a garden rich in flowers. In rainbows, nightingales, and streams, In which he spends his lotos-hours Beneath a sky in tune with dreams. 'Tis not a mother he creates In fancy for his blessing there, P)Ut with his wanting self he mates i6 DREAM AND IDEAL The girl of joy without compare. For her he plucks forbidden fruit, For her he leaves his paradise, For her he bends his aching eyes Along the edge of world, and, mute, A thousand times in spirit dies. For though he carry from the vale Nor rose's bud nor nightingale. No whit he minds the Angel's blade, That cannot keep him from his maid. So in the rougher world he fares Among his blisses and despairs, Compelled to treasure in the heart A deathless hoping that his part Is somehow blessed beyond the whole, And searching thicket, stream, and bole While hunting, hunting ceaselessly Surprises, tremblings, tricks, and flowers, Because he follows wideawake A fragrant girl without a name Who at the edge of being runs Between the light and dark, and calls Across the distance for his sake. B ly A CHRISTENING THEY took him to the hoary church, And waited near the font awhile, With something new of sacredness In handclasp, whisper, look and smile. The glorious mantle of a saint, Set in a stained-glass window, poured A beam of scarlet light across The child they offered to the Lord. The mother, never quite content With any folding of his gown, So smoothed him that his limpid eyes No longer kept the eyelids down. Then she who mothered him in God Shaped an ungiven kiss ; and now The trusted Vicar came to sign The Cross of Christ upon his brow. But he, unwitting how his frock Was puckered, or his sash awry, i8 A CHRISTENING Gazed at a Shepherd with a lamb Beneath a glassy spread of sky ; And then, before the reverent priest Had marked him soldier, kinsman, heir, He lifted up his weakling arms Toward the Saviour imaged there. 'Twas felt by all who saw him thus Enrol himself, at unawares, That Heaven accepted him without The drops of water and the prayers ; But when between his little brows The sign of Calvary was pressed, They knew that Christ had found a place For Christopher upon His breast. 19 H THE CHEATED LOVER OW sharp a punishment to bear Alone this beauty of the pear That, dressed for bridal, bids me think Of her whose robes are blue and pink ! Would she but imitate the pear. And on her lovely body wear The bridal clothes at last for me. How gay this shadowed heart could be ! When comes the gloaming she will give Fair reasons for my life to live, And yet will beg to have the bliss Of staying Cupid's chrysalis. Remember, Clovermaid, how fair A frock this tree is glad to wear, And scorn to let a rival shine Through veilings lovelier than thine ! 20 THE HYACINTHS TAKE the good ashplant ; stuff the old grey cap Deep in your pocket. Now that breakfast's done, Out to the field of clover by the gap, And be accepted of the early sun ! See you that mass of Oakland banked in peace Beyond the poplar family on the right ? There shall you find a kingdom of release From half a city's arrogance and spite. Keep now the proper angel at your side To touch the spirit to a heavenly mood, That you may share, as something deified. The sense of morning holiness in the wood. Behold that pear-tree, edged with radiant sky, Still as an Oread open-lipped in rest ! Tread softly, friend ! The Enchanter must be nigh. For me to feel such pathos in my breast. 21 THE HYACINTHS Mcthinks, if we could linger in this place Till fall the early veilings of the gloom, At last might show the never-coming face Of Him whose delicate temple is the bloom. Now onward by the ploughman's narrow track Across the field of growing bread, till there, A hundred yards beyond the forester's stack, The wood lies waiting with its drowsy air. This lower part the honeysuckle loves, Enwreathing hazels, climbing lofty trees To show its golden horns to infant doves And be a fragrant playmate for the breeze. Next comes the clearing where, when April shakes Her bosom free of bloom in forest and wold. The falling of the primrose bounty makes The oaks seem rooted in a soil of gold. And next the clearing where, in middle May (To think of them in sunshine !) can be found This holy wood's miraculous display Of hyacinths flooding half a mile of ground. 22 THE HYACINTHS Yon path is best, as keeping back the sight ; For I would have this Mediterranean Sea Of dark blue blossoming hurriedly delight The friend who shall be drowned in it with me. How often half a loveliness is lost To those who search it by the easier way ! The common paths and eminences cost A price the poet's heart would break to pay. Behold them ! Breathe them ! Where amazed you stand With quivering eyelids, often have I stood To see a shipless ocean on dry land Becalmed in May within a Warwickshire wood. Here let us sit and play with perished time, When gods were elbowing gods, and startled girls Were gathered as sweet as clusters of the lime To kiss the heroes webbed within their curls. Retreat ten thousand years from all that now Prevents the demi-god, till you with me In fancy hear beneath a thornless bough The bird that best remembers Arcady, 23 THE HYACINTHS Forget each fallen star, believed by Youth Too brilliant-born to dwindle from the sky ; The lies that in the domino of Truth Persuaded us to let Reflection die. Forget them all ; then, musing here with me, Awake the coloured pageantries of Greece, And watch across this billowy breadth of sea A shadowy Argo steering to the Fleece. For who can link this beauty with the day In which our doom compels us to lament The broken limbs of gods upon the way That ever draws us farther from content ? Not you, not I. Insensibly we use, When face to face with loveliness such as this, The fine-spun ropes of dreamihead, and choose The crags that lead us back to Time's abyss. Be fortunate travelling backward ! Even reach, As friend for friend desires, the limit of quest ; And, having glimpsed a sight too great for speech, Leap up with immortality in your breast ! 24 INVOCATIONS COME along, Springtime, your apron full of flowers Gathered in the sweetest of your dew-delighted bowers ! Come with budded bosom and with singing lips apart — Blossom in the hedgerow, blossom in my heart ! Come along, Summer, with heaven in your eyes ! Tell me in what hyacinths with frolic pulsing lies The Oread of my worship, that is both a balm and smart — Tell it to the woodbird, tell it to my heart ! Come along. Autumn, with deeper breast than Spring's ! Teach the honied wood-girl all the joy that giving brings ; 25 • INVOCATIONS Carol of the scythe-blade, roll the creaking cart, Lift your moon in cornfields, lift her in my heart ! Come along, Winter, with mutterings of ice. Cold to make the lover turn to kiss his darling thrice ! Leap from rosy heavens at the evenfall, and start Cleansing all the hedgerow, cleansing all my heart ! 26 RETURNING THANKS TAKE me up, to put me down In the fields of Long Ago, Where my mother's holiday gown Always made me think of snow. Set me at her side again, Little taller than her knee. On my mouth a cherry-stain — Thank you, thank you. Memory I Grant the mother and the child There to search in singing hope Strawberries sweet by being wild All along the hillside slope. Lo, the brother streamlets rush Bright as comets to the sea, Warbling almost like a thrush — Thank you, thank you, Memory ! 27 RETURNING THANKS Comes again the Enchanter's wood, Loved by me afraid to love, Where as still as mice we stood Listening for the drowsy dove. Never shall my heart forget Mingled fear and lullaby, Laughing lips and lashes wet — Thank you, thank you. Memory ! Ah, the dragon, seeming true Most because he never came Hungry in the oaks, and threw Double tongues of yard-long flame ! Not to know themselves at all, This is children's destiny ; Late in life the veilings fall. Showing childhood. Memory Up the hillside in the sun, Past the home and garden-place, Past my little self I run. Till I kiss my mother's face. Was it thus she took the light Long ago in summer glee, Lovelier than a star at night ? — Tha7tk you, thank you, Metnory ! 28 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THRUSH WHO sings so more than passing sweet Within his ample cage of green, Together mingling natural heat With what is serious and serene ? It is my Lord the speckled Thrush, Compelling heart and soul to hear ; And never has a bird for me So mellowed coppice, bush or tree, Since first I strayed to Warwickshire ! 'Tis not a thrush alone that sings, But some one adding to the bird A spirit in exchange for wings To carry here his lovely word. Listen the human in the thrush Above the bird-soul rising clear, As if this county's Heart of Song Were beating now divinely strong In his recovered Warwickshire ! 29 SHAKESPEARE IN THE THRUSH There went a touch of Hamlet ! There, In loops of alto, Beatrice ran Her lapwing course, as fragrant-fair As ever maid since time began ! And hark ! It wanted but the note Of her who pressed in fun and fear By woodland ways for love. The bough Is bending with immortals now. And gods go large in Warwickshire ! 30 THE RESOLVE WHEN I think of all the mercies she has shown ; Of all the beauties given, of all the magic flown ; Of tenderness in blossom ; of secrets breathed in trust ; Of joys and smiles and fragrances recovered from the dust In Melancholy's lumber-room and vivified to grace ; And how the world was sparkling when a girl of brave desires Beneath her little frostings showed the brilliance of her fires, I determine I will hold me, till I rest among my sires, As the soldier of her lilyhood and captain of her face. 31 THE RESOLVE When I think of that white clover of her neck ; Of many dimpled curvings, and each without a speck ; Of exquisite fragilities ; of intonations sweet ; Of all the comely loading of the perfect little feet That often tried so very hard to match my eager pace ; And remember how she fingered on my brow the troubled mark, Forgot herself, and changed for me her bosom to a lark, I determine I will hold me, till I go to test the dark. As the soldier of her lilyhood and captain of her face. When 1 think of all the trouble of my heart While blackness took our story, and Love must have us part ; Of how she bent in patience ; of how her lovely head Fell forward, as a lily falls when youth and prime are sped 32 THE RESOLVE And bees go careless past the flower was once a darling place ; And remember how, in yielding to a torrent of surprise, She flung her arms around my neck and kissed me to the skies, I determine I will hold me, till the hour when memory dies. As the soldier of her lilyhood and captain of her face. 33 THE BARLEY-BIRDS ASSUREDLY the barley-birds Were speaking in the alder-trees The list of unimpressive words They use for their simplicities. Rob hurried back, on hearing this, So fast he seemed to skim the ground, For Nance had promised him a kiss For every barley-bird he found. Stay there, stay there, you barley-birds^ Till Nancy comes to count you ! He glimpsed her by the pillar'd rock That shows the summit, where a breeze Began to toss the playmate frock Of billowy muslin to her knees. She trembled when, across the brook Below the heather-bearing crest, A runner leaped and boldly took The hillside slanting from her breast. 34 THE BARLEY-BIRDS Stay there, stay there, you barley-birds^ Till Nancy comes to count you ! They went the way that Robin signed, Toward the clump of alder-trees, Unwitting how there walked behind A Boy no taller than their knees. Who bit his rose-red lips, to force His giggles back, while in his eyes Gleamed sparks enough to fire the gorse That camped in gold on Stillford Rise. Stay there, stay there, you barley -birds, Till Nancy comes to count you ! Rob shouted. From the branchy place A little flock of siskins flew To find another home apace. Their tell-tale feathering clear in view ! The freckled godling rarely trips To such a jig of honied words As there he tuned while Nancy's lips Paid one by one for barley-birds. But Robin, Robin, how unfair To count each bird twice over ! 35 THE WRESTLING IN starlight Jacob, tough and stern, Still felt the sinewy angel stand, As rock against the leaping burn, Till he was ready for the turn Should lay the shepherd on the sand. For not one furious night alone, But year-long hath my wrestle been With thee, dark Angel, who hast known The trick to touch me on the bone And stretch me conquered on the green. Yet when I think of how I fared Within thy undefeated grip, I glory in the battle dared Against a Chief who nobly spared To touch me earlier on the hip. 36 DAY OF DELIGHT TARRY no longer, Maid most sweet, To bind thy tresses in array, For I can hear in sunshine beat The sanguine heart of holiday. Come in thy homespun frock to me. Than velvets of a queen more fair, And let this gipsy weather be The cordial playmate of thy hair. The hyacinth and the harebell blue Are married in the cloudless dome ; The lark is almost out of view Above the wife that keeps his home. I grant the bird on fire with song, And yet despise his narrow zest : Could he but hear how broad and strong- The chant that thunders in my breast ! 37 DAY OF DELIGHT For I to-day with thee am paired To wander woods and follow streams, With brow and spirit finely bared, And heart unpacked of fevering dreams. And where beside some leisured brook Moss spreads an emerald counterpane, Deep in thy soul my soul shall look For heaven and angels ; not in vain. Then shall it profit me to learn Thy starry stature, and to fear That of a sudden thou may'st burn A lamp too bright for me to bear. And when in Mother Mary's fold The eyes of lambkins, silver-fleeced. Begin to sparkle as of old Along the hillside of the east, Home will I take thee, and entrust Thine excellence to solitude, Incredulous that man is dust, And sure of angels in the wood. 3« DAY OF DELIGHT Tarry no longer, Maid most sweet, To bind thy tresses in array, For I can hear in sunshine beat The sanguine heart of holiday. 39 r^ MICHAELMAS DAISIES IS more than mid-October, yet along the narrow garden The daisies loved of Michaelmas keep sturdily in flower ; For, though the evenings sharply fall, they find a way to harden The crop of comely blossoming that makes for me a bower. The honey-hunters, diligent, are searching them for sweetness ; A pair of handsome bluetits flash their colours on a stem (Exponents of the art of standing upside-down with neatness) While two entranced Red Admirals astonished gaze at them. 40 MICHAELMAS DAISIES The rose has faded bedward, there to dream of scarlet duty When June is kissing England at the flowertide of the year ; The gladiolus in his bulb considers plans for beauty To flame along the border when his miracle is clear. Yet autumn wears an apron, and the apron's sweet with lendings Of colours matched with comeliness of blossom and of leaf ; And daisies dear to Michaelmas, with dances and with bendings. Forbid my heart to weary for the Summer's beauteous sheaf The garden's fate not narrowly resembles my condition, With Spring and Summer gone afield delighting other places ; Where towered the hollyhock of Hope, the lark- spur of Ambition, 41 MICHAELMAS DAISIES Unvaunting blossoms, pale but sweet, have learned to show their faces. Though Time has thinned my lavender and plucked my reddest roses, (He 's welcome to the buttonhole he gathered in my ground !) His picking of a loveliness fresh loveliness un- closes — Some overshadowed pansy that my heart had never found. What though he made a nosegay of the fairest and the tallest ? My loving fingers still can tend some simples in the dusk. 'Tis easy to be patient. I will think the best is smallest, And water here good-humouredly my little pot of musk. Old Time has made a nosegay. He is welcome to his plucking Of tiger-lilies, lad's-love, and the tall cathedral spires 42 MICHAELMAS DAISIES Of lupins, and snapdragons where the bee is fond of sucking, And all the flowery likenesses of Youth and Youth's desires. Old Time has got my nosegay ; but the gloaming finds me cheery, Because the gloaming is itself a flower of lovely hue ! The more I look at what remains, the less the world seems dreary. For quiet breathes at Michaelmas, and well-worn friends are true. Ah, quiet breathes at Michaelmas, and Love, his bosom sober. Has got the perfect song by heart and hums it all the day, To thrill me without feverings and teach how mid-October Gives angels for the blossoms that old Time has borne away. 43 THE DANGER HOW soon the prophet stars decree That you shall fall at last to me I know not. This at least I know, That many worlds must come and go Before enchantment brings us both Together for our long-lost troth. Often I push my books away, To search (there's heartbreak in the play) A map of star-embroidered sky, And finger space where you and I Shall whisper of an ancient grief, And kiss it into unbelief World after world shall I be vexed To miss you, and shall try the next In patient valour. Slowly nears Your kiss. And what's a billion years For me to pay if, when I turn The golden corner, I discern 44 THE DANGER (A little pinched by want of mirth) The face that shook my life on earth ? Fast shall I run to see if you Still wear those eyes of grey in blue. The danger is, my heart may beat Too loud, and kill me at your feet. 45 TO A SNOWDROP WERT thou as warm as thou art white, Then would st thou seem the perfect friend For me to gather ere the night Invokes her dewiness, and send To her upon whose bosom's swell The sisters. Warmth and Whiteness, dwell. But it were sacrilege to give A gift less radiant than the place Where beds of breathing snowdrops live And wonder how my exiled face Endures so long to lose the sight Of them, and lilies just as white. 46 THE THEFT WHEN Celia, coming from the stream In lovely disarray, Had sight of Cupid deep adream Where she was wont to lay Her body on a bed of moss Before she dressed again, She vowed to punish by a loss The god of tender pain. While innocently there he kept The truce of sleep, the maid, As soft as Arethusa, crept Along the bird-sweet glade. By chance the clover of her breast And every treble bird So mingled with the soul of rest That Cupid never stirred. Then Celia delicately threw Her shadow on the lad, 47 THE THEFT And from his pearly quiver drew The single shaft he had. When thus she held in merriment The solitary dart, Above the trespasser she bent And lightly pricked his heart. No fluttered thrush could ever rise More swiftly from the ground Than Cupid, sparkling with surprise, Sprang up, and gazed around. Before him stood a maid as tall As Venus, and as fair, Whose heart was playing rise-and-fall Beneath a stream of hair. She made such sweetness in the wood That even Cupid felt His pulses falter to the mood Of godship pleased to melt : His underlip was shaking, why He knew not ; and he wept. The arrow stolen from his thigh Had pricked him as he slept. 48 THE THEFT Had Celia leaned with all her weight Upon the shaft, this plan Had shown the dimpled god the fate His arrows bear to man : So girlishly she 'd held the boy Beneath the point of pain That soon, with sparkles of annoy, He sought his own again. He leaped, and with a sudden whirl Of arms took Celia's knee. Beginning thence to climb the girl As though she were a tree. His arms embraced her by the hips ; An elbow stabbed her side ; He barely failed her mouth with lips Cherried and deified. But though the god's impatient knees Were drumming on her breast, Not even then did Celia please To satisfy his quest. D 49 THE THEFT So, learning how his little strength Would never mend his loss, Adown the thief s delicious length Slid Cupid to the moss. Thereat began a parleying Between the god and girl About the theft of wood and wing From out the case of pearl. Till, swearing by his mother's heart Of honey, Cupid cried His willingness to aim the dart As Celia should decide. Then Celia, while the earliest speck Of radiant blushing came. Flung both her arms round Cupid's neck And whispered him a name. And when he promised they should be As fond as dove and dove She kissed the arrow charmingly And gave it back to Love. 50 T THE MASTERPIECE WAS blush of morning as I went Along the old grey road, Acknowledging the riches lent By heaven, the debt I owed. While there in thankfulness I said My bosom's genial prayers, A sturdy throstle overhead. As though a cheapjack calling wares, Cried, ' Lilac ! Lilac ! Lilac I ' And there, not many yards awa}^ A lovely lilac showed The girlishness of her array To me upon the road. At once assembled to depart A flock of petty cares, And, quicker than the thrush, my heart, As though a cheapjack calling wares, Cried, ' Lilac ! Lilac ! Lilac ! ' 51 THE MASTERPIECE 'Twas then I felt a perfect thrill Possess me while I strode, As eager as the thrush to trill, Along the old grey road : For though the bridal cherries bring Delight with neighbour pears, The top of magic comes when Spring, Made vocal by her fragrant wares, Cries ' Lilac ! Lilac ! Lilac ! * 52 THE GREAT BEECH WITH heart disposed to memory, let me stand Near this monarch and this minstrel of the land, Now that Dian leans so lovely from her car. Illusively brought near by seeming falsely far, In yon illustrious summit sways the tangled evening star. From trembling towers of greenery there heaves In glorious curves a precipice of leaves. Superbly rolls thy passionate voice along, Withstander of the tempest, grim and strong. When at the wind's imperative thou burstest into song. 53 THE GREAT BEECH Still must I love thy gentle music most, Utterly innocent of challenge or of boast, And playmate of the sun's adoring beam. Close kindred to thy softer tremblings seem The sighs of her I covet, when she kindles in a dream. Oft at thy branching altar have I knelt. Searched for the secret, and thy lesson spelt Before the athletes of the night had done Their starry toil and joyous beams had run To melt that ancient silversmith who loves the set of sun. When Spring was budding in my heart anew, Thy prayer for foliage soared into the blue. Within thy branches myriad children heard : Pale were their lips and fingers as they stirred And promised leafiness enough to tempt thy favourite bird. 54 THE GREAT BEECH Quick was the wonder to amaze my sight : Where stood the leafless suppHant towered a knight Green to the helm and touching lips with May ! Far on the hill the wheatstalks stopped from play To call across the valley love to leaves more fine than they. Then wert thou vocal, hospitable king ! Safe in thy heart the birds were glad to sing, For dove and stormcock to thy breast had come ; And at the perfect hour a moony foam And starlight fell upon the thrush that made thy bosom home. As gentle gatherer of the weary wing, Happy to quaff from the eternal spring That damps the. v/oodwren's feather-swollen breast, Thou lendest to my heart a deeper rest. Working with priceless balm a miracle for thy guest. 55 THE GREAT BEECH On thee, in green and sunshine greatly stoled, Thy kindred of the undulating wold Obeisance, as befits their stature, spend : Sweet is the embassy, with wind for friend, When lofty limes of Todenham Church their fragrant homage send. Rightly they worship. Rightly comes the maid To look for love beneath thy bounteous shade ; Rightly as these the village children haste, And with their sunburned fingers interlaced Fasten a living girdle round thy cool and stalwart waist. For games and grief thou hast an equal heart, Giving to all petitioners the needed part. Often I ask the shape of him who fled To drink of knowledge at the fountain-head : He pulses in the shadow as a fugitive from the dead. 56 THE GREAT BEECH Old noble of the county, once we twain Beneath thy roof discoursed of bliss and pain ; And, looking upward for the star Content, Laughed deep at soul to watch the sunbeams sent In coveys glittering all along the field of firma- ment. If ever the travelled spirit can return Where once in earthly bliss 'twas proud to burn In hard-won triumph over resolute clay, 'Tis here my friend shall fold his wings and stay To fill my unforgetting heart with tremulous holiday. The tryst is here. Brother, I shall not fail Whether in summer's ripeness, winter's hail. Come most in Autumn's sympathetic charms. When opal hazes touch the red-roofed farms. And in the night the beech-tree holds the red moon in his arms. 57 THE GREAT BEECH And tell me, Brother, if the shining plan Of resurrection chooses only man ; If every friend of plain and upland dies. For I would have this turreted tree arise To lord it over beeches in the forest of Paradise. Fast in the ample chamber of his bole There dwells, perchance, an unintelligible soul Destined to tower in some celestial wold, Where you and I, conversing as of old, May watch the Alps df Heaven become as mountains made of gold. Or bend to watch how cunningly the Earth Tangles our kin in webs of tears and mirth, And soils them even as they fly the stain ; And, seeing this, may find that Heaven is vain To keep earth-broken hearts from breaking in Heaven again Till shines the hour when Home is truly Home, 58 THE GREAT BEECH With all the brave and dear familiars come : Assembled ripely in the lustrous sheaf Of Love, and radiant in divine relief From Joy that used to spoil the earth by whispering to Grief. 59 THE COMPANION WINTER is here, And the music gone, But the bird in my breast Goes singing on. Often he sings In a sweet half-hour What is told in a year By star and flower. Wrinkled and grey By the touch of time, I am young if I lend My heart to rhyme. Stay, if you can, Little bird of blue. Till I get me to bed With dark and dew. 60 THE CRUMBS OFTEN I watch, when violets are in season, Maids in the hedgeside (watching is no treason ! ) Bending with palms of sunshine on their tresses. Held by the thorns curved fondly in their dresses. While there they seek in winter leaves and chill The flowers can make their bosoms sweeter still. Them do I often dare to follow, hoping Blooms have escaped for my less lovely groping ; Often discover in some dead-leaf chamber. Swathed all around by skeletons of amber Mouldered not yet entirely by decay, Blue flowers preserved from eyes more blue than they, 6i THE CRUMBS And thus along the lyric side of hedges Bounding Song's kingdom, past her fluent sedges, Slowly I tread the prints of noble Masters Singing the natural blisses and disasters ; Half sad, half happy, when my glances find How bare the country left by them behind. Hope will not sleep. It seems I needs must follow, Surely as frost and snow the exiled swallow. Hoping to see a vision in the rushes, Catch newer meanings in the hearts of thrushes, And reach a hand to beauty not yet torn From quick, or from the honeysuckle's horn. 62 THE REVIEW ONE Sabbath, just as eve was come, When musings all were sleepy-fair, Sunshiny Wakefulness ran home And left me dreaming in my chair. At once I searched among the flowers Of Heaven to find my mother's face : By beds of musk, in lilac bowers, And near laburnums' golden grace. I could not. Then I dreamed I woke With trouble aching in my brain, Till on my startled vision broke A sight to make me young again ; For radiant in the window-seat My mother sat with downward look Intently reading (how unmeet For eyes so fair !) my latest book. 63 THE REVIEW At last, when all the book was read, She gave a happy little nod, Drooped lower still her gracious head, Kissed it, and faded back to God. 64 THE HIDDEN WEALTH A DAM and Eve together stood -^^ Amid the crop they both were tending, While far away the feathery wood Of Eden in the wind was bending-. And Adam, feeling in his veins The better for his splendid tussle. Laughed at his body for its pains. And showed to Eve his hardening muscle. Fine was the bread his sweat had earned, Despite the fields of rock and thistle, While daily wounds and baulkings turned His olden softness into gristle. So, thinking deeply of the life Of chartered idleness and blisses, Sudden he seized his comely wife And took her mouth by storm with kisses. E 65 THE HIDDEN WEALTH ' Dear heart ! ' he cried, ' we fare the best When earth and labour roughly grapple. Who could have thought the only rest Worth having, centred in an apple ! ' 66 PAYMENT |\ /T ASTER of the orchard, ^^ ^ Pay me for the pears, Render for my cherries Star-delaying airs : Pouring from the apple Lyrical delight, Warm the cheek of Eveninsf, Touch the heart of Nieht ! Master of the orchard, Perching to rejoice, How the sweet of childhood Trembles in your voice ! Lo, the narrow garden Misty at my feet ! Here a camp of crocus, There a patch of wheat. 67 PAYMENT Master of the orchard, Sing for me again Blossoms of the homeland, Grasses in the lane : Sing my cottage cradle, Sing my mother's eyes. Sweeter than the dog-rose, Bluer than the skies. Master of the orchard, When again the Spring Teaches you her ballads. Gives the glossy wing, Flit among the branches. Pipe your jolly airs. Fluting thanks for cherries, Paying for the pears. 68 BEAN BLOSSOM GO you forward, if you will, Go you forward, if you can ; I am all for standing still, Here to love a lovely plan. Go you forward, if you will, Hopes of praise and lordship wreathing I stay here, to have my fill. Now the beanfield's breathing. If you linger, only sigh ; If you linger, only dream Heaven itself is floating by In a blossom-bearing stream. If you linger, only sigh Fancies of so fair a wreathing As can fitly take the sky Now the beanfield's breathincr. 69 TO A BEE COLUMBUS in velvet, This afternoon sunny How lyric your voyage To islands of honey ! To ports full of pollen, Deliciously looming, You fly ; and my garden's America blooming ! Campanula belfries In delicate duty Proclaim at your coming The sweet of their beaut)' : The pansies are wishing You momently nearer, And rosemary voices Call quicker and clearer. And sirens are singing From blossomy stations 70 TO A BEE Of larkspurs and lilies, Of musk and carnations. Till coming of candle The soul of your labours Is earnestly kissing These exquisite neighbours. The rose in her bounty Shall fondle and feed you Till friends in the cottage Of honeycomb need you ; And yet, if the morrow Fall fragrant and sunny, Shall have for unloading Fresh cargoes of honey. Columbus in velvet, Fly hurriedly over The blossoming bean-field, The red and white clover. To find in this garden, Deliciously looming, A mainland of honey, America blooming ! 71 CUPID'S ARROW ONCE I called him till he woke From his dreamy resting Underneath the giant oak Where he stayed his questing : Better had I flung my heart In the June-bright river Than have bared it for a dart Out of such a quiver ! Many years away have run Since the Archer shot me, Half in passion, half in fun, Wounded and forgot me. Safely now he falls asleep Where my hands could take him ; For the arrow went so deep That I dare not wake him. 72 THE MOWER'S VISION 'TT^HE dawn was cradled in the skies J- When from the hut beneath the hill The mower came and turned his eyes On sleepy grasslands by the mill. He whistled as he strode alonsr A shrill good-morrow to the lark That, linking earth to heaven with song, Shook from his breast the tuneless dark. ' Come, come,' said Richard to his scythe, ' What say you ? Shall we mow^ my lass ? ' And so in royal weather They swung as mates together In dewy deeps of fragrant grass. As Richard mowed, his father's corn Whispered and curtsied in his way ; There rose the farm where he was born. And one sweet bush of double-may. Once more, beside the ancient clock, He heard in rustic piety 7Z THE MOWER'S VISION His mother share with all her flock The old brown Bible on her knee. ' Come, come,' said Richard to his scythe, ' What say you ? Shall we rest, my lass ? And so in ruddy weather They sat them down together, And viewed long lanes of fallen grass. And, musing there beside his blade. The dreamer saw a flowery cot Where lived (ah ! wounds of love !) the maid That knew his hope, but loved him not. He watched her lips in wonder part ; His brother entered proud and blithe ; And as she kissed him, Richard's heart Fell in a tear upon his scythe. ' Come, come,' said Richard drearily, ' What say you ? Shall we mow, my lass ? ' And so in cloudy weather They swung and sighed together Along the graveyard of the grass. 74 TO CANTERBURY BELLS 1\ /T ANY blossoms to my breast -^ * -■■ Make a sweet appeal : Lily with the snowy crest, Solomon his seal. Glad am I in spring to learn All the violet tells ; But of all the coloured host You, fair friends, I love the most. Ringing bells, singing bells, Canterbury Bells ! Through the days of innocence Marvel was my food ; Then I stormed the angry fence Scowling round the wood : Not for daffodils I searched In the warmer dells, 75 TO CANTERBURY BELLS But I sought the wood-king bold In his helm of beaten gold, Gleaming bells, dreaming bells, Canterbury Bells ! When the forest made my heart Quiver in despair, Sad because its leafiest part Hid no warrior there, Mother taught me all the hedge. Took me to the fells, Filled my hands with deep delights — retailed monarchs, flowering knights- Swaying bells, playing bells, Canterbury Bells ! In her garden she would stroke Cage and cup of blue, While with joyful love she spoke. Homeland bells, of you. Even now her voice (it flows From remembered wells) 76 TO CANTERBURY BELLS Pours within my ears the praise Poured on you in happier days, Blowy bells, snowy bells, Canterbury Bells ! That was long ago. Her end Like a blossom shows. Never shall the Gardener tend Such another rose. God be thanked, her spotless soul In a heaven dwells Where her brow is cooled by trees And your kindred kiss her knees. Calling bells, falling bells, Canterbury Bells ! 77 THE OLD PIANO THE old piano must not go As rubbish to an upper-room, Where crippled sofas, tables, chairs With dust and spiders stand in gloom. Beautiful maids and lordly lads And grandsires grey together give A treasure to the instrument, A lavender that needs must live. To boys and girls the instrument Has stood for misery and fears ; And even now the ivory shows The smudges made of dirt and tears. While the lank spinster, full of starch, On knuckles rapped with frequent force, The children past the quavers looked To bears and Indians in the gorse. 78 THE OLD PIANO The lad of twenty made the tramp Of regiments pass along the keys ; He looked across the world and saw The blood of England stain the leas : Sudden the scarlet horsemen poured In thousands down the ivory lane, The flag in front, and shouting hurled The wild-eyed foe across the plain. The old piano knew the sweet Bewildering of the maid's unrest Before with tears and sighs she found An Eden on her mother's breast. 'Twas in a summerhouse of sound She trembled to the touch of bliss, And felt her heart of pearbloom take The arrow of her lover's kiss. The woman never blessed to bend Above a cradle sweetly filled Unrobed in melody the babes That flocked the keyboard as she willed Lullabies wooed to perfect sleep The children called from fairyland, 79 THE OLD PIANO As patiently she covered up The little chest, the little hand. At evenfall a bride has played A son or daughter on the notes, And stitched in cadences a stock Of pinafores and tiny coats ; Has in the treble set a maid, And in the alto put a boy, With evening pauses, lark-like trills, And octaves bursting out of joy. The old piano must not go As rubbish to an upper-room, Where crippled sofas, tables, chairs With dust and spiders stand in gloom Surely it joins of infancy And age the sleep-defended poles. This rosewood colony of shapes Too fragile even to be souls. 80 THE BARGAIN T COUNTED blisses, tortures, shames, A The sweet of birds, the sea, the sky. The spirit's clean and filthy flames, The right to live, the boon to die, And looking in God's face I vowed The bargain fair, and raised the load. But I am wiser now than then, Who bargained long before the spear Too pointed for the worst of men Laid low my mother on the bier. I looked again at God, and said, ' It was not fair.' God bowed His head. 8i N THE WORST IGHTLY, bereft of Mercy's beam, I dreamed the thrice-bewildering dream That shakes the turrets of my brain Beneath a tempest of disdain. At last the lamp of mercy burned : Away from wretchedness I turned, And in a Canaan of delight Found grapes and honey rush to sight. My bed a miracle confessed ! For in it breathed a girlish breast, And on my pillow blossomed fair The face that never can be there. ' Are you awake ? ' I said to her ; ' Are you awake, my Lavender ? ' But as I spoke, from dreamland's mesh The girl flew back again to flesh. 82 THE WORST Then loud I cried to Agony, ' Take not thy sport by maiming me ! Pierce with the thrice-bewildering dart, But never show that lovely heart ! ' 83 THE CHANGES JJ/ HA T bird, if you could be a bird. Would you desire to be ? Such was the questioning I heard Behind the tulip-tree, Where Nance and Meg and Jenny sat, All showing careless inches Of stocking to the hungry gnat, And chirped like fifty finches ! I thereupon began to think What changes best would suit : For Meg, who's plump, I chose a pink, To hop among the fruit. For freckled Jenny's birdlikc change, Because she 's never-resting, I picked the busy quakctail's range Of flirt and cheep and questing. 84 THE CHANGES Too hard the cherryfinch's peck For Nance to wear his shape ; Too red the robin's flooded neck, Too brown the titlark's nape. As feathering well the dearest third According to my fancy, A whitethroat seemed the only bird For whiter-throated Nancy ! 85 TO CHRISTOPHER BARELY have you made a start On the road that I have travelled Leagues and leagues toward the part Where its meaning is unravelled, Christopher, As I hold you, bathed and gowned, While your mother's happy face is Sign enough that you have found Here on earth a sweet oasis, I am thinking of that night When the Virgin was unable Otherwhere to ease her plight Than within a narrow stable ; When the startled oxen near Wondered at the strange declaring Of the beam, so more than clear, Jesu's little brow was wearing. 86 TO CHRISTOPHER On the birthday of the Lord, You, a rush of joy compelling, Came to bring the full accord Love allows where love is dwelling. Thus it is I think of Him On His Mother's bosom lying In a stable cold and dim, Hearing love, but not replying. Surely Joseph, kneeling there In the litter to caress Him, Must have pledged his heart to bear All it could to help and bless Him. Thinking this, I vow to stand Near your side when you are older. Just to steady with my hand Any cross upon your shoulder. Ah, I feel the man in me Almost woman while I press you Close against the soul to be Happy only if it bless you, Christopher ! 87 THE LOVER MUSES SHE must not think of me as less The servant of her loveliness Because she frowns when I eclipse An inch of beauty with my lips. Because within the barn I dared To kiss the hand her glove had bared, When she and I, being weather-bound, Were sitting deep in hay, she frowned. How deeper far had been the line On brows as fresh as eglantine If I had ventured to express An act of honied darincrness ! 't>' Some girls being quick to mellow ; some As gradual as the slowest plum, The gods instructed man to take A leap, or how with skill to ache. 88 THE LOVER MUSES I must not startle her with deeds To match the pulses of my needs, For she will never be so warm As those whom Love can take by storm. But I must ponder words and ways To colour charmingly her days, That often she may think how fair Her haunt would be if I were there. And next, when happy thoughts begin To spread a flush beneath her skin In silent praise of what I seem, 'Twere best to let her dream, and dream ; For many bees of dreaming know The trick of honey, and bestow. As nimble little gods, the cells Where Love, who 's fond of honey, dwells. 89 w A COUNSEL (to a friend) HEN Daphne's angel, shamming death, Is faithless, never twit In syllables of angry breath The child for want of wit. Reproach her in the cunning way Was shown for thee of old : If speech be silvern, wise men say That silence shall be gold. 'Tis best to lift that ornament Upon the mantelpiece, And note how metal, wisely bent. Can shape a faun of Greece. While praising in thy heart the curves Thou fondlest with thine eyes, Keep watch for Daphne's ebbing nerves And clover-coming sighs. 90 A COUNSEL Be patient. Thou at last shalt see Her bosom's ragged tide, Growing weaker by the strength of thee, In loveliness subside. She touches wistfully the faun, To tell that in her south Thy star is up. Accept the dawn. And drink it on her mouth ! 91 RENEWAL 'T^AKE notice, Cupid ! Far too long My heart has quivered at your song, A nd brooded, brooded on the curls And dimples of disastrous girls. The time has come to sit and see Bright youngsters, used as Love used me, All begging heartache for a load To drag along your hilly road. This I said yesterday, before Clarinda drove me to adore The little violet rivers in The lilied country of her skin, And bade her cherried underlip (Heart-wounding mischiefmaker !) slip To pathos, while her sea-blue eyes Swam in a mist of melted sighs. 92 WITH A ROSE TAKE it and wear it ! If it were half as sweet As the breast to bear it, Even for you, I could hardly spare it. Reigning, 'twill wonder Deep at your lake-like eyes ; At its image under Sparkles and mist ; And your heart's low thunder. Thus shall this rose's Home be an exquisite home, Where the Spring ne'er closes The snowdrop's life. And herself reposes. 93 WITH A ROSE Take it and wear it ! When it has kissed the heart I desire to bear it, Send it me back, That our breasts may share it. 94 AT VARLEY AS my sunny self went homing In the loveh'ness of gloaming Through the hedges looking over Little continents of clover, Nought to me was all the treasure Kings and Emperors can measure, Since the Child Beloved was waiting For my heart's tumultuous mating There at Varley. Near the honeysuckle's wreathing (Hardly sweeter is the breathing Of the Child Beloved) a wonder Took my heart with Cupid's thunder, And my veins were all a-filling With a kind of precious thrilling That compelled my lips to rushes Of a song as ripe as thrush's In the evening. 95 AT VARLEY Then I guessed her come from Varley By the field-path through the barley To the roadway's leafy turning, There with Love and froHc burning. How my arms went fire-fast round her When beside the thorn I found her In the old blue muslin waiting For my heart's tumultuous mating Close to Varley ! 96 THE SHAME T ^ THILE Love on him was playing » » In bounty from above, I heard a rich man saying He had no time for love ! Had not this shame been spoken Too oft by foolish men, I think God's heart had broken To hear it uttered then. To rise with love at morning. Go home with love at night, Is still the best adorning To keep the bosom bright. 97 THE LINK LABOUR past Hercules ! With golden broom The sun has swept the playmate stars to doom, And, glittering on my pillow like a gem, Has changed the glow of dream to daylight's gloom. I rouse, once more in bonds of callous clay. Too wildered yet to note how dull the day ; I turn, and for one lovely instant see The shape of her with whom all night I lay. Thanks, Tender Heart, that somewhere from the deep Of Space hast tossed a wonder into sleep, That sufferers of the daylight may rejoice Their dearest festivals in dreams to keep ! 98 THE LINK Against the bend of blueness overhead She flits who scattered Hlies in my bed ; Who bargained well with Wretchedness for me, And nightlong dared the Keeper of the Dead. How shall the Tulip with her glances bright Tempt me to bear the punishment of light, When such a radiance as can flood my soul Is poured magicianly by dreams at night ? And how shall Philomel, by song oppressed, At starfall seek to lure me from my rest, When haply, lost in slumber, I may hear Young Cupid harping in that clovered breast ? Out of the camp of spirits rush apace. Girl with the hands as soft as foam of lace ! Sound the low sob of rapture, and again Upon my pillow trust that flowering face ! Thou whisperest clearly. There is much to tell Of rainbows standing on the dark of Hell ; Of new-come travellers, hardly sure of bliss, And haunted by the tolling of a bell. 99 THE LINK And thou hast seen the jewels in the hilt Of Michael's sword ; and even heard the lilt Of countless angels turning to a beam The dockyard where the mighty stars are built. Look deeply in my eyes ere Morning scars The breathing East with all his crimson bars, That once again my heart may leap to know How poor is Heaven ! how rich my bed with stars ! Since live I must, I live unsoured and brave Till Time dig deep ; for Time's the digging slave. Fixed as the doorway to my dead, I know That somewhere in the background smiles the grave. Honour for ever to the King who saith The soul shall breathe in creatures made of breath ! But triple honour be for ever His Who by a stroke of genius thought of death ! lOO A SONG GIVE me to hold That lovely, lovely hand, Violet-veined and lily-white. Fairest in the land ! Give me to hold That lovely, lovely hand ; For Cupid, pouting, swears that he Lipped none so soft in Arcady. Give me to kiss That honied, honied mouth, Cupid-curved and tremulous. Spicier than the South ! Give me to kiss That honied, honied mouth, And I will count Apollo's joy. Had Daphne stumbled, but a toy ! lOI A SONG Give me to share That haunting, haunting breast Snow allied with lavender, Resting-place of Rest ! Give me to share That haunting, haunting breast, And I will laugh to think how Love Gave only crumbs of bliss to Jove. I02 THE BALANCE ONCE I was a wood lad A million years ago ; And once you were a woodgirl A million years ago. Though Memory wearies to unwind The darkling story from her mind, The words are few and stiff and slow, Because of trances in the grave. But yet she whispers, it was well (Very well — ah, very well !) When I was but a woodlad. And you were but a woodgirl, A million years ago. Dreaming in the woodland, I taste the Long Ago — The berries and the honey A million years ago. 103 THE BALANCE The air is quivering while you grace With scented grass our resting-place ; And knowing naught, I seem to know The bird I snared to bring a smile Upon our boy's enchanting face (Our little son's delicious face !) When I was but a woodlad, And you were but a woodgirl, A million years ago. Dimly in the woodland There come from Long Ago The shadows of my blisses A million years ago: Beneath a starry coverlet True love against my heart is set In flow of joy, and overflow Too lovely not to have its price. To-day we pay with lashes wet (Would God that only mine were wet !) For what we held as woodlad {Remevtber, Love /) and woodgirl A million years ago. 104 ^ 4 A COTTAGE MONARCHY WHY should he ask to share the fate Of those to noisier issues lent ? 'Tis work enough to legislate Where Love's the only Government. A cottage is the Council Room, Round which the finch and throstle sing ; No threats of war gigantic loom, Only one Subject calls him King. This Citizen so sweet and brown Can yet his very Empress be ; She speaks not seldom from the Throne, That simple throne his happy knee. And here no Opposition grows From dewy dawn to dewy dusk ; They pass a Bill to train the rose, And move Amendments for the musk. 105 4 A COTTAGE MONARCHY Where studious cowslips learn the field, And redstarts flutter in their nook ; Where reverence lives, and faith is pealed From village spires, they read the book Whose leaves Dame Nature loves to turn, From snowdrop preface to the notes ; Contented in a mass of fern, Or happy on a sheaf of oats. Here music's native to the hedge, And heavenly bounteousness of rills Croons undersong among the sedge, And cools the iiiant feet of hills. i=>' 'Tis good to see the lambs leap up With jerky legs, as if to try Their foreheads on the buttercup That blooms so fiercely in the sky ! And good it is on lawny slope To sit and watch the brooklet run Past orchards where the pippins hope To turn as golden as the sun. 1 06 A COTTAGE MONARCHY It curves in silver from the glade With primrose port and cressy cape, Delighting by its reach of shade And vagrant loveliness of shape. Ah, happy countryman ! How sweet To follow quiet, dwell with rest. And ever in your green retreat Be sure of wonder in the breast ! — And sure of her whose grace and tact, In Sessions well and wisely spent, Have helped to pass the finest Act Of Love's successful Government. 107 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE NOT thirty miles away from here In beauty dwells South Warwickshire, Her paradise of blossom lit By unseen angels, watching it. How well I know the feast is spread, Though I must be unbanqueted, By spirits of the workshop held To miss what never was excelled ! The country has a thousand brides To give to Phut-bus, where he rides Along his billowy moors of blue For all his destined girls to view. The orchards are the maids, so drest As for an unclasped maid is best, And in their girlishness they stand To feel the Sungod's stroking hand. By hillside and by stream, I swear No other maids are grouped so fair 1 08 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE As those that in my memory look Across the pages of the book That keeps me slave when I should shout For joy in freedom, till flew out The blackbird from his nook of rest Within the apple's fragrant breast. By hillside and by stream, I swear This book shall yield, and I be there, When twice again the moon has poured On trees the treasure of her lord ; To kiss the darkling lips of night. To pluck, as 'twere a flower, delight, And keep it on my pillow spread, That happy dreams may bless my bed ; For often, if too long I live Where ferny fountains never give The tinkle that in music slips From water's heart to water's lips ; Or if too long the troubled air Be laden with a load of care Not lightened by the song of nymphs That in the wood are mine to glimpse. My bed is crowded night and night With shapes of thirst and shapes of fright, 109 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE Till from its pillows I arise With ghosts of torture in my eyes, And slowly cleanse my darkened breast The farther I withdraw from rest By dawn and daffodil, I swear To sleep no more till I am there Among thine intimate controls, Thy clovery acres, bosoming knolls. Thy cowslip families in the vale That most allures the nightingale, (Who calls to Joy and Grief to hear Alternately) South Warwickshire ! Long, long ago there was a maid Of Love, the Hunter, sore afraid. Who quicklier ran the fiercer burned His passion, till at last she turned From girl to fountain, since she felt Within her heart no wish to melt And, clasped in sinewy arms, to lie And kiss the moon adown the sky. Along the glade she sudden poured The beauty by the god adored. I lo SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE In sparkles went her heavenly eyes, In rounded waves the bird-soft thighs ; A lift of water proved her breast Was flowing with the lovely rest, That made the very mosses sure 'Twas freshness other than the pure Salute of rainclouds from the hill Descending in a darling rill. Methinks the stream that most of all Can soothe me by its waterfall. In days that saw a multitude Of gods and girls at lovely feud When England's Arcady shone clear Among thy lanes, South Warwickshire, Was born of some divine escape From human to the streamlet's shape. So winningly it moves along Its little to a larger song I needs must think a maid as fair As Arethusa passes there ; For neither cloud nor spring could give The quality is there to live As wonder bidding fancy view The curve of shoulder breaking through 1 1 1 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE The water, or the foamy fleck Where peeps the girl's unconquered neck. My refuge this, when I can throw The world away, and happy go To share with bloom and nightingale This shadow of a heavenly vale, Where flesh to spirit seems to turn While senses holier move, and burn To pierce the zenith, that at last The face of Him who rules the Vast Shall smile a comrade's smile, and be A beckoning to Eternity. My refuge this, when heart and brain Too fiercely hold the city's pain, And need to taste the natural good In streamlets stored and in the wood, As honey in the comb, for man To gather, if he will, or can. Beholding, as I peaceful lie. The bluebells weave their lowly sky. As if to signal to the land Where radiant kinsfolk seem to stand, I feel prepared again to lean I 12 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE Above my task, though I have been But briefly happy for an hour 'Twixt easeful and laborious flower ; So quickly can thy sweet and strange The downward-looking spirit change From sloth of heart, or thrills of fear, Or tottering faith, South Warwickshire ! If as a ghost I may return To what I lovingly discern, I will not seek a narrow range Within a lone and memoried grange, But widely will I ever go Beneath the orchard's lifted snow, That, by the branches dimly felt, Meseems too fairy-frail to melt. Under the apple will I lie And watch again the threads of sky To patterns unfamiliar twined By spirits weaving in the wind. However softly they may weave, The steadfast shape they cannot give, For though the air be still as death The apple trembles, taking breath ; H 113 SOUTH WARWICKSHIRE Or else she gently laughs to hear A frolic whispered by the pear ; Or shrinks a little to let by Some evil, chilling to the sky. Howe'er it be, the pattern breaks, Come larger pools and smaller lakes, Then larger lakes and smaller pools To him who face and spirit cools Beneath the apple, hardly sure If he her beauty can endure. Be 't mine to have good share of this Delicious painfulness of bliss (Unsure of ancestry) that gleams With magic stolen from extremes ; Read wonders as I could not read When I was flesh and blood indeed ; List flower-folk chant along the lane To clouds the prayer that brings the rain ; See in the oak a spirit shine With radiance little less than mine ; And many a voice of Godship hear Delightedly, South Warwickshire ! 114 THE FRECKLES TO others leave The cunning care of speckles ; Why should'st thou grieve To have a hundred freckles ? They suit so well, Twere sad indeed to miss them, Or not to tell The number as I kiss them. If Beauty fails Her charms and traps to vary Herself she stales, And loses the unwary. The golden flakes, By thee denounced as stupid. Enhance the lakes Where swims a childlike Cupid. 115 THE FRECKLES From white to white's A journey less entrancing Than one whose lights With various tints are glancing. Be sure this nest Of freckles for my praising But gives thy breast A clearness more amazing ! ii6 UNMELTED ASK me not, Friend, to ramble from the books Sounding with birds and freshets of the Spring ; For all along the landscape show the signs Of Winter's playmate roaring in the pines, And Frost, his wand uplifted, darkly stills The river deep in dreams of June-bright mills. Not yet the snow is melted on the hills. So with the maid whom most of all I need. Lovely in ignorance, she calmly views The torrents in my eyes and thinks them pools Where Simpleness her brow in lustre cools. There's waiting to be done, my heart, ere fills Her frost-bound breast with discomposing thrills ! Not yet the snow is melted on the hills. 117 BELLS OF DUMBLETON SO frankly had the cowslips come To make the hill a bower, *Twas hard in stepping not to tread To death a lovely flower. As deep I drank the sweetened air, And joyed to be alone. With broad and honest counsel rang The bells of Dumbleton. Trtist — in — Love ! Lean — on — Ch^'ist J Come — to — God, Friend J The candid throats of Dumbleton, Alike in energy, Across the miles of meadowland Together called to me. Devoted long ago to Christ, They labour and beseech, Il8 BELLS OF DUMBLETON Persuading by their mellowness As far as they can reach. Trust — in — Love ! Lean — on — Christ ! Co me — to — God, Friend ! Methought that as I lingered there, Beside the green-grey fence, The stainless lips of Dumbleton Bemoaned my negligence ; For louder still across the shire The belfry sounded clear A collect for my lazy heart And sleeping soul to hear. Trust — in — Love ! Lean — on — Christ ! Come — to — Gody Friend ! 119 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS IN the days when Rome was hungry, and, as robber of the world. Sent her legions on a bloody quest of false and sullied glory, She debased the famished residents that dreamed of blood at home By a pageantry of plunder when her Arms returned from thieving. So along the noble causeways tramped the stalwarts of the sword. With a criss-cross patterning of scars upon their necks and faces ; And among them and behind them limped in chains the conquered braves Who had shouted hymns of homeland as they rushed against the legions. W^hile the gods allowed a cataract of sunshine to be poured On the devilry of mischief that had issued from the human, 1 20 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS The procession of destroyers, with the spoil of broken hearts, Made a blot upon the universe that blemishes for ever. Was it little, thus to hector in a land beyond their right ? Was it little, thus to shame the skies by bludgeoning the weaker ? But the sequel ! For the mob was there in coarsely candid throngs To deride the fettered nobles and to spit at stained princesses. When I turn the page of Livy and historians such as he My indignant veins seem bursting with a rapid flood of horror, Till I weary for an interval of swords consigned to rust, And for visitings, however brief, of graciousness in triumph. Ah, LucuUus, if a flaming Judge shall ever cry to you 121 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS For a plea imperative enough to quarter condemnation, Humbly whisper how, confusedly, you tried to clear your soul When you brought the cordial Cherry home to Italy from Pontus ! It is told how thoroughly you marched, how ruthlessly you broke Mithridates to your pleasure on the wheel of degradation. Till at last you gave the signal for the cloverfields of home To the rearing drove of stallions, to the flock of stolen virgins. But the forefront of your Triumph, when the mob came out to stare And to smear a kennel-Latin on the broken herd from Asia, Was a Cherry-tree, ennobled to the leadership, and brought To prevail more gloriously at Rome than Rome had done in Pontus. 122 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS As an image from a temple, so the Cherry moved in state Through the causeways of a city to be vanquished by her fairness, While Lucullus from his chariot leaned to swear to radiant friends That the Cherry was the loveliest prize of all his lovely prizes. 'Twas a flowering of his bosom, 'twas a waking of disgust At the Eagle with a victim's life for ever in its talons ; So I praise him to my comrades when the white- heart in July Bids me think of how Lucullus brought his leafy spoil from Pontus. As you thumb old England's folio, scarce a leaf zv ill fail to bear At its foot the flaming signatures of Daring and of Glory. You will hear the Saxon fighter hoarsely panting near the Sphinx, i2-\ THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS And his cousins looting idols from the Orient pagodas. They devour the foreign hillsides^ in despite of wasps of lead, As they chew the hard tobacco, as they hum to absent darlings, Grinning widely at the vinegar d expression worn by Death, Till the bayonet jaj's the breastbone of the plundered Little Peoples. So they tell me. But the signatures I find upon the leaf Rarely thrill me with the noble touch that means authentic thrilling, For I seem to glance a postscript that reveals a wavering doubt In the heart of the magicians who have signed the coloured pages. What the seed that grows for Nations many harvestfields of loss, Ask of Glory, ask of Daring (since they muse awhile unbloodied) 124 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS They will whisper that the active seed of Feeble- ness is Force, As they shed a tear for Empires long ago reduced to Dustbins. See the nations falsely bowing when they hear the name of Christ In the sanctified cathedrals where the hypocrites are seeming To be raimented in whiteness from the Testament of Love, While the shot-torn standards on the walls denounce the Christ they worship. Ah, Lucullus, there was stirring misty trouble in your mind When you gave the sword the background, when you dignified the Cherry ; But the Nations have forgotten this, and gospel- lings of renown. And are flaunting in their open palms the Thirty Silver Pieces. 125 THE CHERRY OF LUCULLUS Little Fatherland of Britons, it were well for us to search In the pages of our History with diligence and longing, Not to boast about the graveyards we have filled across the seas, Not to count the women widowed, nor the babies we have orphaned, But in hope to find a tree of grace show green within the Book, And to hear the warbling of a bird arisen from noble nesting, That the generations yet to come shall find amid our stains Such a signal of repentance as the Cherry of Lucullus. 126 JEREMY JOY (In the Cleveland district of Yorkshire the mistlethrush is so called.) RED Winter, with a sigh and shrug, First listens to the sound. And then begins to roll the rug Of fairy lambswool from the ground, The Spirit of Flowers along the sky With far-away plumes is winging. And, full of faith, on a tree close by, Sir Jeremy Joy is singing. Ah, once again the sweet surprise Of what is old, yet new ! — The crocus lifting to the skies His dew-glass wet with radiant dew. My body a nest of pulses seems, Like meadow-born Iambs a-springing, And into my heart flock purple dreams, , For Jeremy Joy is singing. 12/ JEREMY JOY The year-long wanderers from ray breast Come lovely home to me, With pale-green palms together pressed, As if they begged for charity. The woodland whispers of the foam Of flowers alert for bringing The snow-bound bee from his honeycomb, For Jeremy Joy is singing. Who comes from Cleveland, he will know The bonny bird I mean. And in his breast may cheerier go His heart for some thrice-happy scene : Perchance he went by prosperous farms And bells of rivulets ringing, To bend his neck for young love's arms When Jeremy Joy was singing ! 128 NOT TO BE WON TIS said there flashes in her wit A starry glow That lights a thought, and keeps it lit As folly's foe. It may be so ; I only know Her silences are exquisite. 'Tis said she easily commands, As to and fro She moves among adoring bands, Desire to grow. It may be so ; I only know She makes a heaven where she stands. Tis said that early in the year My Love will go I 129 NOT TO BE WON A world away, with all that's dear In overflow. It may be so ; I only know She breaks my heart by staying here. 130 FAIR FORTUNE WHERE merchantman with merchant meets, To bandy terms of more and less, Came Laura through the London streets In earth-dehghting heavenHness. The sun, by her compelled to shine, Made up a posy of his heat. And bared his face. She wanted mine. And searched for me along the street. At last she flushed the selfsame pink I 'd kissed her to, twelve hours ago, And halted, giddy on the brink Of joy her bosom ached to know. And as with gradual warmth she thrilled. And Love half-listened to Desire, She pressed against my side and filled My every vein with happy fire. 131 FAIR FORTUNE Then, while I watched this girl adorn The street, as swans adorn a lake, I thanked Apollo I was born A minstrel for her lovely sake. 132 THE LOVER TO HIS DEAD MISTRESS NIGHT after night, Eurydice, I tremble at thy homing To pillows long deserted, with lips and hands forbidden : I cannot bear the agonies that scorch me at thy coming With so little beauty showing, with so much of beauty hidden ! To hear thee breathing by the bed, to feel thy fingers stroking The nest thy body sweetened once, is peril near to madness. Sleep in thy grave, Eurydice, by memories invoking. Nor work so bitterly to give a double-edge to sadness. THE LOVER TO HIS DEAD MISTRESS Have I not bought the sullen ground that waits for me above thee, In promise of the summer when they bring to thee my starkness ? Keep in thy grave, Eurydice, remembering how I love thee, Nor break me on the wheel at night by breathing in the darkness ! 134 TO THE IDEAL ' 'T^/S a long lane that has no turning. True. How long the lane that somewhere turns to you ! Between the hedge of hopes, the hedge of fears, My feet have walked for more than twenty years, But still the road runs straight, and still I see Its narrowing line grow small in front of me. Sometimes I meet a pilgrim coming back With craven heart along the noble track. I never ask how far ahead he quailed ; For he and I grew foemen when he failed. Onward I move, with this to cheer my mind : No one as yet has passed me from behind. 135 TO THE IDEAL I must not sit beside a lulling stream Unless it flows toward my dearest dream. I must not w^ince, when going past the farms, If Colin hold his milkmaid in his arms. The perfect eyes are those that cannot shine Their best till fed confusedly by mine. Suppose I live three heartbeats in their sight Before they melt to light concealed by light ; Shall those not seem three ages of desire So paid as Love can never pay with fire ? ' Tis a long lane that has no turning. True. How long the lane that somewhere turns to you ! 136 THE WANDERER WHICH way soever you present Your lovely self, in any spot, You bring to me delightedness ; as when you lean Against the bare and disciplined apricot, To smile it into buds ; and tell how in the year That last we spent in flying round the sun It bore so large and prosperous a family — No fewer than seventy-three ! — And voice a hope that in the coming prime Of apricots the bounteousness of that time Will be repeated for your friends and you In days renowned for gold and white and blue. To see you in the early April light, Affectionate to all the plants that make The garden's general bliss. And kneeling down to kiss The crown imperial's baby height, 137 THE WANDERER Or whispering incantations to a blossom still Kept prisoner by a leisure-loving daffodil, Is of itself a garden such as might provoke A god to bite his underlip beneath an Olympian oak. Or when you run, As Atalanta knew not how, On hearing that a nightingale Upon the bridal hawthorn's quivering bough. Tired of the fast of stillness, drowning the voice Of Prudence, though aware of you and me, Conveys his heart to song with reckless bravery ; Believing that the very moon's a bird Desirous to be heard, And venturing wife and eggs to fling into the sky The first and loudest word. The moon is silent, and the nightingale wins ; But more I gain than ever he can gain. For I can watch you, lovely as you are, Grow lovelier in the rain Of ecstasies ; Till, using flesh and blood and tune And secrets far too old to be ancestral lore, Methinks Creation, as fondling a delicate leaf, 138 THE WANDERER Re-touches you : That curve of lip was never so before ; And never was the whiteness of your face so warm ; And never did your far-come eyes outpour Such streams of worship ; never with so wild a grace Your tidal heart thus beat upon the loosening cliffs of lace. Or when at evenfall you sit And share yourself with ivory notes, Till sound is edged as sharply as a sword, And cleaves my bosom for a spirit that floats Out of a ravished heaven — a Shape to flit Among my griefs and bid them learn of it What you are then no language may reveal ; Words blunder down like jointless gods Along the old-fashioned footpaths of the world, And lie in the dust of failure, past accord. How then shall you be measured, if earthly joys And heaven and angels prove as weak as toys To serve for measures ? You seem to be escaping while you stay 139 THE WANDERER Contented here ; You move within a shroud Of guardian cloud, Yet shine more brightly than a day Supremely clear ; Your movements as you breathe away the hours Among the attendant flowers Inform the butterflies in motion there How best to weave in the fine silk of the air A pattern never copied otherwhere, And make me sorrow for the poets whose song. For lack of revelation such as mine, Bore but a poverty of Nymphs and Naiads along. Which way soever you present Your lovely self, you bring to me A blessedness innocent of fire. 'Tis not for maids like you that Orpheus sounds His heart upon a lyre. Ten thousand lilied queens have died to make you such As Purity almost doubts to be her child ; Till now, too fine to be desired. And but to be admired 140 THE WANDERER As loveliness conquering loveliness ; Unmeet for earth, unmeet for Heaven ; Mysteriously far from marriage-bed And cradle here, from holidays and fragrances In Paradise, You cause me wonder how you chance to be A contradiction of mortality Disguised as mortal, showing earth-sweet eyes, And lifting up a delicate earth-sweet head. Yet seeming to prove by unexplainable signs, Not wittingly given, That when you travel away you will not pause Till you can fold your wings at last in a heaven beyond our Heaven. Refreshment comes whenever I can be A watcher of your strong fragility. Without a pang of sense to urge My spirit to decline from spirit to flesh ; Amazed to see you give to common things Of everyday life the gift of wings. You walk as if about to rise Above the earth and swim the skies. By many lovely signallings we guess 141 THE WANDERER How you, a fragile wanderer, came Faring most leisurely along a wilderness With stars for gold oases, Through silvermist continents freaked with flowers Of comets blooming as they fly ; Till here at last, made weary by the foam Of nebula, you chose a home. Consenting to be pressed Against a mother's breast, And growing, befriended by the magic and the mild, A hallowed child, Searching for absent flowers upon the height, And wondering at the tinge of darkness in our light. My hearthstone could not bear your tread ; 'Twould crumble 'neath the lightness; and my house Would burn to ashes in your purity. I will not ask the God beyond our God Who let you go to gather dreams Among immensities, 142 THE WANDERER And dignify this fair but feverish earth Upon your knees, To touch you with the warmness of mankind, That fixes at the cradle-point the Pole of Love And makes the heart perceive, the eyes become as blind ; For all the air around you seems to beat With news of Passion's irretrievable defeat. You stand for wisdom hidden from the wise ; For flashings in the dark ; for such a mirth As still demands an altar in the eyes ; And heavens more lucid than the heaven we prize. All who have known you shall proclaim The beauty of your sojourning here ; Your style and name Shall be the food of Legend, and in ages yet to fall The children shall be told how once there came, Out of a heaven lovelier than the heaven commonly preached As the soul's abiding-place, A wanderer lit by a grace That was then for the first time reached. At the velvety end of day 143 THE WANDERER In many a girl's soft eyes Your memoried star shall arise ; And much that was lost to the home from which you strayed Shall evermore blossom with fragrant appeal and delight In the humbly beautiful gardens of beautiful souls. 144 THE PUZZLED THRUSH FOR sure there's something in my bones to-day That makes my body restless as a breeze, And drives me, whimsical, from spray to spray In search of what is never in the trees. The rosy goodwife's bunching snowdrops took Me steadily by charm a fortnight since, But now the garden is a fevered nook — So mused Sir Feathery Fullthroat on the quince. I asked the cocksure Robin if he knew The kind of ailment bubbling in my breast. He flung his noddle backward, eyed the blue, And puffed the scarlet jersey on his chest : ' My precious hobbledehoy ' quoth he, ' 'tis March ! Expect a pang, for Love is in the air.' On this he chased Robina to a larch — So imiscd Sir Feathery Fullthroat in the pear. K 145 THE PUZZLED THRUSH 'Tis true I 've wanted very much all day To know where Nancy Nonesuch has removed, And why she 's changed her January way Of suffering me beside her unreproved. Ah ! There she stands in sunshine at the brink Of yonder thread of stream, with eyes more bright Than water's self ! The dear ! I think — I think (So Dtuscd Sir Feathery Fullthroai) Robin's right ! 146 TO MY MOTHER THE more I live, the more I look Amazedly behind, x-\stonished by the pains you took To help my early mind ; Astonished by the bitter-sweet Insistence of the dart With which you fought me, to defeat Old mischiefs in my heart ; Astonished by the load of smiles, Of prayers, of secret tears, You must have dropped along the miles That led to Twenty Years ; Astonished by the radiant truth My inward sight can see — That you would give your angel-youth To fall from heaven for me. 147 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS ACROSS the window ropes of nuts, Unshelled and threaded on a Hne, In darkling days of frozen ruts Bring birds to breakfast and to dine. From ivy cottages the tit — A sudden puff of feathered bHss, A pouncing joy of green and blue That even men may long to kiss — The dewfall's lightness in his flit, Comes with a hope of seeds to you. I think when God, the robin's friend. Put winter sunset on his breast And Christmas carols in his throat, He sent for man a tuneful test To try his gentleness by note And marvel of the perfect coat. And God, who gave to us the throng Of birds to pipe the Spring along, 148 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS And from His starry magic bent To dower with wings and heart and voice The creatures that in grace can match The snowflake's exquisite descent, In glory watching shall rejoice When in your garden's narrow patch From Hunger's claw His birds you snatch And send them bedward well content. Tits, robins, sparrows, starlings, all Fly down to food from branch and wall. And in a cricle ringed by wire They chirp and chime, a happy quire ! The metal saviour link by link Makes black Grimalkin pause and blink Dissatisfaction, while the tits Return to boughs, forsake the bits. O lucky plan to baulk the greed Of tigers of a smaller breed ! The portly chaffinch, safely fenced, Perceives the danger, stealthy, dumb, But hopping till the crisis, pecks (What faith in wire !) the final crumb. Grimalkin springs ; the chaffinch, fled, 149 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS Derides his foe from overhead ; Satiric chirps, ironic twits In chorus with the saucy tits. No bosomful of thanks and praise Can e'er be set in chiming words Too prettily for him who thinks Of Christmas-boxes for the birds. And God, who gave the birdfolk song To draw the feet of Spring along The lovely avenue of birth, And dowered with heart and wing and voice The creatures that in softness match The lips of snow when kissing earth, From glory gazing shall rejoice That in your garden's narrow patch Of Bounty's door you lift the latch, And light at Pity's lamp your mirth. But what is here ? Can fairy fruits Be children borne by apple-roots ? Upon a homely English tree There swings a tropic nut ; and see The titmouse stabbing safe and calm The darling of the coco-palm ! 150 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS Among the ivy, partly cut That beaks may have the foreign food, Is set a milkwhite bowl of nut For birdlings in a nutty mood. The bluetit in the cavern goes And digs the kernel ; pretty throes Of all that's visible — his tail — Are witnesses that it is well Within the tawny dome of shell. A soft-foot maid might capture there The tit delighted by his fare, If she but stole, yet hardly stirred, To close this Canaan of the bird ! The news is out ! The news is out ! From city orchards round about Come haggard starlings, robins red, And birds with blue upon the head. The nut between the branches clings ; From many an apple-bough there swings A netted bag that kindness fills For anxious crops and horny bills. 'Tis here, removed from fright and foes, The chaffinch Aldermanic grows ! 151 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS The bullfinch wins a comely round From coco-nut and suet found Where man's a friend, where boys are meek, Where Paradise is at his beak ! What wonder if the birds all come From cousin pear, from neighbour plum ? What wonder if your ivies hold Bully, virago, heart of gold — Bill Sikes, Xanthippe, poor Tom Pinch, Portrayed by starling, robin, finch ! Before the pane the titmouse cuts The unclasped necklaces of nuts. Or perched attentive on a tree Lets drop staccato notes of glee When in your hand you bring the bowl In which you stir the wonted dole. O proper spending of your pence ! O bounty bearing fresh delight ! May Orpheus and Apollo bring Enchanted flutes for you in Spring ! And may the cole-tit line a shell With mattress for his promised young, That in your mothering apple-boughs 152 TO A LOVER OF BIRDS A nest of melodies be swung ! A plot of bird-delighted lawn Shall make you happiness enough, With chaffinch matins at the dawn And dewfall on the sparrow's ruff. So shall your winter care be paid By thrushes warbling unafraid, And bounty ere the time of trills Be given back by honest birds In music pouring from their bills. Moreover, God, who gave the throng Of birds to pipe the Spring along. And from a bridge of rainbow bent To dower with heart and wing and voice The creatures that in grace can match The snowflake's exquisite descent, From glory gazing shall rejoice When in your garden's narrow patch, Lifting of Bounty's door the latch, From Hunger's claw His birds you snatch, And send all bedward, well content. • DO TRUTH IN SILENCE I HAVE made you a song, my dear, Because I love you ; Because there is nobody here In the world above you : It is only a simple song Of a heart's deep pining To have the hidden revealed By a constant shining. But a shadow of truth, m}' dear, Is seen when I find you Suddenly turned to me here As I step behind you : Though the lips have never a word. Thank Love for the token Unwarily kept ! It is more Than a silence broken. 154 TO A BLACKBIRD DEEP in the lilac, Pulsing with tune, Richly you warble Promise of June. Brother, you call me Out to the Spring, Even as Blondel Called to the King. Blondel sang England, Dear and desired ; Blondel sang England, Leafily shired. Then was the prison Broken by words Smelling of cowslips, Flashing with birds ! 155 TO A BLACKBIRD Now, as I labour, Weary for play, England you carol, England in May. Seems it that Blondel, Vanquishing death. Lives in your bosom, Sings with your breath. Here at my window- Surely you sing Double the sweetness Heard by the King : Deep in the lilac. Merrily met, Blackbird and Blondel Sing a duet ! 156 THE SHEPHERD'S SONG MARRY me, marry me, Nancy ! Come, settle you down and be cheery ! Too long have you kept me aching, Too long have you held me weary. Since there 's not on the moorland a shepherd To love you so heartily, Deary, Marry me, marry me, marry me, Settle you down and be cheery ! Marry me, marry me, Nancy ! Let 's settle us down and be double ! 'Tis time we were Christianly handfast And out of this starving trouble. Since you mope for no handsomer shepherd To burn with a kissing, my Deary, Sign to the long-tailed parson, Settle you down and be cheery ! 157 THE SHEPHERD'S SONG See in my grandmother's teapot Ten metal-made buttercups blowing ! So long as I 've loved 3'ou, Nancy, So long have these flowers been growing. Since there 's not in the valley a shepherd Can keep you so feather-fine, Deary, Make me your man at the altar, Settle you down and be cheery ! 158 ' TO BLUE CAMPANULAS WE will not speak, and yet shall go Between us, blue campanulas, A hundred thoughts as white as snow On mountains till the time of glow Compels it thunderously to flow To valleys, blue campanulas. We have, it seems, the self-same whim To move us, blue campanulas, As in this corner cool and dim We watch the sun's departing rim And listen to the evening hymn Of thrushes, blue campanulas. For quietness is what I ask Of Bounty, blue campanulas, When labour gives me leave to bask And wonder, wonder if a task As noiseless waits behind the mask Of Life Renewed, campanulas. 159 TO BLUE CAMPANULAS Our duty shines to us as clear As Sirius, blue campanulas : 'Tis best while we are dwelling here Betwixt the cradle and the bier To bloom as if the Love were near That sent us, blue campanulas. However humble we may seem, Or world-forgot, campanulas. Above us there is One to deem We add a brightness to the beam Of love, and help the wondrous scheme A little, blue campanulas. Though some may think that I should start Away from you, campanulas, To urge with them a noisier part In dust and shoutings of the mart, The Angel of the Quiet Heart Prevents me, blue campanulas. He gives me errands, that my feet Go sorrowward, campanulas. And shows me in my lonely seat 1 60 TO BLUE CAMPANULAS The way to add the taste of sweet To bitter bread the sufferers eat In bitterer tears, campanulas. So you and I will here remain As gossips, blue campanulas, To brighten those who come in pain To look for sunbeams after rain. Till we are wanted once again Where Love belongs, campanulas. i6i SPION KOP FIVE minutes more, O Honey of my heart, Although it be the cradle-hour, And sleep be growing like a flower From out the nursery floor ! Five minutes more, To feel the agony of tenderness Shake all the spires and belfries of my soul ! The very ropes are singing ; the very stones are ringing As I tremble at thy brightness, as I flutter at thy mouth, And ache with fearful happiness. Star of my bosom's south ! Five minutes more, O Honey of my heart, Although it be the cradle-hour, And petals from the sleeping-flower Begin to strew the floor ! Five minutes more, 162 SPION KOP To clasp a kingdom in thy slenderness, Warming by thee thy father in his grave. Not wholly have they slain him ; thy borrowings contain him, For I stroke him on thy forehead, from thy lips his lips come forth, Thou wound and cure together ! Thou rainbow of my north ! 163 THE ROBIN BIRD of the scarlet breast, Whose genius is not hidden, But, though by Winter chidden. Preserves a glorious zest, Could I but sing as thou Upon my heart's bare bough ! Could I, when storms of grief Have buffeted and shaken, Be never so forsaken But that of song the leaf, The bud, the flower, should dress My other nakedness ! Could I from youth to age Remember to enclose thee, And all thy wisdom shows me, Within my bosom's cage. Keeping as balm for smart A redbreast in my heart ! 164 GRATITUDE TAKE hold, my bird, of the cherry bough And lift thy throat to the sun, For the rainbow month is with us now, And thy building has begun. Sing in the cherry the darling breast Of the mate shall warm thy chicks When the moonlight kisses and cuddles the nest In the thorn by the two tall ricks. I love to hear thee carry the song Three octaves up at a time, For it helps my wearying heart along Better than reason or rhyme. Firm be thy faith that a sweeter wife In a bush has never sat With her ears alert for the chirrup of life, And her eyes for the farmyard cat. 165 GRATITUDE Of maids I wish thee only a pair In sky-blue cabinets furled, But of sons be thine a handsomer share, To mellow with song the world ! And what if the active family beak Both cherry and strawberry take ? No miserly word will I ever speak, For this beautiful ballad's sake ! 1 66 THE WELCOME UPON his couch, with body spoiled, Year after year the sick man lay, And, forcing Courage onward, toiled To help the helpers of his way. If Mercy passed the simple cot, Or Anguish entered by surprise, Within his heart he kept a grot For Cheerfulness, and lifted eyes That never ceased to offer Pain A battleground (Ah, sacred room, For those who loved him you remain A temple sweet with holy bloom !) At heart of night in middle May, Soundless as if on moss he stepped, The powerful Reaper thrust his way Past all who knelt and prayed and wept. 167 THE WELCOME From glazing eyes a welcome sped Was lovelier than the loveliest star, As brokenly the sufferer said, ' Why, Friend, how — very late — you are ! 1 68 THE CHILD ASLEEP LILYBABE, you want to go To a world away from mother Where the velvet waters flow Soundlessly to one another Through enchanted Faraway. Evening eyelids, evening breast, Tell me you must wander west In a maze of mystery, While, methinks, your lips confess Neither breath nor breathlessness, Lilybabe. Glad were I to see you go, Lilybabe, upon this travel, Could the water noisier flow Over beds of ruby gravel In the streams of Faraway. But heartbreakingly you lie 169 THE CHILD ASLEEP Past the power to move or sigh, Till my very spirit bleeds From the fear that Wonder's foam Never more will drift you home, Lilybabe. I7C THE REFUGE HOME again to Birdlip ! Cries the heart, the heart Aching in the thunder Of the gloomy mart — Home again to Birdlip And the quivering breast Honeyful, honeyful In the west. Home again to Birdlip And the golden musk Breathing at the window In the dewy dusk — Home again to Birdlip And the pulsing night Bosomful, bosomful Of delight ! 171 THE LOVER SPEAKS I HEAR her bringing, while I pass Behind the cedar on the grass, The music of her feet. How charmingly Diana's pace Suits Warwickshire ! and how her face (Unmatched in heaven) is sweet ! I watch her as she gives the day A reason for its pulse ; and stay In hope to see the birth Of Love's miraculous unrest, To melt for me that snowbound breast Of living sky and earth, I shall not yet be blessed to hold In shaking palms those locks of gold That lamp her in the day, And, dimmed by starfall, in her bed Prevent a darkness, richly spread In perfect disarray. 172 THE LOVER SPEAKS 'Tis only when in slumber gleam The false but brilliant lights of dream, When shadowy pulses stir, That I in flimsy godship take The lips to beggar kings and make The round world fall to her. Ah, never-equalled shadow, change To substance ! Finely range, And give me (since I stood So long in faith to ghostly charms) This girl to falter in my arms And tingle in my blood. If dreams come true, this cedar'd lawn Shall be a kingdom in the dawn Of Love's bewildered mirth : The world shall have a heavenly gleam. While heaven itself shall droop, and seem A paler sort of earth ! i7S THE APPEAL IF you had been in Birdsey Wood Last Wednesday afternoon, Where, frocked in muslin, once you stood As April breathing June, You might have thought that near the glade Beyond the Druids' stone You heard Pan trolling in the shade His vigorous baritone. For there I lay along the moss And sang to ancient skies A ballad heavy with the loss I suffer when your eyes Reveal to lads in other shires Blue limpidness, and teach Their heart the burden of desires That run away from speech. 174 THE APPEAL Ah, come, my dear ! The baby oak We measured by your length Is waiting for your hands to stroke His bark and thrill his strength. Come, with a sob, to find the place Where long ago you stood, And fill my arms with pulsing grace Once more in Birdsey Wood ! 175 WEARY HEART AND WEARY HEAD TO Weary Heart cried weary Head, ' Sweeter the day if I were dead, For I have called farewell to Christ, And every joy is over-priced : Each precious and inspiring friend Already knows the graveyard end, And round me bitterness is shed,' To Weary Heart cried Weary Head. To Weary Head cried Weary Heart, ' He made the balm who made the smart. Though sundered ever from the breast Where throbs my lilied chance of rest. And though I languish every day That Agony shall have her play, Handlocked with Hope I bear my part,' To Weary Head cried Weary Heart. 176 VITAL MOMENTS WHEN Eve looked close at her son, and saw A shadowy Adam alive on his face, Then, with a beauty was better than law, Lovely Fidelity flowered in the place. When Adam moved from his Love, to scan Across the river the beckoning brake, Then was the birth of adventurous man Dicing with Death for Uncertainty's sake. When Abel lay in the noontide heat, A clod by the altar, bloody and lorn, Then did the Christ on his Heavenly seat Taste of the vinegar, groan in the thorn. M 177 TO A PROUD BEAUTY THE cloud that sails, A silver lamb in blue, Not long prevails By innocence of hue. The stream that goes Like violets melted there, In rains and snows Is neither blue nor fair. The star that takes The wilderness with joy- Time's hammer breaks, The rods of heaven destroy. Then be not proud That beauty loves to wear Thy face, thy cloud Of king-compelling hair. 178 TO A PROUD BEAUTY For like a dream The loveliness shall pass : A flash, a beam, A breathing on the glass ! Thou dost not think That June perceives the way Toward the brink Of beauty in decay ; But thither tend Thy bosom-breaking charms Where Death shall bend Thee backward in his arms ! 179 BABE OF BABES THE Child has opened His eyes Where the ox is bound, And yet is the truest king In the wide world found. We all should bend on this day To the Child of grace, And lift Him out of the straw To a better place. For every heart is the home He will best adorn, Making a cradle of each On this Christmas morn. 1 80 THE LOSS AH, had'st thou either gone or stayed ! For often when I swiftly turn I find thee in the olden chair ; Not mortal, and not half so fair As when, in honest earth arrayed, Thou wast the bosom of my care. Ah, hadst thou either gone or stayed ! Less lovely as an angel, still Thy loveliness so sharpens pain That blood of grief renews its stain, And suddenly my heart, afraid Of being broken, breaks again. l8i AN ENVOY TO THE BOOK IF you go for a thousand miles to the right, And again for a thousand miles, With your wavering star for single light, And your soul half tears, half smiles ; Then over a hundred mountains go. And into a hundred vales, A pilgrim between the rose and the snow, The eagles and nightingales ; Perhaps you will find in a thousand hours, If you laugh at the need of rest, The girl with the heart of breathing flowers Too fair for a woman's breast. If you home at last on her gentle knee. By laces and muslins kissed, I bid you a voluble blackcap be, With songs of love-in-a-mist. 182 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Konii L9-y7j;i. 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