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 The Love Sonnets of Proteus •
 
 THE LARK CLASSICS 
 
 The Love Sonnets of 
 Proteus 
 
 BY 
 
 Wilfrid Scawen Blunt 
 
 Doxey's 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK 
 NEW YORK
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON . CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 Preface to Fourth Edition 
 
 No life is perfect that has not been lived, — youth in 
 feeling, — manhood in battle, — old age in meditation. 
 
 Again, no life is perfect that is not sincere. 
 
 For these two reasons I have decided to add my name 
 to the title-page of this the Fourth Edition of the Sonnets 
 of Proteus. 
 
 VV. S. B. 
 
 Crabbet Park, Sussex 
 March i^th, 1885 
 
 2057152
 
 Preface 
 
 The author of these sonnets, styhng himself Proteus, 
 acknowledges thereby a natural mood of change. He here 
 lays bare what was once his heart, to the public, but what 
 for good or evil is his heart no longer, thus closing for ever 
 his account with youth. He stands upon the threshold of 
 middle life, and already his dreams are changed. The gods 
 of his youth have ceased to be his gods. Yet, while looking 
 back upon the feelings here portrayed as things now foreign 
 to his life, and recognizing the many errors and exaggera- 
 tions of his youth, he finds it impossible wholly to regret 
 the past, knowing that those only are beyond all hope of 
 wisdom who have never dared to be fools. 
 
 August i^th, 1880
 
 Contents 
 
 Page 
 Preface v 
 
 Dedication. To one in a high position xiii 
 
 Part I. MANON 
 
 To Manon, comparing her to a Falcon 3 
 
 To the Same, on his Fortune in loving Her 4 
 
 To the Same, in Praise of his Fate 5 
 
 To the Same, on the Power of her Beauty 6 
 
 To the Same, depreciating her Beauty 7 
 
 To the Same, on her Vanity 8 
 
 To the Same, as to his Choice of Her 9 
 
 To the Same, on her Waywardness 10 
 
 To the Same, on her Forgiveness of a Wrong 11 
 
 To the Same, on her Lightheartedness 12 
 
 He has fallen from the Height of his Love 13 
 
 To his Friend, complaining that he had fallen among Thieves . 14 
 
 He argues with his Life 15 
 
 Joy's Treachery 16 
 
 He laments that his Love is dead 17 
 
 He protests, notwithstanding, his Love 18 
 
 On falling ill through Grief 19 
 
 ix
 
 Contents 
 
 Part IL JULIET. 
 
 Page 
 
 To Juliet, on the Nature of Love 23 
 
 To Juliet, asking for her Heart 24 
 
 The Same, continued 25 
 
 To Juliet, asking the Fulfilment of her Love 26 
 
 To Juliet, in Answer to a Question 27 
 
 To the Same, who would Comfort Him 28 
 
 The Religion of Love 29 
 
 To One who Loved Him 30 
 
 To the Same, exhorting Her to Patience 31 
 
 To Juliet, reminding Her of a Promise 32 
 
 The Same, continued 33 
 
 The Same, continued 34 
 
 To JuUet, Fear has cast out Love 35 
 
 To One who would " Remain Friends" 36 
 
 To One now Estranged 37 
 
 Farewell to Juliet 38 
 
 The Same, continued 39 
 
 The Same, continued 40 
 
 The Same, continued 41 
 
 The Same, continued 42 
 
 The Same, continued 43 
 
 The Same, continued 44 
 
 The Same, continued 45 
 
 The Same, continued 46 
 
 The Same, continued 47 
 
 The Same, continued 48 
 
 The Same, continued 49 
 
 The Same, continued 50 
 
 The Same, continued 51 
 
 The Same, continued 52 
 
 X
 
 Contents 
 
 Part III. GODS AND FALSE GODS. 
 
 Page 
 
 He desires the Impossible 55 
 
 St. Valentine's Day 56 
 
 To One whom he dared not Love 57 
 
 On a Lost Opportunity 58 
 
 To One on her Waste of Time 59 
 
 The Haunted House 60 
 
 The Triumph of Love 61 
 
 To One Excusing his Poverty 62 
 
 To One who would make a Confession 63 
 
 The Pleasures of Love 64 
 
 He Appeals against his Pond 65 
 
 To One who spoke ill of Him 66 
 
 The Three Ages of Woman 67 
 
 The Same, continued 6S 
 
 The Same, continued 69 
 
 Sibylline Books 70 
 
 On Reading the Memoirs of M. D'Artagnan 71 
 
 The Tv.'o Highwaymen 72 
 
 From the French of Anvers 73 
 
 To One to whom he had been Unjust 74 
 
 The Mockery of Life, a Triple Sonnet 75 
 
 The Same, continued 76 
 
 The Same, continued 77 
 
 Who would Live again ? 78 
 
 Cold Comfort 79 
 
 Amour Oblige 80 
 
 To One Unforgotten 81 
 
 To One w^hom he had Loved too Long 82 
 
 He would lead a better Life 83 
 
 xi
 
 Contents 
 
 Part IV. VITA NOVA. 
 
 Page 
 
 A Day in Sussex 87 
 
 In Anniversario Mortis 88 
 
 The Same, continued 89 
 
 The Same, continued 90 
 
 The Same, continued 91 
 
 The Limit of Human Knowledge 92 
 
 The Pride of Unbelief 93 
 
 Laughter and Death 94 
 
 Written in Distress 95 
 
 A Disappointment 96 
 
 A Year Ago 97 
 
 He is not a Poet 98 
 
 On the Shortness of Time 99 
 
 Chanclebury Ring 100 
 
 Sonnet in Assonance , loi 
 
 Youth 102 
 
 Age 103 
 
 The Same, continued 104 
 
 The Venus of Milo 105 
 
 Written at Florence 106 
 
 The Same, continued 107 
 
 Palazzo Pagani 108 
 
 The Sublime 109 
 
 The Same, continued no 
 
 A Forest in Bosnia in 
 
 Roumeli Hissar, a Sonnet 112 
 
 The Oasis of Sidi Khaled 113 
 
 To the Bedouin Arabs 114 
 
 Gibraltar 115 
 
 xii
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 TO ONE IN A HIGH POSITION 
 
 TO you, a poet, glorious, heaven-born, 
 One who is not a poet but a son 
 Of the earth earthy, sick and travel-worn 
 And weary with a race already run, 
 A battle lost e'er yet his day is done. 
 Comes with this tribute, shattered banners torn 
 From a defeat. You reign in Macedon, 
 My Alexander, as at earlier morn 
 You reigned upon Parnassus, hero, king. 
 I reign no more, not even in those hearts 
 For which these songs were made, and if I sing 
 'Tis with a harsh and melancholy note 
 At which my own heart like an echo starts. 
 Yet sometimes I can deem you listening, 
 And then all else is instantly forgot.
 
 PART I 
 MANON
 
 TO MANON 
 
 COMPARING HER TO A FALCON 
 
 BRAVE as a falcon and as merciless, 
 With bright eyes watching still the world, thy 
 prey, 
 I saw thee pass in thy lone majesty, 
 Untamed, unmated, high above the press. 
 The dull crowd gazed at thee. It could not guess 
 The secret of thy proud aerial way. 
 Or read in thy mute face the soul which lay 
 A prisoner there in chains of tenderness. 
 — Lo, thou art captured. In my hand to-day 
 I hold thee, and awhile thou deignest to be 
 Pleased with my jesses. I would fain beguile 
 My foolish heart to think thou lovest me. See, 
 I dare not love thee quite. A little while 
 And thou shalt sail back heavenwards. Woe is me !
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON HIS FORTUNE IN LOVING HER 
 
 1DID not choose thee, dearest. It was Love 
 That made the choice, not I. Mine eyes were blind 
 As a rude shepherd's who to some lone grove 
 His offering brings and cares not at what shrine 
 He bends his knee. The gifts alone were mine; 
 The rest was Love's. He took me by the hand, 
 And fired the sacrifice, and poured the wine. 
 And spoke the words I might not understand. 
 I was unwise in all but the dear chance 
 Which was my fortune, and the blind desire 
 Which led my foolish steps to love's abode. 
 And youth's sublime unreasoned prescience 
 Which raised an altar and inscribed in fire 
 Its dedication ** to the unknown god."
 
 of Proteus 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 IN PRAISE OF HIS FATE 
 
 WHEN I hear others speak of this and that 
 In our fools' lives which might have better gone, 
 Complaining idly of too niggard fate 
 And wishing still their senseless past undone, 
 I feel a childish tremor through me run. 
 Stronger than reason, lest by some far chance 
 Fate's ear to our sad plaints should yet be won 
 And these our lives be thrown back on our hands. 
 I tremble when I think of my past years, 
 My hopes, my aims, my wishes. All these days 
 I might have wandered far from love and thee. 
 But kind fate held me, heedless of my prayers, 
 A prisoner to its wise mysterious ways, 
 And forced me to thy feet — ah fortunate me !
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON THE POWER OF HER BEAUTY 
 
 I AM lighthearted now. An hour ago 
 There was a tempest in my heaven, a flame 
 Of sullen lightning under a bent brow 
 And a dull muttering which breathed no name. 
 Now all is changed. The very winds are tame, 
 And the birds sing aloud from every bough, 
 And my heart leaps. What empire dost thou claim, 
 Child, o'er this earth, that nature serves thee so ? 
 Sublime magician ! Well may earth and heaven 
 Change at thy bidding, and the hearts of men. 
 Didst thou but know the power that beauty hath. 
 The sea should leave his bed, the rocks be riven. 
 And wise men, deeming chaos come again, 
 Should kneel before thee and conjure thy wrath.
 
 of Proteus 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 DEPRECIATING HER BEAUTY 
 
 I LOVE not thy perfections. When I hear 
 Thy beauty blazoned, and the common tongue 
 Cheapening with vulgar praise a lip, an ear, 
 A cheek that I have prayed to '; — when among 
 The loud world's gods my god is noised and sung, 
 Her wit applauded, even her taste, her dress, 
 Her each dear hidden marvel lightly flung 
 At the world's feet and stripped to nakedness — 
 Then I despise thy beauty utterly, 
 Crying, " Be these your gods, O Israel ! " 
 And I remember that on such a day 
 I found thee with eyes bleared and cheeks all pale. 
 And lips that trembled to a voiceless cry, 
 And that thy bosom in my bosom lay.
 
 w 
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON HER VANITY 
 
 HAT are these things thou lovest ? Vanity. 
 To see men turn their heads when thou dost 
 
 pass; 
 To be the signboard and the looking glass 
 Where every idler there may glut his eye; 
 To hear men speak thy name mysteriously, 
 Wagging their heads. Is it for this, alas, 
 That thou hast made a placard of a face 
 On which the tears of love were hardly dry ? 
 What are these things thou lovest ? The applause 
 Of prostitutes at wit which is not thine; 
 The sympathy of shop-boys who would weep 
 Their shilling's worth of woe in any cause, 
 At any tragedy. — Their tears and mine, 
 What difference ? Oh truly tears are cheap ! 
 
 8
 
 of Proteus 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 AS TO HIS CHOICE OF HER 
 
 IF I had chosen thee, thou shouldst have been 
 A virgin proud, untamed, immaculate, 
 Chaste as the morning star, a saint, a queen, 
 Scarred by no wars, no violence of hate. 
 Thou shouldst have been of soul commensurate 
 With thy fair body, brave and virtuous 
 And kind and just; and, if of poor estate. 
 At least an honest woman for my house. 
 I would have had thee come of honoured blood 
 And honourable nurture. Thou shouldst bear 
 Sons to my pride and daughters to my heart. 
 And men should hold thee happy, wise, and good, 
 Lo, thou art none of this, but only fair. 
 Yet must I love thee, dear, and as thou art.
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON HER WAYWARDNESS 
 
 THIS is rank slavery. It better were 
 To till the thankless earth with sweat of brow, 
 Following dull oxen 'neath a goad of care 
 To a boor's grave agape behind the plough. 
 It better were to linger in some slow 
 Unnatural case, the sport of flood or fire. 
 To be undone by some inhuman vow 
 And robbed in youth of youth and its desire. 
 It better were to perish than thus live 
 Thy pensioner and bondsman, day by day 
 Doing fool's service thus for love of thee. 
 How shall I save thee if thou wilt not grieve 
 Even for shames like these ^ How shall I slay 
 The foes thou lovest, thou, their enemy? 
 
 10
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON HER FORGIVENESS OF A WRONG 
 
 THIS is not virtue. To forgive were great 
 If love were in the issue and not gold. 
 But wrongs there are 't is treason to forget, 
 And to forgive before the deed was cold 
 Was a strange jest. Ah, Manon, you have sold 
 The keys of heaven at a vulgar rate, 
 A sum of money for the wealth untold 
 Of a just anger and the right to hate. 
 — Well. It is done and the price paid. Now make 
 Haste to betray them as you me betrayed. 
 These are no longer foes to be forgiven. 
 Remember they are friends, that peace is made, 
 That you are theirs — Then rend them for love's sake. 
 And let your hatred with your love be even. 
 
 II
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 ON HER LIGHTHEARTEDNESS 
 
 I WOULD I had thy courage, dear, to face 
 This bankruptcy of love, and greet despair 
 With smiHng eyes and unconcerned embrace, 
 And these few words of banter at *' dull care." 
 I would that I could sing and comb my hair 
 Like thee the morning thro*, and choose my dress. 
 And gravely argue what I best should wear, 
 A shade of ribbon or a fold of lace. 
 I would I had thy courage and thy peace, 
 Peace passing understanding; that mine eyes 
 Could find forgetfulness like thine in sleep ; 
 That all the past for me like thee could cease 
 And leave me cheerfully, sublimely wise, 
 Like David with washed face who ceased to weep. 
 
 12
 
 of Proteus 
 
 HE HAS FALLEN FROM THE HEIGHT 
 OF HIS LOVE 
 
 LOVE, how ignobly hast thou met thy doom ! 
 Ill-seasoned scaffolding by which, full-fraught 
 With passionate youth and mighty hopes, we clomb 
 To our heart's heaven, fearing, doubting, naught ! 
 Oh love, thou wert too frail for such mad sport, 
 Too rotten at thy core, designed too high : 
 And we who trusted thee our death have bought, 
 And bleeding on the ground must surely die. 
 — I will not see her. What she now may be 
 I care not. For the dream within my brain 
 Is fairer, nobler, and more kind than she — 
 And with that vision I can mock at pain. 
 God ! Was there ever woman half so sweet, 
 Or death so bitter, or at such dear feet ? 
 
 13
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO HIS FRIEND 
 
 COMPLAINING THAT HE HAD FALLEN AMONG THIEVES 
 
 OH, L , I have gambled with my soul, 
 And, like a spendthrift, pawned my heritage 
 To pitiless Jews, and paid a monstrous toll 
 To knaves and usurers, — and all to wage 
 Fair war with black-legs, men who dared to gauge 
 My youth's bright honour as an antique thing, 
 A broadsword to their fencing point and edge. 
 So the game went. And even yet I cling 
 To my mad humour, reckoning up each stake. 
 Each fair coin lost. — O miserable slaves. 
 Who for the sake of gold, the poorest thing 
 Man ever won from the earth's bosom, take 
 To rope or poison, and who labour not 
 Even to " dig dishonourable graves," 
 See one who has lost a pound for every groat, 
 For every penny of your squandering ! 
 
 14
 
 of Proteus 
 
 HE ARGUES WITH HIS LIFE 
 
 MY life, what strange mad garments hast thou on, 
 Now that I see thee truly and am wise, 
 Thou wild, lost Proteus, strangling and undone ! 
 What shapes are these, what metamorphoses 
 Of a god's soul in pain ? I hear thy cries 
 And see thee writhe and take fantastic forms, 
 And strike in blindness at the destinies 
 And at thyself, and at thy brother worms. 
 Ah, fooUsh worm, thou canst not change thy lot. 
 And all like thee must perish 'neath the sun. 
 Why struggle with thy fellows ? Nay, be kind. 
 Kinder than these. Behold, the flower-pot 
 Of fate is emptied out, and one by one 
 The fisher takes you, and his hooks are blind. 
 
 15
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 JOY'S TREACHERY 
 
 1HAD a live joy once and pampered her, 
 For I had brought her from the "golden East," 
 To lie when nights were cold upon my breast 
 And sit beside me the long days and purr, 
 Until her whole soul should be lapped in fur. 
 Deep as her claws ; a beautiful sleek beast, 
 Which I might love. — But, when I deemed it least, 
 Her topaz eyes were on my stomacher, 
 Athirst for blood. Thus, for I loathed her since 
 I learned her guile, one night I had her slain 
 And thrown upon a dunghill to the flies, 
 Who bred in her fair limbs a pestilence. 
 Whereof I sickened. — Thus it ever is : 
 Dead joys unburied breed us death and pain.
 
 of Proteus 
 
 HE LAMENTS THAT HIS LOVE IS DEAD 
 
 MY love is dead, dead and in spite of me, — 
 Dead while I lived, — while yet my blood was rife 
 With hope and pleasure and the pride of life. 
 For my love ended unexpectedly 
 During the winter, stricken like a tree 
 By a night's cold, and frozen to the blood, 
 Whose leaves fell off and never were renewed 
 By any promise of the years to be. 
 And, when the spring came, and the birds, — to mate 
 Among its branches, lo ! they found it bare. 
 Though all around was summer in the wood. 
 Yet they took heart awhile, incredulous 
 That such a tree should be for ever dead. 
 "'Tis early yet," they cried. " The spring is late. 
 It shall still be as in the days that were." 
 But summer came and went while the tree stood 
 Bare in the sun like a deserted house. 
 — Then the birds suddenly despaired and fled. 
 
 2 17
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 HE PROTESTS, NOTWITHSTANDING, 
 HIS LOVE 
 
 TO be cast forth from the fair light of heaven 
 Into the outer darkness and there lie, 
 Through unrecorded years of agony, 
 Unseen, unheard, unpitied, unforgiven ; 
 To be forgotten of the earth and sky, 
 Forgotten of the womb that once did bear, 
 The eyes that cheered, the voice that comforted. 
 The very breast where love had laid his head ; 
 To be alone with darkness and despair, 
 Alone with endless death, and not to die; 
 All these be punishments within the hand 
 Of an avenging deity to deal. 
 To these I bow in weakness as behoves. 
 Yet not in anger but in love I stand 
 'Gainst heaven, a new Prometheus, and appeal 
 From God to my own soul which ceaseless loves. 
 His be the wrath, the burning and the rod. 
 Hell shall not make me traitor to my God. 
 i8
 
 of Proteus 
 
 ON FALLING ILL THROUGH GRIEF 
 
 TRUCE to thee, Soul, I have a debt to pay, 
 Which I acknowledge and without thy pleading. 
 I like the little that thou barrest my way 
 With prayers too late for one well past thy heeding. 
 Truce to these tears ! Thy fellow lieth bleeding, 
 Wounded by thee ; and thou, forsooth, dost say, 
 '' I have a servant who is sick and needing 
 Care at men's hands." The care was thine to pay. 
 — When this same Soul was sick, a while ago. 
 The Body watched her, till his eyes grew dim 
 And his cheeks pale for very sympathy, 
 Because she grieved. His love has wrought him woe. 
 For he is sick and she despiseth him. 
 Poor Body, I must take some thought of thee. 
 
 19
 
 PART II 
 JULIET
 
 TO JULIET 
 
 ON THE NATURE OF LOVE 
 
 YOU ask my love. What shall my love then be ? 
 A hope, an aspiration, a desire ? 
 The soul's eternal charter writ in fire 
 Upon the earth, the heavens, and the sea ? 
 You ask my love. The carnal mystery 
 Of a soft hand, of finger-tips that press, 
 Of eyes that kindle and of lips that kiss, 
 Of sweet things known to thee and only thee ? 
 You ask my love. What love can be more sweet 
 Than hope or pleasure ? Yet we love in vain. 
 The soul is more than joy, the life than meat. 
 The sweetest love of all were love in pain. 
 And that I will not give. So let it be. 
 — Nay, give me any love, so it be love of thee.
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO JULIET 
 
 ASKING FOR HER HEART 
 
 I 
 
 GIVE me thy heart, Juliet, give me thy heart! 
 I have a need of it, an absolute need, 
 Because my own heart has thus long been dead. 
 I live but by thy life. The very smart 
 Of this new pain which has been born of thee 
 Is thine, thy own great pleasure's counterpart. 
 I stand before thee naked. Clothe thou me. 
 Bring out a robe, — thy truth, thy chastity. 
 Put rings upon my fingers, — honour's meed. 
 For thou canst give, nor ever reck the cost, 
 Being the royal creature that thou art, 
 The fountain of all honour, whose high boast 
 Is to be greatest when thou givest most. 
 
 24
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 II 
 
 GIVE me thy soul, Juliet, give me thy soul ! 
 I am a bitter sea, which drinketh in 
 The sweetness of all waters, and so thine. 
 Thou, like a river, pure and swift and full 
 And freighted with the wealth of many lands, 
 With hopes, and fears, and death and life, dost roll 
 Against the troubled ocean of my sin. 
 Thou doubtest not, though on these desert sands 
 The billows surge against thee black with brine, 
 Unwearied. For thy love is fixed and even 
 And bears thee onward, and thy faith is whole. 
 Though thou thyself shouldst sin, yet surely heaven 
 Hath held thee guiltless and thou art forgiven. 
 
 25
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO JULIET 
 
 ASKING THE FULFILMENT OF HER LOVE 
 
 I ASK for love who famished am in plenty, 
 Not scorning the dear manna of your tears 
 But being vexed with that too froward twenty 
 Which heads the sum of my rebellious years. 
 My soul is fallen " in lust of cucumbers, 
 Of fish, of melons," through its long abstaining. 
 Unworthy Egypt yet enslaves my fears. 
 Ah, love, I thirst, but not for heaven's raining. 
 Why speak to me, alas, of heavenly joys 
 Who ask for joys of earth these cannot cheat ? 
 What are these clouds, these pillars of fire to me? 
 The wilderness is long. Youth cannot be 
 For ever fed on these unnatural toys 
 And needs must murmur if it have not meat. 
 
 26
 
 of Proteus 
 TO JULIET 
 
 IN ANSWER TO A QUESTION 
 
 WHY should I hate you, love, or why despise 
 For that last proof of tenderness you gave? 
 The battle is not always to the brave. 
 Nor life's sublimest wisdom to the wise. 
 True courage often is in frightened eyes, 
 And reason in sweet lips that only rave. 
 There is a weakness stronger than the grave, 
 And blood poured out has overcome the skies 
 — Nay, love, I honour you the more for this, 
 That you have rent the veil, and ushered in 
 A fellow soul to your soul's holy place. 
 And why should either blush that we have been 
 One day in Eden, in our nakedness ? 
 — 'T is conscience makes us sinners, not our sin. 
 
 27
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 WHO WOULD COMFORT HIM 
 
 I DID not ask your pity, dear. Your zeal 
 I know. It cannot cure me of my woes. 
 And you, in your sweet happiness, who knows, 
 Deserve it rather I should pity feel 
 For what the coming years from you conceal. 
 I did but cry, thou dear Samaritan, 
 Out of my bitterness of soul. Each man 
 Hath his own sorrow treading on his heel, 
 Ready to strike him, and must keep his shield 
 To his own back. Fate's arrows thickly fly, 
 And, if they strike not now, will strike at even. 
 And so I ask no pity. On life's field 
 The wounded crawl together, but their cry 
 Is not to one another but to Heaven. 
 
 28
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE RELIGION OF LOVE 
 
 SO thou but love me, dear, with thy whole heart 
 What care I for the rest, for good or ill ? 
 What for the peace of soul good deeds impart, 
 What for the tears unholy dreams distil? 
 These cannot make my joy, nor shall they kill. 
 Thou only perfect peace and virtue art 
 And holiness for me and strength and will — 
 So thou but love me with a perfect heart. 
 I ask thee now no longer to be wise ; 
 No longer to be good, but loving me. 
 I ask thee nothing now but only this. 
 Henceforth my Bible, dear, shall be thine eyes. 
 My beads thy lips, my prayers thy constancy, 
 My heaven thine arms, eternity thy kiss. 
 
 29
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO ONE WHO LOVED HIM 
 
 1 CANNOT love you, love, as you love me, 
 In singleness of soul, and faith untried : 
 I have no faith in any destiny, 
 In any heaven, even at your side. 
 Our hearts are all too weak, the world too wide. 
 You but a woman. If I dare to give 
 Some thought, some tenderness, a little pride, 
 A little love, 't is yours, love, to receive. 
 And do not grieve, though now the gift appear 
 A drop to your love's ocean. Time shall see. 
 — Oh, I could prophesy : — That day is sure. 
 Though not perhaps this week, nor month, nor year, 
 When your great love shall clean forgotten be 
 And my poor tenderness shall yet endure. 
 'T is not the trees that make the tallest show. 
 Which stand out stoutest when the tempests blow. 
 
 30
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 EXHORTING HER TO PATIENCE 
 
 WHY do we fret at the inconstancy 
 Of our frail hearts, which cannot always love? 
 Time rushes onward, and we mortals move 
 Like waifs upon a river, neither free 
 To halt nor hurry. Sweet, if destiny 
 Throws us together for an hour, a day. 
 In the back-water of this quiet bay. 
 Let us rejoice. Before us lies the sea. 
 Where we must all be lost in spite of love. 
 We dare not stop to question. Happiness 
 Lies in our hand unsought, a treasure trove. 
 Time has short patience of man's vain distress ; 
 And fate grows angry at too long delay; 
 And floods rise fast, and we are swept away. 
 
 31
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO JULIET 
 
 REMINDING HER OF A PROMISE 
 I 
 
 OH, Juliet, we have quarrelled with our fate, 
 And fate has struck us. Wherefore do we cry? 
 We prayed for liberty, and now too late 
 Find liberty is this, to say " good-bye." 
 The winter which we loved not has gone by, 
 And spring is come. The gardens, which were bare 
 When we first wandered through them, you and I, 
 The prisoners of our own vain wishes, are 
 Now full of golden flowers. The very lane 
 Down to the sea is green. The ca6lus hedge 
 We saw cut down has sprouted new again. 
 And swallows have their nests on the cliff's edge 
 Where we so often sat and dared complain 
 Because our joy was new, and called it pain. 
 
 32
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 (^Continue d^ 
 
 II 
 
 YES, Spring is come, but joy alas is gone, — 
 Gone ere we knew it, while our foolish eyes, 
 Which should have watched its motions every one 
 Were looking elsewhere, at the hill-s, the skies, 
 Chasing vain thoughts, as children butterflies, 
 Until the hour struck and the day was done. 
 And we looked up in passionate surprise 
 To find that clouds had blotted out our sun. 
 Our joys are gone — and what is left to us. 
 Who loved not even love when it was here ? 
 What but a voice which sobs monotonous 
 As these sad waves upon the rocks, the dear 
 Fond voice which once made music with our own, 
 And which our hearts now ache to think upon. 
 
 33
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 (Continjied) 
 III 
 
 OLD memories are sweet, but these are new 
 And smart like wounds yet green. But one 
 there is 
 Which, for the cause that it was dear to you 
 In days which counted upon greater bliss. 
 Is fairer now and dearer far than these ; 
 And this the memory is of some hours spent 
 One afternoon when, seated at your knees, 
 I made narration (it was middle Lent 
 And you with Judas flowers had filled your lap), 
 Of the wise secret of these rhymes of mine, 
 And gave a promise, which behold I keep. 
 To write them out for you, each idle line. 
 Throwing you all my rubbish in one heap. 
 Poor stuff perhaps ; — and yet it made you weep. 
 
 34
 
 of Proteus 
 TO JULIET 
 
 FEAR HAS CAST OUT LOVE 
 
 'HP IS not that love is less or sorrow more 
 
 1 Than in the days when first these things began. 
 Even then you doubted, and our hearts were sore 
 And you rebelled because I was a man. 
 Even then you fought and wrestled with my plan 
 Of earthly bliss ; — what bitter anguish too 
 When at the hour decreed our passion ran 
 Out of our keeping and love claimed its due. 
 'T is not love's fault we part, or grief's. Alas, 
 One mightier now compels us with his nod. 
 The fire of heaven has touched us, and we pass 
 From pleasure's chastenings to a fiercer rod ; 
 And fear has cast out love, for flesh is grass 
 And we are withered with the wrath of God. 
 
 35
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO ONE WHO WOULD '^ REMAIN 
 FRIENDS" 
 
 WHAT is this prate of friendship? Kings dis- 
 crowned 
 Go forth, not citizens but outlawed men. 
 If love has ceased to give a loyal sound, 
 Let there at least be silence. Once again 
 I go, proscribed, exiled, dominionless 
 Out of your coasts, yet scorning to complain. 
 I grudge not your allegiance nor my bliss, 
 I yield the pleasure as I keep the pain. 
 Rebellion's rights are limited though strong. 
 The right to take gives not the right to give. 
 Mine were the sole right and prerogative 
 To give a title or forgive a wrong. 
 This gift of friendship was not yours to bring. 
 As I have lived in love I still will live 
 Or die, if needs must, and without reprieve, 
 Your lover yet, and kingdomless a king. 
 
 36
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO ONE NOW ESTRANGED 
 
 WHY did you love me? Was it not enough 
 That the world loved you, all the world and I, 
 Or was your heart of so sublime a stuff 
 That it might trifle with inconstancy 
 And love and cease to love and yet not die? 
 Heaven was your throne by right of happiness 
 And earth your footstool. All things great and high 
 Waited your bidding, love itself no less. 
 Yet, if you deigned to love, if from your place 
 In heaven you stooped, if, when your heart was 
 
 moved, 
 A thrill of human pleasure tinged your face, 
 If 't was in weakness not in strength you loved, 
 Then there was cause to blush. Yet, loving, how 
 Shall you blush less to be apostate now? 
 
 37
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 FAREWELL TO JULIET 
 
 JULIET, farewell. I would not be forgiven 
 Even if I forgave. These words must be 
 The last between us two in earth or heaven, 
 The last and bitterest. You are henceforth free 
 For ever from my bitter words and me. 
 You shall not at my hand be further vexed 
 With either love, reproach or jealousy, 
 (So help me heaven), in this world or the next. 
 Our souls are single for all time to come 
 And for eternity, and this farewell 
 Is as the trumpet note, the crack of doom, 
 Which heralds an eternal silence. Hell 
 Has no more fixed and absolute decree. 
 And heaven and hell may meet, — yet never we. 
 
 38
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 (jContinued) 
 
 II 
 
 'T^ IS strange we are thus parted, not by death 
 1 Or man's device, but by our own mad will. 
 We who have stood together on life's path 
 Thro* half a youth of good repute and ill, 
 Friends more than lovers. See, love's citadel 
 We held so stoutly 'gainst a world in arms 
 Lies all dismantled now, a sight to fill 
 The earth with lamentations and alarms. 
 Whose was the fault? I dare not ask nor say. 
 If there was treachery, 't is best untold. 
 The price of treason we receive to-day 
 Is paid to both of us in evil gold. 
 Ay, take thy bitter freedom. 'T is the fee 
 Of love betrayed and faith's apostasy. 
 
 39
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 {Co7itinued) 
 
 III 
 
 WE may not meet. I could not for pride's sake 
 Dissemble further, and I suffer pain, 
 A palpable distinct and physical ache, 
 When our eyes meet by accident, and when 
 I hear you talk in your pathetic strain 
 Which always moved me. Only yesterday, 
 As I was standing with a crowd of men 
 In a long corridor, you came my way 
 And chanced to stop, and thus by chance I heard 
 A score of phrases uttered in that sad 
 Half-suppliant voice which once my spirit stirred 
 To its foundations. Yet your theme was glad — 
 Strangers your hearers. What was in these spells 
 To move me still } A trick, and nothing else ! 
 
 40
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 {Continued) 
 
 IV 
 
 WE vex each other with our presence, I 
 By my regrets and by my mocking face, 
 You by your laughter and mad gaiety, 
 And both by cruel thoughts of happier days. 
 Is then the world so narrow that we pace 
 These streets like prisoners still with eyes askance, 
 As bound together in the fell embrace 
 Of a dark chain which bars deliverance ? 
 Nay, go your ways. I will not vex you more. 
 Make your own terms with life, while you are fair. 
 There is none better learned in woman's lore. 
 You yet may take revenge on grief and care, 
 And 't was your nature ever to be gay. 
 Why should I scoff? Be merry while you may. 
 
 41
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 (^Continued) 
 
 1D0 not love you. To have said this once 
 Had seemed to both of us a monstrous lie, 
 An idle boast, love's last extravagance 
 Or the mere paradox of vanity. 
 Now it is true and yet more hideously 
 More strangely monstrous. I, no less than you. 
 Here own at length the worm which cannot die, 
 The burden of a pain for ever new. 
 This is the " pang of loss," the bitterest 
 Which hell can give. We are shut out from heaven 
 And never more shall look upon love's face. 
 Being with those who perish unforgiven. 
 Never to see love's face ! Ah, pain in pain, 
 Which we do well to weep and weep again. 
 
 42
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 {Contitiued) 
 
 VI 
 
 YET we shall live without love, as some live 
 Without their limbs, their senses, maimed or deaf. 
 We even shall forget love, and shall thrive 
 And prosper and grow fat upon our grief. 
 You are consoled already more than half, 
 And wear your sorrow lightly. I will boast 
 No longer the refusal of relief 
 Than as a decent mourner of hopes crossed. 
 We yet shall laugh, and laughter is more loud 
 When following tears. The men who drive a hearse 
 Are not the least lighthearted of the crowd. 
 See, we have made love's epitaph in verse 
 And fairly buried him. God's ways are best. 
 Then home to pleasure and the funeral feast. 
 
 43
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 {Continued') 
 
 VII 
 
 DO you remember how I laughed at you 
 In the Beauheu woods, and how I made my peace ? 
 It was your thirtieth birthday, and you threw 
 Stones like a school-girl at the chestnut trees. 
 The heavens were light above us and the breeze. 
 Your Corydon and all the merry crew 
 Had wandered to a distance — busier bees 
 Than we, who cared not where the hazels grew. 
 We were alone at last. I had been teasing 
 You with the burden of years left behind. 
 You were too fair to find my wit displeasing, 
 And I too tender to be less than kind. 
 Your pebbles struck me. ''Wretch," I cried. The 
 
 word 
 Entered our hearts that instant like a sword. 
 
 44
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 VIII 
 
 THRICE happy fools! What wisdom shall we 
 learn 
 In this world or the next, if next there be, 
 More deep, more full, more worthy our concern 
 Than that first word of folly taught us ? We 
 Had suddenly grown silent. I could see 
 Your cheek had lost a little of its hue, 
 And your lips trembled, and beseechingly 
 Your blue eyes turned to mine, and well I knew 
 Your woman's instinct had divined my speech, 
 The meaning of a word so lightly spoken. 
 The word was a confession, clear to each, 
 A pledge as plain and as distinct a token 
 As that of Peter at his master's knees, 
 *' Thou knowest that I love thee more than these." 
 
 45
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {^Continued) 
 
 IX 
 
 I SEE you, Juliet, still, with your straw hat 
 Loaded with vines, and with your dear pale face, 
 On which those thirty years so lightly sat. 
 And the white outline of your muslin dress. 
 You wore a XiXSXq fichu trimmed with lace 
 And crossed in front, as was the fashion then, 
 Bound at your waist with a broad band or sash, 
 All white and fresh and virginally plam. 
 There was a sound of shouting far away 
 Down in the valley, as they called to us, 
 And you, with hands clasped seeming still to pray 
 Patience of fate, stood listening to me thus 
 With heaving bosom. There a rose lay curled. 
 It was the reddest rose in all the world. 
 
 46
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 X 
 
 I THINK there never was a clearer woman, 
 A better, kinder, truer than you were, 
 A gentler spirit more divinely human 
 Than yours with your sweet melancholy air 
 Of tender gaiety, which seemed like care, 
 And in your voice a sob as of distress 
 At the world's ways, its sin and its despair, 
 Being yourself all strange to wickedness. 
 Now you are neither gentle, kind, nor good, 
 And you have sorrows of your own to grieve. 
 And in your mirth compassion has no mood ; 
 You wear no more your heart upon your sleeve, 
 And if your voice still sobs 't is with a sense 
 Of sorrow's power, grief's wealth, experience. 
 
 47
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 XI 
 
 \ 
 
 A" WOMAN with a past." What happier omen ' 
 Could heart desire for mistress or for friend? 
 Phoenix of friends, and most divine of women, 
 Skilled in all fence to venture or defend 
 And with love's science at your .fingers' end, 
 No tears to vex, no ignorance to bore, 
 A fancy ripe, the zest which sorrows lend ! — 
 I would to God we had not met before. 
 — I would to God ! and yet to God I would 
 That we had never met. To see you thus 
 Is grief and wounds and poison to my blood. 
 Oh, this is sacrilege and foul abuse. 
 You were a thing for honour not vile use, 
 Not for the mad world's wicked sinks and stews. 
 
 48
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 XII 
 
 WHAT have I done? What gross impiety 
 Prompted my hand thus against God and good ? 
 Was there not joy on Earth enough for me 
 That I must scale the Heaven where you stood, 
 And with my sinful blood pollute your blood ? 
 You were the type of wise sweet sanctity, 
 Of that unearthly half of womanhood 
 Which well redeems the rest. Oh, Juliet, we 
 Sinned in a temple, and our tears to-day 
 Appeal in vain to heaven which dares not hear. 
 God is not always mocked. And thus we pay 
 Our uttermost debt unheeded, tear on tear 
 And scoff on scoff and sin heaped up on sin, 
 While there is justice on the earth to men. 
 
 49
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 XIII 
 
 WE planted love, and lo it bred a brood 
 Of lusts and vanities and senseless joys. 
 We planted love, and you have gathered food 
 Of every bitter herb which fills and cloys. 
 Your meat is loud excitement and mad noise, 
 Your wine the unblest ambition of command 
 O'er hearts of men, of dotards, idiots, boys. 
 These are the playthings fitted to your hand, 
 These are your happiness. You weep no more, 
 But I must weep. My heaven has been defiled. 
 My sin has found me out and smites me sore. 
 And folly, justified of her own child, 
 Rules all the empire where love reigned of yore, 
 Folly red-cheeked but rotten to the core. 
 
 SO
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Conthmed) 
 
 XIV 
 
 LAME, impotent conclusion to youth's dreams 
 Vast as all heaven ! See, what glory lies 
 Entangled here in these base stratagems, 
 What virtue done to death ! O glorious sighs, 
 Sublime beseechings, high cajoleries, 
 Fond wraths, brave raptures, all that sometime was 
 Our daily bread of gods beneath the skies, 
 How are ye ended, in what utter loss ! 
 Time was, time is, and time is yet to come, 
 Till even time itself shall have its end. 
 These were eternal — and behold, a tomb. 
 Come, let us laugh and eat and drink. God send 
 What all the world must need one day as we, 
 Speedy oblivion, rest for memory. 
 
 51
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 XV 
 
 FAREWELL, then. It is finished. I forego 
 With this all right in you, even that of tears. 
 If I have spoken hardly, it will show 
 How much I loved you. With you disappears 
 A glory, a romance of many years. 
 What you may be henceforth I will not know. 
 The phantom of your presence on my fears 
 Is impotent at length for weal or woe. 
 Your past, your present, all alike must fade 
 In a new land of dreams where love is not. 
 Then kiss me and farewell. The choice is made 
 And we shall live to see the past forgot. 
 If not forgiven. See, I came to curse. 
 Yet stay to bless. I know not which is worse. 
 
 52
 
 PART III 
 GODS AND FALSE GODS
 
 HE DESIRES THE IMPOSSIBLE 
 
 IF it were possible the fierce sun should, 
 Standing in heaven unloved, companionless, 
 Enshrined be in some white-bosomed cloud, 
 And so forget his rage and loneliness; 
 If it were possible the bitter seas 
 Should suddenly grow sweet, till at their brink 
 Birds with bright eyes should stoop athirst and 
 
 drink; — 
 If these were possible; and if to these 
 It should be proved that love has sometimes been 
 'Twixt lambs and leopards, doves and hawks, that 
 
 snow 
 Clasps the bare rocks, that rugged oaks grow green 
 In the west wind, that pinkest blossoms blow 
 Upon May's blackest thorn; — then, only then, 
 I might believe that love between us two 
 Was still in heaven's gift, sweet child. — And you? 
 
 55
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 
 
 TO-DAY, all day, I rode upon the down, 
 With hounds and horsemen, a brave company. 
 On this side in its glory lay the sea, 
 On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown. 
 The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone, 
 And still we galloped on from gorse to gorse. 
 And once, when checked, a thrush sang, and my horse 
 Pricked his quick ears as to a sound unknown. 
 I knew the Spring was come. I knew it even 
 Better than all by this, that through my chase 
 In bush and stone and hill and sea and heaven 
 I seemed to see and follow still your face. 
 Your face my quarry was. For it I rode. 
 My horse a thing of wings, myself a god. 
 
 56
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO ONE WHOM HE DARED NOT LOVE 
 
 AS one who, in a desert wandering 
 Alone and faint beneath a pitiless sky, 
 And doubting in his heart if he shall bring 
 His bones back to his kindred or there die, 
 Finds at his feet a treasure suddenly 
 Such as would make him for all time a king, 
 And so forgets his fears and with keen eye 
 Falls to a-counting each new precious thing, — 
 — So was I when you told me yesterday 
 The tale of your dear love. Awhile I stood 
 Astonished and enraptured, and my heart 
 Began to count its treasures. Now dismay 
 Steals back my joy, and terror chills my blood, 
 And I remember only '' we must part." 
 
 57
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 ON A LOST OPPORTUNITY 
 
 WE might, if you had willed, have conquered 
 heaven. 
 Once only in our lives before the gate 
 Of Paradise we stood, one fortunate even, 
 And gazed in sudden rapture through the grate. 
 And, while you stood astonished, I, our fate 
 Venturing, pushed the latch and found it free. 
 There stood the tree of knowledge fair and great 
 Beside the tree of life. One instant we 
 Stood in that happy garden, guardianless. 
 My hands already turned towards the tree 
 And in another moment we had known 
 The taste of joy and immortality 
 And been ourselves as gods. But in distress 
 You thrust me back with supplicating arms 
 And eyes of terror, till the impatient sun 
 Had time to set and till the heavenly host 
 Rushed forth on us with clarions and alarms 
 And cast us out for ever, blind and lost. 
 
 5S
 
 of Proteus 
 TO ONE 
 
 ON HER WASTE OF TIME 
 
 WHY practise, love, this small economy 
 Of your heart's favours ? Can you keep a kiss 
 To be enjoyed in age ? and would the free 
 Expense of pleasure leave you penniless ? 
 Nay, nay. Be wise. Believe me, pleasure is 
 A gambler's token, only gold to-day. 
 The day of love is short, and every bliss 
 Untasted now is a bliss thrown away. 
 'T were pitiful, in truth, such treasures should 
 Lie by like miser's crusts till mouldy grown. 
 Think you the hand of age will be less rude 
 In touching your sweet bosom than my own ? 
 Alas, what matter, when our heads are grey. 
 Whether you loved or did not love to-day .'* 
 
 59
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 HOW loud the storm blew all that bitter night ! 
 The loosened ivy tapping on the pane 
 Woke me and woke, again and yet again, 
 Till I was full awake and sat upright. 
 I listened to the noises of the night. 
 And presently I heard, disguised yet plain, 
 A footstep on the stair which mounted light 
 Towards me, and my heart outbeat the rain. 
 I knew that it was you. I knew it even 
 Before the door, which by design ajar 
 Waited your coming, had disclosed my fate. 
 I felt a wind upon my face from heaven. 
 I felt the presence of a life. My hair 
 Was touched as by a spirit. Insensate 
 I drew you to my bosom. Ah, too late ! 
 I clutched the darkness. There was nothing there. 
 
 60
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE 
 
 AH Love, dear Love. In vain I scoff. In vain 
 I ply my barren wit, and jest at thee. 
 Thou heedest not, or dost forgive the pain, 
 And in thy own good time and thy own way, 
 Waiting my silence, thou dost vanquish me. 
 Thou comest at thy will in sun or rain 
 And at the hour appointed, a spring day, 
 An autumn night — and lo, I serve again. 
 Forgive me, touch me, chide me. What to thee, 
 God that thou art, are these vain shifts of mine? 
 Let me but know thee. Thou alone art wise. 
 I ask not to be wise or great or free 
 Or aught but at thy knees and wholly thine. 
 Thus, and to feel thy hand upon mine eyes. 
 
 6r
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 TO ONE 
 
 EXCUSING HIS POVERTY 
 
 AH ! love, impute it not to me a sin 
 That my poor soul thus beggared comes to thee. 
 My soul a pilgrim was, in search of thine, 
 And met these accidents by land and sea. 
 The world was hard, and took its usury. 
 Its toll for each new night in each new inn ; 
 And every road had robber bands to fee ; 
 And all, even kindness, must be paid in coin. 
 Behold my scrip is empty, my heart bare. 
 I give thee nothing who my all would give. 
 My pilgrimage is finished, and I fare 
 Bare to my death, unless with thee I live. 
 Ah ! give, love, and forgive that I am poor. 
 Ah ! take me to thy arms and ask no more. 
 
 62
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A 
 CONFESSION 
 
 OH ! leave the Past to bury its own dead. 
 The Past is naught to us, the Present all. 
 What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed ? 
 What need of ghosts to grace a festival ? 
 I would not, if I could, those days recall, 
 Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread, 
 The lamps are lit, and music plays withal. 
 Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid. 
 This island is our home. Around it roar 
 Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits, and seas. 
 What matter in what wreck we reached the shore, 
 So we both reached it ? We can mock at these. 
 Oh ! leave the Past, if Past indeed there be. 
 I would not know it. I would know but thee. 
 
 63
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF LOVE 
 
 I DO not care for kisses. 'T is a debt 
 We paid for the first privilege of love. 
 These are the rains of April which have wet 
 Our fallow hearts and forced their germs to move. 
 Now the green corn has sprouted. Each new day- 
 Brings better pleasures, a more dear surprise, 
 The blade, the ear, the harvest — and our way 
 Leads through a region wealthy grown and wise. 
 We now compare our fortunes. Each his store 
 Displays to kindred eyes of garnered grain, 
 Two happy farmers, learned in love's lore, 
 Who weigh and touch and argue and complain 
 Dear endless argument ! Yet sometimes we 
 Even as we argue kiss. There ! Let it be. 
 
 64
 
 of Proteus 
 
 HE APPEALS AGAINST HIS BOND 
 
 IN my distress Love made me sign a bond, 
 A cruel bond. 'T was by necessity 
 Wrung from a foolish heart, alas, too fond, 
 Too bHndly fond, its error to foresee. 
 And now my soul's estate, in jeopardy, 
 Lies to a pledge it never can redeem. 
 Love's loan was love, one hour of ecstasy. 
 His penalty eternal loss of him. 
 — See, I am penniless, the forfeit paid, 
 And go a beggar forth from thy dear sight. 
 My pound of more than flesh too strictly weighed 
 And cut too near the heart. Fair Israelite, 
 Thy plea was just. Thy right has been confessed. 
 And yet a work of mercy were twice blessed. 
 
 6S
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO ONE WHO SPOKE ILL OF HIM 
 
 WHAT is your quarrel with me, in love's name, 
 Fair queen of wrath? What evil have I done, 
 What treason to the thought of our dear shame 
 Subscribed or plotted ? Is my heart less one 
 In its obedience to your stern decrees 
 Than on the day when first you said " I please," 
 And with your lips ordained our union? 
 Am I not now, as then, upon my knees ? 
 You bade me love you, and the deed was done, 
 And when you cried ** enough " I stopped, and when 
 You bade me go I went, and when you said 
 "Forget me" I forgot. Alas, what wrong 
 Would you avenge upon a loyal head, 
 Which ever bowed to you in joy and pain, 
 That you thus scourge me with your pitiless tongue? 
 
 66
 
 of Proteus 
 THE THREE AGES OF WOMAN 
 
 LOVE, in thy youth, a stranger, knelt to thee, 
 With cheeks all red and golden locks all curled. 
 And cried, " Sweet child, if thou wilt worship me, 
 Thou shalt possess the kingdoms of the world." 
 But you looked down and said, " I know you not, 
 Nor want I other kingdorn than my soul." 
 Till Love in shame, convicted of his plot. 
 Left you and turned him to some other goal. 
 And this discomfiture which you had seen 
 Long served you for your homily and boast, 
 While, of your beauty and yourself the queen. 
 You lived a monument of vain love crossed. 
 With scarce a thought of that which might have been 
 To scare you with the ghost of pleasures lost. 
 
 67
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 II 
 
 YOUR youth flowed on, a river chaste and fair, 
 Till thirty years were written to your name. 
 A wife, a mother, these the titles were 
 Which conquered for you the world's fairest fame. 
 In all things you were v/ise but in this one. 
 That of your wisdom you yourself did doubt. 
 Youth spent like age, no joy beneath the sun. 
 Your glass of beauty vainly running out. 
 Then suddenly again, ere well you knew, 
 Love looked upon you tenderly, yet sad : 
 *' Are these wise follies, then, enough for you ? " 
 He said ; — " Love's wisdom were itself less mad." 
 And you : " What wouldst thou of me } " " My 
 
 bare due, 
 In token of what joys may yet be had." 
 
 68
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Cofitimced) 
 III 
 
 AGAIN Love left you. With appealing eyes 
 You watched him go, and lips apart to speak, 
 He left you, and once more the sun did rise 
 And the sun set, and week trod close on week 
 And month on month, till you had reached the goal 
 Of forty years, and life's full waters grew 
 To bitterness and flooded all your soul, 
 Making you loathe old things and pine for new. 
 And you into the wilderness had fled, 
 And in your desolation loud did cry, 
 " Oh for a hand to turn these stones to bread ! " 
 Then in your ear Love whispered scornfully, 
 *'Thou too, poor fool, thou, even thou," he said, 
 " Shalt taste thy little honey ere thou die." 
 
 69
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 SIBYLLINE BOOKS 
 
 WHEN first, a boy, at your fair knees I kneeled, 
 'T was with a worthy offering. In my hand 
 My young life's book I held, a volume sealed, 
 Which none but you, I deemed, might understand ; 
 And you I did entreat to loose the band 
 And read therein your own soul's destiny. 
 But, Tarquin-like, you turned from my demand, 
 Too proudly fair to find your fate in me. 
 When now I come, alas, what hands have turned 
 Those virgin pages ! Some are torn away, 
 And some defaced, and some with passion burned. 
 And some besmeared with life's least holy clay. 
 Say, shall I offer you these pages wet 
 With blood and tears? and will your sorrow read 
 What your joy heeded not? — Unopened yet 
 One page remains. It still may hold a fate, 
 A counsel for the day of utter need. 
 Nay, speak, sad heart, speak quick. The hour is late. 
 
 Age threatens us. The Gaul is at the gate. 
 
 70
 
 of Proteus 
 
 ON READING THE MEMOIRS OF 
 M. D'ARTAGNAN 
 
 WHY was I born in this degenerate age? 
 Or rather why, a thousand times, with soul 
 Of such degenerate stuff that a mute rage 
 Is all its reason, tears the only toll 
 It takes on life, and impotence its goal? 
 Why was I born to this sad heritage 
 Of fierce desires which cannot fate control, 
 Of idle hopes life never can assuage ? 
 Why was I born thus weak? — Oh to have been 
 A merry fool, at jest with destiny ; 
 A free hand ready and a heart as free ; 
 A ruffler in the camps of Mazarin. 
 Oh for the honest soul of d'Artagnan, 
 Twice happy knave, a Gascon and a man ! 
 
 71
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE TWO HIGHWAYMEN 
 
 I LONG have had a quarrel set with Time, 
 Because he robbed me. Every day of life 
 Was wrested from me after bitter strife, 
 I never yet could see the sun go down 
 But I was angry in my heart, nor hear 
 The leaves fall in the wind without a tear 
 Over the dying summer. I have known 
 No truce with Time nor, Time's accomplice. Death. 
 The fair world is the witness of a crime 
 Repeated every hour. For life and breath 
 Are sweet to all who live ; and bitterly 
 The voices of these robbers of the heath 
 Sound in each ear and chill the passer-by. 
 — What have we done to thee, thou monstrous 
 
 Time? 
 What have we done to Death that we must die? 
 
 72
 
 of Proteus 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF ANVERS 
 
 MY heart has its secret, my soul its mystery 
 A love which is eternal begotten in a day. 
 The ill is long past healing. Why should I speak 
 
 to-day } 
 For none have ears to hear, and, least of all, she. 
 Alas I shall have lived unseen tho' ever near, 
 For ever at her side, for ever too alone. 
 I shall have lived my life unknowing and unknown, 
 Asking naught, daring naught, receiving naught from 
 
 her. 
 And she, whom heaven made kind and chaste and 
 
 fair, 
 Shall go undoubting on, the while upon her way 
 The murmur of my love shall fill the land. 
 Till, reading here perchance severe and unaware 
 These lines so full of her, she shall look up and say 
 " Who was this woman then .? " and shall not under- 
 stand. 
 
 73
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO ONE TO WHOM HE HAD BEEN 
 UNJUST 
 
 IF I was angry once that you refused 
 The bread I asked and offered me a stone, 
 Deeming the rights of bounty thus abused 
 And my poor beggary but trampled on, 
 Believe me now I would that wrong atone 
 With such submission as a heart can show. 
 Asking no bread of life but that alone 
 Your dear heart proffered and my pride let go. 
 Give me your help, your pity, what you will. 
 Your pardon for a sin, your act of grace 
 For a rebellion vanquished and undone, 
 The stone I once refused, that precious stone 
 Your friendship, so my thoughts may serve you still 
 Even if I never more behold your face. 
 
 74
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE MOCKERY OF LIFE 
 
 A TRIPLE SONNET 
 
 GOD, what a mockery is this life of ours ! [womb, 
 Cast forth in blood and pain from our mother's 
 Most like an excrement, and weeping showers 
 Of senseless tears : unreasoning, naked, dumb. 
 The symbol of all weakness and the sum : 
 Our very life a sufferance. — Presently, 
 Grown stronger, we must fight for standing-room 
 Upon the earth, and the bare liberty 
 To breathe and move. We crave the right to toil. 
 We push, we strive, we jostle with the rest. 
 We learn new courage, stifle our old fears. 
 Stand with stiff backs, take part in every broil. 
 It may be that we love, that we are blest. 
 It may be, for a little space of years, 
 We conquer fate and half forget our tears. 
 
 75
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 II 
 
 AND then fate strikes us. First our joys decay. 
 Youth, with its pleasures, is a tale soon told. 
 We grow a little poorer day by day. 
 Old friendships falter. Loves grow strangely cold. 
 In vain we shift our hearts to a new hold 
 And barter joy for joy, the less for less. 
 We doubt our strength, our wisdom, and our gold. 
 We stand alone, as in a wilderness 
 Of doubts and terrors. Then, if we be wise, 
 We make our terms with fate and, while we may, 
 Sell our life's last sad remnant for a hope. 
 And it is wisdom thus to close our eyes. 
 But for the foolish, those who cannot pray. 
 What else remains of their dark horoscope 
 But a tall tree and courage and a rope? 
 
 76
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 III 
 
 AND who shall tell what ignominy death 
 Has yet in store for us ; what abject fears 
 Even for the best of us ; what fights for breath ; 
 What sobs, what supplications, what wild tears; 
 What impotence of soul against despairs 
 Which blot out reason? — The last trembling thought 
 Of each poor brain, as dissolution nears, 
 Is not of fair life lost, of heaven bought 
 And glory won. 'Tis not the thought of grief; 
 Of friends deserted ; loving hearts which bleed ; 
 Wives, sisters, children who around us weep. 
 But only a mad clutching for relief 
 From physical pain, importunate Nature's need ; 
 The search as for a womb where we may creep 
 Back from the world, to hide, — perhaps to sleep. 
 
 77
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 WHO WOULD LIVE AGAIN ? 
 
 OH who would live again to suffer loss ? 
 Once in my youth I battled with my fate, 
 Grudging my days to death. I would have won 
 A place by violence beneath the sun. 
 I took my pleasures madly as by force, 
 Even the air of heaven was a prize. 
 I stood a plunderer at death's very gate, 
 And all the lands of life I did o'errun 
 With sack and pillage. Then I scorned to die. 
 Save as a conqueror. The treasuries 
 Of love I ransacked ; pity, pride and hate. 
 All that can make hearts beat or brim men's eyes 
 With living tears I took as robes to wear. 
 — But see, now time has struck me on the hip. 
 I cannot hate nor love. My senses are 
 Struck silent with the silence of my lip. 
 No courage kindles in my heart to dare, 
 No strength to do. The world's last phantoms slip 
 Out of my grasp, and naught is left but pain. 
 Love, life, vain strength. — Oh who would live again ? 
 
 78
 
 of Proteus 
 
 COLD COMFORT 
 
 THERE is no comfort underneath the sun. 
 Youth turns to age; riches are quickly spent; 
 Pride breeds us pain, our pleasures punishment, 
 The very courage which we count upon 
 A single night of fever shall break down, 
 And love is slain by fear. Death last of all 
 Spreads out his nets and watches for our fall. 
 There is no comfort underneath the sun ! 
 — When thou art old, O man, if thou wert proud 
 Be humble; pride will here avail thee not. 
 There is no courage which can conquer death. 
 Forget that thou wert wise. Nay, keep thy breath 
 For prayer, that so thy wisdom be forgot 
 And thou perhaps get pity of thy God. 
 
 79
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 AMOUR OBLIGE 
 
 I COULD forgive you, dearest, all the folly 
 Your heart has dreamed. Alas, as we grow old, 
 We need more vigorous cures for melancholy, 
 A stronger nutriment for hearts grown cold. 
 We need in face of weakness to be bold. 
 We need our folly to keep fate at bay. 
 Oh, we need madness in the manifold 
 Doubts and despairs which herald our decay. 
 I could forgive you all and more than all, 
 Yet, dearest, though for us fate waves his hand 
 And we accept it as the common lot 
 To meet no more at this life's festival. 
 It were unseemly you should take your stand. 
 Now my heart's citadel is laid in siege, 
 In open field with those who love me not. 
 Love has a rank which surely should oblige. 
 
 80
 
 of Proteus 
 
 TO ONE UNFORGOTTEN 
 
 YOU are not false perhaps, as lovers say 
 Meaning the act, — Alas, that guilt was mine. 
 Nor, maybe, have you bowed at other shrine 
 Than the true god's where first you learned to pray. 
 I know the idols round you. They are clay, 
 Mere Dagons to the courage half divine 
 Which bears you scathless still thro' sap and mine 
 And breach and storm upon your virgin way. 
 Alas, I know your virtue ; — but your heart. 
 How have you treated it .'* I sometimes see. 
 When nights are long, a vision chaste and true 
 Of pale pathetic eyes which gaze on me 
 In love and grief eternal. Then I start, 
 Crying aloud, and reach my arms to you. 
 
 8i
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO ONE WHOM HE HAD LOVED TOO 
 LONG 
 
 WHY do I cling to thee, sad love? Too long 
 Thou bringest me neither pleasure to my soul 
 Nor profit to my reason save in song, 
 My daily utterance. See, thy beggar's dole 
 Of foolish tears cannot my tears cajole; 
 Thy laughter doth my laughter grievous wrong; 
 Thy anger angereth me; thou heapest coal 
 Of fire upon my head the drear night long 
 With thy forgiveness. What is this thou wilt .? 
 Mine ears have ceased to hear, my tongue to speak. 
 And naught is left for my spent heart to do. 
 Love long has left the feast ; the cup is spilt. 
 Let us go too. The dawn begins to break. 
 And there is mockery in this heaven of blue. 
 
 82
 
 of Proteus 
 
 HE WOULD LEAD A BETTER LIFE 
 
 JAM tired of folly, tired of my own ways, 
 Love is a strife. I do not want to strive. 
 If I had foes I now would make my peace. 
 If I less wedded were I now would wive. 
 I would do service to my kind, contrive 
 Something of good for men, some happiness 
 For those who in the world still love and live ; 
 And, as my fathers did, so end my days. 
 I would earn praise, I too, of honest men. 
 I would repent in sackcloth if needs be. 
 I would serve God and expiate my sin, 
 Abjuring love and thee — ay, even thee. 
 I would do this, dear love. But what am I 
 To will or do ? As we have lived we die. 
 
 83
 
 PART IV 
 
 VITA NOVA
 
 A DAY IN SUSSEX 
 
 THE dove did lend me wings. I fled away 
 From the loud world which long had troubled me. 
 Oh lightly did I flee when hoyden May 
 Threw her wild mantle on the hawthorn tree. 
 I left the dusty high road, and my way 
 Was through deep meadows, shut with copses fair 
 A choir of thrushes poured its roundelay 
 From every hedge and every thicket there. 
 Mild, moon-faced kine looked on, where in the grass 
 All heaped with flowers I lay, from noon till eve. 
 And hares unwitting close to me did pass, 
 And still the birds sang, and I could not grieve. 
 Oh what a blessed thing that evening was ! 
 Peace, music, twilight, all that could deceive 
 A soul to joy or lull a heart to peace. 
 It glimmers yet across whole years like these. 
 
 87
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 IN ANNIVERSARIO MORTIS 
 
 IF I can bring no tribute of fresh tears 
 To mingle with the dust which covers thee ; 
 If in this latest dawn of evil years 
 My rebel eyes withhold their sympathy ; 
 If of a truth my thoughts so barren be 
 Of their old griefs, so numb to tenderness 
 That they nor hear nor taste nor feel nor see 
 The sweetness of thy presence in this place ; 
 If I now drowse, — 't is that the flesh is weak 
 More than the spirit. See, by thy dear bed 
 Once more I kneel in sorrow and in love. 
 See, I still watch by thee if thou shouldst move. 
 If thou shouldst raise thy hand or turn thy head, 
 Or speak my name, — and yet thou dost not speak. 
 
 88
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 II 
 
 THESE flowers shall be my offering, living flowers 
 Which here shall die with me in sacrifice, 
 Flowers from the empty fields which once were yours 
 And now are mine. No gold, nor myrrh, nor spice, 
 Nor any dead man's offering may suffice. 
 I love not flowers ; but thus to deck a grave 
 Which has no need of things of greater price. 
 Life is the only tribute death would have. 
 — Ah, thou art dead. Mine is this fair domain 
 With all its living beauty and brave shows 
 Of lawn, and lake, and garden ; mine the increase 
 Of the year's harvest, the slow growth of trees, 
 And that fair natural wealth we loved in vain. 
 Flowers, which shall never more adorn my house. 
 
 89
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 ( Contijiued) 
 III 
 
 IT is not true the dead unhonoured were 
 If they returned to life. Nay, claim thine own, 
 And see how gladly I, thy *' thankless heir," 
 Will yield thee back possession of thy throne. 
 I am not so in love with riches grown 
 That such can comfort me. Alas, too long 
 The fields are furrowed and the wheat is sown 
 For my sole grief that these should do thee wrong. 
 I hold these things not wholly as in fee, 
 But thinking that perhaps some happy day 
 We yet may walk together, and devise 
 Of the old lands we loved, in Paradise, 
 And I shall give account, as best I may, 
 How I thy tenant was awhile for thee. 
 
 90
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Conimued) 
 
 IV 
 
 THY ways were not my ways. Thy life was peace, 
 And mine has been a battle. Thou didst store 
 Thy soul's wealth sternly to a sure increase, 
 And thy revenue's much still swelled to more. 
 Thou squanderedst nothing on the pomp of war, 
 The lust of glory. No mad covetous eyes 
 Were thine upon thy neighbour's lands afar, 
 His wealth, his wife, his fenceless vanities. 
 Thou wert a brave, just man, whom all men knew 
 And trusted, and some loved, and thou to me 
 Wert as a tower of strength, a sanctuary 
 To which I fled from the world's maddened crew. 
 Wounded by me, and there with bloodstained hands 
 Clung to the altar of thy innocence. 
 
 91
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 THE LIMIT 
 
 OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 
 
 THERE is a vice in the world's reasoning. Man 
 Has conquered knowledge. He has conquered 
 He has traced out the universal plan [power : 
 
 Of the earth's being ; and in this last hour 
 He has unmade the God which he had made. 
 I cannot doubt but he at length has read 
 The riddle of the Earth ; that he is wise. 
 He also hath dominion chartered 
 Over the lands, the oceans, and the skies, 
 Which toil and sweat to give him daily bread. 
 — Knowledge he hath, and power upon the earth, 
 And long ago he had himself been God, 
 But for the cruel secret of his birth, 
 Which gave him kindred with the dust he trod, 
 And for the hideous ending of his mirth, 
 A fly-blown carrion festering 'neath the sod. 
 
 92
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE PRIDE OF UNBELIEF 
 
 WHEN I complained that I had lost my hope 
 Of life eternal with the eternal God; 
 When I refused to read my horoscope 
 In the unchanging stars, or claim abode 
 With powers and dominations — but, poor clod, 
 Clung to the earth and grovelled in my tears. 
 Because I soon must lie beneath the sod 
 And close the little number of my years, — 
 Then I was told that pride had barred the way. 
 And raised this foul rebellion in my head. 
 Yet, strange rebellion ! I, but yesterday, 
 Was God's own son in His own likeness bred. 
 And thrice strange pride ! who thus am cast away 
 And go forth lost and disinherited. 
 
 93
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 LAUGHTER AND DEATH 
 
 THERE is no laughter in the natural world 
 Of beast or fish or bird, though no sad doubt 
 Of their futurity to them unfurled 
 Has dared to check the mirth-compelling shout. 
 The lion roars his solemn thunder out 
 To the sleeping woods. The eagle screams her cry. 
 Even the lark must strain a serious throat 
 To hurl his blest defiance at the sky. 
 Fear, anger, jealousy have found a voice. 
 Love's pain or rapture the brute bosoms swell. 
 Nature has symbols for her nobler joys, 
 Her nobler sorrows. Who had dared foretell 
 That only man, by some sad mockery. 
 Should learn to laugh who learns that he must die? 
 
 94
 
 of Proteus 
 
 WRITTEN IN DISTRESS 
 
 WE sometimes sit in darkness. I long while 
 Have sat there, in a shadow as of death. 
 My friends and comforters no longer smile, 
 And they who grudge me wrongfully my breath 
 Are strong and many. I am bowed beneath 
 A weight of trouble and unjust reproach 
 From many fools and friends of little faith. 
 The world is little worth, yet troubles much. 
 But I am comforted in this, that I, 
 Although my face is darkened to men's eyes 
 And all my life eclipsed with angry wars, 
 Now see things hidden; and I seem to spy 
 New worlds above my heaven. Night is wise 
 And joy a sun which never guessed the stars. 
 
 95
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 A DISAPPOINTMENT 
 
 SPRING, of a sudden, came to life one day. 
 Ere this, the winter had been cold and chill. 
 That morning first the summer air did fill 
 The world, making bleak March seem almost May. 
 The daffodils were blooming golden gay ; 
 The birch trees budded purple on the hill ; 
 The rose, that clambered up the window-sill, 
 Put forth a crimson shoot. All yesterday 
 The winds about the casement chilly blew. 
 But now the breeze that played about the door, 
 So caught the dead leaves that I thought there flew 
 Brown butterflies up from the grassy floor. 
 — But someone said you came not. Ah, too true ! 
 And I, I thought that winter reigned once more. 
 
 96
 
 of Proteus 
 
 A YEAR AGO 
 
 A YEAR ago I too was proud of May, 
 I too delighted in the blackbird's song. 
 When the sun shone my soul made holiday. 
 When the rain fell I felt it as a wrong — 
 Then for me too the world was fresh and young 
 Oh what a miracle each bluebell was ! 
 How my heart leaped in union with my tongue, 
 When first I lit upon a stag's horn moss ! 
 A year ago — Alas, one summer's fire, 
 One autumn's chill, one winter's discontent, 
 And now one spring of joy and hope deferred 
 Have brought me to this pass of undesire 
 That I behold May's veil of beauty rent 
 And stand unmoved by sun and flower and bird. 
 
 97
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 HE IS NOT A POET 
 
 I WOULD not, if I could, be called a poet. 
 I have no natural love of the " chaste muse." 
 If aught be worth the doing I would do it; 
 And others, if they will, may tell the news. 
 I care not for their laurels but would choose 
 On the world's field to fight or fall or run. 
 My soul's ambition will not take excuse 
 To play the dial rather than the sun. 
 The faith I held I hold, as when a boy 
 I left my books for cricket bat and gun. 
 The tales of poets are but scholars* themes. 
 In my hot youth I held it that a man 
 With heart to dare and stomach to enjoy 
 Had better work to his hand in any plan 
 Of any folly, so the thing were done, 
 Than in the noblest dreaming of mere dreams. 
 
 98
 
 of Proteus 
 
 ON THE SHORTNESS OF TIME 
 
 IF I could live without the thought of death, 
 Forgetful of Time's waste, thy soul's decay, 
 I would not ask for other joy than breath 
 With light and sound of birds and the sun's ray. 
 I could sit on untroubled day by day 
 Watching the grass grow, and the wild flowers range 
 From blue to yellow and from red to grey 
 In natural sequence as the seasons change. 
 I could afford to wait, but for the hurt 
 Of this dull tick of time which chides my ear. 
 But now I dare not sit with loins ungirt 
 And staff unlifted, for death stands too near. 
 I must be up and doing, — ay, each minute. 
 The grave gives time for rest when we are in it. 
 
 99
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 CHANCLEBURY RING 
 
 SAY what you will, there is not in the world 
 A nobler sight than from this upper down. 
 No rugged landscape here, no beauty hurled 
 From its Creator's hand as with a frown ; 
 But a green plain on which green hills look down 
 Trim as a garden plot. No other hue 
 Can hence be seen, save here and there the brown 
 Of a square fallow, and the horizon's blue. 
 Dear checker-work of woods, the Sussex weald. 
 If a name thrills me yet of things of earth, 
 That name is thine. How often I have fled 
 To thy deep hedgerows and embraced each field, 
 Each lag, each pasture, — fields which gave me birth 
 And saw my youth, and which must hold me dead. 
 
 lOO
 
 of Proteus 
 
 SONNET IN ASSONANCE 
 
 A THOUSAND bluebells blossom in the wood, 
 Shut in a tangled brake of briar roses, 
 And guarded well from every wanton foot, 
 A treasure by no eye of man beholden, — 
 No eye but mine. No other tongue hath spoken 
 Out to the joyless world what hidden joys 
 Lie there untasted, mines of wealth unnoted, 
 While a starved world without lives blank and void. 
 — Ah, couldst thou know, poor wretch, what I have 
 See what I saw upon that bank enshrined, [known. 
 Soft pity had not wholly left thy soul 
 And tears had dimnied thy hard eyes uninvited. 
 Eyes that are cruel-bright with hunger's bright- 
 Hunger for beauty, solitude, and peace. [ness, — 
 There hadst thou found a beauty and a silence. 
 Such as nor tongue can tell nor fancy dream.
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 YOUTH, ageless youth, the old gods* attribute ! 
 — To inherit cheeks a-tingle with such blood 
 As wood nymphs blushed, who to the first-blown flute 
 Went out in endless dancing through the wood. 
 To live, and taste of that immortal food 
 After the wild day*s waste prepared for us 
 By deathless hands, and straightway be renewed, 
 Like the god's entrails upon Caucasus. 
 To rise at dawn with eye and brain and sense 
 Clear as the pale green edge where dawn began, 
 While each bold thought full shapen should arise, 
 Cutting the horizon of experience. 
 Sharp as an obelisk. — Ah, wretched man, 
 'T is little wonder that the gods are wise. 
 
 I02
 
 of Proteus 
 
 AGE 
 
 OAGE, thou art the very thief of joy, 
 For thou hast rifled many a proud fool 
 Of all his passions, hoarded by a rule 
 Of stern economy. Him, yet a boy. 
 Harsh wisdom governed. Others turned to toy 
 With lusty passion. He was chaste and cool 
 As a young Dorian in Lycurgus' school. 
 Ah me, that thou such souls shouldst dare annoy. 
 Thus did he gather him a store of pleasure, 
 Nor cared to touch what he so hardly won, 
 But led long years of solitary strife; 
 And, when the rest should have consumed their 
 He thought to sit him in the evening sun [treasure, 
 And taste the sweet fruits of a sober life. 
 
 103
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 {Contmiied) 
 II 
 
 BUT thou didst come upon him ere he wist, 
 A silent highwayman, and take his all 
 And leave him naked, when the night should fall 
 And all the road was conjured in a mist. 
 Too well thou keepedst thy unholy tryst, 
 As long ago that eastern seneschal 
 Rode all day long to meet at evenfall 
 Him he had fled ere yet the sun uprist 
 — But I have spent me like a prodigal 
 The treasure of my youth, and, long ago, 
 Have eaten husks among the hungry swine. 
 And when I meet thee I will straightway fall 
 Upon thy neck, and if the tears shall flow, 
 They shall be tears of love for thee and thine. 
 
 104
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE VENUS OF MILO 
 
 WHAT art thou ? Woman ? Goddess ? Aphrodite ? 
 Yet never such as thou from the cold foam 
 Of ocean, nor from cloudy heaven might come, 
 Who wast begotten on her bridal night 
 In passionate Earth's womb by Man's delight, 
 When Man was young. I cannot trace in thee 
 Time's handiwork. Say, rather, where is he 
 For whom thy face was red which is so white ? 
 Thou standest ravished, broken, and thy face 
 Is writ with ancient passions. Thou art dumb 
 To my new love. Yet, whatsoe'er of good, 
 Of crime, of pride, of passion, or of grace 
 In woman is, thou, woman, hast in sum. 
 Earth's archetypal Eve. All Womanhood. 
 
 105
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 WRITTEN AT FLORENCE 
 
 O WORLD, in very truth thou art too young, 
 When wilt thou learn to wear the garb of age ? 
 World, with thy covering of yellow flowers, 
 Hast thou forgot what generations sprung 
 Out of thy loins and loved thee and are gone? 
 Hast thou no place in all their heritage 
 Where thou dost only weep that I may come 
 Nor fear the mockery of thy yellow flowers? 
 O world, in very truth thou art too young. 
 The heroic wealth of passionate emprize 
 Built thee fair cities for thy naked plains. 
 How hast thou set thy summer growth among 
 The broken stones which were their palaces? 
 Hast thou forgot the darkness where he lies 
 Who made thee beautiful, or have thy bees 
 Found out his grave to build their honeycombs? 
 
 1 06
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 (Contimied) 
 II 
 
 O WORLD, in very truth thou art too young, 
 They gave thee love who measured out thy skies, 
 And, when they found for thee another star, 
 Who made a festival and straightway hung 
 The jewel on thy neck. O merry world. 
 Hast thou forgot the glory of those eyes 
 Which first looked love in thine ? Thou hast not furled 
 One banner of thy bridal car for them. 
 O world, in very truth thou art too young. 
 There was a voice which sang about thy spring, 
 Till winter froze the sweetness of his lips. 
 And lo, the worms had hardly left his tongue 
 Before thy nightingales were come again. 
 O world, what courage hast thou thus to sing ? 
 Say, has thy merriment no secret pain 
 No sudden weariness that thou art young ? 
 
 107
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 PALAZZO PAGANI 
 
 THIS is the house where, twenty years ago, 
 They spent a spring and summer. This shut gate 
 Would lead you to the terrace, and below 
 To a rose garden long since desolate. 
 Here they once lived. How often I have sat 
 Till it was dusk among the olive trees, 
 Waiting to hear their coming horse-hoofs grate 
 Upon the gravel ; till the freshening breeze 
 Bore down a sound of voices. Even yet 
 A broken echo of their laughter rings 
 Through the deserted terraces ; — and see, 
 While I am speaking, from the parapet 
 There is a hand put forth, and some one flings 
 Her very window open overhead. 
 
 — How sweet it is, this scent of rosemary ! 
 
 — These are the last tears I shall ever shed. 
 
 1 08
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE SUBLIME 
 
 TO stand upon a windy pinnacle, 
 Beneath the infinite blue of the blue noon, 
 And underfoot a valley terrible 
 As that dim gulf, where sense and being swoon 
 When the soul parts ; a giant valley strewn 
 With giant rocks; asleep, and vast, and still. 
 And far away. The torrent, which has hewn 
 His pathway through the entrails of the hill. 
 Now crawls along the bottom and anon 
 Lifts up his voice, a muffled tremulous roar. 
 Borne on the wind an instant, and then gone 
 Back to the caverns of the middle air; 
 A voice as of a nation overthrown 
 With beat of drums, when hosts have marched to war 
 
 109
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 THE SAME 
 
 {Continued) 
 
 II 
 
 CLUTCHING the brink with hands and feet and 
 knees, 
 With trembling heart, and eyes grown strangely dim. 
 A part thyself and parcel of the frieze 
 Of that colossal temple raised to Time, 
 To gaze on horror, till, as in a crime, 
 Thou and the rocks become accomplices. 
 There is no voice,- no life 'twixt thee and them. 
 No life ! Yet, look, far down upon the breeze 
 Something has passed across the bosom bare 
 Of the red rocks, a leaf, a shape, a shade. 
 A living shadow ! ay, above thee there, 
 Weaving majestic circles overhead, 
 Others are watching. — This is the sublime: 
 
 To be alone, with eagles in the air. 
 
 no
 
 of Proteus 
 
 A FOREST IN BOSNIA 
 
 SPIRIT of Trajan ! What a world is here. 
 What remnant of old Europe in this wood 
 Of life primaeval rude as in the year 
 When thy first legions by the Danube stood. 
 These are the very Dacians they subdued, 
 Swineherds and shepherds clad in skins of deer 
 And fox and marten still, a bestial brood, 
 Than their own swine begotten swinelier. 
 The fair oak-forest, their first heritage. 
 Pastures them still, and still the hollow oak 
 Receives them in its bosom. Still o'erhead 
 Upon the stag-head tops, grown hoar with age, 
 Calm buzzards sit and ancient ravens croak, 
 And all with solemn life is tenanted. 
 
 Ill
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 ROUMELI HISSAR 
 
 A SONNET 
 
 THE empire of the East, grown dull to fear 
 By long companionship with angry fate 
 In silent anguish saw her doom appear 
 In this dark fortress built upon the strait, 
 And Sultan Mahmoud standing at her gate, 
 For she must perish. Hissar many a year 
 Struck terror into all who gazed thereat. 
 Till in his turn the Turk had learned to wear 
 The purple and fine linen of the State, 
 And fell in impotence. These walls to-day, 
 With Judas tree and lilac overgrown. 
 Move all men's hearts. For close on barbarous power 
 Tread lust and indolence, and then decay 
 Till we forgive. — The very German boor. 
 Who in his day of fortune moves our scorn 
 Purged of his slough, in after ages may 
 Invite the tears of nations yet unborn. 
 
 112
 
 of Proteus 
 
 THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED 
 
 HOW the earth burns ! Each pebble underfoot 
 Is as a living thing with power to wound. 
 The white sand quivers, and the footfall mute 
 Of the slow camels strikes but gives no sound, 
 As though they walked on flame, not solid ground. 
 'T is noon, and the beasts' shadows even have fled 
 Back to their feet, and there is fire around 
 And fire beneath, and overhead the sun. 
 Pitiful heaven ! What is this we view? 
 Tall trees, a river, pools, where swallows fly, 
 Thickets of oleander where doves coo. 
 Shades, deep as midnight, greenness for tired eyes. 
 ITark, how the light winds in the palm-tops sigh. 
 Oh this is rest. Oh this is paradise. 
 
 113
 
 The Love Sonnets 
 
 TO THE BEDOUIN ARABS 
 
 CHILDREN of Shem ! Firstborn of Noah's race, 
 But still forever children ; at the door 
 Of Eden found, unconscious of disgrace. 
 And loitering on while all are gone before; 
 Too proud to dig; too careless to be poor; 
 Taking the gifts of God in thanklessness. 
 Not rendering aught, nor supplicating more. 
 Nor arguing with Him when He hides His face. 
 Yours is the rain and sunshine, and the way 
 Of an old wisdom by our world forgot. 
 The courage of a day which knew not death. 
 Well may we sons of Japhet in dismay 
 Pause in our vain mad fight for life and breath, 
 Beholding you. I bow and reason not. 
 
 ir4
 
 of Proteus 
 
 GIBRALTAR 
 
 SEVEN weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm 
 Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more 
 We ride into still water and the calm 
 Of a sweet evening screened by either shore 
 Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er, 
 Our exile is accomplished. Once again 
 We look on Europe, mistress as of yore 
 Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men. 
 Ay, this is the famed rock, which Hercules 
 And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door 
 England stands sentry. God ! to hear the shrill 
 Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze 
 And at the summons of the rock gun's roar 
 To see her red coats marching from the hill.
 
 rHE LARK CLASSICS 
 
 i rubaiyat 
 
 ^ Barrack-Room Ballads 
 
 3 Departmental Ditties 
 
 4 Story of my Heart 
 
 5 Laus Veneris and other Poems 
 
 6 Shakespeark's Sonnets 
 
 7 Love Letters of a Violinist 
 
 8 Love Sonnets of Proteus 
 
 At the Sign of the Lark 
 
 DOXEY'S 
 
 NEW YORK 
 15 East i/th Street 
 
 Mandalay 
 
 The Man with the Hoe 
 
 Hawaii Nei 
 
 Wild Flowers of California 
 
 Missions of California 
 
 Life in California 
 
 Idle Hours in a Library 
 
 An Itinerant House 
 
 The Purple Cow 
 
 The Little Boy who Lived on the Hill 
 
 The Legend of Aulus 
 
 A Vintage of Verse 
 
 Jacinta
 
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 cover design by Bruce Porter, painted in three colors. 
 Price, $3.00. 
 
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 Scranton Tribune — Its clever foolery shows how big a void was created when Tbt 
 Lark decided to sing no more. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 LARK EDITIONS 
 
 A selection of modern classics illustrated by modern artists. 
 Charming little volumes suitable for presentation. Finely 
 printed on deckle-edge paper, dainty in form, paper boards, 
 75 cents. Ivory edition, printed on tinted deckle-edge paper, with 
 two illustrations colored by hand, cover design in gold, $1.50. 
 
 I. KIPLING. Mandalay. With illustrations by Robert 
 Edgren. 
 
 II. MARKHAM. The Man with the Hoe. Decora- 
 tions and illustrations by Porter Garnett. 
 
 LARK POSTERS 
 
 The full set of Eight Posters for T^e Lark will be sent post- 
 paid for ^2.00. The Lark Posters are printed from wood 
 blocks, all but the first two having been cut by the artist. 
 
 May, 1895. The Piping Faun 
 
 Bruce Porter 
 Aug., 1895. Mother and Child 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 Nov., 1895. Mt. Tamalpais 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 
 Feb., 1896. Robin Hood 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 
 May, 1896. The Oread 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 
 Aug., 1896. Pan Pipes 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 Nov., 1896. Redwood 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 
 Feb., 1896. Sunrise 
 
 Florence Lundborg 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 JUST PUBLISHED 
 
 HAWAII NEI 
 
 (our own Hawaii) 
 By MABEL CLAIRE CRAFT 
 
 I vol. Buckram. 197 pages. Beautifully 
 illustrated. Postpaid ^1.50. 
 
 A picture of the Hawaii of to-day. — Tht IVave. 
 
 The most accurate book on Hawaii is a pretty 
 large v/ord, . . . but in soberness it is the 
 word to use of Mabel Craft's Hawaii Nei. . . 
 So fine a book as this, — so admirable from the 
 scientific point of view, so noble in its attitude, 
 and withal so interesting reading. . . . She 
 has gone to the heart of Hawaii, and her high- 
 minded book makes remarkable reading for Ameri- 
 cans. The illustrations are admirable, and the 
 whole book is very well made. — C. F. Lummis 
 in March Land cf Sunshine. 
 
 THE LITTLE BOT WHO LI FED ON 
 THE HILL 
 
 By ANNIE LAURIE (Winifred Black) 
 
 Neiv Edition, with sixty-six illustrations by SwinrxCrton. 4to. 
 
 sixty-six illustrations by Swinnerton. 
 boards. Price $1.00. 
 
 Paper 
 
 Parents v/ho have experienced difficulty in finding books suited to children between 
 the ages of four and six will thank us for calling their attention to a unique publication 
 just arrived from the Far West. The book must be seen to be appreciated. — Bookman. 
 
 Just the funniest, most fascinating book for little folks. — Columbia Herald. 
 
 This is what we want — more books of humor for the wee ones. — Denver Boot-Leaf. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 LARK CLASSICS 
 
 Selected from Ancient and Modern Literature. Issued from 
 time to time in convenient pocket form, toe II printed from 
 clear type, and artistically bounds with cover designed by 
 Porter Garnett, Paper, 2^c.; cloth limp, ^oc,; full 
 leather limp, gilt top, y^c. 
 
 I. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM. Translated into 
 
 English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald; comprising the first and fourth 
 editions, with notes; and additional poems by Justin Huntley McCar- 
 thy, Porter Garnett, and others. 
 
 *'A pleasing reminiscence of The Lark 'of blessed memory' comes in the small, 
 compact, flexible-covered Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This bundle of sweet-scented 
 Oriental leaves in such easily portable form will be welcomed by the impressively large 
 ' Omar-cult' throughout the United States." — Boston Globe. 
 
 '•*■ William Doxey, of San Francisco, who made his name honorably familiar to 
 readers as the publisher of The Lari, and has set a high standard for the producers of 
 books on jhe Pacific Coast, has started a choice series of little books, to be called the 
 'Lark Classics,' that will become favorites." — Philadelphia Times, 
 
 " One of the series of ' Lark Classics' which Doxey is presenting to the public is 
 admirably printed, and altogether attractively gotten up. ' — Sacramento Bte. 
 
 " We are to be congratulated that we can buy our ' Omar' in the United States at 
 almost any price, and in very pretty editions. One of the prettiest that I know of is the 
 cheapest." — Critic. 
 
 "A tasteful edition. The volume is of convenient pocket size, the typography is 
 clear and exact, the binding attractive, and the price low. ' — The Dial. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 LARK CLASSICS 
 
 II. KIPLING : Barrack-Room Ballads, Recessional, 
 AND Other Poems. 150 pages. Now ready. 
 This is the first collection of poems to contain the <* Recessional." 
 
 III. KIPLING : Departmental Ditties, The Vampire, 
 AND Other Poems. 155 pages. 
 
 No other collection of Poems contains ** The Vampire." 
 
 IV. JEFFERIES, RICHARD. The Story of My Heart. 
 
 Richard JeflFeries survives in the Bookseller's Catalogue as the author of '' The 
 Gamekeeper at Home," that he may be known to future ages as the author 
 of *'The Story of My Heart." 
 
 In the history of literature, one happens, from time to time, upon a book which 
 has been written because the author had no choice but to write it. He was 
 compelled by hidden forces to write it. There was no rest for him day or night 
 so soon as the book was complete in his mind until he sat down to write it, and 
 then he wrote it at a white heat. For eighteen years Jefferies says he pondered 
 over this book — he means that he brooded over these and cognate subjects 
 from the time of adolescence. At last his mind was full, and then — but not 
 till then — he wrote it. — Walter Besant. 
 
 V. SWINBURNE. Laus Veneris, and Other Poems, being 
 a selection from the author's best Lyrical poems, with 
 introduction by Howard V. Sutherland. 
 VI. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS. A most dainty edition 
 
 with special Initial letters by Porter Garnett. 
 VIL MACKAY, ERIC. Love Letters of a Violinist. 
 VIII. BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN. The Love Sonnets 
 
 OF Proteus. Printed from the seventh English Edition. 
 No life is perfect that has not been lived — Youth in feeling — Manhood in 
 battle — Old age in meditation. Again, no life is perfect that is not sincere. 
 Preface to Fourth Edition. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 " A book in which Californians should take a pride." — Sacramtnto Bee. 
 
 ILD FLOWERS OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Their Names, Haunts, and Habits 
 
 By MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS 
 Illustrated by Margaret Warriner Buck 
 
 Gives botanical names, popular names, a technical description 
 and a popular description of the California Wild Flowers, con- 
 veniently arranged and carefully indexed, 
 ■ One hundred and fifty beautiful full-page illustrations; 460 
 pages, crown 8vo. Bound in buckram, with suitable cover 
 design, J2.00 net — ?2.20 postpaid; bound in white and gold, 
 with six plates exquisitely colored by hand, $3.00; full leather, $4.cx3; or full leather 
 handsomely decorated cover, $5.00. 
 
 In preparation, a Special Edition, printed on hand-made paper, with all the 
 Illustrations colored by the artist. Price, $25.00. 
 
 " This is the first time the story of the profuse and beautiful flora of California has 
 ever been attempted, and the work is well done." — Colorado Springs Gaxette. 
 
 HE MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Their Establishment, Progress, 
 AND Decay 
 
 By LAURA BRIDE POWERS 
 With numerous illustrations, and striking cover design by 
 Florence Lundborg. Crown 8vo. Cloth, gilt top. Postpaid 
 $1.25. Paper covers, 50c. 
 "From the Sign of the Lark comes a. delightful book com- 
 bining history with romance. Seldom does a reviewer come 
 across a book so novel and entertaining upon so unexpected 
 a topic. If this volume is not read with pleasure by thousands of Americans, the spirit 
 of romance must be dead among us." — Boston Journal. 
 
 " The half-tones make the book charming and give it additional value." — Toledo 
 Sunday Journal. 
 
 " It will be a valuable addition to the library of any one who is interested, no 
 matter how slightly, in the antiquities of the American continent," — Pittsburg Leader. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 A new a?id beautifully illustrated edition of The Rubaiyat 
 
 THE 
 RUB A IT AT OF OMAR KHATTAM 
 
 THE ASTRONOMER POET OF PERSIA 
 
 Rendered into English Verse by EDWARD FITZGERALD 
 
 With designs by Florence Lundborg ; containing 41 full-page 
 drawings illustrative of the text, etc. ; with specially designed 
 decorative borders for the Notes ; life of Edward Fitzgerald and 
 life of Omar, making a splendid volume of i 25 pages beautifully 
 printed by the Cambridge University Press on fine and deli- 
 cately toned paper, small 4to, bound in cloth with bold and 
 striking design on cover stamped in black and gold, boxed, 
 price fy'OO. 
 
 An edition de luxe of the above, beautifully printed on Im- 
 perial Japan Paper and elegantly bound in silk, limited to 21^0 
 impressions, each copy numbered, price, net, $10. 00. 
 
 This most important edition of The Rubaiyat is the work of an 
 American artist who has devoted several years to the study of the 
 great Persian philosopher. The ilh?strations are all in line, rich in 
 thought and masterly in execution. The drawings are Persian in 
 design yet they are so universal in spirit that they show long and 
 careful study in order to give an intelligent elucidation of the text. 
 The text is that of the fourth edition of Edward Fitzgerald printed 
 in clear type and, accompanying each illustration, makes a very 
 harmonious combination. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY^S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 PETRARCH, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By Timothy H. 
 Rearden. i2mo. Cloth. Price, postpaid, $1.50. 
 Contents : Francis Petrarch j Alfred Tennyson ; Ditmarsch and Klaus Groth ; 
 Fritz Reuter's Life and Works ; Ballads and Lyrics j Etc. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE VALLEY. By Yone Noguchi, 
 author of "Seen and Unseen." With introduction by Charles 
 Warren Stoddard, and Frontispiece after painting by William 
 Keith. 60 pages, fcap. 8vo. Postpaid, 75c. 
 
 Noguchi is a word-builder of startling originality and power. . . . There are 
 passages in his poems as lofty and abrupt as the Valley he adores. — Charles 
 Warren Stoddard. 
 
 JACINTA ; A CALIFORNIAN IDYLL, and other Verses. 
 By Howard V. Sutherland. 7c pages, fcap. 8vo. 75c. 
 
 Verses which should win for the author hosts of new friends, especially among 
 the readers of the West. — James H. Barry, in San Francisco Star. 
 
 THE LEGEND OF AULUS, and other Poems. By Flora 
 Macdonald Shearer, with cover design and titlepage by 
 Gelett Burgess. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 A praiseworthy achievement, and will be read with enjoyment by ever)- one who 
 loves poetry for its more refined qualities. — Scotsman. 
 
 The simplicity, tenderness, and strength of these poems demand recognitiou 
 from the most preoccupied and averted attention. — Ambrose Bierge in San 
 Francisco Examiner. 
 
 THE PURPLE COW. A collection of vagaries from The 
 Lark, by Gelett Burgess, including the impossible idyll of 
 the Chewing-Gum Man. Price, postpaid, 50c. 
 
 The " Purple Cow" and "The Chewing-Gum Man" will last forever. — The 
 Bill-Poster. 
 
 The Lark has for Its distinction that it introduced "The Purple Cow" into 
 art. — New York Critic. 
 
 KT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY^S PUBLICATIONS 
 IDLE HOUR SERIES 
 
 IDLE HOURS IN A LIBRARY. By William Henry 
 
 Hudson, Professor of English Literature, Stanford University. Fcap, 
 8vo., cloth, gilt top, ^1.25. Contents: London Life in Shak- 
 speare's Time; Pepys and His Diary; Two Novelists of the English 
 Restoration; A Glimpse of Bohemia. 
 
 " The volume is one upon whose appearance we can congratulate both the writei 
 and the publisher." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 '■'• The essays throughout betray a fine perception and a wholesome soul." — Brooklyn 
 ^imts. 
 
 " The volume is written most attractively in a style to charm the lovers of literature." 
 -—Washington Star. 
 
 *' Professor Hudson's book has in a marked degree the power of interesting us in 
 the subjects he presents, and arousing in us the desire to read for ourselves the books of 
 whose charms he speaks." — Boston Times. 
 
 " The book is a charming one to have at one's elbow when a happy chance gives 
 one an idle hour." — Denver Republican. 
 
 IN PREPARATIO N: 
 A Nenu Volume in the Idle Hour Series. 
 
 A QUIET CORNER IN A LIBRARY. By William 
 
 Henry Hudson, Professor of English Literature, Stanford University. 
 Uniform with "Idle Hours in a Library." Fcap., 8vo., cloth, gilt 
 top, ^1.25. Contents: King Colley (CoUey Gibber); The Plays of 
 Two Great Novelists; From Congreve to Sheridan; Little Davy (David 
 Garrick). 
 
 " Professor Hudson has chosen literary subjects that are not worn threadbare, and 
 which yet lie near enough to popular interest to attract attention; and in his treatment 
 of these subjects has combined soundness of scholarship with light and humorous 
 handling." 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF* THE LARK, New York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 LARK CLASSICS in Preparation 
 
 IX. THE JOLLY MUSE. Being selections of humorous 
 
 fugitive verse of the day. 
 X. THE HARVEST OF SONG. Selections from the 
 serious fugitive verse of the day. 
 
 XL BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT. Son- 
 nets FROM THE Portuguese. With specially designed 
 initial letters by Porter Garnett. 
 XII. ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL. The House of 
 Life. With specially designed initial letters by 
 Porter Garnett. 
 
 LARK EDITIONS in Preparation 
 
 III. KIPLING. Recessional. With decorated borders and 
 
 illustrations by Florence Lundborg. 
 
 IV. KIPLING. The Vampire. With decorated borders 
 
 and illustrations by Lander Phelps. 
 ALSO 
 BIGGS'S BAR, and other Klondyke Ballads, by Howard 
 V. Sutherland. I zmo. Cloth, gilt top, $1.25. 
 A clearer idea of certain phases of Klondyke life in the old 
 days, the days before the great rush of gold-seekers threatened to 
 civilize the regions bordering on the North Pole, can be gained by 
 the perusal of these humorous verses than by reading any other 
 literature of that famous mining camp. 
 
 And fiumerous other Volumes of Bellcs-Lettres 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF ITdlE LARK, Nevi^ York
 
 DOXEY'S PUBLICATIONS 
 
 MAIL ORDERS PROMPTLT ATTENDED TO 
 ALL BOOKS SENT PREPAID 
 CATALOGUES SENT ON APPLICATION 
 
 Especial care is expended on the manufacture 
 of the Doxey publications and in their selection; 
 the result is one both pleasing to the eye and to 
 the tastes of refined readers. 'The Lark Classics are 
 printed in a handy shape and size and will be 
 found very convenient to take along on a holi- 
 day tramp, besides being an adornment and de- 
 cided acquisition to any home library. 
 
 AT THE SIGN OF THE LARK, New York
 
 universiiy ui v^amwima 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17* Box 951388 
 
 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed.
 
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 UNIVEKSITV uF CALIFOIU^A 
 (OS AN<iKLF.S