Friendship

    Wish ye, sons of Alma Mater,
        Long lost laurels to replace?
    Listen to a stout old Pater,
        Once renowned in many a race.
    Now, alas!    I'm fat and forty,
        And my form grows round to view;
    And my nose is rather "porty;"
        But my heart is still light-blue.

    'Tis as bad as an emetic,
        E'en my 'baccy I refuse,
    When I hear that sports athletic
        Interfere with Cambridge crews.
    Once a Grecian runner famous
        Scorned to fight his country's foes;
    And to Greece, as some to Camus,
        Caused innumerable woes.

    When I hear the voice parental
        Cry, "my youngster shall not row!"
    Then my wrath is transcendental,
        Then my words with vigour flow.

I.
Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me!

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.

III.
What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.

IV.
What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees
Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her thr...

Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world,
I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;
I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth
How God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.
But we whose hearts are homing birds have heavier thoughts of home,
Though the great eagles burn with gold on Paris or on Rome,
Who stand beside our dead and stare, like seers at an eclipse,
At the riddle of the island tale and the twilight of the ships.

For these were simple men that loved with hands and feet and eyes,
Whose souls were humbled to the hills and narrowed to the skies,
The hundred little lands within one little land that lie,
Where Severn seeks the sunset isles or Sussex scales the sky.

And what is theirs, though...

Amor con la man destra il lato manco.

UNDER THE FIGURE OF A LAUREL, HE RELATES THE GROWTH OF HIS LOVE.


    My poor heart op'ning with his puissant hand,
Love planted there, as in its home, to dwell
A Laurel, green and bright, whose hues might well
In rivalry with proudest emeralds stand:
Plough'd by my pen and by my heart-sighs fann'd,
Cool'd by the soft rain from mine eyes that fell,
It grew in grace, upbreathing a sweet smell,
Unparallel'd in any age or land.
Fair fame, bright honour, virtue firm, rare grace,
The chastest beauty in celestial frame,--
These be the roots whence birth so noble came.
Such ever in my mind her form I trace,
A happy burden and a holy thing,
To which on rev'rent knee with loving prayer I cling.

MACGREG...

God made that night of pearl and ivory,
Perfect and holy as a holy thought
Born of perfection, dreams, and ecstasy,
In love and silence wrought.

And she, who lay where, through the casement failing,
The moonlight clasped with arms of vapory gold
Her Danae beauty, seemed to hear a calling
Deep in the garden old.

And then it seemed, through some strange sense, she heard
The roses softly speaking in the night.
Or was it but the nocturne of a bird
Haunting the white moonlight?

It seemed a fragrant whisper vaguely roaming
From rose to rose, a language sweet that blushed,
Saying, "Who comes? Who is this swiftly coming,
With face so dim and hushed?

"And now, and now we hear a wild heart beating
Whose heart is this that beats among our blo...

"Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." 2 TIMOTHY ii. 15.

My youthful brother, oft I long
To write to you in prose or song;
With no pretence to judgment strong,
But warm affection,
May truest friendship rivet long
Our close connection!

With deference, what I impart
Receive with humble grateful heart,
Nor proudly from my counsel start,
I only lend it,
A friend ne'er aims a poisoned dart,
He wounds, to mend it.

A graduate you've just been made,
And lately passed the Mitred Head;
I trust, by the Blest Spirit, led,
And Shepherd's care:
And not a wolf, in sheepskin clad,
As numbers are.

The greatest office you sustain
For love of souls, and n...

It was Sir John, the fair young Priest,
    He strode up off the strand;
But seven fisher maidens he left behind
    All dancing hand in hand.

He came unto the wise wife's house:
    'Now, Mother, to prove your art;
To charm May Carleton's merry blue eyes
    Out of a young man's heart.'

'My son, you went for a holy man,
    Whose heart was set on high;
Go sing in your psalter, and read in your books;
    Man's love fleets lightly by.'

'I had liever to talk with May Carleton,
    Than with all the saints in Heaven;
I had liever to sit by May Carleton
    Than climb the spheres seven.

'I have watched and fasted, early and late,
    I have prayed to all above;
But I find no cure save churchyard mould
    For the pain which ...

Ah, Luxury! Beyond the heat
And dust of town, with dangling feet,
Astride the rock below the dam,
In the cool shadows where the calm
Rests on the stream again, and all
Is silent save the waterfall, -
bait my hook and cast my line,
And feel the best of life is mine.

No high ambition may I claim -
angle not for lordly game
Of trout, or bass, or wary bream -
black perch reaches the extreme
Of my desires; and "goggle-eyes"
Are not a thing that I despise;
A sunfish, or a "chub," or "cat" -
A "silver-side" - yea, even that!

In eloquent tranquility
The waters lisp and talk to me.
Sometimes, far out, the surface breaks,
As some proud bass an instant shakes
His glittering armor in the sun,
And romping ripples, one by one,
Come ...

Motto.    Tell me thou skilfull shepheards swayne,
            Who's yonder in the vally set?
Perkin. O it is she whose sweets do stayne,
            The Lilly, Rose, or violet.

Motto.    Why doth the Sunne against his kind,
            Stay his bright Chariot in the skies,
Perkin. He pawseth almost stroken blind,
            With gazing on her heauenly eies:

Motto.    Why doe thy flocks forbeare their foode,
            Which somtyme was their chiefe delight,
Perkin. Because they neede no other good,
            That liue in presence of her sight:

Motto.    How com those flowers to florish still,
            Not withering with sharpe winters breath?
Perkin. She hath robd nature of her skill,
            And comforts all things with her breath:

    When in the Thracian dust uprooted lay,
    In ruin vast, the strength of Italy,
    And Fate had doomed Hesperia's valleys green,
    And Tiber's shores,
    The trampling of barbarian steeds to feel,
    And from the leafless groves,
    On which the Northern Bear looks down,
    Had called the Gothic hordes,
    That Rome's proud walls might fall before their swords;
    Exhausted, wet with brothers' blood,
    Alone sat Brutus, in the dismal night;
    Resolved on death, the gods implacable
    Of heaven and hell he chides,
    And smites the listless, drowsy air
    With his fierce cries of anger and despair.

    "O foolish virtue, empty mists,
    The realms of shadows, are thy schools,
    And at thy heels repentance follows fast.
  ...

The touches of her hands are like the fall
    Of velvet snowflakes; like the touch of down
The peach just brushes 'gainst the garden wall;
The flossy fondlings of the thistle-wisp
    Caught in the crinkle of a leaf of brown
The blighting frost hath turned from green to crisp.

Soft as the falling of the dusk at night,
The touches of her hands, and the delight -
    The touches of her hands!
The touches of her hands are like the dew
That falls so softly down no one e'er knew
The touch thereof save lovers like to one
Astray in lights where ranged Endymion.

O rarely soft, the touches of her hands,
As drowsy zephyrs in enchanted lands;
    Or pulse of dying fay; or fairy sighs,
Or - in between the midnight and the dawn,
When long unrest and tears...

These are not dewdrops, these are tears,
And tears by Sally shed
For absent Robin, who she fears,
With too much cause, is dead.


One morn he came not to her hand
As he was wont to come,
And, on her finger perch’d, to stand
Picking his breakfast-crumb.


Alarm’d, she call’d him, and perplex’d,
She sought him, but in vain—
That day he came not , nor the next,
Nor ever came again.


She therefore raised him here a tomb,
Though where he fell, or how,
None knows—so secret was his doom,
Nor where he moulders now.


Had half a score of coxcombs died
In social Robin’s stead,
Poor Sally’s tears had soon been dried,
Or haply never shed.


But Bob was neither rudely bold
Nor spiritlessly tame;

This is your month, the month of "perfect days,"
Birds in full song and blossoms all ablaze.
Nature herself your earliest welcome breathes,
Spreads every leaflet, every bower inwreathes;
Carpets her paths for your returning feet,
Puts forth her best your coming steps to greet;
And Heaven must surely find the earth in tune
When Home, sweet Home, exhales the breath of June.
These blessed days are waning all too fast,
And June's bright visions mingling with the past;

Lilacs have bloomed and faded, and the rose
Has dropped its petals, but the clover blows,
And fills its slender tubes with honeyed sweets;
The fields are pearled with milk-white margarites;
The dandelion, which you sang of old,
Has lost its pride of place, its crown of gold,
But still displays ...

Against these turbid turquoise skies
The light and luminous balloons
Dip and drift like satin moons
Drift like silken butterflies;

Reel with every windy gust,
Rise and reel like dancing girls,
Float like strange transparent pearls,
Fall and float like silver dust.

Now to the low leaves they cling,
Each with coy fantastic pose,
Each a petal of a rose
Straining at a gossamer string.

Then to the tall trees they climb,
Like thin globes of amethyst,
Wandering opals keeping tryst
With the rubies of the lime.

You have taken away my cloak,
My cloak of weariness;
Take my coat also,
My many-coloured coat of life....

On this great nursery floor
I had three toys,
A bright and varnished vow,
A Speckled Monster, best of boys,
True friend to me, and more
Beloved and a thing of cost,
My doll painted like life; and now
One is broken and two are lost.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.

Hear ye not the waters beating where the rapid rivers, meeting
With the winds above them fleeting, hurry to the distant seas,
And a smothered sound of singing from old Ocean upwards springing,
Sending hollow echoes ringing like a wailing on the breeze?
For the tempest round us brewing, cometh with the clouds pursuing,
And the bright Day, like a ruin, crumbles from the mournful trees.

When the thunder ceases pealing, and the stars up heaven are stealing,
And the Moon above us wheeling throws her pleasant glances round,
From our homes we boldly sally ’neath the trysting tree to rally,
For a night-hunt up the valley, with our brothers and the hound!
Through a wild-eyed Forest, staring at the light above it glaring,
We will travel, little caring for the dangers where we bound.
...

Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold; and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea.

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more.
Whither away, from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore?
Day and night to the billow the fountain calls;
Down shower the gambolling waterfalls
From wandering over the lea;
Out of the live-green heart of the dells
They freshen the silvery-crimson shells,
And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells
High over the full-toned sea.
O, hither, come hither and furl your sails,
Come hither to me and to me;
Hither, come hither ...

I dreamt that, in the Paphian groves,
    My nets by moonlight laying,
I caught a flight of wanton Loves,
    Among the rose-beds playing.
Some just had left their silvery shell,
    While some were full in feather;
So pretty a lot of Loves to sell,
    Were never yet strung together.
        Come buy my Loves,
        Come buy my Loves,
Ye dames and rose-lipped misses!--
    They're new and bright,
    The cost is light,
For the coin of this isle is kisses.

First Cloris came, with looks sedate.
    The coin on her lips was ready;
"I buy," quoth she, "my Love by weight,
    "Full grown, if you please, and steady."
"Let mine be light," said Fanny, "pray--
    "Such lasting toys undo one;
"A light little Love that will last to-day,--