Oh, the poets may sing of their Lady Irenes,
And may rave in their rhymes about wonderful queens;
But I throw my poetical wings to the breeze,
And soar in a song to my Lady Louise.
A sweet little maid, who is dearer, I ween,
Than any fair duchess, or even a queen.
When speaking of her I can't plod in my prose,
For she 's the wee lassie who gave me a rose.

Since poets, from seeing a lady's lip curled,
Have written fair verse that has sweetened the world;
Why, then, should not I give the space of an hour
To making a song in return for a flower?
I have found in my life--it has not been so long--
There are too few of flowers--too little of song.
So out of that blossom, this lay of mine grows,
For the dear little lady who gave me the rose.

I thank God f...

Fair bride, attended by our blessing,
Glad Hymen's flowery path 'gin pressing!
We witnessed with enraptured eye
The graces of thy soul unfolding,
Thy youthful charms their beauty moulding
To blossom for love's ecstasy.
A happy fate now hovers round thee,
And friendship yields without a smart
To that sweet god whose might hath bound thee;
He needs must have, he hath thy heart!

To duties dear, to trouble tender,
Thy youthful breast must now surrender,
Thy garland's summons must obey.
Each toying infantine sensation,
Each fleeting sport of youth's creation,
Forevermore hath passed away;
And Hymen's sacred bond now chaineth
Where soft and fluttering love was shrined;
Yet for a heart, where beauty reigneth,
Of flowers alone that bond is twined....

Why should I seek for love or study it?
It is of God and passes human wit.
I study hatred with great diligence,
For that's a passion in my own control,
A sort of besom that can clear the soul
Of everything that is not mind or sense.
Why do I hate man, woman Or event?
That is a light my jealous soul has sent.
From terror and deception freed it can
Discover impurities, can show at last
How soul may walk when all such things are past,
How soul could walk before such things began.
Then my delivered soul herself shall learn
A darker knowledge and in hatred turn
From every thought of God mankind has had.
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride
That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.
At stroke of midnight soul...

    Reach your hand to me, my friend,
        With its heartiest caress -
    Sometime there will come an end
        To its present faithfulness -
    Sometime I may ask in vain
    For the touch of it again,
    When between us land or sea
    Holds it ever back from me.

    Sometime I may need it so,
        Groping somewhere in the night,
    It will seem to me as though
        Just a touch, however light,
    Would make all the darkness day,
    And along some sunny way
    Lead me through an April-shower
    Of my tears to this fair hour.

    O the present is too sweet
        To go on forever thus!
    Round the corner of the street
        Who can say what waits for us? -
    Meeting - greeting, night and day,
    ...

Dear, I am lonely, for the bay is still
    As any hill-girt lake; the long brown beach
    Lies bare and wet. As far as eye can reach
There is no motion. Even on the hill
    Where the breeze loves to wander I can see
    No stir of leaves, nor any waving tree.

There is a great red cliff that fronts my view
    A bare, unsightly thing; it angers me
    With its unswerving-grim monotony.
The mackerel weir, with branching boughs askew
    Stands like a fire-swept forest, while the sea
    Laps it, with soothing sighs, continually.

There are no tempests in this sheltered bay,
    The stillness frets me, and I long to be
    Where winds sweep strong and blow tempestuously,
To stand upon some hill-top far away
    And face a gathering gale, and let the...

If you do not want your heart
Burnt at a small flame
Like a spitted sheep,
Fly the love of women.
Fire burns what it touches,
But love burns from afar.

Folk Song of Manchuria.

She may be dark or may be fair,
If beauty she possesses;
But she must have abundant hair -
I doat on flowing tresses.
Her skin must be clear, soft and white
Her cheeks with health's tints glowing,
Her eyes beam with a liquid light, -
Red lips her white teeth showing.
She must be graceful as a fawn,
With bosom gently swelling,
Her presence fresh as early dawn, -
A heart for love to dwell in.
She must be trusting, yet aware
That flatterer's honey'd phrases
Are often but a wily snare,
To catch her in love's mazes.
Accomplishments she must possess,
These make life worth the having;
And taste, especially in dress
Yet still inclined to saving.
In cookery she must excel,
To this there's no exception,
And serve a frugal meal as well
...

Far away, where darkness reigneth,
All my dreams of bliss are flown;
Yet with love my gaze remaineth
Fixed on one fair star alone.
But, alas! that star so bright
Sheds no lustre save by night.

If in slumbers ending never,
Gloomy death had sealed thine eyes,
Thou hadst lived in memory ever
Thou hadst lived still in my sighs;
But, alas! in light thou livest
To my love no answer givest!

Can the sweet hopes love once cherished
Emma, can they transient prove?
What has passed away and perished
Emma, say, can that be love?
That bright flame of heavenly birth
Can it die like things of earth?

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO A DEAR FRIEND ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED FATHER.


The dawn-light wakes, and brightens to the day,
    And the slow sun climbs the far eastern skies,
Then, down the western slopes pursues his way,
    Till shadows deepen and the twilight dies; -
And still I muse, and wait, and list in vain
    For feet that never, never will return, -
For loving words I may not hear again,
    Howe'er with ear attent I wait and yearn.

O love that never wavered, never changed!
    How shall I miss thee as the years go by?
O tenderest heart that could be estranged! -
    O fount that age and suffring could not dry! -
O guiding hand to earliest thought endeared -
    O hand that after clung so long to me! -
O patient Father, honored, loved, r...

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant norther...

Concealed within the shady wood
    A mother left her sleeping child,
And flew, to cull her rustic food,
    The fruitage of the forest wild.

But storms upon her pathway rise,
    The mother roams, astray and weeping;
Far from the weak appealing cries
    Of him she left so sweetly sleeping.

She hopes, she fears; a light is seen,
    And gentler blows the night wind's breath;
Yet no--'tis gone--the storms are keen,
    The infant may be chilled to death!

Perhaps, even now, in darkness shrouded,
    His little eyes lie cold and still;--
And yet, perhaps, they are not clouded,
    Life and love may light them still.

Thus, Cara, at our last farewell,
    When, fearful even thy hand to touch,
I mutely asked those eyes to tell

All in the time when Earth did most deplore
    The cold, ungracious aspect of young May,
Sweet Summer came, and bade him smile once more;
    She wove bright garlands, and in winsome play
    She bound him willing captive.    Day by day
She found new wiles wherewith his heart to please;
    Or bright the sun, or if the skies were gray,
They laughed together, under spreading trees,
By running brooks, or on the sandy shores of seas.

They were but comrades.    To that radiant maid
    No serious word he spake; no lovers' plea.
Like careless children, glad and unafraid,
    They sported in their opulence of glee.
    Her shining tresses floated wild and free;
In simple lines her emerald garments hung;
    She was both good to hear, and fair to see;
And when...

I.

Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be
As beautiful in thought, and so express
Immortal truths to Earth's mortality;
Though to my soul ability be less
Than 'tis to thee, O sweet anemone.

II.

Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise;
Asking of Art no other recompense
Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,
Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.

III.

Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and thanes,
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,
For...

Love, under Friendship's vesture white,
Laughs, his little limbs concealing;
And oft in sport, and oft in spite,
Like Pity meets the dazzled sight,
Smiles thro' his tears revealing.

But now as Rage the God appears!
He frowns, and tempests shake his frame!--
Frowning, or smiling, or in tears,
'Tis Love; and Love is still the same.

ON HER SEVENTEENTH BIRTHDAY.


Now has rich time brought you a gift of gold -
A long sweet year which you can shape at will,
And deck with roses warm, or with the chill
And heartless lilies - GOD gives strength to mould
Our days, and lives, with fingers firm and bold,
And make them noble, straight and clean from ill,
Though few are willing, and their years they fill
With dross which they regret when they are old.

What splendid hours of your life are these
When youth and childhood wander hand in hand,
And give you freely all which best can please -
Laughter and friends and dreams of Fairyland!
Mourn not the seasons past with useless tears,
But greet the pleasure of the coming years!

FRANCE, 1917.

O fleece, billowing down to the shoulders!
O curls! O perfume charged with languor!
Ecstasy! To populate love’s dark alcove,
With memories sleeping tonight in your hair,
I’d wave it, like a handkerchief, in the air!

Languid Asia and burning Africa,
absent worlds, far-off, almost dead,
live in your forest-depths of aromas!
As music floats other spirits away,
mine, my love, sails your fragrance instead.

I’ll go where, full of sap, trees and men
Swoon endlessly in that ardent climate:
Thick tresses, be my tide! You contain,
O sea of ebony, the dazzling dream,
of masts, flames, sails, and oarsmen:

an echoing port where my soul’s a drinker
of sound, colour, scent in rolling waves:
where vessels, gliding through silk and amber,
open wide ...

I.

My love went berrying
Where brooks were merrying
And wild wings ferrying
    Heaven's amethyst;
The wildflowers blessed her,
My dearest Hester,
The winds caressed her,
    The sunbeams kissed.


II.

I followed, carrying
Her basket; varying
Fond hopes of marrying
    With hopes denied;
Both late and early
She deemed me surly,
And bowed her curly
    Fair head and sighed:


III.

"The skies look lowery;
It will he showery;
No longer flowery
    The way I find.
No use in going.
'T will soon be snowing
If you keep growing
    Much more unkind."


IV.

Then looked up tearfully.
And I, all fearfully,
Replied, "My dear, fully
    Will I ex...

Her mist of primroses within her breast
Twilight hath folded up, and o'er the west,
Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,
Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.
Silence and coolness now the earth enfold:
Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,
Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,
And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.
Heard through the stillness, as in whispered words,
The wandering God-guided wings of birds
Ruffle the dark. The little lives that lie
Deep hid in grass join in a long-drawn sigh
More softly still; and unheard through the blue
The falling of innumerable dew,
Lifts with grey fingers all the leaves that lay
Burned in the heat of the consuming day.
The lawns and lakes lie in this night of love,
Admitted to the majesty...