'Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan, son of Lir, out of the
Land of Promise went to Connlas' Well which is under the
sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels of
wisdom and inspiration that is, the hazels of the science of
poetry; and in the same hour their fruit and their blossom &
their foliage break forth, and then fall upon the well in
the same shower, which raises upon the water a royal surge
of purple.'

Wistaria blossoms trail and fall
Above the length of barrier wall;
And softly, now and then,
The shy, staid-breasted doves will flit
From roof to gateway-top, and sit
And watch the ways of men.

The gate's ajar. If one might peep!
Ah, what a haunt of rest and sleep
The shadowy garden seems!
And note how dimly to and fro
The grave, gray-hooded Sisters go,
Like figures seen in dreams.

Look, there is one that tells her beads;
And yonder one apart that reads
A tiny missal's page;
And see, beside the well, the two
That, kneeling, strive to lure anew
The magpie to its cage!

Not beautiful--not all! But each
With that mild grace, outlying speech,
Which comes of even mood;--
The Veil unseen that women wear
With heart-whole...

I'm askin' you'll be easy for a bit, Sir,
The lad's had little but a thrush's schoolin',
The blue skies and the fields, the little whipster,
'Tis time enough for something more--(But whisper)
He'll go the better for an easy rulin'.

Herself was always for the bit of readin'
But Denny here, he's great for growin' things,
There's not a primrose that he'd not be heedin'
Herself is right 'tis graver things he's needin'
The thrush is tamer when you clip his wings.

I'd never have you spare him with the learnin',
(And, Faith, 'tis little that the lad has had),
But if above his task you'll see him turnin'
To watch the fields--'tis just the thrush's yearnin'--
I'm askin' you'll be easy with the lad.

I look to Science for the cure of Crime;
To patient righting of a thousand wrongs;
To final healing of a thousand ills.
Blind runner now, and cruel egotist
It yet leads on to more than mortal sight,
And the large knowledge that means humbleness,
And tender love for all created things.

I look to Science for the Coming Race
Growing from seed selected; and from soil
Love fertilised; and pruned by wisdom's hand,
Till out of mortal man spring demi-gods,
Strong primal creatures with awakened souls
And normal passions, governed by the will,
Leaving a trail of glory where they tread.

I look to Science for the growth of faith.
That bold denier of accepted creeds -
That mighty doubter of accepted truths -
Shall yet reveal God's secrets to the world,

Let's strive to be the best; the gods, we know it,
Pillars and men, hate an indifferent poet.

I
Days dawn on us that make amends for many
Sometimes,
When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any
Man's rhymes.
Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled
In Greece,
Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held
His peace.
Had Sappho's self not left her word thus long
For token,
The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song
Had spoken.

II
And yet these days of subtler air and finer
Delight,
When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner
The light -
The gift they give of all these golden hours,
Whose urn
Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers
In turn -
Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day's track
Seem living -
What were they did no spirit give them back
Thanksgiving?

III

Ho, ruddy-cheeked boys and curly maids,
Who deftly ply your pails and spades,
All you who sturdily take your stand
On your pebble-buttressed forts of sand,
    And thence defy
    With a fearless eye
And a burst of rollicking high-pitched laughter
The stealthy trickling waves that lap you
And the crested breakers that tumble after
To souse and batter you, sting and sap you -
All you roll-about rackety little folk,
Down-again, up-again, not-a-bit brittle folk,
    Attend, attend,
    And let each girl and boy
    Join in a loud "Ahoy!"
For, lo, he comes, your tricksy little friend,
From the clear caverns of his crystal home
Beyond the tossing ridges of the foam:
Planner of sandy romps and wet delights,
Robin the Sea-boy, prince of ocean-sprites,<...

A Prize Poem.


I know Canada is fair to see, and pleasant; it is well
On the banks of its broad river 'neath the maple trees to dwell;
But the heart is very wilful, and in sorrow or in mirth,
Mine will turn with sore love-longing to the land that gave me birth;
And I wish that, oh but once again! my longing eyes might see
The green island that lies smiling on the bosom of the sea;
That is fed with heaven's dew and the fatness of the earth,
Fanned by wild Atlantic breezes that sweep over it in mirth.

Its green robe is starred with daisies; it is brilliant fresh and fair,
With a verdure that no other spot of earth affords to wear.
It has banks of pale primroses that like bits of moonlight glow;
There are hawthorn hedges blossomed out like drifts of perfumed snow,

Wild heart, wild heart,
Where does the wind find home?
Wild heart, wild heart,
Where does the wild blood rest?
Home, home,
Rest, rest--
Unto you I come
And catch you to my breast.

Wild heart, wild heart,
There the wind will sleep.
Wild heart, wild heart,
And the blood gently flow.
Come, come,
Unresting rest
Within my heart's cave deep
Where thoughts like bright stars glow.

Wild heart, wild heart,
Here, here is your home.
Wild heart, wild heart,
With that winged star I come.
Home, home,
Rest in unrest--
Unto you, wild heart, I come.
My wild heart is your home.

Fall fell:so that's it for the leaf poetry:
some flurries have whitened the edges of roads

and lawns: time for that, the snow stuff: &
turkeys and old St. Nick: where am I going to

find something to write about I haven't already
written away: I will have to stop short, look

down, look up, look close, think, think, think:
but in what range should I think: should I

figure colors and outlines, given forms, say
mailboxes, or should I try to plumb what is

behind what and what behind that, deep down
where the surface has lost its semblance: or

should I think personally, such as, this week
seems to have been crafted in hell: what: is

something going on: something besides this
diddledeediddle everyday matter-of-fact: I

Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving
    Thy strong regard for me,
Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving;
    Let thy faith speak for thee.

Swear not to me that nothing can divide us -
    So little such oaths mean.
But when distrust and envy creep beside us
    Let them not come between.

Say not to me the depths of thy devotion
    Are deeper than the sea;
But watch, lest doubt or some unkind emotion
    Embitter them for me.

Vow not to love me ever and forever,
    Words are such idle things;
But when we differ in opinions, never
    Hurt me by little stings.

I'm sick of words: they are so lightly spoken,
    And spoken, are but air.
I'd rather feel thy trust in me unbroken
    Than list thy words s...

I.

In some glad way I know thereof:
A garden glows down in my heart,
Wherein I meet and often part
With many an ancient tale of love
A Romeo garden, banked with bloom,
And trellised with the eglantine;
In which a rose climbs to a room,
A balcony one mass of vine,
Dim, haunted of perfume
A balcony, whereon she gleams,
The soft Desire of all Dreams,
And smiles and bends like Juliet,
Year after year.
While to her side, all dewy wet,
A rose stuck in his ear,
Love climbs to draw her near.

II.

And in another way I know:
Down in my soul a graveyard lies,
Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise,
With many an ancient tale of woe
A graveyard of the Capulets,
Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom,
Through whose dark yews the ...

Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, found
Her master cold; for when the morning flush
Of passion and the first embrace had died
Between them, tho' he loved her none the less,
Yet often when the woman heard his foot
Return from pacings in the field, and ran
To greet him with a kiss, the master took
Small notice, or austerely, for his mind
Half buried in some weightier argument,
Or fancy-borne perhaps upon the rise
And long roll of the hexameter -- he past
To turn and ponder those three hundred scrolls
Left by the Teacher, whom he held divine.
She brook'd it not, but wrathful, petulant
Dreaming some rival, sought and found a witch
Who brew'd the philtre which had power, they said
To lead an errant passion home again.
And this, at times, she mingled with his drink...

O spirit of Life, by whatsoe'er a name
Known among men, even as our fathers bent
Before thee, and as little children came
For counsel in Life's dread predicament,
Even we, with all our lore,
That only beckons, saddens and betrays,
Have no such key to the mysterious door
As he that kneels and prays.

The stern ascension of our climbing thought,
The martyred pilgrims of the soaring soul,
Bring us no nearer to the thing we sought,
But only tempt us further from the goal;
Yea! the eternal plan
Darkens with knowledge, and our weary skill
But makes us more of beast and less of man,
Fevered to hate and kill.

Loves flees with frightened eyes the world it knew,
Fades and dissolves and vanishes away,
And the sole art the sons of men pursue
Is t...

FORMERLY TRANSLATED.
[Footnote: The first six of these sonnets are translated (not directly, but through the French of Clement Marot) from Petrarch's third Canzone in Morte di Laura. The seventh is by the translator. The circumstance that the version is made from Marot renders it probable that these sonnets are really by Spenser. C.]


I.

Being one day at my window all alone,
So manie strange things happened me to see,
As much it grieveth me to thinke thereon.
At my right hand a hynde appear'd to mee.
So faire as mote the greatest god delite;
Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace,
Of which the one was blacke, the other white.
With deadly force so in their cruell race
They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,
That at the last, and in short time, I spide,

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld, --
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

But peers beyond her mesh,
And wishes, and denies, --
Lest interview annul a want
That image satisfies.

Two years ago I was thinking
On the changes that years bring forth;
Now I stand where I then stood drinking
The gust and the salt sea froth;
And the shuddering wave strikes, linking
With the waves subsiding and sinking,
And clots the coast herbage, shrinking,
With the hue of the white cere-cloth.

Is there aught worth losing or keeping?
The bitters or sweets men quaff?
The sowing or the doubtful reaping?
The harvest of grain or chaff?
Or squandering days or heaping,
Or waking seasons or sleeping,
The laughter that dries the weeping,
Or the weeping that drowns the laugh?

For joys wax dim and woes deaden,
We forget the sorrowful biers,
And the garlands glad that have fled in
The merciful march of years;
And the sunny skies, and the...

Lone and alone she lies,
    Poor Miss 7,
Five steep flights from the earth,
    And one from heaven;
Dark hair and dark brown eyes, -
Not to be sad she tries,
Still - still it's lonely lies
    Poor Miss 7.

One day-long watch hath she,
    Poor Miss 7,
Not in some orchard sweet
    In April Devon -
Just four blank walls to see,
And dark come shadowily,
No moon, no stars, ah me!
    Poor Miss 7.

And then to wake again,
    Poor Miss 7,
To the cold night, to have
    Sour physic given;
Out of some dream of pain,
Then strive long hours in vain
Deep dreamless sleep to gain:
    Poor Miss 7.

Yet memory softly sings
    Poor Miss 7
Songs full of love and peace
    And gladness even;
Clear...