If I knew what poets know,
Would I write a rhyme
Of the buds that never blow
In the summer-time?
Would I sing of golden seeds
Springing up in ironweeds?
And of raindrops turned to snow,
If I knew what poets know?

Did I know what poets do,
Would I sing a song
Sadder than the pigeon's coo
When the days are long?
Where I found a heart in pain,
I would make it glad again;
And the false should be the true,
Did I know what poets do.

If I knew what poets know,
I would find a theme
Sweeter than the placid flow
Of the fairest dream:
I would sing of love that lives
On the errors it forgives;
And the world would better grow
If I knew what poets know.

He longed to be a Back-Blocks Bard,
And fame he wished to win,
He wrote at night and studied hard
(He read The Bulletin);
He sent in “stuff” unceasingly,
But couldn’t get it through;
And so, at last, he came to me
To see what I could do.

The poet’s light was in his eye,
He aimed to be a man;
He bought a bluey and a fly,
A brand new billy-can.
I showed him how to roll his swag
And “sling it” with the best;
I gave him my old water-bag,
And pointed to the west.

“Now you can take the train as far
As Blazes if you like,
The wealthy go by motor-car
(Some travellers go by bike);
They race it through without a rest,
And find it very tame,
But if you tramp it to the west
You’ll get there just the same.

“(No matt...

[Published in "A Masque of Poets" at the request of "H.H.," the author's fellow-townswoman and friend.]

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!

I.

Over heaven clouds are drifted;
In the trees the wind-witch cries;
By her sieve the rain is sifted,
And the clouds at times are rifted
By her mad broom as she flies.
Love, there's lightning in the skies,
Swift, as, in your face uplifted,
Leaps the heart-thought to your eyes.
Little face, where I can trace
Dreams for which those eyes are pages,
Whose young magic here assuages
All the heart-storm and alarm.

II.

Now the thunder tramples slowly,
Like a king, down heaven's arc;
And the clouds, like armies wholly
Vanquished, break; and, white as moly,
Sweeps the queen moon on the dark.
Love, a bird wakes; is't the lark?
Sweet as in your bosom holy
Sings the heart that now I hark.
All my soul that song makes whole,

    "Up the high Alps, perspiring madman, steam,
    To please the school-boys, and become a theme."
            Cf. Juv. Sat. x, v. 106.


    We who know not the charms of a glass below Zero,
    Come list to the lay of an Alpine Club hero;
    For no mortal below, contradict it who can,
    Lives a life half so blest as the Alpine Club man.

    When men of low tastes snore serenely in bed,
    He is up and abroad with a nose blue and red;
    While the lark, who would peacefully sleep in her nest,
    Wakes and blesses the stranger who murders her rest.

    Now blowing their fingers, with frost-bitten toes,
    The joyous procession exultingly goes;
    Above them the glaciers spectral are shining,
    But onward they march undismay'd, un...

On reading her poem in "The Standard.


The sweet spring day is glad with music,
But through it sounds a sadder strain;
The worthiest of our narrowing circle
Sings Loring's dirges o'er again.

O woman greatly loved! I join thee
In tender memories of our friend;
With thee across the awful spaces
The greeting of a soul I send!

What cheer hath he? How is it with him?
Where lingers he this weary while?
Over what pleasant fields of Heaven
Dawns the sweet sunrise of his smile?

Does he not know our feet are treading
The earth hard down on Slavery's grave?
That, in our crowning exultations,
We miss the charm his presence gave?

Why on this spring air comes no whisper
From him to tell us all is well?
Why to our flow...

Maud Muller on a summer's day,
    Raked the meadows, sweet with hay.
Nor was this just a grand-stand play;
    Maud got a rake-off, so they say.

There came a day at summer's full
Entirely for me;
I thought that such were for the saints,
Where revelations be.

The sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new.

The time was scarce profaned by speech;
The symbol of a word
Was needless, as at sacrament
The wardrobe of our Lord.

Each was to each the sealed church,
Permitted to commune this time,
Lest we too awkward show
At supper of the Lamb.

The hours slid fast, as hours will,
Clutched tight by greedy hands;
So faces on two decks look back,
Bound to opposing lands.

And so, when all the time had failed,
Without external sound,
Each bound the other's crucifix,
We gave no ...

In the sunny summer morning
Into the garden I come;
The flowers are whispering and talking,
But for me, I wander dumb.

The flowers are whispering and talking;
They pity my look so wan:
"Thou must not be cross with our sister,
Thou sorrowful, pale-faced man!"

I.
Stand still, true poet that you are!
I know you; let me try and draw you.
Some night you’ll fail us: when afar
You rise, remember one man saw you,
Knew you, and named a star!

II.
My star, God’s glow-worm! Why extend
That loving hand of his which leads you
Yet locks you safe from end to end
Of this dark world, unless he needs you,
Just saves your light to spend?

III.
His clenched hand shall unclose at last,
I know, and let out all the beauty:
My poet holds the future fast,
Accepts the coming ages’ duty,
Their present for this past.

IV.
That day, the earth’s feast-master’s brow
Shall clear, to God the chalice raising;
“Others give best at first, but thou
“Forever set’st our table praising,
“Keep’st the good...

We walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory, like the Princess weird
Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;
So runs the Arab tale.

The sky above us showed
An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outline of their majesty,
As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!
And, shining with a gloom, the water grey
Swang in its moon-taught way.

Nor moon nor stars were out.
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;
And Silence's impassion...

On Translations of Homer

Hexameters acrd Pentameters.

These lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer!
No—but a most burlesque barbarous experiment.
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.



Milton

Alcaics.

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan
Rings to the roar of an angel onset—
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
Th...

From the outskirts of the town
    Where of old the mile-stone stood.
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
    Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?
    Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
    By the years that intervene.

Bright as ever flows the sea,
    Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
    Not the tides that used to run.

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,-
    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
    He is not banished, though, for this,-
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
    He must not watch my resting-place
    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
    His tears must not disturb my heart,
    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
    Joy is not gone from summer skies,
    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all th...

He that ascended in a cloud, shall come
In clouds descending to the public doom.

A horseman on a hilltop green
Drew rein, and wound his horn;
So bright he looked he might have been
The Herald of the Morn.

His steed was of the sovran strain
In Fancy’s meadows bred,
And pride was in his tossing mane,
And triumph in his tread.

The rider’s eyes like jewels glowed,
The World was in his hand,
As down the woodland way he rode
When Spring was in the land.

From golden hour to golden hour
For him the woodland sang.
And from the heart of every flower
A singing fairy sprang.

He rode along with rein so free,
And, as he rode, the Blue
Mysterious Bird of Fantasy
Ever before him flew.

He rode by cot and castle dim
Through all the greenland gay;
Bright eyes through casements glanced at him:
H...

Ah, through the open door
Is there an almond tree
Aflame with blossom!
    - Let us fight no more.

Among the pink and blue
Of the sky and the almond flowers
A sparrow flutters.
    - We have come through,

It is really spring! - See,
When he thinks himself alone
How he bullies the flowers.
    - Ah, you and me

How happy we'll be! - See him
He clouts the tufts of flowers
In his impudence.
    - But, did you dream

It would be so bitter? Never mind
It is finished, the spring is here.
And we're going to be summer-happy
And summer-kind.

We have died, we have slain and been slain,
We are not our old selves any more.
I feel new and eager
To start again.

It is gorgeous to live and forget.
...

Non ha tanti animali il mar fra l' onde.

HE DESPAIRS OF ESCAPE FROM THE TORMENTS BY WHICH HE IS SURROUNDED.


    Nor Ocean holds such swarms amid his waves,
Not overhead, where circles the pale moon,
Were stars so numerous ever seen by night,
Nor dwell so many birds among the woods,
Nor plants so many clothe the field or hill,
As holds my tost heart busy thoughts each eve.

Each day I hope that this my latest eve
Shall part from my quick clay the sad salt waves,
And leave me in last sleep on some cold hill;
So many torments man beneath the moon
Ne'er bore as I have borne; this know the woods
Through which I wander lonely day and night.

For never have I had a tranquil night,
But ceaseless sighs instead from morn till eve,
Sinc...