The four Equinox sisters,
    the one, Fox, streaked -
    all color, a blur
    a Bloomingdale's on fire,
    a wedge between Everest
    & her fortune.

    Samantha, the other
    dun-coloured
    earth-tide (in full bloom),
    blossoms vernally & literally
    busting out of her breeches with
    eyes like barely sugar.
    Jubilee. Fête de la vie.
    Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
    shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
    Rattan Bar, shooting star.

    Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
    the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
    flushed with heat.
    Tidewater in full ripple, a
    murmuring of abstract intelligence
    orchestrating summer's growth.
    Emerald keeper....

Not we who daily walk the city's
Not those who have been cradled in its heart,
Best understand its architectural art
Or realise its grandeur.    Oft we meet
Some stranger who has staid his passing feet
And lingered with us for a single hour,
And learned more of cathedral, and of tower,
Than we who deem our knowledge quite complete.

Not always those we hold most loved and dear,
Not always those who dwell with us, know best
Our greater selves.    Because they stand so near
They cannot see the lofty mountain crest,
The gleaming sun-kissed height, which fair and clear
Stands forth - revealed unto the some-time guest.

I love the lyric muse!
For when mankind ran wild in grooves
Came holy Orpheus with his songs
And turned men's hearts from bestial loves,
From brutal force and savage wrongs;
Amphion, too, and on his lyre
Made such sweet music all the day
That rocks, instinct with warm desire,
Pursued him in his glorious way.

I love the lyric muse!
Hers was the wisdom that of yore
Taught man the rights of fellow man,
Taught him to worship God the more,
And to revere love's holy ban.
Hers was the hand that jotted down
The laws correcting divers wrongs;
And so came honor and renown
To bards and to their noble songs.

I love the lyric muse!
Old Homer sung unto the lyre;
Tyrtæus, too, in ancient days;
Still warmed by their immortal fire,
How...

My dear old friends - It jes beats all,
The way you write a letter
So's ever' last line beats the first,
And ever' next-un's better! -
W'y, ever' fool-thing you putt down
You make so interestin',
A feller, readin' of 'em all,
Can't tell which is the best-un.

It's all so comfortin' and good,
'Pears-like I almost hear ye
And git more sociabler, you know,
And hitch my cheer up near ye
And jes smile on ye like the sun
Acrosst the whole per-rairies
In Aprile when the thaw's begun
And country couples marries.

It's all so good-old-fashioned like
To talk jes like we're thinkin',
Without no hidin' back o' fans
And giggle-un and winkin',
Ner sizin' how each-other's dressed -
Lik...

A poet had a cat.
There is nothing odd in that--
(I might make a little pun about the Mews!)
But what is really more
Remarkable, she wore
A pair of pointed patent-leather shoes.
And I doubt me greatly whether
E'er you heard the like of that:
Pointed shoes of patent-leather
On a cat!

His time he used to pass
Writing sonnets, on the grass--
(I might say something good on pen and sward!)
While the cat sat near at hand,
Trying hard to understand
The poems he occasionally roared.
(I myself possess a feline,
But when poetry I roar
He is sure to make a bee-line
For the door.)

The poet, cent by cent,
All his patrimony spent--
(I might tell how he went from werse to werse!...

The work is done; now let my laurel be
Given by none but by Thyself to me:
That done, with honour Thou dost me create
Thy poet, and Thy prophet Laureate.

"Gabble-gabble,... brethren,... gabble-gabble!"
My window frames forest and heather.
I hardly hear the tuneful babble,
Not knowing nor much caring whether
The text is praise or exhortation,
Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation.

Outside it blows wetter and wetter,
The tossing trees never stay still.
I shift my elbows to catch better
The full round sweep of heathered hill.
The tortured copse bends to and fro
In silence like a shadow-show.

The parson's voice runs like a river
Over smooth rocks. I like this church:
The pews are staid, they never shiver,
They never bend or sway or lurch.
"Prayer," says the kind voice, "is a chain
That draws down Grace from Heaven again."

I add the hymns up, over and over,
Until there's not the least...

Spinse amor e dolor ove ir non debbe.

REFLECTING THAT LAURA IS IN HEAVEN, HE REPENTS HIS EXCESSIVE GRIEF, AND IS CONSOLED.


    Sorrow and Love encouraged my poor tongue,
Discreet in sadness, where it should not go,
To speak of her for whom I burn'd and sung,
What, even were it true, 'twere wrong to show.
That blessèd saint my miserable state
Might surely soothe, and ease my spirit's strife,
Since she in heaven is now domesticate
With Him who ever ruled her heart in life.
Wherefore I am contented and consoled,
Nor would again in life her form behold;
Nay, I prefer to die, and live alone.
Fairer than ever to my mental eye,
I see her soaring with the angels high,
Before our Lord, her maker and my own.

MACGREGOR.


   ...

My faithful friend, if you can see
The fruit to grow up, or the tree;
If you can see the colour come
Into the blushing pear or plum;
If you can see the water grow
To cakes of ice, or flakes of snow;
If you can see that drop of rain
Lost in the wild sea once again;
If you can see how dreams do creep
Into the brain by easy sleep:
Then there is hope that you may see
Her love me once, who now hates me.

    Sad thy tale, thou idle page,
        And rueful thy alarms:
    Death tears the brother of her love
        From Isabella's arms.

    Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew
        The morning rose may blow;
    But cold successive noontide blasts
        May lay its beauties low.

    Fair on Isabella's morn
        The sun propitious smil'd;
    But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
        Succeeding hopes beguil'd.

    Fate oft tears the bosom chords
        That nature finest strung:
    So Isabella's heart was form'd,
        And so that heart was wrung.

    Were it in the poet's power,
        Strong as he shares the grief
    That pierces Isabella's heart,
        To give that heart relief!

    Dread Omnipo...

Swifter than aught 'neath the sun the car of Simonides moved him.
Two things he could not out-run Death and a Woman who loved him.

There are some things that entertain me more
Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem
A key of Poetry, made of magic lore
Of childhood, opening many a fabled door
Of superstition, mystery, and dream
        Enchantment locked of yore.

For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,
Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits
The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies
Round some dark purpose; or before me cries
The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits
        A shadowy voice and eyes.

Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow
The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate
With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow
Of Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow,
See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fête
        With lanthorn ro...

    "Deny your God!" they ringed me with their spears;
    Blood-crazed were they, and reeking from the strife;
    Hell-hot their hate, and venom-fanged their sneers,
    And one man spat on me and nursed a knife.
    And there was I, sore wounded and alone,
    I, the last living of my slaughtered band.
    Oh sinister the sky, and cold as stone!
    In one red laugh of horror reeled the land.
    And dazed and desperate I faced their spears,
    And like a flame out-leaped that naked knife,
    And like a serpent stung their bitter jeers:
    "Deny your God, and we will give you life."

    Deny my God! Oh life was very sweet!
    And it is hard in youth and hope to die;
    And there my comrades dear lay at my feet,
    And in that blear of blood soon must...

Green wing and ruby throat,
    What shining spell, what exquisite sorcery,
Lured you to float
    And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?

Petulant imps of light,
    What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes
Thrilled through the night
    And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?

One tree, and one alone,
    Of all that load this magic air with spice,
Claims for its own
    Your brave migration out of Paradise;

Claims you, and guides you, too,
    Three thousand miles across the summer's waste
Of blooms ye knew
    Less finely fit for your ethereal taste.

To poets' youthful hearts,
    Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,--
Those irised darts,
    Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky.

I know some lonely houses off the road
A robber 'd like the look of, --
Wooden barred,
And windows hanging low,
Inviting to
A portico,
Where two could creep:
One hand the tools,
The other peep
To make sure all's asleep.
Old-fashioned eyes,
Not easy to surprise!

How orderly the kitchen 'd look by night,
With just a clock, --
But they could gag the tick,
And mice won't bark;
And so the walls don't tell,
None will.

A pair of spectacles ajar just stir --
An almanac's aware.
Was it the mat winked,
Or a nervous star?
The moon slides down the stair
To see who's there.

There's plunder, -- where?
Tankard, or spoon,
Earring, or stone,
A watch, some ancient brooch
To match the grandmamma,
...

    A man of words and not of deeds,
    Is like a garden full of weeds;
    For when the weeds begin to grow,
    Then doth the garden overflow.

I heard a boy that climbed up Dover's Hill
Singing Sweet England, sweeter for his song.
The notes crept muffled through the copse, but still
Sharply recalled the things forgotten long,
The music that my own boy's lips had known,
Singing, and old airs on a wild flute blown;

And other hills, more grim and lonely far,
And valleys empty of these orchard trees;
A sheep-pond filled with the moon, a single star
I had watched by night searching the wreckful seas;
And all the streets and streets that childhood knew
In years when London streets were all my view.

And I remembered how that song I heard,
Sweet England, sung by children on May-day,
Nor any song was sweeter of a bird
Than that half-grievous air from children gay--
For then, as now, ...

O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day,
If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,
If shining now, with not a hue would light thee.

The dew that used to wet thee,
And, white first, grow incarnadined, because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was,
If dropping now, would darken where it met thee.

The fly that lit upon thee,
To stretch the tendrils of its tiny fe...