"For old sake's sake!" 'Twere hard to choose
Words fitter for an old-world Muse
Than these, that in their cadence bring
Faint fragrance of the posy-ring,
And charms that rustic lovers use.

The long day lengthens, and we lose
The first pale flush, the morning hues,--
Ah! but the back-look, lingering,
For old sake's sake!

That we retain. Though Time refuse
To lift the veil on forward views,
Despot in most, he is not King
Of those kind memories that cling
Around his travelled avenues
For old sake's sake!



"Qui n'a pas l'esprit de son âge
De son âge a tout le malheur."
Voltaire.

Only the commonest flowers
    Grow in my garden small,
Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets,
    And hollyhocks by the wall,
And sunflowers nodding their stately heads,
    Like grenadiers so tall.
But the purple pansy grows beneath--
    The sweetest flower of all--

And tiny feathery filmy ferns
    You scarce can see at all,
Fleck the shady side of the stones,
    So dainty, fine and small

Only the commonest flowers
    Grow in this garden of mine,
The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap,
    And the twinkling celandine
Shakes her jewels of freckled gold,
    And drinks her honey-wine,
Making a cup of her lucent stem,
    So slender and so fine.

You hear the waves that dimple and slide,
    Slide and shimmer and shin...

She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
    She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
    And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
    Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
    The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
    Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
    She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

I

How beautiful when up a lofty height
Honour ascends among the humblest poor,
And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door
Of One, a Widow, left beneath a weight
Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune's spite
She wasted no complaint, but strove to make
A just repayment, both for conscience-sake
And that herself and hers should stand upright
In the world's eye. Her work when daylight failed
Paused not, and through the depth of night she kept
Such earnest vigils, that belief prevailed
With some, the noble Creature never slept;
But, one by one, the hand of death assailed
Her children from her inmost heart bewept.

II

The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow,
Till a winter's noonday placed her buried Son
Before her eyes, last child...

Nè per sereno cielo ir vaghe stelle.

NOTHING THAT NATURE OFFERS CAN AFFORD HIM CONSOLATION.


    Not skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,
Nor gallant ships o'er tranquil ocean dancing,
Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,
Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade,
Nor tidings new of happiness delay'd,
Nor poesie, Love's witchery enhancing,
Nor lady's song beside clear fountain glancing,
In beauty's pride, with chastity array'd;
Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show,
Shall touch my heart, now cold within her tomb
Who was erewhile my life and light below!
So heavy--tedious--sad--my days unblest,
That I, with strong desire, invoke Death's gloom,
Her to behold, whom ne'er to have seen were best!

DACRE.
<...

Beauties, have ye seen this toy,
Called love, a little boy
Almost naked, wanton, blind,
Cruel now, and then as kind?
If he be amongst ye, say!
He is Venus' runaway.

He hath of marks about him plenty;
Ye shall know him among twenty;
All his body is a fire,
And his breath a flame entire,
That, being shot like lightning in,
Wounds the heart, but not the skin.

He doth bear a golden bow,
And a quiver, hanging low,
Full of arrows, that outbrave
Dian's shafts, where, if he have
Any head more sharp than other,
With that first he strikes his mother.

Trust him not: his words, though sweet,
Seldom with his heart do meet;
All his practice is deceit,
Every gift is but a bait;
Not a kiss but poison bears,
And most treason...

Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife.
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!

It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios...
It is still... so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean...

Ten times we had watched the moon
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters
And round into a full maternity...
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh
Save the man flesh on either hand
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.

The Athenian boy sat on my left...
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine...
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian,
Grinning Phildar
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth.
Many a whip had coiled about him
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels,
And his skin was red and tough as a bull's hide cured in the sun....

I meditate upon a swallow's flight,
Upon a aged woman and her house,
A sycamore and lime-tree lost in night
Although that western cloud is luminous,
Great works constructed there in nature's spite
For scholars and for poets after us,
Thoughts long knitted into a single thought,
A dance-like glory that those walls begot.
There Hyde before he had beaten into prose
That noble blade the Muses buckled on,
There one that ruffled in a manly pose
For all his timid heart, there that slow man,
That meditative man, John Synge, and those
Impetuous men, Shawe-Taylor and Hugh Lane,
Found pride established in humility,
A scene well Set and excellent company.
They came like swallows and like swallows went,
And yet a woman's powerful character
Could keep a Swallow to...

He lets me listen, when he moves me,
Words are not like other words
He takes me, from under my arms
He plants me, in a distant cloud
And the black rain in my eyes
Falls in torrents, torrents
He carries me with him, he carries me
To an evening of perfumed balconies


And I am like a child in his hands
Like a feather carried by the wind
He carries for me seven moons in his hands
and a bundle of songs
He gives me sun, he gives me summer
and flocks of swallows
He tells me that I am his treasure
And that I am equal to thousands of stars
And that I am treasure, and that I am
more beautiful than he has seen of paintings
He tells me things that make me dizzy
that make me forget the dance and the steps


Words...which overturn my...

Down in the dear West Country, there's a garden where I know
The Spring is rioting this hour, though I am far away --
Where all the glad flower-faces are old loves of long ago,
And each in its accustomed place is blossoming to-day.

The lilac drops her amethysts upon the mossy wall,
While in her boughs a cheerful thrush is calling to his mate.
Dear breath of mignonette and stocks! I love you, know you all.
And, oh, the fragrant spices from the lad's love by the gate!

Kind wind from the West Country, wet wind, but scented so,
That straight from my dear garden you seem but lately come,
Just tell me of the yellow broom, the guelder rose's snow,
And of the tangled clematis where myriad insects hum.

Oh, is there any heartsease left, or any rosemary?
And in their ...

Elegance floats about thee like a dress,
    Melting the airy motion of thy form
Into one swaying grace, and loveliness,
    Like a rich tint that makes a picture warm,
Is lurking in the chesnut of thy tress,
    Enriching it, as moonlight after storm
Mingles dark shadows into gentleness.
    A beauty that bewilders like a spell
Reigns in thine eye's clear hazel, and thy brow
    So pure in vein'd transparency doth tell
How spiritually beautiful art thou -
    A temple where angelic love might dwell.
Life in thy presence were a thing to keep,
Like a gay dreamer clinging to his sleep.

The wreath you wove, the wreath you wove,
    Is fair--but oh, how fair,
If Pity's hand had stolen from Love
One leaf, to mingle there!

If every rose with gold were tied,
    Did gems for dewdrops fall,
One faded leaf where Love had sighed
    Were sweetly worth them all.

The wreath you wove,--the wreath you wove
    Our emblem well may be;
Its bloom is yours, but hopeless Love
    Must keep its tears for me.

A poet of one mood in all my lays,
    Ranging all life to sing one only love,
    Like a west wind across the world I move,
Sweeping my harp of floods mine own wild ways.

The countries change, but not the west-wind days
    Which are my songs. My soft skies shine above,
    And on all seas the colours of a dove,
And on all fields a flash of silver greys.

I make the whole world answer to my art
    And sweet monotonous meanings. In your ears
I change not ever, bearing, for my part,
    One thought that is the treasure of my years,
A small cloud full of rain upon my heart
    And in mine arms, clasped, like a child in tears.

        She had looked for his coming as warriors come,
    With the clash of arms and the bugle's call:
        But he came instead with a stealthy tread,
    Which she did not hear at all.

        She had thought how his armor would blaze in the sun,
    As he rode like a prince to claim his bride:
        In the sweet dim light of the falling night
    She found him at her side.

        She had dreamed how the gaze of his strange, bold eye
    Would wake her heart to a sudden glow:
        She found in his face the familiar grace
    Of a friend she used to know.

        She had dreamed how his coming would stir her soul,
    As the ocean is stirred by the wild storm's strife:
        He brought her the balm of a heavenly calm,
    And a peace ...

Well, it isn't the King, after all, my dear creature!
    But don't you go laugh, now--there's nothing to quiz in't--
For grandeur of air and for grimness of feature,
    He might be a King, DOLL, tho', hang him, he isn't.
At first, I felt hurt, for I wisht it, I own,
If for no other cause but to vex Miss MALONE,--
(The great heiress, you know, of Shandangan, who's here,
Showing off with such airs, and a real Cashmere,
While mine's but a paltry, old rabbit-skin, dear!)
But Pa says, on deeply considering the thing,
"I am just as well pleased it should not be the King;
"As I think for my BIDDY, so gentille and jolie.
    "Whose charms may their price in an honest way fetch,
"That a Brandenburgh"--(what is a Branden...

Poor restless dove, I pity thee;
And when I hear thy plaintive moan,
I mourn for thy captivity,
And in thy woes forget mine own.

To see thee stand prepared to fly,
And flap those useless wings of thine,
And gaze into the distant sky,
Would melt a harder heart than mine.

In vain ­ in vain! Thou canst not rise:
Thy prison roof confines thee there;
Its slender wires delude thine eyes,
And quench thy longings with despair.

Oh, thou wert made to wander free
In sunny mead and shady grove,
And, far beyond the rolling sea,
In distant climes, at will to rove!

Yet, hadst thou but one gentle mate
Thy little drooping heart to cheer,
And share with thee thy captive state,
Thou couldst be happy even there.

Yes, even there, i...

Every morning and every night
    There passes our window near the street,
A little girl with an eye so bright,
    And a cheek so round and a lip so sweet!
The daintiest, jauntiest little miss
That ever any one longed to kiss,

She is neat as wax, and fresh to view,
    And her look is wholesome, and clean, and good.
Whatever her gown, her hood is blue,
    And so we call her our "Little Blue Hood,"
For we know not the name of the dear little lass,
But we call to each other to see her pass,

"Little Blue Hood is coming now!"
    And we watch from the window while she goes by,
She has such a bonny, smooth, white brow,
    And a fearless look in her long-lashed eye!
And a certain dignity wedded to grace
Seems to envelop her form and face.