Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew!
I love the fond,
The faithful, and the true.

Love lives in sleep,
The happiness of healthy dreams:
Eve's dews may weep,
But love delightful seems.

Tis seen in flowers,
And in the morning's pearly dew;
In earth's green hours,
And in the heaven's eternal blue.

Tis heard in Spring
When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,
On angel's wing
Bring love and music to the mind.

And where is voice,
So young, so beautiful, and sweet
As Nature's choice,
Where Spring and lovers meet?

Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.
I love the fond,
The faithful, young and true.

(To hear us talk)

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood
Throws down in front of us is not bar
Our passage to our journey's end for good,
But just to ask us who we think we are

Insisting always on our own way so.
She likes to halt us in our runner tracks,
And make us get down in a foot of snow
Debating what to do without an ax.

And yet she knows obstruction is in vain:
We will not be put off the final goal
We have it hidden in us to attain,
Not though we have to seize earth by the pole

And, tired of aimless circling in one place,
Steer straight off after something into space.

For he who climbs to say his prayer
Meets half way the descending Grace.

ELSA BARKER, in British Review.

This is the secret of all prayers
    That in God's sight have worth,
They must be uttered from the stairs
    That wind away from earth;
And he who mounts to speak the word,
He shall be heard.    He shall be heard.

And he who will not leave himself,
    But stays down with his cares,
Or with his thoughts of pride and pelf,
    Though loud and long his prayers,
Beyond earth's dome of arching skies
They shall not rise.    They shall not rise.

Oh, ye who seek for strength and power
    Seek first some quiet spot,
And fashion through a silent hour
    Your stairway, thought by thought;
Then climb, and pray to God on high:...

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
    Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
    The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,
    Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
    And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way;
    Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
    The place where thy beloved are at rest!"

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
    Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
    The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recogni...

(1904)


The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
    In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
    And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
    The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,
And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,
    The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:
    They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:
They saw the paper, headed Talk from Town;
    Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet:

And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song
    Of England laughing in the face of war,
With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,
    And lips triumpha...

I said unto myself, if I were dead,
    What would befall these children?    What would be
    Their fate, who now are looking up to me
    For help and furtherance?    Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
    But the first chapters, and no longer see
    To read the rest of their dear history,
    So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
    And generations pass, as they have passed,
    A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
    The world belongs to those who come the last,
    They will find hope and strength as we have done.

Where are they - the Afterwhiles -
Luring us the lengthening miles
Of our lives? Where is the dawn
With the dew across the lawn
Stroked with eager feet the far
Way the hills and valleys are?
Were the sun that smites the frown
Of the eastward-gazer down?
Where the rifted wreaths of mist
O'er us, tinged with amethyst,
Round the mountain's steep defiles?
Where are the afterwhiles?

Afterwhile - and we will go
Thither, yon, and too and fro -
From the stifling city streets
To the country's cool retreats -
From the riot to the rest
Were hearts beat the placidest:
Afterwhile, and we will fall
Under breezy trees, and loll
In the shade, with thirsty sight
Drinking deep the blue delight
Of the skies that will beguile
Us as childre...

'Tis not with glad fruition crown'd,
We always feel our greatest joy;
For pleasure often dwells around
The heart that hopes, and knows no cloy.

We wait, we watch, we think, we plan
To catch the pleasure ere it flies,
But when 'tis caught, for which we ran,
It often droops, perchance, it dies.

In truth the non-possession oft'
Creates the chief, the only charm,
Of that, which, once obtain'd, is scoff'd,
And oft' receiv'd with vex'd alarm.

The mind of man is strange and deep,
Deceiving others and himself;
Its wiles would make an angel weep,
In strife for praise, for power and pelf.

Strange mixture of the good and ill,
He strives continually to bend
Those qualities, with wondrous skill,
To meet in one, which never blend.

OCTOBER 1796.


Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast,
O, ERSKINE! still an equal mind maintain,
That wild Ambition ne'er may goad thy rest,
Nor Fortune's smile awake thy triumph vain,

Whether thro' toilsome tho' renowned years
'T is thine to trace the Law's perplexing maze,
Or win the SACRED SEALS, whose awful cares
To high decrees devote thy honor'd days.

Where silver'd Poplars with the stately Pines
Mix their thick branches in the summer sky,
And the cool stream, whose trembling surface shines,
Laboriously oblique, is hurrying by;

There let thy duteous Train the banquet bring,
In whose bright cups the liquid ruby flows,
As Life's warm season, on expanded wing,
Presents her too, too transitory rose;

While every Mu...

From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,
From Mad to Saco river,
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.

And then we said: “The giants old
Are lost beyond retrieval;
This pygmy growth the axe has spared
Is not the wood primeval.

“Look where we will o’er vale and hill,
How idle are our searches
For broad-girthed maples, wide-limbed oaks,
Centennial pines and birches.

“Their tortured limbs the axe and saw
Have changed to beams and trestles;
They rest in walls, they float on seas,
They rot in sunken vessels.

“This shorn and wasted mountain land
Of underbrush and boulder,
Who thinks to see its full-grown tree
Must live a century older.”

At last to us a woodland path,
To open sunset leading,

The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan;
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her,
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be.
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.

Farewell, Theresa! yon cloud that over
    Heaven's pale night-star gathering we see,
Will scarce from that pure orb have past ere thy lover
Swift o'er the wide wave shall wander from thee.

Long, like that dim cloud, I've hung around thee,
    Darkening thy prospects, saddening thy brow;
With gay heart, Theresa, and bright cheek I found thee;
    Oh, think how changed, love, how changed art thou now!

But here I free thee: like one awaking
    From fearful slumber, thou break'st the spell;
'Tis over--the moon, too, her bondage is breaking--
Past are the dark clouds; Theresa, farewell!

Near a large town, along the broad highroad walked an old sick man.

He tottered as he went; his old wasted legs, halting, dragging, stumbling, moved painfully and feebly, as though they did not belong to him; his clothes hung in rags about him; his uncovered head drooped on his breast.... He was utterly worn-out.

He sat down on a stone by the wayside, bent forward, leant his elbows on his knees, hid his face in his hands; and through the knotted fingers the tears dropped down on to the grey, dry dust.

He remembered....

Remembered how he too had been strong and rich, and how he had wasted his health, and had lavished his riches upon others, friends and enemies....
And here, he had not now a crust of bread; and all had forsaken him, friends even before foes.... Must he sink to begging alms? T...

The Geese joined the Cranes in some wheat;
All was well, till, disturbed at their treat,
Light-winged, the Cranes fled,
But the slow Geese, well fed,
Couldn't rise, and were caught in retreat.

Beware Of Enterprizes Where The Risks Are Not Equal

Oh Wellington and Stephenson,
    Oh morn and evening papers,
Times, Herald, Courier, Globe, and Sun,
When will ye cease our ears to stun
    With these two heroes' capers?
Still "Stephenson" and "Wellington,"
    The everlasting two!--
Still doomed, from rise to set of sun,
To hear what mischief one has done,
    And t'other means to do:--
What bills the banker past to friends,
    But never meant to pay;
What Bills the other wight intends,
    As honest, in their way;--
Bills, payable at distant sight,
    Beyond the Grecian kalends,
When all good deeds will come to light,
When Wellington will do what's right,
    And Rowland pay his balance.

To catch the banker all have sought,
    But still the r...

Oft the savage Tale in telling
Less of Love than Wrath and Hate,
Hath within its fierceness dwelling
Some pure note compassionate.

Mark, if rude their nature, stronger,
Manlier are the minds that keep
Thought on rightful vengeance longer
Than on those who can but weep.

Better sing the horrid battle
Than its cause of crime and wrong;
Sing great life-deeds! the death-rattle
Is too common for a song.

Lays where man in fight rejoices
Sang our Sires, from Sire to Son;
Heard and loved the hero voices,
"Dare, and more than life is won!"

Addressed during the Summer Term of 1888 by Mr. Algernon Dexter, Scholar of ------ College, Oxford, to his cousin, Miss Kitty Tremayne, at ------ Vicarage, Devonshire.

After W. M. P.


Dear Kitty,
    At length the term's ending;
    I 'm in for my Schools in a week;
And the time that at present I'm spending
    On you should be spent upon Greek:
But I'm fairly well read in my Plato,
    I'm thoroughly red in the eyes,
And I've almost forgotten the way to
    Be healthy and wealthy and wise.
So 'the best of all ways'--why repeat you
    The verse at 2.30 a.m.,
When I 'm stealing an hour to entreat you
    Dear Kitty, to come to Commem.?

Oh, come!    You shall rustle in satin
    Through halls where Examiners trod:
Your laughter shall...

Because you love me I have much achieved,
Had you despised me then I must have failed,
But since I knew you trusted and believed,
I could not disappoint you and so prevailed.