I wear a crown invisible and clear,
And go my lifted royal way apart
Since you have crowned me softly in your heart
With love that is half ardent, half austere;
And as a queen disguised might pass anear
The bitter crowd that barters in a mart,
Veiling her pride while tears of pity start,
I hide my glory thru a jealous fear.
My crown shall stay a sweet and secret thing
Kept pure with prayer at evensong and morn,
And when you come to take it from my head,
I shall not weep, nor will a word be said,
But I shall kneel before you, oh my king,
And bind my brow forever with a thorn.

Night-dreams trace on Memory's wall
Shadows of the thoughts of day,
And thy fortunes, as they fall,
The bias of the will betray.

The beauty of the day put joy,
Unbounded, in the woodland's breast,
Through which the wind,like some wild boy,
Ran on and took no rest.

The little stream that made its home,
Under the spicewood bough and beech,
Hummed to its heart a song of foam,
Or with the moss held speech.

And he, whose heart was weighed with tears,
And who had come to seek a dream,
For a dim while forgot his fears,
Hearkening the wind and stream.

The wind for him assumed a form,
A child's, with wildflowers in its hair;
It seemed to take him by the arm
To lead him far from care.

The streamlet raised a hand of spray
By every rock, and waved him on,
Whispering, "Come, take this wildwood way,
And find your dream long gone."

And he, who heard an...

An old, old widow Greedy needs would wed,
Not for affection to her or her bed;
But in regard, 'twas often said, this old
Woman would bring him more than could be told.
He took her; now the jest in this appears,
So old she was, that none could tell her years.

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth's apparelling;
    O vespering bird, how do you know,
    How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,
Hid in your bed from sight and sound,
Without a turn in temperature,
With weather life can scarce endure,
That light has won a fraction's strength,
And day put on some moments' length,
Whereof in merest rote will come,
Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;
    O crocus root, how do you know,
    How do you know?

February 1910.

A Visit to the house where Rousseau lived with Madame de Warrens.-- Their Menage.--Its Grossness.--Claude Anet.--Reverence with which the spot is now visited.--Absurdity of this blind Devotion to Fame.--Feelings excited by the Beauty and Seclusion of the Scene. Disturbed by its Associations with Rousseau's History.--Impostures of Men of Genius.--Their Power of mimicking all the best Feelings, Love, Independence, etc.


Strange power of Genius, that can throw
Round all that's vicious, weak, and low,
Such magic lights, such rainbows dyes
As dazzle even the steadiest eyes.

            *            *            *            *            *

'Tis worse than weak--'tis wrong, 'tis shame,
This mean prostration before Fame;
This casting down beneath the car
Of Idols, whatsoe'...

There may be seeming calm above, but no!--
There is a pulse below which ceases not,
A subterranean working, fiery hot,
Deep in the million-hearted bosom, though
Earthquakes unlock not the prodigious show
Of elemental conflict; and this spot
Nurses most quiet bones which lie and rot,
And here the humblest weeds take root and grow.
There is a calm upon the mighty sea,
Yet are its depths alive and full of being,
Enormous bulks that move unwieldily;
Yet, pore we on it, they are past our seeing!--
From the deep sea-weed fields, though wide and ample,
Comes there no rushing sound: these do not trample!

Last night, above the whistling wind,
I heard the welcome rain,
A fusillade upon the roof,
A tattoo on the pane:
The keyhole piped; the chimney-top
A warlike trumpet blew;
Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife,
A softer voice stole through.

“Give thanks, O brothers!” said the voice,
“That He who sent the rains
Hath spared your fields the scarlet dew
That drips from patriot veins:
I’ve seen the grass on Eastern graves
In brighter verdure rise;
But, oh! the rain that gave it life
Sprang first from human eyes.

“I come to wash away no stain
Upon your wasted lea;
I raise no banners, save the ones
The forest waves to me:
Upon the mountain side, where Spring
Her farthest picket sets,
My reveille awakes a host
Of gras...

DEDICATION. TO STEPHEN WOOLRICHE, ESQ.


MY DEAR WOOLRICHE,--

It is now about seven years since I promised (and I grieve to think it is almost as long since we met) to dedicate to you the very first Book, of whatever size or kind I should publish. Who could have thought that so many years would elapse, without my giving the least signs of life upon the subject of this important promise? Who could have imagined that a volume of doggerel, after all, would be the first offering that Gratitude would lay upon the shrine of Friendship?

If you continue, however, to be as much interested about me and my pursuits as formerly, you will be happy to hear that doggerel is not my only occupation; but that I am preparing to throw my name to the Swans of the Temple of Immortality, leaving it of course to the sa...

[1]

'O Jupiter, whose fruitful brain,
By odd obstetrics freed from pain,
Bore Pallas,[2] erst my mortal foe,[3]
Pray listen to my tale of woe.
This Progne[4] takes my lawful prey.
As through the air she cuts her way,
And skims the waves in seeming play.
My flies she catches from my door, -
'Yes, mine - I emphasize the word, -
And, but for this accursed bird,
My net would hold an ample store:
For I have woven it of stuff
To hold the strongest strong enough.'
'Twas thus, in terms of insolence,
Complain'd the fretful spider, once
Of palace-tapestry a weaver,
But then a spinster and deceiver,
That hoped within her toils to bring
Of insects all that ply the wing.
The sister swift of Philom...

It may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings
An end to mortal things,
That sends the beggar Winter in the train
Of Autumn's burdened wain, -
Time, that is heir of all our earthly state,
And knoweth well to wait
Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea,
If so it need must be,
Ere he make good his claim and call his own
Old empires overthrown, -
Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large
To hold its fee in charge,
Nor any motes that fill its beam so small,
But he shall care for all, -
It may be, must be, - yes, he soon shall tire
This hand that holds the lyre.

Then ye who listened in that earlier day
When to my careless lay
I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill,
With untaught rudest skill
Vexing a treble from th...

So zestfully canst thou sing?
And all this indignity,
With God's consent, on thee!
Blinded ere yet a-wing
By the red-hot needle thou,
I stand and wonder how
So zestfully thou canst sing!

Resenting not such wrong,
Thy grievous pain forgot,
Eternal dark thy lot,
Groping thy whole life long;
After that stab of fire;
Enjailed in pitiless wire;
Resenting not such wrong!

Who hath charity? This bird.
Who suffereth long and is kind,
Is not provoked, though blind
And alive ensepulchred?
Who hopeth, endureth all things?
Who thinketh no evil, but sings?
Who is divine? This bird.

The Past was goodly once, and yet, when all is said,
The best of it we know is that it's done and dead.

Dwindled and faded quite, perished beyond recall,
Nothing is left at last of what one time was all.

Coming back like a ghost, staring and lingering on,
Never a word it speaks but proves it dead and gone.

Duty and work and joy - these things it cannot give;
And the Present is life, and life is good to live.

Let it lie where it fell, far from the living sun,
The Past that, goodly once, is gone and dead and done.

* A paraphrase of Petrarca, 'Quando fra l'altre donne . . .'


When among creatures fair of countenance
Love comes enformed in such proud character,
So far as other beauty yields to her,
So far the breast with fiercer longing pants;
I bless the spot, and hour, and circumstance,
That wed desire to a thing so high,
And say, Glad soul, rejoice, for thou and I
Of bliss unpaired are made participants;
Hence have come ardent thoughts and waking dreams
That, feeding Fancy from so sweet a cup,
Leave it no lust for gross imaginings.
Through her the woman's perfect beauty gleams
That while it gazes lifts the spirit up
To that high source from which all beauty springs.

I know not wherefore, but mine eyes
    See bloom, where other eyes see blight.
They find a rainbow, a sunrise,
    Where others but discern deep night.

Men call me an enthusiast,
    And say I look through gilded haze:
Because where'er my gaze is cast,
    I see some thing that calls for praise.

I say, "Behold those lovely eyes -
    That tinted cheek of flower-like grace."
They answer in amused surprise:
    "We thought it such a common face."

I say, "Was ever scene more fair?
    I seem to walk in Eden's bowers."
They answer with a pitying air,
    "The weeds are choking out the flowers."

I know not wherefore, but God lent
    A deeper vision to my sight.
On whatsoe'er my gaze is bent
    I catch the beauty Infinite;

A little white soul went up to God,
    Out of the mire of the city street;
It grew like a flower in the highway broad,
    Close to the trample of heedless feet.

It fell like a snow-flake over night,
    Into the ways by vile ones trod;
It sparkled--dissolved in the morning light,
    And the little white soul went up to God.

Dainty, flower-soft, waxen thing,
    Its clear eyes opened on this bad earth,
And the little shuddering soul took wing,
    By the gate of death, from the gate of birth.

Not for those innocent lips and eyes,
    The words and the ways of sin and strife;
The pure flower opened in paradise,
    Fast by the banks of the river of life.

Yea, little victors, who never fought;
    And crowned, though ye never ran t...

Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms, expires,
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em,
And softer sighs that know not what they want,
Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree,
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seem'd to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
Such I believed it must be. How could I
Let beast o'erpower them? When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon ...

When Minerva, to give pleasure
To Prometheus, her well-loved one,
Brought a brimming bowl of nectar
From the glorious realms of heaven
As a blessing for his creatures,
And to pour into their bosoms
Impulses for arts ennobling,
She with rapid footstep hasten'd,
Fearing Jupiter might see her,
And the golden goblet trembled,
And there fell a few drops from it
On the verdant plain beneath her.
Then the busy bees flew thither
Straightway, eagerly to drink them,
And the butterfly came quickly
That he, too, might find a drop there;
Even the misshapen spider
Thither crawl'd and suck'd with vigour.

To a happy end they tasted,
They, and other gentle insects!
For with mortals now divide they
ArtÄthat noblest gift of all.