NICE, though your lips of coral
Now are dust;
And the schoolboy scans the moral
Graven on your broken bust
In the gilt barocco chapel
After Mass;
Where ten coats with broidered lappel
Bent when Nice used to pass.
Still perchance your spirit hovers
Where the lute
And the voices of your lovers
Chimed, but now are gone and mute.
Where the lonely arbour’s hollow
Shadier grows,
And the butterflies can follow
Fearlessly to kiss the rose.
And you smile because a poet
À la mode
Flouted you; and then, we know it,
Wrote an abject palinode.
For your hands, though light as feathers,
Held him tight:
Love was made to last all weathers,
Not to change with day and night.
XXIII
THE “LIBERAL” DIVINE
THE “middle path” meets every need,
The Stagirite and Buddha say;
I won’t doubt more than half the creed
Nor wear a costume wholly lay.
XXIV
THE QUARREL