Rain taps impatient on the window-panes;
The waves roll high, and the cold wind complains.
The wind complains.
Reluctant start the embers to a blaze;
Among the ashy drifts the red coal plays;
In fairy rings the circling smoke delays.
The smoke delays.
Ah, lonely life! it is the wind’s sad cry;
Ah, only life! calls Echo, floating by;
Ah, love is life! it is my heart’s reply.
My heart’s reply.
Burn low, ye fires that on the hearthstone play!
Beat out your life, O waves in dashing spray!
My heart chants not your monotone to-day.
Oh, not to-day!
I hear no dirge, I see no ashes gray--
Love! love! love! love! its rapture fills the day!
The winter brings to me the bloom of May.
The bloom of May.
LYDIA AVERY COONLEY.
LAST NIGHT MY LADY TALKED WITH ME.
Last night my lady talked with me,
As on a green hill I and she
Sat close, where erst alone I stood
Beneath the dusk-leaved ilex-wood.
The earth was gathered to her rest,
Sweet silence lay upon her breast,
Well-nigh asleep, save that she heard
The wandering waters’ silver word.
The sun had kissed the earth’s dark lips
That grow so ruddy ere he dips,
Wine-coloured to his golden rim,
As purple evening pours for him.
Low stooped his head, as he would drink,
Till out of sight we saw him sink,
And with his splendour in our eyes,
Full-orbed we watched the great moon rise.
Rose-tinged in the dim sky shone she
Like Venus from the opal sea,
So grew her glory in our sight,
Till in her face we saw love’s light,
Love’s light in hers, like flame on flame,--
Yea, very Love in presence came,
Between the fires of moon and sun,
He stood, like dawn ere night begun.
Clear-aureoled his golden head,
His eyes our burning hearts well read,
And in the sanctuary of my soul
I won of love the golden goal.
WALTER CRANE.
LOVE’S ARROWS.
I saw young Love make trial of his bow,
In May’s green garden where he shot his dart,
Nor recked if any nigh beheld his art,
But other eyes did mark him as I know;
For my sweet lady sate anear his throw,
And I with her, and joinèd heart to heart,
So that we might not feel the bitter smart
Love leaveth there when time doth force us go.
We heard Love’s arrows falling in the grass,
Or watched them quiver in the targe below;
Yet few to us came nigh, nor might they pass
Beyond our feet, which trembled when they came,
Whose hearts were not the quarry for his aim,
That in Love’s chase fell stricken long ago.
WALTER CRANE.
A LOVE SONG.
FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
Time with his jealous icy blast
Will wither all your charms, like sweet flowers past
And dead in winter’s tomb;
Till soft, red lips are kissless, and the joy
They now can give, tho’ now, alas, too coy,
Has perish’d with their bloom.
Yet when your eyes, veil’d in a cloud of tears,
Shall mourn the rigour of the fleeting years,
And see each grace depart,
When in the past, as in a stream, you gaze,
And seek the lovely form of other days,
Look rather in my heart;
There will your beauty flourish years untold,
There will my loyalty watch you as of old,
And keep you still the same;
Just as a golden lamp some holy maid
Might shelter with her hand, while thro’ the shade
She bears the trembling flame.
Oh, when Death smiling comes, as come he must,
And shatters our twin torches in the dust,
A stronger love shall bloom;
Then shall my last sweet resting-place be thine,
And your soft hand clasp’d tenderly in mine,
In our last bed, the tomb.
Or, rather, darling, let us fly away,
Just as upon some glorious autumn day
Two loving swans might rise,
And, still caressing, leave their wonted nest,
And seek for brighter lands, and climes more blest,
And fuller, deeper skies!
HARRY CURWEN.
THE PARTING HOUR.
Not yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high;
You said last night, “At sunset I will go.”
Come to the garden, where, when blossoms die,
No word is spoken; it is better so:
Ah! bitter word, “Farewell.”
Hark how the birds sing sunny songs of spring!
Soon they will build, and work will silence them;
So we grow less light-hearted as years bring
Life’s grave responsibilities--and then
The bitter word “Farewell.”
The violets fret to fragrance ’neath your feet,
Heaven’s gold sunlight dreams aslant your hair:
No flower for me! your mouth is far more sweet.
Oh, let my lips forget, while lingering there,
Love’s bitter word “Farewell.”
* * * * *
Sunset already! have we sat so long?
The parting hour, and so much left unsaid!
The garden has grown silent--void of song,
Our sorrow shakes us with a sudden dread!
Ah! bitter word “Farewell.”
OLIVE CUSTANCE.
THE SUNDIAL.
’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain;
In summer crowned with drifting orchard-bloom,
Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain,
And white in winter like a marble tomb;
And round about its gray, time-eaten brow
Lean letters speak--a worn and shattered row;
_I am a Shade: a Shadow too arte thou:
I marke the Time: saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?_
Here would the ringdoves linger, head to head;
And here the snail a silver course would run,
Beating old Time; and here the peacock spread
His gold-green glory, shutting out the sun.
The tardy shade moved forward to the noon;
Betwixt the paths a dainty Beauty stept,
That swung a flower, and, smiling, hummed a tune,--
Before whose feet a barking spaniel leapt.
O’er her blue dress an endless blossom strayed,
About her tendril-curls the sunlight shone;
And round her train the tiger-lilies swayed,
Like courtiers bowing till the queen be gone.
She leaned upon the slab a little while,
Then drew a jewelled pencil from her zone,
Scribbled a something with a frolic smile,
Folded, inscribed, and niched it in the stone.
The shade slipped on, no swifter than the snail;
There came a second lady in the place,
Dove-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale--
An inner beauty shining from her face.
She, as if listless with a lonely love,
Straying among the alleys with a book,--
Herrick or Herbert,--watched the circling dove,
And spied the tiny letter in the nook.
Then, like to one who confirmation found
Of some dread secret half accounted true,--
Who knew what hands and hearts the letter bound,
And argued loving commerce ’twixt the two,
She bent her fair young forehead on the stone,
The dark shade gloomed an instant on her head;
And ’twixt her taper fingers pearled and shone
The single tear that tear-worn eyes will shed.
The shade slipped onward to the falling gloom;
There came a soldier gallant in her stead,
Swinging a beaver with a swaling plume,
A ribboned love-lock rippling from his head;
Blue-eyed, frank-faced, with clear and open brow,
Scar-seamed a little, as the women love;
So kindly fronted that you marvel how
The frequent sword-hilt had so frayed his glove;
Who switched at Psyche plunging in the sun;
Uncrowned three lilies with a backward swinge;
And standing somewhat widely, like to one
More used to “Boot and Saddle” than to cringe
As courtiers do, but gentleman withal,
Took out the note; held it as one who feared
The fragile thing he held would slip and fall;
Read and re-read, pulling his tawny beard;
Kissed it, I think, and hid it in his breast;
Laughed softly in a flattered happy way,
Arranged the broidered baldrick on his chest,
And sauntered past, singing a roundelay.
* * * * *
The shade crept forward through the dying glow;
There came no more nor dame nor cavalier;
But for a little time the brass will show
A small gray spot--the record of a tear.
AUSTIN DOBSON.
SPRING SONG.
Herald of peace and joy,
Lone on the bough;
Minstrel without alloy.
What flutest thou?
Violet, hiding low,
Fragrant and shy,
What message bearest thou
Voiced in thy sigh?
Buds that unloose your hasp
Long cased in mail,
Wrest from grim Winter’s grasp,
Freed from his pale;
Brooklets, swift hurrying,
Purling your chime.
What is the theme ye sing
Endless as Time?
“We sing the sun,” they say,
“We sing the spring;
Love crowns our holyday,
Love is our king.”
E’en so the thought of Thee
Rapture doth bring,
Yielding delight to me
Dearer than spring;
Blither than robin’s strain,
Fairer than flowers;
Fresh as the vernal rain,
Bright as the hours.
Thy smile my sun, I ween,
Thine eyes my May:
All thy sweet grace, my Queen,
Fondly, I pray,
Grant me to keep and hold
Fast in love’s shrine,--
Spring may no joys unfold
Art thou not mine!
GEORGE H. ELLWANGER.
TO JESSIE’S DANCING FEET.
How, as a spider’s web is spun
With subtle grace and art,
Do thy light footsteps, every one,
Cross and recross my heart!
Now here, now there, and to and fro,
Their winding mazes turn;
Thy fairy feet so lightly go
They seem the earth to spurn.
Yet every step leaves there behind
A something, when you dance,
That serves to tangle up my mind
And all my soul entrance.
How, as the web the spiders spin
And wanton breezes blow,
Thy soft and filmy laces in
A swirl around thee flow!
The cobweb ’neath thy chin that’s crossed
Remains demurely put,
While those are ever whirled and tossed
That show thy saucy foot:
That show the silver grayness of
Thy stocking’s silken sheen,
And mesh of snowy skirts above
The silver that is seen.
How, as the spider from his web
Dangles in light suspense,
Do thy sweet measures’ flow and ebb
Sway my enraptured sense!
Thy flutt’ring lace, thy dainty airs,
Thy every charming pose--
There are not more alluring snares
To bind me with than those.
Swing on! Sway on! With easy grace
Thy witching steps repeat!
The love I dare not--to thy face--
I offer at thy feet.
W. D. ELLWANGER.
A LOVE SONG.
Oh, to think, oh, to think as I see her stand there
With the rose that I plucked in her glorious hair,
In the robe that I love.
So demure and so neat,
I am lord of her lips and her eyes and her feet.
Oh, to think, oh, to think when the last hedge is leapt,
When the blood is awakened that dreamingly slept,
I shall make her heart throb
In its cradle of lace,
As the lord of her hair and her breast and her face.
Oh, to think, oh, to think when our wedding-bells ring,
When our love’s at the summer but life’s at the spring,
I shall guard her asleep
As my hound guards her glove,
Being lord of her life and her heart and her love!
NORMAN R. GALE.
A SONG.
I will not say my true love’s eyes
Outshine the noblest star;
But in their depth of lustre lies
My peace, my truce, my war.
I will not say upon her neck
Is white to shame the snow;
For if her bosom hath a speck
I would not have it go.
My love is as a woman sweet,
And as a woman white;
Who’s more than this is more than meet
For me and my delight.
NORMAN R. GALE.
A NOCTURNE.
Keen winds of cloud and vaporous drift
Disrobe yon star, as ghosts that lift
A snowy curtain from its place,
To scan a pillowed beauty’s face.
They see her slumbering splendours lie
Bedded on blue unfathomed sky,
And swoon for love and deep delight,
And stillness falls on all the night.
RICHARD GARNETT.
VIOLETS.
Cold blows the wind against the hill,
And cold upon the plain;
I sit me by the bank, until
The violets come again.
Here sat we when the grass was set
With violets shining through,
And leafing branches spread a net
To hold a sky of blue.
The trumpet clamoured from the plain,
The cannon rent the sky;
I cried, O Love, come back again,
Before the violets die!
But they are dead upon the hill,
And he upon the plain;
I sit me by the bank, until
My violets come again.
RICHARD GARNETT.
A YEAR.
When the hot wasp hung in the grape last year,
And tendrils withered and leaves grew sear,
There was little to hope and nothing to fear,
And the smouldering autumn sank apace,
And my heart was hollow and cold and drear.
When the last gray moth that November brings
Had folded its sallow and sombre wings,
Like the tuneless voice of a child that sings,
A music arose in that desolate place,
A broken music of hopeless things.
But time went by with the month of snows,
And the pulse and tide of that music rose;
As a pain that fades is a pleasure that grows,
So hope sprang up with a heart of grace,
And love as a crocus-bud that blows.
And now I know when next autumn has dried
The sweet hot juice to the grape-skin’s side,
And the new wasps dart where the old ones died,
My heart will have rest in one luminous face,
And its longing and yearning be satisfied.
EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE.
I’VE KISSED THEE, SWEETHEART.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THÉOPHILE DE VIAU.
I’ve kissed thee, sweetheart, in a dream at least,
And though the core of love is in me still,
This joy, that in my sense did softly thrill,
The ardour of my longing hath appeased,
And by this tender strife my spirit, eased,
Can laugh at that sweet theft against thy will,
And, half consoled, I soothe myself until
I find my heart from all its pain released.
My senses, hushed, begin to fall on sleep;
Slumber, for which two weary nights I weep,
Takes thy dear place at last within mine eyes;
And though so cold he is, as all men vow,
For me he breaks his natural icy guise,
And shows himself more warm and fond than thou.
EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE.
COMPLAINT.
Men, women, call thee so and so;
I do not know.
Thou hast no name
For me, but in my heart a flame
Burns tireless, ’neath a silver vine;
And round entwine
Its purple girth
All things of fragrance and of worth.
Thou shout! thou burst of light! thou throb
Of pain! thou sob!
Thou like a bar
Of some sonata, heard from far
Through blue-hued veils! When in these wise,
To my soul’s eyes
Thy shape appears,
My aching hands are full of tears.
JOHN GRAY.
HEART’S DEMESNE.
Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes
Made never answer when my eyes did pray,
Than with those quaintest looks of blank surprise.
But my lovelonging hath devised a way
To mock thy living image, from thy hair
To thy rose toes; and keep thee by alway.
My garden’s face is, oh! so maidly fair,
With limbs all tapering, and with hues all fresh;
Thine are the beauties all that flourish there.
Amaranth, fadeless, tells me of thy flesh.
Briar-rose knows thy cheek, the Pink thy pout,
Bunched kisses dangle from the Woodbine mesh.
I love to loll, when Daisy stars peep out,
And hear the music of my garden dell,
Hollyhock’s laughter and the Sunflower’s shout,--
And many whisper things I dare not tell.
JOHN GRAY.
IN THE EVENING.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF COUNTESS LARA.
I sit alone and watch the cinders glare,
Or hear the pine-logs crackling sharp and low.
I wait him still; he went not long ago,
Humming a tune, his cigarette aflare.
He was called out by some most grave affair;
His friends, on cards intent, would have it so;
Or some new singer’s style he fain would know,
Who with false graces mars a grand old air.
And for such things as these he stays away,
Till midnight passes, and, at one, the bell
Booms from the neighbouring church its single flight;
Then gaily he returns, and half in play
Kisses me lightly, asks if I am well,
And never dreams that I have wept all night.
G. A. GREENE.
WHEN THE LEAVES FALL IN AUTUMN.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF LORENZO STECCHETTI.
When the leaves fall in autumn, and you go
To seek the cross that marks my lonely grave,
In that far corner where they laid me low
The nodding wild-flowers o’er my bones shall wave.
Oh, pluck you then, to deck your golden hair,
The flowers born of my heart which blossom there:
They are the songs I dreamed, but ne’er have sung,
The words of love you heard not on my tongue.
G. A. GREENE.
“QUI SAIT AIMER, SAIT MOURIR.”
“I burn my soul away!”
So spake the Rose and smiled; “within my cup
All day the sunbeams fall in flame, all day
They drink my sweetness up!”
“I sigh my soul away!”
The Lily said; “all night the moonbeams pale
Steal round and round me, whispering in their play
An all too tender tale!”
“I give my soul away!”
The Violet said; “the West wind wanders on,
The North wind comes; I know not what they say,
And yet my soul is gone!”
O Poet, burn away
Thy fervent soul! fond Lover at the feet
Of her thou lovest, sigh! dear Christian, pray,
And let the world be sweet!
DORA GREENWELL.
SONG.
If love were like a thrush’s song,
Ah me! ah me!
I’d list his tale the whole day long,
Ah me!
I’d never know how time went by,
I’d never guess that time will die;
Rapt in that living ecstasy,
Ah me! ah me!
I’d list a glorious life along
If love were but a thrush’s song.
But love is fierce and love is fain,
Ah me! ah me!
Love has one bitter sweet refrain,
Ah me!
Love knows of anguish every tone,
Love knows of joy but hope alone,
Love knows of hope that hope is flown,
Ah me! ah me!
Love! poor fierce Love, by storm winds driven,
Love is earth’s vain desire for heaven,
Ah me!
A. STEPNEY GULSTON.
O KNIGHT, IF THOU A LADY HAST.
O knight, if thou a lady hast,
Gentle and loving, high and true,
Cling to her, live for her, die for her, too,
Swerve not from her while life shall last--
O knight, if thou a lady hast.
But if thou, knight, no lady hast,
Kind as courteous, fair as fond,
So grasp the joyless pilgrim’s wand,
Go high, go wide, go far and fast--
Till thou e’en such a lady hast.
GERTRUDE HALL.
AT LAST.
When I shall stand before the judgment throne,
At that last hour when all things pass away,
And see beneath me there the vast array
Of souls who wait their life deeds to atone,
And there before the face of God, alone
Appear, and hear His awful voice then say,
“Throughout thy life, until thy dying day,
Is there not any good deed thou hast done?”
And I shall answer, “Nay, I cannot tell;
But this there is: I loved with all my heart,
Above mine own, one soul; was that not well?
On earth my love brought only bitter smart,
And there I felt the pangs of Thy dread Hell;
From her, my Heaven, bid me not now depart!”
WILLIAM C. HALL.
THE OLD IS BETTER.
Alone, alone, thro’ the sunny street,
In the shadow of a dream,
The forms and faces I pass and meet
In a mist and darkness seem.
The old gray houses stand a-row,
Their windows blink and stare,
The sparrows chirp on the lilac bough
From the garden in the square.
The busy mower whets his scythe,
He hums a cheery rhyme;
The wild bees murmur, and drowse and dive
In the blossom of the lime.
The forms and faces that come and go,
They flicker and wane and gleam,
As I walk through the streets of long ago
In the shadow of a dream.
The faces waver and fade away;
While under the lilac bough
Upspringeth the aspect, bright and gay,
Of a face I used to know.
I see her stand, and she calls my name,
And my heart and pulses glow
As the old life starts like a buried flame,
And the new life flickers low.
The present darkens and faints and fades,
And the old-loved smiles shine through;
The living wander, like ghostly shades,
And the lost are born anew.
And my soul with the joy of its calm is rife,
As I bask in my after-glow,
For I loved my love, and I lived my life
In the days of long ago.
MARY L. HANKIN.
BALLADE OF MIDSUMMER DAYS AND NIGHTS.
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams
The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,
And the winds are one with the clouds and beams--
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,
While the west from a rapture of sunset rights,
Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
The wood’s green heart is a nest of dreams,
The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,
The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams--
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,
All secret shadows and mystic lights,
Late lovers murmurous linger and gaze--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
There’s a music of bells from the trampling teams,
Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,
The rich ripe rose as with incense steams--
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
A soul from the honeysuckle strays,
And the nightingale as from prophet heights,
Sings to the Earth of her million Mays--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
And it’s O! for my dear and the charm that stays--
Midsummer days! midsummer days!
It’s O! for my Love and the dark that plights--
Midsummer nights! O midsummer nights!
W. E. HENLEY.
OH, GATHER ME THE ROSE.
Oh, gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.
For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed forborne forever,
The worm regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.
So well it were to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us and above,
The dark before and after.
The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,
The memories that follow!
W. E. HENLEY.
HER DREAM.
Fold your arms around me, Sweet,
As against your heart my heart doth beat.
Kiss me, Love, till it fade,--the fright
Of the dreadful dream I dreamt last night.
Oh, thank God, it is you, it is you,
My own love, fair and strong and true.
We two are the same that, yesterday,
Played in the light and tost the hay.
My hair you stroke, O dearest one,
Is alive with youth and bright with the sun.
Tell me again, Love, how I seem
“The prettiest queen of curds and cream.”
Fold me close and kiss me again;
Kiss off the shadow of last night’s pain.
I dreamt last night, as I lay in bed,
That I was old and that you were dead.
I knew you had died long time ago,
And I well recalled the moan and woe.
You had died in your beautiful youth, my sweet;
You had gone to your rest with untired feet;
And I had prayed to come to you,
To lay me down and slumber too.
But it might not be, and the days went on,
And I was all alone, alone.
The women came so neighbourly,
And kissed my face and wept with me;
And the men stood still to see me pass,
And smiled grave smiles, and said, “_Poor lass!_”
Sometimes I seemed to hear your feet,
And my grief-numbed heart would wildly beat;
And I stopt and named my darling’s name--
But never a word of answer came.
The men and women ceased at last
To pity pain that was of the past;
For pain is common, and grief, and loss;
And many come home by Weeping Cross.
Why do I tell you this, my dear?
Sorrow is gone now you are here.
You and I, we sit in the light,
And fled is the horror of yesternight.
The time went on, and I saw one day
My body was bent and my hair was gray.
But the boys and girls a-whispering
Sweet tales in the sweet light of the spring,
Never paused in the tales they told
To say, “_He is dead and she is old_.”
There’s a place in the churchyard where, I thought,
Long since my lover had been brought;
It had sunk with years from a high green mound
To a level no stranger would have found;
But I--I always knew the spot;
How could I miss it, know it not?
Darling, darling, draw me near,
For I cannot shake off the dread and fear.
Fold me so close I scarce can breathe;
And kiss me, for, lo, above, beneath,
The blue sky fades, and the green grass dries,
And the sunshine goes from my lips and eyes.
O God--that dream--it has not fled--
_One of us old, and one of us dead_!
EMILY H. HICKEY.
SONG.
How many lips have uttered one sweet word--
Ever the sweetest word in any tongue!
How many listening hearts have wildly stirred,
While burning blushes to the soft cheeks sprung,
And dear eyes, deepening with a light divine,
Were lifted up, as thine are now to mine!
How oft the night, with silence and perfume,
Has hushed the world that heart might speak to heart,
And make in each dim haunt of leafy gloom
A trysting-place where love might meet and part,
And kisses fall unseen on lips and brow,
As on thine, sweet! my kisses linger now!
CHARLES LOTIN HILDRETH.
THE TRYST.
Sweet as the change from pleasant thoughts to sleep
The silver gloaming melted into gloom,
Then came the evening silence rich and deep,
With mingled breaths of dew-released perfume;
The few first stars shone in the azure pale,
Soft as a young nun’s glances through her veil.
Was it for darkness that thou waited, sweet?
Ah, though thy face was dusk in night’s eclipse,
Thy heart betrayed thee by its quickened beat!
I needed not the light to find thy lips,
Nor in the balmy hush of even-time,
To hear one word more sweet than any rhyme.
CHARLES LOTIN HILDRETH.
BY ONE RAPT DAY.
By one rapt day Love doth his harvest mete,
And from dream wings in memory’s light caressed
Fans calms of joy into my burning breast.
It is that day when Love bowed at thy feet,
And all the noontide in a rush of heat
Rippled with whispers of thy love confessed;
And larks afar sank down with sobs of rest,
Finding their carol heights in thee complete.
The day when, midst the well-known Sussex wood,
Stream music kissed the spirit of the wold
And sang the sun to rest, mingling its gold
With heather-bell and oak, and, rapt in moods
Of melody and shy sweet interludes,
Held our soul’s transport still with joys untold.
A. ERNEST HINSHELWOOD.
THE DILEMMA.