Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen;
By every name I cut on bark
Before my morning star grew dark;
By Hymen’s torch, by Cupid’s dart,
By all that thrills the beating heart;
The bright black eye, the melting blue,--
I cannot choose between the two.
I had a vision in my dreams;--
I saw a row of twenty beams;
From every beam a rope was hung,
In every rope a lover swung;
I asked the hue of every eye
That bade each luckless lover die;
Ten shadowy lips said heavenly blue,
And ten accused the darker hue.
I asked a matron which she deemed
With fairest light of beauty beamed;
She answered, some thought both were fair,--
Give her blue eyes and golden hair.
I might have liked her judgment well,
But, as she spoke, she rung the bell,
And all her girls, nor small nor few,
Came marching in,--their eyes were blue.
I asked a maiden; back she flung
The locks that round her forehead hung,
And turned her eye, a glorious one,
Bright as a diamond in the sun,
On me, until beneath its rays
I felt as if my hair would blaze;
She liked all eyes but eyes of green;
She looked at me, what could she mean?
Ah! many lids Love lurks between,
Nor heeds the colouring of his screen;
And when his random arrows fly,
The victim falls, but knows not why.
Gaze not upon his shield of jet,
The shaft upon the string is set;
Look not beneath his azure veil,
Though every limb were cased in mail.
Well both might make a martyr break
The chain that bound him to the stake;
And both with but a single ray
Can melt our very hearts away;
And both, when balanced, hardly seem
To stir the scales, or rock the beam;
But that is dearest, all the while,
That wears for us the sweetest smile.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
THE MEASURE.
Between the pansies and the rye
Flutters my purple butterfly;
Between her white brow and her chin,
Does Love his fairy wake begin:
By poppy-cups and drifts of heather,
Dances the sun and she together.
But o’er the scarlet of her mouth
Whence those entreated words come forth,
Love hovers all the livelong day,
And cannot, through its spell, away;
But there, where he was born, must die
Between the pansies and the rye.
HERBERT P. HORNE.
TWO TRUTHS.
“Darling,” he said, “I never meant
To hurt you;” and his eyes were wet.
“I would not hurt you for the world:
Am I to blame if I forget?”
“Forgive my selfish tears!” she cried,
“Forgive! I knew that it was not
Because you meant to hurt me, sweet,--
I knew it was that you forgot!”
But all the same, deep in her heart
Rankled this thought, and rankles yet,--
“When love is at its best, one loves
So much that he cannot forget.”
HELEN HUNT.
A PRAYER.
Dear, let me dream of love,
Ah! though a dream it be!
I’ll ask no boon above
A word, a smile from thee:
At most, in some still hour, one kindly thought of me.
Sweet, let me gaze awhile
Into those radiant eyes!
I’ll scheme not to beguile
The heart, that deeper lies
Beneath them than yon star in night’s pellucid skies.
Love, let my spirit bow
In worship at thy shrine!
I’ll swear thou shalt not know
One word from lip of mine,
An instant’s pain to send through that shy soul of thine.
SELWYN IMAGE.
A JUNE STORM.
Sullenly fell the rain while under the oak we stood;
It hissed in the leaves above us, and big drops plashed to the ground,
And a horror of darkness fell over river and field and wood,
Where the trees were huddling together like children scared by a sound.
Then suddenly rang a note from a wildbird out of the trees
In quick response to a sunbeam, and lo, o’erhead it was fair,
And sweet was the smell of the meadow, and pleasant the hum of the bees,
As we look’d in each other’s eyes--and the raindrops shone in your hair.
HENRY JENNER.
DOLCINO TO MARGARET.
The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday’s sneer and yesterday’s frown
Can never come over again,
Sweet wife;
No, never come over again.
For woman is warm, though man be cold,
And the night will hallow the day;
Till the heart which at even was weary and old
Can rise in the morning gay,
Sweet wife;
To its work in the morning gay.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
A BALLADE OF WAITING.
No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought
So rich as the arms of my love can be;
No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught
Than her eyes when they answer me liquidly.
Dear lady of love, be kind to me
In days when the waters of hope abate,
And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught
No glitter of wile or traitorie,
More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught,
Or the heart of a crimson peony;
Oh, turn not its beauty away from me;
To kiss it and cling to it early and late
Shall make sweet minutes of days that flee,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
Rich hair, that a painter of old had sought
For the weaving of some soft phantasy,
Most fair when the streams of it run distraught
On the firm sweet shoulders yellowly;
Dear Lady, gather it close to me,
Weaving a nest for the double freight
Of cheeks and lips that are one and free,
For the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
ENVOY.
So time shall be swift till thou mate with me,
For love is mightiest next to fate,
And none shall be happier, Love, than we,
In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait.
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
A FORECAST.
What days await this woman whose strange feet
Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,
Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,
Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet
Frank eyes I feel the very heart’s least beat,
Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:
How in the end, and to what man’s desire
Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?
One thing I know: if he be great and pure,
This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;
Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:
But if not this, some differing thing he be,
That dream shall break in terror; he shall see
The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.
ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN.
AN OLD TUNE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF GÉRARD DE NERVAL.
There is an air for which I would disown
Mozart’s, Rossini’s, Weber’s melodies,--
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
And keeps its secret charm for me alone.
Whene’er I hear that music vague and old,
Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;
The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
A green land golden in the dying day.
An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
The windows gay with many-coloured glass,
Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,
That bathe the castle basement as they pass.
In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
A lady looks forth from her window high;
It may be that I knew and found her fair,
In some forgotten life, long time gone by.
ANDREW LANG.
GOOD-BYE.
Kiss me, and say good-bye;
Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,
Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
Kiss me, and say good-bye.
Farewell, be glad, forget;
There is no need to say “forget,” I know,
For youth is youth, and time will have it so,
And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,
Farewell, you must forget.
You shall bring home your sheaves,
Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
Of memories that go not out of mind;
Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
When you bring home your sheaves.
In garnered loves of thine,
The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,
Somewhere let this lie, gray and salt with tears;
It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine
Of life, this love of mine.
This sheaf was spoiled in spring,
And over-long was green, and early sear,
And never gathered gold in the late year
From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,
But failed in frosts of spring.
Yet was it thine, my sweet,
This love, though weak as young corn withered,
Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;--
Forget not quite, my sweet.
ANDREW LANG.
METEMPSYCHOSIS.
I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know
Perchance, thy gray eyes in another’s eyes,
Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow
On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise
Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise
Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,
When through the scent of heather, faint and low,
The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.
From all sweet art, and out of all “old rhyme,”
Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;
The shadows of the beauty of all time,
Carven and sung are only shapes of thee;
Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet, my dear,
Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
ANDREW LANG.
A BALLADE OF OLD SWEETHEARTS.
Who is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers
When the wood is aflame with the fires of spring,
And we hear her voice in the lilac bowers
As she croons the runes of the blossoming?
For the same old blooms do the new years bring,
But not to our lives do the years come so,
New lips must kiss and new bosoms cling.--
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
Ah me! for a breath of those morning hours
When Alice and I went a-wandering
Through the shining fields, and it still was ours
To kiss and to feel we were shuddering--
Ah me! when a kiss was a holy thing.--
How sweet were a smile from Maud, and oh!
With Phyllis once more to be whispering.--
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
But it cannot be that old Time devours
Such loves as was Annie’s and mine we sing,
And surely beneficent heavenly powers
Save Muriel’s beauty from perishing;
And if in some golden evening
To a quaint old garden I chance to go,
Shall Marion no more by the wicket sing?--
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
In these lives of ours do the new years bring
Old loves as old flowers again to blow?
Or do new lips kiss and new bosoms cling?--
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE.
IN THE MILE-END ROAD.
How like her! But ’tis she herself
Comes up the crowded street;
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet!
Whose else that motion and that mien?
Whose else that airy tread?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.
AMY LEVY.
LOVE AFRAID.
I dared not lead my arm around
Her dainty waist;
I dared not seek her lips, that mine
Hunger’d to taste:
I dared not, for such awe I found,
O Love divine!
I trembled as my eager hand
Her light touch graced;
And when her fond look answer’d mine,
I dared not haste,
But waited, holding my demand
For farther sign.
Sweet mouth, that with so sweet a sound
My dread hath chased,
And to my lips the holy wine,
Love’s vintage, placed!
Dear heart, that ever now will bound
Or rest with mine!
W. J. LINTON.
TO MY MISTRESS.
Countess, I see the flying year,
And feel how Time is wasting here:
Ay, more, he soon his worst will do,
And garner all your roses too.
It pleases Time to fold his wings
Around our best and fairest things;
He’ll mar your blooming cheek, as now
He stamps his mark upon my brow.
The same mute planets rise and shine
To rule your days and nights as mine:
Once I was young and gay, and see--
What I am now you soon will be.
And yet I boast a certain charm
That shields me from your worst alarm;
And bids me gaze, with front sublime,
On all these ravages of Time.
You boast a gift to charm the eyes,
I boast a gift that Time defies:
For mine will still be mine, and last
When all your pride of beauty’s past.
My gift may long embalm the lures
Of eyes--ah, sweet to me as yours!
For ages hence the great and good
Will judge you as I choose they should.
In days to come the peer or clown,
With whom I still shall win renown,
Will only know that you were fair
Because I chanced to say you were.
Proud Lady! Scornful beauty mocks
At aged heads and silver locks;
But think awhile before you fly,
Or spurn a poet such as I.
FREDERICK LOCKER.
IT IS NOT ALWAYS MAY.
The sun is bright,--the air is clear,
The darting swallows soar and sing,
And from the stately elms I hear
The bluebird prophesying spring.
So blue yon winding river flows,
It seems an outlet from the sky,
Where waiting till the west-wind blows,
The freighted clouds at anchor lie.
All things are new,--the buds, the leaves,
That gild the elm-tree’s nodding crest,
And even the nest beneath the eaves;--
There are no birds in last year’s nest!
All things rejoice in youth and love,
The fulness of their first delight!
And learn from the soft heavens above
The melting tenderness of night.
Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O, it is not always May!
Enjoy the spring of Love and Youth,
To some good angel leave the rest;
For Time will teach thee soon the truth,
There are no birds in last year’s nest.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
ET MELLE ET FELLE.
What hast thou done to me,
Girl, with the dream in thine eyes?
Brightened the sun to me,
Lightened the skies;
Made there be one to me,
One only sun to me
Not in the skies.
What hast thou done to me,
Girl, with the dream in thine eyes?
Darkened the sun to me,
Blackened the skies;
Made there be none to me,
Nor star nor sun to me,
Only black skies.
LOVE IN A MIST.
A SONG OF LOVE.
If in thine eyes
I saw that softer light
That in the skies
Doth herald spring’s delight,
Ah, love, how loud my heart should sing,
Ev’n as the blackbird to the spring!
If on thy cheek
I saw that warm hue play
That doth bespeak
The dawn of a new day,
Ah, love, how like the lark should rise
My soul in rapture to the skies!
If from thy mouth
I heard such whisper low
As from the South
Doth through the pine-woods blow,
How should my whole soul murmur through
With music, as the pine-woods do!
LOVE LIES BLEEDING.
THE LONELY LANDSCAPE.
The place again--
The wooded heights--the widening plain--
The whispering pines--the dry-leaved oaks, too young
To cast their dead dreams ere the new be sprung!
What profits it
Alone on this prone slope to sit
Where thou didst press the heath,--and see how dun
The landscape seems, lit only by the sun?
Yet, ah! not vain
To visit thy fair haunts again--
To trace thy footsteps by the upturned stone,
And conjure back thy looks, thy words, thy tone!
Like music fine
That simple seeming speech of thine
Hath in it soft harmonics, only heard
When from the memory fades the uttered word.
And to mine eyes
Undazzled by thyself, doth rise
An image lovelier and more like to thee
Than even thy bodily self which sight can see.
Ah! The wind shakes
The withered leaves, and Love awakes,
And to the vacant landscape cries in vain:
“Ah, heaven! to have her at my side again!”
LOVE LIES BLEEDING.
THE OUTCAST.
Thou wilt come back again, but not for me,
Fair little face!
Thou wilt come back, but, ah! I may not see
That day of grace.
No sword is at the Eden’s gate I leave;
But viewless hands
Have thrust me into endless night, to grieve
In loveless lands.
Thou wilt come back: thy footsteps make the spring,
And birds sing round;
But I, in wilderness wandering,
Shall hear no sound;
Save as far off the traveller athirst
In desert lands,
Hears waters that he may not reach, accursed
In endless sands.
LOVE LIES BLEEDING.
AUF WIEDERSEHEN!
SUMMER.
The little gate was reached at last,
Half hid in lilacs down the lane;
She pushed it wide, and, as she past,
A wistful look she backward cast,
And said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_”
With hand on latch, a vision white
Lingered reluctant, and again
Half doubting if she did aright,
Soft as the dews that fell that night,
She said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_”
The lamp’s clear gleam flits up the stair;
I linger in delicious pain;
Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air
To breathe in thought I scarcely dare,
Thinks she,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_”
’Tis thirteen years; once more I press
The turf that silences the lane;
I hear the rustle of her dress,
I smell the lilacs, and--ah, yes,
I hear “_Auf wiedersehen!_”
Sweet piece of bashful maiden art!
The English words had seemed too fain,
But these--they drew us heart to heart,
Yet held us tenderly apart;
She said,--“_Auf wiedersehen!_”
PALINODE.
AUTUMN.
Still thirteen years: ’tis autumn now
On field and hill, in heart and brain;
The naked trees at evening sough;
The leaf to the forsaken bough
Sighs not,--“We meet again!”
Two watched yon oriole’s pendent dome,
That now is void, and dank with rain,
And one,--O, hope more frail than foam!
The bird to his deserted home
Sings not,--“We meet again!”
The loath gate swings with rusty creak;
Once, parting there, we played at pain;
There came a parting, when the weak
And fading lips essayed to speak
Vainly,--“We meet again!”
Somewhere is comfort, somewhere faith,
Though thou in outer dark remain;
One sweet sad voice ennobles death,
And still for eighteen centuries saith
Softly,--“Ye meet again!”
If earth another grave must bear,
Yet heaven hath won a sweeter strain,
And something whispers my despair,
That, from an orient chamber there,
Floats down, “We meet again!”
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
SEQUEL TO “MY QUEEN.”
Yes, but the years run circling fleeter,
Ever they pass me--I watch, I wait--
Ever I dream, and awake to meet her;
She cometh never, or comes too late.
Should I press on? for the day grows shorter--
Ought I to linger? the far end nears;
Ever ahead have I looked, and sought her
On the bright sky-line of the gathering years.
Now that the shadows are eastward sloping,
As I screen mine eyes from the slanting sun,
Cometh a thought--It is past all hoping,
Look not ahead, she is missed and gone.
Here on the ridge of my upward travel
Ere the life-line dips to the darkening vales,
Sadly I turn, and would fain unravel
The entangled maze of a search that fails.
When and where have I seen and passed her?
What are the words I forgot to say?
Should we have met had a boat rowed faster?
Should we have loved had I stayed that day?
Was it her face that I saw, and started,
Gliding away in a train that crossed?
Was it a form that I once, faint-hearted,
Followed awhile in a crowd, and lost?
Was it there she lived, when the train went sweeping
Under the moon through the landscape hushed?
Somebody called me, I woke from sleeping,
Saw but a hamlet--and on we rushed.
Listen and linger--She yet may find me
In the last faint flush of the waning light--
Never a step on the path behind me;
I must journey alone, to the lonely night.
But is there somewhere on earth, I wonder,
A fading figure, with eyes that wait,
Who says, as she stands in the distance yonder,
“He cometh never, or comes too late”?
SIR ALFRED LYALL.
IF ...?
So you but love me, be it your own way,
In your own time, no sooner than you will,
No warmer than you would from day to day,
But love me still!
Each day that still you love me seems to me
A little fairer than the day before;
For, daily given, love’s least must daily be
A little more.
And be my most gain’d your least given, if such
Your sweet will be! I reckon not the cost,
Nor count the gain, by little or by much,
Or least or most.
Little or much, to me the gift I crave
Is all in all. There is not any measure
Of more or less can gauge the need I have
Of that dear treasure.
So you but love me, tho’ your love be cold,
Mine it can chill not. Tho’ your love come late,
Mine for its coming, by sweet dreams foretold,
Will dreaming wait.
Yet ah, if some fair chance, before I die,
One hour of waking life might let me live,
Rich with the dream’d-of dear reality
’Tis yours to give!
Your whole sweet self, with your sweet self’s whole love!
Those eyes of fire and dew, those lips wish-haunted,
Those feet whose steps like elfin music move
Thro’ worlds enchanted!
Your whole sweet self! The unutter’d thoughts that stir
Your lonest musings with light wings unheard,
And feelings that find no interpreter
In deed or word!
Your whole sweet self, that till by love reveal’d
Even to yourself still half unknown must be!
For of the wealth in souls like yours conceal’d
Love keeps the key.
Ah, if your whole sweet self, by all the power
Of your sweet self’s whole love in some divine
Far distant hour made wholly yours, that hour
Made wholly mine,
And if in that blest hour all dreams came true,
All doubts dissolved, all fears were whirl’d away
In one wild storm of tendernesses new
As time’s first day,
What should we both be? Hush! I do not dare
Even to hear my own heart’s whisper utter’d.
Be its sole answerer the silent air
This sigh has flutter’d!
ROBERT, LORD LYTTON.
OMENS AND ORACLES.
All the phantoms of the future, all the spectres of the past,
In the wakeful night came round me, sighing, crying, “Fool, beware!
Check the feeling o’er thee stealing! Let thy first love be thy last!
Or, if love again thou must, at least this fatal love forbear!”
_Marah Amara!_
Now the dark breaks. Now the lark wakes. Now their voices fleet away.
And the breeze about the blossom, and the ripple in the reed,
And the beams and buds and birds begin to whisper, sing, or say,
“Love her, love her, for she loves thee!” And I know not which to heed.
_Cara Amara!_
ROBERT, LORD LYTTON.
THE GARDEN OF MEMORY.
There is a certain garden where I know
That flowers flourish in a poet’s spring,
Where aye young birds their amorous matins sing,
And never ill wind comes, nor any snow.
But if you wonder where so fair a show,
Where such eternal pleasure may be seen,
I say, my memory keeps that garden green,
Wherein I loved my first love long ago.
JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY.
IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN.
If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
Pacing it wearily, wearily,
From chapel to cell till day were done
Wearily, wearily,
Oh! how would it be with these hearts of ours,
That need the sunshine and smiles and flowers?
To prayer, to prayer, at the matins’ call,
Morning foul or fair;
Such prayer as from lifeless lips may fall--
Words, but hardly prayer;
Vainly trying the thoughts to raise
Which in the sunshine would burst in praise.
Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
The God revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon,
Painfully kneeling;
Or in thy chamber’s still solitude,
Bending thy head o’er the legend rude.
I, in a cool and lonely nook,
Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book
Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or on the parchment margin unrolled,
Painting quaint pictures in purple and gold.
Perchance in slow procession to meet,
Wearily, wearily;
In an antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
Wearily, wearily;
Thy dark eyes lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again.
Sunshine and air! warmness and spring!
Merrily, merrily!
Back to its cell each weary thing,
Wearily, wearily!
And the heart so withered and dry and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold.
Thou on thy knees at the vespers’ call,
Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!
Then to the lone couch at death of day,
Wearily, wearily;
Rising at midnight again to pray
Wearily, wearily;
And if through the dark those eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin.
And then when thy spirit was passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily;
The earth-born dwelling returning to clay,
Sleepily, sleepily;
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm face to thy cold cheek pressed.
And when my spirit was passing away,
Dreamily, dreamily;
The gray head lying ’mong ashes gray
Sleepily, sleepily;
No hovering angel-woman above
Waiting to clasp me in deathless love.
But now, beloved, thy hand in mine,
Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm around thee, my lips on thine,
Lovingly, lovingly,--
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?
GEORGE MACDONALD.
A BALLADE OF COLOURS.
She went with morning down the wood
Between the green and blue;
The sunlight on the grass was good,
And all the year was new.
There Love came o’er the flowers to her,
A goodly sight to see
From crownèd hair to wing-feather;
“Arise and come with me.”
She walked with him in Paradise
Between the white and red,
With Love’s own kiss between her eyes,
Love’s crown upon her head.
Why two in heaven should not be thus
For ever, who may know?
Love spread his wings most glorious;
“Arise,” he said, “I go.”
She came and sate down silently
Between the gray and gray;
The wet wind beat the leafless tree,
And Love was gone away.
The woodland breaks to flower anew,
The days bring back the year;
But how am I to comfort you,
My dear, my dear, my dear?
J. W. MACKAIL.
MY AMAZON.
I.
My Love is a lady fair and free,
A lady fair from over the sea,
And she hath eyes that pierce my breast
And rob my spirit of peace and rest.
II.
A youthful warrior, warm and young,
She takes me prisoner with her tongue;
Aye! and she keeps me--on parole--
Till paid the ransom of my soul.
III.
I swear the foeman, arm’d for war
From _cap-à-pie_, with many a scar,
More mercy finds for prostrate foe
Than she who deals me never a blow.
IV.
And so ’twill be, this many a day;
She comes to wound, if not to slay.
But in my dreams--in honeyed sleep--
’Tis I to smile, and she to weep!
ERIC MACKAY.
CHANGED LOVE.