Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol
Oscar Wilde




Oscar Wilde

Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol




NOTE

This collection of Wilde’s Poems contains the volume of 1881 in its entirety, ‘The Sphinx’, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol,’ and ‘Ravenna.’ Of the Uncollected Poems published in the Uniform Edition of 1908, a few, including the Translations from the Greek and the Polish, are omitted. Two new poems, ‘Désespoir’ and ‘Pan,’ which I have recently discovered in manuscript, are now printed for the first time. Particulars as to the original publication of each poem will be found in ‘A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde,’ by Stuart Mason, London 1907.



    Robert Ross.




POEMS





HÉLAS!


		To drift with every passion till my soul
		Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
		Is it for this that I have given away
		Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
		Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
		Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
		With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
		Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
		Surely there was a time I might have trod
		The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance
		Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
		Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
		I did but touch the honey of romance—
		And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?




ELEUTHERIA





SONNET TO LIBERTY


		Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
		See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
		Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know, —
		But that the roar of thy Democracies,
		Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,
		Mirror my wildest passions like the sea
		And give my rage a brother – !  Liberty!
		For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
		Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
		By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades
		Rob nations of their rights inviolate
		And I remain unmoved – and yet, and yet,
		These Christs that die upon the barricades,
		God knows it I am with them, in some things.




AVE IMPERATRIX


		Set in this stormy Northern sea,
		Queen of these restless fields of tide,
		England! what shall men say of thee,
		Before whose feet the worlds divide?

		The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
		Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
		And through its heart of crystal pass,
		Like shadows through a twilight land,

		The spears of crimson-suited war,
		The long white-crested waves of fight,
		And all the deadly fires which are
		The torches of the lords of Night.

		The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
		The treacherous Russian knows so well,
		With gaping blackened jaws are seen
		Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

		The strong sea-lion of England’s wars
		Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
		To battle with the storm that mars
		The stars of England’s chivalry.

		The brazen-throated clarion blows
		Across the Pathan’s reedy fen,
		And the high steeps of Indian snows
		Shake to the tread of armèd men.

		And many an Afghan chief, who lies
		Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
		Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
		When on the mountain-side he sees

		The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
		To tell how he hath heard afar
		The measured roll of English drums
		Beat at the gates of Kandahar.

		For southern wind and east wind meet
		Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,
		England with bare and bloody feet
		Climbs the steep road of wide empire.

		O lonely Himalayan height,
		Grey pillar of the Indian sky,
		Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight
		Our wingèd dogs of Victory?

		The almond-groves of Samarcand,
		Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
		And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
		The grave white-turbaned merchants go:

		And on from thence to Ispahan,
		The gilded garden of the sun,
		Whence the long dusty caravan
		Brings cedar wood and vermilion;

		And that dread city of Cabool
		Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet,
		Whose marble tanks are ever full
		With water for the noonday heat:

		Where through the narrow straight Bazaar
		A little maid Circassian
		Is led, a present from the Czar
		Unto some old and bearded khan, —

		Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
		And flapped wide wings in fiery fight;
		But the sad dove, that sits alone
		In England – she hath no delight.

		In vain the laughing girl will lean
		To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
		Down in some treacherous black ravine,
		Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.

		And many a moon and sun will see
		The lingering wistful children wait
		To climb upon their father’s knee;
		And in each house made desolate

		Pale women who have lost their lord
		Will kiss the relics of the slain —
		Some tarnished epaulette – some sword —
		Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

		For not in quiet English fields
		Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,
		Where we might deck their broken shields
		With all the flowers the dead love best.

		For some are by the Delhi walls,
		And many in the Afghan land,
		And many where the Ganges falls
		Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

		And some in Russian waters lie,
		And others in the seas which are
		The portals to the East, or by
		The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

		O wandering graves!  O restless sleep!
		O silence of the sunless day!
		O still ravine!  O stormy deep!
		Give up your prey!  Give up your prey!

		And thou whose wounds are never healed,
		Whose weary race is never won,
		O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield
		For every inch of ground a son?

		Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,
		Change thy glad song to song of pain;
		Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,
		And will not yield them back again.

		Wave and wild wind and foreign shore
		Possess the flower of English land —
		Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,
		Hands that shall never clasp thy hand.

		What profit now that we have bound
		The whole round world with nets of gold,
		If hidden in our heart is found
		The care that groweth never old?

		What profit that our galleys ride,
		Pine-forest-like, on every main?
		Ruin and wreck are at our side,
		Grim warders of the House of Pain.

		Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?
		Where is our English chivalry?
		Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,
		And sobbing waves their threnody.

		O loved ones lying far away,
		What word of love can dead lips send!
		O wasted dust!  O senseless clay!
		Is this the end! is this the end!

		Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead
		To vex their solemn slumber so;
		Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,
		Up the steep road must England go,

		Yet when this fiery web is spun,
		Her watchmen shall descry from far
		The young Republic like a sun
		Rise from these crimson seas of war.




TO MILTON


		Milton!  I think thy spirit hath passed away
		From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
		This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
		Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
		And the age changed unto a mimic play
		Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
		For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
		We are but fit to delve the common clay,
		Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
		This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
		By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
		Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
		Which bare a triple empire in her hand
		When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!




LOUIS NAPOLEON


		Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings
		When far away upon a barbarous strand,
		In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,
		Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!

		Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red,
		Or ride in state through Paris in the van
		Of thy returning legions, but instead
		Thy mother France, free and republican,

		Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place
		The better laurels of a soldier’s crown,
		That not dishonoured should thy soul go down
		To tell the mighty Sire of thy race

		That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,
		And found it sweeter than his honied bees,
		And that the giant wave Democracy
		Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.




SONNET



ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA

		Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones
		Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?
		And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her
		Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?
		For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,
		The priests who call upon Thy name are slain,
		Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain
		From those whose children lie upon the stones?
		Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
		Curtains the land, and through the starless night
		Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!
		If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
		Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might
		Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!




QUANTUM MUTATA


		There was a time in Europe long ago
		When no man died for freedom anywhere,
		But England’s lion leaping from its lair
		Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so
		While England could a great Republic show.
		Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care
		Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair
		The Pontiff in his painted portico
		Trembled before our stern ambassadors.
		How comes it then that from such high estate
		We have thus fallen, save that Luxury
		With barren merchandise piles up the gate
		Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:
		Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.




LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES


		Albeit nurtured in democracy,
		And liking best that state republican
		Where every man is Kinglike and no man
		Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see,
		Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,
		Better the rule of One, whom all obey,
		Than to let clamorous demagogues betray
		Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.
		Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane
		Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street
		For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign
		Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade,
		Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,
		Or Murder with his silent bloody feet.




THEORETIKOS


		This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:
		Of all its ancient chivalry and might
		Our little island is forsaken quite:
		Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,
		And from its hills that voice hath passed away
		Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,
		Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit
		For this vile traffic-house, where day by day
		Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,
		And the rude people rage with ignorant cries
		Against an heritage of centuries.
		It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art
		And loftiest culture I would stand apart,
		Neither for God, nor for his enemies.




THE GARDEN OF EROS


		It is full summer now, the heart of June;
		Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir
		Upon the upland meadow where too soon
		Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,
		Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,
		And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

		Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,
		That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on
		To vex the rose with jealousy, and still
		The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,
		And like a strayed and wandering reveller
		Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

		The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,
		One pale narcissus loiters fearfully
		Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid
		Of their own loveliness some violets lie
		That will not look the gold sun in the face
		For fear of too much splendour, – ah! methinks it is a place

		Which should be trodden by Persephone
		When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!
		Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!
		The hidden secret of eternal bliss
		Known to the Grecian here a man might find,
		Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

		There are the flowers which mourning Herakles
		Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,
		Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze
		Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,
		That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,
		And lilac lady’s-smock, – but let them bloom alone, and leave

		Yon spirèd hollyhock red-crocketed
		To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,
		Its little bellringer, go seek instead
		Some other pleasaunce; the anemone
		That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl
		Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

		Their painted wings beside it, – bid it pine
		In pale virginity; the winter snow
		Will suit it better than those lips of thine
		Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go
		And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,
		Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

		The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus
		So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet
		Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous
		As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet
		Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar
		For any dappled fawn, – pluck these, and those fond flowers which are

		Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon
		Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,
		That morning star which does not dread the sun,
		And budding marjoram which but to kiss
		Would sweeten Cytheræa’s lips and make
		Adonis jealous, – these for thy head, – and for thy girdle take

		Yon curving spray of purple clematis
		Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,
		And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,
		But that one narciss which the startled Spring
		Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard
		In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

		Ah! leave it for a subtle memory
		Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,
		When April laughed between her tears to see
		The early primrose with shy footsteps run
		From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,
		Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering gold.

		Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet
		As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!
		And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet
		Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,
		For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride
		And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

		And I will cut a reed by yonder spring
		And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan
		Wonder what young intruder dares to sing
		In these still haunts, where never foot of man
		Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy
		The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

		And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears
		Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,
		And why the hapless nightingale forbears
		To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone
		When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,
		And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

		And I will sing how sad Proserpina
		Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,
		And lure the silver-breasted Helena
		Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,
		So shalt thou see that awful loveliness
		For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

		And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale
		How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,
		And hidden in a grey and misty veil
		Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun
		Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase
		Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

		And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,
		We may behold Her face who long ago
		Dwelt among men by the Ægean sea,
		And whose sad house with pillaged portico
		And friezeless wall and columns toppled down
		Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town.

		Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,
		They are not dead, thine ancient votaries;
		Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile
		Is better than a thousand victories,
		Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo
		Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few

		Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
		And consecrate their being; I at least
		Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
		And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
		Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
		Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.

		Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,
		The woods of white Colonos are not here,
		On our bleak hills the olive never blows,
		No simple priest conducts his lowing steer
		Up the steep marble way, nor through the town
		Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

		Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,
		Whose very name should be a memory
		To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest
		Beneath the Roman walls, and melody
		Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play
		The lute of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away.

		Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left
		One silver voice to sing his threnody,
		But ah! too soon of it we were bereft
		When on that riven night and stormy sea
		Panthea claimed her singer as her own,
		And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,

		Save for that fiery heart, that morning star
		Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye
		Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war
		The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy
		Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring
		The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

		And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,
		And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot
		In passionless and fierce virginity
		Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute
		Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,
		And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still.

		And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,
		And sung the Galilæan’s requiem,
		That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine
		He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him
		Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,
		And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror.

		Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,
		It is not quenched the torch of poesy,
		The star that shook above the Eastern hill
		Holds unassailed its argent armoury
		From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight —
		O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

		Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,
		Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,
		With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled
		The weary soul of man in troublous need,
		And from the far and flowerless fields of ice
		Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise.

		We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,
		Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,
		How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,
		And what enchantment held the king in thrall
		When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers
		That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

		Long listless summer hours when the noon
		Being enamoured of a damask rose
		Forgets to journey westward, till the moon
		The pale usurper of its tribute grows
		From a thin sickle to a silver shield
		And chides its loitering car – how oft, in some cool grassy field

		Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,
		At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come
		Almost before the blackbird finds a mate
		And overstay the swallow, and the hum
		Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,
		Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

		And through their unreal woes and mimic pain
		Wept for myself, and so was purified,
		And in their simple mirth grew glad again;
		For as I sailed upon that pictured tide
		The strength and splendour of the storm was mine
		Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine;

		The little laugh of water falling down
		Is not so musical, the clammy gold
		Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town
		Has less of sweetness in it, and the old
		Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady
		Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

		Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!
		Although the cheating merchants of the mart
		With iron roads profane our lovely isle,
		And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,
		Ay! though the crowded factories beget
		The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

		For One at least there is, – He bears his name
		From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, —
		Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame
		To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,
		Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,
		And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

		Loves thee so well, that all the World for him
		A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear,
		And Sorrow take a purple diadem,
		Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair
		Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be
		Even in anguish beautiful; – such is the empery

		Which Painters hold, and such the heritage
		This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess,
		Being a better mirror of his age
		In all his pity, love, and weariness,
		Than those who can but copy common things,
		And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

		But they are few, and all romance has flown,
		And men can prophesy about the sun,
		And lecture on his arrows – how, alone,
		Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,
		How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,
		And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

		Methinks these new Actæons boast too soon
		That they have spied on beauty; what if we
		Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon
		Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,
		Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope
		Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

		What profit if this scientific age
		Burst through our gates with all its retinue
		Of modern miracles!  Can it assuage
		One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do
		To make one life more beautiful, one day
		More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay

		Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth
		Hath borne again a noisy progeny
		Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth
		Hurls them against the august hierarchy
		Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust
		They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

		Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,
		From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,
		Create the new Ideal rule for man!
		Methinks that was not my inheritance;
		For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul
		Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

		Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away
		Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat
		Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day
		Blew all its torches out: I did not note
		The waning hours, to young Endymions
		Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns!

		Mark how the yellow iris wearily
		Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed
		By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,
		Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,
		Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night,
		Which ’gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light.

		Come let us go, against the pallid shield
		Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam,
		The corncrake nested in the unmown field
		Answers its mate, across the misty stream
		On fitful wing the startled curlews fly,
		And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,

		Scatters the pearlèd dew from off the grass,
		In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun,
		Who soon in gilded panoply will pass
		Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion
		Hung in the burning east: see, the red rim
		O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him

		Already the shrill lark is out of sight,
		Flooding with waves of song this silent dell, —
		Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight
		Than could be tested in a crucible! —
		But the air freshens, let us go, why soon
		The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June!




ROSA MYSTICA





REQUIESCAT


		Tread lightly, she is near
		Under the snow,
		Speak gently, she can hear
		The daisies grow.

		All her bright golden hair
		Tarnished with rust,
		She that was young and fair
		Fallen to dust.

		Lily-like, white as snow,
		She hardly knew
		She was a woman, so
		Sweetly she grew.

		Coffin-board, heavy stone,
		Lie on her breast,
		I vex my heart alone,
		She is at rest.

		Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
		Lyre or sonnet,
		All my life’s buried here,
		Heap earth upon it.

    Avignon.



SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY


		I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,
		Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
		And when from out the mountain’s heart I came
		And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
		I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
		And musing on the marvel of thy fame
		I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
		The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.
		The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,
		And in the orchards every twining spray
		Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
		But when I knew that far away at Rome
		In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
		I wept to see the land so very fair.

    Turin.



SAN MINIATO


		See, I have climbed the mountain side
		Up to this holy house of God,
		Where once that Angel-Painter trod
		Who saw the heavens opened wide,

		And throned upon the crescent moon
		The Virginal white Queen of Grace, —
		Mary! could I but see thy face
		Death could not come at all too soon.

		O crowned by God with thorns and pain!
		Mother of Christ!  O mystic wife!
		My heart is weary of this life
		And over-sad to sing again.

		O crowned by God with love and flame!
		O crowned by Christ the Holy One!
		O listen ere the searching sun
		Show to the world my sin and shame.




AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA


		Was this His coming!  I had hoped to see
		A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
		Of some great God who in a rain of gold
		Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
		Or a dread vision as when Semele
		Sickening for love and unappeased desire
		Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire
		Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:
		With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
		And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
		Before this supreme mystery of Love:
		Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
		An angel with a lily in his hand,

    Florence.



ITALIA


		Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
		Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
		From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!
		Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
		Because rich gold in every town is seen,
		And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride
		Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride
		Beneath one flag of red and white and green.
		O Fair and Strong!  O Strong and Fair in vain!
		Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town
		Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!
		Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?
		Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,
		And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.

    Venice.



SONNET



WRITTEN IN HOLY WEEK AT GENOA

		I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat,
		The oranges on each o’erhanging spray
		Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
		Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet
		Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet
		Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:
		And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
		Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
		Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
		‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,
		O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.’
		Ah, God!  Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
		Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
		The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.




ROME UNVISITED



I

		The corn has turned from grey to red,
		Since first my spirit wandered forth
		From the drear cities of the north,
		And to Italia’s mountains fled.

		And here I set my face towards home,
		For all my pilgrimage is done,
		Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
		Marshals the way to Holy Rome.

		O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
		Upon the seven hills thy reign!
		O Mother without blot or stain,
		Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!

		O Roma, Roma, at thy feet
		I lay this barren gift of song!
		For, ah! the way is steep and long
		That leads unto thy sacred street.


II

		And yet what joy it were for me
		To turn my feet unto the south,
		And journeying towards the Tiber mouth
		To kneel again at Fiesole!

		And wandering through the tangled pines
		That break the gold of Arno’s stream,
		To see the purple mist and gleam
		Of morning on the Apennines

		By many a vineyard-hidden home,
		Orchard and olive-garden grey,
		Till from the drear Campagna’s way
		The seven hills bear up the dome!


III

		A pilgrim from the northern seas —
		What joy for me to seek alone
		The wondrous temple and the throne
		Of him who holds the awful keys!

		When, bright with purple and with gold
		Come priest and holy cardinal,
		And borne above the heads of all
		The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.

		O joy to see before I die
		The only God-anointed king,
		And hear the silver trumpets ring
		A triumph as he passes by!

		Or at the brazen-pillared shrine
		Holds high the mystic sacrifice,
		And shows his God to human eyes
		Beneath the veil of bread and wine.


IV

		For lo, what changes time can bring!
		The cycles of revolving years
		May free my heart from all its fears,
		And teach my lips a song to sing.

		Before yon field of trembling gold
		Is garnered into dusty sheaves,
		Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves
		Flutter as birds adown the wold,

		I may have run the glorious race,
		And caught the torch while yet aflame,
		And called upon the holy name
		Of Him who now doth hide His face.

    Arona.



URBS SACRA ÆTERNA


		Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;
		In the first days thy sword republican
		Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:
		Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,
		Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
		And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
		(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
		The hated flag of red and white and green.
		When was thy glory! when in search for power
		Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
		And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?
		Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
		When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
		The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

    Montre Mario.



SONNET



ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL

		Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
		Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,
		Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
		Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
		The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:
		A bird at evening flying to its nest
		Tells me of One who had no place of rest:
		I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.
		Come rather on some autumn afternoon,
		When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,
		And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song,
		Come when the splendid fulness of the moon
		Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,
		And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.




EASTER DAY


		The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:
		The people knelt upon the ground with awe:
		And borne upon the necks of men I saw,
		Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.
		Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam,
		And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red,
		Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:
		In splendour and in light the Pope passed home.
		My heart stole back across wide wastes of years
		To One who wandered by a lonely sea,
		And sought in vain for any place of rest:
		‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest.
		I, only I, must wander wearily,
		And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’




E TENEBRIS


		Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
		For I am drowning in a stormier sea
		Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
		The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
		My heart is as some famine-murdered land
		Whence all good things have perished utterly,
		And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
		If I this night before God’s throne should stand.
		‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
		Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
		From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’
		Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
		The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
		The wounded hands, the weary human face.




VITA NUOVA


		I stood by the unvintageable sea
		Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray;
		The long red fires of the dying day
		Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily;
		And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee:
		‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘my life is full of pain,
		And who can garner fruit or golden grain
		From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!’
		My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw,
		Nathless I threw them as my final cast
		Into the sea, and waited for the end.
		When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw
		From the black waters of my tortured past
		The argent splendour of white limbs ascend!




MADONNA MIA


		A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,
		With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,
		And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears
		Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:
		Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,
		Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,
		And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,
		Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.
		Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,
		Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,
		Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,
		Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice
		Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw
		The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.




THE NEW HELEN


		Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
		The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
		Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
		Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
		His purple galley and his Tyrian men
		And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes?
		For surely it was thou, who, like a star
		Hung in the silver silence of the night,
		Didst lure the Old World’s chivalry and might
		Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!

		Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?
		In amorous Sidon was thy temple built
		Over the light and laughter of the sea
		Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,
		Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,
		All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
		Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
		And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss
		Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned
		From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles!

		No! thou art Helen, and none other one!
		It was for thee that young Sarpedôn died,
		And Memnôn’s manhood was untimely spent;
		It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried
		With Thetis’ child that evil race to run,
		In the last year of thy beleaguerment;
		Ay! even now the glory of thy fame
		Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,
		Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well
		Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.

		Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land
		Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew,
		Where never mower rose at break of day
		But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,
		And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand
		Till summer’s red had changed to withered grey?
		Didst thou lie there by some Lethæan stream
		Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,
		The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam
		From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?

		Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill
		With one who is forgotten utterly,
		That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;
		Hidden away that never mightst thou see
		The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine
		To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;
		Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening,
		But only Love’s intolerable pain,
		Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,
		Only the bitterness of child-bearing.

		The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death
		Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,
		While yet I know the summer of my days;
		For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath
		To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise,
		So bowed am I before thy mystery;
		So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel,
		That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,
		Yet care I not what ruin time may bring
		If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.

		Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,
		But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,
		Who flies before the north wind and the night,
		So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,
		Back to the tower of thine old delight,
		And the red lips of young Euphorion;
		Nor shall I ever see thy face again,
		But in this poisonous garden-close must stay,
		Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,
		Till all my loveless life shall pass away.

		O Helen!  Helen! Helen! yet a while,
		Yet for a little while, O, tarry here,
		Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!
		For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile
		Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear,
		Seeing I know no other god but thee:
		No other god save him, before whose feet
		In nets of gold the tired planets move,
		The incarnate spirit of spiritual love
		Who in thy body holds his joyous seat.

		Thou wert not born as common women are!
		But, girt with silver splendour of the foam,
		Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise!
		And at thy coming some immortal star,
		Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies,
		And waked the shepherds on thine island-home.
		Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep
		Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;
		No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,
		Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.

		Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
		Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
		Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
		For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,
		Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire,
		Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,
		Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
		For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
		Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
		And the white glory of thy loveliness.




THE BURDEN OF ITYS


		This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
		Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
		Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
		Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
		To fleck their blue waves, – God is likelier there
		Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!

		Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
		Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
		Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
		A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
		His eyes half shut, – he is some mitred old
		Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.

		The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
		Does well for Palæstrina, one would say
		The mighty master’s hands were on the keys
		Of the Maria organ, which they play
		When early on some sapphire Easter morn
		In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne

		From his dark House out to the Balcony
		Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,
		Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
		To toss their silver lances in the air,
		And stretching out weak hands to East and West
		In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.

		Is not yon lingering orange after-glow
		That stays to vex the moon more fair than all
		Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
		I knelt before some crimson Cardinal
		Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
		And now – those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.

		The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous
		With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring
		Through this cool evening than the odorous
		Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
		When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
		And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine.

		Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
		Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
		Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass
		I see that throbbing throat which once I heard
		On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
		Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.

		Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves
		At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,
		And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves
		Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe
		To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait
		Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.

		And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,
		And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
		And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees
		That round and round the linden blossoms play;
		And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall,
		And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,

		And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring
		While the last violet loiters by the well,
		And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing
		The song of Linus through a sunny dell
		Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
		And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.

		And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
		In some Illyrian valley far away,
		Where canopied on herbs amaracine
		We too might waste the summer-trancèd day
		Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
		While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.

		But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
		Of some long-hidden God should ever tread
		The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute
		Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head
		By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed
		To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.

		Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,
		Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem!
		Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler
		Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
		These unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
		For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield

		Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
		Which all day long in vales Æolian
		A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
		Our hedges like a wanton courtesan
		Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
		Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue

		Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
		For swallows going south, would never spread
		Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
		Even that little weed of ragged red,
		Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
		Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy

		Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames
		Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
		Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems
		Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant
		For Cytheræa’s brows are hidden here
		Unknown to Cytheræa, and by yonder pasturing steer

		There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
		The butterfly can see it from afar,
		Although one summer evening’s dew could fill
		Its little cup twice over ere the star
		Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold
		And be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted gold

		As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae
		Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss
		The trembling petals, or young Mercury
		Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis
		Had with one feather of his pinions
		Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns

		Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,
		Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry, —
		Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre
		Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me
		It seems to bring diviner memories
		Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,

		Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
		On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies,
		The tangle of the forest in his hair,
		The silence of the woodland in his eyes,
		Wooing that drifting imagery which is
		No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis

		Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both,
		Fed by two fires and unsatisfied
		Through their excess, each passion being loth
		For love’s own sake to leave the other’s side
		Yet killing love by staying; memories
		Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees,

		Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf
		At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew
		Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf
		And called false Theseus back again nor knew
		That Dionysos on an amber pard
		Was close behind her; memories of what Mæonia’s bard

		With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,
		Queen Helen lying in the ivory room,
		And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy
		Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,
		And far away the moil, the shout, the groan,
		As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone;

		Of wingèd Perseus with his flawless sword
		Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch,
		And all those tales imperishably stored
		In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich
		Than any gaudy galleon of Spain
		Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,

		For well I know they are not dead at all,
		The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy:
		They are asleep, and when they hear thee call
		Will wake and think ’t is very Thessaly,
		This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade
		The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played.

		If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird
		Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne
		Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard
		The horn of Atalanta faintly blown
		Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering
		Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring, —

		Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate
		That pleadest for the moon against the day!
		If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate
		On that sweet questing, when Proserpina
		Forgot it was not Sicily and leant
		Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment, —

		Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!
		If ever thou didst soothe with melody
		One of that little clan, that brotherhood
		Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany
		More than the perfect sun of Raphael
		And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.

		Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,
		Let elemental things take form again,
		And the old shapes of Beauty walk among
		The simple garths and open crofts, as when
		The son of Leto bare the willow rod,
		And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish God.

		Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here
		Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne,
		And over whimpering tigers shake the spear
		With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,
		While at his side the wanton Bassarid
		Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid!

		Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,
		And steal the moonèd wings of Ashtaroth,
		Upon whose icy chariot we could win
		Cithæron in an hour ere the froth
		Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun
		Ceased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn

		Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest,
		And warned the bat to close its filmy vans,
		Some Mænad girl with vine-leaves on her breast
		Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans
		So softly that the little nested thrush
		Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rush

		Down the green valley where the fallen dew
		Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store,
		Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew
		Trample the loosestrife down along the shore,
		And where their hornèd master sits in state
		Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate!

		Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face
		Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come,
		The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase
		Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom,
		And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride,
		After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride.

		Sing on! and I the dying boy will see
		Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell
		That overweighs the jacinth, and to me
		The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,
		And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes,
		And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies!

		Cry out aloud on Itys! memory
		That foster-brother of remorse and pain
		Drops poison in mine ear, – O to be free,
		To burn one’s old ships! and to launch again
		Into the white-plumed battle of the waves
		And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves!

		O for Medea with her poppied spell!
		O for the secret of the Colchian shrine!
		O for one leaf of that pale asphodel
		Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine,
		And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she
		Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea,

		Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased
		From lily to lily on the level mead,
		Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste
		The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,
		Ere the black steeds had harried her away
		Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day.

		O for one midnight and as paramour
		The Venus of the little Melian farm!
		O that some antique statue for one hour
		Might wake to passion, and that I could charm
		The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair,
		Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair!

		Sing on! sing on!  I would be drunk with life,
		Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth,
		I would forget the wearying wasted strife,
		The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,
		The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer,
		The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air!

		Sing on! sing on!  O feathered Niobe,
		Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal
		From joy its sweetest music, not as we
		Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal
		Our too untented wounds, and do but keep
		Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep.

		Sing louder yet, why must I still behold
		The wan white face of that deserted Christ,
		Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold,
		Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,
		And now in mute and marble misery
		Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me?

		O Memory cast down thy wreathèd shell!
		Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene!
		O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell
		Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly!
		Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong
		To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song!

		Cease, cease, or if ’t is anguish to be dumb
		Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air,
		Whose jocund carelessness doth more become
		This English woodland than thy keen despair,
		Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay
		Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.

		A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,
		Endymion would have passed across the mead
		Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard
		Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed
		To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid
		Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid.

		A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,
		The silver daughter of the silver sea
		With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed
		Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope
		Had thrust aside the branches of her oak
		To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke.

		A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss
		Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon
		Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis
		Had bared his barren beauty to the moon,
		And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile
		Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile

		Down leaning from his black and clustering hair,
		To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,
		Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare
		High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis
		Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer
		From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear.

		Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!
		O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing!
		O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill
		Come not with such despondent answering!
		No more thou wingèd Marsyas complain,
		Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain!

		It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,
		No soft Ionian laughter moves the air,
		The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,
		And from the copse left desolate and bare
		Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry,
		Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody

		So sad, that one might think a human heart
		Brake in each separate note, a quality
		Which music sometimes has, being the Art
		Which is most nigh to tears and memory;
		Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear?
		Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here,

		Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,
		No woven web of bloody heraldries,
		But mossy dells for roving comrades made,
		Warm valleys where the tired student lies
		With half-shut book, and many a winding walk
		Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk.

		The harmless rabbit gambols with its young
		Across the trampled towing-path, where late
		A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng
		Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight;
		The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads,
		Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds

		Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out
		Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock
		Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout
		Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,
		And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,
		And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill.

		The heron passes homeward to the mere,
		The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees,
		Gold world by world the silent stars appear,
		And like a blossom blown before the breeze
		A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky,
		Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody.

		She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,
		She knows Endymion is not far away;
		’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed
		Which has no message of its own to play,
		So pipes another’s bidding, it is I,
		Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery.

		Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill
		About the sombre woodland seems to cling
		Dying in music, else the air is still,
		So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing
		Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell
		Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell.

		And far away across the lengthening wold,
		Across the willowy flats and thickets brown,
		Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold
		Marks the long High Street of the little town,
		And warns me to return; I must not wait,
		Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.




WIND FLOWERS





IMPRESSION DU MATIN


		The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
		Changed to a Harmony in grey:
		A barge with ochre-coloured hay
		Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold

		The yellow fog came creeping down
		The bridges, till the houses’ walls
		Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s
		Loomed like a bubble o’er the town.

		Then suddenly arose the clang
		Of waking life; the streets were stirred
		With country waggons: and a bird
		Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.




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