IX

"I see white flowers upon the floor Betrodden to a clot; My wreath were they?"—"Nay; love me much, Swear you'll forget me not! 'Twas but a wreath! Full many such Are brought here and forgot."

* * *

X

The watches of the night grow hoar, He rises ere the sun; "Now could I kill thee here!" he says, "For winning me from one Who ever in her living days Was pure as cloistered nun!"

XI

She cowers, and he takes his track Afar for many a mile, For evermore to be apart From her who could beguile His senses by her burning heart, And win his love awhile.

XII

A year: and he is travelling back To her who wastes in clay; From day-dawn until eve he fares Along the wintry way, From day-dawn until eve repairs Unto her mound to pray.

XIII

And there he sets him to fulfil His frustrate first intent: And lay upon her bed, at last, The offering earlier meant: When, on his stooping figure, ghast And haggard eyes are bent.

XIV

"O surely for a little while You can be kind to me! For do you love her, do you hate, She knows not—cares not she: Only the living feel the weight Of loveless misery!

XV

"I own my sin; I've paid its cost, Being outcast, shamed, and bare: I give you daily my whole heart, Your babe my tender care, I pour you prayers; and aye to part Is more than I can bear!"

XVI

He turns—unpitying, passion-tossed; "I know you not!" he cries, "Nor know your child. I knew this maid, But she's in Paradise!" And swiftly in the winter shade He breaks from her and flies.



SAPPHIC FRAGMENT



"Thou shalt be—Nothing."—OMAR KHAYYAM. "Tombless, with no remembrance."—W. SHAKESPEARE.

Dead shalt thou lie; and nought Be told of thee or thought, For thou hast plucked not of the Muses' tree: And even in Hades' halls Amidst thy fellow-thralls No friendly shade thy shade shall company!



CATULLUS: XXXI (After passing Sirmione, April 1887.)



Sirmio, thou dearest dear of strands That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, With what high joy from stranger lands Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! Yea, barely seems it true to me That no Bithynia holds me now, But calmly and assuringly Around me stretchest homely Thou.

Is there a scene more sweet than when Our clinging cares are undercast, And, worn by alien moils and men, The long untrodden sill repassed, We press the pined for couch at last, And find a full repayment there? Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast, And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!



AFTER SCHILLER



Knight, a true sister-love This heart retains; Ask me no other love, That way lie pains!

Calm must I view thee come, Calm see thee go; Tale-telling tears of thine I must not know!



SONG FROM HEINE



I scanned her picture dreaming, Till each dear line and hue Was imaged, to my seeming, As if it lived anew.

Her lips began to borrow Their former wondrous smile; Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow, Grew sparkling as erstwhile.

Such tears as often ran not Ran then, my love, for thee; And O, believe I cannot That thou are lost to me!



FROM VICTOR HUGO



Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule, My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, For a glance from you!

Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs, Angels, the demons abject under me, Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs, Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres, For a kiss from thee!



CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL



Here's one in whom Nature feared—faint at such vying - Eclipse while he lived, and decease at his dying.



"I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES"



I

I have lived with shades so long, And talked to them so oft, Since forth from cot and croft I went mankind among, That sometimes they In their dim style Will pause awhile To hear my say;

II

And take me by the hand, And lead me through their rooms In the To-be, where Dooms Half-wove and shapeless stand: And show from there The dwindled dust And rot and rust Of things that were.

III

"Now turn," spake they to me One day: "Look whence we came, And signify his name Who gazes thence at thee." - —"Nor name nor race Know I, or can," I said, "Of man So commonplace.

IV

"He moves me not at all; I note no ray or jot Of rareness in his lot, Or star exceptional. Into the dim Dead throngs around He'll sink, nor sound Be left of him."

V

"Yet," said they, "his frail speech, Hath accents pitched like thine - Thy mould and his define A likeness each to each - But go! Deep pain Alas, would be His name to thee, And told in vain!"

Feb. 2, 1899.



MEMORY AND I



"O memory, where is now my youth, Who used to say that life was truth?"

"I saw him in a crumbled cot Beneath a tottering tree; That he as phantom lingers there Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my joy, Who lived with me in sweet employ?"

"I saw him in gaunt gardens lone, Where laughter used to be; That he as phantom wanders there Is known to none but me."

"O Memory, where is now my hope, Who charged with deeds my skill and scope?"

"I saw her in a tomb of tomes, Where dreams are wont to be; That she as spectre haunteth there Is only known to me."

"O Memory, where is now my faith, One time a champion, now a wraith?"

"I saw her in a ravaged aisle, Bowed down on bended knee; That her poor ghost outflickers there Is known to none but me."

"O Memory, where is now my love, That rayed me as a god above?"

"I saw him by an ageing shape Where beauty used to be; That his fond phantom lingers there Is only known to me."



[GREEK TITLE]



Long have I framed weak phantasies of Thee, O Willer masked and dumb! Who makest Life become, - As though by labouring all-unknowingly, Like one whom reveries numb.

How much of consciousness informs Thy will Thy biddings, as if blind, Of death-inducing kind, Nought shows to us ephemeral ones who fill But moments in Thy mind.

Perhaps Thy ancient rote-restricted ways Thy ripening rule transcends; That listless effort tends To grow percipient with advance of days, And with percipience mends.

For, in unwonted purlieus, far and nigh, At whiles or short or long, May be discerned a wrong Dying as of self-slaughter; whereat I Would raise my voice in song.



Footnotes:

{1} The "Race" is the turbulent sea-area off the Bill of Portland, where contrary tides meet.

{2} Pronounce "Loddy."

{3} On a lonely table-land above the Vale of Blackmore, between High-Stoy and Bubb-Down hills, and commanding in clear weather views that extend from the English to the Bristol Channel, stands a pillar, apparently mediaeval, called Cross-and-Hand or Christ-in-Hand. Among other stories of its origin a local tradition preserves the one here given.

THE END