fi^S, THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES tSgS^Sir ii^^m:^ 'In ^ n QS Y^ ^ ^^.n' j^^ RHYMELETS • PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON RHYMELET S BY EDWARD LOCKE TOMLIN LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK : 15 EAST i6"i STREET 1891 All rights reserved ©cDication TO MY WIFE While the Harroiu pcedagogue Tried my soaring brain to clog In the commentators' fog^ I was often far away Where the Muses held their sway, Penning 7nany an idle lay. In the Oxford lectitre-room. Theory, critic, axiom. Seemed like phantasms to loom. While my fancy loved to be. In a sea-shell by the sea, Venus there to comfort me. Education, then complete (Love's and Muses' alphabet), Found me kneeling at your feet ; In memory of happy times. Listen, to my youthful chimes. Take this bunch of early rhymes. 837754 CONTENTS PAGE The End of Death i At Karnak 7 On the Nile n At Biarritz 13 Sansara i^ After Reading 'Re-Incarnation' 17 Faith, Hope, Love 19 Life is Enough 20 To Omar Khayyam 21 FiRENZE 2.■^ Nubia 26 A Vision at Tours 30 A Dream t^-^ The Death of Day 35 The Mistral and the Palms 36 He and She 37 A Prayer 39 LovE's Language 40 At the Sign of the Rembrandt Head . . .42 A Lesson in Love . , . . . . . . 43 After Parting 43 viii CONTENTS PAGE 'too late to call back yesterday, and to-morrow comks not yet ' 47 Release 49 One Summer Night 51 Contrariness 53 The Pity of It . . 54 A Storm 56 Wild or Tame 58 Memory 60 Dawn and Eve 62 A Lesson 63 A Woman's Friendship 64 Kismet ! 66 Earth and Sea 67 Autumn 69 ' Hosia Panourgein ' 71 Off Finisterre 72 To AN Old Oak 73 Frost 74 Summer Dawn 76 On Exmoor 77 The Five Senses 78 My Shadow and I 80 In an Album 82 To PIer Thimble 84 Translation from the ' Antigone ' 86 Translation from Francois Copp]£e . . . .88 Translation from Francois Copp6e 90 Translation from PIeine 92 7 THE END OF DEATH Death built himself an adamantine hall, Moated in the dim sea that moats the world. From the grim battlements his seneschal A blood-red flag unfurled. The walls were hung with silence, and no sound Clanged from the pavement 'neath his iron heels, Light only flickered from the courtyard ground, Ponded with fiery weels. Death raised his sceptre like a lurid star ; Before his ebon throne obedience On bended knee bowed his three henchmen, War, Famine, and Pestilence. THE END OE DEATH Heside him sat a woman, robed and plumed In leprous white, pallid, white haired, white pearled About her pearl-white throat, her eyes consumed With flames that sear the world. Her name Decay. Death loved her, she that still Indissolubly bound to Life as spouse Had power with many a welcome guest to fill His hope-abandoned house. 'I'hen came there one who danced before the throne With rhythmic steps and dreamy cadences, Her eyes like to a lustrous opal stone Seen through long eyelashes. Lashes whose lengths were shot with rainbow gleams, Like sunlight shed on seaweed in the deep ; These are the magic crystals known as dreams, Tears from the eyes of Sleep ! But Death arose and cursed her, for that she Brought souls to him on iridescent wing \\\ painless wise, her opiate set them free, .\nd robbed him of his sting. THE END OF DEATH 3 Forthright another, hke a summer storm, With summer Hghtning eyes that flashed and failed Whirled her lithe limbs in movement multiform .Pf beauty half unveiled, Then sank and slowly raised her rounded arms, Pleading, a syren with no soul within. Death looked and laughed upon her wanton (harms. His well-beloved Sin. Yet he arose and cursed her : ' Ay, cajole Full many a one to love and cling to thee, But each is thine, thine only, till his soul Sicken, and longs for me.' Then cursed he his three henchmen, for that they Made Death seem welcome and a little thing : Fain would he, like a purring tiger, play With what his cublings bring. ' Thou, ruthless War, for all thy score of slain, Slain souls that come, their hands imbued with blood, Hast let the hope of glory dull their pain And nerve their lustihood. B 2 THE END OF DEATH ' Famine, what hurts it to the wasting sense To lose its being at the last extreme ? Too quick thine arrows pierce them, Pestilence, No time left to blaspheme. ' They rob me of my terrors : some the priest With prayer and crucifix and hope of heaven after. Some opiates soothe, some the materialist With " Nothing is hereafter." ' But thou, thou art more gracious, O my queen ! Mine, mine for ever when Life himself be dead ; I love to see them linger, the has-been Haunting their dying bed. ' First fruits of russet locks are thine. Decay ; The first dry wrinkle 'neath a love-sick eye. The first sharp pain, the first hair turning grey. Remind them they must die. 'Thy poison falls upon them drop by drop. As minute after minute saps their strength Beauty and manhood fade, and, fading, stop To weep Life's little length. THE END OF DEATH 5 ' To me their tears are nectar, wine their gall, Their every sigh makes music in my ears ; All thanks, my queen, from birth to burial , Thou fillest them with fears.' Black in black armour, kingly in king's guise, Death sat, and the white woman on him turned. She sighed, and from the furnace of her eyes. There fell a spark that burned, That seared, and left pearl-white upon the black A growing stain, while a shrill shudder went Like a sharp sword sheer through him, front to back, With stab omnipotent. For the first time light shone upon the blind. Uprose a rustle from the silent stones ; The dead were laughing, like dry leaves in wind, The laughter shook their bones. Sin swooned, and Sleep, with pleading eyes, besought Rest, rest eternal, for the restless dead ; The black king gazed, with passion overwrought, While still the white wound bled. THE END OF DEATH As the white woman leaned on him, and, faint With the last effort of her failing breath. Infected him and filled him with her taint — Decay had ended Death. Sudden, like desert sandstorms spiralled high, The fiery weels went whirling up the night, Then spread in softened splendour o'er the sky, Till the dark dead knew light, And the dumb dead found speech, as the loud sound Of stone that crashed, struck spark, and roofs that flared. Crackled, and left them roofless and unbound, While New Life's trumpet blared. AT KARNAK Speak, if ye be not dead, O old-world gods ! Speak, if ye be not dumb ! We know you not ; Our fathers and our grandsires knew you not ! But once there lived a race of men who knew. Who hearkened and obeyed your word revealed, As we obey a revelation now. Speak ! for I feel your presence. Who has wrought Such ruin mid your temples ? Who has laid- A hand so heavy on these ponderous piles That they have crashed and fallen, or where they stand Are but a ruin-wrinkled, shapeless mass Of colourless, inanimate, void rock ? Perchance within this hundred-columned hall, God dryads by these godlike trunks of stone. Greatness in greatness ye yet hide yourselves, Aye ! all Olympus. 'Tis a lordly spot For gods, or ghosts of gods, to dream of prayer. AT KARNAK Chorus of Deities There is no God but Time, We bow ! we bow ! The darkness of his wings Is round us now. Our halls were high, Time sent Earthquake and sand and sun ; We hnger, bowed and bent, Undone ! undone ! Semichorus Time was old when we were young, Time is young nov/ we are old, Every creed in every tongue Passeth as a tale is told. Undone ! undone ! AT KARNAK Isis Goddess, I, of secret rites, Beauty of Earth's early prime. Offerings from a thousand fights Made my mysteries sublime, I have fallen from my heights, Blighted by the breath of Time. Undone ! undone 1 Venus Goddess, I, who scorned her veil Scorned her secrets, showed the truth, Taught the heart of man to fail Before my beauty and my youth ; Taught him love, and taught him pleasure, Taught him roseate, amorous rhyme, Rhymeless Time has blurred the measure, Love is killed by loveless Time. Undone ! undone ! lo AT KARNAK Zeus I once gods and men kept under, Ruled alone o'er earth and heaven, With the terror of my thunder, With the lashings of my levin. Time has reft man of his wonder. Reft my gods of power sublime. Seized my sceptre broke asunder. I must bow to Time. Undone I undone ! Chorus Time was old when we were young, Time is young now we arc old. Every creed in every tongue Passeth as a tale is told. Undone I undone ! II ON THE NILE Spread the sail and ship the oar, Loose us from the sunburnt shore, Ha ! Yalesah ! Father Nile will bear us on Through his summer 'neath the sun. Ha ! Yalesah ! Father Nile is slowly sinking, Earth and sun his streams are drinking ; But his heart, far in the hills, Year by year his bosom fills, Raising richness out of dearth — 'Tis the pulse-beat of the earth Ha ; Yalesah ! Forth the oars and furl the sail ; 'Tis not that the breezes fail, But the zephyrs are afraid Of the ripple they have made, 12 ON THE NILE And the stately solemn palm Loves his image in the calm, Ha ! Yalcsah ! Peace and calm ; we leave behind All the passions of the mind, Learn from Nature to be kind, Ha ! Yalesah ! Let us drift while drift we may, Live to-morrow as to-day ; Drift, until we drift away To the shadow land for aye, Ha ! Yalesah ! Put the oars into the skiff. Bear me forth to yonder cliff. Lay me in the peaceful gloom Of some Pharaoh's empty tomb. There my requiem shall be, In slow chaunted cadency. Ha ! Yalesah ! AT BIARRITZ The wave that breaks upon the shore to-day Is voiceful of the mighty yesterday, It broke upon and buried stone by stone — Lemuria and Atlantis, where are they ? And where shall we be when the laboured stone Of our proud palaces is idly thrown. In rounded pebbles by the sounding sea On future shores of continents unknown ? Death hath no sting, no victory hath the grave, For the imagination of the brave, ^^■ho know they only lose their sudden form. And break as breaks on shore a broken wave. 14 AT BIARRITZ Their Mother Ocean takes tliem back again : \\"c pass as the wave passes ; we are fain Of those unruffled depths from whence we sprang Though the rude touch of earth be passing pain. Some on a soft and silvery sand are spent, Some driven high and hoar on rocks are rent, Some curling crash, and cease in midmost course. All, sometime, in one common end are blent. Tween the dim 'past beyond our memory's range, And the dim shore ahead, we feel it strange To wander as the winds list ; but we know There is no death, no ceasing, only change. 15 SANSARA The sky above seems darker — further, sadder ; The vortex of existence whirleth fast, Unto the day sufficient. ' Are we madder Than the mad past ? ' No sea flower but possession kills its beauty, No earth flower can live on in plucked bereavement, No joy of sense, ambition, even duty, Survives achievement. Our impotent dominion over matter But brings to light the powers of decay ; Wisdom's or weapon's war, the printed chatter That rule to-day i6 SANSARA To-morrow are not amid newer newness, Though blood and brain their influence inspired ; We chase a phantom, cannot capture trueness, The hunter's tired. Reh'gion, wealth, or politics may beckon, They offer peace, or place, or potent gold ; \\'hilc soul and sense upon the bargain reckon, The frame grows old. We wrestle our environment to weaken, We fight to loose the bandage from our eyes ; Or earth's success or heaven's be our beacon, The struggler dies. The vortex deepens as the centuries send us Faster and faster through the mad world's fight. Shall the last word as the first word befriend us ? ' Let there be light.' 17 AFTER READIKG 'RE-INCARNATION' There is no God who the tired soul befriendeth ? No devil to stifle life at man's behest ? There must be new life when the old life endeth ? There is no rest ? What ! ^^'e must suffer a new agony of being, The dying rattle be a birthday breath ; When the grave closes, it is not a freeing, There is no death ! A sea plunge in a momentary madness, A bullet in some baptism of fire, They are no opiates for eternal sadness ! Vain the desire To anchor on the tideway everlasting. Where the soul must voyage evermore, Chained to life by fetters of God's casting, There is no shore ! c 1 8 AFTER READING 'RE-INCARNATION' An eternity of ever old to-morrows ? No delirium of devils could outvie Such a horrible conception of new sorrows That cannot die. Better the hells and haloes of the clergy, Though priests may lie and miracles deceive, Better to kneel and chaunt a long liturgy, Say, ' I believe.' Better to live with hopes of nearer heaven. To join the Church's chorus of ' I know,' If to believe can exoterically leaven The earth life dough. Best to march bravely in the path of virtue, Spend and be spent outside all dogma's pale. Pass when the hour comes where no God shall hurt you, Behind the Veil. Somewhere, sometime, in the infinite hereafter. The prodigal sad soul shall cease to roam. Shall find surcease of tears, surcease of laughter, Shall enter home. 19 FAITH, HOPE, LOVE Faith 's Like a lost iceberg in a southern sea, Majestically melting. Where we see It diamond hard with hues of Paradise To-day, how soon no trace of it shall be ? Hope, Silent and pure as light mid man-made din, Glistens above the battlefields of sin, Like a white bird against a thunderstorm, The herald of a heritage to win. Love, When the spent sun his latest beam has shed, When sea and land are travailing of their dead, Shall be the password to a higher sphere Of Godhood from a manhood perfected. c 2 20 LIFE IS ENOUGH Life is enough. At its innocent beginning All the world is sunshine, and for joy thereof Tears pass away as mists of the morning thinning, Life is enough ! When the days darken and all the ways arc rough, Work on, the web of Life is worth the spinning. Though crossed the woof with warp of harsher stuff. Thy duty done, the goal is near the winning. Dread not a devil's ' All hail,' a god's rebuff. If there be life in the grave despite our sinning, Life is enough. 21 TO OMAR KHAYYAM Omar, the fragrance of the ruby wine, The scent of all the roses that were thine, Outlive the memory of thine empty glass, And with the new-bloomed Orient entwine. Yet all the teachings of thy roseate verse Can nought redeem us from the western curse Of doing, doing, in rash recklessness. So but we may put money in our purse. Wisdom, awake in the reposeful East, Disdainful of the greatest, as the least. Brow-bound with fillets of forgetfulness, Lets loose her saffron robe with them that feast. Thou gazedst in her eyes, but couldst not tell If heaven looked back on thee from them or hell ; Knew'st not if she were saint or sorceress ; So there were love, wine, roses, it was well. TO OMAR KHAYYAM So were it now, had we thy grace to see The nothingness to us of what 's to be, The utter nothingness of what has been, 'I'hat more men know the more they disagree. Could we but learn from thee how it were best With pillowed head on some still lovely breast No care, no thought, no fear of the unseen, Rose-crowned to sink into the perfect rest. 23 FIRENZE One spring when buds were full in Fiesole, The vernal breath of genius passed and stirred Into strong notes of ardent sympathy The heart-strings of the herd. Upon the surface of the smoothen rock The youthful Giotto lay ; there deftly drew he With sharpened flint the firstling of his flock That ravished Cimabue. From palace unto palace where they shone, From cloister unto cloister, still sublime, His frescoes face us, though their hues are gone, Blurred by the breath of time. His shepherd tower the old world's wonders ended ; Imperishably beautiful it stands. With hues of many a marble softly blended. As from a painter's hands. -4 FIREXZE Firenze ! what a heritage is thine ! Massed marble forms, by master minds enchanted. Tower and dome and palace, line on line, Thy peerless founders planted. And still poor Arno laps with lips of love The feet of bridge and palace, church and wall : The deep blue spreads from hill to hill above A glorious funeral pall. For over thee the modern death-in-life, That sees no beauty in the poet's song, That heeds not when creates the sculptor's knife The beautiful, the strong, That looks on Art as something almost mad, And reverences beauty only when A money value for it can be had, Has fogged thee in its fen. Some chose the tools of Art, but more of A\'ar, In the young time when every pulse beat high, When every man to his own self made law, To carve his mark or die. FIREXZE 25 They wrought for work's sake and for love of deeds ; Untrammelled of the reasons, their bright brains, Their souls, were in their finger tips, their creeds Arteried in their veins. \\'here the frowned front of Strozzi rears his scars, Ear-ringed with iron, many a party feud Broke high below the massive window-bars In steel foam flecked with blood. Firenze ! all the anguish Angelo Wrought in his Dawn and Twilight, Night and Day, Has laid upon thee since that time of woe Thou lost thy liberty. What words of scorn would not thy Dante breathe On slavish moderns, who have placed the best Of beauty, art, and handcraft far beneath Foul Medicean interest. Sleep on, great souls, great city, till there come A truer knowledge 'tis not time to wake ; Sleep on ! nor heed the modern bee-hive hum, Till the new idols break ! 26 NUBIA ' Land of gold,' Thy name of old, Lords of thee carved it on lordly shrines ; The yellow spoil Of sifted soil The Pharaohs sought from the distant mines. Their tale is told, And gone their gold. Thine still is the labour, thine still the toil ; An acre of wheat For a town to eat, And meagre the pittance of date and oil. For the sound of the grinding is low, Only the ceaseless moan. Where the pitchers dip, dip, In the weary flood below, NUBIA To pour from a weary lip, In a ceaseless weary flow, Creak, moan, creak, groan, I Their dole from the flood below To make the gold to grow. Golden crops to foster thy life, Golden fruits of a yearly strife, Yearly strife with the golden sand, Sterile robe of a sterile land ! Past the wild rush of the cataract dividing, Past the black basalt gleaming in the sun. Past the dull roar of rock and river chiding. Enter we the land whose golden days are done. Here where the hillside hems the desert distance. Here where the herbage narrows to the Nile, Free from the strain and struggle of resistance, Anchor we in stillness by fair Phile's isle. Sheer to the bank a ruinous repletion, Carved in the sunshine, painted in the flood. Great with the columned beauty of the Grecian, Holy of Holies, solemn solitude ! 28 NUBIA ' By him who sleeps in Phile I ' Supreniest oath of all, ' By him who rests in Phile ! ' Dread oath beyond recall ! Dread god, thy rest is broken, Thy deathless death is dead. Rude feet thy sleep have spoken, Thy power, thy priests, are dead I Beyond, with gloomy terror beautiful, Far in the mountain's midmost caverned cool, The kingly builder sits beside his gods To guard the sculptured vast of Ipsambul. Without, four giants on a giant throne Kept watch in fourfold majesty alone, Till by-and-bye the earthquake passed, and wrote His Mene Tekel Peres on the stone. From temple unto temple, king and god Trod peoples under as red wine is trod ; Till one by one Time took and shook their halls, And overset them, crying Ichabod. XUBIA Golden land, Golden sand, Beauty of river and rock and shrine ! And the lesson taught To live for nought But to-day and nature still are thine. 30 A VISION AT TOURS I WANDERED oti through busy streets, Where shop-fronts gUsten with modern ware Wondrous wares, though each man one meets Passes neglectful and hardly stares. Is there nothing but earth thereunder ? Where are the abbots, knights, and friars, Who jostled and feasted in old Touraine? They planted grapes, these are but briars — These modern anthills of greed and gain ! Where are all the dead, I wonder ? Was that an earthquake passed ? It shook And shivered the plate-glass, drew the nails That held those gaudy signs ; and look ! Has twisted awry the tramway rails. And set the houses arocking ; The stones are heaving, chimneys reel, Walls wave like tapestry to and fro. A VISION AT TOURS Split like thunder clouds, peal on peal, In lightning ruin, while close below There echoes a ghostly knocking. -) Wondrous white from her darksome toml). Under the tower of old Touraine, Luitgarde arises athwart the gloom. She that was wife to stout Charlemagne, Around her a motley thronging. Scowling Louis, Tristran I'Hermite, Prowl again in the light of to-day, While smileless Henry turns to greet The glorious abbot of Turpenay. Hark ! the bells above ding-donging ! Ten million gnomes run to and fro, Each with a stone like a hump on his back ; Over each other like ants they go. Tumble and scramble, and in their track Rise in their stony vastness St. Martin's church of silver sheen. And Henry's castle with frowning wall, While, like a network in between, Street and tower and banqueting hall Complete the ancient fastness. 32 A VISION AT TOURS The air is full with sounds of eld, Echoes the lay of the troubadour, Rings the lance on the blazoned shield ; There 's a stifled gxoQ.x\, peine forte et dure, A wretch in the dungeon is crushing, While soft and low from church and shrine RoUeth the chaunt of priest and choir ; Soldiers are quarrelling over the wine, There 's a clash of swords, a smell of fire, And the whiz of arrows rushing. 'Tis well to wake from good old days (^Pace Balzac, thank God they are dead). For e'en the ruddy firewood blaze. The cheerful gleam as I raise my head Can hardly dispel the sight there ; Beware of mixing in old Touraine With red-backed Murray ' Contes Drolatiques,' For sure as castles are built in Spain, If you read them one day once a week. You'll have six nights of nightmare. 33 A DREAM I STOOD alone in a silent town. The moon shone sharp and bright On a row of dead, who paced along In sad and weary plight, Bearing their tombstones back and front. Like sandwich-men at night. I read the epitaphs in front. They'd all been good and kind, They all were men of sterling worth, And qualities of mind ; But a hand of fire had traced the truth On the stone that hung behind. Their eyes were fixed on the words of fire That blazed on the next one's stone. And each was chaunting his neighbour's sin 34 A DREAM In a grumbling undertone ; While his heart was wrung, his ears were racked, As he listened to his own. Anon there passed me another row, And these were women-kind ; Their faults were on the stone in front. Their virtues hung behind ; Each woman was chaunting a woman's praise, r>ut to her faults was blind. Unequal was their lot on earth, But equal in Death's holding, For man would feel as sharp a pain Another's faults unfolding, As that a woman's heart would know- Forbid another's scolding. 35 THE DEA TH OF DA Y Day was dying an infant's death. Softly sleeping, Evening caught her latest breath, Stilly weeping Over the hills, the lost one's bier, Tears of dew ; Night with dark hand slowly drew, Drew more near, Over the colourless woods a shroud. A dull giay fold of hueless cloud. While the old owls hoot from the ivy nigli, Bid the mourner's torches thronging the sky Pass in silent procession by. 36 THE MISTRAL AND THE PALMS Xwv. mistral leapt from his mountain lair, From his coverlet of snow, He silvered the olive groves above, He whitened the bay below, With his raiment he roughly wrested oft' As the noon's hot sun did glow. The i)ahii trees shivered, and bent their heads As he rushed triumphant by. Then flung their leaves to the blue o'erhead, 'I'hat blazed like an eastern sky, 'I'hey felt they had left their fatherland Like the invalids — to die. HE AND SHE He Love lies sleeping, Cradled, dimpling Smiles are rimpling Little cheeks that know not weeping Little lips that know not lying, Petal-puckered, look, are tr>'ing For breast kisses, Little blisses Safe within the mother's keeping- Shall we wake him, You and I ? 58 HE AND SHE She Love is flushing Dreaming, wooing Our undoing ; Cheeks will learn the need of blushing, Lips will learn the art of scolding, Cruel thoughts in words unfolding ; He may tease us, And displease us. Past the power of mother's hushing^ E'er we wake him, Friend, good-bye ! 39 A PRAYER Nature, fickle, frugal jade I Wasteth nought that she has made ; She hath store-house up above, Whither failures are respited, Else where goeth all the love Unreturned and unrequited ? Nature, if this may be so. There's a little maid I know, Lacking in her love of me ; From your store her breast imhueing. She will yearn, and there shall be Half the trouble saved of wooing. 40 LOVE'S LANGUAGE Tongues may talk treason, And lips may lisp lies, Learn in love's season The language of eyes. To-morrow they know not, They live for to-day ; Love glances show not If it's earnest or play. Seek but eyes' answers When love calls the tune, Twined like two dancers devolving as one. If eyes be demurring, Try pressure of hands. An instinct unerring The touch understands. LOVE'S LANGUAGE 41 Love's eloquence truthful Lives an hour or a day; A heart that is youthful Delights in his play. Such sweet conversation Ends if there's no slip, In a long peroration Of lip upon lip. 42 AT THE SIGN OF THE REMBRANDT HEAD Maiden, now with a love-look lither, Now as made marble statuesque, Is 't Art or Love that brings you hither? Art erotic, Love Rembrandtesque ? Say. did Mercury hail him thither. Or ("ui)id? He bows with feigned surprise ; Arcades ambo ! I fear that neither 'i'he man nor the maid seem overwise. Art may be long, but Love is fleeting, Play with him e'er he be lost or dead, Was it not this your message of meeting, ' Noon at the sign of the Rembrandt Head ? ' 43 A LESSON IN LOVE There may come a day My dearie, Love will fly away, Aweary Will be our nights without him, our days be long and dreary. Roses shed their bloom Around us ; 'Twas the roses' doom To mound us Deep in scented death of flower where none but I>ove had found us. ' Follow me,' sang Love ; ' The roses Perish, and thereof The posies Will but be your funeral wreaths when youth's rose season closes.' 44 A LESSON IN LOVE Hand in hand we went, Love leading, Sweet the hours we spent, Unheeding A vision of a leaHess rose and two torn hearts a-blceding. Follow Love too far, He'll weary. Rest we where we are. My dearie, J -est the poise of tiring wings rebear him to his eerie. 45 AFTER PARTING AVe parted, vowed to meet no more, Locked love behind your conscience door. Set resolution's guard before. Deeply I drank dream-potioned sleep, ^V^hat helps it vigil vain to keep, When to be wakeful is to weep ? When all the looks and words of years, Remembered now in idle fears. Fall multiplied in falling tears ? I woke and cursed the risen sun That he had all too soon begun The day on which my love was done. 46 AFTER PARTING But, as the sun rose, the wind sped, And shook the dews the night had shed From every fresh-blown flowerhead. Like light-lit meadows after rain, All my old love grew green again, Pleasure more sweet for passing pain. I met you at the garden gate ; ' Too soon,' you cried, ' or else too late To alter ; kiss me, it is fate.' 47 'TOO LATE TO CALL BACK YESTERDAY, AND TO-MORROW COMES NOT YET: Come back, dead hours of yesterday, To-day I hate, To-morrow comes not, vain to pray, We cannot turn on hfe's highway Or alter fate. We cannot pause, and bid the moon We watched together, Stand still in vale of Ajalon, In memory of that afternoon Amid the heather. How bright she sailed above the firs When evening fell. Your sweet sad face was pale as hers. My heart was beating with desires I dared not tell. 48 'TOO LATE TO CALL BACK YKSTJiKDAY But e'er we reached the wickct-gate, I think you knew 'J'he kindly touch of courted fate Had kindled pure yet passionate My love for you. Come back, dead hours of yesterday ; The moon to-night Shall touch me with remembering ray, Sha'l bid my dreams in fancy play With past delight. 49 RELEASE We kissed amid the bracken — If Love were only true, The silver cord might slacken — But Love, alas ! is deathful, No lover ever faithful — If Love were only true. The golden sun should blacken Ere I would part from you. -My darling, we should rue it If life were ever young, A few sweet springs undo it. The deed that we have done. The kiss that made us one — If life were ever young. No autumn to bedew it, Our hearts would soon be wrung. 50 . RELEASE My love, there is no telling, If Death would only show The secrets of his dwelling. That we might not believe it Were best for us to leave it — If Death would only show, His was the gift of healing, This life of love — and woe. 51 ' ONE SUMMER NIGHT The summer night was faint, close overhead The stars hung, from the depths illimited Of the black pool below they gazed at me. Seeming the wistful eyes of all the dead. A black fish moved, behind him the weeds waved, Like long hands beckoning me : the bright eyes braved Me plunge and join the silence, join with thee My other self in the still deep engraved. My watch was ticking loud time's passing feet, My heart was marking life's way with its beat, And nothing else seemed in the world alive, Swooned in tlie utterness of summer heat. While ever from the silence of the pool The eyes said ' Coward,' twinkled at me ' Fool, To-morrow will not yesterday forgive ; Plunge, here is rest, the grave is quiet and cool." li 2 52 ONE SUMMER NIGHT But suddenly upleapt a little wind, 'I'he fir-top whispered and the rush inclined, The black sky palpitated into white, Till those appealing eyes were stricken blind, As silently behind the hill uprolled The glorious moon from the sun's bath of gold, Which flowed from her, and left her wondrous bright. Silvering the wood and whitening the wold. Passed was the need of death, the thoughts of gloom, l-.ike Lazar's cerecloths at the opened tomb, They fell from me, and as I faced the light All life seemed odorous with a new perfume. To-morrow shall sad yesterday forget, That sudden shaft of moon its amulet. And all the mellowed marvels of to-night Illuminate the sadness of regret. 53 CONTRARINESS I PRAYED and prayed for my heart's desire, At morning and eventide, The gods were deaf to my words of fire, And left me unsatisfied. Desire may wither, the gods may tire, The gods had tired, desire had died, As soon as a new love rose to admire. My old love was by my side. 54 THE PITY OF IT Whili'. our early years are spent In a childish discontent That we are not l)orn grown up — What a pity there's no hope Of our finding later joys Half so unalloyed as toys ! When we love, as love we must, In a woman place our trust, Try to cage the passing wind — What a pity Love is blind, Blind and dumb, and will not tell He leadcth to the gates of Hell ! When ambition fires our breast, When we saddle for the quest Of riches, power, knowledge, fame THE PITY OF IT 55 What a pity that the game Has so very, very few Prizes worth the waste of thew ! When in age we faint and fait, Turn our faces to the wall, Knowledge of our life complete — What a pity 'tis too late I Had we known we might have spent Half our days in quiet content. 56 A STORM T.ooK up, my heart ! See the storm without, How the dim trees with their mystic hands ( 'atch at the splatters of rain. Hark ! How the wet wnnd's strangled shout, Full of the torture of silent lands, Dies away in a wail of pain. Look up. my heart ! See that flash of fire ; Hark to the rolling rush of its wings, like the flame of Love in my soul ! Shall it sear thee, heart, with a hot desire, Till it sever the cord of the silver strings, Till it shatter the golden bowl? &■- No ; for see, my heart, the rush of the rain, And the burst of the lightning's i)ower, Lh\s fled as the dark has fled, A STORM 57 And the spirit of storm in vain Has ridden in might for an hour. For the night of his power is dead. Look up, my heart ! Thy passionate love Shall waste with the waste of a night At the rise of a kindlier day ; Little the trace of the ravage thereof, And the dawn awaits with a purer light The next love that comes thy way. 58 WILD OR TAME Through paths of a wood unweeded, O'er green of a meadow unmown, I follow my rose, my own, ^\'here the rich ripe grass has seeded, The sower of tares has sown. Though yesterday's free wild flowers Have died in the drought of to-day, Fresh blooms spring up by the way, And the shaded banks of the hours Are fertile in love's highway. The songs of the wild bird harden, Their beauty grows less and less, In a builded wilderness, The cultured grace of the garden Lacks the wild bank's loveliness. WILD OR TAME 59 Society seeking station Courts love for the gold it brings, The bright bait whirls and sings, Till an aching heart's oblation On a hollow altar rings. But still there's a garden of beauties. Where the richest and rarest are sown, There blows my rose, my own, Where purest in flavour the fruit is, Though the sower of tares has sown. * 6o MEMOR Y Woui.d'st thou drink of memory's cup ? Hold it lightly, and beware Lest thou rashly stirrest up The rank lees of poison there. Sip the froth upon the brim, Loves and pleasures lightly rise, Sparkling to the crystal rim, All that's painful deeper lies. AN'hen thou feelest thou are toiled \\\ the quicksands of old age, That the sport of life is spoiled In disease's vassalage, Take the cup and gaze therein. Thou hast mixed it drop by drop, \\ith worth and work or shame and sin Thou hast slowly filled it up. MEMORY 6 1 With the froth thy Hps are wet, Dash it from thee and be free, Or drain it to the dregs, and let Thy ill deeds poison thee. 62 DAWN AND EVE At the summons of the sun, How the birds are singing, Where the gossamer has spun, Their httle loves are winging. As boys and maidens laughing run, To youth's young pleasures clinging In the quiet evening time. At the still sunsetting How the gnats beneath the lime In mazy darts are fretting. Like memories of youthful prime When age begins forgetting. 63 A LESSON The dahlias frost-emblackened drooped, With rime their leaves were wet, You turned your mock on them, and stooped To pluck a violet ; Then lightly turning, laughed and looped My heart within your net. You taught me to forget the past With the living flower you gave, To learn that nothing 's born to last. And little meant to save — ■ My love is on another cast Now you are in your grave. 64 A WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP This morning arm in arm enlaced, We wandered where the garden ends, Our eyes, lips, thoughts, our hearts embraced. And every gossip knew us friends - To-night you call me ' traitor, thief,' And gladden as you give me grief Our joys, our tears, our lives we've shared. My girlhood's homage all you took — I sought him not — I should be spared Your hot reproach, your chilly look — ' Love, Sweet,' you called me — by his side Sitting, I saw your lips had lied. A stranger, he was nought to me — But, were love perfect, how should fear Endanger friendship's constancy ? A WOMAN'S FRIENDSHIP 65 Fear lest a man should prove more dear ; I had been gladdened if I knew He loved you, for his choice of you. 'Tis time we parted. I have known A woman's friendship, lightly lost For little, but I feel my own Is sacrificed at cruel cost. Too long Fve been your friend, your slave, ' Thief ! traitor ! ' take the words you gave. 66 KISMET ! From England wedding-bells Sound the seas over, Thither, where dreaming dwells Her absent lover. Kismet ! Kismet ! Death, art thou pitiless ? ^Var flags are flying, Many who sought thee less Round him are dying. Kismet ! Kismet ! In England once again They meet in sadness ; Love, break the ring in twain, Save him from madness. Kismet ! Kismet ! 67 EARTH AND SEA Their loves are eternal, Their kisses diurnal, And, faithfully free, The earth and the sea Commingle their tresses Where'er his waves range, In endless caresses Of infinite change. Though to-day he be chiding And angrily hiding 'Neath storm cloud and hail, He will ripple a tale Of repentance to-morrow, Will daintily toy With her teardrops of sorrow. And turn them to joy. F 2 68 EARTH AXD SEA How bold he advances, How bright the light dances In the blue of his eyes ; Till, wet with surprise. Her lashes discover 'Tvvixt the salt and the sown The lips of her lover Laid cool on her own. How gentle the wooing, From ebbing to flowing ; The gentler retreat From her lips to her feet, Is a lover's manoeuvre, 'Twixt a kiss and a kiss. To please her and prove her All fair and all his. 6r; A UTUiMN Bright, white, the October sun Burneth at noon, embossed upon the blue, Winter's cold hands upon His setting, chill above the risen dew He riseth, mists forerun Him as he comes to bid the leaves adieu. They drank his early fires — How long it seems back to the gladdening spring, When first the larches' spires Of emerald waved like a bee-eater's wing — The leaves' outburnt desires Already fear stern winter's reckoning. The growing ground is swept Of flower and fruit and corn ; the naked vine, The gathered orchard kept 70 A UTUMN But little time their ripeness, while supine Upon the harvest slept Soft summer, recking not the si:>ent sunshine. The moist soil peels aside As the share goes 'neath where the ripe corn stood, The darkening pines divide The rustling russets of the dying wood ; From }iill to garden side Earth mourneth beautiful in widowhood. Night groweth strong, his head Brilliant with frosty stars ; brief yesterday To his Procrustes bed He shortens, clips the wings of her ; To-day With darkness overshed (Closes her houred pinions in dismay. 71 * HO SI A FA NO UR GEIN ' * Murder thou shalt not commit,' God's hest is over us all — • Pardon. The beacon is lit. Country', I list to thy call. Broadbrim may turn up his eyes. Insult, invite, and retreat — Nobler the freeman who dies, Brooking not slur or defeat Easy to sit and to spin, Soften in cowardly ease — While there are battles to win. Spread the old flag to the breeze. Sweet are the blessings of peace, Loved is the landscape of home — While there are wrongs to redress Ours be the fight and the foam. I - OFF FINISTERRE The storm wind rose in sudden wrath, His ermine robe tore he, Then hurled the snowy fragments forth Upon the sabled sea, Whose wild waves swelled from South to North And raged furiously. Like racing giants with clenching grip, They thundered the Bay along, They threatened to rend the rocks, and rip The timbers staunch and strong — The wave whose lip shall swallow the ship To him shall the prize belong. 12> TO AN OLD OAK A THOUSAND years since some chance acorn sowing Engendered thee amid thy forest peers, Now gnarled and hollow with the pain of growing A thousand years. Life's joys decay as vigour disappears : Dost not regret the time when, ripe for throwing, The axe-stroke passed thee ? All the many spears Of grass are happier, who at summer mowing Fall in full-flowered beauty. Mourner's tears Are vain o'er manhood's tomb, dead without knowing Thy thousand years. 74 FROST I AM southing, and before me Souths the swallow, As I follow From the hardy North who bore me, Hill and hollow, Mere and meadow, still and stormy, With a silent worship stricken, stiffened into ice, adore me. I am bringing to the garden Sleep and leisure, Foolish pleasure Lays aside her gaudy burden. As the measure Song-birds sing doth cease, and harden All the flippant buds a-sparkle with pure jewels of my treasure. FROST 75 I the bridegroom am, beside me, Dainty, surely, Soft, demurely, Steals my snow bride : safe abide we Loving purely, Till the cruel sun shall chide me — Then she'll melt into my arms, and I in earth's recesses hide me. 76 SUMMER DAWN O ! PURE is the summer sunrise hour, In the star of the morning's keeping, The evil spirits have lost their power, And even lust lies sleeping. Trade and politics cease their lying — Only awake the watchers, the dying, Or the homeless outcast weeping. The past returns in the scent of dreams. To the widow her wedding gladness. To the lover the love that is lost, the gleams Of gold to the pauper, and all the sadness Of age is lost in the hopes of youth, Renewed in slumber, when dreams seem truth And only waking madness. 77 ON EXMOOR He who hath seen the antlered monarch weep, Bayed where he soils in Barle or Exe's sweep, When, royal heart, he faces hound and man. Though royal limbs have failed to brave the steep Beyond the river, where the mild-eyed hinds Await him, feels that something blinds His own eyes too, and half the autumn light Has left the landscape where the water winds. 7S THE FIVE SENSES A COSY room in a quiet street, A London sybarite's retreat, A ring of the bell, a step on the stair, A tap at the panel and she is there. He was dreaming how but a year ago She stood where the garden roses blow, And how like a startled roe-deer shy Young love leapt out from eye to eye. He was hearing again as last year he heard Her love confessed in a whispered word. Knowing her lips would re-echo soon The old, fond, well-remembered tune. He was thinking of that pure garden scent That faded away as the summer went. And now a subtler, rarer perfume, The incense of passion, pervades his room. THE FIVE SENSES 79 The ripe fruits' savour of yesteryear Comes back as he feels her presence near ; Ripe fruits are plucked, ripe lips are kissed, Arcadian innocence hardly missed. A pressure of hands, a close embrace, Speechless they stand there face to face, While their throbbing touch and their eyes reveal The passion that two young lovers feel. Each sense inveigles in early days Of wandering down a new love's ways, When once the maiden is wooed and won The senses five are merged in one. 8o MY SHADO W AND I I ASKED my shadow one summer day Whither he went when the light had fled : He blushed quite dark in a shadowy way, ' I go nowhither, my lord,' he said. ' Shadow, thou liest,' then bending I Laid me adown on the growing grass. My back to the ground, my face to the sky, No eye could see where my shadow was. ' Henchman, thou lovest the light of the sun, Lovest to wave o'er the wild flowers' hue, What is it thou hast in the darkness done ? Answer me truth and I'll walk with you.' Then up I arose, and a rustle o'erwent The crushed wild flowers as the laid grass stood, For they felt that my shadow's punishment Was heavy on their little lustihood. MV SHADOW AND I 8i ' Master, when slumber unfetters me, mine To leave you leaveless and wander far. To the silent garden of Proserpine, Where living shadows and dead men are. ' There till I a patch of grey garden ground, 1 plant the thoughts you have thought awake. Gracious and gruesome their hues confound. Not a bloom of them all shall wither or shake. ' There come the shadows of loves outworn, To gaze on the flowers they sowed in your breast, And many a one departs less forlorn When her rose-bud has whispered " I love you best." ' G 82 IN AN ALBUM ' Come hither, come hither, my pages twain, You of the sad and sober e'e, And you of the comic brain, One of you gay as a weather-cock, I'hc other grave as the nether rock, Come hither, and quickly together knock, Lines for a faire Ladye.' ' My master, it Hketh me not this task, Many a mood hath a ladye faire. An' if she be merry she will but ask How so grave a varlet approach her dare^ No errands to ladies for me — Two sen'night hence, On no pretence Will I take further guerdon of thee.' IN AN ALBUM ^i ' So I say, master, maybe her lips Will be quivering still with passion or grief, She will but scorn my frolicksome quips, And treat me worse than a tramping thief — No errands to ladies for me — I give you warning O' the thirtieth morning To pay my last wages to me.' ' Get hence, get hence, my pages twain, You of the gay and festive e'e. And you of the sober brain, Quick to the right about. Forth from my sight get out, I will now write about You to the faire ladye.' c 2 84 TO HER THIMBLE Round and rough and dented in, Hast thou seen a battle ? Hast thou felt the prick of pin, Heard the needles rattle ? Was thou as an helmet meant For some sturdy dwarf? or A Liliputian's tiny tent In some puny warfare? No, thine was a gentler trade, Finger-tip protector, Thou didst shield a winsome maid, Cunning dress dissector. Dost thou mourn thy mistress lost, Miss her motions nimble. As the work was lightly tossed. Melancholy thimble ? TO HER THIMBLE 85 ' Did I know those fairy fingers ? ' What insinuation ! Saucy thimble, yet there lingers In thy touch temptation. 86 'EROS AN2KATE MACHAN' {From the '•Antigone ') Strophe O ! Love, undefeated, As conqueror greeted, From battle to battle, O maker of slaves ! Now rustic, now viking, Thou wanderest liking, Now shepherds' snug wattles, Now surging sea waves. Thou slumberest often Where maiden's cheeks soften, Her blushes endrape thee — Can ephemeral man Avoid thee by flying ? When e'en th' undying Ones cannot escape thee — Sure madness thy ban. 'EROS ANIKATE MACHAN' 87 Antistrophe The righteous thou wrestest Awry, and molestest Their hearts to their ruin, Thou makest them sin. 'Tis thou, hardest hearted, That hast cruelly started This fatal death doing 'Twixt kinsmen and kin. Desire fondly beaming From eyes that are gleaming With love for the plighted Shows the struggle is won ; Desire sits anointed 'Side divine laws appointed, While sports, unaffrighted. Aphrodite, alone. 88 THE WINE SHOP {From Francois Coppce) A DRUNKARD sat drowning the dreams lie hated Deep in the wine cup, unsubjugated By the flies in the hot sun congregated — He was one whom despair excuses. While he mouthingly moved his wet lips about, Like a stall -stuffed ox, the decanter stout Had tumbled, and just like a hiccupping spout, On the table the wine diffuses. O ! the whirling weight in the aching head. Leant on the hands while disordered Thoughts are swinging like dinging lead In a deep bell telling our shame. THE WINE SHOP 89 Something dramatic I thought must be there ; I approached, and with weary fingers, where The wine had sputtered, with drunken care He was tracing a woman's name. H 90 AN ANSWER (From Francois Coppee) ' I HAVE seen him but so little,' you said the other day : I answer, have 1 known any more of j-ours and you ? In a moment 'my whole heart resigned without ado, Cannot you return my love in the same sweet sudden way ? For to mount the highest tower at one strong wing-essay. To fire the stormy distance with flashing clear-lit hue, To enchant with i)otent mirage no mortal can eschew, Does 't take the eagle, lightning, love, a moment or a day? 'Tis true I hardly saw you, but was ravished, love, and I To deserve you gladly consecrate my life until I die. And all to-morrow's sombre threats right willingly defy. AN ANSWER 91 It cannot be that mutual love a longer friendship claims, Since to enkindle all my breast and set my heart in flames, Dear love, one single glance sufficed, one spark fallen from your eye. Q2 FROM HEINE I>AY your dainty fingers, darling, On my heart and hearken, How within its tiny chamber There's a rap, rap, rapping ; It is a cunning carpenter. My coffin he is tapping, All my rest kidnapping ; Daily, nightly, doth he keep Knock, knock, knocking — O haste thee, Master Carpenter, I fain would fall on sleep. Sfottisivcodc &-" Co. J^rintos, New-street Square. London. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. ■ .>> V ' V V • J* ■^V'. .-'.41 --4a ,-'-''•■ ;cv<;v'*''.H^ 'ill -.^f^^^f:^ PR Tomlin - 5671 Rhymelets T39r PR 5671 T39r yC SOUTHERM REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILIT Ml AA 000 372 630 :i_?? ^ :»:; :^ . ^S)^ i4 .)m>ssg^