While shuddering stars in fear grow wan.
Thou palace priest of treachery,
Thou type of selfish lechery,
I break the toils around thy head
And from their gibbets take thy dead.
JOHN LEICESTER WARREN, Lord DE TABLEY
REY woods within whose silent shade
The ocean voice is dimly known:
Where undisturbed the violets fade,
And roses perish overblown.
Calm rests the wave against the beach:
Calm rocks the wave-bird on its tide,
And calmer in their heaven than each,
The gleaming bands of sunset ride.
Soon will the ripple move again:
Soon will the shorelark flute its song:
And in sweet emphasis of pain
The rock-dove mourn the cliffs along.
Sweet shall resound the curlew's wail,
New sails come sweeping up the sea.
But all the ships that ever sail
Will bring no comfort home to me.
JOHN LEICESTER WARREN, LORD DE TABLEY
CANNOT kiss thee as I used to kiss;
ITime who is lord of love must answer this.
Shall I believe thine eyes are grown less sweet?
Nay, but my life-blood fails on heavier feet.
Time goes, old girl, time goes.
I cannot hold as once I held your hand;
Youth is a tree whose leaves fall light as sand.
Hast thou known many trees that shed them so?
Ay me, sweetheart, I know, ay me, I know.
Time goes, my bird, time goes.
I cannot love thee as I used to love.
Age comes, and little Love takes flight above.
If our eyes fail, have his the deeper glow?
I do not know, sweetheart, I do not know.
Time goes, old girl, time goes.
Why, the gold cloud grows leaden, as the eve
Deepens, and one by one its glories leave.
And, if you press me, dear, why this is so,
That this is worth a tear is all I know.
Time flows and rows and goes.
In that old day the subtle child-god came;
Meek were his eyelids, but his eyeballs flame,
With sandals of desire his light feet shod,
With eyes and breath of fire, a perfect god
He rose, my girl, he rose.
He went, my girl, and raised your hand and sighed,
"Would that my spirit always could abide."
And whispered "Go your ways, and play your day
Would I were god of time, but my brief sway
Is briefer than a rose.”
Old wife, old love, there is a something yet
That makes amends, tho' all the glory set;
The after-love that holds thee trebly mine,
Tho' thy lips fade, my dove, and we decline,
And time, dear heart, still goes.
RICHARD GARNETT (1835-1906)
ITHER, dear Muse, I pray, and with thee bear
HA madrigal for Melite the fair,
Evil with good repaying; for 'tis she
Who tempts me to oblivion of thee.
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1836–1907)
Y mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very
hour-
'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May-
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
Meet we no Angels, Pansie?
NAME, on a Sabbath noon, my sweet
In white, to find her lover;
The grass grew proud beneath her feet.
The green elm-leaves above her:-
Meet we no angels, Pansie?
She said, "We meet no angels now";
And soft lights stream'd upon her;
And with white hand she touch'd a bough;
She did it that great honour:-
What! meet no angels, Pansie?
O sweet brown hat, brown hair, brown eyes,
Down-dropp'd brown eyes, so tender!
Then what said I? gallant replies
Seem flattery, and offend her:-
But, meet no angels, Pansie?
HOM the gods love die young." The thought is old;
And yet it soothed the sweet Athenian mind.
I take it with all pleasure, overbold,
Perhaps, yet to its virtue much inclined
By an inherent love for what is fair.
This is the utter poetry of woe
That the bright-flashing gods should cure despair
By love, and make youth precious here below.
I die, being young; and, dying, could become
A pagan, with the tender Grecian trust.
Let death the fell anatomy, benumb
The hand that writes, and fill my mouth with dust-
Chant no funereal theme, but, with a choral
Hymn, O ye mourners! hail immortal youth auroral!
Oh many a time with Ovid have I borné
My father's vain, yet well-meant reprimand,
To leave the sweet-air'd, clover-purpled land
Of rhyme-its Lares loftily forlorn,
With all their pure humanities unworn-
To batten on the bare Theologies!
To quench a glory lighted at the skies,
Fed on one essence with the silver morn,
Were of all blasphemies the most insane.
So deeplier given to the delicious spell
I clung to thee, heart-soothing Poesy!
Now on a sick bed rack'd with arrowy pain
I lift white hands of gratitude, and cry,
Spirit of God in Milton! was it well?
Last night, on coughing slightly with sharp pain,
There came arterial blood, and with a sigh
Of absolute grief I cried in bitter vein,
That drop is my death warrant: I must die.
Poor meagre life is mine, meagre and poor!
Rather a piece of childhood thrown away;
An adumbration faint; the overture
To stifled music; year that ends in May; The sweet beginning of a tale unknown;
A dream unspoken; promise unfulfilled; A morning with no noon, a rose unblown
All its deep rich vermilion crushed and killed I' th' bud by frost:-Thus in false fear I cried, Forgetting to abolish death Christ died.
Hew Atlas for my monument; upraise
A pyramid for my tomb, that, undestroyed
By rank, oblivion, and the hungry void,
My name shall echo through prospective days.
O careless conqueror! cold, abysmal grave!
Is it not sad-is it not sad, my heart-
To smother young ambition, and depart
Unhonoured and unwilling, like death's slave?
No rare immortal remnant of my thought
Embalms my life; no poem, firmly reared
Against the shock of time, ignobly feared-
But all my life's progression come to nought.
Hew Atlas! build a pyramid in a plain!
Oh, cool the fever burning in my brain!
Wise in his day that heathen
To whom, each morrow, came a slave, and cried"Philip, remember thou must die:" no more. To me such daily voice were misapplied
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