The Screen In The Lumber Room.

Yes, here it is, behind the box,
That puzzle wrought so neatly--
That paradise of paradox--
We once knew so completely;
You see it? 'Tis the same, I swear,
Which stood, that chill September,
Beside your aunt Lavinia's chair
The year when ... You remember?

Look, Laura, look! You must recall
This florid "Fairy's Bower,"
This wonderful Swiss waterfall,
And this old "Leaning Tower;"
And here's the "Maiden of Cashmere,"
And here is Bewick's "Starling,"
And here the dandy cuirassier
You thought was "such a Darling!"

Your poor dear Aunt! you know her way,
She used to say this figure
Reminded her of Count D'Orsay
"In all his youthful vigour;"
And here's the "cot beside the hill"
We chose for habitation,
The day that ... But I doubt if still
You'd like the situation!

Too damp--by far! She little knew,
Your guileless Aunt Lavinia,
Those evenings when she slumbered through
"The Prince of Abyssinia,"
That there were two beside her chair
Who both had quite decided
To see things in a rosier air
Than Rasselas provided!

Ah! men wore stocks in Britain's land,
And maids short waists and tippets,
When this old-fashioned screen was planned
From hoarded scraps and snippets;
But more--far more, I think--to me
Than those who first designed it,
Is this--in Eighteen Seventy-Three
I kissed you first behind it.

Henry Austin Dobson

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly known as Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. A civil servant by profession, Dobson was one of the most renowned poets and literary critics of the late Victorian and Edwardian periods. His work is noted for its delicate craftsmanship and profound interest in 18th-century literature. Dobson's poetry often revisited and celebrated historical themes and characters, blending scholarly interest with lyrical form.

Henry Austin Dobson

To An Unknown Bust In The British Museum.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

The Claims Of The Muse.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

Dialogue From Plato, A

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

A Garden Song.

Henry Austin Dobson, Simple Poetry

English

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In The Royal Academy.

HUGH (on furlough).
HELEN (his cousin).


HELEN.

They have not come! And ten is past,--
Unless, by chance, my watch is fast;
--Aunt Mabel surely told us "ten."

HUGH.

I doubt if she can do it, then.
In fact, their train....

HELEN.

That is,--you knew.
How could you be so treacherous, Hugh?

HUGH.

Nay;--it is scarcely mine, the crime,
One can't account for railway-time!
Where shall we sit? Not here, I vote;--
At least, there's nothing here of note.

HELEN.

Then here we'll stay, please. Once for all,
I bar all artists,--great and small!
From now until we go in June
I shall hear nothing but this tune:--
Whether I like Long's "Vashti," or
Like Leslie's "Naughty Kitty" mo...

Henry Austin Dobson

Incognita.

Just for a space that I met her--
Just for a day in the train!
It began when she feared it would wet her,
That tiniest spurtle of rain:
So we tucked a great rug in the sashes,
And carefully padded the pane;
And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes,
Longing to do it again!

Then it grew when she begged me to reach her
A dressing-case under the seat;
She was "really so tiny a creature,
That she needed a stool for her feet!"
Which was promptly arranged to her order
With a care that was even minute,
And a glimpse--of an open-work border,
And a glance--of the fairyest boot.

Then it drooped, and revived at some hovels--
"Were they houses for men or for pigs?"
Then it shifted to muscular novels,
With a little digression on prigs:
She thought...

Henry Austin Dobson

Premiers Amours.

Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."
How strange now it seems,--
"Old" Loves and "old" dreams!
Yet we once wrote you reams
Maude, Alice, and Gracie!
Old Loves and old dreams,--
"Requiescant in pace."


When I called at the "Hollies" to-day,
In the room with the cedar-wood presses,
Aunt Deb. was just folding away
What she calls her "memorial dresses."

She'd the frock that she wore at fifteen,--
Short-waisted, of course--my abhorrence;
She'd "the loveliest"--something in "een"
That she wears in her portrait by Lawrence;

She'd the "jelick" she used--"as a Greek," (!)
She'd the habit she got her bad fall in;
She had e'en the blue moiré antique
That she opened Squire Grasshopper's ball in:--

New and old ...

Henry Austin Dobson

The Blue Closet

            THE DAMOZELS.

        Lady Alice, lady Louise,
        Between the wash of the tumbling seas
        We are ready to sing, if so ye please;
        So lay your long hands on the keys;
            Sing, Laudate pueri.

    And ever the great bell overhead
    Boom'd in the wind a knell for the dead,
    Though no one toll'd it, a knell for the dead.

            LADY LOUISE.

    Sister, let the measure swell
    Not too loud; for you sing not well
    If you drown the faint boom of the bell;
            He is weary, so am I.

    And ever the chevron overhead
    Flapped on the banner of the dead;
    (Was he asleep, or was he dead?)

            LADY ALICE.

    Alice the Queen, an...

William Morris

The Princess (The Conclusion)

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,
'What, if you drest it up poetically?'
So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we bantered little Lilia first:
The women--and perhaps they felt their power,
For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close--
They hated banter, wi...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Noble Lady's Tale

I

"We moved with pensive paces,
I and he,
And bent our faded faces
Wistfully,
For something troubled him, and troubled me.

"The lanthorn feebly lightened
Our grey hall,
Where ancient brands had brightened
Hearth and wall,
And shapes long vanished whither vanish all.

"'O why, Love, nightly, daily,'
I had said,
'Dost sigh, and smile so palely,
As if shed
Were all Life's blossoms, all its dear things dead?'

"'Since silence sets thee grieving,'
He replied,
'And I abhor deceiving
One so tried,
Why, Love, I'll speak, ere time us twain divide.'

"He held me, I remember,
Just as when
Our life was June - (September
It was then);
And we walked on, until he spoke again.

"'Susie, an Irish...

Thomas Hardy