I would not ask thee back, fair May,
    With all your bright-eyed flowers;
Nor would I welcome April days
    With all their laughing showers;
For each bright season of the year
    Can claim its own sweet pleasures;
And we must take them as they come--
    These gladly-given treasures.

There's music in the rain that falls
    In bright October weather;
And we must learn to love them both--
    The sun and rain together.
A mist is 'round the mountain-tops
    Of gold-encircled splendor;
A dreamy spell is in the air
    Of beauty sad and tender.

The winter hath not wooed her yet,
    This fair October maiden;
And she is free to wander still
    With fruits and flowers laden.
She shakes the dew-drops from her hair
    In one...

O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day,
If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,
If shining now, with not a hue would light thee.

The dew that used to wet thee,
And, white first, grow incarnadined, because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was,
If dropping now, would darken where it met thee.

The fly that lit upon thee,
To stretch the tendrils of its tiny fe...

Motto.

On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une. - [Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.]

1.

Lady! in whose heroic port
And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that's dear -
Wherever human hearts resort
There must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,
Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
And yet - regarding thee more near -
The traces of an unshed tear
Compressed back to the heart,
And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
Which shows that Love hath once been there,
To those who w...

No protesting, dearest!
Hardly kisses even!
Don’t we both know how it ends?
How the greenest leaf turns serest,
Bluest outbreak, blankest heaven,
Lovers, friends?

You would build a mansion,
I would weave a bower
Want the heart for enterprise.
Walls admit of no expansion:
Trellis-work may haply flower
Twice the size.

What makes glad Life’s Winter?
New buds, old blooms after.
Sad the sighing “How suspect
Reams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,
Rooftree scarce support a rafter,
Walls lie wrecked?”

You are young, my princess!
I am hardly older:
Yet, I steal a glance behind!
Dare I tell you what convinces
Timid me that you, if bolder,
Bold, are blind?

Where we plan our dwelling
Glooms a graveyard sur...

O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
    All bloom and dew -
I once, sad-hearted as I am,
    Was young as you.

But, one by one, the petals fell
    Earthward to rot;
Only a berry testifies
    A rose forgot.

I.

How many things, that we would remember,
Sweet or sad, or great or small,
Do our minds forget! and how one thing only,
One little thing endures o'er all!
For many things have I forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The scent of a primrose, woodland-wet,
Long years ago I found in a far land;
A fragile flower that April set,
Rainy pink, in her forehead's garland.

II.

How many things by the heart are forgotten!
Sad as sweet, or little or great!
And how one thing that could mean nothing
Stays knocking still at the heart's red gate!
For many things has my heart forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The face of a girl, a moment met,
Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity;
A flower-like face, with weepi...

The modern English-speaking young girl is the astonishment of the world and the despair of the older generation.    Nothing like her has ever been seen or heard before.    Alike in drawing-rooms and the amusement places of the people, she defies conventions in dress, speech, and conduct.    She is bold, yet not immoral.    She is immodest, yet she is chaste.    She has no ideals, yet she is kind and generous.    She is an anomaly and a paradox.

We are the little daughters of Time and the World his wife,
We are not like the children, born in their younger life,
We are marred with our mother's follies and torn with our father's strife.

We are the little daughters of the modern world,
And Time, her spouse.
She has brought many children to our father's house
Before we came, when both our parents ...

    A child-like fawn
    moistened nudging &
    joyous breath,
    an allowance for leave
    as her gentle hand
    budges my sibling cupping.

    And walking in a field of gardens
    - our Jardin des Plantes -
    a molecule in depth
    flowery pennons
    near Picardy wet.

    Casha tendrils here pinion the eye,
    little Annabel Lee
    with the sunshine wet in her parting hand
    that all the birds in grace sigh
    at Saint Francis breathless.

Of Chloe all the town has rung,
By ev'ry size of poets sung:
So beautiful a nymph appears
But once in twenty thousand years;
By Nature form'd with nicest care,
And faultless to a single hair.
Her graceful mien, her shape, and face,
Confess'd her of no mortal race:
And then so nice, and so genteel;
Such cleanliness from head to heel;
No humours gross, or frouzy steams,
No noisome whiffs, or sweaty streams,
Before, behind, above, below,
Could from her taintless body flow:
Would so discreetly things dispose,
None ever saw her pluck a rose.[1]
Her dearest comrades never caught her
Squat on her hams to make maid's water:
You'd swear that so divine a creature
Felt no necessities of nature.
In summer had she walk'd the town,
Her armpits would...

Away from the city's herds!
    Away from the noisy street!
Away from the storm of words,
    Where hateful and hating meet!

Away from the vapour grey,
    That like a boding of ill
Is blotting the morning gay,
    And gathers and darkens still!

Away from the stupid book!
    For, like the fog's weary rest,
With anger dull it fills each nook
    Of my aching and misty breast.

Over some shining shore,
    There hangeth a space of blue;
A parting 'mid thin clouds hoar
    Where the sunlight is falling through.

The glad waves are kissing the shore
    Rejoice, and tell it for ever;
The boat glides on, while its oar
    Is flashing out of the river.

Oh to be there with thee!
    Thou and I only, my love!
...

Fair Eve, as fair and still
As fairest thought, climbs the high sheltering hill;
As still and fair
As the white cloud asleep in the deep air.

As cool, as fair and cool,
As starlight swimming in a lonely pool;
Subtle and mild
As through her eyes the soul looks of a child.

A linnet sings and sings,
A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings;
White twinkletails
Run frankly in their meadow as day fails.

On such a night, a night
That seems but the full sleep of tired light,
I look and wait
For what I know not, looking long and late.

Is it for a dream I look,
A vision from the Tree of Heaven shook,
As sweetness shaken
From the fresh limes on lonely ways forsaken?

A dream of one, maybe,
Who comes like sud...

Angel-fair, Walhalla's charms displaying,
Fairer than all mortal youths was he;
Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams straying
Gently o'er the blue and glassy sea.

And his kisses! what ecstatic feeling!
Like two flames that lovingly entwine,
Like the harp's soft tones together stealing
Into one sweet harmony divine,

Soul and soul embraced, commingled, blended,
Lips and cheeks with trembling passion burned,
Heaven and earth, in pristine chaos ended,
Round the blissful lovers madly turn'd.

He is gone and, ah! with bitter anguish
Vainly now I breathe my mournful sighs;
He is gone in hopeless grief I languish
Earthly joys I ne'er again can prize!

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
"Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;

"Only for roses that your chance may throw -
Though withered - Twill wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, -
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again."

"Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream."

"Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet;
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit;
And words speak false; - yet, if they welcome prove,
I'll be their echo, and repeat their love."

"Only if wa...

God made that night of pearl and ivory,
Perfect and holy as a holy thought
Born of perfection, dreams, and ecstasy,
In love and silence wrought.

And she, who lay where, through the casement failing,
The moonlight clasped with arms of vapory gold
Her Danae beauty, seemed to hear a calling
Deep in the garden old.

And then it seemed, through some strange sense, she heard
The roses softly speaking in the night.
Or was it but the nocturne of a bird
Haunting the white moonlight?

It seemed a fragrant whisper vaguely roaming
From rose to rose, a language sweet that blushed,
Saying, "Who comes? Who is this swiftly coming,
With face so dim and hushed?

"And now, and now we hear a wild heart beating
Whose heart is this that beats among our blo...

What though the Accused, upon his own appeal
To righteous Gods when man has ceased to feel,
Or at a doubting Judge's stern command,
Before the Stone of Power no longer stand
To take his sentence from the balanced Block,
As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock;
Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more
The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore;
Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees
Do still perform mysterious offices!
And functions dwell in beast and bird that sway
The reasoning mind, or with the fancy play,
Inviting, at all seasons, ears and eyes
To watch for undelusive auguries:
Not uninspired appear their simplest ways;
Their voices mount symbolical of praise
To mix with hymns that Spirits make and hear;
And to fallen man their inn...

Love owes tribute unto Death,
Being but a flower of breath,
Ev'n as thy fair body is
Moment's figure of the bliss
Dwelling in the mind of God
When He called thee from the sod,
Like a crocus up to start,
Gray-eyed with a golden heart,
Out of earth, and point our sight
To thy eternal home of light.

Here on earth is all we know:
To let our love as steadfast blow,
Open-hearted to the sun,
Folded down when our day's done,
As thy flower that bids it be
Flower of thy charity.
'Tis not ours to boast or pray
Breath from us shall outlive clay;
'Tis not thine, thou Pitiful,
Set me task beyond my rule.

Yet as young men carve on trees
Lovely names, and find in these
Solace in the after time,
So to have hid thee in my rhyme

Recalling R. T.


Who would have thought
That, not having missed her
Talks, tears, laughter
In absence, or sought
To recall for so long
Her gamut of song;
Or ever to waft her
Signal of aught
That she, fancy-fanned,
Would well understand,
I should have kissed her
Picture when scanned
Yawning years after!

Yet, seeing her poor
Dim-outlined form
Chancewise at night-time,
Some old allure
Came on me, warm,
Fresh, pleadful, pure,
As in that bright time
At a far season
Of love and unreason,
And took me by storm
Here in this blight-time!

And thus it arose
That, yawning years after
Our early flows
Of wit and laughter,
And framing of rhymes
At idle times,
At sight of her pain...

He said as he sat in her theatre box
Between the acts, "What beastly weather!
How like a parrot the lover talks -
And the lady is tame, and the villain stalks -
I hope they finally die together."

He thought - "You are fair as the dawn's first ray;
I know the angels keep guard above you.
And so I chatter of weather, and play,
While all the time I am mad to say,
I love you, love you, love you."

He said -    "The season is almost run;
How glad we are, when the whirl is over!
For the toil of pleasure is more than its fun,
And what is it all, when all is done,
But the stick of a rocket that has descended?"

He thought - "Oh God! to be off somewhere
Afar with you, from t...