Richard le Gallienne

Ah, London! London! our delight, Great flower that opens but at night, Great City of the Midnight Sun,

I had no where to go, I had no money to spend: "O come with me," the Beaver said,

There is too much beauty upon this earth For lonely men to bear, Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,

(Gratefully Dedicated to Mrs. Pankhurst) She bore us in her dreaming womb, And laughed into the face of Death;

The sun is weary, for he ran So far and fast to-day; The birds are weary, for who sang

In an old book I found her face Writ by a dead man long ago - I found, and then I lost the place;

Summer gone, Winter here; Ways are white,

'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.' - Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in Gossip in a Library. A world of books amid a world of green, Sweet song without, sweet song again within

Darling little woman, just a little line, Just a little silver word For that dear gold of thine,

When winter comes and takes away the rose, And all the singing of sweet birds is done, The warm and honeyed world lost deep in snows,

To Two Friends married in the New Year (TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH) Another year to its last day,

The beauty of this rainy day, All silver-green and dripping gray, Has stolen quite my heart away

Singers all along the street, Singing every kind of song - One man's song is honey-sweet,

We that were born, beloved, so far apart, So many seas and lands, The gods, one sudden day, joined heart to heart,

(A Prefatory Sonnet for SANTA LUCIA, the Misses Hodgkin's Magazine for the Blind) We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play

Ah, if you worship anything, In deepest hush of silence bend The lone adoring knee,

Illius est nobis lege colendus amor On her own terms, O lover, must thou take The heart's beloved: be she kind, 'tis well,

Ah! did you ever hear the Spring Calling you through the snow, Or hear the little blackbird sing

(Westminster, October 12, 1892) Great man of song, whose glorious laurelled head Within the lap of death sleeps well at last,

What shall I sing when all is sung, And every tale is told, And in the world is nothing young

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past: Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,

All the wide world is but the thought of you: Who made you out of wonder and of dew? Was it some god with tears in his deep eyes,

All the flowers cannot weave A garland worthy of your hair, Not a bird in the four winds

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore Is still a huddled alabaster floor Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,

Spake the Lord Christ - "I will arise." It seemed a saying void and vain - How shall a dead man rise again! -

Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti; Tempus abire, tibi est. Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away

(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL) Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies, Here last September was he laid,

The floating call of the cuckoo, Soft little globes of bosom-shaped sound, Came and went at the window;

Precious the box that Mary brake Of spikenard for her Master's sake, But ah! it held nought half so dear

Is it the Spring? Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol,

I was reading a letter of yours to-day, The date - O a thousand years ago! The postmark is there - the month was May:

Let all things vanish, if but you remain; For if you stay, beloved, what is gone? Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain,

April, half-clad in flowers and showers, Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land; She smiles at May, and laughing takes

April is in the world again, And all the world is filled with flowers - Flowers for others, not for me!

Art is a gipsy, Fickle as fair, Good to kiss and flirt with,

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn - How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return, And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

My head is at your feet, Two Cytherean doves, The same, O cruel sweet,

At last I got a letter from the dead, And out of it there fell a little flower, - The violet of an unforgotten hour.

(To the Memory of Austin Dobson) Master of the lyric inn Where the rarer sort so long

The solemn light behind the barns, The rising moon, the cricket's call, The August night, and you and I -

The sad nights are here and the sad mornings, The air is filled with portents and with warnings, Clouds that vastly loom and winds that cry,

The year grows still again, the surging wake Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up, As after passing of an argosy

Who will gather with me the fallen year, This drift of forgotten forsaken leaves, Ah! who give ear

The daisied dawn is in the sky, And the young day still dew and dream, When on the innocent morning air

Had I the gold that some so vainly spend, For my lost loves a temple would I raise, A shrine for each dear name: there should ascend

O sad-eyed man who yonder sits, Face in a book from morn till night, Who, though the world should go to bits,

O ships upon the sea, O shapes of air, O lands whose names are made of spice and tar, Old painted empires that are ever fair,

Friends whom to-night once more I greet, Most glad am I with you to be, And, as I look around, I meet

There blooms a flower in Trebizond Stored with such honey for the bee, (So saith the antique book I conned)

The peril of fair faces all his days No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe, Each is the thrall of some predestined face

Bees make their honey out of coloured flowers, Through the June day, with all its beam and scent, Heather of breezy hills, and idle bowers,

A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred, I scarce had thought to fight again, But love of the old game dies hard,

In vain with whip and knotted cord The hirelings of hypocrisy Would make us comely for the Lord:

(TO I -    - a) When rumour fain would fright my ear With the destruction and decay

A woman! lightly the mysterious word Falls from our lips, lightly as though we knew Its meaning, as we say - a flower, a bird,

God of the Wine List, roseate lord, And is it really then good-by? Of Prohibitionists abhorred,

(FOR THE BEATRICE CELEBRATION, 1890) Nine mystic revolutions of the spheres Since Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-born

I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face, Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass,

My love said she had nought to wear; Her garments all were old, And soon her body must go bare

Blue flower waving in the wind, Say whose blue eyes Lift up your swaying fragile stem

Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet, Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet, Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown,

When the musicians hide away their faces, And all the petals of the rose are shed, And snow is drifting through the happy places,

Little chipmunk, do you know All you mean to me? - She and I and Long Ago,

1 This is the year that has no Christmas Day, Even the little children must be told

Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we may, how wise is love - Love grown old and grey with years,

O little Heart, So much I see Thy hidden smart,

To My Wife, Mildred Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs But unto thee belongs:

O golden day! O silver night! That brought my own true love at last, Ah, wilt thou drop from out our sight,

Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oft Fed full my ears with praises sweet and soft, Sweeter and softer than my song should win,

I bring a message from the stream To fan the burning cheeks of town, From morning's tower

'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last - 'twas only five minutes ago We heard her sigh from her corner, - she sat in the kitchen, you know: We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I

Face in the tomb, that lies so still, May I draw near, And watch your sleep and love you,

(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER) A poet hungered, as well he might - Not a morsel since yesternight!

'The old gods pass,' the cry goes round; 'Lo! how their temples strew the ground'; Nor mark we where, on new-fledged wings,

You must mean more than just this hour, You perfect thing so subtly fair, Simple and complex as a flower,

Kisses are long forgotten of this twain, Kisses and words - the sweet small prophecies That run before the Lord of Love: the fain

(January 19, 1909) Poet of doom, dementia, and death, Of beauty singing in a charnel house,

(After The Norwegian Of Rosencrantz Johnsen) Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealing On silver feet across the sleeping room,

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves, And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers, On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,

Fly, little note, And know no rest Till warm you lie

Her eyes are bluebells now, her voice a bird, And the long sighing grass her elegy; She who a woman was is now a star

Must I believe this beauty wholly gone That in her picture here so deathless seems, And must I henceforth speak of her as one

Men say - beyond the western seas The happy isles no longer glow, No sailor sights Hesperides,

'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say, They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes; I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes,

How fast the year is going by! Love, it will be September soon; O let us make the best of June.

I crossed the orchard, walking home, The rising moon was at my back, The apples and the moonlight fell

I know not in what place again I'll meet The face I love - but there is not a street In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,

I meant to do my work to-day - But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree, And a butterfly flitted across the field,

I said - I care not if I can But look into her eyes again, But lay my hand within her hand

I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year, That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it; And my young broken heart in little songs,

This life I squander, hating the long days That will not bring me either Rest or Thee, This health I hack and ravage as with knives,

A little book, this grim November day, Wherein, O tired heart, to creep away, - Come drink this wine and wear this fadeless rose,

Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be, Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me

Go, little book, and be the looking-glass Of her dear soul, The mirror of her moments as they pass,

Away from the silent hills and the talking of upland waters, The high still stars and the lonely moon in her quarters, I fly to the city, the streets, the faces, the towers;

'Kiss me, dear Love!' - But there was none to hear, Only the darkness round about my bed

Poet, a truce to your song! Have you heard the heart sing? Like a brook among trees,

Unless you come while still the world is green, A place of birds and the blue dreaming sea, In vain has all the singing summer been,

Like a flower in the frost Sweet Jenny lies, With her frail hands calmly crossed,

(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture) Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,' Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky

We thought that winter, love, would never end, That the dark year had slain the innocent May, Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day,

Lightnings may flicker round my head, And all the world seem doom, If you, like a wild rose, will walk

The human heart will never change, The human dream will still go on, The enchanted earth be ever strange

You shall not dare to drink this cup, Yet fear this other I hold up - Sings Love in Spain:

You often ask me, love, how much I love you, Bidding my fancy find An answer to your mind;

Simple am I, I care no whit For pelf or place, It is enough for me to sit

The woods we used to walk, my love, Are woods no more, But' villas' now with sounding names -

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud Of the sweet months and years that now have end, To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,

Deem not my love is only for the bloom, The honey and the marble, that is You; Tis so, Belov'd, common loves consume

Sometimes my idle heart would roam Far from its quiet happy nest, To seek some other newer home,

Why should I ask perfection of thee, sweet, That have so little of mine own to bring? That thou art beautiful from head to feet -

They sit within a woodland place, Trellised with rustling light and shade; So like a spirit is her face

(FOR MR, G. F. WATTS'S PICTURE) Mammon is this, of murder and of gold, To-day, to-morrow, and ever from of old,

O spirit of Life, by whatsoe'er a name Known among men, even as our fathers bent Before thee, and as little children came

(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888) Within that wood where thine own scholar strays, O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound

May is back, and You and I Are at the stream again - The leaves are out,

May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,

Let's go to market in the moon, And buy some dreams together, Slip on your little silver shoon,

Give me the lifted skirt, And the brave ways of wrong, The fist, the dagger and the sword,

Morn hath a secret that she never tells: 'Tis on her lips and in her maiden eyes - I think it is the way to Paradise,

What are my books? - My friends, my loves, My church, my tavern, and my only wealth; My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves;

There, in my mind's-eye, pure it lay, My lodger's vote! 'Twas mine to-day. It seemed a sort of maidenhood,

Up through the mystic deeps of sunny air I cried to God - 'O Father, art Thou there?' Sudden the answer, like a flute, I heard:

When all the world has gone awry, And I myself least favour find With my own self, and but to die

Noon like a naked sword lies on the grass, Heavy with gold, and Time itself doth drowse; The little stream, too indolent to pass,

I'm not sorry I am older, love - are you? Over all youth's fuss and flurry, All its everlasting hurry,

You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best: A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me! A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.

(TO THE OMAR KHAYY'M CLUB) Great Omar, here to-night we drain a bowl Unto thy long-since transmigrated soul,

The world grows Lilliput, the great men go; If greatness be, it wears no outer sign; No more the signet of the mighty line

One says he is immoral, and points out Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul: Bigot, one folly of the man you flout

To R.K. Leather (July 16th, 1892.) PAOLO AND FRANCESCA

I Dear Love, you ask if I be true, If other women move

Paris, half Angel, half Grisette, I would that I were with thee yet, Where the long boulevard at even

Paths that wind O'er the hills and by the streams I must leave behind -

Primrose and Violet - May they help thee to forget All that love should not remember,

When thou art gone, then all the rest will go; Mornings no more shall dawn, Roses no more shall blow,

Nature, that makes Professors all day long, And, filling idle souls with idle song, Turns out small Poets every other minute,

This is all that is left - this letter and this rose! And do you, poor dreaming things, for a moment suppose That your little fire shall burn for ever and ever on,

Is it your face I see, your voice I hear? Your face, your voice, again after these years! O is your cheek once more against my cheek?

(Obiit Nov. 18, 1909) America grows poorer day by day - Richer and richer, I have heard some say:

High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas Our northern dreamer sleeps, Strange stars above him, and above his grave

'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one of Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead.' - LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD. Saint Charles! ah yes, let other men Love Elia for his antic pen,

I read there is a man who sits apart, A sort of human spider in his den, Who meditates upon a fearful art -

The heart of the rose - how sweet Its fragrance to drain, Till the greedy brain

When leaf and flower are newly made, And bird and butterfly and bee Are at their summer posts again;

Shadows! the only shadows that I know Are happy shadows of the light of you, The radiance immortal shining through

Singing go I, seeking for ever a song Sung long ago; I ask no more to hear Her voice that sang - for I should do her wrong,

From tavern to tavern Youth passes along, With an armful of girl

Am I so soon grown tired? - yet this old sky Can open still each morn so blue an eye, This great old river still through nights and days

Soldier going to the war - Will you take my heart with you, So that I may share a little

My eye upon your eyes - So was I born, One far-off day in Paradise,

She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, Her tears are in the falling rain, She calls me in the wind's soft song,

I Fragoletta, blessed one, What think you of the light of the sun?

Face with the forest eyes, And the wayward wild-wood hair, How shall a man be wise,

Sore in need was I of a faithful friend, And it seemed to me that life Had come to its much desired end -

She loved the Autumn, I the Spring, Sad all the songs she loved to sing; And in her face was strangely set

I saw strange bones to-day in Paris town, Deep in the quarried dark, while over-head The roar of glad and busy things went by -

When the spring comes again, will you be there? Three springs I watched and waited for your face, And listened for your voice upon the air;

Crickets calling, Apples falling. Summer dying,

I How thick the grass, How green the shade -

Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning, With glowing spokes of red, Low in the west its fiery axle burning;

(TO L. AND H.H.) O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold, Yet keep so quick undulled a heart,

The afternoon is lonely for your face, The pampered morning mocks the day's decline - I was so rich at noon, the sun was mine,

An animalcule in my blood Rose up against me as I dreamed, He was so tiny as he stood,

The bloom upon the grape I ask no more, Nor pampered fragrance of the soft-lipped rose, I only ask of Him who keeps the Door -

Bring not your dreams to me - Blown dust, and vapour, and the running stream - Saying, "He, too, doth dream,

Dear city in the moonlight dreaming, How changed and lovely is your face; Where is the sordid busy scheming

I see fair women all the day, They pass and pass - and go; I almost dream that they are shades

I dwell, with all things great and fair: The green earth and the lustral air, The sacred spaces of the sea,

The Cry of the Little Peoples went up to God in vain; The Czech and the Pole, and the Finn, and the Schleswig Dane: We ask but a little portion of the green, ambitious earth;

The D'cadent was speaking to his soul - Poor useless thing, he said, Why did God burden me with such as thou?

The dead arose. Long had they dreamed, Deep in the grass of the still grave, Of meeting their beloved once more.

(TO JAMES WELCH) Dear Desk, Farewell! I spoke you oft In phrases neither sweet nor soft,

(Chant Royal) O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire, The light, the music, and the honey, all

My door is always left ajar, Lest you should suddenly slip through, A little breathless frightened star;

My dryad hath her hiding place Among ten thousand trees. She flies to cover

Tell me, strange heart, so mysteriously beating - Unto what end? Body and soul so mysteriously meeting,

O never laugh again! Laughter is dead, Deep hiding in her grave,

Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland? The grey-blue eyes so strangely grey and blue, The fighting loving eyes,

All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes, No lovely thing but echoes some of thee, Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,

Through the dark wood There came to me a friend, Bringing in his cold hands

Stream that leapt and danced Down the rocky ledges, All the summer long,

Belov'd, I would tell a ghostly thing That hides beneath the simple name of Spring; Wild beyond hope the news - the dead return,

I wore my heart upon my sleeve, Tis most unwise, they say, to do - But then how could I but believe

So many times the heart can break, So many ways, Yet beat along and beat along

Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame, Whose love was lust's insatiable flame - Not hers the house I would be singer in

War I abhor, And yet how sweet

The gods are there, they hide their lordly faces From you that will not kneel - Worship, and they reveal,

The cowbells wander through the woods, 'Neath arching boughs a stream slips by, In all the ferny solitude

I had no heart to join the dance, I danced it all so long ago - Ah! light-winged music out of France,

To Man in haste, flushed with impatient dreams Of some great thing to do, so slowly done, The long delay of Time all idle seems,

The loveliest face! I turned to her Shut in 'mid savage rocks and trees; - 'Twas in the May-time of the year,

You bear a flower in your hand, You softly take it through the air, Lest it should be too roughly fanned,

I nothing did all yesterday But listen to the singing rain On roof and weeping window-pane,

Brother that ploughs the furrow I late ploughed, God give thee grace, and fruitful harvesting, Tis fair sweet earth, be it under sun or cloud,

When the embalmer closed my eyes, And all the family went in black, And shipped me off to Paradise,

Doth it not thrill thee, Poet, Dead and dust though thou art, To feel how I press thy singing

Thou shall not me persuade This love of ours Can in a moment fade,

"These things are real," said one, and bade me gaze On black and mighty shapes of iron and stone, On murder, on madness, on lust, on towns ablaze,

She failed me at the tryst: All the long afternoon The golden day went by,

The Rose has left the garden, Here she but faintly lives, Lives but for me,

When last I saw this opening rose That holds the summer in its hand, And with its beauty overflows

Loud mockers in the roaring street Say Christ is crucified again: Twice pierced His gospel-bringing feet,

In the long shimmer of the Sound May I some day be laughing found, Part of its restless to and fro,

I saw him in a picture, and I felt I'd like to cry - He stood in line, The man "for mine,"

Songs I sang of lordly matters, Life and death, and stars and sea; Nothing of them now remains

Water in hidden glens From the secret heart of the mountains, Where the red fox hath its dens

The valiant girls - of them I sing - Who daily to their business go, Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;

I will walk down to the valley And lay my head in her breast, Where are two white doves,

'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be Like unto thee' - 'Like unto thee!' 'Her mother's' - 'Nay, his father's' - 'eyes,'

The world is wide - around yon court, Where dirty little children play, Another world of street on street

(Ballade ' double refrain) Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer, Comrade at arms, on your bronzed cheek we press

On drives the road - another mile! and still Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill O why such haste, with nothing at the end!

Autumn and Winter, Summer and Spring - Hath Time no other song to sing?

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one Who of the unforgotten faces told That for long years I had not looked upon -

(To the Sweet Memory of Lucy Hinton) Say not - "She once was fair;" because the years Have changed her beauty to a holier thing,

O bird that somewhere yonder sings, In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn, Lone in the hush of sleeping things,

You that would break with the Past, Why with so rude a gesture take your leave? None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast

And is it true indeed, and must you go, Set out alone across that moorland track, No love avail, though we have loved you so,

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling, Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling; Through what blind ways, we know not whence

As one, the secret lover of a queen, Watches her move within the people's eye, Hears their poor chatter as she passes by,

Still towards the steep Parnassian way The moon-led pilgrims wend, Ah, who of all that start to-day

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

Who dough shall knead as for God's sake Shall fill it with celestial leaven, And every loaf that she shall bake

Wild bird, I stole you from your nest, And cannot find your nest again; To hear you chirp a little while

Our tears, our songs, our laurels - what are these To thee in thy Gethsemane of loss, Stretched in thine unimagined agonies

O loveliest face, on which we look our last - Not without hope we may again behold Somewhere, somehow, when we ourselves have passed

Of all the wind-blown dust of faces fair, Had I a god's re-animating breath, Thee, like a perfumed torch in the dim air

Poor are the gifts of the poet - Nothing but words! The gifts of kings are gold,

Always thy book, too late acknowledged thine, Now when thine eyes no earthly page may read; Blinded with death, or blinded with the shine

Why did you go away without one word, Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye, Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,

Poet, whose words are like the tight-packed seed Sealed in the capsule of a silver flower, Still at your art we wonder as we read,

With laughter always on the darkest day, She danced before the very face of dread, Starry companion of my mortal way,

If after times Should pay the least attention to these rhymes, I bid them learn

Art was a palace once, things great and fair, And strong and holy, found a temple there: Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men.

They took away your drink from you, The kind old humanizing glass; Soon they will take tobacco too,

Too late I bring my heart, too late 'tis yours; Too late to bring the true love that endures; Too long, unthrift, I gave it here and there,

Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee,

Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too, For, had you not been born, I who began to live beholding you

The fight I loved - the good old fight - Was clear as day 'twixt Might and Right; Satrap and slave on either hand,

We are with France - not by the ties Of treaties made with tongue in cheek, The ancient diplomatic lies,

What of the darkness? Is it very fair? Are there great calms and find ye silence there? Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow

When the long day has faded to its end, The flowers gone, and all the singing done, And there is no companion left save Death -

Who was it swept against my door just now, With rustling robes like Autumn's - was it thou? Ah! would it were thy gown against my door -

Winter, some call thee fair, Yea! flatter thy cold face With vain compare

Winter that hath few friends yet numbers those Of spirit erect and delicate of eye; All may applaud sweet Summer, with her rose,

Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song, The changing story of the wandering quest That found at last its ending in thy breast -

Young love, all rainbows in the lane, Brushed by the honeysuckle vines, Scattered the wild rose in a dream:

N.B. - This sequence of poems has appeared in former editions under the title of 'Love Platonic.' I 1

I make this rhyme of my lady and me To give me ease of my misery, Of my lady and me I make this rhyme

But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing, Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing A pretty dalliance with grief - but try

Once we met, and then there came Like a Pentecostal flame, A word;

My mouth to thy mouth Ah never, ah never! My breast from thy breast

So sang young Love in high and holy dream Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint, So rapt within his vision he did seem

'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said; 'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she. And so we entered in and sat at talk

Why did she marry him? Ah, say why! How was her fancy caught? What was the dream that he drew her by,

Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,' 'Tis sweeter than thy lord; How should I envy him, my dear,

Two stars once on their lonely way Met in the heavenly height, And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway

Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus, I know that not for us Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,

Down where the unconquered river still flows on, One strong free thing within a prison's heart, I drew me with my sacred grief apart,

God gave us an hour for our tears, One hour out of all the years, For all the years were another's gold,

O Lady, I have looked on thee once more, Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said, And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss,

[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness] Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb My little parlour sounds which only now

One asked of regret, And I made reply: To have held the bird,

Love, art thou lonely to-day? Lost love that I never see, Love that, come noon or come night,

So many days that keep us still apart? Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles, And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart?