English Poems | Page 9

follow them;?Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give:?See how they wear their tears for diadem,?Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme.
IN HER DIARY
Go, little book, and be the looking-glass?Of her dear soul,?The mirror of her moments as they pass,?Keeping the whole;?Wherein she still may look on yesterday?To-day to cheer,?And towards To-morrow pass upon her way?Without a fear.?For yesterday hath never won a crown,?However fair,?But that To-day a better for its own?Might win and wear;?And yesterday hath never joyed a joy,?However sweet,?That this To-day or that To-morrow too?May not repeat.?Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow,?And present pain?That's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrow?Nor cry in vain?'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,'?For then again?To-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow,?A little ease to gain:?But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring,?'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing.
PARABLES
I
Dear Love, you ask if I be true,?If other women move?The heart that only beats for you?With pulses all of love.
Out in the chilly dew one morn?I plucked a wild sweet rose,?A little silver bud new-born?And longing to unclose.
I took it, loving new-born things,?I knew my heart was warm,?'O little silver rose, come in?And shelter from the storm.'
And soon, against my body pressed,?I felt its petals part,?And, looking down within my breast?I saw its golden heart.
O such a golden heart it has,?Your eyes may never see,?To others it is always shut,?It opens but for me.
But that is why you see me pass?The honeysuckle there,?And leave the lilies in the grass,?Although they be so fair;
Why the strange orchid half-accurst--?Circe of flowers she grows--?Can tempt me not: see! in my heart,?Silver and gold, my rose.
II
Deep in a hidden lane we were,?My little love and I;?When lo! as we stood kissing there--?A flower against the sky!
Frail as a tear its beauty hung--?O spare it, little hand.?But innocence like its, alas!?Desire may not withstand.
And so I clambered up the bank?And threw the blossom down,?But we were sadder for its sake?As we walked back to town.
A LOVE-LETTER
Darling little woman, just a little line,?Just a little silver word?For that dear gold of thine,?Only a whisper you have so often heard:
Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell?Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea,?But think what a little of all its depth and swell,?And think what a little is this little note of me.
'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'--?There is the whisper stealing from the shell,?But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless,?And each little wave with its whisper as well.
IN THE NIGHT
'Kiss me, dear Love!'--?But there was none to hear,?Only the darkness round about my bed?And hollow silence, for thy face had fled,?Though in my dreaming it had come so near.
I slept again and it came back to me,?Burning within the hollow arch of night?Like some fair flame of sacrificial light,?And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee--?'Kiss me, my love!?Ah, Love, thy face how fair!'?So did I cry, but still thou wert not there.
THE CONSTANT LOVER
I see fair women all the day,?They pass and pass--and go;?I almost dream that they are shades?Within a shadow-show.
Their beauty lays no hand on me,?They talk--- I hear no word;?I ask my eyes if they have seen,?My ears if they have heard.
For why--within the north countree?A little maid, I know,?Is waiting through the days for me,?Drear days so long and slow.
THE WONDER-CHILD
'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be?Like unto thee'--'Like unto thee!'?'Her mother's'--'Nay, his father's'--'eyes,'?'Dear curls like thine'--but each replies,?'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.'
What sweet solemnity to see?The little life upon thy knee,?And whisper as so soft it lies,--?'Our little babe!'
For, whether it be he or she,?A David or a Dorothy,?'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,'?Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries,?One thing is certain,--it will be
Our little babe.
MISCELLANEOUS
THE HOUSE OF VENUS
Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame,?Whose love was lust's insatiable flame--?Not hers the house I would be singer in?Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin:?But mine the Venus of that morning flood?With all the dawn's young passion in her blood,?With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet.?Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat?Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood,?And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid,?In the most golden House that God has made.
SATIETY
The heart of the rose--how sweet?Its fragrance to drain,?Till the greedy brain?Reels and grows faint?With the garnered scent,?Reels as a dream on its silver feet.
Sweet thus to drain--then to sleep:?For, beware how you stay?Till the joy pass away,?And the jaded brain?Seeketh fragrance in vain,?And hates what it may not reap.
WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?
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?With some strange peace our faces never know,?With some great faith our faces never dare.?Dwells it