Had I but lived a hundred years agoI might have gone, as I have gone this year,By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,And Time have placed his finger on me there: “YOU SEE THAT MAN?”–I might have looked, and said,“O yes: I see him. One that boat has broughtWhich dropped down Channel round […]

Call off your eyes from careBy some determined deftness; put forth joysDear as excess without the core that cloys,And charm Life’s lourings fair. Exalt and crown the hourThat girdles us, and fill it full with glee,Blind glee, excelling aught could ever beWere heedfulness in power. Send up such touching strainsThat limitless recruits from Fancy’s packShall […]

This is the story a man told meOf his life’s one day of dreamery. A woman came into his roomBetween the dawn and the creeping day:She was the years-wed wife from whomHe had parted, and who lived far away,As if strangers they. He wondered, and as she stoodShe put on youth in her look and […]

A bird bills the selfsame song,With never a fault in its flow,That we listened to here those longLong years ago. A pleasing marvel is howA strain of such rapturous roteShould have gone on thus till nowUnchanged in a note! – But it’s not the selfsame bird. –No: perished to dust is he . . .As […]

One without looks in to-nightThrough the curtain-chinkFrom the sheet of glistening white;One without looks in to-nightAs we sit and thinkBy the fender-brink. We do not discern those eyesWatching in the snow;Lit by lamps of rosy dyesWe do not discern those eyesWondering, aglow,Fourfooted, tiptoe.

I glimpsed a woman’s muslined formSing-songing airilyAgainst the moon; and still she sang,And took no heed of me. Another trice, and I beheldWhat first I had not scanned,That now and then she tapped and shookA timbrel in her hand. So late the hour, so white her drape,So strange the look it lentTo that blank hill, […]

In the heart of night,When farers were not near,The left house said to the house on the right,“I have marked your rise, O smart newcomer here.” Said the right, cold-eyed:“Newcomer here I am,Hence haler than you with your cracked old hide,Loose casements, wormy beams, and doors that jam. “Modern my wood,My hangings fair of hue;While […]

(Song) If it’s ever spring again,Spring again,I shall go where went I whenDown the moor-cock splashed, and hen,Seeing me not, amid their flounder,Standing with my arm around her;If it’s ever spring again,Spring again,I shall go where went I then. If it’s ever summer-time,Summer-time,With the hay crop at the prime,And the cuckoos–two–in rhyme,As they used to […]

A stranger, I threaded sunken-heartedA lamp-lit crowd;And anon there passed me a soul departed,Who mutely bowed.In my far-off youthful years I had met her,Full-pulsed; but now, no more life’s debtor,Onward she slidIn a shroud that furs half-hid. “Why do you trouble me, dead woman,Trouble me;You whom I knew when warm and human?–How it beThat you […]

A PHANTASY IN A MUSEUM OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS “Are you awake,Comrades, this silent night?Well ’twere if all of our glossy gluey makeLay in the damp without, and fell to fragments quite!” “O viol, my friend,I watch, though Phosphor nears,And I fain would drowse away to its utter endThis dumb dark stowage after our loud melodious […]

Where three roads joined it was green and fair,And over a gate was the sun-glazed sea,And life laughed sweet when I halted there;Yet there I never again would be. I am sure those branchways are brooding now,With a wistful blankness upon their face,While the few mute passengers notice howSpectre-beridden is the place; Which nightly sighs […]

(ON THE SIGNING OF THE ARMISTICE, Nov. 11, 1918) I There had been years of Passion–scorching, cold,And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,Among the young, among the weak and old,And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?” II Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraughtPierced the thinned peoples in a […]

I marked when the weather changed,And the panes began to quake,And the winds rose up and ranged,That night, lying half-awake. Dead leaves blew into my room,And alighted upon my bed,And a tree declared to the gloomIts sorrow that they were shed. One leaf of them touched my hand,And I thought that it was youThere stood […]

SONG OF SILENCE(E. L. H.–H. C. H.) Since every sound moves memories,How can I play youJust as I might if you raised no scene,By your ivory rows, of a form betweenMy vision and your time-worn sheen,As when each day youAnswered our fingers with ecstasy?So it’s hushed, hushed, hushed, you are for me! And as I […]

(SONG) I have seen her in gowns the brightest,Of azure, green, and red,And in the simplest, whitest,Muslined from heel to head;I have watched her walking, riding,Shade-flecked by a leafy tree,Or in fixed thought abidingBy the foam-fingered sea. In woodlands I have known her,When boughs were mourning loud,In the rain-reek she has shown herWild-haired and watery-browed.And […]

I dwelt in the shade of a city,She far by the sea,With folk perhaps good, gracious, witty;But never with me. Her form on the ballroom’s smooth flooringI never once met,To guide her with accents adoringThrough Weippert’s “First Set.” {1} I spent my life’s seasons with pale onesIn Vanity Fair,And she enjoyed hers among hale onesIn […]

Joyful lady, sing!And I will lurk here listening,Though nought be done, and nought begun,And work-hours swift are scurrying. Sing, O lady, still!Aye, I will wait each note you trill,Though duties due that press to doThis whole day long I unfulfil. “–It is an evening tune;One not designed to waste the noon,”You say. I know: time […]

On that gray night of mournful drone,A part from aught to hear, to see,I dreamt not that from shires unknownIn gloom, alone,By Halworthy,A man was drawing near to me. I’d no concern at anything,No sense of coming pull-heart play;Yet, under the silent outspreadingOf even’s wingWhere Otterham lay,A man was riding up my way. I thought […]

(MAX GATE, A.D. 2000) “I hear the piano playing–Just as a ghost might play.”“–O, but what are you saying?There’s no piano to-day;Their old one was sold and broken;Years past it went amiss.”“–I heard it, or shouldn’t have spoken:A strange house, this! “I catch some undertone here,From some one out of sight.”“–Impossible; we are alone here,And […]

(SONG) As ’twere to-night, in the brief spaceOf a far eventime,My spirit rang achimeAt vision of a girl of grace;As ’twere to-night, in the brief spaceOf a far eventime. As ’twere at noontide of to-morrowI airily walked and talked,And wondered as I walkedWhat it could mean, this soar from sorrow;As ’twere at noontide of to-morrowI […]