(A TRIBUTE TO SIR H. BISHOP) I hear that maiden stillOf Keinton MandevilleSinging, in flights that playedAs wind-wafts through us all,Till they made our mood a thrallTo their aery rise and fall,“Should he upbraid.” Rose-necked, in sky-gray gown,From a stage in Stower TownDid she sing, and singing smileAs she blent that dexterous voiceWith the ditty […]

When friendly summer calls again,Calls againHer little fifers to these hills,We’ll go–we two–to that arched faneOf leafage where they prime their billsBefore they start to flood the plainWith quavers, minims, shakes, and trills.“–We’ll go,” I sing; but who shall sayWhat may not chance before that day! And we shall see the waters spring,Waters springFrom chinks […]

Francois Hippolite Barthelemon, first-fiddler at Vauxhall Gardens, composed what was probably the most popular morning hymn-tune ever written. It was formerly sung, full-voiced, every Sunday in most churches, to Bishop Ken’s words, but is now seldom heard. He said: “Awake my soul, and with the sun,” . . .And paused upon the bridge, his eyes […]

Its former green is blue and thin,And its once firm legs sink in and in;Soon it will break down unaware,Soon it will break down unaware. At night when reddest flowers are blackThose who once sat thereon come back;Quite a row of them sitting there,Quite a row of them sitting there. With them the seat does […]

(Lines on the loss of the “Titanic”) I In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II Steel chambers, late the pyres Of her salamandrine fires, Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres. III Over the mirrors meant To glass […]

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment-day And sat upright. While drearisome Arose the howl of wakened hounds: The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, The worms drew back into the mounds, The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, […]

Plunging and labouring on in a tide of visions, Dolorous and dear, Forward I pushed my way as amid waste waters Stretching around, Through whose eddies there glimmered the customed landscape Yonder and near, Blotted to feeble mist. And the coomb and the upland Foliage-crowned, Ancient chalk-pit, milestone, rills in the grass-flat Stroked by the […]

If ever joy leave An abiding sting of sorrow, So befell it on the morrow Of that May eve . . . The travelled sun dropped To the north-west, low and lower, The pony’s trot grew slower, And then we stopped. “This cosy house just by I must call at for a minute, A sick […]

(Near Tooting Common) I While rain, with eve in partnership, Descended darkly, drip, drip, drip, Beyond the last lone lamp I passed Walking slowly, whispering sadly, Two linked loiterers, wan, downcast: Some heavy thought constrained each face, And blinded them to time and place. II The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed In mental scenes no […]

I I tore your letter into strips No bigger than the airy feathers That ducks preen out in changing weathers Upon the shifting ripple-tips. II In darkness on my bed alone I seemed to see you in a vision, And hear you say: “Why this derision Of one drawn to you, though unknown?” III Yes, […]

(A Reminiscence) She wore a new “terra-cotta” dress, And we stayed, because of the pelting storm, Within the hansom’s dry recess, Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless We sat on, snug and warm. Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain, And the glass that had screened our forms before Flew up, and […]

When I set out for Lyonnesse, A hundred miles away, The rime was on the spray, And starlight lit my lonesomeness When I set out for Lyonnesse A hundred miles away. What would bechance at Lyonnesse While I should sojourn there No prophet durst declare, Nor did the wisest wizard guess What would bechance at […]

(Student’s Love-song) Once more the cauldron of the sun Smears the bookcase with winy red, And here my page is, and there my bed, And the apple-tree shadows travel along. Soon their intangible track will be run, And dusk grow strong And they be fled. Yes: now the boiling ball is gone, And I have […]

I Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon, And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine, But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird’s tune, For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine. II Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now, The […]

Whether to sally and see thee, girl of my dreams, Or whether to stay And see thee not! How vast the difference seems Of Yea from Nay Just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams At no far day On our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh! Yet I will […]

(To F. E. D.) Come again to the place Where your presence was as a leaf that skims Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims The bloom on the farer’s face. Come again, with the feet That were light on the green as a thistledown ball, And those mute ministrations to one and to all […]

I I saw a slowly-stepping train – Lined on the brows, scoop-eyed and bent and hoar – Following in files across a twilit plain A strange and mystic form the foremost bore. II And by contagious throbs of thought Or latent knowledge that within me lay And had already stirred me, I was wrought To […]

We two kept house, the Past and I, The Past and I; I tended while it hovered nigh, Leaving me never alone. It was a spectral housekeeping Where fell no jarring tone, As strange, as still a housekeeping As ever has been known. As daily I went up the stair And down the stair, I […]

When you slowly emerged from the den of Time, And gained percipience as you grew, And fleshed you fair out of shapeless slime, Wherefore, O Man, did there come to you The unhappy need of creating me – A form like your own–for praying to? My virtue, power, utility, Within my maker must all abide, […]

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909) I In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea, That sentrys up and down all night, all day, From cove to promontory, from ness to bay, The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally. II – It was as though a garland of red roses Had fallen about […]