A Century of Roundels | Page 7

soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,

An echo that only rings
Love.

II.
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
Fate, out of the deep sea's gloom,
When a man's heart's pride grows
great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
Fate,
Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that
loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,
More dark than a dead world's tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn's
gate,
More deep than the wide sea's womb,
Fate.
THE LUTE AND THE LYRE
Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,
Finds reluctant
voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire, Takes exultant voice when
music holds in high pursuit
Deep desire.
Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire,
Strong as
grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit, Sounds the secret
half unspoken ere the deep tones tire.
Slow subsides the rapture that possessed love's flower-soft lute, Slow
the palpitation of the triumph of the lyre:
Still the soul feels burn, a
flame unslaked though these be mute,
Deep desire.
PLUS INTRA
I.

Soul within sense, immeasurable, obscure,
Insepulchred and
deathless, through the dense
Deep elements may scarce be felt as pure
Soul within sense.
From depth and height by measurers left immense,
Through sound
and shape and colour, comes the unsure
Vague utterance, fitful with
supreme suspense.
All that may pass, and all that must endure,
Song speaks not, painting
shews not: more intense
And keen than these, art wakes with music's
lure
Soul within sense.
CHANGE
But now life's face beholden
Seemed bright as heaven's bare brow
With hope of gifts withholden
But now.
From time's full-flowering bough
Each bud spake bloom to embolden
Love's heart, and seal his vow.
Joy's eyes grew deep with olden
Dreams, born he wist not how;
Thought's meanest garb was golden;
But now!
A BABY'S DEATH
I.
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again

for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this
blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's
control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
II.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,

What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling
sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete

Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
III.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as
sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings
to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.

Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them,
grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
IV.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,

What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let
through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply
death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
V.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to
estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'

VI.
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with
shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
VII.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that
holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts,
and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and
a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
ONE OF TWAIN
I.

One of twain, twin-born with flowers that waken,
Now hath passed
from sense of sun and rain:
Wind from off the flower-crowned branch
hath shaken
One of twain.
One twin flower must pass, and one remain:
One, the word said
soothly, shall be taken,
And another