Ballads in Blue China | Page 6

men of yore, We rest where running waters meet: And
then we turn unwilling feet And seek the world--so must it be - WE
may not linger in the heat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!
ENVOY.
Master,--when rain, and snow, and sleet And northern winds are wild,
to thee We come, we rest in thy retreat, Where breaks the blue Sicilian
sea!

BALLADE OF CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE.

Ye giant shades of RA and TUM, Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian, If
murmurs of our planet come To exiles in the precincts wan Where,
fetish or Olympian, To help or harm no more ye list, Look down, if
look ye may, and scan This monument in London mist!

Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb That once were read of him that ran
When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum Wild music of the Bull began;
When through the chanting priestly clan Walk'd Ramses, and the high
sun kiss'd This stone, with blessing scored and ban - This monument in
London mist.
The stone endures though gods be numb; Though human effort, plot,
and plan Be sifted, drifted, like the sum Of sands in wastes Arabian.
What king may deem him more than man, What priest says Faith can
Time resist While THIS endures to mark their span - This monument in
London mist?
ENVOY.
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan Falls; it is longer than ye wist: It
preaches, as Time's gnomon can, This monument in London mist!

BALLADE OF ROULETTE. TO R. R.

This life--one was thinking to-day, In the midst of a medley of fancies -
Is a game, and the board where we play Green earth with her poppies
and pansies. Let manque be faded romances, Be passe remorse and
regret; Hearts dance with the wheel as it dances - The wheel of Dame
Fortune's roulette.
The lover will stake as he may His heart on his Peggies and Nancies;
The girl has her beauty to lay; The saint has his prayers and his trances;
The poet bets endless expanses In Dreamland; the scamp has his debt:
How they gaze at the wheel as it glances - The wheel of Dame
Fortune's roulette!
The Kaiser will stake his array Of sabres, of Krupps, and of lances; An
Englishman punts with his pay, And glory the jeton of France is; Your
artists, or Whistlers or Vances, Have voices or colours to bet; Will you
moan that its motion askance is - The wheel of Dame Fortune's
roulette?
ENVOY.
The prize that the pleasure enhances? The prize is--at last to forget The
changes, the chops, and the chances - The wheel of Dame Fortune's
roulette.

BALLADE OF SLEEP.

The hours are passing slow, I hear their weary tread Clang from the
tower, and go Back to their kinsfolk dead. Sleep! death's twin brother
dread! Why dost thou scorn me so? The wind's voice overhead Long
wakeful here I know, And music from the steep Where waters fall and
flow. Wilt thou not hear sue, Sleep?
All sounds that might bestow Rest on the fever'd bed, All slumb'rous
sounds and low Are mingled here and wed, And bring no drowsihed.
Shy dreams flit to and fro With shadowy hair dispread; With wistful
eyes that glow, And silent robes that sweep. Thou wilt not hear me; no?
Wilt thou not hear me, Sleep?
What cause hast thou to show Of sacrifice unsped? Of all thy slaves
below I most have laboured With service sung and said; Have cull'd
such buds as blow, Soft poppies white and red, Where thy still gardens
grow, And Lethe's waters weep. Why, then, art thou my foe? Wilt thou
not hear me, Sleep?
ENVOY.
Prince, ere the dark be shred By golden shafts, ere now And long the
shadows creep: Lord of the wand of lead, Soft-footed as the snow, Wilt
thou not hear me, Sleep!

BALLADE OF THE MIDNIGHT FOREST. AFTER THEODORE DE
BANVILLE.

Still sing the mocking fairies, as of old, Beneath the shade of thorn and
holly-tree; The west wind breathes upon them, pure and cold, And
wolves still dread Diana roaming free In secret woodland with her
company. 'Tis thought the peasants' hovels know her rite When now the
wolds are bathed in silver light, And first the moonrise breaks the
dusky grey, Then down the dells, with blown soft hair and bright, And
through the dim wood Dian threads her way.
With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold The strange cold
forest-fairies dance in glee, Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold Haunt
the dark hollows where the dwarf may be, The wild red dwarf, the
nixies' enemy; Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright, The
sudden Goddess enters, tall and white, With one long sigh for summers

pass'd away; The