Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. | Page 6

O;
"The hound is dead,
When all
is said,
But love is past belief, O.
"Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see,
Forlorn and still--and all
for me,
All for a foolish curse, O;
Now here am I
Come out to
die--
To live unloved is worse, O!"
In faith, this lord, in that lone dale,
Hears now a sweeter nightingale,

And lairs a tenderer deer, O;
His sorrow goes
Like mountain
snows
In waters sweet and clear, O!
What ghostly hound is this that fleet
Comes fawning to his mistress'
feet,
And courses round his master?
How swiftly love
May grief
remove,
How happy make disaster!
Now here he smells, now there he smells,
Winding his voice along
the dells,
Till grey flows up the morn, O
Then hies again
To Lady
Jane
No longer now forlorn, O.
Ay, as it were a bud, did break
To loveliness for her love's sake,
So
she in beauty moving
Rides at his hand
Across his land,
Beloved
as well as loving.
AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING
As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine,
There sate three
crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: Then "O!" said Lucy,
in the snow, "it's very plain to see
A witch has been a-walking in the
fields in front of me."
Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow,
And
plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: And, by and
by, she comes to seven shadows in one place
Stretched black by
seven poplar-trees against the sun's bright face.

She looks to left, she looks to right, and in the midst she sees A little
pool of water clear and frozen 'neath the trees;
Then down beside its
margent in the crusty snow she kneels, And hears a magic belfry
a-ringing with sweet bells.
Clear sang the faint far merry peal, then silence on the air, And icy-still
the frozen pool and poplars standing there:
Then lo! as Lucy turned
her head and looked along the snow
She sees a witch--a witch she
sees, come frisking to and fro.
Her scarlet, buckled shoes they clicked, her heels a-twinkling high;
With mistletoe her steeple-hat bobbed as she capered by;
But never a
dint, or mark, or print, in the whiteness for to see, Though danced she
high, though danced she fast, though danced she lissomely.
It seemed 'twas diamonds in the air, or little flakes of frost; It seemed
'twas golden smoke around, or sunbeams lightly tossed; It seemed an
elfin music like to reeds and warblers rose:
"Nay!" Lucy said, "it is
the wind that through the branches flows."
And as she peeps, and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, And
eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree,
And the bells of
that sweet belfry a-pealing as before,
And now it is not three she sees,
and now it is not four--
"O! who are ye," sweet Lucy cries, "that in a dreadful ring, All muffled
up in brindled shawls, do caper, frisk, and spring?" "A witch, and
witches, one and nine," they straight to her reply, And looked upon her
narrowly, with green and needle eye.
Then Lucy sees in clouds of gold green cherry trees upgrow, And
bushes of red roses that bloomed above the snow;
She smells, all faint,
the almond-boughs blowing so wild and fair, And doves with milky
eyes ascend fluttering in the air.
Clear flowers she sees, like tulip buds, go floating by like birds, With
wavering tips that warbled sweetly strange enchanted words; And, as

with ropes of amethyst, the boughs with lamps were hung, And clusters
of green emeralds like fruit upon them clung.
"O witches nine, ye dreadful nine, O witches seven and three! Whence
come these wondrous things that I this Christmas morning see?" But
straight, as in a clap, when she of Christmas says the word, Here is the
snow, and there the sun, but never bloom nor bird;
Nor warbling flame, nor gloaming-rope of amethyst there shows, Nor
bunches of green emeralds, nor belfry, well, and rose,
Nor cloud of
gold, nor cherry-tree, nor witch in brindled shawl, But like a dream that
vanishes, so vanished were they all.
When Lucy sees, and only sees three crows upon a bough,
And
earthly twigs, and bushes hidden white in driven snow,
Then "O!"
said Lucy, "three times three is nine--I plainly see Some witch has been
a-walking in the fields in front of me."
THE ENGLISHMAN
I met a sailor in the woods,
A silver ring wore he,
His hair hung
black, his eyes shone blue,
And thus he said to me:--
"What country, say, of this round earth,
What shore of what salt sea,

Be this, my son, I wander in,
And looks so strange to me?"
Says I, "O foreign sailorman,
In England now you be,
This is her
wood, and there her sky,
And that her roaring sea."
He lifts his voice yet louder,
"What smell be this," says he,
"My
nose on the sharp morning air
Snuffs up so