English Poems | Page 8

as these?
We would not soar amid the stars to sing,
Warm
and content amid the nested trees.
Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven,
We would not grow
unhappy with our lot,
Leave us the simple love the earth hath given--


Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_.
COR CORDIUM
TO MY WIFE, MILDRED
_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs
But unto thee belongs:

Though I indeed before our true day came
Mistook thy star in
many a wandering flame,
Singing to thee in many a fair disguise,

Calling to thee in many another's name,
Before I knew thine
everlasting eyes.
Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn
I followed singing, deeming it
was Thou,
Seeking this face that on our pillow now
Glimmers
behind thy golden hair like dawn,
And, like a setting moon, within
my breast
Sinks down each night to rest.
Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers,
Moon of the wild
wild honey that is ours;
Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root,

Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit:
And shall great Love at
once perfected spring,
Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_
COR CORDIUM
_The lawless love that would not be denied,
The love that waited, and
in waiting died,
The love that met and mated, satisfied.
Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls,
Who would not follow
where his Juliet calls?
'Twas good to try and love the angel's way,

With starry souls untainted of the clay;
But, best the love where earth
and heaven meet,
The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._
(October 22, 1891.)
THE DESTINED MAID: A PRAYER

_(Chant Royal)_
O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire,
The light, the music, and
the honey, all
Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire
Man
calleth Love--'Sweet love,' the blessed
call--:
I come a sad-eyed
suppliant to thy knee,
If thou hast pity, pity grant to me;
If thou hast
bounty, here a heart I bring
For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering.

O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way
For me, I know, but lonely
sorrowing--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I lay in darkness, face down in the mire,
And prayed that darkness
might become my
pall;
The rabble rout roared round me like some
quire
Of filthy animals primordial;
My heart seemed like a toad
eternally
Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he;
Sweet sunlight
seemed a dream, a mythic thing,
And life some beldam's dotard
gossiping.
Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway,
And hoped
again, rose up this prayer to wing--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I
pray!
Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre
To hymn thy glory, and thy foes
appal
With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire;
A little lute I
lightly touch and small
My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be
I ever
woke ear-winning melody,
'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing
string,
Thy praise alone--for all my worshipping
Is at thy shrine,
thou knowest, day by day,
Then shall it be in vain my plaint to
sing?--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire
Unto thy servant bitterly
befall?
For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire
Of thy sweet
sacraments and ritual;
In morning meadows I have knelt to thee,
In
noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly

Thy heart's warm beat in
sacred slumbering,
And in the spaces of the night heard ring
Thy
voice in answer to the spheral lay:
Now 'neath thy throne my
suppliant life I fling--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!

I ask no maid for all men to admire,
Mere body's beauty hath in me
no thrall,
And noble birth, and sumptuous attire,
Are gauds I crave
not--yet shall have withal,
With a sweet difference, in my heart's own
She,
Whom words speak not but eyes know when they
see.
Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring,
And dream and glory hers
for garmenting;
Her birth--O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?--
Of
thine own womb, of thine own nurturing--
Send me a maiden meet
for love, I pray!
ENVOI
Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring,
My life is thine,
barren or blossoming;
'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey:

And so unto thy garment's hem I cling--
Send me a maiden meet for
love, I pray.
(January 13, 1888.)
WITH SOME OLD LOVE VERSES
Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song,
The changing story of the
wandering quest
That found at last its ending in thy breast--
The
love it sought and sang astray so long
With wild young heart and
happy eager tongue.
Much meant it all to me to seek and sing,
Ah,
Love, but how much more to-day to bring
This 'rhyme that first of all
he made when young.'
Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy
For whose poor silver thou hast
given me gold;
Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair
Only
because some hints of Thee they were:
Judge then, if I so loved weak
types of old,
How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee.
IN A COPY OF