English Poems

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Title: English Poems
Author: Richard Le Gallienne
Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10913]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS ***
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ENGLISH?POEMS
By
Richard Le Gallienne
London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street.
Boston: Copland & Day?69 Cornhill.
A.D. 1895.
_First Edition
September 1892
Second Edition
October 1892
Third Edition
January 1894
Fourth Edition
Revised April 1895_
To Sissie Le Gallienne
EPISTLE DEDICATORY
_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth--for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver.
Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses--for what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the comb'--as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ... and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.'
Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to the little bookclad study to read--Heaven bless us!--you, perhaps, Mary Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!!
Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, then came in the sweet o' the year.
Yours now as then_,
R. Le G.
May 14th, 1892.
CONTENTS
_Epistle Dedicatory,
To the Reader_,
I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA,
II. YOUNG LOVE--
i. Preludes,
ii. Prelude--'I make this rhyme,'
iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,'
iv. Once,
v. The Two Daffodils,
vi. 'Why did she marry him?'
vii. The Lamp and the Star,
viii. Orbits,
ix. Never--Ever,
x. Love's Poor,
xi. Comfort of Dante,
xii. A Lost Hour,
xiii. Met once more,
xiv. A June Lily,
xv. Regret
xvi. Love Afar
xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles?
Postscript
III. COR CORDIUM--
To my Wife, Mildred
The Destined Maid: a Prayer
With some old Love Verses
In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's Tristram
Comfort at Parting
Happy Letter
Primrose and Violet
'Juliet and her Romeo,'
In her Diary
Two Parables
A Love Letter
In the Night
The Constant Lover
The Wonder-Child
IV. MISCELLANEOUS--
The House of Venus
Satiety
What of the Darkness?
Ad Cimmerios
Old Love Letters
Death in a London Lodging
Time Flies
So soon Tired
Autumn
A Frost Fancy
The World is Wide
Saint Charles!
Good-Night
Beatrice
A Child's Evensong
An Epitaph on a Goldfish
Beauty Accurst
To a Dead Friend
Sunset in the City
The City in Moonlight
V. OF POETS AND POETRY--
Inscriptions
The Décadent to his Soul
To a Poet
The Passionate Reader to his Poet
Matthew Arnold
'Tennyson' at the Farm
'The Desk's Dry Wood,'
A Library in a Garden
On the Morals of Poets
Faery Gold
All Sung
Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe
ENGLISH POEMS
TO THE READER
_Art was a palace once, things great and fair,?And strong and holy, found a temple there:?Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men.?O shall me hear an English song again!?Still English larks mount in the merry morn,?An English May still brings an English thorn,?Still English daisies up and down the grass,?Still English love for English lad and lass--?Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!_
_Thou nightingale that for six hundred years?Sang to the world--O art thou husht at last!?For, not of thee this new voice in our ears,?Music of France that once was of the spheres;?And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring?From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting_.
_Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,'?Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name,?England, I bring a song of little fame;?Not as one worthy but as loving thee,?Not as a singer, only as a child_.
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA
To R.K. Leather?(July 16th, 1892.)
PAOLO AND FRANCESCA
It happened in that great Italian land?Where every bosom heateth with a star--?At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand?The Adriatic filcheth near and far--?In that same past where Dante's dream-days are,?That one Francesca gave her youthful gold?Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar;?Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,?How could she give that love unto a miser old?
Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,?A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,?Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;?One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,?Nor fear because some dotard owned the root;?Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh?And kept not all his valour for his lute;?One who could dare as well as sing and sigh.?Ah! then were hearts to love, but they are long gone by.
Ye lily-wives so happy in the nest,?Whose joy within the gates of duty springs,?Blame not Love's poor, who, if they would be blest,?Must steal what comes to you with marriage rings:?Ye pity the poor lark whose scarce-tried wings?Faint in the net, while still the