New Poems | Page 2

bosom through
And spreads each nerve
along.

My bosom eddies quietly,
My heart is stirred and cool
As when a
wind-moved briar sweeps
A stone into a pool
But unto thee, when thee I meet,
My pulses thicken fast,
As when
the maddened lake grows black
And ruffles in the blast.
I DREAMED OF FOREST ALLEYS FAIR
I.
I DREAMED of forest alleys fair
And fields of gray-flowered grass,

Where by the yellow summer moon
My Jenny seemed to pass.
I dreamed the yellow summer moon,
Behind a cedar wood,
Lay
white on fields of rippling grass
Where I and Jenny stood.
I dreamed - but fallen through my dream,
In a rainy land I lie

Where wan wet morning crowns the hills
Of grim reality.
II.
I am as one that keeps awake
All night in the month of June,
That
lies awake in bed to watch
The trees and great white moon.
For memories of love are more
Than the white moon there above,

And dearer than quiet moonshine
Are the thoughts of her I love.
III.
Last night I lingered long without
My last of loves to see.
Alas! the
moon-white window-panes
Stared blindly back on me.
To-day I hold her very hand,
Her very waist embrace -
Like clouds
across a pool, I read
Her thoughts upon her face.
And yet, as now, through her clear eyes
I seek the inner shrine -
I

stoop to read her virgin heart
In doubt if it be mine -
O looking long and fondly thus,
What vision should I see?
No
vision, but my own white face
That grins and mimics me.
IV.
Once more upon the same old seat
In the same sunshiny weather,

The elm-trees' shadows at their feet
And foliage move together.
The shadows shift upon the grass,
The dial point creeps on;
The
clear sun shines, the loiterers pass,
As then they passed and shone.
But now deep sleep is on my heart,
Deep sleep and perfect rest.

Hope's flutterings now disturb no more
The quiet of my breast.
ST. MARTIN'S SUMMER
AS swallows turning backward
When half-way o'er the sea,
At one
word's trumpet summons
They came again to me -
The hopes I had
forgotten
Came back again to me.
I know not which to credit,
O lady of my heart!
Your eyes that bade
me linger,
Your words that bade us part -
I know not which to
credit,
My reason or my heart.
But be my hopes rewarded,
Or be they but in vain,
I have dreamed
a golden vision,
I have gathered in the grain -
I have dreamed a
golden vision,
I have not lived in vain.
DEDICATION
MY first gift and my last, to you
I dedicate this fascicle of songs -

The only wealth I have:
Just as they are, to you.
I speak the truth in soberness, and say
I had rather bring a light to

your clear eyes,
Had rather hear you praise
This bosomful of songs
Than that the whole, hard world with one consent,
In one continuous
chorus of applause
Poured forth for me and mine
The homage of
ripe praise.
I write the finis here against my love,
This is my love's last epitaph
and tomb.
Here the road forks, and I
Go my way, far from yours.
THE OLD CHIMAERAS, OLD RECEIPTS
THE old Chimaeras, old receipts
For making "happy land,"
The old
political beliefs
Swam close before my hand.
The grand old communistic myths
In a middle state of grace,
Quite
dead, but not yet gone to Hell,
And walking for a space,
Quite dead, and looking it, and yet
All eagerness to show
The
Social-Contract forgeries
By Chatterton - Rousseau -
A hundred such as these I tried,
And hundreds after that,
I fitted
Social Theories
As one would fit a hat!
Full many a marsh-fire lured me on,
I reached at many a star,
I
reached and grasped them and behold -
The stump of a cigar!
All through the sultry sweltering day
The sweat ran down my brow,

The still plains heard my distant strokes
That have been silenced
now.
This way and that, now up, now down,
I hailed full many a blow.

Alas! beneath my weary arm
The thicket seemed to grow.
I take the lesson, wipe my brow
And throw my axe aside,
And,
sorely wearied, I go home
In the tranquil eventide.

And soon the rising moon, that lights
The eve of my defeat,
Shall
see me sitting as of yore
By my old master's feet.
PRELUDE
BY sunny market-place and street
Wherever I go my drum I beat,

And wherever I go in my coat of red
The ribbons flutter about my
head.
I seek recruits for wars to come -
For slaughterless wars I beat the
drum,
And the shilling I give to each new ally
Is hope to live and
courage to die.
I know that new recruits shall come
Wherever I beat the sounding
drum,
Till the roar of the march by country and town
Shall shake
the tottering Dagons down.
For I was objectless as they
And loitering idly day by day;
But
whenever I heard the recruiters come,
I left my all to follow the drum.
THE VANQUISHED KNIGHT
I HAVE left all upon the shameful field,
Honour and Hope, my God,
and all but life;
Spurless, with sword reversed and dinted shield,

Degraded and disgraced, I leave the strife.
From him