Primavera | Page 5

I walk with her in peace,?I leave this troubled air below,?Where, hurrying sadly to and fro,?Men toil, and strain, and cannot cease:?Then, freed from tyrannous Fate's control,?Untouch'd by years or grief, I see?Transfigured in that child-like soul?The soil'd soul of humanity.
LAURENCE BINYON.
A LAMENT
Over thy head, in joyful wanderings?Through heaven's wide spaces, free,?Birds fly with music in their wings;?And from the blue, rough sea?The fishes flash and leap;?There is a life of loveliest things?O'er thee, so fast asleep.
In the deep West the heavens grow heavenlier,?Eve after eve; and still?The glorious stars remember to appear;?The roses on the hill?Are fragrant as before:?Only thy face, of all that's dear,?I shall see nevermore!
MANMOHAN GHOSE.
UNDINES OF DIVERSE DAYS
I
The eyes of heaven were on her bent,?In a rapture of loving wonderment,?As her song with the nightingale's was blent:?And one yearn'd for a love, and one sigh'd for a soul!
Moonlight and starlight alike seemed cold,?As their silver glanced on her locks of gold;?And the dream on her face was a dream of old,?Whose sorrow no sunrise might smile away.
I read her yearning and weary smile,?As her song rang sadder and sadder the while,?With its weird refrain of a magic isle,?Where some might have rest, but never might she!
She, the darling of Sky and Stream,?She was but as wind, or as wave, or as dream,?To play for a while in life's glory and gleam:?But what would be left at the end of the day?
II
The sun smiles down upon her distress?With a tyrant smile most pitiless,?As she stitches away in her tatter'd dress,?With a song on her lips, that sinks in a sigh.
Yet, scorning her dusty window pane,?For all his pride, in love he is fain?Soft gold on her golden hair to rain;?But no sunlight may soften that soulless stare.
I read her yearning and weary sigh,?And the eyes that would be, but are not, dry;?And I catch the voice of that voiceless cry?For a moment to rest, for a moment to weep.
She, the darling of Want and Woe,?Why was she sent, save to work and to go?With feet that will ever more weary grow??Whither? she has not a moment to care!
The Undine of olden days, I read,?By the love of a soul from her trammels was freed:?Knows there another such dolorous need??Sure on the earth lingers yet such a soul!
ARTHUR S. CRIPPS.
A DREAM
My dead love came to me, and said,?'God gives me one hour's rest,?To spend with thee on earth again:?How shall we spend it best?'
'Why, as of old,' I said; and so?We quarrell'd, as of old:?But, when I turn'd to make my peace,?That one short hour was told.
STEPHEN PHILLIPS.

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love?The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,?Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove??Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,?Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?
Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.?How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,?Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,?In striving still to pitch my music higher:?Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!
No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:?To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.?Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!?O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!?I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.
Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:?The gloom is starr'd with flowers; the unseen trees?Spread thick and softly real above my head;?And the far birds add music to the peace,?In this dark place of sleep, where whispers never cease.
Hush, then, my pipe; vain is thy passion here;?Vain is the burning bosom of desire!?Forever hush'd, let me this silence hear,?As a sad Muse in the melodious choir?Hushes her voice, to catch the happier voices by her.
Deep-shaded will I lie, and deeper yet?In night, where not a leaf its neighbour knows;?Forget the shining of the stars, forget?The vernal visitation of the rose;?And, far from all delights, prepare my heart's repose.
Strive how I may, I cannot slumber so:?Still burns that sleepless beauty on the mind;?Still insupportable those visions glow;?And hark! my spirit's aspirations find?An answer in the leaves, a warning on the wind.
'O crave not silence thou! too soon, too sure,?Shall Autumn come, and through these branches weep:?Soon birds shall cease, and flowers no more endure;?And thou beneath the mould unwilling creep,?And silent soon shalt be in that eternal sleep.
'Green still it is, where that fair goddess strays;?Then follow, till around thee all be sere.?Lose not a vision of her passing face;?Nor miss the sound of her soft robes, that here?Sweep over the wet leaves of the fast-falling year.'
MANMOHAN GHOSE.
ORESTES
Me in far lands did Justice call, cold queen?Among the dead, who after heat and haste?At length have leisure for her steadfast voice,?That gathers peace from the great deeps of hell.?She call'd me,