Rhymes à la Mode | Page 6

them half so fair?As ripples of the rising trout?That feed beneath the elms of Yair.
Nay, Spring I'd meet by Tweed or Ail,?And Summer by Loch Assynt's deep,?And Autumn in that lonely vale?Where wedded Avons westward sweep,
Or where, amid the empty fields,?Among the bracken of the glen,?Her yellow wreath October yields,?To crown the crystal brows of Ken.
Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal,?Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide,?You never heard the ringing reel,?The music of the water side!
Though Gods have walked your woods among,?Though nymphs have fled your banks along;?You speak not that familiar tongue?Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.
My cradle song,--nor other hymn?I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear?Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim,?Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear!
TWILIGHT--SONNET (AFTER RICHEPIN)
Light has flown!?Through the grey?The wind's way?The sea's moan?Sound alone!?For the day?These repay?And atone!
Scarce I know,?Listening so?To the streams?Of the sea,?If old dreams?Sing to me!
BALLADE OF SUMMER--TO C. H. ARKCOLL
When strawberry pottles are common and cheap,?Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,?When midnight dances are murdering sleep,?Then comes in the sweet o' the year!?And far from Fleet Street, far from here,?The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,?And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,?When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When clamour that doves in the lindens keep?Mingles with musical plash of the weir,?Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep,?Then comes in the sweet o' the year!?And better a crust and a beaker of beer,?With rose-hung hedges on either hand,?Than a palace in town and a prince's cheer,?When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When big trout late in the twilight leap,?When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,?When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,?Then comes in the sweet o' the year!?And it's oh to sail, with the wind to steer,?Where kine knee deep in the water stand,?On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere,?When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
ENVOY.
Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here,?Then comes in the sweet o' the year!?And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand,?When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS
Between the moonlight and the fire?In winter twilights long ago,?What ghosts we raised for your desire?To make your merry blood run slow!?How old, how grave, how wise we grow!?No Christmas ghost can make us chill,?Save THOSE that troop in mournful row,?The ghosts we all can raise at will!
The beasts can talk in barn and byre?On Christmas Eve, old legends know,?As year by year the years retire,?We men fall silent then I trow,?Such sights hath Memory to show,?Such voices from the silence thrill,?Such shapes return with Christmas snow, -?The ghosts we all can raise at will.
Oh, children of the village choir,?Your carols on the midnight throw,?Oh bright across the mist and mire?Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow!?Beat back the dread, beat down the woe,?Let's cheerily descend the hill;?Be welcome all, to come or go,?The ghosts we all can raise at will!
ENVOY.
Friend, sursum corda, soon or slow?We part, like guests who've joyed their fill;?Forget them not, nor mourn them so,?The ghosts we all can raise at will!
LOVE'S EASTER--SONNET
Love died here?Long ago; -?O'er his bier,?Lying low,?Poppies throw;?Shed no tear;?Year by year,?Roses blow!
Year by year,?Adon--dear?To Love's Queen -?Does not die!?Wakes when green?May is nigh!
BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL
She has just "put her gown on" at Girton,?She is learned in Latin and Greek,?But lawn tennis she plays with a skirt on?That the prudish remark with a shriek.?In her accents, perhaps, she is weak?(Ladies ARE, one observes with a sigh),?But in Algebra--THERE she's unique,?But her forte's to evaluate pi.
She can talk about putting a "spirt on"?(I admit, an unmaidenly freak),?And she dearly delighteth to flirt on?A punt in some shadowy creek;?Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak,?She can swim as a swallow can fly;?She can fence, she can put with a cleek,?But her forte's to evaluate pi.
She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton,?Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique,?Old tiles with the secular dirt on,?Old marbles with noses to seek.?And her Cobet she quotes by the week,?And she's written on [Greek text: kev] and on [Greek text: kai], And her service is swift and oblique,?But her forte's to evaluate pi.
ENVOY.
Princess, like a rose is her cheek,?And her eyes are as blue as the sky,?And I'd speak, had I courage to speak,?But--her forte's to evaluate pi.
RONSARD'S GRAVE
Ye wells, ye founts that fall?From the steep mountain wall,?That fall, and flash, and fleet?With silver feet,
Ye woods, ye streams that lave?The meadows with your wave,?Ye hills, and valley fair,?Attend my prayer!
When Heaven and Fate decree?My latest hour for me,?When I must pass away?From pleasant day,
I ask that none my break?The marble for my sake,?Wishful to make more fair?My sepulchre.
Only a laurel tree?Shall shade the grave of me,?Only Apollo's bough?Shall guard me now!
Now shall I be at rest?Among the spirits blest,?The happy dead that