The Rainbow and the Rose | Page 6

flowers of life
are brought
--With many, alas! that are not mine--
What will you
give me in return?
The bow in Bond Street--in the Park
The smile all worship on your
lips,
The courteous word at dinner--dance--
But never a blush--a
conscious glance;
At most, at Henley, in the dark,
Your fleet
mistaken finger-tips?
Ah, just for once, once only, be
An altar-server--stoop and set me

Upon the altar richly wrought
Of your most secret flower-sweet
thought:
One nightlight's flicker burn for me
Before you sleep and
quite forget me.
EN TOUT CAS.
WHEN I am glad I need your eyes
To be the stars of Paradise;
Your
lips to be the seal of all
The joy life grants, and dreams recall;
Your

hand, to lie my hands between
What time we walk the garden green.
But most in grief I need your face
To lean to mine in the desert place;

Your lips to mock the evil years,
To sweeten me my cup of tears,

Your eyes to shine, in cloud's despite,
Your hands to hold mine
through the night.
APPEAL.
Daphnis dearest, wherefore weave me
Webs of lies lest truth should
grieve me?
I could pardon much, believe me:
Dower me, Daphnis,
or bereave me,
Kill me, kill me, love me, leave me--
Damn me,
dear, but don't deceive me!
ST. VALENTINE'S DAY.
THE South is a dream of flowers
With a jewel for sky and sea,

Rose-crowns for the dancing hours,
Gold fruits upon every tree;

But cold from the North
The wind blows forth
That blows my love
to me.
The stars in the South are gold
Like lamps between sky and sea;

The flowers that the forests hold
Like stars between tree and tree;

But little and white
Is the pale moon's light
That lights my love to
me.
In the South the orange grove
Makes dusk by the dusky sea,
White
palaces wrought for love
Gleam white between tree and tree,
But
under bare boughs
Is the little house
Warm-lit for my love and me.
CHAGRIN D'AMOUR.
IF Love and I were all alone
I might forget to grieve,
And for his
pleasure and my own
Might happier garlands weave;
But you sit
there, and watch us wear
The mourning wreaths you wove:
And
while such mocking eyes you bear
I am not friends with Love.

Withdraw those cruel eyes, and let
Me search the garden through

That I may weave, ere Love be set,
The wreath of Love for you;

Till you, whom Love so well adorns,
Its hidden thorns discover,

And know at last what crown of thorns
It was you gave your lover.
BRIDAL EVE.
GOOD-NIGHT, my Heart, my Heart, good-night--
Oh, good and dear
and fair,
With lips of life and eyes of light
And roses in your hair.
To-morrow brings the other crown,
The orange blossoms, Sweet,

And then the rose will be cast down
With lilies at your feet.
But in your soul a garden stands
Where fair the white rose blows--

God, teach my foolish clumsy hands
The way to tend my rose.
That in the white-rose garden still
The lily may bloom fair
God help
my heart and soul and will
To keep the lily there.
LOVE AND LIFE.
LOVE only sings when Love is young,
When Love is young and still
at play,
How shall we count the sweet songs sung
When Love and
Joy kept holiday?
But now Love has to earn his bread
By lifelong
stress and toil of tears,
He finds his nest of song-birds dead
That
sang so sweet in other years.
For Love's a man now, strong and brave,
To fight for you, for you to
live,
And Love, that once such bright songs gave,
Has better things
than songs to give;
He gives you now a lifelong faith,
A hand to
help in joy or pain,
And he will sing no more, till Death
Shall come
to make him young again!
FROM THE ITALIAN.
AS a little child whom his mother has chidden,
Wrecked in the dark

in a storm of weeping,
Sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden

And, with fists clenched, sobs still in his sleeping,
So in my breast sleeps Love, O white lady,
What does he care though
the rest are playing,
With rattles and drums in the woodlands shady,

Happy children, whom Joy takes maying!
Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him
Scolding the others,
breaking their rattles,
Smashing their drums, when their play comes
near him--
Love who, for me, is a god of battles!
IV.
"OUT OF THE FULNESS OF THE HEART THE MOUTH
SPEAKETH."
In answer to those who have said that English Poets
give no personal
love to their country.
ENGLAND, my country, austere in the clamorous council of nations,
Set in the seat of the mighty, wielding the sword of the strong, Have we
but sung of your glory, firm in eternal foundations? Are not your
woods and your meadows the core of our heart and our song? O dear
fields of my country, grass growing green, glowing golden, Green in
the patience of winter, gold in the pageant of spring, Oaks and young
larches awaking, wind-flowers and violets blowing, What, if God sets
us to singing, what save you shall we sing? Who but our England is fair
through the veil of