The Scarlet Gown | Page 2

alone sustains him,
And no more hopes beside,?One trust alone restrains him
From shocking suicide;?He will not play nor palter?With hemlock or with halter,?He will not fear nor falter,
Whatever chance betide.
He knows examinations
Like all things else have ends,?And then come vast vacations
And visits to his friends,?And youth with pleasure yoking,?And joyfulness and joking,?And smilingness and smoking,
For grief to make amends.
SWEETHEART
Sweetheart, that thou art fair I know,
More fair to me?Than flowers that make the loveliest show
To tempt the bee.
When other girls, whose faces are,
Beside thy face,?As rushlights to the evening star,
Deny thy grace,
I silent sit and let them speak,
As men of strength?Allow the impotent and weak
To rail at length.
If they should tell me Love is blind,?And so doth miss?The faults which they are quick to find,
I'd answer this:
Envy is blind; not Love, whose eyes
Are purged and clear?Through gazing on the perfect skies
Of thine, my dear.
MUSIC FOR THE DYING
FROM THE FRENCH OF SULLY PRUDHOMME
Ye who will help me in my dying pain,
Speak not a word: let all your voices cease.?Let me but hear some soft harmonious strain,
And I shall die at peace.
Music entrances, soothes, and grants relief
From all below by which we are opprest;?I pray you, speak no word unto my grief,
But lull it into rest.
Tired am I of all words, and tired of aught
That may some falsehood from the ear conceal,?Desiring rather sounds which ask no thought,
Which I need only feel:
A melody in whose delicious streams?The soul may sink, and pass without a breath?From fevered fancies into quiet dreams,
From dreaming into death.
FAREWELL TO A SINGER
ON HER MARRIAGE
As those who hear a sweet bird sing,
And love each song it sings the best,?Grieve when they see it taking wing
And flying to another nest:
We, who have heard your voice so oft,
And loved it more than we can tell,?Our hearts grow sad, our voices soft,
Our eyes grow dim, to say farewell.
It is not kind to leave us thus;
Yet we forgive you and combine,?Although you now bring grief to us,
To wish you joy, for auld lang syne.
THE CITY OF GOLF
Would you like to see a city given over,
Soul and body, to a tyrannising game??If you would, there's little need to be a rover,
For St. Andrews is the abject city's name.
It is surely quite superfluous to mention,
To a person who has been here half an hour,?That Golf is what engrosses the attention
Of the people, with an all-absorbing power.
Rich and poor alike are smitten with the fever;
Their business and religion is to play;?And a man is scarcely deemed a true believer,
Unless he goes at least a round a day.
The city boasts an old and learned college,?Where you'd think the leading industry was Greek;?Even there the favoured instruments of knowledge
Are a driver and a putter and a cleek.
All the natives and the residents are patrons
Of this royal, ancient, irritating sport;?All the old men, all the young men, maids and matrons--
The universal populace, in short.
In the morning, when the feeble light grows stronger,
You may see the players going out in shoals;?And when night forbids their playing any longer,
They tell you how they did the different holes
Golf, golf, golf--is all the story!
In despair my overburdened spirit sinks,?Till I wish that every golfer was in glory,
And I pray the sea may overflow the links.
One slender, struggling ray of consolation?Sustains me, very feeble though it be:?There are two who still escape infatuation,
My friend M'Foozle's one, the other's me.
As I write the words, M'Foozle enters blushing,
With a brassy and an iron in his hand . . .?This blow, so unexpected and so crushing,
Is more than I am able to withstand.
So now it but remains for me to die, sir.
Stay! There is another course I may pursue--?And perhaps upon the whole it would be wiser--
I will yield to fate and be a golfer too!
THE SWALLOWS
FROM JEAN PIERRE CLARIS FLORIAN
I love to see the swallows come
At my window twittering,?Bringing from their southern home
News of the approaching spring.?'Last year's nest,' they softly say,
'Last year's love again shall see;?Only faithful lovers may
Tell you of the coming glee.'
When the first fell touch of frost
Strips the wood of faded leaves,?Calling all their winged host,
The swallows meet above the eaves?'Come away, away,' they cry,?'Winter's snow is hastening;?True hearts winter comes not nigh,
They are ever in the spring.'
If by some unhappy fate,
Victim of a cruel mind,?One is parted from her mate
And within a cage confined,?Swiftly will the swallow die,
Pining for her lover's bower,?And her lover watching nigh
Dies beside her in an hour.
AFTER MANY DAYS
The mist hangs round the College tower,
The ghostly street?Is silent at this midnight hour,
Save for my feet.
With none to see, with none to hear,
Downward I go?To where, beside the rugged pier,
The sea sings low.
It sings a tune well loved and known
In days gone by,?When often here, and not alone,
I watched the sky.
That was a barren time at best,?Its fruits were few;?But fruits and flowers had keener zest
And fresher hue.
Life has not