The Worlds Best Poetry, Volume 3 | Page 8

will be revealed to the thoughtful, patient, meditative student. In this power to reveal an otherwise unknown world, lies the true glory of poetry. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the poet has to say to him.
[Signature: Lyman Abbot]

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
"AN INTERPRETER OF LIFE." By Lyman Abbot
POEMS OF SORROW AND CONSOLATION:
DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE?PARTING AND ABSENCE?ADVERSITY?COMFORT AND CHEER?DEATH AND BEREAVEMENT?CONSOLATION
INDEX: AUTHORS AND TITLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW Frontispiece
Photogravure from photograph by Hanfstaengl after portrait by Kramer.
PENELOPE AWAITING ULYSSES
_The patient grief and endurance of Absence: while the tapestry woven by day stands on the frame to be unravelled by night, as the loyal wife puts off her suitors. Painting by Rudolph von Deutsch_.
ABSENCE
"What shall I do with all the days and hours?That must be counted ere I see thy face?"
_From a photograph by the Berlin Photographic Co., after a painting by R. P?tzelberger_.
WAIL OF PROMETHEUS BOUND
"Behold me, a god, what I endure from gods!?Behold, with throe on throe,?How, wasted by this woe,?I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!"
From photograph after a painting by G. Graeff.
PIERRE-JEAN DE BéRANGER
From lithograph after a crayon-drawing by H. Alophe.
THOMAS HOOD
After an engraving from contemporary portrait.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
After a photograph from life by Talfourd, London.
THE COUNTRY CHURCHYARD
"Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,?Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,?Each in his narrow cell forever laid,?The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
After an original drawing by Harry Fenn.
LOVE AND DEATH
"Death comes in,?Though Love, with outstretched arms and wings outspread, Would bar the way."
From photogravure after the painting by George Fredeick Watts.
WALT WHITMAN
After a life-photograph by Rockwood, New York.
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
From an engraving after the drawing by George Richmond.
SIR EDWIN ARNOLD
After a life-photograph by Elliott and Fry, London.

POEMS OF SORROW AND CONSOLATION.

I. DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE.
THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.
FROM "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM," ACT I. SC. 1.
For aught that ever I could read,?Could ever hear by tale or history,?The course of true love never did run smooth:?But, either it was different in blood,?Or else misgraffèd in respect of years,?Or else it stood upon the choice of friends;?Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,?War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it,?Making it momentary as a sound,?Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;?Brief as the lightning in the collied night,?That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,?And ere a man hath power to say,--Behold!?The jaws of darkness do devour it up:?So quick bright things come to confusion.
SHAKESPEARE.
LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?Of me you shall not win renown;?You thought to break a country heart?For pastime, ere you went to town.?At me you smiled, but unbeguiled?I saw the snare, and I retired:?The daughter of a hundred Earls,?You are not one to be desired.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?I know you proud to bear your name;?Your pride is yet no mate for mine,?Too proud to care from whence I came.?Nor would I break for your sweet sake?A heart that dotes on truer charms.?A simple maiden in her flower?Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?Some meeker pupil you must find,?For were you queen of all that is,?I could not stoop to such a mind.?You sought to prove how I could love,?And my disdain is my reply.?The lion on your old stone gates?Is not more cold to you than I.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?You put strange memories in my head.?Not thrice your branching lines have blown?Since I beheld young Laurence dead.?O your sweet eyes, your low replies:?A great enchantress you may be;?But there was that across his throat?Which you had hardly cared to see.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?When thus he met his mother's view,?She had the passions of her kind,?She spake some certain truths of you.?Indeed I heard one bitter word?That scarce is fit for you to hear;?Her manners had not that repose?Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,?There stands a spectre in your hall:?The guilt of blood is at your door:?You changed a wholesome heart to gall.?You held your course without remorse,?To make him trust his modest worth,?And, last, you fixed a vacant stare,?And slew him with your noble birth.
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,?From yon blue heavens above us bent?The grand old gardener and his wife?Smile at the claims of long descent.?Howe'er it be, it seems to me,?'T is only noble to be good.?Kind hearts are more than coronets,?And simple faith than Norman blood.
I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:?You pine among your halls and towers:?The languid light of your proud eyes?Is wearied of the rolling hours.?In glowing health, with boundless wealth,?But sickening of a vague disease,?You know so ill to deal with time,?You needs must play such pranks as these.
Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,?If Time be heavy on your hands,?Are there no beggars at your gate.?Nor any poor about your lands??Oh! teach the