fy
|

SaUniversity of Virginia Library
a .R62 1905
Dramatic lyrics : a selection

A i Ii‘=
SSeS
SSN ee
aaa:‘Me GREGOR:

THIS BOOK IS FROM A GIFT OF
McGREGOR FUND TO THE
GENERAL COLLECTION
OF THE ALDERMAN LIBRARY|
|
|
|

eats aks a a ae Oe oeA

§
i
P
i

ee

ial

men

sa eee bateeT er eee

ca

(ae See

ae

ee

y
j

—

ae dak eoThe Broadway Booklets

DRAMATIC LYRICSeas
oe

4
is
i

IES SDF 0 een tem

"Fes

ee) eeRei sn<a
nT
if

Iki
Wy)

MW

ancl Loakaiat iat Dette 2 a
, ey ters gy! Bt rire nig ce?

fi
/

\

| A So

 

Se eg ier oe a
7 eS a ?

 

 

 

 

   

A pretty womanLIMITED4
H
3
i
by

ee ee
<A Pretty Woman .

CONTENTS

Garden Fancies: The Flower’s Name .

Cristina
The Lost Mistress
Song

A Woman’s Last Word .

Evelyn Hope

Love among the Ruins

Two in the Campagna

A Serenade at the Villa

One Way of Love

Another Way of Love

Love in a Life
Life in a Love

Women and Roses

   
 
 
  
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 

Page

15
IQ
22
24
25
2)
33
38
43
48
50
55
56ee are

——

Tee

pi
)
Hi
Pi
ki
hy

wm,

vd

ee
ee:A Pretty Woman

  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   

A PRETTY WOMAN

THAT fawn-skin-dapple hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,

And that infantine fresh air of hers!

To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!

\ You like us for a glance, you know,
} For a word's sake,
Or asword’s sake,

All’s the same, whate’er the chance, you know.
9A Pretty Woman +

And in turn we make you ours, we say—
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,

All the face composed of flowers, we Say.

All’s our own, to make the most of, Sweet—
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,

Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet.

But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you

In a mortar— for you could not, Sweet.+ A Pretty Woman

50, we leave the sweet face fondly there—
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!

Let all hope of grace beyond lie there !

And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder
That I ponder

A conclusion? I will try it there.

As,—why must one, for the love foregone,
Scout mere liking P
Thunder-striking

Earth,—the heaven, we looked above for, gone!A Pretty Woman +

Why with beauty, needs there money be—
Love with liking P
Crush the fly-king

In his gauze, because no honey bee ?

May not liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
*Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet ?

Is the creature too imperfect, say ?
Would you mend it
And so end it?

Since not all addition perfects aye !+

Just perfection—

Whence, rejection

Into tinder,
And so hinder

Your love-fancies !—

A sick man sees

Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

A Pretty Woman

Or is it of its kind, perhaps,

Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps P

Shall we burn up, tread that face at once

Sparks from kindling all the place at once P

Or else kiss away one’s soul on her PA Pretty Woman +

Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,—
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,

Uses fine things that efface the rose.

Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,
Precious metals
Ape the petals,—

Last, some old king locks it up, morose!

Then, how grace arose? I knowa Way !
Leave it rather.
Must you gather ?

Smell, kiss, wear it—at last, throw away !“BASS. BF Be Fwy

  

Garden Fancies

  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

GARDEN FANCIES

THE FLOWER’S NAME

HERE’S the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she
turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung ;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot
spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.Garden Fancies +

Down this side of the gravel-walk
She went, while her robe’s-edge brushed the
box:
And here she paused in her gracious talk
To point me a moth on the milk-white flox.
Roses, ranged in valiant row,
I will never think that she passed you by!
She loves you, noble roses, I know;

But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim ;

Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,
Its soft meandering Spanish name.

What a name! was it love, or praise?
Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake?

I must learn Spanish, one of these days,

Only for that slow sweet name’s sake.
16+ Garden Fancies

Roses, if I live and do well,
I may bring her, one of these days,
To fix you fast with as fine a spell,

Fit you each with his Spanish phrase!
But do not detain me now;; for she lingers
There, like sunshine over the ground,
And ever I see her soft white fingers

Searching after the bud she found.

Flower, you Spaniard, look that you grow not,
Stay as you are and be loved for ever!
But, if I kiss you ’tis that you blow not,
Mind, the shut pink mouth opens never !
For while thus it pouts, her fingers wrestle,
Twinkling the audacious leaves between,
Till round they turn and down they nestle—
Is not the dear mark still to be seen ?

BGarden Fancies +

Where I find her not, beauties vanish;
Whither I follow her, beauties flee;
Is there no method to tell her in Spanish
June’s twice June since she breathed it with
me ?
Come, bud, show me the least of her traces,
Treasure my lady’s lightest foot-fall—
Ah, you may flout and turn up your faces—
Roses, you are not so fair after ail!Cristina

CRISTINA

SHE should never have looked at me,
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . men, you call such,
I suppose . . she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I’m not so, and she knew it

When she fixed me, glancing round them.Wi

ee;
<9. TAREE rene

ree

ee ee i eee

‘ td
aS eenahiaa

Seen 7 ereomtenie niet te

A a ed

 

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cristina +

What? To fix me thus meant nothing
But I can’t tell . .. there’s my weakness...
What her look said !—no vile cant, sure,
About ‘need to strew the bleakness
Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed,
That the Sea feels’—no ‘strange yearning
That such souls have, most to lavish

Where there’s chance of least returning.’

Oh, we’re sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho’ seldom, are denied us,
When the spirit’s true endowments
Stand out plainly from its false ones,
And apprise it if pursuing
Or the right way or the wrong way,
To its triumph or undoing.+ Cristina

There are flashes struck from midnights,
There are fire-flames noondays kindle,

Whereby piled-up honours perish,
Whereby swoln ambitions dwindle,

While just this or that poor impulse,
Which for once had play unstifled,

seems the sole work of a life-time

That away the rest have trifled.ee ee ee Ap mare 9 ne ee
, Hl <<. st Pings Pe

. a

- ta eh eeeieanat <7 totem eencteaminer naam te
re ws

 

    
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

The Lost Mistress

 

THE LOST MISTRESS

ALL’S over, then—does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes P

Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day ;

One day more bursts them open fully

—You know the red turns gray.+ The Lost Mistress

To-morrow we meet the same, dearest ?
May I take your hand in mine?

Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I'll resign:

For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart’s endeavour,—
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,

Though it stays in my soul for ever !—

—Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger ;

I will hold your hand but as long as all may,

Or so very little longer!ann en, ey. nN
ma eae rf t Ma ic aes -

+

AMS Fah od ane eee

  

ee eet Secor ae Salad eee tina
os ore

 

SONG

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

Nay, but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught—speak truth—above her ?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall!

Because you spend your lives in praising ;

To praise, you search the wide world OVEr ;
50, why not witness, calmly gazing,

If earth holds aught—speak truth—above her?
Above this tress, and this I touch

But cannot praise, I love so much!SMe Eee Frere age

  

A Woman’s Last Word

  
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 

A WOMAN’S LAST WORD

LET’S contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep—
All be as before, Love,

—Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
—I and thou

In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!A Woman’s Last Word

   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

See the creature stalking
While we speak—

Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?

Where the serpent’s tooth is,
Shun the tree—

Where the apple reddens
Never pry—

Lest we lose our Edens,

Eve and I!+ A Woman’s Last Word

 
 

Be a god and hold me

With a charm—

Be a man and fold me

With thine arm!

    
  
 

Teach me, only teach, Love!

As I ought

 

I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought—

 
  
 

Meet, if thou require it,

Both demands,

 

Laying flesh and spirit

In thy hands!A Woman’s Last Word

   
  
 
 
 
  
  

That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:

I must bury sorrow
Out of sight.

—Must a little weep, Love,
—Foolish me!

And so fall asleep, Love,

Loved by thee.+ Evelyn Hope

EVELYN HOPE

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead,
Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass.
Little has yet been changed, I think—
The shutters are shut, no light may pass
Save two long rays thro’ the hinge’s chink.Evelyn Hope

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 

Sixteen years old when she died!
Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name—

Sa a thane Se ee CT ey ry
. a ’ mt! eg

It was not her time to love: beside,

————~ a

Her life had many a hope and aim,

Duties enough and little cares,
And now was quiet, now astir—
‘Till God’s hand beckoned unawares,

And the sweet white brow is all of her.

+ eadannineacde7 toten ceutiemainr name ta
on He

It is too late then, Evelyn Hope?
What, your soul was pure and true,
The good stars met in your horoscope,
Made you of spirit, fire and dew—
And just because I was thrice as old,
And our paths in the world diverged so wide
Fach was naught to each, must I be told?
We were fellow mortals, naught beside ?

28+ Evelyn Hope

No, indeed! for God above
Is great to grant, as mighty to make,
And creates the love to reward the love,—
I claim you still, for my own love’s sake!
Delayed it may be for more lives yet,
Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few—
Much is to learn and much to forget
Ere the time be come for taking you.

But the time will come,—at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say,
In the lower earth, in the years long still,

That body and soul so pure and gay?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium’s red—
And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one’s stead.

31

vwEvelyn Hope -

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then,
Given up myself so many times,

Gained me the gains of various men,
Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes;

Yet one thing, one, in my soul’s full scope,
Either I missed or itself missed me—

And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope!
What is the issue? let us see!

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while;
My heart seemed full as it could hold—

There was place and to spare for the frank
young smile

And the red young mouth and the hair’s
young gold.

50, hush,—I will give you this leaf to keep—
see, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand.
There, that is our secret! go to sleep;
You will wake, and remember, and understand.

<o 2Love Among the Ruins

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS

WHERE the quiet-coloured end of evening
smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or
stop
As they crop—

Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far

Peace or war.
Cc 33Love Among the Ruins +

Now—the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,

To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills

Intersect and give a name to (else they run
Into one),

Where the domed and daring palace shot its
spires
Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be
prest,
Twelve abreast.

And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!

Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’erspreads
And embeds

Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,

Stock or stone—
otoes |

SRP POEL Eager re -  ece

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

+ Love Among the Ruins

Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of
shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.

Now,—the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom
winks
Through the chinks—

Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient
time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames

Viewed the games.
3i

—

At aie

a be mnie Ae meer a naam me
4 St ts pe

2K. caen thietaeeainecenalats tind eaten nena nem ee ee
Rar rr eee

    
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
   

Love Among the Ruins +

And I know, while thus the quiet-coloured eve
Smiles to leave

To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,

And the slopes and rills in undistinguished grey
Melt away—

That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret, whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now,
breathless, dumb
‘Till I come.

But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the
glades’
Colonnades,

All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts,—and then,
All the men !

36+ Love Among the Ruins

When I do come, she will speak not, she will
stand,
Fither hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,

Fre we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Fach on each.

In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and north,

And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky,

Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
Gold, of course.

Oh, heart! oh, blood that freezes, blood that
burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the
rest.
Love is best!ee
ae ? apes? ia

—

Cake tee

Two in the Campagna

a alt le ae ee oe eS
a: Vey eee

    
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
   

TWO IN THE CAMPAGNA

I WONDER do you feel to-day
As I have felt, since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalised me many times,

(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes

To catch at and let go.Ditch hans renin aa the nies ee oe

es

      
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
   

+ Two in the Campagna

Help me to hold it: first it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed

There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed

Took up the floating weft,

Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles,—blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal,—-and last
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it Holdittase!

The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere !

Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air—

Rome’s ghost since her decease.Two in the Campagna +

Such life there, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,

Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting Nature have her way

While Heaven looks from its towers.

How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,

As earth lies bare to heaven above.
How is it under our control

To love or not to love ?

I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more—
Nor yours, nor mine,—nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? what the core
Of the wound, since wound must be?

40ities NED AGAR. ee ee Sian ct

es

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

+ Two in the Campagna

I would I could adopt your will,

See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill

At your soul’s springs,—your part, my part

In life, for good and ill.

No. I yearn upward—touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,

Catch your soul’s warmth,—I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak —

Then the good minute goes.

Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onvard, whenever light winds blow,

Fixed by no friendly star?Two in the Campagna +

Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern—
Infinite passion and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.A Serenade at the Villa

A SERENADE AT THE WILEs

THAT was I, you heard last night
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight

Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead, and so was light.

Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm.
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forebore a term,

You heard music; that was I.eee 1 2 ; one it w > : “yr

es

SE eo

a tt ee eas ee ee
— a

Sok aoe he

 

   
  
 
   
  
 
   
 
   
  
 

A Serenade at the Villa +

Farth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
In at heaven and out again,
Lightning !—where it broke the roof,
Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing’s best was done,
To my lute I left the rest.

SO wore night; the east was grey,

White the broad-faced hemlock flowers ;
Soon would come another day ;

Fre its first of heavy hours
Found me, I had past away.

44+ A Serenade at the Villa

What became of all the hopes,
Words and song and lute as well?
Say, this struck you—‘ When life gropes
Feebly for the path where fell
Light last on the evening slopes.

‘One friend in that path shall be
To secure my steps from wrong ;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.’

Never say—as something bodes—
‘So the worst has yet a worse!
When life halts ‘neath double loads,
Better the task-master’s curse
Than such music on the roads!A Serenade at the Villa +

‘When no moon succeeds the sun,

Nor can pierce the midnight’s tent
Any star, the smallest one,

While some drops, where lightning went,
Show the final storm begun—

‘When the fire-fly hides its spot,
When the garden-voices fail
In the darkness thick and hot,—

Shall another voice avail,

‘That shape be where those are not?

“Has some plague a longer lease
Proffering ‘ts help uncouth ?
Can't one even die in peace?
As one shuts one’s eyes on youth,
Is that face the last one sees ?’

46een eneteeei 7]

+ A Serenade at the Villa

Oh, how dark your villa was,

Windows fast and obdurate !
Flow the garden grudged me grass

Where I stood-—the iron gate
Ground its teeth to let me pass!ee. | a

One Way of Love

AL Rak a ea Ce eg eee oo EP
pee Pony ee

 
  
 
  
  
  
   
 
 
 
 
  

ONE WAY OF LOVE

ALL June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves,

And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!

Let them lie. Suppose they die?

The chance was they might take her eye.

How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.

She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string—fold music’s wing.

Suppose Pauline had bade me sing’!
48+ One Way of Love

My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion.—Heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? ’Tis well!
Lose who may—I still can say,

Those who win heaven, blest are they.a,

Ae aha 6

Rt nn ew

Socameninsecdieets tindenteceatemeiinaieeneh oman

Scent

Another Way of Love

   
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

ANOTHER WAY OF LOVE

JUNE was not over,
Though past the full,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
When aman I know
(But shall not discover,
Since ears are dull,
And time discloses)
Turned him and said with a man’s true air,
Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as ‘twere,—
‘Tf I tire of your June, will she greatly care?’Another Way of Love

Well, Dear, in-doors with you!

 

True, serene deadness

 

Tries a man’s temper.
What’s in the blossom

June wears on her bosom?

 
  

Can it clear scores with you?

 

Sweetness and redness,

 

Eadem semper!

 

Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!

 

If June mends her bowers now, your hand left
unsightly

  

By plucking their roses,—my June will do

rightly.ee ee a
Rae Seer eee n a.

coe te

Another Way of Love

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And after, for pastime,
If June be refulgent
With flowers in completeness,
All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,—
And choose One indulgent
To redness and sweetness :
Or if, with experience of man and of spider,
She use my June-lightning, the strong insect-
ridder,
To stop the fresh spinning,—why, June will

consider.+ Another Way of Love

Doubt you if, in some such moment,
As she fixed me, she felt clearly,
Ages past the soul existed,
Here an age tis resting merely,
And hence, fleets again for ages:
While the true end, sole and single,
It stops here for is, this love-way,
With some other soul to mingle?

Else it Ipses ‘what it lived:
And eternally must losé it:
Better, énds ntayy be in rbsbeets:
Deeper blisses, if you choose it,
But this life’s end and this love-bliss

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Have been lost here. Doubt you whether

This she felt, as, looking at me,
Mine and her soul rushed together ?ONS a a
$ ek ere ¥
tas

eee

See al eae Seine 7

odes

aM Wea

    
  
 
 
 
   
 
   
  
 
 
 

Another Way of Love +

Oh, observe! Of course, next moment,
The world’s honours, in derision,

Trampled out the light for ever:
Never fear but there’s provision

Of the Devil’s to quench knowledge
Lest we walk the earth in rapture !

— Making those who catch God’s secret

Just so much more prize their capture.

ec €© ¢

Such art. d: ‘the, seeret's 1 inine | now |
She has lost met have gained her!
Her soul's j iniiiie!: : “and: ‘thus, grown perfect,
I shall pass my life’s remainder,
Life will just hold out the proving
Both our powers, alone and blended—
And then, come the next life quickly!

This world’s use will have been ended.Love in a lite

LOVE IN A EIEE

Room after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find
her,

Next time, herself !—not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume !

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed
anew,—

Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her
feather.

Yet the day wears,

And door succeeds door;

I try the fresh fortune—

Range the wide house from the wing to the

centre.
55Life in a Love +

Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?

But ’tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to
explore.

such closets to search, such alcoves to
importune!

PIBE INA LOVE

ESCAPE me?
Never —
Beloved !
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,

While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
56Life in a Love

My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
‘Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—
But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chace takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed !Women and Roses

WOMEN AND ROSES

I

I DREAM of a red-rose tree
And which of its roses three

Is the dearest rose to me?

IT

Round and round, like a dance of snow

In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,

Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.

Then follow the women fresh and gay,

Living and loving and loved to-day.

Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties unborn. And all, to one cadence,

They circle their rose on my rose tree.
58Women and Roses

IIf

Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached.
Bees pass it unimpeached.

IV

Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,

You, great shapes of the antique time!

How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh! to possess, and be possessed!

Hearts that beat ’neath each pallid breast !
But once of love, the poesy, the passion,

Drink once and die!—In vain, the same fashion

They circle their rose on my rose tree.Women and Roses

V

Dear rose, thy joys undimmed ;
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup’s heart nectar-brimmed.

VI

Deep as drops from a statue’s plinth

The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,

So will I bury me while burning,

Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,
Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!

Fold me fast where the cincture slips,

Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure!
Girdle me once! But no—in their old measure

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

60Women and Roses

Vil

Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud’s the babe unborn :

First streak of a new morn.

VII!

Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!

What's far conquers what is near.

Roses will bloom nor want beholders,

Sprung from the dust where our own flesh
moulders.

What shall arrive with the cycle’s change?

A novel grace and a beauty strange.

I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,

Shaped her to his mind! Alas! in like manner

They circle their rose on my rose tree.

 

PRINTED AT THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND II YOUNG STREET.

6tTHE BROADWAY BOOKLETS

ARNOLD (Matthew). Sohrab. and Rustum.
—- The Scholar Gipsy, Forsaken Merman, etc.

BLAKE (William). Songs of Innocence.
BROWN (Dr J.). Rab and his Friends.

BROWNING (Robert). Christmas Eve.
— Dramatic Lyrics.
——-———_-—— Pippa Passes.

—-— - —-- The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

BROWNING (Elizabeth B.). Sonnets from the Portuguese.
Christian Life in Sacred Song.

COLERIDGE (S. T.). Christabel.
—_—————— The Ancient Mariner, etc.

Elizabethan Lyrics.

FITZGERALD (Edward). Euphranor.

GOLDSMITH (0.). The Traveller. Illus. by Birket Foster.
GRAY (Thomas). Elegy written in a Country Churchyard.
HORACE. Odes: translated by several hands.

IRVING (Washington). Old Christmas.

KEATS (J.). Isabella, or the Pot of Basil.
————~-— The Eve of St Agnes.

LAMPSON (Locker). London Lyrics.
MACAULAY (Lord). Lays of Ancient Rome.

OMAR KHAYYAM. Rubdaiyat: trans. by E. Fitzgerald, with
4 Plates by Jessie King.

POE (E. A.). The Raven, The Bells, etc.

Punch and Judy: the genuine version. TIllus. by Cruikshank.
ROSSETTI (Christina G.). Goblin Market.

ROSSETTI (D. G.). The Blessed Damozel.

SCHILLER (F. v.). Lay of the Bell: trans. by Lord Lytton.

SHAKESPEARE (W.). Songs from, with reproductions of the
etchings of The Etching Club.

SHELLEY (P. B.). Adonais.
Spirit of Mischief (The): A Collection of Poems about Children.

ee oon (Lord). A Dream of Fair Women, and The Palace
of Art.

 

——_———. Elaine.

—_——_—— Guinevere. } each with 4 Plates by Jessie King.
aS ea Morte d’ Arthur.

VIRGIL. Pastorals: trans. by John Sargeaunt, M.A.
WHITMAN (Walt). Leaves of Grags: selected.a

ete ne)

aD Ni a a
ag Se

a

”

f
d
H
1
rl
iN
:

eh

i ie gh

ary
ee
oo)

2

ee @

i

i

Pee «anid wae . £8 ma f
Fr er nen go innsALDERMAN LIBRARY

The return of this book is due on the date
indicated below

DUE DUE

 

-

ed

ened

:
i
i
iF
i
'
:
tGOl S41 735