PHYLLIS AND CORYDON
Phyllis took a red rose from the tangles of her hair,—
Time, the Golden Age; the place, Arcadia, anywhere,—
Phyllis laughed, the saucy jade: "Sir Shepherd, wilt
have this,
Or"—Bashful god of skipping lambs and oaten reeds!
—"a kiss?"
Bethink thee, gentle Corydon! A rose lasts all night
long,
A kiss but slips from off your lips like a thrush's
evening song.
A kiss that goes, where no one knows! A rose, a
crimson rose!
Corydon made his choice and took—Well, which do
you suppose?
MAYING
Get up, sweet-slug-a-bed!—Herrick.
And Phillida with garlands gaye
Was made the lady of the Maye.—Nicholas Breton.
Come, Phillida, come! for the hours are fleet,
And sweet are the soft meadow murmurs, and sweet
Are the merry May flowers that long for thy feet.
Come, Phillida, come!
They are waiting to make thee their Lady of May,
And have twined in the midst of the marigolds gay
A little red flower; for pity, they say;
Thou knowest for whom.
And lovers are sighing among the green brake,
And birds in their flying soft madrigals make.
Hark! hear the girls crying, and all for thy sake.
Come, Phillida, come!
TWO LITTLE MAIDS
Two little maids went roaming, roaming,
All in the fields alone.
"Suppose that a boy were coming, coming,
Over the fields," said one, said one,
To the other little maid said one.
Then the second little maid fell dreaming, dreaming.
"He'll bring me a rose," said she.
"He won't! You are always scheming, scheming,
As horrid as you can be!" Dear me!
As horrid as she could be.
Two little maids in a fury, fury,
No little boy in view,
And this is the end of the story. Sorry!
Why didn't they make it two? Eheu!
So simple to make him two!
TWENTY YEARS HENCE
Twenty years hence, some fading day,
Will you through this green orchard stray,
With thoughts afar
On golden hours we freely spent,
And bought the merchandise, content,
At Time's bazaar?
You'll say—"He puffed the smoke in rings;
We talked of books, and other things;
Devised a plot;
Together wove some idle rhymes
Of coloured threads that matched sometimes,
And sometimes not.
"The oriole from his chosen tree
Made better poetry than we,
About his nest.
Soft paced the hours like clouds, until
There rose a poem better still
Far in the west."
Twenty years hence! Across the sky
The swift incessant swallows fly.
You'll not forget
The bees, nor how the oriole sung,
Twenty years since, when we were young,
His chansonette?
"Margaret, Margaret!" Some one calls!
"Margaret, come. The night dew falls,
The grass is wet."
Twenty years hence—The lawn is dark,
And the whip-poor-wills are wailing. Hark!
"Margaret! Margaret!"
WITHOUT THE GATE
Spectral birches, slim and white,
Stand apart in the cool moonlight,
The faint thin cries
Of the night arise
And the stars are out in companies.
They are but lamps on your palace stair,
My queen of the night with dusky hair,
Whose heart is a rose
In a garden close
And the gate is shut where the highway goes.
Margaret, Margaret, early and late
I knock and whisper without the gate.
No night wind blows,
Still is the rose,
Noiseless the flowing moonlight flows.
I knock and listen. No sound is heard.
The rose in its fragrance sleeps unstirred.
Early and late
I watch and wait
For the love of a rose by a garden gate.
ANCIEN M'SIEU PIERRE
Was it, Nannette, so long ago?
T rois vingt et—Chut! How time does go!
You must be dead! What do I know! 'Twas long ago.
Your eyes—ah, I remember now!
They seemed to say, "But, Pierre, you're so,
So bad!" And that was long ago,
Long, long ago.
Yes, they were blue. And you stood there,
And then the wind blew out your hair.
How beautiful! how soft! how fair,
Nannette, your hair!
So long it takes one to forget!
I have been glad, and am, and yet,
Sometimes—it's strange—one's eyes are wet.
Nannette! Nannette!
What's that! I dream! Did some one speak?
Her hair was blown across my cheek.
It seemed so. How the shutters creak!
Did some one speak?
CHRISTMAS EVE
The abbot was counting his beads in his cell
With a flagon beside him. The abbot drank well,
And emptied it oft ere the first matin bell.
All quiet, all well.
"Hist! Brother Menander! A word in thine ear.
I'll show thee a way, if the corridor's clear,
To the abbot's own cellar. The abbot may hear?
Never fear! Never fear!"
Oh, Brother Menander, oh, bold Brother John,
Be chary, call wary on Mary her Son!
Ah, Jesu, the moon the cold snow shines on,
How bitter and wan!
So roundly they drank till the first matin bell,
And were caught by the abbot, as chronicles tell.
What would you! 'Twas Christmas Eve. So it befell.
And all quiet and well.
THE CAROL SINGER
Gentles all, or knights or ladies,
Happiness be yours, alway;
Dance and carolling our trade is,
But we sing for love to-day.
Merry lads and dainty lasses
Trip beneath the mistletoe,
Dance to sound of clinking glasses.
Bells are ringing in the snow.
By the look that on your face is,
Sweet, my song is worth a kiss.
There is weeping in cold places,
We must laugh the more in this.
Gentles all, or knights or ladies,
Happiness is yours, alway;
Dance and carolling our trade is,
But we sing for love to-day.
ARCADIE. I
On the road to Arcadie,
Past the mountains, past the sea,
Past the crossways soberly
To Arcadie, to Arcadie.
Pilgrims of a dream are we,
Knowing not if true it be,
But we press on silently
To Arcadie, to Arcadie.
Arcadie! Oh, Arcadie!
We are lost, we cannot see!
For the dust blows bitterly
On the road to Arcadie.
ARCADIE. II
I travelled many winding ways
That weary seemed to me,
In cloudy nights and windy days
To find old Arcadie.
The shepherds by the wayside wept
"We fain would go with thee,
An 'twere not for the sheep we kept,
To far off Arcadie."
Along the selfsame way I fare
And the shepherds ask of me,
"Hast thou seen the sweet land anywhere?"
"Yea, but the people dwelling there
Know not 'tis Arcadie."
MARTIAL TO PLINY
Cum rosa regnat, cum madent capilli,
Nunc me vel rigidi legant Catones.
Come not with wine drops on the hair
To Pliny's gates,
To whom all earnest thoughts repair,
And quiet Wisdom entered there
His bidding waits.
When the rose is queen and the hair is wet
With wine and oil,
Read Martial's verses, and forget
That life is stern, and time a debt
To pay with toil.
LAST YEAR'S NEST
There are no birds in last year's nest.
Where snows have been,
There is no place for love to rest
And nestle in.
Mine were the summer songs, but there
Fell the white cold.
No feathery thoughts now nestle where
They did of old.
EPILOGUE TO A BOOK OF UNIMPORTANT VERSES
An unfair title that forestalls
The judgment of my peers,
An after title that recalls
The hopes of other years,
When words were flowers beside the way,
And the world in rhythm ran,
And grief was dainty, and love was play,
And the breath of death, would scan,
And all the long results of time
Were captives of a happy rhyme.
FINIS
The wind and the rain
And the sunshine again
And the murmur of flies at the window pane!
I weave my rhymes
In the morning betimes,
And it all creeps in with the faint word chimes.
For the wind is there,
Wet skies and fair,
And the buzz of the flies there too somewhere,
And there is the beat
Of the passers' feet
Gone echoing down the hidden street.