No More Learning

TO-DAY we will not cross the garden railing,
For sometimes swiftly, yet in ways unclear,
This soft caressing or this sweet exhaling,
With long-forgotten joy again draws near:
And thus it brings us ghosts which goad and harass,
And anguish rendering weary and afraid.
Behold beneath the tree upon the terrace
The many corpses from the tempest's raid.
From off the gateway's rusting iron asters,
5The birds take flight to far sequestered greens,
? And others shiv'ring on the stone pilasters
* Drink raindrops from the hollow flower-steens,
27

? The Conquest of Summer
THE blue-toned campions and the blood-red poppies
Escape the murmuring and fleeting grain!
O wander without brooding through these valleys,
Through every oft-entwining path again.
Bestow no heed to signs upon the beeches,
The hand that carved them once now hangs effete,
And be not deaf to other names and speeches:
To young and fresher stems your steps entreat.
Forget the anguish and the ancient bleedings,
The wounds engendered by the thorny rind,
And leaves of arid hours, and empty pleadings,
O'ertrample them and leave them all behind.
28

? DOTH still before thee rise the beauteous image
Of him who high the cliff for roses scales,
Who nigh forgets the day amidst the scrimmage,
Who fullest honey from the bunch inhales?
Who oft towards the park for quiet wandered
When far a bird allured him o'er the lea,
Who sat beside the tranquil pool and pondered,
And listened to the silent secrecy?
And from the moss-crowned island slowly gliding
The swan forsook the fountain's mellow note,
Within his noble infant-hand confiding
The virgin frailty of its slender throat.
29

? Solemn Dances
THERE laughs in the heightening year, Sweet,
The scent from the garden benign.
Weaves in thy fluttering hair, Sweet,
Ivy and celandine.
The wavering corn is like gold, still,
Perhaps not so rich nor so hale,
Roses with greetings unfold still,
Be though their bloom something pale.
Let's hush over all that's denied us,
Let's promise at peace to remain,
Though everything else be decried us
But still a stroll-round atwain.
30

? THE blissful meadows beckoned. To the stile
She came o'er violet carpets soft, attired,
To meet the harvest bridegroom, as erewhile,
To be his truelove till the feast expired.
Only a lark that sang within the grove,
Beheld her start; beheld her secret blushes.
And as the lengthening days of summer throve,
She sighed, then withered by the waving rushes.
And left--her slender sweetness to divine,
Alone a necklace wreathed with silken tresses,
(With which a godly friend arrayed her shrine)
A marble block amid the weeds and cresses.
NIGHT of grief and gloom 1
Black velvet covering veils
Footsteps in the room
Wherein thy love travails.
His death wrought thy desire,
Now look how mute and wan
He rests upon the pyre.
Around him tapers burn.
The tapers slowly fade
Thou speedest from these halls,
Now that thy love is dead--
And sound of weeping falls.
31

? I KNOW you step within mine house
Like some-one who to grief is prone,
Who wearies when in rude carouse,
The viols twixt the columns drone.
Here no man treadeth oft nor loud,
Through casement comes the Autumn balm,
Here to the hopeless, hope is vowed,
To pleadings, tendered words of calm.
On entering, soft, a touch of hand,
And at the dole of parting-time,
A kiss, with an adornment bland,
As farewell gift: a gentle rhyme.