Part 5

She can talk about putting a “spirt on” (I admit, an unmaidenly freak), And she dearly delighteth to flirt on A punt in some shadowy creek; Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak, She can swim as a swallow can fly; She can fence, she can put with a cleek, But her forte’s to evaluate π.

She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton, Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique, Old tiles with the secular dirt on, Old marbles with noses to seek. And her Cobet she quotes by the week, And she’s written on κεν and on καὶ, And her service is swift and oblique, But her forte’s to evaluate π.

ENVOY.

Princess, like a rose is her cheek, And her eyes are as blue as the sky, And I’d speak, had I courage to speak, But—her forte’s to evaluate pi.

RONSARD’S GRAVE.

YE wells, ye founts that fall From the steep mountain wall, That fall, and flash, and fleet With silver feet,

Ye woods, ye streams that lave The meadows with your wave, Ye hills, and valley fair, Attend my prayer!

When Heaven and Fate decree My latest hour for me, When I must pass away From pleasant day,

I ask that none my break The marble for my sake, Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre.

Only a laurel tree Shall shade the grave of me, Only Apollo’s bough Shall guard me now!

Now shall I be at rest Among the spirits blest, The happy dead that dwell— Where,—who may tell?

The snow and wind and hail May never there prevail, Nor ever thunder fall Nor storm at all.

But always fadeless there The woods are green and fair, And faithful ever more Spring to that shore!

There shall I ever hear Alcaeus’ music clear, And sweetest of all things There SAPPHO sings.

SAN TERENZO.

(The village in the bay of Spezia, near which Shelley was living before the wreck of the Don Juan.)

MID April seemed like some November day, When through the glassy waters, dull as lead, Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead, Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay, Rounded a point,—and San Terenzo lay Before us, that gay village, yellow and red, The roof that covered Shelley’s homeless head,— His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.

The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again. Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free, When suddenly the forest glades were stirred With waving pinions, and a great sea bird Flew forth, like Shelley’s spirit, to the sea!

1880.

ROMANCE.

MY Love dwelt in a Northern land. A grey tower in a forest green Was hers, and far on either hand The long wash of the waves was seen, And leagues on leagues of yellow sand, The woven forest boughs between!

And through the silver Northern night The sunset slowly died away, And herds of strange deer, lily-white, Stole forth among the branches grey; About the coming of the light, They fled like ghosts before the day!

I know not if the forest green Still girdles round that castle grey; I know not if the boughs between The white deer vanish ere the day; Above my Love the grass is green, My heart is colder than the clay!

BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY.

I SCRIBBLED on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies; A song for summer-time that grieves I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves. Between grey sea and golden sheaves, Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies, I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves Among the shining salmon-flies.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL

Let them boast of Arabia, oppressed By the odour of myrrh on the breeze; In the isles of the East and the West That are sweet with the cinnamon trees Let the sandal-wood perfume the seas; Give the roses to Rhodes and to Crete, We are more than content, if you please, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best With the scent of the limes, when the bees Hummed low ’round the doves in their nest, While the vintagers lay at their ease, Had he sung in our northern degrees, He’d have sought a securer retreat, He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees, With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!