Part 17

Crimson and cream and white-- My room is a garden of roses! Centre and left and right, Three several splendid posies.

As the sender is, they are sweet, These lovely gifts of your sending, With the stifling summer heat Their delicate fragrance blending.

What more can my heart desire? Has it lost the power to be grateful? Is it only a burnt-out fire, Whose ashes are dull and hateful?

Yet still to itself it doth say, 'I should have loved far better To have found, coming in to-day, The merest scrap of a letter.'

IN TIME OF SORROW

Despair is in the suns that shine, And in the rains that fall, This sad forsaken soul of mine Is weary of them all.

They fall and shine on alien streets From those I love and know. I cannot hear amid the heats The North Sea's freshening flow

The people hurry up and down, Like ghosts that cannot lie; And wandering through the phantom town The weariest ghost am I.

A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE--FROM VICTOR HUGO

If a pleasant lawn there grow By the showers caressed, Where in all the seasons blow Flowers gaily dressed, Where by handfuls one may win Lilies, woodbine, jessamine, I will make a path therein For thy feet to rest.

If there live in honour's sway An all-loving breast Whose devotion cannot stray, Never gloom-oppressed-- If this noble breast still wake For a worthy motive's sake, There a pillow I will make For thy head to rest.

If there be a dream of love, Dream that God has blest, Yielding daily treasure-trove Of delightful zest, With the scent of roses filled, With the soul's communion thrilled, There, oh! there a nest I'll build For thy heart to rest.

THE FIDDLER

There's a fiddler in the street, And the children all are dancing: Two dozen lightsome feet Springing and prancing.

Pleasure he gives to you, Dance then, and spare not! For the poor fiddler's due, Know not and care not.

While you are prancing, Let the fiddler play. When you're tired of dancing He may go away.

THE FIRST MEETING

Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight, I held your hand a moment in my own, The dearest moment which my soul has known, Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.

I left you, and I wandered in the night, Under the rain, beside the ocean's moan. All was black dark, but in the north alone There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.

My heart was singing like a happy bird, Glad of the present, and from forethought free, Save for one note amid its music heard: God grant, whatever end of this may be, That when the tale is told, the final word May be of peace and benison to thee.

A CRITICISM OF CRITICS

How often have the critics, trained To look upon the sky Through telescopes securely chained, Forgot the naked eye.

Within the compass of their glass Each smallest star they knew, And not a meteor could pass But they were looking through.

When a new planet shed its rays Beyond their field of vision, And simple folk ran out to gaze, They laughed in high derision.

They railed upon the senseless throng Who cheered the brave new light. And yet the learned men were wrong, The simple folk were right.

MY LADY

My Lady of all ladies! Queen by right Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods; With eyes that look divine beatitudes, Large eyes illumined with her spirit's light;

Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight, Breathing such music as the dove, which broods Within the dark and silence of the woods, Croons to the mate that is her heart's delight.