Only tell me what reply I am forty-more's the pity. Kitty nothing but a baby. She is merriment and mirth, I am wise and gravely witty; She's the dearest thing on earth, I am forty-more's the pity. She adores my pretty rhymes, Calls me "poet" when I write them; And she listens oftentimes Half an hour when I recite them. Let me scribble by the page Sonnet, ode, or lover's ditty; Seventeen is Kitty's age I am forty-more's the pity. HENRY S. Leigh. (Gillott and Goosequill.) LOVE that asketh love again, Love, exacting nothing back, AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, Thirty Years. (Macmillan.) TEMPORA MUTANTUR, NOS ET I ONCE believed those simple folk Of mere conventionality. I thought the light of maidens' eyes, Their smiles and all the rest, Were not mere baits to catch rich flies And landed interest. I once believed (which only shows I once believed that matrimony I once imagined (in my youth) I also fancied (but I own My verdure was delicious) I did not think the Greeks were right- The accusative case γάμον. The past ideas agree but ill With our enlightened present; A man without finances? J. H. GIBBS. The Quadrilateral. (A volume of poems by three Oxford friends.) LOVE seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease. WILLIAM BLAKE. THERE is travel deep in woods, And travel high in air, And travel over wide green seas, And amid the cities fair. You may follow the wandering swallow, Into the sunset sail. But more than yield the wide seas, A man may find in his own heart Topaz-hued cider-cup cool and delectable Stands by my head (a right excellent brew), While 'twixt my lips rests a very respectable Weed, that I'm sure in Havana once grew. Opposite me in diaphanous drapery, Some one is seated pretending to steer, Daintily toying with spoils from the grapery, Paying small heed to our shallop's career. Thus at our ease we float onward deliciously, Thinking of nothing and hardly awake, Save when a wasp all unasked and officiously Strives in his way our acquaintance to make. When we embarked I had views matrimonial, Meaning to ask my companion to wed, Soon all is changed, for the heat-Torrid-zonialDrives such intentions right out of my head. SOMERVILLE Gibney. SONG. GIVE me back my heart, fair child; Be you warned: your own is brittle! In a momentary laughter, Lost it, and you cannot find it." You have bound and must unbind it. Set it free then from your net, Love is trouble, love is folly : Love, that makes an old heart young, Makes a young heart melancholy. AUBREY DE Vere. THE LOVER'S DAY. GORSE-PLAINS that flower their gold into the streams Sea-floods that weave their blue and purple seams; Those lovers tire not when the sun is pale; Stretched back, as if with wings that cannot flee: They watch him as he piles his busy deck. With golden treasure; as his sail expands; They see him sink; they gaze upon the wreck Through the still twilight of the silvery sands. One cloud is left to the deserted lands: The blue-set moon's cold-fleck. Poems, Miscellaneous and Sacred. (Burns and Oates.) They linger though the pageant hath gone by: TOO HOT. CLAD in white flannel, and lolling most lazily Down in the bows of our slow-drifting boat, Watching the gnats as they skim about mazily Over our heads, as in silence we float The opal cloud is lit o'er sea and plain; The moon is full of one day's memory, And tells the tale of Nature o'er again, Its glory mingled in the soul's refrain Under that lover's sky. THOMAS GORDON HAKE. Legends of the Morrow. (Chatto and Windus.) Your feet in the full-grown grasses A. C. SWINBURNE. Poems and Ballads; First Series. (Chatto and Windus.) LOVE'S STRESS. ABOUT my love, oh Love, why do I sing? Can'st thou by my weak words my great love know, Or can I hope that any words should show The exquisite interchange of June with Spring, That makes thy sweet soul the divine, strange thing Of which no man the memory lets go Once having known? What breath have I to blow The clarion with thy praises echoing? I sing not for thy sake, nor for men's sake- PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. [From Time, by kind permission of Messrs. Kelly and Co.] As taking in mind as in feature, AN INTERLUDE. IN the greenest growth of the Maytime, WHITE ROSES. SHE sat by her open piano, Under lavish gold of her hair, And loosed the tide of her playing On the stillness of evening air: Like a spring-tide surging and spreading, In celestial strength and grace, From her magical floating fingers, And the peace of her white-rose face. Ah! what words for that saintly music, And the lawns, and the laurel shade. As the birth of the summer dew. Too brief was that glimpse of heaven, By that rapturous, melodied space, And the dream on her white-rose face. WILLIAM WILKINS. Songs of Study. (K. Paul) DEPRECIATING HER BEAUTY. I LOVE not thy perfections. When I hear Crying, "Be these your gods, O Israel!" I found thee with eyes bleared and cheeks all pale, Love Sonnets of Proteus. (K. Paul.) WHILE roses are so red, While lilies are so white, Shall a woman exalt her face, Because it gives delight? She's not so sweet as a rose, A lily's straighter than she, And if she were as red or white, She'd be but one of three. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. Poems. (Macmillan and Co.) FALSE OR TRUE? TRUTH frequently lies, I've oft heard tell, CROCUS-GATHERING. COME, gather the crocus-cups with me, And dream of the summer coming: Saffron and purple and snowy white, All awake to the first bee's humming. The white is there for the maiden-heart, And the purple is there for sorrow : The saffron is there for the true true love, And they'll all be dead to-morrow. SEBASTIAN EVANS. Brother Fabian's Manuscript. (Macmillan and Co.) VIOLETS AT HOME. O HAPPY buds of violet ! I give them to my sweet, and she Puts them where something sweeter yet Must always be. White violets find whiter rest: For fairest flowers how fair a fate! For me remain, O fragrant breast! Inviolate. MORTIMER COLLINS. The Inn of Strange Meetings. (K. Paul.) [EXTRACT.] LOVE, like an odour-bearing dew, distils. From her heart's flower, and with its innocence Sweetens her soul, and all her senses fills With the new, heavenly sense. Soon is her face with the love-witchery lit, But when another comes its sweets to glean She is all love and one her love would claim, As though the hills were on her eyelids piled In sight of him she loved. Her thoughts are only tendril-like entwined Even thus perturbed, such love-allurements crowd THOMAS GORDON HAKE. SAYNTE VALENTYNE: HYS DAYE. A CROCUS here, a snowdrop there, A breath of Winter in the air; In windless hollows hopeful hints Of later Spring's transmuting tints; In valley dank, on chilly down, The green grass climbing through the brown; Or Shakespeare's sweetest flowers. Shy boy and coyly-conscious maid- Where "Valentyne Hys Daye" wears And many a blooming spray bears Thy custom, Saynte, it speaks the truth, Till "Valentyne Hys Daye" hath Shrive the sad soul that doth not stir "Saynte Valentyne Hys Daye!" time BYRON WEbber. PROPHETIC BIRDS. ON May-morn two lovers stood The birds talked over their fate unseen. 66 Sure," ," said the thrush, "we'll wed them soon ;" "Yea," said the turtle-dove," in June; "They'll make fine sport ere the year is out," Said the magpie between a laugh and a shout. And heedlessly the lovers heard The senseless babble of bird with bird. "Sure," croaked the jackdaw, "in July They'll quarrel, or no daw am I Why, let them, since they are but men;" "They can make it up though," quoth the wren. And heedlessly the lovers heard A senseless babble of bird with bird. "Love with them shall be sweet, ere sad," Said the goldfinch,-"August shall make them glad." "Yea," said the oriole, " one rich noon They shall lengthen love in a golden swoon." But a senseless babble of bird with bird. "My news is from Prince Popinjay," This senseless babble of bird with bird. But a nightingale in a far-off shade ARTHUR W. E. O'SHAUGHNESSY. Music and Moonlight. (Chatto and Windus.) |