Chapter III: And in the main of living we were glad

That we had left the highway and had grown

To wear our tolerance as a silken gown

And smile at those who went in armour clad;

And old age came upon us, grey and sad,

Stealthy and slow, and passed and passed again

The onward faces of swift journeying men,

Keen with the life of some large Iliad.

Now--for our heads are stricken, our lives are

As flowers sodden in the winter rain--

We, who alive are dead--and whether far

Beyond the snows are blissful births of pain,

Or Rome, or Caesar, we know not--we say,

"There is one way of life, the Roman Way."

FOLLY

Blithe little maid with lifted lips,

Red as a bunch of holly,

What! May I hold your finger tips,

Dear little sweetheart, Folly?

List to a whisper in your ear,

Pink little ear, dear Folly,

While you were gone some one was here,

The Lady Melancholy.

Yes, and she sat in your old place,

This Lady Melancholy.

Ah, well! but she had a lovely face,

Sweet as your face, sweet Folly.

CONCERNING TABITHA'S DANCING OF THE MINUET

Tabitha, sweet Tabitha, I never can forget,

Nor how the music sounded, nor how our glances met,

When underneath the swinging lamps we danced the

minuet.

The stately bow, the dainty poise, and in the music

slips.

Did she linger for a moment, while I held her finger

tips,

And wondered if she'd ever let me touch them to my

lips?

And Tabitha wore powdered hair and dressed in quaint

brocade,

A tiny patch on either cheek just where the dimple

played;

The little shoe I noticed too, and clocks, I am afraid.

The music ceased. I led her softly smiling to the door.

A pause, a rustling courtesy down almost to the floor,

And Tabitha, sweet Tabitha, mine eyes beheld no more.

I've trod in many measures since with widow, wife, and

maid,

In every kind of satin, silk, and spangled lace arrayed,

And through it all have heard the fall of Tabitha's

brocade.

AN IDYL OF THE WOOD

Janet and I went jesting

To the wood, to the wood,

In a visionary, questing,

Idle mood.

"Ah! my heart," I said, "it teaches

I shall find among the beeches

A white nymph in the green reaches

Of the wood."--

"Oh, you will! Then I'll discover,

In the wood, in the wood,

A fairy prince and lover,

Or as good.

He shall kneel and-------"

"Now I spy light!

She shall meet me in the shy light

Of the twittering leaves and twilight

Of the wood,

"And I'll say, 'Here love convinces

Of his powers, of his powers.'"--

"And he'll say, 'Thou shalt be Princess

Of the Flowers.'"--

"And I'll whisper, 'Though thou shinest

As a goddess, love's divinest,

Loveless, lovely, lo! thou pinest

In thy bowers.'"--

And she laughed, with, "Farewell, poet,"--

And I said, "Farewell, maid.

Seek love alone, alone, and know it

Unafraid."--

Was it hours I went unwitting,

Fancy into fancy fitting,

Pallid flowers, and dim birds flitting,

As I strayed?

Till at length, where in profusion

Low and wet, wild and wet,

Fern and branch in shy confusion

Wooed and met,

There I saw her, lifting, peeping--

"Dryad?"--"Prince?"--come whispering, creeping.

Then her eyes were lit and leaping.
'Twas Janet!

Lit and leaping with suggestions.

"Why, it's you!"--"Why, it's you!"

"Yes, but, Jenny, now the question's,

Is it true?

Am I princely to your seeming?

You the dryad of my dreaming,

Born of beech leaves and the gleaming

Of the dew?"

And we put it to the testing

Of a kiss, of a kiss,

And the jesting and the questing

Came to this.

"Tested, tried, and proven neatly,

I should call it true completely."

And Janet said softly, sweetly,.

"So it is."

Oh, the glamour and the glimmer

Of the wood, of the wood,

Where the shadow and the shimmer

Smile and brood,

Where the lips of love laugh folly,

And the eyes of love are holy,

In the radiant melancholy

Of the wood!

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.