Chapter II

Come let us a posy make
Sweet with lasting flowers to-day!
Gather roses, dear, and break
Pinks in bud and sprigs of bay,
Myrtle, violets, woodruff, rue,
Lavender and featherfew.

Trim it round with southern-wood,
Grey and sweet as honest age;
Ladies’ bedstraw fresh and good;
Lilac thyme and silvery sage.
Kiss it last, and let it lie
With my letters—till it die!

_Thanksgiving for Flowers._

You bring me flowers—behold my shaded room
Is grown all glorious and alive with Light.
Moonshine of pallid primroses, and bright
Daffodil-suns that light the way o’ the tomb.
You bring me dreams—through sleep’s close-lidded gloom,
Sad violets mourn for Sappho all the night,
Where purple saffrons make antique delight
Mid crown’d memorials of Narcissus’ doom.

A scent of herbs now sets me musing on
Men dead i’ the fennel-beds on Marathon:
My flowers, my dreams and I shall lie as dead!
Flowers fade, dreams wake, men die; but never dies
The soul whereby these things were perfected,—
This leaves the world on flower with memories.

_Poplar Leaves._

The wind blows down the dusty street;
And through my soul that grieves—
It brings a sudden odour sweet:
A smell of poplar leaves.

O leaves that herald in the spring,
O freshness young and pure,
Into my weary soul you bring
The vigour to endure.

The wood is near, but out of sight,
Where all the poplars grow;
Straight up and tall and silver white,
They quiver in a row.

My love is out of sight, but near;
And through my soul that grieves
A sudden memory wafts her here
As fresh as poplar leaves.

_A Rifiorita._

Flowers in the wall!
How could he leave the house where he was born?
(_We children played together
In warm or wintry weather_)
How could he leave the house where he was born?
I count the stones for him and love them all.
(_We children played together
In warm or wintry weather_).

Flowers on the stone!
The Siren loves the sea, but I the Past!
(_We children played together
In warm or wintry weather_)
The Siren loves the sea, but I the Past!
Upon my rock I sing alone, alone,—
(_We children played together
In warm or wintry weather_).

_Le Roi Est Mort._

And shall I weep that Love’s no more,
And magnify his reign?
Sure never mortal man before,
Would have his grief again.
Farewell the long-continued ache,
The days a-dream, the nights awake,
I will rejoice and merry make,
And never more complain.

King Love is dead and gone for aye,
Who ruled with might and main,
For with a bitter word one day,
I found my tyrant slain,
And he in Heathenesse was bred,
Nor ever was baptized, ’tis said,
Nor is of any creed, and dead
Can never rise again.

_Lethe._

Come with me to Lethe-lake,
Come, since Love is o’er,
He whose thirst those waters slake,
Thirsteth nevermore.
There the sleepy hemlock grows
In the night-shade ranks,
Crimson poppies rows on rows
Flush its quiet banks.

Drink with me of Lethe-lake
Deep and deeper yet,
Drink with me for dead Love’s sake
Drink till we forget.
Since our roses are all dead,
Lost our laurel-boughs,
Let these poppies hang instead
Round our aching brows.

_Sonnet._

God sent a poet to reform His earth.
But when he came and found it cold and poor,
Harsh and unlovely, where each prosperous boor
Held poets light for all their heavenly birth,
He thought—Myself can make one better worth
The living in than this—full of old lore,
Music and light and love, where Saints adore
And Angels, all within mine own soul’s girth.

But when at last he came to die, his soul
Saw earth (flying past to Heaven) with new love,
And all the unused passion in him cried:
O God, your Heaven I know and weary of.
Give me this world to work in and make whole,
God spoke: Therein, fool, thou hast lived and died!

_Two Lovers._

I.

I love my lover; on the heights above me
He mocks my poor attainment with a frown.
I, looking up as he is looking down,
By his displeasure guess he still doth love me;
For his ambitious love would ever prove me
More excellent than I as yet am shown:
So, straining for some good ungrasped, unknown,
I vainly would become his image of me.

And, reaching through the dreadful gulfs that sever
Our souls, I strive with darkness nights and days,
Till my perfected work towards him I raise,
Who laughs thereat, and scorns me more than ever;
Yet his upbraiding is beyond all praise.
This lover that I love I call: Endeavour.