Chapter IV

The day draweth nearer, And morrow ends our meeting, Ere they take thee sleeping Be up--away, my treasure!

Soft, leave her breasts all unheeded, Far hence though the master still remaineth! For soon uptil our earth regaineth The sun all embraces dividing. N'er grew pleasure all unimpeded, N'er was delight lest passion won, And to the wise man the fit occasion Has not yet refused a full measure: Be up--away, my treasure!

If that my love thy bosom inflameth With honest purpose and just intention, To free me from my soul's contention Give over joys the day shameth; Who thee lameth he also me lameth, And my good grace builds all in thy good grace; Be up--away! Fear leaveth place, That thou art here, no more unto pleasure, Be up--away, my treasure!

Although thou with a sleep art wresting, 'Tis rightful thou bringst it close, That of the favour one meeting shows An hundred may hence be attesting. 'Tis fitting too thou shouldst be mindful That the ease which we lose now, in kind, full Many a promise holds for our leisure; Ere they take thee sleeping; Be up--away, my treasure!

Hic Jacet

The coroner's merry little children
Have such twinkling brown eyes.
Their father is not of gay men
And their mother jocular in no wise,
Yet the coroner's merry little children
Laugh so easily.

They laugh because they prosper.
Fruit for them is upon all branches.
Lo! how they jibe at loss, for
Kind heaven fills their little paunches!
It's the coroner's merry, merry children
Who laugh so easily.

Contemporania

The corner of a great rain Steamy with the country Has fallen upon my garden.

I go back and forth now And the little leaves follow me Talking of the great rain, Of branches broken, And the farmer's curses!

But I go back and forth In this corner of a garden And the green shoots follow me Praising the great rain.

We are not curst together, The leaves and I, Framing devices, flower devices And other ways of peopling The barren country.

Truly it was a very great rain That makes the little leaves follow me.

To wish Myself Courage

On the day when youth is no more upon me I will write of the leaves and the moon in a tree top! I will sing then the song, long in the making-- When the stress of youth is put away from me.

How can I ever be written out as men say? Surely it is merely an interference with the long song-- This that I am now doing.

But when the spring of it is worn like the old moon And the eaten leaves are lace upon the cold earth-- Then I will rise up in my great desire-- Long at the birth--and sing me the youth-song!

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LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.