Works

There is no length of days
But yours, boys who were children once. Of old
The past beset you in your childish ways,
With sense of Time untold!

What have you then forgone?...

Rorate Coeli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

No sudden thing of glory and fear
Was the Lord's coming; but the dear
Slow Nature's days followed each other...

The colour of the electric lights has a strange effect in giving a complementary tint to the air in the early evening. - ESSAY ON LONDON.

O, Heavenly colour! London town
Has blurred it from her skies;...

Two o'clock, the morning of October 12th, 1915.

To her accustomed eyes
The midnight-morning brought not such a dread
As thrills the chance-awakened head that lies
In trivial sleep on the habitual bed....

"When Augustus Caesar legislated against the unmarried citizens of Rome, he declared them to be, in some sort, slayers of the people."

Ah no, not these!
These, who were childless, are not they who gave...

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,-
My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
He is not banished, though, for this,-
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.
...

As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour
Out by the low sand spaces,
The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore
With lingering embraces,-

So in the tide of life that carries me...

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-
The thought of thee-and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
...

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
Since it had come to full flower-time.
I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.
...

A RONDEAU BY COUPERIN

Quiet form of silent nun,
What has given you to my inward eyes?
What has marked you, unknown one,
In the throngs of centuries
That mine ears do listen through?...

Quiet form of silent nun,
What has given you to my inward eyes?
What has marked you, unknown one,
In the throngs of centuries
That mine ears do listen through?
This old master's melody...

As the inhastening tide doth roll,
Dear and desired, along the whole
Wide shining strand, and floods the caves,
Your love comes filling with happy waves
The open sea-shore of my soul.
...

THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET

From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn,
We two are sundered always, sweet.
A few stars shake o'er the rocky lawn
And the cold sea-shore when we meet....

All my stars forsake me,
And the dawn-winds shake me.
Where shall I betake me?

Whither shall I run
Till the set of sun,
Till the day be done?

To the mountain-mine,...

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

O poet of the time to be,
My conqueror, I began for thee.
Enter into thy poet's pain,
And take the riches of the rain,
And make the perfect year for me.
...

Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,
Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances
Of time and change upon your happiest fancies.
I keep your golden hour, and will restore it.
...

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.
...

Rich meanings of the prophet-Spring adorn,
Unseen, this colourless sky of folded showers,
And folded winds; no blossom in the bowers.
A poet's face asleep is this grey morn.
...

My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own,
Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal, thine alone.
...

My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own,
Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal, thine alone.
...