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Alas! alas! what impious hands are these?
They have cut down my dark mysterious trees,
Defied the brooding spell
That sealed my sacred well,
Broken my fathers' fixed and ancient bars,...

(A Lady of Tender Age)

Ladies, where were your bright eyes glancing,
Where were they glancing yester-night?
Saw ye Imogen dancing, dancing,
Imogen dancing all in white?...

His beauty bore no token,
No sign our gladness shook;
With tender strength unbroken
The hand of Life he took:
But the summer flowers were falling,
Falling and fading away,...

With failing feet and shoulders bowed
Beneath the weight of happier days,
He lagged among the heedless crowd,
Or crept along suburban ways.
But still through all his heart was young,...

Down thy valleys, Ireland, Ireland,
Down thy valleys green and sad,
Still thy spirit wanders wailing,
Wanders wailing, wanders mad.

Long ago that anguish took thee,...

(After Martial)

Bernard, if to you and me
Fortune all at once should give
Years to spend secure and free,
With the choice of how to live,
Tell me, what should we proclaim...

Scene: AN ENGLISH GARDEN BY STARLIGHT

Persons: A LADY AND A POET


THE POET

Dimly I see your face: I hear your breath
Sigh faintly, as a flower might sigh in death...

While I within her secret garden walked,
The flowers, that in her presence must be dumb,
With me, their fellow-servant, softly talked,
Attending till the Flower of flowers should come....

Spring, they say, with his greenery
Northward marches at last,
Mustering thorn and elm;
Breezes rumour him conquering,
Tell how Victory sits
High on his glancing helm.
...

I.

When late I watched the arrows of the sleet
Against the windows of the Tavern beat,
I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot:
"Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?

II.
...

Call me no more, O gentle stream,
To wander through thy sunny dream,
No more to lean at twilight cool
Above thy weir and glimmering pool.

Surely I know thy hoary dawns,...

When I remember that the day will come
For this our love to quit his land of birth,
And bid farewell to all the ways of earth
With lips that must for evermore be dumb,
...