Works

Why speak of Rajah rubies,
And roses of the South?
I know a sweeter crimson
A baby's mouth.

Why speak of Sultan sapphires
And violet seas and skies?
I know a lovelier azure...

Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor,
To reap the harvest that Springtime sows;
And Fall lead in her old defender,
Winter, all huddled up in snows:
Ever a-south the love-wind blows...

The hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms,
And on its mossy porch the lizard lies;
Around its chimneys slow the swallow flies,
And on its roof the locusts snow their blooms....

The "happy year" of 1914

An hour from dawn:
The snow sweeps on
As it swept with sleet last night:
The Earth around
Breathes never a sound,
Wrapped in its shroud of white.
...

One tree, storm-twisted, like an evil hag,
The sea-wind in its hair, beside a path
Waves frantic arms, as if in wild-witch wrath
At all the world. Gigantic, grey as slag,...

Lay but a finger on
That pallid petal sweet,
It trembles gray and wan
Beneath the passing feet.

But soft! blown rose, we know
A merriment of bloom,
A life of sturdy glow, -...

We went by ways of bygone days,
Up mountain heights of story,
Where lost in vague, historic haze,
Tradition, crowned with battle-bays,
Sat 'mid her ruins hoary.

Where wing to wing the eagles cling...

It's out and away at break of day,
To frolic and run in the sun-sweet hay:
It's up and out with a laugh and shout
Let the old world know that a boy's about.
...

A Broken rainbow on the skies of May,
Touching the dripping roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds its scattered glories lost:
So in the sorrow of her soul the ghost
Of one great love, of iridescent ray,...

Why speak of Giamschid rubies
Whence rosy starlight drips?
I know a richer crimson,
The ruby of her lips.

Why speak of pearls of Oman
That shells of ocean sheathe?
I know a purer nacre,...

When roads are mired with ice and snow,
And the air of morn is crisp with rime;
When the holly hangs by the mistletoe,
And bells ring in the CHRISTMAS time: -
It's - Saddle, my Heart, and ride away,...

I.

Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,
Through whom the world is fair, perdie!
But I to one these others prove,
Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,
Or dies to set another free...

With triumphs gay of old romance. - KEATS.


PRELUDE.

Why, dreams from dreams in dreams remembered! naught
Save this, alas! that once it seemed I thought...

Hold to the rapture: let it work
Inward till founts of being fill,
And all is clear that once was murk,
And Beauty's self rise, mirrored still,
Before the mind, that shall devise...

He lived beyond us and we stood
As pygmies to his every mood,
Mere pupils at his beck and nod,
That spoke the influence of a god.
And oft we wondered, when his thought
Made our humanity seem naught,...

He held himself splendidly forward
Both early and late;
The aim of his purpose was starward,
To master his fate:
So he wrought and he toiled and he waited,
Till he rose o'er the hordes that he hated,...

The hills hang woods around, where green, below
Dark, breezy boughs of beech-trees, mats the moss,
Crisp with the brittle hulls of last year's nuts;
The water hums one bar there; and a glow...

These are the facts: - I was to blame:
I brought her here and wrought her shame:
She came with me all trustingly.
Lovely and innocent her face:
And in her perfect form, the grace
Of purity and modesty....

Though Summer walks the world to-day
With corn-crowned hours for her guard,
Her thoughts have clad themselves in gray,
And wait in Autumn's weedy yard.

And where the larkspur and the phlox...

She has the eyes of some barbarian Queen
Leading her wild tribes into battle; eyes,
Wherein th' unconquerable soul defies,
And Love sits throned, imperious and serene.
...