Works

It was a day of sombre heat:
The still, dense air was void of sound
And life; no wing of bird did beat
A little breeze through it, the ground
Was like live ashes to the feet....

Over a slow-dying fire,
Dreaming old dreams, I am sitting;
The flames leap up and expire;
A woman sits opposite knitting.

I've taken a Fate to wife;
She knits with a half-smile mocking...

Through the noiseless doors of Death
Three passed out, as with one breath.

Two had faces stern as Fate,
Stamped with unrelenting hate.

One upon her lips of guile...

What know we of the dead, who say these things,
Or of the life in death below the mould,
What of the mystic laws that rule the old
Gray realms beyond our poor imaginings...

Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tress'd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.

And all her ways seem sweeter ways...

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth's breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,...

By a black wharf I stood lately,
When the night was at its noon;
Keen, malicious stars were shining,
And a wicked, white-faced moon.

And I saw a stately vessel,
Built in fashion quaint and old;...

Who are these strange small folk,
These that come to our homes as kings,
Asking nor leave nor grace,
Bending our necks to their yoke,
Taking the highest place,
And mastery of all things?
...

An apple caused man's fall, as some believe;
But that old Snake, malevolently wise,
A deadlier snare set when he left to Eve
His tongue of honey and mesmeric eyes.

When the tender hand of Night
Like a rose-leaf falls
Softly on your starry eyes;
When the Sleep-God calls,
And the gate of dreams is wide,
Wide the painted halls,
Dream the dream I send to you...

They brought my fair love out upon a bier,
Out from the dwelling that her smile made sweet,
Out from the life that her life made complete,
Into the glitter of the garish street,...

They leave us - artists, singers, all
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;...