Forty-Two Poems

Contents

To a Poet a thousand years hence Riouperoux The Town without a Market The Balled of Camden Town Mignon Felo de se Tenebris Interlucentem Invitation to a young but learned friend . . . Balled of the Londoner The First Sonnet of Bathrolaire The Second Sonnet of Bathrolaire The Masque of the Magi The Balled of Hampstead Heath Litany to Satan The Translator and the Children Opportunity Destroyer of Ships, Men, Cities War Song of the Saracens Joseph and Mary No Coward's Song A Western Voyage Fountains The Welsh Sea Oxford Canal Hialmar speaks to the Raven The Ballad of the Student in the South The Queen's song Lord Arnaldos We that were friends My Friend Ideal Mary Magdalen I rose from dreamless hours Prayer A Miracle of Bethlehem Gravis Dulcis Immutabilis Pillage The Ballad of Zacho Pavlovna in London The Sentimentalist Don Juan in Hell The Ballad of Iskander

TO A POET A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE

I who am dead a thousand years, And wrote this sweet archaic song, Send you my words for messengers The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas, Or ride secure the cruel sky, Or build consummate palaces Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still, And statues and a bright-eyed love, And foolish thoughts of good and ill, And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer? Like a wind That falls at eve our fancies blow, And old Moeonides the blind Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand.