Xv

PRAISE thou the Mighty Mother for what is wrought, not me, A nameless nothing-caring head asleep against her knee.

Deo Optimo Maximo

ALL else for use, One only for desire; Thanksgiving for the good, but thirst for Thee: Up from the best, whereof no man need tire, Impel Thou me.

Delight is menace if Thou brood not by, Power a quicksand, Fame a gathering jeer. Oft as the morn (though none of earth deny These three are dear),

Wash me of them, that I may be renewed, And wander free amid my freeborn joys: Oh, close my hand upon Beatitude! Not on her toys.

Charista Musing

MOVELESS, on the marge of a sunny cornfield, Rapt in sudden revery while thou standest, Like the sheaves, in beautiful Doric yellow Clad to the ankle,

Oft to thee with delicate hasty footstep So I steal, and suffer because I find thee Inly flown, and only a fallen feather Left of my darling.

Give me back thy wakening breath, thy ringlets Fragrant as the vine of the bean in blossom, And those eyes of violet dusk and daylight Under sea-water,

Eyes too far away, and too full of longing! Yes: and go not heavenward where I lose thee, Go not, go not whither I cannot follow, Being but earthly.

Willing swallow poisèd upon my finger, Little wild-wing ever from me escaping, For the care thou art to me, I thy lover Love thee, and fear thee.

The Still of the Year

UP from the willow-root Subduing agonies leap; The field-mouse and the purple moth Turn over amid their sleep; The icicled rocks aloft Burn amber and blue alway, And trickling and tinkling The snows of the drift decay. Oh, mine is the head must hang And share the immortal pang! Winter or spring is fair; Thaw's hard to bear. Heigho! my heart's sick.

Sweet is cherry-time, sweet A shower, a bobolink, And trillium, fain far under Her cloistering leaf to shrink; But here in the vast, unborn, Is the bitterest place to be, Till striving and longing Shall quicken the earth and me. What change inscrutable Is nigh us, we know not well; Gone is the strength to sigh Either to live or die. Heigho! my heart's sick.

A Footnote to a Famous Lyric

TRUE love's own talisman, which here Shakespeare and Sidney failed to teach, A steel-and-velvet Cavalier Gave to our Saxon speech:

Chief miracle of theme and touch That all must envy and adore: I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not Honour more.

No critic born since Charles was King But sighed in smiling, as he read: "Here's theft supreme of everything A poet might have said!"

Young knight and wit and beau, who won Mid war's upheaval, ladies' praise, Was't well of you, ere you had done, To blight our modern bays?

Oh, yet to you, whose random hand Struck from the dark whole gems like these (Archaic beauty, never planned Nor reared by wan degrees,

Which leaves an artist poor, and Art An earldom richer all her years); To you, dead on your shield apart, Be "Ave!" passed in tears.

'Twas virtue's breath inflamed your lyre: Heroic from the heart it ran; Nor for the shedding of such fire Lived, since, a manlier man.

And till your strophe sweet and bold So lovely aye, so lonely long, Love's self outdo, dear Lovelace! hold The parapets of Song.