English

If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.

But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.

At sixteen months, when they start to walk.
And a few brief words is their sum of talk,
When their smile is a marvelous joy to see
And they want to ride on their daddy's knee,
When you get tired but they never do—
For everything in this world is new—
It's then, I say, that a baby pays
For all of her care in her helpless days.

At sixteen months, when they crow with glee
And their arms reach up for the things they see,
When a smile breaks out on that cherub face
The minute you call from your hiding place.

Forbear to tempt me, Prowl, I will not show
A line unto thee, till the world it know;
Or that I have by, two good sufficient men,
To be the wealthy witness of my pen:
For all thou hear'st, thou swear'st thyself didst do.
Thy wit lives by it, Prowl, and belly too.
Which, if thou leave not soon (though I am loath)
I must a libel make, and cozen both.

The Sussex Men are Noted Fools
And weak is their brain pan
I wonder if H[aines] the painter
Is not a Sussex Man

The peace of great doors be for you.
Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs.
Wait for the great hinges.

The peace of great churches be for you,
Where the players of loft pipe organs
Practice old lovely fragments, alone.

The peace of great books be for you,
Stains of pressed clover leaves on pages,
Bleach of the light of years held in leather.

The peace of great prairies be for you.
Listen among windplayers in cornfields,
The wind learning over its oldest music.

The peace of great seas be for you.

With many a weary step, at length I gain
Thy summit, Lansdown; and the cool breeze play
Gratefully round my brow, as hence I gaze
Back on the fair expanse of yonder plain.
'Twas a long way and tedious; to the eye
Though fair the extended vale, and fair to view
The autumnal leaves of many a faded hue,
That eddy in the wild gust moaning by,
Even so it fared with life: in discontent
Restless through Fortune's mingled scenes I went
Yet wept to think they would return no more.
But cease, fond heart, in such sad thoughts to roam

Among the numbers who employ
Their tongues and pens to give you joy,
Dear Harley, generous youth, admit
What friendship dictates more than wit.

Forgive me, when I fondly thought
(By frequent observation taught)
A spirit so informed as yours
Could never prosper in amours.
The god of wit, and light, and arts,
With all acquired and natural parts,
Whose harp could savage beasts enchant,
Was an unfortunate gallant.
Had Bacchus after Daphne reeled,
The nymph had soon been brought to yield;

“Brothers,” St. Francis called the Brutes,
But in Dean Inge his sermon,
The blind Darwinian struggle gives
Us Cousins—very German.

Little Bo-Peep has lost her Sheep
But hopes that mutton will soon be cheap
When so many cooks are nothing loth
For the task of spoiling the mutton-broth.
And the lords of the Meat Trust, she has been told,
Have cornered mutton and “got it cold”
Through experts, each guaranteed as fit
For the duty of making a hash of it,
In mutton cutlets and mutton pies
She endeavours in vain to recognise
The face of a single personal pet . . .
. . . But Woollen Goods Will Be Cheaper Yet
In shirts and shapes of every size

Prester John on his lands looked down
He bore in one mystery mitre and crown,
And the scaly webs of the strange attire
Stripped from the dragon that feeds on fire,
And high over luminous rocks and trees
And the purple fish of his secret seas
And the whole sprawled map of the magical place,
A crystal mirror before his face
For ever stood; in whose circle shone
The world and all that is done thereon.

And the Seven Kings by his throne that stand
Cried, “Tell us the news from the Holy Land.”