I love it, I love it, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that old bike there?
I've treasured it long as a sainted prize,
And its battered old frame brings the tears to my eyes;
'Tis bound with a thousand bands to my heart,
Though the sprocket's bent and the links are apart.
Would you know the spell? My grandma sat there,
Upon that old saddle, and zipped through the air.
In childhood's hour I lingered near
That old machine, with listening ear,
For grandma's shrieks through the house would ring
If I even happened to touch the thing.

What changes here, O haire,
I see, since I saw you!
How ill fits you this greene to weare,
For hope the colour due!
Indeed, I well did hope,
Though hope were mixte with feare,
No other shepheard should haue scope
Once to approch this heere.

Ah, haire, how many dayes
My Diane made me shew,
With thousand pretty childish plaies,
If I ware you or no!
Alas, how oft with teares,—
O teares of guilefull breast!—
She seemèd full of iealous feares,
Whereat I did but ieast.

Tell me, O haire of gold,
If I then faultie be,

A hidden strength
Which if Heav'n gave it, may be term'd her own:
'Tis chastity, my brother, chastity:
She that has that, is clad in compleat steel,
And like a quiver'd Nymph with Arrows keen
May trace huge Forests, and unharbour'd Heaths,
Infamous Hills, and sandy perilous wildes,
Where through the sacred rayes of Chastity,
No savage fierce, Bandite, or mountaneer
Will dare to soyl her Virgin purity,
Yea there, where very desolation dwels
By grots, and caverns shag'd with horrid shades,
She may pass on with unblench't majesty,

Come with me and amble over the briars
into the fog. It rests a flurry by the slide
to make-b'lieve measure, harmless in the way
a doormat lay, fifty more bestride. The lovers
in their Louvre make no more sound than
this, spoken in announcement breaks
lids with iron fists. I never met
a dormouse, never sailed to Nice,
but just one time I'd like to know
who took the keys that fit.











Used by permission of the author.

Splintered my lance and hacked my shield;
With blood my byrny-rings are red:
My heart is as a battlefield,
Strewn with the dying and the dead:
And yet I cannot, will not yield,
For by a Vision I am led.

Still do my tattered banners stream
O'er muddy trench and bloody fosse,
And still do Love and Faith redeem
Defeat and peril, pain and loss:
For I am following a Dream
That dies for men upon a Cross.

When the ripe pears droop heavily,
The yellow wasp hums loud and long
His hot and drowsy autumn song:
A yellow flame he seems to be,
When darting suddenly from high
He lights where fallen peaches lie.

Yellow and black—this tiny thing's
A tiger-soul on elfin wings.

When Fortune smiled with sunny eyes,
How gaily danced the merry flies!
Of loving friends I had my fill,
Who shared with brotherly goodwill
My choicest meats, and spent
My ducats, well content.

My purse is empty, luck has changed;
My loving friends are all estranged;
Dim is the sunshine now and wan,
The dancing flies dispersed and gone.
When Fortune says good-bye,
Farewell to friend and fly.

And Care has come, now summer's fled,
And waits and watches by my bed.
In her cap of black and camisole white

The shadows of my chimneys stretch afar
Across the plot, and on to the privet bower,
And even the shadows of their smokings show,
And nothing says just now that where they are
They will in future stretch at this same hour,
Though in my earthen cyst I shall not know.

And at this time the neighbouring Pagan mound,
Whose myths the Gospel news now supersede,
Upon the greensward also throws its shade,
And nothing says such shade will spread around
Even as to-day when men will no more heed
The Gospel news than when the mound was made.

I HAVE received your letter, read it through
With careful thought, and, to confess the truth,
I deem it timid to a point beyond
What suits an Emperor,—timid in a way
Unsuited to the temper of the time.
You say Avidius hates us; does not stint
His jests and sneers at what we are and do;
Has no respect for the imperial robes;
Says you are an old woman, whose bald talk
You deem profound philosophy, while I
Am merely a debauched and studious fool.
You bear him no ill-will for this, you say,
(My noble Lucius, this is worthy you!)

You that in love find luck and abundance,
And live in lust and joyful jollity,
Arise, for shame, do away your sluggardy;
Arise, I say, do May some observance!
Let me in bed lie dreaming in mischance;
Let me remember the haps most unhappy,
That me betide in May most commonly,
As one whom love list little to advance.
Sepham said true that my nativity
Mischanced was with the ruler of the May;
He guessed, I prove, of that the verity;
In May my wealth, and eke my life I say
Have stonde so oft in such perplexity.
Rejoice! let me dream of your felicity.