English

Who asks of Beauty more than Beauty, asks
But as a dullard, and to Beauty blind:
Air, ocean, earth at their perpetual tasks
Of infinite creation are designed
For senses so insensate all in vain;
Strip off their Beauty, and to such base mind
What matters it, if yet there but remain
Some use immediate for man's wit to find?
Nor what though by Beauty Beauty hath ruined oft
The rarest promise of man's rarest kind,
Turning his pure to foul, his strong to soft,
As poisonous fruit shows fair but in the rind;

When comes my hour to die,
Lord, suffer me not slow lingering to lie
Feeble on bed of sickness, racked with pain.

O suffer me to gain
A speedier exit from this world I love:
Love, if it be too warmly, yet approve

My gratitude, that Thou
So dear hast made to me, I here avow,
The Beauty of Thy hand displayed therein;

Yea, count it for no sin
I paid Thee worship best through admiration
Of the fair marvels in Thy earth's creation.

Assist me, ye friends of Old Books and Old Wine,
To sing in the praises of sage Bannatyne,
Who left such a treasure of old Scottish lore
As enables each age to print one volume more.
One volume more, my friends, one volume more,
We'll ransack old Banny for one volume more.

And first, Allan Ramsay was eager to glean
From Bannatyne's Hortus his bright Evergreen ;
Two light little volumes (intended for four)
Still leave us the task to print one volume more.

Here in a world where hearts grow old,
You still retain your heart of boy;
For still you follow and uphold
A creed of charity and joy.

Here in a world where hearts grow cold,
Life still runs warmly in your blood;
For still your April dreams unfold
Blossom on blossom, bud on bud.

Here in a world where hearts grow old,
Your heart is still with youth aglow;
For beauty still you make and mould,
And beauty still you reap and sow.

Here in a world where hearts grow cold,

Since honour from the honourer proceeds,
How well do they deserve, that memorise
And leave in books for all posterities
The names of worthies, and their virtuous deeds;
When all their glory else, like water-weeds
Without their element, presently dies,
And all their greatness quite forgotten lies,
And when and how they flourisht no man heeds;
How poor remembrances are statues, tombs,
And other monuments that men erect
To Princes, which remain in closed rooms,
Where but a few behold them, in respect

Her radiant amber-lucent eyes
Have far unknown infinitudes:
We merely wot the nether skies
That sparkle with her lighter moods.

The suns, the stars, above, behind, —
The radiance of remoter Space,
We know not. We are dazed and blind
With the near beauty of her face.

But could we the deep eyes explore,
Would nobler constellations shine?
Would the eyes sparkle more and more,
Lit by a spirit more divine?

Or would we find the lights inane,
And would we find the depth a shoal,

Not me you love — not me so maimed and marred,
So flecked with flaws,
So sullied and so scarred,
Or, loving me, you love me just because
Your faith can see
Embalmed in me
The boy-who-was —
The poet-boy, so starry and ill-starred,
Who died of life too hopeless and too hard.

Rare Mystic Union of Melodious Wood
With Lips whose caressing woos it into Life!
Whence borne's such mellow sound on raptured ear,
That straightway dissolves all thought of hideous strife,
Annoyance, pain, yea every hurtful mood,
Now nought remaining but pure peace and sheer

Ecstasy of sense. Even so, I ween,
Fell in the golden prime those notes he filled
The expectant woodland with, the Great God Pan;
When all the submissive beasts were wholly stilled
In an amazed enchantment — yea, the green

While on my lonely couch I lie,
I seldom feel myself alone,
For fancy fills my dreaming eye
With scenes and pleasures of its own.

Then I may cherish at my breast
An infant's form beloved and fair;
May smile and soothe it into rest,
With all a mother's fondest care.

How sweet to feel its helpless form
Depending thus on me alone;
And while I hold it safe and warm,
What bliss to think it is my own!

And glances then may meet my eyes
That daylight never showed to me;

Others may far outstrip thee:
Some by right
And other some perchance by lucky hap;
Or through sheer craft of knowing how to play
A game they've held in sight
Up from youth's earliest day,
Intent the prize — no matter how 't may be —
Should drop into their lap.

I give to thee no counsel,
Friend, and cry —
" Pass heedless of them vexing not thy mind
With scorn, or anger, or disdainful word,
Envying their seat on high:
Not once, not once be heard
That whispered sneer of — " Fair enough the shell!