Short Poems

Child of St. Catherine—none shall groan
If to your gain and our great loss
You turn the wheel of all the world
And heave to sight the southern cross.
Though o'er the nether pole of night
Southward the southern signals burn,
Catherine, hold tryst and keep the faith,
And wheels revolve but wheels return.

Prince, Yorkshire holds me now
By Yorkshire hams I'm fed
I can't assist your row
I send ballades instead.

Courageous fool—the peril's strength unknown.
Courageous man!—so conscious of your own.

The fox's mask grins from the wall
In the dark shadows of the hall,
As though it said—
I kept them running till evenfall:
But now, of horses and hounds and all
That followed the hunt, the hunt I led,
Not even a mask is left on a wall.

The car, in passing, lit up the front of the cottage,
Or else I had hardly seen in the darkened door
The face of a man who stared out into the midnight
With eyes whose look my heart can forget no more.
Wild eyes that stared, undazzled by the headlamps,
Nor even seemed aware of a passing light,
My heart is yours, though I never learn till doomsday
From what fierce heart you looked, and into what night.

There are a hundred now alive
Who buz about the summer hive,
Alas! how very few of these
Poor little busy poet bees
Can we expect again to hum
When the next summer shall have come.

Say thou who liest here beneath,
To fall in battle is not death.
You, tho' no pall on you was cast,
Heard the first trump nor fear'd the last.

Force me (and force me you must if I do it) to write in heroics,
Taking (as model in English) the meter of Homer and Virgil.
Leave me, O leave me at least my own hero, my own field of battle.
Sing then, O Goddess! O Muse! or in whatever name thou delightest,
Neither a cut-throat on land nor a vagabond over the ocean,
Offering me sacksful of wind . . I can buy them as cheaply of Russell,
Palmerston, Grey, Aberdeen, Jockey Derby, or Letterman Graham.

There is, alas! a chill, a gloom,
About my solitary room
That will not let one flowret bloom
Even for you:
The withering leaves appear to say,
‘Shine on, shine on, O lovely May!
But we meanwhile must drop away.’
Light! life! adieu.

Why should the scribblers discompose
Our temper? would we look like those?
There are some curs in every street
Who snarl and snap at all they meet:
The taller mastiff deems it aptest
To lift a leg and play the baptist.