Chapter I: SCRIBBLED on a fly-book’s leaves

Among the shining salmon-flies;
A song for summer-time that grieves
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves.
Between grey sea and golden sheaves,
Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies,
I scribbled on a fly-book’s leaves
Among the shining salmon-flies.

TO C. H. ARKCOLL

Let them boast of Arabia, oppressed
By the odour of myrrh on the breeze;
In the isles of the East and the West
That are sweet with the cinnamon trees
Let the sandal-wood perfume the seas;
Give the roses to Rhodes and to Crete,
We are more than content, if you please,
With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Though Dan Virgil enjoyed himself best
With the scent of the limes, when the bees
Hummed low ’round the doves in their nest,
While the vintagers lay at their ease,
Had he sung in our northern degrees,
He’d have sought a securer retreat,
He’d have dwelt, where the heart of us flees,
With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

Oh, the broom has a chivalrous crest
And the daffodil’s fair on the leas,
And the soul of the Southron might rest,
And be perfectly happy with these;
But _we_, that were nursed on the knees
Of the hills of the North, we would fleet
Where our hearts might their longing appease
With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

ENVOY.

Ah Constance, the land of our quest
It is far from the sounds of the street,
Where the Kingdom of Galloway’s blest
With the smell of bog-myrtle and peat!

VILLANELLE

(TO M. JOSEPH BOULMIER, AUTHOR OF “LES VILLANELLES.”)

VILLANELLE, why art thou mute?
Hath the singer ceased to sing?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Many a pipe and scrannel flute
On the breeze their discords fling;
Villanelle, why art _thou_ mute?

Sound of tumult and dispute,
Noise of war the echoes bring;
Hath the Master lost his lute?

Once he sang of bud and shoot
In the season of the Spring;
Villanelle, why art thou mute?

Fading leaf and falling fruit
Say, “The year is on the wing,
Hath the Master lost his lute?”

Ere the axe lie at the root,
Ere the winter come as king,
Villanelle, why art thou mute?
Hath the Master lost his lute?

TRIOLETS AFTER MOSCHUS.

Αίαῖ ταὶ μαλάχαι μέν ἐπὰν κατὰ κᾱπον ὄλωνται
ὕστερον άυ ζώοντι καὶ εἰς ἔτος ἄλλο φύοντι
άμμες δ’ οι μεγάλοι καὶ χαρτερί οι σοφοὶ ἄνδρες
ὁππότε πρᾱτα θάνωμες άνάχοοι ἔν χθονὶ χοίλα
‘εύδομες ἔυ μάλα μαχρὸν ἀπέμονα νήγρετον ‘ύπνον.

ALAS, for us no second spring,
Like mallows in the garden-bed,
For these the grave has lost his sting,
Alas, for _us_ no second spring,
Who sleep without awakening,
And, dead, for ever more are dead,
Alas, for us no second spring,
Like mallows in the garden-bed!

Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave
That boast themselves the sons of men!
Once they go down into the grave—
Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,—
They perish and have none to save,
They are sown, and are not raised again;
Alas, the strong, the wise, the brave,
That boast themselves the sons of men!

BALLADE OF CRICKET.

TO T. W. LANG.

THE burden of hard hitting: slog away!
Here shalt thou make a “five” and there a “four,”
And then upon thy bat shalt lean, and say,
That thou art in for an uncommon score.
Yea, the loud ring applauding thee shall roar,
And thou to rival THORNTON shalt aspire,
When lo, the Umpire gives thee “leg before,”—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of much bowling, when the stay
Of all thy team is “collared,” swift or slower,
When “bailers” break not in their wonted way,
And “yorkers” come not off as here-to-fore,
When length balls shoot no more, ah never more,
When all deliveries lose their former fire,
When bats seem broader than the broad barn-door,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

The burden of long fielding, when the clay
Clings to thy shoon in sudden shower’s downpour,
And running still thou stumblest, or the ray
Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,
And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,
Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a “skyer,”
And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—
“This is the end of every man’s desire!”

ENVOY.

Alas, yet liefer on Youth’s hither shore
Would I be some poor Player on scant hire,
Than King among the old, who play no more,—
“_This_ is the end of every man’s desire!”

THE LAST MAYING.

“It is told of the last Lovers which watched May-night in the forest,
before men brought the tidings of the Gospel to this land, that they
beheld no Fairies, nor Dwarfs, nor no such Thing, but the very Venus
herself, who bade them ‘make such cheer as they might, for’ said she,
‘I shall live no more in these Woods, nor shall ye endure to see
another May time.’”—EDMUND GORLIOT, “Of Phantasies and Omens,” p.
149. (1573.)

“WHENCE do ye come, with the dew on your hair?
From what far land are the boughs ye bear,
The blossoms and buds upon breasts and tresses,
The light burned white in your faces fair?”

“In a falling fane have we built our house,
With the dying Gods we have held carouse,
And our lips are wan from their wild caresses,
Our hands are filled with their holy boughs.

As we crossed the lawn in the dying day
No fairy led us to meet the May,
But the very Goddess loved by lovers,
In mourning raiment of green and grey.

She was not decked as for glee and game,
She was not veiled with the veil of flame,
The saffron veil of the Bride that covers
The face that is flushed with her joy and shame.

On the laden branches the scent and dew
Mingled and met, and as snow to strew
The woodland rides and the fragrant grasses,
White flowers fell as the night wind blew.

Tears and kisses on lips and eyes
Mingled and met amid laughter and sighs
For grief that abides, and joy that passes,
For pain that tarries and mirth that flies.

It chanced as the dawning grew to grey
Pale and sad on our homeward way,
With weary lips, and palled with pleasure
The Goddess met us, farewell to say.

“Ye have made your choice, and the better part,
Ye chose” she said, “and the wiser art;
In the wild May night drank all the measure,
The perfect pleasure of heart and heart.

“Ye shall walk no more with the May,” she said,
“Shall your love endure though the Gods be dead?
Shall the flitting flocks, mine own, my chosen,
Sing as of old, and be happy and wed?

“Yea, they are glad as of old; but you,
Fair and fleet as the dawn or the dew,
Abide no more, for the springs are frozen,
And fled the Gods that ye loved and knew.

Ye shall never know Summer again like this;
Ye shall play no more with the Fauns, I wis,
No more in the nymphs’ and dryads’ playtime
Shall echo and answer kiss and kiss.

“Though the flowers in your golden hair be bright,
Your golden hair shall be waste and white
On faded brows ere another May time
Bring the spring, but no more delight.”

HOMERIC UNITY.

THE sacred keep of Ilion is rent
By shaft and pit; foiled waters wander slow
Through plains where Simois and Scamander went
To war with Gods and heroes long ago.
Not yet to tired Cassandra, lying low
In rich Mycenæ, do the Fates relent:
The bones of Agamemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument.

The dust and awful treasures of the Dead,
Hath Learning scattered wide, but vainly thee,
Homer, she meteth with her tool of lead,
And strives to rend thy songs; too blind to see
The crown that burns on thine immortal head
Of indivisible supremacy!

IN TINTAGEL.

LUI.

AH lady, lady, leave the creeping mist,
And leave the iron castle by the sea!

ELLE.

Nay, from the sea there came a ghost that kissed
My lips, and so I cannot come to thee!

LUI.

Ah lady, leave the cruel landward wind
That crusts the blighted flowers with bitter foam!

ELLE.

Nay, for his arms are cold and strong to bind,
And I must dwell with him and make my home!

LUI.

Come, for the Spring is fair in Joyous Guard
And down deep alleys sweet birds sing again.

ELLE.

But I must tarry with the winter hard,
And with the bitter memory of pain,
Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,
And in the gardens glad birds sing again!

PISIDICÊ.

The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.

THE daughter of the Lesbian king
Within her bower she watched the war,
Far off she heard the arrows ring,
The smitten harness ring afar;
And, fighting from the foremost car,
Saw one that smote where all must flee;
More fair than the Immortals are
He seemed to fair Pisidicê!

She saw, she loved him, and her heart
Before Achilles, Peleus’ son,
Threw all its guarded gates apart,
A maiden fortress lightly won!
And, ere that day of fight was done,
No more of land or faith recked she,
But joyed in her new life begun,—
Her life of love, Pisidicê!

She took a gift into her hand,
As one that had a boon to crave;
She stole across the ruined land
Where lay the dead without a grave,
And to Achilles’ hand she gave
Her gift, the secret postern’s key.
“To-morrow let me be thy slave!”
Moaned to her love Pisidicê.

Ere dawn the Argives’ clarion call
Rang down Methymna’s burning street;
They slew the sleeping warriors all,
They drove the women to the fleet,
Save one, that to Achilles’ feet
Clung, but, in sudden wrath, cried he:
“For her no doom but death is meet,”
And there men stoned Pisidicê.

In havens of that haunted coast,
Amid the myrtles of the shore,
The moon sees many a maiden ghost
Love’s outcast now and evermore.
The silence hears the shades deplore
Their hour of dear-bought love; but _thee_
The waves lull, ’neath thine olives hoar,
To dreamless rest, Pisidicê!

FROM THE EAST TO THE WEST.

RETURNING from what other seas
Dost thou renew thy murmuring,
Weak Tide, and hast thou aught of these
To tell, the shores where float and cling
My love, my hope, my memories?

Say does my lady wake to note
The gold light into silver die?
Or do thy waves make lullaby,
While dreams of hers, like angels, float
Through star-sown spaces of the sky?

Ah, would such angels came to me
That dreams of mine might speak with hers,
Nor wake the slumber of the sea
With words as low as winds that be
Awake among the gossamers!

LOVE THE VAMPIRE.

Ο ΕΡΩΤΑΣ ’Σ ΤΟΝ ΤΑΦΟ.

THE level sands and grey,
Stretch leagues and leagues away,
Down to the border line of sky and foam,
A spark of sunset burns,
The grey tide-water turns,
Back, like a ghost from her forbidden home!

Here, without pyre or bier,
Light Love was buried here,
Alas, his grave was wide and deep enough,
Thrice, with averted head,
We cast dust on the dead,
And left him to his rest. An end of Love.

“No stone to roll away,
No seal of snow or clay,
Only soft dust above his wearied eyes,
But though the sudden sound
Of Doom should shake the ground,
And graves give up their ghosts, he will not rise!”

So each to each we said!
Ah, but to either bed
Set far apart in lands of North and South,
Love as a Vampire came
With haggard eyes aflame,
And kissed us with the kisses of his mouth!

Thenceforth in dreams must we
Each other’s shadow see
Wand’ring unsatisfied in empty lands,
Still the desirèd face
Fleets from the vain embrace,
And still the shape evades the longing hands.

BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN’S PARADISE.

THERE _is_ a Heaven, or here, or there,—
A Heaven there is, for me and you,
Where bargains meet for purses spare,
Like ours, are not so far and few.
Thuanus’ bees go humming through
The learned groves, ’neath rainless skies,
O’er volumes old and volumes new,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!

There treasures bound for Longepierre
Keep brilliant their morocco blue,
There Hookes’ _Amanda_ is not rare,
Nor early tracts upon Peru!
Racine is common as Rotrou,
No Shakespeare Quarto search defies,
And Caxtons grow as blossoms grew,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!

There’s Eve,—not our first mother fair,—
But Clovis Eve, a binder true;
Thither does Bauzonnet repair,
Derome, Le Gascon, Padeloup!
But never come the cropping crew
That dock a volume’s honest size,
Nor they that “letter” backs askew,
Within that Book-man’s Paradise!

ENVOY.

Friend, do not Heber and De Thou,
And Scott, and Southey, kind and wise,
_La chasse au bouquin_ still pursue
Within that Book-man’s Paradise?

BALLADE OF A FRIAR.

(Clement Marot’s _Frère Lubin_, though translated by Longfellow and others, has not hitherto been rendered into the original measure, of _ballade à double refrain_.)

SOME ten or twenty times a day,
To bustle to the town with speed,
To dabble in what dirt he may,—
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
But any sober life to lead
Upon an exemplary plan,
Requires a Christian indeed,—
Le Frère Lubin is _not_ the man!

Another’s wealth on his to lay,
With all the craft of guile and greed,
To leave you bare of pence or pay,—
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
But watch him with the closest heed,
And dun him with what force you can,—
He’ll not refund, howe’er you plead,—
Le Frère Lubin is _not_ the man!

An honest girl to lead astray,
With subtle saw and promised meed,
Requires no cunning crone and grey,—
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
He preaches an ascetic creed,
But,—try him with the water can—
A dog will drink, whate’er his breed,—
Le Frère Lubin is _not_ the man!

ENVOY.

In good to fail, in ill succeed,
Le Frère Lubin’s the man you need!
In honest works to lead the van,
Le Frère Lubin is _not_ the man!

BALLADE OF NEGLECTED MERIT. {78}