He saw her lift her eyes; he felt The soft hand's light caressing, And heard the tremble of her voice, "I'm sorry that I spelt the word: Because," the brown eyes lower fell,"Because, you see, I love you!" Still memory to a gray-haired man He lives to learn, in life's hard school, ST. JOHN BAPTIST 30 40 I think he had not heard of the far towns; Nor of the deeds of men, nor of kings' crowns; Before the thought of God took hold of him, As he was sitting dreaming in the calm Of one first noon, upon the desert's rim, Beneath the tall fair shadows of the palm, All overcome with some strange inward balm. Lips that lover has never kissed; Taper fingers and slender wrist; Hanging sleeves of stiff brocade; So they painted the little maid. 1Ο On her hand a parrot green Dark with a century's fringe of dust,- Who the painter was none may tell,- Look not on her with eyes of scorn,- 21 Ay! since the galloping Normans came, And never an echo of speech or song You may hear to-day in a hundred men. O lady and lover, how faint and far 61 It shall be a blessing, my little maid! I will heal the stab of the Red-Coat's blade, And freshen the gold of the tarnished frame, And gild with a rhyme your household name; So you shall smile on us brave and bright As first you greeted the morning's light, And live untroubled by woes and fears 71 Through a second youth of a hundred years. (1871) MY STRAWBERRY* O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause Which out of darkness, length by length, 20 * Copyright, 1873, by Little, Brown & Company. Reprinted by special permission, I see the wild bees as they fare, On single feast, all things that went (1873) SONG OF PALMS ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY [The second half of the original poem is omitted.] Mighty, luminous, and calm Crowned with sunset and sunrise, Blazing bird and blooming flower, 10 Dwelling there for years and years, Hold the enchanted secret theirs: Life and death and dream have made Mysteries in many a shade, Hollow haunt and hidden bower Closed alike to sun and shower. World-losers and world-forsakers, We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself in our mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying 10 20 To the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth. A breath of our inspiration Is life of each generation; A wondrous thing of our dreaming, 30 A BALLADE OF DREAMLAND [The Ballade is an old French form, built wholly on three rhyme-sounds, repeated according to the scheme followed in this poem. The "envoi" was originally a concluding address to the poet's prince or patron.] I hid my heart in a nest of roses, Out of the sun's way, hidden apart; In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is, Under the roses I hid my heart. Why would it sleep not? why should it start, When never a leaf of the rose-tree stirred? What made sleep flutter his wings and part? Only the song of a secret bird. |