English Poems

Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
Richard Le Gallienne
London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street.
Boston: Copland & Day 69 Cornhill.
_First Edition September 1892
Second Edition October 1892
Third Edition January 1894
Fourth Edition Revised April 1895_
To Sissie Le Gallienne
_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth—for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver.
Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses—for what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the comb'—as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise … and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.'