Love's Old Sweet Song / A sheaf of latter-day love-poems gathered from many sources

by Unknown

ENVOY.

God above Gods, High and Eternal King,
To whom the spheral symphonies do sing,
I find no whither from thy power to flee,
Save in thy pinions vast o’ershadowing.
Thou art my Lord to whom I bend the knee!

John Payne.

FALSE SPRING.

O BIRDS, ’twas not well done of you!
O flowers and breeze, right well ye knew
The weary glamour that the spring
Had laid for me on every thing.
’Twas but to bring me back again
The memory of the olden pain,
You lured me out with songs of birds,
With violet breath and fair false words!

For lo! my feet had hardly passed
The woven band of flowerage, cast
Betwixt the meadows and the trees,
When, in the bird-songs and the breeze,
Another strain was taken up;
And out of every blue-bell’s cup
The mocking voices sang again
The olden songs of love and pain.

The flowers did mimic the old grace;
The wan white windflowers wore her face;
And in the stream I heard her words;
Her voice came rippling from the birds.
Dead love, I saw thy form anew
Bend down among the violets blue,
And, like a mist, the memory
Of all the past came back to me.

John Payne.

IN JUNE.

SO sweet, so sweet the roses in their blowing,
So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see;
So blithe and gay the humming-bird a-going
From flower to flower, a-hunting with the bee.

So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,
The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere;
So sweet the water’s song through reeds and rushes,
The plover’s piping note, now here, now there.

So sweet, so sweet from off the fields of clover
The west wind blowing, blowing up the hill;
So sweet, so sweet with news of some one’s lover,
Fleet footsteps, singing nearer, nearer still.

So near, so near, now listen, listen, thrushes;
Now, plover, blackbird, cease, and let me hear;
And, water, hush your song through reeds and rushes,
That I may know whose lover cometh near.

So loud, so loud the thrushes kept their calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me;
So loud the millstream too kept fretting, falling,
O’er bar and bank in brawling, boisterous glee.

So loud, so loud; yet blackbird, thrush nor plover,
Nor noisy millstream, in its fret and fall,
Could drown the voice, the low voice of my lover,
My lover calling through the thrushes’ call.

“Come down, come down!” he called, and straight the thrushes
From mate to mate sang all at once, “Come down!”
And while the water laughed through reeds and rushes,
The blackbird chirped, the plover piped, “Come down!”

Then down and off, and through the fields of clover,
I followed, followed at my lover’s call;
Listening no more to blackbird, thrush or plover,
The water’s laugh, the millstream’s fret and fall.

Nora Perry.

A SONG OF WINTER.

BARB’d blossom of the guarded gorse,
I love thee where I see thee shine:
Thou sweetener of our common ways,
And brightener of our wintry days.

Flower of the gorse, the rose is dead,
Thou art undying, oh, be mine!
Be mine with all thy thorns, and prest
Close on a heart that asks not rest.

I pluck thee, and thy stigma set
Upon my breast and on my brow;
Blow, buds, and ’plenish so my wreath
That none may know the wounds beneath.

O crown of thorn that seem’st of gold,
No festal coronal art thou;
Thy honey’d blossoms are but hives
That guard the growth of wingèd lives.

I saw thee in the time of flowers
As sunshine spill’d upon the land,
Or burning bushes all ablaze
With sacred fire; but went my ways.

I went my ways, and as I went
Pluck’d kindlier blooms on either hand;
Now of those blooms so passing sweet
None lives to stay my passing feet.

And still thy lamp upon the hill
Feeds on the autumn’s dying sigh,
And from thy midst comes murmuring
A music sweeter than in spring.

Barb’d blossoms of the guarded gorse,
Be mine to wear until I die,
And mine the wounds of love which still
Bear witness to his human will.

Emily Pfeiffer.

TO A LOST LOVE.

I CANNOT look upon thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet:
Better to hear the long wave wash
These wastes about my feet!

Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live
A spirit, though afar,
With a deep hush about thee, like
The stillness round a star?

Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere
Thou art a thing apart,
Losing in saner happiness
This madness of the heart.

And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel
A passing breath, a pain;
Disturb’d, as though a door in heaven
Had sped and closed again.

And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns
The solemn hymns, shall cease;
A moment half remember me:
Then turn away in peace.

But oh! forevermore thy look,
Thy laugh, thy charm, thy tone,
Thy sweet and wayward loveliness,
Dear trivial things are gone!

Therefore I look not on thy grave,
Though there the rose is sweet;
But rather hear the loud wave wash
These wastes about my feet.

Stephen Phillips.

PRINCE OF PAINTERS, COME, I PRAY.

PRINCE of painters, come, I pray,
Paint my love, for, though away,
King of craftsmen, you can well
Paint what I to thee can tell.
First her hair you must indite
Dark, but soft as summer night;
Hast thou no contrivance whence
To make it breathe its frankincense?
Rising from her rounded cheek
Let thy pencil duly speak,
How below that purpling night
Glows her forehead ivory-white.
Mind you neither part nor join
Those sweet eyebrows’ easy line;
They must merge, you know, to be
In separated unity.
Painter draw, as lover bids,
Now the dark line of the lids;
Painter, now ’tis my desire,
Make her glance from very fire,
Make it as Athene’s blue,
Like Cythera’s liquid too;
Now to give her cheeks and nose,
Milk must mingle with the rose;
Her lips be like persuasion’s made,
To call for kisses they persuade;
And for her delicious chin,
O’er and under and within,
And round her soft neck’s Parian wall,
Bid fly the graces, one and all.
For the rest, enrobe my pet
In her faint clear violet;
But a little truth must show
There is more that lies below,
Hold! thou hast her—that is she.
Hush! she ’s going to speak to me.

William Philpot.

A LAGOON MESSAGE.

NOT now, but later, when the road
We tread together breaks apart,
When thou, my dearest, distant art,
And tedious days have swelled the load
Upon my heart.

Or haply after that, when I
Am sealed within an earthy bed,
Resting and unrememberèd,
This scene will speak and easily
The whole be said.

Some eve, when from his burning chair
The sun below Fusina slips,
And all the sable poplar tips
Wave in the warm vermilion air,
The wind, the lips

Of the soft breeze with wayward touch
Shall tell thee all I longed to own;
And thou, on lurid lakes alone,
Wilt say: “Poor soul, he loved me much;
And he is gone.”

Percy C. Pinkerton.

A CONQUEST.

I FOUND him openly wearing her token;
I knew that her troth could never be broken;
I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword,
He did the same, and he spoke no word;
He faced me with his villainy;
He laughed and said, “She gave it me.”
We searched for seconds, they soon were found;
They measured our swords; they measured the ground:
They held to the deadly work too fast;
They thought to gain our place at last.
We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood,
The fair white snow was red with his blood;
But his was the victory, for, as he died,
He swore by the rood that he had not lied.

Walter Herries Pollock.

THE DEVOUT LOVER.

IT is not mine to sing the stately grace,
The great soul beaming in my lady’s face;
To write no sounding odes to me is given
Wherein her eyes outshine the stars in heaven.

Not mine in flowing melodies to tell
The thousand beauties that I know so well;
Not mine to serenade her ev’ry tress,
And sit and sigh my love in idleness.

But mine it is to follow in her train,
Do her behests in pleasure or in pain,
Burn at her altar love’s sweet frankincense,
And worship her in distant reverence.

Walter Herries Pollock.

BALLADE OF LOVERS.

FOR the man was she made by the Eden tree,
To be decked in soft raiment and worn on his sleeve,
To be fondled so long as they both agree,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave.
But for her, let her live through one long summer eve—
Just the stars, and the moon, and the man, and she—
And her soul will escape her beyond reprieve,
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.

To-morrow brings plenty as lovesome, maybe;
If she break when he handles her, why should he grieve?
She is only one pearl in a pearl-crowded sea,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave.
But she, though she knows he has kissed to deceive,
And forsakes her, still only clings on at his knee—
When life has gone, what further loss can bereave?
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.

For the man was she made upon Eden lea,
To be helpmeet what time there is burden to heave,
White-footed, to follow where he walks free,—
A thing to take, or a thing to leave;
White-fingered, to weave and to interweave
Her woof with his warp, and a tear two or three,
Till clear his way out through her web he cleave,
And, alas! the whole of her world is he.