CAMBRIDGE.
ALL that I know of Cambridge—
The colleges and that indulgent air
Of a great gentleman who is content
That lesser men should make experiment
With life, for which he does not vastly care—
Is that you tell me you were happy there.
All that I’ll say of Cambridge—
Though in her courts Apollo lose the art
Of immortality to find it where
Rupert was used to walk at Grantchester—
Is that for me Cambridge is but a part
Of greater beauties than inform your heart.
A ROOM IN BOHEMIA.
THE sun is shining in the August weather
In the little room and, I suppose,
Gilding the painted parrot on the wall,
The truckle-bed, the table and the rose
Of the poor carpet that we bought together.
And from the street the muted voices call
As though we saw, as though we heard it all.
VICTORY.
LET it be written down, while still the wound
Festers and there is horror in the world
At what was done and suffered, while unfurled
The wings of death are dark upon the ground.
Let it be written “Death we have not found
The worst, though death is evil, nor the curled
Fangs of disease, nor yet to ruin hurled
The tracery of old cities, when no sound
Is in their broken streets. But there’s an ape
Out of the slime into the spirit creeping,
That twists mankind back, back into the shape
That mumbles carrion. Here’s the cause for weeping.
Prognathous chin, slant forehead, eyes that rust
As their flame dies and smoulders into lust.”
CLEOPATRA.
WHY should I care for love? The urgent rose—
What does she promise the heart and what fulfill?
“Delight, delight” she whispers, and she goes ...
But love the rose outbidding is falser still.