Still perchance your spirit hovers
Where the lute
And the voices of your lovers
Chimed, but now are gone and mute.
Where the lonely arbour’s hollow
Shadier grows,
And the butterflies can follow
Fearlessly to kiss the rose.
And you smile because a poet
À la mode
Flouted you; and then, we know it,
Wrote an abject palinode.
For your hands, though light as feathers,
Held him tight:
Love was made to last all weathers,
Not to change with day and night.
XXIII
THE “LIBERAL” DIVINE
The “middle path” meets every need,
The Stagirite and Buddha say;
I won’t doubt more than half the creed
Nor wear a costume wholly lay.
XXIV
THE QUARREL
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF FRAGONARD
On the elm tree she was swinging,
Just beyond the hedge of yew;
But she slowly ceased from singing,
From her breast a pink she drew.
Buttoning his coat of satin,
Off he strode towards the woods,
Tartly quoting Virgil’s Latin,
That a woman’s made of moods.