Within the compass of their glass
Each smallest star they knew,
And not a meteor could pass
But they were looking through.
When a new planet shed its rays
Beyond their field of vision,
And simple folk ran out to gaze,
They laughed in high derision.
They railed upon the senseless throng
Who cheered the brave new light.
And yet the learned men were wrong,
The simple folk were right.
MY LADY
My Lady of all ladies! Queen by right
Of tender beauty; full of gentle moods;
With eyes that look divine beatitudes,
Large eyes illumined with her spirit’s light;
Lips that are lovely both by sound and sight,
Breathing such music as the dove, which broods
Within the dark and silence of the woods,
Croons to the mate that is her heart’s delight.
Where is a line, in cloud or wave or hill,
To match the curve which rounds her soft-flushed cheek?
A colour, in the sky of morn or of even,
To match that flush? Ah, let me now be still!
If of her spirit I should strive to speak,
I should come short, as earth comes short of heaven.
PARTNERSHIP IN FAME
Love, when the present is become the past,
And dust has covered all that now is new,
When many a fame has faded out of view,
And many a later fame is fading fast—
If then these songs of mine might hope to last,
Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you,
Though queen and empress wore oblivion’s hue,
Your loveliness would not be overcast.