With thine eyes of trust
And thy mirth, whereunder
All the world’s hope lay
In thy heart of wonder.
Now, beyond regrets
And faint memories of thee.
Saddest is, poor child,
That I cannot love thee.
TO PERCY BUCK
Folk alien to the Muse have hemm’d us round
And fiends have suck’d our blood: our best delight
Is poison’d, and the year’s infective blight
Hath made almost a silence of sweet sound.
But you, what fortune, Percy, have you found
At Harrow? doth fair hope your toil requite?
Doth beauty win her praise and truth her right,
Or hath the good seed fal’n on stony ground?
Ply the art ever nobly, single-soul’d
Like Brahms, or as you ruled in Wells erewhile,
—Nor yet the memory of that zeal is cold—
Where lately I, who love the purer style,
Enter’d, and felt your spirit as of old
Beside me, listening in the chancel-aisle.
TO HARRY ELLIS WOOLDRIDGE
Love and the Muse have left their home, now bare
Of memorable beauty, all is gone,
The dedicated charm of Yattendon,
Which thou wert apt, dear Hal, to build and share.
What noble shades are flitting, who while-ere
Haunted the ivy’d walls, where time ran on
In sanctities of joy by reverence won,
Music and choral grace and studies fair!
These on some kindlier field may Fate restore,
And may the old house prosper, dispossest
Of her whose equal it can nevermore
Hold till it crumble: O nay! and the door
Will moulder ere it open on a guest
To match thee in thy wisdom and thy jest.