Low, labouring sighs stirred coldly through the grove,
Where buds unblossomed on the mosses lay;
His upraised hands the dusky tangle clove,
"All bramble-laced and moss-grown is the way!"
With grievous eyes, and lips that smiled alway,
Strange, flitting shapes, wreathed round him as he strove
Their spectral arms, and filmy green array;
There was no sun, nor broad red moon above.
Here lies her lute—and here her slender glove;
(Her bower well won, sweet joy shall crown the day);
But her he saw not, vanished was his Love,
The year is old, he said, and skies are grey.
The wrong was mine! he cried. I left my dove
(He flung him down upon the weeping clay),
And now I find her flown—ah wellaway!
The house is desolate that held my Love,
I will go hence.
Graham R. Tomson.
THE SICILIAN OCTAVE DESCRIBED AND EXEMPLIFIED.
To thee, fair Isle, Italia's satellite,
Italian harps their native measures lend;
Yet, wooing sweet diversity, not quite
Thy octaves with Italia's octaves blend.
Six streaming lines amass the arrowy might
In hers, one cataract couplet doth expend;
Thine lake-wise widens, level in the light,
And like to its beginning is its end.
To thee 'tis pleasure, haply to have brought
Home precious ware from China or Japan;
And thine, when keen and long pursuit hath caught
Strange bird, or Psyche gay with veinèd fan—
And thine, to spell some sentence wisdom-fraught
In palimpest or Arab alcoran;
And mine, to seize some rare and coloured thought
And cage it in my verse Sicilian.