METEMPSYCHOSIS.
I SHALL not see thee, nay, but I shall know
Perchance, thy gray eyes in another’s eyes,
Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow
On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise
Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise
Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,
When through the scent of heather, faint and low,
The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.
From all sweet art, and out of all “old rhyme,”
Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;
The shadows of the beauty of all time,
Carven and sung are only shapes of thee;
Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet, my dear,
Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
Andrew Lang.
A BALLADE OF OLD SWEETHEARTS.
WHO is it that weeps for the last year’s flowers
When the wood is aflame with the fires of spring,
And we hear her voice in the lilac bowers
As she croons the runes of the blossoming?
For the same old blooms do the new years bring,
But not to our lives do the years come so,
New lips must kiss and new bosoms cling.—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
Ah me! for a breath of those morning hours
When Alice and I went a-wandering
Through the shining fields, and it still was ours
To kiss and to feel we were shuddering—
Ah me! when a kiss was a holy thing.—
How sweet were a smile from Maud, and oh!
With Phyllis once more to be whispering.—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
But it cannot be that old Time devours
Such loves as was Annie’s and mine we sing,
And surely beneficent heavenly powers
Save Muriel’s beauty from perishing;
And if in some golden evening
To a quaint old garden I chance to go,
Shall Marion no more by the wicket sing?—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
In these lives of ours do the new years bring
Old loves as old flowers again to blow?
Or do new lips kiss and new bosoms cling?—
Ah! lost are the loves of the long ago.
Richard Le Gallienne.
IN THE MILE-END ROAD.
HOW like her! But ’tis she herself
Comes up the crowded street;
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet!