SWEET Thyme, that underfoot so meekly grows
In humble company
Of splendid rose,
Is all content to be
The acolyte, as each man knows,
Of lavender, of rue, and rosemary.
Sweet Time, that pilfers all my precious years,
Will no wise blandishment
Or threat of tears
Bring you to pause, content?
—Hard-hearted greybeard, as he went,
He winked at me, and clicked his wicked shears.
A CYPRESS AVENUE
LIKE hooded monks they go,
Two by two,
Pointed and black and slow,
Chanting for you,
Chanting without a tear,
A final song,
Chanting above your bier
Passing along,
Far from the living sun,
Far from the day,
—My lover, let us run
Away, away!
MIRAGE
THERE travelled north from Kurdistan along the lone Siberian trails
A merchant with his caravan and Eastern barter in his bales.
He rode ahead, he rode apart, the city of Irkutsk his goal,
Upon his lean Circassian foal, and after came the lumbering cart
With creaking wheel, deliberate spoke, and water-bullocks in the yoke;
And after these in single string the boorish camels following,
Slouching with high unwieldy packs like howdahs piled upon their backs;
With slaver hanging from their lips and hatred worming in their brain
They slouched beneath their drivers’ whips across the white and mournful plain.
The merchant riding on alone saw not the white incessant snow,
He only saw the metal’s glow, the colour of the precious stone;
He lingered on the merchandise that he had brought from Kurdistan,
And turned, and swept his caravan with doting and voluptuous eyes,
For there were choice Bokhara rugs, and daggers with Damascus blade
And hafts of turquoise-studded jade, and phials rich with scented drugs,
Koràns inscribed on ass’s skin, and bales of silk from Temesvàr,
And silver ear-rings beaten thin, and bargains from the cool bazaar.
He felt the gold already pouched, he crooned to it with horrid love,
As still the camels onward slouched with hatred of the men that drove.