Sleep, minstrel, sleep; we do not grow more kind;
Your cloak was thin, your wound was wet and deep;
More bitter breath there was than winter wind,
And hotter tears than now thy lovers weep.
Upon the world-old breast of comfort find
How gentle Darkness thee will gently keep.
Thou wert the summer’s, and thy joy declined
When winter winds awoke. Sleep, minstrel, sleep.
IN ROSE-TIME
Oh, this is the joy of the rose:
That it blows,
And goes.
Winter lasts a five-month,
Spring-time stays but one;
Yellow blow the rye-fields
When the rose is done.
Pines are clad at Yuletide
When the birch is bare,
And the holly’s greenest
In the frosty air.
Sorrow keeps a stone house
Builded grim and gray;
Pleasure hath a straw thatch
Hung with lanterns gay.
On her petty savings
Niggard Prudence thrives,
Passion, ere the moonset,
Bleeds a thousand lives.
Virtue hath a warm hearth—
Folly’s dead and drowned;
Friendship hath her own when
Love is underground.
Ah! for me the madness
Of the spendthrift flower,
Burning myriad sunsets
In a single hour.
For this is the joy of the rose:
That it blows,
And goes.
POPPIES ON LUDLOW CASTLE
Through halls of vanished pleasure,
And hold of vanished power,
And crypt of faith forgotten,
I came to Ludlow tower.
A-top of arch and stairway,
Of crypt, and donjon cell,
Of council hall, and chamber,
Of wall, and ditch, and well,