BEAUTY'S METEMPSYCHOSIS
That beauty such as thine
Can die indeed,
Were ordinance too wantonly malign:
No wit may reconcile so cold a creed
With beauty such as thine.
From wave and star and flower
Some effluence rare
Was lent thee, a divine but transient dower:
Thou yield'st it back from eyes and lips and hair
To wave and star and flower.
Shouldst thou to-morrow die,
Thou still shalt be
Found in the rose and met in all the sky:
And from the ocean's heart shalt sing to me,
Shouldst thou to-morrow die.
ENGLAND MY MOTHER
I
England my mother,
Wardress of waters.
Builder of peoples,
Maker of men,—
Hast thou yet leisure
Left for the muses?
Heed'st thou the songsmith
Forging the rhyme?
Deafened with tumults,
How canst thou hearken?
Strident is faction,
Demos is loud.
Lazarus, hungry,
Menaces Dives;
Labour the giant
Chafes in his hold.