The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

PRESS NOTICES

"'TWIXT EARTH AND STARS"

"Miss Radclyffe-Hall is a poet. She has a gift of expression always felicitous, not infrequently spontaneous, and her rhythms are really musical. Moreover, the level of her book is uniformly high. In writing of nature her intuition and sympathy are remarkable. Nearly every poem contains something which clings to your memory and sets you thinking.... The main note is vigorous, joyous youth, thankful for the right to exist in such a lovely world.

"If Miss Radclyffe-Hall acquires a higher finish she may confidently look forward to taking her place among the poetesses of this country. It is not often one can so honestly recommend the public to buy a volume of poetry."—The Queen, 4th July, 1906.

"The author of ''Twixt Earth and Stars' has a real talent for versification, and the subjects chosen are all poetical, added to which she has real feeling and the power to express it. I am so charmed with this little book of poems that I cannot help recommending it to you, that you also may enjoy it."—The Lady, 5th July, 1906.

"A little book of short poems, most of which are very pleasant, being marked by sincerity and sweetness."—Evening Standard, 21st July, 1906.

"''Twixt Earth and Stars' is a dainty little volume of verse, some of which is of considerable merit."—Publisher and Bookseller, 28th July, 1906.

A SHEAF OF VERSES

A SHEAF OF VERSES

POEMS

BY

MARGUERITE RADCLYFFE-HALL

AUTHOR OF "'TWIXT EARTH AND STARS"

JOHN AND EDWARD BUMPUS LTD.
350 OXFORD STREET, LONDON, W.

MCMVIII

DEDICATED TO SAD DAYS AND GLAD DAYS

CONTENTS

A SHEAF OF VERSES

KINSHIP

Sunlight and shade,

Moorland and glade,

Evening and day,

Winter and May,

Troubadour breeze,

Amorous trees,

Pondering Hills,

Gold daffodils

Born of the Spring,

Thrushes that sing

Passionate notes

From downy throats,

Be unto me

Each one of ye

Sister or brother;

And Earth be my mother!

THE MOON'S MESSAGE

The Moon looked in at the window,

And smiled as I wrote to you,

She lay like a frail white maiden,

In shadowy folds of blue.

Her bosom was bare and tender,

And slight, for she still was young,

And down from her dainty shoulders

A mantle of starlight hung.

She wooed with a wanton ardour

The winds till they lulled to sighs,

And night was transformed with beauty,

For love of her limpid eyes.

The soul of the cloudy darkness

Awakened beneath her beams,

The sky swooned away with longing,

The Earth stirred in tender dreams.

Alas! for the moon was cruel,

Far colder than snow was she,

Her heart was a burnt-out Planet,

Her light but a fallacy:

And she looked at my open letter,

And called from her couch on high,

"Pray give my love to my Sister

Who is even more cold than I."

ON A BATTLE FIELD

Once o'er this hill whereon we stand,

Just you and I, hand clasp'd in hand

Amid the silence, and the space,

A mighty battle rent the air,

With dying curse and choking prayer;

'Mid shot and shell death stalked apace.

Is it conceivable to you—

So much at peace—because we two

Are close together, or to me?

The silent beauty of the noon

Seems like a Heaven-granted boon,

Aglow with tender ecstasy.

A little mist of hazy blue

Is slowly hiding from our view

The city's domes and slender spires,

As thro' a bridal veil the sun

Subdued and shy lights one by one

The virgin clouds with blushing fires.

The wind has fallen; very low

We hear his wings brush past, and know

He creeps away to dream and rest;

How sweet to be alone, to feel

You breathe one longing sigh, and steal

A little closer to my breast.

Is anything worth while but this?

We may not perish for a kiss,

Yet thus it were not hard to die!

War strews the earth with countless dead,

And after all is done and said,

The end is love, and you and I!

TO ——

The world that thro' its vale of tears

Looks out upon Eternity

Has yet one smile for us, and we

Still youthful in the count of years,

May add our smiles, and kiss the lips

Of life, for whosoever sips

The wine within that ruddy bowl

Has quaffed defiance to the spheres.

Beloved, see, I drink thereto!

And pass the goblet on to you.

THE ALL-MOTHER'S AWAKENING

To-day the still, deep mind of the Earth

Has steeped in longing her wistful eyes,

A sense of wonder and glad surprise

Thrills thro' her heart with a thought of birth.

The grave All-Mother looks up and smiles,

Her breath comes balmy from sunlit mouth,

Her bosom bare to the ardent south

Is fanned by perfume from fruitful miles.

All winter long has the dear Earth slept

In drifts of snow, 'neath the bane of frost,

Her children sought for the Mother lost,

Yet found her not, and in anguish wept.

All winter long have my senses cried

For warmth of sun, and the blue of sky,

The hard north answered to mock my sigh,

And all the glory of life denied.

The cold mists drifting on land and sea,

Like ghosts of passions burnt out and chill,

Smote heart and soul with the fear of ill,

That cast its awfulness over me.

The dank gray sails, and the dank gray shore,

They melted each in the other's face,

With clammy kiss, in a wan embrace

That left them colder than e'en before.

And thro' the boughs of the moss-grown trees

The sap flowed sluggish, or not at all,

While here and there would a dead leaf fall,

Like thought of harrowing memories.

Then from the heart of the Universe

There rose a wail of unending woe,

An anguished prayer from the deeps below:

"Oh! Mother, lift from our souls the curse!"

"Oh! Mother, quicken thy sacred womb,

With fire that throbs in the veins of Spring,

Behold the numbness of everything,

And only thou can avert the doom."

"Oh! Mother, hear us!" But silent still

The Earth slept on, as it were in death.

Her ice-bound bosom stirred not with breath,

So fast she lay 'neath the winter's will.

I joined my prayer to the wind and trees,

I joined my cry to the striving soil,

I said, "Oh! Mother, our endless toil

Has made us sicken with miseries.

"Rise up! and help us again to live,

Rise up! uncover thy fruitful breast,

We faint in winter's unrestful rest,

We burn with longings to love and give."

And as I spoke came a voice more strong

Than all creation's, o'er land and sea

It called our Mother to ecstasy,

And lo! she stirred, who had slept so long.

She stirred, she opened her drowsy eyes,

And bending down from the dome above,

Beheld the form of embodied Love,

As Spring stepped Earthward from Paradise.

A SUMMER THOUGHT

I often think that all those vast desires

For purer joys, that thrill the human heart,

Vague yearnings such as solitude inspires,

That nameless something silence can impart,

Could after all be quenched by simple things,

Whose spirits dwell within the wide-eyed flowers,

Or haunt deep glades, where scent of primrose clings

About the garments of the passing hours.

MOTH TO THE FLAME

Moth to the flame!

Fool that you be,

Life's but a game,

Love is the same,

Better go free!

Moth to the fire!

Madness your fate;

Burnt of desire,

If you expire,

Joy comes too late.

Moth to the kiss

Bringing you death!

"Gladly for this

Agonized bliss,

With my last breath

Will I adore

As ne'er before!"

Foolish Moth saith.

A TWILIGHT FANCY

Dear, give me the tips of your fingers

To hold in this scented gloom,

'Mid the sighs of the dying roses,

That steal through the breeze-swept room;

I would have you but lightly touch me,

A phantom might stir the dress,

In its passing, of some lost lover

With just such a faint caress;

Or a butterfly wan with summer

Brush thus with his down-flecked wings

The bells of the altar lilies

He touches, and lightly rings.

So give me the tips of your fingers,

Not your hand, lest I break the spell

Of the moment with too much passion,

And lose what I love so well.

THE TWO ANGELS

Once Youth and Innocence, side by side,

With flaming swords at a garden gate

Stood forth in silence, to watch and wait,

Lest lust and evil their might defied.

Love's rarest fruits in that garden grew,

And lo! a Pilgrim of pain and sin

Grown tired, would gladly have entered in,

And washed his soul in the gleaming dew.

He looked at Youth, and the Angel said:

"Behold me young, and behold me weak;

If you but crush me, the joy you seek

Shall quench desire on a rose-strewn bed,

"Yet oh! I pray you another hour,

For should you enter this Holy place,

My soul is given again to space,

And I must die as a blighted flower."

Then all the sorrow and all the shame,

That life had taught him to understand,

Rose up, and fettered the Pilgrim's hand,

And murmur'd: "Youth is a sacred name."

He looked at Innocence, nude and white,

And all unconscious she met his gaze;

Her eyes were soft as an evening haze,

Her red lips fashioned to give delight.

She sighed, "I know not the boon you ask,

But Nature sent me to guard the way

That leads to realms of Eternal day;

I may not shrink from the Mother's task.

"Yet these fair limbs that are pure as snow,

Should you but sully by thought or deed

Must droop and fade as a broken reed,

That every wind of the earth may blow."

Then all the goodness that he had missed,

Each dream of sweetness that passed him by,

Rose up, and cried: "Thou shalt still deny

Thyself"—and Innocence stood unkissed.

IN THE HARDT WALD

A road disused these many years,

O'er which the grass has grown

Between two rows of silent pines,

That stretch in straight, unbroken lines

Away to plains unknown.

Long ruts that passing wagons made

In days whose records die

Form trenches for the frailer flowers,

That timid of more open bowers

Secure in hiding lie.

And in those deep impressions there,

Where patient beasts have trod,

With stems in dainty green array,

And faces turned to meet the day,

Grow sprays of golden-rod,

'Mid sunbeams slanting thro' the wood

The ardent Afternoon

Steals like a lover fond, and dumb,

Upon his mistress Earth, o'ercome

With many a tender boon;

And that she sooner shall respond

To his awakening fires,

He summons from each fairy glade

Wee winged things, to serenade

This nymph of his desires.

So full of mystic power and life

Is this forgotten place

That I may scarcely dare intrude

My presence and my lighter mood,

Lest stepping I deface

Some masterpiece of moss or bloom,

That Dryad hands have wrought,

Perchance my very humanness

May make this potent charm the less,

That solitude has taught.

I fear to tread upon a branch,

For if beneath my feet

It breaks 'twould thus affright the bird

Whose tender music I have heard

In yonder green retreat;

And who am I that I should dare

Gainsay the Noon's behest;

Or penetrate this peaceful sphere,

And bring an agony of fear

To some dumb creature's breast?

Within this forest night and day

An endless hymn of praise

From out the heart of Nature wells,

That once again perfection dwells

In her profanèd ways,

That living green conceals the scars

Made by relentless man,

While in the deepest sylvan glades

Sound faint and far thro' emerald shades

The crystal pipes of Pan.

THE QUEST OF THE WHITE HEATHER
Schwartz Wald

I sought at dawn for the sweet white heather,

In hiding among the blue,

The earth was warm with the summer weather,

The flowers still damp with dew.

I moved a stone with my foot in walking,

A lizard ran out in fear,

Two tiny streams to each other talking

Complained that I came so near.

And all alone on the side of the mountain

I spoke to the new-born Day,

Oh! help me to gather some rare white heather

Sweet Morning, show me the way!

A big stag beetle crawled close in wonder,

A grasshopper chirped of rain,

A bee just pushing some flowers asunder

Buzzed loud in his vast disdain.

The pines swayed gently, as though with laughter,

They knew what I came to seek!

A thistledown that the breeze ran after

Brushed lightly against my cheek.

And all alone on the side of the mountain

I spoke to the new born Day,

Oh! help me to gather some rare white heather,

Sweet Morning, show me the way!

A trout jumped high with a rainbow shudder,

To see how the mortals look,

Then swayed his tail like a silver rudder,

And swam away in the brook.

I think I heard all the Pixies saying

"No heather that's white you'll find!"

I know I saw little Gnome-folk playing

Where shadowy boughs reclined—

And all alone on the side of the mountain

I spoke to the new born Day,

O help me to gather some rare white heather,

Sweet Morning, show me the way!

Alas! alas! for the fairy flower,

My feet grew weary in vain,

I sought for luck thro' each sunlit bower,

To find it truant again.

Then while I paused on the side of the mountain

The stillness was cleft apart,

And Morning cried "He who seeks white heather

Must find it deep in his heart!"

ONE NIGHT

I stood beside you in the dark,

And felt the magic of the night

Steal o'er my senses, 'til they swooned,

And mists of passion dimmed my sight.

The stillness made me dumb, those words

I dared not utter choked my breath,

Each crushing each, as mad with life

They rose, to die a silent death.

My lips grew dry beneath the fire

Of kisses that they feign would give,

And every pulse, with answering beat,

Throbbed in its eagerness to live.

A WELCOME

Dear Ghost, across a wind-swept sphere

You wander back again to me,

And I am not afraid, for see

I bid you rest beside me here!

I press your icy lips to mine,

Since you and I are almost one

Can I condemn what you have done

To render fruitless the divine?

Some day perchance our weary task

May finish, and we two will stand

Before the Maker, hand in hand,

There will be much that we shall ask!

WHITE BUTTERFLIES
Schwartz Wald

The heat of the mid-day has smitten the forest-land dumb!

The mountains are closing their eyes in a languorous dream,

The boulders stand stark, where the torrents once hastened to come,

For Earth in her passion is wholly consuming their stream.

The ardour and terror of living is rife in the air,

The air that is breathless, and stranger to motion or sound,

A rapture so potent it seems near akin to despair

Is drawing the life-blood in mist, from the sun-ravished ground.

And out thro' this region grown tense with creation's desire,

Inconsequent, fragile as thistledown wafted by breeze,

Two butterflies flutter, like snow-flakes that fall upon fire,

Far into the flame-land, that stretches away from the trees.

White butterflies, innocent-looking and soft as a sigh,

In quest of what blossoms, what mystical pleasures, who knows?

Close one to the other they hover now low and now high,

Like thoughts that are breathed from the heart of an opening rose.

Vague spirits that drift o'er the infinite tide of the earth,

As jewels of foam, on the passion-torn breast of the sea,

They know not the hour of their ending, the cause of their birth,

A moment of time or a year, they rejoice but to be!

Around them the problem of life, with its pain and its joy,

Impregnates the noon with a sense of some marvellous power,

Above them, grown potent with strength to create or destroy,

The shafts of the sun, that have smitten and withered the flower.

And still with frail bodies unmoved by the vastness of things

These fairy white butterflies flutter like spirits of light,

They pause for an instant, then spreading their tremulous wings,

Fly into the infinite, fading away from my sight.

THOUGHTS

A drop of dew that on a rose-bud clings,

A ray of sunshine in a world of Springs,

A bird, who singing from some hidden tree,

Is bathed in streams of endless melody,

An open flower you trod on as you passed,

The purple shadow that your passing cast,

A breath of wind that lingered on your brow,

An emerald leaf fresh shaken from the bough,

A smile of hope on lips that you delight,

A grateful word from one whom you requite

For some small service, or a little sigh

That fans your senses as it flutters by,

These things to you how much they mean!

While I?...

THE CLOUD AND THE MOUNTAIN

A little white Cloud loved the Mountain,

She hung in the sky all day,

And gazed with rather a timid smile

To where, beneath her full many a mile,

The earth and the loved one lay.

The Mountain was silent and lonely,

And grim in the light of dawn,

And ever and aye he cast his eyes

In longing hope to the distant skies

Where little white clouds are born.

Till a breeze in the evening passing

Took pity upon her vow,

And very tenderly lifted down

The virgin Cloud, till her fleecy crown

Was set on the Mountain's brow.

And they loved with a silent ardour

So great that she soon was slain,

And drop by drop from her tender breast

The life-blood flowed o'er his rock-bound crest,

And fell to the earth in rain.

But she left him to keep for ever,

As solace in endless woe

Her soul, and now through the changing years,

Come shine, come shade, or come smiles, or tears,

It lies on his breast as snow.

AN AUGUST NIGHT

Hot with the ardour of the sun,

Whose burning lips had slain the noon,

The golden pallor of the moon

Was but an added fire, o'ercome

With memories she swooned away,

While I, grown weary with the day

Sought on my balcony to find

Some solace for my groping mind,

But lo! the awful night was fraught

With anguish, from the noontide caught;

The dark was breathless, and the skies

Filled with a thousand prying eyes

But scoffed to see my soul's despair,

And flung me back my tortured prayer.

SPRING HOPES
SONG

Dear, perchance 'neath the frost and snow

One little golden flower is sleeping,

You shall find it, for you will know

Whither at dawn the sun goes peeping.

Come then sweetheart, we two will go

Hand in hand, and a truce to weeping,

If, in spite of the winter's woe,

Safe in Nature's maternal keeping

Under the frost rime and under the snow,

One little primrose is daintily sleeping.

MY CHOICE

I have chosen a hill very solemn and tall,

To shelter me.

I have chosen a home very humble and small,

Where I would be.

I have chosen a wind very fragrant and gay,

To kiss my mouth.

I have chosen a view, stretching ever away,

When I look south.

I have chosen a glow that the sunlight shall bring

When morning calls.

I have chosen a choir of the thrushes to sing

When twilight falls.

I have chosen a shrine where my spirit may pray,

Blessing its birth.

I have chosen a breast where my head I can lay,

Sweet Mother Earth!

IN COUPLES

There are two happy birds in the tree,

There are two happy stars in the sky,

There are two happy waves in the sea,

There are two happy clouds drifting by,

There are two happy mortals, since we

Are together, just you dear, and I.

HOUSE HUNTING

Where shall we make us a cosy home,

Up in a high pine tree?

Suppose the squirrel deserts his nest,

And we could only grow small and rest

Under the twigs, laid so daintily,

Up in the high pine tree!

Where shall we build us a lovely house,

Under the Ocean deep?

Suppose the fishes would swim away,

And leave a palace of coral gay,

With seaweed gardens where moonbeams sleep,

Under the Ocean deep!

Where shall we find an enchanted spot,

Up in the fields of sky?

Suppose the rainbow bends slowly down,

And we walk over to Cloudy Town,

Golden with beams from the morning's eye,

Up in the fields of sky!

How shall we live out our days, we two,

Safely where no harm parts?

Suppose we fetter our lives with love,

More fair than ocean, or skies above,

And learn to dwell in each other's hearts,

Safely where no harm parts.

RE-INCARNATION

Meeting you I felt a thrill,

Strangely sad, and strangely sweet!

Some compelling force of will,

Sprung from sympathies complete,

Sympathies, that rose again

After death's ennobling pain.

ODE TO SAPPHO

If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,

Ah! let me seek it from the raging seas:

To raging seas unpitied I'll remove;

And either cease to live or cease to love.

Ovid's Heroic Epistle, XV.

Immortal Lesbian! canst thou still behold

From some far sphere wherein thy soul doth sing

This earth, that once was thine, while glimmered gold

The joyous beams of youth's forgotten spring?

Can thine unfathomed eyes embrace this sea,

Whose ebb and flow once echoed in thy brain?

Whose tides bear record of thine ecstasy

And thy despair, that in its arms hath lain?

Those love-burnt lips! Can death have quenched their fire?

Whose words oft stir our senses to unrest?

Whose eager ardour caught and held desire,

A searing flame against thy living breast?

Passion-wan Lesbian, in that awful place

Where spirits wander lost without a name

Thou still art Sappho, and thine ardent face

Lights up the gloom with love's enduring flame.

Oh! Goddess, woman, lover, all divine

And yet divinely mortal, where thou art

Comes not as cadence from some song of thine

Each throbbing beat that stirs the human heart?

Canst thou forget us who are still thy friends,

Thy lovers, o'er the cloudy gulf of years?

Who live, and love, and dying make amends

For life's short pleasures thro' death's endless fears?

Once thou didst seek the solace of thy kind,

The madness of a kiss was more to thee

Than Heaven or Hell, the greatness of thy mind

Could not conceive more potent ecstasy!

Life was thy slave, and gave thee of her store

Rich gifts and many, yet with all the pain

Of hopeless longing made thy spirit sore,

E'en thou didst yearn, and couldest not attain.

Oh! Sappho, sister, by that agony

Of soul and body hast thou gained a place

Within each age that shines majestic'ly

Across the world from out the dusk of space.

Not thy deep pleasures, nor thy swiftest joys,

Have made thee thus, immortal and yet dear

To mortal hearts, but that which naught destroys,

The sacred image of thy falling tear.

Beloved Lesbian! we would dare to claim

By that same tear fond union with thy lot;

Yet 'tis enough, if when we breathe thy name

Thy soul but listens, and forgets us not.

INCOMPATIBLE

To-day I hate that bitter creed,

Whereby the groaning soul is taught

That God Almighty finds the need

Of pain, ere true salvation's wrought!

Dear God, who did create the trees,

The scented flowers, the misty view,

The uplands' breezy ecstasies,

The Ocean's iridescent blue,

The arches of the endless sky,

The magic of a day in Spring,

The down upon a butterfly,

The anthem that the skylarks sing.

All perfect growing harmonies,

Each tuneful sound and beauteous sight,

That lifts us from our miseries

To raptures of supreme delight,

Can I believe that Thou hast willed

Each bitter moment I have spent?

Whereby in anguish were fulfilled

Thy hard decrees of punishment?

To-day is June! Since early dawn

My heart has felt the sun's caress,

I bless the hour that I was born

To witness so much loveliness.

And I would have a God of love,

A tender God, who looks and smiles

From some not distant throne above

Upon His fair created miles.

I know not who has placed the thorns

That pierce, on our human brow,

But I would pray on these sweet morns.

Dear God, Oh! Let it not be Thou.

CONFIDENCE

The faintness of my heart

When strife and evil rose,

The worse and lesser part

Which it for ever chose,

God knows.

The passions that have bound

My soul with chains of earth,

The sorrows that have found

Their home with me since birth,

The dearth

Of all these nobler things

That make existence fair,

The stain of sin that clings

Until we cease to care

For prayer,

All this must I atone:

And though eternal woes

My banished soul alone,

Must bear without repose,

Yet I am not afraid

To know God knows.

FOUND WANTING

I turn'd to you, the sky was amber gold,

Blue haze and flaming bracken stretched away

In undulating mystery to the day,

Reclining that the evening might behold

And hide her softly 'neath his starlit wings.

A trembling breeze caressed the nearer things

About us, pausing now and then to play

Within the tender shadows of your hair,

Across the sky, like darts flung high in air

A flight of swallows struck against the glow

An instant, ere they melted quite away,

Like thoughts consumed by passion, and the lay

Of home birds grew emotional and low.

My very soul came forth and sought your eyes,

But in their depth no raptured awe took birth,

You stood indifferent to the throb of earth,

You gazed unseeing at the burning skies,

And all it meant you could not realize!

* * * * *

A little shiver crept along my heart—

For you and I were strangers, far apart.

IN DARKNESS

Oh! that the night were passed, and morn,

Made lovely by the joy of spring,

Would flood these sombre clouds with dawn,

Oh! that some hopeful bird would sing,

And in his tiny feathered throat

Contain the answer vast, remote,

My spirit seeks in endless spheres

Of thought, and prayer, yet never hears!

BROTHER FILIPPO

Ring on! Oh endless vesper bell!

What can you know of that deep Hell

Upon this Earth, where men may dwell.

Ring on! Your calling is in vain,

What holy rite can lull the pain

Of mortal Sin's Immortal stain.

* * * * *

It was the heavy hour of noon,

When Nature still as in a swoon

Reclines beneath the spell of June.

I left the Monastery gate,

And sought the forest shade, to wait

For even hour, and meditate.

Upon the beads hung from my side

A silver Christus crucified.

God mocked, and scourgèd, and denied!

My missal in my hand I took,

And read within the Holy Book

How vain the joys a monk forsook.

I thought of Heaven, and all therein

I hoped by penitence to win;

My heart was free from mortal sin.

When lo! as of enchanted spheres

A languid music smote my ears,

With vast delight, and vaster fears.

It was as if all deadly wrong

Grown honied sweet in magic song

Caressed my senses, deep and long.

My eyes upon the missal bent

Sprang upward, and in ravishment

Beheld a gaze on me intent.

The figure of a tender maid,

Within the larches' trembling glade

Clothèd in sunlight and in shade—

Was bending o'er me, and her breast

Full worthy of a King's behest

She offered, that my head might rest.

She was most pale, and frail, and white,

Like moonlit mist on Summer's night,

Like memory of wan delight.

And thro' the tendrils of her hair

There blew a breath of scented air,

Of all sweet things from everywhere.

A limpid magic were her eyes,

Two mountain lakes, where sunlight lies

Enamoured, and of passion dies.

From out her lips proceeded words

More soft than distant pipe of herds,

More tender than the song of birds.

I know not what the tongue she spake,

But all my senses leapt to ache

With longing, for her asking's sake.

As in a dream I rose and pressed

Her bending slimness to my breast:

With eager kiss my mouth caressed

The flaming redness of her own,

All else on earth had nothing grown,

Save that we two were there alone.

Within my ears the rush of streams,

My vision shot with lurid gleams,

My spirit bathed in burning dreams!

A vital fragrance round her clung,

As if from earth's deep veins was wrung

The sap of springs for ever young.

It turned my blood to living fire,

The universe immense, entire,

Was bound in me, and my desire.

No mortal man was I, while still

I kissed and wreaked my ardent will

Upon that form of tender ill.

She cast her magic over me,

Her spell of Immortality,

That lost my soul Eternity.

The sunlight faded, and the day

As one affrighted fled away,

Suddenly tremulous and gray.

An icy wind sprang up, and blew

A shuddering breath along the dew,

It chilled my body thro' and thro'.

I sought the shelter of her hair,

But lo! my sinful breast was bare,

My arms outstretched to empty air.

I wept aloud, in anguish cried,

The echoes hastened to deride!

She came no longer to my side.

And in her stead, with agony

Of dumb regret, most bitterly

My soul came forth, and looked on me!

* * * * *

Within the forest's depth a bird

Began to twitter, and I heard

Trees stirring at its tender word.

I woke as from a searing dream,

Beside my feet a little stream

Grew rosy with a sunset beam.

The earth gave forth her fragrant store;

Obedient to Eternal law,

All things were even as before,

All things save I, who moaned, and stood

A stranger, in the tranquil wood.

My spirit shrank away, nor could

Refresh itself at Nature's breast,

Its lips were burnt, defiled, caressed

Of sin, unholy and unblessed!

I knew it then! fulfilled desires

Are in themselves Hell's deepest fires,

And man when highest he aspires

The more may fall beneath his lust.

And yet, ah! Heaven, the while I thrust

My sense in penitential dust

I knew that thro' my misery

A tremor stole persistently,

Of rapture at her memory.

Shall I confess with spirit bent

That hour of awful ravishment?

Dear God, but should I not repent?

'Twere better that we two should die

A thousand deaths, my soul and I,

Than live an everlasting lie!

Oh soul! What would you have me say,

To Him whose hand shall never stay

Its vengeance on this woeful day!

* * * * *

Ring on! oh endless vesper bell!

What can you know of that deep Hell

Upon this earth where men may dwell,

And God, does He know? Who can tell——

AN AUTUMN RIDE
Malvern

The world's a beautiful world to-day,

A flame of gold and a dusk of gray,

Where Autumn leaves toss their gaudy crests

O'er still deep lanes, where the twilight rests.

Just overhead as I ride along

A hopeful thrush charms his thought to song,

And all that's joyous within me springs

To meet the promise of which he sings.

Away to Heaven the melting view

Is soft with raptures of endless blue;

The trees and meadows, the hills and plains,

Like music woven of countless strains

Submerge, entwine, till the eye can see

No shade that is not a harmony.

As part of nature's most perfect whole

Each humble object conceives a soul,

No tiny flower in the distance lost,

But gives its colour, nor counts the cost;

No drop of dew, but its feeble ray

An atom cast in the pearly gray

Is shining there, unperceived, content,

A dim star set in earth's firmament.

My horse treads gently, and makes scarce sound,

His hoofs sink deep in the marshy ground,

Yet 'neath the touch of my curbing rein

I feel the youth in his veins complain,

He lifts his head, and his eager eyes

Gaze far away where the moorland lies,

He whinnies often, as though to say

I would be free on this perfect day!

He too is filled with a happiness

His dumb soul treasures but can't express,

And in that gladness of wind and sun

I know my beast and myself are one.

The way is lonely, no passer by

Disturbs the stillness, my horse and I

Possess the earth, and the rippling air

Divine elixir to banish care

Has brought new strength to my heart and mind,

And swept all sorrowful things behind.

Oh! Joy of living when youth is ours!

Oh! Earth my Mother, thy fragrant bowers

Could they be fairer if Angels trod

Beneath their trees at the will of God?

Could fabled Heaven e'er compensate

For one such day, when the year is late,

And all the Summer has come to dwell

In long warm moments of dim farewell?

When skies are pale with the tears that bless

The soil, in falling for happiness?

And winds are fragrant with scent that flows

From out the bosom of some lone rose?

And brooks are drowsy with dusty gleams,

And languid thoughts of their winter dreams?

The fields are vital, and nude, and gray

With future promise of fruitful clay?

Ah! no, my being could not believe,

My heart desire, nor my soul conceive,

A world more perfect, more dear, more true,

Than this fair Eden I'm riding through.

BEFORE DAWN
Malvern

I rose, ere yet the eager light

Had wrested from the grasp of night

The trembling spirit of the world.

The dusk of dawn with wistful eyes

Stole timidly across the skies,

A little cloud its edges curled

By passing winds sped soft and bright

Towards some Eastern Paradise.

No bird was yet awake to sing,

And silence kissing everything

Compelled my doubting soul to rest.

While yet I slept a fall of snow

Had whitened all the hills, and lo!

Above the nearest summit's crest,

A pendent star, as though to bring

God's blessing to His Earth below,

Shone like a thought benign, and kind,

Within the vast Eternal Mind.

MY CASTLE

Ah! why have I built my Castle

On the shifting golden sand?

On the shores of the hungry ocean

Instead of the safe highland?

I ask myself, and I answer

These sands are the sands of youth,

And these waves are the surfs of passion

Of life,—and of death forsooth!

And I know in my heart I'd rather

Exist for but one short day

Where the breakers of life wash highest,

Love, live, and be swept away.

MALVERN
July 23rd, 1906

Across the hills a tender shadow stole,

Like thought upon the face of one loved well,

And thro' the silence rang some distant bell,

A vague sweet music in its every toll.

Glimmers of sunlight flecked with purple shade

Upon the nearer summits, and the view

Grown dim, unearthly, 'neath the silver-blue

Of incense mist, that rose while nature prayed.

Two stars with tremulous emotion shone

Close side by side, in the encircling dome,

While drifting clouds, their edges soft as foam,

Made couches, which the moon might rest upon.

In thro' the open window came the scent

Of lime trees, in the garden underneath,

And from my cigarette a little wreath

Of memories, to meet their fragrance went.

It was an evening full of bygone things,

That mingled with emotions newly born

As night will ever clasp and kiss the dawn,

And leave those kisses on her ardent wings.

TO MY LITTLE COUSIN

You're just as pretty as the Day,

That young and pink above the hills

Trips daintily along her way,

With little breezy thrills.

I know that when she steps to earth

And sees the blueness of your eyes

She'll think that thence she took her birth,

And quite desert the skies!

TREPIDATION

This valley now in sun, and now in shade,

Is like the musings of your tender mind,

That pauses, bathed in joy, yet half afraid

To look before, and then to gaze behind.

Along the fragrant meadows slowly steal,

The pensive, drifting shadows, purple blue,

As o'er your heart, that shrinks the while to feel

The kiss of promise wonderful and new.

Look upward, Child, to where across the skies

Float happy clouds, aglow with morning light!

It is their shadow that before you lies

Upon the plain, and see, the clouds are white!

AT MEISSEN
June 29th