And many a moon and sun will see The lingering wistful children wait To climb upon their father's knee; And in each house made desolate Pale women who have lost their lord For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best. For some are by the Delhi walls, And some in Russian waters lie, O wandering graves! O restless sleep! Give up your prey! Give up your prey! And those whose wounds are never healed, Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again. Wave and wild wind and foreign shore Possess the flower of English land Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. What profit now that we have bound The care that groweth never old? What profit that our galleys ride, Grim warders of the House of pain. 'Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows ; 't was two years yesterday Since from the Lusitania's bows I looked o'er Table Bay, A tripper round the narrow world, a pilgrim of the main, Expecting when her sails unfurled to start for home again. 'Tis Christmas, and the North wind blows; to-day our hearts are one, Though you are 'mid the English snows and I in Austral sun; You, when you hear the Northern blast, pile high a mightier fire, Our ladies cower until it's past in lawn and lace attire. I daresay you'll be on the lake, or sliding on the snow, And breathing on your hands to make the circulation flow, Nestling your nose among the furs of which your boa's made, The Fahrenheit here registers a hundred in the shade. And many a million thoughts will go to-day The curious handiwork of Eastern hands, The little carts ambled by humpbacked from south to north; beeves, The narrow outrigged native boat which cleaves, Unscathed, the surf outside the coral strands. Love we the blaze of color, the rich red Of broad tiled-roof and turban, the bright green Of plantain-frond and paddy-field, nor dread The fierceness of the noon. The sky serene, The chill-less air, quaint sights, and tropic trees, Seem like a dream fulfilled of lotus-ease. FROM THE DRAMA OF "CHARLES II" REFRAIN COME and kiss me, mistress Beauty, I will taste your rosebud lips On my bosom you shall rest, In a bumper of your breath Then come kiss me, mistress Beauty, SALOPIA INHOSPITALIS TOUCH not that maid: She is a flower, and changeth but to fade. As any shape that haunts this lower air; press. |