Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“
[blocks in formation]

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
Will kiss the relics of the slain -
Some tarnished epaulette
some sword-
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.

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 many in the Afghan land,
And many where the Ganges falls
Through seven mouths of shifting sand.

And some in Russian waters lie,
And others in the seas which are
The portals to the East, or by
The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar.

O wandering graves! O restless sleep!
O silence of the sunless day!
O still ravine! O stormy deep!

Give up your prey! Give up your prey!

And those whose wounds are never healed,
Whose weary race is never won,
O Cromwell's England! must thou yield
For every inch of ground a son?

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 whole round world with nets of gold,
If hidden in our heart is found

The care that groweth never old?

What profit that our galleys ride,
Pine-forest like, on every main ?
Ruin and wreck are at our side,

Grim warders of the House of pain.

[blocks in formation]

'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.

[blocks in formation]

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.

[blocks in formation]

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;

[blocks in formation]

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 give you all that's due t'ye.

I will taste your rosebud lips
Daintily as the bee sips ;
At your bonny eyes I'll look
Like a scholar at his book:

On my bosom you shall rest,
Like a robin on her nest:
Round my body you shall twine,
I'll be elm, and you be vine:

In a bumper of your breath
I would drain a draught of death:
In the tangles of your hair
I'd be hanged and never care.

Then come kiss me, mistress Beauty,
I will give you all that's due t' ye.

SALOPIA INHOSPITALIS

TOUCH not that maid:

She is a flower, and changeth but to fade.
Fragrant is she, and fair

As any shape that haunts this lower air;
In form as graceful and as free
As honeysuckles and the lilies be;
Insensible, and shrinking from caress
As flowers, which you peril when you

press.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« AnkstesnisTęsti »