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Oh that we two sat dreaming

On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down,
Watching the white mist steaming

Over river and mead and town.

Oh! that we two lay sleeping

In our nest in the churchyard sod,

With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, And our souls at home with God!

Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]

FOR HE HAD GREAT POSSESSIONS

Ан! marvel not if when I come to die

And follow Death the way my fancies went

Year after fading year, the last mad sky

Finds me impenitent;

For though my heart went doubting through the night,
With many a backward glance at heaven's face,
Yet found I many treasures of delight

Within this pleasant place.

I shall not grieve because the girls were fair
And kinder than the world, nor shall I weep
Because with crying lips and clinging hair
They stole away my sleep.

For lacking this I might not yet have known

How high the heart could climb, or waking seen The mountains bare their silver breasts of stone From their chaste robes of green.

Though it were all a sin, within the mirth

And pain of life I found a song above

Our songs, in her who scattered on the earth

Her glad largesse of love;

And though she held some dream that was not ours
In some far place that was not for our feet,
Where blew across the gladder, madder flowers
A wind more bitter-sweet.

Ah! who shall hearten when the music stops,

For joy of silence? While they dreamed above

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She showed me love upon the mountain tops

And in the valleys, love.

And while the wise found heaven with their charts

And lore of souls, she made an earth for me
More sweet than all, and from our beating hearts
She called the pulsing sea.

So marvel not if in the days when death
Shall make my body mine, I do not cry
For hours and treasure lost, but with my breath
Praise my mortality.

For lo! this place is fair, and losing all

That I have won and dreamed beneath her kiss, I would not see the light of morning fall

On any world but this.

Richard Middleton [1882-1911]

WINDLE-STRAWS

SHE kissed me on the forehead,
She spoke not any word,
The silence flowed between us,
And I nor spoke nor stirred.

So hopeless for my sake it was,

So full of ruth, so sweet,

My whole heart rose and blessed her,

Then died before her feet.

Edward Dowden [1843–1913]

JESSIE

WHEN Jessie comes with her soft breast,

And yields the golden keys,

Then is it as if God caressed

Twin babes upon His knees--

Twin babes that, each to other pressed,

Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are blessed.

But when I think if we must part,

And all this personal dream be fled

O then my heart! O then my useless heart!

Would God that thou wert dead

A clod insensible to joys and ills

A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills! Thomas Edward Brown [1830-1897]

THE CHESS-BOARD

My little love, do you remember,
Ere we were grown so sadly wise,
Those evenings in the bleak December,
Curtained warm from the snowy weather,
When you
and I played chess together,
Checkmated by each other's eyes?

Ah! still I see your soft white hand Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight;

Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand; The double Castles guard the wings; The Bishop, bent on distant things, Moves, sliding, through the fight.

Our fingers touch; our glances meet,
And falter; falls your golden hair

Against my cheek; your bosom sweet
Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen
Rides slow, her soldiery all between,
And checks me unaware.

Ah me! the little battle's done:

Dispersed is all its chivalry.

Full many a move, since then, have we

'Mid Life's perplexing chequers made,
And many a game with Fortune played;—
What is it we have won?

This, this at least,-if this alone:

That never, never, never more,

As in those old still nights of yore
(Ere we were grown so sadly wise),
Can you and I shut out the skies,

Aux Italiens

Shut out the world and wintry weather,
And, eyes exchanging warmth with eyes,
Play chess, as then we played together!

889

Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]

AUX ITALIENS

Ar Paris it was, at the Opera there;

And she looked like a queen in a book that night,
With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair,
And the brooch on her breast, so bright.

Of all the operas that Verdi wrote,

The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory.

The moon on the tower slept soft as snow:

And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, "Non ti scordar di me"?

The Emperor there, in his box of state,
Looked grave, as if he had just then seen
The red flag wave from the city-gate

Where his eagles in bronze had been.

The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye.
You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again,
For one moment, under the old blue sky,

To the old glad life in Spain.

Well! there in our front-row box we sat,
Together, my bride-betrothed and I;
My gaze was fixed on my opera-hat,
And hers on the stage hard by.

And both were silent, and both were sad.
Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm,

With that regal, indolent air she had;

So confident of her charm!

I have not a doubt she was thinking then
Of her former lord, good soul that he was!
Who died the richest and roundest of men,
The Marquis of Carabas.

I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven,
Through a needle's eye he had not to pass.
I wish him weil, for the jointure given
To my lady of Carabas.

Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love,

As I had not been thinking of aught for years, Till over my eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears.

I thought of the dress that she wore last time,
When we stood, 'neath the cypress-trees, together,
In that lost land, in that soft clime,

In the crimson evening weather;

Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot),
And her warm white neck in its golden chain,
And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot,
And falling loose again;

And the jasmine-flower in her fair young breast,
(O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine-flower!)
And the one bird singing alone to his nest,
And the one star over the tower.

I thought of our little quarrels and strife,
And the letter that brought me back my ring.
And it all seemed then, in the waste of life,
Such a very little thing!

For I thought of her grave below the hill,
Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over;
And I thought . . . "were she only living still,
How I could forgive her, and love her!"

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