If the melody of Springtime awoke no wild refrain,
If the Autumn's gold burthen awoke no living pain,

I would meet you and would greet you, as years ago we met,
Before our hearts were shipwrecked on the ocean of regret.

If my woman's soul were stronger, if my heart were not so true,

I should long have ceased remembering the love I had for

you;

But I dare not meet or greet you, in the old familiar way, Until we meet in Heaven, where all tears have passed away. Frances Cochrane [18

ASHORE

OUT I came from the dancing-place,
The night-wind met me face to face,-

A wind off the harbor, cold and keen,
"I know," it whistled, "where thou hast been."

A faint voice fell from the stars above-
"Thou? whom we lighted to shrines of Love!"

I found when I reached my lonely room
A faint sweet scent in the unlit gloom.

And this was the worst of all to bear,
For some one had left white lilac there.

The flower you loved, in times that were.

Laurence Hope [1865-1904]

KHRISTNA AND HIS FLUTE

BE still, my heart, and listen,
For sweet and yet acute

I hear the wistful music

Of Khristna and his flute.
Across the cool, blue evenings,
Throughout the burning days,
Persuasive and beguiling,

He plays and plays and plays.

Impenitentia Ultima

Ah, none may hear such music
Resistant to its charms,

The household work grows weary,
And cold the husband's arms.

I must arise and follow,

To seek, in vain pursuit,
The blueness and the distance,
The sweetness of that flute!

In linked and liquid sequence,
The plaintive notes dissolve
Divinely tender secrets

That none but he can solve.
O Khristna, I am coming,
I can no more delay.

"My heart has flown to join thee,"
How shall my footsteps stay?

Beloved, such thoughts have peril;
The wish is in my mind
That I had fired the jungle,
And left no leaf behind,—
Burnt all bamboos to ashes,

And made their music mute,

To save thee from the magic

Of Khristna and his flute.

917

Laurence Hope [1865-1904]

IMPENITENTIA ULTIMA

BEFORE my light goes out forever, if God should give me choice of graces,

I would not reck of length of days, nor crave for things to be;

But cry: "One day of the great lost days, one face of all the

faces,

Grant me to see and touch once more and nothing more to see!

"For, Lord, I was free of all Thy flowers, but I chose the world's sad roses,

And that is why my feet are torn and mine eyes are blind with sweat,

But at Thy terrible judgment seat, when this my tired life closes,

I am ready to reap whereof I sowed, and pay my righteous debt.

"But once, before the sand is run and the silver thread is

broken,

Give me a grace and cast aside the veil of dolorous years, Grant me one hour of all mine hours, and let me see for a

token

Her pure and pitiful eyes shine out, and bathe her feet with tears."

Her pitiful hands should calm and her hair stream down and

blind me,

Out of the sight of night, and out of the reach of fear, And her eyes should be my light whilst the sun went out

behind me,

And the viols in her voice be the last sound in mine ear.

Before the ruining waters fall and my life be carried under, And Thine anger cleave me through, as a child cuts down a flower,

I will praise Thee, Lord, in hell, while my limbs are racked asunder,

For the last sad sight of her face and the little grace of an hour.

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO

CYNARAE

LAST night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine

There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed

Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head.

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

Quid Non Speremus, Amantes? 919

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat, Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay; Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet; But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

When I awoke and found the dawn was gray: I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

QUID NON SPEREMUS, AMANTES?

WHY is there in the least touch of her hands
More grace than other women's lips bestow,
If love is but a slave to fleshly bands

Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?

Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours
For her lost voice, and dear remembered hair,
If love may cull his honey from all flowers,
And girls grow thick as violets, everywhere?

Nay! She is gone, and all things fall apart;

Or she is cold, and vainly have we prayed;
And broken is the summer's splendid heart,
And hope within a deep, dark grave is laid.

As man aspires and falls, yet a soul springs
Out of his agony of flesh at last,

So love that flesh enthralls, shall rise on wings
Soul-centered, when the rule of flesh is past.

Then, most High Love, or wreathed with myrtle sprays,
Or crownless and forlorn, nor less a star,

Thee may I serve and follow all my days,
Whose thorns are sweet as never roses are!

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

"SO SWEET LOVE SEEMED"
So sweet love seemed that April morn,
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell-let truth be told--
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is naught to see,
So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass
Quite to forget what once he was,
Nor even in fancy to recall
The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found,
So deep in summer floods is drowned,
I wonder, bathed in joy complete,
How love so young could be so sweet.

Robert Bridges [1844

AN OLD TUNE*

AFTER GÉRARD DE NERVAL

THERE is an air for which I would disown
Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's melodies,-
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
And keeps its secret charın for me alone.
* For the original of this poem see page 3842