University of Virginia Library

RONDELS

AT HOLNE

At Holne in the Church-House who sojourns, marry!
Blesses the name of Easterbrook, and vows
No inn from it the palm of praise can carry;
Nor care he lacks, nor comforts culinary,
At Holne in the Church-House.
Beneath the frown of Dartmoor's rugged brows
With far-thrown fly he strikes the dappled quarry,
Wading, or where the safer bank allows.
He hath not learned the thrusts of fate to parry,
Nor plucked the brightest blossom from life's boughs,
Who, April-led, hath ne'er been taught to tarry
At Holne in the Church-House.

THOU HAST SAID

Thou hast said it, though no word was spoken:
By the face that on my coming fed,
By the tell-tale eyes that gave the token,
Thou hast said.
Fie upon the flush that came and fled
For a secret clue to let the foe ken
Of the fort abandoned, guards abed!
Fast as iron bolts on portals oaken
Lips may lock them, but the tale is sped:
That which cannot but by death be broken
Thou hast said.

DOROTHY

Dorothy, my daughter, said,
As her merry heart had taught her,
‘Of your poems that ne'er paid
Publishing—so poor the trade
Upon either side the water—
Give me one’: so laughed and prayed
Dorothy, my daughter.
Wherefore, saucy as I thought her
For so asking, I obeyed;
One of my own books I bought her.
And wrote in it, with the aid
Of a kiss, when I had caught her,
‘To the winsome little maid,
Dorothy, my daughter.’

WORTHY OF THEE?

Worthy of thee? So many cares oppress,
Passions assail, and doubts dishearten me,
That, day by day, not more I grow, but less
Worthy of thee.
Moon of my soul, if this reluctant sea
Falter at ebb, and thy bright loveliness
Lift it no more against the sandy lea,
Then may some cloud obscure thy power to bless,
That, if love draw not, my life's tide may be,
At least in its fierce hour of wild distress,
Worthy of thee.

ACROSS THE YEARS

Across the years upon me shine
Eyes full of heaven, but veiled in tears;
A face love-lifted yearns to mine
Across the years.
In happier moments it appears
The harbinger of peace divine;
But, in dark hours of doubts and fears,
Each glittering grief in those dear eyne
With unavailing anguish sears
A heart that knows no anodyne
Across the years.

TIME

SUN AND AIR

Sun and air, when storm-clouds lower
O'er November's dripping lair,
How the thought of you has power,
When each breath is a despair,
To dispel the stifling hour,
And bring back the vernal shower—
Sun and air!
Yet more winsome, yet more fair
Than the beam on summer bower,
Than the breeze that stirs the flower
Yet more blithe and debonair
Is the baby-breath, I swear,
And the laughing eyes of our
Son and heir.

MOTHER SPOKE

Mother spoke, ‘Come, write me, sir, a sonnet’;
Idle 'twas to treat it as a joke;
As she speaks her thought, when bent upon it,
Mother spoke.
‘And the subject, Mother?’ But she broke
Silence with ‘the subject, sir? my bonnet,’
That with laughter I came nigh to choke.
Opening then a book, I tried to con it,
But in vain for thinking ‘Who could yoke
To such measure, having seen her don it,
Mother's poke?’

AFTER EURIPIDES

Farewell, my sometime Master! Oh, to think
On what a journey, from how loved a home,
He went, who now returns not! Till to-day,
Lord of the lives of myriads—yours and mine—
Now beggared of his own, and lowlier laid
To-night than yon poor drudge who day-long toiled
For a mere pittance, pleased with menial fare.
Lo! such an one scarce lives, and Death to such
Comes in the nick of time, come when he will;
Nor finds him at the feast, but plying sore
This or that other service, nowise great,
His customary burden. Therefore, too,
Death loves to spare him, and goes forth in quest
Of prosperous folk and princes, lords of earth.
These suddenly beneath the nadir world—
How better prove his preference?—these he takes
Untimely, not as recompense for sin,
But reaping for himself the worthier wage;
For who so rich can purchase not to die?
But hush! to her who sits and weeps within
I will proclaim your coming, though with grief
Her soul be nigh reft from her, and both cheeks
Drenched with the tears' eye-moistening overflow.