University of Virginia Library

LATER SONNETS.

THE SONNET-THRONE.

THE SERENADER.

FIRST VERSION.

Out at a window looked a lady fair,
Set, like a miniature, sweet within the frame,
And upward gazed a youth with heart a-flame,
Who laughing said, “To-night I will prepare
A serenade to soften all the air,
And shafts of singing at that casement aim;”
The night wore on, the lover never came,
For pouting lips had answered, “If you dare!”
But O, sweet lady, he has done it still,
He could not help it, please his fault condone,
He could not find a lyre of silver tone
Enough to satisfy his searching will
That autumn, therefore has he sought to fill
Two volumes with the serenader's moan!

THE SERENADER.

SECOND VERSION.

Out at a window looked a lady sweet,
And smiled towards an admiring youth below,
Who answered, “Gracious Madam, I shall go
And buy a harp whose strings by finger fleet
Swept cunningly may move a melody meet
Towards that casement and its hand of snow,”
Came quickly wafted down a laughing “No,”
Silent of serenading was the street.
But—the forbidden song is here instead,
Filling two volumes with a swell of sound,
For what are all my poems choicely bound
But a flowery Serenade whose petals shed
Their perfume round about your sleeping head,
Filling the window, covering the ground?

TRY AGAIN.

“Sweet, try again;” so Beauty said to me;
As wipes a mother tenderly the face
Of her child who has stumbled, eager, in a race,
Till once again his features beam with glee,
So would God's pale humanity smile if He
Vouchsafed a similar maternal grace,
If He would bid our souls resume the chase
Undaunted, what a glory it would be!
So thought I, and a little bird came nigh
With gentle eyes and glistening plumes of blue
Just as my passion ended in a sigh
Of doubt, and joy was potent to renew,
Whispering, as if with message from the sky,
“The thought is no deceit, child, it is true.”

BROWN AND RED.

FIRST VERSION.

“What can I do to please you?” answer then
Was wanting, lady, I will tell you now;
Let my poor poems round about your brow
Wave as a wreath of flowers, or as when
In a tiara jewels twice times ten
Flash like red fruits that 'tween the branches bow,
Accept my service, this my gift allow,
The first aspiring produce of my pen;
I plucked, sweet, I remember once for you
A tiny plant with tender separate leaves
Of red, that olden gift I would renew,
My poem is successful if it weaves
Itself within your memory, and achieves
A proud position, peeping brown hair through.

BROWN AND RED.

SECOND VERSION.

“What can I do to please you?” answer none
There was, but, lady, I will tell you how
If so disposed your heart may please me now,
But first let feet of memory backward run,
And tell me whether you remember one
Sweet plant I plucked for you in former days,
A tender delicate plant with ruby sprays,
Red separate leaflets kindled by the sun?
You do remember? good; then let my song
Be even such a sweet red flower, and bound
Within the black-brown hair I loved, and wound
The tresses I caressed in thought among,
That when a host of other jewels throng
Superior, there that leaf may still be found.

BROWN AND GOLD.

NOT GONE?

O sweet you are not gone? it cannot be,
You must be waiting underneath the light,
Amid the perfume of a Northern night,
And soon the moon will rise above the sea
And silver, as of old, the ruin, and we
Shall wander off together out of sight,
It cannot but be so—it is not right
That anything so exquisite should flee!
No, I am certain that you still are there
Under those dreamy pale blue Northern skies,
Not a day older, not an hour, as fair
As ever, with the same delicious eyes,
And panoply of sweetly pert replies,
And with that same divinely-coloured hair.

THE SAME AS EVER.

Under the dim blue Northern skies she waits
The same as ever, days are but a dream,
At night again the green witch-glances gleam
As fierce as ever through my fancy's gates,
And shifted is the circle of the fates,
Backward my strong imaginations stream,
Present in living force past figures seem,
And blotted out my memory's evil dates;
And she is waiting, and that strange pale crown
Of turquoises and pearls is on her brow,
White clouds—blue spaces—never shining now
Across the sky, but in that long-lost town
I am present, and again am kneeling down
To that Witch-Lady my sole self to vow!

HARMONIA AND THE HANDMAIDEN.

A sweet handmaiden Poesy had sent
To lead her servant to the palace-gates,
But she herself within the entrance waits,
On a most gracious interviewing bent,
And he was half aware of her intent,
But on the thither road he fell in love
With the handmaiden, and preferred the dove
To the Paradise-bird for his approval meant;
Here was a mess! Harmonia held him fast,
He, like a child, to the handmaiden clung,
And jealous heart of Poesy he stung
By screaming, all his spirit backward cast,
“Not you, old woman, her I love,” and flung
His form convulsed away from her at last!

MY FIRST PROOF-SHEETS.

The proof is in my hand; this very day
Last year my earliest sonnet I achieved,
But when I wrote it who could have believed
That coiled behind it such a lengthy lay
Was waiting, that the words I had to say
Would fill the paper I have just received,
That thus my brain was thickly interleaved
With sheets to be redeemed without delay?
Well, well, the first-fruits of my work are here,
But where are those “fair eyes” of which I wrote
That made my sonnet's melody so dear?
And where alas! the form that seemed to float
As graceful as a maiden in a boat
Along the lines I struggling bent to rear?

PYGMALION'S DOOM REVERSED.

Happy Pygmalion! that the tender boon
Thou didst implore sweet Venus granted thee,
See how thy fate hath been reversed for me
In that alive the Lady of my Tune
Was at the first, but now a marble swoon
Hath caused her soft supremacy to flee,
A fairer flush each day 'twas thine to see,
Not even a statue shall be present soon
For me to sing to, thou didst twine around
That image passionate arms that met the stone,
And every hour more warm the marble found,
My harder fate it is to sit and moan
The desolate seat of a vacated throne,
Embraces swiftly by cold force unwound!

THE LOVE-NOTES.

Yesterday afternoon I strove to sing
Against a thrush high-perched upon a bough,
And certain notes that only every now
And then he introduced, seemed soft to ring
As if “Do you love me, sweet,” or some such thing
He kept repeating, and I failed to seize,
Accomplishing the stronger quavers, these
To which the thrush's soul most close did cling;
Ah! then I thought, the reason's very plain,
These are the love-notes—just as never man
Indite a sonnet for another can,
So these most luscious notes that downward rain
Are thoughts original of the thrush's brain,
And straight from out his love-sick fancy ran.

THE HANDMAIDEN WITH THE GREEN GREEN EYES.

WHAT SHALL I DO?

THOU COULDST NOT WATCH WITH ME.

THE POET'S GARDEN.

THE ROSE.

A poet loved a rose—and watched it grow;
And every day a sweeter blush was there,
And pouting petals fuller and more fair,
Each eventide “to-morrow it will blow,”
The poet said, “to-morrow I shall know
The perfect splendour of this flower rare,”
Sometimes its beauty more than he could bear
Brought tears for joy's excess akin to woe;
And so he watched it; and one night he said,
“I see my rose upon the verge of bloom,
To-morrow royal robes she shall assume,
Uplift to heaven a pink most perfect head,”
But when he came next day the rose was dead,
And on that spot they placed—a poet's tomb!

THE LILY.

A poet loved a lily—and his eyes
Were set upon this flower from afar,
Just as a man may tremble towards a star,
Distance between them many miles of skies;
So, similarly, swayed the singer's sighs
This silver glitter, this white moon of plants,
And little rest unto himself he grants
(A somewhat passionate soul, not overwise)
Preparing a choice mossy bank whereon
His sonnets strown might make a velvet bed
For soft reclining of the lily's head,
He thought that there some time she should have shone,
But—poets pity him!—he found her gone
One day, brown gaping garden-mould instead.

THE VIOLET.

A poet loved a violet—and he thought
“The purple is in bud: it is not blown;
'Twas only yesterday that it was sown,
And but the day before the plot was bought;”
And so he turned his heart aside, and sought
To buy a vase wherein the flower grown
To perfect beauty for his very own
He might have, and his hands a marvel wrought,
A many-coloured, cunning, carven glass,
Choice, set with jewels, painted by his pen,
Sides gilt with some sweet poem now and then,
And he had set it down upon the grass
Beside the violet—when a shower alas!
A hail-storm, shattered it in seconds ten.

THE PRIMROSE.

THE POET'S AVIARY.

THE NIGHTINGALE.

THE HAWK.

THE FIRST WOMAN.

God made a woman; and he stood aghast
For very wonder; as a sculptor sees
With terror and with trembling of the knees
And tears of yearning his Ideal fast
Emerging from the marble, so God cast
His careless chisel downward, clasped his hands!
And keen upon the Ivory Foot that stands
Across the ages in expansion vast
The edge fell—hardly did he feel the sting,
But blood was drawn, and ever since the day
When God's great poem “Woman” out of clay
His cunning hand was powerful to bring,
He bears in recollection, so they say,
Across his foot that clean-cut ruby ring.

WHAT CAN I GIVE YOU?

WELL?