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Poems and Essays

By the late William Caldwell Roscoe. (Edited with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, Richard Holt Hutton)
Roscoe, William Caldwell (1823-1859)

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MINOR POEMS.
  
[Clouds and mists and vapours dim]
  
THE FALSE FONTANLEE.
  
F. M.
  
AD PYRRHAM.
  
TO LAURA R.,
  
ARIADNE.
  
A NIGHTINGALE IN EASTBURY WOODS.
  
AFTER THE HUNGARIAN WAR.
  
OPPORTUNITY.
  
LINES AFTER MY FATHER'S DEATH.
  
TO THE PLANET VENUS,
  
[Rarely to our mortal eyes]
  
TO THE MARCH SUN.
  
A DREAM AND NO DREAM.
  
VENIT.
  
[When I asked her, “Wilt thou kiss me?’]
  
THE GOLDEN DAYS.
  
LOVE'S CREED.
  
[On many an English lady's face]
  
EXCUSE.
  
[A presence! a glory celestial!]
  
SONG.
  
OVER THE WEST.
  
“FREI IST DER BURSCH!”
  
TO LITTLE A. C. IN THE GARDEN AT EASTBURY.
  
FOR EVER.
  
AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH.
  
AT THE SAME TIME.
  
AT NIGHT, AFTER MY SISTER'S DEATH.
  
[Why fear that the departed grieves]
  
FORD GREY OF WERKE TO HIS MISTRESS.
  
[I have a thought that fain would speak]
  
“IF IT DIE, IT BRINGETH FORTH MUCH FRUIT.”
  
MUSIC.
  
A BLIND GIRL'S QUESTIONINGS.
  
BEFORE DAWN.
  
BY THE SEASHORE.
  
A VISION.
  
[Lord, at thy feet we do not kneel]
  
THE YEAR OF LOVE.
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SONNETS.
  
A WET AUTUMN.
  
AT THE CHESHIRE POINT, LINLEY WOOD.
  
[Like a musician that with flying finger]
  
AT NIGHT.
  
MY FATHER'S DEATH.
  
TO MY MOTHER.
  
GIBSON'S STATUE OF AURORA.
  
TO M. S.
  
M. S.
  
TO THE REV. JOHN HAMILTON THOM.
  
[O Muse the Comforter! that in this vale]
  
TO A LADY PREFERRING CALM TO PASSIONATE POETRY.
  
LAUDATRIX TEMPORIS ACTI.
  
MIDNIGHT ON NEW YEAR'S EVE.
  
THE TWO NIGHTS.
  
A CHRISTMAS SONNET.
  
[Sad is my lot; among the shining spheres]
  
TO A FRIEND IN GRIEF.
  
TO A FRIEND.
  
IN DEJECTION. I.
  
IN DEJECTION II.
  
I
  
II
  
III
  
DAYBREAK IN FEBRUARY.
  
SYMBOLS OF VICTORY.
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ELIDUKE, COUNT OF YVELOC.
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ACT I
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ACT II.
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ACT III.
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ACT IV.
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ACT V.
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VIOLENZIA.
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ACT I.
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ACT II.
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ACT III.
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ACT IV.
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ACT V.
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Scene III.
  
[The bubble of the silver-springing waves]

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71

THE YEAR OF LOVE.

[_]

(To my Wife.)

Ask me not, sweet, when I first loved thee,
Nor bid me carry back
Love's meditative memory
Down through a narrowing track.
Remember how, in the sweet spring-time's
First faint prophetic hours,
The golden-headed aconite
Began the time of flowers.
Then seemed it to our happy hearts,
As we stood hand in hand,
As if the promise were fulfilled,
And summer in the land.
Slowly the sap rose in the tree,
Slowly the airs blew mild;
Softly the seasons grew, as grows
The sweetness of thy child.
And when the March-wind sowed the banks
With early violets,
Or April hung the larchen trees
In green and crimson nets;
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Or, with white hawthorn-buds in hand,
Through yellowing oaken woods,
The young light-footed May came down,—
We knew no changing moods.
We taxed not by comparisons
The season's growing prime;
But stood each present day and said,
“This is the happy time.”
Now in the royal day of roses,
Our love being in its June,
Stand so, nor ask what note began
This full harmonious tune.
I know thy love hath broadened, yet
I know when it began
It seemed the fullness of the grace
That could be granted man.
So deem of mine, nor with spring thoughts
The fuller June-tide cummer;
My love grew like the year, and grows
Up through an endless summer.
1857.
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