The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.
Out of the mid-wood’s twilight
Into the meadow’s dawn,
Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,
Flashes my Faun!
He skips through the copses singing,
And his shadow dances along,
And I know not which I should follow,
Shadow or song!
O Hunter, snare me his shadow!
O Nightingale, catch me his strain!
Else moonstruck with music and madness
I track him in vain!
With a Copy of My Poems
I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.
For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.
And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.
Go, little book,
To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl,
Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl:
And bid him look
Into thy pages: it may hap that he
May find that golden maidens dance through thee.
To L. L.
Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love’s song,
We are parted too long.
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!
I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;
And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird’s throat
With its last big note;
And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;
And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes after.
You were always afraid of a shower,
Just like a flower:
I remember you started and ran
When the rain began.
I remember I never could catch you,
For no one could match you,
You had wonderful, luminous, fleet,
Little wings to your feet.
I remember your hair—did I tie it?
For it always ran riot—
Like a tangled sunbeam of gold:
These things are old.
I remember so well the room,
And the lilac bloom
That beat at the dripping pane
In the warm June rain;
And the colour of your gown,
It was amber-brown,
And two yellow satin bows
From your shoulders rose.
And the handkerchief of French lace
Which you held to your face—
Had a small tear left a stain?
Or was it the rain?
On your hand as it waved adieu
There were veins of blue;
In your voice as it said good-bye
Was a petulant cry,
“You have only wasted your life.”
(Ah, that was the knife!)
When I rushed through the garden gate
It was all too late.
Could we live it over again,
Were it worth the pain,
Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead!
Well, if my heart must break,
Dear love, for your sake,
It will break in music, I know,
Poets’ hearts break so.
But strange that I was not told
That the brain can hold
In a tiny ivory cell
God’s heaven and hell.
The seasons send their ruin as they go,
For in the spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in the autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this grey land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.
But what of life whose bitter hungry sea
Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night
Covers the days which never more return?
Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn
We lose too soon, and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory.
Double Villanelle
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
This modern world is grey and old,
And what remains to us of thee?
No more the shepherd lads in glee
Throw apples at thy wattled fold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Nor through the laurels can one see
Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold,
And what remains to us of thee?
And dull and dead our Thames would be,
For here the winds are chill and cold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Then keep the tomb of Helicé,
Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,
And what remains to us of thee?
Though many an unsung elegy
Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,
O goat-foot God of Arcady!
Ah, what remains to us of thee?
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,
Thy satyrs and their wanton play,
This modern world hath need of thee.
No nymph or Faun indeed have we,
For Faun and nymph are old and grey,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!
This is the land where liberty
Lit grave-browed Milton on his way,
This modern world hath need of thee!
A land of ancient chivalry
Where gentle Sidney saw the day,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!
This fierce sea-lion of the sea,
This England lacks some stronger lay,
This modern world hath need of thee!
Then blow some trumpet loud and free,
And give thine oaten pipe away,
Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!
This modern world hath need of thee!
To Marcel Schwob in Friendship and in Admiration
In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting gloom.
Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir
For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that reel.
Red follows grey across the air, the waves of moonlight ebb and flow
But with the Dawn she does not go and
