I pray you this my song to take
Not scornfully, for Boyhood's sake;
It is the last, until the day
When your kind eyes shall bid me say
Take, Archie, not of mine but me,
And be mine only Poetry.

THE PAST

Methought the sun in terror made his bed,
The gentle stars in angry lightning fell,
And shuddering winds thro' all the woodland fled,
Pulling in every tree a passing bell.
That night, on all the glory and the grace
There rolled a numbing mist, and wrapped from sight
The greening fields of my delightsome land,
Mildewing every tender bud to blight,-
As the grey change o'erspreads a dying face-
Till, corpse-like, stretched beneath a pall of skies,
Earth stared at heaven with open sightless eyes;
Then in the hush went forth the soul of life,
Drawn through the darkness by a gleaming hand:
The strength of agony awoke, and strove
Awhile for mastery to hold it back,
But comet-like, beyond the laws of love,
Branding the blackness with a fiery track
It passed to space; and, wearied of the strife,
In the great after calm, I passed to sleep.
Did they not call ambrosial the night
And holy once? when (from the feet of God
Set on the height where circles round and full
The rainbow of perfection) starry troops
Came floating, aureoled in dreamy light,
And gracious dews distilling, as they trod
The poppied plains of slumber.-Ah too dull
My sense, such visions for my aid to call,
My sleep too dry with fever, for the fall
Of those strange dews, which quicken withered hopes.
THE PRESENT

And yet why strive to syllable my loss
In chilly metaphors of night and sleep?
Leap in, O Love, O Flame divine, yea leap
Upon them, shrivel them like paper; so,
In that refining fire, the encircling dross
Of words shall melt away; then will I keep,
Stored in a silent Treasury I know,
The pure reality, that in the spring-
The resurrection of all loveliness-
For me a star shall pierce the eastern cloud,
And western breezes bear the tender rain;
For me a crocus flower shall burst its shroud,
My Love, my buried Love, shall rise again.
Blow, winds, and make the fields a wilderness;
Roar, hurrying rivers to the weary sea;
Fall, cruel veils of snow, as desolate
As human hearts, when passion fires have burnt
To greyest ash;-I shall nor hear nor see.
Within that Treasure-house of mine I wait,
I wait, with Erôs glowing at my side,
From him, the mighty artist, I have learned
How memories to brushes may be tied;
And tho' I moistened all my paints with tears,
Yet on my walls as joyous imagery,
With golden hopes inframèd, now appears
As e'er of old was dreamed to vivify
Ionian porticoes, when Greece was young,
And wreathed with glancing vine Anacreon sung.
Here, on the granite headland he is set,
Like Michael in his triumph, and the waves
In wild desire have tossed about his feet
Their choicest pearls;-and, here, he softly laves
Limbs delicate, where beechen boughs are wet
With jewelled drops and all is young and sweet;-
And here, a stranded lily on the beach,
My Hylas, coronalled with curly gold,
He lies beyond the water's longing reach
Him once again essaying to enfold;-
Here, face uplifted to the twinkling sky
He walks, like Agathôn the vastly-loved,
Till with the dear Athenian I cry,
'My Star of stars, would I might heaven be,
Night-long, with many eyes, to gaze on thee!'-
And here, like Hyacinthus, as he moved
Among the flowers, ere flower-like he sank
Too soon to fade on green Eurotas' bank.
But it is profanation now to speak
Of thoughtless Hellene boys, or to compare
The majesty and spiritual grace
Of that design which consummates the whole.
It is himself, as I have watched him, where
The mighty organ's great Teutonic soul
Passed into him and lightened in his face,
And throbbed in every nerve and fired his cheek.
See, Love, I sing not of thee now alone,
But am become a painter all thine own.
THE FUTURE

Ah now in truth how shall we, can we meet?
Or wilt thou come to me through careless eyes,
Loveliest 'mid the unlovely, in the street?
Or will thy voice be there, to harmonize
The clanging and the clamour, where beneath
The panting engines draw their burning breath?
Or shall I have to seek thee in a throng
Of noble comrades round thee?-have to pass
The low luxurious laugh, or merry song,
The pilèd golden fruit, and flashing glass?
I care not much; however it may be,
Eyes, ears and heart will compass only thee.
Yet could I choose, then surely would I fix
On that half-light, whose very name is sweet,
The gloaming, when the sun and moonbeams mix,
And light and darkness on each other rest
Like lovers' lips, uncertain, tremulous;
And the All-mother's heart is loth to beat
And break their union: then, I think, 'twere best
To find thee pacing 'neath the sprouting boughs
Of lime, alone-for so I saw thee first,
When scarce my rose's crimson life had burst
In blushes, from its calix to the sun.
Alone-throughout my love has been apart;
When seen, then misconceived so utterly,
I liken it (forgive the vanity)
To those vermilion shades since light begun
Existing, but which Turner only drew,
While pointing critics had their little say,
And all the world cried out, of course they knew
Much better than the sun, could tell the way
To colour him and his by proper rules,
And Claude was great, great, great in all the schools
As once Ephesian Dian.-Matters it
To him, or you, or me? While truth is truth,
And love is love, you'll answer-Not a whit.
FOR EVER

Enough, the yearning is unsatisfied,
Resolved again into a plea for faith.
Believe the true elixir is within,
Although I sought to draw from that full tide
Some crystal drops of evidence, to win
A little vapour only-yet believe,
Believe the essence of a perfect love
Is there, and worthy. Not a tinge of shame
My words can colour. Of thine own receive,
Yes, of thy very being. It shall prove
Indeed a poem, though without a name/