Poems of To-Day: an Anthology. Various
souls of those Egyptian Kings
Who learned, in ancient Babilu,
The beauty of immortal things.
They knew all beauty—when they thought
The air chimed like a stricken lyre,
The elemental birds were wrought,
The golden birds became a fire.
And straight to busy camps and marts
The singing flames were swiftly gone;
The trembling leaves of human hearts
Hid boughs for them to perch upon.
And men in desert places, men
Abandoned, broken, sick with fears,
Rose singing, swung their swords agen,
And laughed and died among the spears.
The green and greedy seas have drowned
That city's glittering walls and towers,
Her sunken minarets are crowned
With red and russet water-flowers.
In towers and rooms and golden courts
The shadowy coral lifts her sprays;
The scrawl hath gorged her broken orts,
The shark doth haunt her hidden ways,
But, at the falling of the tide,
The golden birds still sing and gleam,
The Atlanteans have not died,
Immortal things still give us dream.
The dream that fires man's heart to make,
To build, to do, to sing or say
A beauty Death can never take,
An Adam from the crumbled clay.
4. FALLEN CITIES
I gathered with a careless hand,
There where the waters night and day
Are languid in the idle bay,
A little heap of golden sand;
And, as I saw it, in my sight
Awoke a vision brief and bright,
A city in a pleasant land.
I saw no mound of earth, but fair
Turrets and domes and citadels,
With murmuring of many bells;
The spires were white in the blue air,
And men by thousands went and came,
Rapid and restless, and like flame
Blown by their passions here and there.
With careless hand I swept away
The little mound before I knew;
The visioned city vanished too,
And fall'n beneath my fingers lay.
Ah God! how many hast Thou seen,
Cities that are not and have been,
By silent hill and idle bay!
5. TIME, YOU OLD GIPSY MAN
Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
All things I'll give you,
Will you be my guest,
Bells for your jennet
Of silver the best,
Goldsmiths shall beat you
A great golden ring,
Peacocks shall bow to you,
Little boys sing,
Oh, and sweet girls will
Festoon you with may,
Time, you old gipsy,
Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,
Morning, and in the crush
Under Paul's dome;
Under Paul's dial
You tighten your rein—
Only a moment,
And off once again;
Off to some city
Now blind in the womb,
Off to another
Ere that's in the tomb.
Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
6. A HUGUENOT
O, a gallant set were they,
As they charged on us that day,
A thousand riding like one!
Their trumpets crying,
And their white plumes flying,
And their sabres flashing in the sun.
O, a sorry lot were we,
As we stood beside the sea,
Each man for himself as he stood!
We were scattered and lonely—
A little force only
Of the good men fighting for the good.
But I never loved more
On sea or on shore
The ringing of my own true blade,
Like lightning it quivered,
And the hard helms shivered,
As I sang, "None maketh me afraid!"
7. ON THE TOILET TABLE OF QUEEN MARIE-ANTOINETTE
This was her table, these her trim outspread
Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red;
Here sate she, while her women tired and curled
The most unhappy head in all the world.
8. UPON ECKINGTON BRIDGE, RIVER AVON
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm
Of green days telling with a quiet beat—
O wave into the sunset flowing calm!
O tired lark descending on the wheat!
Lies