REMEMBER

REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

REST

O EARTH, lie heavily upon her eyes;

Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no 'replies,
Hushed in and curtained with a blessed dearth
Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;

Even her very heart has ceased to stir:

Until the morning of Eternity

Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;

And when she wakes she will not think it long. Christina Georgina Rossetti [1830-1894]

HOW MY SONGS OF HER BEGAN

GOD made my lady lovely to behold;-
Above the painter's dream he set her face,
And wrought her body in divinest grace;
He touched the brown hair with a sense of gold,

To One Who Makes Confession 1225

And in the perfect form He did enfold
What was alone as perfect, the sweet heart;
Knowledge most rare to her He did impart,
And filled with love and worship all her days.
And then God thought Him how it would be well
To give her music, and to Love He said,

"Bring thou some minstrel now that he may tell
How fair and sweet a thing My hands have made.”
Then at Love's call I came, bowed down my head,
And at His will my lyre grew audible.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

AT THE LAST

BECAUSE the shadows deepened verily,—
Because the end of all seemed near, forsooth,-
Her gracious spirit, ever quick to ruth,
Had pity on her bond-slave, even on me.
She came in with the twilight noiselessly,
Fair as a rose, immaculate as Truth;

She leaned above my wrecked and wasted youth;
I felt her presence, which I could not see.
"God keep you, my poor friend," I heard her say;
And then she kissed my dry, hot lips and eyes.
Kiss thou the next kiss, quiet Death, I pray;
Be instant on this hour, and so surprise
My spirit while the vision seems to stay;
Take thou the heart with the heart's Paradise.

Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]

TO ONE WHO WOULD MAKE A CONFESSION

OH! leave the past to bury its own dead.

The past is naught to us, the present all.

What need of last year's leaves to strew Love's bed? What need of ghost to grace a festival?

I would not, if I could, those days recall,

Those days not ours. For us the feast is spread,
The lamps are lit, and music plays withal.

Then let us love and leave the rest unsaid.

This island is our home. Around it roar

Great gulfs and oceans, channels, straits and seas.
What matter in what wreck we reached the shore,
So we both reached it? We can mock at these.
Oh! leave the past, if past indeed there be;
I would not know it; I would know but thee.
Wilfred Scawen Blunt [1840-

LOVE IN THE WINDS

WHEN I am standing on a mountain crest,
Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray,
My love of you leaps foaming in my breast,
Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray;
My heart bounds with the horses of the sea,
And plunges in the wild ride of the night,
Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee
That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight.
Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you,
Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather,--
No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew,
But hale and hardy as the highland heather,
Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills,
Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills.

Richard Hovey [1864-1900]

"WERE BUT MY SPIRIT LOOSED UPON THE AIR"

WERE but my spirit loosed upon the air,

By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind,

Set free to seek what most it longs to find,-
To no proud Court of Kings would I repair:
I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair,
When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind;
And one should greet me to my failings blind,
Content so I but shared his twilight there.
Nay! well I know he waits not as of old,-
I could not find him in the old-time place.--

My Love for Thee"

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I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold,
Through worlds unknown, in strange celestial race,
Whose mystic round no traveller has told,

From star to star, until I see his face.

Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908]

RENOUNCEMENT

I MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the love that lurks in all delight-

The love of thee--and in the blue heaven's height,
And in the dearest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;

I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,-
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Alice Meynell [1853

"MY LOVE FOR THEE"

My love for thee doth march like armèd men,
Against a queenly city they would take.
Along the army's front its banners shake;
Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain
It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain;
And now the trumpet makes the still air quake,
And now the thundering cannon doth awake
Echo on echo, echoing loud again.

But, lo! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung:
Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender!
Joyful the iron gates are open flung

And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender!
O, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers,
While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers!
Richard Watson Gilder [1844-1909]

SONNETS

AFTER THE ITALIAN

I KNOW not if I love her overmuch;

But this I know, that when unto her face

She lifts her hand, which rests there, still, a space,
Then slowly falls-'tis I who feel that touch.
And when she sudden shakes her head, with such
A look, I soon her secret meaning trace.
So when she runs I think 'tis I who race.
Like a poor cripple who has lost his crutch
I am if she is gone; and when she goes,
I know not why, for that is a strange art-
As if myself should from myself depart.
I know not if I love her more than those
Who long her light have known; but for the rose
She covers in her hair, I'd give my heart.

I like her gentle hand that sometimes strays,
To find the place, through the same book with mine;
I like her feet; and O, those eyes divine!
And when we say farewell, perhaps she stays
Love-lingering-then hurries on her ways,

As if she thought, "To end my pain and thine."
I like her voice better than new-made wine;
I like the mandolin whereon she plays.
And I like, too, the cloak I saw her wear,

And the red scarf that her white neck doth cover,
And well I like the door that she comes through;

I like the ribbon that doth bind her hair-
But then, in truth, I am that lady's lover,
And every new day there is something new.
Richard Watson Gilder [1844–1909]

By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:

That, at his hand's light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,