ots, these blossoms and these buds, the springing
Grass, and the sky where many colours blend,
My songsters by the magic of their singing
Have in a moment made. My thoughts of you
Are music which to all my spirit's rue
Is the ineffable answer and the end.

The Exile

Now I return to my own land and people,
Old familiar things so to recover,
Hedgerows and little lanes and meadows,
The friendliness of my own land and people.

I have seen a world-frieze of glowing orange,
Palms painted black on the satin horizon,
Palm-trees in the dusk and the silence standing
Straight and still against a background of orange;

A gorgeous magical pomp of light and colour,
A dream-world, a sparkling gem in the sunlight,
The minarets and domes of an Eastern city;
And in the midst of all the pomp of colour

My heart cried out for my own land and people;
My heart cried out for the lush meadows of England,
The hedgerows and little lanes of England,
And for the faces of my own people.

Sonnet for Helen

When you're very old, when in the candlelight your hair
Silver shews--when by the fire you spinning sit and weaving,
You will croon my verses, but in wonder, scarce believing
'Ronsard hymned my beauty in the days when I was fair.'

Never servant could you have, tho' half-asleep she were,
But would rouse herself to listen to your lyric grieving,
Wake to hear my name and your glory, my achieving,
My immortal praise of your beauty past compare.

I shall be beneath the earth, an unsubstantial shade;
Where the myrtles throw their shadow will my bones be laid.
You will be a squatting crony sighing by the fire,

Sighing for the love you scorned, recalling it with sorrow.
Live, O live and love to-day; delay not till the morrow:
Gather now the roses of youth and desire.

_From the French of Ronsard_

Song

How did we dim that wistful dream,
That shy first love without caress,
That breathless wonder, that supreme
Vision of all love's loveliness?

For surely had we parted then,
Kissed once with tears and said Good-bye,
We had been speaking truly when
We said our love could never die.

Because we did a moment cling,
With trembling senses cling and kiss--
Does it not seem a bitter thing