Love Letters of a Violinist and Other Poems Part 28

XV.

The towers of light, the castles in the air, The queenly things with diamonds in their hair, The toys of sound, the flowers of magic art-- All these depart.

XVI.

They seem'd to live; and lo! beyond recall, They take the sweet sad Silence for a pall, And, wrapt therein, consent to be dismiss'd, Though glory-kiss'd.

XVII.

O pride of Spain! O wizard with a wand More fraught with fervours of the life beyond Than books have taught us in these tawdry days, Take thou my praise.

XVIII.

Aye, take it, Pablo! Though so poor a thing, 'Twill serve to mind thee of an English spring When wealth, and worth, and fashion, each and all, Obey'd thy thrall.

XIX.

The lark that sings its love-song in the cloud Is G.o.d-inspired and glad,--but is not proud,-- And soon forgets the salvos of the breeze, As thou dost these.

XX.

The shouts, the praises, and the swift acclaim, That men have brought to magnify thy name, Affect thee barely as an idle cheer Affects a seer.

XXI.

But thou art ours, O Pablo! ours to-day, Ours, and not ours, in thy triumphant sway; And we must urge it by the right that brings Honour to kings.

XXII.

Honour to thee, thou stately, thou divine And far-famed minstrel of a mighty line!

Honour to thee, and peace, and musings high, Good-night! Good-bye!

MY AMAZON.

I.

My Love is a lady fair and free, A lady fair from over the sea, And she hath eyes that pierce my breast And rob my spirit of peace and rest.

II.

A youthful warrior, warm and young, She takes me prisoner with her tongue, Aye! and she keeps me,--on parole,-- Till paid the ransom of my soul.

III.

I swear the foeman, arm'd for war From _cap-a-pie_, with many a scar, More mercy finds for prostrate foe Than she who deals me never a blow.

IV.

And so 'twill be, this many a day; She comes to wound, if not to slay.

But in my dreams,--in honied sleep,-- 'Tis I to smile, and she to weep!

PRO PATRIA.

AN ODE TO SWINBURNE.

["We have not, alack! an ally to befriend us, And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us.

Let the German touch hands with the Gaul, And the fortress of England must fall.

Louder and louder the noise of defiance Rings rage from the grave of a trustless alliance, And bids us beware, and be warn'd, As abhorr'd of all nations and scorn'd."

_A Word for the Nation, by A. C. Swinburne._]

I.

Nay, good Sir Poet, read thy rhymes again, And curb the tumults that are born in thee, That now thy hand, relentful, may refrain To deal the blow that Abel had of Cain.

II.

Are we not Britons born, when all is said, And thou the offspring of the knightly souls Who fought for Charles when fears were harvested, And Cromwell rose to power on Charles's head?

III.

O reckless, roystering bard, that in a breath Did'st find the way to flout thy fathers' flag!

Is't well, unheeding what thy Reason saith, To seem to triumph in thy country's death?

IV.