Short Poems

The Princess bids me write! what happy wit
Were fair enough this fair page to befit?
In Gulistan there lived a nightingale
Who, in 'mid singing, felt his music fail,
And said: “To Roses I make melody,
But, Rose of Roses! I am dumb for thee!”
So, England's Rose! that which our true hearts pray,
Let Silence, with her golden speaking, say.

The stream of time, with onward sweep,
Bears off men's works, all human things,
And plunges o'er Oblivion's steep
Peoples and kingdoms with their kings.
If for a space amidst the swirl
The lyre of trumpet some sustain,
They 're swept at last in ceaseless whirl,
And none escape Fate's common main.

It is well when you've lived in clover,
To mourn for the days gone by—
Would I live the same life over
Could I live again? Not I!
But, knowing the false from the real,
I would strive to ascend:
I would seek out my boyhood's ideal,
And follow it to the end.

—Truth must be truth & will where e'er we go
Though bigots howl & fight to answer ‘No’

The world is led by men whom it has slain.
They are its mighty rulers. Unharmed Christ
Would not have conquered millions. Once again
We watch while innocence is sacrificed.
Release them, and you leave them men, but slay them—
And unborn millions some day may obey them.

Now to my rest I hurry away,
To the world which lasts for ever and aye,
To Paradise, the beautiful place,
Trusting alone in the Lord of Grace.

The dancing flames as from the logs they fly,
And upward leap as though to seek the sky,
Seem like the souls of fallen pines to me,
Eager, elate, at thought of being free;
And now and then a soft, scarce-whispered hiss
That greets the ear suggests a parting kiss—
Or is't the sigh of one who at the last
Recalls some blissful moment of the past?

Let not insiduous malice boast its power
To wound the heart, or damp the social hour!
Children we know delight in dang'rous play,
And sport with knives, which wise men put away.

I am weary of my service to the blood of a king,
For my people were farmers out of the West,
I would be wife to this yeoman of whom my heart sings,
In his strong love, I would take my rest.
O! That I might raise a man to my kind,
Shelter him in my womb, and feed him with my mind.

When a weak knave commanded me,
Then I was stung to mutiny!
But when my king spoke his behest,
In quick obedience I found rest.
Now to the dark I cry my need,
“God send us kings, to love, and lead.”