Classic Poem

As we sit, you and I, in the twilight
And breathe the soft breath of the roses
That mingled with lily and iris
Steals up from your quaint garden-closes;
In the mystical, soft evening weather
When the sunset burns amber and clear
I think that a life-time together
Would not be half long enough, dear!

I long — how I long, my heart's Lady,
To call you a name that is dearer,
To be — always your slave and your lover
And in time something fonder and nearer.
Come home to me, darling, my Lady!
Let the name that I call you be wife.
The house stands there waiting and ready,
It waits for its light and its life!

So I long in the twilight to tell you —
But there, if I pause and dissemble,
Or turn with a jest to the roses,
It is that I inwardly tremble
At the vision of taking you, Sweetest,
To a home where I could not provide
High art, the highest, completest,
To welcome my utterest Bride.

How far would a poor fellow's income
Extend in your dados and friezes,
Your Chippendale table, your ceiling
From a study of Paul Veronese's,
Your old Venice glass opalescent,
Your golden stamped leather from Spain,
Your majolica ware iridescent —
Yet to live without these would be pain.

And how could I furnish your boudoir
With sweet silver tissues (cash payment)
And make your portieres out of chasubles
And ecclesiastical raiment?
And how could I give you gold panels
With wailing wan women in rows,
And sunflowers worked on green flannels,
And triptychs with carved doors to close?

You are used to a Crown Denby tea-set,
And your tea pot is always Queen Anne, dear;
Could you bear to pour out from Britannia
Into plain white and gilt — if you can, dear —
But, no! for I know that your sideboard
Has always been classic " Empire " ,
And though I could always provide board
You must count out such luxuries, dear.

And the Japanese vases, and palm-leaves,
The dim-silver church-lamp and censer,
The church-stall with wormy intarsia,
All the treasures intense and intenser,
From the bit of Limoges like a jewel
To the altar-lace under the frieze —
My Love, it were cruelly cruel
To ask you to live without these!

No, no — what is life? A succession
Of fleeting pulsations (as Pater
Has told us in Renaissance Studies)
Which must cease for us sooner or later,
And Art can alone make them precious,
And lovely and dear as old plate —
Go back to your dados and friezes,
For love is a thing out of date!