Being the Rare Joust of Love and Hate

A-many sweet eyes wept and wept,
A-many bosoms heaved again,
A-many dainty dead hopes slept
With yonder Heart-knight prone o' the plain.

Yet stars will burn through any mists,
And the ladies' eyes through rains of fate,
Still beamed upon the bloody lists
And lit the joust of Love and Hate.

O strange! or ere a trumpet blew,

A raven flew over the house-top,
In the gloaming that heralds the night:
Far off snarled the threat of the thunder,
And the raven he croaked in his flight.

A raven flew over the house-top,
And his shadow fell dark on my heart:
A voice, in its innermost chamber,
Said, " The angel of love must depart:

Too long you are calm in the sunshine,
And too long are the roses in bloom:
Time now for the rush of the tempest,
For the chill, and the blight, and the gloom." ...

Deserted the house is, and silent;

He said he loved me. Welladay!
I know not were he false or true.
A year ago it was, in May:
" My darling, O forget me not!
Forget not me who so love you. "
A year ago! Has he forgot?

He would come back to me, he said:
Kist me good-bye, a year ago!
Can love so soon grow cold and dead?
He begged of me a violet,
One violet, he loved me so!
" Forget me not! " Can he forget?

Only one paean grand!
One soul-inspiring story!
O Love, at thy command
Are Birth, Death, Life, and Glory:
All destinies are holden,
Dread Sovereign, in thy hand.

What is the Tale of Troy
But Helen? What the sorrow
Men suffer, or the joy,
What yesterday and morrow,
Or new delight or olden,
But Beauty and her Boy?

Time knows no other song,
And passion sings no other,
Men, gods, to thee belong,
Their sovereign and their mother;
Thou dost the weak embolden,
Yea, and subdue the strong!

When I am near my dearest love,
My heart is lifted high;
I'm rich, all reckoning above,
The whole world I could buy.

But when from her I must be gone,
Nor feel her fond caress;
Then all my fancied wealth is flown,
I'm poor to wretchedness.

I

Weeping skies that would seem to deplore him
Cast shadows on stars and on suns;
Drooped flags that are shivering o'er him
To a far-rolling thunder of guns!
And great bells that rock the starred steeples
And moan to the heavens above,
But dearer than all things — a people's
Devotion and love!

II

O Northland and Southland far-sighing
Your grief, in this hour unblest,
He died for his country, and dying

or, LOVE AND THE UNION

A shearer came to a Queensland shed, when most of the sheds were full;
He'd tramped and tramped till his hope was dead, and never got hands in wool.
He'd stuck to the Union, hard and fast, with no one to understand
How his heart had longed, as the weeks dragged past, for his love and his Maoriland.

" Fern and tussock and flax; range and river and sea.
A strain on my heart that will never relax — a heart that will never be free.

I

Return, O Day, from out the vanished years
Where now no fires on ruined altars burn;
I give you all Love's tenderness and tears:
Return, sweet Day, return!

II

The same sweet stars are in the heavens of blue,
The same sad lessons Life hath still to learn.
I am aweary for the love of you:
Kind Day, return — return!

III

So brief the time — so rain-dark with Love's tears —

WHITE ROSEBUD .

When Love was born in Eden's bower,
The first soft blush of Eve was shed
On a white rose — her emblem-flower —
Which ever since has blossomed red!

MOTHERWORT .

Yes! tell him — tell him I am well,
Say that this cheek doth deeper glow,
Than was its wont — but do not tell,
'Tis the heart's fever makes it so!

And tell him how my lip has curled,
And named his name with idle smile;
But do not tell him for the world,
That tears were in mine eyes the while!