love poetry

PROLOGUE

SPOKEN BY MR. BETTERTON

A S when some treasurer lays down the stick,
Warrants are sign'd for ready money thick,
And many desperate debentures paid,
Which never had been, had his lordship stay'd;
So now, this poet, who forsakes the stage,
Intends to gratify the present age.
One warrant shall be sign'd for every man;
All shall be wits that will, and beaux that can:
Provided still, this warrant be not shown,
And you be wits but to yourselves alone;

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art:
I warmed both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

Pavilions of dance, terraces of song,
clusters of lovely silks!
Yet now, no traces of visitors,
only springtime wind.
" Treading the Green, " unlimited
feelings of lamentation
all absorbed into the setting orb
of the Southern Dynasties.

Narcissus and chrysanthemum —
lovely shapes together;
she places them in a porcelain vase,
two or three of each.
Bending low beside the little window
in flickering lamplight shadows,
my jade one has risen from her sick bed,
braving the cold air.

Not though you die to-night, O Sweet, and wail,
A spectre at my door,
Shall mortal Fear make Love immortal fail —
I shall but love you more,
Who, from Death's House returning, give me still
One moment's comfort in my matchless ill.
By Word of Mouth .

When the earth was sick and the skies were grey,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.

His love she neither saw nor heard,
So heavy was her shame;
And tho' the babe within her stirred
She knew not that he came.
The Other Man .

PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

Look , you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
Lispeth .

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies —
Bade me gather her blue roses.

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.

Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest —
Roses white and red are best!

EX-CLERK

Pity not! The Army gave
Freedom to a timid slave:
In which Freedom did he find
Strength of body, will, and mind:
By which strength he came to prove
Mirth, Companionship, and Love:
For which Love to Death he went:
In which Death he lies content.

1

When you shall see me in the toils of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,
My name forgot of maiden fair and free;

When, in your being, heart concedes to mind,
And judgement, though you scarce its process know,
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,
And you are irked that they have withered so:

Remembering mine the loss is, not the blame,