AS TO HIS CHOICE OF HER
If I had chosen thee, thou shouldst have been
A virgin proud, untamed, immaculate,
Chaste as the morning star, a saint, a queen,
Scarred by no wars, no violence of hate.
Thou shouldst have been of soul commensurate
With thy fair body, brave and virtuous
And kind and just; and, if of poor estate,
At least an honest woman for my house.
I would have had thee come of honoured blood
And honourable nurture. Thou shouldst bear
Sons to my pride and daughters to my heart,
And men should hold thee happy, wise, and good.

ON HER VANITY
What are these things thou lovest? Vanity.
To see men turn their heads when thou dost pass;
To be the signboard and the looking--glass
Where every idler there may glut his eye;
To hear men speak thy name mysteriously,
Wagging their heads. Is it for this, alas,
That thou hast made a placard of a face
On which the tears of love were hardly dry?
What are these things thou lovest? The applause
Of prostitutes at wit which is not thine;
The sympathy of shop--boys who would weep
Their shilling's worth of woe in any cause,

IN PRAISE OF HIS FATE
When I hear others speak of this and that
In our fools' lives which might have better gone,
Complaining idly of too niggard fate
And wishing still their senseless past undone,
I feel a childish tremor through me run,
Stronger than reason, lest by some far chance
Fate's ear to our sad plaints should yet be won
And these our lives be thrown back on our hands.
I tremble when I think of my past years,
My hopes, my aims, my wishes. All these days
I might have wandered far from Love and thee.

ON THE POWER OF HER BEAUTY
I am lighthearted now. An hour ago
There was a tempest in my heaven, a flame
Of sullen lightning under a bent brow
And a dull muttering which breathed no name.
Now all is changed. The very winds are tame,
And the birds sing aloud from every bough,
And my heart leaps. What empire dost thou claim,
Child, o'er this Earth, that nature serves thee so?
Sublime magician! Well may Earth and Heaven
Change at thy bidding, and the hearts of men.
Didst thou but know the power that beauty hath,

ON HER WAYWARDNESS
This is rank slavery. It better were
To till the thankless earth with sweat of brow,
Following dull oxen 'neath a goad of care
To a boor's grave agape behind the plough.
It better were to linger in some slow
Unnatural case, the sport of flood or fire,
To be undone by some inhuman vow
And robbed in youth of youth and its desire.
It better were to perish than thus live
Thy pensioner and bondsman, day by day
Doing fool's service thus for love of thee.
How shall I save thee if thou wilt not grieve

TO ONE IN A HIGH POSITION
To you, a poet, glorious, heaven--born,
One who is not a poet but a son
Of the earth earthy, sick and travel--worn
And weary with a race already run,
A battle lost e'er yet his day is done,
Comes with this tribute, shattered banners torn
From a defeat. You reign in Macedon,
My Alexander, as at earlier morn
You reigned upon Parnassus, hero, king.
I reign no more, not even in those hearts
For which these songs were made, and if I sing
'Tis with a harsh and melancholy note

(Illusion singing to Reality)

Back in Australia, the most East of the West,
John Kerry continued the exile he had begun so and so
many millions of lives ago through his own act of waking up
and wanting to know exactly who he was
a musical question which turned out to be
a fugal proposition of infinite possible development.

Sunbeat and rainbeat, veil upon veil- day-veil of brightness, night-veil
of dark; face-veils and form-veils gossamer spun, crowded close and
thickly; sail-veils and flag-veil hoisted

Alone upon the housetops to the North
I turn and watch the lightnings in the sky--
The glamour of thy footsteps in the North.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die.

Below my feet the still bazar is laid--
Far, far below the weary camels lie--
The camels and the captives of thy raid.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I--
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears.
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!

The poem he wished to write began this way:
Is it come to this
That I am reduced to writing love poems
To you....
There he stopped. A heavy onus
Of unresolved emotions
Seemed to gag him.
He wished to say:
How ironic it was that separation
Had revived their love,
How she still defined his existence
By absence, as she had once done
Through her presence;
How distance generated intimacy,
So that now they were in love again.
And how corny, how odd, how unusual that felt.
Like nothing they'd felt before,

AESCHINES.
Hail, sir Thyonichus.

THYONICHUS.
Æschines, to you.

AESCHINES.
I have missed thee.

THYONICHUS.
Missed me! Why what ails him now?

AESCHINES.
My friend, I am ill at ease.

THYONICHUS.
Then this explains
Thy leanness, and thy prodigal moustache
And dried-up curls. Thy counterpart I saw,
A wan Pythagorean, yesterday.
He said he came from Athens: shoes he had none:
He pined, I'll warrant,-for a quartern loaf.

AESCHINES.
Sir, you will joke-But I've been outraged, sore,