smile

His wet white face and miserable eyes
Brought nurses to him more than groans and sighs:
But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell
His troubled voice: he did the business well.

The ward grew dark; but he was still complaining
And calling out for ‘Dickie’. ‘Curse the Wood!
‘It’s time to go. O Christ, and what’s the good?
‘We’ll never take it, and it’s always raining.’

I wondered where he’d been; then heard him shout,
‘They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don’t go out...

As I go forth from fair to mart
With racket ringing,
Who would divine that in my heart
Mad larks are singing.
As I sweet sympathy express,
Lest I should pain them,
The money-mongers cannot guess
How I disdain them.
II
As I sit at some silly tea
And flirt and flatter
How I abhor society
And female chatter.
As I with wonderment survey
Their peacock dresses,
My mind is wafted far away
To wildernesses.
III
As I sit in some raucous pub,
Taboo to women,

I

Said a Sov'reign to a Note,
In the pocket of my coat,
Where they met in a neat purse of leather,
"How happens it, I prithee,
That though I'm wedded with thee,
Fair Pound, we can never live together?

II

Like your sex, fond of change,
With silver you can range,
And of lots of young sixpences be mother;
While with me -- upon my word
Not my Lady and my Lord
Of W--stm--th see so little of each other!"

III

1856

Paris, from throats of iron, silver, brass,
Joy-thundering cannon, blent with chiming bells,
And martial strains, the full-voiced pæan swells.
The air is starred with flags, the chanted mass
Throngs all the churches, yet the broad streets swarm
With glad-eyed groups who chatter, laugh, and pass,
In holiday confusion, class with class.
And over all the spring, the sun-floods warm!
In the Imperial palace that March morn,
The beautiful young mother lay and smiled;

In the midnight of darkness and terror,
When I would grope nearer to God,
With my back to a record of error
And the highway of sin I have trod,
There comes to me shapes I would banish –
The shapes of the deeds I have done;
And I pray and I plead till they vanish –
All vanish and leave me, save one.

That one, with a smile like the splendour
Of the sun in the middle-day skies –
That one, with a spell that is tender –
That one with a dream in her eyes –
Cometh close, in her rare southern beauty,

Oh, why are you shining so bright, big Sun,
And why is the garden so gay?
Do you know that my days of delight are done,
Do you know I am going away?
If you covered your face with a cloud, I 'd dream
You were sorry for me in my pain,
And the heads of the flowers all bowed would seem
To be weeping with me in the rain.

But why is your head so low, sweet heart,
And why are your eyes overcast?
Are they clouded because you know we must part,
Do you think this embrace is our last?

The black snow runs down from the rooftops;
A red finger dips into your brow;
Blue snow flakes sink into the empty room,
They are a lovers’ dying mirrors.
Heavy and torn to pieces the mind muses,
Follows the shadow in the mirror of blue snow flakes,
The cold smile of a deceased harlot.
The evening’s wind weeps in the scent of carnations.

VI
Fair is my love, and cruel as she's fair:
Her brow shades frowns although her eyes are sunny,
Her smiles are lightning though her pride despair,
And her disdains are gall, her favours honey;
A modest maid, deck'd with a blush of honour,
Whose feet do tread green paths of youth and love,
The wonder of all eyes that look upon her:
Sacred on earth, design'd a saint above.
Chastity and beauty, which were deadly foes,
Live reconciled friends within her brow;

In youth I longed to paint
The loveliness I saw;
And yet by dire constraint
I had to study Law.
But now all that is past,
And I have no regret,
For I am free at last
Law to forget.
II
To beauty newly born
With brush and tube I play;
And though my daubs you scorn,
I'll learn to paint some day.
When I am eighty old,
Maybe I'll better them,
And you may yet behold
A gem.
III
Old Renoir used to paint,

Before the florid portico
I watched the gamblers come and go,
While by me on a bench there sat
A female in a faded hat;
A shabby, shrinking, crumpled creature,
Of waxy casino-ward with eyes
Of lost soul seeking paradise.
II
Then from the Café de la Paix
There shambled forth a waiter fellow,
Clad dingily, down-stooped and grey,
With hollow face, careworn and yellow.
With furtive feet before our seat
He came to a respectful stand,
And bowed, my sorry crone to greet,