WHILE Perseus entertain'd with this report
His father Cepheus, and the list'ning court,
Within the palace walls was heard aloud
The roaring noise of some unruly crowd;
Not like the songs which chearful friends prepare
For nuptial days, but sounds that threaten'd war;
And all the pleasures of this happy feast,
To tumult turn'd, in wild disorder ceas'd:
So, when the sea is calm, we often find

I

There runs a road by Merrow Down--
A grassy track to-day it is--
An hour out Guildford town,
Above the river Wey it is.

Here, when they heard the hors-bells ring,
The ancient Britons dressed and rode
To which the dark Phoenicians bring
Their goods along the Western Road.

Yes, here, or hereabouts, they met
To hold their racial talks and such--
To barter beads for Whitby jet,
And tin for gay shell torques and such.

But long ago before that time
(When bison used to roam on it)
Did Taffy and her Daddy climb

Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader's art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace,
That they may render back
Artful thunder that conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin's blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest-tone,

At the time when the stars are grey,
And the gold of the molten moon
Fades, and the twilight is thinned,
And the sun leaps up, and the wind,
A light rose, not of the day,
A stronger light than of noon.

As the light of a face much loved
Was the face of the light that clomb;
As a mother's whitened with woes
Her adorable head that arose;
As the sound of a God that is moved,
Her voice went forth upon Rome.

At her lips it fluttered and failed
Twice, and sobbed into song,
And sank as a flame sinks under;

(He speaks, but to himself, being aware how it is with her)
Think not I have not heard.
Well-fanged the double word
And well-directed flew.

I felt it. Down my side
Innocent as oil I see the ugly venom slide:
Poison enough to stiffen us both, and all our friends;
But I am not pierced, so there the mischief ends.

There is more to be said: I see it coiling;
The impact will be pain.
Yet coil; yet strike again.
You cannot riddle the stout mail I wove
Long since, of wit and love.

As for my answer . . . stupid in the sun

I

A wide-spring meadow in a rosy dawn
Bedropt with virgin buds; an orient sky
Fleeced with a dappled cloud but half withdrawn;
A mad wind blowing by,
O'er slopes of rippling grass and glens apart;
A brackened path to a wild-woodland place
A limpid pool with a fair, laughing face
Mirrored within its heart.


II

An ancient garden brimmed with summer sun
Upon a still and slumberous afternoon;
Old walks and pleasances with shadows spun
Where honeyed odors swoon;
A velvet turf with blossoms garlanded;

Laura! a sunrise seems to break
Where'er thy happy looks may glow.
Joy sheds its roses o'er thy cheek,
Thy tears themselves do but bespeak
The rapture whence they flow;
Blest youth to whom those tears are given--
The tears that change his earth to heaven;
His best reward those melting eyes--
For him new suns are in the skies!

Thy soul--a crystal river passing,
Silver-clear, and sunbeam-glassing,
Mays into bloom sad Autumn by thee;
Night and desert, if they spy thee,
To gardens laugh--with daylight shine,

Meintjes Kopje! Meintjes Kopje!
Do the purple daisies grow
On your rugged slopes in spring-time
As they did in years ago,

When I walked with one who loved me,
In the days when love was young;
When our eyes held glinted laughter
And our sighs were songs unsung?

But the laughter fell and faded,
And the wonder-song is still,
And the track goes all untrodden
Past the pool and up the hill.

Meintjes Kopje! Meintjes Kopje!
Other years your flowers restore,
But my love who loved the daisies

My ev'ry thought and wish was thine;
Alas! thou know'st too well—
The ties that bind thy soul and mine,
How lasting need I tell.

Oh! I have lov'd thee tenderly—
Too dearly love thee still!
I feel that thought can never die—
That wish no time can kill.

The life that spreads before me now
Is one vast wilderness;
No fairy vales the scene can show
That smile to cheer and bless.

All dreary spreads the frowning waste—
A desert, gloomy, bare;
The rugged path, when found at last,

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious
as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous
(and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable
list!), but one of these days there'll be nothing left with
which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else
for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too,
don't I? I'm just like a pile of leaves.