TO MISS CORNISH

THEY tell me, lady, that to-day
On that unknown Australian strand -

Some time ago, so far away -
Another lady joined the band.

She joined the company of those
Lovelily dowered, nobly planned,

Who, smiling, still forgive their foes
And keep their friends in close command.

She, lady, as I learn, was one
Among the many rarely good;

And destined still to be a sun
Through every dark and rainy mood:-

She, as they told me, far had come,
By sea and land, o'er many a rood:-

Admired by all, beloved by some,
She was yourself, I understood.

But, compliment apart and free
From all constraint of verses, may

Goodness and honour, grace and glee,
Attend you ever on your way -

Up to the measure of your will,
Beyond all power of mine to say -

As she and I desire you still,
Miss Cornish, on your natal day.

TALES OF ARABIA
YES, friend, I own these tales of Arabia

Smile not, as smiled their flawless originals,
Age-old but yet untamed, for ages

Pass and the magic is undiminished.
Thus, friend, the tales of the old Camaralzaman,

Ayoub, the Slave of Love, or the Calendars,
Blind-eyed and ill-starred royal scions,

Charm us in age as they charmed in childhood.
Fair ones, beyond all numerability,

Beam from the palace, beam on humanity,
Bright-eyed, in truth, yet soul-less houris

Offering pleasure and only pleasure.
Thus they, the venal Muses Arabian,

Unlike, indeed, the nobler divinities,
Greek Gods or old time-honoured muses,

Easily proffer unloved caresses.
Lost, lost, the man who mindeth the minstrelsy;

Since still, in sandy, glittering pleasances,
Cold, stony fruits, gem-like but quite in-

Edible, flatter and whollystarve him.
BEHOLD, AS GOBLINS DARK OF MIEN

BEHOLD, as goblins dark of mien
And portly tyrants dyed with crime

Change, in the transformation scene,
At Christmas, in the pantomime,

Instanter, at the prompter's cough,
The fairy bonnets them, and they

Throw their abhorred carbuncles off
And blossom like the flowers in May.

- So mankind, to angelic eyes,
So, through the scenes of life below,

In life's ironical disguise,
A travesty of man, ye go:

But fear not: ere the curtain fall,
Death in the transformation scene

Steps forward from her pedestal,
Apparent, as the fairy Queen;

And coming, frees you in a trice
From all your lendings - lust of fame,

Ungainly virtue, ugly vice,
Terror and tyranny and shame.

So each, at last himself, for good
In that dear country lays him down,

At last beloved and understood
And pure in feature and renown.

STILL I LOVE TO RHYME
STILL I love to rhyme, and still more, rhyming, to wander

Far from the commoner way;
Old-time trills and falls by the brook-side still do I ponder,

Dreaming to-morrow to-day.
Come here, come, revive me, Sun-God, teach me, Apollo,

Measures descanted before;
Since I ancient verses, I emulous follow,

Prints in the marbles of yore.
Still strange, strange, they sound in old-young raiment invested,

Songs for the brain to forget -
Young song-birds elate to grave old temples benested

Piping and chirruping yet.
Thoughts? No thought has yet unskilled attempted to flutter

Trammelled so vilely in verse;
He who writes but aims at fame and his bread and his butter,

Won with a groan and a curse.
LONG TIME I LAY IN LITTLE EASE

LONG time I lay in little ease
Where, placed by the Turanian,

Marseilles, the many-masted, sees
The blue Mediterranean.

Now songful in the hour of sport,
Now riotous for wages,

She camps around her ancient port,
As ancient of the ages.

Algerian airs through all the place
Unconquerably sally;

Incomparable women pace
The shadows of the alley.

And high o'er dark and graving yard
And where the sky is paler,

The golden virgin of the guard
Shines, beckoning the sailor.

She hears the city roar on high,
Thief, prostitute, and banker;

She sees the masted vessels lie
Immovably at anchor.

She sees the snowy islets dot
The sea's immortal azure,

And If, that castellated spot,
Tower, turret, and embrasure.

FLOWER GOD, GOD OF THE SPRING
FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,

Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
Here I wander in April

Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,

Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
Spring, flower-planter in meadows,

Child-conductor in willowy
Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:

Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:
O child, happy are children!

She still smiles on their innocence,
She, dear mother in God, fostering violets,

Fills earth full of her scents, voices and violins:
Thus one cunning in music

Wakes old chords in the memory:
Thus fair earth in the Spring leads her performances.

One more touch of the bow, smell of the virginal
Green - one more, and my bosom

Feels new life with an ecstasy.
COME, MY BELOVED, HEAR FROM ME

COME, my beloved, hear from me
Tales of the woods or open sea.

Let our aspiring fancy rise
A wren's flight higher toward the skies;

Or far from cities, brown and bare,
Play at the least in open air.

In all the tales men hear us tell
Still let the unfathomed ocean swell,

Or shallower forest sound abroad
Below the lonely stars of God;

In all, let something still be done,
Still in a corner shine the sun,

Slim-ankled maids be fleet of foot,
Nor man disown the rural flute.

Still let the hero from the start
In honest sweat and beats of heart

Push on along the untrodden road
For some inviolate abode.

Still, O beloved, let me hear
The great bell beating far and near-

The odd, unknown, enchanted gong
That on the road hales men along,

That from the mountain calls afar,
That lures a vessel from a star,

And with a still, aerial sound
Makes all the earth enchanted ground.

Love, and the love of life and act
Dance, live and sing through all our furrowed tract;

Till the great God enamoured gives
To him who reads, to him who lives,

That rare and fair romantic strain
That whoso hears must hear again.

SINCE YEARS AGO FOR EVERMORE
SINCE years ago for evermore

My cedar ship I drew to shore;
And to the road and riverbed

And the green, nodding reeds, I said
Mine ignorant and last farewell:

Now with content at home I dwell,
And now divide my sluggish life

Betwixt my verses and my wife:
In vain; for when the lamp is lit

And by the laughing fire I sit,
Still with the tattered atlas spread

Interminable roads I tread.
ENVOY FOR "A CHILD'S GARDEN OF VERSES"

WHETHER upon the garden seat
You lounge with your uplifted feet

Under the May's whole Heaven of blue;
Or whether on the sofa you,

No grown up person being by,
Do some soft corner occupy;

Take you this volume in your hands
And enter into other lands,

For lo! (as children feign) suppose
You, hunting in the garden rows,

Or in the lumbered attic, or
The cellar - a nail-studded door

And dark, descending stairway found
That led to kingdoms underground:

There standing, you should hear with ease
Strange birds a-singing, or the trees

Swing in big robber woods, or bells
On many fairy citadels:

There passing through (a step or so -
Neither mamma nor nurse need know!)

• forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
• rarely [´reəli] ad.难得；非凡地 (初中英语单词)
• beloved [bi´lʌvd] a.为....所爱的 n.爱人 (初中英语单词)
• measure [´meʒə] n.量度；范围 vt.测量 (初中英语单词)
• flatter [´flætə] vt.阿谀，奉承；胜过 (初中英语单词)
• wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
• starve [stɑ:v] v.(使)饥饿 (初中英语单词)
• blossom [´blɔsəm] n.花；开花期 vi.开花 (初中英语单词)
• virtue [´və:tʃu:] n.美德；贞操；长处 (初中英语单词)
• immortal [i´mɔ:təl] a.不死的n.不朽的人物 (初中英语单词)
• shield [ʃi:ld] n.盾牌；防御 v.保护 (初中英语单词)
• wander [´wɔndə, ´wɑ:n:dər] v.徘徊；流浪 (初中英语单词)
• cunning [´kʌniŋ] a.&n.狡猾(诡诈)的 (初中英语单词)
• flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
• lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
• vessel [´vesəl] n.容器；船；脉管 (初中英语单词)
• romantic [rəu´mæntik] a.传奇(式)的；浪漫的 (初中英语单词)
• ignorant [´ignərənt] a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词)
• volume [´vɔlju:m, ´vɑljəm] n.卷；书籍；体积；容量 (初中英语单词)
• cellar [´selə] n.地窑，地下室 (初中英语单词)
• standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
• robber [´rɔbə] n.强盗；盗贼 (初中英语单词)
• compliment [´kɔmplimənt] n.敬意 vt.赞美；祝贺 (高中英语单词)
• tyranny [´tirəni] n.暴政；专制政治 (高中英语单词)
• revive [ri´vaiv] v.(使)苏醒；(使)振奋 (高中英语单词)
• virgin [´və:dʒin] a.处女(般)的 n.处女 (高中英语单词)
• proffer [´prɔfə] vt.&n.提供；贡献 (英语四级单词)
• transformation [,trænsfə´meiʃən] n.转化；转变；改造 (英语四级单词)
• raiment [´reimənt] n.衣饰 (英语四级单词)
• turret [´tʌrit] n.塔楼；炮塔；转台 (英语四级单词)
• aerial [´eəriəl] a.空中的 n.天线 (英语四级单词)
• tattered [´tætəd] a.(衣服等)破烂的 (英语四级单词)
• lounge [laundʒ] n.懒洋洋的姿势；闲逛 (英语四级单词)
• stairway [´steəwei] n.楼梯 (英语四级单词)
• angelic [æn´dʒelik] a.天使(般)的 (英语六级单词)
• beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
• sluggish [´slʌgiʃ] a.呆滞的；偷懒的 (英语六级单词)
• hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)