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Read Ebook: Rhymes a la Mode by Lang Andrew
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Ebook has 281 lines and 26111 words, and 6 pages
And clear and fleet Eurotas still, You tell me, laves his reedy shore, And flows beneath his fabled hill Where Dian drave the chase of yore.
And "like a horse unbroken" yet The yellow stream with rush and foam, 'Neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, Girdles his ancient mistress, Rome!
I may not see them, but I doubt If seen I'd find them half so fair As ripples of the rising trout That feed beneath the elms of Yair.
Nay, Spring I'd meet by Tweed or Ail, And Summer by Loch Assynt's deep, And Autumn in that lonely vale Where wedded Avons westward sweep,
Or where, amid the empty fields, Among the bracken of the glen, Her yellow wreath October yields, To crown the crystal brows of Ken.
Unseen, Eurotas, southward steal, Unknown, Alpheus, westward glide, You never heard the ringing reel, The music of the water side!
Though Gods have walked your woods among, Though nymphs have fled your banks along; You speak not that familiar tongue Tweed murmurs like my cradle song.
My cradle song,--nor other hymn I'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear Than Tweed's, that through death's twilight dim, Mourned in the latest Minstrel's ear!
TWILIGHT.
SONNET.
LIGHT has flown! Through the grey The wind's way The sea's moan Sound alone! For the day These repay And atone!
Scarce I know, Listening so To the streams Of the sea, If old dreams Sing to me!
BALLADE OF SUMMER.
TO C. H. ARKCOLL
WHEN strawberry pottles are common and cheap, Ere elms be black, or limes be sere, When midnight dances are murdering sleep, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And far from Fleet Street, far from here, The Summer is Queen in the length of the land, And moonlit nights they are soft and clear, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When clamour that doves in the lindens keep Mingles with musical plash of the weir, Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And better a crust and a beaker of beer, With rose-hung hedges on either hand, Than a palace in town and a prince's cheer, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When big trout late in the twilight leap, When cuckoo clamoureth far and near, When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And it's oh to sail, with the wind to steer, Where kine knee deep in the water stand, On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
ENVOY.
Friend, with the fops while we dawdle here, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
BALLADE OF CHRISTMAS GHOSTS.
The beasts can talk in barn and byre On Christmas Eve, old legends know, As year by year the years retire, We men fall silent then I trow, Such sights hath Memory to show, Such voices from the silence thrill, Such shapes return with Christmas snow,-- The ghosts we all can raise at will.
Oh, children of the village choir, Your carols on the midnight throw, Oh bright across the mist and mire Ye ruddy hearths of Christmas glow! Beat back the dread, beat down the woe, Let's cheerily descend the hill; Be welcome all, to come or go, The ghosts we all can raise at will!
ENVOY.
LOVE'S EASTER.
SONNET
LOVE died here Long ago;-- O'er his bier, Lying low, Poppies throw; Shed no tear; Year by year, Roses blow!
Year by year, Adon--dear To Love's Queen-- Does not die! Wakes when green May is nigh!
BALLADE OF THE GIRTON GIRL.
She can talk about putting a "spirt on" , And she dearly delighteth to flirt on A punt in some shadowy creek; Should her bark, by mischance, spring a leak, She can swim as a swallow can fly; She can fence, she can put with a cleek, But her forte's to evaluate ?.
She has lectured on Scopas and Myrton, Coins, vases, mosaics, the antique, Old tiles with the secular dirt on, Old marbles with noses to seek. And her Cobet she quotes by the week, And she's written on ??? and on ???, And her service is swift and oblique, But her forte's to evaluate ?.
ENVOY.
Princess, like a rose is her cheek, And her eyes are as blue as the sky, And I'd speak, had I courage to speak, But--her forte's to evaluate pi.
RONSARD'S GRAVE.
YE wells, ye founts that fall From the steep mountain wall, That fall, and flash, and fleet With silver feet,
Ye woods, ye streams that lave The meadows with your wave, Ye hills, and valley fair, Attend my prayer!
When Heaven and Fate decree My latest hour for me, When I must pass away From pleasant day,
I ask that none my break The marble for my sake, Wishful to make more fair My sepulchre.
Only a laurel tree Shall shade the grave of me, Only Apollo's bough Shall guard me now!
Now shall I be at rest Among the spirits blest, The happy dead that dwell-- Where,--who may tell?
The snow and wind and hail May never there prevail, Nor ever thunder fall Nor storm at all.
But always fadeless there The woods are green and fair, And faithful ever more Spring to that shore!
There shall I ever hear Alcaeus' music clear, And sweetest of all things There SAPPHO sings.
SAN TERENZO.
MID April seemed like some November day, When through the glassy waters, dull as lead, Our boat, like shadowy barques that bear the dead, Slipped down the long shores of the Spezian bay, Rounded a point,--and San Terenzo lay Before us, that gay village, yellow and red, The roof that covered Shelley's homeless head,-- His house, a place deserted, bleak and grey.
The waves broke on the door-step; fishermen Cast their long nets, and drew, and cast again. Deep in the ilex woods we wandered free, When suddenly the forest glades were stirred With waving pinions, and a great sea bird Flew forth, like Shelley's spirit, to the sea!
ROMANCE.
MY Love dwelt in a Northern land. A grey tower in a forest green Was hers, and far on either hand The long wash of the waves was seen, And leagues on leagues of yellow sand, The woven forest boughs between!
And through the silver Northern night The sunset slowly died away, And herds of strange deer, lily-white, Stole forth among the branches grey; About the coming of the light, They fled like ghosts before the day!
I know not if the forest green Still girdles round that castle grey; I know not if the boughs between The white deer vanish ere the day; Above my Love the grass is green, My heart is colder than the clay!
BALLADE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY.
I SCRIBBLED on a fly-book's leaves Among the shining salmon-flies; A song for summer-time that grieves I scribbled on a fly-book's leaves. Between grey sea and golden sheaves, Beneath the soft wet Morvern skies, I scribbled on a fly-book's leaves Among the shining salmon-flies.
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