Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

"A Rose Will Fade"

She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power
Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is alone,

As o'er her senses warmly steal
Floods of unrest she fears to own.
And almost dreads to feel.

Along the summer woodlands wide
Anew she roams, no more alone;
The joy she feared is at her side,

Spring's blushing secret now is known.
The primrose and its mates have flown,
The thrush's ringing note hath died;
But glancing eye and glowing tone
Fall on her from her god, her guide.
She knows not, asks not, what the goal,
She only feels she moves towards bliss,
And yields her pure unquestioning soul
To touch and fondling kiss.

And still she haunts those woodland ways,
Though all fond fancy finds there now

To mind of spring or summer days,
Are sodden trunk and songless bough.
The past sits widowed on her brow,
Homeward she wends with wintry gaze,
To walls that house a hollow vow,
To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze:
Watches the clammy twilight wane,

With grief too fixed for woe or tear;
And, with her forehead 'gainst the pane,
Envies the dying year.

Alfred Austin [1835

"A ROSE WILL FADE"

You were always a dreamer, Rose-red Rose,

As you swung on your perfumed spray,

Swinging, and all the world was true,
Swaying, what did it trouble you?

A rose will fade in a day.

1029

Why did you smile to his face, red Rose,
As he whistled across your way?
And all the world went mad for you,
All the world it knelt to woo.

A rose will bloom in a day.

I gather your petals, Rose-red Rose,
The petals he threw away.
And all the world derided you;

Ah! the world, how well it knew

A rose will fade in a day!

Dora Sigerson Shorter [1873

AFFAIRE D'AMOUR

ONE pale November day
Flying Summer paused,
They say:

And growing bolder,

O'er rosy shoulder

Threw her lover such a glance

That Autumn's heart began to dance. (O happy lover!)

A leafless peach-tree bold

Thought for him she smiled,

I'm told;

And, stirred by love,

His sleeping sap did move,

Decking each naked branch with green
To show her that her look was seen!
(Alas, poor lover!)

But Summer, laughing fled,

Nor knew he loved her!

'Tis said

The peach-tree sighed,

And soon he gladly died:

And Autumn, weary of the chase,

Came on at Winter's sober pace

(O careless lover!)

Margaret Deland [1857

The Maid of Neidpath

1031

THE MAID OF NEIDPATH

O LOVERS' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love, in life's extremity,

Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
To watch her Love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decayed by pining,

Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining.

By fits a sultry hectic hue

Across her cheek was flying;

By fits so ashy pale she grew

Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seemed in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog pricked his ear
She heard her lover's riding;

Ere scarce a distant form was kenned,
She knew and waved to greet him,
And o'er the battlement did bend,
As on the wing to meet him.

He came he passed-an heedless gaze
As o'er some stranger glancing;
Her welcome, spoke in faltering phrase,
Lost in his courser's prancing-
The castle-arch, whose hollow tone
Returns each whisper spoken,
Could scarcely catch the feeble moan
Which told her heart was broken.

Walter Scott [1771-1832]

ELENA'S SONG

From "Philip van Artevelde"

QUOTH tongue of neither maid nor wife
To heart of neither wife nor maid-
Lead we not here a jolly life

Betwixt the shine and shade?

Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife
To tongue of neither wife nor maid-
Thou wag'st, but I am worn with strife,
And feel like flowers that fade.

Henry Taylor (1800-1886]

THE WAY OF IT

THE wind is awake, pretty leaves, pretty leaves,
Heed not what he says; he deceives, he deceives:
Over and over

To the lowly clover

He has lisped the same love (and forgotten it, too)
He will soon be lisping and pledging to you.

The boy is abroad, pretty maid, pretty maid,
Beware his soft words; I'm afraid, I'm afraid:
He has said them before

Times many a score,

Ay, he died for a dozen ere his beard pricked through, And the very same death he will die for you.

The way of the boy is the way of the wind,
As light as the leaves is dainty maid-kind;
One to deceive,

And one to believe

That is the way of it, year to year;

But I know you will learn it too late, my dear.

John Vance Cheney [1848

"When Lovely Woman"

1033

"WHEN LOVELY WOMAN STOOPS TO FOLLY"

From "The Vicar of Wakefield"

WHEN lovely woman stoops to folly

And finds too late that men betray,-
What charm can soothe her melancholy,
What art can wash her guilt away?

The only art her guilt to cover,
To hide her shame from every eye,
To give repentance to her lover
And wring his bosom, is—to die.

Oliver Goldsmith [1728-1774]

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »