VII. In one year they sent a million fighters forth And they built their gods a brazen pillar high Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force Gold, of course. Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! Earth's returns For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! Shut them in, With their triumphs and their glories and the rest! Love is best. A LOVERS' QUARREL. I. OH, what a dawn of day! How the March sun feels like May! After last night's rain, And the South dries the hawthorn-spray. I'd as lief that the blue were grey. II. Runnels, which rillets swell, Must be dancing down the dell, With a foaming head On the beryl bed Paven smooth as a hermit's cell; Each with a tale to tell, Could my Love but attend as well. III. Dearest, three months ago! When we lived blocked-up with snow,- In and in his wedge, In, as far as the point could go— IV. Laughs with so little cause! One another's face In the ash, as an artist draws; How we chattered like two church daws! V. What's in the "Times"?- -a scold To his gruesome side, That's as fair as himself is bold: VI. Fancy the Pampas' sheen! Miles and miles of gold and green In a solid glow, And to break now and then the screen Black neck and eyeballs keen, Up a wild horse leaps between! VII. Try, will our table turn? Lay your hands there light, and yearn Thro' the finger-tips In a fire which a few discern, And a very few feel burn, And the rest, they may live and learn! VIII. Then we would up and pace, We are seamen in woeful case. IX. See, how she looks now, dressed Like a reindeer's yoke Falls the lappet along the breast: X. Teach me to flirt a fan As the Spanish ladies can, Or I tint your lip With a burnt stick's tip And you turn into such a man! Just the two spots that span Half the bill of the young male swan. Robert Browning. III, 4 XI. Dearest, three months ago With his hand's first sweep Put the earth to sleep, 'T was a time when the heart could show All-how was earth to know, 'Neath the mute hand's to-and-fro? XII. Dearest, three months ago When we loved each other so, When a shaft from the devil's bow And the friends were friend and foe! XIII. Not from the heart beneath 'T was a bubble born of breath, Oh, power of life and death XIV. Woman, and will you cast For a word, quite off at last I was You all the happy past— With the memories We amassed? XV. Love, if you knew the light That your soul casts in my sight, For the pure and true, And the beauteous and the right,Bear with a moment's spite When a mere mote threats the white! XVI. What of a hasty word? Is the fleshly heart not stirred Where its roots are quick? See the eye, by a fly's-foot blurredEar, when a straw is heard Scratch the brain's coat of curd! XVII. Foul be the world or fair More or less, how can I care? "T is the world the same For my praise or blame, And endurance is easy there. Wrong in the one thing rare— Oh, it is hard to bear! XVII. Here's the spring back or close, In a minor third There is none but the cuckoo knows: Heaps of the guelder-rose! I must bear with it, I suppose. |