A Rare Guest

Love, that all men think they know,
Is a rare guest here below;
But with mortals when it stays,
These are its unerring ways.

I
Love builds secret, half afraid,
In the covert, in the shade,
Fostering, where none know it is,
Solitary gladnesses.
Pry not on its brooding breast,
Lest it should desert its nest.
Then, all seen, you naught can save;
'Twas a cradle;-'tis a grave.

II
Love loves tumult closed with rest,
Spreads its wings and bares its breast
To the unrelenting strain
Of the passionate hurricane.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Mozart’s Grave

Where lies Mozart? Tradition shows
A likely spot: so much, no more:
No words of his own time disclose
When crossed He to the Further Shore,
Though later ages, roused to shame,
On tardy tomb have carved his name.

The sexton asked, ``What may this be?''
``A Kapellmeister.'' ``Pass it in:
This common grave to all is free,
And for one more is room within.
It fills the fosse. Now tread it down,
With pauper, lunatic, and clown.''

Yet had he wizarded with sound
Electors, Cardinals, and Kings,
While there welled forth from source profound
The flow of silvery-sounding springs,
Music of tenderness and mirth,
One with his very soul at birth.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire

I
``River rolling past the grey
Battlements of yesterday,
Palace strongholds reared by hands
Summoned from transalpine lands,
Skilled in wedding strength with grace,
Fort with stately dwelling-place,
Vizored brow with siren tress,
Majesty with loveliness,-

River, that beheld their sway
Dawn and dwindle, then decay,
Linger, loiter, while I sit,
As the sunshine-shadows flit,
Pondering pictures of the vast
Panorama of the Past,
And, with retrospective gaze,
Tell me of the vanished days.''

II

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Lover’s Song

When Winter hoar no longer holds
The young year in his gripe,
And bleating voices fill the folds,
And blackbirds pair and pipe;
Then coax the maiden where the sap
Awakes the woodlands drear,
And pour sweet wildflowers in her lap,
And sweet words in her ear.
For Springtime is the season, sure,
Since Love's game first was played,
When tender thoughts begin to lure
The heart of April maid,
Of maid,
The heart of April maid.

When June is wreathed with wilding rose,
And all the buds are blown,
And O, 'tis joy to dream and doze
In meadows newly mown;
Then take her where the graylings leap,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A March Minstrel

Hail! once again, that sweet strong note!
Loud on my loftiest larch,
Thou quaverest with thy mottled throat,
Brave minstrel of bleak March!

Hearing thee flute, who pines or grieves
For vernal smiles and showers?
Thy voice is greener than the leaves,
And fresher than the flowers.

Scorning to wait for tuneful May
When every throat can sing,
Thou floutest Winter with thy lay,
And art thyself the Spring.

While daffodils, half mournful still,
Muffle their golden bells,
Thy silvery peal o'er landscape chill
Surges, and sinks, and swells.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

If I To You But Sorry Bring

If I to you but sorrow bring,
But aching hours and brackish tears,
And that poor drooping Hope whose wing
Flags 'neath the weight of clogging fears,
Then let me in the desert hide
This fatal gift, this feverish breast;
Or, better,'neath the sounding tide
Be hushed, and evermore at rest.

What recks it if at length I lie
In my cold bed of narrow earth,
And neither wave, nor sun, nor sky,
Vex me with its untimely mirth?
Have I not known what 'tis to hold
In pulsing arms your bounding heart?
Oh come, dear Death! and make them cold,
If life can do no more than part!

For even then at times would stir
The veins that now with passion glow,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Lost

Sweet lark! that, bedded in the tangled grass,
Protractest dewy slumbers, wake, arise!
The brightest moments of the morning pass-
Thou shouldst be up, and carolling in the skies.
Go up! go up! and melt into the blue,
And to heaven's veil on wings of song repair;
But, ere thou dost descend to earth, peep through,
And see if She be there.

Sweet stockdove! cooing in the flushing wood,
On one green bough brooding till morn hath died,
Oh, leave the perch where thou too long hast stood,
And with strong wings flutter the leaves aside!
Fly on, fly on, past feathery copse, nor stay
Till thou hast skimmed o'er all the woodlands fair!
And when thou hast, then speeding back thy way,
Tell me if She be there.

Sweet breeze! that, wearied with the heat of noon,
Upon a bank of daffodils didst die,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Aspromonte

So you think he is defeated, O ye comfortably seated,
And that Victory is meted in your loaded huckster's scales?
O ye fools! though justice tarry, yet by heaven broad and starry,
Right, howe'er it may miscarry, ere the end arrive, prevails.

And you think a wounded hero may hereafter count as zero,
And that every desperate Nero rules the cities which he burns;
That a wild steed caught and snaffled means a nation wholly baffled,
And its future may be raffled in your diplomatic urns!

Well, then, know we would not barter this our never flinching martyr
For the very largest charter we could coax from ``Right Divine,''
That his blood upon your ermine only makes us more determine
To exterminate the vermin who have baulked his grand design.

Dolts! upon successful traitor vengeance groweth only greater,
Not one whit less sure, the later the account may be delayed,
And will one day have its grip on every decorated fripon,
Though he loudly laugh and lip on, whilst the world is plunged in shade.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Souless Singer

Hail! throstle, by thy ringing voice descried,
Not by the wanderings of the tuneless wing!
Now once again where forkëd boughs divide,
Lost in green leafage thou dost perch and sing:
Trilling, shrilling, far and wide,
``It is Spring.''

Thy matins peal long ere the rosy dawn
Unfolds its hull and burgeons into light;
Nor cease thy vespers till from darkling lawn
The silent shadows steal away in flight,
And the star-lit tent is drawn
Round the Night.

Is it in Heaven, or mid-way of the Earth,
Thou learn'st to outvoice, outnumber all the Nine?
What is the secret of thy madcap mirth?
Wilt thou not tell it me, and make it mine?
What is all my singing worth,
Matched with thine?

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Invocation

Where Apennine slopes unto Tuscan plain,
And breaks into dimples, and laughs to flowers,
To see where the terrors of Winter wane,
And out of a valley of grape and grain
There blossoms a City of domes and towers,

Teuton, Lombard, and grasping Gaul,
Prince and Pontiff, have forced their way,
Have forded the river, and scaled the wall,
And made in its palaces stye and stall,
Where spears might glisten and war-steeds neigh.

But ever since Florence was fair and young,
And the sun upon turret and belfry shone,
Were her windows bannered and joy-bells rung,
When back to his saddle the Stranger sprung,
And lances were lifted and pikemen gone.

Yes, ever and ever till you, my Queen,
Came over the sea that is all your own,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Austin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!