Farewell

Farewell! I breathe that wonted prayer,
But oh! though countless leagues divide
Our gaze, our grasp, they shall not tear
My soul, my spirit, from thy side.
Waking or sleeping, thou shalt own
My fervour hovers round thee still;
And when thou deem'st thyself alone,
My whispers shall the silence fill.

And as, in summer's ardent days,
The sun withdraws not all his light,
But, long past setting, twilight rays,
Lingering, illumine half the night;
So shall our Love's enduring glow
Through lonely hours its radiance pour,
O'er our dark lot some comfort throw,
Until we blend and burn once more.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Nughtingale And Cuckoo

Yes, nightingale and cuckoo! it was meet
That you should come together; for ye twain
Are emblems of the rapture and the pain
That in the April of our life compete,
Until we know not which is the more sweet,
Nor yet have learned that both of them are vain!
Yet wherefore, nightingale! break off thy strain,
While yet the cuckoo doth his call repeat?
Not so with me. To sweet woe did I cling
Long after echoing happiness was dead,
And so found solace. Now, alas! the sting!
Cuckoo and nightingale alike have fled;
Neither for joy nor sorrow do I sing,
And autumn silence gathers in their stead.

poem by Alfred Austin
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A Portrait

When friends grown faithless, or the fickle throng,
Withdrawing from my life the love they lent,
Breed in my heart disdainful discontent,
And sadden sunshine with a sense of wrong,
Then I, forgetting to be wise and strong,
And on my own endearment too intent,
Unto myself make musical lament,
And lullaby my pain with plaintive song.
But, when I gaze upon this face august,
Her gift, who, seated on earth's loftiest throne,
For others' weal holds half the world in trust,
Pondering on cares of Empire all alone,
I, then rebuked, remember to be just,
Think of her griefs, and quite forget my own.

poem by Alfred Austin
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An April Love

Nay, be not June, nor yet December, dear,
But April always, as I find thee now:
A constant freshness unto me be thou,
And not the ripeness that must soon be sere.
Why should I be Time's dupe, and wish more near
The sobering harvest of thy vernal vow?
I am content, so still across thy brow
Returning smile chase transitory tear.
Then scatter thy April heart in sunny showers;
I crave nor Summer drouth nor Winter sleet:
As Spring be fickle, so thou be as sweet;
With half-kept promise tantalise the hours;
And let Love's frolic hands and woodland feet
Fill high the lap of Life with wilding flowers.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Here, where the vine and fig bask hand in hand

Here, where the vine and fig bask hand in hand,
And the hot lizard lies along the wall,
Blinded I shrink where cypress shadows fall,
And gaze upon the far-off mountains bland:
Then down the dusty track Lorenzo planned
Watch the slow oxen oscillating crawl
Sleek in the sultry glare, and feel withal
Half alien still in a familiar land.
But when from out the stone-pine slopes that rise
In the clear ether, black against the blue,
The cuckoo suddenly calls, I close mine eyes
In visionary rapture, think of you,
Hear the home-music of your Kentish skies,
And dream that I am drenched with English dew.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Too Late

Had you but shown me living what you show,
Now I am gone, to keep my grave-plot green,
And I but known what vainly now I know,
Lying here alone, how happy had I been!
If you with smiles had gladdened our joint home,
As now you drench my tenement with tears,
Up life's ascent together had we clomb,
And traversed hand-in-hand the slope of years.
Still is it solacing to feel you lay
Upon my sepulchre devoted flowers,
When hitherward you wend your widowed way
'Neath scorching sunshine or through drifting showers.
Pity that love is ofttimes forced by Fate,
In this unpunctual World, to come-too late!

poem by Alfred Austin
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A Meeting

Queen, widowed Mother of a widowed child,
Whose ancient sorrow goeth forth to meet
Her new-born sorrow with parental feet,
And tearful eyes that oft on hers have smiled,
Will not your generous heart be now beguiled
From its too lonely anguish, as You greet
Her anguish, yet more cruel and complete,
And, through her woe, with woe be reconciled?
Or if this may not be, and all the years
Of love's bereavement be withal too brief
To bring slow solace to still lengthening grief
For loss of One whom distance but endears,
Surely to Both will come some sad relief,
Sharing the comfort of commingled tears.

poem by Alfred Austin
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A Sleepless Night

Within the hollow silence of the night
I lay awake and listened. I could hear
Planet with punctual planet chiming clear,
And unto star star cadencing aright.
Nor these alone: cloistered from deafening sight,
All things that are, made music to my ear:
Hushed woods, dumb caves, and many a soundless mere,
With Arctic mains in rigid sleep locked tight.
But ever with this chant from shore and sea,
From singing constellation, humming thought,
And life through time's stops blowing variously,
A melancholy undertone was wrought;
And from its boundless prison-house I caught
The awful wail of lone Eternity.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Gleaners Of Fame

Hearken not, friend, for the resounding din
That did the Poet's verses once acclaim:
We are but gleaners in the field of fame,
Whence the main harvest hath been gathered in.
The sheaves of glory you are fain to win,
Long since were stored round many a household name,
The reapers of the Past, who timely came,
And brought to end what none can now begin.
Yet, in the stubbles of renown, 'tis right
To stoop and gather the remaining ears,
And carry homeward in the waning light
What hath been left us by our happier peers;
So that, befall what may, we be not quite
Famished of honour in the far-off years.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Vis Medicatrix Naturae

When Faith turns false and Fancy grows unkind,
And Fortune, more from fickleness than spite,
Takes the keen savour out of all delight,
And of sweet pulp leaves only bitter rind,
Then I the load of living leave behind,
Fleeing where, far from human sound and sight,
Over brown furrows wheels the lapwing white,
And whistles tunely with the winter wind.
For Nature's frank indifference woundeth less
Than Man's feigned smiles and simulated tears:
She is at least the egoist she appears,
Scorning to proffer or entice caress;
And, through the long reiterated years,
Endures her doom with uncomplainingness.

poem by Alfred Austin
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