The Statues And The Tear
All night a fountain pleads,
Telling her beads,
Her tinkling beads monotonous 'neath the moon;
And where she springs atween,
Two statues lean--
Two Kings, their marble beards with moonlight strewn.
Till hate had frozen speech,
Each hated each,
Hated and died, and went unto his place:
And still inveterate
They lean and hate
With glare of stone implacable, face to face.
One, who bade set them here
In stone austere,
To both was dear, and did not guess at all:
Yet with her new-wed lord
Walking the sward
Paused, and for two dead friends a tear let all.
She turn'd and went her way.
Yet in the spray
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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Epilogue: To A Mother
On seeing her smile repeated in her daughter's eyes
A thousand songs I might have made
Of You, and only You;
A thousand thousand tongues of fire
That trembled down a golden wire
To lamp the night with stars, to braid
The morning bough with dew.
Within the greenwood girl and boy
Had loiter'd to their lure,
And men in cities closed their books
To dream of Spring and running brooks
And all that ever was of joy
For manhood to abjure.
And I'd have made them strong, so strong
Outlasting towers and towns--
Millennial shepherds 'neath the thorn
Had piped them to a world reborn,
And danced Delight the dale along
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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Jenifer's Love
Small is my secret-let it pass-
Small in your life the share I had,
Who sat beside you in the class,
Awed by the bright superior lad:
Whom yet with hot and eager face
I prompted when he missed his place.
For you the call came swift and soon:
But sometimes in your holidays
You meet me trudging home at noon
To dinner through the dusty ways,
And recognized, and with a nod
Passed on, but never guessed-thank God!
Truly our ways were separate.
I bent myself to hoe and drill,
Yea, with an honest man to mate,
Fulfilling God Almighty's will;
And bore him children. But my prayers
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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Nuptial Night
Hush! and again the chatter of the starling
Athwart the lawn!
Lean your head close and closer. O my darling!--
It is the dawn.
Dawn in the dusk of her dream,
Dream in the hush of her bosom, unclose!
Bathed in the eye-bright beam,
Blush to her cheek, be a blossom, a rose!
Go, nuptial night! the floor of Ocean tressing
With moon and star;
With benediction go and breathe thy blessing
On coasts afar.
Hark! the theorbos thrum
O'er the arch'd wave that in white smother booms
'Mother of Mystery, come!
Fain for thee wait other brides, other grooms!'
Go, nuptial night, my breast of hers bereaving!
Yet, O, tread soft!
Grow day, blithe day, the mountain shoulder heaving
More gold aloft!
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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The Doom Of The Esquire Bedell
Adown the torturing mile of street
I mark him come and go,
Thread in and out with tireless feet
The crossings to and fro;
A soul that treads without retreat
A labyrinth of woe.
Palsied with awe of such despair,
All living things give room,
They flit before his sightless glare
As horrid shapes, that loom
And shriek the curse that bids him bear
The symbol of his doom.
The very stones are coals that bake
And scorch his fevered skin;
A fire no hissing hail may slake
Consumes his heart within.
Still must he hasten on to rake
The furnace of his sin.
Still forward! forward! For he feels
Fierce claws that pluck his breast,
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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Mary Leslie
O Mary Leslie, blithe and shrill
The bugles blew for Spain:
And you below the Castle Hill
Stood in the crowd your lane.
Then hearts were wild to watch us pass,
Yet laith to let us go!
While mine said, 'Fare-ye-well, my lass!'
And yours, 'God keep my Jo!'
Here by the bivouac fire, above
These fields of savage play,
I'll lift my love to meet thy love
Twa thousand miles away,
Where yonder, yonder by the stars,
Nightlong there rins a burn,
And maids with lovers at the wars
May list their wraiths' return.
More careless yet my spirit grows
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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The White Moth
IF a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?
The light above the poet’s head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-winged moth:
’T was Annie’s soul that beat outside
And “Open, open, open!” cried:
“I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the fearful road
Led over wastes where millions
Of tangled comets hissed and burned—
I was bewildered and I turned.
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Solivitur Acris Hiemps
My Juggins, see: the pasture green,
Obeying Nature's kindly law,
Renews its mantle; there has been
A thaw.
The frost-bound earth is free at last,
That lay 'neath Winter's sullen yoke
'Till people felt it getting past
A joke.
Now forth again the Freshers fare,
And get them tasty summer suits
Wherein they flaunt afield and scare
The brutes.
Again the stream suspects the keel;
Again the shrieking captain drops
Upon his crew; again the meal
Of chops
Divides the too-laborious day;
Again the Student sighs o'er Mods,
And prompts his enemies to lay
Long odds.
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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Coronation Hymn
Tune--Luther's Chorale
'Ein' feste burg ist unser Gott'
I
Of old our City hath renown.
Of God are her foundations,
Wherein this day a King we crown
Elate among the nations.
Acknowledge, then, thou King--
And you, ye people, sing--
What deeds His arm hath wrought:
Yea, let their tale be taught
To endless generations.
II
So long, so far, Jehovah guides
His people's path attending,
By pastures green and water-sides
Toward His hill ascending;
Whence they beneath the stars
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poem by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
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In A College Garden
Senex. Saye, cushat, callynge from the brake,
What ayles thee soe to pyne?
Thy carefulle heart shall cease to ake
When dayes be fyne
And greene thynges twyne:
Saye, cushat, what thy griefe to myne?
Turtur. Naye, gossyp, loyterynge soe late,
What ayles thee thus to chyde?
My love is fled by garden-gate;
Since Lammas-tyde
I wayte my bryde.
Saye, gossyp, whom dost thou abyde?
Senex. Loe! I am he, the 'Lonelie Manne,'
Of Time forgotten quite,
That no remembered face may scanne—
Sadde eremyte,
I wayte tonyghte
Pale Death, nor any other wyghte.
O cushat, cushat, callynge lowe,
Goe waken Time from sleepe:
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