New Collected Rhymes

Tall Salmacis

Were an apple tree a pine,
Tall and slim, and softly swaying,
Then her beauty were like thine,
Salmacis, when boune a Maying,
Tall as any poplar tree,
Sweet as apple blossoms be!

Had the Amazonian Queen
Seen thee ’midst thy maiden peers,
Thou the Coronel hadst been
Of that lady’s Grenadiers;
Troy had never mourned her fall,
With thine axe to guard her wall.

As Penthesilea brave
Is the maiden (in her dreams);
Ilium she well might save,
Though Achilles’ armour gleams,
’Midst the Greeks; all vain it is,
’Gainst the glance of Salmacis!

JUBILEE POEMS

BY BARDS WHO WERE SILENT

What Francesco said of the Jubilee

By R. B

What if we call it fifty years!  ’Tis steep!
To climb so high a gradient?  Prate of Guides?
Are we not roped?  The Danger?  Nay, the Turf,
No less nor more than mountain peaks, my friend,
Hears talk of Roping, – but the Jubilee!
Nay, there you have me: old Francesco once
(This was in Milan, in Visconti’s time,
Our wild Visconti, with one lip askance,
And beard tongue-twisted in the nostril’s nook)
Parlous enough, – these times – what?  “So are ours”?
Or any times, i’fegs, to him who thinks, —
Well ’twas in Spring “the frolic myrtle trees
There gendered the grave olive stocks,” – you cry
“A miracle!” – Sordello writeth thus, —
Believe me that indeed ’twas thus, and he,
Francesco, you are with me?  Well, there’s gloom
No less than gladness in your fifty years,
“And so,” said he, “to supper as we may.”
“Voltairean?”  So you take it; but ’tis late,
And dinner seven, sharp, at Primrose Hill.

The Poet and the Jubilee

Poscimur!

By A. D

A Birthday Ode for Meg or Nan,
A Rhyme for Lady Flora’s Fan,
A Verse on Smut, who’s gone astray,
These Things are in the Poet’s way;
At Home with praise of Julia’s Lace,
Or Delia’s Ankles, Rose’s Face,
But “Something overparted” He,
When asked to rhyme the jubilee!

He therefore turns, the Poet wary,
And Thumbs his Carmen Seculare,
To Phœbus and to Dian prays,
Who tune Men’s Lyres of Holidays,
He reads of the Sibylline Shades,
Of Stainless Boys and chosen Maids.
He turns, and reads the other Page,
Of docile Youth, and placid Age,
Then Sings how, in this golden Year
Fides Pudorque reappear, —
And if they don’t appear, you know it
Were quite unjust to blame the Poet!

On any Beach

By M. A

Yes, in the stream and stress of things,
That breaks around us like the sea,
There comes to Peasants and to Kings,
The solemn Hour of Jubilee.
If they, till strenuous Nature give
Some fifty harvests, chance to live!

Ah, Fifty harvests!  But the corn
Is grown beside the barren main,
Is salt with sea-spray, blown and borne
Across the green unvintaged plain.
And life, lived out for fifty years,
Is briny with the spray of tears!

Ah, such is Life, to us that live
Here, in the twilight of the Gods,