A SONG OF DERIVATIONS

I COME from nothing; but from where
Come the undying thoughts I bear?

Down, through long links of death and birth,

From the past poets of the earth.

My immortality is there.

I am like the blossom of an hour.
But long, long vanished sun and shower
Awoke my breath i' the young world's air.
I track the past back everywhere
Through seed and flower and seed and
flower.

Or I am like a stream that flows
Full of the cold springs that arose

In morning lands, in distant hills ;
And down the plain my channel fills
With melting of forgotten snows.

Voices I have not heard possessed My own fresh songs; my thoughts are blessed

With relics of the far unknown;

And mixed with memories not my own The sweet streams throng into my breast.

Before this life began to be,
The happy songs that wake in me

Woke long ago, and far apart Heavily on this little heart Presses this immortality.

SONG

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last,
Save in my love 's eternity.
Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost forever their moment past-
Except the few thou givest to me.

Thy sweet words vanish day by day,
As all breath of mortality;
Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,
And all thy dear tones pass away,
Except the few that sing to me.

Hide then within my heart, oh, hide
All thou art loath should go from thee.
Be kinder to thyself and me.
My cupful from this river's tide

Shall never reach the long sad sea.

I fear much more must flow from worthier veins

Ere England's hurt be healed.

Crom. How powerful are base things to destroy!

The brute's part in them kills the god's in

us,

And robs the world of many glorious deeds;

In all the histories of famous men

We never find the greatest overthrown
Of such as were their equals, but the head,
Screened of its laurels from the lightning's
flash,

Falls by some chance blow of an obscure hand,

And glory cannot guard the hero's heart
Against the least knave's dagger.
Hamp.
You cannot help me.
Save yourself, sir; my best prayers keep
you safe

I fain would win as far as yonder house; It was my dear dead wife's; such shapes are there

As I would see about my dying bed,
To make me sure of heaven-

me, love,

Forgive

That I am loath to come yet to thy heart; I have only lived without thee, O my best, That I might live for England! Is Cromwell come?

Crom. How is it with you, cousin? Hamp. Very well; With hope to be soon better; gentle cousin,

I have scant time to speak and much to say,

eyes

God shall seclude from sight of our gross Earth,

And for the dull light of our darker day Give all heaven to his vision, star with star

Shining, and splendid and sonorous spheres To make him music; and those sacred lips, More eloquent than the Mantuan's, praising thee,

Shall make thy fame a memory for all time,

And set a loftier laurel on thy head
Than any gathered from red fields of war ;
So great shall England's great need make
thee, Cromwell;

Whom thou forget not still to love and serve,

Holding thy greatness given to make her great,

Thy strength to keep her strong; then (since oblivion

Is what men chiefly fear in death), dear cousin,

I would not be forgotten of thy love.
And now I am loath the last words I shall

Still comes a vision of blue-veined feet That stand forever on a pebbly shore; While round, the tidal waters flow and fleet And ripple, ripple, ripple, evermore.

A SICILIAN NIGHT

COME, stand we here within this cactusbrake,

And let the leafy tangle cloak us round :
It is the spot whereof the Seer spake —
To nymph and faun a nightly trysting-
ground.

How still the scene! No zephyr stirs to shake

The listening air. The trees are slumber

bound

In soft repose. There's not a bird awake
To witch the silence with a silver sound.
Now haply shall the vision trance our eyes,
By heedless mortals all too rarely scanned,
Of mystic maidens in immortal guise,
Who mingle shadowy hand with shadowy
hand,

And, moving o'er the lilies circle-wise,
Beat out with naked feet a saraband.

A FOOTBALL-PLAYER

IF I could paint you, friend, as you stand there,

Guard of the goal, defensive, open-eyed, Watching the tortured bladder slide and glide

Under the twinkling feet; arms bare, head bare,

The breeze a-tremble through crow-tufts of hair;

Red-brown in face, and ruddier having spied

A wily foeman breaking from the side,
Aware of him, of all else unaware:
If I could limn you, as you leap and fling
Your weight against his passage,
like a

wall;

Clutch him, and collar him, and rudely

cling

For one brief moment till he falls - you fall:

My sketch would have what Art can never give

Sinew and breath and body; it would live.

My little son was seven years old

the

mint-flower touched his knees ; Yellow were his curly locks; Yellow were his stocking-clocks ; His plaything of a sword had a diamond in its hilt;

Where the garden beds lay sunny, And the bees were making honey, "For God and the king- to arms! to

arms!" the day long would he lilt.

Smock'd in lace and flowered brocade, my pretty son of seven

Wept sore because the kitten died, and left the charge uneven.

"I head one battalion, mother-
Kitty," sobbed he, "led the other!

And when we reach'd the bee-hive bench We used to halt and storm the trench: If we could plant our standard here, With all the bees a-buzzing near, And fly the colors safe from sting, The town was taken for the king!" Flitting, flitting over the thyme, my bees with yellow band My little son of seven

came close, and clipp'd me by the hand;

A wreath of mourning cloth was wound His small left arm and sword-hilt round, And on the thatch of every hive a wisp of black was bound.

"Sweet mother, we must tell the bees, or they will swarm away : Ye little bees!" he called, "draw nigh, and hark to what I say,

And make us golden honey still for our white wheaten bread,

Though never more

We rush on war With Kitty at our head: