POEMS

BY FRANCIS
THOMPSON

BURNS AND OATES
28 Orchard Street
London
W

CONTENTS.

DEDICATION.
TO WILFRID AND ALICE MEYNELL.

If the rose in meek duty
   May dedicate humbly
To her grower the beauty
   Wherewith she is comely;
If the mine to the miner
   The jewels that pined in it,
Earth to diviner
   The springs he divined in it;
To the grapes the wine-pitcher
   Their juice that was crushed in it,
Viol to its witcher
   The music lay hushed in it;
If the lips may pay Gladness
   In laughters she wakened,
And the heart to its sadness
   Weeping unslakened,
If the hid and sealed coffer,
   Whose having not his is,
To the loosers may proffer
   Their finding—here this is;
Their lives if all livers
   To the Life of all living,—
To you, O dear givers!
   I give your own giving.

Love in Dian’s Lap.

I.
BEFORE HER PORTRAIT IN YOUTH.

As lovers, banished from their lady’s face
      And hopeless of her grace,
Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,
      Fondly adore
Some stealth-won cast attire she wore,
      A kerchief or a glove:
      And at the lover’s beck
   Into the glove there fleets the hand,
   Or at impetuous