The Palmer's Song.

I will fling ambition away

Like a vain and glittering toy;

With tristful weeping will I pray

And wash my sin's alloy.

I will wear the palmer's weed

And walk in the sandal shoon.

I will walk in the sun by day

And sleep beneath the moon.

I will set forth as the bells toll

And travel to the East,

Because of a sin upon my soul

And the chiding of a priest.

The Song of the Old Men.

We are the old, old men,

Once fierce and high-hearted in frolics,

But now we are three score and ten

Or upwards—mere relics

Of the fine strong pageant of youth,

Which time in his spite and unruth

Has taken.

We are dim and palsied and shaken,

Ah! me—forsaken.

Where are the fair white maids

With flower faces and carriage

Straight as new-smithied blades,

Ripe, ready for marriage?

Now all are withered and grey,

Their beauty has passed away,

Ah! madness—

They are bent like hoops with sadness

And the world's badness.

Our voices are hoarse and drear,

As we sit and mumble together,

We have no good tidings to hear

We had sooner have never

(So we grumble together) been born,

That are so sick and forlorn;

Just shadows—

But once bright fishers of shallows,

Swift hunters of meadows.

We are the old, old men,

We have seen and endured much trouble;

It has turned us children again,

And bent us double.

Now we sit like a circle of stones,

And hear in each others' moans

Ill token.

For our sweetest thoughts were broken

Or else unspoken.

The Song of Snorro.

"Oh! who can drink at the world's brink,

Or reach the twilight star?

It's a long sail where the winds wail,

And the great waters are.

"Or who can say at the parting day

That he will see once more

His children's faces in happy places,

His true wife at the door?"

Snorro the Viking, his thigh striking,

Laughed in his big red beard.

"Some are bound by sight and sound.

While some have wished and feared.

"Their days dream as a droning stream

Or moonlight in a wood.

Now who can sate his love or hate,

And the tumult of his blood?

"Then cast the die for the open sky

When the great sun beats abroad,

For the foam-fleck and the narrow deck,

The life of oar and sword.

"Life and limb for the wind's hymn,

And all the fears that be,

The ghost-races with ghastly faces,

The phantoms of the sea.

"Mine is the morrow," shouted Snorro,

"I longed and have not feared."

And his great laughter followed after

And rumbled in his beard.

The Island.

Once (was it long ago, dear?

Oh! hark to the sighing seas.)

We sailed to a wonderful Island

In the golden Antipodes,

Where the waves wore an azure mantle,

The winds were ever at rest,

For we'd left the Old World behind us

A thousand leagues to the West.

We came to that wonderful Island;

Girt by a ring of foam

It lay in the sea like a jewel

Under an azure dome.

The cliffs were all gold in the sunlight,

The strand was a floor of gold,

So we knew we'd come to the Island

We'd read of in tales of old.

Was it long we stayed in our Island?

(Dear, I can never say)

I know we walked on the mountains

Which looked far over the bay.

I know that we laughed for pleasure

(Were we wise or a couple of fools?)

As we gazed at the painted fishes

Which swam in the shallow pools.

And night drew over our Island

The purple pall of the skies,

The air was heavy with fragrance

And soft with the breath of sighs,

And voices out of the forest,

Voices out of the sea,

Told the eternal secret....

Told it to you and me.

And the stars came down from the heavens,

And the magical tropic moon,

To dance a measure together

Over the still lagoon;

And the whisper of distant forests,

The noise of the surf in our ears,

Seemed like the song of the ages

Sung by the passing years.

But we said "farewell" to our Island

Which we had discovered alone....

The sand ... and the palms ... and the headland....

The westering wind ... and the sun.

We said "farewell" to our Island

(Oh! hark to the sullen rain!)

... And I knew as it fell behind us

We should not see it again.

For only a few may go there

And they but once may go,

With glamour of stars above them

And the swinging seas below.

But I still hear its forests whisper,

The noise of the surf on the shore,

In that far-off wonderful Island

Which I shall see no more.

Fair Filamelle.

Fair Filamelle is my distress

With all her cruel backwardness.

She will not listen to my pain,

But turneth from me in disdain.

That fair Filamelle,

Her disdain is now my hell.

She hath bewitched me with her eyes,

As Circe did the sailor wise,

Or Egypt did the Roman Prince,

Two thousand years agone.

I've little else but weeping since,

My heart is like a stone.

If you like laughter's silver sound

Why have you dealt me such a wound,

If youth and beauty look askance

At glum and heavy countenance,

Why is it coy and cruel,

Adding to my fire more fuel?

Alas! Alas! it has no care,

Free as the birds which