POEMS

By EDWARD SHANKS

LONDON: SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
3 Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C.
1916

By the Same Author
SONGS. 6s. net.
(The Poetry Bookshop)

TO

J. C. STOBART

NOTE

Certain of these pieces have appeared already in the following periodicals:—The English Review, The Saturday Review, The Eye-Witness, The Westminster Gazette, and The Pall Mall Gazette. One of the Songs was printed for the first time in an anthology called Cambridge Poets. I am indebted to the editors of these for permission to reprint them here.

E. S.

CONTENTS

SONGS—

Song for an Unwritten Play
The Cup
A Rhymeless Song
Meadow and Orchard
Who thinks that he possesses
Love in the Open Air
Fear in the Night
An Old Song
Love's Close
The Weed
Recollection
The Holiday
Walking at Night
Half Hope
A New Song about the Sea

THE WINTER SOLDIER—

The Winter Soldier, i.-ix.
The Pool
The Dead Poet

PASTORAL PIECES—

The Vision in the Wood
The Idyll
The Pursuit of Daphne

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS—

Ode on Beauty
Song in Time of Waiting
Sonnets on Separation, i.-vii.
The Morning Sun
Persuasion
Apology
The Golden Moment
Bramber
Now would I be
Midwinter Madness
At a Lecture

SONGS

Song for an Unwritten Play.

The moon's a drowsy fool to-night,
Wrapped in fleecy clouds and white;
And all the while Endymion
Sleeps on Latmos top alone.

Not a single star is seen:
They are gathered round their queen,
Keeping vigil by her bed,
Patient and unwearièd.

Now the poet drops his pen
And moves about like other men:
Tom o' Bedlam now is still
And sleeps beneath the hawthorn'd hill.

Only the Latmian shepherd deems
Something missing from his dreams
And tosses as he sleeps alone.
Alas, alas, Endymion!

The Cup.

As a hot traveller
Going through stones and sands,
Who sees clear water stir
Amid the weary lands,
Takes in his hollowed hands
The clean and lively water,
That trickles down his throat
Like laughter, like laughter,

So when you come to me
Across these parchèd places
And all the waste I see
Flowered with your graces,
I take between my hands
Your face like a rare cup,
Where kisses mix with laughter,
And drink and drink them up
Like water, like water.

A Rhymeless