the fading light,
We well might think an angel touched his lyre.

If chiselled stone and molten bronze instil
Hopes deeper than the fountains of my tears,
And love that hungers for eternity,

God, I believe Thou hast some use for me;
Leave me no life of dumb and sluggard years,
But cut or melt me till I speak Thy will.

IV
TO THE ENGLISH GIPSIES [6]

            Rough swarthy Gipsy folk,
Would that my voice could once forget to falter,
   And sing a song as free as swallows’ wings
   Of ancient Gipsies, and their “dukes” and “kings,”
The men who braved the branding-rod and halter,
   Because like birds they nimbly came and went,
   And loved the stars and road, and crouching tent
         Beneath a grove of oak.

               In ages long ago
The Brahman priests pursued you with their curses,
   Because you found life sweeter at the core
   Without the mumbling of their magic lore.
And you have lived to see their Sanskrit verses
   Fall dead; and Brahmans, like mere Romany,
   Now tempt their gods by trusting to the sea,
         Though trembling while they go.

         Then hardened against fear
You looted caravans of gold-shot dresses
   And gems upon their way to bright Baghdad,
   And drove the Moslem Khalif rampant mad,
When pearls culled from the ocean for the tresses
   Of his Circassian, in your pouches fell,
   As trifles to adorn the dusky shell
         Of some black virgin’s ear.

               Next Greece and Thessaly
Became the home of many a jocund roamer,
   Who gaily danced, or begged with mien forlorn,
   And patched his Indian speech where it was torn
With remnants from Demosthenes and Homer,
   Until you struck your blackened tents again
   And tattered pageants crossed the endless plain
         Of fertile Hungary.

         ’Tis even said you planned
To trick the Pope with penitential moaning,
   And gained his leave to wander seven years
   Towards the melancholy North, with tears
The sin of feigned apostasy atoning:
   Thus fortified against enquiring foes,
   You, with the budding of the Tudor rose,
         Alighted on our land.

         Who says it was not good
To see your handkerchiefs of red and yellow,
   And silver rings and basket-laden carts,
   And hear the honey-lipped prophetic arts
Of wheedling witches, or a clean-limbed fellow
   Who fiddled by the hedgerow in the smoke,
   And roused the antique Gipsy song that woke
         The silence of the wood?

         Now that your blood must fail,
What artist soul revengefully remembers
   You raided the domain of chanticleer,
   Or deftly poisoned pigs to swell your cheer
Of hedgehogs cooked in clay amid the embers?
   Who says you sometimes wedded art to force,
   Or made the worse appear the better horse
         Before a coming sale?

         You soon will pass away;
Laid one by one below the village steeple
   You face the East from which your fathers sprang,
   Or sleep in moorland turf, beyond the clang
Of towns and fairs; your tribes have joined the people
   Whom no true Romany will call by name,
   The folk departed like the camp-fire flame
         Of withered yesterday.

V
AUTUMN DYING

Autumn shakes in golden raiment,
      Gashed with red;
None can ransom him by payment
      From the dead.

They have shorn his strength with reaping,
      Left him cold;
Now he wakes each morning weeping,
      Weak and old.

And last night he sought my casement,
      Came and fled;
Wailed for aid from roof to basement,
      Touched my bed.

Though I cannot find his ransom,
      Ere he dies;
I will pay all that I can—some
      Hopes and sighs.

VI
THE DEPARTURE FOR CYTHERA

   Ere they parted for Cythera
      When the spring had reached its bloom,
   Phyllis, Doris and Neaera
      Peeped into their pictured room,
   Wished to go, yet wished to linger,
   Lifted each a taper finger,
Threw a kiss towards their portraits set in walls of rose brocade.

   Where the beeches lift a curtain
      Over shifting sunlit scenes,
   They with footsteps light and certain
      Used to dance like fairy queens;
   Now they speed beneath the beeches
   Till the path the water reaches
And the bay just softly ripples by a marble balustrade.

   Purple were the sails that beckoned
      And the deck was ivory,
   Love stood smiling there and reckoned
      His embarking company;
   Every mast wore silver sheathing,
   Music in the air was breathing,
In the rigging little laughing cupids upwards climbed and strayed.

   On they sailed through fields of azure,
      White was all their furrowed way,
   Melting in a blue erasure,
      Melting fast like yesterday;
   Radiant Hope still steered them hoping,
   Steered them past the woodlands sloping,
Where the doves descend and flutter on an ancient colonnade.

   On they passed through golden hazes,
      Watching distant peaks of snow,
   On through shadowed island mazes,
      Where the dreamy spices blow;
   Till the moon herself was setting,
   And the dew fell fast and wetting,
And the silver masts no image on the blackening waves displayed.

   Frayed are now the rose-red panels
      Filled with squares of rare brocade,
   In the ceiling Time carves channels
      Where the frescoes slowly fade;
   Chipped are now the scrolls of plaster,
   Which a skilled Italian master
Moulded all along the cornice, and with tips of gold o’erlaid.

   But the shallow oval spaces
      Underneath the white festoons,
   Hold the tender pastel faces
      Waiting endless afternoons;
   For they never touched Cythera,
   Phyllis, Doris, and Neaera,
And again they never landed by the marble balustrade.

VII
THE