class="GutSmall">XX
TO DANTE

The Church divided and the Empire fell,
Grave Dante, but thy verse in magic grows
And charms men upward to the snow-white Rose
Of heaven from the mire and grief of hell.

No lonely isle of dull forgetfulness
Hides Beatrice within its shadowed gloom,
For ’mid the petals of thy Rose’s bloom
Time’s hand has set that pearl of loveliness.

Though patched and powdered poets could not taste
Thy limpid sweetness, and exposed thy fame
To meet the leering Frenchman’s cynic air,

Thy love was fair without brocade or paste,
Thyself too great to need a gilded name;
Thy Comedy and God survive Voltaire.

XXI
TO PETRARCH

Yes, Petrarch, we most certainly believe
That you who wore your heart upon your sleeve,
Did love your love for Laura, and the eye
Of public fame, at which your sonnets fly,
Like skyward larks that court the genial sun;
And o’er the tears you treasured one by one
You downward bent with all a statue’s grace
To see reflections of your tearful face.
But none redeemed by love will e’er consent
To say you tasted of love’s sacrament.

XXII
TO A LADY OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

IN MEMORY OF METASTASIO

Nice, though your lips of coral
   Now are dust;
And the schoolboy scans the moral
Graven on your broken bust

In the gilt barocco chapel
   After Mass;
Where ten coats with broidered lappel
Bent when Nice used to pass.

Still perchance your spirit hovers
   Where the lute
And the voices of your lovers
Chimed, but now are gone and mute.

Where the lonely arbour’s hollow
   Shadier grows,
And the butterflies can follow
Fearlessly to kiss the rose.

And you smile because a poet
   À la mode
Flouted you; and then, we know it,
Wrote an abject palinode.

For your hands, though light as feathers,
   Held him tight:
Love was made to last all weathers,
Not to change with day and night.

XXIII
THE “LIBERAL” DIVINE

The “middle path” meets every need,
   The Stagirite and Buddha say;
I won’t doubt more than half the creed
Nor wear a costume wholly lay.

XXIV
THE QUARREL

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF FRAGONARD

On the elm tree she was swinging,
   Just beyond the hedge of yew;
But she slowly ceased from singing,
   From her breast a pink she drew.

Buttoning his coat of satin,
   Off he strode towards the woods,
Tartly quoting Virgil’s Latin,
   That a woman’s made of moods.

Long ago within God’s garden
   Both were wrapped in long lone sleep,
Heeding not if hoar frosts harden,
   Or the autumn leaves fall deep.

Laugh not at the statue calling
   Phyllis with her marble muff,
Nor the marble cupids sprawling
   On a cloud of powder puff.

Laugh not at his hermit fashions
   Nor the book unwarmed by hope;
Say not that it shows the passions
   Of a stony misanthrope.

For they loved while they were living,
   Loved with love untold, unheard;
Though they parted unforgiving,
   Each too proud to say a word.

XXV
THE OLD FOUNTAIN

One gay glint of rose and silver flounces
      In a deep green dell,
Where a streamlet bubbles down and bounces
      From a Triton’s mossy shell.

One more dance ere sunset on the mountain
      Laughing says, “Too late”;
One sweet lute that tinkled with the fountain
      Called two hearts to court their fate.

Some small raindrops, just to tease the Triton,
      Mischievously fell;
Some one spoke a jest that quenched the light on
      Eyes that he had long loved well.

That dark night he cursed the love he brought her,
      Though it made his soul;
And she sobbed an echo to the water
      Brimming in the fountain bowl.

XXVI
LOVE AND DEATH

Once toward a sunlit garden, laden
   With the lime trees’ scented breath,
Came to watch a merry youth and maiden,
         Love and Death.

At their bosoms Love threw fragrant posies,
   Tossed them laughing low and blithe,
In the background Death amid the roses
         Moved his scythe.

Ere the latest rose the path was strewing,
   Her sweet maiden soul was fled;
He beside her grave his cheeks bedewing,
         Bent his head.

Sobbing Love then thought to give him pleasure,
   Bade his curse on Death attend;
But the youth begged Death who held his treasure
         Be his friend.

Death as friend might give the old completeness
   Time could give to him no more,
Death, not Love alone, the former sweetness
         Might restore.

Love then saw the youth was worthier loving,
   Dowered with a stronger grace;
And with downcast eyelids shyly moving,
         Kissed Death’s face.

XXVII
VIOLETS

      Where burning tapers hold
White suppliant hands from arms of gold
Around the Host; there no one sets
         Sweet violets.

      Fair roses droop and die
In halls of dance and minstrelsy;
But who within those walls has met
         The violet?

Where faintly smiles the sun
   Through chequered skies on beech groves dun,
There hides in vales sequestered yet
         The violet.

Where I shall lie asleep,
   Some friend, perhaps, a tear will weep,
And if our love knew no regrets,
         Strew violets.

XXVIII
THE GARDENS OF THE SOUL

In a