The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 11

Now Eve like ocean foam was white And Lilith roses dipped in wine, But though they were a goodly sight No lady is so fair as mine.

To Venus some folk tribute pay And Queen of Beauty she is hight, And Sainte Marie the world doth sway In cerule napery bedight.

My wonderment these twain invite, Their comeliness it is divine, And yet I say in their despite, No lady is so fair as mine.

Dame Helen caused a grievous fray, For love of her brave men did fight, The eyes of her made sages fey And put their hearts in woeful plight.

To her no rhymes will I indite, For her no garlands will I twine, Though she be made of flowers and light No lady is so fair as mine.

L'Envoi

Prince Eros, Lord of lovely might, Who on Olympus dost recline, Do I not tell the truth aright?

No lady is so fair as mine.

Grieve not, Ladies. [Anna Hempstead Branch]

Oh, grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake to feel your beauty going.

It was a web of frail delight, Inconstant as an April snowing.

In other eyes, in other lands, In deep fair pools, new beauty lingers, But like spent water in your hands It runs from your reluctant fingers.

Ye shall not keep the singing lark That owes to earlier skies its duty.

Weep not to hear along the dark The sound of your departing beauty.

The fine and anguished ear of night Is tuned to hear the smallest sorrow.

Oh, wait until the morning light!

It may not seem so gone to-morrow!

But honey-pale and rosy-red!

Brief lights that made a little s.h.i.+ning!

Beautiful looks about us shed -- They leave us to the old repining.

Think not the watchful dim despair Has come to you the first, sweet-hearted!

For oh, the gold in Helen's hair!

And how she cried when that departed!

Perhaps that one that took the most, The swiftest borrower, wildest spender, May count, as we would not, the cost -- And grow more true to us and tender.

Happy are we if in his eyes We see no shadow of forgetting.

Nay -- if our star sinks in those skies We shall not wholly see its setting.

Then let us laugh as do the brooks That such immortal youth is ours, If memory keeps for them our looks As fresh as are the spring-time flowers.

Oh, grieve not, Ladies, if at night Ye wake, to feel the cold December!

Rather recall the early light And in your loved one's arms, remember.

Of Joan's Youth. [Louise Imogen Guiney]

I would unto my fair restore A simple thing: The flus.h.i.+ng cheek she had before!

Out-velveting No more, no more, On our sad sh.o.r.e, The carmine grape, the moth's auroral wing.

Ah, say how winds in flooding gra.s.s Unmoor the rose; Or guileful ways the salmon pa.s.s To sea, disclose: For so, alas, With Love, alas, With fatal, fatal Love a girlhood goes.

I shall not care. [Sara Teasdale]

When I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Though you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care.

I shall have peace as leafy trees are peaceful, When rain bends down the bough, And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now.

Love came back at Fall o' Dew. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]

Love came back at fall o' dew, Playing his old part; But I had a word or two That would break his heart.

"He who comes at candlelight, That should come before, Must betake him to the night From a barred door."

This the word that made us part In the fall o' dew; This the word that brake his heart -- Yet it brake mine, too.

There's Rosemary. [Olive Tilford Dargan]

O love that is not Love, but dear, so dear!

That is not love because it goes full soon, Like flower born and dead within one moon, And yet is love, for that it comes too near The guarded fane where love alone may peer, Ere, like young spring by summer soon outshone, It trembles into death; yet comes anon As thoughts of spring will come though summer's here.

O star prelusive to a dream more fair, Within my heart I'll keep a heaven for thee Where thou mayst freely come and freely go, Touching with thy faint gold ere I am 'ware A twilight hope -- a dawn I did not see -- O love that is not Love, but nearly so!