From the Greek by William M. Hardinge
BREATHING the thin breath through our nostrils, we
Live, and a little space the sunlight see—
Even all that live—each being an instrument
To which the generous air its life has lent.
If with the hand one quench our draught of breath,
He sends the stark soul shuddering down to death.
We that are...
Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.
And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.
On sunny noons upon the deck’s smooth face,
Linked arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace!
Or o’er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as...
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face——
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.
They pass...
From “Modern Love”
AT dinner she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game;
HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might...
The Shades of night were falling fast,
As though an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, ’mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device—
Excelsior!
His brow was sad; his eye beneath
Flashed like a falchion from its sheath;
And like a silver clarion rung
The accents of that unknown tongue—...
A Shoal of idlers, from a merchant craft
Anchored off Alexandria, went ashore,
And mounting asses in their headlong glee,
Round Pompey’s Pillar rode with hoots and taunts,
As men oft say, “What art thou more than we?”
Next in a boat they floated up the Nile,
Singing and drinking, swearing senseless oaths,
Shouting, and laughing most...
Not every thought can find its words,
Not all within is known;
For minds and hearts have many chords
That never yield their tone.
Tastes, instincts, feelings, passions, powers,
Sleep there, unfelt, unseen;
And other lives lie hid in ours—
The lives that might have been;
Affections whose transforming force
...
The Jester shook his hood and bells, and leaped upon a chair;
The pages laughed, the women screamed, and tossed their scented hair;
The falcon whistled, staghounds bayed, the lapdog barked without,
The scullion dropped the pitcher brown, the cook railed at the lout;
The steward, counting out his gold, let pouch and money fall,—
And why? because the...
Young palmer sun, that to the shining sands
Pourest thy pilgrim’s tale, discoursing still
Thy silver passages of sacred lands,
With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill,
Canst thou be he that, Yester-Sunset warm,
Purple with Paynim rage and wrack-desire,
Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of storm,
Harried the west, and set the...
I Have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,—I...
