The bloom is on the May once more, The chestnut buds have burst anew; But, darling, all our springs are o'er, 'Tis winter still for me and you.

We plucked Life's blossoms long ago What's left is but December's snow.

But winter has its joys as fair, The gentler joys, aloof, apart; The snow may lie upon our hair But never, darling, in our heart.

Sweet were the springs of long ago But sweeter still December's snow.

[100] Yes, long ago, and yet to me It seems a thing of yesterday; The shade beneath the willow tree, The word you looked but feared to say.

Ah! when I learned to love you so What recked we of December's snow?

But swift the ruthless seasons sped And swifter still they speed away.

What though they bow the dainty head And fleck the raven hair with gray?

The boy and girl of long ago Are laughing through the veil of snow.

SHAKESPEARE'S EXPOSTULATION [101]

Masters, I sleep not quiet in my grave, There where they laid me, by the Avon sh.o.r.e, In that some crazy wights have set it forth By arguments most false and fanciful, a.n.a.logy and far-drawn inference, That Francis Bacon, Earl of Verulam (A man whom I remember in old days, A learned judge with sly adhesive palms, To which the suitor's gold was wont to stick) — That this same Verulam had writ the plays Which were the fancies of my frolic brain.

What can they urge to dispossess the crown [102] Which all my comrades and the whole loud world Did in my lifetime lay upon my brow?

Look straitly at these arguments and see How witless and how fondly slight they be.

Imprimis, they have urged that, being born In the mean compa.s.s of a paltry town, I could not in my youth have trimmed my mind To such an eagle pitch, but must be found, Like the hedge sparrow, somewhere near the ground.

Bethink you, sirs, that though I was denied The learning which in colleges is found, Yet may a hungry brain still find its fo Wherever books may lie or men may be; [103] And though perchance by Isis or by Cam The meditative, philosophic plant May best luxuriate; yet some would say That in the task of limning mortal life A fitter preparation might be made Beside the banks of Thames. And then again, If I be suspect, in that I was not A fellow of a college, how, I pray, Will Jonson pa.s.s, or Marlowe, or the rest, Whose measured verse treads with as proud a gait As that which was my own? Whence did they suck This honey that they stored? Can you recite The vantages which each of these has had And I had not? Or is the argument [104] That my Lord Verulam hath written all, And covers in his wide-embracing self The stolen fame of twenty smaller men?

You prate about my learning. I would urge My want of learning rather as a proof That I am still myself. Have I not traced A seaboard to Bohemia, and made The cannons roar a whole wide century Before the first was forged? Think you, then, That he, the ever-learned Verulam, Would have erred thus? So may my very faults In their gross falseness prove that I am true, And by that falseness gender truth in you.

And what is left? They say that they have found [105] A script, wherein the writer tells my Lord He is a secret poet. True enough!

But surely now that secret is o'er past.

Have you not read his poems? Know you not That in our day a learned chancellor Might better far dispense unjustest law Than be suspect of such frivolity As lies in verse? Therefore his poetry Was secret. Now that he is gone 'Tis so no longer. You may read his verse, And judge if mine be better or be worse: Read and p.r.o.nounce! The meed of praise is thine; But still let his be his and mine be mine.

I say no more; but how can you for- swear Outspoken Jonson, he who knew me well; [106] So, too, the epitaph which still you read?

Think you they faced my sepulchre with lies — Gross lies, so evident and palpable That every townsman must have wot of it, And not a worshipper within the church But must have smiled to see the marbled fraud?

Surely this touches you? But if by chance My reasoning still leaves you obdurate, I'll lay one final plea. I pray you look On my presentment, as it reaches you.

My features shall be sponsors for my fame; My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's voice is dumb, And be his warrant in an age to come.

THE EMPIRE [107]

1902

They said that it had feet of clay, That its fall was sure and quick.

In the flames of yesterday All the clay was burned to brick.

When they carved our epitaph And marked us doomed beyond recall, "We are," we answered, with a laugh, "The Empire that declines to fall."

A VOYAGE [108]

1909

Breathing the stale and stuffy air Of office or consulting room, Our thoughts will wander back to where We heard the low Atlantic boom,

And, creaming underneath our screw, We watched the swirling waters break, Silver filagrees on blue Spreading fan-wise in our wake.

Cribbed within the city's fold, Fettered to our daily round, We'll conjure up the haze of gold Which ringed the wide horizon round.

[109] And still we'll break the sordid day By fleeting visions far and fair, The silver shield of Vigo Bay, The long brown cliff of Finisterre.

Where once the Roman galley sped, Or Moorish corsair spread his sail, By wooded sh.o.r.e, or sunlit head, By barren hill or sea-washed vale

We took our way. But we can swear, That many countries we have scanned, But never one that could compare With our own island mother-land.

The dream is o'er. No more we view The sh.o.r.es of Christian or of Turk, But turning to our tasks anew, We bend us to our wonted work.

[110] But there will come to you and me Some glimpse of s.p.a.cious days gone by, The wide, wide stretches of the sea, The mighty curtain of the sky,

THE ORPHANAGE [111]

When, ere the tangled web is reft, The kid-gloved villain scowls and sneers, And hapless innocence is left With no a.s.sets save sighs and tears,

'Tis then, just then, that in there stalks The hero, watchful of her needs; He talks, Great heavens how he talks!

But we forgive him, for his deeds.

Life is the drama here to-day And Death the villain of the plot.

It is a realistic play.

Shall it end well or shall it not?

[112] The hero? Oh, the hero's part Is vacant to be played by you.

Then act it well! An orphan's heart May beat the lighter if you do.

s.e.xAGENARIUS LOQUITUR [113]

From our youth to our age We have pa.s.sed each stage In old immemorial order, From primitive days Through flowery ways With love like a hedge as their border.

Ah, youth was a kingdom of joy, And we were the king and the queen, When I was a year Short of thirty, my dear, And you were just nearing nineteen.

But dark follows light And day follows night As the old planet circles the sun; [114] And nature still traces Her score on our faces And tallies the years as they run.

Have they chilled the old warmth in your heart?

I swear that they have not in mine, Though I am a year Short of sixty, my dear, And you are well, say thirty-nine.

NIGHT VOICES [115]