Take it at night to my pillow,

Kiss it before I sleep,

And again when the delicate morning
Beginneth to peep?

See how I bathe thy pages

Here in the light of the sun;
Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses,

The breezes shall run.

Feel how I take thy poem

And bury within it my face,

As I pressed it last night in the heart of a flower, Or deep in a dearer place.

Think, as I love thee, Poet,
A thousand love beside,

Dear women love to press thee too
Against a sweeter side.

Art thou not happy, Poet?

I sometimes dream that I

For such a fragrant fame as thine
Would gladly sing and die.

Say, wilt thou change thy glory
For this same youth of mine?

And I will give my days i' the sun
For that great song of thine.

Richard Le Gallienne [1366

THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS

A MAN should live in a garret aloof,
And have few friends, and go poorly clad,
With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,
To keep the Goddess constant and glad.

Of old, when I walked on a rugged way,

And gave much work for but little bread,
The Goddess dwelt with me night and day,
Sat at my table, haunted my bed.

The narrow, mean attic, I see it now!—
Its window o'erlooking the city's tiles,
The sunset's fires, and the clouds of snow,
And the river wandering miles and miles.
Just one picture hung in the room,
The saddest story that Art can tell—
Dante and Virgil in lurid gloom
Watching the Lovers float through Hell.
Wretched enough was I sometimes,
Pinched, and harassed with vain desires;
But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes
As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires.

Midnight filled my slumbers with song;
Music haunted my dreams by day.
Now I listen and wait and long,
But the Delphian airs have died away.

I wonder and wonder how it befell:
Suddenly I had friends in crowds;

I bade the house-tops a long farewell;
"Good-by," I cried, "to the stars and clouds!

"But thou, rare soul, thou hast dwelt with me, Spirit of Poesy! thou divine

Breath of the morning, thou shalt be,
Goddess! for ever and ever mine."

And the woman I loved was now my bride,
And the house I wanted was my own;
I turned to the Goddess satisfied-
But the Goddess had somehow flown.

Flown, and I fear she will never return;
I am much too sleek and happy for her,
Whose lovers must hunger and waste and burn,
Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir.

I call-but she does not stoop to my cry;

I wait but she lingers, and ah! so long!

It was not so in the years gone by,

When she touched my lips with chrism of song.

I swear I will get me a garret again,

And adore, like a Parsee, the sunset's fires,
And lure the Goddess, by vigil and pain,
Up with the sparrows among the spires.

For a man should live in a garret aloof,
And have few friends, and go poorly clad,
With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof,
To keep the Goddess constant and glad.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907]

THE SOVEREIGNS

THEY who create rob death of half its stings;
Their life is given for the Muse's sake;
Of thought they build their palaces, and make
Enduring entities and beauteous things;
They are the Poets-they give airy wings
To shapes marmorean; or they overtake
The Ideal with the brush, or, soaring, wake
Far in the rolling clouds their glorious strings.
The Poet is the only potentate;

His sceptre reaches o'er remotest zones;

His thought remembered and his golden tones
Shall, in the ears of nations uncreate,

Roll on for ages and reverberate

When Kings are dust beside forgotten thrones.

Lloyd Mifflin [1846

THE ARGUMENT OF HIS BOOK

I SING of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers,
Of April, May, of June, and July flowers;
I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love, and have access
By these, to sing of cleanly wantonness;
I sing of dews, of rains, and, piece by piece,
Of balm, of oil, of spice, and ambergris.
I sing of times trans-shifting; and I write
How roses first came red, and lilies white;

I write of groves, of twilights, and I sing
The court of Mab, and of the Fairy King.
I write of Hell; I sing, and ever shall,
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.

Robert Herrick [1591-1674]

ENVOY

Go, little book, and wish to all
Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,

A bit of wine, a spice of wit,

A house with lawns enclosing it,

A living river by the door,

A nightingale in the sycamore!

Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]

ENVOY

Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play;
Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow:
And some are sung, and that was yesterday,
And some unsung, and that may be to-morrow.

Go forth; and if it be o'er stony way,

Old joy can lend what never grief must borrow: And it was sweet, and that was yesterday,

And sweet is sweet, though purchased with sorrow. Go, songs, and come not back from your far way: And if men ask you why ye smile and sorrow, Tell them ye grieve, for your hearts know To-day, Tell them ye smile, for your eyes know To-morrow. Francis Thompson [1859?-1907]

THE SONNET'S VOICE

A METRICAL LESSON BY THE SEASHORE

YON silvery billows breaking on the beach
Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear,
The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear
A restless lore like that the billows teach;
For on these sonnet-waves my soul would reach

From its own depths, and rest within you, dear,
As, through the billowy voices yearning here,
Great nature strives to find a human speech.
A sonnet is a wave of melody:

From heaving waters of the impassioned soul
A billow of tidal music one and whole
Flows, in the "octave"; then, returning free,
Its ebbing surges in the "sestet" roll
Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea.
Theodore Watts-Dunton [1836-1914]

THE SONNET

A SONNET is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity

To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,

Of its own arduous fulness reverent:

Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

The soul,-its converse, to what Power 'tis due:Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]

THE SONNET

WHAT is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;

It is a little picture painted well.

What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;

A two-edged sword, a star, a song,—ah me!

Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell.

This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath,

The solemn organ whereon Milton played,