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English Poems By: Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) |
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By Richard Le Gallienne London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street. Boston: Copland & Day
69 Cornhill. A.D. 1895.
First Edition
September 1892 Second Edition
October 1892 Third Edition
January 1894 Fourth Edition
Revised April 1895 To Sissie Le Gallienne EPISTLE DEDICATORY Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like
mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star struck moth for what?
That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty
pieces of silver. Hard by us here is a 'bee farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's.
The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he
has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses for
what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the
comb' as though it were a hair comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ...
and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.' Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and,
while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to
the little bookclad study to read Heaven bless us! you, perhaps, Mary
Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!! Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah,
then came in the sweet o' the year. Yours now as then , R. Le G. May 14th, 1892. CONTENTS
Epistle Dedicatory, To the Reader ,
I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, II. YOUNG LOVE i. Preludes, ii. Prelude 'I make this rhyme,' iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,' iv. Once, v. The Two Daffodils, vi. 'Why did she marry him?' vii. The Lamp and the Star, viii. Orbits, ix. Never Ever, x. Love's Poor, xi. Comfort of Dante, xii. A Lost Hour, xiii. Met once more, xiv. A June Lily, xv. Regret xvi. Love Afar xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles? Postscript
III. COR CORDIUM To my Wife, Mildred The Destined Maid: a Prayer With some old Love Verses In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's Tristram Comfort at Parting Happy Letter Primrose and Violet 'Juliet and her Romeo,' In her Diary Two Parables A Love Letter In the Night The Constant Lover The Wonder Child
IV. MISCELLANEOUS The House of Venus Satiety What of the Darkness? Ad Cimmerios Old Love Letters Death in a London Lodging Time Flies So soon Tired Autumn A Frost Fancy The World is Wide Saint Charles! Good Night Beatrice A Child's Evensong An Epitaph on a Goldfish Beauty Accurst To a Dead Friend Sunset in the City The City in Moonlight
V. OF POETS AND POETRY Inscriptions The Décadent to his Soul To a Poet The Passionate Reader to his Poet Matthew Arnold 'Tennyson' at the Farm 'The Desk's Dry Wood,' A Library in a Garden On the Morals of Poets Faery Gold All Sung Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe
ENGLISH POEMS TO THE READER Art was a palace once, things great and fair,
And strong and holy, found a temple there:
Now 'tis a lazar house of leprous men.
O shall me hear an English song again!
Still English larks mount in the merry morn,
An English May still brings an English thorn,
Still English daisies up and down the grass,
Still English love for English lad and lass
Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song! Thou nightingale that for six hundred years
Sang to the world O art thou husht at last!
For, not of thee this new voice in our ears,
Music of France that once was of the spheres;
And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring
From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting . Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,'
Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name,
England, I bring a song of little fame;
Not as one worthy but as loving thee,
Not as a singer, only as a child . PAOLO AND FRANCESCA
To R.K. Leather
(July 16th, 1892.) PAOLO AND FRANCESCA It happened in that great Italian land
Where every bosom heateth with a star
At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand
The Adriatic filcheth near and far
In that same past where Dante's dream days are,
That one Francesca gave her youthful gold
Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar;
Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,
How could she give that love unto a miser old? Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,
A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,
Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;
One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,
Nor fear because some dotard owned the root;
Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh
And kept not all his valour for his lute;
One who could dare as well as sing and sigh... Continue reading book >>
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