The Symbol
Thus pass the glories of the world!
He lies beneath the pall’s white folds:
His sword is sheathed, his pennon furled,
Him silence holds.
The pilgrim staff, the cockle shell,
The crown, the sceptre of his pride,
The simple flower from forest dell,
Heap at his side.
And add thereto the wild-heart lute
The voice of love and twilight song;
Those passioned strings though he is mute
Remember long.
And move not thence his evening book,
The sifted grains of calm and storm;
And bow before that dust-strewn nook
And silent form.
To-morrow hath no hope for him,
No clasp of friend, no grip of foe:
Remember, love, with eyes tear-dim,
We too must go.
Wanderers
AS I rode in the early dawn,
While stars were fading white,
I saw upon a grassy slope
A camp-fire burning bright;
With tent behind and blaze before,
Three loggers in a row
Sang all together joyously—
Pull up the stakes and go!
As I rode on by Eagle Hawk,
The wide blue deep of air,
The wind through the glittering leaves,
The flowers so sweet and fair,
The thunder of the rude salt waves,
The creek’s soft overflow,
All joined in chorus to the words—
Pull up the stakes and go!
Now by the tent on forest skirt,
By odour of the earth,
By sight and scent of morning smoke,
By evening camp-fire’s mirth,
By deep-sea call and foaming green,
By new stars’ gleam and glow,
By summer trails in antique lands—
Pull up the stakes and go!
The world is wide, and we are young,
And sounding marches beat,
And passion pipes her sweetest call
In lane and field and street;
So rouse the chorus, brothers all,
We’ll something have to show
When Death comes round and strikes our tent—
Pull up the stakes and go!
Perdita
The sea coast of Bohemia
Is pleasant to the view
When singing larks spring from the grass
To fade into the blue,
And all the hawthorn hedges break
In wreaths of purest snow,
And yellow daffodils are out,
And roses half in blow.
The sea-coast of Bohemia
Is sad as sad can be,
The prince has ta’en our flower of maids
Across the violet sea;
Our Perdita has gone with him,
No more we dance the round
Upon the green in joyous play,
Or wake the tabor’s sound.
The sea-coast of Bohemia
Has many wonders seen,
The shepherd lass wed with a king,
The shepherd with a queen;
But such a wonder as my love
Was never seen before,
It is my joy and sorrow now
To love her evermore.
The sea-coast of Bohemia
Is haunted by a light
Of memory fair of lady’s eyes,
And fame of gallant knight;
The princes seek its charmèd strand,
But ah, it was our knell
When o’er the sea our Perdita
Went with young Florizel.
The sea-coast of Bohemia
Is not my resting-place,
For with her waned from out the day
A beauty and a grace:
O had I kissed her on the lips
I would no longer weep,
But live by that until the day
I fall to shade and sleep.
