"England and Yesterday": A Book of Short Poems

Published by Good Press, 2019

goodpress@okpublishing.info

EAN 4064066233013

Table of Contents

LONDON: SONNETS WRITTEN IN 1889. TO HERBERT E. CLARKE.

I. ON FIRST ENTERING WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

II. FOG.

III. S. PETER-AD-VINCULA.

IV. STRIKERS IN HYDE PARK.

V. CHANGES IN THE TEMPLE.

VI. THE LIGHTS OF LONDON.

VII. DOVES.

VIII. IN THE READING-ROOM OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

IX. SUNDAY CHIMES IN THE CITY.

X. A PORCH IN BELGRAVIA.

XI. YORK STAIRS.

XII. IN THE DOCKS.

OXFORD: SONNETS WRITTEN THERE IN 1890 AND 1895. TO LIONEL JOHNSON.

I. THE TOW-PATH.

II. THE OLD DIAL OF CORPUS.

III. AD ANTIQUARIUM.

IV. ROOKS IN NEW COLLEGE GARDENS.

V. ON THE PRE-REFORMATION CHURCHES ABOUT OXFORD.

VI. ON THE SAME (CONTINUED) .

VII. A DECEMBER WALK.

VIII. UNDERTONES AT MAGDALEN.

IX. PORT MEADOW.

X. MARTYRS’ MEMORIAL.

XI. A LAST VIEW.

XII. RETRIEVAL.

LYRICS. TO DORA SIGERSON SHORTER AND CLEMENT SHORTER.

A BALLAD OF KENELM.

TWO IRISH PEASANT SONGS.

I. IN LEINSTER.

II. IN ULSTER.

IN A RUIN, AFTER A THUNDERSTORM.

TO A CHILD.

IN A PERPENDICULAR CHURCH.

A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SONG.

COLUMBA AND THE STORK.

THE CHANTRY.

APRIL IN GOVILON.

ON LEAVING WINCHESTER.

ON THE CENOTAPH OF THE PRINCE IMPERIAL IN SAINT GEORGE’S CHAPEL.

OF JOAN’S YOUTH.

PASSING THE MINSTER.

THE YEW-TREE.

SHROPSHIRE LANDSCAPE.

THE GRAHAM TARTAN TO A GRAHAM.

IN A LONDON STREET.

ATHASSEL ABBEY.

ROMANS IN DORSET. (TO A. B.)

LINES ON VARIOUS FLY-LEAVES. TO GWENLLIAN E. F. MORGAN.

TO HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY.

FOR IZAAK WALTON.

A FOOT-NOTE TO A FAMOUS LYRIC.

A MEMORY OF A BRECONSHIRE VALLEY.

I.

II.

WRIT IN MY LORD CLARENDON’S “HISTORY OF THE REBELLION.”

A LAST WORD ON SHELLEY.

AN EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM HAZLITT.

EMILY BRONTË.

PAX PAGANICA.

VALEDICTION (R. L. S., 1894) .

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LONDON:
SONNETS WRITTEN IN 1889.

TO HERBERT E. CLARKE.

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I.
ON FIRST ENTERING WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

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Holy of England! since my light is short

And faint, O rather by the sun anew

Of timeless passion set my dial true,

That with thy saints and thee I may consort;

And wafted in the cool enshadowed port

Of poets, seem a little sail long due,

And be as one the call of memory drew

Unto the saddle void since Agincourt!

Not now for secular love’s unquiet lease,

Receive my soul, who, rapt in thee erewhile,

Hath broken tryst with transitory things;

But seal with her a marriage and a peace

Eternal, on thine Edward’s altar-isle,

Above the stormless sea of ended kings.

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II.
FOG.

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Like bodiless water passing in a sigh,

Through palsied streets the fatal shadows flow,

And in their sharp disastrous undertow

Suck in the morning sun, and all the sky.

The towery vista sinks upon the eye,

As if it heard the horns of Jericho,

Black and dissolved; nor could the founders know

How what was built so bright should daily die.

Thy mood with man’s is broken and blent in,

City of Stains! and ache of thought doth drown

The generous light in which thy life began.

Great as thy dole is, smirchèd with his sin,

Greater and elder yet the love of man

Full in thy look, though the dark visor’s down.

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III.
S. PETER-AD-VINCULA.

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Too well I know, pacing the place of awe,

Three queens, young save in trouble, moulder by;

More in his halo, Monmouth’s mocking eye,

The eagle Essex in a harpy’s claw;

Seymour and Dudley, and stout heads that saw

Sundown of Scotland: how with treasons lie

White martyrdoms; rank in a company

Breaker and builder of the eternal law.

Oft as I come, the bitter garden-row

Of ruined roses hanging from the stem,

Where winds of old defeat yet batter them,

Infects me: suddenly must I depart,

Ere thought of men’s injustice then, and now,

Add to these aisles one other broken heart.

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IV.
STRIKERS IN HYDE PARK.

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A woof reversed the fatal shuttles weave,

How slow! but never once they slip the thread.

Hither, upon the Georgian idlers’ tread,