When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan 835 1 Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, Limes, and citrons, and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes; Of spiced meats and costliest fish And all that the curious palate could wish, Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, When he goes to the city Ispahan. hand Then at a wave of her sunny Of fleecy veils and floating hair That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman Now, when I see an extra light, I know as well as I know to pray, Thomas Bailey Aldrich [1837-1907] THE SHADOW DANCE SHE sees her image in the glass,- Like winds across the meadow grass She sees her image in the glass,- What wealth of gold the skies amass! Louise Chandler Moulton [1835-1908 THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE POOR Rose! I lift you from the street- Than you should lie for random feet Where careless hands have thrown you' Poor pinky petals, crushed and torn! I saw you last in Edith's hair. Rose, you would scarce discover That I she passed upon the stair Was Edith's favored lover, "Along the Field as We Came By" 837 A month-"a little month"-ago O theme for moral writer!— 'Twixt you and me, my Rose, you know, But let that pass. She gave you then- To one, perhaps, of all the men, Who best could understand her, Cyril, that, duly flattered, took, With just the same Arcadian look Then, having waltzed till every star And tossed you downward, scorning. Kismet, my Rose! Revenge is sweet,— And yet You sha'n't lie in the street, Austin Dobson [1840 "ALONG THE FIELD AS WE CAME BY" ALONG the field as we came by A year ago, my love and I, The aspen over stile and stone Was talking to itself alone. "Oh, who are these that kiss and pass? A country lover and his lass; Two lovers looking to be wed; And time shall put them both to bed, But she shall lie with earth above, And he beside another love." And sure enough beneath the tree Alfred Edward Housman [1859 "WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY" WHEN I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, When I was one-and-twenty And I am two-and-twenty, Alfred Edward Housman [1859 "GRIEVE NOT, LADIES” OH grieve not, Ladies, if at night It was a web of frail delight, Inconstant as an April snowing. 839 "Grieve Not, Ladies " In other eyes, in other lands, In deep fair pools new beauty lingers; But like spent water in your hands It runs from your reluctant fingers. You shall not keep the singing lark That owes to earlier skies its duty. Weep not to hear along the dark The sound of your departing beauty. The fine and anguished ear of night Oh, wait until the morning light! It may not seem so gone to-morrow. But honey-pale and rosy-red! Brief lights that make a little shining! Beautiful looks about us shed They leave us to the old repining. Think not the watchful, dim despair Has come to you the first, sweet-hearted! For oh, the gold in Helen's hair! And how she cried when that departed! Perhaps that one that took the most, The swiftest borrower, wildest spender, May count, as we would not, the costAnd grow more true to us and tender. Happy are we if in his eyes We see no shadow of forgetting. Nay-if our star sinks in those skies We shall not wholly see its setting. Then let us laugh as do the brooks, That such immortal youth is ours, If memory keeps for them our looks As fresh as are the springtime flowers. |