Ballades and Verses Vain

Ballade of Blue China

There's a joy without canker or cark, There's a pleasure eternally new, 'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark Of china that's ancient and blue; Unchipp'd, all the centuries through It has pass'd, since the chime of it rang, And they fashion'd it, figure and hue, In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

These dragons (their tails, you remark, Into bunches of gillyflowers grew),-- When Noah came out of the ark, Did these lie in wait for his crew? They snorted, they snapp'd, and they slew, They were mighty of fin and of fang, And their portraits Celestials drew In the reign of the Emperor Hwangs.

Here's a pot with a cot in a park, In a park where the peach-blossoms blew, Where the lovers eloped in the dark, Lived, died, and were changed into two Bright birds that eternally flew Through the boughs of the may, as they sang; 'T is a tale was undoubtedly true In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

ENVOY.

Come, snarl at my ecstasies, do, Kind critic; your "tongue has a tang," But--a sage never heeded a shrew In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.

Ballade of the Book-hunter

In torrid heats of late July, In March, beneath the bitter bise, He book-hunts while the loungers fly,-- He book-hunts, though December freeze; In breeches baggy at the knees, And heedless of the public jeers, For these, for these, he hoards his fees,-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

No dismal stall escapes his eye, He turns o'er tomes of low degrees, There soiled romanticists may lie, Or Restoration comedies; Each tract that flutters in the breeze For him is charged with hopes and fears, In mouldy novels fancy sees Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs.

With restless eyes that peer and spy, Sad eyes that heed not skies nor trees, In dismal nooks he loves to pry, Whose motto ever more is Spes! But ah! the fabled treasure flees; Grown rarer with the fleeting years, In rich men's shelves they take their ease,-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs!

ENVOY.

Prince, all the things that tease and please,-- Fame, hope, wealth, kisses, cheers, and tears, What are they but such toys as these-- Aldines, Bodonis, Elzevirs?

Ah! leave the smoke, the wealth, the roar Of London, leave the bustling street, For still, by the Sicilian shore, The murmur of the Muse is sweet. Still, still, the suns of summer greet The mountain-grave of Helikê, And shepherds still their songs repeat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

What though they worship Pan no more, That guarded once the shepherd's seat, They chatter of their rustic lore, They watch the wind among the wheat: Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat, Where whispers pine to cypress tree; They count the waves that idly beat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea.

Theocritus! thou canst restore The pleasant years, and over-fleet; With thee we live as men of yore, We rest where running waters meet: And then we turn unwilling feet And seek the world--so must it be-- We may not linger in the heat Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

ENVOY.

Master,--when rain, and snow, and sleet And northern winds are wild, to thee We come, we rest in thy retreat, Where breaks the blue Sicilian sea!

VALENTINE IN FORM OF BALLADE.

Te soft wind from the south land sped, He set his strength to blow, From forests where Adonis bled, And lily flowers a-row: He crossed the straits like streams that flow, The ocean dark as wine, To my true love to whisper low, To be your Valentine.

The Spring half-raised her drowsy head, Besprent with drifted snow, "I'll send an April day," she said, "To lands of wintry woe." He came,--the winter's overthrow,-- With showers that sing and shine, Pied daisies round your path to strow, To be your Valentine.

Where sands of Egypt, swart and red, 'Neath suns Egyptian glow, In places of the princely dead, By the Nile's overflow, The swallow preened her wings to go, And for the North did pine, And fain would brave the frost, her foe, To be your Valentine.

ENVOY.

Spring, Swallow, South Wind, even so, Their various voice combine; But that they crave on me bestow, To be your Valentine.

When strawberry pottles are common and cheap, Ere elms be black, or limes be sere, When midnight dances are murdering sleep, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And far from Fleet street, far from here, The Summer is Queen in the length of the land, And moonlit nights they are soft and clear, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When clamour that doves in the lindens keep Mingles with musical plash of the weir, Where drowned green tresses of crowsfoot creep, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And better a crust and a beaker of beer, With rose-hung hedges on either hand, Than a palace in town and a prince's cheer, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

When big trout late in the twilight leap, When cuckoo clamoureth far and near, When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And it's oh to sail, with the wind to steer, While kine knee deep in the water stand, On a Highland loch, on a Lowland mere, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

ENVOY.

Friend, with the fops, while we dawdle here, Then comes in the sweet o' the year! And the Summer runs out, like grains of sand, When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

BALLADE OF AUTUMN.

We built a castle in the air, In summer weather, you and I, The wind and sun were in your hair,-- Gold hair against a sapphire sky: When Autumn came, with leaves that fly Before the storm, across the plain, You fled from me, with scarce a sigh-- My Love returns no more again!

The windy lights of Autumn flare: I watch the moonlit sails go by; I marvel how men toil and fare, The weary business that they ply! Their voyaging is vanity, And fairy gold is all their gain, And all the winds of winter cry, "My Love returns no more again!"

Here, in my castle of Despair, I sit alone with memory; The wind-fed wolf has left his lair, To keep the outcast company. The brooding owl he hoots hard by, The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane, The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,--[1] My Love returns no more again!

ENVOY.

Lady, my home until I die Is here, where youth and hope were slain; They flit, the ghosts of our July, My Love returns no more again!

BALLADE OF OLD PLAYS.

TO BRANDER MATTHEWS.

(Les Œuvres de Monsieur Molière. A Paris, chez Louys Billaine, à la Palme. M.D.C.LXVI.)